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I am making no money from this.
Chapter 161: Biohazard
It was worse than Pikesreach, even without the presence of a single unfathomable abomination it was the same evil but writ large.
And this time it was a deliberate, calculated action intended to break those who stood against the tide of Grimm by turning anyone in its' path without an unlocked Aura into a mindless, ravenous horror capable of nothing more than violence and an insatiable urge to spread their contagion.
Team MARSZ were left reeling, watching in disoriented and overwhelmed horror as they tried to recover and regroup.
"ASTRA! WHAT DO WE DO?" Athena-Jade yelled, voice raised in both open and undisguised terror and also a simple need to be heard over the ringing in her ears as her senses continued recover and realign themselves after the impact of the airship. An entire section of the beachfront, the wall keeping the seawater at bay and parts of several streets along with numerous buildings, weapon emplacements and vehicles that had not been moved aside quickly enough had been destroyed entirely and Athena was certain that more than one of the soldiers defending the area with them had been caught beneath the crashing airship and crushed to death in an instant.
Team MARSZ had stumbled half-blind and dazed through the fire, smoke and rubble to find one another and had then, once certain that none of them had suffered more than minor scrapes they had turned their attention to the heavily damaged airship which now stretched from the sea to the land and more importantly to their remaining allies who had, at the behest of the commanding officer leading them tried to save those aboard the airship in an act of bravery and heroism that was quickly turned against them.
The smoke that billowed out of the doomed vessel, sweeping through the streets was not smoke at all and the people who had been aboard the airship were no longer people.
As yells and screams gave way to far less human sounds it was clear that it was a fate now being shared by the soldiers.
As Athena-Jade looked to her team-leader she realized that Astra had no answer to give
"WE NEED TO GET WORD TO EVERYONE!" it was Stygian who yelled and broke through the Deer Faunus's blank state of shock "EVERYONE WHO ISN'T A HUNTER IS GONNA DIE IF THAT STUFF SPREADS! IT'S JUST LIKE PIKESREACH!"
"Right" Astra managed to stammer out, coming to their senses more fully "Right we need to send word, fall back and get help….We need to find a way to stop the spread….Zirconia AJ, would Ice Dust work? If we freeze it solid?"
"Maybe?" Zirconia rasped out uncertainly, taking care to make sure the lower half of her face was fully covered as though doing so might protect her.
"What about those people" Regalia choked out, looking at the convulsing, writhing and flailing masses of flesh which slowly shifted to a mixture of obsidian and rotten, putrid green-gray as the soldiers' bodies continued to spasm and mutate, staining and tearing their way through their uniforms.
"I….I don't think we can save them" Astra admitted, choking the words out with tears in their sea-green eyes and almost sobbing in that moment.
Either the raw emotion or the noise drew the attention of the victims of the Grimm-Virus and a chorus of groans and shrieks filled the air as the shambling mass of zombies turned their murderous gaze collectively towards Team MARSZ.
"We've gotta go, move!" Zirconia's rose in both volume and pitch, her composure cracking as something more terrible than even the worst of the naturally made Creatures of Grimm came trudging and scurrying towards her and her team, reminding the Grasshopper Faunus of the things she had seen in Aefen Cruor's laboratory before it had been destroyed and what had become of her teams' former classmates Team NUGT.
"We can't" Astra mouthed, their voice hoarse and cracking as they contradicted their previous assessment "If we let those things spread then that gas, the Grimm-Virus is gonna spread with them-"
"Those things?" Athena-Jade demanded incredulously at a volume which only piqued the interest of the Grimm-Zombies further "They're people!"
"Not any more" Regalia countered, setting her jaw and readying her shotgun even as her purple-colored eyes betrayed her hesitance and uncertainty "I hope….They can't still be in there, they can't-"
"Aefen was" Zirconia reminded them all, sending a chill through Team MARSZ in their entirety until the situation was rendered moot by thundering footsteps accompanied by an inhuman shrieking sound as something charged through the midst on the twisted and infected bodies of the soldiers.
It was the commanding officer in her battle-suit.
The gray-haired and scarred woman herself had been consumed almost entirely and those members of Team MARSZ who had fought Petrol after the gangster had been corrupted and consumed by an earlier iteration of Damascus Nero's work were left viscerally reminded of the incident.
The woman herself was no more, little more than a barely humanoid skull which bore little resemblance to the viruses' host and a mangled, arching spinal column which served as a framework for a web of fleshy masses and growths to branch of off and begin enveloping the war-machine the solider had piloted until the two were on and the same. The machine shambled as much as any of the human-sized Grimm-Zombies and its' left arm hung useless and limp after cancerous growths had forced pieces of the machinery apart without growing into anything more useful however its' right arm was outstretched and draped in a shifting mass of ragged flesh of pulsing, writhing nerves and tendons which mutated constantly and formed teeth and bony barbs which seemed to be trying to guide their own transformation into a rudimentary limb with a single purpose.
To use the trigger mechanisms of the battle-suits' weapons.
The weapon-arm was brandished in Team MARSZ's direction and time seemed to slow to nothing, all sound seemed to fall away entirely and in a single, defining moment Athena-Jade Slate looked from the tide of things that had been people mere moments ago and the tide of horrors which continued to spill from the crashed airship behind them to her friends and then, despite her previous protestations she made an impossible choice.
Ephemeral green light cleaved through the flames, smoke and darkness alike before striking the twisted amalgamation of machinery, Grimm-flesh and once-human remains.
She fired Heartbreaker in its' laser cannon form at the center of the thing and vaporized the mutated skull, hoping desperately that whatever lingering vestige of the soldier the woman had once been was too far gone to truly understand their ending.
"I just, I….I-" Athena-Jade's stammering, tight and watery as she fought the urge to eject the contents of her stomach at the thought of having killed, in one fashion or another a living person was cut short by a rising tide of shrieks and gurgling bellows from the tide of Grimm-Zombies which even now dragged their horrific and twisted forms closer, spreading plague as they went and revealing themselves to be more numerous than Team MARSZ had first thought.
"Can't think about that now" Stygian murmured in Athena's ear, the hardness of being raised in an environment such as Pikesreach rising to the fore and gifting the Mouse Faunus with the same determination that had been needed for his people to survive at all "Astra….make the call"
"Regalia, Semblance….Literally anything we can use. Stygian, take my scroll and contact Qrow so he can get word to everyone else" Astra began "AJ, as many glyphs as you can without risking your own Aura, we keep 'em at bay. Zirconia try freezing whatever spores are in that smoke with Ice Dust, set 'em on fire or anything else you can think of"
Astra looked out at the tide of ravaged bodies spewing forth from the bowels of the crashed airship and managed to set their expression into something resembling disgust and determination as they readied the guns of Buckshot Ares.
"I don't wanna do it but if any of those zombies get through….Well….Petrol asked me for mercy, I'll give these people mercy"
After his official retirement following his injuries he had sustained in the defense of Halo Academy during Damascus Nero's grand reveal and assault on Neo Vale much of the equipment Qrow Branwen had gathered during his tenure as a protector of Remnant had been dismantled and brought with him to the Nemesis Kharybdis, a silent admission that the idea of retirement and a peaceful life was incompatible with the kind of man Qrow Branwen was at his core.
The result was that now, in the cities' hour of need Qrow had once again found himself within a command center from which he could help his peers coordinate the defense of the city. It was an admittedly somewhat haphazard and crude looking base of operation compared to those before it, built within Qrow's quarters aboard the Nemesis Kharybdis so that the damaged ships' bridge would not be intruded upon and so that it's crew would be free to operate without interference. Qrow's many-legged mechanical chair was forced to adjust its' footing constantly to avoid being ensnared in cables which led to a vast collection of screens whose faint glow illuminated an otherwise gloomy space which was shaken periodically by the impacts and explosions outside; those screens interfacing with various security, communication and surveillance systems across the city in order to give Qrow a comprehensive view of the ongoing battle.
Minutes ago he had lost sight of the stretch of beachfront where Team MARSZ had been stationed, the same area where the airship 'Vanguard' had been preparing for a rough landing and where Ruby would be aiming to safely escort fire and rescue crews.
Moments ago Team MARSZ had made contact and informed him of the situation on the ground, leaving Qrow scaring in haunted disbelief.
Until he realized that every moment he stared blankly at the array of screens before him was a moment that lives were being lost and that the Grimm-Virus was being allowed to spread; an epiphany which forced him to act.
"Damn it all" he growled under his breath as his crimson eyes darted instinctively to the small screen at the edge of his hastily reassembled set-up which was tracking the rough location of Winter's fleet and the time until the Atlesian force arrived; their whereabouts known to him even despite their stealthy approach.
"No" Qrow shook his head and discarded his initial course of action. Winter was certainly already approaching as quickly as possible and calling for her assistance would achieve nothing, moreover he knew well enough that Winter's solution would be devastating in its' finality and would likely involve extensive bombing of every part of the city to be touched by the Grimm plague. Instead Qrow turned his focus first to the rest of the beachfront and the front lines of battle, where Gestalt-Prime's attack would spread to if could not be contained or counteracted. As he scanned the various screens he hesitated for a moment at the sight of a small flock of the Shroud Variants, the same variety of Cyber-Grimm which had almost killed him and had managed to blind Nora; Qrow allowed himself a swell of pride and a moment of spiteful satisfaction when he saw Corvid take to the air and destroy one of the Shrouds in an instant before directing fire from heavy weapons on the ground into the rest of their number.
It was on the ground that Qrow turned his attention next, smiling again at the sight of Team FADE which included his own daughter along with Blake and Yang's adopted son unleashing havoc on every enemy in their path. Searching further afield he paused at the sight of several blasts of light appearing in different locations whose discharge did not seem to resemble any of the weapons in the defenders' arsenal. It took the grizzled old veteran a moment to realize that what he was seeing was two students of Halo Academy using their Semblances in tandem with devastating effect; Ravi Santara had the ability to unleash devastating blast of heat and pure force whilst his body glowed like a sun and Tiger was using her own ability to create a portal-like corridor between two fixed points to both direct and compress the effects of her twin brothers' Semblance, taking a Semblance which had originally been used as a means of providing safety and a way to escape and fashioning it into a weapon.
It seemed that the Santara twins truly were at their best when they fought together.
Moss and Hibiscus, the remaining half of their team were close by and contributing what they could by helping defend a group of engineers and mechanics who were yet to retreat to safety.
More importantly, the person they were helping was Nora.
"Nora!" Qrow managed to access her comms with only a moment of delay, watching her continue to fight as she answered.
"Little busy here!" she punctuated the statement by delivering a hammer-blow to the underside of a Bug-Bear variants' skull and flipping the enormous walking tank-like monster over and onto its' back.
"You still have civilians there!"
"Yeah, a guy called Redwood….Says he knows Blake and Yang and that his kid is fighting here, he had a group of people with him who said they were gonna stay til the end if they could and get guns working as soon as-"
"You need to get them out of there!" Qrow interrupted fiercely "Right now Nora, civilians, any wounded Hunters with a broken Aura, every soldier without an unlocked Aura needs to fall back right now! Machines and Hunters only!"
"What's happening?" Nora demanded, trusting Qrow enough to comply but knowing that others would not unless there was a solid answer to give them.
"It's like Pikesreach" Qrow answered "The Grimm-disease Aefen Cruor made….Gestalt-Prime just used it. That airship that just came down was a carrier and bait to draw people in"
"DAMN IT!" Nora screamed, lightning crackling from her hands and along the shaft of Magnhild in her anger until she focused herself and turned to her students "Moss, Hibbs start getting people organized and ready to fall back! Tiger, we need to use your Semblance to speed up a retreat. Get as many people out of the way as possible!"
"Yes Professor" Tiger Santara answered without hesitation, driving her trident through the neck of an approaching monster before turning and giving Nora a firm and utterly unshakable look "But Ravi and I aren't falling back. We're going to defend this city for as long as we can"
"There's already Cyber-Grimm making their way deeper into the city. Co-ordinate with the teams fighting them" Qrow interjected "We might give ground here but we can use it to surround and counter targets elsewhere. Branwen out"
He trusted Nora to properly marshal the Hunters under her command, especially those who were still technically her students.
He had a more important matter to take care of.
"Ruby!" his niece had rendezvoused with her wife and now she and Penny were using the copper-haired android's personal transport to ensure that a path was cleared and that ambulances, fire engines and cranes could get to the airship without being targeted or overrun by the attacking monsters.
Efforts that could no longer be allowed to continue.
"Uncle Qrow?" Ruby answered "What's the situation? I know that airship came down hard-"
"It's a trap. Don't take those civilians anywhere near it!" Qrow exclaimed quickly before repeating himself "It's a trap"
"What's going on?"
"The same Grimm-disease that was used at Pikesreach. That airship was gassed with it and the crew were infected, when people tried to open emergency hatches on the Vanguard the virus spilled out and infected them and now it's spreading. Luckily the area was already evacuated, Nora is getting anyone without an Aura clear and Team MARSZ are trying to slow it-"
"Team MARSZ are still there?" Ruby demanded, clearly angry that such an important detail had taken so long to disclose and there was a single beat of silence wherein Qrow knew what his nieces' next words would be before she spoke.
"I'm on my way"
Team WULF had not expected to see action so soon and yet when the moment came, even though the four of them were acting without any support from the rest of the Kingdoms' defenders, who were either already locked in battle or were otherwise unable to move from their posts they were still ready and still rose to the task without question or hesitation.
"URSINIA, LASER BRING THOSE FUCKERS DOWN! DIABLA, HELP ME GET THEM OFF THE WALL!" Wolfram barked out orders, consumed by the rush of battle and allowing all of his worries and doubts to fall away and leave only a simple, brilliant clarity of purpose behind.
Even if he and his team were technically surrounded.
Several airborne Cyber-Grimm had simply flown over the cities' defenses, using the arrival of supporting Cyber-Grimm from the sea as a diversion and rendering the enormous walls and fortifications which sealed off each district of the city completely meaningless. News of this development had been spread to all of the Hunters, mech-pilots, fighter craft and soldiers operating deeper in the city however what had gone unreported, at least initially was that many of these airborne Cyber-Grimm were carrying payloads.
Some had carried explosives.
Some had carried pulsing, writhing orbs of shivering membranous flesh the size of a mans' torso which had erupted on contact with the ground to unleash clouds of virulent Grimm-Virus strains into other parts of the city.
The Cyber-Grimm which had swooped over Team WULF's position had been far more direct and simple; they had carried other Cyber-Grimm and dropped them onto and around the Hunter's position.
Quick to act Wolfram had used Berserker in its' ranged form to blast the heads of those monsters which had landed on the wall, realizing upon studying their lifeless forms that these were the 'Man-Eater' variants that Hunters had been warned about, a variety intended to surgically target key elements of a defense.
And now there were more of them scaling the walls in an effort to kill his friends, whilst the standard Cyber-Grimm which had carried them doubled back and began unleashing their lasers in a fresh salvo of searing light and destruction.
"You can count of me darlin'!" Ursinia exclaimed proudly as she hefted Adventurer and shifted the enormous, gold-bladed broadsword into its' pistol-grip grenade launcher form with a motion which even after years of seeing it still reminded Wolfram of a Scorpion's pincer.
"Always knew that" Wolfram murmured distractedly, unable to give his full attention to the moment when the towering Scorpion Faunus fired a volley of explosives into the midst of the Cyber-Grimm and blew several of them apart.
Those which remained opened fire and Ursinia was forced to throw herself to the floor of the battlement the team were fighting atop as beams of crimson lanced downwards, leaving both the chitin of her tail and the cowboy hat she wore both singed lightly. It was Laser who offered a response, the Vaccuan scavenger reaching into his pockets and throwing several small contraptions of dubious appearance and design into the air before readying Perma-Death in its' machine-gun mode and firing into his own devices rather than the Cyber-Grimm; revealing them to be home-made explosives that Laser had cobbled together with whatever Dust was available.
Lightning and Magnetic Dust left Cyber-Grimm faltering in the air as parts of their bodies shut down and Ice Dust further disabled key components, robbing them of their ability to fly and sending them crashing to the ground on the opposite side of the wall Team WULF were defending.
Sustained grenades and gunfire ensured they made it no further.
Meanwhile Wolfram and Diabla dealt with the Man-Eaters.
"There's too many of them to keep this up!" Diabla noted, punctuating her words with a thunderclap of an impact as she used one hand to hold the prehensile tongue of a Man-Eater at bay before smashing its' skull to pieces with a Semblance-fueled blow which saw shrapnel ricocheting and inky black paste spattering the wall whilst her fists, arms and eyes shone with a volcanic orange glow. Wolfram grit his teeth and let out a wordless growl before using his shield to bat one of the Man-Eaters aside and create an opening for his axe to slip between two segments off the things' highly mobile body and cut deep, spilling fluids as Wolfram slammed his shoulder into the thing and threw it back to the ground.
Where it righted itself and staggered several paces before once again using its' cutting lasers to create handholds and beginning to climb.
There were not many of the Man-Eaters truth be told, but they were highly capable things and disturbingly resilient.
"Hang on, I've got this!" Wolfram called out before preparing to use his Semblance as a versatile tool in a way that he hoped he would be able to talk about with Astra when the battle was over. With his Aura rippling around him under the strain it was now subjected to Wolfram extended his reach outwards and created a wall of solidified air which ran parallel to the defenses themselves and existed only a hairs' breadth away from the walls' surface; forming a barrier between the Man-Eater Variants and the wall they were trying to climb.
From there Wolfram simply leaned forward to angle the shield his Semblance provided, using it to throw the Cyber-Grimm clear of the wall.
"NOW! EVERYONE OPEN FIRE!" he bellowed, the few Cyber-Grimm in the air might make a nuisance of themselves but the chance to be rid of the monsters on the ground was too promising to ignore; with that he combined Berserker into their hand-cannon form once again whilst Laser and Ursinia took places on either side of him and began adding their own firepower to the deafening onslaught which saw the Man-Eaters' reduced to broken and motionless scrap.
One of the remaining Cyber-Grimm chose that moment to dive onto the battlements Team WULF were defending and attempt to kill their leader by driving their thorax-horn through Wolfram's back. The mechanical beast was halted and dispatched swiftly by Diabla who flung herself between the two and changed her gauntlets, 'Peace and Quiet' into their secondary modes with one becoming a flamethrower and the other deploying a blade which vibrated at an ultrasonic frequency.
The latter found its' way into the Cyber-Grimm's eye and then pierced vital workings within its' cranium.
"Nice save" Wolfram breathed out, keeping a smirk in place and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge just how perilous the situation could have been whilst Diabla simply nodded silently, managing to communicate everything she needed to with the small gesture whilst Ursinia gave her friend a truly thankful smile.
There was a single moment where it felt as though they had been successful, as though Team WULF had heroically repelled the first wave of Cyber-Grimm to attack their position.
Then the retaliation came.
The Alpha-Minion, first of Gestalt-Prime's new breed of Cyber-Grimm and the overall field commander for the invasion and destruction of Neo Vale had arrived.
The Alpha Minion had been operating in the air close by, targeting fuel pumps at stations close to key roads and junctions, their laser ripping through and creating sizable explosions and causing remarkable damage in an effort to slow any attempts to either retreat and resupply and sow further confusion and disruption among the defenders. Upon sensing several Man-Eater Variants being deactivated in rapid succession, far more than could considered normal attrition for such units the Alpha-Minion had chosen to respond and investigate.
Which had brought them to a quartet of Hunters, the knowledge that they were Team WULF coming directly from the memories Gestalt-Prime themselves; the knowledge that these were enemies who had faced their master before pushing the Alpha to act.
"GET BEHIND ME!" Wolfram yelled throwing up his shield and layering it with his Semblance to create a protective barrier as the Alpha-Minion's main laser fired and proved, with the sheer size and force of the attack that whilst it outwardly resembled its' fellow standard model Cyber-Grimm it was an altogether different beast.
The thing proved itself to be capable of tactics and strategy as it rapidly adjusted its' position in the air whilst sustaining its' attack to corral Wolfram, the leader of the Hunters unable to lower his guard and finding himself quickly pinned against the wall of the battlements before a burst of additional power blasted him roughly through their armored surface and toppling to the ground.
Wolfram was on his feet and returning fire in an instant, entirely heedless of his Aura wavering faintly around him.
"Easy there darlin' you got yourself busted off, let me help with that" Ursinia's soothing voice alerted Wolfram to the fact that she, along with the rest of Team WULF had leapt down from the wall and come to his aid; the Scorpion Faunus herself placing a hand on her partner and boyfriends' shoulder and using her Semblance. Whilst Ursinia could not truly heal people she could allow them to simply push through their injuries and ignore them, Wolfram felt warmth and tingling followed by a faint numbness before the aches and sharp pains in the places his body hand made contact with the ground seemed to disappear.
"That one's different" Diabla noted, regarding the Alpha-Minion suspiciously as it swooped downwards and landed on the ground a short distance away. As if to prove her point the Cyber-Grimm adjusted its' stance and posture until it was fully upright, foregoing the usual hunched forward stance its' kind used.
"Wonder if it'll be worth more as parts or souvenirs" Laser chuckled uncertainly, evidently trying to ease the teams' collective nerves, an effort which Wolfram, freshly bolstered by Ursinia's Semblance readily added to.
"It's okay we've been waiting to fight these Cyber-Grimm things….Seems only fair we get one of the fun ones"
A chorus of shrieks, groans less discernible sounds, all of them unsettling and oddly wet filled the air as the soldiers who had been stationed alongside Team MARSZ and the former crew of the Vanguard, all of whom had been infected and transformed into monstrous Grimm-Zombies beat relentlessly against Team MARSZ's defenses; the whole ordeal underscored and made more frightful by the flames and smoke pouring from the destroyed airship and the worrying creaks and groans of tortured metal as the enormous growths of fungal, cancerous Grimm tissue within continued to eat through the ship and reduce it to a hollowed husk.
"KEEP TRYING TO PUSH THEM BACK!" Astra all but screamed, their voice hoarse and cracking as both the smoke filling the darkness and having to raise their voice above the chaos of the situation; their own weapons adding to the cacophony as they aimed and fired Buckshot Ares into the body of something which had once been a person and let out a scream that was still hauntingly human as bullets' shredded its' torso even its' body was a twisted and emaciated horror with branching, malformed limbs.
"WE'RE TRYING!" Athena-Jade shot back "HOPS IS STILL TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT GAS!"
"It's not stopping….All I can do is slow it, I only have so much Dust" the Grasshopper Faunus added, rasping words out harshly through gritted teeth without every looking in Astra's direction, instead keeping her mismatched eyes firmly forward and focused on the tide of mutated bodies which steadily pushed them back.
Athena-Jade had summoned wall after wall of layered and interlocking glyphs which the bulk of the shambling horde of Grimm-Zombies threw themselves at without pause, steadily cracking and breaking their glowing surfaces and forcing Team MARSZ to give ground one step at a time. Athena's two partners' were both helping her, with Zirconia trying her best to use Ice Dust to freeze the writhing wisps of smoke and Gravity Dust to push it back after Fire Dust had proven ineffective at halting whatever hideous spores and parasites existed within it whilst Stygian used his Semblance to bring himself closer to any particularly worrying threats, clumps of bodies beginning to fuse into singular viral masses as the disease within them progressed, Grimm-Zombies whose mutation had better incorporated the armor and weapons that the viruses' host had been carrying or those beginning to fuse with and absorb nearby weapons and equipment; the Mouse Faunus severing heads and limbs before using Athena's glyphs to escape before he could be dragged down by the tide of bodies.
"We need a plan….I'm trying, but I don't have anything to work with" Astra admitted, the Deer Faunus once again opening fire and shredding a bulbous mass of limbs and tendrils which had grown through body armor to produce something truly grotesque as it scuttled into view. Athena could only defend a limited amount of space effectively and as such the infected were spilling around the sides of the Bear Faunus's barriers in a steady trickle, allowing them to both flee deeper into the city where they would continue spilling and spreading their spores and also to attack Team MARSZ from the sides.
Astra had taken up the task of cutting down the Grimm-Zombies trying to tear and bite at the flanks of their team whilst behind them Regalia was alternating between trying to bring down those infected seeking to escape and trying to use her Semblance to seek out a clearer path to victory.
"Regalia!" Astra called out "Anything?"
"Heh, a little distracted….And everything we could use is probably on that airship!" the Raccoon Faunus called back, moving as she spoke and firing the harpoon component of Apex Scavenger into the smoke at a target Astra could only assume that their partner had used their Semblance to find. The Deer Faunus watched as something which now only vaguely resembled a human being, or perhaps a Faunus given the exaggerated animal features it now possessed was dragged into view, flailing and shrieking the entire time and leaving an inky black mucus lining the ground which quickly began to congeal and sprout the beginning of mushroom-like growths of Grimm-flesh.
A shotgun blast to the back of the head stilled the mutated, animated cadaver and Astra forced themselves to believe that it was a mercy.
"STITCH GET OUT OF THERE! YOU CAN'T FIGHT THAT ONE ALONE!" Athena-Jade's panicked scream brought both Astra and Regalia whirling back around to see that the wall of glyphs had been pushed back another pace and was now at risk of being overwhelmed entirely by the latest gruesome amalgamation of Grimm tissues. It was clearly the result of more than one Grimm-Zombie being melded into a single form given that it had more than one head and face, in fact given that it seemed to be wearing the mangled ruins of a tank intended to protect the coastline as a crude form of armor it was likely that its' existence of the vehicles entire crew being infected and merging within it.
The thing lumbered forwards, swinging heavy, broken treads like whips and flails before using a lattice of twisted and interwoven limbs which formed a monstrous whole to begin hefting and aiming the main weapon of the tank; each of its' yawning and skeletal mouths screaming discordant notes.
"Astra I can take it down with Heartbreaker but I'll have to drop my glyphs!" Athena warned, using her glyphs to get Stygian back on the relatively safe side of her barrier as she spoke
"Absolutely not!" Astra countered "Zirconia knows how to use your weapon, let her take it and slip around the glyphs-"
"The other infected are in the way" Zirconia noted "I won't have a clear shot"
"I'll think of something!" Astra insisted "Maybe my Semblance-"
Their thoughts were cut short by an explosion which collectively threw Team MARSZ to the ground.
Astra's ears rang and their vision swam, their awareness that Athena-Jade's glyphs had been broken and that their team were unprotected being enough to force Astra back to their feet, the Deer Faunus unloading their weapons in a firestorm of bullets accompanied by a wordless battle-cry which their own ears barely registered. Astra was in fact so utterly consumed that they were largely unaware of the single, heavily modified transport craft surging overhead and launching further blasts and salvos into the remains of the airship which had first spread the Grimm-Plague.
Though when a lone figure leapt from the aircraft Astra, along with the rest of Team MARSZ could not ignore it.
Everything exploded into white light and a howling, scouring wind which forced Astra to use their weapons' shield components to protect themselves from the ruined shrapnel and debris which had been left in the wake of the crash or absorbed by Grimm-Zombies which no longer existed. The Deer Faunus sought out their team and along with Athena who used her glyphs they managed to protect the others until the show of force subsided.
Revealing Ruby Rose.
"Aunt Ruby!" Athena called out, her relief faltering at the sight that greeted Team MARSZ as they all managed to blink the spots away from their vision. The scene was grisly and horrific in the extreme, Ruby stood holding her scythe amidst ruins and the broken and twisted viscera of the people infected by the Grimm-Virus; her silver eye having purged the corruption from them but left corpses in their wake and pools of deep blood pouring into ruined asphalt and concrete and reflecting the ominous glow of fires which were being both caused and doused by Penny's aircraft as she continued bombing the crashed airship.
"You need to go" Ruby finally breathed out tiredly.
"Aunt Ruby-" Athena began again, only to be interrupted by Astra who spoke more forcefully.
"Professor Rose, we're not done here. The battle is still happening and we're not injured, we can-"
"I know that, but you have new orders" Ruby interrupted "Penny and I are going to stop this source of the Grimm-Virus….I've killed the spores in the air and on you, but we need to get rid of the growth inside the ship"
"This source?" Zirconia asked, picking up on something which Ruby chose not to explain further as she pressed on.
"Non-Hunters are falling back from the front. We're trying to hold the beach with just Hunters but Cyber-Grimm are already getting deeper into the city and they could easily surround the beach and cut us off" Ruby paused allowing the severity of that possibility to sink in "They're in small groups now, but some of the infected already broke off and if they infect more people….We could be dealing with Cyber-Grimm leading packs of infected"
"They'd be able to cut the Hunters off everywhere, they'd be able to overrun the city" Zirconia gasped, reaching for Athena's hand reflexively in her horror.
"Exactly" Ruby grimaced "Which is why I want Team MARSZ to start hunting down the Cyber-Grimm groups operating in the city and any infected trying to target the people without Aura"
"You can count on us Aunt Ruby" Athena-Jade nodded, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw defiantly.
"Yeah" Astra breathed out, forcing themselves to portray some degree of calm and assurance even if they felt none of it "We're Team MARSZ, we're Hunters-"
"And this is what we do" Regalia finished.
"Then go. Rendezvous back at the front lines when you're done….We'll need all the Hunters we can get" Ruby nodded "And good luck"
The fact that the five of them would need it went unspoken.
Gestalt-Prime continued to both oversee the overall progress of their Cyber-Grimm legions' assault on Neo Vale and wage their own campaign of violence against the cities' air-fleet and coastal defenses.
The latter was slow but steady and immensely gratifying work for the Alpha Cyber-Grimm whose connection to the Behemoth-Gestalt had expanded and progressed to such an extent that they were at least for the time being one and the same, with Gestalt-Prime truly using the colossal beast as though it were an extension of their own body. Thus far they had refrained from firing the primary cannon which made up the left arm of their behemoth, their own innate need for destruction combining with a certainty that whatever the weapon struck would be utterly determined to create an incessant itch in the mind of the ruler of the Grimm which was countered only by the knowledge that the weapon would require time to recharge after being fired and that it was an opening they were unwilling to give freely to their enemies.
Not when other ways to destroy their enemies were so abundant.
Another salvo of lasers and missiles were absorbed by the hard-light shield of the Behemoth-Gestalt, only to be followed by an unfathomably vast volley of laser-fire which cut into the flesh and armor of the titanic creation from all sides, the glowing beams forming a crisscrossing maze in the night sky. Bringing the Behemoth-Gestalt around to face this new foe and halting their advance on the Kingdom of New Vale for a moment Gestalt-Prime saw through the behemoths' countless eyes that the airship which had attacked them was of the larger varieties, their stolen knowledge of their enemies arsenal informing the Alpha Cyber-Grimm that it was one designed specifically to serve as a carrier for small aircraft.
Specifically the small fleet of fighter craft, scores of them which had surrounded and opened fire.
"Pathetic!" Gestalt-Prime snarled within the command center within the skull of their creation before responding to the assault. Various ports and panels lining the Behemoth-Gestalt opened and once again a wave of Cyber-Grimm monstrosities was spewed into the darkness, the single glowing red optic of each creation marking their passage; unlike previous waves this attack force was comprised entirely of Shroud variants which immediately began to harass and target the fighter craft with ruthless efficiency and coordination which Gestalt-Prime added to by bringing the tail of the Behemoth-Gestalt out of the sea and using it crush several of the smaller aircraft.
The carrier ship earned their full attention and wrath however.
"You will all perish here….But you will live long enough for your fear to feed my Grimm" the sentient monster declared coldly, uncaring that their behemoth had no voice with which to carry their threat to those it was intended for.
Gestalt-Prime reasoned that they could use the comms of the various airships they had ripped apart to send their message directly to the enemy vessel but ultimately decided against it.
They would know the end was upon them in moments.
Beyond its' Hard-light shield the Behemoth-Gestalt had vast repositories of other forms of Dust at its' disposal, all plundered from their airships which had gone into its' creation and it was these supplies which Gestalt-Prime turned into weapons of incalculable power. The vast mechanical and skeletal pseudo-wings of the Behemoth-Gestalt, formed from the nacelles of airships blazed with power as Fire Dust and synthetic Eco-Dust fuel drove it forwards, closer to the airship whilst at the nightmarish black flesh of the colossal Grimm was split and sundered in dozens of places by crystalline growths which resembled both pulsating and concentrated, calcified Grimm tissue and also the shimmering glossy-black sheen of Gravity Dust.
The effects took hold and Gestalt-Prime felt the terror radiating outwards from the ships' crew, drinking it in greedily as the vessels' shields' were rendered utterly meaningless and its' entire superstructure began to collapse as it was subjected to a gravity field so intense that fighter craft and Cyber-Grimm alike were pulled into it and pulverized and seawater was dragged upwards to orbit the collapsing airship.
It was a display calculated to break the resolve of the cities' remaining defenders, at least momentarily and allow Gestalt-Prime time to advance and properly take stock of the situation as they rallied themselves for another attack.
As they did so the Alpha Cyber-Grimm saw that their foes were holding the line well enough to be deeply irritating.
The two-part attack of the Cyber-Grimm from the air and sea had garnered some result, with a decent amount of the airborne standard model Cyber-Grimm having managed to make their way into various districts of Neo Vale and wreak havoc by targeting several key locations and individuals.
The sight of their Alpha-Minion, first of the new breed of Cyber-Grimm locked in combat with Team WULF, familiar faces from before Gestalt-Prime had truly awakened was a gratifying one.
It was a limited success however, far less than anticipated and Gestalt-Prime could see that many of the Cyber-Grimm operating deeper in the city had already been cut down regardless of whether or not they had managed to deploy their payloads.
The Hunters were continuing to hold the line against the Cyber-Grimm attacking from the sea successfully in most places even after their allies with more conventional weapons had been forced to retreat by the reveal of Gestalt-Prime's true weapon, the Grimm-disease. Truly damaging to the plans however was that Ruby Rose had already responded to the airship intended to act as an enormous plague vector, pumping contagion into the air and covering a vast swathe of Neo Vale in spores.
All was not lost however, far from it.
As powerful as she was Ruby Rose was only one woman and could not hope to respond to every instance of Grimm-Virus which had been thrust into the heart of Neo-Vale already, meaning that she would be forced to flit from place to place putting out smaller fires whilst Gestalt-Prime themselves advanced on the city or to try and face the behemoth whilst the city rotted from within behind her as the infection spread.
It was clear that the Hunters knew this however as Gestalt-Prime sensed various groups of infected being chased down and destroyed before they could join with other mutated bodies or spread the virus to new hosts.
Upon seeing a familiar and particularly troublesome group of Hunters at work Gestalt-Prime chose to redirect Carmesi from their current task and put them to work.
"I DON'T THINK SO PAL!" Nora's frenzied battle-cry seemed somehow at odds with the severity of the situation as she brought the head of Magnhild crashing down on the head of a Bug-Bear Cyber-Grimm variant; the sheer power the diminutive redhead possessed being enough to send a shockwave rippling out through the sand and make monstrous artillery piece buckle and collapse to the ground despite its' reinforced limbs and anchors as the ground shifted beneath it.
The Bug-Bear had been preparing to open fire at the ships which had been part of the former Blockade Fleet, aiming in the general direction the Nemesis Kharybdis and to prevent it from doing so Nora sunk the shaft of Magnhild into the sand beside her before gritting her teeth and bracing herself, seizing the barrel of the Grimm's main cannon and with perfect athletic form spinning and launching the Cyber-Grimm variant into the air before deftly taking her hammer and shifting it into its' grenade launcher form and with a single shot destroying her target in a blossoming fireball before it could land.
Only to be set upon by a pair of lumbering Crusher variants a moment later.
"Always more to smash!" Nora yelled determinedly, cybernetic eyes refocusing and seeking out structural weak points in the mechanical horrors which resembled enormous, bipedal isopods as she aimed and fired a fresh volley of grenades of Magnhild which staggered the Cyber-Grimm but did not halt them, leaving Nora no choice but to shift her weapon back into its' hammer mode and prepare to charge into battle as the twin beasts came stampeding through the cloud of pink mist her grenades left in their wake.
For all of her gung-ho cheering and attempted bravery Nora was growing weary and deeply concerned.
With everyone who was not a Hunter or at least an unlocked Aura being forced to retreat those who remained were forced to spread out and take charge of larger areas of the beachfront, a grim reality which had left each Hunter outnumbered and prone to being cut off from support at a moments' notice by the Cyber-Grimm which stood and fought, all whilst others managed to use the situation to simply wade deeper into Neo Vale unchallenged.
Nora Ren was an accomplished Huntress but Crusher variants were built to withstand some of the most powerful Hunters on Remnant and had likely, given Damascus Nero's motivations been made with Nora herself in mind.
Fortunately she was not as alone as she had first feared.
As was proven when the nearest Crusher variant was flung to the ground with a crater large enough fit an outstretched hand through in its' armored back and fluids seeping out to the sand as it struggled to right itself.
"Thanks for the assist with that walking tank, they've been setting up from too far out for us to land solid hits on!" a yell from above caused Nora to turn her cybernetic eyes skyward and find Corvid Xiao Long in the air above her "Besides, you were always my favorite teacher"
Nora knew that it was unprofessional to have favorite students, but Corvid had been one of hers all the same.
The moment was brought to a halt as the second Crusher variant was brought to a halt, its' legs being sunken into the ground by a shadow which flitted across the sand before erupting upwards to cut into its' armor with arm-mounted blades; being followed a moment later by a booming roar as Onyx Ursabane came charging into battle swinging his axe as he fought alongside his Captain and his girlfriend.
"Go!" Carcharodon Gore demanded as he dragged a blade across the lone optic of the half-sunken Cyber-Grimm "We will handle this, find your students!"
"Right" Nora came back to her senses and swiftly brought her hammer down on the head of the first Crusher variant, ensuring it was destroyed before turning and bolting.
As she raced across the sand Nora tried to ignore bloodstained and damaged equipment discarded around her, forcing herself not to stop and examine the bodies littering the beachfront to see if they were her peers, her friends or her current and former students.
It took her only a moment to find her students however.
"Where are the rest of your team?" Nora demanded as she leapt into the fray once more, a somersault allowing her to gather more force and momentum as she brought her hammer down onto the carapace of a Cyber-Grimm, creating an opening for Ravi Santara to deliver a flurry of blows with his clawed gauntlets; each impact striking the things' vulnerable optic and piercing its' skull with a violent ferocity which would have been unsettling were it not so understandable.
Ravi had lost his previous partner to the Cyber-Grimm and Nora, having suffered the losses of Jaune and Pyrrha in the first war against Salem could relate all too well.
"Moss's Aura was about to break and Hibbs looked like he was about to run; started panicking when we got word of a Hunter going down nearby" Ravi answered through clenched teeth as the Cyber-Grimm finally died "Tiger told them to get the civilians to safety….She's back there, I'm the distraction while she uses her Semblance to get people out"
"You've done good. Let's move" Nora placed a hand on his shoulder and firmly led her traumatized student in the direction he had gestured so that he could join his twin sister and the only other member of Team SHMR still in the fight. When the two of them found Tiger the former leader of Team TRQS was visibly trembling under the effort of maintaining her Semblance for long enough to allow of the soldiers and engineers who had been present to flee several city blocks in a matter of seconds yet Nora could tell that the task would be concluded in a few moments.
Giving her time to contact her husband.
"Ren" she breathed out, using the brief respite to rest on the shaft of her hammer and recover "We're almost done moving everyone who isn't a Hunter out, but it's leaving us too spread out, Cyber-Grimm are getting through….What's the situation in the rest of the city"
There was a moment of silence which stretched for long enough for Nora to consider that communications were being jammed before Ren finally answered.
"It's bad" he admitted "It's really bad"
"What's happening?" Nora demanded "Qrow has been focused on the beach and I've been reporting to him"
"There's more of the Grimm virus in the city. Airborne Cyber-Grimm dropped bombs full of it….We lost entire units of soldiers; they started changing and fusing with their weapons. We had to open fire on one of the Hive-Towers in the west when the infected started scaling the walls and trying to make their way into one of the shelters"
"What about the Hunters inside the city?" Nora demanded, face drained of color by the developments.
"They're doing everything they can, but these Cyber-Grimm are smart and….It's like the virus has a mind of its' own; or like it's being guided" Ren's voice was tight, frustration increasing his pace until the words left him in a frantic jumble "We lost contact with Flax Scarlatina when Cyber-Grimm joined the infected and began ordering them. Team GRAY reported movement, something like a centipede and there's been nothing from them since. Rover Tan had to pull back when he realized that the Grimm-Virus was clinging to his clothes and using his Semblance as a way to spread itself through the city faster"
"Then what do we do Ren?" Nora asked quietly, refusing to allow herself to lose hope no matter how futile the situation seemed "We can't lose the city….We can't lose the front lines either-"
"Winter's fleet is still on the way. Once it's here we'll have better chances" Ren answered with similarly forced optimism.
"What about Ruby?" Nora asked "What about the plan?"
"With Grimm-Viruses spreading all through the city she's being kept from the front lines" Ren answered "She's our best counter to it and Gestalt-Prime knows it"
"Fine" the redhead growled through gritted teeth "Tell her to contact me….We'll figure something out, we'll make a new plan"
"Stay safe Nora….I love you"
"I love you too" with that the comms fell silent and Nora turned to face her students, seeing that Tiger and Ravi were now alone and that the last of the civilians had been evacuated into a city that no longer offered them any form of safety. The Santara twins looked at her expectantly for a moment before the silence was broken, predictably by Tiger.
"We lost a home. We lost our family and we've lost friends….We're not fucking losing. Not here, not tonight!"
"You're damn right we're not" Nora chuckled darkly, finding sudden inspiration in the form of a sizable chunk of rubble close by "Can your Semblance reach out to sea? One of the Cyber-Grimm around the Behemoth?"
"Maybe not quite that far….Maybe most of the way" Tiger hesitated, the thin slip of her face visible behind the armored veil she wore when fighting betraying a hint of uncertainty.
"That'll do" Nora nodded, giving Tiger the permission to try. A moment later space rippled and distorted as something which was not quite a portal took shape and gave Nora a guaranteed clear shot; from there she swung her hammer at the almost car-sized mass of rubble and sent it hurtling forwards.
Being rewarded with a small explosion out at sea as the stone and rebar was propelled directly into the torso of a Shroud Variant; Tiger closing down her Semblance before the rest of the mechanical horrors circling the Behemoth could react whilst Ravi gave a weary cheer at the sight of improvised rail-gun approach, a variation on the same tactic he and his sister had used by combining their Semblances.
Nora allowed herself a small smile, it wouldn't turn the tide of the battle and it wouldn't bring back her eyes but destroying a Shroud variant felt important.
Team MARSZ had found their quarry, yet given that this entailed undeniable proof that Gestalt-Prime's Grimm-disease had spread further than first anticipated and continued to mutate and corrupt the people of Neo Vale this could scarcely be considered a victory.
"I HATE THIS!" Astra yelled as they attacked a Grimm-Zombie whose appearance suggested that they were not an infected soldier and were instead a member of one of the many street gangs which roamed and plagued the lower levels of the Hive-City but had nonetheless come to Neo Vale's aid and tried to defend their city in its' time of need. The thing was a hunched and skulking humanoid figure draped in rags of loose flesh lined with suckers whose appearance would have been reminiscent of baggy clothing were it not for the malformed skeleton growing through and around the living rags to secure them in place. The Grimm-Zombie was also headless, the skull of the person they had once been dissolved and reduced to a pulpy viscera which dribbled from the chasm formed by their hood which had been transformed into a yawning maw lined with distressingly human teeth.
Astra's frustration was transferred into a crescent kick which sent teeth skittering from the infected things' maw, followed up by a roundhouse kick which shattered brittle ribs. The Grimm-Zombie vomited up a foul, viscous slurry or red and black in response and even as crumpled forward it resisted, trying to ensnare Astra's leg until the Deer Faunus took the blade of Buckshot Ares and slammed it through the base of the things' spine.
Astra hurriedly turned away and distanced themselves from the fading Grimm tissue so that they would not have to see the headless and mutilated corpse left behind.
Peering around the impromptu battlefield that the street had become the leader of Team MARSZ saw that their friends' situations were no less bleak.
Regalia was in the midst of fighting a malformed thing which had once been two people, their bodies fused together by Grimm-flesh at the spine to produce a Grimm-Zombie which scurried about with a gait reminiscent of some kind of monkey whilst the limbs of the victim melded to its' back had been transformed into segmented and grasping limbs. The Raccoon Faunus kept the limbs at bay with the shaft of Apex Scavenger, twirling and thrusting the weapon until she managed to force the malformed horror off-balance before driving the harpoon-tip which formed the base of the weapon into one of the Grimm-Zombie's two faces and then using the pickaxe head of the weapon to pierce it until it stopped moving.
Her eyes were wild beneath her goggles and it was clear that there were no words, no movie quotes or glib comments which would do the situation justice.
No matter how corrupted the victims had been, or how they might tell themselves that it was a mercy there was changing the fact that Team MARSZ were fighting and killing things which had once been people.
Astra's gaze turned to Athena-Jade, Zirconia and Stygian who were fighting as a group against multiple Grimm-Zombies; many of them were simply what could be expected even if describing such things as natural felt obscene, a collection of rotted flesh draped over emaciated Grimm tissue and overlong, clawed limbs with small variations where weapons such as knives had been fused with hands and fingers or where those amongst the crowd who had been Faunus had been mutated further and had attributes exaggerated.
Athena-Jade's glyphs kept the pack of horrors largely at bay whilst at the same time drawing them to her with their glow, leaving the Bear Faunus forced to use Heartbreaker in its' sword form, hacking and slashing through limbs and holding fast whilst her two partners used the single-mindedness of the infected to exploit openings.
Astra watched as Zirconia unleashed fire and lightning into the gathered crowd and felled several of them, only for those which remained to reach out to one another and begin to fuse as putrid, writhing worming strands of fungal tissue and boneless flesh began to reach one host to another and intertwine or burrow its way into the body of another infected.
Stygian's Semblance brought him close enough to begin hacking through the fusing appendages and cut down more of the Grimm-Zombie but it became clear that it was not happening fast enough.
"GET DOWN!" Astra yelled, waiting only a fraction of a second for their order to be followed before unfurling the guns of Buckshot Ares and opening fire, unleashing a maelstrom of bullets which riddled the bodies of the infected and tore through them, leaving the foul creations crumpling to the ground with Grimm-tissue fading from their bodies. It was then that Athena switched Heartbreaker into its' laser cannon form, its' signature low warping thrum filling the air before the lance of ethereal green light swept across the street.
Burning the bodies, ensuring that no trace of the virus or its' spores remained and reducing the remains of the infected to charred bones and ash whilst at the same time filling the air with more smoke and the stench of burning flesh.
"I hate this" Astra repeated, more weakly this time "I fucking hate this"
"We all do" Regalia answered as she joined them, the two pulling one another into a brief hug before she added "But we've gotta carry on….I'll use my Semblance"
"We can do this" Athena-Jade urged, even though her complexion had lost what little color it usually held and she had been left looking decidedly ill by the nights' events "We have to….We have to take the pressure off of Aunt Ruby so she can win this-"
"Then let's go" Stygian answered, blunt and toneless and with a hardness in his electric blue eyes which had grown more pronounced with every instance of the same plague which had destroyed his childhood home Team MARSZ had encountered. Astra paused for a moment, about to give Regalia the signal to proceed with a deafening, rumbling roar which shook the ground and which each of the five Hunters felt in their bones split the air.
"What the hell was that?" the Deer Faunus demanded instead.
"There!" Athena gestured to a lone figure which had slunk into position only a short distance away before declaring its' presence with the bellowed challenge. It was a Grimm hybrid to be sure and yet it was clearly an altogether different class of terror to the wildly flailing Grimm-Zombies they had encountered thus far.
Taller than any of them and humanoid in appearance, yet reptilian in nature in a way which suggested that the thing had once been a Faunus. An odd arrangement of eyes and the blades fitted to its' forearms managing to distract Team MARSZ from its' tail.
Until that tail split apart.
Each of the various interwoven strands and tendrils lined with barbs and hooks which formed it unraveled in an instant and plunged downwards into the ground with a speed and ferocity which caused Team MARSZ to act on instinct.
"MOVE!" Astra called out, flinging themselves from the ground just as the first jagged bone blade burst up from the concrete beneath them. More spires and needles of bone burst upwards in a sweeping, crescent shaped wave before being dragged downwards once again as the strange hybrids' tail reformed itself and lashed violently behind it.
"I'm taking it down!" Athena declared, already hoisting her laser cannon into position "Get me an opening!"
The hybrids' response was to shift into a fighting stance which showed a level of intelligence and ability whilst also being familiar enough to force Zirconia into action
"WAIT!" she grasped the barrel of Athena's weapon before the Bear Faunus could fire.
"What is it?" Zirconia hesitated before she answered, knowing how insane her words would sound but being certain all the same. The familiar fighting stance, the blades resembling the machete her fathers' right hand man had used, the scales and the deformed eyes of the thing which corresponded with an injury the Komodo Dragon had received were all clues but the tail and how it had been used were undeniable proof.
"That attack!" the Grasshopper Faunus finally answered "It's like it was trying to use a Semblance!"
Deathly silence followed that declaration, leaving Zirconia free to point at the waiting monster.
"I think that's Carmesi"
Author's notes:
So here we are, one third of the way through the final volume and things are absolutely tasty already.
I promised that this volume was gonna have no breaks and here we are, four chapters in and Gestalt-Prime's two generals are already in combat and the plan, such as it was of drawing Gestalt-Prime out into the open so that Ruby can face them is pretty much scrapped.
But anyway, let's summarize shall we?:
Grimm Zombies are an objectively great idea and something like Cordyceps virus makes sense….I would say "I wonder if we'll ever get something like that in canon" but at the time of writing it's looking like we're not getting any more canon.
Yeah all those soldiers from the last chapter are dead or infected.
Astra asking Zirconia to use Dust-based methods to try and slow the spread of the spores down as a substitute for Ruby is a decent idea.
Aefen was still alive….for a little while.
We started the Cyber-Grimm experiments with Petrol being shoved into a battle-suit and fused with it and now look, we've come full circle.
It's definitely a mercy kill.
Of course Qrow has a base of operations.
Winter would absolutely use a bombing campaign.
Qrow watching the beachfront operations was a good place to have other people make minor cameos and it's always personal against Shrouds now.
The Santara twins using their Semblance as a combo attack and proving that despite everything they're still stronger together was great….I was actually gonna save that until the scene from Nora's perspective but then I had the other idea.
So Redwood was still on the beach, but since he was there when Nora got the order to evacuate non-Hunters he was one of the first ones to go….Just to get rid of any ambiguity about Astra's Dad surviving.
Yeah, taking fire and rescue crews near that airship would just give you Grimm-Zombies with surgical tools.
So I actually debated the order of events for this scene and whether or not it was gonna be from Team WULF's side of the Alpha-Minion's.
Oh Gestalt-Prime is a nasty fucker, they had the airborne Cyber-Grimm drop Man-Eaters into the city to target Hunters and squad leaders, along with bombs and then just to top it off….More Grimm-disease.
Basically Team WULF have Man-Eaters climbing the wall on one side and standard model Cyber-Grimm on the other side of the wall they're trying to hold….If they were on the ground and forced to fight everything at once they would have been overrun and killed.
Laser's endless bag of tricks strikes again.
And a very nice save from Diabla.
….But of course we can't let that pressure off for too long, so enter the boss-fight.
It looks the same as the other Cyber-Grimm, but the Alpha-Minion is stronger and smarter, as we saw and it also appreciates the value of killing Team WULF specifically.
So naturally Wolfram wants to fight it.
Seriously that fight close to the wreckage of the airship must have been terrifying really.
If it wasn't for AJ's glyphs Team MARSZ would be dead already.
The bodies fusing together every time the infected get clumped together too much is just an extra level of fear, if you try and stop them from spreading themselves you run the risk of them merging into something like the Pikesreach Abomination and have to watch out things starting to merge….A little bit of the Last of Us mixed with a little bit of The Thing.
And yeah, even despite their best efforts there were still some infected getting into the city, which added to the ones dropped by the Cyber-Grimm basically means that Neo Vale has Grimm-Zombie hordes attacking it from multiple angles.
There we go, a budding, nascent abomination….This one being an entire tank crew, along with the tank. In any other volume that would have been an end of volume fight, but this is the end of the story and there's a bigger threat literally walking towards everyone so we need more than spectacle.
I added Astra's line about their Semblance because I remembered it literally as I was typing.
But yeah, Ruby and Penny are there….And Team MARSZ are gonna need to get their hearing checked after this.
Every new Cyber-Grimm is almost an Alpha remember….Give them each a pack of infected to use and you basically have an equivalent to to Grimm Special Ops.
But on the bright side, the airship problem is being dealt with.
Yeah Gestalt-Prime is holding back on using that big cannon.
That Gravity Dust attack is based on a single shot from the short film 'Rakka' by Oats studios, specifically the shot of the aliens using a giant ring which does look like a little like a Grimm pool to destroy buildings….I knew that I was gonna have a shot like that in the finale of MARZ when I first saw it.
So it's bad, it's definitely bad but Ruby and the other Hunters are tampering with Gestalt-Prime's plans to some extent.
Nora has been wrecking those artillery Cyber-Grimm all night at this point.
There's definitely a chance that Crusher's were made with the idea of fighting Nora specifically in mind….But what Nero and Albion forgot when they first designed them was that Nora was indeed Corvid's favorite teacher.
So I finally had Onyx and Carcharodon do something….Hellion is there somewhere as well, but there's just too much going on to show everyone.
Okay Tiger and Ravi are the only members of Team SHMR left on the beach because they….Or specifically Tiger have a job to do, I keep making a point of showing her Semblance off.
Okay so Rover, of my first ever team of RWBY OC is still alive but had to pull back, the idea of someone with super speed being used spread the zombie outbreak was actually based on the Flash in DCeased.
Team GRAY were a tournament team in FADE who were notable because their leader was from Patch, they're dead, Velvet's little brother is MIA and we haven't heard anything from Scarlet or any of the students he took with him….It's pretty bad.
Okay so Nora and Ruby are gonna make a new plan and Nora knows as much about whatever is at everyone's disposal as Ren….But they need to come up with something quickly because they're running out of airships to throw at the Behemoth-Gestalt and Ruby is actually being countered pretty effectively by just keeping her from where she needs to be.
Honestly I was just having some body horror fun with the different Grimm-Zombies….Look at the one Astra fought, its' skull had been dissolved by its' hood which had become it's mouth….It was a Zombie that ate its' own brains.
Also melee combat just felt right, gotta conserve those bullets.
Yeah, I think seeing another Abomination start to form is an acceptable time to lose control and just start unloading.
But the whole fight against the zombies was obviously just a prelude to the arrival of Carmesi whose arrival wasn't so much alluded to as outright signaled.
And that's what that woven together tendril-tail was for….Carmesi can imitate his old Semblance.
And of course it was Zirconia who realized that it was him.
Thank you to MajorBrony95 for their review on the last chapter.
It is exactly the kind of diabolical that Gestalt-Prime would come up with.
We might be near the end, but don't worry I'm gonna make the time we've got left count.
As always thank you to everyone that reads this, with a special thanks to those of you that follow, favorite and review.