Chapter 6
He Who Hesitates
Ruby hung in suspension.
For one miniscule moment, the constant battle between her momentum and gravity came to a perfect stalemate. Cloudless azure sky flowed seamlessly into verdant treetops, while craggy mountains reached mighty arms of stone upwards, as if to catch her. It was the kind of breathtaking image that can only be found behind menacing threats of danger. In a flash it would be lost, but for the wisp of time that she could, Ruby simply enjoyed it.
Then gravity won.
The image dissolved around her in a wall of wind that pressed against her face with all the implacability of a steam roller. She plummeted like a stone, crimson cape and dark hair streaming behind her, and despite her best efforts to slow her descent by spreading her arms the ground rushed eagerly upwards to meet her. Viridian trees thrust forth devouring branches, and the closer she got the more certain her death became.
Huntresses, however, were born to defy certainty.
She felt the comforting warmth of her aura embrace her like a favorite blanket, and gathering it together she pushed against the world with it, and reality gave way before her. Everything slowed to a crawl as her semblance imposed its way, and by the time she had reached the treeline she had a path plotted out. A landing strategy was one of the things that were taught at preliminary combat schools, and one of the fundamental components of an effective one was to use your weapon in whatever way possible to slow your descent. A huntress's weapon, after all, was more than capable of taking the abuse.
Having never attended a preliminary combat school, Ruby didn't know this. Not that she would have cared anyways. Such a task was beneath Crescent Rose.
Instead, she angled her body like a missile, feet tearing through the forest canopy, although with her enhanced perception she may as well have been slowly sliding into it. The thin branches at the top were ruthlessly shorn off, but the thicker ones were still a danger; even with aura, hitting thick wood at over a hundred miles per hour was a deadly prospect. Those she twisted, flipped, ran across, and spun about, never hitting them directly but using the movement to bleed a little bit of speed off each time. Twigs clawed at her face and clothes, but her aura-armored skin shrugged it off and the toughened cloth of her garments held. By the time she reached the ground, she had slowed enough to land with a semblance boosted sprint and roll. She took a moment to dust herself off, surveying the massive wooden tree trunks around her.
Well, it hadn't been exactly a clean landing, but it worked.
A rapid series of snarls was her only warning that she was not alone. A common civilian misconception of the Grimm was that if you happened to meet one of the creatures, you would have time to run, react, call for help, fight, or whatever. Most people believed that they would watch you, size you up, before deciding whether or not to strike.
Utterly wrong. The Grimm were predators, the ultimate hunters of mankind, and as soon as they were presented with prey they struck like lightning: without warning, and without hesitation. Even an experienced huntress could be torn asunder in the blink of an eye.
Ruby had the misfortune of landing directly in a den of beowolves.
She had barely gotten her bearings when a heaving black mass blotted out the limited sunlight that filtered through the trees above. She looked up in surprise, and came face to face with the a pair of glowing red eyes. The creature was only a few feet away from her, razor claws extended, serrated teeth bared, rippling muscles bulging against constraining leathery skin. The stench of rotten meat wafted through the short distance to her nostrils. Death descended on her, but she was Ruby Rose - Ruby Rose, Cinder's black flower, not Ruby Rose, naive Beacon student. In the surprise of the attack, she had no time to plan constraint.
She smirked.
Her semblance bent reality once more, and the grimm's vicious pounce slowed like a bullet through cold honey. In a flash of blood red, Crescent Rose lept into her hand, fully deployed, and with a single, lethal strike she tore through the beowolf, the blade slipping effortlessly through a narrow gap in the creature's ribcage, and in a shower of coal black fragments the beowolf was no more.
Beowolves were tough, tenacious creatures, but they had their weak points, as long as one knew where to aim. Her aim had been perfect. Neo would be proud. Or at least slightly less abusive than normal.
The world sped back to its usual pace as she disengaged her semblance. No point in expending more of her aura than necessary, and such trivialities as combat didn't demand constant use. Three more beowolves converged on her, covering a dozen yards in a single bounding leap. Cresent Rose crippled one, cutting through a vulnerable leg joint, before a second slash across its chest ended its life. With flowing continuation, Ruby put a high caliber sniper round straight through the eye of the second, the lethal momentum of the bullet jerking the creature's head back at an impossible angle before it disintegrated entirely. The third was dangerously close, so she activated her semblance and danced backward, barely dodging a swipe that would have opened her chest. Crescent Rose severed the offending claw, before propelling the young huntress forward with the sharp crack of a shot. Ruby twirled through the air, and a spinning slash sliced through the softer skin of the beowolf's neck as if it were air, not sinewy muscle.
Easy. Way too easy.
The beowolves rushed on, uncaring of their losses, and more of them flooded out of earthen dens. Being overwhelmed was a very real threat, but Ruby dashed forward to meet them with uncaring determination, killing them with all the efficiency of a reaper among wheat. Crescent Rose flashed again and again, at semblance speed when it was necessary, at normal when it was not, and every cut was death given form. Slash through the maw, shoot through another, dodge back with the recoil, one, two, three more shots, dead, dead, dead. One of them jumped, jump to meet it, rake it through the chest, watch it melt, spin downwards, kill another, one shot downwards, one shot upwards, twirl, semblance. Critical weak points leapt into her vision like luminescent lights, and Crescent Rose sought then hungrily. Slash, twirl, shoot, spin, four more dead, a lethal dance with violent partners. When a jump left her exposed for a fraction of a second, however, one of the grimm blindsided her, brutally tackling her to the ground. Ruby let out an instinctive cry of pain, Crescent Rose torn out of her grasp under the force and surprise of the attack. The triumphant Grimm pinned her with a crushing claw on her torso. Devouring fangs went straight for her throat, and a lesser huntress would have died right then.
Had Crescent Rose been her only weapon, Ruby would have been helpless. She'd learned a couple of things from her less scrupulous instructors, though. One was that more options was always good, especially in combat. Another was that there was no such thing as dirty fighting, only winning and losing. She knew that Crescent Rose was nigh useless if her opponents ever caught her off guard and managed to get in close, of course. So she had a back up plan.
In this case, a hidden dagger under her skirt. She called it Thorn.
She yanked the weapon from its sheath and stabbed upward, catching the beowolf in the underside of its jaw, straight through its brain, and diverted the creature's lethal blow with a strained shove. The crushing weight dissipated along with the grimm, and she rolled to her feet. There were only a few stragglers left, but she hadn't had the chance to pick up Crescent Rose from where it lay impotently on the earth and then they were upon her. She made do, darting in, out, up, and around the grimm with inhuman agility. Thorn ripped into the creatures hungrily, but they retaliated, no longer held at bay by Crescent Rose's long reach. A slashing claw tore one of her sleeves to ribbons when she was forced to dash forward to align a lethal thrust, and a glancing blow to her thigh was turned only by her aura.
Eventually, though, the last of the grimm died with a gurgling snarl, and silence fell, thick and oppressive, as if the world itself was struck speechless by the utter massacre it had just witnessed.
"Sweet mother of grimm. Are you an alien?"
Ruby twitched violently, and a surprised squeak burst from her lips, the sound signaling the end of the trance that she had fallen into. Behind her stood a young man, tall, blonde, and scraggly, mouth agape. A sword and shield hung on his back, and his chest was guarded by a silver breastplate.
"No!" she blurted out. "At least, I don't think so. As far as I know, I'm a girl. A human one. In case that wasn't clear." Or at least as normal as one could be with over half a decade of assassination training.
"Are you sure?" The boy asked cynically, eyebrow raised. "Because that sure didn't look human. Maybe you're some top secret military cyborg? Or some next generation robotic humanoid grimm hunter?" He pounded a fist into his palm, eyes alight with realization. "Or a genetically modified super human, evolved from dozens of generations of breeding and infused with grimm particles!"
Ok, who would even make something like that?
In all seriousness though, this was bad. Super bad. Or at least pretty bad. Not only had she completely failed to partner with Weiss by meeting another student first, this boy had almost certainly witnessed the casual comfort with which she had just single handedly slaughtered a pack of beowolves. She was supposed to look like an enthusiastic wannabe huntress, not an accomplished killer! The grimm had caught her off guard, and she'd just fallen into ingrained reactions.
Think Ruby, think!
There was the slim chance she could play it off as normal, but Beacon only took top notch students, so he was probably observant enough to be well aware exactly how dangerous she was. Would trying to divert him raise suspicion? She could just accept the praise, but wouldn't that be acknowledging that she was, well, extraordinary? If only she had fumbled a bit, or been wild, not a perfectly efficient machine. Uh, what other options were there? Or was she just totally overthinking everything? Maybe he would just assume that every Beacon student was that good?
Gah, thinking was hard.
Where's Weiss when you need her.
She waved her hands in bashful protest. "I just got lucky." Heh. Luck. As if.
"If you say so," the boy conceded. "You don't look like a cyborg anyways."
He strolled closer, and as he approached she got a better look at him. What she had originally interpreted as scraggly gangliness she now could see was corded muscle, thin in the same way fashion as steel wire. It spoke of understated athleticism, an image that was entirely at odds with the clueless clumsiness that dominated his bearing.
"Sorry," the boy laughed nervously. "Kind of a weird way to introduce myself. The name's Jaune. Short, sweet, ladies love it."
Really now, do they?
"Rose. I mean, Ruby. My name. First name, that is. I mean Rose is part of my name too, but I'd rather you call me Ruby because I don't think you usually call people by their last name?" What was she even saying? Ruby wished that she could say that this was all some deliberate act to play up her innocent image, but no, she was honestly just that awkward.
Cinder made sure I knew thirty hundred different ways to kill people, but she couldn't have bothered to help me with basic conversation?
She buried her face in her hands, ears burning. "Just pretend I didn't say anything."
To her relief, Jaune laughed, this time with genuine amusement. "Don't worry, I'm the same. We'll get along just fine."
Get along…? Oh right, the whole partner thing. Well, if she had to be stuck with a Not-Weiss, at least she'd have someone who was every bit as dorky as she apparently was.
"I guess so." She grinned at him, embarrassment slowly transitioning to teasing smugness. "You're almost as bad as I am. Ladies love it? Really?"
"They do!" Jaune protested. "Every single one! Every one that I've told, anyways."
"How many is that," Ruby deadpanned. "Zero? Family doesn't count."
"One," Jaune admitted. "Wait, two now! Well, assuming you love it. Or at least like it."
"Ehh," Ruby said noncommittally. Jaune shrunk in on himself with an exaggeratedly hurt expression, and she couldn't help but giggle.
"So critical," Jaune mourned. "Just can't please kids these days."
"I'm not a kid!" Ruby glared at him, cheeks puffed sullenly. "I'm fifteen! I drink milk!"
Shut up shut up shut up shut up your speaking privileges are revoked.
Jaune raised an eyebrow again in surprise. "You're only fifteen?"
Great job, Miss "I drink milk!" Go ahead, draw attention to your irrefutable talent! Would you like to make an open confession while you're at it? "Hi everyone, my name's Ruby Rose, and I'm an assassin for Cinder! Let's be friends forever!"
"Yeah," she admitted. "I shouldn't have said anything. Please don't tell anyone?"
"Sure," Jaune said. "I guess it could be a little-"
A massive shockwave shook the earth, and both of them instinctively dropped into combat stances. No grimm sprang to ambush them, but they glanced around warily nonetheless.
"We should move," Ruby said tersely. Their lightheartedness dissipated in a heartbeat, dispelled by the sudden reminder of the danger around them.
Jaune nodded. "Which way?"
Ruby gestured haphazardly towards the trees, and the two of them set off. They fell into a companionable, if tense, silence, lost as they were in their own thoughts. She wasn't really sure what to make of her partner. He seemed nice enough, if a bit… passive? Dense? Innocent and safe.
She couldn't shake the nagging doubt that she was completely, utterly wrong.
::-::-::
Jaune Arc fell.
As soon as he had been launched off of Beacon, he realized that his options for a landing strategy were severely limited. It was one of the few times where his trusted Crocea Mors had failed him; it did not possess the modular transformation available to many more modern weapons. For all its master craftsmanship, the ancient blade lacked any kind of flexibility.
Flexibility that, for example, might help him break a half mile free fall. Just hypothetically, of course.
Well, nothing for it. His mother had always joked he had aura built like a tank. Hopefully she was right. It'd be pretty disgraceful to die splattered across a tree like an insect on a windshield.
As the forest drew closer, he turtled behind his shield and waited for impact. With a deafening crack, he broke the canopy, a one hundred and seventy five pound cannonball. He tore through ancient wood like paper, and while the aura of a lesser man would have burst like overripe fruit he shrugged it off. With a final crack, the lowest branches shattered, and he landed heavily, battered but mostly unharmed.
He'd been fortunate, to be part of the initial launch group. They'd been strewn across the forest in wild, haphazard patterns, which meant that for at least the few minutes until the second wave arrived he was gloriously alone.
No need to hide. No need to pretend. A brief respite for Student-Jaune to lie dormant and for Jaune Arc to breath.
He trotted deeper into the forest, Crocea Mors leading his way like a silver guide. The trees pressed towards him, dark emerald boughs greedily devouring the sun's rays, and he had to strain his eyes to make out any kind of path in the gloom.
After a few minutes, a wide dirt path yawned before him, pockmarked with jagged brown stumps and shredded trunks. It would be nice not to have to duck and weave through vegetation, but Jaune knew he was staring at danger. The forest lacked human habitation, so the only source of such a path was the grimm. Very, very large grimm.
With a deafening roar, one of the likely instigators of the woodland carnage made itself known to him. A massive ursa, easily ten feet tall, came barreling at him through the debris, sending splinters of wood flying in its wake. Jaune faced it resolutely, shield in front, sword ready.
Do honor to your name.
When it was close enough, he sidestepped nimbly, slashing at the beast's flank. Crocea Mors penetrated the ursa's iron skin, but not deep enough enough to be anything but a scratch.
Ah well. A longer fight would be good. He could use the exercise.
The beast flailed at him with a gargantuan paw as it thundered past, but it was an awkward swing and Jaune deflected it with his shield easily. Even so, the incredible weight behind the ursa could have easily sent a lesser man staggering. Not an Arc, though. An Arc was implacable.
The ursa approached more cautiously the second time around, circling in an almost human manner. Jaune mirrored it, waiting for the beast to make the first move. Predictably, it did, leaping forward with a hammer-like swipe. Uncaring of its monstrous mass, Jaune stepped into the blow, deflecting it away from him with an angle of his shield, and laid a brutal slash into the ursa's vital organs. Crocea Mors sent a spray of black fragments hissing through the air, but the ursa stayed upright.
It was a bit odd, fighting something so durable. Jaune's training had been focused on fighting multiple opponents, especially nimble ones, that would try to overwhelm him through numbers, or maybe sneak through and kill the one he was guarding. The ursa, of course, was none of those things.
A wall, a rampart, a fortress. He recited silently. Such is the Arc way.
A fortress could not be overpowered, merely worn down. Even if if it was outside his specialty, the grimm would not outlast him.
The ursa swiped at him again, which he dodged easily, but followed its blow up almost immediately with a slash from the opposite paw. The sudden change in tempo caught Jaune off guard, and he was forced to take the blow directly on his shield instead of deflecting it away. A thousand pounds of corruption met a masterfully crafted aura supported steel sheet with a deafening clang.
His aura wavered, but Jaune stood unbowed, even as his boots tore angry furrows in the forest loam. The ursa hesitated, obviously unused to a mere human that could weather such a blow. Jaune responded with a thrust to its head. The point pierced a glowing red eye, a strike that should have killed the beast straight out, but instead it only partially blinded it.
The ursa bellowed, a guttural wall of roiling sound. Jaune dashed forward, punching his shield into the beast's jaw with a sharp crack, and it reeled backward, the ground trembling under its weight. He pressed his advantage, severing an appendage with a mighty swing, then following it up with a shield slam to an exposed leg joint. It collapsed underneath the blow, toppling the ursa with a resounding crash as the beast shattered the wood beneath it.
A sword to the wicked.
Jaune left no room for it to recover; before the grimm had even hit the ground he was on top of it. It only had time for a single, enraged scream before Crocea Mors pierced its uninjured eye, this time penetrating straight through to its brain. The ursa dissolved immediately, leaving only a massive imprint in the ground where it had fallen.
My purpose fulfilled. Justice delivered. May the rest of your ilk follow suit.
A series of faint shouts and whoops above him signaled the arrival of the second wave of students. Jaune Arc hesitated for a moment, unwilling to do quickly relinquish his brief moment of freedom, but the necessity of the situation demanded that he once again take up his mask. With faint irritation, Jaune Arc returned to his slumber and Student-Jaune awoke.
His wandering resumed into thicker and thicker foliage. Thick vines impeded his progress, even as jutting roots threatened his stability, and the black-green murk made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. When he finally stumbled into a vast clearing, it caught him completely by surprise.
It was almost blinding, being suddenly bombarded with unhindered sunlight. Even so, there was no way he could have been distracted from the sight before him.
He saw beauty, in the form of a little hooded girl.
Young and small, red like blood and black like death. She flowed with liquid fluidity, blurring in and out of the world in bursts of inhuman speed, a flashy style that he couldn't approve of but admittedly earned his grudging respect. He realized he had seen her before; she had been one of the students to catch his notice at the opening ceremony. Perhaps when he had noticed her it had been a premonition, his highly tuned perception subconsciously catching subtle details and inconsistencies. Or perhaps it had simply been chance.
Either way, she was wrong. Unnatural. Appealing. Terrifying. Lovely. Preliminary combat schools didn't teach fighting like that. He'd been trained for most of his life under several different instructors, and he'd still never seen anything quite like it.
The last of the grimm died with a hiss.
He could turn away, hide, wait until he found Pyrrha. He was an Arc, experts of awareness; avoiding unwanted company would be trivial. The partnership process was easy enough to circumvent, if you were careful.
But he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he needed to keep an eye on this girl. She was dangerous, she was unknown, and he was a master at dismantling the unknown.
Sorry, Pyrrha. Hope you find someone else.
With a breath, he stepped forward.
"Sweet mother of grimm. Are you an alien?"
::-::-::
Weiss Schnee had to admit she was having a harder time than anticipated.
With a thrust of Myrtenaster, she sent a jagged lance of ice straight through the last of the beowolves that had jumped her. The grimm's hardened skin resisted for a heartstopping moment before succumbing to the dust powered projectile, body decaying even before it hit the ground.
The adrenaline generated by her encounter faded rapidly in the wake of the fight, leaving the fiery pain from a nasty gash across her arm to return full force. She clenched her teeth with an angry hiss. The wound still bled, but her regenerating aura had already closed the rush of blood to a thin trickle. Even so, it had been a sloppy mistake, a completely avoidable misjudgment of a beowolf's range. Even aura couldn't protect her from such a direct blow. Disgraceful.
The beasts were much, much faster than she had expected. Ruby and her ridiculous semblance had always made fighting them look so easy. Not that Weiss would ever tell her that. Little brat had enough of an ego already.
She took the brief reprieve to gather her breath, refocus her mind, and let her aura recharge. She was in a precarious position; partnering with Ruby would be ideal, but best and brightest or not there were only a handful of students in their year who would survive the forest for any significant length of time. There would be immense pressure to group as soon as possible, and judging from her struggle with a mere three beowolves Weiss wasn't convinced she had the privilege of running solo.
Before heading out, she checked Myrtenaster's dust stores. Still plenty left: fire, ice, and lightning. It'd be better to conserve what she could, however. She had no way to replenish her reserves, and overconfidence would certainly lead to a fast and messy death.
She set off at a brisk pace. Her landing zone had been an unusually sparse section of the forest, and she had little trouble navigating around the ancient trees. Bright sunlight lit the vibrant greens around her, and combined with the patches of clear blue sky Weiss could make out above her it would have been a very pleasant stroll were her life not in danger.
A sharp rattling hiss immediately put her on alert, and the concussive boom of an explosive weapon that accompanied it informed Weiss of a nearby battle. She cautiously made her way toward the sound, Myrtenaster ready. No harm in getting a closer look; if she saw someone she'd want to partner with then she could proceed from there. If not, it was easy enough to fade back into the forest.
She was greeted by one of the oddest battles she had ever seen. A golden huntress was fighting the distinctive white and black double heads of a king taijutu, but her manner of combat was… shocking, to say the least. She possessed next to no technique or regard for her safety, instead choosing to pound devastating blow after blow into the grimm, sending fountains of black particles spewing into the air with each strike. One of the heads struck her with deadly fangs, and Weiss winced, expecting to see the inevitable scarlet spray that marked the death of a classmate. Instead, the huntress just shrugged it off, shattering the offending tooth with a gauntleted fist.
Weiss blinked in surprise. That was… unexpected. It was kind of mesmerizing, watching this berserker of a woman go toe to toe, so to speak, with a creature ten times her size.
Barbaric though. So very barbaric.
The snake like grimm caught the huntress off guard, knocking her to the ground and coiling around her arms. She cried out in pain and rage, helpless to stop the heads that signaled her demise. No matter how tough she was, there was no way she could survive many more hits.
Weiss grimaced. This wasn't exactly how she had wanted to choose a partner, but the thought turning her back and leaving a classmate to die left a foul taste in her mouth. She may have chosen to ally with some questionable individuals, but that didn't mean she had to imitate them.
I suppose you'll have to work without me, Ruby. Maybe you'll finally learn to use your brain.
Two swift thrusts sent forked lightning arcing through the air, nailing both heads with pinpoint accuracy. With a crackle of power, the already weakened grimm disintegrated, leaving the newly huntress free to pull herself to her feet.
"Thanks for the assist!" she said with a cheery wave. "You're a mage type? Tell me you're not taken. We'd be a perfect duo."
Weiss reeled backward, desperately struggling to keep her face neutral.
No. No no, this can't be happening.
But it made perfect, horrifying sense. When she'd first started working with Ruby, she'd done heavy research on the young assassin. Petty things such as security for private records meant nothing to the SDC, so Weiss was well aware of Ruby's family.
Every member of Ruby's family.
"You alright there?" The huntress asked, suddenly very close. Weiss stared back wide eyed, unable to formulate words.
Of course she hadn't died. She was the daughter of Taiyang XiaoLong and Raven Branwen. With blood like that, what could stop her? It was obvious, in hindsight, that she would have made her way into Beacon.
But why now? Why, when the absolute last thing Ruby needed was such a crippling distraction?
"Not the talkative type, huh?" The huntress asked. "Works for me." She reached out a hand with a jaunty wink. "My name's-"
Yang XiaoLong. Ruby's erstwhile missing sister.
::-::-::
AN:
Thorn. Cuz every rose has thorns. Heh. Heh. Heh Heh. I'm so sorry.
Almost as sorry as I am for sticking two long fight scenes one after another. I wanted the contrast. It probably won't happen again… Unless you guys liked it. In which case I'm not sorry at all.
The grimm are way stronger than canon, but you may not get that feeling here: Ruby and Jaune are really, really overpowered. I'm a firm believer that overpowered characters face even more overpowered challenges, however, so I wonder what's coming up next? Nyeh heh heh …
I was told that the fight scenes could use improvement, and rightly so. I tried to change that this chapter. Hopefully it's a step in the right direction, not the wrong one. Thanks for the advice! Dialogue improvement is on the horizon, but it's something I'm having a lot more trouble pinning down...
Good job to those of you who guessed I would pair Ruby and Jaune. Complications indeed.
Thanks for the support, everyone!