Big Issues
AN: Sorry about the delays everyone. Been having some family trouble that was eating up my time to write. Even though most of this chapter was written by the time the incident first began, finishing and editing took nearly a week to get through it. I'm also trying to get time to finish the pic for this chapter, my first attempt at digital art. Thankfully, there isn't much more than the final shading left for that. Also, thanks to gasenator for faving this series.
Battles of Wills
Yang sighed as she looked out the window. It had become a regular occurrence since coming home in October. She had little to do beyond cooking, cleaning, and reading or watching tv thanks to her right arm stuck in a cast and unable to feel anything from just above the elbow to her hand. Denko and Dr. Hemo had poked her arm and tapped on the cast enough to know where she could feel things.
But without the ability to really do the things she loved; running around the forests surrounding her home, fighting Grimm, sparring with Ruby and Denko… she began to feel empty. For a while, she had been able to take solace that Ruby and Denko were in much the same condition as she was, but they had healed and were able to return to their normal lives. Yet she had nothing going for her but their concern and knowing that her waistline had grown.
Dr. Hemo had commented on her weight gain at the last check up but also understood the sudden activity shift would cause much of that, having seen it in others before from injuries or retirement. While Ruby had gained some weight herself during the time home, that seemed to have come to a stop once she was able to train again. Even Denko had softened slightly but she was sure that it would reverse completely by the end of the year in a few weeks.
Once again, she found herself with her chores done for now and spent her time waiting for Ruby to come back in for lunch while watching the television. As always, the news was covering things about Vale and Beacon where she got to see some of the tent villages among the ruins. Yet the sight brought up bad feelings in her so she changed the channel. With Beacon Tower offline, all of the news was focused on local things, the efforts to clean up the destruction of Vale and Beacon being foremost. News from the other kingdoms was next to nonexistent unless brought in by messagers personally.
The other channels weren't much better, dull daytime shows that were only aired to fill time, advertisers that nearly everyone found annoying, soap operas that she had no desire to learn the name of let alone watch the mind numbing nonsense. The kids networks were a bit more hit or miss, depending on channel and time with things that she would watch because she liked it or was entertaining enough to view until she got to a series she came to watch. Right now, it was meant for kids less than half her age.
"Damn… that makes me feel old." Yang says to herself in the mostly empty and quiet house. She was beginning to hate the emptiness and couldn't wait for Ruby to come in for lunch. Denko wouldn't likely be back until dinner.
She finally gave up and went to the movies that she had saved, a few of them being her favorites or Ruby's and even their fathers. Apparently Denko had saved a few at some point. The blonde closed her eyes and picked a show at random before dropping the remote in favor of reaching for the bowl of mixed nuts and pretzels. As the movie began, she had gotten an older one about the Great War.
—-
When the Captain had informed everyone that they were close to Menagerie, the announcement elicited cheers from the passengers. Blake's ears twitched at the noise and by the wind that blew through them, still having to get used to her cat ears being exposed after more than a year of having them concealed under her bow. But it had been weeks now but still took time, especially with having them exposed in public after so long of hiding what she is.
But she was finally showing pride in who and what she is now. It may have been part of her friends at Beacon accepting her. It may have been because of the gentle assurances from Sun and Itazura. Maybe because the majority of the people on the ship are faunus themselves. The crew certainly didn't show any fear or ill will towards the passengers for being faunus, freely talking and mingling when not busy with their duties.
It filled her with some hope of peaceful coexistence of the two species. She took a deep breath of the salty air as she leaned on the guardrail and simply enjoyed the peaceful moment. They were in the tropics so the air was fairly warm and the breeze cooled those soaking up the sunlight of the late afternoon. Children played on the deck squealing happily as they ran, making her miss the days of her youth when she spent time with her parents.
It may have taken her a few years, but she was finally going home to see them, to make amends. She just had to bring along some strong support and a minder.
And the ship lurched as a large wave struck the port side, causing more than a few people to stumble and the kids to stop playing. Everyone stopped to look around for the source, hoping that it was just a rogue wave.
Then a large form emerged from the water ahead of the ship. The Sea Feilong reared up high, sitting taller than the vessel and it was still in the water. From what Blake could see, it was long and serpentine with its black body, white bony plates down its neck and belly, spikes running down its spine with some portions connected with red webbing, and a pair of short arms with four-clawed hands. Each 'hand' was large enough to hold Blake easily.
Its head is covered by the skull-like mask as all Grimm do but this was draconic; long and slender, filled with sharp teeth. It has a pair of branching horns on the back of its skull with three pairs of spikes over its eyes and a horn over its nose. A pair of black whiskers hung from near its nostrils and behind the flaring fins behind its lower jaw, red and glowing gills ran down its neck.
If everyone was shocked stiff from the wave that was likely caused by the Grimm, they were largely frozen in fear now that it revealed itself. Then it roared its challenge to those that dared to enter its territory.
"Red alert!" One of the crewmen yelled and began to assist the now panicking passengers below deck so they could wait in the relative safety of their cabins. At the same time, Sun and Itazura ran out to join Blake.
"We've never fought a Grimm this big." The girls heard the First Mate say to the Captain on the bridge.
"I've never seen a Grimm this size before." The older man comments with awe before becoming determined. "But we'll give it a fight nonetheless!"
With a flick of a switch from the First Mate on the main control panel on the bridge, protective panels slid over the windows while parts of the hull pulled back to allow a bank of cannons on either side free to aim and fire freely. A very large cannon emerged from the deck near the bow, the machinery extending the barrel and locking into place.
"Why does it have to be so big?" Sun asks rhetorically, knowing that their weapons didn't have the power to kill it… not easily. Add in that it clearly had the terrain advantage, falling in the water was a near death sentence with that thing nearby.
The Feilong lunged at the ship, the Captain responding by turning the vessel starboard to dodge the strike. At the same time, Blake, Sun, and Itazura drew their weapons and opened fire with the portside cannons as the Grimm passed to do their best to wound it. There was little notable damage to the scales that anyone could see as it rose and dived over the boat, showing that it was likely longer than the ship.
The Captain dodged another lunge, though the tail slapped the hull and the broadside cannons weren't doing much to harm it… when they could hit the Grimm. Screams from the other passengers could be faintly heard through the decks over the sounds of the waves and Grimm. The shotguns and pistol from the Huntsman and Huntresses did even less despite hitting more often than the cannons. The heavy cannon was even slower to reload and tracking the beast was difficult at best, the one shot that managed to land only took off a few belly scales.
It swam at the ship, slowly this time and kept out of the line of fire of the cannons. As it grew closer, Blake had a crazy idea and ran with it, literally. She dashed as fast as she could to the bow, ignoring her team's warnings, and jumped from the last available foothold.
The Feilong paused, confused that a mortal would actually jump at it, before rising and opening its jaws to swallow the fat cat whole.
Blake fell towards the gaping maw, a mouth and throat large enough to fit at least three of her. At the last moment, she used Shadow to change her trajectory so that she went over the clamping jaws. This worked well enough for her, as she wound up slamming her heels right between its eyes with her full weight and momentum.
While the damage she'd done was minimal, it obviously felt pain from the attack and thrashed its head with a roar. Blake was thrown off but threw Gambol Shroud so that it stuck in the mask, the ribbon pulled taught and drew her back so that she could slash at its neck with the cleaver/sheath half.
Another shake of its head threw Blake the other way, but she was unable to attack at that time. This time, her kusarigama pulled free and she was able to pull the pistol back into her hand and fire at its head, the bullets doing little.
Her biggest problem now was that she was airborne with little in the way of control. The Feilong was dissuaded from trying to eat her again by a shot from the heavy cannon to its side. Seeing as she tumbled that the ship was on an intercept course for her, she used Shadow to push herself towards it. Even with the Captain turning to fire broadside and attempting to catch her on the deck at the same time, she could see that she was going to fall short.
There was a brief flash and the next thing she knew, one of Sun's clones was flying towards her. Recognizing the intent, she returned her weapon to her back and reached out in time to grasp golden hands. From there, the two spun in the air as they pulled themselves in so that their feet were on the soles of the others.
Waiting a few moments to be turned the right way, they released hands and jumped, the clone fading soon after while Blake was sent towards the ship. Blake tried to roll out of the fall once she hit the deck, but hit harder than she expected and in her flinching, she wound up sliding across the deck on her rear until a hand grabbed each of her wrists to stop her from hitting the wall of the bridge.
"Thanks." The cat was grateful as Sun and Itazura pulled her to her feet, where she rubbed her pants where the friction had made the area uncomfortably warm. Thankfully, there weren't any splinters that she could find.
"A little warning would have been nice." The fox was slightly irritated but she was still trying to find a weak point to exploit on the Sea Feilong.
"Hey girls? It's doing something weird!" Sun calls them back to the fight at hand where the Grimm had retreated some distance and half rose from the water. There the Grimm seemed to go a bit stiff and strained as something came out of its back. Within seconds, it was revealed that they were wings that spanned nearly as wide as the beast was long.
With a few flaps of its newly exposed wings, the Feilong pulled itself out of the water completely and gave a challenging roar with a flap that blew a powerful gust over the ship and churned waves.
"Great! Now it can fly!" Sun gripes to the world but stays ready to fight.
"And it's not like Blake is heavy enough to hold it down." Itazura adds.
"Yeah!" The cat agreed before what the fox said caught up to her. "Hey!"
The heavy cannon fired and the shell exploded with a proximity charge as the Grimm tried to dodge by twisting around the projectile. All that did was hit it with the blastwave and some shrapnel but little else.
"I hope you have a plan!" Sun yells before he leaps at the Grimm as it flew over the ship when he saw that a yellow energy was building in its mouth. The monkey boy landed on the Feilong's snout, right behind the horn while somehow managing to grab both its whiskers and holding onto them like reigns. He pulled hard just as the Grimm was about to release the energy attack, causing it to tilt its head back in response and the lightning blast shot harmlessly into the air.
"Damn! Why couldn't we have Denko here for this?!" Itazura curses when she sees the blast pass harmlessly overhead.
If the Feilong was hard for the cannons to hit before, it was nearly impossible now thanks to the pained thrashing the Grimm was doing thanks to Sun yanking on the whiskers. Itazura noted that to be a weakness but had little idea on how to exploit that right now. The Grimm let loose a few smaller blasts that struck the water or the air during the struggle, the large guns largely going silent as the Captain ordered for them to wait for a better opportunity and to save the ammunition. Not to mention that he didn't want to accidently hit Sun.
But he knew the area they were sailing in and steered the ship towards an archipelago of rocky islands known as Skinks Tail. The islands were a sure sign that Menagerie was close by following the chain to its end and traversing the final stretch of open ocean to the small continent.
The Feilong eventually flooded its mouth with enough electricity for it to overflow and shock Sun, causing him to seize up and release the whiskers.
Seeing him fall limply and without any sense of trying to correct his fall, Blake reacted by throwing Gambol Shroud around the ships main antennae and taking a running jump over the side. The elastic ribbon pulled her back up and around and she made sure that she had a second round for extra momentum, using the force to send herself flying. Twice she had to use Shadow to correct her path to intercept Sun's fall.
For Sun, since his last moments on the Grimm, his nerves felt like they were on fire and his muscles hurt and twitched. He could feel the wind rushing by as he fell, his clothes whipping against his body. His thoughts were a muddied mess as he was wracked by the pain of being electrocuted; though while his aura began to repair the damage, electricity was something that easily penetrated the defensive barrier of those who unlocked their Aura. But his mind began to focus and turned back to what he was doing before the fight started; helping Blake go home to her parents.
Then something large and soft hit him hard enough to drastically change his direction. There was an impact where the soft thing wrapped around him as they rolled briefly before rising a bit and slid to a stop.
Blake stood upright with Sun in her arms and pressed tight to her plush body, giving her the opportunity to give him a quick glance over. The blonde looked relatively unharmed and as she let his legs drop to the ground, his legs shaky at first standing up on his own, though leaning on her for support. She knew what it was like getting shocked in combat, thanks to a friend in her White Fang days… several times when they would train together.
"Can you still fight?" She asks with concern.
"My hero." He smirks as he feels the adrenaline and aura dull what pain he had, helping him recover his usual playful attitude.
"I think you'll be fine." Blake let a smile grace her lips as he didn't need her support to stand anymore.
The pair looked back at the ship and Grimm, only to see that it was blasting the cannons that were shooting at it, rendering them useless. The pair ran and jumped from their island and across the others on their way back to the ship.
Itazura was doing her best to defend the ship, digging into her ammo reserves for the special Dust rounds. Firing ice, earth, wind, and fire rounds into the lightning blasts where the shells erupted with their elements, often mitigating the smaller blasts to nothing while larger ones struck with lessened power.
But she was burning through her pouch fast and she already found that her Foxfire wasn't able to truly effect the Feilong due to its sheer size and she had to keep splitting her attention too much.
The Feilong was charging up another attack and Itazura dug into her pouch, only to find nothing but standard shells left to shoot in defense. The blast was discharged, aimed at the heavy cannon before it could turn to lock onto the Grimm. She knew that the cannon had passenger quarters not far below the deck where the lightning was heading. She flinched and prepared for an explosion.
One that never came.
Opening her eyes, she found Sun standing on the cannon with his staff spinning, glowing gold from being flooded by his aura, and small sparks danced from the impromptu shield and the deck. It didn't take her long to realize that Sun had dispersed the blast on his own, yet he couldn't do so much more.
Blake landed next to her with a thud as her heels made contact with the deck. Sun rested his staff across his shoulders as the Feilong seemed to be considering its next move since its last attack failed and the mortals didn't seem to die.
"Huntsmen!" The Captain calls out to the defenders, garnering their attention. "We may be able to take it out with the heavy cannon but I need you to slow it down!" He paused as they looked at each other, so he elaborated. "If you can clip its wings, we should have a good shot!"
The three convened to form a plan as the Feilong circled the boat. The Captain was curious as to what they were saying but all he could hear was the blonde commenting, "Well. you're the one with the swords." And the black-haired one giving a huff.
He went back to watching the Grimm and keeping the vessel close to the archipelago so that it couldn't attack from that side and gave the Huntsmen a chance to have some solid ground to fight from if needed. Figuring that they knew what they were doing, he opened the throttle to move as fast as he could, ensuring that they were at least a moving target.
"It's now or never!" Sun shouts as he leaps to the bow, summoning his clones in flight, four golden copies landing with their arms linked so the original could land on them. The monkey boy was then launched immediately high into the air by their combined strength followed by Blake and Itazura before the clones vanished.
Up in the darkening sky, the three had a grand view of the sunset over the ocean and the island chain. But they were unable to appreciate it as they had a massive Grimm to deal with. As Sun rose, he created three more clones, glad that he only had to maintain them for a few seconds as he felt his aura plummet.
The first clone was able to push the original higher before grasping hands with Blake to throw her higher. It used the rotations from Blake to hurl Itazura before fading. The second repeated the process but split the girls' paths so that Sun received Blake and the third clone got Itazura.
The entire time, the Feilong tracked the three, drawn by their aura and knowing that they were the greatest danger to it- even if they had done little beyond being annoyances. It fired off small blasts of lightning breath, missing them all as they climbed in the air. The only success it had was hitting the second clone before it could fade after throwing the girls. In frustration, it beat its wings to meet them head on, knowing that they couldn't fly at all or swim very well, meaning it had every advantage in this fight as it did from the beginning.
Blake finally caught up to Sun, grinning at her coming to him, giving her confidence for what she was about to do. Some distance away, Itazura reached the clone and was launched once again for greater elevation. Blake twisted herself so that her feet were down but crouched to jump, Sun moving to hold her feet with his hands. They were still rising but slowing fast and needed momentum.
In the back of her mind, Blake knew that Sun was getting an eyeful of her backside, pants stretched tight and filling his vision with their proximity.
Refocusing on the task at hand, she pushed off as Sun matched with his arms. Blake flew higher as Sun fell like a rock, though he was able to control his descent to some extent.
The final launch of the girls put them high in the air with the Feilong quickly rising to meet them. It ignored Sun as he fell, focusing on the girls who were brandishing weapons and were the greatest concentration of aura. Blasts of lightning streaked by the faunus, Blake using Shadow to dodge as she gripped Gambol Shroud's katana, Itazura firing off jets of Foxfire to push herself out of the way as she deployed the curved blade of Loki.
Both girls managed to pass the snapping jaws on their way to the wings, the Feilong choosing to go after the larger target but missed. Together, their blades cut through the red membranes of the wings. Itazura somehow was able to run down the undulating surface while Blake slid on her rear, the large surface area doing nothing to slow her any better than her sword.
In spite of the size of the wings, both had cut through in moments thanks to their speed from the fall, leaving them both to free fall to the water below. Sun had already landed on the ship thanks to the Captain's fast thinking and caught the boy in an emergency sail stretched over the side of the ship. Yet while they could line up for Itazura's safe return, Blake was over the rocks, prompting Sun to jump as fast as he could to catch her.
Itazura landed safely enough in the sail, getting the wind knocked out of her from the sudden stop, bouncing a bit on the white material. "Good job!" The Captain greets the fox as she rolls herself onto the deck, trying to get her breathing and adrenaline under control.
At the same time, Sun tracked Blake's trajectory and placed himself in her path with a grin. The cat had managed to turn herself so she was roughly falling feet first, helped by her coat acting like a streamer. She was worried about hitting the bare rocks, sure that her aura wouldn't be able to handle the impact but with Sun ready to catch her, her fears were eased.
Then both faunus remembered the crucial details- Blake's weight plus near terminal velocity- right before impact.
Sun absorbed the impact surprisingly well, catching Blake in a bridal carry as he bent his knees without falling. The force was transferred through his legs and into the rock beneath them, the stone buckling and cratering before the backdraft from Blake blew the dust away.
"It's your turn to say it." Sun gives her a strained smirk as she came to her senses from the sudden stop. Her aura was low from absorbing the impact, certainly better than if she hadn't been caught but nearly broken anyway. Her stomach felt queasy from the fall and not just because it hadn't stopped jiggling yet.
Their eyes widened as they felt the stone crumble beneath them, Sun letting Blake on her feet so that they could jump to a new island that was stable. They had to climb quickly to escape the waves produced by the Feilong crashing into the water with a roar full of pain and frustration.
On the rock, the two faunus took some much needed deep breaths as the action finally seemed to come to an end. On the ship, Itazura was in much the same condition but like the Captain, she remained vigilant as they looked across the water. But Sun seemed to struggle to remain upright, something that Blake was keen to notice in the normally relaxed young man. She moved to ask him about that, her arm reaching out for him.
Then the waters near their island seemed to boil right before the Feilong surged from the depths at the pair, snapping at them and giving both a fresh surge of adrenaline that powered their legs to jump away to the next island in the tight chain.
The Grimm twisted around the rocky spires, threading its way through the larger gaps while smashing through the stone blocking its path. The short legs- comparatively- helped to drag its long body through the rocks while its wings were half limp as they were held close to its undulating body.
But given its size, it was able to cover distances quickly, easily keeping up with the faunus who were leaping from rock to rocky island as fast as they could in a desperate attempt to escape its jaws.
Blake saw Sun stumble upon landing on a fairly flat topped island, having to roll out of it to keep his momentum. Apparently, the Grimm had noticed too and saw the monkey as the easier target, choosing to smash through the stone under Sun's feet with the intent to swallow him and the boulder at the same time.
A quick throw of Gambol Shroud into a rock some distance from either faunus and a swing to snag Sun just before the Feilong could snap its jaws closed, Blake had managed to rescue her friend from certain death. They still got showered with pebbles as the boulder was crushed, showing them what could have been the fate of one or both of them.
The pair swung into a rock face, hanging by the ribbon and their feet on the cliff, Sun openly wincing from the effort even with Blake holding him. The Feilong reared up to attack them again when the island behind it collapsed onto its back thanks to the cannons from the ship, eliciting a roar of pain as it was partially buried. Another island was dropped onto the Grimm, pinning it down.
The Feilong flailed its limbs and tail in an attempt to get free, some of the stone in the water shifting in the struggle, while the head charged up another lightning blast, aimed at the helpless faunus. Behind it, the ship came into sight with the heavy cannon aimed at its back.
Just as the lightning had reached critical levels and was about to be released, an explosive shell impacted the back of its head. As the head and neck erupted in a burst of black smoke, the energy it had built up was released into the water and rocks around it, missing Blake and Sun with anything directly. They did get hit with some pebbles and steam as a result.
Luckily for them, the rocky island they had hung from didn't give way to the damage until after they were both back on the ship. At the same time, both faunus collapsed from exhaustion as the adrenaline began to wear off, knowing that the danger had been dealt with, permanently. But where Blake was able to catch her breath, Sun was cringing in pain.
"Sun? What's wrong?" She rolls over to put her hand on his shoulder, the slight pressure making him wince and suck in air through his teeth. "Captain! We need help!" Once more, adrenaline raced through her as she tried to care for Sun until the medic came to them.
—-
Denko and Iris ran up to the Xiao Long-Rose home where the Scarab sat outside. As much as either of them wouldn't have minded stopping for a chat with Ruby and Yang, knowing that they were home, they had a job to do first. Besides, they were sure that the girls would understand why when they returned.
All that the pair in question heard was the engine starting and the tires on the dirt road from where they sat in the kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
"Where do you think Denko is going?" Yang asks before biting into her meal, glad that she had gotten used to using her left hand for everything now.
"Maybe he had to go to the far side?" Ruby shrugs.
"Still, would have been nice for him to say something." The older sister grumbles, shoving the last of her sandwich in her mouth, getting up to make another.
—-
"Any idea what we are going to face when we get there?" Denko asks the green clad girl in the seat next to him.
"Patch usually just has Beowolves, Ursa, and Nevermore." Iris tells him as she watches the forest through which they drove.
The dirt roads that spanned over the island of Patch were surprisingly well maintained, kept clear of fallen branches and large rocks. The paved roads were only found in the main town to handle the heavier traffic there, the small settlements around the island being only small collections of homes for farming or fishing that neither needed nor wanted the trouble of maintaining the asphalt.
"Nothing else?"
"We occasionally get a Deathstalker or King Taijitu every few years… somehow."
"So, this could be an interesting fight?"
"Really? We're having a Grimm outbreak and you just think this is interesting?"
"What can I say? I've been cooped up at home for weeks and I'm finally about to get back into the action. Why shouldn't I be excited?"
Iris narrowed her eyes at the grinning blonde. "You really haven't changed after all these years. No wonder you and Yang get along so well with that attitude."
Denko didn't say anything, opting to glance her way with a smirk before turning his attention back to the road, a map of the island and the roads on display on the console.
—-
Patch wasn't a very large island and the actual town of Patch sat within an inlet of the estern bay, which meant that anything coming by sea- whether that was human or Grimm- could be seen fairly easily. The bay was too shallow for big ships or even the large Grimm known to inhabit the oceans to move into Patch and the rest of the island usually had rocky cliffs that overlooked the waters with a few actual beaches that were occupied by the fishing villages.
Those factors made Patch a rather defensible place to be, as during the Great War it served as an outpost where enemies attacking Vale could be flanked and/or trapped on the shallows or against the cliffs. The land and sea had served the people who called it home well, so long as they didn't mind hot summers, cold winters, and a few bad storms that swept in from the west across the open ocean between them and Vacuo.
Yet with all of these defenses, nobody knew how Grimm kept appearing on the island. The ones capable of flight like Nevermore, Lancers, and Ravagers have been seen flying to the small landmass and so were rather self-explanatory with their arrival. Those that were bound to land were the real mystery as while Beowolves and Ursai have been observed swimming before, never have they been recorded for doing so for long or managing to do so in water with waves and currents without drowning soon after.
Once more, there was an outbreak of the beasts of darkness and destruction on Patch that the early warning systems had picked up on. And in response, the local Huntsmen and Huntresses have been sent out to deal with them, lethally as standard procedure dictated.
It only took the Scarab less than an hour to reach the northern cape of Patch, the two warriors looking around for the Grimm they were sent to destroy. Yet within the forests that dominated the majority of the northern coastlines, they weren't disappointed when a pack of roughly fifty Beowolves charged at them from across the clearing that they had stopped in.
"I think Ruby told me about a pack like this attacking her last year!" Denko was grinning as he hefted Raijin to rest it on his shoulder.
"I remember that." Iris had a soft smile at the memory. "She was so excited that she had beaten them all that she couldn't stop talking about it for a week." Mora was held in her right hand.
The sunlight glinted off the blades as the two calmly walked away from the Scarab to meet the pack running at them partway. Neither one showed any hesitation in their steps through the light snow that covered the ground.
As soon as the first Grimm was within range, Raijin and Mora lashed out, cutting through the beasts with ease and the pair of humans slipped into a dance of death.
Circular patterns were favored by Denko as his heavier cutting edge flicked out from the tight spins around himself, severing heads and limbs from the bodies to the Grimm. Several were spared the blade in favor of his fists and feet pummeling against the black fur and exposed bones to devastating effect.
In contrast to Denko, Iris struck with precise stabs into vulnerable points of the Grimm near herself, aiming for the heads and chests of her targets. That's not to say that she didn't slash a few, usually their limbs, but the deep penetrating blade was a near guaranteed quick kill before moving onto the next as she weaved her way through their flailing claws.
"Having fun yet?!" Denko yells over the roars and growls of the Beowolves, bisecting one in the process before stomping on the foot of another as he drove an elbow into its chest, the beast letting out a strained yip as it flopped to the ground. It barely had time to refill its body with air to growl when that air was released thanks to a large curved blade piercing its chest and ending its life.
"Are you kidding? We're here to do a job!" Iris yells back at him as she thrust Mora into a furry chest and sees two more coming at her from behind her latest victim. A press of a concealed switch triggered the transformation of Mora from a sword to a spear. The sudden increase of length took the blade out through the back of the first Beowolf and into the head of the second before it could even try to stop. The third had seen what happened and tried to halt its forward movement but slid on the snow into the back of its unfortunate packmate, getting stabbed in the shoulder as a result.
Seeing the third one still alive and the first two still hadn't evaporated yet, Iris hit another switch on the hilt. This time, small blades flipped out of the shaft near the spearhead, some of them already within the final Grimm upon deployment.
With a grunt of exertion, Iris pulled her spear free of all three beasts, the blades slicing cleanly through their flesh and fur. If the initial blade piercing its shoulder was survivable, the eight new blades arranged in differing angles from the center cut out a wound the size of a grapefruit.
Now that the weapon was free, it was revealed that Mora was a spear taller than its owner with the eight blades the same color as the spearpoint, the green shaft at that end giving the appearance of a flower made into a weapon.
"Only about forty more!" Denko shouts as he lets a Grimm dive over him as he slashed the legs out from another.
"I got it!" Iris called back, whacking a Beowolf upside the head with the butt end of the weapon, knocking it down to the ground. The business end landed in the neck of another, the side blades digging deep into its flesh before being ripped out.
Between the two of them, it took only minutes for the Grimm to be reduced to pieces evaporating into black mist among the disturbed and packed snow in the field.
"You didn't see an Alpha among them, did you?" Iris asks, finding it odd that such a large pack didn't have any defined leader.
Denko looks around the fading bodies. Many of the earlier ones had already vanished completely but from everything he could see and remember through the fight, there was no Alpha to contend with. There were no orders or any kind of coordination that would indicate a leader of the pack. That meant that either it had been killed somehow before they had arrived, it had never participated in the attack in the first place, or it was simply smart enough to hang back out of their sight.
"Nope." He sets Raijin onto the holster on his back.
"Damn. It must have given us the slip while we were busy then." Iris sheaths Mora into her belt with a huff.
"There's always next time."
"That's what I'm worried about. What if next time, they are closer to town?"
"If they are closer to town, they gotta deal with a school filled with Huntsmen and students and the Watch next door."
"I guess you're right about that." Iris relents, taking the last of her frustrations out by kicking the head of a Beowolf that had yet to fade.
—-
An hour later, the Scarab pulled up in front of the Xiao Long-Rose home and the pair of Hunters walked in for a drink before reporting in at the Watch headquarters.
"Damn girl! What have you been doing?" Iris shrieked.
In truth, Denko should have expected the sight before him as it had become quite common over the past few weeks. Yang sat on the couch watching a movie on the television with a bowl of ice cream balanced on her mostly bare belly, the shirt she wore barely reaching past the bowl itself to protect her skin from the cold. But an orange tank top that had fit her back at Beacon was now on the smaller side and the pair of sweats that Tai had gotten her where the elastic waistband was stretched nearly to its limits did little to hide how big she is. Though the right arm still in the cast sitting on the armrest was a reminder of why she was in this state.
Ruby wasn't much better, though she was easily smaller than her sister if only because of height and weight distribution. She had managed to squeeze into the usual pajama top of a black tank top with a Beowolf head stylized into a pink heart on the front and red sweats on her legs. The clothes were tight on her thanks to the weight she had gained because of not being at her normal activity level, though not as much as Yang's were. Most likely because her recent return to training was starting to curb her gains but it would take a lot more than simply going through the motions with Crescent Rose to fit her back into her first Beacon uniform.
"Hi." The younger sister weakly greeted the friend with a wave, her other hand holding her own bowl of the frozen treat.
"I hope you left some for me." Denko was quick to say, taking the sight in stride. Obviously, Ruby had finished her training for the day and had gotten cleaned up, content to not leave her sister in isolation.
"Plenty more for you, I just finished off the one carton." Yang replies, getting a raised eyebrow from the blonde.
"I'll get a bowl after dinner then. What are we having?" He asks, getting a cup of hot tea for himself and Iris as he speaks.
"We're having leftovers tonight." Yang answers. While it was true that they had plenty of food in the fridge saved from previous meals, they had been made with the possibility of Taiyang coming home at any time or needing one to take for lunch at Signal.
Iris walked over to the blonde on the couch and stabbed her finger into the round gut. "Doesn't look like you've been leaving any food to be saved with this on you." She turned to do the same to Ruby's smaller but still plush belly. "And you!"
"C'mon Iris, you know what they went through at Beacon." Denko tries to calm the tallest in the room, handing her the cup of tea. "Besides, you look like you could use a few good meals on yourself."
It was true that Iris was easily the thinnest in the room at any time nearly anywhere she went. She always felt flat next to Yang and her curves before the brawler went to Beacon, but now she was best compared to a twig next to a centuries old oak. Being honest with herself, Iris was jealous of the curves that even Ruby had when she left for Beacon. But she wasn't trying to be thin as a rail either, she simply never seemed to have more than a slight flare to her hips and just enough of a chest to require a bra.
It wasn't an exaggeration that Yang's arm was as thick as Iris' waist now.
"And the doctor's orders to not aggravate my arm." Yang adds as she lifts the limb in question from the shoulder as much as she could with no control of the arm aside from the cast holding it. The sling sat on the armrest under where her arm sat. Needless to say, that attempt to move her arm didn't do much, the girl unable to do much more than pin small objects between the arm and her ribs or setting them on the cast while the sling was in use.
That display made Iris deflate from her brief angry concern for her friends. "You should at least watch what you're eating. I think you're bigger than the last time I saw you."
Yang had the decency to look away with a tinge of red on her cheeks. "Maybe a little."
"Hey, we still have to report back to the Watch." Denko reminds Iris as he drains his tea.
Iris looks down to her cup and knocks it back as fast as she could. "Alright, let's go." She follows the older man towards the door. But once there, she turns back to the girls. "Hey Ruby, let me know when you'd like to have some training spars, I'll help whip you back into shape."
"Really? Think we could do it tomorrow?" The young Rose was bouncing in her seat from excitement, causing the rest of her to bounce from the movement.
"I'll meet you here sometime then." Iris smiles. "The offer stands for you too, when you're cleared, Yang."
"Thanks. Let's hope this doesn't take too long." The blonde waves to her friend before she leaves.
Outside, the pair opted to simply drive back to town, not wanting to deal with the cold with the temperatures dropping as the sun was getting low.
"How bad is Yang?" Iris asks quietly.
"Honestly?" He receives a nod in response. "It's been about two months already and there hasn't been much of a change in her arm. Still no feeling at all below the wound. I can see that even her fingers have gotten thinner."
"She's that bad?"
"We're still hoping that the nerves connect again and she can go through the therapy to use her arm again." There was a slight waver in his tone that Iris noticed that betrayed his own fears.
"Anything else I should know when we hang out?" She caught the slight unintentional joke in her words as she remembered that the blonde in question was literally hanging out of her clothes.
"She's been having nightmares about that night." Denko tells her but is now saddened with a tinge of anger. "What if she had lost her arm completely when she was attacked. What if her friends had been killed. If her friends had left her over losing her arm…"
Iris was shocked to hear that her friend was suffering so much. Then again, she had to learn a few years into their friendship at Signal about Yang's parental issues. "She's been going to you for those, hasn't she?"
"She's helped me with mine too. I'm not about to let my best friend suffer on her own."
"Good, keep up the good work with that." Iris was glad that her friends were helping each other through their trying times, especially when she was unable to be with them much thanks to her duties with the Watch. Then again, her job helped to keep the Grimm away from them, letting them recover in greater peace.
"Hey Denko?"
"Yeah?"
"Try to not let Yang get too big. We don't need her getting stuck in the front door by the time she's ready to train again." That set the two of them off, laughing at the mental image.
—-
As it turned out, Sun had simply strained his back when he caught Blake. The girl in question was curled up under her blankets, hiding in her shame from hurting him but staying close for when he needed her. She peeked out from under her sheets to see the man laying on his bed across the room from her, sleeping soundly with the help of some strong painkillers the ship's medic provided.
She wasn't going to leave him. She had already tried to abandon one friend who had tried to help her and it was him who had stopped her. She wasn't about to repeat that mistake again. Yang still called her a sister after that but Sun… he was really someone she found herself needing in her life more than ever, being the one to support her when she needed the strength the most and to keep her head on straight.
Her team… her sisters… they were the ones she needed to help her realize that she wasn't alone anymore and was wanted. But him… she was feeling emotions within her that she never felt before. Not even when she was with Him, did she have these feelings. She may have thought they were love before but after being stabbed by Him, she knew that she was just fooling herself when she was with him.
She couldn't imagine Him putting himself in that sort of position for her. Not even on that train did He really put himself in the way of harm unless it was to fuel his own Semblance, knowing that he'd be fine. It had been her taking all of the hits on that mission, even when they were surprised by the first big blast that filled the confined car so they had nowhere to run, He had used that as an opportunity for himself.
Sun never did that to her. At the docks, he had been the one who tried to talk her out of doing anything hasty. Tried being the key word as she was too consumed with her frustrations of the White Fang working with the likes of Roman Torchwick willingly.
When they had infiltrated the rally, he had been the one to try to understand the motivations of the former equality group. He had stuck by her, trying to buy her time to run during the chase. She seemed to be on his mind when he had found that Tuckson's Book Trade was being continued to be run in his memory by his friends. When trying to ask her out for the dance, stuck in that locked room, he had revealed his vulnerability and how low he thought about himself.
He didn't insist that she stay by his side for everything when they were together, freely letting her do as she pleased. Yet he seemed to be there when she needed, even if she didn't realize that she needed him.
Her left hand reached down, gliding over the soft flesh of her belly until her fingers grazed the scar there. She traced the marred skin, the rough X not likely to fade at all.
There was no way that she could see Sun harming her like that, not willingly. He was the one to constantly pick her up and make her feel worthy of being a person, to be wanted for being her. Not just a part of a team. Just her.
And she wanted to return the favor as best she could. She would care for him while he was wounded as he did for her. And she was curious to see how things would go between them if they were this good so far.
"I'm not going to let Him rule my life. Not anymore." She quietly says to herself as she sat up to reveal herself to the world.
The door to their room opened to allow Itazura to enter with two large trays in her hands. "Dinner's here!" The fox announces as she sets the food on the room's small table.
"I'm not eating." Blake was quick to say.
Itazura rolled her eyes. "You're going to need to eat." She says as she pokes the cat in the side hard enough to hit ribs.
"Not hungry."
"I'm not buying it." She sat on the bed, barely moving the larger girl with her much smaller mass. "After a fight like that, you'll be hungry no matter what."
The cat had no response but refused to budge. There was a grumble of a stomach from across the room. A sly smile came to Itazura's face as her ears perked up.
"Fine then, if you're not going to eat, you can make sure he does."
That got Blake's attention, her own ears standing up straight. "What?"
"If you are feeling so guilty for hurting him in the middle of a fight, even though it wasn't your fault that he kept you from going splat, you can help him get better."
The fox had her amusement as she watched the cat's face turn red from embarrassment. "Best get to it before the food goes cold." With that, Itazura vanished out the door with a flick of her tail, the door closing behind her.
Blake turned to the other bed to find that Sun was awake and looked to have seen everything. He tried to shrug as he normally would in that situation, but it turned into a heavy wince as the medication only did so much after a few hours. Luckily, there was a fresh dose of the pills on the tray for him.
"I'll get it." Blake tells him, shifting from the bed to the chair she moved to sit next to his bed. From there, she helped him take the medicine with some tea to wash them down.
Then there was some trouble when it came to feeding the monkey boy. "Not without you eating too." He grinned.
Even when she had to care for him thanks to injuries, he was still going out of his way to look out for her. But with a huff of mock irritation and rolling her eyes, Blake took a bite from her own meal before Sun opened his own mouth like a baby bird.
AN: Just so that things are clear going forward, I'm still going to try for my weekly update schedule as normal but don't be surprised if it becomes a two-week gap between updates. Things are getting better but I don't have as much time to myself anymore to do what I'd like. The price of being close family, I guess.
Also, for those wondering about the growth of waistlines from Ruby and Yang during their time at home... I'm kinda basing that off my own bout of being injured for some time, where I had put on nearly thirty pounds in four months. Keep in mind, that we could assume that the training regimen of the students at Beacon could be likened to that of world class athletes and for some of them went from that level of activity to next to nothing thanks to their injuries. It's going to have some effect, especially on some unsupervised depressed teenagers who were already tired of living on rations for the past few months and now home where their usual foods are available.
But next time, we get the fun of our faunus trio reaching their destination of Menagerie! That's going to be a fun one and I have a picture already made for that.