Long fangs gleam in the sun's scorching rays, eyes of scarlet glaring down and casting judgement on the assembled, who scramble like ants under its gaze. Mayumi feels her heart leap in her chest as she flies up from the ground, the beastly head slamming its fangs to eject deadly venom straight into the earth where she had been standing. She hears Pixie's laughter screeching out behind her, long flames licking at the edges of her blades. In the trees above her head, Narcissa swung from thin wires that kept her suspended, dipping like a barn swallow through the greenery.
The diamond-shaped head writhes, trapped within the dirt as it tries to tear it's fangs loose. In its lapse of concentration, Mayumi dashes up the nearest tree, running over the plan Pixie has quickly shouted to her, relaying Narcissa's concept in a brilliantly exciting way.
"I want you to fly down it's back, splitting it wide up, and when it turns to retaliate I'll off this here head. Narcissa, she'll work some magic on the other one! Full-proof, sweetheart, full-proof."
Splinters fly as she pushes off of the bark, sword's laxing at the push of a button and wrapping around a branch. She swings, flying through the air swiftly. She twists, her body manueving with a dancer's grace. Her swords run down the snake's back, splitting each scale as if they were black diamonds waiting to be cut into a more beautiful shape. She stares, wide-eyed, into the snapping tendons and ripping muscles that gleamed, dark and slick, just inches below the beads of sweat dripping down her forehead. With a flick, her sword slips from the Grimm's skin.
The air before her dances with glistening droplets of scarlet, glinting rubies that hang suspended in the air, transparent to the light above. The blood rushes to her ears, face flushing as her heart flutters, feet dancing on what she imagines to be the very tips of each scale. Her eyes gleam. Her veins tighten with the rush of endorphins and her body becomes light, as if she were a butterfly, drifting hazily in still air. The brief fragility of the moment shatters, an ear-piercing scream rising into the air.
The viper's head twists, it's jaws peeling open wide as its eyes burn with fury. Mayumi doesn't waste a single beating of her heart. Heat from the King Taijitu's breath washes over her, towering fangs bearing down. She pushes into that heat, swords clashing against the fangs. The metal slides against the bones with a shriek that tears into Mayumi's eardrums. Beneath her, she feels her feet begin to slide in the slick blood pooling in the scales of the creature. She quickly pulls her other sword, and, gritting her teeth, she slashes through the muscle of the exposed gums. The creature jerks it's head back, head flailing with confusion. However, Mayumi slips, scrambling desperately as her footing fails and she tumbles to the ground. The King Taijitu barely takes a moment to settle.
Before Mayumi even has a chance to collect her own bearings, the light dies as the yawning mouth bears down on her. She tenses her body, awaiting the painful snapping of jaws, the piercing of fangs through the soft flesh of her abdomen-
"Hey - oh your name is Mayumi! Right?" a voice interrupts, his voice cracking nervously. The boy Mayumi recognizes as Clover is now serving as a pretty effective barrier between the fangs and her own tender body. She wastes no time to even acknowledge him, instead just pushing herself back and up from the ground, dashing back into the fray. Clover's shields whirr to life, and with a tear, he frees the spinning blades from the deadlock.
"So… do you have a plan?" he asks, rushing to keep up with her.
"No. No, I don't. Pixie has a plan." Mayumi responds.
"Oh. Pixie?"
"My partner. I am supposed to distract the head, although… I fell so I think I ruined the plan." she says quietly, guilt gnawing at her stomach. An idea worms its way into her head and her expression brightens.
"Ah! Shields! I need a boost," she says, slowing for a moment to fall behind. Clover's eyes light up and he nods, kneeling onto the ground and placing one of his shields above his head. Mayumi dashes forwards, leaping. As her feet brush the face of the shield, he pushes up and she flies through the air. The snake writhes, meeting her and the edges of her swords midair.
As Mayumi skids over its forehead and down it's neck, she feels a warm glow of fire and hears Pixie's ecstatic laugh. Tongues of flame reach out and Pixie stands with steam rolling off of her arms. The urumi is clutched in her hands, streaming like ribbons, cracking like a whip above her head.
Pixie stalks forward, moving with villainous urgency. Orange dancers sway at their hips on the metal surface of her weapon, their reflections winking against the large, blue canvasses of her eyes. Within a flash of light, and a loud cry, the creature lurches. A spray of brilliant crimson bursts forth, spinning like circus performers in their hoops of flame. Tigers, teeth bared, coats stained red, jumping for the audience. Pixie lands, flicking her weapon and surveying the group casually. Limply, the head falls behind her, the thick, muscular stump of the neck inches landing in front of her toes. Steam engulfs her, eating the flesh of the snake so quickly that soon Pixie strides confidently over its skeleton. Within seconds, Narcissa zips down from the tree line, landing beside her companion.
"We could have helped you with the other head." Narcissa replies cooly. From the base of the trees Vira emerges like a pale ghost, followed by Cerna and Randy.
"Naaaw, sweetie, I told ya', we had it covered. Didn't we, hun?" Pixie asks Mayumi, her grin slipping across her face like a ruby-colored snake. Mayumi quickly nods.
"Of course, we would have had it done even faster if… I hadn't slipped up." Mayumi says abashed, face flushing with embarrassment. "But… I had help, and so we did good." Mayumi responds in a practiced tone. She liked to imagine herself like the insides of a scroll, though sometimes that was much too complicated. So instead she just became the noise, the click-click of the keys that did what you told them. Click-click. Click-click.
"Pfft, at least you understand your mistake." Pixie murmurs, her sharp gaze disapproving. Mayumi reaches out and wraps her fingers around Pixie's, though the tenderness of her touch is not reciprocated. Mayumi's expression falls, resting at the tops of her shoes.
"Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. You did a lot of good! That airborn sword work was a real unique style-"
Clover doesn't finish his compliment. Mayumi feels Pixie's long nails dig into the skin of her hand. The heat of embarrassment rises up her neck.
"I think we shouldn't be standing around idly, we have relics to find, so me and my partner are going to go find them, if you don't mind." Pixie turns, roughly pulling Mayumi with her. Mayumi sends a last glance back at the rest, waving timidly.
"Thank you Clover!" she mouths, only to be roughly shoved along by Pixie. Narcissa's form quickly falls in line behind Mayumi, and only then does she force herself to look ahead.
"Goddamn males," Pixie murmurs under her breath.
~Scene Break~
Mayumi's eyes can not possibly grow wide enough to take in the ruins. She had seen them from across the clearing, but now that the soles of her brown boots were brushing the rugged stone that crawled out from under her, she couldn't help but be in awe of it's unruly beauty. Perhaps beauty was the wrong way to describe its captivation. No… it's the very fact that this beast, crouching low with bones made of stone and flesh made of tumbling rocks, is so weathered and ancient. Within each crease of it's skin, each tiny, scattered, pebble she could smell a story. Something in the air, she could tell this place had a story that was more beautiful than the grandest of still-standing buildings.
"Oh if only walls could talk," Pixie murmurs, echoing all of Mayumi's jumbled thoughts in one simple phrase. She sends Mayumi a playfully devilish smile. "Eh? Wouldn't that be something?" she says. Mayumi nods, feeling dumb for her lack of reply. She could only stare at the whimsical not-talking walls, pulled along by Pixie's firm arm.
"Hey… sweetie. Wanna pick out the relic?" she says quietly, bumping Mayumi with her elbow. Mayumi snaps into the present, turning her head to follow Pixie's finger. Ahead, there were several aged pillars decorated with creeping moss, hungrily eating the stone. Atop each one a delicately crafted chess piece was settled, several of different shapes and colors. A shimmering metallic one caught her eye, sculpted from gold into the shape of a feminine ruler. Mayumi points.
"I like that pretty gold queen." Mayumi says. Instantly, she's released. Mayumi dashes forwards, fingers wrapping around the queen's figure. She runs her fingers over the little bumps of the crown, proudly clutching it to her chest.
Mayumi glances around her at the other students, careful not to stare too long for fear that she would incite Pixie's anger. Randy and Gabriel were quietly bickering, though eventually they settled on a glinting pawn. Cerna and Clover, the two both solemn and quiet, find their way to a rook. Clover says something smartly, and Mayumi hears his false confidence, but not his words. Cerna nods, reaching out to snag the piece made of marble. Her eyes then rest on the only pair Pixie wouldn't snap at, Narcissa and Vira. Vira glances up with glass eyes, tentative. Narcissa's firm nod serves as a silent signal, and Vira happily grabs the marble bishop.
"They have a pretty white bishop." Mayumi says quietly. Pixie sighs gruffly, blowing thin, pink strands from her eyes.
"Well, the church is for suckers anyways." Pixie says, hands locked behind her head. "Come on, we're done here. Let's head on back." she says. She waves to Narcissa, and without a word passing between the two women, a similar idea flows through them and they turn to head back through the woods.
~Scene Break~
"Next we have team glacier, GLCR…" Ozpin calls out in a hollow voice. He calls each student's name and they approach the stage, and Mayumi recognizes Narcissa and Vira in the assembled students. The large bearish boy from the night in the cafeteria, Cerna, is on Vira's team. This is overshadowed by the other boy who is making his way up onto the stage: Clover! The sound of Ozpin's voice slowly fades from Mayumi's consciousness as her thoughts drift, soft and featherlike. First she thinks of the pocket dimension, but then she thinks of the battlefield where he had saved her and her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
There's a sharp pang in her ribs, and she quickly glances over towards the source.
"Well, you comin' up?" Pixie asks, motioning for Mayumi to trail after her. She gives a tiny nod, following, desperate not to be left behind.
"Why are we going up? What did we do?"
"Our team, Mayumi. They called up our names." Pixie says quietly, whispering low into Mayumi's ears. Pixie's gaze is elsewhere, up on the stage, rather than her conversational partner.
"Oh… oh! Ok!" she says. Pixie is grinning widely, eyes full of devastating joy. As Mayumi carefully steps up the slope of the stairs, she sees two boys instead. She waves, happy to see that they were both familiar faces. She assumed that Pixie knew who they were as well, for why else would she seem so happy to see them? She eagerly stands in line, hanging onto Pixie's arm. Lights flash from the floor of the stage and glean from the large screen displaying the letters of what she assumed to be her team's acronym. As her eyes scan over it, Ozpin's voice rings in her ears.
"Team pomegranate: Mayumi Nise, Gabriel Rialles, and Randy Williams lead by Pixie Istori." he says. A tight squeeze from Pixie and everything falls in place like the letters, blazing with the vibrance of Pixie's hair, on the screen.
PMGR.
~Authors note~
Alright! So there are teams now. I remember writing this part and getting excited to get into more story beats and character interactions. If I can figure out how to post pictures here, I'll post the art I have of the teams in the next chapter! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter 3 It was really fun to write!
Let me know what you guys think, reviews really help me keep writing and I do respond to them! At the moment, I plan to respond to every single one personally. Thank you to all the people still here!
Also, to note: The symbols I had in my documents dictating scene breaks did not appear when I copy pasted them, and I just noticed. That is really embarrassing and made everything feel like one big long scene! That is not how it is supposed to be formatted! I have work tonight, so I will probably go back and insert the symbols, but for now, the scenes are separated by little ~scene breaks~. Thank you for your patience while I figure out the quirks of this site!