Chapter 13

"What the fuck is that thing?!" Raven screamed,

"I have no fucking idea!" Ruby screamed back, as they sprinted through the woods. "Just keep running!"

She turned to look over her shoulder. She gasped, her eyes tearing up and her throat convulsing. It was just teeth. Forty-five feet around of teeth. Nothing but mouth, with rows and rows of body-length teeth and it was coming towards them like a locomotive. She had to stop looking, as it was starting to get closer. Taiyang was just steps ahead of them, holding Little Cindy in his brawny arms with her eyes covered as he too was booking it as fast as humanly possible. The only one of them brave enough at the moment to face the thing was Qrow, who had his sword bent over at the hilt and was taking pot shots with the low-power dust rounds stored within.

Even with enhanced speed, she could only run so fast, and with the speed the thing was bearing down on them, she'd leave her comrades behind. And that was inexcusable and unforgivable.

"Tai, give me Cindy!" she yelled, making him turn. "I can get her to safety!"

"Right!"

"You three focus on drawing it's attention away from me!"

The hand-off was difficult, as it was to be expected when giving and receiving a small child while also running away from a giant something at full speed, through a forest covered with roots and fallen trees.

"Forget the guns! Semblances and regular weapons!"

"Got it!" Qrow and Raven shouted in unison, their rifles clattering to the ground, to be quickly engulfed by the turgid wave of dirt that it was throwing up in front of its maw. Raven stripped off her jacket as well, letting her arms free.

"I'll be back in a second!"

She turned, holding Cindy securely under her bum and behind her head. She'd never tried using her semblance while holding on to another person except for one time with Weiss, and that had ended with her accidentally letting go and punting her into a pillar on the Beacon grounds, completely depleting her aura in one hit. But that's what happens when you get tossed into a wall at close to the speed of sound. There was no room for mistakes this time, however. This time it would have to be perfect.

Every time she used her semblance it hurt. Moving through the air at such a speed hurt, just from the wind buffeting alone. But the pain in her muscles was intense. Mind rupturing intense pain. Moving her legs so fast that she could literally scale vertical walls and effectively float through the air was literally tearing the muscles from the tendons and it hurt. The furthest she'd ever run using her semblance was no more than the length around a running track, but that seemed like it wouldn't be enough. She'd have to way over extend herself. But she had to try.

She broke off, and hit the semblance, curling herself forward over Cindy and hugging her tight. Pain ripped through her body as she started to demand speed from her body. The pain of each footfall soared up her legs from her feet, searing through her aura as it desperately tried to repair the damage she was causing to herself. But none of that mattered, as the sound of the thing was getting quieter and quieter behind her.

There was a pop. Then all the sound when away, including the sound of her own heart beating. Her eyes were watering so badly that she couldn't see. This was far enough.

She let up, ceasing her run. She had to turn around and let herself fall backwards onto the ground. The problem with stopping quickly while holding something in her arms was that the momentum of her own body may have stopped, but the fifty-five pound weight in her arms hadn't. So she caught Cindy as she fell, and they slid through the dirt for a second, her cape's buckle snapping open and falling off her neck as she did. The soft moss caught them and chafed quite a lot of the back of her dress off and frayed the material. They thumped to a stop against a large rock.

"Cindy, honey, are you alright?" she quickly lifted the girl off her chest and wiped the tears out of her reddened eyes.

"Uh-huh-" she sputtered. The pain in her little voice was only from the force of the wind on her face, her cheeks pink and bruised from some loose foliage that must have hit her.

Ruby sat up and stood Cindy up, brushing her off and trying to control her breathing. The poor child was covered in sticks and leaves, no doubt from all the dirt she'd just kicked up. The roaring of the thing off in the distance made them both shiver.

"Honey, I need you to stay here, can you do that for me?"

Cindy sniffled. "Uh huh."

"You'll be safe right here, if you need me you can scream and I'll come running, okay?"

"Okay."

Ruby got onto her knees, and reached for the holster on her hip. With a pop of the button snap, she pulled the nickel-plated 1911 out and racked the slide, chambering one of the big forty-five rounds with a metallic ringing. She spun it around in her hands and pointed the grip in Little Cindy's direction.

"Here, take this," she shuddered. "Do you know how to use one of these?"

"Uncle Oscar said guns are unsafe for little girls…"

"It's perfectly safe, darling. If you find yourself in danger, just point this end at whatever is hurting you and pull the trigger." she tapped the front sight of the gun, wrapping both of the little girl's hands around the big grip. She knew she didn't have time to properly explain gun safety to Cindy, that this would have to suffice. "Just never point it at yourself, and don't point it at any people, okay? Can you do this?"

She was crying, but gripping the gun quite securely and nodding. Ruby shook her head, regretting waking up in the morning, and pulled Little Cindy's head towards herself and smooched her on the top of her hair.

"Stay here, and keep out of sight. I'll be right back, I promise."

"Okay, Auntie Summer."

She didn't want to leave the child alone in a Grimm-infested forest. She really didn't. But if she didn't get back to her friends, they'd probably die. And that was also not okay to her. The rock and hard place she was stuck between felt significantly bigger and heavier than she'd experienced thus far. But she had to get back to the group. Cindy would be alright.

She turned and took off again, blistering her way back through the foliage and brush, towards the yelling and roaring from her comrades and the thing. She pulled her axe off her back and popped the cylinder open, forcing the dust cartridges out and into her belt, filling them instead with the remaining seven-nine-two rifle rounds from her belt. She flicked her wrist and shut the cylinder, locking it into place. The incredibly short twelve-inch smooth bore barrel would mean she'd have to get really close to her target as she effectively had no range whatsoever. But they'd be significantly more effective than her usual explosive dust rounds.

At this point, she'd made it back to her team, who were standing in a clearing, panting from the exertion.

"Where'd it go?!"

Raven pointed downward, using her katana to hold herself up.

"Back under. Just a moment ago."

Ruby blinked. "Back under?!"

"Uh huh." Tai wheezed, pulling his hammer off his back and thumping it into the ground.

Ruby looked down, acutely aware of the vibrations coming back up through the soil.

"High ground! Now!"

It wasn't a moment too late, either. She spun on spot, grabbing Taiyang by the wrist and fired up the closest tree, a solid redwood with plenty of overhanging branches. Qrow and Raven had done the same, their much limberer legs propelling them up the opposite tree, but not nearly as quickly.

Then it burst from the ground again, ripping all the ground to pieces and shattering the roots of the trees that were circling the clearing, nearly knocking them out of their roosts.

"Shit!"

The giant maw of death screamed up at them, the full wind of the foul breath hitting her and making her want to throw up again.

"Fire!" she scream, aiming her axe down at the teeth and squeezing the heavy trigger.

Qrow started a barrage from his side of the clearing, unloading a full magazine of fiery dust rounds into the open and horrific-smelling mouth, ricocheting off the massive teeth. Tai and Raven unloaded their 1911s as fast as they could, but even the heavy forty-fives had such a minimal effect on the tonnes and tonnes of enamel and ivory, pulsating with each roar and guttural moan. Even the armour-piercing seven-nine-two's had no effect, barely chipping them.

"What the hell do we do?!" Tai screamed over the roar of the mouth.

"I don't even know what that thing is!"

"It's some kind of giant snake!"

"Fuck!"

Her heart was pounding almost out of her chest. They were pretty trapped. But it did give her time to formulate a plan.

The beast was clearly some kind of Grimm, as the outside of its disgusting mouth was ringed in thick, white armour plating. She couldn't see any eyes, but she was fairly certain that they were red and glowing. The mouth and seventy feet of 'body' sticking out of the ground writhed in screaming violence, slamming itself into the trees that imprisoned it, trying to shake them down into its giant ugly teeth. It took every ounce of effort to tear her vision away from the black hole of throat that was trying to suck them in and actually look around and observe her surroundings. Off in the distance was a big open field, where the forest ended and the countryside began. That would make fighting such a large creature both easier and more difficult, as the open land would allow them to spread out and attack from more angles, but it also would allow this burrowing behemoth to ambush them from below.

"If we can make it to that field, we can get it out into the open!"

"How's that supposed to fuckin' help?!" Qrow demanded from his tree.

"Look, you can either trust me, or jump in there!" she fired back while pointing to the swirling pool of teeth, her face ablaze. How dare he question her while they were standing in the position they'd found themselves in.

He shrugged, his sword folding back into the upright position. "Alright."

"Wait, Qro-!"

He jumped off his tree. All the blood drained from her face as she watched him fall away and towards the teeth. There was nothing she could do to stop him. Yes, she could have jumped for him and probably caught him mid-air, but then they'd both land in those massive person-sized teeth. Raven screamed as she watched her brother land on one of them, feet side down.

With a flourish, he dug his sword into the flesh of the Grimm's mouth, right between the tooth and the gum. He jumped sideways, out of the beast's mouth using his blade as a hand-hold. With a colossal pop, the tooth came out of the jaw, falling into and down the deep, sucking throat as he fell out of the mouth and down to the ground again, sliding sideways along the beast's 'neck'.

The monster screamed, whining a high-pitched awful sound as acrid black blood started to pour from the open wound in an intense fountain into its own mouth. It started to thrash quite violently, slamming into the surrounding trees, knocking the shorter ones clean out of the ground for a few agonizing moments as they desperately tried to hold onto the trees they were in. It was a struggle, to be honest.

It stopped struggling, its massive mouth going quiet for a second as the entire forest went silent. She realized at this moment that her ears were ringing from the reverberation of the beast's calling. It's giant maw hinged at four places as it closed very slowly, all of the rows of teeth retracting into the back of its throat as its 'lips' came together in four places as it started to retract into the ground. Its eyes were what caught her the most by surprise. All hundred of them, completely surrounding the mouth in a full circle, glowing a deep, menacing red.

On impulse, she raised her axe and fired, landing a solid shot into one of the hundred eyes. The beast winced, but didn't retract any faster, making only a slow, low rumble from somewhere in its throat. Unfortunately, Qrow caught on to this method far too quickly, and tossed his sword tip first at one of the larger eyes that had come down to his level. That got its attention. The mouth opened again, the same guttural moan pierced out, shocking her to her core. The beast flexed, turning in Qrow's direction and ripping through the ground in his direction.

"Oh, fuck!" he yelled, turning and sprinting off, in the direction of the open field. "Oh shit, oh fuck!"

The monster lifted itself out of the hole again, slowly at first, then picking up speed as more and more of its body becoming visible. It fell sideways in the direction of Qrow, biting into the ground behind him and beginning chase. Ruby quickly dove her hand into the pocket on the side of her dress for her phone, pulling it open and slamming her fingers into the screen and pulling up her contacts. She spun through until she landed on one name in particular. Her Grimm Studies TA. The line rang for a moment.

"Summer! How's the hunt?" came the innocent voice.

"Peter! Look at this!" she yelled, pointing her phone at the large moving mass of body, turning on the camera. "What the fuck is this thing?!"

There was a pause. The monster deafened them again with a scream.

"What the fuck is that thing?!"

"That's what I'm asking!" she yelled back. "Taiyang, go after them!"

"Right!" he lit his hammer, and dropped out of the tree, running alongside the huge moving thing.

"Is that a giant worm?!"

"How the fuck should I know, you're the Grimm expert!"

"I've never seen something like that before, you need to evacuate, right fucking now!"

Never before had she heard a teacher swear so often or so prolifically. It was kind of frightening that this Grimm was instilling such a visceral response from someone she'd seen petting a chained-up Beowolf in class. This was a man with no fear, and here he was. Fearful.

"We can't just leave this thing in the forest, Peter!"

"We can call the army! Just get yourselves and Cinder out of there, NOW!"

"But-"

"NO! Right now! I'm on my way with the Bullhead. meet me in the field just north of your position! Five minutes!"

"Uh… That's where the Grimm's going, too…"

He yelled something nondescript and hung up. She put her phone back into her pocket and fired the remaining rounds into the body of the Grimm as it pulled itself out of the hold, the armour barely cracking under even the real-steel gunpowder cartridges that would normally cut through solid concrete. This wasn't a Grimm they could beat. Not with the tools they had. Even the ludicrously sharp blade on her axe would probably be ineffective against the weathered and leathery skin that interposed the heavy, thick armour.

"What do we do?!" Raven yelled from her tree.

"I have no idea!" she yelled back. "Survive for five minutes, then hopefully get the fuck out of here!"

"Survive?!"

She shrugged. "That's all I've got so far!"

"Fucking shit!"

The end of the massive Grimm's body finally came out of the ground, ending in a long, tapered and pointed tail covered in eight foot long spikes that ran up along the seams of its body.

"C'mon! We've got to keep them alive for a little bit longer!"

"Fuck, man!"

They both jumped from their trees, dashing into the crevice carved out by the huge Grimm's movement over the ground and following along behind its violently swinging tail. They had to dodge the falling trees and branches that it knocked down in its quest to hunt down Qrow. The smell on singed flesh from Tai's burning hammer was a lot grosser than she was expecting, and it burned through her nose and into her eyes, making it hard to run after the substantially fast behemoth.

"We can't hurt it!" Ruby yelled, emptying the rest of her rounds into the tail, barely making a dent in the thick armour plating. She popped the cylinder out on her weapon and cycled out the spent casings, filling it back up with the fire dust rounds in her drop pouch. Two longs plumes of flame spat out from the end of her axe, licking around the base of the beast's spiky tail. "It heals faster than we can damage it with what we have!"

"It must have some kind of weakness!"

"Well, I assume in its mouth, but I'm not going anywhere near that fuckin' thing!"

"Fair point!"

"Yeah, I- Look out!"

Out of nowhere, the tail of the worm started to spew thick, black pools of liquid with the consistency of tar at them, making them both duck and roll as the foul-smelling goop flew over their heads.

"What the hell is that?!"

"Grimm juice!"

"What?!"

Two more trails of goo spewed out, landing between them and the tail with two plumes of acrid smoke as well. Two giant Beowulves spawned almost instantly, exactly in the path they were running. Ruby's heart stopped, but she had no time to gasp or react with any kind of sense since she was bearing down so fast. She moved on instinct, raising her axe above her head and swiped down, catching the beast's face right between its ears, splitting the head cleanly in two. Blood splattered into her face and into her mouth, absolutely drenching her as she basically ran through a downpour of gore. She caught herself staring at her partner, who had also run her blade through her target, bursting through the wash of blood almost in slow motion, her face gorgeously soaked in the black oily blood. Even covered in a Grimm's entrails, Ruby had to admit that Raven was beautiful.

"Three more!" Raven yelled, dragging her back to reality.

"Right!"

A Beowulf, a Beringel, and fat Boarbatusk spawned from the pools ahead of them, screaming their bellowing roars to the sky as their existences started. Ruby was quick to remedy them, putting her axe into the side of the Boarbatusk's head so hard she nearly dislocated her shoulder. The beast's roar ended halfway out of its mouth as its skull shattered into its brain in a thousand tiny pieces. With a twist of her wrist, the blade came free with a spurt of blood and cerebrospinal fluid as she brought the handle back into her grip. Raven did her best Samurai of The North impression, cleaving the head of the Beowulf off in one fell swoop with a deft dive. It was a little heart-wrenching to head the roar of the animal start and then cut off suddenly, after only existing for a few seconds.

"Shoulder!" Ruby shouted.

"Go!" Raven shouted back.

With a jump, she planted her left foot onto Raven's right shoulder, and used it as a mobile springboard to gain some substantial height. Necessary when the Grimm Beringel stood a full eleven feet tall at the shoulders, its big ugly head extending it up to thirteen feet. This was the first time Ruby had seen a Beringel without any battle scars on its face, as they were notoriously territorial and typically had missing eyes and teeth. Not that it would matter for very much longer. She roared back at it, spittle and saliva flying into her face as its jaw unhinged. With a mighty swing downwards, she caught the beast on the far side of its neck and cleaved down and across. The fanatically sharp blade on her axe dug easily through the flesh and thick neck muscles, coming out of the torso underneath the beast's right armpit. Its windpipe filled quickly with blood and gurgled the bellow to silence, its head and entire right arm falling away as she tumbled to the ground and rolled back onto her feet.

"Ho! Nice shot, Mere!"

"This thing is so much better than my last weapon, holy fuck!"

"Don't count your blessings just yet!"

And another pyre of the black liquid Grimm spurt out in their direction. Unfortunately, this one started to solidify above the ground, forming into the large, snake-like head of the fearsome Taijitu. Or, one of the heads. Since it was still covered in the black goo, they couldn't tell if it was the black end or the white end, but it didn't matter. The snake mouth opened, gigantic fangs descending from the top of its mouth and glimmering in the light, dripping with venom. Ruby yelled at the top of her lungs, holding her blade sideways and sprinting straight at the open mouth of the massive snake. Raven took up residence at her side, her katana at the ready, screaming just the same.

"Split!" she yelled at the last second. They separated, slamming their blades into the corners of the snake's mouth, digging into the flesh and dashing down its flanks, pulling them through the body and bisecting it top to bottom.

The snake hiss-screamed in agony as they reached its lungs, pulling out and avoiding the spray from the thirty-foot long slices in each side of the body. It died before it it had even finished starting to exist, slumping to the ground and sliding away behind them.

"That's so disgusting!"

"They live and they die, Rae! Sometimes that's just how it happens!"

"I hate this!"

"Yeah, but you're good at it! Hold on tight!"

"Wait, what?!"

Ruby tucked her axe back around to its latch on her back, and reached out for Raven. She placed a hand on her back and one around her left bicep, making sure she had a good hold. With a huff, she sped up her sprinting in an instant, easily doubling their speed. She was almost completely out of steam, but they were almost caught up to the back of the giant worm. Only a few feet further.

"Summer! Slow down!"

"Grab on to the tail!"

"Aaaahhh!"

With a final push, she shoved Raven up and onto the end of the giant worm, making sure she had a good enough grip on one of huge protruding spikes. Her foot caught on something on the ground mid-step, and she almost tumbled forward onto her face at fifty kilometres an hour. Her hand was caught by Raven, who dragged her up and onto the tail with her.

"Thanks!"

"Don't worry about it!" she panted, wiping off her brow. "Now what?!"

"C'mon!"

Within a matter of moments, they'd ran up the length of the massive Grimm to the spot just behind its ring of eyes. As it turned out, running on the top of a moving Grimm was substantially harder than running along the top of a moving train. There was no solid place to put their feet, as everything was moving and pulsating armour plating and big ugly spikes.

"Gimme your sword!" Ruby yelled, putting out her hand.

Raven gave her a look, but pulled it out and handed her the katana handle-first. Ruby spun it in her fingers and held it up above her head with the blade pointing downward.

"What are you planning?!"

"Something really stupid! Hold on to something, and tightly!"

Ruby plunged the sword down and into one of the Grimm's huge eyes, sinking it down almost to the hilt. The beast bellowed with all its might, shaking violently as its eyelids tried to close around the eviscerated eye. Down in front of the giant sucking mouth, Qrow was still sprinting away at full tilt, not looking even remotely out of breath. To be fair to them, he wasn't fighting Grimm that were flying at him and running through the crevice being carved out of the ground. Somehow, the giant worm had lost interest in Qrow and was straying off the path behind him. Ruby twisted the sword in its eye hard to the right.

"Whoa!"

The worm immediately veered off. To the right side. She twisted back to the left. The worm veered left.

"Holy shit!"

"Are you controlling it?!"

"Haa!"

She gave it another twist to the left, steering the huge Grimm out of the forest through a line of massive trees, which buckled out of the way like they were twigs. Miles and miles of open farmland spread out in front of her and her new mount. They cut through the yellow plumes of wheat, tossing up huge clouds of dust and wheat seeds like a boat might cut through the surf.

"Where are we going?!"

Ruby had to shield her eyes from the onslaught of wheat seeds. "I don't know, hopefully over a cliff or something!"

"We're still aboard!"

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll be fine!"

"Summer, look!"

She glanced over her shoulder. Her heart skipped, seeing literally the last thing she'd have expected to see.

"Finally!"

Soaring over the field behind them, glowing in the daylight, was the Bullhead that had dropped them off in the morning with a very frightened Peter behind the controls. She watched the weapon hatches under the cockpit open and drop out the two huge .50 calibre machine guns.

"Time to bail!" Ruby yelled, yanking the katana out of the worm's eye. She turned and lept, her hand crushed down on Raven's wrist, off the top of the worm and down and to the ground. The forty-foot fall was a lot further now that she was falling, but all of her screaming thoughts in her head were silenced quickly by the ripping sound of the Bullhead's machine guns lighting off and filling the worm with tonnes of hot lead.

Raven yelped in pain as they hit the ground, landing directly on her ankle and rolling onto her side. Ruby had barely gotten them out of the motive path of the gigantic beast, landing awkwardly on her shoulder, feeling the violent impact directly punching through her body as she slid through the muddy field. The Worm continued on, getting absolutely riddle with bullets, spilling its blood out of each hole.

"Fuck!" Raven cried, grabbing at her food. "My fucking ankle!"

"You okay?!"

"No! I think I broke it!"

"Shit!" Ruby dove to her side, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. "Fuck, just your luck."

"Fucking Qrow."

"Hey, don't drag your brother into this, Raven. We need to get you to safe-"

She was cut off by the sky filling with a black ominous presence. She looked up to the sky, gasping as a massive Nevermore sprouted from the pools of oily blood the Worm was leaving behind. It caw'd a mighty roar to the sky, making them both wince.

"Oh you've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"I hate this! I want to go home!" Raven cried, grabbing her by the collar and pulling her face to hers. "Why did we agree to this?!"

"This was supposed to be a simple supply run to a radio tower, Rae! If I knew this was gonna happen, I'd have said no! Wait, where's it going, we're right h-" she paused, her face turning white as she traced its flight path. "CINDER!"

The massive bird flapped its big ugly wings, floating through the air towards the place she'd left the little girl. Ruby stood up and exploded forward, back towards the forest and Little Cindy, hoping desperately she had enough aura left to make it there before the huge bird. This was the point that she realized that there was an entire army of Grimm between her and the forest, all having spawned from the pools of blood left behind by the Worm. This was bad. She could feel it in her stomach, in her head, in her lungs.

"NO!"

Her eyes ignited before she could react, absolutely blinding her as she cranked forward, swinging her axe wildly, doing double duty decapitating living Grimm and smashing solidified Grimm statues in her path as she made a beeline for the woods. Nothing in the entire world was going to stop her, not even air itself as she once again burst through the sound barrier with a resonating pop, blowing out her eardrums and making her tear up. Her face burned as she drove her body through the Grimm in her way, vaporizing all of the solidified Beowulves and Creeps that stood before her.

As she smashed through the line of trees again, the forest became a blur around her. A green and brown smelly blur. Everything from pollen to aerosolized Grimm blood forced its way up her nose and into her lungs, making her already aching chest ten times worse. It was a good thing she carried an axe as a weapon, since she wouldn't have been able to get through the fallen tree that approached her at eight-hundred miles an hour with a scythe or anything not resembling the woodsman's axe she was swinging wildly before her.

"Cindy!"

She finally ran out of aura mere feet from the clearing she'd left the poor girl in, slowing down and tripping over herself and sliding through the mud again. When she lifted her head up, she screamed. The spot against the rock she'd left Little Cindy in was empty, save for a shiny handygun, its slide locked back and a pile of spent casings next to it. Her heart skipped as she searched around for the missing child. There was, however, a large and ever growing congregation of Grimm about twenty feet to her right, surrounding a fallen log. They were scratching at it and bellowing deeply, trying to get inside.

"Auntie Summer! Help!" came a distant and terrified scream.

"AAAARRGH!"

The red mist descended. Through the legs of the Grimm she could see a sheet of quivering white underneath the felled log. Her cape, and a scared little girl hiding beneath it. She tried desperately to light her eyes again, but they wouldn't go. Her aura had been expended in the sprint over, as double-teaming both her semblance and her power had completely drained her of ability. All that was left was her body. And her muscles. With a crick of her neck she sprung forward.

"Move!" She demanded, landing just behind the circle of Grimm and a particularly large Beowulf. "Before I make you!"

She slammed her blade into the animal's side and yanked backwards, ripping its stomach open and pulling quite a considerable length of large intestine out with it. The beast crumpled, howling as it fell, before being silenced with a pointed slash into the back of its neck. She grabbed the next one by its tail, pulling it backwards as it yelped in pain. It fell to its back, exposing its sensitive and fleshy throat. Once again, the axe made short work of severing the beast's trachea and snapping the neck, letting it bleed out into itself. None of the Grimm even noticed her approaching, let alone murdering their comrades.

She screamed again at their hairy and armoured backs.

A Boarbatusk was the next in line. She grabbed one of its curled tusks and yanked its face away from the felled tree, hard enough that she heard bone crack. With a kick to its jaw, the tusk came free along with a substantial volume of blood pouring out onto her boots. Before the pig had a chance to even attempt a scream, she drove the tusk into its right eye and pushed it deep, watching the other eye roll backwards as brain function ceased. It dropped to the ground, dead. There was no time to waste, and a ever-growing crowd of Grimm to destroy, and Ruby planned on making each and every one suffer. She climbed up the back of another Beowulf, using its armour plating as handholds and foot pegs and brought herself up to the animal's left shoulder. It's left eye briefly flicked over to her, widening. Almost like it felt fear for a moment.

"Remember me!" she muttered, her voice hoarse.

She didn't let it react. She reached her right hand over the animal's nose and grabbed it under its upper teeth, and slammed her left hand over its lower jaw. A bark started somewhere in the beast's throat. She ended it very swiftly, pulling her hands apart and destroying the Beowulf's jaw, ripping its cheeks apart with a disgusting sinew-y snapping noise. With a mighty pull, the two pieces came apart, breaking every tendon along the way with an elastic crack. It tried to cry out in pain, but she didn't let it, tossing the jaw into the dirt and reaching back for the beast's skull, spinning it harshly towards herself until the spine, along with the majority of the nervous system, severed loudly.

"Cindy, I'm comi-" she tried to yell.

But she couldn't.

Out of nowhere, a gigantic explosion went off almost right in her face. She, along with the entire congregation of Grimm, was suddenly flung backwards as a massive fireball plumed out from under the tree. Her back collided with the huge rock, whatever remained of her aura stopping her body from breaking in two, but succeeded in knocking all the wind out of her as she fell back down to the ground.

"What th-"

The flames engulfed the area again, blasting her in the face and singeing off the front of her dress, leaving the fire-retardant tank top underneath exposed and setting her on fire. She screamed through the pain, rolling over to protect her face in her hands until the blaze stopped. And it did stop after a second, leaving her crumpled and burnt. She painfully rolled over, padding off her dress and extinguishing the remaining flames that were destroying the soft cotton. All that was left of her dress was the row of belts and the frilly skirt half, and her boots. Not even her socks remained, and all the rubber buckles from her equipment bags had melted off and were now all over the ground.

Ruby struggled to get up. Surrounding her was an absolute graveyard of burnt Grimm corpses, slowly dissolving and absolutely steaming with that disgusting burning flesh smell. She choked, rubbing the smoke out of her eyes. As soon as she could see again, she desperately tried to look for Little Cindy in the clearing.

"Cinder!"

The little girl was sitting in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by a circle of black soot and destroyed Grimm. The log she'd been hiding under had been decimated, and the remains of it were slowly burning off to the sides. Her little hands were up in front of her, blistered and burned and tears streaming down her face. The white cape was dressed around her shoulders, covered in soot and singed at the ends. Ruby dashed over and collected the child in her arms, hugging her into her chest and gently caressing her hair. It was full of soot.

"Shushhh, shhhhh, it's okay, it's okay honey…"

She tried to calm the blubbering child, who was so obviously in pain from the burns on her hands. Ruby felt weirdly proud that the little girl had unlocked her semblance, just not so much because of how violent the method was.

"It's okay, I'm here, I'm he-"

THUD

The ground shook. The sound of feathers settling rang out over her shoulder. Giant talons sliced into the ground.

"No…"

She turned her head, keeping Cindy's face pressed into her chest and keeping her ignorant. She tried not to gasp as she came face to face with a giant Nevermore, its big ugly beak twitching left and right as it examined her. It's face disappeared under its wing for a moment, preening out one of the huge, serrated feathers from under its arm. It's face came back around, the beak separated and the rows of teeth inside glimmering in the light. She shivered.

"Not today…"

The beak opened all the way as the bird charged forward. She knew she couldn't survive a trip through the teeth, not with the amount of aura she didn't have left. Cindy probably had enough to survive one solid chomp, if she had enough protection. So Ruby closed her eyes and turned away, hugging the girl close and doing her best to protect her. There was no way she could run away from the Grimm this time. And especially not with Little Cindy in her arms. With no semblance left and completely out of stamina she was useless. She was no more than a fleshy shield.

She waited for the pain.

"I'm sorry…"

But the pain didn't come

What did come was a hand on the back of her neck, gently caressing for a second. It comforted her. To know that someone cared in her final moments. But then the hand turned, and gripped down on the collar of her tank top, fisting quite a lot of the fabric. And then the hand yanked.

"Waa-!"

She sailed backwards, Cindy in her arms, being dragged backwards basically by her collar tightening up around her throat and choking her out. The hand let go after a second and she collided with the ground again, sliding backwards.

"Close it!" someone screamed.

A piercing cry from the Nevermore rang out, being instantly silenced by a disturbing humming sound from just in front of her. She opened her eyes.

"They're okay! Tai, get them to the Bullhead!"

The massive head of the Nevermore was sitting at her feet, without its body, bleeding into the field out of both ends. Ruby sputtered. Tai grabbed her under the arms and pulled her to her feet with ease, turning her around and guiding her to the hovering machine. Raven was being held up by her brother, her katana outstretched and glowing red. It took Ruby a moment to realize she'd just been pulled through a portal, and then that very portal had just been used to decapitate a Nevermore. An exhausted chuckle made it out of her mouth, her brain delirious and pretty shot.

"How many times are we gonna cut off one of those heads…" her loopy thoughts were coming out as she was shunted into a seat in the Bullhead, Taiyang pulling the harness over her chest and latching it closed. He gently took Cindy out of her arms and put her in her own seat, dabbing the tears out of her eyes with some tissues.

Qrow had to lift his sister up to Tai, her ankle bent at an awkward angle and her face a complete wash of pain and anguish. She too was put into a seat and buckled in place. The Bullhead's engines started to spool up as they began to gain altitude. Qrow pulled himself in and grabbed one of the overhead handles in the load bay, checking back out the door as they started to fly away from the field.

"That was a disaster…" Ruby mumbled.

"Nah, it's fine!" Tai chipped. "The giant worm's dead, so that forest is now empty of Grimm! Think positive!"

She put her hands to her face. "I'm sorry guys… I'm a bad leader…"

"Hey." Raven said from her side. Ruby turned.

Raven slapped her.

"No. You're not. Your planning got us out of there with everyone's lives intact. Don't sell yourself so fucking short, Summer."

Ruby started to cry. "I'm sorry…"

Even through the pain, Raven put her arm over both her and Cindy, pulling them as close as she could through the harnesses.

"It's okay. Now we know. Never go Grimm Hunting with a psychopath for a teacher."

Ruby chuckled, snot dripping from her face.

"Okay, okay."

"Ugh, I can't believe I broke my stupid leg." she groaned, pulling her knee up to her chest.

"Hey, don't overexert yourself, dummy." Tai scolded, pointing an accusatory finger in her direction."

Raven reddened.

"Guys, let's not." Qrow finished. He'd gotten his sword back from the giant worm's eye, and it was still dripping onto the floor of the Bullhead. "Let's just be glad we're all okay, okay?"

"I'm sorry, guys. I'll understand if you think slightly less of me."

"Bitch, what did I just say?" Raven almost roared.

"I made bad decisions, Raven. Things I can't take back and I can't move on from. I put everyone I love in danger for my own goals and morals. I pushed you guys too hard."

"Yeah, but without you we'd have panicked and probably died, Summer! Please, please understand that. You're crucial to us."

Ruby shook her head, hair falling into her face.

"All I do is make things worse. I'm a burden of bad luck."

Qrow bopped her in the shoulder. "Actually, that's my job."

She let out a pitiful chuckle.

"You guys shouldn't…. compare yourselves to me."

"You're right, we could never do the kinds of things you do, Sunshine."

Ruby lifted her head up, and looked over at her partner. She had the most honest and forgiving smile she'd ever seen, beaming over at her in the sunlight.

"Of course you cou-"

"I certainly could never run that fast. Or punch as hard as you could. Or be brave enough to put my hands anywhere near a Grimm's mouth. You make us look like children."

"I'm sorry-"

"That was not an attack of character, Summer, that was a compliment."

"Oh…"

Raven rubbed her shoulder.

"Killing Grimm is what you're good at. Saving lives is what you're good at. And what you did out there today was both of those things. I'm proud of you, Summer."

Ruby felt her heart lifting.

"That's the first time you've said that, Rae."

"It took a lot of convincing. A committee effort. But you got through to me. You kept me alive. And we all appreciate that."

"But your leg-"

"Fuck my leg. It'll heal."

Ruby smiled.

"Alright. I get your point."

"You better. Because you promised me dinner at Chez Gaston, and if you don't deliver, I'm rescinding my proudness."

A proper laugh.

"Okay, Fine. I'll buy you dinner."

"Thank youuuu."

Ruby rolled her eyes with a smile.

Raven could be pretty charming sometimes.

And that was good.

"Please watch your language around Cindy from now on, though."

"Sorry."