RWBY Sharingan Chapter 70: You're Not Her (Patreon)

“Are we really sure about this? This is some kid we’re talking about. Maybe-“

“He flew me out there and I saw the Grimm for myself.” Aero said, his voice carrying across the entirety of the room, all the other huntsmen paying him their full attention. “We should all know better than to brush off something as simple as exhaustion especially with how widespread it’s becoming.”

A heavy silence followed his words.

We were in a private security room at the very top of the city’s walls, just above one of the entry gates. A vast majority of the huntsmen, from those that’d been part of the caravan, those passing through, and those permanently stationed out here, were present for the ongoing discussion, the rest manning the wall or quietly preparing for an evacuation effort.

Naturally, they all had the training to keep themselves calm despite the news, the ordinary civilians all kept in the dark at the moment. As far as they knew we would just be fending off a standard horde. Nothing the city wouldn’t have seen before.

“Come on, you’ve got to know how outlandish it sounds.” This time a huntress, leaning against one of the walls, spoke up. “We all know apathy don’t stray far from whatever spot they choose to gather up in; it’s why we just avoid them. And now they’re just advancing on a city alongside an entire horde of other Grimm out of nowhere? You sure you didn’t mix up what you were seeing? Its pretty dark out there.”

The fact that they were advancing on a city at all wasn’t the only strange part and we all knew it.

The range of their influence, even in such large numbers, shouldn’t be so far reaching. Against a single one, just being a few rooms away could almost completely get rid of its effects. In a sizable group they’d still need to be relatively close to really dampen a person’s energy and focus. They really weren’t all that dangerous unless someone willingly kept them nearby in large numbers or threw themselves into a room full of them.

And yet here they were, a good march away yet still having a very clear effect on civilians and some of the huntsmen, my eyes quick to pick up on all the signs.

Not only that but they had an entire hoard matching their pace, clearly intent on attacking together. For Grimm, especially those young ones that made up a vast majority of their numbers, to actually match that snail’s pace was unusual.

There was a good reason the few stories about apathy laying waste to any settlement involved someone selfishly leading them to said settlement or people arrogant enough to think they could use the natural emotional suppressant that came with their presence to their advantage.

Messing with them was never worth the risk.

There was more talking, all eventually acknowledging the threat but unsure of how exactly to tackle such an unusual horde. Using the walls and mounted weaponry to their advantage would’ve been the go to solution but the apathy was throwing everyone off. If their effect was strong enough to reach them before they were in sight, how strong would it be once they were close?

Their defenses wouldn’t mean anything if no one could be bothered to lift a finger to do any defending.

“Sir!” The conversation was interrupted by another huntsman bursting into the room. “None of our calls are getting through to Argus!”

And communication problems to top it all off.

Pushing off the wall I was on, headed out the opposite door the man had come rushing through and up a short flight of stone stairs, coming out onto the wall. I stepped up to the edge, gazing out at the distant hills and the trees that ran along them, nothing visible through the darkness yet.

They weren’t in view, but it was only a matter of time. The attack would start either in the dead of night or in the darkest hours of the morning.

“Probably not a coincidence.” Qrow said, checking his scroll as he stepped up beside me. None of them had any signal, something the people here said hadn’t been a problem for very long, the signal here shaky recently but nothing like the outright outage going on. “I’m going to check out the relay tower and asks around about some things. You good here?”

I nodded.

He took off only to be replaced by several sets of footsteps.

“I don’t really know much about these apathy.” Emerald admitted. “But it sounds like this isn’t going to be like any group of Grimm we’ve dealt with.”

“I’m sticking around.” I said.

“I figured.” Emerald said her shoulders dropping, Cinder looking just as off put by what was coming. Mercury didn’t say or give much away, just prepared to deal with whatever he was faced with in the moment.

“Don’t hesitate to run if things don’t look like they’re going well.” I warned, glancing towards Cinder.

XOXO

“He was here.” Qrow quietly shared, taking a seat beside him along the wall’s edge, many huntsmen still running all along it. Communications being messed up was no surprise then. “It wasn’t just the relay tower that was tampered with. Their older radio equipment was damaged as well. I’m willing to bet those jug heads back in Argus didn’t bother checking stuff that ancient for any damage either.”

Technology; it solved a whole lot of problems but dependency on it, like anything else, could be exploited. No reinforcements from any nearby settlements would be coming for these people.

“We lucked out though. People say that they saw him heading towards Mistral just a day ago.”

“On foot?”

Qrow nodded.

I stood up, looking back at the settlement’s other gate, the road beyond it leading to the capital.

One day. Even if he ran at a full sprint the entire time Tyrian wouldn’t be able to cover the distance I could with Glynda’s semblance. Even if he was being paranoid, he wouldn’t have been able to hide any tracks that fresh from my eyes. If I chased after him now, I could catch him.

I turned back.

That building horde had finally gotten over the hill, the first of them beginning to emerge from the forest line. The automated weapons might be able to hold them off for a little while, but the effects of the apathy had grown stronger. The invisible weight on my shoulders wasn’t unique to me, some struggling to keep themselves awake while others were much more sluggish in their movements.

This really wasn’t a case of firepower and manpower but morale and energy. And they’d wasted plenty of it just trying to come up with a plan. The extra defenses they’d gone out and set up would help but it was hard to say whether or not it was the right play.

I looked back again.

That was months of effort. Years in Qrow's case. Catching Tyrian here and now wouldn’t just make all that effort mean something but further restrict more of Salem’s covert stabs at the four kingdoms. At least until she could get replacements.

But that’d mean leaving these people’s lives to chance.

Dammit.

I grabbed my sword, the fresh set of bandages falling away as I dropped it over the wall’s edge, stepping onto it as it leveled in the air.

“What are you doing?” Qrow asked.

“I just need to check something.”

“Talon.” He grabbed my wrist before I could take off, staring hard into the slits of my helmet. “You’re not Summer. No one’s expecting you to do the things she did.”

“I know.” I muttered shaking off the hand and taking off. Wind whipped past as I lowered my stance, speeding towards the horde.

I closed my eyes as I approached, taking a deep breath.

If Summer were the one in my position, there wouldn’t even be a need for a choice like this. While Qrow used his transformation to go off after Tyrian’s trail, she could’ve wiped out even a horde like this with a look or two, saving these people before meeting back up with him. I didn’t have that kind of power and Qrow wasn’t going to just go after Tyrian while I was dealing with this.

Either way, while I didn’t have a quick answer for this, I wasn’t out of solutions.

As I settled high above the horde I opened my eyes, the Grimm paying me little attention, nothing more than a few looks aimed up at me.

Grimm didn’t have aura, but they were powered by energy.

Dark and twisted, the energy itself was almost indistinguishable from their actual forms, just making them appear darker than usual. Individual lumps of darkness. That’s how they usually looked to me.

But there was more to this horde.

Thin wispy trails of that darkness left and intersected between them. They weren’t isolated lumps of energy that happened to attack all at once and, while I wasn’t sure if they were being directed, these Grimm were all connected.

And the thin trail of connected energy ran far off into the distance, winding and twisting throughout the forest. It all traced back to something else. Probably whatever was responsible for all the strange aspects of these Grimm and their method of attack.

At least I hoped that was the case.

As the first slow moving Grimm, a beowolf on all fours, began to run forward, the rest followed suit. I jumped up, a click coming from my blade as I separated it, five sent down while I rode forward on the main one. Staying above the forest, I sent those blades twisting through the forest, cutting down apathy and any other Grimm that stood in the way of that. Occasionally one of the airborne Grimm, now soaring out from the rear where they’d been in wait, would try to attack me but most shot past, focused on Minami.

If I could take care of the apathy and or whatever was empowering them, they possessing more of that dark energy than any other in the horde, tons of its reaching out towards the city, this entire attack would be a nonissue I could just leave to the city’s defenses while I focused on Tyrian.

I had to make this quick.

XOXO

(A/N: I have been waiting to get to this point for a long while. There are some things that are probably easy dead give away at this point for a certain detail but either way, Talon will finally be fully revealing a combination of things to us that I think we have all been dying to see.

I'm look forward to it and I hope you are too!

Random bit of trivia about my day: Not going to lie I almost missed posting for the first time in what feels like months because I spent all day at a mechanic. As lucky as I am to even be able to afford one, car trouble is a bitch when it does decide to crop up. It eats up so much time and money. Still thinking about you guys helped me locked in for an extra hour for finishing touches and editing so here we are. That and I was checking out something others called a chaos gacha system. Seems interesting.

Thank you all for being here!)