A/N: HOLY SHIT I PASSED THE 100K WORD MARK.
I, uh... Wow. Didn't expect to get there THIS quickly. Hell, we're still in the middle of Vol 2. Anyway... Hope you enjoy this 100K chapter, and don't worry, I ain't gonna slow down any time soon! This is Arch, signing out, and I'll see you all next time!
The days that preceded the first year's first mission were filled entirely with excitement and dread from many of the students. Some were thrilled to finally go out on the real deal, fighting grimm, saving ladies, and being a hero like they so wanted. Some felt terrified to leave the safety of Beacon, not believing they were ready yet, and wanting to bide their time before putting their skills to the test. In the case of team ACMM, however, it was a mixture of both.
The team took another stroll across town. Coming up with no leads whatsoever started to push Ash to the edge, wanting to do anything she could to finally get a solid lead on the cultists, and their relation to Merlot Laboratories. As they looked around the industrial district, Ash leading the fray, Undine walked right by her side, always on the lookout, trying to find some sort of lead that could help them move the investigation to the fun part, read, kicking ass and looking awesome. "Man... When are we gonna find something already..." She pouted, sounding as bored as ever.
Ash glanced in her direction, rolling her eyes. "We won't find anything if you keep being this loud all the time, Undine. Can you just keep quiet until I tell you to or something? I mean look at Melody and Copper." She looked to her back, seeing Copper right behind her, and Melody walking a good amount of feet away, looking scared to stroll about the industrial district. When Ash realized that her partner was paying the coward again, she stopped the group, walking up to Melody, and patting her on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. "Oh, come on now, Mel. You don't have to worry, alright? I mean... All of us are armed." She pulled her baton, while Undine flashed her trident. "INCLUDING yourself. So really, if anyone has to be afraid here is whoever is crazy enough to mess with three huntresses in training." Copper nodded in agreement, and Undine gave her a thumbs up, grinning widely with her eyes closed.
Melody looked at the group, trying to shake off her fear. There was just something about the Eldritchan Grimm that still scared her, despite it all, but regardless, she reassured herself. "There won't be any grimm, there won't be any grimm, there won't be any grimm..." She repeated this small mantra that she came up with a while back, closing her eyes and muttering to herself, until she felt the fear wash away, at least for now, opening her eyes and giving Ash a brave look. "Yeah, alright. Let's go then."
Looking at the determination in her eyes, Ash couldn't help but smile. "Now that's the Melody I know and-" As she came to finish her thought, her scroll rang, and she picked it up, the image of her father appearing on the screen. "Hold on; it's dad, he might have something for us." She lifted the scroll to her ear, as Clint began the conversation. "Yo, hey dad..."
While Ash was busy speaking with her father, Undine approached Melody, smirking. "So... What now, feeling scared without your..." She paused, emphasizing her words, putting some tease into her tone. "D-A-T-E?"
"W-What?!" Melody felt herself blush, becoming flustered, stepping back a bit, away from the grinning fish. "N-No I don't! W-What makes you think that?!" Alas, her expression was far too easy to read, and Undine quickly saw through her facade, the curl on her lips growing even wider than ever before, as even her gills started to stretch a bit.
"Oh, come on... It's not that hard to read you when you're like this. All I have to do is just mention her name and you get all red." She chuckled, Melody looking away in embarrassment. "Then again, it doesn't take a genius to see you have a crush on her." Undine waved her head, pretending to have figured it all out by herself, while in truth, Ash had to tell her everything to help her get a clue.
"I-I... I mean..." Melody started to shake her head again. "I-I..." Finally, she gave up, sighing in defeat and admitting her true feelings to her friend. "Yeah, I guess I do kinda have a crush..." Her words lessened in volume as she went, ending her sentence on a mere whisper. "A-And I suppose I'd feel safer if she was here. I guess."
Undine, on the other hand, just shook her head, trying to tone down her teasing. "Ah, don't worry about it Mel. I'm just teasin'. You know that, right?" Melody slowly nodded, Undine cheerfully smiling again, turning to Ash again to see how the conversation with her dad was going so far. "So, Ash, what's up?"
As she asked, Ash just finished talking with Clint, hanging up her scroll and sliding it back into her pocket. She had a notebook in one hand, and a pen in the other, having scribbled down a few things during the conversation. "I got some good news, gals! Turns out my dad managed to track down a former scientist of Merlot Laboratories to Vale!"
"Kickass!" Undine started walking forwards, completely oblivious to the fact that none of the others followed. When it finally dawned on her, she turned around, looking curious at the group. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" She resumed her pacing one more time, and when she looked back, only to see the others still right where they started, she walked back, frowning a bit. "What's the deal here? I thought you say we tracked him down."
Ash waved her head, looking a tab disappointed. "And do you REALLY think it's gonna be THAT easy just to waltz into someone's property and go 'Hey, we wanna ask you about cults and your former boss!'" She pulled out the addressed she sketched, showing it was not only in the opposite direction but a while away from them. "Trust me, if we're gonna get through to this guy, we'll need to prepare..."
A few minutes later, the team finally arrived at their destination, being a large, empty looking warehouse, at least from the outside. Ash did a quick survey of the parameter, Copper taking the other side of the building, and once she determined that the coast was clear, she called Undine and Melody over, pointing at the building before them. "Well, this is it. This is where he's staying." She looked confident in her information, certain that they've found their target. "There is only one major issue, however. The door is locked from the inside, and making a scene would make him flee..."
Pondering their next move, it was finally Undine's turn to shine, raising her hand and waving it about. "Oh! Oh! I know what to do!" She called out, Ash quickly blocking her loud mouth with her palm, shutting her up.
"What?! What is it?!" She gave a hushed yell, trying to get Undine to calm down. The last thing she needed on a mission like this was Undine's temper going out of control and scaring off their target, if she didn't already.
Once Ash was fully sure that Undine wasn't going to scream her idea for the entire world to hear, she let go of her mouth, Undine rubbing it with her own palm to clean it. "I could use my semblance. You know, like, dive under the floor, walk to the other side, and unlock the doors from the inside!" She grinned, looking impressed with her idea, though not entirely sure if she could even pull it off. Regardless, she wanted to try it, having training on her semblance ever since the Eldritchan incident, and this seemed like a great chance to do so.
Ash shifted her weight around, thinking. "Hmm... This could work... But are you sure you're ready for this? It would include actually moving while diving about, and last I saw you didn't really get the hang of that." Nothing really escaped Ash's sights when it came to her teammates. She pretty much knew what Undine was doing, and wasn't sure about the idea in total. "I mean if we had a wall you could dive from one end off and get out the other, it would have been far easier, but the entire building is made of tin..."
"Well... I wanna try it anyway." Undine gave her a thumbs up, putting on a brave face. "Time I finally did something with this power of mine." Throwing caution to the wind, she stepped to the side, leaning her weapon against the wall. Unfortunately, she couldn't figure out how to take things like weapons with her down under just yet, pointing at Oceanline to get the others' attention. "Look after my baby, eh?" She chuckled, closing her eyes, and starting to concentrate.
Before she could fully dive, however, Ash came quickly, putting a hand on her shoulder and cutting her concentration. "Before you do this... Just be careful, alright? And if you sense anything isn't right, I want you to get out of the diving mode asap. We still don't know what happens if you run out of aura while inside, and I don't intend to find out today."
Undine shrugged her off, looking a tad annoyed, but complying nonetheless. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be careful. Alright, wish me luck!" She gave them one last smile, returning to her concentration, slowly sinking into the ground, as her feet began to phase into the concrete.
Watching her descend into the floor, Melody couldn't help but look away. While Copper already started mastering her semblance, she still had no idea what her own semblance actually was. So far, she never exhibited any sort of power that went above dust or aura, leaving Melody stuck without a clue to the unlocking of her semblance. Copper, observing her fallen expression, walked over, trying to be comforting, at least in her own way. "There is always the probability that your semblance is, in fact, passive. Thus, it would be far harder for you to recognize it, though it would still be active nonetheless."
Melody raised her head, looking at the short figure. She sighed, straightening her back, a bit distressed nonetheless, but taking Copper's advice to heart. "I know Copper. Thanks. But still... I would sure love to know what it is." She contemplated, looking over again as Undine fully sank into the ground, completely vanishing under the world.
Undine had to work fast. Moving in solid material was still very hard for her, and to top it all off, her aura was shaved quite quickly by her semblance, eating away at it far quicker than she anticipated. By the time she moved far enough to assume she was inside the warehouse itself, she could already feel herself almost entirely drained, thinking for a split second if this was how one of Perci's victims felt when she drained them dry. 'Alright... This should do. I think.' She glanced upwards out of habit, unable to see exactly where she was, starting to let go of her grip on the depths of the group, starting to rise slowly towards the ground.
However, when her head should have finally popped out of the ground, it didn't.
She started to panic. She was still rising upwards, but there was no end to it in sight. Her aura was depleting faster and faster, and Undine started to watch her entire life flash before her eyes, praying to whatever it was out there that she'd make it.
Suddenly, her head burst out, hitting the ceiling. She winced at the pain, trying not to yelp or make any other noise, looking around, realizing that she decided to rise right under a stack of crates, pushing her to the very top. As the rest of her body came out, already laying down, she took a quick survey, seeing that the warehouse was empty for the most part, sans a single person, before some blueprints, seemingly writing on them. Rolling to the edge of the crates, she quietly made her way down, noting that the key to the doors hung next to the lock itself, only making her job easier.
One unlocked door later, and the remainder of the team snuck their way inside, Copper handing Undine her weapon as she did. They walked towards the unsuspecting man, clearly too busy with his blueprints to notice four girls approaching him, as the tallest one of them tapped him on the shoulder. "Not now, I'm busy!" He called out, suddenly realizing that he wasn't alone. She turned around in one quick motion, looking as the redhead of the group waved at him, and panicked. "D-Did HE sent you?! Please, I don't want to be a part of this anymore! I told Merlot I'm fucking done!" She started protesting, expecting the worst, though before he could prattle on for much longer, Ash closed in, shaking her head.
"Don't worry, will ya? We're not with Merlot. In fact... We were hopin' you could, well... Assist us, to a degree." She grinned at him coyly, Undine and Copper walking to the doors and shutting them down, key and all. "Now, as I was sayin'..." Ash sent out a hand, pressing it against the man's chest, pushing him back a bit. "What can you tell us about Dr. Marlot?"
He looked to the sides, nervous and afraid, but begrudgingly speaking regardless. "H-Him? He's a madman, that's for sure." The former scientist started talking. "He wanted to control the grimm, if you believe it or not. Made an entire island facility for it too. We were all stationed there, forced to work on some mutagen for him or something, he never explained to us the full details."
"I see..." Ash pondered, mentally making notes of his words. "Any idea why he wanted to control grimm?"
He simply waved his head. "I JUST said I didn't know anything, alright? We were just grunts to him, all we did was research. I don't even have any of the notes from then, if you're THAT curious." He scoffed her off, still leaning back from her hand. "C-Can you let up the hand?"
Realizing he wasn't going to run away, she slowly lifted her arm, letting her straightened his back. Taking a few minutes to think and connect whatever dots she could, she then turned to him one more time, having another burning question to ask. "And would you happen to know anything about a cult, or ichor that summons grimm?"
His eyes widened in terror, shaking his head wildly. "No... He didn't..." He muttered in disbelief, the others turning their attention to the man.
Ash acted quickly, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, trying to snap him out of his panic attack. "What? What do you know? Tell me!" She raised her voice, in an attempt to intimidate the man into talking again.
"I-It was one of the researchers in my division." He started to explain, frantically scouring his memory for whatever pieces of information he could spare. "H-He was actually promoted to directly assisting the doctor, but was fired only a few days after. A week after THAT, an entire shipment of kegs we were supposed to get from wherever the hell the doctor got them from straight up never showed up, having being delivered to the wrong address. We all suspected that he might have wanted to take vengeance on the doctor, but if the rumors were true..." He looked at Ash one more time, paler than before. "Then we have to find his supply before he floods the kingdom with grimm."
The others exchanged worried glances, leaving the man be. Getting what they came for, Ash turned around, walking towards the door. "Alright team, we're out of here. Time to head back." She concluded, as Melody, Undine, and Copper followed suit, walking away and leaving the old man be.
First to speak after that was Melody, a good while after getting out of there, already on route to Beacon. "So... What now? Do we tell the teachers?"
Ash shook her head. "Absolutely not. We can't have panic spread throughout the school, let alone the staff. It would only make fighting against this harder." Ash sounded resolute and definitive. "We have to find out what we can on our own, so I want all of you to keep quiet. Understood?"
"Affirmative." Copper complied almost as quickly as Ash spoke, nodding once.
"Copy that chief." Undine gave her a small, playful salute, waving two fingers outwards from around her head.
"Y-Yeah. Got it." Melody nodded as well, not saying much after that.
After all of her team spoke, Ash grinned faintly, looking towards Beacon. "Good. Cause now that we have the information... Time we got the strength to do something about it."
"Oh come on, Jin! You're not gonna hurt anyone!"
Perci's voice reverberated throughout the arena, as she, Leila and Hue all stood in front of their supposed team leader, trying to convince her that sparring with them won't do them any bad.
"No!" Jin crossed her arms, looking away from them. "Fighting is bad! Mama said so!"
Perci almost stomped on her hat in fury, audibly growling to herself and grumbling. So far, while they should have started training about an hour ago, most of it was spent trying to convince Jin to join them, with very little success. She was adamant, for sure, and no amount of talking, yelling, or outright attacking her changed her opinion. Each time Perci threw a punch in her direction, she got out of the way, pouting and looking away from them, refusing to join in the combat session.
Perci was at the end of her patience, looking at the other two tired of Jin's bullshit. "Let's just start on our own... If she wants to be like that, then fuck it, I ain't havin' her shit." At this point, she just wanted to start already, Jin or not.
Leila, however, shook her head. "No. We need to help Jin develop just as much as we need development. We can't just exclude her each time we want to train ourselves, she'll fall behind."
Perci tilted her head to the side, looking at the nun with a confused expression. "Uh, did you forget the part where she BREATHED FIRE? You know, that one time, when we were fighting that one fucking grimm, and she took it one on one and BREATHED FUCKING FIRE? I'd say that the brute can do pretty damn well on her own, won't you?" She looked over at Hue, who was staying silent for the most part. "Hey Nerd, what do you think?" She asked, the faunus nodding once. "See, if SHE agrees with me, then-"
"No," Hue interjected, cutting her sentence. "I was actually agreeing with Leila. We should try and include Jin." She concluded her opinion, Perci crossing her arms and trying to think about what to do.
Before long, she got an idea, slamming her fist into an open palm. "I have it! You two should, like, fucking fight or something, you know, to show her that it's not that bad for people to do that." She suggested, Leila and Hue looking at one another, contemplating her offer.
"Hmm... She has a point you know. It might be worth a shot." Hue nodded, walking to one end of the arena.
Leila walked to the other end, nodding wordlessly. She took out her weapon, looking at Perci for a brief moment. "If Jin tries to intercept her, stop her, alright? Remember, this spar is for the purpose of helping her see that it isn't bad for auras to fight one another if no one gets hurt."
Perci shrugged, letting her shoulders drop, walking over to Jin and standing by her, just in case. "Yeah, yeah... Just start already, okay?"
The two of them looked at one another, each more silent than the last, waiting for the other to make the first move. "Very well, then." Leila uttered when she realized Hue wasn't going to do anything anytime soon. "Then I shall have the first strike!" She raised her blade, spinning the barrel on her weapon, hitting the brown earth crystal. She sent it down, sticking her blade into the ground, sending a tremor around her, the ground shaking loudly to her command.
Hue reacted just as quickly, jumping upwards. Not wasting a moment ,she transformed her weapon, taking an arrow filled with ice dust, aiming it dead on at Leila's glasses and taking her shot, the arrow piercing through the air in blinding speeds. Leila struggled to lift her blade from the ground, cutting the quake in the middle, raising Caliborn just high enough to block it, mere grazing the tips of her hair. The arrow deflected, it flew past, hitting the wall behind her, exploding into a rather large ice flower, Leila taking a quick glance to study the effects of the arrow.
"You're open!" Hue called out, sending another one, needing less than a second to aim. This time, Leila rolled out of the way, keeping a healthy range between herself and her opponent, giving the barrel a quick spin, landing on lightning dust. She swung her blade in Hue's direction, sending a lightning bolt at the airborne faunus, who couldn't react in time, being hit directly and flying away, hitting the seats of the arena.
Sensing something was wrong, Jin sprung into action, attempting to intercept the duel and help Hue, just as Leila predicted. However, before she could move, Perci quickly grabbed her arms, pulling her backward. "Nope! Just look, alright! She'll be fine!" Despite having a ton of aura to augment her own strength, Perci was surprised each time at the immense strength Jin exhibited. It didn't take much from her to push Perci far more than anyone else around her does, at least when it came to raw physical prowess, forcing the delinquent to pull back with almost everything she got, restraining Jin by a slim margin, but restraining her nonetheless.
Just as Perci said, it didn't take long for Hue to get back up on her feet. Her aura, soaking the damages up, still took a heavy blow, leaving her with little of it left. Regardless, she jumped back into the arena, raising her weapon. "I'm not done yet. The fight is over when it's over."
Admiring her drive, Leila spun the barrel again, this time to fire dust. She raised her blade, calling upon the rain of fire, easily her favorite skill in her arsenal, though as the balls of fire started to descend from above the two of them, she faltered. For a split second, Elaine's words, and her show of strength against what should have traumatized her flooded back into her mind, leaving Leila looking upwards at the fire, mesmerized to a degree, but also wide open.
Hue took the chance she was given, transforming her weapon back to a katana, and working her way around the volley of fireballs. It didn't take long for her to calculate their estimated trajectory, as each of them moved in a straight line, and before long, she was face to face with the lost nun, who just then realized she got sloppy.
"It's over." Hue spoke coldly, pressing the sharp end of her blade against Leila's throat. They stared at each other for a few minutes, none saying anything, before Leila sighed.
She let Caliborn drop to the ground, as Hue brought back Lunnos Gladiolus. "Fine... I yield. Good match, Hue." Leila took a polite bow, Hue returning it out of mutual respect.
"My victory only came at your unfortunate trailing out." Hue noted. "I hope you do not intend to space out on us in the middle of the upcoming mission." After that, she looked over at Jin's side, which finally calmed down after the fight had ended. A wave of Perci's head told her all she needed to know, slowly walking back to the entrance of the arena. "I believe we can call it a day here. Let us go back to the dorm. Come along, Jin." Jin happily ran to her partner, as if the whole fight never existed in her head before that.
Meanwhile, Perci walked over to Leila, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Oi, Nun."
Leila raised her head, expecting some snarky remark, or a joke celebrating her loss. "What is it?"
Perci waved her head, chuckling to herself, walking towards the dorms before stopping once. "You just keep bein' you, aight? It ain't nice to see you doubt yourself like that."