Chaotic Intervention
"Guys? That thing's circling back. What are we gonna do?" Jaune said nervously, gesturing to the flying beast that hunted through the skies.
"Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying, our objective is right in front of us." Weiss replied. They made it to the Emerald Forest ruins, with the relics on their stands. Ruby, still resting from the earlier Aura drain, spoke from the ground.
"She's right, all we have to do is take the relics and make it back to the cliff side." The others nodded in agreement, as Ruby stood up and took the white knight. Jaune, however, was still looking upward, seeming a little more nervous than usual.
Ruby said, "Hey, Jaune? You good?" before looking up at what he was investigating. Her jaw went slightly slack as the others glanced upwards.
Weiss spoke up first, "Oh. They're back." The others–sans Ruby–only glanced at her in confusion as they saw the Nevermore chase down a crossbow with wings.
Ren glanced at the Death Stalker as its tail threatened to break free of its icy restraints. "Hey!" he shouted, waving the others closer.
Ruby set her scythe to sniper mode. "Get ready for a fight." Ruby got behind her teammates, looking through her sights. The others readied their weapons as the Death Stalker broke free.
Charging forward, the Death Stalker looked to crush one of the students with its pincers. Jaune backed off, quickly snagging the white rook as the rest of his team made for the cliff. Yang punched the Death Stalker as it attempted to swipe at her, and Ruby used the moment of opportunity to get a clean shot between the Grimm's exoskeleton.
Weiss summoned ice shards from her glyphs aimed at its tail, as Blake grappled onto the beast and slashed at its armor. Shrugging off the attacks, it tackled Yang as it attempted to skewer her with its tail. As Yang parried its attack with a left hook, she was swatted away by the creature's right pincer.
Ruby shot the side of the Death Stalker as it attacked, quickly getting up from her position after she took the shot. "Retreat!" Enough distance had been made to make escape feasible, and Ruby sped off in light of this. The others quickly followed suit as the Death Stalker struggled to match the agility of the students. Ruby looked over to where Jaune and his team was, finding them struggling with a hail of Nevermore feathers being sent their way, though it never seemed like they were actually aimed for them.
Looking upward again, she saw the same crossbow wielding creature from earlier distracting the Nevermore, with limited success. She could only wonder why it would aim to hinder its ally's assault, but she could think about that later. Dashing over to the canyon the team was stuck in, Ruby fired off shots at the Nevermore as Jaune struggled to keep his shield up.
"Can't believe this shield can even take that many feathers-" Jaune said, before having to parry another stray feather bolt.
Weiss and her teammates arrived. "Ruby? The Death Stalker's still coming, and I doubt you could take even two hits right now."
Ruby looked around for something to help her, and spotted a tall pillar. "Easy, I just won't get hit!" as she dashed up to the pillar for a clearer shot.
Weiss scoffed in disbelief as Ruby sped off, before turning to find the rest of the students fending off both Grimm beasts.
Pyrrha shot into the Nevermore's body as she blocked a stray feather with her shield. Jaune frantically ran with his shield held high, with most of the feathers headed towards him. Ren and Nora fired off shots with their ranged secondary fire modes, the Nevermore still unaffected by the hail of projectiles coming its way.
The Death Stalker came in to flank the party as Yang charged at it headfirst with Ember Celica. Blake attempted to grapple onto the beast with Gambol Shroud, but she was interrupted by an arrow to the knee. Wincing from the force, she looked up to find a winged creature with a bow and a sharp tail. "More Grimm incoming!" she shouted, hooking onto the beast as it nocked another arrow.
Slicing its head off, she landed with grace as the beast disintegrated into black dust–until actual blood splashed on her face. She widened her eyes in shock, before taking a volley of arrows to the face. Looking up from the ground she was knocked onto, more of the winged beasts appeared, nocking arrows to fire another volley.
Weiss, who was dealing with the Death Stalker, rushed over to block the arrows with an ice wall. Blake leapt up from above it and hooked onto one of the creatures, swiftly slicing them all up in a cloud of dust and blood soaked grass.
She said, "Hey, Weiss, I don't think those were Grimm." Weiss looked at her in confusion for a moment, before noticing the blood splatters.
Weiss scoffed. "Clearly," she said before rushing back to the Death Stalker.
"When I get home, I'm retiring-" Stavros said, before dodging a swipe from the Nevermore. "-from this whole 'warrior' business." The plan was simple; divert the bird from the students to keep them safe.
The kids had shown promise earlier, but he'd rather die than intentionally endanger them. He hadn't foreseen the giant scorpion that followed the kids, but it wasn't quite like he could do much about it. He twirled around mid-air to dodge a volley of feathers sent his way. Looking back down at the kids, he saw them stalling the scorpion well enough. A few flaws in their performance, sure, but that was presumably why they were at this school anyway.
Something else caught his eye, however. Squinting his eyes, he spotted a winged creature with a sharp tail, armed with a bow and arrow. He asked the open air, "Is that an Eclipsor?" before he got smacked downward by the bird. Scrambling to reorient himself, he glided down to a nearby cliff where the Order party was waiting. Rolling onto the ground, his light armor made audible clanks with the rocks as the team walked over.
Aichmire asked, "What happened up there?" as he inspected Stavros' wounds.
Stavros replied through heavy breaths. "Eclipsors, they're here."
Elena began healing him. "Are you sure?" she said, her eyes narrowed.
Stavros nodded and pointed to the cliffside where the Deathstalker was. "Over there, they were shooting at the kids."
Upon hearing this, Aichmire started sprinting towards the cliffside as Arcusan followed. Their Magikill shouted, "Careful! The rest of Medusa's creatures could have followed us here!" but the duo paid no attention to the elder's words. Aichmire activated his Rage to reach the cliffs faster, leaving Arcusan in the dust.
On his way, a pack of Beowulfs rushed in to attack him. Leaping into the air and slicing one of the beasts in twain, he slashed and dashed through the lesser Grimm before sprinting once more. From afar, Arcusan noticed how the dark beasts of this land charged at the Raging Swordwrath, even as they fell by the sword.
Reaching the cliffs, Aichmire hid behind a tree, seeing multiple Crawlers about to pounce on the students. Roaring in magical anger, he charged at them as Arcusan fired a flaming arrow from afar. Aichmire decapitated two of the Chaos infantry units, a third getting shot down by Arcusan's arrow. The rest of the pack leapt away, as the duo looked over to the students. The scorpion was being stalled by three of the girls, while the rest of the students were occupied with the Nevermore.
Aichmire said, "We took down one of them, we can do it again," before rushing straight into the cliff where the Nevermore was attacking. Arcusan chose to stay behind, firing off arrows at the scorpion.
From afar, Frounus watched. "I doubt Ozpin would be happy with our interventions," he said.
Elena asked, "Then why did you allow them to fight?"
He responded, "The Order Empire does not back down, Elena."
"There's another one!" Jaune said, seeing what could only be described as an angry demon with a sword rushing to their location.
Ruby turned to see the same sword Grimm that had beaten her before, the creature shouting and taunting the Nevermore. "Hey! Too afraid to hit these kids yourself?!"
The kids were momentarily stunned by the third party, until they noticed the Nevermore rapidly approaching their location. All of them leapt out of the way, as the sword Grimm stood there with its guard up.
As the Nevermore dived in to swallow the creature whole, the thin Grimm sidestepped its beak and mounted its back. The Nevermore screeched as the creature started stabbing straight into its spine.
"It's fighting the Nevermore!" Pyrrha as the bird attempted to shake the thing off. Glancing at the Death Stalker, Jaune and Pyrrha nodded at each other and took the opportunity to demolish the Grimm scorpion.
With Weiss, Yang and Blake already on the beast, it only got more aggressive with its attacks. Jaune charged in with his shield held up, blocking a sting from its tail head-on. Recoiling from the failed attack, the Death Stalker failed to notice Weiss as she cracked its armor further with a storm of ice crystals.
Pyrrha added onto the pressure with multiple shots from Miló in rifle form, picking at the exoskeleton bit by bit. Jaune and Yang were positioned closer to the beast, Yang dealing constant damage with Ember Celica while Jaune acted as bait for the beast's attacks.
Weiss went hit-and-run, quickly dashing in and out of the range of the beast to poke at its defenses with Myrtenaster. Blake was playing off of the random arrows coming from a small group of trees, using the distraction of the arrows to slash at the Death Stalker repeatedly. She had to wonder where the arrows came from, but she currently had no time to investigate.
Jaune, peeking behind his shield, noticed the Death Stalker's tail was suspiciously vulnerable. He shouted out, saying, "Guys! The tail!" The others noticed the precarious position of the tail, and quickly got to work.
Pyrrha sliced its stinger off with her shield as Yang uppercut the Death Stalker into the air, with Blake grappling onto the beast's head to rip the stinger off. Weiss blasted it down with fire dust before Blake slammed the stinger down onto its body, shattering its exoskeleton and the beast itself.
Jaune cheered, saying, "Hey! It worked!" He then looked towards the skies. "Oh, right. Nevermore."
Aichmire slashed all across the Nevermore, looking to do even more damage this time with Rage compared to the last bird he helped to defeat. Plunging his sword straight into its brain, he steered it around the canyon, ruins littering the ground as he soared above the skies.
Taking note of the kids' ranged attacks, he steered the beast in the effective range of the students to make sure they did decent damage. As the others arrived at the scene after defeating the scorpion, the Nevermore took more and more damage from the onslaught of Dust and bullets.
Aichmire decided to finish it off by ramming it straight through a forest near the Order team to ensure its death. Leaning over and steering it towards the cliffside where his team was. It went down screeching as it was dragged down into the dirt. Frounus was the first to act, tossing his spear straight into its eye.
The Magikill took this chance and electrocuted it, frying its body to death. Jumping off the disintegrating bird, Aichmire collapsed onto the ground.
"Doc, need some help here-'' was all he could say before passing out.
Elena examined him, noting no injuries on his body. "He overused Rage," she said, "I'll heal him while we move back to camp."
Frounus took his spear from the body of the beast, before carrying Aichmire on his shoulder. He spotted Arcusan running back, and called out to the whole team. "Back to camp!" The crew nodded before going into the forest.
"From this day forward, you will work together as: Team JNPR." Applause blanketed the auditorium as Nora hugged Ren. "Led, by Jaune Arc! Congratulations, young man."
Jaune sputtered and stammered for a moment, before falling on his face from a celebratory pat on the back. "Oops," Pyrrha said.
"And Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee…" Ozpin droned on for a while, Weiss zoned out.
She was thinking about the earlier encounters during her initiation. 'They're too smart to be Grimm, and even if they were dumber, they bled real blood.' As Team RWBY's leader was called out, Weiss stared off into space while thinking back to the weaponry the creatures chose and their skill with the weapons. She found herself agreeing with the headmaster, even if she disagreed with his leadership choice.
'An interesting year indeed.'
Should stickmen have aura?
Patch Notes - 9/5/2024
Dialogue tags revised/removed for quality.