"Of all the IDIOTIC, DISRESPECTFUL, and downright INAPPROPRIATE things you have done while part of our team this is truly the worst of them!" Yang groaned as she was unceremoniously pulled out of her slumber by Weiss's yelling.
"What the hell Weiss?" Yang asked. Yang rubbed her eyes and opened them to see Ruby and Blake on Ruby's bunk taking pictures. Yang looked around confused until she realized she was still in her hospital nightgown. All of the memories of the previous night suddenly flooded back into her mind. Yang's eyes suddenly snapped wide awake as Yang realized what Weiss was yelling at her for. Yang's eyes slowly drifted downwards to the arm still draped across her waist and Allister's still sleeping face on a pillow. Yang blushed furiously as Weiss to continue yelling.
"I mean, how dare you. You've only known him for a week. there is no way this is a good idea."
"Weiss stop?" Yang asked causing the heiress to stop momentarily.
"We didn't 'sleep' together if you know what I'm saying. He just helped me out with some important stuff."
"Awe," Came Ruby from across the room.
"You liiiike him don't you."
"What! No" Yang immediately denied due to her proud nature but her overly exasperated tone made it obvious she was lying.
"Good to know I'm not welcome." Allister mocked with his head still face down.
"Wait, no what. Allister I wasn't talking about you babe." Yang immediately covered her mouth when she realized what she had let slipped.
"Busted." Was all Blake said. Yang blushed furiously,
"Anyway did anyone see my clothes? In case you haven't noticed I'm still in this gown and we have a
mission in like 45 minutes." Allister's had conveniently fell off the side of the bed and pointed to a small silver bag laid against Blake's bunk.
"Thanks." Yang leaned down and kissed Allister's cheek, just deciding to go with it, before jumping off the bed grabbing the bag and trying to rush to the dorm bathroom. She wasn't fast enough, however,to stop Ruby from noticing the limp she had acquired.
"Yang what happened. You're walking funny?" Ruby demanded as Yang was scrambling to get
dressed.
"UH nothing important. I promise I'll explain everything in a minute." Yang answered as decided to use the time to go through her whole morning routine. Allister slowly peeled himself off of the bed.
"Well I'm out of here for now. I will see you at the airship docks." Allister said as he dropped to the floor and made his way back to team ENDD's room, mentally congratulating himself the whole way there. Allister opened the door and intended to step in when he saw Darron, Zade, and Max all sitting side by side. The three of them stared at Allister calmly down the sights of their pistols.
"Did you have fun last night?" Max asked cryptically.
"Did you really think you could sneak off in the middle of the night and not have any of us notice." Zade continued. Allister started to sweat with nerves.
"What are you talking about." Allister weakly defended.
"Don't play dumb asshole. We know you were with Yang. Yes or no that's all we need to know." Darron said. Allister steeled himself before responding.
"Yes."
"Ok." Darron said as he Max,and Zade stood up and went back to what they were doing before Allister showed up. Allister stared blankly into the distance until Max threw a small backpack his way.
"C'mon moron we need to go meet team RWBY at the air docks." Max said.
"Wait Max. Could you do me a favor and bring your project with you. I might know someone you can try it on." Allister asked. Max nodded and continued packing.
"Let's move ladies we don't want to be late." Darron called from the door and his team turned and followed. Team ENDD arrived at the airdock to find Ruby and professor Goodwitch scolding Yang. Ruby, For getting hurt, and Goodwitch for potentially causing an unnecessary setback in their mission. Blake was the first to notice team ENDD's approach.
"Hey guys." Blake greeted giving them a small smile.
"Hey, what's going on over there?" Darron asked, pointing to the double trouble assault on Yang.
"Yang got in trouble for getting hurt somehow last night. You wouldn't know anything about that… would you?" Blake answered. Darron just put his hands up in mock surrender and rolled his eyes earning a small laugh from Blake. That laugh caught professor Good Witch's attention.
"I see you boys have finally decided to arrive. Now that you're here we can head out to Sirak." Darron nodded as Goodwitch led them onto the plane. Yang remained sitting on the bench because of her injured leg. Allister walked over to her.
"Need a ride?" Yang smiled and nodded. Allister bent down as Yang wrapped her arms around his neck and Allister placed a hand under her and lifted her holding her against his chest. Allister joined the people on the airship and set Yang down on the bench next to Ruby. Allister took the seat across from Yang and next to Max as the plane lifted off. Once they were comfortably on their way Allister turned to Max.
"Hey, Max let's try out that thing." Allister suggested.
"Cool." Max answered as he pulled a bag out from under his seat. Max unzipped it and pulled out a medium sized metal box that expanded to reveal a hole in the center. The hole had five rings cut into it. Max reached into his bag again and produced a large amount of white healing dust and began inserting it into the rings.
"Where did you acquire all that dust?" Mrs. Goodwitch demanded.
"Professor Ozpin signed off on it as part of my project for mechanical engineering." Max answered
obviously still very focused on his work. Once max had finished setting up the machine he looked over to Yang.
"Do you mind?" He asked. Yang looked concerned for a moment until Allister moved over and discreetly squeezed her hand. Yang nodded and Max began to gently position Yang's leg in the hole of the machine. Yang hissed at the slight discomfort caused by the tenderness and recency of her injuries. Once Max had lined up the center ring in the hole with Yang's injury he pressed a few buttons and suddenly the machine gave off a beeping noise. The White dust rings glowed and began to rotate, each one a different direction than the one before it. Yang began to relax as the machine removed all the pain from her injury. Everyone stared as the Machine slowly began to heal any potential remnants of Yang's injury from the previous night.
"Whoa, That is AWESOME!" Ruby exclaimed.
"How did you do that max?" Max flashed her a smile and answered with a week.
"It's my little secret." Ruby both blushed at Max's flirtatious actions and in slight anger that he wouldn't share his secret.
"Max has always had a natural talent for machinery and dust. He loves designing new stuff and ran pretty much 90% of all of our weapon maintenance and repairs." Darron inputted. Team RWBY looked impressed as did Goodwitch.
"Your dust application skills are rather impressive maybe I could call my father and get you a job secured in our R&D department for after graduation." Weiss offered.
"Max won't take it. He has far too much pride for that and why would he leave us? He has everything he wants with us." Zade argued.
"He could have fame, glory, money. Anything he desires should he put his skills to good use." Weiss countered.
"He's got plenty of money. Definitely more than you could most likely promise him?" Zade responded. Weiss looked shocked. Nobody ever dare claimed that there was a monetary amount her family could not afford. Zade took the stunned silence as time to explain.
"You see. One thing we have is a shared lien account. That also is the only thing that wasn't confiscated from us. We lost our weapons, our clothes, and our freedom when placed under probation but our money was the one thing that wasn't touched. All 657 million of it." Everyone excluding
team ENDD fell into dead silence at the mention of such a large sum of money.
"And how did you acquire such grand funds?" Weiss asked. everyone leaned in close to
hear Zade's answer.
"Classified." Everyone crashed to the floor, except for Goodwitch who just looked relieved, at Zade's anti response.
"Anyway since that fun has concluded, Team ENDD time to learn." Darron called out handing a book to each member of his team including himself. The Team immediately shifted to mor comfortable positions and began reading. Team RWBY looked at them curiously before splitting to their own individual activities. An hour later into the flight the scene was still pretty much the same as it had been earlier. Darron and Zade were propped up against each other's backs while highly absorbed in their readings. Weiss and Blake were having a conversation on something that nobody cared to pay attention to. Goodwitch had headed to the cockpit 30 minutes ago to converse with the pilot. Yang leaned against Allister's shoulder with her foot still in the machine as Allister gently stroked her long blonde hair while also reading. Ruby oddly was off in space as she tried to discreetly stare at Max while he attended to Yang's healing machine while reading. Ruby suddenly found herself daydreaming about kissing Max. But this was different. These kisses were more passionate more… hungry. Ruby suddenly caught herself and shook her head to disperse the thoughts while her face lit
up bright red. Ruby finally managed to calm herself when Yang leaned over.
"You should go talk to him." Yang suggested as she motioned over to Max.
"What why?" Ruby asked quite defensively.
"Oh don't tell me you don't want to. I saw you daydreaming about him not 10 seconds ago." Yang explained. Ruby's face grew even more red as she felt mortified that she was so quickly caught by Yang.
"Fine." Ruby conceited
"Go get em tiger." Yang encourage as she gave Ruby a little push
towards Max. Ruby slowly walked over to Max.
"H-hey Max, what's up." She greeted. Max looked up from his book and smiled at Ruby.
"Oh, Hi Ruby. Not much just boring stuff. C'mon have a seat." Ruby sat down next to max against the machine.
"Whatchya reading?" Ruby asked.
"A book on advanced mechanical engineering." Max answered.
"Cool! I love weapons and building stuff!" Ruby exclaimed. "It's so much fun. Making weapons is my favorite though. It's like meeting new people, but better." Max laughed.
"Then you'd love to meet my real weapon." He said.
"Oh! Can I see it? Please please please. It must be so awesome." Ruby asked in her increasing excitement.
"Maybe one day. All I can tell you now is that it's name is Titan." Max responded with a genuinely apologetic smile. "I don't know
though. I'm not really one to care what I'm building. I just like the challenge of getting a specific mechanism to behave a certain way or designing a program to run an exact process. That seems to be my favorite part of building." Max continued as Ruby appeared to listen to every word intently. Ruby continued to stare at Max for a minute before realizing everything had fallen silent.
"S-so Max what do you think about Beacon so far?" Ruby asked desperate to make more conversation.
"It's been great so far. The classes are interesting even though the teachers can be a bit. well… dull." Max answered causing Ruby to giggle at his obvious analysis of Beacon's teaching staff befor Max continued. "Overall though I would have to say my favorite part is all the friends we've made even though we've only been around for like a week, There's also this one girl. She's awesome, pretty, smart, good with her hands, and childish in a rather adorable way." Ruby blushed bright red as she
caught on to Max's description. 'He can't be talking about me that way. Can he?' Ruby thought to herself as Max smiled at her. Ruby smiled back.
"It's great to have you guys here too. It certainly makes things more interesting, Especially you." Max's raised an eyebrow as Ruby muttered that last part,
"What was that? I don't think I heard you quite right." Max asked teasingly.
"N-nothing. I-i didn't say anything, Yeah yeah that's right nothing I think you might be hearing things. I'm not saying you're crazy anything just saying that I didn't say anything that you think you may have heard. I definitely didn't say anything about you or how good looking or how cool you are. Yeah." Ruby rambled off quickly before quickly rushing back to Yang causing Max to burst out laughing.
"Smooth." Yang mockingly complemented her sister.
"Shut up." Ruby replied still embarrassed about the whole incident. Darron reached out to Max with one hand. Max high fived Darron and started to remove Yang's leg from the healing machine and put the machine away. Goodwitch reentered the cabin
"Team's get ready. we are making our final descent to Sirak and they require an immediate assistance at the eastern gate. As soon as we land." She commanded. Darron looked around at his team who nodded back at him. Darron jumped up and ran into the cockpit. Darron popped back out as the hatch at the rear of the ship began to lower. "What do your think your doing?" Goodwitch
demanded.
"Our job." Darron answered before turning to his team. "Time to earn our keep. Darron stepped down the ramp to the edge and looked out as the ship rapidly approached the airspace over the city guard fighting a moderately sized hoard of Grimm that were attempting to breach the city through its large brick medieval style walls. Allister, Max, and Zade took positions behind Darron. Team RWBY just looked at them in amazement.
"Alright boys let's ENDD this." Allister cheered causing his team to shake their heads. Professor Goodwitch glared at Team ENDD as she stood in front of team RWBY, preventing them from following.
Darron crouched down and drew his swords as he jumped off of the ramp into a backflip before falling towards the fight. Allister laughed before before running to forward. Allister fell into a slide and managed to prop his foot on the ledge of the ramp. Allister pushed up and fell into a swan dive off the ramp. Zade rolled his eyes before following jumping into a side flip as he began to descend. Max ran down the ramp. At the edge he spun around and gave the other passengers a quick salute
as he let himself fall. Ruby looked up at professor Goodwitch.
"Why don't we get to do stuff like that."Ruby pouted.
"Because I would hope my students aren't inclined to make such reckless decisions. Plus you don't have the same experience." Goodwitch answered. The hatch closed again as the pilot turned course towards the landing area. As Darron landed he brought both of his blades down on the neck of a beowolf that was about to claw down one of the soldiers decapitating it. Darron flipped the sword in his right hand into a reverse grip and turned jamming it up through the skull of a charging creeper. Darron pressed the top of the second blade down and lifted himself in the air while he spins around flipping his grip again and bringing the first blade around slicing another beowulf in half. As darron landed he ducked under a swing from an incoming ursa. Darron plunged both swords into the stomach of the ursa before pulling his swords apart splitting the ursa in half. Another beowolf charged at Darron. Darron placed a jump kick straight to it's jaw causing it to flop backwards before jamming his swords down into its chest killing it. Darron flipped both of the swords in his hands and shoved them downwards behind him right into the skulls of two more creepers that were trying to attack him
from behind. Darron pulled his swords out as more ursai and beowolves advanced on him. Allister landed bringing his lance down on the head of an ursa causing it to explode. Allister lunged to forward and to the left jamming his lance up through the heart of a beowolf. Allister pulled his lance back and sidestepped to the left and swung his lance horizontally slicing another beowolf in half. Allister stabbed the top half of the beowolf and spun himself to the left. Allister slammed the half of the
beowolf into an ursa before pushing and running the lance completely through both grimm. Allister retracted his lance and tossed it in the air before jumping after it to avoid a charging creeper. Allister forewent re grabbing his lance and brought a fist down on the creeper as he landed on it's back. The creeper fell down as it's mask shattered and it's skull and brain were crushed. Allister stuck a hand out and the lance fell right into it. Allister rolled forward into a crouch in the middle of three beowolves. Allister lashed out with his lance in a circle cutting them all down at the knees. Allister spun his lance around before drawing it back and charging at another group of attacking grimm. While Zade was falling he drew two of his daggers. Zade landed by dragging both of the daggers down the back of a beowolf as he hit the ground. Zade spun around and planted one of the daggers in a creeper's skull. Another beowolf tried to swipe at Zade. Zade stabbed the beowolf's hand and pulled it off balance before sending the other knife straight up the back of the beowolf's neck into its brain. Zade spun around and stabbed an ursa in neck as he repeatedly stabbed it's stomach until it eventually bleed out and began disappearing. Zade turned to another ursa and dropped to his knees slamming his knives into its knees. Zade jumped out of the way of the falling ursa and back in quick enough to slice its neck before it hit the ground. Zade stretched his neck as a beowolf rushed his side Zade rolled underneath it and jumped onto its back. Zade put the blades to the beowolves neck and placed a foot on its back. Zade pulled up and decapitated the beowolf jumping off it's back in a flip. Zade stood up spinning his knives in his hands as a new wave of challengers approached. As Max fell towards
the ground he reached out and caught an ursa's neck with the bottom of his blade. Max used his fall as momentum to swing under the chin of the usra and back up removing its head in the process. While Max floated in the air he drew his pistol and emptied the clip turning three beowolves back into dust. Max fell to the ground again while swinging his axe down bringing it clear through the head of a creeper. Max stayed crouching until and ursa began to attack him. Max matrixed under a swipe and swung his axe around cutting off the ursa's foot. As the ursa fell down Max swiped across his neck slicing it open. Max felt a creeper approaching him from behind. Max flipped the axe in the air once before turning and throwing it and hitting the creeper directly in the face. Max made his way over to his axe and picked it up. Max swung the blade sharply to the side into the shoulder of a beowolf. The beowolf fell to the ground and Max laid into it cutting it several times before it finally let out a final howl and died. Max ran up to one of the city guards who was injured grabbed his rifle and went back to the grimm. As soon as the ship had landed Professor Goodwitch and team RWBY rushed to the eastern gate. Once they arrived they burst the gate before stopping in their tracks. there was no trace of the grimm anywhere and team ENDD was rushing around either helping the medics take care of those injured in the fight or repairing damage to the wall. Professor
Goodwitch stared dumbly at them while Team RWBY looked amazed. Zade was the first to notice the new arrivals.
"I see you have finally decided to grace us with your presence. Fret not though. We have seen to the disposal of the grimm." He informed them.
"Uh. Excellent work boys." Professor Goodwitch complimented hesitantly.
"Awesome job guys!" Ruby called out.
"Nice work Al!" Yang also called out earning rather suggestively looks from her team and a curious glare from Goodwitch.
"Nice work indeed." Said a man as he approached the group. He was tall and thin with grey hair and a handlebar moustache(cause i felt like it). He had an air of purpose and experience about him. "Hello. I am Sheriff Cosleray of this town." He spoke with a thick southern accent. "I presume you are Professor Goodwitch and students."
"That would be correct. We received your call and have come to assist." Goodwitch answered.
"Well I'd say you were off to great start." Cosleray complimented gesturing to team ENDD who had by now walked over and were standing by team RWBY. "Why don't you follow me and I'll show where you will be staying." Cosleray suggested as he began walking into the town. Professor Goodwitch motioned and the group began following.
"Were not sure why it started but around 2 weeks ago grimm have been constantly attacking the walls. At first is was small packs of either beowolves or creepers. then they got larger and larger. That
horde you just helped kill was the largest attack so far. The reason we called is because we want you to go out and clear the surrounding forest out as much as possible so that we can have some breathing room to reestablish our defense and acquire reinforcements. This is where you will be staying." Cosleray finished explaining as he stopped in front of a decently sized inn.
"Thank you. We will begin work early tomorrow." Goodwitch replied. with a tip of his hat the sheriff began to walk back out towards the eastern gate. Goodwitch led the two team inside.
"Alright. Go get yourself situated in your room and be back down here in 20 minutes for dinner and briefing." Goodwitch commanded. Darron flipped her a thumbs up as he directed team ENDD up the stairs. Ruby just nodded as her team left. 15 minutes later team RWBY was sitting in team ENDD's room, which was across from their own.
"Man I'm so disappointed! You guys got all the action." Yang complained as she sat on one of the beds next to Allister.
"Hey, what can I say. Our badassery it through the roof." Darron replied cockily.
"Yeah, but I'm curious as to why you picked such a dangerous insertion strategy." Blake commented.
"Because it was the quickest way to engage the enemy and we were aware we were capable of making the landing safely." Zade explained.
"And it was pretty fucking cool." Max clarified.
"That still doesn't change the fact that it was unnecessarily dangerous of you to do so." Weiss stated. Zade moved from his spot on the wall and walked over to Weiss draping an arm over her shoulders.
"Awe, While I'm glad to know that you care for our safety Weiss, but we know what we're doing." Weiss stared at Zade incredulously causing the rest of the group to try and stop themselves for laughing.
"I wish we had gotten to actually see you guys fight though. It was probably cool." Ruby said clearly disappointed.
"Don't worry about it you'll definitely get to see some more of our amazing skills tomorrow." Max reassured making Ruby smile.
"Let's get downstairs so Goodwitch doesn't shoot us." Allister stated looking at the clock in the
room. Everybody nodded and left the room ready to receive mission briefing. downstairs professor Goodwitch was sitting at a large round table awaiting the teams. Once the teams arrived and sat down Goodwitch began her briefing.
"This mission is an extended clearing mission. You will be spending the next couple days doing
nothing except for hunting grimm. Keeping the grimm as far from the village walls until they can reinforce them is the highest priority. Starting tomorrow morning each member of team RWBY will be paired with a member of team ENDD and will be assigned a specific area of the forest to cover" Goodwitch explained.
"Excuse me professor but shouldn't we be working with our actual partners to increase team dynamics?" Weiss asked. Zade shot Weiss a hurt pout while making a heart with his hands. Weiss's face flushed red as team ENDD nearly died laughing. Professor Goodwitch, fortunately, noticed none of this before answering.
"While I understand your concern Professor Ozpin and I still don't trust team ENDD enough to allow them to be unsupervised. This mission will be a rather important indicator in their future at Beacon Academy." Weiss nodded in understanding as team ENDD looked at each other wide eyed. Darron reached out and grabbed his team and brought them close.
"Do not fuck this up." He told them. They nodded quickly. As Darron sat back in his chair professor Goodwitch began to explain the pairings for the mission.
"Yang and Allister with take the eastern forest. Weiss and Zade will cover the northern forest. Blake and Darron will clear out the southern forest. Max and Ruby you will fight in the western forest. I will remain in the city providing support where necessary. Remember that you are to eliminate every Grimm in your path no exceptions. Now get some rest you depart at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning sharp." Goodwitch stood from her desk and left the two teams at the table.
"Well that was fun." Yang stated.
"Exceptionally." Darron answered.
"Well I'm going to take these idiots to bed before they go do something stupid." Darron stood and grabbed Zade and Max by their collars and pulled them towards the stairs. Allister stood to follow Darron when Yang quickly ran over to him and grabbed his arm. Allister leant down when she pulled on his arm. Allister wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.
"Sweet dreams." She whispered before returning to her team. A goofy grin spread across Allister's face as he made his way after Darron. As Yang returned to her team they stared at her.
"I still don't think you should allow yourself to be so enamored with him especially only after a week." Weiss advised.
"Oh shut it. We all know you want to get into Zade's pants all the same." Yang retorted.
"You can't prove that." Weiss huffed as she turned away while her face turned red.
"C'mon guys let's get some sleep we have a big day tomorrow." Ruby stated as she led her team up to their room for the night. When Darron reached the room he tossed Zade and Max in before following. Allister entered just shortly after with the same stupid grin still on his face.
"What's that look Allister. A certain blonde hair beauty stuck in your head, both of them." Max
teased.
"Oh fuck off." Allister countered.
"Seriously though I need a cold shower right about now." As Allister slipped into the hotel room bathroom he could here all three of his teammates make a whipping sound.
"Fuck you!" He yelled causing the three of them to burst into laughter. While Allister was taking his shower Darron sat in a chair by the window while Max sat on the bed and Zade sat on the floor leaning against a dresser.
"Ok boys while Allister is busy reallocating all attention to brain number 1 let's think for a minute. What's wrong with this whole picture?" Darron asked.
"Grimm don't attack in increasing groups." Max answered.
"Bingo!" Darron yelled
"So why the fuck are grimm making attacks using strategic placement of troop numbers and attack placement?" Darron further asked.
"It's inconclusive. There is no historical context no battle reports that even come close to reporting grimm taking strides to stagger attacks of increasing size. Sure there are reports of grimm attracting other grimm to a field of battle but those are usually just steady streams of arriving grimm rather than what we're seeing here." Zade answered.
"What about a change in grimm psychology? A change in grimm pack mentality could facilitate the combined groups of grimm we saw today plus create alternate territory problems forcing smaller packs to try and engage the town to ensure food for the pack without running into problems from the larger packs." Max suggested.
"Possibly but what possible factor could create such a large shift in the mentality of what might be all the grimm in this region." Darron answered.
"What about a drop in alpha population. Should a the grimm find themselves lacking a leader the could fall under the pack of a different species of alpha. This could alter the grimm behavior because both the old and new pack should retain specific aspects of their own pack. Right." Zade said.
"Sounds reasonable to me. Max after we get back from killing tomorrow I want you to go to the town's hunting lodge and ask around see if you can get some records." Darron ordered.
"No problem boss." Max answered.
"So what I miss?" Allister asked as he walked back into the room.
"Not much until tomorrow. So grab some sleep lover boy." Zade commented before standing and throwing himself on the bed and falling asleep. one by one the rest of the team followed suit ready for whatever they would face or learn tomorrow.