The moment Neo stepped out of what little remained of the building, she opened up her parasol. The winds were still well enough to pick her up and lift her away to safety. Glancing back down, she saw the monster stalking slowly towards Ruby, who was hunkered down between two buildings just across the street. It was an easy shot, even in this weather, and Neo quickly realized something was wrong, otherwise Ruby would have already fired. She needed to get back down there, or she would soon find herself alone. That might not be so bad, really, if it was just her. No one else to have to keep rescuing.
Neo shook her head. Nah. Nope. She was the one who kept getting rescued. She owed Ruby at least this. She was well over the rooftops now, though, so how to get down with enough speed to make it in time? In that moment, Neo noticed something changing. Her arm changed color, glowing brightly. It was definitely concerning, but there was another property it took on. That would definitely help.
She stretched her arm down to the nearest roof, watching in wonder as it turned into some strange noodle elastic thing. She could still move it just how she wanted, and gripped the edge of the roof tightly. Pulling herself down, and closing Hush so it wouldn't slow her descent, she shot past the tops of the buildings and slammed into the street with enough force to crack the pavement. She smiled to herself. At least she was still cool.
Looking ahead at the evil monster that was making its way to cornering Ruby, then looking down at her very abnormal glowing noodle arm attached to her, Neo felt herself formulating a plan. There was no way Ruby knew exactly what Neo's semblance was capable of, but she would know that this wasn't it. Neo was pretty confident in that, at least. But if her semblance still worked fine, then she could think of a way to cover this thing up. The appearance of Cinder Fall wrapped around Neo, right down to the long black stretchy Grimm arm. Perfect.
She launched her new disguised stretchy arm at the beast, claws out and ready to sink into its flesh and cause some serious damage. When the clawed hand latched onto the beast, wrapping around its eye and tearing into the puss and ichor, Neo had to grimace. She could strangely half feel it, and she hated the sensation enough as it was. She still had a job to finish, though. Closing her hand, she felt the mechanical eye crunch and shatter, crumpling into a worthless ball. She tore it out and brought it back to herself as the monster flailed about in pain and rage. Ruby stepped out of the alley and into the street, looking over to where Neo stood, disguised as Cinder. Now that she didn't need that arm anymore, she could drop the illusion, and as it faded away and the light of realization appeared on Ruby's exhausted face. Neo threw the eye away, and she was aware that it bounced into an open manhole.
The two of them turned together to face the beast as it reared back up and clamored around in a blind attempt to find its prey. Ruby fired a shot at it to get its attention, chambering another round as it let off a shriek and began to lumber towards them. As fast as they could, they darted opposite directions, circling and closing on their great foe. Ruby closed in, swinging her scythe at its leg with a shout. The blade of her weapon got stuck on the thick bone and steel, and the beast kicked her off, sending her tumbling to the ground. On the other side, Neo leapt into the air and stabbed at the exposed flesh, drawing it away from Ruby. As it turned towards Neo, Ruby saw something curious on the monster's underside.
There were glass canisters hooked up to plastic tubing that was feeding a greenish smoke into the belly of the beast. She still didn't know what that green cloud would do to her, but she suspected it was dangerous. Otherwise it wouldn't be green. It looked like a weak point, but she didn't dare release that cloud without knowing what it would do. She looked up to see Neo vault over the top of the monster, landing behind it. While it slowly turned to face them again, Neo grabbed Ruby's hand and picked her up off the ground.
"Thank you. I might have found a vulnerability, but it could be more dangerous after I hit it. I need to know what that green smoke does. Let's lead it into a building where the rain and wind won't clear it all out right away, and I'm going to stick my hand in." If it was only dangerous to breathe, they could avoid that, but if it reacted to their flesh like the plant thing's fluids, they needed to take special care to fight around it. It probably would, and it would probably hurt a lot to stick her hand into it, but she'd only really seen its effects on dead wood. But she needed to know if she would survive.
Instead, Neo shook her head, then pointed back to where the beast had just gotten around to facing them. It opened its mouth to grumble violently at them, and Neo pointed inside. Ruby couldn't quite make it out through the storm, but there was a green haze inside the beast. That gas was inside, filling up its gut like a gas chamber and flooding around the chair in the center. Neo handed her parasol to Ruby, and then the noose shot out of the monster's mouth and wrapped around her, yanking her out of Ruby's reach. It opened wide, and drew Neo inside, then the maw of blades clamped down and hid her from view.
"Neo!"
When she shouted, it was clear that the monster knew where she was. It lunged at her, plunging its needle-like hands into the ground just after she jumped out of the way. She had to beat it. She had to distract it and move around behind it, then sever those lines. Whatever they were, it needed them. She dashed forward, trying to make her way around its back. It must have heard her, as it turned and grabbed for her. Ruby felt a sudden pain, like an enormous shock of lightning punching through her, and it was coming from her leg. She tripped and fell face first onto the street, hitting her chin hard enough to draw blood. Then, more pain, unbearable pain, as the needle that was speared through her leg pulled her up into the air. She dropped Neo's parasol, barely able to hold onto Crescent Rose through the pain as she screamed. It threw her up in the air and let her fall onto its back. She felt everywhere that her body got just a little too close to the pikes rising off of it, slices of red hot pain only adding to the maelstrom of horror.
When she landed, past the sharp blades, the back of her head hit on something hard and wooden, making a loud cracking sound. Ruby saw stars for a few seconds, and when her senses were starting to return, she could feel an oddly warm wetness growing around the back of her head. She didn't have long to think about that, though, as the axe-bladed tail came swooping through the air at her, angling to behead her. Acting on pure self-preservation instinct, she held Crescent Rose up to block it.
The blade cleaved straight through Crescent Rose, cutting it in half, and then proceeded on to dig into the wooden altar right next to Ruby's head, the lower edge sheering through her shoulder, ripping another scream from her throat. The axe pulled itself out and rose back up over her, repositioning to try again. Ruby rolled off to the side, and the axe came down on empty wood. Scrambling away, Ruby pulled herself through the forest of pike shafts, yellow and red bile covering her hands and clothes. Reaching the side of the beast, the blade of Crescent Rose still in one hand, she pulled herself over the edge and tumbled through black oozing tar and sharp, sticking feathers until she hit the ground with a hard thud. When she went to stand up, pushing against the ground with her hand, she felt one of the feathers stick into her skin. She couldn't tell through all the tar and the whipping rain, but it felt like it had gone in.
Staggering to her feet and stumbling a few steps away from her enemy, Ruby turned back to it again. It faced her and opened its mouth. Ruby could see inside. She could see Neo. Neo was alive in there, struggling, in pain as the green fog assaulted her body. After all that time, she was still alive. Ruby tightened her grip on what remained of her weapon. It was time to move. Just because Neo was still alive didn't mean she would be for long. She dashed to the side again, like before, but this time instead of trying to circle it, she dove under its bulky body and rolled across the ground, tumbling to a stop under its hindquarters. Looking up, she saw the piping. She survived this far, so she could survive that.
Striking fast and hard, Ruby smashed the glass canisters, shattering them open. Green gas poured out on top of her, and the beast rumbled and roared, rattling all its weaponry together in an evil cacophony. Dragging herself out from under the beast, coughing and gagging to get the green gas out of her lungs, Ruby dropped the blade of Crescent Rose, letting it melt away on the ground. She fell to her knees and bent over, retching and throwing up, shakily falling to the side and trying in vain to pull herself away. She could hear the beast behind her, squealing and shrieking as it searched for her, stomping on the ground in its fury. She had to get up.
Slamming her wounded hand into the sidewalk, Ruby pushed herself up through all the pain that was enveloping her, encapsulating her. She stood up one more time. She needed to end this battle now, or they were both dead. She took two steps towards the beast, and felt her foot hit on something. Looking down, she saw Neo's parasol. Hush. She scooped it up and took the sword out of it. Pointing it down at the ground, she tapped the metal blade on the stone streets. Hearing the noise, the beast turned and roared, opening its mouth and spitting out its noose tongue. Ruby ducked to the side, letting the noose fly past her, and then charged straight at the gaping maw in front of her. Before it could draw its tongue back in, she leapt into the air and flew through the forest of swords that made it's teeth. She didn't care when she felt several new cuts appear on her legs and arms, even one on her cheek. She needed to get through.
Ruby landed inside the beast's gut, on the solid floor of the gas chamber in its belly. She looked up and around her, seeing that the gas had all drained out of the room. Those tubes must have been what was feeding the gas into it. She looked to where Neo was strapped into the metal chair. Her clothes were tattered, and she was no less covered in cuts than Ruby was. The edges of her clothes were burnt, set aflame by an electrical current running through the metal. The gas had done a number on her as well, as her skin was red and flaking. She was coming apart at the seams. But she was still breathing, if unconscious.
Ruby didn't know what to do now, though. She wasn't sure how to kill the beast. That was, at least, until she looked up. There, on the gas chamber ceiling, was a brown mass of flesh with the vague shape of a face. Hanging out the top of the face was a pink pulsating brain. Ruby pointed Hush's blade up at the brain and stabbed it in, quickly cutting it open. As if she hadn't endured enough, some horrible-smelling pink semi-fluid poured out on top of her. It didn't do anything, at least as far as she could tell, but she'd been slimed. Then the whole room shook, and the beast collapsed to the ground. The floor cracked, and the blade teeth started to fall out one by one, clattering to the ground outside.
Ruby set about tearing off the clamps that held Neo to the chair, pulling her free and carrying her out. She kicked the remaining sword teeth out of her way and stepped back out into the storm. She made her way to the nearest standing structure and kicked open the front door, stepping in out of the rain and wind. Well, the rain anyway. Wind blasted into the building, whipping what was left of her clothes around her. It was wretched, the state she was in, and she knew that she was in better condition than Neo. She made her way up the stairs, once she found them, and found a bedroom where she could put Neo on a bed. Then she sat down in the corner of the room and started the long process of taking everything off. All the feathers, tar, bile, blood, and everything else. She would rather face the world naked than covered like that.
Once she was stripped down entirely, Ruby found a miracle in the next room. A full bathtub. Instead of climbing in, she found a bucket to gather water with, and then used that to clean herself off. After she was satisfied with how clean she was, she went and collected Neo, stripping off her clothes and carrying her to the tub, where she laid her down in the water. Red wisps of blood rose off her cuts in the clear clean liquid, but more importantly, her reddened skin started to clear up. Ruby sat back and watched, waiting and hoping that Neo would open her eyes again. It was longer than Ruby would have wanted, but not as long as it could have been. Neo's eyes fluttered open and she stared blankly up at the washroom ceiling.
Neo coughed violently for a few seconds, then settled her head back and let out a rasping groan. "I feel like I died."
Ruby was shocked, and was about to say something when she felt her voice catch in her throat. Ruby held her hand up to her throat and rubbed it for a moment, then tried again. Nothing. She couldn't speak.