AN: Next chapter is the last in the string of daily chapters. I've got a schedule for it now. Mondays, wednesdays, fridays, and saturdays are chapter days.

Somebody compared this to Overlord, another fanfic where the protagonist is a grimm. Yeah, my work is like that but I think mine is a bit more quantity over quality than his. In some regards. Also he might have cancelled his fic since as of now it's been about two months of no updates. It would be a sad day if he has. Overlord was one of the fics that inspired me to start writing this fic. I have another fic, remnants of a gamer, that I cancelled since I was way worse at writing back then, and when I cancelled that I had a little bit of a lull deciding if I wanted to really try writing because there were a lot of people who liked that fic for some reason. I think it was because it was in the gamer niche.

I actually started a reboot of that. It's the same concept in a way but more like one of the darker gamer fics without all the whining and angst. I'm really proud of it, actually. I plan on releasing it when I finish the first arc. Anyways, enjoy!

BUT WAIT! Thank you to yuyure for pointing out some of the errors I made. This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Grammar errors suck and I need to fix them. I made an amendment to some of the stuff he/she pointed out in the last chapter. Sorry for the errors. I write more for myself than others so I sort of just rush along doing my own thing. Going slowly is boring and makes writing a chore, which I don't think writing stories should ever be. Especially since this is fanfiction that I don't get paid for…

Okay now you can read.

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Grimm souls chapter 4

The alpha

The morning came earlier than Dexter would have liked. The aura exercises were coming along nicely and Dexter was working on something special when the first cracks of light appeared. He shifted back into his cat form to avoid being seen and laid down while watching his alpha. She was a mess. The bedsheet that had been torn off the bed was wrapped around he like a robe and she was hugging a pillow. A small smile came onto Dexter's face.

Now that he thought about it Dexter hadn't properly seen what Laura looked like. She had always been in too dim lighting or covered by her brown cloak. She had long fire red hair in a ponytail held together by a band. She was clearly flexible but you could see some muscle on her arms though it was quite compact. Her breasts were slightly smaller than a C but Dexter wasn't quite sure. He was a guy and he wasn't a pervert so he really had no idea. What really drew Dexter's attention was Laura's legs and arms. They were very long, almost disproportionately so. They made Laura pretty tall. Dexter had to say that he had seen nicer women in the streets but Laura was very nice. And her face was so innocent while she slept-wow that sounded creepy.

Come to think of it Dexter was a kind of creepy person. He spent the majority of his time in towns looking at women from the shadows or from their windows. Maybe Dexter should do something other than stalk Laura today. That sounded like a good idea.

It was at that moment that Laura woke up. It was then that Dexter got his first look at Laura's eyes. They were a piercing pale blue that seemed almost ghostly. It was exactly the same as the ethereal light from before. It was a fascinating sight Dexter hadn't realized before now. Laura's eyes were beautiful and dangerous and mysterious. Dexter immediately decided Laura's eyes were the best he would ever see. They were very nice eyes.

Laura stretched and yawned in a motion that was undoubtedly cat-like. She relaxed and stepped off the bed with the sheet wrapped around her and passed through a door that was probably a bathroom. This was confirmed when the hiss of a shower was heard. Dexter half closed his eyes and relaxed in the morning sun until Laura was done. By now some of the early rising people were setting up shop in the street stalls and a few were making food to sell soon.

Laura got out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her lower body only. At this point Dexter just gave up on preserving Laura's modesty and watched her regardless of whether she was nude or not… Damn she looked nice.

Laura wore a white shirt with long sleeves and some dark blue pants under her brown travelling cloak. She took her rapier and throwing knives almost absentmindedly and left with some money in her pocket. Most of her stuff was left in her room so maybe she was staying another night? Or maybe she would come back later for her pack and leave then.

Well, whatever the case Dexter would travel along with her doing as he felt best. In this case it was getting breakfast. Dexter followed Laura at a leisurely pace hopping between buildings. Laura stopped at one of the nicer breakfast stands and bought some sort of omelette. That reminded Dexter that he could have breakfast too. It wasn't as though he needed to eat, being a grimm, but he liked the taste.

Dexter focused on his senses for a moment, memorizing the smell of his alpha. Smell would be better for tracking her down in the crowd that was growing as more people woke up. Dexter hopped into an alley and transformed into his faunus form, clothed of course. Perhaps the breakfast stall where Laura ate? It sounded better than any of the other places. So he walked up to the stand.

The merchant looked up from his cooking and his eyes narrowed. "We don't serve your kind here, animal." He growled.

Dexter blinked. People were racist against faunus? He supposed that would make sense. Faunus were very different from humans so a divide is understandable. However… "My kind? So you don't serve kind people?"

The merchant clenched his teeth and glared at Dexter's bad pun. "Mongrels like you have no place in any civil town. You dirty our homes with your very presence. Now. Get. Out."

Dexter almost asked for clarification just to be a smart ass but he had a better idea. He walked out and circled around back. When the merchant turned aside Dexter, in cat form, hopped into the compartment under the stall and put all the cash in his mouth. He then proudly trotted out and away from the street stall.

Perhaps taking all the money was a little mean but Dexter needed cash, which he forgot when he first approached the stall. Besides, when Dexter imagined the merchant unable to make change for his customers and the frustration he would feel Dexter felt all tingly inside. It was only made better knowing that if the man had served Dexter Dexter wouldn't have been able to pay and would have had to flee from the guards. Racism worked out in Dexter's favor.

The second stall was manned by an ugly man who had the gall to spit at Dexter. Dexter took his cash too and stored it in a pocket of his clothes. Then the third was the same. Finally the fourth stall barely tolerated him and that was only because it was a small diner in which the staff didn't care to move Dexter once he sat down.

It was only when Dexter left the fourth diner with a satisfied look on his face that something caught his attention. "Damned cursed eyes." "And a faunus at that." "His eyes were… not right. Demon eyes... "

So perhaps it wasn't just racism against faunus that made people deny him service. Was it because he was heterochromic? Because one eye was red? It was a question Dexter couldn't answer but dearly wanted to know. At least he was right about the faunus discrimination.

Dexter almost went to follow his alpha but he wasn't some lost puppy. He had a few other ideas on what to do in his free time. Dexter quite liked his clothes. He felt he could pull off the cloak rather well. That didn't mean it couldn't be improved. It was hard to conceal the bone plate armor that Dexter's faunus form had. He needed a few more ideas on what to do to his form so that it was easier to walk around in public.

After a nice walk in random directions Dexter stumbled across a tailor. It seemed rather high end, though. If they kicked Dexter out for being a social outcast he would just rob them.

Inside the store really was quite nice. There were hooks nailed into the red painted walls that held various overcoats and shirts. On the other wall there were travelling cloaks and more practical wear. What was really impressive was the crystal chandelier. It boasted wealth and prestige that was a little intimidating.

The woman behind a counter, who clearly spent a lot of time on makeup, stopped cleaning some travelling wear and looked at Dexter. An irritated look crossed her face for just a moment before a polite smile graced her face.

"Hello… sir" She said in a high pitched and annoying voice. Dexter's right ear twitched in annoyance. The woman had a smug glint in her eye for a moment.

"We aren't serving customers right now so could you please leave?"

Dexter had to admit that that was a more tactful response than the other vendors. It would have worked if the sign out front hadn't said open. Perhaps she assumed Dexter couldn't read. "But ma'am," Dexter said in a polite voice with a smile "The sign says open. I know that a shop of such prestige as yours wouldn't mislabel themselves as such. Especially not a half hour past your assigned opening time."

The woman looked at a clock and acted surprised. "That time already? I hadn't realized!" She sent a calculating look towards Dexter and her eyes moved to his clothes. His cloak specifically. Her eyes widened and sparkled with greed. Someone walked in through the door and the woman let loose a sickly sweet smile.

"I'm sorry sir, but that is one of our finest cloaks. You can't have it for free."

"What?" Dexter thought. He looked behind him to a guardsman blocking the entrance. "That bitch!" Dexter realized.

"Oh?" The woman sent a look of clear superiority in her eyes when she looked to Dexter.

"That cloak is clearly too fine for one such as yourself. Would you please exit this establishment and hand our property back?" With each word the smugness of the woman grew.

Dexter hadn't been paying much attention when he had made his cloak. He had seen Laura's and made his in his image. It was a deep black, not a seam seen on it. The clasp was made in the shape of a beowolf head out of bone. It was quite nice to look at and now that Dexter considered it, It was too nice for most people to buy. If seen by a bystander it probably showed wealth.

It was at this point the guard decided to put in his own two cents. "We don't tolerate shoplifters in Bannickers, kid." Dexter only had one option left.

"And how much does this cloak cost?" As soon as the words left Dexter's mouth the woman seemed to scream "I won."

"Nine hundred eighty lien." Dexter collected all the lien he had stolen from the racist shopkeepers. "Not even four hundred" Dexter thought in anger.

A growl escaped Dexter as he counted his money. The guardsman's eyes narrowed and his hand drifted down to his sword hilt. Dexter could hear the small hiss of it unsheathing slightly. The air was thick with tension.

Here Dexter was in a predicament. He couldn't take off the cloak. He was wearing his bone armor and that would raise questions. More than he cared to answer.

With a grit of his teeth Dexter growled in his most intimidating voice "Here." He gave the woman all the money he had. "That is enough I believe." Before the woman could do anything with the money Dexter briskly walked out the door. The guard tried to stop him but Dexter slipped past him. Before the woman could cause a scene Dexter had walked a few blocks away fuming.

It wasn't that he was angry over the loss of the money. Dexter could easily find more racists to rob. It wasn't even the racist motive of the woman that caused him to be upset. It was that he had been put into a proverbial corner and been given no other option but to either give his cloak over or escape. It was humiliating.

The worst part of it was that Dexter couldn't even strike back. He could smash the shop but the woman only worked there. She probably wasn't the owner. It would be an act of pettiness at best. He could rob the woman but it wouldn't even be worth the effort. Dexter could make more faster if he tried and the robbery would only bring him temporary satisfaction.

There was at least one thing Dexter could do. Last night Dexter had finally thought of making weapons from his bones using his ability to shapeshift. He wasn't carrying any weapons so the shop couldn't pull the same con as the woman. It might be a good help on his mood to get ideas on what ranged weapons to make.

Dexter wasn't in the mood to wander around looking for a weapons shop so instead he just stopped some man. "Where can I get a weapon?" The man gave Dexter an irritated and angry look before spitting out "Em's and Ann's. It's twenty houses that way." The man pointed back down the way he came.

"Thanks." Dexter said. The man didn't even hear. He was already gone. Dexter walked down the buildings at a more relaxed pace than before. "A baker, a tannery, an inn, another inn, ah here we are."

The building was slightly… burnt looking. As though it had been caught in a fire and most of the wood had been salvaged. It had a chimney spouting smoke and a sign proclaiming 'Emmery and Ann's metalworks'. Of the most interest was a woman in an apron hammering on a lump of red hot metal. She looked busy at work and there were a few weapons laid out somewhat haphazardly on a table nearby. On a different table there were other weapons that seemed worn down or broken. Dexter assumed they were to be repaired.

The woman was so focused on her work that Dexter just walked past her inside the building. The inside was much more organized. Weapons were neatly mounted on pegs nailed throughout the walls. There was armor in the middle of the room on straw mannequins in proud poses.

In the corner there was what could be described only as a working table. It had all manner of vices and small tools on it and a mess of gears that vaguely resembled a bird in the center. Seated at the working table was a skinny young man who was fiddling with the gears to try to make them into… something.

"Uhm, hello?" Dexter tried. The young man didn't even spare him a glance.

"Hey!" Dexter barked. That got a reaction. The young man jumped in his chair and a spring in the gears went flying off somewhere.

"Oh! Um, hi." The young man said awkwardly. He collected himself and spoke with a slightly more charismatic tone. "Hi! I'm Emmery! I work here. You need something?"

"Yes, but I'm not buying. I'd just like to look at the weapons for now. I heard you have some interesting ones." Dexter said eyeing the collection of gears.

"This? Oh! Yes, this is supposed to be attached to a bow, increasing the rigidity of the body. It's supposed to work using a levering system or perhaps some sort of elastic based system but I can't get it compact enough. If you're looking for interesting weapons then I've got a few behind the counter. They're not for sale, though. You can only look since I kind of need them to study… Is that alright?" Emmery asked the last part timidly, clearly expecting a no.

"Sure." Dexter shrugged.

"Really?!" Emmery's eyes shined. He hurriedly leapt up from his chair and kneeled down to look through some weapons that literally were behind the counter.

"Here!" Emmery said with pride. He put down a large weapon that looked like a crossbow and a bomb had a child.

" I call it a bombo! It's supposed to shoot crossbow bolts that explode after a few seconds when they hit a target. Nobody is buying them because the ammunition is expensive and only sold here but also because if you see here the trigger to light the bomb is easily dislodged and I should not tough that because it! Is! Loaded! Ahahah… "

Dexter didn't really have anything to say to that. Emmery apparently took that as an invitation to continue. He left the… Bombo up on the counter and took out a larger weapon that was like a tube connected to complicated machinery. Oddly enough the tube had a plastic blocker in it.

"You see here is another contraption I call a fire launcher. I planned on making it so that pressure builds up behind the cork as flammable gas is pumped by hand to build up and up and up and up the tube and it builds creating said pressure. Then when you remove the cork through this button here it would spit fire!"

Emmery left the fire launcher on the counter and went for a third machine. Dexter had to stop him! And wouldn't removing the cork on that fire thing burn your hand if it was in the wrong place?!

"And here we-"

"Look, Emmery I appreciate the enthusiasm but I was looking to see more… conventional weaponry? Specifically silent ranged weapons."

Instead of the fire in Emmery's eyes dying down even a little bit it increased twofold. "Oooh! I've got like five different ideas for that!"

Emmery pulled out four different contraptions. A sling, a bow with a curve, a cylinder with a small dagger of sorts lodged hilt first in it, and what looked like a crossbow with a magazine.

"Okay! So we've got like five different options here. See, first is what I call a recurve bow. It's just plain better than a longbow all those poor peasants use. It does, however, make more noise than a straight bow but you lose some you win some. Is that how it goes? Ah, who cares."

"Next we have what I should have said first. The sling! Normally these things just plain suck. Maybe you can kill a rabbit or something with one. However! I made mini bombs! You chuck like forty mini bombs into a sling, throw em', and everything should explode beautifully! Don't worry about the sound. All the grimm you throw the bombs at will probably be dead."

"Thirdly! My personal favorite, the shooty knife! It's a blade that, when shot by a coiled spring or, in this case, compressed gas, will really screw people up. I suppose you could just throw a blade but that's what those dagger humpers over at Arnold's armory do. Screw them!"

"Finally! The super crossbow! It's a crossbow but with a magazine. It feeds bolts into the, uh, chamber thing that reloads bolts by gravity normally but I added springs so it shoots faster and jamms less. It's a bit more boring than the others but oh well."

For about a full minute Dexter sat there just trying to process the information Emmery had rapidly spouted. Eventually he just said "Can I see the… Um, the curved bow please?"

"Recurve bow." Emmery said as he handed it to him.

After a moment of inspection Dexter had only one question. "What is this made out of?"

"Oh, right. I had to make the bow laminated with fiberglass on the outside and a carbon foam inside. It's more complicated than it looks, ya know."

"I… I see. Thanks for your enthusiasm." Dexter stumbled out of the shop and the lady, Ann presumably, gave him a pitying glance. She shook her head and returned to making her blessedly simple weapons.

With Dexter's decision to make a recurve bow he straightened himself up and walked tiredly to the outskirts of town. He found a quiet and secluded spot and sat down. Weapons were important. They required attention. Granted, the bow wouldn't be often used but it would still be used sometimes. And when it was used Dexter couldn't afford to have it crap out on him.

Dexter began by layering light less dense bone as a skeleton of a bow. Bone was naturally a little foamy and hard so Dexter used softer bone, like the bone used in nevermoore wings, to make the skeleton. Then he used hard and dense bone for the body. It really wasn't that hard to make most of the bow. It was the string that was the hard part.

For the string Dexter had to weave beowolf fur together as he was making the fur to make a good string. Dexter used a LOT of fur strands to make sure the string wouldn't snap under his strength. In the end the string was quite flexible and not easy to break. His queen didn't skimp on the material when making her children. It would work well enough.

One last weapon, though rather unnecessary, was a dagger. Dexter had enough tools for assassination but was there really any harm in making daggers? It was made in the same fashion as the sabre Dexter made. The sword was so ingrained into Dexter's muscle memory it was a slight challenge to not make it straight off the bat but Dexter managed.

There was only one type of dagger Dexter needed to know how to make as a reflex. The throwing dagger. It was a small, guardless dagger with a nice grip wrapped with leather. They were simple but they were only going to be used for throwing. Using a lot of biomass would be straining on Dexter's aura no matter how fast he regenerates his flesh. The lower quality was what the second knife was for.

The second knife was much sturdier. It had a small guard and the hide aound the handle was very nice. The blade was very dense and sharpened to a razor. There was also a serration at the base of the dagger for anything non-stab related Dexter might use it for. Finally, the guard was granted just a little decoration with a beowolf face like that on Dexter's cloak's brooch. The reason the knife was so nice was that Dexter wasn't going to re absorb it into himself like he does with his sword and clothes. The dagger was going to be hidden in multiple places on Dexter. The inside of his cloak and his thigh in case he needed a spare.

In the tailor's shop Dexter realized it would be a strain for him to make his sword quickly before the guard attacked him if the guard decided to do so. It was a flaw that required correction so dexter would holster two knives on him for when there wasn't time to form a weapon.

Of course, that brought another issue altogether. Dexter had fantastic strength, reflexes, and all the stamina he could need but he hadn't a clue how to use his sabre. A knife he was reasonably sure he could use at least a little bit.

So with these flaws in mind Dexter thought on how to resolve them. Firstly he needed to follow the alpha more. Learning more of the sword style she used would be imperative for using the sword Dexter had made. The knife was rather intuitive. He just needed experience with it for parrying and he would be adequate with it until further notice. Throwing knives would take more work but they would be useful. Luckily using a bow was something Dexter could puzzle out easily enough. Pull string, release arrow. Easy.

After making hidden sheathes on his clothes and modifying them to hide his bone armor Dexter grabbed the bow and absorbed it. Then he made one and repeated the process for a few minutes. When he felt comfortable with making the bow he tried making arrows. Bone shaft, arrowhead, and nevermoore feathers to fletch. Easy stuff!

Dexter tries shooting the bow for hours. Sometimes he would hit the target he wanted and sometimes he wouldn't. By the end of the session hours later Dxter was hitting the target more times than not. Making the arrows was a more reflexive activity too.

After the training Dexter got onto the roof of the inn and saw Laura already in her bed. What had she done all day? Despite his curiosity Dexter knew he would rather make the progress with his training that he did than follow her around all day but that didn't sate his curiosity. What was her power that she used? What was her last name? Why were assassins pursuing her? Why was she traveling? Where was she going? Were there more alpha humans like her?

Dexter did not find the answers he was looking for. During the night he practiced something that had crossed his mind. If he could infuse aura into his claws couldn't he infuse aura into his weapons? He could and he did.

By the end of the night Dexter had practiced channeling aura through weapons with but a thought and making any of his weapons was the same. It was boring but useful.

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The morning was once again uneventful. Laura was still waking up nude and wandering around the town doing who knows what. Dexter was getting slightly frustrated with the lack of progress he was making with his alpha. Perhaps Dexter should be following her when she was actually active and doing something but his alpha would have smelled of blood or sweat or anything of interest if she was training or fighting. She only ever smelt of wood, dirt, people, and faintly of silk and perfume. She surely wasn't going to stay in the town until she HAS to leave, right?

Whatever his alpha was doing Dexter was improving. Hopefully his alpha would unknowingly provide him with something interesting to practice of his own or perhaps Dexter would just 'accidentally' bump into her in faunus form.

Rather than waste time on food he didn't need Dexter went straight to practicing. Forming and re-absorbing his various weapons was mind numbing yet useful. Muscle memory simply couldn't be substituted. The aura available to Dexter was enough that Dexter could form his bone weapons for days on end and still be half full so it wasn't even a struggle to make the weapons.

After that came target practice. Shooting the bow or throwing a knife at high speeds, roughly one arrow or knife every half second standing in place. Then one arrow every two seconds while using evasive tactics. Longer range practice would be necessary soon but for the moment using the bow at mid range would be enough. The town wasn't big enough to practice long range. Not to mention finding a proper ground for training it.

Dexter wished wholeheartedly that he could practice with his sword or knives but the effort would be more detrimental than not. Training with the sword at first had been to familiarize himself with his sword than learn the strike Laura used. Training with melee weapons was difficult to do if you didn't have a sparring partner or know what sort of strikes you were to use in Dexter's opinion.

The day of training was boring and unfruitful. Hours had been dedicated to something which was, while useful, easily done while doing anything else of use. Following his alpha was sounding appealing now that there was little to train. Perhaps he could observe the difference in treatment between faunus and humans from a more well understood perspective such as Laura's. It was frustrating for Dexter that he would either have to leave for greener pastures or make contact with his alpha artificially to get more advanced training though. Wandering could be interesting if he didn't use his nevermoore form. None of the options appealed much to Dexter in the first place.

It was with this knowledge that Dexter slinked back to the rooftop by Laura's room hours before she normally seemed to get back. Dexter curled up for a quick nap in the meantime.

Dexter had barely closed his eyes when he felt himself move upwards by the scruff of his neck. His eyes slammed open in full alert right into a victorious grin and ghostly blue eyes.

"Got youuuu" Laura sung softly. This can't be good.

Omake: Weapons of the apocalypse

"And this is what some people call a bomb. Oh, I accidentally armed it. Was it the red wire or the green wire? Um… pull both I suppose."

"And this is what I call smiley. I know he looks like a shovel with a smiley face on it but trust me. I killed a whole cult with this baby."

"This is muramasa. It won't get sheathed unless I feed it a soul. Now get back in your sheath… Oh right. Say, you have a soul, don't you?"

"And this is the stick of truth! I swear you can control the universe with it. Guaranteed."

"This is called a BFG. My wife made the name but I don't know what it stands for. I've never actually tried it before. Stand still for a moment."

"And this is called a xenomorph. A baby one, specifically called a facehugger. Oh look! It's coming out of its egg!… Why do you look so scared?"

"And this is Claptrap! He's more of a weapon against your sanity than body. Please take him. I can't kill him and he's so annoying." "Hiya!"

"Do dogs thrown at high velocity count as weapons?" A man in a green outfit with a coffee cup appeared. "Yes. Tried and proven."

"Just about everything can be fixed by extreme violence. That's why chainsaws were made, right?!"

"Everything is a weapon with enough creativity! Or guns! So I duct taped fifty light machine guns to a goliath!"

"BEHOLD MY PIT OF LASER SHARKS!"

"Nobody expects a broken bottle! … No? Not your type? Fine. Don't blame me when you get shanked in an alley without a broken bottle of your own."

AN: Some of you might be thinking Dexter is focusing on too many things at one or that he's becoming a walking armory. You would be wrong. Dexter has only a few weapons. A sabre, knife, throwing knife, and bow. I suppose his feline and beowolf forms might be considered weapons but I don't think so. If you look at a character like Ruby you'll see she had a few different weapons. Her scythe blade, the barrel of her scythe, and that third form she almost never uses for sniping. That's not a whole lot of versatility. This is why she has her team and even then they have to be good at more than one thing generally. Blake can deal a lot of damage and avoid more. Yang does the same and takes enemy attentions. Weiss is definitely one of the most versatile characters in the team and often helps combo with others. On their own they fight okay but together they're much better. Dexter doesn't have a teammate to make up for his faults but he does have his ability to change form and by extension make weapons. This is literally the only benefit he has other than aura, and his aura doesn't even shield him if you remember. It only heals him. He has to be his own team and so he has to focus on his on talent more than anything. So he has to have a wide variety of weapons to use as well as his other forms.

Next, you might be wondering why Dexter isn't mentioning the itch that accompanies the creation of new forms. Well, that would be overstimulation. In the wild with nothing to really attract Dexter's attention he could only focus on the itch but now there are more attracting things to grab Dexter's attention than an itching. Oh, and the weapons don't cause the itch because they seperate from Dexter's body. Dexter's aura regenerates any lost biomass from the weapon making. Healing factor and all.

Next chapter is an interlude and the last of the daily chapters. I'll put out four chapters a week on monday, wednesday, and friday, and saturday.