Jaune dodged backwards, his footwork smooth and confident as he put his dance skills to work.
Now if only the rest of him was like his feet.
He was sweating and panting as he barely managed to dodge the swipe of an Ursa Major, a second one already slumped on the ground and evaporating, an arrow in its eye from a lucky shot. He grunted as he brought his shield up to block another swipe, the impact rattling his arm till it almost went numb.
Remembering one of Pyrrha's moves he turned with the impact, bringing his sword around in a slash with all his momentum behind it. The Ursa roared in pain as it lost use of its arm, most of it cut through so only a bit of sinew kept it attached. Jaune quickly capitalized, thrusting his sword at the massive Grimm's throat. Unfortunately the beast managed to bat the blade away with its good arm just in time, almost knocking the sword out of Jaune's grip.
He grit his teeth and dodged backwards again, trying to think of what to do now. Quickly making a decision he focused on slashing the bearlike Grimm in the unprotected belly from the side of its injured arm. The Grimm roared, twisting and turning, trying to keep its vulnerable side from him, but unfortunately for it Jaune was much smaller and faster than it was.
Finally the monster got desperate and moved to slam its enormous paw down on Jaune's head. Jaune quickly twirled to the side, bashed its head with his shield, and brought his sword down on the gap in the bone plates behind its neck, severing its spine. The Ursa dropped to the ground and began to dissipate as well.
Jaune fell on his ass with relief, exhausted. That was the third fight today. He'd previously had to deal with Griffon, and before that he fought another Bouncy Ball. He was getting downright exhausted, and he was almost out of venison. He wished he'd been willing to try and take out the brown bear he'd seen the day before. The meat from that kill would have lasted him longer than the three days the venison had. But he hadn't wanted to deal with the long, loud fight that would have entailed.
Sighing, he got up and took a sip of his canteen before picking up the arrows he'd used during the fight, once again glad he had a weapon with reusable ammo, which he wouldn't have had with a gun.
He continued to make his way along the woods, trying to keep on as straight a path as possible. He was placing all his chips on this direction leading him out of the Deathlands, and he refused to get lost or diverted.
Once he was sure he was a decent way from the site of his last fight he sat down to rest, laying his pack by his feet as he rested his back against a tree. Sighing and letting his head thump against the wood he closed his eyes, trying to get some rest before he had to walk further. "Just five minutes, Jaune. The more ground you cover, the faster you can get out."
What he wanted, more than anything else at the moment (well, besides not being in this Oum forsaken land in the first place), was to not be alone. He wanted to have his team by his side. Or RWBY. They would definitely be good to have at his back. The silence, or at least, the lack of conversation, was getting to him and he'd begun talking to himself, just to be able to hear somebody's voice. Being distracted by music while in a dangerous area might be stupid, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to care when he wished his scroll still worked so he could listen to some.
Once again, for the tenth time in the last hour, he wondered what his friends were up to back at Beacon.
Glynda was apprehensive about the matchup she'd called for in combat class. Weiss Schnee stood against Russel Thrush.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem. However, ever since Jaune Arc had fallen into the Deathlands the members of teams RWBY and JNPR had all deteriorated mentally.
Pyrrha Nikos, for example, had become easier to anger and her usual politeness was in abeyance. It was especially bad when around CRDL, or when she heard anybody say something negative about Jaune.
More pressingly, Weiss had also become more irritable. However, the most worrisome aspect was the fact that she always appeared exhausted now. Her usual immaculate appearance now sported dark bags under her eyes, along with paler than usual skin and rather stringy hair.
The hand holding Myrtenaster shook slightly, the tip wavering, showing how exhausted she was. Glynda wasn't sure that having her fight someone, even someone as admittedly below her skill as Russel was, was a good idea, now that she got a good look at the girl. Still, she knew that suggesting the heiress wasn't up to it would not be a good idea. It would be best to let this play out and use whatever happened rather than get the white haired girl's dander up.
The instructor sighed to herself before beginning the match.
The mohawked teen rushed forward, daggers at the ready and body low to the ground, trying to get in close where her rapier's piercing attacks were less effective. It was a testament to Weiss' skill that despite her exhaustion she managed to react quickly enough to jump back and swing her stab forward with her blade, a shard of ice launching itself at the boy, who flipped to the side to dodge it before continuing to rush forward.
Weiss used the brief distraction to stab her sword into the floor, creating a field of ice to inhibit Russel's charge. It worked, as her opponent had to stop his rush when he almost lost his footing. She took the afforded time to spin the dust cylinder of Myrtenaster, switching to another type.
She didn't realize that she'd switched to the wrong type of dust, so when she attempted to launch a blast of fire at Russel, a burst of wind escaped instead. Caught by surprise, Weiss lost her footing since she hadn't braced herself for the kickback, falling on her backside thanks to the slick ice on the ground.
Russel took full advantage of this, scrambling towards Weiss. In an almost panicked motion Weiss swung Myrtenaster at her opponent, who managed to jump over the swing, bringing the hilt of one of his daggers to Weiss' head, striking her temple. She cried out in surprise and swung again, sloppily. The tip clipped Russel's leg as he dodged back, but didn't do further damage. Instead he lunged forward and punched her in the face.
Despite her aura Weiss fell onto her back, dazed, and after a couple of seconds Glynda decided to call it. "Winner is Mister Thrush." She made her way to the girl who had sat up, looking despondent and tired. "Miss Schnee, you appear to be unwell. I want you to go see the nurse."
Weiss pursed her lips as she got on her feet. "I'm fine, Miss Goodwitch."
"Oh?" Glynda looked the short girl over before raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "Be that as it may, you will go speak to the nurse after class. If I find out you haven't, I'll be forced to give you detention."
Weiss clenched her fist before sighing and nodding as her body slumped slightly, making her way to where her team was watching worriedly with her head hanging down.
Gynda once again sighed, but didn't let her worry and frustration show beyond that. Jaune going missing had affected the first years badly, but the two sister teams especially. That had already been a tight knight group, and the tragedy had made them closer in their shared grief, but it wasn't hard to see that several of their number were close to self-destructing.
They needed to see about getting the children counseling. She'd need to talk to Ozpin about it. Especially as the days wore on with the search parties returning with nothing to show for it but some bruising and a few more tales for Port's class.
She didn't like admitting it, but she was losing hope as well. There was simply no way for someone of such relatively low skill as Jaune to have survived so far. Ozpin had mentioned that the council was on the verge of shutting down the search, though he'd managed to stall them.
Shaking her head, Glynda turned back to the matter at hand, going on to choose the next two opponents, the guttering flame of hope in her heart on the verge of going out.
The sun was going down, and Jaune was smiling slightly, a dead pheasant in his hand. That had been a lucky shot with his bow, which he was quite happy with.
Now he needed to find shelter for the night where he could go ahead and clean his kill. He was grateful that so far he'd avoided encounters with all but one Grimm at night, and that Alpha Beowulf had been tough as hell to fight thanks to low visibility.
He sighed before stopping, shocked as he heard something over the rustling of the leaves. It was a sound he'd become familiar with over his time at Beacon.
The sound of a bullhead flying nearby.
He immediately dropped his pheasant and started trying to scale a tree, having only moderate success. As he reached the lowest branches the sound of the bullhead got louder. He needed to get higher, otherwise the canopy of the trees would hide him from view.
As the engines of the bullhead grew ever closer Jaune got more and more desperate. Despite his better judgement he began to shout, hoping against hope that he'd get the attention of whoever was flying. "Hey! HEY! DOWN HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE!" He grunted, trying to scale the tree faster, heart hammering in his chest.
He was almost at the top when he saw the bullhead pass almost directly overhead. "No…" He got to the top, ignoring the way the tree swayed dangerously, and looked to see the bullhead moving away. "No! COME BACK! COME BACK, DAMN YOU! DON'T…" He choked. "…don't leave me here…"
The bullhead didn't turn. He obviously hadn't been noticed. He watched in disbelief as it became smaller and smaller, eventually disappearing from sight.
He wasn't aware of climbing back down the tree, but soon he found himself back on the ground, sitting against the tree, trying to keep from crying at how close he'd gotten to escaping. Having his hopes suddenly ripped away like that after getting them up was practically debilitating.
He didn't know how long he stayed sitting there, but he was brought back to his senses by a growl nearby. He turned to find a Bouncy Ball about to pounce on him. He scrambled to his feet and dodged as it jumped, landing right where he'd been.
His despair turned to fury, and he drew Crocea Mors. "I'm not… I'm not dying here." The Grimm growled at him, and he growled back. "You hear me, all of you evil bastards! YOU AREN'T KILLING ME HERE!"
The Bouncy Ball prepared to pounce, and Jaune charged with a scream of defiant fury, blade at the ready.
Hey all. Been a while on this story, hasn't it? Sorry, my bad. It's mostly because my muse has been focused on other things, though I was also waiting for Vol. 5 to finish to give me more to work with. I'm already trying to work out how I'll work in what we learned during it into this story.
So, that Weiss fight sucked ass. I am well aware of that. I apologize. That was pretty much the best I could do. I think I got the point across though.
Also, poor Jaune. He just can't catch a break. He's just so fun to torture, though. He won't let this stop him, though. He's scrappy.
I think that's all I have to say. I'll try to keep the wait from being so long going forward, but I can't promise anything. It's all up to Musie. Ah well, till next time.