Ch 21: The Emerald Forest (4)

After a few moments, Jaune realizes that he isn't falling.

"'Just dropping in' Really, Jaune?" Ray looks down at Jaune in disappointment as he holds him under his right arm like a sack of potatoes and cradles Weiss against his chest with his left. Ray is standing in the air by magnetizing the metal in his boots to have a powerful repulsive polarity to the planet. While this flying method takes a lot more effort than utilizing the laws of aerodynamics with his Aura-jet-wings did, it does grant him more control, as he gently floats to the ground while holding them both.

Ray gently lands and sets a furiously blushing Weiss and embarrassed Jaune on their feet next to the rest of the gang. At the same time, Pyrrha is finally unable to continue dodging the Death Stalker's attacks and is sent flying to land on her side at Ruby's feet.

"Great! The gang's all here! Now we can die together!" Yang morbidly jokes.

"Not if I can help it!" Ruby shouts, and before anyone can stop her, she takes off running at the Death Stalker with a battle cry.

""Ruby, wait!"" Yang and Ray shout after her.

Ruby fires Crescent Rose behind her to give her a boost as she approaches the Death Stalker. She intends to end this in a single blow and gathers her energy as she jumps towards it. However, before she can land her strike, she is knocked back by a swipe from the Death Stalker's claws.

"Fall back!" Ray commands as he starts running towards her.

"D-Do-Don't worry! Totally fine!" Ruby calls back as she rises back to her feet. She turns around to see the Death Stalker looming over her and fires a round off at it. Seeing her high-caliber sniper shot from point-blank range just bounce off its face-plate, Ruby decides to heed her brother's advice after all and turns to run. She folds Crescent Rose back up and hooks it on her belt as the Death Stalker chases, hot on her heels.

"Ruby!" Yang is now also running towards her sister. As the three siblings run towards each other, the Nevermore comes swooping in from above Ruby. With a loud *Caw* and a flap of its wings, it sends a shower of feathers down at her. Seeing his twin sister about the be skewered by dozens of razor-sharp feathers, each twice as tall as her and as thick as her thigh, and a Death Stalker preparing to impale her on its poisonous stinger, which is almost as large as her torso, Ray feels a hot fury rising in his chest.

"Susanoo!" he shouts, skidding to a stop. The trigger word sets off a chain of complicated processes in Ray's subconscious that he had practically hardwired into his brain through endless repetition and practice, all so that he can activate his strongest defensive technique at a moment's notice and in any situation.

As a rib cage made of azure Aura takes shape around him, Ray reaches out his right arm towards his distant sister, and a skeletal arm grows out from the rib cage reaching towards Ruby as well. As feathers begin to pierce the ground behind her, a bony hand appears above Ruby to shelter her from the death raining down upon her. The feathers pinging off of it like raindrops.

Relaxing slightly, feeling that she is now out of danger and safe under the protection of her twin brother, Ruby trips and tumbles to the ground. However, she is not genuinely safe yet. The Death Stalker ignores the glowing skeletal hand above her and thrusts its stinger at her. Anger flashes in Ray's eyes at the sight, and he clenches his fist in front of him as a white blur shoots past him.

Ruby turns around on the ground, and seeing the stinger descending to impale her, throws up her arms to try and defend herself, squeezing her eyes shut against the coming pain. After a while, when nothing happens, she opens her eyes to see the stinger inches away from her face, held in place by both an azure skeletal hand and a wall of ice.

[Nice moves, Weiss.] Ray silently praises her. He had thought he would be stealing Weiss's opportunity to bond with Ruby, but it looked like he had underestimated the heiress. Weiss may not have been the biggest fan of his twin sister's childish behavior, but when her partner was in danger, Weiss had charged forward at full speed to help her.

"You are so childish!" Weiss begins to scold Ruby.

"Weiss…?" Ruby is surprised, not only that she helped her, but that Weiss was even able to help her with her brother so close. [Perhaps I have been relying on Ray too much.]

Weiss ignores Ruby's moment of self-reflection and continues her lecture, "And dimwitted, and hyperactive." Weiss pulls Myrtenaster out from where she had stabbed it into the ground to generate the Dust enhanced glyph that formed the ice wall, "and don't even get me started on your fighting style. And I suppose I can be a bit... difficult... but if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do this together. So if you quit trying to show off, I'll be... nicer."

"I'm not trying to show off. I want you to know I can do this." Ruby confesses.

"You're fine." Weiss reassures her and walks off.

Ruby breathes a sigh of relief and closes her eyes, "Normal knees…" Ruby whispers to herself, her hands folded as if in prayer.

Ruby climbs to her feet and is immediately swallowed in a bone-crushing hug from her big sister.

"So happy you're okay!" Yang proclaims. Both sisters turn to look at their brother, who is approaching like a thunderstorm without dropping Susanoo. Ray's face softens for a moment as he shoots Ruby a smile, "We'll talk later." he promises, causing Ruby to shudder before his face hardens again into a death mask as he glares at the Death Stalker. With a grunt, he rips the Grimm free from the ice with Susanoo and begins slamming it repeatedly into the ground by its tail.

"Eeeewwww. Grimm Abuse!" Nora laughs. Ren and Blake shot her a look that says 'you're one to talk,' before going back to staring at the outrageous scene before them in awe with the rest. Thanks to their conversation at breakfast Weiss, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren knew Ray had a technique he called Susanoo and had some idea of what it was capable of, so they weren't too surprised. That said, hearing about it and seeing it in action are two very different things. It was too OP!

Of course, Ruby and Yang had always known he was capable of at least this much and watched on with proud, if embarrassed, smiles at their brother's temper tantrum. As for Jaune and Blake. One was spared the brunt of the shock thanks to his lack of experience with Huntsmen, while the other was too caught up by a different revelation to fully register what she was seeing. She had seen that technique once before.

With one final effort, Ray hurls the Death Stalking at the circling Nevermore.

"*Tsk* Missed." Ray clicks his tongue in annoyance as the Nevermore suddenly pulls up and avoids his impromptu projectile. He finally lets his Susanoo dissipate as he turns to walk back to the group.

"Guys? That thing's circling back! What are we gonna do?" Jaune asks, pointing up at the circling Nevermore, as Ray returns.

"Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying. Our objective is right in front of us." Weiss points out, nodding at the relics.

"She's right." Ruby agrees, "Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs." Weiss and Ruby exchange a nod, "There's no point in fighting this thing."

Jaune is very enthused with the plan, "Run and live - that's an idea I can get behind!"

Ruby and Jaune walk over to the remaining relics. Ruby grabs a white knight and Jaune a white rook. The two smile at each other.

"Time we left!" Ren declares.

"Right!" Ruby waves at everyone to follow her as she runs up a hill towards the tree line, "Let's go!". Everyone except Ray, Blake, and Yang immediately follows.

"What is it?" Blake asks Yang and Ray as Ruby reaches the top of the hill and hops on top of a rock to look back and make sure everyone is following her.

Yang stands there looking proudly at her sister, "Nothing…" Yang replies before following everyone else. Blake smiles after her. However, Ray still hasn't moved.

"Ray, come on. Let's go." Ruby calls down to her brother.

Ray smiles back at her and shakes his head, "You all go on ahead, I'll catch up. There is still a small matter I need to take care of."

Ruby looks confused but nods and turns around to leave.

Blake gives Ray a worried look, "You sure?" she asks. With her Faunus hearing, she could hear the sounds of lots of somethings rapidly approaching even though the others couldn't yet.

Ray lowers his head, the shadows hiding his expression. "Go. I got this."

Blake hesitates for a moment, then nods. "Be safe." she says before following after the others. As she leaves, she hears from behind her, "I promise, I will always return." a promise like the whisper of the wind, but as heavy as a mountain. Somehow those few words fill her with a sense of peace, and she increases her pace to catch up with the rest of the gang.

As he watches Blake's back disappear over the hill, Ray turns to face the approaching threat. A Beowolf pack now numbering over a hundred lead by a Grimm Lord.

"Well, now." Ray pulls out his aviators and puts them on, "Let's get this party started, shall we?" A battle-hungry grin cracks his face as the first Beowolves burst from the trees, his overflowing bloodlust drawing them towards him.