Grimm Situation: Chapter One
"Who among you is the embodiment of these traits?"
People called her many things. Cold, indifferent, uncaring and even unsociable. They were all wrong of course, but their words still hurt her regardless, not that she would ever admit that to anyone, not even her beloved older sister, Winter. Weiss was merely held to a higher standard than the average person, and she had to represent that standard to the best of her abilities. She didn't have the opportunity to tolerate laziness in any sense of the word, regardless of who it was.
Take her partner Ruby Rose for instance. The girl was kind-hearted, and Weiss appreciated that more than she could admit out loud, but Ruby was also lazy in her academics. She spent her time in class drawing circles, napping and otherwise not paying attention.
Weiss was begrudgingly able to deal with that because even she had trouble listening to Professor Port's long-winded stories and the many random tangents he made. Drawing circles, napping, not paying attention. That was all fine.
Weiss struggled against the urge to strangle her younger classmate, partner, and leader. It wasn't because of Ruby's absolute lazy attitude. It was because the hooded girl had the gall to pick her nose openly and right in front of her too!
"I do Sir!" Weiss shouted even as her hand raised into the air. She needed to get away from her leader and quickly before she did something that she would later regret.
Professor Port suppressed a smile at the young huntress-in-training's sheer enthusiasm. She was positively shaking with it! Surely this girl was ready to go on her adventures, much like himself when he was younger. Oh, how he could remember when he was a young hunter-in-training, that time that he volunteered to fight a Grimm in front of his entire class to impress his classmates. How he took the beast on with his bare hands and wrestled it to the ground before using its tusk against it. If only he could reminisce more, but he had a lesson to impart to the young and impressionable. His mustache twitched as he said, "Step forward and face your opponent!"
The small reprieve from Ruby Rose's incessant behavior did nothing to calm Weiss down and only served to fuel the fire she felt inside. She was going to show the class that she was a true Huntress, one capable of leadership. If she did that, surely Ozpin would reconsider making the young girl team leader. It was nothing personal, only that Weiss knew she was better suited for the task.
The air was filled with electricity as she put her right foot forward, having to pull it back the slightest of amounts, and only because she was so aggravated. She wouldn't have made that mistake if she was able to think clearly, and she knew that which just made this more difficult for her. "I'm ready," she lied. She wasn't ready, not by her standards, but she was as prepared as she could get at the moment.
"Go, Weiss!" Yang cheered.
"Fight well!" A tiny flag waved back and forth as Blake cheered her on.
"Yeah, represent team RWBY!" Ruby said with loud enthusiasm.
"Ruby, I am trying to focus!" Weiss shouted at her team leader as if the other two members of her team had done nothing wrong. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Ruby had put a considerable emphasis on the word 'team,' absolutely nothing at all.
"Sorry," Ruby answered as her eyes blinked awkwardly. Okay, maybe Weiss had gone a little too hard on the girl, but now wasn't the time for that.
"Alright," Professor Port said, keeping under wraps his sheer enthusiasm over the Schnee girl's enthusiasm to fight a Grimm for her class. "Begin!"
There was a chink as Professor Port's weapon cut through the thick deadbolt lock that kept the Grimm locked away, followed by the sound of metal pieces hitting the ground, and followed again by a loud thud as the cage door slapped the floor with its broadside. Weiss noticed the familiar sight of twin red eyes watching her, a Beowolf seeing its prey for the first time, no doubt it was going to attack her soon, for the Grimm always assaulted within the smallest fraction of a second once they saw their opponent.
Five seconds passed.
Weiss steeled herself against the impending attack. Her heart raced, the blood flowing through her body, no doubt the creature wanted to spill that blood.
Five more seconds passed.
The Beowolf slowly reached out of the cage with its massive claws, and it's eyes never leaving Weiss's. Now was the moment, she knew it.
The Grimm grabbed the cage door and put it back where had been moments ago, closing itself again in the cage.
"What?!" Weiss shouted, seething in rage at the utter insult that the mindless creature had just given her. It needed to come out of its cage so that she could kill it and show the class how amazing she was. "Get out here, you stupid creature!"
There was no visible response from the Grimm, other than the sound of its claws scraping along the metal of its cage. It was taunting her then. She didn't even know that was possible, but that must have been what this lesson was all about. Perhaps Professor Port wasn't an incompetent teacher like he seemed to be.
Dust or perhaps a glyph, either way, she needed to lure the creature out of its cage without giving it an opportunity to get its wicked claws on her. Her thumb flicked between the different types of dust currently loaded into her weapon, going back and forth between red and white. She considered heating the cage to near melting point, but that was dangerous to the surrounding infrastructure. Ice wouldn't help either, but only because the ice was just as likely to freeze the container shut as it was to motivate the Grimm out.
Glyph then, she decided.
She prepared to use her semblance to cast a forward momentum glyph, only to lose her footing as the cage door flew forward and landed just in front of her feet. She didn't do that! Her eyes shot forward to the cage ready to intercept its sneak attack, only to see it pointing, pointing, at the cage door at her feet.
Curiosity got the better of her.
The entire class was surprised by what happened next.
Ruby Rose winced at the sudden outcry from her partner Weiss as she screamed at the top of her lungs before dropping her weapon, in the middle of a fight! Ruby's protective instincts kicked into high gear, turning into a cloud of rose petals and moving faster than she ever had before, she snatched Weiss's weapon off the ground and readied herself to defend Weiss.
Her eyes drifted downwards for just a moment, far too curious about what had unnerved the Ice Queen.
"Schnee?!" The question echoed, slow, and delivered like a line someone read from a page, but also mixed with fear. She wasn't talking to Weiss.
]~Ozpin~[
The sound of an old cane striking stone every other second traveled through the halls of beacon academy, echoed every few seconds after as the sound went down the hall until it made a full circle, each time much quieter than the last. Usually, the sound of his cane was muffled by the sounds of students socializing and studying, but this was the one time of the day where every student had a class, and Ozpin often liked to roam about the school at that time. Knowing that he had built this place many years ago in a previous life, and seeing how the school and its students flourished, he felt a tinge of pride.
Admittedly, too much pride is a dangerous thing, and he knew that better than anyone else. In spite of that, he believed in taking joy in the little things in life, like building a school for hunters, filling it with dangerous teenagers that could destroy a city, and guiding them to become the perfect instrument in the fight for survival. Maybe one day that fight for survival would turn into a battle to end the war. He could only hope.
Trusting STRQ with the truth was to be the first step towards that goal, but things didn't turn out as he had hoped they would. Summer Rose died trying to fight the Queen on her own. Taiyang Xiao Long lost the will to fight after his first love left him and his second love died. Raven Branwen lost faith in him. Qrow lost his will to live when the woman he loved died, and it was only the knowledge that his d-niece was in danger that kept him fighting. Things hadn't gone as he had hoped, but he wasn't willing to add the decision to his list of mistakes.
They deserved the truth, even if it destroyed them. Now, he had to decide when to tell RWBY about the real enemy. He had told STRQ in their third year, and that ended badly. Should he tell RWBY sooner, or later?
Perhaps it was best to play his cards close to his chest for now, and only tell them when the time came, and the situation demanded it.
RWBY had a long way to go before they were ready to take on the Queen. They were prodigies in their own right, that much was sure and no one could dispute the claim. Their ability to work together, on the other hand, was lacking. That would grow in time, but as the headmaster of Beacon Academy, it was his duty to help put them on the path to cooperation.
Not that he would go out of his way to help any particular team over another. It was only a coincidence that he happened to be walking in circles near Professor Port's classroom at the exact time class was supposed to end, and not some attempt to get their team working together effectively. Ozpin doesn't play fav-
"Schnee?" The unmistakable voice of the silver eyed girl echoed through the halls, emanating from the classroom in front of him. Several gasps escaped the room too. Then the ground shook as a loud boom reverberated from the classroom.
It seemed that some things never changed. Trouble followed the fifteen-year-old huntress-in-training just as much as it followed her uncle.
His cane struck the stone floor one final time as his cane to a stop, the sound echoing down the hall until it made its way back to him before fading into the ambient noise. He took a sip of his unique blend of coffee, taking as much pleasure as he could in the hot liquid. It never failed to put a smile on his face.
"Huh?" His smile turned into an expression of curiosity as a beowolf stumbled backward from the classroom door, a fifteen-year-old huntress-in-training on its shoulders as she stabbed it repeatedly with her partner's weapon. The attacks put the both of them off balance and caused them to fall. The silver eyed warrior was going to be crushed by the weight of the large beowolf if she didn't do something.
Hands sparked with magical energy, just in case he was needed.
The huntress-in-training activated her semblance, trying to use it and the weapon in her hand to complete a maneuver that he had seen her do only a few days prior, but she made a mistake. The rapier in her hand wasn't a scythe. Instead of pushing herself out of danger, she only ended up driving the weapon's point against her chest.
She was going to stab herself in the heart under the weight of the Grimm. His hand shot forth, but before his magic intervened, something happened.
The beowolf twisted violently, but also accurately, and moved the huntress-in-training out of danger, before taking the rapier through its lung. It could have stopped it, all it had to do was use the Huntress as a stepping stone, but it didn't.
It saved her life.
The sound of coffee hitting the floor caught the Grimm's attention, and emerald eyes met red ones, and for the briefest of moments, Ozpin noticed it recognize him.
]~One Hour Later~[
The headmaster turned his head towards Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch. "Is it done?"
"Yes," Glynda said. "Team RWBY has been given the rest of the day off and has been asked to stay in their room until you or myself visit them. As you can imagine, they were not happy."
Ozpin smiled, "Thank you, Glynda."
"Of course. If that is all, I will return to my duties."
"I believe that would be best. Do me a favor and lock the door from the outside, please. I'll message you when I am done here so that you can let me out." He tapped his collapsed scroll against the side of his head twice, and the two of them nodded before Glynda left the room, locking it behind her.
It was only the first day of the year at Beacon, and yet things were already getting interesting. To think that he could have lost Summer's daughter so soon, and so quickly. It was not a pleasant thought.
"You're alive because of what you did, saving my student's life at the risk of your own. I've never owed gratitude to a Grimm before, so I hope you don't mind the safety precautions." Ozpin spoke loudly, knowing that the creature could hear him from its cell around the corner. They were in the second most secure room in the whole of Beacon Academy. Not even the headmaster had the power to enter the vault freely, and for a good reason.
The sound of metal on stone echoed three times before he reached the creature's prison. It had its back to him, but Ozpin knew it was listening. He could tell by how still it was. "You're the most intelligent Grimm I've ever encountered. I've never seen a Grimm that could understand language, let alone write." To emphasize his point, he dropped a piece of the Grimm's previous cage on the ground.
Ozpin waited for a response, but the Grimm continued to ignore him. "Why do you know the name of my student?"
The creature moved its head slowly until it could glare at the headmaster with a single red eye.
"You're not able to speak, then?" A small huff answered Ozpin's question. "It's a good thing I came prepared for that." The headmaster pulled out a portable whiteboard and marker, sliding it underneath the cell door and stepping back. "This should be easier to write on then a slab of metal."
It didn't respond, not even with a huff as it did before. Ozpin softly shook his head and said, "I'm a very patient man. One might say that I have all the time in the world."
The creature gave a defeated shrug before it grabbed the marker. It tried and failed to hold it between its thumb and index finger, dropping it on the whiteboard. The black throat rumbled in frustration before the Beowolf took the marker in its fist and began to write. It took a long while, but eventually, the creature finished its response and pushed the board so that the headmaster could read it. "Kill me."
The creature was suicidal. No, if it were suicidal, then it would have attacked Weiss Schnee and let her kill it. "Why?"
"I'm not human, anymore..."
Author's Notes
Thank you for reading, oh and the next Chapter will be posted on September 30th, perhaps Sooner.