Here's chapter 17, everyone.
Yang stretched a bit as she walked through the forest, keeping an eye out for anyone she could partner up with. "I swear if I end up with someone who can't handle themselves, I am so asking for a redo." Stepping on a twig made her look around, wondering if any beasts had heard her, so she prepared her gauntlets for a fight.
After a bit of waiting, she shrugged and realized there wasn't anything to fight, so she continued making her way to where she believed the relics were. Only problem for her though was the Sova, an owl like beast that was keeping a watch over her. It's jet black wings moved, annoyed by the sounds of gunfire and elemental attacks being thrown around.
It only took a few more moments of examining her with its bright red eyes to realize she was using weapons. It may not have been the ones that woke it up, but it was still something noisy nonetheless, so it opened it mouth and screeched, making Yang gasp and cover her ears in pain. "Ahhhh! What the hell?!" She looked over to the source of the screech and caught sight of the Sova. "Oh crap."
The blonde moved one of her hands down, aiming her gauntlet at it as she punched her arm forward, shooting out at it and hitting it directly in the face since it was still alerting other beasts to its location. As it fell to the ground, Yang sighed in relief and lowered her hands, feeling like she could hear again.
"Stupid owl thing." Yang grumbled, but she froze when she heard trampling in the distance. "Son of a-." She jumped away when she heard the trampling getting closer.
Out from behind the trees and bushes that blocked her vision was the fifteen foot ogre like creature. It's back laced with crystals, ice ones to be exact.
Yang smirked. "Fire versus ice? Man, you picked the wrong girl to mess with." She punched her fists together and the energy around her changed into fire, making the Aisuoga grunt in annoyance. "Huh, guess you ain't afraid of your weakness."
That didn't stop the blonde as she shot forward, ready to adjust when needed. The Aisuoga was never known for its brain power, so all it did was mindlessly swing down, missing the girl who dodged to the left, but she still had enough time to fire off a shot, hitting the Aisuoga in the ribcage, but it didn't look like it hurt it all that much.
"Right, durability is your thing. Funny when you got ice on your back." Yang said to the creature, watching as its ice crystals shined, meaning it was about to be used.
The blonde girl held her arms up, doing her best to block her face as ice shards from its back shot out like mortars, surprising the blonde who gasped and tried to position herself to block from the top. Even so, she didn't see the Aisuoga run in and punch her, sending the girl flying into a tree, cracking the wood behind her.
Yang coughed out, throwing her head back as she slowly got up, seeing the Aisuoga walking up to her, so her lilac eyes changed to its blood red tinge. "Huh… Okay then." She watched as the Aisuoga punched forward, so Yang caught its hand with her own, growling as she glared at the creature.
She managed to break its hand in her grip and the Aisuoga grunted in pain, pulling back and looking pissed off. It reached behind its back and pulled out the ice crystals that grew out of it, roaring up as it slammed them on the ground.
The blonde huntress in training was about to back away, but the pain in her back caused her to groan and almost fall over. Lucky for her she felt something wrapping around her waist, pulling her back far enough from the ice that was heading towards her. "Uh… What?" She turned around and looked up, her eyes widened as she saw her savior. "Oh… Fancy meeting you here."
Blake rolled her eyes and unwrapped her weapon from the blonde, looking towards the Aisuoga. "Talk later. We have something to deal with still."
"Well I can tell you his right hand is broken." Yang said as she got up, dusting herself off a bit. "Don't let him get a hit in though. Might be dumb, but he packs a hell of a right hook."
"I'm well aware." Blake began shooting some fire rounds at the Aisuoga, making it growl in anger as it held its arms up to shield itself. "What I'm doing now, can you keep up that same amount of fire?"
Yang reloaded her gauntlets and nodded. "Hell yeah. Though you mind telling me what you have planned?"
"Diversion tactics. They work well on this type of enemy. The kind that is dumb enough to let someone get behind them." Blake said, Yang glancing at her right leg for a moment.
"Uh, yeah sure." Yang readied herself, hoping her new partner would be okay with her limp.
Blake swapped her Gambol Shroud to its katana form and began running at the Aisuoga, shocking Yang since she expected her limp to slow her down, but the blonde shook her head and started firing at the creature, keeping its arms up to shield her incoming fire. It did however see Blake and tried to swat at her, but when she disappeared, it looked confused and had no idea that she got behind it.
The black haired huntress in training used the red dust in her weapon to heat the blade up, slashing at the nape of the Aisuoga's neck, causing it to roar in pain as it swung around to hit her, but Blake used her semblance again to leave behind a clone in her place that disappeared a moment later.
Blood spilled from the nape of the Aisuoga, but since it now held one hand over the spot where it was bleeding, Yang was able to hit it enough to begin overpowering it. The creature fell on its back as Blake slammed her blade down onto its heart.
With one final roar, the Aisuoga went limp and Blake pulled her blade out, sighing as she and Yang were able to kill the creature. "Man, that was great!" Yang exclaimed as she ran over, meeting Blake halfway. "Nice semblance by the way."
"It's not really all that impressive." Blake remarked, not caring for praise.
"Uh, well I think it is, but hey… How are you able to walk around so easily? And how you ran at that big guy," Blake tensed up and Yang rubbed the back of her head. "It seemed… I don't know, kinda-."
Blake turned around and crossed her arms. "I lied."
Yang looked confused as she lowered her arms. "Huh?"
"My limp… I lied, okay." Blake admitted, looking down at the dirt they were standing on. "Don't ask me why, just know I lied and that you don't need to pester me about it anymore." She turned around to leave, but felt Yang grab her shoulder. "Can we not do this right now?"
"If you just tell me why you were lying about that, then I'll drop it. Other than that, no, because we just became partners. Ones who have to be with each other for the next four years." Yang reminded.
Blake shook her off. "Well some things are too personal to talk about. Now unless you wish to be disrespectful about it, I'd suggest we get moving and find one of those relics."
Yang couldn't believe how she was acting. "Well yeah, we need to get the relics and all, but…" She stopped herself when thought about what Blake said. "Okay, okay, fine. Can we just pretend this whole limp thing didn't happen?"
It was the only out she had, so Blake stopped and turned around, nodding to the blonde. "Alright then."
Yang let out a small smile and caught up with her, turning the black haired girl around to where she was headed before. "Awesome. Oh, and by the way, I won't ask for a redo on my partner." She chuckled to herself as she walked ahead, leaving Blake slightly confused as she shrugged and followed the blonde.
Weiss pushed passed some leaves, but found it to not annoy her too much as she sighed happily, feeling the breeze. "You know, if this place wasn't filled with a bunch of monsters trying to kill us, it would be a nice place to come to every so often to just relax."
Ruby giggled a little. "I think so too. Hey, maybe if this place isn't as infested, we can come over again and-." She stopped when she heard someone yelling for help.
"Ugh! Get me down from here!" The voice sounded familiar to both Ruby and Weiss, so the pair ran over to the source of the cry of help, only to see their recently made blonde friend stuck to a tree by what looked to be a javelin.
"Jaune?" Ruby looked up, surprised to see her new friend up on a tree. "Uh, how did you get stuck up there?"
The blonde boy looked down, shocked to see the two of them. "Ruby! Ah, man, I don't know! I was falling out of the sky… And… Uh, not screaming in the slightest," Weiss rolled her eyes when he said that. "When I got hit by this spear. I don't know where the heck it came from!"
"Oh, I'm sorry! That would be my fault" A new voice startled the three, as the girl with scarlet red hair walked up in her finely crafted armor. "I saw you falling and thought you could use a bit of help landing. I hope I didn't hurt you."
"Uh… No, so not hurt, but… Can you maybe get me down?" Jaune asked the girl, getting a smirk in return from her as she nodded and climbed up the tree.
Both Ruby and Weiss gave each other confused looks, not knowing how to react. "So should we leave them to it?" Weiss asked her partner.
"I guess." Ruby looked up. "Jaune! Me and Weiss are gonna head out! Good luck with initiation!" She waved him off as the blonde boy groaned, wishing they hadn't seen him like that.
When the scarlet haired girl who wore it in a ponytail reached to where he was stuck, she smiled at him. "I believe since neither of us have seen any other student, that makes us partners."
"Oh… Yeah, that's how it works… Right?" He asked and got a nod from the girl. "Um, well if we're partners, I guess you should know. My name is Jaune Arc."
"Hello to you, Jaune. I'm Pyrrha Nikos." Pyrrha kept her smile up, feeling a happy presence around her new partner.
Weiss and Ruby got a good distance from the two, wondering if they'd be fine since they were the only other students they met up with. "Would it have been better if we grouped up?" Weiss inquired.
"Hmm, I don't know. I mean, we aren't technically on a four person team yet. Initiation is just two of us, so maybe they might look down on that or something." Ruby guessed.
"Oh, I didn't think about that." Weiss tightened her grip on Myrtenaster. "Um, Ruby, if I may, do you believe that the two of us are a good team?"
Ruby stopped for a moment, surprised Weiss would even ask that. "What? Of course I do! You saw how we beat those Taaras! It was our first real fight together and we kicked butt!"
Weiss rubbed her shoulder after swapping Myrtenaster to her other hand. "I got hurt though… I feel like-."
"Hey, don't do that. I'm the one who was super worried, but you told me you were okay and I still believe you!" Ruby said as she took Weiss' hand. "It was my fault for being an open target for you to worry about in the first place, but that's why we're a good team. We protected each other, Weiss."
The white haired teen couldn't deny that, so she let out a light blush. "You tend to know what to say a lot, Ruby Rose…"
Ruby grinned and nodded, pulling Weiss forward a bit. "I'm just good at staying positive. Sooo, wanna keep going this way, or should we maybe get on the trees for a better sight?"
"Well that could work." Weiss looked up at the tree top, but she thought about the disadvantages of it. "Actually, we might want to stick to the ground. We may get spotted by one of the flying creatures out there."
"Dang, well I-." Ruby gasped when she and Weiss were lifted off the ground by the strong current of the wind, but it wasn't the natural wind as they both fell on the ground, several feet from each other.
Ruby lifted her head to see a Strom, the grey wolf growling at the girl. Weiss' eyes widened when she saw it, so she gripped her pendant and felt frozen. Ruby however got up and brought her scythe with her, aiming it at the Strom when she swapped to sniper mode.
The fact that Stroms were wolflike creatures always made Weiss uneasy. "Weiss, come on! Get up!" Ruby called out to her partner when she noticed she wasn't trying to stand. Weiss gasped in response and got up, her grip on Myrtenaster a bit shaky.
It didn't take a genius to see that Weiss was shaking, which worried Ruby, but she couldn't afford to lose her focus on the Strom, so she took a quick shot at it, but the wolf creature used its power to create a wall of electricity in front of it, acting as a barrier.
"Shoot! These things have a few more elemental attacks than the basic creatures." Ruby kept fired, but none of her shots could penetrate the barrier. "Weiss, any ideas?" When she looked over at her partner, she could see the fear in her eyes. "W-Weiss? Weiss come on!"
Weiss gasped again and looked over at Ruby. "W-What?"
Before Ruby could say anything, the Strom howled and a lightning strike came down on Ruby, making her cry out in pain as she fell to the ground. Weiss' eyes widened as she saw her friend trembling on the ground, the electricity still coursing through her.
It was a new fear that hit her. The fear of losing someone she cared about, and as the Strom began to slowly walk towards Ruby on all fours, it left some lightning spots under it.
Weiss couldn't do it. She couldn't get her body to move as she watched Ruby continue to squirm in pain. Something broke in Weiss though, so she screamed in fear and began to use her 'semblance', not caring anymore about what she'd have to deal with because of it as a flash of light encompassed her body.
Ruby slowly opened her eyes, seeing where her white haired friend was, now stood a white wolf on all fours, growling with Myrtenaster in its teeth. The Strom turned to face the white wolf, growling at it in return.
"W-Weiss… Is… That you?" Ruby asked as her vision went black.
And now we can finally get into her using her semblance a lot more. Hope this chapter worked well with how I had her finally choosing to use it. And also, the new Grimm aren't just limited to animals. As seen in this chapter.
To JJ- Willow is tough, and yeah, having to blackmail her in a sense was a bit much, but Raven needs a push. So technically it's good for both of them. And yeah, I felt like detailing Ren and Nora here makes sense instead of saying they're just gonna be there in the back.
I hoped you all enjoyed chapter 17. Remember, reviews are welcomed, but not required. See you all in chapter 18.