...

Fighting Rose, Bloom Again!

Chapter 7

Facing forward

Sienna Khan was known as Ghira's hammer before she had risen to take his place in the White Fang, and rightfully so; she was his personal bodyguard and loyal muscle, personally responsible for freeing enslaved Faunus before their civil rights were ratified. Kali on the other hand was far less known beyond merely being Ghira's wife. She was perfectly fine with that, because it allowed her to remain out of the spotlight and give her free reign to do what she was best at. She was Ghira's Gentle Blade, the cut that silenced attempts on his life from the shadows.

Metal shrieked against metal as Blake was sent back a step, pursing her lips as she was forced to block over and over again with every strike her mother sent her way. Fighting her mother was like trying to fight a torrent of water in the dead of night, Kali flowing from an upward slash into a downward cut, gracefully pivoting out of the way and scoring a cut along the length of Blake's arm as she tried to stab forward and another whipping up into her ribs. Blake growled and spun, slashing at her mother's head only for Kali's entire body to turn black save her amber eyes, Gambol phasing through her shadowy figure while Kali stepped through the attack and returned to normal. Blake was about to try and swing the butt of her blade into Kali's temple, only to freeze as she felt the tip of a blade pressing up against her jugular. Blake felt her collar rise, a scowl twisting her face as she clenched her fist and fired off a left hook at her mother's head, the impact hammering against the flat of Kali's katana and sending her skidding backwards.

She grunted and sharply widened her stance while whipping her blade out behind her, halting her sliding before shooting back in with far more speed that Blake had expected, Kali's katana cutting down at her head. She hastily brought her blade up to block, only for Kali's slash to bend and curve around her defence, Kali going to a knee as she smoothly cut across Blake's stomach. Blake grit her teeth and tensed, prepared to cut down at her mother's head only to breathe out slowly and force her emotions down: that last cut would have disembowelled her had it been a real battle.

"You've gotten stronger," Kali huffed, wiping away the sweat from her face and sheathing her own blade, hissing as she shook out her aching wrists. "Owowow… much physically stronger."

"Blame my Devil Trigger," Blake sighed, " You're practically back in peak condition mom."

"Circumstances required that I needed to be," Kali said with a wry grin. "Still, it's good to see that you've improved all-round in terms of your raw physical and auric capabilities, but your swordplay is…"

"Lacking, I know," Blake grumbled.

"I wouldn't say anything that bad," Kali chuckled, "Those new tricks you weaved into your bladework caught me off guard more than a few times. Stack that on top of your greater physical strength and it's tough to deal with. I think the main issue is that you're holding something back."

"Obviously," Blake huffed, "And so are you. This is just a spar anyway."

"It is," Kali agreed, "But you're holding back while I'm simply not fighting to kill. There's a difference."

Blake opened her mouth before closing it, begrudgingly conceding the point.

"I can practically smell how angry you get," He mother teased, before she turned stern, "You need to learn to embrace your new emotions before you can start to master them. Bottling it up is just going to stunt your growth, growth that you need now more than ever."

"I know –" Blake hissed, exasperated.

"Take this seriously," Kali stressed, a vein pulsing on her forehead. "This isn't a world where you can afford to take your time and coddle yourself Blake, because we've had monsters banging at our walls for over a month, our people defending the walls are constantly going missing whenever a wave attacks us, and Remnant is going down the drain fast. If you've come here with the genuine intention of helping your friends and the rest of Remnant, then you need to get over yourself and let go of those chains you've wrapped around your own neck."

They glared at each other for a few moments, Blake's collar rising once again as both her and her mother's ears were pinned back against their heads. The closing of a door snapped them both out of their glaring contest, the pair huffing and releasing the tension as a new face entered the room. Dende, like all Slug Faunus, had green skin, thin antennae protruding from his forehead and pointed ears. White and red robes hung loosely around his body, the symbol of Menagerie's chief spiritual guide.

"Lady Belladonna," Dende bowed, Kali scoffing and gesturing for him to stand up.

"What's your diagnosis on our guest?" Kali asked, Blake's interest shifting onto the conversation as worry bubbled up in her gut.

"Yang is…" Dende paused for a moment, "Physically speaking, she's in remarkable health, if a little skinny. By if we're talking about her soul, then it's a rather odd situation. You said that her Semblance has something to do with turning damage done into strength, right?"

Blake nodded silently as Dende pursed his lips.

"To be blunt, I've never felt a wound to the soul quite like this. It's as if someone neatly cut out a piece of her very essence," Dende said, Blake's heart plunging through her stomach before he continued. "That kind of damage should've killed her on the spot but… for some reason or the other, the damage done has already been healing at a steady pace, and if I'm right, should heal within the next week or two."

Blake had almost collapsed from relief, though Dende wasn't done yet.

"What's even more interesting is her Semblance. The 'damage' done to her soul has been steadily feeding her strength overtime on top of whatever nutrients you've given her, I'd go so far as to say that it's what's keeping her in good shape, if not helping the healing process outright."

"…So you're suggesting she's not losing any of the strength she absorbs?" Blake asked.

"I know it sounds odd…" Dende started.

"No, not at all," Blake shook her head, a hand coming up to massage her own jawline. "This isn't the first time something like this has happened either. When we fought the World Eater during the breach in Vale, Yang took a serious beating but all that damage that piled on during the fight seemed to give her a permanent boost in power after the entire affair, which wasn't something her semblance was capable of before. She took at least as much damage during the Fall and got a piece of her soul torn out of her, so for her semblance to be passively absorbing whatever it can in order to help her isn't as big of a stretch as you think."

"That's fascinating," Dende murmured, taking notes on a notepad. It was oddly comforting to see paper, Blake realized. She'd lost almost all of her precious books in Beacon, and with the heightened fear of technology being a potential gateway for daemons to enter through, paper had once again become a much more widely used tool. Not to mention, his aptitude and interest in aura reminded her of Ruby. Her comfort faded away at the thought.

"Well, once her soul finishes mending itself," He continued, "I think that she'll wake. We just need to wait and see if any deeper issues arise after the fact, though I don't think we'll need to worry about that given how clean the damage done to her soul was."

"Okay… okay, good," Blake nodded, "Can I see her?"

Dende smiled and nodded, Blake pausing and looking to her mother.

"Go," Kali said softly.

Blake silently thanked her mother and made her way to Yang's room. Closing the door behind her, she walked up to the peacefully sleeping form of Yang and promptly collapsed to her knees, barely holding back a sob of relief as she clutched Yang's hand.

"Th-thank the Gods…" She hiccupped, "I at least managed not to lose you too."

She stayed like that for a while, unsure and uncaring on how much time had passed. As she gathered her thoughts though, she realized her mother was right. She'd lost her pride and dignity to Adam's blade. She'd been unable to stop Ruby from throwing herself at certain death. She couldn't stop Weiss from being kidnapped by her father. And she really didn't even do anything to help Yang. Her eyes were still wet with tears, but she grit her teeth and stared at Yang's limp hand.

In a strange way, Yang and Ruby's father was right: though her and Sun's efforts to look through the old manuscripts and documents in her father's library hadn't yielded anything substantial yet, she had begun to come to terms with the devil in her skin. It was as she held Yang's unresponsive hand that she knew she still had something to protect, and that she would do anything within her power to protect it: she had that power now. Something just under her skin purred, and she felt almost comfortable in her own body for the first time in weeks.

"I won't fail you again," She promised. "And if I have to become a monster to keep that promise, then so be it."

Frantic knocking at the door broke her out of her reverie. She quickly made her way to the door and opened it to find Sun standing there, a simple steel combat-staff slung onto his back. She still wasn't used his hair being dyed black along with his black-coloured contact-lenses hiding his identity, though she pushed aside her amusement at the serious set of his jaw.

"There's an attack incoming," He said simply, tossing her blade to her, "Gear up."

Blake snatched it out of the air and smoothly strapped it to her back, Sun's eyebrows going up at the change in Blake's bearing before he grinned and jogged alongside her.

"You look like you've locked in," he said idly, the two of them leaping onto the shoddily-constructed wall to observe the oncoming rush of Grimm. Blake was idly checking her ammunition, sliding it into Gambol's handle before her gaze turned to the destruction the Grimm wrought. Uprooted trees, houses smashed to splinters or left as little more than standing husks, the ground riddled with bomb-craters and mounds that looked suspiciously like bodies, or what was left of them.

"You could say that," She said lowly, aura flaring around her as she unleashed her Trigger. The illegible scrawl that once writhed restlessly her body now stayed put, solid and more tangible. Other Militia-members had made their way to the wall, most arming themselves with basic ranged weaponry while the strongest members, especially those who had already transformed into their Devil Trigger, were preparing to use whatever close-quarters weapon they had on hand. They all payed their respects to her. She was the chieftain's daughter, a member of the Vytal Festival's winning team, and now she stood with her people in order to defend her home.

"There's a lot of them," She noted wryly, eyes darting as she counted over one hundred Grimm, none of them juvenile.

"And you don't seem all that worried," Sun grunted as he rolled his shoulders. "Horde-combat isn't really your thing, is it?"

"No," She agreed, "But things change."

A monstrously-mutated goliath was at the middle of the horde, four trunks in place of its usual one. Something that large would easily trample through the poorly-built wall and devastate what was left of Menagerie's population.

"START MORTAR BARRAGE!" A voice yelled out before the tell-tale * FWUMP* of mortar rounds being fired echoed across the line of the wall. Blake's eyes twitched as a row of explosions slammed into the oncoming tide. Only a handful had actually died in the barrage, the rest having quickly weaved around and past the oncoming attack, though Blake didn't miss how most of the one who'd been destroyed had leapt to protect the Goliath from harm.

"Smart lil' things," Sun snorted as he gripped his staff. "You ready?"

Blake drew her blade and crouched.

" Ready."

They blasted off the wall and were sprinting across the ruined ground, other assault members a little behind as they tried to keep up. Blake realized that the terrain was proving to be an advantage: some Grimm were smashing through or leaping over whatever was in their way, but most avoided spending their energy wherever possible, weaving around and through obstacles at the cost of breaking up their own formation. Even better, they were forced to slow down and make way for the Goliath, the massive Grimm trumpeting as its trunks smashed into the ground in front of it like car-sized flails.

' That's why the rest are defending it. They're using the Goliath to clear a way for future attacks where they won't be slowed down!'

Sun and Blake stayed side-by-side, meeting the charge of the first two Beowolves as they burst through the wall of the house in front of them, both heavily armoured in bone-plating.

" Kaioken!"

Sun's aura flared red as he pitched his staff forward like a javelin, the iron pole punching through its perennial as Sun blasted his shoulder into its chest followed up by a two-handed palm-strike that caved its stomach in. Blake had phased forward with her Semblance past the overhand swipe of the second one, slashing down its neck and to its ribs in one arc of violet motion, having cut through to its spine. The glowing purple mark left by her slash exploded a moment later, ripping the Grimm's armour to bony shreds. Both Grimm didn't go down.

The first grabbed Sun's shoulders and chomped down on his neck, the second whipping around and swinging a backhand as Blake's head. Sun snarled as his hands gripped the open jaws, his aura flaring red once again as he roared –

" Times THREE!"

He tore its head in half, firing a right hook to the body that blasted it into the house for good measure. Blake leapt over the backhand, firing herself onto her own Grimm's shoulders and rapidly stabbing down into its exposed and gored neck. Its neck craned around and bit down on her arm, her face twisting in pain and fury before she transformed Gambol into its pistol-form and unloaded aura-packed bullets into its jaws. Its head burst apart in a shower of black blood, Blake hissing as she shook her arm and was shocked to find that its fangs had pierced through her aura, the shallow puncture-wounds already healing but shocking nonetheless.

"Killshots only then," Sun said, rolling his shoulders again as his own wounds closed up.

"Easy to say," Blake grumbled, though she was disturbed at how much tougher these common Grimm were, thankful again for her increased strength and durability. Her skin broke out into goose bumps and she yanked her head out of the way of a large, raptor-like Creep-type's snapping jaws, shooting it in the eye before sheathing Gambol and chopping down with her cleaver into its neck. The heavy blade bit deep into the Creep's neck, Sun spearing it through the eye with his staff and holding it in place. Blake grunted as she tried to yank her cleaver out of the struggling Grimm to chop up at its exposed throat, scowling as it stuck fast.

"C'mon, you friggin-!" She cursed, finally yanking her cleaver free and chopping down at the wound again as she felt her aura pull forward. She let it flow on pure instinct, the phantasmal image of her arm swinging Gambol straight up into its throat and decapitating it in one smooth motion. Blake blinked, surprised. Leaving slashes behind was one thing, but her semblance had never done anything like that before.

"Nice one," Sun said with a small grin.

"Thanks…" Blake said slowly as they continued forward, the gears in her head turning as other Assault members began to catch up to them.

' My Semblance has always been about leaving a piece of myself behind, but now I'm able to 'go forward' like Sun's? What changed?'

Another Beowolf bounded over a house and she leapt to meet it in the air, slashing one of its grabbing claws as the other was lopped off by another phantom slash, Blake hopping in the air with her Semblance and cutting off both its arms at the shoulder with two wheeling upward slashes before shifting Gambol into a pistol and aiming into its open jaws. Her eyes glanced at its exposed throat and she fired, a phantom cut tearing open its throat as her Semblance-charged bullet exploded in its mouth, the force enough to rip its head clean off.

' No, not exactly forward…' She realized as she landed in a crouch on top of one of the few trees still standing, her blood running hot as she asked herself a very important question. ' What is my Semblance?'

She blasted forward, Gambol in one hand and Shroud in the other as she dove into a pack of smaller Creeps, stabbing down into the mouth of the first, vaulting off into the air and transforming Gambol into its chain-scythe form before spinning and whipping the weapon out at the end of her ribbon. A flurry of aura-enhanced cuts tore the pack apart, Blake seeing that any openings left by her attacks were closed when her Semblance responded to her immediate desire, cloned attacks simultaneously tearing into the open spaces as some of the smarter creeps attempted to dodge. She landed and weaved to the side as an Ursa Major picked up a curled Boarbatusk and pelted it at her, the hog acting as living ordnance and blasting through the tree she's once stood on, directly into Sun's path. He grunted and caught the spinning Grimm in one hand, skidding back a step and pelting it right back to sender, the Ursa catching it easily enough, though Blake had already closed the distance with her blade sheathed.

'I run away from my problems and leave behind a piece of myself to take the hurt,' She thought, aura building under her skin. ' But no more running away – I'll stand my ground and face reality, here and now!'

Her quickdraw strike was accompanied by two extra arcs of violet light as she slashed down, the three simultaneous cuts appearing to pass right through the Ursa and Boarbatusk. The Grimm reeled away only for their bodies to explode from within, torn apart as auric slashes burst out of their flesh. A steel staff shot just past her cheek and through the disintegrating bodies of the Grimm she'd slain, spearing through the mouth of a charging Beowolf that attempted to use its comrade's death as an opening. Sun blasted past her, gripping the staff that was still stuck in the Grimm's mouth and heaving it bodily into the air. His staff turned into a living greathammer as he swung it in wide, sweeping blows, the impaled Beowolf's thrashing claws giving it the added benefit of slicing into others of its kind that had attempted to dodge. Blake and other Devil Trigger infantry dove into the thickening horde, wreaking havoc as they weaved through the Grimm with ruthless efficiency. She ducked under the swipe of an Ursa, severing its leg at the knee and stabbing up through its stomach, twisting the blade and dragging it to the left while a phantom blade slashed right, slicing the Ursa in half at the waist before she snarled and fired an uppercut into its solar plexus, its top-half torn off.

A Taijitu lunged at her from the side, fangs snapping nothing but misty shadow as Blake jammed her cleaver into one side of its jaw, Sun doing the same to the other side with his staff, dragging their blades along the length of its body as another infantryman stabbed a spear into its mouth to pin it to the floor. The Taijitu's other head shrieked and lunged around, grabbing Sun full in its jaws and smashing him into the floor headfirst before thrashing around and hammering him into the ruins of another house in a shower of splinters, forcing him to let go of his staff.

He'd been impaled through his upper shoulder by one of its large fangs, a gash on his scalp covering one side of his face in blood, but he was more enraged than hurt baring his teeth as his eyes pulsed yellow for a split second. He grabbed the fang impaling him and snarled as he ripped it out of its socket, snapping it in half and driving it up through the roof of its mouth. It let him go as it shrieked and thrashed harder, tossing him into the air and leaving itself open for him to rocket back down with a dropkick onto its jaw, forcing its mouth open as he screamed into it. It swallowed Sun's aura-blast, its eyes bulging before popping like bloody balloons as its throat exploded, Blake running up its neck and finishing it off with a Semblance-enhanced decapitation. They both spied the mortar rounds that were still being periodically launched into the horde in their attempts to thin it out as much as possible, Blake snatching one out of the air with her chain-scythe and flinging it straight towards the oncoming Goliath, only around a hundred meters away now.

"You okay?" Blake asked, quickly giving his shoulder a once over.

"Been better," He grimaced, the wound already stitching itself close, "Almost lost control there."

"Sun…" Blake said softly.

He stopped her words with a sharp glare. Blake was thankful for Sun's freakish physique and aura helping him heal, though she knew that he was holding back a lot. He'd outright refused to rely on any of his deeper Saiyan abilities, namely the primal fury that had broken the veil between reality and unreality in Beacon. Shame wormed its way across his face and he cast his eyes down.

"S-sorry, didn't mean to get snappy at you."

Blake sighed and gently pat him on the back, understanding that he was blaming himself for what happened at Beacon. She couldn't exactly tell him to just 'stop being afraid' of his own power, because she ultimately still felt a similar way about her heritage, and given what happened at Beacon, he had a far greater reason to be afraid.

"It's fine," She said softly before pointing her blade at the Goliath, "Let's just focus on what we can do here and now."

"I can get behind that," he said with a hint of his usual grin, his aura crackling red as they both faced the rest of the horde. They'd thinned it out a good amount, a total of around thirty or forty kills among them all, though that unfortunately left only the stronger Grimm alive and in the thick of the horde. One of the Infantry, some kind of armoured beast, charged literally head-first into the crowd, tossing a few of the smaller ones into the air and goring others on his horn before he quickly began to be overwhelmed, claws biting through both his aura and thick hide.

"Let's go!" Blake urged, and Sun was already well ahead of her, blasting into the horde while enhanced by his Kaioken and punching the jaw clean off a heavily-armoured Beowolf that was trying to wrap its teeth around the thick neck of the infantryman. He didn't stop there, tensing his hand and chopping into its collarbone all the way through to its hip, tearing it in half with a heave and using the corpse as a pair of messy shields to give their ally time to recover. A pitch-black, humanoid and slender Grimm tore a chunk out of the ground and promptly disappeared in a flash of purple sparks, reappearing behind Sun with the rock gripped in both hands raised above its head. Blake was already behind it, her ribbon wrapping around its wrists as she yanked back, forcing the tall creature off balance and dropping the rock onto its own face as she stabbed it in its falling back, two more phantom stabs severing its spine at the neck and hip. Sun was quick to pivot around and slam his palms into its chest, caving its ribcage in as Blake emptied a clip into its eyes and mouth before kicking off of it, the two catching their breath for a moment until a massive feline Grimm easily the size of a bus divebombed out of the air to swipe at her, slamming into Sun's guard instead and flinging him through an Ursa and the house behind it.

"A Magnamalo?" Blake hissed, gripping Shroud and Gambol in each hand as the A-ranked Grimm paced around her, other Grimm deferring to its natural authority and for good reason. Its forearms were armed with serrated blades, head armoured with a horned crest, back bristling with spines, and lashing tail ending in a three-pronged spear. Hazy violet flames seeped from its snarling mouth, back and tail, the latter raising up and beginning to whip around and form a purple-flamed tornado. Blake kissed her teeth and flicked her wrists, holding both blades in a reverse-grip as she sharply dashed to the side right as the Magnamalo stabbed out with its tailspear. Purple flames fired out in a cone and engulfed the Grimm that were behind her, Blake hissing at the wash of heat that made her eyes water. The Magnamalo saw the tiny opening and pounced, diving through the air with and trying to bisect her with its armblade, but she sharply weaved under it while raking her blades across its ribs. It immediately planted its paw and spun, its massive body whipping around like a tornado as it lashed out with its tail and forcing Blake to jump up, its spin ripping through a dozen Grimm that had strayed too close to the fight.

It didn't give her a moment to breathe, launching itself at her with its massive incisors bared, but Sun intercepted it with a spinning back-kick to its open jaw, sending it tumbling away from them and crashing back to the earth, impaling a couple of Grimm on its own spines. It thrashed on the ground in pain, each wild movement ripping apart other Grimm and houses as Sun and Blake landed.

"The Goliath isn't the biggest threat," Blake realised, "It's a distraction for this thing to get in close and finish off what's left of Menagerie."

True to her words, a few of the shock troops had made it onto the Goliath and were hitting it with whatever they could, some planting explosives on key areas while others literally tore into it.

"Then let them have the glory," Sun said, gritting his teeth as he pushed his Kaioken even further. "Once we deal with this, the Grimm should either scatter or they'll be easy pickings. Go for the limbs and I'll hit it head on."

They bumped knuckles and Sun crouched slightly, his swelling aura forcing the Magnamalo to turn its attention to him as it finally scrabbled to its feet.

" TIMES FOUR!"

He rocketed forward like a meteor and the Grimm met is charge with its own, the purple flames rolling off its back exploding and propelling it forward, both forelimbs reared back in an attempt to crush him flat. Sun shot both open hands forward right as they clashed, the ground underneath them cracking from the impact alone as the combatants struggled against each other. Blake took advantage of the deadlock and landed on its wrist, unleashing a flurry of slashes that didn't seem to do much beyond shallow gouges in its bone plating. Sun roared as he gripped its paws tightly, heaving and suplexing the entire Grimm over onto its face, Blake already having dashed across to slash at its throat and leave another score across its armour. It snarled and twisted, hopping back onto its feet and slamming its palm through the ground, dragging it forward as its purple flames burrowed into the floor before swinging up and unleashing an explosive wave of rising fire.

Sun raised his foot high and smashed his heel down into the floor right as the wave of flames threatened to engulf him, his own wave of gold and crimson aura exploding from the ground and parting the purple flames. Even though it was surprised, the Magnamalo didn't let up with its furious assault, cartwheeling through the air and slamming its tailspear down on Sun, the latter barely managing to step forward and catch the base of the tail, grunting in pain as the edge managed to slice down into his shoulder and back. Blake dashed forward under the tail, leaving a long gash along the appendage much to the annoyance of the Grimm, its muscles bunched as it prepared to pivot around and bite Blake's head off. Sun bellowed as he yanked it off its feet by its tail, the Grimm yelping as it was dragged into a shoulder-strike to its face, an uppercut that snapped its head up and a point-blank Kamehame-ha that blasted it onto its back, Blake running across its exposed chest and stomach while leaving a flurry of slashes across its much less defended flesh.

Yowling in pain, it flipped itself back onto its feet and slammed its head into the floor, bulling forward in an attempt to crush Blake with its sheer mass as she was thrown off and landed awkwardly on her back. Sun was there to cover for her, blasting another Teishankao into its crested head before it could crush her. He managed to hold it in place for a moment thanks to his multiplied strength, but his far smaller mass meant that he was rapidly being pushed back, though it was enough of a window Blake needed roll to her feet, thrust forward into one of the Grimm's horns and use it as a spring to launch herself up. She hung high in the air for a moment before using her Semblance to fire herself into a downward chop, the edge of her blade shrieking across one of its horns with a dozen delayed phantom slashes ravaged one side of its face, quickly shifting Gambol into its pistol form and firing a single Colour-Up shot at the Grimm's face. There was a sharp * SNAP * as the Grimm's left horn-crest was broken off, the Magnamalo reeling back and baying in agony as the pain drove it mad, the purple flames roiling violently off its body as it began to attack anything in sight including other Grimm.

"Nice shot!" Sun said, the two sharing a high-five.

"I remember Professor Port talking about these guys," Blake said as they watched the Magnamalo's rampage scatter its own forces, "They love to take care of their crests, breaking them is a good way to drive them into a frenzy and tire them out."

"Then let's make the most of it!" Sun said, combat firing up his usual enthusiasm as they rushed back to the Magnamalo, Sun himself firing fist-shaped aura-blasts into one side while Blake fired a dozen Colour-Up rounds into the other. Slathering foam dribbled from the mouth of Grimm as it locked onto its original attackers, the pain and rage causing it to mindlessly chase the while decimating its surroundings and other Grimm. Blake ran straight up to a massive Creep, dashing out of the way as it pounced right into the path of the raging Magnamalo, the Creep smashed into the floor and ripped it half by the feline Grimm's mouth.

The pair continued to lead the Magnamalo through the horde, making their way to the Goliath which was still standing despite the Infantry's best attempts to bring it down. They nodded at each other, grinning and leaping off the ruined roof of a house and onto the upper leg of the Goliath while yelling at the other infantry to clear the way, the giant Grimm trumpeting in pain as the Magnamalo smashed into it and scrabbled up its stomach, leaving behind crackling purple flames across the larger Grimm's flesh. Blake and Sun perched atop the Goliath's head, taunting the Magnamalo. Purple flames propelled the Grimm into the air in a zig-zag motion before a final burst sent it hurtling straight down, Blake and Sun diving out of the way as the former grinned and pointed her finger at the divebombing Magnamalo and the latter cupped his hands to channel aura between them.

" Blackrend!"

" Kamehame-HA!"

Every shallow cut left on the Grimm suddenly glowed with the light of her aura before they all exploded in a storm of cloned violet slashes along with Sun's blast right as it crashed into the Goliath, a chain reaction of massive explosions tearing across both Grimm thanks to the Magnamalo's unique flames and volatile debris it left behind. Their wails were swallowed by the thundering sound as Blake and Sun landed safely, far away enough from the explosion to watch as the smoke cleared. The Magnamalo was gone, utterly decimated by the explosion of its own flames as small chunks of its armour, spines and even its intact tailspear rained from the sky, while the Goliath's head had been reduced to a bloody stump of a neck, the mangled trunks falling to the floor. The other explosions caused by the Magnamalo's leftover flames blasted bloody craters into the Goliath's skin, exposing charred muscle and bone, smoking offal falling from the smoking hole blown in its side.

They both tensed up as the Goliath remained still, sweat caking their faces as they prepared for the worst-case scenario of the giant Grimm still being alive, only for them to sigh in relief as the Goliath slowly topped onto its side. The surrounding Grimm started to howl and bay in dismay, Sun and Blake keeping their guards up before what was left of the horde began to retreat. They considered going after them and finishing off the remaining Grimm, though decided against it for the sake of sparing resources, hopping off the roof and landing shakily on the ground as their exhaustion caught up to them. Sun seemed especially rough, the toll Kaioken took forcing his muscles to randomly spasm while Blake's Trigger faded like smoke, both of them collapsing against the ruined stump of a palm tree and high-fiving with a final sigh of –

" Jackpot."

...TWBY Continued...

...