Hello, everyone! This is Umbra the Hedgehog signing back in! Well, just as promised, it's time to keep going straight from the end of the last chapter. It's time to show what these guys can do when they're stuck out in the battlefield. So, without further ado, here's yet another new chapter from us to you!
NOTE:
-This is a collaborative effort between me, Noctis Gaelum and Alastar the hawk. We claim ownership over nothing except our own original characters.
SMWK
After actively following the source of the scent he perceived before, Set found himself in a rather empty-looking section of the forest.
He sniffed the air a couple times. "There's no mistaking it. Whatever that stench is, it's coming from this—"
He was interrupted by a snarl coming from not too far away, within the bushes and behind the trees. Soon after, two Beowolves approached him. As he took his stance, he smirked a bit.
"Y'know? As stinky as you are—and trust me, you are—the stench is just a bit more intense than yours. How's it we stop playing hide-and-stink?"
As if on cue, a much bigger beast, which he was able to identify as an Alpha Beowolf, entered the field of battle from within the trees. He showed little to no surprise, despite his mild concern.
"Woof."
The Beowolves started surrounding him. He sighed lightly, looked at the Alpha, and smiled confidently.
"Alright. Let's dance."
The Beowolf to his left lunged towards him, receiving a kick straight to the jaw, and, having said Beowolf stunned at his feet, he let out a little laugh, petted the Grimm's head three times, turned his back on it, and moved in to neutralize the next one. The Grimm was able to match Set's movements, until the Faunus boy exhaled hardly, fired Moon Sherbet towards a tree, and altered its course, forcing the chain to constrict it. He then pulled said chain strongly, causing the tree's trunk to split, with its upper half falling on the Grimm.
"When I said 'let's dance', that was not what I meant."
He then heard the Alpha approaching rapidly. In response, he turned around, and caught its jaw with his hands, catching a whiff of the foul creature's breath.
"Whoo! Sweet crescent moons! And here I thought Pops' farts were legend-worthy!"
Making use of his mechanical claws, Set forced the creature's mouth closed and pierced its head from underneath, which caused the Alpha to stop moving entirely. He then planted his grandfather's chain right in the creature's jaw area and jumped up and forward, boosting his jump using the Grimm's own head. He then pulled on the chain, and the creature's neck twisted harshly, causing it to drop to the ground, lifeless.
After landing, Set looked at the Alpha and one of the fallen Beowolves.
"Wait. One's mi—"
The remaining Beowolf slashed his back before he could finish that sentence.
Such an action was met with a rather angry Faunus, who openly snarled at his enemy.
"You're gonna regret that…"
Set took a quadrupedal stance, bared his teeth to the Grimm, and seemed to suddenly vanish from its range of sight. All of a sudden, the creature moaned in pain, and upon turning to its left, found four slash marks on its leg. Another moan was followed by a long, thicker slash on its right arm. The foul being looked to its front, just in time to see Set right in front of it. Before it could even try to process what was happening, the Faunus boy swiped at it using his claws.
Set landed on all fours, and the Grimm's head soon followed, landing right behind him. He then stood up straight, and as he turned around, he saw the head, which landed with its mouth open.
"Made you woof."
He then picked up a different scent. While it took him a few whiffs, he was eventually able to identify it.
"Kale!"
Set then proceeded to follow the scent, heading towards his brother.
"Nice job, Kale. Great going."
Much like his brother, the young man found himself surrounded by Grimm. Unlike him, however, not only was he met by a pack of Ursai, which resembled bears instead of wolves, but he wasn't happily taunting them either. He was too busy berating himself.
"Only you could avoid a bunch of branches and manage to get yourself in even bigger trouble while doing so."
He checked his surroundings. Other than his current opponents, there didn't seem to be anything that might turn things around. On the bright side, however, he noticed that none of them seemed to be an Ursa Major.
As he did so, he ended up facing what seemed like the biggest one in the entire pack.
"H-Hello." He laughed nervously. "Can we… talk about this?"
In response, the Ursa merely roared loudly right in his face.
"Right… you guys don't talk."
As if on cue, the entire pack pounced on him, their teeth and claws bared, while their target merely ducked and tried to cover himself. In a matter of seconds, they began to thrash and bite and swipe, completely eviscerating him…
…or rather, they would've, if he hadn't walked in from behind a tree to watch the mindless display.
As the Grimm kept on going, he couldn't stop himself from laughing. "Oh, I'll never get tired of that!"
It wasn't long before the beasts heard this, and as soon as they noticed that their intended victim was not where they thought he was, they turned to find him leaning on the same tree he came out of for support, still laughing like crazy.
"Never fails!" As he did so, Kale saw that the Ursai had finally caught onto his little trick. "Okay, okay… alright, I've had my fun."
Straightening himself up, he stretched out his arms, and as the pack growled at him, a blade came out from each of his forearm protectors.
"Let's do this for real."
And no sooner did he utter those words that one of the Grimm leaped forward and tried to attack him.
After ducking in order to avoid a claw swipe aimed for his head, Kale seized the opportunity and began to stab his enemy in the gut multiple times. It wasn't long before it went down, and the rest of its pack seized the opportunity to try and take him down. While he was able to block a few other swipes, one of the Ursai managed to score a hit to his back, taking advantage of his distraction.
"…I don't know why I thought you were going to play fair."
The Ursai tried to attack him all at once, much like before, but this time, he began to quickly spin in place with his arms stretched out. The moment he stopped, he noticed all his enemies were backing away.
"Wow, I can't believe that actually worked."
Much to his surprise, once they were far away from him, half of them looked like they were ready to pounce again.
"Oh, come on…"
The Ursai leapt into the air, the other half just standing and waiting.
Kale sighed, looking disappointed. He jumped up in a similar fashion, headed for one particular Ursa, and at just the right moment, he raised his arms and pointed them at his target, striking at its neck with both blades. After moving them to the sides, the Grimm was decapitated, and the young man wasted no time in using the headless body to propel himself toward the others. He struck two more, also through the neck, and upon landing, he moved his arms vertically, slicing their heads in the same fashion. Turning around to see the rest, he ran towards two others, retracting his blades.
The beasts were not intimidated by this display, heading in his direction with their teeth bared.
Ducking to avoid their claw swipes, Kale took the chance to hit them both with an uppercut, which was complemented by the firing of two submachine guns, which were located on the back of his hands. As their bodies fell back, their heads penetrated by the rounds, he pointed at another one, shooting it in the front legs, and followed that up by running toward it, putting in a headlock, bringing out the blade on his free arm, and stabbing it in the head several times.
He released it as soon as it stopped moving, but he only had a few seconds to take it in before being tackled from the back, which sent him flying against a tree.
Oh, man… I'll be feeling that tomorrow…
As he struggled to stand up again, he noticed that there was one more Ursa left standing: the same one that he had taunted with his fake offer to talk.
"…I can't believe I forgot about you." He was clearly and honestly baffled. "What am I, crazy?"
The distinct sound of a chain unwinding suddenly cut the wind, which was immediately followed by the Ursa roaring sharply in pain. All of a sudden, he noticed that there were four claws piercing through the beast's neck in a vertical pattern. Afterwards, four more claws pierced next to the first four. What followed was an effort to pull each set of claws in opposite directions, ripping the beast's head off.
It was Set, who raised his head, looked at his brother straight in the eye, and uttered a simple phrase.
"Hey, teamie."
Both brothers smirked, with Set extending his fist, waiting for his brother to do the same.
"I owe you another one, little brother." Kale returned the gesture immediately after.
"At ease, soldier. This is only gonna happen more and more… on either side. Anyway, what now?"
The use of military talk got him to laugh.
"Well, to be honest, I can't think of much past 'get a relic and leave the forest'." He shrugged. "I mean, I've had about as much action as I expected, and that can only mean there's going to be more."
Set smirked again. "We might as well. Let's book it."
"Yeah, let's go."
As the two brothers left the defeated Grimm to dissipate, Kale made one more comment.
"You know, I haven't seen Maza anywhere yet. I wonder how she's doing…"
If they had been able to remain as close as intended, then perhaps they would've heard her voice, full of familiar cheer and unbridled energy, as she sang a tune to no one in particular.
…We're gonna fight
We're gonna fight
The good fight~
Maza was making her way through the forest, with a spring in her step and her hands behind her head.
Despite losing track of her newest friends during her landing, she was still determined to meet up with at least one of them and, if nothing else, get through the test together.
We're gonna fight
We're gonna fight
The good fight~
In order to keep her spirits high as she searched for the two, she wasted no time in going through one of her favorite songs.
And I'm locked and loaded
Sugar coated
And I'm ready, baby, for you~
She spent several minutes just walking, but she suddenly stopped when she heard something. Some sort of low growling.
"Huh? What was that?"
The Faunus girl searched around for a moment, before she eventually noticed where it came from.
"Wow, already?"
She reached out for the pouch strapped around her left leg, and took out… some beef jerky.
"I could've sworn my breakfast was big enough." She took a bite out of her snack. "It's a good thing I brought this. I'm not sure what I'm going to eat when we finish the test, though…"
She barely got to take a second bite, though, before she suddenly got a strange feeling in the back of her head.
Oh… there we go! I've been waiting for that to come up!
Putting away her remaining beef jerky, Maza looked all around, not quite as randomly as when she heard her stomach rumbling.
"Okay, every Grimm that's just hiding around me? Just so you know, I know exactly where each and every one of you is hiding right now. And wow, you're a really, really, really big group!" As she reached for the sides of her belt, she started smiling again. "So, who wants to be the first to come out and play? Hmm?"
Just a few seconds later, a group of five Grimm, all of them resembling boars, came out of the bushes.
"Ooh! Boarbatusks!"
As if on cue, they started spinning at high speed, rapidly heading towards Maza.
In response, she just chuckled.
She dodged them by jumping to the side, and followed this by taking out her weapons. Wasting no time, she turned to one of the beasts, which was running toward her, and hit it right between the eyes. Right after that, she brought the lower ends of her batons together.
"Woohoo! Here we go!"
Taking advantage of the situation, she used her newly-formed combat staff to hit another one of the Boarbatusks dead in the nose. She then spun it around her waist to strike a different Grimm on one of its tusks, the force of the impact being enough to break it. She proceeded to spin her weapon from one side, past the back, and to her other side, bluntly striking its head. As one Boarbatusk spun in her direction, she smiled gleefully, almost playfully, and stepped slightly to the side in a near-cartoonish fashion, leaving her attacker to roll in the direction of the other Grimm.
"S-teeee-rike!" Right on cue, the two beasts collided, knocking each other out.
The Faunus girl jumped up and down from the excitement, but she quickly collected herself when she noticed there was one last Grimm standing.
As it began to spin in place, she slammed the bottom of her staff against the ground, releasing an electric charge that stunned it out of its attempted attack. After walking in its direction, she twirled her staff rapidly before knocking her opponent away, sending it flying against a tree and forcing it to expose its underbelly. Splitting her weapon into two batons once again, she ran towards the Boarbatusk and stabbed it with them, finishing it off.
After making sure that none of her foes would stand up again, she put her weapons away and smirked, happy at the results, and began to leave the place, the defeated Grimm's bodies dissipating as she did.
However, she suddenly turned to one specific tree and stared at it curiously for a moment.
"Hmm…"
Her eyes widened for a moment, and she started… talking to the tree?
"Hello!"
Okay, so there we go. This is what these guys act like whenever things get hairy. Not everyone gets to be cool under pressure, but hey, as long as they get the job done, there's no harm in a little silliness, is there?
One more to go before the end of this test, and so far, things are holding out pretty well. What's going to happen to our little youths after such a spectacle? You'll just have to hold out for a bit and you'll see.
This is Umbra the Hedgehog signing off.