Divergent Evolution

This is a work of fan fiction, created for entertainment purposes only and with no claim to the characters depicted. Ownership of RWBY characters and concepts belongs to Rooster Teeth. The Descendants and all related characters and concepts belong to Landon Porter and Paradox-Omni Entertainment.

Chapter 2 – Heroes of Another World

A rapid one-two combo from Yang with an assist from her Ember Celica first lifted a Boarbatusk off its feet, then sent it flying back to crash into a parked car. It kicked its legs in the air a few times, but before it could right itself, Blake dropped onto it, burying the blade of Gambol Shroud into its belly, ending it for good.

"Yeah! Teamwork!" Yang crowed. "This would be fun if there weren't so many of 'em."

"Leave it to you to call this 'fun'," Blake said, leaping over the disintegrating body of the beast. "But at least it looks like most of the civilians are clear now."

Yang nodded, but smirked. "Come on, Blakey; what's the point of fighting monsters if you don't enjoy it?" Turning, she sighted in on a pack of Beowolves loping up the street toward them. "And speaking of..." Before she could finish her sentence, the Beowolves' chests exploded one after another, blasting the monsters nearly in half.

"What the?" Yang backpedaled, trying to figure out what just happened. Things tended to explode after she punched them, not before.

Then a figure in green dropped into the middle of the street, one fist planted for support. Whoever this newcomer was, she was tall and lanky, garbed in a hunter green body stocking with an armored plate over her chest and a many-pocketed kilt that reached to just past her knees. A cowl covered her chin and eyes, opening at the top to reveal a shock of short, red hair.

As she rose, she aimed one of her fists—armored to the elbow in a chunky, plastic gauntlet—at an on-coming Berengal and fired. The mechanism was something like Yang's own weapons, but this shot didn't explode; it burst into a puddle of pink ooze on the street.

The gorilla-Grimm slipped in the ooze, tumbling forward. It might have struck the street face-first, but the newcomer moved with frightening speed to get under it. One hand lifted what had to have been at least a ton of monster while the other punched the thing repeatedly in the chest until something broke inside and the Grimm stopped moving and started to dissolve.

The redheaded fighter threw the corpse aside and took a moment to survey the area. A common final mistake when dealing with Berengals—at least according to Professor Port's class. While often encountered alone, the ape-Grimm most often formed troops almost as large as Beowolf packs—and even the young ones were smarter than the average low-level Grimm.

"Hey!" Yang shouted, throwing herself into motion with a backward blast from her weapons. Her warning came in time for the stranger to turn and find two more Berengals knuckling in fast to catch her by surprise. A flicker of motion indicated something transforming in one of the green gauntlets—Mechashifting?-and when it fired again, one of the Grimm's feet became mired in rapidly expanding green goo that stuck to the ground and stopped it short in its charge.

There was no time for them to bring any weapons to bear on the second, but luckily Yang was there. Her right hand fired a shotgun blast into its breadbasket, doubling it over and bringing its jaw into range for a haymaker with her left. Then the right came up to finish the brute with an uppercut that laid it out on its back.

"Nicely done!" The stranger said, no small amount of surprise in her tone. Yang couldn't see her eyes, but it wasn't hard to see that the other fighter—a woman she could tell now—was staring at the Ember Celica and not her. "Also thank you."

"Any time. Us bad brawler babes need to stick together." Giving her best cocky grin, she held out a hand. "I'm Yang, by the way."

The other huntress took the offered hand. "You can call me Renaissance. I take it you're one of the new folks who knows what these things are then?"

"It's kind of weird that you don't, but sure." By then, another three members of the Berengal troop had decided to rush them from different directions. Ending their handshake, Yang stepped a bit to the side and fired a shot from the Ember Celica into the face or one while Renaissance fired more green goo shots into another as well as the one she'd trapped earlier.

"So. These are Grimm," she said matter-of-factly, "Soulless monsters that kill people." The one she'd shot closed, allowing her to catch its arm in mid-swing, then break it with a shot. Following that, she used the shattered, useless arm to pull it down into a point blank punch/shot in the temple that destroyed it. "So we kill them first. As you can see from the dark circus thing we've got going on, there's a lot of different kinds."

Renaissance flicked her fingers and this time Yang definitely saw the gauntlet shifting around, appearing to switch magazines from a carousel on her wrist. "And from what I heard, they're not sentient? Just monsters?"

"Dust I hope not."

"Good." Then Renaissance turned and fired a red streak that plunged into the third Berengal then exploded, tearing the beast in half.

She couldn't help it. Yang just had to let out a whoop at that. "Awesome! I can tell you and me are gonna be great friends!"

"Don't feel too honored," Blake said sardonically as she sauntered up to the two. "I'm her best friend and she just left me to fight a half dozen Beowolves."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Blake, they're Beowolves. Ruby once killed like six entire packs of 'em. Huh. A Six pack of six packs... would that be a keg of Beowolves?"

Ignoring the joke, Blake nodded to Renaissance. "I'm Blake. How many other Hunters are there around here? This is a pretty bad infestation and we could use all the help we can get."

"Six more on the way," Renaissance said, similarly ignoring Yang's jocularity. "Three more who can be brought in if this gets too big. What do I need to know?"

An aghast cacophony of noises left Yang before she pulled herself together enough to say, "I'm still trying to get over not knowing what Grimm are. What do you know?"

Renaissance shrugged, focusing on the nearby Grimm, who were giving them a wide berth and heading all in one direction. "Evil animals you need super-strength or high powered attacks to hurt. And according to my bo... teammate, you all are from another dimension." She frowned deeply. "They're heading for the commuter pod station east of here."

Blake followed where she was looking. "Would that be a big, concrete building on the corner?" Renaissance nodded and Blake cursed, turning to Yang. "That's where Jaune and Pyrrha were having us move all the civilians. The panic of all those people together... it's going to draw all the Grimm there."

The sound of servos and plastic signaled the gauntlets changing out ammo again. "Alloy," they hear Renaissance whisper. "I need to get there ASAP. I'll meet you there." Without waiting for a response, she aimed a gauntlet toward the upper stories of a nearby building and fired a line to it. The next moment, she was swinging way.

Yang looked to Blake. "Does she really think we're that slow?"

"If she doesn't know what Grimm are, what are the chances they're know what Aura is?"

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Pyrrha never expected to realize that she had an idea for a guaranteed 'A' paper with a sense of mounting horror. But yes, she was certain that even notoriously capricious grader, Peter Port would have no choice but to give her the highest grade possible for her latest hard-earned piece of field research: Grimm had a language.

There was no other explanation for how they'd adapted to Alloy's razor tentacles so quickly. The Alpha Beowolves who were holding back out of range would bark in a very specific way and all the Grimm surging toward the concrete building they were protecting on one side or the other would dodge or leap or pull back and a sweeping attack that would have slain scored only destroyed a few.

At the same time, the beasts came at her in a steady patter of ones and twos—enough to force her to stay engaged, but never enough to allow her to kill many of the horde with any celerity. Meanwhile, they were just piling on Jaune, testing his skill and endurance to the utmost.

Generals. Calling orders to the rank and file.

Maybe elder huntsmen or even upperclassmen knew this fact about Alphas, but it wasn't common knowledge. And she wasn't afraid to admit it was terrifying to her.

"Where are your friends?!" Jaune shouted, giving voice to her own concerns. "Where are our friends?!"

"Just a minute or so longer!" Alloy shouted, clearly out of breath from the onslaught. Even if the tentacles were doing most of the work, there were still Grimm who won through, forcing him to put what appeared to be a disastrously overweight and over-sized great sword to work on them. He was keeping them off him, but his fighting style was sloppy, almost as if it were just meant for show most of the time. It reminded her of Jaune before they started training together.

A cumbersome swing of the giant sword split a creep in half, but almost buried the weapon's edge in the concrete.

Somewhere in the rear, an Alpha barked urgently and bodies surged into motion.

The first Beowolf was split from groin to pate by a tentacle. A second lunged through the dark mist and detritus of its destruction only to be behead by the other gold-ish tendril. Both competent defenders now off-balance, an Alpha forced its way through leaping at Alloy with a claw raised to strike.

It was actually impressive to see someone with no Aura and of his small stature like Alloy managed to raise the sword into a high block. But the blade was iron and hastily constructed and it had the full two-hundred plus pound weight of the Alpha behind it.

Metal squealed as the Alpha's claws started to shear through the sword as Alloy was driven to a knee. Then the claws won through, rendering part of the sword into shrapnel as the claws continued on the tear into Alloy's armored pauldron and then the flesh below.

Shouting in pain, Alloy fell back, blood welling from his shoulder and pectoral. The Alpha landed in a crouch over him, letting out a roar of victory. Twin spikes of golden metal burst out of its chest. They emitted a sound like sheet metal going through a jet engine as they writhed in the wounds, sawing and tearing at the ancient Grimm who refused to die from even so grievous a wound.

Pyrrha had no idea what she was yelling as she tried to disengage and got to her new ally's defense, but at the moment, the trickle of enemies became a flood toward the main doors. Alloy had been the center of their defense. And the center was no longer holding.

Someone else was shouting too. Not a scream, not a defiant roar, but a shouted, measured call. Something about heaven...

She had no idea where it was coming from, but suddenly a lance of light as big around as her thigh streaked through the forward ranks of the Grimm including the Alpha.

They... vanished. The black flesh of the creatures simply ceased to exist, then the bone plates and spikes shattered into dust. And an instant later, the front ranks of the Grimm were replaced by a curtain of blue light which the beastly invaders smashed against, but could not win through.

The speech about heaven might have been prophetic as far as Pyrrha was concerned. From on high, they ascended: One cloaked in green and white with a fur-lined hood, their hands out stretched toward the wall of light. Another was a literally winged woman made of gold, who hovered over the wall, giving the monsters a baleful glare. Then upon a blood red platform of crystal were a figure garbed in black robes wielding a bow of pure, white light, and another kneeling wearing white and red armor with a skirt and a satchel.

Angels? Were the old myths true?

The possibility entered her mind, and then shattered as the golden being transformed into a tiger and dove into the sea of Grimm, ripping into them with mighty claws. The two on the platform toughed down and the one in red and white scuttled over to Alloy. The one in black mused at the bow. "That... was way more effective that it's... ever been.

"Ephemeral says they're almost eighty percent on the astral plane," the one in the hood replied. "Maybe that's why?" In asking the question, she'd turned partially around, chancing to see the two Remnant natives. "Oh. Hi! You must be the people with weapons Alloy told us about."

Pyrrha flushed a bit in embarrassment. Their methods were different, their abilities as well, but they were still people just like anyone else. This must have been what people felt when they saw hunters in action. It occurred to her that in her element—a tournament setting against human or faunus opponents armed and armored with ferrous metals—this had to be how she looked to others; why they were so impressed and enamored.

She was about to reply when Jaune spoke up. He chuckled self-consciously, unable to rub the back of his head because his hands were full of Crocea Mors. "Yeah, well some of us. There's eight in all." After a pause, he added, "How can we help?"

One of the alphas chose that moment to break formation and hit the blue light barrier full-on with its body. The barrier flashed along its length and the woman in green and white winced visibly before redirecting her attention to maintaining it.

"Any ideas on how to stop these things would be useful," she supplied, "Alloy said hitting them really, really hard, but how are they with cold? Or mind control?"

"You have someone with mind control?!" Jaune asked, his excitement evident for a moment before something dawned on him. "Only... I'm not sure if Grimm even have minds. Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha in the meantime had been taking in the state of the battlefield.

The woman in red and white had gotten Alloy to once again open his armor and was holding one hand to his wound while also shoving what looked like a nutrition bar through his visor and simultaneously berating him loudly for getting injured twice in almost the same spot.

Beyond the barrier, something was inside the Grimm lines, dragging them down, destroying them. Dark miasma was rising at all points, obscuring whatever it was, but she could pick out insectile features and a high-crested head. Either another of Alloy's friends had joined the battle, or the golden figure with wings could become more than just a tiger.

The Grimm were battering the barrier now, hurling themselves bodily against it, causing more and more flashes that seemed to demand in increasing amount of concentration from the woman in green and white. The Alphas had seen that direct impacts were wearing down the defenses and were directing their subordinates against it.

"That's really more of a Weiss question," she admitted hastily, "For now, feel free to try, but it doesn't look like we have much more time." With that,s he readied Milo and Akouo for when the first Grimm won though.

Evidently, she wasn't the only one to notice, because the three Beowolf Alphas still at the rear took up a triumphant howl, a great, terrifying noise that was picked up by the rest of the horde. Dozens of red-glowing eyes turned toward the defenders at the barrier and the building beyond brimming with potential victims.

"Um... Occult? Is the wall spell ready?" The woman in green and white's voice came out as a nervous squeak.

The lady in the black robes had started drawing some sort of diagram on the street in chalk, a shard of glass in the center of it all. "It's taking a bit to extend the wall across the entire face of the station, Z. Give me a minute. Maybe two."

"I don't think we're going to have..." 'Z', the woman in green and white was cut off by an explosion toward the rear of the Grimm line.

One of the alphas cut off in the middle of its howling, an explosive force sending it stumbling forward. It whirled to face its attack only to have Blake appear on its back, looping Gambol Shroud's ribbon in its mouth like a bit and bridle. This gave her purchase to hand on and open fire into its eye while Yang launched herself into its front, hammering into its gut with the Ember Celica. Chunks of bone armor went flying as the Alpha slowly began to crumble under the twinned assault.

Not far away, a second Alpha cut off with a snarl as something stuck its back. Reconnaissance climbed the behemoth monster with on hand gripped to a shoulder blade while the other extended a golden-hued blade from her gauntlet, thrusting it into the creature's back. Whatever the punching dagger was made of, it punctured the Alpha's bone armor with ease, causing the Grimm the roar in pain and surprise.

It bucked, trying to grab her, only for the heroine to use the dagger as a anchor so she could use her other hand to grab its arm and pin it behind its back.

Undaunted, the Beowulf used the other hand and this time managed to catch a claw in her belt, ripping her free (at the cost of shattering a foot-wide chunk of its own armor) and dashing her to the ground in the midst of a pack of creeps.

It snarled its triumph, but that was only because it didn't see what Pyrrha and the defenders on the other side of the barrier saw. The scene resembled a wave moving beneath the sea of Grimm; Boarbatusks, Beowolves, Creeps and even Ursae were knocked aside as something large rushed through them toward the point where Renaissance had fallen.

A feminine voice bellowed from beneath the writhing bodies. "Get away from her," And then it emerged. The impressions of a huge insect Pyrrha had earlier were both correct and hopelessly insufficient. Black chitin covered a body over seven feet tall and ten feet long. What looked like its own rib cage girded its narrow chest while a long, segmented tail ending in a brutal blade trailed behind. Arms ending in scything claws slashed at Grimm in passing, but were nothing compared to the head. Eyeless, the rear crest swept back almost three feet with a drooling, horrid mouth up front.

"You bitch!" The beast barreled into the Alpha Beowolf, a secondary jaw jutting out of the slavering maw and unerringly jamming into the Alpha's eye. Both horrors tumbled to the ground, snarling and raking at one another with claws and teeth.

That left one Alpha to act as field general. Only now, the ancient and intelligent beast no long had a siege situation on its hands, but attackers coming in from behind. It snarled, pulling back the Grimm in the rear into defensive positions, sending them piling in toward Blake, Yang, Renaissance and the shapeshifter.

It was too little, too late.

Pyrrha almost felt bad for the Grimm as she head a familiar laugh preceded by the distant thump of artillery and a column of pink smoke from down the street that gently arced toward the siege. Soon enough, the smoke cleared to reveal Nora Valkyrie standing atop her beloved Magnahild with one arm around her also beloved (but certainly not in a together-together kind of way—absolutely not—no sirree) Lie Ren.

The manically grinning pink bomber didn't hold on for long though. Saying something Pyrrha couldn't make out at that distance, she grabbed Ren's hand as they descended and flung him skyward. Then, in a grand display of acrobatics and strength, she did a handstand with her grip on her hammer and pulled it around into a powerful downward swing.

An ursa had the poor fortune to be at ground zero of Nora's Hammerdown. Not only was it impacted by one hundred and fifty pounds of high grade steel and one hundred and twenty pounds of surprisingly compact muscle and exuberance, but Nora triggered a grenade salvo from Magnahild on impact. There wasn't even a puff of dark miasma to mark what happened to that first ursa. A pink-tinged shock wave then positively annihilated ever Grimm in a ten-foot radius of Nora's touchdown.

That was a perfect distraction for what was going on above. Nora had effectively put some English on it when she threw Ren; the Aura master of Team JNPR was spinning rapidly in air. Thanks to his fine control over his Aura and years of practice with his Stormflower submachine guns, he was able to use this rotation to swiftly take note of the battleground and then fire upon strategic points with quick, controlled bursts. Grimm too close to Blake or Yang or any of the otherworldly heroes found themselves sniped from afar in the few seconds Ren remained airborne.

And that's all it was—just a few seconds and a full third of the Grimm horde had been decimated. Nora rose from where she'd landed on a knee, still grinning, as Ren managed a three-point landing that was only sullied a bit by his woozy unsteadiness in the process.

The surviving Beowolf Alpha roared, seeing a new and present threat. Grimm flowed away from the glowing blue barrier to charge Nora and Ren.

Out of the corner of her eye, a flicker of red made Pyrrha think Ruby had finally arrived, but on second viewing, there was yellow mixed in the red and there were no rose petals. Instead, this blur left blinking black discs on the ground in a line between the horde and her teammates.

Moments later, the discs erupted into staccato explosions, blasting Grimm to bits and smoke and nothingness. The blur came through the wall like it was nothing before coming to a stop and resolving into a tall, lean woman in a sleek red and yellow suit with a stylized V on the chest. She was beaming as she called, "Hey guys! Guess what? They've got a speedster too! Check this out—three... two... now!"

And then there were rose petals. At first, in the pitch and churn of the battles, the smoke of the mines and Nora's attack, it was hard to notice—a sprinkling of petals her, a silver-black slash that dismantled a creep or ursa there, but as the Hunters plus Renaissance and the alien... thing... started to thin and divide the Grimm ranks, it became easier to see Ruby Rose in action.

Never staying in one place longer than it took to land a blow, the youngest huntress at Beacon flitted like a homicidal hummingbird, slashing and shooting and kicking and sweeping. Beowulf and creep alike were blasted and broken. Ursas lost limbs and heads. Before long, she'd made her way over to the Alpha and easily flanked her way around it, winding up standing on its shoulders with Crescent Rose against its neck.

The sniper-scythe fired. Once, twice... but the Alpha's bone armor held fast, cracked but not sawn through. Ruby fired a third time and Crescent Rose's blade caught in its neck partway through—and the rifle clicked, no more rounds left.

Ruby looked down at the hateful red eyes of her enemy. "Eep?" She said just as the thing started bucking, trying to shake her off.

Back behind the barrier, Alloy's armor closed up on its own as he got to his feet again, focused on the Alpha. One of his tentacles handed him his dropped glaive. "Zero, drop the shield." His only reply was a sigh of relief as the barrier flickered out of existence.

The moment it was gone, Pyrrha was in motion. One of her comrades was in trouble and she wasn't about to stand by a moment longer to lend aid and destroy Grimm. Without looking, she was sure Jaune was charging with her, a notion verified by the meaty thud of Crocea Mors ending a beowolf nearby. She struck down a rearing boarbatusk herself as the partners surged forward as one.

With Akouo in spear form though, she struck first, threading her red enameled bronze blade into a joint just to the left of the bone plates covering the sternum. The Alpha snarled and met her gaze with its own; feral ferocity with warrior ferocity. Even with Ruby desperately putting all her weight against the scythe at its throat, the Alpha wasn't backing down. In fact, it grabbed Akouo just behind the blade—and pulled it deeper into its own body.

In doing so, it dragged Pyrrha herself closer. Brutal jaws lolled open, seeking to bite her head clean off.

Having no intention to allow that, Pyrrha swung Milo up edge-first, driving it it hard against its snout and driving it back. Then a second shield- the scabbard of Crocea Mors in fact—struck it full on from the right side with a resounding ringing sound.

Jaune tried to follow up with a hack from his sword, only for hi steel to skitter across bone plating. The Grimm, sensing the less powerful prey between the two of them, homed in on him, lunging only to get another bash from Crocea Mors.

"Hold on!" Ruby cried, still riding the monster like a bucking bull, Crescent Rose acting as a bridle. "Just... Gotta... reload." She was trying to reach the ammo pouch slung under her cape and keep a grip on her scythe at the same time.

The black ribbon of Gambol Shroud wrapped the Alpha's jaws, forcing them shut before Blake applied her weight to pull the beast's head down, wrangling it for the moment. "I've got it!" She said, grunting under the strain of the struggling Grimm. It let go of Akouo to swipe at Blake, but that allowed Pyrrha to swiftly disengage, using her freed weapon to parry on Blake's behalf.

Jaune in the meantime took advantage of the Alpha's lowered head to line up a perfect thrust of his sword into the creature's eye. Malevolent red guttered out and the Alpha howled through its tied closed teeth. Twisting the blade, Jaune made sure it was wedged into the skull before bearing down with all its might. "Any time, Rubes!"

Finally managing to retrieve a fresh magazine of high caliber Dust bullets, Ruby slammed them home into her rifle and wasted no time in pulling the trigger. There was a crack of a powerful weapon discharging and the blade sunk in another quarter inch, surrounded by cracks in the bone plates.

"Why won't this work?" Ruby stomped petulantly on the Grimm's shoulder blades. "How are you so tough?!"

"You gotta put more weight into it!" Nora bellowed. From across the battlefield, ignoring as the other hunters and heroes combated the Grimm, she hefted Magnhild on high, a gleeful glint in her eyes. "Ready?"

Ruby's expression mirrored hers as she realized exactly what Nora was suggesting. "Yes! One... Two..."

Nora dashed forward, sweeping her hammer before her to clear Grimm out of her path, sending them bouncing and rolling with lazy abandon. Then, as she closed in, she wound up and leapt, swinging her hammer with all her might down into the Alpha's head just as Ruby fired one more time.

This time, with the added pressure of Blake, Jaune and especially Nora's mighty swing pressing down on the Alpha's head, physics were on Ruby's side and Crescent Rose finally tore cleanly through the Alpha's neck. Dark miasma fountained out of the headless corpse as it collapsed and Ruby rode it to the ground.

All around them, the now leaderless Grimm reverted to fighting like wild animals, which was not a fight they could win. Alloy waded in, swinging his glaive while the tentacles speared and slashed and tripped everything in sight. Renaissance fired pellets from her gauntlets. Ren was moving as it dancing, weaving between attacks and answering with controlled fire. The insectile alien thing had become a bear to match the ursas strength for strength, powerful claws tearing into sable flesh. Yang tore into monsters with her usual strength and exuberance. Zero flew over it all, sending in blasts of blue energy into clusters of creeps.

The battle was clearly won save for the mop-up.

Something, however, seemed to be missing.

Ruby popped up to her feet, sudden realization dawning on her. "Oh! I almost forgot why we ran over here! Weiss sent us—the ice wall in front of the portal? It's breaking!"

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AN: Whew.

That took a long time to write because I was trying really hard to show that both groups are awesome in their own way. I hope to get this opening scene over soon because I have a lot of fun character work to play with. Some highlights:

Jaune learning badass normal tactics. Blake getting involved in the descendants-right movement. Weiss learning new skills with her Semblance thanks to not having access to Dust. Pyrrha learns the science of magnetics whether she wants to or not. The most epic game of tag ever.