“I’ll be more useful.” Bianca said, adopting the tone she usually did when beginning a mission. She glanced down at the van and popped open the glove compartment. A handgun spilled out that she immediately collected.
“A little barren, but I can make do.” She said immediately pulling the top of the gun backwards in order to see if there was a bullet currently loaded. There was. She ejected the magazine and found she was happily treated, a full clip of approximately twelve bullets. That would do just fine. She glanced backwards at the prisoners in their van. She really wanted to shoot them. But Marisa had made her promise, perhaps not all of the Dodici were good people, but some of them were truly caught in a bad situation. Bianca just wished Marisa could’ve spared a list of people not on the chopping block.
“So what’s the plan for when they ask you why you brought me back? Or why there’s Dodici in the back?” Bianca said gently placing her hands on her thighs. Her new clothes didn’t suit her nearly as much as the attire they had stolen from her did. She hoped she’d be able to find Gelure and the rest of her gear. Truth be told, if she returned to Beacon without it she was worried Estelle would give her another rant, make her use some stupid practice weapon as a new weapon or something like that.
Bianca leaned back in the chair, using the lever in order to allow her movement, very likely making the ride all the more uncomfortable for Vitoria. “Looking at this in a positive light, I probably dropped a dress size since they weren’t feeding me much.” Bianca said quietly, it seemed as if all was normal with the Faunus girl. But, there was something wrong. Perhaps it was her sudden lack of confidence, maybe it could've been something physical, most likely it was the part of her that thought there was only one thing wrong. Most wouldn’t notice it, quite possibly not even Vega and Napoli, but Gratia – well they had known each other since they were children. They had met one day, she knew Bianca when she was in her least guarded state. Perhaps, she would notice. But she’d most likely not say anything. She looked in the rear view mirror, seeing if anyone was following them. But the only thing she caught a glimpse of was her tattered wings, somehow seeing them hurt the most.
Bianca quickly brought her chair back to an upright position. “Fucking Dodici man, I’m not coming back to Zephyr.”
There was a bit of inner dialogue going on in Diamond’s head. The thing was apparently human. She didn’t kill people. But was it? It looked more like a grimm. What was she intending to do with it if it didn’t talk? She couldn’t well let it roam free. “No? Oh well. You aren’t human. Maybe you were once, but no more.” But you ruined my hat. You deserve something special. she thought bitterly. Her aura flared up as Diamond funneled all of her anger into it. The black tendrils lashed out towards the creature, enveloping it and sinking into its skin to tear it from the inside out.
Grunting, she shut her eyes as Diamond’s shadow attack connected and started its work. For the moment, it appeared to wither her and drain her of her energy. But the moment didn’t last long, as her reaction was only a bluff. Opening her eyes and staring down Diamond, her red irises began to glow and she started to laugh an odd electronic cackle.
”Good. Very good. But, might I add...Your rage could be deeper.” Instead of tearing down the creature from the inside, the opposite effect was true. It fed off of Diamond’s negative emotion, becoming empowered by it. Tensing its imprisoned body and flexing its strength, it shattered its icy prison and freed itself. Sending shards of ice and powdery dust out to obscure its next move.
Ducking low, the creature powered forward until it was almost right on top of her. Pulling the slack from its chains out, it tossed them to where they would surround Diamond. Forcing its arms outward, it immediately attempted to bind her within the chains and had pulled with enough increased strength to simultaneously free its embedded sawblades. Recalling them and activating them in mid flight, the two headed on a straight path with Diamond’s body. Grinding loudly and menacingly as they drew ever closer.
Emerald’s eyes widened as the creature or whatever it was lunged at Diamond and it’s sawblades flew toward her. There wasn’t any time to think, so Emerald outstretched her hands and attempted to use her semblance to create a sudden gust of air strong enough to knock the sawblades off their trajectory and head straight toward the creature instead. She didn’t know if she had enough strength to do it but she tried anyway.
Not a grimm my left foot! I should have remembered your info is garbage, Teach! Diamond snarled mentally as apparently what should have been an attack that would shatter a building did little else but make her situation worse. To top it all off, she was now being ensnared by those gods forsaken chains. The buzzing sound did little to ease her mind. If only she could reach - Wait a sec! Dropping the ethereal sword, she tried to send it around the creature and bury it into its head.
Moving to lunge at Diamond to embrace her to further seal her impending fate, the creature stopped at the last second as Diamond’s sword flew towards it and swung around its head. Turning just in time for the blade’s point to impact with its forehead and again stunning it.
Esther wasn’t going to wait around and let the creature complete its surely devastating attack on her student and refused to see what the effect her student’s attack did to it. Slinging her rifle behind her, she ran as she withdrew her ‘knife’ and activated her Semblance. Utilizing it in a larger degree than what was demonstrated, her pupils became trapped by the telltale starlit triangle symbol as she touched her knife mid-sprint and ‘pulled’ numerous copies of it out. Splitting the phantasmal blades into three large groups, she sent two to greet the incoming sawblades to jam them between whatever mechanisms they could lodge themselves into to stall and weaken them. The last set of blades flew towards Diamond and inserted themselves safely between small gaps in the binding chains. Now standing right behind her student, she grabbed at the spectral blades and twisted with as much strength that she could muster, her knife copies mimicking her actions.
The chain links strained before the connections between them shattered and they fell to the ground in a metallic clinking mess. But Esther had little time to celebrate as the sawblades were milliseconds away from bashing into both of them. Her timing had to be perfect, but using a technique she mostly taught to upperclassman at Beacon, she focused her aura to two points on the backs of her fists and slammed them into the sawblades at just the right moment to counter/reflect them away from her and Diamond.
With nothing to prevent them from flying away freely, the sawblades once again embedded themselves into the walls of a few nearby houses, disconnected from their user. She made eye contact with Diamond, getting ready to run at the creature once more.
”Now’s our chance, let’s go!” ”Together.” Running past Diamond with the intention of her following right after, Esther prepared a nasty right elbow to knock the daylights out of the beast.
Emerald collapsed from behind the table, panting heavily. Maybe using her semblance hadn’t been the greatest of ideas...she felt really tired and exhausted. She didn’t hurt anywhere thanks to the pain meds, but she just couldn’t move anymore. “So tired…” She mumbled.
Grunting with effort, Diamond followed Esther. She tried to clear her head, focus on the fight and not give whatever it was they were fighting any more fuel. The thing took considerable damage and is she was to believe her eyes, it was at least somewhat human. It seemed to have an aura at least. And once that was depleted, it was just a bag of flesh. So what they needed was a couple of solid hits to bring that down. Opting to sacrifice the extra weapon, Diamond reshaped her own into a hammer. Once more it came out nothing like she envisioned, but she counted on that this time. The haft was curved and a bit harder to grip, but the head was covered in spiked and bumps. “Fore!” She yelled as she swung the blunt instrument at the creature’s chest.
Diamond’s attack connected first, slamming into the creature’s chest with a thunderous metallic clanging that one could swear they heard ribs cracking. Her perception of time slowed slightly as her body lifted off of the ground with the force of the blow and every bit of air was forced from her lungs. Wetly coughing out saliva with a brilliantly shocked expression. The creature could only mentally brace herself as she saw Esther’s elbow on a fast track to dock with her face. Neck twisting and head snapping back, the creature actually spun and was sent flying backwards and through the wall of a building.
Diamond’s spectral sword had lost its source material and became unstable, ‘shattering’ with the sound of glass and its fragments clinked against the ground. However, Esther still had her plethora of blades and wasn’t going to let the creature off that easily. With a wave of her hand, the blades neatly fell into formation above her head and behind her. Sharply pointing at the hole the two of them created with the monster’s body, the blades obeyed and sliced through the air to fill in the hole left by the beast impaling whatever they could as deeply as they could. Motioning with her hand once more, what sounded like a glass house collapsing in on itself could be heard as the blades were dismissed and Esther raised her rifle, unsure if that was enough to finish the demon.
Panting somewhat heavily from the adrenaline, Esther eventually steadied her breath. Hawk-like eyes waiting for the dust to clear. If she saw a body and it still moved, she had more than enough ammunition to tenderize the creature into a fleshy pulp. Really, only one magazine was all she needed, but she believed in over-reacting and over-kill.
Only…
”What? Where the fuck did it go!?” Esther blinked to try and clear her vision. How could it still be moving after that combination? Nostrils flared and she snapped to the left and right with her rifle, seeking out where the creature could’ve possibly gone. ”Diamond. Stay close. Eyes and ears open.”
A sound to her left. Motion. Esther whirled to find that one of the sawblades that was stuck in a wall had gone. A sound to her right. Motion. She turned to and the other was also gone. ”Fuck.” ”FUCK!”
~
Tony’s head swiveled rapidly, searching just as Esther was. ”Shit! That should’ve done a number on the bitch and she’s still moving around like it didn’t even tickle! Gods damn it all! I’ve always hated those assholes!” Tony brought his fingers up to his helmet and tapped a button. ”Switching to FLIR!” Within his helmet, the landscape became blurs of blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. He at least had the technical advantage over all of the Huntresses. But, all of it was for naught. At that moment, Emerald’s instincts would’ve alerted her to impending danger.
There was a crash just above the two. Tony’s head looked up at the ceiling. The sound of grinding and spinning saw blades made a trickle of cold fear travel down his spine. The roof seemed to collapse in on the two, but not before Tony spartan kicked Emerald’s body away. Buried under debris and rubble, Tony was stuck in a bad place. Struggling and straining to free himself, he stopped when he saw the doll-like face of the ‘Grimm’.
He sighed. ”Hello darkness, my old friend.” The creature looked at the knocked away Emerald before returning its gaze to Tony’s helmeted head. ”Y’know, if I didn’t have this bucket on, I’d spit in your eye.” Raising its sawblades, it slammed them down on the pile of rubble and began to chew away, though it had a bit of trouble. Tony craned his head to look Emerald and shouted above the din. ”Kid! Get the hell out of here! Whatever you do, don’t look back! And tell Vanessa that it’s been real!” Tony turned back to egg on the beast-woman. ”Yeah! Come on, fucking she-witch! I’d call you a cunt but you probably neither have the depth nor warmth!” The creature grinned as its body glowed with the same aura-like light from before, its sawblades doing the same.
”Semblance: Reinforce”
The teeth of the sawblades appeared to grow stronger, chewing through the junk like butter with a speed and ferocity that they hadn’t before. It didn’t take long before the blades made contact with Tony’s body armor, but how much longer would it be before its weapons made quick work of him too? When Emerald had shot at it earlier in the battle, it had looked up at just the right moment in just the right direction to determine where the two of them had hidden. It counted on them not moving from their position and was going to draw blood one way or another, focusing on attacking what it perceived to be the team’s “weakest chainlinks.” Emerald groaned as she recovered from Tony’s kick, her vision slowly clearing from it’s blur as her mind tried to process what was happening. As she looked up her eyes widened in horror at what she saw.
“NO!” Emerald yelled as a new rush of adrenaline pushed through her veins. Her lack of strength suddenly gone, she stood up faster than one would think possible for someone in her condition, probably reopening her wounds as she did, not that she could feel it or care. With a single shotgun in her hand she rushed toward the creature, crying out as she opened fire on the monster at near point blank range. The house was filled with boom after boom as she unloaded her weapon, not stopping till her weapon was out of ammo.
~
What, here? Right now? Diamond thought, but before she could vocalize the crack, her eyes followed after the teachers. Fuck, indeed. She was frozen for a second by the sight of the creature attacking Emerald and Tony, panic slowly taking root in her. And then, something in her snapped, took the panic and hammered it into determination. Raising her right arm, she focused her power. Not into an attack, that wouldn’t help Tony whatsoever with how well that thing could sink damage. Instead, Diamond let the fingers of her telekinetic spells wrap around the creature’s sawblades. Diamond waited, waited until the last possible moment, channeling as much force into the spell as she could. And then, she yanked her arm up and behind, hoping to just throw the weapon so far away it wouldn’t be able to recover it again.
Surprised that Emerald still had enough fight in her to continue to struggle against it, each shot visibly rattled the creature and pounded away at its body. However, it still held its sawblades fast against Tony’s arms, sparks flying off of his armor as they gouged deep cuts into the metal alloy, millimeters away before they ate into his flesh.
Just as thin spurts of warm red blood began to splatter about and Tony let out furious roars of pain, something caught the teeth of the sawblades and seized them. Metal groaning, sobbing after getting so close to being bathed in the sweet vital body fluids only to be teased, the creature gritted her teeth as she looked at her weapons still in hand. The air around them seemed to be warped and distorted by some invisible force, and could only imagine that the shadow weaving Huntress was to be held responsible. Try as it might, it couldn’t force the sawblades any further to do any more damage, the blades and gears of its equipment stopped up.
Looking at the faunus Huntress just as her shotgun gave out that telltale ‘click’ of a hammer falling home to an empty chamber, the creature still had other weapons with which it could kill. A little disappointed it had to discard its gruesome and vulgar butcher tools, the creature let go and the sawblades were immediately shot backwards by Diamond’s telekinetic spells. The weapons ripping and tearing clean through the building, flung high into the star-lit night skies to disappear out of sight.
Taking a few long strides towards Emerald, it formed a ‘knife-like’ hand as the same glowing light from before wrapped around its claw gauntlets. The claws being reinforced just as its sawblades were, the creature swiftly threw its hand forward. Intent on goring and gouging out Emerald’s stomach, a manic and wide grin gleaming across her face.
Esther may have been a few seconds too late, but she couldn’t know. Slinging her rifle to her side, she drew her blade and sidearm and formed a single spectral copy of each. Summoning them and calling them to aide Emerald, Esther made a motion with her arm and sent them flying into the house for whomever to take. She could only hope and pray that Emerald was in a position to take them in time to defend herself..
Emerald took a step back, her eyes widening as the creature approached her. Her shotgun was empty, and her other weapon was on the ground behind her...there was no way she could reach it in time. This was bad...she didn’t think she could get away from this monster. It was then she saw Esther’s spectral weapons flying in, she just needed to grab the gun…
With a grunt she chucked her empty shotgun at the monster, hoping that would distract it long enough as she grabbed for the sidearm.
“Over my dead body.” Diamond huffed, beads of sweat running down her forehead, “Might have just met them but they’re my people now and you can’t have them!” She growled, happy that blasted weapon was out of reach. Looking at Emerald though, it wasn’t over just yet. “Let’s punch her ticket!” She hollered over to Esther, forcing her legs to carry her forward.
The creature saw Esther’s spectral weapons at the same time Emerald did and refocused at the right moment to see the faunus girl feebly try to distract it by throwing her empty weapon at its face. With its other free hand it caught Emerald’s shotgun and chucked it back at the ghostly sidearm and knife to knock it off course. Right on top of the faunus girl the creature shoved its knife hand in an arc, forward and up.
Esther didn’t appear to register Diamond’s actions and words, her senses narrowing and tunneling as she practically flew towards the nearest entrance into the house, namely a busted out window. Adrenaline saturating her body, time appeared to slow as she vaulted over the windowsill and into the house. Unslinging her rifle in midair as she laid eyes on the scene ready to be over with the beast.
Emerald gasped as her shotgun flew just past her, knocking the spectral weapons away from her reach. She turned around just in time to see the creature’s hand going for her gut, her eyes widening as it pierced her left side and then ripped out of her in an upwards motion just as quickly, she collapsed onto the ground, too shocked to even scream.
At the drop of a hat, Diamond’s charge stopped frozen as her eyes took in something that would undoubtedly feature frequently in her nightmares for days to come. She wanted to do something - anything - just as long she didn’t have to watch that anymore. But the second that it took for her brain to do anything seemed to be dragging unbearably long. And then all self-imposed restraints went away, conscious mind no longer directing her actions, instead taken over by a mix of panic, anguish, regret, anger and deep rooted subconscious need to protect as Diamond brought up her arms and let go, an angry blue glow radiating from her appendages for a split second before it flown towards the monster to bombard it with ice spears from all directions.
Alas it was too much, exactly as her conscious mind feared it would. The feeling that spiked through her right arm was easily the most agonizing one in her life, fortunately she didn’t have any breath in her to scream. And just as it came it was suddenly gone. Exhausted and drenched in sweat, Diamond fell down on all four.
Three?
No. The arm was still there at least, unless her eyes were fooling her too. Pulling on the sleeve slightly, she was glad it covered the appendage. Quickly she let it drop back to cover the skin that was now covered in a spiderweb pattern of blue and white, as if somebody cut her arm apart and then put it back together using far too much glue. She was sure going to be chewed out for this one, if not by the queen bitch here with them then by the school’s medical staff. She tried to move her fingers. Those still worked. As did the wrist and elbow. But the sense of touch was gone from it. Her eyes wide in shock, she looked up to see if that was worth something at least.
At the sight and smell of Emerald’s blood on its claws, the creature’s face flushed bright red and it dropped to its knees with a look on her face that could only be described as pure glee. As if they were a child who had done well in school and was gifted a sweet treat by their parents. Licking its lips, the creature brought its claws closer and sucked the metallic tasting liquid off as its eyes rolled back into its head. Eyelids fluttering with pure enjoyment and a deep, disturbing sense of fulfillment. Drunk in its orgasmic state of emotion, the creature turned its head just in time to be greeted by the sight of Diamond’s ice spears. Sitting there, the creature simply closed its eyes and wrapped its arms around itself in an embrace. Electing to not take any action and simply accept what was to come.
The force of the barrage of spears lifted the creature off of its knees and to its feet and for a while, the protective force surrounding it held up for just a little longer. Only having been so close to the edge to falling, a tell-tale and brief flash of light indicated that it no longer had the blessing of its protector and finally broke down. The last remaining ice spears pinned the creature to the closest wall. One through a forearm. Another through a wrist. Through an ankle. A kneecap. Its hip. One side of its chest. A crude crucifixion to say the least. Though it was in excruciating pain, the cold ice acted to numb it. Not that it mattered, because through it all the beast still had a rapturous smile on its face. Coughing up red blood that was now quickly filling one of her punctured lungs, she began to root through her mouth with her tongue trying to fish at something.
Esther slung her rifle to the side, knowing what the monster was trying to do and stormed over to it. Her boots stomping loudly and heavily, Esther shot out a hand and caught its jaw in a vicegrip. A corner of her lips tugged into an angry sneer as she forced the creature to open its mouth who fought her attempts by shaking its head. With her other hand, she pressed the heel of her palm against the creature’s upper lip and nose. A bundle of nerves existed there that when pressure was applied to made for a good ‘key’ to open anyone’s mouth wide. Once satisfied, Esther took her other hand off of its jaw and shoved it down the creature’s throat causing it choke and gag violently as Esther located what it was it had hidden away behind its molars. More blood splattered Esther’s face and her garb as the beast continued to sputter and hack, but her fingers took hold of the tiny hidden object and she pulled her gloved hand out. Between her fingers, a tiny purple pill. Eying it with a certain familiar disgust, she crushed it in her palm and took a step back. Wheezing and coughing still, the creature looked at Emerald that lay on the ground and grinned with reddened teeth.
”Welcome...to the family…” Esther drew her ‘knife’ and made sure she had a tight grip on it. ”She doesn’t want any part of your ‘family’, witch.” Esther turned to look at Diamond, then to Emerald. Making sure neither of them could see what she was about to do clearly, she took a step forward and stuck the point of her blade into the wall centimeters from the demon’s neck. Locking eye contact for just another second, invisible flames burned behind Esther’s pupils. ”I-In...D...death...we...are…” With a dramatic pull of her arm, Esther brought her blade across and through, silencing the beast.
Wiping her knife on the creature’s body, Esther sheathed her weapon and quickly made her way over to Tony who was still buried under debris. Cocking an eyebrow as she looked down at him, she cleared away the biggest and heaviest pieces. ”Good?” Tony groaned. ”Tis but a flesh wound, milady.” ”I didn’t ask for a dumbass comment.” Locking arms, Esther dragged Tony out of the junk with a dusty clatter. ”Gah, easy! Easy lady!” ”You already know I’m not the ‘gentle’ type, Tony.” Tony stood and immediately got to Emerald’s side. Quietly, he muttered under his breath. ”Ain’t that the truth…” Esther kneeled at Tony’s side and removed a part of his armor, the medkit. ”Tend to Diamond. I’ll care for Emerald here.” ”Aye, ma’am.” Tony stood and began to move away and to Diamond.
Esther took out what looked to be a fat syringe and and not-so-gently inserted it into Emerald’s open wound. Pushing down on the plunger, a thick white foam began to fill the cavity and seal it. Peeling open patches of cloth sealed in plastic wrapping, she expertly covered and dressed Emerald’s injury before pulling out another syringe. Sighing, Esther shook her head and stuck the faunus girl in the neck, injecting her with yet another dose of what she had before.
”Gods above, I hope we don’t turn you into a drug addict.” Esther murmured to herself. Gingerly placing her hand on Emerald’s neck, she craned over to look into the girl’s eyes and leaned in to see if she was still breathing. ”You alright, sweetheart? You still with us?”
The past few minutes had been a rather painful blur for Emerald, her ears rang and her vision had faded in and out as she reeled in shock. Then there had been a sudden sharp pain in her side, and then her neck too. After that things started to feel a bit better. She groaned in response to Esther, her eyes fluttering open. She tried looking directly at Esther but her vision was incredibly unfocused. “Wha….what happened?” The Faunus said in a weak voice.
”You did good, girl. Try not to think much more on that. Help is coming, so get some rest while you can.” Esther said softly, smiling ever so slightly.
“We won? “That...that’s good…” Emerald paused, then her eyes widened a little as she remembered something. “T-Tony! Is he…” Her voice trailed off.
”Shh-shh-shh...Antonio is fine. Unfortunately. It’s not quite over yet, but it will be soon.” Esther caressed the top of Emerald’s head, brushing over her ears.
Esther straightened up slightly and scooped up the contents of Tony’s medikit, tossing it outside for him to pick up. ”Tony! Time check!”
Tony grabbed the medikit and dusted it off as he got close to Diamond’s side. Opening it, he sighed as he saw he only had one of the ‘special’ needles left. ”Damn it, out already? Man..” Esther focused her voice louder. ”TONY!” Tony tapped on his left forearm as a holographic clock of sorts was displayed. ”Last radio check was approximately one hour ago! Skyhawk-2 and Skyhawk-3 and more than likely en route to our POS now!” Tony pulled out the needle and looked at Diamond, leaning over to meet face-to-helmet. ”I’d worry about this having bad side effects, but for some reason I get the feeling you’re a tough gal and can handle it. Excuse me.” Quickly sticking Diamond with the same concoction Emerald got a double-dipping of, Tony disposed of the syringe by tossing it aside and recollected his medkit. Reattaching it to his armor, the man stood. ”Tony! Red Star Cluster when you hear them coming!” ”Aye, standing watch now!” An object whooshed through the air and hit Tony in the back of the head, causing him to jump with a start and clamber about to grab hold of whatever it was Esther tossed at him. ”Lose your rifle again and I’ll have your ass reduced with docked pay! Can’t fucking stand watch without a weapon, now can you?!” Tony begrudgingly slung his rifle that he had lost momentarily in the fray and just muttered obscenities to himself.
Esther shook her head and turned back to Emerald. ”We’re going to move you now, okay girl? We need to be outside when they come.”
Emerald nodded slowly, she’d been trying to focus on Esther and Tony’s conversation but it had proved difficult to keep up. She was tired and felt all sorts of weird. “Okay…”
“OW! What the hell man?” Diamond hissed, rubbing her neck where the syringe was applied. “I was just catching a breath!” Her eyes got a worried look as she took in the shouting back and forth between Tony and Esther. “What’s Skyhawk two and three? Please tell me those aren’t more airships because in case you didn’t notice there’s a bunch of angry guns we didn’t turn off yet!”
Getting up to her feet, she looked in emerald’S direction. IT seemed she wasn’T entirely too late, which didn’T make her feel any better though. Yet somehow she did, along with feeling her heart thumping a bit faster than it should. And was her eyesight sharper somehow? “Hey. HEY! Mister! The hell did you dope me with?”
Tony glanced over his shoulder at Diamond and cursed to himself once more. Finally turning round he said in a as-a-matter-of-factly tone. ”A painkiller.”
“Yeah tell that to someone with a couple dozen less IQ points. I don’t know what you junkies are on but I’d appreciate not getting buzzed with stims or whatever that shit was without my knowledge or approval. The last two guys that failed to understand a ‘no’ didn’t end too well!” she vented, fantasizing about smashing that helmet off of his face so they could talk face to face. “Ugh! Whatever, that can wait.” she sighed, nodding towards Esther and Emerald, “How is she?”
Tony looked forward and absently kicked at some nearby pebbles, whistling nonchalantly which sounded odd coming from the filters of his helmet. He knew the consequences of what could happen to Esther if Beacon discovered she and her old comrades were doping students to keep them alive and fighting. Of course, this meant that Esther knew as well and had probably already gotten one or two private meetings with Ozpin with accompanying write-ups. Oh, if only the student body knew Esther wasn’t a complete straight shooting paragon of justice she made herself appear to be. More than likely, she didn’t care, which was obvious seeing how she condoned a double dosage for Emerald and had Tony do the same to Diamond without consent. Ah, well.
Esther had picked up Emerald and was slowly making her way outside to join up with Tony and Diamond, holding the faunus girl in a princess carry. ”Gods above, girl. You need to eat more. My dog weighs more than you.” Esther said dismissively. Esther looked up as Diamond approached and asked of her teammate’s condition. ”She’s alive and breathing. She’ll be better once they arrive with full medical complement.”
Looking up at the star-lit night skies, her and Tony scanned about for some sign of the incoming calvary. Moments later, a distant roaring sound could be heard. Tony prepped another one of the many tools he carried that resembled innocuous metal tubes. Esther simply nodded at her friend, ”Tony.” Tony returned the nod and pointed the tube at the sky. ”Aye, ma’am.” With hollow thock/thump! a ball of light was shot into the clouds above before blossoming out in a bright red fiery flower. Tony tossed aside the tube and continued to wait. Hardly another moment passed before the roaring engines of two gunships was right on top of them, with two spotlights suddenly illuminating the group as they circled above. The winds whipping and whirling underneath their power, the two gunships circled to ensure the area was safe for their landing.
Once they determined an area sizeable enough, the two gunships touched down and powered down their engines but left them running for a speedy takeoff. As their back gates dropped, a handful of soldiers in equipment just like Tony poured out. Some immediately surrounded them and set up a security perimeter, others made their way over to the four.
”Echo-Six-Victor? Shit, I thought I recognized you!” A female soldier that led the pack said as she neared, slinging her rifle aside. Esther smirked slightly before looking down at Emerald in her arms. ”We have more pressing matters to tend to before we can talk.” The soldier looked at Emerald and Diamond and nodded. ”Shit, yeah. If you’re carrying someone, they’ve gotta be in bad shape.” Turning back towards the gunships, she made a hand signal and called out. ”Docs up! Bring a stretcher!” And sure enough, a small team of more soldiers poured out the back of the docked gunships, each of them with black crosses on their chests and backs to designate their positions. Two of them neared Diamond, four of them stopped in front of Esther and Emerald. Setting up a stretcher upon which Esther carefully laid the faunus girl on before they carried her off and into the back of the nearest gunship. The medic team swiftly moving her as someone on ship could be seen preparing an oxygen mask and IV drip.
The same female soldier turned round and presented her hand for Esther to shake. Which Esther promptly took. ”Damn good to see you again, lady. So? What’s the SITREP?” Esther sighed, ”Short and sweet, what was supposed to be a simple kill mission went south for my students. Possible intervention by…” Esther’s eyes flitted over to Diamond before she stopped. ”Never mind. You’ll get all those details later in my mission debriefing. Our troop transport ship, Skyhawk-1, was shot down by the town’s automated Grimm defenses. Team was separated, those of us you see here and the others in the nearby forest. Communications are dead so no contact with the other half.” The female soldier reached up and unlocked her helmet, pulling it off and cradling it in her arm. Fair skin, blond hair with blue eyes. ”Shit. Yeah, we noticed COMMS got a little spotty the closer we got. Detected ECMs but we were good with our own countermeasures. You mentioned automated defenses?” The female reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Esther which she took. ”Yeah, dividing the farmlands and grimm-infested woods is a defensive perimeter wall. On the other side 20mm automated turrets line the wall. Intel reported them as offline and/or damaged by our contact. But of course, intel was fucked. Unknown if we took any casualties.” The blonde blinked and shook her head, lighting Esther’s before starting to light her own and noticing a palm stretched out to her. Following the palm up, she looked at Tony’s helmeted face. ”Come on, Sam. You gonna do me dirty like that and not offer me one?” The female soldier’s expression immediately soured. ”Tony, is that fucking you? You cocksucker, how many times were you a stingy little shit in the past, huh? Tables have turned, dickhead!” Tony threw his arms up in exasperation. ”Are you serious! Come on, I’m feening here! I lost my pack somewhere’s else!”
Wordlessly, Diamond reached into her pocket and passed Tony her own pack. “Knock yourself out.” Usually she would have liked to keep watching the exchange, but the fact she didn’t know how Oswald and Cobalt were doing didn’t let her just take it easy. “You almost done? I’ve got two guys out there somewhere and I want to know if they still draw breath.”
Tony fumbled a bit but caught the pack, expressing his silent gratitude with a nod before his excitement wore off. Esther’s brow twitched up and down as she nodded and made a face, in complete agreement with Diamond’s words. ”Lady’s right.” exhaling her last drag, she flicked the butt at Tony’s face and walked towards the gunship which held Emerald on it. Projecting her voice, Esther immediately took command. ”We’re spinning up! Load up!” motioning with a hand signal. The blonde gave Diamond a look, as if asking “who the fuck are you to talk like that?” but she kept her mouth shut and donned her helmet, walking after Esther. Tony looked at the pack in his hand and back at the ladies walking off. Sighing, he felt like an ass and pocketed the smokes before following after. Perimeter security peeled back and returned to their respective gunships, back gates closing up as engines roared with reinvigorated life. If Emerald was conscious enough to notice and Diamond were attentive, they would see that not only were these gunships different in armament and appearance, but that they also had emblems emblazoned on their sides. The finer details such as its color were lost to the darkness, but what could be made out was a wolf’s head in a medieval knight’s helmet. A massive shield in its foreground with three different swords crossed behind the shield. The phrase “In Tenebris, Simul” lined its outer edges, underneath the group’s name was revealed. Abyss walkers.
Eventually the two hunters would arrive to the fort. There was an obvious trail of where the grimm charged out, but even with a bulk of the forces gone they could still see the harpies nesting on the roof of various battlements. Fortunately for Grane and Trad, Sand's cleared out ruined fortfication was near by, and currently voided of any grimm presence. While there was still a fair distance of land between the bunker and the fort itself, at least it provided some form of shelter.
Spotting a small bit of cover near the fort the two hunters quickly hid, giving themselves time to observe the wall and come up with a plan of entry. As soon as they were hidden, Trad dropped to a knee breathing heavily. Fighting and heavy lifting he could do all day, but long distance running? Not something he was ready for. "*huff* Maybe *huff* Diamond was *huff* right about cutting back on the smokes." But this wasn't the time for choices in lifestyle, they needed to get going.
Pushing himself up, Trad pulled out his sword switching it into its rifle mode. Peaking out of their "bunker" he surveyed the area around them. "There looks to only be harpies around, but we won't know until we get inside. Got any ideas on how we should do that?" He asked looking over his shoulder to his faunus companion.
Grane was really wishing Delta was here right now. Some sniper fire would have been really nice, seeing as the harpies were sitting targets on the roof. He silently cursed himself for not bringing any of his guns along to Beacon, as even a regular rifle would have been helpful. "I don't suppose that semblance of yours can work walking all the way to the bunker?" Grane was sure he'd probably be fine on his own if he broke out into a mad dash to the bunker, but Trad surely would be picked off.
"Way I see it, we're not getting away scot free trying to reach the fort. All we can do is try and watch each others' backs." With limited options for a ranged engagement, and no protection, Grane wasn't sure what to do. Maybe just sprinting to the bunker was their best option, but there was no guarantee the grimm wouldn't just kill them before they made it there.
Trad shook his head, "Sadly no. Whenever I use my semblance I get frozen in place. However..." Pulling back behind cover he reached behind and pulled out his shield. "I have yet to find something that can penetrate Svalinn." Seeing the need for cover, he skipped the kite shied form going straight to a massive tower shield; covering his entire body and then some. "As long we stay behind this, we should be alright."
But this still left them with another problem, the battery. Trad couldn't carry it, hold his shield, and shoot down any harpies that came their way. He would have to delegate one of his items to Grane. "Hey, how good of a shot are you?"
"Pretty good. Trained with guns for a while." Grane took Trad's Gram, which was now an assualt rifle. He then aimed Gram at one of the harpies. He'd probably have buy Trad a minute or two lugging the battery to the fort. At least, if his aim was true. "You'd better start running Trad."
Grane fired a short burst at one of the harpies, which was sure to stir the rest into action.
As the first shot left Gram's barrel, Trad broke into a full sprint. Keeping his head down and his shield up he charged through to an open spot in the wall and headed for the nearest structure. With the harpies focused on Grane, there was hardly any resistance. But This was what the third time he'd had to do a mad dash like this? His legs were gonna be sore as hell when this was all over.
Once he entered the looked out to see how far behind Grane was when out of the corner of his eye he caught a large Ursa moving in. With no time to spare Trad slammed his shield down in front of the entrance and held his ground. The Ursa wouldn't be able to reach him long as he held strong.
Unfortunately, winged harpies weren't the only thing Grane and Trad had to worry about. As Grane fired at the harpies, who left their roost to converge on Grane's position, ursas came to greet Trad. Worse, was that they were both in front and behind him. A larger one er one who was wandering the courtyard, but a small, possibly juvinile ursa behind Trad, who could easily fit in the narrow halls. They attacked at the same time, one grabbing Trad's shield while the minor ursa went to bite down onto Trad's neck.
Trad was caught between an Ursa and a hard place. Even worse on the other side of that hard place was another bigger Ursa and Grane currently had his weapon! With little options Trad dropped the battery and activated his shields mounts. In seconds two metal plates on either side dropped down and bolted into the ground. The Ursa would need some friends if it wanted to bust through, but now Trad was trapped with-
CHOMP! The Ursa sank its teeth into Trad’s neck; the sheer pain was enough to bring the man to his knees. Had his aura not been at full strength, this would have been the end of the mighty Oak. But luck was on his side and the bite didn’t break through, and now it was the hunters turn.
Grabbing the Ursa's mouth and prying it open, he pushed off with his legs and launched the beast off him. Picking himself up and rubbing his still intact neck, he watched the beast recover quickly and get ready for another strike. With no weapon or shield, Trad knew there was only one thing to do. “You want to go beast? Fine” Trad slid his feet apart and opened his arms ready to grapple, “ BRING IT ON!”
The two charged at each other, the Ursa brought its claws up to strike but Trad quickly caught its arms. With enough force he threw the Ursa into the side of the wall then slammed against it with his body. Stepping back to let the creature fall, Trad leaped into the air and brought his elbow down into the Ursa's stomach. Still not ready to quit the Grimm flipped itself over pushing the hunter off of him and once more charging head on. Instead of stopping its claws this time, Trad ran head first into the Ursa and wrapped his arms around it. Summoning all his strength he suplexed the Ursa up over his head then brought the creature down on its own, snapping its neck and ending the wrestling match.
As the monster vanished into smoke, Trad could not only hear the other Ursa banging against his shield, but could see the ground starting to crack and give way. There wasn’t much time left, the radio needed to be activated or they would all be dead soon. Picking himself up from his successful suplex, he grabbed Svalinn's handles and with a deep breath released the mounts and shrunk it to a kite. Sure enough a bigger Ursa on the other side was trying to get its claws in him, but the advantage was Trad's as the large Grimm couldn't fit through the door way.
Throwing his shield on his back and grabbing the battery, Trad sprinted down the halls. Grane would have to catch up, that is, if he could get past the bigger bear!
Grane, on the other hand, was still in the thick of things. There were harpies all over Grane's position, and while he was firing Trad's assault rifle as fast as he could, it would only be a matter of time until Grane was overrun to Grimm. Grane would have to rush past the Ursa and enter the fort as well. He broke out into a dead sprint towards the Ursa, and the harpies gave chase. The Ursa stood on his hind legs and let out a roar, seeing Grane's charge as a challenge. It swiped at him as he came near, but Grane simply slid in between its legs, making it through the doorway into safety.
The ursa turned and tried to charge through the door, managing to crack the walls with it's frame, but failing to enter. This had the dual benefit of preventing the harpies from entering, but effectively sealed off that entrance.
As for Trad and Grane, the halls were oddly void of grimm, though evidence of their presence were plain enough. Much of the walls were clawed up, crude nests formed, and the scattered remains of the old hunters were still here. Rusted weapons, broken machinery, and old bones. Fortunately signs leading to the central power room were still intact, if dusty and faded, so as long as Trad and Grane weren't sight-seeing they could reach there quickly.
But despite the previous cacophony they just escaped, the inner walls were oddly quiet. Only the sounds of the hunters could be heard, and something was listening....
Following the signs Trad made it to the power room. Unfortunately the door was shut tight. Setting the battery down, he grabbed the side of the large metal door and pulled with all his might. No dice, it was sealed tight. He tried punching it in but all that left him was a hurt fist. If only the walls had been crafted the same way this door had been maybe the fort would never have fallen.
With no way to continue and not a Grimm in sight, Trad took this opportunity to sit back and wait for his teammate. It didn’t take long for Grane to come running around the corner. “I see the mama bear didn’t give you much trouble.” Trad remarked noticing he hardly had a scratch on him. “Good shooting by the way. Maybe you should take up a firearm of your own?” He mentioned as he took his sword back and placed it in his sheath. It felt good no longer being without a weapon, but they were still far from safe.
Turning his attention back to the power room door he filled Grane in on the situation. “Unless we can find away to pry this thing open, we’ll need to search for an alternate route.” Looking around at the signs that guided them there, he looked to see if any other room names sounded useful. “There.” He pointed to a sign further down the hall. “The Robot Control room. If I recall correctly, there should still be some construction bots operational. We get those powered up, and they’ll have more than enough force to pry this door open.”
It had been a while since he had used a firearm, but Grane was a bit relieved he still was able to maneuver a rifle as well as he remembered. "Maybe I will find myself a firearm..." But at the moment, they had a stuck door to deal with. Grane decided to take another look at the malfunctioning door himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust Trad, but sometimes another perspective saw something the other didn't.
The door was slightly ajar, but stuck. Any attempts to force open the door proved fruitless, and Grane soon gave up after a few tries. Just as Trad said, they would have to get the construction drones up to press the issue. "Alright. Let's move. The sooner, the better." Grane began walking down the hall, stopping just at the door of the control room. The report said Grimm had overrun the base, so Grane wouldn't be surprised if they found something hostile in there. "Ready to breach it when you are."
The door to this room was in much worse shape than the power room’s. Not only was it barely on the hinges, but it was mangled and bent in. While most Grimm wouldn't be able to fit through the gap, something like a Creep would have no trouble. The good news here was they now they had an idea of what would be behind there. The bad; no way of knowing the number or where they lurked.
Once Grane confirmed he was ready to breach, Trad counted to three and kicked the door in. The damage and wear made this more than enough to break it down and immediately Trad entered, sword and shield at the ready. “We’ll have to move fast. I guarantee any Grimm nearby heard that door fall.”
The room wasn’t too large, but it had enough space to house several rows of docking stations and a large control panel used to monitor and perhaps program the robots. It wouldn’t be any help to them at the moment seeing as not only was there no power, but the screens where smashed in. In fact, most of the robots lay in ruins on the floor. “We need to find one that's in working order.” Trad said, already checking down the first row. “Start on the other side and we’ll work our way to the middle. Soon as you find one in working condition power it on.”
"On it." Grane began searching for an intact drone in what seemed to be a machine graveyard. Missing arms, parts, and a general inability to actually work seemed to plague almost all of the robots in the room. A robot could seem intact from the outside, but the moment Grane tried to turn it on, it would fail to do anything. A few more minutes passed as he sifted through the rows of machines, finally finding one that seemed fairly unused.
With a press of a button, the construction android suddenly came about, and began to speak. "Greetings. How may I assist you today?" Jackpot. "Yo Trad! I found a working one!"
Finally, luck was smiling on the hunters as Grane found a working robot. "Perfect. Now lets get him-" A loud pounding noise cut Trad off, who responded by brandishing his rifle. The sound came again, this time they could clearly tell that something was in the ceiling. The two had just enough time to prep their weapons when a third strike opened a large hole and two Creeps jumped down, each lunging at a different target.
The one going for Trad didn't have a chance. After one or two shots, the beast dropped to the ground and vanished into smoke. But as it died, the ceiling gave way to three more behind him and another three behind Grane. Switching Gram to a sword and pulling out his shield, Trad held a firm stance, letting the Creeps charge him. The first to reach him was simply swatted out of the air by his mighty shield, the second one was then impaled by a downward thrust, and the third met its end with the back swing of the blade.
The Grimm who had landed near Grane shrieked upon seeing their comrades fall, which probably meant their friends knew where the duo were now. One of them charged him, but Grane set one of his glaives to chainsaw mode as he threw it, cleanly slicing the charging Grimm in half. Upon seeing this, the other two Grimm decided to slow down, pacing around Grane.
Grane carefully watched the Grimm as he decided to try and get the android moving. "Machi-.. Robo? Whatever. The power room door is being obstructed by something. Can you open it?" The android idled for a few seconds, before cheerfully responding. "But of course! I will get the door open as soon as possible!" The android then began moving to the power room, albeit at a snail's pace.
The Grimm attempted to attack the android as it slowly traversed the robotics room, but Grane jumped into the fray, preventing them from doing any harm to the machine. "Can't you go any faster!?!" The android stopped as he said this, then faced Grane before saying something. "Apologies, but safety regulations state I cannot move any faster than my current speed. Worry not, I am still on the way to get the power room doors open post haste!" It then continued to walk towards the power room.
Trad let out a loud audible groan. "Great, we have countless Grimm moving on our position and we're stuck shuffling back to the power room.” Walking ahead of the robot and out of the control room, Trad looked down the hall. He couldn’t see anything coming, but the slight shaking of the walls told him more than he needed to know.
Heading back to Grane he figured the two needed to formulate a plan. “With all the rubble blocking the halls, they’ll most likely keep using the vents to reach us. I suggest one of us take point while the other watches the rear. It'll give us the best range of protection while we move. Long as he keeps walking, we should reach the door in a matter of minutes."
As the two hunters fought through the swarm of creeps, one in particular stood out. It wasn't any larger than the other creeps they were fighting, but stray shots on it notably bounced off it's hide. Closer inspection would show that it was more thickly armored, indicating that this creepy was fairly older than the other ones. It didn't stick around to charge straight in, instead going after the weakest of the three: The robot. As Grane and Trad were beset by more creeps, this older creeper grabbed a peice of rubble and tossed it at the robot's leg to make it fall. Then it went back into hiding to let it's younger kin run into the slaughter.
Grane could only watch as the robot became pinned by the Grimm's attack. Luckily the construction bot seemed sturdy enough to take the hit, but it's leg was visibly damaged. It began to move again, except this time it moved even slower, at a snails pace.
Assault Gram in one hand and tower shield Svalinn in the other Trad used the two in unison as a sort of riot protection. Shooting at any Creeps in sight and blocking anything they threw, his system was working until he miss judged a throw from an armored creep. Going past his guard and damaging the robot Trad forced himself to keep his eyes on the target and leave Grane to assess the damage.
Once it ran back into hiding however Trad was free to glance at the damaged leg and curse their luck. They had to speed things up if there was any hope of saving Robert and the new girl, or to save themselves for that matter! With nothing coming to mind he called to Grane as he continued firing at any creeps trying to advance, "This is taking too long! We'll be overrun before we even get close to the door. Any ideas?"
While no ideas were spoken persay, as the creeps swarmed Trad and Grane their rush revealed something from the rubble. It was a manned turret, with the remains of a hunter draped over the controls, notably missing his lower hald and head. The robot tried to get up but kept getting knocked over by Creeps, who didn't attack it but did give it a hard time standing up on it's own. That's when he turned his head over to the turret and spoke over the horde. "My sensors indicate that the turret over there is still functional, though I do not know how much ammunition is still within it. I would recommend commandeering the turret to make short work of these vile creatures."
Easier said then done of course. There was a good bit of creeps between the two hunters and the turret, and surely they'll be swarmed the moment they reach it. That being said, there was also an air grate just right above said turrent...
Progress was made slowly but steadily as Robert and Sand swam towards the fort along the cliff's edge. There was little conversation among the two. Robert's demeanor had become increasingly business-like after their merry chase throughout the forest, and Sand was too busy staying above water to bother making small talk.
The docks had appeared in their vision some time ago, at first little more than a dot in the distance. Now, Sand recognized the mourning figure of the lone vessel moored there. And if she strained her eyes, she could detect dark figures moving about. That was not a good sign. She had hoped she would be able to think of some way to avoid the Grimm by the time they reached the docks, but they would come up to them soon and she found it unlikely they would be able to climb into the fort without rousing the suspicion of every monster making its home there.
Almost as if answering her dilemma, something in the wall ahead of her caught her attention.
"Robert," she called as she pushed herself forward, eyes on the cliff face.
Here, perhaps due to a lucky collapse, or perhaps through the design of the fort's previous occupants, the cliff face seemed to roll backwards into a noticeable slope. She could make out a thin, sloping path traveling up the side of the cliff, large enough to travel in single file. The path broke off some ways up, but there were enough outcroppings, handholds, and similar snaking paths that, thanks to the shape of the wall, she believed she would be able to climb it without much difficulty even without the use of her semblance.
"Robert, come here."
"Yeah? What is it?" the boy asked as he swam closer to Sand. He hadn't yet noticed the Grimm that were swarming around the docks or the climbing wall that the girl had just found either.
"Look. I think I found a way up," she said, pointing up above her.
It took Robert a few moments to notice the handholds and outcroppings that dotted the cliff face, but when he did his reaction seemed more underwhelming then Sand was probably hoping for. "Good job," he said in what was now becoming his normal, monotone voice. "Do you want to go first?"
The corner of Sand's lip twitched. Robert's robot impression was starting to grate on her. Then again, no monster fish had tried to chomp out their legs while swimming along the coast, so she could not rightly complain. She turned towards the cliff, partly to plan her ascent, partly so that she would not have to look at the boy's dull eyes.
"You ever gone rock climbing?"
"You could say that," Robert replied as he thought of the time he and several of his friends and classmates went to retrieve Sapphire's daggers. After fighting the ravenous Ogdoad and finally digging through all the shiny trash the Grimm had collected at the bottom of the lake, the group had to climb the cliff side to return to Beacon. That was certainly an unforgettable experience, to say the least.
While Robert was reminiscing, Sand's mind was occupied with more practical matters. "Good. Means I won't have to carry you."
She reached for the first handhold and began pulling herself up. Her muscles were still sore, but pulling up her own weight up a solid surface could hardly compare to bringing an ancient Boarbatusk to a near stop. If she could manage that, this should be child's play, right? "Watch where I grab. The slope's as gentle as we're gonna get, but it's slippery out here. I'd rather you didn't fall halfway."
Robert wiped his hands on the cliff wall in an effort to dry them as much as he could before following Sand up the slope. Being slightly taller than the girl and having longer arms, the boy occasionally risked skipping a handhold every now and then. For the most part though, he did what he was told and didn't take any unnecessary risks. The pain in his side where the Beowolf had scratched him was beginning to irritate due to him having to stretch his torso, but it was nothing too bad.
The climb was blissfully uneventful, and the pair made it to the edge in good time.
Sand dragged herself up eagerly and turned back to help Robert pull himself up. Her relief at having solid ground beneath her was almost palpable. It took her a moment to gather enough wits to scan the area around them, but when she did, two things became quickly apparent. One, she recognized the area, and two, something seemed to have riled up the Grimm in the area.
She quickly recognized the footpath leading into the fort she had spied earlier that day, hidden behind a small incline that snaked along the cliff's proper edge. Above the incline, she could make out the towers where she had seen the bird Grimm roost, except now the Harpies were circling, flying erratically over the structure. At that moment, the wind changed directions, bringing with it a host of frustrated shrieks and screams.
By the time Robert had made it to the top, his previous injuries had gone from a mild irritation to an immense, stabbing pain. He was more than thankful when Sand helped pull him up. Once on his feet, the boy rested his hands on his knees and began to catch his breath. The harpies' screams made him realize though that wasn't going to have a lot of time to do so. "What'd we do in a past life to deserve this?" he asked rhetorically.
"Seems to me more like an occupational hazard than karma," Sand replied dryly. She gestured for him to walk closer to the incline to ensure they would be hidden from view. Sensing the boy needed the rest as much as her, she sat against the stone and began to pull off her combat boots. "But this is good. All that mess means your friends must have passed through."
"Maybe. But it also means they're probably in trouble too," Robert pointed out.
"Mhm," she hummed matter-of-factly. "It's odd. I thought they'd be partial to stealth."
Inhaling a large amount of air, he stood straight again and said, "Come on. As much as I'd like to rest, I don't think I'll be able to do so with the knowledge that what's left of my team could be getting torn apart by Grimm."
Sand gave him a small frown. Quickly undoing her ties, she held the boots down, letting the water drain.
"Hate the squelching," she offered in the way of explanation.
After a moment of tense silence, she added, "Judging by the fact they're circling around the area, something tells me your friends gave these Grimm the slip. I'd wager they already got into the fort." Still, this was the most emotion the boy had shown in some time, and something told her Robert would not budge. Huffing a sigh, she said, "Just give me a minute. Need to put these back on."
Robert nodded at Sand's response as he waited for her to put her footwear back on. As he continued to wait, he realized just how much this girl had helped him with very little to no compensation. Turning back to her, he decided to tell her, "Thank you for all your help by the way. I doubt I would still be here without you, and the same can probably be said for everyone else here."
Sand glanced up at Robert with surprise.
When he turned to face her, she had expected irritation, impatience, or worse, that monotone voice and dull look. For some reason, the idea that the boy would be grateful for her intervention had not even occurred to her, never-mind that he would choose to express it at that precise moment. She had simply done what she felt was right, nothing more, nothing less.
It had been a dangerous choice, one she would have regretted once or twice throughout their flight, if only she could allow herself that kind of doubt.
Sand looked away uneasily, pulling her boots up and focusing on the last few knots. "Don't mention it," she said, after a moment of hesitation. "Just doing my job."
She tied up the last knot and pulled herself up. "Alright," she started, suddenly eager to get back to business. "This path leads to a hole on the fort's wall. We should be able to get in if we just follow it, but finding just where your friends are might be difficult." Up until then, this had been an issue the pair had danced around, more concerned with their survival than such matters, but now that they had managed to leave the Grimm behind, it was suddenly at the forefront of her mind again. "I think this would be a good time for you to tell me what your team is doing here."
"We're trying to power up the old radio here and then defend the fort until more huntsmen can arrive. Vale wants this place back in operational order and we're pretty much tasked with most of the work," Robert explained to Sand. He was silent for a few moments before the same question came to mind. "What are you doing here?"
Very forthcoming of him. Sand did not answer at first, choosing to digest the information he had given her. The idea that one of the other kingdoms happened to want the place up and running again just as she was sent out seemed too convenient to be a mere coincidence. There was no way whoever was in charge there was not aware of what was stored in the fort. It was enough to make her wonder if it would be wise to lie about the reason she was there.
She quickly chose against it.
Technically, she had not been specifically told to conceal her objective. Then again, there weren't supposed to be other people at the fort beyond whoever she chose to bring, but that hardly mattered at that point. More importantly, she felt she might need help to complete her mission, and if she wanted to enlist Robert's and his team's aid, it would likely be best to continue playing her cards straight.
"Research work, of a sort," she told him, choosing her words carefully. She did not know how much of what she had been told was not supposed to be public knowledge. At least part of her caution was likely unwarranted. They would see for themselves if they bothered to look, but they would only learn as much as was necessary from her. "I was asked to recover some data and artifacts from the ruins."
"I wonder if what you're looking for is in that vault my team was told about that's contents were unknown," the boy thought aloud. Realizing just how much time they were spending talking when lives were possibly at stake, Robert shook his head as if clearing his mind of possible theories and said, "Anyway, we're starting to get sidetracked. Let's get going," before taking off towards Fort Jaeger.
Sand nodded, glad he had not pried further, and followed after him. "Should look for the radio first. With luck, we'll find your friends with it."
As the young Huntress predicted, the path eventually brought the two to an opening in the fort's outer wall. Peering into it gave Robert and Sand view into an open courtyard. Entrances to the complex proper could be seen on the opposite end, but this was not all the pair saw.
Fort Jaeger was abuzz with activity, with the harpies flying about trying to find a target. But they were also bickering in their own way for leadership. It was unknown how the Grimm corral themselves, and only a vague sense of hierachy could be made out from the monsters. Older and stronger variations led the Grimm horde, but amongst the harpies there were none. Aside from a few subtle differences between their feathers and masks, just about all of them looked the same, and thus none really worked together to control the masses. While the harpies weren't fighting, they were far too distracted flying and screeching at each other to notice Robert and Sand below. Less so if they bothered to try and sneak.
Other threats in the fort consisted of a few Ursas, one whom was firmly stuck in a doorway, and the others who seemed to be on high alert. They too could not fit in the doorway, being sufficently mature enough that they could not walk in and out like the cubs could, but they did stay near the doors nonetheless. Beasts they may be, even they understood the idea that if there were more people coming, they would need to enter or exit through these doors. And when they appearred, the Ursas were ready to attack.
Aside from the harpies flying through the skies and the Ursas guarding the door, the fort seemed impossible for the young hunters to enter unnoticed. While the walls were in a bad shape, they were still sturdy and smooth enough on the outside that trying to make handholds in the walls wasn't an option. With the Ursas guarding the doors, trying to get through them would start a fight and possibly gain the attention of all the Grimm. There was, however, a few open and narrow windows and holes on some higher level towers. Most of the windows were sealed, leaving thin holes where hunters could aim their weapons through. But evidentally some Grimm managed to break these barriers to enter. With luck or skill, Robert and Sand could do the same.
Sand considered these openings for a moment. With her semblance, climbing those towers would be a simple matter, but she would have to carry Robert if they were to remain together. Moreover, she had used much of her aura in her attempts to rescue him and to kill the giant Boarbatusk, enough to make her want to conserve what remained for an emergency.
Still, it was an option. She set the thought aside for the moment and looked down to the courtyard itself. An open area with no cover to be seen, and the Grimm roaming inside were tense and alert. At first, she only counted four Ursas, but then she caught sight of a fifth, furry behind obstructing one of the doorframes. A distressed whine reached the Hunters from the other side of the courtyard as the Ursa's tail wiggled, trying to free itself from the entrance, but the other Grimm merely ignored it, unsympathetic to their comrade's plight.
A smirk pulled at the corner of her lips.
Regardless, the dilemma still stood. It would not benefit them to get into a protracted battle with the Ursas with the harpies above them. Unfortunately, the bear Grimm tended to be of a much sturdier make than their canine kin. Killing them both quickly and silently seemed an unlikely proposition. With no cover to hide in, neither could they hope to approach the doors without being noticed.
"What do you think?" she asked, glancing at Robert.
Robert looked at their options and was, to be honest, was completely stumped on how the pair could move in. All the doors he could see at their current position seemed well protected, the walls were incapable of scaling, the windows looked too high to reach, and Grimm were crawling all over the place. "I don't really see any way in that won't get us a butt kicking of epic proportions. What about you? Think there's anything I may have missed?" he replied to Sand's question.
Sand's eyes went to the windows once more, weighing the options. Eventually, she looked back towards the bear Grimm and the doors beyond.
"I'm thinking," she said slowly, "that we have no need to engage the Ursas."
"We don't?" Robert answered, sounding slightly surprised. "Unless you have a grappling hook or something to get us to that window, I can't see any other way in."
"At this point, I wish had thought to bring one, but no. See, all we need to do now is to get into the fort. A door is as simple way as any. Grimm are only an issue if we can't avoid them, and look," she said, pointing at the Ursa still stuck in a doorframe. "The rest aren't much smaller. They can't follow us in."
"Alright. Let's just hope none of the other doors are locked or something then," Robert replied. "Pick a door and I'll follow. You're probably faster anyway."
Sand nodded in agreement. "If there's an issue, avoid using your guns. Attracting the harpies won't make this easier."
Settled on a plan of action, simplistic as it was, the hunters looked across the courtyard towards the possible exits. After a moment, Sand pointed at one of the openings. "See that one? Closest to the rightmost bear?"
"... Yeah, I see it," the boy replied before getting into a runner's position and waiting for Sand to either run or give a signal to run.
She nodded, and after a moment of silent preparation, broke into a run towards the opening. Robert followed close behind.
For the first few seconds, it seemed like the hunter's plan was going to work. And then the Ursa near the entrance the two hunters were making a dash for noticed them, and moved to engage them. He was slower than Bob but just as big, and his frame would force the two to either go far around him, or work out some way to get through him. If they took too long the Harpies, who were already starting to reorganize, would spot and swarm them.
The hunters shared a glance as the large Ursa stood in their way, braced to meet their approach. It was too late to deviate from their plan. In silent agreement, Sand and Robert veered off in different directions, hoping to confuse the monster and circumvent it. The Ursa paused and took a step back, head swinging to and fro as it tried to keep both humans in its sight.
Once they were close enough to take a swing at, the monster let out a bass growl and chose its target, lunging after Robert.
"Why me?" Robert mumbled to himself as he attempted to dive under the Ursa's legs. It almost worked too as the young hunter-in-training's body avoided being stepped on by the bear-like monster, but his clothing was not as lucky. The teen felt a sudden tug on his hood, all momentum coming to an abrupt stop, as he looked up at the Grimm. Its paws pressing the piece of cloth into the dirt, the creature then lifted him off the ground and toward its gaping maw.
Blades extended on his bracers, Robert stabbed the Ursa in both of its eyes before the jaws of death could close around him. "Believe me, I don't taste nearly as well as I look," he said before then cutting the Grimm's paw, allowing him to escape its grasp. Running after Sand and trying to quickly catch up, the teen left the creature in its injured state while motivating himself to run faster. "Go. Go. Go."
While the Ursa was busy with Robert, Sand had ran past them in a bid for the unprotected door. She crashed against it with her shoulder, the entry swinging open with the cough of rusted hinges. By the time Robert had managed to extricate himself from the Grimm, the huntress was by the doorframe, holding it open for him. Her eyes were wide as she glanced to the sides, where the other Ursas had noticed them and were running towards them, and then up above them, where the cloud of harpies seemed to be gaining some sort of cohesion, as if rallied by the wounded Grimm's cries.
Seeing Sand's worried look, Robert looked behind himself for a split second to see what had gained the girl's attention and soon regretted that. With such dangerous creatures closing in, he picked up the pace and sprinted toward the open doorway at a speed not even he knew he could run. "Close it, close it!" the teen yelled before diving forward, past the doorframe and hopefully out of danger.
She readily obliged, slamming the door shut just as Robert flew past her and quickly backing away.
Not as second after the door closed, they heard a powerful impact, and the door was slammed down, broken off its hinges with enough force that, had Sand remained standing where she had, it would have flattened her like a pancake. An Ursa reached in, managing to cram its head and a thick arm through the door before the small entrance halted its progress. He clawed at the air before them, letting out snarls and growls as if cursing them for being out of its reach. A sound like scratching came from the wall behind the door, such that it was not difficult to imagine the other Ursas clawing at the stone.
Sand swallowed, tapping Robert on his side to gain his attention. "We should go further in," she told him, though her eyes remained fixed on the Grimm struggling to reach them.
Not taking his eyes off the ravenous creature of Grimm, Robert nodded and began to slowly step away from the door they had come in through. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go," he said, before finally turning around to look in the direction he was walking.
Silence and darkness was what Robert and Sand would find. though their teammates were also within the building, the fortress’ thick walls prevented their fight to be heard. The aged and dusted remains of hunters and grimm of old still littered the halls. Rusted weapons, old bones, and scars on the walls and floors. Many parts of the fortress had collapsed and would force the duo to redo their efforts, but eventually they’d find that most of the halls have been collapsed from damage and age. Aside from the entrances back into the courtyard there seemed to be very little way to continue onward. At least, not walking.
Suddenly as the two hunters would be searching, a creep emerged from an air grate and attacked Sand. It aimed for her head hoping to swallow it whole during the surprise attack.
She lifted an arm between the Grimm and her face out of reflex, letting sharp teeth grind against the dark metal, but the sudden weight knocked her off balance. She fell on her back with a surprised cry, pinned under the Creep snarling around her arm and only vaguely aware of something cracking under her fall.
Gritting her teeth, she brought her free hand to the monster's throat and released her gauntlet's blades. The Creep froze as the steel pierced its skin, then slumped over her with a wet gargle. With a slow breath, she pushed the body off of her, letting it dissolve beside her. Glancing to her sides revealed an old skeleton. Or at least most of one. The skull was distinctly missing, and an arm seemed to be broken off. Shifting her weight elicited another crack, revealing the cracked bones lying under her.
Sand sat up slowly, her breathing shallow and her skin uncharacteristically pale.
"Look at the bright side, at least it isn't fresh," Robert commented, seeing Sand's uncomfortableness with what she landed on and quickly thinking of something to distract her from it. A joke probably wasn't the right way to go though and even he knew that. "Let me help you up," the teen suggested, giving her his hand.
She nodded wordlessly, letting herself be pulled upright. She did not truly care about the damned Creep's sudden attack, but she had a feeling that skeleton would stay with her for some time, like a vision into a possible future. An extremely unwanted one at that. Sand took a steadying breath, some color returning to her cheeks.
"I chose the wrong door," she admitted dourly. "This path is leading us nowhere."
Robert replied with a simple shrug. `'We certainly can't go back what with all those Grimm blocking the door. I say we just keep going and hope for the best. Besides, it's not like they'd just build a random hallway for no purpose and leads to nowhere, Maybe this'll connect with some other hallway and we can get back on track." With that, the boy turned and continued to walk down the path.
The lack of footsteps following him gave him pause. Sand remained standing in the hallway, intently staring at one of the walls. Following her gaze brought his eyes to the hole from which the Creep had jumped at her.
Upon closer examination, the grate was not made of the usual alumintum like most modern buildings, but entirely out of concrete. While there were cracks and molds on the edges, it was still very much solid. The hole was long and dark, yet big enough that a creep could walk comfortably through it, though the likes of Robert and Sand would need to crouch or crawl if they wanted to get through.
"What's up? See anything interesting?" Robert asked, walking back over to where Sand stood. He wondered what she found so interesting about the hole the Creep had ambushed her from, not yet looking inside himself.
Sand gave him a measuring glance. "You wouldn't happen to be claustrophobic, would you?"
Robert shook his head. "No, I'm fine with small spaces... as long as we don't run into any spiders. You don't know how glad I am that we haven't run into any Broodlings or Ariadne. Why? What do you have in mind?"
"The vents," she said with a touch of impatience. The boy was a bit slow on the uptake at times. "If Grimm are using them to move around the fort, there is nothing stopping us from doing the same." With a glance at the hallway they were currently in, she added, "I'm beginning to think this entire side of the fort was sectioned off either way."
"How do you plan to navigate through them though? It's not like there are bright, neon signs inside pointing us to where ever Trad and Grane are," Robert asked, clearly a bit more pessimistic about this plan of hers.
"You could say the same for these hallways," she grunted ill-humoredly. They had been walking around with no results to show for it for some time already. "Even if we had something so convenient, they'd probably lead to another dead end."
The boy shrugged, beginning to see Sand's point. "Alright, let's give it a go then," he said before trying to fit himself inside, figuring that the girl would like him to take point finally. While Robert's thin frame certainly helped with fitting inside, his height did not as his back and head were pressed against the top of the concrete vents. "Gah, this looks way more comfortable in the movies."
Sand went in after him, producing her scroll as she did. The object felt small and clumsy in her gauntleted hands, but she only needed the light, which she shone over Robert's shoulder into the dark passageway. "Come on. With luck, this will get us somewhere new."
Beneath the crushing force of a burly teenager’s boot, the door to the room of Mar Millade slammed open. Instantly the dual mysteries surrounding the room, presented in the forms of sound and scent, were solved. First and foremost, the tiny apartment appeared to have a nonstandard –not to mention sporadic- paint job, done in brownish-burgundy. No source of the fluid used could be seen, but a fair amount of it lay around the remaining fragments of the broken window. A look straight down from the shattered aperture revealed the outline of a body in the mud below, though one too small and apelike to be human. An astute eye would reveal more rivulets of dried blood drawn like streaks of rain down the side of the building, indicating that whomever ruptured the window gained the roof. A clawed-open airduct in the room offered an easy hint as to why someone might want to vacate their supposed safe haven swiftly. At that point, noises could be heard from inside Moss's unopened room, elicited by Benjamin's clamor.
Vague expectations had filled Ivor’s mind as he entered the cafeteria. As odd as the scantily-clad Faunus and gray-obsessed fellow appeared, he imagined that they might have come with a regular paramedic team in tow. He certainly did not expect to find a pair of young women in various stages of undress huddled around two of his co=workers. For a moment his wit abandoned him, leaving him wearing an expression of mixed surprise, amusement, and admiration. Soon thereafter, however, the keen programmer offered his two cents. “If this is how an average rescue team works nowadays, I should nearly die more often.” He seated himself on a cafeteria bench with his back against the table, and reclined. “Gray-haired guy sent me over. I’d be glad to help any way I can. Oh, I know! While you’re busy, I’ll keep watch.” This could, of course, not help but strike a paradoxical note given the constantly near-shut state of his eyes.
-meanwhile-
Bent on following the directions of her team leader and contributing to the operation’s success, Cian in her haste rushed across the storage room toward where the survivors allegedly were to take up a defensive position. She did not, apparently, take much notice of the solid steel door that separated her from the control room in which the survivors held up. Through a small peephole one of the refugees watched Cian turn her back to him and the rest, setting up a shield with which she would valiantly protect the door. The lad furrowed his brows in consternation, and despairingly asked those near him, “What the heck? Are these guys here to help us or not? None of the monsters even scratched our door but this girl’s hunkering down to protect it. Why doesn’t she let us out already?”
He pressed his nose against the glass, strands of blue hair splayed in every direction. The other survivors closed their ears, remembering the boy’s prodigious lungs. “Hey!” His shout bounced off the walls. “Fighter girl! Let! Us! Out!” After a deceptive moment, he belted out an afterthought. “Priscilla! Took! Keycard!”
While this went down, the damaged barrel almost certainly containing a human sat, ignored, in the refinery room. At the very least the no-doubt terrified and uncomfortable hider within would not suffocate to death, given the rends in the drum’s metal, but thirst would be just as bad a way to go if the remaining two members of JCL did not cease their ruminating and start saving.
"Je pense que non. Vous n'étiez pas une bouboule."
Gratia twisted the key into the car's ignition, blinking once as the engine roared to life, rumbling with a power that could be felt with every vibration of the vehicle.
"Any fucking skinnier and you'd be a kebab skewer," she continued, pulling her seat belt across her body and audibly clicking it into place. "I'll have to make sure you've been stuffed with enough shitty food to become a fat lard avant le Carême."
It did not take one to be Hercule Poirot to identify that there was clearly something wrong with Nuit. That was not particularly surprising, given the torturous conditions she had suffered under while in the grasp of the Dodici. Another slight that the gang of insectoid scum had committed, and another reason for their rapid and painful extermination. They had brought the once-confident Faunus girl low, tore apart her wings and foundations, and systematically ripped away everything that had given the birdbrain some form of comfort or meaning.
That would not happen again.
"The plan is not giving them the chance to ask those questions," declared Gratia Mindaro clearly and succinctly, her cold and icy tone measured and composed as one would expect from her. "They do not need to know that I have either of you in this vehicle."
She would ensure that Nuit did not come to any further harm. That was one of the many duties of a bird's wings, after all.
"Now," continued the Mistralese teenager. "I can trust you to be useful and wake up Ms. Vitoria Dodici?"
Bianca twirled the gun in her hand restlessly. It's safety was turned on so there was no worries of it going off, it was more about having something to fidget with. "Yeah I can wake her up." She said not taking her eyes of the lion that slept blissfully in their car. She rationalized it as Vitoria not deserving to be asleep during her kidnapping. The Faunus sat still, first, reclaim your breathing.
She began to think to herself, get herself out of her won head. 'You can do this, breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Count to five, on five you're doing it.
Bianca motioned to Gratia and very clearly took the silence off of her weapon. She turned to Vitoria, taking her seat belt and facing the girl for the first time since she had broken her rib cage.
"One... Two... Three... Four... Five." Bianca put the gun firmly facing upwards on the girl's chin and began to lightly slap Vitoria's face.
The girl began to spur awake. "Bianca Fucking Nuit. What the fuck am I doing back here and why the fuck are you in the front seat." It sounded as though she may have also broken her nose, that was too bad.
"And you, you-"
Bianca's gently slid across the safety, just in case - only Gratia would be able to see that. "That is enough Vitoria. I don't want to hear any more out of you, understood?" Shes said, her grip on the gun underneath her oppressor's chin made celar once more.
"Fuck you, you stupid bitch I'm here so I matter. You don't drive out in a van to kill someone." Vitoria said loudly.
Bianca wanted to remove her ability to speak, that would make her own life easier. But alas, she would have to wait for Gratia's oka-
"Hahahahahahahaha
hahahaha
hahAHAHA
HAHAHAHA
You should see what you look like, where are your fucking wings now you stupid bit-"
The gun found itself firmly planted in Vitoria's mouth, the trigger gently but notably caressed by Bianca's finger. "Truth be told, you're only alive because we think you'd look worse in a prison jumper than a coffin, but we can make alterations to that plan I think." She said, her tone was unlike any she typically possessed - it was much more akin to the one Gratia typically spoke with.
She gently took her right arm and tapped Gratia's thigh three times, her finger was steady, calm even. In order to signal that she wasn't going to kill the Dodici bitch. That it was Gratia's turn.
"People must be real fond of facefucking you, Dodici," said Gratia Mindaro, her impassive, highly regulated tone carrying itself through the interior of the car. "It'd keep that mouth of yours from puking up all the bullshit you eat everyday."
She had not turned around to face the scion of the Dodici clan. The older woman was far beneath her notice, a wingless mosquito who lived only at her mercies. A stain to wipe off the bottom of her boots; a pest that, had it not been for the information she wished to squeeze from a yet-to-be cooling carcass, would have been discarded on the side of the road like the trash it was. Her fingers drummed rhythmically against the steering wheel. Vitoria Dodici would answer her questions. It was the only choice she would give to the piece of scum. That was non-negotiable.
"I want to use your authority to retrieve every little shred of evidence of the Dodici's crimes," she continued bluntly. "You will provide all the information you know to us."
"I can totally fly Kibro over, yaknow?" said Shuai Taidan breezily, manifesting his many-armed semblance once again to emphasise his point. "Easy-peasey, and the mission will be over by Christmas."
He had a grand total of eight arms after all - six ethereal ones and two physical ones - and given that Varius could do the jump with little difficulty, as well as Noelle's shared flight capabilities, the only person he had to worry about not being able to cross a chasm of doom and despair was the bossman himself, and his abilities were more than enough to carry one super muscular guy.
Vitoria stared into the sights of the gun that was now uncomfortably placed inside of her mouth, she listened to the henchman in the front of the car, whose hands were on the steering wheel. She considered attempting to activate her semblance, but with her legs in the state they were in her Aura was already necessary elsewhere. She attempted to spit the gun out of her mouth, but it seemed the sharp inhalation of oxygen didn’t help her broken ribs and she immediately softened up to the gun that was in her mouth, as strange as that sounded.
"I'm going to take the gun out of your mouth and give you a chance to talk now." Bianca's voice continued it's monotone trend.
"Fucking finally." The girl attempted to say with the gun still in her mouth. Bianca removed the gun and for a few blissful moments there was silence.
"I'm not going to help you bitches. Fuck this Faunus bitch, fuck this stupid Fiordilatte whore" It wasn't long before Vitoria felt the gun creep up her shirt and firmly plant itself on her stomach. A lot of organs were there, Bianca was no doctor but she figured a couple rounds oughta be bad for her complexion. How do you fucking like it? It seemed she was scared. Are you prepared to meet your god? Good. T̵̷̵̼̲̖̘͈͉̼ͅh̴͇͍͔̱̞͇̱͖̺i̡̖̼̱̠̼̯̲͇̕s҉̷͕̩̭̖̣̭̻̞̕ ̡̧̠͔̥̝̰̫͉̯i̫͔̯͈͚̗͕s̢̤̜͚̱͠͠ ͉͍͢w̴͍̖̭͉h҉҉̡͚̭̬̩͖̳̗̳e̯̝͍̠̱̜̰ŗ̙̥̱̞̝̞̘̬̟ḛ͉̖̹̪̦̙͍͟ ̧͏̖͙̤̟̻͎y̸̧͍̼͖̠ͅo̲͔͇̣u̠̜͡ ̩̪̰f̠̥̙̻̺u͏̵̜̞̳c̶͝͏̤̣̻̭̤͕̗̘̼k̶̼͖̖i̸̩̩̬͙̥͕̕͡ͅn͇̗̱̦̫̘̣͜ͅg͎͕̮̤̀͢ͅ ҉̥̬̙̬͙͇e̙͔̤̖̫͓͈ͅn̤̮̝͞͞d̟ Bianca could barely contain the smile that wanted to spread across her lips. But she did. She was still Bianca, she didn’t want to hurt people. P̛̺̺̹̥͌̐͑̐̾ͯr̗̤͎̝̖̼͙̀ͭͯͤ̏ͯ̚̚͘͝ẹ̴̴̠͉̪͖̭͐̾̈́ͩ͆p̆ͧͫ҉̵̧̲ͅǎ͙̺̲͍ͦ̑ͨ͗ͥ̑̂͡r̡͈ͩ̄͘͝ȇ̳͕̗͢ ̢̨͈̲̘̭͖͎̲̻͖̋͐̈̍͘t̢͕̳̎ͩ̿̕o̓̈ͬͨͯ̚҉͇̱̙̳͖̫͈̥ ̳̜̮̹ͨ̂̑̉̊̿̑͆̅ḑ̌͏̙̳͙̖ͅḯ̵̪͇̽̔ͩ̚e̶̜̤̮̝̳̜̦̋̀̂ͪ ͈̙͕̫͎ͫͣ̾̏ͩ͛͟V̗̘̦̟̟̝̩̽ͧͭ̍̍ͅḯ̝͚̯̗̰̗ͦ͑̽̂̽ͧt̨̧̲̼̜̥͈͓̀͝o̐ͦ̿͘͏͏̮̖̩ṙ̴̻̖̱̗̥̤ͅī̶̧̗̺̞̳̩̳̑̌̓͗ͦá̶̢̞̟̔̾͠ͅ ̡̘͇̩͐͋́D̤͉͎̺͉̹ͦ͊ͫ͗ͦ̒̏̅̎ơ̥̯̤̂ͤ̚d̷̻̠̦͇̻̖̱̊̏͊ͧ͒ḯ̵̥̻͎̙̳͈͍̗̏ͧ̔̀ͥ̈͠c̴͎̲̣̩̟̓ͫ͗̓̕͞i̵̛͎͐̉̑̎͆̽͗̚
There wasn't much to do about non-cooperation however.
"Fucking shoot me then." I... I'd love to. Bianca's hand rested on the gun calmly, her finger on the safety. But she couldn't switch it off. I... I want to. She felt pressure build up in her fingers, felt them want to move, and yet they didn't. What is wrong with me? "What do you want to do about this Gratia?"
She couldn't get herself heated at an old man over gazing at her. Stares came often when you looked like Lauren - like like one of those old gods they made statues of in South Mistral fucked a king-sized Hershey bar and then totally planted evidence that got her shipped her off to Beacon.
But you do not E Y E F U C K MY Sangue.
She disliked the old lecher on sight, and wasn't entirely sure how much good he'd be on watch, but his description of Ben matched up enough for Lauren to look at him with an appraising eye and nod slightly.
"Come over here and keep an eye on this guy for me. Please don't touch my jacket," she said with politeness so bitter in her mouth she almost added an ironic 'massah.' "I'm gonna wait by the doors for Cap's orders. With my Semblance active, I'll hear him better from down the hall."
She stood up and slowly traded places with the guy, sitting on a cafeteria table closer to the doors he'd entered from - ears cocked and one eye on the man who had now just closed most of the distance to her precious little sister figure.
"Do you know these guys?" she found herself asking Ivor curiously. "Any idea how they ended up locked in a fridge?"
Having volunteered to be on alert, Ivor observed without much difficulty the thinly-veiled hostility writ on Lauren's features as she examined him. When she spoke, she did not allot for him so much as a greeting, but immediately issued forth in a tone remarkably full of vinegar a command. Shrugging it off as a manifestation of stress from the no-doubt harrowing rescue duty imposed on her, or otherwise a necessity of the perilous situation in which they found themselves, he obliged. After pushing himself to his feet, he marched over with his hands behind his back and crouched over the faintly shuddering body of his coworker. Laying a hand on the chilled man's neck, he spared a smile for Sangue. "Good afternoon, miss. Kudos to you for getting these guys out. If his core temperature were any lower, the only thing we'd be able to do is put him back in the freezer." He seated himself on the floor, leaning against the wall. Invisibly, his eyes alighted on the cafeteria's service counter.
At that moment, however, Lauren directed a question his way. "Well, of course," he answered promptly. "In a place this small and this remote, you get to know pretty much everyone. Speaking of, I do hope Moss and Millade are alright. The guy you call Cap was headed their way. Anyway, I suspect they were in the freezer to avoid being turned to extra-chunky salsa by all the Grimm infesting the place. I could swear I heard some outside my door just a few minutes ago." Ivor stood to his feet and made a beeline for the service counter. He slid behind it and with practiced hands unlatched the coffee pot from the machine there. "Ah, I knew we had some left from this morning. Warm drinks are just the thing for hypothermia." In mere seconds the microwave was spinning, the entire coffee pot stuffed inside the machine. Under normal circumstances heating plastic would be inadvisable, but in emergencies all kinds of pleasantries could evidently be handwaved. In very short order he returned with three mugs of coffee. No steam rose from them; he knew not to overheat the beverage and risk burning the innards of the sick. One he passed to Sangue for her to give to her charge, and another he very carefully tipped into the lips of the other, cradling his head with his hand. After giving him a sip and gently laying his head back down, Ivor took a hearty swig from the third mug. "Ah, yes! So pleased to be helpful."
Cian was in a pinch one it seems the survivors was trapped and that Priscilla had the keycard needed to release them. This was all well and good but what was she to do? She could run and grab it and with her semblance she would be able to survive long enough for her team mates to come to her aid and get the grimm off the back while she rescued them. Though on the other hand she had to be careful as well since leaving them alone could spell disaster as well. "Guess I have no choice, Luke spot me!" Cian exclaimed hoping Luke would understand what she wanted and make sure there is no surprises as she went to grab the keycard. With a mad dash her semblance covering her to the best she could she ran forward hoping to grab the keycard before something shows up.
That was the mantra that dominated his being as the other two ran off to the next room, leaving him to fend for both himself and the battered, bloodied Priscilla.
Everything's gonna be okay.
Whether or not that was entirely true was out of the question. In fact, you could probably argue it to already be retroactively proven false— basically, a lie. To be frank about the situation meant one had to accept that it was far from okay as-is, and seemingly worsening as minutes dragged by.
But that's what we have to be here for.
Take something not-okay and make it okay.
That's a Hunter's job.
"...So it'll be okay."
He began to run through the checklist of first-aid protocol his mother and father had drilled into his mind from the tender age of already seventeen, one of the many crash-courses in his buildup to the trial periods for incoming transfer students who hadn't already completed the curriculum of primer schools like Signal.
Only, it would be a lie to say it was that simple.
The human mind is a labyrinthine monstrosity, twisting and turning and full of traps and hangups and dead-ends.
Lots of cuts. Lots of blood. I need to stop the bleeding, right? But I need to locate the cuts to do that— The specific ones, and prioritize the worst...
His mind began to overclock, trying to keep itself straight.
You might have already guessed this if you're familiar with the kind of guy he is:
It didn't work.
I see a lot here, but I don't have anything to clean them with. What if there's more on her back? I'd need to move her. Wait, you're not supposed to move someone this battered, right?! Her bones could be broken... When's the Professor gonna get here? What if she runs into something on the way? What if something runs into me? I'll have to handle that. I should probably get that jacket off to make sure there's nothing big concealed under it... Wait, no! Idiot! She'll lose body heat like that!
Gritting teeth and venting what would be steam if this were a cartoon from his nostrils in a concentrative breath, he even went so far as to shake his head and rub his temples, gripping the end of her jacket with his other hand.
He honestly felt apologetic for how little of a reassuring air he was giving her here. He now more than ever understood why he didn't want to pursue the medical field at any point in his life: the pressure of holding a life so directly in your hands was palpable.
Hey, wait.
Hands.
He squeezed the jacket again, noting now that the end he held contained a pocket.
And that the pocket contained something hard and thin and rectangular. Not a credit card, but...
"Luke, spot me!"
It was then that Cian burst back into the room, hand already outstretched even within her protective barrier. She needed to come back for something, that much was obvious. Specifically to him, and he knew as well as anyone that he wasn't playing the team pack mule here. The only thing he could have had that they didn't was his drills, to get through a wall, or door—
Or something his charge could have used to get through said door. Something she could have used to get back in after it automatically locked. Something the team never realized they needed with the questionably operative power in the facility.
Something you'd need to get into a security room full of cameras in any other place.
He quickly swiped the object from her pocket, reaching out for the gunslinger to offer it up ASAP.
"Keycard, got it!"
Action spurred on action.
He made a choice.
As soon as she deftly plucked the card from his hand, he was already at work shedding his precious hoodie, intent on tearing as many pieces from the thing as he could to stop what bleeding he could. Blood loss was the most immediate thing he could both counteract and needed to worry about, but he was going to need two things for it to happen.
Cloth and steady, firm pressure.
Both I can do— I might need to change up my wardrobe, anyways.
A tank top for the rest of the mission wouldn't be too bad of a look if it meant he bought Priscilla time.
It'd certainly make things more okay than the alternative.
Her clothes were already thin as they were, but the absence of only a part of it proved to quickly take its toll on her. Although she had a Semblance that resembled that of a snake, Sangue was... not really a snake. Neither was she an actual snake nor a snake Faunus; her body did get affected by things most human beings could be exposed to. She knew that she did not undress for no reason, for the survivors were on the verge of freezing to death, and she had a lot more energy to spare than they did.
A young man who she had not seen before (at least in her memories) thanked her for helping the survivors out. She felt a bit better about herself and nodded and turned back to the weakened person next to her.
Everyone sat close to each other, though Lauren gave the young man a strange look. Judging by the way the brawler looked a bit tense, the swordswoman deduced that her friend did not trust him too well at that moment. Said man soon got up and brought warm coffee, handing Sangue a mug and letting one of the survivors have a sip. She respectfully received it from him and sipped the warm drink before she watched him down the mug quickly.
"..."
Looking down at her mug, and then at the man's, she mimicked the way he drank from the mug, albeit with a blank expression held throughout the entire thing. Sangue let out a quiet cough as she glanced at the man who gave her coffee once in a while, intrigued by the lighthearted air around him.
The cold became less prominent than before thanks to the drink.
Gratia Mindaro's fingers stopped moving, their rhythmic drumming falling silent immediately. The air grew harsh and uncomfortable, once more clouded with an immense fog of dirtied, sickly emotion. Bibere Vinum was active, greedily gulping down the very essence of her enemy's soul with the thirst of a dying man in an oasis. An eerie bloodlust had overtaken her, much as if she had found herself in the middle of a battlefield. Yet there was no battle here, no monsters she sought to slay, no fight to get her blood pumping, to give her the fulfilment and power very much craved. She had triumphed over Vitoria Dodici with insulting ease; there was nO FuN in crushing a crippled insect beneath her feet.
Instead, she despised it. A piece of scum; a filthy, mindless thing that thought itself human, and fell so far below the mark.
That was why she truly enjoyed this.
Watching it squirm.
"I could kill you," said the teenaged Huntress in a tone that could imply agreement, an undercurrent of distorted cheer running through her words, "but it should be quite obvious, even for a fucking funny farm escapee of all things, that, eurgh, i WaNT yOU alIvE ... for now."
It was unnecessary to leave Vitoria Dodici in the realm of the living. Removing the shitstain would be pest control ... charity work.
However -
A giggle.
"Come on, open that little mouth of yours wide. Just pretend I'm one of those million stinking cocks you gag on e̗̗᷁v̧̗̗e̗̗ͦr̛̗̗y̗̗̒d̮̗̜̗a̗̘̗y̗̗͌! It'd be a shame if I allowed Nuit to lower herself to trash of your level!"
So Millade went for the roof. That was Ben's observation, at least, once he could be sure that the body far below the base of the window couldn't be human. The dried blood on the wall said that whoever had climbed out (almost certainly Millade) was injured. Frankly, Bastille's leader wasn't too optimistic about her chances. If she'd been up there long enough for the blood to dry, she would have had minimal cover while the Grimm overran the facility. Still, they might have been too preoccupied with the other staff to check the roof. And, frankly, if this Millade was stubborn enough to shove a Grimm out a window instead of dying, then she might have been stubborn enough to stay alive.
Spite was a hell of an anesthetic.
Either way, he needed to either rescue or confirm her death. No way he was leaving anyone unaccounted for in this mess. He let Caletfwlch split again, just for the moment, while he slipped Artorius and Lawnslot back onto his belt. He'd need both hands free for climbing. He crossed over to the window in a few quick steps, pausing briefly to yell instructions back to Amy before he left. "Amy, get Moss out of her room and over to the cafeteria. I'm heading to the roof for Millade. Tell Lauren where I went, she'll tell you what to do from there."
"Back in a sec." Satisfied that the Hawk Faunus had heard him, he deftly swung his legs out of the window and braced his feet against the sill. His upper half followed a second later, hands reaching up to close around the top edge of the window and begin the process of pulling himself up. He was moving as quickly as he could to minimize the time he spent outside, using just a small Deinamig boost to give his arms the edge they needed to pull him up quickly and easily.
“Your Mistralian sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time in the lower end, some poor lower class whor-“ Vitoria began, she was stopped severely and instantly by a palm striking the side of her face, in an instant.
“Why don’t you tell me how mine sounds?” Bianca said moving ever closer to Vitoria’s trash compactor of a face. “Sais-tu combien de temps ta mère prend pour chier? Neuf mois.” Vitoria looked confused for a small moment. “You’re a piece of shit Vitoria.” Bianca said pulling herself up to the front seat with Graita. She dug her fingers into her knees as they shook violently.
“People like you, people like me.” Bianca began turning her head back to Vitoria with a look devoid of most things. “We’ll never get close to grasping the caliber of character that Gratia possesses. You understand.” Bianca didn’t inflect because there was no question in the phrase, rhetorical or otherwise. She was informing Vitoria of a fact. A fact that had been proven to Bianca painstakingly over the past couple minutes over and over. She would not let it go to waste. Nor would she hear any words that contradicted what she had proven to her today.
Vitoria was silent for a few moments, glancing at the locks which were dutifully barring her from attempting to jump from the vehicle. She looked at the Faunus’ wings dangled in front of her like a morsel in front of a starving women. They were bloody, the red and brown of dried blood staining the typically pristine white feathers that adorned Bianca’s pride and joy. Vitoria slowly, seemingly painstakingly sat herself up off the back seat of the vehicle. Keeping an eye on Bianca’s hand which held the handgun. She spared a few seconds to glance at the man in the back of the vehicle, who she kicked in an attempt to rouse. But with Gratia’s semblance as excited as it was the feast had taken its toll on him.
Vitoria saw no way out that ended without her in the ground or in a cell.
They say that it is unwise to keep an animal cornered with death on its mind for a long time. As the atmosphere grew heavy with Bibere Vinum and Vitoria’s wounds began to affect her ability to process rational thoughts adequately she watched her available options shrink as time continued its slow and eventual march forward. Her eyes darted around the van lacking in options but the stupid ones. So she took one.
Vitoria’s nails outstretched like the talons of a bird of prey she reached silently out for Gratia’s throat from behind her in the vehicle, she didn’t have much ground to cover, but Bianca had been looking at her, a detail Vitoria may have missed in the heat of the moment, in the unbearable silence that had followed the Faunus’ last words.
As Bianca watched Vitoria begin to reach forward she considered her semblance for approximately a quarter of a second, but with the amount of aura she had it wouldn’t have done anything. In less than one more second her ears rang uncontrollably, her hands shaking violently as Vitoria fell away from Gratia Mindaro and Bianca’s eyesight caved in from her peripheral vision focusing instead on what was directly in front of her.
She saw a star so bright it threatened to blind her. Gratia. Her best friend. Her finger had yet to release the trigger of the weapon, her legs shaking uncontrollably while streams of water fell from her eyes like a river that had just been unblocked.
The Nuit attempted to stammer something out. An apology perhaps. Maybe an excuse. A choice expletive would work as well. Some lucid part of her mind thought that it was good that Bianca would shoulder this weight over Gratia, it was for the best. She was already fucked up enough as it was. What was one more straw on the camel's back? She attempted to communicate that thought to Gratia, but she couldn’t move her tongue, it was made of lead and regret now. As her shaking continued, her hair was shimmied in front of her eyes, it was curtain call, and the show was over. Vitoria had accomplished the Dodici’s goal of creating a monster out of the canvas that had been delivered to them.
A pair of black-clad arms wrapped gently around Bianca, pulling her into an embrace, the soft, woolen fabric of the turtleneck warm against her clammy skin. If the dark tearstains forming on the jumper were a problem to the owner of the turtleneck, there was no indication. The face of the crying young girl was pressed up against a shoulder, the tears trailing down her pale cheeks like raindrops on a dusty windowpane continuing to soak into into the cloth.
They stayed that way, the silence broken only by the Faunus girl's choked sobbing and the quiet rumbling of the car engine.
"You really are a fucking birdbrain, aren't you, Bianca?"
A soft, tender voice - almost a whisper.
Gentle fingers ran gingerly through silky, snow-white locks.
Bianca was pulled into a soft embrace and for a brief moment in time, nothing changed. She sat there, awkwardly facing Gratia in the front of the SUV, weeping into the girl's shoulder. A ginger hand came up to meet her hair, decidedly and slowly made it's way through her hair. She did not deserve this. She could not be sav-
"You really are a fucking birdbrain, aren't you, Bianca?"
When Bianca was a little girl on the run in the poorer side of Mistral, she had met a younger Gratia. She remembered that she always regretted telling Gratia her first and last name, she'd never hear the girl call her by her first name because of it. It was a silly little thought.
The snowy owl dropped the gun as it clattered against the floor in the passenger side of the vehicle and embraced Gratia. Pulling herself farther into her guardian's shoulder. Her arms quickly found themselves around Gratia has she helplessly grasped at anything. She felt like she was finally not falling any longer. When she was being held still. Bianca's voice poked out through the silence that had quickly followed.
"Tell me what you need me to do and it's done." Bianca told her teammate. She was ready to be used or sent away. That was Gratia's call. "I'm alright now, I'm fine." Bianca's voice was raw, but steady. The girl felt more numb than fine, but numb could accomplish a mission, finish what they had started, perform a task.
The young girl was nuzzled further against the warm, black wool of the jumper. Close enough to feel her friend's soft breaths.
"I refuse to let you keep getting hurt."
The mission was to rescue Bianca. That was the only objective. To bring the girl back safe and sound.
Watching Bianca sob painful tears into her shoulder, fingers brushing delicately through a mess of white curls in hopes of bringing even the slightest comfort, Gratia Mindaro did not believe that the mission was at all a success. Before her was not the proud, excitable woman for whom the brightest of blue skies was a home. There were no warm, kindly smiles. There was no strong, supportive hand. There was none of Nuit's enthusiasm.
Only a little Faunus girl.
Just Bianca; lost and broken, cast away in stormy seas.
"Get some rest, Bianca," she said quietly, tone almost sisterly. "You've been through too much shit."
