Roy swung the mace towards my head.
A hard-light copy of Fulcrum caught it mid-air. The block was successful, but the force behind the blow pushed me back. I backflipped and landed on my feet. He assumed a defensive stance and held back, waiting for me to make the next move.
I hesitated. I could just avoid using my semblance, sticking to the comfortable familiarity of the well-practiced moves I could employ without it. I could use Gestalt instead of Anesidora, or maybe the hard-light copies of Gestalt's various forms. It would make the spar easier, though perhaps less interesting.
But Fox thought I was improving. He sparred with me willingly - keeping me on my toes despite being at a particular disadvantage against Anesidora- and he considered it a good use of his time. Yatsuhashi was constantly before me as an example in the pursuit of self-improvement: always setting new challenges for himself, venturing beyond what he already knew, so that he could become the best fighter he could be. So that he could most effectively protect his teammates.
And Coco believed in me. Even though I performed inconsistently in our trainings and still worse in front of others; even though I was the clear weak link in our matches against our peers. She put her time and attention into me, patiently, constantly, never complaining when the returns were doubtful or small.
I'd been placed in a team with all these amazing, talented people and they all stubbornly, inexplicably, refused to give up on me.
I owed it to them to try.
I let the sword dissolve, replacing it with a copy of Casey's spear. I walked forward, slowly at first, considering my opponent's position. Then I charged, unleashing a combination of thrusts and sweeps. I'd seen Casey move like that, in a fast-paced, offensive way, aiming to imbalance. Roy kept up easily, sidestepping most attacks and dishing out conterblows with moderate force. His stance, calculated for hard swings, left him somewhat vulnerable to attacks on his midsection. The mace was heavy, slow, and he had to keep it constantly moving to avoid losing momentum. Roy's skill and experience made up for these disadvantages, and Casey didn't quite have the martial arts expertise that would enable her to exploit them.
But Fox did.
It was his moves that took me past Roy's blows and into his guard. Sharp Retribution materialized in my hands and slashed at his ribs.
He stumbled back, momentarily disoriented. I took my chance, using the handle of his mace as a launching pad to jump over his head. Sharp Retribution disappeared, Fulcrum taking its place once more. I raised the greatsword over Roy's head, like Yatsuhashi would, ready to dish out the final blow.
Thief.
The voice rang through my head, cold and cruel. My breathing stopped; my limbs were paralyzed. The mace slammed on my back with excruciating force and sent me flying.
I landed close to where my teammates stood. They gathered around me in concern while I sat up, dazed. My aura had protected me from damage, but the pain was unimaginable. Roy hadn't held back: he'd probably expected me to block the hit from my advantageous position.
He ran towards me as Yatsuhashi helped me to my feet. "You okay there, kid?" he asked, some worry evident in his voice. "I'm sorry if I went too hard. I didn't think you'd actually let me hit you."
"I'm fine", I said. "It was my fault, that was an easy block."
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit awkward. "You know, we don't really have to fight until you drop ten percent of aura. This must've hurt like hell. We can just stop now, if you want."
"Might be a good idea, Velvet", Yatsuhashi said quietly. "You put up a good fight, you don't have to-"
"I said I'm fine."
Roy's eyes switched between Yatsuhashi and me before finally settling on Coco. She regarded me for a moment before giving Roy an almost imperceptible nod.
"Alright", he said. "Let's go, then. Remember you can call this off at any time."
I pulled out Gianduja and fired.
Roy danced around the bullets. He got in close range and shot a fire blast from the tip of his mace. I raised my arm: Lydia's shield blocked the blast, blue light colliding against red. I swooped in between his legs as he brought the mace slamming down towards the spot where I'd stood a moment before. As if in slow motion, I saw him straightening back up, but I was faster. I jumped to my feet before he could turn around. Sharp Retribution shone in my hands and I charged in, aiming the blades to the back of his neck.
I guess even an animal can learn some tricks, the voice said contemptuously. My hands went limb, weak. You're proof of that. That's all you're good for, cheap tricks.
Roy's lower arm collided with my wrist, blocking the motion of my hand. He kicked against my chest, sending me falling on my back. I landed on my palms and propelled myself back up.
Just give up, copy-bunny, the voice mocked.
Shut up, I snapped back, angrily. I'll show you.
I took up a waiting stance, assessing Roy, waiting for him to attack first. Instead of charging, he simply walked towards me: alert to my movements, but without hurry. There was no reason for him to rush, to expand energy into unneccessary maneuvers. I wasn't doing anything that required it.
Yet.
I kept one hand behind my back, raising up Gianduja on the other. Roy danced around the bullets, as he had before: steadily getting closer, covering himself in all the right ways, from all the right directions.
If you only accounted for the bullets.
I raised my other hand with a sharp motion. The axe shone brilliantly over my head as I took aim. It was Bran's aim: trained to perfection to strike fast from a distance, taking preoccupied opponents off guard.
Bran's. Not yours.
My hand shook. I'd calculated the perfect trajectory in my mind: it would get the axe straight from my hand to the spot where Roy's head would be at the end of the throw. But that last-moment unsteadiness threw off my aim, and the axe strayed away, missing Roy by a margin. He didn't even need to duck.
He shook his head. "Nice idea, kid", he called out. "Poor execution."
He stomped his mace on the ground. Dark and light orange streams travelled through the handle and towards the ground: an explosion followed. A cloud of smoke and dust rose up in the air, its particles getting in my eyes and ears. I coughed and spat as I stumbled backwards, blind and deaf. When I regained my balance and some of my visibility, Roy was behind me, ready to strike. Lydia's sword and shield materialized in my hands, as the voices of different fighters filled my head at once. Stand your ground and hit him, Coco said. Dance around him and go for the weak spots, Fox countered. Keep him at a range and let him tire himself, Yatsuhashi advised.
The mace slammed hard against my stomach.
You'll never be a real Huntress.
I fell on my knees, doubled over, gasping for air. Lydia's sword and shield were dropped from my hands and fell lifelessly the ground. They flickered for a moment before evaporating into nothingness.
"Okay, that's enough", Roy said. He offered me a hand up, which I accepted. I rose to my feet as my teammates approached, their voices and gestures full of kind concern. I could barely look any of them in the eye.
"Hey now, that wasn't so bad", Roy said kindly. "You were doing pretty well most of the time, you've certainly got a lot of versatility. Enough to back up your weapon, maybe, if you keep practicing. But you seemed to be losing the thread at critical moments. Missing easy blocks and counterattacks. Might be a case of nerves, eh? You were more consistent yesterday, against the Grimm."
I nodded to acknowledge his feedback.
"I think we'll have you acting mostly as a scout. Your enhanced senses will be very useful in that role. Let your teammates handle the heavy traffic – although of course you can also support them here and there, if needed."
His decision was fair, and he was trying to be kind about it. But it still hurt. My team had used me for scouting the previous day, but it hadn't been my only, or even my primary role. And I'd shared the responsibillity with – funnily enough – Fox. Also, Grimm encounters had been relatively few and far between. Scouting wasn't really a task of its own that was assigned to one person: in a team of four Hunters, everyone was expected to be an active combatant and aware of their surroundings. If someone was better than average at scanning the area, that was an advantage, but not important enough to justify a lack of combat ability.
Still, if that was my assigned role, I owed it to my team to perform it as best I could.
XXX
We walked forth through seemingly endless wilderness, surrounded by hills and mountaintops. I tried to keep track of the Grimm, charging from air and land, coming at us from all directions in constant, relentless hordes. Yatsuhashi walked close to me, silently shielding me as I shouted myself hoarse giving warnings and directions. I'd occasionally throw in a hit to distract or slow down any Grimm that came too close to my teammates. Roy seemed fine with this sort of light support. He was actively fighting as well, expertly yielding his mace with occasional use of dust, and especially intervening at critical moments when the encounters became too overwhelming.
Eventually, the atacks lessened in frequency. It looked like we'd made it out of the area that was most densely packed with Grimm. Roy stopped intervening, letting us handle the occasional encounters again. We even managed to get a quick lunch on the go. Perhaps the last few hours of our patrol would pass in relative peace.
Then Roy looked at the distance and frowned. I followed his gaze. A few ant Grimm were emerging from the ground. The next moment, they were running in the distance, their quick footsteps echoing on the barren land. They were significantly larger than their animal counterparts: each one was about the size of a person's arm.
Still, ant Grimm weren't normally a threat. In contrast to their animal counterparts, they were solitary creatures: without the need to store food or reproduce, they had no motivation to form any sort of community. Individually, they were fairly weak.
But Roy looked concerned.
"Be on the lookout for these", he said. "If more show up, we might need to take another route."
Coco raised a skeptical eyebrow. "They're just ants."
"I hope so", he replied. "But the way they move together suggests these ants might be part of a colony."
"But… ant Grimm don't form colonies", Fox said.
"That was the prominent view until recently. In the past six years or so, colonies of ant Grimm have been sighted across Remnant, albeit very rarely – maybe two or three times a year. At first, scientists were skeptical, but the accumulated data and reports from witnessing Hunters were quite convincing. Now, the existence of ant Grimm colonies is known within the scientific community and among professional Hunters. But it hasn't made its way into the curriculums of our academies yet. It wasn't considered too urgent, I think. Their rarity translates to a very low likelihood of most Hunters actually encountering one – let alone students."
Yatsuhashi frowned. "Okay. Let's say these ants are part of a colony. What does that mean, exactly? How big of a problem is it?"
Roy opened his mouth to respond. Then, he closed it again. His stare was fixed behind Yatsuhashi, and my partner turned around to follow it.
The ants were encircling us. There were now a couple dozens of them in close proximity, with many more coming out of the ground in consecutive waves. After a few seconds, there were maybe about a hundred in total, with still more emerging. Now that I noticed them more carefully, I could see there were different types. Most of them were land soldiers with some kind of specialized feature. Many of them had a second, larger pair of pincers, similar to a scorpion's: in some, the pincers were thin and long, with a somewhat pistol-like ending, while in others they were thicker and sharper, seemingly made for mechanical damage. Some were protected by thicker body armor.
About a third of them were fliers: they had wings on their back in addition to any one of the other features. And they were now using these wings, forming a flying swarm.
Yatsuhashi silently readied his sword. Coco drew out her mini gun, with Fox at her side covering her.
Roy cursed under his breath, took out his scroll, and tapped a button.
"Ackroyd", he barked. "Ant colony at my location. Send reinforcements." A small pause. "I don't care about your capacity", Roy snapped. "The area was cleared for a first-year level mission, did anyone even do a proper scan? Or would you like me to explain to Ozpin why-" Another, longer pause. "Good. Be quick about it."
Coco held up Gianduja and fired.
The swarm dispersed. They ants scattered in all directions: dozens of impossibly fast targets, burrowing into the ground or flying higher than she'd aimed. When the dust settled, the swarm regrouped. It was almost as large as before. All the ammo she'd just spent had barely made a difference.
She tried a second time. Once again, the swarm dispersed. This time, the land soldiers with the pistol-like pincers charged at her feet while she held the mini gun up. I heard the sizzling sound of acid burn and Coco's yelps as she tried to jump away. Fox rushed to her aid, channeling his aura in his kicks: some of the land soldiers surrounding Coco exploded on the spot. She was released, but the explosions sent her flying back, falling full speed on Yatsuhashi.
"The hill", she said sharply as the flying swarm regrouped. She pointed at it: a small elevation nearby. "We need to get to the top."
She didn't elaborate, but I understood her. We could use the high ground. It would slow down the land soldiers and widen our field of view, making targeting easier.
Roy nodded. "Good thinking." We started running, Roy staying a bit behind, slowing down the ants with blasts of dust. When we reached the hill, he offered the handle of his mace as a launching pad and catapulted us up as we jumped on it, one after the other. Then he propelled himself up with some combination of dust: wind, gravity and combustion, I assumed. We repeated this six or seven times until, finally, we landed near the top. I looked down. The ants were closing in from land and air, a buzzing sound announcing their approach.
"Okay", Coco said sharply. She addressed Roy. "Tell us what you know about them. Is it just their numbers you're worried about? Or is there something else?"
"I'm afraid there's more to it", he replied grimly. "Ant colonies show certain properties, certain behaviors, that are far more complex than those of the individual members. Individually, the ants are about as stupid as you'd expect. Each one operates on a very simple set of rules: locate a source of aura or negative emotions, try to feed on it. Simple head on attacks, no tactics and no adaptability. Just what you'd expect from your average Grimm. But collectively - "
The buzzing grew louder.
The flying swarm rose up, close to the top, a bit lower than we were standing. Coco unleashed another round of bullets, trying to mow them down. As I'd expected, they scattered; but they'd started from the same initial location, and our heightened vantage point made it easier for Coco to follow and target them, covering the entire area they spanned with their flying. When the dust cleared, I blinked, expecting to see them regroup.
Instead, I saw several smaller swarms surrounding us. The next second, they were all attacking from different directions, making it harder for Coco to target them. Meanwhile, the land soldiers had caught up and were now climbing towards us in waves.
Scouting time was over. I materialized Gianduja and started blasting.
Next to me, Fox took up a waiting stance: knees slightly bent, hands raised to eye level. The first wave of ants that attacked him exploded upon contact. The remaining ants retreated, mixing up with the crowd behind them. There was some scuffling around in their ranks, and then a new wave came forward. They belonged to a different type, the one with the pistol-like pincers. These ants didn't make contact with him: instead, they shot at him, the same acid-like substance that had hit Coco. Fox cried out in pain. He tried to kick them as he had before, but a third wave rushed forth to interpose: the ants with the thickened armor, absorbing the hits to protect their comrades.
Yatsuhashi was spinning his sword around his body and over his head. At first, the ants charged blindly on him: some got hacked in pieces or swatted away. The rest regrouped. When they attacked again, it was not a blind charge. They changed formations rapidly around his slashes, causing them to land on thin air. They targeted his weak spots: ears, nostrils, eyes, as well as any areas of his body that were left exposed by his current pose.
They behaved like a quick-thinking, adaptable combatant made up of many smaller, individually mindless units.
"Use your semblance on my dust", Roy told Coco. "I'll try to fend them off."
She nodded. Roy pointed his mace outwards, arm straight at shoulder level, and spun around himself, shooting out blasts at all directions. I covered my rabbit ears as well as I could as the dust exploded around us in waves. I wasn't sure why, but it seemed more effective than Coco's bullets, even though I assumed she'd been using her semblance on them as well. Both were attacks with wide coverage, but the dust explosions did not depend on targeting individual ants: they just wrecked havoc in a general area. I wondered what his mix was. Combustion, certainly, to start the explosion. I could see small groups of particles lingering in the air like tiny knives, piercing through any ants that collided with them. That was probably some variant of earth dust. There could have been wind in there, too: the knives moved around in circles, as if something propelled them. This resulted in them covering a larger area, and they were reused multiple times before disintegrating. It was quite a fascinating combination, actually. Perhaps I could have a discussion with him about the exact ingredients and the proper ratios, and whether the mix could be improved by-
Not the time, Velvet, I chided myself.
The explosions ceased. For a moment, there was a fragile, deceptive peace. I observed the aftermath of our defense. Corpses of ants evaporating everywhere; the flying swarm had dropped to maybe about a forth of its previous size, and its remains were retreating.
"You can take a break for a bit", Roy told Coco. She didn't seem outwardly tired, but the intensive use of her semblance must have been taking its toll on her. "But everyone stay alert. They'll charge again."
"What is going on with these things?" Coco asked sharply. "The way they're fighting… first the swarm split, then the way they were adapting against Fox and Yatsuhashi. Grimm shouldn't be that tactical."
"They're not. Not exactly." He paused. "Colonies show a property known as emergent intelligence. Its members communicate with chemical signals, which let other members know where an individual is and what they're doing. Let's say an ant locates your big friend over there" – pointing at Yatsuhashi - "and decides he's tasty. The ant charges, but he hacks it with his sword. The other ants receive information that the attack failed because of the big pointy thing. So they avoid the big pointy thing. They haven't taken a sword fighting class, they don't know about parries and thrusts, they don't understand tactical decision-making. But they know their goal and each other's location and direction. The hivemind is focused on a very simple goal – bypass the sword, hurt the user –and each ant sends simple signals to the others that all stem from this goal: go left, charge forth, fly up, dive down. This results in them adapting their formations on the fly in pretty sophisticated ways, even though none of the individuals understands that.
Or let's say one ant, by chance, targets the eyes. The attack is successful. The ant chomps off a bit of aura. This results in a feedback loop that will drive more ants to try the same thing. They don't have a concept of weak spots, but they got the feedback that the attack was successful, so more of them will try it. There is no centralized control, no single brain that tells them what to do. Their actions are the result of many small, interactive, simple communications from which complex behavior emerges. The individual dies, but the colony learns."
I looked at the landscape in front of me. More and more ants were climbing the hill, and the flying swarms were regrouping. I looked at my teammates, and found, in their expressions, the same sense of dread that was slowly coming upon me.
"Are you ready for a second round?" Roy asked Coco.
She nodded. "At least we killed most of the ones that fly", she said. "That should buy us some time."
"Well…" Roy started. He didn't finish his sentence, probably deciding he didn't have time. The swarms were rushing in. He pointed his mace outwards; dust, enhanced by Coco's sembance, was shot forth again in explosive bursts. After the noise settled, I looked around me, expecting to see the fliers gone and the front waves of land soldiers closing in.
I was right and wrong. Most of the fliers were gone. New hordes of ants were charging in from the land.
And some of them were growing wings.
"They can change types", Roy said, in a tone that I thought was far calmer than the situation warranted. "If a certain specialization is depleted, other ants can switch to that specialization to restore its numbers."
Coco recovered first from this new information. She knit her eyebrows together, placing a finger on her forehead. "What's the weakest type?" she asked. "If we target it first, some of the other ants should convert to replace it. Which should make things easier."
"I said they can convert, not that they always do", Roy clarified. "They won't do it if it's not useful."
"What do you know about their specializations?"
"The ones with the huge pincers are for impact damage", Roy said. "Their pincers are powerful enough to tear flesh and snap bones. The ones with the thinner pincers fight with acid – as you've probably figured out by now. Your aura will protect you from both, but these attacks will deplete it, so don't allow free hits. The ants with the thicker armor are for defense: the colony uses them as a shield against strong impact. There's a forth type that specializes in digging: if you don't see another obvious feature, the ant is probably a digger. They're mostly used for support, making tunnels for the colony to move underground. But sometimes they act offensively, quickly altering the landscape of a battlefield."
"How many can we expect?" Yatsuhashi asked quietly. Fresh groups of fliers were taking formation around us. New waves of ants were continually emerging from the ground and running towards our hill.
"I don't know", Roy said simply. "The largest observed colony had approximately three thousand members. But that was an outlier. I think we can expect a few hundred."
A pause.
"What do we do?" Fox whispered. I winced a little. Fox had always been cocky in fights, justifiably confident in his own skills, treating Grimm encounters like minor disturbances or, at most, mildly interesting challenges. But now, for the first time since I'd met him, there was something like genuine fear in his voice.
There was no immediate answer, because we had to fight off new incoming groups. We took our posts without needing to exchange words: Coco enhancing Roy's semblance as he shot blasts at them, while Fox, Yatsuhashi and I covered them from any attackers that made it through.
"There is a way to slow them down", Roy said after the attack had been fended off. The cliffs below us were covered in ants, but at least new waves had stopped emerging. Which meant we were looking at the entire colony now, gathered at the same hill we were standing on. Roy was looking between the ranks, searching for something. "Ant colonies have a queen", he explained. "It's believed that she's the trigger for the colony forming in the first place, although not much is known about how that happens. The current theory is that an ant Grimm that survives many battles causes other ant Grimm to follow it, and they start forming a community around it. The interaction causes all of them to gain new abilities – the specializations I told you about. After the colony forms, it protects the queen. It's one of its two major goals – the other being to feed on emotions. If the queen dies, the colony's sole goal becomes selecting a new queen. That takes precedence over everything else. In this scenario, the hivemind still exists, but its priorities have changed. I don't think anyone knows exactly how the selection process works, but we know it involves infighting. After the queen falls, the ants will ignore us and battle against each other until a new queen prevails. Which will buy us some time until reinforcements arrive. Sometimes, the infighting even starts if the current queen is weakened, rather than dead. If we're lucky, we will only have to injure her – but that's the best case scenario."
"Take down the queen", Fox said. "Got it. That sounds a lot easier than fighting off an angry, weirdly intelligent army."
"Nothing about this will be easy", Roy said. "Start looking for her", he added, looking mostly at me. "We're searching for an ant about double the size of the others, with all the fighting features of the colony combined."
"Wonderful", Fox said.
I found her after a while: at the midpoint of the hill, surrounded by a protective guard. "I think that's her" I said, while, at the same time, Fox called "over there". We both pointed at the same spot.
Roy gave Fox a funny look, but didn't ask questions.
"Okay", he said. "The first thing to try is hit her from a range."
It was pointless. Coco fired Gianduja, while I tried Bran's axe as well as a crossbow I'd copied from a classmate in Pharos. But the queen was too far away, and her followers kept interposing to protect her.
"Can you do that exploding thing on her?" Coco asked Fox.
He shook his head. "I need contact to do that. And it's harder if there are no obvious weak spots."
"We need to get closer", Coco said.
Yatsu looked thoughtful. "We're at a better position here. We could wait and see if she approaches."
Roy shook his head. "It's unlikely she will. From what little is known about ant colonies, the queen never fights on the front lines. And we'd have to fend off wave after wave of attackers in the midtime. We would eventually run out of ammunition, and more importantly, aura. It's a risk, but your leader is right – our best chance is to go on the offence."
"Okay. So what's the plan?"
Despite everything, Roy smiled a little. "You all have recently practiced your landing strategies, haven't you?"
A few moments later, we were being thrown off the top one by one, once again using Roy's weapon as a launching point. He followed soon after, propelling himself with one of his dust mixes. He should be running out soon.
We landed a bit upwards from where the queen was. She was hovering over the ground, surrounded by guards.
Around us, countless ants. My heart stopped for a moment, feeling the full weight of the risk that came with the decision to abandon our heightened position. The ants would swarm us, I thought; they'd shred us to pieces, burn us in acid. But when we landed, they took a few precious seconds to adjust to our presence.
Gianduja's fire echoed across the cliffs, and I started running.
The plan was quite simple: Coco and Roy would blast open a path through the enemy lines. When we got close enough, Fox, Yatsu and I would team up against the queen, while Coco and Roy fended off the closest attackers. There was a limit to their ammunition and dust, which meant we would have to act fast.
We closed in on her. A small group of fliers took formation in front of her: the queensguard, I named them in my head. They were also larger than their comrades, nearly as large as the queen. They formed a defensive wall around her while the rest of the army attacked us on all sides, Roy and Coco desperately shooting at their waves. Yatsuhashi slashed at the queensguard with his sword, while Fox tried to get around them. But then, the queen flew away, and her guard followed.
We gave chase. The queen didn't go far: she only flew a few meters away, then hovered at her new spot with her guard taking up positions around her. This was repeated a few more times: us fighting tooth and nail to blast through the enemy lines, only for the queen to fly away as we closed in on her. It was as if she was mocking us.
There was a momentary ceasefire: Coco had to reload. Roy was still blasting, but his shots were periodical, with short gaps of silence in between. It was during one of these gaps that I heard the shoveling sounds. Light, but constant, coming from somewhere above us. I looked up.
The giant boulder was looming over our heads, tipping dangerously at the edge of the cliff. Dozens of ants were digging at its foundations.
The queen hadn't been mocking us. She'd been luring us.
Noone else had seen it. I opened my mouth to yell, to warn everyone. As the sound left my mouth, I saw the next blast of dust get shot out of Roy's mace, masking my screams, and exploding on the walls of the cliff and the earth below it. The vibrations traveled across the ground. The foundations of the cliff shook, ever so slightly.
The boulder fell.
Many things happened very quickly in the next few seconds:
The boulder rolled down the hill, gaining momentum and speed.
The land soldiers burrowed into the ground, while the fliers in close proximity to the boulder easily flew out of the way.
My comrades and I scampered away frantically, undignifiedly. As I ran to safety, I registered everyone's movements as they got out of the boulder's path. They'd all gotten far enough; it looked like the danger had passed-
And then the boulder hit some rough terrain and changed direction. A slight deviation at first, but it became more and more pronounced as it rolled downward at an impossible speed towards us.
Towards me.
I felt myself getting shoved out of the way, then hitting the ground face first. I pushed myself up, dazed and in pain. The boulder had passed through the spot where I'd been standing – somehow deflected from its course – and was now rolling further down the hill: it eventually reached the base, where it crashed, shattering the earth upon its landing. I scanned my surroundings, searching for the person who'd pushed me.
A few meters away from me, Yatsuhashi was lying on the ground in a fetal crouch. My partner. The boy from Mistral, whose actions belied the worst of his heritage. The gentle giant who was so conscious of his own power and had put in so much effort to make sure I felt safe around him. He was cradling his shoulder, his face distorted with pain. I took my scroll out, frantically, and checked his aura.
Five percent left.
Fox ran towards him and knelt beside him, closely followed by Coco and Roy. They soon had to stand up again as the ants started re-emerging from the ground in hordes. The three of them formed a circle around him. A brave little protective circle, raising their weapons against the swarms.
A little down the hill, I saw the ant queen was hovering over the ground, surrounded by her armies. Unscathed. Unfazed. Thriumphant.
It was the first mission of my first year, and I was going to die.
XXX
It's funny how out-of-body experiences work.
I saw myself from afar: a passive, defeated girl kneeling on the ground while her comrades battled for their lives. A quiet, fearful first-year student who struggled to use what little power she had. That girl would not be missed in Beacon. It was a miracle she had made it in there in the first place.
Her teammates would be missed. They were talented, promising students with unique skills. Their professors kept an eye on them, and they'd started to build respect amond their peers. They were all good people, too; kind-hearted despite their intimidating appearances.
The girl stood up.
Her teammates materialized behind her. Not the real ones, of course. The real ones were fighting in the distance. The ones behind her were just copies. Not even hard-light copies, like the ones her camera could make. Just copies in her mind. Shells. Ghosts. Soldiers in an army that didn't really exist. Soldier-Coco. Soldier-Fox. Soldier-Yatsuhashi.
They were soon joined by others. Team CBLT. Other classmates from Beacon, who had fought in demonstration matches in Glynda's lessons. Former classmates from Pharos: the ones who'd mocked the girl and bullied her, and the far larger portion who had watched in indifference while it happened. Everyone she'd ever seen fight was now answering the summons to her army, finding their place among its ranks.
In the distance, a sea of ants closed in around Yatsuhashi's fallen form and the three defenders who stood around him in futile bravery, protecting each other to the last.
The girl's sense of self dissolved, and her army came alive and took charge.
Bran bent his knees slightly, his roller blades shining brightly on his feet. He blitzed down the hill, towards the queen, navigating the rough terrain with practiced ease.
The ants charged in from land and air, snapping their pincers, shooting rivers of burning acid. Tybald Stein's cloak materialized over Bran, the acid dissolving helplessly against its hard-light form.
Bran landed close to the queensguard. The cloak and the roller blades vanished, their time spent. The army had one last backup copy of the cloak, but it wasn't the time to use it yet.
The girl stood before the queen, immobile and unarmored.
The queensguard split, attacking on all sides. Soldier-Fox danced between them, Sharp Retribution punishing those who got too close. They'd eventually overcome him if he really engaged them, but he wasn't trying to fight them. He was trying to get past them. Light as a cat, he jumped on the back of a low-flying guard and propelled himself up the air.
From that vantage point, Casey thrust her spear towards the queen, piercing one of her wings.
The queen dropped to a lower height: struggling to fly, barely hovering above the ground. Her guard formed a protective circle around her. As if summoned from across the hill, dense swarms closed in from all sides: the colony was called upon to protect its monarch. Her injury hadn't made them turn yet.
Soldier-Coco landed, raising up Gianduja. On superficial examination, she was just an inferior copy of teammate-Coco. She'd work well enough to repel the first waves of attackers, but her dust could not be enhanced, so the effect wouldn't be as strong. And her lack of mobility made her an easy target.
Except there was no lack of mobility. This Gianduja was weightless.
And Coco didn't have to wield it alone. She had an army behind her; she wasn't limited by her own skills.
Fox took control of the footwork. Quick as a shadow, he slithered between the armies while Coco blasted bullets left and right. Fox used the fliers as launching pads to propel himself in the air, allowing Coco to fire down from above. Coco was having a great time: she could handle her weapon in ways she'd never had before, spinning it around effortlessly while holding it easily with one hand. It left the other hand free to grasp Lydia's shield, and Lydia used it masterfully to fend off any attackers that got through the bullets.
In the midst of the chaos, Bran saw an opening. Lydia's shield dissolved, replaced by Bran's axe. He aimed: the axe flew past the queensguard, sliced the queen's healthy wing, and returned to its owner. The queen crashed on the ground, writhing. Though in pain, she was not sufficiently weakened yet. Bran wanted to hurt her again, but he would need to chose his target carefully. Her armor was very thick: it was somewhat thinner between the segments, but in a constantly evolving battlefield and with the guards interposing, that line was hard to keep track of.
For a human.
Bran took aim again. It was his aim, but it was supported by the enhanced vision of the girl who led the army. He needed to focus for a little bit, and the swarms were getting denser and angrier around him. So the army granted him the last remaining copy of Tybald's cloak. Ants crashed against the cloak, vicious pincers yanked on it and acid burned against it, but Bran ignored it all as he sent the axe flying.
It sliced across the thin line between the head and the thorax, weakening it.
Bran turned. More ants were closing in on him. He still had the cloak, but he wasn't the best fighter in close quarters. Fox took over to help-
And then the nearest ant turned against its comrade and bit off its head.
The infighting spread through the colony. A new queen was to be selected, and the selection process had started. Somewhere in the background, the girl was aware of her teammates having an easier time of it as the ants fought each other instead of them.
But the current queen was not dead yet, and her guard, still loyal, gathered around her for their last stand. Maybe forty ants in total, all of them similarly sized to the queen and able to fly.
Tybald's cloak evaporated – the last copy. That was alright. It wasn't needed anymore.
A hundred different fighters ran through the ranks in rapid succession, each one perfectly calculated to attack the weaknesses of the queensguard's previous formation. The ants always adapted, and the fighting style and weapon they'd just adapted against always changed. Fox would lure them into attacking a false opening where, the next moment, they'd run straight into Lydia's sword. Lydia would trick them into chasing her until they arranged themselves in a dense swarm, ripe for Gianduja to mow down. Crossbows and swords, shotguns and daggers, lances and whips, all sorts of conventional and unconventional weapons succeeded each other at just the right moments, in perfect, lethal harmony. A path to the queen was visible at last, and Fulcrum glistened beautifully in soldier-Yatsuhashi's hands as Lydia's evasive movements carried him through the guards' last, exhausted stand. Soldier-Lydia could not use her semblance, but her skill alone was enough.
Yatsuhashi brought Fulcrum down on the weakened segment of the neck and cut off the queen's head in a single powerful swing.
A last writhe of the headless body. Thin black smoke swirling in the air.
Nothingness.
The girl's army withdrew, no longer needed. She collapsed on the ground, suddenly aware of the full toll the exertion had taken on her physical body. Her aura was nearly spent.
My aura. My body.
My teammates.
I forced myself to sit up, to look for them. Yatsuhashi – my partner, the real, living, Yatsuhashi - was standing now, but just barely. Roy was supporting him while Coco and Fox were rushing to my side. Around us, the ants were still at war, but no longer with us. They'd fight among themselves until a new queen prevailed, or-
The world was turning blurry. I had to lay on the ground again, barely registering the approaching airship in the sky.
XXX
"What the hell was that?" Coco asked, her voice filled with quiet fury.
We were flying home. The rescuers had been incredibly accommodating: after finishing off the colony, they'd flown us back to the point where we'd left our airship, running medical and aura checkups on us along the way. We'd been too numb to react to their sympathy and their praise.
"Coco, come on", Yatsuhashi said. "It wasn't his fault."
"I'm not saying it was. But we deserve an explanation."
"She's right", Roy said tiredly. "What you experienced should never have happened. I'm afraid I don't have much of an explanation to offer you. Student missions are subject to special safety procedures: the area is scanned to ensure the Grimm traffic is not too high, there are no unreasonable threats and so on. The colony was obviously overlooked, so some step in these checks must have failed. I don't know how, exactly. I suspect it has to do with the general rarity of ant colonies: very few people have had first-hand experience with them, which means that even professional Hunters may miss the signs of them forming. I'm sure your headmaster will make the appropriate enquiries." He sighed. "I am truly sorry. But at the same time, it's important to realize that you should be proud of yourselves. You went above and beyond what was expected of you." His eyes lingered on me for a moment. He looked like he was considering adding something, but decided against it.
XXX
The next days passed in a daze. There was the debriefing meeting in Ozpin's office, with him apologizing for our trial and praising our courage. We'd been referred to the academy's psychologists, and talking things out there had helped a little. We'd been excused from a couple of weeks' worth of classes, with professors going out of their way to make sure we still got notes and materials.
We spent a lot of time together in our dorm. Long evenings passed in silence. A few words here and there, to maintain a sense of normalcy. To reassure each other we were all still there, still a team. All of us marveling, I think, at the fact that we'd made it out alive, slowly processing how close it had been. And how much we owed to each other.
One evening, it was just me and Yatsuhashi. Coco was in a meeting with Glynda – probably reporting how we were coping after our mission - and Fox wanted to do some solitary training. Yatsuhashi was making pancakes. It was one of these small, normal things that helped with the slow transition to our daily routine. Just a team of first-years, doing normal first-year things.
His pancakes were really good, too. It was nice having ensuite kitchens in the dorms, especially when one of your teammates was an excellent chef.
He stacked the pancakes in a plate, covered them, and wiped his hands in his apron. Then he took it of and hanged in its usual place next to the stove.
"They're ready", he announced, smiling at me. "Go ahead and have some, if you want."
Then he lay on his bed, picking up his scroll. He was a quiet guy, but during our first weeks in Beacon, he'd made a few attempts to start conversations with me. He had always seemed friendly and kind, and eventually I'd started to trust that. But he'd picked up on my early timidity, and he now defaulted to keeping a respectful distance and letting me start conversations first.
"I never properly thanked you." The thought had been in my head for a while, but I hadn't exactly planned when and if to say it. At that moment, it kind of came out.
He looked at me inquisitively. "What?"
"You pushed me out of that boulder's way. At the mount. In our mission." His expression showed realization, then discomfort. He wasn't the type to ask for gratitude. But I still owed it to him. "You were hurt instead. It could have taken me out. It could've…" I stopped. "Just… thank you."
He still looked uncomfortable, avoiding my eyes. "You don't need to thank me. I'm your partner. It's what I do. If anything, we should all be thanking you." He was finally looking at me again, smiling a little, even. "You were incredible against the ant queen. I've never seen anything like it."
"I couldn't have done it if you hadn't shielded me before."
"Okay, let's say we saved each other then", he offered. Part of me wanted to agree with him and move on. But there was still something that bothered me.
"Why do you always hold back so much when you spar with me?" I asked quietly.
His smile faded.
"I know I'm not the strongest fighter", I said. "What I did against the ant queen… it was a fluke, really. My semblance kicked in, I had no control. It doesn't really count as strength. You guys are carrying me when we face other teams in class. I know I'm the weak link there. So I thought… maybe you couldn't take me seriously. Maybe you felt like I was dragging you down."
"What?" He shook his head vehemently. "Velvet, that's insane. You've saved my life twice now. Sure, you're facing some struggles mastering your abilities, but that doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean your accomplishments don't count. And I promise, I never felt like you were dragging me down."
"Why, then?"
He averted his eyes, looking into the distance. We were both silent for a while.
"Growing up, everyone was afraid of me", he finally said. "Most of the kids my age, at least. Because of my strength. They'd exclude me from games, and they weren't wrong to do it. I'd always accidentally ruin things. Break something, hurt someone. I tried really hard to be cautious, to hold back. But I still ended up hurting people. Not always physically." He paused, giving me a penetrating look. "When we first met, you were afraid of me too."
It was true. I wouldn't insult his intelligence by denying it. "Yes. But not because of your strength."
"I know. I mean, I figured it out eventually. It's clear that people from Mistral have hurt you before. I am not unaware of my kingdom's most deeply rooted prejudices. So I couldn't bring myself to hurt you too, even lightly, even in training. I guess I was overcompensating. You have your own past experiences that I can't even begin to imagine. But I wanted to prove to you I wasn't like the people who caused these experiences. That you had nothing to fear from me. That was all." He sighed. "I never wanted to make you feel like I'm not taking you seriously."
He looked dejected, and I didn't know what to say to him.
Finally, I broke the silence. "Well, I'm not afraid of you now."
He looked up. Smiled a little. "No?"
"Nah. You've convinced me. There's nothing to be afraid of. You're just a giant teddy bear."
He raised an eyebrow. "I am?"
"Yes", I confirmed. "A giant, pancake-making teddy bear."
He seemed a bit taken aback: I'd never talked to him like that before. But eventually, his incredulous impression turned into a smirk. "Wow", he said. Pretending to be offended, like my brother used to do when I teased him. "That is so disrespectful."
"No, it isn't. Pancake-making is a highly honorable job."
"But what about my amazing sword-fighting skills?"
"They're okay, I guess."
"They're okay?"
I gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "It's hard to appreciate them because you always hold back when you spar with me."
He laughed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Alright, alright. Point taken."
"Yatsu…" I let my voice trail off. "I could always tell how hard you were trying. I never wanted to make you feel bad about yourself, either. It was just hard. Like you said, I had my own experiences to struggle with." I fell silent again. He locked eyes with me, his expression full of understanding. "How about we try doing things a little differently from now on? We can train together and help each other improve. I won't be afraid of you and you won't go easy on me. We're partners. Maybe we can work together on learning what that means."
He smiled. "I'd like that."