Chapter 37: Left in the cold
Viralious grit his teeth and cursed, Manticores a type of grimm that he had never had the displeasure of fighting or learning about from his few years of study to become a huntsman. Quite frankly he was going in blind against an enemy he'd heard was quite formidable.
Raising his SMGs to point at the oncoming grimm, Viralious let loose a short three round burst from each of his guns to test the waters as to the armor of the Manticore. The six bullets bounced off the thick skull like carapace on the rushing creature's face.
Seeing the little effect his bullets had, Viralious turned to his team. "We're going to have to focus these down fast, the more that show up the harder it's going to be to prevent them from breaking through." He says in a commanding tone, "Run a left strafing pattern and look for any weaknesses. Watch your partners." Viralious orders while his purple eyes and highlights change to match Eckhart's. "Any objections?"
Winter steps forward, "Watch the tail, see if you can sever it from the body."
Ifiral smirked before bringing his blade low at a 45 degree angle to the ground. "Well then, let's prove there's more than one way to skin a cat…Scorpion…bird thing"
Eckhart shakes his head before firing a shot at the horn of the Grimm causing it to crack audibly, "Weak spots seem to be legs and back, Winter's right though, watch that tail."
With one last nod, Team VIEW moved to engage the enemy, running forward Ifiral took the front position igniting his blade behind him. Viralious ran behind SMGs pointed towards the eyes of the Grimm hoping to blind it, Winter used her glyphs to elegantly Skate forward still keeping behind Viralious but ready to launch a fast volley towards the target at a moments notice. Eckhart held back near their initial position but held his weapon firm, obviously having a plan to use his semblance to engage once the Manticore had stopped moving.
As Team VIEW rushed into positions the Manticore shifted its weight onto its two back legs and performed a neutered pouncing maneuver towards Ifiral who blocked the large powerful paws with his blade. Using its wings, the Manticore pushed down on Ifiral, forcing the student to hold firm and push against the oppressive mass pushing down upon him.
Just then a blue shatter opened on the right of the grimm and three powerful shots struck it across its face causing it to become off center for a moment. Viralious took this momentary distraction to clear the distance and strike the hind left leg of the target performing a sliding dash into the leg while emptying the remainder of his weapons magazine into the leg.
The manticore stumbled back onto its hind legs and lashed forward with its large stinger-like tail towards Viralious; however long before the stinger could close the distance a glyph appeared around it and held the tail in place. Winter performed a quick backflip onto her glyphs and launched herself forward and cut the Stinger off the tail before landing next to Viralious. The grimm screamed in pain as the appendage fell to the ground and violently lashed out. Landing on all fours the Manticore quickly spun its whole body around and used its still partially intact tail to swipe Viralious and Winter, its motions were fast and practiced signaling it had done something similar before. While the stinger was removed the tail still created a taunt whip-like lash that struck Winter and Viralious before the Manticore finished its spin with a powerful crash onto Ifiral's blade.
Winter and Viralious were thrown back a good 4 meters from the attack and came to a halt after a short roll against the tunnel walk. Viralious slowly stood up the wind being knocked straight out of him. Reaching his hand out to help Winter up he turns to survey the battlefield and watches as the Manticore brings its front legs down in front of Ifiral before opening its mouth and an orange blast of fire and heat flies towards Eckhart.
Seeing the large spherical blast of 'not a great time' heading his way Eckhart dove into a gate he had just opened that landed him closer to the manticore but still able to dodge its swipes. "Great, who the hell thought giving these the ability to breathe fire was a good idea?" Eckhart cursed as he fired multiple shots towards the Manticore while Ifiral kept its focus using wide slashes hoping to gain an opening to attack its lightly armored stomach.
"We need an actual plan, 'cause this is bullshit" Viralious says reloading his SMGs and loading in two cartridges of fire dust causing a red glow to emanate from the barrel of the weapons.
"How about flash freeze?" Winter asks, loading a cartridge of ice dust into her saber. Eckhart gives a short nod before aiming his weapon perpendicular to Winter's sabers.
Eckhart opened a gate in front of Winter connecting to the left hind leg of the Manticore, immediately Winter thrust her saber into the ground creating sharp jagged spikes of ice to snake on the ground and through the gate stabbing into the Manticore's leg. Moments later Eckhart threw a cartridge of Ice dust through the gate and fired, causing a large sub zero chunk of ice to instantly attach itself to the grimm's leg.
The Grimm screeches in pain before Ifiral takes his momentary advantage to slash at the Grimm's mid-section with his blade performing a L shaped sweep before performing a quick cross slash to the lower chin area.
Stumbling back, the Grimm lashed out with its large horns attempting to gore at Ifiral before a purple shatter opened above the Grimm before Viralious dived through shifting his weapon to its dual blades mode. The edges of the blade shimmer with a dulled red as the blade cuts into the Manticore's dark black fur. Almost on instinct, the Manticore lifted its head up as if to buck Viralious off, giving Ifiral the opening he needed to send a wave of fire cutting through the Grimm.
The two halves of the Grimm land with a tremendous crash onto the tracks. Viralious lands inelegantly rolling twice to clear his momentum after quickly launching off to avoid getting barbecued.
"A little warning would have been nice." Viralious says to Ifiral dusting himself off.
"You're fine, besides I acted on instinct." Ifiral replies.
"Oh joy." Viralious says shaking his head ejecting the fire dust from his weapon allowing the spent cartridges to land on the tracks below their feet.
"Somethings not right." Eckhart says while reloading his weapon, "From my limited understanding of Manticores they aren't known to be on Sanus…"
Viralious nods, "You think the grimm baiting attempt has something to do with it being here."
"Possibly but it's only the one-" Eckhart starts before howls and claws scraping on stone can be heard getting closer, "We don't have time to come up with ideas, hostiles coming in hot."
"Ifiral, Winter, see if you can create a kill box with your semblances." Viralious orders, quickly loading two cartridges of ice dust into his weapons creating a soft cyan glow to emanate from the edges..
Winter lifts her saber up once again before separating the blade at the hilt and creating two glyphs to create two ice walls in a V shape where the opening is right in front of them. Ifiral grits his teeth and shifts his weapon from its two-handed blade into dual shotguns training them on the opening Winter create.
Moments later, multiple Beowolves and Ursai could be seen making their way towards them. No order has to be given as the four teens begin unloading their weapons into the oncoming crowd, Winter summons multiple different glyphs creating a machine gun line of aura based projectiles cutting through grimm after grimm. Precision shots ring out through the tunnel quickly exiting perfectly positioned tears in space connecting to the end of Eckhart's gun causing multiple Ursai heads to explode sending the spikes on their backs to ricochet into other grimm either crippling them or killing them out right. From the very middle of the chokepoint large amounts of molten slag and fire echo from dual shotguns ripping through the black fur and bone like paper Mache, soon Ifiral puts his two shotguns together and sends a large pyroblast screaming down the middle lane vaporizing grimm it comes into contact with and warping the metal of the tracks below. This however is a double edged attack as Ifiral is forced to fall back to reload copious amounts of fire dust into his weapon.
Viralious has much less success at range then his teammates, his SMGs did allow for him to pick off the few grimm they missed, but if there was a kill counter for grimm that day Viralious would be in last place simply because the three round burst he was using forced him to reload after only killing a few grimm. Switching to fully automatic didn't help either as he simply exhausted his ammo faster. Truth was he was at a loss when it came to range, ammo efficiency and damage with his SMGs.
Reloading his weapon for what felt like the hundredth time, Viralious had a better idea and called over to his partner, "Winter, Do you think Snow-Rose Sonata would work?"
Winter looked over and thought for a minute before nodding. Placing her blade so the tip was touching the ground but not embedding it she created a glyph embedded in the ice wall of their makeshift choke point while Viralious mirrored her on the right. Lifting her blade into a spiraling motion she creates a growth of crystalline ice to ring out from the straight wall creating a almost half pipe within the tunnel and filling the area between the two with a small patch of ice. Lifting their blades both Viralious and Winter create a glyph behind them to launch off of sending themselves into the incoming tunnel of grimm.
Skating between the two sides Viralious and Winter spin their blades cutting off limbs and bisecting grimm they came into contact with, Winter performed elegant sweeps as if she was a figure skater on an ice rink performing a magnificent dance. Viralious while lacking the elegance of Winter he made up for it with speed, using his weapon and momentum of the grimm themselves Viralious rocketed through the half pipe cutting heads and torsos of countless grimm. Once they reached the end of the tunnel they reversed and made their way into the middle sliding to the very top before launching into the air Viralious and Winter would lock eyes at the very height of their launch before both launch off the ceiling down toward the ground and firing a wave of jagged ice towards the oncoming grimm. Few are impaled but most end up stuck in the rapidly encroaching ice wave heading towards them. That seemed to have cleaned up enough grimm as the flood seemed to have halted momentarily, seeing this Viralious decided to use a glyph to launch himself into the air and starts to line up a shot on multiple of the grimm that are still stuck in the ice when a fireball collides with him sending him flying back towards Eckhart with his blades flying away from him one embedding itself in the icy tunnel they created the second pittering out on the ground a few meters away from where Viralious lands.
If one could describe Viralious' landing a bag of bricks would have been pretty apt. Everything hurt. Yeah there was all that jazz of aura being a shield, and without it he certainly would have been dead, but being blasted with fire and being launched into train tracks meant that if everything didn't hurt he was dead. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you looked at it) Viralious was alive and slowly stumbled to his feet and locked eyes with the perpetrator that fired upon him.
"A second fucking Manticore… you've got to be shitting me." Viralious says looking for his missing weapon.
"Less bitching, more killing." Ifiral says shifting his shotguns back into their two handed sword mode.
"For once Ifiral's got a very apt description on what to do." Eckhart chuckled before firing a shot through his gate striking one of the last remaining Ursai stuck in the ice.
"You alright?" Winter asks, concerned and kneeling down next to him.
Viralious looks at his partner and catches the worried look on her face before nodding and giving her a reassuring smile, "I'll be fine, just didn't expect to take a fireball to the face."
This gets a laugh from Winter before she offers him a hand to get up, "Well then you heard Ifiral, we should probably kill this thing."
Taking her hand, Viralious jumps to his feet and his hair and eyes shift to match Eckhart's. "Well then, let's murder the fucker." Rushing forward, Viralious picks up his left blade off of the ground and shifts it to it's SMG mode and lays down some covering fire towards the Manticore by opening a gate off to his left and connecting to in front of it's eye. Keeping his momentum going Viralious jumps grabbing onto his second blade embedded into the ice wall they created before vaulting from it landing back at the opening of the tunnel and firing down it.
Winter while Viralious recovered his equipment used her glyphs to close the distance and began firing aura projectiles at the oncoming Manticore who was crashing through the fagged ice field she and Viralious had created not moments ago. Digging her heels in Winter breathes in slowly creating a large attraction glyph under the Manticore before activating it causing it to crash down onto the jagged ice.
Eckhart examines the readings from his drones and searches for a weakness of the Manticore. Seeing an opening, Eckhart dives through a gate that leads behind the Manticore where he lines a shot up with its stinger before letting loose a shot straight through causing it to burst into tens of pieces. Keeping his momentum he opens another gate above the manticore's horns before jumping through and placing a clean shot shattering one of the pristine white horns off the thrashing creature.
Ifiral walked forward slowly toward the thrashing beast, reaching into his bag Ifiral grabbed three orange dust cartridges before loading them into his weapon. Gripping his blade with two hands, Ifiral quickly closed the distance and started a powerful swing before activating the dust within his blade. Unlike the normal fire that shot out from the weapon, a fast burst of momentum exploded from the weapon causing it to strike the boney face of the Manticore with great force causing the beast to recoil with agony. Ifiral seized his advantage and activated the dust again, rocketing his blade into the grimm again severing the site of impact. The Manticore beared it head down and scorching fire gathered in its mouth before lobbing it towards Ifiral who instead of dodging allowed for the fire to dance around him before engulfing his blade and performing a driving slash while igniting the last dust cartridge in his weapon. With it, a wave of fire launched toward the Manticore at incalculable speeds shearing the left wing and parts of the hind leg and leaving a pool of water in its wake having melted much of the ice field created.
The deeply wounded manticore screamed and bucked against the glyph that was holding it in place. Winter grit her teeth before calling out to her team, "I don't know how much longer I can keep it still, you should finish it quickly."
With a nod of acknowledgement Viralious called out, "Phoenix Drop!"
Ifiral smiles before reaching into his bag and pulling out a red dust cartridge before crushing it in his hand and using the flames created to ignite his blade. On his left a blue Shatter opened connecting above a purple gate connecting back to the original gate on Ifiral left. Diving into the blue gate Ifiral continuously gained momentum and brought his blade down into a point before after what was possibly the tenth loop the purple gate's exit moved to be above the bucking manticore. With tremendous Power, Ifiral's blade cut clean through the Manticore, killing it instantly on contact. The two halfs fell to the ground with a wet thud before beginning to fade away. Winter released her glyph before taking multiple deep breaths, "Next time pick something less flashy… I wasn't sure I cou-" Her words are cut off by a fire ball colliding with her sending her flying into the tunnel wall. Her light blue aura shimmers but thankfully doesn't break as she falls to the tracks below. Viralious rushes over to her side sliding over to be on the ground next to her.
"Winter are you okay? Brother, please be alright." His voice is slightly panicked.
Winter gives a pained groan before standing, "I… I'll be fine though I'm getting sick of these Manticores." her tone is pissed.
Viralious breathes a sigh of relief before also standing, "I agree with you on that, though take it easy, those fireballs hurt."
On the other side of the tunnel stood two grimm a third Manticore which was larger and instead of having a stinger on its tail it looked to be a mace of some sort, next to it stood a dangerous creature: a Sphinx. This large grimm was like a pack leader and could give experienced huntsmen a run for their money, four students already weary from fighting multiple other Grimm likely wouldn't make it out unharmed. The white snake-like tail hissed at the four before a loud bang could be heard emanating through the tunnel and the tail exploded in a shower of black ooze.
Looking behind them, Professor Lute walks up holding his anti-material rifle trained on the Sphinx. Lowering his sights Lute addresses the four of them standing there, "Not bad holding the tunnel until help could arrive. Do me a favor and keep that Manticore off my back while I teach this Sphinx to not take its pack from Solitas." His tone is militaristic and commanding. Placing his weapon on the ground it shifts into a large axe like weapon before he rockets forward using a shot from his weapon to gain momentum. Colliding with the Sphinx he begins a deadly dance with the large grimm.
The Manticore begins to move in to attack Professor Lute before a strong bullet collides with the side of its head getting its attention. Turning towards Team VIEW it snarls and lowers its head signaling it's about to shoot a fireball.
As the hot ball of air travels Team VIEW splits dodging the attack before reforming with Eckhart and Viralious providing covering fire for Ifiral and Winter to engage the beast up close. Winter dashes into a lunge with her sabers striking the Grimm in the front right leg creating a pinpoint gash in the large black fur. Taking this advantage, Ifiral swings wide with his weapon trying to catch the chin of the Manticore to end the fight quickly. Unfortunately there is no such luck and the beast dodges the attack and lunges forward forcing both Winter and Ifiral to dodge out of the way placing them on opposite sides of the Manticore,
Digging her heels into the track below her feet, Winter summons three glyphs one above her and one on each of her sides. Using her saber like a baton, she swings it creating a motion in the air before activating her glyphs sending out a projectile of aura that takes a winding path before colliding with the Manticore.
Said Grimm screeches, not in pain, but seemingly annoyance. Ignoring the shots peppering its black fur from Viralious and the higher caliber striking its bone plating, the Manticore stalked towards Winter. Not wanting to be ignored and hoping to take attention back, Ifiral moves to attack with a jumping crash before the mace-like tail slams into him, knocking him away. Closing the distance much faster than anticipated Winter only had a few moments to dodge before a large clawed paw struck where she had just been standing. The manticore follows up swinging its tail which she's barely able to block with a glyph before the force of the blow shatters the glyph and the mace head strikes the wall of the tunnel causing dust to fall from the ceiling.
Pulling its tail from the wall, the Manticore turned and looked Winter in the eyes, sizing her up and searching for any ounce of fear it could gleam, growling the Manticore lowered its horns and began charging. Yet there was no fear. Winter was a Schnee, a huntress, a member of Team VIEW. She didn't feel fear, but she did feel exhaustion. Her over reliance of her semblance and aura were coming back to bite her, things needed to be finished quickly or else her aura would reach dangerous levels. Breathing in a deep sigh Winter raised her sabers and prepared to launch towards the Manticore planning to use a glyph to vault over the horns and embed her weapon in its unprotected neck.
The universe seemed to have other plans; as Winter launched forward her foot was caught on a warped bit of track making her lose balance for a split second. That second was enough for her course to be altered just enough for her to be forced to instead of using the glyph to jump over the horns she had to course correct to the side to dodge the oncoming mass of spikes and pain. Dodging to the left the Manticore speeds past but suddenly it whips it's whole body around sending the mace head on it's tail towards Winter.
She couldn't dodge it; she had no leverage to shift her momentum defensively. Summoning a glyph, Winter braced with her sabers before the mace head plowed through the glyph shattering it and crashing into her prized weapon. Shattering the blade before the mace collided with her stomach and sent her flying back into the tunnel wall.
Winter slammed into the wall of the tunnel with sickening force. Her light blue aura shattering on contact before she fell onto the tracks below. Slowly she begins to lift herself up before she sees it, a ball of fire heading straight for her.
No aura, no semblance, no weapon, no options. This was how Winter was going to die… fireball from a Manticore while protecting the City of Ansel…
But death didn't come instead a purple gate appeared in front of her and Viralious dove through. The fireball collided with his body creating a wave of hot air to flow back through the tunnel. Winter was shielded from the damage but her partner had sacrificed the last of his aura to protect her. Staring at her partner's back she could see the dark purple aura surrounding his body shimmer before shattering before he collapsed onto one knee.
"You… Winter are you alive?" Viralious asks out of breath and injured.
Winter waited there in shock of what had just happened. She couldn't process it but instead she focused on the pressing matter. The Manticore charging straight for them.
"Viralious, look out!" she created as the manticore closed the distance, however her fears were unwarranted as a blue gate opened before a large two handed blade flew through embedding itself into the neck of the Manticore before Ifiral followed through grabbing the blade and kicking off the Manticore pulling his weapon free and sending it careening into the tunnel wall.
The grimm's face hit the hard stone like a sack of bricks shattering the two large horns on its face and breaking parts of the bone plating. Before it's able to turn to face its attacker a bullet flies through the chin of the beast and out the top causing it to collapse to the ground and start to fade away. Walking out of the fading carcass, Eckhart brushes off his clothes and starts reloading his weapon.
Breathing a sigh of relief Viralious looked at the carcass of the fading Manticore before turning to see the end of the battle of the Sphinx and Professor Lute.
Lute dodged with a cutting sideswipe using the long edge of his axe to catch the leg of the Manticore as it slammed itself down into a pounce trying to catch the professor off guard. Shifting his weight to be centered he drove the axe upwards into the grimm's midsection eliciting a sickening squelch of grimm fluid and black ooze before ripping it out and dodging a well-aimed fireball.
The Sphinx limped before swinging at the professor with the remnants of the exploded tail but it missed as Lute dove underneath it and morphed his Axe into a large two handed greatsword. Energy sparked through the blade before he cut upwards further injuring the Sphinx as it caught the blade in its abdomen before it could jump backwards.
Continuing his pursuit Lute exploded the energy within the blade launching himself into the air before performing a wide slash cutting the right wing of the Sphinx forcing it to crash down onto the tracks below.
The grimm snarled and hissed trashing about as Lute slowly walked forward, his blade held in front of him ready to deliver a powerful downward strike. In desperation the grimm shot half formed fireballs at him but they were either dodged with little skill and pittered out after a few feet or were blocked with the extreme weight of the blade. After cruel moments of slow walking Lute finally reached the face of the sphinx and brought his blade down cleaving it in two before exploding the rest of the energy stored in his blade causing for the rest of the Sphinx to explode as if it were an insect smashed with a shoe.
Lute lightly brushed himself off before closing his weapon onto his back. Turning towards Team VIEW he walked forward in stoicism not even acknowledging the power he had just shown dispatching the Sphinx. Once he was within earshot of the team he spoke, "You exceeded my expectations, didn't think you would kill the Manticore before I got the Sphinx." He said in true praise.
Viralious coughed before standing up, wincing in pain as he did which Lute immediately took note of. "Three actually. We managed to defeat three."
Lute blinked once before nodding, "And you and Winter's auras are spent because of it."
Winter stared in amazement and stammered her reply for a second, "Y-yes how did you know?"
"Well, when you've been a medic for huntsmen you tend to pick up the signs when they are in pain with aura and the signs without aura." Lute responds in a deadpan tone before turning back to Viralious, "Our mission is done here. Murt's already secured a bullhead to take us back to Atlas once we're back in town. The Grimm battery was able to clear out the vast majority of the force. I'm going to stay for a few days to help the wounded but Murt's going with you and giving a report on what happened to General Ironwood. You four will also be expected to give a report on what occurred within the cave." He says in a serious tone.
Viralious nods before walking over and extending a hand to Winter. She stares at it hesitantly for a second before reaching over and taking it. Wincing slightly Winter starts walking towards the shattered hilt of her weapon laying there in front of her. Reaching down she picks up the damaged hilt and holds it out in front of her. Looking over the broken steel.
Viralious places a reassuring hand on her shoulder and says, "It served you well, I'm sure it could be reforged if you want to."
Winter looks down at the damaged hilt before nodding and sheathing it, though it's hanging a bit looser than it normally would.
Ifiral walks over sheathing his weapon and tosses a thin piece of metal evidently it's part of her saber, "I doubt we could find every piece that shattered from it but this is the largest."
Winter watches as the blade bounces on the ground as she's not crazy enough to try and catch a sharp piece of metal without aura. Bending down she picks up the damaged blade and examines her reflection before sheathing the weapon.
Eckhart is the last to sheathe his weapon before calling out, "Professor, is the tunnel secure?"
Lute nods, "We're not picking up any grimm in a three mile radius so for now yes. I'll get a group of huntsmen to watch it when you're gone."
Viralious nods, "We should get going then, I don't know about you guys but I don't want more bullshit to happen."
"You mean like initiation?" Winter asks.
"That doesn't count, Professor Lute and Murt prevented anything from happening besides, that was Team CARD's fault not ours." Ifiral points out.
Exiting the tunnel the town of Ansel looks like nothing had happened. Truth was that other than the sound of shelling and some attacks on the walls the actual down was untouched.
"Murt's got the bullhead coming in around the makeshift cafeteria so we're heading over there." Lute says taking point behind them.
Compared to the fight that had taken place in the tunnel the walk over to the cafeteria was uneventful but truth be told that was to be expected. Eventually they actually reached the command center. There were multiple different soldiers, civilians and huntsmen gathering around talking and sharing about the battle they had just endured. It seemed as if the general mood was of celebration or even boredom.
Across the room stood Murt currently standing on a table telling some possibly embellished story to a group of listeners.
Lute's the first to catch Murt's attention who finishes telling his story before stepping off the table and making his way towards Team VIEW. However, Viralious takes note of faunus watching them closely, it's probably nothing but something about it just keeps tugging at his gut.
"Great job kids, the bullhead's going to be here in about three hours so get something to eat and tell me about what happened in that tunnel." Murt states enthusiastically.
"Well I can say for a fact Manticores fucking suck." Ifiral deadpans.
"Hey speak for yourself you didn't seem to have that bad of a time with them." Eckhart interjects.
"Well cause I'm just built different." Ifiral jokes before suddenly the click of a simple revolver could be heard.
"Death to the Schnees!" is all Viralious hears before without thinking he pushes Winter to the ground and gets between the source of the noise and Winter.
A loud bang echoes through the room before the Faunus is tackled by multiple different people. Faunus and humans alike point their weapons at the would-be terrorist.
A small noise escapes Viralious' lips before a pain rips through the lower right part of his abdomen. Instinctively he moves his hands over the location of the pain and it feels wet. Slowly he looks down and sees a dark red liquid on his hands.
My own blood
Viralious gives a small laugh before collapsing onto the floor of the cafeteria.
The sounds of shouting from Winter and the Faunus echo in his head before he thinks he hears Lute give some instructions. The last words that he hears before everything goes dark is:
"Hang in there please."
A/N
A lot happens in this chapter so we actually have a semi longer authors note, so let's get into it.
This has been the first chapter with action for a good bit of time and I'll apologize for that, a lot of the things I have planned need set up and can't be done out of order so hopefully this starts to scratch the itch. I don't believe there should be as long of a gap between action in the chapters that follow cause things are going to take off from this point on.
So let's go over the actual content of the chapter: So for people who don't remember what a Manticore and Sphinx are, they are seen fighting Team RWBY in the first episode of Volume 6. Originally the script for this chapter had only one Manticore and Sphinx but after I rewatched the episode to examine how they did the fireball attack I saw they weren't that much of a challenge for the girls. Now at this point in the story, Team VIEW is around the strength of Team RWBY during the ending of Volume 2 so I assumed that over the four volumes they got stronger and would be ahead of where first years should be making Manticores a bit harder of a challenge for them to face. That being said they also occasionally went down like Beowolves so hence why there were three making it a battle of attrition against an above average threat.
As for the fight itself I get to actually address a comment that was made to this story a while ago. So when writing Team VIEW I create fight scenes on three principles, first being how it fits with the story and the outcome, next is the rule of cool and last is how easy it is to describe. A lot of attacks I can easily visualize but actually getting it working on to the page is a hell of a lot harder then visualizing it. Perfect examples were the multiple team attacks performed in this chapter. So yes, I write first using the skill and where each character would be at but sometimes spectacle trumps all reasoning. Viralious' ability to use glyphs in Chapter 8 is mostly because of that rule of cool. Yes, we see him practice afterwards he still seemingly knows how to use them instantly, but sometimes the rule of cool must have limits. Hence why he was limited in that fight to creating platforms and the dust splitting projectile thing... Both techniques Winter described to him when explaining her semblance and quite frankly being the more boring part of the Schnee semblance. Hopefully this gives some foresight into my writing process for this story. I recommend the rule of cool for BIG spectacles like the show proper. Think of the Nevermore in Volume 1.
So some readers might pick up on the fact that I broke Winter's weapon in this chapter so you'll have to see where that goes in the next few chapters. As for Viralious, well those who know anatomy might catch where he was shot. So you'll have to wait and see how things go.
AmoebaHewdraw's note: I haven't read the chapter yet and I don't know anatomy so I'm immediately guessing that Viralious got shot in the dick.
… The penis is not in the lower right part of the abdomen.
Overall this was a nice chapter that ended up being well over 5k words. So glad to say that we're not stuck to the 3k per chapter we've been stuck in for the last few.
This is where I would like to thank my Editor AmoebaHewdraw who's going to have a field day next chapter : ^)
Until Next time Xcom Out.