Chapter 2: Heterochromia
Ruby and the group had landed their Bullhead in a spacious clearing at the southern point of the valley and began walking towards the center of the valley, which, according to the thirty year old map dug out of the archives, is the area where the Vie Verte grow the most plentiful. For the most part it was as everyone expected; lots of walking, moderately dense forestry, professor Port telling a long drawn-out story that no one was actually listening to, and the occasional fight with grim. All in all, it was a walk in the park for the huntsmen and huntresses in training. After about an hour of walking the group decided to take a break in a clearing.
Most of the teams were sitting together, with the exceptions of team CRDL who didn't want to associate with the other teams, Cinder's group saying they prefer to eat alone, and the professors, Ironwood, and his soldiers were talking in the middle of the clearing. Weiss shocked the group revealing that she could cook, revealing from her backpack a lunch container with perfectly cooked turkey slices, vibrant cranberry sauce, and an assorted aromatic vegetable side in it. She was about to start eating, but then stopped to lecture Ruby when she realized she had brought only cookies "Ruby, you dunce, you need to think about nutrition. If you only eat sweets, you won't live long enough to become a huntress." She scolded Ruby.
"But they're so tasty..." Ruby rebutted
"That doesn't matter if you don't eat healthy!" Weiss scolded again.
"Listen you need to eat a proper meal… so here." She said offering some of her lunch to Ruby.
"Thanks Weiss, you're such a good person," Ruby said with a bright smile making Weiss blush.
Yang brought a premade salad from the cafeteria and Blake had prepared three tuna fish sandwiches. Pyrrha was sharing the lunch she "made too much of" with Jaune. Team CFVY was dividing up the custom-made sandwiches Velvet made for each member of her team. Coco made the occasion comment about Velvet being the perfect wife or even asking her to marry her while Velvet would blush and try to act polite as possible in responding to her comments. Team SSSN brought take out from the restaurant "A Simple Wok" on the recommendation of Sun and Neptune. While everyone was eating their lunches they listened to Nora tell a story about one of her exaggerated dream, this time involving a giant squirrel, six hundred pounds of green rock candy, and a wooden back scratcher. Even Ren wasn't sure how to interpret her dream so he remained quiet and ate the rice and curry he had premade earlier that day and enjoyed the cool cross breeze from the wind streams that would get caught in the valley.
Meanwhile on the other side of the clearing the professors were deliberating as to what to do next while two of General Ironwood's soldiers looked over Penny and the rest were making sure the perimeter was secure.
"This is quit peculiar, according to this map we should be up to our respective waists on Vie Verte, and yet we have yet to see even a single one." Stated Doctor Oobleck. "Are we even sure that the mushrooms are even here?" he asked his colleagues.
"There's no doubt that the sample sent to Beacon was one hundred percent real and I don't think someone could have kept a sample that fresh for twenty-five years, but you are right it seems odd that we haven't found a single one yet." Ironwood replied.
"Perhaps we need to…" professor Goodwitch began before shaking and falling to one knee. Acting almost as Goodwitch was a triggering event one by one people began to fall to the ground, some even completely collapsing.
"Poison!?" professors Oobleck and Port exclaimed as they realized what was going on. "There is a poisonous gas in the air, everyone cover your mouths and run!" Dr. Oobleck exclaimed as he too fell to his hands and knees dropping his iconic thermos. The students quickly dropped their food, held their breath, and began carrying or dragging those who had been poisoned to safety. Once they were sure they were a safe distance from the gas Penny confirmed that the air was safe with her "semblance", backed by Ruby, and they took stock of who was poisoned.
"The professors, General Ironwood, all but three of his ten soldiers, Cinder, Emerald, all of team SSSN, and Fox are all showing signs of poisoning" Velvet stated gesturing to the dark purple splotches that were beginning to form on their skin and their shallow breathing.
"Why weren't we affect?" Ruby asked, "We were right next to Sun's team and were even closer to the professors then they were." Weiss added.
"The wind." Ren said, "Shortly before people started collapsing there was a shift in the wind direction that most likely caused it to miss us." He explained.
"Well, now what?" Cardin asked.
Everyone who was able gave him a glare.
"We need to get these guys fixed up." Coco explained, "So I'm going to need your team's help carrying these guys."
"And why should I listen to you?" Cardin asked with his usual smug arrogance.
"Because…" Coco began as she took FIRM hold of Cardin's family jewels, "… if you ever want to have kids I'd recommend you listen to me." Coco said in a calm, but still frightening voice.
"o-ok" Cardin managed to squeeze out as he was on the edge of passing out from the pain.
"Good," she said releasing Cardin as he fell to the ground
"Remind me not to mess with her." Mercury thought out loud.
"I like her style," Yang said within her group, the others responding with a slightly concerned look.
"I need you two to go scout a head and report if the route to the Bullhead is clear, the last thing we need is a fight with this many people out of commission" Coco ordered to two of the three soldiers and they complied.
"Ok, everyone else pick-up as many people as you can carry, we need to hurry, even if our path is safe if we don't we'll be sitting ducks for Grimm." Coco announced to the group.
As Coco was about to carry professor Goodwitch she felt herself being pushed out of the way by Yatsuhashi.
"What the hell Yatsuha…." Coco began before seeing a blood coming from five claw marks descending diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip before falling to his knees. Looking down a Yatsuhashi lying on the ground bleeding Coco noticed purple splotches on the back of his neck. He didn't tell us… Yatsuhashi you always lookout for others, but never yourself. Coco thought to herself looking towards here teammates almost as a means of them to confirm that this was not real. However, as she traced their stares, turning her head towards the source of their shock.
Standing before the group was a creature of Grimm the likes of which none of them had ever seen. At first glance its body resembled a more muscular Beowolf with a much more upright posture, if not for the shape of its legs its appearance would almost be purely humanoid. On its hind legs it stood roughly eight feet tall. Its mask was a more extended version of the normal, what appeared to mimic fangs dripping down the mask lining up perfectly with its actual fangs and the back of the mask extending a flexible boney-mesh down to the base of its neck encircling its head except its cheeks, jaw, and ears. Its left ear was cut in half horizontally and what resembled a scar over its right eye that was red while its left eye was a blueish-purple.
The enraged Coco charged at the unusual Grimm and took a wide swing at it with her case, however it would never connect. As she swung her case towards the Grimm it grabbed her arm with its right claw and in a turning motion tossed her full force through a tree behind it. Naturally this action shock all those who were still conscious. Doing as she was made to do Penny deployed her blades and charged at the beast hoping to strike it with her swords spinning in a wheel only for it again to dodge and even grab the nearly invisible high tension wire she used to control her sword. Taking firm grip of her wires the creature of Grimm before her pulled back on the wire throwing her forward directly into a solid punch knocking her to the ground followed shortly by a melee of furious swipes and slashing claw attacks from its right claw knocking her on her back in her initial positon while still holding Penny's wires in its left claw.
Before it could reel Penny back in Ruby swept in with her speed to try and slash the Grimm with her Crescent Rose only for the monster to take Penny's strings in both claws and hold it up vertically to stop Ruby's horizontal slash before delivering a swift kick to Ruby's stomach knocking her back several feet. As the odd Grimm was about to charge the gasping-for-air Ruby Coco came from behind swinging her case as hard as she could striking the Grimm on the side of its head, sending the monster several feet causing it to drop Penny's wires. Before it could recover Yang began pelting it with a flurry of punches keeping it from gaining composure.
"We can't go at it individually, this … THING is too strong and it's smart, attack him in a group with a coordinated attack, I'll draw its attention!" Coco commanded to the others while transforming her case into a gatling gun signaling Yang to move away.
"This is for Yatsuhashi!" Coco shrieked opening fire on the monster who harmed her friend.
She sprade the area with bullets creating a cloud of dust. Even with everything in her line of sight being eviscerated she noticed that she managed to hit the Grimm's leg even while moving. Seeing this she concentrated her fire on the wounded monster. Initially she meant this to allow her juniors to regroup and get in formation, but hey "when life you a wounded monster and a whole mess of bullets" as Coco might have said. Coco continued to fire until her weapon sounded that it was out of ammo. Normally Coco was more cautious about using up her ammo, a habit she learned after being left in a few dangerous situations where she didn't have a bullet to her name and a swarm of very angry monsters surrounding her. However, in her rage she had forgotten this practice.
Regardless the monster is dead, Yatsuhashi was avenged, and he and the others will be taken to the village and be perfectly fine, she thought to herself.
That was until the dust cloud cleared and revealed what looked like a circular wall of jagged conglomerated shapes made of the bone-like material that protrudes from a Grimm's body.
As Coco, and the rest of the group for that matter, stood there in complete shock the bone-like material retracted and disappeared into the body of the now more bizarre Beowulf revealing that it was completely unharmed. Even the damage Coco's initial shots seemed nonexistent.
As the Grimm charged towards her Coco noticed its left eye turn red, Velvet, Weiss, and Blake intervened with a kick, thrust, and slice, respectively, causing the monster to jump back to avoid the attacks and its left eye returning to its original color. Blake now aware of the creature's ability charged, confident her shadow clones and speed would helper evade its attacks in order to stall for her friends to regroup. Velvet grabbed Coco and Weiss guarded their retreat before going to assist Blake, Yang went to help Ruby carry Penny, team JNPR with Mercury was standing guard over the poisoned, ready to defend if need be, and Team CRDL was standing in place frozen with fear trying to not crap their pants.
"What is this thing?" General Ironwood said to himself. Was this thing what Ozpin was worried about… if only I had listened, he thought to himself looking at Penny being carried by Yang and Ruby, not moving. That thing must have damaged her so badly she need time for a system reboot, and even then she won't make it in time. In testing it was revealed that Penny's system, if it ever sustained tremendous damage, especially to her head, it would take at least twenty minutes to properly reboot. Twenty minutes they did not have, nor, did it seem, would it even help.
"Listen to me, you can't fight that thing, leave us and get out of here!" the general shouted the best he could.
"We can't do that!" Jaune was the first to say "We can't just abandon you like that, that thing will kill you!"
"Just do as your told and run you can't beat it!" the general responded clearly using up most of what little strength he had left.
"We CAN beat this thi-" Jaune began before seeing Blake and Weiss slide across the ground on their backs between Jaune and Ironwood coming to a gentle stop just before they hit a tree. Weiss had been knocked out cold and Blake could barely sit up, however this was not all for her as she saw her signature ribbon float ever so slowly to the ground a few feet in front of her.
"You're a Faunus?" Cardin was the first to shout, though those still conscious and that did not already know her secret were equally as shocked.
Stopping only a yard or so in front of Blake the creature of Grimm even seemed surprised by the unveiling of her cat ears. Before anyone else could say anything team JNPR sprang into action with Jaune and Pyrrha slashing at the creature forcing it to retreat further back creating distance between it and the others, followed by a heavy suppressive fire by Nora's grenade launcher, forcing the Grimm to dodge and creating a thick cloud of pink smoke. Before the odd eyed Grimm could adjust its vision Ren swooped down for a stab/slash attack with his signature Storm Flower, only to have the beast just barely dodge it by stepping back.
Before Ren could fall back the Grimm grabbed him by his arms, looking Ren in the eyes as he, and this time Ruby, noticed its left eye turn red again as the beast was about to crush Ren's skull in its jaw. Before its fangs could even touch him Ren did a high kick to the Grimm's chin causing it to loosen its grip enough for him to break free and back off giving Nora an opening for her signature Magnhild swing into grenade blast combo. Sending the beast flying into a nearby tree.
As the monster jumped down Ruby noticed its left eye had changed back to a blueish-purple.
Seemingly still not fully recovered from the point-blank blast Jaune and Pyrrha began a combination assault shifting between attacking and defending, showing just how much Pyrrha's training sessions were paying off, but still not able to land a solid blow on the monster, only just grazing it from time to time. However, Jaune's lack of experience showed itself yet again as he stepped to far forward allowing the Grimm to get around his extended right arm while Pyrrha was on his left side. With a swift and powerful punch, the creature made contact with Jaune's arm with enough force to not only break his arm if not for his aura, but also send him and Pyrrah flying.
Before the monster could take a step forward it jumped back to avoid the incoming blast from Mercury's boots.
"How about you try fighting me for a bit" Mercury taunted.
Something about this just doesn't add up… the only way this could make sense is if…. OOOOHHHH…. Ruby thought to herself before having an epiphany as to her current situation.
"Stop, we don't need to fight, " Ruby said.
Mercury and the creature continued fighting with Blake, Yang, Velvet, and Coco joining in. Ren and Nora were tending to Jaune and Pyrrha.
"Guys we don't need to fight" Ruby tried to interject. Only to be drowned out by Yang and Mercury unleashing a furry of blast allowing Blake, Velvet, and Coco to try and circle around for a group attack.
"WAAAAIIIITTTT!" Ruby exclaimed at the top of her lungs.
Everyone stopping in their tracks. "He's not a monster, he's a person," she stated.
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" "ARE YOU CRAZY?!" "THAT DOESN'T MAKE SINCE!" Coco, Weiss, and Yang asked/yelled respectively, matching Ruby's initial volume.
"He can understand our language, he reacted to Blake's Faunus ears, and even now he's listening to our conversation." Ruby stated gesturing towards the Grimm that had not moved since she yelled and face now showed the expression of someone who had been called out by a teacher in class when they don't know the answer to their question. This raised the other's brows.
"Admit it you can understand us and you don't want to kill us. Every time you go for the kill you're letting something else takeover, but in between, like right now, you're smart. You're not a monster, you're a person. We mean you no harm". Ruby said collapsing Crescent Rose and setting it down on the ground, began walking towards the monster with her hands up. "We just came here to collect some mushrooms. So can we please just talk things out?" Ruby asked continually advancing as the rest of the group remained silent and the creature of Grimm remained unmoving until she was between her friends and the Grimm.
"…..Yes…"