Lmao sorry about dying for a bit, exams and winter break kinda wrecked my shit, AND I didn't even have internet for like half of the last two weeks. But now I think I'm back on the 2-ish weeks for a chapter.
Also I've been playing smash ultimate. (Ridley main, cause fuck tierlists, I'm maining my space dragon boi).
Enjoy!
"HAHAHA!" Jaune cackled, the roar and blasts of fire consuming the hordes of grimm before him, "COME, COME AND FACE YOUR DOOM!"
"Wow," Yang said, stopping and watching Jaune, who was standing at the edge of the bridge, sword and shield away, and two huge columns of seething fire blasting out of his palms, "He's really into this…"
"He might be, too into this…" Blake said, as Jaune let out another wild laugh at the sight of half a dozen beowulf's being burnt to cinders.
"Nah," Yang dismissed, giving a wave of her hand, "He just likes killing grimm, nothing wrong with that?"
"I WILL BLACKEN THE SKIES WITH YOUR CINDERS!" He shouted, focusing down and Ursa and turning it to ash in an instant, "NOW BURN!"
"Okay…" Yang said, as Pyrrha looked over to her partner with a hint of concern on her face, "Maybe he is a little too into it…"
They watched as a beowulf slipped through the flaming onslaught, its lithe form dodging the two pillars of fire that consumed its allies. It was about three feet from Jaune when he shut off the fire and stood to face it.
Just like after his execution of the deathstalker, his metal gauntlets were currently white hot, and steaming even in the warm, late summer air. The grimm growled, then charged, only receiving a boot to the knee, fully smashing the leg inward at the joint, reversing it.
Then before it even had time to howl in pain, Jaune grabbed it by the throat, the white hot gauntlet steaming, hissing, smoking and popping as it scorched the grimm. He hefted it with his right hand, up over his head, and down behind him, putting a beowulf shaped imprint in the ground. Quickly putting it down, Jaune removed his hands from the burned mess that was once its neck, and stomped, his sabaton crushing its head with ease.
"I think I'm in love…" Yang pretended to swoon, a smile on her face when Blake caught her as she faked a faint. Once Blake had forced her back onto her feet, Jaune called to them.
"Hows that nevermore going!" He yelled, a wild grin on his face, sparks and smoke flying from his hair, golden eyes glowing like molten metal. During his sentence the nevermore in question attacked with a hail of feathers, having spent the latter part of the last few minutes just circling, unable to get close enough to attack with both the artillery barrage from Nora and Jaunes fire.
Two feathers streaked past Jaune, thudding into the ground. He neutralized the third one with a two handed blast of fire, incinerating it in midair, only a line of ash and soot hitting him in the face remaining.
"Ugh…" Weiss said, the pristine heiress in her grimacing at the soot and ash that now covered Jaunes face and hair, making him look like a chimney sweep. He wiped some of it off with his hand, swiping it on the ground and leaving a streak of black on the grass before drawing his sword and shield as the grimm prepared another charge.
"Anyone have a plan?" Blake shouted, as Pyrrha and Jaune decapitated a grimm in sync. The gold and black knight turned to her, and spoke.
"Sort of," He looked over the horde, seeing Vulkahn ripping through the masses of black and white with reckless abandon and animalistic savagery, "I'll need your crew to take care of the nevermore."
At this, Yang leapt off the stone structure, using her gauntlet shots to boost herself through the air, and colliding with the beak of the nevermore sailing past. He pried its mouth open, and began force feeding the grimm its daily dose of hot lead.
"Ren, Nora, Pyrrha!" Jaune called, motioning them back, "Get over the bridge!"
"What about Vulkahn?" Pyrrha asked, having grown a little attached to the magma drake in the time she'd gotten to ride him.
"Don't worry about him," He answered, seeing that everyone was on the other side of the bridge, and the grimm had began to come over, "Nora!"
"That's my name!" She bubbled, loading another set of pink grenades into her launcher. "Whatcha need?"
"Can you blow the bridge?" He said, grinning as an ecstatic smile spread across the girls face.
"Yessire!" She shouted, transforming her launcher into a hammer and slamming it down onto the brickwork. She then fired it, sending pink smoke and explosions into the air with each blast. With only a few shots, the crumbling ruins crumbled their last, falling into the abyss below, taking the hordes of darkness with them.
"What now?" Nora asked expectantly, hoping to explode some more things.
"Now?" Jaune looked over to where the others were fighting the nevermore, "We wait."
"What the hell are we waiting for?" A white fang grunt whispered into his radio, watching carefully as a lone beowulf slinked through the trees. He'd been tracking it for a few hours now, and the lack of actions was starting to rub him the wrong way.
"We need to see where it's going," Came the voice of Zalthar back through the radio, "This might be the only lead we get, the reports of grimm massing in this forest have skyrocketed since Acererak drove off Cinder."
"Yeah, I was there," The white fang member responded, getting up to stealthily follow the beowulf through the trees, seeing how it had picked up its pace a little, "Drove off is underselling it a little…"
"I would agree, but Lord Acererak refers to his dismantling of them as such, so I will follow suit."
"Whatever floats your boat buddy, it's just that...wait," He looked at the beowulf, which had stopped in front of the entrance to a cave, looked around for a moment, before going in, "it just went into this cave."
"Do not follow it, we have no idea what else could be in there."
"Yeah wasn't planning on it…" The Grunt said, getting ready to make a call, "Adam, they're here. Acererak was right."
"Do you really think this is going to work?" Yang shouted as Jaune dug his heels further into the stone.
"Yeah!" He yelled back, muscles straining as he pulled the elastic ribbon back further, "Why wouldn't it?"
After Weiss had pinned the nevermore to the cliff, Ruby and Blake had worked together to cook up a makeshift slingshot of sorts, and while Weiss was readying her glyphs to give Ruby a boost of speed, Jaune was trying to hold the band in place, so it wouldn't send Ruby flying prematurely.
"Jaune!" Weiss shouted, her runic glyphs now read to fire, "Let go!"
With a satisfying twang, the band snapped forward, whipping Ruby towards the cliff like a slingshot. She landed on one of the glyphs already on the far side. With her scythe now hooked around the neck of the nevermore, the glyphs activated, propelling her up the cliff at mind boggling speeds, dragging the grimm with her.
The force of the glyphs, the speed of Ruby, and the force of momentum that was transferred to the blade of Crescent Rose, was then to the neck of the nevermore, decapitating it. The body fell to the ground, black smoke pouring from its mangled neck, as Ruby stood atop the cliff, a flurry of rose petals dancing around her.
"Wow." Was all Jaune could say, as silence permeated the air. He looked around, seeing everybody pretty much agreeing with him.
"Now I don't mean, to by that guy…" He said, realizing it was up to him to snap everybody out of their stupor, "but we've got to get up that cliff. Any ideas?"
"I have an Idea!" Nora shouted, blasting herself across with her grenade hammer, "Race you to the top!"
Soon, everyone was making their way up the cliff, leaving Jaune alone with Vulkahn and Pyrrha at the bottom. Vulkahn walked up to him, a snort and huff of blistering heat rustling his golden blonde hair. Turning to face the magma drake, he received a lick, the dragons large, glowing orange tongue wiping a bunch of soot off his face, bringing a laugh out of Pyrrha.
Scratching underneath Vulkahns chin, Jaune rolled his eyes and hopped on his back, grabbing by the arm and swinging his partner up behind him, the spinal flames going out entirely where she sat, the heat receding from his skin as the far less temperature resistant human mounted him, scales cooling and losing their glow.
"Alright!" Jaune shouted, spurring Vulkahn into action, "Lets go!"
With a single leap, the drake cleared the chasm, claws digging into the stone, as he pulled him and his riders up the cliff, quickly making his way to the top.
The sound of another grimm being split in two was music to Adams ears. He readied his blade, and tore into the hordes of darkness before him, separating heads from shoulders, arms from bodies, and legs from torsos with every strike.
The sounds of gunfire mixed with melee as White Fang grunts gave ranged support to Acereraks forces. Again, the brutal efficiency of the undead was showing, their seamless cooperation evident in their unbreaking line of advance into the village. Each zombie was dressed in a combination of tough leather and rough forged iron plate, uniform and utilitarian. Their heads were unprotected, showing dried skin pulled taut over bleached bone, hideously jagged and cracked teeth, wicked gashies and cracks, and an omnipresent faint green glow that emanated from deep inside their corpses.
Each carried a halberd, arming sword, and shield, all of which were used with deadly efficiency. Each strike was measured, calculated, and exact. With every soldier literally incapable of feeling fear, they had become the perfect fightings force.
Adams stomach churned slightly as he watched an Ursa tear swip a zombie in half, before being brought down by three swords through the chest and a downward strike from a halberd into its head.
Instead of scream in pain, writhe around and die, the bisected soldier continued, dragging itself across the ground with its arms, drawing unceasingly closer to the lines of grimm that had overrun the village.
A ghastly, haunting moan echoed across the line of dead, as unbreaking as their wills, each second drawing closer to victory.
From just behind Adam came a blast of chilling air and rushing wind, and in an instant, the grimm right before him were dead. Each grimm frozen in place, encased in mocking cocoons of black ice, wicked points trailing behind as it froze them solid. Footsteps boomed in Adams head as Acererak strode forward, black snow trailing from his cape and pitch colored ice spreading from beneath his metal boots as the next grimm horde, a pack of ten Ursa, reached him.
A single one handed swing tore right through the first grimm, bisecting it diagonally from waist to shoulder with a fleshy squelch and a pained howl as it fell to the ground. The lich stepped forward again, swinging his sword over his head and then in a wide horizontal sweep from left to right that cleaved two more in half at the midriff and buried itself 3/4 of the way into a third. Stepping forward, Acererak rammed his shoulder into the grimm bears chest, caving it in as he gripped the blade of his sword halfway down with his gloved right hand. The shoulder bash knocked the ursa off of his sword, and he swung the weapon in a backhanded murder stroke, putting a hole in the grimms skull with the spike of a quillon.
As the others approached him, Acererak switched to a two handed grip, a faint ethereal glow emanated from the blade as he charged forward to meet him. He bisected a grimm with a vertical swipe, splitting it from head to the unmentionables, then stepped forward to split another one in half from the unmentionables to the head. Leaving the four ursa halves on the ground, Acererak swung diagonally twice, taking off the right leg and arm of another.
A clawed ursa paw flew towards him, which Acererak grabbed at the wrist, squeezing it, the relatively soft flesh and bone pulped in his steel grip. He yanked the grimm forward, popping its shoulder out of its socket as he brought his sword up and around, decapitating it.
Switching his grip, Acererak crouched low under another paw and gave a sweeping strike, an outward traveling left handed swing that took both lower legs off just below the knee. While the grimm was collapsing, Acererak quickly threw his right hand as a punch, knocking its skull clear off its shoulders.
He turned to face the last Ursa, which roared in defiance and charged forward, interrupted only by a 5 foot length of black metal tearing through its stomach, impaling it through the center. It was lifted up, until it was nearly vertical, where Acereraks cold, necrotic gaze focused in, looking up at it in disgust before flinging it off the blade, where it landed in a sad, broken heap on the side.
"We are nearly there," He said, an errant swing splitting a beowulf from the shoulder to the waist, "I can see the village walls."
Roaring its challenge, and Ursa Major confronted Acererak, rearing up on its hind legs to intimidate. Dashing forward to meet it, the lich swung as he blitzed past, carving through the side of its abdomen. Continuing the momentum he built up, he spun, bringing the sword around and over his head, a meaty thunk and loud crack reaching the ears of the foot soldiers as his massive greatsword buried squarely between the grimms shoulders.
Adam removed its head while Acererak levered the sword from its back, the weighty, six foot black blade having split the grimms spine in two, lengthwise. The two turned back to the grimm, Acereraks sword glowing a faint green, grimm blood evaporating off it. The looked to the sky, and saw pair of giant nevermore, each fifty feet long, swooping down to meet the infantry.
The lich held his hand up, closed in a fist, at which his entire line of undead stopped marching, holding their lines as the nevermores drew closer.
Suddenly, with an ear churning, droning noise, like a mix between grinding metal, a roar and a growl, Adam looked up, and gasped as he saw the skeleton of a wyvern flying overhead. It measured at least a hundred feet long from snout to tail, with limbs and a set of massive, hand tipped wings, bearing a span that could easily be over a hundred and fifty feet.
The massive wyvern skeleton growled as it soared toward the grimm, focusing in on the nevermore with what could be approximated to eyes. Two balls of bright blue lightning, crackling in its empty eye sockets.
Its physical body was held together with scraps of ligament and muscle, and an astral blue glow that pulsed in its chest like a heart, giving off blue wisps of powerful magical energy that surrounded its skeletal frame. Surrounding and wreathing its form were jagged streaks and bolts of blue lightning, overlaying the consistent, blue glow.
The undead wyvern collide with one of the nevermore, slashing with its huge talons, tearing gashes from its underbelly as it squaked and flapped away, retreating towards the town.
The second grimm took this as an opportunity to attack, sending a hail of feathers raining down on the flying wyvern skeleton, most of them harmlessly glancing off, a couple going right through the gaps in its form, and three or four landing true, each burying themselves at least a foot into the tough bone.
Retaliating in an instant, the skeletons draconic skull rotated skywards and cracked open, and deep hum growing in its chest, the ball of blue lightning and energy growing brighter and larger before rocketing out of its maw, taking the appearance of a solid whitish blue beam surrounded by neon blue lightning. Like shooting a clay pigeon, the blast nailed the nevermore in the center of the chest, punching a hole straight through it. And much like shooting clay pigeons, the nevermore essentially disintegrated, falling to pieces and tumbling to the ground.
Once the wyvern had moved on to the next nevermore, Acererak lowered his hand, urging his soldiers to march once more. Without hesitation, the resumed their grim work, butchering the forces of darkness, steadily, unceasingly, heading towards the village.
Once the nevermores had arrived, Cye Arren began to lose hope. The village had been repelling the grimm fairly well, incurring very few casualties. He'd been proud to help, he was a strong, bold member of the White Fang, and in a very good mood, seeing how he'd been recently transferred back to his home village after a stint as a bodyguard for Sienna Kahn.
And then the two nevermore showed up. With them circling like vultures, the defenders of the village were forced inside, giving the ground dwelling grimm essentially free reign of the village.
Cye had holed up in his home with his family, his father, brother, and mother all taking up arms to kill any grimm that got too close. The windows has been hastily boarded up, and the growls and ambient noises of the grimm were growing louder and more numerous by the minute.
His father, after an hour or so, heard a noise from outside, like a cross between a thunderclap and an explosion, right after a great droning, almost scraping noise. His brother pointed out the only window that wasn't boarded up, where a huge pillar of white and blue energy blasted apart a nevermore.
"Cye, look!" He shouted, frantically pointing toward the sky, "It's a dragon!"
"Dragon?" His father responded, pushing another shell into his shotgun. "I didn't know there were dragon grimm…"
He went to observe, but by the time he'd gotten to the window, it was already out of sight. From outside came the noise of a nevermore, cawing and then landing, it's wingbeats whipping the wind chimes outside into action.
Then Cye realized something. It was quiet. Aside from the wind chimes jingling slightly, all other noise had stopped. He couldn't hear any grimm growling, or stomping around, hell, the beowulf that had been scratching on their walls for the last half hour seemed to have gone silent.
Cye crept to the door, stealthy as the panther he was, and slowly opened the door. Nothing. It was like a ghost town. The only thing disturbing the perfect silence was the deep, rumbling croaking of the...nevermore. Freezing in place, the faunus slowly looked up, and spotted the giant avian grimm, perched atop the belltower in the center of town, it's chest heaving as it croaked, six huge gashes trailing down its torso.
Another growl came from down the tiny alleyway, and a lone beowulf crawled out of the darkness.
"Of course they couldn't have all left…" Cye muttered, hefting his battleaxe. He had just readied himself to strike, when a great shadow was cast on him. He whipped around, to see the nevermore, talons outstretched, ready to grab him and tear him apart.
It was only a half dozen feet from him when the dragon collided with it.
He only saw its rough shape, two legs, wicked talons, giant hand claw wings, and a long snaking tail that ended with a wicked diamond tip. It dove low, bone white talons raking the ground, actually shredding the beowulf to ribbons as its powerful wings swept it into a wicked, taloned uppercut.
The two disappeared over the next row of houses, and the combination of narrow streets, high walls, and large building overhangs stopped Cye from seeing the rest. He stood there in shock, mouth agape at what had just happened to him, until his mother lunged out of the house and pulled him back indoors.
"Wow." Adam said, as the zombie wyvern engaged the nevermore in an aerial dogfight, "Why didn't you start with that?"
"Notice how the nevermore ordered the grimm to abandon the village and focus us after it retreated." Acererak said, gesturing to the grimm pouring out of the village with the tip of his greatsword, "If I had ordered Seraphas out at the very start of the battle, he would have driven the bulk of the horde here before we could thin their numbers."
"And then we'd have stood no chance." Adam finished, the confirming nod of Acererak failing to distract him from the dance being played out by Seraphas and the nevermore. In a straight up fight, the nevermore stood no chance, and at range, it almost stood less of a chance, thanks to the wyverns beam attack. But while the zombie wyvern was much faster overall, the nevermore had it notably outmatched in agility and acrobatics, though the grimms opponent was no slouch there.
The nevermore barely dodged a bite form the bone wyvern, raking its white talons down its bony back as it flew the length of its draconic body, only knocked off course when an errant arc of blue lightning gave it a little shock after it jumped from the dragon's spine ridge.
With the nevermore slightly startled, Seraphas whipped its tail, snapping the grimms left wing inward, and smashing it off course. The dragon quickly used its huge, ligament and muscle-scrap webbed wings like a parachute to halt its momentum and turn, catching the falling grimm in its mouth, its teeth digging into the grimms neck.
With the grimm in its jaws, the wyvern dropped from the sky, landing in the center of the town, the faint jerks and twitches of the nevermore prompting Seraphas to bite down even harder, this time producing and audible snapping noise, and stopping any more movement.
He dropped the grimm, carefully adjusting his placement on the buildings so as to not put too much stress on any one structure. Once in place, he threw his head up, and bellowed out a deafening roar, a great, terrible noise that could be heard for miles around.
The undead wyvern then began clearing the village, always staying above the narrow, maze-like web of alleyways and tiny paths that made up the town by walking across the rooftops, his huge, skeletal frame casting a jagged series of shadows on the ground.
Considering the sheer size of Seraphas, traversing and scouring the village took little time. His long, serpentine neck reached down into alleyways and roads, diamond tipped whiplike tail skewering any too difficult to reach with his head, leaving streaks of black blood on his tail and muzzle.
At the sound of a small growl, Seraphas turned, his neck twisting to look at the Ursa Major on the ground below him. He moved the rest of his body, keeping his head in place, his eye analogues locked on the grimm as the rest of his body shifted and brought itself around to face the grimm bear.
He growled back, lower jaw trembling in what could be viewed as anticipation, before lunging forward, two rows of foot long teeth shooting forward.
A bit shorter than the last few chapters, but I was going to game end myself if I waited another week to finish it. So enjoy my dudes, and look forward to the next chapter, hopefully in 2-ish weeks.