Chapter 6: Rough landings:
Give me a good fight during this test. I want to show them what I can do. This is the moment I have been waiting for. For the heroes to see me in action.
Mauve Reynolds felt the blindfold get taken off his eyes, restoring his sight. He could see trees passing below him as the Bullhead leaned toward one side. The instructor behind him told him to take a deep breath as he tensed. He looked behind him and saw that he was the first of the four people on his aircraft to be selected. He sighed. Just his luck.
"Relax, I'm only pushing you from a flying aircraft!" Said the man as he jokingly placed a hand on Mauve's shoulders.
"Yeah. Only that" Mauves half cape flapped around in the wind. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade.
"Do you want me to count to three or do you want it to be a surprise?" The instructor queried. Mauve shrugged.
"Surprise me" He smiled grimly. The man behind him laughed, taking his hand of his shoulders.
"Ah, well then. Perhaps we should leave it a minute. Let you calm down" The man moved back three steps, turning around, before snapping back and pushing Mauve out as he relaxed his muscles and posture.
"Surprise!" The man yelled as Mauve fell to the ground. Cursing the man on his way down, Mauve clicked into action mode as channelled his willpower into activating his semblance. Below him, a white shield came into existence, a solid barrier of energy wider than his entire body lied lengthways, which began to slow his fall down to a calm drop, its ethereal form reversing his momentum by the slightest amounts required to avoid a painful impact. Hitting the ground with a thud, Mauve landed in a crouch, dismissed the shield and looked up. No Grimm, so that was a plus. He had also landed flawlessly, no broken bones nor crushed wildlife below him. So far so good, it seemed.
Standing up from his crouch, he took one step forward, and then another. Nothing exploded around him, no Grimm came flying out of the trees to confront him, there were no hidden traps…the big list of things that he imagined could go wrong got considerably shorter with each passing step.
Well, maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as he had feared it could be.
Mauve decided to a direction and travel in that way for as long as he deemed fit, or until he found another person. Whichever came first. Starting off in a brisk jog, he quickly traversed the terrain, jumping over tree and root, rock and stream, around holes and over boulders, maintain a mostly consistent direction as he ventured in what he thought was the right way. He had been travelling for some 30 minutes when he heard a snap of a twig behind him.
Stopping in his tracks and whirling around, he could see no person standing there, but he could hear the sounds of something moving in a circular direction around him, to his sides. Given that a person would have most likely revealed themselves if they had seen him, or would have continued moving in a straight line if they had not, that left only two alternatives. One was harmless wildlife, the other was…Grimm.
Drawing his blade, Mauve picked up a nearby rock in his free hand and threw it into the bushes. The rustling intensified as a charging Beowulf came running out.
"Showtime" Mauve declared, and readied his blade. Striking swiftly with a precise forward sweep, the beast staggered back, but did not die. Mauve had not killed it on impact. Disappointing, to say the least. Mauve stepped forward and struck again, this time severing an arm, before he pirouetted and cut off its head in one, clean, surgical stroke.
"That's more like it" He announced, but his jubilation was cut short when several more came out of the bushes toward him. Mauve snapped back to ready stance and steeled himself for the coming fight. The first foe came in recklessly, its first attacked betrayed by the telegraphed nature of its swing. Mauve ducked low and brought his sword up and under its guard and into its skull via its neck. Withdrawing the blade, he sidestepped the next one and stabbed it through its spine on its way passed him, spinning the blade around to stab forward on the next one. He kicked forward and freed his blade in time to parry a strike from another assailant, but he had countered before the beast could respond with a second blow, his sword striking the beast at its knees, cutting them off. He raised his arming blade high and then brought it down on the beast's neck, an instant fatality. Mauve nodded and smiled at his handiwork.
"Impressive." A voice announced from the trees above him. Mauve looked up to see Umbra sitting there, her crossbow/rifle hybrid in hand.
"Did you just watch that whole thing?" He asked, annoyed. "And you didn't help?"
Umbra smiled and shook her head.
"Sure I did. I killed that Grimm which snuck up behind you" She shot back.
"What Grimm? I was paying attention to my surroundings the whole time!" He protested. Umbra merely smirked and raised her crossbow rifle, the barrel beneath the bow unwavering as she fired a shot off behind him. Mauve jumped as the round went past his ear by mere millimetres.
"Gah! Watch it!" He shouted, and then turned around to see where it had. A Beowulf with a bullet hold clean through the centre of its forehead lay behind him.
"You weren't paying attention then" Umbra called out as Mauve silently breathed out. That was close. He turned around and looked back up at Umber.
"So, are we team mates now, or what?" He asked, to which she smiled.
"Guess we are now".
Mauve nodded in satisfaction. Now he had a reliable, trustworthy teammate, he had nothing to worry about. Him and Umbra went way back.
"So, know where were going?" She asked, climbing down from the tree.
"Uh…not really…" Mauve said. He was hoping she did…
