Hello people! I'm bringing you chapter 13 on this fine day. IT took a little longer than expected, but the quality should be higher now, since I have an editor! Many thanks to Connor Metz for volunteering to read over and edit the chapters before I post them, I owe you man. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter, if you liked it, favorite and follow!
You can contact me with anything at et111thompson or blacklusterheart Alright, enjoy friends.
From the first night on, things were strange for group A. On the very first night the people on guard reported hearing movement from the forest, and even said they could see something moving just past the light cast by the fire. After that Wiess decided that there should be six people on guard at night rather than four.
By the fourth night, people were seriously spooked, especially Nami. Norton had told Wiess that when they had been on night watch she hadn't sensed any auras in the area, meaning whatever this was could suppress it. The other option, it not having one, was scarier, since no known animals alive, Grimm or other, didn't have a sensible aura.
"I'm just saying it would probably be smart if we were to leave this area," Nora placated Wiess as she assembled a hunting party from the members of the team who weren't busy, "We have absolutely no idea what that thing is, and I would rather not fight it at all, let alone on its home turf."
Wiess was vehement. "No, we can't leave the area, the other team is expecting us to be here, and if we move, they might never find us."
Nora was about to protest again when Russel trotted up. Over the course of four days, several paths had been carved into the snow around the camp. "Wiess, we got a problem," Russel looked worried as he spoke. "I just inventoried the food just now, and were missing some, mostly stuff we brought with us."
"Isn't it probably just someone who got a snack at night?" Wiess shrugged it off and turned up the path again.
"Wiess!" Russel called out, and she turned again. "I inventoried it last night and it was all there, than I was on guard less than 10 feet from there all fucking night, until now actually, and there's less now than there was before, also, there are no tracks in the snow, none."
Wiess turned serious. "You think it was whatever's out there at night that took it?"
Russel nodded.
Cursing, Wiess walked into the camp and whistled loudly, calling the attention of everyone not otherwise occupied. "Meeting people, gather everyone here in ten!" She called out.
"What are you planning to do about it?" Yang asked as Wiess cleared the stump of a tree they had felled for a table of fresh snow.
Wiess pursed her lips. "I'm going to kill it." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I just don't see another option, we know that whatever it is is incredibly dangerous, you saw the dead Grimm yourself, and if it gets too comfortable around us it could be a threat, so I'm going to go find it and kill it."
Yang shrugged. "Seems a bit harsh to me, it could have attacked us at any time in what, the last fiveish days?" She looked around the camp. "It's not like were particularly well fortified, it could get in if it wanted."
"I'm aware of that, but I still think that this is our best course of action, so im going to assemble a team and were going to try and find it and put it down."
Yang thought a moment, and then asked a question Weiss hadn't thought about. "How do you plan of finding it, it hasn't left so much as one track since we've got here."
Wiess rubbed her eyes. Leading was harder than she thought it was going to be. She wondered how her father managed it on such a large scale. "We'll bring Nami and have her sniff the damn thing out, I guess." They had recently learned that Nami's sense of smell more than compensated for her eyes. This had led to a rather awkward incident in which Wiess had mandated that they move the latrines away from the camp.
Nami also had memorized the layout of the surrounding land scape, accompanied by Norton, and now they were accustomed to seeing the blind girl running through the camp, often climbing into the trees to get a better taste of the winds.
Yang nodded affirmative, and stepped back into the small crowd that had formed at the stump of the makeshift stage. Wiess mounted it and addressed the group.
"Ok, we all know what's been going on at night, and I've decided to do something about it." The crowd nodded their agreement and she continued. "I'll be taking Nami, Norton, Yang, and one other volunteer to go kill whatever it is."
Yang raised her hand to interject. "I would like Velvet to come along in addition to another fighter," Yang looked over to Velvet who looked more than a little apprehensive about the prospect of going after it. Yang rallied and continued. "She's a really good medic, and I want her in a situation where we don't know anything about our enemy."
"Fine, bring her." Wiess turned to Velvet. "I want you to prep for field combat, sutures and aura fixes especially."
Velvet nodded apprehensively and turned, pushing her way timidly through the small throng of people to gather her things. In her head she cursed Yang for volunteering her for this, but enjoyed the chance to spend some time with Wiess. The girl was smart and sexy, two things Velvet found neigh irresistible. "So!" Wiess continued after Velvet had gone, "Who here can track?" Pyrrha raised her hand and spoke, "Fox can track," she pointed him out and he nodded affirmative. "I've been tracking for years, if it left tracks I'll find them." Fox said coolly. He was always calm, and moved very little, and when he did it was with purpose and intent.
They prepared to leave shortly after noon.
Once in the woods, it took Fox only a minute to establish a trail through the corpse filled woods. Whatever was in there left no tracks that even he could find, but the bodies were in a perimeter, with most of the fresh corpses on the outside, and the majority of the old rotted ones nearer the center of a circle that seemed to stretch for several miles.
The six of them walked silently, Fox in the lead. Occasionally he would stop them to point out some sign of habitation, but other than that they just walked deeper into the woods. There was almost no sound the deeper they got, and it kind of freaked Yang out. Not even a bird call or snow hare could be heard.
Nami was also deeply spooked by the place, and she clung to Norton like her life depended on it. Wiess had checked in with her three times already, but she still hadn't detected any auras. They had been searching for almost three hours in total silence when Fox stopped to examine a tree, motioning them forward.
"I can't believe I didn't see this sooner, look." He pointed to the lower branches in one of the tall pines, tracing a path up its trunk. "See it?" He asked, turning to the group.
They shook their head and he explained. "The tops of these branches are all covered in snow, but look at these, no snow, that's why we haven't been able to track it, even though it lives here, we've been looking in the wrong place, trying to find a needle in a hay stack."
An idea occurred to Yang, "Does that mean we can track it through the trees based on what branches have snow and what don't?" she asked, looking up into the canopy.
Fox nodded, and started to climb, hopping nimbly from branch to branch, following the path that the snowless branches made.
"Nami and I will follow from the ground, she can't climb here yet." Norton called up as they ascended into the trees.
From the trees, it was immediately clear which way to go, an easily visible path of brown branches stood out against the white snow, and within minutes, they had reached their destination, the only place in the entire area with footprints on the ground.
They dropped to the ground, and that's where Nami and Norton found them a moment latter, staring at the tracks in incredulity.
"What are they?" Velvet whispered, her voice practically dripping fear.
"No fucking idea." Wiess replied, the rare use of profanity impressing the gravity of the situation.
Fox knelt to examine the tracks, which were like none other he had seen. The tracks were both Grimm and human, but it was only one set of tracks. They transitioned smoothly from human to beast and back again, sometimes within ten paces.
He shook his head and drew his weapon, following the tracks forward.
They lead to a small hole in the ground, almost completely obscured by snow, and only visible if you knew it was there. Without the tracks they would have never found it.
Yang slid her gauntlets up her arm and released the safety. She pushed ahead of Fox to peer into the hole, adrenaline rushing through her. She could feel little pin pricks on her skin as her body charged its aura, and it washed over her like a warm wave of energy.
She peered over the edge of the hole as Norton, Wiess, and Fox fanned out around it ready to attack. It was dark inside, but she was just able to make out the prone form of a sleeping creature. It wasn't all that big, but it reeked of power; it was something to be feared.
Yang let her eyes adjust and her jaw dropped. It was a girl.
She motioned for Wiess to come up, and she did so silently, squinting at first to see into the dark, but the next second they went wide, and her mouth hung open in a manner that resembled a tropical fish.
"Yang," she whispered as low as humanly possible, "What in the sweet name of Jesus is a teenage girl doing in the middle of fucking nowhere?"
Yang shrugged, there was only one way forward that didn't involve killing a possibly innocent girl in her sleep. She called out to her.
"Hey, wake up!" She called out, scaring Wiess shitless. She jumped back, cursing Yang as the girl darted into action.
In the time it took Yang to blink, the girl was out of the hole and going straight for Fox. She plowed into him, kneeing him in the gut and bringing her elbow into his jaw. He slumped against her, and when she darted away, fell to the ground unconscious.
Wiess was the next target she went for, jumping towards her so fast she didn't even have time to raise her blade before she was sent flying, she hit a tree and fell face first into the snow. She didn't move.
"Run!" Norton yelled at Velvet, who was restraining a confused Nami. She had felt the elevated auras, and knew that Wiess was unconscious with several broken ribs, and that Fox had ruptured a lung and torn most of the muscle off his sternum.
Velvet looked worriedly at Yang and Norton, trying to decide what to do.
"Just run!" Norton screamed as the girl turned to him, shifting her weight back and forth from her bare feet. Velvet grabbed Nami's hand and led her away into the forest, the way they had come. The girl watched them go, then returned her attention to Norton and Yang. Than she did something Yang wouldn't have believed possible had she not seen it. The girl arched her back, and a ripple of grey flowed from the middle of her spine down her back and legs. She got taller, and the next second, they were facing a Grimm. But it wasn't really a Grimm, it had the girl's upper body.
"Oh shit." Norton whispered, raising his rifle to his shoulder. He fired twice, but the creature dodged easily, and before Yang could step in, she heard his ribs snap sickeningly as she crushed him against a tree.
The creature morphed back into a human, if you could call it that, standing over Norton's heaving body. Yang breathed deeply as it turned to her, expecting it to attack immediately, but it didn't; it just stood there regarding her.
Yang didn't know what was going on, but she took advantage of the momentary lull in the fight to shift her positioning, slowly circling the girl, trying to get as much space between them and her unconscious teammates. She put her back to a tree, but the girl still didn't attack. She had taken out Fox, Wiess, and Norton in a matter of seconds, but had left her alone.
'Screw it.' Yang thought, and charged. She put everything she had into her first punch, but the girl just jumped back, dodging without any trouble. Yang pivoted and swung again, but came to an abrupt stop when the girl actually caught her fist, easily wrapping her much smaller hands around Yang's wrist and holding it with a grip like iron.
Yang froze, this was it, she was fucked.
"Blonde."
Yang blanched. She has spoken.
"Blonde" She said again, flicking a strand of Yang's hair with her free hand.
"Blonde" Yang whispered, looking at the face before her.
The girl smiled. "Food." She said, smiling, nodding at Fox's crumpled figure.
"No," Yang exclaimed, trying for all the world to break free, "Friends!"
She shrugged and pushed Yang into the snow, kneeling to examine her. She ran her fingers through Yang's hair, pawed at the gauntlets on her wrists, felt her face and lips, and pushed on her breasts. Yang didn't move a hair, waiting for the girls inspection of her to end.
"Chell." She said, her hand on her chest, smiling down at Yang.
After a moments silence, Yang replied. "I'm Yang."
Chell nodded, and lay down on Yang's chest, curling her small frame against Yang's.
Yang watched Chell nervously as her breathing slowed, and then seemed to cease, coming only every few minutes, like she was in some sort of hibernation.
Yang was in total shock. She had just seen a girl knock first tier warriors out like it was nothing, not to mention that the girl had actually turned into a Grimm, even if only partially. Human and Grimm DNA wert that different, but still, just the concept of a half breed was as hard to fathom as it was to stomach.
Yang sat there in the snow, the strange creature that was Chell asleep on her chest. She could feel Wiess, Fox, and Norton's auras patching them up as they lay unconscious, but all she could do for the time being was wait for something to happen. 'I'm so dead.' She thought, looking up at the grey sky.