Red-outlined black boots stamp down on the snow, leaving an obvious trail behind their owner as she makes her way down a cobblestone path likely well-traveled since the snow is only an inch in height at most. It wasn't long before she was off the path and into the thicket, by her intent. The trudging through thigh-high snow at times stimulates her senses enough to distract her from the ugly emotions within. The chill of the wind against her torso and the frost dragging on her legs makes her shudder, but she welcomes the challenge. She tries to keep her aura low, to give her limbs more of a workout. Sweating may not be others' cup of tea, but she would sip it in the gallons.
Ew, that sounds gross. Why did she think that!?
Sighing, Ruby's knee bumps against a stone hidden in the thick snow. It was a light bump, so Ruby barely groaned. Instead of going around, she performs a box jump atop the rock. On her new vantage point, she performs a series of stretches whilst balancing on one leg. She thinks as she bends her limbs around.
Why couldn't her dad and sister understand? She isn't a brawler like them. She is a speeding demon that darts in, whirling around like a tornado filled with buzzsaws, with anti-material rounds filling the gaps in attacks in between. The Grimm are naturally weaponized. Claws, fangs, armor, and that is just the surface. Just with beowolves, for example. They are stronger than almost any human without Aura as a factor before they are even biologically mature. They have claws that will wear down any weapon not imbued with Aura. They naturally generate bone armor that is as tough as steel and only grows with age. Their limbs are as long as spears, senses sharp as the animals they resemble. Where their high speed may top out, their agility compensates.
Her hands glide along her legs as she exercises her flexibility, feeling both the smooth tights and the muscles hidden underneath. Trained, yes, but nothing next to a beowolf's legs unless she bolsters with aura. Everything about beowolves and grimm as a whole evolved around hunting down humans and faunus alike. A grimm that wasn't a natural athlete honed even further by their pursuit of her people's extinction was not one she could even conceive. Natural killers they are.
A small girl like herself needs all the help she can start a fight with. Her short limbs were not made for fighting bare-handed against the Creature of Grimm. It doesn't come naturally to her like it does to Yang and Dad. Specialties are normal among huntsmen anyhow. She only needs enough unarmed ability to bide time, not punch a beowolf twice her size. Weapons were around for a reason.
Done stretching, she hops and does a front flip then another for style. She lands perfectly like the amateur gymnast she was. Although, now she is sunk in like a mountaineering stick up to her waist in snow. She underestimated the depth of snow just a little… seriously!
As she struggles to free herself, there is an unbeknownst pair of observers just in the thicker part of the thicket she daringly walks within.
Two pairs of eyes zero in on Ruby, one thrumming from the fire raging inside, the other barely flickering. These belong to Ciaran and Harkin respectively. Harkin's padded hand is wrapped around Ciaran's muzzle, keeping him still and silent as he can. Drool still escapes onto his hand and down his arm. Annoying, but he has had plenty of fluids cover him over his life. Blood, for instance. He is beyond disgusted by bodily fluids these days. He is frustrated, however, that the said saliva is making his grip weaker on Ciaran. Plus, he needs all the water he can get to heal properly. He's bloody fucking wasting it all.
"That's the whelp that's taken your mind over eh, brother?"
Ciaran finally can speak with the sloppy freedom he concocted unintentionally. "Don't kid, older brother. That hooded twit nearly ended me. She has killed a'plenty adolescent beowolves just before that too. For the sake of the grimm she has felled and any future allies she could end, we must send her to the cursed God of Light ahead of schedule."
Shaking his head, Harkin suddenly drags Ciaran further over his shoulder by the bottom of his muzzle with ease to look directly at his irises. He hates being rough, but he needs to drive the point home with this stubborn yelper. "Care. I will not repeat myself after this. There is no we in this fight. You are ripped and bludgeoned. There is no sense in you participating in this state. No logic. I will not have you lost to us forever because of adolescent hormones and pride.
Harkin pulls Ciaran even closer, bone masks barely inches from touching. "With love, brother. You will fucking stay back and watch justice unfold. You hear?"
There was an indignant flare within Ciaran's sockets as Harkin's dormant eyes in turn increased in luminosity. Fury was building underneath his elder's eyes. One born from care. The younger beowolf's expression turns submissive, ears softening and eyes flicking away. The light softens in Ciaran's eyes. He wasn't going to fight his brother over this. "Fine."
Harkin's hilt tilts so one eye socket is almost flush with Ciaran's.
"Yes… elder."
His superior finally relents, eyes dimming but not completely like before his stare. Determination fills them. "Finally, you are seeing sense." He crouches down with his back to a tree. "Now, please. Get off slowly and rest out of sight. Big brother has this covered."
Slowly, huffing the whole way down, Ciaran descends Harkin's back to rest against the base of the tree he was directed at. Pleased he was not. He takes care to lean more on his right side than his left.
Nodding in satisfaction, Harkin turns his sights upon Little Red, the little human just now freeing herself from her self-made predicament in the snow. Yes, this will be an easy task.
Ruby trudges through the snow, her red cloak sticking out like paint on a clear white canvas. The exertion needed mattered little compared to the confusion in her head.
What if she isn't strong enough even with all the gear at her disposal? Even the best of the best have been felled one way or another by grimm. Even her mother, a superhero, wasn't invincible.
Okay! Not entertaining that train of thought. She is changing tracks and hopping into a different train asap. Yep!
She is only fifteen after all. She has plenty of time to prepare for the grimm here in the safety of Patch. Ruby Rose will become a name that brings relief to the people. The world needs heroes and she will be striving every day to match the weight of such a title. There are lessons, even from her failures. The Creatures of Grimm don't know what is coming at them one bit.
Before Ruby, another path reveals itself through the foliage. She stumbles out of the mounds of snow behind her, chunks of snow sliding off her dress. Rubbing her forehead, she sighs. She ought to talk with Yang for real when she got back. Maybe she will take hand-to-hand combat into account more in the future. Just to assuage their concerns. She turns to look in the direction of home-
A huge black blur breaks through the foliage at her. A palm slams into her torso, covering the whole of it with its size. Ruby's vision is all blur as she is shunted off her feet and across the road. Pain feels her everything as she is thrown against a tree, her back taking the impact. The whole side of the tree she struck cracks from base to canopy, even an imprint of her back is left in its wood. Bark either snaps off or jabs into her, her aura the only thing keeping it from cutting into her. The passive activation of her aura just before impact was the only reason she was still in one piece. Instinct born from constant practice before she even entered combat school. Even so, all the wind and sense is blown out of her. She drops on feeble feet, immediately falling to her knees, then flopping onto her front in the snow and dirt. She couldn't even gasp, sternum still spasming from the impact just moments ago. Her mouth is just agape, shuddering whimpers leaking out. Her eyes were open, but the images they gave her brain were not computing as it panicked. A shadow lurches over Ruby by the time she finally gets a rasping breath, hacking and yacking as she props her torso up. Her shaking, watering eyes rise to see the being causing her so much agony out of nowhere.
There, looming over her in silence, was a towering beowolf even taller than the beowolf that last threatened her life. Wider too, it is plain to see. Whilst the other beowolf had a mask covering the top of his skull, this one also had armor over the length of his jawbone. As well, the spikes along his spine were even longer and curved toward the top. All the spots where adult beowolf have spikes were of above-average size. The stark difference is the armor around the beowolf's torso, looking like plating has grown through its hide. There was even armor over his sternum. His hips have a lining of white armor as well, along the crest of his hip bones. His lower body had been augmented with plating as well.
This wasn't just an adult beowolf, this was a beowolf that had lasted beyond sexual maturity.
This grimm was easily Alpha Beowolf status.
Shit. She was out of her league here. All Ruby could manage in her shaken state was to stare at the gnarly face of the alpha. A claw-like scar marred the left side of his face, but the most jarring mark it left was the split cheek it created. His stark white teeth match the snow around her, attached to black gums. It was like he was always grinning. Paired with his near skull-like head and fiery bloody pools as eyes, Ruby couldn't even blink from the seizing fear over her heart. Her heart is pumping, striking her chest from inside as if it wanted to jump out and run.
The dwarfing Beowolf, breathing in and out, further brings to attention the sheer size and definition of its musculature, a physique that was clear even through its thick fur. God of Light, the beast's hand can cover not just her head, but her shoulders too. It tilts its head at her, a rumble rising right from its barrel.
"Weak…"
Words dragged through gravel leave its long maw, finally making her blink. A speaking Grimm. An aged grimm. She is in some crap right now.
"Untrained." He raises one padded hand to his face, before tilting his palm at her. The one that struck her. "One strike," He gestures to all of her, prone and shivering before him. "And here you are."
Ruby's shivering lessens, her eyes widening. Was this grimm mocking her right now!?
Eyes narrowing, she grits her teeth and struggles to all fours, then into a crouch. All the grimm did was just stare. It didn't see her as any kind of threat. The humiliation Ruby feels spurs determination from somewhere, she will not go softly!
The grimm turns his head up at her, jutting her neck out at her. Such a flagrant exposure of his neck to her, he doesn't care what she does! The anger rises in her in turn. Regarding her like a bug daring to enter his territory, his eyes crinkle at her. He was amused! "Little point, pest. Yet, you will try."
Growling, Ruby clenches her fist to steady her shaking. In the next moment, she grabs at Crescent Rose, whipping her around in rifle mode and firing at the smug beowolf's stupid muzzle. The beowolf's body shifts aside a foot and his head tilts, the round whiffing past to pound through the canopy behind with little but ruffled fur for her trouble. Ruby's eyes lose their grit, the difference in power becoming more undeniable by the second. He didn't even break eye contact with her during such a fast movement.
"Worthless." Said the beast.
The beowolf's leg is a blur, his hips turning with it to execute a low side kick at Ruby. Faster than the teen can compute, the limb connects with her shoulder with little resistance. Ruby is sent aside down the length of the road, landing in a tumble going several feet. Her recovery is slow, and she is thoroughly dazed. Fifty feet she flew in just one little kick. When she looks up, he is already beelining toward her on all fours. She raises Crescent Rose and shoots, only for the beowolf to dodge with a minute movement to the side. She rises and activates her semblance just as he would reach her, dashing to the side. He passes her by, her cloak caught up in the gusts he produced, but she avoided harm!
Harkin grinds to a stop, drifting across the snow and dirt as he spins 180 degrees. Claws and paws leave trails in the frosted soil as a result. Fast movement there. The semblance Ciaran spoke of no doubt. Crouching low, he launches forward with a single pull of his limbs at little red.
Ruby barely managed a glance before her enemy was in motion again, quickly activating her semblance to dodge aside again with a yelp. Instead of blowing past like before, the alpha grinds to a stop where Ruby just was and leaps after her. He closes the gap between them, moving faster than she did with her semblance.
Horror dawns on Ruby, the lass transforming her weapon to its scythe form. Never has she dealt with a grimm faster than her mid-semblance! Desperate, she presses a switch near the hilt that turns the blade of Crescent Rose parallel with the shaft. She needed all the radius she could get. Firing a round, she uses the recoil to spin herself and her sweetheart around in a winding cut at the rapidly closing beowolf.
Mentally calculating the scythe's path, Harkin bares his armored right forearm as the blade comes around. He dips into the collected aura within him, urging it to collect past his elbow.
A smirk graces Ruby's face at the grimm letting himself enter the path of Rose. The war scythe blade connects with the grimm's raised arm right into the spikes lining it. Even grimm armor of that thickness couldn't stop a cut powered by anti-material recoil and her semblance combined.
Crescent Rose makes contact, halted utterly at the bone. A translucent black shield manifests along the surface of the beowolf's limb, a solid red ring pulsing out from the point of contact by the blade. Ruby has no time to react before the beowolf's left limb thrusts out, catching her by the throat. Ruby is pushed along with the grimm's trajectory, coming to a sudden painful stop via a slam against a tree at the edge of the road, the girl gagging hoarsely as her throat is crushed against the wood. The side of the tree is dented, cracks sprouting around the site of damage. The beowolf grabs at Crescent Rose hanging loosely from Ruby's hands, ripping it from her grasp and tossing it away.
Reduced to her bare hands and dangling off the ground, Ruby grabs at the hand and arm choking her. The beowolf's massive hand meant only his index and thumb wrapped fully around her tiny neck, but the effect was the same. She actively directs her aura to her neck, frantically providing any resistance to the hydraulic press closing on it. She kicks at the grimm's torso, bouncing off with give on his end. She gasps out. "No! I'm not giving today!"
The Alpha Beowolf literally at her neck hums, lids relaxing and flaming eyes dimming. He speaks. "Denial. Understandable." He just keeps squeezing. "Ultimately pointless."
Her air is leaking out, her eyesight blurring increasingly as more pressure leaks through her aura as it drains from the everlasting strength of an evolved predator. As she stewed over earlier, her bare limbs were insufficient against such a natural weapon. She rasps. "I refuse."
The Creature of Grimm huffs through its, vanishing the cold air around Ruby's face, then huffs into the newly neutral temperature. His heated breath against her paling face reminds her of a summer heatwave. "Irrelevant."
Her resistance slows, hands slipping off his arm and legs flopping against the tree behind her and going limp. Through her fading vision, she sees his free right hand topped with daggers as claws, rise and pull back past his shoulder. It was a slow pullback, Ruby's refusal to give simply earning her a show of the coming attack. She can't… not yet.
"End, Silver Eye." Said Harkin, soaking in the coming justice by his claws. "Fade away."
Just then, something small strikes him in the left abdomen. The sheer speed of it takes him off his feet and puts him in flight away from his prey. Instead of crashing, he lands on all fours to stabilize himself. His claws eventually find purchase in the frosted ground, helping him come to a stop. The attack left him fifty feet away from the youth and combatant that interrupted his task.
There, teeth bared and hackles raised was a small furball of a canine. A corgi if his memory serves right. Squat little things with just as little legs. This creature sent him away despite his size. It has trained its Aura then.
Fallen to her face, Ruby takes a shuddering breath, only to choke halfway and cough out all the air she just gathered. Hacking saliva onto the snow, she scrambles to all fours, each breath lasting longer than the last before coughing ensues. She swipes the drool off her mouth and chin with the back of her hand, the coughing finally calming down. Her vision and hearing returned to her, even if both were still hazy. A familiar black and white ball greets her as she raises her sight from the earth beneath. A furry ball topped with ears and a maroon collar dangling a gold tag! It's Zwei!
New strength flows through her body as joy and relief fill her, allowing her to crawl to her friend and hug him with an arm over his back. "Zwei! Light above! You are just the most adorable guardian angel!" She smooshes her face into his neck fluff, basking in the warm softness. "Thank you, boy."
Zwei doesn't break his gaze at the alpha but gives a yip to his caretaker. His teeth were bare again, his little body scrunching down as if to pounce.
Sounding as if choking on pebbles, the beowolf speaks again. "Annoying obstacle." He rises from all fours, muzzle turning up at them. "Easily rectified." His muzzle turns down, the yellow in his eyes glowing within his crimson scleras. His straight posture turns more arched as if he is geared to run at the drop of dew to the ground. Pale claws are brandished and reared back to slash at any one moment, and his jowls retract to reveal a mouth laden with fangs. With his left cheek scar, the molars at the back of his mouth are exposed to the air too.
Rearing down, Zwei swings his snout to the snowing sky, a howl belting out his little lungs to pierce the canopy and reverberate between the trees of the wilderness.
Harkin's eyes narrow and his poised fingers vibrate. He bounds forth on all fours, claws primed for that wretched dog's throat.
It seemed so simple a hunt just scant seconds ago.
Yang and Taiyang punch, elbow, kick, and knee in near-perfect sync with each other. Taiyang leads by a hair as they execute a series of combos. During a roundhouse kick, they both cease in place as a very familiar howl booms from the forest, over the palisade, and into the property proper. Yang is the first to speak.
"Is that-"
"Zwei? Yes indeed." Said Taiyang, retracting the leg and replacing it below. His eyes flicked toward the howl's direction, where their two family members ran off. "Grab Ember Celica, Sunny. Our family is in danger.
Yang nods and drops her frozen kick, running to the tree near the sparring field and reaching into the alcove, relinquishing her gauntlets from within. She sidles up beside her father, slipping Ember and Celica on. She checks the ammunition in her weapons and on her belt, counting the shotshells. "Dad, your weapons?"
Taiyang chuckles and glances at his daughter, patting the side pocket of his cargo pants. "I always keep them on me, sundrop." He looks out to the gate that marks the only entrance to the property. Above ground anyhow. "Let's motor."
The father lets loose into a sprint across the snowy plain in front of the house, easily blowing through any snow. Yang follows after him on the path he makes in the powder, though having to avoid the snow being flung into the air in his wake.
Once they reach the palisade wall, Taiyang slides to a stop at its base and squats low, hands cupping together in front of him. Yang doesn't slow down, beelining at her father. As soon as her foot langs in Taiyang's hand stirrup, he explodes upwards, lifting and propelling his elder daughter past the palisade battlements and past the wall entirely in an arc toward the snow outside. She lands in a roll past the artificial frozen moat just outside, blasting forth into a sprint immediately after.
Soon following was her father, leaping in an arc and vaulting the palisade's walls all by his effort. He lands in a roll as well, but the pace of his run afterward easily closes the gap between him and his child. He briskly passes Yang by and takes the lead again, clearing the way or guiding her in their parkour over logs and rocks.
Taiyang's hands shoot into his cargo pockets, each coming out with a matching set of an amalgamation of two weapons. The weapon was a combination of brass knuckles and a snubnose revolver. Golden in color with brown accents, the mahogany cylinder of a pistol is built into one end of the brass knuckles. The metal front of the brass knuckles is thickened to be in line with the short barrels, making said barrel akin to a fifth knuckle in any punch made. They were hefty things, but he carried them with little issue. Luminous & Flamma were their names. Luminous Flamma for short.
Brass and lead are going down someone's gullet today.
The alpha grimm closes in on Ruby and Zwei, moving at blistering speeds even Ruby can scarcely track. Before Ruby could do anything, Zwei's support leaves her arm as he gallops forth to meet the charging beast, fangs bared just as fiercely. "Careful, Zwei!"
Inflamed within, Harkin bounds just off the ground, winding back his right arm blisteringly fast as his new foe and he neared each other. He swipes low in a horizontal path, aiming to swipe the canine aside like the ball it resembled.
Zwei makes a quick decision, hopping in the air as the claws come round. Wind gusts underneath him from the attack he dodges. He bows his head, flying forth a rock thrown.
Harkin responds in a split moment, bowing his head and holding his left arm against it to brace it. The corgi's head connects, generating a small shockwave and echoing a sound akin to two rocks cracking against each other for a mile around. The snow on the ground just beneath them disperses to make an ugly circle devoid of the white.
Both canines recoil from each other a dozen feet, the corgi backflipping through the air onto his paws with a yelp, the beowolf skidding across the frosted ground with a roar. Zwei pauses to shake his head, and Harkin in turn flexes his forearm and fingers.
That hurt. Both thought.
Taking the initiative, Harkin comes at Zwei again with a rapidly descending left palm strike. Zwei hops to his right, narrowly avoiding the attack. Whizzing down, the palm slaps down on the earth, sinking into the soil and eliciting spiderweb cracks from the point of impact. Improvising, Harkin rotates his hand and immediately drags his arm across the soil, carving a small trench in the assault of his prey. The dog dodges with a hop yet again but is caught midair by a subsequent swipe of Harkin's right claw from the side, throwing him whistling through the air.
"Zwei!" Came Ruby's voice. The dog's flight points him at an incoming tree.
Twisting in the air, Zwei breaks his impact against the tree with his paws. A dent forms where he lands, bark and wood splintering off. With a growl he pushes off the tree, deepening the dent even more as he fires off like a cannonball at the grimm. With great agility, the wolven creature turns on the spot in response. The corgi zooms past him, howling through the air like an artillery round. Into another he lands, making a new alcove in it with his landing. When he launches off this time, chunks of wood break off. His grimm target turns like before but has to utilize an arm to deflect the dog-shaped projectile away from him.
When Zwei lands this time, a hole is made halfway through the tree he landed on. Off he blasts again at Harkin, even faster than before. The grimm stands his ground and crosses his arms in an x-shape in front of him in a static block. The slam connects with a booming crack, sending the beowolf skidding back, shaking the snow off his fur completely if only for a moment.
Backflipping back to the ground, Zwei darts after the skidding beowolf in short order. By the time the grimm comes to a stop, Zwei is on him with a straightforward headbutt from five feet away. Blocking the attack, the grimm responds with an under-over slash with his claw. The corgi hops aside, leaving the claws to gouge grooves in the dirt. The grimm follows it with a lunge of his maw at the dog, snapping shut on air when the pet weaves away again, a bullet crack sounding from his missed bite.
Zwei hops onto the lowered head of the grimm, running up it with teeth bared at the back of his neck. He lunges, small jaws gaping wide to snatch even a grip on the wide log of a neck. His bite strikes true, only for his teeth to not puncture flesh, but clack a hard translucent covering just above the skin. Aura actively projected just before impact. Even if the damage was blocked, the pain was still genuine. The Alpha Beowolf rears onto two legs again, snarling at the sky above, steam made from the snowflakes that fall near his mouth.
Harkin's sense of self was disrupted, but not lost. He purposefully throws himself backward onto the earth, slamming the dog against it and crushing it under his great weight simultaneously. A yowl sounds on the battlefield as the corgi is subjected to such a counterattack, one strong enough to create a slight crater under both combatants.
The jaws of Zwei give out from the pain, the corgi concussed so greatly that his tongue hangs out as he pants. He can move little as the beowolf raises and twists into a looming position over the dog. The grimm rears his head back, maw large enough to nearly swallow the small animal whipping open for an imminent bite down into the nuisance.
Sharp wolven ears twitch at a telltale sound originating to the rear of him; the racking of a rifle bolt is baked into his soul.
He throws his left arm up and over, rolling but with hands and paws acting as points of balance as he rotates out of his posture over the Unworthy's companion. The split-second roll saves him from a rifle round whistling through where he just was, a boom soon after reaching him as sound trails the bullet blasting through the sound barrier. Turning on the spot, he zeroes in on the source: A little red-hooded girl with a massive sniper rifle pointed in his direction. A curse is heard from her before she racks another round.
Huffing out his snout, he endeavors to launch a ranged attack of his own. Eyes flicking to the corgi, he grabs hold of the prone dog and flings it at Little Red. With deadly speed and accuracy, the furry projectile shoots flies in a straight line at the sharpshooter. She lowers her rifle and sidesteps, sticking out her hand. "Zwei!" She spins on the spot two times as she catches the dog, falling to her knees and holding the domestic animal against her chest. This left her weapon pointed to the side in one hand.
Taking the opening, he bounds on all fours at the pair. The girl scrambles to place her dog down, before two-handing her rifle. He zig-zags as she fires, avoiding the shot easily with her frantic attempt. He is on top of her as she racks the next round, a furred hand lashing out and yanking the barrel toward the sky before she can target him.
Any plans for a follow-up attack are interrupted when the corgi at her side leaps at him with a headbutt at his gut. Harkin raises his arm in front of his stomach, blocking the attack. However, some of the force in the dog's headbutt still bleeds through, winding him. The brief distraction loosens his grip enough for Ruby to pull just enough to aim at his head. His eyes stare down the barrel.
Ruby screams from the sheer amount of effort needed to move her sniper rifle a foot down. She yells even more as she pulls the trigger on Crescent Rose, square at his head. This has to hit at least!
The head of the grimm turns and his mouth gapes open as wide it can. When the bullet leaves the barrel, it enters the mouth of her enemy. Ah sure shot!
Instead of blood and cartilage expulsing from his head, however, something even grander happens. Where there would be a left cheek to penetrate, there was a scar splitting his mouth open on one side. Ruby's bullet enters the front of his mouth at the right corner and exits with little resistance out of the left cheek scar. Ruby's eyes wrench open and her eyes dilate. It couldn't be possible.
Even Zwei shares her stunned mind, pausing to compute just what happened as well. This absurd last-second dodge went exactly as Harkin planned it would. The bewilderment following was a bonus he acts to abuse immediately.
His spiked right knee drives into her chest, lifting her in the air sputtering out drool. The lifted right leg is then thrust downward at a 45-degree angle at Zwei, The massive paw connects, sending the dog bouncing across the ground hard. Pest out of the way, Harkin pulls on the rifle Ruby still holds on to and swings it over his head. Ruby's iron grip is used against her in this instance, being carried along with it through the air. Down to Remnant, she goes, slamming into it back first. Bits of stone and snow rise as a crater is formed where she lands. Despite such a blow, she still holds on to her dear weapon, even if her body is limp.
Respectable willpower. Thought Harkin. A precursor to future problems. Even more reason to eliminate her.
He breaks out into a bipedal run toward the treeline, dragging the petite adolescent human along across the frosted ground. Cries of pain reach his ears as he does so, but the girl can only wish this was all the pain she had to feel yet, he mentally promises. Once Harkin nears the forest border, he stops suddenly and whips the child around at the tree. Her abdomen hits first, her upper body wrapping around the trunk. All her screams were silenced at contact. Ruby falls to the iced-over ground, translucent aura shield flaring red all over. Bits of wood and bark fall onto her, the side of the tree she struck utterly shed and cracked.
Even overwhelmed by pain as she was, she still holds Crescent Rose.
This prompts a brow raise from Harkin. Impressed was putting it lightly. Such a young creature possesses a heart uncommonly seen.
Huffing and even more determined now, he gives a hard tug on the rifle, finally freeing it from Little Red. He flips it in the air, catching it on the handle grip. Finger just fitting in the trigger guard, he eases the barrel down until it hovers dead center at her temple.
This should suffice.
His front smashed against the tree he had just used as a weapon. A growl escapes his muzzle at the pain. A small but fast cannonball struck him in the back. That damned corgi!
Harkin shoves himself away from the further cracked tree and whirls around, swinging low the rifle barrel like a club with a backhand swing. Barking, Zwei hops away from the attack that drives a groove where he just was. A massive right paw follows after the corgi in a horizontal swinging kick, forcing him to dodge again. The alpha beowolf spins with his missed swings, throwing a back kick with his left leg not at the dog, but at the ground instead.
Snow and earth in unison explode from the road as Harkin's paw buries into the ground on impact; powder and rock fly at Zwei, some striking the canine dazing him. After a full 360-degree spin, Harkin raises his right paw and snarls as he stomps down at the earth at an angle. His paw makes contact, the kinetic energy too much even for frozen ground. The ground in front of the beowolf cracks in a line toward the squat nuisance, chunks flying up soon after the cracks formed. The disoriented corgi is caught up in the miniature earthquake, carried away in the debris as it rises beneath him. He yelps the whole way up.
From the fog of dust and snow stirred up, the Alpha Beowolf emerges with his right hand reaching the dog. The fog disperses from the sheer speed of his movement. His hand wraps entirely around the small animal, squeezing the air out of the dog with a mighty expulsion of air from him. The next moment, the corgi is raised into the air above Harkin's head and spiked at the ground, eliciting a wailing groan from him. Denting the earth, Zwei bounces off the ground away from Harkin, who swings the rifle around in one hand like a pistol. He fires off the chambered anti-material round, landing it square on the pest's barrel underbody; Zwei flings through the air, high over the forest canopy with a strained howl.
Torches illuminating ponds of blood follow the dog in its trajectory, up until he disappears out of view. The dog at the least is a mile deep into the forest now, definitely suffering in pain. His aura shield shimmered white in splotches as he flew through the air, so he certainly was still kicking. It won't matter in the grand scheme of things he ponders. The Silver-eyed trainee prone and immobile at his paws shall be dead before the dog could try anything.
Broad shoulders relax as Harkin huffs, steam shooting from his snout. He turns around, chucking the rifle into his right hand to access the bolt with his left. A long index finger curls around the mechanism, racking it with little difficulty.
In the time Zwei and Harkin quarreled, Ruby regained her senses enough to barely turn her head up to gain some idea of the situation. Sighting the approaching beowolf she makes to sit up, but any further movement is ceased as the beowolf stomps down onto her torso with its left paw. She screams from the stomp, clawing at the large limb to get relief, but to no avail. She growls up at the beowolf, wiggling under his paw.
There is no more time for Harkin to waste. He lowers the barrel at Little Red's head.
Silver Eyes dilate.
A force suddenly strikes Harkin's chest, a fireball taking over his head and upper torso. The Alpha Beowolf stumbles back, paw raising off Ruby and rifle swung astray. His finger presses the trigger, letting loose a round into the soil just above Ruby's head. The bullet makes a fist-sized hole, burying deep inside. She didn't dare make a sound.
From the depths of the forest behind Ruby, Taiyang sprints through the brush, snub nose barrel of his right brass knuckle revolver leaking smoke. He plants his right arm on a fallen log in his way, vaulting it and firing Luminous away at the beowolf, revolver kicking high. The loud round strikes true at the hand grasping Crescent Rose, engulfing it in fire and blasting away the weapon from his possession.
Dropping from the log, Taiyang lands in a sprinter's starting position. A growl at his chest rises in volume as it leaves his mouth, culminating in a roar. Taiyang immediately blurs from view at the apex of his roar. Snow, leaves, and dirt blow away behind him as he blasts off at Harkin. He appears back into view, left boot planted against Harkin's skull in a jumping sidekick. The beowolf flies away across the road and into the forest, smashing through a tree, then clipping other trees past that. The top half of the first tree crashes on the ground, damaging the road. The trees he grazed have huge chunks broken off where he hit. He finally stops against a boulder in the forest with a yowl, shards of rock flying off as he crashes into it, cracks spiderwebbing around impact. He sits against it, limbs limp and mouth agape in a silent scream.
Breathing out, Taiiyang rises to his feet in the middle of the road, eyes barely flitting behind him at Ruby. "Ruby! Yang, check on her!"
Like her father, Yang emerges from the forest, sliding to her knees next to Ruby's prone form. Both of Yang's hands shoot onto Ruby, trying to offer comfort. "Ruby, sis! We're here, how bad are you!" A hand goes to Ruby's head, cradling it.
Groans and whimpers leak out Ruby's mouth, eyes blinking rapidly. She just saw death down the barrel of her own Crescent Rose. Damn. "I'm…alive at least. I'm exhausted. That Alpha Beowolf is serious business, I couldn't do anything."
"We're here now." Said Yang. She helps Ruby sit up and carefully drags her to rest against the damaged tree used to punish her beforehand. "Dad's got this handled. Even Radiant Ai has come out to play."
Rolling his eyes, Taiyang doesn't take his eyes off the large black form deep in the forest. From the black mass, two magma pools emerge, burning with rage. "Stay behind me, this one is way above you two even together."
Concussed and confused, Harkin rises from the imprint he made in the boulder, panting as his back throbs. Pieces of rock dislodge and pepper him as he frees himself. That fucking hurt!
Falling onto all fours, Harkin shakes his head to free himself from vertigo. Snapping his gaze forward, he assesses the new threat. Eyes of ember widen.
A human with hair the color of straw. Brass knuckles doubling as firearms. May it be him?
Even so, letting be a Silver-Eyed One so close to perishing is unacceptable. One more attack on the weakened child is all it would take to complete his duty.
Harkin squats and flips into the air, spinning over the boulder he impacted. The beowolf lands on the other side of the boulder with little trouble, stepping back to make some distance. He charges at the boulder with his shoulder lowered, ramming into the boulder. The boulder is dislodged from its seat in the earth, rolling at the speed of a car toward the blonde huntsman. The boulder nudges aside the trees loosed from Harkin's launch across them, barreling. If the huntsman moved, the pups behind him would suffer the boulder. The beowolf chases after the boulder, his hands shoved into the pouches on his belt.
Huffing, Tai-Yang slides his leg behind him and lowers his stance, hands extended at the incoming rock twice his size. It slams into his palms with a thud akin to an explosion, his arms pushed but far from buckling; the man is shifted back from the impact, his shoes leaving grooves in the soil as he is moved half a meter back. Nonetheless, the veteran huntsman halts the rock in its tracks.
However, the boulder was never meant to be more than a distraction.
Harkin squats mid-sprint and bounds into the air, landing atop the rock stopped by the human, putting himself practically atop the straw-haired menace. The Cheshire scar through his left cheek made him look like he was smirking maniacally at Tai-Yang. The human meets him with his glare, not showing any fear.
No need for fear, only time.
Harkin flips through the air at the raising of the human's gun knuckles, dodging a fire dust bullet meant for his head. Instead, the explosion of flames catches onto a trail of twine trailing from an iron orb that was hidden easily in the beowolf's expansive palm. It is a split second eye-widening from Tai-Yang as the grenade is unleashed from Harkin's upside-down palm at the zenith of his flip, gravity taking hold.
"Move!" Was all that was managed out of the huntsman's mouth, his eyes closing. The girls behind him in the treeline were not so quick.
An explosion raptures the air, a wave of black smoke washing over everything, even the beowolf soaring as high as the tree canopy. Yang and Ruby are both taken completely by surprise at such a small, but effective tactic. The two gag and their eyes sting from the acrid smoke. Pepper! They both realize. Yang was bent over Ruby in response to the grenade, a sister being a sister.
A rustle of treetops and a thud can be heard in the direction of the deeper forest. Yang, even if she cannot see through the screen, takes position between the noise and grounded Ruby, fists raised. "Try it fuck-"
A black palm as big as her torso thrusts out of the smog, the speed of it sending gusts of wind the only reason she saw it. The brief perception was not enough for her to react, the attack collided with her, instantly blowing her off her feet and through the air screeching. She would fly past where her father stood, clipping the rock and spiraling onto the dirt road in a tumble, stopping in a heap.
Ruby sees yellow sail over her person where she suffers in exhaustion in blindness, like a cannonball blowing aside the smoke. Yang! Adrenaline is what allows her to push her exhausted body to move, the petite girl rolling onto her front to at least have legs under her.
A digitigrade paw plummets onto her back for her trouble, crushing against the forest floor. A spiderweb crack forms under her from the power of the attack. The pain matches, the girl's spine flexing around the beowolf's foot. A ragged, earsplitting cry leaves her; the red-headed girl would not hear her sounds, too buried in the mind-freezing pain of just a single attack. Her aura flares, waves and lightning streaks of red pulsing across an invisible blanket of protection over her form.
The forever smirk on Harkin's face matches his mood at that moment. He raises his paw high, poised for the little red girl's head. One more silver-eyed menace he will soon spare his brethren from. He will admit a personal grudge will be assuaged as well.
Suddenly, a boot imprints itself against Harkin's temple. The full-grown beowolf, twice the size of a normal man, is propelled as he had just done to the blonde annoyance, his shoulders clipping trees as he flew. Splinters cover his body from the chunks ripped from the flora, and he arcs into the snowy ground. He refuses to let himself roll again, poising his claws to contact the one he easily reached as he cuts through the snow in his flight into it. Frosted earth and snow collect against the back of his head and shoulders as he carved across both. Used to being sent flying at this point, the moment his momentum slows he rolls backward into a backflip onto his paws, sliding to a stop against the base of a tree. The tree vibrates on contact with such a fast impact.
The beowolf stretches and flexes his neck and shoulders, breathing in deep at the pain, especially the sharp one flashing in his chest. Thank the grimm one watching that he had a reserve of aura collected for this kind of situation. One meditation and an unworthy soul at a time.
Bouncing in place, Tai-Yang sneers in the direction of the beowolf. Behind him, the whole side of the boulder facing them was burnt black. "You will not lay a hair on my daughter again! Long as I am here!"
Vibrating deep in his throat, Harkin stands up to his full height, muzzle turned up at the human, his ember eyes alight. His hands creep into pouches again. "Try."
If the human was unnerved by the rare show of language from a grimm, it would not have time to show. The beowolf blitzes across the gap between him and the humans, body tilted toward them. Both hands return from his stock, one hand with a hint of red dust on a finger, the other another grenade. A redirection of aura, a snap of the fingers, and a wisp of a flame spawn at the top. The small thing is pointed at the fuse of his grenade, instantly igniting the foot-long length.
Tai-Yang bursts into action, twisting his hands to aim the revolver component of his weapons, firing off two rounds in quick succession.
Expertly poised for his head and chest, Harkin nonetheless zigs the first shot, zagging the second. He didn't dare to waste much momentum. Like a bowling ball, he swings the grenade underarm, sending the iron sphere skirting across the snow at the huntsmen. Not one to be idle, the veteran quickly fires off a round, catching the small orb in its path. The human shuts his eyes, not risking with grenades.
A piece of the sun runs over his eyelids, the sheets of flesh translucent and providing him insight into the blood and capillaries in his lids. His ears ache a second later as a sound louder than loud shunts into his eardrums. It is a minor distraction for him, but it is enough.
In the moments leading up to the bomb's detonation, Harkin acts quickly. From a pouch on his belt, a yellow crystal is pilfered by Harkin's hand. A wave of red appears at the top of his left arm, before shooting down toward his hand. Aura. The beowolf clenches his hand, crushing the crystal with small wisps of yellow powder escaping the cracks in his fists to travel in zigzag lines down his arm. Opening his hand, a yellow coating cakes the inside of his hand. The sprinting beowolf lashes out his hand in the direction of the dazed huntsmen, the yellow dust glowing neon at full extension.
A nano-second later, in the blink of an eye, the dust flashes off the Grimm's palm. A bolt of yellow lightning lances out from the grimm's grasp, zeroing in a jagged line at Taiyang. The huntsman holds his position in front of his suffering daughter. His arms are brought together to shield himself from impact.
A thunderclap sounds through the forest as the bolt collides with Taiyang; he holds his ground against the strike into his front, giving the energy no choice but to surge down his body into the ground, melting the snow and scorching the ground underneath black. Snow that wasn't melted flew every which way. The huntsman's body trembles from the shock and pain even after the electricity dissipates into the ground.
Harkin beelines for the splayed Ruby, looking comatose on the cracked earth. At the point he should have passed by the stunned huntsmen, a fireball strikes him in the side, sending him spiraling into a tree with his other side. Branches jab into him as he shatters them, cracking and denting where his ribcage crashes. He slides down the trees, catching himself on all fours. Harkin shakes his head, refocusing after the impact. That huntsmen moved? So soon after a dose of electric dust?!
He throws his muzzle toward the huntsmen, a fist still pointed at him from where he shot a round at him; the huntsman struggles to face Harkin's direction. He shouldn't be moving at all so soon. A veteran for certain.
Shoving off the ground onto two paws again, Harkin shakes his whole body, freeing his fur of snow and splinters. He drops low, ready to bound forward at the huntsmen. He had plenty of surprises for the man still. It only took one clean attack to wipe the adolescent he protects from the board.
"Hey, asshole!" Broke a voice through the snowflakes and chill.
The same direction as the sun-kissed pest he struck away.
The same moment Harkin's muzzle followed his ears to his right, the sun exploded through the haze of snow creeping in since the fight began. The sizzle of melted snow is quickly overtaken as a black and yellow mass rocketed at him. A wrist wrapped in a yellow gauntlet rears back, for his head no doubt.
The huntsman's voice can be heard. "No, Yang." One full of fear as well. He was right to be.
Harkin's burning charcoal eyes meet the lilac eyes of "Yang". Her teeth looked no different from the snow below, bared at him as they were. All this he perceived as she was within five meters of him.
He shifts to his left, leading to the blonde's fist striking the tree once behind him. At the moment her fist connects with the tree, the familiar sound of a shotgun blast sounds out. The payload-boosted punch blows a chunk out of the tree's outer circumference, showering herself and the beowolf with splinters like that of grenade shrapnel. What threatened to embed itself in the two combatants is warded off by aura, self-supplied and stolen respectively.
Harkin briefly registers the notable threat to his health, but no more. He whirls around with his left, claws poised for her flesh. The still airborne human quickly raised her free right arm to guard her head, but the swipe did not just claw against the arm, it sent her aloft body banging against the very tree she struck. The beowolf keeps her there against the tree, dropping his jaw and baring his bleached teeth, red tongue stark against the pitch-black mouth. He sees her eyes widen. Good.
He bears at her face, meeting leather instead as Yang bends at the waist and lifts her boots between herself, Harkin's maw engulfing her legs up to the shin. He sees and hears her breath hiss out her mouth as his fangs no doubt press into her skin through the boots and aura she had. There is water in her eyes as she seethes at him. "You fucker!" She wrenches a foot out of his mouth, using it to kick at his face. He lifts his right arm, blocking her heel from burrowing into his eye. Troublesome.
Enough of this. Improvisation is in order.
Harkin's left hand shoots out to wrap around her right shoulder to hold her still, his right palm shooting out as she rears back her kicking leg, catching her on the chin with the heel and shunting her head back with a yelp. Harkin lets go of her shoulder, spinning around with her leg still in his fangs. The human is whipped through the air, following her leg. At the end of his about-face, he unlatches his jaw off her leg, sending her flying and wailing at the older man.
The man blinks rapidly at the sudden projectile. The human quickly braces himself and catches the woman, grinding several paces backward across the frosted-over soil.
"You okay, Sunny?" Said Taiyang, helping his daughter onto her feet. She groans, pushing off her father onto her legs.
"Give me an ass to kick, then I'll be fine." She gives her father a thumbs up nonetheless.
An iron cast grenade is pilfered from the grimm's many pouches, alongside a pinch of red dust. He snaps his fingers over the grenade's fuse, lighting it with a flash of flame. He rears back and pitches it like a baseball player, propelling it at the groaning prone form of Ruby.
In a twitch of the eye, Taiyang processes the trajectory of the artillery; the left arm of Taiyang snaps up, the pistol barrel of his brass knuckle trained ahead of the careening. A finger pulls the trigger, letting loose a round into the grenade's path. A fireball is unleashed from the bullet on impact with the iron ball, activating its victim's payload. Smoke quickly overtakes the fireball, reaching out at the man who activated it. Both of the sun-kissed humans are caught in the smokescreen, the younger hacking at the smoke invading her lungs. Taiyang covers his nose and mouth with the back of a forearm, watering eyes never leaving the last known location of the beowolf.
Across the way, Harkin's mood matches his macabre smile. A little time is perfect.
His magma eyes snap to the gouged tree at his side, half cut through by the blonde huntress's efforts. He drops from his upright position, bringing his right leg around in a spin kick, striking at the damaged tree like a whip. He ushers the aura stored within him, focusing it on his lower body, especially his right calf. The limb makes contact with the tree where the gouge was, cutting through the remaining wood like snapping a stick. He lets the kick carry him in a full circle, then plants his paw; the splinters from as thick as a fist to as thin as a twig have not even touched the ground before he bounds forth, clasping his long arms around the new log still in midair. He quickly releases more aura sealed within to strengthen his whole body, his natural strength needs the boost to easily accomplish what he intends to do. Snow rains from the tree onto him and the surrounding area.
Harkin steps forward, getting distance between himself and the stump for space. Extracting more aura, he heaves the towering flora behind him past his left shoulder, snapping branches from both his new weapon and its fellow flora in the process as it swings. With the motion, even more snow coats him. His satisfaction matches his scarred mouth's grin at that moment.
Across the way, Taiyang's eyes catch a black mass high above the smoke blinding him. It was no shape of a creature, long and static. He knew the sound and appearance of branches, including when they snapped. He roars in the rough direction of his daughter to the right of him. "Yang, on your right, dodge!"
Her voice catches his right ear. "Got-!"
Whatever she wishes to say is lost as the tree trunk moves. With an extra pulse of aura for good measure, Harkin lugs the felled tree around, his whole body twisting like a batterman. The smoke clears smoke as it sweeps horizontally over the forest floor. The very top explodes against a tree in the way, but more than enough length remains to reach the humans. Yang Xiao Long reacts to the noise at her right, heeding her father by hopping into the air. Even so, her legs are within the path of the log, the weapon colliding in due order. Midair, she screams from the pain of impact, turning head over heels in quick succession as she ascends to near the forest canopy. Taiyang is much quicker, side-flipping and planting his palms against the log as it passes under him, performing a cartwheel off it and onto the ground again. His eyes follow his airborne daughter's trajectory, then snap his attention to the origin of the log's motion. The huntsman fires his pistols at the unmistakable black mass of a grimm. The shots were accurate, but a mere shrug of arms by the grimm brought the log around to shield it from his shots. Four rounds pelt, then explode against the makeshift shield, blasting chunks out it going every which way. Even so, plenty of the tree left for the grimm to hold onto.
Taiyang huffs. The damage in quick succession from his pistols ought to have cut through the wood. That means something dangerous: Aura was used to reinforce the tree. This grimm is utilizing stolen aura then. This will take some time.
Smoke wafting off the tree, Harkin spun his tree until it was near vertical and resting on his shoulder, shattering branches as the gargantuan club shunts through the canopy. His eyes zero in on the glaring red lump on the outskirts of the battleground, the mass dragging itself toward the matching rifle abandoned in the snow. An easier target is impossible. He dips into his stockpile of aura again. This shall be done in a clean stroke.
Pools of water trace the path the grimm's embers made. The twin pools expand in radius at the realization of red. A rose at the mercy of oncoming flame. Another pulse of flame
Stepping multiple steps forward, the mass of hatred the embers call home puts forth his hatred into the harvested tree, throwing his arms up with it in his hands, then throwing them down. Faster than a falling chopped tree, the column of wood decades old comes down like a giant's swing, despite surmounting the grimm in height.
Red and black hair is replaced with pink skin as Ruby Rose turns about at the shadow now shading her. Silver eyes, irking a spark from Harkin's own eyes, dilate at the incoming doom. She rises from prone to dash but falters as quickly as the thought comes to her.
Midway through the swing of the log downwards, a blur like a cannonball impacts the club. Wood splinters fall alongside the snowflakes, a crack like thunder follows after, and the club redirects alongside its shadow. Then, does she see her father, in midair as the tree is kicked away from him by his left leg? Weakened further down its length, when the tree made contact with the ground, it snapped at the crater her father left in it; the smaller section of the tree rebounded into the air, tearing through its branches and another's just past Ruby. The jagged end where it broke spears the snow and ground.
Ruby can barely marvel at her father's epic save, as when he lands before her, the grimm thirsting for her death adapts. He makes to sweep the tree across the ground toward their left. Her father is quick to act, running at the tarnished log on their end, stomping down on it with his boot before it can gain momentum. His weapons, Radiant and Ai are brought to bear at the far-off grimm, the man losing the magazine upon it.
A tactical mind, Harkin abandons his improvised weapon, sprinting off at the muscle twitch in Taiyang's gun arm as he raises it. He retreats into the thicket of the woods, circling the human's position. A shot whiffs where he last stood, Taiyang's arms and eyes chasing after the beast. Harkin avoids the following shots, using the foliage of the sleeping forest to break the line of sight. Bullets and their fire dust payload blow chunks out of the trees and bushes he skirts around, sending wood across his fur with how closely he avoided a tag. The miniature comets alight the wood, creating a curve of fire following Harkin's wake. As he passes a tree into a much less overgrown break in the wilderness, a round catches his right side, punching him in the ribcage and wafting flames across his form. He is propelled to his left whining against his will, rolling twice before harvesting some form of balance, scrambling into a four-legged stance again. He dares not dally, pushing off the snow and ground; a comet sings into the snow Harkin laid on, two more following as he runs, one grazing his hip. He slips from sight against a tree, rubbing at his right ribs and hip. That… was a sequence of events. He growls and seethes, pain is still pain regardless of aura.
As these events transpired, Yang Xiao Long found herself entangled in the branches of a tree, spinning into it thanks to a grimm's excessively large club. Not keen on being a plastic bag, Yang flexes all four limbs simultaneously, snapping all the entrapping branches off her body. She falls through the tree canopy, landing in a pile of snow beneath. She emerges, shirking off the freezing snow. Her violets lock onto the beowolf in cover. This son of bitch nearly made her upchuck!
The tiniest of self-control kept herself from outright charging the overpowered Grimm, the huntress-in-training circling the tree the beowolf uses as cover. Once she was a straight shot from the grimm, she sprinted directly at the monster, boosting her legs to carve through the knee-height snow in short order. She tosses jabs at the cowering bastard, throwing shotgun slugs with each punch as she closes the distance.
Harkin, even with the bodily shock of being shot, maintains his situational awareness. When a bright yellow mess of hair dashes through the snow on the periphery, he couldn't miss such a conspicuous opponent. The human thought she could cinch him between her ally and her. Dreams abound with this one.
Into a light blue pouch on his belt, Harkin's left hand goes, coming free with a crystal of the same color in his grasp. He crushes it utterly, then opens his hand, revealing powder that clings to his flesh. The powder animates, flowing in minuscule rivulets as far as his elbow, an intersecting network of glowing light blue streams. The streams are alive, ignoring gravity as it clings as water would glass across his whole lower limb. Using Aura, he manipulates the Dust with its field. Frosty mist wafts off his left arm.
He moves forward as the blonde menace lets loose a duo of jabs, slugs quickly promising him pain. The wolven veteran drops into a slide, the slugs blitzing overhead to pulverize the tree behind him with two fiery craters. He rolls forward, landing on a knee and thrusting forward his dust-wrapped forearm, a foggy blue glow taking his arm. The capillaries of dust recede from his elbow some as the dust closest to his palm floats and coalesces just above the middle of his palm. The mote of ice becomes a flake, then a shard, then into a chunk. The chunk lengthens on both sides, coming to two narrow points: an icicle sharper and perfect beyond that of most natural kinds.
Harkin brings the icicle longer than his palm across his body from left to right, then executes a backhand throw, whipping out his arm and loosing the ice knife. The blonde huntress's contempt-filled gaze turns into one of shock, the girl halting her charge and throwing out a right jab. Her shot catches the projectile within a meter of her arm, and the two react with each other, unleashing a screen of frosty fog in front of her. In the next second, a branch of a limb breaks through it, Yang responds with a raise of her arms to guard.
Alas, Harkin's right limb may not strike her face directly, but the kinetic force stays the same; Yang is forced to see the sky above as the grimm clotheslines her, bowling her over as the grimm continues past her in his dash. As his prey screams in a pained midair backflip, he spins on the spot, launching a roundhouse kick as she faces him upside down. The paw pounds effectively through her torso with how little her weight resisted the attack, spittle and air both escaping in a wretched wail as she flies like nothing through the air. The very tree Harkin used as cover cut off her flight, the human breaking against the wood with a meaty thud, both vibrating it and clearing off the bark. It was only pain and dark for Yang as she rebounded off and onto her front in a clump, the freeze of snow not even registering as her mind scrambled for sense again.
Satisfaction filled Harkin, matching his forever sneer. Then a comet passes the tree.
The grimm backpedals, conjuring a buckler of ice to catch the round. The small shield is struck, and then an explosion of fire ensues immediately, engulfing the shield in its wrath. Harkin is sent skidding back, pieces of his dust shield clattering against him. He ducks low, dodging a second blazing round. The straw-headed huntsman closes upon him in the blink of an eye, jumping high into the sky until he blocks the shaded sun of noon. He points both his knuckle guns to the sky at the apex of his jump, small thunderclaps sounding from the weapons. At just under the speed of sound, the shots propelled him straight down in a spinning front axe kick upon the now horizontal beowolf.
Barely any noise was made by the huntsman, all his rage concentrated in his eyes, more piercing than any spear.
Harkin strikes the ground with right arm and leg, sharply shoving himself into a roll. The whistling leg of the human cuts through the snow into the dirt underneath, and then the stricken earth quakes in response.
Even in his dodge, Harkin did not escape with no consequences. The ground collapses at the center of impact at the human's heel, a ring of sundered earth spreading from the origin. Snow followed by debris rises into the cold air above, including the once solid ground the beowolf retreated to. He too follows the rocks upwards like a leaf in a sudden gust, his limbs going every which way. He collides against a chunk of rock in midair, ceasing his spinning albeit still airborne. In the brief moment of clarity, Harkin raises his left hand high, conjuring a thin spear out of ice, the powder wraps around his forearm receding closer to his hand significantly. The javelin, even when thrown by just his arm considering his lack of grounding, sails through the calamity of earth, dust, and snow with precision and speed unquestionable.
Blue eyes lock onto the icy projectile, the point geared for the left one if no movement is taken. Taiyang, a meter deep in a crater of his own making, rises and backflips out of the range of the javelin. The projectile pierces the ground, an expulsion of frost expanding in a rough circle on penetration with the ground; frosty spikes of ice spawn from the ice as it spreads, equal parts intended to trap and skewer. The ice trails after Taiyang, the man catching himself in a handstand and shoving off just out the reach of the spikes, landing on his feet again in a crouch.
As Taiyang tussles with the javelin's area of effect, Harkin lands upon three limbs, snow flying away from his landing. His free left hand conjures a round shield in the brief break in combat, enough to cover a man's torso, a size too small for the seven-foot-something grimm. Still, the shield saves the beowolf from another fire dust-enhanced shot by the huntsman, nothing but heat and steam buffeting his actual body. His free right hand rifles through an aqua bag at his belt, a bright blue dust crystal being brought out to the world.
Taiyang soldiers through the snow as if it were not there, rapid-firing his weapons like a cowboy of old, as opposed to the punching motions of his daughter's weapons. Harkin strafes, blocking shots with his shield and dodging others as he crushes the crystal in his right hand. The powder, aside from a collective covering at his palm, snakes out in curving tendrils all over his forearm, like an octopus wrapping its many appendages around a thick column of coral. With aura manipulation, he spawns pure water from his palm out of the dust, the pulverized mineral flowing from further up his arm to fuel the reaction.
From his hand, Harkin projects his harvested aura to contain the water before it can drip to adhere to gravity. The flow continues, becoming like a whip as it grows longer in his grasp. It flaps behind him as he dips and blocks the ranged attacks of Taiyang, becoming thinner as it easily passes Harkin's height twice over in length. The very end of it is no thicker than the claw of his smallest finger at full realization. He brings the whip of water around, lashing out at the huntsman assailing him.
Taiyang, veteran against grimm and non-Grimm alike, is more than ready for the incoming whip. He leans back, his calf muscles and feet holding him steady as he becomes near flush with the snow at his back. The whip cracks above him, breaking the sound barrier with ease, a shockwave rustling his hair and clothes with both the speed and vicinity to him. Like a gunshot, promising great pain indeed.
The length of aura-encased water recoils like it did fire a shot, the long wretched thing yanked back to pass by its grimm wielder, who immediately puts in action again. The grimm flicks his again, throwing the whip's tip forward like a snake would its fangs. Taiyang rose again as the whip was retracted, responding to the following snap with a corkscrew flip into the air, spinning like an unwound top head over heels, landing smoothly on his feet closer to the Grimm. The creature backpedals, attacking with wicked cracks of the whip whilst the spurned parent weaves in response. The grimm's facts get increasingly faster and more elaborate, wrapping the weapon's slack around his forearm to accommodate the closing distance between them. Snow rises from the ground with each crack, the shockwaves become very powerful. The noise causes Taiyang's ears to ache incessantly, but that is par for the course in his career.
As the whip flows like water through the air, climaxing at a powerful explosion of force as a tidal wave would, Taiyang executes the skill of a man with over three decades of combat experience. No wasted movements, no blocking, just moving with the ebb and flow of the whip. Desperation fills the mind of Harkin. He cannot let this man close in, knowing what he is capable of in melee.
Leeching out more Aura, his next attack with the whip comes at the human's left, faster than before but predictable in its intended motion. Taiyang eyes the now blurring whip and jumps forward in a dive, his plan to have the whip just skim under his airborne person. The grimm hasn't even pulled his whip closer this time, so the threat of the tip is nil with him so close to the grimm. Desperation.
Then, the whip morphs, the rope of water splitting into five skinnier strands, as if frayed by a fine scalpel. His understanding of the trap is too late, the expanded range of attack coiling upon him. The two upper threads of water catch on his airborne body, wrapping around him. The other three strands follow shortly after, culminating in a coiling of the whip around Taiyang. He fires a shot at his captor from his pistol; the round of the huntsman makes contact with the grimm's raised shield, shattering the weakened shield, but unsuccessful in harming his true target.
Closing his eyes briefly to guard his eyes from the pieces of his ruined shield flying at his face, Harkin adds his now free hand to the whip, turning on the spot to pull the human through the air. He spins on the spot, unraveling the length of water coiled around his right forearm as he does. The whip and its wrapped victim follow in the pull of his arms. Like a wrecking ball, Taiyang is smashed against and through the branches of the high-reaching trees of the forest, both thick and thin. In two spins, every tree within twenty feet was scalped of their canopies, the scraps raining onto the snow, many of the branches stabbing into the snow like spears. Other branches slammed onto the ground like freshly cut logs.
Not risking any failure of technique in releasing a whip, Harkin retracts the shell of aura from the ends of the whip holding his opponent as he performs a third spin. No later after the water was released, so was a damp Taiyang sent hurtling into the sky like a rock from a trebuchet, whistling through the air over the neighboring wilderness.
Harkin, though free from immediate danger now, would not let himself be idle. This huntsman would be back soon if his reputation preceded him. Almost certainly. Taiyang Xiao Long was and still is a bane to any operations of the Grimm. He and his team were vital in humanity's offense into Southern Patch before Harkin was even an idea.
He marches through the snow, rolling up the remaining length of the water whip. His focus is on the bright red pest with the silver eyes. He notes that the youth is now standing, stumbling over to her rifle abandoned in the road. No matter, he had plenty of whip left to choke the life out of those accursed eyes.
Ruby had been in a state of delirium ever since she was stamped like a bug on her head. Her nausea, pain, and sapped aura left her stuck prone as she scrounged sense from the fog. Aura, even drained as it was to the point its field around her seemed ready to pop like a balloon from a needle, in time gave her mental faculties relief. Her progress was slow as she crawled from prone to crouching against a nearby tree, then to shaky legs in a hunch. The gnarly bruise present on the back of her head throbbed, sending a headache so fierce every time her heartbeat occurred. Crescent Rose was her ultimate obsession in her tarnished state, the instinct to survive motivating her to try in the first place. Her father and sister… she can't wallow like a child while they fight for her. The utter humiliation of being dispatched so simply irked within her something fierce. Whatever sense she had, that she was against an alpha grimm, fell out of her mind in her ragged, panting state. It is why she marched, more threw herself really, in the direction of her precious weapon. The scuffing of her tights and her pained knees, as she landed nearly face-first against the body of her precious friend Crescent Rose, was just another pebble on the mountain of crap piled on her today.
The cold may be seeping through her aura at this point, but the familiar feeling of the grooves on the handle of her custom-made weapon overrode her discomfort. Her soul begs for the aura to empower her once more, the request coming true as the weight of Rose becomes manageable again when she tugs her from the ditch she made in the snow from her being thrown. She activates the transformation sequence, turning the rifle into a scythe before turning in a squat. Whatever plans to support her family died at the spark as naught but a mass of black fur and red embroidered bone armor made its way toward her. Her lowered position made the grimm seem even more overwhelming in size. Memories of the pain he caused her within minutes put her in action, the aspiring hero embedding her scythe in the snow and dirt, rifle barrel trained on the monster.
Tilting his head at the rack of a round, Harkin brings his halved whip to bear, spinning it in front of him at high speeds. The end of it carves through the snow below like a hot knife through butter as it matches speed with a helicopter propeller. Surface-level snow rises from the gusts created, obscuring the view for both sides, but only one is trying to snipe the other.
Grumbling, Ruby Rose fires at the damned wolf with her beautiful creation. Even with a dimmed view, her aim was true for his left shoulder. Alas, as the anti-material round meets with the whip's rapid loop, the bullet is hit from the side by the length, diverting its course just enough to dart past Harkin, with only ruffled fur at the bullet's passing. A tree's scalped top explodes again in a rain of wooden scrap as the bullet carves along its top off into the clouds. The beowolf raises an eyebrow at her after, not even pausing at the near hit. His paw steps are quieter than one would expect of something his size, but they rung in Ruby's adrenaline-drunk ears.
Gritting her teeth, the huntress-in-training cycles Crescent Rose's bolt again, firing. The racking is as quick as her bullets as she rains fire at the nightmare creature.
The second shot veered off course into the ground past Harkin's paws, a geyser of snow and steam rising at the hot round's utter penetration into the dirt below, sloughing against the back of his right leg but no more than that. The third is made to greet the clouds, a nearly imperceptible gap marking its passage even so far below. A fourth gouge half the lumber off the right side of a tree behind Harkin. The fifth, the most dead center, manages to glance off his left collarbone; the wolven grimm yelps from the pain of a 50 cal even with aura, his left hand reaching up to nurse the spot. Huffing, he utilized the momentum of the whip to bring it around the top of his head and lash out at the wretched human. His long arm and the whip's remaining is enough to cross the fifteen-odd feet distance remaining between him and Little Red.
Not an idle nor slow person, Ruby retrieves her weapon and bares its frame between her and the incoming attack. When the whip cracks against the metal of her weapon, she is sent off her feet inches off the ground as she passes through to the center of the road, skidding to a stop on the well-trodden road. The vibration through her body causes her to drop to a knee, coughing from the sheer shock of it all.
The half-glasgow smile on Harkin's muzzle could not better match his mood as he brings the whip around for another crack. Then, a flaming slug punched him in his weapon arm, canceling his attack and stumbling him a pawstep's worth. What is this now?!
"Don't touch her, fucker!" A loud, basey feminine voice cut through the world between Harkin and Ruby. The former snaps his head to the right, hot air frosting as it leaves his mouth. Ruby, in juxtaposition, goes wide-eyed and grins as she looks left.
There at a battered tree long put aside in Harkin's mind, pieces of bark and snow interspersed across her clothing and hair shakily rose Yang Xiao Long. Her lilac eyes flicker red like the coals of a sleeping oven being awakened by fresh oxygen. She staggers, catching herself against the now bare tree the beowolf bat her against. "Pick on someone your own size, hairy prick!"
A straightening of his back was the first step of Harkin's answer, his head lolling loosely in her direction. A look one would give to an inconvenience, not a threat. Then, his right hand retracted across his chest, whip flying into the air to his left. His left hand with a smattering of ice dust grasps softly around the circumference of the weapon. The next second, his hand lashed out in a gesture at Yang with the whip following, the weapon's long length dragging through his hand at high speed. He activates the ice dust on the last third of the whip before it completely exits his curled fingers. A blade of ice now caps off the whip, singing as it carved the air. The whip itself is too short to reach the adolescent, but when the whip cracked far from her, a half-foot-long piece at the end snapped free and whistled toward her. The shard of ice incoming prompted Yang to raise both arms to block after a gasp of surprise. It shatters against her aura-reinforced gauntlets, but the speed and force still cause her to backpedal.
Ruby sees fit to aim again, her sister will not fight alone! She trains Crescent Rose again and fires off a shot. The beowolf was not narrowminded, however. He reacts to his peripheral sighting of her, giving a quick pull of the whip behind him before flicking it at his prey. The speartip ice clangs against Crescent Rose, knocking the barrel aside just as she pulls the trigger, making the shot go wide and pulverize another tree in a storm of splinters. He paces her way, bringing the whip back around in a backhand flick at the stubborn human delaying the inevitable.
At the incoming blade at the crack of the whip, Yang meets in with a slug from Ember Celica, a left cross that projects lead fury. Fire meets ice in a reaction of water, whisps of fire, and steam. She is already geared toward blocking a repeat attack but it is for naught. Just like before, the beowolf alpha redirects the whip back at her younger sister, jabbing at her weapon brought up to block and putting her on the back foot. Ruby is already ragged as it is, she can tell from the panting mouth and shaking in her arms as she held Crescent Rose. The rebounded spiked whip is immediately chambered and slung at Ruby again, batting aside the scythe putting Ruby off-center. The fear in Yang as the beowolf recoiled his whip above to exploit the opening spurned her on the offensive, power disparity be damned.
She sprints full throttle at him, firing Ember Celica at the same time. Like clockwork, the creepy-mouthed bastard spun toward her like a tacky ballet dancer, moving like a breeze away and between her payload of slugs. Because of course, like the bitch wasn't already fucking lethal, his whip followed with him; the section of ice capped with a spike on the whip broke off again as he cracked it spinning, slinging an icicle with which spin, practicality a flurry at his speed. Fucking done with his damn icicles, Yang punches the flying blades of ice out of the air with her motion-activated shotguns. Fireworks of flame and frost decorate the gap between her and the tough sonova bitch. Through the yellow, red, and grey fog of war came a sweeping swing of the whip at her legs, her response was a hop then a dual blast of her gauntlets behind her. Like a rocket, she zooms toward the stubborn fucker, one arm raised to block while the other pulls back for a strike. She has a beed on his oversized head, eyes like burning coal meeting hers, not even widening. A shotgun barrel to the eyes should fix that!
Just before impact, as the muscles in her right shoulder twitched, Harkin shifted to the left. The gauntleted fist extends, brushing past his right shoulder, slug firing at full flex but with no flesh between the barrel and empty air. He throws the handle of his whip but maintains a grip on the business end of it. The length of encased water drifts through his grip like a train through a tunnel, up the inside of Yang's guard. As the human flew past his right side, the whip brushed against and over the bridge between her arm and shoulder. His left hand grips the handle again after it arcs over the human's held-out arm, his right hand tightening on the whip as well. In full execution of his plan, the human comes to a sudden halt. A wail came to her as her shoulder felt like it was being ripped from its socket as the loop of water whip yanks her. In the next moment, Harkin plants his two paws on the ground, grabbing both handle and whip in both hands before executing a shoulder throw, ropes of water in place of an opponent's arm.
Like a sack of cinderblocks, Yang is pulled over Harkin's right shoulder by the whip wrapped across her shoulder, slamming through the snow onto the earth headfirst. Both snow and frosted soil emerge from the impact, pelting off Harkin's body like hail. A crater is the aftermath, a spiderweb network of cracks spreading from where Yang lay facedown in the concave formation. She wasn't moving.
"Nuisance." Said Harkin. He raises to his full height, rolling up the roughly ten feet of whip remaining, only a foot of pointed ice left as a result of this fool's interruption. He makes the whip morph with his aura, creating a harrowing object. A noose of water. A free hand moves to grab her, and then his ear twitches at the familiar sound made by a racked bolt. He jumps back and out of the calf-deep crater, an anti-material round sailing in front of his eyes before perforating an already scalped tree. He rotates his muzzle, huffing steam as he turns to the red little pest still clinging to life.
Barrel of Crescent Rose still smoking, a trembling and gasping Ruby Rose holds her ground in a crouch, scythe blade acting as the bipod for her rifle. "My sister is not the only stubborn one here, wolf. I'm not dead yet!" She racks Crescent Rose, a spent casing flying out to melt a hole in the snow. "My lead and scythe are still in the mix."
She can see the alpha beowolf's tongue lick the teeth of his maw through the gap in his cheeks. "An issue rectified soon." The fire in his eyes flared and he presented the noose to her, letting it blow lazily in the breeze.
A dry gulp is poorly hidden behind Ruby's bared teeth. Sorry mother, but… Fuck. This. Guy!
Crescent Rose roars, a bullet thrown from its magazine and at the alpha beowolf. A projectile fast enough to blow off limbs, tree or otherwise, but in a predictable direction with a predictable wielder. Harkin simply ducks prior to the trigger's full press, only receiving another skid on the near full coverage mask long-lived Grimm accumulate. His left hand reaches for the blade of ice acting as the endpoint of the water noose's neck, freeing it from the rope of water with a simple command of release mentally and soulfully. Ice speartip in hand, he brought it across his body and waited.
A small pale hand grips the bolt of Crescent Rose, pulling it back and ejecting a casing. He waits for the hand to push.
The hand twitches, and then he moves his left arm back across his body, releasing the knife of ice as the bolt finishes its journey on the receiver. The icicle's trajectory is destined for the opening of Crescent Rose's barrel.
Ruby Rose is already set on overwhelming the beowolf with a rain of bullets. It was almost automatic now with how frequently she failed to tag this threat. Combined with her exhaustion, she didn't realize the knife of ice heading toward her precious weapon's barrel before she already pulled the trigger. Just as the projectile of sharpened ice entered her barrel, so too did Crescent Rose propel its projectile.
An explosion of force and shrapnel made Ruby Rose cross over the rest of the road, stopping against yet another tree brutally. She is going to have nightmares about trees at this rate!
Opening her sore eyes, blurring fading, Ruby sighted something heartwrenching. Still in her hands, Crescent Rose was in a harrowing state for the girl's poor heart. Where the barrel of her rifle function ended, instead was a gnarled mess of metal. Her scythe was functional if burnt black near the site of misfiring, but the exit of her barrel was spread like a flower. She didn't even want to imagine what the inside of the barrel looked like, and the weapon was certainly not capable of transforming anymore. Melee was her only option now unless she wished to damage herself and wonderful Rose even more. She shivers, not necessarily due to the cold now seeping through her diminished aura. The shivers turn into trembling, the girl hesitantly raises her sight from her compromised weapon to the beast responsible. The grimm rises from his squat, dangling a noose formed by water and aura. The armored menace's torso quakes from quick huffs and puffs, shoulders bobbing up and down. He then sighs, shaking his head as he walks toward her in a speed walk. Was he? This thing's laughing at her!?
"This jest of resistance ends, human." He said, moving the noose into both hands and pulling it from both ends, presenting it to her. The voice emerging from him was guttural, as if growls were chasing out the words. "Justice transpires now."
He's going to- One of Ruby's hands leaves her weapon, pausing short of touching her neck, his target. Her mouth is parted in a silent yelp, eyes popping. No! Stop Ruby! Her trembling hand clenches into a fist, reducing the trembling in the rest of her body, her knees ceasing nearly cracking together. Sweat or tears, both equally salty, sour her tongue as she licks her lips. Shivering she may be, but she spikes her scythe's pole against the soil, using it like a staff to gather herself from against the tree. "Sorry to disappoint. I refuse." God of Light, her voice sounded so feeble.
Again, she sees the beowolf's tongue as it polishes the rows of teeth exposed by his cheek scar. "Stand or lay. No matter." He lets both arms fall to his hips, his right hand holding the swaying noose, whilst claws curl on his left hand.
Clawing aura from the recesses of a depleted reservoir. Ruby strengthens herself to raise her scythe at the incoming danger, holding it past her left hip to swing at a moment's notice. Attacking with recoil is not available, so good old abused muscles and aura will have to carry the slack.
Harkin slouches, ready to close the ten-foot gap between predator and prey-
"Fuck you!"
Harkin barely began to turn, then his eyes were overwhelmed by a deluge of color. His eyes close, burning from the roaring flames rising from the crater like a volcanic fissure. A bonfire shy of the sun in terms of luminosity. Harkin's left hand shields his eyes as he shrinks back from the light before him, a headache threatening to pop his eyes. Watery eyes meet what their colors take after, before a black chunk of flaming debris launches from the sudden eruption. Red eyes catch his own to disperse his mistake.
The back of his hand meets his mask as a fist collides against his palm, a shotgun blast ensuing a half second later. The force of the attack carries through, snapping his whole head back. Scratch that, his whole body moves. He is a spear through the air, his blown back head showing his eyes the incoming treeline of Ruby's side of the road. In response to this development, he juts his arms out, palms facing the tree he would careen into. He makes contact, activating his powerful abdomen to pull his legs around so he is upside down and landing with all four limbs against the tree, ironically like a felid. No sooner did all four limbs' claws sink into the tree did it split near the base in clear view of the orientation flipped grimm. The tree bends from the force of his impact, leaning so much that his vertical position becomes more horizontal as if he were on a steep incline instead of a tree, even though he was. What power behind one punch!
With his new viewpoint, he had a clear view of what was in fact not a launched molten rock, but a human yearling with a flame-spewing sunkissed mane trailing behind her. Eyes like fresh blood and pearlescent teeth bared in a snarl are geared at him. Her feet barely met the ground before she blasted through the knee-deep snow at his horizontal form, not with recoil but with sheer muscular power and aura. God of Darkness, she is quicker now too!
She stops short of the tree's base, squatting and jumping up the slightly obtuse angle of the tree at him, left arm cocking back before curling at his muzzle for an uppercut. Harkin pushes off the tree and crosses his arms in an x-shaped block, bracing his lower body with the tree. The uppercut connects, followed by another slug that unleashes fire, flames rolling around his guard to wash across his torso and head. Through the pain, he finds not only himself pushed along the tree's bark as his rear claws gouge lines in the wood. The tall, wooden flora cracks further at the split far below, turning an incline into a slope in short order, leaning further from the weight of Yang's attack. His claws find purchase after several feet of gouging, the punch still pushing against his crossed guard lifting him from his animalistic stance into a bipedal one before he finally came to a stop.
Not nearly finished yet, Yang pulls back her left fist into a guard at the same time she throws out a right cross, an attack that buffets against the armored left forearm of the bastard, the metal of her gauntlet shielding against the plating and angeled spikes. The arm shudders but it holds even against the blast. Yelling, she keeps her arm out and throws a left straight at the easy-to-reach gut of the towering beowolf. As she figured, he blocked a shotgun punch by dropping his right arm. No big deal, her intended plan stems from the whip dangling from his left hand.
Her right hand darts to the length of the whip, her left hand grabbing purchase of the beowolf's branch of an arm. She yanks herself up by the two handholds, thrusting the top of her head upwards at the alpha beowolf's jaw. So long his arms, so lengthy the grimm's size was, her arms came to fully extend behind her as she hoisted herself up the statue of a grimm. The motion activates both barrels just above and between her two first knuckles, propelling her even quicker at the grimm's head. He drops his muzzle to meet her forehead to mask, but his body still gets socked off its paws across the length of the tree, snapping two branches along the away until he slams to a stop against a thicker branch, tilting it with a crack. The whip of water disperses moments after it falls out his grasp The tree hinges even more from the three impacts, nearly a bridge now. His back meets it first, then the back of his head follows. Leaning against the branch, he seethes from the pain, shrugging himself back to his feet. He shakes off the daze, wrenching open his eyes to reveal his embers. As Yang closes on his position, his eyes glow as if stoked by a poker, a yellow to her red. Ego checked, he roars at himself to lock in.
Both his hands reach over and past his head, wrapping around the thick branch that broke his momentum. He pulls, snapping it from its base at his paws, and swings it over his head down at the rushing fire-stoke brawler full of surprises. Splinters fly from the makeshift club where it once connected to the tree. He sees her blood-painted irises track the club before she sets up for a right uppercut. Perhaps he should infuse it with aura, but he needs his stores for something else soon, an improvised bit of trickery.
He doesn't hold back on his club swing, neither does the girl back down. Wood meets shotgun-enhanced fist, the former coming off far worse in a mess of wood scraps, bouncing off both of them. The remaining branch in his grasp travels downward, whistling past her fist. Where the wood was punched off, a jagged spike remained, turning the shaft of wood into a makeshift spear fit for a prehistoric hunter. By the time Yang's eyes glanced down to acknowledge the wooden spear now pointed at her wide-open chest, it was too late.
Harkin pulls his new spear to his left hip, then with his whole body plus aura, he acts on the opening he manufactured. He thrusts the spear at an ascending angle, spearing into Yang where her solar plexus resided. The human folds into herself like a sheet of cloth, spittle and air escaping her mouth in a ragged howl as she is lifted off her boots by his upward thrust. Harkin easily lifts her weight, carrying her up by the spearpoint in an arc. He turns on the spot as the woman is brought aloft, switching to an icepick grip on the aura-bolstered spear in a blitz movement. He stabs down at the near-log they fought upon with the spear, Yang skewered upon its spear tip. A roar escapes his maw as he spikes his opponent and spear in tandem, her fire forming a corona over him and in front of him. His power matches the rage of the flames, the fireball at his mercy crashing onto the log under them. Her limbs follow scant moments after her like the tassels of a kite. A pit is made in the wood of the tree as Yang is planted in it, wood pulverized against her back like she was the etching of a printing press's slab. Red, bloodshot eyes flood as utter agony erupts across her body, especially the exact center of her body where the sham of a spear was driven. Blood escapes her nose and mouth, her aura shield shimmering clearly to the outside world, the translucent protection revealed by waves of yellow flaring everywhere, especially out from where the spear stabbed against her.
The tree becomes completely horizontal as she is buried into it, mere sheets of the flora's innards connecting it to the stump. The canopy facing the ground explodes in wooden shrapnel, snow, water, and dust as it is slammed like a sledgehammer, a crater of demolition-level proportion formed by the event. The elements of air, water, earth, and fire whip about in a miniature cyclone of chaos. The wind whipped in a whirlwind through the air from the thrust and slam of Yang by Harkin, even more from the crash of the tree. Water expulsed from the sudden crushing of snow under the tree, even Yang's bonfire hair melted the snowfall falling upon the two combatants. Soil is cleaved and dug out from the ground subject to the tree's felling, dust lingering in the air. Fire from Yang's mane caught fire to the forest around them as the wind spawned from the whole ordeal and extracted it outwards. This section of the forest is marked utterly by the throes of battle, a state that will last long after the fighting has passed.
As the fog and dust faded from the enemies' position, the plated and spiked beowolf stood triumphant over hacking and gasping Yang, her hands grabbing at the spear digging into her midsection. Her hair fumes with wildfire and her eyes communicate pure rage, quite literally "seeing red" as the humans call out. Red eyes are the norm for Grimm, so the phrase is redundant. How it flares like superheated metal is more than familiar. Harkin meets her fire with his orbital furnaces, neither giving ground in the staredown. She shifts and twitches against the spear she had a literal clenched hand in making, making it wiggle but barely lifting it before more pressure is applied, making her groan and wince.
He places his paw on her throat as he peers down at her, the human woman choking and gagging from it as she grasps both hands on the limb. Her gauntlets are shoved against his ankle, both doing nothing but clicking empty. Her eyes finally show an emotion other than anger and vitriol, twitching from her Ember Celica to the grimm's hellfire eyes.
The veteran chuffs. "24 slugs. Nothing left." He twists the spear like a hand drill with a roll of hands, making Yang cough and wince. "I have awareness, unlike you."
Yang Xiao Long claws at his paw, aura simply making her nails slide off like ice on steel. "Go to hell, you hairy fuck."
Harkin breathes in deep, then sighs it all out. "Ladies first."
Yang clenches her hands on his paw. Her eyes are crimson, but tears bead at her eyelids "No." She whispers.
The beowolf raises his spear as high as his arms can reach, the weapon perfectly trained at her chest. Her aura warbles in streaks of yellow. "Clean and quick. This mercy I give."
His muscles twitch and his soul's command reaches his nervous system.
"No!"
A force like a cutting gale drives into Harkin's back, blowing him off of his victim and onto his front. He rolls with the gust across the lumber bridge forward then transitions in a sideways roll. He drives his spear into the wood, aura giving it the durability to penetrate the shell. The kinetic energy carries on, making the spear carve a trench in the tree. The driven spear pulls him around to face where the force came from, his right hand and two paws joining in on carving the wood as he vies to slow his slide to a stop. The back of his paws taps against a branch behind him, finally ending his sudden journey. His mind finally conceives what is in front of him.
There, standing vigil over a bruised and bleeding blonde brawler just within his claws was the little red hood. Her scythe is pulled back into the ready position, the red and black thing meshing utterly with her wardrobe of darkness and blood. Bite-sized as ever, dirt and water soaking her. She is different now, far more. The God of Light's mark has been stoked.
The whole of her eyes has been taken over by a silver light like two stars have replaced her earth-born orbs. No pupil, no iris, or schlera. Nothing but light everlasting, light that burns his own as he meets their glows. The flesh between her eyes has disappeared behind the glare, giving the appearance of a sun held within her skull finally having an opening to show itself to the world. Outside of the immediate origin of the light, silver fog-like energy seeped out the upper circumference of her eyes, rising like smoke trails into the surrounding air, but far too silver to be that from a fire on this plane of existence. Glowing, boiling liquid silver flooded down and out of the blinding light of her eyes like a waterfall, transforming into two river deltas at her pinkened cheeks. A miniature flowing river valley of molten shining silver takes up her lower face and whole neck, falling under, into, and over her dress collar. The liquid silver doesn't fade on contact with her clothing, showing off to the world where the streams travel and pool within her clothes. The silver only continues to spread through her dress and red cloak in flowing rivulets. The silver collects in her mouth and on her teeth, pearlescent as they are exposed and bared to the world. The silver glow highlights her incisors as it trails down, leaking out her mouth at the bottom and corners down her jaw. The steam that comes out her nose and mouth as she huffs is also silver, whether due to an internal source or the liquid traveling over the orifices as hot air puffs out, he couldn't be entirely sure.
For the second time since he first took on this mission, and the only time in from this child, he felt it. True fear. Trepidation, uncertainty, worry, and emotions of the like filled his consciousness in amounts he rarely felt beyond scarce times over his years of existence. Hundreds of conflicts marked him internally and externally, the former gleaned from scrutinizing his soul, the latter his scars. Caution is normal for someone long-lived like Harkin, that is how he survived this long. This is something else, something primal that pierced his armor of wisdom, experience, and discipline.
A Silver-Eyed Warrior has joined the fray. The battle. The hunt.
The proud son and brother, Harkin, grasps the spear in his left hand and plants his right hand on the log beneath him. His legs compress, ready to spring into action with the body motions of the wolves his species of grimm was inspired by. He can't hold back now, he was right to come after this threat. This piece needs to be eliminated from the warboard.
He swallows. God of Darkness, give your soldier strength. That, or prepare my grave.
A silver tear is carried in the wind of an approaching storm, hitting the snow and melting a pockmark, sizzling like two pairs of eyes.
Perhaps three, because a window's curtains have withdrawn, and a presence has taken notice. Just like it has with every window before Ruby Rose was even a thought.