For the second time today Pyrrha Nikos found herself uncomfortably close to those universal glowing red eyes of Grimm. And for the second time today her body instinctively reacted without thinking; this time attempting to launch herself towards the left, behind the cover of the crushed and splintered receptionist's desk. Her mind suddenly became aware of her body's attempted evasion when pain exploded through her right ankle.
When her body had tried to launch her to the left, most of the needed force would have to come from an intense push off from her right foot, and her right ankle was barely capable of being walked on at the moment. Her powerful and graceful leap turned into a pain filled flop as her whole right leg simply gave out underneath her. She was brought down to one knee from the collapse, but still would not take her eyes off the creature on her right. She could evade if it charged, though for how long she wasn't sure, and without her weapons she wasn't sure she had the firepower to kill it, disabling punches and kicks were all well and good to human opponents that had a pain threshold, but Grimm never seemed to have picked up on the concept of "this hurts too much."
Warily, she eyed the beast before her, waiting for the inevitable strike. Being on the defensive was not something she enjoyed, but it would be necessary here. She waited, the Alpha waited, she stared, the Alpha stared back, slowly cocking its head to the side, its ears perking up in a questioning manner eerily similar to a regular, non-murderous dog. Its nose eagerly sniffed the air as its eyes scanned her body. The hate in those red orbs was overcome with a brief flash of confusion before shifting to something resembling...recognition? With a satisfied gleam in its ruby eyes it looked her over once more before turning around and walking back down the hallway.
Pyrrha could only blink in astonishment, an Alpha Beowulf had just caught her completely off guard, injured, unarmed, with an almost non-existent aura, and it had simply walked away. That doesn't make sense. It had to have known how vulnerable she was, she was easy prey and she knew it, it knew it, but it had just turned around and walked away.
What?!
Her mind raced to understand what had just happened as she pushed herself to her feet, careful to avoid placing any excess weight on her ankle. Maybe it hadn't seen her? No, it had known exactly where she was, the two had stared each other down; it had looked her over, and based on its sniffing, had smelled her too. Maybe it didn't want to fight? No, that was equally ridiculous, the more ancient and intelligent grimm were cautious it's true, and while it was an Alpha it was still a Beowulf, and they weren't known for taciturn reluctance or calculation. And even if it was an ancient Grimm, or an unusually cautious Beowulf it still would've attacked the clearly alone, clearly unarmed, clearly injured human lying before it; she might as well have been served up on a platter to the thing. Maybe we should just be glad we're alive and move on, a soft voice inside her mind whispered as she began to limp towards the hallway on her left. She was definitely glad to be alive, that was true, but she needed to know why the Alpha had just left her alone, Grimm just didn't do that.
As she limped down the hallway illuminated only by the silvery light of the moon peeking through the shattered remains of windows the question of what exactly just happened gnawed away at her. The only thing that kept it from consuming all her thought was the steady throbbing of her ankle and the ever growing feeling of exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her. She needed to rest, needed to sleep, needed to close her eyes and give her mind the break it hadn't had in what felt like years. She wasn't sure where exactly she would find a place to rest here, but she knew from the memories that she could understand that Beacon had dorm rooms somewhere. She vaguely recalled them being located on the side of campus that she was currently in, but didn't entirely trust her foggy memory, especially so when coupled with her wounded ankle and growing exhaustion. Worst comes to worst she could just find a closet to collapse in or a classroom desk to sleep under.
The more she walked the more in shambles Beacon seemed to be. She remembered that the battle had been brutal and far reaching, but roaming the rubble of the once majestic academy was something else. She couldn't remember if Vale or Beacon had taken the brunt of the invasion, but she did know that they were both heavily damaged. That point seemed to be only further emphasized as she made her way through the once grand corridors of Beacon, whole doors that led to nowhere where walls and floors had crumbled, patches of silver stars glistening through holes where the ceiling had succumbed to the elements, broken glass coating the floor and crunching underneath her boots, flora steadily encroaching throughout all of the buildings. No one had made an effort to return to in force or fix Beacon in, well, however long it had been, certainly a while if the overgrowth was any way of telling. Seeing her second home like this hurt, though her mind couldn't seem to decide what to do with the hurt. Part of her just felt hollow, and the other side, the side that burned for vengeance, just grew in its fury.
She knew she'd found the dorms when, past a door that had been somehow removed over twenty feet from its frame, she could see the remnants of a bed, headboard, mattress, and all. Her body desperately wished that her mind would allow it to just walk up to it and just collapse, but the tactical side of her mind was reluctant to rest in a room that had no door. Call her paranoid, but she didn't want to fall asleep in a ruin with the door open where a Grimm could spot her sleeping.
Luckily, before she collapsed on the spot from exhaustion, she found a room that suited her mind's needs as a slight safe haven: the door still remained on it's hinges, though there was no way she was going to be able to operate it stealthily or without a little extra force with how rusted the hinges were. There was one good mattress and bed frame still in the room despite it being half covered by another bed that seemed to have fallen from above. Technically, there were two beds that seemed okay, but she didn't trust the other one, what with it being suspended from the ceiling by fraying ropes and all. And the way that the other bed lay across her chosen one provided cover for her sleeping form, blocking it from the immediate view of the doorway; she could, very literally, live with the somewhat cramped space between the wall and the fallen bed when it had the benefit of cover. With a literal sigh of relief from her mouth and a figurative one from her ankle she collapsed into the cramped spot and almost instantly passed out.
The next thing she realized she was staring at a faded beige wallpaper pattern that somehow still managed to angrily reflect the sun's morning rays right back into her eyes. With a reluctant groan she managed to force her body into a sitting position. With a rested mind and a lit room she could finally study her surroundings. A bed was suspended by ropes from the ceiling on her right, an Achieve Men poster hung from where the collapsed bed once was above her, books lined shelves that were coated in cobwebs, and a stitched together drape that must've once been cut in half flapped in the breeze of the rightmost window.
Wait. This was her friends' room! Faces flashed before her memory, silver eyes and a red hood, a black bow and amber eyes, flowing blond hair with lilac eyes, and pale white hair with glacial eyes. Still no names came with the faces, but suddenly more memories grew in clarity, the time they all had lunch together at the Vytal Festival, classes together where they had struggled to stay awake, and a vague recollection of a lunchtime brawl. Wait - the room across the hall!
Rising from her bed in a careful rush she limped towards the door and forced it open. She needed to see the room across the hall, that...that was her room wasn't it? Her team's room? She knew that something, anything, there would help her remember, help her understand, and she'd be lying if it wouldn't provide a small amount of comfort to see it again. With a desperate heave she threw the familiar door open, only to almost fall to her death.
Where her room had been there was nothing but open air and piles of rubble far below. This entire portion of the building had somehow collapsed, below she could see some floors bravely jutting out a few feet farther than hers, but they too eventually led to nowhere. Her room, her one link to remembering the name of the blond boy, of her team, had crumbled into the rubble below.
No, nonono, why?! She hobbled back to her friends' room as fast as she could, this wasn't fair. This wasn't fair, the first real lead she could've had and it collapsed.
CRACK, she kicked the already failing bed frame of the collapsed bed in frustration, sending chunks of rotting wood across the room like shrapnel. She needed to break something. Furiously, she began to beat the walls with the bottom of her fists. She was so close. She screamed before collapsing back onto the bed and just staring out the shattered remains of the windows. Emerald eyes could see the ruined grounds before her, but she didn't acknowledge any information her eyes gave her. All she wanted was to remember them, she felt so lost, so alone, and the faces she saw in her memories, especially the blond's, were the only thing that really brought her peace. She felt like a part of her was missing without them, and in a very real way she supposed that was true. Was she really Pyrrha Nikos if she couldn't remember her closest friends? Could only remember geography, names of cities and countries, but nothing close to her save for images and emotions.
She lost herself in those thoughts for a while, only being pulled out of them by a glint of sparkling light off in the distance. What was that? It was moving fast with two other glints in a steady descent towards the far away city. Bullheads. She shot up out of her stupor, her face flinching in pain as she accidentally placed more weight on her right ankle. Were there still people in Vale?
The Bullheads moved steadily towards what seemed like the docks and upper class district, on the far side from Beacon closest to the ocean, and as the bullheads descended, five more rose steadily from behind the buildings and flew off over in the direction of Forever Fall. A smile spread across her face, people must've survived the battle, and they were so close. A day or so's walk, but still, that was nothing compared to the payoff of actually getting to talk to someone again. Not to mention the tiny fragment of hope that the people there could help her piece together her memories, put names to the faces in her mind, and maybe then things would become clearer.
With a determined look set on her face Pyrrha Nikos moved towards the door and out of her friends' dorm, she'd have to apologize to them for breaking things even more than they were, she felt bad about that, despite Beacon already being in shambles. In spite of the minor guilt however, she couldn't stop a smile from spreading across her face. She had a goal in mind now, a path, something to push towards. She was going into Vale and she was going to find whoever was there.
A/N: Decided to keep three and four separate, it'll take longer to get to the action this way and I'm sorry about that, I know the story is very slow at the moment. But, at the same time, I can't afford to merge any more chapters with how my schedule is looking by the time I release ten. Got a lot going on then and I want to maintain this weekly update schedule for as long as I can.
Anyway! Pyrrha has an obtainable goal now! Something to push away the thoughts of what exactly that Alpha Beowulf was doing. But don't worry, you'll get an explanation for that in about two chapters. I'm sure most of you guys will already have a sneaking suspicion as to why it did what it did, but Pyrrha doesn't know, and that's what matters.
Got lots of reviews asking me to break up my paragraphs more, I know a wall of text can be intimidating. Tried to do that here, but do let me know whether or not I succeeded. That should be it for now, I'll try to respond personally to all the reviews I can, but tonight is date night so I may not be able to.
Also found out "rightmost" was one word today, who knew? Probably most of you, but still.
Have a good one guys/gals/people/androids!