An Aura of Hope: A RWBY Fan Fiction

Chapter Fourteen

Avery almost screamed more when she saw the Nevermore. She seemed to calm down a bit, then she nodded as if to tell me to let her go. So I did. And she did nothing. I signaled her to follow me and to do it quietly. I led her through the forest away from the bird.

We circled around the clearing until we put the ruins in the clearing between us and the Grimm. I saw two people already in the ruins when I looked, and they took something off a pedestal. One of them was much taller than the other, and the tall one held wavy swords in each hand. When they turned away from us and started walking, I saw that the shorter one was a girl and the taller one a guy.

Before I could properly process that, Avery was up and running at them. I made a grab for her but came up empty. She was fast.

Really fast.

I could tell it wasn't a semblance either, she could just RUN.

"Wait!" she called in a stage whisper. I was up and running too; no need to lose my partner on day one. They stopped.

"Who's there? What do you want?" the girl called back to Avery, much louder.

"Shhhh!!!" Avery shushed. "There is a NEVERMORE right there!"

"We know," the girl said casually. "She's mine right now."

"What?" This time it was me who spoke up.

"Hey, Louis!" came a familiar voice along with the waving of a wavy sword. "Fancy meeting you here," said Riker.

"That Nevermore is mine," said the girl. "She isn't supposed to hurt anyone," she smiled a devious smile, "unless I tell her to."

This girl gave me the chills. Her jet black hair fell just past her knees, was perfectly straight, and her bangs covered her eyes. Even from the distance we were at, I could tell I was at least two heads taller than her.

"Stop thinking about how short I am!" she screamed at me. "I can tell you are!"

I felt my jaw drop. How did she know? "I-I-I..." I stammered. "Sorry."

"Humph!" She turned away and started toward the Nevermore.

"Wait!" Avery called again.

She turned back again and this time her hair flipped out of her dark brown eyes. "Whaddya want, Blondie?"

"How is the bird yours, exactly?"

The girl's eyes lit up when Avery asked this. "I'm sure you know that Grimm don't have aura, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if I put a little bit of my aura into its brain, I can take control over it and it can't fight back. The only catch is that I have to make contact with the part of the skull that the brain stem connects to it. In Grimm, that part is covered by their bony plates. So I have to work my hand down under there to get to it." She was practically bouncing while explaining this. She was grinning from ear to ear.

"Whoa! That's awesome!" said Avery.

The girl blushed a little, then brushed her hair down into her eyes. The grin fell into her old smirk/frown that not even I knew how she pulled it off. "Yeah. I guess it is," said the girl. She started walking again.

"Wait!" Avery called out again.

"Oh my gosh, what now?!"

"You never told us your name!"

"I don't recall you telling me yours either."

"Oh, well I'm Avery. This is James."

"Violet. That idiot over there is Riker."

"Nice to meet you, Violet!" Avery stuck out her hand and gave her a cheesy, full-mouth smile. Violet flinched a little, then offered a weak grin and shook Avery's hand.

"Pick up a relic and get over here," said Violet. She pointed to the pedestals. Some had black forms on them that resembled Grimm with none of the plates and the rest had head plates with different markings. I ran over and grabbed one of the plates and headed over to where the other three were. "I'll give you all a ride back to the school," said Violet.

"Oh my gosh, thanks, Violet!" said Avery as she threw her arms around her. Violet seemed to get even smaller as Avery hugged her, but her blushing gave away that she was glad for it.

"N-no problem," Violet squeaked out, "but my friends call me Vi."

Avery smiled another cheesy smile and said, "Well, Vi, thank you for helping--"

As we turned the corner to go to Vi's Nevermore, we were confronted by a pack of Beowolves feeding from a black bird carcass.

Vi's Nevermore just got eaten.

"Dammit," said Vi under her breath. "I've got 'em." She pulled up her hair to reveal a folded up sword across her back. It looked insanely heavy. She grabbed the handle and flung it out like a whip. We watched as it extended into the largest broadsword I had ever seen. I would say that it was at least ten feet long and three feet wide at the base. Vi swung it around like it weighed less than a feather. The rest of us had to duck out of the way when it came near us. We watched in awe as she ran, screaming a battle cry, towards the Beowolves around the bird's corpse and took them all on at once with her feather sword.

I noticed Riker slink off towards the woods and Avery following suit. I scrambled to follow them, not knowing what was happening. When we got to the forest, Riker turned to us and said, "Vi can't take all of those things on, no matter how large her sword is. She just isn't a swordsman. We need to help her. Now, here's the plan..."