RWBY Through Worlds

181: Bent And Broken

"Is she dead?" Yang asked.

"No, worse-- I think her arm is growing back," Raven said candidly.

"Ugh." Neptune made a face.

"Yeah, so we might have to ditch her," Raven said. "Unless we can cut it off again. No one's safe with her around. I saw the umbrella girl and the hat guy trying to hide using her umbrella. And I didn't see Sol or Rhodes at all. Must have run farther off."

"Uncle Qrow?"

"As long as he's a bird, he should have no trouble hiding, but I didn't see where." Raven ruffled her feathers, which might have been shrugging for her.

"So how long did it take you to learn how to talk like this?" Neptune asked. "And why do you turn into the same bird as your name? Doesn't that make it a little easy to guess?"

"Take it up with Ozpin," Raven said.

"And Ren and Nora?" Yang said. "And Arkos?"

"Don't know," Raven replied. "I had to get in here fast, you know. I don't know if that stuff will slide off my feathers like water does."

"Well... we'll just have to check after..." Yang sighed.

"I would have taken real rain over this," Neptune said. "Honestly, it's not that bad. It's worse if it's a body of water."

"Hmph, you know, you should work on--" Raven paused. Then she cawed and hopped closer to the outside.

Which looked pretty funny, but Yang didn't laugh.

Raven tilted her head, bird-like, at the black pools of Grimm juice.

"Is that bubbling?" she asked. "Or am I seeing things?"

Yang squinted at it. "Yeah, it is..."

The pools were getting bigger and spreading.

"I think we know why this whole land looks like this now," Neptune said. "And why there's more of the ponds..."

"If it grew at this rate, the whole land would be an ocean by now," Raven said. "This has to be some trick of Salem's to deter visitors like us. Who had the Relics? I think it was Ruby for one."

"I think Weiss had the other one," Yang said. "Oh... where's Ozpin?"

"I didn't see him either. He's usually close to Ruby," Raven said.

"Wouldn't he just be inside Oscar?" Neptune said.

They both glared at him.

"Right..." Neptune said weakly.

"Hey, Mom, I don't think that's just bubbling." Yang suddenly glanced at the pools again.

The juice was moving more... no, things were coming out of the bubbles.

They were small like the gnats. But they weren't gnats.

"What even is that?" Yang didn't recognize it. It had a long, pointy nose like a bug's and tiny wings with very long legs.

"You've never seen a mosquito before?" Neptune said.

"Eh, we don't really have them on Patch," Yang began.

"Nevermind that, I've never seen a Grimm mosquito either," Raven said.

"Maybe Shine's right about Salem having a library of this crap," Yang said. "Someone should destroy if it she does."

"Uh, Yang, mosquitoes suck blood," Neptune said. "So... you know, might not want to be near it."

Yang unlocked her gauntlets, though she doubted her chances against a lot of small Grimm like that.