The caravan slowly made its way along the beaten dirt path as dozens of red leaves gently drifted down from the canopy above . Three wooden carts loaded with supplies were being drawn by bronze robotic horses, which, apparently, Victor McGouran had built himself for this practice mission. The goal: protect the mock caravan from Grimm attacks as it made its way to a set destination on the other side of Forever Fall as Huntsmen would on a real escort mission. The problem: three of the eight students that signed up for this particular practice mission had failed to show up. All four members of Team MTLC had showed up while only one member of Team ARTS was present.
While Midas Ankara, of course, took to the front of the caravan, Curie Geiger took the rear, Ledning Coyle took the left, and Arty Umber took the right. Titian Mars, on the other hand, rode on top of the middle cart to act as lookout.
For the time being, they had a bit of a break from fighting Grimm, both the native populations as well as McGouran's specially ordered foreign monstrosities. As he walked alongside the caravan with Palette at the ready, Arty couldn't get one word out of his mind: 'Anachronism'. An anachronism is when an object, person, place, or event is incorrectly associated to a time period in which it does not belong.
Arty imagined a soldier during the Great War calling Mantle by its newer name 'Atlas'. Being an artist, he knew one version of anachronisms well. Practicers of the visual arts would occasionally use anachronisms in their works, either on purpose or unintentionally, when creating a scene. One specific instance came to mind. He was showing Curie a painting that was his interpretation of Mantle created after doing extensive research into the defunct kingdom. She pointed out that, while the painting was good, the model of Dust-powered streetlamps he had added to the scene weren't invented until forty years after Atlas had risen from Mantle's ashes.
Sepia and Roland were others that knew anachronisms well, due to their preferred arts. There was one movie night when Sepia got angry and threw a bowl of popcorn at the projection screen when a random gun was pulled out during a scene that was supposed to take place in the age of early-civilization. Roland would occasionally grunt whenever he noticed an object or person in a historical fiction book that wasn't supposed to be there, finding it more entertaining than Sepia did.
The reason Arty began thinking about anachronisms was the illustration Roland had shown him earlier that morning. Why was the symbol the Grimm Brotherhood was using in a book that was almost a century old when they had only recently become active? He knew that one possibility was that they could have adopted an older symbol, but why? What did it mean? It was only an eight-spoked wheel, nothing too complex, but definitely something detailed enough to where he was certain he'd never seen the exact same pattern copied anywhere before. He tried to remember if he had to redraw the symbol in any of the other books in the Beacon library, but he had to fix so many books after Yamuna's Lunacy incident that there was no way he could remember each individual drawing, especially if the symbols were as tiny as the one in the history book. There was only two possibilities. Either the symbol was brand new and he had copied the symbol from a newer version of the book that had the Grimm Brotherhood's symbol for some reason, or the Grimm Brotherhood was much older than they seemed. How old are they?...
"Yo, Umber! Watch your six!" Midas called out as he drew his golden weapons.
Arty shook himself out of his train of thought and aimed his gun off to the red trees behind him where Midas had told him.
Nothing was there.
A heavy object slammed hard into his back, sending him to the ground. Palette slid out of his reach underneath the middle cart of the caravan.
The large black lizard pinned his arms, holding him to the ground on his stomach as it roared at him. It's front claws tore into the wood and cloth of the cart, costing the group some points in the assignment, but right now, Arty had bigger worries as the Ripper began rearing a leg up, ready to slice down his back. Even with one arm free, Arty couldn't do anything to defend himself.
"Midas you idiot!" Curie yelled as she made her way up from the rear of the row of carts, Alternator in its melee form. "Watch your six doesn't mean 'watch your back'!" She jumped towards the creature, the tesla-coil of her weapon aimed downwards. She planted her feet on its back, careful to avoid slicing herself on its bony back spikes. As the coil made contact with the monster's head, it began to shudder and twitch violently as electricity coursed through its body.
Arty could barely see the Grimm's claw coming down on him out of the corner of his eye. He watched as it slammed into the dirt mere inches from his face.
Curie slammed her weapon down again into the Ripper's side closest to the caravan, launching it out from under her and into the trees nearby. After her feet reconnected with the leaves coating the path, she held a hand out to Arty, "You okay, Umber?"
As he got to his feet, he looked off to see the fried Grimm begin to stir, obviously ready to get back into the fight as it shook the pain out of its skull. "Never better…" he grumbled.
"Good, now crawl under the carts and get your weapon before it gets up and calls for backup." She explained while reconfiguring her weapon into its gun form.
"But what about y-"
"Go, Umber!" She pushed him towards the cart, almost making him slam face first into the robotic horse pulling the last cart of the caravan.
As he dodged the heavy bronze legs, he could hear the loud zaps of electricity as Curie shot in the direction of the injured Ripper. Clouds of dirt and leaves getting kicked up by the wheels made him cough, but he managed to duck to the ground and roll under the relatively slow-moving cart. It was hard to see, but he caught the glint of orange and silver metal.
It seemed no matter how much electricity she filled the Ripper with, it just wouldn't fall. Dammit… I guess those guys who work on Huntsmen's Requiem really did their research when they made these things resistant to electricity-based attacks. Judging from the sounds of fighting, some of the Ripper's friends had already decided to show up and were giving the rest of her team some trouble. She was on her own for this one. Alternator's coil was aimed at the ready. There wasn't time to shift it again now that the Grimm was charging right for her, its jaws wide open.
It lunged, its claws and teeth ready to dig into her. Another blast of electricity didn't do a thing.
The explosion that tore it apart did, however.
Curie was shocked as black glowing bits of fading dinosaur Grimm rained down on her. She spun around and found Arty standing there, giving her a cocky grin.
"I'm a better shot than I was when I left Atlas, huh?"
She rolled her eyes, "Shut up and use that 'better shot' to help the others."
As the last cart moved past him, the sight of Midas and Ledning fending off three more Rippers on the other side of the path was revealed. "Right… got it." He aimed Palette towards the scuffle. "Midas! Ledning! Duck!"
"There are duck Grimm in Vale?!" Midas shouted in panicked confusion as he looked around for the demonic waterfowl.
Ledning grumbled at his cousin's stupidity as he planted a hand firmly on the top of his golden head and dropped them both to the ground.
Arty had begun trying to plan the order of his shots ahead. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but right now, he knew that he needed to pull the trigger and hope for the best. He watched the three Rippers lunge towards the two cousins, surprised that Ledning trusted his shot enough to listen to his order. He pulled the trigger, managing to hit each Grimm in the chest square between their skinny front arms. The first two had their lower halves frozen solid by dark blue paintballs. The third avoided being stuck in place due to Arty planning for a Lightning Dust paintball being useful in his ordering system.
The Grimm screeched and turned its attention to Arty and Curie.
Arty examined his gun, thrown off by the sudden misstep in his planning. "Oh man… what was next? I swear it was supposed to be Magma - Ice - Ice - Magma, not Magma - Ice - Ice - Lightning!"
"Umber," Curie said, stepping backwards with him, "I've been telling you forever that you needed individual chambers for different types of Dust, but right now, I'd rather you just keep shooting until that thing is dead!" She twisted the barrel of her gun, causing arcs of electricity to spark. It was a vain attempt to ward off the monster.
The Grimm charged. Arty and Curie both raised their guns, unable to shift them to their melee forms in time before the Grimm got to them.
A bright red beam light sliced through the Grimm vertically through its torso. Its front half fell limply to their feet, the glowing inside of the Grimm exposed by the clear cut through its body. Black flakes of mist filled the air as it dissolved.
Titian stood before them, whistling and twirling her glowing oval-shaped blade as she watched her kill fade, "You two ought to be more careful! That thing almost had barbecue and energy drink for lunch!"
"Barbecue?..." Arty grumbled.
"Energy Drink?" Curie rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I guess I'm just glad your weapon can actually help out a bit more than the rest of us in this situation, Titian."
"Uh, guys?"
The three turned back to Ledning and Midas, who were back to their feet and standing next to the two half-frozen Rippers as their top halves struggled to free them from their frosty prisons.
"Can we kill these things and get back to the caravan before it gets destroyed?" Midas suggested as one of the Rippers snapped towards him.
Arty watched the back of the last cart as it disappeared further into the forest. The angry screeches and roars of more Grimm echoed from the same direction. "Oh yeah… right… Get to it then!" He dashed off, followed closely by Curie.
"You heard him, get to it!" Titian winked to the MTLC guys before running off as well.
Midas tapped the bracelet on Ledning's left wrist, turning it a bright gold. He laughed and gave a sly grin, "Gotta be quick if we're gonna catch up to them."
Ledning rolled his eyes as the golden lead bracelet began to extend into a long flat blade, "You underestimate me, cuz," he sliced horizontally, decapitating the Ripper closest to him while Midas fired a Semblance-charged shot into the other's face.
"Right, let's get back to it then."
A few hours later, the caravan came to a bridge crossing a deep crevasse. Deep down, there was nothing but black. McGouran had warned that this was the three-quarter point in their mission. On the other side of the narrow gap was yet another bridge, this one much shorter as it crossed a river.
"I'm starting to miss the tundra and ice now…" Ledning griped.
"Just keep an eye out, there's no telling what could come out of there," Arty warned as he jumped on the back of the middle cart since the bridge was too narrow to walk alongside the caravan. He looked to the cart behind him and saw Curie huddled up in the middle of the supply pile. He afforded another glance into the cavern below and figured out pretty quickly what was happening. "Hey, Curie. We're gonna get through this soon. Just hold out for a few minutes."
She looked back over. Behind her glasses, her neon green eyes were wide with fear. It sounded like she was trying to say something, but nothing came out. She just nodded quickly instead before curling back up and shutting her eyes tight.
Arty was concerned, but he knew that as long as nothing went too particularly bad, she'd be fine. After the disaster of fighting Rippers with electricity, Arty took the time to siphon out the yellow paintballs from his gun, leaving only Ice, Magma, and some Nova. Considering the unknown depth of the ravine, he thought Gravity and Air Dust might also be a plus, especially if any of them fell off the bridge in the event of an attack.
Titian laughed as she spun her oval-shaped blade in her hand while leaning against the cargo of the same cart. "Wow, Umber. You look and sound so calm and at home here. I never would've guessed you were from Atlas had these guys not told me. Well, that and had I not put two and two together and came to the conclusion you were related to Sergeant Tuscan Umber."
The whole comment made him feel weird and the mention of his father's new ranking didn't help. His whole life he'd been Atlesian, and here this girl that took his place on his old team saying he seemed Valian. The word 'anachronism' came back, but he shook off the association since there was never a real time associated with him being from Vale. Guess that's as far as I can get from being in the military. "Um… thanks? I guess."
"No problem! I guess." She mocked him jokingly.
They suddenly had to grip the canvas covering the supplies in the caravan as the bridge began to shake beneath them.
"Um…" Midas looked around wearily from the front cart, "Arty? Your Vale training helping you figure out what the heck that was?..."
Arty looked around. His short attention span decided to rear its ugly head. He examined the ropes and wood making up the bridge. The rope was nowhere near frayed and the boards looked smooth and brand new.
He realized that the bridge wasn't old at all. In fact, it looked brand new. Thinking back to previous assignments in Forever Fall, he couldn't recall there ever being a bridge crossing such a chasm. "Dammit McGouran… You planned this didn't you?" he muttered as he afforded a quick glance back into the ravine below.
"What do you mean, Umber?" Ledning snapped.
"McGouran changed the path. This bridge isn't supposed to be here. He wanted us to cross this chasm. We're following the path he programmed into these robots." As he stared into the deep blackness, he was able to catch the quick movement of something moving quickly beneath the bridge. Oh crap. He managed to think to himself just as the whole bridge began to shake and whip back and forth. Had their horses been real, they would've panicked and began running in an attempt to get across the bridge faster. But because they were nothing but simply-programmed machines, they continued on their peaceful trot along the rippling boards of the bridge.
Curie felt like she was going to pass out. Even though she was staring up into the bright blue sky, she knew that beneath her was endless blackness. Her fingers dug into the canvas and her pulse was running a million miles an hour. She wanted to help Arty and Midas figure out a plan, she was the tactician of Team MTLC after all, but right now her entire strategy involved screaming and praying she didn't fall into the ravine.
The shaking suddenly stopped.
Midas laughed, "Well, at least that-"
Large forms that rivaled that of the individual carts shot up into the sky from the cave below. The new Grimm began to flap their wings, hovering over the students, glaring at them with their molten red eyes. They resembled bats, their wings made up of thin bony structures and dark membranes that glowed eerily from the sun behind them. Smaller ones began to swarm around them, circling the caravan like a dark tornado.
They began to screech in unison. Pain shot through the five students' ears as the high-pitched cries echoed through the forest and seemed to resonate out of the chasm.
"Oh, Turf and the Lunas would not be happy right now!" Arty complained as he gritted his teeth and held his hands over his ears.
When the larger Grimm finally stopped screeching, they all looked up, minus Curie, who stayed sunken into the supply pile.
Titian held her blade in front of her with both hands. Mechanisms shifted within them, letting the blade open up and split in half into two smaller handguns. The half-blades had folded out, letting them act as double-edged cutting blades as well. A bright red energy source, the same that edged the blade in its melee form, glowed brightly at the ends of the barrels "What are these things, Arty!?" She began whirling around, firing erratically into the storm of bats.
Arty shifted Palette into its bat form as one of the car-sized creatures began swooping towards him, its feet drawn out and ready to grab him. "They're called Echos!" He swung, launching the Grimm back into the abyss with a large blast of fire. "Big bats. Not fun and much more annoying than Nevermores!"
"Awesome!" Midas laughed as he swung and shot at the ones that got close to him. "So how do we kill them all and get these slow hunks of junk over this bridge?"
Arty watched as the large Echos began clawing at the canvas covers. His eyes widened when he saw one manage to slice through one of the ropes holding the bridge together. Strategic thinking concerning the mission at hand and trying to keep him and the others alive conflicted with one another. Every swing of his weapon restarted his thought process as he tried to think of a way out of their situation.
Slow hunks of junk. The words stuck out in his mind, and this time, nothing was breaking the thread he was following. "Curie! You have to get this things to move faster!"
"What!?" She yelled back incredulously. She wasn't moving anywhere anytime soon. It was taking everything in her to keep her trigger finger held down on her weapon, keeping the jumping arcs of electricity going. Every time an Echo got too close, one would launch out and zap them. It was enough to kill the smaller ones, but it did nothing but aggravate the larger ones. "I'm… not… moving… anywhere, Umber!"
"Curie, please!" He yelled back.
The bridge teetered as another rope snapped. This time, the bridge swayed too far.
Midas yelled as he fell off of his cart and right off of the bridge.
"Midas!" Curie yelled as she watched the golden boy fall helplessly into the cavern below.
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Arty jumped after him.
Seeing her two best friends disappear into her greatest fear got her brain in motion.
"Curie!" Ledning slashed blades and threw kicks at the swarm, "You heard him! Get to that steampunk lunatic's ponies and get their butts in gear!"
"Yeah!" Titian jumped up, landing on one of the larger Echos, riding it as if she'd done it millions of times before as it carried her in a circle around the caravan, giving her much better shots of the other threats, "We'll keep you covered!" She held both guns against her ride's head and fired, blowing it apart before jumping to another.
As she jumped up and made her way towards the first cart, Curie had to keep her eyes trained on her feet to keep from panicking. Bats swooped and grabbed at her hair, but her mind wasn't caring too much about that. They have aura. They have weapons. They can survive down there. Arty has a plan… I think. NO! Stop that, Curie. He obviously has a plan. He'll get them out of this. Just do your part.
When she got to the spot where Midas had fallen, she looked down to see the bronze horse in front of her. She gripped her chest when she saw the solid black between the boards just past the horse.
Stop it Geiger. You're not helping anybody by panicking. The bridge shuddered again as another rope broke.
"My fault! Sorry 'bout that!" Titian yelled as she yanked on the ears of her current mount, causing it to clumsily veer to the right. "Trying to learn how to fly one of these things! Probably not the time… right? Yeah…" She fired a blast into the Echo and let it fall down.
The whipping of the air as it ran past him brought tears to Arty's stinging eyes. You moron! What were you thinking?! You just jumped head-first into a hole and you have no idea how deep it is!
I have to save my friend, he's nowhere near as mobile as me!
Yeah, but he's probably already gold paste at the bottom, and you're gonna be next!
Shut up, me.
No you shut up.
Arty saw Midas just below him. He straightened himself out to lower the air resistance, allowing him to catch up to his friend. He reached out and some of the panic disappeared as his hand connected with Midas's wrist.
"Yo, watch the suit, dude!"
"Now is really not the time, Midas!" Arty reached for the vials at his belt.
Another large object slammed into him, making him lose his grip on Midas and his aim on his paintballs. A headless Echo, slowly fading but mostly still solid, had shot down from above. It was a miracle that it somehow managed to hit them in such a wide-open space.
Arty felt the sunlight begin to disappear. He didn't have much time. He began to reach for the bright white paintballs that had gotten him out of these sorts of situations before, but then he realized that he was already too deep, and it looked like the bridge was in big trouble as boards began to shake loose. Dammit. He didn't want to. He really didn't want to, but he fought against his better judgement and gripped the vial of bright swirling yellow and red paintballs.
Snow boots connected with the rock face of the cave as he kicked off of it. He had to close the distance between him and Midas fast. He slammed into him, grabbing him tight.
"Midas, don't talk. You're not gonna like this. Just try to use your Semblance on us as much as you can!"
"Wha-?!"
"Just do it!" His eyes now catching the little bit of light hitting the bottom of the crevasse, Arty could see sharp stalactites lining the cave floor of the Grimm lair. He threw the vial.
Midas gripped Arty's backpack with one hand and the scabbard at his own hip with the other. Gold began to spread across their clothes right as the glass shattered below them.
Curie was just finishing up with the first horse when the entire chasm lit up with a bright white light.
"What the hell?!" Ledning shouted as the shockwave ripped through the bridge. Luckily, it only dislodged a few boards instead of completely destroying the entire structure.
"Whoa!" Titian was almost thrown off of her new Echo by two shiny yellow objects shooting out from the chasm. She squinted, trying to figure out what it was, but that gold sheen was unmistakable. "Okay, I was wrong, this is the time!" She yanked the monster's left ear, hoping that the trend she'd seen in the past ten or so Grimm stayed true here. Thankfully, it swiveled around. It bucked, trying to throw her off, "Hey!" She kicked it hard in the side, "Stop that and go!" It struggled to throw her off, but in its struggle it still drifted towards her target. "Close enough."
In her shaky movements, Titian reached her hands out to catch Midas and Arty as they reached the peak of their arc. She watched as the gold color began to vanish. She knew that if they hit the ground after that explosion, or worse, fell back into the pit, their aura wasn't going to help them much. "C'mon… C'mon!" She grabbed onto both of them, snatching them out of the air, "Gotcha!"
As Arty and Midas dangled by their collars in Titian's gauntlets, they began yelling and punching the Grimm she was riding as it snapped at them with its long pointed fangs.
"Titian!" Midas yelled, "Let us down let us down let us down!"
"Oh… right… forgot this thing still kinda wants us all dead..." She slammed both feet into the Echo's body, forcing it to screech, much to the displeasure of the two boys in her grasp. As it's torso seemed to cave in from the force, it slowly glided down towards the bridge. She jumped, landing softly on the middle cart as the Grimm fell past them.
Midas and Arty were still smoking and singed from their explosive launch.
Arty coughed. "Well… that went better than expected."
"I love aura…" Midas lamented as he wiped soot off of his face.
"Oh thank god," Curie sighed with relief as she saw the two idiots getting back into the fight against the swarm. "Now back to business." She slammed the compartment door closed on the back of the bronze horse she was riding. The adjustments she made should do the trick.
As she jumped from the front cart to the middle, the first horse let out a blaring whistle as steam spewed from between the metal plates and from the nostrils. The legs began to move faster until its slow trot became a full on gallop, quickly making its way to the end of the bridge.
Titian and Ledning made their way up and lunged at the last second to the front cart.
"You get to the other horses! We'll keep this cart safe!" Titian saluted as their cart sped off.
Curie nodded before returning to Midas and Arty. She wrapped her arms around the singed morons. "Oh, I'm glad you guys are okay!" She then realized what she was doing and let them go. To fix her embarrassing show of emotion, she threw a jab at both of their shoulders. "Don't you two ever do anything like that again!"
"Sorry that gravity seems to be upset with me today…" Midas griped as he rubbed his shoulder.
"Yeah… although I kinda just screamed back at it." Arty chuckled.
"I'm just glad you didn't knock out any more teeth with that stunt. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get the last two horses fixed up so we can get done with this mission."
Arty gave her a thumbs up, "Coolio. We'll keep you covered."
After a few more fear-filled leaps, Curie landed on the back of the second horse.
"Just to make sure that that McGouran guy didn't make these any different." Curie held her palm flat against the side of the horse and closed her eyes. A bright green shimmer emanated from her hand and seemed to soak into the metal. In her mind, the entire makeup of the contraption was laid out before her. Every gear, every wire, every piston. To her relief, it was exactly the same as the first. She opened the access panel on its back, exposing the circuits and gears inside. The style of the machine was certainly odd as it combined old-style clockwork and modern circuitry, but it wasn't too much of a problem. Curie reached back and pulled one of the electrical wires she used to tie her hair back. She always tried to tell people they wasn't they weren't for fashion, they were for situations just like this. "Just have to connect the navigating system to the power source so the fluctuations in power will bypass the speed control and…" a loud zap sent sparks past her fingers as she connected the wire to the horse's mechanisms.
"That's two!" She yelled back as she began cart-hopping again, moving right past Midas and Arty. "Hold on to something! I don't want you two falling again!"
Like the first horse, the second let out a loud whistle and released steam before speeding up. Prepared for the boost, Midas and Arty braced themselves as the cart sped up.
"Haha! Atlas for the win!" Midas yelled triumphantly with his weapons raised as the wind whipped past him. "You know… not the military, but us… cuz we're from Atlas?"
Arty rolled his eyes as he kept firing into the now thinning swarm of Echos. "I got what you meant, Midas. You'd rather die before you complimented the military." He looked back to Curie, who was now many yards away, but when he saw what was behind her, his heart jumped. "Curie! You have company!"
Curie looked up from the circuits of the last horse back the way they had come. She saw three dark shapes moving incredibly fast towards her. Rippers.
She turned back to Arty and Midas, shaking her head, "I can't fight them off! My weapon's useless against them and I have to work on this horse!"
Midas turned to Arty. He gestured with his sword. "Well, go on. She's your girl."
Arty blushed. "N-no she isn't."
Midas rolled his eyes and jumped down from the high-speed cart and began making his way back across the bridge. "Either way, dude, she needs help!"
Arty could feel the bridge shake as the Rippers began running across the boards. "Dammit!" He jumped down and ran after Midas. Arty didn't know what Midas was planning, but he had his own goal.
The cart left no room to go left or right, so Arty went over. "Curie, don't worry, we'll handle them! Just focus!"
She nodded nervously as Midas leapt past her as well, "You heard your boyfriend, we're golden!"
Despite the danger, she blushed, "Shut up, Goldilocks!"
Arty didn't even bother slowing down when he came to the pack of Rippers. The one in the lead opened its jaws and roared, its claws ready to strike. Arty ducked low. Unable to slide on the uneven rough boards, he rolled under the first Ripper. As he came up on the other side, he brought Palette up, slamming one of the other monsters with a blast of fire, which was just enough force to send it soaring over the bridge. It's body connected with another rope, snapping it easily with its sharp spikes.
Arty turned just in time to block the other monster's claws with his bat.
The first Ripper turned back around, ready to lunge at Arty while he was distracted by its partner.
A shrill whistle came from further down the bridge, causing the Ripper to snap its attention towards the sound.
"Yo, ugly!" Midas scoffed as he walked backwards, keeping up with the cart, "Why don't you make this a fair fight!"
The Ripper hissed and chased after its new target. It wasn't even concerned with the fact that the boy in gold wasn't running or trying to escape. In its soulless mind, all it was thinking was 'free kill'. It ran, faster and faster, each step slamming into the now-rickety bridge. It was closing in on Midas. It was only a matter of seconds before it had him in its jaws.
"Midas!" Arty shouted as he saw the other Grimm rocketing towards his best friend. He let his guard down too much, giving the Ripper he was fighting an opening to swipe with its claws, clear across Arty's chest. The wounds weren't deep thanks to his aura, but they still stung like crazy.
"Don't worry about me, Umber! I got this!" Midas backed up against the cart, his gun and sword held against the wood. "I got this…" He kept his eyes equal with the Grimm's. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five feet. He gazed into the glowing maw of the monster, and right as its fangs would've dug into him, he swiveled his hand against the back of the cart, pushing himself up into the air over the Grimm. He made sure to have enough contact with the cart to turn its entire base wooden structure gold, cementing it in place and allowing it to withstand the impact of a Ripper running full-force into it.
It was as if the Ripper had run straight into a brick wall. It's head was the first thing to be crushed by the force of slamming into the strengthened cart. The shock continued down its body, shattering the spikes running down its back, crumpling its torso, and eventually powdering the bone plates on its legs and tail. When it fell to the ground, it looked like a pile of black and red jelly with a light dusting of white.
Midas landed and marveled at his kill, letting out a loud whoop of celebration as he did so. "I've been wanting to use that on something for a while now! Just don't have anything speedy enough back home!" He laughed. "Yo, Umber, you need help?"
Arty swiped his bat side to side, every time it connected with his Ripper, brightly-colored energy sprayed out in elemental bursts. Fire and Ice continuously fought each other across the Grimm's inky black skin until finally, Arty got to the right paintball.
He reared back, holding onto his bat with both hands. He was going for a full-on swing.
The Grimm's top half exploded as plasma jolted out in every direction.
As Arty turned to make his way back to the cart, Midas ran up and gave him a high-five.
"Home run! Nice!" He cheered, but his positivity soon vanished as he looked back across the bridge. "Um… Arty?" He pointed.
Arty followed his finger and cursed to himself when he saw the mob of various Grimm running towards them. Ursa, Camolurkers, some low-level Kokonatsu, Beowolves, Boarbatusks, even a few more of McGouran's prized Rippers all charged towards the bridge.
They turned and ran. They were obviously outmatched. "C-C-Curie!"
"I almost got it guys!" She yelled back, unaware of the threat coming up behind her. She felt the jolt of Midas and Arty jumping into the cart now that the gold had worn off. Arty grabbed her shoulder and shook her. "Oh my god, what is it Um… ber…?" She felt the already low amount of color in her face drain when she saw the mass of black running towards the bridge, their glowing red eyes glaring towards them. It looked like one large mass of pure unspeakable evil. She jumped back to the panel, frantically working at the wire to get the horse moving.
"Come on, Curie!" Midas panicked when he saw the first Grimm set foot on the bridge.
"Almost… got it!" She slammed the panel shut and jumped back onto the cart just as the hot steam blasted towards her. "Hold on!"
The cart rocketed off, but it wasn't fast enough to completely get away from the stampede, which was now shaking the whole bridge, threatening to collapse it at any moment.
"We're almost there!" Midas shouted when he saw the other two carts ahead. The modifications Curie made had apparently done their job and worn off as they were back to their casual trot. Ledning and Titian sat leisurely on the back of the middle cart chatting. Apparently they hadn't seen much action on that side of the chasm yet. "We're gonna make it!"
"Titian!" Arty shouted, "Titian!"
She snapped her head up and out of her conversation with Ledning, "What is it, Arty!?" That's when she saw the Grimm. "Oh crap…" She jumped down and ran towards the speeding cart.
"No! Don't get on the bridge!" He shouted back.
"Arty, she's the best shot of us," Curie explained, "she could take some of them out and keep them back long enough for us to get the caravan to the rendezvous point."
"Yeah, but she could take all of them out and let us relax a bit if we do this right." He cupped his hands around his mouth, "I need you to dissolve the main support beams!"
"This bridge is wood and rope Umber, she can't-"
"Not the main support beams." He shot back, "The ones on the other side were metal, so I bet these are too. McGouran would've known something like this would happen, so he wanted to keep things going as long as possible. He made the supports out of metal so it could support all this weight across this wide gap."
Curie looked back and forth, taking in what Arty had just explained. "Titian! Do it!"
"But you guys are still on the bridge!" She protested.
"Just start working at it!"
Titian groaned, but complied. She held her hands against the first thick metal pillar that acted as the supports on her end of the ravine. Focusing her Semblance, little pockets of holes began to spread from her hands across the metal's surface, followed by a dark brown color. It wouldn't take long for her to eat through the metal. She just hoped that they had enough time to get across. Arty and Midas barely survived their first dive into the pit. She doubted they'd survive a second.
The left beam tumbled with a loud crash, followed by the snapping of the remaining ropes on that side of the bridge.
Curie, Midas, and Arty held on tight to the cart as it listed hard to the right, threatening to tip over and fall. They were so close, but Titian had barely started working away at the second support, and the Grimm horde was catching up fast.
"We're not gonna make it! We're not gonna make it!" Midas shouted.
The bridge began to creak and sag under the weight. It wasn't going to hold much longer.
The cart's rear wheels hit dirt just as the remaining support broke apart from rusting.
The four of them watched as the bridge fell, sending the multitude of Grimm falling into the darkness below, where they wouldn't be a problem for them anytime soon.
The three passengers in the cart fell to their backs, exhausted from all the screaming, panicking, and being thrown around by a souped-up robot horse.
Titian climbed up into the back of the cart as the horse slowed down, "Glad to see you guys made it!"
"I… hate… Professor… McGouran…" Arty griped through his short breaths.
"You and me both, bud…" Midas added as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Let's just get over the river and get this mission over with." Curie added while her knees trembled.
The rest of the mission had gone relatively fine, until Arty got snatched by a Gnile Grimm and dragged into the water. The large crocodile-like Grimm had grabbed him by the backpack and thrown him into a death roll. Had it managed to bite onto any other part of him, he could have likely died, or lost a limb. With Team MTLC there, they managed to kill the monster and let Arty go home with nothing more than a dizzy head and soaked clothes on top of the scratches and burns he'd already gotten throughout the mission.
After saying goodbye to his friends in Team MTLC and suffering through some of Professor McGouran's playful jabs, he went to head back to the dorm for a well-earned nap.
"Umber? Yeah, he's here." The airship pilot said into his scroll. "Hey, kid."
Arty groaned and turned, "Yeah?"
"Professor Alabaster needs to see you in his office. Says it's pretty important and can't wait."
Arty fell to his knees and stared up into the sky with his arms spread out. "Onyx, why do you do this to me?!" After the day he just had, all he wanted to do was crash.
The airship pilot raised an eyebrow as he watched the beat-up student screaming into the sky. He shook his head, "The kids they let into this place nowadays…"
The elevator dinged as it reached the headmaster's office. Arty had gotten some strange looks as he made his way up the CCT. One worker had attempted to call the infirmary, but Arty had to insist that he had to see Professor Alabaster now. For what reason, he didn't know.
As he opened the large doors into his office, Arty let out a loud groan, "Look, Professor, I hate to be a bother, but can we do this some other time? I'm… really not in a good place rig-" He stopped himself when he realized he wasn't alone with the headmaster. Near his desk were three chairs, two of them occupied. The one in the middle by Frost Aurora, the one on the right by Alice Crims. "Wha- what's going on?" Arty asked.
"Bloody hell, Umba. What in Remnant happened ta you?" Alice said as she looked over Arty's cuts and scrapes.
He held a hand up to stop her, "It's… a long story."
Onyx Alabaster sat behind his desk. "Well, it seems Victor still likes to play rough with the visiting students on their tandem mock missions." Though that was normally something he would say jokingly, his usual laid back demeanor was gone. He gestured to the empty chair next to Frost. "Mr. Umber. Please, have a seat."
Arty reluctantly took a seat "Look, Professor, I didn't do anything I swe-"
"This isn't about anything you've done, Arty."
The three team leaders sat in silence as Professor Alabaster pulled a box out from behind his desk. He slowly reached inside and pulled out a length of torn black cloth with a dull red pattern coursing across it. Alice and Arty felt cold when they recognized the fabric. Frost stayed still, understanding the gravity of what was being shown to them
"That's…" Alice began.
"One of the cloaks that Oro and her minions were wearing." Arty finished, "How did you-"
"It appears that one of the Grimm Brotherhood lackies got a bit too close to their Trex." Alabaster continued. "At first, we didn't believe you all when you told us the Grimm Brotherhood had attacked so close to campus, much less with a Trex close in tow. We found this cloak near the clearing where Team ARTS encountered the Grimm Brotherhood agent known as Oro and combatted a Trex."
Arty remembered how he had watched one of the cloaked figures get snatched up by the dinosaur Grimm and thrown around like a ragdoll. He shuddered at the mental image of their mangled body being thrown into the trees.
"There wasn't a drop of blood found on the cloak, nor was any found nearby."
"That's impossible!" Arty shot up, "That thing mangled that guy!"
"That's why I brought you three in here, today." He laid the cloak down on his desk to where the three of them could see it in better detail. "I don't know how, but whoever was wearing this cloak survived their attack. From the accounts that your teams gave us, it seems that the Grimm Brotherhood operatives in the forest that night were very skilled and had combat gear that far surpasses that of an average student and even the average Huntsman. The weapon they had that could completely bypass Mr. Wells's aura, which is arguably one of the strongest auras among you first years, when turned on Oro barely seemed to make a scratch. We honestly don't know much about these people, but we do know that they are dangerous and unpredictable. Who's to say that one of them couldn't survive a mauling by a Trex and walk right back to class as if nothing happened?"
The three leaders were taken back.
Alice was the first to speak. "Professa… what are you saying?"
"You think that the Grimm Brotherhood has infiltrated the school?" It was weird hearing Frost speak up. She had been silent ever since Arty got there. Her cool demeanor seemed to be cracking a small bit.
Professor Alabaster nodded solemnly. "There was no record of anybody coming into the infirmary or any of the clinics or hospitals in town or any of the nearby villages in fact of anything resembling the ferocious bite of a Trex." He took a sip of juice from his wine glass. "I want to ask you three a question. How did Oro and her… people know you would all be out in the Emerald Forest that night? From my understanding, it was a very last-minute decision to have your little game. They couldn't have begun preparing the Trex when you arrived at the cliff. It must have been ready long before."
Alice, Frost, and Arty looked to each other with worried glances.
Arty was the first one to come to a realization. "They wanted us out there."
Professor Alabaster nodded.
"But why, sir?" Alice was nearly bouncing out of her seat. There was a lot of information being thrown at them and it was making her anxious.
"From what you all told me, it seems that they've been keeping an eye on you all. A special interest, if you will. They knew things that are only known to either those in your teams or among your peers. For some reason they seem interested in your teams specifically, all from the same orientation group. Why? I don't know, but what I do know for certain is that there are eyes and ears within our walls, and if I'm correct," he jabbed a finger at the cloak, "whoever was wearing this is back to keep watching and listening."
"Why are you telling us this?" Arty blurted out.
Professor Alabaster leaned back in his chair, "Because, Mr. Umber, I want you three to pay close attention to those around you. I made you three leaders for a reason. I trusted your instinct and frames of mind. I have no doubt that you three truly are who you say you are. I don't want you to look for my theoretical infiltrator. What I do want is for you to keep your teams safe from them."
"Do you think the infiltrator is in one of our teams?" Frost asked bluntly.
She only got a shrug in response. "That's up to your discretion. You know your teams better than anybody."
"There is no bloody way that anyone in my team is with those monstas!" Alice sounded offended, as if Onyx were insinuating that she was tied to this mysterious individual.
"Same here." Arty agreed, "Roland's been devastated by these guys already. You know what happened to him… he's hell-bent on destroying the Grimm Brotherhood, not helping them. Timbre's actually been attacked by them before, so that crosses her off. Sepia's… well, Sepia. Just look at the credits of her films. It's not like she would even have time to be involved with those guys."
Frost sat by and tapped her foot on the tile floor. "They did target all of us that night… nobody was safe from their attack."
Alice nodded to her, "So you agree that our teams have ta be all okay? It's somebody else watchin' us?"
Frost shook her head. "I don't know."
"Like I said," Professor Alabaster stood and began walking to the door, "I don't want you to find the infiltrator… heck… I don't even know for one-hundred-percent certainty that there even is one… I just want you to keep an eye out. Be vigilant."
He opened the door to his office leading out to the elevators, "You may all get back to your day. I don't want you all obsessing over this. I just want my students to be careful and out of harm's way."
"We undastand Professa." Alice curtsied as she exited the room first and pressed the button to call the elevator.
Arty stepped into the elevator with her, his mind reeling from exhaustion and uncertainty.
As Frost went to leave, she was stopped by Professor Alabaster.
"If I may, Ms. Aurora, may I have another word with you? I have a few more questions for you specifically."
Frost nodded, "O-of course Professor."
Alice and Arty watched as both sets of doors closed in front of them.
"Now what was that all about?" Alice jeered.
Arty kept his eyes on the multitude of numbers above the door as they slowly counted down to the ground level, "What do you mean?"
"First he calls us up hea and shows us that cloak, and then tries to tell us that there's a mole in tha school?"
"Yeah?... And?"
"Isn't the timin' a little weird? I mean, we're halfway through tha semesta, we're surrounded by tons of students from tha visitin' Academies. We were attacked months ago."
"Does that change anything?"
Alice shook her head, "Something must 'ave happened recently for him to bring this all back up so suddenly. The General or some of the visitin' Huntsmen must've shared information with him."
"Information like?"
"I don't know… the Grimm Brotherhood plannin' somethin' hea in Vale? The Vale branch targeted us, Umba, but you've heard the stories from tha otha schools. They've attacked people from all ova. Now we're all collected hea… like one big present with bows strapped to our heads."
Arty scoffed, "You're starting to sound a bit like Roland."
Alice stomped her boot, "I'm serious, Umba! Somethin' is goin' on."
The elevator dinged as it reached the ground floor. Arty dashed out quickly, ready to get back to the dorm and stew in his own thoughts. "Yeah, probably. They're not done yet, but you forget we're surrounded by Huntsmen and Huntsmen-in-training from all over! Not to mention the Atlesian military! If anything, Beacon is the safest place in Remnant right now!"
Alice slowly followed after him, "Wow… you… you're right, Umba… I didn't think of it that way…"
Arty gave his cocky grin, "Yeah, I know. I'm surprised that I realized it myself considering everything I've been through today. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really want a shower and a nap." He turned and ran off towards the dorms, "See ya, Queen of Farts!"
"Oi! I thought we moved past childish name callin'!"
Exhausted, Arty made his way to the ARTS room. As usual, the hallway was freezing from the air conditioning seeping out of Team FREZ's room. Over the course of the semester, it had grown tolerable. Though his clothes had been given a little time to dry, they were still soggy enough to make the cold miserable. He reached for the knob, "Can today get any worse?"
Arty laid in his bed, eyes closed ready for a nap. Roland had just left with his sister and best friend, and the room was finally quiet. No papers rustling. No frustrated grunts. Just complete silence.
He felt his eyes fluttering. Despite his damp clothes, cuts, bruises, and burns. He felt like he could sleep for days. That was, until there was a knock at the door.
"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?" He cried out. "Can you come back later?! If you're on my team, you have a key! If you're not on my team… go away!"
The knocking continued.
"Son of a-" Arty grumbled and cursed his entire way to the door, making sure to stomp his boots with every step. He swung the door open, "What is it!? What do you-..."
Before him stood an olive-complected girl with flowing chocolate-colored hair held back by a gold and bronze headband. A toga clipped with a gold pin flowed out from under a long dark red coat with lots of fluff the same bronze as her headband around the collar and sleeves. Out from underneath her brown pants were dark brown sandals, an odd choice for somebody from somewhere so frigid. Flickering out from behind her was a gold-furred lion tail.
"Kh-Kh-Khimera Léon?..." Arty was in shock. Here standing before him was his dad's boss's daughter. Member of the famous Team FNKS, known for not only rising from the ashes in a battle like their namesake, but conquering those before them as they came back stronger than before. Her older brother, Ray Léon, had bullied him relentlessly back home during preparatory combat training. He felt the color drain from his face.
"Well… Hello to you, too, Burne."
"Wha-what are you doing here?!" He swore she was going to flip out and tear him in half. He knew about her unstable aura well. It had gotten her, as well as others, in some serious trouble before. Considering how much her mother hated him, he was sure that she held the same discontent towards him and all of her shiny bronze would turn bright azure at any second.
"I was hoping to speak to your friend, Roland… I have some… information I need to share with him."
Arty shrunk back a little, wanting to avoid any and all contact with the girl his partner was blackmailing, "He went into town with some friends. He's kinda taking a break from the whole… Grimm Brotherhood… wheel… symbol… cookbook insanity."
She suddenly pushed past him, looked out into the hall to see if anyone was coming, and shut the door.
Arty really wanted to die. "Please don't kill me! I'm fragile and I just got done fighting Rippers, Echos, Gniles and a whole lot of other horrible things!"
"Listen, Arty. I know you're probably terrified of me like everyone else, but this is serious."
"I know it is! I've seen what you can do!"
She rolled her eyes, "Arty, I know how my mother makes things seem, but I'm not like her… or my brother. I don't care that you blew a hole in Atlas, I actually thought it was hilarious seeing my mother's face when she started screaming at two in the morning when she got the call. Made my summer really! But listen, I'm trying to help Roland, and you, and the school, and pretty much the whole city right now."
Arty raised an eyebrow, "Um… what… what do you mean?"
"I can't say where I got this info, but…" she ran over to Roland's desk and began shuffling through some of his papers. She pulled out a map of the kingdom and bumped up next to Arty in order to show him. She could hear him whimpering from being so close to her. "Look, Roland's been marking out all of the criminal activity in Vale over the past decade or so. It seems the Grimm Brotherhood started with quote-unquote 'smaller' things like robberies on trading lines which, he somehow didn't realize were mostly his dad's, further away from the capital, out in the country and around the villages. As time went on, they kept up this activity while also drawing closer to Vale and going bigger. During that time, villages in their path were being destroyed and raided, which isn't unheard of, but they had to be at fault for some of them but they weren't attributed to the attacks due to a lack of…" she looked to the page from Roland's mom's book, "that." She returned to the map, "Recently, though, ever since the foreign students got here, they've been getting a bit more ballsy. Robberies in the city, attacks on students like you, that kind of stuff."
"Yeah… and?... It's like that across Remnant isn't it?"
Khimera was beginning to lose her patience. Arty panicked when he saw a slight flash of blue across her body. "Look, Umber. I really can't tell you how I know this, but all of this is leading up to something, and it's all centered around Beacon Academy."
Arty shook his head, "No… no no no. I just got done talking to Professor Alabaster. He has a theory, a theory, that there could be the possibility that there's a Grimm Brotherhood agent infiltrating Beacon, but that's it. They're just watching us… for… some… reason."
"Yeah, they're gathering info because they're planning to take people and Team ARTS is included in those people."
Arty was starting to think that Roland was not the only one going off the deep end. "Why do they want to take people, Khimera?"
She let out a grunt of exasperation, "I don't know, Umber, but you have to listen to me! They've already tried this before, twice, to be exact."
"Twice?"
"First they attacked your teammate, Timbre, at her concert last summer. She's told you hasn't she? They wanted to take her."
"Right… And the second?..."
"Last semester, Arty. Roland told me everything about Oro."
Arty shook his head, "No way. Oro seemed more ready to kill us than take us prisoner."
"That's the point! The Grimm Brotherhood seems to be very focused on a few certain individuals. Your team are four of those individuals! She was testing you guys for some reason. I bet she was planning to come back for you guys after you tired yourselves out fighting the Trex, but a big fat monkey wrench was thrown into that plan when your teachers showed up in the airship to pick you up."
"Wait… so… why are you telling me this right now?..."
"Because my info also tells me that something is going to go down tonight, and we're the only ones that can do anything to stop it."
"Why… us?..."
"Because I'm the only one with the full story and if I told anybody else then I'd get in huge trouble for having the half of the story from Atlas! Nobody has what Roland's figured out except for him. I'm the only one that's been helping him because, I'm sure he told you, but he's kinda holding the fact I know so much to blackmail me and I do not want my mother to know and pull me out of the tournament because I know I'd never hear the end of it."
"That's kind of a weird reason to hide stuff that could potentially save lives."
Her body became detailed with blue as she picked him up and slammed him into the wall. "Look, Umber… I'm not playing around. You know as well as I do that the Atlas military doesn't play around with its intel. Everything I'm telling you could get me expelled. Now, if you're otter friend is already down in Vale, that's already a problem that could turn into a blessing if we get down there and help."
Arty whimpered and pawed at the blue fluff at the end of Khimera's sleeve. "Okay! Okay! I get it! Just please don't hurt me…"
"I'm not the biggest thing you should be worried about right now. I don't know how, but I have a bad feeling that Roland and his friends won't be enough to prevent him from being taken and whatever the Grimm Brotherhood is planning to do tonight. That's why we need to get down there and help stop them."
"Okay… okay… I'll go. Can… can I at least get a shower and restock on paint first if we're gonna be fighting and all that?..."
She rolled her eyes as the blue faded from her. She let go of him and held her hand to her forehead. "Yeah… just… just go. Please. We need to try to hurry."
As he headed for the bathroom, she stopped him.
"When we get down there, Arty. I want you to act normal. You can't let on to anybody that we know something's going to go down. We don't need Roland to panic and rush off on his own."
"What about the girls?"
She shook her head, "They're targets too, Arty. Calling them and telling them to stay away from town is giving away too much. Like I said, we can't let on to anybody that we know anything. Best case scenario is that they're staying put up here at the school, but if they're already down there, then they have no choice but to fight or fall into their hands."
"Wait… but, if all of Team ARTS are targets, then aren't we just kinda giving them what they want by me going down there?"
She shook her head again, "You don't understand, Arty. You may be on their list, but you're one of the only people I can trust with this information." She looked at him pleadingly, her golden brown eyes piercing into his, "I'm a target, too, but that's not going to stop me from doing what I can to help."