"We need to keep it occupied until we have a plan!" Noir yelled over another screeching roar from our impending doom. "Any ideas anyone?"
I looked around at the room, and over to Cherry's team. They kept in position, but I could tell they were ready to scatter at a moment's notice; not a good strategy against a Raptor Grimm.
However, there was one thing very different from the Raptor Grimm depicted in TV documentaries and story books I've seen that stood out very clearly: a bright green gem in its forehead, in the high middle of its telltale white mask. It was the same shade of the green beacon that we were guided to. Not truly paying attention to the coincidence, I pushed that detail aside to focus on the matter at hand.
"I think we have a target, thought." Nero spoke up this time, stepping up beside me.
"Just as well, I was planning to come up with something." I said, working on focusing my Aura. Stress can either be a positive thing for Semblances or negative. It's a catalyst or a force that wastes your energy. We needed to take this Grimm out before it leapt out of the lava pool. That's when things get fatal.
"If you could distract it long enough for it to keep its arms busy and away from its face long enough for me to bound up to it, then sure" He said plainly as he flexed his red claw hands.
"You're saying you're going to get it done on your own?" I asked, worried if this kid had a death wish. "No way, Nero. We need to think this through!"
"Try and stop me then!" With that, he took off, sprinting at top speed to a resting arm. Seeing an approaching threat, the Raptor Grimm spat its trademark firey spit ball his way. Except, it arced over the renegade Faunus and towards the rest of the group.
"Scatter!" I heard Elysia shout, while I merely backpedaled a few steps, instinctively raising my left arm. At this, I heard her yell once more. "Railen!"
I blinked, and finally realized what was happening. Fortunately for me, the ground by my front foot rumbled and quickly rose as a wall to meet the flaming projectile. I looked back to my own partner, Argos, who had his fists in the dark ground and an irritated look on his face.
"I owe you twice now, Argos." I admitted. "Thanks… and sorry."
He nodded before smirking. I turned forward again as the impromptu stone wall fell back into the floor, and activated my Semblance.
Nero's making himself a priority target for the Raptor by approaching him so quickly. I remarked about the most pressing issue I saw in the time-frozen region around me. But he's right on that one point, we need to keep its hands busy and hit that green gem! Looking around, I was very glad to see that there were two other teams here. I don't know how Cherry's team can manage it, but I think Taz and Noir can do their part for this. With that decision done, I took a deep breath and retracted my activated Aura away from my eyes.
"Taz! Cherry!" I called to the two most convenient names from both teams. They both looked to me for directions. "Get to either side of the Raptor! Keep its arms busy while I deal with Nero!"
Looking at the mention Grimm beast, I saw that Nero was already doing his best to dodge the heavy hands' falling and giant claws tearing the space around him. The two teams were running, but the room was too large for them to reach for sufficient ability to distract the Raptor. Nero wouldn't last too long if he kept dodging, but I doubted I could get there in time by running. I had an idea, though.
"Elysia," I caught her attention quickly. "Do you think you can launch me with your Wind Dust towards Nero's position?"
"Can I?" She sounded rather offended at my question, and a gust began to swirl around her. "Just let me know when you need the boost."
"Alright, and Argos," I called for my partner. "Try to keep the other teams' blind spots get protected." He nodded in response. Note to self, I remarked. Ask Headmaster for an easier way to communicate with Argos.
Grrah! A loud, short growl brought my eyes back to the large Raptor Grimm. It's left hand was being laid siege to by Taz and Noir's team. I watched as the four members of that team coordinate by taking turns to draw the concentration of the limb. Cherry's team did a similar thing to distract its right side. However, the Raptor's head was trained on the rapidly approaching Nero.
"Ready when you are!" Elysia shouted, her staff pointing in my direction. I watched as our large opponent's mouth began to swell, a sure sign that— Damn it, you idiot! I cursed Nero's stupid strategy as the Wolf faunus leaped up and towards the dark beast's face, presumably aiming for the jewel in its forehead.
"Now, Elysia!" I yelled, and after a split second I was suddenly propelled at high speeds towards Nero; the Wind Dust mage's timing was perfect as I was about to meet Nero's leaping arc by the time the propulsion would peter out. For the fourth, and what would be the last time for a while, I activated my Semblance.
He's only a few more feet now, I thought, observing the super slowed-down scene. I looked to the other teams in the corners of my eyes; they weren't exactly struggling, but the large arms of even a teen-aged Raptor Grimm can prove to be dangerous on their own. An encounter with an adult Raptor would require a small army. The Raptor's about to spit again, and it's not gonna be pretty for either of us to get hit by it. Even with Aura, we're going to be hurt badly. I need to push us both out of the way pronto. With that, I deactivated my Semblance and let time return to its normal speed as I continued speeding through the air. Within minutes, I managed to catch Nero's foot, but the Raptor's mouth had swollen up and reared its head already.
"What the hell are you—Ack!" I gave Nero no explanation as I pulled his leg back, bringing us to side to side in the momentarily, before kicking his shoulder in order to push us apart. Just in time as well, as the Raptor gave a quick Graah! as is spit out another large fireball, but too small to hit either me or Nero as it passed. I landed second, but was met by a metal-covered punch, which was caught on its grooves by my dagger.
"What the hell was that for?" Nero's eyes burned with anger. His fist was shaking in my hand. "I had that under control myself!"
"If you had kept going with that momentum while the Raptor fired that fireball, you could have been badly hurt." I explained, pushing back his armored fist with my smaller blade. "Even with Aura, you would have been blown back completely. I practically saved your life, man. What, do you have a damn death wish or something?"
"I had it." He responded, his green eyes glaring sharply.
"Doubt it." I countered. "This is a team-oriented mission, hence having all three teams. You can't just go and launch a lone-wolf plan."
"Was… was that a pun?"" Nero pulled his fist back, caught off guard by my last sentence.
"W-what? No, I just—" My dismissal was cut off by Taz and Noir cheering; whatever they were doing it was effective. I could just make out Anora Orabelle following through a downward slash to cut off the beast's left hand and cause the rest of the arm to dissolve. "Listen, we're wasting time here."
"I get that, but I had this under—MOVE!" Nero reciprocated my earlier action by kicking me out of the way of a fireball landing near us. I ended up somersaulting backwards in order to get back to my feet. Nero landed from a light-footed backflip.
"Under control, then?" I taunted, not even faltering from our conversation. "Then what's your grand plan, Nero?"
"You're apparently a famed tactician, aren't you Roame? Don't you have your ways to get around things?" He sneered back. I refused to show him that his statement rocked me. "Shouldn't you have something up your sleeves like you always do?"
"I would have saved my Aura and energy if some fucking idiot didn't just launch himself at a giant hostile monster!"
"I had an idea to strike at its head and you pulled me away!"
"You were about to get knocked out by that fireball if it weren't for me!"
Another collision between the two of us was about to happen until BOOM! a small explosion sounded off of the forehead of the Raptor Grimm. As the smoke cleared, I could see that the green crystal in the white Grimm Mask was indeed cracked. I watched a few small pieces of it fell into the lava pool. Simultaneously, Nero and I turned to see a sweating Elysia lowering her staff before yelling.
"Now is not the time, boys!" With that, she pulled back behind Argos to check something on her staff. Linking that, I realized we still had a decent plan.
"How high can you really leap?" I asked Nero. He seemed genuinely surprised that my words weren't just more antagonisms.
"I'm a Faunus, so pretty high up, I would say." He said plainly. I took that into account before calling to the rest of our group.
"Argos! Elysia! I have a plan!"
On the right side of the Raptor Grimm…
Cherry flipped her red tonfa batons so that the long barrels pointed at the Raptor's hand, peppering it with rounds, one side shot small Dust rounds while the other shot normal pistol rounds. Her Dust firing tonfa currently contained Gravity Dust, which helped to keep the Grimm's hand down for the rest of her team to go to town on. Acacio, the shortest member of the group, dashed back and forth as he slashed at the large Grimm hand with bladed tonfa. He added to the anchoring effort by using his Semblance to grow large thorny vines to wrap around the Raptor's wrist. Raptors had rather long arms, but would deal very deadly strikes at high speeds if not restrained quickly enough; Acacio knew this much.
Cressida was hacking at the monster's wrist, and alternated with Cherry to shoot at the beast's arm with her sword that she would change into a large hand cannon of a pistol. Her partner Jack, whose real name was Dartmouth Natterjack but ad pool. amantly insisted Cherry call him Jack, was the tallest of the group. He would use his Semblance to bound straight onto the Raptor's upper arm, only to slash and shoot with his dual-wield gunblades as he slid down the dark-skinned limb. After a few more minutes of hacking, slashing, and shooting, the right limb followed the fate of the left limb and dissolved.
"What now Rail—oh." Cherry turned to see a tall stone wall with a single person on top: the blonde from Railen's team. Railen himself was peppering the Raptor's face with bullets from looked like his dagger. Cherry took this moment to appreciate the similarity in their weapons.
Railen then turned and yelled for his other teammate, a Wolf faunus with grey hair who started sprinting at full speed toward the other boy. The moment they met, however, the Railen grabbed his teammate alongside him into the air and allowed said teammate to kick off of him. Cherry watched as the Wolf Faunus launched himself high into the air. Cherry heard Railen then shout out, "Elysia, now!"
With that, the blonde girl at the top of the stone wall swirled a metal staff around her before holding it out towards the airborne teammate, and once the airborne Faunus reached his leap's peak, she let out a violent, focused pulse in his direction. It propelled him straight towards the target that all teams immediately saw: the green gem in the middle of the Raptor's forehead.
"Rrraaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" A long, loud yell came from the Wolf Faunus as he pulled an armored claw-hand back and thrusting it forward in a spear-handed strike. The combined momentum of the strike and the Wind Dust propulsion was enough to completely shatter the green crystal, but not destroy it. Railen might now have seen it, but after the blow, the grey haired teammate was now falling into the lava pool due to a complete loos of momentum, which prompted Cherry into action.
Cherry's body shone with a bright pink; she was concentrating her Aura to activate her Semblance. With that done, her body felt like it was on fire! This was a familiar feeling, which she called Bloom. With it, her body's strength, speed and physical resistance was temporarily boosted. She took one powered step and started to run at a near inhuman speed. With on last step, Cherry leaped into the air in front of the Raptor Grimm, over the lava pool, and caught the Wolf Faunus' arm as he fell. They landed on the other side, where Taz's team approached them.
"Thanks for that," The saved boy said, holding out a hand to shake in thanks. "Nero."
"Cherry." She greeted with a smile.
"Argos!" Cherry turned to see Railen holding his shortsword with both hands. His bigger teammate looked to Railen, waiting for a cue of some sort. "Launch me, now!"
With that, another stone wall emerged from under Railen and shot the swordsman into the air towards the Raptor's head, which was still slowly recovering from Nero's attack. The gem, from Cherry could see, was badly cracked, but not fully destroyed. Railen now flew at it, with a much larger, heavier weapon than Nero's metal claw gauntlets.
He held his sword low by his waist to prepare a thrust as he was flung into the air, and upon getting to crystal, Railen gave one, powerful two-handed thrust into the crystal. The broken crystal, upon being stabbed directly in the middle, shone with a bright whitish-green light before exploding, the shockwave sending Railen flying back to the ground. Cherry watched as Taz's entire body sparked with a grey Aura. She watched as the boy literally zoomed off towards the fallen comrade and managed to catch him.
GRRAAAOORRrrrrrrrr The Raptor's loud roar died as the remainder of its body dissolved into nothingness. All three teams cheered in celebration, and watched as green lights came down onto each individual fighter and whoosh they were gone.
Back in Haven… (Railen's POV)
In a green flash, we were back in Haven's Great Hall. Taz's team, Cherry's team, and my own team were stood on the stage in the front of the room. Argos, Noir, and a couple of Cherry's team looked around confused.
"Welcome back, students!" A familiar voice greeted loudly. Turning to see her, I found that it was Professor Artrus, who stood between Rama and Headmaster Watson. "You three are the last group of first-years to pass their initiation mission. Last, but successful nonetheless."
I glared at the crowd as I could hear some of them chuckling at Professor Artrus' statement. I looked around at the audience fully; I could definitely see that it was the other first years who were laughing at us, but the older students seemed to nod and just observe us with modest curiosity.
"With what we observed," Headmaster Watson walked forward with an echoing voice, and it took me a moment to realize they weren't using a microphone. Perhaps they used some sort of Dust enhancement in the air to amplify their voice. "We have deigned that these students have been accepted into Haven Hunter Academy, and will organize their teams as such." Professor Artrus took the lead once more.
"Anora Orabelle, Taz Kitsune, Calliope Brekker, Noir Ignatius." Artrus gestured for the named students to step forward onstage. "You will be known for the next four years as Team OCTN (Octane), lead by Calliope Brekker. We wish you the best of luck in Haven."
"Cherry Maraschino, Acacio Sage, Cressida Bristle, Dartmouth Natterjack," Artrus called, and the last named member winced as she said his full name. Nonetheless, they joined OCTN and stepped forward together. "You will be known for the next four years as team MSCN (Mason), and your leader is Cherry Maraschino. We wish you the best of luck in Haven."
"Argos Hadrix, Nero Banecraw, Railen Roame, Elysia Aurell." As the names were read off, the crowd starting murmuring among each other, with growing intensity after each name. The moment the fourth name was read off, the audience of students below started clamoring with noise. I found myself taking a step back at this, but was surprised moreso to see Elysia and Nero doing the same, wide eyed and apprehensive at the noise. Still, one thing bothered me about the names.
"Aurell?" I asked Elysia, who backed off even more at my question. "As in Aurell Conquest Inc.? Where did 'Ceres' come from?" She gulped, but did not answer. Nero also said nothing when I turned to him. At least I understood why they were talking about me in the crown, but I didn't know what would cause Nero to do so. Argos stood still, but I saw that he had his arms behind his back, hands kept together in shaking fists. What did you do, Argos? I wondered inwardly.
"Students please, silence." Headmaster commanded calmly at the crowd. Immediately, the students below obeyed. Obviously, this man was not to be trifled with when brought to any sort of anger. He then nodded for Artrus to continue.
"Please step forward." She said, calmly. Artrus' eyes pleaded. She looked like she understood our reaction, but we needed to get this over with anyway. After a moment, the four of us tentatively took a few steps forward. I didn't want to look into the crowd, so I just looked straight. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nero and Argos doing the same. "You will be known for the next four years as Team RAEN, with Railen Roame as your leader."
"Tch." I turned my head immediately. Nero had clicked his tongue at me, and I was rather irritated by that. What the hell, are you still mad at me? I tried to throw my thoughts at him in anger. I got us out of there, you better not be complaining.
"We wish you the best of luck as you go through Haven." Artrus finished, before stepping aside and holding a hand out to the three teams on stage. "And that, Haven students, is the last of the initiation. First years will now be escorted to their assigned team rooms. You have the weekend to get comfortable and get to know each other. Classes start on the following Monday morning. Prepare yourselves." With that, the Great Hall's audience cleared out. I looked up to see Kestrel with a timid smile, waving us over to escort to our room. We would definitely have a lot to talk about there.
East Side of Haven City, Industrial Sector, 7:30 PM
"We got rumors of the next heavy Dust shipment coming in the area next week, boss." A man with a grey and black jumpsuit approached a seated figure. "Should we go ahead with it?"
"Of course." A silky female voice answered. Her words were smooth and seductive, but practically oozed tones of mischief. "Why wouldn't we take up such an easy opportunity for more, ah, family funding."
"What if Haven kids get involved, miss?" The henchman asked. He visibly flinched as his boss clicked her tongue Tch! And spun to meet him. She wore a dark brown leather vest over a white top that contoured to exaggerate her modest upper body. The black leather tights that she wore under a short slitted skirt accentuated every curve, from her waist to her runner's calves. She brought up a large, dark blue revolver and pointed it at the henchman, who dared not move. She smirked, as the man had asked quite a stupid question in her opinion.
"Then we teach them exactly why they don't meddle with a Shadow."
(Author's Notes
Alright so, if you haven't noticed, writing action scenes aren't really my strong point. But I do try to make that up with the inclusion of other character's Semblances! Bleh, who am I kidding, even I know this chapter was a bit weak in that respect. Ugh, maybe this'll be a chapter to revise later. As always, however, thanks so much for reading!
Also, the first baddie is revealed! Who is she? What will she do? Is. She. Single? Who knows, y'all will just have to wait. The following is a list (out of extreme thanks) to those who submitted their OCs. The same trend will go on with each new OC character that is properly introduced.
OCs and their Contributers!
Cressida Bristle - ultima-owner
Noir Ignatius - Little-Qrow
Acacio Sage - Vulcan2312
Cherry Maraschino - MysteryAgain
Anora Orabelle - Niar-Muse
Taz Kitsune - Taz-the-monster
Calliope Brekker - Wallflowerpower
Dartmouth Natterjack - Mewisbetterthanyou
Headmaster Ronan Watson - Maebird
Rama Apocrypha - Zabaniya
Kestrel - xxxcidexxx
Legit though, a bountiful amount of love and thanks to all those who submitted an OC for this story. Just because you haven't seen yours, doesn't mean they won't be used!
Also, I put a poll on my profile regarding my stories and what I should do now that summer is here. Please go over and take a look.
AS USUAL, THANKS FOR READING, I APPRECIATE YOU TAKING YOUR TIME TO READ MY STORY. HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!
