[II] Headfirst

The chaingun brought fiery life to the night sky, bullets flying like shooting stars Whatever this thing was, subtlety had gone out the window when it showed up, and now was an appropriate time to use the big gun mounted on the nose of the Bullhead. While Stick had witnessed this gun alone tear apart entire packs of Beowolves, and practically split Nevermores in two, the bullets currently looked to merely deflect off the hardened shell of this living wheat thresher of a Grimm.

On the ground, Thyst was more than pleased to be given a chance to think, while the new massive foe was distracted by what amounted to a mechanical housefly, granted he'd be distracted too if the housefly was about the size of his head.

"Hey, Nick, you got anything for us?" He called out through the shifting dust cloud that now filled the premises of the formerly Forward Base Hourglass. Nickelas's voice responded a few feet to his left.

"It's a little hard to focus when I'm trying not to die here!" He yelled over the churning earth. "If you really want to know the obvious, aim for its underbelly when it rears-" he stopped, and pivoted before running in the opposite direction as the Grimm came down fast and burrowed into the ground once more. "-upwards. The armor is noticeably less thick underneath."

Magnolia was navigating the artificial sandstorm with ease, when she felt the telltale rumble in the sand again. While Nickelas may be able to see and analyze the movements of the Grimm while it was above ground, he was blind the moment it went subsurface again. Unlike Nickelas, Magnolia's senses weren't enhanced by a Semblence. Everything she had came from patience, and years of practice. She called out to her companions, yelling for them to dive to the sides immediately. To which they complied, narrowly evading the thresher Grimm's gaping maw as it burst from the desert's surface again. Her tail twitched with anticipation. This was the largest target she would have ever taken down. That was, of course if she did succeed in taking it down.

Thyst raised his right forearm to the silhouette of the monstrous centipede, and let a small crossbow-esque system of pulleys unfold from his wrist, just behind the dual bladed weapon in his grip. He knocked a dart with a blunt, but faintly glowing head into it, and took aim hastily. The Grimm may be slow coming back down to the ground, but it wasn't long enough to take his time. Besides, as long as he hit anywhere on the broad barnside of the creature's underbelly, this shot would hypothetically be effective. The dart launched with a twang, and cut through the curtain of sand between itself and its target.

Thyst watched as the cloud of electricity erupted from the Grimm's underside in spectacular fashion. Then he looked on in disappointment as it seemed not to phase the Grimm in the slightest. His favorite type of Dust had failed him. He sprinted and flashed in a crackle of light to the side as the Grimm came down hard where he had been standing. Magnolia and Nickelas were spread out across the open courtyard of the base. He could feel the sudden silence as Stick paused his hailstorm of bullets, letting the multiple barrels of the chaingun cool down after it's continuous firing.

He knocked a second, faint orange dart to his wrist.

"Let's see how this bastard likes fire..." he muttered to himself. He looked up when Magnolia called his name, then watched as she motioned for him to come towards her. He took three running steps, then flashed into place next to her. He couldn't have done so sooner, as the Grimm burst from under his previous location, rising into the air only to let out a ear splitting screech. Whipping around, he launched the second dart at the Grimm. It flew straight and true and struck the Grimm between two sections of exoskeleton plating near the base of it's wide, triangular head. The result was satisfying, with the combustion of Dust, the flash of yellow warmth. The Grimm reared up, and Thyst cheered, seeing he had struck what looked like a damaging blow. The Grimm stood erect for a moment, it's mandibled mouth foaming. Then it began to tip downward towards the ground.

Nickelas saw it coming. His eyes widened. Then he ran towards Thyst and Magnolia as fast as he humanly could. He took both of his curved swords and let them loose from his grip. A dust cloud stirred up around the group as the wind from the falling Grimm rushed down.

As the dust settled, the bright blue glow of Nickelas's barrier stood as a bastion before the trio. His swords had taken on the loose outline of a heater shield and held fast to his arm, emitting a wide oval barrier before them. Thyst looked up at the wide projection of energy in surprise. The energy wall was dripping with an unfamiliar dark orange liquid. He looked up past the Nickelas and the shield, to see the Grimm was still standing.

Completely unscathed.

He turned and looked behind him, and watched in horror as one of the two remaining buildings sizzled and melted before his very eyes.

"Oh shit…" he said swinging his focus back to the Grimm. He took in the situation for a brief moment. "Oh... shit."

Nickelas's breathing was heavy, but he stood his ground. His shield held up just fine, the acidic quality of the Grimm's attack unable to eat through the hardlight that constructed the barrier. As far as he knew he had only narrowly saved his friends' lives. He sighed quickly, before catching his breath.

Stick watched the events unfold from the air, and wasn't about to let this monstrosity get the better of his squadmates. He adjusted the wings, and flew the Bullhead in, close. Then without a moment's more hesitation, opened fire on the Grimm to get it's attention. Knowing the creature could attack at range made his position in the air a lot more dangerous than it was previously, but at this angle there was no way the Grimm could physically turn fast enough to fire off a second volley of that mucousy substance at him.

Bullets bounced harmlessly off the thick, natural armor of the Grimm, embedding instead in the walls scattered around the surrounding glowing red eyes swiveled, leaving a faint orange trail, and its gaze fell upon the aircraft. Stick was ready for it to turn, and swung in a large arc, fast and far to the opposite side that it was turning its body. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw it's head start to turn, and it was turning the wrong way. Independent from the body, the Grimm's head spun a full hundred and eighty degrees, the individual segments of it's body following this physically impossibly motion, shifting in an extremely confusing manner, each segment spinning independent from the others. Stick was awestruck by its movements. It was mesmerizing.

"Move it, Stick! I doubt the Bullhead's hull will take well to that thing's spit!" Nickelas's voice yelled over the comms, snapping Stick back into the moment. He recovered his focus at the same moment that the Grimm's mouth began foaming again. Stick pulled back on the controls to gain altitude as quickly as possible.

Just not quickly enough. There was a thump, and the Bullhead's weight shifted and it stayed shifted. Everything felt wrong. The controls weren't responding like they should be. Stick didn't need the multiple warnings flashing on the dashboard to tell him that something was wrong. The smell of burning metal was enough for him to figure it out.

Nickelas, Thyst, and Magnolia watched as the Bullhead spiraled out of control, the viscous orange liquid eating away at the leftmost of the two engines. There was nothing they could do to stop it, expect to trust Stick's abilities as a pilot. They had faith that if anyone could figure out how to keep a Bullhead with a single wing in the air, it was Stick. Magnolia switched her piercing gaze from behind the blindfold to the Grimm and reached for the knot buried within her hair. She found it and took a firm hold of it.

A hand took her wrist.

"No, not yet. We can't risk it. Not with Stick right there. I know you don't want to hurt him. So put your hand down." It was Thyst that had her wrist. She paused, then after a moment, reluctantly let her hand fall, before pulling it from his grip. He urged her to keep moving, and the three of them began circling the Grimm that now looked to be readying another volley.

"This thing won't go down," Nickelas was yelling, to himself more than to the others. "I can't think of any way to injure it… damn it! If we could just get it to stop mov...ing…" He paused. And stopped running. "The Deathstalker."

Thyst and Magnolia stopped and turned to him, confused looks on their face.

"The Deathstalker!" He exclaimed again. "Just do what you did to the Deathstalker!"

Magnolia looked at him. Then looked at the Grimm.

"That thing? Excuse me? I'm am not going anywhere near that thing's mouth."

"Yes. No… you don't have to, but yes, I hadn't noticed before, it was too simple, but the Grimm does have hundreds, if not thousands of weak points!" He started running again, and others followed him.

"The way it's spinning made me think about how it moves, and I was ignoring the obvious. Its legs! Every place one of its legs connects to the body segments, there's a break in the armor, otherwise its joints would be too rigid to move!"

Thyst's second warglaive unfolded and took its familiar place in his hand.

"I like where this is going…" he said, taking closer note of the Grimm's many limbs than he had before. He turned to Magnolia, "I'm not asking you to go anywhere near that thing's mouth, hell, I wouldn't want to myself. But I need you to scale its back," he pressed two fingers to his ear's comm piece, "I'll make sure it doesn't notice you." He looked to the sky, "Stick, think you can stabilize long enough to fire a few shots at that thing again?"

The Bullhead's spiral was slowing noticeably when Thyst's voice came over the comms to Stick, who was actively fighting the forces of gravity. As long as he was airborne, he was winning. "A distraction?" He thought to himself, then yanked on the aircraft's yoke to pull it in line with the Grimm, firing the chaingun as he swept past, a line of bullets fanning out, only a few of them making any contact. The ones that did, struck the face and stunned the beast. "I'll do you one better…"

The Grimm let out a sound somewhere between a shriek and a hiss, then hurled itself back into the ground, vanishing in a cloud of sand once more. In the brief moment of respite, Stick took the control wheel in one hand and reached behind him for the ammunition belt that was slung across the back of his seat. He pulled out a long rectangular cartridge and grinned.

"There we are…" He muttered to himself as he pulled two more from the belt.

On the ground, Thyst, Magnolia, and Nickelas dodged the re-emergence of the Grimm and got back to their feet, a little too close for comfort.

"Hey, Stick, we could use another distraction, if you don't mind..!" Thyst called out urgently.

Stick scoffed, then shifted to an extremely serious tone.

"Oh, it'll be a distraction alright…" He answered through his earpiece. After which he kicked out the glass on the Bullhead's cockpit and pulled the long, thin rifle from a wall mount behind him. The belt from before was already tightly fastened to his waist, and he had a devilish grin on his face. Howling wind and shards of glass filled the cockpit as Stick jammed the yoke forward, and sent the Bullhead careening directly for the Grimm, the remaining engine roared to life with renewed vigor. He fired off a burst from the chaingun and the Grimm turned to face the oncoming Bullhead. It's mouth began to foam and it opened it's thresher of a mouth to ready it's attack.

It never did attack. Before it could gather up enough of it's digestive fluids, the aircraft slammed full speed into its open maw. Then a few moments later, it was engulfed in a massive explosion.

Thyst stared on in disbelief at what he was witnessing. The Grimm recoiled in pain, then fell. The burning wreckage stuck in its mouth. It writhed on the ground as it tried to remove the burning metal, but to no avail. Overcome with emotion, Thyst's body crackled with electricity along every edge. Both the air and the ground sparked as he charged the wounded beast, screaming. In a blur of lighting and blades, legs began dropping from the insectoid Grimm, it's shrieks of pain muffled by the wreckage of the Bullhead. He mounted it's head and began slashing mercilessly, as Nickelas and Magnolia looked on. Nickelas took a few forward and tried to approach, but Magnolia blocked him with her arm. She shook her head, silently.

The savagery of Thyst's strikes, much like the electricity that surrounded him, only grew stronger as he bore down on the Grimm's armored head. With a shout of devastated anger, his arms crackled, pulling in all the electricity in the air around him as he swung. Then with a crack, he broke through the Grimm's exoskeleton. Into the gap in the armor he pressed his wrist, and fired bullet after bullet into the exposed inner flesh.

His body continued to crackle with electricity as he stood up, atop the dying monster's head. He walked across it with seething determination, and took one of the hooked mandible in his hand, drawing blood across his palm in the process. With a swift and purposeful strike, he tore it from the body with one final, enraged yell into the night sky. He jumped from the creature, and landed in front of its open maw and the wreckage within. His breathing slowed.

He dropped the mandible.

His body stopped crackling.

And he fell headfirst into the sand.

Unlike Thyst, Nickelas and Magnolia had seen the spark of turquoise on the nose of the the Bullhead before it's impact, and even more so Magnolia knew Stick just wasn't that stupid. While Nickelas rushed to help the semi-conscious Thyst up, Magnolia turned and walked towards where the unidentified object had fallen from the Bullhead and slammed rather forcefully into the sand. She crouched down next to him. He looked up at her dazed. Magnolia flicked Stick in the forehead.

"You crashed our only ride home, you idiot." She said, looking him in the eyes. With a delirious laugh, he coughed.

"Is it dead?" He asked

"After the stunt you pulled, Thyst thought you were gone and after that, he made short work of it. So yes, it's dead." She sighed "You make us worry too much sometimes." She smiled and held out her hand.

He smiled back but waved her offer away, standing on his own and supporting his weight with his rifle.

"And Thyst? Is he alright?"

"A little worn out, but I think he's already coming to."

Stick stretched and took a deep breath.

"I think I should share the good news of my resurrection with him."

Blinking a few times, Thyst opened his eyes to the rising sun of dawn. He turned his head to the left, and saw a figure squatting next to him. He squeezed his eyelids together tightly then opened them, letting the world come into focus again. The first thing he noticed was the warm brown hair, shaved short on both sides, but remaining long on top, parted only to the left and long enough to reach the figure's lips. Then the two silver earrings cuffed around the figure's right ear came into focus. A gas mask hung loosely around his neck. This was Stick squatting next to him. But wasn't he..? Overwhelming relief rushed over him, then a bit of confusion, then more relief.

"Welcome back to the world of the living." Stick greeted him with, accompanied by his familiar two fingered salute.

Thyst stared at him a moment, then opened his mouth.

"But you… the Bullhead… when…" He muttered out, his brain still foggy.

"You really think I would have just gone and killed myself, now?" Stick asked him, standing up and extending a hand. Thyst took it and rose from the ground. He looked around and saw the ruined base in the distance. He motioned to it with his thumb.
"Is it dead?" He asked.

"You know, I asked the same thing." Stick mused, "You killed it." Stick started rummaging through his pockets. "After we got you a safe distance away, we watched it dissipate into smoke and poof, it was gone.. After that, we went back in and Nick found…" He pulled something out of his pocket. "...this." Stick tossed the item to Thyst, who was caught off guard but still able to snatch it from the air. In his palm was a small metal chip, no larger than an average dog tag. He looked at it, then Stick pointed to it.

"Nick says whatever this is, it was inside that Grimm, and it's transmitting the signal we came here for. If Ozpin doesn't want it, I think you should keep it, a souvenir of sorts. I think you earned it."

Nickelas approached the two of them and smiled when he saw Thyst was awake.

"Ah, good morning. Slept well I hope?"

"Could have been better." Thyst joked, as Nickelas turned and looked at the rising sun.

"I checked the map, and if we want to make it to the nearest town before the sun becomes unbearable, we'll need to start moving. It's north, quite a way." Then Nickelas sighed, and looked at his feet, shaking his head, "Oh, boy... What a day we're having... and we haven't even had breakfast yet."

Magnolia walked up behind him.

"You know, it could be worse." She offered.

"How could it be worse?" Nickelas responded.

"It could be raining."

"...Yeah. You're right."