Chapter 95

'ABOVE YOU!' Willow screamed, and Weiss just barely managed to jump back out of the way as she caught sight of the massive grimm dropping down on her. It swatted her away nonetheless, its huge reach advantage not lost to it, sending her sliding into the grand piano nearby. Shattering the expensive instrument, the grimm stiffened up as it sniffed the air, catching something seemingly even more pungent in the distance, and it lunged out of the way of the white-haired girl's attack. It clambered up a nearby pillar, easily reaching the second floor and roaring its defiance at the girl behind it. Weiss watched it climb over, straightening up in pain as she shrugged off the hit as best she could.

'Mom? Where are you? Are you okay?'

'Yes, honey I'm, I'm fine. Umm, Mister Ryder is with me at the moment.' She bent over her scroll. 'I… I can see it. It's outside Winter's old room.' She said, glancing over her shoulder at the boy who was watching the screens with her. 'You-you can kill it. Can't you?'

'What is it doing?'

'I'm… not sure? It's acting strange!' She said, the panic rising in voice. 'Why is it here?!'

'It doesn't matter.' Weiss said, running up the stairs. 'Just keep an eye on it so I can track it down.'

'Right, right.' She breathed out slowly, and the boy laid a (hopefully) reassuring hand on her shoulder. 'It's moving again; heading towards.' Her eyes widened, and she whirled around to look at the boy. 'Oh dear no.'

'What?' He said, glancing at the screen again. Recognising nothing again, he swore aloud as the woman took off running. 'Not this shit again. WILLOW!'

He chased her down, more easily this time, feeling his shoulder loosen up considerably as he exerted himself. He charged down the halls, figuring there must be a good reason why she was running, and finally recognised the passageway to Jacques Schnee's office. Willow noticed the open door, skidding to a halt before it, peering in with a frightened whimper. The massive creature stalked slowly across the room, heading for the desk where the boy was most likely hiding behind. It opened its bony jaw in a snarl.

'I know… you're here.' It hissed, and Jaye froze at the voice. He'd never heard a grimm talk before, thoughts momentarily going back to the conversation he'd had with Kamina earlier, and Willow flung her arms open. In a burst of white light a Boarbatusk burst forth. She sent it charging in, crashing into the massive grimm that was threatening her son, and pinning it to the wall.

'RUN!' She screamed. It would only buy them a few moments, but the young boy was able to scramble out from under the desk. He skidded to a halt, slapping a button on the holographic keyboard first before charging out the door. Jaye ushered the boy out, slamming the door shut and throwing a quick blast of ice over it.

'Weiss! I've got no aura and nowhere near enough dust. I need you here NOW!' He sprinted down the hallway, cajoling the boy and his mother to run faster, and he kicked a door shut behind them. He pushed them through, spotting Weiss at the end of the corridor, and turned to focus on the grimm charging towards them. The creature snarled its victory at the boy, swords drawn, and it yelped as it crashed face first into the wall of ice raised before it. Jaye dropped to his knees, his aura nowhere near recovered from his efforts to heal himself before, letting his fortification fade to dust. The grimm continued to scrabble at the wall, cracking it in record time, and the girl ushered her mother and brother through the doorway behind them. The boy cursed as he realised they were in an enclosed area, grumbling as he got to his feet.

'This sucks.' He spat, spinning his blades in hand. Weiss raised her rapier at the hole slowly forming in the wall.

'Suck it up.' She said, pulling up a summon. The towering knight raised its blade behind her, and Jaye ejected the empty dust cartridges from his gauntlets.

'Don't suppose you've got anymore ice dust?'

'Fresh out.' She said, indicating the wall, and Jaye groaned in response. He switched to lightning, prepping himself for a difficult fight ahead, and raised an eyebrow as a scream erupted from down the hall. The grimm stopped, its head almost through the wall, sniffing the air as it recognised the voice of the girl it was hunting for. Back in Weiss's room, Penny struggled against the thing that was fighting against her, eyes flickering between red and green as whatever it was that had invaded her system finally took over. She marched out of the room, down towards the main hall, and the grimm immediately turned away from the wall it was trying to dig through to run right back down the hall. Swearing at the creature, the two ice users charged out of the blocked hallway to find an alternate route as best they could.

Willow and Whitley finally made it to the second floor, just before the entrance. They stopped to catch their breath, Whitley looking up at the orange-haired robot march slowly down the steps.

'What are you doing?!' He yelled, and Penny replied automatically, her body not in her own control.

'I must open the vault, and then self-terminate.' She declared, stopping the grimm in its tracks as it lunged for her. It wrested with the robot for a long moment, neither side giving way, until a third arm erupted from the grimm's back. It seized the robot girl by the head, yanking her off her feet and slamming her into the floor.

'TAKE. THE. GIRL.' It howled, punctuating each word with a brutal slam into the ground. Penny finally stopped moving, and it dragged her up by her head. The four teammates rounded the corner, skidding to a halt as the grimm placed a threatening claw around her neck. Jaye hissed in surprise at the intelligence this grimm displayed, and he realised with stark horror that this was the grimm that Kamina had warned him about. Or at least one of the same species if there was more than one of them. He pulled out his handgun only to realise that it was no use; a single bullet would never stop the creature, and with Penny as a hostage their hands were tied. Ruby stepped forward between the girls.

'That's enough.' She growled, her eyes bursting into a blast of light. The grimm stumbled backwards, clearly damaged by the strange power only the girl had access to, thankfully releasing Penny in the process. The robot girl tumbled down the stairs, rolling to a halt into Jaye's arms as he surged forward to catch her. He couldn't remove the sinking feeling in his chest, and he handed the robot girl over to Blake. He drew his swords, pacing slowly up the stairs to the spot where the grimm had fallen through the glass. As if on cue, a disgusting, blackened arm shot up from the hole, seizing the ledge and reeling itself in. The boy brandished his blades as the creature climbed back in, eyes widening in horror as a face he really didn't expect to see appeared before him. A faunus face.

'TAKE THE GIRL.' It repeated, clearly the farthest thing from faunus at this rate, and Jaye grimaced. Suddenly it made complete sense; there couldn't be a grimm that could attain human levels of intelligence, in all the years since they'd first been discovered grimm had only ever evolved to become more dangerous creatures and never more intelligent ones. But for a person to be combined with a grimm… that was something no one had ever though possible, helped in part by humanity's lack of a true understanding of how grimm functioned. This was something only someone with an intricate knowledge of grimm could do; or more specifically, only one very specific immortal person could possibly even want to do. It would afford her the ability to control them more efficiently as well, since intelligent subservient creatures were always better than instinct-driven ones. Despite the horrifying revelation, this was actually a welcome surprise for him. Now he knew it was a person behind the face of a grimm. A human body inside.

That meant he could kill it.

The misshapen creature charged after them, the girls bundling the really heavy robot girl into their arms and running her down the hall. Jaye rolled over a claw, slashing at its shoulders to slow its movements, and he backflipped off the staircase as it charged at him. He slid underneath a claw, grateful for having a clear weak point to aim for, and with a cry, drew his blade across the man/grimm's neck. The boy spun quickly backwards to avoid the spray of blood, raising a confused eyebrow as there was none. The grimm scrabbled at its throat, its vocal chords cut, yet it seemed intent on not dying despite this. It charged the group again, and Jaye kicked it hard again across the face. It stumbled, the bare human head clearly taking more damage than the usual flowy grimm bits, and he seized the opportunity to slash at its claws. Unable to sever them, the creature screamed its rage at the assassin as Jaye cut through its newly healed throat once more.

Above him, he spotted the boy and his mother pushing hard at the statue, realising what it was they were trying to do, and launched himself into a spring kick off the grimm's face. It fell over backwards, scrambling to its feet, far too late to avoid the massive statue that shattered with the crash of a lifetime onto the creature. The dust cleared slowly, Jaye waving it out of his face, and he started as he realised the creature was still alive. It clawed desperately at the ground; the vast majority of its body crushed beneath the rubble, but apparently not enough to fully kill it. It hissed as it clawed against the unbearable weight weighing down on its back, leaving long gashes in the marble floor it was pinned to.

'Take. The. Girl.' It repeated, weakly, desperately, eyes locked on the robot girl still unmoving behind the team. Jaye approached it quietly, raising his katana in both hands. The creature, in its dying frenzy, seemed uninterested in him entirely. The girls let their eyes travel slowly from the still exposed faunus face, the person's face, to the blade clutched in the assassin's hand. He brought it down, swiftly, practiced, without hesitation, and they flinched away as a head rolled across the floor. The girls finally opened their eyes, the black dust fading away as a skeleton was, for the first time, left behind by the creature of grimm. The head crumbled away into dust, even his features that had once been there seemingly only held together by whatever it was that grimm were made of, and nothing but an empty skull was left behind. The boy grimaced, flicking the non-present blood off his blade, before returning it to its sheath.

'What was that?' Weiss whispered; her sword still clenched in her fist. Ruby shook her head, dropping to her knees before the rubble.

'That was a person.' She said, disbelievingly, raising her eyes to the boy who stood motionless before the corpse whose life he'd taken. If he'd taken it at all. He turned back to the group. 'You killed him.'

'No. I didn't.' The boy said, the contempt clear in his voice as he stared at the skull still resting on the marble floor. Ruby let her scythe fall out from between her hands, and he bundled her into his arms. The girl buried her face into his chest, not crying as far as he could tell, but remained mute as she tried her best to sort out how she felt about what she'd just seen. Jaye glanced across the other two girls, equally as stunned, and heaved a slow, pained sigh. 'There was nothing you could've done. He was beyond saving.'

The girl wrapped her arms around him, grip tightening on his jacket, and he placed a hand on her head. Willow and Whitley paced quietly down the steps, giving a wide berth to the creature buried under the remains of the statue, and he realised that for almost all of them, this was the first time they'd ever seen a life taken before their very eyes. Something that he'd seen hundreds of times. Something that he'd done, hundreds of times. Still there was nothing he could do that would help them through this; they were just going to have to deal with it in their own ways. He patted the small girl on the back, trying his best to calm her down.

'Come on. Let's get you guys away from here.'