[Ruination]

Ruby would be so disappointed in her if she saw Weiss now, killing goons and pushing through carriages with a worm of satisfaction wiggling ever closer to a full blown feeling.

It felt wrong, but logically there was no other way to save the people of Atlas. There was no way to lock up sembalnces this powerful, nor is leaving them behind in the wilderness any less brutal or practical. There was also the possibility that defeated opponents could follow them down the tracks, and find them unprepared in the future.

Combine all that with years of them killing innocent people to keep the rest in line? The bad feeling wasn't enough to trump the two sisters sense of justice... Or would that be revenge? Weiss can't bring herself to care anymore.

The little group was panting in a storage room and catching their breath from the last battle, Twins with a broken semblance, and she didn't only mean broken in the unfair sense.

It was literally broken, with the semblance actually being halved and having very little factors keeping them from injuring themselves.

With most semblances they had secondary smaller abilities to make it safer, Yang and fire resistance, Ruby with faster reaction times and so on. These twins apparently didn't have that same safety net but still managed to give them a run for their money.

"W-what kinda shit fest was that?" Theo grunts out and rolls over to relax more Weiss having played a more passive role that was only slightly less intense than Theo -thanks to no plan of theirs - gets out a quick summary "I think that was some kind of mindscape? Two of them?" Weiss gives up and just throws her hands up "just as lost as you Theo"

Winter who was almost out of Aura just nods "some kind of reality warping or shifting power, split by two people, or two worlds mixed in with our reality" Winter seems so spaced out that Weiss can't help try brush it off "no worries now, they have been delt with"

Doesn't help as much as Weiss hoped when it prompts the group of three to spy out the corpses of both twins, one twin being bisected with the other crushed.

Shivering at the dimensional horrors that plagued them Weiss rubs her arms "point still stands" she mutters.

Theo groans and pipes up "do we even know how much time has passed? That place gave me headaches just thinking about how space works, never mind time"

Winter checks an old mechanical watch that Ironwood used to wear at all times "A minute and three seconds on the dot" Weiss suspects that Ironwoods watch can only tell time thanks to Winters Aura protecting it from the Twins semblance.

Honestly the only reason they won at all was because the twins obviously went insane from their own power, fighting eachother almost as much as the rebel group of three.

Weiss can't decide if she pitied them or was glad that the twins suffering is over, she can't imagine what it would have been like living like that, with one foot in three realities at all times... And Weiss is aware of how little sense that makes.

Making sure she has two feet before standing, Weiss goes to the nearest crate and picks out the first edible food she finds, with abottle of water.

"Come on, we can't wait around all day let's eat and get moving again, I don't like letting my dad get any more ready" Weiss hands out the food and drink knowing that they experienced a lot more time than was possible between entering this room and fighting the twins to the death.

Its then the turrets start opening fire and the dull shouts of the crew can be heard through the trains walls.

"New plan, eat on the move we need to pull out of this station and away from the Grimm ASAP" Winter calls and makes her way to the next door, Theo getting up from the floor to follow the Schnee sisters.

As Weiss starts up her knight summon circle Theo makes a comment "We actually work well as a team, you with that throat gimmick and my damage over time covered by Winters swarms"

Weiss just hums, thinking back to her old teams synergy fondly "I suppose, but stay focused, we are close to Jacques, I estimate this next carriage is the last storage room before his private carriage" Winter makes a sound of confirmation to support Weiss.

"Well, let's hope this last one isn't so bad" Theo shifts his stance born from hunter combat thinly disguised as rushed and improvised live training.

The knight kicks the door down and rushes in, just as Weiss was going to wink it out of existence to avoid taking needless damage she stops short

Winter who was the next infiltration agent in the plan sweeps in through the door and darts to the left, taking in all immediate dangers only to find none.

Theo and Weiss follows in a second later and joins the confused gazing, the room was larger, most likely having a full carriages worth of space.

It was filled with machinery, Weiss makes out batteries, generators, cables and pipes... All leading to a certain sectioned off part tucked neatly in the right side of the carriage, it was almost a small room, but thats being generous, it wasn't walls at all but shelves giving off the illusion of a separate area.

"Guys" Theo whispers "anyone else feel a bit like this is a trap?" Weiss wouldn't go so far, more just a dark and gloomy depressing aura.

Winter whispers back "we still need to scout it out so be careful, the sooner we can get passed this room the better"

Weiss takes down her knight and instead swaps it out for some butterflies, sending them out to scout for traps.

The group wouldn't move until Weiss gives them a go ahead. Then Weiss frowns and doesn't tell them anything strait away, making winter send out butterflies too, wanting to find out what makes Weiss so confused.

Theo having enough of these games just whispers "doubt whatever you guys feel doesn't know we are here, so like, mind sharing?"

"We think theres a person in that section over there" Weiss gets out "but... It doesn't feel like they are alive" Theo frowns deeply "you don't say..." Weiss snaps out of it and looks back to Theo "sorry, I mean the body is... Actually it would be easier to show you and my curiosity is killing me as well"

The group just exchange some weary looks before carefully making their way to the room built from mostly support shelves for more machinery.

Rounding the wall they all peek in "W-what the hell" Theo's voice actually breaks and Weiss covers her mouth in shock.

Winters frown just deepens further "what's the meaning of this?" Its then that Jacques Schnee opens the door from the other side of the train, no doubt coming from his private carriage.

"I see you've discovered our little secret" he almost looks smug too... Weiss just losses it, five years of constantly dealing with her situation bubbles over in a rage "what the actual fuck is this dad!" Not even calling him by name, something she made a point of doing to distance herself from him.

"What did you do to Penny! Do you have no shame or morals!? I thought the steaming was bad! But this... This is too far! Even for you!" Theo notes the clenched white chuckles and strained neck muscles but is more interested in that name "you know what that is?" He directs the question to Weiss.

"It-" Weiss visibly holds back what she was going to snap at him and tries again "Her name is Penny, not an 'It', she was a friend of my team back in vale"

"An artificial human and the peak of the P.E.N.N.Y. project. A secret pride of Atlas and its military" Winter supplie shelpfully. Theo does a double take and notices a nearby box with the acronym displayed and a subtext of Probability Experiment of Neural Networking Yield.

All things considered, its something Theo would never have expected to see in an apocalypse sending them back to the stone age.

"Why but of course its a pride, our experimental energies department were involved in powering such a computer, no amount of dust would be portable for such a thing" Jacques fixes his collar and cuffs as he states this.

Weiss fumes "she was sentient! Living! She unlocked an Aura! How could you kill her in such a gross and twisted way!"

Jacques actually laughs "kill? Dear brothers no, she is way too valuable for that. We simply... Disarmed her, a lot better than murder don't you think?" Weiss was shaking in anger.

Penny was stuffed with pipes and cables, Theo could see an oil drip slowly filling a tank, a battery slowly filling up and various other instruments at work. He has a sinking feeling in his gut that won't go away, no doubt connected to his theory.

Voicing his thoughts Theo asks Jacques directly "are you actually using Penny has a source of power?" Jacques lights up "this boy gets it! Why exactly! You want to know what's the best part? She regenerates everything with Aura! Like a hunter would regenerate blood and bone! Its completely renewable! Her power core never even needs maintenance!"

Jacques was so worked up about this Winter notes Sadly "We thought Aura was a miracle worker for us, but for Penny? Its so much more!" Weiss has heard enough and summons a Glyph inside Jacques throat, silencing him.

"You disgust me" Weiss spits it out like its the most vile of insults, turning away to get him out of her sights. Just in time to see Pennys eyes flutter open and focus on Weiss, her eyes pleading for freedom as their eyes lock across the small amount of distance.

"Oh you poor girl" Theo whispers. He moves over and inspects the damage with Weiss as Winter eyes Jacques as he chokes on his own families semblance.

Penny has been stripped, anything that was in the way of a port or wire has been forced open with what looks like the wrong tools.

As they are about to work to disconnect Penny from the machinery. She tries to speak but her voice sputters out mid word. Theo just glances up to her face before asking "nod if this cable will help you faster" he tugs on various cables as she shakes her head in the negative.

After making his way through most cables he gets to one on her neck and gets the fastest nod Penny can manage.

Nodding back, Theo tugs a little harder, before its clear he would need some kind of tool, thankfully Weiss already has reached for various boxes of tools as Theo worked with Penny and it was only a matter of time before they found the right one for the job.

The thrashing of Jacques in the background makes a fleeting distraction as he gives up his last choke of life.

Weiss scoffs "he deserved more punishment, maybe I shouldn't have let my anger get to me" Theo looks at her funny "Weiss, I think he died pretty badly, any more and you basically become closer to him than I am comfortable with" he places a hand on her shoulder "maybe there was something else you could have done, but you won't find any of us judging you for what you did"

There was a little whimper from Penny and they both get back to helping her, she must have been dying to get out of her situation, five years of being drained like livestock... He can't imagine it.

Winter calls out as she makes her way towards Jacques private carriage "I am going to the engine room to try start it up and get us away from this depressing place" Weiss and Theo nod as they get Penny disconnected from the last few cables and pipes.

Penny didn't have legs nor arms, and they couldn't get an answer from her when they asked where the limbs were, in hindsight that was a touch insensitive but if the limbs were kept nearby they could have probably reattached them with some effort.

Pushing through the awkwardness Theo offers a solution "I could carry her around until we find a wheelchair, doesn't one of the crew use one? Maybe they have a spare?" Weiss had a doubtful look "I don't think that is likely but we can always check"

Penny wasn't even paying attention, mostly just shivering against the crate they leaned her against. Weiss doesn't miss the fact a robots body wouldn't need to shiver for the cold...

Winter interrupts the awkwardness again as she walks back into the room "It needs power, Penny was disconnected so we need to use the normal dust engines" the three of them glance at Pennys reaction that amounts to nothing at all before they focus back on Winter "so go ask any reserve fighters to help me move some of the crates from storage to the engine deck" she finishes.

Weiss nods and Theo gets out a quick "sure thing" they are about to turn and go back the way they came when Penny makes the loudest noise since gaining freedom "P-please, get me out of this Place" she must have tried to move her limbs because her bodies center mass shifts enough to send her leaning dangerously close to tipping over.

Theo reacts fast and stops the fall just in time "We got you, don't worry" he hesitates before following up with a question "how do you want me to carry you? There isn't much to hold onto" Penny blinks and then frowns "I don't know" she doesn't seem to be concentrating anymore, seeming to go back to her former state after Theo promised her they wouldn't leave her.

Weiss just looks around before coming up with a plan "we can make a stretcher out of those metal crates, break off the long lids and we have something sturdy enough for Penny" Theo nods "great idea, if I am not mistaken they have foam insides, will be nice and comfortable"

They quickly break one off, using Aura to strengthen themselves to the point that they can snap the hinges with ease, the crates contents being parts and scrap metal, not its intended use, the foam insides clearly making it a Dust crate.

Loading Penny onto the improvised stretcher they make their way back down the storage carriages to the rest of the trains crew busy fighting the Grimm.

The sounds of laser fire and snarls can be heard through the walls and she hopes none of the second generation Grimm are amongst the battle.

So say Weiss hated the new Grimm was a huge understatement, all of them are more refined and deadly to even the most experienced hunters, they have been either evolved or some how tailor made to keep up with all of the hunters new technology.

She supposes that technology is now old, since they couldn't use half the stuff anymore, with dust mines and storage being taken out in the first few weeks of the Grimm invasion.

Shaking herself from the thoughts she focuses back on the present, just as Theo and herself make it to the exit carriage.

The ladders extending to the roof turrets are busy, men and woman climbning up and down moving stolen dust into position for reloading the large guns.

Weiss motions to a nearby seat and the two of them settle Penny down for now, turning around she throws a coment back to Theo "Stay with Penny, don't want any miss understandings" he nods and shifts uncomfortably. Obviously not liking the passive role during this situation, honestly she would have thought fighting so much would have tired him, they were all going to crash hard later she supposes.

Moving to the nearest ladder she waits for the next person to come back down, not even seconds later a joly man with a shaven head slides down the ladder, not even bothering to use the bars.

"Excuse me " the formal speak just slipped, it was important and an order from her sister, she blames her upbringing. "Winter needs a few extra hands to load dust to the engine carriage so we can make an escape"

He has a small frown "what in the world did we run on Before? Surly there should be enough to start the engine" Weiss hesitates before extending an arm to Penny and Theo on the other side of the room "That girl was powering the train" hopefully he doesn't ask too many questions.

Hans looks over to the duo and his frown just carves deeper into his face "must be a handy semblance" he gets out before hollering up the ladder "Oi, get me some spare hands" the dulled out shouts that echoed passed the loud battle was something along the lines of "what spares? We are all knee deep in Grimm!" But nevertheless Sprave must have some authority for not long after his request a small group of resistance fighters join him in his quest to help Winter.

"I will try help the fight, hopefully I can make up for these fighters absence" they part ways, Weiss moving up the ladder and Hans' group moving up the train towards the storages.

When her head pokes out the train the noise increases tenfold, the shouts of people being knocked off the train and Grimm screetching was intense. She could see normal Grimm flying around with the odd land based Saber or Ursa.

Some of the battleship secondaries were outright destroyed but most of the turrets still fired deadly large caliber hard light into the Grimm horde, aiming for the biggest threats, cutting down the odd Goliath or larger Nevermore when they showed their ugly faces to the light of humanity.

Weiss knows her aura is low and won't be doing any frontline combat for some time, so she mkes her way to the most inaccurate turret.

Knocking thrice on the entrance hatch the loader opens it warily, Weiss gives a quick flick of her head and a comment of "come on, tell that lousy shot to get out"

Noticing that it was Weiss he nods, she had a bit of a reputation for this, her sixth sense of surroundings made gunplay laughably easy.

The girl that jumps out of the gunner seat doesn't wait around and just makes a run for it, heading to the exit carriage hatch.

"Do you still want to be a loader? How long have you been at it?" The man nods "still good to go, now let's get back to helping the rest out and shoot some Grimm" Weiss doesn't even waste time giving an acknowledgement and just climbs into the turret and then maneuvers around the cramped space to get to the gunner seat.

Gripping the familiar comtrols and bringing down the gun sights she swerves the turret right, to where she knows the biggest clump of Grimm are located.

Swapping out her ammunition setting from high explosive she goes for armour piercing, uses less charge for better results in her opinion, most disagree and say its too easy to miss kill shots.

Lining up the first shot her sights hone onto a particularly large Alpha Griffon who was taking some hits from the turrets closer to himself. Squeezing the trigger the turret vibrates in place, there is no recoil but the turret wasn't built to fit on a train and the ambient energy discharge is a little over the top, so it shakes the thin material of the train.

The laser shoots down range and gets between some of the Griffons bone plates, digging into vulnerable flesh and piercing strait through to the other side, the back of the Grimm explodes into pieces of Grimm innards and some bone flakes.

"And they say this isn't high explosive" she comments to the loader who was preparing the next battery charge. Not paying attention anymore, the chuckle was lost on Weiss as she once again turns sharply to face the next Grimm on her semblance 'radar' cross referencing with the actual radar built into the gun sights.

The green arrows and little boxes remind Weiss of some bad video game Ruby and Jaune would play but can't deny it helps.

It took another few shots for the charge to run dry, the second turret dweller expertly ejects the bulky spent ammunition box before picking up the next shots and slotting them in the spent boxes place, all within ten seconds.

Weiss loved competent loaders.

Ren woke without any blankets and understandably had a little frown for it. checking his left to see if they fell off the bed didn't bring any answer but looking right was thankfully enough.

Nora had cacooned herself with all his blankets and even managed to sneak his pillow out from under him somehow.

Getting up, Ren makes his way to the bathroom, planning on going to the kitchen next to make breakfast.

On his way out of the bathroom he quickly checks up on Nora, seeing her still asleep he plans to give her the rest she deserves and make something that doesn't wake her up from the smell.

The kitchen was more of a storage room for food than a functional kitchen, nothing worked without dust so they managed to install a fireplace and chimney to at least cook goods.

He says them but it was really only Nora who seemed to have a secret talent for building and being a general handy man, Ren makes up for his incompetence in that department by hunting game and foraging.

He liked the bow, it was by no means his first bow too, he had to make a lot of them to perfect the craft but he got it right in the end. Thinking back fondly to the days where his bow wouldn't last more than two hunting trips before breaking or coming lose. He prepares some dried meat with bread as he works.

The glass of milk was just to drown it down easier. They had saved a bunch of cows from the nearby farm, the field they were kept in having been eaten dry and had no farmer to move them to the next fenced off area for fresh grass.

Turns out they stuck around, the Grimm left them be and were domesticated enough for Ren and Nora to approach.

It was odd but also undeniable that it helped a lot with baking and even making cheese to the disgust of Nora, she wasn't fond of the smell.

Stopping, he realises he can still add cheese with ease, so he does, it won't be digging into their supplies any faster than they can milk these cows, honestly even a single cow was too much milk, a lot of it just goes bad before they can use it, hence the cheese idea.

Its then Nora shuffles in with a yawn and "morning" as a greeting. Ren echo's the greeting and gets back to making his sandwich, adding extra slices of bread for Nora to work with.

She doesn't even comment about her half made sandwich and just completes it before shuffling back to her bedroom.

Shaking his head Ren can only chuckle at her sleepy state as he plans out the future.

Checking their water storage he makes a note to get more, the river wasn't too far but water was always a pain to move in large quantitys.

He wonders if one of the cows would pull a cart for them... Probably not.

Taking the last sip of his milk he gets up and decides to go change and ready himself for the day. His green dyed leather hunter gear was his favorite outfit but he couldn't use it every day, so he picks out one of the dull grey cotton shirts from the previous owners chest of drawers.

Grabing a random pants to go with it he slips into them both after sheding his sleeping combo. Revisiting the bathroom he brushes his hair and makes a single quick and thick braid.

Ren gives himself a once over to see if anything is out of place before heading outside.

The weather was pleasant, a few clouds dotted the sky with the sun peaking over the thick treeline at the edge of the village.

Making his way around the outskirts Ren checks the wall for anything suspicious. When he found nothing of the sort he makes his way to all the storage houses they have filled over the years.

There was a lot of things they were collecting, anything technological was preserved, dust was kept safe and even a car Nora managed to push into a small barn.

It was honestly just busy work during the calm days of survival in these strange times.

They haven't seen a single human since the fall of beacon, they don't even know exactly how long thats been for sure, they spent a lot of time drifting at sea after their bullhead went down, so it was all so disconnected from their current frame of reference.

Once they found the first calendar they just started off from where the last day was ticked off, honestly it was fine, they didn't have any time constraints for anything anyway.

But enough of that he needed to finish checking up on the very empty village.

Ren sees a shadow in the treeline shift and he instantly goes into a crouched position, he didn't have his trusty Bow but his two knives were always on him at all times.

Scanning the forest with his eyes he doesn't see any more movement but that was never really enough for him to relax.

Still in a crouch he starts edging towards the treeline, there was a tickel at the edge of his mind, like something was on the tip of his tongue but just... emotions rather than a word.

Felt like anger, maybe even hate, it was so hard to tell. the feeling was like smoke in the wind and so very hard to focus on.

Stopping to calm his racing mind he almost relaxes to the point of meditation but opens his eyes again, the feeling was gone and the forest was still.

Frowning Ren knows he didn't see a trick of the light, his hunting skills were better than that, those feelings weren't his own either, something was wrong.

Making a quick decision he continues forward, keeping tabs on his emotions and the forest at all times, a single knife in his right hand at the ready with the other in reserve.

Once entering the forest he checks for tracks and is confused even more, there were tracks but they didn't belong to anything he knew of, they hardly looked like tracks at all, it was like a horde of pogo sticks jumped away in a loose formation.

Not liking this one bit Ren double checks his surroundings before moving on, he needs to know how dangerous this is.

Following the tracks was a little hard at first but they seem to be using the path of least resistance so it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be, most of the difficulty was finding out if this particular print was facing in any direction at all, they had no claws or paws that he could see.

It took some time but he sees a second set of tracks join the first and they both head off deeper into the forest.

Ren knows these woods like the back of his hand and can say for a fact there is absolutely nothing in this direction, no farm, river or distant town just more forest.

So then why was there a wall? Crude as it was, made from broken logs stuck into the ground, it was still out of place.

The logs were not even facing upright most of the time, it was more like a phalanx than a sturdy wall.

Held together by what at first looked like grey cloth was actually some kind of web on closer inspection, the web was odd too, it didn't look like it came in string form, more like it was dripped onto the logs then dried.

A quick look around shows no entrance and the tracks seem to just vanish.

Frowning he gives the area another once over before jumping to a conclusion, with the tracks suspiciously ending near the trunk of a large tree he guesses they can climb over the wall through the canopy.

Tucking his knife back into its sheath he starts to climb, he nearly slips when a sudden scream echoes from deeper in the forest, the same direction the tracks are going.

Is he actually going to do this? Follow a random scream in the forest with what he assumes are Grimm tracks?

...yes, he was.

This has the potential of being the first human contact since beacon and he couldn't let it pass up just because It was dangerous. They needed to know how bad the situation really is for Remnant and its people.

Dropping from the branches Ren lands and rolls into a crouch, unsheathing his blade in the same motion. He felt very under equipped and naked without his hunting gear and bow.

Ren schools his thoughts into a uniform and passive emotion, calming himself down with some techniques passed down from his family.

If there were Grimm nearby he wasn't willing to compromise himself or his position from carelessness.

It's only then does he feel in control enough to move and press on into the thick shrubs and underbrush. Making sure he doesn't generate too much noise with extra stealthy footwork.

Takes a few minutes of slow progress to find another wall, this one smaller and low enough to see over without much difficulty.

Almost expecting another scream Ren hesitates before carefully climbing the wall, this one had a small clearing so no trees would be helping him over.

Avoiding the sticky looking goo he manages to scale it without trouble and lands softly on the other side, its then he sees the first Grimm. It was hideous.

Ren actually felt the need to swear because of how wrong it looked, and thats no small feat to archive. Its some kind of spider, size was about the same as an Alpha Ursa.

Most of its size wasn't the long legs, or the head and body but its abdomen, it must have made up half its total weight all by itself.

This would have been normal proportions for a spider if not for the fact the abdomen wasn't even an abdomen, but a large exposed and pulsating brain spewing that grey sticky 'web' from the walls earlier.

But that was about all it was, no extra large mouth or sharp legs, just a large spider with a large icky brain.

His disgust must have alerted the Grimm since it whips itself around, the legs skittering in a circle loudly.

It doesn't actually rush him and backs up, giving space between Ren and itself, Ren doesn't like that so he tries to close the gap only for him to be shoved off his feet and sent flying back. The ground and leaves are thrown with him in a cloud of debris.

The only thing to indicate he was attacked by the spider Grimm was that it raised its brain higher to peek over its own body.

He hated jumping to conclusions but that was suspiciously similar to what he could do with his aura control and would be easy to replicate with telekinetic powers like that silly comic book Jaune and Ruby used to read.

Then as he was getting up from the floor his mind felt like it got kicked and he went strait back to the floor. The after shocks were a lot like orthostatic hypotension but if it was dialed so far up on the pain that he instinctually pulls up his Aura.

Except nothing happens, the pain doesn't subside or go away even after Aura was activated, he was totally disorientated and couldn't do much than roll on the ground in pain.

The screech of the spider Grimm follows with strong invasive emotions of anger and hate, piercing the little psychic coherency he has left and sends him into an emotional rollercoaster of fear.

Its was mid fall into madness that his semblance activates by instinct, his very soul intervening to try save him.

The pain stops multiplying but still lingers as he clutches his head, semblance on full blast. He gains enough coherency to spy out the now visibly confused Grimm, looking around for him by swaying its head side to side.

More spiders burst from the forest and start hissing at eachother in turns, Ren can't belive what he is seeing, they are clearly communicating between themselves. The first spider even points at his last known location with anger.

It takes half a minute of hissing for them to seemingly come up with a plan of action, they split up in the general direction of Rens origin.

Crap. This isn't good he can't deal with a wide area of spiders trying to find him, he would run out of aura before getting back to the village.

The single spider that stayed behind to watch his small clearing gave Ren an idea when it turns around to face the direction the scream came from earlier.

He could go that way and wrap around the long way around, maybe avoid all the Grimm that just spread out this way.

Nodding to himself Ren takes some deep breaths to try control the headache he built up from his defeat.

He inches closer to the lone spider Grimm with a sort of test to preform, Ren needed to know what part of these things he needed to hit for an instant kill, there was no time for mental battles.

Getting closer to the Grimm he was starting to see it in more detail and could make out the pores in its brain that leaked the sticky fluid, even the awful smell of roadkill.

But its flat oval face was the goal, Ren plunges his knife into the bottom of its jaw in an uppercut motion, aiming for where a normal brain would be.

The Grimm can't screech with its mouth having a blade in it but once Rens semblance dropped the sound of a mental cry out was loud and clear. Brothers did Ren hate it, the feeling made his skin crawl and itch, nothing about this Grimm was even remotely tolerable.

The brain was being raised to get its own body out of the way so Ren thinks fast and pulls down the head with his spare hand as he extracts his knife in the same direction, this buckles the Grimms front legs and allows for Ren to lunge up the now slanted Grimm body like a ramp.

Aiming directly for the center of the large brain with his open left hand Ren plants his palm into the squishy flesh and realeses built up aura in an explosive display of force. The red greymatter buckles in and bursts out the back of the brain, instantly the Grimms limbs buckle and collapses under their combined weight.

Neatly jumping at the last second he clears the mangled brain and lands behind the now very dead Grimm, the dark mist of it decaying that drifts around him only looked cool. it felt bad on his lungs so he quickly moves out and away from his cinematic position.

Ren glanced around the clearing to be sure he wasn't going to be jumped or followed before moving forward and into the thick woods.

It was so calm for a few minutes and it contrasted so harshly with the previous struggle ⁿfor his life, but that feeling quickly took a backseat when he stumbles into what was clearly a village.

Not a human village, but a spider one.

There were a few of the Grimm walking about building onto crude huts made of wood and layers of that brain-goo web stuff.

Ren didn't seem to be discovered so he slinks back behind a tree and goes through some calming exercises to hide himself better, the reassurance of his semblance almost making it trivial in comparison to a normal person.

Knowing he can vanish from Grimm ironically made him more sneaky even without directly using his semblance.

After feeling more confident Ren peeks around the thick tree again, this time he notices the source of the scream earlier, from this distance it was hard to see clearly if the people were still alive or just unconscious but he knows for a fact that it must of been hell either way.

There were poles with humans tied to them, Most of them look pretty beat up but again, the distance from the treeline to the village was just too far to see exactly how far gone the people were.

He noted maybe sixteen of the spider Grimm lulling about doing various tasks and busy work. Moving logs, layering flat rocks with brain juice to seemingly dry it out into sheets and some were strangely just lazing about.

Ren didn't like it at all or how intelligent they seemed to be, acting as some kind of a tribe with goals and plans.

Did he really want to go investigate? Even with his semblance active he didn't like his chances, Rens semblance was expensive to run even with only one target and could run out of aura quickly if he wasn't careful.

His inner Hunter was acting up, his old job was to save lives god damn it! Taking another deep breath to calm down again he realises that his emotions are all over the place after that earlier battle. He usually doesn't need this many times to calm down.

Ren closes his eyes for a second before nodding to himself, he will investigate to see who he can save, hopefully get out of this in one piece as well.