We Hunt at Dawn

The Sun had barely risen over the horizon as Tanner had finished folding the sheets up that he had borrowed from the following night. The house was quiet for the most part except for the sound of snoring coming from the second floor. Tanner did not pay it any mind as he tried his best to keep quiet as he moved through the house without waking his hosts. He walked past the table that he had sat at last night leaving a small note thanking them for their kindness and hospitality. Once he finished leaving the note on table Tanner proceeded to the front door. And as he opened the door a quiet creek erupted from the hinges that held onto the door.

He froze at the door as he waited to hear if he had awoken anyone from their sleep. The house grew even more quiet with the disappearance of the snoring from the second floor. Tanner waited around hoping that everything would come back around. After a few minutes of waiting in the silence, the snoring erupted once again from the upper floor. So with that, he passed through the doorway heading outside into the morning air closing it behind him.

Tanner looked out at the morning sky seeing all the colours blending into each other. He breathed in the crisp morning air and then race into the forest that was close by. The tree's leaves danced in the morning light with the trunk's shadows stretching into each other. Tanner still kept quiet as raced through the forest darting between the trees to keep himself hidden. The forest was vast with paths cut through by wandering travellers or their Grimm hunters. As he got deeper into the forest he stopped in a small area between the trees, looking and listen to find where he needed to go to. Though his silent question was answered as he heard a twig snap from his left side.

Tanner quickly jumped up into the canopy of the tree that was directly in front of him waiting to see what was coming from behind him. He waited silently in the tree for the figure to approach as it did his answer was revealed. Alone Creep came out of the bush almost sniffing the air as it tried to determine where its prey had run off too.

As the Creep was hunting for Tanner, Tanner decided not to hide from it for too long. So with the thought in his head, he reached behind him and once again pulled out Basecutter from their rest on his belt. And as they folded out over his arms he lept out from the tree loosening the ribbon that was wrapped around the blade. But as Tanner did this the Creep looked up towards him but it was already too late. For as looked up Tanner was already falling over the beast with one of his blades aimed down over its neck. Then in a swift motion as if guillotine had been used Tanner landed on the back of the Creep with his blade pierced through its spine. The Creep was thrown onto its stomach as Tanner landed on its back as it began to dissolve.

Tanner dismounted the dissolving Creep and looked around for another that might have still been laying in wait. Once he was sure that there were no others he headed down the left that the Creep had come from. As he proceeded down this path he was interrupted by other Creep coming out of the bush sometimes he caught them off guard. And other times they caught him off guard as the sprang from the bushes around the trees. Though this only helped him to determine which route he was to take.

After a while of running through the forest, he came upon a clearing that was full of Creep wandering around. They were some distance away so they paid him no as they walked around waiting for their chance to hunt their prey.

Tanner hid behind a small outcrop of rocks that gave him a good sight to the hoard but still kept him mostly concealed. But as he did Tanner slowly began to realise how in over his head he was. Ever since their split up Tanner had never dealt with a large gathering of Grimm in a single location by himself. Sure he had fought against Groups of Grimm at times but this different. The number of them was easily in the double digits and they were tightly packed together with a few of them on the outskirts of the group.

As he hid behind the rocks Tanner start to think through his plan of attack. At first, he thought about charging towards the pack in a mad rush to take them off guard. A faint smile crept across his face as he felt the adrenalin creep through his system. His first move would be to generate a large pressure wave to knock half down while he runs toward them. And as he runs towards the Creep he would fire a couple shots from his weapons along with a couple smaller pressure waves.

But as he thought through the plan he quickly realised that if he did that he would soon be overtaken by their sheer numbers alone. Even if he could survive the initial attack from them he would submit to the horde if he didn't have any help from others.

He then thought about drawing them out one at a time by throwing rocks at the Creep leading them towards him. But as he thought through his plan he quickly realised the obvious problem. That as he got closer to the centre of the group he would start to have larger groups of them wandering over to him. That, in turn, would lead to louder fighting that would cause the rest to rush toward him. Leading him to the same issue he wished to avoid.

Tanner slowly started to think up his next plan as he watched the Creep from a distance keeping himself hidden from their senses. As another plan started to take shape inside of his mind he heard a sound from behind him. His mind snapped out of the dream-like trance he was in as all of his attention had shifted to whatever was coming up behind him.

He kept still waiting for the for his unknown attacker to get close to him so that he could strike them. However, he didn't merely wait for his attacker to jump on him. As Tanner kept his sense tuned behind he started to shift his blades into their secondary from revealing the barrels between their blades. Tanner waited for what felt like the last minute before he turned around pointing his barrels to his assailant.

"Hey! where do you think you pointing those things?" Kore quietly asked as she raised her hands in front of her self.

"What are you doing here?" Tanner asked as he lowered his weapons shifting them back into their base state.

"I came out here to find you" Kore quietly answered as she lowered herself behind the outcrop of stones. "What the heck do you think you're doing out here?"

Tanner shifted his gaze from kore and back to the horde of Creep that was still wandering around letting out a silent sigh of relief that they were not spotted yet. "I'm out here to get rid of them," Tanner quietly answered as he pointed towards the Creep "You mentioned that you had a Grimm issue so I figured I take a look into it."

"we didn't ask you to look into it though. there is no reason for you to do this." Kore stated.

"Yeah, you didn't ask but I just thought I would do it," Tanner said as he shrugged his shoulders towards Kore as he saw nothing wrong with it.

Kore let out a sigh of annoyance as she facepalmed herself as she just shook her head from side to side out of annoyance. "Well then do you have a plan?" she asked though given how she was looking at him he knew that it didn't really matter what he said.

Tanner kept quiet for a few minutes as looked towards the Creep and then back towards Kore then quickly looking back towards Creep once more before he spoke up again. "You know what I might actually have one," Tanner cautiously exclaimed, "Though I might need your help with it though."