The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Second Try

I hit the ground running and took off through the rock fields of Mistral. Moving quickly enough to bake the stone around me, I reached out with my senses and checked my surroundings again. In the distance, I could sense the volcanic fields to Mistral's southern border and could literally taste—and see and hear and everything else—the volcanic ash and smoke that rose into the sky. To the east and west rested the ocean and an inland sea, the latter of which was now behind me, and the winds carried the cool touch of the waves and the smell of salt. I could feel the ice to the north and heat to the south as well as the ground beneath my feet and knew where those extremes gave way to more normal climates, with fields and forests. Like its people, the land around Mistral was a strange, perhaps even conflicting, patchwork, made of oddities that somehow managed to balance. Somehow, mankind had found a way.

And naturally, so had the Grimm. As my senses expanded, I marked each and every one that I sensed. I tracked them by displacements in the water and air, vibrations in the earth, interplays of heat and charges, and through a myriad of my own senses. Even this close to the walls of Mistral, the creatures of Grimm thrived, from twisted shapes that resembled sharks, octopi, and whales, to the draconic Tyrant Scales and towering Goliaths. The common Beowolves ran through the forests, but I also sensed mighty Calydons leading packs of Boarbatusk, Nemeans waiting in the plains, as well as the other beasts that lived beyond the safety of the kingdoms. They were titanic creatures, one and all; monsters great enough to have earned their places in storybooks and tales of terror.

A part of me, a large part, wanted to swing by and have a go at a few of them just for fun, but there'd be time for that later so I stayed focused. Tensing minutely as I came to a cliff, I Lunged hard and high into the air, rising most of the way to the ship I'd left behind me before contorting in the air to put my feet above me. Pausing for a moment to target myself, I raised my Acceleration abruptly and Lunged again, drawing Bai Hu around me for just an instant and hiding him beneath an illusion. All but flying through the air, I collided head-on with the first Goliath and then rebounded to the second and then the third as if I were a human pinball, each impact rocking the elephantine monsters. Though it didn't quite blow them away, they all went skidding along the ground in different directions, their pillar like feet leaving massive trenches as the force pushed them away.

Landing hard on the ground a fraction of a second after impacting with the third Goliath, the fields of stone shattered beneath my feet and threw dust high. I rose easily, Aura curled protectively around Autumn's still sleeping form just in case something went awry, and turned to face the Goliaths even as Bai Hu momentarily withdrew. There was probably no point in worrying about it with the ship so far behind me and the city so far ahead—especially when everyone on the ship already knew except the pilot, who I was fairly sure would never tell anyone anything my Grandmother didn't want him to—but there was no reason to get careless now, was there?

Besides, I didn't need it for this. No, I wanted to try something a little bit different this time.

"Hey, guys," I greeted, cracking my neck as I looked up—and up and up and up, because the beasts were about twenty stories tall a piece—at the Goliaths. "What's up?"

The Goliath's looked down at me with blank, red eyes, trunks twitching as they saw the creature that had attacked them. For a second, no one made a sound and I got the feeling we were all waiting for each other to act—but I remained as I was, fearless and patient as I waited for the monsters to make the first move. I let my gaze trace slowly to the strongest of the beasts, wondering how it measured up to the one I'd fought before, but didn't otherwise react.

Whose Footsteps Shake the Earth

LV84

Goliath

After another moment of silence—or perhaps silent communication—I felt something change and quickly focused on the smallest Goliath as it lifted its trunk and gathered familiar power within its mouth. It only took it moments to charge the attack, but it was still more than enough time for me to observe the process. A massive amount of heat gathered in the creature's mouth, directed and focused by the inside of its throat, and I took this chance to take a closer look at the process. The flesh of the beast shifted and moved on a cellular level, the dark cells changing in structure and shape to aid in some kind of reaction, even as they were fueled by power that rose from within the creature's body. I watched the Goliath's throat…I suppose the only term was activate, weaponizing itself before my very eyes. Looking past that, I could see materials being supplied and consumed by the cells, accelerating and focusing the gathering heat again and again, even as it prepared to release it at its target.

But even with the head start, I shot first. At the last moment, I gathered my power into a Thunderbolt and threw it hard, straight into the Goliath's open maw, unleashing a rush of electricity to play havoc with the process occurring within its body—

And then I vanished. Slipping quietly under an illusion, I quickly stepped aside, moving silently out of the line of fire for an attack that never came. Lightning wreathed the Goliath's mouth as if it were foaming, but nothing happened as the power it had gathered was neither released nor allowed to run loose within its body. The patterns in its throat shifted at the sudden attack, preventing its own weapon from firing instead of risking that power turning on the Goliath. The Grimm stuff bore the touch of electricity well—once again far too well for it to be at all natural—and nothing else happened as the beast began scanning the surroundings for me. I suppose I wasn't surprised, though; if I were building some type of mystical death machine, I'd probably install a circuit breaker to keep it from exploding in response to random power surges, too. Making sure that hitting the obvious, glowing weak point didn't actually accomplish much seemed like it would be fairly logical as well.

Still, it was interesting, I admitted. I'd wanted to observe a Goliath again, specifically for the heat ray it had fired, having now seen Crom Cruach do something similar on a much larger scale. I'd wondered how creatures without Aura had been able to do such a thing—I mean, attributing anything the Grimm did to conventional biology was rather absurd, but organic death rays were pretty out there, even so. I'd seen and heard of other examples, too; of particularly massive Nevermores whipping up tempests with their wings, of aquatic beasts manipulating the currents, and, of course, I'd seen Ziz casually unleash a horrific storm of fire and death upon waking up. And having been laser sniped by Crom Cruach on top of that…it made me wonder how, because knowing that might tell me that much more about what I was dealing with.

But this…the term biological weaponry was a bit ironic in this case, because they were literally turning parts of their body into weapons. Suddenly, I was reminded of the evil, magical, sapient nanobots theory I'd spoken to Ozpin about during the fight against Conquest. Thinking about it that way, I supposed there were explanations for some of the crazy shit the Grimm could do—and if they were outlandish, they were no more so then the absurd notion that they were capable of any of the things they did solely through biology. I'd already accepted that they had been designed and combined, presumably, with materials provided by Malkuth Theory or whatever else, I suppose it wasn't completely absurd. Something like Crom Cruach could even devour materials underground, process them within its body, and generate all sorts of horrifying weapons.

It was something to look into.

More than that, it was a place to start, and that's all I'd really wanted from this. Given time to train, perhaps my Metamorphosis would reveal more, but for now…

"That was informative," I said, smiling at the Goliath's as I was revealed. The illusions I'd curled around myself warped briefly before being sucked into the light I'd gathered in my right hand. The night darkened further, seeming to almost empty the sky above us as light fled from it. The rising surge of my Aura illuminated my surroundings only briefly before it was torn away from my skin and slithered into my fingers. For a moment, I seemed to hold the only light in the world, at once burning steadily and illuminating nothing but itself. "So thanks. But I don't need anything else from you, so you can just go ahead and die now."

Then the moment passed and night turned to day.

Light poured from my hands in a blinding torrent, burning away the shadows and Grimm alike. It took the Goliath in the side and pierced through it as if it weren't even there. Where the creature's dark flesh was touched by my Lux Aeterna, it simply melted away, replaced by shining wounds that seemed to devour its body further, pushing outwards to enlarge the already massive wound my attack had made. The Grimm shifted as the attack struck but didn't even have time to scream as it was swept away—so its fellows screamed for it, trunks rising in a trumpeting chorus and they edged away from the light. Even though they weren't the targets of the attack, wounds began to mark their skin as if they were burning, mere proximity shredding their skin.

I didn't flinch away even as the light rose into the sky like a second sun. I'd angled it upwards, just in case, and it split the heavens like a bridge as it pierced the darkness around it. In its wake, the sky was briefly marked with everything from bright daytime blues to the beautiful colors of dusk and dawn, and where the light didn't blind, it illuminated as if it were noon instead of night.

And when it faded, everything in its path was gone. All that was left of the Goliath I'd hit were the mighty pillars of its legs, the rest of its body gone as if it had simply stopped existing. The edges of what remained were smooth where they didn't erupt with white and silver fire, but from its belly to its trunk…

I'd made the Goliath disappear.

To either side of the beast, its companions were alive, if worse for wear. They smoked where the light had burned them, the color lightening as it rose from their skin—black to gray to a pure and scattering white that rose into the sky like snow falling in reverse—and in places they seemed just a touch thinner, as if partially melted away. Even so, they didn't back down and their eyes focused on me intently, crimson orbs intelligent and waiting. I could see them both gathering power as I stood, weakened from the sheer breadth of power I'd just released. I felt myself sweating again, panting even as I met their eyes, but it wasn't enough to keep me from chuckling.

"Please," I rolled my eyes as I felt my power return with each passing second. Already, a Magic Missile had formed in either hand and I launched one at each of the second Goliath's eyes. The moment they left my hands, I was gone, Lunging away from an counterattack and vanishing beneath another illusion. I slid into the ground like it was water, barely slowing as I did, and circled behind them even as I gave myself a moment's rest. My Mana Reactor was working full force, accelerating the return of my strength, and less than a second after the first attack I was prepared.

When I slipped out of the ground on the opposite side of the Goliaths, one was trumpeting loudly, red eyes popping under the force of my attacks. Heat and power poured from the jaws of the other, slagging the stony wasteland around us, just missing me entirely thanks to my quick escape. Smile widening, I crouched slightly before leaping high into the air, palming another pair of Missiles as I focused on my already wounded prey. I launched both at the back of its head, where the skull met the neck, and followed it up with eight more over the course of a second. The Goliath jerked once, pained scream coming to a sudden halt. It quivered in place for a moment, rocking slightly on its feet, before beginning to topple, its sheer size making the motion slow.

The other Goliath turned to see its companion come crashing down, its size and weight shattering the ground beneath it as it fell. Its head paused on its fellow's figure for only a moment before continuing to turn, crimson orbs searching—until I kindly saved it the trouble.

"What are you going to do, moving that slow?" I asked as I landed on its mask, standing vertically on the boney material so I could look down at it. Though its eyes had no pupils, they shifted in its skull to focus on my comparatively tiny form. I already had another pair of Magic Missiles at the ready and twirled them absently as I waited, their tips hovering just above eyes larger than my entire body. The Goliath twitched once, trunk rising—and I promptly lifted both high above my head before slamming them straight down into its right eye. It cried out, the sound loud enough to blow a normal person's ear drums and shake them to the bones, but didn't stop. Shaking its head roughly from side to side, it tried to throw me off and away, and so I obligingly went, skating down its trunk and gliding gently away. It stomped its feet hard to shake the earth, cried out with a roar like thunder, but I merely floated on the breeze and danced away from it all, vanishing beneath another illusion.

With its remaining eye, I saw it looking for me even as its trunk spewed a waterfall of disgusting black fluid. The tar-like substance pooled on its back and face, oozing down over its ruined eye, and immediately began to stir. It bubbled up into familiar shapes, stretching into long wings and wicked claws. Long limbs stretched up towards the sky as if reaching for the night and a myriad of voices cried out as a legion of monsters was born into the world.

It was a little sad, I thought. Being born only to die.

A Flare crashed down on the Goliath's back, sending fire cascading over its form. The birthing cries turned into dying screams as Grimm flesh melted like wax in the heat and the tar from which they were born ignited. The Goliath itself, a creature capable of bathing in lava, merely hunched its shoulders against the flames, but everything it had summoned or created burned quite nicely, sending up horrible screams and plumes of noxious black smoke.

"Brace yourself," I warned as I reappeared a few seconds later, stomping hard on the ground. The ground shook as Tremblor created a localized earthquake and Ereb slid into the earth to make the ground buckle and writhe. The Goliath rocked and slipped, struggling to remain upright as the ground beneath its feet literally fought against it, but it was too much and it finally lost its footing. I kindly assisted its resulting fall with a Gravity Crash focused on its ribcage, multiplying its already titanic weight along with the speed of its fall. Stone shattered in every direction even as a deep imprint appeared on the Goliath's side, as if it had been struck by a giant's hammer.

Slowly, I began walking towards its fallen figure, watching dispassionately as its legs and trunk twitched as it struggled to rise. I formed another Magic Missile in my left hand as I went, charging it as I moved to face the creature again. On its left side as it was, it's remaining eye was close to the ground, and I stopped before it, standing like an ant before an elephant. Fallen and in pain as it was, it turned its gaze on me, still watching me quietly. It wasn't afraid and wouldn't have begged for mercy even if it could, but something in its crimson eye glimmered.

It would have been impossible to miss the movement of its trunk, even if I hadn't had such keen eyes—but this time I didn't dodge. I held out my free hand silently and let the swing smash into it full force, pushing into the blow as it did. Beneath my concealing illusion, I felt my flared Aura react, slipping briefly back into my skin. My Adamant skin and the Sacrifice to the Wolf swelled with that power, almost pushing against one another as they did, before aligning smoothly.

The ground to the left of me shattered for forty meters, but I didn't move. With my Aura gathered around me, there was more to me than mere mass, size, and weight, and though I faced the power of the Goliath head on, I didn't even budge. Instead, the force of its own attack worked against it, driving my arm up to the shoulder in its own flesh. I felt something hard touch my hand and grasped it tightly, holding it fast as it tried to pull away even as I continued to meet its eye.

"Was this some kind of test, then?" I asked as if bored. "Did you want to see that I'd gotten stronger?"

I lifted my fully charged Missile and aimed at its eye.

"Well, look all you want," I said.

The Goliath's eye exploded as the spear of light flew straight through its head and I shook off its trunk as I turned away.