Hello everyone! How are you doing? I hope you are all fine!
Chapter 66 is here. As always, I hope you enjoy it!
"TAKE THIS!" Yang's right hook sent the burning Beowolf's head flying, its body evaporating into a burst of green fire. Like it had happened the previous six times, though, the flames showered her body and arms.
"Gah! This really hurts!" she complained, raising her arms to prevent the greenish sparks form hurting her eyes. "I told you already!" Weiss' voice reprimanded her "jump away after you land a hit!"
"Yeah, got it; sorry!" Yang turned around to check on her girlfriend at the exact moment Weiss skewered a flaming Grimm with Myrtenaster. Her aim was off, however, allowing the Grimm to open its jaws at her.
Instinctively, Yang shot a missile at it open mouth while the petite girl kicked its stomach, using it as a foothold to flip away as the projectile annihilated it in a powerful explosion of red and green flames.
The ex-heiress landed at her lover's back, her face a mixture of relief and annoyance; a combination only Weiss Schnee could ever manage achieve with such perfection. "Thanks" she said.
"No problem" Yang replied, lilac eyes moving to the other two RWBY members. Having a natural affinity in terms of hit and run tactics, Blake and her sister had moved forward, cleaning the path to the tunnel while bursting back and forth away from the Grimm death blasts.
Meanwhile, she and Weiss were slowly advancing from behind, both keeping distance to avoid getting blown up and keeping an eye in case the Morkvind decided to stop summoning and actively pursue them.
Up until now, that seemed unlikely- something all four of them were extremely pleased with. Those endless Beowolves made of unholy fire and deep shadows were quite threatening on their own to begin with.
"RUBY! FOUR!" she screamed, as she saw a looming red-eyed shadow prowl from a building's cover and charge her sister's undefended back, its dark and formless body providing enough cover to avoid getting-
Blake's falcon blade severed its legs, turning it back to the amorphous shadow it had been created from. To provide cover for her friend, Ruby swung with Thorn, parrying a series of fiery claws attacking her.
"Move!" On Ruby's command, Weiss created a path of platforms and both of them started to jump around, avoiding as much as possible the pouncing beasts or even repelling them in the cases her aim faltered.
The couple managed to reach the safety circle their friends had created, immediately turning their gaze to the back; the stag-headed terror still stood, focused on the conjuration of its servants.
"This is some luck" the cyan-eyed girl commented, furiously stabbing the closest enemy and allowing Yang to kick it away before it could burst and hit her. "Sounds really fishy, doesn't it?" Blake commented.
"Nothing we can do about that! Now, move to our 3!" Ruby interjected, having fully assumed her 'team leader' mannerism. "Why are we going back to the village?" Yang asked her sister, as they ran after her.
"We are not going to last a lot like this" she explained, leading the way. "Weiss, did you save the earth dust like I asked you?" Her partner sent Ruby a glare, the 'are you even serious, you dolt?' evident in her eyes.
"Yeah, sorry" she giggled. "So, this is the plan; we are luring them all in the central street. After they reach us, we make a full turn and use the rooftops to outrun them to the exit."
"That sounds reasonable" the blonde agreed. "Wave incoming!" Blake screamed, pointing towards a small pack of green Beowolves running towards them from the temple.
"Leave it to us!" both sisters ran forward. Yang started the attack by sending a pair of missiles that disoriented their enemies who tried their best to avoid the lethal blast.
But that let them open for Ruby. Thorn was not as powerful as Crescent Rose, but it was really durable and significantly lighter, making it quite easy to use in combination with her semblance.
Five bursts from the brunette, accompanied by quick yet not so precise slashes, were enough to destroy most of the monsters, her sister going in to deliver the finishing blows to the few who survived her attack.
Blake and Weiss reached them soon after, spending no more than a few seconds to dispatch a pair shadow Grimm that tried to ambush the Rose-Xiao Long pair.
They reached the main street and stopped to catch their breath while anticipating their enemies to catch up to them. The flames were still going wild, showering them in their wicked, unworldly light.
"As soon as they arrive, we jump on that rooftop and we start fighting until most of them reach us" Ruby told them. "We fight and try to keep open a path over the roofs, right?" Weiss asked her.
"Exactly" she wiped her forehead with her glove. "This is our only and best chance, before it realizes we are willing to leave this place. So, let's give it all we have."
Three determined nods was the only thing her friends managed to give her before the flames roared again and the walls started animating the next horde of shadows.
"Here they come!" Blake announced. "Let's go team!" Ruby swapped Thorn for Crescent Rose, her baby feeling as powerful in her arms as ever.
The next wave was as numerous and as ferocious as before. Dozens of blazing wolves sprung out from the flickering flames, running down the mausoleum's staircase in pursuit of their prey.
Meanwhile, shadows animated from both the walls of the cave and the houses around them, making the huntresses clench their teeth as they melded into the surrounding darkness, waiting for a chance to attack.
Yang took once more a boxing stance, legs and arms closer to her body than the usual form. Weiss grabbed Myrtenaster and checked her half empty canister. She would have to make good use of it.
Blake took a few deep breaths; she was doing great, if she wanted to be honest. All of her usual horrible illusions were so fleeting, they barely affected her now. Her glove-covered hand gripped Nightfall hard.
Ruby carefully walked to the back- she had to make sure no large wolf shadow would flank them as her friends kept the flaming ones at bay.
The horde advanced swiftly, as well as any other animated Grimm. They ran towards the central road, flanking team RWBY from all sides. Their numbers were so great they looked like a burning wave of green death-
"Show them what we are made of" Ruby's voice was flat, emotionless and barely audible above the sizzling of the flames and the stomping of countless paws.
Three nods were the only answer before team RWBY sprang into action against the enemies' frontline.
Yang was first. She used Ember Celica to jump at the enemy lines that were coming from the temple, gaining enough momentum to unleash a flurry of powerful punches and kicks.
One after the other, wolves fell down, the blonde moving constantly in order to avoid the brunt of their death throes but still letting a bit of the flames sting her in order to power up her semblance.
Weiss had to take care of the left side. As soon as Beowolves appeared, she spun her fingers and let her semblance do what she apparently was currently lacking; fight in close quarters.
A series of large white glyphs appeared on the ground. From them, one after the other, a small army of human-sized Arma Gigas jumped and quickly readied their swords in order to intercept the advancing pack.
Immediately, two large shadows jumped towards her unprotected back in order to- Ruby decapitated both of the shadow Grimm with a swift cut from her weapon, running back to her vantage point at once.
Completely undeterred, her partner commanded the white knights to run forward and they complied, immediately engaging the Grimm. The large white swords swung, quite dexterously repelling the green wave.
The Grimm were found under attack from a surprisingly stalwart force and, under the pale girl's expert orders, started getting repelled.
On the right side, Blake was faring equally well. Determined to keep as much energy as possible for later, she utilized her wits and reflexes to dance around the adversaries, her katana easily slicing through them.
Ruby shot a couple more shadows and then spun back to position. She let her eyes trail over the scene. Weiss, Blake and Yang seemed to be faring well- exceptionally well, come to think of it.
Not only we are holding them back; we are also lowering their numbers. Something is off the brunette thought. It is way too easy. Wait; there are no more wolves getting animated?
"IT'S COMING!" Weiss; scream sounded as soon as Ruby's mind made the connection. It would seem her partner had realized the same thing as her. "TIME TO GO!" Ruby shouted at her team.
Weiss commanded her knights to stall the wolves as much as possible. Then, she jumped backwards and created a platform mid-air. "Blake! Yang!" she screamed, waiting for her friends to join her.
The bumblebee pair wasted no time. Yang used Ember Celica to shoot at an enemy and let the force of the impact carry her away, flipping in midair to land next to her lover.
Blake simply blinked besides them. As soon as she landed, Weiss propelled them upwards and they soon found themselves next to Ruby, on top of a roof next to the street they had been fighting so far in.
Beneath them, the blazing and shadow wolves swarmed, filling the roads beneath them. Weiss' knights were finally overwhelmed, the girl losing sight of them under the massive horde.
The Morkvind wasn't yet to be seen, however. "Move!" they all sprang in action, jumping to the next rooftop. They landed quite easily, rolled forward and then jumped up to not lose momentum.
From behind, a living mass of teeth, sickening flames and flickering shadows followed. Hisses, crackles and roars filled their ears as they jumped to the next roof, only sparing a few glances to their back.
"They are not catching up to us easily" Blake commented while they landed on the next one. "Thank Dust! I would appreciate a little luck in this case!" Yang shouted.
The situation was intense, but they managed to outrun their enemies, crossing the entire village from rooftop to rooftop and finally jumping down to the ground in front of the tunnel entrance.
"Here we are!" Ruby said. "Let's go-" a sudden gust of wicked wind cut her off, making all of them shiver in anticipation. They already knew what this wind carried along with it.
The monster appeared before them, its mighty posture and loud howls being amplified by the howls and screams of the massive Grimm wave from behind them.
However, among the loud bays and horrid cackling sounds, Blake's ears perked on top of her head. They had caught something different; a faint sound, like... what?
"MISSILE!" Blake screamed. Both trusting the cat faunus completely and trained well enough to react in time, all members of team RWBY jumped to the left, away from the incoming blast.
The Morkvind, displaying immense instinct, fell on all four legs and avoided the projectile that passed above its massive body and hit the Grimm wave head on.
The explosion instantly evaporated all advancing monsters, scattering fire, debris and miasmatic smoke all over the place. Team RWBY stared at the smoke rising up from the crater in visible confusion.
"How could you miss something that big?" a determined female voice echoed from the tunnel. Somehow, it sounded familiar to most of the huntresses.
"Finally" Ruby said, staring at the source of the voice, as one by one armed huntresses burst into the cave, guns held towards the Morkvind. Among them, two teams of AK-200s were visible, guns ready to shoot.
Behind them, dressed in winter expedition outfits, Robyn Hill and May Merigold stepped in, accompanied by the most unexpected people; Elm Ederne and Marrow Amin, dressed in high-ranking military uniforms.
The two Ace Ops' members moved forward; they looked exactly as they did the last time team RWBY had crossed paths with them. Marrow's eyes narrowed in skepticism, as Elm groaned very audibly.
"Since when do Grimm sense artillery fire like this?" she complained. "I think you just missed" Marrow replied. "No time to talk!" Robyn strode ahead, her weapon armed.
"Surround the Grimm and secure team RWBY's path!" the councilor's voice commanded towards both the huntresses and the Atlas' forces. "Create a perimeter-" "NO! STAY AWAY FROM IT!"
Ruby's voice came a little too late. The stag-headed terror rose, its form towering over Atlesians and Mantleans alike. Dark orbs pulsed, sinister hatred oozing from its very pore.
A dark pulse filled the room, the entire cavern shaking. Houses cracked, rocks got smashed and flames grew as the summoned Grim vanished as if a violent breeze had just scattered them away.
"What…" May whispered in awe "… is this thing?" Vines burst out from the ground, this time aiming for the unexpected intruders that had dared disrupt the King's feast.
Elm swung hard, smashing all incoming attacks with Marrow's help, both of them angrily seeing the AKs getting annihilated by the sudden massive attack.
"Help them!" at their leader's command, team RWBY sprang in action, running by the deadly appendages towards their comrades.
Blake and Ruby used their semblances, carrying as many huntresses as they could away from the eruption. Yang rushed to help May and Weiss ran towards Robyn.
"Councilor! We must get out of here!" she created a shield in front of her, allowing Robyn's weapon to strike down anything that tried burst through it. "Not without the others!" she replied.
"Yang!" the alabaster girl turned around to see if she could help her- and felt her heart stop.
The blonde woman had, without telling them, used the last of her fire dust to pierce her shoulder, activating her dust-powered semblance boost, protecting herself and Merigold with explosive punches.
But at the moment Weiss' cyan eye fell on the woman she loved, her aura gave off, allowing a large vine to pierce her leg, throwing her to the ground with an audible scream.
Time seemed to stop. No. Ruby and Blake were on the other side; they couldn't see or hear them behind the murderous forest. No. And Yang was being drawn away, possibly to be torn apart by the monster.
No.
Yang would die.
No.
She couldn't save her- she was out of dust and almost out of aura to use her glyphs.
No.
She was going to lose the girl she loved; she would watch her getting eaten alive, hoping for a-
I SAID NO!
The cavern shook. The vines trembled, releasing Yang who stood up and started running, clenching her teeth in pain. The Morkvind turned around, as it felt its magic being sapped by an unknown source.
"LEAVE YANG ALONE!" fed up with everything that happened in that accursed land since the damned moment they had stepped into Sophia Carmel's party, Weiss roared with all her might.
The cavern was lit in a bright white light, as the runes carved on the walls and the monoliths seemed to be pulsing. The air resonated with her will, forming a colossal glyph on the ground beneath them.
A series of hisses broke the tension, as nine large reptilian heads burst out from it. They were followed by long, serpentine necks that ended in a massive, four-legged body. Each head was covered in horned plating.
The beast, definitely Grimm in origin save for the bluish-white color it had, roared with nine ferocious mouths and stood heads to head facing the Morkvind whose attention was now totally focused on it.
"DESTROY IT!" Weiss was delirious. She was really pushing herself over the edge here- summoning the Hydra was an immensely taxing task for her and her current state was far from suitable.
However, at this point she simply didn't care. She had stopped caring the very moment she heard Yang scream in pain. Her diminishing aura; her mental fortitude; her very existence had only one single purpose- annihilate the monster and take her loved ones back home with her.
And the strongest summon she had in her arsenal was there to make her wish come true. It drew its heads back- and lashed out at the stag headed terror, giving it a series of powerful, bone-cutting bites.
'OOOOOO!' the towering terror howled in agony. The vines retreated from the humans' and faunus' side and shot at the Hydra, entangling its massive body.
That didn't even stop the nine-headed Grimm from attacking again. The stag used its horns to skewer one of the mouths, while two more heads were fiercely grabbed by the clawed arms.
The other six, however, bit Morvind's neck, torso and legs. Instead of trying to cut off pieces, however, they started moving left and right in an attempt to tear its body to shreds by force.
"We have to go while it is occupied!" Marrow shouted, earning a silent approval from all inside the cave. "May! Lead everyone outside!" Robyn commanded.
"Yang you fool!" Blake jumped right next to her partner. "Get Weiss!" she simply replied while running towards her delirious girlfriend, tears running down her eyes and blood down her shoulder and foot.
"The dust is still hurting you!" "JUST GET WEISS OUT! I CAN WALK ON MY OWN!" she screamed at the cat girl. "There is no need for tha-" a blast of energy cut her off.
The pair stared back in horror, seeing that the Hydra had finally found a way to tear the Morkvind in pieces. But, unlike what they hoped and exactly like they feared, it didn't vanish.
Instead, they all stifled a gasp as thick, black ooze started running down from the pieces of torn flesh and bone, instantly closing the openings with a disgusting liquid sound.
It was that moment all of RWBY finally felt the same powerful and alien energy they had sensed back in Yugure after Nyctos had decided to take them seriously. A vast, horrible miasma bent on destroying all life.
The pair felt their breath leave their body. That was truly it- a successor to the Eldergrimm Alginos. They had pushed it to its limits and had only managed to hasten its awakening.
Without even breaking a sweat, the Morkvind swung its claws, instantly taking down half of the Hydra's heads, forcing the massive Grimm to vanish in a burst of light, as its slayer let out a wild, primordial roar.
Weiss let out a pained scream that made Yang's heart nearly burst out of her chest, before losing her senses and falling right in Ruby's waiting arms.
The silver-eyed huntress waited for a couple seconds as Robyn Hill, Elm, Marrow and the bumblebee pair ran past her into the tunnel.
Sparing one last glance at the hulking terror who seemed too absorbed into its awakening to notice them, she grabbed the earth dust vial from Weiss' belt and tossed it behind her as she followed her comrades.
-o—
The sounds of footsteps, accompanied by panting, gasping and running echoed in the hastily sealed tunnel. For the 6th time after the mad dash had started, Robyn picked up her radio.
"Blow up sector 4! And standby for sectors 3 and 2 as well!" she close the radio and almost immediately, the sound of a well-controlled dust explosion reached them, accompanied by a gust of heated wind.
"I would normally say that nine series of well-planned cave-ins would be able to keep it inside, but after what I saw, I doubt it" Elm, carrying Yang in her arms, exclaimed.
"This is the nature of those things" Ruby, still refusing to let anyone else carry her partner, replied. "They far surpass everything I have ever seen or heard about normal Grimm."
"We are getting closer to the exit where the others are waiting" Robyn said. "We are leaving this place as soon as we find them" Blake added.
"And get some treatment for Weiss" Yang followed through. "Funny thing for someone with a hole in her leg to say" Marrow commented.
"I didn't ask for your opinion, furry-tail" she spat back. "Shut up both or I will drop you on his head!" Elm shouted, earning a couple of angry glares from them.
"Spare the comedy and pick up the pace for Dust's sake!" Robyn picked her radio after scolding them. "We are reaching the exit- prepare to leave at once and blow up sectors 3 and 2!"
-o—
It felt like waking up from a nightmare. That was exactly what Yang felt as she looked towards the now-sealed tunnel entrance through the car's window.
Weiss was soundly asleep in her lap. The medics had given her a quick check-up and assured them she wasn't in danger as the eleven-vehicle convoy assembled by Ms. Hill was driving fast away from Gloomharrow.
Blake, Albus and Alex were sleeping peacefully opposite of her, next to Ilia's stretcher. She heard a soft moaning sound coming from her right where Ruby was sitting, her head placed at the blonde's shoulder.
"It feels almost like a lie; leaving this place alive" she whispered to her sister in order to not wake up anyone else. "I know; I can't count how many times I felt like we would die in there" the low-voiced reply came.
"Well, in the end we survived and that's what matters; thanks to you and those two, Rubes" she pointed at Albus and Alex's forms. "Thanks to everyone, Yang" the brunette protested.
They remained silent for a few moments before Yang spoke again "so, what now? Do we continue searching?" Ruby blinked twice and then replied. "We will discuss it - but for now I just want to sleep please."
Yang smiled, feeling the exhaustion and the medication catching up to her. She placed her head next to her sister's, making both of them smile
"Dead Wind Whispers in the trees…
But runs away when it sees…
Four girls with hearts of gold…
Huntresses powerful and bold…
Let it-"
"Yang please stop; you are going to make me see nightmares in my sleep" Ruby protested. "I will chase away all of them, don't worry." "My nightmares are going to be you singing creepy Atlasian poems."
"You have grown way too witty Rubes" she faked dissatisfaction. "Well, my sister is to blame. And my partner and my reading buddy" Ruby replied.
"Now let me sleep" she yawned "and forget the image I saw just before the dust sealed the tunnel from behind me." Yang rubbed both her head and Weiss', choosing not to ask her what that image was.
Ruby closed her eyes, hoping she wouldn't dream of a tall, Stag-headed monster howling under the miasmatic shadows of the sealed cave, as its skin slowly melt into bubbling goo, pulsing with wicked power and unearthly malice, remnant of the vengeful gods of a bygone era.
This concludes the main part of Gloomharrow arc. A three-part epilogue shall follow and then we shall proceed to the third arc of the main story.
As I asked in Grimmwater, I would very much appreciate any sort of comments about the good and bad parts of it and I would also like to ask whether you thought it was better or worse than the previous arc.
Thanks as always for following/favoring/ simply reading the story. I will see you all next week!