"Shit…"
Alabast's expression doesn't change even as he begins to spiral out of control. Cartwheels, somersaults, barrel rolls, and any other type of flip or spin is performed, accidentally, by Alabast. He immediately tries to correct his position but his tail is not a cat's. In fact, his big and bulky tail only adds to his rotations.
He doesn't panic, mostly because even if he crashes into the ground his aura will protect him from any serious damage. But it will still hurt and waste some aura.
As the blur of the forest begins to get closer he tries to think of a few ways to not crash land.
Stretching his left arm out to his side he activates his Semblance. Darkness coats his arm from his shoulder to his finger tips.
He flexed his fingers and claws emerge from his fingernails. The Darkness surrounding his arm extends the claws, making his arm look more demonic with wisps of Darkness emu sting from the Darkness.
His eyes narrow as he spots a sturdy looking branch. His left arm reaches out and the arm of Darkness extends to grab hold of the branch. Just before he is able to grab the branch he looks to his right, a blur of red and gold impales the back of his collar, barely missing his neck.
*Thunk!*
"What the Hell! God $&%#£)! Son of an absolute @$$@%€#. Who did this!?!" Alabast shouts in anger as he finds himself pinned to the tree. His throat luckily wasn't destroyed by the sudden change in direction. He holds onto the red and gold object that nearly skewered him and sees that it's a javelin.
"Sorry~!" A concerned female shouts from what sounds to be far away.
Alabast grumbles some not so nice words to himself as he tries to get the javelin out of the tree to free himself but isn't successful.
"Damn it!!!" Alabast shouts in a rage as his black aura bursts to life. He uses Darkness and pushes the javelin out of the tree.
Before gravity can pull him to the hard ground, Alabast jumps off the tree's trunk and lands on a branch with the javelin tightly in the grip of his left hand. The Darkness covering his arm disappears completely along with the black aura around him.
He jumps from branch to branch towards the direction of the voice. Normally, a person wouldn't be able to know where the shout came from. However, Alabast is anything but normal. His enhanced hearing helped him know the direction of the familiar voice.
In Alabast's frustration of being helped randomly, he doesn't notice a certain Schnee brat giving him a weird look before stomping back off into the woods.
A minute passes of him leaping branch to branch when he spots a blur of red hair running towards his direction.
Bringing the javelin above his shoulder, he brings it back before throwing it better than any Olympic athlete could dream of back in his last world. He made sure to throw it in front of the redhead's feet judging off of her speed at which she was running.
But as the javelin was about to hit the ground Pyrrha screeches to a halt and holds her hand up. The javelin changes direction midair and Pyrrha expertly catches it, only moving back a few centimeters.
Alabast isn't sure what surprises him more. The fact that Pyrrha noticed the javelin before it hit the ground. The way the javelin slightly changed its trajectory in the air. Ohe way Pyrrha caught it effortlessly and was only pushed back a few centimeters.
Maybe there was a reason she won those tournaments or whatever. Her instincts are clearly sharp and her strength isn't something to scoff at either, he didn't hold back that much when he threw the javelin.
Looking towards where the javelin came from, Pyrrha sees Alabast up on a branch. She moves the javelin towards her back as it shifts into a straight sword and rests with a matching shield. "Hello~…"
"Care to explain why I was almost skewered by your magical Javelin?" Alabast crosses his arms as he looks down at the girl.
Pyrrha gives an awkward smile. "You looked like you-"
*Krrrr-CRACK!*
The branch Alabast was standing on snaps beneath his weight combined with his giant weapon.
Alabast tries to straighten himself out as he falls.
*Thud!*
Alabast hits the ground and some leaves jump into the air from the impact.
Today really just isn't his day.
He landed on his stomach, or his face, and pushes himself up. When he looks up he sees Pyrrha's hand open as she offers it to help him up.
"Need a hand, partner?" Pyrrha asks with her smile still there, not bringing up the fall at all.
Alabast narrows his eyes at her, although only his right eye can be seen due to his hair. He puts his left hand on his knee and pushes himself up off the ground. "No"
Pyrrha awkwardly retracts her hand at the blunt answer. "H-Have you seen anyone else on your way here? If you haven't, neither have I. So that would make us partners"
"I haven't seen anyone else…" Alabast brushes the dirt off his uniform and rubs the bridge of his nose. "You didn't answer why you nearly skewered me"
Pyrrha looks up at Alabast's face and sees his deep red eye with the scar below it. "Right. As I was about to say… You looked like you were having difficulty with the landing strategy, so I thought to help you a bit. I didn't mean to do any harm" She sounded sincere about meaning no harm.
"I'm not so weak that I would die from a fall like that, even if I landed at that speed on my neck" Alabast states before putting his hands on his hips and looking to the left. "Whatever. At least you tried, I guess. Well, partner. Lead the way"
Pyrrha found it a little difficult to talk with Alabast, but hearing him call her partner brought her spirits up. She gives him a smile and walks in the opposite direction of where he is looking. "I look forward to working together with you from here on, Alabast"
"…same…" Alabast mutters as he follows behind her. He's reminded of the other people he has worked with in the past and how great those times ended.
——————
The noises of the forest grow quiet, almost to emphasize the awkward silence between the pair.
Pyrrha roughly knows what direction they need to go in due to the position of the sun and some moss she found growing on some rocks. She also noticed Alabast picking up on these facts as well, it's like he doesn't know what they are doing out here. But she's just glad he isn't being hostile or… acting the way he did when she first met him…
*…bang…* *…bang…* *…bang…* *…bang…*
Pyrrha stops walking and looks at the direction where the gunshots came from "It seems some of our comrades have encountered the enemy"
She turns towards Alabast and sees his wolf ears twitching. Pyrrha wonders if Alabast is moving them on purpose or not.
Alabast doesn't acknowledge that Pyrrha had talked, he's focused on their surroundings. Pyrrha turns back around after not getting a response, to continue towards their destination.
She moves a branch out of her way with her shield, they ran into a few Beowolves and easily dispatched them a few minutes ago. Since then, she has had her weapons at the ready.
After moving past the branch she brings her shield to her side, accidentally letting the branch whip back to its original position.
*Wh-Chk!*
"Hck- *Cough* *Cough*" Alabast takes a step back and rubs his throat with his right hand.
"Alabast, sorry!" Pyrrha whips around, feeling terrible at her lack of awareness.
"Can you stop saying sorry every time you talk. You are starting to sound like a broken record! And while your at it, stop hurting me. I'm not a masochist! If anything I'd be a sadist!" Alabast wasn't too happy but knew he needed to work with his new teammate.
The fact he said this with a serious face made Pyrrha blush. She wasn't trying to hurt him and she was certainly not expecting him to call himself a sadist.
"I didn't mean to, sor-" Pyrrha sees Alabast give her a glare and stops herself from apologizing. "Well, l-let's move on… then"
——————
Eventually, Pyrrha wanted to talk to Alabast again but didn't know what to talk about. She went through what she knew of Alabast and ignored the embarrassing bits.
As she sees the side of a mountain she remembers that Ruby had explained Alabast's weapon in great detail. "Hey Alabast, this is Akouo" she lifts her shield into the air. "And this is Milo, it's able to become a sword and a rifle… besides its javelin form" she lowered the shield then raised her sword.
Alabast looked at her but didn't respond.
Pyrrha blushes heavily as she lowers her sword. "If we are to work together in the future it makes sense to know eachother's weapons…"
Alabast slowly blinks and is about to respond when Pyrrha talks again…. Maybe he should respond faster.
"I briefly heard about Nights Fall from Ruby. I'm not sure I could make something that big and functional" Pyrrha is hurting her back trying to carry this conversation.
Alabast silently takes a deep breath and releases it. After taking in a breath he walks past Pyrrha. "I didn't make it"
Pyrrha is surprised to actually get a response. She was about to give up on the conversation. "You didn't? Is she a gift? She looks too new to be a family heirloom, and the mechanics must be some cutting edge tech for it to be functional"
"She?" Alabast raises his right eyebrow.
"Ruby declared it. She said it be considered male, but that it simply MUST be female!" Pyrrha emphasizes, remembering her walking and talking with the other girls. "That's the abbreviated version of course, the specifics of it…. I couldn't quite make out. She spoke a little too fast to fully understand, at least until Yang stopped her"
Alabast let's his head hang down into the palm of his right hand. "That Little Red…"
"So it is a he?" Pyrrha asks, a little worried she harmed Ruby and Alabast's relationship or offended him.
"What?" Alabast looks through his fingers before shaking his head and lifting his head back up. "No, I haven't thought of its gender before. Ruby is just… she has a lot of energy… too much energy. And I guess you guys really did forge your own weapons"
Pyrrha's mood lightens up and her blush goes away. "I think Ruby is a breath of fresh air, not many people are like her from my experience"
"She's definitely one of a kind" Alabast rolls his eyes, remembering the whiplash he gets talking to the girl. And how he gets caught up in her energy, he hasn't had something like that happen in this life or his past.
"We don't all forge our weapons" Pyrrha starts off, changing the topic since Alabast doesn't seem to like the topic of Ruby much. "Most use materials already manufactured to build their weapon. Only a select few actually forge their weapons from scratch, it's significantly more work and requires a LOT more training unrelated to combat which most people find useless"
Alabast watches as Pyrrha rocks her weight from one foot to the other. "And you're one of the few to forge your own?"
"Did you guess?" Pyrrha asks with a little surprise expertly hidden.
Alabast is able to pick up on her surprise. "More or less. I just figured 'someone as great as thou' would have forged their own weapon. And it seems to me that Akouo is one of a kind. Hard to say if I've seen a weapon that has 3 weapon transformations solely for offense"
It was a small amount of deducing on Alabast's side of things. He picked up on Pyrrha's tone when talking about those who build their weapon vs. forge their weapon. Then there's the uniqueness of her weapons. A few other minor reasons and that's how he figured Pyrrha forged her weapons.
Alabast has no plan to build or forge his own weapon in the future, it's simply too much work and consumes too much time. He'd rather spend his time training than trying to build a weapon when he already has one.
"Was it that obvious?" Pyrrha looks down at Akouo. "I had some help, but I was the one to forge my weapons. Ruby freaked out when I told her…"
She remembers using some of her connections that she got from winning the tournaments. Those connections helped her easily be able to forge her own weapon. They're 3 years old by now, forged after her first win.
"Shocker…" Alabast says under his breath.
Pyrrha watches Alabast's back as he walks forward, she got more conversation out of the guy than she thought she would.
——————
Alabast and Pyrrha reach the entrance of a cave.
"Think this is it?" Pyrrha asks.
Alabast looks into the cave for a second. He uses his semblance to search the cave. The cave is relatively linear for the most part, it doesn't get bigger nor does it snake through the mountain it's in. That is until he finds a gigantic opening.
He reaches over his shoulder and takes off the great sword blade from Nights Fall and transforms it into its rifle form, Dark Heart. He switches the rifle to fire dust and shoots into the cave.
"What are you doing?" Pyrrha asks, unsure of Alabast's plan.
Both Pyrrha and Alabast watch as the fire dust bullet flies through the cave and eventually hits something. The impact causes the fire dust to explode, and in the small explosion the pair see something not so friendly.
That's when they hear an ear piercing screach. This causes Alabast to fall to his knees since he had his hearing cranked up to 11, trying to detect any type of ambush. Let's say he is regretting his decision at the current moment.
The ground begins rumbling from the direction of the cave. At first it wasn't much, but after a few seconds it began to worsen.
Alabast, still holding his wolf ears, stands up. "Run!"
They start running through the forest as the sounds of something crashing through the tiny opening of the cave entrance roars throughout the surroundings. Debris even reaches them as they continue running away, signifying this thing is big and strong.
Alabast and Pyrrha turn and see a giant Grimm scorpion gaining on them.
Alabast frowns upon seeing the scorpion's size and it's bone-like armor. It's telson, the tips of its tail, glows a golden-yellow as it's pointed towards its prey's direction. It's pincers are the size of cars and they easily uproot the thick trees of the forest. This type of Grimm is called Death Stalker.
Pyrrha and Alabast don't say anything as they continue running through the forest. Alabast could easily get away, but he would be leaving Pyrrha to die… even if there are some safe-measures curtesy of Ozpin. Either way, he decides to just go at Pyrrha's speed. Luckily they are matching the speed of the Death Stalker.
——————
After minutes of running and not slowing down the duo make it to a clearing.
Unfortunately for them, so does the Death Stalker. To further their terrible luck, now the Death Stalker isn't slowed down by the trees or terrain and is able to catch up to them.
Pyrrha begins to expertly dodge the pincer that try to grab or smash her.
On the other hand, Alabast uses Nights Fall to defend himself without needing to dodge. He continues to run.
Off in the distance Pyrrha and Alabast can see what must be the temple over 600 feet away from them.
They can see a blond standing next to a girl with a bow on her head. And next to them is a guy with black hair and a strand of pink looking exhausted next to an eccentric orange-haired girl. Little Red is also there but she's looking up at the sky with a little worry for some reason.
"Get to the temple!" Alabast shouts to Pyrrha as he moves Nights Fall above his head, like a makeshift shield. Holding the weapon with his right hand he puts his left hand under the blade as he braces for impact.
*WHAAAAM!!!* *DMMPPPHHHH* *KRRR-BMMMMM!!*
Alabast's stance only lowers slightly upon the impact. The Death Stalker's giant left pincer tried to squash Alabast beneath its force and weight.
However, Alabast saw this coming from a mile away. Grimm are just mindless creatures for the most part. He braved himself and was able to withstand the blow, yet the ground couldn't say the same.
The ground beneath Alabast's feet almost instantly spiderwebs. Luckily it doesn't give-way. But it does complain when Alabast pushes upwards.
Nights Fall is used to force the pincer up into the air, causing the Death Stalker to stumble back a bit.
This isn't all Alabast does. He uses the momentum of Nights Fall and spins on his right foot with Nights Fall right behind him. When he sees the legs of the Death Stalker he jumps into the air and does another spin to build up more momentum.
The Death Stalker regains it's footing just in time to see Alabast with its many eyes. But it's not fast enough to react in time.
Alabast brings Nights Fall down hard onto the Death Stalker's left legs.
*SCHLK!!* *Thump* *Thump*
"Skreeeeee!!!!" The Death Stalker screams after losing its two front left legs. Now it is left with only two back legs on its left side to keep it up and maneuver with.
Alabast isn't sure if the scream is from pain or if it's from anger, but he doesn't care. He gave Pyrrha enough time to escape and he doesn't want to deal with this thing more than he has to.
It didn't take long for Alabast to catch up to Pyrrha, but he wasn't able to overtake the redhead.
As the get to the temple Pyrrha suddenly trips and falls to the ground. And Alabast isn't able to avoid her and also ends up tripping.
The 6'6" Faunus didn't have the luck to fall as graciously as Pyrrha and lands practically on his face.
This series of events ended at the feet of the others waiting at the temple. Each having their own reaction.
"Ow…" Alabast flatly groans out while giving Pyrrha a glare. The 'ow' was more of a statement than him actually expressing pain.
"Sorry~" Pyrrha apologizes as they both get to their feet. She doesn't know how or why she tripped over nothing. Maybe it was that she was paying too much attention to how fast Alabast caught up to her compared to how close she was to the temple….
As Alabast gets up he sees Ruby charge towards the Death Stalker… alone. He dusts himself off and folds his arms across his chest. He's seen her fight off goons, could she actually beat a weakened Death Stalker?
The answer is no, Ruby Rose cannot solo a barely weakened Death Stalker.
And Yang knew that all too well. She runs after her sister in hopes of being able to save her. But she moves too late to be of any help.
Ruby is taught why attacking a giant Death Stalker by herself is a bad idea. After realizing this, she bursts into rose petals to avoid a pincer threatening to smear her on the ground like a bug.
The girl then runs away from the Grimm at a fast speed, however, a ginormous Nevermore Grimm appears seemingly out of nowhere.
Alabast immediately takes the greatsword blade off his back and shifts it into Dark Heart and aims it towards the giant bird Grimm. The stock of the rifle rests against his right shoulder as he moves his left arm to aim the barrel at the ridiculously oversized bird.
The Nevermore effortlessly flings it's giant feathers at Ruby before getting pelted by Dark Heart's fire dust rounds. After getting pelted in the face by numerous fire bullets the Nevermore changes it's direction.
The feathers released by the Nevermore crash into the ground around Ruby and cause some dust and dirt to get flung into the air. And as it clears everyone can see that Ruby is fortunately unharmed. Unfortunately, one of the razor sharp feathers managed to catch onto Ruby's cloak, pinning it and Ruby to the ground.
Alabast puts Dark Heart back into place, much to the other's confusion. He may have deterred the Nevermore but the Death Stalker was still about to attack the girl. How can Alabast just watch and not do anything?
Yang isn't able to reach her sister in time, even after propelling herself through the air using her shotgun gauntlets. She extends her right hand out towards her sister in hopes that she will somehow be able to get there in time. "RUBY!!!"
The Death Stalker sends its telson, the tip of its tail, plummeting down towards Ruby. The tip gleams as the sun reflects off its insanely sharp tip just before it gets close to Ruby.
*FWOOOOSH!!!*
A white blur comes crashing down from the sky and lands next to Ruby. And as soon as the blur hits the ground a wall of ice forms, trapping the telson in its center and momentarily immobilizing the Death Stalker.
"You are SO childish…" Weiss Schnee complains next to Ruby.
Ruby opens her eyes slowly and sees the golden telson about a foot away, frozen in ice. She sees the white haired girl who is supposed to be her partner standing with her weapon stabbed into the ground with ice extending out from it. "Weiss?"
"… and dim-witted, and hyper active…" Weiss turns around, pointing at Ruby. "… and don't even get me started on your fighting style"
Ruby winces, knowing that Weiss is saying the harsh truth. And Ruby can't blame Weiss since she did leave her on the giant Nevermore… even if Ruby told her to jump and Weiss didn't.
"And I suppose I can be a bit…" Weiss glances to the side before looking back to her partner for this initiation. "…difficult… BUT if we're gonna do this, we're going to have to do this together. So if YOU quit trying to show off…"
Ruby is left speechless at Weiss' sudden change of heart and willingness to work together.
Weiss crosses her arms over her chest and continues. "… I'll be… nicer"
Ruby looks down upon realizing what Weiss has said. "I'm not trying to show off…. I want you to know I can do this"
"You're fine" Weiss says before walking towards the temple, already contemplating if she will regret this decision.
Ruby lowers her head, this time with a slight smile, and raises her clasped hands.
Before Ruby can talk to herself she gets tackled from behind by Yang.
Alabast rubs his forehead. "All's well that ends well…"
Pyrrha rubs the back of her hand with a faint smile. She's glad that at least nobody was hurt so far.
Alabast can hear the ice cracking and can see the Nevermore circling back around. "Enough dilly-dallying! Those Grimm won't just wait for us to catch up! Let's get what we came here for and leave!"
Ruby and Yang hear Alabast's shout and look around the wall of ice to see the Death Stalker struggling against the ice. They both look at each other and nod before running back to the temple, Weiss already inspecting the relics on pedestals on the temple.
Alabast exhales loudly before also going to inspect the relics. And he doesn't know whether to laugh or destroy the temple. The damn relics are black or gold chess pieces.
Pyrrha stays with the others at the steps of the temple, telling Alabast he can choose without actually talking to him.
This is something Alabast easily inferred. But he'd rather have Pyrrha decide, mostly so he wouldn't have to be next to Weiss.
Weiss takes her time and eventually narrows her choices down. Alabast just waits for Weiss to choose so he doesn't have to deal with her complaining he took the piece she was going to take.
Just before Weiss can make her final decision Ruby appears and grabs the Gold Knight piece causing the Heiress to glare angrily at her.
"Time to run!" Ruby shouts and points out towards the Grimm about to start chasing them.
The Death Stalker nearly frees itself from the ice and the Nevermore begins to fly towards their direction.
Alabast rolls his eyes and grabs a random piece.
"Eeeeeeeh!" A sudden screech sounds off from behind Alabast and he swears it could rival the Nevermore for most annoying sound.
An orange and pink blur appears next to him and begins bouncing. "We're matching!!!"
Alabast looks down at the orange haired girl who is holding a the Golden Rook piece in both hands. He looks down at his own hands and sees the same exact piece.
This causes Alabast to figure out that Ozpin thought super duper hard about how to form the teams.
"Nora!" The guy wearing green calls out, clearly exhausted with this girls' behavior.
Nora smiles and gives a smile to Ren as if she did nothing wrong, which technically she didn't do anything… this time.
"Time to move" Alabast flatly says before running after the others. Pyrrha waiting for Alabast, runs alongside him as they follow Ruby, Weiss, Yand, and Blake.
They run up a small hill and then overlook a vast expanse of ruins. But without much of an options, they decide to continue running to evade the Grimm catching up to them.
——————
After they get to the ruins the group splits up into groups of four. Nobody made the groups, it's just the way things went. The first group being Ruby, Weiss, Yang, and Blake. This leaves the second group with Alabast, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren.
They knew they needed to split up into two groups, and the groups were kinda formed before anybody said anything. Mostly because Ruby and Weiss were partners for initiation along with Yang and Blake.
That's not to say that Nora and Ren were forced to go with Pyrrha and Alabast. Nora is happy to go with Alabast because they grabbed the same Relic, and she liked Pyrrha's personality. Ren simply didn't care and certainly wouldn't complain about having a male companion for a change. Ren also wouldn't complain about having an excellent fighter such as Pyrrha on their team to take out the Nevermore or Death Stalker.
It's safe to say both groups formed naturally with little complaints. The very few complaints silently coming from Weiss and Alabast. But both quickly stopped mentally complaining in favor of focusing on not dying.
The first group goes right while the second group goes left.
Both teams will run in different directions in hopes of drawing one giant Grimm to fight separately. And if both Grimm targeted one group then the other group would decide which one to take the agro from.
And the second part of that plan didn't need to happen.
Group one drew the short straw and had the Nevermore chasing them from above while sending its giant feathers to rain down upon them.
This still wounded Death Stalker chases after group two. Nobody from group one complains because Alabast was the one to damage it in the first place.
Alabast watches as group one runs towards a tall tower connected by a bridge to the ruins. He sees Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha about to follow after them and shakes his head. "Through that alley! No point in getting cornered on a bridge when our opponent is this insect!"
The rest of group two don't need to think hard to understand what Alabast meant. And all four of them go through a narrow alley between a few ancient buildings.
The Death Stalker doesn't slow down for a second as it bulldozes the buildings like they're built from a deck of cards.
"So what's the plan?" Nora asks as she jumps over a collapsed wall blocking the alley.
Ren doesn't respond while he slides underneath the broken wall. When he clears it he gets back to his feet and continues running alongside Nora.
"Just keep running!" Alabast commands while he destroys the collapsed wall with Nights Fall.
As Alabast destroys the wall, the entire building begins to crumble at a slow pace. Pyrrha continues running behind Alabast and after the clear the building she turns around and throws her shield, Milo.
The shield flies through the air and collided with a main support of the collapsing building.
*Tang!*
Milo hits the support hard and rebounds back to Pyrrha's arm.
Nora grins as she grabs her weapon off her back and transforms it into its grenade launcher form.
*Fwoomp* *Fwoomp* *Fwoomp*
Three pink grenades are launched from Nora's weapon, each forming a pink heart before exploding on impact.
Ren can only shake his head at Nora's careless action of using grenades in a scenario like this. He flicks his wrists and his green pistols shoot from his sleeves and he catches them. He starts shooting critical points in the buildings structure.
The Death Stalker helps in taking out a portion of the building's stability but it's moving fast enough to avoid the building… that is until Alabast activated his semblance.
Dark tendrils form Alabast's right arm. He extends his arm and a multitude of tendrils shoot out to various parts of the building. Alabast clenches his fist and pulls with all his might.
Whatever was resisting gravity had been torn away in an instant. Now the entire building comes crashing down with the Death Stalker stuck beneath it.
"Woo-Hoo~!!!" Nora shouts with both arms over her head.
"Not the time to celebrate" Alabast says as he looks for a way to continue running.
The building didn't just fall in one direction, it also cut off part of their escape route by collapsing some adjacent buildings. Dumb luck saved them from ending up like the Death Stalker, even if Alabast specifically made the building fall in certain direction to avoid them.
"Huh?" Nora tilts her head, confident they had just defeated their opponent. Her grenade launcher, wielded in on hand, still pointed at the sky.
"That didn't kill it?" Ren speaks up for the first time in a while.
Pyrrha nods her head. "Only slowed it down-"
*SKREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!*
"-and pissed it off" Pyrrha finishes, turning around she sees some rubble shifting.
"Exactly" Alabast says while rubbing his right wrist.
"That should have weakened it a little bit, but we will need more room to fight properly" Pyrrha informs the rest of the group.
"What's the plan?" Ren asks, looking at Pyrrha and Alabast. He knows that Nora doesn't know what to do and that she would probably just try hitting it hard.
Pyrrha and Alabast look at each other before looking at the rubble.
*BA-BOOM!*
The Death Stalker throws off all the stone from the ruin building. It clicks its pincers menacingly and takes aim with its telson.
Alabast and Pyrrha look at each other and remember their first encounter with the Death Stalker.
"Might I suggest running?" Ren asks.
Alabast points towards their West. "That way!"
They have to avoid some obstacles but they hastily continue their 'tactical retreat' away from the Grimm scorpion.
They eventually come to a relatively open area. There are some fallen buildings and what must have been a fountain with some green vegetation growing here and there.
"It likely won't get better than this" Pyrrha states as she survey the area. She looks at Alabast. "Any ideas?"
*SKREEE!*
The Death Stalker destroys 2 buildings as it passes through them.
Alabast grabs Nights Fall from his back and holds it with both hands. "Fight to your strengths, stay aware of your surroundings, don't get in each other's way"
Ren nods. "Anything else?"
Nora transforms her grenade launcher into a war hammer that is nearly bigger than her. "Teamwork makes the dream work!"
Pyrrha nods as she shifts Akouo into a javelin and wields Milo, her shield, on her left arm. "Assisting one another will certainly help"
Ren looks over at Alabast to see if he has any other advice on how they can all work together.
Alabast can feel the gazes on him. He rolls his eyes "Don't die"
With that said, the Death Stalker began its attack.
Alabast took point and deflected an unstable attack from the Death Stalker. The loss of two legs clearly causing it trouble, yet it's adapting fast with Alabast having to deflect the other pincer which has more weight behind it.
Ren knows that he can't do much besides attack the eyes. His sickle-pistols aren't good for brute force, neither is he able to physically able to overpower his foes without overusing his aura. He jumps between two walls and gets up to the roofs of the surrounding buildings and begins taking potshots at the Death Stalkers eyes.
Nora sees that Alabast is going to be the distraction, so she runs to the side while the Death Stalker attacks Alabast and tries to avoid Ren's bullets from hitting it's eyes. She brings her war hammer to her side, letting the head stay behind her, and goes to the last left side of the annoyed and distracted Grimm.
*Boom*
Nora fires a round from her hammer to launcher her up into the air. She sees Ren across the clearing on some buildings and gives him a smile and a 'V' with her left hand. At the height of the average ruin building Nora begins to fall and she begins to spin. Her target: the remaining two legs of the Death Stalker.
Pyrrha jumps back, shifting Akouo into its rifle form. She covers for Ren while he gets up to the roofs. And once Ren takes over going after the eyes Pyrrha focuses on the four right legs of the Death Stalker.
The Death Stalker decides to just use it's left pincer to shield its eyes. Moving it too much would just send it off balance due to the loss of its two front left legs. So it focuses on attacking with its right pincer and waits for an opening to strike with its tail. It builds up its strength within its tail as a liquid drips from the tip of its telson.
As the droplet falls to the ground behind the Grimm, Alabast can tell this thing is smarter than it has the right to be. And it's weird that it is able to keep him on his toes while only using its right pincer. He can't sit still and just deflect, the pincer would just end up grabbing him. So while he moves around he makes sure to stay in front of the Grimm.
Alabast's eyes widen when he sees Nora up in the air. It's lucky the Grimm didn't notice, but the telson is about to shoot forward and Nora will be right in its path. "Nora!"
Pyrrha quickly shifts Akouo into its javelin form and throws it at the front leg of the Death Stalker. It pierces the middle joint and gets stuck after getting halfway through.
This causes the Death Stalker to thrust its telson forward as it goes berserk.
Pyrrha does a spin after throwing her javelin and sends Milo out.
Alabast sees the shield flying through the air and hopes this works. "Nora! Hit the shield!"
The orange haired girl quickly realizes the danger she is in, she could have easily accelerated her decent, but decides to follow Alabast's idea.
*Wham!* *Ptang~*
Nora brings her war hammer down onto the shield and fires a round. The impact and blast instantly sends the shield down into the top of the Death Stalkers head, cracking the bone-like armor. The momentum from the blast also sends Nora back up into the air.
After seeing Nora almost get hit by the telson Ren runs along the rooftops and jumps onto the tail. He unloads all the rounds in his pistols into the point where the telson and the tail are connected.
The Death Stalker roars and whips it's tail around, sending Ren crashing through a building after he lost his grip.
Seeing that Ren likely won't be returning to the battle and that Pyrrha has lost her weapons Alabast jumps back.
"Pyrrha!" Alabast shouts while he throws the greatsword blade towards her.
As the hunk of metal flies through the air it transforms into its rifle form, Dark Heart.
This leaves Alabast with Hollow Silence, the long katana.
Pyrrha had reached out towards her javelin with her right hand, but she heard Alabast call her name and saw something flying through the air towards her. She changes stops her semblance and catches the rifle just as it finishes transforming.
"Finish what Ren started!" Alabast commands while activating his Bestia Fangs on his wrists. They shift into their second form of knuckledusters and cover all his knuckles while he wields the katana with both hands.
As Alabast runs back to keep the agro of the Death Stalker Pyrrha lines up the shot on the telson that is barely hanging on. "Got it!"
Alabast changes his fighting style to a much more aggressive one. He dodges the left pincer and jumps over the right pincer. With this opening he throws Hollow Silence into the biggest right eye of the scorpion Grimm. There is a tendril of Darkness connecting the katana to Alabast's left hand, and Alabast forces the weapon to slash through the other eyes when he pulls it back.
The Death Stalker screams and forces it's tail to strike down on Alabast.
*Bang!*
A fire dust round hits the telson and tail. The small explosion causes the telson to be successfully severed and fall to the side, destroying some of the stone ground.
A pincer goes to grab Alabast, but he is able to land on top of it.
"Now Nora!" Alabast shouts as he uses his semblance to tie the pincers together.
The orange haired girl grins as she is falling through the air, this time from a significantly higher point. She fires an explosion to force herself back towards the enemy faster.
Alabast braces for the impact as Nora comes crashing down right onto Pyrrha's shield.
The impact not only sends the shield clean through the Death Stalkers head, but also causes the surrounding bone-like armor to crack.
It should be noted that the bone-like armor of most Grimm is stronger than almost all metal. It's just a shame that it disappears along with the Grimm's body after it is slain.
The Death Stalker slumps down. Nora does a front flip, still having some momentum from her fall and lands next to Pyrrha, landing on her butt and giggles tiredly.
Alabast stops using his semblance on the pincers and jumps towards the girls. He lands on his feet and stabs his blade into the ground. The blade sinks down until Alabast can rest his hands on its hilt at a non-awkward height.
After a few seconds Ren reappears, slowly staggering towards the group before falling forward beside Nora and groans. "Ughhh…"
After a few moments where veryone catches their breath, the four of them look towards where the tower used to stand and can see a very tall cliff beyond where it stood.
They can see the giant Nevermore is stuck close to the base of the cliff. They then see Ruby run up the mountain, decapitating the Nevermore once she reached the top.
With Alabast's better sight he could see glyphs going up the cliffside, a dead giveaway to a Schnee's assistance. And he can see Ruby do a flip before landing. He can even see her looking down the cliff at the ruins they basically just almost completely destroyed.
The Nevermore's body and head fall down to the chasm's depths, leaving behind a trail of black smoke signifying the Grimm is dead and dissipating. The Death Stalker corpse is also doing the same.
Alabast gives an approving nod. "Didnt think they had it in them to pull off something like that".
He even smiles a little, which Pyrrha takes notice of.
——————
After collecting their weapons they go to meet up with the other group.
Alabast was given Dark Heart back, Pyrrha grabbed her javelin and shield after the Death Stalker corpse turned to smoke and particles, and Ren had Nora help him search for his sickle-pistols which didn't take long to find.
The two groups meet up and make their way back to the cliff side since they successfully completed their objective of grabbing a relic and didn't die to the giant Grimm.
Ruby and Nora end up talking non-stop the entire way back. Ren and Alabast say very little, choosing to just listen and give brief answers to the others questions.
Both teams share how their fights went with Ruby and Nora being the main narrators. Weiss and Yang end up correcting Ruby and give their two-cents here and there. Ren has to correct Nora quite often since her imagination takes over in her recount of their fight.
Alabast takes notice of Blake's attitude change as soon as she saw him. He saw her smiling and laughing with her group, but after seeing him she seemed to withdraw herself like she was prepared to runaway or attack if he so much as looked at her the wrong way.
It was a bit awkward on the way back to the auditorium, but the majority of the group had a good time getting along and getting to know each other. Even Weiss could be seen with a smile, even if she didn't know she had one.
Now they had to sit through another speech and get their teams.