I don't believe that there is a hell, but if there were one, I'm fairly certain it would be exactly like the dust wastes. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I haven't seen a single living creature in the two days I've spent walking- emphasis on living, because this hellhole is absolutely crawling with Grimm.
Not regular Grimm, either, but odd, twisted ones that I don't recognize. Some look like towering horses, while others have the heads of lions but wide wings on their backs, and I swear I've seen a few spidery ones lurking around the wrecked ruins of the crawling cities.
Speaking of which, there are tons of the metal abominations scattered around the wastelands, each leaving a visible trail of plowed and ruined earth in its wake for a few miles. Not to say that any of the earth here is anything but ruined, as it's all a bleak expanse of brown-grey dirt, dry and cracked and obviously not even close to fertile. I haven't seen a trace of the 'Dusties' yet, but Kayro seems more and more tense as we've walked deeper and deeper into the dust wastes.
"Halt." He puts up a hand in front of me and I stop in my tracks, scanning for what elicited his latest panic attack-
Oh shit, I think, as my eyes find what his are trained on: a massive fucking leg extending out of one of the fallen Dust trawler cities, which punches down into the sand and drags out an equally massive body.
I actively suppress the sudden urge to run as a spider, easily twenty meters from one foot to the either, exits its hiding place. Another wave of horror comes shooting through me as it turns, ever so slightly, towards me-
"Calm, Dreki," Kayro intones beside me. "It can sense your fear."
Easy for you to say, asshole. Nevertheless, I bite my lip and stifle the urge to run, doing my best to focus on happy thoughts. Calmer moments with Roman and Neo between jobs. Going out for ice cream on the day we met, playing cards in a safe house we had to lie low in for a week or two, the time he took me and Neo to a clothing store and I saw her in something other than filthy rags for the first time…
The spider Grimm seems to lose interest and turns away from us with a chittering rumble, giving me a few seconds of peace and quiet.
"For someone without any Huntress training, you're quite good at that," Arnaut comments.
"Comes with having a Semblance like mine," I reply in a bare whisper. It seems that he can hear me no matter how quietly I speak, which is helpful for when I'm standing near a professional Huntsman like Kayro.
Speaking of which, Kayro suddenly shoves me down into the sand and slaps a hand over my mouth to stifle any protest. I immediately pull back on Arnaut's Semblance, managing to keep it under control and avoiding the involuntary mind-reading that'd plagued me for a week or two before he taught me to suppress it. A split second later, I see the cause of his reaction- a band of people dressed in patched, broken armor and clothing, streaming out of another collapsed metal husk that was once a Dust Trawler's leg. They're armed with a variety of weapons, but none of them have the telltale glow that indicates Dust capabilities.
"Who are-"
"Dustborn," Kayro whispers. "Some call them 'Dusties'. They're the old inhabitants of these collapsed walkers, but centuries of living cut off from all other civilization has left them… aggressive."
"Then what-"
"They're going to kill that Longlegs. We'd best stay back and let them do what they wish, then continue on our path afterwards. Speaking of which, what was Arnaut's Anchor out in the midst of all this squalor, again?"
"Uh, let me see," I say, stalling for time while flashing my eyes over at Arnaut.
"A few years back, Dusties had a bunch of raids on Dust caravans and cities too close to the dust wastes. I came out here looking for what they were doing with all that Dust, tracked all of it down to one city roughly in the middle of this shithole, but had to leave before I could nail down exactly what was going on."
"He wants to scope out the middle of the waste," I translate. "Says the Dusties brought a bunch of stolen Dust there for some reason." Gods, having to say everything twice is getting really old, really fast.
"Well, then it's another day or two's journey," Kayro replies. "Assuming you mean the portion that Vacuese operatives are typically barred from entering for being too dangerous."
Kayro's actually a lot easier to get along with than I'd assumed he'd be. He might be fanatically devoted to his Endless Path or whatever, but otherwise he's just a quiet, calm, serious dude, which is a welcome break from Arnaut's constant theatrics. We've shared maybe four total sentences in as many hours of walking today, and it's all small talk, nothing dangerously personal. At the moment, we're crossing through the wreck of an old abandoned Dust Trawler that's half-covered in grey dust and sand, the only sound our light footfall echoing off the tunnels.
In fact, the walk is so calm and quiet that I let my guard down-
A mistake that proves near-fatal as an arrow slams directly into the base of one of my horns with a jarring impact that shakes my skull and disorients me.
Fuck, that's probably a concussion.
As I blink the stars from my vision and the ringing from my ears, I vaguely register someone shaking me- "-up! You need to get up!"
Kayro sounds muted but I do as he says, standing up a bit unsteadily and dropping into my more familiar hand-to-hand fighting stance. In a life-or-death situation like this, I'm going to stick with what I know best.
"It's an ambush by the Dusties! You need to run, you can't fight them!" Arnaut points back the direction we came, but even as I turn the blurry light-filled exit has dark forms stepping out into it.
Shit, I think. Then running isn't an option. "What're our odds?"
"Eleven of them are visible, so… I'd give you and Kayro nine out of ten to win this." Three more drop down around us from some wrecked support beams overhead. "Eight out of ten."
Kayro's far less optimistic. "All Dustborn are trained from birth in combat and use of their Aura. We stand little to no chance."
"Damn right," the nearest one says, just as my vision clears out enough to get my first good look at him. It's a human teenager, maybe a few years older than me, wearing filthy makeshift armor and wielding a serrated spear. He's got equally dirty brown hair and hazel eyes that are filled with the same unpleasant confidence all cocky douchebags seem to have. "You boys're a little far from home, ain'tcha?"
"Peace, friend," Kayro says back. "We only seek to travel-"
"Ya hear that?" Douchebag (in lieu of a name, I'm choosing to call him that based on the personality he's exhibited so far) says, turning a few times towards his compatriots with poorly faked incredulity. "Says he's just 'passin through'. Think you mighta forgot the tax, friend."
I bite back a sarcastic reply, allowing Kayro to handle the diplomacy for now: "We haven't much on us, but we'd be perfectly willing to pay whatever is within our power."
"Was hopin' you'd say that," Douchebag says. "Thing is, out here we don't trade in fuckin' paper and plastic like you soft little Atlas lapdogs. Out here, there's only two things worth a damn: blood and dust. So which'll it be?"
"If by 'Dust' you mean our ammunition and crystals, we'd be happy to oblige," Kayro answers. I once again bite back a protest and begin to rummage around in my coat pocket for the rounds I just spent a boatload of money on, only to freeze at the next order from Douchebag:
"Nah, I mean all of it. Gimme your weapons and your gear- no sudden moves. You there, with the sword: you first. Drop the sword on the ground, real slow... then let's see you out of that coat." There's a few nasty chuckles from the surrounding Dustborn as Douchebag's eyes light up with the same hunger as the scum who thought an abandoned Faunus girl alone on the streets of Mystral would be easy prey.
I resolve then and there to kill him first, but Kayro speaks before I do: "No. The sword is non-negotiable."
"Such a shame," Douchebag sighs, twirling his spear in a wholly self-masturbatory display before leveling it at me: "But you must not know the law 'round here."
"There's no need for bloodshed." Kayro tries one last time to quell the coming violence, but his words are ignored.
"The law out here in the dust wastes is simple: what you want, you take." Douchebag punctuates the last word with a sudden thrust of his spear towards my chest, which I deflect to the side with the back of my hand against the shaft before yanking on it to pull him into punching range-
Only to be forced to step back once again by another arrow. This time I'm expecting it and manage to hop out of the way before tracing along the trajectory to see a hooded figure crouched up in the shadows on another beam, nearly twenty meters up and twenty meters away. The projectile that I'd initially taken for an arrow seems to actually be a barbed crossbow bolt, with points curling back that would make it extraordinarily difficult to remove from a wound. I'm extremely lucky that the first shot hit me in the horn instead of any soft flesh.
"You shoulda just rolled over," Douchebag hisses. "We mighta killed you quicker if-"
"Sounds like something a scared little bitch would say," I reply, finally loosing my tongue as Kayro's diplomacy has apparently failed.
"What did you just say to me?"
"I said, if you had actual balls, you'd want to fight me, not take my weapons without even making a blow- but let's be honest here, you're more suited for scaring unarmed merchants and kicking elderly women and children than you are for picking on people your own size, aren't you?"
The other Dustborn pause and my intuition is proved right once more- they're losing respect for him. He can't afford to be insulted like this without fighting back himself… but he makes a second mistake in shouting "Kill this kid!" to the rest of the group.
"Dude." I cross my arms, shaking my head at him. "So not only are you gonna try to trick me- a girl five years younger than you- and kill me without even a fight, not only are you then gonna gang up on me with thirteen other guys, but now you won't even join in yourself?" I turn towards the other Dustborn, a motley gang of similarly armored and armed humans and Faunus, ranging from a kid my age to some middle-aged dude armed with a warhammer. "Why the fuck would you take orders from this brainless, weak, incompetent coward?"
That's done it. Douchebag narrows his eyes in realization of how precarious his current position is. If he lets me go on any longer, he'll probably lose his position as leader, leaving his only remaining option as being- "Fine then, fight me one-on-one. Let's see if you can punch as good as you can squeal, city girl."
I shrug. "Fine by me- but if I win, you let us go."
"Whatever, sure." Douchebag's too confident he'll win to even give my request more than a passing thought. There's a cunning little gleam in his eye that worries me, though- "But I choose th' weapons. No cheatin' with your fancy Atlas Dust guns."
"I don't need weapons to beat your ass," I sigh. "You use whatever the hell you want, I'm fine with my hands."
As I unsling Aurum from my back and lay it down on the sandy metal floor of the broken trawler, I figure there's a fifty-fifty chance he keeps his spear regardless of how it looks to fight an unarmed kid several years younger than him with it. Turning around, I'm proven wrong- turns out his ego outweighs his survival instinct, because he's making a show of dropping the nasty makeshift thing on the ground and doing some obnoxiously theatrical stretches. Rolling his shoulders, cracking his knuckles, all the cliches.
"Oh, one more thing, little city girl," he says as a smirk starts to creep onto his face. "We're doin' this to submission, not Aura break like your pussy duelists."
I tense myself up in preparation, but maintain a bored affect in my slumped shoulders and off-center gaze towards him, half-lidding my eyes and stifling a yawn. "Your funeral."
A crooked grin full of stained and chipped teeth splits his face. "I'm gonna enjoy teaching you your place. Maybe if you give up quick enough that I don't ruin your face too bad, I'll keep you around as a whore."
Another shiver of rage shoots through me and the Grimm surges harder than I expected, but I manage to keep a lid on it as I tilt my head and sigh: "You planning on talking all day, or are we gonna fight?"
The grin flickers even wider for a brief moment, and then he launches forward with two long strides, bringing a locomotive of a right hook sailing towards my face far faster than I expect. He's obviously fought hand-to-hand before in training fights and has Aura skills on par with your average Huntsman.
Still, I manage a dodge to the side- just the bare minimum, though, and his fist passes within a centimeter of my ear. He growls and, with his arm too extended to recover, attempts to bring his shoulder crashing into me to salvage the situation.
I sway to the side again, avoiding the worst of his awkward tackling motion while bringing my knee up into his gut hard enough to take his breath away.
He stumbles back a few steps and looks at me with a tiny hint of fear in his eyes that he quickly masks with more of that overcompensatory bravado. "You cocky piece of shit."
"You cockless piece of shit," I sigh back. Growing up on the streets gave me a wide vocabulary of insults, and then working under Roman for six years taught me how to best use them to piss insecure dicks like Douchebag off. Sure enough, his eyes flare with rage and I see him fully activate his red-brown Aura-
But stop briefly as the cloaked crossbow wielder from up in the rafters calls down in a voice much younger and more feminine than I expected: "Braun! Are you using Aura against this… this softborn little girl?"
Douchebag- or, Braun, I guess- scowls even harder and snaps back at the girl: "Shut up. I'm teachin' her her fuckin' place."
I lean back and watch the odd conversation unfold, slightly off-put by the realization that Braun was apparently holding back for the majority of the fight. He winces when the girl goes on: "You know what this means. This is now a duel to the death."
Was it not before? I frown as Braun turns back around and lowers himself into an actual fighting stance for the first time- a shitty, improper one, but a stance nonetheless. For a moment, we face each other down once again.
Then he charges me with another one of those overblown right hooks, but I know he's not stupid enough to try the exact same move only a few seconds after I last countered it. As a result, when he pulls the punch as a feint and sweeps a leg, I'm prepared enough to stomp my own booted foot onto his shin hard enough to deal significant damage to his Aura.
He shouts and tackles me in response, as I'm too close to escape his reaching arms, so instead I move my own hands to his head, one in front and one behind, and start to twist-
But he realizes what's coming and releases his grip in order to bring his forearms coming up to split my hands off of him, then headbutts me right in the chest and sends us both tumbling to the ground. "You fucking softborn little cunt!"
I don't waste breath on words, bringing my arms up behind me to vault back onto my feet, but he manages to get onto me before I can and pins both my arms with first his hands and then his knees. This is how I killed Clint, I realize, which distracts me long enough that I fail to notice the first fist sailing through the air and slamming directly into my right cheekbone, taking out a large chunk of my Aura. I won't last ten more seconds like this.
I growl in frustration and try to bring my knee into his back, but can't get a proper angle to leverage anything. Arms pinned, legs useless, and tail not strong enough to do much but bruise, I'm all but helpless as another two punches slam into my cheekbones, jarring me once again.
It's been a while since I've been helplessly beat up like this, and it sends me back to memories of my time on the Mystrali streets- memories I welcome at the moment, because with them comes a surge of rage, as well as a wave of black up my forearms, legs, and- most importantly- tail, which becomes pointed at the end even as I slam it directly into Braun's back.
He swears again and half-turns, which is all the opening I need to bring the tip of my tail around one of his shoulders and yank him backwards. Before he can even fall all the way down to the ground, I surge forward and bring Grimm claws swinging towards his neck.
To his credit, he does an admirable job defending himself with his bare hands, but it's still just flesh trying to stop sharp-edged solid Grimm claw. His right forearm's Aura sputters under two strikes, breaks, and is then cut to ribbons by one of my claws. He manages to catch my other attack with an impressive grip of his left hand-
Which means, with both hands occupied, he takes the full brunt of my kick, sending him flying backwards at first until my tail's grip on his ankle whips him down into the ground. He grunts in pain, attempting another recovery but failing as another pull from my tail on his leg pulls him right underneath me.
I send Aura surging through my upper arm- the Grimm claw and forearm may not be able to channel my Aura, but the rest of the muscles I'm using to power my blow sure can- and bring a fist sailing down towards his face, shattering the rest of his Aura with the strike and silencing the stream of curses. I could leave it there, perhaps earn the respect of the surrounding Dusties and two Huntsmen.
But I don't, and the next punch cracks his skull and reduces his nose to a bloody mess. He draws one more rattling, gurgling breath, still conscious enough to wheeze out some kind of plea, a lovely little surge of fear rushing through him.
The next punch caves in his skull, and the fear disappears along with the life from his eyes. It's not enough. I need more. I turn my gaze to the surrounding Dusties, finally narrowing my eyes on the youngest one who looks the most terrified- He'll be good-
"Stop!" Arnaut interposes himself in my line of sight towards the kid, a strange mixture of concern and disgust passing across his face. "You've won! Dreki, do not go any further, they've agreed to let you leave!"
I wonder why he's bothering to save them. They're evil, they would have killed me, so now I kill them-
That's when a bolt slams into my skull right where the other one had hit earlier. After taking three Aura-amplified punches and an arrow already, and with my own Aura diverted elsewhere, the impact is enough to knock my vision into blurriness and then rapidly growing darkness.
When I come to, I'm sitting in an iron cage with my hands cuffed together to a chain that also attaches to a collar around my neck as well as the back bars. I appear to be the only occupant of several empty cages that fill up a small room, which opens up on either end to stretch out into a long, curving hallway. Everything's made of the same rough metal that constitutes the interior of the Dust Trawlers.
A cursory glance reveals that Kayro's nowhere to be seen, which is to be expected, but Arnaut is equally missing. I take another more careful sweep around the cell, yet... nothing.
Did me getting knocked out get rid of his ghost? Several feelings that I didn't expect- loneliness, sorrow, mourning- flicker into being somewhere in my chest at that thought, but I treat them like every other dangerous emotion and lock them away behind a wall of forced impassion.
"Arnaut, you there?"
There's no response, which means I'm on my own for figuring out how to get out of this place. Hooray. I experimentally yank on the chains but get no response. Roman and Neo always had a talent for picking locks, but I never quite picked up on it, which means my best chance would be to call on my Semblance and brute-force it.
With that said, that plan also seems like a fantastic way to get six cities' worth of angry Dusties on my ass. Also, earlier, when I used the Grimm against… what was it, Brandon… Bobby? Whatever… when I used the Grimm against Douchebag, it was harder than usual to restrain it. Typically killing one person isn't enough to push me over the edge, but that fight had me in dangerous territory after only partial Grimm parts and maybe thirty seconds. Before I can consider the subject any more, though, a new figure approaches from down the hall- the bow-wielding girl from the hunting party that brought me in.
"Hello," she says, face still shaded by the hood. The bow and quiver have apparently been ditched, but the dark cloak remains.
"Fuck you," I reply. "You said you'd leave me be if I won that fight, and I did."
"No," she says, unfazed by my cursing and with the faintest hint of humor in her voice, "Braun said we'd leave you be. It's true that he made a deal with you, yet his deal died with him." She's got a faint, implacable accent that makes her sound oddly aloof and monotone.
"I guess that's all the honor I can expect from some dust-huffing, backwards, primitive, filthy bandits like you," I spit. It's not my best work, but at the moment I'm annoyed enough that I need an outlet to vent on.
"And I'd expect nothing less from a doe-eyed little city girl like you," she responds, maddeningly calm. "Like a trusting lamb being led to the slaughter."
"I suppose that makes you the shepherd. Funny, didn't think your shithole of a civilization had mastered domesticating animals yet." That's better, I think, allowing a grin to return to my face.
"We hunt our prey instead of feeding it and fattening it and lying to it from birth," the girl responds. "Unlike you, we aren't afraid of things that fight back."
I raise an eyebrow and nod towards the chains on my hands. "Seems to me like you're plenty afraid."
"Not afraid, just…" the girl pauses, although I can't tell why through the hood. "Uncertain."
"I'm certain you're scared if you can't even show me your face." I'm normally not this open to conversation, but any bit of information I can get out of her could be helpful in an escape attempt.
She hesitates, and then actually reaches up to pull down the hood and reveal that she's actually older than I am, an owl Faunus with the feathered ears poking up out of a head of messy black hair, and two yellow, wide, owl-like eyes that almost seem to glow. "We're uncertain about you. Are you Faunus, or Grimm? And how do you have so many Faunus traits?"
I frown. "Well, I got no clue what you're talking about on the Faunus thing, but as for the Grimm? I keep one inside me that I let out when I want someone dead."
"This is… what, your Semblance?"
"Yeah," I sigh. "But enough about me. What did you do to my partner?"
She bites her lip. "The Huntsman is… fighting, at the moment."
That sets off alarm bells in my head. "Fighting what?"
"Grimm." For some reason, the topic seems to annoy the girl, as she refuses to meet my eyes and spits the words out as though they frustrate her.
"Why would Kayro be doing you any favors fighting Grimm?"
"He isn't... we don't need his help to deal with Grimm," she defends, again with shifty mannerisms.
If he isn't fighting Grimm that they need him to, then he must be doing it for... I blink. No way. "Tell me he's not fighting for his life against Grimm for your entertainment," I say, meeting her gaze head-on. Her refusal to respond is all the answer I need. "Holy shit, you really are backwards, aren't you? Fighting pits? Really?"
"You know nothing of-"
"Was two and a half centuries really enough time to go back to the fucking stone ages? Fighting pits, I swear to Forsi-"
The subtle sense of superiority vanishes from her expression. "I understand that it seems barbaric to you, but-"
"Seems barbaric?" I shake my head, continuing partly out of a morbid sense of satisfaction drawn from seeing her finally on the back foot. "You're treating people like beasts. Making them fight for their lives as entertainment. Against Grimm. You Dusties are fucking animals."
She goes from faintly wounded to a hardened look of dispassion in an instant. "Don't worry too much. When you're put in there, it will only be a Grimm fighting other Grimm. And when you die, it will only be one more Grimm gone."
I can't come up with a response to that in time, and she turns the corner back out of sight without another word being passed between us. Shit, I think, I might've gotten Kayro killed. A few minutes of silence pass before a new person comes clomping down the hallway, this one clad in an excessive amount of mismatched heavy armor, edges rough and uneven but clearly kept razor-sharp.
"C'mon, bitch."
"Is that because I'm a girl, a Faunus, or part Grimm? Because regardless, try to think of something more- grk!" I'm choked off- literally- as a thick arm reaches into the cage and takes hold of the end of my chain in order to yank me out. I tumble into a heap on the floor before getting yanked once more, managing to shakily regain my feet and stumble along at the ogre's pace in order to avoid further humiliation.
"It's 'cause you fuckin city types're all lapdogs for Atlas," he rumbles, before unnecessarily yanking once again on the chain and nearly causing me to fall over again.
I'm all but dragged through another set of twisting passageways through the bowels of the crippled city, past ruptured pipelines and halted gears, everything lit by shaky electric lighting that flickers sporadically. There's plenty of evidence of large chunks of metal and machinery being removed less than surgically, probably for use making their shitty, low-quality weapons. I occasionally catch a glimpse of a crowded room full of beds or tables, even a mess hall of sorts, but refrain from commenting to avoid even more bruising around my neck.
Eventually we turn ninety degrees into a passageway that has a warmer, more natural light at its end, approaching it until I'm unceremoniously flung forward into a heap on the ground. The brute unlocks my collar and handcuffs before disappearing, yet I barely have enough time to flex my sore neck and wrists before the floor beneath me shudders and I'm sent slowly upwards into the warm orange light of dusk.
It takes a second for my eyes to adjust, but once they do I'm immediately struggling to hold down the waves of revulsion and rage from triggering my Semblance. There's a wide arena, maybe fifty meters from end to end, with the floor consisting of loosely packed grey dirt, sand, and gravel, stained by blood and veritable piles of the black dust left behind by dead Grimm.
What enrages me, though, is the wide spectator's stands crudely built around the arena, with platforms and benches and stairways and ladders interlocking into a near-solid mass of people stretching higher than I can see in any measure of detail. There's so many of them, packed tighter than any normal crowd on any available spaces, some even balanced on narrow precipices with the dexterity that suggests Aura use. The crowd shouts and roars as if this were a VDC match.
The difference is, while televised duels are between people and end with Aura being knocked out, these fights are against the Grimm... and end in death. Wait, I think, suddenly anxious, what happened to Kayro?
I get my answer as my eyes catch another two heavily armored Dusty men dragging a limp, black, human form out from the center of the pit. My heart skips a beat and the scales of my right hand start to-
No, he's alive, I think, seeing a slight bit of movement from his arm as they take him from the arena and reigning in my Semblance. I let out a shaky breath. They didn't kill him. It shouldn't matter to me- It doesn't matter to me, I remind myself. I don't care about it. Which is why the faint traces of Grimm on my arm fade away as quickly as they came out and I'm back to normal.
Taking another sweeping look around me, I see other patches of metal floor that probably also move back to let things into the arena. Big things, judging by one ten-meter-square platform.
"And would you look at that?" A booming voice comes from all around me- an announcer. Cute. Whoever it is talks in that obnoxious fast-paced, overenthusiastic, dramatic tone that all sportscasters seem to take, even as he's discussing arena death matches: "That softie did last a helluva lot longer than I thought he would, but he went down in the end just like every other dog. Not much of a Huntsman if he lost to a Grimm, is he?" Roars of assent come from all around the stands- easily tens of thousands of people, if not more. "And for our newest contestant, we have us another Vacuo softborn so-called Huntress!"
This is met with a barrage of boos. Do they resent Huntsmen specifically for some reason? Or just Vacuo in general?
"Now, she might look like a spoiled princess, but don't be fooled- she beat a trained warrior, Braun Odios, to death with her bare hands!" More boos.
So they don't like me if I'm weak, and they also don't like me being strong, I think, feeling a moment of calm before what I'm sure will be a vicious storm. Seems a little bit unfair.
"But don't worry, because we'll see how those hands do against a real opponent!" Right on cue, a chunk of the floor off to my right shudders and then slides open with a horrific metal grinding sound, even as a platform below rises up with a single snarling Beowolf standing on it.
I almost laugh. Holy shit, is that it?
The thing charges me and I simply stand and wait until it leaps forward through the air, mouth open to try and bite me.
Suspended as it is, it can't dodge when I bring my Aura-enhanced arm thundering around to slam directly into the front of its skull and shatter the front half of its head into little fragments. I actually let out a little laugh, which is louder than it should be- is the whole arena magnifying sound?
I let out a cautious "Testing?" which is again amplified from a normal speaking volume to shouting. They must be amplifying the sounds of the fight for the crowd, I think.
"So at the very least, she can deal with a little puppy. Let's up the ante, shall we?"
Five more platforms rise up, each with its own Beowolf, but again I'm far from worried. I even have time to look around for where the announcer could possibly be sitting while the Grimm stalk forward, my eyes landing finally not on my original target but on a raised box of sorts that contains the owl Faunus girl from earlier sitting beside a man clad in nicer armor than anyone else I've seen among the Dusties. Is he a leader, or…
Hold on, is that- my thoughts are cut off as the bravest (or dumbest, depending on your perspective) Beowolf leaps at me in exactly the same way that its cousin died earlier. This time, though, there are two others ready to pounce if I overcommit to a single punch, so I instead opt to roll forward under the claws and grab the tail as it lands behind me.
Another one jumps me, but I swing the first one by its tail around in an arc to slam its ally out of midair before leaping over a third attempting to gnaw at my legs. Before I can capitalize on the three prone foes, the fourth and fifth close in, more carefully than their brethren, slow enough that the first three will be back up by the time that they're in an attacking position.
Therefore it's my turn to be the aggressor, and I immediately shunt a decent bit of Aura into my back foot in order to close the gap on Number Four, bringing an equally Aura-enhanced forearm down onto the top of its head and knocking it flat on the ground. Number Five takes the opportunity to pounce in the exact same fucking manner that caused the first three to fail (which is what I meant about Beowolves not exactly being terrifying), so I sidestep easily and take the opportunity to slam a fist straight down on its head, carrying the blow forward in order to splinter its skull directly into the skull of a still-prone Number Four.
Both Grimm fade away into dust, and I crack my knuckles as I turn to face the remaining three.
The first of which immediately signs its own death certificate by attempting- you guessed it- the same leap, which I counter this time by catching its jaws as it tries to take a chunk out of my chest. From this position, it's all too easy to simply pull up with one hand and down with the other, ripping the jaws open further than they're meant to go and snapping its spine in the process.
The last two Beowolves pace uncertainly, as Grimm tend to do while losing. People disagree on whether it's because losing a fight typically means that hope returns to their would-be victims and they lose interest, or because they're intelligent enough to understand their inability to win, but-
Hold on, how the hell do I know that? I scour my mind trying to think of where I could have picked up on it, but before I can reach anything conclusive Number One gets over whatever its hangup was and tries the exact same fucking leap on me.
I almost miss my dodge from the sudden fit of laughter, but evade its claws and catch its rear leg nonetheless, pulling it in close enough to crush its skull into powder with another Aura-amplified blow. The last Beowolf, Number Two, remains indecisive even as I load even more Aura into my back leg and narrow my eyes in preparation…
Then I launch myself forward, almost a blur, and pound a fist into its side hard enough to send it flying ten meters before slamming into the arena wall and exploding into dark dust.
Another round of laughter comes through me and I take a breather, leaning with my arm on one knee. Something about the life-or-death situation has made the mental image of the Beowolf watching seven of those leap attacks fail and deciding to attempt an eighth before immediately dying unbelievably funny to me, even though it probably shouldn't be.
"I think the kid's lost it, folks!"
"No, no, I…" I attempt to gather myself. "I'm all good. Seriously though, is that all you've got?"
There's a pause, filled by a few scattered boos from the crowd, before I get a response: "Chick's got an attitude after killing a couple easy prey, eh? What say we bring her down to size!?" That gets another raucous cheer.
A much louder rattling heralds one of the larger plates opening, sliding aside to gradually reveal the biggest Beowolf I've ever seen. "Uh, Arnaut?"
There's no response, and I once again stifle a flicker of worry and isolation, turning inward to scour my mind for what this next challenge is. I vaguely remember hearing about some kind of larger Beowolf being called an alpha, but can't for the life of me think of where I learned that...
Doesn't matter now, I think, shrugging and readying myself as the six-meter-long monstrosity howls and paws twice like a bull preparing to charge.
I don't give it the opportunity, launching myself forward right off the bat with a series of Aura-amplified strides closing the gap in seconds. I feint an exaggerated right hook and the beast takes the bait, swinging around a claw to eviscerate me even as I turn the charge into a slide along the sandy metal and come up just in time to kick its hind leg right at the joint.
It doesn't give out at first, but I relent and make a second attack, this time sending a surge of Aura exploding out through my kick- and sure enough, this time the knee gives out with a sickening crack.
I roll forwards just in time to escape the crash zone as the now three-legged Beowolf Alpha falls to the ground with a howl of pain. When fighting something large enough to thwart your effective attack range, the recommended strategy for Huntsmen is to cripple its mobility in order to make it easier to-
How do I know that? I frown and narrow my eyes, once again failing to recall where I picked up that bit of information, but shrugging it off as more pressing issues mount and dart backward to keep a decent berth between me and the downed Beowolf.
My Aura's down to about eighty percent, even though I haven't taken a hit yet. I really need to work on my conservation of it. There's two ways to amplify movements using Aura- the first is to simply reinforce muscle and bone, which is the most common and doesn't expend any Aura due to none of it ever leaving one's body. The only cost for that style is that the Aura elsewhere on the body grows weaker as the excess is directed towards the specific portion being reinforced.
The second method, and the one I need to lean on less, is to send the Aura out through whatever medium is being used for offense. This costs Aura, but allows me to move with sudden bursts of speed or strike much harder- case in point, the Beowolf Alpha's wrecked knee, which a normal reinforced kick failed to harm but an Aura strike shattered easily. Extremely skilled Huntsmen can even use Aura strikes to create slashes or projectiles that-
What the fuck is going on with me? I shake my head, again unsure as to why or how I know all these random academic facts about Huntsmen and Grimm. A theory occurs to me out of nowhere, but I shelf it for the moment as the Grimm in the arena with me howls again and reminds me that I need to deal with it.
Crippled as it is, it can't attempt that same swipe with only three legs, leaving only its mouth for me to worry about. With that in mind, I take off to my left and keep along a rough circular path around it, using my advantage in mobility to get around it faster than it can turn, and it's not long before it stumbles and halts long enough that I can take a reinforced leap at it from behind.
The Beowolf howls one last time as I vault up towards its back, but I ignore it and send another huge surge of Aura running through my fist and slam the amplified blow directly into the top of its spine.
It shatters instantly, and the Grimm collapses to the ground, body turning to dust.
The crowd hushes, but yet again the announcer reacts favorably: "Ooh, she's got a bite as sharp as her bark! Well then, let's liven things up with a real challenge!"
"Seriously? What is it now- wait, no let me guess, an slightly bigger fucking Beowolf," I reply in a slightly raised voice, which is then amplified to the entire arena. I get a few scattered laughs at that, but mostly a stony silence. Which is fine, because I'm not finished. "If this is what you pathetic losers consider a challenge, then I can see why you send Grimm to fight people instead of doing it yourselves."
This time I'm met with a much louder surge of angry retorts, but ignore them all and keep going: "Is this the sum of your civilization? Crouching on a trashed ruin, watching fucking kids kill Grimm that you can't?"
"Quiet." A new, booming voice echoes out over the arena, but unlike with the announcer, I can tell this one's origin- the larger man sitting in the box, the one I identified as a possible leader from before. "A little mouse like you shouldn't be squeaking so loudly at its betters."
"That's rich, coming from the king of the rats," I shout back. "I think I figured out why people call you Dusties- because you'd all fall apart if challenged by a strong fucking wind."
I pick up on a twitch from the armored leader and remember the same sort of strong reaction from the owl girl when... Ah, I realize, they don't like being called Dusties, do they? That makes things easier. I snap my gaze directly onto the leader and go from a smirk to a full grin, showing the fangs along the sides of my mouth. "I challenge you, Dusty."
"By what right does an ant challenge a lion?" the man asks, still not rising from his sitting position. The way he's sitting there above me, refusing to even move, refusing to even acknowledge my challenge, makes my blood boil enough to send little hints of the Grimm dancing across the backs of my hands.
"Sounds to me like you're a coward," I reply, aware of the slight red tinge to my vision that means my eyes are starting to glow crimson.
The bastard just tilts his head slightly, face impossible to read behind the thin T-shaped gap in his helmet. "Vestus, why don't you introduce this brat to the special surprise our hunters brought back yesterday?"
The announcer- Vestus, I guess- responds in an amused voice: "Are you certain, boss? I'd believed that we were saving that particular-"
"This dog is annoying me."
"Yes, boss." There's a rattling in the ground behind me and I turn to see the largest flat portion of the arena begin to slide away, revealing-
Oh, fuck.
Standing there is easily the biggest Deathstalker I've ever seen. It has to be easily fifteen meters from front to back, and its entire body is covered in spiny, rough, well-worn armor plates. Eight red eyes blink out at me with more intelligence than I'm used to seeing from most Grimm.
I can't hope to harm that thing with my bare hands, but Arnaut's sword was confiscated when they first brought me in. As unlikely as it is that they'll humor me... It's worth a shot. I turn back towards the platform: "Are you planning on ever giving me my fucking sword back?"
The man immediately replies "No," but then pauses as the hooded owl girl leans forward and says something to him. A few seconds pass, and then he shrugs before reaching behind him and whipping a black form end over end through the air towards me- Arnaut's sword, still in the sheathe.
It slams, point-first, into the ground, and then as if yanked forward out of thin air, Arnaut staggers up beside it in all his golden glowing glory. He blinks in surprise a few times, looking at his arms as if he's surprised to see them, and then turns towards me with a smile like the rising sun.
"Dreki, I was worried you'd died," he leads, but then narrows his eyes and takes a second look around. "Oh, this is..."
"Yeah, don't write off that possibility just yet," I respond, a slight bit of reassurance warming my chest as my traveling companion returns. He must be tied to the sword somehow, I guess. "You seen one of these ugly fuckers before?"
He studies the beast for a few seconds, shaking his head ruefully. "Where the hell did they dig that up?"
"I'll take that as a no," I respond, turning to the sword itself in order to grab it by the hilt and draw it in all its shiny glory, taking the time to look it over and make sure the Dusties didn't fuck with it. The Deathstalker thing is still chained down, so I'm not in any hurry.
For some reason, the arena hushes when I draw the sword, and then erupts into a flurry of mixed reactions- stronger than I'd expected.
The boss's voice is still cold and impassive as he asks, "Where did you get that blade?"
"What, you know it?"
"I knew its owner," the man responds. "Tell me, how did you steal that from the Golden Guardian?" The name draws a sharp murmur and a mild smattering of gasps from the crowd, as well as a few boos.
I grin. "It was pretty easy, after I killed him with my bare hands."
"Well now, that's cutting out a few key details," Arnaut sighs.
"Lies." The man waves an armored hand, and I catch the glint of Dust technology- come to think of it, his entire suit of armor seems higher-tech than the usual fare of the Dusties. Why would he… "Vestus, begin."
"You heard the boss, ladies and gentlemen!" The announcer's voice takes on a manic tone. "We'll see if this cocky little Huntress's confidence holds up against a real monster of the dust wastes! Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, say hello to Deathclaw!"
With the last word, the chains fall away and the Deathstalker screeches, loud enough to shake the earth slightly. Six legs start to undulate, moving the monster deceptively fast to close in on me. An old memory that I can't quite place runs through my head, some old man's voice saying 'If you intend to fight, never move backwards- no opportunities will come from giving away your ground. Allow the enemy to make their strike, and flow around them.'
Where are these fucking memories coming from? I hesitate, sword held in one hand slightly behind me, even as the distance closes to ten meters.
"I've settled on a name," Arnaut says, causing me to turn towards him at the worst possible moment.
Only a godlike reaction on sheer instinct saves me as I expertly reverse my grip and bring my hand swinging around in front of me, sword trailing behind and deflecting the barbed stinger of the Deathstalker only centimeters away from hitting me. Too late, I notice a claw swinging around from my blind spot and, in order to avoid getting caught between the razor-sharp claws, jump up in order to instead take a solid blow to my side that sends me flying.
Another instinct has me bringing Arnaut's sword around my body and planting it in the earth in the exact same move he used the day we met. I suddenly begin to realize what's happening to me, yet Arnaut…
"I hereby name this variant… the Deathstalker Prime! Eh?" Arnaut raises an eyebrow at me, smiling like a kid presenting their shitty art project.
"Is now really the time?"
"Not to be a negative nancy, but I doubt that there will be another time," Arnaut sighs. "Oh, and also, duck."
I do as he says just before a claw comes sweeping right through where my chest would have been, but turn the motion into a roll inwards in order to avoid the other claw's low sweep, ending up in a crouch mere centimeters away from a nasty-looking pair of mandibles and eight glowing eyes.
Instinct saves my life as I leap forward and up, over the sudden bite of the Grimm's jaws, and take the opportunity to bring a one-handed slash of Arnaut's sword cutting through two of the exposed legs to my right. I begin channeling Aura into my feet, keeping an eye on the poised stinger, and release it in a burst to launch myself out of the way of the eventual poisonous stab and far off across the dusty arena floor.
I stomp into my landing, legs spread and just bent enough to keep a stable center of gravity and remain upright despite the five-meter slide before I halt, sword raised up into a ready position beside my face and horizontal to the ground.
I get a second or two to feel badass until Arnaut chimes in.
"How is it that you're able to fight Grimm so well?" he asks. "Your instincts are like those of a career Huntress."
"Is this really the time?" I whisper quietly enough that whatever amplifier the Dusties are using can't pick up on it.
"And one more thing, I refuse to believe that you had no greatsword experience before using Aurum. You're lying about your history; it doesn't explain your competence at killing Grimm and using my weapon."
The irony is that I am lying to him, at least in part, but not about the Grimm or the sword. With that said, the movements I'm taking do feel too natural, even given the hours upon hours of watching professional Huntsmen fighting Grimm that I'd originally chalked them up to.
"I don't know, alright? It just feels natural." The last word is hissed out as I re-enter combat, long strides causing me to practically skip across the dunes dragging the sword behind me with one hand. The Deathstalker, crippled like the Beowolf Alpha was before, can still turn effectively enough to keep me at bay using those dangerous claws, while the threat of the stinger means I can't try any moves that would take me off the ground and limit my ability to dodge.
I frown, trying to formulate the best strategy possible, but my train of thought is interrupted by Arnaut getting pushy again.
"You've had Huntress training."
"No I fucking haven't," I hiss, starting to stride backwards to keep a decent berth from the crippled Deathstalker, which is now limping towards me despite two useless left legs.
"Then who, pray tell, explained to you the proper procedure for dealing with Class-B Grimm? That was a textbook-perfect execution of the recommended strategy of crippling mobility as a first step." I spare a glance towards Arnaut, who's looking at me with more than a little bit of suspicion. "You dodge Beowolf pounces as if you've been doing it for years. You wield Aurum as though you were training with it from birth. Who are you, really?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I reply. "And can't this wait until I'm not actively fighting for my life in a pit?"
My shift of attention to center on him was a deep mistake, one I realize the moment the Deathstalker skitters forward-
Fuck! It was faking injury to trick me into-
My reaction comes far too late to avoid the claw that shoots forward and catches me, twin spiked edges digging into me from both sides hard enough that I can't suppress my cry of pain despite my Aura taking the brunt of the damage. I can feel my reserves of Aura being ravaged by the nonstop crushing, intense pressure being put on me- Shit!
I only have one arm free, but luckily it's the one holding Arnaut's sword. I don't have the leverage nor the reach from this position to deal any real damage with the blade, but a quick press of a button flattens out the hilt and allows me to hike the sword up into my shoulder and take rough aim, before…
I pull the trigger, and a surge of orange-red Fire Dust streams forward and then implodes directly in the face of the Deathstalker, causing it to skree in pain and drop me. I roll backwards and away, my Aura down to only maybe fifteen percent.
At least it's dead, I think, only a split second before the reddish smoke clears to reveal a scorched but clearly intact face plate and eight red eyes glaring at me more intensely than ever. Fucking wonderful.
It comes forward and snaps a claw at me again, but this time I roll to the side, out of reach of its other claw, but then have to duck again anyway when the first claw sweeps back over where I'd been. I barely have enough time to straighten back up again before I'm dodging once more- "Damn it, can't get an opening."
The announcer chooses now to contribute: "And it looks like our Huntress isn't so cocky anymore, now is she? Looks like Deathclaw's got the upper claw!"
"You need to dodge over the claws," Arnaut mutters. "Do you know how to project Aura Slashes?"
"I'm a quick learner," I mutter.
"I've seen you Aura Strike. It's the same core concept, just projecting your Aura out through the blade, using the narrow edge to focus the energy into a sharper shape."
That's all the time I have, as the twin claws come snapping and force me to blast Aura through my feet in order to launch myself up over the Grimm.
I channel more of my Aura into the blade, focusing it like Arnaut said, before starting to swing the blade and unleash-
"Agh!" I'm batted right out of the air by a vicious sideswipe of the Grimm's tail, which shatters what was left of my Aura and causes me to lose my mental grip on the part I'd been channeling into the sword. I slam into the sandy ground, bounce twice, and then roll for a good five meters before crashing into the far arena wall with a bone-jarring impact.
"Dreki, are you…" Arnaut sounds far more worried than normal, almost as much as when his family was threatened. "Dreki, you must get up."
I let out a hiss of pain and use the sword as a brace to lift myself to my feet, already acutely aware of the bruises I'm going to have in a matter of minutes. Even through the adrenaline, I can't move without pain.
Of course, the Deathstalker doesn't care. It's moving slower now as it approaches, confident that I won't be a threat without any Aura remaining.
I reach into my coat to get a new round- and find nothing. The Dusties cleaned out my ammunition, I realize. I should probably be horrified or scared or pissed, but… I'm just tired.
As the Deathstalker comes into striking range, I take hold of the sword's hilt with both hands and let out a long breath.
Roman, Neo… I'm sorry.
The tail comes down faster than I can react without Aura and stabs, point-first, directly into my chest.
I close my eyes instinctively, yet…
At the moment of impact, I see a flash of gold.
When I open them, the point of the tail has been stopped where it should have ripped open my chest, a flicker of warm golden glow lighting up the area around the point of impact. Holy shit, that's-
"My Aura," Arnaut breathes.
As he says the words, I can feel the wave of energy rush into me, refilling my energy, invigorating my muscles, fortifying my skin. Arnaut's Aura is even stronger than mine.
The Deathstalker screeches and pulls back the tail to strike again, but this time as the pointed tip comes down, I vault directly over it and even use it as a stepping stone in midair to leap all the way over the Grimm and land on the other side.
I immediately turn and take a two-handed grip again, channeling Arnaut's Aura into the blade of his sword as the Deathstalker turns itself around to face me. I put more Aura into the blade than I've ever invested in any attack before, cresting half of Arnaut's entire Aura and continuing forward, faster and faster.
While the loss of two legs might not have hurt its closing speed, the injury slows the Deathstalker's turn enough that by the time it faces me, I've put damn near all of Arnaut's Aura into the sword's blade.
It screams, starts to swipe with a claw-
And I release all of Arnaut's Aura with a roar of defiance and a single swing.
The air in front of me splits open as the golden Aura Slash I've unleashed cleaves forward, right through the Grimm's bone armor like butter, and then explodes against the arena wall with a flash of bright sunlight.
By the time the sand my strike kicked up falls back down to the earth, all that's left of the Deathclaw are a few tiny extremities that rapidly fade away into dust- but that's not all.
The arena wall has been ripped open, and even the chambers beyond the wall have been destroyed- my attack punched through six consecutive metal barriers, leaving behind only twisted and scorched wreckage. The steel walls still glow white with heat at the warped edges of the destruction.
I turn towards the boss's platform, where the man himself is leaning forward and gripping the arms of his throne tightly, and try to reinforce my voice to keep the exhaustion from it: "That… all you got?"
Then I collapse and everything goes dark once more.
When I finally wake, I'm back in the cage, but this time they left me my sword. Arnaut's in a chair opposite to my cage, leaning forward anxiously, and his face lights up when I awaken.
"That was extremely well fought, Dreki."
"Hn." I lean back against the rear cage wall, still exhausted, but note that I not only have my own Aura back, but Arnaut's Aura layered in and around it now.
"Oh, also: I believe I may understand the origin of your mysterious sword skills," Arnaut continues. "If you inherited my soul, Aura, and Semblance, it stands to reason that you might have received some part of my training and muscle memory as well."
"Mhmm." I'd suspected that was the case, but I wasn't sure.
"But back to that last battle! You singlehandedly-"
"Priorities, Arnaut," I manage, mentally preparing for what will likely be an extremely painful ensuing ordeal of trying to break out of the Dusties' capital city. "We need to get out of here."
Arnaut nods, but worry ghosts his features. "Escaping with Kayro seems like-"
"Hold up, who said anything about Kayro?" I raise an eyebrow at him. "Escaping on my own is gonna be hard enough as it is."
"You cannot seriously be thinking about simply leaving Kayro here? It's your fault he's even in this mess to begin with, and you'd leave him to die?"
"Yes."
"Have you no-"
"Dude." I roll my eyes and start to cross my arms before I realize the motion is prohibited by the restrictive handcuffs I'm wearing. "How long is it gonna take for you to realize that I don't give a shit about other people? Kayro volunteered to come out here with me, and he's suffering the natural consequence of that decision."
It takes longer than normal for Arnaut to respond to that. "How can you go through life without any empathy whatsoever? Is there anyone you care about more than yourself?"
"There are two people I allow myself to care about," I reply, feeling uncharacteristically forthcoming at the moment given the very likely possibility of dying at the hands- or claws, or teeth, or whatever- of the Grimm I may be fighting over and over again if I don't manage to get out of here. "And those two are the only two that have proven to me that they're never going to get themselves killed."
"Why would that matter?"
"Do you understand my Semblance?" I gesture towards myself, starting to explain- but then falling silent. I don't feel like going into detail on how the grief makes it difficult to keep the Grimm in check, especially not with him of all people. It's even more than that, though- the people I care about are the sources of the happier memories I use to fight back the Grimm, so if they die, it's a double-edged sword of me not being able to lean back on those memories without being reminded of them. "And that's beyond the obvious of opening my heart to everyone I meet being a good way to get stabbed and left to die in a gutter."
"I was kind to near-everyone I met, and-"
"And look where that got you," I sneer. "Dead from an attack you didn't see coming, all because you were too trusting, while I'm still walking around alive."
"Yet which of us do you think is happier?" Arnaut asks. "If you choose to live a life clouded by-"
He cuts himself off as a newcomer stalks down the hallway- it's the cloaked and hooded Faunus girl. What's her damage?
She comes directly in front of me and looks down towards my sitting form, pausing briefly before finally asking, "Why didn't you use your Grimm Semblance in the arena?"
I'm not sure how to answer. The last time I used my Semblance, it was more difficult to control than I remembered it being, and I didn't want to risk it in the arena… yet, that's not the whole story. "I… didn't want to prove you right," I finally reply.
She tilts her head slightly, and from this angle I note that I can see the faint yellow glow of her eyes even beneath the hood's darkness. There's a long, dragging silence, before she finally sighs in resignation and speaks: "I know that the fighting pits and hunting and slavery-"
"Slavery?" I interrupt.
"-Besides the point. I know that we of the dust can act barbaric, but I also know that we can change for the better. The origin of that arena you fought in was something much closer to your dueling circuit- it was entertainment and glory to create a common point for us to bond around, to keep everyone feeling camaraderie- to keep away the Grimm.
"It's warped now… everything's been warped, by Titus. He's ordered your execution, regardless of the tradition of you being able to fight your way to freedom, but I won't help him to go through with it. Vestus?'
A man strides out from down the hallway, dressed in a black dress coat over a typical white suit and black tie; but all of his clothes are slightly off. They're fashioned like they were made a century ago. His rough, messy hair is a dark reddish color. Half of his face is obscured by a half-circle white Grimm mask with red runic patternings around the edges. However... where there should be two eyes, there's only one large, single eyehole that exudes a red-yellow glow. "Yes, of course, I'll take it from here, darling."
It's the announcer, I realize. He speaks with the same fast-talking salesman pace- if possible, he's even more cheesy now that he's standing here in front of me, yet... there's something off about his voice in person. It resonates inside my skull, and with each word I can just barely make out trace whispers in a language I don't know forming the background. His dialect and inflections are also just slightly off, as if he's come from a century ago.
"This is goodbye," the girl says, "And with any luck, I'll never see you again." She turns and stalks off before I can formulate a reply.
Whatever empty air she leaves behind is immediately filled by the man she brought. "Salutations, greetings, and good day! I am Vestus of the Ancients, but you may call me whatever you'd like!"
"I wonder how he got a nickname like that?" Arnaut muses.
"Oh, no, Ancient is my title, not a nickname!" Vestus replies, turning to directly face where Arnaut's sitting. "And- am I mistaken, or am I facing the Golden Guardian himself! Amazing, such an honor, truly fantastic!"
I open my mouth to speak but close it in resignation to the fact that I genuinely don't have a clue how to respond to this.
"You can see me?"
"With a soul as bright as yours, it'd be hard not to!" Vestus takes a second to bark out a laugh at his own joke, before turning to affix glinting eyes on me. "And you- well, well, you've quite the unique soul as well, eh- or should I say, souls? How many have you got rattling around in there?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Why, your souls, of course! Are you hearing me properly? Hello? Hello…?"
"No, I can hear you," I mutter. "But how can you see Arnaut? Is it your Semblance?"
"Semblance?" Vestus smiles at me blankly.
"You're… do you not know what Semblances are?" Arnaut asks, seeming to drop his guard and sit back down into the chair.
"Semblance… Semblance…" Vestus suddenly jolts from consternation back to a too-wide smile: "Ah, yes! You mean the fragments of magic some of you humans managed to get back!"
"Some of you humans?" Arnaut frowns. "Aren't you a human?"
"I shouldn't think so, no." Vestus turns and swings an arm far faster than I could hope to track with my eyes, cleaving through the metal around the cage door's lock like butter. He opens the door and bows a little, making a 'be my guest' gesture with his other hand.
I step forward and out of the cage, but before I can react his arm flickers again in a dark arc in front of me- by the time I can yelp and hop backwards, the cuffs and collar of my bonds are dropping to the floor, ripped into pieces.
I blink and take a good look at his hands, which are gloved in dark velvet that is somehow spotless despite just being used to tear metal. "How did you…"
"Me, human…" Vestus keeps chuckling. "Oh, the very thought!"
"What are you?" Arnaut asks, back on edge.
"Why, a Grimm!" Vestus smiles and starts to walk down the hallway, leaving me to shrug and follow along behind him, but sharing a quick confused glance with Arnaut first. "Although I suppose I am to your everyday Grimm what you two are to monkeys."
"...What?"
We round the corner to see a few armed Dusties standing there, but again before I can react Vestus has waved an arm in their direction and a dark spike rips out from the wall, impaling both through their chests before crumbling away into dark dust.
"Grimm Ancients... I'd head theories," Arnaut starts as we continue walking, voice half in wonder and half in worry, "Stating how hyperintelligent Grimm could exist. Grimm may start out mindless beasts, but they get stronger and smarter the longer they're alive and the more they feed- on humans, and on other Grimm. Theoretically… theoretically, if a Grimm survived and fed for eons, they'd achieve sentience, and if they lived for longer still... some people claimed that the monsters from our folk tales could just be ancient Grimm that have lived and preyed on us for centuries."
"Quite the intuition! I'd expect no less from the Golden Guardian of Vacuo himself, though. Yes, I've been around for quite a while." Another turn takes us up a flight of stairs, where we run into a group of five Dusties, all of whom barely have time to react before a forest of dark, pointed tendrils streak out of the walls, ceiling, and floor, ripping them to pieces-
I have a fairly high tolerance for bloodshed, but it's so savage that I have to suppress a surge of nausea and look away. The screams last only a few seconds before they're replaced by the wet sound of eviscerated bodies collapsing to the metal floor.
"I've been around for eons, little one. More than you can likely even count. Along the way, I've consumed enough souls and Grimm to fill cities…"
"Then why would you be here? Living among ordinary people?"
We turn and enter a longer corridor, dirty and dusty from disuse, but with real, natural light visible at the far end. "In the spirit of this honesty you humans seem so fond of: I'd begun to lack entertainment of late. The world grew weary and mundane, the politics and squabbling just so... dull. I'd begun to lose faith in humanity's ability to entertain, yet then…
"Then your Great War came to pass. Oh, those were the days! The battles, the bloodshed, the screams, the orphans… but nothing can last, and after the Ash Knight's annihilation of this place, I found myself amongst these backwater savages. They were so very amusing at the start, scuttling about in the wastes, desperate to survive. I'd assumed it couldn't last, that they'd move on as all human societies do, but then…
"Then they surprised me- they never moved past that early savagery! I've not found a more suitable place to inhabit since the early days before the kingdoms themselves were founded! Oh, the death fights, the starvation, the hatred… the slaves. Slaves! I daresay this is the most delightful little civilization you humans have ever dragged out of the mud."
We finally reach the end of the passageway, a ripped-out portion of twisted, sharp, broken metal a good twenty meters above the sandy ground. Vestus turns around to face me, and it's only now, in the light of the moon, that I notice his mouth is far, far wider than it should be. When he smiles, I see his teeth are extremely long, thin, and pointed, interlocking to form a bright-white smile that stretches up past the bottom edge of his mask.
I swallow the small, instinctive urge to flee that comes from a deeper animal part of my mind. "Why help me escape, then?"
His wide, red spotlight eye affix me, and this time when I look into it I see the deeper creature that lurks behind them- see how little it cares about me, about anyone or anything. "Why, the only reason one should do anything: boredom." He gestures around himself at the walls of the city. "Although I may have found a momentary escape from the tedium, it grows stale by the day. I've seen many thousands of years of this… Remnant, and nothing ever remains interesting for long.
"And yet… I've never seen a being like you." His... it's eye flares as it flickers over me. "You've got Grimm and human and Faunus alike all churning about within you, as well as… something else. It almost reminds me of…" It shakes its head. "But no, he's gone. You, on the other hand, you seem promising."
I try to keep the confusion from my face. "What are you talking about? What do you mean I've got humans and Faunus inside me?"
"I mean what I say," Vestus answers with another off-putting grin. "Although most of those poor souls are ravaged, fed to the Grimm aspects. The Golden Guardian seems to be the only one intact, perhaps due to the relic you carry..."
My head spins. "But-"
"You're free to go now." Vestus steps aside and gestures for me to exit.
Arnaut isn't having it. "Stop! We aren't leaving without Kayro!"
"Yes, I am," I hiss back. "I'm not risking my life for him."
I'm met with a genuinely disappointed look that affects me more than I thought it would. "You need to be better, Dreki. Kayro risked his life for you- societies exist, defended by Huntsman and guards from the Grimm, purely because people are willing to risk their lives to defend each other."
I let out a long, shuddering breath. "Look, Arnaut, I was okay helping people fight off minor Grimm, but I just almost died. If I go back in there, I will actually die."
"You don't know that. There's a chance that you rescue him and you both make it out."
"A chance that's too small to take." I turn towards the aperture, setting myself on my course-
But Vestus interrupts one last time with a slow chuckle. "So very interesting."
"What, do you have an opinion on this?" I'm defensive after Arnaut's judgement.
The Grimm simply tilts its head a little bit and keeps on smiling. "Your companion will be freed shortly, as he defeated enough Grimm to earn the respect of these… how you say, Dusties."
"Couldn't you have made that shit clear a little earlier?"
"I was seeking a better grasp of your character, and you did not disappoint." I'm given one final cheshire grin: "All that power and all that resentment? You're going to shake things up, it's inevitable. So go on. Give me a good show, won't you?"
"I…" my head spins, but before I can ask another question, the enigmatic creature simply disappears into a burst of reddish smoke. I look around to see no trace of it left.
Arnaut is silent now, perhaps still put off by how ready I was to abandon Kayro. I don't feel like starting anything with him at the moment, so I take one final look back towards the Dusties' capital and then slide down the angled metal side of the city wall down into the desert night.
(A/N) That's one arc down, out of the five in this volume! I live for feedback and am always looking to improve, so please let me know anything you disagree with or would like to see. Also, anyone who doesn't mind spoilers and is interested in being a beta reader for this story, feel free to shoot me a PM. I have a storyboard for the entire monster of a fic laid out, and I have some ideas that I'd like a chance to run by people.
One more thing I'm going to work towards in this is to make the Grimm actually threatening. Breach basically killed the concept, for me at least, when Coco gunned down three Nevermores in about as many seconds. More recent volumes have made progress with things like the Nuckelavee and the Leviathan, but even still one of those got beaten by a bunch of students and the other one was oneshot by a single melee attack from a mech. Vestus is a teaser for classes of Grimm above Leviathan that'll get increasingly relevant later in the story.
Vestus is inspired by Vesta, the goddess of hearth and home in the Roman pantheon. He's an inversion on the concept- without going into too many spoilers, he, like Vesta, is more of a passive observer of mortal events, loathe to involve himself. Some other similarities will crop up far down the line. Also, in the spirit of honesty, I drew a lot of inspiration for Vestus's speech patterns from the Radio Demon.