Another roar of exertion was expelled from Jaune's lungs, though he heard little but the dull ringing in his ears.
The monster that had hounded them across Vacuo bore down and filled his vision beyond the edge of his family shield in its relentless onslaught, Jaune raised up the crest marked slab of metal again on a shaking arm. The Grimm had learned from their last encounter. Whenever the young Huntsman attempted to meet one of its strikes with a clenched fist and the scant hope he could repeat the earlier feat of countering with his semblance. The creature pulled its blow and struck with another of its many equally deadly clawed limbs.
His strength was waning. But he still had aura in reserve. And the gifted might of the Primarch filling the air.
He would endure.
He had to endure.
To find a new strategy, a tactic or trick that could turn this rising tide.
The numberless horde parted around team JNPR's howling opponent, crashing into the flanks of the youths of Remnant following the giant Kad Amaranth into the heart of the battle. Said team not seeing they were dangerously close to falling behind fighting this little piece of the war for their world in a slow grinding battle of attrition trailing after their fellow Hunters.
Ren and Pyrrha darted forward, side by side as the Equine half battered down on their team leader. The razor edges of their blades slid through the Grimm's flesh. The wounds disappeared as fast as they made them. The Rider screeched again in annoyance more than anything, the two that were one hobbled forward with as much vigor as it could muster from three remaining legs below.
Unimaginably elastic arms stretched out again, lashing for the ones who dared to strike against its sacred vessel. One struck Pyrrha's own shield in a shower of sparks. The other was batted away by Magnhild as it clawed for Ren.
"Jaune!" Nora shouted out for her team leader, an instant before the beast fused as the lower slammed her to the ground, slavering and trying to sink teeth to flesh and shake like a terrier dog with a rat in its jaws trying to chew through her aura.
Cursing out loud again Jaune lunged and sank Crocea Mors up to the hilt in the Grimm's chest. Form and figure perfect in this strike using every lesson he had learned from Pyrrha and many others. Little time at all to celebrate his learning as the equine hooves and head reared, sparing Nora from its wrath to hammer down again driving Jaune face first into the cobblestones below with a snarl of pain next to his ginger teammate.
Shots rang out as Ren fired and ran, drawing the attention of the beast and circling behind. Pyrrha rushed to their aide.
"It's no use!" She said, whilst pulling Jaune up onto his knees and Nora from her back. "We can't hurt it."
Shaking his head, Jaune stood again. Letting the floating warmth in the air soak into his bones. "Yes, yes we can…"
Quickly the Huntsman sheathed his sword in the expanded shield and with his now free hand, pulled a yellow shard of Dust from behind his breast plate and looked up to Pyrrha, "Together."
Team JNPR moved.
The spear Milo' sailed out as Pyrrha hauled Nora back out of reach. Piercing and wrenching wide the coming strike aimed at all their heads.
"Nora!"
Jaune called and in one motion turned, threw the crystal high and drew his sword. Cleaving down and severing two of the horse's dangling talons coming for his face. Drawing its focus to let the girls run back. Springing off the round bronze shield Akouo once again, Nora leapt after the flying shard. Pyrrha pulled her weapon back by polarity and together with Ren bombarded both fused monsters with all they had left in the barrels of their weapons.
Lightning hung heavy in the sky. Easily drawn to the kindred element that Nora caught and held high.
The flash threw deep shadows across the battlefield as energy flowed like a river into the hammer wielder. Persisting and growing, filling her soul shield with might. Her muscles coiled around arms and legs, bulged like a Mystrali statue to perfection and power.
And with that power Nora gripped tight her weapon once again as she fell and landed in a crouch. Then rushed through the thin rank of her friends, swung the flat hammer head up and into the white spiked ribs of the Daemon.
Bones broke with a cannon snap and the two Grimm gave a twin howl of anguish. Enveloped by the lightning that sprang from Magnhild penetrating deep within. Anathame to the spirits of evil and most importantly its power to heal as hell-forged biology was attacked by the Dust. Their cries cut short by the impact on another trampled pile of masonry, and rebar.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune called as he closed the narrowing gap with their foe. His partner reached out with her semblance, touching the steel below the Grimm with her mind and soul strength. And at her will a dozen new rusted spear tips shot out up and through the Daemon. The wounds spraying black smoke and blood. Pyrrha curled her fist down and the metal followed. Binding the thrashing creature to the ground. The polarizing energy looped back on these new conduits with devastating results.
The two Huntsman had a quick glance between them running forward. Jaune sent Ren a solemn nod, "After you brother."
Like a dance the two switched positions, Jaune ducking to the inside of their charge. Closer to the Daemon Horse which swung the slab of its forehead at the swordsman. With a roar of his own Jaune clubbed his fist down as hard as he could.
And another shock of light exploded from the impact.
The white death mask shattered and spat across the ground like a grenade. Its red tongue rolled out limp and dangling as the vulnerable head beneath slammed backwards to the ground.
Seeing imminent mortal peril, the Rider screeched again as it set its strength and ripped free its right arm. Tearing flesh from the bone, swinging hard aiming to cleave Ren's head free. But like quicksilver he threw himself down, sliding on his knees below the slashing claws. Then with all of his might leaping up directly onto the broad armored chest of the thing that had haunted his nights for a lifetime.
Both of Jaune's hands found the blue hilt of his sword. The bane of all Grimm his family had fought for generations. He raised the ancient blade back high above his head. One red eye rolled towards the pair, seeing its doom about to come down.
Crocea Mors bit deep, muscle and sinew parting before the razor edge. The horse-like half gave a wet gurgle as its vessel's lifeblood leaked out and evaporated. Sounding out loud his exertions again, triumph within reach clear in the sound he made. Jaune drew back his weapon.
Ren hooked the inward edges of his pistol blades around the neck holding up the shrieking snapping head of teeth. Using them to pull his body up to plant one foot firm against the broad armored chest. And the other hard beneath the Grimm's slathering jaws.
As he stared into the crimson pits that were its eyes and bared his teeth. Silently snarling at the effort and aura spent to draw StormFlower inch by inch through the beast's flesh, blood and bones.
He thought of the past. Of long sleepless nights in the wilderness wondering if this night under the broken moon the thing that had destroyed everything he held dear would come to finish what it started. He thought of the many, many years training, and fighting to stay alive. To attain a place in Beacon where he might make vengeance a more feasible dream.
Everything that had brought him to this, one, moment.
Jaune's muscles burned with effort, he brought Crocea Mors down. A sharp crack sounded as his blade bit cleaving bone and the last defiant sinews of unholy flesh. Parting the lower head clean from its body.
Ren put every last ounce of strength into his legs, his arms and spirit. Words crept over his tongue, ones of defiance and triumph.
"Mother… Father… You are avenged."
The twin green blades slid free, and with a final howl of anguish the ancient evil finally received one form of the freedom it had wished so long and desperately for.
Its decapitated head shimmered and vanished before it even hit the ground.
Flipping back to the ground before his precarious perch could entirely dissolve the Huntsman clad in green stood hunched and panting watching the nightmare fade from the world. StormFlower low at his sides. His long black hair matted to his head with sweat. And was nearly bowled over when a blur of pink crashed into him,
Nora in a running leap flung her arms around the taller boy. Burying her face against his arm as she gripped tight. A hundred separate emotions flooding her as well, the same that had coursed hard alongside the blood in Ren's veins. But more than anything concern for Ren's state of mind. Shaken out of his victory-stupor he looked down to the girl who had always been at his side.
And he returned Nora's embrace gladly.
Off in the distance, at the heart of the battle they had left behind. A flash of fire lit out over the others fighting for their lives and their planet. And a heartbeat later the warmth and light gifted from their little army's leader that had permeated the air and their auras dimmed and retreated.
Mere seconds after that another explosive flash followed the first with an ear splitting scream of a Daemon in pain.
And a Primarch in rage.
Jaune, seeing Grimm by the dozen turn and take notice of the loitering team JNPR readied his sword and shield once again.
"No time guys!" He called out to his friends, "Let's move!"
Formless and blind, even the two Daemons had to take pause to readjust entering back to the realm, their home that had been denied them for so many centuries.
Thousands of their kindred filled the ether baying and clawing at the veil. Some slipped through. Moving to enter the empty shells that awaited them and become what Humanity in all its forms on Remnant called a creature of Grimm.
But not the two, who had been one.
Linked still to each other. That they could feel with utmost certainty like a rusted chain about a limb that had sat for so long the skin festered and inflamed beneath. A binding tie that would persist for as long as their betters deigned to keep it. A pair the recently freed malign intelligences panicked in thought of and cast about their awareness for.
In the sea they did not find them. Waiting to inflict even more suffering uncapped by the limitations of the realm of mortals for a crime their sort could not help but indulge in as servants of the great mutator.
The two, who had been one turned their gaze back to Remnant. Skills that came easily to them, except for the fear to use them lest they drew unwanted attention.
Both sensed the edges of their tormentor's mighty and prodigious beings. The first the Schemer Ska'rar. Nefarious and spiteful, a thing of great pettiness and cruelty. The second the Deceiver Char'nalax, Magnanimous in his own self-importance and plots to control and consume.
Down below, the two lords of daemon kind taken to suits of flesh made in the image of their true nature.
But their attention was, elsewhere.
Inward... Tending to their own bond.
And a division growing there.
The two, who had been one did not think to guess at the root of this conflict. All they cared for was that the ones who had kept them in shame, pain and eons of humiliation were lapse in their focus. And seizing upon this opportunity the two, who had been one turned and hurled out. Out and away from the cursed realm of Dust and soul wielders. Still shackled one to the other, but free to seek refuge in the bowels of infinity.
Penny was growing tired. The limits she had never fully explored of her body and its abilities coming up fast like an approaching wall of bricks. But still she fought on alone. Skin pierced and torn by a dozen different claws and fangs penetrating her weakened aura. A deep gash across her forehead exposed a piece of skull plate.
Confused by, yet grateful for the power that she could feel seeping into her steel bones. Perhaps enough to let her turn the tide of Grimm back from the crashed Sanus Express.
Perhaps not.
A possibility she considered once again detecting another wave of monsters come to throw themselves at her blades. An all too Human groan of weariness came from Penny, but she grit her teeth and made ready. The others, languid and slowed needed her.
Creatures, rotund and many limbed loped out of the shadows. And from their gullets belched torrents of purple fire.
The blazes never reached her.
A figure, tall and lithe with hair lashed back, jumped forward into view and threw up her hands.
Conjured between the two and the warp fire, a red shield glyph twice as tall as the artificial Huntress, exploded out. Turning the searing heat back on the front runners of this wave. Penny blinked away a surge of surprise. And a smile lit her face recognizing Alicia and then another familiar burly horned headed figure that passed her peripherals from the airship's wreckage and rushed to the attack.
A gargantuan Ursa bowled through the Grimm ranks and the lingering flames. Howling a challenge and hunger for blood, cut short with a squeak and a blur of blue. As Co'Balt called on his semblance, slid down the ruined causeway between the monster's thick furred legs and cut the Ursa's flesh to the bone at the groin with his bearded axe.
The monster fell forward back onto all fours. Lowering its head down in pain, into range of the spear Alicia carried. Jumping forward off from another glyph she manifested, the last of team APRC slammed her fallen friend's weapon into a gleaming red eye.
The Grimm died, just as anything would with its brain split in two like a watermelon. Co'Balt pulsed his semblance again and returned to Alicia's side ahead of the unburnt monsters flowing forward in the Ursa's wake.
Penny stepped and whipped her swords as one down hard in their ranks, scattering the Grimm like leaves in a spray of stone. And as if they had been fighting together for years, the three of them charged the tumbling horde without hesitation.
The two freshly arrived and eager to make up for their tardiness, and offer Penny respite took the lead. Covering each other's blind-spots with practiced movements and strikes. Shielding glyphs blocked avenues of assault. Grimm slammed back into their trailing kindred and were set upon by axe and sword web.
Behind the fighting trio came the scream of jet engines getting louder and louder. Soon punctuated by the dirge of Dust and bullets from auto cannons. Raking through the swaths of beasts like a scythe. Three bullheads banked to the west still shooting, and from their bellies leapt the teams CFVY, CRDL, and an ad hoc smattering of others orphaned from their Hunter teams. A familiar shirtless axe man among them.
Coco pushed up her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose, clenched her right fist and raised it high in a shimmering field of energy ruddy brown. Around her technology and Dust began to run hotter, burn brighter and slay with much greater efficiency as the newly arrived Huntress set her semblance to task empowering all the aforementioned it touched. Then unleashed her own rotary golden cannon from its bag form, flattening the Grimm's central ranks with a merciless barrage of explosive shells. The other arrivals closed the gap to team APRC's side and into melee.
They battled onwards, shedding aura and blood to keep the Daemons away from the crash site. Those few with more keen senses felt them being drawn back towards the Iron Hill museum. Cracking stone and the groaning of wood in distress. Without missing a beat in the dance of death, Penny turned her head and machine sensors towards their flank. Like a pulsing vein, one of the old mine doors that had once led into the bowls of the planet bulged forward again. From within the airship the Atlas energy carbines fell silent for a moment while the soldiers turned to engage the threat encroaching on their vulnerable backs.
Penny called to her teammates, "Co'Balt! Alicia!"
"I see it!" The Faunus replied, shotgun blasting another Creep head over heels backwards. He swore out loud briefly, bringing his mind away from their fight to the wider battle. A slight chill trickling through the warm air down his spine seeing the pincer drawing closed.
"Uhh, uhhgg…" He stuttered in between blocking strikes, and in his indecision another took initiative.
Cardin caved in another Daemon skull with his mace and an explosion of Dust creating an opening to break away towards the mine door warping and shifting steadily out of its frame.
Once within reach he slung his mace across his back, and stretched out his bare hands onto the centuries old wooden beams. Baring his teeth Cardin focused his own semblance, grey shimmers spread like frost over the wood bound in black iron. He forced step after step pushing back the door. Doing the work of a dozen Hunters all on his own. His might keeping whatever Daemons it could be sealed on the other side.
Free now to fully turn back to the battle the others readily did so. Giving ground and stepping back to a position better suited to guarding both Cardin and the Sanus Express now. Reveling in the strength they drank from the warm air around them.
Before it disappeared.
Blown away by the explosion of light that bloomed out over the museum. The fighting teams chanced glances back over their shoulders to see what had happened. Only finding another mysterious flash. And the twinned ear piercing screams of rage and pain that crashed out over the ruined city.
Cold replaced the power that had seeped into their bones. Left only with their own might and will to face what the darkness still had to throw at them.
And the scant hope now that anymore help would be coming.
The strength was intoxicating.
Sun laughed as he fought ahead of his team Neptune, Scarlet, and Sage. The jubilant noise lost in the roars and harsh cracks of violence. Basking in the light they brought through the Grimm. He fought to avenge his fallen home, he fought for a future for his friends and team he could almost taste already.
And to catch Blake's eye a little more he might admit.
She was close in the fighting line, running side by side with her own team into the fray. Sun watched her sword Gambol Shroud shoot out of the press of limbs and blades on its ribbon and back again. Embedding in the top of a gangly almost humanoid Grimm's bone mask. This ungainly figure shrieked in pain, clasping both hands to the new protrusion.
Tracking the ribbon down across his view as it went taught. Sun watched Blake try to throw her weight against the Grimm's own and bring it down. Her arms curled and she bared teeth in exertion, stamping one foot down on the ribbon but could not manage the task.
Like skipping rock, Sun cast his right arm forward. Aura wrapped around his hand. A facsimile of himself glowing with light dove from the ether. Rolled to a slide and crashed into the legs of the creature knocking it to the ground.
Sun followed his aura construct in a flip, catching a Grimm creep with a skull splitting crack across the face from his Bo-staff at the moment on his back. Slamming it down into the prone Grimm's skull with a shotgun blast.
Side by side with the cleaver sheath of Blake.
"Do you come here a lot?" Sun asked, batting away another lunging mouth of teeth.
Blake ripped her weapons up to hand, "All my friends are here. Maybe I should!" She answered, going back to back with the other Faunus. Allowing herself a small moment to try and catch and return the smile he offered looking over her shoulder.
More shadows darkened the midday. Before being chased away by a fiery blast as the gangly and tall winged lord of the Grimm stepped out of oblivion onto Remnant and lashed out at Kad with its tremendous power.
Without prompting or command a circle drew itself around the monster and its quarry of the young Primarch leading the charge of the Hunters. The two titans circled each other, no other being privy to what words, threats and secrets they exchanged before the two exploded into a flurry of motion, illusions, sorcery, aura and steel as their duel began.
Focusing any more on that clash Sun knew could prove to be a deadly distraction. But none could miss the rock slide the Grimm carved out of the concrete below and launched at Kad. Clipped on the side by a jagged piece of stone before he could blink, the Faunus counted himself as one of the lucky ones. Unlike Scarlet, his right leg crushed underneath a tons heavy slab.
Grimm hearing his cry of pain came swarming for the boy. Neptune and Sage rushed to defend him. Sun swore and looked about for anyone who could help. Theirs' was one of the few teams still whole and cohesive in the madness of the battle line. The Faunus caught sight of Ruby, Weiss and Blake fighting still, but not Yang the other girl Raven. Sun resigned that everyone else had equal troubles to deal with.
With a mighty blow from his great sword Sage split the rock pinning Scarlet, Sun quickly closed with a tremendous leap hauled the other swordsman to his feet. The power in the air the only thing that had saved the red-haired Huntsman's leg and life.
He speared out low with his staff blasting a Beowolf's leg off at the knee. Grinding teeth as he struck out again and again killing Grimm as fast as they could come into his reach. Scarlet stabbing out with his own cutlass at the ones that passed his teammate's guard.
Until the gentle warmth in the air turned scorching against their backs, hot enough to put a noticeable dent in many Auras. Which suddenly failed to recharge with their previous fervor.
The Grimm around them roared in triumph and pressed the attack. But behind their savage wet howls Sun heard another scream out a single name.
"Yang!"
Sun glanced over both his shoulder and Scarlet's whom he still held close towards the cry. Through black fogs of fading illusions he saw Ruby Rose, oblivious to the desperate struggle for Remnant raging at her back as she stared inwards towards the fateful duel that had taken a pause.
He continued to pan across the nightmare scape. Seeing Kad Amaranth, projecting the same visage of his humble self as Sun had ever known the other boy to do. Nothing of the image of the warrior prince come down to lead them all to victory. Staring at the broken shape of Ignis, his sword in his hands. Below him, two figures on the ground that Kad had risked so much for and ultimately failed. Yang Xiao Long, limp and unmoving on the ground with her right arm severed over the elbow. And her sister the dark Huntress Raven before her where she had died driven flat into the ground. The terrible iron medallion that had killed her still standing in her back.
In contrast to the young girl's high voice, came the roar of a Primarch in rage. Kad hurled what remained of his shattered sword straight for the sneering Daemon lord's face. An explosion of fire and light bloomed against its skull mask and raced out to the covering cloud lair driving the beast back with a pained shriek.
Ruby cried out again her sister's name and sped forward trailing rose petals.
Dread settled into the pit of Sun's stomach. Seeing death strike so close to home, and linger its gaze on all his friends. But then he looked down to the steel in his hands. And back into the past,
Almost throwing Scarlet behind, he unleashed his own intricate weave of pistols and fired blast after blast into the encroaching sea of fangs. Airships crashed and burned as the Grimm suicided through the clouds and closed in but he fought. Striding forth and meeting doom head on. His teammates, delayed by the briefest moment of incredulity soon hefted their own blades and followed his lead.
Weiss and Blake were giving ground hacking and slashing at the black sea near their two partners on the ground. Calling the names of Ruby and Yang, unable to afford any more lapses in focus against the Grimm.
Like a knightly lance Sun leapt rolled and thrust his transforming weapon through the open mouth of some great drake like thing barreling forth with a mouth full of teeth held low to swallow the other gallant girls whole. Smashing through its brain in one fluid strike.
Hair on his arms and down his neck stood upright with cold shock that cut through his battle haze as the death smoke billowed away. Thunder rolled across the city and lightning cracked the sky. Clouds darkened as Kad renewed his assault through the elements on their enemy.
A moment later as they kept fighting over the fallen a dire sound of laughter, supplanting all humor with malice cackled from the Daemon Lord.
"Fish in a pond Huntsman! My first prophecy rings true. Does it not?"
Sun did not even want to turn in the general direction of that unearthly voice to see Kad' reaction to its taunt. Though he could imagine what it would be. Something like the flash of light that came a heartbeat after the Grimm's words that burned their way through his ears into his mind.
"Sun!"
The Monkey Faunus slammed down his staff with both hands on a pair of grasping claws and spun out of the fight, between team SSSN back to Kad's side at his call. The Grimm was gone, disappeared into the pool of shadows that filled the inside of the museum through the looming double doors. Sun looked up to the giant clad in his familiar jacket that radiated color even still in the darkness.
Never having seen such a rictus of anger on Kad's face despite all the troubled days behind them, Sun was concerned about his intent. The call of vengeance was not so loud in his head after the turn the battle had taken. A new shadow crossed over them and Sun fired a quick shot up in its general direction which seemed to discourage the coming attack.
Kad drew his last blade, holding the knife's keen edge parallel to his forearm and gave command.
"Get everyone to the Express," He said, pointing in the direction of the crashed airliner with the hilt in his hand. "Over the roof, I'll meet you on the other side."
"Other side?" Sun said in disbelief. "Bro, you can't!"
Let the monster stew in darkness till they blasted it off the face of the planet with the bombs. They had people who needed them out here, and more fighting at the airship waiting for them. Sun stuttered out half a protest trying to get Kad to reconsider, to not take the creature's bait and rush into the blackness after it.
But that wasn't who he was.
Thundering across the promenade in long running strides Kad with eyes flaming in power followed their foe down into the darkness. Disappearing from sight almost immediately after he crossed the threshold hot on the Grimm's trail.
Sun swore out loud. The weather still battled on their side keeping most of the other Grimm at bay. But the warmth that had given them so much strength had yet to return. So, unable to think of anything else, Sun set himself to the task Kad left for him.
Some eyes were turned to him out of the other Hunters that had found time to breath. The first of those he noticed was Blake. Standing guard at Yang's side over both the wounded Huntress and Ruby who knelt next to her sister. Frantically looking back and forth between the pale dimming light over the truncated arm and her scroll on the ground showing how faintly the dazed blonde girl's aura clung to existence.
Pulling out his own scroll, Sun quickly opened up a wide channel to all of his comrades and relayed Kad's instructions. The hundreds of others reacted admirably swift under the circumstances. Herded onwards towards their new destination by team JNPR bringing up the rear lending a hand to raise the wounded on the ground or a shoulder to lean on.
Knowing there was nothing they could do for the dead.
The Faunus stepped towards team RWBY. Quickly reaching down and pulling Yang up by her remaining arm and throwing her across his shoulders. The motion of which snapped her out of the shock that had kept her mercifully unaware of the pain she now felt in its fullness.
Yang screamed out once then bit down hard on her lip drawing a bead of blood. Ruby and Blake came close, one taking her partner's face in her hands trying and failing to keep a calming tone as she spoke begging for calm. Yang's eyes wandered over her sister and partner, falling on the unmoving form of Raven motionless on the ground and refusing to leave.
Meanwhile Ruby looked around at the disaster brewing and asked Sun, "Where's Kad."
He grimaced before coldly answering her and starting towards the Museum. His path as faraway as he could manage from those looming pits to insanity that were the double doors. "Don't worry about him. We've got to go."
Blake followed Sun as he moved, and Weiss a few seconds later as she saw the retreat.
Ruby lingered for a moment. Silver eyes darting between her team and the darkness the giant had entered all alone. Then with her face set in stone mirroring her heart she racked a fresh magazine into her sniper-scythe. Let her semblance flow, and sped off trailing rose petals after the Huntsman before anyone could stop her.
His aura lit the way.
Supernatural fire burned against the heavy conjured shadows that greeted Kad when he charged through the doors. Light shone from his body and translucent fire spewing eyes alike as he set his senses to finding the monster.
He tasted the air on his tongue, dragged deep breaths through his nose and smelled for any foul trace of it. Eyes scanned the ground for track marks while he listened and sifted through every crack of shifting wood and stone in the old tortured structure.
Mind alert to any sensation in his soul shield that would provide forewarning to the Grimm's presence.
All of this while he ran, spied another Grimm and brought his knife down in a chopping blur. Kad was unfamiliar with this species. And a part of him twitched in shock at this first sighting.
It looked like a person.
Humanoid, walking upright on two legs. A pair of arms dangling low and loose but the same leering death mask of white covering the head on its shoulders. The thing let out a wheezing hiss through a red maw to oblivion. It raised its arm barely a fraction when Kad's knife came down and split it in two from brain to groin. The hiss turning into a brief shriek as it died and melted to ash.
Kad did not slow, moving down the tall corridors flanked on each side by dioramas, relics and miniature displays from the history of Vacuo. History perhaps to be lost to the ages when they set off their explosives, if no more lived who could remember it. More of the strange Grimm slunk out of the shadows in this hall. Moving slowly, as if they were walking underwater yet inexorably to intercept the Primarch.
But he swept up his right arm and opened his aura to the power of the crystal. Wiping the Grimm from the face of Remnant with a blast of lighting that surged forth and arced after the Daemons like a heat seeking missile. Bursting them apart like rotten hunks of bread.
Some part of him harbored a sliver of doubt that the Crystal could permanently destroy the greater Grimm. But it could hurt them. That he knew. And from now on if all they would find was pain when they trod upon his world. He was willing to gamble, sooner or later. They would relent.
He pressed onwards, a hunting hound set out to run down its quarry.
On the peripheries of his sight Kad spotted a map of the structure and instantly committed it to memory. Seeing that this current track would lead to the main atrium. And knew if he was to find the Daemon, that would be the place. So he went, slaughtering all the lesser Grimm that showed their uncanny faces. Like a hurricane, sweeping what dared stand in its path aside.
The remains of a barricade made from rubble and priceless historical artifacts lay in the carved archway leading to the atrium. A final desperate attempt to keep the monsters at bay by those who had died within the dark hallways in Vacuo's last moments. The Primarch lowered his shoulder and crashed headlong into it, wood and plaster shrapnel flew as he exploded out into the trap Kad knew was waiting.
But the form that trap took, he never could have foreseen.
Thousands of the man-like Grimm stood wall to wall and up those as well to the ceiling, clinging to the old stonework and their brethren below them. Packed in so close it was difficult to see anything beyond the skulls and red eyes that slowly rotated to face the intruder in their nest. And deep within their ranks stood the lord of Daemons leaning lightly on its black iron staff. An ugly smile cracked the beak on its face, as the thing bowed its head slightly to the Huntsman.
That sight he could not stand, all the anger. All the indignant rage swelled again, tightening in his breast. The constant cryptic warnings of doom and woe that would not end. Kad began to raise the shard in his right hand, steeling his aura anticipating the pain he was about to welcome into his body.
The Grimm did not appear to speak, but its words entered the world all the same, "Like all of the best traps the prey walks willingly inside to its doom."
"It's only a trap if your quarry doesn't know of it." He growled back at the Lord of Beasts. "And there is no depth of darkness into which I would not chase you."
"So you say Huntsman. But I know your future, the story to come yet un-writ." It began to pace and circle, crashing steps echoed in the wake of its words. "Might you be so brash if you knew it? Should I tell it to you?"
"I'd be more worried about your future right now." Came the Primarch's defiant answer. "I will not play your game anymore…"
A snarl split the beaked face barring rows of dagger teeth, and the Grimm roared out, "This Sacred Thing Is No Game!"
And then its minions screamed.
A singular noise that sent rocks dancing across the floor clawed to shreds by dagger tipped toes. Even the Primarch's trans-human hearing suffered under the piercing wail, and he curled his upper lip in pain as his aura dimmed and blood dripped down from his ears.
And had that wail been simply sonic then the giant would have proceeded with his attack. Eager to finish this fight and save his world and the people who were counting on him.
But Kad found, he could not move.
Grimm were approaching, and the Primarch found he could not even lift his knife.
No matter how he tried, willing his hands, his legs, anything at all to obey. So much that his face began going purple with inefficacy, not even able to draw another breath in. He had seen the other Hunters grow complacent and slack in the face of whatever it was he had banished from the air not so long ago. No such thought within his mind making any suicidal excuses for what was happening to him. Kad would have liked nothing better to begin tearing into the monsters. To wipe them from the face of Remnant with the fury of the elements he had so painstakingly begun to control. But he could not move. Locked inside his own head mentally screaming at his limbs to do something, anything about the death approaching.
But he could not.
Strength untapped. All his might useless against the witchery employed against him. Craft that had slipped into the cracks of hundreds of Auras and foundered wills with careless thoughts, focused, crashing against Kad's determination like waves canceling each other out.
The Daemon laughed, and spoke again. "Oh isn't there so much Apathy in the world Huntsman?"
In a blur its staff shot forward and slammed into Kad's broad chest, sending him flying through the air rolling onto his back when gravity reasserted its hold.
"Here, I've a gift for you." The thing said, "All emotions, all thoughts, the like, have weight. That weight is power. Power that the knowledgeable can turn towards more tangible effects."
Kad's aura shed most of the force of the blow, the pain was not anywhere near things he had endured before. And had not shocked him out of this paralysis he found much to his dismay.
"Ah, poor little soul. So worried about this tale you are to tell." The Grimm Lord chuckled a knowing sound only it found amusing, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury… Signifying nothing!"
Speaking as it walked forward, looming like a hurricane. Its tone and tongue cracked across the air, "They call me the Deceiver, but not even I could have performed a trick such as this… No, this is your own doing… What you are, who you are… You denied the truth for so long it became a lie. And boy, you are afraid. You have always had fears, in spite of your best efforts."
It cackled again in malicious satisfaction now standing over Kad's prone form.
"Of all the things He who forged you took from Himself and placed within His work. There could not have been so many things noble and pure. So to you, He gave His fears… That is what He burdened you with. You are a flawed creation clinging to the comfort of a skein of lies you know to be false. Thinking you are something else…"
One clawed foot came down. Digging jagged points into Kad's chest through the battle torn shirt. Immense pressure grinding his bones as rage and bile rose in his throat over the close contact his aura could not resist.
And the talk of his creator, with no means to rebuttal it or deny himself what the monster said. Burned the pit in Kad's heart deeper still.
Seeing contortions of muscles roll over Kad's body as he still fought against the suffocating blanket of apathy locking him in place the Grimm leered and leaned close, "Do you still seek to challenge me boy? You who have not even seen a decade through with your own two eyes on your own two feet… Pathetic. I am a thread passing back to the beginning of the universe. A thought that crawled into existence before the primordial muck the first of Human crawled out of fell from the skies. One that led me to this world of Dust millennia ago."
The avian thing broke its piercing red eyed stare, and moved to gaze down to the shining crystal locked within Kad's bandaged right hand. Bent down and snaked the razor talons of its empty hand through Kad's own around the shard.
His two hearts hammered a panicked tattoo and he tried to tear his arm and the shard back. One last heroic effort to retain the only hope they had for victory that actually managed to elicit motion from the Huntsman, His foe hissed in equal parts pain and determination. But noticing Kad's sudden defiant second wind. It slammed a foot down onto the giant's face, driving it a good hand span into the rock that shattered beneath his skull. And finally tore the Dust shard free with a shriek of triumph.
Its flesh burned, gripping the substance absolutely anathema to its being. The Grimm ignored its essence dissolving, setting part of its grotesque intellect to learning the shard's secrets. Savoring the taste of triumph, and weaving darker threads together it spoke again, "A thought… A thousand billion separate souls looking to the stars and the past they hide have had and forevermore will think and wonder."
"What Happened To Them?"
With the Daemon's last proclamation ringing more mysteries in his brain. Blackness began to take the Primarch. Dragging him down and down into the depths of despair carried on the realization that he had failed.
Failed himself, failed his planet, and failed the ones he strove to be worthy enough to stand in their presence again with his every new waking moment. Those thoughts awaited him into the senseless oblivion that offered no peace.
"But now… Perhaps I shall turn to a new thought." The monster said, leaning back down again to stare into Kad's amber eyes. Its own almost lost in the backdrop of crimson, black and white of its minions above.
Ruby moved from broken display to broken display. Following the death shadows of the Grimm slaughtered mere moments ago. For all the speed her semblance gave her she still lagged critical seconds behind the giant she pursued.
Not thinking the delay was the advantage it was.
Words barely a whisper this far away drew her closer to the heart of the museum. Before the sonic shockwave of the Apathy howling almost blew her flat. Pain ringing in her ears Ruby grit her teeth and ran towards the source of the howl.
Only one voice came from ahead now, evil and heavy on her soul more than in the air. The young Huntress did have quite the jolt of fright when she stepped up to the hole in the barricade to the museum center and saw the many thousands of Grimm marching towards a far corner of the room.
Towards Kad Amaranth unmoving beneath the monster they had chased halfway around the world.
Her heart leapt up into her throat pushing a shout into the world. "No!"
It was lost in the ragged breathing of the Grimm that paid her no attention.
Until she leveled the barrel of her unfurling sniper-scythe and fired.
"What does she think is so special about you?"
"…She!?"
That tiny little word with such immense implications rang back and forth through the Primarch's skull. More torment of the unknown piled on to keep him company in whatever came next. Kad pondered what fresh hell this new mystery statement could foretell.
And if he would even be alive to ponder it further.
Until the clap of thunder from a gunshot tore the many crimson eyes away.
The Dust laced bullet pierced through a half a dozen Grimm. The black haze over Kad's mind and aura lessened. Like a single rock removed from a mountain burying him. A mountain he was punching with his bare fists.
But the mountain moved, the barest almost imperceptible fraction. And that was enough to make him punch it again.
Ruby swung Crescent Rose wide, cutting another handful of the creatures in half.
"Kad! Get up!" She yelled out as she struck again and killed again, "Get up! Don't tell me this is how it ends! Don't tell me this is how it ends!"
By the roar of command from their fell master a brace of the creatures whipped around with previously unseen agility. Cracking their spiked teeth apart and howling their song of apathy towards Ruby who had no hope to resist its siren call.
Blinking a haze out of her silver eyes the Huntress fell to her knees, cradling her weapon across them. A few pitiful words dribbled out from between her lips. The last thought entirely her own and not the crushing misery the Grimm forced onto her.
"Not like this…"
The great Lord of Beasts snarled. Taking a single long stride towards the interloper who dared to interfere. Another mental command halted the creatures slowly swarming towards Ruby Rose, desiring the pleasure of tearing out her soul in front of the Huntsman personally.
Adrenaline surged through Kad's veins, seeing Ruby had followed him into this death trap. All tormented strands of fate and failure cluttering his focus evaporated like they had never existed.
So much suffering he had forced onto this poor girl, and still Ruby was here trying to save him.
Once again he threw his will at the mountain.
And this time it gave way.
With a herculean shout, the giant turned and threw his knife.
The old steel blade spun and severed the wrist of the Grimm below the Dust, which clattered to the ground shrouded in the hand's dissolving remains with a clear ringing tone. His blade went even further and buried itself in the chest of a Grimm inches behind Ruby.
Her silver eyes lazily tracked the knife as it passed her head. And even the weighted presence of apathy could not contain her triumphant glee. Seeing Kad spring forth like a leopard from the ground.
And ram a flaming fist up through the back and out the armored chest of the astonished Daemon Lord. Its shriveling black heart in his palm.
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The heat permeated his aura, his soul.
His semblance was a simple one. Matching how Kad wore his heart out on his sleeve. Touching a piece of his soul to the world, conjuring protection. Delivering retribution. So open and near the world, it had been possible to forge a link between the two when he had claimed the shard...
A link not only to the Dust. A link that remained, even without the catalyst that created it...
Yelling his exertion Kad ripped his burning hand back out, and as his foe fell dying he looked down on the Huntress.
"No," He gave a belated reply, "Not like this Ruby."
One of the Grimm broke through the shock locking it in place. Moving with more speed than it ever had clawing for the Huntsman.
Kad splayed the fingers of his right hand.
And in one of the most basic actions of physics and the universe, looked for that heat again. Then contemptuously burnt it to ash with a torrent of fire conjured from his palm, with no aid from the crystal.
Its numberless brethren soon joined it screaming their way back to their home realm. When with a mighty battle cry, light and more flames once again spilling forth from his eyes. Kad turned the blaze now streaming from both of his hands onto them.
"For Remnant!"
Unbound by the crushing dark presence Ruby shot to her feet in a flash of falling petals, retrieved Kad's fighting knife from behind her and closed to the Huntsman while the Apathy burned. Safe in his shadow as he blanketed the hall and every possible hiding place within.
Every single one of their peculiar breed had been gathered here. And every one of their peculiar breed was delivered unto extinction this hour.
And once satisfied he had done so, Kad calmed the blaze by letting out a deep breath and pushing his hands out flat and down to his waist line. The fires obeyed and sputtered out, ash of the dead and ash of destruction indistinguishable in an acrid cloud.
He knelt down on one knee closer to the Huntress, laying his right hand on her shoulder in gratitude. "Ruby, I'm so sorry… I owe you again… More than I can ever repay."
With half of a knowing smile Ruby offered up his knife balanced on the palm of her left hand, "Help me save the world and we'll call it even?"
He took the proffered wooden grip and her hands within his own for a moment, "Not even close…"
Kad stood and held out his empty right hand to the Dust shard several meters away on the ground. The crystal leapt to his command. A familiar pain returned as it slammed home in his palm. He watched as Ruby focused her semblance again and flew off towards the north end of the building.
But he did not follow…
"Huntsman…"
The voice of the Daemon echoed through the empty museum. With a certainty as true as the chill that lingered on his aura even with the power coursing through it Kad knew it had been waiting. Waiting for one last chance to speak of a future full of dread and death. Hoping to get a reaction out of him.
He could have walked away. He knew he should have walked away, and let whatever prognostication the beast had fall on burnt and barren stone. Kad steeled his nerves to gather more power from the crystal. Took a step and a half turn towards that evil taunting voice.
Two crimson slashes and nothing more loomed above him in the darkness. Seemingly every possible distance away and relative size at once as they stared lidlessly.
"Had enough yet?" He both asked and threatened the disembodied spirit. "Aren't you smart enough to know you're already dead?"
Vitriol seeped from the snarl it gave in reply, "We told you wretched cur. You may slay the vessel but never Ussssss…"
"Then we shall see how long you last." The giant snapped back holding up the crystal. "Now unto forever, every soul on this world will defy you while they still draw breath. However long it takes, we will be free!"
"Do not be so quick to make that promise Huntsman. Forever is an awfully long time… But by all means think yourself the victor. For as long as you please even with my compatriot awaiting you outside these walls. It is another lie, in this war eternal. One you shall tell yourself in the quiet of the night as the weight of all your 'victories' bear down on and turn bitter."
Kad paused for a moment, considering the things words if only briefly. "Perhaps… That would be true of someone only fighting for himself…"
The crimson eyes began to fade back into whatever nether world the Grimm called home with one last menacing growl, "One thread of fate is severed. But many, many more linger unspun. Your doom will not be set in motion by myself today Huntsman. But here I promise, whether it is yet to come in the next hours or many years from now I will return to see its end. For I live in the darkness ever wrapped around your heart. In that perfect shadow you will never rid yourself I abide."
Two last words dripped from the ether like splashes of acid. Loaded with a weight of power, yet so faint only Kad's superhuman hearing could have possibly heard them.
"Earth Shaker."
He stared a moment longer to ensure it was gone.
But the greater part of him lingered in place held by the dark oath the thing had laid over his future. Doubt shrouding the final victory over the monsters that had seemed so close.
Gunshots and screaming howls reverberated through the stone walls.
New knives of ice in his veins snapped the Primarch out of his fugue and back to the practicals of his situation. Kad quickly rushed towards the track Ruby had taken.
Nothing was lost yet. Even the Grimm said the future wasn't set entirely. And he clung to that small drop of hope with all the might he possessed.
Ruby did not even notice Kad was delayed by the speed at which he caught up with her. Finding the young Huntress stopped by a collapsed section of the museum buckled in from the airship's crash.
The Primarch didn't even break stride. But formed a fist and jumped up slamming through wood and stone like so much glass. Tawdry light of the Vacuo sky spilled into the shadows as he soared up then down.
The cobblestone ground shattered under the impact of his boots below bending knees. Fire flared in his eyes and the other Huntsmen and Huntresses who finally managed to cross to the crashed airship cheered as their hero returned. And the many attacking Grimm howled in rage.
Kad shifted his gaze to the east, his right. A hundred Alpha types of a dozen separate species assailed the valiant teams APRC, CFVY, and CRDL. Each and every one of the Hunters facing this wall of black flesh and bone armor knew they could not stop them. Falling back towards the iron door where Cardin poured his last bit of strength into his semblance keeping their flank secured, not knowing that threat had been burned out by the Primarch mere moments ago.
Kad lifted the crystal and drew on its power.
Below the thousand claws of the monster's feet swirled a glowing vortex charring paw pads, tentacles, cloven hooves to the bone. Before exploding upwards with unrelenting force like a strategic bomb, burning the Grimm's death ashes all the way up to the roiling skies above.
A small taste of what was to come.
Heat scorched the Hunter's Auras, all of them were grateful to feel that rather than any of the many painful alternatives. But once the fiery wave had passed, their attention returned to the jagged cuts and swelling bruises that had penetrated their unfortified auras in the giant's furlough.
Sensing the blast of power the numberless hordes of the daemons balked and retreated into the shadow. Off to gather numbers and courage to throw themselves at the heroes once more. But a sliver of more time to breathe had been bought for the warriors of Remnant.
Airships drifted closer, under the guidance of those pilots who took the initiative to land in the face of very little direction. The backwash of their jets threatening to cause a sand storm. Already some of the wounded were being loaded onto these ships up with more thought to speed than their comfort.
Ruby rushed over to her teammates and SSSN at their side to check on Yang. And Kad moved towards his own team.
No longer under immediate threat many took the opportunity to fall to the ground exhausted. Penny was not one of them, despite having shouldered the lion's share of the danger so far. She beamed at the giant as he came close. A gash ran through the synthetic skin across her forehead down over the girl's left eye. Revealing a prismatic green and black receptor that shuttered closed in lieu of blinking like its twin across her face.
Kad looked through the teams, paying closer attention to the damaged Penny than most "Anything serious?"
To answer him, one by one the Hunters rose back to their feet and checked their weapons. Penny threw a quick salute, cheerful and eager. "We are combat ready!"
He nodded in satisfaction, and would have hugged all of them close if there wasn't their penultimate plan finally to be put into action. And just what it had cost them to get this so far stabbing like a knife to a deep part of his heart.
"Good… Ready yourselves!" The giant shouted out and began to walk towards the airship in long and purposeful strides. Eager to wash the linger taste of the Grimm's words out with fire.
The others followed, and watched as the giant ran his left hand along the unburied side of the airliner for a dozen paces back towards the gathered wounded and their guardians. Then drew and stabbed his knife backhanded through the hull. Pulling a long drawing cut down, Kad then emptied his hands and forced the fingers upon them into the wound of metal. Bunched his arms and ripped wide the slight gash into a portal fit for one of his stature. A new passageway straight to the cargo vault that held the weapons.
Several bodies of young Hunters and Atlas soldiers littered the corridor. Having gave their lives to protect the instruments meant to deliver their planet from the ancient scourge. The doors that held the bombs had not been locked with anything more than was necessary to keep the weapons secured. Kad saw they had not been breached with the unsubtle means the Grimm would have used.
Similar to the ones he chose to employ to save time. Ripping the steel plated bulkhead completely off of its track with a savage twist. Inside the crates had broken loose. But Kad let loose a sigh of relief, knelt and reached out to the one nearest his feet, quickly hammered in the code and unlocked the secure crate.
Lifting the heavy lid to reveal nothing more than the empty outline of a bomb in the foam.
Ice flew to his extremities then back to his hammering hearts again. Kad threw aside the empty crate and reached for the next. Ripping the box open without a second's hesitation or access code.
Empty as well.
Again and again Kad tore open crate after crate. Denial and nausea from his stomach rose up, one spilling out his mouth as he ripped through each and every one of the crates. Not finding a single one with its contents among them.
"No, no, no, No!"
Behind him, Alicia Co'Balt and Penny stood at the portal in front of the others also waiting for the good word from the giant that they now knew would not be coming. Watching with wide eyes and weapons clutched tight by white knuckles as Kad emerged from the hold, sparks of lightning and fire jetting over his aura arms trembling in impotent rage. And he roared out to his friends, the world and whatever powers were listening.
"Where's the bombs!?"
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A/N. Quick note this time. Places to be, ̶D̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶b̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶R̶e̶m̶n̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶A̶r̶c̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶p̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶q̶u̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶e̶p̶i̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶?̶ ̶N̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶i̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶l̶e̶n̶g̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶i̶n̶i̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶.̶
Okay, let me first apologize. My note above was misconstrued a little bit and it is entirely my fault. The story chapter wise is going to be the same length no matter what. That's the bad news. The good news is this arc should end next chapter. I just wanted some feedback if you guys would want me to try and finish it in one go, or make it faster splitting it in two. Main and Epilogue, Capisce?
So yeah, I've begun semi irregular updates on my profile. Look to those if you wonder about me in the quiet times. Check your settings here on FanFiction to see if you opt to receive email updates. That's a thing now.
And share if you care, review as you do. We might not be going as fast as any of us would like, but we are going. Rest assured.