[IC] Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

[Plank Sinatra]

Lauren Negasi

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

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

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

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

Heehee.

[HereComesTheSnow]

Luke Schwarz

"I think we can all agree about that."

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

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

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

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

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

He said it as if it were already agreed upon.

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

Actually...

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

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

[Krayzikk]

Benjamin Lloyd: Brewing Storm

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

"Amy, hear anything?"

[Sho Minazuki]

Jack Orpheus | Brewing Storm Mission

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

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

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

[shadowkiller912]

Vega Venetia – Team VGNB – Outskirts of the City

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

[Crimmy]

Gratia Mindaro - Outskirts of the City

"You're fucking retarded."

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

It was shit.

Pure fucking shit.

Self-sacrificial, endangering bullshit.

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

It was clear that she believed the latter.

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

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

Her tone was icy, biting, filled with irritation.

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

[MULTI_MEDIA_MAN]

CODE COLLAB HERE WE GOOOO

As the group of Huntsmen traversed the forests that existed on the other side of the border, it wouldn’t be long before a small swarm of Ratatosks had managed to surround them. Hidden within the trees and bushes, their beady red eyes focused on them. They didn’t seem as though they were going to attack, however. No, instead they seemed completely content with their obvious observation of the group. Biding their time, they were waiting to see how they would respond to their presence. Watching for the right moment to make their first move.

Taking a ready position as the swarm of Grimm descended upon the team, Oswald looked between their foes and his team. “What are they waiting for?”

Cobalt took out the 27 Smasher and looked around at the enemies. “Be ready on the defense, but don't make the first move. Something is very wrong here.”

“Is there? They’re here, meaning they aren’t eating what we’re supposed to protect and we don’t have to search for several hours. Shall we call the air jockeys to rain bullets on this place and go home, lads?” Diamond raised an eyebrow. Although when she said it out loud, it did sound all too easy. Nothing ever went this smooth for them. There was probably a forced labor camp conspiracy hidden in this plot somewhere.

“Diamond, unless these Ratatosk are very, very old, they’re exhibiting anomalous behavior. If they wanted to attack, they would have either attacked or scattered to regroup. Not to mention….” His face scrunching up as he looked at the Grimm in front of him, Oswald cursed. “Fucking hell. They’ve all got those weird grass necklaces. I think that rules out the ‘pet’ theory…”

“Not only that, but we’re looking for Grievers. Not Ratatosk.” Cobalt looked at the grass necklaces and shivered. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have attacked that one Ratatosk.”

“So what, we just ask these to politely go away and kindly point us to the Grimm we feel like killing? Can we just do anything before they figure out how they wanna attack us? NOW you choose the careful approach, I swear I am going to hit you all one of these days.” Diamond growled, cane raised and ready to defend.

Sighing, Oswald rolled his eyes at the team before taking a moment to think. “These little bastards may be responsible for some damage, considering their….tendency to play with live wires, but I doubt these are our main target. To be honest, though, it might be worth it to eliminate them. Their very existence disgusts me.”

“Give me some fire dust and could burn those suckers up real good! Nice and toasty.” Emerald decided to cheerfully suggest, watching the Ratatosk carefully, her weapons at the ready.

“WITHOUT BURNING HALF THE FOREST DOWN, EMERALD.” This was more said playfully than angrily, but the idea was still there: burning forests was a bad idea. For now.

’Is it really worth it to attack? There are a lot of them and those are just the ones we see.’ Cobalt pursed his lips and let a heavy breath fall from his nose. “Let's keep moving forwards. I think we're outnumbered and surrounded at the moment and they don't seem keen to attack. They seem to recognize the threat we pose. But stay on guard.” He then proceeded to continue forwards, a bit more caution in his walk than usual.

Shrugging, Oswald followed after Cobalt, the Grimm left behind for another team to deal with. “Sure thing, bossman. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, after all.”

“Yeah. I see four fishes. In a very small barrel.” Diamond groaned. Her whole being screamed at her to make a break and run for it. “The fuck…” she grumbled for herself, backing away after them, watching the Ratatosks in the rear that seemed to just wait to pounce. “When you have time to think all you do is rush forward doing the first thing that comes to your mind, and then when you get surrounded by pissed off Grimm that seem to be smarter than usual, you have a discussion about what to do? The fuck is wrong with you people, you have it backwards!” her frustrations silently vented.

Turning to glare at Diamond, Oswald involuntarily tightened his grip on the supplies he was carrying. “Diamond, please, just shut up. These aren’t Itzamna, or Salamanders, or even Grievers. Ratatosk pose almost no risk, even to civilians. I’d bet any one of us could handle that whole swarm bare-handed. Pick your battles.”

The numbers of the Ratatosks had amassed to immense proportions. Potentially hundreds of them had gathered and surrounded the Huntsman from all sides of the wooded forests. In unison, the Grimm finally made their decision and acted. Letting loose a horrific shrill screech that would peal clearly for miles around. It was all merely a distraction. In force, they all zerg rushed out from the tree lines and made for the Huntsmen. It wasn’t a mad and disorganized swarm however, the army of rats had gathered into four concentrated platoons. One for each of the students. Internally, the creatures knew many of them would probably die. But they seemed to not care or hesitate any longer. They were dead-set in their mission, moving as if they were one writhing amalgam of a larger beast.

Closing the distance in a very short amount of times, the large swathes of rodents then lunged at all sides and attempted to blanket the Huntsmen with their bodies. The strangest part of all? None of them directly attacked. Instead, they were intent on biting/gnawing/clawing at whatever the Huntsman had in their possession. Feverishly trying to strip the Huntsmen of whatever they didn’t have secured to them. Weapons, ammunition, armor, articles of clothing, whatever their little mouths and claws could take hold of. Whatever held any inkling of importance to the Huntsmen, the creatures wanted. Just as quickly as they poured out from the forests to ‘attack’, grabbing whatever they could they then all ditched. The four semi-organized groups of Ratatosks then scattered in four opposite directions, running away from the Huntsmen. Swiftly attempting to steal away what they had and disappear forever, the little thieves.

“What the fuck just happened?” Oswald, now missing all of the supplies he’d had, save for his weapons and the turret repair parts, stared off into the woods where the Ratatosks had run off with his stuff. “They...those little shits just stole our stuff!”

Cobalt swung towards one of the groups of Ratatosks and began firing off multiple shots at them, killing a couple dozen. “Those little shitstains just took all of our supplies!” He exclaimed in surprise. He growled and began thinking. “Everyone head after the group who took Oswald’s supplies! He had the most stuff!” ’They even took my scarf and gloves… crap. Now that his scarf was gone, one could see a variety of scars all over his neck. Cobalt shook his head and ran after the group of Ratatosk that had attacked Oswald, firing at them while doing so.

“I hate always being right!” Diamond shouted as she skewered three grimm at once on her cane. One of the bastards tried to make a grab for her hat and was treated to the destructive effect her kinetic spells had on living organisms, causing black chunks of gore flying everywhere. She managed to protect the hat, but in the process the grimm somehow snatched the bag she took off of Oswald before. For once though she didn’t have a problem following his plan of action and went after the monsters. What they should have done with the first one, but she decided to point that out after the mission.

Awkwardly following after his teammates while carrying the repair parts, Oswald grunted in frustration. ’God damn rat bastard shitheads. Since when do they pull this crap?! They’re clever for Grimm, but not like this.’

Emerald’s weapons shook the very ground as she blasted Ratatosks as they went on their little thieving attack. The cat faunus managed to use her semblance to keep the rodents away from her before they could steal anything on her person, unfortunately it seemed her teammates weren’t quite as lucky. Emerald let out an angry, almost feral hiss before charging after the little thieves, blasting away with her shotguns as she did. They weren’t getting away on her watch!

The Ratatosks that held bits and pieces of Oswald’s equipment and supplies looked behind them at the pursuing Huntsmen with a sense of alarm. Realizing that they were essentially selected for death, they opened up their ranks as they began to weave in, out, and around the trees. Trying to break up their running patterns to confuse and slow down the young Huntsmen. Rapidly evolving their plans, the Ratatosks that held anything then decided to break off and split the platoon. Each going in different directions as they ran deeper in the woods and further away from the wall.

“Of course they would split up! We should just follow one of them, we can hunt the rest down later!” Since it was his supplies that the team was hunting, Oswald felt comfortable stating the obvious. If Cobalt wanted to give a different order, though, he would consider it, so long as it wasn’t colossally stupid.

Initially she followed, but now that the grimm split up again, Diamond wasn’t so sure anymore. The resources invested were starting to far outweigh the gains - she had no illusions about ‘hunting them down later’ - they’d never find a single grimm carrying a box, and she didn’t care what kind of hunting tricks her Oswald could have known - it couldn’t be done. The forest was too big and a ratatosk with an ammo box too damn small. “I don’t like this.” In truth, she didn’t know what was the correct thing to do, and that scared her more than a smart swarm of grimm did. “Focus on the loot-” she wanted to slap herself, “-the mission! Focus on the mission. Turrets are not why we’re here.” she said, more thinking out loud than actually suggesting anything, her mind working in afterburner mode, trying to see a method behind what the Grimm were doing.

Cobalt wanted to cry in frustration. This was insane! No Ratatosk should be this smart, let alone an entire swarm of them. He sliced down a few trees that were getting in their way and muttered obscenities under his breath. “We can't chase these fuckers down. They're too fast and…” ’Wait, where are we even going?’ Cobalt slowed down time and began to think. ’It's obvious that these things are crazy smart for a group of Ratatosk. They've tried to split us up multiple times now, but why? The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they're leading us away from somewhere or they're leading us to somewhere. The question is WHERE?’ “Hold up guys, something seems off here. They're trying way too hard to split us up? I think Oswald is on the right track, we need to track one of them to their nest. Unless anyone else has any suggestions?”

Oswald shrugged as he looked at his team leader. “Diamond’s right about the turrets. No point in carrying these things any more. I say we head back a little ways outside the forest, dump this crap, and go searching for our mark. Our job is to kill some Grimm. Fixing the turrets was a secondary objective. Unless we go back and fix them now, we’re probably better off leaving the parts for someone else to take care of.”

“your instincts have proven right before.” Diamond said in mock Oswald voice, “The ‘Shut up.’ And now ‘Diamond’s right’ again. Make up your mind you inconsistent man.” Diamond sighed. “But that’s not my point. We initially assumed that normally, Grievers which were said to be the problem here, are nocturnal creatures and will hit at night. Now, we’ve seen no grievers, and what grimm are here behave anything but normal. Which means, while we’re here, the farms… oh hell….” she facepalmed, hoping her pessimism wasn’t right this time.

“While it’s against my nature to assume intelligence from Grimm….this situation is far from normal.” Oswald groaned. “We can’t defend and attack without splitting the team.”

Cobalt thought on a plan of action for a minute and groaned mentally. This was such a clusterfuck it wasn't even funny. He was woefully unprepared for this type of situation on his first mission. “The best offense is a good defense. That's how the saying goes anyways. We need to defend, they want us to go after them.” Cobalt spoke his thoughts out loud and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Then again, maybe they want us to go on defense and we're playing into their hands. I hate intelligent Grimm.”

Emerald rolled her eyes at Diamond and Oswald’s bickering as she kept her eyes on where the Grimm were up ahead. “You guys are overthinking this...they clearly want us to follow them, so instead let’s just go back, drop of the turret parts, and figure out things from there.”

“Actually, if I were overthinking it, we’d be wondering whether this was what they wanted us to do after all.” Chuckling, Oswald nodded. “I’m mostly inclined to agree with that idea, Emerald. But we only have a limited amount of time to do this, even if that time seems long right now. Perhaps two of us should return the parts while the other pair investigates. We can use our Scrolls to communicate with each other and discuss our locations.”

“For the love of god here you go again, quit talking about it, DO IT!” Diamond said, massaging her temples as she turned around and walked away in the direction of the town, otherwise none of them would move an inch in the next five minutes.

Teleporting in front of Diamond with his arm out, Oswald growled. “Do not try to order us around, Diamond. I’d barely tolerate Cobalt doing it, but you? Not a chance in hell. Or do you not recall this team’s track record with just ‘doing it’?” His voice was calm and level, but his face gave off a great vibe of frustration and anger.

Barely able to keep herself from throwing a punch, Diamond took a deep breath to calm herself down. “Oh? So it’s ‘don’t order us around’ until shit hits the fan like last week, when it was suddenly fine while everyone else froze up?” She growled back, her tone far from composed. “And yes, I remember, but circumstances differ, that was my entire point earlier! At the time there was time to consider things, now there’s not! You can not take one example and keep applying it forever, that will never work.” she said a little calmer.

She couldn’t help but think this would have been wonderful topic to discuss in their prep time, as they should have had. “Now, we are facing an unknown, and the farms we’re supposed to protect are left unchecked when Grimm that are showing abnormal levels of intelligence are prowling around. What if this was a diversion, did you think of that?” She drawn a heavy breath, pushing past Oswald. “I can’t order you to follow me. I’m not the leader on paper, and I wouldn’t even if I were, I think I conveyed that much in the morning. But I am through doing things like we are until now - it obviously isn’t working. Look at us! Fighting like this in the middle of a task. I’m going to check up on the wall and farms, you do what you want.”

Letting Diamond pass him, Oswald sighed. “Adults discuss things. Children do what they want. I’m done playing diplomatic. Cobalt, prove yourself. Make a decision, and enforce it.”

Cobalt's eye twitched as Oswald and Diamond fought. He looked at Emerald and sighed. ’Can I make Emerald leader? She seems like she would be a lot better at it.’ Cobalt rubbed the back of his head and closed his eyes. “You know what? Fuck it. We're going back to the farm and we're going to wait for the inevitable attack from some species of Grimm. We're going to wipe them out like the badass team we are, and we're going to stop yelling at each other for something THAT HAPPENED A WEEK AGO AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!” Cobalt breathed heavily for a second and groaned. “I didn't mean to yell. I just have no idea what the hell everyone is so angry about. It's frustrating being left out of the loop. Let's just go to the farm and begin preparing for the Grimm assault.” Cobalt looked back to Diamond. “And Diamond. Please don't wander off without us. I understand that you think we have limited time, but walking away is exactly what the Grimm have been trying to make us do for the past hour.”

Oswald nodded at Cobalt and sighed. “Stay out of the loop on this one. For your own good, Cobalt. Suffice to say, our last mission ended much worse than it should have because the plan didn’t get followed. Alright, we’re moving out to the farm? Got it.”

Diamond slowed her pace down as she walked to listen, coming to a stop once CObalt raised his voice, only half listening to the rest of it. She took her scroll out of her pocket, and wrote a quick text.

To: Prof. Vanhomrigh
Subject: Send help
This team is falling apart. I’m worried we’ll fail. Send help.

She just couldn’t have that on her conscience. Last time it was couple dozen mistreated people. Thousands could starve here if they fucked up. Her thumb hovered over the send icon, but after she heard how the discussion ended, she saved it to drafts instead and pocketed the device again.

She wanted this to work. She signed up because she decided she wanted to bring some degree of normalcy (and legality) to her life, and this was one of the few options where people didn’t ask too many questions, glad for every recruit they could get. The ex-thief had nothing to resort to if she failed here. Who can blame her for being a bit on edge? Still, they were right about one thing, bringing it up now was doing equal harm.

Waiting for the rest to catch up, she couldn’t help but notice one thing: Somehow she always got people to do what she said thus far. Huh. Weird. Perhaps I could like being in charge? Well, not up to me. Only the three of them can put me there and like hell that’s happening. Sighing, she loosened up. “I’m… sorry too. I say too much of what I think, but… I mean well, OK?”

“Pretty sure we all do, Diamond. We just happen to disagree on shit.” Sighing, Oswald kept moving.

--

For a good while, the Ratatosks continued their ducking and weaving within the trees. After some time, the swarms came to realize that they were no longer being chased and all slowed to a crawl. Within the swarms, the few Ratatosks that held some semblance of authority and leadership signaled for a complete halt with a series of chitters and squeaks. They all fell silent, raising their noses to the skies as their beady little eyes feverishly scanned their surroundings.

The Huntsmen gave up. They no longer gave chase. Perfect. Realizing this, the ‘leaders’ of the swarms quickly reorganized their compatriots. Abandoning and discarding most everything they were able to temporarily snatch from the young Huntsmen save for one particular thing. Increasing their numbers around the crates of Dust Ammunition, they all focused on moving the explosives as swiftly as they could deeper into the forests and further away from the Huntsmen and the protective border.

It took them some time as the swarms had to travel quite a ways, but eventually they made it to their destination. The forests that surrounded the farmlands only lasted for so far. Where the treelines ended, a mountain range and network of cave systems started. Thanks to the natural formation of the land, sentient human and faunus life won the dice throw in the gamble for fertile farmland surrounded by natural protective barriers. The defensive line of automated turrets and massive border wall were just a simple addition to security, more for peace of mind than anything. Once all was said and done the residents of the area and the overseeing bodies of government saw that the measures they had taken were more than enough to stave off and ward away any Grimm that may have come knocking at their doors.

But, unfortunately for the parties involved, the particular ‘tribe’ of Grimm that took up home in the mountains and caves were well experienced in survival. They were tenacious, they were highly intelligent, and they were incredibly persistent. Of the Grimm encountered so far this ‘tribe’ consisted of near equal parts Ratatosk and Grievers. Only a few of the scores of Grimm were the true masterminds behind the survival of their ilk. Old, scarred, and battered. They shared their knowledge with the newborns and the fledgling Grimm. They knew they were neither the fastest or strongest of their kind and were hardly a blip on the radars of the Kingdoms of Huntsmen that they clashed with. All the better as it allowed them to learn how to remain undetected. To glide and fly under the watching eyes of the nations before it was time for them to act and make themselves known.

And it was most certainly time. Tired and exhausted, the swarms of Ratatosks stopped with their four crates of explosive Dust in front of a gaping cave mouth. The leaders of the swarms knew that the sun hadn’t yet fallen so their superiors were yet to waken. But, the early bird catches the worm so they say. Things were moving along rather well and quickly, all the more time to use to safely cushion and pad their plans. The leaders of Ratatosks, who bore woven grass necklaces stood and in unison shrieked their cries into the mouth of the cave. Sustaining their screech for a good minute. Falling silent, they then waited. Their kin who weren’t as old and knowledgeable as the ones who wore the grass necklaces were nervous. It showed in how they looked around constantly, quietly chittering and squeaking as they fidgeted in place.

From within the blackened caves, motion could be detected. Near imperceptible noises and sounds could be heard only by the ears of the Grimm and faunus. It was almost as if the cave itself was alive. Writhing and grumbling as it moved disturbed in its slumber. Then, a pair of glowing red eyes popped into existence from within the darkness. Then a second pair. A third. A fourth. Before long, hundreds of red eyes opened and gave the cave entrance an odd look like that of a tunnel lined with nothing but glowing red eyeballs. Pleased with themselves, the Ratatosks then slowly dragged the crates of Dust into the cave. As it rumbled with the sinister growls and snarls of their superiors, happy with how the way events were transpiring so swiftly. Soon, they would all be ready. Only a few things were left before it was time to act. They would wait until nightfall. They would wait for the Hunters. Then, it would be over. The crates dragging up dirt, sand and rock made echoes as they disappeared deeper into the abyss.

---

As they walked back, Diamond was in thought. Halfway through, she sighed. “We should call for help. I mean, this mission already far exceeded what we were told it would be, no? Swarm of smart grimm the size of an army, they can’t expect four rookies to defend against that now that we, admittedly due to our fault, lost the equipment to bring the defenses online. Which is something we should probably report in any event, uncommon behavior would interest at least Port.” she frowned. This would probably cost them their credits but she was beyond worrying about that at this point.

“I have to agree. Frankly, even back home where we had to worry about Grimm incursions every other week, our intelligence on them was extremely lackluster. There were basic behavioral patterns we were taught, but this suggests that the Grimm are capable of even greater things than we’d previously believed.” This mission was a mess overall, but it seemed that their team was doomed to suffer such injustices forever.

“Red smoke calls Vanhomrigh for an emergency. We can get her via Scroll as well, so once we come up with a plan, we should probably contact her. We have at least Ratatosks to worry about.”

Emerald sighed as they walked. “You sure it isn’t too soon to call for help? Maybe we can handle it just fine.” The cat faunus thought calling for help so soon was a lame idea. So what if the Grimm were a little smarter than normal? That didn’t make them immune to their firepower. “It’s your call of course Cobalt…”

“As opposed to not being able to handle it and having thousands of lives on our hands because we were worried our pride would get hurt?” Diamond said, mockingly spitting into her hands and brushing them together. “THAT, was me washing my hands of that, in case you’re wondering.” the thief frowned.

Emerald turned to look at Diamond slowly. “Look if you can’t handle a few rats that’s your problem, don’t lump me into it.”

Diamond shrugged, her tone calm, “I can handle a few just fine. Even a couple dozen. But a swarm who could crush me by their weight alone, which I don’t know where they will come from, while I have an area entirely too big for four people to watch… Yes, I can’t handle the unknown. And I couldn’t handle if I made someone freeze and starve in the winter so I can feel better about myself. Which is funny since probably unlike you I hardly have anyone left that I would care about so much.”

Emerald scoffed. “Use all the excuses you want, you’re all just scared and have zero confidence. No one has to starve we just do our fucking job and kill the Grimm. But none of you want to do that sooo…” Emerald turned around starting to walk back the other way. “You guys do whatever...I’m gonna do what we should of done in the first place.”

“You’ll be the first to die, kitten. If you go alone, that is. Cobalt, permission to form a strike team with Emerald and go find these Grimm bastards?” Oswald gave Emerald a harsh look, but stopped after a moment and smiled warmly at her. Lowering the turret parts to the ground, Oswald waited for a response.

“You can all go. I’ll be within the walls setting up defense, there isn’t that much that can possibly happen to me.” Diamond shrugged, walking the opposite way. She wasn’t sure just what she could do other than set up some lights for the night, but she would first have to see what the ghost town would have to offer.

Cobalt sighed and began rubbing in his forehead anxiously. “Permission granted Oswald. Report if anything goes wrong, and I do mean anything. I'm staying with Diamond to set up defense.” He turned away from Oswald and started following Diamond. A minute passed and Cobalt was completely silent. All he was doing was tugging up the collar of his shirt to try and cover his neck more. He looked back and sighed in both relief and irritation once he saw they were gone. “Am I a bad leader Diamond? I feel like everything I've done has led to the worst case scenario.” He asked quietly as he continued to tug at his collar.

“Alright!” Emerald cheered, looking at Oswald the moment they had permission to leave and started heading back towards the forest, not even giving Cobalt and Diamond a second glance. “You ready to kick butt?”

Looking back to Diamond and Cobalt as he started walking with her, Oswald gave the pair a nod. “Hell yeah! Ratatosk, Grievers, shit, throw a few Redcaps or something in there, too!”

Pulling out his Scroll, Oswald quickly sent a message to Diamond: I’ll take care of her. Don’t worry.

[Suku]

Cian Kuze | Brewing Storm Mission

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

[shadowkiller912]

Vega Venetia – Team VGNB – Zephyr

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

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

[Princeofhearts]

@Lugubrious

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

[Crimmy]

Gratia Mindaro - Zephyr

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

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

Safety was paramount.

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

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

She was the leader, after all.

Gratia Mindaro lacked that responsibility.

[Forsythe]

Cobalt Chideta & Diamond Frost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But nobody came.

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

---

Oswald Connoly & Emerald Felicia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Home.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Esther Vanhomrigh

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

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

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

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

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

[Lugubrious]

Defend a Caravan

@shadowkiller912@Herecomesthesnow@write

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

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

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

Brewing Storm

@suku@herecomesthesnow@krayzikk@kaithas@plank Sinatra@narayank@sho minazuki

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

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

-MEANWHILE-

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

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

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

---@princeofhearts---

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

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

[Krayzikk]

Benjamin Lloyd: Brewing Storm

"Well, saw that comin'."

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

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

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

[Crimmy]

Gratia Mindaro - Zephyr

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

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

Gratia Mindaro stepped through the doors.

Her cold, silent gaze met the receptionist's.

[HereComesTheSnow]

Luke Schwarz — 0-60 mph

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

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

!

!!!

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

Same basic idea either way!

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

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

Wait, these three weren't alone!

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

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

Alright, and able to work freely.

Something resembling inspiration lit up his head.

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

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

Probably.

[Nytem4re]

PART 1

Team RGTS - Capture The Fort

---

As Trad and Grane ran the sounds of the Grimm got fainter. Either they were finally putting distance between them and the hoard, or Robert's idiotic plan was actually working. No Trad didn't agree with what their leader did, in fact he was going to try and stop him, but the enemies closing in left little time to run him down. Plus, he was already carrying the portable battery, so forcefully carrying Robert with them wouldn't have been possible.

Despite all that had happened and all they had lost, Trad was suddenly filled with hope as the fort came into view. It wasn't much, just the towers and what looked to be the top of the walls, but it meant they were nearly there. "Grane, we're almost there! We just gotta keep—"

Trad's feet and his words came to a halt as something caught his eye. There was a woman trailing the Grimm! But more importantly, her dark gauntlets and combat ready clothing made one thing clear, she was a Huntress.

Trad glanced to where Grane was to see if he had kept going without him or stayed to watch his back. Either way, with one man down and possibly two, backup was definitely something the team needed.

She must have caught sight of them, for her head snapped towards the pair and she angled her path towards them. It was not as if stealth was a major concern at that point, and a pair of men in a mad dash away from the forest, one of them hauling a battery pack, must have been a fairly distinctive sight.

The constant growling and snarling coming from up ahead made it difficult to lose track of the horde of monsters, and Sand had tried to make sure nothing would start chasing after her. She had forced herself to a hurried jog, rather than an outright sprint when entering the forest, reluctant to advertise her presence to the Grimm in case this was little more than a false alarm. The two men rushing in her direction indicated it was more than that.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked as she drew nearer, close enough to see the weapons they shouldered. Two Hunters? That was good. Better than the defenseless group of civilians she had feared encountering. Still, it was clear by the fading roars that the Grimm were not following after them. And if not them, then who? "Are there others in your group?"

Grane stopped as the unknown female addressed the two. The Grimm were getting closer, and he didn't want to delay their trip to the fort any longer. She was almost as tall as Grane, with tan skin and snow white hair. Was she a civilian or something? Possibly, but seeing how there was an abandoned fort nearby Grane couldn't really see a reason why she was here. It wasn't safe for any Faunus or human. Hell, it wasn't safe for the Hunters. "Unless you're deaf, you've probably heard a shit ton of Grimm coming our way. We already had someone killed and someone back there about to die, so I'd suggest you just come with us to the fort." There wasn't a point going back for Robert, since he had volunteered to die anyway.

"Grane!" Trad snapped at his teammate after his insensitive remarks, but quickly pulled back since the last thing they needed was more infighting. "As far as we know Robert is still out there running for his life. Until proven otherwise we need to do all we can to save him and right now that's getting to the fort and radioing for backup."

Turning to their newcomer Trad tried to speak calmly, but after being chased by hundreds of Grimm it was hard to hide the urgency in his voice. "Look, we need to get into that fort and establish a connection with the nearest base to send reinforcements. You look like you know how to fight and as my friend said we've already lost a man and if we don't hurry it'll be two. Would you be willing to help us?" A loud call from a Harpy broke the calm moment. "We need to move!"

"I'll help. It's the reason I came out here." Sand's gaze remained fixed on the one who had spoken first as she answered. She broke eye contact to look at Trad. "But you got it wrong. You're not going to break into the fort and radio for help in time for rescue to come. For all you know, the radio is busted anyway. The only timely help your friend will have will need to come from us."

"I think we're better off without his help. Fucking got his own teammate killed. So much for a 'leader'. Even if I did care enough to go back for his sorry ass, it would just end up with us being swamped by dozens or even hundreds of Grimm. Even if the radio is busted, we've got better chances hoping for something working at the fort than going back for our glorious leader." It could have been odd for this stranger to hear of a team ditching their leader, but back in the day Grane had done it several times in his unit.

It was one thing for an individual of the unit to fuck up, as it would normally just lead to their death. But a leader? That spelled doom for the entire unit, whether the individuals were smart about what they did or not. "Say what you want, but I'm headed to the fort with or without you. Your choice."

Sand certainly found it odd. Offensive, even. She looked at the man as if he had grown an extra head and had to bite back a heated response. Instead, she took a breath and rubbed at her temple with one gauntleted hand. The cool metal helped her steady her thoughts. Whatever they did, this argument could wait.

"Fine. I'll head out, see if your leader is still alive. Keep him that way if he is." Whether you like it or not.

She did not give voice to that last thought. The man may not have given off the most sterling of first impressions, but she was not there to make enemies. There was little point to burning bridges before one crossed them.

Moving past the two, Sand sprinted deeper into the forest, her attention once more focused on the horde of Grimm and its quarry.

As the Huntress ran off Trad had a sudden realization. "Did we get her name?" he asked his scaly companion. It was a trivial thing but something strange to not get from someone they were entrusting to save their foolish leader. This wasn't the time for that though as now they had to get back to the original plan; fortifying their position while getting that radio up and running. Wasting no more time they continued their mad dash to the fortress hoping they could still be ready for the hoard of Grimm that would come with Robert's return. If he ever returned...

---Meanwhile---

While what remained of Robert's team were making a new friend, the team leader was making a mad dash through the forest, trying to put as much distance between the Grimm and his friends. "Gotta keep going. Can’t stop. Have to keep running," he said to himself between large gasps of air. In his tunnel vision-like focus to get away though, Robert wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. A small, fallen tree lay in the middle of his path, tripping up his feet and sending him face-first toward the ground. He was now caked in mud and dirt, but that didn’t stop him. The creatures of Grimm were right on his tail and if he stopped for even a moment it would assuredly lead to his demise. Robert rolled and used the momentum to rise back up on his feet as he continued sprinting, grabbing his side where the Beowolf had tried to use him as a scratching post.

Another several minutes passed before the red-haired hunter-in-training ran into any more trouble. Apparently a Boarbatusk had been faster than its fellow Grimm and was quickly approaching Robert from behind. There was no time to maneuver, he had noticed it too late, and so the Grimm rammed into the back of Robert's legs and sent him back to the ground. Looking back up, he saw the Grimm coming back for another pass, ready to trample the boy into the ground. Robert was about to roll out of the way when he realized that this would probably be his chance to get rid of this annoyingly quick footed Grimm. So the redhead raised his arms and tried his best so, when the Boarbatusk made its second pass, he'd be able to use his weapons to stab its underbelly where it was weakest. "Fingers crossed."

Robert closed his eyes and buried his head into the Earth, hoping to make his head as small of a target as possible in case his plan didn't work out. Seconds later he felt a sudden amount of force push against his arms and a hoof land on his jaw. Robert looked up to see the slowly disappearing Grimm as it dissipated into smoke. "Holy- It frickin' worked!" A loud roar burst from the trees behind him, reminding Robert of the danger that he was in. "Need to keep going," he said as he got up from the ground. "Probably far enough away now that all I need to worry about is my escape. Easier said than done of course."

His face full of panic, Robert frantically searched for somewhere to hide. Some way to get rid of the Grimm that he had successfully gotten to follow him. "At least step one of the plan I only now came up with is complete. Hopefully covering myself in all this mud and dirt will make tracking nigh impossible," he thought out loud. "And hopefully I've made them lose sight of me... This plan of mine is really counting on a lot of luck isn't it? Something that experience has taught me I don’t usually have. I am so screwed."

Robert managed to slay one of the beasts, but his time spent killing it was just enough for the rest of the pack to arrive. Instead of just two or three however, a total of 7 Boarbatusks arrived, with one large and mean one so big that it could not avoid the trees, but toppled them over. And while they could not smell Robert due to his filth, they could sense him in other ways. His regret and uncertainty. Delta's apparent death was still fresh enough for the Grimm to track Robert by. It wasn't long before the Boarbatusks were able to get a general location of where Roberts was hiding. But instead of charging at him all together, they surrounded the area. Then, using their tusks, started to tear the trees out of the ground. If Robert was hiding in the trees, they intended to knock him out of it. No stone was left unturned, literally; even boulders were shattered and scattered by even the smallest of the armored boars.

And this was just the Boarbatusks. Soon Creeps arrived to the scene and started to look around, and soon the Beowolves will arrive as well. If Robert stayed to hide, he would surely be caught in the center of the horde. And if he could not escape, he would be found.

When Robert spotted the incoming Boarbatusk, he knew his plan of hiding wasn’t going to work out. "Well... If I'm going down, it won't be sitting down. At least everyone else got away. Good to know I'm not dying for nothing," he said before turning his weapons to their ballistic form and firing at the closest Boarbatusks. It was a longshot, but maybe he could blind a few by shooting out their eyes. Make it easier for when he'd have to get under them and finish them off.

All Robert accomplished was revealing his position as the bullets bounced off the Boarbatusk's face plate. Turning their heads towards the sound of the gunshots, the Boarbatusk were the first to get to charge at Robert’s position, even trampling over the Creeps to get to him. The biggest of the Boarbatusks (Henceforth known as "Bob the Boarbatusk" or Bob for short) led the charge, his scarred armored plates making his age and experience, if his sheer size alone didn't already convey that. He easily toppled over any obstacle in his path, and Bob intended to gore Robert on his horns and moisturize his body with Robert's organs.

"Screw this!" Robert shouted as he saw the ineffectiveness of his attacks. He quickly sprinted toward a nearby tree and scampered to the top at speeds that would put even an Olympic athlete to shame. After all, fear is a great motivator. Clinging for dear life, the boy hoped in vain that maybe the tree would be thick enough that maybe it wouldn't be knocked down by Bob's immense strength. It wouldn't be of course. Robert had assuredly met his doom... unless someone miraculously showed up to save his sorry ass.

The tree didn't stand a chance. Bob ran up to the tree, sundering its trunk with a slash of its tusk. But worse still, the Beowolves had arrived. And as the tree fell, they swarmed around Bob and his buddies, and soon Robert faced a veritable hill of Grimm swarming to meet him. A mass of darkness that intended to engulf him, and bury him under the regret and shame he brought upon himself. Hungry beasts clawed out to grab Robert and pull him into the shadows, tearing him apart and revealing that in the end, he couldn't even die with his team.

[Sho Minazuki]

Jack Orpheus | Brewing Storm

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

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

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

[Abillioncats]

Cobalt Chideta & Diamond Frost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Oswald Connoly & Emerald Felicia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Esther Vanhomrigh

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CODE

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

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

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

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

“I am an indestructible stronghold.
I am an unshakable rock.
I am a precious stone.
I am the luck of the week.
May I live a hundred times a hundred years,
Each hundred of them apart,
as I summon their boons to me.
May the grace of the Divine be upon me!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From within the burning wreckage..

Coughcoughcough!

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

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

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

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

---

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

[Write]

A Friend in Need

----- Gratia Mindaro -----

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

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

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

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

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

“Name’s Sonny Dodici, yours is?”

-----VGNB-----

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