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Chapter Eight: A Rather Grimm Situation (Part Two)
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Hey guys, pop82 here. As you probably guessed, there's going to be another big action set piece in this chapter, and I wanted to try something new. You see, for the longest time, I've been planning action sequences to the music I listen to (largely power metal with a dash of EDM if you're the curious sort). Now you might be thinking, that's not unusual, lot's of people score their fight scenes, its kind of a thing. To you I respond, yes. Yes it is.
Now, it's actually really hard to write those sequences because of how detailed I get in making them, but I think I'm gonna give it a shot. So from now on, in any chapter with a big action scene where I use this method will have a song title at the front that is the song I used to make it. I strongly recommend you listen to the song while reading the fight, hopefully it will help you see it the way I did.
Some chapters may have more than one, and some songs may be used more than once because that's just how I roll. Any way hope you enjoy, and here's the first one.
First up, we have DragonForce – Tomorrow's Kings
P.S. Spoilers for Volume Four at the end, make sure you're current or don't care.
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They started up again fifteen minutes later. As Delsin stood up, he was grateful he'd had the chance to rest. He felt great. Around him, everyone else was ambling about in various forms awareness. He did a few stretches and warmed up his Neon power. With that done, he was ready for action. As he finished, Ilyanna called out.
"Ok, everybody gather 'round," she called.
Everyone in the clearing walked over to her.
"Alright, time to get moving. Everyone stay close to me, do not get separated. We don't know what all we're gonna find in there," she explained, "We move in two minutes."
Delsin took this time to check himself over and make sure he had everything he brought with him. When his hand went to his left wrist, he was surprised to find that the power switcher he wore wasn't there. He looked around for it, and soon found it over where he'd spent the majority of the battle.
He picked it up and latched it back on his wrist. He wasn't surprised that the tubes weren't broken, they'd been made from polycarbonate glass, which was unbreakable. They had to be to survive what he did on a daily basis. Before he could get to what was really making him curious, he was interrupted.
"Time to go kids, let's move!" Ilyanna called once again.
All of them assembled by the entrance to the cave.
"Uh, ma'am? Quick question?" Alex said.
"Spit it out," she replied.
"Why don't Delsin and I just seal up the cave? It'll stop anymore of these mutated … things from getting out and cut off our problem at the source."
"I wish we could. Even if we do that, that just means the Grimm will be able to grow older and stronger behind the wall. Then if they do break out, or rather when they break out, we'll have an entire horde of hyper intelligent super Grimm ready and waiting to kill everyone around here, rendering this entire region uninhabitable. We have no choice, we've got to go in and put a stop to this," Ilyanna explained.
Alex nodded.
"Ok. Conduit? Do your thing."
Delsin stepped forward and lit up his hand as they walked into the cave. The purple light danced along the cave walls. As Ilyanna had planned, the horde had left a foot trail in the soft dirt floor of the cave. Whenever they reached a branching pathway, which happens a lot in old caves, the trail told them where to go.
After a few minutes, Blake called out.
"Uh, guys?" she asked, "What's that?"
She pointed down the tunnel to a bend. They all looked where her finger was pointing, only to find light was there ahead of them.
"Did we just go in a big circle?" Weiss asked.
"We couldn't have, we've been going straight the whole time," Yang replied.
"That doesn't mean we haven't gotten turned around!"
"Weiss, stop defending an argument you've already lost, it's annoying," Alex interjected with a sigh, "Besides, the color of the light is wrong for outdoors. They way you're going you'd think you couldn't see anything past your own enormous ego."
"Ooh, sweet burn!" Yang cheered.
"Why you insufferable little troll!" Weiss screamed.
"Troll? Is that really the best you can do? Do yourself a favor and use daddy's money to go buy a thesaurus. Maybe then your insults will at least be creative, rather than simply ineffective," Alex retorted angrily.
Yang was eating this up, but Ruby and Blake were backing away, trying to avoid the explosion they felt was coming. Weiss was visibly fuming, too angry to respond, and for reasons unknown, Alex wouldn't back down.
"Alex! Lay off man, you've done enough!" Delsin said, putting his free hand on Alex's shoulder.
Alex visibly untensed, having evidently been preparing for a showdown.
"Fine," he grumbled, embers of rage still in his eyes. He walked forward to the front of the group, as far away from Weiss as he could safely get. Weiss managed regain her composure after a moment or ten, but inside she was still furious.
"Are you done?" Ilyanna asked tersely, somehow managing to look mildly pissed and completely disinterested at the same time.
Alex and Weiss nodded, much to Yang's disappointment. The group continued toward the light and rounded the corner that hid it, only to stop a second time. Suffice it to say, they were at least mildly surprised at what they found.
"Ok, now this? This is cool," Delsin said.
As it turns out, the light was caused by a rather large deposit of Dust crystals, coating the interior of the tunnel from where they stood onward. Embedded in the walls were crystals of every naturally occurring type, and the light was more than enough for Delsin not to have to supply it anymore.
Alex walked over and grabbed one of the crystals. With a little effort, he pulled it free and pocketed it. He grabbed a few more and then sighed in frustration.
"Dang it, I need another Lightning crystal. I used up the one I brought with me," he said.
"Here, give me one," Ilyanna said.
Alex pulled a natural Water crystal off the wall and threw it to her. Ilyanna closed her hands around it and exactly three seconds later, the formerly blue crystal was now a striking yellow. She threw it back to him and everybody but Delsin was surprised.
"How'd you do that?" Weiss asked.
"It's my Semblance. If I concentrate on it for three full seconds, no more, no less, I can shift any one Dust crystal from one type to another," Ilyanna explained.
"That sounds useful," Alex said jokingly.
"It comes in handy," Ilyanna replied.
"May I?" Alex asked, extending a hand.
For a second, Ilyanna didn't know what he meant, but then she remembered what she read n his file.
"Sure," she said, holding out her hand.
Alex took her hand and closed his eyes. Barely noticeable, small rivers of light wrapped around Alex's hand where the two's aura's met. They faded into his skin before they reached his arm, and after a moment, they vanished. Alex then opened his eyes, and for the briefest of moments, they flashed gold before returning to their natural gray.
Ilyanna could feel the power. Where their hands met, she could feel the way her power moved from her then back. If she were to describe it, she would say it was like someone borrowing a book, then hastily returning it after making a poorly made copy.
For his part, Alex could feel when the new power arrived. To him, it was like adding a new set of parts onto a grand machine. He could feel the new gears align, the new plates weld into place, and whenever he needed it, he could just as easily find the power in that machine.
With the transfer complete, they both retracted their hands.
Alex looked at his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and reached out for the new power. It was there, as he knew it was. He smiled and dropped his hand.
"Thank you," he said.
"No problem," Ilyanna replied, some of her cheerful demeanor returning to her for a moment.
Just as quick as it came, her smile left and Ilyanna turned back to the group.
"C'mon, lets keep going."
By the light of the Dust, they continued into the cave.
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After twenty minutes, they arrived at a what appeared to be their destination, as if the massive horde of Grimm weren't enough of a giveaway.
"Well, that's not good," Delsin said.
"Truly, you have a gift for understatement," Ilyanna sighed.
The party surveyed the chamber. It could best be described as a grotto, or a large room in a cave with a great deal of decorative rock formations. The room itself was circular, around seventy feet high, and about 100 feet in diameter. The Dust crystal concentration there was also much higher than it was in the rest of the cave. Almost all of the walls were covered in the elemental crystals, including the ceiling.
"Ok guys, any ideas?" Ilyanna asked.
"Call for backup?" Ruby suggested meekly.
"Much as I'd love to sweetheart, the nearest backup that could handle this amount of Grimm would take days to get here, and we don't have that kinda time. Even if we brought in the Beacon students and faculty, the amount of time it would take to get them all here is about the same. We have to handle this with the people here," Ilyanna replied.
"What if we seal them in here with Earth crystals?" Alex asked.
"Won't work. The second we start using Dust, we make noise, and if we make noise, they hear it, and if they hear it, we won't be able to make a wall thick enough to keep them in before the catch us and kill us."
"Damn," Alex cursed.
"What if we blow up the cave?" Yang pitched.
The group turned and stared at her blankly.
"What, we have more than enough crystals here to do it, and we cut off our problem at the source," she explained.
Ilyanna sighed.
"Well it's not a great idea, but it is a good back up plan. If we can't think of something, that's our fallback option," she said.
They continued like that for a while, each person unsuccessfully coming up with an idea that didn't get them all killed. It wasn't till after five minutes when they realized all of their planning was for naught.
The Grimm had spotted them.
Every single one of the monsters was staring right at them, but for some reason, they weren't moving. Evidently the Grimm's mutation had also increased their sensory abilities. The team stared back, having instantly gone silent. It was a standoff in every sense of the word.
The Grimm were the first to break the stalemate, though not in a way that any of the others in the room could have predicted. A mighty roar came from the back of the cave, and a mutated Alpha Beowolf emerged, though this one's mutation was much more pronounced.
All of the bones visible on it had turned to a faded green-gray color. Small trails of gas of the same color trailed out of it's maw where the mandibles connected the jawline and the teeth. It also had the second arms as well, but the most odd part about the monster was the way it sort of glowed.
It was hard to discern, given the multicolored nature of the light source above them, but once you saw it, you could recognize it. The creature gave off a faint green glow, though this was a much healthier green, like that of fresh grass.
The beast walked forward until it reached the center of the room. When it got there, it let out a roar easily twice as intense as the one that preceded it, one with enough force behind it to actually shake the cave walls.
As it roared, the glow intensified to the point where the party had to avert their eyes. When the glow died down, the seven turned back to find that all of the Grimm but the alpha were dead, though the alpha was still staring at them.
As the corpses of the dead Grimm began to fade, Delsin would swear he saw the monster smirking at them. The black motes that were the corpses of the other Grimm floated to the alpha. First it was like a small flurry, motes floating in small amounts, but after thirteen seconds (Alex actually counted) they began to pick up speed, to the point of becoming a small tornado, obscuring the thing from view.
After a little more than a minute, the motes were gone. Not because they had faded, but because they were now a part of the monster's new titan form.
"Ok, that's really not good," Delsin exclaimed.
"No shit!" Ilyanna shouted.
The monster itself hadn't changed a bit, other than the fact that it was now just over fifty feet tall. It roared at them again, and this time, true fear was on the face of everyone in the chamber. Even Delsin was scared. But, he managed to act anyway.
He quickly summoned his two Wingmen to distract the creature. They wouldn't really hurt it, but it would buy them all time to think. Delsin surveyed his team. As his gaze swept over all six of them, and then back to the Grimm, an idea hit him. He grinned wildly.
He turned to his team.
"Listen up everyone," he said energetically, "I have a plan."
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(A/N: This is where you start the music by the way.)
When the beast finished off the fourth wave of Wingmen it turned back to face the party. The moment it did, Delsin's plan commenced. Weiss had been holding two Time Dilation Glyphs, one beneath Ruby and another beneath Yang, and when she saw the creature turn, Ruby sprang into action.
She shot herself forward with a mix of Semblance and Sniper fire and unleashed a whirlwind of slashes to the beasts midsection, then before the beast could respond, Ruby shot away. Yang followed up immediately after and released a barrage of crushing blows on the monster's head, each emphasized by their own shotgun blast. With the final blow, Yang staggered the huge Grimm and blasted past it.
Alex had since set up a ring of Glyphs circling the chamber. Blake ran along it and as Yang burst past, Blake opened fire with Gambol Shroud, keeping it distracted.
As she made her circles, the rest of Team RWBY unloaded on the beast with bullets and Dust blasts. After their first volley, Delsin used his new Concrete Launch to throw himself onto the beast and shifted to his Neon on the way.
As soon as he made contact, he began Light Dashing all over the beast, leaving Neon restraints wherever he went. The ground teams continued their assault, and Delsin managed to cover most of the monster in restraints. Unfortunately, the Grimm flexed it's arms and broke most of them. Delsin having anticipated this, he switched to his Smoke, dashed in front of it's face, and threw a Sulfur Bomb right into its mouth. Weiss raised a hand and summoned a Glyph, and he used it as a spring board to get back, simultaneously unfurling his chain.
As he made contact, he wrapped his chain around the creature's throat and began to pull, aided by his Conduit Strength. With that, Alex dismissed all of his Glyphs and he and Weiss threw the Glyphs back up all around the cave.
Blake, Ruby and Yang charged into action. Weapons at the ready, they used the Glyphs to catapult themselves around the room, making each launch aim towards the monster. With each pass they attacked it, and with Delsin doing his best to restrain it, the Grimm was almost completely immobilized.
Almost being the operative word.
The beast was very intelligent. Realizing that it couldn't get free, the Grimm backed itself into a wall, and rather than be crushed, Delsin quickly dashed away, and the rest of the team landed, the Glyphs fading.
Even then, Delsin knew they couldn't let up, not even for a second. If they let this behemoth gain any combat momentum, they'd be screwed.
When he dashed away from the monster, he moved to the wall beside him. With Ruby's Semblance and a Lightning crystal in his system, Alex sped to Delsin and grabbed him just in time for them to avoid the beast's massive claws.
Delsin switched to his Water power and used it's most basic ability, Scalding Splash, on the creature's chest. He and Alex exchanged a smirk and the latter threw a lightning bolt at the same spot, electrocuting the beast. As it staggered, Delsin switched back to his Concrete Power and dropped from Alex's grip.
In the air, he started a Boulder Dash and continued to run in circles around the giant Beowolf. He started to throw Concrete Shrapnel at it just to keep pushing the thing's buttons. All in all, they had only just started to actually damage it significantly, but it was a start. His eye quickly caught something and he quickly raised hand to point at something on the roof of the cave.
Ilyanna and Blake immediately caught on and started to steer the Grimm to where Delsin wanted it. By this point the rest of the team had caught on as well.
With more help from Alex and Weiss, Yang and Ruby ran up the walls of the cave till they reached one of the stalactite's positioned right over the spot the Grimm now stood.
Delsin unleashed several of his Concrete Barrages on the monster, and alongside Ilyanna and Blake's help, they successfully moved the beast into position.
With a single swing, Ruby used her scythe to cleave the stalactite from the roof of the cave, and with a mighty blow, Yang sent the thing crashing into the monster's head.
Not missing a beat, Ilyanna sent a wave of fireballs crashing into the debris from the falling stalactite, turning each one into a meteor and because of the angle she used, in addition to harming the beast, the meteor bombardment also ripped off the monstrosity's second set of arms, impaling them both in the wall behind it.
Alex surged forward after they impacted and grabbed the two ladies in the air, Weiss and he having dropped their Glyphs a moment before.
Getting fed up, the Bird Faunus quickly dropped the two ladies off, then immediately flew back onto the Grimm. He grabbed onto the thing's chest and loosed all of the electricity stored in the crystal he consumed.
The thing started spasming, and Weiss had to open a huge Black Glyph to keep it stationary. It only held for a moment, and Alex quickly ran out of lightning, his hair turning back to white. The Grimm managed to shake him loose and he went flying toward the wall to the left of the cave entrance they'd come in, and his Aura shattered from the blow.
Surprisingly, Blake was the one to catch him. She'd been using Gambol Shroud's ribbon to swing around the cave and fire on the monster. Unfortunately, the monster anticipated that and it swiped at them both as they moved back to the entrance.
Luckily, Yang was having none of that. Hair ablaze and bright red eyes, the blonde brawler slammed into the beasts forearm, making it miss.
The huge Grimm was reeling from that attack, and after quickly surveying the damage and seeing the beast was on its last legs, Delsin gave the signal to finish the monster off.
Alex ate an Earth crystal to match what Ilyanna had shifted her staff to, and the team got into position. Weiss released the Black Glyph.
Immediately, Both Ilyanna and Alex unleashed all the earth power they had and sent a giant fist rising from the ground to launch the Grimm into the air.
The four members of team RWBY had stationed themselves along the cave walls near the biggest clusters of Dust crystals. As soon as the monster was in the air, they stretched their Aura's as far as they could and activated all of the crystals in range.
A torrential downpour of fire, water, air, and earth blasted the monster's floating form and sent it crashing back into the ground, flat on it's back. With a final smirk, Delsin switched to his Video power and raised his hands.
"Hellfire Swarm!" he screamed.
From out of nowhere, the Video Angels soared up over the monster's sickly colored bone mask, and descended upon it, exploding on impact.
With that, the beast was dead.
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As soon as they were certain the Grimm was dead, Delsin collapsed. He was still conscious, but he felt very weak and could barely move. The rest of the party didn't fare much better. Everyone but Ilyanna sank along with him, with Ilyanna steadying herself with her staff.
"I cannot believe that worked," Weiss said.
"Me either," Ilyanna said.
"I think it's safe to say that no one thought that would work," Blake said.
"I did!" Delsin said, somewhat muffled by his position on the ground.
"Yes, and by some miracle it actually worked," Ilyanna said.
"I had fun," Alex said with a smile.
"Yeah, it was pretty crazy." Yang said with a smile.
"Thank you!" Delsin replied, managing to turn his head.
After a minute, the party got up, ready to move. Everyone except for Delsin.
"Delsin, you coming?" Ruby asked.
"You know, I would love to, but uh … I uh, … can't actually … you know … move … right now for some reason," he said meekly.
Alex turned and looked over him.
"Huh. That's weird," Alex started, "I guess shifting the nature of your passive Ray Field repeatedly in such a short period of time can cause a bit of trauma on your body. Makes a bit of sense actually, when you think about it."
The rest of the party stared at him slack-jawed, Delsin included.
"What? I'm a science nerd, and I pay attention. Not to mention the fact that my Semblance functions in a really similar manner," Alex responded exasperated.
Ilyanna chuckled.
"Will someone please carry him?" she asked.
Yang walked over and picked him up, carrying him on her back.
"Watch your hands," she said coyly.
Delsin merely groaned.
"Ok, follow me," Ilyanna said.
She turned and started to walk away from the entrance.
"Where are you going?" Ruby asked, "The entrance to the cave is this way."
Ilyanna looked back at Ruby over her shoulder.
"During the fight, I saw a second tunnel hidden behind some of the stalagmites. Our job isn't complete until we check the whole cave, so we need to go investigate."
"Oh."
"C'mon guys, let's check it out."
They walked to the other side of the cave, and just as Ilyanna had said, there was a second tunnel that lead away from the chamber. They walked in and began to investigate the tunnel. They found tracks on the floor again, easily identifiable as those of the Grimm they just killed, but for some reason, all of the footprints led out into the chamber, with absolutely none leading back down this tunnel.
They turned a small corner and found that the tunnel came to an abrupt end. They looked around the final chamber. It was a small room, no bigger than one of the dorms back at Beacon academy. They looked up.
Above them was what appeared to be the source of light for the room, the Dust crystal's having stopped a little bit ago. It was a large black and dark purple crystal that jutted straight down from the ceiling, and pointed at them, much like a spear hanging over someone's head.
"What is that?" Ruby asked.
"Is it Dust?" Blake questioned.
"Not like any I have ever seen," Weiss said.
Ilyanna walked up to it and place a hand on it. Her Aura flared around her palm as she activated her Semblance. Or rather, tried to. Whatever it was, the crystal seemed to fight back, and Ilyanna was pushed away from the feedback.
"Ow," she said, shaking her hand, "If it is Dust, it won't respond to my Semblance. It felt like I was just throwing my Aura into nothing."
"Interesting," Alex said as he approached the crystal, "From what I can guess, it could be a Dust type to complex for your Semblance to handle."
"What kind of Dust would that be?" she asked skeptically.
"I don't know the specifics, but the more times Dust is combined, the less mutable it becomes. That's why we don't have multitype Dust, or anything with influence beyond that of Gravity Dust. Maybe this is a form of Dust that was combined naturally beyond what we can recreate in a lab?" Alex suggested.
"Impossible! Both the Schnee Dust Company and the Kingdom of Atlas have the most advanced technology in the world, and we proved that Dust can only be combined a certain number of times! It's not possible for it to keep going!" Weiss yelled.
"Well it wouldn't be the first time that Atlas was wrong about something that important wouldn't it," Alex replied, surprising amounts of venom in his tone.
If Weiss was going to say something, Alex didn't know or care. He turned away from her and returned to facing the puzzle before him.
"I know of one more way to test if this is Dust or not," he said after a minute.
He walked up to the crystal.
"Ruby, could you cut off a piece for me?" he asked.
The scythe-wielding redhead walked forward, and with a quick slash of Crescent Rose, clipped off a small piece of the crystal. Alex picked it up and opened his mouth.
"Wait, you're going to eat it? Are you crazy?" Delsin asked.
"Well it's that or carve it out of the wall and bring it back to Beacon. Figured we should have some results or something at least," Alex replied.
"Maybe, but be careful. We don't know what this crap even is," Ilyanna said.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Alex asked, "If it is Dust, we just made a huge discovery and we'll likely be rich. If it's not, then I eat a small rock that does nothing. What could go wrong?"
Delsin sighed.
Hearing no further argument, Alex opened his mouth and swallowed the crystal. Ten seconds later, nothing happened.
"Huh, guess it's not Dust after a-" Alex started.
He was cut off by his stomach betraying him. Whatever it was that he ate, it apparently didn't agree with him. Almost immediately after that he vomited, spewing his lunch on the cave floor, the crystal leaving him as well, still perfectly intact.
A few seconds ticked by, and though he felt awful, he managed to get his feet under him.
"Yep, yep, not Dust. Not Dust at all," he said hurriedly.
"I told you!" Weiss exclaimed.
"You ok man?" Delsin asked.
"I'll be fine in a minute," he said groggily, "but we need to break that thing now."
"What? Why? What is it?" Ruby asked.
"It just feels wrong. Evil almost, if you can believe it. Whatever it is, I think this is what's been attracting the Grimm."
"How can you tell?" Blake asked.
"When I ate it. There was no power in the crystal. There was nothing there but darkness, and that is not something I would want anywhere near a populated area. It's hard to explain, and I'm doing a terrible job. Just call it a gut feeling if you will, pun intended," he said.
Yang smiled at the pun, then moved up next to Alex and readied herself.
"So Ilyanna? Should I bust it?" she asked.
Ilyanna considered it for a moment.
"Yeah, go nuts. We'll destroy it and bring a sample back to Beacon for study," she said.
Yang grinned and extended her Ember Celica after handing Delsin over to Alex. Her Semblance still fully charged from earlier, she propelled herself at the crystal and shattered the whole thing in a single blow.
Delsin felt something weird when the crystal shattered. Something he hadn't felt in a long time he knew, but he wasn't sure just what it was. Having regained a bit of his mobility, he moved his hand to his wrist and switched to his Neon power. He began to search the debris as it fell with his Laser Focus.
In the heart of the debris, he saw a small object that was very much off color from the rest of it, and when he saw it, he remembered the sensation. He studied at the object as it fell, noticing that not only was it off color from the big crystal, it was off color for what it was. When normally a light blue, this was the same putrid color as the Corrupted Grimm.
When the debris finished falling, Delsin spoke up.
"Hey Alex, could you bring me over to the broken pieces?"
"Sure man," Alex said.
The bird Faunus brought him to the debris and Delsin rolled out of his grip. Delsin wriggled on his stomach over to the thing he saw.
A Blast Shard.
He reached out and touched the off color shard. He could feel something else in it. It was like the thing was corrupted, just like the Grimm. He ignored the thought and drained the shard. It felt odd at first, but soon the rush of energy hit him and he felt rejuvenated. The thing's glow died almost all the way, but it still maintained that putrid hue. He stood up.
"Ladies and Gentleman, I believe we have found the source of our Grimm problem," Delsin said.
"What's that?" Ruby asked.
"It's called a Blast Shard. It's like a Blast Core, only smaller and weaker."
"So you got new powers?" Yang asked.
"Nah, it takes like five of them to do that, but it did fix me right up," he said.
"So that's the source?" Ilyanna asked skeptically.
"Yeah, probably. The thing's are normally blue. This one's the color of vomit. Not unlike some of the other things we've seen today."
"Works for me. C'mon, let's get back to town. Job's over."
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A few hours later, they were back in Rintah. They all walked into town and immediately went to an inn and spent the night, the mayor having covered the bill. The next morning they went to said mayor's house after a quick breakfast.
The mayor was a man named Weston Galloway Lawson III. He was an older man, about fifty years old, though somehow he didn't look a day over thirty-five. He was about 5'7" with blonde hair and soft blue eyes. He had an air of kindness about him that made it almost impossible not to like him.'
When they came in, he greeted them personally. When they told him the mission was over, he wholeheartedly expressed his gratitude and gave them the reward money for the job. They stayed and chatted for a bit, he was great company. After a while, they left for the airbus station.
"So, I guess this is it," Ilyanna said.
"Guess so. Back to school it is," Ruby said.
"Well, I hope you have fun. I know you guys will make great Huntsman and Huntresses someday. And who knows, maybe we'll meet again," she said.
"Yeah, maybe," Delsin said, "See you around Ilyanna."
"See ya," the Huntress said as she turned and walked away.
Soon after a Bullhead came and picked them up, and they were on their way back to Beacon academy, each carrying a bit of the reward money that Ilyanna split with them.
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In a far off place, other events were unfolding. An old man had just received a report of the occurrence at Rintah. He was unhappy with the results, to say the least, but it was meant to be a trial run anyhow.
He walked into a large hall, resembling a hall one might use for a banquet, only the atmosphere was much darker. Six people were seated there, and the man walked to an open seat and sat down.
The woman at the head of the table called to him.
"How were the results?" the woman asked.
"Not as good as we first hoped," the man said, a deep southern drawl coloring his tone.
"How so?"
"While our new types of Grimm were certainly effective, they were defeated by a group of students from Vale."
"Ozpin. How did he manage it? Most Huntresses or Huntsmen wouldn't be able to handle them, let alone students."
"According to my report, the group of students was accompanied by a Conduit."
The woman seemed vaguely surprised.
"A Conduit? You're sure?" she asked.
"Not yet, but I plan to find out for sure milady. "
The woman looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Dr. Watts, how fares our … guest?"
A man on the other side of the table spoke up.
"He hasn't moved. He's still restrained, and he should be unable to use his abilities," the doctor replied.
"Check him again. If there is a new Conduit here, then he's the one who brought them," the woman said coldly.
"Yes milady."
The doctor walked off to do as instructed.
"Mr. Bertrand," she said.
The man from earlier perked up, his old and ugly face turning to face the woman again.
"Yes milady?"
"Go to that town and investigate. I want to know for sure."
"Yes ma'am."
Joseph Bertrand got up from the table and walked out of the room. In a few hours, the old Conduit would be on his way to Rintah.
CHAPTER END
Boom! Plot bomb! I've been holding onto that one for a while. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy that fight scene, I put a lot of work into finding the right wording for that one. Also happy birthday to me, I got one year older over the weekend! We also passed sixty followers and over four thousand views! Yay!
Anyway, please don't forget to review and follow, I really appreciate the support. See you next week.
