Prologue: Forget me not
Weiss drove her Myrtenaster as deep into the gargantuan monster's chest as its thick hide would allow her, then launched herself backwards to avoid being squished like a bug by a giant, bony fist. With an elegant backflip, she dropped from well over fifteen feet and landed squarely on the shoulders of an alpha Beowolf, plunging her rapier straight down and ending the creature on the spot.
But the firm ground offered her no respite in the heart of Salem's domain. With a Manticore about to pounce at her from one side and a Beowolf swinging at her neck from another, she ducked under the Beowolf's clawed paw and lunged forward, piercing the beast through the spot where its heart would be.
With Myrtenaster still embedded in the Grimm's chest, she stepped behind the Beowolf and planted her hand on its back, only to push it onwards with all her strength, in a single motion ripping her blade free and shoving the beast straight onto the Manticore's horns.
The Manticore, caught off-guard in the middle of a pounce, was thrown off-balance and crashed into a crowd of lesser Grimm, killing a few with the impact and toppling some more. Before it could regain its bearings, Weiss vaulted over its back and jabbed at tits neck; the Manticore, still lying on its side, tried to bite her in retaliation, but Weiss sidestepped and immediately took advantage of the opening, impaling the creature through the underside of its jaw.
While the corpses of those minor nuisances were turning into dust and smoke, Weiss looked at the real problem — a giant, bipedal beast towering over her with its nearly thirty feet of height, bringing to her mind the Jotunn from the Solitasian legends of old. She knew not of its scientific name, or if such even existed; her team had encountered that type of Grimm only once before, and the one lesson they had learned that day was that those things were a pain to bring down.
Tiny wisps of black mist emanated from the wound Weiss had inflicted but a moment ago on its chest, but Weiss could easily tell that her attack hadn't really done any meaningful damage; it had grabbed the beast's attention, however, and that's exactly what she wanted.
Under normal circumstances, Weiss could feasibly try to just blast the damned thing to the moon and back, but the battle they were in the middle on was dragging on for far too long already; with her Aura reserves being stretched so thin, the situation called for more… creative solutions — ones that provided the biggest payoff with the least resources used.
And that's where getting the monster's attention came into play.
Weiss stepped over a dazed Beowolf, nonchalantly stabbing straight through its spine as she passed it by, and began marching towards the giant Grimm she had pissed off with her audacity.
Enraged, the beast let out a sonorous roar and lumbered in her direction, caring not for the fellow Grimm it crushed under its feet, nor for the tiny patches of white flowers that blossomed here and there across the battlefield.
In a matter of heartbeats, a giant fist fell onto Weiss like a thunder — except that Weiss was no longer there. Having dodged to the side in the last moment — and nearly losing her footing after the impact had shaken the ground — Weiss jabbed at the giant's hand, freezing it to the ground with just enough Ice Dust to stall the beast in that awkward position, hunched over with its center of mass leaning forward.
'Got you,' she thought, looking up with a pleased smirk while the Jotunn lifted its other arm up, priming it for another strike. 'Two, one...'
A bolt of red lightning cut through the air and crashed into the giant's back with the force of a battering ram, pushing it onwards; off-balance and with its hand frozen to the ground, the beast toppled like a felled tree.
The ice encasing the Grimm's fist cracked and shattered in a million splinters, and when that happened, moments before the giant would hit the ground, Weiss summoned another glyph just beneath it, sprouting a massive ice spike and letting the monster's sheer mass do the rest.
The beast let out a piercing roar as it collapsed atop the spike, impaling itself at least a three feet deep. Not everything had gone according to the plan, however — the Grimm was not yet dead. As it pushed itself off the ground with its massive arms, the ice snapped, leaving a large shard still stuck within the monster's chest.
The giant reached with one of its hands to the back of its neck and a loud 'faaa!' could be heard as the beast tore a crimson-haired Huntress off its back, causing her weapon to slip from her grasp and fall to the ground.
The Jotunn, holding Ruby upside down by her legs, raised her high above the ground, about to drive her face-first into the rocky earth below just when a sudden, brilliant flash of white light froze it in place.
Wasting no time, Weiss dashed towards Ruby's scythe; dispatching a few pesky Beowolves along the way, she grabbed the weapon and ran back to Ruby, drawing on her Aura to reinforce her muscles just before tossing the massive hunk of Crescent Rose into the air for the young Silver-Eyed Warrior to catch effortlessly with a single hand.
Pulling herself up, Ruby swung her scythe, driving the tip of its blade into the joint of the giant's thumb — and pressed the trigger without a sliver of mercy.
The beast, freed from the power of Silver Eyes, howled in pain and dropped its would-be victim, its right thumb handing on nothing more but a few sinews — if the Grimm even had those.
Ruby fell freely, head down, scattering into a cloud of crimson rose petals moments before hitting the ground — not unlike a drop of blood, dripping into a pool of red with a splash. The petals, as if carried by a nonexistent breeze, fluttered towards Weiss, only to reform right by her side into Ruby.
"Didn't think he'd survive that," Ruby muttered, watching discontent as the giant was slowly getting back up onto its two feet.
"Me neither, I'll admit. What now?"
The team leader pondered for a while, frowning as she rubbed her eyelids. "Kneebreaker," she said eventually.
"Ouch," Weiss hissed, wincing. "Feeling particularly ruthless today, are we?"
"Not really," Ruby deadpanned.
There was a loud bang as with a single pull of a trigger she amputated both an arm and a shoulder from a Beowolf that had been trying to sneak up on them, not even sparing the beast a single glance. Releasing an empty magazine to the ground, Ruby loaded another into its place — one adorned with the symbol of four arrows pointing towards a dot in the middle; with that, she pulled the bolt handle of Crescent Rose, letting a Gravity round into the loading chamber of her HCSS.
"Just want to get this mess of a recon over with."
Weiss laughed under her breath. "Fair enough. After you," she said, signaling for Ruby to go ahead with a polite dip of her blade.
Ruby nodded and slammed her scythe into the ground before firing a few rounds to prod the beast and draw its attention; then, once the Jotunn's murderous gaze was focused solely on her, with its rage blinding it to everything else, she took off running.
The two of them, the monster and the Huntress, dashed towards one another; just when the beast was about to stomp on Ruby and crush her, a gleaming, white glyph appeared out of thin air above her head like a shield, pushing the gargantuan feet to the side and throwing the giant off-balance.
It created an opening that Ruby then ruthlessly exploited, dodging to the side and slashing at the back of the Jotunn's left knee. No longer able to support the beast's weight, the leg gave out and the giant dropped to its knee, propping itself on its arms to prevent collapsing to the ground completely.
Taking advantage of the fact that the beast's face was now closer to the ground, Ruby jumped up and drove the blade of her scythe into the side of the beast's jaw; the giant reared in pain and pulled Ruby upwards as it jerked its head back, the sudden movement catapulting the girl high into the air.
Furious, the monster turned its disproportionately small eyes at Ruby, readying itself to swat her mid-air with its large hand… but, before it could do that, the Huntress took aim and fired, extinguishing the vile glow that burned inside its eye socket forever.
The recoil launched Ruby backwards, away from the log of an arm that was about to smash her back into the ground. While the beast pressed one of its hands to its wounded eye and howled in anguish and rage, Ruby finished her ascent, then used her Semblance and bolted right back at the giant, blindsiding it like a speeding truck; flying right in front of its face, Ruby hooked the beast's neck with her scythe as she passed it by and then jerked the Grimm to the side, driving its face straight into the side of a rocky cliff.
A sickening crunch rolled across the battlefield, and for a brief moment Weiss could see how the monster's jaw swayed morbidly to the side at a strangle angle, as if held in place by nothing more than its hide. Then, Ruby jumped from the wall onto the Jotunn's shoulder and shouted, "Weiss!" With that call, she caught the neck of the stunned, wobbling giant with the blade of her scythe and leapt forward, dragging the Grimm to the ground along with her.
With a single last howl, the Jotunn fell down, landing face-first onto another ice spike.
Amidst the cloud of dust the giant had scuffed up with its collapse, Ruby rose up from her knees and blew a stray lock of hair off her forehead; noticing her approaching partner, she grinned and held out her hand, which Weiss promptly low-fived.
"I almost feel sorry for the guy," Weiss said half-jokingly, looking at the smoking carcass in front of her with interest. "You actually broke its jaw."
Leaning tiredly on her scythe, Ruby snorted, pointing at the ice spike going into the beast's maw and poking out from the back of its skull. "Like you're the one to talk!" She shuddered, and tiny drops of sweat fell off her chin and nose when she did so. "Just think of the brain freeze."
Weiss let out a weary sigh and wiped the moisture beading up on her own brow, then looked around the battlefield. She had already lost the track of how long they had been fighting. Half an hour? Longer, perhaps?
In her memory, the whole battle was a blur — working in tandem with Ruby, helping her leader control the battlefield by casting a glyph after a glyph, all to prevent her team and Qrow from getting overwhelmed by the unrelenting sea of enemies. Everyone had been working wonders, but Grimm of all kinds and sizes just kept on coming from every direction, wave after a wave in a relentless tide, with but a brief moment of a breather between each assault.
Admittedly, the situation was now slowly starting to clear up — the last two waves were less numerous than the ones that had come prior, and now that the Jotunn had fallen, all they had to deal with was a bunch of lesser Grimm, none of them stronger than a Beringel.
Still, the long fight had taken its toll on all of them — sweaty and physically exhausted from the constant combat, they were all running uncomfortably low on Aura, especially Blake and Weiss; Yang trying to conserve what little remained of her ammo, had gone into full melee, while both Ruby and Qrow were visibly tired from swinging their massive scythes around, with the speed of their attacks dipping noticeably. Nonetheless, Weiss was confident when she thought they should be able to finish off the remaining enemies — provided that no further reinforcements came.
As if on a cue, she heard Blake shout, "Ruby, the hill!"
Weiss and Ruby both instantly snapped to attention, turning their eyes up the hillside at the foot of which they'd been fighting; there, at the top of the bluff, another pack of Grimm was preparing to charge.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Ruby muttered under her breath. She bit her lip as she stared at the enemies, assessing the situation, and Weiss could swear that her leader turned a little bit paler while glancing back and forth between their group and the incoming attackers. The horde wasn't terribly large compared to the ones they'd fought before, but in their team's current state… "It's gonna get messy if they reach us before we're done with the Grimm we've got here already."
Weiss wetted her parched lips, silently going over their options in her head. "I can slow them down," she said eventually in a quiet voice.
Ruby turned to look at her with worry and uncertainty painted all over her face. "Are you sure...? You're pretty low on Aura, Weiss…"
"Yes, I'm sure. I can do it," Weiss uttered, her words coming off a bit sharper than she had intended them to. Meeting Ruby's concerned gaze, she took on her best reassuring smile. "Go and help the others clean up. I can hold them off, but not for long."
It was obvious that Ruby didn't like the idea in the slightest, but both she and Weiss knew that their options were limited, and rapidly running out. Giving Weiss one last, caring look, Ruby just squeezed her shoulder and nodded, then ran off to help the rest of the team.
Weiss watched for a second how a crimson ponytail flew behind Ruby as the girl rushed into the thick of the battle; then, she pried her eyes away from her friend and faced the horde stampeding down the hill — a violent, black avalanche of tooth, horn and claw coming right at her and her team, threatening to overwhelm and swallow them whole.
Looking at the beasts — Beowolves, Ursai, Deathstalkers, two Goliaths, and even a few more Grimm she knew no name of — she was fairly certain that her team would be done for if that wave reached them before they were ready. And so she stepped forward, blade in her hand, determined to give her friends the time they needed.
Where the Grimm were approaching, the terrain formed a couloir, a steep, narrow gully that served as a natural funnel of a sort, which gave Weiss an idea.
"I can do it," she repeated quietly to no one other but to herself, spinning the Dust chamber of her MADR and locking it onto Earth Dust. "Not like we've got any other choice."
Weiss took a deep breath and swung Myrtenaster in a wide, horizontal arc, then lifted it high in the air. Loosening her grip, she let the sword flip in her hand — then, with the tip pointing downwards, she exhaled and drove the blade into the ground.
And with that, all hell broke loose.
The earth shook and cracked with a deafening roar when a ten-feet tall wall of jagged stone erupted from the ground right below the feet of the first line of the attackers. What followed was a true cacophony of pain, of tearing flesh and breaking bone as line after a line of beasts crashed into the barrier. Some Grimm from the first line, impaled by the cold stone, howled in agony as they hung down from the spikes, while others had been outright launched into the air, only to plummet to their deaths moments after. Cracks appeared in the summoned stone, but the wall was holding — for the time being.
The whole world swayed in Weiss' eyes as a dizzy spell hit her like a large wave, nearly sweeping her off her feet, with the only thing preventing her from completely collapsing to the ground being the support of her trusty Myrtenaster.
Wincing at the dull throbbing inside her skull, she rubbed her face with her free hand and looked up at her handiwork. "This should keep them out for a while," she stated flatly, too tired to feel any semblance of accomplishment, her words coming out of her mouth as a quiet, slurred groan.
"Hell yeah, Weiss!" she heard Yang's enthusiastic cheer through the wild ringing in her ears.
As she pulled her hand away from her face, Weiss noticed the wild flickering of energy surrounding her palm, fingers and the rest of her body, causing a pit to open in her stomach as she realized that her Aura was now almost completely depleted. "Oops."
As she was staring at her hand, she suddenly noticed between her fingers that the shadows on the ground below her shifted; she immediately snapped to attention, dodging blindly and lifting her blade in defense... but, before she could take on a proper stance, it was already too late.
Weiss' body was sent flying straight into a stone boulder when a black fist bigger than her head slammed into her chest, taking out almost everything that was left of her Aura — and leaving just enough for its sorry remains to save her from the immediate death on impact.
She slumped down the cold spire, suddenly unable to stand, move, or even form a coherent thought. When she finally came back to her senses and opened her oddly heavy eyelids, all she could see was the figure of a giant Beringel that was just about to pounce and maul her to death. In the last-ditch effort to save herself, she tried to access her Semblance, but to no avail; not having the energy to move, she could do nothing when the Grimm jumped towards her — nothing but to defiantly refuse to close her eyes in face of her end.
But death did not come, and the Beringel disappeared mid-jump with a sudden flash of red.
'What?' She blinked a few times, trying to process what had just happened. When she started wondering whether or not she should care, something light, red and warm fell on top of her nose, so she squinted her eyes to see what it was. Then, a weak, tired smile bloomed on her lips.
A rose petal. 'Thank you, Dolt.'
With some difficulty, Weiss managed to focus her vision just in time to see her savior using the Beringel as on oversized, grotesque skateboard, with Crescent Rose in its war scythe form firmly planted in the monster's chest; after a short ride across the rocky ground, the red reaper transformed her beloved weapon back into its default form and furiously pulled the trigger, shouting.
"I! HOPE! YOU'RE! HUNG! RY!" Each pause was accentuated with a ring of a gunshot from Crescent Rose, loud and clear even in Weiss' dazed mind.
By the time the body of the beast lost its momentum and ceased its rough drift good forty feet away from Weiss, the Grimm had been dead many times over. In the meantime, Weiss felt out her Myrtenaster lying nearby and, helping herself with its blade, managed to stand up and take a few shaky steps.
While she had been on the ground ,Qrow, Yang and Blake had taken positions in a wide circle around Weiss, to the best of their ability trying to keep any and all Grimm at bay while Weiss was getting back her bearings. As Weiss looked at Blake, their eyes met briefly and a tired but relieved smile lit up Blake's face.
"Hey! That was my line, Ruby!" a certain blonde yelled.
Weiss took notice of the amusement in Yang's voice, but was still too stunned to connect the dots and determine what that brute of a woman was going on about. She tried, however — maybe even a little too hard, seeing that it kept her from paying full attention to the battlefield.
It was Yang's shriek that finally roused her from her shock. "WEISS, WATCH OUT!"
She noticed the Beowolf that had somehow found its way past the circle of defenders the second before the beast lunged at her, claws first. She dodged back in the nick of time, and mostly succeeded — she was fast enough to avoid being hit in a way that would otherwise have been lethal, ripping her wide open. And yet, when she felt the searing hot claws tear her skin and muscles, she knew that she had been still a little bit too slow.
Myrtenaster slipped out of her grasp, her arms suddenly having gone limp.
'So, that's it.'
She looked at the beast and stared it in the eye in the last act of defiance as its raised the other clawed paw… and saw its head evaporate into a cloud of blood-red rose petals when another thunder echoed over the battlefield.
Her legs finally failed her and buckled, but the pain of hitting the ground never came; instead, she felt lithe yet firm arms catching and wrapping around her, only to slowly lower her to the ground. The arms that smelled of roses.
"I gotcha, Weiss! I got you!" Ruby was trying with all her might and will to hide it, but Weiss could sense that she was terrified — see it in her silver eyes.
"COVER US!" Ruby roared. Weiss could hear the rest of the group shouting something back, but found herself unable to make any words out of it. "Shitshitshitshit," Ruby muttered, noticeably paler than usual. She pulled out her Scroll, only to curse under her breath once she'd realized something. "Damn it, we're out of range!" Stowing the device away, Ruby tore open a first aid kit and got to work, her fingers gentle — if a little shaky — and actions careful.
"It's getting cold in here," Weiss said weakly after a while, feeling that the blood loss had started taking its toll. There was an upside, however — she did not feel the pain all that much.
"Mhm," Ruby mumbled back in response, too focused on slowing the bleeding to pay any attention to anything else. Weiss forced a small smile.
"How bad does it look?"
"Not that bad," Ruby replied, matter-of-factually in a way that would've been absolutely convincing if not for the slight trembling of her hands. Nonetheless, Weiss did appreciate the effort and the white lie. She let Ruby work in peace, not saying anything for a while until she realized that the previously insignificant call of the warm and inviting darkness was getting progressively stronger with each heartbeat.
"I think I'm in a dire need of a short nap, Ruby," Weiss jested, her smile faint but genuine this time. "In case that waking me up proves to be difficult... don't wait for me, would you? Just..."
"Weiss..." Ruby whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
At that sight, Weiss suddenly found herself unable to think and speak. Even after all those things they'd seen and been through, there was still something so inherently wrong in seeing that girl cry… and the fact that Weiss was the one to have caused it hurt her way more than the damage her body had sustained. Because of that, she averted her gaze and looked to the side, hoping that it would make it easier for her to breathe.
There she noticed something she hadn't before, in the heat of battle. She had been aware that they'd been fighting on a flower field, but only in that moment did she recognize the familiar plant with flowers of five white petals grouped into beautiful clusters.
'How fitting,' she thought, her pained smile still tugging at her lips. She reached out, picked one of the intact flowers and put it in Ruby's hand. And then she whispered:
"Fergissmeinnicht*, Ruby." These were her last words before she succumbed to the darkness.
Forget me not.
* Fergissmeinnicht is German name of a flower commonly known as Forget-Me-Not.
In case any of you might've thought that Weiss has died — fear not, she's fine. It might be a Hurt/Comfort story, but it's not the Hospital. c:
EDIT 10/05/19: In case you're wondering how in the world there is a mention of a Manticore in the prologue to a story that has been around since late 2016, the reason is that the prologue was overhauled in 2019, after much deliberation on my part.
I started this fanfic with the idea that I'd get around to explaining the exact circumstances of the battle a bit later down the line and just focused the prologue on Weiss getting hurt, but the story just kept on growing, while my idea of how to handle the narrative moving forward has also matured a bit. Reasoning that combat was never meant to be the focus of After the Storm, I just left it be the way it was for a long while, but the awareness that I have left out too much has kept nagging me.
Eventually, I figured that a bit more context regarding the circumstances of Weiss getting wounded would be appreciated; while it did not affect the plot itself in any meaningful way, it certainly impacted some of the readers' enjoyment, especially considering that it is the very first chapter. Thus, I expanded the prologue with the somewhat lengthy action scene at the very beginning — hope you enjoyed!