AN: Okay, here's another chapter
I'd like to Thank DragFire, The Critic (I'm assuming all under this name are the same person) and LightnigStrife for leaving me reviews.
Still looking for a Beta reader, I feel a lot of the mistake I make could be solved with a pair of outside eyes.
I know I have a problem with pronouns, not that I don't know the proper ones, but rather I just type the wrong one by mistake. I'm trying to fix this, but it's kind of hard for me to catch my own mistakes like this, I know what I meant to write, so I overlook a lot of these mistakes, my mind just fills them in when I re-read.
I'm also thinking of giving my chapter's actual names, so if anyone had suggestions for that, including past chapters, I'm open to it.
Well, Read and Review, thanks for coming.
Chapter 10
As Ruby read the notes Thor had taken in her room, she felt like she was looking a puzzle where all the pieces were all the same color or close to it. These "riddles", were weird and she couldn't help but feel like she was missing some context information. There were references to things, events and people, or maybe gods, that she didn't recognize.
Thor would probably know what at least some of these were, but he was going to be gone for the next few days. But he'd probably only be able to really help with context, by his own admission he had no mind for riddles.
Granted Ruby didn't think that was true, if he cared to try, she thought he could if really tired. He was much smarter than people who didn't know him would expect him to be. But she'd noticed that if a topic or task was of little interest to him, he couldn't concentrate or perform it well.
She was the same way in that regard, if not in all the same fields. But in this field, she liked riddles and stories, but these were…weird.
Even in English, terms and names still seemed foreign. The Wendo was an example of that, if Thor hadn't told her what they were, she wouldn't of had a clue. She had the idea in her head that they were the same thing as the "Shriekers" or "Mist Mauraders", but Thor had been pretty adamant that they were not the same.
Ruby still thought there might be a connection, but it wasn't really worth thinking about it more until there was more to go on.
She was certain that the book Blake had would help decipher some of these riddles, at least providing context she didn't have.
But it was frustrating that Thor hadn't bothered to maybe make a reference guide to go with some of these terms before he left. But she supposed that in his mind at least, these terms weren't foreign at all, and it had just slipped his mind.
Sighing, he put the notes down and rubbed her eyes, and looked out the window. It was dark and Yang still wasn't back yet. That wasn't unexpected, but she still wished she'd be more regular with the time she came in.
She'd never been that way, she would show up when she did and that was all there was to it. But Ruby was feeling stuck and wanted to talk to her sister. These riddles were not revealing much information, or at least nothing she could understand. Lionheart was, she was pretty sure, stonewalling them, her Uncle was going off to do things he kept hidden from the rest of them.
Then there was her and Jaune, an issue she was not at all ready to approach again, yet felt an incredibly strong compulsion to try and do something with it.
She didn't know it was possible to feel stuck and at the same time, feel like things around her were moving in ways she either couldn't see, or couldn't understand.
She wanted to talk to her sister, and she wanted to right now.
Jaune wasn't sure what he was feeling right now, as he wandered the streets of Mistral. He felt a weird loneliness since Yang and Thor had caught up with them. He'd moved into Ren and Nora's room, and while they shared a bed, they'd never done anything to make him uncomfortable, but he felt like he was intruding on their space when he was there, and had taken to walking around the city until the sun went down, sometimes even after it.
He wondered if Ruby felt the same way, having to share a room with her Sister and her sister's boyfriend. Part of him said yes, but he also thought Ruby's more…innocent view of the world might of curb the feeling. What was more was she was sharing a room with his sister, whom she'd known her entire life.
While he considered Ren and Nora as close as family, they had know each other for years before Beacon.
He knew it was stupid, but he felt almost like an outsider in his own group of friends, they were all bonded to at least one other person in the group, either by blood or by relationship. He felt that if they had another single, none blood relative, in the group, this feeling would be less pronounced, or he'd at least have someone who could relate.
He'd found Thor had been helpful back at school when he was having other issues, but now, he didn't consider it much of an option now. For one, he was dating Yang, and for two, he'd gone on a scouting mission and wouldn't be back for a couple days.
He'd thought maybe he could talk to Qrow about it, he was the only person he knew to any real degree in the city, but he squashed that idea as well. He wasn't overly fond of Ruby's Uncle, he respected him, he was a heavy drinker and Jaune still felt he was at least partially responsible for Pyrrha's death.
He knew part of that feeling was him projecting his own guilt over his weakness and inability to do anything, but he also did truly feel that group shouldn't of dragged her into the whole ordeal. Strong as she was, she was still just a student.
Jaune felt tears stinging his eye's and quickly wiped them away.
He hadn't gotten over it, and didn't think he ever would. It didn't hurt as bad as it had, but sometimes it just to seem to wash over him and he felt the strength go out of his knees.
As his mood started to darken, he felt his scroll vibrating in his pocket. Coming out of the his mood, or at least enough to answer the phone, he checked the caller ID. It was Ruby.
That made him feel better for some reason. He hit the button to answer the call and said "Hello?"
Ruby's voice came through, a bit distorted. When it was on local signal only, sometimes the connections weren't as good. "Hey Jaune, you wanna come over to my room and help me with something? I've got this…book I guess, but I can't really make heads or tails of it."
"Umm sure…I mean I can, but isn't Yang there? Can't she help you?"
"She just called me, and she told me she's going to out late tonight, something she needs to do. She didn't tell me what, but she's said she tell me tomorrow, but anyway, you want to come over?"
"Yeah, I'll come on over, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
"Okay, see you then, bye." Ruby said on her end of the line and clicked her phone off.
Jaune didn't know why but he felt happy to have something to do, because frankly since they got here, they felt, or at least he did, they were spinning their wheels here right now.
Pocketing his scroll, he headed off to meet up with Ruby.
Ruby had called Jaune because Yang had called her and told her she wouldn't be back tonight. But she didn't want to be alone and wanted to talk to someone. After Yang, Jaune or her Uncle would be the net choice, but her Uncle had sort of floated off a bit in the past few days. She still saw him around, but he seem preoccupied with something he wasn't telling them.
But she trusted he'd tell them when he thought the time was right.
The knock on the door brought her out of these thoughts. Jaune didn't wait for her to answer, he just walked in, the knocking was just a courtesy, this had been his room for some time before Thor and Yang had arrived.
"Hey Ruby!" His tone seemed unusually happy, at least for the situation. "So where is this book?"
Ruby just smiled and handed the handwritten pages to him. He looked confused for a moment, and looked to her.
"It's not really a book, but more…I guess it is a book, at least all the contents are, but Thor copied it to these." She gestured at the stack of papers.
"Okay…well, let's see…" Jaune said as he started reading, and confusion started to cross his face. "Why is it written like this?"
"That's my issue, it's all in these riddles, and I've been trying to figure them out, but it's…I'm having such a good go of it." Ruby said, kicking the rug.
"Okay…next question…why do we need to do this? Or is it more of a for fun?"
Ruby raised her eyebrows at this, and was about to tell him why it was so important…then she realized she didn't know why, or even if it was important. But Thor had spent a good amount of time writing down, and she didn't think he'd do that unless absolutely had to. And her gut told her it had to be done.
But she didn't have anything to really tell Jaune in terms of facts related to doing this. "It's just…I think we need do it, like…there might be answers here." She said, speaking more on feelings she hadn't even totally realized she was having until she vocalized it. "You know what my Uncle said, about the gods, the Grimm and the relics…this is from a really old book, may there is something in there that's useful?"
Ruby felt stupid the way she worded this, but it was how she felt, and had expressed to Jaune the best way he could.
Jaune didn't know if Ruby's line of thought held any water, in fact he was pretty certain it didn't. But they didn't have any other leads in this journey of their's, at least until they started to get more cooperation from the older hunters who were more involved than them.
"Okay, let's see then." He said deciding to go ahead and give it a shot. It only took him to get to the second page before he knew this way wasn't going to get him anywhere. "Ruby." He said, going to sit down on the bed, still looking at the papers. "How have you been trying to figure this out?"
"Just kept reading them, hoping that…I don't know, it would start to make more sense once I was done." She paused at this, "It didn't." She finished.
"Well, why don't we try this, we just take the first page and just work on that before anything else." Jaune said and he picked up the first page and set the rest down on the floor.
"Okay, let's try that." Ruby sat next to him as they looked at page he was holding. This one had three riddles.
"Okay, so the first one says ' That which crushes sleeps in the mother of its owner until the divine is broken', Jaune read out loud, still just as confused as the first time he'd read it. Ruby called these riddles, but to him it felt more like a code or some kind of fortunetelling.
"I don't get it." Ruby said shoulders slumping.
"Yeah, I'm not getting this, let's try the next one." Jaune said, moving down to the next verse. "Okay this one says 'The stone and earth birth forth the mightiest of warriors, born of the sky and earth' Oh my god, this makes no sense!" Jaune groaned, looking at the ceiling.
"Well…let's just look at the last one, then we can go back to the first." Ruby said, pulling the paper out of Jaune's hands and reading the final line. She'd read it a few times but hadn't committed it to memory. "Okay, this one say ' The mightiest warrior holds the crusher in his hand, casting his foe's to the earth in ash.' Okay yeah, this isn't making any more sense to me now that it did an hour ago.
"Okay, let's think." Jaune said, rubbing his temples "Maybe these are linked somehow, let's look for common ideas or terms." Jaune said standing up and retrieving paper and a pen to start writing notes down.
"Well, the 'mightiest warrior' is mentioned in the second and third one, maybe it's the same person?"
"Okay, sure that make sense." Jaune said writing this down. "Anything else?"
"The Crusher." Ruby said "It's mentioned a couple times, maybe it's a person related to the warrior?"
"Alright." Jaune said writing them down. "It say's the crusher sleeps in the mother of its owner." Jaune said, starting to chew on his pen "Maybe the crusher is like an animal or something, it has an owner, and it sleeps within the owners mother…" Jaune said more to himself than Ruby.
"Wait so it's sleeping with its owners mother? That's-"
"It reads more like it's inside the mother of its owner, and the second line got me thinking. The warrior was 'birthed of earth and sky', I think in this case, 'mother' isn't literal, more…figurative, like maybe the warriors home country or nationality."
Ruby felt like for the first time since she started reading these notes that something were starting to fall together. She'd been reading them all as individual riddles, not thinking they may be interlinked.
She didn't know if this was correct or not, but it was better than just staring at the paper with no idea of what to do.
"What do you think 'break the divine' means?" She asked Jaune, who was chewing on his pen.
"No clue…" He mumbled.
The general feeling was of little forward movement. Ruby felt like they had made some progress, but not enough to understand. Thinking back to puzzles again, she remembered how her and Yang would sometimes work on different parts of the puzzle, and each out end up with parts of the whole picture, but still unable to really tell what it was.
Her thoughts wandering back to her sister, she wondered what she was up to.
Yang never considered her self much of a stealth expert. Her general personality and appearance made staying low-key hard most of the time.
But now with her wild hair pulled back into a ponytail, and bandana covering the top of her forehead, a hood pulled up and her sunglasses on, she was making her best attempt at it.
Her clothes were as plain as she could find, and her scroll was on silent.
As she followed her target, she still had no idea what would be considered a good distances to observe from. She was certain that if she got too close, she would be recognized, even with her disguise. But if she was too far back, she might lose her target and wouldn't be able to hear them if they spoke.
But she had to find out what was going on here.
"What are you up to Uncle Qrow?" she whispered to herself as she tailed her Uncle down the streets of Mistral.
She thought she was doing a pretty good job of it so far, he didn't seem to notice her. Normally she wouldn't of thought it was possible for someone of her skill level to trail her Uncle without being noticed. But she knew he wasn't on the top of his game, he was still a bit out of it from the venom, and he, as was his habit, not taking care of himself like he should to recover.
He turned into a tavern and she lost sight of him. Picking up her pace just a little, she slipped into the same tavern and scanned the room.
She spotted her Uncle sitting at the bar, his back to her.
She sate at a table, and watched him drink.
A waiter came over to take her order, but she just asked for a soda, wanting him to get out of way.
The waiter didn't seemed to pleased with this, but took her order and walked off.
Yang turned to look at her Uncle, doing her best to try and watch him out of the corner of her eye rather than look right at him.
As she watched him, a young boy dark hair approached her Uncle. She didn't see where he came from, but she was certain he didn't come from outside, as she was sure she would of seen him coming in, so he must have been staying at the tavern.
Yang didn't get a good look at his face, but Qrow and him exchanged some short words, and got up to leave.
As they walked out the door, Yang looked at the floor, trying to not draw attention to herself.
She waited a minute before getting up to follow them, and when she went outside, she worried she might of lost them.
This was unfounded as she soon spotted them walking down the street.
She followed them until the reached the outskirts of the city, at which point they boarded a Bullhead and flew off somewhere.
Yang knew that was the end of her tailing her Uncle. No way she could afford to get a Bullhead to follow them, and even if she could, there was no way to do so with any sort of secrecy.
But, even though she hadn't found out anything specific, she knew Qrow was meeting with and doing…something, with this kid.
That was a big mystery in her mind, but she doubted she'd ever manage to figure out what it was unless her Uncle actually told her, unless she trailed him again and they went somewhere else.
She looked at her scroll, and saw it was only a little past midnight. She had expected to be out the whole night, but Qrow had slipped her and now she had nothing else to do.
Ultimately, she decided to head back to her room, she doubted Ruby would be upset she was back early.
Yang opened the door to the room she shared with Ruby and Thor as quietly as she could. I was now just past 1:00, and she thought Ruby might be asleep.
As it turned out she was, but Jaune was passed out right next to her. Were it not for the pages of notes scattered around them and the bed, she may have been inclined to think something less…savory had occurred.
But they were both fully clothed, and it looked more like they had just nodded off while working on some sort of project.
It was sort of sweet to look at them like this though, Ruby's head was resting on Jaune's chest, and he'd wrapped his arm around her and his hand was resting on her shoulder.
Pulling out her scroll, she took a quick picture, and put it away before looking at what they were working on.
Among the numerous pages there was one page from Thor's translation of the book. Judging by the notes on the other piece of paper, they had been trying to decipher the information.
They looked like they had made some progress, but still, not all that much. If this effort was to yield any real results, Yang believe that they would need Thor here. He might not be great at deciphering or riddle work, but he probably understood the context of the information and nuances better than any of them. No, that wasn't right, she knew he did.
Ruby may not know the importance of these books, and in truth, Yang didn't either, but Thor thought it held answers, and that was good enough for her.
Thor drove the jeep he'd rented to the end of the dirt road to the bridge he and Yang had come across on their way Mistral. Putting it in park, he climbed out and walked to the destroyed bridge.
Looking into the gorge, he noticed that the mist had gone. His problem was he didn't know if the bigger versions of the creatures generated the mist or not. His encounter with the larger version may have been in a natural fog, the location was centrally conducive to it. Ruby's encounter was mixed with the smaller ones which he knew generated the fog.
But he needed to go back down, they had left the silver-steel down there, and it was too valuable to let go. He had other things to see to, but this was on the way, but he didn't want to climb back down if he could help it.
Luckily he thought of this. Walking back to the jeep, he pulled out a length of cable and found a large tree. He lightly tied it around the trunk of the tree and picked up the other end.
He retrieved a rifle from the trunk of jeep and attacks a harpoon head to the barrel. This wasn't a normal rifle, it wasn't much use in a fight, but was use for navigating terrain that needed rope or cable to be attacked over large gaps.
Attaching the cable to the spearhead, he lined up a shot with a heavy and healthy looking tree. He fired it and it struck home, lodging deep into the trunk.
Returning to the end he'd tied to the tree on his side, he undid the knot and pulled the cable until it was tight.
He secured it to the tree and when he was sure it was tight, he went back to the jeep. He took out a rope harness, and his survival pack.
After this he grabbed the cable and climbed onto it and started to make his way across.
He hung under it like a sloth, and started to move across the cavern.
Once he was above the area he was certain he and Yang has camped at. He fastened the rope with special clips that would keep it from sliding, and attacked his rope to it, and then lowered himself down.
The descent only took him a few minutes, but he was leery of potential attacks. But nothing came, and soon their bags and sleeping gear came into view.
Although he didn't feel like the Grimm were in the area, he didn't want to spend more time on the ground than he had to.
Dropping onto the ground, he went to his pack first, knowing where the silver-steel was. It took him less than a minute to find it, the bar of metal was stored in his new pack and we want to Yang's and simply dumped the contents out on the ground.
The bar of metal shone in the light and he gathered it up just as quickly and started to ascend back up the rope.
Once he was back up to the cable, he finished crossing the gorge and got his two feet back on solid earth. The first thing he did was go to the cable attachment to the spearhead and undid it and re-tied it to another tree.
With that taken care of, he pulled out the map he brought with him. This one was more up to date, as far this area went anyway, than the one he and Yang had used to transverse the continent to Mistral.
The town they had gotten the silver-steel was on this map, but so were several other's that he didn't even know were there.
From his understanding, in this unprecedented time of peace, Mistral had decided to try and expand more so than any other point in the past.
But in the past year it had all come crashing down. Now these towns were almost completely isolated, and many had stopped communicating with the main city altogether. He was certain they had been destroyed, as they now no longer had the support of the city-proper, or had the advantage of a Grimm repellant like the town they had passed.
One should have been only an hour from his current location on foot, and he was surprised they hadn't run into anyone on else on their way here. That was unless of course they had already been hit.
He'd check it out, and hopefully, figure out what was going on. Grimm attacks were being blamed, but not bodies were being left behind, Grimm didn't do that, at least as far as he knew.
They may now on or chew their targets, but they didn't generally consume the whole body.
There was something odd going on, and he hoped he'd find out what.
The town, or settlement, whichever, was abandoned, as he knew it would be. The blood streaks were all over the place, but not bodies. As he also knew from what had been circulating around the city. So not bandit's or Grimm, but then what?
There were prints in a few places on the ground, and to him they looked like a horse, only maybe four or five times the size of a normal horse.
The Shreikers may of made sense if they took their targets underground once fully grown, but there were not tunneling signs and something had left these tracks.
This was eerie, and he pulled his ax out, ready to fight if something decided to attack him. The signs of the attacks were clear, whatever did this had hit them too hard and fast for the people to make a proper defense, only a few weapons lay here and there, but there were no real signs of them being fired or missed shot, at least in any real numbers.
But there were those tracks, and what left tracks, could be tracked. He doubted he'd have a hard time of it, whatever did this didn't seemed concerned with stealth, there were signs of them all over the place.
The tracks ran up one of the dirt roads that lead to the settlement. The tracks weren't on the road he'd followed to get here, so whatever had do this came from one direction, and now, it was time to follow the trail.
The tracks didn't stay on the road for long, and eventually went off onto the woods. The trail made by whatever had done this was near enough to a road on its own. The tree's were knocked over and vegetation was crushed flat.
The game trail, which was a close a thing he could think of to compare it to, ran as far as he could see, into the hills and mountains.
He wasn't sure he wanted to go that far into the wilderness after something he had no idea what it was. But he was here, and he didn't back down from a challenge. He'd just have to use more caution than he normally would have.
Setting off down the game trail, he kept his ax out, and ready for combat.
A whole day of traveling and he'd come to the top of a large hill, or maybe it was a small mountain. But this was where he'd camp for the night, or at least in the general area.
He started looking for some sort of rock of substantial size, he did not want to sleep on soft dirt, just in case.
After thirty minutes of looking he found a suitable rock and set up his camp. He didn't light a fire, again out of fear of altering something to his location. Instead he ate and climbed into his sleeping bag.
He tried to sleep, but it didn't come easy for him, and when it did, it was not rest full.
Thor awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, and at first he didn't know why.
Looking around, expecting to see Yang shaking him awake. It took him a moment to remember he was on his own.
Standing, he looked around to see if something was near him, but there was nothing. The moon was out on the clear night, and his visibility was decent, and he just couldn't help but feel there was something to worry about.
Then he heard it. It sounded like a fog horn or train horn, but like it came from an animal as it died off, in a in almost growl like quality.
From the top of hill he was on, Thor looked around to see if he could spot what was making the sound, but even in the fairly decent light, all he could see was mist rolling down the side of one of the mountains in the distance…
The call came again, and Thor was sure it was coming from the mist.
"What the hell…did they change again?" Thor muttered to himself. Then he saw a point of light emerge on the top of the hill. Before he knew what he was seeing, the light seemed to elongate, and twist down the side of the hill, growing longer and swerving, like a great snake.
He had no idea how long this…what ever it was…was but it stretched from the top of the mountain it was on to the bottom, and more than the length of it. And still seemed to slither onto some unknown destination, seeming to grow longer.
The light was red as the fire's Muspelhiem, it was like it was the body of a great snake. The idea of a giant serpent made his blood run cold. 'It couldn't be here, could it?'
Driven by fear of what may have followed him here, he ran towards the great beast, intent of killing it before it could bring the destruction to this world.
As he neared his target. Thor knew it wasn't the world serpent. The thundering of hooves made it clear these were not a single entity.
What was more, he was now certain this was what he was looking for. But, he knew he needed to be careful, if he was caught, he didn't care how strong he was by mortal standards, he was still mortal, and the apparent numbers of whatever this was, he'd be overwhelmed.
Whatever they were, they had left him in the dust with their speed. But he still had a plan.
Walking along the trail they had made until he found the largest and sturdiest tree he could find. He climbed into the its branches and waited.
He had every reason to believe they would return the same way they came, given what he'd seen at the settlement. He didn't know how long he'd have to wait, but he's stay until sunrise at least.
But, as it turned out, he didn't have to wait that long. He heard the horn like howl from, whatever it was, and heard the thunder of hooves. The vibrations in the ground came soon after, then the mist rolled in.
Gripping his ax, ready to fight if it came to that.
The red light started to appear down the path, and before long he saw them.
They were Grimm, but not like Grimm he'd ever seen. The Knuckleeve Ruby and Jaune has described to him was the closest he could think of.
But these Grimm were humanoid in shape, but much larger than a normal man, and they rode atop Grimm horses that fit the size of the tracks he'd seen. But they appearance varied from one to the next. They looked like men wearing animal skins almost, but the headdress varied from one to the next. Some looked like they were the heads of Ursa, other's Beowulf or Nevermore, and virtually any type of Grimm he'd ever read about.
He saw now the glowing red was a large weapon like growths on the arms of the these Grimm, they varied, some looked like clubs other spears, and some stiiill swords. They were bone white at the hilts and glowed like the eye's of a the Grimm themselves, and noticing this Thor notices that all the Grimm heads on the body's of these creatures, they eye's were blank.
If he didn't know Grimm bodies dissolved on death, he'd of the thought they were men wearing the skins of slain Grimm.
The cavalry charged under him for fifteen minutes before he notice the most bizarre thing about this group.
There were men, normal men, riding on some of the Grimm horses. He didn't noticed at first because of the masks they wore.
Those masks were clear as day, White Fang.
He didn't understand in the least, how could the White Fang ride safely with a horse of Grimm?
Thor's Thoughts were broken by screams and wails.
Now he noticed that the Grimm and White Fang had people tied up and on the back of there terrible mounts.
Women, children, and men, tied up and being brought to whatever hell this unholy alliance could think of.
This explained the lack of bodies, they were being taken.
It was another half hour before the massive hoard passed under him.
Climbing down, he started to follow them back up the mountain to where ever they were going.
He knew he couldn't save the people he'd just been taken, not as he was, but he needed information, so this could be stopped.
As he crested the top of the low mountain, Thor looked down into a valley, cover in fog.
He did not want to go down into it, but knew he had to.
Slowly, he walked into the mist.
He had to fight the urge to try and clear an area for himself, because as much as he wanted to, he didn't want to waste the energy or possibly alert something to his presence.
But the screams helped him navigate the near blindness of the fog. He wanted to rush in, to help, but he knew it would be foolish to do so. He'd just be killed and no one would know what was going on here.
As he made his way through fog, he noticed the closer he got to the screams, the clearer it became.
Soon, he could see object clearly, and then a short while after that, the fog lifted completely.
But the screams didn't stop.
He followed the sound until he came to what looked like a smaller valley within this larger one. And he saw a most bizarre and horrible scene.
Tents and temporary living scatter among the valley floor, with stockpiles of weapons and equipment, and people in cages of wood, with the White Fang pulling them out one at a time. The larger creatures, the humanoid Grimm, surrounded the area, making horrible sounds that were almost human-like in nature, but still animalistic, almost looking like they were cheering as one person at a time was lead to the center of the camp.
At the center of this valley and makeshift camp, was the most vile looking Grimm Thor had ever seen. It looked like the Mist Mauraders, but far, far larger. This thing had to be over a hundred feet long, and had a body thicker than he was tall.
It had no eyes, but its head was bone-like, like may Grimm, with a large beak and mandibles like a crab for its lower jaw.
Looking up over the rest of the camp, Thor spotted at least three more Grimm like this one, all surrounded by cages of humans.
Thor couldn't help but watch in horror as a young woman was lead to the great beast, fighting and kicking the whole way.
It was at this time Thor notice a Beowulf walking up the creature on its own accord. Both the woman than Beowulf stood before the giant Shreiker, and before Thor could guess was what happening, Large snake like tounges shot out of the Shrieker, snaring the woman and it's fellow Grimm, and it swallowed them whole.
It ate both the woman and Grimm, and the humanoids all let out a roar at this.
The large maggot like Grimm pulsed for a moment, then for its tail, an black mass of a tar-like substance Thor had seen once before, from another large Grimm, spilled out.
From it, emerged two figures. One, a humanoid Grimm with a Beowulf style headdress, and great Black Horse Grimm. It raised a glowing red club and hollowed at it entered the world.
But at the same time, the humanoid Grimm gnawed on human limbs, eating the dead that could not be taken alive.
Thor watched for another ten minutes, trying to spot any leaders in the White Fang. He noticed a man he didn't recognize, a tall, powerfully built man with a bear, bossing the White Fang subordinates around. But this man looked human, although Thor knew some Faunus could look perfectly human sometimes.
It wasn't until an all too familiar person came to call him off that Thor saw someone one familiar.
Adam, the man who had remained him and Yang, was a part of these mass abductions of civilians. He looked more haggard than the last time Thor had seen him, but there was no mistaking the man, his red hair and horns were a dead giveaway.
He wanted to head down there and even the score, but knew he'd accomplish nothing in the long term other than getting himself killed.
It was time to go, he had what he needed to know, and if he stuck around longer, he only ran the risk of getting caught.
As quietly as he could, he made to leave the way he came. He double-timed it as he moved and didn't plan on sleeping tonight, he'd head straight back to Mistral, report what he saw, and hopefully, something could be done about it.
As he ran through the mist, he couldn't help but think about what Ruby had suggested to him before he left. The Wendo being the Shriekers had at the time seemed unlikely. But, now that he was seeing them…change or modify themselves into their current form, and how they did it. Eaters of the dead, they came with the mist, and were human-like in appearance.
"Well Ruby." He said to himself without even thinking of it "Wendo it is."
He's just made it out of the fog when a chill ran down his spine. Someone was tailing him, he was sure of it.
He stood there for a moment, waiting to see if whoever it was would attack him. They didn't and he continued on, but constantly on the lookout for a sneak attack.
He was moving as quickly as he could back the broken bridge he had crossed to get back to his jeep and report this when he heard a rustling behind him. Pulling his ax off his back he swung it and stopped in a inch away from cutting the head off a very familiar and friendly face.
"Blake?"
Were it not for his distinctive scent, Blake would have had no idea this was Thor, at least at a distance. Up close, she recognized his eye's, or eye as it was now. But the fact he was alive, the pure shock of the idea when she had smelled him while she tracked Adam, she had to find out if it was him.
Sure enough, when he spoke, she recognized him. "Thor…I thought you were dead…" She whispered.
Thor just smiled at her and placed his ax on his back. "No, you ex-boyfriend couldn't finish me off that easily."
"What happened? How did Adam beat you?"
"He didn't, or at least not completely, my equipment failed, and literally blew up in my face." Thor said, in even measured tones.
Blake wanted to ask more, but didn't want to push the issue more. Instead she asked "Have you seen any of the others?"
Thor nodded "I've been with Yang, more or less, since the school fell. We've meet up with Ruby, Jaune, Nora and Ren in Mistral."
"What about Weiss?"
Thor just shook his head "No word from her."
Blake felt sadness at this. She felt the team was close to reuniting, but Weiss, as much as they bumped heads, was part of the team, and she missed her.
Thor spoke again "What about you? What have you been doing?"
Blake didn't feel like bearing her soul, but the truth was probably the best policy in this situation, even if it was an abridged version of it.
"I re-connected with my family, and an old friend. We deiced we needed to take back the White Fang to what it was, but what I've been seeing…I'm not sure it's worth saving."
"You mean the Grimm?"
"Yes…it's more disturbing than anything I would of ever thought. I can't even understand how it even came about, working with Grimm."
"It's not him or the White Fang, that one man, the big one with the beard, I think he has something to do with it."
Blake sighed a this, she thought he was right, but wasn't sure how.
"Well, we have to get going." Thor said "If we want to get to my jeep before nightfall, we'll have to move at top speed-"
Blake cut him off "What do you mean 'we'? " she asked.
Thor looked confused at this, and asked her "Aren't you coming back with me?"
"No…I mean…not yet." She started "I've got to meet up with my team, we'll meet up with you guys in Mistral in a few days." She looked into Thor's scared face, and saw he didn't really believe her, but didn't push the issue.
"Yang would really like to see you." Was all he said calmly. They looked at each other for a while before he spoke again "Yang said you had a book, one about…my people."
Blake wasn't surprised at this, or rather she thought she wasn't supposed to be. He'd been with half of her old team for some time. It would of come up at some point.
"Yeah, what about it?" she felt like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, even though she knew she hadn't really done anything wrong.
"Do you have it?" Thor said, looking at her with a calm face.
"Yes." She said pulling out of her pack. That was the weird thing about this book, she didn't want to leave it alone and carried with her almost all the time.
She held it out to Thor and he took it. She felt like she was returning something that didn't belong to her to its rightful owner.
Thor took it and put it in his pack.
"I'd try and convince you to come with me, but I feel that would be a waste of my breath…" He trailed off, his eye's becoming unfocused and looking over her head.
"What-" She barely had time to ask before he pushed her hard to the ground.
If she hadn't caught a glimpse of the blade as it whizzed past he cheek.
She rolled to her feet, as saw Thor batting away a blade with his prosthetic arm.
Thor didn't know who this was, not at first, but the fact they had snuck up on him and Blake worried him.
He felt a hot burning sensation on his left cheek, but he had pushed Blake to the ground to keep her from being run-throw with the blade.
He turned on his heels, and saw a familiar face.
It was the girl who had been the personal bodyguard of Roman Torchwich. Only now she looked extremely disheveled, and looked like she hadn't bated or changed her clothes in weeks.
What was more alarming to him, was her eyes. They were wild and unfocused, but at the same time completely determined.
She smiled at him, her blade brandished in front of her. She lunged again, and her sidestepped it, but as it passed in his nose, he smelled something foul. It made his eye's water and he felt the urge to sneeze.
But his fighting instinct and adrenaline rushed his system, clearing his mind.
The girl seemed totally manic, her eye's, which once showed a playfulness he didn't completely understand, were not wide and erratic.
He knew her boss had been killed in the fall of Beacon, but he'd never thought they were so close she'd seek revenge for him.
But that seemed to be the case here. If she was following the White Fang or if she was affiliated with the other faction, he didn't know. But she needed to be ended here, one way or another.
She lunged at him, and he was too slow to avoid it, but he let the blade sink into his robotic arm. Once it was in deep, he gripped the blade, holding it firmly.
He raised his ax to her neck, and yet she never stopped smiling.
He drew the blade across her neck. He was certain the image would shatter, like it had before.
But instead, a spray of blood came forth, and drenched him. Yet she was still smiling as her blood ran over him.
He let go of her, and let her drop to the ground, but the smile still graced her face.
He could of sworn she tried to laugh as she died on the ground, but he didn't care.
Thor placed a hand on her shoulder, and despite being his enemy, he wanted to let her go to the next world with some level of assurance or help.
"You fought well, now go in peace." He muttered as the light left her eye's. She still smiled as she died, and Thor was certain it had something to do with an unknown factor he was sure he probably knew, but didn't realize it.
Thor had broken off from Blake an hour ago, and after the attack from Roman's former bodyguard, he'd made as fast a pace he could to her jeep.
He and Blake had agreed, he wouldn't mention their encounter until she managed to make her way to Mistral. Which was by what she told him, only a few days from by Blakes estimation.
But the girl he had killed, he'd left her body in the wilderness. He didn't like that, but it was not something he could help.
But, as he approached the broken bridge, he was feeling sluggish. He didn't know why, but he was feeling weaker. He knew he'd been exerting himself more than normal to get to his vehicle
His cheek still stung, and it wasn't healing like it should, but it was a minor annoyance.
The broken bridge came into view. His cable was still intact, and he affixed his harness to it and started to cross. He could see the jeep still sitting where he had parked in just the other day.
He was maybe halfway across when a sense of faintness come over him. The world started to spin and he let go of the cable. Had he not attacked the safety harness, he would have fallen into the gorge.
He just hung there for a minute, waiting for the spinning in his head to stop. It took him a minute to realize it wasn't his head that was spinning, but him as he hung from the cable.
Gripping his safety rope, he pulled himself back up to the cable. The rest of the journey across was a sickening, and he almost lost his grip a few more times.
But he managed to get across and collapsed on the ground. Pushing himself up, he vomited and rolled over onto his back.
This wasn't simple exhaustion, this was something else. His cheek seemed to be throbbing. He touched it again, and it stung so violently that his eye watered.
That was when he realized what was probably going on. The look on her face, even as he slit her throat, and she bleed out. Her manic behavior and apparent lack of regard for her own defense. The burning in his eye's as the blade passed over it.
This was a poison or venom, it was on her blade and she knew once it was in him, it was as good as done. Or he had to believe that was what she thought. Her own indifference to the lethal injury he gave her and the smile she wore as she passed on, made him think she was certain he'd die from whatever she hit him with.
He needed to get back to the city and get treatment. The problem was he was now several impaired.
Grabbing his knife off his belt, he stabbed himself in his left hand.
The pain shot up his arm, and he suddenly felt the world clear up. The shock of the pain had spike his heart rate, and given him enough energy to sit up and crawl to the jeep.
Climbing in driver seat, he threw his ax and pack into the passenger seat. Starting it up, he started driving erratically, and far too fast to be safe, but he needed to get back to the city as fast as possible. If he died out here, it would fall to Blake to report what was seen, and despite the fact he thought of her as a good person, her nature was to run.
He didn't want to leave it to chance that she might not show up, or show up to late to tell them anything they needed.
The journey was only remember by him in fragments and the last thing he recalled was seeing the lights of the city as he crossed a massive bridge to reach it.
"Is he going to be okay?" Ruby asked the Doctor as she looked at Thor in his bed. Yang was sitting next to him, holding his had as he slept.
The Doctor looked at her, his face neutral "He should wake up in few hours, I'm still not sure what exactly is wrong with him, but we've managed to stabilize him. He's been poisoned by something, and his current treatment will help, but we need to know what exactly did this to him before we can make any real progress." He looked at his clipboard after he was done, showing none of the panic Ruby was feeling, which comforted her, if he was this calm, Thor had to be alright, right?
"I need to go see other patients, you can stay with him if you want, he should wake up soon and it will be better if there are people he knows around." The doctor said and with that he turned and left the room.
Ruby looked at her sister, and while she was trying to hide her concern, Ruby knew her sister too well to be fooled by it.
"He's going to be fine." Ruby started "The doctor said the treatment will work, we just need to be patient."
As she finished and before Yang could respond, Thor started to stir.
He just moaned at first, and then he opened his eye, and looked around. "Am I in a hospital?"
"Yes." Yang said first, stroking his arm "you're safe, and the doctors are treating whatever poison is in you."
Thor made to sit up but dropped back into the bed. "Where's my bag?"
"Here." Ruby said, producing the bag that Thor had last seen in the jeep.
Thor held out a hand for it and Ruby save it to him. He started to look through it, careful not to let the book he'd obtained be seen.
After a minute or two, he pulled out the two ingots of silver-steel he'd retrieved.
"You found it." Yang stated rather than asked.
"We're going to need it, and more if we can get it, I saw something out there, and I'm certain before long it will be coming here."
Yang's blood ran cold at this, more from Thor's expression than what he said. He looked scared, and she knew not much scared him.
"What did you see?" Ruby asked, her voice with trace amount of fear.
"The Shriekers, Mist marauders, whatever we want to call them. They're worse than we thought." He said looking from one sister to another. "They've grown massive, more than a hundred feet long each." He looked at Ruby as he said this, as she was the one who told him that both creatures of the mist were the same. "But now, they eat other Grimm and people, and produce something…I don't know how else to described it as man-like, but like a man crossed with a monster of Grimm."
"Wait, so they are..what. making an army?" Yang asked, confused.
"Yes, they capture humans and feed them the large ones which then make the man-Grimm and amount. These creatures also have formed primitive tools from their bodies." Thor said looking Yang in the eye." But what was more disturbing is the fact I was I saw humans working with them, or Faunus I suppose, the White Fang was helping them capture people."
That scared Yang, the idea of Grimm working with people to some kind of goal. That level of thinking was scary, and it scared her the White Fang would stoop to this, although she thought it shouldn't surprise her.
"I'll go tell uncle Qrow." Ruby said, eager to do something productive."Anything else I need to tell him?"
"Only." Thor began "That I think the surrounding villages have been more or less wipe out, they will come here soon."
Ruby nodded and ran out of the room, leaving Thor and Yang alone.
"So what happened to you?" Yang asked after a few minutes of silence.
"Torchwicks bodyguard, I think she was sticking with the White Fang, or at least following them. She attacked us and managed to scratch me." He pointed to his cheek to show his point. "But he will to fight was clearly gone, I killed her shortly after her first attack." Thor sighed at this "She was clearly certain he venom would kill me, because she smiled as she died."
Yang was surprised to hear this, but she thinking of Thor phrasing of the attack "What do you mean by 'us'?"
Thor knew he'd screwed up when Yang asked him that question. He didn't have a way out of this other than to outright lie or tell the truth.
He didn't want to break Blake's confidence, but he didn't want to outright lie to Yang either.
"I ran into Blake out there, she was trailing the White Fang." Thor said.
Yang looked like she'd been poleaxed. She just sat there for a minute, eye's wide as she stared at him. After sitting in silence for some amount of time, Thor spoke again.
"Before you asked, she said she'll meet up with us in a few days. She asked me not to tell any of you she was this close, but I messed that up."
Yang stood and looked like she intended to go find her partner. Thor grabbed her wrist to stop her.
"It will be a waste of time to try and find her, she won't be in the same area still, and it's simply too dangerous now even try. You have to trust her."
"Trust her?! She abandoned us Thor, went off to God knows where!"
"I know, but you have to try and trust her word, because trying to find her will more than likely be a waste of time, and possibly be very lethal." Thor said looking her dead in the eye. "Trust has to start somewhere, so let it start with you."
Yang had calmed down, and Thor, deciding now that the cat was out of the bag, he pulled the book out that Blake had given him. "Give this to Ruby, I'm sure it will help with the other book."
"Don't you want to read it?" She asked, while still taking the book.
"I've looked through it a bit, but she'll get more use out of it while I'm here getting better." THoe said smiling. The truth was he did want to read it more, but he felt like this one was needed to properly decipher the other, and he wasn't going to be doing any of that while he was here.
"Okay, I'll bring it to her." She said, looking at the clock, visiting hours were almost over. "I'm gonna have to go soon, I'll be back tomorrow, okay?" She said standing up, and kissing him on the cheek, and turning to leave.
As she walked out of the room, Thor's doctor came back in.
"How are you feeling Mr. Odinson?" The doctor asked in a polite tone.
"Much better now."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it." The doctor said "Frankly, I'm surprised you're alive at all, the venom in your system is unlike anything we've seen, far more potent than what we'd expect. I honestly think you should of died a hour after it was in you system." He said looking at his clipboard. "But we are treating you the best we can, if you know what this is that would help."
"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what type of poison this is."
"Well, so long we keep you on that drip." He said pointing a the IV bag "You'll be fine in about a week. But I have to warn you, if you go off that drip, the effects of venom will come back strong. It may even kill you." He said, his face and tone serious "So while you may want to get out of here sooner, I must warn you leaving prematurely could kill you."
Yang thought about what Thor had told her about Blake, and she was mad and happy at the same time. She was happy at the prospect of seeing her friend again, but was still mad at her for leaving.
But she pushed the thought out of her mind, she wanted to be acting normal when she meet up with Ruby, and probably Jaune, once she got back their room.
As she opened the door to the room, she noticed the air felt heavy. Ruby was on her bed, and Jaune was sitting next to her, arm around her shoulder, rubbing her gently.
"Is everything alright?"
Jaune answered, while Ruby just looked at the floor. "Ruby is worried about your Uncle, she went to see him and he was…well he was trashed."
"So, he's always drinking." Yang said, but confused by this, it wasn't good, but it was nothing new.
"Yang!" Ruby near shouted "This was his "normal drunk" self, he was mumbling and ranting, I could barely understand him. It was scary, he didn't seem like himself." She said in near tears.
"Well." Yang said as she tried to change the subject, and pulled out the book Thor had given her. "Thor thought you might want this, to help with your deciphering." Yang couldn't help but feel this was a weak gesture to comfort her, but it was all she could think of in the moment.
Ruby looked curious as she took the book, then she looked confused. "But I thought Blake had this ?"
Going wide-eyed, Yang realized she'd done exactly what Thor did. Well, might as well tell her, no point in hiding it anyway.
"Thor ran into Blake while he was out there." She began, and couldn't help but feel bad as Ruby's face started to light up, because she knew what she need to tell her. "She's not here Ruby, she told Thor she'd make her way here in a few days."
Ruby's face fell bit, but her mood did seem to turn around. "As long as she come soon, I really miss her."
Well, it wasn't perfect, but her sister seemed to of rebounded a bit. "So, did Uncle Qrow say anything you might think was important?"
"He said something about "'using the kid' and 'all his fault he also mentioned 'he lost it', I didn't hear more before some Haven teachers pulled him off somewhere to sober up. I told them what Thor said, and they said they tell Uncle Qrow."
Well, it wasn't the best way to get information out, but at least the people who needed know, would now know.
Her sister calmed, and somewhat mollified by the return of the first book, Yang felt like she needed to go to bed.
AN: Okay, thanks, Read and Review.