"So... Why did you leave Mantle?" May gripped the hem of her yellow jacket and veered her sights to her uncle's grave.
The former captain sighed. His eyes weighed by grief and shame, he did his best to hold back the tears and speak with a clear voice. Though the task proved more difficult than anticipated.
"You mean to ask as to why the last mission I shared with your uncle was outside Mantle's borders?"
May nodded nervously.
Twirling his mustache, Port patted his chest and straightened his back. "It was a request from Haven's headmaster Leonardo Lionheart himself. The mission seemed simple enough, slay a few Grimm that threatened the new Mistralian settlements in the south then pack up and go home."
A long sigh, the former Mantlesian captain rubbed his hands to wade off the chilling cold, but could not correct the clicking of his teeth as the chilly breeze brushed against his face.
"The moment we landed in the village, I could already tell that my team and I were in over our heads..."
May, silent all the while, rested a gentle grip on Port's shoulder and gave him a look as if asking if it were okay for him to retell his haunting memories. Port smiled, appreciative of the gesture, but continued with a brave tongue as he recounted his last mission in the Mantlesian force.
"Yes, the last mission of team PDEM, or Pachyderm, seeing that we had to use Shamrock's last name for our official title."
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"Whoa, I've never seen anything like this before..." Shamrock, a man with a broad frame, scratched his gingered locks as his green eyes perused the surroundings.
Countless homes or shacks would be a better description, lay ransacked along the torn streets of what used to be Oniyuri. The city was seldom completed, proved by sets of scaffolding and the half-built walls that surrounded its borders.
"Why are we here again?" Maxwell, a lean gentleman with a thick leather jacket and brown slacks, scratched his cheek and moved his blue bangs from his yellow eyes.
"This place was supposed to be occupied when we arrived," Dalton, the tallest among his peers, adjusted the belt of his green-furred coat and narrowed his sights on what appeared to be a humble grocery store.
"Easy boys, don't get too distracted by the details. Remember, our mission is to scout the perimeter and report back to the higher-ups, after that we rendez-Vous with the bullheads that are supposed to arrive at 1:00 pm sharp, understand?" Port said while sporting a light blue, double-breasted, army coat with golden buttons with the Mantlesian army's symbol stitched on the back of it.
The group shared an agreeing hum.
"Alright, Shamrock, you're with me. Dalton, Maxwell, I trust you boys can take care of yourselves?"
"Sounds good to me," Shamrock replied and dispatched his trusty weaponized harpoon.
"We'll make sure to keep in touch." Maxwell nodded as both he and Dalton retrieved their weapons.
The team split at an intersection, with Dalton and Maxwell treading the western sections of the city while their leader and Shamrock delved up north. After moments of eerie inaction, the mustached gentleman and his ginger-haired cohort arrived at a set of crippled gates. The iron bent and its hinges wrenched, what was left of the city hall was nothing more than a dusty shell. Sharing a glance, Port and Shamrock entered the establishment, eager to uncover the source of the potential kingdom's downfall.
Littered with broken brick and splintered timber, the center stairs leading to the upper floors were crumbled beyond repair. Port, eager to leave the dismal city, ushered Shamrock to assist him in removing some of the debris that lead to the main office on the ground floor.
"Yeesh, it's times like this that I wished I packed a shovel." The luck-based hunter joked.
"I'd rather my trusty blowhard over a farmer's tool, but if that's your preference then I won't question it." His leader chuckled.
The duo arrived at the cracked doors of the main office and together they pried them open. Within the room, a wide desk surrounded by stacked shelves lay untouched by time. Wiping the dust off a large novel, Port coughed and rubbed his eyes narrowing his focus on the peculiar title of the book.
"Grimm oddities?" Shamrock peeked over his superior's shoulder. "That doesn't sound good."
"No, it doesn't." Port hummed.
Perusing the wrinkled pages, the pupils of the two widened.
"What kind of Grimm is that?" Shamrock stepped back in shock. "Is that supposed to be a King Taijitu?"
Scribbled in haste, the shape of the monstrosity was difficult to decipher, but a vague description of a serpent with four heads; all fitted with enormous fangs and armored skulls was assumed.
"I'd agree with you if it weren't for the four heads instead of two. Not to mention this Grimm has some sort of green fluid seeping from its maws. King Taijitu's don't possess venom do they?" Port wondered.
"Not from our databases," Shamrock replied.
Flipping through a handful of notes and other novels, the duo were disappointed to find information on taxes on other daily duties of the former city.
"How about we check up on Maxwell and Dalton? Maybe they've uncovered something interesting." The ginger-haired hunter shrugged.
"Sounds like a plan." His cohort agreed.
"BOOM!"
"What the hell was that?!" Shamrock jumped with his weapon drawn.
Exchanging concerned glances, both members of PDEM hurried out of the city hall to witness a pillar of smoke erupting from a nearby tower where Dalton and Maxwell were investigating.
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"Behind you, Maxwell!" Dalton yelled as he chopped off the head of his third Beowolf. "These abominations reek of filth! My senses can't take much more of this!"
His friend scurried behind a broken wall and armed his crossbow staff. Taking deep breaths, Maxwell fixed his weapon with ammunition and prepared to fire a volley of combustible arrows, but the sudden hiss of a much greater threat echoed through the endless piles of rubble.
Even the lower groups of Beowolves seemed to shudder at the approaching beast. Its breaths akin to a hoarse serpent, the rubble it treaded upon shifted and rose to make way for its enormous form that dwarfed the buildings around it. Eight white fangs, long as swords and paired in two's, revealed themselves along with their respected heads; each fitted with slanted red eyes filled with unmerciful malice.
Wearing heavy masks of bone, their colors contrasted the thick ebony scales that culminated into four separate strands before conjoining in the middle to create a single length. A Grimm, more daunting than any before it, stood menacingly over its prey. Its spiteful gaze narrowing on the unfortunate souls it had encountered.
"D-Dalton, we need to fall back and regroup with Port and Shamrock, there's no way we've got enough firepower for something that big!" Maxwell wailed.
Dalton twirled his spade, the weapon mirrored an oar but with a head of sharpened round steel instead of wood, its owner gulped at the menacing monstrosity that blinked at him.
"Let us feasssst!" The largest among the serpent heads hissed.
"Feassst!" Replied its starving brethren.
"T-This Grimm can talk?!" Maxwell shuddered.
The Beowolves long gone, the Grimm heads lunged at its opponents with fangs soaked in some sort of green enzyme. Dalton and Maxwell jumped clear, but the leftover rubble that the mouths clamped upon were soon dissolving into rot-smelling puddles. Sharing a glance, the two men retreated to the intersection where they'd parted with their fellow teammates, and were elated to find Port and Shamrock running toward them with their weapons in hand.
"Port, Shamrock, we need to get out of here!" Dalton roared as the hisses behind him drowned his voice.
"What in Oum's name is that thing?!" Shamrock yelped.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Three consecutive bursts of his trusted blowhard, Port ordered his men to the city hall where they'd set up a proper defense.
"Feassst!" The Grimm heads snarled then shied away from as its vision was blurred by explosive red dust shells.
"In here!" Port yelled.
His team fleeing to the confines of the ruined town hall, the hungry hisses of the terrible abomination was not too far behind. Sealing the main entrance with broken desks, chairs, and shelves, team PDEM huddled together for a quick briefing.
"Has anyone managed to contact the bullhead teams near the city borders?" Their leader demanded.
Maxwell nodded with a cough. "They'll be here with reinforcements, and I told them to bring the biggest guns they have on deck."
"Very good. Now, I'm well aware that we don't possess the means of killing that disgusting serpent, but if we can last until the others arrive then we're in the clear. From here on out we stay together and focus on linear assaults. I've never known a Grimm to be clever, but we cannot underestimate their brute force."
With that, the team broke and scrambled around the room for more pieces to barricade any potential entry. Though time was not benevolent, as with a sickening crunch, the lights from the windows faded as black scales coiled around the building. Squeezing the establishment as if it were ripe fruit, the crippled brick and rickety planks shrunk beneath the Grimm's powerful grip.
"Arm yourselves men, we cannot allow the beast's fangs to pierce the walls!" Port hollered.
His heart hammering with the force of a thunderstorm, his clammy hands trembled on the handle of his weapon while his coat found itself soaked in his nervous sweats.
With a violent crack, a single Grimm head bashed through the eastern wall, its fangs dripping in green ooze that reeked of rotting garbage.
"Back you horrid filth!" Dalton, nearest to the threat, took up arms and revealed the mysterious power that stumped all knowledge of hunters and huntresses before him.
His black hair protruding past his scalp, a pair of pointed horns followed swiftly after, along with his legs shifting from their human design to match those of a mighty bison. Locked in his hybrid form, Dalton spun his sharp spade, kicking up dust and dirt as he did so. Then, with a mighty swing, he hacked at the middle of the Grimm's skull.
Snarling in protest, the monster pushed back, but the Bison held firm and dug in his hooves. His muscles strained and heart-pounding to keep up with the rushing adrenaline, Dalton advanced with a shout and managed to pierce the armored skull.
Snapping back and recoiling, the beast let out a shrill cry thus initiating its brothers to take action. Next was Shamrock and Maxwell, the two back to back, they fired several shots, doing their best to strike the Grimm's eyes as it thrust through the building.
A tick of inspiration among the panic, Shamrock scaled the walls above the serpent and redied his harpoon. Like the crack of a whip, the harpoon burst from its bazooka designed sheath then split into four sperate harpoons with a chained net hitched between them. Forcing the Grimm's head to the ground, it lashed beneath its bindings while spewing foul scented ooze.
"The neck is vulnerable of any snake!" Port announced and soon the entirety of PDEM were chopping and slashing at the beast's obsidian-colored scales.
"One more swing!" Port flexed his muscles to their maximum and with a great heave his axe cut through the tendons of his daunting foe.
"Screee!" The Grimm snarled. Its beady eyes fading to a lifeless husk, its jaw went limp and the green ooze spilled from its wounds. A puddle trickling onto Shamrock's forearm, it ate through his coat and chewed at his aura.
"Argh!" The gingered hunter scowled. Tossing his coat to the floor, he and his teammates jumped back from the fizzling black smoke that bellowed from the Grimm's remains till only its bones remained.
"O-One down!" Maxwell cheered nervously, but his elation would not last.
While the group focused on one head, two more emerged through the foundations. Dalton, Port, and Shamrock were knocked off their feet; leaving a courageous Maxwell to protect his stuttered comrades. Clashing the blade part of his crossbow staff against the advancing fangs, he was soon overwhelmed and his shoulder was pierced by their hungry jaws.
"Maxwell!" Cried his friends, but their woeful voices quickly turned to horrified gasps.
Tearing through aura, bone, and flesh, the monster's jaws ripped Maxwell's arm from its socket. Howling in pain, the hunter was tossed back and forth like a hapless ragdoll, crashing against countless debris before landing on the floor with an ominous thud. His form unmoving, Port's eyes stung with tears as he and his teammates all came to the same conclusion.
Maxwell was dead.
"T-Then..." Port's voice trembled and his eyes moistened. His breaths labored, he put a hand on Dalton's gravestone to steady himself but could not hold back his salty tears.
May bit her lower lip. She wanted to hear the rest of the story, but the pained expression on the former Mantlesian captain grew too heavy to bear. Shaking her head, May wiped her tears and patted Port's back.
"That's enough, maybe you can tell me the rest of the story another time?" The huntress forced a smile which was returned by a defeated grin.
"I apologize, Ms. Marigold, it's not becoming of a hunter to lose face so easily." The mustached gentleman sighed.
"Well, seeing that we need to change the subject, what are we going to do about that weird thing in front of Dalton's grave?" May asked.
Port straightened his posture and cupped his chin. He didn't consider himself a fruit or vegetable expert, but he liked to think he knew his fair share of natural delicacies, though this oddity left him speechless. After all, there was also the question as to why the fruit decided to present itself now, as there was definitely some fruits around Dalton when he died in the medical ward.
"Should we try to eat it?" Port turned to his muddled ally.
"I don't mean to be rude, but that fruit looks poisonous," May said and scratched her cheek.
"Very well then, if it's alright with you, I'd like to hold on to this little oddity. Perhaps the scientists in Vale can provide me with an answer."
The sound of crunching snow echoing behind the two, May and Port turned to see the other happy huntresses standing idly beside a group of graves.
"It seems our time together is at an end. The best of luck to you, May Marigold, but please try to stay out of trouble." The former captain chortled and picked up the strange fruit at the base of Dalton's grave.
"May, if you wanted some time to yourself you should have told us so!" Robyn grinned. "Joanna and Fi were so worried about you that we skipped out on our usual Friday dinner deluxe!"
"That's not true! We wanted to search for her because you couldn't stop pacing around the apartment, Robyn!" Fiona countered with puffed cheeks.
Joanna nodded with a smile.
"Anyway," their leader laughed, "I didn't expect to see one of Mantle's greatest generals today. I know we didn't get a chance for a friendly conversation when my team visited Vale, but I've always wanted to hear the legendary stories that the students of Mantle's war academy gossiped about."
Port grinned at the compliments, but slowly shook his head. "Perhaps another time, I'm on a tight schedule you see, as my bullhead back to Vale arrives in an hour."
His gaze veering to a young Sheep Faunus, he curled a brow and asked her if his presence troubled her.
"N-No, that's not it at all!" Fiona yelped a tad too loudly. "It's just that since you're from Vale and all, I was hoping you could tell about the inferno in the agricultural district?"
Pressing her index fingers together, Fiona dipped her sights to her snow-covered boots.
Port laughed again, this time much more jovially. "While the devastation to Vale's crops is no laughing matter, I assure you the lives of the farmers were all spared. In fact, I've heard from my good friend Ms. Rose that a certain magician played quite a large role in saving its citizens."
"H-Hawkins?" Fiona lifted her head with a curious expression.
"Indeed! Who would have thought that gloomy man would risk his own hide to save, not one, but several farmers including Sam and Carla Acres. From what I've heard those farmers are quite influential in the agricultural district as well."
The eyes of the happy huntresses widened.
"You're telling me that moody card reader actually did something without benefit for himself?" Robyn asked, her tone filled with skepticism.
"If you doubt my words, all you need to do is look to the media! There's plenty of rumors running about the mystery man who broke into a burning windmill to save countless lives. However, none of the reporters were able to uncover Hawkins' contributions during the inferno, though I assume that's because the magician doesn't want the attention or gossip."
"Huh, guess we'll have to send him our regards the next time we visit Vale, isn't that right girls?" Robyn turned to her subordinates who nodded vigorously.
A beep from his scroll, the former Mantlesian finally parted with a polite adieu and trodded down the paths from which he came. Past the iron gates, when he pulled out his scroll he was quite surprised to see a video of his pranking companions Qrow and Oobleck running for their lives with their other teammates in tow.
Off to the side Tyrian appeared to be cackling his ass off and appeared to be aiding the angry mobs of hunters and huntresses in their furious pursuit. Summer, Tai, and Thumbelina were also caught up in the chaos, but ducked at a street intersection and were spared the mob's wrath as they were never the targets in the first place.
Port hunched over in chortles. To see the happy, yet distressed, faces of his friends was a blessing he couldn't stop thanking Oum for. However, there were two blonde's missing from the equation. Most notably a gloomy magician and stern witch.
"Hm... I wonder how Glynda's temporary date ended?" He hummed as he strolled under the now dark sky of Remnant.
/-/
"I-Is this for me?" Glynda whispered in shock.
"Is this not a part of the Valesian tradition?" Hawkins furrowed his brows, cursing the advice Bastion bestowed upon him all the while.
While the two were exempted from the hysterics of Oobleck's and Qrow's prank, they found the night coming to an end, but the magician had one last surprise up his sleeve.