G.N. Chapter 24 (Patreon)

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Chapter 24 Fear the Old…

Huntsmen were not invincible.

Contrary to all manner of publicity and branding, they could die. Any Huntsman who had made it through Beacon knew this. While you were enrolled, you had a lot of protection in the form of the professors and the Academy’s connections, but that didn’t mean every student graduated.

That was the life of a Huntsman, after all.

Orr’s first funeral had been for an upper year; the guy had been someone she had only ever seen once, as he was a teacher's aide for one week.

Two months later, he was dead.

Her Gramps had taken her aside and shared some of the details of his death with her under the provision that she tell no one.

He had died to a Beowolf.

Not an Alpha nor an Elder or even a pack of them.

A solo Beowolf killed a third-year student.

He and his team had just finished fighting off a Grimm incursion on some settlement north of Sanus. They had won after a hard-fought battle and seemingly saved the town.

He had pushed himself, however.

He used his Semblance to such a degree that he became exhausted. When the Grimm dropped on him, having somehow snuck into the settlement they were protecting, it was already too late. The Grimm bit into his throat, and his Aura, already having endured punishment and strained from his previous fight, collapsed.

It shattered, and his throat found itself removed from his person.

The Grimm died an instant after its attack, but the injury was far too severe for anything to save him.

He died in seconds.

Because that was the true nature of Huntsman, behind their training, abilities, powers and Aura… they were mortal.

They could die.

Orr took her Grandfather’s teaching to heart, and she learnt her limitations.

She learnt them well.

It was why she was still kicking.

It was why she knew that the Spriggan was beyond her.

It was a true monster.

The pronounced ring of her War Picks as they shattered its probing wooden spikes was akin to the sound of her own heart. It let her know she was alive. And it was getting faster and faster.

The thing was pressing her.

She had a plan. Jaune’s plan.

‘It could work!’

If only she weren’t flagging.

Its blows made her arms shake, she was a Huntress with years under her belt and strength to show for it, but this soulless thing made her buckle. Its attacks came fast, hard, and from odd angles, with her awareness needing to be spread in every direction.

It was too much.

Her Aura flared as another stabbing claw raked painfully across her arm. Without her Aura, she doubted the limb would still be attached as those steel-like wooden claws raked downward. She rebutted, of course, but her swings were ignored, and her Semblance would be destroyed as its wooden armour would shift.

She needed to conserve her strength.

Orr rolled.

The earth erupted as a lethal amount of sharp roots exploded upwards, seeking to impale her.

She rolled right into a swipe that sent her cartwheeling painfully along the rocky shore.

She recovered mid-flight and, with a handspring, righted herself.

She collapsed to her knee as soon as she stopped.

Her lungs burned.

Her limbs ached.

And her Aura… fizzled.

A splash alerted her to the monster’s movement and her distance from her goal. All her efforts seemed moot in the face of the fact that she had only managed to place one of the beast's feet in the creek.

She was nearly dead on her feet, and all she could do was get its toes wet.

Orr gave a derisive snort and stood back up.

She had a plan.

They had a plan.

‘Get it in the damn water Flamberge’ Orr screamed in her head, throwing herself at the seemingly indomitable monster.

She rolled and danced between its stomping legs and swiping claws, her War Picks swinging defensively, halting its attacks.

It continued to move in an uncanny manner that made predicting its attacks difficult, but Orr didn’t need to block them.

She needed to direct them.

The water tried to trip her up, but she had fought on the southern coasts of Anima and endured the dangerous rips and tugging tides atop razor-sharp coral.

She could endure this.

Water began to spray about her increasingly, and she noted that the Spriggan was becoming agitated.

Orr felt triumphant.

She had successfully pissed it off.

Or so she thought.

*Thunk*

An arrow lodged into the thrashing Grimm’s neck, and Orr looked behind her. Across the water, she saw Jaune, his feet still in the creek's shallows well away from the woods. He loosed another arrow, but this one was blocked before it could pierce another of the red holes that littered the Grimm's mask.

Orr chose that moment to drive the pick side of her weapon into its left knee.

She pulled.

Wood splintered and snapped, and the Spriggan was brought to its knees.

Orr didn’t know what happened next.

She was across the creek and closer to Jaune, and her Aura was gone. She could taste blood in her mouth, and her body screamed to stop. She was laid out, and there was dirt about her that showed where she had skidded to a stop.

Her Aura had broken.

Pain flared to life upon her face, and she looked up furiously as the familiar ache of a broken nose made her splutter some nasally curse that sounded off.

Pulling herself up, she spat blood and mucous to her side.

Her Aura was spent, which meant she would have to work without it. She needed at least a drop, a speck, a single bloody sliver to activate the Ice Dust in the dam.

‘But first…’

Orr watched as Jaune moved. He looked inhuman. He twisted and swayed; the Spriggan's attacks, whether its long-reaching swipes with its stretching branch-like claws or the probing lances of wood that shot out to pin and puncture, none made contact. Jaune dodged them all by the thinnest of margins.

Orr watched as her boy didn’t pause for a second, ducking beneath a swipe before he kicked off the attacking limb and fired two more arrows, all while he moved.

He wasn’t still for even a breath.

Once again, Orr had to worry about what Hella did to train the boy for him to be this fast but figured it was worth it. It was keeping him alive. Possible hellish training that would break lesser men aside, Orr threw herself back into the fray.

Jaune was a blur of bending and twisting, the occasional arrow soaring to hit wood, his shots always intercepted. The Grimm was wary of losing more of its vision. He would hop, step and glide the merest possible distance necessary.

Attacks almost seemed to pass him by.

Orr was sharp and jagged; her movements were more pronounced, but where Jaune dodged, she smashed, parried and shattered any would-be assault.

It was here that Orr found the fight balancing.

That the scales tipped.

The beast, with its focus split between two prey and needing to defend itself, lost a bit of its ferocity.

Orr would never forget to carry a firearm ever again. She would also never let her Gramps hear of this moment, or it would be another lecture about transforming weapons. She would have to swear Jaune to secrecy as well.

Then she would kidnap him.

She was going to make him into the most badass Huntsman ever, and Hella could not keep him all to herself.

Jaune’s last arrow missed. The Spriggan bent eerily, and like that, Jaune was out of arrows.

The claw he leapt over scored a meter-deep track in the shore and would have reduced him to a pulp. But when that crazy mad boy hooked his bow around its wrist and tugged. Orr felt his genius, mad as it was, catch like a cold.

She saw it try to pull its other arm back, and Orr would have none of it. Breach and Sunder sunk into the armour, the wood splitting yet not yielding, but she didn’t need it to. She just needed them to find a purchase.

When the kid tugged, the Spriggan jolted.

When Orr pulled, the Spriggan stumbled.

It was now in the centre of the creek.

And the water didn’t even pass its waist.

Then it took a step forward.

Orr’s breath caught in her throat instantly as she watched their efforts amount to nothing. It had taken nearly everything they had, and now it was just wading out.

A flash of off-brown.

Orr blinked, a hand on her head, fingers curled about her short hair.

A spike of wood about as thick as her finger a hair's breadth from her face, stabbing at where her eye had been an instant before.

A snap, and she was pulled back. Jaune nearly dragged her, but she moved as he did, his hand releasing her head as they moved back from the three-pronged claws.

Orr saw his bow broken and cast aside; Jaune didn’t even glance at it, his eyes solely focused on the monster looming before him. He spoke softly.

“You need to get to the damn.”

The Spriggan took another step, the water at its knees.

“Kid, Jaune. We are past that,” Orr admitted grimly.

“Not yet,” Jaune hissed, “I’m not dead yet!”

Orr couldn’t work out if the boy really was this bloody indomitable or simply putting on his bravest face as he stared down his death.

Orr didn’t care.

“… No… not yet,” She agreed, and her weapons moved as she readied herself.

Orr watched as the wooden armour of the Spriggan shifted, and she readied herself for what would probably be their deaths. She would not be outdone by her Sprout, though and grit her teeth, ready to meet it head-on.

Only one of the monster's feet remained in the water.

“Hey, Jaune… you’re a really cool kid; you should know that after this is all over, I am totally gonna kidnap you! We are gonna do all manner of crazy shit together!” Orr joked gleefully, her voice still warped by her busted nose, but she hoped the message came across clearly.

“You are welcome to try, but my mother might kill you,” Jaune replied, his tone so terribly serious that Orr felt fear flee her for the briefest moments.

Jaune Arc was crazy.

She loved it.

The Spriggan howled, and the ground shook.

A second howl bellowed out.

And though her nose was a wreck, Orr smelt Salt.

Salt and blood.

YVYVYVYVY

A Beast.

Not a Grimm, not a monster, not something worse.

A Beast.

Its howl stirred his blood, excited as it was, into a flurry as lightning danced anew on his nerves, and his nose inhaled the scent of blood that haunted him endlessly. Its howl was ferocity and primal hate as it vibrated the air with its wrath.

Jaune felt his heart twist, his mouth quirk, his nails itch, and his teeth writhe.

Madness and memories swarmed, and Jaune hissed.

The Spriggan swung.

The Beast appeared.

Antlers once Ivory and uneven, flecked with gold and silver that earned its species its name, now dark and warped, stretched out like the roots and branches of the Spriggan. The Spriggan was not prepared, and the Beast gored it.

The Spriggan groaned as it was forced back two steps, and Jaune watched as it brought its gnarled limb across the Beast’s flank.

Light flared.

“That’s how it survived,” Orr commented, eyes wide as she watched the deer, the same deer they had encountered earlier, tank the blow thanks to its Aura.

The deer reared up and kicked. Its head was now level with the Spriggan’s throat, and while its antlers seemingly stretched to pierce and impale, its hooves struck. Wood splintered, and the deer barked as it stomped.

The Spriggan was being pushed back into the creek.

Jaune’s eyes raced to its back, where before there had been a laceration, a weeping bloody wound from the Spriggan’s thumb.

The wound was gone.

Jaune inhaled.

The scent of blood, sweat, fear, mud, rotten wood, and scattered water.

Blood.

Old Blood.

His Blood.

He looked to his hand, the open wound, little more than a tear in his skin now but once… Once, it had cast his blood on the deer as it stood there frothing and bloody.

A survivor touched by the Old Blood.

“Kos… what have I done?” Jaune worried for a moment before water splashed across his face, bringing him back to the real issue.

He could always eat the deer later.

The Spriggan needed to die now.

“Orr the dam! Hurry!” Jaune ordered, gesturing to the block of ice that stood out like a sore thumb, the disturbed water crashing against it agitatedly.

Orr took a moment, a second, then she dashed towards the blockage with a nod, wading into the shallows as water bashed into her frame.

Jaune turned back and saw the deer struggling.

Jaune admitted he did not know much about Cornuco Deer, but he had to admit it was big, easily the size of a horse. It reminded him somewhat of Solitas’s Great Moose, though it was not nearly as big as those creatures.

His eyes kept dragging towards its now darkened antlers, and he wanted to howl as the sight of them bothered him immensely. They were far too familiar, their presence on the creature like a nail hammered into his chest.

Jaune gripped the rage the sight of them stirred and directed it towards his new venture.

Seeing if he could drown a Grimm.

The two monsters, one soulless and the other of tainted blood were still heaving against each other, the Aura of the deer sparing it a disembowelling. In much the same manner as the Spriggan’s wooden armour protected it.

The deer was stronger than Jaune and seemed stronger still than Orr as it managed to butt and gore the Spriggan into the water. Jaune wasn’t sure how long its Aura would last, but he would not let the Beast’s efforts be for naught.

Jaune pulled his knife, crafted from sticks and fibre, its blade the best of his knapping efforts.

It would not scratch the Spriggan’s armour.

But he reckoned it would not struggle to devastate one of the monster's many crimson eyes.

Jaune rushed in, his blood alive in a manner he hadn’t felt since the Eternal Night. His legs leapt, his body soared, and his feet found purchase atop the deer. Like a Hunter feeling the Blood, he lunged like a man edging on the border of Beasthood.

One would mistake him for having ingested a Beast Blood Pellet were they any the wiser.

The Spriggan jerked back, the arrow still lodged in its body, a clear reminder of what Jaune was after. But its attempt to avoid his assault allowed the deer to find its footing.

Jaune scrambled, his finger grasping on wood, and his dagger chipped away at the old moss-wreathed bone. The Spriggan would groan and shake its claws, pushing against the deer, and Jaune felt a rush as dark Grimm blood began to fleck his blade.

Then the wood shifted, and his grip slipped.

He fell, but the deer was there.

With a single bound, it was half the creek away, its chest heaving and its dark antlers a pointed barrier between Jaune and the Spriggan. The Grimm howled, blood pooling down another socket of its mask. The deer barked, and Jaune settled for a sneer.

The Spriggan plunged its arms into the creek bed below, and Jaune made to move, but the deer was quicker.

It dashed across the shore, the ground tearing behind them as gnarled and tipped roots spurted up like bear traps and pikes. Jaune stood by the grace of his balance alone as he rode the deer at an unnatural speed, granting it abilities on par with Orr.

Jaune followed suit when it leapt, more of a lunge in truth, at the Spriggan. He flung his body from atop its back while it was mid-air.

Because for the first time, he had a clear shot at its flesh, all the roots that had been its armour seemingly having been used to destroy the creek's shoreline. Jaune saw red; his blood roared.

So did he.

When he sunk his knife into its weird stubby throat, he let himself feel the illation of Beasthood as he became invigorated by the Grimm blood spurting over his hand. When antlers, sharp and ready, grew much like the Spriggan’s own armour and sunk deep into the Grimm’s chest and right arm, Jaune audibly growled.

The Grimm’s reaction was terrible and equal in measure.

It flew into a rage, wood rushing back up its submerged limbs, but Jaune would not pause his assault and neither would the deer. Jaune stabbed and shifted and stabbed again, fighting against the Grimm’s flailing to bleed it more and more.

Going so far as to grab hold of his one successful arrow and push it deeper, his knife hacking at what should have been its jugular.

Wood, twisted and moved by the Grimm’s will, threatening to catch Jaune and pin him against its form. Jaune could see the grab coming from a mile away.

He had dodged arcane grapples he could not even fully comprehend once.

The Spriggan was far more blatant.

With his knife lodged beneath its jaw, Jaun leapt. He threw himself from atop its treetop shoulders, his entire mass surrendered to gravity. Wood crept about his knife. Jaune’s arm stretched as far as it could, and with a jerk, the knife pulled.

Dark and unnatural blood ran down his arm in thick streams that began flaking off by the time they reached his toes. With a grunt and twist, he hauled himself up and pulled back on the knife, twisting and sending the Spriggan into a hissing fit.

It stepped back.

The deer pushed up.

Antlers tore free, and dark blood and wood littered the creek's surface as the deer stumbled into the deepest part.

Jaune swung.

As the deer fell, he clutched at its branching antlers and grasped on tightly.

Together they pulled down on the precariously leaning neck of the Elder Grimm.

And thus, the monster fell.

Its howls muffled beneath the water as it was submerged.

Jaune and the deer hearing them beneath the surface.

Jaune released his hold of the knife and kicked off the bottom, his hand still tightly clutching the antler of the deer as he did. When they breached, the deer moaned long and hard, and Jaune screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Now, Orr!” He roared as he got his feet under him in the shallows and heard the surface break behind him, followed by furious, monstrous howls. He breathed in, panicked and full of adrenaline speeding through the water, the deer taking off dragging him along.

“ORR! DO IT!”

A clap.

Then, the sound of a glacier coming to life.

YVYVYVYVY

Orr was not a Dust Weaver.

Too rich for her blood, she preferred blunt force trauma.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t go through the same lessons as every other young hopeful attending Combat School. By the time she graduated from Beacon, she considered herself skilled in the matter.

She even carried a couple of small canisters on her more challenging hunts. Just in case she wanted to level a small building with ease.

That had always been the crux of the matter for Orr; her Semblance did not interact well with Dust.

It interacted reallywell with Dust.

Her Semblance on a solid surface would cause anything beneath the targeted area to experience an implosive force of great magnitude. It allowed her to direct the power outward in the air as a plain old shockwave.

It was best not to use it in water for obvious reasons involving the makeup of most human and Faunus bodies.

She was a one-woman demolition crew capable of coordinated destruction of even the most heavily armoured targets.

It had weaknesses, of course.

The Elder Spriggan embodied far too many of them for her liking. Its moving armour would disrupt her glyphs, causing them to dispel, wasting her energy. Her shockwaves did little to it beneath its freakishly tough wooden shell, eliminating many of her range options.

And its armour covered it so thoroughly that she couldn’t place her glyph anywhere that would be a kill shot.

There was its mask, but the damn thing was too smart to fall for that.

It knew its vulnerabilities, and it protected them with gusto.

The most she had done was cause its armour to splinter into its flesh, but afterwards, its armour seemed to move nonstop.

That was way too smart.

No Grimm should be that smart.

It wasn’t right.

It was terrifying.

It made her wish that she had some Dust. She had been saving it at the F.O.R.T. in case something like this happened, and had it been anything but a Spriggan, she would have thrown Jaune on her back and bolted there as fast as she could.

Because Dust and her Semblance were a match made to unleash devastation. ‘Primed’ synergised with almost every element to terrifying effect, whether it made her implosions fiery or her shockwaves into EMPs.

But that was always with processed Dust.

It was funny; many people believed powdered Dust to be the most volatile, which, to be fair, was not without merit. Powdered dust could become active without Aura, a terrifying fact as it could also interact with other powdered Dust to become active.

But raw Dust…

Raw Dust was a whole other monster.

A useable Dust crystal was often weighed, measured, quantified and then cut to be helpful to a Huntsman, requiring just a little bit of Aura to kick things off. This allowed for safe and measured reactions that would not surprise a trained Huntsman in the heat of battle.

Raw Dust was hazardous. You didn’t know just how big the crystal could be because they can grow in very peculiar ways; you didn’t know what quality it was; you could guesstimate, but it was never accurate.

You could be dealing with the kind of Dust often processed for over-the-counter sale at any licensed store, or you could be dealing with the type used to make high explosives.

High explosives that had a very unpredictable yield.

But that didn’t matter to Orr.

It couldn’t matter.

Because her Sprout was screaming for her help, and there was a Brother’s be damned Elder Grimm after him.

Orr ducked beneath the water, laid her hand on the crystal and activated her Semblance. Her head felt like it was being split in two as she strained her reserves beyond their means, but she ignored it. She placed her glyph, her nose gushing a fresh spew of blood as she did.

She placed a second glyph.

This was her ‘super special, ultra-secret technique’.

She called it using more bang.

The most she could place was three, with full Aura reserves. Putting two with her Aura already broken was making her vision bleed red.

But it was worth it.

She didn’t know how giant this Ice Dust crystal was; she didn’t know how potent it was; she didn’t know if it would be enough.

But it had to be. So she would give it all the juice she had.

One glyph caused the multiplication of force on a targeted area, whether that be in the form of implosions or eruptions.

Two glyphs made the effect magnitudes stronger.

With the addition of Dust…

Orr punched forward, praying that Jaune wouldn’t be caught in the blast radius.

Her flesh collided with the Dust.

‘Primed’ activated.

And the temperature dropped.

YVYVYVYVY

Jaune felt the cold.

It prickled along his flesh as ice crystals grew, where the water on his body became solid. The deer was much the same, with shards of ice clinging to its fur and dark rack. Jaune barely spared it a glance.

He had eyes only for the glacier that now stood before him.

It was a tiny mountain of ice, jutting out like an explosion frozen in time. Sharp, jagged edges speared the world above, plunging everything beneath its shadow into an oppressive cold. In it, he could see only shadows he figured to be Grimm blood and specks that resembled broken bark.

The Elder Grimm, the Spriggan, was buried too deep beneath the ice for him to see.

‘Gotta move,’ Jaune thought, discomforted by not being able to see the monster that had come so close to killing him.

Jaune tried to walk away but found his hand stuck.

His skin was stuck to the antler of the deer.

Jaune stared at the Beast, its eyes looking back with a gleam that made him uncomfortable. He still intended to handle the brand new Beast but didn’t feel the present situation was resolved.

Thus he figured it might be best not to start a new hunt just yet.

“… Hold still,” Jaune ordered, bracing himself against the deer’s flank. Violently he tore his hand free of its rack, his flesh ripping and blood dripping onto the Beast and the ground below. Jaune didn’t even wince.

He needed to find Orr.

The deer didn’t follow him, its snout turning to the glacier, its somewhat bloodshot orbs staring at the ice intently. This didn’t make Jaune feel any better, and he hurried across the freezing cold shore to where he suspected Orr to be.

*Plap, plap, plap*

His feet left behind footprints coloured red from the ripped skin on his feet; the cold bite of the permafrost-afflicted shore was severe enough for Jaune to take note of it. However, the sight of one of Orr’s War Picks cast all other less critical thoughts away.

He quickly raced to the weapon and tugged on it but found it came out swiftly and was not attached to its owner. Fortunately, he spotted the weapons sister and, more importantly, the arm attached to it. Jaune quickly slipped into the space and worked to free Orr’s body from the ice.

She didn’t come away cleanly, and he could see blood staining the ice as he worked, but she was quick to take a breath as Jaune freed her face from the ice, followed by erratic coughing and spluttering. She was alive. She looked around wildly, ice and frost clinging to her shivering flesh.

When she saw Jaune, though, she smiled.

Jaune did his best to return the expression.

Using her weapon, Breach, he believed, he chipped her free and tugged her up onto the shore. More water was starting to run over the ice, and Jaune had no desire to leave Orr to the chilled flow.

Jaune didn't stop his efforts even when the deer came over to investigate.

She latched onto him as soon as she was free, whether because she was near collapsing or just happy he was well, he didn’t know. He hauled her up all the same.

Through chattering teeth, she spoke, “W-w-we-e n-n-nee-e-d t-to go.”

Jaune just nodded; she was right.

They had both nearly died.

They did not need to push their luck.

Jaune would have spoken, would have uttered some words, some phrase of peace to his protector. His expression brightened as he prepared to do so.

But all he could do was react.

His foot met her sternum.

Her body was thrust back, a harsh breath breaking past her lips as she was sent backwards into the frozen shore.

He did not see her look at him confused or hear her voice some exclamation of surprise or pained query.

He just heard the crack.

He saw foliage rush past, saw trunks and branches as blurs and shapes.

He felt gravity so feebly grasp at him.

Then he felt the impact.

Felt his head jerk and twist.

Felt his airway collapse, and the bones of his skull yield.

He felt his body shift, his form limp as he slumped to the floor.

…

Then he felt death.

YVYVYVYVY

Orr stared.

She stared at where he had been standing.

She had heard the crack, so like a gunshot that at first she had been confused, but then she had seen a spray of red mist and the thin whip-like vine poised where he had been.

She twisted from her place on the ground and followed the vine back to the iceberg.

Saw the cracks around the hole it had originated from.

The vine twitched; she saw it.

She should have reacted. Dodged. Something.

The deer saved her, its jaws clamping about the bloodstained whip and crushing it in its jaw.

This made the iceberg shake. Violently.

But Orr still couldn’t bring herself to care.

Instead, she crawled forward.

There was blood on the ground.

Jaune’s blood.

He had kicked her.

Then there was a crack.

And he was just gone.

Orr twisted the woods coming into her line of sight.

There was more blood.

But no body, the looming trunks seemed to engulf everything.

She felt trapped.

The iceberg shuddered. A howl shook the ice. Orr didn’t even glance its way.

Jaune.

Her Sprout.

She was going to run off with him; it would have driven Hella up the wall. Cloud would help her, and Jaune would have let her because he was nice like that.

He gave her food during a survival challenge.

He was stupidly nice.

She would tease him about his sisters and see if she couldn’t mess with them by playing keep away with their brother.

She was going to train with him.

She was going to vandalise HQ with him, he probably wouldn’t help, but she would drag him along.

She was-

She-

“Oh fuck… Jaune,” Orr whined, her finger dragging through a blood splatter.

He had saved her.

That stupid, inconsiderate shit had saved her.

That was her job.

The deer moved, its body went rigid, and it barked at the shuddering mound of ice now crumbling.

Orr finally looked at it.

Her legs shook as she rose, using the deer that was ignoring her as an aid to help her up. Her fingertips were black on her right hand.

It seemed she would finally be balancing out her scarring.

Her grip wasn’t as tight as she would have liked, but she would endure it.

Her other hand was still good. She would need to favour it.

Her body wasn’t shaking anymore.

She couldn’t feel the cold.

A crack, this one deep and booming, was followed by the iceberg splitting in two and crumbling. The Spriggan was free and howling, and Orr…

Orr screamed back.

She screamed in bloody fury, making her throat clench and her head twist in pain.

She screamed none the less.

She screamed all her hate.

So much hate.

Jaune’s plan had worked, and wood sloughed off the Spriggan as it crawled out of the ice, its limbs quaking and thin. Its mask was cracked, with thick patches of frost clinging to it.

Its wailing howl continued, and Orr found her scream joined by the deer.

When the Spriggan stopped, she continued.

She continued past the deer.

She didn’t stop until her lungs ached from the strain.

When she did, there was silence.

The Spriggan moved. It didn’t approach or attack or clamber off the iceberg.

It looked behind it to the woods.

It looked to escape.

And Orr’s hate multiplied.

It bred like cancer and flooded her until her hurt wasn’t hurt.

It was hate.

Her exhaustion was hate.

Her grief was hate.

She was hate.

And she would drown this fucking Grimm in all the negativity it could ever hope to imbibe.

YVYVYVYVY

His eyes shot open, bloodshot and wild, as his body spasmed and kicked itself back to life. He coughed and choked wetly as he jerked himself out of the lethargy of death with practised ease. He was on his back. His throat was clogged; he was drowning.

Weakly, he writhed until he could roll on his side and let the deluge of what he knew to be blood spill over the ground. He coughed and choked as he cleared his airway and tried to ignore how he could feel the same substance beacon to him.

He blinked. His world was dark, smog concealed everything about him, and Jaune pawed about, desperate for answers.

His skin felt chilled.

His heart was slow yet thunderous in his chest.

He needed answers.

With great exertion, he clawed forward; his fingers were slick and bloody, but upon the uneven ground, he found himself aided in his movement.

Then he paused.

The ground… felt familiar.

His heart beat faster, his breath became shallow, and he drew in his next inhale through his nose.

Ash, old smoke, dew, flowers… Blood.

Timidly he let his fingers drag, the rough stonework rubbing across his fingers, and he recalled that moment an eternity ago. When he had awoken to a dream, unaware of his fate, caressed by the cool night air and befuddled by the dream-spawned haze that trapped him.

He knew these stones.

He knew this path.

He knew where he was.

He clawed forward, dragging his chest through the blood he had spewed forth.

The smog was thick and encompassing, and it would not disperse. He was in a sea of grey, so he pawed at the ground, his arms shaking from the effort.

Then his fingers brushed over something.

It was cold and smooth. It scraped softly as it slid on the stones. Jaune grasped mindlessly for it, the grey stirring as he did.

He pulled it to him with shaking fingers and beheld it with confusion, unsure of what it was. It looked as if it perhaps belonged to some pottery.

Then he turned it over, and his shaking hands stilled. His weak frame twitched. His breath ceased.

He saw unblemished skin of such a fair shade that he knew it would glow in the moonlight.

But it was cracked.

It was marred.

His hand clenched, and he felt the piece slice into the meat of his fingers, felt his blood well up and pool over the shard staining it with his crimson essence. He forced himself to his knees, the bleeding only became more severe, but as it did, he felt it.

Felt the Echoes of Blood that ran in his veins come alive.

The Hunter felt his strength rekindle as those very Echoes danced on the porcelain of the one who had cared for him.

She had tended to him.

She had emboldened him.

The Hunter brought the piece of his dearest to his face and cradled it to his lips.

Blood that was his, power that was his dripped into his mouth, and the Hunter recalled the strength it had earned. The same strength it had wielded against the greatest and the worst in equal measure.

The Hunter dreamt of its own strength.

And then.

The Hunter awoke.

YVYVYVYVY

Orr swung her fist though it was useless, the crunch of her knuckles into the iron-like wood of the Spriggan, not budging the thing in the slightest. Its claws dug painfully into her back as it held her aloft, but the pain was negligible as she continued to try her hardest to break its arm.

The deer was currently assaulting its other side and was likely the sole reason the Elder Grimm had not yet killed her as it fought to keep the beast from impaling it. Orr watched as the Spriggan became fed up as it hurled her away and focused on the deer.

Orr hit the frozen creek and slid painfully until she hit a jutting piece of ice. There was no flare of Aura or shielding of damage. Just the sound of her abused body crunching into an unyielding surface and the whole-body ache that followed.

Orr spat out the blood that was filling her mouth. She wiped her busted face, her nose twinging painfully from the action. She reached into her boot for her backup knife. And rose to her feet, stumbling only half a step as she did.

Her Breach and Sunder were gone; she didn’t know where. Her Aura was long since spent, and she didn’t think it was regenerating very quickly. She had no plan, no resources and…

She had failed her mission.

But she would be damned if she let this Grimm go on living.

Orr watched warily as the Spriggan picked the deer up, raising the bucking beast and its still-growing rack above its head. Then like an enraged toddler, it slammed the creature onto the ground. There was a flash and the sound of Aura shattering as the beast went still, and the Spriggan howled.

Orr smiled as she beheld its monstrous frame.

Jaune’s plan had been more devastating than they could have ever hoped.

Around them, half-rotted and uprooted trees lay scattered about the place, some impaled in the shore or the ice, others broken and scattered. The Spriggan had made it back to the tree line despite Orr and the deer’s best efforts. But the wounds it sustained were limiting it.

No longer could it grow its armour across its whole body. There were ample spaces where the frost had ruined its flesh, and no longer would the unnatural roots grow to cover them.

Nor could it move through the trees.

It was crippled.

When it discovered this, it went berserk.

It ripped out trees and threw them in a tantrum, leaving the frozen creek littered with wood. Wood it would use to repair its armour as needed. Wood it would soon be able to use to much more devastating effect.

The frost-scared sections of its body were slowly healing. Such was the nature of a Grimm’s vitality.

But Orr wouldn’t let it.

She would take her knife and carve out the closest fucking thing it had to a heart long before she let it heal.

She would kill this thing if it was the last thing she would ever do.

The deer got back to its own feet slowly, unsteadily. It was on its last legs as well.

Didn’t matter.

It was going to fight, and Orr was grateful for it.

She would avenge Jaune.

It was a pretty thought, but it was just a thought.

She needed to make it happen.

When she charged the Elder Grimm, she had stayed low and moved as the deer did. The Spriggan tried to charge at her, but the deer surprised it, seemingly not out of the fight, yet it attacked. Its hooves cracked into the Spriggans ankle, and the Sprrigan shifted targets from her toward the deer. Picking up a nearby log, the Grimm swung the heavy object into the Aura-enhanced beast.

The sound it made was visceral as the wood exploded across its face, its rack shattering as it tumbled and skidded across the ice, a bloody mess.

Orr ignored it.

She got under the Spriggan while it was distracted, right inside its space and leapt up, there was a patch of exposed flesh on its knee, and Orr drove her knife in deep.

The noise it made was music to her ears.

She twisted and pulled the knife back as the Grimm’s leg yielded under its weight bringing it down.

It swiped at her; she dropped low, the attack just missing her.

She rolled and struck out with her knife again but missed as the Grimm shifted, her blade meeting wood instead of flesh.

And then her knife was stuck.

She let go of it instantly and pushed off the Grimm with all her might.

Not even a second later, the ice where she had been was crushed beneath a clawed limb.

It turned to her, and Orr saw it.

Jaune’s knife, his favourite, the best one he made.

It was still lodged in its throat.

She found herself letting slip a battle cry as she charged.

The Spriggan lunged at her with uneven legs.

Its long limbs would reach her first.

So she threw a rock at it.

The monster flinched.

She grinned in triumph.

All of Jaune’s efforts had led it to cover its face instinctually.

The rock bounced harmlessly off its arms.

And Orr reached for the knife.

She grasped it as Spriggan’s momentum made it roll past her, its long limbs whipping dangerously as it tumbled. One claw ripped one of her pant legs to pieces the fabric, and a strip of her calf tore free.

She grit her teeth and powered through the pain.

It hurt, but she couldn’t stop. If she slowed, the Spriggan would have her.

She pivoted, the ice was hard to get traction on, but her boots were made for such. She got three steps before the Spriggan whipped its arm at her again.

She jumped.

It clipped her foot, and she flipped painfully, her already busted nose spurting more blood as she ate the ice.

She kicked blindly, her foot hitting something, and she slid again. A heavy crunch and ice-cold water bit at her exposed leg. She rolled.

She was under the Grimm; it was on its hands and knees, swiping.

She stabbed.

And the Grimm stilled.

Orr pushed, and the Grimm spasmed a bone-shaking hiss echoing from behind its mask.

Then she was underwater, her wrist broken and her lungs vacant of any air. The Spriggan’s giant claw fisted atop her, pinning her to the creek bed below, blood, ice and bubbles floating to the surface.

She was in its grasp.

And then she was flying uncontrollably.

When she hit the shore, it was not soft. The crunch she heard filled her with dread, and Orr could do nothing but struggle to fix her breathing.

She couldn’t move.

Her vision was blurred, and darkness encroached on the borders of her sight.

She had tried.

So damn hard.

Pain shot through her body. She gagged, the hurt enough to physically sicken her, as she tried to scream as her body was sifted. She swung blindly, thinking it the Spriggan. She would not…

Consciousness fled, but before it did, she turned to face her death, snarling with everything she had left.

…

‘Jaune?’

She succumbed to the darkness.

YVYVYVYVY

He laid her down, she had a pulse, but it was thready.

He tucked her into the crook of the tree she had slid into; it would give her some cover. The Grimm hissed at him; he was watching it peripherally. It was bleeding heavily.

Orr had wounded it grievously.

He moved cautiously; he walked out of the tree line and spared a glance at the deer that was lying in a pool of its own blood.

It still smelt like him. If he was lucky, it was dead… otherwise, it was a problem for later.

The Spriggan grasped at a log. He noted that there were uprooted trees all over the now-frozen creek, the Grimm having made the battlefield more optimal for itself.

It really was smart.

He watched as its armour regrew, its bleeding slowing somewhat. He also noted that despite its efforts, there were now gaps in its lofty defence.

It gave out a booming inorganic howl, the Hunter thinking of how it reminded him of the sound of a storm shaking the forest. It was the sound of nature at its worst and loud enough that he could feel it in his bones.

The Hunter took a singular step to the left, avoiding the log that would have squashed him as it impaled the ground he had previously occupied.

The Hunter brought his hand to his right eye, covering it, and stepped towards his prey.

The Spriggan looked over its shoulder, no doubt considering retreat.

The Hunter snorted, letting himself feel the ache in his body, the exhaustion weighing him down, the lightheadedness stemming from his blood loss.

The Grimm turned back to face him.

The Hunter let himself feel every negative twisted thing bubbling in his thoughts.

The Elder Grimm took a step towards him.

The Hunter knew that he was tired, that his body was wounded, that he was losing blood.

The ancient and terrible Grimm began to charge its arms outstretched to grasp and maim.

The Hunter also knew he could not afford to let it reach Orr, nor could it escape because he was fading fast. They would not survive a second assault.

The Elder Grimm brought back one of its stretched arms, its claws spread, ready to cleave him apart with but a swipe.

The Hunter moved his hand and beheld a vast stretch of dark sky. He knew it intimately, as those few scholars who delved too deep did. He knew it to rumble with an endless storm of meteors.

Only it didn’t.

The Spriggan pounced, hooves leaving the floor as it threw its mass forward, and its claw came around to reduce the Hunter into bloody chunks.

The Hunter with nails that drew blood tugged down the meat of his face and felt veins squirm to caress his eye.

The Hunter beheld a vast stretch of dark sky that shone with streaks of crimson red. Red that pooled in his socket and reflected that streak of light in all its shining glory.

The Spriggan was blasted back.

Blazing red light seared and blitzed against the Spriggan as it cried and hollered beneath the Arcane wrath brought forth by the Hunter. Flesh bubbled, and its armour cracked and yielded as more of the cruel heavenly light speared into it.

It tried to defend itself, arms raised, protecting its mask, but the light pierced through its long armoured limb, sheering it off and continuing to assault the Grimm.

But the Hunter was waning.

Blood bubbled out of his eye socket, and he had little to spare. More and more of it came as the storm of light escaped through his eye until he was forced to a knee, the light flickering.

When it cut off, the Hunter could no longer see through his right eye, it seared the meat about it, and the veins throbbed. The vision with his left was shaky.

But he saw.

He saw the Spriggan move.

The ancient thing rose, burned, scarred, bleeding, and all but devoid of armour. It was missing an arm, and its mask was cracked, charred and missing pieces, but it was alive. A long hiss poured from its chest.

There were entire holes through it.

Yet still, it would not die.

‘How familiar,’ the Hunter thought, the resilience reminding it of many a different sort of monster.

The Hunter tried to rise but fell, catching himself only just.

“Huh?”

‘A War Pick… Orr must have lost them.’ The Hunter almost smiled, lifting the weapon as he forced himself to stand on shaky feet.

It felt good in his grip.

It was good to hold steel again.

The Spriggan's flesh crackled as it moved; the Hunter wondered what it would choose.

Fight or flight.

He would never find out.

A dull roar heralded the arrival of a Bullhead as it raced over the trees and circled about.

The Hunter smiled. It was manic and bloody and was in no way a good look. It reflected nothing but savagery, and he hoped the Spriggan could sense it.

The back of the flying vehicle opened, and he watched as two streaks of light shot from the rear bay of the aircraft, and Spriggan screamed.

Fire engulfed it, and the Hunter watched as two miniature suns combusted against it again, fire raining over its legs and the frozen ground around it. The sound of steam and sizzling flesh almost as loud as the flames.

Figures leapt from the back of the Bullhead; they were shadows, blurred and unrecognisable as he stumbled.

The air erupted as explosions and gunfire rang out in a wave of ballistic fury. The Spriggan flailed and recoiled, taking steps that indicated it intended to retreat.

A figure like a jungle cat crashed into its back, and claws ripping tore into its back as they screamed in fury. Another drove a blade through the monsters remaining arm and, with a flourish, dismembered it as their weapon transformed into something he knew he should recognise.

Jaune felt the world shake and looked behind the Spriggan to see one of the figures crouched on the floor. Beside him was a tall person saying something, but their words were utterly incomprehensive to the Hunter as he did his best not to fall on his rear. The tall Grimm must have felt the shaking worse as it crashed into the ground.

It still didn’t die.

Jaune saw it hop like a malformed frog. Someone was screaming, not in fear but in rage, their howls like the shrieks of a wild animal. The figure on its back was making it rain viscera as they dug into the torso of the struggling Grimm.

The other one attacking it up close was twisting their long weapon around them in a flourish that left one of the Grimm’s legs flopping as it hoped and writhed forward.

Then he realised it was getting closer.

He shifted, pushing himself into a crouch as he readied Orr’s weapon to protect himself, fighting back the nausea that assaulted him.

It barreled at him, mask crunching as it wormed forward, its legs kicking behind it. He knew he could not dodge, so he steeled himself to drive the weapon into its skull with all his strength and try to slay it before it could kill him.

And then there was a figure standing before him, and in their hands was light.

Bright, blinding light.

He heard a hum, like distant thunder.

The Hunter fell back, his mind shutting down as his heart ached.

The last thing he saw was the world vanishing in a wave of white.

A.N.

Boom, next chapter, eat it up.

To those of you wondering, yes, it's happening. I am going to start powering our boy up with the Bloodborne stuff though I reserve the right to do so at my leisure and change things as I will.

The power he used here is a modified Blacksky Eye, but I’m sure most of you got that. Also, I hope the hint that our boy isn’t as free of Dreams as he might like excites you all.

Because while I may be flying by the seat of my pants, that don’t mean I can't have inspiration, dammit!

Ok, anyway, here yall go, enjoy.