Lauren Negasi

"Popped, locked, and ready to cockblock...Doc," the ambiguously foreign new girl reported sunnily. She scooted along and stood on the toes of her boots, inches behind Amy and Sangue, to allow Ben to get a footing. Adjusting her BaSTEELs so that they weren't obscured by her bangs, Lauren found herself still clutching Lawnslot and tightened her grip around it reflexively. Something about the unfamiliar weapon nonetheless felt comforting to her, but she knew that not having it would cut Ben's effectiveness and half.

Plus she didn't wanna get caught with a gat if she could help it.

Flipping the tonfa in her hand, she held it back to her captain with a knowing smile and winked behind one of her tinted lenses.

"Iiiii think this belongs to you," she said, holding out the hand gripping the weapon. "And before I forget, take your tonfa too."

Heehee.

"I think we can all agree about that."

His response was moreso to Cian, and less to Jack. Granted, an ambush implied lower numbers and had far less of a chance of taking them down in a battle of attrition, but on the flipside of things, continuous waves tended to lack the surprise factor that an ambush did. And as every prospective martial artist learned—

It's the one you don't see that catches you.

Thusly, he wasn't so sure of an ambush being the preferable choice.

However at the end of things, there was no one way that would immediately absolve them of risk, and it'd be stupid of any of them to try and look for one during an S-Rank Mission. And while Luke held no delusions of his unimpressive intelligence being terribly far above any average metric in a developed nation, he still had enough savvy to recognize a fool's errand when the concept of it stared him in the face.

"So, I'll head out first, then."

He said it as if it were already agreed upon.

"I've got the most survivability out of all of us with my semblance, and if something jumps out at me either of you guys can pick it off from back here."

Actually...

No, nevermind. Asking Cian for another barrier would likely distract her from a quick response time with Byakko, which would be crucial if he did end up springing a trap after all. Better to not.

"Sound like a plan to you guys? It should spring any traps we'd need to worry about."

"Gotta make a joke about everything, don't you." Ben asked rhetorically, taking back Lawnslot and flipping it once or twice in his hand before bringing it back to a normal ready position. The whole team was prepped and over the obstacle. He'd need to find where to deactivate the security feature, if they found any survivors up here. They wouldn't be willing to get tossed down a third of the staircase, at least not as willing as the rest of his team. Finding survivors was the priority, though. And making sure they didn't get added to the list of casualties. "Thanks for not dropping me, by the way."

"Amy, hear anything?"

"That'd probably not be a bad idea, if something ambushes you, we in the back can counter-ambush and back you up", it was certainly more manageable. Jack's speed and Cian's marksmanship could back Luke up in an instant. Still, they should not separate too far. The sooner they can meet up with Priscilla the better in his opinion, at least that way they had more hands on them.

"Still, don't go too far away, in case we need to retreat somehow, with you closer we can all escape more easily", he warned. The lantern's light did not reach far, not to mention if a large swarm arrived and wedged itself between Luke and the two, then the situation would be quite dire.

"Cian, keep an eye on the area around Luke, I'll keep an eye around us in case something jumps us instead", so it was decided to him. The Grimm they were dealing with were indeed more the sort to set traps out, and the area just ahead seemed almost ideal for such a plan.

Vega Venetia – Team VGNB – Outskirts of the City

“Nope it is not BS, I enter in, get captured, break free using my tentacles and using with my technological expertise I can learn about building defenses, its inhabitants, and it is a perfect plan!" She did not see how shortsighted and ill-prepared her plan was, Vega was only thinking about Bravado of entering tin a hostile building filled with Mafia men that could kill her.

Gratia Mindaro - Outskirts of the City

"You're fucking retarded."

That 'plan', if it could even be called such a thing when it was so utterly shit, hinged on far too many unknown variables. It hinged on pure arrogance, a massive overestimation of Venetia's own capabilities. It hinged on the Lord taking pity on the peanut-sized mind residing within her leader's dense skull. It hinged on placing the spectacle-wearing girl in great danger, in essence adding another hostage to be rescued to the mission, and therefore increasing the difficulty faced in ensuring a success. It reduced their effective number of combatants by one. It was an inefficient, iditioic and irritating little plan.

It was shit.

Pure fucking shit.

Self-sacrificial, endangering bullshit.

"Perfect plan, you say?" said Gratia Mindaro. Her voice was as cold and impassive as ever, but the sheer volume of sarcasm oozing from her could not have been ignored. "Did you get a sneak peek at the workings of providence while we weren't looking? Or are you a delusional moron who thinks such a mess of a fucking plan could work?"

It was clear that she believed the latter.

She refused to hedge her bets on such a needless plan.

"Do you know what a better idea might be? Not putting your aristocratic asshole into the firing line and getting yourself held fucking hostage. Where the fuck is your self-preservation, Venetia? Are you a goddamned suicide risk?"

Her tone was icy, biting, filled with irritation.

"Infiltrate as a fucking new recruit or a member of a service industry or a repair worker or shit like that. Don't you fucking dare go in there and endanger yourself. It's a shitty plan that won't fucking work."

"Understood" Cian muttered as she fell into step her weapon was at ready just in case though if one bothered to look her hands were more relaxed as her grip lightened. This was not going well yes but they had a plan and another person to back them up soon this was better than anything so far in her opinion. Her weapon limited her in this situation yes but with Jack's speed she should be ok for the most part. "I may be voicing worries about nothing but I think it bares repeating something about all of this seems foul." Cian muttered it was probably just nerves but this was really worrying her.

Vega Venetia – Team VGNB – Zephyr

Her ego had been bruised; Vega only thought was to fire back at that foul mouthed comrade of “Yes, well-, I” as she stared at Gratia intensely but flustering. After what seemed to be a long stare down, she then sighed. “You are right it is idiotic” as she talked quietly. Her ego was only calling to her to fight back. I can do it! She is wrong to say that! Common sense kicked in.

“Alright, we will go with the original plan.”

@Lugubrious

Priscilla quickly ran towards the center of the area, entering the supply room, there were screeches and screams of harpies. Yes, they were all there and flying into the direction that Priscilla was in. They all looked angry and hungry, wanting to eat a warm human flesh and Priscilla wasn't about that life. She wasn't going to be one of those people that stand around and wait for the creatures to maul her up. LIes! "Oh, no you don't..." she quickly tied her hair up into a ponytail before jumping over tables. Priscilla grabbed onto her weapon, pressing the button as it turned into the big hammer mode. It was her favorite and she could totally kick ass with that. The soon to be huntress quickly slammed the flat of the hammer against one of the harpies as it was sent flying backwards with such powerful shock wave. "OOOOH. I read about harpies and they are not so friendly. I swear, I thought they were so adorable in those books. But ob--- Priscilla, stop talking!" If only one of the others were around to help her out, maybe she shouldn't have gotten out of the room all by herself but oh well! Priscilla was the type of girl to take risks and to protect her friends. "Sorry harpies, but this girl has to go." Priscilla quickly turned around towards the harpies before thrusting her hand forward as a force field appeared before her, sending that force-field flying to the harpies. The harpies were hit and sent flying away from Priscilla. "MHM!" she squealed and ran away as fast as she could.

Gratia Mindaro - Zephyr

"Swallow that pride of yours, Venetia," said Gratia, onyx eyes gazing impassively back into her leader's. "It does you no good when it's misplaced."

She refused to allow her leader's ego to endanger the success of the mission and the safety of their objectives. That was simply forbidden. Their task ... their goal of extracting Bianca Nuit from the grasp of the Dodici Cosca ... they were not going to fuck it up. Nobody ... nothing ... not a single obstacle would be tolerated. If Venetia's little bullshit was going to bring danger and hurt their success, then she would simply crush that fucking ego beneath her heels, her leader's feelings be damned.

Safety was paramount.

"I'll walk into that shitty little bank for you," she continued, tone slowly settling back into the cold, ruthless and business-like monotone that was typical of her. "You're far too aristocratic for this."

Vega Venetia had a duty to coordinate the remainder of the team.

She was the leader, after all.

Gratia Mindaro lacked that responsibility.

You better or mother hen will peck your eyes out. =P Diamond sent back before turning to Cobalt. “II dunno. Didn’t see you do much of leading thus far.” she said, choosing to be honest. “Can I ask you something? What were you doing before this. Before Beacon I mean. And more importantly, what was your MO.”

“You see, I realize I’m the one making most of noise about things, but my previous occupation was equally as dangerous as this, and succeeding in what I set to do required a lot of time. I would be on site for hours, even days, just observing, planning. That is why I can’t stand this approach the three of you prefer. Being careful never failed me in the past, so you see I would be hard convinced to change my ways, so don’t blame yourself for that one.”

Cobalt sighed as he thought on his past. “Me? I was just a stupid street thug. I hung out with a gang for protection, did mindless muscle work. Hurt some innocent people. Never was a big fan of it. Eventually I had my opportunity to get out, so I did. I decided to become a hunter as a sort of… atonement for my past.” Cobalt looked thoughtful when asked about his MO and he shrugged. “I don't really have an MO to speak of. As long as the job gets done, anything is acceptable honestly.” Cobalt chuckled bitterly at that statement. “You don't have to answer this one, but what did you do before? You've piqued my curiosity after the description you just gave me.”

Diamond froze in her tracks as Cobalt spoke. Was it really that simple? Just speak your sins out loud as if it was normal? Why was she so anxious about anyone finding out, when this, this… man could just blab it out in broad daylight? She shook her head to wake up from the daze she has been torn to. To think that it would be Cobalt that would make her feel stupid about something. Worse, now that she thought about it, that it would be Cobalt that she could probably tell everything to without worries? Sure, Emerald accepted her past without a second thought, but that was because it was Emerald. Oswald was problematic, but then again, he already knew, which was something she would have to address later.

If she was to be honest about herself, it would relieve her of quite a burden if she didn’t have to watch what she said at least in the dorm. Sighing, she decided to take the chance. If anyone was going to have a problem, it apparently wouldn’t be this guy anyway. “It is curious how similar two people with no association whatsoever can be. I… am pretty much the same. Except, I know now it’s nothing to brag about, but I was just a lot bigger deal than you were.” she grinned.

“Just to name a few you might know or have read about - two and a half years ago, art heist from the Museum of Mantle. I don’t recall the name of the piece, it was a mercenary job, but not many more if any happened, not in that time. A year before that, somebody took one truck stuffed with dust right form one of the Schnee’s depots. A couple months before that, somebody tunneled into the mansion of a certain corporate magnate and stole a priceless piece of jewellry handed down for at least ten generations, and that’s just to count the recent few.” she recounted, before giving Cobalt a small curtsy and raising her hat, “Congratulations, commissioner, you found your perp.” she said, waiting what would happen next.

“Oh… alright then.” Cobalt smiled and continued walking along with her. “I don’t know if you expect me to suddenly hate you or something, but that would be pretty hypocritical if I did.” He then shrugged and adopted a thoughtful pose. “That’s pretty impressive though, I imagine that would indeed take a lot of planning. You sure you don’t want to be leader?” He said half-jokingly. ‘Please say yes.’

“Yeh, that was why I said nothing up until now. Go figure that with most of you I actually had nothing to worry about. Just my fucking luck.” the thug rolled her eyes. “Well, two years ago I finally got caught, just stupidly pickpocketing a cop in civilian attire. Two months time in an Althesian prison was enough to realize I would rather be dead than to spend a lifetime there, so I got here, worked my skin off to pass the initiation and here I am. Anyway, now you know both why I don’t like jumping head first into things and why I am not a fan of barrels pointed at me.” she finished, thinking for a while, “I could lead, I think. But that’s not up to me. As I said in the morning to that god awful jarhead of a teacher, I don’t care what anyone decides for me, even Ozpin. I would only lead those who chose to follow. And, well...” she looked at the direction Emerald and Oswald went, “That doesn’t seem likely to happen.”

“Damn, that must've hurt. All of those crazy heists and you got caught for pickpocketing. Must've been a bad day. Sorry again about the gun thing.” Cobalt looked embarrassed as he thought about that. “Honestly, I don't think we even need a leader. Hell, I don't think we can have one considering our personalities.” He looked ahead and sighed. “I sure as hell can't do this. I'm too damn nice.”

“Believe me the would on the pride pales in comparison to what came once I was behind the bars. Be glad you were never caught.” Diamond shuddered. Thinking for a while, she shook her head. “Not necessarily true. Can I ask you something? What is it that you think a team leader should do? And before you start thinking about it too much, there’s no right answer, at least that I know of. I want to hear what you think.”

Cobalt thought about this for a minute and began to speak. “I suppose there's four things. In scale of most important to least it would be to, make sure the team is alive and safe, keep the team on track and stable, insure efficient completion of mission, and if that can't be done, insure completion of mission in general. So far I've completely fucked up 2 and 3. I don't have the will to exert authority like that.” Cobalt shrugged at that statement. “I don't like being bossy.” He stated plainly.

“Well, those are all very, hm… how to say it… ‘mission-specific’. Is the leader not the same out of one as well, like you go have a check up even though you are not sick or maintain a weapon?” Diamond though thought loud as the wall came back into view, “You can’t expect to keep four different people together much less in line when you don’t know how they are and what makes them tick. If you are not discouraged beyond all hope, you could stand to talk to us once in awhile. Can’t play a game of chess if you don’t know how the pieces move.” she dropped an advice.

“I talk to you guys.” Cobalt replied defensively. “I just invited you guys to lunch a few days ago remember? I'm trying to get to know everyone.” He observed the wall passively and a thought occurred to him. “Hey… I feel like we should check out the wall a bit more closely. For defense purposes.” Cobalt began walking a bit faster to get to the wall.

As Diamond and Cobalt neared their section of the border wall, they passed by a defunct turret. Offline, with its barrels pointed downward at the ground in a sad gesture.

Stopping to check up on the dead machine, Diamond tried to recall the video she saw from its camera. What attacked it couldn’t be quite seen as far as she could remember, but it was over pretty quick. It definitely seen better days though. “Hey, ‘Think we could salvage stuff from the odd turrets to repair the even ones?” she hollered down form the construct, popping the ammo storage open - if nothing else, they could use the dust.

As Diamond looked over the turret and examined it. She would find nothing. Nothing in the sense that there wasn’t anything visibly wrong with the turret. All of its ammunition was intact. Save for general wear and tear for being exposed to the elements for who knows how long, there was no damage to the turret. There wasn’t a thing that was obviously wrong with it. It just looked like it was turned off.

“Hello there!” the ex-thief muttered for herself, seeing the weapon fully stocked. Closing the compartment up, she jumped down and found the controls. Half a minute later, the turret seemed ready to start. “Alright. Explain this to me.” she asked Cobalt, “What possible reason could there be for these things to, according to the diagnostics, be perfectly functional, just turned off - when there is heightened Grimm activity? Either the Grimm are -lot- smarter than we gave them credit for, or they didn’t do this. Please tell me you have another, rational explanation, because Either grimm that can code or traitors are worrying to say the least.”

Hovering above the ‘on’ button, Diamond halted. If man did this… Then it’s a trap. Thus far, thinking of the worst case scenario worked for her just well - why break the habit? Returning to the settings, she checked the targeting parameters.

The screen of the turret read:
Targeting Parameters
Priority: Wall Security
Secondary: All

“Mother fucking son of a bitch!” Diamond cursed out loud, scaring a few birds out of their nests in the trees, “Somebody put these things up to defend the wall, and when they’re done with that, to shoot at everything else, like whoever tried to turn it on! NOW can we call for help?”

Cobalt was already going into his Scroll to call Ms. Vanhomrigh about the situation. “This has gotten way beyond our original parameters. We were supposed to be doing a sweep for Grievers, not intelligent Ratatosks and possibly traitors.” He said as he hit the call button. “Text the others, let them know I'm calling Ms. Vanhomrigh.”

But nobody came.

Cobalt blinked and stopped breathing for a moment. Then a flash of terror crossed his face. He hung up the phone and turned to Diamond. “We have a problem. Comms are down.”

---

As Oswald and Emerald headed away from their teammates, Oswald smirked at Diamond’s response. It was odd how caring Diamond was, despite her frosty-HAH!-exterior. It was sweet, though.

Punching in another text, Oswald sighed. Ms. Vanhomrigh, this is Oswald Connolly. Team CODE has elected to form a strike force consisting of myself and Emerald Felicia, while Diamond and Cobalt stay behind to set up the defenses in case our search and destroy mission fails. Emerald and I are moving to investigate our last point of contact with the Grimm and will report on our continuing operations. The Grimm in the area are displaying abnormal behavior, however. They seem to be unusually docile, even for the wily nature of Ratatosks. They set up an expertly-performed ambush and escaped with many of our supplies, including most of the Dust ammunition we had with us.

Hitting the Send button, Oswald sighed. She was gonna have a field day with them.

“So, I hear that you think I’m a scaredy cat. A bit ironic, don’tcha think?” Giving his temporary partner a playful wink, Oswald grunted and looked around. “Can you find where we broke off from the Grimm before?”

Emerald’s cheeks reddened a bit, “I never said you were a scaredy cat...exactly.” She cleared her throat as she got a good look of her surroundings, sniffing the air and listening intently with her ears as they twitched and moved in different directions. “I’m fairly certain it was a bit northeast of where we are now.” She pointed in said direction, “I’m pretty sure those footprints and snapped twigs over there is our doing.”

Chuckling, Oswald nodded at Emerald’s reasoning. “Makes sense to me. I doubt little Ratatosks would cause so much damage. When we find where we last made contact with them, what’s our action plan?”

“Well, I have a feeling they want to be followed, probably to lure us into some sort of trap. So I was thinking...spring the trap?”

Oswald chuckled yet again and shook his head. “Yeah, that….that makes sense. Ya know, you remind me of an old friend of mine, Emerald. Good kid, he was. So, spring the trap, eh? Guess I should be in front in that case, come to think of it.”

Emerald nodded. “If they stay focused on you I should be able to pick them off.”

“Sounds like enough of a plan. Just keep your eyes open and your ears on the...listenout? Like, lookout but with listening. Just...stay aware of your surroundings. Don’t get snuck up on or anything I guess. That would be bad.” Flustered at his inability to speak properly, Oswald grumbled for a few moments after he finished speaking.

Emerald giggled. “Roger that, I’m on full alert.”

“Well, I guess we’ve got some walking to do, then. Hooray….” Sarcasm heavy in his voice, Oswald trudged onward.

As Emerald and Oswald followed the general direction of the escaped Ratatosks and went deeper into the forests, they casually passed by a defunct turret. Offline, with its barrels pointed downward at the ground in a sad gesture.

Emerald glanced at the turret as they passed it, “Someone will need to fix that once we clear the Grimm.”

“Won’t fucking be me.” Looking at his Scroll, Oswald screwed up his face. “Nothing? I thought she’d be bearing down on us like a fucking haw-Oh. Oh no.” Sighing, Oswald’s eyes widened in alarm. “Emerald, we don’t have comms in this forest. We may have to go back.”

“What!? No way!” Emerald exclaimed, her ears sticking up as high as they could. “We can’t go back now! What if the Grimm take advantage of that?”

“Unless you want to keep going with presumably no way of calling for backup, we have to go back and see what’s up. I don’t want to do it either, Emerald, but...this is wrong. This is the second time this has happened in as many missions, and there was somebody behind it the last time. Something’s fucky here.” Grunting, Oswald came to a halt.

“I’ve got your back, though. Wouldn’t dare let you go out there alone. Just say the word. Go back and figure out what’s going on, or charge on?” This was Emerald’s choice to make, not his.

“I say we keep going, and if we get into more trouble than we can handle we fall back, sound good?”

Oswald’s entire body went rigid at what Emerald said. He hadn’t thought for a second that she’d make that call. It was stupid, reckless, hell, borderline suicidal wouldn’t be inaccurate.

And he had promised to follow her into the gates of hell itself. “Well, off we go, then.”

Sniffing at the ground, a lone Ratatosk crawled out and into view. It was possibly a poor Grimm that had gotten separated from its pack and was trying to find its way. Having lost it. It was clear that this rodent wasn’t one of the smarter Grimm as it appeared very lost and hadn’t noticed Emerald or Oswald standing there talking.

“Well, would you look at that. A Grimm. You wanna do the honors?” Normally, Oswald would be much more predatory when it came to Grimm. However, he and Ratatosk….did not get along. Namely, insofar that it was virtually impossible for Oswald to get a decent hit on one of the bastards.

Emerald pointed one of her weapons at it and fired. “Kay.”

The Grimm jumped at the sound of the gunshot, startled. The shot barely missing it. Turning its head, it finally noticed Emerald and Oswald. Having a bit of an ‘oh, shit.’ moment, the Ratatosk then turned tail and booked it out of there. Desperately trying to pick up on the scent trail of its comrades that abandoned it. Searching for the way to sanctuary.

“I say we follow it.” And thus, Oswald began the chase, sheathing his sword and moving after the miniscule Grimm.

“My thoughts exactly!” Emerald replied as she followed Oswald, keeping an eye out for a possible ambush as they moved.

What a bad day it was having. First, Huntsmen showed up and they had to do things. Then it got separated and lost. Now it was being shot at and chased by the very same Huntsmen from before! Poor thing just wanted to be left alone and live in peace, it didn’t want to get wrapped up in all of this. Running as fast as its little legs could take it, it fought to keep its energy together to try and evade the two. Thankfully, along the way it found physical evidence of its pack. Discarded remnants of the Huntsmen’s gear were left scattered about and the scent trails were getting stronger. It was close now, it knew it. Once it was home, its survival was almost guaranteed. Minutes and seconds stretched, making it seem like an eternity. But at last, the end was in sight. Stopping ever so briefly to look behind and catch its breath. The lone Ratatosk stood in front of the gaping mouth that was the entrance to a dark cave.

Home.

Zipping forward, the Ratatosk disappeared into the dark shadows of the cave. It hoped that maybe the Huntsmen pair would be intimidated by the sight of the foreboding tunnel and leave. It only knew what would happen if they still dared to follow after.

“If I had my Dust crystals, we could at least have used them for a low-tech grenade. Maybe flush a few out. Well, how do you wanna do this, Emerald?” Looking at the cave in front of them, Oswald narrowed his eyes in thought. This could end very badly if we get caught down there with our pants down, so to speak.

“Hmmm…well I have an idea...but it’s kind of crazy.” Emerald said, looking at Oswald.

“We’re god knows how far from our team, with no communications and about to engage a cave full of Grimm, the types and numbers of which we don’t know.” Chuckling to emphasize his point, Oswald looked back. “Now is the perfect time for crazy.”

Emerald grinned, “Excellent point. Well basically I’m thinking I’ll just transform my weapon, aim it at the cave, and blow it to hell. I don’t think anything inside will have a chance of surviving. Only thing is it drains my aura completely when I do that.”

Blinking, Oswald sighed. “Nope, that’s pretty crazy, actually. Emerald, we have no idea how deep this cave goes. We might alert everything in there, and it might be more than I can outrun while keeping you covered. On the other hand…” Thinking over the pros and cons with a hand on his chin, Oswald nodded for a moment. “On the other hand, we could leave a nice, scorching landmark, and you might set off a bunch of the munitions they stole from us, creating a chain-reaction of Grimm death!”

“I just have one question...would you be in good enough shape to sprint your ass back to Cobalt and Diamond?”

Emerald fidgeted. “Maybe after a minute or two, but it won’t be fun.”

Groaning, Oswald rubbed his temples. “I’ll carry you as far as I can unless we get caught up to. God, my legs are gonna be killing me tomorrow…” Giving a nod to his teammate, Oswald made sure his shield was secure on his back. They were gonna need every ounce of cover they could get. “Do you remember our way back? We absolutely cannot get lost for even a second.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction.” Emerald said with a nod, bringing her weapons together as they began to click and merge together.

Watching on with discomfort, Oswald took a deep breath and readied himself to grab the girl and run. “If this doesn’t work and we get chased to shit, we are calling Esther and the others ASAP.” Hell, if it did work, they were still calling them ASAP to figure out what the hell was going on. “Hit it!”

With her newly formed cannon, Emerald aimed at the mouth of the cave. The weapon began to glow with a green energy as it drained her aura rapidly. With a cry the cat faunus fired the weapon, the blast flying directly into the cave.

The wind howled and whistled with Emerald’s shot. Flying straight and true deep into the cave entrance before being swallowed whole by the darkness. There was a slight delay, but very shortly after her attack the cave erupted with a thunderous concussive blast. Not exactly at the very entrance but a little further in, the crates of Dust that had been stolen from the Huntsmen also exploded. Having been set up along the cave ceiling, held by a curious adhesive substance. Adding to the booming noise that would echo and sound throughout the entire area for miles. With a crumble and crash, the cave finally heaved and collapsed in on itself. Sealing the entrance, entombing whatever was inside. As the two would stand observing their work, with simple deductions made it was clear that the crafty Grimm had planned to trap them inside had they gone in. Unfortunately, Emerald’s cannon shot sprang their trap a bit early, ruining that plan. As the clouds of dust settled and the few loose rocks clattered about, cave entrance smoldering with the flames of various Dust elements all became silent. Nothing else stirred.

Emerald collapsed onto one knee, panting heavily as she glanced up at her handy work. “Ow...that was even louder than I expected…”

Walking over to his teammate and sweeping her into his arms, bridal style, Oswald whistled. “Good work, Em. Even if I’m pretty sure that my ears are gonna start bleeding any second, at least we’re not dead. Now, let’s get back.”

Emerald blushed, being carried like that was so… “Yeah...let’s.”

Nodding, Oswald turned his back on the destroyed cave, resolved to wash his hands of this place sooner rather than later. But they’d need help. Thus, he went back the way the pair had come, moving quickly enough to warrant a familiar ache in his legs.

Oswald and Emerald leaving, pleased with their work, would come to find that nothing gave chase after them in anger. They would only leave behind the dilapidated cave entrance, still smoldering with the embers of Dust.

After a few minutes of nothing chasing after them, Emerald spoke up. “I don’t hear anything coming our way...and I think I can stand now.”

Gently lowering Emerald to the ground, Oswald looked around. “Then it seems like we’re in the clear. Good, I’m sick of this shit already.”

---

In the skies above, the airship that carried the Huntsmen team to their mission location had been circling around ever since they had dropped off their cargo. After a short trip back to pick up another passenger, that is. Keeping careful watch on the young Hunters below with their cameras and observation tools. Carnal and Ski dutifully and silently manned their machine guns, hawk-eyes on the alert for anything that may have come. Stovetop sat across from Esther as she stared at her Scroll, waiting for any message that may come through. Earlier, she had attempted to hail the team with a radio check on their headsets. But nothing seemed to go through, not even static. No message had popped up on her Scroll, and there was no response to the message she had sent them. Duckie and Gorilla, the two pilots in the cockpit, both looked at each other worriedly. They knew what Esther was thinking. They knew what she was feeling. The fact that their own systems onboard the airship were going a little wonky didn’t help the situation any further. Helped even less so by the detection of ECMs that when coupled with the nearby mountain ranges, effectively blocked any communications signals to the ground below. They all all suspected foul play, but it was too soon to jump to any conclusions. Maybe it was part of the village’s security systems? But, that hardly added up. The brute Gorilla peered back from the cockpit and tried to see if he could read anything from Esther’s blank expression. No dice.

”Vanessa.” his deep voice bellowed clearly over the din of the airship’s noises.
”...” No response from Esther. Not even a slight movement.
”I’m sure...They’ll be alright.”
”....” She was as still as a stone-statue. Eyes glued to the screen of her Scroll in her gloved hands. Headset volume turned all the way up in her ears.

Unfortunately, due to Gorilla’s ballistic facemask-combination-helmet, no one could really see the heavy frown he made. Straightening back in his seat, he faced forward. He wasn’t going to get a response out of Esther. Not with the way things currently were. Duckie glanced to the side at him, and she sighed.

”She’s like that again, huh?”
Gorrilla nodded silently.
”Y’know, why don’t we just drop off Stovetop in the village? That way he can-”
”You already know why we won’t.” Gorrilla cut her off.
”...” Duckie made an exasperated sound.
”You and I outrank her, y’know. We’re her superior officers.”
Gorilla ever so slowly turned his head and gave her a ‘look’.
”Do you think she cares?”
Duckie held a ‘gaze’ with Gorilla and sighed again, giving up.
”She gave us specific orders not to interfere with their mission unless they request us. You’re dealing with her alone if you go against her wishes. I’m not having any part of that.”
Duckie became more and more agitated. She knew exactly what Gorilla meant, but didn’t mean she had to like it or think it was fair.
Muttering, Duckie cursed.
”Fucking Huntress.”

Stovetop stirred and looked up at Esther.
”Hey.”
”.....”
”At least blink or something. Your eyes are going to dry out if you just...stare.”
Esther blinked. Eyes still focused on her Scroll.

As frustrating as Sterling’s ball bearings were, the two Taijitu heads attacking Estelle did not remained rebuffed for long. Armed with the knowledge that the punishment the metal sphere could dish out could not get any worse, they snapped at the channeling faunus repeatedly. While preserved from anything particularly dire by the bearing cloud, Estelle did not escape some aura damage, lengthening the amount of time it would take to get the caravan vehicle to full speed.

Meanwhile, the near-maniacal fighting style of Lilac, meant to punish with vicious indiscriminate severity, landed her in hot water. After discarding the pair of Grimm fangs and jumping into the air, she prepared to deliver a crushing blow, but target whipped out of the way and circled her in an instant. While she managed to twist around in the air, the King Taijitu lashed out and butted Lilac with savage force, sending her tumbling backward. Upon standing up, she realized perhaps with the first time that she’d chosen the wrong fight to so carelessly insert herself into. Foes arrayed themselves at all sides, and if she expected her newfound allies to ignore their own problems and bail her out, she would be disappointed. Lilac watched as a Taijitu arced itself into a loop, the heads interlocking at the jaw, before it rolled toward her. Smirking, she readied her fists to blow it away, but ultimately overestimated her strength. The Taijitu loop steamrolled her, causing her to stick to its scales and be thrown into the air. As luck would have it, she landed on the caravan vehicle, though winded. Anyone fortunate enough to see what happened couldn’t be blamed for arriving at the conclusion that Lilac couldn’t act on her own anymore.

When Sarina came to Estelle’s aid, she made the Grimm parts rain, but not every monster fell victim to her initial salvo of attacks. Of the four heads assaulting the caravan a moment ago, only a single one remained, but this elder king had blocked her blade with steely fangs. Robbed long ago of one of its eyes, this deadly beast nevertheless boasted incredible speed and reflex—feats worthy of an emperor. Dipping past any strikes aimed its way and blocking those it could not, the Emperor Taijitu seemed the equal of any hunter. Now was the moment: the caravan’s speed lay on the very edge between slow enough to be caught and fast enough to escape. If Estelle took another hit, the entire operation would need an absolute miracle. Silent, the Emperor Taijitu slammed its head onto the caravan vehicle to the right of the group, before sweeping across its top like an person’s arm over a table, meant to scatter every senior to the canyon floor.



As efficiently as one could ask, team Bastille ascended to floor two. At the top of the staircase vault lay the residential area, a sprawling donut-shaped hallway lined on all sides by rooms. The middle of the donut appeared to be some sort of divided bathroom complex. To the right, everyone could clearly see a sign suspended over a pair of closed swinging doors that indicated the adjoining room to be the distillery’s cafeteria. In just a glance either way, anyone could tell that most of the doors lay open, as one might expect for a facility faced with evacuation orders. Amy could hear an irregular thump noise, emanating from the direction of the cafeteria.

Investigation of the rooms would have to wait, however. While the students examined the scene, a dark shape darted out from a nearby room and scurried across the floor toward the cafeteria. Even from the back, its identity as a Scavenger could be clearly made out. Harder to hit than a Beowolf and stronger than a Griever, it nevertheless provided less of a challenge than the average Boarbatusk. Lack of confidence did not appear to be why the Scavenger fled with such singular direction, however. A low squeal at the edge of the swinging doors preluded a whole stampede of the ratlike Grimm, swarming from the dining hall en masse to rush down the corridor. Not a single one opted to take the alternate, longer route around the donut hall, but all of them skittered forward with murderous intent.



After trying the door to the decontamination room, with everyone prepped for combat, a massive sense of anticlimax blossomed in the room as the realization hit them that with no power, the normally-automatic door would not be moving anytime soon. A detour through memory lane to retrieve some kind of spare battery seemed appropriate, unless the combined strength of the three could simply tear through the square of metal obscuring their forward path. To be sure, the door that confronted them gave no impression of thickness, but metal did constitute it, and the use of a device like Luke’s drills might alert the very Grimm they wished to avoid.

To an observant student, a third option could be espied from their current position. If they hadn’t already faded away into forgetfulness thanks to familiarity, the vents and pipes that lined the ceiling might resurface in someone’s memory, though the act of navigating pathways clearly not designed to contain humans prompted hazards all its own. As well-intentioned as the reasoning and strategizing of the hunters-in-training might be, the realization more than likely occurred to them that peoples’ lives probably depended on their swiftness—running around to speed up a solution, even if it attracted monsters, would accomplish far more than simply standing around. The time for action was now.

As if to aid the formation of this conclusion, the acute students’ loneliness came to a sudden end. With a clatter, the elevator panel popped open like a dog-door, disgorging a pair of Scavengers. These hog-sized rats were accompanied by a trio of shrieking Grievers, who leaped from their hiding spots to converge on the three kids and give them something to really grieve about. A dilemma awaited Jack, Cian, and Luke: fight off the small but agile marauders and simultaneously find a way to move to the next room.



Though Priscilla’s move had been a clever one, its simple pushing power did not keep the Harpies out of commission for long. Additionally, the only way out of the room in which she found herself happened to be in the same direction she pushed the Grimm toward, meaning that her gambit availed her not at all. While one hit the wall and the other tumbled along the floor, neither wasted any time composing themselves and the next instant the harpies attacked again. This time they broke formation, moving at a leisurely pace while Priscilla charged them, and when the girl came into range they made their move.

One harpy, the one battered by her hammer swing, dove straight forward to strike low, almost to the ground, with raking claws. The other fluttered upward before swooping down, its talons ready to gouge Priscilla’s eyes. By working together like this, with one Grimm coming from heaven and the other from hell, Priscilla appeared nearly guaranteed to take a hit—unless a creative technique came to her on the spot.

"Well, saw that comin'."

Lawnslot came to life with a sharp, loud report followed by a second to slow the swarm down a little, while Artorius' breech slid open. BASL's leader retreated a few steps to keep a little distance, while she grabbed a color-coded shotgun shell off his belt and slipped it into the breech. His weapons weren't really suited to dealing with such small Grimm, at least not efficiently enough for such a large horde. And neither Sangue nor Lauren were much better for it, and it wasn't like Amy could take out the whole group. Sooo it was time to even things up a bit.

The close-knit stampede, damned Grimm scampering over each other in eagenerss to get to BASL, actually made them easy prey for the Lightning Dust round he'd loaded up earlier. Chain lightning was real good for swarms, and the metal floor'd ground the charge nicely once it left the swarm. It only took a few seconds to line up the shot with the densest part of the Grimm, and send the Dust round rocketing towards its target.

Then he took several more steps away from the Grimm. He didn't particularly feel like getting mauled by rats.

Gratia Mindaro - Zephyr

The plan had been finalised. Her duty for the mission was to infiltrate the scum that were the Dodici Cosca by offering her services as some ... enforcer or similar ilk, thereby providing the team access to information on the inner workings of the organisation's facilities and the like within the city. It was a distasteful job, but it was shit that had to be done if they were to retrieve Nuit successfully. Compared to her leader's brain-damaged suggestion of being sent in as a second hostage, it was far more preferable for Gratia that she instead sought employment with these criminals. She refused to send any of her allies' ashes home on this mission.

She watched the glass doors of the bank quietly, onyx eyes bearing down upon the teller within. She wanted nothing more than to simply rip apart every single shred of the group, crush their spirits for daring to even harm someone that was hers, but the plan was important.

Gratia Mindaro stepped through the doors.

Her cold, silent gaze met the receptionist's.

It was as if they had been waiting for their resolution. Like the whole room had been listening in for the plan, and as soon as it had been aired, it all burst into motion.

The plan wasn't going to be put to the test, but rather pop-quizzed.

!

!!!

"Watch out!" he called, backpedaling even as a Griever's grabbing swipe fell short of his face by a mere half-second. ell, more accurately, it probably was trying to grab at his throat...

Same basic idea either way!

Eyes flicking across the field as he completed a one man Boke-Tsukkomi routine, he answered the swipe with an emphatic punt that more reminiscent of a Messi than a Jose Aldo, but would serve the desired purpose all the same. Either force it back, or hit it really hard in the face.

Technically, it was faster along a linear path, so kicking like a soccer striker as opposed to an MMA striker might have actually—

Wait, these three weren't alone!

Things were getting hectic, and the hapless hunter was having all but a hernia trying to keep up. Stalking towards the trio was a pair of giant, nasty looking rats the size of wild hogs...

It was getting too crowded in here, and those two looked the meanest. At the point of the group, even after drawing back, Luke realized that he was in the way of the three attacking, with his team behind him at either side. That meant for the moment, at least, they were alright if he held them off.

Alright, and able to work freely.

Something resembling inspiration lit up his head.

"Stick to the plan! Cian! Take the two big ones out first!"

Even as he barked the order, he surged forward with a war cry and arms spread wide, all but charging the three Grievers to meet them head on, and as far from his team as he could help. If he could at least keep the three busy long enough for Cian to put a few rounds in the Scavengers' heads, they had already made the situation much more manageable. If he kept his wits about him, he could fend the three little ones off for that long without major issue.

Probably.

PART 1

"I think we're going the right way", he commented as the encounter began. Two scavengers, should be able to clean those up in a few moments, though the greivers... There were definitely more of them. In these smaller numbers though, they weren't a challenge. They seemed to be becoming more daring though, if they weren't charging the party down with large numbers, it meant they were prodding them to measure up their strength, or these five were more adventurous than their colleagues, either way they should spend as little time as possible on them.

"We should be able to clean this up quickly, in these numbers they're not a huge threat", he pointed out. As soon as one of the three Greivers would jump Luke, or one of the Scavengers got close, he could easily move straight to the front to punish them, but for now he wondered how they were going to move to the next room. The thick door that was before them could probably be powered, but going back to look for a battery might take a lot longer. He looked around a bit and amongst the darkness spotted a networked structure... Vents maybe?

They'll have to take a look later, for now these Grimm need to be dealt with.

No good. Either this was Remnant’s way of saying it hated the four of them by openly stacking the deck of coincidences against them, or this was a trap. As if the lack of communications wasn’t enough, Diamond’s attention was drawn to a deafening boom and an eruption of smoke from the forest. She could only hope it was their teammates causing it rather than falling victim to it.

“Alright. Gizmos don’t work, then it’s time to fall back to more prehistoric means of drawing attention. I was hoping to save these for the night, but given the situation...” she shrugged as she reached behind her, fetching one of the boxes of flares. “Noise and fireworks, this oughta draw attention.” she said as she lobbed the whole box to the air, assisted by a push from her dust. When it reached the apex point, the ex-thief focused her aura and set all of the flares off, creating a big white flash in the sky accompanied by a screeching whistle of a sound.

A few minutes after Diamond had fired the flare, whether she was paying attention to the screen on the turret’s control panel or not, the machine began to hum with life. Powering on, its vulcan barrel slowly raised itself. On the panel, it read:

Connection re-established.
Defensive parameter reboot, complete.
Priority; Wall Security.
Secondary; All Hostile Targets
Warning! Unidentified incoming aerial craft detected!
Engaging all targets as Hostile!

But, it wasn’t the only turret powering back on by themselves. In fact, all of them were. Of the ones nearest Cobalt and Diamond, all of them were focused on one thing. The airship that had taken them there. The very same airship that was to be their reinforcements in the instance of an emergency. The very same airship that thought they were in trouble and were coming to their aid.

It didn’t take long. Once they were remotely powered on and warmed up, their turrets began to spin up as they auto-loaded their destructive ammunition. In a short few-second bursts, the turrets fired upon the airship with a skull-shattering and air-igniting…

BRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slicing the airship into flaming pieces with their laser-like stream of bullets.
And just like that, the turrets ceased. It was over in a matter of seconds.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Witnessing the bright explosion of Diamond's flare box, Oswald’s heart dropped. “Emerald….we have to go. And go fast.” Pointing up at the light, Oswald cursed. “That looks bad.”

Emerald was already running, though she looked pretty winded as she did so.

As Oswald and Emerald chased after the source of bright light in the sky, a single creature that had been stalking them since collapsing the cave lunged from behind a tree and straight at the feline faunus. Whatever it was, it attempted to slam its large body into her and rake her with its claws before rolling away and ‘fleeing’. Disappearing once again into the surrounding forests just as quickly and quietly as it came.

Emerald, already in a weaken state and focused on where she was going, noticed the creature little too late. She turned to face the creature and gasped in surprise just as it was upon her. She’d barely had time to raise her arms up in defense as the creature raked her. She let out a cry as the claws tore through her arms and torso, falling onto her side. She opened fire with a shotgun as the creature retreated but she was hardly aiming properly.

“Nghhh!” It stung, it stung really bad. She hugged her chest and clucked her arms together but it wasn’t doing much to help, she was bleeding from her arms and lower torso. “O-Oswald!”

Teleporting to Emerald’s side as she fell, Oswald rapidly grabbed her and pulled the girl into his chest. “I got you. I got you, kitten, don’t worry.” Cradling Emerald, Oswald made a beeline towards Diamond and Cobalt, ignoring everything but the bleeding girl in his arms and his destination.

“It’s just a...scratch.” Emerald squeaked out with a painful expression. Truth was she was starting to feel a little dizzy, but she wanted to look tough so she didn’t mention it. “Just stings a lot...I’m sure it’s not as bad as it...looks.” She was in fact trying not to look down at her arms which were probably now covered in her blood. She didn’t like seeing her own blood.

Oswald sent an unworried smile down at his teammate. “Oh, yeah. It’s nothing serious, I’m sure. Just wanna get out of the forest before I get you all wrapped up. You’ll be fine.” Inside, however, Oswald’s mind was screaming, his mental condition was rapidly deteriorating, and the floodgates were about to open. All it would take was one or two more mishaps on this godforsaken mission, and he’d blow a gasket.

“Diamond is gonna throw a fit when she sees me.” Emerald smirked for a moment before going back to her pained expression.

“Oh boy, I’m probably fucked then.” Sighing as he remembered Diamond’s threat, Oswald decided to pick up the pace a little. His facade wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Haha...yeah you’re definitely…” Emerald’s voice trailed off as she closed her eyes...just for a second. So dizzy.

Stopping short as Emerald’s voice trailed and her eyes closed, Oswald looked down at her before cursing. “Dammit, Emerald, don’t stop talking. Just...keep yourself awake, alright?” Setting the girl down in his lap as he took a seat, Oswald quickly ripped a large chunk of his sleeve off before looking between his makeshift rag and the wound. This isn’t gonna be nearly enough. Fucking Grimm stealing our shit. “Emerald, you wouldn’t happen to have any medical supplies on you, do you? I noticed you managed to keep most of your stuff when those Ratatosk got us.”

Emerald grimaced before looking at Oswald. She’d blacked out for a moment, either from the blood loss, or the pain, or probably both. “I do have a few things in my pack yeah…”

Impatiently grabbing Emerald’s pack and opening it, Oswald found the aforementioned supplies rather quickly. Bandages immediately presented themselves to the swordsman, and Oswald grabbed his blade, grimacing. “You might not like what I’m about to do. Sorry.” Quickly and carefully drawing his sword through Emerald’s shirt, he separated the clothes from her body before cutting them away to the side and leaving her back bare.

“This is gonna hurt, by the way.” Using the piece of his shirt and Emerald’s clothes to dab away some of the blood not near the wound, Oswald grabbed the bandages and began wrapping them around her back, careful not to leave much space open to the air.

After treating the cuts to her back, even if in a rough and imperfect manner, Oswald repeated the process for the damage her arms had suffered. Lifting Emerald once more, this time keeping her torso nearly vertical in the bridal carry, Oswald started to run once more. Almost as an afterthought, he activated the distress beacon on his headset. His mind wasn’t in the right place, but they needed to get back, and quickly.

With her wounds no longer exposed to the open air, the pain Emerald felt had lessened, it didn’t sting as much as before.. “I feel a little better now…”

“Good. Now we really have to get back.” Oswald gave a curt nod as his face slowly hardened. His resolve was breaking, especially now that Emerald was feeling better.

It was only then that Oswald’s mind was able to focus on what had happened. The crashing, flaming airship was the perfect icing on the sewage cake that was this mission. However, he couldn’t say that he was particularly surprised. After the events of the previous week, Oswald had been in a near-permanent state of dread, even if his extracurricular activities had managed to stave off some of the after-effects of the massacre.

“You know...this really wasn’t how I thought this mission was gonna go at all…” Emerald said as Oswald carried her through the forest. “I thought we’d be the ones doing the hunting, not the Grimm.” She laughed.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Oswald responded tersely. “I seem to have a habit of drawing bad luck to everybody but myfuckinself. If this shit keeps up, I might just drop out and go rogue, do shit on my own.”

“No you can’t give up...who would have your back if you were all alone!?” Emerald protested.

Oswald could only shake his head in protest as he thought out his response. “You’re kinda missing the point there, Emm.”

Echoing in the forest was the slow straining of wood. It was clear from the splintering and snapping sounds that something was delimbing a tree branch. Ripping it off of a random poor tree. There was a loud crack, and then silence.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. More of this shit?!” Looking in the direction of the noise, Oswald groaned.

Emerald’s ears twitched. “That doesn’t sound friendly…”

After the few minutes of silence, there was a sudden loud crash near their position. Something had clearly tore off a tree branch and tried to hit them with it, but missed by a wide margin.

“God fucking damnit! I’m gonna raze this fucking forest to the ground when I get my hands on some fucking Dust!” Screaming in anger, Oswald held more tightly onto Emerald and forced himself to move even faster. No matter how much his body tried to protest, he couldn’t stop. Not now.
Something was pleased. Something was happy. The human was becoming more and more rage-filled. It could smell it. It could taste it. Feed off of it, thrive off of it. The emotion the human was exuding was glorious indeed. But it couldn’t stop, it had to keep going. Follow after them, shh quietly. Silently. Watch them. See how they react. It wanted revenge but it had to do it right. Wait for the perfect moment. Now!

Same as before, the large creature pounced at Oswald but this time indirectly. Going at him from an angle to try to take out his legs to throw him off balance and to the ground. Whether it connected or not, it didn’t allow itself to be seen and promptly vanished into the familiar territory of the forests around.

Oswald felt something strike him near the neck as he ran, knocking him off balance and forcing him into a controlled fall onto his back. The handles of his shield dug painfully into his back, but Oswald was more concerned about Emerald than the pain he was suffering. “Emerald, you...you alright?” Wincing as he spoke, Oswald forced himself to sit up a bit, but even he couldn’t do it immediately with that amount of suffering he was enduring.

Emerald oofed as they fell over, “I’m fine...what about you?” Emerald, despite being injured was now more alert and listening intently for movement around them. They were being stalked and they needed to take care of it before it picked them off. Despite the stinging protest of her right arm she grasped one of her weapons.

“Can you even shoot those damned things without Aura?” Frustration evident in his voice, Oswald slowly moved Emerald off of his body and stood, drawing his weapons with a grimace. “Also, you might want to invest in some kind of protective armor or clothing, if draining your Aura is going to happen frequently.”

Emerald stood up slowly, resisting the urge to cry out in pain from doing so. “The shotguns use regular ammo or dust...so I can shoot…” Her arms didn’t want to move much though, it was gonna hurt to use them. Not to mention the rest of her body. “That doesn’t sound like a bad investment...I just need the money to do it...maybe upgrade my cannon to not be so...greedy with my Aura too.”

“Just talk to Diamond, she’ll hook you up.” Looking around cautiously, Oswald’s mouth disappeared into a thin line. “Come on out, fuckers. I’ll give you something to eat!” Only now did he notice the tendrils of darkness completely enveloping his body, radiating outwards as if trying to free themselves from his body. For Oswald, at the very least, his Aura was very representative of his soul’s energy, and this visible expression was a warning to him as much as it was to the Grimm he was calling out.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Carnal yawned, lazily leaning against his machine gun as he stared down at the forests below. Ski was a bit more professional as he dutifully focused his attention where it needed to be. Stovetop still wordlessly sat across from Esther whose eyes were still glued to her Scroll. Duckie and Gorilla were simply doing their job, responsible for the control of the whole flight when something caught her eye that caused her to look down at her console. Some blip on the radar briefly appeared before vanishing. Aggravated, she tapped at the screen. Gorilla sat up and looked at the same radar.

”What’s up, Duckie?”
The pilot made a short growling sound.
”I don’t know. Something just popped up for a moment. It wasn’t real big but it was large enough to have our instruments pick up on a heat signature. Lost it though…”
Gorilla hmmed before turning in his seat to call out to the two gunners.
”Ski! Carnal! You two see anything out your gun ports?”
The two gunners looked at him then each other, before turning to peer out of their open windows.
Ski shook his head. ”Negative. Nothing on my side.”
Carnal almost leapt out and over his gun when he spotted it, the bright ball of light in the sky.
The flare Diamond fired.
”Hey! Got a possible signal flare on my side! Starburst pattern!”
Esther practically flew to Carnal’s side and shoved him out of the way to look through his assigned gun port to see. Stovetop at her heels.
Esther turned to bark at the pilots in the cockpit, ”What does the Eye see?!”
Gorilla pulled up the feed from the spherical camera located on the underside of the bird.
”There’s too much interference, I can’t get a clear read on the ground!”
Esther stormed her way into the cockpit.
”Get us in closer!”
Duckie protested.
”We don’t know what that is! We didn’t give them any flares to-”
Esther brought her face closer to the female pilot’s.
”You. Heard. Me.”

Duckie froze for a moment, glancing at Gorilla on the other side of Esther.
”Aye.”
As she obeyed and turned the airship in a straight path towards the flare, Esther whirled out of the cockpit and got to the back. As she walked, she issued more orders to the others. ”Chase, Michael! I want eyes and ears open, Condition 1 your weapon systems! Antonio, drop the back ramp!”
Carnal and Ski nodded at her and loudly shouted ”Aye, ma’am!” as they turned and got to looking over their machine guns.
Stovetop walked to the back with Esther and palmed the controls to drop the back ramp of the airship.
”Vanessa!”
Esther turned to face Stovetop as the ramp was slowly being lowered.
”I know what you’re thinking! I know you’re worried about them, but we didn’t give them a flare to use! That could be something else, that could be anything! What if it’s some sort of trap, think about this for a moment!” Stovetop yelled over increasingly loud roars and howls of the whipping winds.
Esther just slowly put her gloved hands to her ear as she stared at him, her hands hovering over a headset of the same make that she gave to the team of students. Pressing and holding a button on the headset, she tried one more time to hail the team on the ground.
”Team CODE this is Vanhomrigh, radio check! I say again, Team CODE this is Vanhomrigh, radio check! What is your current situation and position, report in! I say again, what is your current situation and position!”
She removed her hand and waited for a response. Nothing. Not even static.
Stovetop finished lowering the ramp and walked over to Esther, placing a hand on her shoulder.
”Vanessa, listen to me! This isn’t like you to just act the way you are acting!”
Esther reached up and gently removed his hand. Speaking, her voice was clear but soft. Yet, it still retained its stern tone.
”Antonio. Get me a pack.”
”Vanessa, but-”
”Antonio.”
The two of them stood still for a moment, in silence.
Esther begged her comrade, something she rarely ever did.
”Please.”
Stovetop backed away from her, lingering as the airship got ever closer to Cobalt’s and Diamond’s location.
”...Aye.”
Going into the belly of the ship, he walked away as Esther looked over herself to make sure her weapons were secured to her.

Gorilla was growling, smacking the damned camera feed in a futile attempt to get it to work right.
”What in the hell is going on with the Eye? Fucking thing just never wants to-...”
Bringing his face closer to the screen, his heart sank.
Shooting out of his chair, he hit the harness release for Duckie and ripped the surprised pilot from her own seat as he yelled out at the top of his lungs. ”EGRESS! EGRESS! EGR-”
Gorilla didn’t quite get the third repeat of what he was saying out, as the airship was cut in half starting from the cockpit toward the back.

Stovetop only needed to hear the first one as he spear-tackled Esther out the back of the ship, the two of them hurtling towards the earth below as the two halves of the ship fell apart. On a collision course toward Diamond and Cobalt.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


The shiver that ran down Diamond’s spine as she heard the turrets move had nothing to do with the dust fused with it. She got ready to grab Cobalt and pull them under the construct where she hoped it would have a blind spot, but when she saw it, she saw that wouldn’t be necessary.

That, however, didn’t help with the bad feeling. As she followed the length of the barrel, she realized what its target was. She thought of sending another signal, but it was too late as the turret roared to life and scuttled the airship in seconds before coming to a still again.

If there was time to, Diamond would have probably wondered how a craft designed with combat in mind could be taken down so easily, but she had more on her hands. Too much, in fact. “Just so you know, not knowing what to do here - perfectly adequate reaction!” she hollered over to Cobalt, her ears still ringing a little from the cannon fire.

Taking a few breaths to try and calm down, she tried to get her priorities straight. But fates didn’t even allow her that, as she noticed a large chunk of flaming metal heading towards them. She tapped Cobalt’s shoulder, pointed at it and yelled at him to run, as did she, whispering a prayer. She didn’t know any prayer against being crushed, so she opted for one of long life:



Cobalt's jaw dropped as everything went to hell in a handbasket and their only way out was torn apart by rogue turrets. Time slowed down for him as his Semblance activated involuntarily. He watched the ship explode in a bright ball of flames and saw the bullets slowly tear through metal. Then time resumed its normal flow, his ears were ringing, Diamond was motioning to run, he decided to oblige her with little hesitation. He grabbed her arm, that way they wouldn't get separated, and he ran the hardest he's run in the past five years. He wasn't one for religion, but if he was he would be praying to every god in existence.

The gates of hell had opened and Cobalt and Diamond were staring into Satan's soul.

It seemed like they avoided the worst of it, although a few sharp bits landed on Diamond’s neck, splintered when what was left of the aircraft crashed to the ground. She briefly worried about what happened to the crew, but they seemed to be geared up on the roboteching level. Surely they got out. If not…

Her thoughts were interrupted though at the spectacle before them. The rest of their team seemed to have trouble of their own. The ex-thief wanted to ask whether the hastily made bandages on Emerald are Oswald’s definition of taking care, but seeing their defensive stance opted to join them in it instead. “What’s the holdup?”

“Grimm, in the forest. Got Emerald after she drained her Aura destroying a cave that appeared to be their primary refuge. We’d have run more, but I got knocked on my ass. As it turns out, 400 pounds of person running on two legs is remarkably easy to trip.” Oswald gave Diamond a nod as his head continued to twitch around, not unlike a meerkat’s.

“My question is, how the hell did that happen?” Jerking his head towards the direction of the crashed airship, Oswald snarled his question, only half-focused on the conversation at hand.

“Remember Davis, the guy who got us the lay of the land? FUCK THAT GUY! The turrets were set to target everything in the area - and no, I didn’t turn them on - but they came in for a short while on their own. Oh yeah, and our phones don’t work! Next week, recon mission, please!” Diamond growled, her eyes joining on the lookout. “I assume you didn’t have time to disinfect those?” she asked, nodding towards Emerald.

“Unfortunately not. Stopping the bleeding was my first priority. Cuts aren’t too bad, but they were a little deep. She’ll need proper medical attention at the very least. First, we need to find out how to get communications back online. Which I’m sure will require going back to the town. God dammit, this whole job is NOT what any of us signed up for!” Stopping to look at Emerald, Oswald frowned. She’d be fine, as long as they got back to Beacon quickly enough. Heads would roll, that was for sure. The only question was whose head.

“Comms can wait a little. How about you and Cobalt keep an eye out while I haul Emmy back. Then you two comb the debris for survivors, bodies and blackbox while I pick a few locks to see if some of the houses have half a decent medkit, agreed?”

Only giving a vaguely agreeable grunt and a look at Cobalt in response, Oswald nodded.

Cobalt had a few cuts on him as well, but nothing incredibly serious. He was absolutely fuming at how this mission had turned out, a simple extermination has turned into the biggest clusterfuck he has ever been in and they were going up against an enemy on par with lower level human intelligence. “You do that Diamond. Try to find out where Davis is if you can as well. He's got hell to pay if he gave us bullshit intelligence.” Cobalt straightened up and looked out at the debris all over. “I hope those guys survived. I liked them. Move out.”

“Lead the way, Cobalt. I’ll be right behind ya.” Oswald’s face could only be described as feral at this point. This mission was already shaping up to be a repeat of last week’s, but this time with a Beacon professor and their only means of egress as casualties...not to mention how much worse Emerald’s injuries could become without proper treatment.

Emerald had her weapon still trained at the trees, she had a gut feeling that the Grimm was still watching them. Eventually she lowered her gun, she was too tired to hold it up anymore. “I think it’s still out there…” She sounded pretty out of it.

Loading the Kitten on her back, Diamond looked at their path. Not that far, but through still flaming debris. Well, at least no Grimm would have lived in the impact zone. She cursed herself for not being able to heal others with her aura - she wondered if that was because of her past, it did seem like something ‘pure’ people had an affinity for. “Ready when you are.”

Cobalt watched Diamond and Emerald wander off and turned back to the carnage before him. “All right Oswald, first priority Is finding survivors. Second priority is medicine and first aid supplies, anything else is lowest on the scale of priorities. Let's move out.” Cobalt walked to the wreckage and began looking for survivors.

Oswald gave another grunt in response to Cobalt, falling in behind him.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From within the burning wreckage..

Coughcoughcough!

An arm wrapped in protective armor and clothing shot out from a pile of refuse and debris. The large hand belonging to Gorilla clutched and grabbed at the nearest stable object to pull his hulking frame out from under large sections of the shredded airship. Once freed, he grabbed at his neck and pressed a button. With a pneumatic hiss his damaged helmet unlocked and released itself from him. Gorilla pulling it off to discard it and taking in large gulps of fresh air as he wiped his watery eyes on his forearm. Looking up and around the wreckage, he called out to his brethren.

”Michael!”
Another coughing fit.
”Chase!”
He struggled to his feet, bits and pieces of his gear falling off of him.
An annoyed voice replied.
”Hey! Alex! I’m over here!”
Gorilla, his true name Alexander, breathed a sigh of relief. At least one was alive.
Shouldering past large burning sections of the ship, he rounded a corner and found Carnal struggling in his gunner’s harness. Softly chuckling, Alex shook his head and made his way over to the entangled machine gunner.
”Damned! Fucking! Harness! Gaaaah!”
Alex grabbed Carnal and promptly backhanded him.
”Ow! Hey! -The shit was that for?”
Carnal rubbed the side of his face.
”Stay fucking still or you’ll make it worse.”
Alex pressed the switch that was the emergency release for Carnal’s harness and down the gunner went.
”Oof! Awgh…”
Helmet also damaged from the crash, the gunner did the same as his friend and removed his helmet. Taking in deep breaths, Carnal - true name Chase, checked himself over.
They both seemed to be okay, save for a few scratches here and there.
”Woo! What a ride, huh Alex? Hey, have you seen Duckie or Sk-...”
Looking up at his dark-skinned friend, he immediately knew something was wrong. He was staring straight ahead, as still as a statue. Peering to the side of Alex’s legs, he saw that a bit further away was the section of the ship that was previously the cockpit. Falling silent, Chase looked away and up at something that caused his own eyes to grow wide. A dark understanding then draining any expression on the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Chase as he sat there on the ground. The two stayed there for a while, in solemn silence. As the wreckage of the ship continued to burn and smolder around them. Chase made an angry face as he placed a hand to his forehead.

”Gods damn it…”
Across from Chase, sat Ski or rather Michael.
Michael was sitting in his harness, caught in it just like Chase was.
His back was to him, but his head peered straight back at Chase.
Tilted in a curious way that almost asked ‘What’s wrong’?
During the crash, it was clear what had happened.
One of the straps of the harness ended up wrapping around Ski’s neck in such away that upon impact, his neck was snapped. Severing the vertebrae connecting his head to the rest of his body.

Alex didn’t need to investigate what used to be the cockpit as he could see from where he stood, the body that was slumped over the sparking control panels. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but when the first burst of gunfire tore through the ship, Duckie had been its first target. It explained how the airship crashed in the way that it did. Had she been alive during the first few volleys of turret fire, they may have ended up in a better position. Though, it was clear that wasn’t the case here. Even with all of their tech and armor, they were nothing without a Hunter’s protective aura. The turret fire made mincemeat of their pilot. Parts of her lay about, scattered and essentially ‘mush’.

---

There were more of them. More Hunters. More problems. More troubles. It couldn’t take them all on alone, it knew that. It hadn’t even gotten started to learn the feline faunus and the human with the sword and shield. Now these two? No, it couldn’t do this. It was smarter than that. It needed help. The creature that had been antagonizing Emerald and Oswald then decided to make its swift and silent retreat. It would be back later with more of its brethren. When night falls, that is when they would return. When night falls, that is when everything will happen. It needed to return home and rest. To sleep and regain its energy. With no fanfare or further action, the mysterious Grimm vanished. Bothering the team of Huntsmen no longer.

“Welcome to the Dodici Cosca regional bank.” The receptionist chirped gleefully meeting the steely gaze of Gratia Mindaro. She looked her up and down, there was a notable lacking of tastefulness in the way she did it. Ogling everything from Gratia’s physique to her weapon. She blinked and seemed to be processing the look upon the young girl’s visage. She then raised her arms in defeat and looked over at one of the men to the side of her. “Another one for you.” She said as the man walked forward and put a meaty hand of Gratia’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t she look a little young for the other stuff?” The merc grunted releasing his grip on Gratia. “Whatever, I don’t make the decisions, that’s the big man upstairs. All we need is a small proof of concept and we’ll take you right to him.” The man said leading Gratia to a door located behind the receptionist. She mouthed the words ‘good luck’ with a playful wink as Gratia walked by her.

“Just be careful of Sonny today, he’s in a bit of a mood.” The man spat out opening the door revealing a back lot with some vehicles parked. There was a man in a white dress shirt stubbornly allowing what looked to be his assistant attempt to remove a deep red stain from the collar. In his right hand he held a steel bat and in his right a small knife.

“This the new recruit?” Sonny asked swatting away the hand of his assistant and standing up, he seemed to tower over even the man who was escorting Gratia.

“Yes sir.” The man replied to his superior.

“Name’s Sonny Dodici, yours is?”



While Gratia went in to the bank and was escorted out and behind the building, the rest of VGNB would notice the receptionist begin to close up, waving goodbye to the last bodyguard in the building and proceed to take an elevator up through the building. The bodyguard locked the front door and immediately went out the same door as Gratia was lead out, leaving the team alone with their thoughts.