The duo was standing in the remains of a burning village, it was the third one this week, they were getting closer. For almost an entire month they had followed the burning trail left by their target, and lately, it looked like they were closing the distance, the damages done to the towns were younger, their goal wasn't far away.

The destruction seemed mostly done by Grimms, with the exception of the burns of course. But strangely, when they arrived, no Grimm was in sight, as if they had leaved immediately after doing their job.

After searching the ruins for a while, they had to admit the defeating fact that there was no survivor, has it at been for each and every village before. You could still see what remained of its inhabitants, mostly just mangled limbs here and there, some reduced to sprawling piles of ash, simply put, it wasn't a nice sight.

Another annoying part was that they had to fill a report about every town, the dead's identities as well as the estimated number of them. This forced them to carefully go through each crannies of the smothering ruins, not only having to endure the remains of unspeakable acts, but also making them lose precious time.

But the worst in all of this, was the heat, and Griza quickly concluded that she would never go back to Vacuo even if her live depended on it. The heat was absolutely unbearable, she was sweating buckets and at this rate their water stock would be empty in a few days. Keeping her eye open was becoming more and more difficult, her skin was burning and she was constantly getting spasms on the part of her body that had been burned. It already seemed so far back, she had the impression that an eternity had passed in the meantime, but anyway, here she was, and here she would remain, at least for the time being.

As the duo headed back to the airship, Griza took one last look at the horizon before entering. In front of her stretching a seemingly endless sea of sand, with no defining features whatsoever, she had never felt as imprisoned while being under the light of the sun, it was as if they were on another world.

In the distance she vaguely noticed a small shape, squinting her eye, the shape was looking like some kind of mountain, a rocky, snowless mountain, a mountain with some kind of black cloud on top of it.

Borrowing Six's binoculars, Griza took a closer look at the strange mountain, and as she had observed, a thick dark fog was rising on top of the mountain. Looking down, searching for the fog's origin, she found it at the side of the rocky structure. However the fog's thickness wasn't allowing her see past it, at his origin, it was probably some sort of cave filled with a ton weird Grimms.

As she was still staring at the spectacle before her, she catched a glimpse of something weird, a sudden change of color in the otherwise completely black mist.

She waited for the phenomenon the occur again, and soon enough her patience was rewarded, as she had noticed a weird mix between orange and yellow. Looking closer, she noticed that the colors seemed to be shifting, moving, while staying fixed to the same spot on the ground. It was almost like... a fire.

"Oh... shit..."

"Did you finally see something ? It's getting really hot out here."

"I think we've got our next stop..."

As they approached, combat ready, distant sounds started reaching them. At first they heard gunshots, but soon after, the screams followed. A scenery that had already become way too familiar greeted them, houses burning and barricades crumbling under the weight of the ongoing Grimm onslaught.

Near the mountain's wall you could see sporadic gunshots, it seemed to be where the town's inhabitant were doing their last stand. Six was now trying to land the airship, a task made difficult by all the ruins, fire and smoke.

But as the airship lowered itself, Griza noticed what looked like a ball of fire hurling at them. She barely had time to crouch behind the control board, before the projectile hit their airship.

The windows exploded instantly, fire filled the room and the floor was shaking, but, as quickly as it had come, the fire disappeared, like it was being drained back outside.

For a second, it seemed like nothing was happening, like they were just suspended in the air, unmoving, but then, the airship exploded.

In an instant the walls disappeared, the ceiling quickly following, the entire room was rapidly dissolving under her eye. Griza managed to hold on to the board, watching helplessly as her mentor was blown out of the airship.

The world was spinning around Griza, she could occasionally see the mountain facing her, and the ground was approaching at a dangerously high speed.

What was left of the airship hit the ground with a sickening sound, and the feeling of half an airship crashing on her made Griza wish to have passed out. Buried under a massive stash of wreckage, almost complete darkness surrounded her, there was no space to move and it was getting hard to breathe.

On the good side, while her body hurt everywhere, it didn't looked like there was any serious injury, and by some godly miracle, her headphones stood intact on her shoulders. Griza cautiously tried to push the debris away, trying to avoid the sharp ones, which was easier said than done, the debris she could see were holding even more over them, and pushing one would in reality mean pushing a dozen.

Even with her aura awakened, the task proved difficult, but eventually, she could feel sunlight on her face. Pushing a last metallic beam out of the way, she was finally able to get out of the wreckage.

However, while she had been digging, a nearby beowulf had approached, and, after noticing Griza, he brusquely charged into Griza, throwing her far in the air, away from the airship.

Clumsily getting up, Griza looked for her weapon, but to her growing panic, her belt had been cut off, probably stuck somewhere in the debris now. The Grimm was again charging at her, she wouldn't be able to dodge it, and she was unarmed.

But she refused to just lay down and abandon, even if it was her last moment, she would die fighting, she would die letting out her hate against this damned world.

Fixing herself firmly on the ground, she met the Grimm's powerful jaw with a fist of her own. For a fraction of second Griza felt the beast's breath on her face, before her fist made contact with the creature's belly. To her surprise, her blow was powerful enough to project the Beowulf back for a dozen yards, quickly capitalizing on this unexpected victory, Griza rushed at her downed opponent.

With a quick succession of blows, she first broke her enemy's legs, immobilizing it, then, as it was struggling on the ground, she slowly got around the Grimm, placing herself next to its head, and through one last, decisive blow, she plunged her fist right into its throat, killing it instantly.

As the vanquished beast slowly disintegrated, Griza was standing in front of it, slightly panting, trying to find her bearings. Quite a moment later she was looking for her belt in the wreckage, she had managed to beat the last Grimm, but if they were to come in number, she would have a bad time.

The sounds of gunfire were getting scarce, she had to hurry, but it felt like she was forgetting something, something important... Oh gods... Where was Six ?!

Griza hadn't seen her since the projectile had hit, speaking of which, a bigger threat was probably searching for them right now. Staying in the open was looking more and more dangerous as the time passed, was it really worth it ? She would struggle without her weapons, but even if she managed to find them, the fireball's launcher would also find her in the meantime, and if Six was still under the wreckage, she probably wasn't in any fighting state.

Thankfully this question wouldn't be answered today, as a desk next to her began to shake. Carefully, she approached the desk, and, just as it stopped shaking, she lifted it. Under it layed a barely conscious Six, she visibly had a few major injuries, the worst one being a pole stuck into her arm.

Griza quickly got to work removing the debris blocking her mentor, which proved more difficult than it seemed, most of the debris covering Six being essentially small rubbles and pebbles.

Eventually, Griza managed to remove enough of those to drag her mentor outside of the wreckage. An enormous wave of relief crashed into her when she saw her belt under where Six had been laying a moment ago. They had lost a precious time, and now Six had to be carried around if Griza wished to move. How ironic, they had come here in hope of helping, but now they were the ones needing help.

Griza took a look around in search of a solution, not much was left of the buildings around them, and even if they managed to find one in relatively good state, the Grimms would eventually sense them, and probably before Six's injuries would have healed.

They could also try to leave the town, getting a head start on the Grimms, but for what ? Only endless sand would await them, if the monsters didn't get them, the heat would.

Finally trying to link up with what was left of the town's population was also an option, but it was the one with the most immediate danger.

In the end, the only way for them to survive in the long run, was to beat back the Grimms, and this could only be done with the townsfolk's help. Thus they headed in direction of the gunfire, but not a minute after, a pack of Grimms found them.

Thankfully Griza now had her weapons, which made a formerly impossible task almost easy. She still had to protect her mentor though, so her mobility was greatly reduced and in addition a lot more Grimms were attracted by their combined auras, and soon enough they were entirely encircled by a black tide of creatures.

Despite those complications, the duo slowly pushed through the dark mass, thanks to the help of a generous use of fire grenades, accidentally increasing the amount of destruction in the village.

Six was starting to regain consciousness, but it would still be a while before she would be able to fight. She still had the pole stuck in her arm, Griza hadn't removed it from fear that Six would bleed out, but it rendered her aura unable to heal this injury. In addition she probably also had other fragments stuck all over her body, those would have to be removed as fast as possible, before her aura closed the external parts of the wounds.

As they turned around a street corner, their objective finally appeared, in the form of a dozen armed civilians, fighting the advancing tide with everything and everyone they had. Blood was littering the ground around them, the assaulters corpses had formed a light fog, slowly adding itself to the rising dark clouds. Griza saw a kid who couldn't be older than ten years, holding an adult sized rifle in his small arms, doing his best to lay down fire on the Grimms in front of him, an elder was weeping over what she guessed had been another person.

When the villagers noticed the duo, the man who seemed to be in charge signaled them to approach, while his companions started to cover the duo's advance.

For an intense moment they were just walking in the middle of the horde, their lives entrusted to the defenders, when they finally reached a relatively safe area, the leader spoke to Griza.

"Is there anyone left besides you ?"

"Wait what ? I mean... I don't think so, we haven't seen anyone while coming."

"I see..." He then yelled at the group: "Everyone follow me, we'll take the pass. Andrew and Serkis, you will provide cover, hurry up !"

The man led them near the mountain next to them, to a place they hadn't noticed before. In the wall was carved an entrance barely big enough to fit an adult man, and leading to an uncomfortably dark cave, nonetheless their guide entered it without hesitation, but not without struggle.

Once he was inside, they heard him yell at them to follow his exemple. The survivors started to enter as fast as they could, while Griza opted on helping at keeping the Grimms at bay. The Grimms were now rapidly gaining ground, Griza slowly walked to the entrance, while still shooting at the horde.She vaguely noticed someone carry Six inside, and soon enough everyone but her had entered. She felt the dry rock behind her back, hastily seized her last grenade, and threw it in the air before throwing herself in the opening.

The grenade exploded the second Griza's body hit the ground, but before even being able process this information, she felt a pair of hands grab her body and quickly drag her away. A few seconds later, a second explosion came into being in the entrance, making it collapse.

Everyone was shaked, most were panting and a lot were injured, but before they had any time to recover, the man who had dragged her was once again speaking to the small crowd.

"We cannot linger here, it's only a matter of time before they dig through the wall. There is an exit to this cave, that leads to the top of the mountain, so we'll have to do some walking."

He had barely finished, when the collapsed entrance began to violently tremble, with sparks of fire coming through the small spaces between rocks.

Immediately the group collapsed into chaos, everyone trying to run away, while the leader desperately tried to bring back order. Eventually he had to give up, and simply showed the way to the panicking crowd.

After half an hour of rushing towards the supposed exit, the panic had mostly died out and almost everyone was simply too tired to keep on running. As they were taking a break, the leader finally asked an important question to Griza.

"So what were both of you doing here ? It's not often that we get visitors."

"We are huntresses, and we've been investigating on villages that suffered the same fate as yours. You're the first survivors we find, could you tell me what happened ?"

"Well... It all began around two weeks ago, when a stranger came to our town seeking refuge. Apparently she was a merchant who had been attacked by bandits and lost everything, with the exception of her money which she managed to hide thanks to her semblance."

"Her semblance ?"

"She showed us, it seemed that it was able to stock a small amount of material in some kind of parallel dimension. But I digress, a few days after weird things started happening, at first it was small, robberies, a few broken stuff. But then people started to disappear, and soon enough everyone was throwing accusations at each other."

"Finally, this morning, we woke up to the sight of all the disappeared people, or more what was left of them. During the night they had somehow been moved in the town's center, corpses stacked on each other, everyone was now panicking, it was such a chaos that no one noticed that the guards were missing and that the wall had been breached, until it was too late."

"But how did you guess that the merchant was the one behind it ?"

"At the end, she wasn't exactly hiding. When the Grimms started pouring in, she was with them. How she managed to not get herself killed, I don't know, but in the middle of the carnage, she was there."

"I see, interesting... I've wanted to ask you for a while, but what exactly is the plan ? I mean even if we somehow managed to get out without the Grimms following us, we would all starve before getting anywhere." Asked Griza.

"A good question, the fact is that this mountain served as some kind of fortress during the great war. It was hastily abandoned, so we should be able to find water, weapons and maybe even someway to contact Vacuo."

"By the way, what's your name ? You can call me Griza."

"Name's Copper, a pleasure to meet you."

They retreated back into an awkward silence, which fortunately didn't last long as Six had finally regained consciousness.

Her reaction to awakening in an unknown environment would have been funny, if she hadn't almost killed half of the group in her panic.

Eventually Griza was able to calm down Six, and brief her on the situation, and without surprise, she wasn't quite happy about it. Her aura had already done wonders to her injuries, but she could still barely move her arm, and not without intense pain. Despite this, she was handed a small pistol, usable with only one hand.

During all this time, Copper had stood away, not saying a word, seemingly distracted. Taking a closer look, Griza noticed that he was slightly moving his head, as if the hear something. At this moment, Griza noticed something, that had been hidden by his hair until now, there was fur on his ears, he was a faunus.

Just as she came to this realization, he finally moved again, passing next to each of them, before saying without turning back: "Everyone, we need to get back to moving, and please, for the love of the gods, be quiet." Quickly follow by whispering a barely audible: "They are near."

Resuming their march, in an anxious silence, and before long, the tunnel they were in opened on a cave so big that it's roof or floor couldn't be seen. They had to walk in a line, on a small path next to the wall, if one were to simply stumble, nothing would prevent him from falling down the cliff, down into the darkness.

Griza could hear it now, the sound of claws scratching the ground, it was echoing everywhere in the cave, and getting louder for each passing second.

Looking at the good side of things, most Grimms wouldn't be able to go on the path they had taking without falling, and those who could shouldn't be a big threat.

Everyone was beginning to get stressed by the sound, some had almost fallen, but thankfully the end of this cave was near, barely 20 yards away.

However, Copper suddenly stopped, and the whole column stopped with him. With very slow movements, he grabbed the lantern on his belt, cautiously hanged it over the cliff, and let it fall.

For one second, nothing happened, and everyone looked at Copper confusedly, but then, they heard the sound of metal hitting flesh. Slowly looking over the edge, in the dark where the lantern had fallen, two red dots appeared.

They were quickly followed by two others, and two more, and so on, in an instant, an innumerable amount of eyes littered the cliff under them, unmoving.

A tense standoff began, no one even noticing that the scratching sound had ended. Without breaking eye contact with the monsters, Copper slowly raised a hand over his head, and, after a small moment, brusquely lowered it in the exit's direction.

Immediately, everyone started running, some were screaming, but their were drowned by the howls. On the corner of her eye, Griza saw someone fall, his screams ending abruptly.

Some Grimms were now on the same ridge as them, shots were being fired. A claw suddenly grabbed her leg, making her stumble. In a gesture that had now become a reflex, Griza pulled out her knife and swung it at the Grimm.

However before the blade could land, the claw pulled back, pushing Griza over the edge. In her fall, she grabbed the beowolf's shoulders, which didn't managed to hold on the cliff, and fell down with her.

One instant was enough for the groups lights to disappear from sight, the Grimms eyes being the only things visible in the dark. Apparently a fall to their deaths wasn't enough to distract the beowolf, as he once again swiped his claws at her. Unable to move, Griza had to arch her spine back to barely avoid a lethal blow, the blow in question sending the Grimm spiraling sideway, such that his back was now exposed to her.

Stretching her arm, she managed to get hold of the creature's fur, dragging herself on its back. Now on top of her opponent, she lowered her blade on his neck, just in time for the ground to appear under them.

Griza felt her entire body being throw around as they hit the floor, it was as if her guts had decided to leave her body from her back, everything was collapsing around her, nothing made sense, they were still falling, and before she register anything more, her mind suddenly shut down.

There was light everywhere, a blinding light, and only white for as far as she could see, was she death ? Was that it ? No final struggle, heroic sacrifice, not bedridden with her friends around her, just like that ? No one would even really know what had happened to her, and her corpse would be a skeleton before anyone even thought about recovering it.

But something wasn't right, if she was death, why did the light hurt ? Shouldn't her injuries have healed, shouldn't she have her eye back ?

Slowly getting up, she noticed that her back hurt, it wasn't normal, what was going on ? There was nothing around her, with the exception of the light, after some observation, she noticed that this place seemed brighter in some locations.

One of those locations seemed to be right next, and, unsure on what to do, Griza began to clumsily stumble in the nearest light's direction.

As she approached, the brightness made Griza cover her eye with one hand, while the other fumbled aimlessly in front of her. Eventually, something happened that she wasn't expecting, her hand touched something, something solid.

After some additional fumbling, she finally recognized what she was groping, it was a crystal, a light dust crystal to be precise. Everything was now starting to make sense, she was in a cave filled to the brim with light dust, and she had probably survived the fall thanks to the Grimm she was on. This cave was probably located under the one in which the group had been attacked.

But this wasn't really helping her, she had to get out of here in one way or another, she could of course try to go back from where she had entered, but even putting the climbing aside, there would still be an horde of Grimm waiting for her on the other side.

Walking around aimlessly probably wasn't a good idea, but if there was one thing she had learned from her adventures in the entrance exam, it was to always have at least a compass on her. It wouldn't show her the exit, but it would avoid ending up going in circles like last time.

Choosing the direction that seemed to head upward, Griza began the walk. The cave was apparently smaller than what she had originally estimated, and after only twenty minutes, she reached some kind of rocky wall, it's blackness contrasting with the general brightness of the place.

Griza followed the wall, looking for an exit, which she found soon after, in the form of a simple hole in the wall, leading to the total darkness she had gotten used to in those caves. She headed back to a near crystal, and cut off a small piece with her knife, which thankfully didn't break.

Now armed with a makeshift light source, Griza entered the next cave, only to find out it wasn't really one. The wall were polished, there was some stone furnitures, most laying under a thick amount of dust, proof that this place hadn't been used for a long time.

As she advanced in the room, its purpose remained a mystery to Griza, there was what looked like an altar in the middle, and the walls were littered with empty shelves. Going around the altar, she was immediately startled by the thing that layed on the other side.

Leaning on the altar, was what remained of an human being, now reduced to a mere skeleton. Judging from the breastplate, it was probably some kind of huntsman, even through, from the look of it, and from what Copper had told her, it was probably here since before the great war, before the concept of huntsmen existed.

Her makeshift lamp's light was suddenly reflected by something on the corpse, her curiosity getting the best of Griza, she began to look through the skeleton's belongings, eventually finding what looked like a chess piece. It was made of some kind of silvery metal that she didn't knew, and after a while, she concluded that it was representing the bishop.

It was very strange, but ancient times huntsmen were probably as eccentric as nowadays. In the end, it didn't really mattered, what mattered was that she could fetch a good price for it.

While she was at it, she continued to rummage through the corpse's possessions, the breastplate looked nice, but it wouldn't fit on her and she could hardly carry it in such a dangerous environment. Thankfully there was something else to scavenge, for on its hips the skeleton was carrying a revolver, it looked very advanced for its time, maybe this guy wasn't from the great war after all.

But as she took the gun in her hands, Griza noticed something weird, it was reacting to her touch, some flower shaped symbols at begun to glow in light blue. But this wasn't what had surprised her, for as Griza held the weapon in her hand, something was beating, as if the revolver was alive. When she tried to aim, she felt every part of the weapon, as if it was a part of her, she knew what it would shoot, and where it would land.

The chess piece was nothing next to this, what she was now holding was probably unique in its kind, with this she would be unmatched, she could get everything she wanted.

Without even noticing, she had thrown her head back and started snickering, it soon evolved into a full blown laughter, and as she was rejoicing in her finds, the back of her head hit something.

She brutally grabbed the hindrance on her shoulders, and an instant before throwing it on the wall, she stopped.

On the end of her arm layed her headphones, James's gift. As the reality of the situation hit her, Griza was suddenly feeling really bad about herself, how could she have done this ? One instant had been enough to forget about the world around her, to bask in the promise of power and facility. It had been enough to forget about everyone that had helped her get this far.

She hated this feeling, the one of not being in control of herself, it was awful, she couldn't bear it, she thought herself to be over those promises, to strive for a simple life, but this power, it had shown what her mind truly wanted. Maybe someone would be able to bear this burden, but this someone wasn't her. She wanted to be able to at least pretend, to be a good person, to do the right thing, she didn't wanted others to look at her with disgust, she wanted for her friend to be proud of her. But this weapon had proved something, she wasn't able to control power, power would control her.

Griza slowly got up, and with a piece of clothing, she wrapped up the weapon, before putting it in a holster on her belt. Maybe someone would be able to use it.

This was all well and good, but she still had to get out of here. The room had some kind of backdoor, which a led to a relatively normal tunnel. However, as she got around a corner, Griza was faced with a dozen Grimms, it looked like those were essentially small fry, like beowolves, she should be able to deal with them.

Two shots from her pistol were enough to kill the nearest beast, and before the other understood what was happening, two more were cleaved in half by her whip. It was enough for the rest to start charging at her, the first was impaled by her whip's sword form, using his disintegrating body as a shield, Griza began to wildly fire at the others.

Two more fell under her bullets, just in time for another to destroy what was left of her shield, only four were left, but not for long. Griza jumped on the Grimm that had destroyed her shield, and cut its throat with her knife, however another beowolf had used this distraction to send a powerful blow to her back. Her aura absorbed the hit, but she was still thrown on the other side of the tunnel without her weapons, a near Grimm tried to use this opportunity to kill her, but she reacted fast enough to block its blow, which she quickly countered with a flurry of powerful punches at the creature's face.

Only two remained now, blocking the path to her weapons. Griza rushed at them, and as they lunged at her, she suddenly dropped on the ground, sliding under the beasts. Quickly grabbing her sword, she turned around just in time to plunge it into an attacking Grimm's jaw, following this by a punch in the face before the creature was able to retaliate.

There should remain one, but the problem was, she couldn't see it. Taking a long look around her, only the dissolving Grimms could be seen. Suddenly, a small rock fell from the ceiling, she had already seen something like that before. Quickly raising her pistol upward, she was met with a massive maw, she retracted her arm, avoiding it to be eaten, but her gun wasn't as lucky, and finished crushed under the beast's teeth.

While she had been able to save her forearm, the Grimm still fell on her, blowing the air out of her lungs. The beowolf was now aiming for her face, and, in a desperate attempt to stop it, Griza grabbed both sides of the beast's maw.

The Grimm wasn't deterred as it immediately tried to use its claws to shred her in pieces, an attack that Griza managed to counter by kicking her opponent's belly. With all the strength she could muster, Griza began to push the the Grimm's jaws apart, and thanks to one supreme effort, they broke.

She used her now free hands to punch the beast down its throat, grabbing it, and then pulled. Her opponent's head was brutally teared off, leaving it dead.

This fight had been... difficult, more than she had anticipated, but she had to continue, the group wasn't going to wait for her, she had to hurry.

Thus Griza continued walking along the tunnel, slowly moving upward, occasionally fighting more Grimms. Eventually, she saw light, real light, an opening, similar to the one through which they had entered, led to the outside world.

She couldn't believe her luck, it was over, she would never go back in a cave, ever. Such were her thoughts as she stumbled through the door, but as she did so, a coppery smell registered to her brain, at the same time as another one she had become too familiar with recently, the smell of burned flesh.

She barely had time to register the sound of steel clashing with steel, before being thrown on the ground under the weight of another human being.

Trying to get the weight off her, her hands made contact with something weird, it felt soft, and... fluffy ?

"What the hell are you doing Griza ?! Now's not the time to grope my ears !" She heard Copper's voice say.

"What's happening ?"

"Don't have time to explain, but this psycho is trying to kill us." Copper yelled over the sound of gunfire and fire blasts.

Surely enough, Six was fighting their target on her own, with a few corpses littering the ground. Copper and Griza clumsily got up, and rushed into the fight.

Their enemy was armed with a quarterstaff, even though she seemed to use mostly fire dust. She reacted to their arrival by throwing a column of flames in their direction, they both managed to evade, but it had the unforseen effect of splitting them off.

Six used this opportunity the attack, but the everyone's astonishment, their opponent dodge by jumping in the sky, the weird part being, that she didn't fell back down. She was just hovering over them, rendering all their melee weapons useless.

Six reacted the fastest, by running away and taking cover behind a rock, however, the two others weren't quick enough, and the enemy was launching another blast at them.

Griza countered by using her whip to catch her opponent's leg, and drew it back, making the blast miss, and throwing the target back on the ground.

Six was still nowhere to be seen, but the remaining two nonetheless started attacking, exploiting their opponent's downed state.

However the woman recovered faster than planned, extended her quarterstaff, using it to make Griza stumble, before using another deadly blast against her.

Time slowed down to a crawl, Griza could see the fire slowly moving toward her, she wouldn't be able to dodge this one, she could only watch, as her death slowly approached.

That was more like it, a death she could be somewhat proud of, maybe some of her belongings would be recovered, she wondered what would happen to the revolver.

The faces of everyone she knew flashed before her eye, even this teacher whose name she always forgot. Some of them would be sad, for sure, but most would simply shrug it off, she wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last. Some would probably rejoice after hearing the new, like this faunus during her first mission.

She could now feel the fire's warmth, hopefully her death wouldn't be as slow, it would be a real pain.

Suddenly, time returned to normal, just in time for her to feel a weight on her right arm. For a second she didn't understood what had happened, still used to the slow time.

She was laying on the ground now, had she managed to somehow evade the blast ? But as Griza got up, she saw a blazing trail on the ground next to her, and, in the middle of it, was someone.

What was left of Copper was scattered beside Griza, half of his torso was gone, and his legs were squirming a few foots away. But worst of all, the fire hadn't leaved him, she heard his scream turn into whimpers, as what was left of his body slowly turned into ash.

As if in a trance, Griza slowly approached Copper, as she stood next to him, she took out her pistol, a single word escaping her lips "sorry", before a single gunshot echoed through the mountain.

"How cute, was he your boyfriend or something ? Don't worry, you will follow him soon."

The enemy was once again trying to kill Griza, but before she could do anything, Six rose up from behind her rock, holding a strange device in her hands. The handle was similar to a gun's, but after this, a four long but thin blade were pointing forward, their base forming a square. The base on which those blades were began to rotate sideway, faster and faster, until the blades were indistinguishable from each other, now looking like a barrel.

All this had happened in one instant, and their opponent was already redirecting her attack at Six, but before the former could do anything, the latter's gun fired.

It was like thunderbolt had come into being, its sound deafening, and leaving a blue trail in its wake. The projectile itself had almost blinded Griza, but when she looked again, there was nothing to be seen at the place were their target had stood, she was gone, as simply as that.

The duo was left alone on the mountain's top, everyone else was dead. For a while the two of them simply sat next to each other, waiting for something to happen, eventually Six broke the silence.

"This guy, Copper, he managed to find an old radio or something, people will come to pick us up, eventually."

"Okay"

"Also, congratulations, even though this mission didn't exactly go as planned, you managed to surpass all my expectations. We will probably work together for a while, so I think you deserve to know my name. You can call me Fria."

Big chapter for today, hope you liked it.

Tons of revelations and easter eggs, I will try to use more canon characters from now on.

You remember the axe that James used in the training chapter ? I've watched the Ironwood vs Watts fight recently, and decided to give him back his guns, well at least one of them. Recycling is very important in Ozpin's circle.

A big chunk of this chapter was heavily inspired by the Hobbit film, the first one.

For now on I will publish my chapters before re-reading them, as this alone takes me multiple days, the time for me to find the motivation. I will update the chapters after having re-read them, tell me what you think about this.

I'm still looking for a beta-reader, if anyone is willing to do this job, please contact me.

Like always reviews are always welcome, I really like to hear you thoughts on this fic, so please leave one.