~Notice: POV changed to Erydias Grey, present~
I had a bad feeling in my stomach the whole afternoon, and every time I walked past the mirror, it got worse. I have been on the verge of armoring up twice this day, and third time's the charm, so there I was, all geared up and ready for combat, walking through the forest that had been my home for the past seven years. I had unfolded my shield when leaving the house, and caught myself admiring the 'artwork' on the front side of it; the sword pointing downwards with two stylized fists flanking it, just as the depiction on the armor's chest piece.
It did not take long for me to find the place of the engagement; Battles tend to be loud after all. As I approached the site, it was already getting dark, so the Grimm were becoming less visible as time passed. By the looks of it, these two teams had done a decent job of decimating the creatures, when the Grimm suddenly started running; not in fear, but as part of a flanking maneuver by two other Beowolf packs. One of them even snuck up behind me, but it was too loud in its approach for a successful ambush, which resulted in its death by my blade. "Back in business, I'd say…" I commented myself, and started moving towards the Battle.
There was a time I cursed my Semblance for attracting Grimm in certain vicinity, but after my graduation from Beacon Academy I started to see its practical uses. As soon as I focused on it, Beowolves started to turn around and charge me, instead of joining the onslaught of the other Huntsmen, easing their part of the battle. They used to call it 'pulling aggro', and I had not figured out, what they meant by that. Let's see, if I can still do this…
I cut off the first Beowolf's right paw, and stabbed its head directly after that, taking the creature out in the process. The next two Grimm already tried to pincer attack me from the sides, which forced me to rush forward. One of them clawed into my sword, trying to disarm me, but I managed to guide it into the other one, using their momentum against them. A slice through their throats later, they were eliminated, and I turned around just in time to block a claw slash to my chest with my shield. The forced rush forward, however, attracted even more Beowolves – more than I could handle by myself.
A claw slashing towards my face. I barely dodged it. The counter attack opened my defense for another Grimm. I turned around, slammed it with my shield. Still standing. Stab to the neck with my sword. Missed. Another two trying to overwhelm me. Managed to push them aside, on my knees. Next attacker jumped into my blade. But I fell on my back. One Beowolf tried to stomp my head in, but was hit by bullets, and fell next to me. Others were driven away by explosives. That bought me the time to get back up on my feet. Allies were surrounding me, giving me time to recover. The onslaught continued. We pushed the Grimm back, wave by wave. Then the battle subsided, the Grimm retreated.
As the stress left my body, I took a look at the Huntsmen, two young Huntsmen, and two young Huntresses in fact, who probably had saved my life. Aura and armor would have prevented most of the damage, but without assistance it would have been very difficult to turn that situation around again.
The first one I saw was a young man, wearing a chest piece and shoulder protection. His jeans were torn at the left thigh, and he was bleeding. The blonde boy was armed with a simple set of sword and shield, and I could tell by his stance that he had not used it very often. He looked at me in disbelief, and I had the feeling, he knew who I am, just like Ruby Rose did.
The other guy was black haired, wore green attire, which could often be found in the kingdom of Mistral, and used two pistols with bayonet like blades attached to them. Probably it was he, who shot the Beowolf trying to crush my head. He was firm with his weapons, as far as I could see via his body language, as was the girl in a white top and a pink skirt next to him. Seriously? A grenade launcher? I thought to myself as I looked at the weapon. She seemed to be excited the wrong way, considering they just fought off a merged pack of Beowolves. But maybe it was just my perception, so I did not comment on that.
Lastly a young Spartan Lady caught my attention. Her equipment was a small round shield, and a Foldable Frame spear – it just happened to change into a sword – while she was clad in a gold and red color scheme, legs armored, chest covered in a leather armor, which reminded me of a corset.
"Thanks for the assistance," I said.
"We have to thank you, Ma'am," the blonde boy answered. "If it weren't for you, we could've been in real trouble back here."
"Mhm…"
"We should report to the other team, Jaune," the Spartan suggested, which reminded me of my courtesy, or the lack of it. And it was good to hear that Ozpin did send more than one fresh team to deal with the Beowolves.
"Erydias Grey," I introduced myself, earning surprised and curious looks by three of the teenage Hunters.
"Nora!" the girl in white-pink shouted in the middle of her sentence, and returned to babbling to the young man in green, who introduced himself as Lie Ren, after adding her last name, Valkyrie, to her introduction.
Jaune suddenly saluted me. "Jaune Arc, Ma'am. It's an honor to meet you in person." So you DO know who I am.
"Pyrrha Nikos," the last member of this team finished their introduction. We silently agreed to leave pleasantries as they were for the time being.
"Where is this other team?" I asked out of curiosity.
"They went up north, Ma'am," Jaune explained to me, "We were told that there is a Death Stalker in the area, and they wanted to look for traces of the creature."
Now that was no surprise to me. I knew the Stalker, but I did not know that he was that close to my house. While Jaune, who appeared to be the leading part of this team, JNPR, as Nora explained to me, contacted the other Huntsmen via his scroll, I searched the vicinity for any sign of a Stalker myself, as did Ren and Pyrrha. We did not find any, though.
"Damn… No response…" Jaune muttered to himself, but loud enough to be heard. "Alright, guys. We need to move."
"…I don't like this…" Ren said quietly. I assumed he had a bad feeling, a hunch of what they could find, like I did.
"Would you accompany us?" the leader of this team of aspiring Huntsmen and Huntresses asked me, and surprisingly enough, I agreed. While we headed to the last known location of the other team, I tried to remember how it was to be a subordinate. Funny thing, being more experienced than the leadership, but still following their orders… The night made the whole ordeal even more difficult than it already was, given the terrain. We entered a part of the forest, which was littered with cracks in the ground, potentially dangerous ones at that. It took Jaune about fifty seconds to start using my knowledge of the area to move around more safely.
It was dark already, when we arrived at one of the many clearings in that particular area.
"A good spot for an ambush…" Jaune whispered, and I could not agree more. To my knowledge, there were only three ways to enter the clearing without crossing one of the cracks. According to his hint, the team fanned out, and secured the other two entrances, while I remained at the one we came from.
"Ren, Flashlight…" Jaune ordered, and the latter obeyed. What they found was sadly, what had been expected: Four dead bodies, former Huntsmen maimed by Beowolves. And there was still no sign of the Stalker.
Those four reacted to their findings in different ways. While Pyrrha seemed to have no problem with them at all, Ren was too busy calming down Nora. She was on the verge of screaming in Terror, I could see in her flashlight lit face. Luckily, she did not. Jaune took the sight fearful as well, but not as traumatized as his subordinate Nora. Get their tags, and be done with it… There's nothing you can do… I thought to myself, and remembered the moment I said this out loud; a similar situation to this one. And like back then, the howling of Beowolves dragged me back to the present.
In the darkness I could understand Weiss' difficulties seeing the Creatures of Grimm. We were not fast enough, to get out of the clearing, and the pack had surrounded us, as far as I could hear.
"Flares!" Jaune and I commanded synchronously, as I closed in on the team.
"Sorry, old habits…" I apologized, while the flares granted us the light we needed to witness, what we were up against: The remnants of the merged pack of Beowolves, including the Alpha. It was about twice the size of a common Beowolf, bone plates all over its body, especially the forelegs and the front side of the creature.
"The bodies were bait…" Pyrrha whispered; her voice somewhat fearful, but still steady. Ren and Nora stayed silent. She had calmed down enough to fight properly – that was, what I had hoped, however. Jaune on the other hand started mumbling to himself, and I was afraid he would lose his focus. But to my surprise, he looked up again, and ordered his team to try and engage the Alpha directly, while he would cover their backs, with my assistance. What the boy obviously lacked in combat experience, he made up for via tactical expertise. Our foes simply did not anticipate such a daring move. And it was successful. The others were not able to kill the Alpha – it retreated behind its pack – but the maneuver got us out of their circle.
Shots were fired, grenades were launched, and many Creatures of Grimm perished under the youngsters' fire. However, the beasts flanked us several times, until they eventually separated Pyrrha and me from the rest of the team. The Spartan got knocked off her feet. I was too far away, to assist immediately. One Beowolf stomped onto her right knee, as if it was kicking out a fire. Of course, she started screaming in pain. While I did my best to keep the pack away from her, Nora blew up several Grimm, creating an opening. I grabbed Pyrrha, pulled her up, and literally threw her into Jaune's arms. He caught her, and nodded at me. The last time I received a gesture like that, I was bidden to take over. So I did it this time.
"Alright," I shouted to get their attention, "westwards, to a cave! We need a choke point! Nora front, I'll cover the rear, Ren secures Pyrrha and Jaune! Move!" Luckily they took the sudden change of command well enough to immediately obey the given orders. They ran directly to the cave I had been thinking about. There, the number of Beowolves would turn into a disadvantage. Only one of them could attack us via the cave entrance at a time.
"Distress call, Ren!" Jaune ordered in my stead, as we arrived at the location of our last stand. It seemed that I was meant to take over only partially, and I was fine with that. The Alpha never engaged us on the way to the cave. But it was always watching, always in line of sight. It snarled and growled at us. It took me the whole way to the cave to realize, it was directing the pack, commanding it.
We need to stop pulling out the petals… I thought to myself, as we prepared our defenses. "Cut off the head…" I thought aloud, and Ren, who stood next to me, nodded in agreement.
"But how?" he asked.
"First things first, here they come," I answered, and the first Beowolf smashed itself into me, trying to get me out of the way. I pushed it back, and Ren shot the beast. The next ones were shot by Pyrrha. She was sitting a bit back in the cave, holding a musket like rifle. Foldable Frame, obviously, but three active forms were new to me. Jaune decided that it would be more efficient to shoot the Creatures of Grimm, before they reached the cave entrance. I was supposed to block it, whenever one of them got to close. So I folded my shield, and used its second form, a double barreled assault rifle, mounted to my forearm. Shooting most of the Grimm approaching, I still had to unfold the shield from time to time, in order to stop a Beowolf from entering the cave.
Eventually, the opportunity we were waiting for presented itself. I hit the Alpha, standing behind its pack, with a stray bullet. While it could not penetrate its bone armor plates, the hit seemed to have surprised it enough for Jaune to seize the opportunity. "Nora, fire!" he shouted, and one of her grenades flew shortly after. It hit the Alpha Beowolf, making the beast howl in agony. That howl confused the whole pack enough for us to risk a counter attack.
But as soon as we started said counter attack, the ground started to rumble underneath our feet. The youngsters barely had any time to react, as the Deathstalker broke through the ground; right in front of the cave. It blocked off my view of the battlefield, where Jaune, Ren and Nora were continuing the attack on the Alpha Beowolf. Separated from the team, I did not even realize Pyrrha, who still was in the cave, and literally defenseless against the titanic creature. I was too busy keeping it off the backs of the other aspiring Huntress and the two equally aspiring Huntsmen.
So this is it… The last stand… I thought to myself, and immediately went for the many eyes of the Deathstalker. I managed to stab one, causing a shriek of agony by the creature. I focused on the Deathstalker's front, because my biggest concerns in that situation were its mandibles and the pincers. It could easily put me between these body parts, were it not for the rocks, which limited the Stalker's maneuverability in that regard – I did not want to leave the cave entrance, since it was my advantage. But it was intelligent enough to go for the easier prey instead of me, leaving me no choice but to give up my advantage.
As soon as I engaged the creature again, I simply stopped thinking. I acted on my instincts, and activated my Grimm attracting Semblance again. I was lucky that only the Stalker reacted to it at that time. It tried to grab me with its left pincer. I parried it with my shield, guiding myself under the huge pincer. But instead of leaving the area between pincers and mandibles, I leapt towards the mouth of the Deathstalker. My only focus was keeping the creature occupied until the others could finish it. I deemed the direct confrontation the only suitable way of achieving that goal. Weapon, Shield and Bone clashed numerous times, while it tried to get a hold of me.
I evaded the pincers by ducking under them.
I somewhat parried the mandibles by thrusting my sword against them.
I avoided getting pushed into the mandibles by stabbing to the eyes of the Deathstalker, forcing it to move away from me.
I barely blocked one of its pincers, and was pushed back in the process.
During that dance of death with one of the most dangerous Creatures of Grimm I knew, I did not notice the young Huntress on top of it. Only after she had smashed her hammer into the creature's back about three times, I realized that I was not fighting the Deathstalker on my own any more. As the youngsters engaged it, they created an opportunity for me to catch my breath. As my adrenaline level dropped, I started feeling the pain. The arthrosis in my right hip joint started to take over my perception. My arms became numb, I got dizzy, and I my vision got blurry in mere seconds. I had overstrained myself, and was paying the price. I could, however, hear Jaune – fragments of the words he spoke. I took a few blinks to recognize Ren, who had his hands placed on my upper arms. He was shaking me, and talking to me. But I could barely hear his voice – it was dampened by the peeping sound in my ears. Flashing lights in the darkness were almost all I could see – very bright and fast moving. Shadows of people. Black smoke. I was not sure, what was going on around me at that moment.
But I was certain at this point, that the Deathstalker was no longer a threat to the young Huntsmen and Huntresses, who were more than capable of taking care of the rest. I fell on my knees, and just closed my eyes. That day was over for me.
The next chapter: The White Knight returns
Author's note: This chapter has been altered. The previously uploaded version of it has been uploaded by mistake (I used the wrong file, my bad).
On another note: I do ask for feedback of you, dear readers, in order to improve the story and/or writing. Please criticize in a constructive way.