Chapter 6: Through the Valley
I walk
Through the valley
Of the shadow of death
And I fear no evil
Because I'm blind to it all
To say I was 'as stiff as a board' would be an understatement so gargantuan that it is borderline slander. I was as stiff as a concrete block made out of superglue and diamonds, baked on the surface of the sun with some hardtack and gravel thrown in for texture.
Walking as fast as my poor aching joints allowed me to, I tried to keep up with the rest of my classmates. When I finally managed to catch up to Jaune I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him and almost making him drop the stuff he was carrying.
"We need to talk." I snapped at him.
"Jeez Nick, you look like you-"
"Slept on a roof, no shit!" I cut him off. "We need to discuss the whole training arrangement."
He sighed and looked around annoyed.
"I told Pyrrha I don't need any help." He muttered to himself more than me.
"Well I got good news and bad news then, good news is I won't be training you." I said.
"And the bad news?" Jaune asked apprehensively.
"We're gonna track down something." I revealed.
"What?"
"This." I pulled out a drawing I made last night out of my pocket and showed it to him.
"My Oum, it looks like a child drew this." he said, examining it at different angles.
"Well I'm sorry not all of us could take art classes bub, but that's the best I could do." I snapped at him.
"Sorry man, what is it?" He asked.
"I don't know." I answered.
"Where did it come from?"
"I don't know."
"Do we have any leads?"
"No."
"Does it have any weaknesses?"
"No."
"Do you have any information at all?"
" It's strong, it's fast and It can fight like hell but other than that I got nothing."
Jaune stared at me blankly for a few seconds.
"This is gonna be incredibly difficult, isn't it." He asked.
"Well yeah, but all you have to do is help me, tell your girl we're training and boom, you can get busy with the redhead again." I explained.
"Wait the redhead, you mean Pyrrah, and what are we getting busy with?" He asked, confused.
"You know, the ol' bump n' grind, the midnight stretch, the no-pants dance, playing a good old fashion game of hide the salami." Jaune looked at me like I had grown another head, I sighed and held the bridge of my nose. "Sex Jaune, you can have sex again."
"Se-sex, but my mom said that you should wait until you meet 'the one' to have sex!" he whisper shouted at me.
"So you guys aren't a thing yet, damn with the way she hangs on you I thought…" I mused.
"No we aren't a thing, we're just really good friends, nothing sexual about it...nothing at all...period." he insisted, blushing.
"Ok then, let's get going." I said, ignoring his obvious lie.
"Where?" he asked as I started walking away from the classmates.
"Back to the school." I answered.
We walked past Glynda and over to the bullheads, she lowered her glasses and glared at us as we passed.
"Mr. Nicholas, Mr. Arc, where do you think you're going?" she inquired in an icy tone.
"Back to the school, Jaune's sick." I answered as we climbed inside one of the bullheads.
"Uh, yep...ate some bad food...at breakfast...in the dining hall." Jaune stuttered.
Glynda glared at us for a few seconds before nodding at the bullhead pilot, who started the ship.
"I honestly don't give a shit Jaune." I said. "I honestly, could not possibly give any less of a fuck about anything to do with your love life."
We were in the middle of setting up the maintenance shed where I hid my stash to be our headquarters for our operation when Jaune suddenly decided a few minutes ago that I was the perfect person to ask for advice.
"But you say she does like me right?" He launched into another siege on my sanity. "And I think I might like her back, so what do I do?"
"Look, can you just help me with this!" I gestured to the corkboard with a map pinned to it we had brought to the maintenance shed.
"Just tell me what to do and I will!" He countered back.
"Lord Oum above, what is holding you back from just asking the woman out for coffee?!" I countered.
"I don't want to come off as a womanizing player to the ladies, there's a great responsibility that comes with these amazing looks." he said...completely seriously.
I sighed, walked over to Jaune and placed my hand on his shoulder.
"How do I put this kindly my friend, the girls in this school aren't tripping over each other to date the Vomit Boy of Beacon," I began, "And furthermore, in a school where fighting is, you know, a requirement, a lack of basic combat prowess isn't exactly helping either."
His face fell comically, he sat down heavily on a crate and put his head in his hands.
"What was I thinking, I don't deserve Pyrrha, she's a goddess and I'm just a joke." He said dejectedly.
"Hey man, you're not a joke." I said as I sat beside him. "Jokes are funny, you're a mistake."
"Not helping, dude." He sighed.
"Look man you're forgetting something, for some crazy reason she actually likes you," I reminded him. "Just buck up and take her into Vale, see a movie, get ice cream and if you guys click keep doing it."
"And what if I don't like her?" he asked desperately.
"Then go back to being friends," I said as I stood up. "Now help me with this."
Jaune finally helped me set up the board properly. Once that was done I grabbed a tack and stuck it right on Beacon Academy.
"Now to develop our master plan." I said.
Silence followed for the next half a minute as we stood, staring at the board awkwardly.
"Jaune?" I snapped.
"Huh?"
"Master plan, go, now."
"I, Uh...um...we could find out where it comes from." he suggested.
"Perfect, good ol' fashion reconnaissance, we'll start...uh...where should we start?" I asked.
"How about we start in the commercial district and work our way through Vale." He answered.
"Sounds good, it's getting late we should head back." I remarked. "I have a date with a pile of blankets on a metal roof I can't miss."
"If you want you can sleep with JNPR instead of on the roof." he offered as we walked out of the maintenance shed.
"Nah it's fine, I actually enjoy being able to smoke in the middle of the night." I brushed off, as I messed with the electrical panel, I had put a resistor on the maglock so that only a zap from me could unlock it.
Once I got it locked I reattached the panel and began the journey back to my dorm.
"Hey." Olivia spat as soon as I walked in the door.
"Hey yourself." I snapped, Fred and Trevor looked warily at us but didn't speak up.
Despite Fred succeeding at reintegrating me at the table during meals, still Olivia ran our dorm with an iron fist. I think it was some odd combination of her being a girl and the fact that she got up so early that gave her an authoritarian presence that demanded to be followed.
"We're going on a mission with team RWBY tomorrow," She growled. "Thought I'd let you know."
"How thoughtful of you to finally start including me." I mocked as I grabbed my sleepwear.
"If we were not being briefed by Ozpin then I wouldn't have." she hissed. "Now grab your clothes and piss off."
"So I guess I'm changing on the roof now?" I asked sarcastically.
"Just leave!" she yelled.
"Mr. Nicholas, just the man I wanted to see." Ozpin said. My team and RWBY had woken up early and now stood in the airfield near the bullhead that would take us to our mission area.
"What do you want." I snapped around my morning cigarette. My head was killing me and my back was worse than yesterday. I had barely slept a wink and I was crabby beyond all hell.
"I've been receiving many reports that you apparently have been sleeping on the roof, is that true?" He asked.
"The mattresses are too soft and the room is too warm, I like it better on the roof." I lied.
"Are you sure that it has nothing to do with the rumor that has been spreading about you." he asked me.
"Kids will be kids." I deflected.
He hummed and briefly looked at Olivia before addressing us all.
"The mission is simple as they come, find the marked box and retrieve the artifact inside." He explained. "Points will be awarded for a hasty completion and lost if you damage the artifact, that being said there have been several reports of an especially strong Grimm being sighted in the area."
He paused and looked at each of us individually.
"As much faith as I have in you I also know you cannot beat it on your own, if you see it I order you to run from it." He said in a deathly serious voice. "Your timer starts as soon as you touch down, good luck."
The bullhead had followed a preset bath and dropped us off on a raised plateau. We were currently in the process of carefully descending the 100-foot cliff to get to the valley below.
"Hurry up Nick!" Olivia barked at me.
"Brave words from someone who didn't sleep on a roof last night." I shot back.
"Well start sleeping inside then." Weiss suggested snootily as she helped Ruby off of a particularly tall rock.
"I would love to, but I can't because of some self-righteous pompous bitch." I sneered at Olivia. Team RWBY gasped and stopped climbing when they heard that and Olivia whipped around, her face contorted with anger.
"How dare you, I am protecting the reputation of the team!" she yelled at me.
"Guys." Fred said timidly.
"Protecting!" I said, ignoring Fred. "You haven't been doing shit you whore!"
"You are nothing but a no-good sociopathic bum who swindled his way into this school!" She yelled at me.
"That's true!" I yelled back.
"You deserve to be put down like a dog!" she snarled.
Hey...u-um, guys?" Fred said again.
"If I thought I could get away with it I'd gut you and leave you for the Grimm and be done with it." She threatened.
"Get in line sweetheart, there's a lot of people who've said the same damn thing." I mocked
"Guys, yo-yo-you might want t-to see this." Fred stuttered.
"See what?!" Olivia and I turn around and yell in sync. When we do we see a 200-foot long snake Grimm towering over us.
"King Taijitu, run!" Olivia yelled as everyone drew their weapon and backed up.
Before any of us can react it pounced at Weiss. Weiss started to conjure a glyph, but Ruby used the recoil from her scythe to lunge over and shove her out of the way just in time.
The dirt and debris exploded out the snake struck right where Ruby landed, her weapon flew past Weiss and tumbled into the gorge. When the beast withdrew its head, part of Ruby's cape hung from its mouth like a twisted tattered tongue, then it swallowed and it vanished down its throat along with Beacon's youngest student.
"Ruby!" Yang screams in desperation, that one name seeming to tear her vocal cords. She desperately tried to run towards the Grimm, but I grabbed her, threw her on my shoulder and began to carry her.
We scrambled back up the mountain, Yang kicking, screaming and calling me every dirty name under the sun. I looked back quickly to see the bastard slithering up after us. The second head trailing limp and lifeless behind it. It looks like we weren't the first huntsman it decided to snack on.
Once we reached the lip of the plateau I threw Yang up, climbed after and joined the rest of the group in a mad scramble towards the bullhead. As we were running, I heard Blake scream my name and I turned around to see the snake's mouth screaming towards me, mid pounce.
Using my speed, I grabbed its fangs mid-strike. The force of the lunge pushed me back a few feet, leaving deep trenches in the dirt.
"Run you fucking idiots!" I screamed.
"No, you're our teammate!" Fred yelled as he turned around.
"Just, go!" I yelled. The snake violently jerked its head, throwing me to the ground and reeled back for another strike. As I attempted to scramble away, it struck and bit down on my legs. It then lifted me up in the air and opened its mouth, allowing me to fall slightly lower before closing it again and crushing my gut in its teeth.
"Huuuuuuuuuunnnnggggggg." I squeezed out black dots swam in my vision. I managed to catch a glimpse of RWBY and Trevor wrestle Fred on the ship as it took off before the snake opened its mouth again and swallowed.
The inside of the snake smelt like death on a hot desert day. It was sopping wet and I was being compressed and squeezed by muscles on all sides. The air was crushed from my lungs as I began to feel a sense of morbid claustrophobia. After what seemed like a wet, hellish eternity, was finally deposited into its pitch-black stomach.
"Ruby!" I coughed desperately trying to look through the pitch blackness of the stomach. A liquid began to pool into my shoes and my pant legs that felt slightly tingly and I realized it was stomach acid.
"Ruby are you in here!" I yelled, panic crawling into my throat.
"Nick!" Ruby suddenly yelled back. I heard a sloshing and out of nowhere, she slammed into me and caught me in a vice-like hug.
"I'm g-g-gonna die Nicky, pl-please don't let me d-d-die!" she sobbed hysterically.
"Calm down, we are probably going to die but I have half baked plan and I need you to trust me." I explained. "Now hold me tightly and don't let go."
After she complied, I lined up my hands, shoved them against the stomach walls and started forcing electricity out my fingertips. Immediately an intense pain started to bloom in my fingertips as both the snake and I's flesh began to burn. I bit back a scream and shoved my hands harder into the stomach wall. Suddenly the whole stomach lurched as the snake began to thrash around. A metallic, charcoal-like and slightly sweet smell cut through the musty snake gut and I nearly barfed when I realized I was smelling my own cooking flesh.
But it was working, I felt my hands begin to melt through the stomach wall and into its outer layer of flesh.
My victory was short-lived though as my body soon began to let me know I was pushing too hard. My knees started getting weak, I tasted blood in my mouth and my eye started to twitch. Ruby began to groan and squeeze me tighter and I looked down to see I was beginning to lose control; large arcs were coming off me and clipping her.
In a last-ditch effort, I began to force the electricity out. The pain in my hands tripled and I finally allowed myself to scream. More electricity began hitting Ruby and soon she started screaming too. The snake began to shudder and jerk and if it had any vocal cords I had no doubt it would've been screaming along with us.
With my energy rapidly dwindling I began to feel a floating sensation in the back of my legs and I grew very sleepy.
It really is a stupid thing to worry about, dying. I thought to myself. It was only a matter of time anyway.
Suddenly, the pain in my fingertips stopped and so did the Grimm's thrashing. I opened my eyes and saw a sliver of sunlight peek between my hands. I lethargically pulled with all I could muster and the hole began to tear wider.
"Holy shit." I mumbled to myself and began pulling more and more until the hole was big enough to pull myself and Ruby through and flop to the ground in exhaustion.
I attempted to stand, but with Ruby still clung to my chest it felt like a car was strapped to me. I pried her off and laid her out on the ground next to me to check her for injuries.
I don't know much about medicine or first aid, but it didn't take a moron to realize that the way her skin was covered in blisters was very bad.
"Wake up kid, c'mon wake up." I gently shook her but she didn't respond, I checked her pulse, which was still there thank Oum. She needed medical attention fast before those burns got infected. Not to mention my own blackened fingertips and barely healed gut.
I tried to lift her but my body was too torn up. Everything was screaming in pain and I needed a decade-long nap or some...
Dust.
I sat up, dragged myself over to Ruby and grabbed a bullet from her belt. After trying to open it with my hands I finally resorted to prying it open with a rock. With its projectile gone, I poured out the fire dust from the shell and into my hand. I squeezed the pile and drained the tiniest spark of energy from the dust. My head cleared slightly, and my bones stopped throbbing with exhaustion.
I picked Ruby up again, slowly but surely and put her in a fireman's carry, then began to limp in the direction of the Beacon.
After this, they better name a damn wing of the school after me