IMPORTANT: If you don't already know, I redid some of the details in the previous chapters. Originally I had planned to completely rewrite some chapters, but for time's sake and to try and not confuse my current readers, I just made small changes. For those who don't want to reread the whole story up to this point here's a summary of changes:

The most important changes are to Nick. I completely re-wrote Nick's portion in Chapter 1. I suggest you only reread scenes/chapters where Nick is involved. I've had an idea for his backstory this entire time without really mentioning it, but that just made him seem more bland, so instead I've made changes to hint a bit more at his story. I also have made some changes to Tsuta, I had him as a more formal and polite person, and changed him to be a little more casual and laid-back, these changes were mostly made to his dialogue, but what he said then and now is still basically the same, it's just how he said it that's a little different.

Anyways, and without further ado, I hope you enjoy my newest chapter... it took me forever to write.

Chapter 7: Ambush

M

Our group of six traced mine and Gavin's steps back towards the cliff. Along the way we passed the area the wildfire had burned out, where we killed the two Beowolves. We continued marching in this direction when suddenly a Beowolf leaped from some brush and nearly mauled Tsuta before he could react, but a loud bang echoed through the forest and the Beowolf suddenly changed course midair and fell away from Tsuta, a giant hole in it's head. Then several Beowolves emerged, surrounding us.

As we stood ready to face this new threat, a flash of purple zoomed by us into a Beowolf, launching the monster at bullet speed, crashing into a group of Grimm. Where the Beowolf once stood there was the girl in purple from the cliff. She pressed the hilts of the two swords she was wielding, attaching them so that the curves in the blade created a longbow. In a swift motion she attached a bowstring to both ends of the swords and launched an arrow at lightning speed, the projectile ripped through several Beowolves standing in a row. Meanwhile more shots fired from the distance and more Beowolves fell all around, however, more Beowolves poured in and soon Ursai joined the fray.

All the while Mondy was becoming giddy with excitement, after all she was about to see some real action with Grimm instead of beating up pervs in an alleyway. She spun her weapons into Neigen form with no blades extended. She excitedly looked to the others to see if they would jump in too. Carmina reached into the heavy bag she carried and when her hands came back out they were covered in giant metal gloves that matched her metal boots, each having barrels on the outside sides. Reyn took the hand-to-hand combat stance she had grown used to seeing him in combat school. Nick unsheathed his sword and the metal rings surrounding his body shifted and extended into armor. Tsuta was already in a battle stance with his khopeshes at the ready. Gavin had both Tafell and Torri prepared as he said, "Nick, Tsuta, hold the west and east flanks. Carmina and Reyn protect the southern flank. Mondy and I will protect the North." Another shot rang out and two Grimm fell, a bullet from an unseen rifle ripping through their skulls.

"I assume our new friends will just keep helping us where needed?" Carmina asked, a devilish grin on her face. It was good to know that Mondy wasn't the only one that was excited to take on some Grimm.

"I think that's a safe bet to make," answered Gavin, "Is everyone ready? Let's do this."

And with that they charged, well the others charged while Mondy teleported above a Beowolf and sunk the now extended blade of Neigen into its skull. She detached Zweite from Zuerst, which was still embedded in the first Grimm's head, and extended Zweite's blade into the skull of another Beowolf that tried to take advantage of her blind spot. She pulled each blade out and attached their blunt ends together to create a double bladed Neigen. A Beowolf charged her from the right and she thrusted the weapon's blade deep into the monster's chest, using the leverage of the staff and momentum of the monster, she lifted the monster over her head and slammed it into another Grimm behind her.

However, As she was stuck trying to remove the weapon from the monster, an Ursai approached from the side. Just as it swung a massive claw towards her, she teleported with Neigen behind it. She detached the weapons and stabbed both blades into the monster's back. The monster roared and stood, with Mondy still clinging to its back. It swiped its massive claws at her and she only narrowly dodged each one. She was forced to jump away, leaving her weapons behind. She debated on how to best take down the monster and get her weapons back while she still remained unarmed. She already used her teleportation in quick succession so she'd have to wait to use it again or risk exhausting herself. Just as she started formulating a plan and the Ursai was charging, another bang sounded and the Ursai dropped dead, Zuerst and Zweite still protruding out of its back. She yelled out a "thank you" to whoever fixed the problem for her. She dashed to the Grim and used her momentum to aid her in prying the weapons out of the Grimm.

C

Carmina hadn't had this much fun pounding Grimm in a long time. She punched and kicked her way through Grimm after Grimm. For anyone else the weight of the gloves and boots would have impaired them, but she has trained long and hard so her muscles could wield her favorite Grimm-killing weapons. She was surprised when Reyn seemed to be able to keep up using nothing but his fists and his martial art fighting style. Of course Carmina had some martial art training, but for the most part she was self taught. While her strikes were slower and heavier but much more powerful, his were quick, light, yet effective at crippling his opponent, then killing them. Even still, it seemed like his strikes were too powerful for his scrawny arms to be capable of. Is his Semblance strength based? She wondered. But then sometimes it seemed like he was too fast, having been in one place and then suddenly in another too quickly. She couldn't figure it out and she was too busy smashing Grimm to continue caring. No need to distract herself from what was important, and what was important was killing Grimm.

As a particularly large group of Beowolves charged her, she activated her Semblance and the world seemed to shift. She made a gesture as if lifting something extremely heavy with her hands and watched as the ground in front of her lifted and folded itself over onto the charging Grimm.

M

Mauve stood in a tree, like her partner, firing her arrows into the battlefield below, dropping the Grimm that were trying to sneak up on the other students. As she let each arrow fly she focused her Semblance into it causing its velocity to dramatically increase as it found it's mark faster than any other arrow or bullet would. Of course she only has so many arrows and eventually she had to rejoin the fight with her swords if only to retrieve her arrows. Speaking of which, she had just ran out of arrows in her quiver, She hopped down from her tree branch and started collecting arrows from fallen Grimm. What a bunch losers. At least Saphron knows enough to scout ahead, she thought as she pulled an arrow out of a Beowolf's skull. A Beowolf tried to surprise her from behind but she reacted and spun around and sliced her blades, one cutting its neck, the other disemboweling it. She continued her hunt for arrows and Grimm.

T

Tsuta hacked and slashed each Grimm that stood before him with the precision that was trained into him by his family. When an Ursa Major challenged him, he was reminded of the last Grimm hunt he was on with his brothers and his struggle to beat an Alpha Beowolf. He slashed at it's hide, but he had to dodge its powerful attacks before he could deal any critical attacks. Finally as Tsuta baited the Ursai to swing he used his blade to sever the arm. He took the opening and sliced his other blade into the chest of the Grimm and fired one of his shotgun rounds inside the monster, causing its chest cavity to explode outward. Looks like the shotgun attachment works. That's good, it works similarly to my Aura attack I used on that Alpha Beowolf. Before charging the next Grimm, he looked around at his allies and smiled as he saw they were having similar success across the battlefield. Tsuta noticed that Reyn's Aura was quickly declining and strengthened the boy's Aura using his Semblance. Keeping his Semblance focused on Reyn, Tsuta found his next enemy and rejoined the fight.

G

Gavin stabbed an attacking Beowolf with Tafell and fired a dust round, ejecting the sword. He used the momentum to spin and face a second Beowolf, which he killed with a stab to the neck with Torri. Three Ursai charged Gavin. He knew he couldn't deal with all three at once and hoped that the mysterious sniper would aid him. However when the next few shots fired it was another Grimm that dropped dead around the battlefield. Gavin realized that he was on his own for now and began channeling his aura. He focused all his energy into the air in front of him until it exploded towards the Grimm effectively knocking them onto their backs. Not missing a beat, Gavin launched into the air and stabbed the two Ursai that fell close to each other. As he stood and pulled his rapiers from the dissipating corpses the third Ursai stood up behind him and prepared to claw him when finally a shot rang out and the Ursai fell forward and Gavin had just enough time to jump out of the way. Gavin focused his eyes into the trees and finally found the glint of light coming from the reflected light off of a sniper scope.

S

Saphron watched as the Ursai fell over, having just saved the white haired boy. The boy began scanning the trees in his direction. The boy's eyes eventually stared directly into the scope. As the boy gave a nod and turned back to the battlefield, Saphron couldn't help but notice that there was something odd about the boys' eyes. Shrugging, Saphron continued searching the battlefield for any sudden threats. Another Beowolf snuck up on Mondy as she twirled and slashed at the Ursai in front of her. Saphron fired another round, dropping the Grimm and Mondy hardly noticed. Saphron pulled the bolt back, loading another bullet into the chamber as he prepared to find another target.

However just then, a Beowolf that managed to find him jumped towards him from a nearby tree. Saphron jumped, pointing his gun towards the Grimm and firing; the bullet ripped through the air and eventually Grimm flesh. The bullet only managed to hit the Grimm's left arm, but the impact tore the limb off. The two fell to the ground where they squared off. Despite being short an arm, the Beowolf didn't seemed deterred. Saphron pulled a second lever on his gun, causing the underbarrel blade attachment to protrude beyond the length of the barrel. Saphron charged the monster and hacked off the second arm as it swung towards him. The Beowolf fell flat on its chest behind him. He contemplated finishing it with a bullet but decided to save the ammo and instead decapitated it with his blade. The ground was sprayed with the monster's blood and as Saphron stood, letting out a breath for a moment to relax he realized his bandana slipped off his nose and mouth revealing four stripes of scars starting at the lower half of his right cheek and continued diagonally to the left towards his neck where they disappeared underneath bandana around his neck. He also had severe burn scarring on the opposite cheek. He quickly pulled the bandana up and over his mouth and nose, allowing the scars and burns disappear.

Just then several Grimm appeared surrounding him. Unfortunately he was away from the main battlefield and no help was coming, so Saphron activated his Semblance. The Grimm looked confused but still charged towards where he was standing. As they attacked their claws simply passed through him and his image shifted slightly. Saphron lifted his gun's blade into the chest of one Grimm, fired the rifle which gave him the momentum to eject his weapon out of the Grimm. He then simply ran through the opening created by the felled Grimm. As the Grimm chased him though, he seemingly dissipated into nothingness. Saphron watched from a tree as the Grimm looked around confused for a moment before heading off towards the main battle where he would undoubtedly pick them off with his rifle.

R

Reyn calmly faced down each monster. Whenever he felt exhausted he suddenly felt a boost of energy and Aura. He used up a lot of his energy very quickly especially by using his Semblance. However he noticed some of the other's were starting to keep an eye on him so he decided to stop using it. He also had access to that other option but he didn't feel like now was the time or place to reveal his weapons. Instead he chose to stick with simple hand-to-hand combat, he was almost equally proficient with fists anyways. A Beowolf approached him and Reyn ran towards him and in a flash he grabbed the Grimm by the head and slammed it into the ground and broke its neck by stomping on it with his foot. Reyn was lucky to have had a friend like Mondy to train with, her quick strikes and aggressive fighting style helped train his reflexes. It allowed him to react quickly and nearly effortlessly to the Grimm attacks

N

Nick blocked the incoming attack of a Beowolf with his sword. He pushed the beast back and followed with an overhead swing. Another charged and he couldn't pull his sword out of the previous target's skull, so he resorted to punching the Beowolf with all his might, buying him enough time to retrieve his sword. The Grimm attacked him from behind and he elbowed the monster in the face with his left arm and then spun and decapitated it with his sword. As the Beowolf collapsed he noticed an Ursai attacking Tsuta from behind, and he was too distracted by a Beowolf to notice. Nick ran and activated his Semblance to slow time around Tsuta, barely reaching the Grimm quickly enough to save Tsuta from being mauled to death. Tsuta, having just dispatched the enemy in front of him turned to see the Ursai's corpse and Nick standing over it, expressed his gratitude, "Thanks, I didn't even notice it there."

All

Nick and Tsuta looked around, searching for their next opponent, but instead found everyone else finishing off the last few Grimm. They gathered in the center of the clearing, a couple trying to catch their breaths. "Well that was crazy," observed Tsuta.

"Where'd they all come from?" asked Carmina.

"The fire from earlier caused all the Beowolves to move in this direction," answered a voice unfamiliar to most of the group, "and an Ursai pack happened to be migrated through here as well."

"Saphron, I should've guessed it was you," Carmina laughed.

"Saphron!" exclaimed Mondy, "It was you who was sniping all the Grimm?"

"Yeah, and it was a good thing I was here too. I saved you each more than once."

"Care to join us on our way to the cliffs? That is if you guys have your relics," Gavin offered.

"We got our relics," said the purple girl angrily, "though I'm not sure we really need to go with you guys. I mean, you weren't smart enough to look out for Grimm, who knows what other trouble you'll get us into. How many times have each of you engaged Grimm already?"

"Relax Mauve," chided Saphron, "We'll go with you guys to the cliff."

The group of eight continued on to the cliffs, where they came upon a ruin that looked like it had seen a fresh battle. There were seven others making their way up the cliff, though a little red hooded girl was already on top beckoning them. The group of eight followed suite and made their own way up the cliff.

Well there it is. My newest chapter of Gunmetal. It's been a long time coming but I finally got around to it. I hope to continue writing more chapters in much less time. Thank you for reading and especially thanks to anyone returning to this story. Join me next time when Team GNMT settles into their dorm and within their places on the team.

Please leave a review so I know what you like (or don't like) and I can make this story all the better for you!