I May Fall

Mydnight rolled out of the way of another lunge. This girl was damn quick on her feet. He'd found out very quickly that she wasn't one to waste time talking during a fight. Some part of him liked that she just wanted to fight but he wouldn't have minded a little trash talk to pump him up. He'd tried to bait her into it a few times but after the first few minutes of the match, he'd decided it wasn't worth the effort. They circled each other again and each of them looked for an opening.

His weapon was far too large for an opponent of her small size and quick movement but he'd hung onto it. He could at least use it to block some of her attacks and if he could land one lucky strike he'd probably knock her out. She had no weapon to defend herself and relied solely upon hand to hand combat.

Mydnight thought she might be a lunatic for that alone but on top of that, she didn't even appear to be using a semblance. She was just so skilled at hand to hand combat and so fast that perhaps she could really get by. Not to mention she was the leader of her team. How could someone get so far as a huntress without using a weapon? They forced students to figure out a weapon at Signal Academy. You couldn't get into Beacon without knowing what kind of fighter you were beforehand.

He guessed Atlas' protocols must be different if this girl could make it so far. She was incredibly talented that was for sure. Every time she lunged at him he barely had enough time to move. He had already taken a few hits from her and his aura had had to absorb the impact. She was definitely a stronger fighter than he was but that didn't mean he couldn't be more clever. She was smart though. She had only circled at a distance that he couldn't hit her from. She conserved energy well too, each of her attacks flowed right into the next and none of her momentum or steps were ever wasted. She had used some of her energy to keep attacking him but that was all. Nothing major.

He'd tried to lead her on a few times too, faking attacks to try and lead her into compromising positions. Xanadu hadn't taken the bait. He needed something. A distraction or for her to make a mistake. Needed her to over calculate a move or...maybe he could…

He was ripped from his thoughts as she charged him again. She faked a kick, her leg coming up about halfway to his head and he reacted, bringing his scythe up to block it before it stopped short. His momentum carried on and she changed tactics, lowering her leg just as quick before she threw a punch at him. Her fist passed over the scythe before he could change the guarding motion's direction and her knuckles hit his chest again.

His boots dredged backward in the dirt of the arena as his aura flickered and he bared his fangs with a frustrated growl. It was just too heavy to keep up with her. He needed to surprise her and now he thought he might know-how. Ambur had done it to him once in one of their sparring sessions. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm himself. He needed to focus. If he let his nerves get the better of him here not only would they lose, but he might transform by accident.

He let out a long breath and listened. His ears twitched as he heard her charging him again. She wouldn't do the same attack twice in a row, would she? She was too smart for that. So perhaps she would do the opposite of it if she thought he was vulnerable. His eyes flashed open and he lowered himself to block again. This time her fist came first. She cocked it back and threw a convincing fake punch at his chest. He threw up the scythe to block but this time he let go of it at the last second.

Her punch stopped and she pulled her arm back just as he expected her too and the scythe kept moving toward her. She didn't stop.

Her leg was coming up for the real strike and that was when Mydnight knew for certain that all of these moves were planned out ahead of time. She wasn't making snap decisions to fake attacks. She was just going through motions she'd practiced a million times. The scythe fell toward her in a gentle arc and as her foot came up toward his head he saw her arms twitch upward too.

That was a reactive motion. Not something she'd rehearsed. Her arms were flimsily grabbing upward to block the scythe she hadn't expected to fall on her and because of that her kick had bad form and three of her limbs were in use. She was off balance and he wasn't.

Mydnight's hand snapped up to her ankle and he yanked it upward. She lost her footing and her torso fell backward and down while her legs continued slightly up into the air. The scythe passed over her harmlessly but Mydnight did not. He brought his fist down into her chest and the punch propelled her into the dirt, her head hitting first. Without aura, she'd have been easily concussed from the impact but she still had more than enough. She'd definitely felt it though because as he stepped around to her side she hadn't moved much. He wound his leg back and kicked her in the stomach so hard that she actually rose up off the ground.

Her aura flickered dark green again and even without looking at the scoreboard he knew she didn't have much left. He reached down and grabbed his scythe. She was breathing hard and coughing, clutching at her stomach in pain.

He held the blade of the red and black scythe to her throat and she stopped moving. He could tell she was frustrated but she wasn't in any shape to keep fighting and she knew it. "Surrender," he growled, trying his best to keep his emotions in check.

Perhaps it was a good thing that he barely could because he saw her eyes widen a little at the sound of his growling voice and elongated teeth. She nodded slightly and he backed off, removing his scythe from her throat and the announcer began to speak. Mydnight barely heard him over the sound of the crowd. "Ladies and Gentlemen that's it! It's all over! Mydnight Rose of team AMBR has just won the Vytal Festival tournament for Beacon Academy!"

Rather than bask in the cheers though, he moved his scythe to his left hand and extended his right one down to her. She looked a bit surprised at first but eventually, she smiled and took his hand in hers and he pulled her to her feet.

He could barely hear himself speak over all the noise of the stadium. "Good match," he smiled and for a moment, he thought she might be blushing. She shook her head though and nodded with a smile before she turned to leave. She never said a word.

Before the announcer could say anything more though, Mydnight felt his scroll vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the screen was flashing red. Soon everyone in the stadium's scroll was doing the same and he found Ambur and Bronzine in the crowd. There's were lit up as well and he began to run to them. The pair made their way down the stairs of the Colosseum to the edge of the arena and he met them there, nearly out of breath. "What's happening?"

"Proximity alarm. Huge Grimm was spotted in the forest," Bronzine said, scrolling through the warning frantically.

"Oz is calling us," Ambur added. "He wants us to meet him on one of the drop off pads outside, come on," she held her hand out to him and he took it. She lifted him over the edge of the arena and into the stands and the trio ran up the stairway toward the closest exit. When they arrived they were surprised to find Ozpin and Rosa already there waiting for them. They could see tiny snowflakes fluttering around. A storm might be brewing.

"I believe congratulations are in order," the headmaster adjusted his glasses, "however they may have to wait."

"What's happening?" Ambur asked impatiently.

"There is a large Uru heading for the city and I believe it would be a good test for your team to take it down."

"A spider? How big are we talking?" Bronzine raised his eyebrow in confusion.

"Not the largest we've ever seen but still plenty good enough to test you. They are only native to Mistral so the blind test will be good for you. I'll be sending Qrow behind you as backup once he arrives." As if on queue a dropship appeared from below the pad and landed.

"But...Mydnight just finished a match?" Rosa suggested. "We aren't at full strength."

"In the real world miss Avalon, you rarely will be," Oz said as he began to walk away from them.

"Alright...come on," Ambur said as she turned to the dropship, finding that the rest of their weapons were already inside. Oz must have had them brought to the ship. How long had he known that this was going to happen? The alarm had only sounded a matter of minutes ago. As the group sat down and closed the sliding door behind them the pilot took off. They found themselves descending rather quickly. The monster must be closer to the city than they thought.

When they were close enough to the ground the pilot came over the speaker and told them to jump. Ambur yanked the sliding door open and looked out over the forest. There was nothing. The snowflakes were larger now and the pine trees were just starting to collect a light dusting on the Mantle landscape. Not a single sign of anything wrong other than the trees in the distance blowing in the wind. She shrugged her shoulders and looked back to her team, her vision settling on My night after only a moment or two. "Ready?!" She shouted over the wind.

"Yep," Bronzine yelled back. Rosa just stepped forward and jumped without saying anything. Mydnight nodded and soon the three were falling toward the ground after their pink-haired teammate.

When they touched down they each began to look around, walking backward toward each other to cover each other's blindspots, weapons drawn.

Mydnight's ears twitched first before any of their eyes could see anything. "I hear something...kinda," he said softly as he began to inhale through his nose. "Smell it too."

"Animal?"

"Definitely Grimm but...It's so close we should be able to see it by now," he grumbled and looked in the direction of the scent. The sound stopped. It had been like footsteps but not like a human's. Too many legs and their contact with the dirt was so soft that even Mydnight could barely hear it. "It's over there," he pointed with his chin and the others turned to face it.

"Camouflage?" Ambur blinked in surprise.

"I think so. Fire one of your tracers at that tree but do it fast," he pointed. "Don't want to give it time to move."

Bronzine sucked in a deep breath before he reached behind him, pulled an arrow from his quiver and fired where Mydnight had suggested. The motion was fast enough to take the spider by surprise and when the arrow hit it splattered fluorescent red paint all over a nearly invisible mass in front of the tree. The monster made an awful noise. Not quite a growl, more of the opposite, like a high pitched screech and the group had to cover their ears. It was loud enough to blow someone's eardrums if they got too close.

What it wasn't, was even half as big as they expected it to be. It was only around the same height as Mydnight or Ambur. It was very wide and had eight legs with red cracks of glowing energy running all over its body, and it's many eyes surrounded by a harder bone mask-like structure like other creatures of Grimm.

"Well that's not what I expected," Bronzine chuckled a little. "Hear any more?"

"I think there's more than one around but yeah that's...certainly not record-shattering," he muttered as the creature began to charge them.

"Well try to call them out okay? Best as you can!" Ambur yelled as she swung her heavy blade up from the ground and sliced the charging spider clean in two and the halves split around them. As it turned to dust the ground heard several more of the shrill screeches erupt from the trees around them.

Mydnight heard several of them walking through bushes and into the small clearing they were in before the ground began to shake. Every few seconds the ground would shake violently and they could hear trees being knocked over or bent and ripped out of the earth.

"That wasn't the spider was it…" Bronzine sighed in realization.

"Nnnnope," Ambur murmured as they saw the top of the massive creature peek over the trees. It was huge. The biggest Grimm they'd ever seen by far. It kept tearing down trees as it made its way toward them. It was bigger than a building.

"Good god that things twice as tall as most of these trees" Mydnight gasped in awe. "Does Oz know how bad this is?"

"He didn't make it sound this bad…" Ambur said quietly. "We are going to need help."

"Oh come on you babies," Rosa rolled her eyes and stepped forward. "Paint the targets," she huffed and summoned her aura to her fingertips.

"Mydnight?" Bronzine asked and Mydnight began to try and pick out the smaller ones as fast as he could. Bronzine shot paint arrows everywhere that Mydnight indicated and within moments Ambur and Rosa had taken care of the smaller spiders with ease. The leader was nearly on top of them now.

"Go for the legs," Ambur nodded toward Mydnight. "Gotta be the thinnest part of its armor." The monster had plenty of it after all. It was far more covered in thick bone armor than any of its lackeys had been. Nearly every bit of it was covered in the stuff.

As the creature burst through the last line of trees the team could see the massive trail of destruction it had left in its wake. Hundreds, if not, thousands of trees were torn to shreds behind the monster. Ambur and Mydnight charged at the creature, each picking out a separate leg to go after while Bronzine tried his best to light up as much of the creature as possible. It wasn't currently camouflaged but that didn't mean it wouldn't be later. It must have been one their way to the ground. There was no way they'd have missed it otherwise.

He shot arrow after arrow, each exploding with tracer paint all over the massive Grimm. "This better be the last one cus I'm out of tracers!" He shouted toward Mydnight and Ambur. If they heard him, they didn't acknowledge the statement in any obvious way. Ambur drew up her blade and heaved as hard as she could at the lumbering creature's front-most leg. The blade hit with a deafening clang against the bone armor and stopped. It had barely chipped its leg.

Ambur froze.

"No way," she breathed out and looked over to see Mydnight hacking over and over at the closest leg to hers. He wasn't doing anything. No effect whatsoever.

The spider reared up and kicked its front legs forward, sending them both flying backward toward Bronzine. They were lucky they had aura because they were kicked harder than they'd ever been hit before. They hit the ground hard and neither of them stuck the landing as they dug into the dirt to slow themselves down. Their auras flashed white and deep red as they hit the ground.

"Okay…" Ambur growled out. "New plan...don't go near the legs," she groaned as she pulled herself to her feet. Her skin felt hot against the light dusting of snow collecting on the ground around them. 'That...actually hurt,' she thought to herself as she tried to catch her breath. She hadn't had the wind knocked out of her since she was a little kid. She froze up as she felt her stomach begin to churn. When was the last time she'd actually felt pain? She shook the thoughts from her head and readied her sword. She looked across the small space to see that Mydnight was struggling to stand. His breath was heavy and she could see that he was winded and sweating. 'That match took a lot out of him…' she worried inside her own head. "You good?" She asked him.

"I'll be fine," he grunted as he took a deep breath and tried to recenter himself.

"Rosa," Amber barked out and found her staring back at her with a smirk on her face.

"So you do feel pain," her cocky smile grew with her words.

"Now's not the time for this okay?!" She shouted back to her and Rosa rolled her eyes. The creature was advancing on them now. "Cover us with small aura domes as best you can when it strikes," she ordered and turned back to Mydnight. "You and I will try to get behind it. Bronzine you light it up with whatever you've got and try to keep its attention. We'll lure it back down the path it came from."

"Got it," Bronzine nodded and began to run toward the trees that remained upright. He slipped into the woods and the others ran toward the charging beast.

They passed under it as it tried to stomp it's front two legs down onto them. It left small craters in the ground when it did so and they kept running until they heard a small explosion go off. Bronzine was shooting at the creature from the trees. It began to turn toward the direction his arrows were coming from and the trio had to start dodging it's eight long legs as it began to turn around to follow him. As it passed over then and they emerged behind it they began to run to keep up with the beast.

"Mydnight!" Ambur held her hand out to him and he took hold of it in moments. She couldn't keep up with the monster like this and if they didn't try something it was going to overtake Bronzine. She spun and pulled Mydnight with her. He pushed off a few times on the ground and she pulled him around until she let go of his hand and flung him up toward the creature's back. Mydnight sailed through the air and up to right where she had wanted him to land on it's back. The creature stopped in its tracks as it felt his boots touch down and began to shake violently. Mydnight raised his scythe and stuck the blade down into the softest part of its flesh that he could find and held on.

They wanted a distraction, didn't they? Well now they had one and Mydnight wasn't entirely sure that this plan had a part two. He could hear Rosa blasting the creature with aura bolts below him and Bronzine's arrows were clearly aimed at the creature's head but what was he supposed to do up here exactly?

The answer, or lack of one, came seconds later when the spider lowered it's head and raised it's back before reversing the motion as quickly as it could. The sheer g-force made Mydnight let go of his scythe and he plummeted like a brick toward the ground. Rosa barely had time to project a barrier around him before he would have become a bloody paste against all the upturned rocks and trees in the creature's path.

His aura began to flicker and Ambur got an alert on her scroll. She didn't have to look at it to know. She watched as the last of Mydnight's aura flickered away and he fell to one knee, breathing heavily.

"We should pull back," Rosa said sternly and Ambur grit her teeth together.

"We can do this. Mydnight!" She yelled and he raised a hand to let her know he was okay. "Call Qrow and tell him to get here quick. Bring more back up too!"

They were only a few minutes from the city. Why had they been sent to deal with this alone? Did Oz really have any idea what they were actually dealing with here or not? Did he have someone keep an eye on them that would jump in when they needed help? Mydnight pulled out his scroll and began trying to call Qrow but several tries later he still hadn't received an answer.

She was ripped from her thoughts and found Rosa shaking her shoulders. "Ambur listen to me we can't do this!" She shouted at her and Ambur couldn't take it anymore.

All the times she'd interrupted out on missions, all the times she'd put her down, all the times she'd had to lay awake at night and listen to the way she spoke to Mydnight, the way they stayed up all night mauling each other in their bed across the small room. Ambur shoved her forearm into her, pushing her off of her and back several feet.

"Shut up!" She yelled. "God do you ever just stop fucking talking?!" Rosa barely found her footing in the churned up terrain.

"Really?! You wanna do this now?! You wanna call me out on this shit NOW?!" She gestured up at the giant spider that was moving away from them and back to chasing Bronzine.

"I am the team leader Rosa! NOT YOU," she jabbed her finger into the pink-haired girl's shoulder. "You never have been, you never will be! You're the one that decided that from day one that we needed to have a problem and if you don't start keeping your shit to yourself then I'm going to rip your tongue out," she growled. "You have your orders, now go fucking do them and stop complaining!" She yelled before turning away from her and running after Bronzine.

Mydnight could see Rosaria trembling even from where he sat dozens of feet away. She wasn't crying but he could tell she was pissed. Rather than running after their leader, she turned to face Mydnight. She stared at him blankly for several seconds before turning away and walking toward the forest. She didn't run, she didn't cry, she didn't say...anything. She walked as calmly as she would have in the halls of Beacon without a care in the world.

"Rosa!" Mydnight yelled after her but she didn't turn back. She disappeared into the trees and that was that. Mydnight staggered to his feet and tried to start picking his way through the rubble of the battlefield to chase after the others.

Ambur had caught up with Bronzine now, only thanks to the fact that he was leading the creature in circles. He was running low on energy though. He usually didn't need to run around this much during a fight. He could, more or less, stay still in most engagements. When Ambur finally caught up with him she split her swords down the center and began firing at the behemoth with both of the long rifles. She was able to pull it's attention away from Bronzine, who slipped beneath the creature and started shooting wire connected arrows at the creature's legs. Some penetrated and some didn't, but after a few extra tries, he had most of its legs tied together. The wires creaked and groaned beneath the monster as it worked to break free of them. Ambur ran at it, taking her chance to charge for its head. She reset her blade into its full form and aimed before she leaped up and swung her blade upward at its throat. She would need to use every single ounce of strength she could muster if this attack was actually going to accomplish anything.

Before she could make it though she heard an awful snap and the Spider's front leg recoiled up at her. She had nowhere to go. One of the wires had snapped and the sudden relief of tension shot the beast's leg out even faster than the first time it had kicked her. It connected with her stomach and chest and she was flung backward.

Her bright white aura flickered one last time and dispersed around her as she flew through the air. She didn't think she'd ever moved this fast before. The kick was so powerful that she became dizzy and nauseous as the wind rushed by her.

She was just beginning to slip into unconsciousness when the world stopped spinning with a loud and horrible crunching sound. Mydnight would only see the impact rather than hear it.

If you asked him, all the sounds in the world were replaced by only one. No rustling leaves, no Titanic monster trying to kill them, none of the voices in his head telling him what to do or where to go...not even the sound of his own breath or the beating of his heart in his ears.

No. The only sound that he would remember from this day...the sound that would keep him up tonight and many more nights to come.

Were the sounds of her screams.