Grimm Beginnings 12
-o Yinyue the Golden Songbird o-
"Silf?" I prompted my partner as we slowed in our pursuit of the Nemean Lioness, it seemed prudent given that the beast of Grimm we'd been seeking to stop was now very, very dead.
But it was not the focus of my gaze. Not anymore.
"Yeah Yin?"
Rather, it was the surging tide of monstrosities that were pouring forth from the forest.
"We're fucked, aren't we?" I grinned at my brown-haired partner, enjoying the small snort it got from him and knowing that it'd have eased some of the dread he had to feel. For I felt it too, the Grimm were beginning to pour forth from the forest like an avalanche of hatred and vile darkness.
"More than a drunken Mistrel whore at the docks during happy hour," he muttered, barely audible over the howls of the oncoming tidal wave of Grimm and the thunder of the guns behind us.
I grinned at him, "You'd know wouldn't you."
His eyes rolled as he muttered dryly, "Ha hah. Not the time."
"Not really, no," I admitted with a small, still confident grin as I switched out the clips of Praepostero Pinnae with a little twirl, I'd need to be sure to keep a set of clips ready to be used as Knuckle Dusters given the surging tide of Grimm would likely force us into a melee...
If we were going to go down though, we'd do it in a shining blaze of glory, worthy of the heroes of old, "Come on, they need us."
I charged.
And with a sigh, Silf followed.
The Grimm surged from the forest even as the Huntsmen near the Aberrant and Steel seemed torn, protect the huntsmen? Run to the town? It didn't matter what they chose, they'd need cover and support, and that was something the two of us could do well.
And so I began to sing.
My Semblance poured out, a wordless song that danced along the spine and heart, resonating against their very bones. Aura poured forth, and in sequence, the Auras of the Huntsmen began to light up, my own brilliant golden white, Silf's emerald light, and every other one in turn as I brought them in the range of my song.
Chorus. The ability to enhance the Aura and Semblances of others with my own.
We'd need every bit of help we could get to hold off the tidal wave of Grimm…
-o Hav the Arsenal [1] o-
My hands tightened around the edges of the wall, making the wood crack and splinter as I ground my teeth before shouting out, "Stand firm! Fire! Once the Nemean is down we can hold this position without worry! Keep firing! Militia, fire on the lesser Grimm! All Atlas points, fire on the Nemean King!"
I pulled my hand from the wall to my Scroll and open up the comms to Squad One, "Squad One! We need Project Recluse ready now!"
"Sir-?! We're–!"
"I know!" Already working as fast as they could, they were good men, but the situation had gotten worse, "Skip steps if you have to! Now means now!"
"Sir!"
Letting my hand drop back to the edge of the wall, I watched the Huntsmen of Vale as they lit up like multicolored beacons, their Auras suddenly flaring into visibility with the Semblance of Yinyue. They were scattered around the Aberrant and King, Steel still restraining the King despite the Aberrant standing over him.
An Aberrant that was still fighting off the Grimm. Or at very least, it'd fought off the Nemeans… had it been to create enough noise and draw the attention of the rest of this horde? Or was it just cultivating even more Negativity…? Or was it something else?
There was no time to dwell on it, though. We had a small war ahead of us. And no matter what I could see, the Huntsmen of Vale apparently had enough information to move forward. One of Steel's team leapt into the air at the Aberrant, her gun firing repeatedly and making the humanoid Grimm leap away, a strange roar escaping it, "STAHTHAH!"
It wasn't like it's previous roars... intelligence...? Communication? Either was a terrifying possibility.
Flames and bullets and ice leapt out from the Huntsmen, all enhanced by the Chorus Semblance, pouring firepower into the Grimm horde. It seemed Steel's team was still focusing on bringing down the Nemean King to try and free up their team leader.
One of the artillery guns we'd brought remained focused on the Aberrant even as the other tried to bring down the King; the two guns the locals had put up were firing indiscriminately into the horde, as were the militia. Those guns had no chance of hurting either of those two monsters.
And–
The hairs on the back of my neck and arms beneath my uniform stood on end and my eyes darted over to the very obvious source.
Bolts of lightning arced out from the Aberrant, a blinding bolt jumping between its foreclaws… and it raised those electrified foreclaws to the sky and called down a thunderbolt.
A literal bolt of lightning struck the Aberrant from the otherwise blue skies above before it brought its claws down and dragged the lightning bolt with them, releasing a constant stream of electrical energy into the forest. A veritable storm of electricity jumped from its claws into the horde of Grimm. Entire swaths of Grimm were reduced to little more than charred and evaporating embers as serpentine bolts of lightning arced out into the tree line. Why-? What did it get out of–
A thunderous thoom overwhelmed the buzzing crackle of electricity, accompanied by a flash of warmth–
My eyes darted back to the Huntsmen, Caldera and her team were unloading into the tree line as the front lines of the horde reached it. A horizontal geyser of lava settling to the ground and starting to cool, the trees around it slowly falling as they burned, two twisters forming, one white with the shards of ice within it and the other a brilliant yellow-orange as Caldera poured forth flames into it, one of her teammates directing the two twisters to sweep back and forth across the treeline. A mace came down and caused the earth to shatter, a wall jerking upwards between a portion of the forest and the clearing, a wave of water surging alongside it to form an accompanying wall of ice as it snap-froze.
Everyone had basically written off the closest portions of the forest, brush and trees catching fire freely as artillery rounds, canon shells, and elemental blasts flew into it and the Grimm surging through it. The destruction turned large trees into splinters, the smell of the burning wood and Grimm flesh starting to reach us, not far behind the buzzing crackle of the Aberrant's thunderstorm and the snap and pops of the burning wood, barely audible over the rolling thunder of the guns–
I nearly gasped as the air was literally pulled from my lungs for just an instant. I stumbled, nearly slumping against the wall before looking up, cries of panic and fear coming from the militiamen. Who'd–?! None of the Huntsmen had an ability like that– the Nemean–?! Prepping its breath weapon could have an effect like… it was still chained up. None of the other Grimm I could see in the forest or sky had a breath weapon of… sufficient...
The Aberrant stood tall, bolts of electricity still arcing between the plates of its hide but no longer reaching out into the treeline. It was arching backwards, what tall grass was in the clearing that had survived the battle was leaning towards the humanoid and heavily armored Grimm.
"You really are a custom built piece of shit aren't you…" I grumbled to myself under my breath, just before the Aberrant roared, the sound drowning out the rolling thunder of gunfire.
A tight beam, white hot with a blueish tinge blasted out from the Aberrant's mouth and was sustained as it swept across the skyline. The grass beneath the Aberrant caught fire, as did the tops of the trees, and the very sky itself seemed to combust as the black cloud that obscured the skyline lit up. Even here, from atop the palisade walls approximately 170 meters away, I could feel the heat like a campfire only a few meters away, the militiamen around me and even some of my own men were shielding their faces.
What had been clear blue skies with a cloud of Grimm darkening the day instead lit up like like a sunset, the entire swath of the sky turning a brilliant orange and red as entire swaths of the airborne Grimm combusted just by the beam passing nearby, bolts of lightning jumping from the white hot lance as it swept along above the trees. The canopy of the trees below catching fire as well just by the passing of the beam as the Aberrant was shrouded in flames from the grass around it. I could only imagine what the Huntsmen must've been going through that much closer to the Aberrant, the Vale warriors obviously flinching away for just an instant before one of the students accompanying Qrow caused a sheet of ice to sprung up between their side of the field and the Aberrant–
The Nemean King decided that it was tired of being caged, and to make that known then, of course.
The black mane of the white, sabertoothed monstrosity whipped about as it swung its head around, and Steel went with it, tossed about by his chains and swung around nearly like a tetherball!
"Shit! He's-!"
"Keep firing damnit!" I snapped at the militiaman not far from me, my hands clenching at the my hands hovering over the activation studs of DkNkm. Not yet. The terrifying laser, thankfully and confusingly pointed away from the town, trailed off and the Aberrant slumped forward, nearly stumbling slightly.
Was… was this thing insane…? Or maybe diseased–? What kind of Grimm would–?
My attention was jerked away as Steel went hurtling towards the Aberrant-?!
I'd missed the instant of how it happened, but somehow the King had severed the chains restraining it and had flung Steel away, towards the armored Grimm. Steel was like a dark comet with a tail of chains, the King rushing after him as were the huntsmen not trying to stem the tide of the Grimm as they broke through the tree-line–
The Aberrant struck out-!
It intercepted Steel mid-flight, its black wing enveloping the Vale Huntsman just an instant before the King roared, the red laser pouring forth from its mouth and splashing against the Aberrant's form, streams of heat and light ricocheting off of its feathers and armored hide.
One of the nearby militiamen jerked back in surprise, "I-It ate him-?!"
-o Steel of the Chain o-
… I wasn't seeing the inside of a Grimm's stomach. Color me surprised.
My vision was still returning after that tumble, my balance out of whack despite my Aura's best efforts to recalibrate it, but I knew for certain that A). I wasn't dead and B). I was in the middle of a fight still… somehow.
I gripped the thing around me as the world jerked and swung, the world a mess of black and white and red–
I was holding onto a tail… the Aberrant's tail… which was wrapped around me and holding me aloft as the large Grimm continued to fight… to fight the Nemean King. I reflexively cringed as heat washed over me accompanied by a roar, streamers of brilliant orange and red shooting past my eyes as what had to be the Nemean King's breath weapon parted around the Aberrant like water around a rock… and I was just barely safe.
The laser was only about five feet away from me and the heat actually pressed against my Aura in the few seconds the blast lasted.
But I grit my teeth, trying to push my Aura down through my armor, trying to regain control of my chains. I needed them to do anything in this situation. But it was hard, the Aberrant was jerking about, ducking and weaving and practically dancing around the massive sweeps of the Nemean King's paws. It was moving blindingly fast for something of its size, and the King had yet to hit it, but even as it landed half a dozen strikes to the Nemean's muzzle for every swipe of its claws, it had yet to do more than draw blood.
Wait, were… we were moving around…? The Aberrant was placing its back to the forest and the oncoming tide of fucking Grimm.
At the corners of my vision, past the motions of the Aberrants wings as it dodged about, I could see bolts of elemental fury, flashes of lava and tornados and waves of ice as Team Collateral lived up to their name.
But even with the booming guns and what I knew were the best efforts of my team and the others… I could see the blanket of Grimm still coming, still advancing even through the razor sharp ice and fire, lit by the orange glow of the burning cloud of flying Grimm. What had been a an ominous cloud of black and white, the Grimm obscuring the very sky… had turned into a firestorm that was slowly falling to the forest below, a blaze that spread even as the bodies evaporated.
My team-! They weren't well suited to this sort of engagement! Shit! Come on! Move!
One of the chains twitched, and then another, and more started to move, finally. It was hard to spread my defensive Aura down the entire lengths of the chains, but if I couldn't, I was a sitting duck. I couldn't get out of the grip of the Aberrant's tail on my own! And with the Grimm literally surging forward… even between almost a dozen Huntsmen and the four gun emplacements and however many militiamen there were up there… the Grimm were advancing. My team needed me!
The Aberrant and the Nemean King were facing off closer to the treeline, only about thirty yards from it and about a hundred and fifty from the walls of the town. And the front lines of the Grimm were quickly closing the gap, barely ten yards from us now.
If I could get my chains working properly again I could… I could fight off at least some of the tide of Grimm? The Aberrant wasn't crushing me or throwing me about or anything so, fuck it, I'll take advantage of–
A terrible screech pierced the cloud behind me and made my blood run cold.
"You gotta be fucking kidding me, Griffons?!"
And not just any Griffon.
A monster nearly the size of the Nemean King, falling like a meteor, over a hundred feet long, on fire, and coming straight towards us!
The flaming Griffon divebombed the Aberrant's back, and the tail around me thrashed, the golden tip dancing for just a moment before the armored Grimm spun around, its left claw crackling with electricity–
A roar of pain came from the Aberrant as it jerked, and I looked quickly, finding that the Nemean King had pounced in that instant of distraction, one of its paws swiping across the Aberrants right arm and sending a spray of blood and bone armor into the air. The Aberrant snarled and its left claw jerked back, a bolt of lightning flying into the Nemean's face, forcing it to recoil for just a moment as the tail around me tightened and the golden stinger lashed out at the flaming Griffon.
But the Griffon snatched it out of the air! Its head snapped out and caught the tail just behind the bulbous stinger at its tip, drawing another pained screech from the Aberrant as it was tugged backwards, its tail tightening around my waist-!
The Nemean King surged forward again, and while the Aberrant threw a lightning bolt into its face with its wounded arm, it screeched in pain as it did–
"Andy-?!"
… the hell was that-?
The Griffon tugged at the Aberrant's tail again and nearly threw it off balance, the Nemean breathing in-! The Aberrant's wings came back up as the Nemean roared fire, it's terrible laser splashing around it once more, beams ricocheting off and actually clipping the flaming Griffon behind it. The Aberrant roared in pain as its injured wing caught fire, but the Griffon didn't let go of its tail despite losing a wing to the deflected blast, beams of light hurtling out to turn the Grimm near the tree line into bloody mists.
Damnit! These huge Grimm were going to kill my team just fighting amongst themselves!
-o Yinyue the Golden Songbird o-
A beam as orange as the setting sun hurtled past me, missing me and my partner by scant feet before it exploded upon mere contact with the ground!
I leveled my pistols and answered with retorts of my own, each shot ringing true, accenting the crescendo of my song as we stood against the oncoming tide of Grimm, firing freely as I stood in front of Silf and sent the nearest of the beasts back to their maker!
I slid to the left and the blue crystal of Silf's weapon stabbed forward, sending a wave of ice crystals forming and blocking off some of the Grimm's approach and impaling some of those that were too close. And like the counterweight to his mechanism, my aim swiveled automatically, firing into the Ursae and Beowolves that were still free to move.
A black fog hung over the fields, the sheer numbers of Grimm dying and evaporating meant that the tide of monsters were accompanied by an encroaching sea of black smoke, slowly covering the empty stretch of ground between the trees and the walls of the town.
With a roar, an Ursa Major pushed through the rain of bullets I was putting out, raising its paw.
I snarled, throwing up my right pistol and ripping the clip out as it hurtled upwards, letting the bullets project out past my knuckles as I rushed the Ursa, "Back-! Off-!" I snapped out, punching the offending Ursae right in the face, setting off several of the bullets in the clip and relieving it of its head.
A backstep as I tossed the clip back up into the falling pistol just before I caught it and continued firing.
Frustration poured through my veins as I resumed singing. The Grimm just kept coming!
Even unloading freely into the horde, they just weren't dying fast enough! It was a veritable sea of the creatures of darkness and bone! For every one that I killed, a dozen took its place! Even with my rounds striking true again and again, every shot slamming home in the skulls of an offending monster, they simply didn't fire fast enough! The tide of Grimm kept sweeping towards the shores of Blue Belle, and if they could reach it they may wash it away–
"Taijitu!"
I hit a high note and sent my Aura surging outwards, spinning aside and letting my partner step up, his golden staff spinning as the crystal shone, my Aura empowering his own as he poured it through the Freeze Dust.
His grip shifted on his staff and the blinding blue crystal fell before it rose again, dragging against the ground in its arc before sending a tidal wave of forward, intercepting the enormous black and white snake, stopping it in its tracks–
*CRCK!*
But it wasn't enough! The ice was cracking! Damnit! I grit my teeth and dropped the clips from my pistols even as I swept the guns about, slamming home two new clips of Grav Rounds for the massive beast–
"Got it!"
With a flash of silver and red, Qrow surged past us and flew through the air, hurtling straight at the snake-like Grimm's white head. The scythe hooked around its thick neck and his momentum carried him on, but for a single terrifying moment the Taijitu's neck didn't give–
Then with a resounding bang, Qrow fired the shotgun on his scythe, sending the gleaming segmented blade straight through the Grimm's thick neck, completely beheading it, sending the bone-white snake head hurtling through the air even as Qrow landed on the ground.
The black head was already in motion, snapping out in a blur straight towards the Huntsman– But Qrow simply continued his turn, his weapon spinning in his hands before he swung it upwards at the last instant, sunlight glinging off his weapon in a crescent flash–
And the Grimm's head split straight down the middle, parting around Qrow in a spray of blood.
The Taijitu's white head continued its arc through the air even as Qrow was already in motion, flipping over the two already dissipating halves of the Taijitu's black head and spinning like a dervish as he dove straight into the oncoming Grimm–
With a slam, the decapitated head crushed a Beowulf that had been trying to flank Caldera, and Qrow dashed to the side, scythe extended to cut a half dozen Grimm in half.
I blinked.
Well shit.
-o Molten Caldera [2] o-
I didn't jump as the Taijitu's head slammed behind me, I was a professional damnit, but…
"A little warning next time Qrow!" I snapped even as I poured Aura through the Dust in my makeup, feeling my skin burn at the unrestrained use of my Dust… but now, more so than ever before for team Collateral, was not the time for restraint!
"Sauna!"
I reacted immediately, launching myself off the top of a Beowulves head an instant before a surge of water bowled over it and dozens of others as Chelsea's Skates glowed a brilliant blue, sending waist high surges of water rushing into the oncoming line of Grimm as she spun in place.
Reaching the top of my jump, I hung in the air for an instant–
My arm burned as I held it high, pain dancing across my skin as flames poured from it–
And I brought it down, pouring outwards, a tight beam of heat shooting straight through the water and to the ground, spreading out quickly and causing the water to glow for an instant before it transformed into steam.
Explosively.
The shockwave of hot steam pushed me higher into the air even as it reduced dozens of Grimm into scalded, smoking bits, Chelsea turning the oncoming wave of scalding hot water and steam into an ice shield with a twist of her leg.
Barely audible over the resounding boom and rushing winds, Seiche's voice called out, "Twister!"
Wait, what?! That'd make it her third one! She couldn't–
My teeth ground together. No. She couldn't handle that. But we didn't have any choice, did we? There was just too much space for this few of Huntsmen to stem the tide. Damn Grimm.
I tucked myself in, letting the swirling winds pass over me without touching me as a third tornado formed on the battlefield, one of ice, one of fire, and now one of steam.
Hitting the ground running, I ran… away. I ran away from the front lines of the Grimm as the three twisters of death tore into the Grimm, sweeping back and forth and sweeping up the smaller Grimm while burning and tearing apart the larger ones.
Seiche was baring her teeth, swinging her spear back and forth, the crystal in its head glowing brilliantly as she tried to contain and control the wrath of nature she'd created. Aster stood before her, crushing an Ursa's head with a swing of her mace, keeping the area around our caster clear.
The Grimm around us were cleared out but… we were going to be flanked. We were like a stone in a river, the water parted around us but it just kept going. We could kill every Grimm that got into range… but even together, even as a team we didn't have the range to cover the entire tree line. We had to keep falling back to keep from getting surrounded even with the continuous thunder of fire from the walls of Blue Belle.
Fucking intelligent Grimm! How long had it been setting this up?! How many fucking Grimm had it gathered?! Hell, even with the entire forest on fire from the burning cloud of airborne Grimm that had fallen on it, there were still thousands of the damn things! And the fires might take out some of the Grimm, but there were still too many!
"Aster!" I snapped out, rushing towards my teammates, Chelsea moving to meet me as we fell back, again, "Left and Right! Set me up!"
With a quick nod, the large woman swung her mace down, skimming the tip against the ground, the Dust inside activating as she threw up two showers of rocks on either side of her and Seiche before she hopped back a step.
I was in her place in an instant, the Dust painted along my skin eager to be used, and I used it. Heat blasted out as I threw my hands out on either side of me, converting all of the dirt and rock into magma in an instant and sending it blasting out in two cones of death into the Grimm on either side of us, a lava shotgun.
But it was just a drop in the water, and damnit, I'd nearly clipped some of Team Shackle with that! There was more power to my attacks than normal, something about that kid with Qrow when he sang, but I kept underestimating my shots. But fuck these Grimm! Fuck them straight to hell!
"Keep falling back to the town!" Qrow uncharacteristically shouted, "Make the bastards fight for every inch!"
-o Qrow the Reaper o-
"Make the bastards fight for every inch!"
I said that, but… this could very easily be terrible.
Murder spun in my hands as I dashed back and forth between the front lines of the Grimm. Each glinting dance split one of the bastards in two or more pieces.
But even as good as I was, this was something Summer or my sister would have been better suited for. I just couldn't be in enough places at once to do enough to take down who knows how many Grimm. Even with Yin's Semblance buffing us, this just wasn't a fight we could win. It was one we could survive though. we had to keep falling back and just pray that the crazy giant Grimm didn't destroy the town with their fight–
I glanced over at them mid-spin, cleaving another Ursa in half.
The flaming Griffon was still tugging on the Aberrant's tail as it duked it out with the Nemean King, struggling to meet the strength and mass of the larger Grimm head. The guns the Atlas goons had brought weren't doing anything to the giant Grimm, but they were tearing through the littler Grimm stupid enough to be near the fight. It was only the younger and stupider Grimm that were getting literally stepped on for getting underfoot of the giants.
The Nemean was almost uninjured, several small crimson trickles of blood coming from small wounds on its pale white hide, the Aberrant was bad off though, its tail was in the Griffons mouth and there were numerous deep gouges in its armor, crimson blood pouring from them as it fought. The Griffon was the worst off of the three titans, it was down a wing and its body had several holes in it, oh and let's not forget that it was, of course, still on fire.
The Nemean was going to win that fight, if only because the two of them were ganging up on the Aberrant.
I flipped over an oncoming Deathstalker, spinning in the air before firing Murder and exploding downwards, the tip of my scythe burying itself just behind the scorpion-like creature's head before a twist of Murder's handle sent the gun barrel swiveling forward, another pull of her trigger launched me off of the Grimm and back towards the two kids.
Somersaulting backwards, I spun, gathering momentum until, as I landed, I could release a blast of pressurized air, a cutting edge formed of Aura and will and brute strength.
The brilliant crescent of death nearly exploded outwards horizontally in front of me as I landed, gouging the stomachs out of a half dozen Beowulves and opening up the faces of a few Ursa as well, many of them immediately 'popping' into black smoke.
Yin's pistols fired rapidly as he continued to pick off the Grimm. Where was everyone?
Murder swept through the air, removing the head of an offending Grimm as my eyes darted about.
Caldera and her team were doing what they did best, total devastation. The entire area to my left was just a broken and burned field, twisters of impossible natural disasters sweeping back and forth through the front lines of the Grimm horde. Steel's team was to the right and the three of them were faltering, without their leader… even with every Huntsman glowing with their Aura as Yin sang… we were slowly having to fall back.
I grit my teeth and shouted out over the thunder of fire from the walls, "Form a line! All Huntsmen! Line up!"
STRQ was legendary for a reason, and even broken we wouldn't falter, we wouldn't let all of this fall apart. I wouldn't let this all fall apart!
The forest was ablaze, the dissipating cloud of burning Grimm having fallen upon it and set the entire thing on fire. Even the Grimm still pouring out of the trees burned, some being killed even before they got to us. But some was not all… there was about two hundred yards of clearing between the walls of the town and the burning tree line… and nearly half of that was covered in Grimm. The guns of the militia and the artillery were pouring into the tide on either side of the area we were able to keep clear, but every minute we fell back another step, if only to keep ourselves from being flanked.
I wouldn't let it, for Summer's sake. I wouldn't let the town she'd given her life for fall–!
… wait, was it suddenly shady? Because the burning cloud of Grimm might've been gone but it was still day and the whole forest was burn– INCOMING WING!
"Move!" I snapped out, throwing myself to the side and rolling back to my feet as a huge, feathered wing, nearly fifty feet long, slammed into the ground where I'd just been standing.
Hot blood splattered against my face and clothes, thrown off by the stump of the limb.
Nevermore-?
No. They were all dead already–
There was a roar of pain.
The Aberrant. [3]
-o Steel the Chain o-
The Aberrant...
The thing had lost one of its wings.
The howling wind tugged at my chains and danced across my skin as I stared.
Chunks of its armor and flesh had been gouged out by the Nemean King's claws, and with the Aberrant unable to dodge, it had simply had to take the abuse, deflecting what it could with its arms and lightning bolts from its uninjured arm. Each bolt caused blood to spurt from the wounds, the effort clearly taking something from the unique Grimm as it fought the much larger Nemean.
But with its mobility taken away by the Griffon's grip on its tail, it'd only been a matter of time until the Nemean King had landed a good blow… its claws had sunk deep into the flesh of the Aberrant's arm, the Nemean's bulk and might contending with the armored Grimm's own strength and armor for a single, long moment. Something had to break… and it'd been the Aberrant that had broken, its entire left wing being torn off at the end of its humanoid arm.
The knightlike Grimm let out a howl of pain as it stumbled back, but the Griffon shuffled back as well, its body burning into nothingness even as it kept the Aberrant's tail taut.
The Nemean roared and the Aberrant blocked with its injured wing, the tail around me quivering as the world outside of the protective bubble its wing created turned a blinding red and white once more.
But I wasn't crushed, the thing was deliberately keeping me alive, because there's no way it didn't have more than enough strength to kill me like this, on accident even.
The Nemean King charged as its roar ended, straight into a blindingly bright bolt of lighting, with a thunderclap that left my ears ringing and leaving enough static in the air to set my short hair standing on end. This time it was the saber-toothed Grimm that howled in pain, one of its eyes exploding as it was cooked right out of its head.
A muffled screech from the Griffon came before another tug at the tail, causing it to tighten around my waist worryingly–
Enough of this shit!
I raised my chain, ready to attack the Griffon and at very least keep it from crushing me–
But I wasn't the only one that had that feeling of enough is enough.
With a snarl, one of the Aberrant's legs snapped out, and for an instant, I was confused– it'd already tried to kick the Griffon, it couldn't. Its tail was too long compared to its leg, it couldn't reach the Griffon's head–
There was the sound of parting flesh and a gout of blood splattered on my side as the tail suddenly loosened around me– the Griffon stumbled and the Aberrant lunged, backhanding the Griffon across the beak and knocking it to the ground– how-?!
My eyes darted about even as the Aberrant turned its back on the Nemean for just an instant, raising its right arm high, static gathering with a buzz audible even over the thunder of gunfire, the crackle of the burning forest, and the roars of the Grimm. The smell of ozone suddenly overpowered everything else, the burning flesh of the Aberrant and other Grimm, the coppery smell of human blood and the briney scent of Grimm blood…
And I finally saw the glinting of the golden stinger at the end of the Aberrant's tail… still hanging from the beak of the Griffon.
The Aberrant had cut off the tip of its own tail.
Down came its claw, and with it, the thunder.
*CRCK-THOOM*
I nearly lost my lunch, coughing as a tingling buzz went over my skin, little searing bits of pain where my chains touched me as sparks jumped from my mithril chain armor to my skin, and the ground beneath us just gave way under the force of the blow, the entirety of the Griffon's chest cavity reduced to cinders and so much hamburger.
*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE–*
Oh, and I couldn't hear anything over the ringing in my ears. Just, holy shit, what a blas–
Incoming Nemean!
The massive wall of white, saber-toothed monster surged towards us!
*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE–*
Everything around me spun, or maybe that was just me, because the Aberrant moved like lightning. My world blurred and I was put under serious Gs as the Aberrant spun, ducking beneath the swipe of the Nemean's paw before uppercutting the catlike Grimm right in the underside of its jaw.
Breathing in, the Nemean readied another roar, only to take a left hook to the face as the Aberrant darted in, turning its head aside with the blow as it fired its laser, deflecting the blast into the burning forest.
*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee–*
My world became a mess of blurs and G-forces as the Aberrant began to dart around, practically dancing around the Nemean's claws once more now that it wasn't held down by the Griffon, blows raining down on the Nemean's face as it ducked and wove through the larger Grimm's strikes. The two titans were literally stepping on smaller Grimm as they moved back and forth, crushing their smaller brethren without care as they battled.
The tide of Grimm continued forward, almost as uncaring of the two giants as they were of the creatures underfoot, even Ursa nearly as high as the Aberrants waist or the knees of the Nemean King were worth little more than a pointed step or lash of taloned feet into their skull to try and gain height advantage.
I clung to the tail around me, trying to keep myself steady and from losing my lunch as I was jerked back and forth, it was a pain because the Aberrant's blood was making me slick and I was twisting back and forth in the grasp of its tail. Wait… why hadn't its blood evaporated–
Blue-white light blasted out from the town and the Aberrant jerked and stumbled as the beam slammed into its side, causing it to roar in pain. The power from the Dust laser sent unpleasant tingles dancing across my skin even held in the Aberrant's tail nearly twenty feet away.
"The fuck-?!"
My head jerked, following the trailing off beam back to something that I'd been hoping to see.
Project Recluse.
Something new from Atlas, a response to situations exactly like this, totally autonomous and packing an enormous amount of firepower. With that thing finally active, my team could actually have a chance of getting out of this alive!
My gaze snapped back to where the beam had hit… damn. It'd just blasted a chunk out of the Aberrant's side, turning it into red and black hamburger. A large insectoid leg falling from its stomach region, the threads of flesh holding it up snapping under its own weight, the other two of them on its left not doing much better–
And… was that a person-?!
Shit, was she bleeding-?!
[1] youtube: watch?v=BD3VJGDqphM
[2] youtube: watch?v=RQXe22auYOw
[3] youtube: watch?v=X1BchpNYFD0
