[Other FULL] [IC] As the Dust Settles; A RWBY RP [M] [EPILOGUE]

Victor Strossen, Luna Niemandsluft, Lana, Carolyne Bjork

D-Day

"Level C are you ready? Level C! Lana, Luna, Victor, Carol! Are you ready! You've got to go now or you'll miss the dropzone!"

The sound of the airship's engine roared in the ear of the young Faunii. The door had been opened and the team had paired up. Lana and Vic, Luna and Carol. They held each other tight as they were to rely on their semblances to make a covert landing on the island. The humans had already landed several hours ago, though they might think nothing of the airship itself - the sight of a parachute might tip them off. Instead it was to be a direct dive to the ground below, cushioned only by the powers of Luna and Lana.

"You've got to go now!" The instructor who had the horns of a ram took a few steps back and screamed at the children. "If you don't go now I'll have to force you out!"

"Aye aye captain!" Luna remarked with a grin as she fell backwards out of the ship, Carol clinging on to her for dear life. Lana looked out the door at the two and then down at Vic. The girl wrapped her arms around him without any warning before stepping backwards out of the door herself. As soon as they had left the safety of the airship it began to pull away and the door slammed shut.

Victor's ears folded against his head to keep the air from tickling them too much, and his face was - as always - overtaken by a toothy smile. "This is gonna be fun! Finally a chance to really stretch our legs! And we might even get to play with some humans!" Lana, not being able to make any signs without risking their safety, merely nodded. It was so exhilarating dropping right out of the airship like that, the fox couldn't fight his excitement.

Meanwhile the other duo crashed into the ground, leaving a Luna sized crater in it. Carol rolled off of the girl as she let out a groan and curled up inside of the massive hole. The pages of Carol's book retracted back into it, having been used to slightly cushion the fall since Luna actually had no power that would have been useful for that part of the landing. However she did absorb the majority of the shock from the impact and put it back out into the ground, explaining exactly why their hole had been made so deep. Carol looked up to the sky for their other teammates while she stood on Luna's chest, her heels digging in to the Faunus' abdomen causing her to groan and sink even further in on herself.

The fuzzy pair twirled in the air. Lana loosened her grip on Victor just enough for him to thrust his arm towards the ground with Carolyn in hand, and begin spinning it. Faster and faster the dual weapon spun, aided by the fox's semblance until ir began to gust and slow their descent. Eventually they began to float lazily down, and once there was only a few feet between them and the earth, Lana quickly flipped them back over and let go. Both Faunus separated in the air and landed a short distance apart, Vic posing a bit with pride at the landing while Lana simply surveyed their surroundings. "Today our goal is to track, monitor, and steal, right?" Victor called out.

"Yep yep." Carol waltzed over to the other two faunii as she brushed the little dirt that was left on her off. "They should be heading inland, which is.... that way? I think? I dunno, I feel kind of dizzy in here surrounded by all these trees and such. Maybe our favorite female companion could sniff something out for us?"

Luna clawed her way out of the crater and shook her head. "Think you could at least give me a minute? You got sound girl over there, surely she could pick up on something too. It doesn't always have to be me."

"Or maybe both of you could try, y'know, together?" Victor added playfully, ears and nose both twitching from all the scents and sounds around them.

Luna gumbled and Lana smiled, scooting over closer to the shark girl. Lana flattened the palm of one enormous hand and slammed it into the ground like an angry sumo wrestler and took control of the vibrations as they traveled. Every time her soundwaves made contact with a solid object she forced the reactive sound to travel back towards them while the first kept going, bringing the sounds of objects all over the island right back to the group as if they could hear it themselves. The process also resulted in causing the scents from around the group to be more streamlined to Luna's nose. Luna picked up a trail of some sweaty human rear and the scent of freshly let blood. "We got our heading now baby," Luna said as she shook. Her eyes turning completely black as drool began to flow in large globules from her lower lip.

Victor, meanwhile seemed to have already started walking, confident he could tell which way was inland even if he couldn't track the humans by himself from this distance. With her motor already revved up Luna shot after him, bowling him out of the way and taking the lead. "Floofy Mc.No tits, the meat's this way. Stop pussyfooting around and let's go kid, I feel like I've not eaten in days. If we lose this trail..." Luna let out a giggle that turned into a laugh filled with malice, "we better not lose this trail." Luna turned her head back after she swung herself around a tree, giving the others time to catch up. Her eyes were black pearls, and her teeth like sharpened diamonds.

Victor Strossen, Luna Niemandsluft, Lana, Carolyne Bjork

Deja Vu

While Luna led the way, and Lana followed close behind on the lookout, Victor dropped back to Carol, both as rear guard, and for more obvious reasons. "So, beautiful, had any dreams about all this? Or just any dreams about me?" He made sure to finish with his trademark grin flashing a single fang.

Carol smiled at Vic and then pulled out her dream journal. Still smiling at him, she ran her finger down the entries, until she reached a blank page and then closed the book back. "No, sorry. I haven't had dreams of either of these things. There was something about a month ago about some woods and some humans, but I'm not completely sure about that one yet. And besides, even if I had had a dream about something there's nothing to say it would actually mean anything. Dreams are just dreams anyways. They're interesting, but really have no real... substance? They're not exactly worth worrying over or thinking about, though they're good for a read or a laugh every now and then." The girl giggled as she put the book back down in her bag and slightly picked up her pace.

"I dunno about that." Victor said happily, speeding up as well with his tail swishing behind him. "I can think of a few very interesting dreams I've had where I could tell you exactly what they mean." Despite his suggestive tone he was quiet for a moment afterwards, and did very little besides a twitch of the ear here, or a sniff there. "Although, plenty of others weren't so cut and dry, the mind is a confusing place... then again so is the real world, when I was a sprout everything seemed so simple. Now we're here doing all this." The way he finished left no opportunity to read into whether he meant any of it in a positive or negative light, it was simply contemplative.

"I don't know. I've been dreaming for several years... well, dreaming more realistic things. And the things I dream in these more realistic dreams, seem to come true... or at least partly that is, every now and again. It's a strange feeling, not knowing whether a nightmare is a nightmare or a dream a dream until you've dreamt it again. Again, back when we started to attend that academy, I fell asleep on the airship. At that time I had a dream that a rather bulky man would come up to the ship, throw me over his shoulder and run away into the sunset. Now I knew better at the time, and I know better now. But I wrote it in my journal nonetheless. Perhaps it was a dream in a dream, but a nightmare should it come to reality? Now we're here with two brutish ladies, a me and a you. Perhaps that dream did have some higher meaning? The images I see are often frightening, even when blissful. I'd hate to be burdened by constantly wondering if ever my dreams held a higher meaning...." Carol slowed down and pulled her diary from her pack again. She flipped the cover open and began to read through some of the earlier entries while walking at a snail's pace.

"Some bulky guy?" Victor teased. "I was hoping I'd be the man of your dreams, damn." After that he followed her in relative silence, slowly speeding up till they walked apace. After she finished talking about just how frightening her dreams and their possible ramifications could be she was nearly startled by the feeling of something soft and fluffy brushing against her. In a rare moment of innocent companionship Victor's tail rested on her shoulder for a few seconds of comfort, then swept down her back and he increased his pace again , drawing ahead and not acknowledging his actions.

"Yeah, there was a real bulky guy, almost the size of Luna or Lana. He lifted me up and carried me away. Then on that same day I had two more dreams. One was of me meeting Lana and losing to her in a fight, and the other was of a jungle..." Carol looked up from her book to see the same scenery from the dream she'd had over a month ago. "Oh no. No, no, no, no. We have to leave. We can't be here. We have to get out of here." Carol stabbed her toe into the ground and turned completely around before taking off back towards the drop point.

Victor was after her in an instant, he probably could have caught her if he wanted but he preferred to make her stop on her own. "Carol! What's wrong? We can't just turn around! Calm down! Just stop and talk to me would you?"

"No! We have to go!" Carol continued to shout, flinging her arms around at her sides so that Vic couldn't get a hold of her. "We shouldn't be here! This won't end well for any of us! We have to leave now while we still can!" The girl tripped over a branch and squeaked, throwing her book out in front of herself and rolling up inside the carapaced ball-like armor that it created around her.

Luna caught up with the two, huffing as she stopped and tried to talk. "What. Is going. On. Over. Here." The girl wiped the beads of sweat forming on her forehead and then took a deep breath. "If you keep shouting like that everyone on the island will know where we are. What are you even doing. We have to move forward or I'll lose the scent."

A small crack appeared in the armor and Carol's lips pressed against it. "No," she whispered hastily.

"Carol, we can't just stop! You've got to come out." Victor pleaded, Lana stood next to him and nodded. "Lives could depend on us finishing this mission, and we've worked so hard to get here."

The Gorilla faunus gently nudged Victor out of the way to stand in front of the crack and signed. "And we might get expelled too."

"But," Carol began, "if my dreams... if this is my power then what am I supposed to do? What can I do? I just... I don't know. I don't know anything. It's hard... the dream I had a month ago, I'll let you see it. Even if I can't figure it out, maybe you seeing it will spark something." The armor around Carol began to shift, snaking around in circles until one paragraph became visible on the top of her shell.

'It's me again. Second time today, I know. I had another dream. This time... I don't really want to remember it. Even though some of my dreams have been bad before, I don't ever think I've had a nightmare quite like this one. Lana was there, apparently along with the rest of my team which is around me now having just woke up. We were following some humans in a strange jungle. There was also a cave which we followed them in to. Everyone was talking, saying things I couldn't hear or understand. It was scary, and then we were running from... something... something big, something that I don't think should have existed. I'm scared. For once in my life, I'm hoping that my dreams don't come true. I don't know what to do. Leifr, I'm afraid. Not for myself, but for my team and for those humans... they all seemed so helpless... I never want to be in that place again... I hope when these tears stop falling I'll be able to look back on this and find some kind of understanding in it... but for now, this is all I have to tell. I don't know. - Carol'

"That monster... the looks in its eyes and the look on that human teacher's face when she stood up to it... they still burn behind my eyes. I see them every time I blink, every time I lay down and every time I start to wake up. They never leave me alone, and I don't ever want to see them again. For a while I'd forgotten when or where I'd actually first saw them, but now that we're here in this forest, following these humans... it's all starting to come back. I just want to keep us safe, and the only way to do that I believe is to not go through with this mission."

Victor turned away from the armored sphere and stretched his limbs, even though he'd already done all his exercises before they left the academy. "Well that settles it then. We definitely can't go back home without doing anything if there's a monster that horrible that needs to be dealt with. You can stay if it's that terrifying my sweet Carolyne. I really wouldn't want to see you get hurt, and one of our large lovely ladies here can stay with you. But I'm going. I didn't get here just to turn tail."

"Viiiiiiic," the hole in Carol's armor opened a little wider, allowing an eye to become visible along with her lips. "Don't goooo Viiiiiiiic. I don't want you to get huuurt. I don't want any of you to be hurt... that's why we should just leave now..."

The fox stopped dead at Carol's pleas for him not to go off on his own. She had one of the voices that was always hard for him to ignore. A shiver ran up his spine at the desperation in her voice, and he'd heard those words once before. He turned back to the rest of the group to see Lana watching everything happen impassively as she always did.

Luna however wasn't having that shit. She picked Carol up, shoving her beefy fingers into the tiny hole and lifted the ball above her head. "I'm losing the scent. We have to go now. No more crybaby nonsense. You're a big girl, grow a pair of tits and let's get on with the damn mission."

Carol started rolling around, calling out to Vic and Lana with tears rolling down her face and falling out of the small hole. Lana rushed up a little bit and put her hand out in front of her, signaling for Luna to stop. The shark girl bared her teeth and growled while Lana positioned her hands just in front of the opening and clapped gently, sending a concussive wave reverberating through the armor until Carol passed out and the armor fell open.

"Now we can move." The Gorilla girl signed as she turned away and continued walking.

"We'll have to talk to her at some point." Victor reminded them both, taking Carol and carrying her bridal-style. He hugged her slightly in the hopes it would comfort her in her sleep and set off with the rest.

"Take that! "We're all alive. That's nice~"

Artemis couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief even despite Sacha's overly-cheery response to their close call of a landing. She glanced around, spotting Nakahiko as he dropped safely to the ground nearby, now inspecting his beloved briefcase. Well, they had all made it. Not bad for improvisation. Not bad at all.

Still hanging from the blades impaled into the tree, her arms were beginning to tire. However, the ground was a long ways down, and there was the matter of the boy wedged in between her and the massive trunk they clung to. Artemis couldn't help but wonder if it might be fine to let him fall, after all, he'd be okay. Probably.

Planting her feet squarely on the the tree, the black-haired girl pulled began to tug on the second of the two blades. This was very alarming to Paxton, who felt a sudden urge to protect his left arm from begin sliced off. "Uh, hey Art? What are you doing? We kinda need those so we don't, you know, fall and break o- whoa, hey!"

Artemis had succeeded in removing one blade from the tree, nearly amputating her teammate in the process. Two now hung by only the single blade, with Paxton locked in a wild-eyed bear hug with SNAP's leader, who's judgement he was really questioning at the moment.

"Artemis, hold up, hold up," he gasped, nervously avoiding the intense look in her eyes. "I think I may have something useful."

Freeing one arm to grab his scroll, he cycled quickly through his various apps and tools. 'Maps? Nah. MusicStream? Probably not useful here. Flashlight? Nope. Then, near the end of the display, he found just what he needed. But first....

Swinging his arm back around, he positioned himself and smiled, grabbing a quick selfie of him and his dangling teammate. "Gonna update my status to "Just hanging with my buddy Art" he stated jovially, trying not to notice how Artemis' eyes seemed to want to spontaneously combust.

Just as he'd planned, Artemis immediately ripped the other blade out of the tree, sending them both hurtling towards the ground. Luckily, Paxton was prepared. Activating his semblance, his eyes began to glow, as did the device in his hand. Tossing it towards the ground below, the scroll seemed to inflate, and had sprouted cushions of some sort.

As Paxton flopped onto the object, he sighed contentedly. "I knew that mattress app would come in handy." His rest was short-lived, though, as split seconds afterwards he something heavy landed right on top of him. That something being a somewhat flustered Artemis.

"Scandalous." Sacha teased as she watched the brunette get redder from their landing. Her, on top of him... with a bed and everything. Truly, utterly, scandalous.Paxton groaned in pain as Artemis promptly removed herself, walking over to the rest of her team. "Not funny." She muttered, glaring at the laughing girl.

Sacha stood up, jumping once to regain her energy. As much fun as watching two people on the bed was, the mission was much more exciting. She smiled; maybe they'll get to finally fight something. "Come on, lovebirds! We don't have all day!" She said, skipping over to where Naka was to help him up too. "We have crates to find, and pictures to take!"

Naka sighed as he brushed off the remaining dust on his briefcase, eyeing Sacha's energetic behaviour. "Just crates, please.." He mumbled, looking around for any clues in the environment. "How deep are we in this jungle, again?"

"We still have a ways to go. From my rough calculations before we landed, we should be somewhere near the edge of the forest." Artemis replied. "The crates are littered all over the island, so we had best make for the center to see if we can get a better vantage point. That way, we don't waste time." She scanned their surroundings, but all that could be seen was thick jungle brush. "Now, the question is, which way would that be..."

"Ah, the 'being lost in the middle of the jungle' time." Sacha smiled, looking around. The trees were blocking the way, scattering most of the sun's light. This would be quite hard, and would probably take a long time to traverse. She shrugged; go with the flow, then! Naka, however, wasn't as... amused. "Please don't tell me we're lost. Does anyone even know any--"

"We need to be heading south,"

The three looked around, wondering where the voice had come from. Paxton, who had been lying against a tree nursing his bruises, spoke up again. "We fell on the north side of the island, so the center would be south, which is that way." He pointed in a seemingly random direction, much to the astonishment of his teammates.

"...Okay... That was easy." Naka muttered, taking a deep breath. They had a plan! A rather improvised plan, but still a plan nonetheless! He nearly jumped at the thought of not dying from stupidity. Nearly.

"Since when did you start paying attention?" Artemis asked, more than a hint of suspicion in her voice. "And how do you know that way is south?"

Paxton just gave a small grin and stood up. "You guys have heard of a compass, right?" He pointed to his scroll. "This thing does a lot of stuff. "Speaking of which, how about a group pic?"

Before Sacha could oblige, Artemis jumped in. "Maybe later. Let's get moving." Sacha frowned, but shrugged it off. There's going to be a better picture opportunity later anyway. She smiled at the thought, before giving their mighty leader an eager salute. Naka didn't even get to say his own piece as he aimlessly followed; But... I still have a bad feeling about this...

---

It had been hours since SNAP had landed on the island. The four of them trudged through the thick wold vegetation, in search of the mountain at the heart of the region. Paxton, compass-app in hand, led the way, occasionally glancing between his screen and their surroundings. Sacha and Nakahiko followed close behind, and Artemis brought up the rear.

Naka was sure they were lost. They had been walking around with only a compass for their only guide of direction and a blind sense of trust since 'oh it's an island we'll be reaching the edge eventually'. He was not having fun. Not when he could see leaves clearly rustling while they walked; like they were filled with dark, hungry predators that haven't had lunch in decades. Or maybe a huge, species of grimm known only in this island! He couldn't even be sure if he had the guts to kill something yet and--

"Naka stop worrying." Sacha interrupted, almost floating next to him. "It's gonna be alright~" She smiled, "Plus, we got weapons and we can fight things out if somebody does get in our way!"

Heh. He couldn't help but smile a little bit at the fact; she was right. They've been working together for how many days now, and he could trust that they would have his back, and vice versa. "T-thanks Sash.. I needed that."

Sacha merely gave a wink and a thumbs up and skipped ahead, only going back to walking speed when she almost reached Paxton, as they kept going 'south'. She glanced around; there were slight rusting sounds, and she could see Naka at the corner of her eye looking at the jungle trees each time he heard those noise. Suspicious noise, she noted. The girl hid a growing smile at the thought of fighting something. Was it going to be a jungle grimm? Jungle faunus? Jungle... things? Oh, whatever. She instinctively gripped her tonfas as she began to feel excited. Oh, this was going to be great. But first... "Are we theeeere yet?"

"Does it look like we're there yet?" Artemis replied with a sigh.

"Well obviously we wouldn't know since we're not the one with the compass." Sacha retorted, "Soooooo Pax? Are we there yet or do we have'ta walk another 1,000,000 miles to get to our destination?"

"Welp, I don't really know how much farther, but we're heading in the right direction. I think." Paxton replied. Suddenly, the boy stopped, face scrunched as he looked intently at his scroll-compass. Sheepishly, he turned the device upside-down, and turned to face his teammates.

"So uh, guys...." he started, his voice trailing off in what sounded like embarrassment. "I, eh, might have..."

Artemis broke in sharply. "Might have what?" Something told her she wasn't going to like the answer.

".... might have been... going the wrong way."

For a few moments, the forest seemed to be completely silent.

"..."

Breaking the tense moment, Artemis spun around without another word, and began to stomp in the opposite direction.

Sacha let out an audible sigh, "You had one job, techy," she said as she glanced back to where Artemis was stomping back to. "One job! I mean really who would hold a scroll upside down?" Naka smiled, although he was tempted to use his briefcase at this point. Pax was human, they were human, Artemis was human (at least that's what he thought) and he was undoubtedly human and they all make mistakes.

Even if this was one hell of a mistake.

A small grin had formed on Paxton's face. "Guys, guys, calm down. I was joking, alright? We went the right way, in fact- HEY, ART!" he shouted at their fearless leader, who was still trudging away from them silently. "WHERE YA GOING? WE'RE ALREADY HERE!"

Artemis glanced back, taking notice of the her teammate's yelling. Paxton flinched slightly at the murderous look in her eyes. Yikes. The girl still doesn't know how to take a joke.

Attempting to remedy the situation, he pulled back as the thick growth of branches in front of where they had stopped. Doing so revealed the base of what appeared to be a large mountain, merely a short stroll away. "See, we made it. All good, right?"

Naka let out a breath of relief; they weren't going to walk for another four hours! He looked at Artemis, who was still glaring daggers at Pax. "H-hey Artemis, it's okay we're at our destination now!" He attempted a feeble smile, gently patting her back to try to pat the anger out of her.

Artemis wasn't responding. She didn't seem to be even paying attention to the conversation at hand, rather was staring off space, at a seemingly random spot between Paxton and Sacha. The former, somewhat concerned, reached out out to tap the oblivious girl on her shoulder. "Hey, Art, you okay? I'm sorry about that, I wasn't trying to-"

"Don't. Move. A. Muscle." Artemis whispered hoarsely, cutting the apology off. Confused, Paxton obeyed, and realized their leader wasn't just staring into space. She was staring, wide-eyed, at something in brush directly behind him. His face paled. Whatever this was, it was enough to have Artemis looking terrified. And that said a lot. Sacha blinked, her curiosity getting the best of her as she slowly glanced back and marveled in terror at the sight in front of her. "Oh." Sacha stayed still, her hands already fixed to her tonfas as she prepared for the upcoming fight.

Loud enough that Naka could hear, she repeated her warning. What the rest of SNAP had failed to see, and what Artemis' gaze was fixed on, were two pairs of glowing yellow eyes, shining from behind the brush. As slowly and innocuously as she could, she let her hand drop to where grimmslayer hung at her side. Slowly, she inched the rifle up from it's resting position, carefully placing the barrel on Paxton's left shoulder.

"Don't move." Though she repeated the warning, it wasn't necessary. Paxton, hadn't bothered to move since she had originally spoke. She lined up the shot, muzzle pointed right between the first pair of golden orbs.

Before she could pull the trigger, two jet-black forms leapt forward, towards the four stationary students. Reacting just in time, Paxton fell forward, pulling Artemis to the ground with him, out of the beasts' reach. Sacha instinctively dodged the first move, using her semblance to increase her speed as she hid a growing, mischievous smile. Her tonfas were already out, each aimed towards them.

As they scrambled to their feet again, they were finally able to identify what had lunged at them. Two grimm, unlike any Artemis remembered learning about before. They were wolflike, yet walked upright. Large, razor-sharp claws and a spiked tail adorned the creature's otherwise charcoal-colored form. They seemed to be dependent on their speed, as seen from how they first attacked the team. One stray hit from them would lead to some serious, if not fatal, wounds. The grimm stood their ground for a moment, snarling at their would-be prey.

Snapping back into focus, Artemis shot a glance towards her team. "SNAP, weapons free. Double team time."

"Aw, yeah! Let's do this!" Paxton tapped gripped his scroll, which began to glow a faint blue as it morphed into a pair of nunchuks. "C'mere, ya oversized rug!" One of the grimm roared, and charged the taunting boy. Paxton stood his ground, smiling smugly at the monster racing towards him. As the wolf reached striking distance, it swung it's claws in a wide arc, ready to cut him down. Before he could be turned into a pile of mincemeat, Paxton spun to the right, and in one fluid motion brought the end of his nunchucks up into the jaw of the unsuspecting grimm. It howled in pain, but was not deterred.

Sacha smirked, immediately speeding beside him and began to shoot multiple rounds at the howling grimm. She wanted to see grimm dust, and fast. "Anything you want me to do?" She asked, still shooting at the grimm, making it dazed and slightly immobile.

"Yeah, I've got an idea!" Pax responded with a grin. Grabbing Sacha's tonfas from her, they began to glow a faint blue. Slowly, they began to change shape, increasing in length and width. "Introducing the 'Tonfa Wind Cannons 2.0, patent pending'. Now, let's see what these puppies can do!" He handed the oversized weapons back to his partner.

"Oh. OH. OH!" Sacha smiled, admiring her upgraded babies. "The things I could do with these things..~" She purred, already charging up her semblance as she took aim at the grimm now speeding towards them, claws sharpened and tilted to make them look more threatening. The girl smiled, feeling the wind create some pressure to block--or at the very least slow-- the incoming slasher. She waited for a few more moments before pulling the trigger on one of the tonfa, sending a very large bullet that was amplified by her semblance, almost disappearing because of the speed it took and shot the grimm flat on the chest, the extra force pushing it back far into a nearby tree. Sacha smiled, enjoying the sudden yelp of pain the grimm gave and instantly walked near the already semi-unconscious grimm and pulled the trigger on the other tonfa she was holding on, with a semblance that had another effect than pushing back enemies. Once the bullet hit the chest of the grimm, it began to howl even more as it felt it's insides slowly but surely losing it's mass, ripping a bullet-sized hole in it's wake and disintegrate into a pile of black dust, the bullet resting on top of it.

She scowled, disappointed at the lack of blood, but shrugged it off and handed her weapons back to Pax to make them travel-sized again.

It was their victory.

Meanwhile, Naka gulped, transferring his briefcase to his right hand as it transformed into his prized heavy duty hammer and ran immediately to the right, luring one of the grimm away from the team. "I-I... I got this!" He shouted, now at a reasonable distance between Sacha, Pax, and the other grimm, and blinked once, his eyes glowing a faint green as he created a large enough field that surrounded him and the enemy grimm with the following rule: Any ally who steps inside the field shall have their speed doubled for the remainder of the fight..

He felt his semblance beginning to affect him as he managed to block the blows with ease, however, he couldn't muster up the courage to kill. He suppressed a yelp as he sidestepped once to dodge yet another vicious tackle from from grimm. "A-Artemis! Help p-please!"

The other wolf-grimm was enraged, sending a storm of vicious slashing blows towards Nakahiko, who desperately worked to parry them with his hammer. Artemis was doing her best to lay down covering fire and divert the beast's attention, but to little avail. Naka was still standing, but he made no move to attack. Seeing her shots were having little effect on the beast, the black-haired girl let her gun fall to her side, ejecting the pair of swords from the back. She ran towards the beast, which was still busy grappling with her teammate. With a quick flick of her wrists, the blades extended, glinting in the sunlight. As she approached the raging grimm, she dropped down into a slide, and shoved the weapons into the meaty part of the black creature's left calf. The wolf-esque creature howled in pain, and temporarily ceasing it's assault. "Naka! Get out of there!" Artemis shouted, reaching for her rifle once more.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Naka complied, easily skedaddling out of harms way as he stared at their leader's brutal assault on the grimm.

She narrowed her focus, and the world seemed to move in slow motion. The wound she had made in the grimm's leg was glowing a bright purple, a hint from her semblance that this was a weak spot. Lining up the shot, she fired a quick succession of bullets into the marked wound. The beast doubled over, before slowly disintegrating into a pile of black dust.

With both monsters down, the four students could breathe easy. "Alright, another victory for team PANS!" Paxton cheered.

Artemis looked at him wearily. "You do realize our designation is SNAP, right?"

"Yeah, but PANS sounds cool, especially with the 'P' in front. Just sayin'."

"NAPS sounds cool too," Naka said, how holding an ordinary briefcase--magically back to it's scratch-less design.

"Why, because the 'N' is in front?"

"...Maaaybe." The guy said, "But also since that's what most of us keep doing."

Sacha chuckled, "You have a point~"

Artemis turned to her teammates. "Anyways, we should get moving. We'll need time to scout if we want to find those crates." Before they moved on, however, something caught her eye. The corner of a rectangular metal object stuck out of the foliage where the two grimm had attacked them. "Looks like we've got one. Pax, come over here and mark this one for retrieval."

After that was taken care of, team SNAP set out towards the mountain ahead of them, not having any idea of what awaited them there.

(Infinite , GreyBidoof);

P.001 →
Rage Against The System
Afternoon | FaunAc Mess Hall
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Illias looked down at the metal tray he held before him. A handful of limp, oil-drenched french fries that stewed in a viscous glob of ketchup, a soggy mound of corn that was freshly uncanned and re-steamed, a hot slab of greyed red meat, and an unbranded pint carton of milk took to their own divisions on his plate. These were servings he was not unfamiliar with at the Academy, whose funding could barely afford to expend on mediocrity for the hundreds of its attendants. With a critical eye, his gaze lifted to the throngs of animals before him. They all were forced to intermingle, the greaters and the lessers, chattering, chiding, cheering, criticizing and commiserating together, a cacophony that swelled and rattled to the high rafters. And yet, even in the chaos, as the young, leering scorpion faunus slowly treaded through the yowling masses, his eyes gleaned that there was a natural order to which these animals he was to call peers instinctively adhered.

There was segregation amidst the zoo. The basic unit—as the institution of FaunAc tried to instill—was not the individual, but the team. A team was a group of four. Teams had a leader, and that leader was responsible for not just himself but his subordinates as well. At every table, it seemed that teammates were all huddled around each other, talking, laughing, nagging, shouting. Tables hosted more than one team, and on more than one occasion, there was a kind of association between groups. Those who were similar to each other gravitated toward each other. The fittest banded with the fittest and the struggling sought solace in the struggling. There was a social Darwinism here that was befitting for creatures with traits that were both human and beastly.

Someone bumped a bit too forcefully against his shoulder. A few slick kernels spilled from the tray. Illias' leer flicked to the corner of his eye as he reflexively grimaced.

"Whoa, sorry man," said the pedestrian. Catching sight of Illias' intense look of irritability and the aggressive snap of the pincer palps on his face, the culprit furrowed their brow before backing off. They turned away to a chorus of laughter and crooning interjections from a handful of witnesses at an adjacent table. Illias, ignoring the facetious spectators to the rest of the bustle and din around him, continued on, walking along the route he stepped daily. It was the shortest path among the askew and disorderly maze of tables to the one he was forced to call his own.

Unlike the other tables jam-packed with benched inhabitants, this one was nearly vacant of any bodies, save for three.

This table was voided for Team INCT, the asocial outcasts among outcasts, of which the institution appointed him the leader.

Illias quietly took his seat beside his least off-putting subordinate, a female Bee faunus named Collele, who preferred the nickname Cole. By comparison to the occasionally unnerving figures that sat across from him—the strong-nosed, three-armed creature with greasy, dreadlock-like scalp protrusions that would shudder on their own from time to time, and his bulging, dead-eyed mate, whose clamping arms she kept hidden under her tunics and whose exposed, small wings beat with a grating sound that always raked his nerves—Cole was far more relatable. He could at least look her in the eye as he turned to face her, his mere acknowledgement his greeting, though his presence was more pronouncedly noted by the other male at the table, who exclaimed:

"Illias! You agree with me, right? I'm not the only one thinking something's up here."

Thrown into the conversation and hardly settled, Illias cracked a toothy sneer, finding it patronizingly absurd that he hadn't even had the time to scoot to the edge of his bench yet, let alone know what this one was talking about. But the excitable faunus insisted he continue his nasal, one-sided diatribe.

"We haven't been given one good mission yet. I mean literally nothing. We've been sitting on our asses while teams like the tiger and the gorilla, even the hamster team is out there and getting missions to go out and mess up some Grimm. But what about us? They gave us that bogus 'lookout' job where we stood around for six hours staring off a cliff in case something maybe happened. When are we going to get our time in the limelight? No one's treating us seriously, not even the headmaster. I'm serious. They look at us and think we're weak and fraile, but they aren't even giving us a chance. Why? Because we're insects."

Illias wrinkled his nose at that last remark as he glanced off to the side, shaking his head.

"I'm not even an insect," he corrected matter-of-factly, tearing the plastic sheath from his packet of disposable utensils. There was no indignation or malice in his dry tone, but the statement itself could read otherwise. "And yet they appointed me leader of the team, saying 'our kind should stick together'."

"Exactly," the mosquito-nosed male said, slamming all three of his bony hands on the table. He nearly tipped over the jar of murky soup in front of him. With his aural, sensitive, hair-like flagellum presently tied back and bundled up in a durable head scarf, Navar could afford to make such a loud sound on his part—not to mention withstand the commotion around him. "They can't even tell us apart! They gave our leader position to an arachnid, lumping us all together! It's insulting. They don't even understand how you're not like us."

Following that particularly pointed remark came an obnoxiously loud fanning sound, its timing as if it just couldn't hold back any more. Illias turned his eyes over to the female beside the other insect, whose tik-tik wings she let out through the torn holes in the back of her tunic were a beating blur, as she wedged herself into the tirade and onto her interest's chest.

"Mozzie," she quietly protested, "We have to try not to let it get to us. We just have to be patient."

At the wavering sound of the fly's voice, Illias tuned them out. Any time Tulile tried to appease "Mozzie", as she so affectionately called Navar, the both of them end up in their own closed off conversation. It not only disinterested Illias but didn't involve him either. He instead returned to his boggy meal, picking at his corn with his plastic spork, combing it for long strands of blonde hairs that he has come to find appear in the school lunches nearly once a week in the kernel batches. Beside him, Cole toyed with her own lunch, dividing her overripe fruit salad via spork into like groups to entertain her methodical mind. She had glanced up momentarily at her teammates to tune them in, but after dubbing the insect couple's exchanges as mating talk and the arachnid as disinteresting, she returned to minding herself. Then she sneezed.

Her lunch was would have blown away if it wasn't for the thick, glutinous fluid that flung from her mouth and plastered it all down. Navar peeked her way as he talked to an imperturbable Tulile, but when he saw what it was, he dismissed it, familiar with the bee's spring allergies. Illias, on the other hand, peered out the corner of his eye to see the amber-colored mucoid coating splattered about. When he saw that she caught him staring, he quickly returned to his own business with a sniff.

Trying to take her mind off of her embarrassing incident, Cole looked off to the side and began surveying the bustling cafeteria, hoping to calm herself down by engaging in her hobby of organization. But after several attempts to pinpoint, categorize, and predict groups of faunus by their actions and associations, she realized that there was just too much havoc to systemize for herself. This place is such a mess, she thought. It's useless; there's no way I can keep up. But upon that thought, an idea formed. She hadn't used it after she had discovered the new ability during the team's private sparring practice last week, but this was perfect opportunity to engage it. Twenty drones should do it.

She deeply inhaled, and all subsequent exhales were timed to the clinking of her plastic cutlery against her tray. Bees began streaking out from behind her, her beelike abdomen doubling as her hive, and one by one they emerged and tabled themselves in front of their mistress, awaiting orders. She opened her eye while closing the other, and as her vision drastically compounded, saw herself in greyscale from twenty different slight perspectives. Her affected eye took on a drastically different appearance as well, as her pupil and iris were erased and in their stead were red lines which crossed to form hexagons, one hexagonal plane for each drone.

Cole just as quickly willed her servants to scour the ends of the mess hall. Through one feed, she could see lunch ladies quarreling against the students in their lunch lines. In another, she could see a group of faunus initiating in a rite of passage, with hands interlocked and elbows ground into the table. She saw faunus comparing the edges of their daggers, faunus engaged in mouth-to-mouth mating, something moving within a garbage can, and a pale-skinned faunus in dark shades, reclining at a table, wearing some fashionable clothes. That last one piqued her interest, so she willed the drone nearer him and began surveying he and his company. A short and pompous-looking faunus beside the target was yammering at the others around him, as a clear center of attention. There were yet two others beside the target who seemed to be an pair, though they gripped each other almost violently. The surveillance steadily drew nearer and nearer as she attempted to put the target into center frame, when suddenly the feed went black.

Fearing for the lives of her other drones, she commanded they all return to their queen. She blinked repeatedly as they made a beeline back up into her hive, counting each one. She counted nineteen drones, the last missing in action. After blinking her eyes until her vision normalized, she swept her eyes over the hall, looking for the table of the suspected culprit. Just as she turned her head in her search, a stout shadow had cast over her.

"Hey, honey," prodded the raspy, pitched voice. "I think you left something at our table."

Cole gulped. She never raised her eyes to her confronter, but she did peer over to her teammates for help.

Illias leered out of the edge of his eye at the sound of the patented gumption in the voice. His thick, densely-plated tail behind him was always deathly still, the poisoned tip poised over his head. In this moment it gave a twitch, breaking its self-discipline for a second as he watched the intruder make a show of what was in their hand.

This one standing there, in his short stature, was a well-known aggressor. Donning a fur coat that draped over his athletic shirt and the waist of his cargo shorts, one hand weaved into their slicked-back, ashen blonde hair as the other hand pinched between two slim fingers a bee. The guy, in all his shades of brown, stared on with light blue eyes as he squashed the bee against the table with his thumb.

"Keep your bugs out of our food," he said, an edge of irritability to his tone as he turned his back to them. His tapered, hairless tail whipped around and slapped the table, hard enough that Navar's bowl of soup tipped over and splashed up a little on Tulile and Illias, the boggy green liquid bleeding profusely all over.

Both Illias and Navar shot up from their seats, hands out as they stared in incredulity at the mess.

"Damn! What the hell's your problem?!" Navar shouted, glaring over to the fur-clad instigator. Illias grit his teeth as he glowered at the vermin across the table, whose ear twitched at the invitation.

"Why don't you clean it up with your nose or something, bloodsucker," was the biting retort.

Tulile glanced between the voices of Navar and the mouse faunus, her wings beating in agitation. She didn't know whether or not to imitate the same sudden motion Navar made as a statement of rebellious solidarity, or to utterly refrain. Cole, on the other hand, was fashioning the pieces of fruit in her lunch and the sticky residue of her sneeze into a little structure, attempting to keep herself removed and preoccupied. Her breath had began to labor and sweat beaded on her forehead. She was experiencing in late onset a fraction of the severe pain her fallen drone had felt through the dying link of her Semblance. Now, she just trying her hardest to distract herself from the tensions within and around her through her quirk for order.

A table over, it seemed an audience was forming, as there was laughter to the cue of the mouse's insult and the heads of animals turned to face them.

"Are you trying to get your ass handed to you?" The lanky teen swept his leg over and onto the bench, as if positioning himself for an easy leap forward, or a clumsy stumble to the side.

There were cooes coming from the tables nearby now. A crass voice in the crowd called out, "Just step on him, Geronimo!" At Illias' glance, he saw it was a girl with long, limp, tawny hair and a curious case of what looked like vitiligo. There was a guy with an arm around her, whose boisterous laughter, rodent-like ears, and horizontally-pupiled eyes were also of note.

Geronimo glanced over his shoulder back at INCT with a taunting look. "Listen, Bones," he began, deriding the gaunt and tweedy Navar, "I've killed Ursai Major. Get back to me when you finally get your first mission."

There was an eruption all around at the truthful dig, the onlooking audience encircling the scene had now spread. Heads were cocked, fingers were pointed, fists were up, eyes were hawkish. Illias stared over at Navar, knowing the jab would seriously get to him. As the appointed leader, he knew he had to do his part to diffuse the situation the mosquito was sure to escalate. Despite himself, he quickly reached out to try and touch his teammate on the arm in a gesture to hold back, but in just the same motion, Navar pulled away, poising himself on the bench before leaping off. The crowed jeered, banging on their tables, stamping their feet. No more shin-high barrier keeping Navar to the table, Tulile immediately erected herself from her seat in reaction to his dramatic movement, turning and calling after him with an urgent, "Mozzie, don't!" Navar, absorbed in his affected arrogance, acted no better than the howling mob around him. There was just something about the call of buckwhiling beasts that could suck in even pests.

Illias had hopped up onto his bench now and again onto the table in a crouch, his boots splashing up in the soupy mess and his heels catching the edge of his tray, making corn and ketchup fling against the back of his leggings. His sheer weight nearly caused the shoddy table to buckle if it wasn't for Cole holding down the other end, though now she tensed up and glared at him as her building of fruit toppled over.

"Navar!" The scorpion shouted, but it did no good. Navar had jumped up onto a narrowly empty space in the bench of another table, and as the spectators at his heels shouted and reeled, he stamped up onto the tabletop, not caring that his dirtied tennis shoes had mashed into the soggy mush of the heckler's school lunches. Now the beasts were shouting at him, shoving each other in their overcrowded seats, bleating inflammatory yet indistinguishable words at him.

"Shut up!" He uselessly shouted at the throngs beneath him, his three fists balled up in an outrage. "Just shut up! Team INCT is going to better than every single one of you dumb hapless animals, put together!" The table beneath him rattled and quaked. Some of the beasts were starting to stand up as they laughed, others booed. A soggy spray of corn assaulted him from the back, and then mounds of ketchup and fries impacted against his chest and splashed up on his chin. A slice of hot, greasy, re-fried pizza nicked him on the eye and smeared a trail of stinging cheese on him. Navar stood there as he was decked by a wave of fodder, but he didn't care. He withstood it, pointing his own bony fingers at the zoo and hollering, "Don't you forget it! And you!" His finger and attention finally fell upon the mouse, who was standing by the side all the while with a bemused smile. "You'll regret saying that," he cried, as hands finally reached out for him, tolerating his act no longer, hands like fetters clamping around his ankles, clawing at his pants, yanking at the hem of his baggy shirt, pulling him down, pushing him down as more and more of them stood up and leaned over the table's edge to drag him back down to his lowly level. "Team INC—Argh! Team IN—Get offa me! Get—!"

"Mozzie!" The little fly couldn't bare it any longer, and she charged toward the mob. Illias had to hand it to Navar though: he was passionate about the team.

"Illias,", Cole hollered at him from her seat, "Get off the tab—" sighed as she got up, gingerly moving her feet out of the pile of fruit on the ground.

"Team INCT!" Illias shouted as he lept, needing to assert that he wasn't letting them run wild by running wild with them.

Abandoned in the mayhem, the Queen Bee sighed as she slid off of her seat before kicking into gear. She bolted after him in pursuit, spurred on by a determined thought that maybe she could still stop this. Navar was too far gone, but if she could reign in Illias and Tulile from fighting, she hoped to end it all civilly.

In her rush into the pandemonium, time seemed to slow as she watched the battlefield around her. On the edges of the insurrection against the mosquito, the uproar was much more indiscriminate. Fauna were embracing their primal instincts, trashing up their tables and each other with an all-out food fight, some even digging up garbage from the trash cans to use as ammunition. Others took to turning their cursory enthusiasm into a more directly physical demonstration, grappling with each other to the ground, wrestling, some even sparring with hand-to-hand combat or a clashing of sporks or even blades. Tables were being rocked, beasts chased beasts, and many were scrambling along the floor for one reason or another, perhaps to find a shelter.

As a raw yam and a leg of chicken struck her sturdy leather chestplate, she couldn't help but remember that these were faunus accepted into a Hunter academy.

Obviously this establishment's definition of a good Hunter is very different from mine...

She was however, immediately brought back down to earth as a bowl of FaunAc's Special Cheesy Chilli® hit her smack dab on her fuzz-covered head.

Her eyes flicked about to find the dead faunus who threw the goop when she heard a familiar bellow:

"Touch my team and see—" Illias, in his mad dash, had caught up to Tulile, snatching her by the hand. "—What—" She looked back at him with those blank and swollen eyes of hers, her expression at first a shock, but when she felt the initial torque in his grip, she then knew and was ready. "—Happens!" With one powerful motion on the pivot of his heel, he swept her around him once before releasing her like a shot put throw, hurtling her over the crowd. Her little wings beat so that she could control the overshot arch of the launch, and as she soared over, she expelled a vile, choking, grit-colored fog, the trail dusting over the mob beneath, fanning out and settling upon the violent mass.

Now to the uproar of an audience which nearly spanned the entirety of the mess hall, Illias rushed in amidst the dawning smog and confusion. Stragglers on the outskirts of the action took for cover and cleaner air as they were far quicker to notice the poison that befell them. A tide of animals pushed out and away, but Cole was an exception. Upon witnessing her teammates' maneuver to her horror, she immediately ripped the sleeves off of her shirt, hastily knotting one end to the other, and tied it around her face, a filter to her nose and mouth. She wasn't resistant to Bane one bit, but her makeshift mask could stave it. Holding it to her face she began a more cautious approach into the heart of the chaos, breathing turned ragged once again.

Illias pushed through and into the real fray, and with the intent to swiftly uproot the uprising against his teammate—of whom was now utterly buried under livid, insatiable creatures—his tail worked quickly. Jabs nearly as fleet as the blink of an eye, the tip of his stinger punctured his prey in the soft tissue near their necks, in the precise point where the prey cries out as their body momentarily becomes completely subdued. Taking advantage of that moment, he grabbed them and pried them off of their victim, flinging them to the side, two, four, seven now falling in a matter of seconds, and for good measure they would remain there as his sting was laced with a fast-acting neurotoxin of a measurable potency.

"Navar," Illias choked out when he had finally cleared enough space to reach him. Tulile's Bane was affecting him too, and he tried to blink the irritation from his eye only to see the mosquito still pinned to the table under bodies, though Navar's third arm was free to beat back the dogged aggressors who had clambered up to wail on him. Through gritted teeth, the scorpion was about to make quick work of them with his tail when he felt the blow to his jaw. Stumbling back a step, he looked up with wild eyes as one of them stood before him on the table with the toe of her stiletto out. He had been kicked by the blonde snake girl from earlier, and she gave him an almost glassy stare before she drove the pointed toe into Navar's side.

The sound of his cry and the indignance of the blow made Illias lunge. "I'll kill yo—!" His violent threat was cut short with a sharp groan of pain. He had withstood the ache in his jaw, but something had chopped him in his lower spine and a vulnerable spot between the segments of his plated tail. The well-positioned strikes had him buckle immediately, and he fell to his knees before toppling over onto the grimy floor.

Looking up with bleary eyes into the fog and the bedlam, Illias saw the face of the mouse, his muzzle buried into and shielded by the crook of his arm.

"Wrong one," he warned, stepping back into the fog and out of focus. "You don't mess with my teammate."

This angered the scorpion. That was supposed to be his line. That was supposed to be his own defense, his own validation of leadership. Instead he was laying there, done in by a sneak attack while his loudmouthed underling was being thoroughly punished and a raging scream like Tulile's was barely audible in the absolute uproar.

The Bane was taking full effect now. Illias, laying there, grounded where the grit of the powder settled and collected, could hardly keep his eyes open as they frenetically batted the thick, burning particles away. He managed to catch in the distance despite the blur now of his tears the familiar silhouette of a queen bee, collapsing to her knees as figures flitted all around her, her hands to the sides of her head, the insectoid abdomen behind her raised and trembling.

But now, he was forced to clamp shut his eyes as tears streamed down to bleed out the pollutant. Silently, Illias was cursing himself, not able to withstand the tik-tik's Semblance as he felt should have. Faunus were ducking out of there now. The herd was trampling out, some of them stomping on him, tripping over him, some of them screaming something about choking, about a searing pain, about boils. But it was all too late now. The cafeteria was up in a riot. The animals were let out of their cages and despite being gassed, they did not desist. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Illias just let his mind wander. He had to take the reputation with the team, and his team was a mess.

He heard Cole scream before he met the sound of the second plague.






The four of them stood in a row, all dredged in a film of grainy soot and mashed food. Illias' hair was let out of his bun and splayed all over his face, covered in dirt, dabs of ketchup, and mushed corn. He had a bad bruise around his busted lip, all along the back of his leggings were mystery stains, and his bare arms were bumpy with a few puffy bee stings. Cole's shirt sleeves—having been torn off her arms—were now hanging raggedly around her neck. Her fuzzy hair was matted down with what seemed to be dried cheese and beans. A droplet of honey hung out of her mouth, suspended in place. She stared forward blankly, her mind a vortex of thoughts. Tulile's tunic was ripped at the back and torn from the neckline to the sleeve. She stood with a limp as it seemed she had taken some blows to the side of her leg, and her feet looked swollen from missteps in her open-toed sandals. She was holding hands with the worst of them: Navar. Besides stinking to high heaven with caked-on layers of food splatter all over his body and lodged chunks of lunches and sections of dead bees in his dreads, his clothes were ripped and torn almost to shreds. The skin you could see underneath the punctures and gaping holes in his clothing were badly bruised and bumpy with a couple stings. He could barely see out of his eyes as they were black, swollen shiners. His crooked nose was plugged with twists of tissue to stop the bleeding, and he was sipping air between two swollen, botched lips.

They all were present before an older, bearded man in a suit, whose most prominent feature were the twisting horns that protruded from his head. His eyes pupils were horizontal slats. The goat man sat in his upholstered chair, an elbow planted on the desk in front of him, his face nested in his hand.

The two parties stared at each other in silence for a time.

"Okay," the goat grumbled with thinly-veiled disdain. "Who wants to go first?"

Everyone made side glances at Illias, and he could feel their looks. The scorpion cracked a wry smile before biting his tongue as nasty thoughts collected in his head. When that second passed, he claimed the responsibility due him as the official leader.

"Headmaster Vicroc," he began, assuming a firm and grounded tone, "Team INCT requests yet again a mission that squarely challenges our unique capabilities."

The headmaster narrowed his eyes. "Is that what this is about? You incite a free-for-all in the dining hall because you can't wait for your turn on the mission roster?"

"Look at us," Illias raised, a grin spreading on his face. "We took on maybe fifty of our peers, and we're still standing. And yet teams who stood beside us the day we were all sworn into the Academy have had several missions against Grimm, while we have had only one mission and that was a stakeout. This is all in a month's time, too."

Headmaster Vicroc straightened his posture at that last remark, something he couldn't deny even if he wanted to.

"So," he brazenly continued, "Give my team a real fight."

All eyes left Illias and landed on Vicroc, who cleared his throat.

"Well then… I'm sure you'll be glad to hear about this event coming up."

Illias Ith | Scorpion | Male | Chitin Armor, Level 2: Bulletproof

Navar Mongrue | Mosquito | Male | Absorption, Level 2: Aura Drain

Colelle "Cole" Cab | Bee | Female | Hive Mind, Level 2: 20 Drones or 10 Workers

Tulile Capet | Fly | Female | Bane, Level 2: Toxic Fog and Weapon Infusion

Team ZBRA

Zorox, Bradley, Rashad, Ariel

"Yo, Zorox! Why you feeling so down man? You always look down and I don't like that from you. You should cheer up!" Rashad said. Zorox and the rest of Team ZBRA were hiking along jagged terrain. They weren't really looking for anything much as they were waiting for something to come to them.

Zorox turned towards Rashad. "You don't seem to understand, which is crazy since I have told you many times. I don't like you guys. So stop talking to me or I will go crazy. The only way to prove to me that I would have a reason to not not like you, is through some extraordinary battle or something. Now please, go away." Zorox grumbled.

"Alright man, but you missing out on alot of fun. Right Bradley?" Rashad asked.

"Oh yea buddy. We're just having the bomb over here! You should join us sometime Zorox!" Bradley exclaimed. Behind him, Ariel tripped over a rock, but caught herself before she fell down. However, it still attracted the attention of the group.

"You gotta be careful there Ariel! We wouldn't want our medic needing medical assistance! Hahahaha!" Bradley said, laughing at his own joke.

"Ha ha. Funny." Rashad said, turning to Ariel. "You should really stop laggign so far behind and join us. It is fun up here!" he said, smiling.

"I'm fine..." Ariel murmured.

"Look." Zorox said sharply, pointing ahead. "There is a forest up ahead. Perfect spot for grimm to ambush us. Let us go before I get annoyed of all your talking." Zorox said sharply, before striding at a faster tempo. Bradley and Rashad looked at each other, shrugged, and jogged up to catch up with Zorox, with Ariel lagging behind.

As the members of Team ZBRA approached the forest, it was clear that the forest as going to contain something bad inside.

"Yo Zorox! Are you sure we should just barge right into pretty much what is home territory for the grimm?" Rashad asked.

"Yes. Now if any of you have any worth in yourselves, you are going to listen to me. When we get in there, we are going to walk until we get ambushed or until we get attacked or until we find them. When that happens, we are going to kite back, basically meaning we are going to attack and retreat at the same time, to try to get the grimm out of the forest, where we will have the upper hand. Understood?" Zorox asked.

"Alright, I suppose I should believe in you, for whatever reason. You are the leader, take us away!" Bradley said happily. So, the team of four stepped off of the ragged terrain they were on and into the forest, where light slowly slipped away from them.

The members of Team ZBRA could clearly hear the grimm. It was like a low moaning or a growling, except it was coming from all directions. It was clear that even though they weren't showing themselves, they didn't want Team ZBRA to be around.

Finally, the inevitable happened. A loud snarl is heard, and everyone looks to the right as a grimm lunges for the right-most member of the group, Rashad.

Thankfully, Rashad quickly pulls out his electricity cloak and shields himself. The grimm ran straight into the cloak and gets zapped, the grimm collapsing to the ground. Rashad summons a bolt of lightning from the sky towards the grimm, and it hits the grimm, effectively killing it.

However, that was just one. The grimm that live in the section of the forest that Team ZBRA were in have come and started to surround the group.

"Guys! Behind us! Bradley, help me get rid of this group behind us! Rashad, cover our back!" Zorox exclaimed, striding towards the group of about 5 grimm blocking their way out. Zorox brought out his frost blade and threw it at the nearest grimm. Frost seeped into the grimm, and his semblance (Frost Hurricane) activated around the grimm. The other grimm protecting the exit started lunging towards Zorox and Bradley, who was behind Zorox, rapidly firing arrows and using (Added strength) to add a slight knock-back effect to his arrows, which also slowed down the advance of the grimm.

Rashad, protecting the backs of Zorox and Bradley, had set up a wall of electricity to keep the grimm at bay. However, this was quickly draining Rashad's energy and the stall tactic couldn't be kept up much longer. However, in the middle of the entire group, Ariel started noticing Rashad's struggles and used her semblance (Strength of Spirit) to gradually keep up Rashad's energy and let him keep up this wall of electricity.

Zorox had decided that it was time to break through the wall of grimm.
"Bradley, I'm charging in! Protect me!" Zorox yelled. The five grimm were still standing. However, they were still charging, even though weakened, and Zorox needed to meet them head on. He charged towards the one he threw the dagger at. The dagger itself became dislodged from the creature and as Zorox was running, flew towards Zorox. He met up with his dagger a split second before the nearest grimm was about to pounce on him. The grimm dove towards Zorox's face, who quickly ducked as the creature started flying above his body. He grabbed hold of his dagger and stabbed it straight up, impacting the grimm with frost as Zorox rolled to avoid the grimm crushing his face from the creature's fall.
Bradley was still behind Zorox, firing off his knockback-empowered arrows at any grimm that got in the way. He managed to kill one that happened to be stuck in Zorox's frost hurricane for an unusually long time. There were three left guarding the exit, but the knock-back was draining himself as well.
"Ariel! I need some assistance!" he yelled out.

Rashad, who has started temporarily spawning lightning to keep the grimm away who try to come around the side and attack them, heard the cry for help. Ariel looked at Rashad expectantly.
"Go help him! I'll be fine!" Rashad yelled. So Ariel rushed towards Bradley, and her (Strength of Spirit) gave him the energy to keep the grimm away from Zorox for a longer time.

Unfortunately, Team ZBRA wasn't invincible. A grimm managed to sneak behind another grimm to avoid knock-back and lunged at the Zorox on the ground. The creature started sinking his teeth into Zorox's right shoulder. He cried out in pain, and a split-second later the creature was pushed off by Bradley's knock-back arrow. Ariel, seeing his pain, quickly ran up to Zorox, despite the danger in doing so.

Ariel got out a jug of water. She forced Zorox to drink some, then poured some on the wound and wrapped it around the shoulder.
"Apply pressure if you can." she said. Ariel then started applying some (Strength of Spirit) into Zorox too to speed up his healing. Ariel then ran back towards the main group.

Zorox, feeling much better very quickly(but not completely) picked up his frost dagger and threw it at the grimm that took a bite of his shoulder. An arrow to the head almost finished off the grimm, but didn't and instead the frost hurricane around the dagger did. There were two left guarding the exit.

Bradley now had something to worry about. He heard a snarl, and looked to his right. A huge grimm started lunging at Bradley. He froze in terror as the massive beast aimed for Bradley's head. It would've taken it off too, if it weren't for the quick actions of Rashad. Also hearing the snarl, turned and quickly threw his electric cloak in the path of the grimm, effectively stopping it in its path. Bradley fired multiple arrows into the grimm to assure its death, then resumed helping Zorox.

Zorox, going mad, reached for his frost dagger and grabbed it out of the air, and slashing it to the right, getting a direct impact on a grimm that Bradley had missed an arrow on. Frost sunk into the creature, and Zorox kept stabbing it over and over again to assure its death, despite no frost in the blade. There was now only one left, and it almost took a chunk of Zorox's head off, but Bradley's arrow pushed the creature back. It was still alive, however.

Rashad, panting, comes running towards Bradley. A pack of grimm trail him.
"I... I ran out of energy! We're screwed!" Rashad exclaimed.
"No we're not!" Ariel replied, giving Rashad some strength of spirit. Ariel was about to faint soon. She couldn't handle the giving of any more energy. "Go!" she said. "Another wall, jsut for a few seconds!" So Rashad turned back towards the pack of grimm, and used every ounce of his strength to summon another electric wall. A few grimm ran into the wall.

Zorox quickly searched for the last grimm. They both saw each other at the same time, and charged. Right when they were about to meet, however, Zorox quickly side-stepped and stabbed the beast with his frost dagger. An arrow and another stab got rid of the grimm. Zorox, now free of grimm, looked behind and saw the moment at which the electric wall dissipated.

"Come on! To the exit!" Zorox exclaimed. Team ZBRA started running towards the exit of the forest, with Bradley periodically turning and firing an arrow. At last, they made it out. But the troubles were not over yet. Three grimm took the chance outside of their forest to attack Team ZBRA.

"We've gone so far! Let's show these beasts what we're made of!" Bradley shouted. The three beasts charged at the same time. Ariel, with the last ounce of her energy, gave (Strength of Spirit) to Rashad, then fainted immediately. Rashad, to protect his friends, put up one last electric wall, and then also fainted. The three grimm ran into the wall, and Zorox and Bradley stabbed and shot each grimm multiple times while they were disabled. Finally, all the grimm that were threatening them were gone.

Team ZBRA. Zorox, Bradley, Rashad, Ariel.

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