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Chapter 7: A Rather Grimm Situation (Part One)

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They deployed the next morning. According to the mission briefing they received when they boarded the Bullhead, they were being sent to a relatively small village south of the main Kingdom called Rintah. Their guide and chaperon, a veteran Huntress by the name of Ilyanna Petrarcho, would be meeting them there.

Rintah had apparently been dealing with an uncharacteristically high influx of Grimm, over quintuple what they were used to. Ilyana went there when the locals circulated the "help needed" job posting through the CCTS, though it seemed she was the only one who responded and the job was much to big for one Huntress or Huntsman. They were being sent as reinforcements when Ozpin read the posting.

Of course, only Alex and Weiss actually knew any of that. The others didn't even bother to read it. They were to busy messing around with Delsin's new party tricks. He was using his Neon powers to put on a laser light show with some kind of rave music from his world playing, and the rest of them were enjoying it. When Yang got up and started dancing, he gave up trying to concentrate on anything else.

Still, it was a rather long ride. Rintah was a ways away, and it would be a few hours until they got there. Delsin was having fun playing with his new levels of power. Previously, he couldn't have managed a setup like this without draining himself, but the Blast Core he'd absorbed had boosted his reserves by a moderately impressive amount. He still couldn't fire off Bolts without draining, but a fancy light show was cake.

To be honest, he really couldn't wait to find out what these new powers were. The old feeling of getting that new power, growing what you could do by just one more step, was a feeling he'd almost forgotten. He hadn't felt it in a while, not since he'd developed his Water power.

Another slightly less interesting development, was that of his music library. He'd managed to move the whole thing from his old mp3 player onto his Scroll so that no matter what, he never lost it. New life aside, he was glad to have any parts of his old life he could hang on to.

After a two hour flight, they arrived in Rintah. It was a moderately sized farming village, plenty of houses and large fields of crops. They had a perimeter wall around the whole town, farms and all, like most villages. On most days, it would have been a rather picturesque image of commerce and life. Today was not one of those days.

While there were no Grimm there now, the effects of an increased Grimm presence were obvious. The people were on edge and some hadn't even left their homes, despite it being perfect weather in the middle of a harvest season. Most of the market stalls were empty, and the amount of people in the streets was very low.

When they landed, all six of them got off the Bullhead. When they did, they found a woman there waiting for them.

She wore a deep blue hooded cloak trimmed in gold along the bottom around her shoulders, though the hood was down. Under that she wore a light blue t-shirt and dark blue leather pants with a black belt.. She also had on calf length leather boots with ½ inch heels. The blue ensemble went surprisingly well with her cyan hair and bright gold eyes.

Next to her was what appeared to be her weapon. It was a six foot long copper colored metal staff topped with a spherical Fire Dust crystal about the size of a tennis ball that was held there by a four barred thin spherical cage.

This, was Ilyanna Petrarcho, professional Huntress. She was going to be their leader on this mission.

When she saw them, she approached.

"You guys from Beacon," she asked.

"Yep! We're here to help," Ruby said.

"Like your spirit kid," Ilyanna said with a smile, "C'mon, I'll show you to where we're working out of."

She led them to a small inn on the outer edge of the wall, introducing herself along the way. When Delsin saw the look on her face, he thought she might explode from the excitement of working with a professional Huntress.

When they reached the inn, they went to a table and Ilyanna sat down. She motioned for them to join her.

"So, what's your deal," she asked them all.

"What?" Delsin asked, a bit taken aback.

"Well, you guys are first year students going on a mission, a fact which is itself very strange. Add to that the fact that this mission involves a concentration of Grimm higher than what most students will ever see, you guys must be something special, a conclusion supported by the fact that there are six of you as opposed to four. So I ask again. What's your deal?" she pressed.

"Didn't Ozpin explain it to you?" Yang asked.

"He sent me files on six kids I'm supposed to baby sit. Would you have read it?" she asked lazily.

"Yes," Weiss replied indignantly.

Ilyanna looked right at her, then turned away with a rueful sigh.

"Guess I found the buzzkill of the group. Good to know," she said.

Delsin cleared his throat.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

Ilyanna thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.

"Guess not," she said, "Go ahead and get some lunch, on me. We move out in an hour."

With that, she rose from the table and walked off, placing a Lien card on the table.

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After twenty minutes, Delsin had finished his food and went to take a walk.

As he traversed the town, the sight of how the people moved in fear reminded him of something. Here the people looked just as downtrodden as the people in Seattle looked when the DUP was in control of the city.

Eventually he found himself in a mostly abandoned market plaza. A quick look revealed only a handful of storefronts still operating, maybe six out of all twenty-two. The pathetic state of the lot left him feeling sad. He could almost feel the despair in the air.

And so, having seen all of that, he renewed his resolve. He clenched his brother's badge in his hand and steeled himself to jump back in the fray. This was his fight now. He would protect these people from the monsters around them.

With that thought in mind, he made his way back to the inn.

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When Delsin arrived at the inn, he found that the already small crowd of people there earlier had fallen to just above empty. He quickly saw Ilyanna along with the rest of the team seated around one of the tables. On said table was a map of the village and the surrounding area.

He quickly approached and as he sat down he asked, "Did I miss anything?"

"Nope, we were waiting on you Mr. Conduit," Ilyanna said.

"You read the file," he replied.

"Yeah. Interesting read."

"I bet."

"All right, let's get down to business," Ilyanna said.

She cleared the table of plates and such, revealing the whole map. Her fun loving personality vanished in an instant, replaced by Ilyanna the professional Huntsman.

"The increased Grimm activity here has been heaviest on the northwest section of the wall, here," she began, pointing at the map.

Continuing, she stood up.

"This leads me to believe the source of the commotion is coming from somewhere in this area. Now, I've done some preliminary scouting there over the last couple days. Aside from some dense forests, the only thing there is a cave stretching into the cliffside about 5 miles north-northwest of here. It's a very wide open cave, and it appears to go on for a while. From what I observed, the Grimm seem to be congregating deep within the cave," she explained.

"Seem to be?" Blake asked.

"Yeah. For whatever reason, these Grimm don't seem to be good with sunlight. Further evidence of this is that all of the attacks over the last several days have only ever occurred at night. Now, that's not unusual, Grimm are more active at night, but they still act during the day. These have never even been seen outside of low light conditions. As such, it's been difficult to find fresh traces of their movements, including their whereabouts," she continued.

She turned to face Alex.

"You're a Faunus aren't you? How's your night vision?" she asked.

Alex scratched the back of his head as he replied.

"Not that great. My people have raptor vision as opposed to night vision. My hearing's not much better than a human's either," he said.

Ilyanna sighed.

"Well, guess it's good to know beforehand at least. Figured I'd ask, since it wasn't in the file. Either way, nightfall's in a little less than three hours. We need to be at the cave before then for my plan to work."

"What is the plan?" Yang asked.

"Using the mouth of the cave as a choke point, we're going to use our combined strength to drive them back into the cave. Then we follow them in and destroy them, and whatever is causing the disturbance here. Thus, we'll solve both of our problems at once," she said cheerily.

Ruby had been glued to he since the moment she'd started talking, still in mild awe at her presence, but when Ilyanna finished explaining her plan, she felt a question come to mind and couldn't help but ask it.

"Wait, not that I'm like doubting you or anything, but you're a Huntress. Couldn't you do this on your own? Why do you need us?" Ruby asked.

Ilyanna turned to look at her, a small smile still on her face.

"Sweetie, I appreciate that you think I'm so awesome, I really do. But honestly? There's way too many of them and way too much ground to hold for just one person. Any Huntsman or Huntress would have the same problem. No matter how skilled you are, some jobs are to big to handle alone."

Ruby nodded as Ilyanna turned back to face the group.

"Alright. Get geared up, we move out in ten minutes. Word of advice? Go to the bathroom now," she said, walking to the door.

After a second, Ruby managed to regain her composure.

"You heard her gang, let's get going," she said cheerily.

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Ten minutes later they all met up at the northernmost gate to the town. Ilyanna was waiting for them, her staff in her hand.

"You guys ready?" she asked.

"Yep," Delsin said.

The others nodded, or otherwise voiced their agreement.

"Alright, let's go. It's a five mile hike in rough terrain, so be careful, but try and keep up."

With that, she led them away.

Soon after, they entered the forest, and quickly discovered what Ilyanna meant by rough terrain. Half a mile into the forest, the tree concentration doubled, making it much harder to see, to say nothing of the tree roots. Ilyanna wasn't wrong to make them move out so quickly. By the time half an hour went by, they'd only gone one mile.

Still they pressed on. When the sun started to set Ilyanna turned to Delsin.

"Conduit guy, you got any light on you?" she asked in what she guessed was his general direction. She couldn't really see him.

A moment later a bright purple light filled the area. She looked around to find Delsin with his arm raised and some of his Neon circling his hand.

"You do know my name is Delsin, right?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Why do you call me 'Conduit guy?'"

"Because I can. Take the lead."

Delsin moved to the front of the group and they kept going.

After two hours total, they had to stop.

"Ms. Petrarcho?" Blake called.

"Two things. One, call me Ilyanna. Two, yes?"

"Can we rest for a minute?" she asked.

Ilyanna checked the map on her Scroll, as well as the time remaining till sundown.

"Anyone else need a break?" Ilyanna asked.

"I do," Delsin replied, "Making enough light to see by is tough."

Ilyanna sighed.

"Yeah, we'll take five minutes to rest up. Don't worry though, we're close. Only a little more than a mile to go."

At that very moment, all of them sank down. Apparently they were a lot more tired than they let on. When Delsin's light died, Ruby turned on her Scroll's flashlight and placed it on the ground to illuminate the immediate area. Alex was the only one still standing.

"I'll scout ahead. I can get a better view from the sky," he said.

"Ok, but be careful. Some of these Grimm could be airborne," Ilyanna replied.

"Will do."

With that he used Weiss's Glyphs to climb one of the trees. While he hated her guts, Alex had to admit, Weiss's Semblance was very versatile. When he reached the top, he used another Glyph to propel himself into the air and opened his wings.

Delsin and the rest of them watched as he flew off.

"Ok, I gotta admit. That's pretty cool," Ilyanna commented.

"Yeah it's fun," Yang replied.

"How would you know?" Weiss asked pointedly.

Yang smiled.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she said slyly.

Ilyanna giggled.

"You and the birdbrain, huh?" she asked, smiling.

"Not right now, but maybe," Yang replied.

Weiss and Ruby blushed when they realized what they meant, and Blake smiled.

"Oh my god, if I wasn't the main light source of this party I'd be joining him at the cave," Delsin interrupted, his face in his free hand.

"Oh what's wrong, can't handle a few jokes about your partner?" Ilyanna asked.

The conversation was interrupted when Delsin got a call on his Scroll.

"Saved by the bell," he said quietly.

He answered the phone.

"Yo?"

"Delsin?"

"Alex? What's up?"

"Put me on speaker, I got news."

Delsin fumbled for a second to find the right button, but he pressed it and held it out between them all.

"What'cha got Alex?" Ilyanna asked.

"You were right when you said these Grimm were different. Found a couple in the dark toward the mouth of the cave. I killed them, but when I dragged them into the light, they looked weird. I mean, on the surface they look like Beowolves but the have these weird additions to the normal form."

"Weird how?" Ruby asked.

"Here, I'll send a photo. For whatever reason the corpses haven't started evaporating."

On the other end of the line, they heard a shutter snap.

"Ok, sending it now. Let me know when you get it."

After a moment it popped up on the screen. Ilyanna opened it.

"You're right, it is weird," she said.

She turned the Scroll to face the rest of them. When Delsin saw it, he took a step back in a mix of fear and shock. The image was of a Beowolf, but as Alex had said, it was mutated. The creature had a second set of arms, the new ones coated in a single sword-like protrusion from the elbow downward as well as four mandibles on its mouth. It also had foot long bone spikes jutting out of its back along its spine. All of that, combined with the addition of a faded sickly green-gray color traced along its bone mask, drew Delsin to his conclusion.

"What's wrong," Ruby asked tensely, "You seen that before?"

Delsin swallowed.

"Yeah," he started, his voice shaking, "In the Conduit files I read. Back on my world."

"What?" Ilyanna asked forcefully.

"Seven years ago on my world there was a Conduit named Joseph Bertrand III. His Conduit power let him manipulate chemical energy. With his power he started to mutate people. He forced them to turn into these monsters he called 'The Corrupted.' They were forcefully created faux Conduits that had body parts just like the ones in that picture."

"Wait, so the disturbance causing increased Grimm could be from your world?" Alex asked.

"I don't know, but crap from my world seems to be popping up more and more here," he managed, his composure returning.

"Either way, that doesn't change what we have to do. Alex, are there any more near the mouth of the cave?" Ilyanna asked.

"No, but since the sun's going down in less than an hour, that won't be the case for very long. You guys need to get here fast."

"Ok. Be there in a bit."

With that Ilyanna ended the call and handed Delsin back his scroll.

"Stand up people, break's over. We gotta move," Ilyanna said.

Delsin stood up first and turned in the direction of the cave.

"I'll make a path. Hopefully the villagers won't mind."

"How are you going to make a path in the middle of the forest?" Blake asked.

Delsin moved his hand to his wrist and switched to his Video power.

"Like this," he replied.

He extended both arms, and with a smirk he manifested not one but two Digital Longswords, one in each hand. With a hard swing he sliced through one of the trees in their path.

"Ok, I guess that works. Just don't go overboard with it," Ilyanna said.

"I'll help!" Ruby exclaimed, readying Crescent Rose.

"Not yet Ruby. I'm trying no to make to wide a path, so if you could just swap out with me in a few minutes, that would be awesome," Delsin told her.

"Ok," she replied, her cheer only slightly diminished.

With that, Delsin began to slice through the trees. Every couple minutes he and Ruby swapped places, and after twenty minutes they reached an expansive clearing in front of the cave.

"Alex, where are you?" Delsin called.

At that moment, the Bird Faunus dropped in between them all, wings out just enough to keep him from hurting himself.

"You called?" he said nonchalantly.

Ilyanna rolled her eyes and checked her Scroll.

"Ok, rest up. We've got eighteen minutes till sunset, be ready by the time it goes down."

When she said that, the assembled students dispersed to rest for the showdown.

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Seven minutes after the sun went down it started. They couldn't tell how many there were, thought they would later estimate it as in the high eighties, but when the Grimm came charging out of the cave, the seven of them were ready.

Ilyanna was the first to react. She raised her staff and pointed it at the oncoming hoard, and with a smirk and some Aura, launched a volley of fireballs into it. Two of the mutated Grimm died instantly, and at least six others were injured.

After that display, the others sprang into action.

Using her Ember Celica, Yang propelled herself into the fray. She came to a stop just in front of one of the Grimm, and with a single punch, sent it flying back into the three behind it. Sadly this did her little good, as these mutated forms were evidently more intelligent than normal. Using their second set of arms they sliced clean through the flying Grimm.

But that didn't stop Yang. She charged forward again and punched the next one twice in the gut then uppercutted it, blasting off its head. She continued pressing on, and though she took a few hits, her Semblance evened things out.

Weiss and Ruby stayed toward the back of the fray. Due to their wide area of effect, Weiss was doing her best to use her Glyphs to control where the Grimm moved to. Keeping that many Glyphs active at once was certainly a major effort, but she was confident she could handle it.

Ruby was helping as best she could. If a Grimm ever moved outside of where Weiss wanted it to be, Ruby cut it down. She'd gotten grazed a few times by some of the Grimm, but with her speed it wasn't too much trouble to dodge.

Blake was doing hit and run tactics. She would jump in to the fray, kill a few of the Grimm and use her shadow clones to make a quick escape. It worked quite well for her, but she had taken a few hits when she wasn't quite fast enough to get away.

Delsin had taken an approach very similar to Yang. First he'd had Alex throw him into the air, then he'd Comet Dropped to the ground with his Video power, killing several Grimm. Then he summoned two of his Wingmen and the three of them went to town. Delsin used his two swords, an upgrade from the Blast Core, and began cutting the Grimm down.

When his Wingmen died, he summoned more, and he did his best to draw as many Grimm toward him as possible so the others would have an easier time. Unfortunately his plan worked a little too well. He was besieged by so many Grimm he was having trouble keeping up. That combined with his over reliance on power over skill meant he got hit. A lot. But he powered through it, banking on his Aura and Conduit healing.

Alex was again on over-watch. He'd eaten a Lightning crystal and was dropping bolts on small clusters of Grimm, mostly focusing on the mouth of the cave. That way, the number of reinforcements the Grimm had was cut down sharply. As he circled the battlefield, he saw his friends going at it and when there was a break in the flow from the cave he would make sure to relieve the pressure on Yang, Blake and Delsin.

After her initial volley, Ilyanna took a moment to watch. The students handled themselves well in her opinion, certainly better than she had when she was their age. With a smile, she jumped back into the fray.

She strode up next to Weiss and loosed a second volley of fireballs, this one twice the size of the first. After it was done she loosed another, and another after that. She'd managed to cut down whole swathes of Grimm, but she was getting a little tired of Fire.

With a smirk she took her hand and placed it on the crystal topping her Staff. As her Aura flared a bit around her hand, she activated her Semblance. A full three seconds later, no more, no less, the bright red crystal had changed into a soft ice blue, her Semblance changing it from a Fire crystal to an Ice crystal.

With her newly shifted staff, she opened fire again, throwing large volleys of ice spikes into the monsters. She felt good as she watched them fall. She was at home on the battlefield, and this was where she shined the most. She could fight close up easily enough, but here in the back she was much more effective.

The fighting continued much in that way for a while, and it seemed to be going quite well. But the monsters just kept coming. No matter how many they killed, and no matter how much Alex throttled their charge, more and more of the mutated Grimm poured out of the cave. Easily over a hundred had fallen, and still there were more.

The extra limbs were a challenge as well. Until now, none of them had ever fought anything with more than four limbs, and while it may not have seemed like much at first, fighting things with six was not an easy feat. Plus the corpses weren't decaying as quickly as usual, making it that much more difficult to maneuver.

Eventually the party started to get pushed back. Weiss was losing control of her Glyphs so she had to turn down the power to keep up containment. As such, Ruby was having to cut down a lot more strays. So many, that Blake had moved in to join her, leaving Yang, Alex and Delsin to deal with the rest.

Yang was faring a little better. Her Semblance was working at full capacity so it only took was one hit to kill most of them. The problem was, landing that one hit was getting more and more difficult. She'd been hit quite a lot, and she was getting tired.

Alex was having problems as well. Given the massive amounts of Grimm he was having to kill, he was not only struggling to keep up, but he had to throttle back his out put to conserve power. He'd only brought a few crystals, leaving the rest in his pack back in his room. That left him with few options for power.

Even Delsin was having problems. His Video Torrent did almost nothing to the beasts and he needed to switch powers, but because of how well he'd managed to draw the beasts to himself, he really didn't have time. His Wingmen didn't even buy him a moment, so he had to stick with his Swords.

In an effort to gain some breathing room he unleashed his newly upgraded Bloodthirsty Blades, appropriately renamed Blade Flurry. Throwing caution to the wind he used up all of his heavy ammo. As the digital blades exploded nearly all of the Grimm in his immediate area exploded with them. In fact, he had made enough room that he caught sight of Yang just as one of the Grimm broke through her Aura.

"Shit, Yang!" he yelled.

His window closing fast, he used his Video Surge and managed to catch her as she fell. He then used another to get away from the Grimm that once again surrounded them. He wasn't as lucky this time. While he managed to get away from them, his legs and feet were sliced by some of the Grimm's claws, and they were rendered basically useless. He could still feel them, but he could only barely move them.

He came out of the horde and landed right next to Ilyanna, Yang still in his arms. Alex and Ruby rushed to his side.

"Yang!" Ruby cried.

"Ruby, she'll be fine, she's just knocked out! Weiss needs your help right now!" Ilyanna yelled.

And it was true. With no one thinning the herd anymore, Weiss was really struggling to keep the Grimm contained.

Alex ruefully left Yang's side to stand next to Weiss, and Ruby jumped back to her duties.

"Let me help," Alex said, raising an arm.

Weiss only managed to groan in reply, the strain of pushing her Aura to its limits starting to take its toll.

Alex raised several Glyphs of his own to assist, and together he and Weiss held back that sea of hate. But they all knew it wouldn't last forever.

"Delsin, you got anymore tricks up your sleeve?" Ilyanna asked over her most recent barrage of icicles.

"One, but I need time for my legs to heal up. Think you can buy me thirty seconds?" he replied.

"I'll try!"

She waved her staff at her feet and raised herself up on a ten foot tall pillar of ice. From there she loosed several volleys of icicles, slicing through over a dozen Grimm. She kept firing and wondered to herself just how many Grimm that there were. They'd all killed at least a hundred total, why were there so many?

Delsin watched as his friends fought, desperately willing his legs to heal faster. After twenty five seconds, his legs were almost healed, but that was when shit really hit the fan.

One of the mutated Grimm managed to break through Weiss and Alex's containment, and was right in front of them when it did. With Ilyanna up high on her ice pillar, and Ruby dealing with other stragglers towards the rear, no one else could get there in time to help them.

Once again, time slowed once more for Delsin, as he watched the terrible tableau unfold before him. He didn't know it, but in that moment, a small pulse went through his Aura.

He switched to his Neon and shot forward. He stopped right between his friends and the Corrupted Grimm and Deployed his latest Neon Power: the Stasis Shield.

A circle of static Neon no more than two and a half feet in diameter sprang up between them and blocked the beast's claws.

"You know, I've had just about enough of you assholes," Delsin said, anger coloring his tone.

He threw his hands up and sent the monster flying back.

"Let's see how you handle this!" he yelled.

He threw out several Stasis Bubbles and as they rose so did he. A grim smile crossed his face as he decided to indulge himself for a moment. He spread his arms wide.

"Radiant Sweep motherfuckers!" he screamed.

With that he unleashed a seemingly unending stream of Neon Beams. In one fell swoop, Delsin cleared out just over half of the Grimm that came out of the cave.

When it was done, Delsin fell to the ground and gave the remaining Grimm a death stare, daring them to come closer. None of them rose to his threat. Instead they ran back into the cave, just as Ilyanna had wanted them to all along.

As his teammates looked at him in mild awe, Ilyanna descended from her perch and called out to them.

"Ok team, that was good work. Take some time to rest up, then we follow them in," she said, maintaining her cool, even though she was also amazed by Delsin's display of power.

Delsin let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. As Ilyanna walked off, Delsin walked over to a nearby tree stump and sat down, resting for the next battle.

CHAPTER END

Ok, so we got to see some of Delsin's new powers. Still have plenty to go, so don't worry. Also, some of you may recall that "Blade Flurry" is actually an Evil Karma upgrade to the Bloodthirsty Blades that Delsin uses. This does not meat that Delsin now has Evil Karma. The Blast Core simply boosted it to that level.

I hope you guys like Ilyanna, she's a personal favorite I pulled from one of my old D&D campaigns, and she was always a hit there. (Yes, I know I am a nerd)

Either way, I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves, and seeing as I now have over fifty followers on this story, I must be doing something right. As always, don't forget to review, it is always great to hear from you guys. I was thinking of opening a forum for this fic, so let me know what you guys think about that.

Also, let me know if you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them, and my inbox is always open. See you next time.