Ruby wasn't sure what to do. The girl that was following her was named Blake, and they had a friendly enough meeting. Since then however Blake hadn't said a word apart from those initial introductions. At first Ruby had thought that Blake might be as socially awkward as she herself was, but that proved to be untrue because Blake's emotions were completely calm. There wasn't even any anxiety from being in a Grimm infested forest. So Blake was apparently very confident in her skills and completely fine with the silence. This didn't really help with the awkwardness Ruby felt, but made it a little easier to deal with. She instead turned her attention towards the clearing they had wandered into. It didn't quite seem like a temple, but it was in the right place, and there were chess pieces on pedestals. They were clearly newer than the ruins around them and were probably the 'relics' they were searching for.
"Looks like this is it." Ruby said. Blake nodded in agreement before stepping towards the ruined platform that was supposedly a temple. Several of the pieces were already taken. Ruby observed each one before coming to one of the white knight pieces.
'Oh yes perfect for someone who always has to right whatever wrong is in front of them' the voice said, 'you should definitely go with that one!' Ruby laughed a bit as she grabbed it.
"Ok fine," She mumbled before turning to Blake, "I got it, let's go." Blake nodded again before turning to leave. That's when both of them heard it, a scream coming from the forest. Blake visibly tensed while Ruby began scanning the forest for some kind of clue as to who was screaming and where. She caught sight of a tangled bundle of fear, no rather terror flying towards them. Underneath the very visible terror rolling off of him Ruby could recognize the underlying Aura of her only true friend in the world.
"Jaune!" she shouted out before turning to Blake, "we have to help him!"
"How?" Blake asked. Ruby turned back to realise that Blake was right. Jaune had already slammed into a rather large tree and was currently breaking branches on his way down. Ruby was already moving towards him before he hit the ground, but he had certainly done so by the time she arrived.
"Jaune!" Ruby said, "Are you okay?"
"Uhhg" the boy managed to grit out. He slowly turned his head to look at the girl standing over him. "Ruby?"
"Yup." Ruby confirmed.
"Did he really fly the whole way here?" Blake asked as she walked up. Before either Ruby or Jaune could respond a rather large Ursa burst into the clearing, followed by the sound of explosions.
"Awwww, It's broken" Said an excitable orange haired girl as she rolled off the back of the Ursa.
"Did that girl just ride in on the back of an Ursa?" Blake asked.
"Looks like it." Ruby answered as the orange haired girl skipped over to the relics.
"Nora, don't ever do that again." came a male voice from behind the Ursa, not realizing that the girl in question had already moved on. He was alerted to her change of position when she started causing a racket near the relics. "Nora!"
"Hehe, Coming Ren!" the now named Nora responded before moving over to Ren. As she was doing so a cracking sound could be heard coming from the forest. The five people in the clearing looked to see as Pyrrha Nikos charged between a few trees with a very angry deathstalker on her tail.
"Jaune!" She shouted out as she dodged the deathstalkers attacks.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted back as he started to get back up.
"Did she just run all the way here with a deathstalker on her tail?" Blake asked.
"Probably." Ruby said. No sooner had she said this than she heard the sounds of heavy pawsteps and growling coming from the other direction, "great, what now?" Ruby mumbled to herself. Ruby could sense two emotionally charged figures coming towards them. One she recognized. Weiss and another person, whose emotions could only be described as 'raw untamed fury' ran at full speed towards them. Blake had apparently noticed the sounds too and had turned to see what was coming. Sure enough within seconds Weiss and a blonde haired girl Ruby unceremoniously dubbed 'fast and furious' ran into the clearing.
'Why fast and furious?' Ruby's other half asked.
'Cause she's running and cause of her emotional state.' Ruby answered, 'plus it's a reference to that Spruce Willis movie.'
'Ah, that makes sense. Incoming by the way.' Charging into the clearing right behind the two runners was a nine tailed fox like grimm with two of its tails on fire and a third with icicles sticking out of it.
'What is it' Ruby asked.
'A kumiho, mightier than thou pricks who won't share territory.' The voice began to complain, 'seriously this one time…'
'Stories later, how do I beat it.' Ruby interrupted.
'Their biggest advantage is that they can absorb dust and use it in combat.' The voice informed her as she switched her weapon to it's sword mode, 'they're fast and agile, though that shouldn't be a problem for you. Weak spots are the throat, joints, and tails.
"Got it." Ruby said aloud, "Blake with me!" she turned to the other newcomers, "happy girl and ninja boy work on keeping the deathstalker busy, Jaune and Pyrrha go pick a up the other gold knight piece and pocket it!" Nora smiled and charged in swinging her hammer wildly which freed Pyrrha to join Jaune at the Relics. "Weiss and Fast'N'Furious go work on the deathstalker!" While those two were closer to the Kumiho, Ruby could also smell the over abundance of dust on them and knew that would be bad for fighting this particular grimm.
"What did you call me!" the Blonde shouted at Ruby but dragged Weiss over to the other grimm nonetheless.
"Go for the leg joints and the tails!" Ruby shouted to Blake, who said nothing but began to leave shadow clones around and struck at the area's Ruby pointed out. Meanwhile Ruby began striking the same spots on the other side of the grimm. It seemed they were well on their way to giving the grimm the death of a thousand cuts when one of the swung and knocked Ruby off her feet. She looked up to see that the Grimm was looking directly at her and its mouth was glowing red.
"Ruby!" Jaune shouted as he and Pyrrha were running up to help. Pyrrha saw what was about to happen and threw her shield. At the same time the grimm opened its mouth and launched a fireball directly at Ruby. The shield swerved its course and dropped in front of Ruby just in time to deflect the fireball.
"Thanks!" Ruby said as she got to her feet. She looked Blake used a shadow clone to avoid being hit just like she had been. "New plan!" Ruby shouted "Jaune Pyrrha distract it, Blake you and I are going to target the tails!" Blake nodded and took off.
Jaune turned to Pyrrha "you have better range than I do so you target high I'll target low."
"Got it!" Pyrrha said enthusiastically. She then ran at Jaune and launched herself off of his shield towards the Kumiho's head. Meanwhile Ruby had turned into a flying bundle of rose petals. She quickly joined Blake, who had already gotten one of the tails, at the back of the grimm. She targeted one of the two flaming tails. Using her full momentum she swung at the tail and was able to cut right through it. Towards the front, Pyrrha managed to keep the Grimm's attention by striking towards its nose from above. When a it launch Pyrrha away with a fireball Jaune charged in and struck towards its throat with Crocea Mors. The Grimm howled in pain at the shallow cut before turning its attention towards Jaune. It tried to launch another fireball only to find that it sputtered out before it could leave the Grimm's mouth. The Grimm turned to find that most of its tails had been cut off above just above the stump. While it was looking back Jaune and a recovered Pyrrha targeted its front legs. The cuts were deep and brought it down. When it tried to get back up, Blake ran wrapped Gambol shroud around its neck and pulled it back to the ground. Meanwhile Pyrrha launched Ruby off of her shield into the air. Ruby then accelerated herself down towards the pinned Grimm. She drove her blade deep through the creatures skull. The group breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed on the ground as the Grimm began to dissipate.
"How's the other group doing?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha looked over at the group engaging the deathstalker. She saw its tail was frozen in a block of ice, and the blonde scythe wielder cut off one of it's large claws with a single swipe of her scythe.
"Pretty well actually." Pyrrha said. "Should we go help them?" Ruby rolled over and looked at the other group.
"Naw, they'd probably be done by the time we got over there anyway." Ruby answered. "Let's just take a quick breather before we head back."
"Agreed." Jaune and Blake said in unison.
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