AN: :D

"I don't need to be here for this."

"You don't, but you're tagging along anyways."

"You asked me, and you doing this alone is insanity."

"Hey, give the pup a chance. Everyone else has and we all have our necks."

"I'm sorry I don't run into the forest every other morning for a quick marathon."

Heiress and Brawler walked along one of the main paths to the cliff side. Weiss had been complaining at an interval about the fact she supposedly had to come along with Yang for this. It had been weeks since she had last seen hide/armor or tail of the grimm and everyone else was talking about it. Even Blake who had been the voice of good reason was now being friendly with it! Weiss as the only one left with their head on straight, so she had to watch Yang and make sure nothing happened.

Which was the carefully crafted, shoddily-founded excuse she had made for herself and spoken aloud when the blonde asked if Weiss wanted to watch a sparring match. Between whom? Who else? The meathead and the beowolf. Hardly the most surprising thing to hear, but still concerning.

But she wasn't there to see the grimm, see what everyone seemed to be enamoured about. Well, maybe. She just might have a small amount of curiosity to see what everyone else enjoyed but she had been left out of. It was more embarrassing because they didn't actually talk about it that much, it was just a contrast to how the team was always up to date on everything together. She was being left behind a bit and she would not stand for that.

The pair came to a stop in the glade which was the location of Pyrrha's duel with the wolf. Weiss didn't know that, but did see the scraped trees and few gouges in the soil that still remained after a month's worth of wind and some rain. The chips off of the trees were from a sword or bullet, she could see that from the thin marks that edged through the bark of a tree a few feet to her right.

"Now what?" She asked, looking to Yang who just had a grin on her face.

"It's around. It always comes and finds us when we're around here. Anywhere from the edge of the path to the cliff is its roaming grounds." Yang looked left and right through the trees, seeing no motion. It was fairly flat here, and the lack of underbrush meant that someone could see for quite a while through the filter of bark and branch. "Hmm… So it's gotta be…"

Turning she looked to Yang and her smile twitched. She could see the grimm standing a few paces behind them silently, not even breathing. She didn't want to look at it lest Weiss notice and check herself. Being surprised by the silent beowolf would be funny for Yang but probably continue to fuel her childish contempt. She knew it wasn't serious, but sometimes the heiress complained even when she wasn't really angry, and that could get tiring.

But… Was it worth it?

"It's behind me right?" Weiss said in a dry tone. Not sarcastic, just patient in a kind of patronizing way. Yang just shrugged and nodded. "You could have said that I'm not that afraid of a-"

She turned and saw that the Grimm was just a little bit closer than she had been expecting. She looked up to its full height and blinked twice before awkwardly waving. To her surprise the grimm waved back, if slowly. She knew that it did that, she had heard as much from Blake, but it was still odd to see in the flesh. Or carapace. Whatever the grimm had.

"Sneaking up on us?" Yang teased as she walked up and poked it in the chest. "You usually stand in front of us, what's with coming on from behind?"

Her tone was dramatic, Weiss noted, more Ruby-ish that normal. The teasing tone was more like she was speaking to a child, the statement more sobering, the question had more of a rising intonation. And she moved her right hand a lot. She wasn't looking for an answer either, because she stepped away once the grimm huffed.

"What was that?" Weiss asked, brow raised.

"Hm? It's how you talk to it when you think it won't understand." Yang explained as she unzipped the pouch she kept on her hip. "It understands emotions well, it is a grimm after all. It knows when you ask a question, it knows when you're joking. Sometimes it makes a noise to say it understands, other times it just stares at you."

"Ah." Made sense. A grimm was able to sense humans by their emotions, but she hadn't known that a beowolf could detect positive emotions as well like… Joviality. "So, like a big dog?"

Yang just shrugged and pulled out her collapsed duffel bag, the bribe for this. She was pretty sure that the grimm would have been willing to spar for a chance to watch Ember Celica in action. That's how Ruby had managed to befriend it in the first place. This was more of a goodwill thing. The grimm had things to carry and now would have something to carry those things in. It had taken a few days but she had found a similar one at a reasonable price. The grimm could have her old one, it was the more robust of the two anyways.

She untied the straps which kept it collapsed and the high-density foam began to suck air in to give it back its shape. As it returned to a much less wrinkly form she pointed down to the bag. "Duffel Bag." She then pointed to the beowolf. "Yours."

The grimm nodded slightly.

"But." The word was still functionally similar to the wolf as 'wait', 'no', and stop but some of the nuance was there thanks to a lesson from Black the day before. "We fight first."

"You're still sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

The beowolf tilted its head slightly before stepping forward and picking up the bag. It placed it over its shoulders again for a secure fit. It shifted the strap a few times before Weiss stepped forward and secured it by tightening it. She had for force herself to do so, but she wasn't going to be obstinate.

Yang was surprised. Suspicious, but surprised.

The beowolf rolled its shoulders before walking over to a tree and scaling it slowly, then very quickly before turning around and hugging it upside-down. Apparently pleased with the result it fell back to the ground and pulled the strap back off and set it aside.

"So we have a deal?" Yang asked, her gauntlets shifting into combat form, the bracelet expanding to allow the shotgun shells to load. The clicking and sound of shifting metal immediately caught the attention of the wolf, and the beast shifted forward to take a look. Glancing from the weapon to the warrior it grumbled its agreement. "Alright, get ready."

Weiss moved out of the way, standing thirty feet away from Yang while the wolf walked some distance to a clearer area in the glade. Once in a position it liked it turned to face yang and stood on all fours while being rocked slightly back so it could pounce or lunge in any direction. Yang took note of that before stepping forward into her own boxing posture.

They stared at each other for a moment, Yang's eyes on the grimm's upper body, the Grimm's eyes on Yang's wrists. It was a long time for Weiss, who was a bit nervous.

Eventually Yang dashed forward swiftly crossing the distance. Just to warm up she jabbed at the beowolf's chest. The wolf read the strike and ducked back a bit in order to avoid the strike, though it couldn't out-distance Yang very quickly thanks to her initial speed. She followed up with a low to high strike aimed at the side which was interrupted by a change of angle. Instead of continuing to step ahead of the woman it moved to the left to break some of Yang's velocity.

The woman turned swiftly and was about to continue to press when the grimm dug it's feet and claws into the soil and pushed forward at a much higher velocity. She moved left to dodge as the grimm had but the beast's much larger armspan meant that she had to raise her arms to block against the open-palmed slam had aimed for her chest.

The force pushed her back through the air and made her perform a flip close to the ground in order to reorient herself. Digging a hand into the ground as she crouched she was able to regain her footing, glancing up to see where the beowolf was. It was stalking forward, slowed slightly now, and holding its paws slightly low. On two feet it was slightly off-balance thanks to the length of its upper body but it was standing with a strong stance.

Isn't that Velvet's posture? Yang thought as she stood and hopped from foot to foot to loosen up. It's been researching the upperclassmen, huh.

She still had the element of surprise. She was small, but she had a significant punch. She just needed to land one and the grimm would be in for some pain.

Unbeknownst to her, the beowolf had seen her punch a car through a series of grimm, and was anything but unaware of the fact that despite the fact she seemed to be the slowest of the bunch she had the most force behind her strikes. That's why it was sure it had a way of making her use her weapon since she was avoiding doing so. A typical show of strength.

Yang dove forward again and avoided taking so long strides in her sprint, now taking shorter ones at the same speed to allow her more control of her motion instead of having to rely on luck in between each footstep. As she approached she took an impressively hard right and left, changing rotational direction mid-motion before the back of her hand soared on a collision course with the grimm's neck. It was a speedy motion, one which surprised the beowolf in how smoothly it had been executed given the necessary finesse.

It made no effort to block.

Yang's wrist stung as physics took place. She winced and kicked off the wolf's chest, making use of the animal's stagger to relocate for another attack. She was second most surprised of the people present when she felt a grip tighten around her shoulder and jar her, holding her in place like a vice. Not enough to injure, just enough to make someone curse under their breath, which she did.

The most surprised of the people present was Weiss. She had watched the opening exchange nervously but after seeing the beast mostly just dodge most the attacks was mollified. It looked like her team's trust in it wasn't misplaced, something which was obvious by the fact it hadn't tried to kick Yang when she was down after the first attack. The brutality that she had just seen, though, was almost impressive. Brutal because it was demoralizing.

She saw the backhand strike and had felt bad for the grimm which was on the receiving end. Her feelings were misplaced though as even though the strike landed square on its neck it looked unfazed. True, the beasts were not well understood so maybe they didn't require air, something which made a throat strike so lethal but… It had stood like a monolith. When the hand impacted its neck it should have by all rights been tossed back but it leaned into the attack at the last moment forcing it to slide slightly backwards as the torn earth absorbed most the shock.

That's the same force that would send a car flying. How heavy is that thing? How could it be that heavy? It crawled around the roof at night so it couldn't weigh more than a truck. It would make too much noise, or even cave a part of the roof in. That's not evolution.

And it wasn't, the force dispersal and reaction after wards to grab her wasn't an evolutionary growth, it was a learned reaction. A death stalker was one of the few grimm which had a tendency to attack its own kind, and many hid within the networks of caves which were plentiful outside the kingdom of vale. The wolf and some of its own kind had wintered in those systems and more than once a deathstalker of incredible age had tried to drive them out. The oldest of all of them the Wolf was tasked with dealing with them. Something which required endurance, defensive traits, and most of all an ability to prevent oneself from being tossed into a chasm by immense force.

The empty air was of course more dangerous than hostile earth for a beowolf.

Holding Yang up with an arm for a moment the grimm huffed.

"Nah, I'm good. Give me a moment." Yang said as the wolf put her down. She took a breath and stretched out her wrist and shoulders. Taking a few seconds to get some deep breaths in she clapped her hands together. "Alright pup, let's see how you deal with fire."

Flicking her wrists her gauntlets came to life, loading up her shotgun shells into their active position. She raised her hands into position again, the grimm raised its hands in a catching position again. Yang smiled as a spark lit in her eyes before flame rocketed along her arms, lighting up her hair in a yellow and orange dance. Her smile turned into a smirk as she lowered her hands down slightly towards the beowolf… Slowly… Slowly…

Kt-chick

That sound was the only warning before two shells were spat out of her gauntlet and collided with the beast's shoulders at high speed knocking it back for a moment at the surprise. It hadn't been expecting the explosion, or the heat-

Through the heated haze the flaming outline of Yang was only an afterimage before her fist collided with a hand the grimm had managed to place in the way by sheer fluke. The force was still startling and the wolf had to change stance in order to prevent itself from falling flat on its back. Another punch followed shortly after that made it growl deeply in annoyance. It ducked low to avoid that one only to get another blast of head colliding with its face. During that moment of distraction Yang landed on the ground and delivered an uppercut under the curve of the grimm's chest.

This strike definitely had an effect, lifting the grim off the ground and forced it a fair distance into the air. It recovered again, shaken but unharmed as more shots split the smoke which had formed. It saw them this time and blocked them both with an armored forearm which stung but was less distracting. Through the smoke a white outline of the woman's hair was visible, the shadow where the head would be pointing towards the grimm's location in the air. It almost had a cocky tilt to it, and when the beast landed its growl was easily audible through the trees.

Yang stepped through the smoke with a cocky smirk on her lips. "What?" She drawled, placing her hands on her hips while her hair burned white. "Gonna drop out so soon?"

The beast made a sound like a scoff before rolling its paws. The arrogance of the human was astounding. Pride welled up in the beast as it dropped on all fours again and growled a taunt, which only made Yang grin wider.

"Ready pup?" She asked, teasing. "Here… I…" She aimed her gauntlets slightly behind her. The dual firing of them drowned out the rest of her words as she sped towards the wolf at a higher speed than she normally sprinted at. The grimm ignored that, preferring to focus on what the woman was going to do. The same mistake she was going to make.

Four shots as opposed to the now-usual two rocketed ahead of her which the grimm ignored, allowing them to collide with its front without defense. They hurt, but more importantly created a fog of smoke right in front of it. It watched for the sight of her hair through the smog intently knowing that there would only be a short period of time to make a counter-play. Two more shots pierced the fog ahead of her and then…

A head of hair…

Yang felt like most of her organs had kept on going when she suddenly found herself stopped and choking on her own smoke. She was sore all over her chest and down into her legs with something gripping her around the chest. Did I just black out?

No, she hadn't, but she was disoriented. She looked up to see the grimm holding her up from the embers on the ground that her shots had made from their impacts. They were blackish scares, dirty things, but she barely remembered making them with how dizzy she was.

The grimm had managed to stop her charge but Yang obviously hadn't been expecting it. As she had been traveling through the smoke it had jabbed her in the chest, hard. Relatively speaking it was the same as the force she had been using but it had the grace of the one not having a bus suddenly strike them in the front.

The beast set her down and she waved off any concerns while taking deep breaths. She was going over what had just happened in her head and why her chest hurt then realized what had happened.

"Sneaky." She said airily as she took shallow breaths. She was sure she hadn't broken anything but it felt like her diaphragm was just a little bit upset with her. "Next time we do this remind me to remind myself that you're smarter than you look."

Click, Click, Click

"Xiaolong!"

The wolf jumped back from Yellow as a hail of stone crashed into the space between them. They rested for a moment before they began circling around Yellow at such a speed that the individual pebbles blurred into a gray wall.

Growling the grimm relied on sound to leap backwards further in order to sidestep a second volley of rocks which whistled at the velocity of a bullet. Three times in rapid succession it did this, leaping further and further back until there was fifty feet between it and Yellow. With the onslaught finished it looked up to see the human which had nearly replaced the bone in its skull with shards. Another blonde woman with glasses and a cape looked as if she was trying to protect the younger one.

So, this was a real shepherd. The certainty was like ice water.

The wolf narrowed its eyes as it felt the refined distaste which could only be found in someone who was so steeped in their hatred that the adversary was only a threat. Only a thing which should be destroyed. Only can be destroyed. The strongest of humans that the wolf had seen over its centuries bore the same cancerous air as they slaughtered thousands of grimm.

A true shepherd.

How long had it been since it had fought one? Long ago, before it went into seclusion with the beowolf pack. How many seasons had passed in mountain ranges where the armor first burst from its back? Too long? The pain of memory cleared the grimm's mind as the pain of being impaled on a spear reached from the past to the present and cut at the core. Years of hiding… Years of growing old… Pushed away.

A dead shepherd?

Only time would tell, but the woman was too close to Yellow. She was protecting her from nothing from nothing of course, but the shield when not at war could be just as comforting to man. That's why they crafted walls of stone, locked their houses… Yes… Yes… What is this?

A Huntress.

The claws of humanity. Thieves. But why?

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Keep the time away, stick in the present. Attacked. Defend. Allies in the custody of enemies. Adversaries. The clarity of instinct was being eroded by the clouds of independence.

The grimm opened eyes it hadn't realized it had closed. The Huntress was creased at the brow, concerned. The Grimm took a few steps forwards, instincts and pride both in unison as they screamed at the wolf to not retreat here. There would be no hiding from this type of enemy, only pacification. A huntress was a hunter, not a defense. They forayed into the wilds and hunted. They would follow the White Wolf into the darkest recesses of the Dusk, then only death awaited.

So the grimm stared at the woman. Apprehension and hatred so far from the ravenous eyes of a beowolf that the blonde switched from the confidence of the hunter-defender to the subtle horror of the hunted-defender. Her eyes scanned the beast from head to toe and seemed to realize what she was fighting right then. She hardened her eyes and resolve showing that human tenacity which held cobblestone walls up in the darker days of the past. Resolve… Aura… Aura… What was that?

In that instant two fights began. For the grimm's mind it was making sense of years of knowledge never fully considered while simultaneously avoiding the projectiles of this Huntress.

Her attacks relied on distance, beams of light and shards of her surroundings launched at speed and with great accuracy. Some were easy to dodge, others were not, but as the beast stole inches from the huntress' life span accuracy became pointless. With no time to arc her shots the huntress had to lead her blows lest she miss entirely. The double-minded single intent of the wolf allowed it to stay a few feet ahead or behind with the four pawed leap or a low dip dodge. This was the adversary that suffered agility.

The woman was not so easily slain, however, and after entering a certain range the beowolf was launched by a force like a train in the side. It recovered mid-strike before being slammed by yet another force into the air. Airborne and without recourse the beast had a few moments to locate the ground.

An hour ago this would have inspired a crash of fear but in the delightful silence of the mind it was able to ready itself for the barrage of pink light that would have impacted its back. Would have if it hadn't manage to curl itself in the air and throw its arms up to block. The collisions were not like it expected, not with the impact of a strike but with sudden heat and pressure throughout its front. It was a bizarre feeling like burning in small bursts. Pervasive unlike the pain of Yellow, it was fire and burned. This crackled in the air and in its ears.

After a few seconds the barrage ended and the grimm landed on the ground on all fours, launching itself backwards and hopefully out of the range of the sorceress. It was still mid-leap when the next set of lasers landed, but fortunately only half of them made contact thanks to the beast managing to get a rear leg on the grass to sharply change direction. It still stung, but no more than before, and as it shook its arms to dispel the burning sensation the pieces of armor that were too damaged wafted off in black shards. They rose into the air before dissolving into nothingness.

Behind the woman Yellow was forcing her way out of her cage-shield. She made her way through and tried to reach her keeper-protector only to be foiled by a shining wall which shook. The shimmer traveled around the local area until it reached a point behind the wolf. Completely walled in… It only reinforced the fact that this battle would only be over when one of them lay dead or dying. White poked her head out from the bushes to approach Yellow and met the beast's eyes. Was that contempt or pity? It was difficult to tell.

But how to attack? The beast sped laterally to the woman to slip around more projectiles as it pondered this. Too far and the projectiles would simply slowly burn it to death. Within a certain range, it wasn't exactly sure how close, the woman would simply send it flying and open for more pain. An impossible wall for striking as the grimm knew it.

But all humans had their weapons.

The woman held in her hand a wand of some sort, leather possibly. She waved it to direct her missiles and from its recollection the invisible force had been similarly affected. Would that work for predicting how to dodge? If the range of that technique was twenty meters it could be impossible. But the sliver of possibility is what made it worth testing. Trying. Showing that 'human tenacity' to a human.

Dodging again it coiled every muscle in its body before springing forward at full speed. Images blurred in the corner of its vision as it approached the witch at a speed which would have unsettled most. Creased brow like she was chastising she swung her crop and... missed.

Lunging at chest level the wolf was now below the slam of air. It was traveling fast enough that it was sliding along the grasses to avoid the pressure. The huntress recovered fast enough to apply some great gravity but it was mostly on the back of the beast where it could resist. That crush would have snapped the spine of a lesser beast but the back of the grimm held and as it was sliding along it was able to rise again and strike the woman's brandishing arm.

The strike had the full force of the grimm and just as Pyrrha suffered with her shield the crop was knocked out of her grip, or Yang when her fiery pulse had been doused. This one recovered instantly, however, and attempted to snatch it out of the air. Close combat was being dominated by the wolf at that moment, so it was able to follow up quickly enough to beat her to the punch. It wasted no time tossing the crop to the opposite end of the field. It didn't look where it was throwing and that saved its life.

While it kept its eyes on the woman it saw the hazy outline of deep purple echo out from her chest before sliding down her hand. Sliding until her fingers curled over and…

LEFT. The word was screamed between its ears. LEFT OR DIE.

So it stopped its forward push and moved low to the left as quickly as possible. As it did so there was a flash of light and the air above its back crackled like a bolt of lightning had just landed. The crackling increased and a sound like shattering stone echoed in the clearing.

The barrier crashed into thousands of shards like glass as a red and black bolt cut through the air the grimm had been standing in a mere moment before. It kept moving, circling around the woman as it observed the scars the attack had laid upon the face of the forest. A deep gash looked like it had been seared into the ground before rupturing into a miasma. Blackish smoke was drifting in thin layers as plant and stone were burnt as equals. The witch turned, her head from the destruction and with a flick— or maybe even just a twitch— of her fingers the smoke coiled in on itself before being forced back under the soil. Like the binding of the earth's blood back to its veins.

The woman turned like she didn't want to scare a child, the motion deliberate and soft. Her right hand was positioned like as if to turn over the palm of a kid who had scratched their hand on gravel to check for injury. Unnerving in the least the grimm continued its speed, moving sideways and changing distance to haze the chance of one of those… things striking.

The hands were still key here. She used her wand to direct her strikes so now she was using her hands in the same capacity with much more devastating results. Possibly restraining the hands meant that it could survive for longer, deliver the killing blow. The wall was destroyed but if her skills were still similar disarmed the farther the beast got the more likely it was to get struck. And now… Such a strike would probably be lethal.

So it continued to watch as the huntress pulsed with the distracting bluish-black glow of death. Attacking first would be a mistake, it had no idea what the woman would throw at it when she thought she had the advantage, which as of right then was just about all the time. With a deficit of knowledge on how humans fought when disarmed the grimm was thinking on its feet for how to neutralize her offense. Death was the permanent solution, but the woman had no weapon to predict, no weapon to dodge, no strike to punish. With that she was in the impossibly stronger position.

Her expression changed from cool dissatisfaction to explicit irritation once she realized that the grimm was smart enough to actually not rush her because she looked unarmed. It was smart, and dangerous. Something she would expect from a lowly beowolf which had somehow managed to best one of the physically strongest first years in the history of the academy. It demanded a certain amount of respect, but it wasn't to last. The grimm must die, and if it wouldn't throw itself to its own death she was more than willing to force it.

A sweep of the hand and the ground beneath the grimm's feet shimmered, contorted, and then cracked into small pieces. Rocks were crackling under the force before dark light shot up from the ground and reached up into the sky at random. The beast dodged away from one beam only to be nearly caught by another one which appeared behind it. The geysers of light were impossible to completely avoid but didn't seem to actively target it.

After the beams stopped appearing the woman raised her hand, back of it towards the grimm and fingers pointing up towards the rapidly darkening sky. Once her elbow was parallel to the ground she dropped her hand in a graceful arc.

"Begone."

Like rain that pierced steel suddenly the columns of light rained down, some missing but most striking the beast in the back and legs, some of them scorching away the armor in mere moments others piercing right through. The grimm howled in agony as dozens of the beams collided with its body in a seemingly never-ending torrent. Dust and grime were kicked up as rain fell from the sky in a dizzying deluge.

Moments later, the beams stopped and only steam rose from the crater where the grimm had once been. The ground had been punctured like a god had stabbed a thin dagger into the earth in a fit of rage, the bottom of which was too deep to see. There was no motion, the rain the only noise in the area. Glynda made a 'hmph' noise as she raised her hand and her crop returned to her.

Then all light escaped from her gaze as the red maw of the wolf descended on her neck.

Weiss gasped, Yang's mouth fell open, Glynda screamed into an endless abyss.

"It seems I'm almost too late."

Glynda disappeared from the beast's mouth while the members of team RWBY disappeared from the area. The confused grimm looked up to see a man in green approaching, sword drawn, face impassive. Another hunter? It had barely been able to kill the first one… If she was dead.

"Unfortunately for you, your time is up. My condolences." The silver-haired man slowly approached, a tone of discomfort in his voice, almost sorrow. "I'll let you fight, but your only mercy is in giving up now."

The wolf fell to its knees as the extreme pain attempted to override its mind. Death was on its doorstep, death was creeping through as the rain fell through its chest, legs, neck. It was a dead grimm walking. And the pain was unbearable.

But to die to end it? No... No...

It pulled itself off the ground and snarled as the darkness around it congealed and thickened, roiled in the air and condensed until it started flowing like blood. It staled white before dripping into the holes like the rain had. Pure emptiness forming into the something of its body, the pointless gaining form and turning into the vehicle for death, for this retribution. No... This would not be death... The grim rolled its shoulders as every crevasse in its body filled with darkness and healed over with armor.

You underestimate me, traitor. The first coherent thought in an eternity of existence, the grimm howled to the moon hidden behind the horizon.

"I see." The green man's brow creased in concern. "Then I fear you will suffer these last moments."