Ch. 19 Rain, mud and blood
"Hurry it up, we move out in 15 minutes!"
The White Fang camp was in a frenzy. The orders from their new employer came through the day before. Adam was understandably in a foul mood. The human woman promised many things, but reality was such that she saw them as mere minions, no better than animals. But she had power. And in their situation there was little they could do against her.
"Leader! Bullheads from the south! Beacon insignia!"
"Damnit! This complicates things. No matter, we're done here anyway."
"Sir, the more sensitive of us feel the rain approaching!"
"When?"
"Late afternoon…"
"Then I say we use this. Stop the preparations! Send out scouts. I want to know what Beacon's doing here! In the meantime, let us prepare a welcome gift for them."
"YES LEADER!"
The rain would make pursuit difficult. That is of course if Beacon could pursue. Adam was certain he could force them to have other priorities. After all, why fight when the grimm could do that for them. The Fang would have to take a detour to the north, but that was nothing but a slight complication.
=O=O=O=
"OH, FUCK YOU LARK!"
"How is this my fault!"
"Just shut up!"
"We should move south! This isn't a survival exercise anymore!" Blake was finally shaken from her daze and took charge of the situation "If we stay we'll just get surrounded!"
"RETREAT! Ren, support fire. Nora, aim for groups, conserve ammo. Jaune, up front, cut our way through!"
Ruby didn't have to say any more and Jaune started charging through the forest with his sword drawn. The most important thing was to keep up momentum.
The group ran through the forest without stopping. The Grimm approached from all directions, but the majority came from the north, so they encountered little real resistance. The few Beowolfs and Creeps that met the group met a swift end at the hands of the students.
"Ursa ahead!"
Maroon sounded a warning from a treetop and Ruby replied with a quick shot from her rifle.
"Got it!"
The Ursa's head snapped back from the hit, but a few seconds later the bear Grimm fell on all four and charged at Ruby. The Ursa ignored everyone else in its charge, so Jaune took the opportunity to jump on its back and sink his hidden blade in between its bone armour.
It didn't have any effect initially, until Jaune called back Occultus Ferrum back to his Arsenal. The vessel returned empty, releasing a chunk of Jaune's aura to burn the Grimm's bone armour off..
The Ursa stumbled as its shoulder started disintegrating into black smoke and Jaune stabbed Atra Aurora through its unarmoured flesh, ending the Ursa before it reached Ruby.
Jaune quickly resummoned Occultus Ferrum, before jumping off from the Ursa's back with a smirk.
"Got it."
Maroon, who saw the whole confrontation, jumped down from the tree, landing next to team RNJR.
"How did you do that!?"
"It's a part of my semblance."
"Never mind that, let's keep moving!"
Ruby ended the discussion before it could start properly and Maroon rejoined her team in the treetops. It was only when Jaune started running again that he realised that the entirety of team BSMT was running through the treetops. Maroon was running with little issue, seemingly used to freerunning. Cocra on the other hand employed the help of her weapons, a pair of what looked like climbing picks, to follow behind her leader. Blake, by far the most competent at running through the trees out of all of them, occasionally helped herself with her semblance, leaving behind a shadow on one branch as she reappeared on another. Weiss was lagging behind a bit, but while she needed to use her semblance on every branch on the way she kept up with the others by occasionally launching herself from a glyph in mid air whenever she couldn't quite make the jump.
As Jaune ran along he realised why team BSMT took such extreme measure. They were avoiding the muddy ground. Something that Jaune realised will become a problem for some of them soon.
The few of them that wore actual armour were quite a bit heavier than the others and the wet ground would soon give way to their footsteps. This would slow both team RNJR and SWNY down.
"Ruby! The ground is getting muddy! Cardin, Pyrrha and I will have to slow down soon."
"That's fine BSMT will go on ahead and get the teachers. The eight of us will have to hold out for reinforcements. Blake!"
"I heard you Ruby! We'll go on ahead."
"Sky!"
"Lark's useless right now. Yang's in charge right now."
Ruby paused for a few seconds, processing Cardin's words.
"...Yang?"
"I'm with you Ruby. We'll have your back."
Soon after the girls of team BSMT left the slower group behind a bright red light cut through the grey sky.
"Flares from the south! It's early!"
"Good, that means the teachers know about the stampede. Push on guys! Before the ground turns to mud."
Cardin grit his teeth, but followed the small redheads command. He was looking forward to this survival exercise initially. With the amount of books and training he was forced through he thought he could show off his knowledge.
Then that fucking coward ran away and left them without leadership. Of course Cardin could have taken leadership in that situation but left it to the blondie instead of arguing with the women of his team.
And now this shit!
But this was still better than no leadership. And what she said did make sense. Arc was right in his assessment, their armour was heavy and it was only a matter of time before the mud became an issue.
So he grit his teeth and pushed his way forward, joining Arc at the head of the group.
"Anyone have an estimate on the distance?"
Cardin's question was answered by Ren, who had so far provided support fire in silence.
"Thirty minutes at our current pace. An hour or so if we're being realistic."
"Not bad, not good."
Travelling through the forest was exhausting. Though they were making progress it was slowing down, both due to the rain and exhaustion. Unfortunately for the group the Grimm were unaffected by fatigue and their numbers were increasing. Eventually they encountered a pack of three Ursai that stopped them dead in their tracks.
"Shit, that's a Major."
"Damnit! Yang, Pyrrha take the left! Ren, Nora right! Cardin, Sky, help us with the Major."
"Right, Arc we run in, strike and switch."
"Got it! Ruby, Sky, provide ranged support."
Ruby wasn't exactly pleased that the boys relegated her to stay behind, but she also knew that an Ursa Major had enough strength to seriously hurt any of them. Sure they all had aura but all of them were fatigued from the journey and fighting the Grimm. A single strike from the Major was likely enough to break their aura and even with armour a second strike could be deadly.
As Cardin ran up to the bear Grimm, the Major stood on its hind legs and swung its clawed paw at him. He managed to dodge under the swipe and strike with his mace. Having hit it in the leg he felt there was little damage to it.
"Switch!"
Jaune ran up, following up on Cardin's distraction and struck at its unarmored belly with his sword. Unfortunately the strike merely slid along the Grimm's hide barely scratching it, producing a thin red line along the cut.
"Switch!"
Jaune's yell was punctuated by a loud shot from Crescent Rose. While the bullet hit a headshot, unlike the Ursa earlier, this one barely flinched. Cardin used the opportunity to double back on his previous path, hitting the same leg again, this time from behind.
The Ursa dropped to one knee but before Cardin could get away the bear took a swipe at him, nearly breaking his aura. Jaune charged in to strike at the bear again this time attacking with both Atra Aurora and Ignis Manus. Unfortunately he used the firearm during their journey and despite reloading it on the move, he was running out of ammo.
Still, the Ursa did change its focus to Jaune, which was his aim in the first place. This allowed Cardin to distance himself from the fight.
Unfortunately for Jaune the Ursa was now focused solely on him and while Ruby and Sky provided support fire, Sky's rifle spear's fire barely scratched the Grimm Major. Jaune didn't have the comfort of switching with Cardin anymore and so he put up his guard, parrying the clawed strike with his sword.
As soon as he did he noticed a flurry of rose petals fly past him. Ruby managed to strike the Major on its armoured shoulder, cracking the bone plate. Unfortunately for her she was in mid air and was unable to escape quick enough.
As the clawed paw struck her, she guarded with the haft of her scythe. While this was enough to prevent her from losing much aura, it wasn't enough to stop the momentum, which launched her several metres back.
Jaune saw Ruby slide on the muddy ground and lose her footing. But the Ursa didn't stop its attacks and forced Jaune to either attack or block.
Jaune didn't miss the opportunity window and struck at the cracked plate on the Major's shoulder, stabbing his sword through the damaged bone armour. With Ruby gone he turned to the last remaining combatant to help.
"Sky! Switch!"
But Sky stood still, shooting his rifle continuously to no effect.
Jaune let go of his sword and with a quick whisper summoned it back to his hand, releasing a large amount of his aura to burn the Grimm's flesh. This however meant that his aura dropped to near zero making him vulnerable.
"Damnit! SWITCH!"
Jaune yelled out and to his surprise the only other armoured man switched into the combat, striking his mace into the beast's belly.
Cardin had managed to save Jaune from the beast's strike, giving Jaune an opportunity to stab the disintegrated wound. The Ursa roared and thrashed around in pain.
Jaune had been lucky, as the arm that stuck him lacked any strength, due to the damaged shoulder.
Cardin wasn't so fortunate and the beast in its death throes struck him on his chest plate throwing him to the ground.
As the Ursa Major started to disintegrate into smoke, Cardin Winchester coughed up blood and lost consciousness.
=O=O=O=
"Ah, Glynda. Ready to give your report?"
It was already after midnight but the staff were still in a frenzy dealing with the aftermath of the Forever Fall evacuation.
"Headmaster. The excursion to Forever Fall was concluded with no casualties. The student's received some injuries but nothing life threatening in the end. Mister Winchester came closest to receiving a major injury but thanks to his armour he ended up with three cracked ribs and some bruises. He should fully recover within a week.
The teams completed their collection mission without issue despite the survival exercise being cut short by the stampede. In fact the student's began evacuating even before we got the signal flares up in the sky.
As for the Grimm stampede, there are signs that it wasn't a natural occurrence. We are still investigating, but the amount of different species stampeding at the same time is unusual."
"Do you believe she is involved?"
"Unlikely, we found signs of several camps throughout the forest. There were cages with damage consistent with damage caused by Grimm."
"So another group then?"
"A certain terrorist organisation comes to mind, but I withhold judgement until the investigation concludes.
In the meantime I believe there is a more pressing issue with some of the students. Particularly team SWNY."
"Oh? Is this about mister Winchester again?"
"Not quite, though he is the one who brought up the issue as soon as he regained consciousness. It would seem mister Lark abandoned his team shortly after deployment. The other students corroborated this claim during the subsequent debrief. Miss Xiao-Long took over command of the remaining three and managed to reunite with mister Lark who has since joined teams BSMT and RNJR at one of the cash drops. While mister Lark did start the task of sap collection the stampede happened soon after team SWNY reunited. By their admission the only reason they managed to finish the task was a donation of a jar from team BSMT and RNJR each."
"I see. So while on paper their grade didn't suffer, the team remains fractured. How's the fallout so far?"
"As mister Winchester remains confined to the hospital wing, both miss Nikos and miss Xiao-Long have decided to give mister Lark the proverbial cold shoulder. After a visit to the hospital wing they are now celebrating with teams BSMT and RNJR. Mister Lark meanwhile seems to have exiled himself to their room."
"Concerning… Keep an eye on the situation and see if the students resolve this amongst themselves. I'm currently more concerned about the stampede incident and its potential impact on the Vital festival should it turn out to be a prelude to a terrorist attack… I'll see about deploying Peter to help the investigation. The behaviour of Grimm is his area of expertise after all. See about covering his lessons with different lectures. Maybe Bartholomew would like to start teaching ancient Valean again. There are at least a few students that would find it interesting."
"I'll see about doing that, sir."
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
To those that feel like Cardin is out of character that's because the story is different. Unlike in canon he encountered opposition early on and has two of the strongest female first years to keep an eye on him. Plus, this Cardin is more than a minor villain for Jaune to overcome. He's an actual character.
As for Sky? Sky took the Jaune niche of weak team leader, he'll just have to grow in the role.
I just hope you liked the chapter and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch.20 Fallout and resolution