Chapter 11

Survival part two

Erik, ?

"Where did you get those?" Mother asked sternly as she examined the contents of my duffel.

"I bought them." I say calmly, I had expected a situation like this so I had rehearsed my story over and over again so that I would not screw up if she had asked.

"With what money?" She demanded.

"Some idiots money from the wallet he had hooked on his belt instead of his pocket." I responded, at that time in my life this statement would have been believable. With only having my mother and her workers influence in my life, I was going down a rather dark path.

"Good job." She said, I could see a slight grin on the one exposed portion of her face. She always wore a mask or a hood to hide her profile around me, she often said that I would see her face when she could trust me. "You'll need some training with them."

"Thanks mother." I say politely, the scene swirled before me and I found myself sitting in a small diner about a month later. I was zoned out as I waited for my order to get to me, but I was suddenly snapped out of it by the sound of a glass being placed on the table. I looked up to see not my order, but instead a man had taken a seat next to me instead wearing familiar attire.

"Do I know you?" I ask cautiously.

"Jeez, you've asked me that twice kid." The man said. "How have those pieces worked for you?"

"Oh, it's you again." I say in a much quieter tone, avoiding looking at him in case someone watching was getting suspicious. "Who are you?"

"Your dad, I'm not gonna give you my name." He replied. "There's always the risk that you'll tell your mother." He took a quick drink from his glass.

"Why are you only coming now if you're my dad?" I demand.

"One, I wasn't aware you were real until four months ago." He stated. "Two, I didn't want to set up visitation on account of her being a literal psychopath." The scene began to change again, but I was swiftly woken up by a sharp pain on my cheek and Ruby trying to yell in a whisper.

Isaac, day one

"Nora." I say for the fifth time. "Where are we going?"

"To Blake." She responded.

"Do you even have the slightest idea of where she might be?" I ask.

"No idea." She said happily, we continued walking until we came across a river. I was about to fill my canteen before I notice four Ursa were lingering in the area, in a practiced movement I crouched down and drew my Knixes. My stealthy preparation was for not though since Nora decided to run out and fire a few grenades at the largest Ursa.

"Oh I just love improvising." I mutter as I dash out from cover to leap at the nearest monster, sinking my blades into the black fur of the beast and tinting it a dark Crimson. I quickly start using the knives as leverage to pull myself up the beast with a series of stabs, the Grimm roared in pain and drew attention from one of the other Ursa. The beast rushed me and its claw cut into my chest, the pain quickly faded but the force knocked me clean off its ally. I managed to recover in the air and kick off a tree right back onto the Ursa, in one swift movement I dive forward and plunge my Knix's full length just below the beast's skull, killing it instantly. Meanwhile Nora seemed to have finished off the other two.

"Watch out!" Nora shouted just as I felt the other Ursas teeth sink into my shoulder. It was clamped on rather tightly to where my aura wasn't able to heal the injury, it was about to bite again but I heard a sickening thud. It fell down on me and it maw loosened its death grip on me, I bend my neck to see Blake working her blade out of the skull.

"Ahoy, we've been looking for you." I say in a pained tone.

"Are you okay?" She asks quickly.

"It's healing, but I feel like it's going to leave a mark." I say as I trace the marred area on my shoulder. "So my knight in goth armor, where did you pop out of?"

"Spotted you guys when I was looking for a campsite." Blake responded.

"Did you find one?" I ask.

"Right here is good, a defensible clearing with a constant water source." She replied as she gestured around the clearing.

"Sounds like a plan." I say. "How are we going to defend, traps or walls?"

"Why not both!" Nora shouted, eager to join the conversation

So we put down our bedrolls, setup a fire pit, and started setting up defenses. It was too late to start working on makeshift walls, so we set some hidden stakes and whatnot. We set up shifts for the night, I would keep watch first, then Blake, then Nora, this way I conveniently had the most continuous sleep possible. My shift passed without incident other than a few odd sights and noises that procured here and there, at one point I swore that I saw a spotlight shining to the sky. After the routine of being paranoid had drawn on for three hours I woke up Blake and lied down on my roll and drifted off to sleep.

"Just avoid him."

"Why?"

"You really don't know about the Blythe kid?" These comments woke me up, I opened my eyes to find myself alone at a small table with a lunch in front of me. I turned my head to see someone steering their friend the long way around my table. This was the price I paid for my family name, suspicious looks and fearful treatment. All my life anyone who knew anything about the Blythe name knew to avoid the newest addition to the family, me. My 'family business' was the truth that everyone knew was true but no one could or would prove. So they instead choose to avoid conflict with us and kept a careful distance from my horrid family. I hated my family legacy I had been stuck with, most Blythes relished in this fear but the isolation only made me morose. I suddenly noticed something, the entire dining hall had gone silent, there was a girl sitting across from me at the table. Not only had someone actually dared to sit down, that girl clearly had a pair of grey wolf ears protruding from the sides of her head. This was especially odd, it was well known that my family had a extreme prejudice against Faunus, but she she had simply sat down and started eating.

"Hello, my names Hearth." She said in a tone that conveyed no fear or caution.

"Mines Isaac." I say cautiously, I quickly racked my mind for what you're supposed to say next. "Pleasure to meet you?" The uneasy reply seemed to amuse her a bit, she grinned and leaned forward a bit.

"I don't like people being isolated." Hearth said. "Whatever they may or may not have done." From then on we started chatting and getting to know each other, and the dining hall was silent the whole time. I would have loved to stay in this moment, but my eyes started to open.

Clara, day one

I looked into the clearing, the five Beowolves were still scavenging around. I glance down at Dakota, he's turning up some dirt out of boredom.

"Here's the plan, go up to that side of the clearing and distract them." I whisper to Dakota. "Then I'll take out the adult and turn the four young ones." The white Grimm then raced off to complete his task, I waited for a minute until I heard a bark from the other side. The beasts turned to face the noise as I clipped my rifle together, after struggling with the weight for a moment I fired a shot at the head Beowolf. The first shot went through the beast's shoulder spraying Crimson specks across the younger beasts, the second shot was luckier and pierced the skull. It fell limp, but the others now we're turning to me.

"Here doggie!" I taunt, the bloodthirsty red eyes glared back at me as they rushed me. I kicked the first one and grabbed it's face, the second one slammed into me and bit my side, but I managed to grab its neck. I quickly extended my aura into them, the hateful red eyes became an unchanging blue. I pushed them aside from me and braced myself for the next two, but they both managed to tackle me and bite down. I punch both of them off and take the left one by the throat, it starts to turn while the other one decided to flee for its life. This didn't really trouble me since I was already stretching my aura thin with three Beowolves, I started to develop a slight headache from the sensory input I was receiving. I sit down and close my eyes, extending the majority of my focus through my conduits. They quickly ran off in three different ways to search for a cave or some other shelter.

After scampering around for a few hours my eyes finally lit upon an opening to the earth, I lift my head up and sniff around. I don't pick up the scent of any Grimm so I start to head in, but I hear a blast and moments later I feel a sharp pain in my side. With great difficulty I manage to turn myself to the source, Yang was standing there with her gauntlets extending across her fists. She suddenly gasped as she seemed to see that the beast had blue eyes instead of red.

"Shit, sorry Clara!" Yang shouted as she rushed to the monster's side. "Is it going to pull through?" I shake its head, thankfully I could remember where I had gone. I feebly clawed the ground to scratch out 'wait here.' The last thing the wolf saw was Yang nodding, I opened my own eyes and started running off to the area. After traveling for fifteen minutes I finally found the cave opening and the blonde waiting on me.

"Hey Clara!" Yang said, she then knelt down to give Dakota a scratch behind the ears.

"Hey Yang." I say, looking at the cave and the surrounding area, I could tell that this was a decent spot. At this moment a loud noise interrupted us, the corpses of two Ursi fell into our clearing. Behind this pair were Pyrrha and a girl with pale skin and blue dyed hair hold two double bladed daggers.

"Hello!" Pyrrha called, the other girl simply waved at us.

"Who's your friend?" I ask.

"Her name's Misty, from team Crimson." Pyrrha said, Misty gave an affirming nod.

"Can she talk?" Yang asked, as she asked this Misty lifted up her chin and gestured at her throat, it was marred by a massive scar.

"Oh." I say. "We need to start setting up camp, it's getting dark." With that we all headed down into the cave, the descent was only a few feet before the cave leveled out into a small chamber. The only entrance and exit seemed to be the cave opening, other than that the cave seemed perfect for use. We all set up our bedrolls and Misty quickly built a fire with three logs and some fire dust, I elected to take first watch with Yang second, Pyrrha third and Misty last. I layed down at the cavern entrance and peered out into the darkness, at this moment my Beowolves arrived and I commanded them to start patrolling the area. With this respite I decided to think, what were the odds of my situation right now? I'm fine dealing with Pyrrha and Misty but I'm not sure how long I can keep my cool around Yang, especially if we'll be in constant contact for a week. After a long time of thinking through survival and my own personal problems someone tapped me on the shoulder.

"It's my turn." Yang said.

Elith, day one

"What do you think did this?" Jaune said worriedly.

"I don't know, what do you think would attack a Grimm with ice dust?" I asked him in an annoyed tone. "Also, what kind of creature do you think could actually use dust?" I knelt down next to the frozen Beowolf,; the ice seemed to have spread out across the monster from a single point, eliminating the possibility of raw use or ammunition. This also meant that the weapon used expelled dust from a point at the tip of the blade, in other words all evidence seemed to point to Weiss's rapier.

"Weiss must have passed through here." I say, Jaune looked at me curiously after this.

"How can you tell." He asked.

"I have some training in tracking and investigation." I say simply, my dad may have hated the thought of me doing 'unladylike' things, but my mom fully supported my want to be a huntress. With this support came professional training in many useful skills, among them being sleuthing. "Weiss!" I shout out into the forest, almost immediately after I called I saw a glint between the trees as Weiss kicked off a series of runes until she landed in front of us.

"Hello." She said, as dusted off her dress.

"Ok, I don't even want to know how you can make landings like that on stilts." I say, gesturing to her high heels. To save time I decided not to bring up the rationality of wearing dress to a survival situation, my attire was cargo pants and a trench coat for the sake of having as many pockets as possible.

"I don't want to know how a girl from Atlas is so underdressed." Weiss retorted.

"Nor do I wish to explain, can we move on to finding shelter?" I ask.

"Gladly." Ice queen responded, with that we started moving north towards the cliff face.

"I'm not saying you have bad weapons Jaune, I'm only saying it has limited and slightly pointless functions." I say to Jaune as we step into a clearing. Suddenly my attention is ripped from the conversation to the contents of the clearing, the partially intact ruins of a large square building. "Guys, check this out." We searched the building to find that it had three entrances and access to the barren roof, one of the walls was destroyed and at the moment portions of the roof did not seem structurally sound.

"It has flaws, but it is a good base to start with." Weiss said.

"First order of business should be reinforcing it." I state as I walk out to the edge of the forest.

"How are we going-" I interrupted Jaune's sentence by cleaving through the base of a tree with a crossed slice from Sanguinem. "Oh."

"Drag that over to the collapsed wall please." I ask politely as I cleave another tree, after about eight trees I decided that we had enough and started assisting in dragging. We started cutting off sections to stack against the wall and used the remaining portions to act as supports for the ceiling. This took around an hour and a half and was definitely sloppy in some places, but that was a worry for tomorrow I think as I lay down on my bedroll.

Author's notes

I'm not actually going to write out seven chapters on this subject, I'll be having time skips to more important occurrences. The next chapter mint take a little while to come out since I'll be starting a new project alongside this, 'The bloody moon'.