As the weekend rolled along, and Perci still being unable to leave Beacon, with Leila and Hue not wanting to leave her behind, team ACMM decided to go out to town on their own, to have a day of fun. Ash, Melody, Copper and Undine walked the streets of Vale, chatting amongst one another while searching for a proper place to eat a good meal.

Ash, so far, was calm and confident. Her leadership skilled even surprised her, to a degree, and her laid back attitude shifted to a degree to show it. Now, she stood as someone proud to call herself a team leader, though her posture was still slumped, and her eyes still had the weary look of one wanting to sleep all day. "Mmm... Gotta say gals, day sure is fine, eh?"

"It's so beautiful outside..." Melody mused, and the rest listened in, as if waiting for her to burst into song, like she usually did when she was in a cheerful mood. When she realized she was being watched, her cheeks puffed and changed to a pretty shade of red, looking to the side slightly embarrassed. "W-What are you looking at?..."

"Oh, nothin' much." Ash chuckled slightly, her chill yet cocky look only making Melody step back a bit. "Just waitin'."

"Yyyyyup." Undine joined in, giggling with her eyes closed, leaving a large grin on her face. "So! What's it gonna be today? A sonnet? A hymn? Come on Mel, surprise us~" Ash joined Undine's small taunt, both of them laughing loudly at the obvious tease, though Melody's expression only became more and more flustered with each so-called request.

Melody shook her head, trying to push out her own cowardice, and upon mustering enough courage, she finally opened her mouth. "W-Well... How about you, uh, um..." She tried thinking of some witty comeback to Ash and Undine, and upon realizing nothing was going to pop into her head, she cried, her shoulder slumping a bit backward. "Fine... You win I guess..."

She then felt the touch of a familiar hand, as Ash pat her shoulder, waving her head. "Nah, don't worry about it. It's just some friendly teasin', right Cop?" She tried inviting Copper into the conversation, who so far walked by their side as quiet as ever, only getting a single, cold nod from the short girl. "Eh, I guess not everyone likes this sort of jokes..." She gave a small rustle, shrugging. "Now, where to eat?..." She looked around, searching for a proper restaurant to spend her weekly allowance from Beacon in.

Luckily for the team, none of them had any abstains from eating meat or anything of the sort, all of them deciding at last on a modest looking cafe that caught Undine's eye, having a sign on fish in the entrance. Each of them took her seat, ordering whatever food they wanted, Undine going for a salmon, Melody taking some spaghetti, Ash fancying a good old steak, and Copper taking a glass of juice.

"What, aren't you hungry?" Ash asked her, voice showing concern. "Copper, I barely see you eat, if at all. Is something up?" It wasn't out of the question to Ash. She saw people who, because of mental distress, simply refused to eat anything at all, and seeing as Copper stroke some of the characteristics with Ash, she couldn't help but ask.

"I am fine," Copper replied calmly. "I am simply not hungry at the moment. I will eat later on, when I am."

Ash didn't fully buy it, but it was better than nothing. At the very least, Copper didn't try to actively say she doesn't want to eat whatsoever. "Alright, fine. But I'm watchin' you do." She gave Copper a stern glare. "You know what they say, a sound soul in a sound body. I don't want you collapsing in the middle of a fight because of dehydration or starvation, got it?"

Copper simply bowed in response. "Affirmative." She complied, and Ash, satisfied for now with her response, resumed the small talk with the other girls, waiting for their food to arrive. "So, anyway... We're almost at the end of the first semester, eh? Let's try something fun..." She smirked, both Undine and Melody looked at one another slightly confused at what she had in mind. "Crushes. Who has 'em?"

The moment she asked, Melody's face turned bright red, Undine just as much. "N-No one..." Undine spoke first, trying to get clean as soon as she could. In truth, beyond the usual suspects of good looking boys, she couldn't honestly say she had any crushes in particular.

Melody, on the other hand, stuttered heavily every time she tried to speak. Ash, catching her red-handed, suddenly placed her hands on the table, leaning in and looking directly into Melody's jade orbs with her brown eyes, uttering three simple words. "Who. Is. It?" Melody could only shake her head. The LAST thing she wanted to do was admit it like that in front of her team, the embarrassment taking over her quite easily.

"Uh, come on, Mel, we're all curious. Hell, even C is definitely curious, right?" She asked, Copper nodding once to her question. "See? Now, Mel... Spill the beans." She kept pushing her teammate, both Ash and Undine doing a magnificent job of pushing Melody into a corner.

At last, Melody caved in. She was never one to handle peer pressure well, and with both her friends demanding, she finally opened her mouth to answer. "I-It's... Perci. It's Perci, alright?" Her blush was dark, and she couldn't look anyone in the eye. Ash and Undine went quiet, and leaned back, both looking at one another with worry.

"Mel... You know how it would end, right?" Ash asked her, Melody nodding with a sigh.

"I know, I know... I just can't help it. Every time I see her in the combat lesson... I just can't help it. She's just so... bad..." She whimpered, not knowing how her teammates would react to it. Of course, her mind was still in control of her actions. She knew quite well that it was a bad idea, trying to date such a person. She knew, from what everyone around her told her, to every media trope she had ever seen, that it would end in disaster. But at the end of the day... This is what her heart told her.

Ash was the first to speak, after a few minutes of awkward silence. Not wanting to let it linger for much longer, she nodded once, trying to tap into her leader self for the occasion. "Alright, the Mel... I'm gonna say this as a team leader now." She spun in place, her entire body in her teammate's direction. "Unless Perci shows some actual progress, I don't want you to try anything, alright? Trust me, I've seen the temptation before." Seeing Melody sigh in agreement, as if her dreams were shut down, Ash put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not asking you to forget about it altogether. Just... Put it on hold for now, okay? Let's see if she really IS capable of change, and once you do, you have my permission to do whatever you want."

"Y-Yeah." Melody agreed. At the very least, she could agree to such a condition. While some parts of her still wanted to try something out and see where it went, Ash's words managed to pull her towards what she knew was right. She looked up, Ash being taller than her, feeling a wave of admiration for the detective.

Finally, the food arrived for the hungry team, plates filled to the brim with excellently smelling foods filling up their tables. Undine was the first to dig in, not even bothering to waste time on saying anything. She took her fork and knife, cutting parts of the fish, the salmon almost melting in her mouth, as she gasped at the incredible taste. Ash and Melody joined in, Copper drinking her ice tea in the background, watching her teammates slurp on the food with glee.

As the three of them ate, Copper couldn't help but notice a man staring at them from a table away. He was old, much older than them by far, wearing a worn out, dusty looking coat. She nudged Ash's shoulder, turning her attention to the suspected stalker. "Ash, a man has been staring at us for the past twenty minutes from five tables away, pretending to read a newspaper. Should I do something?"

It took her one glance to recognize the figure, making Ash gasp lightly, and immediately drop her utensils, getting up and walking to the man. "Dad? What are you doin' here?"

The man dropped his newspaper, to show his face, easily over his fifties. He glanced at her with a grin, leaning back in his chair, sipping on a cold cup of coffee. "What. Can't your old man get some drinks here and there? Sides, you look busy." She pointed to the rest of them, Melody blushing and looking away, Undine actually getting up and walking to the man.

"Oi, old geezer. You better not be doin' anythin' to my team leader here, are ya?" She tried to sound threatening, but the Ash's father showed no signs of intimidation, even more laid back then his child.

"Sheesh kiddo... I knew you were gonna get some profiles on your team, but ain't that a bit too much?" he asked her, Ash looking at Undine and tugging her by the shoulder, shaking her head. She then called the rest of her team to her side, and with all of them present, she finally gave the man a proper introduction.

"Girls... This is Clint Noir. My dad." She grinned, pride beaming in her eyes. "And... My mentor. Taught me everything he knows." She pointed to herself with her thumb, smiling with her eyes closed, and puffing her chest with pride.

Clint could only give a slight chuckle. "Not everything." He shot her down from her high horse, Melody, and Undine giving a light chuckle. "Not yet, anyway. Still got a lot to go, kiddo."

"Whatever, dad." She put her tongue out, playfully teasing him, and the two of them shared a hearty laugh, that to anyone from the outside would have sounded almost one to one similar. Once the laugh was well and done, and the other three seemed to feel more comfortable around her father, she finally realized something, turning to him. "Hey, dad... You got a case? You don't usually leave the office unless you do."

"Right on the money." He nodded, and at the sound of being able to help him just like she did before Beacon, Ash sat down, her tone growing more excited, yet serious. "Alright, then. What is it? We'll help you out, won't we team?" She turned to her team, signifying her leadership, each of them bobbing their heads, pretending they had the choice in the matter.

Clint took one glance at the group, and before long, nodded in agreement. "Alright, then. Actually, you four might just be what I need. This case is a bit... Outside, of my usual range of work, especially for a normal man like myself." he admitted, and Ash raised a brow.

"You took huntsman work? Since when do you do that?" She honestly couldn't believe her father would do such a thing. The man never had the affinity for aura and semblances, believing them to be over the top and unneeded in the simple life he planned to lead.

"Since the work doesn't involve Huntsman business, and the pay should cover the bills for a long, long while." He pulled out a file from his own coat, letting it fall to the table, as images of a beowulf slid out, roaming what seemed like the streets of Vale. The team gasped in shock.

"Is that?..." Ash asked, Clint nodding in confirmation.

"Couldn't believe it myself at first, I'll admit." He explained the four. "Guy comes into my office, says he saw grimm in the city. Says the police won't believe him, and he's willing to pay handsomely for me to try and help deal with the situation. Go out, set up stakeout where he said he saw the beast, and before I know it, one of the doors of a storage unit opens up, and this thing pops out, running and dying shortly after, seemingly too weak to survive for long. And, well..." He moves a bit in his seat, his bones making an audible sound as he picked up the images and packed them back in his coat. "I ain't as young as I used to be."

Ash and her team exchanged some glances with one another. They expected some guy cheating on his girl, or some petty theft, but this? It was far too alarming for any of them to just ignore. On top of it, Ash couldn't let her old man get involved like this without any aura or semblance to back him up. She looked into his eyes, determination filling her up. Undine, Copper, and Melody, likewise, sat closer, leaning in as if to keep the secret going.

"Then get me the address and hard copies of those photos, dad. Cause team Arcanum is on the case!"

About a few hours later, at dusk, the team gathered near the spot Clint guided them towards. Her scroll filled with all the info she needed, and her coat containing a similar file with printed data, Ash led her team to the spot her father set up in. Recognizing it by the littered bottles of water and snacks, Ash set up a small binocular, pulling out some food for water for the wait. She then instructed her team to lay down, each of them taking position next to her, Ash slowly peering towards the warehouse.

"So... What now?" Undine asked her, about a minute later. Out of the four of them, her attention span was the lowest, and she was bored out of her skull almost right away.

"Now... We wait." Ash resumed her silent gazing, Undine quickly losing her temper and wanting to get up, Ash stopping her before she could. "You'll blow our cover. We can't be seen. And keep your voice down." She instructed, Undine doing her best to stay quiet, but alas, her slightly hyperactive nature got the best of her, and she found herself staring at the darkening skies instead of their objective. The moon slowly came up, shining upon the area with its eerie light, as Undine wondered what Hue found in the celestial body, for as pretty as it was.

Time felt like it was grinding to a halt. Out of the entire team, Melody and Undine were already laying next to one another, while Copper and Ash silently watched from their secluded vantage point. So far, nothing was happening, and the two of them exchanged some small talk to pass the time. As for Ash, her experience in the field let her keep her cool for far longer, and Copper, on her side, seemed to have as much resilience as she had about being patient, if not more.

"So, Copper." Ash decided to take the chance to talk to the silent one, turning her attention away from the stakeout for a brief while. "How come you can stay around like this? I've been doing stakeouts for years, and you don't even flinch at the boredom."

Copper spun her head to her, shaking her head. "...My semblance allows me to negate emotions. It is passive, and thus, I am left rather blank-eyed around others. I do not feel boredom." She explained, Ash nodding her head, though hints of sadness appeared at the corner of her eye.

"That's... Not a happy existence." She commented, Copper bobbing her head slowly.

"It is the hand I was dealt." She summarized. "Nothing more. Nothing less."

"I suppose..." Ash waved her head, returning to the slow gaze at the empty area. By now, at least three hours or so have passed, and Undine and Melody seemed to have fallen asleep, leaving only Ash and Copper to complete the objective, and discover the truth behind the grimm that roamed the city itself.

Just as Ash was about to fall asleep herself, her own consciousness finally giving way, she felt Copper's hand shake her a bit. "Wake up. Something is moving down there." She heard Copper's voice, springing into life, as Copper slid back, waking up the other members of the team. All of them snuck forward, trying to look down, as only Ash had a something to zoom in with, seeing a group of shady looking people in dark robes walk into the warehouse. There were at least five of them, and two of them, obviously male, carried a large container of something.

Melody tried looking at it closer, seeing some sort of symbol on the side of the keg, but unable to catch a good glimpse of it. "Hey, Ash, try and zoom in on that container. I think there's something on it."

Ash nodded, taking the moving object into her line of sight and zooming in as much as she could. Though the dark was all around them at that point, and visibility was not optimal, she still managed to catch a glimpse of the symbol on the side of the barrel.

The symbol, as far as she could tell, was comprised mostly of a hexagon shape, with three circles coming out of it, from the top, and two from the sides. At the very center of the logo, a stylized letter 'M' appeared, filling out the hexagon nicely.

"Hmm... Nothing I've ever heard of." Ash admitted, watching on as another man, possibly the leader of the group, opened up the doors to the warehouse, shouting something at the group, as the rest of them walked inside, shutting the door behind them. By now, that the immediate danger of being uncovered passed, Ash let out small exhalation, rising to sitting and addressed the rest of her team. "Alright, listen up! I don't know what those people do in there, but I intend to find out, got it? We're gonna go down there, I'll pick the lock, and we'll solve this mystery once and for all."

The rest of them behind her, Ash leading the way downwards to the ground level, walking towards the suspicious gate without making a sound. The rest of them followed, even Undine managing to keep quiet, until all four of them reached their destination, Ash at the lead. She pulled out a lock pick, telling the rest of them to back up, walking closer to the lock and slowly working on it, silence being her top priority.

Periodically, she stopped. Her guts told her when she was likely to get caught, as suspicious sounds came from all around them. She could almost smell the paranoia from inside the room, as if the people in there weren't all there, as it were. Worry finally started to make its way into her heart, but regardless, she pushed on, finally managing to pick the lock and calling the rest of them over.

They walked to the other end of the door, Ash opening it just a bit, at least when she was sure that it was safe.

Inside, she saw several men, and a single woman, standing around the keg. "A-Are you sure it's going to work?" One of them asked, his voice deranged, and almost lost in a sense. The other one, now unquestionably the leader, stopped in place, his body twisting almost too quickly towards the man, walking to him and giving him a ringing slap to the face.

"Shut up! It will work if we all concentrate! Last time she managed to make one, remember?!" The leader's voice struck all sorts of wrong chords with Ash. Paranoia, possible schizophrenia, and plenty more phycological ailments started to pop into Ash's mind as she built the man's profile. "Now get to work! Open the container!" He commanded, two of them walking closer and removing the lid's pins, taking it off and putting it away.

Ash didn't have to see what was in there. The fumes and the odor did the job for her. She could only imagine the same foul, disgusting ichor that Grimm sometimes left after their death. She continued to look, as she heard a slight buzzing noise in her head. Something whispering to her, telling her to do things.

Unspeakable things.

So far, she was able to resist it, not bothering her much. However, what drew her attention more was the fact that the people in the warehouse, sans the leader, were all on the floor, grabbing their head, screaming for death to take them already. Screams and mad laughs filled the room, a scene almost out of a horror movie, as the man in the center approached the keg, commanding it.

"Rise."

Nothing happened, at first. The man got angrier, lifting his hand and pointing it at the black ichor in front of him

"RISE."

He spoke again, more powerfully, the people around him withering in seemingly invisible pain, quickly losing more and more of their fleeting sanity to whatever force he employed. Ash had to step back, panting, as the voices in her head grew in volume, almost taking over the world around her.

Melody rushed to her side, letting Ash lean on her. "Are you alright?" She asked, while Copper took the lead, staring into the carnival of madness without flinching at all.

"Y-Yeah. I'll be alright." She came to step back in, but Undine and Melody stopped her.

"Ash, don't. Please. You started muttering things while you were looking in there..." Melody's voice was filled with dread and concern. "B-Besides, Copper seems to be fine. Please, just rest for now." She pointed to their team member, Copper gazing silently inside. By now, the screams were so loud, that even without looking at it directly, Ash could picture what was going on in there.

The people were on the brink of losing themselves entirely. The leader, fed up with the charade, gazed fiercely into the keg of black ichor, raising his hand as he shouted one last time. By now, the ichor inside the keg rattled and shook, popping over the tip, clearly visible to all.

"RISE!"

And as he did, a black claw emerged from the ichor, and a blood-curdling howl filled the area.

The voices stopped. Ash quickly regained her balance, going back to staring inside, this time all of them peering inside together, though Melody herself was shaking in fear, on the verge of just ditching the whole ordeal. Before them, as well as the mad chippers of the leader of this cult, for a lack of a better word, a beowulf started to stir up, crawling out of the keg. It was weak, and rather small, and weak, having been just born, though, to the leader, it didn't matter. He removed his hood, revealing his face. It was scrawny, thin, clearly underfed and in need of nourishment. His skin was frail, almost white, though still with a hint of a human pigment to it.

But amongst everything about him that stroke them unnerving was his smile. The smile of a man who already lost everything, spread from ear to ear, as he managed to bring the grimm straight into Vale from the inside. The smile of a man who didn't care about anything anymore, relishing in his own madness.

And as he opened his mouth, eyes widening to an almost unnatural level, he laughed. He laughed for what felt for the team like hours, though the grimm didn't leave him a lot of time. Seemingly ignoring the people collapsed on the floor, the beowulf stopped in place. It sniffed the air, and as it charged the door, sensing others around the area, seemingly prioritizing the mentally stable, Ash's guts told warned her in advance. She quickly pulled out her weapon, as well as her team out of the door's radius, loading the barrel and putting a silencer on.

Soon after, the door burst open, and the newborn grimm lunged out, trying to grapple people who were no longer there. Of course, the moment it got out of sight for the people inside, setting its sights on team ACMM, it's life ended, as a bullet from Ash's Blind Justice quickly pierced its head, killing it on the spot. After that, the team fled, getting as far as they could from the area.

Once they were a safe distance away, to the tune of the rising sun, Ash finally gave the signal to stop, panting heavily. The rest of her team stopped with her, Melody shaking visibly. "W-What the hell was that?!" She could barely believe her own eyes. Watching a grimm being born right in front of their eyes was NOT a pleasant spectacle to see, and she didn't want to witness it ever again.

"I..." Ash paused, speechless. "I don't know. But whatever it was, we can't let them be. We have to do something." It didn't take her long to make up her mind. "I don't care what those people were dealing with, but summoning grimm into the city is more as mad as it can get." She then pondered about it a bit more. "On top of it... We have to stay discreet. We can't go around telling people about this, it will only draw more grimm from the outside."

"B-But what can we do? We're just four students in Beacon..." Melody murmured. Ash leaned towards her, looking serious, as she twisted her head towards Beacon itself.

"Correction, Melody... There are eight of us."

A/N: Alright, ladies and gentlemen... This will be it for today. And oh boy... Was I excited for this one. I hope you all enjoyed, cause trust me...

The madness only grows deeper from here.