Beacon was filled with Grimm of all shapes and sizes. They roamed the abandoned streets, no longer bothering to rip apart the dwellings that humans and faunus alike had once inhabited. The prey they had once sought was no longer there. They had all been exterminated or evacuated on a dark night full of betrayal and hurt. The massive form of a Goliath froze, turning its head towards the outer courtyard of the school, ears out stiff as it listened. The other Grimm around it paused, turning their heads in the same direction. When the Goliath turned its whole body towards whatever had caught its attention and started to move, a herd of smaller Grimm followed it.
Four teenagers were waiting patiently for someone to take note of their presence, spread across the crumbling stone of the front courtyard of the once magnificent school. The two girls of the group were sitting cross legged on a patch of mostly even stone. The elder of the two, with dark hair pulled into a ponytail over a slim shoulder and bunny ears a darker shade than her mother's sticking out of that hair on the top of her head, had her eyes closed. Her breathing was slow and even, her posture completely relaxed despite the very real danger surrounding her, and she seemed to resonate with peace. The younger of the two was watching vigilantly for trouble at her friend's side, blonde curls bouncing and swishing over her shoulders with each turn of her head. Her ruby eyes were narrowed and her pink lips were pulled into a sour frown that looked almost natural on her tanned face.
Laying a few feet behind them on top of a toppled pillar was a dark haired young man. What appeared to be a sawed off shotgun was lying across his stomach, various colored bullets stored in color coded pouches on his belt. He was staring up at the distant forms of a few circling Nevermores that hadn't quite worked up the nerve to swoop down after he'd taken a shot that had set a Nevermore's wing on fire. Sitting with his back against the same fallen pillar was a brunette haired young man with serious silver eyes. Resting in his lap was what appeared to be a simple crossbow at first glance. Upon closer inspection though, someone would notice that the weapon was actually the love child of a machine pistol and a crossbow, a fitting weapon for a hunter.
The two females were armed, just like their male counterparts. The dark haired young woman had a bull whip coiled at her hip with a space at the handle where dust cartridges could be inserted for an elemental touch. Arm guards similar to an archer's protected her from a flick of the whip going awry and cutting into her own skin. The blonde next to her had a short sword resting in its sheath at her left. The blade was a little over two feet long, hidden away by the red sheath with a black diamond design, and the pommel was wrapped in red and black alternating stripes. Her hands were poised on her lap, ready to reach for the weapon at the first hint of trouble.
The dark haired girl's eyes opened as the vibration of heavy footsteps traveled through the ground. "The Grimm are coming," she said, voice soft and level as the blonde beside her reached for her short sword with her right hand, removing it from its sheath with a metallic hiss.
"Finally," the dark haired young man said, rolling off the pillar and almost kicking the brunette young man in the head. "Something fun to do."
"I can't believe you sometimes," the brunette replied in fond exasperation. "We've lived in a war zone our entire life, a situation which would put most people off fighting permanently, and yet you're always eager to go toe to toe with Grimm."
"I'm with Malachi," the blonde girl chimed in, rising to her feet. "We stepped through the rabbit hole an hour ago and this is the first sign of action we've seen."
"Sometimes I wonder how we're related," the brunette boy sighed, pulling a crossbow bolt out of of bag slung over one shoulder and loading it into his weapon.
"Now is not the time for a repeat of that conversation," the dark haired girl interjected, uncoiling her whip from her side. "When we do not have a fight on our hands, you can feel free to continue it."
"Right," the blonde girl said, a dark smirk curling her lips upwards. "Luc, find some high ground. I can see at least one Goliath from here, which means we're going to need you to provide cover fire at some point. Malachi, cover the left flank. Sable, are you good with taking point?"
"I've got it covered," the dark haired girl replied grimly, slipping a cartridge of dust into the handle of her whip.
"Good. Then I'll take the right," the blonde proclaimed.
The Beowolves were the first to reach the makeshift battle lines. Sable's whip cracked, bowling over the front part of her wave before it even reached her. At the same time, Malachi and Luc's blonde cousin, Ember, plunged forward to cut through their own enemies. Luc, watching from the top of a slightly tilting column, spared a glance to make sure his friends on the ground were holding their own against the first onslaught before turning his attention towards the Nevermores in the sky. They were growing bolder, circling lower and lower as they assumed that their prey was distracted by the chaos on the ground. They were wrong.
The brunette sighted through the crossbow and then blew out the air in his lungs. In the empty space between one breath and the next he steadied his arm, aimed, and fired. The crossbow bolt slammed into a Nevermore's eye, spending the flying Grimm hurtling towards the ground with a pained screech. Even as Luc reloaded he was turning his attention towards the ground where Sable was whirling on her toes to dodge a spinning Boarbatusk, lashing her suddenly flaming whip out to wrap it around a bone white tusk. The creature squealed as the flames spread and the dark haired young woman pulled it back towards her, intending on finishing it off. On Sable's left, Malachi was facing down an Ursa, a Beowolf trying to circle around the large Grimm for a chance at taking the hunter down. Luc's eyes narrowed and he took aim once more, his bolt barely missing the Beowolf.
The predatory Grimm turned his attention towards Luc, darting around the Ursa and running squarely into the pillar the brunette was standing on. The pillar shook a little but didn't fall over. Yet. Lips pulled into a grim line, Luc quickly reloaded, taking the time to aim as the Beowolf backed up for another run at his pillar. One more good hit would knock him off it, leaving him in a much more vulnerable position and leaving his teammates in danger from the Nevermores circling like buzzards above a corpse. Blowing out his breath and wrapping his finger carefully around the correct trigger, he took aim at the Beowolf who was backing up one more step.
As soon as he pulled the trigger, he knew that he'd missed it. The Beowolf lunged forward at the same instant, charging towards the pillar the brunette was standing on, and the bolt sunk into a patch of dirt where it'd been standing. The Grimm slammed hard into the pillar and Luc flipped backwards with the motion in the hopes that he could control his descent. For a moment, as he came out of his flip, he felt weightless. Then he plummeted towards the ground, stomach rising up to reside in his throat. As he fell, he forced his hand to reach for one of the two clips strapped to his belt, snapping it into place. He landed hard on the ground, the impact making his knees ache, and pulled the arms of the crossbow back to snap out of sight.
The Beowolf, shaking its head in an attempt to shake off the disorientation, was slowly turning to face him. Luc didn't waste time aiming with his weapon as a gun. Instead he removed the safety and opened fire, sending the Beowolf crumpling to the ground. "Aerial support is gone guys," he called to his friends, hoping his voice was loud enough to be heard over the roars of different species of Grimm.
"Are you okay?" Sable called, flipping backwards to avoid the strike of a King Taijitu's black head.
"I'm unhurt," Luc reassured her, putting his back to the pillar he'd been standing on in an effort to keep other Grimm from sneaking up on him. "But we're going to need to new plan."
"He's right," Ember agreed. "We need to make a tactical retreat, or at least find a space that forces them to come at us from one direction."
"We could try one of the buildings, but that would mean going straight through the horde," Sable said, brow furrowed in concentration as she was driven steadily backwards by the two-headed, serpentine Grimm.
"What's wrong, Sable? Too scared to push through the crowd," Malachi taunted, actually flipping over an Ursa's head, narrowly avoiding a swipe of its claws as he emptied a clip into the back of its skull, sending it crumbling to the ground.
"Doing something like that is incredibly impractical," Sable snapped between gritted teeth. "It would likely result in at least one of us dead, if not all of us, and therefore unable to set anything right."
"Sable's right," Luc interjected before the bickering could escalate, reaching out to pull Ember back towards him. "And you know we're no good to anyone back at home dead."
"Both of you are being cowards," Malachi snapped, attention focused on several Beowolves crowding up in front of him for a somewhat coordinated attack.
"No," Sable practically growled. "We're being reasonable, which is more than I can ever say of you."
"Uh, guys," Ember said, voice lost in the chaos Malachi was causing while Luc and Sable scrambled to cover his back and their own fronts.
"The world isn't reasonable, so why should any of us bother to be?" the dark haired young man challenged before activating his semblance. The approaching Beowolves didn't balk as he vanished completely from view, leaving his friends scrambling to cover him. Sable's whip cracked, this time sending shards of razor sharp ice towards the approaching Grimm instead of a wave of fire, while Luc emptied his clip into the crowd and Ember removed the knife from where it was tucked into her short sword, launching herself into the crowd as she sliced through tough hides.
Malachi managed to take down one of the Beowolves while completely invisible, but ran out of energy for the rest, leaving him vulnerable and surrounded by enemies. "See what I mean?" Sable snapped, even as she activated her own semblance. "Even a little foresight would be appreciated at this point." The sound wave sent out by the crack of her whip had Malachi wincing and covering his ears, likely deafened by the noise. The Grimm, who had more sensitive hearing than the teenage boy, cringed and yowled in pain, giving Ember a chance to wreak havoc on the unlucky creatures. While they focused on her, Luc sprinted forward to grab Malachi's arm and practically dragged the taller, broader boy out of danger.
"We're clear," he called as soon as he and his complaining cargo had taken up positions by Sable, and Ember launched herself backwards in the air to land in a crouch in front of the dark haired girl, whip lashing out at the couple of Beowolves brave enough to race after her.
"I think we can actually get to one of the buildings for shelter," the blonde said, rolling to the right and coming up between Sable and Malachi in an attempt to stall any further arguing. "But we have to be able to get on top of one of the buildings. From there, if we move fast enough, we'll only have to deal with interference from Nevermores."
"We'll also be moving further into territory that the Grimm have already claimed," Sable pointed out, not sounding pleased by the idea.
"I know," Ember acknowledged. "But if we stay out here, we'll be killed. At least on the rooftops we might have a chance." She lunged forward to plunge the blade of her short sword through the eye of the white head of the King Taijitu that Sable had been fighting with earlier.
"I don't like it," Sable said, lips pulled into a frown. "But its the best plan we have. What do you think, Luc?"
Although the four weren't officially a team, because that required a school to create your team and not whatever was left of your family teaching you just enough to survive, they had worked together enough times to know that Luc, much like his father, was a strategist more than he was a fighter. Generally, when they worked together, Ember threw out possible plans and Luc either discarded them or made them work. They had learned, from a couple missions gone wrong and lectures from the few parents the group had left, that ignoring Luc's thoughts on a plan could end in disaster.
"I think it will work," he said after scanning the nearby buildings. "If we make a run for the building back to our right. We're only going to get one shot at this though."
"Alright," Sable said with a sigh as Malachi and Ember grinned eagerly at each other. "Let's do this."
"On three," Luc agreed. "One...Two...Three!" The four whirled and sprinted towards the building that Luc had indicated in perfect synchronization. They sprinted, Beowolves snapping at their heels and the snarl of an Ursa ruffling their hair. They picked off the monsters that got closest but left the others to chase after them. The four of them could worry about the horde once they were off the ground.
Luc was the first one to reach the building and start climbing. He swarmed up the side like a spider, used to climbing the nearest tall object in order to provide cover from above. Malachi wasn't far behind him, putting long legs to good use, and Sable was right on his heels, barely avoiding the Grimm snapping at her heels. A Beowolf's sharp teeth ripped the edge of the dark haired teen's extra long shirt, coming away with dark brown cloth in its fangs. Sable hissed between her teeth and climbed faster, fear propelling her upwards at an incredible speed. At the back of the group, Ember hadn't fared as well. The blonde had trailed behind, trying to cover their backs, and had gotten caught in a snarl of Beowolves. The creatures circled and snapped while Ember held them at bay, blades whirling in the dim moonlight.
Luc pushed himself faster, knowing he had to get to the roof so he could provide backup for his cousin. Ember was good, but she wasn't good enough to hold off the Beowolves forever. Sooner or later one would get through her defense, and fresh blood around this many predators wouldn't end well. He clambered over the lip of the roof and turned in time to see a scythe slice through a Beowolf's spine. For a brief instant, he irrationally thought that his mother had come to bail them out. Then he got a good look at who had come to his cousin's rescue.
Ember obviously had thought the same thing that Luc had, because she spun with a somewhat sheepish smile that he could see from the rooftop, only to freeze temporarily when she saw who her savior actually was. He watched his cousin square her shoulders, a sure sign that her hands were clenching tightly around the pommels of her blades. Her sudden tension was a sure sign that she was just as shocked as he had been when she'd found herself face to face with a man who'd been dead since she was four and Luc had been five.
"Luc, man, is that your uncle?" Malachi asked, dusting off his hands on his pants and then elbowing Luc in the ribs. The elbow was just riding the line between annoyance and pain, but it nudged him far enough out of his shock to offer his hand to Sable.
"Great-Uncle, actually," he corrected absently, releasing Sable's hand once she was upright and mechanically converting his weapon back into a crossbow.
"Luc, not that I want to take your attention away from the battle and helping our friend, but are you okay?" Sable asked, reaching out a hand to still his own.
"Yeah, yeah," he agreed, trying to shake the shock free of his head with a short, sharp motion. "I just, uh, wasn't expecting to actually come face to face with someone I knew when I was a kid." He hesitated a moment and then added, "It's a little weird."
"He's right," Malachi agreed, tone uncharacteristically solemn considering the fact that he wasn't having a private conversation with Ember. "This is weird."
"In all likelihood, yes," Sable agreed. "But now isn't the time to process that. Ember, and probably Luc's and Ember's Great-Uncle, is going to need our help."
"Alright," Luc agreed, knocking a bolt in his crossbow. "Take care of the Grimm first. Freak out later."
"Atta boy," Malachi said with just a little bit of mocking. "C'mon Sable. Let's kick some monster butt."