"Another thing? But we just did a thing!" Serene whined, following Jazz to the boards outside the amphitheatre.
"That was a dance, not a combat mission." Nyla pointed out.
"Are you sure about that?"
"We need to pick a mission before everyone takes all the good ones." Jazz said determinedly.
"Where should we go?" Nyla asked.
"Ooh, let's go to Vacuo."
"Let's not." Nyla countered immediately.
"Well we're not going to Atlas."
"Fine with me," Said Serene, drawing on her arm with a black pen.
"So, Vale or Mistral..." Jazz summarised, going through their options. "We could… oh, we could follow a Grimm specialist to discover and record new Grimm species in a recently claimed area in central Southern Mistral."
"Wow," Said Maizie, "That sounds really boring."
"No it doesn't." Nyla disputed.
"What about a shadowing mission to destroy a herd of Crocuta in lower Vale?"
"Ooh Crocuta? Let's do that." Maizie said, jumping to Jazz's side to read the mission details.
"Crocuta are some of the deadliest land Grimm," Nyla pointed out. "Is that really a first-year mission?"
"Yep," Jazz said.
"What huntsmen will we be shadowing?" Serene asked.
"Umm…" Jazz scanned the details. "R. Champagne. Professor Champagne. Cool; I didn't know she was in Vale."
"She was a former Vytal Tournament winner," Nyla said, "She went to the top four in her second year and first in her fourth. All the previous Winner's get together for interviews and celebrations and the like during the festival."
"We are so doing this one," Maizie said, going into the job and entering their team. There were no protests, so she entered them in, and they went on their way. They received an email of all their mission details and Jazz balked.
"We leave tomorrow?!"
"Oh that's not good." Maizie muttered. "We suck."
"We do suck," Serene muttered.
"We're not that bad," Nyla defended.
"As a team we are," Jazz pointed out. "We should get some practise in before we leave. What class do we have now?"
"Study hall."
"Let's ditch and get some extra practise in."
"You're encouraging us to ditch?" Maizie asked, pretending to be scandalised. Jazz rolled her eyes.
"Oh please. Nyla is a genius, Serene and I are on top of all our work, and you're weirdly good at everything."
"Why thank you."
"We need to get practise in, or we'll suck out in the field."
"Whatever gets me out of sitting in the library for an hour."
The four headed to the gym, and Serene forewent her gauntlets and grabbed her staff, changing into gym shorts and loose t-shirt. Maizie wore the same. Nyla was presenting male and wore a singlet and tights. Jazz was in a sports bra and shorts, spinning her axes around.
"Try not to kill each other," Jazz said, combining her axes and shifting them to a double ended spear. Nyla cracked his whip and Serene and Maizie jumped.
"Holy shit I forgot how loud that was." Maizie said, clutching her chest.
"Alright," Jazz said, cracking her neck. "Let's go."
"That was a bad idea," Maizie muttered, lying on the floor post-workout.
"Don't feel too bad," Serene said, "You got a few good shots in," She raised her shirts, seeing the fading bruise from the hit from Maizie's metal claws. She wiped away the trail of blood from the scratch on her forehead.
"Damn you fight dirty," Jazz muttered to Serene, rubbing her back where Serene had hit her.
"Can we go to bed now?" Nyla asked. "I'm gonna need to sleep for a week."
"Maybe letting Serene beat the shit out of us before going on a shadowing mission wasn't the best idea."
"Probably not," Serene agrees. "I'm going to get something to eat. Later."
Serene woke up to Nyla's alarm blaring and she grabbed her staff to destroy it.
"Wait, wait!" Nyla cried, grabbing the alarm and pulling it to his chest, stopping the loud beeping. Serene walked back over to her bed and fell into it, wrapping herself up in the covers.
"We gotta get up," Nyla said through a yawn, stretching. "We've only got two hours to get to the airstrip."
"I call the first shower," Maizie mumbled, still wrapped up in her blankets.
"Tough shit," Jazz called, closing the door behind her. Maizie mumbled but didn't move.
Serene sat up and rubbed her face, swinging her feet to the floor and looked around the room for her scroll. She checked it, trying not to freeze when she saw the message from Raven. She'd let her mother know about the mission and hadn't received a response and had hoped she wouldn't.
Call me when you get back to Beacon. We need to talk
Ignoring the dread in her stomach, she closed the scroll and shoved it in her new bag.
"Have you got enough dust for your staff?" Nyla asked, grabbing her own bag and adding an extra pair of socks.
"Yep," Serene grabbed her hairbrush, carefully brushing her messy curls.
"That's a nice brush," Nyla commented.
"Thanks."
"Where did you get it?"
Serene paused for a moment, looking at the faded star pattern on the back of the brush. "It was a gift."
"Your parents?"
Serene nodded. According to her cover, her mother was dead, murdered as well as her father when Grimm attacked their small village in the mountains.
"How long have you had it?"
"As long as I can remember." She finished brushing her hair and put it into her bag, along with the silver case she bought to hold and protect the picture of her father.
"Next!" Jazz called, coming out of the bathroom in a bellow of smoke.
"Alright, alright I'm going," Maizie moaned, finally climbing out of her bed.
They all showered and got ready and Serene put on the huntress outfit she had picked.
The pants were black and stopped at her ankles and were held up by a grey sash around her waist that doubled as a belt for her staff, similar bandages around her ankles. The black and brown boots came to right below the bottom of the pants and she liked how heavy and comfortable they were. Her top was a dark, almost black gold that exposed her midriff, with a slightly brighter gold collar that wrapped around her neck and down across her chest from the left to under her right arm. The sleeves were rolled up revealing the same cyber gold as her collar and her fingerless gloves were black with amber yellow detailing. Her hair, now stopping a few inches above her shoulder was basically a mop of curls.
She hadn't done much with her hair since it had been cut, holding onto the anger of her mother chopping away the only thing she really liked about herself. But she'd been experimenting with shorter hairstyles, and grabbed the top half, twisting and braiding it, adding smaller braids over her ears.
Serene emptied the felt bag of hair clips, pins, beads, bandana's and rings on the bathroom counter. Once upon a time she had been able to fit most of her collection in her hair at one time. One time she'd managed all of it, but she and Ansa were drunk, and it was a bitch to get out.
Now, she managed a few rings and beads in and on her braids. They were silver and black and pretty, one even solid gold, and her pride and joy.
Carefully packing each item back into the bag, she noticed the silver, black and gold rings at the bottom of the pile. Raven had never let her wear jewellery, saying it would get in the way of her using her weapons; she'd only even been allowed to wear her necklace after she got her scar and hid it behind a choker improvised out bandana's or twisted cloth.
Slipping on three rings, she checked her appearance and, happy with her hair, decided she'd taken up enough time in the bathroom.
"Woah, looking good," Maizie said when Serene came out in her outfit.
"Thanks. How much longer do we have?"
"An hour." Nyla answered. "We should get some breakfast before heading down there."
"Good idea." Serene agreed, and they filed down to the cafeteria. Maizie and Serene grabbed everything they could carry and headed down to where the airships were. They saw a dozen or so other teams meandering around as they waited for the huntsmen or huntresses they would be shadowing.
Maizie and Serene were throwing grapes into each other's mouths. Maizie got one in and she and Serene cheered, before Jazz kicked her back and they both looked over to see Professor Champagne approaching them.
"Good morning!" She said, stopping a few feet away as Serene and Maizie jumped to their feet.
"Morning," They all greeted, trying not to look like dorks.
"You girls ready for some Grimm slaying?"
"Yep," Jazz, Maizie and Serene agreed. Nyla, who was presenting male, muttered a hesitant "yes."
"My apologies; ladies and gentleman. Let's go!" She led the way, her chocolate brown high heeled boots clacking on the tarmac. Once they were in the airship the professor told them where to sit and secure their belts as they took off.
Professor Champagne was talking to another huntsman on the ship and Serene took the chance to study her appearance. Because her outfit was cool and professional. Not because she was actually really hot.
Her boots were cool and nice looking, even with the scuffs and re[airs from her adventures. Her pants were dark brown and her corset like top was the same copper brown as Jazz's skin, with a dark green undershirt and a full-length coat with brown detailing. Her kyoketsu shoge's disguised in her fans were hanging from her hips and her chigiriki on her back.
Her hair was up in a ponytail with her fringe framing her very attractive face.
Mind out of the gutter she told herself, shaking her head slightly and looking out the open door to the city down below.
An hour later they were joined at the back of the ship by their professor.
"Okay, we'll be landing in about twenty minutes. We'll land in the town and take a car to the village about an hour away."
"Don't rural areas like, have huntsmen for hire for this kind of thing?" Maizie asked.
"Normally, yes. However, this pack is particularly large and vicious and has attracted other herds from Vacuo. If they get bold enough, they could attrack the town, and the village is pretty poor and rural; they can't really afford to hire professional huntsmen to clear them out."
"So we're just like… discount huntresses?" Jazz asked.
"Pretty much," Professor Champagne shrugged, adjusting the leather ties around her wrists and palms.
The ship landed in what was little more than an old cement pavement surrounded by dirt beside an ancient singly story building that passed as an airport.
"Wow… rustic," Maizie said, following their professor down the ramp onto the broken concrete.
"Take every part of this as a learning opportunity." Professor Champagne said, swinging her bag over her shoulder and sauntering over to a large jeep type car. "Once you become huntresses, there's a good chance a lot of your missions will be in the middle of nowhere. That's where the highest demand; unfortunately, the villages don't tend to have enough lien to pay huntsmen to these kinds of jobs are usually done for experience through the academies or pro bono work. Sometimes the government will commission a few of us to clear out some packs or a particularly dangerous threat."
Champagne threw her bag into the back of the jeep and told them to do the same.
"Climb aboard!" She said, jumping into the driver's seat. Jazz jumped into the passenger seat and Serene and Maizie sat on the top of the back seats, holding onto the frame.
"This doesn't seem safe…" Nyla said, trying to find somewhere to sit. "Won't we get in trouble?"
"Around here?" Professor Champagne asked. "This is the height of luxury kid."
Nyla climbed into the car, moving Serene's duffle on top of Maizie's case and squeezed her stupidly long limps into the small space.
They took off down the dirt road, Serene and Maizie laughing as they were jostled and thrown around by the bumps and divots. Nyla was less amused.
"You guys know how to drive?" Champagne yelled over the engine.
"I know how to crash!" Maizie called back. She and Serene took turns slamming themselves into each other as hard as they could.
"You two are idiots!" Nyla told them, shoving Maizie's foot off his shoulder. "I can drive," She continued.
"Me too." Jazz said, holding onto the door to stop herself being thrown into the windscreen.
"You all from Mistral?" The professor continued.
"Yeah," Jazz and Serene answered.
"Mistral and Atlas!" Nyla called; his naturally soft voice almost being drowned in the rumble of the car down the country road.
"Vacuo!" Said Maizie.
"Vacuo? You must have a fair bit of experience with Grimm?" They turned onto a smoother, tempered dirt road and the second part of her sentence was too loud without the background roar of the grungy road.
"A bit," Maizie nodded, "We live in the outskirts of the city, so we get Sabre's and Creeps and Rhinoceros and stuff like that."
"What about the rest of you?"
"I attended Alsius," Nyla said, trying to get comfortable now that the road had evened out. "And my mum's a huntress and my dad's in the military so I've been in a lot of controlled field expeditions."
"What about you?" Champagne glanced at Jazz in the passenger seat.
"Um, not really," Jazz admitted. "Just the stuff that came near our village like… small stuff like Jackalopes and… and beetle Grimm…" she trailed off, somewhat embarrassed compared to her teammates and the experienced Huntress.
"Good, good. You've all got to start somewhere. What about you?" Champagne looked at Serene in the rear-view mirror, noting the girl hadn't really spoken since Beacon.
"Bit of everything," Serene shrugged.
"You go to Sanctum?"
"No, didn't go to Combat school."
Surprise flashed over Champagne's face, her eyes flicking back to Serene in the mirror. "Impressive. Who taught you how to fight?"
Serene shrugged. "Just kinda picked it up on my own."
The next half hour was mostly in silence until a village appeared through the trees and the car came to a skidding halt in the dirt by the rotting, wooden gate.
"We're here! Grab your shit."
They did as they were told, Nyla's back audibly cracking as he stretched, and they followed their teacher to the rocky road and onto the uneven cobblestone road of the village.
It was around midday, so a few dozen people were milling around. The wooden fence looked like it circled the village, the centre made up of old worn buildings that had seen better days lining the main ,and possibly only road, that spanned from the gate to the opposite end of the fence in a slightly curved line, several other houses spattered through the impossibly green grass on the other side of the double story houses, several plots of gardens organised in the field. Serene guessed there were probably a hundred people, if that, living there.
"Welcome to Peral." Champagne said, leading the way to the only triple story house they could see at the very end of the road. As they approached, a middle aged frazzled looking man rushed out the door and scrambled down the steps and up to them.
"Thank goodness you're here!" He said, focused solely on Professor Champagne. "There's been another attack! This needs to be taken care of immediately." He stopped, noticing the team, realising how young they were. His frantic panic changed to annoyed frantic panic.
"This is all you've brought?!"
"This is all I need." Professor Champagne said confidently. "Where's the farm the Grimm have been settling in?"
"These children aren't going to be enough to take out all those Crocuta's," The man continued as though she hadn't spoken. "We were told you were bringing reinforcements!"
"I took this job, for free, because it's a field mission for academy students." She said slowly, making sure he got the massage. "The job will be done, but the agreement was the students would get to use this as experience. If you didn't want that you could always have requested assistance from the government."
The man went red but managed to compose himself. "Very well." The man pulled out map from his pocket.
"Thank you." Professor Champagne took the map and turned away without another word. They walked back to the jeep.
"Why did we need to bring our stuff if we just needed to get a map?" Jazz asked.
"You want to leave your weapons and money unattended in a desperate, terrified village?"
"…Good point."
"Get your weapons ready before we go; we're going right into the lion's den here."
"That's what I call my bedroom." Maizie grinned, her ears flicking, and Serene swing herself into her, almost knocking her out of the jeep.
A/N just in case you don't know the first part of this series has already been completed on ao3