First battle in this chapter, if you want a better idea of the Grimms in this chapter I would advise to watch "DARK Chapter: Hunting The Nightmare RWBY Fan Animation" wich represent very well the way I see Grimms and the type of Grimm used in this chapter.
Fire, smokes, the smell, the smell of burned flesh, of burning flesh. The screams, of the dying, of the murderers, of those who will join them, all around her, there was only death and suffering, peoples were fighting each other, killing each other.
There was no Grimm but everything was dark, there was no red eyes but every eye glowed with fire, there was no claw but everyone was tearing at each other.
Then she saw it, a lone figure standing in the fire, in an instant the entire scene started revolving around this figure, the rest became distorted, mutilated, she could only see the figure, no, the monster, and as she watched the monster seemed to finally notice her presence, it raised it's eyes from the burning ground.
And then she saw it, in the creature's eyes there was only one thing, only one flame that was burning but with the intensity of a thousand, there was only one emotion, one devouring emotion. In her eyes there was only fury...
"Get up you maggots, the training won't wait for you !" A voice yelled as she woke up gasping and scrambled out of her bed, taking a moment to wipe off the cold sweat on her forehead.
Soon after Griza and the other Cadets were all on the training ground, but the training sergeant wasn't done yelling at them. "Present weapons!"
Each cadet confusedly searched their body for their weapon, and after a moment every cadet was standing in a line in front of the sergeant with their rifle, every cadet except for one.
"Cadet Marwell where the fuck is your weapon !?"
"I... I couldn't find it Sir"
"What do you mean you couldn't find it dumbass !"
"I... It wasn't where I had left it Sir"
"Left ... You aren't supposed to leave it you sack of shit, you are supposed to never let it out of your sight, to never let it out of your touch."
"I.. I'm sorry Sir this won't happen again"
"Excuses won't bring your companion back, but thankfully I happen to know where he is... He found himself to be on a hill around 5 miles(8km) North of this position."
"Did you bring it back Sir ?"
"I put it there you dumbass and you are going to bring it back. But of course you won't be alone, after all the nights are dangerous around here. Your squad will escort you."
"..."
"Now !"
As told the squad started grudgingly walking in the way that the sergeant had been kind enough to give. Few words were exchanged during the march, after more than an hour of strained foots, shivering in the cold, they had managed to attain the hill.
And what they saw angered them to no bound, there was of course the rifle sitting on a rock, but just beside you could see the sergeant, wich was drinking a fuming cup of coffee while comfortably sitting on a chair that had somehow been brought here.
As their sergeant noticed them he took a gulp of his cup without breaking eye contact, as if teasing them. The cadet cautiously took his rifle, returned to his rank even more slowly and as if on cue the squad started heading back to the camp.
At this point even the most resilient of them was dead tired, most had trouble putting a foot in front of the other, some were still cursing the sergeant or the cadet who had lost his weapon, all wanted to get back to their bed and let the sweet bliss of sleep take them out of this suffering.
Griza felt as if her legs were on fire, she desperately longed for a bed, and at this point even the frozen ground seemed a good place to sleep on, the cold didn't help, she could barely move her fingers and each step made her feel as if her toes were going to stay stuck in her boots.
But worse of all it was almost pitch black, she could barely see where she was stepping thanks to her rifle's flashlight. And to complete it all her view was becoming blurry, she couldn't recognize her comrades, and she was starting to see red dots everywhere.
"Am I dreaming or are there glowing red eyes in the dark ?" Said a voice she couldn't recognize.
At his words the column suddenly stopped, their squad leader slowly turned to them before whispering barely loud enough for them to hear.
"Everyone takes his weapon, slowly, quietly, avoid any sudden move and don't try to light them, I will contact the sergeant"
The now fully awake squad did as said, the red eyes slow up and down movement betraying a creature's breathing. But the eyes didn't approach.
After a moment of standstill the squad leader made a quick hand signal for his the squad to move in the direction with the less red dots. But as they neared a lone pair of eyes, a cadet raised his flashlight.
The first thing they saw was two massive claws buried in the ground, then there was the arms attached to those claws, winged arms, one arm alone was bigger than any of the squad's members, but the worse was the face, more than a feet and half high, it was completely plain black with the exception of 2 glowing red eyes.
It was a killing machine that had abandoned all pretense of being even remotely natural. And as the flashlight illuminated the creature's eyes, all hell broke loose.
The Grimms jumped directly into the squad, everyone started firing everywhere. Griza fired at a Grimm on her left as it was lunging to stab a comrade, it knocked her down in the same blow in wich her colleague died.
She saw the Grimm fall down and start to disintegrate in front of her, she rolled to her right to get up, barely avoiding a lethal stab that instead grazed her cheek, she raised her rifle and shot a gust at the Grimm only to use it a second later as a makeshift shield to protect herself from another blow, leaving her main weapon as little more than a club.
A mix of panic and adrenaline started taking hold of her, she hastily took out her knife while dodging another blow. Just as the Grimm was going for another hit, one she wouldn't be able to dodge, one of the few remaining cadets shouted at it "Look here monster !" Before showering it with bullets, this did not go on for more than 3 seconds before another Grimm stabbed him, but it had managed to distract the Grimm long enough for Griza to lunge at it and get a knife stab in its neck, killing it.
She then turned to the one who had stabbed her comrade, noticing the Grimm's missing right arm, as the Grimm rushed her she jumped on the left and managed to land a large blow on the monster's side.
The Grimm fell to the side and scraped the ground for multiple feets, however it was still alive and shakily stood and turned to face her, only to receive a final rifle gust, as Griza had recovered the weapon of her fallen comrade.
She then turned around in search of the next threat, but there was nothing, the only things that remained were the dissolving Grimms and the corpses of her squad.
Suddenly she saw a movement behind her, turning rifle ready, when Griza got a closer look, she let out a breath she didn't know to have been holding. In front of her was the cadet who had saved her, turns out he had only been stabbed in the arm,
Griza rushed to make a makeshift bandage from the clothes of the fallens, she didn't really have any healing knowledge so just copied what she had seen done before.
Griza crouched beside the cadet, he looked like he did his best to seem like he wasn't suffering but his pain was obvious. She wondered when help would finally arrive.
" Don't worry the sergeant will soon arrive, you won't have to endure this any longer."
He looked at her with pleading eyes, before passing out from the pain. Once again she felt powerless, once again she was left alone.
She observed the passed out man, he had short black hair, light blue eyes, he looked barely older than her, a traitorous part of her mind said that she was happy to not be in his place.
Those thoughts were quickly silenced, but she couldn't bear to look at the struggling cadet anymore, and in one last look she got a glimpse of his name plate "James".
Bullets are actually useful.
I think I described the Grimm very badly.
Best boy Jimmy has arrived.
I doubt anyone will notice it but in this chapter I've set a very important world rule for future war crimes.
The part were a guy don't sleep with his weapon and thus all his squad has to do a night march is a true story from my dad's time in the army.
Thanks for reading this mess and please leave a review. I'm taking suggestions for this story. In particular for Griza's semblance as I fail to find a semblance that would be both interesting and balanced.