Arclave: Part 4

The route from Torchwick Tower was fairly easily. A few craters here and there that were easily avoidable, and the radiation cloud that floated in the area kept Grimm away. My suit protected me from the after effects from the dust bombs, so I was able to cut straight though.

I exited the cloud into what appeared to be the ruins of a fairly decent settlement. It's wall was heavily destroyed, but I couldn't tell if it was like that before the bombs fell or not. I moved inside of the abandoned town, my HUD telling me I was only a few hundred yards from the last contact with the Black Claw.

A burst of gunfire rings out and I duck behind a chunk of building as bullets rain into the former paved road. I wait for a moment before I hear a muffled voice call out.

"This area belongs to the Black Claw. Leave now or we will kill you."

I sigh into my helmet and raise my arms into the air before standing up and moving out from my cover. Thankfully, the gas mask-wearing girl standing on the toppled building doesn't shoot again. I swear I saw a dozen barrels hidden in the ruins though.

"Look, I'm an Arclave soldier. I was sent here by command to assist the Black Claw and rendezvous with a.." I quickly pull up the notes in my HUD, "Captain Belladonna."

The girl puts her hand in the air, and soon those barrels turn into masked fighters, like her. They lower their weapons, so I put my arms down.

"Why didn't you say so." She pulls off her mask, letting it hang on her chest. She looks young, about my age. I can just make out a pair of feline ears. Not that I hadn't expected them all to be faunus already. "Captain Lily Belladonna. We were on our way back from patrolling outside the wall when we noticed your arrival. Come on, we'll bring you back with us."

I kept my helmet on, if only because I wasn't sure about the levels of dust in the area. "Ren Arc. Pleasure to meet you. We can talk on the way, if you want."

She nods before slipping her mask back on and leaping from the building. She lands in the road, and I move over to her. We and the rest of her team quickly move further into the town before coming to a fairly undamaged building. She enters a code into a terminal on the wall and the locks on heavy metal door disengage before the door opens.

We step inside only to be greeted by more Black Claw members, including one that looks like an older version of the Captain. She smiles softly and addresses her before turning to me.

"Welcome home. And I see you've brought back one of Jaune's soldiers. Good, we can use the help. What's your name?"

I take off my helmet and hold it under my arm before extending the other to shake hands, "Ren Arc. You know my father?"

She takes it and chuckles quietly, "We went to Beacon together, before the end of the world. I'm Blake Belladonna. How is he?"

I blink as I bring my hand back to my side, "He died a while ago. A couple years after starting the Arclave."

She frowned before nodding, "And the rest?"

"My mom, Pyrrha, is still alive, but she isn't really involved anymore. Nora's our strongest warrior, but her wounds slow her down some times." Despite her cybernetic enhancements, losing Ren before the bombs fell still weighs on her more than anything. Not everyone's wounds were physical.

"I see. We should head further in. We have much to discuss, but I'm sure you'd like to rest first. We can talk about the increase in Grimm activity and mutation in the area as well as the White Fang's advances here tomorrow. Lily, show him to the officer's barracks and have a meal sent for him. It was nice meeting you."

It was a quick introduction, but I couldn't pass up a nice bed and a hot meal. Besides the quick nap at the old club leaving Vale, I haven't had a good rest since I left the base. Lily showed me around the base before bringing me to a spare bunk in the room with the other leaders. The base wasn't very populated, despite it's large underground size. I thanked her before taking off my armor.

My meal soon arrived and I ate it with some hesitation. Who knows what kind of dust radiation was in this? I forced it down anyways, wondering if the unique flavor was because of radiation or the way faunus make their food.

I lay down on the cot with my armor against the near wall before closing my eyes.


Flashing lights and a wailing siren were never good things to wake up to. I jolted upright and quickly started putting on my power armor as the faunus in the room scrambled to grab their gear as well.

It didn't take long before I followed them out and down a series of hallways that lead to a large room with faunus manning terminals. Blake was already there, and she turned as we entered the room.

"What is it, mom?" Well, that answered that question, I thought.

"The perimeter alarms in Sector 5, 8, 9, and 12 are going off like crazy. If we don't move fast, they'll breach Sector 2 and 1 in no time. Take your team out now."

"Yes ma'am." Lily nods with a grin before heading out of the room, the other fighters on her heels.

"Ren. Please assist them. Do not let the Grimm get past you. The are non-combatants in Sector 1. If they get through you, they'll have a clear shot at them."

"Understood." I saluted her before leaving the room, chasing after Lily's team. I grabbed my rifle from my back as I exited the base. The map in my HUD showed a massive amount of movement towards the south, so I quickly turned right and headed in that direction.

It didn't take long to catch up with Black Claw forces. They dug themselves in a few blocks up the road, weapons firing madly as a massive swarm of what were once ursa sieges their positions.

Despite their lack of numbers, the faunus were doing more than alright against the waves of Grimm being thrown at them. Few managed to break their line, but a couple shots was all it took for me to finish them off.

Things went well at first. Just a few radiated Ursa here and there, but those were just the start. As the flood of Grimm continued, I noticed that they were getting more and more mutated.

At first I hardly noticed the missing fur, the disfigured armor plates improperly fused to skin. But as the battle wore on, it started getting worse. The Ursa were missing limbs, they were horrible disfigured. Some didn't even look like Ursa at all.

Then they started exploding. After so long in the dust clouds, the Ursa had become living conduits of dust radiation. One of them got through, and as the Geiger counter ticked, I knew this was going to get interesting.

"We're running low on ammo!" One of the faunus called out to Captain Belladonna before dropping his rifle and drawing a short sword. I looked down at my own reserves to find that he was right.

"Switch to close range weaponry. Don't stay near them any longer than you have to!" Lily called out the order as a blades sprang up from her pistols, giving her a pair of katana.

I watched her charge forward before pulling my rifle apart. It transformed in my hands, becoming my sword and shield as I held back to prevent any Ursa from getting by us. Only a few moments later, my HUD detected a large object coming towards us. I wasn't sure exactly what my HUD was showing me at first. Until I felt the ground shake under my power armor.

The Black Claw was as confused as me as a light rain started to fall. Lightning and thunder danced across the sky as all of Remnant shake. Before we knew it, a massive figure rounded a street with a building that still stood, it's sights on us.

The giant mass of darkness lumbered forward on two legs, a pair of massive arms with yard long claws hung at it's side. Three red eyes larger than a griffball sat in the middle of it's face. It let out a terrible roar as it began to make it's way towards us.

If that weren't bad enough, we still had the mutant Ursa swarming us. Several faunus were instructed to focus on the Grimm while Lily and I focused on the monster.

I slashed my sword through an Ursa as I ran toward the beast. I quickly brought my rifle back together and started taking shots as I closed the distance. I noticed Lily doing the same as we charged up the street.

Captain Belladonna was much faster than I was, at least in my armor. She reached the goliath Grimm before I did and was met with a swipe of it's massive arm. She timed her jump perfectly and landed on the arm as it went by before rushing up as she fired at it's face. When she neared the top, the blades shot up from the top of her guns again. She jumped and spun 180 degrees before trying to stab her blades into it's shoulder. Her blades bounced off it's armor, and she landed with a roll before trying to flank the beast.

I arrived just as she landed, turning my rifle into a sword again as the monster was busy with Lily. I tested it's armored leg to no effect before kicking off the ground and aiming a slash at the back of it's knee. It let out a roar before it turned it's focus on me. I tried to stay behind it, but the beast was surprisingly nimble. As it moved, it swung it's claws at me, and I crouched down with my shield. Timing the swing, I caught the claw before standing up, causing the beast's arm to miss me. I smiled to myself it's other arm caught me and tossed me into the remains of a building.

I blinked my eyes open as my HUD rebooted. I looked through my visor out the hole I was tossed in. Rain blanketed the street. If it weren't for the lightning, or my night vision, I wouldn't have been able to see what was left of Black Claw fighting against the giant armored monster.

I groaned as I got up, thankful that the suit had boosted my aura enough to survive what looked like a metric shit ton of pain, judging from the damage to the building and how deep I was thrown into it. I crawled out of the rubble and started to exit the building, but the exit was blocked by a pair of creatures.

They were humanoid, but obviously Grimm. Their black skin and pale armor gave them away. I just managed to find my rifle and pick it up as they came at me. I pulled the rifle apart and slashed the first one's neck before stabbing the second one in the chest. I kicked the body off my blade before jogging outside, glancing back at the strange beings as they faded away. I don't remember learning about any Grimm like that.

I turn back to the fight before me. Blake had joined while I was out, and the Belladonna's were trying to use their kusarigama-like weapons to ensnare the giant Grimm and make for an easy kill. It wasn't going well.

Most of the Black Claw had been pushed back and were just offering a meager suppressing fire that the armored beast hardly noticed. I fired a few rounds as I approached them. Lily was swinging through the air with one of her guns, firing the other as the Grimm swats her out of the air.

"Lily!" Blake cries out for her daughter as she crashes into the side of a building, destroying the gun in her hand on impact. I thought her weapons looked in poor shape earlier.

"I'm fine." She staggers up before rolling out of the way of the monster's fist. The storm picks up as our own rain of bullets starts to diminish. The Black Claw was starting to run out of ammo, and I wasn't too far behind them.

I quickly switch back to my sword and shield and rush the Grimm. It was being distracted by the Belladonna's, so I had an easy shot at it's back. I push some aura through my suit to launch me off the ground as I jump before latching onto the beast's armor plates. I stab and slash at the joints in the armor to little avail. I notice something as I attack it's weak points. There were clear dust crystals sticking out from some of the bare spots on it's back. Soon enough, it gets annoyed and shakes me off.

I land on the ground in a roll before quickly getting to my knee. I look up at monster before it tilts it's head back to let out another roar. The faunus cover their ears, perhaps their hearing was better than mine, and some of the noise was filtered through my helmet anyways. As I listen to it's roar, I notice the crystals were now red. I wondered what that could mean before the Grimm lowered it's head and fired a blast at the Black Claw entrenchment.

The area quickly exploded, sending a trio of faunus into the next realm. Their remains rained down with the debris as the Black Claw's lines quickly dissolved into disarray. Blake and Lily did their best to restore order, but the panic combined with the fact that we had hardly scratched this thing was too much to overcome.

As it charged up again, I quickly took a deep breath. I focused my aura into my shield and legs as I took off for the front of the Grimm. I dashed through it's legs as it neared full charge before planting my leg and stopping just in front of Black Claw forces. I raised my shield as it lowered it's head. A massive explosion enveloped our position. Luckily, the aura I channeled into the shield caused it to grow large enough to shield us from the attack.

Unfortunately, the drain to my aura left me hardly able to stand. I fell to my knees and dropped my weapon. I looked up at the Grimm as my HUD picked up a new source of movement approaching us. The Grimm was charging again before the familiar shape of an Arclave Vertibird flew into view. I couldn't tell who it was from this distance, but a single soldier jumped out of the ship as an arc of lightning hit their suit. Pink static flowed around them as they fell towards the Grimm.

It was Aunt Nora.

She fell from the sky with the grace of a sack of rocks before bringing her mighty hammer down on the Grimm's skull. In mere moments she was able to do what the entire Black Claw couldn't, smashing straight through the armor'd head and leaving nothing but a stump as the beast toppled over.

I chuckle softly before falling forward, my aura at it's limit.