Teamwork

"Goooodddddddd are we there yet?" Rosa whined as she let her head lean back, practically yelling her words up into the sky. "We've been walking foreverrrrrr."

"It's only been like four hours Rosa we have a long way to go," Ambur huffed, growing ever more impatient with her teammates. "He said a day's trip."

"We got a long way left to go so why not just try to find something to occupy yourself?" Qrow scolded.

"I already played games on my phone for so long that my battery is dead. What more do you want from me?" She complained.

"I want you to act like a grown adult and not like a whining child," Qrow retorted as he shot an annoyed look back to the pink-haired girl.

"Ugh," she let out as she rolled her eyes and shut her mouth, shifting the weight of her bag on her shoulders. "Man why did you make us pack so much..." she sighed.

"I didn't make you pack four changes of clothes, you chose to do that," Ambur rolled her eyes without looking back at her. "Besides the boys aren't complaining are they?"

"Huhhh..." she sighed loudly again before Ambur stopped in her tracks and looked back to Rosa.

"If I carry your bag for you will you promise to stop bitching? Please?" Ambur let out as her annoyance for their teammate began to boil over.

"Probly not," Rosa confessed as she walked straight by her, brushing past her leader's outstretched hand. "Besides I don't need you showing off any more than you already do in front of my boyfriend thank you very much."

Ambur rolled her eyes again as she silently clenched her fists and looked up to the sky mouthing the words 'why me.' She finally began to walk again, this time at the back of the pack. "So all that stuff about you guys getting along great wasn't entirely true huh?" Qrow chuckled to himself.

"Gee what gave that away," Ambur let out as she quickly overtook the rest of the pack again, the two pulling ahead of her other teammates. "It's not for lack of trying either, she's been a total cunt since day one," Ambur growled lowly so as for Rosa not to hear her.

"Well, what's her deal?"

"She just hasn't ever given me a chance. Ever since she took one look at me she decided I shouldn't be the leader and that I wasn't good enough. Clearly, your nephew agrees enough to not correct her," she said softly as her mood soured further.

"Hmmm," Qrow smirked as he turned around and began to walk backward with his hands behind his head. "Is she right kid?" He asked, drawing Ambur's attention back to Qrow in shock. Ambur, of course, knew that Mydnight would have heard everything she had said but hadn't expected Qrow to create an even more awkward situation out of it.

Mydnight was silent for a moment as his attention shifted from Rosa to Qrow and finally, back to Ambur. "No...Ambur is our leader and she hasn't given us any reason to not follow her," he admitted heard Rosa gasp as if she were insulted by his words. Her hand quickly snapped away from his as she folded her arms over her abdomen and looked away from him.

"Good answer," Qrow smiled as he turns back around and placed his hand on Ambur's shoulder, "See? Three out of four is pretty good."

Ambur felt bad at first about Qrow calling Mydnight out but his answer had put a smile on her face, even if she was a bit sorry for him that he had angered Rosa. But how sorry could she really be after all? Everything Rosa had done and said on Ambur's account over their time at the school had been absolutely horrible and recently Ambur had begun to completely give up on ever convincing her teammate that their team structure was exactly the way it was meant to be.

As they walked on in relative silence the minutes and indeed hours seemed to drag by. The group stopped for lunch and a bathroom break along the way only to continue on down the path until the inevitable began to happen as they all heard growls from Grimm within the trees bordering the lonely dirt road. After such a long day of walking around with a negativity fountain in Rosa, they had finally been surrounded. Qrow watched without worry as several Beowolves and Ursa waltzed out of the forest and surrounded them.

"You all good to show me what you've got?" He asked as he put his hand on his sword in its folded-up state on his back.

"Yes," Ambur said as she too reached and drew her massive blade from her back, readying it for an attack as her companions did the same, all save for Rosa who simply began to channel her aura into her fists.

Qrow simply began to dodge past the Grimm which came at him, weaving in between the hulking beasts until he found himself on the outside of the pack looking in before jumping up onto a tree branch in order to find a better vantage point to watch from. He looked on as Ambur charged forward and with relative ease caught an Ursa lunging at her, swinging her blade upward through it before its attack could connect.

Over the course of the fight, Qrow would find Ambur's fighting style rather simple and blunt, but he supposed that with her strength she didn't really ever need to develop a more complex style to fight with. She was so capable of deflecting and absorbing hits simply by parrying them or counterattacking from a greater distance with her lengthy blade that she really didn't need to use very much of her Aura to fight.

Of course, she did, in fact, need her semblance to wield the weapon, especially in the years prior, but with Olivier convincing her to begin using the gym, Ambur had found the heavy blade becoming lighter and lighter in her grasp as her own strength grew. She had even begun to think that a day may come in the next few years where she wouldn't need to make use of her aura to swing it crudely, though she was no fool and knew that she would need her semblance to fight effectively with the weapon.

Qrow's attention, however, was quickly stolen by Rosa. He had no need to watch Mydnight fight as he could tell that the fog in the boy's head was much clearer than normal today. Qrow knew that with a level head Mydnight could handle this pack of Grimm by himself if he needed to, he had trained the wolf boy after all and knew very well what he was capable of.

Mydnight was one of the more natural fighters Qrow had ever seen in fact, surmising that if he stayed on this path that Mydnight would more than likely be a more successful and accomplished Huntsman than even Qrow had become. That was even before Oz had given Mydnight his powers and Qrow knew that if Mydnight could master his new abilities he could become one of the most powerful Huntsmen that Remnant had seen thus far.

As he watched Rosa move he felt himself rather engrossed in her fighting style, wondering where she had learned to fight from. He did find it a bit cocky of her to not carry a weapon at all in case of emergencies but he had been told by Oz about her incredible reserves of Aura. She had never once come even close to running out of energy in any of her fights at her last training academy and none thus far at beacon either.

Not only that but her attacks were stunningly powerful, which Qrow had seen recordings of from Glynda's sparring class. It would only take one or two landed hits on another student from Rosa's aura to burn up her opponent's and end the match. The other young adults in their grade were lucky that she wasn't as physically abusive toward others as she was verbal. If even a single hit of hers were to touch a humanoid opponent it would deal much more physical damage than any sharp or blunt weapon. Her incredible use of Aura manipulation was quite unprecedented by this point and her semblance was so far, very unique.

Qrow knew all too well that most people thought of their semblance as a truly one of a kind superpower and while in some cases this was true, it could never be true one hundred percent of the time. At first, he was sure that semblances had been truly unique, but over dozens of generations, there had become many copies. There were just too many people out there for each one to be entirely unique.

However, as his mind began to wander his thoughts began to dwell on Mydnight again, thinking about how he had never been able to get his younger counterpart to discover his semblance. He had wanted to at least have it figured out by the time the wolf had arrived at Beacon, but in all four years of Qrow training closely with Mydnight at Signal, he had never been able to pull the power out of him.

At first, it had bothered Mydnight greatly since he began to think that something was wrong with him. But as they grew together both of them began to realize that the fact was that Mydnight hadn't ever NEEDED his semblance to activate. Thus far he had always been strong enough to accomplish the task at hand, even when Qrow had tried to push him beyond his limits he had found other ways around the problem.

As the attack began to subside and the last of the Grimm began to fade away into clouds of smoke Qrow let go his grip on his weapon and jumped down from the tree, walking back over to the team with a smile on his lips as he placed a hand on Ambur's shoulder. "Not bad, little long, but good stuff."

"You think we could have done that faster?" She replied as she raised her eyebrow.

"Sure," he answered as he turned away and began to walk down the path, the team following after him. "If you had fought as a team instead of four individual fighters who happen to be on the same side."

"Ya well SOME people," Ambur emphasized as she gave Rosa a stink eye, "Don't show up to team exercises so we can only work SO well together ya know?" She smiled back up to Qrow as he laughed, hearing Rosa grumble behind them.

"Sounds about right," he said as he raised his hands behind his head as they continued down the road. "You kids sound an awful lot like we used to be," he said softly to himself and Ambur gave him a curious look.

As night fell the group began to see lights in the distance along the road, eventually coming to realize that they were street lamps lining the sides of the road.

"Alright, keep on guard, we are getting close now," Qrow said as this time he elected to actually draw his weapon.

Seeing him do this the students followed suit and began to pay attention to their surroundings more, the group realizing that it was very quiet. Even as they came up to the gates of the small town they could hear no voices, and the large wooden gate was even slightly ajar. Qrow took the lead, pushing the gate open as slowly as he could, peeking around the large structure and into the town.

"What do you see?" Ambur asked as she walked up beside him, nudging the gate open a little more so as to stand beside him.

"Nothing there's...nobody around," he said with concern in his voice.

As the group moved through the gate and down the first road toward the center of town they all kept their eyes open, looking around for any movement. Though as they got deeper and deeper into town they came to realize that all was still quiet, no movement anywhere of any kind.

"People's lights are still on but it's like," Mydnight began softly as his ears twitched from side to side, trying to pick up any approaching noise. "Like they all just left?"

"Well they have to be somewhere," Qrow surmised, "There are no bodies anywhere."

"Could the Grimm have carried them off?"

"Surely not all of them, this town has a pretty decent population, it would take a pack of Grimm a lot more than three days to dispose of all the bodies and besides," he said as he looked around again, "There's no blood anywhere either."

"Well does Glade have an alarm for Grimm attacks?" Ambur asked thoughtfully, "Like Vale does?"

"They should," Qrow smirked, "Good thought, come on," He said as they turned down another road, heading for the town hall. When they found the large building Mydnight spoke up again.

"Well unless there are silent Grimm that I don't know about you guys can relax there's still no movement anywhere around us."

"Don't relax too much," Qrow retorted as he walked up to the door of the town hall and slowly turned the knob and the door began to creak open slowly. Qrow poked his head inside again to check for any traps before he and Ambur walked inside, leaving the others outside to guard the entrance.

"See anything?" She asked as she scanned the room for any sort of interface or computer.

"Yep," Qrow answered as he pointed to the computer at the reception desk. Qrow proceeded to the computer and placed his scroll atop it before pressing a pop-up option on his screen. "Running diagnostics," he said as he looked back to Ambur. Ambur joined him at the desk and watched the scroll run through the town's systems.

"It says the alarm did go off successfully," Ambur sighed in relief. "But where are they all supposed to go in the event of an attack?"

"Must be a shelter in town or maybe a cave nearby, look around there must be an evacuation plan posted in here somewhere."

As the pair began to look however they hear the door creak open again as Mydnight poked his head in. "We got incoming Grimm. They are pretty far out but I can tell they are coming this way."

"How many?" Qrow asked as he pulled papers down off of a bulletin board to get at the older notices at the back.

"Too far to tell so far but they are on the ground and in the air."

"Alright keep an eye out we should be ready to move in just a bit," Ambur said back to him as she rifled through papers on the receptionist's desk. As she did, however, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was still watching her. "Mydnight?" She asked as she looked back up to him, finding him staring back at her as expected. "You okay?"

"Huh?" He jolted as he realized he was staring at her again, "Ya no I'm...fine sorry," he sighed as he shook his head and closed the door.

"Man what is up with the two of you," Qrow laughed, having watched the exchange before looking back to the board.

"What do you mean?" Ambur blushed, trying to dodge the subject. "He's just been a little fuzzy lately because of the spell and I've been trying to get him on track with getting a handle on it more lately."

"Ya? That all?" Qrow smirked as he continued to pull papers down. "Cus it seems an awful lot like he can't keep his eyes off of you all of a sudden."

"Yes, I'm sure..." Ambur sulked, "He doesn't see me like that okay?"

"Well even if that were true," he said softly as he looked up and tried to focus on the top line of papers on the crowded board. "I'd much rather he have his eyes on someone like you than on the girl with the stick up her ass."

"Hah," Ambur huffed, "Well...thanks I guess but I don't think I'll ever get a chance."

"You did wait forever to finally try and get him to notice you."

"W...wait you," Ambur says as her heart began to race and her cheeks flushed bright red, "You knew?"

"Well duh," Qrow looked at her with a confused look, "Ambur I taught you two in the same class for four years. How blind would I need to be to not notice you staring at him the ENTIRE time," he laughed out. "Just wish you found your confidence a little earlier so I wouldn't have to pretend to be supportive of his current relationship choices."

"...You and me both..." She sulked before looking back up to him. "So...you think the change was...good?"

"So far it seems to be ya," he said mindlessly as he pulled one more paper down from the wall and began to read it before turning around to face her, finding her leaning against a table with her arms folded over her exposed midriff. "Confidence is good as long as you don't get too full of yourself."

"No, I mean..." She began nervously, her blush intensifying, "Like," she began again before she started to gesture to herself, trying to get him to understand that she meant her new look.

"Oh," Qrow said as he looked away from her and began to run his hand through his hair. "Well not to be...weird about it," he said as he began to head to the door. "It looks good on you."

"Well like...you don't think like I look...like a...slut or anything?" She asked nervously again as she began to follow him to the door, causing him to sigh and turn back toward her with a smile on his face.

"No Ambur," he chuckled out, "I think it's your body and you get to decide what you want to put on it. And any opinion coming from anyone other than you doesn't matter."

Ambur couldn't help but smile as her shoulders sank and she began to relax. "Thank you," she breathed out in relief.

"But," Qrow said with a smile before turning around, "If you ARE looking for opinions, I think Mydnight's might be a better one for you to get. I think you'll get the chance, they don't look fit to last," he said before pulling the door open so the pair could rejoin the rest of the team. "We found their evacuation plans, there's a large bunker a few streets over."

"Well we need to deal with the Grimm first, they are getting closer," Mydnight said as the students all drew their weapons, Bronzine leaving his as a bow and Ambur dividing her large blade into two.

"They should have come out of the bunker by now, no reason to stay inside for three days unless there's some serious negativity going on here to keep bringing the Grimm back," Bronzine added as the group began to cautiously head toward the location on the map.

As they made it to the center of the town they found more and more of the buildings had been damaged, more than likely by Grimm that were frustrated by not being able to pierce the bunker. So too they began to find trace amounts of blood on the stone walkways from people who were likely the last few stragglers to make it to the bunker and were injured by the attacking monsters.

"Still no bodies though," Ambur sighed in relief as she looked back up to the sky and was now able to see the pack of approaching Grimm in the air. "Everyone ready?"

"As we can be," Rosa answered sarcastically as they began to feel the ground rumbling slightly as the pack of Grimm on the ground rounded a street corner and came into view. None of them were especially big but there were quite a number of them. As they came in range Bronzine began firing arrow after arrow at the ones in the air as Qrow too began to fire at them, realizing that just one bow wouldn't be able to have enough crowd control on a flock of flying Grimm.

As several of the flying Grimm began to shoot their feathers down upon the group Rosa began to realize that she could use her aura projections to block the incoming attack from hitting Bronzine and Qrow, and so she did while Ambur and Mydnight bolted toward the Grimm on the ground. She would put up small individual shields in front of herself, Qrow and her partner every time the Grimm began to fire at them before shifting them out of the way so the boys could continue returning fire without hitting her projections.

Mydnight and Ambur, however, were disposing of their targets with even more incredible efficiency. Ambur could tell that Mydnight wasn't fighting at the top of his abilities because of the fog but the fact remained that he was still giving plenty to be impressed about. She hadn't often been privileged to see his scythe in action so far this year but the few times she had seen it she had loved it. It wasn't overly beautiful or artistic, but he had told her that it was only meant to be temporary, a work in progress.

Most students had a name for their weapons, Mydnight had not yet thought of one for the scythe as he did not wish to brand it so early into its construction. Not before he really knew what he wanted the finished product to be. To be sure though, Mydnight could swing the long tool just fine and it had barely any trouble cutting the beasts to pieces.

Ambur knew of course that he had picked the weapon to be more like Qrow. Mydnight had told her all about Qrow's weapon's multiple forms in the first few weeks of school and that someday he wished to get his scythe to a comparable level to his teacher's.

Ambur had to have Mydnight's back a few times during the fight, as he seemed to randomly space out a few times, whether it be because of the fog or otherwise Ambur couldn't tell. But of the few times that she had had to block a blow for him she had found that his eyes were fixed on her, albeit glossed over. However, as the encounter came to an end the group appeared without a scratch as the last Grimm faded into smoke. "Not bad," Qrow affirmed as he looked around the group. "If you all would just get along you'd actually fight pretty good as a team," he smirked before walking up to the large iron door to the underground bunker.

Ambur went with him and as he went to knock on the door she held her hand up, "Allow me," she said with a smile as Qrow realized it was the better option, stepping aside for her. Ambur took a decent wind up before smacking her fist against the door in a beat that a human would recognize, trying to make it distinct from the random blows of a Grimm.

Seconds passed slowly as the group waited before Ambur raised her hand again to knock on the door a second time, though as she rose her arm the door began to open slowly before an older man showed himself, peeking around the door nervously, only to sigh in relief upon finding the group standing there instead of Grimm. "Are...are they gone?" he asked nervously as he looked up to the sky.

"Gone for good," Ambur smiled as she backed away from the door and let the man open it the rest of the way.

"Oh thank you," he sighed again in relief before pulling out his scroll and pulling up a menu, pressing a button labeled 'All clear'. "We've been trapped in here for days. That group of Grimm kept leaving and coming back every hour the entire time but they couldn't break the door in."

"Just doing our job sir," Ambur smiled.