Hello, everyone!
Welcome to Of Pikachu and Huntsmen: Remastered!
First things first! After some thinking, I have decided to end the first version prematurely and start over!
Please remember that I do NOT own either RWBY or Pokémon. All rights go to Rooster Teeth and Nintendo/Game Freak, respectively.
Available on Fanfiction, SpaceBattles and Archive of Our Own.
All that being said, please enjoy the new and improved Of Pikachu and Huntsmen!
PS: WARNING! This fic will contain scenes that some readers may find disturbing! Reader discretion is advised! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Prologue
April 15, 3263 AD (After Dust); 10:58 VCT (Vale City Time; UTC-01:00)
Emerald Forest, Kingdom of Vale
Ruby Rose landed on Blake Belladonna's ribbon, which the latter and Yang Xiao Long were holding it like a giant slingshot. As soon as the ribbon stretched to the maximum under the red reaper's weight, Weiss Schnee summoned a black Glyph to hold her in place.
"Of course you would come up with this idea!" Weiss said to her new partner.
"Think you can make the shot?" Ruby asked.
"Hmm! Can I?"
The red reaper looked at the white princess rather insecurely, "Can't-"
"Of course I can!" And with that the heiress shut her partner's mouth and launched her toward the giant Nevermore that was currently stuck with its tail in a big wall on ice. The reaper caught the humongous corvine Grimm by the neck with the blade of Crescent Rose as she continued advancing toward the cliff in front of her. As soon as she landed on the giant stone wall, Weiss immediately created a long line of Glyphs all the way to the top. The reaper immediately started running along the line at super-speed, helping herself with the recoil of her own scythe-gun and her own Semblance, dragging the Nevermore with her. The moment she reached the top of the cliff, the giant bird struck a ledge and Ruby all the added momentum to slice through the beast's neck with her scythe.
Meanwhile, the rest of what would soon become Teams RWBY and JNPR watched as the red reaper and the Nevermore's head landed on the ground at the top of the cliff, while the big, decapitated body was lifelessly plummeting back down.
"Wow..." Jaune exclaimed in amazement.
"Well... That was a thing!" Yang added.
Ruby was looking back down at her comrades, satisfied on a job very well done. Now all she had to do was wait for her friends to climb back up there with her so they would all go back to Beacon and get enrolled; after all, there was absolutely no way they weren't going to be accepted as students at Beacon Academy.
Ruby waited... and waited... and waited... and as she was waiting she was prancing around until something caught her attention – a dim purple-pink-ish light coming from somewhere behind the trees.
Ruby, the curious little child she was, walked toward the glow and as she entered the woods, she noticed it was coming from a big crystal lying on the ground. The reaper grabbed the crystal and stared at it in awe. It was colored in a combination of purple and magenta, and full of white glittery star-like dots. Even more surreal was how the stars-like pattern seemed to stand in place even as the reaper was spinning and moving it around in her hand, like the clothes in some cartoons*; it gave the one looking at it the sensation they were looking through it and seeing the cosmos itself, "Weird…"
"RUUUUBYYYY? WHERE AAARE YOUUU?"
"RUUUUBYYYY?" the reaper was abruptly woken up from her brief trance by the sound of her friends calling for her.
"Uh... I'M HERE! I'M COMING OUT NOW!"
The group was looking around for Ruby, surprised they hadn't found her there. They were relieved when the eventually saw the reaper running toward them from the woods.
"There you are! I thought you were going to wait here for us! Where have you been?" Weiss scolded her partner like a parent finding their kid after losing them at the mall.
"SorryguysbutI'vefoundlikethispurplepinkishlight-"
"Uh, Ruby?..." Yang tried to calm her sister down.
"-inthewoodsoverthereandI-"
"Ruby..."
"-becamecurioussoIwenttocheckoutand-"
"RUBY!" everybody yelled at once, prompting Ruby to finally stop.
"What?"
"Calm down and start from the beginning. You were saying something about some 'purple-pinkish light'?" Weiss asked.
"Yes! And I went in the woods to check it out and it was coming from this!" the red reaper raised her hand and showed the others what she had found in the forest.
Everybody gasped in fascination at the weird crystal.
"Wow..." Jaune muttered.
"Cool!" Yang exclaimed.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"Beats the heck out of me." Ruby replied, "Could be some new type of Dust?"
"Well, it surely does not look like any Dust I have ever seen." Weiss said.
"I say we go and show it to Ozpin one we get back to the school." Ren suggested.
"Good idea! Come on, guys!" Ruby instructed the others and they all ran off toward the...
Beacon Cliff
...while Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch were looking at them on a Scroll through the dozens of cameras hidden throughout the forest. They had both seen what had just happened and were just as intrigued.
"Sir... You saw that, right?" Glynda asked the Headmaster.
"Well, I am currently watching the same footage as you, Miss Goodwitch, so I believe it is safe to assume that yes, I did see all of it." Ozpin answered with a tint of snark. "And before you ask, no, I have never seen anything like it before either. However whatever it is, I do have this feeling that it might represent only the beginning of a much bigger plot and we will all be somehow involved in it."
Glynda looked thoughtfully at Ozpin then at the Scroll, unsure whether or not the Headmaster's words were farfetched or whether or not she should be terrified by the whole idea.
April 16; 9:50
Beacon Academy
"Weiss!" Ruby called her partner who was angrily stomping down the hallway.
"What!?" the heiress yelled.
"What's wrong with you?! Why are you-?!"
"What's wrong with me!? What's wrong with you?! You're supposed to be a leader, all you've been so far is a nuisance!"
"What did I do?!"
"That's just it! You've done nothingto earn your position! Back in the forest, you acted like a child, and you've only continued to do so!"
"Weiss where is this coming from?! What happened to all the talk about 'working together'?! I thought you believed in acting as a team!"
"Not a team led by you! I've studied and trained! And quite frankly, I deserve better! Ozpin made a mistake!" And with that, the heiress kept walking, leaving a dejected Ruby behind.
"Hmm... Now that didn't seem to go very well." Ruby recognized Ozpin's voice.
"Is she right? Did you make a mistake?" the reaper asked the Headmaster with tears in her eyes.
"*chuckles* That remains to be seen."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, it's only been one day. Ruby... I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet. But at this moment, I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them." The Headmaster then leaned closer toward Ruby "Do you?"
"Uh... I... I..."
"Being a team leader isn't just a title you carry into battle, but a badge you wear constantly. If you're not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you *turns around, ready to leave* You've been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Ruby. I advise you take some time, to think about how you will uphold it." and with that Ozpin went on his way, leaving Ruby there to ponder on his words.
A few moments later, the Headmaster heard his Scroll ringing, so he took it, opened it and answered the call: "Doctor Greene, glad to see you again! I presume this is about the new little project I have given you to work on the other day?"
"You presume correctly, Oz!" answered a man in his early sixties, with a fair skin presenting a very low amount of wrinkles for his age, short hair and thick beard, both white as snow. The man in question was Dr. Landon Greene, Head of Research at Beacon Academy's R&D Department. "My colleagues and I have conducted some tests and… I believe it is better if you came down here to see the results for yourself…"
"Understood, Doctor. I'm on my way."
April 17; 12:59
Teams RWBY and JNPR were just outside test lab 1 in the Academy's wing housing the R&D Department where they were supposed to meet with the research team at one o'clock. Ruby knocked on the door, which opened a few seconds later, revealing Dr. Greene on the other side. "Ah, kids! You've arrived just in time!"
The Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training entered the room, where they also saw the Headmaster standing there with one hand resting on his cane and a cup of hot chocolate in the other.
"Hello, Professor Greene, Professor Ozpin!" Weiss addressed the two adults.
"Hello, children! I presume you all know why I summoned you all here." Ozpin said.
"Well, it is about that weird crystal-thingy, right? Well, come on, Professor Greene! Is there anything cool about it?" Yang asked promptly, completely ignoring Weiss giving her a look for her utter callousness.
"Well, kids… How about you come here and see for yourselves?" Dr. Greene nodded toward the back wall separating the testing chamber from the rest of the lab. The kids walked to the wall, looked in through the large glass pane in the wall and became shocked and amazed by what they were looking at.
"Whoa!"
"Holy crap!" Jaune exclaimed as he and the other kids kept looking at the ravished test chamber with parts of the ceiling and the wall lying in piles of rubble on the floor.
"I've heard there had been some accident here at the lab the other day." Blake asked the Dr. Greene, "What happened here?"
"That is the result of one of Doctor Greene's experiments with the crystal. The Doctor called me immediately afterwards and showed me a video recording of what had happened." Ozpin added, "Doctor, would you please show these children what you have showed me?"
"Sure thing, Oz!" Doctor Greene went to a computer and activated its holographic screen, "Alright... Give me a minute..." he muttered, "Here! I invite you to take a look at this and tell me what do you make of it!" the Doctor pressed play on a video on the screen.
The first thing that appeared was Dr. Greene standing in front of the camera, "Project Starview, Day 2. From the early tests we have done yesterday we have concluded that, just like we had been hypothesizing, the sample is actually a totally new form of Dust..." As the doctor was speaking, he and the cameraman looked through the window, and turned their attention to the purple crystal connected to some device on the other side, "...which is why, for today, we have decided to put the sample through the Dust activator and find out what it is capable of." The scientist then donned a pair of safety goggles and looked to his left at his colleague behind a control desk, "Jenkins, you may proceed."
"Right away, Doctor Greene!" the video showed the one named Jenkins pressing some buttons on the desk, "Alright... And here we go!" The camera turned back to the Dust accelerator in the testing chamber just as it started up. A few seconds later the crystal started shining in a bright pink light. "Holy crap, Doctor! I've just started this thing and the dials are already going in the red zones! All of them!... Holy shit, they all passed the red zones" a red lightbulb started blinking on the desk, accompanied by a loud beeping noise, then by the ceiling lights flickering.
"The Hell?..." Doctor Greene and the cameraman looked around worriedly-
*BOOM!*
Everybody was immediately shaken off their feet by an explosion, but they all managed to get back up as an alarm started blaring, and they all stared in shock at the purple light emitted by the crystal that had now transformed into a ball of light, about three-foot-high, "My god!... TURN THAT THI-" Doctor Greene was stopped mid-sentence when something even weirder transpired –the big ball of light suddenly contracted as quickly as it had expanded, into a small dot so bright that it cause a massive flare in the camera, this time causing an implosion, before it completely vanished, leaving behind a dilapidated test chamber, and causing the control desk to short-circuit and catch fire. Jenkins was about to reach for the fire extinguisher when Greene stopped him, "JENKINS, FORGET ABOUT THAT! WE'RE BEING BOMBARDED WITH RADIATION AS WE SPEAK! WE MUST ALL LEAVE NOW!"
And that was where Doctor Greene paused the video. "So! Kids! Could you tell me what do you make of that?"
"Well... It seems that... that thing just… vanished…" Ruby stammered, part of her afraid the others might laugh at her for coming up with such an outlandish idea.
Dr. Greene chuckled, "Yeah, we believe it teleported somewhere else."
"Teleported!?" Jaune asked incredulously.
"Professor Greene, before, in the video, you said you had concluded that the crystal was Dust." Weiss stated.
"So it was Dust after all!" Blake interjected, then looked downward thoughtfully, "Dust that can teleport…"
"Indeed." the Doctor confirmed, "And I have to tell you, it is definitely unlike anything anyone had ever seen before! I mean, from the first tests it seemed to break several laws of nature just by existing! I mean... here, let me show you something else..." Doctor Greene moved back to the computer and accessed another video and pressed 'play', "Here!". What the video was showing was nothing more than dozens of bright pink and dots floating around, disappearing and reappearing against a purple background.
"Ooooooh! Sparkly!" Nora said as she stared at the glittery image like a three-year-old
"This here is the crystal's molecular structure as seen through the microscope."
"Are those dots... teleporting?!" Ren asked baffled.
"And it's not just that, but..." Weiss intervened, "That is not how Dust's molecular structure is supposed to look like! Or of any solid matter in general!"
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.
"Normally, in solid objects, molecules stand in one place bound between one another, that's how they stay solid. But here the molecules are floating around more like liquid, or gas..."
"Or plasma." Doctor Greene added.
"Plasma?... *muttering* The fourth state of matter..."
"Exactly! We have concluded that the molecular structure is similar to plasma."
"Uh... When you say 'plasma', you mean, like, the one in our blood?" Yang asked.
"No. You see, plasma is what you obtain when you charge a gas with electricity to the point of ionization, and the presence of these electrically-charged particles is what sets plasma apart from the other states of matter, even though from a physical point of view it is basically still gas."
"It is the most abundant state of matter in the universe. Stars and lightning, among others, are plasma. But..." the heiress looked back at the computer's screen, "How!?... How is that possible!?"
"It's just like I said: it defies the laws of nature just through its mere presence."
"Uh, Professor Greene?" Pyrrha interjected, "Back in the video, you have also said something about radiation. Is this new Dust radioactive?... Like... like Radio-Dust?"
"Yes, it is, young lady. We ran a counter over the sample and it detected quite a lot of radiation."
"But back during the initiation, I have kept that thing in my pocket all the way back here, to the Academy, and I was fine. None of us was sick or anything." Ruby explained.
"Your Auras must have kept the radiation away from your bodies. Then the radiation must have washed off at shower. Moreover, the radiation emitted by this new Dust is much weaker than the one emitted by Radio-Dust."
"I see… And do you know where did the crystal disappear to?" Weiss asked.
"Well, we do have an idea where it might be. Yesterday, I have gotten a report from a fourth-year team I had sent on an assignment in Forever Fall. They reported hearing a loud explosion and seeing a big ball of pink light somewhere in the sky above the forest. We have timed this event as having happened right after the activator vanished. The team were about to investigate, but the Grimm would not let them. And that brings us the other reason why we asked you to come down here... I would like you to go to the location the explosion was reported at and investigate, and if you find the crystal and the missing equipment, I would like you to bring them back here. Think of it as your first mission as students at the Beacon Academy. How does that sound?"
Ruby and Jaune looked at their respective team members, who all nodded in response.
"Count Team RWBY in, sir!"
"Team JNPR too... uh, sir..."
"Perfect! Then I shall go make the necessary preparation... Ah, and one more thing. I should let you know that this mission is off the record. I will notify Professors Oobleck and Port to accompany you, but aside from them nobody else must know about this!... Understood?"
"Understood!" the two team leaders responded in unison.
15:18
Forever Fall
Team RWBY was frustrated. For the past hour-or-so they had been looking under every tree root and rock on one half of the two-mile-radius area starting from their LZ, alongside Prof- (Excuse me... Doctor) Oobleck – while Team JNPR and Professor Port were taking care of the other half – and, so far, nothing! Squat! Zilch! Nada!
"Anything?" Blake asked her teammates.
"Nothing!" Weiss responded, while the other shook their heads.
"Hold on, I will contact the others and see if they found something!" Doctor Oobleck took out his Scroll and called Professor Port.
"Yes, Bart?"
"Peter! Have you and team JNPR found anything that might prove of importance to our mission?"
"*sigh* I wish I could say yes, Bart!"
"Hm... I see..."
Blake sighed, "Then... I say we call the Bullhead down here and leave."
"What?!" Ruby intervened, "Come on, Blake! Are you seriously giving up now?!"
"Ruby, I understand you are curious about this crystal! I would be lying if I said I wasn't too, but please listen to reason! I mean, we've been here for almost an hour and we've found nothing! Besides, we keep seeing more and more Grimm roaming around. It is only a matter of time before a pack spots us."
"Yang? What about you?"
"Well, I would love to kick some Grimm ass today!"
"So it's a tie... Professor Oobleck?..."
"Doctor! Well, after making a full assessment of our current situation, my verdict is... we leave."
The red reaper tried to respond, but she immediately changed her mind and gave up, "*sigh* Fine!... The people voted, I guess... I guess we should call the others and tell them to come baaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-".
"Ruby!" Yang yelled in horror as she saw her sister apparently falling through the ground. Everybody ran to the newly-formed sinkhole in the ground where they saw a red spot lying motionless, bathed in the ray of sunlight that was entering through the hole, "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!... RUBY! RUBY, CAN YOU HEAR ME? RUBY!"
"Wait, I think she's moving!" everybody looked at the red spot and sighed in relief when they saw that indeed, the reaper seemed to move.
"RUBY? CAN YOU HEAR US?"
"What?... YANG?... IS THAT YOU?..."
"*trying to catch her breath* Oh, gods! Oh, gods! Oh, thank Gods!..."
"MISS ROSE, ARE YOU ALRIGHT DOWN THERE? ARE YOU HURT IN ANY WAY?"Oobleck asked.
"I'M OKAY, SIR!... ALTHOUGH MY AURA HAS TAKEN QUITE A HIT!... NOT TO MENTION IT REALLY HURT!..."
"CAN YOU CLIMB-"
"-BACK UP HERE?"
"UUUH... I'M NOT SURE! MAYBE?... I DON'T KNOW, I... LE- LET ME TAKE A LOOK AROUND FIRST!"
The reaper turned on the flashlight on her Scroll and moved it around to see where she was exactly. "Whoa..." she found several things around herself that piqued her interest, including several giant desks adorned with buttons, switches and equally-bulky monitors. The reaper deduces they must have been some of those really old computers from long before the Great War and they sure showed it, looking like they had seen much better days. Over all, the room appeared to be some abandoned laboratory. "What is this place?..." Then, the light fell on an even stranger sight: a giant six-foot-tall ring standing vertically atop a pedestal with a few stairs at the front and several electrical wires running along the floor from it to several computers around it. "What is this thing?... *looks around a bit more* Hey!..." she murmured as soon as she stopped her flashlight over the Dust activator itself, lying in the dark, only a few meters away from the ray of sunlight. The reaper went and took a look at it. The device seemed to be in a pretty rough shape, but overall still intact, while the crystal was not shining anymore, a sign that it was now depleted and completely useless.
"UH, RUBY? ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" she could suddenly hear Weiss yelling.
"Wha- OH, UH... YEAH, YEAH, I'M STILL HERE!"
"WELL WHAT WAS WITH THE LONG PAUSE? FOUND SOMETHING DOWN THERE?" she could hear her own sister this time.
"UUUH, I ACTUALLY DID! I FOUND THE ACTIVATOR!... WITH THE CRYSTAL STILL IN IT!"
"WAIT, ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
"YES!"
"WELL, COULD YOU CLIMB BACK UP HERE WITH IT?" Oobleck asked.
"I-I-I DON'T THNK SO! I THINK I'M GONNA NEED HELP!"
"I'm calling in the Bullhead." Professor Port used his Scroll to contact the pilot, who responded almost immediately, "Frank? Come in Frank! This is Professor Port, do you read?"
"This is Frank, Professor!"
"Perfect! We believe we have found what we were looking for. However, we will need assistance with extracting it from a sinkhole, alongside one of our students."
"Understood. Your position is already showing up on my GPS. It should take me about five minutes to reach you."
"Good! There should be a clearing close to our position. We will wait for you there."
"Roger that! Frank out!"
Six minutes later
The Bullhead landed in an nearby clearing, while the group was standing at its edge. After a few moments, the hatch on one side opened and out came Frank, a big pile of muscles with a length of rope wrapped up into a big ring on his shoulder, as well as a big assault rifle strapped to his back. "Hello, there! So, where is the poor soul in need?"
"This way!" Oobleck said and led Frank through the forest to their objective, "There! That's the hole!"
The pilot knelt and looked down the hole, where he saw a small red moving dot, "HELLO? IS ANYONE DOWN THERE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
"Y-YES, THANK GOODNESS!" Ruby yelled back.
"ALRIGHT! WHAT ABOUT THE MISSING EQUIPMENT?"
"IT'S HERE WITH ME!"
"GREAT! THEN HERE'S HOW WE'RE GOING TO DO! I WILL SEND YOU DOWN A ROPE AND I WANT YOU TO TIE IT UP AROUND THE ACTIVATOR! THEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND I WILL PULL YOU BACK UP! UNDERSTOOD?"
"UNDERSTOOD!"
Once the reaper secured the rope around the activator she went back and gave the other back up the get-go: "OKAY, I TIED IT UP! YOU CAN PULL US UP NOW!"
"ROGER!" Frank left the hole and, a few seconds later, the rope stretched to maximum, then the activator moved from its spot, indicating the others outside had started pulling. Once the load ended up directly under the hole, Ruby climbed on top of it as it started ascending toward the surface.
A couple of minutes later
"And pull!..." Professor Port groaned as he pulled the rope back alongside everybody else, before grabbing at the front again, "And pull!... And pull!..."
After a few more pulls, they saw a pair of hands grabbing the edge of the hole, followed by Ruby climbing out of it.
"She's out!" Frank yelled and immediately ran to Ruby's aid, grabbing her hand and pulling her out, before grabbing the loop of rope around the activator and pulling it up. The two professors also went and lend a hand with the heavy machine.
"Ruby!" once everyone and everything was accounted for, Yang tackle-hugged her sister, "Oh, thank the Gods!"
"Hey, Ruby! Are you alright?"
"I'm okay, Jaune!"
"That is good to know, Miss Rose! As for the activator, it seems to have taken quite some damage, but with some little work, the guys down at the labs should have it back up and running in no time!" Doctor Oobleck declared.
"And that's not all, Professor! Down there... I've found something else."
"Something else?" Port asked, "What exactly?"
"Well, I'm not exactly sure. There were some of old computers. And I mean, like, really old ones... Like those boxy machines from before the War. And there was also-" the reaper stopped when she suddenly noticed a giant shadow zooming over her "Huh?..."
And it seemed she was not the only one to notice considering what Yang asked next, "Uh... What the hell was that?"
"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!"
Everybody stopped dead in their tracks.
"What the hell was that?!" Jaune asked.
Blake, meanwhile, turned her look to her right and her eyes grew wide with panic, "WATCH OUT!" Everybody else turned their heads just in time to see a huge bear – also known as an Ursa Major – lunging at them. They all jumped to the side to avoid its attack, with Team RWBY ending up on one side of the ursine beast and everybody else on the other.
Yang then spotted many more monsters approaching them from the same direction as the Ursa, "Shit! More fuckers incoming!"
Everybody took out their weapons and got ready to battle, and Team RWBY ended up being the one fighting the Ursa Major. The combatants engaged in a bout of parries and dodges, each trying to find a breach in the other's defense when the girls felt the ground moving around their feet, before it gave completely, under the combined weight of all four of them and the bear the size of a semi-truck.
All five of them landed on the hard floor of the cave and the girls struggled a little getting back on their feet, partially numbed by the pain, "Not again..."
Blake looked at her Scroll to see how much Aura did they lose in the fall, "Oh, this is not good... Girls! Our Auras are already half-depleted, and Ruby! You only have one-percent-"
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
"-left?..." the girls looked in front of them and instantly remembered they had a big-ass bear to deal with.
"Alright, you fucker! You got lucky just now, but you won't get-" *rumble* Yang stopped mid-quip once the earth started shaking. Then, the cause of the earthquake did not take long to reveal itself as several giant centipedes – the Centinels – emerged through the floor and the walls of the grotto just as the Ursa lunged at the girls, only for the latter to dodge it once again. The girls then desperately tried to find a good tactic.
Then, Ruby suddenly started giving orders: "Yang! Blake! You take care of the Ursa! Weiss and I will hold back these bugs!" 'At least this time I have some actual light in here.'
"With pleasure!" her sister grinned before she propelled herself toward the Ursa, ready to punch its head. However, the ursine Grimm was ready for that, so it sat up on its hind legs and swung its giant paw at the blondezerker, throwing her to the side.
The monster then turned his attention to Blake and lunged at her, but the Faunus quickly blinked out, leaving behind a flaming replica that took the blow. As the ursine Grimm recoiled from the burn, Blake reappeared behind it, landed on its back, then jumped down on the ground. The Faunus threw Gambol Shroud so that the ribbon coiled around the monster's hind legs. She then pulled the ribbon back with all the strength she could muster, but it was enough to tie the two legs together and make the Grimm lose its balance and fall on its side.
Meanwhile, Yang landed back on her feet after she rolled a few times, just in time to see her partner making short work of the Ursa. 'Way to go, Blakey!' But then she moved her eyes a little bit downward and saw something that made wipe that grin off her face: a small pile of golden hairs lying close to the ursine Grimm. "You MOTHERFUCKER!" the short-tempered brawler exploded in a ball of fire, propelled herself upward... "RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" ...then descended in an arch... *BOOM!* ...and slammed the downed Ursa's head just as it was raising on its forelegs. The hot-tempered blonde slammed so hard she actually managed to punch almost all the way through the huge head. The blondie took her hand out of the newly-formed hole and looked in satisfaction as the giant monster evaporated, "There! See how you like it, you dick!"
The yellow brawler's victory was cut short when two more Centinels burst out through the ground right next to her. While she was more than ready to dish out some moe punishment, Blake beat her to the punch (no pun intended... maybe...) and proceeded to decapitate both centipedal Grimm.
The Huntresses kept fending off problem fending the giant insectoids on by one, it seemed like for each one they were killing, ten more were showing up, an aspect that they caught on almost immediately.
"It's no use! There's just too many!..." Blake yelled in despair, "We... *fends off another Centinel* We need to retreat NOW!"
"Retreat where?!" Weiss said as she thrust Myrtenaster through the underside on another Centinel's head "The only way out I see is up above... but I don't have enough Gravi-Dust to propel all four of us so high!"
Meanwhile, Ruby was frantically looking around until: "There! I've found another way out!" the girls looked where their leader pointed and saw a big metal door in the cave wall, "We'll retreat there! Come on!" The others their leader to the door. Luckily, it seemed to be in the direction with the lightest amount of Centinels per square foot – not that it made that much of a difference since the giant centipedes compensated for that with a rain of acidic spit.
Weiss summoned several Glyphs in the air one after the other to deflect any glob flying right for them. Although the corrosive munition couldn't touch and hurt her, the heiress still had to endure the constant feeling of burning every time it came in contact with the Glyphs, "Gah! Son of a...!"
"Okay.. we're at the door! Now how do we open it?" Blake cried.
Right in that moment, another Centinel burst out of the ground behind the Huntresses and spat another glob of acid at the Faunus, who dodge not a second too soon. The corrosive spit flew just inches by her head and landed right in the spot where the two sides of the metal double door met.
Weiss summoned another Glyph that launched a flurry of icicles that riddled the giant bug full of holes before resummoning the shield Glyphs, this time infused with Gravi-Dust to repel the flying globs.
"Yang, the door! Now!" Ruby ordered her sister.
"On it!" Yang ran and reached for the newly-formed hole in the door-
"Wait!" the brawler stopped at the sound of Weiss' voice. The heiress waited for the right moment to disappear the shield Glyphs again and summon another one that blew a gust wind through the still-boiling hole, blowing away any remaining traces of acid for one second before going back to the shields, "Now!"
Yang grabbed the edges of the hole and pushed the two metal doors to the sides with all her strength. "Nghnghnghnghnghngh..." She pushed just a few inches before she burst into flames and really gave it her all, "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!..." the partially rusted doors finally started movingand opened up until they left a gap of about a couple of feet in-between, "GET IN! NOW!"
The others didn't have to be told twice and they all squeezed through the gap one at a time.
While they all managed to get on the other side, they couldn't afford to rest just yet. Yang was about to shut the door, but she jumped back when a Centinel slammed headbutted the door. The centipedal Grimm continued to slam, trying to get through the gap, which was too small and when that didn't work, it tried to drill its way through, but even that proved ineffective against the thick bulletproof steel. And it wasn't the only one. The girls could hear loud bangs constantly coming from all directions.
They turned on their flashlights and looked around. There were rows empty shelves attached to the walls and open boxes scattered around, which helped the Huntresses figure out what type of room they were in.
"This... This is a Dust locker." Weiss stated.
"Yeah, and luckily it seems to be Grimm-proof." Ruby added.
"But for how long?" Blake remarked.
"Do you see another way of access in here?" the heiress asked.
"No.. I think this time we've really hit a dead end!"
As Ruby was looking around, she saw something in the corner of her eye. She looked to her right and saw a glow. A pink-colored glow. 'What the-?' She put her light over it and in its place she saw an overturned box. She walked to, then around it and peeked inside, and there she saw- "Hey, you gotta see this!"
"What, found something?" her sister asked, "What is-?..."
The girls looked in shock as Ruby grabbed the cluster of very familiar-looking purple crystals about the size of a handball.
"No! Fuckin'! Way! The fuck is that doing here?!"
"How about we save that question for later, and focus for now on other matters like... I don't know... Getting the fuck out of here?!"
Ruby didn't have to be told twice. It was a known fact that when Weiss was bypassing her own parental filters, it was serious, "Well, we only have to ways out of here. One, back through there... *nods at the door and the Centinel still trying to break through* ...or two... *looks down at the crystalline cluster*"
The heiress stared at her partner, "No... Nononono! Ruby, do not do something stupid! Let's think this through first, okay?"
"Okay! We either use it now and probably die, or we don't use it and certainly die! There, we thought this through, now activate that thing somehow!" Blake snarked.
"Alright, Alright! Let me see... Uh... First, I want everybody to come near me, now!" the other Huntresses obeyed their leader's command grouped together... "Alright, here goes everything!..." ...before the reaper lifted the crystal up and slammed it as hard as she could on the floor.
The crystal exploded into a dome of magenta light big enough to engulf all four team members. The girls were blown back for a brief second from the shockwave of the explosion before they effectively stopped and ended up just floating in the air.
That sensation of levitation also lasted just a few seconds before it was replaced with a new sensation of suction, followed another second later by nothing.
Somewhere
At some point in time
"Ugh..." Ruby groaned in pain as she was slowly regaining her consciousness. As she was struggling to open her, eyes, she could feel a very bright light shining through her eyelids. "Ngh... Wha..." Eventually, she managed to open her eyes and realize that the bright light was coming from the sun itself shining through an opening in a sea of leaves.
The reaper got up on her elbows and looked around in utter confusion. Thus she realized that she was currently laying in a clearing, in the middle of a forest, with her teammates lying around, having just started to wake up, 'Whe... Where are we?'
Then, the reaper was getting that tingly feeling that there was someone else standing right next to her, so she turned her head to her right, then slightly downward and saw not someone, but something.
'Something' was just standing there, staring back at her in both confusion and curiosity: "Pichu...?"
And that is that! The prologue is done and from the next chapter we will dive in the story proper I hope you enjoyed my work so far and don't forget to leave your thoughts!
See you later!
*a.k.a. "Unmoving Plaid" for all you fellow TV Tropes aficionados