Chapter 20

The Inn that Mikhail had directed us too was a quaint little thing, full of rustic charm and hand-crafted furniture. Thankfully it also came with a fully serviced kitchen which provided us with plenty of much needed sustenance once we had paid for the rooms for the night.

Nora let out a happy little sigh as she lent back, having demolished a stack of pancakes and washed it down with a glass of water. "Oh it's been too long since I've had pancakes." Nora sighed patting her stomach in appreciation as she did so.

Ruby looked at Nora sideways at that. "But you had some the morning before we left your home, didn't we?" She asked, honestly confused by Nora's words.

I laughed at that, and Ren even snorted.

"Like I said." Nora stated firmly, "It's been too long since I've had pancakes."

I felt the smile tug at my lips.

Some things never change.

But on to business.

I turned my attention away from my own plate to focus on the map that had been laid out on the table we were sitting at, and the others returned back to what we had been discussing.

Just where we were supposed to go from here.

"How about we go down this road?" Ruby suggested, tapping at a road that was almost a direct path to their goal. "We could probably stop by this town that the path runs through and get some more supplies in case we're running low, and could even rest there."

Nora shook her head firmly at that, reaching out with a marker to cross it out off the map. "That won't be happening. I just remembered why the name of that town was so familiar." Nora said with a sigh. "That town fell a few years ago to the Grimm, Dad used to use it as a trade route before that. The Grimm practically treat the thing as a nest, only way he could make it through is if mom helped him."

I frowned at that. Yeah that's not going to happen.

"Okay then, how about this way?" I suggested, pointing out a second route that would still let us go through fairly easily. "I mean sure we'll have to make it through this mountain pass, but it seems like it won't be too difficult."

"We won't be getting through that way either." Ren stared, taking the marker from Nora to circle a town that was settled between by two mountains. "Mikhail was telling me about this place earlier. The only way through the mountain pass is through this town, and they're full on isolationist. They don't let newcomers inside unless they've got someone to vouch for them on the inside. "

"Which we don't have." I sighed, letting my head fall onto the table with a thud.

Damn it.

That leaves the final route.

I turned my attention to the map where Ren was currently drawing out the final path, going down a side road, before leaving it entirely, eventually coming to a stop at another town which thankfully had a road leading straight to the harbor where Neptune's family would be residing.

I hoped.

It's a bit of a detour, and we'll need to cut through the forest for a bit and leave the main road altogether before we come to the town as a stopping point.

Not exactly the path that I was hoping to take to get to the harbour, but it seems like life is going to be just as complicated as it wants to be.

Again.

"Alright then if were going to do this, we're going to have to make sure we have enough supplies for our journey through the forest." I said, looking down at the map again briefly as I did so, trying to judge how long it would probably take us.

Let's see…

If we get through with no troubles and no delays at all, it'll probably only take a few days.

But in the unlikely event that nothing goes to plan, we're going to take at least a week going through there.

Which means we're going to need supplies.

"How are you all doing ammo wise?" I asked the group, my eyes flicking to everyone at the table, before tapping on the forest that we would have to pass through. "Enough for a week or so if it comes to that?"

Ruby's brow crinkled in thought and I could see her mouth moving slightly as she went through some calculations in her head. "We used a few clips taking care of that Deathstalker protecting Mikhail's family. I'm sure we'd be fine going through this but we could always use more bullets."

Nora coughed meaningfully, giving the red headed scythe wielder a faux glare.

"And grenades." Ruby amended, Nora stopping her menacing glare as soon as she had been addressed a satisfied look on her face. "I think I saw a place on the way to the inn which should be able to help us out there."

Okay that's one problem dealt with.

"We're going to need food in there as well, I know Jaune's pretty good at foraging when it comes to the forests but I wouldn't want to rely on it when we didn't need to." Nora brought up, the rest of us all nodding at that.

A thought struck me and I turned to Ren. "We're going to need to make sure whatever we bring isn't especially pungent." I stated, thinking back to some of Tob's lessons on wilderness survival. "Things that would strongly stand out of the forest's standard smells could cause the inhabitants to come investigate. If we're lucky it'll just be wolves or something like that. If we're not it could be Grimm."

Ren nodded, bring out his scroll and quickly tapping a little note to himself. "I'll keep that in mind. Shouldn't be too hard to plan around. Nora, you happy to help me get the food?"

Nora broke out into a broad grin, practically bouncing in place. "You betcha Renny!" Nora squealed, grabbing her partner in a head lock as she did so, to which he didn't even attempt to resist, submitting with a long-suffering sigh that I had long grown accustomed to.

Ruby apparently hadn't and tried her best to muffle her giggles behind her hand.

"But what are you going to be doing Fearless leader?" Nora asked, still holding Ren in place under her arm as she did so before she jumped away with a squeal one hand going down to clutch at her side as a smug looking Ren leaned back into his chair.

In response I reached a hand into my coat and brought out a roll of bandages which was looking decidedly on the depleted side. "Kind of running a bit low when it comes to my medical supplies after I patched up Mikhail." I said, absently realising that I could probably grab some more elements for some tonics as the apothecary as well. "So I'll go restock our medical supplies then we'll meet up again back here?

The others agreed and we all stood up from the table, Nora shouting out a hearty thank you to the cook who nodded in appreciation, working away at a large bowl of noodles of some description before we left and split up, Ruby going one direction and Ren and Nora hurrying off in another.

I walked over to where I had spotted the apothecary and pushed the door open, the light tinkling of a bell announcing my presence.

"Be with you in a moment!" A voice cried out from behind the counter, as I entered the store, my eyes scanning over the interior.

While the inventory inside was by no means as extensive as those that had been within Vale or Beacon's own stores, from what I could see of the stuff they had it was of good quality, most likely local herbs and plants that had been cultivated nearby.

Movement caught my eye and I turned to see a faunus woman make her way out from a closed door behind the counter, her eyes lighting up as she saw me. "You're one of the huntsman who helped Mikhail and his family into town." She marvelled, a happy smile on her face, "Well how can I help you?"

"I was wondering if you had anything in the way of bandages?" I asked, pulling the meagre remains of my supply from one of my coat pockets. "Sadly running a little low at the moment."

The woman nodded, turning and walking off purposefully. "I think I've got some in the back., just let me go check."

While she moved off to search for the item, I returned my attention to the various herbs and plants in front of me.

After looking over them for a few more moments, and having a closer inspection of one or two that seemed to be more promising, I grabbed the ones that I deemed useful for our journey and brought them over to the counter.

"I'm Elena by the way." The shopkeeper called out as she wandered back through the door to the store proper, a bundle of bandages held in her hands. "These up to your fancy?"

I went through the pile of bandages, taking care to examine them for any sign of tears or degradation and was happy to find that they would work perfectly. "These would be wonderful thanks." I said with a smile, grabbing a few lengths of bandages and adding them to my pile.

As Elena ran up my items and I handed over the Lien for them she called out to me as I made my way to the door. "You wouldn't be heading through the forest by chance would you?" Elena asked, almost cautiously.

I stopped for a moment, quickly contemplating just why she might have been asking before I replied. "It's a possibility. Why do you ask?"

Elena shook her head. "Something strange has been going on there lately. Things aren't where they should be, and one of the boys in town said he saw a tree move." She shivered. "It's like you're being watched, even when there isn't anything there."

I frowned at that. "As in the tree got up and walked away?" I said neutrally, despite how bizarre the situation sounded.

If Beacon has taught me anything, its that it is a weird and wonderful world that we live in.

Practically anything could happen at this point.

"The townsfolk didn't believe the boy, thought he was telling stories." Elena revealed, shaking her head. "Right up til when the woodsman went to go chop it down and never came back. And when people went to go find him, the tree was gone."

I frowned at that.

Typical suspect for things like this is always the Grimm.

But what kind of Grimm steals trees as well?

And these trees were by no means small things, most of the houses and buildings here in this town were tiny in comparison to those trees.

Maybe a baby Goliath, but there's no way one of those things would have wandered off without the rest of its herd shaking the land in search of it.

Either way, it was a mystery.

And yet, something about it seemed familiar.

My mind seemed to be reaching for something, something I'd heard from Tob or maybe Peter.

I wracked my brain for a few more moments before shaking my head.

The answer wasn't coming to me.

Guess I'd just have to keep an eye out.

"Thanks for the heads up." I said gratefully, inclining my head to the woman, her dog ears twitching as she bowed slightly in response.

I made my way back to the inn, still contemplating on just what this tree stealing Grimm could be.

Our journey through the forest thus far had been fairly uneventful.

At my best guess we were about half way through our journey to the town of Green's End, and we hadn't come across anything particularly difficult.

Sure we'd come across a few Grimm here and there, mostly Beowolves, Creeps and the odd Boarbastusk but between the four of us we made short work of the Grimm.

And we'd come across nothing that could have stolen one of these massive trees.

Knocked down, possibly but by no means transport without leaving ample evidence as to who was behind it.

This led to our current situation with the four of us following the river which would veer off just before Green's end would come into view, currently deep in conversation.

"And I'm telling you we need to come up with a name for the team!" Nora cried out, even as Ren and I shared a quick glance at each other before sighing.

"Nora we've talked about this…" Ren started to say but Nora continued on anyway, utterly ignoring her partner's words.

"So I've been thinking about it and I think we should be team Junior!" Nora finished finally, looking at the three of us expectantly as if expecting applause.

Ren groaned audibly and Ruby let out a sound of displeasure, something to be expected as our youngest member rarely liked being reminded of that fact, and being in a team titled "Junior" was not going to help that at all.

I looked up from the map in my hands briefly and met Nora's eyes. "Nora I don't think that's the best name. Maybe something else?" I suggested, returning my attention back to the map.

"What!?" Nora squawked, affronted by my words turning to the others for support only to deflate when she found there was none to be had. "I'd like to see any of you guys come up with anything better then." She grumped, kicking a stone into the river idly as she did so.

"What about team Ranger?" Ruby piped up, both her hands pulling at the straps of her backpack, "Would that work?

I pondered it for a moment.

R N J R.

Ranger.

It fits.

Not perfectly but then again this is coming from the girl who led team Ruby with a W.

Nora seemed to take exception to this however and proceeded to pounce on the hood wearing huntress, the two of them comically flailing about for a moment.

Something pricked my ears and I turned my head, trying to catch sight of whatever had caught my attention.

My eyes flickered over to the river as something caught my eyes, the water rippling for a moment before halting.

What was that about?

Maybe an odd sandbank or rock formation under the water?

I slowed to a stop, ostensibly taking a look at the map in front of as I kept my senses peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing.

Maybe I was hearing things.

I shrugged going to move forwards again, going to put the map away before I froze.

There it was again!

"You heard it too?" I heard Ren say quietly towards me, taking care not to make any indications that he was aware of the change.

I nodded minutely, straining to look out of the corner of my eyes as I continued forward, trying to see if there was anything out of place which could have made that noise which had me on edge.

And still there was nothing.

For a moment I thought perhaps it could have been some kind of semi-aquatic Grimm hiding in the river that was nearby, but the water was too clear and the river too shallow for that to be an option.

Unless it was invisible.

I shook my head at that.

I swear ever since that fight with Neo if I can't see my opponent the first thought that goes through my head is 'they must be invisible'.

I mean honestly just bec…wait a second was that there before?

The sand bank that had been just bordering the river on both sides, had appeared to have moved.

Not much but it was in a decidedly different shape then it had been before, and it seemed to have extended slightly towards us.

I put a hand on the back of my head scratching it absently and titled my head towards Nora. "Hey Nora," I said lightly, sounding for all the world as if I was just asking how her day was going. "There's something hiding in that patch of sand over there. Would you mind shooting it with Magnhild?"

Nora blinked for a moment in confusion before realisation sunk in and she nodded, Ruby's hand drifting down to Crescent Rose as she did so.

Then Nora spun, her grenade launcher practically teleporting to her hands as she unleashed three rounds at the sand bank, the sand flying up into the air and the water in the river rippling from the shockwave of the consecutive blasts.

As she did so the rest of us readied ourselves for battle, my sword held at the ready in my right hand, my shield gantlet ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Ren pulled his upgraded Stormflower from where it rested behind his back, levelling both guns at where the sound had been coming from. Ruby deployed her weapon as a scythe with a flourish, her legs bent slightly ready to rush off in an instant with her semblance with needed.

But nothing happened.

We stood there, waiting for whatever threat that I was sure was there to reveal itself but nothing came out of the sand.

"Maybe it dodged?" Ruby suggested, her silver eyes scanning the surroundings for where it could have hidden.

"I don't think so." I said aloud, not sure of just what was going on. "I j…"

I cut myself off as something huge rushed towards me, exploding out of the sand in front of me with incredible force.

With a thought my aura surged and a kite shield formed out of my gauntlet to block.

But even without my last second block the sheer strength behind the blow knocked me off my feet and I was sent tumbling through the air, only avoiding slamming into one of the nearby trees by luck as I contorted and slammed my legs into the ground, skidding to a stop, using my sword as an impromptu anchor to keep myself from going any further.

Alright, didn't see that one coming.

The sound of gunfire filled the air, a sure sign that my friends were fighting whatever it was that hit me.

I looked back towards whatever the hell it was that had just tried to knock me into next week.

And found a large arm, devoid of any fingers outstretched where I had been.

One made entirely of sand.

"What the?"

The giant sand arm moved and seemed to support itself on the solid earth, as if going to push itself up and suddenly the sand surged behind it, stray particles falling like a waterfall as a roughly humanoid shape pulled itself upwards, coming to stop as it towered over all of us.

I swallowed a swear, and made my way back towards this latest problem, gripping Candidus Mors tightly as I did so.

Damn, this thing was as big as the Prometheus unit, and if that punch was any indicator had a hell of a lot of force behind it's swings.

But seriously though, a sand golem?

Since when was that a thing?

"Look at the top!" Ruby's voice cried out as she continued to sink rounds into the being's sandy form, the bullets seeming to shoot straight through the body without making so much as a dent in the beast, the holes caused by the bullets passage, seeming to seal themselves shut a moment later.

I directed my gaze upwards for a moment and through the trail of sand falling down from it's…I suppose that would be the golem's face?

And partially hidden behind that sand, I saw it.

A Grimm mask with a bright yellow eye the shape of a diamond in the centre of it, which was focused squarely on us.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me." I grumbled under my breath even as I dodged to the side as it tried to crush me beneath it's sandy arm once more, the ground shaking from the force of the blow.

I lashed out with my blade and it cut through the sand as if it had been a hot knife through butter, the deep furrow causing a grin to spread across my lips.

I knew my luck wasn't that bad.

Only for it to be wiped away as the wound I had caused, closed itself in an instant, causing seemingly no damage at all.

I stand corrected.

The realization hit me like one of Yang's uppercuts, as the memory I had been trying to reach for the past few days screamed into the forefront of my mind, as the realization of what had really happened to that tree.

The boy hadn't been lying.

The tree had quite literally, gotten up and walked away.

With a little help.

"It's a Gheist!" I called out, trying to alert the others to my discovery. "A Grimm that possesses inanimate objects!" I had to stop from replying as I rolled around another massive blow, circling around the enemy in an attempt to flank them.

"What the heck is a Gheist?" Nora squawked, scrambling to the side as it slammed another mighty blow into the ground. "So it's in the sand?"

"No it is the sand." I yelled back, lashing out with my sword again into the back of one of it's legs only to frown as the sand around its legs rushed upwards, to repair it instantly as well as almost seeming to grasp for me before I flung myself backwards. "It takes on the objects properties and uses it to attack its foes."

"Okay so it's a Gheist!" Ren shouted out, still blasting away ineffectually with Stormflower, drawing the Grimm's attention towards him. "How do we kill it?"

"Uh, give me a second here, just trying to figure that out." I called back my mind frantically scrambling to remember what Tob and Peter had told me about the time they fought one. "Okay, the one I heard about possessed stone and made a stone golem, but when they shattered it, the Gheist mask detached and then they could kill it."

"So we've got to find a way to destroy the body before we can kill the Grimm itself." Ruby concluded, slicing off one of the Grimm's arms with a gunfire assisted swipe that carved through its shoulder.

This time the wound didn't regenerate, the whole arm rapidly reverting back to nothing more than normal sand, which collapsed to the ground haphazardly.

"Alright!" Ruby cheered in celebration, as she landed with a thump next to Nora, the loud slap of a high five filling the air.

The Gheist seemed to stand there for a moment, looking down at where it's arm had been a moment ago.

Then another arm erupted from the side of it, black and misty looking as if it was a dissipating Grimm. This new misty arm slammed down, but not into the sand that it had been standing on.

"Oh great." Ren groused, as the Gheist turned to face us again, with a new arm made entirely out of water.

I rolled out of the way as the new limb slapped down where I had been with tremendous speed, the ground fracturing from the weight behind the blow.

Come on Jaune think, think.

Maybe we can try and push it into the river?

Given that it just formed an arm out of the river, I rather doubt that is going to help.

We've got to find a way to turn its strengths against itself.

I turned back to the river for a moment and…

There's an idea.

"Does anyone have something that can solidify the sand?" I called out, trying to see if we had what we needed for my plan to work. "Like Ice dust rounds or something like that?"

"What about fire dust rounds?" Ruby called out, reaching behind her cloak to pull out an ammo clip with some symbol I couldn't make out from here inscribed on the side.

"That'll work!" I called back, rolling out of the way of another attack. "But be sure to save some lightning dust rounds for later. Trust me you'll know when." I came up to my feet again, backing up from our oversized foe but keeping him in my sights. "Nora, hammer and shield."

Nora grinned and reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a very familiar concoction, her own personal supply of shock tonic. We'd all agreed that Nora not having access to the thing which could let her tap into her semblance purely because I was holding on to all of it was stupid.

That wasn't to say I didn't have any, but if a situation arose, as one had now, we might not have time to exchange stuff in the midst of battle.

"I'll draw its attention!" Ren called out and unleashed a barrage of rounds at the Gheist's face, and sprinted off to the side, still firing as he did so.

The Gheist's sand arm went up to try and protect its mask from Ren's barrage even as its titanic body lumbered to the side trying to crush the ant harassing it.

"Nora, you ready to knock this thing into next week?" I called out, dropping low and bracing myself as my shield extended even further with a pulse of my aura.

The bubbly berserker grinned bestially at that, her eyes crackling with pink electricity as she leapt off the ground with a jump that shattered the ground beneath her feet before she landed on the face of my shield hammer first, knees bent and ready to spring off when the time came.

Ren finished circling around the titanic foe, another fist made of sand missing the huntsman by an inch, as Ren used it to mantle forward only for him to have to backflip out of the way of the torrential blast of water that would have slammed into where he would have been moments before.

Oh so it can fire it's limbs as projectiles, that's annoying.

Thank the heavens Ren was holding its attention, that would have sucked if it hit us.

As if by magic, the Grimm turned at that thought, spotting us and raising its remaining arm in the same way it had previously, clearly aiming to fire it directly at us.

Blast.

At that moment something slammed into the Gheist's chest with enough force that it staggered backwards for a step.

Then it exploded in a conflagration of fire dust erupting from the inside of its chest, the Grimm actually collapsing to a knee in the face of this wound.

Thank you Ruby.

"Now!" I called out, bracing myself as I did so.

I heard the click of Nora pulling Magnhild's trigger and with an explosion of pink energy she blasted forward, spinning through the air as she did so to slam into the now far more solid chest of the Gheist, the recoil sending me skidding backwards a step but I held on.

The Gheist on the other hand tumbled back ass over tea kettle, the warhammer slamming the Grimm backwards instead of simply passing through the sand.

I could see it move as it was going to reach back and catch itself, but it had thrown its arm made of water at Ren a moment ago.

And as for it's arm made of sand?

Turns out when it goes for a dip into water it tends to lose cohesion.

And right there, where the explosion had gone off, I could see the mask of the Gheist, writhing inside the rough glass that had once been sand. It was clearly trying to break free of its impromptu prison and try to make itself a new body out of water.

The sound of a rifle being ratcheted met my ears and Ruby walked forward, dropping the empty magazine and reloading it with one that had a lightning bolt emblazoned upon it.

Without any need for further instruction she raised Crescent Rose and fired it into the trapped Grimm, firing two rounds into the dead centre of the Grimm's mask. The lighting dust inside the rounds detonated, and the electricity pulsed in the water as the mask that was the Gheist's true form broke apart into black scraps of shadow before fading away into nothing.

We stood there for a moment, still slightly out of breath from our sudden engagement, waiting to see if the Gheist would pull itself back together again for another fight.

When a minute had passed we all started to relax our guards, Nora dropping to the ground with a huff, her body shaking as the after affects of her semblance kicked in.

When Nora was powered up she was on top of the world, an unstoppable juggernaut with enough strength and speed to take on damn near anything.

The thing was, as powerful as Nora was, her body wasn't used to moving with that kind of speed, or using that much strength.

I always thought of it as watching one of the kids come down off a sugar rush, one moment they were all over the place, the next they're down on the floor wanting to do nothing more than to sleep until things started making sense again.

Good times.

Ren stashed Stormflower away behind his back and picked Nora up into his arms, who snuggled into his chest with an incoherent murmur.

Ren proceeded to blankly ignore any looks Ruby or I might have given him at that as we made our way forwards once more, aiming to find somewhere suitable to make camp for the night and help Nora recover.

I shared a look with Ruby at that and shrugged, the hooded huntress giggling lightly as we continued on after Ren.

The campfire crackled merrily, providing both ample heat and illumination for us all, our sleeping bags circling the fire as I laid back and sighed, my tongue working at my teeth to get those last bits of food out of my teeth.

That jerky wasn't half bad.

"Okay so you've used Yang's semblance against that big robot," Ruby continued on, our conversation from dinner still going on, "And you've obviously used Pyrrha's to catch that falling airship…"

"Actually in that case it was more like Pyrrha used me." I interjected, scratching the back of my head. "Although admittedly yeah, I'm pretty sure I used it at least passively in the fight against Paris and Amynta."

"Well why don't you use their semblances?" Ruby asked curiously, gesturing back at the way we came from. "Yang's semblance would have worked great against that Ghost."

"Gheist." Ren interjected, taking a sip from his own cup of the herbal tea he had made for everyone.

She wasn't wrong.

Yang's ability to absorb kinetic energy used against her and use it to power up her own attacks would have been incredibly useful against the Gheist, particularly in destroying the body it was hiding in.

"That's because I can't use them." I admitted with a shake of my head. "If I had to guess I'd say that I'd need to actually be in the vicinity of the person to tap into their semblance, or for them to tap into my aura."

Ruby let out a sound of understanding at that, nodding her head.

"Wait why haven't you used Ruby's semblance then?" Nora asked, perking her head up from where she'd been lazing on the ground. "You should have been able to use hers right?"

I started grumbling at that, and I could feel my cheeks start to redden slightly as Ren snorted and Ruby giggled at what Nora was saying.

That had been an embarrassing day.

"What?" Nora demanded, wanting to know just what we were all reacting about.

I sighed, knowing that Ren and Ruby wanted me to say what had happened myself. "I've already tried to use Ruby's semblance." I admitted with a grimace. "It didn't go well."

"It was while you were still reforging Magnhild." Ren informed his partner, smirking slightly as he met my eyes. "And while we were fighting your mother."

"So it turns out Ruby's semblance doesn't come with the ability to comprehend what's going on when your moving at super speed." I continued on, twitching slightly as my mind conjured up just what had happened next. "One moment I tapped into Ruby's semblance and the next…"

"He ran head first into Jorth's armor and knocked himself out." Ruby said, laughing at the memory. "One second standing and the next BANG he was down." Ruby pantomimed to Nora who started laughing herself at the image.

"I was coughing up rose petals for an hour after I woke up." I groused and everyone started laughing even louder at that.

Despite myself, I still found myself laughing alongside them as we all started talking about a whole host of things, like when Ren had backflipped into Ruby's high calibre shot at Jorth or when Nora had painted the forge in glittering pink paint when she tried to upgrade her PPG the first time.

"I'll take first watch." Ren volunteered, propping himself up to sit comfortably as the rest of us went to get comfortable in our sleeping bags. "Jaune, you still want last watch?"

"Yeah that'll be fine." I replied simply to Ren with a nod, before I laid my head down and closed my eyes.

And before I even knew it, I was asleep again.

Where visions of an intact moon and shining white lights filled my dreams.

I woke up as Ruby shook me away in time for my shift keeping watch, the indistinct memories of my dreams growing more blurry by the second.

Thankfully the watch was utterly boring, with no interruptions of any kind and I even managed to put together a half decent breakfast for everyone to wake up to.

Nothing that smelled as good as say cooking meat over a flame but we were still in the forest, and the risk that such a smell would attract the local wildlife was too great to ignore...

As dawn arrived I gently shook the others awake, the prospect made easier by the fact that there was already food waiting for the more difficult to rouse members of our party.

After consuming our altogether satisfactory meal, we packed up our impromptu camp after a quick consult of the map we were up and moving again, aiming to reach Green's End by the end of the day.

And thankfully we were making good time, the terrain becoming far easier to traverse as we came closer to the settlement.

I folded up the map and slid it into a pocket on my coat, assured that I wouldn't need it any longer for the short trip into Green's End.

Had to admit, I was looking forwa…

My nose twitched.

What was that smell?

"We should be coming up on the tow…" Ruby started only to stop midsentence as I halted in place, my eyes narrowing in concentration.

I'd thought I'd just been imagining it for a moment but it was still there, in fact it was getting even more obvious as we moved forward.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise up.

That isn't right.

"Weapons at the ready everyone." I said quietly but firmly, pulling my sword from where it was resting on my back.

It was a testament to what we'd been through so far that everyone got their weapons out before they even thought of asking as to why they were doing so, their eyes up and scanning their surroundings.

"What is it Jaune?" Ren asked lowly, his hands gripping tightly to Stormflower as he did so.

I breathed in deeply one more time, hoping that I had been wrong but it was still there.

"There's smoke in the air." I said simply, indicating to where we were heading. "The smell of burning wood, and just faintly, burning flesh."

The expressions on the faces around me became far more serious at that and we started moving forward again, moving at a far faster pace then we had been before.

"It isn't the Grimm." Nora called out, the beginnings of a plume of smoke just beginning to become visible through the foliage. "We'd have been able to hear them by now."

"Maybe a fire broke out in the village." Ruby suggested, ratcheting a round into Crescent Rose as she did so.

I nodded in acknowledgment at the possibility but at the same time, something told me that it wasn't just that.

My eyes caught sight of something shooting up into the air, a high-pitched whistling sound making sure that no one missed its passage as it climbed ever higher before it erupted in a conflagration of green energy, a firework erupting in the darkening sky.

Signal flare.

And if they're using Valian signal codes, and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be, there's only one reason why they'd send up a green one.

I felt my lips turn downwards into a scowl, even as my grip tightened on the grip of Candidus Mors.

"Bandits." Ren said lowly, a dark expression on his face.

Without another word we all sped up, sprinting towards where the flare had been fired.

Inside the town proper, people that were decidedly not the townsfolk scurried back and forth, all well aware of the timeframe that they were operating on.

"Get it all loaded up into the carriages, I want us all out of here before the Grimm arrive." The man roared at his subordinates, absently wiping the blood dripping from his machete onto his already stained pants. "I want us back in on our camp by sundown tonight."

The people within earshot let out sounds of acknowledgment at that, pushing the roughly gathered stuff into the carts.

While there were certainly some bodies in the streets, they clearly hadn't killed everyone.

"Please, you don't have to do this." The elderly man pleaded, bleeding from a gash on his forehead as he was dragged towards the open door.

"Shut up." The bandit said rolling his eyes, roughly dropping the man in front of the house before kicking him inside of it. The man bowing over in agony as he coughed and wheezed. "Are you sure I can't take at least one of them, you know for some fun on the way?" The bandit asked, even as another bandit slammed the door shut and started hammering some planks into place over the door, thoroughly blocking it.

The leader of the Bandit group growled under his breath again. "No Pem, we can't." The man growled, his brow twitching as he did so. "Prisoners attract Grimm, Grimm attract attention, and attention brings problems so no, there will be no prisoners." The leader glared at the old man who had just been thrown into the building in particular, the green flare that was fired off having been done so by him.

Now they were on the goddamn clock before some goddamn do-gooders showed up.

"Ah come on!" Pem whined, kicking the door as he did so. "We can kill them when were done with them. Vernal's group always has pris…"

The bandit leader spun on his heel at that and surged over to Pem who suddenly realised that he had just ventured onto dangerous ground and went to say something before his massive hand clamped over Pem's mouth and lifted him bodily into the air.

"Did you just say that witch's name," The brute of a man said softly, this quiet conversation far more frightening then anything that he had said before, his presence like a physical thing as he towered over him. "In front of me!?" He finished, his voice descending into a bestial growl.

With a practiced flourish the bandit leader unsheathed his machete and slammed it into Pem's stomach before he ripped it to the side with such force it almost seemed to explode out of him.

Pem let out a choked sound behind the impromptu gag that was the other man's hand before he was dropped roughly to the ground, his blond hair rapidly being dyed darker by the pool of blood forming around him.

All the other bandits stopped what they were doing at this and turned to face the macabre scene, remaining silent so as to not pull their leader's attention towards them.

"Does anyone else have anything to say about my decisions?" The man bellowed, his voice echoing throughout the town, the only other sound the crackling of fire and the whimpering cries of the prisoners. "Any complaints about the way I run things?"

"No Cutter!" The remaining bandits all bellowed out, quickly doubling their pace so as to avoid drawing his ire towards them. Several bandits made their way over to the building with the barred entrance and pulled out containers of various shapes and sized before they began splashing what was inside of them on the walls, staining the wooden exterior with a shiny greenish tint.

Cutter glared out at his men for a moment longer before grunting and turning his attention back towards the task at hand.

Cutter's attention successfully diverted again, the other bandits restarted their conversations once more, one bandit collecting a handful of lien from a scowling bandit. "Never bet against Pem being an idiot man, oldest trick in the book."

Yea, yeah" The bandit grumbled, bending down to pick up the crate full of food. "Why couldn't we have just stayed in Anima man? We could have made a killing over there." He asked her friend under his breath, everyone still wary of Cutter's raised ire.

"Because, you moron, the Branwen's are expanding again. And ever since that Vernal chick took the reins, they can't be fucking beaten." The other man said from inside the cart, pulling the crate that was handed to him next to the others and strapping it into place. "So we got the hell out of dodge and came here."

The bandit went to continue on with her conversation before a blur of motion moved passed her and she felt something feather light dance over her throat. "Wha-hurk!?" The woman gurgled, a spray of blood hissing out from the slice across her throat that seemed to appear as if by magic, and crumpled to the ground, painting her friend crimson with the arterial spray as she did so.

The man screamed, stumbling backwards away from the dying bandit only for his cry to be cut short.

The bandits all dropped what they were doing at that and spun, pulling their weapons free and levelling them at the cause of the sound.

From behind the carriage a man walked out, with a look on his face that was too cruel to be called a smile, and too genuine to be called a smirk. "Well, well, well." The man said loudly, stepping forward with a casual gait as he did so, his yellow eyes looking over the scene before him with bemused disinterest. "Looks like I've stumbled across a bit of vermin trying to take what's not theirs. How adorable." The man said dramatically, expressing the crowd before them as if they were a group of idiotic toddlers rather than a war band of bandits that had just slaughtered their way through a village.

The man's attire was strange to be sure, a brown trenchcoat worn open to reveal a number of vicious looking scars upon his crest, and both sleeves pulled up to reveal leather bracers. He had knee length boots made of the same leather and pants made of white cloth held up by two different belts. His hair was brown, and braided into a long single ponytail that reached down to about his waist.

"Do you have any idea who you're messing with?" Cutter roared, flourishing his machete in a menacing manner as he did so. "Huh!?"

The skinny man in front of him giggled at that, his soft laughter becoming more and more maniacal as he continued, his yellow eyes sharp like knives as they stared at the bandit leader.

"Well I have to say, I've never seen something like you before." The man said casually, pushing a strand of his hair out of his eyes as he did so.

Then Cutter choked, his words gargled as the points from the blades on the new man's wrist blades slammed into his throat, the sheer force behind them penetrating his aura as if it wasn't even there.

All the other bandits jumped back in shock at that.

They hadn't even seen the man move.

"A talking corpse!" The man marvelled, giggling as he pulled his wrist blades fell from the dead man. "Praise be to the Goddess!"

We broke free from the forest and caught sight of the town of Green's End and I swore quietly.

Damn it.

There were a few bodies visible even from here, and the outfits those people were wearing certainly rang a few familiar if unwanted bells at the sight of them.

Not to mention the fact that they were looting the bodies.

Bandits.

No matter where you go, there's always going to be scum somewhere.

Suddenly there was activity and someone was running towards the forest, clutching something to their chest and moving as fast as they possibly could.

There was a blur of red, and a flurry of roses and suddenly the person running towards us was beside us, Ruby releasing them as they dropped to their knees gasping for air.

The person, a woman I could see now, saw us and saw us her mouth opening wide before I snapped my hand up over her mouth, cutting her off before she could say anything.

"Calm down, we're here to help. I'm going to remove my hand now." I said quietly, trying to make myself look as calm and non-threatening as possible. "And when I do I want you to tell me what happened. Just try to say it quietly. Do you understand?" I asked, looking into her eyes.

The woman, her eyes wide with fear nodded once and I pulled my hand back, waiting for her response.

"My name is Mary, this is my nephew Terra." She began, gesturing to what I could now see was a small child swaddled in blankets clutched to her chest. "Everyone was just getting ready for dusk when the bandits came out of nowhere, slaughtering anyone who tried to stand up to them. I hid with Terra in the attic and they didn't find us."

Ren crouched down next to me, sketching a very rough map of the town into the dirt. "Do you know how many bandits there are?" He asked softly, inclining his head back towards the town. "Or where the other townsfolk are? Are they dead?"

Mary shook her head at that. "No, not all of them. As far as I can tell they were herding them towards the town centre, near the market and the Town Hall." Mary explained, indicating where that was on our crude dirt map. "Why do they want them alive?"

I didn't answer that question, leaving Ren to continue asking her questions about the situation inside the town.

There were many possible answers to that question.

None of them were good ones.

Suddenly screams filled the air coming from the village, and we all stopped our conversation and spun towards it.

"They're slaughtering them!" Mary whispered in horror, clutching the child tightly to her as she did so.

Alright, screw stealth.

Nora reached into her backpack and pulled out a flare gun, handing it to Mary even as she dropped her backpack to the ground, the rest of us doing the same. "If anything happens, aim it at the sky and pull the trigger. We'll come back for you." Nora promised with a smile before she stood up, Magnhild mechashifting from its grenade launcher form to its far more intimidating new and improved warhammer form.

"Mary stay here." I ordered her, standing up from where I had been crouched down beside her and turned towards the others, seeing serious expressions gazing back at me. "With me!"

I sprinted forward, crashing forward through the underbrush towards the bandits that were standing by the blown open gates to the town, who had also spun to look towards the source of the godawful wailing.

One turned and let out a sound of alarm just in time for the flat of my blade to crunch into his nose, shattering it messily and leaving him to collapse to the ground like a sack of bricks.

The man next to him was already down, a rapidly forming bruise above his temple as Ren sprinted forward alongside me, as we continued further into the town towards the sound of the screams, Nora and Ruby close behind us.

Ruby launched herself skyward with Crescent Rose, adding a boost with her semblance that left a trail of rose petals in her wake as she took to the roof of the buildings, Nora charged through a door as if it wasn't even there, taking the straight line approach as literally as possible and with a nod from Ren he dashed off to the left as I ran right, each of us taking a different path so as to ensure at least one of us would get there in time.

I rounded a corner and staggered as I felt something slam into my back like a hard snowball before someone let out a scream behind me. I turned to see a bandit clutching at his knee as blood started to well up from what looked to be a bullet wound.

I spun, trying to catch sight of just who had shot the bandit, only to find no-one who could have made the shot in sight.

I've gotten turned around.

And I've lost track of the others too.

Shit.

Let's go ask for directions.

I stalked over to the crying bandit, taking care to slam a boot down on the man's hand as he scrambled for his gun. "Where are the rest of the townsfolk?" I demanded, levelling my blade at the man as I did so.

The bandit moaned, still clutching at his bloody knee.

Okay looks like polite didn't work.

Let's try direct.

"I said," I started again lifting one foot to press it down lightly on the bloody mess that had once been a knee, the man letting out a strangled scream as I did so. "Where. Are. They?" I asked again, steadily increasing the pressure as I did so.

"That way! That way!" The bandit yelped, pointing with a bloodied hand.

I sprinted off in the direction he was pointing, leaving the scum to clutch at his wound as I approached where the others should hopefully be.

I burst out of the alley and found myself on what seemed to be the main road of the town and breathed a sigh of relief when I found Ren, Ruby and Nora all safe and sound before me, unharmed.

But they looked shaken almost.

Were we too late?

I looked past them to the town square and had to fight down the surge of bile that rose in response to the sight before me.

We'd found the bandits alright.

What was left of them.

The town square was all but painted with the blood of the bandits that had sought to ransack it.

And the bandits weren't just dead, they had been slaughtered.

Their bodies, or parts of them at least littered the area, some on the ground, a few scattered limbs and torsos seemingly at random intervals.

But no sign of who or what had done it.

"The townsfolk!" Ruby cried out, her attention being drawn to the blaze starting to spread towards the barred doors of the townhall, and the distorted images of people attempting to break through the windows on the buildings sides.

If the fire reached it they'd have nowhere to go.

But before we could make another step towards it Ren threw up an arm, telling us to stop in place.

Something was off.

While my eyes may not be helping me here I moved to my other senses, trying to find what was wrong by other means.

And that's when I heard it.

Something that didn't seem to fit with the scene before us, of crackling flames, dying moans and muffled shouts.

"Laughter?" I murmured, turning my head to try and narrow down just where the disquieting sound was coming from.

There was one bandit that was still alive, if only just being held up in the air by his throat by someone in a long brown coat, with a pony tail extending down his back. The bandit, bleeding profusely and evidently choking by the way he was turning blue raised an arm and pointed toward it towards us, clearly having seen us.

The man holding the bandit turned, his new position making it clear that he was holding the bandit off the ground with one hand, his arms not shaking with the strain in the slightest. His dark brown was worn open, save a single leather strap across the chest which seemed to hold it in place, to reveal hints of a white outfit underneath as well as his chest which bore prominent if faded scars across it. He had leather boots on which covered his entire shin as well as knee guards. Above them were white pants which ended with a large leather belt with some kind of snakeskin like pattern on it. He had silver earrings in his left ear, and bright golden eyes, that were somehow different then that of Blake's. These eyes were like weapons onto themselves, so sharp you could cut yourself on them.

The man with the golden eyes said something to the bandit he was holding and seemed to lessen his grip, the blue that was beginning to encapsulate his face fading away. Then the weapon on his wrist lanced forward and pierced through the man's throat, a choked scream sounding out as he was dropped as if he was a stray piece of garbage.

The bandit scrambled on the ground, writhing in agony, making wet coughing noises for a few moments as he struggled to breathe before he stilled and fell silent.

The man's grin seemed to widen even further as he took in our reactions, that same laughter I had heard earlier echoing out as he cackled. Then he stopped, taking a deep breath of air.

The man looked up his bright yellow eyes locking onto us before he let out a cry, blades extending from his writs and dashed forward laughing, his form blurring with his speed once more.

I flooded my gauntlet with aura, projecting the kite shield into existence but if it wasn't for Ren interposing himself between this new threat and us something tells me he could have stabbed me before the shield had finished forming.

There was a flurry of quick blows between Ren and the newcomer, with Ren worryingly failing to land so much as one before being punted with such force that even with his guard in place he was blasted off of his feet.

He dashed towards me for a moment before juking and sprinting towards Ruby instead, dodging her swing of Crescent Rose without a care in the world and proceeding to run up it before slamming a kick into her face that knocked her backwards off balance.

The man went to pursue only to spin on his heel with supernatural speed to face me just as my shield was about to slam into him. The man then jumped in the air still laughed maniacally as he did so and landed on my shield on arm drawing back to slam one of his wrist blades into me around my shield.

With the full weight of his body on it I couldn't manoeuvre it out of the way in time.

So instead I pulsed more aura into the shield with a thought and in a blink of an eye it expanded into a solid wall of white aura that the blow crashed into.

A blow with such strength behind it that if someone had told me that a train had crashed into it I would have believed them, the vibrations from the attack reverberating through my entire arm.

Rather than anger or even frustration at being denied from attacking me, the man instead let out a sound like one of the kids discovering a new toy to play with, slamming two more monstrous blows into my shield in quick succession that sent me skidding backwards before backflipping off of it to avoid a swing from Nora that would have knocked down a house.

The sheer force of his spring sent me skidding backwards once more, and sent him slamming through the belltower of the town as if it was made of tinfoil, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust from the debris.

When it cleared, the man was still there, holding himself in place with a perfect split, eyes closed and seemingly without a care in the world.

God damn this guy's good.

How the hell is he doing that?

Super strength semblance maybe?

Pushes off the ground so hard that it counts as super speed too?

This needs to stop before it gets any more out of hand then it already has.

"We're not with the bandits," I called out to the yellow eyed man, who gazed down at us with narrowed eyes. "We're huntsman in training who came upon the town during our journey. We're here to help."

"Who are you?" Ren called out, not dropping his guard in the slightest, sounding decidedly more suspicious of this newcomer then I was.

The man's eyes opened at that, the golden orbs staring down at us with a grin that seemed far too sharp to be called kind spreading across his face.

The man flipped forward from his perch and landed in the ground in a crouch before standing up straight and nonchalantly making his way forward as if he hadn't just been attempting to murder us moments ago, gesturing dramatically as he did so, as if to illustrate his points.

"Who I am matters not to you, or you, or…" The man stopped mid stride as he looked at me over the finger pointing at me, his other hand coming up to grasp his chin as if pondering something. "Do I know you from somewhere?" he mused aloud before shaking his head. "Ah worry not, if it's important I'm sure It'll come to me. No, I only matter to you." The man with the scarred chest extended a finger and I fought the urge to follow his gaze, keeping my eyes locked squarely on him.

Now was not the time to drop one's focus.

Maybe Ruby knows him?

A friend of her uncle maybe?

"Me?" Ruby parroted back sounding as confused as I felt at this change of events.

Or maybe not.

What the hell is going on here?

The newcomer blinked in seeming surprise at Ruby's response, before he broke down laughing, almost having to support himself with his hands on his knees, "You, you haven't the slightest clue do you?" The man gasped, still laughing as he did so. "Oh how exciting this must be."

And he's a talkative one.

Joy.

Normally I'd be all for letting the bad guy monologue to the cows come home, gives me plenty of time to solve other problems while they're distracted.

But given the fact that the villagers were still trapped in the town hall and it was on fire, we couldn't afford to waste time.

The bonfire was going to draw all the Grimm in the area and beyond to this place like…well like a bonfire I suppose.

I drew Ren's attention with a flick of my eyes and pushed my hair out of my eyes with my left hand taking care to lift my right thumb from the hilt of my blade before placing it back.

Ren nodded minutely and started moving, steadily moving towards the direction of the town hall, waiting for an opportunity to arise.

I missed what it was that Ruby shouted back at him, but the man gasped melodramatically, a hand rising to his chest as if wounded by my friend's words. "Oh, the rose has thorns! My little flower, I'm here to whisk you away with me!" He continued on, gesturing theatrically, eyes remaining locked on Ruby this entire time.

I don't think I've even seen him blink at this point.

Creepy.

Nora stepped forward, placing herself bodily between the newcomer and Ruby, holding Magnhild threateningly. "Well, what if she doesn't want to go with you?" Nora asked bluntly, narrowing her eyes as she did so.

The man's expression shifted, his eyes drifting back to Nora and seemingly realising that she existed, and promptly gave up his dramatic gesture with a frown, his upraised hand dropping to his side. He paused for a moment, face scrunching up as if he had honestly not expected Ruby to simply drop everything and follow her because he said so.

"Well, I'd take her." The man said simply, the way he was saying it making it very clear that he thought this was something that was going to happen no matter what we might try.

And given the way he'd just slaughtered his way to us, I could see why he thought that.

That being said?

I pulsed aura into my shield and it extended into its full wall size, directly blocking his path to Ruby. "You're going to have to go through us first."

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath at that, sucking in his breath through his teeth. Then his eyes snapped open again with a focus that was as sharp as a knife, and a grin that had me thinking of Neo. "Good." He breathed darkly, grinning as she stared at me.

Then he vanished.

What the hel…

I felt the hairs stand up on my neck and I dropped, feeling the edge of his wrist blade cut off a lock of my hair.

How the hell is he that fast?

As I hit the ground a barrage of gunfire from Stormflower slammed into him, but with a crazed laugh he weaved his hands through the air, blocking the bullets with seeming ease.

My shield collapsed into it's kite shield shape as I stopped focusing on it and I sprang up, swinging Candidus Mors towards his torso as I did so, relying on the fact his vision clearly obscured by his arms were in front of his face.

Something he apparently wasn't paying attention to as he weaved out of the way of my blow, jumping up and pushing of my shoulder with such force that I slammed into the ground with the breath whooshing out of me.

I heard Ruby let out a cry as she was mule kicked to the other side of the street, almost slamming into one of the houses if it weren't for Crescent Rose piercing into the ground and acting as an anchor.

I let out a swear and rolled as Ren slammed into the ground where I had been moments ago, but he rolled with the momentum flipping back onto his feet and throwing himself forward again, both blades up and slicing across in a vicious movement.

At the same time Nora swung with her Warhammer with tremendous force at the man, only for him to bend like a reed from the knees, with such vicious speed and ridiculous flexibility that I would have fallen instantly only for him to snap back into position as soon as the hammer passed over his head to send Ren crashing backwards with a speedy cross from one of his arm blades.

I came to my feet and charged towards him shield up and ready, sword trailing behind me.

Nora was winding up for another blow with Magnhild, but she was moving too slowly our opponent already having whirled around to face her, leg pulled back to snap out with another ridiculously strong kick.

A gunshot rang out through the air and at the same time the man dodged out of the way, with a half step and Nora was knocked off her feet by the rifle shot that she clearly could have not seen coming.

I really hope that was what I thought it was.

The man simply stood there for a moment, seemingly dumbfounded before he started laughing again. "Well, if that is…" My sword sliced down, aiming for his open back only for his arm tor flicker backwards, catching the blow on his wrist blade. "Do you mind?!" The man snarled at me, his jovial expression being replaced with something more fitting for a rabid animal.

He twisted, his second blade slicing out towards me, but I shifted my left arm up smoothly and caught it on my shield.

If I tried to do that while I was still at Beacon with my old shield it would have ripped it clean from my arm, maybe even taken the arm with it.

But the benefits of training under Nora's mother was clearly paying off.

The man's blow hit my shield and stopped, leading to a brief widening of his eyes before he slammed the second blow into my shield to equally no avail.

This time when I lashed out with my sword I did so in such a way that he couldn't simply weave minutely out of the way.

His arms snapped up and blocked the blow with his weapons with a clean block only to be sent staggering backwards as a blast of white aura slammed into him, sending him staggering backwards, a flicker of purple aura a clear sign that it had blocked at least some of the blow.

Lilith's technique is the gift that just keeps on giving.

The man came to a halt and he lowered his arms, I could see a slight cut on his chest, a small amount of blood dripping from it.

He glanced down for a moment and touched at the wound almost as if he couldn't believe that he'd been injured.

Hey look at the bright side, at lease it'll blend in with all the other ones.

"You…" He snarled, his eyes locking onto me with murderous intent.

His purple eyes.

Did his eyes just change colors?

The thought of Yang just before her semblance kicked in immediately came to mind.

Oh that is never a good sign.

Which is why I was glad to see Nora appear behind him and slam Magnhild down in a hammer blow, pink electricity erupting from the hammerhead, dust and debris flying from the explosion, the sheer force of it sending me skidding backwards even from here, my shield upraised to prevent any debris from hitting me.

I looked over the shield as the dust settled and tried to make out what wa…

You've got to be kidding me.

Nora stood there, trying to force the hammer down even now, Magnhild shaking with the strain but not descending any further.

The man was crouched low to the ground, the hammer held back above his head but both of his arms were hanging loosely down as he smirked up at Nora.

But the thing that was really grabbing my attention was the scorpion tail that had torn through the man's coat and slammed into Nora's hammer with enough force to hold it back from hitting him.

"Surprise!" He said lowly, laughter still clear in his voice.

He had enough strength to resist Nora when she'd been powered up by her semblance.

I swallowed.

Oh things just got so much worse.

The man moved and Nora was sent flying backwards as two kicks slammed into her. The coat with its now tear in it fluttered away in the wind as the man backflipped through the air before he landed on the roof and posed, hands on hips with his newly revealed scorpion tail floating over his left shoulder, seemingly ignoring us for a moment, his wrist blades back into their collapsed state.

The man was unharmed, bar that cut I'd left on his chest.

Damn.

No choice any more.

Can't hold back.

I raised my left hand up to my coat and grabbed the zipper, swiftly pulling it down and opening up my coat.

"He's… a faunus." Ren said finally, seemingly confused by this latest development.

Really Ren?

What gave it away?

Was it the tail?

I think it was the tail.

"What is this about? The White Fang? Roman Torchwick?" Ruby asked, trying to make sense of just why this man was attacking us.

Ruby I don't think the crazy person is going to answer our questions the way we wanted.

"Plastic soldiers and pawns." Our attacker said dismissively, his scorpion tail whipping about his body as he did so. "My heart and body belong only to our goddess." The faunus gestured dramatically, reaching his hands towards the heavens.

Or maybe he will.

"Cinder…" Ruby said,

The faunus scoffed at that. "Hmph, only in her wildest dreams."

Alright then, not Cinder.

Which was good in a way.

But he clearly knows who Cinder is.

Which is not a good sign.

And oh crap he's moving again!

In the blink of an eye our assailant had landed between us all, and spun, wrist blades extended in a speedy twist that I barely managed to block from hitting me.

In the corner of my eye I saw the faunus' tail lash out and knock Crescent Rose off course, staggering Ruby's attempted attack before it could even begin.

I aborted my motion to take off my coat, swearing internally as I realised that for me to do so I would have to deactivate my shield, something that I knew our opponent would capitalize on if I was foolish enough to do so.

It's what I would have done.

Exploiting the inherent weakness of Ruby's weapon, the man stayed in an ultra-close range before sending the young huntress rocketing off her feet with a massive right hook before he spun on his heel and launched himself at Ren.

Ren went to engage before he was forced to dodge as the scorpion tail stabbed forward over the man's shoulder with blinding precision, barely missing Ren's head due to his determined dodging. I was almost in position to pincer when he lashed out with a sweeping kick without warning knocking Ren off his feet, and the tail stabbed down without hesitation towards my helpless teammate.

I slid under the kick he sent my way just in time to block the stabbing tail, the stinger skidding off my shield before it slammed into the ground with enough force that it plunged straight into it before ripping itself free once more.

And then he was upon us again, blurring forward with terrifying speed. I'd thought it was hard to keep track of his attacks before with his habit of swiping from odd angles, making great use of his incredible flexibility and strength to pull off moves that had no right to be as terrifying as they were.

Now his tail entered the equation and it quickly became apparent that the man had been taking it easy on us before.

Playtime was over.

His movements were erratic, unpredictable, seemingly trivial if not for the tremendous force residing within each of them.

A kick lashed out at me and he all but punted me off the ground, carrying Ren with me the two of us soaring towards one of the shattered wagons before Ren pushed off of me, the two of us both clearing the debris on opposite sides before I rolled to a stop, coming to my feet once more and charging back into the fray.

But it may already be too late.

We were too far away.

Making use of that freakish flexibility once more he weaved out of the way of Nora's semblance powered swing before absently backhanding her away, making use of her own momentum to send her skidding across the pavement before he vanished in a blur of speed.

Then he was in front of Ruby again, a flurry of blows slamming into her, her aura flickering with each impact before am uppercut sent her soaring skyward, her weapon knocked clean out of her hands.

I swore, all but ripping the coat off of me as fast as I could, well aware of just how much more defenceless Ruby became without the force multiplier that was her scythe. I spent precious seconds working the coat over my shield gauntlet before it was finally free.

Finally.

There was a loud crash and I looked up just in time to see Ruby crash into the ground, tumbling across of it and more importantly, her aura didn't kick in this time.

She's run out.

I pulled my wings from the coat in a motion that had a twinge of pain emanate from them from the odd angle before I forced aura into them and launched myself forward.

I flooded the wings with aura as I moved, wings letting off a blinding white light that I could see through but I knew from experience training with the others was all but impossible to pierce by others eyes.

I had my shield upraised in front of me and was quickly vindicated in doing so as a flurry of gunfire slammed into the shield with pinpoint precision.

I all but crashed into the crazed attacker, who let out an audible grunt as he was lifted off his feet but still took the time to slam two slices into my shield with his wrist blades before his tail flared up and stabbed around my shield, forcing me to pull back or risk the stinger piercing into me.

I pulled back landing in front of Ruby with my wings outstretched, interposing myself between the laughing madman and my injured teammate.

Ruby scrambled over and picked up her scythe, using it to pull herself to her feet once more. "I can still fight." Ruby said resolutely, from behind me, the sound of it mechashifting reaching my ears.

"Save your strength, focus on getting your aura back." I said quietly, my focus entirely on the man in front of me. "Try and get the townsfolk out of that building or we're going to be drowning in Grimm."

"But I…" Ruby began before I launched myself forward again to meet the man who was already charging towards us again, an expression of rapturous joy on his face.

"The Rose and the Angel!" He crowed delighted, bending with that ridiculous flexibility once again before he slammed an uppercut into the hasty guard provided by my sword sending me upwards before a blast of aura from my wings sent me back down to meet him once more. "Truly the goddess smiles upon me this day!"

The stinger appeared out of nowhere over his shoulder, slamming into me with enough force to send me tumbling backwards to the ground, the loud clang the only sign that it hadn't pierced vulnerable flesh.

Ow.

Urgh, I think he just dented my breastplate with that.

Well that was fun while it lasted.

Our assailant let out a battle cry as he descended from the air, his tail flicking through the air to deflect the distinct gunfire of Stormflower's rounds before he slammed both blades into the shield that I extended out just as he landed, the weight of not only man but the force of his blows pressing me into the ground.

"Oh come on now angel," The man complained, still slamming his wrist blades into the shield, his tail continuing to deflect the projectiles being fired at him before it lashed out grabbing Nora out of the air mid leap by the throat, choking off her battle cry before throwing her bodily into Ren sending them both tumbling to the floor. "Stop squirming, would you?"

I acted in that brief moment his attention was drawn the other way going to push myself up, my shield collapsing silently only for his stinger to appear out of nowhere, a barbed lance aiming straight for my chest.

With no way to dodge I threw up my hand and called on my aura, desperately trying to recreate my shield so as to whether off this blow.

I blocked the stinger.

But not with my shield.

My gauntlet gave off a loud clang as it was pinned to my chest, the might of the tail pressing against me but unable to penetrate the thick armour of the gauntlet.

The shield generator inside it however was another story apparently, and when I called upon my aura to form a shield through it once more nothing more than a few stray motes of white aura sparked out of my gauntlet.

Oh crap.

The sound of a heavy calibre round cracked out and the madman stepped backwards casually out of the way, directing his gaze at who had fired at him.

I made use of the opportunity and scrambled to my feet, shuddering breaths whooshing in as I fought the urge to wipe at the sheen of sweat that clung to my face. And despite this break in combat, despite the fact that I'd essentially been dead to rights, I was furious.

"I told you to get the townsfolk!" I roared at Ruby, wanting to charge after our foe once more but more than aware of the fact that I was practically running on empty at this point. Using my wings took a lot of aura out of me, especially during the day with the moon nowhere in sight.

"They're already gone." Ruby replied, firing another oversized round at the man as she did so, only for it to be casually slapped out of the air by his tail, the faunus taking the time to waggle a finger reproachingly at her as his tail continued to render her attempts as attacking meaningless.

Suddenly the man tensed, his eyes flicking to the side just in time to see the wall of one of the surrounding buildings explode outward in a shower of rubble and dust, something charging through the debris to slash at the faunus, causing him to backflip through the air, putting some distance between him and this latest entrant.

As the dust dissipated I felt some of the tension that had been writhing in my gut dissipate as I realised just who it was standing before us.

Qrow Branwen had never looked quite so intimidating to me as he did when we first me, nor at the same time as reassuring as he did now, the professional huntsman and student of the Old Bastard maintaining a seemingly casual and slack stance as he stood between us and the cackling faunus, the tip of his sword held just off the ground.

"As I live and breathe, Qrow Branwen." The faunus marvelled, gesturing wildly once more, not sounding the slightest bit concerned by this latest development. If anything, he sounded enthused, as if a new toy had just appeared in his lap. He cackled again for a moment before bowing dramatically. "A true Huntsman has entered the fray!"

Looks like Qrow was a bigger deal then I realised.

Granted considering he's a student of Alan Quatermain and uses his fighting style or at least a variant of it that should have been expected.

One of Qrow's eyes flicked back to us questioningly, but clearly must have seen that we had no idea who this guy was and flicked back, focusing on the task at hand.

"Look, pal, I'm not sure who you are," Qrow began, his expression as hardened and tough as anything I'd seen Tob make when he was truly angered, "but you need to leave the kids alone."

The faunus laughed again at that, almost as if to a private joke before he responded. "Why, friend, my name is Tyrian. And I'm afraid that is not possible." The newly introduced Tyrian said apologetically, "My assignment from Her Grace was to retrieve this young girl and the angel too I suppose. So, that is what I must do. One does not upset the Queen." His tone almost became reverential at this, a hand held across his heart.

Something tells me that I wouldn't enjoy meeting this queen, whoever she is.

"Salem." Qrow growled, his expression growing even sharper, the grip of his hand on his sword becoming white knuckled

Who the bloody hell is Salem?

The question Ruby threw out assured me I wasn't the only one with no idea what was going on at the moment.

Tyrian sneered at Qrow's words, almost scowling at him that jovial nature suddenly vanishing again. "Hmm, I think we've had enough talk now, don't you?" He asked aloud, falling into a crouch, his tail flaring up like a Deathstalker ready to strike.

"Took the words right out of—" Qrow began threateningly before he raised his sword and fired the twin shotguns mounted to it without warning, slightly staggering the charging form of Tyrian who had launched himself forward at nearly the same time, but not enough to stop his charge.

The next few moves were so fast I almost couldn't make them out, Tyrian making full use of his tremendous speed and ridiculously flexible acrobatics to throw himself at Qrow, slicing attacks at him with his wrist blades at the most ridiculous angles.

When I looked at Qrow however I became acutely aware of just how far I had to go to be deemed a master of the Old Bastard's style.

He made full use of the greater length of his blade, swinging the longer blade with the same speed I had with my own weapon, attacking, blocking and countering without seeming to break a sweat. Even when Tyrian bent around a strike a tried to attack from super close range again, clearly hoping to make use of the same weakness that Ruby suffered with her scythe Qrow didn't so much as miss a beat, twisting his wrist and swinging the blade back and forth, even using the Sword as if it was an oversized staff at times, his free hand moving up to grasp the back of his blade to perform unconventional moves.

There was a break suddenly, a mighty clash between the two sending both skidding away from each other with an impact that I could feel even standing where I was. Tyrian halted his slide with his arm blades but still had to dodge to the side, the great sword crashing into the ground with a blow that would have cut him in half.

The two were joined in combat once more, in something that seemed to be more dance then fight for a moment, both of which remaining unharmed for the moment. The Qrow flourished his sword in a manner that was vaguely familiar to me, and in a two-handed strike that made my own attack look like an attempt by a screaming toddler, slammed his sword down at the still laughing faunus.

CLANG

Tyrian had crossed both arms across his chest and caught the attack in a bizarre looking parry and at the last moment tilted his head away, clearly having seen the similarities between the two attacks.

I didn't see the blast of aura that came off the sword but I sure as hell noticed the fact that half the bell tower had just detached itself from the building, falling with a loud crunch to the ground below.

The two stood there for a moment, Qrow struggling to bring his blade down onto Tyrian, while Tyrian fought to hold the blade away from him, then there was the sound of gunfire and the two broke apart, Qrow jumping back and blocking with his sword, having to remain in place so as to stop the bullets from passing him and hitting us, which I could now see where coming from previous hidden gun barrels in Tyrian's wrist blades.

The scorpion faunus made use of his speed once more, sprinting around Qrow in a circle firing and laughing maniacally the whole time. I stepped in front of Ruby, at first going to raise my shield before I recalled its current state and raised my sword, standing as a barrier between her and Tyrian, well aware that any attack that hit her would not have aura to help turn the blow aside.

I looked down at the shield gauntlet and swore under my breath, a mighty rent where there had once been the dust crystal that generated my shield.

No more shield for Jaune.

Great, because things weren't hard enough before.

Tyrian now stood with his back directly to us, firing a seemingly endless barrage of rounds at Qrow who's blade weaved through the air with incredible grace to block the bullets.

At the same moment I realised this both Nora and Ren moved forward in unison, matching each other's pace perfectly in a way that only long familiarity and practice could achieve, each one aiming to cut him down from an opposite side so as to avoid getting in another's way.

A moment before they reached our attacker, Tyrian's spine arched with his unnatural flexibility once more, his upside down face smirking at us as his golden gaze locked on the approaching forms of my teammates, still firing at Qrow as he did so.

Tyrian stopped firing and dropped flat into a crouch, both attacks missing him by a hairs breath before he flipped himself back up again, laying in to both Ren and Nora with a flurry of kicks that would have made Mercury proud before laughing them back towards Ruby and I.

Tyrian made to pursue them, laughing as he made his long loping strides but was forced to throw his arms up in a block once more as Qrow appeared in a blur of motion, placing himself between the killer and us.

The scorpion faunus made to try to overpower Ruby's uncle with both his wrist blades only to be forced back a step as Qrow placed his other hand on the back of his greatsword, slowly overpowering him.

"Don't come closer!" Qrow growled at us and launched himself back into the fray in a dizzying series of blows, both fighters blurring from spot to spot, the surrounding environment shredding and shattering in the wake of their tremendous blows.

He was right.

It was frustrating as anything to say that but he was right.

If we tried to get involved in this fight the only thing we would be was a detriment to Qrow, we weren't fast or strong enough to keep up with Tyrian, so Qrow would have to protect us as well as fight him.

But still there had to be something that we could d…

The townsfolk.

Where were the townsfolk?

We needed to find them!

It didn't matter if we took care of Tyrian only for the town to be consumed in a sea of Grimm as soon as we had.

With a quick word to my teammates and nods of confirmation from all of them, I gathered Ren and Nora under the shoulders and blasted us up to the roof of the nearest building with a surge of aura through my wings, cutting it off as we landed.

Ruby appeared next to us in a flurry of rose petals, looking decidedly unhappy to be leaving her uncle to fight Tyrian alone but also aware of the danger that could be approaching the town and the helpless citizens that were somewhere inside of it.

But we couldn't afford to just run off in a random direction, we needed to be smart about this.

"Ruby, you said that the civilians were already gone, how did they get out of the building?" Ren asked calmly, asking the needed question before I had even managed to properly phrase it internally.

"There was a hole in the back of the building." Ruby stated, pointing down at the now visible side of the building which indeed did have a raggedly cut hole made into it. "That looks like the only way out they could have taken."

Okay that's where they came from.

But where could they have gone?

The destruction the bandits must have caused to the town was not helping, having made it all but impossible to track the path that they had taken.

"Why aren't you flying?" Nora asked me as we ran forward leaping from rooftop to rooftop as we tried to find the fleeing civilians.

"The moons not up!" I shouted back, my eyes scanning over the area for any sign of their passage, something made decidedly less simple by the fact that the late and entirely unlamented bandits had been in the process of burning this place to the after they looted it for everything it was worth. "It takes way too much aura to use my wings to fly for long bursts without it."

"Wait so it's easier to do when the moons up?" Nora asked, sounding honestly confused about this fact.

To be fair it wasn't exactly something that was obvious.

It was something that I'd rather quickly come to realise sparring against Nora's mother making use of my wings to fly, only to make a trough through the ground when my wings decided to cut out on me halfway through the match.

I absently realised that Nora had not been there to witness that, given the fact that she had still been in her workshop reforging or perhaps simply starting anew with her latest and greatest interpretation of Magnhild.

A familiar whistling sound met my ears and I spun on my heel, turning back towards the forest that we had come from just in time to see a pink tinged explosion fill the air, the giant pink sparkles taking the shape of a…

I paused.

What the heck was that even supposed to be anyway?

"The Sloth Signal!" Nora gasped, pointing up at the pink decidedly not a sloth shape floating in the air. "Mary must be in trouble!"

"Or," Ren started, clear signs of an idea forming in his head. "Maybe there's a reason she was running that way in the first place. Maybe that's they're standard evacuation plan!"

"The other civilians might be there too!"

We sprinted back towards the entrance to town, something made absurdly easier by the…sloth signal…marking its location.

Sure enough, when we came to the edge of the forest we found a large gathering of people in decidedly less then ideal condition, mostly bruises and cuts but one or two with more serious injuries that needed the help of others to move.

I jumped off the rooftop, using a blast of aura from my wings to glide down in front of the townsfolk.

No way I was going to be able to hide the things, might as well roll with it.

"Mary!" I called out, even as the various people turned towards me with a variety of different expressions, some more disquieting than the other. "Mary are you still here?"

The people made a path for me as I moved forward, backing out of my way with wide eyes and open mouths.

Mary moved forward, her nephew now held in the arms of an elderly man with a bandaged forehead, a decidedly shocked expression in her eyes. "You're an angel." She whispered, her eyes locked on my faintly glowing wings.

The sun had almost set completely now, the glow of my wings becoming all the more apparent as the light of the day faded.

I went to go say something when the familiar sound of Crescent Rose firing met my ears and I caught sight of a bullet blasting off into the forest.

I turned my head back towards the town to see the others standing atop the wooden wall that surrounded Green's End, Ruby reloading her sniper rifle even as Ren and Nora rapidly gestured for us to get back into town.

There's only one reason Ruby would be firing.

"Get back into the town!" I roared aloud, stepping past the townsfolk and moving towards the forest proper. "NOW!"

The townsfolk started to move, slowly at first but started running for the gate as the distinctive howl of a Beowolf filled the air and they started charging forward towards them.

I raised my sword, flaring my aura as I yelled a battle cry cutting down the first Grimm to exit the forest, in a single slash, my sword cutting through the blackened flesh of the Grimm as if it wasn't even there.

I could hear Ruby going to town from her overwatch position, precise shots cutting the approaching Grimm down before they could even get close to the townsfolk.

But the numbers of the Grimm were steadily increasing, and I could see a sea of red eyes approaching through the darkened shadows of the forest.

"Jaune they're in!" I heard Nora yell out and I turned just in time to see the large wooden gate close, the bubbly berserker having pulled it shut with Ren's help.

With that I kicked an oncoming Creep back into the approaching Grimm and spun on my heel, sprinting for the safety of Green End's walls.

I only made a few steps before I leapt upwards, a blast of aura from my wings sending me over the walls, landing in a crouch on the other side.

I moved over to Mary where Ruby, Nora and Ren were already standing.

"Please tell me that you people have a bunker or a basement or something that you can all hide in until the reinforcements arrive?" I asked, my eyes flicking back to the door that was the only barrier between the Grimm and the defenceless people of Green's End. "They should already be on their way if they saw the signal flares."

"They do, one problem, there's only one entrance." Ren said with a grimace. "And it's right where Qrow and Tyrian are doing their level best to kill each other."

I growled at that.

Of course it is.

There was a flurry or rose petals and Ruby was nowhere to be seen, having sped off somewhere, in all likelihood towards the fighting huntsmen.

Without any aura of her own remaining.

I went to go after her but hesitated, my gaze flicking back to the huddled and scared people, trapped between the frying pan that was the ongoing battle of Qrow and Tyrian and the fire that was the Grimm currently trying to beat down the gate.

"Go catch up with her." Nora said, keeping an eye on the walls of the town for any Grimm that might try and climb the walls. "We'll keep them safe. Just help Qrow finish up, we're going to need to get these people into that bunker as fast as we can."

"We'll be fine." Ren assured me, ejecting the magazines from Stormflower, reloading them again in a smooth and practiced motion. "Just get going."

"Stay safe." I ordered them, giving them both a nod before I sprinted off towards the centre of town, the sounds of clashing blades, gunfire and the occasional crash rumble of a building collapsing a clear sign that the battle between the two was still ongoing.

I sent myself soaring into the air with a helping hand from my wings, the aura coming even easier as I could feel the first hints of moonlight peaking up over the horizon.

I wasn't even looking that way, but I knew deep in my bones, that it was there.

And as I looked down I beheld the scene before me.

Qrow was standing on the hilt of his sword, the blade embedded deep into the ground, gazing into the dust covered rubble of a recently destroyed house even as his aura a crimson like spilt blood, crackled into existence one more time before fading.

He was breathing heavily, a slice across his cheek bleeding profusely but he still stood tall, not giving an inch.

A roar sounded out and Tyrian threw himself forward out of the wreckage, the final crackle of his own purple aura a sign of just how much the two had damaged each other in this encounter.

Qrow leapt off his blade, ripping it from the ground and running forward to meet his foe only to have to abort his charge as Ruby charged in from the side, her scythe slamming heavily into a perfect block by Tyrian that sent him sliding back to steps, but nothing more.

Damn it Ruby, if you wanted to help you should have fired from a distance, you're only going to get in his way there.

My prediction seemed to be coming true, with the older huntsman having to body check his niece out of the way of an oncoming blow, before hastily blocking it before he became run through himself.

I need to hurry.

Throwing caution to the wind I surged aura through my wings and suddenly I was airborne, at the apex of an arc that would end with me landing directly in the centre of the conflict.

As I approached I saw Ruby move to attack the crazed faunus from behind only to dodge straight into a mule kick that sent her tumbling backwards into the wall of the collapsed house.

I caught sight of what little remained of the wall cracking under this final insult, giving way at the base and tumbling towards the utterly helpless Ruby, who without aura was just as likely to die from this as any regular person.

Qrow had caught sight of it too and was disengaging, clearly moving with the intention of saving his niece.

Only problem was that Tyrian was close behind him, and something told me he wasn't going to waste the opportunity of a free shot to Qrow's unprotected back.

Time slowed.

Tyrian had three possible angles for attack he could use from this position, both his wrist blades and his tail.

If I were to land in front of him, I would be able to block one, possibly two of the attacks before the third got past me, resulting in the death of either Qrow or Ruby.

If I had my shield I'd be able to block it just fine, but with it broken that's no longer an option.

My sword doesn't provide enough defensive capabilities to block three attacks at once, not from such differing vectors.

I needed to find a way to prevent three attacks at once, blocking off a large area as I did so.

A thought occurred.

A dangerous, blatantly stupid thought.

But it was the only thought that I could come up with.

And I didn't have any more time.

Time resumed.

Oh this was going to hurt.

I dropped in front of them, both wings curling around like an impromptu shield as I forced as much aura as I possibly could into them, hoping the blinding light would knock Tyrian off target.

No dice.

His wrist blades came up and caught my blade in that perfect cross block he'd used to hold off Qrow's greatsword before and I saw his grin broaden into something truly vicious. His tail surged out from over his shoulder and even as it did with a thought my wing moved to intercept it.

Despite myself, I felt my eyes close.

I heard the stinger lance forward and slam into my right wing, just before it would have caught Qrow across the chest.

CLANG

I felt the impact, and while it certainly registered in a dull sort of way, it was nowhere near the incredible pain I had been expecting.

If anything, this was more like a ball had hit me with just enough force to leave a bruise but nothing more.

I pried open my eyes, expecting to see a bloody mess of a wing in front of me, only to see it utterly pristine.

Tyrian on the other hand had recoiled, swearing profusely as he grabbed at his tail, the tip of which almost looked like it had crumpled inwardly.

That looks like it hurt.

I felt a foot on my shoulder and Qrow throw himself forward, his great sword shifting into a scythe so large it even overshadowed Crescent Rose, bringing it down in a swing that would have cleaved Tyrian in two.

He dodged Qrow.

He didn't dodge Ruby who appeared seemingly out of nowhere scythe in hand.

The scythe came down and the top half of Tyrian's tail came with it, the end of it spraying out a purple liquid that was decidedly not blood from the end of it.

Blood did not bubble and hiss as it ate through cement like it wasn't even there.

Tyrian howled with agony, clawing at the ground with his bare hands for a moment as he scampered away from us, his shortened tail whipping about wildly in the air as he screamed.

He recovered for a moment, still staggered over slightly and glared at Ruby with a gaze of pure venom. "You bitch!" He swore furiously, his eyes once again yellow instead of purple and he made to move towards her when I flared my wings up, placing myself between him and her, hovering off the ground slightly in anticipation.

The moon was higher in the sky now and I could feel my aura surging in response, the glow of my wings growing ever brighter with every second.

If there was ever a time for me to try to take on Tyrian, this was it, with me at the height of my power and him on his last legs.

Not exactly honourable, but hey I'll take living dishonourably over being honourably stupid and dead any day of the week.

Tyrian stood there for a moment, muttering for a moment before he turned on his heel and fled, sprinting off in a burst of speed which had him out of sight within seconds, clearing the town in it's entirety in a single bound.

As we watched him fade off into the distance I turned towards Qrow who was currently propping himself up on one of the still standing buildings, trying to get his breathing back into order, his sword plunged into the ground to act as an impromptu cane to help him stand upright. "How are the townsfolk?" He asked me, his tone no nonsense and serious despite how utterly exhausted he appeared. "Did they make it out of the town? They should be on their way to the next village before the Grimm get here."

I shook my head. "They got out of the town but they had to come back in. The Grimm are already here." I informed him bluntly, frowning as I saw that the cut on his cheek was still bleeding profusely. That should have stopped by now. "The townsfolk should be on their way here soon, apparently there's a shelter they can hide out in until help comes."

As Ruby stepped forward to take care of her Uncle I ran over to my coat sprawled where I had dropped it and started searching through the pockets, looking for where I had put my bandages and the rest of my medical supplies and salves.

There was a clatter and I turned to see that Qrow had collapsed to the ground, his breathing heavy and laboured as he tried to push himself up again to no avail, Ruby by his side crying out in concern as she tried to help him up.

I sprinted back over, sword in one hand, coat draped over one shoulder as I went to help him back up.

As I went to pull him up I was shocked at just how hot his skin felt.

He was boiling up, and he was all but dripping with sweat because of it.

And then I saw it.

The little cut on Qrow's cheek, something seemingly inconsequential, just the lightest of slices with Tyrian's wrist blades.

It was tinged at the edges.

With purple.

I flicked my head back briefly to the detached tail and sure enough, the venom that was pooling around it was a close enough colour.

"You've been poisoned." I said bluntly, knowing that with as much as Qrow had been moving and as the fact that the wound was on his head, this could get very bad, very fast. "You need to stop moving Qrow, all you're doing is accelerating the toxins path through your body."

Qrow grunted in response to that but stopped trying to push himself up, instead staying on the ground while I tried to think of the next move.

I needed to clean the wound, try and disinfect it as best I could as well.

But everything I had which could do that is inside my backpack outside of town.

But luckily for me, I know of another source of a disinfecting agent which should be close at hand.

I grabbed the flask from Qrow's side and poured it over the wound, a hiss of pain sounding out from Qrow but nothing more. Sure enough with the blood washed away that purple was even more prominent now, appearing in veins that stood out against his increasingly pale skin.

The alcohol might have helped with any poison that was still on the cut itself, but that still leaves all the poison that is already inside of him.

Okay think Jaune think.

You've cleaned the wound as best as you could, and you've got Qrow to stop moving.

Now would be the time to try and diagnose the symptoms but I've got no idea what effect scorpion venom cause.

For all I know it could be another poison entirely.

There was a familiar tap at my shoulder and I looked up to see Ren at my side, crouching down to examine the cut on Qrow's cheek, stretching out his fingers in preparation as he did so. "Poison?" he asked quietly, his eyes flicking to me for a moment.

Nora had arrived with the other townsfolk, who were gesturing at something with loud voices, saying something that I couldn't quite make out.

Something about a block?

"Scorpion venom, I think." I answered, still wracking my brain for any lessons or memories that had dealt with the subject only to come up short. The closest thing that I'd ever dealt with regarding scorpions was a Deathstalker and they didn't even have poison at all.

"My visions starting to blur over a bit." Qrow slurred, sounding decidedly calm for someone in as dire a situation as he was.

"Standard reaction to scorpion venom." Ren answered calmly, motioning for me to move aside and I did so in an instance.

If Ren knew more than I did in this scenario then the last thing I was going to do was get in his way.

"Okay if its anything like regular scorpion venom, it's going to cause you to start to lose control of your muscles if you haven't already." Ren cautioned, his hands glowing with pink aura as he moved his hands over Qrow, starting at the sight of the wound before traversing down further as if following the path of the toxin. "It's also going to make it very hard for you to breathe, which is why you're unable to catch your breath." He explained before withdrawing his hands.

"Anything?" Ruby asked desperately, as she looked down at the rasping form of her uncle only for Ren to shake his head.

"Nothing that I'd be able to do in time before the Grimm arrived." Ren said, his expression grim. "And even then, what I would do would only be a band aid. It might buy him a little more time, but it won't heal him. He needs a hospital, fast."

That's not going to be easy to find in the middle of a town undergoing a Grimm incursion.

In fact, it's going to be downright impossible to do so.

I couldn't do anything about the poison, but the way his cheek was still bleeding was something I could fix, reaching into my coat to pull out a jar with greeninsh gunk inside of it.

As I popped open the lid, and the nauseating smell came out causing most of the others to step back and retch in response.

Qrow groaned in recognition. "Goop?" He said resignedly.

"Goop." I affirmed with a wince in sympathy, reaching in to the jar and pulling out some of the Old Bastard's signature coagulating salve, which had a host of other uses and properties if one was inventive or in some case desperate enough. It worked like a charm, but had the unfortunate side effect of smelling like raw sewage.

As well as being a firm reminder on just why the Old Bastard should never be allowed to name anything, ever.

"Ren give me a hand." I said, pulling one of his arms over my shoulder even as Ren mirrored me on Qrow's other side.

We lifted him with a grunt and started making our way over to where the townsfolk were gathered, walking straight towards Nora and her new companions.

There was a crash as Nora lifted one of the broken carriages off of it's side, revealing a hubcap that had been hidden beneath of it.

The old man with the cut on his forehead I'd seen earlier stumbled forward with the help on a younger man and after wiping his palm across the cut on his forehead placed it into the hand shaped divot.

There was a loud grinding sound that filled the air as the metal gate retracted into a previously unseen recess, revealing a ladder that led directly down a darkened tunnel, dust crystals in bulbs flickering to life and providing dim illumination.

Well that's one way to hide a bunker from the Grimm.

"Uncle Qrow, you're going in with them." Ruby demanded, staring straight into her uncle's eyes. "You're injured and a…"

"…injured huntsman is a liability to the rest of his allies." Qrow quoted with a small smirk, shaking his head slightly. "Betrayed by my own words, that's harsh kid."

He tried to help out by walking with us but his legs crumpled beneath him, with Ren and I more or less dragging him along as we approached the group.

"Please take care of him." I said a I handed him over to a burly looking man who stepped forward to lift Qrow over his shoulder. "He's been injured and shouldn't move on his own unless absolutely necessary."

The man gave me a small grin and flashed me a thumbs up. "Hey you lot took care of us, we'll take care of him like he was one of our own." And with that he was climbing down the ladder with Qrow in tow, retreating to safety.

At least that's dealt with.

Next on the agenda.

"Ruby, run to the walls and find out what were up against, come back if you see any trouble headed our way."

Ruby nodded and with some help from her semblance blurred out of view, the light trail of rose petals in the air the only sign of her passage.

"Nora how much longer till the Grimm come?" I asked, trying to establish how much time we had to work with.

Nora scrunched up her brow in thought. "Twenty minutes if the gate holds?" She estimated, shrugging her shoulders. "The walls are built well, nothing for the Grimm to grab onto if they try to climb them, but that's not going to stop anything that can fly over them."

All conversation stopped as the sound of an explosion filled the air in the direction of the gate, Grimm parts flying upwards before dissipating into black mist.

Ruby appeared next to us in a flurry of rose petals, her face alarmed.

"The gate's gone!" She said shocked. "One second there were Grimm trying to batter it down and then the next there was an explosion! It took out some of the Grimm as well but it blew a hole straight through it like it wasn't even there."

Shit.

"Better make that five." Nora added lifting Magnhild up from where she'd placed it on the ground.

I swore internally, only the knowledge that if the civilians saw me panicking that their reactions would draw the Grimm to us even faster keeping me from doing so.

I looked at the people still descending the ladder to get into the bunker, saw how long it was taking and how many had yet to descend.

We didn't have enough time.

So we were going to have to make it.

"As soon as everyone is inside, close the bunker and lock it." I ordered, my eyes flicking back to where that explosion had come from. "Don't wait for us."

"But when the door locks it can't be opened again for at least another hour!" The old man warned, even as some of the other townsfolk tried to pull him towards the entrance to the bunker. "You'll be trapped out here, and we won't be able to let you in."

"Pfft." Nora said, resting Magnhild over both of her shoulders, both hands holding onto it lightly as if she was going to lift a barbell. "Us four, plenty of Grimm, no civilians to get in the way and reinforcements coming?" She mused before giving a bloodthirsty grin which would have shamed a shark's best attempt. "Sounds like fun."

I grabbed the arms of my coat and tied them around my waist like an impromptu belt, hardly the most elegant solution but it kept my hands free as well as my coat with the various supplies I had stashed away inside of it close at hand.

"Ruby how's your aura doing?" I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting her to acknowledge it.

She grimaced. "Still not there yet." She admitted, shaking her head. "But I'm still fighting." She said with a determined glare.

As expected.

Alright then.

The flash of the moon filled my mind for a moment and I reached out, the process made abundantly easier by the fact that I currently had a physical connection to Ruby with my hand on her shoulder.

There she is.

Now then, reverse the flow.

She let out a gasp as her aura crackled back into existence, becoming more solid with every passing moment.

I cut it off before I became too drained myself, taking my hand off of Ruby's shoulder, but that was still a substantial chunk of my aura I had just poured out of me.

"Woah!" Ruby marvelled, admiring the red glow of her aura surrounding her arm before it faded back into normalcy. "That's handy."

"Ren, Nora, you need a recharge?" I offered, extending a hand out towards them.

Nora nodded and bounced forward, taking my hand in her own and shuddering as she felt my aura surge into her.

She'd been pretty close to running out too, I guess that was to be expected when she'd been smacked around as much as she had by Tyrian.

I went to offer my hand to Ren, only for him to wave me off, his attention focused purely on his weapons, checking over them one final time before we moved. "I'm fine."

Really?

I'd seen Ren get smacked around by Tyrian and as far as I could tell he had even less aura then Nora did.

Maybe he'd been able to alleviate more of the damage through his martial arts techniques and didn't have to rely on his aura as much for protection?

I mean he was trained by his uncle, and he knows more about the use of aura then damn near anyone, so I guess that makes sense.

But that does lead to the question as to how the door had been destroyed open in the first place.

Ruby said an explosion?

Maybe a Grimm accidentally activated a booby trap that the bandits had left behind.

If they were setting up the place to attract the Grimm it'd make sense that they'd want to make a clear path for them to arrive at the townsfolk.

I moved forward aiming to try and put as much distance between the approaching Grimm and the townsfolk as physically possible when something caught my eye.

I tilted my head up, focusing on the strange blur only to feel my jaw drop in shock as I witnessed a Beowolf flailing through the air on a direct course to the civilians!

"Ruby!" I shouted, pointing up at the incoming ballistic monster.

Ruby looked up and let out a yelp of surprise but to her credit raised her weapon and fired.

The top half of the Grimm simply ceased to exist, the remaining half vanishing into ether before it reached the ground.

I let out a sigh of relief at that only to cut it short with a swear as another three blurs appeared over the houses.

"Oh come on!" I complained before I started sprinting off in the direction that they were coming from, the others following behind me at a slower pace, making use of their ranged capabilities to take out the unlikely projectiles as they continued to soar through the air with all the dignity and grace of a thrown brick.

And while my own ranged abilities were far from ideal to say the least…

With a thought I was soaring through the air and I bisected the oncoming Creep with a swing of Candidus Mors, both pieces fading away to nothing behind me, the glow of my sword visible beneath the parts of the paint that had been scraped off during the battle with Tyrian.

And as I looked down upon the Grimm that were streaming towards the centre of town I saw a whole host of different monsters, both big and small.

But the most prominent of these new Grimm was not a wolf, or a boar or even a bear.

No, this one was an ape.

An ape with black skin and armoured plates of ivory over it's face, it's chest and seemed to have grown a protective exoskeleton which served not only to better armour itself but also further augment its abilities, standing twice again as tall as I was.

In addition to that it seemed to have an aura of darkness that enveloped it like a cloak, that same essence that appeared whenever one destroyed a Grimm and they broke apart only in this case it was a perpetual thing, not a sign of its destruction.

A Beringel.

Now that was something new.

I'd never fought one myself but I'd heard about them from Peter back when he was off in his adventuring days, and it certainly seemed to fit the image.

The Beringel's head raised up, and it spotted me floating in the sky above its position.

Out of reach.

The Beringel beat its oversized fists on its chest and let out a roar before it reached out and grabbed a passing Beowolf and flinging it at me, the flailing Grimm's limbs lashing out in every direction as it attempted to find a purchase to hold onto.

I smacked this one aside with the flat of my blade, content to let gravity finish the job for me only to let out a curse as I barely dodged the boulder that had been hiding in it's wake, the Beringel having thrown it towards me at a far faster speed then the Beowolf.

Clever little bastard.

I zoomed down, a massive swing from the Beringel nearly knocking me through the building behind me like it wasn't even there before I slammed my sword into it's chest with all the force I could muster.

Only to stare in shock as my sword essentially bounced off the Ape Grimm's chest, my sword scratching the bone chest plate it had stuck but doing little else.

The Beringel lashed out at me and I moved to dodge but was a moment to late, the Beat's uppercut clipping me and sending me spinning skywards before I reorientated myself with a blast of aura.

The Beringel reached out and seized another Grimm, a Creep this time and went to throw it towards me when a familiar looking grenade thudded into the centre of the beast's chest detonating in an explosion of pink lighting.

Thank you Nora.

I looked down to see my friends had caught up to me, and were already laying in to the Grimm that were trying to make their way past them to the townsfolk who were still hard at work trying to get everyone else inside the bunker.

The ape Grimm's gaze moved from me to the new target that was Nora and pitched it at her with enough force that if it hit her dead on it would have knocked her into next week.

Which is why I was glad when Magnhild met the oncoming Grimm midway and slammed it into the ground.

But as I watched the Creep slam into the ground by Nora's feet something out of the ordinary drew my attention.

There was something on it's back, no not in it's back embedded into the body of the Grimm itself.

It looked like glass or maybe crystals…

Oh no.

The crystals embedded in the flesh of the fallen creep gleamed.

Then it detonated, with a flash of energy that reduced the Grimm's corpse to black wisps and blasted Nora though a building.

"Nora!" Ren cried out, turning to go after her only to stop as Nora stumbled out of the hole she had made, dizzy but still standing.

"I'm okay!" Nora said woozily, before shaking her head and seeming to regain focus.

Well at least we know how they blew down the wall.

On the downside, freaking exploding Grimm.

"Keep an eye out for the Grimm with crystals!" Ruby called out, cutting through at least three Grimm with a single slice of her scythe before darting away again.

"Not as easy as your making it sound Ruby!" Ren called back, cartwheeling over a charging Boarbastusk and slamming an axe kick into the Beowolf following it so hard that I'm amazed it didn't snap in half.

Ren wasn't kidding.

You'd think being able to see a Grimm with glowing crystals coming out of it would be easy, but in the writhing sea of Grimm it was hard to make them out, and if you reacted without thinking and just killed one, you could find yourself very close to an altogether explosive end.

My sword lashed out again, and I took care to use the flat of the blade to knock the oncoming crystal Beowolf backwards towards a group of oncoming Grimm, the subsequent explosion destroying the entire group.

And let's not forget Mr 'I use my own species as projectile weapons at the back there'.

That Beringel needs to be dealt with.

Okay let's think.

A Beringel is a Grimm that's big, strong, fiercely intelligent and most annoyingly of all possesses an armour and hide that is far tougher than any other Grimm it's size.

Unless I wanted to try scraping the last of the paint off my sword and hoping it died of an allergic reaction as I tried to hack it to death I was going to need to do something else.

"Jaune!" A voice called out and I turned to see Ren sprinting towards me, using Grimm as stepping posts as he quite began to quite literally run across the back of monsters. "Get me close!"

I moved my wings with a thought and with a pulse of aura I was soaring downwards, reaching out with my free hand towards Ren who leapt up and grabbed it, being pulled along with me as we approached the bewildered Beringel.

"You block the first swing," Ren instructed me, a look of focus on his face as he prepared himself for what was to come next. "I'll deal with him after that."

"You got it!" I promised, releasing Ren from my grip as we came even closer to the huge ape, my martial artist teammate rolling with the landing and running in my wake.

The Beringel shook off it's shock and reared back one of it's mighty fists to try and knock me from the sky.

Come on Jaune, straight line, you can do this.

For the briefest of instances I tapped into the never stopping stream that was Ruby's semblance and then I was there, my blade slamming into the fist before it could even attempt to move forward.

The bone armour and thick hide of it's black skin protected the monster's fist from harm, but even something as strong as this is still a prisoner to the laws of physics, the momentum of my blow sending it staggering back a step.

And that was when Ren slid to a stop in front of the Beringel, his fist ablaze with pink aura and he slammed it into the center of the Grimm's chest.

There was a dull thud.

A crackle of pink energy, running over the beast's form.

Then the back of the Beringel erupted outwards with no seeming cause, ceasing to be in the face of Ren's incredible attack.

The Beringel collapsed backwards, breaking apart as it did so revealing a very tired looking but still intact Lie Ren.

That's one problem dealt with.

Only a few dozen more to go.

There was a crashing sound like a wrecking ball knocking down an apartment complex and I turned just in time to see the building that I was standing in front of explode outward as something huge charged out of it.

With a thought I was sent soaring skyward to safety, even as something huge trampled over the Grimm that was in its way.

As the smoke cleared I swallowed as I beheld just what had quite literally made a new road through the town of Green's End.

"That's a big Ursa." I heard myself say faintly, as I looked down on it from my position in the air.

The Ursa was huge, bigger then any I'd ever seen before but despite its colossal size that was not the thing which was the most intriguing about the Grimm. What made it so bizarre was that instead of spikes made of bone as one typically saw on seasoned Ursa Major, this bear Grimm had what I could only call a red crystal growing out of it's back, a crystal with some seriously sharp looking edges on it. That same red colour seemed to pulse throughout the beast every moment almost as if it was some monstrous heartbeat, despite the fact that the physiology of a Grimm did not always necessitate a heart. The same crystals could be seen in it's claws, and even on it's limbs, crystalline tumors grown seemingly at random.

I looked down and breathed a sigh of relief to see that Ren was fine, clearly having moved out of the way just like I had the instant the new threat had emerged.

Not good.

"Guys we have a problem!" I yelled out, twisting out of the way of an errant swipe by the oversized bear monster. I cut the aura to my wings and landed on the ground, beheading an Alpha Beowolf that had no idea I was there.

As long as I was on the ground it would be harder for the Grimm to try and swipe me from the air, and hopefully even harder to spot me in the crowd provided by the other Grimm.

"We can beat it!" Ruby cried out, twisting around a swipe as a flurry of roses before rematerializing and beheading a Beowolf that was trying to sneak its way forward on the rooftop.

"That's not the problem!" I yelled back, slamming the hilt of my blade into the face of a Beowolf that tried to attack me from behind me, sending it falling backwards with a yelp before Candidus Mors bisected it. "The problem is that if it's anything like the other crystal Grimm when it dies it's going to explode!"

"And an explosion that big will probably destroy the bunker, and everyone in it." Nora clarified, laying down a barrage of grenades that blew chunks out of the oncoming horde.

"But if we leave it alone it's just going to follow the emotions of all the townsfolk and kill them all anyway!" Ren yelled back reducing a Beowolf to black paste with a swift kick.

Okay then what's the plan?

We can't leave it here, that's just begging for disaster.

Give it something shiny to follow.

I can do that.

But my sword doesn't have enough reach to properly injure the crystal Ursa, not if I want to stay far enough out of range to avoid any possible detonations.

To pull that off I'd need…

I spun on my heel and moved, sprinting off to where Qrow had collapsed and pulled the single edged great sword from where it was impaled in the ground.

I soared up into the air, rocketing forward towards the Colossal crystal Ursa, and twisted around the limb it flailed towards me before I swung Qrow's sword at it, the oversized blade carving a bloody furrow in the beast's cheek that caused it to let out a roar of displeasure.

"Come and get me fat ass!" I challenged the Grimm as I flew away from it, taking care to flare my wings as brightly as I could, trying to make myself as obvious and blatant a target as I possibly could.

Qrow's weapon was certainly heavier then what I was used to, and I could feel it pull at my muscles with every swing I made with it. But it was certainly more useful then my own blade at the moment.

The added reach granted by the blade allowed me to dispatch the crystal Grimm from a safer distance as well as provide me with said room to dodge out of the way should one decide to pull off a suicide run at me again. Thankfully the memoires I had of training with Sage's weapon were still there in my memory, while not exactly perfect, were more than enough to serve their purpose here, especially with the added help that my wings could provide when it came to generating enough momentum to make the swings into something detrimental to the Grimm.

"Jaune!" Ruby's voice called out and I turned to see her jumping up and down on one of the nearby rooftops trying to get my attention. "Try and lead it to just in front of the town gates! I have an idea!"

"Alright!" I called back, blasting forward towards the massive Ursa again, stabbing the Greatsword into one of the monster's oversized eyes.

The Grimm's response set my teeth on edge as it tried to rear up onto it's rear legs, throwing me backwards from perch, it's fore legs lashing out in an attempt to swat me out of the air to no avail.

It's blows were certainly strong enough to cause me serious harm if they would hit me, but that was the key word there.

If.

It was following certainly following after me now, the Ursa Grimm charging straight through anything that got in its way, whether that was carriages, buildings or Grimm.

BOOM.

Or in some cases other crystal Grimm that it crushed beneath its massive strides.

What do you even call something like that?

It's clearly not just a regular Ursa.

It's different from an Ursa Major as well, a class above it in fact.

How about…Ursa Maximus?

I mused over the thought idly.

Didn't sound too bad.

Kinda catchy actually.

But not the time.

Okay let's focus.

What else can I do?

Lilith's technique!

If Qrow's fight with Tyrian proved anything it's that it can be done with this blade.

But not yet.

With as much aura I've already used, alongside the stuff I already gave to Nora and Ruby I was feeling the end of the road approaching.

And flying around like this with my wings was certainly not helping matters.

I was only going to get one shot at this.

I needed to wait for the right opportunity.

I looked over my shoulder and swore as a ball of purple energy whooshed by me, slamming into one of the buildings and reducing it to molten slag in an instant.

Oh and it can fire instant death from it's mouth because of course it can.

Where the hell are the others?

"Jaune!" Ruby's voice called out and I turned to see Ruby standing on one of the rooftops nearby, Nora by her side, Magnhild drawn back and ready to swing. "Get out of the way!"

I blasted myself upwards into the air, the jaws of the Ursa just coming short as it leapt into the sky after me, snapping shut on nothing but air.

Where's Ren?

I looked down, scanning the area for my missing teammate only to see him standing directly in the centre of the road, where the majority of the Grimm were travelling down to try and catch up with their oversized sibling.

There was a flash of pink aura and I saw Ren move, coming to a stop in front of a Beowolf with crystals growing up out of its back.

The next instance Ren had grabbed the Grimm and tossed it into the air, using its momentum to send it spinning through the air.

Right in front of Nora.

"Fore!" She cried out and she slammed her warhammer into the spinning Grimm, sending it rocketing towards the Grimm, slamming against it's side with such force that it staggered the huge monster.

But despite the mighty blow, the Crystal beowolf did not detonate.

A bullet slammed into the white crystals and a flash of power surged through them, exploding in a burst of energy that destroyed the smaller Grimm and left the smaller Grimm howling with agony.

Now that's an idea.

I dove down, turning the blade in my hands so I was swinging with the dull edge of the blade instead of the sharp one, aiming directly for a crystal boarbastusk that was barrelling its way forward.

I slammed the blade into the spinning Grimm, the blow popping it upwards into the air, but sadly nowhere near the oversized Ursa.

Then I saw Nora appear above me, pink electricity sparking over her limbs as she smashed the boarbastusk forward with a loud "whoop", a gunshot from Ruby leading to another explosion right in the Grimm's face.

That's the benefit of fighting these overly large opponents I suppose.

There's never a shortage of places to hit them.

I had to dart through the air once more as one of the beast's massive paws swiped through the air where I'd been previously, the monster clearly not giving up on getting me just yet.

Its head was knocked to the side as yet another Grimm slammed into the beast's side, the explosion sending it staggering to the side and crashing into the wall itself, crushing it beneath its bulk.

If there was ever an opportunity to attack this thing, now was the time.

I landed on the nearest rooftop to the fallen Grimm and I lifted the blade above my head, mirroring Qrow's own posture and focused, channelling my aura into the blade, feeling it collect on the long edge of Qrow's weapon.

If I'd tried this while the sun was still up something told me that I never would have been able to manage this, but now?

With the moon high in the night's sky beaming down at me?

I waited one final moment, drawing the blade back as I forced all the aura I had left into this final attack before swinging it down with a loud battle cry, releasing the technique as I did so.

What was fired off was less a blade of energy and more a scythe, careening downwards to connect solidly with the crystalline structure that was growing from the Ursa Maximus' back. The first few crystals shattered as if they were a pane of glass, the sound of tinkling filling the air.

The red energy that ran through the beast's body pulsed one final time.

Then the beast simply ceased to be as an explosion of white hot power took its place, the sheer shockwave of the blast coming into existence knocking me into the air, sending me tumbling out of control to slam painfully into one of the rooftops, skidding across tiles for a moment before coming to a stop.

Ow.

Not one of my best landings.

Sadly not my worst landing either.

I just lay there for a moment, my wings idly twitching as they reminded me of just how very heavy they were when I ran out of aura.

There was a thump and I caught sight of the familiar boots of Ruby Rose as she landed nearby, sliding to a stop next to me. "Jaune, are you okay!?" She cried out, sounding panicked.

I lifted one of my arms towards her and extended a shaky thumbs up.

"I'm fine." I replied, my response muffled slightly by the tiles my face was pressed into but after the day I had just had I really couldn't bring myself to care very much about that. "How are Ren and Nora?"

"Nora's crashing after overusing her semblance again." Ruby informed me as she tried to bring me up off the roof with a loud exertion. "Ren's pretty battered after his Grimm serving routine but he's looking after Nora for now."

"What kind of plan was that anyway?" I asked, lifting my head to a least look in Ruby's general direction as she heaved at my arm.

"Hey! Hngh" Ruby strained at my arm again with puffed out cheeks, finally manging to pull me up a bit but almost fell off the roof as he grip slipped if not for me grabbing her as she fell back with the arm she'd been yanking on. "If it's good enough for the Beringel, It's good enough for me!"

With Ruby's help I manage to at least sit upright on the rooftop and I turned my attention to where the Ursa Maximus last resided.

I let out a low whistle despite my bone deep exhaustion.

Where once there had been one of the largest Grimm I had ever had the displeasure of facing there was now a massive crater in it's place. The broken gate, the sections of wall on either side of it as well as a number of buildings nearby it had simply ceased to be, not even a trace of their existence remaining behind.

The crater was deep, far more so then anyone without aura could hope to survive a fall into or hope to climb out of without serious mechanical assistance and a great deal of luck.

There was a very battered looking Beowolf down there right now, ichor oozing from a dozen injuries likely caused by the explosion attempting to climb up the side of the crater to no avail, it's claws failing to find any purchase in its attempts.

There was a loud boom by my side and the Beowolf's head evaporated, the corpse dropping like a puppet with it's strings cut as it slowly started to break apart into black wisps.

Ruby drew back the ratchet on Crescent Rose, the spent casing bouncing of the tiles of the roof. "I think that was the last of them." She said, dropping down to sit next to me, looking just as exhausted as I felt at the moment. "Glad the Mega Ursa is dead."

I'm sorry, what?

I turned my head to look at Ruby, raising an eyebrow sardonically even as I fought to get my breathing back under control. "Mega Ursa?" I parroted, a grin spreading across my face as I watched a flush of red appear on Ruby's. "That's what you called it? What was Super Ursa already taken?"

Ruby's blush increased at that before she snapped back at me. "Oh yeah? Well what would you call it then?"

"I was thinking more Ursa Maximus to be honest I replied." Gesturing towards the crater where the monster had once stood. "You know, Minor, Major, Maximus? Follows the theme."

"That isn't even a word!" Ruby fired back at me.

"Maximus; an archaic term for greatest or largest." I quoted back at her with a broadening grin. "You are looking at the word games champion at the orphanage Ruby, I used to read dictionaries for fun."

Ruby pouted at that and it only made me want to laugh even harder in response.

By the time we made our way back to the centre of town I was dead on my feet and the others didn't look much better.

The sun was starting to peek up over the horizon now, the light of a new day shining down on the shattered but still standing town.

The townsfolk were out of the bunker, had been for a while at this point.

The first thing they'd decided to do upon exiting was throw a celebratory feast in response to their survival.

They'd moved with surprising efficiency, pulling a hodgepodge of chairs and tables from different houses and buildings and before I'd even known it there was a full on street party blazing away in the town, with music and laughter so loud you could have heard it from anywhere in town.

And despite the fact that I wanted to do nothing more than sleep, despite the fact that the I wanted to slam my sword into the speakers until it was nothing more than it was nothing more than a sparking smoking wreck, I accepted that it needed to happen.

Even though the defences were essentially non-existent at this point the celebration served a far more important purpose. It was a constant reminder of their good fortune, a reason for them to be glad, to be happy, to drown out the negative emotions bought on by the bandits, Tyrian and the Grimm, the death and the destruction that they bought and replace it with something better.

The food looked amazing.

And it smelled even better.

But we had a more pressing issue at hand.

Ruby, Ren, Nora and I were all crowded into a room with a single bed one of the villagers had allowed us to borrow, upon which Qrow currently lay, his face contorted into a painful grimace.

"Not good." Ren said finally, the aura around his hands sputtering out as he swayed where he stood only a quick grab from Nora stopping him from over. "The poison's progressed even further then I'd feared."

"How bad is it?" Ruby asked frantically, looking from her injured uncle to the exhausted Ren and then back again. "Could we try to carry him to the next town? See if they had someone who could help over there?"

"If I had a week, I could tell you all the reasons that wouldn't work." Ren replied, rubbing a hand over his eyes as he fought to stay awake. "None of us are in any condition to be travelling right now, and what happens if we run into some Grimm on the way there?"

Ruby's expression dropped and she fell silent, looking down at her uncle with a worried expression.

Ren wasn't wrong.

Qrow would be a travelling buffet table to them, with an abundance of aura and next to no way to defend himself.

Not to mention our own battered state.

Nora stood up from where she'd been sitting cross legged on the floor and flung the shield gauntlet she'd been working on at me. "I've managed to get the basic shield functions working again after I altered the gemstone by removing the fragments. Only downside is that it won't be able to do anything larger then a kite shield and even then, I wouldn't bet on it holding for long." Nora gave a frustrated look at the gauntlet as I slid it back over my left hand before throwing her hands up in the air. "Without any supplies or a forge there's nothing else I can really do for it."

"Hey you've done a million times better then anything I could have done." I said reassuringly, flexing my fingers in the gauntlet to see if I still had good enough flexibility with it. I felt something prod at my wing and I turned to level a flat look at Ruby as she poked it with her finger once more. "Quit it." I grumbled, pulling the wing away from her probing fingers.

"I can't help it!" Ruby exclaimed, looking at my wings once more. "I mean they blocked Tyrian's stinger without so much as a scratch!"

"It's just like your shield was!" Nora marvelled, going to tug at my other wing before remembering that she was the only reason that Ren was still standing and catching him before he hit the ground.

Ren gave Nora a flat look that had her sheepishly rubbing her head before he turned back to face me. "Or maybe it's the other way around." Ren said thoughtfully, his eyes staring off into the distance as he pondered.

There was a knock at the door and Ruby rose up to answer it, pulling the door open only slightly as if attempting to shield her uncle from the cacophony going on outside.

"There's an airship approaching!" I heard Mary's voice call out and with the door opened as it was I could hear the sound of something mechanical spinning through the air. "They should be able to take uh…Raven was it? To the hospital."

I laughed a little at that. "Close, but his name is Qrow." I answered, stretching out as I moved towards the door. "I'll go greet them as they arrive and send them over towards you guys so they can get you guys."

I grabbed my sword from where I had it propped up by the door and slid it over my shoulder to adhere to the back of my coat as I adjusted one of the straps that decided to start digging in to me with the added weight.

The airship that was just now coming down land in the centre of town was far different from the Bullheads that I'd seen in Vale and flew on as a student of Beacon. Rather than the purely economical form that I was used to these ships looked far more graceful, some strange hybrid between a sailboat and exotic fish that was an amalgamation of wood, metal and even sails. It had two turbines spinning away at either end of the ship with two sails akin to the fins of a fish flapping on it's sides as it came to a stop.

As soon as the airship came to a stop, no longer kicking up dust from the force of it's turbines one of the wooden panels on the side pulled back revealing a man in some kind of full body suit in a subdued off purple. The man wore a full head covering which hid all his features from view as well as a breathing mask that he still wore. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of goggles with lens that reflected my own image back at me.

The next moment half a dozen people all wearing the same flight suits all jumped down from the ship all raising rifles or some kind of short swords in separate directions on the lookout for danger before dropping them after one of them gave a hand signal, and started approaching us, leaving his rifle to hand from a strap on his shoulder.

Some of the other townsfolk were already crowding around the approaching force, cheering loudly at the coming of assistance, offering them food and drink as they approached but hey waved it off as they came to a stop before Mary and I.

"How are you all doing?" The…I am assuming it's a man based on their build, their voice horrendously distorted by the mask into something I couldn't discern anything from beside the words themselves.

It was creepy.

I guess I could make sense in a way, if everyone wore things like that then it wouldn't matter how scared you might be because your tone wouldn't give you away.

But at the same time there something decidedly, unnatural about the mechanical voice. It was as if they were only pretending to be people.

"We're alright, but one of the huntsman who was protecting us was injured, he's very badly poisoned." Mary spoke up, answering the man's question.

"Calm down, everything is going to be all right." The same man who spoke answered her, his body language very clearly reassuring. "Just show us where they are and we'll be on our way to take them to the medical attention they need."

Mary nodded and turned, dashing off towards the house where the rest of my team was currently residing, a squad of flight suited men following after her.

As they did I dropped my head, breathing a sigh of relief.

Oh thank the heavens.

We were safe.

The same man who had spoken before waked towards me, gesturing towards the damage that was done around the town, vast furrows in the ground and buildings, the occasional crater and a very morbid pile that was the bandit remains hidden underneath a black tarp. "This all your doing?" The distorted voice asked me, the goggles looking expectantly towards me.

I walked over to him and shrugged my shoulders, marvelling at just how much damage had been done to the town. "Not all of it." I admitted, shaking my head. "It's a bit of a long story."

"Not to worry." The distorted voice replied, an arm reaching out to clap me on the shoulder. "We'll have plenty of time to hear the details from you later Jaune Arc."

I nodded in response to the man's word before I paused, my mind going over what I had just heard.

"What did you just call me?" I asked, turning my head to face him directly.

Something cracked into the back of my head and I dropped to my knees, my head spinning as pain surged through me.

What the hell?

The other soldiers turned, raising their rifles and fired upon the rest of the townsfolk,, much to my horror, but what met my ears was not the sound of regular gunfire.

Instead in was more like a light hiss followed by a cough over and over again, the people dropping to the ground.

Through blurry eyes I stared at the bodies only for relief to surge through me as I saw that they were still breathing, their chests rising and falling with steady breaths.

"Get him aboard." The captain ordered, gesturing towards me. "The rest of his allies should have already been collected and we need to be on our way before the real reinforcements turn up."

I struggled, trying to push myself up onto my feet once more, but it was no use.

I was spent from the earlier battles, my aura depleted.

"Sir he's still awake." I heard a voice say, no doubt referring to me.

I heard the sound of boots approaching me, and I fought to push my head up, to glare if nothing else at the bastard who had just attacked us without any provocation.

And then a fist came down, filling my vision before it faded into blissful unconsciousness.

Reality reasserted itself slowly, a throbbing headache informing me that I was awake as my eyes tried to reassert themselves once more.

I went to go and grasp my head only to find that my arms seemed to be stuck, something binding them together.

Had the twins pulled another prank on me?

"Morning sleeping beauty." I heard a familiar voice murmured beside me. "Don't get up just yet. Get your bearings. We aren't alone." Ren warned me.

I tried to examine my surroundings, a task made difficult by the fact that my eyes seemed to be refusing to focus on anything.

We were in a room of some kind, wooden panelling with metal running through it at reinforcing points. I could feel it swaying slightly, almost as if we were on a boat but something told me that wasn't the case.

And then I remembered just what had happened to lead me to this situation.

"Where are we?" I murmured quietly, taking care to act as if I was still regaining consciousness.

"Inside the airship that the soldiers arrived in." Ren whispered back just as quietly. "They came in to the room with Qrow and took him hostage, forced us to come aboard their ship and get restrained. The townsfolk were down, not dead. Looked like some kind of tranquilliser."

I looked around and saw that Ruby and Nora were also here, each of them with their arms bound similarly to how I was guessing Ren and I were was well.

Well mine were bound in front of me, probably due to the fact that I could still feel the weight of my sword on my back.

Standing at the other end of the room was a man in one of those flight suits, facing away from us for now, fiddling with something on the wall.

Qrow was here as well, not bound like we were but given how pale his face and ragged his breathing was something told me that he wouldn't be able to help us anytime soon.

And there right next to Qrow was a small window, far too small for any of us to fit through it, but what I saw through it told me something very important.

That we were currently travelling over water, probably even the ocean given how far it seemed to extend into the distance through that little window.

"So you're awake." The same distorted voice from before spoke up and I looked up to see that the person in the flight suit had turned around, revealing that it was the person who had been talking to me before, wearing the same outfit but this time he had an insignia of some kind pinned to their chest, something small and metal that I couldn't quite make out the details of.

"Now I'm going to ask you a very simple question, and you're going to answer it for me." The masked soldier said raising his rifle and pulling back the ratchet in a clear attempt of intimidation.

"Where is Alan Quatermain?"

I blinked at that.

"What?"

Got to admit, that was not the question I was expecting in this situation.

The rifle drew back for a moment before he slammed the butt of the stock into the side of my head in a vicious movement, my head rocking to the side and I could feel a little blood welling up inside of my mouth.

That stung.

"Alan Quatermain." The man repeated, lowering his rifle once more as he glared down at me through his mirrored goggles. "Tell me where he is."

"Why the hell would I know where some old Huntsman is anyway?" I bit back, spitting out a glob of blood onto the man's boot.

He didn't seem to appreciate that if the way it caught me under the chin and knocked me to the ground was any indication.

I heard Nora call out my name as the person came closer, shaking their head disapprovingly.

"It doesn't seem like you're listening." The man said, his distorted voice making it impossible for me to tell anything else from what he was saying. "Now I am going to count to three. And by the end of that count I am going to expect an answer from you, or we find out just how strong your aura is when compared to a bullet fired at point blank range."

"One."

The man raised his rifle and pressed it against my forehead, the cold metal of the barrel a decidedly disconcerting sensation.

Come on Jaune, think, think.

I pulled at the restraints binding my hands behind my back to no avail, the ropes too tight for me to pull myself loose.

"Two."

There's go to be something, anything that I can do.

There was the sound of some kind of electronic bell that filled the air and the man.

A distorted growl came out of the man's mask at that as he spun on his heel and stalked off out of my sight.

"What is it this time?" The distorted voice questioned, the response lost to the garbled static coming from what I assumed was some kind of intercom system but it seemed that the man with the gun knew what it meant. "I'll be on my way."

He walked over to the door and thumped on it three times and a person in the same outfit as the man who had knocked pulled open the door, the only defence being the lack of insignia on the man's shoulder, leading me to assume they were of a lower rank.

The man shoved his rifle into the newcomer's hands and pointed directly at me.

"If any of them try anything, anything at all, shoot that one in the head." He commanded, giving me one last look before he stomped out of the room, the door closing behind him before the one holding the gun could even give a response.

The newcomer stood there for a moment before shaking themselves and walking forward, aiming the rifle directly at me.

I gazed up at the barrel of the gun levelled at me and swore internally.

Damn it.

I was already buggared after the last fight.

I was not up to a fight like this.

Especially with Qrow as an invalid behind us.

There wasn't really much room for us to make use of either, and with walls to either side of us and guns before us they had us dead to rights.

I saw Ren catch my eye and shook my head minutely.

Not yet.

Wait for an opportunity.

So…

I paused, narrowing my eyes as I heard something just at the edge of my hearing.

Was that…something rattling?

CLANG

The sound filled the air and something slammed into the wall behind us with an explosion of noise, chips of wood showering my back like tiny bullets.

I turned over my shoulder to see what appeared to be a harpoon sticking through the back wall of the airship, the four massive barbs of the weapon outstretched and having grabbed a tight hold of the rear door.

Before I could do more than comprehend that fact there was a great yank, and everyone was thrown forward as the harpoon went backwards, dragging the airship along with it back down towards the ocean.

Well if that's not an opportunity then I don't know what is.

I threw myself forward and tackled the soldier with the rifle around the legs, just as Ren bounded up and snapped his fists across the man's face, smashing his head into the side of the airship.

The man let out a chocked scream before slumping to the ground, unconscious.

"Jaune, stay still." Ruby commanded, wriggling over behind me to rub her bonds against my blade's edge, trying to saw through the rope. "Once I've cut myself free, I'll free you."

Ren in comparison had already managed to free himself from his ropes somehow, probably some crazy martial art bullshit like always, and was already hard at work at freeing Nora from her bonds, the bubbly berserker still a bit groggy from the hit to her head.

In no time at all Ruby had managed to cut herself free and then with a little precision work from Crescent Rose managed to free me as well.

I rubbed at my wrists, trying to force the circulation to pick up as the feeling of pins and needles momentarily seized my hands.

"Any ideas guys?" I asked, honestly at a loss at what precisely we were supposed to do at this point.

"So we got kidnapped by bad guys, and then those bad guys got kidnapped by other guys," Ruby reiterated cocking her head to the side in that puppy like way she did when she was thinking hard. "which makes these new guys the good guys?"

"Or just other bad guys." Ren grunted, helping a swaying Nora to her feet as she did so, the dizziness clearly fading with each passing moment.

I walked forward, trying for the heavily reinforced door that served as the only way in or out of this room only to curse as I found no way for it to open from this side and when I tried to kick it down the only thing I achieved was jarring my leg,

I propped Qrow up on one of the side walls and turned towards the others, drawing Candidus Mors from my back with one hand and shaking loose my shield gauntlet with the other. "Okay so plan so far is we wait for the door to open, force our way through and then we improvise."

Ren gave me a dry look at that. "Not much of a plan there Fearless Leader." He said wryly, Stormflower held in both hands in a loose but ready position.

There was another loud shudder that shook the whole ship and the clanking sound vanished, while the sounds of conflict beyond the door only intensified further, becoming more frantic and desperate.

Nora had Magnhild in its war hammer form, the grenade launcher being rather useless at the moment given the fact that it didn't have any ammunition. "I like it! Nice and simple."

It was at that moment that the light above us winked off, leaving us in near total darkness if not for the light spilling out from the cracks in the door.

I heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door and I motioned for the others to be quiet, holding up fingers to give the others the proper timing.

'Three' I mimed, quietly deploying Aegis, its dim white light illuminating the dark hold further, giving us a little bit more perspective to work with.

'Two'

Before I could move to one there was a massive tearing sound as the back end of the room was wrenched away, blinding white light blazing in from the new entrance, ruining our eyesight entirely.

I threw my shield arm up in front of my face to block most of the light, Candidus Mors still held at the ready by my right arm.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps approaching before someone jumped through the newly made entrance to the back of the ship.

I couldn't make out much in the way of colors, but the person who entered was tall, metallic armor covering their legs and their chest while the arms were left relatively uncovered, save for a single bracer around her left wrist.

The figures face was hidden behind a blank mask, two eyeholes revealing bright yellow eyes like that of a hawk gazing imperiously forward. The only color I could really make out beside the eyes was a vibrant red scarf that rapped around the figures head, save for the mask further obscuring the individual's identity.

On the figures left was a round shield, that was about the size of my own albeit a different size, the exact details impossible to make out.

But in the figures right arm?

The same rattling sound I had heard before met my ears, as my eyes gazed upon the harpoon that had torn the airship we were in from the sky held solidly in the hand of the person in front of us.

I swore internally.

To be able to tear an airship from the air in mid-flight? Seemingly through sheer brute force?

That was something I'd only ever seen Penny manage to do before and that was with the added benefits of one; that the Bullheads were both a lot lighter and had only just taken off at the time and two; that Penny was a freaking combat android with strength far beyond that of a regular human.

I resolved myself to not so much as attempt to block a blow from that harpoon.

I'd have better luck trying to block a diving Nevermore if my luck held the way it had.

"Jaune Arc." The figure in front of me intoned, gesturing at me with their weapon as they did so.

Then they turned their weapon slightly. "Nora Valkyrie."

"Lie Ren."

"And judging by the scythe I'm assuming that's Ruby Rose."

I blinked, stunned into silence for a moment.

Huh?

How the hell did this person know our names.

I went to ask them as such when I suddenly heard a loud gurgle sound out behind us, followed by a wind that ruffled my hair and clothes and almost had me closing my eyes as I turned to face the new sound.

What I saw shocked me.

Behind us, having opened the door to hold was one of the soldiers who had captured us, their short sword like weapon held firmly within their hand.

Clearly, they'd been attempting to sneak up behind us when we'd been distracted.

The thing that was capturing most of my attention however was the harpoon that was impaled through the woman's chest, with a long chain trailing away back into the waiting hand of the armoured figure.

I hadn't even seen the throw that had killed the woman, only felt the aftermath of its wake as it passed me by.

That was...unbelievable.

"Are you all alright?" The armoured figure asked, their voice still muffled by the mask going to walk out of the downed airship. But even with that, there was something about them.

Something familiar almost, yet I know I had never met this person.

I was acclimatizing to the change in light now, and I could make out what looked like a large wooden deck, with several different people, faunus as well as humans, in a mish mash of outfits that were only really identifiable by the blood that was coating some of their weapons as well the symbol that was emblazoned on all of them, sometimes on clothes, sometimes on armor, hell even one time I saw it tattooed on the shoulder of some kind of faunus with scales on the edges of his face.

A long spear, with a circle surrounding it.

"I'm sorry, but how do you know us?" I asked apologizing as I did so.

The person almost fell over at that.

"What?" They squawked in outrage, their voice sounding decidedly more feminine then it had before. "You seriously don't know who I am?"

"Captain!?" A voice called out from the crowd in concern, one of the women holding a rifle with a bayonet on the end stepping forward as they did so.

The person before us, the 'Captain' I'm assuming, waved them off and stood up straight again, coughing awkwardly as they tried to regain their demeanour. "Ahem, yes. So, introductions. I'm Thetis, otherwise known as the Queen of the Mistralian Seas and the Goddess of Waters." The newly named Thetis said nodding her head forward politely as she did so in greeting.

She raised her head again, her eagle like eyes clearly waiting for some kind of response.

I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do here.

I was sure I'd heard that title once from Vulcan or maybe Neptune's father Triton but only in passing and whatever it was it wasn't ringing any bells.

I flicked my gaze to the others to find they were in as much the same boat as I was, clearly having no idea who the strange woman in front of us was.

Was I supposed to introduce myself as well? But she already knew my name.

Maybe I was supposed to give out a title as well?

Did I even have a title?

My mind immediately leapt back to some of the kinder ones Tob gad gifted me with during training and I shuddered.

Those were never going to see the light of day again.

"Uh," Ruby spoke up, hesitating as the eyes of everyone, both those of us onboard the airship as well as those waiting on the deck outside of it turned their attention towards her. "That's…nice?" Ruby said finally, unsure of herself as I said it.

I barely restrained the urge to palm my face and sigh.

I actually witnessed one of the people waiting outside fall over at Ruby's response falling heavily to the deck in a cacophony of noise.

"Really!?" Thetis said finally, throwing up her arms as she did so, the chain of her harpoon making that same unmistakable rattling sound as she did so. "I mean I'd understand Ruby not knowing who I am but you three? What on Remnant I-"

One of the figures outside, a decidedly distinguished looking gentleman who should have looked decidedly out of place compared to those around him and yet seemed to be perfectly at ease at his situation, coughed loudly in a clearly fake manner drawing Thetis attention towards him. As she turned he tapped at his face with a rather dry expression.

Thetis froze at that. "Still wearing the mask aren't I?" She asked aloud before raising a hand to find out and proceeding to swear in a way that would have had Tob stand from his wheelchair and clap in appreciation.

The crew proceeded to chuckle quietly at their captain's mishap before becoming remarkably straight faced when she whirled around to look at them.

The bronze mask was casually tossed to one of the men outside who caught it with ease before she impaled her harpoon in the deck of the airship, both of her hands reaching up to grasp the red scarf that was wrapped around her head.

Wait.

The scarf was removed, revealing hair that was just as brightly red, the scarf deftly being tied around her hip in a way that was as familiar to me as slap to the face.

The woman turned and I staggered in place as the face of my partner stared back at me.

I could hear the others gasping beside me as what I could only call Pyrrha's twin sister walked towards us, that same kind smile on her face as Pyrrha's as she approached.

"I'm Pyrrha's mother." She said simply before a wry grin spread across her face. "Although it is kind of you to say such things Jaune."

I felt myself flush.

Had I said that aloud?

Blast it.

"You coming?" She asked before she jumped down the short distance to the deck below, walking briskly forward through the path that the crowd made for her.

We looked at each other for a moment before I shrugged, following after Thetis with the same causal walk as she had given herself.

The crowd of people in front of us we're staring at us intently now, their gaze not malicious in anyway but it was still rather disconcerting to have that many people staring at us like that.

A sharp whistle filled the air and the crowd started before dispersing in every direction, some running to the sides of the ships, others running below deck, and the rest making their way towards the masts, a few even pulling themselves up the masts as smoothly as I would up one of the trees of Freshwater.

We walked up the well worn steps up to the upper deck of the ship or whatever it was supposed to be called, where Thetis stood at the helm of the ship, taking the wheel from a shirtless tattooed man who nodded respectfully before he made his way elsewhere.

"Where are we?" Nora asked taking in the surroundings,

"Currently? You're on board my ship, the Argo." Thetis said, both hands firmly around the wheel as she talked to us, her gaze locked on the ocean ahead, twisting the wheel this way and that on occasion for reasons that were unknown to me. "Granted it's more like the Argo mark 8 and a half but that doesn't really roll off the tongue now does it?"

AN: It's done!

It's finally done!

Sorry for the delay everyone, I wanted to get this out before Christmas but life just didn't want to agree with me.

In real life news, finished the first year of my new degree, turned 25 and started my own D&D Campaign!

So yeah that's all been going great.

Now as for this chapter, we have a lot of different things go down here.

When the Gheist was introduced in Volume 4 I loved the concept of a Grimm that could not only take on the properties of other elements and objects but could actively change and choose new elements and objects as the fight progressed. I loved the idea of the four fighting something that couldn't be defeated by normal means, and was in face almost entirely immune to kinetic force.

As for the bandits in Green's End, in particular their strategy of capturing the townsfolk alive to bait the Grimm away from them when they escaped by barring them into a building and the setting it on fire, that was something that I hinted at slightly in the last chapter and something that was readily apparent during the finale of volume 3 of the show. Negative emotions draw Grimm like bees to honey and if your prepared to be unscrupulous you can find ways to benefit from that fact.

And Tyrian.

Oh my sweet baby boy.

If it seems like he's a bit stronger then he should be, that's because in my eyes he should be that strong.

This is the guy who is the personal 'problem solver' of the 'End Boss' of Remnant.

And as good as Jaune and company are, that's still taking into account that these are guys that have just finished their first year of Huntsman academy training, where the grand majority of their time was focused on killing Grimm with a smaller amount on fighting their comrades in duels and spring matched.

Tyrian in comparison is a seasoned veteran devoid of any hesitation or compassion who specialises in killing professional huntsman. His desire to drag things out for his own amusement got the better of him in this regard but if he'd gone full out from the very beginning things might have gone very differently.

As for Qrow still being poisoned, I thought of it like this. If I was a guy who went out of my way to try and kill professional monster hunters I would ensure that I had every possible advantage that I could going into that fight. The fact that he had a potent poison on hand via his own stinger just meant that he had something extra that he could coat his blades with.

And the crystal Grimm, or as some might be calling them Dust Grimm, well let's just say that Grimm have been around on Remnant for a long, long time. The grand majority of the map that is Remnant belongs to the Grimm, and there are new ones arriving every day. And they haven't been a stagnant existence either.

The longer a Grimm lives, and in some cases as it survives conflict that Grimm adapts, evolves and grows in the face of those experiences. If a method doesn't it doesn't kill it, next time you may find it to be even harder to harm via that method.

Next, the Ursa Maximus. I've been waiting for him to come out for a while. Ever since I first saw Goliath's in the show and later the Grimm Dragon, you could see just how large Grimm could be if given enough of an opportunity.

Sadly we don't get to see much of Thetis this time, but the next chapter is her time to shine. And it's also where we'll be entering Mistral!

Yay!

Albeit a far different Mistral then the one you've seen in the show.

Aiming to have that one out by around the time RTX Sydney comes about.

Now then onto reviews!

Stenzle: Bang on the money. Reinhardt did play a major role behind Jorth's inspiration, although I added the twist of Reinhardt – as played by Frank Castle. And the rest just wrote itself.

Quathis: Haha! Bait and Switch! But seriously though, we'll be seeing some of Neptune's family later on.

NeoxXelor: Indeed! Mysterious isn't it? Maybe we'll learn more about that later on.

Gabriel H. Sapphire: I like where your thoughts are headed but sadly that was a bit of an inadvertent reference in that case. Although your comment did renew my interest in rereading the series again.

Russelonfire: Hey thanks for the offer man! I think I'm good for now, but the thought behind it is greatly appreciated.

oldspiceweasel: What? An Atlantis The Lost Empire reference in my story? Never! (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!)

Reflective599: To the best of my knowledge, non-canon. In Greek Myth however, Thetis is described as a sea nymph or a goddess of water who was among other things the mother of a little known hero by the name of Achilles.

RPGPersona: Good to see you again mate! Always glad to see your reviews. It seemed Neo didn't show up this chapter. I wonder what she was up to? Glad you enjoyed the various upgrades the team went through, as well as Jorth as a character over all. And ah yes, the 'thing' that Ruby got. We have yet to see the 'thing' but some time soon… Oh and the other members of team RWBY as well as some other friends we've met along the way are doing their own things at the moment. I wonder if they might meet up.

rakaduani: Thank you my friend for paying me such a wonderful compliment. Really made my day when I read it. And yes a typo check is certainly called for, which is something I'll be trying to get done before semester restarts in March.

And of course to all my other reviews and commenters, those who favourited or followed or just even gave it a read and enjoyed it, I thank you.

You guys are a hell of a motivator I'll tell you that much.

And hey, my favourite and followed count has jumped a massive amount since last time.

You guys rock.

As always, tell me what you guys thought of this latest chapter with a review if you feel like it. It's always good to know what your opinion is.

Now then, off to play Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey!

Until Next Time,

The Inner Hollow