She thought it was funny, the boy, Hakon's reaction to her landing. Instead of being shocked, or awed by the explosion and the damage she caused with but a flick of her wrist, he simply raised an eyebrow with a curious glare. Though she was at first a bit confused with the lack of weapons he seemed to have on his person, she did soon notice the wires milling about his person. They were on their way to their objective, and the forest was so boring. Sure, there was the Ursa here and there that she decided to blow up, but really, there was no fun in a fight that wasn't even... well, a fight. So she instead took to playing around with Hakon... whether he was amused, annoyed, or just flat out ignoring her, she was not entirely sure, and she didn't exactly care.
"So... You know ponytails are more of a 'Girls thing' right?"
No response.
"I mean, not to say that guys can't have them to, but It looks better on girls, don'tcha think?"
Still no response.
"And whats up with the wires, eh? I mean, c'mon, ya gotta have thought of something cooler than wires, couldn't you?"
She was about to ask another question, when she actually looked at him and he was holding a weapon... more specifically, HER weapon.
"Hey!" She yelled at him, "Why the hell do you have my weapon! Don't you know it's rude to take stuff that isn't your-"
"A rather interesting hand cannon you're using here, but I'm going to wager it's not all you carry?" Hakon asked in a half-interested tone.
"Just a hand cannon? Pfft! It's more than just a hand cannon, doofus!" she snatched the weapon out of his hand, "It's also a sword!" she emphasized the word 'sword' for a reason Hakon couldn't pick up on, whilst she flicked the gun once, and the barrel and mechanisms shifted upright and a long, thin blade extended out beside the barrel. Not the most intuitive idea, he thought, but it would at least take care of basic combat needs.
"I see. Anyways, we've got another kilometer to go to our objective. c'mon."
She quietly pouted behind him as he pressed forward once more. As interesting and mysterious as he may have be, when on the job he evidently wasn't much for conversation.
*sigh* 'I always get the dull ones...'
It was always his luck that landed him in these ridiculous situations. He was flying through the air, and up came this girl flying up from the forest out of this huge purple explosion and crashed face-first into his own face. Downward they tumbled uncontrollably, still no control whatsoever as they hit the branched and fell further downward, breaking branches in a jumbled conglomeration of limbs and steel for a whole minute before they finally hit some poor Ursa that had been looking for berries to stuff it's face with.
Technically, he did make eye contact before they collided. sighing to himself, he picked himself up and looked at the girl... whom was already on a higher up branch surveying the area...
"Hey!" He called up to her, successfully, grabbing the girl's attention. "Guess we're partners, right? My name is Rylo Cayde, and you?"
She leapt down, landing beside him with a quiet crunch. "Terra. The objective is this way." she pointed in the direction of the ruins a few kilometers away, and immediately started walking off.
"Woah, wait up a second." He ran up beside her and looked her over. A black, skintight jumpsuit was what she wore, with a black, somewhat tattered cloak. She had a few knives on her person, and a rifle slung across her back. Her belt buckle consisted of two blades crossed behind a crosshair, and strapped against her thighs she held two interesting handguns holstered. She wore black, finger-less gloves and on her wrists and upper arms she held several items, ranging to a few ammunition pouches to what could only be poisons. Her hair was blonde and short, kept in a neat bob that only ran down to the top of her jaw, and her eyes were a light blue. She herself wasn't that tall, maybe a few inches taller than that girl in the red cloak who'd been launched with them.
"Rylo-"
"Actually, I prefer Cayde, if you don't mind."
"Fine, 'Cayde', I see you've been analyzing me, so since we're partners, I might as well know a bit about you besides the obvious. Your weapon?"
He looked down at the large box locked in via magnet to the back of his waist. As far as size went, Cayde was an absolute titan, standing roughly 8'4, with muscles the comparable to boulders to boot. He centered his weapon and combat style much around his raw strength and physical build. He was clad from head to toe in heavy plate armor based off the colossus class from Fate 2 (Titan, Destiny 2), except with different markings. His belt buckle was a laughing, sinister-looking skull with a ring of fire around it, and two crossed bullets behind it. Other than that, he was mostly unadorned...
"My weapon..." he unlocked the box, and brought it out in front of himself, extending it out to be a massive cannon with a large barrel and a cylinder magazine on the top to the right side. Her eyes widened at the sheer size of the weapon... it must be at least as large and heavier than she was! "Is named Siege Breaker, and she loads 18mm Hellfire dust rounds, and fires at 150 rounds per minute."
Hellfire dust was still an unknown quantity, and dust users had only recently discovered its uses in munitions. In essence, it was fire dust, except it was extra powerful, and a bit more adaptable. When used in munitions, they naturally struck faster, harder, and had a markedly stronger, if a bit smaller, blast radius than normal dust rounds. If a normal person were to load a shotgun with hellfire dust loaded shells, they'd have a viable weapon against hunters and their auras.
"What have you got?" He asked, voice as easy as before, as though he barely noticed the weight.
"I've got several weapons on my person, but no so..."
"Gorgeous? Magnificent?"
"Clunky. Can't imagine you effectively using that thing."
"Hey, in melee I can just punch my opponents. It works out well for me."
She grunted. She already didn't like her partner. Couldn't say why, she just didn't like him.
He sighed behind his mask now drawn over his face. He was always paired with the prickly ones...
Hakon finally found his way out into the clearing where he spotted the ruins. Already present were the blonde girl, Yang, from before and the cat faunas who metaphorically speaking lit the fuse on the Heiress's tampon when they met. He ignored them and pressed on towards his objective, unperturbed by the chaos that began to unfold right as he reached the ruins with Amelia...
"So, I'll take the-"
"DIBS ON QUEEN!" Amelia yelled as she rushed by Hakon, inadvertently bumping him off balance for a second...
"In that case, I suppose I'll take the knight..." He heard heavy footsteps to his right and quickly spun about to face whatever it was, before lowering his fighting stance once he realized it was just a huge guy and his partner...
"Since you've taken the Knight already, I suppose I'll take the Rook." The titan of a boy stated with a deep, metallic voice. His partner, a short blonde girl walked past him and quietly picked up a bishop.
Hakon was taken out of his idle observations of the two when a loud boom took his attention, with none other than Pyrrha Nikos sprinting out the forest with a deathstalker chasing her, and to his left once more came the two teens from that morning riding in on an Ursa...
"Hey, big guy."
"I have a name, y'know."
Hakon face palmed. running his hand down his face, he looked back up at the massive boy...
"Fine then, named individual..." Cayde frowned under his mask, "There's a big Deathstalker with a big stinger. That big gun of yours isn't just for show, is it?"
"No, it loads-"
"Marvelous. Shoot the Deathstalker." Hakon simply ordered.
"Okay, One, My name is Cayde. And Two, Fine, I'll shoot the filthy heathen." Cayde replied, leveling his gun to shoot at the deathstalker. He held down the trigger for a bit under a second, letting fly two rounds that blew the deathstalker to tiny bits... only to reveal a bigger one right behind it...
"Well... that's unlucky." Hakon uttered under his breath. Looking back up, he saw that Ruby girl try to engage it in close combat, only to get knocked away, and have her cloak pinned by the Nevermore she arrived on. He was about to intervene, but then he saw the Heiress, surprisingly, intervene.
Shrugging, he pulled out his map and marked a good place to fight. Some ruins north of them would offer the most opportunities to fight these devils... also the most risks, but he was sure at least he and his partner would survive. Wrapping his wires around everyone, he yanked them back to his position at the ruins...
"Okay, listen. We don't have to fight these things right now, pathetic as they may be... they're not our objective. There are ruins North of here, if we are to fight these things, those ruins provide ample opportunities. Let's move out!" Hakon barked to everyone, and they all agreed with him, running over the barrow towards the ruins to make the fight one to remember...
Ruby was the first one there, not much to his surprise. She was followed by himself, Amelia, Blake, and Terra, then shortly after by everyone else. Looking back, he saw the Deathstalker bash through the trees, roaring angrily at them. Overhead the Nevermore let fly a hail of sharp feathers, which thanks to the agility of the hunters-in-training and the armor of Cayde, caused practically no damage whatsoever besides littering the field. Everyone had made it to the ruins, some out of breath, some perfectly fine, and Cayde was somewhere in the middle...
"Alright, Jaune, take Nikos, the giddy girl with the warhammer and Mr. Pinkstripe over there and face off against that Deathstalker. If you can't kill it, destroy the bridge to stop it's advance. Ruby, take the Heiress, your sister, and Blake and kill that Nevermore, no matter the cost. Amelia, Cayde, Terra... we're going to lend support wherever-"
*BOOM!*
Hakon's eyes widened, as he looked to his side to see a huge chunk of the wall was gone, revealing a massive praying mantis type Grimm, a Mantodea...
"OKAY. New plan! Amelia, Terra, Cayde... we're facing off against that thing one."
Terra's eyes widened, as she pointed down towards the Grimm, and looked back to Hakon...
"Are you frickin' kidding me? That's a Mantodea, an Elder, at that! Newborns can kill fully trained huntsmen, and Elders can do much worse, and you want to frickin' fight it?!." She boomed at him. He simply raised an eyebrow, and extended his hand as to gesture to the situation...
"Well, there's a Deathstalker over there..." he gestured to Jaunce, Nikos, Lie Ren and Nora fighting the Deathstalker. "And there's a nevermore up there." He pointed at the Nevermore facing off against Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang. "Aaaaand, I'd like to see you actually manage to outrun a Mantodea. Do you see our predicament, now?"
"Ugh... a hammer and anvil situation..." she muttered.
"Yes! A hammer and anvil situation! So, we fighting this thing or not?"
They both heard a bombastic laugh from behind them, and both turned to face Cayde...
"The funny thing about a Mantodea..." He paused to get everyone's attention, "Is that for as agile as they are, their bone plating as a newborn is nonexistent, and as an elder it's negligible for small arms fire and similar weapons at best. Stop that thing from moving, and I need only a single shot." Hakon smiled. It was smart, playing on it's vulnerability. Now the problem wasn't firepower, but how exactly they were going to stop the monster...
"Hmmm... for all my training, I'm not a very good leader... Cayde?"
"Hey, I shoot things with a big gun because it amuses me. I'm obviously not the brains here, and more obvious I'm not a strategist... Terra?"
"Don't look at me, I don't have a clue as to how we're gonna-"
"Hmmm..." Amelia started, "That pillar is damaged. Hakon, if you can piss it off, then Terra can slow it with some poisons. I can I'll get it's attention with a bit of a pow-pa-pow-pa-pow... and then when it's on the pillar, Hakon, you can destroy it with your wires, exposing the beast in a free fall where Cayde can blow it to bits! Easy, right?"
Hakon considered it... It was a sound plan, so long as Terra could manage to poison it... otherwise, even during a free fall, it'll have reflexes sharp enough dodge the bullets...
Sighing, he supposed he'd have to have some faith in his teammate. He nodded, and everyone else followed suit.
The beast continued throwing boulders at the tower, when suddenly thin line played across it's vision, smashing rocks above it. As soon as it heard the crashing of the rocks, it dashed aside, but still managed to get hit by several dozen rocks. Hakon stood only a couple dozen meters in front of it, and it made a mad, enraged dash towards him. He extended his hand but the beast simply slipped out from where his wires would have tightened. No matter, it wasn't supposed to do that... and it did exactly what he wanted it to do.
On que, Terra dropped down from the shadows, stabbing it in the neck with a vial of her poison, and jumped off right as it swung to slash her in twain. She landed right next to Hakon, who simply gave her a nod before both came running back towards the tower.
The Mantodea was almost upon them, and Hakon was almost prepared to turn about and make a final stand, even if he may lose. His train of thought was interrupted when seven bright purple tendrils lashed out from atop an adjacent pillar, striking the sluggish beast in several place, pissing it off further. Within a second, it had leapt upon the Pillar, and was already nearing the top...
"Hakon, Now!" Amelia screamed, a tinge of fear lacing her voice. Pulling his hand towards his chest, his wires wrapped around the pillar hard and shattered it to pieces, dropping Amelia and the beast. The beast looked confused, as it began to fall uncontrollably. Is whipped it's head about to face a loud clicking noise...
"I love my job!" Cayde muttered, as he pulled the trigger, and let fly a round, blasting through the beast's chest, and blasting it's entire body to tiny bits, splattering the canyon in disintegrating Grimm-stuff.
Sighing, Amelia called back all who killed the beast to where she stood. with a cherry smile on her face, she wrapped an arm around Hakon and raised her opposite as a fist in the air, and cried out triumphantly...
"WE DID IT!" She screamed excitedly, slightly hurting his faunas ears. He looked to his left to see Cayde blasting his gun into the air in triumph, and to his right he saw Terra let out a sigh of relief.
He himself simply smiled. Perhaps this team would be worth his time...
"Amelia Cross, Hakon Black, Terra Tempest, and Rylo Cayde. You four displayed exemplary teamwork in dispatching the Elder Mantodea in the forest, and recovering the White Queen, Knight, Bishop, and Rook pieces. You four shall form Team Annihilator, led by..." Ozpin paused for a moment, looking on at the four students in front of him. That Mantodea was problematic, to be sure. His plan was actually to send a whole Fireteam of Hunters to kill that thing, even then he wasn't sure they'd pull it off. The fact that these four pulled it off was miraculous... but then again, he wouldn't expect anything less from someone who trained under Marcus...
"Amelia Cross!" He finished. Hakon remained stone-faced and Terra took a bow. A large look of surprise crossed her face, and she looked to her team to see Hakon give her a not, Terra look at her and slightly bow, and Cayde to see him give her a salute. Looking back to Ozpin with a huge grin adorned, she sent him a quick salute, and led her team off the stage...
Their room was a fair size, as was all's. Hakon stepped over to the bed in the far left, and set down his bag. Cayde took the bed next to his, and Terra took the bed in the far right, leaving the right window bed to Amelia. If she were being perfectly honest. She really would prefer a bed closer to the wall, but she decided to just deal with it since one of her teammates was almost literally twice her size, another looked like the type to stab you in your sleep, and Hakon was... Hakon.
So now here she was, sitting on her bed with Cayde sitting in front of her cleaning his big gun, Hakon in the corner talking animatedly on the scroll with someone, and Terra behind her bringing a magnifying glass to her blades. she wanted to say something, but she really just couldn't think of anything to say. Looking over at her partner in the corner, she could tell he was talking to someone he enjoyed to spend time with, whoever that was... that's it!
"So, Hakon..." Hakon whipped his head around to look at her, "who're ya talkin' to?"
"My cousin, we trained together." He responded.
"Oh really? what secondary Academy did you attend?" She asked politely, to which she was rewarded laughter from both Hakon, and, interestingly enough, Cayde...
"Hahah! That's hilarious, actually thinking I went to a Secondary Academy! Hah, oh, Amelia, my dear, you wouldn't catch me dead at one of those playgrounds!" Hakon laughed, and Cayde chuckled.
"Heh, I was trained outside the kingdoms, you don't think they'd actually approve of me making something as monstrous as Siege Breaker or as sinister as Hakon's weapon of choice, do you?" Cayde cackled out, whilst Hakon finally reeled himself in a bit...
"Haha... ah... but in all seriousness, no, I was trained outside the kingdoms. The reason for the bizarre name of my weapon lies in the first beings it killed. Rogue hunters. A whole team of them." Everyone turned and looked at him with deadpan stares...
"What?"
"Your first kills..." Amelia started, "were HUMAN BEINGS?!."
"Yes, quite." Hakon stated as though it were a perfectly normal thing. "They attempted to rob me, and I ended their lives. Only about a minute after they were torn asunder did Professor Goodwitch catch up to them, only to find they'd suffered quite the brutal death. She saw my evident potential, I know, and practically begged for me to be a student at this academy... How'd you get in here, Cayde?" He stated, turning attention onto Cayde...
"Oh, me? I held the line against a massive Grimm assault. Those Alphas and Majors were no match for my Siege Breaker!" Cayde boasted proudly, "It was during my heroic stand where I refused to move from my position and came in Professor Port, and he wanted me to attend... I take it you girls went to a Secondary Academy?"
"Y-yeah... Signal, both of us, but we never shared any classes." Amelia stated quietly, looking back at Terra, who simply shrugged...
"To be frank, I never even noticed you were there, Amelia." Terra said bluntly. She sighed, her teammates weren't the easiest to work with, she could now see. Standing up, she grabbed her towel and walked towards the bathroom... God knows she could use a shower...
It was late at night that when everyone else slept, Hakon slipped out onto the roof. He'd left the scroll the school gave him in his dorm, those were no good to him. He drew his encrypted scroll and dialed up his cousin's number...
'Yello' Came the cocky voice of his cousin over his scroll...
"Hey, Mercury. What's up?"
'Oh, you know... doin' my thing. Hey, uhhh... By the way, is this..?'
"Yes, Mercury, this scroll is encrypted. Talk freely."
'Ah, always a few steps ahead, aren't ya? Anyways, Marcus is...'
"Dead, I know. You killed him, didn't you?"
'Yeah, I did. Thank god he was drunk, though. He was way off his game when we fought, and I still got battered and bloodied... I got an employer now, though.'
"I heard. How are those legs I made for you holding up?"
'Really good, helped me a ton in my fight against my father. But even then, it was a close fight. Lucky to be alive, here.'
"Damn right, but you know that if it was just us two we could have easily steamrolled his sober self. Just us two we can kill a maiden, hell, maybe even two at once."
'Yeah... Sorry, but I had to fight one without you. New employer, some thief chick, and myself ambushed Fall, was almost a close fight but she was still new to her powers.'
"Mercury..."
'I know, I know... we promised each other we'd be better than Marcus, both in skill and in person. But I'm still trying to find out the angle in all this.'
"Just... we were trained to be assassins, I know... But if we ever want to be more than just that, more than tools as Marcus saw us, we gotta become more ourselves."
'Yeah, I know... Look, if this goes down the road of toppling an academy, I'll back out, seek you out. Whatever they could throw at me, I know the two of us can handle... I'll see ya later, bro.'
"Yeah. See ya later, take care." With that, he hung up. Looking down at his scroll for the last minute image of his cousin's face, he sighed.
He was glad his older cousin had found an employer, every good assassin needed an employer... he just hoped Mercury's was the right one.