Michelle had climbed up the ruins to get a vantage point to shoot from. However, she had very little openings, as the Taijitu was rather well armored. She waited for a moment to strike, then found it when its scales melted. She set her "fire" setting on Artemis to max, then fired a bullet at the exposed weak spot, intending to use the resulting explosion to split the head. If it landed, the explosion wouldn't be strong enough to take it out in one shot, but that didn't mean she couldn't shoot more bullets. She intended to keep firing until her goal was complete.

"Right." Coral nodded as she caught the relic. Whether she was responding that she understood the weaknesses, or that she would have no trouble leacing Schwarz to her doom, was left to interpretation.

She dashed up to the big snake's head and activated her semblance, teleporting above it and falling lightly on its head. Her clone had at its eye, though not much was going to land from there, especially with the snake already dodging her partner's weird glowing lights. Coral held on, dodging the errant strikes as well, until she saw that Schwarz had actually managed to land something. The scales were fizzling away, leaving the delicious sight of slightly-cooked meat. Her wicked smile in place, she raised her claws and began silently tearing away. All that could be seen were chunks mysteriously tearing away from the snake's head as Coral dug through it.

Then a flash from the top of the ruins signaled Michelle's shot, and Coral felt a huge weight tear into her side, flinging her completely from her target. Her aura became blindingly visible as it tried to absorb the blow, eventually cracking and splitting as the round exploded and the shrapnel buried itself in Coral's flesh. Her clone fizzled out as a warning bell chimed from her and Schwarz's linked scrolls; the hit had been too much, and her Aura was at the warning threshold.

For a moment, she lay there in the dust, blinking to rearrange her world. Something had happened, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was. She reviewed her memory as quickly as she could piece it together, and painfully pushed herself up to a sitting position. She'd managed to get knocked far enough into the woods that the snakes hadn't seen her as she came out of stealth, so that was good; at least she wasn't in immediate danger.

She looked back at the battlefield. What had that been? There had been a flash of some sort; she looked in that direction. Oh... a sniper. She grit her teeth in fury and pain, and contrary to the flashing of her scroll, activated her semblance again.

She teleported up to the individual who was causing her so much pain, and ripped her weapon from her unexpecting hands, tossing it down into the ruins below. Michelle never got a chance to figure out what was going on; as soon as her weapon was tossed away, an invisible fist slammed into her face, sprawling her out on the rock. She could do nothing but cover her face and try to roll away from her attacker as Coral rained down blows. Coral's aura reserves were drained, so thankfully her knives still lay in the woods where they'd scattered upon her injury, but punching wasn't that different from stabbing, and she was good at it. One didn't spend a stint in a fight ring without learning how to dish out damage unarmed.

Coral deactivated her semblance, banishing her clone and making her horrid visage appear in a puff of inky smoke in front of Michelle. Black blood oozed from her side and her mouth, and her left arm lay uselessly at her side. She reared back her fist to launch another punch, but something clipped her, and for a moment she paused. It was all that Michelle needed to dodge away and pull out her pistols, opening fire at her assailant. Caught in the crossfire, Coral's last sparks of aura blocked what they could until she ran out completely, collapsing to the side and tumbling from the pillar to land in a bloodied mess on top of the rifle that she'd thrown down just moments before.

The Taijitu screeched when Coral began slashing at it's side, but recovered when the Faunus had been knocked back by the sniper's shot, alerting the other Grimm of her location. The two white counterparts then lunged at the pillar Michelle was on, Coral having fallen back, giving Michelle almost no time to recover. The snakes collided with the pillar, having blocked each other's paths and pulverized the structure, more debris falling and catching onto the web below. The one black head tried wrapping around Schwarz, in an attempt to crush her, while the last serpent head watched the others, vigilant of any movement on their part, ready to react

Francesca steadily stayed on the back of the spider with her weapons lodged inside. They were stuck inside fairly well, well enough that she wouldn't fall off by the creature making erratic movements to knock her off. She braced herself to the point it started to climb up a wall. What started as her standing on the creature's back turned into dangling from her weapons embedded in the it. It was rather unpleasant. . . Even more so when rocks were falling down on her! They seemed to fall in slow motion as Francesca tried to think. Perhaps they could hit the spider and do something to it's armor-like exoskeleton.

When the head shot after her, Schwarz reverted back to her human shape and jumped. Boosting herself with a beat of the wings, she went above the serpent and landed on it's back. Bursting into shadow again, she sank Swansong into the beast's flesh, the incorporeal blade melting through as a hot knife through butter. Willing her form to move along, the shadow blob that was her body dragged a giant gash across the shake's back before she had to 'jump' off to the side to dodge the other head.

The wound she inflicted was quite severe, the blobs of white that remained behind melting away more of the creature's flesh. Schwarz underestimated the ability of the heads to work independently though, and soon found the other trying to coil itself around her in a crushing grip. A wave of panic went through her. UP! she thought of the escape and her form shot upwards, but her control broke just as she got free.

The shadow dissipating like steam over a pot, she fell back first back onto the snake, bouncing off and ending in the dirt below. She could do this, but not alone. As she got up, she caught a full ram of a Taijitu head. She flown back a dozen meters and wiped the floor with her face for the second time in ten second, at a vast expense to her aura reserve. At least she now had some room to maneuver, as the Taijitu she was targeting was having trouble moving with one of it's halves as good as dead. A bit wobbly as she got up, she turned to use the opportunity to flee further, while checking every few seconds behind her to what the Grimm was doing.

Kael struggled a bit, trying to cut through the webs, but he was running out of strength quickly. He never used his semblance for so long and the effects were starting to kick in. The giant spider was walking closer to him and he did not like that. However, he did notice that the web was being stretched by his blades. He had to act fast.

Retracting the blades, Kael began again by putting his blades into corners of his body, where he could push the web out. He felt some kind of liquid start to run down his body, but he had to do it now, or else he would become lunch. The web slowly began to stretch as his ability began to work. He saw Francesca jump onto the behemoth's back, trying to stab it to death, but it seemed annoyed at best. It moved away, leaving Kael to escape. The blades in his body continued to push the web out, allowing him to get some breathing room at least. But, how would he get out of the cliff?

He saw that the behemoth disappeared, probably trying to rid itself of Francesca. Now, there is debris starting to fall down into the cliff. If he could use those as stepping stools, he could get up. Problem is that he is not meant for speed. Every race he had ran in, he had come in last. Well, his life depended on this now, so Kael braced himself for the current challenge. He took a quick look along the spider web, looking for where he believed it was non-adhesive. Taking very small steps, he began to make his way to the debris when he remembered he was near a cliff. With rocks. And holes. Sighing, he turned around to walk towards the cliff face and began to climb up the cliff in a quick fashion, not wanting to be viewed as food again.

At certain times, he was met without a handhold. To cross this obstacle, Kael sprouted out a part of his blade and pierced it into the face, and tested it. It had to hold his weight or else he would fall. With time, he was finally able to make it to the top of the cliff, where he heaved himself up with a groan and relief. But, he saw that the other teams were fighting King Taijitus and were having troubles. Retracting the blade in his hand, he unhooked his zhen halves and twisted them together. It was time to strike.

Schwarz was starting to retreat away from one of the heads. Kael began to spin his zhen around his right hand and charged forward, where he ran past the main body, slicing into it at the same time. The blade slipped through its skin like hot butter and began to expose its insides to the sunlight. Kael turned around to see what it would do.

For one reason or another though, one of the snake Grimm saw fit to prevent his escape. Sweeping out with its white head, Perry was forced to defend himself from the destructive movement. Jumping up and bracing himself with his lance as the Taijitu shattered what remained of the bridge’s damaged supports, the head slammed into him as it left the bridge falling in pieces behind. Blast Bicell managed to wedge itself into the thick bone armor of the Grimm’s head, but its age meant the natural armor was far too thick for him to pierce without a boost. Good thing he had jsut the thing.

Yet instead of a resounding boom that would have drove his weapon clean through the creature’s skull, Perry was rewarded with an dull clicking sound that caused a pit to form in his stomach. “Shit.” And then there was another reason for the curse soon enough. When the Grimm came to a halt, inertia decided to kick in and Perry did not do the same. Wrenched off the Taijitu’s skull by the force, weapon in hand, Perry crashed to the grass and rolled for a few meters before he finally came to a halt. Groaning painfully as he raised his head, he could feel fresh blood from reopened wounds. While he would have loved to do nothing more than faint at this point, Perry forced himself to stay conscious, well aware of the King Taijitu’s gaze. Not that he would be able to do much if it decided it wanted a small snack, but it seemed content to simply watch for the moment.

Schwarz was mentally thanking Kael to come to her aid. Apparently her partner ditched her, but even though that was the plan she couldn't help but feel a bit disillusioned. Now though, with the combined damage she and Kael did one of the King Taijitus was dying on the ground, and the other seemed to be preoccupied first beating and then observing a fellow student. The opportunity was too good.

Checking her aura level on her scroll, she found out two things. coral's aura was gone, which made en empty pit appear in her stomach. the squidhead didn't seem at all likeable, but she'd hate it if someone died on her watch, much less one she was supposed to be partnered with. That, and she still held their relic. The other information was that her own aura was reduced to a mere quarter. This fight needed ending, now. She couldn't afford to be careful anymore. That ship have long sailed. As she made her way to Kael, her mind came up with a strategy.

"Keep it in one place, and away from me, I need to focus!" she said and dropped to a crouch and closed her eyes, trying to calm her thoughts and filter out all the smells and noises. She didn't have much aura left before she became a squishy fleshbag, but the situation was becoming rather dire. Finally she calmed down enough to flare up her semblance. As she did so, she started pouring every last bit of aura she had into the blade, the white flame starting to shiver more and glow brighter, while her eyes were focused on the Grimm, waiting for it to drop it's guard for one second.

Francesca attempted to loosen one of her weapons. Not being to do so to one or the other, she pulled herself up to a standing position on her weapons and grabbed out her dagger, Trusty. It was something she could trust in, in a pinch. First, she used her power to teleport to the spider's head area. Eyes tended to be a weak spot on anything, if she could take one or two out quickly, it might make the spider flinch or something. Enough for one of the stray rocks to tear it's way either, through the spider's armored Exoskeleton or a direct hit to the face.

From there, she didn't wait too long. Either a rock would hit her, or the spider would grab her when it came to. Pushing what she was comfortable in doing, she teleported again... Onto one of the falling rocks. It was like falling in style really. Riding a throne down to where she needed. Looking up, there luckily didn't seem to be another above her. That was good. She didn't need a chunk of rock squishing her after all. Now she just needed to worry about the spider. "Let's dance you fool." She whispered as her music switched to something vocal.

Michelle had fortunately managed to jump off the pillar she was on before it was destroyed by the Taijitu. She crouched down, breathing heavily and heart pounding. She was so frightened when something had wrenched Artemis out her hands and started pummeling her into the ground. The feeling of helplessness had consumed her. She tried to get up, but the strength in her legs failed her, and she landed on her knees and hands. She spotted her glasses on the ground, which the initial blow had knocked off, and reached out to it to grab it and place it back on her face. Come on, legs, don't fail me now, Michelle thought. I'm a Huntress. It's what I'm here for! She tried to get up again, but lost her balance and fell backward. Tears appeared on her face, and she tightened her grip on her pistols, cursing herself for being so weak. The others had drawn the Taijitu's attention away, so she wasn't in any immediate danger. She started looking around for her sniper rifle, but couldn't find it anywhere. She clenched her right thigh, trying to recover her strength.

The Taijitu hissed, its thin tongue dancing in front of his face, but only seemed to last an instant before it retracted in pain as Kael plunged his blade through the openings. After a piercing screech, it finally fell limp, and started to corrode, fading out of existence. The final Taijitu hissed in anger, then charged at the one who had killed its companion. It was dead set on getting its target.

The spider writhed out of control as it screeched, Fransesca slashing its eyes. One of the boulders had scratched it, now that the spider was in its path, ripping off part of the exoskeleton as Fransesca had hoped as it descended. The arachnid fell back, but caught itself as it landed on its web, and struggled to dodge the rest of the debris, all the while in pain from the rupture on its back. There was also the matter of the sword still lodged in the thorax, and some of its damaged eyes. In a rage, it scrambled up the cliffside, emerging from the crevice. If it could at least get one victim, and the smell of panic was thick in the air.

Kael began to slide as he put a stop to his momentum, using his zhen as a brake. He turned to see the other Taijitu start to come at him, a bit upset about its companion. He heard Schwarz's command to hold it still. Yeah, hold down a giant snake. Sighing, Kael began to run towards it, his zhen in hand. He began to bend his knees a bit when the Taijitu became close enough for him to jump onto. He charged straight into the main body, attempting to get a stab into the body to hold it there. With his strength, Kael thrust with his zhen forward, with him praying Schwarz would be able to help soon. These Grimm were becoming bolder and it made him worry about what was happening.

HEr mind was as clear as it could get given the adrenaline rush and battering she took. As she felt most of her aura focused onto her semblance empowered weapon, she snapped her 'eyes' open. Her vision narrowed, leaving just her target. The snake threw all it's focus on Kael, and that would be it's demise. With a mental command, her form swooped in front of the other head at unnatural speed.

"FLASH LANCE!"

Schwarz yelled out the focus phrase, swinging the Swansong in front of her. The blade released a massive crescent shaped wave that shot towards the Taijitu, twisting and folding in on itself, taking the shape of a lance. The attack charged towards the snake Grimm, burying itself in it's mouth and making it's way through it's entire body before losing strength and dissipating.

She felt the exhaustion, darkness crawling on the edges of her vision and falling to her knees, her semblance deactivating as soon as the attack left her blade. Before she collapsed completely, she got a look on the King Taijitu, disintegrating from within into several chunks and large cloud of white mist. Then she flattened against the ground gasping for breath, barely conscious.

The Taijitu didn't have much time, and it knew that it was outmatched. Still, it fought with as much ferocity as all Grimm would, unwavering. The black serpent half charged right at Kael as Kael did likewise, but the white counterpart was coming in from the side. At least, it was until Schwarz's attack had pierced its head, the spear lodging itself through the top of his skull and out his lower jaw, the Taijitu half falling limp as it collided with the ground. Kael jumped at the remaining half, but the snake had opened its mouth in time to swallow Kael whole, although it intended to pierce him with its fangs. But the victory only seemed to last half a second, as Kael emerged, bursting and slicing through to the other side. The Taijitu writhed in pain before it crumpled and faded away completely. Now all that remained was the spider, who seemed less than content with the situation.

The arachnid hissed at them all, then targeted the one that seemed the most wounded. It shot out the cohesive spidersilk at Michelle, wrapping around her before it dragged her off the edge and into the chasm, where it proceeded to wrap her, immobilizing her. Tonight, it would feast.

Michelle watched as the group destroyed the Taijitu despite its struggles. They were all capable of taking it down, and here she was, losing the strength in her legs. Who was she to think she could be among them? She wasn't like them; she couldn't face something like that. The Beowulves were different, they had been far away and easily shot down. Now, without her weapon by her side and the threats so massive, was she one to stand a chance against them? Before she could finish her thoughts, a hiss interrupted them. She turned to see the arachnid looking at them, almost glaring, then turned around to fire its sticky silk at Michelle.

She reacted quickly, shielding herself with her cloak, then released the clasp when it started dragging her off the platform. She landed badly, her shoulder hitting the ground, then rolled on the ground a few feet before stopping on her back. In her haste she had dropped her pistols, and they now lay near the base of the pillar she had been on originally. So many things had now been taken from her: her rifle, her confidence, and now her cloak. She spotted her glasses on the ground, and reached over to pick them up, but stopped. She was weak, she knew that. So, she decided that it was time to get stronger, and it started now.

She finally got back up to her feet, then looked at her glasses on the ground, which now had a crack in one of the lenses. She didn't really need her glasses, though; they were just cosmetic. She picked them back up, but didn't put them back on this time. Instead, she placed them in a pocket. Then she went over to the pillar and picked her pistols back up, reloading them as she did. She took a deep breath, then exhaled.Michelle tightened her grip on her pistols, then turned to face the chasm. She was ready to fight once more. Meanwhile, the spider was distracted with what it thought was its prey. She was ready to be the Huntress she wanted to be.

When Coral had shown up and started assaulting Michelle, Gerald had in all honesty panicked. He had no idea what was attacking her, and when Coral did reveal herself he was honestly confused as to why she was attacking Michelle in the first place. However, that didn't stop him from reacting. Aiming Anwarter at their general direction, he fired off two shots, forming an ice bayonet before that one fell off in the wake of a second, before finally firing a red cartridge to launch the ice bayonet at Coral. While it didn't hit her, it did graze her, which provided the distraction necessary for Michelle to get away.

Taking the moment to empty his chambers and reload with fresh rounds - now making his ammunition lineup Red-Red-Blue-Red-Blue - and headed over and picked up Artemis when an Arachnid, which somehow completely escaped his notice, nearly managed to grab Michelle and drag her into the chasm, with her only escaping bye shedding her cloak.

One job. He had one job which he had utterly and completely failed. First, he let Coral ambush Michelle and now somehow a giant ass Grimm nearly managed to take her away. What the fuck was wrong with him? How the hell did he expect to be able to be a hunter if he couldn't even protect his one partner? That was now twice that she had close calls when she should have had him to watch her back.

Artemis in his hands, he quickly slung it over his shoulder. Making his way over to her, Gerald unslung Artemis and offered it to Michelle. His easygoing attitude, his casual demeanour and his confident front was completely gone.

"Here." he said in a much more subdued voice than he had used previously, unwilling to look Michelle in the eye. For all he knew, he had been the most disappointing partner so far, letting her get attacked - twice - and being mostly helpless to do anything about it. He wouldn't have blamed her if she hated him at this point.

Finally. Two snakes were down, tipping the scales in their favor, as now there was only the giant spider and several students were still up, even though she herself was exhausted. Just her luck to work best with someone not her partner. When she got enough of her strength back to start moving, she looked around, giving Kael a thumbs up and a weak smile. Getting up, she had a look at the situation.

It was far from ideal. Francesca lost some of her weapons, and the two others looked like they were just getting into the fight. The rest of them seemed to be done for the day as far as their strength went. She would love to help more, but it was time to get out of this bloody forest for her. Taking a breath she started walking, giving the spider a wide berth. But then, she spotted something. Or rather, someone.

Coral was flat on the ground and out cold. Damn it! You had ONE job, to run away. How did you botch it up?! the swan thought, half kneeling next to her. It appeared her partner was as badly battered as she was, if not more so. She sighed - at least she wasn't too heavy to carry away. Looking once more at the fight, she had an idea. she could help with one thing: "Francesca! Catch!" she yelled, reaching behind her and throwing Swansong towards the unarmed student. Then she slung her unconscious partner over her shoulder and begun making her way out, hoping no grimm would ambush them.

Francesca had quickly went to scale the walls when the spider had done so. She thought she had been rather fast in reaching the top, though not fast enough against with the spider pulling. . . Well, something with it down back to the chasm. She couldn't help but let out a sigh at the thought of having to dive after it again. "Francesca! Catch!" She heard from behind her. Her arm outstretched as she turned around and caught Schwarz's weapon and nodded at her.

Looking down at the spider now held out Swansong, testing it's balance. "I guess you're not going to let us go without you being dead." Backing up a bit she gathered enough momentum and jumped, this time making it to the spider's back without having to use the weapon to catch herself. With Swansong in her dominant right hand and Trusty in a reverse grip in her left, she ran across the now unarmored back of the spider slashing and cutting at it's body making way to the thing's head. To take out more of it's senses she again slashed out more of it's eyes. With a slash across the spider's face, a multitude if its visual sensory organs disappeared undoubtedly cause it massive pain and injury.

With the thrill of combat, Francesca hadn't noticed that the song on her music device had changed. Now it was something vocal, something she could sing to,
"Theres a point where it tips,
Theres a point where it breaks
Theres a point where it bends
And a point we just can’t take, anymore,"

With a flip from where she cut at its eyes she landed at about where the neck was and decide that would be a good place to put a few hits into the creature.

The spider continued its job of covering its prey with the spidersilk, but after it crumpled in on itself, it became apparent rather quickly that its prey had escaped, just barely. I hissed in frustration, but that anger was only temporary as Fransesca landed on it a second time. With Fransesca hacking away at it, the spider cringed and shook violently from the pain while also trying to shake her off, despite fruitless results. With no options left, it scrambled to the top of the cliff, Fransesca dangling off its back, then, as it reached the heights, it jumped off and back, falling towards the rest of the students, Fransesca descending with it. The spider seemed satisfied. It would die, but so should the human, according to the spider. It cared not what happened now.

Francesca dug her dagger into the spider as it started to climb up the cliff. She could tell it didn't have much left in it. . . Especially since it decided to to release it's grip on the cliff and fall, presumably to it's demise. With little time to react she released the dagger and used Flicker to make for the cliff. She made it, well, at least the edge. Half her body landed on top and the other half off. She pulled herself up with Swansong still in her hand. She couldn't let the borrowed weapon get destroyed, even if it was one borrowed from an animal. She moved away to make sure it didn't try one of web tricks as her music was ending.

To the emptiness and sadness
That has come to take the place of you.