Herald of the Sea (RWBY)

Chapter 8: The Nuckelavee

Chapter 8

The roars of a mysterious beast get louder, the beast gets closer, and the conscious team members get more and more wary. Ruby and Jaune drag Triton and Qrow away, deeper into the destroyed village and hidden inside a house.

Ruby and Jaune look around the village entrances, Ruby unfolds her scythe and Jaune his sword and shield, his shield grows out a second time, getting longer with a finer point, a kite shield and arming sword. Ren and Nora run into the village, the sound of hoove clopping comes from the fog, burning red eyes, four, shine and light a path in the fog.

Inside the house, Triton starts to get up at the sound of combat, losing his balance before he could even get on a knee. Qrow grabs his arm, shaking his head.

Qrow: "Let them grow..."

Triton sighs and relents, his body not letting him do anything else.

The battle outside grew harder by the second, this Grimm was unstoppable, two heads, two minds, one body. The beast spins in a full circle, hitting the team that tried surrounding it, knocking the further back and breaking their strategy. The nucklelavee's eyes set on Jaune as the boy ran to help his teammate up, and it threw it's arm at him, stretching.

In Jaune's head: "Behind you."

Jaune spins around and falls, the arm of the Grimm grazes his shield and impales into a wall. Jaune stares in fear and crawls into a run, joining his team near the central tree. He holds his head, trying to understand what he had just heard.

Nora: "We need a plan!"

Ruby: "Right, Jaune?"

Jaune: "W-What?"

Ruby: "We need to make a plan, any ideas."

Jaune: "I-I-..."

Voice in his head: "Hold the arms down, if you can't surround it, then you trap it. We are called huntsmen for a reason."

Jaune: "W-who..?"

Ruby tackles Jaune and they just miss another hand aimed at him, the team splits up and stay just in earshot of each other.

Jaune: "We need to hold it's arms down! I'll take one, it seems to want me!"

Ruby: "On it!"

Jaune and Ruby split up, going to opposite sides of the Grimm, Jaune taunts the Grimm and holds his shield up. A tremendous force hits him head on, but he steps to the side the instant the pressure begins, having the hand pass him. He raises the shield and a sharp spear point comes out from the bottom, he stabs down and catches the arm before the nuckelavee can retract it.

Ruby jumps around building to building, shooting the Grimm in the torso. When she hits the ground, the Grimm launches its arm out at it, she jumps up in a flurry of petals, she comes out of her petal form and shoots down, bursting back into petals straight down. Her scythe blade points straight, transforming into a proper warscythe, she stabs the hand in place.

Nora gets a running start and pre-fires just before she jumps up, she uses the blast to launch up even higher than Ruby reached. She pre-fires again before she reaches her arc, and gets blasted back down. She transforms her grenade launcher into a large hammer and spins, using weight and motion to gain momentum. In a storm of dust and explosion of sound louder than her grenades, she slams the hammer down onto the horse's head, obliterating it into paste.

Ren grabs the second head by it's horn and lets it scream in his face, the burning waves ineffective due to his aura. He draws an inner arc curved dagger from his boot.

Ren: "For my mother."

He slashes down on Grimm's left arm, infusing his aura into the blade of the dagger, making a clean cut. The Grimm releases a screech and tries to wiggle out of Ren's arm.

Ren: "For my father."

He swaps hands and cuts off the right arm, it gets free from Ren's grasp and aims to bite his face, but Ren slashes the stomach open.

Ren: "For myself. And for Kuroyuri."

Ren climbs up the Grimm and brings his sword down, slashing through the back of the neck and decapitating it. The screams from the Grimm finally ends, and it faces into smoke and dust, fading from this form of reality.

The team joins up and watches as the rest of the Grimm fades, through excitement Nora tackles Ren and plants something very special on his lips. Her own.