Dark Rose
Chapter 5: The Temple
"Whoa! What was that?" Jett asked, astonished. Miranda sighed, and dusted off her shoulders. "It's my Semblance, Kinetic Retribution." she explained, looking up at the sky. "That is sooooo cool!" Jett exclaimed. She scoffs. "It's nothing to be worked up about. People here have way better Semblances." The sound of gunfire, screaming teens, and roaring Grimm cut across the sky. "Let's find that temple, Princess." Jett stated.
...
"There it is!" Jett exclaimed pointing into the distance. About a mile ahead, through the trees, you could make out a half-destroyed dias in the middle of a clearing with pedestals ringed in a half-moon shape with some sort of an object on them. They were too far away to see the objects on the pedestals. "Miss us?" a voice behind them asked. Jett turned his head, and saw Eccon and Matilda behind them. Matilda had a worried look on her face when Jett looked at her. "Are you...better now, Jett?" she asked nervously. Jett gave her a wide smile. "All good! Got to kill some Grimm, and ran into an old aquaitance." Jett said, motioning towards Miranda. Matilda just now noticed that there was another girl next to Jett. Matilda broke into a huge grin, and ran up and hugged Miranda as hard as she could. "Partner!" Partner!? Miranda sighed. "Please let go of me, Crete." Miranda asked calmly. Matilda let go of her, and took a step back, still beaming. "You two were already partners?" Eccon asked, giving this new girl a skeptical look. "Yeah! She was the first person I locked eyes with when we got here. Remeber the rules?" Matilda finished. Eccon and Jett looked at each other, and laughed. "What?" Jett waved her down. "Don't worry about it. Let's just get to this temple."
The group walked up to the outside of the dias. From here, Jett could tell that several of the artifacts were gone. In fact, there were only four left; just enough for one more team. The artifacts were...chess pieces? There's four duplicates of a silver King left on the pedestals. More explosions and gunfire resounded in the distance. "We'd better grab the artifacts, and go help out." Jett stated. He walked up to the closet piece, and picked it up, stashing it in his back pocket. The rest of them did the same. More noises coming over the treeline, and they sounded like they were getting closer. "Everyone got one?" Jett asked, turning to the group. They silently nodded, and headed for the noise.
The team barely stepped outside of the dias when a scream to their right caught their attention, and a yellow figure came screaming from the distance, followed by a huge Deathstalker on his tail. "Help!" The young man screamed, narrowly dodging a blow from the creature. "Get behind us!" Jett barked, readying his weapon. The blonde boy gulped, but nodded, and scrambled behind the team. The rest of them dropped into a defensive stance. Matilda threw her swords together, and combined them into a bastard greatsword. She dashed forward first, and swung at the creature's face. The sword clanged off the Deathstalker's shell harmlessly. The creature reared up, and thrust it's pincer at Matilda. *Ting* Miranda jumped in front of her, and reflected the blow with the back of her gauntlet, throwing the beast off balance.
"Eccon!" Miranda shouted. Eccon, casting a suddenly serious look, dashed through the empty space between him and the Deathstalker, both hands gripping his polearm. The Grimm roared and stabbed at the approaching Faunus with it's stinger. Eccon dodged left, then right, then jumped into the air, bringing the blade of his polearm down over his head in an arc. The Grimm roared again, and brought up it's left pincer to block the blow. Eccon grinned, and, at the last second before connecting his blow, he changed his polearm into a shotgun in a flash moving of machinery. "Eat lead!" he exclaimed. He pulled the trigger, and fired down into the pincer, punching a hole though the Grimm's appendage. Eccon used the kickback from the shotgun to vault over the Deathstalker's head, transforming his shotgun back into a polearm. *Slice* Eccon used his forward momentum to cut through the creature's stinger. "Heads up, Jett!" Eccon exclaimed, landing on the opposite side of the Grimm.
Jett closed his eyes, and time slowed down once more. He knew what he had to do. Using his guns, he shot at the slowly moving Deathstalker, so that it would be focused on him when he resumes time. Sprinting as fast as he can, Jett closed the gap between him and the Deathstalker. Using the creature's right pincer, he spingboarded past the suspended stinger, landing on the Grimm's upright tail. He bounced off, and kicked the stinger as hard as Aura-powered muscles could, detatching it and sending it forward towards Miranda. Jett resumed time. "Miranda! Heads up!" Jett shouted, teleporting off to a safe distance.
The Deathstalker, noticing that Jett shot at it, started to give the boy chase. Miranda threw her fists together, and looked up: her eyes blazed the emerald green from earlier. Her Aura kicked up into high gear as well, causing her to explode in a font of green energy. She dashed forward, grabbing the stinger flying in her direction, dragging it along with her. The Deathstalker, now heard a different noise, and turned in time to see Miranda charging at it. The creature hissed, and swiped a pincer at her. "No you don't!" Eccon exclaimed, deflecting the blow with his weapon. Eccon gave Jett a look. Jett nodded in response, and changed his guns back into swords. The two supported Miranda as she pushed forward towards the Deathstalker at a break-neck pace.
"Together!" Jett shouted. The boys forced the Grimm's pincers down against the ground as Miranda advanced. "Take this, damn you!" Miranda screamed, eyes set ablaze in green fire. She punched the back of the singer with the all of the stored power that she had taken from the earlier blow, forcing the stinger between the Grimm's many eyes. She continued her assault, punching the stinger over and over again, letting out all her anger on the Deathstalker with her fists. After several minutes, she stopped and let her arms hang by her sides; the Deathstalker had stopped moving a little while ago.
As suddenly as it had started, the encounter was over, and silence had overtaken the forest. Not even the sounds of fighting from before could be heard. Then it suddenly dawned on Jett: 4 first-years took out a Deathstalker on our own! Jett thrust his fist into the air, and started cheering. The action startled his other teammates, who thought that they were under attack again. After they saw it was just Jett, the team relaxed. "What's up?" Eccon asked. "Do you not realize what we just did?" Jett asked incredulously. Matilda stood up. "No, what?" Jett pointed back to the dissolving Deathstalker. "We took on a Deathstalker on our own! Us! First-years! In our entrance exam!" Jett exclaimed. The team still looked confused, but it slowly dawned on them what Jett was talking about. And each one of them dropped their confused looks for one of amazement. "We did!" Eccon cheered. "Not bad." Miranda added. Matilda frowned. "At least you did more than me.." she whined. Jett walked over to his sister, and put an arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry about it, sis. There's always next time." Jett laughed. The three teenagers stood their laughing, while Miranda stood off to the side, smiling. "Hey, where'd the blonde boy go?" Matilda asked, looking around. She spotted two groups of students climbing up the side of the cliff. "Probably going to the same place we should be going." Jett chuckled. "C'mon, let's go."