TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 21, 2020 15:35:55 GMT -5
That wasn't quite the response she was hoping for. Sure, he didn't ask any more questions, but he didn't seem to accept the answer either. It was the kind of answer that was meant to shut down the conversation, which in most circumstances she would have been okay with given how hard it was for her to think straight enough to string words together through the static in her head, but he didn't seem very happy about it. So he didn't want to talk, but also wanted to talk? Red knew the feeling well enough, but she wasn't sure what to do about it. Besides say something obviously, but what? It's not like they could talk about the weather in a cave, and trying to piece together something inoffensive and conversational was really difficult right now. So she thought. She wasn't aware of how long she was taking to respond, but by the time she even came close to having something they had other problems to deal with.
Red wouldn't have noticed that the shape of the cave was strange. Caves were formed by water weren't they? And she had seen water do stuff like this to rocks. A little stream like that wouldn't, but Raul had said that the cave probably flooded on a regular basis, so she figured that the flood did it or something. Truly, she wasn't even thinking that hard about it. It was still cave and she still didn't know what to look for. The sounds on the other hand were more concerning, but she was having trouble placing what they might be. She was thinking considerably more slowly than she normally did, especially compared to how she was typically able to think in situations like this. Well, it probably didn't matter what it was. It wasn't generic cave sounds, so it probably wasn't good. They really needed to get out of here.
She moved towards Raul to grab his hand and run. It wouldn't be very pleasant for him, but it was better than staying here. As she took the first couple of steps, the roof collapsed on them and more Grimm came out. Because of course there were more. She knew there would be more if she couldn't calm herself down, but she utterly failed to do even something that basic. Undeterred by the falling roof, she continued towards the other faunus, getting hit by dirt and debris as she did so. She might have been buried in it if it wasn't so loose, but there were enough hard pieces that her aura flexed, making her body shimmer a dark orange for a moment. Her aura was about as strong as tissue paper, and it had taken a beating earlier. One more good hit would be enough to make it shatter completely.
What types of Grimm were these again? She couldn't remember what they were called, or much about what they did. They could dig really fast, which she supposed fit with Grimm in a cave, but that was about all she could remember. She wasn't sure how strong they were, but they probably weren't faster than she was or she'd remember them. They might be faster than she'd be if she was either carrying someone twice her size or dragging him along behind her, so she wasn't sure if they could run. She was in no condition to fight, and given he was still having trouble standing on his own, he probably wasn't either. Running was probably their best option.
"We have to move. I'm really sorry about this."
Unless he did something to stop her, she'd grab his hand as tightly as she could and bolted as fast as her legs could carry her. She hadn't met very many people that could keep up with her, and on a straight, flat tunnel like this, she didn't have to worry that much about tripping or needing to make sharp turns. There was no reason for her to hold back, other than Raul's comfort, which was less important than getting the hell out of here right now. What she considered a casual jog was faster than some people could sprint, and her full sprinting speed was several times that. If he couldn't keep up with her, she was perfectly fine with dragging him, or carrying him if he could manage to get on her without making her slow down. But if he refused her hand or didn't let himself be dragged along, she supposed there would be no choice but to fight. It's not like she could leave him behind.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 23, 2020 3:28:39 GMT -5
Raul obeyed his first instinct to leap back. Battered and disoriented, spitting dirt and trying to blink grit from his eyes. Barely able to see, unable to smell anything but dirt and what could only be described as wrongness, with even the solitary set of lupine ears atop his head half clogged with dirt, he was fighting blind, and flailed wildly as he staggered back and tried to make sense of the confusion. Something grabbed his wrist, and he realized just in time that it was not the jaws of some Grimm, but the grip of Sienna's leather glove. He returned the grasp, understanding the offering of guidance without the need for words, not that he could have heard her in any case.
She took off running, and nearly dragged him right off his feet. Raul wasn't any slouch when it came to speed, he could beat the majority of humanity in a foot race just about any day of the week, but Sienna clearly was in another league altogether. Even being dragged along behind her, he could barely keep up, and stumbled frequently on the uneven floor of the cavern, or slipped in the slick of flowing water. He was forced to run on all fours, well all threes really, just to keep from toppling over, and even then it was clear he was just slowing her down.
The thought of being literally carried never even crossed his mind. Given an option between being slow under his own power, and a bit faster under the power of someone else, it was not much of a choice to him. If it came to being carried Raul would rather turn and fight than force someone else to assume the risk in his stead. In fact, blind or not, were Sienna not there, he would have fought the ambushing Grimm without question, and only even considered fleeing if he started to lose. By then, it likely would have been too late, because he would have already started the fight tired and surprised.
Somehow, Sienna wasn't taken off guard, and as unlikely as it seemed, Raul was still grateful that she'd been there. A mechanic indeed. The more he saw of how she responded under duress the less Raul actually believed that flimsy explanation.
The Creeps snapped at them, still half trapped in the soil from which they had emerged, they were fortunately, for the pair of faunus at least, unable to fully block the passage, despite having sprung the trap upstream of the pair. If Raul and Sienna had hesitated to run, they would have been trapped and forced to fight, no doubt a tactic that the bipedal grimm were wont to rely upon. Serrated ivory jaws gnashed at both faunus, while thrashing skulls, plated in helms of solid bone, bashed them as they passed.
Raul all but lost his footing as one's jaws closed around his ankle, whilst another dealt a stunning blow to the side of his head with its own. The great wolf yelped as he kicked his snared foot free and punched the other Grimm hard enough to drive it back into the earth from which it had sprung, whilst with his other arm he hauled himself back to his feet and fell into step behind Sienna. Snarls of rage chased them up that throat of stone, as the grimm tore free of their burrows and flooded into the tunnel.
Whatever lead the pair had was vanishing swiftly. The scurrying beasts were a match for Sienna's speed, let alone Raul's, and were in no great hurry to give up a trapped meal. Raul could see it and realized at this rate the choice between fighting and running was just a choice between facing the enemy on his own terms, or dying tired. It wasn't really much of a choice. Not for him. In fact, it wasn't very much of a thought.
Raul's decision was made the very instant he understood the gravity of the situation. Ever the victim of instinct, his brain performed the calculation and produced a single stratagem in reply.
You are not fast enough to escape, but Sienna is, but only if someone slows them down.
"RUN! I'LL HOLD THEM OFF!" Raul cried out, as he twisted his hand free of Sienna's and turned to face the tide of baleful red eyes and glistening claws rising from the depths of hell itself to meet him.
The Waning Fangs sprang into his hands as if under their own power, spinning nimbly around Raul's fingers, unfolding into a pair of pistols underslung with bayonets. No sooner had the familiar click of the transition traveled up his arms, was Raul squeezing the triggers. The rapid fire reports of the twin revolvers hurt his ears as if bounced off the stony surface of the tunnel, whilst the muzzle flares illuminated his desperate sweat soaked features and wide blue eyes. It was hard to aim in the dark with the frequent flashes of his pistols destroying his natural night vision, and while a few shots glanced mostly harmlessly off the armored skulls of the advancing Grimm, more than half buried themselves in the tunnel walls and ceiling. The Fangs had belonged to his parents, each having been gifted one by the Vale armed forces before being deployed in Mistral. Their size and the caliber of their projectiles made them impractical to fire one handed, and were intended to be fired with the support of the off hand to compensate for the ludicrous kick of their recoil. Raul could only manage it by virtue of his great physical strength and size, and a great deal of practice. However the large caliber of the rounds had another unexpected result, as when the dust rounds impacted the interior of the tunnel, they exploded as all their mass and velocity was spent in the comparably soft material.
The strays shots had a greater effect slowing down the Grimm than the direct hits, as the blasted chunks of earth that ell from stricken sections of tunnel clogged the tunnel and forced the Grimm to slow down to clear them. Raul saw this, and at once his brain shifted from making a noble sacrifice to making a fading withdrawal.
"KEEP RUNNING!" He called up to Sienna over his shoulder, "I'M RIGHT BEHIND YOU!"
He pinched one pistol beneath the crook of his shoulder, and reloaded it one handed as he fired the other Fang until it was dry, now actively targeting the walls and ceiling of the tunnel between himself and the Grimm as he fell back. With the first pistol reloaded he went to reloading the other as he emptied the first into the tunnel. He was moving fast, but even while forced to dig through Raul's obstructions, the Grimm were still just as fast as he was, and it was taking everything the wolf had to maintain the few yards of distance he had over them.
1,162/17,595
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:03:50 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 23, 2020 11:37:24 GMT -5
It didn't take her long to realize that she had horribly miscalculated. Running seemed like the obvious choice. They had to get out of here. They absolutely had to get out of here, and that was the quickest way to do it. Fighting was a bad idea, and while she knew she couldn't keep up this speed forever, her endurance was good enough to hold it for awhile. It seemed logical to her at the time. Unfortunately, she was already struggling to breathe, so adding the extra strain that sprinting like that required meant she couldn't breathe at all. Her heart had already been pounding in her chest for some time, but once she was running for a little while her chest hurt badly enough that she briefly wondered if she was having a heart attack. Probably not, the symptoms didn't quite line up, but it was still pretty painful. When Raul forced his way out of her grip, she stopped and tried to catch her breath, doubled over with her hands on her knees. Though it sounded more like she was choking on the air than panting.
Fight it was. Every instinct in her was still screaming to get out of here, but she had no intention of leaving him behind. They were both getting out of here; that was what she told herself at the beginning and that was just as strongly ingrained in her head as her need to get out of here was. Red didn't immediately catch that he was trying to make sure she got out of here at his own expense, so the suggestion that she leave came across as completely stupid to her. The odds of them escaping were much higher if both of them fought rather than have her scout ahead or whatever else he thought she might accomplish by going ahead. She didn't have the breath to say anything right now, but words didn't seem necessary in the first place. Rotating enough to face the Grimm while she tried to breathe again seemed sufficient.
At least until he started running himself. The gunshots hurt her ears and made her feel dizzier than she already was, so it took her a second to react. Her reaction times were getting embarrassingly bad compared to what she was used to being able to pull off, but she was only half-aware of it. She would have liked a little bit more time to catch her breath, but Raul's pace was a bit beyond a casual jog for her. Still better than trying to sprint, so she tried to pull in enough air to let her sprint long enough to get them out of there. Or at least enough that, even if she couldn't breathe at all while sprinting, she'd be able to gain enough distance that she could afford to pause and catch her breath periodically. They likely had to rely on her speed because this wasn't fast enough. Which meant dragging Raul again in all likelihood. There wasn't much she could do about that, but she could at least try to make somewhat of a harness with the chains in her gloves so the force of being dragged would be more distributed rather than just in his wrist. Yanking a long length of chain out from both wrists as quickly as she could manage, she looked towards him and nodded.
"Wrap...You...I...Pull."
Talking was hard like this, so she tried to mime what she was talking about as best she could, using her hands to show wrapping one chain around her waist and the other around her chest, then offered both of the chains she pulled out to him. Hopefully it'd be enough for him to get what she was talking about. Even if he did it right and she did start dragging him along by the chains, it'd be a pretty unpleasant ride. If he couldn't keep up, he was likely to be knocked off his feet, but at least as long as he was being dragged he could still shoot and slow the Grimm down.
"I'm faster," she added.
Thinking was just as hard as talking, so she didn't know what else to do besides run as fast and as far as she could manage without passing out.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 26, 2020 11:33:52 GMT -5
Raul's cool blue eyes were wide, pupils constricted to infinitely fine points as they recoiled from the constant flash of gunfire. His ears were flat against the top of his skull, while his grey mane of hair stood on end. The desperate scramble towards the surface consumed every last iota of his awareness. He had not even considered what might happen if the tunnel did not lead to the open air. Mostly because the answer was obvious. If this tunnel didn't lead to escape and safety, then he and Sienna were all but assured to die horribly.
Were he and Sienna not mere moments away from a gruesome demise, Raul would have remarked at his own capabilities in that instant. His feet, with no assistance from his eyes, which were too focused on the horde of approaching grimm to assist in navigation, seemed to have no difficulty in finding purchase on the shifting surface of the cave floor, even moving at what would have been a flat run for most, in reverse. His hands seemed to move on their own, the long fingers which so often confounded him with their thick nails and cumbersome proportions, deftly plucking ammunition from his belt and reloading the chambers while firing with the other hand, before alternating, as if he were a gunslinger straight out of Vacuo. Just listening to how the echoes of his shots rang off the walls, he was able to tell when a bend in the tunnel was approaching, as his pointed ears flicked back and forth to soak up as much information from his surroundings as possible.
When had he grown this capable? He would have wondered were there any room in his head for idle fancies. How could he reconcile the competent warrior with the bumbling buffoon that had got himself wedged in a narrow passage just a few minutes earlier?
The answer was a simple one. Part of it was in his semblance. There dwelt within Raul a stronger connection to beasthood than most faunus. Whether that was due to genetics or the manifestation of his aura was a question better left to philosophers. In practice it meant that Raul's existence could be divided, though not always evenly, rarely in fact, into two competing forces of reason and instinct, or more sensationally, man and beast. Most of the time, reason ruled. Reason told him how to behave, how to be, if not accepted, at least tolerated by his peers. Instinct for its part, compelled him, informed his desires, and by its very nature often apposed reason. It was rarely considered to be socially acceptable to chase stray cats, but Raul couldn't deny the very real thrill he felt when on the hunt. Likewise it wasn't considered polite to smell people, but for one with a nose as sensitive as his, to deny the impulse of a sense so much stronger than his sight, was akin to asking a human to walk about blindfolded. Compromises needed to be reached, or life was rendered simply intolerable. Raul would resist the impulse to harass the neighborhood felines, but would set himself time aside to go into the woods and hunt for hares instead. Raul would control the desire to investigate every new smell, but if he caught a wiff while innocently standing near a particularly interesting person, then who could blame him?
This compromise was not always an easy one. Instinct told him to stand up straight, to dominate his surroundings with his size and might, while reason told him that people were less uncomfortable with his abnormal appearance if he made himself smaller by hunching his shoulders and keeping his hands near his body and moving about conservatively. Every moment of most every day was a careful balancing act of suppressing his instincts while appeasing them just enough to keep the self denial from driving him mad.
This dynamic turned every action into a debate, or negotiation between warring halves of his identity, and in turn gave the impression of clumsiness or even carelessness, which was ironically that total opposite of the truth. This keen self-awareness bordered on utterly paralyzing at the best of times, and had tormented Raul for his entire life. He'd taken much longer to say his first words than most children, and had preferred to move around on all fours for years after most children would have learned to walk. It wasn't until he started socializing with other children his own age that he'd even suspected he might not be normal, and by then, it was too late. To this day, he was more comfortable on all fours than upright, but that was even less socially acceptable than being a faunus.
However, when death was staring you in the eye, its slavering jaws mere inches from the tip of your nose, reason and instinct converged on a single objective, "survival". With that convergence, or cooperation Raul was truly capable of great things. His great size was no longer cumbersome, and the wealth of information gathered by his bestial senses no longer overwhelming, his savage impulses no longer a handicap, but a tool to be employed. Characteristics like his fangs and claws were no longer monstrous deformities, but advantages. It was hard not to enjoy it. Too bad it relied on a situation where someone was likely to get hurt. It was a liberation that was painful in its tragic irony.
Sienna didn't abandon him. A fact that simultaneously comforted Raul, because he did not need to face this threat alone, but annoyed him because it demonstrated the girl's, (possibly justified), complete lack of faith in him.
When she looped a chain around his waist and started fashioning an improvised harness Raul took more than a moment to understand her intention. He didn't even think to ask where she'd produced the device from, though if he lived long enough to get around to it, that would likely mean the end of her "I'm a mechanic" story, because it seemed like a strange thing for a mechanic to just be carrying around while she was out free running through the forest.
"I'm Faster" Sienna said and Raul couldn't help but shake his head as he took aim and unleashed another barrage into the tunnel.
"You're exhausted!" He retorted, scoffing with naked disbelief, "You should have left me. You can barely carry yourself, much less me. You'll drop dead if you don't rest!"
Raul for his part was not struggling nearly as much as he had been after the explosion. He'd mostly recovered, and any lingering effects of the blast were more than being compensated for by the adrenaline surging through his veins. He could tell his aura was still damaged, but the brief break on Sienna's shoulder had allowed even some of that to replenish itself. Under more favorable conditions than fighting the burrowing grimm in an environment where they had a major advantage, he might have even chanced a straight up engagement.
The Sienna started pulling, adding her speed to his like a dog towing a sled. Raul had to adjust his pace, only spared from being dumped on his back by the uneven tugging on his mass by his preternatural agility and ability to compensate. They weren't moving as fast as Sienna would have alone, because she would have needed to drag him entirely to achieve it, and then there would have been no one to slow the grim down, and therefore no means of escape. However, the slight advantage of speed was all they needed to start pulling away from the pack of creeps. A lead started to slowly but steadily grow between hunters and Grimm. What couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes, but felt like nothing less than a lifetime, passed as the pair fled up the shaft of rock and soil, their escape punctuated by Sienna's gasping breaths and the roar of Raul's pistols.
"Keep it up!" Raul called as he lost sight of the grimm around a bend in the tunnel, and emptied another full cylinder of bullets into the tunnel's ceiling. He didn't want to think of how much lien he'd just fired into the guts of this mountain, but it was looking like he'd be eating instant noodles for the next month if he wanted to have enough ammunition for classes. As if fate chose to answer that exact thought, Raul reached towards his ammo belt, and made a terrible discovery. He was down to his very last clip of shells.
"I'm out!" He yelled in dismay, as he squeezed the trigger vainly, and produced nothing but a series of dry click's from the pistol.
Cursing he loaded the last eight shots into his gun.
His powder blue eyes turned to look at Sienna as she labored to drag his bulk up the tunnel, while he spun about mid stride to face the same direction and run along side his companion. He was already starting to fall behind, and unless they did something drastic, the lead they had accumulated would be wasted. Digging deep, he surged ahead, driving his already screaming muscles to the absolute limit to match Sienna's pace for long enough to pull up beside her.
"We have to be close!" He tried to sound encouraging, despite feeling perfectly hopeless, "We won't have long. I can't keep up. You'll have to drag me."
He grabbed her wrist, as they ran for just a moment, compelling her to look at him and see the expression of sincere desperation in on his lean wolfish visage.
"If they catch up." He said, with a level of gravity that would have fit the last request of a condemned man, "Promise you'll leave me. Promise you'll tell my family what happened to me."
Unable to keep up any longer, and unwilling to give Sienna time to refuse what might be his final request, Raul fell behind once more. The chain went taught around him and yanked him bodily off his feet. Raul yelped as he hit the floor and was dragged unceremoniously up the passage, doing his best to shield his head with one hand as he aimed one of his pistols down the way they had come. Like a landed fish being dragged along a dry lake bed, he bounced back and forth between the walls of the passage and the various rocks and stalactites sticking from the packed soil. His yelps of pain nearly drowned out the roars of rage and hunger approaching from below, just as the glint of what could only be daylight came into view peaking through the gaps in the bends of the tunnel up ahead.
1,738/19,378
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:05:26 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 26, 2020 13:09:38 GMT -5
This was such a terrible idea on so many levels. She was already struggling to breathe, her chest hurt, and now she was dragging 200 pounds of faunus behind her. There was nothing sensible about any of this, but what else could she do? It was either fight the Grimm or run. They were the types of Grimm that Knight could take out instantaneously with almost no effort, but that meant they could be anything from paper thin, like the Ravagers, to several times tougher than her aura was and she had absolutely no way of knowing which it was. Red didn't fight Grimm, there wasn't much point when her skill set was better suited to rescue than combat. As long as there was such a wide range of how strong they could be, she was going to go for the safer option and run.
Granted, she wasn't thinking quite that coherently and was also driven by a panicked desire to get out of this damn cave already and away from the terrible smells, and running was far more conductive to that. It didn't matter how stupid or insane it was. It didn't matter how bad it made her feel or if she might pass out at the end. There weren't any other resources to use. If there was another option, she sure as hell couldn't think of it right now. Running was what she had to do, so no matter how hard her body protested or how ridiculous the other circumstances were. It was do or die and thus required no thought from her. She just shook her head at Raul's remark about her being exhausted. It didn't matter.
But holy hell was it unpleasant. Not the worst situation she'd been in, but her chest felt like it was on fire. Once she really started moving she couldn't breathe. At all. She kept trying, but it felt like her throat had swelled up and the air kept getting stuck there. It was fine though, she could hold her breath for a few minutes and she could keep trying to get something in to let her go a little longer. As she ran, everything was starting to sound weird, so she had no idea if she was fast enough while trying to drag something this heavy behind her. She could mostly make out what Raul was saying, but processing it into something useful was hard. The encouragement was utterly irrelevant, but him being out of bullets was concerning. Hopefully she had gotten enough distance in that time.
Her vision was blurring, so once the light came into view she wasn't sure if it was real or not. After blinking a few times to try to confirm it, she started slowing down and looked up. Red wasn't sure how much longer she could keep this up, so even though slowing down might have seemed counter productive, she hoped it would get them out faster. If the exit was this close, then there probably wasn't that much earth between them and the outside where they stood right? She pointed upwards while she tried to get some more air in her lungs to talk.
"Make hole?"
If he showed any signs that this was an agreeable plan, even if she was just seeing things, she'd immediately grab one of her chains and throw it up on the ceiling. At the end of each of them was a grapple that could stick to smooth surfaces easily. She couldn't use it in the rougher parts of the cave, but in such a smooth surface like this, they would have no trouble sticking. They used the same kind of forces that would let a gecko hang onto a Teflon surface with only one toe, so they were far stronger than they looked. Even one had no trouble at all letting her swing around while carrying Knight, and she had used them to stay attached to speeding vehicles, so it would have no trouble carrying their weights. It might have looked weird though, so just to prove it wouldn't fall, she gave the chain a good tug. With any luck, that would be enough to get them out of there.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 27, 2020 10:43:34 GMT -5
That last hundred or so feet were some of the most miserable in Raul's entire life. Being dragged along like a great furry anchor was a mode of transport that made his usual clumsiness seem like the choreographed grace of an expert dancer. He was soaked, his clothes caked in dirt and mud where they were not worn right through to bare flesh, and it seemed like his had collected an entire quarry of grit in his ears and hair. If he survived this misadventure, the first thing he'd be doing would be visiting the river to wash off.
When they came to a halt, he was grateful in spite of there still clearly being at least a few hundred feet of tunnel between them and safety. As hard as it had been on him to be towed along like the worlds most comical sled, Sienna seemed to not have faired much better. Clearly it had taken a lot out of her dragging his mass up the passage, and it was a testament to superhuman levels of endurance that she managed to come as far as they had. It took but a single glance at her gasping as she put her hands on her knees and drew in belly deep lungfuls of precious air to know that Sienna was done carrying him.
Her request first caused Raul to look at her strangely, and then after the necessary moment to actually understand what she wanted of him, caused him to regard her with naked incredulity. How exactly was he supposed to tunnel through solid rock? How exactly was that supposed to be faster than just running the rest of the way. It seemed at first to be such an utterly baffling suggestion that Raul genuinely worried that it was an indication of some sort of dementia brought on by a lack of oxygen.
Still, it was clear that Sienna couldn't continue dragging him, and it was clear that Raul no longer wished it, even were she not clearly on the verge of collapse, and the exit was still too far away to make on foot. Raul was forced to humor that absurd request and looked straight up at the roof of the tunnel, only a foot or so above his head. He should have expected it, but somehow he was still surprised to find that the ceiling was made mostly of packed earth.
On reflection that made some sense, because even though he'd not given it much thought, he realized that most of the tunnels in here would likely have been dug by the burrowing Grimm, this one that they were in included. Creeps were capable tunnelers, but not through solid rock, which meant that the earth surrounding them must have been soft enough for the beasts to dig through. Which meant, to Raul's relief and excitement, it was soft enough for him to dig through.
His incredulous expression lapsed into something more hopeful, and his jaw set as he gave Sienna a determined nod of his shaggy grey head, before glancing down at the pistol in his hand. Eight shells. Would that be enough? Only one way to find out.
Raul raised the Waning Fang and averted his eyes and covered his one of his ears with his free hand as he squeezed the trigger and discharged the all eight chambers into the packed soil above them. So much soil fell down upon them that Raul had enough time to worry that he would bring the entire tunnel down before the last grain had fallen. The pair was left standing knee deep in tilled earth, and looking up into a gaping crater almost five deep into the tunnel overhead, one that, Raul couldn't help but notice, did not lead to open air.
Crestfallen, Raul turned wide and apologetic eyes towards Sienna, just as the roaring of the Grimm behind them answered the eight shots of his revolver. He winced, at the sound, and glared hatefully at the soil that had betrayed them, before setting his jaw and snarling. It was a deep hole, and they had to be close.
"Climb onto my back!" Raul told her.
Assuming she obeyed him, Raul proceeded to leap upwards into the space he'd created, wedging himself into the narrow space to keep from slipping back down into the tunnel below. With savage desperation he clawed and punched and thrashed at the soil overhead, pressing himself into the sides of the shaft to keep from falling back down even as ragged chunks fell down around them. Needless to say attempting to tunnel straight up was no simple task, as every impact of Raul driving a fist into the earth served to try and dislodge him from his position inside the hole. After a less than promising start going directly upwards, he adjusted his excavation, so that the angle of his ascent was merely steep instead of vertical. This helped, but not enough, that was until Sienna grappled the walls of the tunnel he was creating.
Raul would have liked a moment to scrutinize the exact method by which Sienna's grapnel's managed to adhere to the stones that jutted from the passage he was making, but with the snarling and screeching of Grimm fast approaching, he had not the time to waste on his curiosity. Raul simply needed to feel the added support of the anchors to understand their purpose, and trusting in the chains to bear his weight, he abandoned all efforts to fix himself in place in favor of directing the entirety of his strength towards digging up to the surface.
The creeps had made it to their shaft by now, and were milling about on the tunnel floor below, peering up into the overhead tunnel with their beady red eyes, saliva dripping down their jaws as they awaited a single mistake that would send the pair of faunus tumbling out of the hole and into their waiting jaws.
Raul for his part, ignored the grim audience as much as he was able. His rhythmic grunts as he pounded away at the earth were nearly sufficient to drown out the baying of the strange creatures below. His corded muscle stood out starkly against sweat soaked flesh as he dealt blow after savage blow against the earth, chipping away a route to safety one handful of soil at a time.
Down below the grimm were becoming impatient, and were climbing on each other and leaping up to snap at the heels of their prey, and for now were falling blessedly short of the mark. A more cunning member of their number began to dig into the wall perpendicular to the tunnel clearly meaning to dig a parallel path and flank Raul and Sienna.
Raul growled a curse, as he hammered away at the soil, which seemed not to yield any but the slightest measure beneath his might. Then, all at once his fist crashed through the earth, sinking up to his elbow. The great wolf grunted in surprise, and grasped around before pulling back his fist, clutching a handful of fresh sod, with green shoots sticking from the gaps in his fingers. Raul's eyes went wide as he understood, and redoubled his efforts.
The aches of exhaustion in his muscles seemed to melt away as a fresh surge of adrenaline struck, and the prospect of the open air urged him to spend all that remained of his strength in pursuit of it. The hole to safety, first no more than the diameter of his fist, spread and widened until Raul could pass Sienna through, even now forsaking his own salvation in order to ensure that she was safe first.
With his companion safely delivered to the surface, Raul moved to follow, but just as he was squeezing his broad shoulders through the gap, the wall of the shaft burst inwards and a gnashing set of ivory jaws closed fast around his ankle.
Raul yelped in pain and fear as the sudden addition of weight pulled him back into the hole, and he grasped desperately at the earth, claws plowing up handfuls of soil as he fought against being dragged back into the earth.
"Sienna! I'm slipping!" He croaked, eyes wild as his unmolested foot started to lose purchase on the wall of the shaft as well.
1,398/20,769
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:06:35 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 27, 2020 13:57:53 GMT -5
Red blinked at his reaction and looked further down the tunnel. It was still pretty far, and if he couldn't slow them down anymore and if she was going to have trouble running at her full speed, then trying to take a shortcut seemed like the best course of action. Maybe. She couldn't think clearly enough to really know how reasonable anything was right now. How reasonable something was just didn't matter right now. Going up was the most direct path she could think of, and if he wasn't able to break it, she was pretty sure she would be able to.
Fortunately, he went along with it and could indeed break it himself. Her heart skipped a beat when the dirt fell. She hadn't even considered the possibility of a cave in or that they might knock apart more than they bargained for if they kept breaking the structure of the cave like this. Raul had been doing it for so long to keep the Grimm at bay that the thought never even occurred to her. That was horribly irresponsible and they were lucky everything held together as well as it did. There wasn't time to dwell on it. They weren't dead, and they had some climbing and digging to do. Red nodded at the command to climb onto his back and did so without objection. She wasn't thrilled at the idea that he would be able to feel her heartbeat and breathing again, but there wasn't any benefit to them climbing separately. The passage was too narrow, he was too heavy for her to carry properly, and she seriously needed to stabilize her breathing if she didn't want to pass out. There was still too much she needed to pay attention to for any of her calming techniques to be effective, because even if she didn't need to climb herself she still felt the need to make sure they didn't fall, but she could at least focus a little more on her breathing for a bit.
But first, she had to make sure they were stable. While Raul was trying to get a good grip so he could stat digging and climbing, she used one of her arms and legs to push against the edge of the tunnel to try and help hold them in place long enough for him to get a good grip. Climbing upwards while digging wasn't easy or very pleasant given all that shaken up dirt and rock had nowhere to go but down on their heads and there wasn't a lot they could do about it. Still, as she looked downwards towards the cave they were just in, the Grimm were just there staring upwards at them. Even if they could dig well, there was a big difference between burrowing to get around defenses and being able to climb vertically. It seemed like this would be just as hard for the Grimm as it would be for the two of them. They might even have an easier time because she had her grapples to help them avoid slipping and losing distance, something she used any time it looked like there was any danger of that happening.
By the time they reached the top, her breathing wasn't entirely back to normal, but it was a lot more steady than it had been. She no longer felt light-headed or wobbly, and the urge to throw up from over exertion was gradually fading. Her mind was still moving faster than she could process, and that still hurt, her muscles were still tense and tired, and her eyes were red from all the tears that were leaking out of her face earlier. She was still a mess, but at least she was a mess that wasn't about to keel over at any moment.
Red had no objections to climbing out of the tunnel first. The hole was small enough that she could pull herself up without having to climb over Raul, and he was right behind her, so it didn't seem rude at all. Maybe she should have been more concerned with it given he seemed very eager to sacrifice himself for no reason earlier, but she figured it'd be fine as long as she could turn around immediately and help him up like he was helping her up.
But nothing was ever allowed to go right or as planned when it came to her, and she always seemed to find a way to mess things up. Before she could turn around and offer a hand to help him up, he was starting to slip back into the hole. It wasn't normal given how he had been trying to climb out moments before, so something must be happening underground where she couldn't see. If she had been a little faster or a little more rough, maybe she could have gotten out before more problems came. Her first instinct was to immediately reach out for him, but her arm didn't get very far before she paused. Red wasn't sure what was happening, but she had a couple of reasonable guesses given these Grimm were known for their ability to dig. Would her strength be enough to counter that? She wasn't weak, but she had no idea how strong these creatures were. Her eyes darted around until she found a smooth rock protruding out of the grass. That would do. The batteries in her gloves were dead from when she drained their power to create that fireball earlier, so she had to get up and attach it to the rock herself, not wanting to take any chances throwing it in case she missed, then tried to grab onto his hands to help pull him up. This way, they had an anchor so they wouldn't get pulled back in so easily, and she could more easily use the strength in both her arms to pull him out. The chain on her other glove was still dangling off her wrist, so if he needed something else to grab onto that could also help him stabilize himself.
"I got you! Don't worry about holding on, just try to pull yourself out!"
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 27, 2020 15:32:11 GMT -5
As far as moments went, this was a pretty bad one. The sensation of hollowness that rose out of Raul's guts and made him feel as if he'd swallowed the blackness between the stars, as he dug his claws into the earth and slowed his backward slide into oblivion not at all, was a completely novel one. Curiously, that sensation seemed to compel him not to secure his grip, but to accept his fate and tumble back down into the earth to meet whatever end awaited him. He would later come to recognize that sensation as the call of the void, a quirk of perception present in about half of the population that confused the self preservation instinct into impelling behavior counter to it's intended purpose.
There was a work of cosmic comedy there somewhere. No better example could possibly exist of Raul instincts not always being informed by his best interest. His rationale brain held no illusions of what would happen if he were dragged back into the mountain, but by virtue of an abnormality, or perhaps even a defect, somewhere in his psychology, his instinctual brain was urging him to allow it to happen.
Needless to say, he did not stop struggling. Even with his own instincts betraying him, the force of reason was too strong to allow Raul to simply accept death. He scrambled at the earth, scooping great furrows out of the loose dirt as he tried to fight the weight of the Grimm that had fastened itself to his foot. He couldn't make any noises but those of his pitched effort, and the remainder of pleas for aid were communicated to Sienna via his wide blue eyes, which locked a despairing gaze upon the redhead.
His heart, hammering in his chest, swelled as Sienna turned to offer him aid, only to skip a beat when she hesitated and looked over her shoulder. It would be some sort of luck if the girl picked that moment to do as Raul had urged her, and take off running, leaving the stupid brute to his fate, and for a horrible moment Raul was utterly convinced that's what was about to happen. Sure enough Sienna moved with all urgency, in the wrong direction. Raul could provide nothing but a desperate moan as he slipped another half dozen inches towards annihilation.
Then she slapped one of her chains against a nearby rock, and turned back towards Raul, and crouched to grasp at his wrists. By this point all but his head and forearms had receded back into the shaft, and the wild horror on his face was a thing worthy of the dramatic situation. He was too consumed by mortal terror to be either surprised or even relieved by the development.
Sienna's aid made all the difference however. It had never been a question of physical strength. Raul had might to spare, and could have pulled himself out with a whole pack of Grimm hanging from his toes. The issue had been the lack of purchasable surfaces to leverage his strength against. The loose dirt was great for digging, but woeful for trying to hold on. Just having a solid object to hold on to was all the it took to swing his fortunes from certain doom to salvation.
With no apparent effort, even exhausted as he was, Raul twisted his arms about to return Sienna's grip and began to haul himself free of the tunnel, steadily pulling up shoulders, then chest, then waist, then legs, and finally his most unwelcome passenger. Flopping on the bed of grass, and no longer at risk of being dragged to his death, Raul turned and gave a fierce snarl that had nothing but beast in it, and dealt a serious of savage kicks to the half submerged Grimm. To give the monster credit, it did not loosen it's grip as Raul's heel bludgeoned it about the skull.
The same could not be said for Raul's boot. The long suffering laces snapped, and the leather torn, and in almost a single piece, the shoe slid free, and the creep along with it. The final kick completely dislodged the beast and sent it tumbling back down into the hole.
Raul scrambled back to the hole, to see the bipedal shape thrashing on the floor of the tunnel below, but already others were following their companions former path to the surface. The grey hunter considered the threat for a moment and then snatched the chain that still ran from Sienna's glove to a nearby boulder. With a titanic effort that made every fiber of muscle and every line of sinew and every vein on his entire upper body stand out, Raul gave vent to a booming roar of effort as he tore the rock, which was as broad as his own shoulders, free of earth and swung it over head to crash down upon the hole, just as an alabaster visage of death was coming into view from below.
The rock embedded itself in the earth, plugging up the hole like uncorking a bottle in reverse. The earth shook beneath the impact, and the dull thud resonated for a few moments.
Raul turned his pale blue eyes towards Sienna, and was just about to say something, when the ground upon which they stood gave a mighty heave and collapsed away beneath them, dropping the entire slope down a few feet, before it came to rest. Apparently the tunnel below had finally endured as much as it's integrity could tolerate, and had completely caved in. That was surely bad news for the creeps that were still down there. They were fine burrowers, but not when they had several tonnes of earth resting upon every inch of their bodies.
Raul gave a weak chuckle from where he'd fallen on his back when the earth gave way, and flopped his head back against the soft green grass that blanketed the slope, throwing his arms out wide and indulging in the rays of sun that fell upon the hill side.
1,010/21,779
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:08:12 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 27, 2020 16:38:33 GMT -5
As she saw Raul slip further into the hole, she worried that another one of her brief moments of hesitation was about to cost someone their life again. Fortunately, she was still fast and could close the distance necessary quickly, but looking at his desperate eyes as she anchored herself and closed was hard. For as fast as her body was, her mind was slow and indecisive. The only reason she had been able to focus as well as she did in this situation (and was able to in situations like it) was because she needed to take whatever route would give them the best chances of survival. Nothing else mattered. There was nothing else to think about. In this particular situation though, she had been given two obvious options and needed to decide which was better, which took time. Almost too much time judging from how far the other faunus sank.
However, she was fast enough in the end. Despite that, she was going to be berating herself for the next few hours for being too slow, but there was no time to think about that right now. No point. They weren't out yet, and there was still something that had to be done. It made it very easy to push the thought aside.
With Raul out of the hole, she was able to see what was pulling him down. This time, she moved with zero hesitation and used the hand not attached to the rock to try to throw a punch, but by the time she got in a position where she could hit it without hitting Raul, it had already slid back into the hole along with his boot. Was that a good thing? She wasn't sure. With two of them able to pick off one of the Grimm, they might have been able to beat it, and then it would be dead and unable to hurt anyone else. With it falling back into the cave, it would be able to regroup with the others, and then they'd be in the same situation they were in before. Well, she wasn't about to go back into that hole to fight them all, so it was a moot point. It might have been nice to finish off one, but at this point they were out, so everything might be fine?
Then she looked down the hole to watch the Grimm fall and she realized everything was not fine. Raul was one step ahead of her though and used the rock she attached herself to plug the hole. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she had to stop herself from detaching her chain immediately. As long as he was throwing it like that, her chain probably wouldn't get caught underneath it, but that was always a worry with a setup like this. Once it hit the ground, she pulled on a small wire running up the chain to detach the grapple. Rather than tugging on it to pull it off, something that would not work, doing it like this peeled it off like a sticker, which made it come off very easily. Normally she did it with a couple of specific finger flexes, but with the battery that powered all the small mechanisms in the glove dead, she had to do it like this.
For a moment, she thought that might be the end of it. If the Grimm were successfully burrowing upwards then they were still a threat, but she could probably move fast enough to get some scroll reception to call Knight and the two of them could probably take out anything in that cave easily. She didn't really want to unleash them on the city itself, and she trusted Knight more than she trusted any of the Huntsmen that she might be able to report this to. Still forcing herself to take deep breaths, she pulled out her scroll from the pocket she had it in while they were climbing out of the tunnel to check the signal, when the ground gave out under her.
Given the entire reason she was in this situation in the first place was because the ground collapsed under, she startled and jumped. As on edge as she was, her reflexes kicked in the moment she felt the ground move, long before her mind could even catch up to what was going on. With as fast as she could move, she was able to clear the sagging area before it finished falling, but it undid all the progress she had made with her breathing, and she was back to panting while a bead of sweat dripped down her face. Even once Raul laughed and flopped backwards, she could not bring herself to relax at all. Even once her mind registered that the Grimm were probably dead after that, if they were tough enough to handle something like that then Knight would be able to finish them off so easily, she still couldn't bring herself to relax. Grabbing onto a nearby tree so she'd have something to do with her hands for the moment, she looked around and listened for any sign of danger. She couldn't find any, but her shoulders were still tensed up to her ears and she couldn't bring herself to stop scanning the area. She opted not to call Knight immediately in case the Grimm were dead, and listened for any signs of life coming from the underground.
Well, she supposed she should tend to her traveling companion. The urge to ask useless questions was there, but she paused and thought enough to refine them into something more useful.
"Good job back there," she took a deep breath to try to make her voice sound more calm than she was. "Are you hurt?"
It felt like a dumb question, but given he had aura it seemed entirely fair. She had no idea how strong it was, though she didn't recall hearing it shatter, or how good his control over it was.
"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see the sun."
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 27, 2020 21:25:39 GMT -5
Needless to say, Raul had looked better. Caked head to toe in dirt and mud, from a desperate flight through the bowels of the earth, clothes and especially his shirt and jacket reduced to little better than rags from having been dragged across a hundred feet of uneven rocky terrain, all topped off by missing a boot, Raul looked like he'd been thrown in a sack and beat with hammers for several hours. He also beamed with pure joy as he lazed there in the sun, stretching out his aching limbs to the furthest extent of their reach, as if now that he was no longer confined by the earth he was determined to take up as much space as possible.
His eyes closed to avoid the glare of the sunlight which seemed harsh after so long under ground, he cracked a wolfish grin at Sienna's question.
"Only everywhere," he answered as he groaned and did his best to roll over, moving a bit more stiffly now that the threat of death wasn't urging his body onward.
He pushed himself up into a crouch, seating himself at the base the slight depression left behind by the tunnel collapse in a pose that would not have looked any less appropriate were it adopted by a large hound. Eyes still closed, he shook his head rapidly, casting off some of but not all of the dirt to have become trapped in his mane of grey hair. Then he took in deep luxurious breaths through his nose, indulging in the scent of fresh grass and turned soil and the thousands of other scents of the forest that were the sweetest of perfumes to him after the musty depths of the earth. His ears flicked back and forth, tracking the sounds of life that surrounded them.
Overcome by the sheer joy of having escaped with his life and being surrounded by the unbridled magnificence of mother nature, Raul burst to his feet and let forth a cheer, a howl worthy of the wolf he so resembled, of heartbreakingly pure joy that rang out for miles around them. Then he was upon Sienna, with his unimpeded seven foot tall frame enclosing her in a crushing embrace as he lifted her clear off the ground and spun about in a dance of celebration for their shared survival.
"We're alive!" He declared as his tail attempted to set a new land speed record behind him, his cool blue eyes beaming as he looked up to the unfortunate creature captured in his celebratory hug, "Smell that air! Listen to that forest! Have you ever see anything so glorious?"
Mercifully he placed her back down before the moment could become awkward, and as he did so his expression returned some way back to it's habitual neutrality as he looked towards the depressed earth beneath their feet. Then something seemed to dawn upon him and his gaze fell towards the earth beneath his half shod feet. His tail slowed and his ears sagged as he cocked his head to one side and beheld the recently created depression with a contemplative expression.
"I feel bad for them..." He said quietly, baby blue gaze looking past the grassy surface of the slope they stood upon, "What a terrible way to die..."
It may have taken a moment to conclude that he was talking about none other than the creatures of Grimm that had hounded them, and likely would have joyfully inflicted horrors upon him if given the chance. Most wouldn't have given the fate of the evil creatures a second thought, but for Raul, the cruelty of it weighed on him. The Grimm had as much a right to exist as he did, and he'd just condemned those beneath his feet to a horrible and slow death for no crime greater than obeying their nature. To say that Raul had sympathy for things that were ruled by a nature that they had never chosen nor could they control, was something of an understatement.
671/22,450
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:09:02 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 27, 2020 23:18:46 GMT -5
Red frowned and put her scroll back into her pocket at his response. He didn't look great no, which was why she was worried that it was a stupid question, but hearing it confirmed tied her stomach up in knots. It was a dangerous situation (well probably a dangerous situation, she supposed it could have been fine and she was completely over reacting, but it didn't feel that way), so both of them ending pretty roughed up was to be expected. Holding anything back in such a situation could have resulted in one or both of them getting killed, and her plans to get them out hadn't exactly been gentle because of that.
She didn't look that great herself, but she wasn't nearly as bad off as he was. Her clothes were still relatively clean outside of her shoes and the bottom of her pants which were covered in mud. The rest of her clothes were just drenched in sweat, mostly because of the cave, but also because of her exercise from before she fell. There was enough that she was definitely going to have to do laundry later and would need to take a discrete route home if she wanted to avoid trouble, but otherwise she didn't look that off. She was going to need to manually wrap up the chains in her gloves since the battery in them was dead, and they still dangled about on her sides. Mostly, she was just tired, but if the dark rings under her eyes were any indication, she was tired a lot. Her muscles were a little achy, but her aura and the adrenaline dulled any pain she might have been feeling. That he felt worse than she did made her feel like she failed somehow. She looked down trying to think of what to say.
He didn't give her much of a chance to say anything before he started making random noises of his own. She looked up and raised an eyebrow, only to see him charging right for her. He wouldn't would he? Not again, and not so intentionally? She took a step backwards, but his reach was far too long and she didn't seriously expect him to do something like this again. The air was forced out of her lungs and she felt every muscle in her body ache as she was hugged and spun around. He was really lucky that she didn't get motion sick because she was just getting over her urge to throw up.
Disorientated, she took a moment to steady herself and tried to find something to do besides standing there dumbfounded. She wasn't quite sure what just happened, but he couldn't be feeling that bad if he was moving like this. This time, the hug might have succeeded in making her feel a little better, if only because it made her feel a little less guilty about everything that just happened. Her mind was still in a haze though, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something catastrophic was going to happen. For as much as the sound of the wind, the birds, and the animals running around the area wanted to try to distract her, she was still listening intently for any signs of life underground. The sun was blinding and every movement of the grass and the trees was distracting, but she needed to look around for anything out of place, wrong, or any signs that the ground might collapse under them again. They were away from the terrible smell of the cave, but her heart was still pounding in her chest and everything still felt horribly wrong. She couldn't relax yet and she couldn't feel that same joy he did.
No, that was wrong. While she wasn't convinced the Grimm were dead because she didn't see them dissipate herself, they were outside. They succeeded in getting out and both of them were probably in good enough shape to get home. If there was a Grimm infestation in the cave, maybe there was more to deal with, but they weren't here right now and they could leave. It took her a moment to place what was happening, but she supposed she should have expected it after she tried to hard to recall the worst of her memories. No, indulging that happiness was exactly what she needed to do. She needed to calm down. Red let out a dry chuckle as she plopped herself down on the grass and rested one arm on a raised knee.
"You can't be feeling that bad if you're moving around like that. Do you want to see a doctor or anything?"
She took another deep breath and tried to calm herself down. They had time -- probably -- so she could just sit there for a second. Sit there and feel how soft the ground felt compared to what the cave felt like. Sit there and feel how terrible it felt to be in a drenched T-shirt and how much she didn't like it sticking to her body like that. To hear the sound of the grass and the leaves as the wind blew through it. The sound of the birds and the squirrels running through the area. The sound of the water source they were following. The smell of the dust that the ground collapsing kicked up. Everything that was real and everything that was around her. Right now, there were no Grimm. Her senses could confirm it.
The sound of Raul's voice filled her ears again and made her stop zoning out. What a strange thought. It was about as useless as a lot of the thoughts she had and strange to hear from someone that wanted to kill them for a living. In theory at least. Red didn't feel the least bit sorry for them. For as much as she hated violence or inflicting any kind of pain, she didn't have much sympathy for monsters. That seemed rude to say outright though, and she really didn't want to discuss his career decisions and would actually like to forget about them completely, so she saw no reason to be contrary. Or honest.
"Yeah..." She paused and looked down. "I'm going to go get some water. Do you want any?"
She wasn't sure what to say to make him feel better. If he really did feel sympathy for monsters, then saying that it was okay to kill them probably wouldn't help. A distraction seemed like it'd be better, and given that stream was a good distance from this spot still, it'd be a distraction that would pull him away from the location the bad feelings were in. That seemed like a good start.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jul 1, 2020 7:20:16 GMT -5
Raul let out a sigh as he stared down at the heaved soil beneath his feet. He contemplated, not for the first time, how this was going to be his life. This was going to be what he did, his purpose. It was an idea that in many ways was simply too large for him to comprehend. Raul didn't consider himself to be stupid, though he may very well have been in the eyes of others just a big dumb brute, but even so, when he tried to look ahead to the path of life laid out before him, he felt restrained. He felt as if he could only ever see a small part of it at a time, and never the whole picture. That made him feel remarkably stupid.
How was he supposed to reconcile his path in life when he couldn't even stand far enough away to get a good look at it? All those ideas, and concepts felt like they were just on the tips of his claws, but forever out of reach, like the meaning of it all was written in a language he'd never understand. He knew it was wrong to hurt things, and even without having been raised to understand that fact, Raul was sure he would have known it on some deep down level that transcended reason. Never once in his life had he looked at something or someone and wished them harm, at least not initially, but he also understood that there were people and things in the world that didn't think the way he did. He knew that the Grimm, just like certain people, meant him harm, despite never having known him. Was it right then, to hurt those things? What gave him that right? Just because he was big and strong?
His mother told him once, that there was only one thing in the world that was certain.
"Everything has as much of a right to exist as you do." Raul whispered to himself, as he kicked idly at the dirt.
"I'm going to go get some water. Do you want any?" Sienna's voice broke his reverie.
Raul nodded, a shock of his long grey fringe toppling down over his face, hiding his frown. He silently fell into step behind the redhead. His pale blue eyes fixed on her, drawn away from the crime in the earth below and towards the humanity before him. He had a sense that he was looking at the answer to his conundrum, but it was simply too large for him to grasp. It might not have been right, to exterminate the Grimm, at least it didn't feel right, and Raul doubted it ever would, but he'd done it while protecting Sienna. Did that make it right? It was a solution that likely satisfied most all of those in his situation, but not him. It seemed too easy, too convenient, to excuse inflicting harm for the sake of others. It was hard to feel sympathy for the Grimm, but what if it had been bandits? What if it had been people? Would it be right to hurt people to protect a stranger? If not, then why? When did it become right for one, and not right for another? Followed to the extreme, that sort of logic could be used to justify just about anything.
He wished his mother was here, much to his personal shame, because she would pat him on the head and tell him he did a good job, and he would believe her. He would be able to ignore how the animal inside him had started to enjoy it as he tore the Grimm apart with his bare hands.
He wished someone would tell him what he was supposed to think, what he was supposed to feel. He and Sienna could have died down there and no one would ever have known. It was so big, so profound, to think that his life could have ended in a hole beneath the earth and his parents would never know what had happened to him. It felt unreal. It felt like it was too big of an idea to fit in his stupid head. He should be happy to be alive. He should feel something, but the truth was, he'd felt more when his teeth sunk into the grimm than he did to have survived it all.
Sienna had told him he did a good job. So why did he feel sad? Why would he have believed it coming from his mother, but not from her? The answer was simple. He didn't trust her. Sienna had seemed off, like she wasn't being wholly honest with him. Raul would have expected a bond to form as a result of having come through a life and death struggle. She'd pulled him up right there at the end, and had probably saved his life, but Raul realized with a shock that he still didn't trust her.
He wanted to. He dearly wanted to. He dearly wanted someone he trusted to be there, to tell him he'd done the right thing, even though logically he knew he had. He wanted someone to give him a hug, and he wanted to hold on to someone, like he had when he was little and the summer storms had rumbled through the valley making loud noises that hurt his ears. But there wasn't anyone like that, not for hundred and hundreds of miles in any direction. There was just Sienna, and for some reason, despite himself and having done his best to be friendly, Raul felt like she wasn't really there, like there was a massive gulf separating them.
As they crested a bank, the river came into very below. It's babbling surface was a twinkling ribbon of joyful blue that wove through the lush greens of the forest on either side, making the air cool and moist even as the river rock surrounding it reflected the warm rays of the sun upwards. Raul trudged down the bank, adopting a peculiar limp due to only having one shoe. The adventure in the cave had left him feeling a bit stiff as well, and he moved once more with the ungainly gracelessness that was only amplified by his prodigious size.
As he neared the water's edge, he kicked off his remaining boot, and carefully removed his jacket and shirt, though there was little point owing to both being in scarcely any condition to perform their functions. The pale flesh beneath, lean and corded with muscle, was grazed and bruised, but mostly intact and greedily soaked up the rays of the afternoon sun. He removed his trousers as well, though they were little better than ratty shorts at this point, one leg of fabric significantly shorter than the other where the creep had bitten him. At least his briefs were still mostly in one piece, at least enough to maintain his modesty, if modest was a word that could apply in any way to any aspect of his proportions. He rolled the ragged shreds of fabric up and placed them carefully on a smooth boulder, and then his belt and brace of pistols beside them.
The water was cold as he stuck a toe in at the edge, enough to make him gasp. Raul briefly considered turning back, but as he pawed at his hair and knocked enough dirt loose to furnish an ant farm, he decided he had no choice. With a bellow of determination Raul rushed headlong towards the babbling stream's deeper waters. He splashed a few strides through the frigid waters, before dropping to all fours for a few loping bounds and then lunging through the air. In a move as much a pounce as it was a dive, Raul splashed into the deep waters, before coming up sputtering and cursing at the cold.
1,314/23,764
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:10:00 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 1, 2020 12:26:37 GMT -5
Red's ears were sensitive enough to pick up him mumbling under his breath, and she had to suppress a frown because of it. She wondered how he reconciled eating or building houses (or any aspect of modern life really) with a mentality like that, but she could understand it to a degree. Fighting was not something she enjoyed, and she only learned how to do it due to some unfortunate circumstances in her own life that made it necessary. The only reason she kept up with her training for awhile was because it was a good excuse to spend time with her best friend, and the exercise felt good. When she actually needed to hurt someone, she was still prone to hesitating. Only for a brief moment, but there was more than one occasion where that moment was enough to turn the entire situation sour, and that still happened in life threatening situations. Causing pain was hard for her, and the target had to be someone, or something, she found unforgivable for that hesitation to go away.
Unfortunately, it also meant there probably wasn't anything she could say to make him feel better. Or at least, there wasn't anything that even someone close to her, like Knight, could say to make her feel better in similar situations. The best anyone could do was distract her in the moment so she could think about the situation with a clearer head later. It didn't always work, but it was about the only thing that had any chance of working. Raul seemed more open and less shy than she was, if the repeated hugging was any indication, so maybe there was something she could say. Maybe he wanted to be reassured that he did the right thing. She kind of already had, and had inside the cave after the first round of Grimm as well, but it was pretty indirect. What she said didn't seem to be helping, but offering a distraction also didn't seem to be helping. Did he want to think? Was she being annoying by trying something? She wanted to help, but she wasn't quite sure what to do. So, while they walked to the nearby stream, she pulled her water bottle out of her pocket and started spinning it around her finger, trying to think of something.
It never felt like talking to people should be this hard, but she didn't want to upset anyone. When someone was already upset, it became that much harder to figure out what to do, and she thought slowly. She was still trying to calm herself down too, but her brain kept finding new and exciting things to worry about, which made thinking all that much harder. Hoping that fixing her dry mouth would at least help, she put her water bottle into the stream to refill it, and then started to take a sip.
A sip that she very quickly choked on and spit out. Red didn't think much of the other faunus taking off his boot. He only had one and it was probably awkward to walk like that. However, when he started to strip down completely, she sputtered and her cheeks started turning red. She could understand wanting to get clean after that, especially with as much mud as was on him as there was, but he didn't even say anything or give any kind of warning. Did he say something while she was kind of zoning out to figure out what to do and she just missed it? Surely he couldn't be okay with bathing in front of a stranger of the opposite sex like this? She scrambled to her feet and turned around.
"I--Sorry, I didn't realize you wanted to clean up. I'll just...let you do that."
Her shoulders hunched together and she kept her eyes firmly on the ground as she started to briskly walk away, still embarrassed about what just happened. It was an awkward way to leave, but staying there would be even more awkward and rude on top of that.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jul 3, 2020 11:43:25 GMT -5
Raul didn't think twice about what he was doing. He'd made up his mind to clean off while he and Sienna were still underground. The fact that he or she should be embarrassed by what his making good on that decision did not even occur to him. Had he paused to question it at all, the conclusion would have been the same, regardless. There was nothing shameful about going swimming, and why should what he was doing be any more obscene just because he was cleaning himself off at the same time? Likewise, how was his being garbed in little more than enough fabric to cover his nether region less socially acceptable just because the fabric in question was his briefs and not a pair of swim trunks?
However, Sienna's reaction told him that he'd miscalculated greatly somehow. Like many social norms that made little sense to him, it was futile to try and puzzle out why it was so much more shocking to her than, to grab a nearby example, violently slaughtering an entire nest of Grimm.
Raul considered himself to be a patient creature, or would have if he ever took the time to compare his own proclivities to that of those around him, but it was by this point, furnished and supported by the ever present frustration he felt at having ruined yet another first impression and failed yet again at relating to one of his peers, that he became annoyed.
"That's it then? Happy to help me murder a whole community of monsters, and drag me screaming through the bowels of the earth," He grunted, unable to keep the sullenness entirely out of his tone, "But I take off my shirt and that's when you lose your nerve?"
He looked slightly ridiculous, wearing an expression of undiluted hurt with his shaggy mop of gray hair plastered to his face and down his back, pointed ears drooping and dripping.
"How is it that people are so comfortable with violence and cruelty, but can't stomach vulnerability?" He growled beneath his breath, as he blew a spray of mist off the water dripping from his nose, averting his eyes in abject any undirected disgust "Is everyone crazy except for me? Or am I the crazy one?"
He splashed idly at the water, punching the surface of the stream and sending up a high rooster tail of spray in Sienna's direction. It had been intended as an expression of his frustration, but such was his prodigious strength that it turned into a front of water that slapped the other faunus with a wave nearly as tall as she was.
439/24,203
Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:10:37 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 3, 2020 18:25:38 GMT -5
Red had always been a bit over sensitive when it came to social cues and conventions. She never wanted to hurt anyone and wanted to be helpful, but her sense of politeness went beyond that. When she was young, it reduced the odds that someone would beat her up. As she grew, it became a rulebook that she could follow to avoid doing something stupid because she couldn't trust her judgement. Her thoughts and feelings were so useless and rarely reflected reality. If she actually listened to her brain, she'd have to believe that all her friends hated her, that she had no worthwhile skills, and that the world would be better off without her. All of them were objectively false and she could cite facts proving them to be false. But they still happened and they were hard to shake. It was easier to rely on that rulebook than to try to navigate the world with a mind that lied to her.
Unfortunately, people were unique and everyone had different ideas of what was acceptable and what was not. The rules gave her a place to start and would be true for most people, but sometimes stuff like this happened and she ended up upsetting someone. She didn't know how to respond anymore as her guidelines had completely failed her and she had no idea what he wanted. That she was failing someone that just went through a traumatic experience made it even worse. Her attempts to be comforting hadn't had any effect as far as she could tell, so she had no idea what to do at this point. She couldn't even be mad at the wave he sent her way, or how much the droplets stung her face as they flew past. It wasn't quite enough to knock her over, but she sat down on her knees regardless mentally cursing herself for being insensitive. It'd make sense that he wouldn't want to be alone after experiencing something like that.
"I'm sorry, I thought you wanted some privacy. I can stay."
Even so, she still insisted on keeping her back turned with her eyes firmly planted on the ground. She had grown up being told repeatedly that her faunus body was disgusting, and even without that, she had no confidence in it. She was plain, covered head to toe in freckles because her body was too stupid to know how to regulate its melanin correctly. Her features sharp and angular without any of the soft curves most women had. She had always been awkward about her body, and tended to project that insecurity onto others as though they would feel the same way.
That he thought she was at all comfortable with what just happened made her wonder if she had been hiding how she was feeling better than she thought, but it seemed more likely that he was just speaking out of frustration. With as stiff as she was sitting now, and with how much difficulty she was having breathing after her self-induced panic attack suggested anything but comfort. Even now, she was desperately trying to calm herself down with very little success. Every time she started to feel a little better, something happened to make her feel even more anxious. His point stood though. Dealing with the Grimm in the cave was easier than dealing with the current situation. There the course of action was clear: get out and do whatever she had to to ensure survival. There wasn't much to think about, there wasn't much to get distracted by, and there was less worry of doing something wrong as long as she had survival in mind. None of that was true here, or in socialization in general and she had no idea what to do. Try to reassure him again she guessed?
"No, you're not crazy. People are really hard to understand."
She shifted, trying and failing to find a comfortable position to sit in. That wasn't much and seemed like such a non-response that she wasn't sure if it would do anything at all, but she still had no idea what to say. She wanted to be helpful, but the more she thought the more her anxiety about the situation created static in her head.
"Are you going to be able to get home? Do you want me to pick up a robe or a towel or something?" She paused, realizing that she just offered to leave again. "I'd come right back. Or I can do it later. Or not at all. Whatever works."