Blaze1992: Umm why did he accept the scroll wouldn't someone paranoid and expericened as him realize Atlas most likely bugged that thing to hell and back to keep a eye on such a "wildcard"?
Also I wonder if that guy will keep running to keep Yang from a having a YANGTASTIC day/night.
NeoNazo356: Jack isn't putting any of his personal data into the Scroll that Atlas gave him, and in all likelihood he'll just hand it back to Penny until their next mission together since his involvement with the Anti Robot Master Taskforce is meant to be kept on the down-low. If he was actually seen with top-of-the-line military hardware, he'd have to answer some difficult questions that Atlas might not want answered.
Mostly why he just slipped it into his pocket instead of wearing it like a Scouter.
As for "that guy", I assume you mean Taiyang, and he will try to clear up that misunderstanding.
TM11: Hm, isn't that Scouter a mix of the new Scrolls from Volume 7 and the DBZ Scouters? Apart from that, great chapter! I was kind hoping to read on Jack's thoughts on Vincent and him confirming that Vincent is an Esper and that they exist. I get the feeling that you really don't want Jack and Vincent spending much time together/share the spotlight.
Back to the Robot Masters! Admitedly, I like parts with them because I'm a fan of Mega Man. Haven't watched the new seasons yet, but I have them on my to-watch list.
Oh, reading Jack's talk with Tai in the previous chapter made me think of how you'll handle when Ruby loses her "innoncence". Honestly, that's the only think I dislike the most about her. I'm the kind of guy that likes more realistic characters since I'm that type of person too. Don't like how RT has been handling Ruby and her maturing.
Well, at any rate, keep up the good work.
NeoNazo356: Got it in one. When I saw someone with a Bluetooth clipped to their ear, and remembered the size of those military-grade Atlas Scrolls and how a single screen projected from the bit of plastic, I couldn't help but think "Scouter".
As for Jack's thought on Vincent being an Esper, since it doesn't put him in any immediate danger, it isn't "an immediate concern" for a guy with real enemies waiting to take their shot at him. Narrative-wise, there isn't much reason for Jack and Vincent to hang out together because their social circles don't really overlap. Vincent doesn't know Jack, and Jack has no reason to talk to an RA. Also, there isn't much reason for those cogs to interlock at the present, but eventually…
I've always been a fan of Mega Man, though I mostly played the "Battle Network" and "Starforce" sagas, but now that I have the "Classic Collestions" on PS4 I can play the classics. I'm playing Mega Man 11 right now, and I'm getting a real kick out of the [Double Gear] System. *Wink*
Apart from Adam in Volume 6, Yang never really killed anyone, so for Yang to take a life so-early in the Canon, Raider or not, would really shake her in a way that the Canon didn't touch-up-on, like with Yang's own PTSD. Maybe Rooster Teeth is trying to appeal to a wider target demographic, but that's what I enjoy about FanFiction as a story-telling medium; these sorts of interpersonal issues can be actively explored since there aren't any "budget constraints" like in visual media.
Something Deadpool pointed out in "Deadpool VS Mask (Marvel VS Dark Horse)" on DEATH BATTLE!
Greywing44: PENNYYYYY! I LOVE HER!
...Ahem. Inner fan girl stated. I'm so glad she's alive. It broke my heart into pieces when she was torn apart. Anyhow! I like the dynamic with Penny and Jack. With Jack all not giving a s*** that she's a robot, but the mind whirls regardless.
Fun fact, did not know that bit about the gynoids and Androids. So I guess Cell is still an Android? Cyborg? Now my head hurts.
By the way, you nailed Penny's speech patterns.
NeoNazo356: Yes, well, having the Robot Masters from Mega Man lore show up gave me an ample opportunity to bring her in, though I'll admit part of it came from the first RWBY manga where it showed Penny operating in Vale prior to her meeting with Ruby in Volume 2. And yes, Penny is positively adorable.
Well, you know how it goes. "Honey badger don't give a fuck."
I first learned the word "Gynoid" after digging into My Life as a Teenage Robot, and yes, "gynoid" is the "politically correct" term for a machine entity that self-identifies as a female. As for Cell, technically he falls under the category of "Bioroid" since he's "all-organic", just genetically engineered for powers comparable to his Android (16) and Cyborg (17 and 18) siblings.
Glad you think I got the speech patterns right. I find it helps to visualize the scenes as they're happening like in a visual format, and when I put myself in the characters' shoes, the rest just comes naturally. fairytaildragonslayer also taught me about the importance of Dialogue, and I feel like that really helped my writing improve since Exposition is pretty important for setting up future scenes. It can't be "all action, all the time", you know?
*NEW WORLD*
"So… Jack's out on business and it's just the four of us, just like the good ol' days. What do you wanna do?" Yang asked as Team RWBY perused the Mission Board.
"Hmmm… I dunno…" Ruby hummed, swaying from side to side lazily. "Weiss?"
"You'd know Vale better than I would."
"Blake, what about you?"
"I don't have any strong feelings about our first outing."
Complete and total disaster of their other "first outing" notwithstanding…
"So then it's really up to me then, huh?"
"Well, you are Team Leader, sooo…" Yang trailed off.
"Alright then…" Ruby hummed, scrunching up her face in a way that screamed 'Note. Serious. Face.' "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo-"
"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Weiss groaned as the juvenile display continued.
"-catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, MO!" she shouted as she stabbed a finger into one of the displays.
"Huh. A 'Missing Persons' case. Interesting choice," Blake hummed aloud.
"Well… I guess that's what you get for picking at random," Weiss sighed.
"Or you could just pick something else," Yang shrugged.
"No, no, we can make this work," Ruby stated. "We must respect the sanctity of the 'Eeeny, meeny, miny, mo' song!"
"Are we even qualified for something like this?" Weiss asked skeptically, choosing to ignore her previous statement.
"Says here it's a low-priority case and the police don't have enough manpower, so the city will pay us for services rendered," Blake said turning her attention to the mission specs. "We aren't actually expected to find anyone, but they will be tracking our Scrolls the whole time, so we can't just goof off and still get hourly pay."
"Well, it isn't exactly what I had in mind… but it's still our job to help people, so let's do this!" Ruby cheered.
"Yeah!" Yang whooped.
*NEW WORLD*
"This is a lot less dynamic than I thought it'd be…" Ruby hummed, Team RWBY aboard the shuttle into Vale.
"Well, Jack took the car with him and we can't all squeeze onto the Bumblebee, so it was either this or the airship," Yang said plainly, Blake going over the case file while Weiss appraised her stores of Dust Vials.
"So… Where should we start first?" Weiss asked evenly.
"Let's drop by the police station and ask if they have any new info for us to work off of," Ruby started, her 'Note. Serious. Face.' expression worn proudly. "If anything new's been added to the mission report since it was posted, we'll need to know about it."
"So who exactly has gone missing?" Yang asked.
"According to the file, we're looking at what appears to be a serial kidnapping… except there doesn't appear to be any sort of discernible pattern to the perpetrator's motives," Blake began as she pulled up a list of bios. "Race, gender, species, social class; it's all over the place, so this could just be an overarching Missing Persons case instead of being carried out by a single individual."
"I have an old friend on the shady side of town that typically knows everything going on in Vale. Getting information out of him shouldn't be too hard," Yang said mirthfully.
"Try to keep the property damage to a minimum," Weiss said flatly. "Anything you do reflects on all of us, so I don't want any sort of… 'Crusher of Justice' reputation hanging over our heads; or more-specifically, my head."
"Don't worry, don't worry. I won't totally level the place," Yang waved off. "Besides, Jack's invested a bit of money into the place on the side, and I don't wanna find out the hard way if screwing over any of his business partners also triggers his 'Rage Button'."
"Huh… I didn't know that…" Weiss hummed, seeing the Faunus in a new light. "What kind of business are we talking? Commercial? Industrial?"
*NEW WORLD*
"Entertainment," Yang hummed aloud, the group of four standing across the street from the Vault of Glass nightclub.
"Why'd you wait so long to answer my question?" Weiss asked confusedly.
"Remember before when you asked what kind of business Jack invested in? I was just finishing the thought."
"You said that half an hour ago."
"Yeah, but imagine if you were an outside observer just watching pieces of the conversation."
"Ugh, you've been talking to Nora, haven't you?" Weiss groaned tiredly.
"It's interesting to think about," Yang answered in turn.
"It's ludicrous!"
"Yeah, this is an argument we want to have in public," Blake said as she and Ruby's eyes followed the back-and-forth.
"I'm… going to see if I can get us a meeting…" Ruby said as she slipped away from the bickering pair, making her way across the street before walking up to the doormen. "Um… Excuse me… Sir?"
"Ruby Rose?"
"Oh! Um? Yes, that's me."
"Mr. Braxton added you to the list," the doorman said holding up his Scroll, comparing the girl's face to the one on-file. "You're free to go."
"Oh, well, actually it's my sister that needs to get in, said an old friend of her knows everything going on in Vale, only she's a little…"
"Predisposed?" the man asked with a raised brow.
"Yeah! How'd you know?"
"I can hear her from here," he said looking up and across the street, Ruby flushing in embarrassment as Yang and Weiss drew stares, with Blake trying to make herself as-inconspicuous as possible.
" . . . Hold on a minute… YANG! STOP BICKERING AND GET OVER HERE!" Ruby shouted, Yang and Weiss jumping in their skin as Ruby fumed cutely at them.
*NEW WORLD*
"What do you want?" Junior said curtly.
"Now is that any way to greet your favorite customer?"
"Jack is my favorite customer. Jack actually pays for his drinks."
"Ah! Junior! I'm hurt!" Yang cried in mock shock, her hand going to her chest.
"You're also exposing your cleavage," Weiss huffed, her hand resting on her Myrtenaster as she felt eyes roving over her body.
Atlas had its fair share of high-end nightclubs too, but she'd never been to any of them since any form of scandal could damage the family image.
Maybe nightclubs were just meant to be visited at night, but to be at one in the middle of the day seemed… wasteful somehow…
"Back to the topic at hand… If you aren't buying drinks, what're you here for?" Junior demanded, trying to get things back on track.
"We're looking into a missing persons case, wanted to know if you knew anything," Yang said sliding her Scroll forward, Junior perusing the contents before waving it off dismissively.
"Don't know nothin' about this. WF, CoM, and the CotM don't really kidnap people so-openly like this."
"Who were those last two?" Ruby asked.
"Circle of Man and Children of the Mind," Junior said plainly. "One's pro-Human, the other's pro-Esper; if you believe in that sort of thing."
"Hmmm…" Ruby hummed conspiratorially.
"Ruby, there's no organized group behind this, it's just a random string of kidnappings that the police all lumped together," Weiss sighed as the red-head tried to find strings where there weren't any. "Probably so they wouldn't have to do so much paperwork."
"Can we go now?" Blake asked. "I don't want the union docking us our pay because they think we're goofing off at a nightclub in the middle of the day."
"Yeah, I think we've got all we're going to get here," Ruby nodded, agreeing to the point.
"Oh! Before we go, gimme a strawberry sunrise. With one of those tiny umbrellas."
"Yang, it isn't even noon!" Weiss cried.
"Hey, it's five o' clock somewhere in the world," Yang said cheekily.
*NEW WORLD*
"So… The bartender didn't know anything, and the police didn't know anything either…" Ruby sighed an hour later after getting rushed out of the building by the police.
It wasn't that the VPD were especially helpful, they just wanted to get the HITs out of the building as-quickly as possible; and the fastest way to do that was to give them what they wanted so they'd leave.
There was definitely an underlying sense of resentment between Police and Huntsmen that even Ruby was able to pick up on; something she'd keep in mind when choosing jobs in the future.
"I don't get it… Aren't we all on the same side?" Ruby asked despondently.
She'd been nothing but respectful to the police while she was there, so to have everyone just… leering at her… It really hurt.
"Just because we're on the same side doesn't mean they have to like it," Blake stated. "That the four of us, a bunch of students, have the same level of authority in the Kingdom as grown men and women who've had to work for years to get the same, spits in the face of all they've ever accomplished."
"We don't have this problem in Atlas," Weiss huffed. "Police, Military, and Huntsmen all take their orders under the same Council, so we're better-able to pool our resources without all these imaginary lines you people draw in the sand."
"Of course it probably helps that you all get indoctrinated since childhood," Blake huffed dismissively.
"You call it 'indoctrination', I call it 'patriotism'," Weiss huffed with crossed arms.
"Societal problems aside…" Blake groaned, wanting to steer away from any in-fighting, "What do we do now? We have zero leads and it isn't like whoever's perpetrating these kidnapping is just going to do so right in front of us."
"OHMYGODDON'TLETTHEMTAKEMEEEE!" a man squealed one street over, a wriggling black mass carrying him off like ants skittering away with crumbs.
"QUICK! AFTER HIM!" Ruby called out, the whole of RWBY rushing to follow their leader, Ruby right on the tail of the screaming pedestrian. The squad of four rounding a corner, eyes of different colors widened as they witnessed a pair of flailing arms waving frantically in the air as their owner was dragged into the ground. Ruby whooshing off to meet him, hands wrapping around wrists, the red-head's belly dragged across the asphalt before the man's grip failed and he was spirited away, leaving nothing but a gaping hole in the ground and a circular lid of cast iron to tell the tale.
"Oh no! We lost him!" Ruby cried.
"But now we know where these people are being taken," Blake hummed. "Unless we've stumbled onto something completely unrelated," she amended.
After all, people went missing "all the time".
"So…" Yang hummed as she looked down into the dank, smelly manhole the sudden victim had been absconded away into. "Who wants to go first?"
"I would rather die," Weiss spat, her nose crinkling in disgust.
*NEW WORLD*
Even though a life was literally on the line, Weiss vehemently refused to go down into Vale's sewers.
Not that they could really fault her for that. Each and every one of them had their own deeply personal reasons for not wanting to go down there either.
After Weiss threatened to cancel Ruby's gun order at More Dakka, the heiress was swiftly exempted from sewer duty, leaving the remaining three to go sewer spelunking.
*SQUEAK!*
"AAUUUGH! RATS!" Ruby cried the moment they touched down on the walkway.
" . . . One or two," Blake commented, her low-light vision taking in the sight of rats by the dozen skittering around just outside their line of sight. "I wonder…" she hummed as they started to walk around, Ruby using her Scroll's light to lead the way. "Was the sewer built because Vale was here, or was Vale built because the sewer was here?"
"Seems like a chicken-and-egg thing to me," Yang hummed.
"It's chicken-or-the-egg," Weiss huffed from topside, Myrtenaster at the ready in case she absolutely had to go down there.
"HEEEEEY!" Ruby called out. "IF ANYONE CAN HEAR US! MAKE A NOISE!"
"Heeelp meeeeee!"
"That way!" Ruby called out, breaking away from the others in pursuit of the voice in the distance.
"Ruby! Slow down! You don't wanna-"
"WhoawhoawhoawhoaWHOA!"
"-trip," Yang deadpanned as Ruby's boots started slipping, the girl flailing out over the murky quote/unquote "water".
Yang prayed that was just water.
"Don't worry! I've got you!" Blake said snaking out her Gambol Shroud to catch her.
However, before Blake could carry out her dashing rescue, Ruby's foot lashed out at the air over the water, a loud *POOF!* ringing out as she kicked off of the air and back onto solid ground.
"Whoo! Nailed it!" Ruby whooped as she stuck the landing.
" . . . Remind me to ask Jack for some after-school lessons, because I really wanna be able to do that," Yang gawped as Ruby avoided the worst spill in the history of worst spills. Ever. Of all time.
"Get in line," Blake said frankly.
Sure, she could move through the air with her Semblance just the same, but the ability to do so without Aura…
Many Hunters took for granted that people could be amazing even without Aura. Sure, Aura could let people walk up walls and even on water, but the ability to make your body as hard as iron always had a robust market in the workplace.
"Heeeeelp! Heeelp! Oh god heeelp!"
"Don't worry! We've got you! Just hang on a little longer!" Ruby cried as she ran off; albeit a little more mindful of her footing.
"UWAAAAAGH! HELP! HELP! HEEEEL-"
"Guys, I think we just lost him," Blake shuddered, not liking the way his voice suddenly cut out.
"Not yet! If there's a will, there's a way!" Ruby cried as she corkscrewed through the air, Blake and Yang following the trail of rose petals Ruby left behind.
The cries of the panicked pedestrian coming in starts and stops, Ruby followed behind while Blake and Yang could only appreciate the rose-scented trail Ruby left behind, Weiss following from the rooftops as best she could.
Eventually, the cries stopped entirely, but Ruby had enough of a bead that she knew where to go.
When the tunnel opened up into a huge circular drop-off however…
"OH CRAP OH CRAP! DAMN YOU GRAVITY!" Ruby cried as the floor fell out from under her and she was left flailing haplessly through the air.
A moment later and a black ribbon snaked its way around her waist, the girl hauled through the air and back onto the ledge by her amber-eyed teammate.
"SHHHHHHHH!" Blake hissed, her hand clamped over the girl's mouth as they retreated from the mouth of the tunnel.
"Why? What do you see down there?" Yang asked.
"You don't wanna know," Blake said with a shudder.
"Well, we can't just turn around and do nothing!" Ruby hissed back.
"No, really, you guys don't want to know," she insisted.
"Why? What's the worst that could be down there? A couple rats?" Yang asked as she confidently swaggered forward and shone her Scroll light down into the abyss, thousands of beady red eyes snapping up to look at her simultaneously.
*NEW WORLD*
Six seconds later…
"RAT STAMPEEEEEDE!" Yang cried as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her, she, Blake, and Ruby firing backwards into the oncoming horde, which dominated the tunnel wall-to-wall like a tidal wave. "OH MY GOD! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!"
"YANG! WHY THE HELL DID YOU ANTAGONIZE THEM!" Blake cried as she emptied out her magazine, frantically fishing for another.
"THEY STARTLED ME!" Yang cried out as she fired two shots backwards, launching herself off her feet and into the air above her teammates' heads.
*SIX SECONDS AGO*
"OHFUCK!" Yang cried as she fired a shot from her Ember Celica into the veritable carpet of rat-shaped Grimm with a loud *BANG!*, furry bone-covered bodies thrown upward like a geyser.
*NOW*
"AND RUBY WASN'T MUCH HELP EITHER!"
*FIVE SECONDS AGO*
"GROSSGROSSSGROSSGROSSGROSSSGROSSGROSS!" Ruby squealed as she fired round after round into the rat-carpet, each *BANG!* of her sniper rifle causing the Vermin to evaporate into a red mist, Blake frantically trying to haul them away from the now-irate Plague.
*NOW*
"WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE!?" Ruby cried out.
"DID YOU SEE THE RAT-CARPET! THEY'VE BEEN PICKED CLEAN!" Yang cried out.
"Well at least we know what happened to the people now…" Blake trailed off.
"Weiss! WEISS!" Ruby squealed into her Scroll.
"What is it? And what is that noise?"
"No time to explain! Just make sure the streets are clear! We're coming up, and we're coming up hot!"
"Alright, I'll see what I can do. I'll tell you when I'm ready."
"HURRYYYYYY!" Yang cried out, one of the Vermin leaping up and clutching to her hair.
*NEW WORLD*
"EVERYONE! CLEAR THE ROAD! IT'S AN EMERGENCY!" Weiss shouted as she threw up a waist-high wall of ice across the street behind her, angry pedestrians honking their horns at her before a shotgun blast launched the nearby manhole cover upward, the vehicles on the other end of the road squealing to get out of the way of the falling lid, Yang shooting herself up from the sewers a moment later.
"CLOSEITUPCLOSEITUPCLOSEITUP!" the blond said frantically as she fired a staccato of rounds down the hole.
"Move!" Weiss said as she swiped out her Myrtenaster, a sheet of ice covering the hole the moment Yang threw herself to the side.
"Bigger!"
"What?"
"BIGGER!" Yang demanded, the heiress throwing a column of ice over the sheet. "BIGGERRRRRR!"
"Why? What's down there?" the heiress asked, a loud bruxing noise causing her head to snap back to the column she'd just summoned, a writing black mass of fur and teeth burrowing up out of the ground and into the ice.
"MOVE YOUR ASS! THAT ICE WON'T HOLD 'EM BACK FOREVER!" Yang cried as she grabbed Weiss by the back of her bolero and hauled her off her feet.
"Yang Xiao Long WHAT DID YOU DO!?" the heiress demanded as a geyser of rat-shaped Grimm spilled out of the ice and into the street, causing pedestrians to scatter in all directions.
*NEW WORLD*
"HOW COULD THERE BE THIS MANY GRIMM UNDER VALE WITHOUT ANYONE REALIZING IT!?" Ruby cried as she and Blake ran like their lives depended on it.
Because they kinda did.
"IT'S THE SEWERS! SEWERS HAVE BEEN HOME TO NIGHTMARISH CREATURES FOR GENERATIONS!" Blake cried.
One of Dr. Oobleck's history lessons portrayed the sewer systems in the past as having an almost Dungeon-like presence, where guilds of "Verminocitors" would peril the cavernous depths to slay creatures too large for the local cats to deal with.
Of course, as technology improved, many of the "guilds" became antiquated, before being outmoded altogether.
What was happening now… was proof of what happened when you marched into the future too quickly.
"DAMN YOU MARCH OF PROGRESS!"
"WHO ARE YOU YELLING AT?"
"YES!"
"BLAKE I GET THAT ON OCCASION YOU'RE THE FUNNY ONE BUT NOW'S REALLY NOT THE TIME!" Ruby cried as she grasped at her Drill Rounds, before thinking better of it and drawing out a pipe bomb conveniently labeled Emergency Pipe Bomb in bright red letters.
"Where were you even keeping that thing?!"
"DO NOT QUESTION MY METHOOODS!"
*NEW WORLD*
*BOOOOOM!*
"What the hell is going on down there?" Weiss cried as part of the street behind them bulged upward.
"RATS!"
"Rats? Wait, do you mean literally or-"
"SO MANY RAAATS!"
"Okay, glad we made that clear," the heiress deadpanned. "RUBY! WHAT HORNET'S NEST DID YOU KICK DOWN THERE?!"
"RUNNING NOW! BITCH AT ME LATER!"
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!" the heiress shrieked aghast.
"SHE SAID 'BITCH AT ME LATER'!" the blond beside her answered. "AND QUITE FRANKLY, I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENT!"
*BOOOOOM!*
"Seriously, what the hell did you do down there?!" the heiress repeated.
*NEW WORLD*
"Blake… I'm sorry!" Ruby panted as they ran, the minutes ticking on. "I'm sorry I kicked the hornet's nest!"
"Save your breath… We still need to get out of here," Blake said looking over her shoulder. " . . . Got any more of those pipe bombs?" she asked hopefully.
"Two per mission's my limit," Ruby said bashfully.
Blake couldn't tell if she was joking or not.
"So… Any idea how to get the fuck out of here without getting turned into rat food?"
If they tried climbing out of the manhole and the lid was still topside waiting for them…
"Blake… I have an idea… that's probably going to ruin someone's day."
"Ruby, all the missing people we've been hunting have probably been turned into rat food. I think we're well beyond someone's day being 'ruined'," Blake said flatly.
" . . . You know what, good point," Ruby nodded. "Weiss! I have an idea!"
*NEW WORLD*
"Alright Ruby, you're going to want to hang another left! After that, it's a straight shot to your escape point!" Weiss instructed as Yang set up tripods around a manhole in the center of the Commercial District.
The rat-flood couldn't corner very well, so once that'd been found out, it was just a matter of finding a good point for the two still trapped underground to escape through.
"Lights are on!" Yang shouted as the floodlights shone into the sewers, which to Ruby and Blake shone like a beacon.
"I see it! Blake, hang on, I'm getting us the hell outta here!"
A moment later and a swirling blur of red and black shot out of the manhole, the heiress stabbing her Myrtenaster into the inner wall and filling the portal with her strongest ice a moment later.
"Okay, they're out! Now what?" Yang asked as she ran over to Ruby and Blake and started fretting over them.
"We fill the sewers with enough rat poison to kill a small country and let nature run its course," Weiss answered as she proceeded to coat the surrounding street. "I'm sure the Council will understand when I forward them the-"
*CRACK!*
"…bill…" Weiss said as her stomach sunk, the whole of the street bucking underneath them as something massive protested.
"Wwwhat was that?" Yang asked as she looked at the crack running between her boots.
"That… was a very… veeeery bad thing," the heiress shuddered.
"Should we run…?" Ruby asked tiredly, exhausted from the non-stop fleeing she'd been doing. "Cause I'm not sure how much more of that I've got in me…"
"Wait… Now the horde's changing direction," Blake said as the road-bucking moved away from them, like a shark changing direction in the water.
"Quick! What's in that general direction!?" Weiss asked as she frantically typed into her Scroll.
"Police headquarters," Yang answered.
"How do you know that?" the heiress asked before the blond grabbed her cheeks and turned her head, a large building labeled-
HEADQUARTERS
VALE POLICE
-looming in the distance.
"Why're the Grimm going there? The police are the good guys… right?" Ruby asked worriedly.
"Accepting bribes, racial profiling, general corruption? Take your pick," Blake said as the girls ran after the Grimm teeming beneath the streets.
"Quick! We have to warn them!" Yang cried.
"Why? They're just a bunch of rats. What's the worst that could happen?" Weiss asked skeptically.
Cue Pacific Rim OST – Category 5 by Ramin Djawadi
A moment later and the parking lot in front of the VPD HQ exploded upward, police cruisers sent flying in every direction as a massive Vermin Lord erupted from the sewers, thirty feet tall on its hind legs and loosing a bellowing roar as lesser Vermin fell around it in a deluge like raindrops.
" . . . You were saying?" Yang asked sarcastically
"I… am so glad I didn't go down there…" Weiss said fighting the urge to vomit as thousands of lesser Vermin blanketed the block.
"How did something that massive even fit in those tunnels!?" Ruby panicked, the thing far broader at the shoulder than the tunnels they'd been spelunking moments ago.
"Actually, rats have a flexible skeleton that lets them squeeze into extremely tight spaces," Blake said matter-of-factly.
"We don't have time for your Animal World bullshit!" Weiss shrieked panickingly, whereas in the back of her mind she was comparing the specimen before her too the "Lesser" Vermin that Jack had caught for her.
Size notwithstanding, the specimen under her command and the one looming over the police headquarters were largely identical. The only areas they were notably different was the shape of its skull-like bone helmet, now including sharpened molars exposed to the open air in the back of its mouth, a thick mane of fur wrapping its neck like a lion's, a heavy band of armor running down its back, additional plates of armor on its forelimbs and hindlegs, flattened spines on the end of its bone-colored tail like a tuft of fur, and a heavy set of rib-like armor encircling its chest. There were numerous scratches and pockmarks on its bone armor, countless bladed weapons impaled in them marking its age, one of its ears having a chunk missing like it'd been blown away with buckshot.
"That's… a very big rat…" the heiress shuddered as thoughts of such a monster living underneath Atlas came to mind. That such a monster could… explode from the very earth at a moment's notice filled her with dread, which was why she snapped a photo so Atlas wouldn't be caught unawares. Even if it wasn't glamorous, she was sure someone would be patriotic-enough to take up the role of the Verminocitors of olde. "Guys… I think we might be out of our depth here."
"You think?!" Blake yelped frantically as she spammed the SOS button on her Scroll until the screen cracked around her finger. "Quick! All of you! Get the word out on your Scrolls! If all four of us send out a distress signal, Beacon will have to send Huntsmen our way."
"I'm pretty sure they'll be able to find out something's wrong all on their own," Weiss said as the Vermin Lord wreaked havoc, plumes of smoke rising from demolished buildings as its bony tail whipped about.
"Well, at least we've got backup," Yang said hopefully as numerous VPD officers started discharging their weapons into the massive creature's hide through the windows, only for its thick fur and hardened bone armor to soak up most of their rounds, very little in the way of actual damage being inflicted.
"Quick! We have to help them!" Ruby shouted as she broke off into a sprint and fired rounds at the Grimm's head, round bouncing off the bones around its eye before the Grimm turned its attention to her, and away from police headquarters. "Guys! While I keep this thing distracted, help the police!"
"Right, cause it looks like they really need it!" Yang nodded as the majority of the flood poured into the front doors, panicked screams filling the air as the tide of Vermin flowed up the steps like a river in reverse.
"Oh my god there's so many of them!"
"I'm running out of bullets, here!"
"Everybody's dying!"
"Someone call a really big exterminator!"
-said such voices in the distance as those inside misplaced their fecal matter.
"This is worse than I imagined!" Weiss retched as they stormed into the precinct, bodies absolutely teeming with Vermin that swarmed over them, the fresh scent of blood intermingled with blood-curdling screams as the lesser Grimm made meals out of police and criminals alike.
What was further proof of the Grimm being drawn to corruption within the VPD was that while police and criminal alike were being messily devoured, spattering the floor and walls with viscera, younger criminals and police officers who had yet to give into vice and temptation in any truly meaningful fashion -as far as Grimm were concerned- were actually being passed over by the horde.
"Quick! Everyone out of the building!" Weiss shouted at the top of her lungs.
A moment later and screaming bodies covered in rats fell past the windows behind her.
"Not what I meant!" the heiress shrieked indignantly as a sickening *SPLAT* was heard.
"Less screaming, more shooting!" Yang said as she blasted the Grimm carpeting the floor, Blake letting out a flurry of slashes with her own blades, Weiss relegated to skewering lesser Vermin like peas on the tines of a fork.
*NEW WORLD*
"This is bad… This is really, really bad…" Ruby shuddered as the onslaught of screams continued to get to her, lesser Vermin and Human bodies tumbling out the police headquarter windows like a pot boiling over.
*SKREEEEEEEE!*
"AAUUUGH!" Ruby cried as she flew away from the Vermin Lord's downward paw strike, the vehicle she was standing on crumbling like a tin can underfoot. "Not good. Notgoodnotgoodnotgood!" Ruby cried as she discharged round after round, her shot group wide within trembling hands.
Casting a sidelong glance at the police headquarters, officers and criminals alike fleeing while others were being accosted by pursuing Grimm, the sound of shotgun blasts told her that Yang at least was having a good time, though compared to all that business with the Ruby of Grief that'd turned their other teammate into a kill-happy murder-beast, she had a hard time deciding whether this or that mission for Team RWBY was worse.
A shadow looming over her, Ruby dissolved into a plume of rose petals and whirled up and away, firing off another couple shots to keep the Grimm kited toward her before kicking off the air and going sidelong as the Grimm lunged at her, its incisors snapping shut on the space she'd occupied moments before.
The girl flying onto a rooftop and hiding behind an AC unit, Ruby caught ragged breaths as sweat trickled down her temple, adrenaline surging through her veins and making the breaths she took seem so much smaller than needed.
A moment later when This Will Be The Day by Jeff Williams blared loudly out of her Scroll, the girl let out a panicked scream and fumbled for the Answer button before bringing the communicator up to her cheek.
"SHHHHH! Be very, very quiet. I'm being hunted," she whispered.
"Ruby, I received your Team's distress signal and the giant Grimm you're fighting's been plastered all over the news," Ozpin whispered over the line. "I'm scrambling a shuttle to bring reinforcemtns your way as quickly as I can and LOOK OUT!"
Ruby realizing the shadows around her had thickened, whirled away just as bone-white molars bit into the AC unit like a block of cheese, metal crunching and giving way as Ruby descended back to street level. Metal plating and parts falling from the Grimm's mouth as the AC unit was spat out, Ruby's retreating boot soles almost met open air had she not kicked off of the void and back onto the asphalt, her back now to the enormous breach that'd been made.
*HIISSSSSSSS*
"So… Done in by a giant rat…" Ruby panted, feeling the drain her Aura had taken from using her Semblance so much. "I'll admit… not how I thought today would go…"
"That's quitter talk, Ruby!"
Flares exploding across the right side of the Grimm's face, Yang leapt out of the top-floor window she'd been occupying before grabbing a fistful of the Grimm's mane and sending shotgun blasts toward its eye, only for the Grimm's flailing to save its flame-colored orb from destruction. Weiss skating in on her Glyphs and casting a sheet of ice over the breach so no-one'd fall in, right as the Grimm sent Yang pinwheeling upward in preparation to wolf her down, a black ribbon snapped around the blond's waist before bringing her back to ground level, the blond's hair exploding in a plume of flame just as the Grimm's left foreleg came down atop her, the ground cratering but Yang's knees refusing to buckle.
"So Ruby…" Blake said as Yang uppercut the Grimm's forelimb and sent it reeling with a super-powered blow. "You happen to have a secret weapon in that satchel of yours?" she asked hopefully as the Grimm fought to spatter Yang on the ground like a bug.
Cue Pacific Rim OST – Title by Ramin Djawadi
"Ah! I do!" Ruby realized, frantically digging through her ammo pouch and feeling around for just the right ammo block for the occasion.
"Well, get it ready and make it snappy. We'll be lucky the city doesn't sue us after this is all over," Blake said leaping back into the fray alongside Weiss and Yang, buying Ruby the time she needed.
"Arthur…" Ruby whispered as she held the magazine of drill-tip rounds in her hands; the ones he'd custom-tooled just for her. "Wish me luck," she said pecking the emblem before slotting it into Crescent Rose, ratchetting the bolt, steadying her breath, and taking aim.
*BANG*
The drill-tipped round squealing with a- WHIRRRRRRRRRR!* -as it sliced through the air, the carbide tip meeting one of its armor-like ribs, sparks momentarily guttered forth before the round breached the Grimm's hide and exploded out the back a moment later, the massive Grimm shrieking in agony as miasma billowed out the wound.
"YES!" Ruby cheered. "ARTHUR I LOVE YOU! MWAH!" she said kissing the side of her weapon.
However, the jubilation she felt was short-lived, as the Vermin Lord's full attention was now turned on her, its acidic saliva dribbling onto the street and eating holes into the asphalt.
"Ohhhh crapbaskets…" Ruby muttered weakly before taking aim and firing again, the Vermin Lord despite its massive girth quite agile as it weaved to the side, its flanks getting grazed instead of a full-on bodily breach. "GUYS!" *BANG!* "I NEED YOU TO HOLD IT DOWN!" *BANG!* "I CAN'T GET A CLEAN SHOT!" she cried out, sobbing inwardly at every wasted round lost to her. 'Such a waste!' she wailed in anguish.
"We're on it!" Blake said from the rooftop as she launched her Gambol Shroud with a *Bang*.
The Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe whirling through the air, Blake grabbed part of her ribbon and snapped it back, drawing it taut causing the kusarigama to whip under and over the Grimm's neck. Yang swooping in and snagging the weapon, a shot of her Ember Celica across her body sent her careening toward the ground where she dug in her heels. The Vermin Lord rearing back pulling Blake and Yang along for the ride, the blond turned the weapon on herself with a roar and fired a trio of rounds into her exposed abdomen, her hair exploding in a plume of flame right as Weiss stabbed her Myrtenaster into the ground in front of the Grimm, a sheet of ice forming at the Grimm's feet right as Yang found the strength to wrench the Grimm to the ground with a guttural roar.
The entire block trembling from the meteoric force of impact, the monster's head whipping wildly as its claws fought for purchase, Ruby took aim before firing another Drill Round with a *BANG!*. Sparks flying as custom-tooled carbide tip met armored bone, a moment later bone fragments from the Grimm's outer clavicle exploded out its right shoulder blade, the explosion of pain and its claws finding purchase giving the Grimm the strength it needed to rear up to its full height. A blood-curdling squeal piercing the air and causing glass panes to tremble in their frames, Blake and Yang were sent for a loop, the blond sent through a storefront window while Blake was sent pinwheeling upwards.
The Grimm opening up its maw as Blake plummeted helplessly into its waiting gullet, a flash of white and a powdery plume of snow flared off to the side before a massive armored limb materialized, striking its throat in a powerful lariat that sent it for a loop of its own. Its massive black frame crushing several vehicles on the way down, Yang dashed in and wrapped her arms around Blake before her back met a frozen ice-slide, the two flying away from the crater site.
"Great shot, Ruby!" Yang cheered as she helped Blake to her feet.
"Yes, but we're not done yet!" Weiss said as the Grimm rolled onto its belly, the front of its body held up by its left forelimb while its right dangled limply, a thick plume of miasma spilling out of the spiral-ground wound though its shoulder.
The Grimm leering at them with absolute loathing, burning hate-filled eyes darted around the area before it whipped out its tail and impaled an armored van on the end. The bony spines on its tale flaring outward, the vehicle was suddenly heaved sidelong.
"RAT FLAAAAAAAIL!" Yang cried as the Vermin Lord swung out its improvised weapon like a morning-star, Ruby hauling Weiss away in a cyclone of whirling cloth while Blake grabbed onto Yang and left a clone of them behind.
"IT CAN USE TOOLS!" Ruby cried as the Grimm grabbed fistfuls of the nearby buildings and flung them like grapeshot, the girls throwing themselves behind parked vehicles which were utterly pulverized by the assault, an enormous wall of dust being kicked up as the Grimm whirled around with its "Rat Flail" and demolished the surrounding buildings.
"Oh crap! I can't see a thing!" Yang blanched, choking back a cough as slate-colored dust filled the air.
"Maybe not, but in the end, your eyes aren't the only way to see," Ruby said whirling around the side of her cover and taking a knee.
Her eyes drooping closed, tuning out the smell of flaming rubble and the sounds of panicking pedestrians, Ruby listened for the Grimm's footfall, then the next, and the third after that before raising her gun barrel to the spot she knew the Grimm would be, and firing another round into the wall of dust. A spiraling void of empty air cut through the gritty soup, the Vermin Lord's pain-filled shriek let the girl know she'd hit her target despite the thick haze around them; something the Grimm had not been expecting.
"Great shot, Ruby!" Yang whooped excitedly. "How many more of those party favors you got left?"
"Five more, give or take a few."
"Well, you'd better make those shots count," Weiss said as her Myrtenaster glowed teal before she thrust out the tip, a cyclone of wind billowing outward and catching the follow-up swing of the "Rat Morning-Star" and stopping it just-short of hitting them. "Because I doubt this thing's going to go down without a FIGHT!" she said channeling more Aura into her blade, the cyclone growing in size and throwing the weapon back, its bone spines catching the asphalt on the way down.
"Weiss! Hold it down a little longer! I'm gonna pull a Monster Hunt on this thing!"
"Pull a what?!" the heiress gawped confusedly.
"Just go with it!" Yang said slamming her fists together, fire exploding off her mane before she flung herself upward and struck the Grimm atop the skull, sending its chin plummeting into the asphalt once more.
While the others kept the Vermin Lord busy, Ruby fired another two Drill Rounds into the most-compromised-looking part of the Grimm's tail before switching back to the Concussion Rounds, snagging her scythe blade on the damaged plates, and pulling the trigger.
*BANG!*
The Grimm rounding on her as metal bit into flesh, Ruby chuckled awkwardly as her scythe failed to make the cut. A moment later the girl let out a terrified- "EYAAAAAGH!" -as the Grimm swung out its tail, taking her for a ride had Blake not snagged it with her Gambol Shroud and used a lamp post as leverage. A bone-crunching ankle-strike from Yang caused the Grimm's stance to falter, giving Ruby the opening she needed to empty out the last of her Concussion Rounds before the "Rat Morning-Star" came free in a spray of miasma and ichor, the Grimm letting out a panicked squeal of its own as it was flung to the ground by its loss of equilibrium.
"There! No more Rat Flail!" Yang whooped.
"I can not believe we're calling it that!" Weiss squawked.
"MOVE! CUTTING OFF ITS TAIL ONLY MADE IT MORE PISSED!" Blake squealed as she dragged Weiss away from the Grimm's pain-fueled retaliatory strike, its subsequent tail swipes far less-deadly, but still devastating in their own right as cars caught in their wake were flung like toys.
"Yang! Before the Rat Flail completely evaporates!"
"I'm on it!" the blond nodded, her hair coming alight as she grabbed the remaining end of the tail, dug in her heels, and wrenched the spike-laden vehicle from the ground. Letting out another guttural roar as she gained some momentum, a few seconds later the blond let it loose like a hammer throw. "Oh crap! I missed!" she cried as the Grimm ducked and the vehicle flew high.
"No you didn't!" Weiss said summoning her Arma Gigas' arm and uppercutting the Vermin Lord in the chin, the Grimm's torso snapping upward before the spiked van-borne flail caught it between the shoulder blades, the Grimm letting out another yell as all twenty-seven tons plus-bone-mass sent it plummeting to the ground.
"Quick! While it's stunned!" Blake called out.
"CHEW OOOON THIS!" Ruby shouted as she leveled her Crescent Rose at the stunned Grimm's muzzle, the last of her Drill Rounds punching holes through its incisors with a- *BANG-BANG* *BANG-BANG* *BANG-BANG-BANG!*
Flame-colored eyes going wide in their sockets, the Grimm let out ragged coughs as miasma billowed out of both its ruined maw, and the superfluous new asshole Arthur's carbide-flavored tic-tacs made on the way out.
END OST
"YEAH! How'd you like THOSE breath mints, dragon breath!?" Ruby trash-talked.
"It's dead, Ruby," Weiss deadpanned. "You're trash-talking a corpse."
"Hey, you can let the girl trash-talk. She had to spend all her boyfriend's lovingly-made party favors on that thing."
"Y-Yang!" Ruby squawked with a blush on her face.
"What? It's true isn't it~?"
"Y-Yeah but… You're embarrassing meee!"
"Ruby, who're you going to be embarrassed in front of? Everyone left," Blake said gesturing to the ghost town around them. "Eesh. Police headquarters definitely took a beating," she winced as she saw the ruined building off to the side, many of the lesser Vermin retreating into the dark corners now that their food source had been exhausted.
"Don't worry. I'm sure the VPD has a robust and steady stream of candidates in the wings to replenish their depleted numbers," Weiss stated in as-upbeat of a tone as she could find amidst the carnage.
"Yeah, maybe in Atlas, but in Vale, most of the police are just Hunter and Border Patrol dropouts who only sign up so they can lord power over everyone else after failing out so-horribly," Yang said dismissively. "If the police were any bit competent, guys like Torchwick would not get as much traction as they do, and if they weren't all corrupt they wouldn't have been turned into Grimm-chow when there's three Huntresses-"
"-in-training."
"-in their general vicinity," Yang said amidst Blake's interruption, remembering how it was Ruby that'd chased Torchwick away from that Dust store, not the police.
That, and, some of that may've been what she thought Jack would say if he were there.
Disposition aside, the guy added a certain flavor to the team that RWBY lacked before.
That and a bit of eye candy for the girls to enjoy, but that was a story for another time.
"Soooo… Mission accomplished?" Ruby asked hopefully, the whirring of a shuttle from overhead heralding the arrival of their backup… Late as it was.
"Team Ruby! Are you alright?" Glynda said alighting next to them with her Glyphs.
"Yeah, don't worry, Goodwitch, we're A-okay!" Yang answered with a winning smile.
"Maybe, but the police headquarters does not appear to be as such," Port hummed.
"Girls, what did you do?!" Glynda demanded as she beheld the damage in full.
"What brave huntresses have done for centuries, my dear Glynda. Survive!" Dr. Oobleck proclaimed proudly.
"And you girls bested this creature all on your own?" Port asked. " . . . Wait, weren't there five of you?"
"Jack's off on business, so we're short our big gun."
"I thought I was our big gun," Yang whined at Blake's comment.
"No, it's obvious that Crescie is the big gun," Ruby argued.
"You can argue semantics later, ladies," Glynda sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. " . . . The Council is not going to like this."
"Hey, to be fair, this wasn't a giant monster-slaying quest, we were just hunting missing persons," Weiss stated.
"By the looks of these skeletons, I would presume that the missing persons you were hunting prior to this altercation met a similar fate?" Dr. Oobleck asked as he beheld the flesh-stripped skeletal forms scattered about, the occasional strip of flesh or eyeball left behind.
"Yeah… URP! Pretty much," Ruby retched.
"Well… It was only a matter of time before the constables' hubris got the better of them," Port hummed, a few of the stragglers poking up from their hiding places.
"Wait, you knew this was going to happen!?" Weiss squawked.
"Well, not immediately, and certainly not in this exact fashion, but police corruption has never been stronger than the arc of history."
"Hey! History is my 'schtick'!" Dr. Oobleck argued.
"FOCUS!" Glynda snapped. "Girls… I assume you at least attempted to mitigate the damage?"
"Um… Guys?" Blake spoke up.
"Define… 'attempted'," Ruby requested.
"Guys?"
"So I assume you did not."
"Ahem. Guys!"
"It's a little hard fighting a giant monster without causing collateral," Yang stated frankly.
"GUYS!"
"WHAT!?" they all rounded on her.
Cue Pacific Rim OST – Title by Ramin Djawadi
"The monster's getting back up," Blake said poignantly, the bone spikes protruding from the armored van evaporating allowing the improvised weapon to fall from the Grimm's back, flame-colored eyes snapping open before a gut-wrenching *SKREEEEEEEE!* bellowed out into the air.
"Ohhh crapbaskets," Glynda muttered.
"Oh, you say that too?" Ruby chirped.
"RUUUUUN!" Port bellowed, discharging a fireball from his Blunderaxe into the Grimm's face.
*SKREEEEEE!*
"I thought you said you killed that thing!" Glynda yelped in surprise.
"I gave it a superfluous new butthole! It was implied! VERY! STRONGLY! IMPLIED!" Ruby screeched as they all scattered.
"Where's Jack when you need him?!" Weiss cried. "Last I checked, killing giant monsters was kind of his beat!"
"Hey, we don't need Jack!" Yang yelped.
"NobuthispresencewouldbeGREATLYAPPRECIATED!" Blake squealed as the role of "cat & mouse" found themselves paradoxically reversed.
"Do not worry, young miss! I've got you!" Dr. Oobleck declared, a hearty sip from his thermos taken before he whipped it out, turning his drinking implement into a large torch. "Fire Arte: Flame Lance!" he yelled sweeping his thermos/torch through the air overhead, a large corporeal lance of flame shooting out and spearing the Grimm through the side, flames spewing out of its mouth and its "superfluous new butthole".
"Yeah! How's that for a 'burning sensation'?" Yang whooped.
"Not the time, Yang!" Ruby cried as she dragged her sister out of the way, Glynda levitating three crushed cars overhead before raining them down like meteors, the Grimm buffeted further and further into the ground until its head was smothered in asphalt.
"HAVE AT THEEEEE!" Port yelled as he loosed a carpet of flame upon the ground, the asphalt bubbling and melting causing the Grimm to sink into the road.
"Ugh! Smells like burning hair!" Yang retched.
"I'm surprised you aren't already familiar with the smell."
"It's not real fire!" Yang snapped at Weiss.
"Could've fooled me…"
"FOCUS!" Ruby screamed as the Grimm flailed its way to freedom. " . . . Guys…! That thing's REGENERATING!"
"What?! Impossible! Grimm aren't possessive of self-healing properties…!" Dr. Oobleck said confusedly.
"But look at that! The wounds! They're…!"
"Healing…" Glynda bit out, the mortal wounds of its flesh closing up while bones knit back together; albeit imperfectly.
"How is this possible?" Dr. Oobleck asked aloud, more curiosity than fear in his tone.
"There must be an unknown element at work here… Port! Concuss it! Schnee, when I hold it up, split it open with one of your Summons! The rest of you hold down its tail!"
"Got it!" the two of them responded, Port casting his upperclothes aside and bulking up while Weiss readied a massive Glyph behind her. "NOW!" Glynda shouted as a trio of purple Glyphs formed around the Vermin Lord's ankles, sweat pouring down the woman's brow as the held the flailing creature aloft, Ruby, Blake, and Yang pinning its tail by their own means.
"RISING DRAGON FIST!" Port bellowed as the ground exploded underneath him, the now-bulky man ascending in a flying uppercut, his fist coated with flame as he struck the underside of the Grimm's skull-shaped helm, its brain rattling about inside its skull.
"GIANT SLASH!" Weiss bellowed out as the massive armored arm of her Arma Gigas appeared from the Glyph, the heiress rearing her weapon back before the two blades came down, the enormous blade carving the Grimm open like a Thanksgiving turkey from its left shoulder to its right hip.
"There! Inside its body!" Dr. Oobleck shouted, his finger extended towards a luminous crimson orb nestled where the creature's heart would be, its surface textured like swirling clouds amidst a setting sun.
"It's a Crimson Orb!" Weiss gaped with wide eyes. "But it isn't as big as the one from before…!"
"Oobleck! Stop the wound from regenerating! Schnee! Rip it out!"
That Dr. Oobleck neglected to insist acknowledgement of his doctorate showed he was willing to set such trivialities aside aside in a time of crisis. The man adjusting his glasses before raising up his thermos/torch, he dug in his heels before pouring his Aura into his weapon, the Red Dust inside it catalyzing before an enormous column of flame spilled out, burning flame meeting regenerating flesh as it tried to close around the crimson treasure within like hands grasping treasure, the PhD holder stabbing the pommel of his weapon into the ground as he struggled to keep his aim true.
"Commmme… onnnnn…!" Weiss groaned, sweat pouring down her brow as the Glyph from before grew larger and turned to the side, the massive arm retreating into the runic formation before a burst of snow-colored light erupted and the upper body of the Arma Gigas in all its glory burst forth. "SONIC THRUST!" the heiress shouted stabbing her rapier forward, the Arma Gigas' longsword letting out a *BOOM!* as it broke the sound barrier and impaled the Grimm through the neck before it could dodge.
Glynda's burden immediately lightened as the Grimm's body went slack, the Arma Gigas abandoned hold of its weapon and dove headlong into the monster's gaping wound, armored fingers digging into flesh and wrapping around the Crimson Orb within. Sweat positively gushing out of Weiss' body as she strained with all her might, the remainder of Team RWBY, abandoning the Grimm's now-limp tail, wrapped the ribbon of Blake's Gambol Shroud around the Arma Gigas' chest and heaved with all their might. Yang's hair exploding in its own torrent of flame, their combined Auras dropping like a stone as they heaved, Ports muscles rippled as he wrapped the end of the ribbon around his own hands and gave a mighty heave of his own, the combined effort of novice and veteran Hunters alike bearing fruit as sinews of muscle snapped and tore one by one by one by one until, finally, the heiress' body was flung backward as the Crimson Orb broke free, sailing through the air as the last strip of flesh holding it inside the Grimm snapped, the Arma Gigas evaporating almost immediately-after.
END OST
"So… Think we got him that time?" Yang asked sarcastically, the blond laying limply on the ground.
"I won't… be leaving that up… to chance…!" Glynda bit out as the whole of her body became alight with a purple aura, veins throbbing in her forehead as the Grimm's body folded backwards with a bone-powdering *CRUNCH!*, before it was folded completely in two with a *SNAP!*, the professor drawing both arms across her body as she proceeded to wring the Grimm like an oversized towel, black ichor gushing out of its utterly pulverized body only to evaporate before it hit the ground. A compressed orb black as pitch dropping to the ground with an earth-shaking *THUD!* a moment later, Glynda's hands went to her knees as sweat poured down her face as her work of Auric prowess reached its conclusion.
"Whoa… Remind me never to get her angry…" Yang shuddered as she stared at the compressed rat-ball, a deep crater left in its wake as it was dropped.
"I never… want to do that… ever… again…" the heiress groaned tiredly, the "circuits" her Aura circulated through burning across her exhausted frame.
"The difficulty on that Mid-Boss was WAY too high…!" Ruby groaned exasperatedly.
"Seconded…" Blake sighed, too tired to say much else.
"Girls… You did very… very well all things considered," Glynda sighed as Dr. Oobleck helped her to her feet and Port deflated. "I think you've earned a reprieve."
"There isn't enough money in the world to make me take on a mission tomorrow," Weiss groaned as her muscles burned. "Not by a long shot."
"Wait, do you really mean that?" Ruby asked with wide eyes.
"Literally and metaphorically, yes."
"Man… Wait 'til Jack hears about this…!" Yang said with a goofy grin.
"We… should probably downplay all the collateral…" Blake said looking around.
"Yeah… you may be right…" Yang winced. Now that the sounds of combat had died down, the utter lack of any other noise was almost… haunting…
"Of course, all Jack has to do is turn on the news to see how bad things are," the ravenette conceeded.
*NEW WORLD*
"You were rather kind, sending those girls back to Beacon the way you did," Dr. Oobleck hummed as he and Goodwitch made their way through the tunnels Team Ruby had taken to their final destination.
It wasn't hard to follow the trail, especially with his thermos/torch lighting the way; just follow the walls covered in teeth and claw-marks.
Like someone'd gone to town with a sand blaster. Or maybe a belt grinder.
Of course just to be sure, they made sure to mark their way with some chalk arrows on the floor and walls.
It was old-fashioned, but a Huntsman never left home without chalk.
Amongst other things, but that was a story for another day.
"Yes, well… Like I said, I think they've earned their reprieve. They went above and beyond what was expected of them, and many more lives would've been lost had they not acted."
"Though that doens't change the fact lives were lost…" Dr. Oobleck sighed. "Not that I'm putting the blame on their shoulders!" he winced back at the look Glynda shot him. "What I meant to say was… had the Verminocisters' Guild still been around, such a heavy congregation of Vermin would've never been alowed to accumulate as it had."
"Something I'm sure you'll be quite willing to bring up at the next Council meeting," Glynda concurred, willing to subject the politicians to Oobleck's own brand of torment. "Having a massive Grimm attack inside the heart of the Kingdom… It's just a good thing it was only a plague of Vermin, Vermin Lord notwithstanding. If it were anything collectively larger we could've had a real catastrophe on our hands."
The only reason the VPD HQ had been so-ravaged as it was, general corruption notwithstanding, was because there were enough Vermin in one case to blanket it. Had the Vermin been more spread-out, anyone with the nerve could've easily flattened the lesser variety underfoot, and individually, Vermin weren't so brave as to hazard a well-aimed boot. The plague's confidence, if it could be called that, came largely from their overwhelming numbers and the Lord they congregated around.
"Yes, and on a subsequent note, I'm quite surprised we were able to recover an intact Crimson Orb following this debacle. With the way the previous specimen mysteriously vanished following… what happened," he worded carefully since "the walls have ears" as the saying goes. "I was worried I'd never have the opportunity to study another," Dr. Oobleck said looking on the bright side of things.
"Hm. Yes. While it does seem to be the same kind of supernatural formation as before, the fact that it's much smaller would explain why Port was able to handle it so-easily."
At first, there'd been a major freak-out when Port had picked up the thing with his bare hands. However, when nothing happened beyond those around it having a chill run up their spines and experiencing a general feeling of dread, it was decided that size equated to danger, and that this one could be handled; even moved.
At the moment the Crimson Orb they'd recovered from the Grimm's viscera was being held in a padded case usually reserved for bomb disposal.
On a rather dark note, there wasn't really anyone around to protest them borrowing aforementioned expensive carry-on.
"Of course that doesn't discount the fact that in the wrong hands, er, paws, a Crimson Orb could be a devastating weapon," he commented, recalling how a Grimm of that size could regenerate moment-to-moment. "I shudder to imagine what would've befallen Vale had a Crimson Orb fallen into the clutches of a conventionally more-powerful Grimm. Had a Boarbatusk come into contact with it, we might've had to contend with a living wrecking ball the size of a Behemoth," he speculated aloud.
Boarbatusk were fast, but relatively small. Behemoth were enormous, but incredibly slow even at a gallop. Put the two together and…
Well, use your imagination…
"Save the nightmare fuel for detention, I think we're nearing the end of the tunnel," she said turning a corner, the large dropoff they'd been told about visible in the distance. The two professional Hunters steeling themselves, Oobleck leading with his torch and ready to incinerate anything that moved, they strode toward the mouth of the tunnel before looking down.
Whereas before, Yang only had a Scroll light to call upon, with Dr. Oobleck wielding a full-on torch, the chamber they beheld was seen in a new light; quite literally at that.
"My god…" Dr. Oobleck gaped, Glynda retching off to the side as they beheld the sight that awated them without a plague of Vermin to hide it from sight.
Skeletons. Countless skeletons.
Some of them were from pets like cats, and dogs, and reptiles, even the occasional bird that'd gotten loose, but the sheer bulk of it which almost carpeted the bottom of the chamber, were Human and Faunus alike, from every age bracket imaginable if the size of each skeleton was any kind of indicator.
"How many do you think were the homeless?" Dr. Oobleck said as he ran estimates on the bodycount.
And that was just for the bodies that hadn't completely decomposed.
"How many do you think weren't?" Glynda returned.
"Fair point," Dr. Oobleck said swinging out his torch, a collection of fireballs descending the depths and illuminating every dark corner before guttering out. "How long do you think this has been going on?"
"Who knows? How long would it take for a Lesser Vermin to become a full-on Lord? When-even was the last time a Lord was seen?" Glynda questioned.
"Many decades. So many in fact that the populous has forgotten the terror that lives under their feet."
"I doubt they'll forget about it any time soon," Glynda sighed. "I saw bodies topside with their Scrolls out. That means some of the dead were recording the whole thing before being skeletonized."
"While the loss of life is regrettable, you can't deny that any conclusive evidence of this travesty will go a long way in securing our Kingdom. Not just what walks the land, swims the seas, or flies the sky, but that which burrows the ground as well."
"And this isn't even really a burrow. It's just a pre-existing drop-off into the lower levels."
"Which has me wondering…" Dr. Oobleck said as his hand went to his chin. "If these are the monsters we know about…"
"Where are the ones we don't know about?" Glynda finished, the two peering into the darkness a minute more before she steeled herself. "Tell Ozpin we'll need a fully-sized crew of undertakers sent down here. If these remains aren't cremated and enough Geist get in here…" she trailed off.
"I'll get right on it," Dr. Oobleck nodded, already a step ahead of her. "If you want… I could get started while you go topside instead," he suggested after a pause, a nervous shuffle of his hands intermingling that statement.
"No," Glynda said with a shake of her head. "The sewer systems are rife with flammable vapors. If we attempted to cremate the bodies on-site, we could wind up turning every water fixture in the district into a flamethrower."
"Ah, fair point," Dr. Oobleck said collecting himself, a flush of embarrassment rising to his cheeks. "Lost control of myself for a moment. I apologize."
One simply didn't opt to use a torch as a weapon without being subject to momentary fits of pyromania; even the premeditated variety.
"Sooo… I'll go topside then. What about you?"
"I still have enough energy to contain any Geist that might make their way in here while you go for help. I'll leave once Ozpin assembles a taskforce to relieve me."
"Ah, good idea," Dr. Oobleck nodded. "It wouldn't be very cost-effective to call a cleanup crew down here only to learn the human detritus literally got up and walked away," he chuckled, his laughter dying on his lips as Glynda shot him a look. "Uhhhh… Ahem. Right! I'll just be off," he said turning on his heel before rounding on Glynda again. "Here. I feel like you might need this more than me," he said holding out his thermos to her. By the sound of it when it shook, there was still a third left.
"What about you? How will you light your way back?"
"Don't worry, I never leave the house without a bundle of road flares!" Dr. Oobleck said producing a bundle of aforementioned flares from… Uh… from…
"Where were you even keeping these?" Glynda asked incredulously, Dr. Oobleck opening his mouth to respond before zipping it off.
"DO NOT QUESTION MY METHOOODS!"
" . . . Uuuuugh…" Glynda groaned tiredly as she rubbed her temples, took a sip of the coffee, and then lit one of the flares Oobleck had left behind in his haste to dodge the question. "It's just going to be 'one of those days', isn't it?" she asked aloud.
Her only response was the clattering of bones as the carpet of human detritus settled beneath her.