Disclaimer: I hereby declare that Roosterteeth studios RWBY production crew may freely use any ideas, characters, or events written in this story free of charge and without any threat of lawsuit for any production, though it would be preferable to inform me of the use of the idea if used.

Temple of the Spirit Dragon ch 8

With a flowing fluid movement, Lan stepped to the side to dodge the blade while placing his hands above and below Vert's elbow joint. He then applied pressure while placing his foot in front of Vert's, and flipped her. Carried forwards by her own momentum, she sailed spinning through the air before slamming into the wall above the stairwell entrance and falling onto her back.

"Yeesh, I missed, meant to throw you down the stairs" said Lan, who turned to face her while shaking out his hands as she got up. "But it's nice to see that you still have a lot of your old habits."

Lan had mostly fought Grimm his whole life, however in all those situations his usual tactics involved setting traps, using explosives, confusing his opponent's senses, and delivering precision strikes to fatal areas when the situation arrived. However these situations usually required him to make use of specialized equipment that he often made himself.

He was strong for his age, but without a sufficient element of surprise or use of disorienting tactics, he would be unable to take out large groups of Grimm barehanded. Ironically, hand-to-hand combat was one of the basics of his training with Byakko, whose painful sparring sessions always rooted themselves deeply into Lan's being. As a result of this, Lan had begun developing 2 separate fighting styles. The 1st was anti-Grimm warfare where he would use the large array of tools he had developed and adapt it to any kind of strange creature he came across, usually using something of a guerrilla warfare tactic. The 2nd was anti-personnel combat where he would mainly make use of the martial arts skills he had developed. If the two were compared in effectiveness, then Lan was much better at fighting human opponent's than Grimm, since he had difficulty damaging Grimm that were too large or durable. On the other hand, the weak points for humans and Faunus were almost always the same, so he had learned to better capitalize on them

However, after his long stay in the temple, the unconscious line that he had established between his 2 styles had begun to blur as he began to incorporate more spirit arts and other esoteric techniques into his repertoire.

"If you just charge in like that, you're just begging be countered." Said Lan, as he threw more throwing knives behind him to disperse more shadowy strands that were reaching towards souls. "Now, I'd really like to advise you to stay down while I destroy this giant shadow monster" said Lan as he threw several explosives over his shoulder at the Dream Eater's weakened floating form "But knowing you, you're probably going to—"

Vert screamed then charged Lan once more, this time lowering her center of gravity and tightening up her form to make herself harder to throw.

"Better" said Lan, as three different explosions triggered behind him. He then grabbed her wrist as she got close, pulled her forward while he lowered his own body, and rammed his elbow into her throat area.

"Agh!" said Lan who stumbled back while holding his elbow as Vert fell to the ground clutching at her throat, which had a large dent in the armor there, while coughing "Funny bone…Well I guess that happens pretty often whenever I use that counter, still haven't mastered it. Anyways, you just stay down there for now while I destroy this thing" said Lan, who chucked more explosives at the dark sphere. "Aw man, those…those dream explosives of mine really aren't doing anything are they?" Said Lan as he watched more dark tendrils begin to rise out of the dark sphere above.

"Let's try this instead" he ducked and did a sweeping kick behind himself to knock Vert, who had just gotten back up, off her feet and then leapt into the air. He spread out his energy and melded it with the dreamscape around him, channeled his aura and spiritual energy into his fist, and threw a punch at the dark sphere. The blow visibly affected the dark sphere, causing it to deform slightly as the shockwaves traveled across its surface. An audible groan then filled the room as Lan landed back on the floor. The sphere had withdrawn its tendrils and shrunk in size.

"Okay, that worked" said Lan, who backhanded Vert in the face "Ok, let's cont—"

The sphere hummed slightly, then all of the sudden the room grew completely dark, save for the souls which floated around the room. Surprised that he could no longer see his enemies, even with his night vision goggles, Lan relaxed his body and expanded his other senses as best he could. A tingle went down his spine, and he shifted backwards. A moment later something metallic clanged against the ground in front of him where he had been standing. He then threw a quick kick, which collided with something.

"Feels like a face, good" said Lan, who fist pumped.

"Argh, how?!" shouted Vert from the darkness. "You shouldn't be able to see!"

"Yeah I can't." said Lan "But I could hear your breathing and movements, not to mention you are just oozing intent to do me harm. But man, have you really been training? I mean you haven't even merged your energy with the environment yet. If you aren't able to perform the basics, I'm starting to think becoming one of Gruncle Meng's personal disciples is a bit beyond you."

Lan paused for a moment, his hand on his chin the moment he finished saying the words. "Ok that was a bit mean for me" he thought.

"…you did not just say that" came an angry voice from the darkness "fine, you want energy merging. You get it."

Lan suddenly felt the darkness twist around him, being stripped away and revealing the stone architecture of the tower again as it was all funneled towards a single point. Vert had had taken a meditative stance, and the shadows were funneling into the gaps in her armor. She slowly began growing in size, soon becoming over 10 feet tall.

"Me and my big mouth" mumbled Lan, who reached into his pocket, and threw menageries of explosives and throwing knives at her. The projectiles exploded and stabbed into her, but she still maintained her concentration. Aided by her increasing size and durability she increased in size until her head nearly reached the ceiling. Her armor had also grown thicker and more bulky, with spikes growing out in some places. Vert let out a sigh, then held up and looked at one of her own hands, twisting it back and forth.

"The master's power is everywhere in this place" said Vert, who Lan was certain was smiling behind her helmet "I've merged my energy with that, what do you think?"

"…Well shit" said Lan, who flipped the switch in his brain to transfer to his anti-Grimm tactics. "I guess I know why the Dream Eater had you guard it."

"That's because I still had my reason and sense of self after receiving its power" said Vert, who hefted her blade hand "As for the spiritual energy melding…the other two can also do it. Just not as good as me, and they're too unstable to use it unless they feel really pressured."

Lan felt his stomach sink as he realized that he had left his friends alone with ticking time bombs.

Back to Jaune

"Now Sir Arc, go for the throat!" shouted Veritas, who was behind Cyan and holding both ends of a large crystal chain that was in Cyan's lupine mouth, restraining the beast and preventing it from closing its jaws.

"RAAAAAGHHHHH!" screamed Jaune who rushed forwards and thrusted the tip of his blade into the wolf beast's neck. The beast howled in pain as Jaune put both his hands on the sword and began to push it in deeper as blood began to splatter on him.

"That's it!" shouted Veritas "Just a few more inches and—"

He stopped as he saw Jaune pull away and collapse while spitting blood.

"Boy!" shouted the spirit who yanked the beast away from Jaune, and flew down to his side. "Speak to me child! Are your insides harmed?!"

"Fine, Fine" said Jaune, who wiped his mouth "I just choked on the blood that was spurting out of it. I really should have kept my mouth closed, not yelled a battle cry."

Veritas sighed, then helped Jaune back to his feet.

"Be more careful child, you had me worried."

"Yeah, sorry. Now c'mon let's go kick it's…Hey is the room getting brighter or is it just me?" said Jaune.

It wasn't just Jaune, the two of them looked around as the deep darkness that surrounded them peeled away, to reveal the furnishings that would have normally been visible in regular lighting. The shadows were all being pulled towards Cyan, who stared at them with glowing eyes that darted all over the room, mad with rage and pain. The shadows wrapped around him, turning into a kind of writhing shadowy fur that increased his size but at the same time made him seem more agile and ghostly as greenish-blue light poured out of his eyes.

"Uh, that's bad right" said Jaune, whose eyes had widened in alarm.

"Yes" said Veritas, who put himself between Jaune and the shadow creature "Yes it is"

The creature then charged forwards at them, it's body seeming to twist in several different directions at once .

Back to Ruby

Ruby slid the barrel of crescent rose between the legs of a stone statue, Taodse's angry shaking form in her sights. Ruby had slowly but steadily whittled her down bit by bit, taking elemental shots at vulnerable parts of her body and then quickly hiding again. The worst of the attacks had been focused on Taode's roots, which were currently randomly frozen and burned in many placed.

Ruby quietly loaded a gravity cartridge, then centered her crosshairs on a pink flower on Taodse's chest.

"This sniper of the heart won't be missing the flower" said Ruby, who pulled the trigger. The shot rocketed out and struck Taodse square in the chest. With a load crack, the roots that were holding her up snapped, and she fell to the ground.

"Awww, Yeah!" shouted Ruby, who punched the air. She then replaced her empty cartridge with a fire one and prepared to torch Taodse's downed body. But as she brought the sight up to her eye, she paused as she noticed the room brightening up. She looked up smiling, thinking Lan had defeated the Dream Eater, but the top of the tower was still shrouded in darkness. When she looked back down, she saw the shadows around the room traveling along the ground and merging with Taodse, who was staring at the young girl with eyes filled with hatred. Ruby quickly ducked back behind cover and moved to a new sniping position, where she put another bead on Taodse. However, by that time, the shadows had already merged with her roots, changing them to the color of charcoal and rooting her back into the ground. She had also gained a gown that looked like a black peach blossom. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing heavily, so Ruby decided to take the shot. A fiery bolt shot forth from her weapon, speeding towards Taodse's head.

Just as it was about to reach her, several black roots quickly erupted from the ground and wrapped the shot while still in midair. A small explosion was heard through the bundle of vines and a moment later when they unwrapped a cloud of smoke rose into the air. Taodse opened her eyes, which had turned red, and stared in the direction the shot came from. Ruby squeaked in surprise, then hopped down and ran towards another a patch of cover. Good thing too, because a moment later, a torrent of dark vines overran the area where she had just been. Ruby looked in alarm as the roots tore through stone walls, sculptures, and everything else she had been using for cover in that area before embedding themselves in the side of the castle wall. She waited for them to retract as they had done earlier, but instead saw that they were slowing growing and spreading out from the points of impact as if searching for something. Alarmed, Ruby lined up and fired another shot, but the result was a similar situation to what happened previously.

"Oh this is not good" said Ruby, who was breathing heavily and hidden behind new cover while clutching Crescent Rose to her chest "Not good at all."

Back to Lan

Lan dodged out of the way of Vert's downwards swing and threw some throwing knives into the gaps in her armor. He heard the sound of something being punctured, but Vert merely laughed and brought her blade down for another swing.

"Running low on ammo, and I can't afford to use any aura and spiritual energy to make more" thought Lan, as he darted out of the way "Need to think of something."

Lan detonated a smoke bomb, and used the cover to hide behind a pillar and catch his breath.

"Gotta finish this fast, not sure how much longer Ruby and Jaune can last" he thought. He let out a deep breath, then began going over what he had observed during his fight thus far.

"The armor seems to be both very heavy and very durable since none of my explosives seem to have damaged it, or even caused Vert to stagger." He thought quickly "It is made from a glassy metallic substance that seems to be part pure shadow, looks a lot like the Dream Eater's sphere…!"

The sphere housing the Dream Eater only really reacted to his essence strike, weapons made from dreamscape spiritual manifestation, even when focused on his dreams of being a hero, seemed to only damage any wispy energy that extended from it.

"Comes to reason that the armor may be the same" he thought. "But do I really have enough Aura to—"

"GET OUT HERE LAN" yelled Vert "IF YOU INSIST ON PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK, I THINK I'LL WAKE THE MASTER SO HE CAN EAT WHILE WE PLAY!"

Lan let out an annoyed sigh, then dove out of cover. Spotting him, Vert bounded over and began to stomp all over, trying to crush him. Diving through her legs, Lan got behind her and went for her left foot while her right foot was still raised in the air. He delivered an essence blow to its armored Achilles tendon. Large cracks shining with the same colored light as Lan's aura appeared in the armor, spreading out from the point of impact.

"Yes" thought Lan as he began to back off and get some more distance "This might wo—"

It was then that he noticed something huge approaching from his right, and managed to put up his guard right in time for Vert's right foot to send him flying.

He crashed into a pillar and fell to the ground as his night vision fell to the ground, broken, and his vision blurred. He laid there, dazed for a moment, but then Jaune and Ruby's faces popped into his head. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself back up and tried to get his bearings. He felt the ground shaking and looked up to see Vert almost upon him. He tried to move out of the way, but dropped to one knee. He had sustained so much damage such that his Aura, which was already taxed from the dreamscape manifestations he had made earlier, was no longer able to fully protect him. He looked up and saw Vert had lifted the blade above her head and was about to swing down.

He was tired, his whole body ached, and he was about to die. Strangely, Lan felt a sense of familiarity as his mind focused so intently on the blade that his perception of time slowed down even further. Thoughts of how to defeat Vert, stop the Dream Eater, and even of protecting Ruby and Jaune faded from his mind. Instead an old image in his memory overlapped with what he was seeing right now. The image of Byakko standing at the top of a cliff, smiling, as he prepared to throw another giant bolder down at Lan.

Lan felt a shock travel through his body, and before his had realized it he had already moved. As if he were swimming in the air, he slipped to the side while leaping into the air. Passing right by the falling sword, he then kicked off of the side of the blade and darted upwards, landing on Vert's shoulder just as her blade hit the ground. He then slipped behind her as the cloud of dust caused by her blade striking the stone cleared.

"What the?" said Vert as she saw her blade sticking into empty ground "Where did he—"

'Crack'

With a shattering sound Lan delivered a second essence blow to Vert's cracked heel, destroying the armor that protected it and revealing a dark miasma underneath.

"Thanks Grandpa" thought Lan as he threw a bundle made up of the last of his explosives into the opening and jumped away. With a short but loud blast, the explosives disconnected the foot of Vert's armor from the rest of it and traveled up the armor where it escaped out any crack it could find. She screamed in pain as she wobbled on one foot for a moment while trying to regain her balance despite her heavy armor, but a rope with a rock tied around the end came from behind her right shoulder, hit her neck, then flew back over her left shoulder. Lan, who was holding the beginning of the rope, then grabbed the end of the rope with the rock and pulled with all his might. Vert crashed onto her back, smashing and embedding herself into the stone floor. She quickly regained her senses and tried to get up, but stopped as she noticed Lan who was standing by her head with his legs spread and his fists chambered by his side. Spiritual energy had gathered around his fists as he stared at her with focused eyes. He then unleashed a Sixfold Chambered Punch Combination, each blow badly cracking Vert's face armor with the final one landing in the center of the impacts. Vert's helm completely blew apart and following that the rest of the armor crumbled to pieces.

"Still can't do all sixteen" said Lan, who felt a sudden weakness spreading through his body. He then took a deep breath and leapt into the crumbling armor.

"Aggghhhhh!" screamed Vert weakly, as she reappeared among the smoke and rubble in her human form. She clutched her head in pain, then began to look left and right for Lan.

"Wrong way" came his voice from behind her. She yelped is surprise and attempted to turn around, but Lan had one leg behind her knees and another in front of her shins causing her own momentum to force her onto her knees. She then looked up in time to see Lan raise his fist, 3 small glowing orbs of energy formed in the grooves between the front most knuckles, none of them had the even close to the energy needed for a normal essence blow, but it was enough for Lan's purposes. Lan then delivered a swift punch to her face, the orbs creating concentrated impacts to her nose, philtrum (the groove below the nose but above the mouth), and chin. The strike simultaneously depleted the rest of her aura and destabilized her senses. Her pupils dilated and floated to the corners of her eyes while blood began to pour out of her nose and mouth. She slowly and weakly raised her trembling arms upwards towards Lan.

"Learned that and this from Uncle Meng" said Lan, who extended the knuckle of his pointer finger and gave a quick decisive strike to Vert's glabella (the flat area between and slightly above the eyes). Vert's eyes rolled up into her head, and she collapsed onto her back with her arms spread wide.

Lan breathed heavily while staring down at his defeated foe. His body was weary, his aura had just started recharging, and he was all out of ammo. It had been a close fight, if his training hadn't kicked in at the last moment, he would have been the one lying on the ground.

"Hopefully you'll be better when you wake up" mumbled Lan, who let out a breath and relaxed his mind. A physically impossible amount of sweat began to pour off his body, forming a large puddle at his feet.

"Only in dreams" he thought, as he willed his dreamscape body to stop sweating. He closed his eyes for a moment to rest his mind, then suddenly remembered his situation.

"Shit!" he whispered, and whipped around to see the Dream Eater's tendrils pulling dozens of new souls into its form. He broke into a run and dashed towards it, channeling what little aura and spiritual energy he had lift into his right hand.

"Please don't digest quickly, please please don't digest quickly!" he thought. "Goddammit!" he shouted, leaping high into the air. He hurtled towards the Dream eater, raising his fist to his ear as he prepared to strike it. But as he focused all his attention and will on the entity, he felt a sudden chill run through his body. In his alarm, he hadn't paid close attention to the orb, but now he noticed that something was staring back at him from within its darkness. It hadn't been there before when he had first arrived, almost like it had been sleeping. But now, it was awake.

Like a net exploding from a container, the orb's shadows erupted out and enveloped Lan, swallowing him whole. Lan suddenly found himself in a dark void, where he continued to fly forwards for a time before finally landing on a floor that he couldn't see or hear. He looked around, but apart from his own body which was giving off a small glow, there was nothing but the darkness.

Well, sorry I didn't release anything last week. Especially for the people who actually enjoy my writing and aren't just reading to see when I crash and burn. Had a lot of paperwork to deal with, my team is about finish its current project serving the JFO for hurricane Michael recovery, so we have to write a whole report on it.

Also, for those wondering, the reason Vert didn't use a semblance is because she hasn't discovered hers yet. Not every skilled combatant does, I mean Roman Torchwick never discovered his.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the next chapter, because Ruby and Jaune will be awesome. I'd estimate only 2-3 more chapters to finish the dream eater conflict and we can head back to the temple.

And as always, I'd appreciate any criticism and/or advise on how to improve my writing. And I hope that the writers of RWBY will one day read this.