"Gods…" I grumble. "Lukas, can you let me or Miss Goodwitch fly this thing? You fly worse than Levi!"
"Do not compare me to him!" Lukas shouts, and the Bullhead swerves for the… twentieth time now? We've been flying for about two minutes, mind you.
Levi shouts from behind the cockpit, "I landed a Bullhead upside down, once!"
"Shut up!" I shout back, and turn. Miss, sorry, Professor Goodwitch is sitting in the copilot's seat, and letting Lukas have the reins. Levi's thrown up once already, Jade's catatonic in the hold, and I'm just about ready to strangle Lukas. "If you don't fly this thing in a straight fucking line, I'm going to end you!"
"Shut up! I'm just figuring out the controls!" Lukas says, brow furrowed as he, for some reason, presses a random button. We suddenly lurch to a halt, and start hovering in place.
"Well, Mr. Sinclair, you're certainly hard to underestimate when it comes to flying." Goodwitch says, a somewhat annoyed yet amused look on her face.
"May I?" I ask, exasperated.
"Go right ahead, Mr. Canicus."
I suddenly grab Lukas, drag him out of the seat, and send him tumbling towards Jade. Jade has been staring at Goodwitch with a thousand yard stare ever since Lukas attempted to buzz Beacon tower, and scratched the paint off of our left engine. I've flown this thing a thousand times before, and I'll be damned if I let it crash. After taking the pilot's seat, and turning off the damn hover, I steer us in the correct direction, and we start flying smoothly. I flick on autopilot once I'm comfortable with our heading, and swirl around to face the hold. "You're banned from flying until further notice."
"I wasn't even doing that bad!" Lukas yells.
"Mr. Sinclair, please, you almost crashed into the one thing that you could have crashed into in the entirety of Beacon's airspace. It was impressive, honestly."
Levi's leaning against one of the doors, and is slowly sliding down it now that he doesn't have to fight for his life. Jade's still half catatonic, and I'm assuming that it's for an unrelated reason then how badly Lukas was flying.
Lukas huffs, crosses his arms, and walks over to one of the seats, straps himself in, and pouts. I turn back to face the sky, and just sort of be happy that I have a reason to fly this thing again, and am humming to myself. So, let me actually explain a little. This Bullhead is mine. Well, okay, not… not exactly mine. So, in a moment of absolute genius, I decided that strapping some improved armaments to a Bullhead would be funny, and Port and Oobleck also found it funny, so they helped me with it. Now there's a 1800rpm 20mm Gatling Gun on the front of this thing. Yes it's awesome, and it is actually practical.
"Friend Lukas, why are you pouting?" Jade asks, apparently having snapped back to reality. My ears tune into their conversation, and I stop humming.
"Doge is a meanie." Lukas says, mostly just messing around.
"Friend Doge! Why are you being a meanie?!" Jade calls out. "That's mean!"
"Because Lukas almost fucking killed us!" I reply.
"Language, Mr. Canicus."
"Apologies, Miss Goodwitch." I turn around again. "Because Lukas almost caused us to lose our fucking lives!"
Goodwitch facepalms, but lets it go.
"Anyways, we shouldn't be far from the drop point, right?" I ask.
"Well, there was supposed to be a clearing here, but I'm not seeing it."
"Does that mean…?" I trail off expectantly.
"It does." Goodwitch says, the ghost of a smile on her face. "Don't be too wasteful, please."
"Hell yeah! Everyone, strap in for a second!"
Once everyone does, or grabs onto something, I turn around and gain some altitude before spinning around, entering hover, and using the VTOL's gun to blow apart a small clearing for us. As the smoke clears, a pair of red eyes can be seen staring up at us. I fire at that, and assuming that I don't see them anymore after the dust settles, I probably got it. With that, I land us in the newly made crater/clearing.
"Alright laddies, lasses, and lassos, you know the drill. Stay close, hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, and we'll be done before we know it." I say while walking out of the cockpit, loading two shells into Hell's Retriever.
"What's a lasso?" Jade asks.
I sigh. "Thank you, Jade."
"You're welcome! Wait, for what?"
"Don't think too hard about it."
"I don't do that to begin with!"
"I know, Jade, I know."
We step off, Goodwitch right behind us, and start to clear the immediate area. Almost immediately a beowolf jumps out at us, a rather small one, so I'm assuming it was young. I say 'was' due to the fact I grabbed it by the jaw, slammed it into the ground, and stabbed it in the brain.
"Okay, lovely welcoming committee. Now where's the rest of your pack…?"
"That tree line! I can sense it! I think! Maybe!" Jade shouts. Having no current alternative, I pull the pin on a firebomb and chuck it into the brush. As we watch it go up in flames, a couple Beowolves stagger out of it, and Levi mows them down with Zum Seiger. I only count three or so bodies, so that can't be the main group.
Suddenly an Ursa charges us, but Miss Goodwitch sends it into a tree using her telekinesis. As it recoils off of the tree, said tree suddenly wraps around it like a snake, and I can hear Jade giggling to herself. Lukas fires a few rounds of his revolver into it, and it dies.
"Gods, this is so booorring…" Lukas whines, putting a fresh three shots into his gun.
"See, that's what you never should say, Mr. Sinclair." Goodwitch says, brow furrowed.
"He has a point, though. Like, where's the horde I was promised?" I ask while using the shotgun form of Hell's Retriever to put down a lone Boarbatusk. "This is just… sad."
"Not to mention these Grimm are all just stupid. They're not even using pack tactics, and they're all small!" Levi shouts while slamming another solo Beowolf's head into a tree with his maul.
"You do have a point, but just… Stay on your toes…" I say, slowly loading a fresh pair of shells.
"These Grimm are soft and squishy… Why was this place locked to second years and up, Mother?" Jade asks.
"Bec- Did you just-? Never mind. Because, we've been getting reports of people being hurt and going missing in this area as close as the treeline. That's usually an indicator of a coordinated pack, but this…"
A Creep rushes at me, and I block a swing of its tail with my left bracer. I grab it by said tail, and start dragging it towards me. I cut off the tail, grab it by the forward most spine, and stab it in that weak spot between said spine and the head plating.
Jade watches this, and turns to Goodwitch with another question, "But then why are they stupid and feeble?"
"That is a good question, and one that we can hopefully find the answer to." Goodwitch replies while throwing a Boarbatusk into the air, and slamming it back into the ground.
The rustle of leaves is audible between 'waves' of the Grimm, but that's about it.
Another seven or so Grimm that throw themselves at us, and I sigh. "This is… Okay, this might make me sound like an ass, but what if the people disappearing in this area have just lacked any survival instinct? I mean, how does one die to this?" I ask, slashing the neck of a boarbatusk and watching it waddle into a tree before starting to dust away. "This is asinine at best!"
"That's… I don't like that you may have a point…" Levi says.
"Okay. That's kinda fucked even by my standards, but still… I just… ugh!" I exclaim, turning a Beowolf bundle (three) to ashes and dust using a burst of flame. The forth one charges last, and is also incinerated. This is just a cakewalk, and I don't mind, I guess. That time in the woods was more harrowing than this, though… Whatever.
Lukas is even having a good go of it, not struggling too much to hack and slash through whatever comes at him. At one point, he just leans against a tree and fires off rounds from his revolver without much second thought, and it's working.
Eventually, Goodwitch sighs and puts away her riding crop, The Disciplinarian.. "Listen, children, I know you were excited for your first mission, but this… This isn't worth my, or your, time. Let's head back to the Bullhead, I'll take you all out for dinner tomorrow if it makes you feel better."
"She's only doing that 'cause she loves us…" I say, sauntering past Levi, who just laughs. Lukas holsters his gun and pushes himself off the tree before being grabbed by the throat by something, and slammed against the tree. I spin around and see a tall and lanky Grimm, clawed hands and minimal bone plating anywhere but the chest and head. It turns around, and I can see two hollow holes on the deer skull looking plate that covers its face, along with the antlers on its head. It dashes into the brush, the still dazed Lukas under its arm.
"What the fuck?! Get back here you piece of shit!" I bolt after them, using my semblance to fire off small bursts of flame from my feet to launch me yards at a time as an actual trail of flame is left in my wake. Levi has already activated Overdrive and is sprinting a little slower than I am, and Jade is running on all fours behind us, along with jumping from tree to tree where she can. Lukas is throwing off copious amounts of electricity, and I see the Grimm look down at him and growl. That's whenever I'm just able to catch up and punch it in the back of the head where its mask doesn't cover. It drops Lukas and uses its claws to catch itself, sliding a few feet before snarling at me. Lukas rolls across the ground before a few branches catch and cradle him thanks to Jade. Drawing my sword, I point it at the Grimm, which stands back up to full height, around seven and a half feet tall, and cocks its head. After seeing the three of us, along with Goodwitch following behind, it snarls before leaping into the trees and running away.
"It… it has a sense of self preservation…?" I ask.
"I didn't expect to see one of those that close to Beacon…" Goodwitch says, adjusting her glasses.
"What was that thing?!" Levi shouts.
Goodwitch explains while we walk back through the burnt brush, "A Wendigo. It's a somewhat intelligent type of Grimm, a stalker predator, and the kind that should be killed on sight. Not that any Grimm shouldn't be killed on sight, but this one even more so. The fact that one has grown to that size and is this close to Vale is a bad sign. We must report this immediately."
"So that's what's been killing people…" Levi says.
"Exactly. And it having its hunting grounds where the weak Grimm have been infesting would put off any culling teams from expecting it…" she continues.
"That's… that's fucked…" Lukas says, clearly shaken up.
"There there…" Jade says, growing… growing a flower out of her right arm, plucking it, and handing it to Lukas. "…this one smells like oak!"
"J-Jade… that's a daisy…" I say.
"It… it still smells like oak…" Lukas mumbles.
"It smells like oak." Jade says before bounding towards the Bullhead, a smile on her face.
"It definitely smells like wood." Levi says.
Jade's eyes narrow and her smile vanishes as she speaks, "I wouldn't expect you to know the intricacies…"
"I smelled mahogany once." Levi proudly says.
"You look like you drink motor oil. I'm going back to the bullhead before I say something hurtful." Jade says, before entering the Bullhead.
The rest of us quickly make it back to my Bullhead, and I turn it on. Goodwitch takes the seat next to me, and take off goes by rather smoothly. The rest of the flight back consists of Goodwitch angrily typing away on her scroll, and everyone else staying dead silent. I find myself tapping my foot as I fly the Bullhead back, this lingering sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Like coming across that thing was an omen of sorts, like seeing a crow or owl perched on your windowsill, or something of the sorts. I can't shake the thought of what may have happened if I, or someone else, had been a second slower. Still, I simply put on my sunglasses and continue to fly, seeing as there's not much else to do.
As we approach Beacon, I see one of the Bullheads is already back. Could be any of the teams, but I'm silently praying that it's the one Team RWBY took, despite knowing that those clusterfucks managed to find themselves in a situation of sorts. Even then, they're on a scouting mission, so they're expected to be gone a few days. Gods, I hate how clingy I get sometimes. It's borderline pathetic, despite simply being human. Hmm…
"Can we land already?" Lukas asks, hand on one of the seats.
"Y-yeah, just, uh, gimme a sec…" I say, putting the bullhead into VTOL mode and starting to lower it to the ground.
"If it's any consolation, I still plan on taking you four to that dinner I promised you." Goodwitch says, finally putting away her scroll.
"Sounds good to me." Levi says, slinging Zum Seiger over his shoulder.
"Copy." Jade says, before giggling to herself and skipping out of the Bullhead. There's no hiding the tiny smile on my face at that, and I pull myself out of the cockpit. Following everyone else, I tap my right hand against my thigh, drumming to a beat fully unknown to me. The autumn air blows across my face, and I let out a small hum. I've always found chilly winds therapeutic in one way or another. Still, I have to get inside and get my gear into my locker before heading inside and wasting away doing something unproductive like usual.
As I step into the armory, I can hear chatter somewhere down the line, and assume that it's whatever team made it back first. I can hear a somewhat masculine voice, so that immediately eliminates it being RWBY. They're on the other side of the wall of lockers that my locker resides in, but I'm not paying them much mind, more focused on peeling off parts of my armor, and putting them away.
There's a couple footsteps to my left, and someone speaks up, "Hey, uh, Doge?"
I slide off the first of my bracers, and don't even turn to him while speaking, though my body language signals that he has my attention, "Yeah? What's up, Lukas?"
"Would you uh… mind if I stayed in your room tonight?" I can just hear the hand on the back of his neck and the way he glances at the floor.
"Aww, do you not want to sleep alone after getting kidnapped by the Wendigo?" I tease, smirk on my face. "That's cute…" I put away my other bracer, and start to take off my shin guards.
"Shut the fuck up." Lukas hisses.
"Hey, hey, I never said no." I raise my arms in mock surrender after putting my belt and sword in the locker. "Anyways, yeah, you can stay over."
"Thank you…"
"Wanna like, make hot cocoa and watch movies or something? Bought some for a relaxing night in with Blake, but like, there's plenty." Next up is the breastplate, which won't take long to get off. I have to get my bandolier and such off first, though.
"Yeah, that would be nice."
"Hell yeah. Let me just put this stuff away…" I say, continuing on with the last of my gear.
"Ooh! Hey! I knew I recognized that voice! Voices! Same thing!" some shouts before turning the corner. Orange hair and green eyes greet me, and I nod.
"Hello, Nora." I say, while Lukas just timidly waves.
"You guys got back too, huh?! Did you guys blow anything up?!" Nora asks while Ren steps around the wall, too.
"Yeah. It was kinda a wash, though. Like, a bunch of weak Grimm that hardly could work as a pack. Easy pickings isn't the half of it." I shrug.
"Aww, well, maybe your next mission will be more exciting?" Nora offers, still peering over the corner.
"There's nothing wrong with a quiet mission, Nora." Ren says, his usual calm yet somewhat contemplative look on his face. Or maybe I'm bad at reading faces.
"Yeah, but those are boooorrrriiiiiiii-" Nora takes a breath, "-iiiiiiiing. Where's the fun in that?"
"Not dying?" Ren asks.
"Laaaaaame." Nora rolls her eyes.
"Anyways, you should have seen us out there! We've been doing a lot better! Even Jaune!"
"Hey!" comes from over the wall. Nora giggles a bit, now bouncing in place, still peaking around the wall, so all Lukas and I can see is her tilted sideways head going up and down. Ren sighs, but has the ghost of a grin on his face.
"Anyways, we're just going to go chill out for the afternoon. Though, Jaune, might be down to play something tonight if you are?" I say, leaning against my now closed locker.
"Yeah, I might. I'll let you know." Jaune replies.
"Right then. See you guys later, yeah?"
"Sure thing." Ren says.
"Byyyeee!!!" Nora says, waving. Apparently the arm she waves with was the one giving her support, as she suddenly falls down. This doesn't deter her much, though. Lukas and I wave back, and start to walk out.
"Drained?" I ask Lukas.
"Yeah…"
"Man…" I say, just walking alongside him.
"Man indeed…"
About twenty or so minutes later, and I'm fresh out of the shower, hair still wet, and kinda sleepy from the hot water. I've got on some blue pajama pants and a black shirt. Lukas is making cocoa, and an action movie is paused on the opening on the TV in the middle of the room. Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. Thank the gods I did.
"I got it…" I say, towel slung over my shoulder. I throw open the door, and already get ready for something stupid.
"Hey, uh, Doge?" Levis asks.
"Yeah?" I ask, rubbing my eyes a bit.
"Is Lukas there?" he asks.
"Yeah." I say, leaning against the doorway.
Lukas walks over, "What do you need?"
"You can pick a lock, right?"
"What a baseless assumption purely based on my background to be absolutely correct. Why?"
Levi sheepishly rubs the back of his neck before speaking, "I got locked out of my room."
"How?" Lukas asks.
"I don't know."
I chime in, "What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know! I tried to fix it and it didn't work!"
"You tried to fix it…?" I ask, slowly blinking.
"Yeah, I popped open the console and tried to fix it and it wouldn't work!"
Lukas and I just sigh.
"Wait, what console?" I ask.
"The electrical lock I installed with our fingerprints as the password."
"When the fuck-?" I start.
Levi cuts me off, "When we got back."
Lukas and I sigh again.
"Also…" Levi stars.
A few seconds pass before Lukas speaks, "Go on…"
"I heard popping."
One of my eyebrows raises as I speak, "What? Like guns? Yeah, no shit, other people are probably trai-"
"No, no, like… fireworks." Levi corrects.
"Fireworks? You sure it wasn't just handguns or something? Not everyone uses big ass machine guns, dude." I say.
Levi shakes his head. "No, I'm sure. Like, someone was setting off fireworks in the hallway?"
"Who the he-" It clicks. "JNPR. Never mind. Alright, yeah, let's go…"
As we walk, I check my scroll, and there's nothing. I don't know what I expected, but there's just nothing to note. Well, there's a notification for an artist releasing a new song, but that's it.
"Yang sent me a message, she said it's boring out there." Levi says, looking at his scroll.
"Well, yeah, it's a scouting mission, what did she expect?" I ask, glancing at him.
"Action." Levi says.
"But why?" I ask.
Levi doesn't miss a beat with his response, "It's Yang."
"Fair 'nuff." I concede.
After going up the stairs and heading down the hall, we're at our team's dorm. Lukas stares at the gadget affixed to the door frame in confusion, before just tapping it with his finger and it glitches, reboots, and opens.
"What did you do?" Levi asks Lukas.
"Shorted it." he says.
"Why?! That thing was expensive!" Levi shouts.
"I'm sure that nothing's permanently dama-" Lukas is cut off as a bunch of those pops Levi was talking about can be heard, and it's one door down and across the hall. Almost forgot about that.
Levi walks over to Team JNPR's dorm, opens the door, and is immediately sent flying by a bright blue explosion. He soars into Team RWBY's room and lands with an "Ach-hur!"
"What the hell was-" I stop myself from questioning that weird ass sound he just made, and continue, "Actually, no, more pressing matters…"
I carefully peak around the doorway, and see an extremely embarrassed Pyrrha holding a firework mortar. "Oh, hello again!" she says, immediately dropping both the mortar, and the lighter she was holding.
Makes sense. I turn around and walk into Team RWBY's dorm to help out Levi, but notice that Zwei, and the dogfood, are missing. Oh, Ruby must have taken him with her. Poor Blake… Actually, wait a second. I look over at Blake's bed, and see one of my hoodies just sitting there. She must have stuffed it under her shirt this morning when I left the bedroom! Nah, screw her, she's got it coming now! I'm leaving it there, but I'm gonna call her out for it next time I see her, mark my damn words! Thoughts...? Same thing. "Are you alright?" I ask.
Levi nods. "Y-yeah… that kinda hurt though…"
"Add that to the list…" Lukas says with a tiny smirk.
After helping him up, I walk into Team JNPR's dorm, and am met with one of, if not the, sights of all time. Jaune and Nora are dancing around a spark shower firework, while Ren has a handful of firecrackers that he's occasionally lighting and tossing, along with a fire extinguisher sitting in his lap. It smells like smoke, and I can practically taste the fire hazard in here. As Nora continues to dance around the sparks, she shouts, "Celebration! Yeah!"
"Wow…" I mutter, watching the chaos before me.
"I am so sorry, Levi!" Pyrrha says, looking at Levi. He just shrugs.
"So… so this is what you guys get up to in your free time?" Lukas asks.
"Celebration! Raaaaaaah!" Jaune shouts, clearly having not noticed us.
"More or less?" Pyrrha says, looking at the rest of her team. Someone's notebook has caught on fire, and I quickly use my semblance to absorb the fire and put it out. "Oh, thank you!" Pyrrha says at that.
"Just… wow." I say. "We're just gonna…" I start to close the door, and give Pyrrha a small wave. She waves back, and pushes away the mortar before grabbing a Roman candle.
"Well, that was something…" Levi says.
"Anyways, your door's fixed now, I guess, so go have fun." Lukas says.
"Yes." Levi says before marching into his room.
"Riveting response…" I sigh, and just start walking down the hall. Lukas follows behind me, and I can hear shouting start to emerge from JNPR's dorm, along with an unhealthy amount of smoke. Then the sounds of a fire extinguisher. Then the sounds of said fire extinguisher sputtering, and then more shouting. As we slink down the stairs, I can hear the sound of heels clicking, and… well Goodwitch can figure this out, it's not a Doge and Lukas problem anymore. Never was, frankly.
Once back at my room, we press play on the movie and sit down. Lukas then gets up, takes a step forward, and then sits down. I raise an eyebrow at him, and he speaks, "I dunno, man, I forgot."
After I stand up with a thought in my head, and look around, I too realize that I forgot, and sit back down. "Wait, the cocoa, that's it!" I say, shooting back up and going make two mugs of the stuff. "Open… damn bag…" I mutter, having an embarrassing amount of trouble to open one of the packets.
"Do you-?"
"Yes, yes, I've got it. Just… just gotta…" The bag suddenly tears open, and sends chocolate powder everywhere. I cough, waving my hands in front of my face to try and clear it. "It's in my- cough cough -my d-damn eyes! Ack!"
"Impressive. Blake's gonna like that one." Lukas says after taking a picture of me, surrounded by a cloud of chocolate dust. Eventually the dust settles, and I pour two packets into two mugs. I then pop open the microwave… and see that there's already to mugs, still warm, already done.
"Oh."
"Oh, so that's what I was going do!" Lukas exclaims.
I just let out a sound that's a mix between a whimper, cry, shout, and stutter. I'd try to give an onomatopoeia of it, but it would just be something like "Fsd, bu, eh, bu, oh-" and then dissolve into faux crying. "I hate it here." I say, still covered in chocolate powder.
"Going take a-"
"Yes, I'm going take another fucking shower, Lukas."
With that, angrily handing Lukas a mug, and spitefully sipping my own, I walk into the bathroom for the second shower in only half an hour.
Well, haven't been around for a solid month. That's entirely my bad, I just got caught up in holidays, and then didn't have any inspiration to write for a while, but then, seven or so days ago, I got my inspiration back, and decided that a chapter was kinda overdo. I think this is the longest space between chapters yet. (5 weeks. Damn.)
Still, I really do appreciate you lovely readers, especially now that my rock for brains having ass found where to go to read the comments. It's embarrassing how long I managed to not find that.
Anyways!
Do know that the support is greatly appreciated, in any capacity, be it liking, favoriting, or agreeing with me on the fact that this project has the consistency of dark matter and the reliability of a Maybach brand transmission in 1942. This is only funny if you're a history nerd like I am. Otherwise you're probably running to google to figure out what this means. The joke probably won't be funny by then.
Still, as usual, thanks for reading!
(Update on Jan 4, '25: Someone pointed out some grammar stuff, and I realized that Flower's eyes are supposed to be Red and not purple. My bad.)