Last night was rough. I barely managed to get eight hours' worth of sleep and I just tossed and turned in my sleeping bag when I awoke at six in the morning. Still though, I had a job to do and nothing was going to stop me. I put on my normal clothes, removing the viper hood that I had worn overnight and zipping up my normal black one, clamped Castor and Pollux onto my forearms, picked up my mask, placed Dusk and its sheath in the makeshift holster on my left hip and strapped on my armor. I still needed to eat though, and stealthily made my way to the mess hall for my morning meal, trying to make sure that neither Henry nor any of the other soldiers going to hunt the Omega saw me. Thankfully, it was still dark thanks to the presence of more than a few rainclouds that had drenched the ground with precipitation overnight. One of the chefs brought me my meal and gave me a curious eye after he noticed I was fully armed and armored for my upcoming fight.
"Just don't want to lose anything on the flight back." I said to the man. The cook gave a grunt of acknowledgment and headed back into the kitchen. I quickly ate and left my plate there for the chefs to clean.
Asshole right to the end. I thought with a chuckle as I flipped up my hood and exited the building. That's absolutely going on my tombstone. After donning my mask, headed for the cave that housed the Omega to the north and once again, exited the village, the weather slowly getting worse as more and more rain continued to fall. I took on a stealthier approach and crouched as I moved forward in the forest, keeping my eyes and ears open for the creatures of grimm.
It took longer than expected, but after dodging several beowolf patrols and maintaining my hidden position in the forest, I managed to arrive at the foot of the mountain where the Omega had been living for Oum knows how long. I slowly crouch-walked towards the cave in hopes of catching the Omega unaware, but felt the presence of beowolves close by. I took a quick glance to my right and saw the familiar red eyes of a wolf-grimm from the treeline. I extended my blades and waited for it to charge, but instead, it slowly walked out of hiding, another of its kin a few feet beside it, also emerging from the forest. I checked behind me as even more of the wolf-grimm showed themselves, leaving me surrounded. To my horror, a few also emerged from the mouth of the cave, which meant that the Omega must've known that I was there. I sighed, cracked my neck, rolled my shoulders and stared at the creatures closest to the cave.
"Well, I guess it's my time." I said resignedly as I took a fighting stance and pulled back my hood, rain falling on my hair. Before I could attack however, a menacing roar emanated from the cave, making both the beowolves and myself go stock-still. From the opening came the Omega on all fours, lumbering towards me. The others made an opening for the larger of their kin and it was then I realized that the Omega wanted my blood. I was a worthy challenge and it was going to show to the others what it was capable of. This was a show, the other smaller wolf-grimm playing the parts of both the audience and the arena.
"Hey there big guy." I said without a hint of fear. I was going to die; there was no doubt about it because even if I did manage to kill the Omega, the others would surely finish the job. "I suppose you're the one I have to blame for harming all those people." I said to the creature, which only growled in response. "You understand me, don't you?" I said with a smirk, remembering what Doctor Oobleck said about a grimm's age directly influencing their intelligence. The monster let out another growl and stood on its hind legs, letting out an ear-shattering roar along with a crack of thunder and lightning, illuminating the arena. "Bring it on, shithead." I said, wondering if those would be my last words as I charged the Omega with blades extended, aiming for one of the cracked plates on its stomach.
The Omega recovered from its attempt at intimidation and swung a left paw at me, sending me skidding across the ground, covering me in mud. I recovered from the blunt attack as fast as I could and activated my semblance, making myself as large as I could, only slightly shorter than my opponent. I retracted the left blade and fired three grenades into its underside, all of which did absolutely nothing other than denting a few of the armored plates. It charged at me with amazing speed and I barely dodged the attack, sending the Omega skidding into a small tree, cracking it at the trunk, making it fall. I took advantage over the temporal confusion and plunged my right blade into its left hind leg, making it roar in pain and sent hit me with its right paw, which I blocked with my left gauntlet only for the Omega to stand up, my blade still in its hind leg and bite me in my leg, forcing me to remove its jaws from my leg before the razor-sharp teeth depleted my aura completely. I wrapped my hands around my opponent's throat and weakly tossed it away, only moving it back a few feet.
The Omega was bleeding profusely from the hind leg, but appeared to be unfazed; no heightened aggression and the creature appeared to be breathing normally. Extending the blade on Pollux, I took another charge at the Omega and as it attempted to bash me away with its paw, I rolled forwards, underneath its stomach and let loose my remaining grenades directly into the belly of the beast, causing it to reel back and let loose a pained roar. When I got a chance to get a good look at the damage I had caused, I smirked. The three cracked chest plates were now in white shards on the ground, leaving a wide-open space for me to hit. I rushed forward again but the Omega was ready for me and with another roar, raised both front paws into fists and smashed the ground where it had anticipated I was going, both limbs forcing my mid-section and spine into the wet ground. Winded, I rolled to the left and half a second later, two sets of claw marks indented the ground where my back had been. I then glanced over at the fallen tree and got an idea. Backing up to where it had fallen, I waited for the Omega to attack and sure enough, it slashed at me with a strong right paw. I used both gauntlets to block the attack and drop-kicked the beast in the chest, forcing it backwards as I leapt off the ground, picked up the fallen tree, swung it to sweep out the legs from underneath it, and smashed the makeshift weapon downwards onto its stomach, cracking a few more plates of bone armor. Again, the Omega was weakened, although this time, it didn't immediately get up. Instead, it rolled over, lazily placed one paw on the ground next to it and pushed itself up. Blood loss looked to have also been catching up as it I noticed it relying more on the right hind leg than the left.
Good, it's almost dead. I then felt exhaustion catching up with me as my muscles and bones began to ache in pain. Then again, so am I. I thought. If I had to guess my aura level was probably less than ten percent giving how I felt and how hard I'd been hit. Again, I rushed the monstrosity and prepared to stab at the vulnerability on its chest. The Omega dodged the hit and quickly lowered its mouth to my lower stomach and closed its jaws around my soft midsection. With both gauntlets, I smashed the creature's temple, disorienting it and sending it reeling backwards. As retaliation, I attempted to deliver another blow to the head with a left hook, only for the Omega to tilt its head up, my fist hitting nothing but air. On reflex, I pulled my left arm back and smashed my elbow into the Omega's head, causing it to perform a one-eighty spin. I wrapped my right arm around its throat in a choke-hold and with every last bit of strength I had left, impaled Pollux's blade through its back, going straight through an armored plate and resurfacing on the creature's unprotected chest. I jolted the left blade downwards, causing it to break off inside the creature, blood flowing freely out of both ends of the wound, staining the already wet green grass.
I looked at the other beowolves that formed the arena as the body of the Omega dropped lifelessly to the ground and began to slowly disintegrate. "WHO'S NEXT!?" I shouted as another crack of thunder rang out.
As if to answer my question, an Alpha appeared from the mouth of the cave and stepped into the arena, brushing aside its underlings as it started sprinting towards me, already moving to bite my head, it's mouth open with fangs bared. I blocked the attack by letting its mouth bite down on Castor instead. I slid my right hand out from the gauntlet and unsheathed Dusk, slashed the Alpha across the chest, causing it to howl in pain and let go of my right gauntlet. I kicked the beast in the chest causing it to fall backwards, sheathed Andrea's sword, picked up the Alpha by its upper and lower back, raised the wolf-grimm in the air and with a primitive shout, slammed it onto my knee, shattering its spine. It whined in pain like the overgrown dog it was and still not satisfied with my work, I took out Dusk placed the blade on the back of its neck and pushed down with my foot, decapitating the creature.
I let out a deep breath, picked up the disintegrating, severed head, tendons and veins letting blood pour from the skull and threw it at the observing beowolves, who gazed at it for a moment before slinking back into the forest without so much as a sound.
I looked around, astonished. They left me alone and I'd won. I chuckled slightly and pain resonated from my stomach, making me flinch. I touched my stomach, removed my hand and saw red. I looked down to see blood flowing quickly out of four large, pin-like holes in my side from where the Omega had bitten me. The bite must've taken out the last of my aura while adrenaline assisted in ignoring the pain. My semblance deactivated as I held my hand over the wound, limped over to the stump of the broken tree, sat down and waited for death, rain still pouring down from the sky and drenching my mud-caked clothes.
"Least I finally did something decent." I thought aloud with a small chuckle. As I waited for the inevitable embrace of the afterlife, my body grew warm despite my wet clothes and cold surroundings. Not what I expected, but welcome nonetheless. I leaned my head back, took one last breath of air and closed my eyes.
I found myself in a paved stone tunnel with a blinding white light at the end, just as I had always heard about. I was wearing the clothes I had worn on initiation day, a black hoodie, white t-shirt and blue jeans. I looked behind me and saw nothing but darkness, so I decided to step forward towards the light. After a few steps, three figures stepped out of the shadows and I stopped; two emerged from the right and one from the left. The one on the left I recognized as Andrea, wearing her a dark blue tank top with black jeans while she smiled as she stood in the middle of the tunnel. The other two people on the right I immediately recognized as the wolf-twins Elias and Denara, both of them wearing the clothes I first saw them in, Elias sporting his black leather jacket and green cargo pants while Denara was wearing a white long sleeved shirt with a red t-shirt and a pair of red jeans, smiling widely while Elias gave me a smirk.
I felt myself grin as I saw their faces. "G-guys… I… it's been so long." Tears of joy began to well up in my eyes, but I quickly wiped them away.
"It's good to see you too, Joe." Elias said with a nod, standing on Andrea's left side with Denara on her right.
"We've been watching your progress at Beacon since initiation day and you've done extremely well." Denara said with a fantastic smile.
"Thanks. That really means a lot." I replied, still grinning. "I guess now we'll have lots of time to catch up." I said with a light laugh.
Andrea's smile faded. "Actually Joe, we don't. It's not your time."
I gave her a confused look. "Yeah, it is. I bled out from the bite." Then, without warning, something hit me hard in the chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs and forcing me to take a knee.
I looked up at Andrea while the wolf-twins rushed to my side to pick me up and kept a hand on either of my shoulders. "Joe," She started in that ever-caring tone. "You took a pretty hard hit, but the living aren't done with you and we're not ready to receive you, so you are in no way dead."
I took another invisible blow to the chest but the wolf-twins kept me from falling. I struggled to regain my breath and tried to step towards the light, but the wolf-twins held me in place. I looked to Elias for support, but he just shook his head.
"Sorry, but she's right. Get back to Remnant, back to Beacon. Back to Velvet." My eyebrows shot up as Andrea took two steps towards me and kicked me in the chest with an amazing amount of strength I forgot she possessed. The kick sent me flying backwards, out of the wolf-twins grasp and into the darkness behind me.
More darkness. That was all I was aware of for a few seconds. I could hear several voices whispering, but I was unable to move any of my limbs. The only things I could feel were my lungs, throat, eyes and head. I barely had the strength to push my eyelids away to allow for me to see. There were four blurry figures, a light and a white background. Slowly, the voices became clearer and I was able to make out some of the words between the people.
"…Back!" One voice cheered.
"…Beat?" Another asked.
"Slow...needs…stabilized." Hospital? I thought. My vision became slightly clearer as I squinted and began to realize that yes; I was indeed in a hospital. I didn't recognize the room as the Beacon infirmary so I must've been in an actual hospital. I realized I was also wearing an oxygen mask as I slowly exhaled and the plastic steamed up. I blinked a few more times and could clearly see two doctors putting away a defibrillator while the other two changed out a blood pack hooked up to my arm.
I felt the strength return to my arm and I tried to remove my mask so that I could talk. My brain sent the order to my arm, but it just flailed around lazily, hitting my own face. A doctor immediately grabbed my arm, put it on the bed and removed the mask for me.
"Wha-wha ha…ha…" I couldn't inhale the right amount of air to ask the question.
"Just take it easy, Mr. Taren. Five people from the village of Hishan found you leaning against a stump while you bled out and brought you here. You're in the Vale city hospital, safe and sound." The doctor explained as he placed the mask back over my mouth and nose. "You lost a lot of blood so and were legally dead for a minute and fifteen seconds so right now, we just need you to sit back and let us work." He said sternly. I gave him a small nod and slipped into a state of unconsciousness.