Chapter Thirty-Two: Geist of a Chance


"So… any Ideas on how to get its attention?" Phoenix asked as he and Ruby watched a Geist that had possessed multiple boulders. They, as well as the rest of team RNJR, had been hired to kill it by a nearby village.

"Aren't you supposed to be the guy with the plans?" Ruby asked in response.

"Usually, yeah, but now we've got three people who are typically the one with the plan. You, Jaune, and yours truly. Figure we should switch things up. Let different people plan different things to keep some of us from getting rusty," he explained.

"Well in that case I've got one idea," Ruby said, going into the details of her plan.


Trees flew out of the way and the earth shook as Phoenix and Ruby fled from the enraged Geist, Ruby's plan to get its attention by taunting it having worked a bit too well. Ruby used her semblance to flee while Phoenix leaped from tree to tree, jumping just in time to avoid being crushed. Eventually the two of them managed to lead it to the others, but not without its issues, the largest of which being a giant ledge between where they were and where they were supposed to be. "We're gonna have to jump," Ruby stated as they got closer and closer to the cliff.

"Wonderful."

Upon reaching the ledge the two leaped from it. As they fell they crashed through multiple tree branches. Phoenix managed to land on one eventually, but Ruby was still falling. He jumped off of the branch he was standing on and caught her, saying, "Just dropping in," as he did. It took him a moment to realize that his intervention hadn't changed their current situation. "Oh Gods!" he yelled as he and Ruby fell, clinging to each other and screaming.

Phoenix was the first of them to hit the ground, landing face first. His body ended up breaking Ruby's fall. "My hero!" she cheered as she hugged him.

"My back," he groaned. When he managed to get up he saw that the Geist had created a clearing. Upon seeing him it immediately charged and tried to crush him. "Oh come on," he said as he dodged its strike. "Don't tell me you're still pissed about me flipping you off." It tried to crush him again, making the clearing even larger as it did so. "I'll take that as a maybe."

"Lets get that thing off them," he heard Jaune command from behind him.

"Could use some help," Ruby said as she flew by the tree that Ren and Nora were perched in. Multiple grenades flew from the tree and struck the Grimm's back. Phoenix grappled up to one of the trees and started firing at it, Ren doing the same on the opposite side of the clearing. The Geist stuck its arms to try to hit them, giving them the chance to get onto the arms. They both ran up them and leaped up into the air. As they flew down they struck the beast, Phoenix hitting near the mask and Ren hitting where the nape of its neck would be. They only succeeded in scratching the stone.

"We gotta get in closer," Jaune told them when they landed by him.

"My blades don't hurt it," Ren replied.

Its distractions out of the way, the Grimm once again turned its attention to Phoenix. "Crap!" he yelled it charged again. Before it could reach him Ruby charged in and fired an electric dust round into one of its arms. All this did was cause electricity to temporally coat the Geist's arm before fading away. It slammed said arm into the ground, the force creating a shockwave that sent the five of them flying back. Ren and Nora landed near each other, Ren helping to steady Nora. Ruby stuck Crescent Rose into the ground to stop herself, and Phoenix grappled up to another branch. Jaune, however, was not as lucky as the rest of them, and he crashed into a bolder at a particularly painful manner.

All of this had caused Nora to snap, charging at the Geist and sending all of the rocks attached to one of its arms flying. One of the larger ones was heading right for her, but Ruby destroyed it at the last second. Phoenix dropped down from his perch just in time to be hit in the chest with one of them. Jaune had similar luck. He leaned up against a tree to recover, but it was this tree that the Geist chose to replace the arm Nora had destroyed.

"His arm is a tree! His arm is a tree!" Jaune screamed as he fled.

"Big mistake," Phoenix said with a grin as he pulled out his lighter. The second he flipped it open the flames lunged towards the Geist's tree arm and engulfed it in flames. All this did was create a larger problem seeing as the Geist now had a flaming arm.

"Big mistake!" Jaune yelled as he continued to flee. The Geist switched its target from Phoenix to him and charged. Just as it was about to crush him with its flaming arm, one of Ren's blades flew in and slashed the Grimm across its face. The strike threw the creature off balance, and it fell backwards. The rest of them used this as an opportunity to regroup.

"Alright, how do we do this?" Jaune asked them.

"Breaking through the body is out. It's too thick for that," Phoenix pointed out.

"It doesn't care about its body."

"Plus it can keep having new limbs," Nora added.

"But it's protecting its face."

"We can't break it," Ruby reminded him.

"If we knocked all of its limbs off at once then went for the- Guys, I got it!" Jaune declared as the Geist got up behind him. "We hit it harder."

"Is that it?" Ren asked as Phoenix facepalmed.

"No, seriously. It's trying to keep us from its face. If we kill all the limbs, we'll have a shot to kill the whole thing!"

"This sounds like something you'd do against a bloody video game boss, but why not."

"Alright team, let's do this!"

"Yeah!"

"Right."

"Ren left! Ruby Right!" Jaune ordered. "Nora, ready to see if Phoenix's upgrade works?" she nodded and ran off. "Phoenix, think you can deal with that the fire arm?"

"No problem," he said as he ran towards the rapidly approaching Geist.

"Right, and I will-" Jaune was cut off by the Geist stepping right behind him.

Phoenix handled the Geist's flaming arm with ease using his semblance to pull all the flames off of the tree trunk. He then grappled onto its back and started firing at it with the shotgun, keeping his other hand on the still attached grapnel gun to keep from flying off. After a few shots little remained of the trunk. He activated the release on the hook and when flying. He managed to land on a tree branch just in time to see Nora and Ruby use a team attack to send all of the Geist's limbs flying.

Its only means of defending itself destroyed, the Geist fled what remained of its body and attempted to escape. This attempt was thwarted by Ruby, who eliminated it with a shot from Crescent Rose.

"Another victory for team JNRR," Jaune declared. "Right, you know, okay. Ren, I think you're onto something. It... it's not just sounding right anymore."


"We truly can't thank you enough," the village elder who'd hired them to eliminate the Grimm said as he shook hands with Ruby.

"Just doing our job sir," Ruby replied.

"That Geist had been plaguing our village for weeks. We were beginning to wonder if we'd have to relocate."

"Why don't you?" Phoenix asked. "We're heading to Mistral. We could act like an escort or something."

"I take it you're not from these parts," the elder said before listing off the reasons why the town couldn't move. "I just wish you'd let us pay you."

"Don't worry, we've got more than enough lien," Phoenix stated. He'd taken a large amount of lien from his account back at Vale about who he was and kept it in his bag. "Our deal for a bit of smithing work is just fine."


The bell on the door to the blacksmith's shop rang as Phoenix and team RNJR walked in to pick up Jaune's newly modified equipment. "There 'ya go son. It's gonna be heavier than 'ya used to, but you'll thank me the next time you go up against a set of claws."

"Wow... I... I don't know what to say," Jaune stammered.

"Don't gotta say anything. Just put it on. I'll go get the rest." With that, he went out of sight to the forge.

"So, you going to try it on or are you just going to stare at it all day?" Phoenix inquired after Jaune had spent a moment gawking at the new armor.

"Oh, right." He approached the table and reluctantly took off his old chest plate. "Guess I was going to grow out of it eventually."

"It's a sign of progress," Ren pointed out.

"Right, progress." When Jaune turned around Phoenix and Ruby got their first real look at Jaune's hoodie, and they struggled to suppress their laughter.

"What is that?" Ruby cried out as she pointed at the bunny on it.

"What? My hoodie? I've always had this."

"So you're telling me that you've fought hoards of Grimm with a bunny on your hoodie," Phoenix stated, barely containing the laughter. Ruby, on the other hand, had lost it, and was in hysterics.

"Its Pumpkin Pete! You know, from the cereal!" Jaune explained

"What did you do? Send in a box top for a prize?"

"Yeah, fifty." Phoenix lost it and joined Ruby in laughter while Ruby's increased in volume. She was about to fall over, but Phoenix caught her at the last second.

"Well, I suppose we don't have to grow out of everything," Ren said with a grin as Ruby let out a final snicker.

"Can't have a huntsman without his weapon," the blacksmith said as he stuck Jaune's newly modified sword into the table, oblivious to everything that had just happened. "Made all the modifications you asked for." The shield expanded from the sheath. "That was some fine metal you brought me. Accents the white nicely. Where'd you get it from." There was a brief pause as they all looked at the parts of the upgraded weapon that had been made using some of the metal that Pyrrha left over.

"From a friend," Jaune answered.


"He cleans up alright don't you think," the blacksmith commented as Jaune left the shop, his new armor equipped and his new weapon drawn.

"He certainly does," Ren replied.

"I still think a grenade launcher would've really brought the look together," Nora stated.

"We don't need two bombers Nora," Phoenix pointed out.

"Nothing's going to stop team RNJR now!" Ruby declared before they could continue their discussion.

"Team JNRR," Nora corrected.

"Still not a color."

"It doesn't matter what we're called, as long as we're together," Jaune said.

"Besides, RNJR is better," Phoenix added.


"Food?" Jaune asked as he started a checklist of the supplies they'd need.

"Check!" Nora answered cheerfully.

"Water?"

"Check!"

"Ammo?"

"Locked and loaded! Thank you Schnee Dust Company."

"Got the map?"

"Uh, Ren's got it," Nora replied.

"No I don't. You have it."

"Wait, what?"

"Please tell me this is a joke," Phoenix groaned.

"Uhh... he he he"

"Seriously! That's the fifth map so far."


Sorry, I know it's been a while. It's just that my life has been complete chaos with learning how to drive, weather (as mentioned before, I live in Chicago so the weather is shit), the holidays, finals, family, etc. Anyway, thanks for reading!

P.S. I'll be damned, over 100 people accidentally followed this story. If only that luck would carry over into the real world. But in all seriousness, thanks to all of you for putting up with my awful grammar and constant updates.