Jae was staring up at the towering Dragon Grimm that unfurled itself from it's coiled pile; "That's…That's a big ass Taijitu…."
"Kid…That's not a snake….That's something a lot worse…"
"Ignorant whelp, I am no mere Worm. I am the Sea Feilong!" The Grimm roared out to him and then spread it's wings to send a gust of air to knock him back a little; "I am the Monarch of the Storms…The Serpent of The Sea and the Ruler of the Deep!"
"You're a lot more eloquent than the others that I fought here in the Mountain, though I'm guessing that's because of more than just your size?" Jae mentioned as he summoned up Beleth and made it start to crackle with purplish black lightning; "But as good at talking as you are, I still need to go through you." He remarked with a smirk before strumming the guitar and made the electricity jab at it's face as the Feilong started to glide along the ground.
The Feilong slalomed along the ground in a serpentine pattern and generated updrafts with each flap of it's wings; Though it did welcome each blast of the lightning shot by Jae with no immediate issue. "Ignorant fool, you should realise that your inferior lightning does nothing to a Being of such sublime power!" The Grimm roared arrogantly as it charged up it's own blast of Lightning at Jae.
With a quick Air Hike through using his Trickster style; Jae changed out to Rubuttal to start hammering the Feilong in the head with a series of Ice Dust shots: While the ice quickly formed on it's body, it didn't take long for the Grimm to shake it off again.
"…-id….Kid! Do you —krscht— me?!" Lady yelled at him through the earpiece; "Feilongs are Storm Grimm! Lightning won't —-n them!" Lady yelled at him through the earpiece but due to Jae's distance away from them, his attention on the Feilong and all the high quality Dust caches were interfering with the signal.
"Sorry Nico…I'm gonna have to push it…." Jae mentally apologised as he slipped a Gravity Dust round into the chamber and started to charge it. Taking great care with evading and ducking under each new lightning burst that the Grimm shot at him.
"You are remarkably proficient at evading…Though this bodes poorly if all you can do against me is run, coward!" The Feilong taunted as it watched Jae running away but failed to notice the slowly building purple energy at the barrel of his gun until it finally cornered him against a wall.
Jae smirked as with a Quickdraw motion; He aimed the glowing barrel of his gun at the Feilong's main body and squeezed the trigger, hitting the Dragon Grimm with enough force to send something of it's size flying backwards.
The Sea Feilong flew backward and only stopped once it hit a stalagmite with its full force and broke under it. With it's anger building to it's peak; The Dragon roared out in pain and unfurled it's thin film-like wings and took to the sky; "You surprised me there, small one! Not many of your kind can hurt me like this…Not since the days of the Demon Hunters….Take pride in knowing that I will not hesitate anymore." The Grimm acknowledged him as it reared itself back and took to the upper canopy on it's wings to keep itself at range.
Jae growled as he then held his hand out but hesitated; "Crap…The big hitter I have at a range is Beleth but this overgrown garden snake is immune to the shocks…Looks like I'll have to try out something new…" He thought as he then focused himself and summoned up what looked to be a slender longbow; This particular bow was almost entirely black with red wrappings around the grip but the very tips of the upper and the lower limb were white and sharpened into what looked like a Nevermore's talons that seemed to connect both tips to each other by a silver thread. "Hm, lightweight…streamlined too, I could run with this." Jae smirked as he lifted the bow up to his chest and used his archery gloved hand to pull back the string; a large black feather that looked like it was plucked from a Nevermore appeared before straightening itself out into what looked like a large, white tipped black arrow.
"You have the gall to use my own kind's form against me?! I will make you burn with the lightning!" The Feilong roared before gathering up the yellow, crackling energy in it's mouth to blast Jae head on.
The creak of the bow could be heard as Jae held on; "First shot…Make it count!" He thought to himself before loosing the arrow towards the spot between the Grimm's eyes and watched it sail at breakneck speed.
The Sea Feilong began to charge itself higher and higher but quickly found it's wings riddled with holes in a blindingly fast instance; When the arrow was shot, it split itself off into smaller fragmented needles and perforated the splayed out wings of the Dragon Grimm to send it toppling to the ground. Flailing about in a roaring, screeching mess as the once noble and regal Dragon had it's pride and it's body riddled with holes. "YOU! I'll destroy you! I'll vaporise you with nothing more than my own two cla-!" The Feilong barely had a chance to finish as a second and much larger arrow that was roughly the size of a longsword pierced it straight down the middle from between it's eyes to the base of it's tail.
"Sorry about cutting your rant short, but it's time for this hunt to meet it's end." Jae remarked as he watched the Feilong slow down it's rabid charge towards him before nocking a third arrow; "GUNSLINGER!" He called out as the bow slowly expanded itself until it turned from a longbow into a Greatbow that stood as tall as he did and the arrow in his grasp became about as thick as a lamp post.
With the last of it's roaring silenced by an echoing sound of a string being released; the Sea Feilong collapsed to the ground in a smoking heap. Leaving only Jae and the gigantic reserves of the purest Dust laced ore that he ever saw and he gazed down the bow in his hands; "The Great Hunt….I think I'll call you Samael….Like the Black Huntsman….Fitting." Jae mused to himself as he took out the homing beacon that Nico left for him to plant on any of the ore veins that he found to be noteworthy. Though as he explored more of the cavern that the Feilong made it's home in, the more that things started to deviate.
What looked like a mine shaft lay in the deeper parts of the cave; With nothing else to do and where he fell had no footholds for him to climb back up, all he could do was go further in. "This place looks deserted…Then again with all the Grimm around, part of them being here could be that this is a collapsed mine?" Jae thought to himself before pulling out Rebuttal since he recalled Nico's warning. So far it looked like the worst possible scenario since he put it through two Charged Shots which she told him to keep it as a minimum.
"Too bad she forgot to take the Heavy Duty function on that hand cannon into account with issuing your Charge limits." The voice echoed in his head as Jae ducked under a collapsed wooden beam and watched as more and more parts of civilisation began popping up along the cracked path for him to awkwardly navigate.
"At this point I'm not sure if she'll be happy I survived a whole damn mountain of Grimm or mad that I trashed up the gun the moment I got it back…" Jae argued the fact as he stumbled a little; Considering that he started when it was in the late and he had been going at this for what felt like hours, he had started to feel the fatigue setting in and even moreso with the rapidfire changing of his current and new weapons.
At what looked like the end of the shaft was a pile of rubble blocking the exit; "Great, no way back up or out…Though I could bust through here no problem." Jae mused to himself as he picked up a small rock and threw it away from the pile; "But something like Grendel or Behemoth could make the cave in worse…Thankfully I've got something that I think should cover that." He grinned as he held out his hand our and summoned up a new weapon out of thin air.
——Meanwhile——
"But seriously though, how'd you find this place, Red? I went through a lot of effort to try and keep this place under wraps from not just you but your weirdo friends." Torchwick interrogated her as he glowered down; "And I know if you ended up here then either your teammates are here or that cringy Demon wannabe is."
"Jae's not here….And besides, what makes you think that he would be?" Ruby asked indignantly as a faint boom could be heard in the distance.
"Perry, you go check out whatever is doing all that…Kinda-BOOM!" Torchwick ordered but then got interrupted by a louder boom more nearby; "WHAT IS GOING ON OUT THERE?!" He yelled out before seeing a familiar band of girls running towards them with the addition of a green haired teacher and a small dog.
As Ruby began to detail everything that Torchwick had planned including the train full of robots and White Fang, the renowned thief had started to make tracks…quite literally, since the train sounded it's horn and announced that they were leaving immediately. "We have to hurry and stop the train!" She yelled out as the group started running after the train.
"It might be a cave but it sounds like they're leaving somewhere!" Yang pointed out as she debated Oobleck's claim that any tunnels down here would have either closed off naturally or were sealed off. "I don't suppose we can call for backup, can we?"
Oobleck sprinted along with them; "I highly doubt we can even if we want to, we're so far underground that it can't get a signal to people in civilisation…The best we can do is stop that train!"
"Yeah, I know…I just said that…."
——Meanwhile back with Jae——
The young man's thought process was broken by the sound of a train horn going off once he got through that pile of collapsed stone; All he could see around him were dilapidated building in old to severe disrepair along with the sounds of faint rumbling in the distance. After summoning Mezzalom in both hands, Jae hopped off of the ridge and used the two blades to swing between the buildings since climbing down would have taken more time. Though as he got to the bottom of the area he was in; he noticed the train zooming past and fighting going on, with caution to the wind and concerned that RWBY and the others were in over their heads. Jae started to rush after it after retracting his twin knives and summoning up Ripper to ride after it on his bike since it had already too fast for him to run after.
However while he rode through the tunnel and along the tracks; someone had been watching him and snapped a picture. "Look who's tagged along~"
Torchwick looked to his messages and growled; "Perry…Go grab Tiny and have him sat near the back…I want that weirdo squished into paste!" He growled as Perry ran off, "Honestly, between these animals and dealing with Red…I'll be lucky to earn money for this!"
The driver of the train looked over at him but the animosity still showed even behind their White Fang mask as they sped up.
"Oh uh…You're good, keep doing what you're doing." Torchwick sheepishly chuckled as he walked out towards the penultimate car, he wasn't going to make it easy for them to take him AND stop the train at once. "Now…Let's bring the party to the city."
——At the back of the train——
With the revelations that the train cars each held a bomb in them and being set on a timer; Oobleck and the others had to hurry but for Jae it was a different story altogether.
With each car that separated and exploded; it made it more unpredictable to navigate the track on two wheels, however whether it was adrenaline or Jae had a quicker sense of reaction time, he was swerving and evading the flying debris and even doing tricks off of the broken up car pieces. With a grin on his face and the train getting closer, Jae felt on top of the world to the point that his head was blaring a song heard on Ren's music playlist, though the weirder part was that the other voice sang along with him when he reached the peak and jumped off of a panel.
"Now you feel like num-ber one~! Shining bright for ev-ery-one~!"
"Living out your fan-tasy~! You're the bright-est star there's ev-er been~!"
With this high speed chase riding him hard and pumping his brain full of adrenaline; Jae leaped off of the bike and landed on the last car before hopping down the roof panel into the carriage where he saw Tiny. "Whoa…You really drank your milk." Jae remarked with a whistle.
Tiny was a hulking 8 foot monster of a White Fang Solder clad in some very heavy looking metal armour and with a giant mace in hand that looked like it saw a few fights. The weirdest part was the mask he wore; it was nothing like the Grimm mask that the White Fang normally wear and it looked more like a Goliath's face. The mask covered the entire top half of his head with some long tusks pointing out either side of his cheeks, though on closer inspection, they looked like they were actually sticking out of his face. "Hrn!"
"Not much of a talker? That works for me because I don't have the time to hang around so either walk away or I walk through you!" Jae warned him as he pointed Rebuttal at his head; While normally it would be intimidating to see a 50 calibre Hand Cannon pointed at someone, this particular gun saw better days since it was covered in more prominent burn marks and the firing hammer was out of place…Not that Tiny looked scared at him anyway.
Tiny instead swung the hammer over his head with a mighty roar and brought it down on where Jae was; Though he missed Jae using his nimble body to escape the immediate vicinity, the contact point between the Hammer and the car dented so hard that his hammer almost broke through the roof. "Squash tiny man!"
"Note to self; avoid getting hit by that!" Jae thought as he fired on Tiny with a salvo of shots but felt his concern grow when the bullets didn't even put a scratch on him or his armour; "Okay…That's new."
Tiny reeled his swinging arm up again and this time made for a horizontal arc as he tried to hit Jae with the force of a very angry wrecking ball.
Jae managed to roll backward and summoned up a Charge Shot with Samael to see if a powerful arrow could make a dent; With a quick twitch of his fingers, he aimed for the spot where his neck and his shoulder armour met.
The arrow sunk in but it did very little to harm Tiny, in fact all it did was anger him. "Pesky insect…Kill you for White Fang!"
"Seriously, what do they feed people in the White Fang?! Okay, if bullets and arrows don't work…Let's get creative and get that armour off with Nurgala!" Jae opted as he then retracted the bow and got space as he summoned up his next choice. Within the next moment; Jae was wielding on to a gnarled looking scythe before twirling it in his hand and poising it at Tiny.
Tiny growled as he slammed a giant fist to his chest out of defiance and readied his Mace for when Jae would next strike.
this particular scythe had a long curved black pole like it was made from the branch of a tree but it had red wrappings around where Jae wielded it, along with it was a long curved mantis like blade that resembled the bladed arm from a Cenitaur. The curious thing about this particular scythe was that where it connected the blade to the staff section itself was a bulbous green segment that seemed to pulse in colour. "Alright you overgrown tank, if I can't pierce that armour then I'm breaking it down." Jae remarked as he rushed forward.
With this threat and his singleminded thought on the mission; Tiny began swinging more in the hopes of trying to hit the smaller opponent, however the ever growing yells of frustration made it clear that any swing he made only rewarded him with hitting air and getting struck back.
Jae smirked as he enabled Swordmaster on the Scythe and watched the blade grow a green patterning along it from the tip toward the polearm, ducking under another swing from the mace.
Each slash on the heavy duty armour could barely make a nick on it, however this was starting to have a peculiar effect; Every scratch, no matter how small from the scythe started to slowly burn away at the metal plates where it scratched like cotton candy placed in water. "Well, look at that….Now we're back in business." Jae grinned as he reared the scythe back and readied to strike again but found himself frozen when he realised something.
Tiny wasn't just a Faunus in the White Fang; Once that chestplate melted away, it revealed a long trunk that swung between his two tusks and revealed who and what he was. He was a Recessive Demon with Goliath traits; Combining the sheer size and the pachyderm skin of the Elephant Grimm but also whatever his traits as a Faunus were to make what looked to be a double whammy of a literal pain train.
"This guy shrugs off bullets and it took potent Grimm acid just to wear away his armour…I'm gonna need to book it." Jae decided to go all in and summoned up Behemoth into it's small hammer mode. "Come on, ugly…Let's dance!" He yelled before rushing in towards the snorting giant.
"Crush…CRUSH!" Tiny yelled as he stampeded towards Jae with the mace raised high and his body glowing a bright red with his Aura flaring intensely.
Jae then pulled his other out from behind his back with a fully charged Rebuttal in Cannon Mode aimed right at his chest; The barrel of the gun glowing red with Fire Dust but unbeknownst to Jae, the silver on the gun was starting to crack under the pressure and as he pulled the trigger on the gun.
Jae's Rebuttal literally blew up in his face and sent the two flying in opposite directions with Tiny hitting the edge of the train with a solid thump and even dented his body into the roof. "Okay, I know that's your Semblance or something because what the hell?"
"Tiny Semblance Heavyweight, mean that you get crushed by next swing!" Tiny grunted as he got up out of the crater before resuming his glow to tether himself to the ground.
"Trust me, I'll be the one batting a thousand!" Jae retorted as he rushed forward and grew Behemoth into a Warhammer; swinging as hard as he could into Tiny's chest, knocking the weighed down Faunus off of his feet and flying into the crowd of Grimm that were chasing after the train. "Where'd they come fr….The explosions….I gotta move!" Jae pieced it all together and hopped into the innards of the train.
After running through an empty hall and opening up the door into the next car; What he wasn't ready for was to see a figure clad in red armour and a Grimm mask holding on to the longest red sword he ever saw standing over an unconscious Yang. "Alright buddy, I'm giving you one warning…" Jae scowled as he summoned Samael and drew the bow back threateningly; "Back away from her or I'll turn you into a pincushion!"
The figure turned to face him and almost seemed to gaze him up and down; "Put it down, kid…I'm not planning anything with her." An oddly feminine voice was heard as they placed a hand on their hip.
"Yeah, unconscious girl at your feet with your sword drawn really spells out "Good intentions"…Now back away." Jae snarked with another warning glare as he aimed at the white mask.
"Roll it back…Besides, I stopped someone from doing the deed myself." The figure explained as she sheathed her sword. "But I know more than you think since I started watching you…You're the boy that Yang seems to be hanging around with….So I really don't want to ruin that handsome face for her when she wakes up~" She mentioned off handedly and tilted her head.
"You know me…More importantly how exactly do you know her?" Jae asked as he lowered the bow a little, willing to hear this person out but he wasn't trusting them at all; "And what exactly do you mean by watching?"
The figure chuckled before removing their helmet and showing off what they really looked like; "Simple, I just like to keep an eye on the people that my daughter takes an interest in so they don't try anything funny."
Jae blinked and almost had to do a double take; Aside from the hair and her eyes, this woman looked like a much older spitting image of Yang. "You're…Yang's mom, aren't you?" He said calmly as he kept his distance from her; After the whole thing at the docks, Yang began to open up to Jae about most things such as her and Ruby being half sisters and her plans to go try and find her mom after she graduates.
"The name's Raven Branwen and I can assure you that I'm not here for small talk." She admitted bluntly and glanced down at Yang; "Like you said, she got knocked in a bad way so I stepped in before it got worse…Though you running into her here is actually beneficial, I'd like to talk to you about something that might pique your interests~"
Jae raised an eyebrow but kept his focus as he retracted his bow; "So what do you want exactly?" He asked her and went to go lift Yang up in his arms and take her somewhere that wasn't a hard metal floor; Though the only thing he could find was a pile of crates.
"I'd like to extend an olive branch to you." Raven explained as she watched him being careful with her estranged daughter. "I know about your little secret and you're looking for answers….But I could also use someone like you on my team."
"A Team? I'm still in training and I already have a team on my own, why would I run off with a literal stranger?" Jae pointed out as he sat by Yang's head.
"Not so much a team as my tribe…You see, I know what you're looking for and joining up with me can assure you that I can offer you all the answers and freedom that you could want…Much more than what Ozpin can offer you in any case."
"Thanks but no thanks, I've already met with Demons and I'm not really in the market to switch where I live, let alone changing teams." Jae refused as he kept his eye on her; "Plus the things I heard about you doesn't exactly inspire loyalty."
Raven smirked; "Is that right, well how about I offer you my full proposal? Demons are uncommon but a man with potential like your's is a very….Very rare breed indeed. In this world where the weak die and the strong live; You have the potential to match most Huntsmen and even seasoned Demons like that Blonde woman who took you under her wing…" Raven said as she walked closer towards him and rested a finger on his chest. "With me on the other hand, I could show you something even greater and make you stronger than anyone can ever hope to be."
Jae nudged her finger away from him with an unamused look; "Look lady…I've already got prior engagements and while I admit it is flattering that you see me with potential, it's not going to be enough to make me want to abandon everyone around me."
"Prior engagements~? You mean like my daughter, her teammates and your's…I've been watching you and I've seen the way you look at them; A little greedy of you, I must admit…But considering what my team's….Arrangement was, I'd be a hypocrite to judge you~" Raven smirked; "Honestly, I thought Tai would have been the only one who could sway a whole team into bed with him…Turns out even I could be wrong~"
"What I do isn't your business...Plus I'm not exactly in a good mood to take relationship advice from a mother who leaves her daughter behind." Jae stated bluntly as he now had more of a stinkeye towards her than before.
"Then how about this? As I said before; Demons as strong as you are a rare breed so if you join up with my tribe, I can offer you a place there with high esteem and I could even give you free reign to choose who you...repopulate Remnant with…Though with your looks and strength, I highly doubt you'll need much convincing to get them on board….Plus I'm sure if you ask me nicely, I could even offer to take you too~" She purred with a sultry smirk and stroked her hand on his cheek with the subtlety of a bulldozer.
Once Jae realised what she meant, he smacked her hand away and backed from her; "You…I thought that you were done saying crazy things but you took the loony cake!" He yelled in exasperation; "I am NOT going to turn away from everyone at Beacon…INCLUDING YANG! Just to join your group of seedy bandits with a wink and some fake promise of becoming a breeding bull!" Jae yelled at her as this really got under his skin.
"I'm not lying, many in my tribe practically worship strength and if you were to show up and demonstrate what you can do, I can promise you that you'll be having a different woman…or man, every night when you're on my side….Or if you'd prefer….I can always take over and give you wisdom and guidance in the way only a mother can~" Raven further pushed her insistence, though she was rather surprised that someone like Jae would turn down the offer of a harem like that.
"I've already had one mother disappear on me so with all due respect…I don't want someone like you trying to fill in…" Jae seethed with a visible look of anger and his knuckles slowly turning white.
"Well then….I could always give you answers in that case." Raven smirked as she decided to reveal her ace in the hole for him as the anger quickly receded for Jae.
"What…What do you mean by that?" Jae asked her with a sense of confusion as his body cooled down.
"I can tell you where you can find your mother…And how to get to her."