Sapphire Pond issued her first real command in the field. She pointed to Professor Belladonna, and placed her on the left flank. She sent Mud to the far right, alone, where he had always insisted he worked best. She and Kale took up the middle, with Robin behind and between them.
The foliage was thick. They pushed forward in relative silence, no vision yielding save the one: Over the bushes, a human arm impaled on a spike. Then the foliage ended, and they saw that there were more spikes, and more pieces to the body. They had stumbled across a natural, flat stone. And whoever had been there before them had decorated with blood.
Sigils and lines marked the boundaries and foci of the ritual. Sapphire had no idea what it meant, so she turned her head to Robin, their resident magician. Robin silently mouthed, "Oh, ha ha, like I know."
Professor Belladonna sheathed her blade and replaced it on her back. She pointed to Sapphire and spun a circle in the air. Sapphire understood. She tapped Kale's shoulder and signaled him and Robin into a perimeter. Mud stood from Concealment and guessed his role with hand signals and a shrug. Sapphire nodded. But she didn't move to her own post. She watched Professor Belladonna, who was inspecting the fruit on a vine.
"Um... Professor?"
"I've seen these symbols before," Belladonna whispered.
"Professor? What's going on?"
"There aren't any Grimm here, and this wasn't done by a human. We should be clear."
Then, louder: "Everyone gather up!"
They each waited for Sapphire to nod to them. It went to her head, but she tried to hide that. She was more interested in Professor Belladonna's knowledge.
"Professor, if Grimm did this, why would they leave the body parts here?"
"Grimm don't eat," Mud noted.
"Grimm don't have rituals, either," Kale noted, "They aren't intelligent. They just act on instinct. A person had to move these parts around. Maybe it's some holdout group from the White Fang?"
"No," Belladonna snapped.
Robin thought through the pieces and tried, "So... A Grimm tore up the person and then a human came by and dragged the parts around? How do we know there were Grimm here at all?"
"We don't," Belladonna admitted.
"So..."
"Because we know there weren't any humans here- no faunus either. Look around you. This person died at night, and not recently. The torso over there has a torch on it. It's turned on, and the Dust battery ejected onto the ground. But why can't we smell any people? Nothing human, no faunus. Just that weird footprint in the mud."
The students heads had been snapping around to each clue she announced. They turned on their heels to find the footprint, and all stood around it, nodding in agreement.
"That's not human."
"-Like, at all."
"And the ritual wasn't done by humans," Blake continued.
"Where are the torches? Where are the fires? Where are the expended Dust cartridges? And see this fruit here?"
They all gathered around it. Sapphire recognized a Ruevine berry.
"Ruevine berries are poisonous," she told everyone.
"Yeah, thanks, I was considering eating it," Kale snarked.
The fruit had turned black like shadow, and the Grimm-like evaporate escaping it was a clear sign of corruption.
Mud poked it with a stick.
"Careful," Robin worried.
Belladonna pointed at it, "So Grimm were definitely here. But where did they-"
Her head snapped up. She reached for the blade on her right shoulder. The students were all relying on their auras to warn them of Grimm, and that hadn't happened. It took them another second to realize that the bugs and birds had all gone quiet.
Everyone brought their weapons to bear a second later, when the feeling crept to their senses. Their aural mastery instructors called it Phantom Dread. The first masters had used it to sense the presence of dust specters. Only later was it trained to feel the presence of Grimm. Sapphire described the feeling as cold, like icy fingertips walking up her spine and flattening against her neck.
Her heart raced. Her first instinct was to wait for Belladonna's orders, but she also knew the instructor was a lonely type, like Mud. Sapphire had the best situational awareness of the group, and sharing it was how she helped. She snapped her fingers and started them into a concave formation. Belladonna grabbed her arm. They all stopped.
The professor still hadn't drawn her primary weapon. Belladonna's hand hovered over Gambol Shroud's hilt, then reached past it and drew the second sword on her back, a ChokutÅ, an ancient straight-blade from the Great War. Sapphire recognized the craftsmanship instantly, when the blade drew. She had never known its significance until now. The blade was crimson. The sheathe doubled as a rifle. And seeing this weapon in its full form, Sapphire finally understood why Professor Belladonna would carry two weapons at all times. Because one was hers- and the other was more personal. This sword and sheathe were Wilt and Bloom. They had been the weapons of the White Fang leader, Adam Taurus.
Blake stood to her full height, her eyes darting around the forest, her focus so intent, it seemed she had forgotten her students. Then she spoke in a low and forceful whisper.
"Robin. Grenade."
She held out a hand. Robin tossed her two. Belladonna caught it and pointed to Sapphire.
"Sapphire, take the map. Take it! Now take your team back through the cave and get to the other side of the mountain range. Signal the Cruiser and tell them you need evacuation."
The group tightened. Their weapons oriented as the feeling intensified. Sapphire felt the threat as imminent. The Grimm were near. The Grimm were here. It was too late to run.
"But..."
"No questions. We're done here. Run."
Everything else happened too quickly to remember. There was a loud crunch. The ruevine berry popped beside them. Professor Belladonna's head swiveled to the sound. She met eyes with Sapphire. She looked down. Her eyes widened.
Belladonna cast a grenade at her own feet. Dirt and stone shrapnel leaped into the air like mist. Sapphire saw what Belladonna had intuited- the shrapnel landing against a shape in thin air- a void where something invisible was standing. The dirt settled over a Grimm. It stood four meters tall. Its eyes overlapped in ways that turned the stomach and challenged physics. Its mouths gnashed and sang, one voice soft and clear as if speaking a language, the other growling and inhuman.
Sapphire ran. She let fear guide her. Robin and Mud were at her side, and Kale was close behind. Belladonna was everywhere else. She heard the professor's battle cries traversing the trees and the air at whim. She heard the instruction to keep running.
She didn't look back until the cave swallowed the light. And what she saw there was the very end of her courage.
Belladonna fell with a thud. She landed on her back, stunned, and with her last motion, cast another grenade into the tunnel. Sapphire was jerked back by her collar, by Mud's quick thinking. And then there was darkness. Sapphire scrambled for her shoulder torch, and lit the stones before her.
"She's trapped," she realized, "Professor Belladonna... How is she going to escape?"
Kale placed a hand on Sapphire's shoulder.
"She isn't."
It was not a steady or matter-of-fact tone. Mud, though quiet, was crying. Robin was watching him, too downcast to offer any comfort. She sat and cradled her head.
Mud wiped tears and sweat from his face. Sapphire heard scratching outside, and the howling of beasts. It may have taken an hour to accept, but there was no reason for them to stay. They were waiting for a miracle, or an order. Sapphire steadied her voice.
"She ordered us to retreat. Everyone get up. We double-time back to the fields and try to hail the cruiser."
They took the Dust tunnel, quietly, huffing and panting as they turned a five-hour walk into an hour's run. In Odessa's fields, they alternated between watching the sun set and waiting for a signal. Their message was brief.
Sapphire held her scroll to her mouth. Her team was watching her.
"Hello? This is Professor Belladonna's party from Beacon Academy. We... We need help."
Static responded. Their last resort was a distress flare. It pulsed bright and loud, high in the night sky. They were alone.
Sapphire organized the watch schedule. She received no sass. Her team was too exhausted. They were all short on sleep and had spent all their emotions on fear and sorrow. She did not sleep. She couldn't. She laid Professor Belladonna's map out near the fire and studied the Professor's notes. She knew her team didn't have supplies for a walk back to civilization. So had the Professor. She'd made a black circle on the village of Odessa and scribbled, "Last resort. Supplies. Slavers."
It was the same direction that their camp mates had set out on the previous night. She folded the map and tied it with the black, silk bow that Professor Belladonna had left on it. On a second thought, she bound the map with her spare shoelace, and tied the bow onto her arm.