Team RWBY and Qrow stared at Ozpin, who only stared at the ground.
"You hid all this from us, professor?" Ruby said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.
"I never wanted to hurt you." The former hero mumbled.
Before he could get another word out, Blake let out a choked cry as something tackled her. She drew Gambol Shroud and locked swords with her attacker. Yang ran over to help her but was swiftly intercepted by another creature, bearing a massive, serrated knife in its right hand and a wicked tekko-kagi on its left. Weiss was equally beset by a grimm that carried a lance. Meanwhile, a fourth crashed down, surrounded by Ruby, Qrow, and Oscar and raised a wicked looking halberd.
Everyone, including Ozpin in all his years had never seen grimm like this. They were very humanoid, but with white skin and black clothes. Each one wore a fearsome animal mask. Blake looked up from where their swords clashed to see a terrifying deer skull staring back at her with vacant, black eyes. Yang's opponent had the face of a lion, one of the eyes recently caved in and bloodied from Yang's opening punch. As Weiss dodged another lance stab, she saw its wielder had a fearsome owl skull for a head. The fourth glanced around, its hawk head swiveling to the remaining three before locking onto Ruby. Despite their human behaviors, the lion headed one let out out an animalistic snarl and the fight began.
Blake and Yang locked into a comfortable rhythm with their opponents. The deer masked grimm broke their blade lock and their battle began. After it's initial ambush, the tiger masked grimm faded into the treeline. The deer grimm was giving them their own problems. It's glaive was well-suited to close combat. Blake laid out a shadow clone backwards, and tagged out for Yang. The grimm closed in onto the shadow clone and sliced it in half. It looked up in what could be surprise as Yang caught it hard in the chest. It hit the ground with a thud, but before she could finish it off, the tiger returned, its face covered in blood and terrifying. The deer picked itself off, and in a very human move, brushed the snow off itself. Blood leaked from places where Blake's sword had caught it. Thick, black, blood pooled on the ground.
The tiger now seemed content to stay, and it focused solely on Yang. The grimm was perfectly content to trade blow after blow with Yang. She could hit hard, but the grimm could hit hard back. And it had the added bonus of carrying bladed weapons to accent each one of its blows. Off in the corner of her eye, Yang saw Blake resuming combat with the deer. It had laid off a bit, but it was still keeping pace with Blake. And now, it wasn't buying on her feints and shadow clones. The tiger's blades raked off Yang's gauntlet and she fired off a slug directly into the same eye. It kicked her up and back, and put its non clawed hand over the eye in pain, before looking up. Underneath the mask, Yang could sense the monster's fury. Where the deer had slowed down after its injuries and played it safer, the tiger only got faster and stronger.
Weiss's summons seemed to do, as Yang would say, "jack shit.". The grimm had large wings that unfolded from its back and kept it away from her knight or anything else she could get on the ground. She managed to get a nevermore at one point, and it simple pointed its lance forward, accelerated, and pierced the summon clean through. It seemed more than content to dive bomb in and out, weaving between her glyphs and getting in nasty stabs with its lance. It had high agility, but its style was as though a wrestler had tried to train someone in the art of fencing. What it lacked in precision, it made up for in strength as it drove its lance through a tree. More than strong or graceful, the thing was fast. It could move at insane speeds with only a beat of its wings. As it dove down again, Weiss readied her rapier. In a split second, it rolled to the right, but she was ready. Firing off a glyph, she lunged forward and got a clean stab through the creature's chest, pinning it to a tree. In that moment, everything stood still for Weiss. The raging battles in the background faded. The wind rustled the grimm's feathery wings, and blood began to seep out onto the ground around Myrnaster. Weiss found herself reaching for the owl skull mask. And then the grimm moved. Its hand shot up and punched her in the face, away from the mask. Weiss fell away, and it put both hands on Myrnaster and slowly pulled the rapier out of its stomach. It stared at the rapier. Most of the blade and some of the crossguard were no longer pure white, but stained a deep crimson. It threw the blade at Weiss, but instead of it colliding with her, it planted itself into the ground. With a raised eyebrow, the snow-haired girl picked up the weapon. And the second she did, the grimm resumed its assault. Despite her getting slice after slice onto the grimm, it was unrelenting and she felt her own aura dropping.
Qrow, Oscar, and Ruby stared at the last grimm and the battles raged around them. Qrow drew his greatsword, and Crescent Rose unfolded into its full form as they prepared their attack. The young leader looked to Ozpin for assurance, but none was to be found. As Ozpin stared at their attacker, he found himself unable to move.
"Professor?" came a voice only Ozpin could hear. Oscar was the only one to hear Ozpin's verbal reaction.
"It can't be."
The grimm extended its halberd and began its assault. Oscar's body was knocked to the side. He should have drawn his cane. He should have dodged the attack. But his body refused to move while under the control of the petrified professor.
Oscar seized control and the professor gave it willingly.
Qrow and Ruby were a fearsome team, but this grimm seemed to deal with them effortlessly. It knew exactly how to exploit their fighting - it never got too close to Qrow to where his buckshot and greatsword would truly be useful. It danced around his crushing attacks, and kept him at a distance where it could stab and slash away with its jagged halberd. With Ruby, it never closed the distance on her. Her scythe would only be effective if it were to get inside its limited range. She was able to outspeed it, but it seemed to know every move she was going to make before she even made it. They had yet to even land a hit. Qrow's luck impacted Ruby as much as the grimm, but the grimm adapted to every unlucky circumstance. Ruby burst into petals and flew towards the grimm. She closed the distance and reappeared, her scythe hooked around it's chest and her behind it. One rifle shot, and it would sever clean in two, like all other grimm before it. In response, it planted its hands flat onto the blade of the scythe. As she pulled the trigger, it leapt up, kicking its feet high above the weapon. The scythe's blade fell to the ground with the added weight, and the grimm kicked off Ruby's face and used the momentum to almost skewer Qrow.
Oscar stood up on his aching legs and extended Ozpin's, his, cane and approached the grimm that was giving two of his greatest fighters a run for their money. And for one moment in the past several months, Ozpin was silent.
Qrow, Ruby, and Oscar slashed and lunged simultaneously. In response, the grim leapt up and balanced itself on its halberd. Their attacks went through the halberd as if it was made of air. But the solid bruises forming suggested otherwise. Without missing a beat, it leapt back down and spun the halberd in a helicopter motion. It extended a hand, pointed at the three. And as it did, Ozpin's voice returned.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY"
So Oscar did. Both Ruby and Qrow ducked, and without a second between, a radiant blast of light collided with them, knocking them into a tree. Heat radiated through the freezing battleground. A quick slam of the halberd's butt end took both red and black fighters out of commission. Unconscious, but in grave danger.
"Right. Duck. Jump left. Stab right." Short commands flooded Oscar's head. And every one of them was correct. The grimm picked up the pace, as did Ozpin's commands. It seemed unable to hit Oscar, until finally, Ozpin told Oscar to roll left. And he rolled straight into a crushing sweep with the bladed part of the weapon. From there, Oscar could not recover as the grimm mercilessly beat him. Before he passed out, he saw everyone else dead.
"This is probably my shortest life yet."
Oscar was the first to wake up. Scattered on the snowy ground lay Qrow, Weiss, Yang, and Blake. Dull auras crackled around them, as each one sat up. Yang was the first to ask the question needling on everyone's mind.
"Why are we alive?" The grimm had never shown mercy before. But Weiss thought back to the grimm that gave her her sword before it finally overpowered her. She was the first to notice the lack of the elephant in the room.
"Where's Ruby?"
The eccentric leader of team RWBY was nowhere to be found. And gone with her, the lamp. Where Tyrian had failed, this new group of grimm had succeeded.