We are reaching the end of the volume now, hopefully I can finish strong!

Chapter 9: A Grimm Reveal

...

Damion took a deep breath of the fresh Forever Fall air as they walked through the forest. It was nice to get away from the stuffiness of a classroom and out into the fresh air of the forest.

He looked over at Team CRDL, who had been surprisingly peaceful as of late. They hadn't pushed or shoved Jaune, actually they hadn't pushed or shoved anyone.

Very unlike them.

"The forest is actually quite beautiful" Amy said. "But, we aren't here to just look. You are all here because Professor Peach asked you to perform the incredibly exciting task of collecting tree sap. She said it would help with medical research or something like that. But of course, there are a few dangers in the forest, such as walking into branches, accidentally falling into a thorn bush and of course there are Grimm here too. If you find a creature of Grimm, but you can not identify it, please don't engage it. Call me over, and I'll get a good look at it. Off you go."

The team's split up to collect the sap.

"I wonder what medical research would need tree sap" Alan said as they took their jars to the trees.

"Maybe it's a important item in medicines" Bethany suggested.

"Tree sap? I doubt it" Damion said.

It didn't take long for them to fill their jars.

"Task well done" Samantha said.

Damion looked around him.

Where'd Beth go?

His question was quickly answered when she landed next to him in a shower of leaves.

"Woah! Where'd you go?"

"I was climbing a tree. Always used to love doing that as a kid."

"Was more of a ball game person myself"

"So, like football?"

"Yeah"

"Football? Seriously?"Samantha said, walking over to them.

"Yeah."

"I am not a huge fan of ball games. I prefer something more relaxed."

"So like what?"

"Chess would be my personal pick"

"I did notice something though, in my little climb" Bethany said.

"What was that?" Alan asked her.

"Most of the trees in that direction seemed to be burned up" She pointed in the direction they had come from.

"Really? Odd." Samantha said.

"I didn't notice any burnt trees when we were walking" Damion said.

He looked at Bethany.

"So, we are all done it seems. Want to have that talk now?"

"Yeah, ok"

She took a deep breath.

"Basically..."

Then a loud scream was heard.

"What was that?" They all exclaimed at the same time.

They began to run back.

When they reached the centre, Team CRDL came crashing through the trees.

"Woah, what were you screaming about?" Amy asked them.

"There was a Grimm." one of them said.

"It's got Cardin!"

"Was it a Ursa?" She asked them.

"No, I don't know what it was!"

Cardin's screams could be heard.

"Great, another new Grimm" Amy muttered.

"It had like, a head of lion, and a weird snake tail."

"There was a head of a goat on it's back."

"Right, ok" Amy pulled out Storm Chaser. "Come on, everyone. I am sure you would just love to leave Cardin there, but it's not going to look good on my record if I let a student die"

They all made their way towards the screams.

As they were tearing their way through the forest, Damion noticed that Beth was right.

Did the Grimm burn these trees down?

A fire breathing Grimm? The very concept was terrifying.

Amy suddenly put out her hand, signalling for them to stop.

She walked forward and pushed a couple of branches out of the way, showing a clearing in the forest.

"What the hell?"

She motioned for them to come forward.

Damion walked beside her, and looked at the clearing.

The first thing he noticed was Cardin, and his mace had been knocked out his hand.

The second thing he noticed was the monstrosity standing before him.

Holy hell...

"What is that?" Ruby whispered.

Their description had been pretty accurate.

It did have the head of a lion, with the head of a goat on it's back and a tail with a cobras head.

It grabbed Cardin by the chest with it's teeth, and began thrashing him back and forth, before throwing him to the ground.

It turned around and saw them.

"I think it sees us" Yang added, unhelpfully.

Hot sparks began to form around it's mouth.

"Everyone get back!" Amy yelled out, just as it shot a fireball.

The fireball destroyed the trees and burned several trees behind them, causing them to creak and begin to fall over, forcing them to jump forward, into the clearing.

It snarled at them, and shot out several small fireballs.

They all rolled out of the way.

They all rolled out of the way, and then, the snakes tail spat out some sort of acid at Cardin. He was able to scramble out of the way. It landed on his mace though, and he watched in horror as it began to eat it's way through his mace, burning it and making it unusable.

Corrosive acid?

That wasn't good.

It turned and faced them, and thanks to the fireballs, they were all split up into small groups.

Damion turned and looked at Blake and Jaune.

"What do we do?"

"Our best bet is probably to take out the lion head." Jaune replied.

From the way everyone else was eyeing up it's head, they were all thinking the same thing.

A barrage of shotgun shells flew into it's face, as Yang fired her weapon.

It turned to her and began charging at her and Ruby.

Nora ran over and swung her hammer, but the beast grabbed her hammer with it's claw and threw her to the side.

Pyrrah's shield flew towards the goat head, but the cobra tail swung it's head and knocked it back.

Amy shot at it with her weapon in rifle mode, grabbing its attention, and at that moment, Blake, Damion, Ruby, Samantha and Bethany all jumped at it, trying to sever the goat head, but it appeared it wasn't only the lion head that could breath fire, as the goat head shot out it's own version, although they were much smaller and not as impactful.

They all swung at the goats head, but a combination of fire, horns and acid kept them at bay. While the lions head was distracted, Amy, Yang, and Alan all swung at it, causing it to reel back. Weiss tried to freeze it, but the acid corroded the ice before it got anywhere near.

Ren was able to hack at the tail for a second, jumping back to avoid the acid. Samantha then whipped her sword around it's legs, causing it to fall over, trapping the cobra tail and Damion took that opportunity to slash at it's underbelly, but the cobra tail whipped back out and spit acid at him, but he was too slow to react.

He let out a yell of pain, as the acid began to corrode his arm.

He heard Samantha call out his name before he fell off, cradling his arm.

Jaune and Blake both managed to pull him away.

He looked up at them.

"Is it bad?"

Jaune grimaced.

"It's pretty bad."

Blake ran back over to re-join the fight, but Jaune stayed.

The pain got worse with every passing second, and soon Damion found himself unable to take it.

The darkness took hold, and he faintly heard someone calling his name before blacking out.

...

No, No, No...

Samantha looked over as Jaune knelt over Damion, and she could tell he was unconscious.

She whipped out her sword and it wrapped around the tail, trapping it in place. Then Bethany and Blake both slashed at it constantly, before Blake brought her weapon down, and it severed off completely.

It hissed for a second, before it began to dissolve.

The Grimm reeled back and shot fire into the sky.

Then Yang jumped onto it's back, and began smashing the goat head, and it began thrashing about, trying to throw her off. Everyone else laid into it, hitting it with a barrage of bullets.

It eventually threw her off by slamming itself into a tree.

Blake threw out her ribbon and Yang caught it, running forward and wrapping it around the Grimms neck.

With it's head exposed, Ruby ran forward and brought Crescent Rose into a powerful swipe, cutting off it's head.

Once it had dissolved, Samantha ran over to Damion, who was still unconscious.

She looked at his arm. It was horribly charred.

Samantha looked towards Amy, who had already taken out her scroll, and was phoning Glynda.

"Glynda? Is that you? Someone got hurt. We need you to dispatch a bullhead ASAP, he won't be able to walk back. There was another new type of Grimm. Thanks"

She put her scroll away and knelt over Damion.

"Is there anything we can do?" Samantha asked her.

"We just need to stay put and hope the bullhead arrives soon"

Amy noticed how tense she was and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Sam, he isn't going to die, try and calm down"

They waited for a couple more minutes, and soon enough a bullhead could be heard flying in from the sky above them.

He annoys me sometimes, but I still care about him.

Once it had landed, Samantha and Bethany both picked up Damion and carried him on.

They laid him down on the floor, and soon the bullhead took off again.

Samantha sat down and put her head in her hands.

Bethany shuffled up, and gave her a side hug.

"Don't worry, Sam, I'm sure he'll be fine. I've never heard of corrosive acid killing someone before."

She let go and Samantha looked back over at her partners motionless body.

When they arrived back at Beacon, there were already medical staff waiting for them.

They put him on a stretcher, and wheeled him in.

"That was certainly something" Yang said, rubbing her head.

"Why are all these new Grimm popping up everywhere? First the ArachneTerror and now-" Alan was cut off by Jaune

"The ArachneTerror? That's what they decided to call it?"

"Apparently"

Pyrrah looked over at Samantha, who was hanging her head.

"I know what'll make us feel better after that" she said. "You can all come back to our dorm room, and Ren can make us some of those delicious pancakes of his"

"Ren makes pancakes?" Ruby said.

"Yes" Nora said. "They are the best thing's to ever grace this glorious world"

They all began to headed back to team JNPR's dorm room.

Samantha lagged behind them. None of them seemed too worried about Damion.

Maybe I do worry too much.

But after what had happened with her friends at Signal...

My team wouldn't do that to me. Would they?

No, they wouldn't.

At least she hoped.

...

Their had been a meeting called in Ozpins office to discuss the recent rise in new Grimm.

Amy sat next to Glynda, who was looking very serious.

Glynda, serious? Never.

She was beginning to understand why some of the students were so terrified of her.

"Thank you all for coming on such a short notice" Ozpin said, taking a sip from his mug.

Why does he always need that damn mug?

"Allow us to discuss this incident" Ozpin said. "Amy, what did this Grimm look like?"

"It had the head of a lion, a head of a goat on it's back, and a snakes head on the end of it's tail. It breathed fire, and the snakes head shot the acid."

Ozpin nodded his head thoughtfully, and began looking through files on his computer.

"It would appear that this Grimm has not been given a name, therefore that makes it another first sighting"

Another?

"I thought the ArachneTerror was the only new one until today" she said.

"Qrow and other huntsmen have sent me back some pictures of one's he has sighted"

He brought up pictures on his screen.

There was one of a giant worm, a massive shark, and a big bat, amongst a couple more.

"It would seem that they are growing in size, strength and intelligence."

"How do you propose we take care of this?" Dr Oobleck asked.

"This is the tricky part. These Grimm have not attacked a single soul, and if my calculations are right, ever since these Grimm have appeared, Grimm attacks haven't went up or down."

"It's almost as if they are lying in wait, waiting for their opportunity to strike" Professor Port said.

Ozpin lent back in his chair.

"Do the general public know about these sightings?" Amy asked.

"It would not seem so"

"But how do they not notice gigantic Grimm?"

"It would seem, according to the notes I have received, that these Grimm are rather dormant. They don't seem to move about much, and spend most of their day sleeping."

Port's statement gets more and more likely the further along this meeting progresses.

"Which brings me to ask you all this question. What do you think we should do to these Grimm?"

"We should kill them" Amy and Port said at the same time.

"We should leave them alone" Glynda and Oobleck said.

Ozpin raised his hands.

"State your arguments"

"Well" Professor Port said. "If these creatures are dormant, wouldn't now be the best chance to strike them down?"

"Not to mention" Amy continued. "What if more of them keep appearing? What if they all group together for some kind of big attack?"

"The problem with that is" Glynda turned to them. "We have no idea how strong these Grimm are. We don't know how many huntsmen would be needed to take them out."

"Maybe their peaceful." Dr Oobleck suggested. "Most Grimm are ruthless and cruel. Shouldn't they be seeking out victims to kill, like all Grimm do? Maybe their not even Grimm at all. Maybe they just look like them"

"That's preposterous!" Port said. "Peaceful Grimm? That's the biggest amount of nonsense I've ever heard!"

"We've seen stranger things Peter, I wouldn't rule the idea out."

"Also" Glynda said. "This may be a good opportunity for research."

"Research?!" Amy turned on her. "Who cares about research when thousands of lives are potentially in danger?!"

"I mean, we have never really got to study the inner workings of a Grimm, how they live, what they eat, that could be useful information for the future. And with these potentially peaceful Grimm, this could be the perfect opportunity to do so"

"You want to research the Grimm? There a bunch of man-killing monsters! There's your research done! With all due respect Glynda, you can take that idea and shove it right up your-"

"Amy!" Ozpin cut her off.

"Well, it is a bad idea" she grumbled.

"I am in agreement with Oobleck and Glynda" Ozpin continued. "I think it would be for the best that we wait. Continue to monitor them and their behaviour, but not kill them. I think it would be for the best"

He stood up before Amy or Port could argue.

"You can all leave now" Ozpin said.

Amy stayed behind for a second.

"Ozpin?"

"Yes?"

"Shouldn't we at least tell the student's about these sightings?"

Ozpin took a thoughtful sip from out of his mug.

"I wouldn't recommend it, but if you want to, I won't try and stop you"

"Why would you not recommend it?"

"Because Amy, the last thing we need is a bunch of restless students, wanting to go out on missions they are not ready for."

Yeah, right

She didn't push the matter anymore, though.

She turned and began to leave.

"Amy" he called her back.

She turned around and walked back.

"I haven't gotten a chance to ask you. How has your first term of teaching went?"

"It's been alright."

"I must say, from some of the comments I've heard walking down the corridor, you seem to have left quite a good impression on the students.

"I'm glad"

"Also, my mind isn't quite made up on the Grimm issue. That was just a sample answer. If you have any more thoughts on it, please do not hesitate to tell me"

"Thank you sir"

She walked back out.

Why do I get the feeling he's not telling us something?

...

Couple more big Grimm.

Need to think of name's for them.

Thanks for reading and have a good day!