Capítulo 1972: 202
"GRAAAAAAHHH!"
Maybe things weren't going so well.
Maybe things were a little too intense for them to handle on their own. Maybe the grimm queen really did live up to her "big bad villain" status.
Because, for all that Team RWBYP was trying… nothing was sticking around.
Yang's explosive shots did nothing, Blake's blades did nothing, Weiss' stabs did nothing, Penny's lasers did nothing, and no matter how hard Ruby swung Crescent Rose and Augury around… nothing worked.
She just regenerated again and again and again.
No matter how many times they cut her down, no matter how many little pieces they shredded her into, no matter how many team combos they tried…
Salem continued to regrow. Again and again.
Even Ruby's silver eyes only did so much- burning Salem's body into a charred ruin, only for her to rise again from the ashes and lash out with magic so powerful it flung them all away and nearly shattered the Auras of Yang, Blake, and Weiss.
They were fighting a losing battle, it seemed. Salem was an immortal grimm witch with a seemingly inexhaustible source of power and an existence that stretched back to the first settlements of humans- long before they lost their ability to do magic. Long before they forgot the brother gods that created Remnant on the dead world they'd been cast to. Long before the gods left humanity behind and left the ruins behind to populate again little by little.
They were just human.
Just human, and Ruby. And Penny.
They did their best…
"Too… human," Salem spoke, the smug, overwhelming tone of victory already in her voice as she hovered there before her throne as though nothing could possibly touch her. "Too weak. Too fragile. Too… small. You have every bit the same bravado as your mother, Ruby Rose. But she too was just like you. Too weak. Too fragile. Too small. Too human. What makes you think you could possibly do better than someone who bears the stolen mantle of my beloved children, taken from me so long ago? What makes you think you have what it takes to complete that fool Ozpin's plan to defeat me? Hm?"
She growled, then, lashing out with a bolt of destructive magic that Ruby could only barely avoid- her cape singing at the edges as she threw herself out of the way in a shower of rose petals, both her and Penny standing before the downed forms of Weiss, Yang, and Blake- the three of them catching their breaths as they did their best to recover some of their flagging Aura. But to no avail- they'd already spent so much Aura dealing with the grimm on the way up that they were almost running on empty. Even when their Auras sparked and shimmered with defiance against Salem, it wasn't really enough to charge up to full, even with Ruby's steadfast nature filling the air with the sheer power of her Aura. Even with Penny standing there beside her, both of them unleashing the might of their souls as though it were physical pressure on the world itself.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME, LITTLE ROSE!? YOUR LITTLE PUPPET!? YOUR FRIENDS!? YOUR SISTER!? NONE OF THOSE THINGS GIVE YOU THE POWER TO KILL ME! NOTHING CAN KILL ME!" Salem roared, continuing to blast away at Team RWBYP with utterly ruinous amounts of magic and flame, explosions ringing out even as Ruby and Penny did their best to deflect and shield from the onslaught of power hammering away at them, even while Yang, Weiss, and Blake did their best to dodge out and spread around the room- not wanting to hide behind Ruby and Penny as their Auras recovered bit by bit. All five of them continued firing on Salem in turn, a cacophony of bullets and magic roaring through the interior of the monstrous whale- all of the ground around them erupting into fragments of ripped apart, sundered stone exposing the grimm flesh beneath. Stone that Ruby had made by blasting Salem as hard as she could with her Silver Eyes. "WEAK! ALL OF YOU! WEAK!"
"We're not weak! We're strong together! We're united! And we're gonna take! You! DOWN!" Ruby shot back defiantly, firing nonstop with Crescent Rose in her hand, bullet after bullet carving chunks out of Salem's body and interrupting the flow of magical attacks raining down, her and Penny flurrying about in arcs of red and green rose petals as they did more damage to Salem's body, the other three members of the team peppering in shots where they could.
They were hopelessly outmatched, and honestly… they knew it.
Things were getting dire.
And Ruby knew that they'd need some kind of miracle to get Salem for real- to take her down for good and either kill her or seal her away until nothing remained but a bad memory.
And then- Cinder and Neo joined the fray, riding in on a tide of flame and ice that erupted through the cavernous gut of the monstrous whale grimm and shredded everything inside to pieces- drawing a roar of agony as the entire thing began to list in midair, unable to really react due to the internal destruction.
Far away, muffled through endless meters of flesh and grimm matter, a hunk of gravity dust detonated and caused the whale itself to start falling out of the sky.
"LEAVE HER THE HELL ALONE YOU JUMPED UP BITCH!" Cinder cried, blazing hot flames pouring from her hands and casting a pall over the room that superheated everything, heedless of the crashing whale as she and Neo hovered in midair and blasted Salem with everything they had.
"Cinder! What are you doing here!? What about all the grimm!?" Ruby cried, halting and staring up at her sister in utter shock. "A-and what about Team JNPR!?"
"Everything's going fine down there, little sprout! The grimm are losing ground! Everything's gonna be okay! You'll see!" Cinder answered, taking her attention off of Salem for just a moment to give Ruby a reassuring nod- only for Salem to teleport in out of nowhere and slam Cinder out of the air with a massive swipe of her grimmified hand, sending her crashing to the ground- and Neo soon after.
"Cinder! Neo! Why you- RAAAAAAAAAGH!"
"Your hatred is weak. Untempered. All of you are so… weak. Fragile. Soft," Salem laughed, an evil, dreadful thing that continued even after Ruby separated Salem's head from her shoulders and disintegrated it with a blast from her eyes, only for a new one to grow in while Ruby grimaced and stumbled back from the pain in her eyes. "Silver eyes cannot hurt me. Even if you turn me to ash and dust in the wind, even if you turn me to stone- you cannot defeat me. Give up, Ruby Rose, and accept that you will fall and you will die."
"I may fall… but not like this!" Ruby stood defiantly, pointing Crescent Rose at Salem and tossing Augury back, deciding to use but a single scythe for the remainder of her fight. In the back, Penny caught the massive sword scythe from the air and held it at the ready, standing calmly and silently behind Ruby with all of her love and support pulsing in her Aura. They stood strong together, and stood defiantly against the monster that plagued the land for so long. "It won't be by your hand! Not this place, not today! So bring it all! Everything you've got! it's not enough to take me down! Not now! Not ever!"
"Tenacious little bug… full of bravado… your mother said something like that to me a long time ago… where is she now, I wonder?" Salem asked, a cruel smirk spreading across her face as her hands lit up with magic once more, eyes glowing with nothing more than sheer malevolence as she glared down at the suddenly petrified Ruby. "Where is Summer Rose?"
"You…" Ruby hissed, twitching with rage at the mention of her mother. "HOW DARE YOU SAY MY MOTHER'S NAME! YOU- YOU- YOU BITCH!"
"And there it is… all that righteous fury giving way to nothing more than mindless, animal rage! You have nothing! No one! Give in, Ruby Rose! After all… you still haven't answered my question!" Salem laughed, avoiding a sudden, flashing strike from Ruby and all but ignoring the retaliatory attacks from Yang, Blake, and Weiss- and only again bothering to match one of Penny's shots with her own even as she kept her attention on Ruby. She darted around the room like a specter, trailing around even as Ruby and Penny continued to strike at her like streaks of cutting light- red and green blazing through the air in deadly lines that still did nothing to Salem as she regenerated over and over again. "WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER NOW, CHILD!?"
"She's… she…"
A flurry of white interrupted the fight. A flash of bloody crimson in the air. An arc of striking bronze.
A cloak in the wind, thought scattered and lost.
"I'M RIGHT HERE, SALEM!"
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