Chapter 3: Grimm Studies 2: Beowolves, Creeps, and Zerg Rush Tactics

Azure (1st Person)

"Good morning, class." I greeted the rows of older teenagers before me. Jaune looked tired. Cardin must have started blackmailing him by now. Ehh. It teaches him some lessons. "Today, we will be talking about Beowolves, Creeps, and Zerg Rush Tactics."

"Zerg rush?" Someone asked. Oh, right, Starcraft doesn't exist on Remnant. "I'll talk about it later. Anyway, Beowolves." I said calmly. I pulled up a photo of the wolflike Grimm on a hologram screen projector on the desk, and started talking at Youtube Explanation Speed. "These are pretty much the poster children of Grimm. They look like big black wolves, and are around the same size as an adult human. They've got the classic skull mask thing, glowing red eyes, and short poofy tails. They also tend to have a whole bunch of spiky bits on their arms, all the better to kill you with. Alphas have more spikey bits, are a lot bigger, and stand bipedally where regular-ass Beowolves run around on all fours." I stopped to catch my breath, and also assess the class. They looked interested, and more than a few people seemed surprised that I said stuff like 'spikey' and 'ass' instead of talking professionally. The rest probably guessed that, as I am a teenager, I would talk like one. "They like to surround the target but usually only have three or less actually fighting whatever unlucky sap wandered across them. They bite, claw, and dogpile. Also, the name is inaccurate." That got a few raised eyebrows and hands. "Beowolf comes from Bee-Wolf, which means bee hunter, which means bear, because language is a funny thing." I switched the image on screen to a Creep. "Creeps are these lizardy lookin' things. They're around three-ish feet tall, and also kind of look like birds." A few hands were raised. "Yes, I know I just said they were lizard-like. They can be both, because they look like birds with only two legs and no arms but they look like a lizard skin over a bird's frame. The alphas have a big row of back spikes, and can be as big as Ursai. They can basically just bite things. I have no idea where the name comes from."

I switched to a photo of a Beowolf pack from initiation. I heard some snickering. "All right, what's so funny?" I asked in as long-suffering a tone as I could (partially) fake. Some people pointed, and I turned to look at the photo better. It had Weiss yelling at Ruby in the background. "Okay, moving on. In terms of combat capabilities, these things are not really dangerous to trained Huntsmen and Huntresses. No, seriously. These are easy mode Grimm. I have it on good authority that Little Red Riding Hood over there -" I pointed at the screen, and then Ruby sitting at the front of the class. "- killed, like, fifty in three minutes on her own a few days before initiation." Ruby blushed and scratched her neck. She does not take compliments well. "They are, however, very dangerous to civilians without unlocked auras. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT." I said the last sentence a lot louder than the rest. "Maxim 38 of the Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries - yes, I know that Huntsmen aren't technically mercenaries, but you basically are - is: What's easy for you can still be hard on your clients. And failing that, your job is to save people, even above killing Grimm. So, after that little tangent, Zerg rushing." I clapped my hands together. "Zerg rushing is a real time strategy video game strategy where you send a lot of really cheap and weak units to the enemy base to wreck it as fast as possible. It has become a general shorthand for swarms of small enemies. Creeps and Beowolves basically just do this. They are small and weak compared to other Grimm, but can dogpile opponents and generally give them a bad day." I slowed my speech down. I had been talking for - what, ten minutes? "Anyway, I give the floor to my colleague, to tell us the story of how we got the Creeps someone will be fighting today."

"Indeed." And with that simple statement, Port launched into the story. The one highlight was this:

"And then Azure said that if we wanted Grimm bait, we -" "I thought we weren't going to talk about that, Port!"

It was a fairly good story, but also just happened to me a few days ago and was mostly me, Peter, and a couple third-year students running around in the forest for a few hours and tripping over each other.

After story time, we walked out of the classroom so the students could get their gear, as Peter and I had told everyone to grab their stuff because we would only be revealing the combatants at the combat site, and we would allow teammates to step in if things went too badly. "Now, everyone line up next to the pit." Peter instructed. Said pit (which I forgot to mention) was simply a large pit, about twenty feet by thirty feet and ten feet deep, made of dirt. At the bottom were forty or so Creeps, the small Grimm simply milling around.

"Kill the Grimm." I said. I then pushed Cardin into the pit.

Luckily, he managed to get back on his feet after screaming and splatting in the mud. He drew his mace, The Executioner, and bashed the first Grimm to reach him out of the pit with a golf swing. It disintegrated before it hit the ground outside. The next was caught by the backswing, but then the Grimm started to swarm, stopping him from making big power blows. One bit his arm hard, causing his aura to drop by a good bit as he tried to shake it off.

I turned to his teammates. "Well?" I pointed at Cardin, currently being chased in a circle by a few Creeps. "Go help your leader."

They nodded, and jumped in, halberd, dual blades, and gun-sword swinging. The thing that most people forget about team CRDL is that, while they are bullies and nowhere near the skill of RWBY or JNPR, they still made it to Beacon, and are thus somewhat competent at killing Grimm to not die during initiation. As such, once the four formed an effective circle, the fight took around three minutes. Bullets were flying after Sky and Dove switched to their gun modes, while Cardin smashed his way through more Grimm than either them or Russel. After the last Grimm was dead, they climbed up the ladder at the far end of the pit.

I clapped. "Bravo. Forty Grimm dead in three minutes. Not a record, but still pretty damn good. Full marks."

Peter addressed the class. "Your homework for tonight is to write a short paper, around 300 - 400 words, on either Beowolves, Creeps, or the overwhelming numbers -"

"Don't you mean Zerg rush?" Someone yelled from the back of the cluster of students.

Peter grumbled. "As I was saying, write a short paper about one of those things, to be turned in at the start of next class."

As the class wandered off, I sidled up beside Port. "Thank you," I said.

"Oh?"

"The longer a paper gets, the more work people usually put in and the less grammar errors there are." I looked - well, laterally at him, because there was a slight rise but I'm taller. "And remember, I have to be the one proofreading because of our deal."

"It was worth the lien."

A/N: Just a short little chapter about class at Beacon. Next time, Forever Fall and related stuff.