A/N: You know what? I think I'm actually making up Waxing Magnolia as I go along. Aside, I promise I'm actually writing Tensile Strength For The Soul. I'm even halfway done! But then I hit writer's block. Some lines of dialogue and thought elude me, because I have to make them make sense to Blake...
When all my obstacles are conquered, and my dreams fulfilled, become a current and bear my sleeping body home, under the aura of the world.
February 1, 2015.
In essence, the Landing Strategy was just about how you would hit the ground to ensure the highest probability you would emerge ready to fight. The hows of doing so was up to the Hunter, resulting in highly eclectic methods that wouldn't look out of place in an air show if one had to watch several teams land in their own unique way, weaving and diving at all different speeds.
A Hunter's touchdown could appear effortless, or as a spectacle, or sometimes even impossible to detect.
Zaffre St. Patrick fell through the air. She fell.
Without the barest hint of trajectory correction, of righting herself in flight, or anything whatsoever, the drifter tumbled through the air, head over heels, a tangle of limbs and her cloak twisting every which way constrict her.
Rather than stop this, Zaffre fired her war pipe, sending her spinning even faster, leaving smoke corkscrewing behind her as she forced the tip to her lips and sighed.
"Wish You Were Here."
The smoke exploded into action, swirling and wrapping the smoker in thick layers until she was a thick ball of smog that hurtled towards the ground, and smashing through both trees and branches gracelessly until it carved a groove in the soil meters long. The soil bunched up in front of the smoke orb finally rose high enough to bring it to a halt. With that, the sphere dissipated, leaving only driven earth.
From within that trench, blue shocks of hair emerged, followed by Zaffre's eye, wrinkled with indignancy.
"Ugh, the things I do to be employed..." She grumbled.
The sleeves were extended down midway down the sides of Phthalo's solar absorbent coat like webbing, theoretically to provide more surface area to catch light. They were also practical for catching more air, and the chemist was squealing with glee as her outstretched arms let her glide towards the Emerald Forest. Minor experimentation allowed her to barely control her descent, mainly by rolling from side to side, but that simply made things more exciting for her. She sliced through the air on green sails until she fell through the gaps of the trees.
Grinning, Phthalo brought her palms forwards, lenses of the FOX Gloves there aiming for one of the thickest branches she could see. There was a faint whine, right before the Dust imbibed in her outfit fired from them in solid yellow light, smashing the greens off along with the branch from the trunk. Phthalo twisted in the air to fall feet first so that the insteps of her boots dug into the chopped branch. Phtahlo laughed the entire way, now surfing atop her find as she bounced from tree to tree as she fell, scattering bark along the way until she crashed to the ground, still riding her "surfboard" until it crumbled away completely under her feet. Keeping upright, Phthalo slid the last few meters on her own, kicking two trails of dust behind her until she finally halted while her arms were raised high above her, fingers pointed in Vs.
"Ten-Ten! Badass Of The Year! Every Year! Yes!"
Bell simply followed the arc of her launch to its natural conclusion, flying through the air upright and falling upright. Letting the wind whistle past her ears, she fell towards a tree she picked out during her time airborne. She let her body loosen up as she prepared to hit the tree feet first.
The huntress slipped through the branches with only their faint rustling sounding out as she disappeared into the tree top.
Much lower, the small girl dropped onto one of the larger boughs like a cat, crouched, her feet and hands touching the rough bark, as her scarf fell over her head like a hood. Looking up, Bell saw the world with her glowing red eyes, the forest around her selectively melting away at her gaze as she searched.
With nothing found, she immediately took off, leaping from one tree to the next, only one question, and one promise on her mind.
Velvet, where are you?
"OhgodohgodohgodohgodohgodI'mgonnadie-"
Sometimes, though, a Hunter's touchdown could also be complicated.
Velvet Scarlatina had finally stopped screaming her head off about halfway through the whole catapult ordeal, but only because her lungs gave out first. But that didn't change the fact she was headed for the Emerald Forest face first.
"Oh gooooood!" Velvet repeated one more time, while she did everything she could to hold onto Waxing Magnolia with her one hand while it ripped through the air. At this point, since a hunk of metal wasn't going to help, all it really could be was a lucky charm. She built it after all, that meant something went right! Maybe it'll work out again!
Velvet was, in fact, lucky enough to avoid flying head first into any of the trees that seemed to be blurring by her, so she prolonged her life for about five more seconds until the rabbit could see the forest floor.
Down below, the unmistakable pitch black shape of a prowling beowolf emerged, and Velvet could see its ears perking and the monster raising its head so that its red eyes made contact with hers.
"WHY!?" Velvet screamed.
The Beowolf snarled, and stood, ready to receive a rabbity appetizer. Only second away, Velvet winced, forcing her weapon in front of her and... thought hard.
I don't even know what I'm doing but Do Something! She essentially all but prayed to her weapon.
Something happened.
Velvet yelped and jerked her head to the side while the shoulder stock of Waxing Magnolia shot backwards, a shaft extending from the plates of the weapon's main body, while the trigger and handle folded away, turning the rifle into the beginnings of a longer staff, while the heat-sink like plates began to unfurl. Swiveling around each other on hinges, Waxing Magnolia's head opened up to reveal a central cylinder around which the plates danced on, their undersides carved up with Channels and the Essential Theories. Patterns interlocked around the central cylinder, itself subdivided into multiple drums that were click-clacking as small containers of the four main Dusts spun about, aligning in a row.
Velvet began to understand.
Three shards of Bite, one of Tremble. Leave the rest on hold. Form channel.
The air in front of Waxing Magnolia and Velvet began to whirl, collect, and more importantly, harden.
"OH GOD THIS ISN'T GOING TO WOOORK!"
The beowolf snarled again.
Let it be reiterated that most Grimm were very stupid Creatures. All it figured in its head was that something human and edible was falling its way like table scraps, and if it timed it right, it would go right down its open mouth. Things like "terminal velocity" and "energy equals mass and speed" were clearly beyond its keen (and human civilization was stupid anyways), hence it was a bit late for the Beowolf to dodge out of the way of the screaming, hurtling rabbit faunus when it noticed she was holding a rather thick wall of rippling, enchanted air between her and itself.
Velvet came in at the beowolf with the speed of a car and a wall of air solidified on one side like stone. She tucked into a half roll at the last second so it was her back connecting with the beowolf's chest. The Creature died on impact, its chest cavity going two dimensional. Its swarthy fur still was serving as decent cushion for the girl as the beowolf slid backwards through the forest. In its path, a few more beowolves looked up from their own hunts in confusion to see the spiny back of one of their brethren come for them at high speed. The next beowolf also died immediately when Velvet's Emergency Grimmbag impaled it, and the next lasted about five seconds when the combined two came after it. It died when the whole chain smashed into the trunk of a particularly large tree, crushing all the beowolves in a tangle of limbs and gaping slack jaws.
The shield of wind came down.
Silence in the forest.
Velvet, half buried by a Grimm, her feet poking ludicrously in the air, let her head fall down against the forest floor and moaned at her sore back.
And that was how Velvet inadvertently made her first kills out of all her class during Initiation.
"Ugh. Wish You Were Here."
A Beowolf leapt at Zaffre, and had its head clean knocked off by a smoking fist. The familiar kept vigil around its master as she tromped through the underbrush, pipe at her side and always ready for a quick inhalation to release another blast of her enchantments.
Frankly, she found the whole exercise boring.
"This is my Initiation." Another one in the small pack went flying, head flattening against a tree while Zaffre paced by. "Walking in a middle of a forest, looking for the Big Man's knick knacks... god, I'm not sure what's worse, running around with a bag full of rocks or..."
The last trio charged her together, leaping with claws raised. Zaffre's smoke familiar punched two of them out of the way, before the casting finally wore itself and the smoke broke up, leaving the third beowolf with nothing but clear sailing for the woman's exposed neck. Its head was promptly caved in by a lethargic overhead pipe swing, sending it crashing to the ground. Zaffre gave derisive sniff before she pulled her war pipe back and gave the bowl a cursory inspection, magazine, heat shield and all.
I need to quit smoking so much. I'm gonna run out of ammo at this rate, no matter how long each Casting lasts. Fighting grimm with just my pipe… yeah, I'm totally stoked.
Looking up, Zaffre tuned her senses as she could, listening to the faint crackling and thumps of guns going off. All around her, the kids were running about, trying to graduate to safety. So was she.
"North, huh? Wherever these "relics" are..."
"Dorrryyaaaah!"
Zaffre winced, and wished she hadn't recognized that cry. But no, like she could forget. The damn girls pretty much chiseled her voice into her memory.
"Bangarang! You got me!? Bangaraaaaang!"
"Oh yeah, I know where this is going... of course," Zaffre grumbled. She was more than tempted to walk off and let her deal with it, but no, there was this niggling part of her that was demanded she make sure her fellow human being was safe from danger. Bah.
Zaffre marched off towards the closest source of combat, which was a combination of roaring, cackling, and hard meaty impacts. She finally arrived when she camped out at some underbrush and watched Phthalo essentially toy with a pair of Ursa. However the fight opened, the weedy little chemistry freak was essentially in control of the fight. They weren't in a clearing at all, meaning no matter how hard the Ursa were roaring and swinging, there wasn't enough room for them to do more than swat at trees intervening everywhere, while Phthalo simply wormed her way around both the Grimm and the trees. Zaffre frankly wasn't even sure if Phthalo had actually even begun attacking or not.
"Small enclosed spaces provides me with a sense of comfort and security..." Phthalo hummed, as she kneeled to let another enraged Ursa swing and carve out a paw full of tree trunk out where the girl's head should have been.
Phthalo grinned before exploding forward from below, a jet of hardlight firing from the back of her gloved hand so that she could drive her palm into the Ursa's stomach. The beast gargled and made a series of short huffs as its breath escaped it while it doubled over to Phthalo-height. Immediately the chemist withdrew her hand while her other darted forward, her FOX Glove digging into the Grimm's throat. With a sneer, the chemist activated her Glove, and yellow claws formed at the fingertips, shooting into the Ursa's neck. After that, it didn't take much as the chemist swept her claw grip out the side, carrying black viscera with it.
Before the Grimm even collapsed, Phthalo had to boost backwards through the air with downward pointed palms as the remaining Ursa barreled past its dying comrade.
"Hmph!" Phthalo grinned again from under her hat as she hit the ground sliding while the Ursa came down on her with an overhead blow. The chemist simply met the attack head on, throwing her light propelled palm forward to slam into the Grimm's paw. The Ursa's arm rippled grossly for a second before whatever passed for bone and meat in there flattened up to now pass for meatloaf. The Ursa reared back, spewing and roaring in agony as its pulverized arm flopped uselessly. Phthalo, however, was back on the move swirling around to the Ursa's other side, so that she could grab its working arm by the wrist, and pulled backwards straightening it out just in time for her to lance her other palm into its elbow joint, smashing it to pieces and sending it bending the wrong way while the Ursa truly screamed this time in agony. She finally ended her performance by scurrying up the hulking grimm's back and wrapping herself around its head. She hunched over, her thighs wrapped around the Ursa's neck while her gloves gripped each side of its boney snout, and one of her gloves fired yellow hardlight again, Xanthous Dust turning her and the Ursa's head into a blurring twister. Phthalo leapt off the Grimm in a floating pirouette, the grimm simply stood upright, its head flopping and facing the wrong direction before it fell onto its belly, properly dead.
The lithe girl landed in a gymnast's finish, "Crowd goes wild! Yes, Phthalo Shamrock Dartmouth's sweeping the board, scoring the platinum, picking up the chicks and dudes...!"
Zaffre scoffed, "Oh God, does anything come out of your mouth ever make sense?"
Phthalo perked up at the sound of the voice. Zaffre blinked and then slapped her face.
"Aw, shit."
"Zaffy, darling! You were watching-" Phthalo squealed, turning around.
"Wish You Were Here!"
The chemist turned around to a six foot wall of smoke that promptly blasted her in the face. Phthalo tried waving it off, which mostly resulted in her hacking and coughing.
"Hey! Bleagh! Z-Zaffy! What's the meaning of-"
Then Zaffre tackled her.
Phthalo found the image romantic for a moment until they stopped rolling across the forest floor and she found herself pressed down against the dirt, while the old soldier was employing another head lock that kept her in place.
"Don't you look at me!"
"Hglarrgahblaggh-"
"Don't you fucking look at me!" Zaffre growled, shaking her captive by the neck to emphasize, "I don't care how this got arranged, or if the Big Man's behind this, or if this is supposed to happen, but by god I'm gonna have a choice in this manner! You give me one reason, one good reason, why I should be your partner, you psychotic, jacked up, weird ass, oversexed bint!"
Phthalo frowned, "What, besides the fact I'm a murder machine on the battlefield and in the bedroo-glllaaagggh!"
"Yeah! Besides that!"
"C-C'mon, Zaff-llrrggh-Zaffre! What's the worse that'll come from sticking with someone you know?"
"I've only known you for a day, at most. By your logic, I should be partnering with Vasilisa back in my camp in Vale because I know her longer! Lest we forget, my following any of you guys around got me on an exploding ship!"
"And terms of employment!"
"Oh, shut up. I don't want to even entertain the thought of being around you three any longer!"
"Come on, darling!" Phthalo whined when Zaffre's arm allowed her, "Who you gonna partner with, huh? Some random stranger? Some kid who's younger than me? Face it, Zaffy-Zaff, I at least think you're funny! If you tried to hook up with anyone else, they'd only think of you as some over-aged, beat up old lady."
Zaffre didn't respond immediately.
"...Can you, uh, let me go now?"
"I'm thinking here."
"...Have you decided yet?"
"...Oh for fuck's sake-yes. Fine, you can be my partner."
Zaffre roughly released the chemist, who cleared her throat for a second to breathe easy again, and stood up.
They looked at each other, Phthalo rather slack for once, while Zaffre fumed.
Finally, Phthalo snickered, "So, Zaffy, mah girl! Let's go on an adventure-gah!"
Zaffre brought her pipe around to mostly tap Phthalo on the head, through her hat, and brought it back, grunting.
"Shut up, and let's go get those fucking relics and get out of this forest. Goddamn, I spend another minute looking at your stupid ass face..."
Bell had moved her search to the forest floor, hoping she could find a clue. She had her Eyes deactivated at the moment, while she brushed the forest floor, picking at the dirt and guessing as best she could.
Hard running... from a tall, heavy body... foot impacts too narrow for grimm... large, male body? Not Velvet, then.
"Pluuurah! Pllurrah!"
Bell straightened up from ground, and cocked her ears, wondering mildly what the hell that sound was. Her eyes glowed red as she twisted around, trying to locate the source of the noise. When she finally saw a skeleton of familiar build (and another a little further behind) cheerfully tromping through the undergrowth towards her, Bell sighed in relief, and stopped her enhanced vision in time to see Nora Valkyrie walk up to her.
"Heya, buddy! Guess what animal I am!"
"...An owl?"
Nora sighed, rolling her eyes, "Aw, come on! Owls hoot! That was totally a sloth sound!"
"Oh. I never heard an owl call in St. Elmo, so I just guessed," Bell responded as she stood up and brushed her skirt, "Who's your partner?"
"Gah, can you really see the future or something? Come on, Ren! She spoiled the surprise."
Lie Ren pushed his way through the brush, "It's not a big deal anyways. Hi, Bell."
"Ren."
Nora leapt to Ren's side and wrapped her arms around him, looking for all the world like a child who got hold of her favorite toy.
"Ren-and-I-are-part-ners~," Nora sung. Bell nodded.
"Congratulations. When's the wedding?"
That got Nora bursting out laughing, and she reached out to slapp Bell's shoulder, "Oh! Bell, you're such a kidder!"
"Hm. I try."
Ignoring the pseudo-sloth attached to him, Ren asked, "You haven't found your own partner yet?"
"No, I'm looking for Velvet Scarlatina."
"Already locked onto a friend, huh. What does she look like?"
"Rabbit faunus, brunette with an accent. Has a Semblance that allows her to induce diabetes or heart attacks in people. So I'm told."
"So she's cute, huh?" Nora suggested.
"I guess."
"We haven't seen a rabbit faunus, sorry," Ren answered, "We'll keep an eye out. Do you want to come with us? We're heading North."
Bell shook her head, "Sorry, Velvet comes first."
Nora shrugged, "Your loss. That means more room for us on the Grimm Express!"
"Nora, I'm telling you, it's a bad idea," Ren said, apparently repeating a prior argument.
However, Bell was already rubbing her chin, curious, "Riding... grimm? How?"
"Oh, that's easy! Well, after you get on their backs, that is. But a lot of grimm got this sweet spot on the nape of their necks you poke where they just absolutely crazy and they just take off running!" Nora gleefully explained, before frowning, "Only problem is that you can't really drive them... they kinda go in one direction, and that direction's 'aaaarrgh!'"
"...Oh."
"Exactly!" Nora said, nodding, "You should try it some time! Heck, I gotta find one! C'mon, Ren! Don't knock it till you've tried it!"
Since she knew her partner's response would be more complaints, Nora charged off fearlessly into the underbrush, leaving Ren to sigh next to Bell.
"You really need to stop encouraging her," Ren warned the silver huntress. She shrugged.
"I only wonder aloud."
Ren's snort sounded unconvinced. But he still let himself smile for a second before jerking his head in the direction his partner took off, "You're sure you don't want to come with us? Not too many people are able to get to know Nora so fast."
It'd be nice if you were on our team.
It was interesting to see people so close that their inevitable thought processes went towards the wellbeing of the other, and not themselves, Bell thought. Ren's interest in her stemmed from knowing that it meant Nora had another friend to confide in. That sort of quality was rare. Even in St. Elmo, though it was a community small enough that fostering togetherness was an essential survival strategy, it still only meant you had to pull the rope along with everyone else. If someone refused, the ostracism set in fast. That was culture, where caring for others was just necessity at a social level. Bell didn't think she'd ever see it so genuinely between people...
Well, she had seen it, before, in a girl she knew. Which was why she had to refuse now. Wolves take her before she...
"Sorry. Nora has you. Velvet needs me."
Ren nodded, and his smile was longer and more approving, "Fair enough. Hope to see you both at Beacon later, then."
"You too."
"REEEN! This Ursa's being all finicky! I need your help poking it!" Nora's voice echoed over their heads.
"That's my cue," Ren smirked, and took off. Bell nodded her farewell, and she was left by her lonesome.
In the distance she heard crashing. It wasn't in the direction of Nora's experiment in transportation, either. Turning in the general direction of the noise, she Looked, eyes fully red in an attempt to ascertain the cause.
They widened.
"That's..."
Zaffre St. Patrick looked on, utterly unimpressed at the crushed body of the beowolf before her, while the chunky boy in front of her was clearly preening and expecting praise.
You killed a beowolf, big deal.
So instead, Zaffre responded, "Who the hell are you?"
The boy spluttered, practically vibrating in his gray armor while he waved his mace at Zaffre indignantly, "Cardin Winchester! Of the Winchester family-"
"...No shit I had to leaf through a genealogy to discover that..."
"-Who the hell are you?" Cardin feebly tried to retort.
Zaffre put a hand on her hip and answered, "I'm the janitor."
"What?"
"Anyways," Zaffre continued on, "If you're looking for a partner, you're shit outta luck. I got saddled with some twit 'bout an hour back. She's somewhere... I dunno, being herself."
"Please, I'm already way ahead of you. I got a team formed up!" Cardin sneered back, clearly impressed with himself where Zaffre wasn't. It might have been cued, but nonetheless it was at that moment that three more boys Cardin's age emerged.
"Cardin, we cleared out the last of the grimm," one of the boys announced. Cardin grinned at that before waving them over to Zaffre, pleased.
"This is my team. Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing, and Sky Lark. I bet they're each worth a thousand of your partner."
Zaffre shrugged, "You're probably right."
"You bet!"
The drifter almost scoffed, before a thought struck her.
"Wait, hold up..." She said, before staring at the group very hard, "Your name is Cardin. Like, 'Cardinal', the bird."
"...Maybe?"
One of Zaffre's eyebrows rose, as she methodically pointed to each of the other three.
"Lark. Thrush. Dove."
"What, have trouble remembering our names already?" The one with mohawk snorted.
Zaffre tilted her head, as if confused, "Where's the seagull?"
"What!?" Cardin spluttered again.
"You're not a team, you're a freakin' flock of birds."
"Shut up! You know what, I think you're pissing me off!" Cardin snarled, threateningly waved his mace. Zaffre responded by looking for her small pipe.
"Look, don't blame me. If anything I'd blame the Big Man. He probably thought it'd be funny if you grouped you all together," she said as she brought the pipe to her lips, a small casting sending a blue plume of flame up through the bowl to set it smoking again.
"Big man? Who's the 'big man'?"
The janitor of Beacon frowned, "You don't have much situational awareness, do you?"
"W-why you big, stupid-"
"Darling! Who ya talkin' to!?" Phthalo's voice squeaked over in the back, cutting Cardin's tirade off before it began.
Zaffre shrugged as she turned her head back to drawl in Phthalo's direction, "I'unno. Some flock of seagulls, I guess."
"A flock of seagulls!? That's amazing!"
"Stop calling us that!" Cardin had now resorted to shouting as if that would help him regain control of the conversation, while his face continued redden to the shade of his name.
"Yeah, yeah, truly sorry," Zaffre sighed, waving him off, "Anyways, nice meeting you boys. But that weird voice and I gotta find north. Have to find that relic, you know. Oi! Fairy! Stop messing around and get your butt into gear!"
"Wait a second, darling! I just gotta-"
There was a sound of bone snapping.
"Yeah, it's dead now! Coming, Zaffy!"
The drifter made to move on from Cardin's little posse when the boy called out, "Wait!"
Whyyyyyy...
Zaffre turned around, "What?"
"We're going with you!" Cardin announced.
"Whaaaat."
Way too early in the morning for this crap.
"Well, obviously it's for your own good! If it's just the two of you, you won't last long in this forest! It'll be safer if you brought us along to protect you."
Cardin turned to his budding team, with a look on his face, "Right, guys?"
There was an immediate chorus of agreement.
"Yeah!"
"O-Of course."
"Yeah, you guys need us?"
Zaffre continued smoking and looking at the four, while they gave their most winsome, self assured grins.
"And this has nothing to do with the remotest possibility you're all completely lost and don't know a single thing about navigating a forest."
"Of course I know how to navigate this place!" Cardin answered veryquickly, "What, do you know how to navigate?"
"Yeah, that's what I figured," Zaffre snorted, and started walking northward, not bothering to pay attention to whether Cardin's bunch were following along. Part way into her travel, her partner materialized from somewhere, sauntering alongside Zaffre.
"Sooo... Phthalo cooed, looking behind her, "Where'd you find yourself this scrumptious man-harem of yours?"
Zaffre glared.
"Phthalo."
Some idiot had decided the best strategy to use in a forest was to start a fire in it.
That got Velvet running for her life when the entire section of the forest she was in started going aflame, and everywhere she turned, it seemed fire streaked across the ground or collapsed trees to cut her off. At the very least, to her luck, it seemed the ground in the area had been beaten down, leaving little besides dry earth and rock for the fire to burn itself on. With the trees consumed, it wouldn't be much longer before the fire finished burning itself out.
Of course, that was right when just about all the beowolves in the world came riding down on her. Wherever they came from, they had also been running from the developing forest fire, and when they met Velvet their priorities had immediately switched from "escape fire" to "roast rabbit over fire".
While she was sure the proper, heroic/brave/badass Hunter that received training would look at the pack and go "meh", and tear through them like the kids with their birthday presents, Velvet saw a gigantic black carpet of bony, toothy death and promptly ran in the opposite direction.
Running for her life as she did, the faunus didn't have time to even attack, while the long staved form of Waxing Magnolia wobbled in her hand. She had an idea of how it'd work, but the time it'd take to adjust the cylinders and devise the channel didn't exist between her foot falls and the distance from wolf and rabbit. Behind her, she could hear the crazed yipping and howling of the grimm.
One snarl in particular stood out, particularly in the way it continued to get louder and closer-.
Velvet turned to look behind her, and saw one of the larger beowolves leaping through the air at her face. The faunus shrieked and only just managed to raise Waxing Magnolia's shaft in front of her so that the grimm's snapping jaw closed around the weapon instead of her face. The weight and speed of the leaping Creature sent them both slamming into the ground. For Velvet, that meant the back of her skull. While it wasn't exactly hard earth, Velvet's head still rung from the impact, which didn't help any as she desperately tried to force the beowolf, if not off her, at least its jaws from getting closer to her.
It was a losing fight, though. The grimm easily outweighed her by several times, and as they wrestled for control, the beowolf continued press down on Velvet, as she grimaced harder for every centimeter she gave up even as she pushed back, until its canines were almost at her neck.
I'm not going to make it...? Velvet faintly thought to herself. If she wasn't so busy trying to not die, the thought would have horrified her.
She wasn't going to make it. Not without help-
Shrill whistling flew through the air, entered one side of the beowolf's white bony head and burst out the other side in a shower of black viscera and white mask.
"Oof!" Velvet grunted as the grimm collapsed atop her. Looking past the body pinning her down, she could see the next wave of beowolves charging towards her. Then more whistling followed, punctuated by the grimm skulls having holes bored through them with enough force to sending them sailing onto their sides, while others had their limbs burst at various points, sending them crashing to the ground as their arms and legs snapped at the puncture wounds mid run. More of the grimm slammed headlong into the collapsed group, bringing the charge to a standstill as they tumbled and crashed over one another.
It would be their mistake to stop, because that was when Bell Mithril came out of the trees, ends of her scarf fluttering behind and spread like predatory wings. In her right hand, Artemisia Type-03 was whirring with angry gears and her eyes burned red trails through the air.
The grimm howled at the new target, but Bell's left hand was already reaching for the metal strapped to her thigh.
Velvet watched, and wondered.
Her throwing knives?
Zaffre had mentioned how impractical they were in the field, but somehow that notion seemed equally implausible from the practiced motion the huntress showed as she pulled her arm back, and the knives in her hand practically vibrated from the energy that Artemisia had been transferring into her body.
Bell let loose, and Velvet realized where the whistling had come from. The narrow throwing knives sliced the air apart at a speed comparable to bullets, and had an equal effect, as they perforated the beowolves without fail.
With this relief, Velvet took the opportunity to try and push the dead grimm off her. She managed to lift it away from her for several seconds, before Bell's hands grabbed the beowolf and helped pull it off the rabbit faunus.
"Thanks, Bell!" Velvet gasped as she rose to her feet, "I would have died if-"
Bell raised her hand, stopping her. "Save it for when we're not going to die," Bell said, jerking her head in the direction of the remaining beowolves that were regrouping from the blitz.
Velvet's ears wilted, "...Oh."
Bell meanwhile, glanced at the long staff in Velvet's hand, "That does castings?"
"Uh, yes!"
"Do you know one that can kill all the grimm here?"
"...No..."
The answer mortified Velvet, who once again realized she had made it thus far simply by luck and improvisation. Now that Bell was here, that wasn't excusable...
"Okay." Bell blandly answered.
"'Okay'?" Velvet dumbly parroted, unsure what that was supposed to mean.
"I'll take care of them while you figure one out."
"But I can't possibly just-"
The beowolves, however, weren't having any of that, and they began charging again. Bell immediately turned from her conversation to dive towards them, leaving Velvet frantically calling at her back and wondering what she could do now.
Besides watch Bell tear the front ranks apart.
The huntress fought with a brutal, precise savagery that could have only been born by years of real experience. She automatically moved where she needed to be, and where her great slab of a knife needed to be in order to do the most damage. With the help of her glowing eyes to help see the world around her, maneuvering around the mob of monsters was effortless.
Being in the center of the pack should have killed anyone else, but Bell's methodical close quarters technique simply made it even more difficult for the grimm to pin her down. As one lunged at her back, she was already slamming her foot into the knee of a beowolf, creating an ear piercing crack as it bent in the wrong direction. The beowolf choked and fell forwards past her, just in time for its head to be intercept and be crushed by claws headed for Bell's back, while she was already in the process of slamming her whole body into the shoulder of another, her weight and the kinetic energy in her sending the grimm spinning so its back shielded her from the raking claws of another just as she swung back around to bury her knife in its side.
She ducked under every fierce swing of their claws and jinked out of the way of every snapping jaw, while her black knife whirred and flickered in short jerking cuts, slicing through their exposed sides, tearing up kidney and liver regions, or disemboweling them, cutting through their necks, or tearing apart arteries in their thighs, whether or not the grimm had organs or veins to speak of. If she wasn't getting killing strokes in, Bell was settling for the next best thing, loping off limbs and moving on, whether it was smashing her knife through the inside of a beowolf's swinging arm, or taking them off at the knees. She ducked around others and left massive dragging cuts across the soft points of their back or the back of the legs, crippling their tendons before moving on so that the paralyzed or reeling grimm wouldn't have time to reach after her.
Bell left no explosions in her wake, no wild displays of Dust, and no weapon technique that would flashily leave the grimm wholly bisected or with holes you could fit your arm through, but all the same she was leaving a pile of dead, dying, paralyzed, and otherwise effectively neutralized beowolves in her arm's length.
Velvet stood in awe, seeing her friend operate at full efficiency.
Then Bell reeled back after taking a lucky claw to her face. A slight glimmer and a mere grimace showed her Aura working while she rolled backward with the blow, over the back of a collapsed beowolf and between its spines.
"Velvet... Help, please?" The huntress asked meekly, while she kicked the beowolf hard enough to send it sliding across the ground to slam into the pursuing grimm's legs, toppling it. Others continued to close in, and it was a matter of time before the next lucky it did worse.
The faunus jerked in awareness.
Crap!
Velvet swore in her head (since Angelica never liked it aloud), and finally remembered to raise Waxing Magnolia, though she still had no idea what would work.
I have to hit them all... or nearly all of them... with...
Velvet strained mentally, watching Bell fight in her place while she stood around stupidly, trying to go over the channels in her head, trying to think of which she saw and recalled would be able to help tilt this fight in her favor.
I have to hit them all... with...a
Velvet looked at Waxing Magnolia and remembered it had a grip of a gun and a butt stock.
What if...?
I don't need to hit them all at once, I just need to hit all of them.
With an instinctive jerk Velvet wasn't entirely sure when she learned, Waxing Magnolia's long stave collapsed again, while the head piece that was the exposed cylinder burrowed back under the closing plates. The pistol grip swung down into her hand and she brought her compacted weapon up onto her shoulder, and she supported the other end with her hand. On the top of the closed plates, small tabs jutted out.
Iron sights. Velvet took aim.
"Bell! Get down!"
Bell's response to the warning was to land a drop kick into the center of the beowolf she had been fighting. The blow only rocked the grimm for a second, but sent the silver haired girl flying back until she was sent rolling across the ground. In one smooth motion Bell tumbled over a dead grimm that had been lying on the ground, grabbed it and pulled it over her for cover. Better than nothing.
Velvet pulled the trigger, and air whorled.
Down the range, a beowolf stumbled back as a fist sized indentation appeared in its chest, continuing onward until its back stretched out. The beowolf wheezed before the spear of air sent it flying through the horde, smashing into the grimm behind it.
Velvet blinked, surprised at the results. That had been uncannily like the casting she had used earlier, that wall of solidified air, except its power had been reduced to something quick and efficient.
It was also tied to a trigger. What needed to be done was self explanatory, and Velvet gritted her teeth and fired again. The beowolves around Bell came under attack from invisible projectiles that smashed bone and flesh, and sent them flying. The braver, stupider ones tried to charge the distance between them and the rabbit, but only got their faces smashed in for their trouble.
"Bell! Come on! Let's go!" Velvet cried out in between her shots. Bell, having absolutely no compunctions about survival, let kicked the beowolf blanketing her, letting another wind shot turn it into a cannonball for several more targets behind her, while she crawled along the ground towards Velvet. Along the way, she could hear the air ripple above her Velvet continued to fire.
"Does that run out of... magic... bullets?" Bell asked, looking up at her partner as she reached her.
"I don't want to find out right now!" Velvet quickly answered as she fired one last round, before reaching down for Bell. As the silver huntress pulled herself up, the two wasted no time running away from the disorganized pack.
High pitched shrieking filled the air.
Zaffre looked up, confused, "The hell was that?"
Phthalo scrunched up her face, exerting all her brain power to the question, "Sounded like... someone strangling a cat. Hey, Zaffy darling, you think there's a cat faunus in here with us?"
Zaffre gagged loudly, "Oh god, don't make me entertain the idea. Cats are fucking demonic, everyone I ever met. If I ever see a faunus of one of those nasty little shits, I will fucking punt it."
"Did we get away?" Velvet asked, as she leaned on her knees, trying to catch her breath with loud gasps. Waxing Magnolia had been holstered on her back so it wouldn't get in the way of this.
Bell looked behind them for several minutes before answering, "...Yes." At that, Bell's eyes lost their bright glimmer, returning to normalcy.
"We need to find our way north then," Velvet said while finally breathing freely again, "Sorry, but I need your help again. I'm not good with outdoors."
"I'll show you later," Bell responded off hand, before glancing at the signs around her. The way shrubs had bent in the wind, and the way moss on trees had grown in the direction that yielded most sunlight. It didn't take long to orient to north. "It's that way."
Having pointed in the direction, the huntress took point, slowly pushing through the shrubs when Velvet saw a pair of hands reach out and grab Bell, and pulled her down.
"Bell!?" Velvet cried out while rushing towards the site of the disappearance. Panic wasn't helping her judgment, and she didn't realize she could also be up for being grabbed and thrown to the ground until it actually happened.
Is it just me or does this keep happening? A small part in Velvet's head grumbled, As she was rolled onto her back so that the hand of her abductor could be fixed to her mouth. The other one went to the girl's lips as she hissed for silence, "Shh!"
It took a second for Velvet to realize that the warning for silence might have been intended for her benefit, along with the whole grabbing thing. Thus, the faunus meekly obeyed with a slight nod of her head, while she looked at the girl who grabbed her.
For a second, Velvet would have sworn she was pulled down by Bell herself, except the light hues were all wrong. Bell's hair and color of her clothes were a silver, but the girl straddling her was the purest white, from the side tail to the (simple yet elegant, functional yet clearly expensive) dress she wore. Her eyes were a bright blue where Bell's were red, and she carried a complicated revolver/rapier at her left hip that made the rabbit's curiosity burn.
Finally, Velvet was sure she never saw Bell frown as fiercely as the girl was. Her dress and weapon, her expression, the whole posture of the girl demanding her silence came with an air of self assured nobility. She vaguely recalled a huntress fitting her profile at the catapults on the cliff. Was this the girl?
"For goodness sakes!" The Noble growled backwards, "You could have found a better way to warn me, and these two, instead of just giving us all heart attacks!"
Velvet tilted her head so she could look past the white haired girl and she could see what was likely the partner she had found during this whole crazed team building ritual: a girl practically drowning in a blood red cloak that was draped over her, hood pulled back to rest on her shoulders. She was kneeling next to Bell, who was sitting rather placidly. Velvet couldn't see where she carried her weapon, but given how the cloak was outlining her shape so well, the faunus couldn't imagine it being very large. Where the Noble could have been called slight, the face framing her partner's dark red hair seemed young, almost unusually young out of the rest. Baby faced, as it was, and combined with her outfit, it made her look small where the girl in white was simply slender.
Either she moisturized really well, which would make Velvet jealous when she could stop focusing on not being eaten alive, or she was the youngest huntress yet, which made Velvet worried about her odds of not being eaten alive.
"Sorry!" The Baby Face said, wincing under the accusation from her partner, "But they were going to walk into that death trap, and I didn't have time! And thanks for helping me grab the other one, too! Sorry, you two!""
"It's okay." Bell murmured.
"There's a deathtrap?" Velvet asked dumbly, but it was still valid.
"Look carefully over the brush... and keep those ears of yours down!" The Noble ordered.
Carefully, and one by one, four heads poked out slightly from the bushes they were hiding behind. In the case of Velvet, she had to use her hands to keep her long ears pulled down the sides of her head.
North of them was a small clearing. A respite from the endless dense trees would have been welcome, except this clearing was currently occupied by a black shape.
It was in fact, the biggest bird grimm Velvet had ever seen. Well, reverse that, the biggest grimm she had ever seen, and it was a bird, meaning it could fly. Yeah, that was something she wanted to meet. It was currently roosting, winged folded and legs tucked underneath. Its head was bent away, unseen, but Velvet wasn't sure if that meant it was asleep, since she wasn't sure grimm even slept.
"Sweet baby Dust..." Velvet quietly gasped as they all hid behind the brushes again.
"Huh. I didn't know Nevermores got so big." Bell added mildly.
"I know, right?" The Baby Face whispered, almost excited.
"How did you not see that earlier, Bell?" Velvet whispered. While it wasn't absolutely clear, Velvet had seen her friend's glowing eye trick and had children shout about comic books at her enough times she would have been an idiot to not at least assume the silver haired girl had X-Ray vision.
Bell shrugged, "I wasn't focused in that direction."
"...Fair enough."
"Wait, your name is Bell?" The Baby Face asked at the back of the head of the girl in question, "...Wait, have we even introduced ourselves to each other yet?"
"Uh, no. We haven't, actually." Velvet answered.
"Oh. Well, uh, I'm Ruby. That's Weiss," The Baby Face, Ruby, said, while pointing to her partner in white.
"Um, it's a pleasure," the faunus responded, "I'm Velvet, that's Bell."
Velvet's partner nodded her greeting. Then she took the opportunity to actually look at Ruby.
"...You have huge knees."
"What!?" Ruby shrieked. Loudly.
"Ruby, shut up!" Weiss growled, while turning to give a worrying look over their cover. The Nevermore hadn't moved.
"Bell! That's rude!" Velvet also whispered harshly at her own partner.
The offender ducked her head in a display of apology, even when her face and voice didn't say much otherwise. "Sorry. They're... hypnotic."
"Weiss, my knees are normal, right?" Ruby had begun pleading, "Please tell me they're not weird!"
Weiss simply glared back, "Ruby, we're in the middle of an examination, surrounded by grimm and probably being evaluated by the headmaster! I don't have time to focus on something inane like the area of your stupid knees!"
"My knees are stupid..." Ruby whimpered, and wrapped her red cloak around herself, hiding in it.
"I didn't say they were stupid, I just said they were big. And hypnotic. Phthalo calls them 'charm points'..." Bell murmured off hand.
"We're getting off topic here!" Weiss hissed, "We need to figure out what we're going to do with that giant Nevermore in front of us!"
"Can't we just sneak past it, and hope to never see a grimm that big again in our lives?" Velvet suggested.
"In this situation, I'll have to concur with the faunus. Fighting this beast is a waste of our time," Weiss agreed. Velvet couldn't help but notice her word choice.
"No way! We have to take it out!" Ruby retorted, "Remember what Ozpin said? We need to destroy all the grimm we come across! Besides, that Nevermore might see us later if we skip it!"
"He was being figurative, Ruby! We here to get the relics! We are not going out of our way to destroy every grimm we just happen to cross!"
"Hm. Or ride them."
Everyone turned to look Bell, who had just spoken.
"...What." Weiss flatly said, on a level beyond disbelief.
"What?" Velvet simply asked dumbly again.
"You can ride grimm?" Ruby asked, too. There was something glimmering in her silver eyes.
"So I heard," Bell answered, "Apparently there's a spot on the back of their necks you poke that makes them go in one direction, but that direction is 'agh'."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Weiss scoffed, "We're wasting time. Let's find a way around before it notices us."
Ruby, however, had been intently staring at the roosting Nevermore, before she made her pronouncement, "...I'm going to try it."
While Velvet hadn't known Weiss very long, she was sure from the way her cheeks bulged, it was clear she was trying to not scream.
Weiss breathed out, and then spoke. "Ruby, you can't just jump onto a Nevermore that size...!"
"Come on! If we can get on its back and force it in the air, we'll be able to find the place where the Relics are in no time! Plus, it won't be able to attack us if we're glued close to it! We'll be fine!"
"Ruby, for goodness sakes, just wait...!"
The redhead clearly didn't want to waste time moving on her plan as she took off, crawling through the growth and out of sight, regardless of her partner's complaints.
Weiss stared at the empty spot where her partner was for a full five seconds, before she turned around to fix an ugly scowl at the others.
"This is all your fault..." Weiss hissed.
Velvet winced. "Sorry..."
"Don't apologize," Bell quickly interrupted. She turned a defiant glare back to Weiss, "She's your partner."
Weiss clearly wanted to keep arguing, but the bushes in the direction of Ruby's disappearance rustled, bringing her priorities back in order. With an understated groan, Weiss crawled after her partner, occasionally hissing her name in hopes she would listen.
"Shouldn't we help?" Velvet asked.
Bell hummed about it, before responding, "We'd probably make things worse."
They both turned to look at the Nevermore. Behind, in its blind spot, they could see Ruby emerging into the clearing with mincing steps, trying to remain unheard. Right behind was Weiss, looking rather distraught and caught between the dilemma of supporting her partner in the mad enterprise or just escaping from the massive avian Creature.
As she closed in, Ruby reached under her cloak and produced a large red implement that Velvet could only make out as being some bolt action rifle. It certainly was larger than what she imagined a girl of her size would carry.
Ruby almost made it to the Nevermore, when the creature finally turned its head so that one side could look behind itself, and right at the two huntresses approaching it.
There was an infinitesimal second where the two stared at each other.
Then Ruby acted.
"HIII-YAAAAH!"
The rifle in Ruby's hands twirled as she broke into a run on the Nevermore, and Velvet couldn't see how it worked, but the damn thing turned into a scythe that was taller than her.
Who used things like that!? Was that even a thing?
Velvet's dumbstruck brain only let her watch Ruby leap at the Nevermore and throw her scythe down into its back, where it dug deep into its flesh. It certainly looked painful, and it sent the Nevermore thrashing and spreading its wings as it began to stand. Regardless, Ruby's strike was nowhere near the vaunted spot on the neck. The Nevermore simply screeched in frustration and brought its wings up and down. The power generated in those few flaps were designed to bring something of its size to the skies effortlessly.
Little more needed to be said about the girl latched to its back, weighing a fraction of the grimm's.
Ruby's eyes widened in realization. "Oh, crap! This isn't woooorrkiiiiiing...!"
As her feet left the ground, Weiss, acting on instinct and with no real desire to see her new partner depart, grabbed for the smaller girl's fluttering cloak in futility. It stretched, but neither the cape left Ruby's shoulders, the girl's hands leave her scythe, nor the scythe the grimm, and with Weiss at the end of this chain, all she could do was scream obscenities as she was hauled off the ground as well.
"RUBY! You doooooooolt...!"
With another great flap, the Nevermore rose above Emerald Forest, carrying red and white specks with it as it flew northward.
Slowly, Velvet and Bell walked into the clearing, having seen the whole crazed thing.
"Huh. They're airborne," Bell helpfully added.
Velvet followed the Nevermore as it flew out of sight, and tried to get her mouth to work."We...we... better try and follow them..."
With Bell at her side, there wasn't any more navigational hang ups in going north. The further they went in that direction, the more the forest broke up, the earth drying up to leave only patches of grass, while the trees began to be replaced with gray stone. Moss covered and cracked as they were, Velvet could see clear signs of their being crafted, with their carved hard edges and weathered grooves were they were intended to slot together into various shapes.
Further up, it all came together, and Velvet finally saw the remains of a rotunda in a nearly empty field, little more than a stone platform poking a foot out of the soil, and an old wall to keep it company on one side.
And on it, two more familiar faces stood, waiting for them.
"Howdy thar, pardnar!" Phthalo grinned at the approaching pair while she brought a finger to tilt her hat back , "Whut brings ya out 'ere te Beacayn? Fertune 'n' Glery?"
"Hello, Phthalo," Velvet managed to smile back in spite of her weariness, "Hi, Zaffre. You two partnered?"
Black smoke breathed in her direction.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Well, I do!" Phthalo said, and Velvet vaguely wondered if the chemist's teeth was also stained with Fairy Dust the way she grinned, "We met because it was destiny! Like Laplace's and Maxwell's Demons, we were molecularly fated to collide with each other this day!"
"...Way too early in the morning for this crap..."
Bell blinked, "It's past noon."
"SHUT UP."
As the others growled at each other, Velvet took in her surroundings again. The area around the rotunda was not untouched, for she could see trees overturned at the forest edge, along with gigantic feathers embedded in the ground along a path that terminated in a number of tall stalagmites formed out of pure blue ice, doubtless the work of Dust.
Velvet had a good guess about the origin of the ice, but she was certainly more sure of where the feathers came from.
"Zaffre, Phthalo, did you see anyone else here before us?"
Zaffre, leaning against a surviving column, pulled her head back, perplexed, before shaking her head, "Naw, we were travelling with some guys, but we separated when we came here. The fairy and I wanted to see when you guys would turn up. Though from what I figure, including the aforementioned guys, twelve people have already been here."
Velvet's eyes narrowed, "How do you know that?"
"Take a look", Zaffre said, and waved her hand around.
That was when Velvet saw (and remembered about) the Relics. It was thanks to the stories she read to children and had read to her by children that Velvet tended to default to an image of "strange metal orbs" when she thought about something so mystically called a "relic". Ozpin's collection for the Initiation, however, was perhaps more humble in design, if not a little strange. Placed on small platforms ringing the rotunda were chess pieces, alternately colored black and dull gold. They were larger than the norm, large enough that one would have to wrap their hand around to pick one of them up. Besides that, Velvet could see several platforms empty of pieces, along with some of the chess set missing. It didn't take much for her to put two and two together.
"Both rooks and both knights are missing, and the guys that were sticking with us took the bishops. Saying it's one for every pair of Hunters, that makes six between twelve," Zaffre explained.
"What happened to your 'guys'?" Bell asked.
"Like I said, they took off. They figured they could find their way back to the cliffs we left this morning on their own."
The memory of the catapults sent a shiver of fight/flight response up Velvet's spine and into the base of her skull, and she forced herself to grimace away the thought while she spoke, "I guess we should do the same and get back to the academy as soon as possible. Let's get a Relic, then."
"Well, I know which I want!" Phthalo laughed, and darted forward to one of the platforms to pluck a black piece. Spinning around, she thrust her arm out to reveal her choice of the queen, "I won't settle for anything less than the best! Zaffy and I will be the MVPs! Don't you dispute it!"
Zaffre looked at the piece warily, before sighing, "Well, better than picking a pawn, I guess."
"I hope you don't make fun of the people who have to take them after we get all the good parts." Velvet warned.
Zaffre merely snorted, "Naw, I'll only make fun of them for being slow enough that only had pawns to choose from."
Velvet sighed and changed the topic, "Which piece should we get, Bell?"
As Velvet turned to face her partner, she found Bell already standing by another platform, rolling the gold queen around in her fingers. Turning to Velvet, the silver haired girl raised it, unsure, "Can we?"
Velvet shrugged, "I don't see why not."
Bell nodded. She made to store the queen on herself, but took one look at her jacket before she lightly tossed the golden Relic in Velvet's direction so the rabbit could catch it, "Sorry. Pockets are full."
"It's not a big deal," Velvet said as she held the queen, and turned back to her friends, "Well, let's get back to the cliff, before something-".
"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
The four of them turned in the direction of the frantic cries, and Zaffre and Phthalo's "guys", Cardin and his tight knit team scrambling out of the woods, some of them firing behind them blindly.
Bell's eyes glowed, and her face fell, "Uh-oh."
Velvet didn't have time to ask why as she saw the beowolves pour out of the forest, chasing Cardin's team. The rabbit choked, spluttered, and finally threw her hands up, "How many beowolves live here!?"
Cardin, who had been running into the clearing, saw the team of girls at the rotunda and an expression of relief washed over his face. At the same time, he began to orient the chase towards them.
Instantly, Phthalo and Zaffre started shouting back at them angrily, arms waving.
"No, you idiots! Don't come this way! Don't come this way!"
"Shoo! Fly away, Flock of Seagulls, fly away! Go! Shoo! Stop bringing grimm towards us!"
The boys kept running, and Velvet could see the wave of grimm begin to spread out on a course towards her and her friends specifically. She groaned.
"Too late! Run!"
Turning to run first, Velvet was quickly followed by the other three, while Phthalo screamed "Stupid booooys!" behind her as they crashed back into the forest.
"Bell!" Velvet shouted to her partner, "Find us a route! I don't care where, just away from them!"
Bell darted ahead, simply waving her hand to silent call them to follow her, which the others did without hesitation.
The howls continued to grow louder behind them, and despite their efforts, Velvet found Cardin's flock running besides them.
"What the hell! We needed your help!" Cardin shouted indignantly at their backs, and quickly turned a dark gaze at the back of Velvet's head, "The hell are you all taking orders from a freak? All they know is how to run away and beg for their lives!"
Velvet grimaced at the snide words, while Zaffre snarled backwards, "Shut the fuck up, Seagull! When the hell were we obligated to carry your bullshit!? You're the dipshit who was all like, 'we'll make it back to Beacon by ourselves!', and now you're all like 'save my pitiful ass!'... Aw, fuck, my lungs...!"
"Stop fighting! Keep running!" Velvet simply screamed aloud in frustration, too busy breathing to annunciate further, "Bell! We can't outrun them!"
The silver haired huntress kept her glowing red eyes unerringly in front of her, barely noticing the trees she dodged around as she reported back.
"River up ahead! We can fight there!"
"We can?" Velvet shouted-asked in turn.
Zaffre answered for her, "If the water's deep enough we can set up a firing line on the far side and unload on them as they try the wade to us!"
"River in ten meters!" Bell shouted again.
Velvet barely had time to calculate the time it would take to cross before the forest terminated for a moment, as the eight hunters clattered down the smooth stones of a river bank to see a wide band of blue water cutting the through the land.
To her left, she could see outcroppings of rock and the listened to the roaring of churning white water. They were very close to another cliff in the forest, and it seemed here the river kept going until it just ran off as a waterfall.
Well, that was one side accounted for.
Behind her, the yelping of beowolves made themselves heard again, and spurned her to action, as she waved towards the river, "Come on! Everyone across the river!"
With wide, sweeping waddles with no care to dignity, all the hunters to be dove into the river and kicked their way through, throwing water all over themselves as they rushed across the fast moving currents that went up to their knees.
As they made it across, Velvet kept shouting frantically, "Come on! Form a line! Everyone that shoots something!"
"Hey!" Cardin shouted back indignantly, "You're not in charge here!"
He would have kept arguing had Velvet simply just turned her frantic gaze on him and screamed, "I don't care who's in charge! We need to form a line!"
With their lives on the line, the necessity was abundantly clear, and everyone moved in concert, just finding their own niches in an impromptu defensive position. Guns, knives, and gloves all rose up next to each other, while Zaffre, Velvet and Cardin stood behind them.
"Oi! Cardin! Does your mace have a gun in it?" The drifter asked Cardin suddenly and fiercely.
"Uh, no, but it-"
"You cover the flanks, then! Playmate and I are casters, we need to prep the big guns! You bodyguard us! Anything that comes in from the sides, hit it!"
Cardin's jaw worked up and down, as he tried to find a way to argue back, but the sound of gun fire and blasts of hardlight from gloves made them all turn towards the river, where the beowolves were busy splashing into the river. Whatever difficulty the hunters had in fording it, the beowolves showed even less of, as their long limbs almost effortlessly dipped in and out of the rapids as they charged towards them. Whatever difficulty the river posed was minimal.
But it was minimal enough.
Every extra second the beowolves lost became multiplied while bullets hammered into their black hides, knives punctured their flesh, or yellow bolts of Dust solidified light broke their bones. The force of every blow sent a dead beowolf back into the pack, tripping more up or simply leaving another obstacle to wade around in the river, tying up the pack as the rout continued to multiply under the gunfire.
Zaffre meanwhile, fired her war pipe and breathed deep of it, letting noxious black smoke out of her lungs in a feral growl, "Wish You Were Here."
The smoke swept out around her, transforming into her abstract humanoid familiar. Swinging around, the familiar moved towards the forest at Zaffre's back and lashed out one foot into the base of the tree. The bark and wood burst at the point of impact, and with a weary groan, the large tree began to topple for a second before its great trunk was halted by the arms of the smoke familiar.
"Crush them!" Zaffre snarled again, and the familiar moved in response, hoisting the tree up above before hurling it towards the river. The beowolves charging paused for a tragic instant before a whole line of them became crushed under the falling tree that smashed into the river, throwing up water in waves.
Zaffre snorted and turned to Velvet, giving a challenging grin, "I hope you got something useful planned, Playmate, or are you gonna stand around?"
"Give me a second..." The rabbit simply retorted, staring at the new addition to the battlefield as it floated in the river. An idea was forming, and it took a motion of her wrist to send Waxing Magnolia in her hands extending back out into a staff, cylinders and plates reconfiguring.
More shards of Bite. More.
The wind Velvet was asking for needed to be more fluid, more furious... Not a wall this time, though solid force was needed...
The channels were set, patterns glowing around the head of Velvet's weapon as she swung it towards the tree.
Fierce gales erupted again, flying towards the thrown tree even a beowolves began to scale it. The winds weren't as solid as before, but solid enough that they began to lacerate and strip the wood, until the tree practically shattered and shredded inside a miniature twister.
Perfect.
Velvet swung her staff again, and the casting shifted in response, becoming a roiling maelstrom above the river, filled with shards of wood, bodies of beowolves, and fierce enough that even stones began to be plucked off the sides of the river, spinning around in a chaos that the surviving beowolves inside were at the mercy of. They were unable to move in any direction, for any way they ran, one after another they were struck down. A javelin of shattered wood impaled one, shards more shredded another grimm apart, a stone smashed the skull of another, and those that didn't simply were slammed into with the bodies of their growing dead.
With a cry of effort, Velvet thrust her staff out, and the torrent of wind exploded away from her, throwing debris towards the opposite side of the river. Beowolves drove ridges through the riverside, and other broke in half against the trees on the forest edge to fall down inert. The handful of survivors that remained had lost all their taste for humans and whimpered convincingly, darting back into the woods. Away from the hunters.
The sound of the river continued on, while everyone stood in disbelief at the results of the battle.
Up until Phthalo shouted in euphoria, "Yeah! We're BADASSES!"
Velvet jumped a foot into the air, clutching her chest, and she glared at the chemist, "You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Gah! Sorry, Playmate... just... holy crap, we're alive!"
Zaffre snorted, "We can pat ourselves on the back later. We bought ourselves some time, so let's try and get out of here before we start laughing this all off-"
A particularly clever beowolf leapt at them from the forest on their side of the river. Where it came from was unknown, whether it was one of the pursuing pack that crossed the river further up, or another that was attracted to the noise of battle. All that mattered was that everyone's back had been turned, and they couldn't turn in time to respond.
Save one.
"I got this!"
Cardin, eager for an opportunity to prove himself, took one step forward and brought his mace around to smash the stray grimm in the face.
Unfortunately, it was here that a fatal flaw of his made itself known: Cardin had a tendency to draw his arm back too much in over-anticipation of a power blow.
Velvet was in its arc, and Cardin didn't notice that she was in the way.
A second before the beowolf was smashed out of the air by Cardin, his backswing collided into Velvet's side, throwing her clear through the air and into the river.
"Velvet!" Bell cried out in fear. The rabbit faunus foundered for a second as her arms and legs waved about above the surface before she broke out of the water, gasping and soaked, her rabbit ears dropping.
"I'm okay!" Velvet coughed, she stood on her knees in the water. She would have said more, had she not felt something tap against her arm. Looking down, she saw the gold queen slip through the water, carried away by the current.
Gasping, Velvet immediately threw herself at the relic, splashing through the river to try and grab the chess piece even as it danced and bobbed away from her reach.
The relic was getting away, towards the...
"No!" Velvet cried out, even as her friends tried to race along to help, "Stop it! Grab it before-"
The gold queen bobbed through the white waters, and slipped over the side of the waterfall.
For the longest time, Velvet, Bell, Zaffre, and Phthalo stared.
Then the screaming started.
"AAAAAAAHHHH-!"
A/N:Visual references: Bell Mithril's choreography against grimm is inspired by recent movies and games that focus on "mob" style fights, where multiple foes attempt to attack the protagonist at once. The Book of Eli, Sherlock Holmes (2009), Assassin's Creed III, etc. Refer to clips of those series to get a better sense of what I was hoping to accomplish in writing.