Chapter 6: Hear our Battle Cries

Location: Emerald Forest, Vale Year: unknown

"HEADS UP!" Ruby shouted as she fell from the sky and headed right towards us, until she was intercepted by Jaune, who came out of nowhere, and knocked Ruby and himself into a nearby tree.

Me, Yang, and Blake just stood there in silence until Blake asks, "Did your sister just fall from the sky?"

"I-" Yang was interrupted by the sound of Grimm growling and trees falling.

"YEEHAW!" came a girl's voice. The Yao Guai-like Grimm fell over and revealed the same gingered haired, who had harassed a guy in green, come from behind it.

"Aww. It's broken." she said.

'Did she just rode that thing to here?!' I thought to myself before replying, "The fuck? That girl is crazy!"

Then the same guy in green came up and said to her, "Nora? Please... don't ever do that again."

But then 'Nora' disappeared and we heard a noise from behind us. We turned towards the source to reveal that Nora grabbing a white rook piece and sang, "I'm Queen of the castle, I'm Queen of the castle!"

"NORA!" The guy shouted.

She giggled and replied, "Coming Ren!"

I was at a lost for words and all I was able to say was, "She kind of reminds me of Veronica back in the Wasteland, 'cause this girl's hyper as her, in some way, I guess."

Then Nora and Ren came up to us and Nora said to me, "Hi, Mr. Big Robot-Man!"

"I'm not a robot, this is just my Winterized T-51b Power Armor that I'm wearing. The name's Edward Vaughn, by the way." I responded as I replaced my 'All American' with my 'Survivalist's Rifle'.

"Hiya Eddie! I'm Nora Valkyrie!" Nora said cheerfully.

"Nice to meet you, Edward. I'm Lie Ren, but everyone just calls me Ren." said Ren and then asked, "So I guess you're gonna be our mentor, I suppose?"

"Yep, but this is new to me. I actually never been a mentor or anything that relates to that before." I responded.

Blake then asked Ren, "Did your partner just rode in on that Ursa?"

Ren was about to answer until more Grimm growling and trees falling. We all turned towards the source and my eyes widened and muttered, "Holy shit..."

We saw a girl with red hair, wearing some kind of armor, came running out of the forest with a Death Stalker behind her. She then shouted out, "Jaune!"

Then Ruby jumped out of the tree and me and Yang said, "Ruby?"

Ruby then cheered, "Yang!" and was about to give her a hug until Nora came in...

"Nora!" she cheered.

Ruby recovers, looks towards me and asks, "Edward?"

"Yep, it's me. Like my Power Armor?" I responded.

"Like it?! I love it! It looks so cool!" Ruby said.

Then Blake asks, "Did she just ran all the way with a Death Stalker on her tail?"

Then that's when Yang snapped. She growled and yelled, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! COULD EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT FOR TWO SECONDS BEFORE SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENS AGAIN?!"

Two seconds have passed and nothing happened. I then tried to lighten up the mood and joked, "Ask and you shall receive. Lucky you, Yang." as I ended in a chuckle.

It kinda worked and Yang eased up a bit and then Ruby asked as she pointed upwards, "Uhm, guys?"

We all looked up and I heard Weiss shouted from above, "HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME?!"

Weiss was hanging on to a talon of a giant-ass bird that was also Grimm.

"HOLY SHIT! THAT IS A HUGE-ASS BIRD!" I shouted in shock.

Ruby the yells back at Weiss, "I SAID 'JUMP'..."

"She's gonna fall." Blake stated.

"She'll be fine." Ruby responded.

"She's falling." Ren stated.

I sighed and said, "Don't worry, I got this."

Then they turned to me and Ruby asks, "What do you me-"

She was then interrupted when I activated my jet-pack and blasted off towards. I then caught Weiss and for a moment, she looked at me with a mixture of confusion and something else that I couldn't read.

I then responded, "Don't worry, I got ya. Now just hang on to me, we're 'bout to land hard."

She nodded and she held on as we came back down to the ground. After we landed, I set her back to the ground and she said, "Thanks, I guess."

"No problem. You may act like a bitch, sorry for that by the way, but that doesn't mean that I want you dead. Just next time, try to be a little nicer to other people, okay?" I responded.

She then looked at me with a surprised expression on her face and said, "Wait, you?!"

"Yep, and the name is Edward Vaughn." I responded.

She nodded and said, "Good to know."

We then hurried back to the others and Jaune appears to have gotten out of the tree. Ruby then asked, "You have a jetpack?!"

"Yeah, of course I do. What else is the large thing on my back for?" I responded to her with a chuckle.

We then turned towards the girl and the Death Stalker and Jaune said, "We have to help Pyrrha!"

"Does anyone have a way to make that Death Stalker to stay still?" I asked out.

Weiss then stepped up and answered, "I can. I am able to freeze it in place"

"Great! now we need Pyrrha to come to us but keep that Death Stalker as far away as possible." I said.

Jaune then shouted to Pyrrha, "Pyrrha! Come towards us and prepare to dodge out of the way!"

"Alright!" Pyrrha shouted as she came running at us.

"NOW!" I shouted and Weiss swung her sword and send out a cluster of ice.

Pyrrha dodged out of the way and the ice cluster came to contact with the Death Stalker, freezing it in place.

Pyrrha then hurried up to us and said, "Thanks guys! I thought it would never stop."

Then everyone else looked towards me and Ruby asks, "So what now, Edward?"

I turned towards them, grinned, and asked, "You guys wanna see something epic?"

They were confused and I replaced my 'Survivalist's Rifle' with my 'Esther' Fat Man and aimed it at the Death Stalker and shouted, "It's time for some fireworks, baby!"

I then fired my Fat Man and the projectile made a whistle sound, like when a bomb is dropped from a bomber, and made a humongous explosion, which almost could be seen back at the Beacon Cliff, of fire, smoke, rocks, dirt, and body parts from the Death Stalker into the air. I then reloaded my Fat Man and made a 'DING' sound after I reloaded.

I sighed in relief and said, "Now that was satisfying."

I then turned towards them to see shock, awe, and a little of excitement, mostly from Ruby, Nora, and Yang, but mostly shock.

Ruby then asked me with excitement in her voice, "That was so awesome! What is that weapon?!"

"This, here, is 'Esther', it's a Fat Man that launches this type of ammunition *pulls out a Mini Nuke* known as the 'Mini Nuke', which can cause massive amount of damage to either a very large group of people or a very large enemy, like that Death Stalker from before. I only use it for those occasions, which is rarely, thankfully, 'cause these 'Mini Nukes' are very hard to come by, where I'm from. Lucky for me, I have quite a lot of them." I answered.

Nora then cut in, "What else do you have?!"

"I can probably tell you later, 'cause right now, I think I see that giant-ass bird coming at us." I said as I replaced 'Esther' back to my 'Survivalist's Rifle'.

Then all of a sudden, the thing fired its large feathers at us like if it were projectiles. The others dodged out of the way while I stood there, deflecting them with my Power Armor.

"Oh you got to be kidding me! It shoots feathers at us as bullets?! THIS IS BULLSHIT!" I shouted out before the thing flew overhead to come back around.

The others came towards my location and Jaune said, "Guys, that thing's circling back."

"Yeah, we can see that, Jaune." I responded before asking them, "So what's the plan here, guys? I'm all open for any options."

Weiss responded, "Well, look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying. Our objective is right in front of us."

Ruby then followed up, "She's right. Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs."

"I don't mean to interrupt, but I rather not have a giant death bird follow us and risk Beacon in danger. We have to kill that thing before we can head back. Otherwise, we would be risking not just Beacon, but maybe the city of Vale as well and we can't risk that." I explained to them.

"I'm afraid Edward is right. We have to deal with it before heading back, or what he says is true, that we will be putting others at risk. But we also need to find a place to take it on where we can reach it." Ren said.

"Run and live. That is an idea I can get behind." Jaune said.

Weiss then asked, "But where? We're in a forest, and the trees aren't high enough to reach a Nevermore."

I was searching through my Pipboy GPS and found an even larger temple built on the side of a cliff and of a deep canyon, east of our location.

"Actually, my Pipboy GPS says that there is an even larger temple built on a side of a cliff and over a very deep canyon directly east of our location." I said to them.

"Perfect! Let's head there and we'll see what we'll do from there. Let's go!" Pyrrha responded.

To be Continued...