Chapter 28

Clues


Clara, inn


I sat in the hallway waiting for everyone to wake up, I didn't want to walk off unaccompanied in unfamiliar territory. Dakota was resting his head on my lap as we waited, looking up at me with his cold blue eyes.

"Hello, you're from the group that came in last night yes?" I heard someone say to my left, I turned to see the innkeeper walking up to me.

"Yeah, I'm waiting for the others to wake up." I said, she nodded in understanding. Her eyes suddenly lit on Dakota and an expression of alarm and confusion flashed on her face.

"What is that?" She said. "And why isn't it attacking?"

"It's my semblance, I'm able to tame Grimm." I explained, I saw a flicker of something go across her face on me saying that. "I can't really explain why this one's like this myself."

"Interesting." She said. "Might I ask why such a large group of hunters are coming through?"

"For a mission, not sure if I can talk about it." I replied. "Sorry."

"No problem." She got up and walked away, just as Dusty opened his door and walked out.

"Wake up your team Clara, we've got a lot to do." He said. After everyone was awoken, we headed out. There was a sign on the inside of the door I hadn't noticed before, it read 'out'.


Isaac, Tavern


"Are you sure we should be here Dusty?" I asked, looking at the large array of spirits on the wall.

"You don't have to buy drinks, these places are more like restaurants with a large bar." Dusty said. "Just order some food." We did as he said and got some food, Dusty covered our bills and we ate.

"So what are we doing today?" Erik asked as he finished his meal.

"Asking around about the Grimm attacks and investigating the sites if possible." He said simply before taking the last bite of his food.

"Okay, let's start then." Elith said.

"Alright, I'll ask around with Elith and the rest of you operate together." Dusty said. With that our group split and we headed outside. The next hour was spent searching around for people to talk to, everyone was cooperative and helpful but no one would properly answer inquiries about the Grimm attacks. Some people said they'd not noticed an increase, others said that they weren't sure, no one seemed to know about the caller either. Eventually one man seemed to know something, he walked up to us towards the end of the hour.

"You three have been asking around about Grimm attacks and CCTS signals right?" He asked.

"Yeah." Clara said."

"Well, I don't know much about the Grimm attacks other than that they've worsened." He said. "What I do know about is where someone would've gotten parts to boost the CTTS signals."

"Where?" Erik said, visibly excited at the new lead.

"There's a shop at Carvail Fauna that sells odd parts and scraps, whoever made the booster probably got the parts there." The man said. "Hope I helped."

"Thank you for the assistance." I said.

"Alright, let's find Dusty." Erik said, perfectly timed as Dusty and Elith approached us.

"We've got a lead." Dusty and Erik said simultaneously. "What is it?"


Elith, road to the Carvail Fauna.


I wasn't going to complain that both places we needed to check were on the same route, apparently one of the attacks had happened on this path a little over two miles from Carvail Fauna. I cautiously swept my eyes along the path and the tree line for dangers and any signs of the attack site.

"We have to be close by at this point, we've been walking a good hour now." Isaac complained.

"If I read this map right, we're close." Dusty said.

"Found something!" Erik called, he was a little ways ahead and was pointing into a clearing. We ran up to find that parts of the ground in the clearing were torn and some smaller trees were cut up, looks like a fight had gone down.

"Alright, look around and try not to move anything before taking a picture of it." I said, reciting one of my teachers golden rules of sleuthing. I instantly went to examining the damaged tree line, most of it seemed like claw marks except a few a grazes and splintered section I accredited to gunfire. I found my proof of the gunfire theory in a small bullet hole in one tree with no light shining through it. As I set to work removing the bullet, I heard loud cracking in front of me. I sighed and rolled to my left just as four Ursa broke through the trees.


Erik, Isaac, Clara, Elith, clearing


The four Ursa halted at the center of the clearing and paced, examining their foes with their crimson eyes. One seemed very old due to the size of its spikes, the next two had shorter spikes, and the last had no spikes but was still quite large. Everyone drew their weapons and waited for the Grimm to strike first, the standoff held up unusually long before the eldest Grimm lashed out at Dusty. Dusty simply grinned and held up his shields; he caught the attack, but instead of holding his ground against it he flowed with the blow and redirected the beast into a tree next to him. Erik glanced at the other three, quickly gauged the situation, and made a plan.

"SpellBlade- frostbite!" Erik shouted, Elith quickly removed ice dust from her pouch and started weaving it through the air around her. Once ready, she released an icy gale at one of the mid aged Grimm, freezing it partially. Erik rushed forward, ducking under a swipe from the youngest Ursa, and bashed the icy limbs as hard as he could with his buckler. The limbs shattered, killing the monster and sending a spray of cold blood everywhere. Now the Grimm took their turn, the remaining mid aged one pounced at Eriks exposed back. It connected and the beast pinned him to the ground, it reared to slash but was denied in the form of Clara punching it with her gauntlet. A blast wind sent it between Isaac and Elith, they both got ready to take it out. The eldest Ursa Got up and prowled around Dusty, looking for a weakness in his defence.

"Technomancy- blood circle!" Erik called. Isaac and Elith rushed the monster between them and began circling it quickly. It looked between them and chose to lash out at Isaac, to which Elith responded by slashing its exposed sides and caused it to rear back and strike at her. Isaac responded as Elith had and slashed at it as well, they kept this game of focus up until the beast died. The youngest Grimm lashed out at Clara, she dodged aside but this seemed to be expected. It's claws batted her aside and it went to continue the assault. The eldest took another, more careful, slash at Dusty. Dusty chose not to block this time and instead sidestepped the blow, the Grimm snarled in response.

"SteelBird- blitz." Erik called, he and Isaac leaped into action. Erik jumped onto the rear of the eldest Ursa and drove Homicida into its back, Isaac ran and jumped onto and off of Eriks back to get extra height on his leap onto the Grimm. He caught his Knixes near the neck of the beast, his weight throwing it off balance and giving Erik the leverage needed to pull the creature over. Dusty saw his chance and transformed one of his shields, the kite shield wrapped around his arm into a gauntlet forming into a point. He jabbed out a the stomach of the Grimm and drove the blade deep, the Grimm began to dissipate as he pulled he gauntlet out. He then turned to where Clara was tussling with the last Ursa, he held out his hands and used his semblance. Many transparent chains sprouted suddenly across the young Grimm and restrained it.

"Clara, use your semblance." Dusty shouted.


Clara, clearing


I held out my hand to the frozen Grimm and channeled my aura through my hands, only to meet an unusual resistance. I'd had difficulty taming Grimm before, but that was simply because they were stronger and took more aura to tame. This resistance was as though it was actively preventing my aura from entering, I kept up my efforts though. Eventually the resistance seemed to fade and its crimson eyes turned a cool blue, like normal.

"Why'd that take so long?" Erik asked.

"I- I don't know." I said panting a little from the effort. "It was like it was blocking my aura somehow."

"Weird, maybe you're losing your touch?" Elith said sarcastically

"Whatever the reason, we have a ride to Carvail Fauna now." Erik said. I climbed onto the Ursa as Dusty's chains dissipated as he stopped focusing on them. I laid down on the Ursa as I waited for the feeling of the others mounting it, once it felt like everyone was on I willed the beast to make haste to the town.


Erik, Carvail Fauna


It didn't take long for Clara's Ursa to haul us the remaining distance, we reached the gate to the town in no time. Two guards stood outside it and took up defensive stances as soon as they saw us.

"Don't shoot!" Clara shouted. "It's not dangerous, my semblance is keeping it under control."

"If you say so, leave it out here." The other guard said suspiciously.

"Okay, I understand." Clara replied, the Ursa sat down and we all dismounted. We entered the village and immediately began searching around for the scrap shop. There were a lot of Faunus walking around, pretty much everyone here seemed to be Faunus actually. I spotted a building nearby with a sign that read 'Pale's scraps'.

"I think I found the place." I said. We headed into the building and were greeted by a dog eared man with brown hair and green eyes. The room was filled with assorted parts and scraps, some rougher and less complete than others. I saw Isaac casually grab a few parts and put them into one of the bags the store provided.

"What can I do for you all?" The man asked.

"We were wondering, has anyone come in and purchased parts for a CCTS signal booster?" Dusty asked.

"Parts like, antennae, radio parts, dishes, and the like." Isaac asked.

"There are a lot of tinkerers in town, I have a bit of difficulty recalling if any of them bought things of that sort." He said, putting on a face of concentration.

"Do you have a record of purchases?" Dusty asked.

"Somewhere around here, I'll see if I can find it." He replied, the man starting searching around his counter and eventually found a leather bound journal. "Okay, two weeks ago a 'Pewter Kalles' purchased materials that fit your parameters."

"Thank you." Dusty said.

"Might I ask why you're asking about this matter?" The man asked.

"We're running an investigation, something that involved Pewter." Dusty said.

"Ah, well I wish you luck on figuring things out." The dog Faunus said. With that we exited, Isaac hefted his bag of parts and set down some lien on the counter.

"Any extra is for being so helpful." Isaac said. We left the town to find Clara's Ursa sitting as we left it, but only one guard.

"What happened to your friend?" Dusty asked.

"He went to check on something, weird noise." The guard said.

"Alright, well tell him we thank the two of you for keeping an eye on our Grimm." Dusty said. We all mounted and the Ursa began to book it to Carvail main.


Elith, Carvail main


We walked into the inn to regroup, Dusty brought us into his room and set up a board on his bed.

"Alright, so let's organise our thoughts." He said. "What do we know about Pewter?"

"He got parts to boost the signal two weeks ago, which means he must've been working alone if it took him so long to build it." I said.

"So that begs another question, why didn't he get help if there allegedly a lot of tinkerers?" Isaac asked.

"He said he didn't feel safe in the message, maybe paranoia kept him from cooperation." Erik said.

"Okay, what about the Grimm attacks?" Dusty asked. "What'd you all find before those Grimm ruined the scene ruined?"

"I found where bullets had grazed trees and I even found a bullet stuck in a trunk, whoever was attacked was armed to defend himself." I added.

"Alright, so next order of business is to figure out where Pewter lives." Dusty said, pinning a piece of paper reading 'Pewter' in the center of the board. "Secondary objective is to find more attack sites, see if we can figure out what it was Pewter found." He pinned another paper that read 'attack site #1' and wrote 'the victim was armed' on it.

"Okay." Erik said. "So what ne-" He never finished the sentence as knocking suddenly sounded on our door.

Author's notes

It's only a small dip into the mystery, but don't worry about the rest of it being so slowly paced. Please leave a review and share your thoughts.