We finally left for the city after waiting a year for Blake.
"Please forgive me," she said quietly. "I couldn't hold it any longer…"
"You're excused," I said impatiently. "Now can we go?"
"Yes we can," said Yang happily.
Bumblebee roared down the street as I kept pace with my speed. It felt so good moving at such high speeds and watching as everybody else continued their usual routine. Moments like this reminded me of why I loved being a huntress. I was able to do what most people probably dreamed of in my everyday life.
The city was in its usual shape when we reached it. Security was out as usual in case of grimm attacks and not a lot of people were actually out. The city was always on high-alert for grimm attacks because you could never really know when one would happened and what kind of grimm would appear.
"So where do you think Weiss's attacker is?" I asked.
"You mean her accessory attacker?" asked Yang, moving her head in every direction. "Beats me. It probably choked to death on whatever it was she had."
"That's a rather dark thing to say," said Blake.
Yang jerked her head in Blake's direction and smirked. "I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment, especially when it's coming from you."
I approached a guy walking down the street and asked about the grimm attack. The signs so far didn't look too good. Grimm often left behind a trail of destruction and so far we'd found none.
"Oh, that?" the man asked. "It was the strangest thing. The grimm came here, broke into an electronics store, and left with a single TV. The owner of the store isn't happy, but the rest of us sure are."
I wanted to ask him more questions. That sounded too simple for a grimm attack.
"So Grimm have resorted to stealing for survival," Blake said quietly. "It seems even monsters struggle to make ends meet."
The man shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said. "All I know is that we're happy it didn't do anymore damage."
I tried really hard not to sulk. There was nothing more enjoyable to me than taking down Grimm.
"Well…goodbye," I said with feigned happiness.
"You too!" the man said with a smile.
"The fun's all over, huh?" asked Yang. She had that warm smile I'd come to recognize. Yang gave it to me every time she knew I was feeling let down.
"I guess," I said sadly.
We left the city at a much slower pace, simply eyeing the tranquil surroundings that we passed. I could only imagine Weiss going off on me about letting her things get destroyed. Coming home to an angry Weiss is something you never want to happen.
To our surprise, however, something was different about our place.
"You left the lights on again, Blake!" Yang snapped. Blake would sometimes do that even though she could see perfectly well with them off. She claimed that it helped her senses or something. I personally didn't believe any of that.
"I didn't," Blake snapped. "Weiss probably did it to mourn her possessions."
"You've got me there," said Yang. "That definitely sounds like her."
I looked for any sign of Weiss. You could usually tell she was up to something by signs of candles or soothing music playing. She had these weird moments when she'd make it look as if she'd entered a luxury hotel. There weren't any signs of it this time, for better or for worse.
"We should be careful going inside," I said.
"Why?" said Yang. "You're scared the ice queen will give you a second degree burn?"
"No, but—"
"Then stop whining and get inside," said Yang. She grabbed the front door and pulled it off its hinges.
"I just had that door replaced last week," sighed Blake.
"Glue exists for a reason," said Yang, "Now where are you, Weiss?"
She called out loudly but no response came. We could only hear the sound of something playing. It sounded like a show.
I ran into the lower level and found something bizarre. There was a TV playing in the lower level. We only had one TV and it sat on the upper level. This wasn't just any TV either. It was a very large and high quality TV. Sitting in a nice leather armchair was a somewhat large grimm that resembled a sloth. He lazily sat with a bowl of chips on his lap.
"Who are you?" I asked, pulling out Crescent Rose. "I'll slice your head off if you did anything to Weiss!"
The Grimm lazily looked at me. "Oh hey," it said. My jaw almost fell open. I'd never seen a Grimm talk and this one sounded so…normal. He sounded like an average person I'd come across on the street or something.
"You…can talk?" asked Blake.
"Sure," said the Grimm. "This your place? Sorry about that. I just needed a place to stay. I'm kind of homeless at the moment."
"Oh, that's okay," I said. "We just went to the city looking for you."
"Nice," said the Grimm. "You know I was just there looking for a TV."
"We know. The store owner was pretty upset."
"Yeah. I don't blame him, but sometimes you do desperate things. You know?"
I don't know what it was, but I found myself immediately liking this Grimm. He was so laid back and friendly that you almost wanted to be his friend.
"One time I beat up a guy for refusing to give me information," Yang laughed. "It's amazing what desperation does to you."
"Are all of you forgetting something?" Blake asked. We all looked at her like she was crazy. After all, our conversation was going nicely.
"This…thing…destroyed Weiss's accessories and likely did something else to her." Blake took some very slow and scary steps towards the Grimm with Gambol Shroud pointed at it. "Tell us what happened to Weiss. Now."
The Grimm trembled nervously while continuing to hold onto the bowl of chips. "Oh…uh…the accessories," it said. "Yeah. I thought it was food and got mad when I found out it wasn't."
"How did you leave the dent behind?" I asked. "Because that was huge."
"Easy," said the Grimm, shoving a fist full of chips in its mouth. "I cannon balled it with my body."
"You're a lot stronger than you look," I said. It was true too. This grimm was big, but he was somewhat smaller than a Beowolf and kind of lanky.
"I get that a lot," said the Grimm. "I have this whole workout routine I've been trying out for a while. You wouldn't believe the gains I've been having lately."
Blake was clearly irritated by our friendly conversations and stormed off into the other room in the lower level. It was nothing more than a small storage room where she and Weiss kept some extra things that they couldn't put anyplace else. Blake stepped in there for a single second before running back to us.
"What did you do to Weiss?" she asked angrily, snatching the bowl and smashing it against the floor.
"Hey," said the Grimm. "I wasn't done with those."
"ANSWER ME!"
"I put Weiss away. She has a real mouth on her."
"And how do you know her name."
"It was kind of hard not to. She announced her full name and her family company when we first met."
That sounded like Weiss. I was curious about what had made Blake so angry and entered the other room. There were giant claw marks that dug deep into the walls and floor. Lying in the middle of the room was Weiss. She had a giant slash down the front half of her body.
"…Ruby…" she said weakly. "Where am I?"
"Weiss!" I shouted, lifting her head off the floor.
"Why is she injured?" I heard Blake ask defiantly.
"She was starting a fight with me so I roughed her up a little," said the Grimmm.
"You couldn't just leave and find someone else to bother?" asked Yang.
"No," said the Grimm. "Everybody else is too scared of me."
"No surprise there."
I knew then and there that I had to take down this Grimm, even if he did make a good conversationalist. I walked out of the room, activated Crescent Rose, and pointed it at his head.
"Aww, you're going to shoot me?" the Grimm asked. "But we were getting along so well."
"I'm sorry," I said. "But nobody hurts my friends."
I pulled the trigger and let off a shot that hit the Grimm right in the face. He took it head on and fell backwards from its power. I wasn't convinced he was gone just yet. There were no disintegrations or other signs of his defeat.
"Ughhh," he groaned. "Okay, okay. I'll leave. Geez. You huntsmen sure are an impatient bunch." The grimm picked a chip off the floor and ate it before leaving. None of us really knew how to respond. This was our first time actually having a Grimm cooperate with us. Normally we'd have a long and drawn out fight involving teamwork. Not this time. The grimm walked away without another word and left. It was all so surreal. We all just stood in the lower lever and listened to him walk upstairs and then exit our place.
"Sometimes I ask myself if life's mysteries are best left unsolved," said Blake.
"All I know is that I'm glad the slob left," said Yang. "Look at the mess he left behind."
There were indeed a lot of chips lying about and even some drool. It wasn't going to be any fun cleaning this up. However, there was one thing that needed our attention.
"Weiss," I said softly, holding her up. "We're sorry about leaving you here by yourself."
"That's oka," she said quietly, eyeing her dress. "Can you believe what he did? Ripping apart my nice clothes?"
I was about to say that it was weird for her to care more about that than her own health. Then I noticed that she had no sign of injury. No blood or cuts. Only her clothes had been torn. Her aura must have been enough to avoid any serious injury. I'd been so shocked by sight of her that I thought the cut dug into her body.
"Looks like you jumped the gun on this one, Blake," said Yang. "She's not even hurt."
"Oh, is that what you thought?" asked Weiss. "Of course not. I fainted from the shock of seeing my good clothes torn. This line isn't even sold outside of Atlas anymore and shipping isn't cheap."
I didn't even have a response to that. Weiss dramatically stood back up and looked at her dress one last time with tears in her eyes.
"Such is the price one pays for looking like they're worth something," she sighed. Weiss left the room to go sulk somewhere.
"Well," said Yang. "This was weird."
"Indeed it was," said Blake. "I didn't even understand the point of it."
"Neither did I," I said. "But hey. At least we got a new TV."
"Yeahhhhh," said Blake. "About that…"
Looked like another trip to the city was in order. This time I was brining money to buy some cookies. I felt like I needed a reward for making it through such a bizarre misadventure.
