Two days later and resources and tempers were reaching a danger zone. Not that temper was ever not in a danger zone.
"I can't believe you led us to a ghost town." Len griped angrily.
"The map said that there was a town there." Piko defended.
"Question. Why hasn't anybody called anyone?" Len asked.
"I don't have anyone I can call." Miku responded, "all of my teammates are MIA, plus nobody wants to be friends with the creepy girl who's two years too young for the school and probably knows more than you."
"My teammates have changed their scroll numbers." Piko explained.
"That's not weird at all." Len muttered under his breath.
"I honestly didn't think about it." Rin said sheepishly while looking slightly ashamed.
"And you, Len?" Miku asked accusingly.
"Deleted their numbers. We never really liked each other." Len shrugged.
"Hey, Neru?" Rin asked into her scroll.
"What do you want, dummy?" a harsh voice asked from the other side of the phone call.
"Hey, so, I'm kind of lost in the woods…" Rin began, but the dial tone coming from her scroll signified that Neru hung up.
"Well, Neru seems...nice?" Piko said after a moment of silence.
"Don't sugar coat it." Len said dismissively, "you can say she's rude, we agree."
"Hello, flower?"
"Y'ello." A voice drawled, Piko furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he couldn't figure out if the owner had a masculine or feminine voice.
"She's a girl, she's just got an androgynous sounding voice." Len explained.
"Hi, so I'm kind of stuck in the woods…."
"Stuck or lost?"
Rin paused for a moment before sighing in defeat, "lost."
"Know your coordinates?"
Rin waved frantically to Piko who told the coordinates into the phone for Rin's teammate.
"Yeah, well I'm pretty much on the other side." Flower trailed off, "the closest town is about ten miles west. Don't go east though, the map says there's a town there. There isn't."
"We've figured that out." Rin sighed, "could I ask you a favor?"
"Shoot."
"If you don't hear from me in a few days, could you come for us?"
"Us? As in more than you? Like...you and Len?" Flower asked confusedly.
"There's four of us." Rin said tiredly, "that's a long story."
"Not asking." Flower laughed, "hopefully I'll see you around, and not six feet under."
"That's not funny." Rin deadpanned.
"Yeah, that kind of sucked." Flower agreed. "Alright, see ya."
"See ya!" Rin said as she pressed 'hang up'. "Well, ten miles to the west we'll go!" she cried out as she cheerfully marched away.
"Rin. That's south." Len sighed.
Rin turned left, "onwards!"
"Rin." Len sighed again.
Rin spun around, "that way!"
"You really aren't smart, are you?" Miku asked as she followed Rin.
"Rude!" Rin called out.
"I'm merely stating the truth." Miku shrugged.
"Still! It's rude!" Rin crossed her arms in frustration as she stopped walking to turn around and face Miku.
"And here I thought you didn't want us to be fighting." Len drawled as he strolled past Rin.
"I'm not fighting." Rin pouted as she turned her attention away from Miku to Len.
"Keep telling yourself that." Len nodded.
"Come on. Let's just get going." Piko said as he walked in between Len and Rin to take the lead.
"Yes dad." Len said sarcastically.
"Len!" Rin chastised as she smacked the back of his head.
"Hey!"
"Break it up ladies." Miku called back to the twins.
The four of them trekked through the woods in silence. It was mostly a mutual silence, because Piko had no idea what to talk about, Miku didn't want to talk, Len was musing to himself in silence, and Rin. Well, she was daydreaming.
Both Piko and Miku tensed when they heard something rustling in the bushes. "Who's there!" Piko called out.
"It's probably a grimm." Miku stated blandly.
"Well, I don't believe in the 'shoot first, questions later' way of life. So we're going to ask first, shoot later." Piko responded, but if you looked closely there was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
"Don't go running to me when the grimm mauls you in the face." Miku muttered as she readied her weapon to shoot.
"You all are just paranoid." Piko said with confidence as he pushed the bush to the side. "Hello?" he looked around and there wasn't anything to be seen, "it was just the wind."
"Look out!" Rin screamed as Len launched himself at Piko and tackled the two of them to the ground.
"Len, what?" Piko asked confusedly but trailed off when he saw a grimm attack the spot where he just was.
"Just a boarbatusk, it's fine. We'll take it down in a couple of shots." Rin cried out as ran at the grimm and landed a few hits on it.
"Switch!" Len called out as he jumped to his feet and dug the points of his guns into the fleshy part of the grimm and let loose a round of shots.
"Switch!" Rin cried out again as Len flipped off of the grimm before Rin swung her fan around and hit the boarbatusk like a baseball. The grimm let out a pained whine before falling to the ground and decomposing with a whole bunch of red flower petals.
"Where were you during that whole confrontation?" Len asked Miku.
"You two had a system going. You didn't need me." She said nonchalantly before walking off in the direction they had intended.
"Sorry about tackling you." Len said as he held out a hand for Piko, "but I'm also not."
"Thanks anyways." Piko smiled as he grabbed Len's hand and pulled himself up.
"Yeah, I saved you from getting impaled." Len said nonchalantly, but that easily wiped the smile off of Piko's face.
"Yeah. Well, come on, let's go. Don't want to get left behind!" Piko smiled before running after Miku and Rin.
"You're too optimistic for your own good." Len sighed.
"Grimm alert!" Rin called out from the front of the group.
"Where?" Len and Piko demanded as they unsheathed their weapons and ran closer to Rin and Miku.
"There's a couple up ahead, a couple behind us. Pick your poison." Miku said articulately as she drew her bow.
"Stay close. Splitting apart is what got us in this mess in the first place." Len stated before leaping up a tree.
Miku nodded before leaping up a tree as well, "stand your ground Piko. I know how hard it is for you to do that."
Piko sent a polite glare at Miku before hardening his stance. The first howl broke through the air with the arrival of three ursa.
"Left!" Len yelled before launching himself at the Ursa and burying his ninja stars into the grimm's eyes.
Miku was rapidly shooting arrows comprised of an explosive dust that also gave a slight electrocution on impact. She easily took care of the remaining two ursas who appeared.
Rin turned around and bashed a grimm's head back into it's neck as it tried to sneak up on her and Piko. "Thought you were smart, didn't you!" she taunted as she twirled around and beat it on the head again. "Well, guess who's cute, smart, and tougher than you!" she cried out as she spun around again and her skirt and shawl twirled around her body. "Homerun!" she hit the ursa one more time before it fell over.
Piko ducked under a grimm's head and caught it's head on the curved end of his staff. He jumped up and tore the head off in one fell swoop before landing back on the ground with his staff now a rifle. He quickly shot the couple beowulf's who had made their appearance before running at them, tripping them with his staff and then shooting them a couple more times for reassurance.
"I'm going after the one's in the sky!" Miku called as she shot a silver arrow into the sky which embedded itself in a flying nevermore. She then seemed to fly up towards it and the only explanation for that would be a mechanism that was attached to the silver arrow. She then used her bow to take out three more nevermore's in the sky before winding her bow against the nevermore's neck and steering it around in the sky.
Len finished off the ursa before running in to help Rin battle a deathstalker. "I'm trusting your shield on this!" Len called out to Rin. She responded with a nod before opening up her fan and propping it on the ground. The deathstalker shrieked and the stinger clanged against her open fan as it tried to attack Rin who was hiding underneath. Len ran up to the deathstalker while it was momentarily dazed and attacked the jointed section of the stinger. "Switch!" he cried out as he rolled to the side and the stinger lodged itself into the ground where Len was a moment ago. Rin let loose a battle cry before running at it with her closed fan, jumping over the head, and swinging at the jointed section Len was just severing at. "If we get the stinger to fall on it's head, it's a goner!" Len called out as he shot the face to distract it.
"Alright, sounds good!" Rin cried out as she jumped off, "switch!" Len climbed up the stinger and began to shoot the fleshy part where the stinger connected with the rest of the body.
"Distract it!" Len cried out in a panic as he was shaken around and he hung on like his life depended on it.
"Hey ugly!" she cried out as she shot a plethora of mini arrows into it's face. This only infuriated the grimm more and Len flew off and crashed painfully into another grimm's face. "Len!" Rin cried out in a panic.
"Deal with the deathstalker!" Len shouted as his body glowed; signifying that his aura was working in overdrive.
Rin nodded and raised her fan above her head before driving it into the skull of the deathstalker into the ground. "Take that!" she then ran to the stinger and unfolded her fan before quickly running it where Len was shooting. The fan broke through the flesh and the stinger fell with a crunch onto the grimm's head.
"Agh!" Rin spun around to see her brother thrown off another grimm and onto the ground.
"Len!" she looked worriedly at her blond companion as she took in the fainter glow of his body.
"There's still more that need to be taken care of!" he shouted as he staggered to his feet. "I'm fine! I can deal with this on my own!"
Piko took this as his cue to run in to the rescue and behead a taijutsu that looked ready to swallow Len whole. Len didn't notice this exchange at all and ran towards the closest grimm with guns ablaze. Miku then decided to drop back in and crush a beowulf under her as a nevermore fell to the ground behind her. "This seems to be the last of them."
"Good, because I don't know how much longer Len can hold." Piko nodded as he hooked his weapon around an ursa and swung himself on top of it before beheading this one as well.
"Well then, tell him to sit out!" Miku demanded.
"You tell him! He's not going to listen to me!" the two of them looked over when they heard Rin cry out in pain as a beowulf swiped at her. "We need to get back to civilization and fast. We're getting destroyed and this is half of what we've dealt with before."
"Tell me about it." Miku scoffed as she spun around her double bow and chopped off both arms of a beowulf.
"Mind manipulating time and charging through this horde?" Piko asked.
"Don't order me around." Miku said but sped off towards the oncoming horde of grimm anyways. Piko looked around and barely had time to react as a grimm charged at him. His green eye glowed for a fraction of a second before he flickered away.
"Piko! Don't disappear like that! Where'd you go!" Len yelled in a fury. He looked around just in time to see Piko flicker in the air before falling to the ground and taking off the head of a huge grimm. Len gaped as a his web of confusion cleared up. He was so lost that he didn't realize a boarbatusk in it's deadly chakram like form spinning at him
"Len!" Rin screeched as she tried to run for him but was blocked by an ursa who swiped at her in her moment of panic and managed to land a hit.
Len snapped back into reality just in time to feel the boarbatusk crash into him and send him reeling and howling in pain into the ground. His howl was cut short as he hit the ground.
Piko quickly took action and shot the boarbatusk dead to keep it from mauling Len's unconscious body anymore. He then turned to help Rin as she tried to run away from the ursa as she held a glowing hand to the her open wounds.
"I'm back!" Miku yelled as she fired a couple last arrows to take out the last beowulfs. She looked around to see the battle ridden ground with countless flower petals rising into the sky, and a blob of yellow, black, and red laying on the ground. "You guys have a huge injury to deal with!" she cried out as she ran to the fallen form of Len.
"We know!" Rin shrieked as she ran towards Len while Piko took care of the ursa. She slid on her knees to Len's side and turned his unresponsive body so he was facing up. "Get bandages. He's out of aura and I've already used my semblance for my own wounds." She demanded of Miku. Miku huffed but dug through her pack for bandages anyways. Rin put two glowing yellow hands to Len's side where he was a bloodied mess. Half of his black shirt was a bloodied shredded mess. The blood didn't go away, but the open wounds closed themselves up and he was no longer bleeding profusely. Rin sighed before falling sideways onto the ground, "that's all I can do." She said faintly before her eyes fluttered closed.
Piko quickly took the bandages that had been found and wrapped it around Len's arm; right after he unclipped his black sleeves from his shirt. He wrapped the wounded arm tightly with the bandages and checked to make sure there were no more wounds. "That's all we can do for now." Piko stated as he sat back onto his heels.
"Man, we got destroyed today." Miku sighed.
"We need help fast." Piko agreed.
"Why get help when we already have it." Len muttered as his eyes snapped open.