[Atrophied]
Rens mad dash across the open field made his heart rate go beyond anything he has ever felt, and not only just from the physical exertion.
He was relying on his semblance to cover his unstealthy approach, speed would decrease the time he would be using his expensive semblance and hopefully make it worth it, he doesn't expect conventional methods of hiding to be effective against these spider Grimm.
When Ren gets into the village and the smell hits him he recoils slightly, its rancid and the ground was obviously soked with dry blood, his eyes follow the copper tint in the dirt leading towards the poles in the center of the huts.
In his lapse of concentration Rens delicate footwork was broken and the nearest spider focuses in on Rens location as his last step kicks up a small cloud of copper sand.
Cursing at his carlessness Ren switches paths to avoid the Grimms attack, his last location explodes with a psychic blast that kicks up the copper dirt in a haze of granules.
Rolling to bleed off the force Ren ends up next to one of the huts just as more spiders join the fray. They were sharing information and spreading out to find him, but the one who originally noticed Ren went to the poles and started to take the captives down.
Quickly moving again Ren makes his way to the closest pole and checks the vitals of the man hung up there, not finding any pulse Ren moves on.
He was careful to avoid the spider that was going around taking the captive humans down, or in one case even killing the half alive indevidual.
Speeding up Ren manages to spy movement a few poles down, a girl with blond hair and a desperate need for a bath and new cloths, Grimm aren't the best hosts.
Ren knows his own semblance cost limits and hates the fact he has to skip down the line to get to her, ignoring the most likely dead people in favor of the clearly alive person.
Taking his knife to the girls binds Ren starts to cut her out of the sticky cloth like web, her eyes are half lidded and she was mumbling in mad speak, probably sick if she was left in the rain with her state of clothing.
Ren glances around in worry as he gets her free, letting her sag over his shoulder and turning around to get away before another spider will take notice.
Just as Ren predicted, As he gets out of the clearing the last location of the girl goes up in an explosion of dirt, the spiders seem to double down on killing the last captives after that.
Ren moves the girl into a bridal carry incase she has sensitive wounds and picks up speed, moving in a wide arc around the village and where his earlier battle was had, they would still have scouts out for him there so he was going to take the long way around and save some Aura.
After a few minutes Ren decided he was far enough away to rest his arms, he could check her wounds and decide if it was okay to use a firemans lift safely at hunter running speed.
Gently laying her on a patch of grass Ren checks obvious things like broken bones and all the cuts, Noting the unclean state the open wounds are in for later when he can get antiseptics.
He can't help but think the face is familiar, its not Yang, she looks different and would be a little older now after five years, Ren doesn't know any more blonds other than Goodwitch, but it wasn't her for obviously reasons.
Ren finds a part of the girls top that was sticking to her with an obvious red stain. Unsheathing one knife Ren whispers "Sorry about this" as he gets to work. Cutting away her very damaged shirt he gets a better look at the piercing wound.
Confirming Rens fears, it was hopelessly beyond his field medic abilities and had thick green body fluids in and around the hole.
Muttering under his breath he looks around to see where he was to no avail, takes him a few seconds to climb the tree and use it to get a better overview.
Immediately Ren gets his bearings thanks to the mountains in the distance and knows exactly where the closest stream is, it was a minute of walking off track but Ren thinks it will be worth it.
Climbing back down and moving out with the girl he doesn't take long to get there, using the crystal clear mountain water to clean the wound, as well as all the smaller cuts.
She actually sighs in relief as Ren wipes down her forehead with a cool shirt rag. Another quick glance and he is satisfied for now, taking off his top Ren carefully lifts her up to let her wear it.
It acts more like a dress than anything but it fills the role well enough. Getting back to work Ren starts the treck to home base.
The general Grimm activity on the way back was higher than before, Ren wasn't sure if that was because of himself and the girl or the people he left in that Grimm camp.
Ducking into a bush as a small Beowulf scout pack dashes passed Ren just hopes Nora is holding up fine at home.
After its clear Ren gets back to running, it didn't take long to see the town himself and Nora fortified come into vision. It looked clear of Grimm and just as peaceful as when he left it that morning.
Gently placing the girl in front of the reinforced door Ren backtracks to a treehouse at the edge of the forest, planning on using the zip line to get onto the wall. Not wasting any time on getting the pulley he uses the flat of his knife to zip line instead.
Once inside he unlocks the door by sliding out both the giant plank and steel bolt. The one side of the door swings out with a loud wine as Ren makes his way through to pick up the girl again.
Nora was waiting as Ren gets back inside the gate and there was a stiff moment in time as they both just stare at each other. Not out of awkwardness, but worry.
Nora tries to lighten the mood "should I be worried that you come home with another girl leaving you shirtless?" Rens frown breaks for a second and he chokes out a small sound that could almost be called a laugh if you squint enough.
"Never" he gets out "afraid I have bad news" looking over his shoulder towards the gate he flicks his tounge in annoyance "let's get her cleaned up and taken care of first, she has some septic wounds plus already sick from something."
Nora nods, knowing now wasn't the time to play full time mental healer, Nora thinks she has done enough for now, but this girl needed medical attention above all else.
Moving as a group back to the house Ren comments "going to need to talk to you later" Nora hums in affirmative as they make it inside.
"Going to boil myself a lot of water" Nora motions outside towards the bath house "Lay her down in the spare bedroom so long."
Ren makes his way to the spare bedroom with the girl in his arms wondering what they are going to do, they can't possibility entertain the idea of staying here with those spider Grimm about, Nora and himself are going to have to come to a consensus tonight.
After Ren has got the girl in bed with extra towls abd such at the ready Nora makes her way inside the room with the medical supplies "gonna have to ask you to watch the water boil as I work" Ren knows that was the polite way of her asking for space to work so he doesn't stick around.
Ren was passing though the kitchen when he spied a vulnerable loaf of bread just sitting there, he has been fighting and running in the woods all day and could use a meal.
Picking up a few slices and moving to collect some cheese he settles into a food mood, milk to drown the tuff bread down and he was all set.
He spent a few hours gathering his thoughts, it was dark out and Nora just finished up with the girl, walking into the kitchen herself "get some soup ready for her when she wakes up, I am going to get a bath going" Ren looks up "we bathed yesterday-" Nora cuts him off "nuh-uh you mister, smell like dirt, sweat and blood. We are fixing that before you tell me what is going on."
Relenting Ren nods "wouldn't hurt, could use a relaxing bath after those things" Nora just catches the sound of Ren mumbling about spiders of all things as he makes his way out back.
The bath routine didn't take too long and was performed in silence for the most part, both of them not particularly needing to talk to one another to convey such a mundane task.
It was later when they both were sitting in the kitchen cooking up a broth for the guest that Ren spoke "we need to leave" Nora was taken by surprise at the seemingly randomness of it "uh, what- I mean, to where?"
Taking a deep breath Ren continues "the Grimm I saw out there today will hunt us down, they were smart" pushing some cut vegetables into the pot Ren comments on his own statement "too smart."
Nora frowns "Smart? What did they look like?" Ren pauses in his cutting of the next batch of vegetables to think back "imagine giant Grimm spiders, but with brain abdomens" Nora was looking at him expectantly, before frowning after he went back to cutting "wait, you aren't joking?."
Ren laughed "oh and they have Psychic attacks like something out of a comic Ruby and Jaune would read" he adds.
Answering her earlier question as she was processing that Ren continues "I was thinking we could try go back to Vale" he hesitated before saying that and Nora knows why, the mountains inbetween them and the city of vale was part of the same mountain range the Mountain Glenn ruins stayed.
During the evacuation at beacon their bullhead went down off the coast of vale, was swept away in the ocean currents and promptly set adrift in open ocean for weeks.
They resorted to using their own regenerating flesh as bait to fish and they managed to use the emergency raft filter for water, but the damage was done, they marooned on the other side of Sanus with a giant mountain range infested with Grimm between them and the city of Vale.
After cutting some bread to go with the broth Nora pipes up again "how would we go about doing that? We both know the sea isn't going to work, none of us know how to fly a bullhead and the mountains have a lot of Grimm from the Glenn disaster."
Ren was silent, Nora knew he hated leaving just as much as she did "are you sure it isn't just safer to stay here? We have worked so hard on staying self sustainable over the passed few years... Surely its better than vale?" Ren looked pained at her words.
"There... There is no future for us here Nora" she looks down at her knife at that, not sure how to respond "I know you have always wanted to settle in for good, maybe start a home... But there will be no life for us beyond that. We need civilization and the best place to look for that will be Vale" Ren pauses for a second before dropping the last straw "its also the most likely place for Jaune and Pyrrha to be if they survived" Nora turns around from her cutting board and glares at him "you mean after they survived. Not if."
He shifts his gaze away, not being able to look her in the eyes "Of course, thats what I meant."
The awkward atmosphere was broken as Nora asks again "so how are we doing this?" Ren sighs in momentary relief "we can go around the top of the mountin range and then back down the other side, it would take a lot longer but would be safer." Nora nods "I also have that old car, we can speed up a lot of the trip if we use up our dust" Ren nods "exactly what I was thinking, we have no other use for it anyway."
The coughs coming from the guest bedroom sprung Nora into action "get some of that soup in a bowl for our guest as I see if she is okay, maybe explain why she is here in a strange place" she was out of the kitchen bedore Ren could answer her.
Ren could make out some soft talking as he dishes some soup for all three of them, putting them on a tray with a fourth bowl of bread slices.
When he gets to the guest room he gives a quite call out of "knock knock" as his foot gently pushes against the wooden door.
Once inside Ren sees the girl sitting up in bed with Nora off to the side tending to bandages. "I got us some food" the moment he entered the room the girl was watching him like a hawk but at the mention of food she upgraded from hawkish gaze to laser beam levels of focus.
Placing the tray on the side table he motiona to the girl "you want bread with your soup?" She nods frantically, obviously starving.
"When last have you eaten?" Nora asked quietly, only to receive nothing but a small timid shrug in response. The worries are for the past in this case, she has all the food she wants to eat now.
The soup was quickly finished even when Nora was encouraging her to eat slower, Ren ended up giving away his portion in sympathy, nibbling on his bread instead.
"Do you rember anything? Name or maybe a place of birth?" Nora questions, careful in tone not to make it sound too important.
Nodding the girl answers in a weak voice "Na-" she coughs mid word "Is Amber... I was from an outskirt town before those spiders took me" Nora pulls her into a gentle hug and starts to stroke her hair.
Ren hates to ask but needs to know "would you be fit to travel to vale? We need to escape these spiders" she thinks on it for a few seconds before nodding "anything to get me away from this place" Ren couldn't agree more.
Pyrrha found herself on the dorm roof where she would train with Jaune every afternoon. She had spent some time resting up here after scouting out the academy grounds.
She even managed to find one of Blakes books in the damaged library, it wasn't her type of story but anything was better than just waiting around as she rested from being too active.
Said activity was driven mostly off a deep sense paranoia. Pyrrha hopes working to improve chances of survival wasn't considered too paranoid, there was an expression for things that are actually out to get you after all.
It was dusk when the cloud of dust and debris could be seen in the distance, there was even the sound of distant roars. Pyrrha knew that those Grimm were here because of last night. She didn't even move from her seat on the edge of the roof, there was no point.
There was no way Pyrrha was going to be able to run with her injuries, and even though her aura was back up, it was about one hit away from shattering all over again.
Most of her Aura regeneration was being pulled to her wounds but she was purposely halting and then redirecting some to her reserves just in case she had to fight off an odd Beowulf. Its a skill she used to use in tournaments to gain an aura advantage at the cost of small damages, usually using only just enough to keep herself from going light headed from blood loss, she could heal fully after the tournament anyway.
The Aura she saved would give a huge advantage in a drawn out battle, when a semblance and basic attacks would cost too much Aura to power or even tank without going into the red.
None of that matters now, the horde of Grimm are too large for petty tournament tactics. They would over run Pyrrha in seconds, even at full strength she would be hard pressed to get out of that without heavily relying on her semblance.
Scenarios flashing by in her mind like armour assisted flight, or taking off her armour and using them as weapons to smash into Grimm and keep them back, allowing her to battle reasonable amounts at once.
All of those are shaken away with a toss of her head, too costly, nor does she actually feel comfortable fighting at all. She didn't even have her shield and sword, just a bunch of scrappy shelf spears, she made extra since her aura won't be stopping them from going blunt or snapping.
In the end Pyrrhas paranoia was what gave her a small smidgen of hope, she did not spend all day doing nothing.
The dorm building has been trapped and barricaded with spiked passage ways, spike pits with thin covers and all sorts of trapdoors mixed in with the buildings integrity damage.
All leading slowly around in a spiral of corridors up to he roof where she now lay in wait, it was going to be a very close call. Pyrrha continues to pile on her doubt, they were not designed for a horde, just stragglers as she hopefully sleeps in peace.
If the Grimm get through the last defense there was something she had as a backup, a backup of backups if you will, hopefully it doesn't come to that.
The horde eventually broke the treeline of where the old forest was and the new forest was still growing. Pyrrha notes that the Beowulf pack and... Humans? Were trampling the shrubs and spreading out to find her.
This was perfect, they didn't immediately rush all at once, so far so good. but Pyrrha isn't paying too much attention to that, more about the humans amongst the Beowulf pack.
That shouldn't be possible. why are they not attacking each other? Surly the Grimm can't be reasoned with? They are mindless!
Unless... They aren't human, she squints and tries to make sense of this in the dim lighting.
"Yeah, that is odd" Pyrrha speaks to herself as she observes some of them that have darker patches or sometimes even an entire Grimm limb. They don't seem very smart too, kind of like Amber...
Did the same thing happen to Amber? Pyrrha couldn't find anything saying otherwise, her gut feels like she came to the correct assumption as well.
The first few Grimm were entering the dorms but Pyrrhas tired mind notes the fact the sun has now fully gone down with no light in sight.
There were a few stars but no moon, or any kind of help from distant city lights.
She has planned for this to happen, after all it is a natural sundown, but she panics anyway and scrambles up from her perch on the edge of the roof to hobble to the prearranged fire pit.
No dust this time, so she had to get the flint and steel fire kit to work with shaky fingers, the Grimm roar out in tandem and single out the dorm building.
The sinking feeling in Pyrrhas stomach was strong as she realises they have been draw to her exact position thanks to her lighthouse of negative emotions towards the darkness.
Once the fire was lit she calmed back down but the damage was done, Pyrrha location was compromised. She felt stupid, she should have started the fire sooner, just before sundown.
She moves about with a burning stick to light up some crude tourches scattered around to shed some more light on the battleground that was her roof.
It looked like she was performing some kind of summoning ritual but she ignored that in favor for her next stage of survival.
Looking over the edge of the roof and lifting the tourch, she sees the Grimm start to whittle down her first barricade for the dorm rooms main entrance.
She hated haveing to do this, the forest was no doubt going to suffer for Pyrrhas next move, but she hopes mother nature will forgive her.
Getting a makeshift Molotov ready, Pyrrha waits for the Grimm to pack closer together before lighting it up and dropping it.
Hopefully the alcohol from the medical kits don't ruin her dust scavenged from her bullets when mixed together in the used water bottles.
Watching closely she got the second Molotov ready, she only made two before running out of resources but hopefully it does enough damage.
The ball of fire that explodes out over the closely packed Grimm was surprisingly more than she hoped. But it only got a few, the bodies blocking the fire from splashing further.
The fire was slowly spreading over the trampled shrubs but it wasn't going to do anything to the Grimm who were about to move into the building as soon as the barricade was down.
Knowing that the potential damage was higher than her last one, Pyrrha spies a metal pole sticking out of a damaged wall.
This time she throws it down towards the pole and it flies true, hitting and shattering a story above the horde, spilling in a large area and covering every Grimm who wasn't on fire already.
Just in time as well, the sound of her barricade failing in a large crash was seconds after the Grimm barbeque.
Pyrrhas hope soars as they roll around burning up, but doesn't develop further when the Molotov flame highlights the treeline sprouting an Ursa horde.
This has somehow turned into an even worse situation, the Ursa weren't in large numbers, and would even kill themselves on the spikes with the extra body mass...
But the problem was they would destroy any of those spikes in the process and render them useless for the next Grimm. They will barrel through most of the defenses and traps just to die and open the way for anything else.
Then the King Taijitu slithers onto the academy grounds and Pyrrha swears she saw it smile at her on the roof, a mocking sneer shoving all her ideas of survival out the window.
The one defense Pyrrha has that the Ursa group can't break are the pits, but a snakes body can ignore it, looks like she was going to be using that backup after all.
Taking a deep breath as the sounds of Ursa crying out intensifies, Pyrrha gets ready for battle by shifting over a bucket of metal shavings to the side of the roof entrance.
This plan was born from the construction of the traps and shelf spears, when Pyrrha was making all the items she would see fine metallic shavings and flakes start to collect, turns out it was really cheap to manipulate.
Pyrrha would occasionally rearm traps and trapdoors as the defense was slowly failing. Eventually the sounds of struggling Ursa die out at last, but the occasional thud of last trapdoors and roof spikes falling could be heard as the King Taijitu made its way up.
All too soon the last barricade to the roof shakes on its hinges as the King Taijitu rams it repeatedly. This was it, what Pyrrha thinks is her last battle, her nerves almost stong enough to make her hurl.
Gulping down saliva to suppress the feeling in her throat and stomach Pyrrha notes that the adrenaline was strong enough to make her wounded legs feel somewhat normal.
Even expecting it Pyrrha was too jumpy, she flinched at the door flying off its hinges. The snake Grimm wasn't taking any time to check out his surroundings, It went strait for Pyrrha without any hesitation.
It was well past the bucket of metal shards and almost on her, having to dodge so soon wasn't at all part of the plan. Pyrrhas instincts have her moving to dodge a second time for the other head only to see the mangled face filled with holes. One of her traps must have worked.
Her stance was poor after the half hearted dodge and the Grimm was already bringing its head back around and circling Pyrrha to cut off escape routes.
She needed an edge now or she would be Grimm chow. The very small but very sharp flakes start to lift out of the bucket, careful not to waste any Aura on needless movements.
Then pushing with all the strength Pyrrha can muster she sends the flakes hurtling towards the general head area of the King Taijitu.
She can't see them passed the thick tail coiling around her on all sides but her semblance helpfully told her exactly how fast the flakes traveled, and it was a lot faster than Pyrrha predicted.
The razor sharp shrapnel bits dig into the scales of the King Taijitu, the scales were tuff, but not Deathstalker armour tuff, Pyrrha would place the scales between an Alpha Ursa hide and Deathstalker plate in terms of armour strength.
It didn't seem to be a problem for the small flakes to dig into the vulnerable muscle beneath the surface, burrowing into its skull or even cutting through vital jaw muscles.
Sadly the surprising effectiveness wasn't enough for a killing blow by itself, the Core was safe and intact behind the snakes skull that was peppered with metal flakes.
Some that missed the skull went strait through to the other side so she turned them around and went for the eyes on the second pass.
In hindsight Pyrrha should have played it a little more carefully she could have lined that up at any time, but her immediate dodge was not the same case.
Not having enough time to dodge with injured legs, Pyrrha pulls up her spear as the mouth of the King Taijitu comes in to swallow her head first. She also brings up her sheild arm to protect herself.
Pyrrha sees the mistake just as it was too late, she didn't actually have her shield to block with, not enough aura as well. But the spear was true, sliding into the top of its open mouth and into one of its skull holes, the others being eyes and nose.
But her defense didn't even exist, the moment the fang came down on her left arm her aura shatters in a blinding moment, the lack of sight did nothing to hide the hole that was speared into her forearm.
The only reason Pyrrha even survived long enough to feel this was because of the King Taijitu having no jaw strength, the thin strings of muscles left by the flakes wasn't enough to move the jaw, it was basically just falling with the weight of its heavy head.
Arm still with a fang embedded in it Pyrrha was sent off her feet as the snakes momentum carries them both through with its former lunge motion.
The pain of landing flat on her back was nothing in comparison to the flag pole sized hole in her arm, there was so much blood, even with the fang still applying pressure to the wound it created.
The Grimm was thankfully dead, only twitching occasionally. As much as that pleased her, the body started to turn to mist, the tooth was leaving too.
The King Taijitu fang was becoming smaller than her wound and the blood started to flow freely, major arteries dumping vital lifeblood all over the roof and making her dizzy
Pyrrha needed to stop the bleeding somehow, her right hand was trying its best but the hole was large enough to stick her entire hand inside, there was no stopping it like that.
Aura won't be saving Pyrrha here, it was the end for the invincible girl. Something deep down in her soul stirred, her emotions swirled and focused into... Hate. These Grimm, causing so much pain to her in particular? Before all this chaos it was never personal, just the right thing to do... It changed in the last few moments of consciousness.
The boiling in her blood was raw and powerful, Pyrrha hated Grimm with all her being at that very moment. Never before has she felt a single emotion so purely, surprisingly there wasn't even the feeling of regret or loss from movie depictions. That moment before the wounds darkened her vision Pyrrhas warrior spirit only felt rage towards the unfairness of it all.
Sorry for the delay, but there was what some would call a heat wave during the writing of this chapter and I sadly have no means of cooling down my house from a solid 40°C. Needless to say writing was off the table and I spent most of that time swimming. Good news is I have had not one, but two major eureka moments during the fine tuning of this stories plot. (This useless info was just to reach exactly 5k words to satisfy my nonexistent OCD)