Coward's Resolve

Raishun jumped back off the Grimm as it started becoming more aggressive. It hobbled to its feet and growled loudly as if recognizing the person before it. Despite the apparent danger to him, the smile never left his face. He casually looked over his shoulder at Laura.

"Hey, sorry I'm back late." He said while leveling his sword towards the Grimm, "I got lost on my way back from my walk."

"What are you talking about?" Laura cried in confusion, slamming her hand on the ground. "I saw you run! Now you're back fighting again,!!? Aren't you-"

"Yeah, I'm terrified. That things massive." He replied, tightening his grip as the Grimm readied to charge. "But I'm stronger than I was before, and I can't rest while you lot are in danger."

He charged forward at the same time as the Beowulf, the two meeting halfway. Because of its missing limb, it had to rise on its hind legs to swipe at him. Without breaking a sweat, he slid underneath the attack, landing a cut to its leg as he crouched behind it. Before it could react, he jumped onto it and dug into its back with the Caligula.

"Oooh! That looks painful!" He taunted, laughing as he got thrown off the creature. Spinning through the air, he landed gracefully and stuck out his tongue tauntingly. "If you want, I'll take the other arm off. That way you'll at least be symmetrical."

While the creature might not have understood his words, it did know that it was being mocked. It howled loudly, summoning the rest of the Beowulf. The smaller Grimm stopped attacking Teams RWBY and RGLA and focused all their attention on Raishun.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Taking off into a sprint, he did his best to outrun the 7 remaining Beowulf. One of them decided to try biting him, only to end up with a sword through its skull, dropping the number to 6.

Laura, along with the rest of the group, watched the entire fight go down with a dumbstruck expression.

[It's really him...] She thought, doing her best to follow the blur of yellow that darted around the battlefield. [No... he's different.] The image of when the two of them first met flashed through her mind. [He's back to how he was before our conflict.] She thought with a smile.

Admiration bloomed in her chest as she watched him expertly outmaneuver the creatures. 2 of the Beowulf tried jumping on him at once but were quickly put down by two quick thrusts of the Caligula. Then she noticed something. The Alpha had positioned itself behind him, its body tensing as it prepared to charge.

"Raishun move!" She yelled, but it was too late. The Grimm landed a devastating shoulder slam on the Legion, sending him flying into a tree with a sickening crack. He didn't move, even when the other Grimm started to crowd his body, biting and clawing at him.

"NO! GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Alisa cried, creating a bullet in her hand and shooting it into the air. It exploded, and sharp metallic spines started to rain down onto the battlefield, piercing the Grimm's hides with ease. Despite her efforts, it seemed to do little to deter the beasts.

"LAURA HELP HIM! PLEASE!" She yelled, snapping Laura from her daze. The white-haired beauty took a step forward only to nearly be blown off her feet as a wave of blue energy washed over the clearing.

A crash, like a strike of lightning, made Laura's ears ring, and a cloud of dust covered the field. She watched in fascination as a quick blue light darted through the dust. Suddenly the light stopped moving, and the dust cleared away to reveal Raishun, his body slightly hunched over the quickly fading bodies of the remaining Grimm. Slowly, he straightened up to face the Alpha, and she let out a surprised gasp.

"That's an Imperial Resonance!" She whispered.

Raishun's body had changed. His spiky hair now had a purple tinge. Similarly, his eyes seemed to have taken on an orange hue, which matched the multitude of glowing lines that ran up his arms and neck. A thin ponytail whipped through the air with every slight movement of his body.

He stepped forward, the air around his body vibrating with energy. The Alpha growled and approached him cautiously, then broke into a sprint as it charged him. Raishun kept walking, blue energy coalescing in his palm until it formed a thin blue spike. The moment it was on top of him, he thrust the spike through its chest and out the other side with ease.

The attack stopped the creature in its tracks but didn't seem to do any damage. Raishun calmly took a few steps back and watched as the beast began to move again.

"Oh right, I never showed this off before." His voice sounded an octave or two higher than usual and was distorted by the sound of a woman's voice. "Pay attention, I'm only doing this once."

He stepped forward into the Grimm's reach and then quickly stepped back. The Alpha watched him intensely as if frozen in time, then suddenly swung violently at the spot where he'd previously stepped before. Raishun started walking around the creature, with the calm of someone enjoying a midday stroll. After a few steps, the creature began repeatedly attacking the spot where he'd been seconds before.

"You're really nothing more than a pest aren't you." He turned his back on the creature and slowly raised his hand in the air. "You're a bother, so go die already."

Raishun snapped his fingers, and the spike exploded into blue light. The moment the spike was gone, the Alpha turned on him, claw racing through the air to slice him in two. Without missing a beat, he swung his sword backward half-heartedly, severing its head from its shoulders. The body collapsed onto the floor and immediately burst into ash.

"That was pathetic really." He clicked his tongue and turned his attention towards Laura. "I'm switching back now. If you try anything with my Dyad, I'll seriously be angry you know."

With those words, his body glowed briefly before returning to normal. Raishun fell to his knees, seemingly exhausted, before jumping his feet and throwing his fist in the air.

"Woohoo! I can't believe that actually worked!" He laughed and flashed a toothy grin. "Hahaha! I'm the greatest-" He paused, suddenly realizing that several pairs of eyes were on him, and cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah we won everyone. Good job."

Doing his best to shrug off the silent gazes of his teammates, he hesitantly approached Laura and offered her a hand.

"You're our leader aren't you? You shouldn't be laying on the floor with a dazed look on your face."

She blinked in surprise and took his hand, allowing him to pull her up. She never stopped looking into his eyes. Those golden eyes that had once been filled with so much fear and anxiety were now devoid of all worry. All that was left was confident resolve.

"You've changed." Laura said in a respectful tone, "I'm surprise you decided to come back after you ran."

"Well when you're being threatened by someone with a sword, it's the natural reaction if you can't win." His eyes narrowed, and she felt a chill run down her spine. "You're right though, I'm not as weak as I was before. Just like that Alpha back there, trying to kill me is going to leave you damaged."

"About that." She spoke in a calm voice. "When you overhead Gil and I, we weren't talking about killing you. We were talking about someone else."

"....What?" He glared at her, suddenly annoyed. "Do you take me for an idiot?"

"No that's..." She let out a defeated sigh, then grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face closer to hers. "Gil and I are being chased by someone. We thought we saw him on campus earlier that day, and with all the stress of our previous discussion... I suppose I let my temper get the better of me." She whispered in his ear, "That man hurt Gil, and terrorized our family. My quarrel was with him, not you."

She let go of his collar and stepped away. "That's all. We didn't expect our Legion to run away, but I'm relieved that you've returned." She admitted with slightly flushed cheeks.

Raishun stared at her blankly, then his face suddenly went red with embarrassment. He fell to the ground and started to roll around in pain while hiding his face behind his hands.

"Oh my god, you're telling me this was all a misunderstanding!? God I'm a dumbass!"

Laura watched him with a perplexed expression. The man she had seemingly driven away had returned, exterminated a horde of Grimm like it was child's play and was now rolling around on the floor begging for death. [He went through a lot. But it's oddly nice seeing him so lively.] She thought with a smile.

"RAISHUN!" Alisa jumped down from her tree and threw herself on top of the Legion. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she buried her face in his chest. "You're alive!"

"OW! GAAH, Alisa, it's good to see you too but I'm a little sore right now. You wouldn't know this but some perverted 25 year old kicked my ass a few hours ago, and I'm still feeling it." He grunted in pain and tried to push her off.

"Raishun you... you idiot!" She sniffled, balling his capelet tightly in her fists. "Why..."

Raishun felt his cheeks heat up, and he looked at the others, who seemed to be avoiding looking at them. Yang had even gone as far as to cover Ruby's eyes.

"O-Oi Alisa! Come on now, there's no need to cry! Everything turned out okay!" He started to pat her back sympathetically. "People are starting to stare at us, we're making a scene."

"Why..." She looked up at him with a glare, eyes filled with tears. "Why didn't you tell me about your resonance form before! Do ya have any idea how marketable it could've been!" She said in between sobs, "If we had made action figures and sold them when the Kingdom recognized you as a Legion, we could've made a fortune."

Raishun blinked in surprise, then frowned and cracked the girl over the head with his fist. "Why you little!! Here I thought you were worried about me or something!"

"Eh you're a Legion. Y'all are tough to kill." She said, nursing her head wound with one hand and pointing at him accusingly with the other. "Besides, my information seeking skills told me you're not the kinda person who'd run off on their team."

For a moment, it looked as if Raishun would've continued arguing with her. Then he sighed, and with a cheerful laugh, patted her shoulder. "It's good to be back I guess."

He looked at Gil and Laura confidently, "So how do we get back to Beacon? I think I've got to explain some things to the headmaster."