Hey guys! Happy Thanksgiving to all(: Enjoy my rare update!
-CL
The strange girl smiled broadly. "Hey, thanks for the save," she said politely. "I've never fought so many Grimm at once before."
"Right," Daisy said uncertainly, still trying to shake the sheer discomfort she felt. This isn't how this is supposed to go! she thought. She was supposed to be Yeong's partner. She'd always been Yeong's partner. But now she was stuck with this strange girl.
"I'm Mallory," the girl continued, either not noticing or ignoring Daisy's attitude. "I'm from Mistral."
"Daisy," she answered, voice still taut. She pointed at the golden trident, still sticking up out of the ground. "That's a…beautiful, trident." The girl- Mallory- broadened her smile, her perfect teeth a white splash against her bronze face.
"Gahijil," she said, walking forward to pluck it out of the dirt. "I built it myself." Her voice was brimming with pride, drawing Daisy out of her reverie a little.
"Is it entirely made out of gold?"
Mallory laughed a little. "Oh no! There's a thin gold alloy on top. The core is made out of titanium." With ease, the girl broke the pieces apart. Daisy gawked until she realized the pieces were supposed to come apart. There was actually a joint there she hadn't noticed before. "I embedded iron clippings inside so it magnetizes," her new partner continued, looking with fondness down at the gorgeous weapon. "It makes it easier to pull it apart and put it back together when I need to clean it."
Daisy stepped forward so she could take a closer look. The craftsmanship that went into making this weapon was very detailed. Running down the side of the weapon was what appeared to be a carving of a vine.
"I like your staff," Mallory said. Daisy looked up, handing the trident back to its owner, who promptly hooked the ringlet on a small peg attached to her belt. Smiling, she held the staff up so her new partner could see it clearly. "How do you get that blast to come out the end?" the girl continued. "Is there a gun concealed in there?"
"Nope," she answered the question. "There's a jet."
Mallory gawked at her. "A jet engine? Really? How'd you fit it in there?"
"Many hours of hard work," she admitted, then she smiled to herself. While her staff might not be as aesthetically pleasing as Mallory's trident, Akita-Ilma definitely outshined her in the mechanics and engineering.
"That's pretty cool," Mallory said nodding.
"Thanks." Daisy began to warm up slightly to her new partner. Even so, she still wasn't fond of the arrangement and longed for the company of her brother more than ever.
Mallory began to look around the torn up clearing. "Now all we have to do is find that temple," she said assuredly. "I'm not entirely sure which way north is, but if I hold Gahijil by the ring, it can be used as a free floating magnet, or a compass, which always points magnetically north."
"It's that way," Daisy said abruptly, pointing in the direction from which she'd came.
Mallory whipped around to stare at her. "How do you know that?"
"I saw it while I was flying overhead," she admitted.
Her teammate's eyes widened. "You can fly?"
To answer the question, Daisy tapped Akita-Ilma against the ground, revealing its glider form.
"Whoa!" Mallory's jaw dropped. "Your staff is also a glider? That's pretty rad." She tilted her head. "No wonder you needed a jet at the bottom. How else were you going to take off."
"Yes," was all Daisy could say.
Mallory stared at her with a new light, a light of appreciation in her eyes. "Well that definitely makes things easier! Lucky me I got you for a partner!"
Daisy smiled, trying very hard not to cringe.
…
Yeong took a final swing, knocking the Grimm to the ground. He was too tired to make the final hit a kill shot, so he swung around, using gravity to propel his weapon downward, the momentum of which waved it about in a wide arc, up and over his head and down on the beast with enough force to end its life.
He looked around. His partner was just taking out the last of the beasts with a kill shot straight to the chest and head. Dual arm-mounted canons could come in handy, Yeong thought to himself. Of course he'd never give up Alcander.
The tall boy whirled to face him. Both trainees were panting, the effort of taking out all the Grimm having exhausted them. Yeong checked his scroll, which he kept on a band attached to his forearm. His aura was already halfway depleted. That meant he was only at half his strength for the rest of initiation. And they hadn't even really begun.
Great.
"Hey," the other guy said, making Yeong look up.
"Hi," he muttered back.
The boy swung forward a sweaty palm, holding out his hand expectantly. "I'm Diesel."
Once again, he answered in a one-word monotone. "Yeong." But he took Diesel's hand. He had a surprisingly strong grip.
"Guess we walk on," Diesel said after a minute. Yeong nodded, equally as abashed as his partner seemed to be. Sighing as if in discontent, the gray-haired boy nodded toward the trees. Yeong took this to mean that was the direction they were heading, and started pacing forward without a second thought. Diesel followed lazily. He was so tall, Yeong had a feeling he could be jogging and the boy would still only have to mildly increase his pace.
"You're a good fighter," his partner muttered. Yeong had a feeling he was trying to make conversation to make Yeong more comfortable, but the truth was the blonde twin was perfectly content to walk in silence. After all, they had plenty of time to get to know each other after initiation was complete, and right now all he wanted to concentrate on was his mission.
But…it was rude not to answer, and since they were stuck together for the rest of the year, he figured it would be best not to ignore his partner.
"Thank you," he murmured quietly. "But you should see my sister."
Diesel glanced at him, surprised. "You have a sister?"
Yeong smiled. "Yeah. A twin. She's around here somewhere."
In the time it took Diesel to answer, Yeong couldn't help but wonder if his new partner realized Yeong would rather be with Daisy than him. If he did, he didn't say anything.
"That's cool. My cousin came here with me too."
"What's her name?" Yeong asked, interested despite himself.
"Coral."
Yeong considered his partner for a moment. "That's a pretty name. Where are you guys from?"
"Atlas. You and your sister?"
"Oh, we're from Vacuo." Diesel just shrugged in response. The more the conversation carried on, the less interested he seemed. Or maybe that was just Yeong's nerves. Either way it bothered him a little. Suddenly he was struck by the desire to impress this stranger who he was stuck with. "It was cool. I mean it was actually quite warm but we- I mean we learned a lot at River Point."
Again, Diesel didn't respond. "The professors there were great. We practiced day and night to get in here. And if you thought I was good, wait until you meet my sister."
"Your sister?" Diesel asked, sounding mildly interested again.
"Yeah dude, she is crazy awesome."
…
The two girls pushed aside the low-hanging branches, stepping into the clearing and peering around. Admittedly, both girls were a bit wary considering their destructive landing. Being tossed into a situation where they were already attacked once that day, partnered with a total stranger in a deep forest, and having been pre-warned that they were probably going to die should anything go wrong…wary seemed a reasonable emotion at the time.
The so-called "temple" was really a glorified set of ruins. Stone set into the ground with what were probably once great pillars supporting what they assumed to have been a fantastic roof of some-kind, now it was just a pile of rubble. Except for the columns in a neat semi-circle, which looked like they could have been placed there recently, on top of which sat what appeared to be-
"Chess pieces?" Mallory asked, walking quietly up to the nearest one.
Daisy peered at her and opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Instead, a resounding crack! sounded across the circle from where they'd come.
A girl with flaming orange hair came tearing out of the trees. Daisy didn't really have long to register much about her appearance. Except for the wild look of pure glee on her face that got Daisy's attention immediately. Really, she looked like she was in the middle of a wild adventure, and in all honesty, she probably was.
The nearest tree cracked to the ground with another almighty crack! An Ursa the size of a small building followed, red eyes gleaming even from this distance.
"Should we help her?" Mallory's voice sounded in her ear, making Daisy jump.
"I- " she began, but stopped. What should they do?
"Nettle!" called a familiar voice. Daisy recognized the voice, but couldn't put a name to it. "Use Sindile!" The girl twisted, flipping to hold up what appeared to be a canon blaster. With a loud cackle, she fired off three rounds of- well it wasn't shells, that's for sure, although from this far, Daisy couldn't see them exactly.
The rounds pierced through the beast, ripping large chunks of fur and smoke straight out of the creature's face. One went straight through one of the Ursa's glowing red eyeballs. A couple of small cracks went off behind the beast, and then a shape dropped down from above, tan wearing brown boots, and Daisy recognized him instantly.
On the way down, the sniper rifle transformed into a long-handled blade, which he expertly stabbed through the beast's head.
With a loud grunt, the creature fell, smoking furling off its still form.
Mallory and Daisy stood side by side, watching as the other two brushed themselves off. The girl's weapon made a series of mechanical clicks, compacting down to a reasonable size, which she then latched onto a strap hanging crookedly over her shoulder. The new pairing across the way glanced at each other at the same time Mallory and Daisy did.
"Daisy," the boy said suddenly, as if he were only just recognizing her.
"Hey Olive."
Mallory nudged her arm gently. "You know this guy?"
"We met yesterday," Daisy explained. "Mallory, this is Olive. Olive, this is my partner, Mallory."
Mallory grinned at him in a way Daisy would name as open and shy. "Nice to meet you," she said in that deep alto, sounding much more confident than Daisy imagined she would.
Olive tilted his head. "Likewise." He indicated the orange-haired girl with his hands. "This is Nettle, my new partner."
Nettle grinned in a shark-like way, her eyes sharp and her teeth bared. "Sup?"
Mallory and Daisy exchanged another glance. They were really starting to get good at that silent communication thing.