Chapter 2: The End of a Sword's Peace
Several days later…
Shirou threw his current Kanshou and Bakuya away.
The copies of the Married Blades joined the storm of swords flying and curving around in the air, creating a sphere of death within which all Grimm were butchered to pieces.
And with the recent additions to the sphere adjusting the courses of each blade, the sphere reached out and grabbed another pack of wolf-like Grimm, easily butchering the whole group as casually as a man would stretch.
One of the first things Shirou had learned about Remnant was that Kanshou and Bakuya's anti-monster properties meant that they easily sliced through the creatures of the Grimm. Add in their ability to be attracted towards their opposite, whether a different iteration of a copy or not…
Shirou did not need to fear Grimm. Small, medium, weird, or animalistic, it didn't matter. All fell easily to at least one or two of these blades. Only the large, dangerous, and intelligent ones survived or required him to put in more of an effort.
Shirou didn't know how the normal fighters against the Grimm survived here. Their weapons didn't have the anti-monster property that made his favorite blades so useful. Their weapons were high-class, made with better metallurgy than any of Archer's weapons except for the ones from the future. But they couldn't cut through the Grimm like a sharp knife through butter.
Actually, Shirou remembered butter putting up a tougher resistance against a knife than some of the weaker Grimm did against a pair of Kanshou and Bakuya.
Shirou guessed that the locals taught their soldiers and elites the movement and attack behaviors of Grimm and weak points learned from generations of battle. Then drilled the techniques and ways to kill Grimm into their students until they did them automatically when faced with the real deal.
But Shirou never received any education here. Miyu was more important than attending a school.
Besides, how would Shirou hide his magecraft at a school? No one believed in magic here so he had to hide his abilities from researchers and professionals.
They might try to take him in for study and then he would never find Miyu.
Shirou spied another flying Grimm screech as it flew above him.
He quickly grabbed a copy of Archer's bow and one of the traced large and very sharp arrows he had in his quiver on his back. Once it was in hand, he aimed just like how he had learned alongside Sakura in Homurahara's Archery dojo, and fired.
Shirou ignored the crash as the Grimm fell onto a building, already dying from the arrow lodged in its brain.
Shirou didn't get why the Grimm were attacking the city nor did he care. The Grimm were monsters, they were killing people and somehow, they had broken through the city defenses and were rampaging through the streets full of defenseless citizens.
Ironic that after he had resigned himself to be a villain in order to sacrifice a world to save his sister, he would be brought to this world where his ability to kill Grimm would make him applauded as a hero.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. But it wasn't wrong to save people. But Miyu was important.
So when Shirou had seen the first Grimm in the sky, he had immediately started climbing to the top of a nearby building. He couldn't put up his sphere of Kanshou and Bakuya as the civilians were everywhere back then. But he could start shooting every Grimm he saw.
And once on top of a building, he could project both a quiver of arrows and Archer's bow and no one would ever know.
The problem was when he saw the land-based Grimm start slaughtering their way through the outermost districts of the city.
The citizens could take cover against the flying Grimm and the ships in the sky could fight back, even if some idiot apparently decided that now was a perfect time to start a mutiny or war or whatever.
Shirou had wondered before how humanity had managed to survive long enough on Remnant to even reach their technological heights. They just seemed too stupid. Cities everywhere that were full of people who had no idea how to fight? A nation of anarchists? A kingdom that ran on corruption? Admittedly, the criminals and anarchists weren't doing too bad of a job but the nations here seemed like they weren't well suited to thrive on this world. Survive, maybe, but not thrive.
But the people were still living people with lives of their own. Shirou was here and Grimm were attacking.
Naturally, he would protect them.
Shirou ran down the street, keeping his whirlwind of Noble Phantasms following him.
The Grimm had already swept through this area and were now emerging from the buildings where they had broken into to kill the people cowering inside. Shirou's arrival caused the Grimm to emerge from their scenes of murder and slaughter in eagerness at the prospect of new prey.
Shirou had learned from depressing experience in Mistral that Grimm were very good at sniffing out people to kill. If the Grimm were at the entrance of the streets behind him, then they had already killed everyone on this street.
Which admittedly made it easier for Shirou to decide where to go.
The districts bordering the wall. The ones the Grimm had surrounded after breaking through places in the walls but still had the guards available to fight and protect the people who lived there.
They needed saving. And Shirou could use his offensive strength to kill hundreds of Grimm without worrying about harming either the civilians or the other fighters around him.
As Shirou entered an intersection, he saw and heard an air bus escorted by a Bullhead flying parallel to his course a few streets down.
Oh good. The ship would allow the civilians to escape.
Shirou was capable of escorting the civilians to safety himself but that would take time. An air bus would mean that he would only have to defend one area rather than a moving group and it would be much faster to get them to safety.
Once the air bus was sent off, Shirou could head to the next area and save them too.
Shirou heard a roar of a bear like Grimm coming from in front of him and his eyes snapped forward.
It wasn't a strong one, like one of the bigger bears with bone like spikes and plates all over. Which means that Shirou didn't need to get fancy to deal with it or the other animal like Grimm behind it.
Instead, Shirou just reached down into his two large sheathes at his side and projected another set of Kanshou and Bakuya before drawing them out and throwing them forward, causing the other flying pairs to pull forward.
The first two swords cut through the Grimm lengthwise, splitting it into thirds as it collapsed to the ground. The rest of the swords followed, cutting the corpse and dicing it up into smaller pieces before Shirou even got close.
By the time Shirou's foot landed where it had died, it already had dissipated into black smoke and was no longer an obstacle.
So Shirou continued running down the street, slaughtering every Grimm on it.
Glynda used her Semblance to blast a few of the thousand needles that made up her riding crop at high speeds towards the Grimm beneath her Bullhead and the Nevermore in the sky that got to close to the air bus she was escorting.
While she had wanted a break from the Vytal Festival, she hadn't wanted an incident worse than the Breach!
And she was internally gnashing her teeth at how they were played. The Vytal Festival was obviously used by Salem's minions to broadcast despair over the world and to lure the Grimm to Vale. Beacon was under assault as they spoke and she and her colleagues were busy defending the city.
But they had no choice. The professionals were skilled enough to protect civilians while efficiently killing the Grimm but the students were still learning.
Waving her crop and firing another round of projectiles at another Griffon that had gotten too close, she managed to clip its wing, sending it tumbling through the air.
Seeing an opportunity, she picked up a broken metal streetlight and used it as a spear to kill the Griffon.
One more down, several hundred more Grimm to go.
Glynda turned her attention to the skies once again, ready to defend her city and her people.
Even as she continued to use her Semblance to fight against the Grimm, she kept an eye out for people below.
She had enough Aura to be able to grab any of the few survivors in the Grimm controlled areas and bring them up here for their safety. There weren't many of them, but she couldn't leave the few survivors to die.
Glynda spied a flash of movement a few streets off and she turned her head to get a better view.
It was a Hunter, not that she could make out any details such as their appearance from this distance. But only a Hunter would have a few dozen weapons flying around them as they ran down a street towards the Grimm. Admittedly, the running towards the Grimm was the biggest clue as to their profession.
Glynda let him or her continue.
Every Grimm the Hunter killed here was one more that wasn't killing civilians.
As her Bullhead flew on, she killed more and more Grimm, trying to reclaim a portion of the skies to keep the evacuation air bus safe.
But the betrayal of one of the Atlesian warships wasn't making it easy, she noted as she diverted a shot into a large Nevermore. The ship had been part of a squad of four battleships hovering above Beacon but after its betrayal, it was raining shots down on every vehicle that got close.
Glynda's Bullhead and escorted air bus which were heading to a segment of walls close to Beacon's cliff qualified as close. Glynda didn't know what was going on with Atlas and how their ship successfully mutinied, but she hoped they got it under control soon.
Not the least of which was the rogue robots who were ignored by the Grimm as they both turned their attacks onto the humans and Faunus near them.
Glynda ground her teeth. It had been an unpleasant surprise when the Knights had ceased firing on the Grimm in front of her to instead fire on her and Qrow. But that couldn't compare to when she had received communication to jump on board the Bullhead coming to pick her up to rescue a position on the walls bordering Forever Fall that was harboring civilians while under assault from Atlas, White Fang, and the Grimm. Qrow had stayed behind to hold that area on his own.
Her memory not-so-helpfully brought back the images of Atlas Knights marching and firing into the crowds behind them. Something for which she had immediately ended the robots' existence as she flew overhead.
It was horrible. Disgusting. She didn't have the words to describe it.
To take a nation's own army and turn it against their ally's civilians.
Never in Remnant's history had that happened.
As the ship's gun continued to fire, Glynda continued to redirect its attacks away from the ship, trying to land it among either robots or Grimm.
And then, with a whir of engines and the sound of gunfire from below, both the Bullhead and the air bus cleared a building to see their landing zone, a plaza in a seedier residential district.
As the Bullhead slowly descended, Glynda crouched before springing off the Bullhead and onto the top of a nearby store.
She scanned the area, looking for hints of the White Fang, Grimm, or Atlas. There were plenty to be found. A scattering of White Fang bodies on that one street, Atlas robots moving in from the walls, and Grimm thronging in from the streets.
Glynda immediately opened fire, bringing down bodies as far as her eyes could see.
A ragged cheer from the soldiers and civilians behind her sounded as they saw the air bus land safely.
At the same time, Glynda noticed the warship turn its attention away from her rescue expedition, firing on other ships in the sky that were getting close to Beacon.
She couldn't interfere directly with the rouge ship. It was too large, too heavy and too far for her Semblance.
Glynda turned away, leaving the ship for another time while she focusing on bringing down the Grimm and robots assaulting the survivors and refugees who were rushing aboard the air bus.
Several minutes of constant sniping later, Glynda heard the pilot yell that the civilians were all on board and the few surviving soldiers and Hunters were the only ones left.
Glynda turned to get a better view of the fighting as the soldiers and Hunters started a slow retreat. They couldn't turn and run. The Grimm would pounce on them. Instead, they fired as they walked backwards, trusting their training to survive.
Glynda walked along the edge of the rooftop, bringing down whatever Grimm she could see as the soldiers started to get onto the airbus, the first ones laying down cover fire for their fellows.
Glynda could see and count the six surviving Hunters, two of which had injuries and whose Aura was broken, climb aboard the Bullhead.
This was the gathering of the few survivors from the nearby districts. They had fallen back, leaving their dead behind as they sought to gather their strength into one spot as they realized that they couldn't hold their positions alone.
Which was why Glynda and the transport had been dispatched. The position wasn't holdable and there was no point in trying anymore. It would only be a waste of lives.
As the last soldier and two Huntsmen, one of whom was limping and holding onto his fellow, climbed aboard their respective transports, Glynda shook her crop and fired a wave of needles onto the charging hoard of angry Grimm.
Their roars of rage at the escape of their prey turned into screams of pain as the Bullhead leapt into the sky before the helicopter started using its own gun to help Glynda keep the Grimm away from the bigger and slower air bus.
With a roar of the engines, the air bus took off, one soldier bringing down a Beowolf who tried to jump onto the ramp.
As the air bus turned itself around, the Bullhead flew over to Glynda's building, hovering near her with the door opened.
Glynda took the invitation and used her Aura to reinforce her jump into the waiting ship.
It had been a while since she had done a running jump to a hovering Bullhead, Glynda remembered. Fortunately, it hadn't been that long.
"Move to the side!" An Atlesian Hunter yelled as Glynda crouched to better absorb the landing. "Get the ones best at range closest to the doors!"
"I have a ranged Semblance!" Glynda yelled over the roar of the engines as the Bullhead started flying above the air bus.
The Hunters made way for her, letting her squeeze between two Hunters at the doors and get a good view of the city.
It wasn't pretty. Buildings were destroyed and some streets were red with human and Faunus blood while others were littered with corpses from where people had either been gunned down by Atlas's robots or killed by the Grimm.
Glynda closed her eyes to give a brief prayer as she spied a pair of children lying dead among the bodies.
And then she opened them, full of rage, to find Grimm to kill and robots to destroy.
"Nevermore!" The Huntress next to Glynda, one of her former students Glynda noted, shouted.
Glynda snapped her eyes up to sky and spotted a trio of Giant Nevermore following a Griffon sweep down towards them.
The air bus.
It was full of terrified humans now within easy range of the flying Grimm.
Glynda clicked her tongue as she started blasting the incoming flyers with the miniature projectiles in her riding crop.
The easy part of getting here was over. Now the hard part of getting everyone back safely begins.
The first Nevermore Glynda targeted screeched as its head was pelted by dozens of sharp needles, depending on its own size to survive but it broke away, trying to bat the projectiles away from its vulnerable parts.
But that still left three more.
The other Hunters with her opened fire on the Nevermore nearest to the air bus, causing it shriek in pain.
Glynda turned her attention to the Griffon. It was the largest of the four, indicating advanced age and experience.
It would also be the hardest to beat.
But Glynda was a Huntress and she would win against this creature of darkness.
She looked for something bigger to use as a projectile.
A simple brick or a dozen of her needles wouldn't do. It would barely even faze this older Grimm.
No, she needed something like a streetlight, something big and potentially sharp.
Or she could watch as something fast flew up from the streets beneath, into the Griffon and out the other end, killing it and bringing it down. Help was always appreciated.
The fourth Nevermore, on the other side of the ship turned its attention from the easy prey to the Bullhead full of Hunters and screeched before backpedaling in a maneuver Glynda feared.
"Incoming!"
The Grimm bird flung its feathers at the Bullhead, causing the pilot to take jerky maneuvers to try and dodge while the Hunters reached for handholds.
But at this short distance, it wasn't easy to dodge. By the time they had seen the Nevermore start its maneuver, it was past time to dodge.
Glynda tried to keep her feet as feathers flew towards her and hit the Bullhead. To the pilot's credit, most missed the ship. Most of the ones that managed to hit, only hit the Bullhead's armor.
But one errant feather hit Glynda.
"Oof!" came out as her Aura took the all the damage but she still felt the full force of the impact. Force that her grip onto the handrail tried to counter. Unfortunately, the Bullhead was too crowded for her to have a firm grip on the rail.
Glynda found herself flying forwards, her hand's grip broken as she and the feather flew out the door of the Bullhead.
And then she was falling through the sky, narrowly missing the air bus now beside her.
Glynda felt her body automatically twist and turn to get into a good position for the landing.
But the air bus and the Bullhead had been flying low, just above the buildings to avoid the attention of the rouge warship. Glynda only had about one and a half seconds to turn from falling headfirst to feetfirst before she would hit the ground.
She tried to control her tumbling but the ground was coming up too fast. She was going to lose a lot of Aura to this.
Then she came to a sudden jerk in midair, as someone caught her, one arm under her legs and the other behind her back.
Glynda's eyes snapped up to the tanned face and white-haired man who was holding her as he safely landed in a crouch.
"Are you alright?" the man asked, warm and grey but tired eyes looking down at her.
Shirou watched as the ship flew overhead, a smaller Remnant equivalent of the helicopter escorting it.
It looked like the nearest group of refugees had been rescued. Time to find the next group.
And then four flying Grimm swooped down from the crowded sky to attack.
Shirou stopped, letting his swords disperse now that he was immobile. Grabbing the bow, he reached back into his quiver and noted that he only had about three more large arrows left.
He would have to project some more soon.
But that could wait until after the air bus with its passengers were safe.
Shirou let his mind unite with the target, the large hippogriff-looking creature, only it was in the Grimm colors of black, red, and white.
Ashibumi. Shirou quickly got into his stance, carefully placing his feet.
Dozukiri. Shirou straightened his body, getting his stance proper.
Yugamae. Shirou gripped the bow and stared at his target.
Uchiokoshi. Shirou raised the bow above his head in preparation for the next step.
Hikiwake. He brought the bow down, bringing the arrow into position to fly to the target.
Kai. Shirou finished bringing the bow to the full draw, arrow parallel to his cheek.
Hanare. It was almost easy to let the string go and the arrow to fly.
Zanshin. Shirou maintained the mentality even as the arrow united with the target.
All that in less than one second. This world had helped him refine his skill as an archer, helping him to become faster than he had ever achieved in Fuyuki.
The hippogriff Grimm didn't even screech as the arrow plowed into and then out of its head, killing it instantly. But there were still a few more Grimm left in the sky threatening the passengers.
Shirou reached back to grab the next arrow, projecting a few more arrows into his quiver and pulling out the one he projected into his hand.
Best to keep his magecraft secret in case someone was watching.
But as he started the next shot, his mind already changing its target, one of the bird Grimm screeched and stopped to fire some feathers at the Bullhead.
And Shirou's heart stopped, his mentality shattering as he saw a fair skinned, blond woman fall out.
He didn't know her.
He didn't recognize her.
But for one second, he saw her blond hair in a bun with the unbound hair flapping in the wind, dressed in a blue and white dress, an invisible sword in hand, and instantly knew that she was important to him.
He was already running towards her at the best speed his reinforced legs could manage and had leaped towards her when he realized that she wasn't wearing a blue dress but a black pencil skirt and a long-sleeved white shirt with a purple cape and the weapon in her hand wasn't an invisible sword but a riding crop full of hair thin needles.
Stupid Archer. Oh, sure, Shirou was grateful for the Archer Card. He wouldn't have been able to save Miyu without it or the Heroic Spirit connected to it. But even now, long after most of the integration between him and Archer had stabilized, Archer's memories occasionally overlaid his own, causing him to see people that had once been important in his alternate's self's life. Such as that brown-haired granddaughter of that one crime chief in one of Mistral's smaller towns. Or this blond gorgeous woman who had a few distant similarities to Archer's Saber.
But Shirou couldn't blame Archer too much for this. After all, he would have tried to catch the woman too when he saw her fall from the sky.
He just wouldn't have felt his heart nearly stop from fear of the beauty being hurt.
"I'm fine," Glynda said, heart still hammering from the surprise of the fall and subsequent catch.
"Oh good," the man relaxed, face smiling.
He was still holding her in a princess carry against his blue and white casual shirt.
"Ahem?" She coughed, trying to hint to the man that he should let her down.
She was a professional Huntress. She didn't need rescue.
"What?" the man blinked blankly before his eyes lit up in realization. "Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
He continued apologizing as he carefully let her down, not even hinting of any strain in carrying a full-grown woman in his arms.
"Yes, very well," Glynda dismissed his apologies as she turned to the Bullhead and air bus.
The last of the group of Grimm was dead, killed by the Hunters on the Bullhead as the two ships continued flying on.
They had lost a lot of bullheads to the huge flocks of Nevermore and the rogue Atlas cruiser had helped reduce their numbers too. The defenders couldn't spare many of the remaining Bullheads. If they could, then they would have sent two to guard this air bus.
The pilot had to make a choice between leaving the airbus undefended to pick her up or to continue on with the mission.
Glynda knew what she would have done in the pilot or the Hunters' place. She would have trusted the lone Hunter to be able to survive while they carried on with protecting the civilians.
One life, capable of surviving on its own versus a hundred innocents. It was no contest.
Glynda glanced at the Hunter next to her.
The white-haired but young-looking man was dressed casually in a blue and white long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. Like he had been out for a stroll when the disaster had started. But he was obviously a Huntsman with his bow and quiver over his shoulder and two large scimitar sheathes at his side.
No one but a Hunter would have such a wide variety of weapons and carry them all on him.
He was also looking at her, eyes bouncing over her, probably looking for her weapon before he raised his head to look down the street at the pair of Atlesian Knights-200s who just turned a corner and were raising their guns to fire.
Glynda raised her crop to prepare to block the incoming rounds when a small, fast blur hit one of the robots, destroying its torso instantly.
The other only fired two shots before another blur destroyed it.
Glynda turned her head to see the man lower his bow.
Well, that was impressive. Glynda knew that a Hunter's compound bow could reach speeds comparable to a bullet but the slower rate of fire and more expensive ammunition meant that most Hunter's would rather use a gun than a bow. Not to mention it was much easier and quicker to train a man to use a gun than it was to train a good bowman.
But the man wasn't using a compound bow. She didn't know what type of bow it was, but it lacked the pulleys that made a compound bow a compound bow. Meaning that the speed of the arrow was due to his strength.
Furthermore, he had shot that bow much faster than she thought he would be able to and hadn't missed the torso of two targets over 100 meters away.
"Good shooting," she complimented before starting off back to the current boundary between Grimm and humanity. "The nearest friendly territory is this way and it will be a bit of a walk."
"Aren't there more people who need to be saved?" he asked as he ran to catch up with her before settling into walking beside her.
Glynda shook her head. "No, that was the last of the wall that still had people near it. The rest of the segments fell either to the betrayal of the Knights on top of the wall, the assaults of the Grimm from the outside or the White Fang from the inside."
"The White Fang is involved?" the man asked, eyes narrowed. "The terrorist organization?"
"Yes," Glynda said tersely, barely holding back her anger. "They are somehow safely transporting Grimm into the city and dropping them off at points where they can do the maximum damage."
The man cursed and Glynda agreed full heartedly.
What were those idiots thinking! Destroying Vale with the Grimm wasn't going to help the Faunus reach equality, it was just going to kill thousands of humans and Faunus! Yes, there was still a lot of prejudice against the Faunus in Vale, but they were still better than Atlas in that regard and the younger generation was more open than the older one! Furthermore, Vale's Hunters protect Menagerie!
But the White Fang didn't care. No, they just wanted people to die so they could feel better about how they were treated. They wanted revenge and were determined to get over the corpses of the innocent.
As a Huntress, Glynda couldn't forgive them. She couldn't forgive the people who she fought to protect that decided that the proper way to live was to act like monsters and turn on each other.
"We should hurry then," the man said, lowering the center of weight in preparation to run.
"No," Glynda refused. "Save your stamina. We'll be fighting all night long before we can repulse the Grimm from the city once more."
The man shook his head. "But if we do then more people will die while we walk."
"And more people will die if we don't have the strength to protect them," Glynda rebutted. "And once we die, the people behind us will die too."
"I know," the man responded. "But they are depending on us to save them."
"Can you fight at this pace for an entire day?" Glynda asked.
The man was silent.
Glynda waited. There had been weirder Semblances. Semblances that could enable a person to fight on for days on end.
"No," he said reluctantly.
"It will take hours for the people to calm down and the negativity to stop drawing in more Grimm," Glynda reminded the Huntsman. "Until then, we will have to fight nearly continuously."
"But they will grieve more if they lose their loved ones," Shirou said. "Wouldn't it be better if they didn't have to grieve?"
"Yes," Glynda said tightly. She knew where he was coming from. She didn't want for people to suffer losses either. But she also knew that if they died from exhausting themselves by rushing in then the people behind them would die soon after. "But again, once we die, we can't protect anyone. Our duty to them requires us to take care of ourselves, even if we hate what we have to do."
The white-haired man looked like he would disagree.
How old was he? His hair was pure white, indicating he had many years on him, possibly as many as Ozpin if not more. But his face was unlined like he was younger than his hair indicated. And he acted like a young, hot-headed Hunter.
On the other hand, Glynda didn't know what experiences he had. Did his team die on him because he wasn't fast enough? Were they still alive? Was the man young but his hair turned white prematurely from the stress of being a Hunter? Or was he old and simply had the good genes to look good?
Glynda wished she had that luck. She was approaching her mid thirties and even Aura couldn't stop the wear of time. The man's skin looked to be a few years younger than her, probably just past his 30th birthday.
Then she felt the tremble of something heavy approaching and they both turned as one to face it.
The white head of the King Taijitu hissed as it approached.
It was quickly silenced as a thrown sword pierced the roof of its mouth, cutting into the brain.
And then Glynda's Semblance powered blast squashed the middle, causing the black head to rise up in pain only for one of her needles to blow though its head at high speed.
Glynda watched as the Grimm snake started to turn into smoke and turned away to find the stranger eying her, surprised.
"Well?" She asked, eyebrow raised, crossing her arms and tapping one finger.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
"It is my Semblance," she answered. Deeming the question as unimportant, she started walking onwards.
"What's a Semblance?" he asked blankly.
Glynda stopped.
And turned around to reexamine the man.
His unlined, sculpted face wasn't joking.
"Are you serious?" she asked, hoping that her emergency partner was simply trying a very bad joke at a bad time. Her eyes narrowed. "Are you a Hunter? Who are you?"
She belatedly realized that she didn't know his name nor had she ever seen him before.
"I'm Shirou Emiya," he introduced himself, holding out one hand to shake. "And I'm not a hunter though I have hunted before. And pardon me, I should have asked this before but we might have been slightly busy with the Grimm, what's your name?"
Glynda closed her eyes.
A civilian. She had a civilian with her. Not a fellow Huntsman but someone who didn't even have their Aura unlocked.
"Very well," she sighed as she reached out and shook his hand. This had just gotten a lot tougher. "I'm Glynda Goodwitch, teacher at Beacon Academy. Now let's get going. We don't have all day and as you try to remind me, we are in a time crunch."
The man nodded and followed after her.
Well, this was now a solo escort assignment of a civilian through Grimm territory.
Hopefully he wouldn't take too much energy to protect.
The pair walked on, leaving the residential district of houses and apartments to enter a commercial area full of shops and stores, keeping silent as they strained their senses for any hint of the Grimm or Atlas's rogue robots.
They had already encountered dozens and dispatched them, either with an arrow from Shirou's bow or her own telekinetic Semblance.
CRASH!
The sound of something tipping over and falling to the floor caused them both to wheel around from the three-way intersection they were at towards one of Vale's supermalls, front door completely gone, walls and windows bearing holes and the ceiling damaged.
The mall had a large courtyard between it and the street the pair were walking down, with numerous benches, tables, patches of grass, trees and lightposts scattered between concrete paths. Numerous objects were in ruins, toppled over, or crushed from the surge of Grimm and there was signs of blood where bodies had been killed before being eaten.
Should I go in? Glynda debated. There could be someone inside or it could be Grimm. If it is someone, I should investigate and escort them. If it is Grimm, I shouldn't risk it while guarding Shirou. He is unable to survive even one serious blow from a Grimm.
The Grimm Creep rounding the corner of the mall answered her debate on what to do as she instinctively slammed it with shards of broken glass from the ruined doors and windows.
The Creep screeched as it died, the glass shards flaying it to pieces.
Both Glynda and Shirou's eyes went wide as dozens of answering howls came from inside the mall.
The mall which, now that she thought about it, looked like a Goliath had walked right through the entire building.
The mall which was now disgorging Grimm like a vending machine on overdrive.
Glynda immediately started using the nearby glass and rubble to kill Grimm, throwing the debris back and forth across the entrance. Her needles hidden inside her weapon were good but the speeds she used tended to wear them out rather fast. Better to use heavier projectiles as they would survive multiple impacts. Fortunately, it was easy to find sturdier stuff than her razor thin needles.
And then, she felt it.
The rumbling of the earth as something heavy walked towards them. And then the darkness of the mall shifted and the patches of white light rippled.
Across all three floors of the mall simultaneously.
Glynda's heart nearly stopped and she held back her desire to whimper or scowl. She wasn't sure if her fear or her irritation was stronger, as she realized that what she had taken for the lights being out was a massive freaking Goliath!
What kind of luck did it take to wander past a Goliath at a supermall!
Her distraction didn't stop her from noticing absent-mindedly a pair of Beowolves that managed to avoid her kill-zone and then killing one of them while Shirou shot the other.
Okay, what should she do? What could she do?
How do you kill a Goliath?
She didn't recall. She couldn't remember hearing of the last time someone managed to kill one. She just remembered that they were old enough to learn that constantly fighting humans was detrimental so they waited on the borders of the kingdom and avoided conflict while traveling in herds.
But how did they fight? What was their abilities?
Glynda took a deep breath to calm herself down.
Goliaths would have intelligence for one of their abilities. Group tactics naturally would result from there. They also were rather passive and patient. But apparently not now because it was inside Vale and that was very aggressive.
Another advantage was their Size, Glynda realized as she stared up at the head as the head emerged from a hole in the ceiling as its tusks swept the second floor of the supermall clear.
But this was what Peter Port was for! He remembered the last time someone killed a Goliath. This was the sort of thing he taught!
Calm down, Glynda reminded herself. They were killable. Otherwise, they would have already overran all the kingdoms rather than wait for a moment like now.
Glynda guessed that the last person to kill a Goliath probably dropped a missile on them or used an Atlas battleship. The Grimm's size would mean that a normal weapon simply wouldn't be able to penetrate deep enough to harm it. You couldn't kill it if your weapon was too small to hit anything vital after all.
Or was that what she remembered from her own Grimm Studies class when she was a student?
Glynda wished she could remember. But she had presented on Wyvern Grimm instead of Goliaths for her team's rare Grimm presentation project.
Right now, she found herself wishing she had presented on Goliaths instead as she stared up at the large, malevolent and intelligent Grimm.
The thud of a Grimm paw on the ground and an arrow being released shook her from her shock.
She couldn't afford to let her exhaustion and surprise overcome like this. She was Glynda Goodwitch, a professional Huntress, professor of Beacon, and she had faced down worse foes than this before.
Admittedly, she had never been the only Huntress at those times but what other choice did she have? She could run but that would leave the civilian behind and the Grimm chasing her. Not a good choice when all the fighters in this city were busy fighting other Grimm, rogue Atlas robots, or the White Fang. And this deep in Grimm territory, she was more likely to run into more opponents then allies.
It would only lead to her being surrounded. Her only option was to fight here.
"Keep them off me!" she snapped to the man next to her before she turned her attention back to the Goliath.
It brayed once and the flow of Grimm coming out from under its belly into her Semblance created kill zone ceased.
Glynda clicked her tongue as she saw the smaller Grimm start burst through the mall's side doors and windows.
It looked like her telekinetic kill-zone wouldn't be worth it now that the Goliath was giving orders to the other Grimm to avoid it.
No, she would need to depend on Shirou's archery skills to kill the Grimm while she helped out where she could.
And amidst the fighting, she would also need to take care of the Goliath.
But how? Each massive and rare Grimm was a team or a multi-team effort to take care of. The Wyvern had taken two Hunter teams specifically chosen for their Semblances to counter it and even then, they had only buried it and put it to sleep as they couldn't manage to kill it without losing more members.
But for the Goliath, she was ill equipped. Her weapon wouldn't be much good as her needles were too thin and small to cause damage to anything as big and sturdy as the Goliath would be.
Instead, she would need a different weapon. A long one. A sharp one. A big one.
Her eyes darted over the surroundings.
Bench, billboard, flagstone, door, Beowolf, streetlight.
Wait.
Glynda waved her crop at the Beowolf while feeding her Aura into a Wind Dust crystal, pushing the air in front of the leaping Beowolf and throwing it backwards at the Goliath, while its claws were still extended.
WHAP.
The Goliath quickly smacked it away with its trunk, splattering the Beowolf against the nearby wall, instantly killing the smaller Grimm.
Yes, that was what she had figured. The trunk was strong enough to protect itself with.
Meaning that frontal attacks wouldn't work.
Glynda thrust her crop forward at the broken flagstones beneath the Goliath's feet, causing the stones to rise up in a spray of stone shards at full force against the underbelly.
The Goliath looked down, noting what she had done, but returned to staring at her, watching her every move.
Glynda tsked. Too durable. It had felt the impact but it obviously hadn't penetrated, nor had the Goliath even risen a little off the ground.
Meaning that she couldn't blast air at it. The Grimm was too massive to be hurt by blunt force attacks. Heavy precision attacks with sharp points would be needed, possibly multiple strikes against the same spot.
This would be a challenge.
Shirou noted the large elephant like Grimm engage in a stare-off with Ms. Goodwitch even as he readjusted his stance to better protect her as he fired arrow after arrow at the Grimm which were spreading out to surround them.
It looked like Ms. Goodwitch was going to take the big Grimm on her own.
All right, he could handle all the little ones. If she wanted to handle the big one on her own then he had no problem with it.
After all, it was only a big Grimm. Nothing challenging to kill if you were willing to bring out a strong Noble Phantasm.
And Glynda appeared to be a magus since she had been trying to lecture him on the magecraft system of this world. Shirou hadn't encountered a magus of Remnant before but it sounded like they had taken a different name upon themselves than the term 'magus'. And Ms. Goodwitch probably had some kind of specialized spell or Mystery that could kill it, developed over generations of war against the Grimm.
Shirou had slain bigger Grimm in Mistral before and some of the weapons he had seen hanging on walls in Mistral had participated in killing large Grimm. These Grimm weren't as hard as Berserker Heracles had been, especially with his stockpile of lives and immunity to attacks below B rank.
But this Grimm might have strange abilities. From what he had seen, Grimm were this world's equivalent of Phantasmal species, with the strongest ones approaching Divine Phantasmal rank. They sometimes had unusual tricks and unexpected abilities.
But many heroes had made their legend off killing Phantasmals.
Dragons, giants, manticores, chimera, even divine spirits, you name it, a hero had beaten or killed one.
And Shirou's inherited armory had all their weapons, ripe with their experience and with properties lethal to both the original monsters and these Grimm versions.
Besides, if the elephant Grimm had special significance to Ms. Goodwitch, it would be rude to interfere in her fight. And there were plenty of other Grimm to focus on.
One such, a big bear-like Grimm, bigger than the other Grimm of the same species roared right before Shirou's arrow plunged through the eye until even the fletching disappeared inside its head.
But the sound had been given and as that Grimm fell, dissolving to smoke-
-the rest of the Grimm charged.
Shirou readied himself to project a storm of blades.
He couldn't use the sphere of Kanshou and Bakuya with Ms. Goodwitch so close. He preferred Kanshou and Bakuya for crowd control as he could project a few and keep them moving in the air around him. But he preferred not killing his companion even more. But without the Married Blades attractive properties, he would have to trace and use new weapons every time a Grimm came close.
But that just meant that it would take more energy to use different weapons for the same purpose.
Good thing he had so many to choose from.
Glynda glanced away from the Goliath as the horde charged at her from all directions.
This wasn't good. Shirou wouldn't be able to handle so many Grimm at once. Without an Aura, and with so many, he wouldn't be able to survive.
She had to help. But she also had to take care of the big threat.
If the Goliath decided to get involved in the fighting, especially after it had seen her abilities, it would be bad. The smarter Grimm would be able to figure out how to kill her without risking its own death.
But even as Glynda turned her head and waved her crop, riddling the hordes with projectiles that penetrated into the brain through the Grimm's young and thin skulls, she saw weapons, finely crafted weapons, in hundreds of types and varieties, more than even she had seen before.
And each one flung itself through the air forward, hitting a charging Grimm and killing it dead.
She paused.
The Goliath brayed.
The Grimm stopped.
Shirou just grabbed an arrow and shot another Grimm. Like that had just been another Tuesday for him.
But it was enough for the Goliath to call out again.
And the smaller Grimm charged.
Glynda looked back at the giant, relieved that even if the man guarding her back didn't know what a Semblance was, he at least had his own and knew how to use it. And therefore, he had Aura.
Glynda focused her effort on trying to grab a portion of the roof, that part where it had broken into a point. If she could grab that and throw it down at full speed with gravity helping, she probably could penetrate the spine.
And paralyzing or crippling the Goliath would be as good as a victory. It wouldn't be able to pursue them, and they could escape.
She would take whatever she could get against a Goliath.
Glynda panted, glaring angrily at the Goliath, whose malicious eyes stared balefully but patiently back at her.
What did it take to kill one of these!?
She had thrown everything she could at it and nothing had even pushed it! Even grabbing a ran-over street light, throwing it high up into the atmosphere and then accelerating it as it dropped to within her Semblance's range until it penetrated through the Goliath's back until one end came out of its belly, hadn't killed it!
That had been her best idea yet. The other streetlights were ignored as long it didn't come near its head or limbs. Yet when she had rammed a bench part way through its head, it had just ignored it. As if it wasn't even touching its brain.
The survivability of the Goliath was ridiculous!
Another few twangs of a bow string indicated that Shirou had shot some more Grimm. A second later, a dissolving Alpha Beowolf flew past her, its inertia not stopped by the fact that an arrow had punctured through its eye.
The man was strange, she thought as she glanced over, seeing him unharmed save for a cut across the cheek. Probably from one of the several surrounding and deceased Beowolf's bony spikes glancing across him.
Wait.
Glynda's eyes snapped back, seeing the lightly injured Shirou surrounded by dissolving Grimm who had tried to attack in the last wave.
Shirou Emiya was bleeding. From a cut that hadn't been there before the fight had started.
Glynda felt a stab of worry before she mentally rebuked herself. They had been fighting for what felt like hours now, wiping out wave after wave of Grimm while Glynda had tried to see what could be effective against the Goliath.
Her large Aura, already drained from the large amount of fighting before encountering the Goliath, now was running low after the long stint of fighting the Goliath and the other Grimm. Shirou's must have ran out already.
Which wasn't very good. The two of them were weakening and the Grimm kept on replenishing their numbers as more and more arrived each minute.
Admittedly, they probably had cleared the surrounding districts of Grimm as they had answered the bugles of the Goliath. But the lone Goliath was still alive, even with half a dozen light poles sticking out of its back and sides. And it still had a dozen Alpha Creeps, Ursa Major, and Alpha Beowolves left. Shirou had prioritized the Nevermores and Griffons until the Goliath had just stopped calling them down as the man had never missed a shot against the airborne menaces, making them useless as they would die as soon as they got close.
But now Shirou was out of Aura. Without his Semblance of conjuring swarms of realistic-looking weapons, the odds would turn against them.
Glynda felt her sweat evaporate off her skin as she considered retreating. The Grimm were devasted, the Goliath probably slowed. But there were still a dozen Grimm left, all of which were older, more intelligent and more dangerous than their fallen Grimm brethren.
"Are you out?" she asked, eyes on the surrounding Grimm, who were prowling around, never stopping.
"No," Shirou answered as he drew another arrow from his quiver and nocked it. "Still have enough arrows left for these. Do you need any help with the elephant one?"
"What?" Glynda blinked.
He was out of Aura but thought that he could help with Goliath?
"Let's kill the other Grimm then retreat. I can't kill it," she decided. "And without- "
The sound of a bugle cut her off and Glynda wheeled around to face the Goliath.
It was raising its trunk and sounded again. Only this time it was louder than the previous one.
An answering bugle came from behind her and Glynda felt her blood drain from her face.
She slowly turned around, hoping that she was wrong.
But the herd of Goliaths walking towards her proved that she was right.
Reinforcements.
The Goliath had been calling for the members of its herd. It was also a small, young Goliath. Probably only a thousand years old.
And now the rest of the herd was coming, with lesser Grimm yipping at their heels.
"We have to run!" She yelled as she used another drop of her Aura to power her Semblance as she took a few more needles from her crop and used them to drop the Grimm guarding the streets off to the side. "We can't take-!"
The Goliath sounded again, drowning out her voice.
"Let's go!" She yelled as she started to run.
Then the earth started shaking as the Goliath they had been fighting charged.
Glynda wished she had never fallen off the Bullhead. They would have all lived.
The oncoming herd picked up the pace, their combined footsteps causing the earth to shake.
Glynda stopped as she realized that the man was saying something that she couldn't make out through the sound of a charging Goliath herd and the shaking of the earth at the charging footsteps of the single Goliath.
"What are you doing!" She yelled, wheeling around and staring at the man who had instead chosen to shoot and kill the remaining small Grimm and was now holding the bow in position to aim at the getting ever-closer single Goliath, the other hand gripping nothing but air. "We can't fight this many-!"
She cut off as Shirou finished whatever he was saying and a very strange sword appeared in his hands.
It was like a drill, with a single line spinning down in a spiral from the tip down to the hilt. A second copy had landed into the ground beside him, sticking up like an odd fencepost.
Then the sword-drill started to warp and flatten, turning itself longer and longer while thinning itself until it reached the man's longbow as he notched it onto the string.
Glynda stared at the man, wondering why he hadn't healed his scratch if he still had some Aura left, enough to conjure up two more weapons.
And what was going on with his weapon? Was it a sword? Was it an arrow? Or was it something else?
Shirou just aimed the weapon at the solo Goliath who was towering close enough to blot out the fractured moon and said one line.
"I am the bone of my sword. Caladbolg."
BOOOOOOOOM!
Glynda's Aura kicked in to protect her ears from the eruption of sound and air as the oddest arrow she had ever seen disappeared from his bow as soon as he let go of the string.
Glynda blinked. She shifted her eyes to look at the single, now non-moving Goliath that would have been on top of Shirou in about a second before squishing him flat in the next second.
She blinked again.
The upper half of the Goliath was gone. Not dead, not dissolving into smoke like the feet, just gone. As was half of the mall itself except for the segments that hadn't been directly behind the Goliath and a few feet of wall at the bottom.
Then angry bugles of the herd behind her reminded her that there was more than just the one.
She wheeled around to see the herd of Goliaths start to split up as they tried to stop their charge towards the one who had just killed their lost herd member. But their large size and mass meant that they couldn't stop the momentum of a full-out charge easily. The smaller accompanying Grimm didn't even try and were just barreling ahead of their largest brethren.
But, unlike Glynda, Shirou hadn't stopped to admire his handiwork. And his second drill-sword was already twisted into an arrow and on his drawn bowstring.
"Caladbolg."
BOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOM!
Glynda was left wide-eyed as the second missile, not only broke through the sound barrier like the first but then exploded in the midst of where the herd was, releasing a burst of bright light and fire that she could see even through her reflexively closed eyelids.
The sound ran on as the fire kept on shining, like a god had decided to release his fury in a small space.
And when the world stopped shining and the sound returned from the deafening fury of an angry Dust missile, Glynda opened her eyes.
And stared at the huge black cloud of smoke rising from the large crater that the herd of Goliaths used to be at.
How?
Glynda had seen Dust missiles before. She had relayed Ozpin's orders to use them at a horde of Grimm that was advancing on a village when there weren't enough Hunters available to defend the village.
That arrow-sword-drill object was not a Dust missile.
So how did it match the payout of one!
Shirou turned to face her and stopped as he looked at her slack-jawed face which was staring at him in amazement.
"Ah," he smiled sheepishly, hand scratching the back of his white hair. One cheek still bore the red and bleeding cut on it but he looked fine as if he hadn't launched a supersonic missile from his bow. And missiles weren't meant to be launched from bowstrings! The back blast alone should have broken his Aura not to mention the bow, his arm, and burned his face off! "Sorry about the mall and the street."
"What was that?" she asked flatly, still in disbelief and denial that the man who had been out of Aura still was capable of making two weapons, each capable of killing a Goliath. "What was that?!"
"Well, my normal weapons didn't have enough reach to hit anything vital so-" he shrugged, big black bow in hand. "I had to pull out something big in order to keep it off of you before we could retreat."
"Keep it off of me," she repeated.
Keep it off of her.
Keep it off of her!
He could one-shot a Goliath, could do it all along and only had done so in order to 'keep it off of her'!
"Why didn't you tell me you could do that!" she yelled.
"Well, you looked like you had a plan and needed time to work it out. Probably an idea of how to take care of the other threats. Maybe an idea of how to use the big Grimm against either the robots or the White Fang," the man said, dismissing the Goliath as only a big Grimm. "But then you decided to run when the others showed up, so I figured that the plan was a bust."
"You mean to tell me you could have dealt with that Goliath by yourself and didn't because you thought I wanted to use it against the other enemies," Glynda repeated disbelievingly.
"Well, yeah," the man blinked. "And after you tried to drop the roof of the supermall onto it, I figured I was wrong and that it might just have been personal for you."
"You thought I wanted to fight a Goliath!" she screamed.
"Why else would you have told me to only keep it off of you?" the man said, tilting his head curiously. "And just to be clear, Goliath is the name for the big elephant Grimm, right?"
"I didn't want to fight it!" she stomped over to scream into his face. "Goliaths are juggernauts! I couldn't cut deeply enough into one to kill it! And you don't encounter them out on their own like this! Furthermore, they are intelligent enough to decide to wait for the opportune moment! And they travel in herds!"
She gestured out to the street-wide crater where the herd used to be.
"But this one was alone," he pointed out helpfully. "Got separated."
"The entire situation is abnormal!" Glynda actually threw up her arms. "Never has Vale faced an attack like this! Never have Goliaths broken through the wall before! Never has the White Fang decided to use Grimm as weapons before this year! Never has anyone hacked Atlas's Knights before and turned them against people! Never has a Maiden had their-!"
She broke off as she realized she was about to spill secret information.
Glynda closed her eyes, breathing in and out, trying to get her emotions back under control.
Fortunately, as a Huntress, she was used to the emotional control that was needed to fight the creatures of Grimm. Even if she had started the day more tired and sleepy and stressed than awake. Controlling her emotions in the field was second nature to her.
Unless it was out of left field like what had just happened.
She opened her green eyes and looked Shirou in his warm but slightly confused eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me you had your Aura unlocked?" she asked in a calmer but long-suffering tone.
"What's aura?" he asked instead. "You say it like it is a door rather than an energy given off by lifeforms. Or is this a difference in languages?"
Glynda regarded him.
It was possible for a person to naturally unlock their own Aura. It was actually rather common. But usually people who unlocked their own Aura were either recruited into being Hunters or snatched into lives of crime or had someone who explained what was going on.
Well, it looked like she was the one who was going to have to explain it to him.
"Aura is the power we Hunters and you use to fight Grimm-" she started off before cutting off as the man furrowed his brow.
"I'm sorry. I'm also a magus but I'm not a Hunter. I don't know your field of thaumatology," Shirou apologetically said. "I use a different type than Semblance and Aura so I don't know what those words mean to you. Could you please explain?"
Glynda stared wide-eyed.
A magus.
An ancient word for a magician. A magician like Ozpin with real magic, not just a Semblance.
"Can't be," she whispered before she shook herself.
No, he couldn't be a magician. Magic was lost when the gods left Remnant. The only fragments left belonged to Ozpin, Salem, or the Four Maidens.
He probably had accidentally unlocked his Aura and Semblance without knowing what it was and just assumed it was magic.
But, and her eyes fell again upon the scrape on his cheek, Shirou was bleeding from the Beowolf's bone spike.
And you couldn't use a Semblance when you ran out of Aura.
He could have chosen to not use his Aura. Experienced Huntsman could control their instinct to use Aura to block damage and heal it, letting their soul preserve its strength while the body bled.
What if he just had that degree of natural talent and just thought that his Aura and Semblance was magic? That would fit all the facts. And that would preclude something crazy like magic returning to the world without Ozpin or Salem giving their gift out.
"Mr. Emiya," she lectured, laying one hand on her hip. "What you are doing is called a Semblance. It is a unique manifestation of a person's innate power and is a more tangible manifestation of Aura, the power of a person's soul. Every person has one Semblance that gives them additional abilities. It is not magic."
He started at that.
"If you were a Huntsman, you would have been trained to know how to use your Aura and Semblance more effectively and would know what it is," she continued. "Your semblance appears to be a creation type that you use for your swords and-"
She stopped as Shirou picked up some shattered concrete and transformed it in front of her eyes into a stone arrowhead without a telltale shimmer of light and energy.
"I am a spell-caster," he reiterated to her gaped shock. "I use a different thaumatology system than Semblances and Aura. Not sure if I could even use Semblance and Aura to tell the truth. I'm pretty bad at using different systems of magic."
Glynda stared at the arrowhead.
This wasn't possible. His Semblance involved conjuring physical entities. It shouldn't be able to alter physical matter too. Not without Dust being used.
Although, it was strange how it didn't have any light effects other than some shimmers of blue as it appeared or disappeared.
Every Semblance, the light of the soul, had some sort of light effects when the soul reached out and interacted with reality unless it was a stealth type of Semblance that hid its own light.
Yet his weapons had shimmered into existence. No sudden glow or any form of light. No telltale flash either and weapon creation Semblances would not be stealth types.
Maybe he had secretly used Dust? Dust reacted in interesting ways to Semblances and the combination of Dust and Semblance was well known to alter the effect of one's Semblance. That could explain how his Semblance was able to conjure weapons yet still change matter.
But she hadn't seen any Dust on him. And a quick brush of her telekinesis, to which the man immediately tensed up at, revealed that any Dust he had on his civilian clothes was inert if there at all. And she could see the gash on his cheek where blood was dripping down. And that cut had happened before he had created the last weapon so any Aura he would have had would have gone into either preventing the damage or healing it, especially as there are no more Grimm around now. And she knew that a Semblance couldn't be used if the user had no Aura.
Could it be? Could he be telling the truth?
Did Remnant have another magician on it? Or was he a good fake?
Glynda didn't know. She didn't know magic, just being a Huntress and a professor. And Shirou's abilities and equipment pointed to not using Dust or Aura. And she knew that that she still had much to learn about Remnant and everything else.
But she did know one thing. Ozpin needed to know. He could make the determination of if this was magic or just Shirou's Semblance or a usage of Dust or some new form of technology.
And if she was wrong about it being a Semblance, and it was genuine, real magic, then Ozpin could make the decisions from there. And if she was right, the man had a natural talent that needed to be trained and refined.
Either way, it would be irresponsible of her to let him wander out of sight.
A.N.
We don't know what abilities a Goliath has besides its massive size. So I decided to make it a juggernaut. Something that just plain won't die and can't be stopped. However, the quote of "what humans/Faunus lack in strength, they make up in will" means that even these juggernauts can die to normal Hunters. Just not easily and definitely not solo unless you have a well-suited Semblance.
As for Glynda's fighting, I thought to make Glynda's crop into a weapon fully capable of utilizing her Semblance. The hairs of the crop include needles that she can detach with her Semblance and fire as remote-controlled projectiles, allowing her to fight in areas where she doesn't have ammunition lying around. Each crop contains something in the ballpark of a thousand such needles, making it so that she doesn't ever need to worry about running out of ammunition. Running out of Aura though is a more realistic concern for her, something that she takes care of by daily working to increase her efficiency in using her Semblance and increasing how much Aura she has, even though the gains are nearly negligible by this point.
And she does keep a few extra crops around just in case she runs low in one crop, allowing her to switch to a full one if she thinks she'll need a lot of missiles. The crop is also rated for close-range melee combat, all in all making it a very expensive weapon made by the finest weapon makers on Remnant. Not to mention she can detach the various needles in close quarters combat and make it impossible to dodge.
In addition, Glynda also has mastered the versions of her semblance that result from combining her Semblance with Dust.
I am still working out what each one can do but right now, Earth Dust allows her to repair solids (thus allowing her to do her feats of repairing ruined structures or objects). Fire dust allows her to do pyrokinesis. Steam Dust combined with Ice Dust allows her to do that storm she conjured up in volume 1, episode 1. Glynda can produce barriers by using Hard-Light Dust. Wind Dust allows her to do blasts of air without any light betraying where her projectile is. Glynda prefers using Dust Crystals over the powder form and has straps under her clothing keeping various types of Dust near her at all times, especially Hard Light Dust and Earth Dust.
If there is something you can think of that would explain how Glynda has so many varied abilities without using the idea of her being a Maiden, I'll be happy to hear them. Brainstorming is easier with multiple people.
And Shirou's reason for not knowing about Aura and Semblances is pretty similar to Jaune's.