The Beowolf regarded me with red eyes. There was a malicious intellect behind them which sized me up differently now. Maybe it had felt the change in my demeanor as much as I had. Maybe the strength coursing through me was as palpable to everyone else as it was to me.

Or maybe I was crazy and it was considering the fastest way to take me down to hell. But as quickly as it came, the sober thought evaporated because I could hear her voice again.

"Grimm Studies, Unit One," said my invisible savior. "Lesson one."

We stared each other down - the beast and I. I tried to reconcile the soothing voice with the adrenaline building in the pit of my stomach.

"The Beowolf."

The screams had stopped. I felt the uncomfortable sensation of eyes on me. I had thought the worst feeling in the world was when I drew attention through some sort of embarrassment, but I was wrong. The hope and trepidation that filled the faces were much more damning. I don't think I was a victim to them anymore.

In another life, I would have cut quite an image as a matador. I could see Pyrrha in the crowd, clutching at her tote until her fingers turned white and bloodless. There was nothing but worry in those sea-green eyes.

"Observe the Beowolf in its natural habitat, feasting upon the fears of mankind."

The beast howled again.

"The Beowolf is considered amongst the weakest species of Grimm when they're on their own. Any questions before we continue?"

I gulped. I had more questions than I could put to words - some of them about the voice speaking to me and some of them about this thing that stood before me, this thing known as a Beowolf. This thing that had effortlessly destroyed someone was considered weak? There were more?

"Indeed. No one knows for certain how many Grimm there are." I could hear the self-satisfied smirk even if I couldn't see it. "After all, you could not find a world that has survived contact with them."

I froze.

"You're probably wondering why you're standing here."

I was.

"And not with them."

I saw Weiss on the ground, her beauty marred inescapably by something beyond her control. I saw Pyrrha's fear for my wellbeing, for my safety. And I saw Yang, who believed in me, believed in the way my right fist clenched even as my left hung uselessly like an ornament to my heroism.

"Pop quiz," the voice said brightly.

The beast lunged at me. I dove out of the way on instinct and it crashed into the blackboard which had recently been acquainted with my spine.

So much for not ducking. There was a shrill sound in the background - a human voice.

"Don't you see you how terrified they are? They can't even run. Do you think they can fight for themselves?"

Thankfully, the Beowolf didn't turn its attention to the sound.

"Fight for them."

And I could hear the unspoken words. That she wanted me to fight for her as well - to do what she asked. Maybe it was my imagination but I thought she was pleased at this realization, because she continued to give me instruction.

"When a Beowolf fails to overwhelm his little human opponent with his physical strength, he resorts to a base kind of trickery."

I stared at the Beowulf, willing its physical presence to show me what sort of trickery it could be capable of.

"They move really fast."

It slammed into me and while I wasn't quite sent flying by the blow, it was still enough to force me back and I crumpled to the ground. I rolled out of the way of those bone protrusions on the beast's knees and it sank into the wooden floor like a needle into a patient's arm.

"The only way for a novice to survive such an underhanded tactic would be to predict the trajectory of the coming attack by observing its muscle groups."

The Beowolf's hind legs rippled and tensed and I felt a flash of fear. It would pounce soon. But I wasn't scared any more. Knowing what I fought for gave me the power to continue on, even though I was about to feel more pain than I had ever before.

"Guard your neck, my intrepid student."

I threw my good arm in front of my face, much like Weiss had - but with more surety. To my surprise, I could see the Beowolf move now but without her voice to guide me, I still could not have overcome the lethargy in my reactions.

There was a sickening squelch and a stab of sheer agony in my dislocated shoulder.

But I hadn't moved a step.

"Well answered," the voice purred.

And now, there was an irresistible bubble of elation rising from my center - because the sound hadn't come from my tired and broken body.

The Beowolf had been flung away and now it lay on its haunches several steps from me, panting. It howled again, an eerie sound, but unmistakably one of pain.

"Upon taking enough physical punishment, you will begin to observe that a Grimm's mask can crack."

Already, I could see the beginnings of fault lines forming on the stained white bone - little tears in the fabric of its existence.

"Smart boy. But you can't afford to be too proud of what you've done. A wounded Beowolf is just as dangerous as a healthy one, albeit in slightly different ways."

I approached it cautiously and it snapped at me. Its fangs snatched at where my throat had been too close but it pulled back rather than going on the offensive.

Despite dodging first, I flinched anyway but even as I reacted, it moved suddenly and I had to turn quickly to dodge a bone aimed at my midsection. Instead of skewering me, the Beowolf clipped my wounded arm and the sensation brought little white stars to the back of my eyelids as I squeezed them shut in pain.

"That's why you should always endeavor to defeat a Grimm as quickly as possible."

I advanced on the Beowolf again and smashed my fist into its mask. It careened backwards, punch-drunk.

"You won't find any success attacking its mask. That's not where the Grimm can be fought. You need to understand what the Grimm are. In order to exist, it must take the weaknesses of man as much as it preys on them."

I didn't understand.

"Just like you, the Grimm have bodies, even if they lack souls."

And then I did.

The Beowolf swiped at me with its claws but this time I was ready. I ducked under the wild swing and slammed my working elbow into its gut, dropping it to the ground.

I swallowed heavily as I looked down at it. There were little chips and cracks all over that evil mask now. But still, I positioned my foot over the creature's neck. It looked up at me and all I could think was that it looked pitiful. I could almost confuse the hate shining in its eyes for something that touched at my sympathy.

"Those who feel pity for the Grimm will find themselves easy targets. You don't want to be just another number, do you? What will Yang say when little Ruby asks her what happened to Jaune?"

I closed my eyes and bit my lower lip so hard I drew blood, then brought my weight down onto its neck.

I had expected something gruesome to await me, but as I applied pressure, the Beowolf's mask broke into a million pieces with the powdered consistency of ash.

The beast had taken Cardin's life. It vanished into into dark, gray smoke. With it, the Mist which had covered everything like a portent of the impending apocalypse vanished as well.

With my good hand, I gripped my useless shoulder firmly, ignoring the desperate spikes of pain which should have rendered me insensate and pushed against it as surely as I'd ended the Beowolf. There was another pop as my shoulder set back into place and I screamed, long and loud.

I looked up at my 10 am Tuesday-Friday Chem 102 lecture as they stared at me in awe and fear, then back down at the light dusting on the ground which were the only remains of the Beowolf. My lips moved on their own.

"See me after class."

I collapsed onto the ground and knew nothing.

~Fictional~

I woke up with a terrible taste in my mouth.

It smelled like cookies.

"You threw up."

Of course I did.

The face of one Yang Xiao-Long swam into view.

"Did I miss the chem exam?"

I noticed that she had acquired a brittle smile.

"Do you have brain damage?"

I started to nod. "It's quite severe. I think I'm about to die."

"Thank god," Yang said, sounding relieved. "I thought you were possessed!"

"Don't be silly. The first thing someone would do if they possessed Jaune was remove his acid reflux," said someone with the vocal register of a chipmunk.

Ruby Rose was Yang's half-sister and her roommate here at Beacon. Usually, freshmen weren't given a choice of who they lived with for the first year, to promote diversity or something like that like.

Ruby, however, was the living, breathing, cookie-chomping definition of an exception.

She was lying back on her bed, wearing one of her faux-gothic red dresses with too many frills and a pair of thick black compression tights. The TV over the opposite wall to her bed played an obscure mecha anime with nasally foreign voice actors without a hint of subtitles. She was playing Counterstrike on her laptop, which was laid open at an acute angle on her chest. Her arms made awkward shapes as she attempted to use a sniper rifle with her touchpad and play a blitz chess game on her Scroll at the same time.

To top off the image, she was using her face to maneuver mint-chocolate chip cookies from a party-sized pack into her open mouth.

"Call me Olofmeister, boys," she crowed. As the crumbs sprayed faster than the machine-pistol she'd looted from some poor schmuck's body the last round, I came to the realization that I regretted buying the cookies for her.

I didn't bother to ask her who Olofmeister was. Those sorts of questions never turned out well.

Ruby noticed that I was staring and gestured up at the TV. "I'm learning Japanese," she said. The hand flew back onto the touchpad and she roasted someone with a Molotov cocktail.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Omae wa shinderu," she muttered at the screen, burning a terrorist to death as he frantically tried to plant the bomb.

Ruby Rose was sixteen years old and probably had evolutionary markers switched on in her genetic code that would signal the next step for mankind. Her goal in life was to design the fastest formula one car ever. She was doing a double-major in physical chemistry and mechanical engineering. She was so smart that Weiss Schnee found time in her day to talk to her.

In short, Ruby was somehow more normal and well-adjusted than she should have been.

"Why are you learning Japanese?" I asked, completely prepared for a ridiculous story that would end in her insisting that she had to "test her capacity."

"I met with a representative from Honda motors during the job fair last week and he said that being bilingual would have a large impact on the success of any appli- Boom! Headshot!"

Ruby was always proactive about the important things.

"Oops." Ruby looked down at her Scroll. "I just blundered a knight. Perpetual check it is." She sighed. Then her face brightened. "Never mind, the other guy ran out of time," she said, a tad smugly.

Yang punched my bad arm lightly. "Get back on topic, Ruby!"

"What the hell, Yang? That hurt!" I screwed up my face in a dramatic imitation of shock and betrayal.

"Felt like it."

I rolled my eyes at her.

Yang crinkled her nose due to her proximity to me then dug through a closet for a red solo cup. "Go wash up," she decided. "You have no idea how lucky you are. If you'd had anything other than coffee this morning, I wouldn't have carried you back here."

It all came back to me in a rush. My eyes widened and I sprang up and out of Yang's bed.

"The-"

"Relax," Yang said. "No one else in our class got hurt," she said. Her eyes were downcast and she'd acquired my habit of biting my lip.

"Cardin?" I asked, barely believing it.

"Dead," she said, not meeting my eyes. She pulled a t-shirt out of a drawer. "Someone left this here. It's been washed," she said, handing it to me. "We'll talk about it after you've cleaned up."

I accepted the shirt mutely and stood up. There was still a dull ache in my left shoulder but I seemed to be in an acceptable condition. I slid the bathroom door shut and clicked the lock into place with a long sigh.

When I emerged, Ruby had shut off her anime and closed the lid of her laptop. She tossed a stress ball up and down through the air as she nibbled at her cookies almost daintily. Yang was seated at her desk, tapping listlessly at her Scroll.

I pulled myself onto Yang's bed and slid over the covers until I hit the wall with a soft thunk. I caught the faint scent of sweat and alcohol, but it was too comfortable to complain about.

"I'm angry," Ruby said suddenly. She didn't look it. She was still chewing, thankfully with her mouth closed this time.

I frowned, unsure of what to say.

She swallowed. "I had so many plans."

"Didn't we all?" Yang asked, with a touch of sardonic remorse. "I thought this was going to be the best four years of-"

Ruby shook her head emphatically. "No, no." She waved a cookie at Yang. "Obviously we all had plans for our lives and stuff," she said. "I mean for the end of the world."

We both stared at her blankly.

She put down her cookie, a sure indication that she was about to go on a rant. "I had everything planned out. From nuclear winter to alien invasions to zombie attacks," she said, pouting. Ruby paused, gathering her thoughts.

"I guess this is kinda like a zombie apocalypse," she decided. Ruby bounced off of her bed and began to pace. "We need to find a Hummer to hijack and loot a bunch of gas stations on the way down to Florida. We'll raid a gunshop in the Carolinas or Georgia. We should head to a large beach city, either Orlando or Miami, and then commandeer a cruise ship and set sail for-"

"We are not stealing a car," Yang said, rightfully alarmed. I'd known Ruby for long enough to see that she was entirely serious.

Ruby shrugged. "Well, we have Jaune now, and three people aren't going to fit on a motorcycle. If we have a pickup truck, we won't need to sleep out in the open or break into a shady motel. Bad things always happen at motels during zomb-"

"This isn't a zombie apocalypse!" Yang screamed. This was new. Yang was rarely ever exasperated and never at her sister.

"Oh," Ruby said softly. She stopped pacing and sat back down onto her bed, stricken.

"I'm sorry I shouted," Yang amended quickly.

Ruby shook her head. "No, it's fine. You're right, I was getting carried away." She got like this sometimes, usually when she lost at a game or had to email a professor about late work. She turned a pair of stormy gray eyes at me, with the demeanor of a kicked puppy. "We should probably tell Jaune what's going on. He's been out cold for a while."

Yang nodded, relieved that Ruby hadn't shut down and pulled on her headset with the intent of loudly castigating teammates for poor gameplay for the rest of the night.

"Long story short," Yang (a huge fan of short stories) started, "Apocalypse. Now. Except not like the movie."

I figured that was the case. No one said anything for a moment. Yang looked at me expectantly.

"What?" I asked, feeling a little self-conscious.

Yang smiled reassuringly, a practiced habit. "Nothing, just thought you'd react more strongly to it."

I nodded uncomfortably. "Well, I mean. It's not like a cold demon mist appeared in our chem exam and I punched out a creature that was half-man and half-wolf that ripped my roommate's throat out and tore Weiss's face in half!" I ended with a shrill shout. I fought the urge to burst into tears.

"Well," Yang considered. "Yeah. That."

Ruby looked at me with stars in her eyes. "You solved the puzzle?" she asked, excitement brimming in her squeal. "They're weak to martial arts?" Her hands came up into a stance that would have made Mr. Miyagi proud. She initiated mortal combat with invisible ninjas that had used our conversation as a distraction to sneak into Yang's room.

"Hi-yah!" she shouted. "Wha-cha!"

I cast a flat stare at her.

She gave me a sheepish grin and lowered her pair of karate-choppers. "Sorry." Despite herself, Yang cracked a smile that made it feel like everything was going to be alright.

"They call them the Grimm," Yang said. In retrospect, those were the most unsettling words that could have possibly come out of her mouth.

"The Grimm?" I queried, unable to believe that the word was a coincidence.

"The monster things," Yang said. "They're everywhere."

I looked out the window instinctively.

She turned on the TV. Normally at this time on Friday night, Channel Four played a trashy drama about absurdly rich housewives from the middle of Bumfuck, Kansas, but it had been replaced by official text in large, blocky white font on a black screen under the seal of the Department of Homeland Security.

If you saw mist on the ground, you were advised to evacuate the area immediately.

If you were to see any of the unidentified animal species, you were advised to find an enclosed room.

In case of emergency, you were advised to call either 911, 311 or 411.

Some part of me who was still Jaune Arc, normal college student, wondered how much overtime the people on the hotlines were being paid.

"All the channels are like this," Yang said, flipping through them on the remote. True to the word, the same message was displayed on every single station broadcasting.

She turned her attention back to her scroll. "People are uploading a ton of videos on the different species of Grimm," she said. "There's some pretty nasty looking ones and they get pretty big." She turned it towards to me to show me a grainy image of something elephant-like that towered over a bunch of trees.

"What do we do?"

Yang shrugged and I could see a hint of something devious make its way to her violet eyes. "Well, classes are probably cancelled until this mess gets sorted out. So really, anything we feel like doing."

I treated her to the same stare that I usually reserved for Ruby when the girl was being ridiculous.

A wide smile returned. "We're drinking."

And there it was. Proof that not even the apocalypse could stop a handful of college students from heading out to the bar on a Friday night.

On cue, there was a knock.

Yang jumped off of the bed and made a beeline to the door, which she threw open. On the other side was a platinum blonde girl in a bolero jacket with a raw red line running down her face.

Weiss Schnee sauntered into the room with a bottle of top-shelf vodka in each hand, as bold as sin, without a bag to hide her obvious underage drinking in sight.

Somehow, I didn't think the RAs would care.