Hello everyone! How are you doing? I hope you are all doing fine!
Chapter 154 is here and as always I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you once more for reading the story so far. You are all the best and I can't properly express how grateful I am for your awesomeness.
See you again on the 21st with chapter 155. Until then, be well and have fun!
The heavy wooden doors slammed behind them as they escaped from the malformed building. The smell of ash and dust permeated the stale, overheated sky. Sun trekked and almost fell down a flight of stairs.
"That staircase wasn't-" "Forget about it; let's find shelter quickly!" to his credit, he didn't flinch when Blake nearly pushed him down the old and cracked, ash-covered staircase. "We will sightsee later in safety!"
A surge of power burst from behind them. Jaune turned around- just in time to see Weiss blast the front door with a wave of stone slabs in an attempt to isolate the accursed summoning inside the chapel.
"Don't gawk at me; move!" she skated among a sea of white glyphs and rolled past them, effectively landing on the bottom of the stairs next to Blake before the boys reached down to them in haste. "Where to?"
The cat girl looked around her. A gray sky, filled in massive clouds of hot ash, fiercely hugged the village. The houses were now taller, made of reinforced bricks and stones, resembling more of a gothic town than a settlement in the Vacuan Desert. Gray dust covered every flat surface.
Corpses were scattered around them, dehydrated and partially covered in ash. Was there even a safe place in the village to begin with? A surge of fire erupted from the hall. Weiss' slabs began to turn red from heat.
"Follow me; maybe we can have it lose us in the alleys" she finally said. "Keep your eyes open for any house we can use to hide in" her voice added, as Blake ran towards the nearest road, followed by her friends.
"Since we are now out in the open, why don't we fight it?" Sun asked as they ran after their leader. "Too many unknown variables; we lack info of the current state of the area and didn't have time to prepare for it."
"Jaune is right" the cat girl commented from ahead "our strictly limited resources are way too precious to use here. We have to escape, set a proper plan and take the Grimm on under favorable circumstances."
They made a turn to the left, ducking under an overarching house with an ash-covered garden. Weiss, holding the rear, was the last to jump in and immediately knelt towards them as they walked by a stone fence.
"I don't see it following us" she whispered. "Let's take no chances; we use the fence as cover and pass by the house. Then, we move north and find a smaller one to hide in. Follow me and stay calm" Blake replied.
"We could use the rooftop to try taking a better view of the area" Sun proposed. "It even has a chimney to hide from the Grimm behind" he pointed to the tall building in the middle of the garden.
"That does sound sensible" Blake admitted. "Let's make a round of the garden so we will climb a wall hidden from the town hall" she knelt and started to carefully crawl, leaving a small trail in the gray ash blanket.
Slowly yet steadily, they moved around and, after checking the safety of their surroundings, dashed towards the house, pressing their backs on the outer wall. As stealthy as possible, they moved towards its back.
Or at least they tried to, before Blake gave a startled gasp and signaled them to halt at once. Eyes opening wide and adrenaline rising, Weiss and the boys complied and readied their weapons for possible combat.
The black-haired girl held her breath and pressed her lithe body even harder on the wall, trying to take a slight peek from the corner in order to assess the situation that had scared the life out of her.
A few tense seconds passed before a loud whisper left the cat faunus' lips "I am sorry; false alarm." She motioned her teammates to follow and nimbly moved around the corner, reaching the house's front yard.
A bit confused, the others followed her- and immediately received the reply to their unspoken question. A tall statue made of dark clay and decorated with golden outlines greeted them, partially covered in ash.
It resembled the jackal-faced monstrosity in all its nightmarish might. It had its arms open wide, holding carved human skulls on each of them. Its hooves were made of reinforced metal and painted a fiery red color.
It had its back turned towards them, but as soon as they moved to the front the piercing stare almost petrified their souls. An inscription was carved on the podium below its feet. Weiss knelt to take a better look.
"It's some sort of old language" she took out her notepad and hastily skimmed for Red's decipher codes. "I can only recognize two specific words; 'Gnastaur' and 'Hierophant' in here" she stood up next to Jaune.
"Gnastaur sounds like a name. As for the Hierophant, I have no idea" he commented, sending a quick stare at the two faunus who had already started climbing up the nearby walls. "Could be a piece of reverence."
"I will scribe it down nonetheless" Weiss moved closer to the house, her eyes drifting between her notebook and the gray-covered garden in the middle of which they were currently standing. Jaune just nodded.
"It's good to have your dependable stubbornness back" she remarked. "I just hope I am not bringing us down" he shrugged off her roundabout affection. "You'd never. You would rather die than do such a thing Arc."
"I am still not in full shape" he commented. "That Gnastaur Grimm was strong, but I think I could have resisted being slammed like that if I was in a better condition." "Don't you even, Jaune; I advise against it."
His eyes opened wide in astonishment and he turned to stare at the girl in white. "Did you just call me by my name?" he blinked in confusion. "I am serious here" she pointed at her artificial, mismatched left eye.
"There is no 'I could do better' or 'I am not good enough' when those… things are concerned" Weiss narrowed her eyebrows. "Take an advice from a fool who nearly got us all killed trying to drown in her sorrow."
"I heard it from Ruby" he replied. "That was different, Weiss. You were just lost in your own mind, not to mention Carmel's ability affecting you in your-" "Don't" she cut him off. "If you can find excuses for me, then you can find a few for yourself as well. Don't act like your 17-old self."
The boy tried to reply, but restrained himself. He knew Weiss was right and he actually had no intention of arguing about it. "Thank you; I will try doing that." "No need to be overly polite with me, idiot" she replied.
All of a sudden, Weiss' radio beeped "we are on the roof" Blake's voice, as low and careful as ever, announced through the communication line. In a heartbeat, the petite girl took out her device "what do you see?"
"Well…" a pair of feral yellow eyes scoured the northeast part of what could have been Clayhorn Village once. She pressed her body to the old chimney to make sure she wouldn't be easily spotted.
The village, as she somehow expected since they had stepped out of the haunted town hall, was bigger than what they had seen in their own world. The cat girl felt like she was only now seeing its true form.
Its houses were made of bricks and stones in various dark hues. Tiled rooftops-one of which she was currently standing on- formed a vast sea of clay above the narrow, dark streets paved in black and gray pebbles.
Everything was covered in a massive gray blanket. The cloudy, sunless sky poured down impossible amounts of thick flaky ashes. The air was stale, yet only slightly hotter than what she had been expecting it to.
The most harrowing, mortifying thing however, was not inside the gray village. Rather, it was on its outskirts. Six towering monoliths made of a strange black rock stood beyond the village, partially covered in clouds.
Their surfaces were not flat- her vision could trace jagged edges and a set of weird arrays protruding on every direction. They reminded her of towers, rather than natural monuments. She shivered at the thought.
As for the inside of the fog-covered area, she could barely tell. Outlines and huge shapes of familiar forms were slightly visible behind the mist, but she couldn't be sure it wasn't her mind playing tricks of her.
"It's quite cloudy and, well, the village is covered in ashes. I don't know if it's due to magic or the weather, but I can hardly see further out of the perimeter" she informed her friend. "Also…" Blake hesitated a bit.
"There is one extra monolith, Weiss. They look bigger and less natural than the ones we saw in our side" the cat faunus completed her quick assessment of the situation. She then turned to look at her fiancé.
"Same here" Sun, seated on the other concealed side of the chimney, replied. "Good news is that this Gnastaur thing is nowhere to be seen as far as I can detect" he added, trying to offer a note of optimism.
"That is truly good and quite strange" the cat girl's voice replied. "Why would such a thing not go after us is truly a confusing-" as Blake talked, her eyes opened wide. It took her a split second to jump next to him.
And it took her a single breath to swing Nightfall and deflect the small crossbow bolt she had noticed flying towards her fiancé's neck with a deadly precision. Her movement was so sharp; Sun barely reacted to it.
"Whoever you are, come out now" she commanded. No response came other than two more bolts flying out of the nearby rooftops towards her. This time Sun was on full alert and the couple was able to dodge.
"Someone is sniping at us!" Blake warned Weiss and Jaune. They both raised their weapons- just the moment the manor's door opened and the tall, bulky figure of Robert Ink stepped out with his mace in hand.
He was dressed in long travelling robes in various shades of gray to help conceal his form in his surroundings. Jaune stepped forth to cut him off from the pale girl "we have an enemy here too; not a Grimm though."
Weiss stared at the talisman hanging from his neck. It resembled a bit of Carmel and Cherry's, but was a lot less elaborate, using carvings and runes instead of depicting a Grimm figure. "Cultist" she hissed at him.
"You'd wish, Schnee" he scorned. The way he dragged her name- full of poisonous hate- made Weiss click her tongue. It had been a while since someone had referred to her name in such a hateful, disgusted way.
"I don't know what my family has done to you" she moved closer to the faunus, always staying next to the ever-vigilant Jaune "but this is not the time to talk about it. We-" "I know exactly where we are, human."
Blake parried another shot. She tried to run and jump down where she could both get cover from the unknown sniper and assist Weiss and Jaune, but two bolts were shot at her feet and forced her to retreat.
Sun parried another one with his weapon "they are coming from all sides- how the heck did we get that surrounded without noticing any of them?" he ducked behind the chimney. Blake squeezed next to him.
"Stand still" she instructed him as another two bolts passed by their cover- and immediately curved in an exceptionally unnatural manner, making a quick cut towards the two surprised faunus in hiding.
"Duck!" Blake shouted, rolling on the rooftop while her nimble reflexes did their best to keep her from falling down. Sun jumped up on the chimney. The bolts curved again and found home, rattling their auras.
What the actual heck? Blake managed to keep her body balanced and jumped towards Sun, who had just landed back on the rooftop. Did the bolts actually follow us twice? Is this some sort of tracking magic?
A blast of lightning erupted from below, filling the ash-covered garden in static. Weiss and Jaune had engaged in combat with their enemy, it would seem. A new shot forced her to teleport away- but not escaping the hit. As soon as she materialized back the bolt hit her chest head-on.
"Gah!" She raised Nightfall in a defensive stance, expecting a follow-up barrage. There was none. Strange… an enemy getting hit was always a good and proper chance for a team to shower them in projectiles.
Her eyes narrowed. The bolts were very few- they always came one or two at a time. And the lack of follow-up assaults was weird. Unless… She opened her eyes in astonishment. There is only one attacker!
There was a single enemy assaulting them. From where? And they had the ability to make their arrows hit her even if she used her clones. Was it magic or maybe a semblance? Could be both, for all she knew.
No matter what it was, that unknown assailant had organized a perfect ambush, probably working together with the enemy Weiss and Jaune were facing. Not to mention… she clicked her tongue in anger.
She had to find a way out of this before an even deadlier enemy caught up with them.
-o—
The man's mace sizzled with power as he walked towards them from the open doors. His bulk was impressive to say the least and his stance betrayed both experience and tremendous, wild ferocity.
Even still, Jaune was confused. He was approaching them head-on, his movements full of confidence. He truly seemed a powerful and deadly opponent to face.
But… Jaune wasn't a pushover. He had come a long way from being a useless piece of meat and had faced many almighty opponents, equally terrifying or more. Not to mention the person standing jut behind him.
That guy had recognized Weiss. There was no way he wasn't aware that his friend was a literal moving army, capable of leveling entire squads of average warriors on her own. Still, he moved to meet them unfazed.
"Weiss" he said. "I know" she quickly replied, eyeing the man as they both slowly moved away from him. "Either this man is as ridiculously powerful as Cherry, or this is an exceptionally obvious trap" she replied.
"Cautious against me? I am flattered, humans" he growled. "That may be the first time in my life your species has treated me as an equal" he added. "Hold him in place, Jaune" Weiss requested, lowering her knees.
The knight needed to hear no more. As Weiss' speed glyph roared right beneath him, he raised his shield and slammed it on his opponent. With a powerful push, he repositioned, avoiding the incoming mace attack.
The large weapon crashed on the ground, sizzling with lightning. Jaune thrust forward with Crocea Mors, but his sword skidded on his enemy's flesh, as if he had just grazed a steel armor. The man punched his face.
A body hardening skill? Weiss had already skated behind the large man. His enormous bulk was hiding Jaune from her, but her gravity dust was already clicking in place. She shot forward, filling Myrtenaster in fire.
Robert unleashed his semblance and his body turned into hard, almost impenetrable metal. Weiss swung hard and, as Jaune jumped away to recover from the punch, swarmed the man in a fiery scarlet cloud.
He reached out, barely grazing her leg with his tusks as he fell on the floor. His body was undamaged, but his chest was panting from the powerful blasts. Weiss skated away and landed right next to her friend.
"That was surprisingly easy" she said, still on full alert for any traps "are you all right? That punch seemed bad." Jaune rubbed his jaw "it hurts a bit, but it felt quite desperate. He could have tried something worse."
Robert stood up, panting and gasping. "I didn't expect you to go right for the kill" he clenched his rune-carved talisman, his blood marring the carefully applied runes. Weiss saw the glistering scarlet red dripping…
Suddenly, a very bad feeling overwhelmed the alabaster girl. The image of blood running down the small magical sigils was way too much of a discomfort. She raised her sword- but Robert Ink's words were faster.
"Purge" his voice resonated in the area, filling the garden in magic. A surge of red-black energy pulsed through. Weiss felt a chill run down her spine, a sensation magnified by the sinister smile on the man's face.
"Those talismans are quite the luxury around here, so use them with as much caution as possible" Goldenrod's voice sounded in Robert's mind.
"The runes carved on them will conceal your emotions and presence from most Grimm. In addition, I have inscribed a spell in them; well, in Robert's case it's more of a curse as he requested" the man had said.
He did extremely well, for a human. Weiss and Jaune suddenly felt dizzy and sick. A sensation of mighty heat- an overwhelming, blazing inferno- seared their defenseless skin. The girl tried to conjure a cold glyph-
Only for her to realize she couldn't muster any of her aura at all! Shock evident in her eyes, she stared at Jaune's arms slowly being filled in red burn marks. She tried to swirl and form magical sigils, but to no avail.
"What did you do?" she raised Myrtenaster and Crown, caution slowly being replaced for dread. Robert took one small step forward, his own body being charred as well, albeit in a considerably slower rate.
"The Warrior Princess of RWBY; Weiss Schnee. A person blessed by luck with one of the strongest semblances in Remnant History" Robert addressed her, before turning to the blonde boy trying to stand up.
"Jaune Arc; JNpR's ace in the hole. A man whose semblance can boost any huntsman or huntress to perform in inhuman levels" he exclaimed.
"Dealing with your abilities together is an extremely dangerous task, so I had to prevent you from using them" he grabbed his talisman. "You were right to expect of me laying a trap- yet didn't manage to avoid it."
"Magical sealing runes" Weiss whispered beneath her pain. "You- you cursed us!" she gasped both in pain and terror. "Excellent deduction, if only a bit too late" he raised his mace and charged it in lightning.
"Oh no you are not!" having heard the entire exchange from his hiding point, Sun used his tail to hang from the roof and unleash a suppressing bullet curtain on his enemy, forcing them to retreat away from them.
In immediate response, a couple arrows cut through the air. The boy's weapons swung and crashed both projectiles; something that wasn't missed by Blake who still tried to figure out their enemy's hiding point.
"Damn it, Stella!" the warthog faunus roared in anger "what are you doing? You were supposed to pin them down!" He stared at Weiss, trying to help Jaune on his feet, glaring back at him in silent anger.
"Thanks for giving away my name, Rob…" the voice was girly, almost childish, and had a husky, low-keyed undertone. It echoed around the open garden and gray-covered alleys, like it was carried by the wind.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Princess of Menagerie" she immediately changed her tone. "Unfortunately, we never had the chance to meet, but you are not missing anyone important, trust me on that, heehee…"
A pair of arrows went for the rooftop-pinned couple. Blake gripped her katana and lowered her stance, pressing the button to unfurl the blade. The falcon sword reached out and smashed both bolts in relative ease.
She whirled it, throwing in and out cuts that cut down another two of the attacks, aimed for Sun. "Your semblance is to infuse arrows with a designation point, forcing them to target said point upon their release, no matter what obstacles may lurk or even if the target moves."
Two more attacks were aimed for Sun. The boy, following her example, smashed them down. "But, as Sun did before, if someone strikes at the projectile itself your infusion breaks and the ability is lost" Blake added.
"You…" "Ex White Fang member Stella Taupe… I was an idiot to not see it at once. And I assume the one roaring from below is Robert Ink, am I right?" she called out to both of them hoping to attract the bulky man's attention of Weiss and Jaune. "You have truly fallen, both of you."
"You are in no position to preach, traitor!" surprisingly, her provocation worked. Confusing even Weiss, the man stopped trying to advance on them and turned his face upwards shouting at Blake. Now if she could…
The ground shook violently. The sky trembled and throbbed in fury. In her weakened state, Weiss could feel the air itself attacking her skin. A gasp of pain left Jaune's lips as he stared at her with a bleeding jaw.
A large shadow covered the sky. A primordial figure, cast by an alien body without the presence of sun. A harrowing cry pierced their ears, offering its prayers to the accursed heaven reigning over this land.
Blake looked up- and her breath was caught up in her throat. She had no chance to avoid the upcoming onslaught and could barely scream in terror as the entire manor exploded, the force of the blast mysteriously ignoring the ebon statue that remained to observe the mortals' demise.