[Argus City]
Thanks to Scrolls and the complete lack of survival instincts shown by many people, who decided it was more important to livestream what was happening than to get themselves to safety, the world watched in horror as the Grimm known as the Leviathan emerged from the ocean and advanced toward the city of Argus.
The situation only grew worse with the arrival of smaller Grimm, both aquatic and airborne, which had already begun overrunning the beaches and filling the skies above the city.
Naturally, faced with a threat of that magnitude, the Kingdom of Mistral did not remain idle after receiving Argus's distress call and dispatched several ships. Unfortunately, they weren't coming to defend the city, which by that point had all but been written off as lost. Instead, their mission was to intercept the evacuation vessels and escort them safely to another city.
The soldiers were well aware of this reality, but for the sake of their people, they chose to stay behind in an attempt to buy as much time as possible.
With that same goal in mind, Argus's defenses were activated. At the edge of the continental shelf, where the shallow coastal waters gave way to the open sea, enormous pillars rose from the ocean floor. Once activated, they linked together, forming a colossal defensive barrier.
It didn't change the Leviathan's course in the slightest. The massive Grimm continued charging forward in a straight line until it slammed headfirst into the barrier.
"BOOM!"
The collision was devastating, but the barrier fulfilled its purpose and managed to halt the Leviathan's advance, if only for a moment.
Enraged, the Grimm began ramming the barrier again and again, rapidly weakening it with every impact.
Even so, that brief window of time was exactly what the Argus military base needed to finish deploying all of its combat Bullheads and, more importantly, the Colossus.
Before the eyes of the entire world, two enormous doors, perfectly camouflaged into the side of the mountain where the military base had been built, slowly swung open, revealing a gigantic robot that rose proudly before beginning its march toward the ocean.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Caroline Cordovin laughed, the Colossus's pilot and commander of the Argus military base. "And they said I was crazy for spending Argus's budget on a giant robot!" she declared to no one in particular, wearing a huge grin of satisfaction.
Her second-in-command, standing beside her, couldn't help thinking that, technically, they had been right.
After all, a considerable portion of the city's budget had gone toward maintaining a robot that, by this point, was practically a relic from the old days of Atlas.
So much time had passed since it had been built that the Colossus still bore the Kingdom's old black-and-gray color scheme, completely different from the blue-and-white colors used by the current military.
Naturally, that wasn't something he was foolish enough to say out loud, unless he wanted to find out firsthand whether it was actually possible to be launched from the Colossus straight into the ocean.
The colossal robot, along with the rest of the aircraft, quickly took up a defensive position between the Leviathan and the city, arriving just in time. Growing tired of the barrier continuing to block its path, the Grimm slowly opened its massive jaws.
The inside of its throat lit up with an intense glow, crackling with violent arcs of electricity as it gathered energy. An instant later, the Grimm unleashed a massive electrical beam that struck the barrier head-on.
The barrier held like a champion.
Unlike the pillars, which were excellent conductors of electricity. The moment the beam hit them, they exploded one after another, proving in the worst possible way that the mechanisms responsible for keeping a barrier standing should be on the safe side of it, not exposed to the enemy.
[That happened at least three times in the show.]
Even though the barrier had disappeared, the Leviathan didn't advance immediately. It raised its head and stared at the Colossus, along with the Bullheads circling overhead like mosquitoes.
Its hesitation lasted only a moment.
"GGGRAAAAHHHH!!" it roared at the top of its lungs before charging straight at the Colossus, determined to tear it apart.
"Hold your positions!" Caroline ordered firmly. She needed the Leviathan to move into shallower waters so the Colossus could fight without sinking into the sea.
The Leviathan rapidly picked up speed, closing the distance at an increasingly dangerous pace, while the Colossus remained perfectly still, patiently waiting for the right moment.
The instant the Grimm entered the designated combat zone, Caroline smiled.
"Fire!"
The moment the command was given, the Colossus's chest plates opened, revealing hundreds of missiles that launched in rapid succession with remarkable precision. Every single one struck the Leviathan dead on.
The Grimm didn't even bother trying to dodge.
It simply didn't need to.
The explosions managed to slow it down, but they were nowhere near enough to stop it.
Closing the remaining distance, the Leviathan lunged at the Colossus. At the last possible second, the giant mech stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack.
More importantly, the maneuver allowed it to slip into the Grimm's blind spot. The Colossus grabbed hold of one of the Leviathan's dorsal plates, preventing the creature from striking back effectively.
"HAHAHAHA!" Caroline laughed almost maniacally as she began hammering the Grimm with a barrage of heavy punches from her free arm. "Don't mess with my city!"
The Leviathan writhed violently, struggling to break free. The strategy was working... at least until the dorsal plate the Colossus was holding onto finally snapped off.
"Damn it!" Caroline cursed.
She tried to latch onto it again, but the Leviathan wasn't fooled by the same trick twice. Like many ancient Grimm, it had developed a certain degree of intelligence.
Mirroring the Colossus's own maneuver, the monster shifted aside at just the right moment and, taking advantage of the close quarters, twisted its enormous body. Using its unnaturally long limbs, it wrapped them around the Colossus in a crushing embrace and began squeezing with all its might.
Sparks began flying inside Caroline's cockpit as the robot's entire frame groaned under the tremendous pressure. The Colossus wasn't going to hold together much longer if it kept being crushed like this.
Nor could they expect any help from the Bullheads. They were still busy keeping the flying Grimm at bay, unable to move in without leaving the rest of the battlefront exposed.
With no other options left, Caroline made a risky decision.
"Fire the rest of the missiles!" she ordered firmly.
The soldiers manning the weapons exchanged glances for a brief moment. Firing from this range wouldn't just damage the Leviathan. It would also hit the Colossus itself.
But with no intention of disobeying an order, and even less desire to be crushed to death, they obeyed without hesitation.
"BAM! BAM! BAM!"
The remaining missiles were fired practically point-blank at the Leviathan.
"GRAAAHHH!" the Grimm roared, loosening its grip from the pain, though it didn't let go immediately. Instead, it twisted its massive body with all its strength and hurled the Colossus toward the docks.
With no way to stop itself, the gigantic robot was sent flying and crashed into the harbor district, crushing shipping containers, buildings, and several ships along the way.
Caroline glanced at the Colossus's status monitors and frowned.
The impact had been severe, and the point-blank barrage had also inflicted considerable damage. They no longer had the capability to fire any more missiles. Though, to be fair, they didn't have any missiles left to fire anyway.
"Let's call it a draw," she quipped as she regained control, making the Colossus slowly rise back to its feet amid the groaning of strained metal.
A smile spread across Caroline's face when she realized they weren't the only ones who had taken damage. The Leviathan's chest was covered in deep wounds, several of them still smoking from the explosions.
"All or nothing!" she laughed excitedly, shoving the controls forward and sending the Colossus charging at full speed toward the Leviathan.
The Grimm, having recovered somewhat, did exactly the same, closing the distance between them in only a few seconds.
But at the very last moment, the Colossus jumped.
Propelled by the thrusters on its back, it gained a bit of altitude before coming crashing back down.
"BAM!"
The colossal punch slammed squarely into the Leviathan's face, staggering the massive Grimm several steps backward.
Caroline didn't let up for a second. The Colossus was burning through every last bit of power it had left, so she couldn't afford to waste even a moment. One of the robot's enormous hands clamped tightly around the Leviathan's head while the other repeatedly hammered it with blow after blow, giving the Grimm no chance to recover.
Despite its immense size, the Leviathan couldn't break free of the grip without risking having its head torn off in the process.
"Die, die, die! Why won't you just die?!" Caroline shouted between punches, desperately hoping the cursed Grimm would finally go down.
But to her horror, the Colossus's arm slowly began to lose power.
That brief lapse was all the time the Leviathan needed to seize the advantage once more. It opened its jaws, and a very familiar glow began to gather deep within its throat.
"Damn it..." she cursed.
A second blast of electricity shot straight into the Colossus, finally forcing it to release the Leviathan's head. The gigantic robot staggered backward several steps before losing its balance and crashing onto its back in the ocean with a thunderous impact that shook the entire coastline.
"Critical failure!"
"Systems burned out!"
"No response from the Colossus!"
Caroline finally lost her composure.
"AAAHHH!" she screamed, slamming her fists against the controls over and over in frustration until, at last, she let her hands fall onto the console in defeat.
"This is the end..." she murmured, staring through the cockpit window as the Leviathan slowly advanced toward them, preparing to crush the Colossus once and for all.
Even though everything pointed to this being her final moment, she didn't feel afraid.
Only a profound disappointment that she hadn't managed to buy the people of Argus more time to escape.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment, mentally bracing herself for the final blow.
But no matter how long she waited, the impact never came.
When she looked back at the monitors, she saw that the Leviathan had come to a complete stop. It stood perfectly still, its gaze fixed on the sky, completely ignoring the crippled Colossus.
"Commander!" one of the soldiers shouted.
"We've got a huge problem!"
Caroline immediately knew he wasn't referring to the fact that they were out of power and half-submerged in the ocean, which gave her a very bad feeling.
"More problems?!"
The soldier nodded nervously.
"The radar is picking up a second colossal Grimm..." he reported, his voice trembling slightly.
Caroline froze.
Her eyes widened as a single thought crossed her mind.
"God hates Argus..."
She couldn't help thinking it. It was the only reasonable explanation. No colossal Grimm had been seen since the fall of Mountain Glenn over twenty years ago, and now two of them had shown up in the same city on the very same day.
If there had been even the slightest hope of saving Argus, the appearance of this second colossal Grimm had just wiped it out completely.
"Where is this second colossal Grimm?" she asked, even though, deep down, she really didn't want to hear the answer.
Before the soldier could even open his mouth, an enormous shadow flew overhead.
Caroline's eyes immediately shot upward toward the gigantic figure soaring above the clouds.
She wasn't the only one.
The people who were still livestreaming the battle with their Scrolls also turned their cameras to the sky, capturing the immense shadow as it streaked over the city in a matter of seconds. It flew by once... then again... and then a third time, almost as if it wanted to make absolutely sure everyone saw it.
"GRAAAHHH!!"
The brief silence hanging over the battlefield shattered as the Leviathan let out a deafening roar.
But it wasn't roaring at the city.
Nor at the Colossus.
It was roaring at the sky.
"GRRRAAAWWWW!!"
A second roar answered from above the clouds.
The very next instant, a gigantic dragon-shaped figure burst through the cloud cover in a blistering dive straight toward the Leviathan.
Far from what anyone would have expected, the creature that emerged wasn't black.
It was completely white, with faint bluish hues running across its body.
The Leviathan had no time to dodge. No time to move. And certainly no time to retreat back into the deep sea.
BAAAAM!!
The dragon slammed full force into the Leviathan's flank, knocking the massive Grimm onto its side with such overwhelming force that part of the city shook from the impact, sending enormous columns of water soaring into the air.
Yet no one was afraid.
Quite the opposite.
For the first time since the attack had begun, many people felt hope.
Some immediately recognized what they were seeing. Those who didn't figured it out only seconds later as cries began spreading through the crowd.
"A Schnee family summon!" Caroline exclaimed in complete astonishment.
"This can't be possible..." she thought, unable to tear her eyes away from the gigantic white dragon.
She was absolutely certain there wasn't a single Schnee in Argus at that moment. And even if there had been, she didn't know of any Schnee capable of summoning a Dragon Grimm of that size.
Her eyes narrowed as she remembered something important.
The Schnees weren't the only ones capable of creating glyphs.
There was another creature capable of doing so; And that creature was currently in Argus.
"Focus on the dragon!" she ordered immediately. "The summoner can't be very far away!"
Using the few cameras that were still operational, the operators redirected every feed toward the enormous dragon.
It wasn't easy.
The creature moved violently as it attacked the Leviathan, which responded with the same ferocity. Rather than an organized battle, it was a fight between two gigantic beasts determined to tear each other apart.
Even so, after several attempts, they finally found what they were looking for.
"No... way..."
Caroline grabbed both sides of her head, unable to believe what she was seeing.
To her utter astonishment, she had been right.
Standing firmly atop the dragon's head on all four paws, with its tongue hanging out and a goofy expression plastered across its face, was the Wolf of Argus.
Despite the dragon's constant movement and the violent jolts of the battle, the wolf remained perfectly steady, unwavering, and immovable.
Caroline was on the verge of tears.
"Bless that wolf!" she exclaimed without the slightest trace of embarrassment.
She no longer cared what it had done before. At that moment, it was fighting for Argus, and that was more than enough to forgive it.
"I'll build you a statue if we make it through this," she thought, unable to look away from the wolf.
Although, if she was being honest, she wasn't entirely sure anyone would actually let her.
After all, this was incredibly sensitive information.
Not only because it meant the wolf possessed an absurd amount of Aura despite not having a visible Aura of its own, but also because, if its Semblance worked the same way as the Schnee family's, then it had already managed to kill a colossal Dragon Grimm by itself in order to summon it.
From any angle, that was completely insane.
"This can't get out... Who the hell are those idiots?!" she suddenly shouted after spotting an aircraft that was clearly not military flying over the area, even though the sky was literally a battlefield between Grimm and Bullheads.
"It looks like a news helicopter..." her second-in-command replied after recognizing the network's logo painted on the fuselage.
A vein became visible on Caroline's forehead.
"YOU GODDAMN LUNATICS!!" she cursed at the top of her lungs.
—/—
Meanwhile, inside the news aircraft, a woman holding a camera suddenly sneezed.
"Achoo!"
"I think somebody's talking behind my back," the camerawoman joked without stopping the recording for even a second.
Her partner, who was piloting the aircraft, kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, far too busy dodging other aircraft... or, even worse, a Grimm that flew a little too close.
"WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?!" she screamed in complete desperation.
The camerawoman could only laugh as she continued filming the wolf standing atop the dragon's head, broadcasting the scene live for the entire world to see.
"Die or make history! That's my motto! HAHAHA!"
The pilot let out a long string of curses, making a mental note to find new friends if she somehow survived this.
—/—
The battle between the two giants was brutal. Although the dragon possessed the greater size and superior strength, the Leviathan had the battlefield completely in its favor.
With considerable effort, it managed to wrestle with the dragon, forcing it into slightly deeper waters until it finally shook it off and created the distance it needed.
The moment it did, the Leviathan opened its massive jaws once more and began charging its attack.
The dragon didn't stay idle.
A brilliant crimson glow began shining from deep within its mouth, drawing everyone's attention. The instant both monsters finished charging their attacks, they fired simultaneously.
The dragon's stream of fire collided head-on with the Leviathan's electric beam, creating a spectacle as dazzling as it was terrifying, illuminating the entire coastline of Argus.
For a few moments, the two attacks appeared perfectly evenly matched.
But only for a few moments.
As powerful as the Leviathan's beam was, the dragon's breath proved to be far stronger.
The electric blast was slowly pushed back until it disappeared entirely, completely swallowed by the dragon's flames.
The torrent of fire continued forward, completely engulfing the area where the Leviathan had been standing.
The dragon maintained its breath attack for several more seconds before finally stopping.
When the flames at last faded away, the Leviathan's body was nowhere to be seen.
The dragon slowly swept its head from side to side, searching for it, completely certain that the Grimm was still alive.
Unaware of the enormous shadow moving beneath the water directly toward its back.
By the time it finally noticed, it was already too late.
The Leviathan burst out of the depths and slammed into the dragon's back, violently smashing it into the water and forcing much of its massive body beneath the surface.
The dragon struggled to break free, sinking its fangs deep into the Leviathan's neck, but it accomplished very little. Unable to take flight and with its enormous wings only getting in the way beneath the water, it was completely at the Leviathan's mercy.
The hope so many people had placed in the dragon began to fade as they watched it slowly being dragged into the depths.
Caroline worked the controls like a madwoman, refusing to accept that it was all over.
"What's wrong with the systems?! Why aren't they responding yet?!" she shouted in frustration, even though deep down she knew it wasn't her soldiers' fault.
Every one of them was doing everything they could to repair a robot that, by this point, was little more than a pile of scrap metal.
"General..." her second-in-command said nervously.
"What? Can't you see I'm busy?" she snapped without taking her eyes off the monitors, watching Argus's last hope being drowned beneath the sea.
Her second-in-command swallowed hard. He had never been good at delivering bad news, especially not when Caroline was already on the verge of losing her mind.
"There's another problem..."
"Another one?! What is it this time? A third giant Grimm?!"
The officer didn't answer immediately, prompting Caroline to finally turn and look at him.
"Please... tell me it isn't a third giant Grimm," she pleaded, almost begging.
The man remained silent. Instead, he simply raised a hand and pointed at the radar display.
On it, a third unidentified giant mass could be seen approaching at high speed from the ocean toward the coast.
Caroline stared at the enormous blip for several long seconds without saying a word.
Then she let out a long sigh... and started screaming.
"AAAHHH!!" she yelled, cursing God with every ounce of frustration she had over all the disasters that had befallen Argus.
It didn't take long for the enormous mass to become visible to everyone.
However, as it rose closer and closer to the surface, both Caroline and her second-in-command gradually frowned as they realized what they were actually looking at.
"Are those... fish?" Caroline asked, utterly bewildered.
"I think they're tuna..." her second-in-command replied after taking a closer look.
Caroline slammed her fist against the armrest of her seat.
"For all I care, they could be turtles! If they aren't helping kill Grimm, they're completely usele..."
Her words died in her throat as thousands of tuna leaped out of the water simultaneously, forming a gigantic living current that surged straight toward the Leviathan and the dragon.
Both monsters froze for a brief moment, apparently just as confused, watching as the formation of fish continued rising until it reached their height.
But the strangest thing wasn't the tuna.
It was the white-haired girl, completely naked, with a fish tail attached to her back, standing atop the living river of tuna as though it were solid ground.
[Image]
Using the river of tuna as a platform, the girl launched herself into a powerful leap toward the Leviathan's head, a clearly angry expression on her face.
"GET OUT OF MY OCEAN!!" she shouted at the same time her fist slammed directly into the Grimm's face.
BOOOOM!!
The blow landed squarely on the Leviathan's head, violently twisting it to the side and smashing it into the water with such force that the Grimm's massive body ended up crushing the dragon as well, causing it to finally dissolve into a cloud of mist.
The girl remained standing on the Leviathan's floating body, which was still alive, though completely dazed from the impact.
In a clear gesture of triumph, she raised both arms high above her head.
"GRAAAWW!!" she roared proudly, declaring her dominion over her territory.
Naturally, every camera captured the moment.
The entire world fell silent, for far too many reasons. Whether it was because she had arrived riding a river of tuna, because she had knocked the Leviathan senseless with a single punch, or because of the unsettling detail that she didn't have a visible Aura.
Whatever the reason, everyone agreed on one thing.
Things couldn't possibly get any weirder...
OR SO THEY THOUGHT!!!
Appearing out of nowhere, a second figure landed on the Leviathan's body, which had not yet fully recovered, and the moment it took its first step, the world seemed to freeze.
[Aura of Terror]
It wasn't just the people who felt a chill race down their spines.
The Grimm themselves turned almost simultaneously toward the source of that overwhelming negative energy, instantly recognizing it as exactly what they had come searching for.
The cameras focused on the newcomer, surprising the viewers as they recognized the new intruder who radiated such an overwhelming presence.
He was wearing an extremely short skirt, a Pyrrha Nikos mask, and pointed high heels that shamelessly emphasized his backside.
He was the one and only Moonstone thief.
THE CROSS-DRESSING THIEF!
He walked calmly until he stopped in front of the girl, who, despite being shorter than him, looked at him with clear superiority and without showing the slightest trace of fear.
[To Be Continued...]
—//—
Author's Note:
Another chapter is here, and this time it didn't take me three weeks, yay!!!
A few questions for the next chapter: Where did that girl come from? Was it really necessary for the MC to wear high heels? Questions for the next chapter.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time!
Kisses and hugs.