Emerald had been listening intently to the outside noises as she hid under the bed. How could she not? So when she heard the door suddenly get kicked in she caught her breath, almost bumping her head on the bed just above her. She frozen in place, not daring to make a sound as she listened. Then there was a slam, like something was being pushed against a wall. She went pale when she heard Esther’s voice. She sounded rather pissed.
Pissed or not though, Esther being there was a good thing. Emerald sighed in relief, glad it wasn’t one of the Grimm that had raked her body or other not-so-friendly things. She squirmed her way out from under the bed, wincing whenever she had to move her arms or back, they still hurt quite a bit.
She headed to the other room, she wasn’t sure if they heard her approach, but she announced her presence with a cough. “I-I’m here too.” Her voice sounded terrible and shaky. .
Frowning, Diamond shoved the teacher off of her, her face twisted in an angered grimace. “Because I don’t know where to be first! I have a teammate down,” she pointed to Emerald before motioning her to lie back down, “And I had the guys go to the crash site to try to pull the rest of them-” she pointed at Antonio, “out of there before they burn to a crisp!”
Taking a breath to calm herself, she laid out more details. “We went into the forest to root out the grimm, only surprise surprise, Intel was total bogus! We didn’t meet a single greaver out there, but just about everything else! Oswald and Emerald managed to find and close off the nest for now, and meanwhile me and Cobalt were going back to shore up the defenses.”
“That’s where it all went to hell. The turrets weren’t destroyed, somebody just turned them off! So I had a look at one, and imagine my surprise when I found out somebody programmed them to shred everything on sight! And then, just as your ship approached, something remotely turned the things on. I have only one explanation, and that’s that this place was a fucking trap from the start!” Diamond droned on, both filling Esther in on the situation and venting her anger.
“I took Emerald here to find a medkit to treat her back, then I wanted to go check up on the guys, maybe see if I could fix or disable the guns. And you know what? Good thing I did because otherwise neither of us would notice a FUCKING TALKING GRIMM until it was right on top of us! What the hell even was that?” she asked, her hands trembling. Now that she said it out loud, it dawned on her just how deep they were in.
Esther stood, taking in what Diamond was telling her. To be honest, her collected intelligence being bad stung. It hurt her a little, but no one would be able to tell. Only Tony would know really. In fact, the armored mercenary flinched when he heard that part. Tony looking between Esther and Diamond a bit nervously. Esther narrowed her eyes when Diamond mentioned sealing a cave, turning to give Emerald a sharp look but withholding her tongue.
”You just about done prattling on?” Esther finally said. Tony let out an electronic sounding sigh. ”Gods above, Vanessa. If you treat your students this way, then you really never change. Fuck, I’m sorry for your Huntsmen team lady.” Esther removed a magazine of ammunition from her warbelt and chucked it directly at Tony’s face. ”Shut the fuck up!” Tony’s head reeled back from the hit but it hadn’t really hurt him, kneeling down, he picked up the magazine. ”Aye, ma’am! Shutting up.” Esther turned to point a gloved finger in Diamond’s face. ”Do you understand how more anally fucked you would’ve been if something had happened to her?” Esther pointed at Emerald. ”You DO understand that, right? That you could’ve come back to a corpse. Or better yet what if something happened to you? And she had to find out the hard way? Fucking idiots, you NEVER go alone. You ALWAYS stay together and never separate!”
Scoffing, she motioned to Tony and the two of them approached Emerald and began to look her over. Though, it was clear that Tony was a bit uncomfortable eying over a half-naked minor and refused to physically touch her. Esther on the other hand, didn’t seem to give too shits and handled the girl a bit roughly. Somehow still managing an odd ginger and motherly touch. ”You’re hurt, Emerald? Tell me what happened while you tell me what you did to the suspected Grimm Nest.”
Emerald winced as Esther managed to poke at her wounds. “Well...Oswald and chased down this Ratatosk and it ran into this cave. It clearly wanted us to follow it inside...so instead I fired my cannon into the mouth of the cave and leveled the entrance…” Emerald paused, a wave of dizziness coming over her for a second, it was making it difficult to focus. “...after than my aura was pretty much spent so we decided to head back and regroup...but then this Grimm leapt out of the tree and sliced my arms and back up before taking off again…” Emerald quivered. “I feel feverish…”
Esther stopped her investigation of Emerald’s wounds and looked at Tony. Tony looked at her and the two of them shared a brief silence. Esther faced Emerald again and continued her line of questioning. ”A Grimm attacked you, your Aura is expended for the most part, and you’re feeling feverish?” Tony looked at his forearm and opened a compartment. Pulling out a little metal tube, he held it in his hand as he waited for Esther. Esther looked at the metal tube before nodding. ”Anything else?”
Emerald gave it some thought, but eventually she shook her head. “No...I don’t think there is.” Esther suddenly turned her head and pointed at something to Emerald’s side. ”What’s that?” After doing so, Esther made a hand signal to Tony with her other hand. He simply nodded, twisted off the top of the little metal tube to reveal a short needle.
“Huh?” Emerald turned to look to her side. “I don’t see anything…” With her neck exposed, Tony gently stuck the syringe into Emerald’s carotid artery and pressed a pressurized switch to expunge the contained fluid into her bloodstream. Pulling it out, Tony discarded the metal tube.
”I’d give you a cute little bandage with a cartoon character, but I’m fresh out gal. Just a tiny prick, hope you didn’t mind.” Tony said.
Only Esther and Tony truly knew what it was that they gave the girl, but even still both of them put their hands on her shoulder to help guide her into a safe position. Whether that be sitting or standing, they would wait and see how it would affect the feline faunus. It was something they used off and on in the past, and they nicknamed it a “Shaken Cocktail”. Why? Really, only they would know. Regardless, after a brief few seconds or so and fighting over a temporary hill of haze and disorientation, the Huntress would feel right as rain.
Esther made sure to keep her face right in front so that Emerald had someone or something to focus on. Speaking carefully and slowly, she gave a few suggestions to help her. ”Count backwards from 10 to yourself. Breathe in and out slowly. You should feel a lot better very soon.”
Emerald felt confused, what was happening to her? The feeling scared her a bit, and so she did as Esther suggested and breathed slowly, attempting to count in her head as she did. She was only to five when she noticed she wasn’t feeling so bad anymore, the pain was disappearing. In fact she felt really, really good. It was difficult to think however, she looked at Esther. “Wow...I feel really weird...but in a nice way…” She giggled.
Diamond could only look down and away as Esther scolded her. Of course, now it was painfully obvious what could have happened, but Diamond worked alone her whole life and two weeks with dysfunctional team is hardly enough time to change that habit when under pressure. She felt relieved though when Antonio produced other medical supplies, but before she could say anything it was already applied. “That thing wouldn’t have happened to have any alcohol in it, would it? Because that girl is a mean drunk. And… thanks.” she whispered in relief. Drunk Emmy may have been a bother, but sick Emmy was a worry and Diamond would take the first one any time. “Well, now what?”
Esther gave Emerald a little pat on her shoulder and smiled ever so slightly. Turning to face Diamond, the Huntress rolled her eyes and shook her head as she walked past her to peer out of a nearby window. Looking out to scan for the creature, she saw nothing yet but remained on alert.
”Why don’t you tell me, ‘now what’? Part of these missions is to provide real-world training in actual situations and circumstances you’ll be facing yourself in the future. As such, you need to be able to come up with a plan and carry out that plan successfully on the fly. Adapt and overcome, Diamond. As for Tony and I, we already have an idea of what we’re going to do.”
The soldier looked at her. ”Uhh...We do?” Esther turned and shot him a dead look, as if to say ‘Really’? Tony cleared his throat and straightened himself up. ”I mean...Yeah, sure.” Esther sighed and shook her head. Tony shrugged.
”What we’re going to do is pay a little visit to our friend with the oversized yo-yo for a weapon and smear their face across a wall, ask them a few questions and get some answers. After they’ve been dealt with, we’re going to search for a signal that’s been jamming our communications ever since touching boots to the ground. After that, we can relink with the rest of our men and follow through with the rest of this sideways-fucked mission.” Tony walked over to Esther until he stood by her side. ”Vanessa…” Tony said quietly. ”You know how difficult this is going to be with nightfall…” Esther said nothing and only checked her equipment over for the 50th time. Remembering she was down a magazine, she tapped on Tony’s armored metal chest and held her open palm out to him. Tony sighed and returned the magazine she had used earlier to head-check him with. Esther guided the magazine back home into its proper pouch. Looking at Diamond and Emerald, Esther waited but she wouldn’t be standing around for long. ”Unless you have different ideas, you two will be coming with us. Whether you want to or not.”
Emerald followed Esther like a lost kitten, she wasn’t entire sure where she was anymore. She decided it was a good time to wrap her arms around Esther’s waist and give her a hug. “Woo road trip...where are we going?” ”Whoa! Hey, there lady, you’re gonna not want to do that..” Trying to be as gentle as he could, he pried Emerald off of Esther. Esther having gone completely rigid as soon as the faunus touched her. Tony nudged her away a little to give her a little bit of distance between the two and briefly explained his reasoning for parting the two. ”Esther’s got a ….thing with being touched.” Esther slowly relaxed and sighed, ”I was really hoping she wouldn’t be adversely affected like she is. Unless she can sober up quick, she won’t be too much good in combat.”
Emerald seemed rather disappointed, but she seemed to understand. “Okay…” Her ears twitched a bit as her combat abilities seemed to enter the conversation. “Heyyy I can still fight...I just have to shoot em. Pew pew!” She made guns with her fingers and ‘fired’ them.
I am surrounded by hotshots with primitive vocabulary, even the teachers… Diamond sighed inwardly, her gaze ticking from one person in the room to the other. “Kill it and break it. Why didn’t I think of that. Some plan.” she said, her tone a pure resignation. “I prefer to go a bit into the details. Oh I trust you can kill that thing, but how exactly do you intend to find the jammer? To cover such a large area it would either have to be on a high spot or easily visible. If we assume this was a trap it will be like searching for a very specific needle in a stack of needles. And that’s not counting the possibility of it piggybacking on one of the many CCTS relays around here. If I was setting it up, I’d put it high on one of the hills that are all around this place in a camo net. If whoever set this up was half intelligent we’ll never find it unless you have ECCM gear you didn’t tell us about. On the other hand, you told us in two days help will arrive. It’s likely someone will be sent sooner when they realize no comms are coming to and from this place. Maybe we can slug it out with the grimm for one night. Town’s deserted, let’s forget it. If I get onto it right after we finish with Yo-yo over there, I might be able to get the turrets working safely in the area where the food’s growing. At the very least it would give us a defensible position and someplace to put the… indisposed” she offered another alternative, struggling for a word that would not make Emerald mad at her.
Esther’s eyes briefly widened as she went to open her mouth to make a retort of some sort. But alas, the maddening part about it was that her younger student was completely right. She fully intended on visiting the local police/security department and had hoped to locate the central terminal that controlled the turrets there, along with the source of whatever was jamming their communications. But, after hearing Diamond’s words she realized that she was possibly very wrong. On the flip side, the fact that Diamond made a lot of sense and was right drove her mad. To the point where she became flustered and her voice caught in her throat. Unable to fabricate a snide remark or inappropriate comment to fire back at the girl. Diamond was right. All she could really do was turn away as she grimaced angrily to herself and impatiently tap the tip of her boots against the ground repeatedly.
Tony saw this and he almost couldn’t believe what he had heard and what he was witnessing. Very rarely did he ever see Esther legitimately caught off guard and a plan of hers get dismantled so quickly. But, he knew not to say or do anything lest Esther take out her anger on him and in a bad way. Esther wouldn’t say it, but she was impressed. Finally, she silently conceded defeat to Diamond. Her plan was just a tad more sound and made a bit more sense than her own simplistic ideas. Shaking her head slowly, she smirked and let out a short chuckle.
”Well…” Esther finally speaking. ”Sounds good. Lead the way.” With that, she stepped aside from the entrance and motioned to it with her hand. Tony looked at Esther and to Diamond, before doing the same and quietly stepping aside for Diamond to walk past the two of them.
Emerald meanwhile seemed completely oblivious to the discussion that had been going on and was busy staring at the adjacent wall from where she stood. She cocked her head as she continued to look at it.
“Why would they paint it pink? It looks like it could be cotton candy...bugs are gonna eat it up!” The cat faunus exclaimed.
It took a second for Diamond to process that what she was just told wasn’t an avalanche of reprimands seasoned with a couple of insults and a mountain of promised detention, but when the gears finally moved in her head, she was quick on her feet. Well, D, you said you’d lead those that would follow you. Put your money where your mouth is. she thought briefly as she poked her head out of the door. Yo-yo seemed to be not busy demolishing the city, maybe still recuperating from the grenade.
Twisting her head back, she gave the processing a look to get what she had to work with. They had to deal with the Grimm or whatever it was first. “A stoned girl, guy with no aura,” she glanced over Emerald and Tony before lingering on Esther and her weapon of choice for a while, “And basically Cobalt with half a dozen years of experience. Well it’ll have to do.” she grumbled. “I say first deal with that thing out there, then go to the crash site - link up with the rest of us before heading to the fields or we’ll never find each other, not with the comms down and I am getting short on the flares.”
”I managed to disarm Yo-yo by breaking the chain rather than the weapon itself. It managed to repair it rather quickly though, if it’s going to work again at all it won’t be for long. If I make a dodge, I may be able to immobilize it instead. If you know anything of it or noticed something else, now’s a good time to bring it up.” she asked, not really liking the fact that she was the only one who had to get close to the monster.
“Excuse you?”
Esther cocked an eyebrow and had a severe look on her face, then again when did she not? Diamond’s comparison of Esther to her team leader was clearly not appreciated, and almost riled her back up again. Then again, none of them had ever seen her in actual full combat mode. So, it wasn’t their fault they didn’t know her capabilities. Esther was just about to go off the handle, but was still in a somewhat ‘subdued’ state so she kept the volume of her voice at her baseline levels.
”I’ll not have you compare me to your fledgling Huntsmen teammates, Diamond. You’d do well to re-”
Tony jumped in and cut her off to aide Diamond in a sense. He knew more than any of them how she could get.
”Ah, hold on. I’m gonna look over dopehead over there and make sure she didn’t have some allergic reaction. Excuse me, ladies.” Tony said, stepping between the two and walking over to Emerald. Standing in front of her, he held her face and looked into her eyes, ears, and placed two fingers on the carotid artery of her neck.
Esther, flustered even more so and red in the face to show for it, realized there were more important things than to just get all ‘huffy’. Looking back at Diamond, she made a suggestion. ”While I generally agree with some parts of your plan, wouldn’t you feel it a good idea to at least clear out some of the major parts of the town to see if we can find anything else? I would feel more comfortable if we at least attempted to check out the security offices and buildings.” She then shrugged. ”But, it’s your call. Antonio and I are mostly here to make sure you all don’t die on us.” Esther sighed and looked over at Tony, who returned her gaze. ”As for our oddly-dressed ‘friend’...” Tony’s shoulders sagged. He cut her off again. ”Vanessa, they don’t need to know all the details..” She made a face and pursed her lips. Turning back to Diamond, ”Let me be clear. What we’re fighting isn’t a Grimm.” Tony shook his head and went back to his basic examination of Emerald. Doctor he was not, but combat life saver and field medical skills they both had. Esther continued, ”If you’re looking to get in close for the kill. Tony and I can provide cover and suppressive fires so you can move a bit more freely to do what you need to do. If you need a bit of a ‘boost’...well, I can provide that too.”
Outside, the bone-shivering sound of sawblades grinding and spinning up could be heard. Tony and Esther immediately moved to cover with their weapons at the low ready.
”Stay away from the windows!” Esther quietly hissed.
Tony found that Emerald seemed to be more or less fine, no allergic reaction was apparent. Emerald was fairly compliant as she was examined, behaving rather blissful and unaware. Till of course she heard the sound of sawblades, she was real quick to hide behind Tony. “I don’t like this.” She mewed.
3… 2… 1… Diamond counted in her head when she was finished talking. The slight smirk on her face told all too well that she intended to push Esther’s buttons with that comment, and her troll has been fed. She wondered why it was so easy to do so to this particular teacher - She didn’t think erupting loudly while they were trying to hide was the usual by-the-book procedure. Perhaps she was the first one crazy enough to try. And what was that ‘Vanessa’ business? Maybe a callsign? Then again, it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the Air Cowboys’ theme. Oh well. Philosophical thoughts about the workings of Esther Vanhomrigh could wait for later.
“Makes sense to search for supplies but what happened to not splitting up? We can’t cover any ground unless we do. I say first we find the rest of our people, see what condition they are in, go from there-” she started explaining her train of thought before she was interrupted by a sound that was starting to feel too familiar for comfort. Doing as she was told she flattened against one of the walls and ducked down, expecting the house to be ground in half above them. In retrospect, it was obvious it was coming with all the hot air Esther was venting.
Tony turned his head slightly and patted Emerald’s head to console her. ”There, there. Everything will be alright, little lady. Just remember we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys. Your job is give the bad guys a hard time and to ruin their day. Think of it like that.” Esther moved her jaw and sighed heavily. ”These fucking students, I swear.’” She thought to herself. ”I wasn’t suggesting that we split up, but if you’re so against it then so be it. Your call, Diamond. Where do we go from here?” Misstep in character after misstep. Normally, Esther wouldn’t be too easily disturbed. But, there was just something about Diamond and her demeanour that made her temporarily lose her cool. ”Lock it up.” Esther told herself. Bringing herself back into the right mindset.
Outside, random sounds of destruction could be heard. It was obvious the creature had recovered and was angrily searching for them.
Emerald nodded, Tony was right, they were supposed to stop the bad guys. The sounds coming outside didn’t sound too good for the property value of the town however. Emerald found her hands reaching for her weapons instinctively, if anything her fear was making her slightly more sober.
When the grinding sound missed them, Diamond allowed herself to lose the breath she was holding. “First things first, we’re gonna do what you do best. Break people, monsters or students.” Diamond grinned, poking her head around the door to get a look from where the sound of destruction was coming. “I was thinking to use you as a bait, approach from behind and slay that thing before it knew I was there but what exactly did you mean by boost?” She spared a look to the other two in the room. They were in little condition to fight that thing off if it got close, so Diamond decided to go head to head with it and leave them to a support role for now.
Diamond’s comment about her role in ‘breaking’ things actually got Esther to smirk and chuckle ever so shortly and softly. She didn’t mind running interference and raising a little hell as ‘bait’ so that part wasn’t really the issue. The only real issue was Esther’s Semblance ‘boosting’ them and allies getting caught up in the crossfire. Then again, she could always limit her abilities but where was the fun in that?
”You’ll see for yourself when we get things rolling along. But, if you must know my Semblance allows me to literally multiply our fighting power and have near limitless ammunition.” Tony whistled and slowly shook his head. ”And man, is it nasty!” Remembering he was right next to a feline Faunus, he quickly apologized for whistling. ”Ah, sorry little lady. I hope that didn’t hurt your ears.” Facing back towards Diamond, Tony posed the question. ”So while you and Esther are tangoing with the baddie, what do you want us two to do? I was thinking maybe we could help to disarm it..”
The whistle had surprised Emerald, but her response to Tony was to simply giggle. “Just surprised me a little.” She looked towards Diamond as Tony asked how they could help. “I want to shoot something!”
Diamond’s eyebrows shot up. Made sense why Esther carried a gun around. She didn’t need to know about her semblance to figure out the earlier episode with the ammo clip was more to satisfy her inner dominatrix. “Oh? Well...” she said, raising her arm to summon a sword to fight with, hoping to get a free one to come along without wasting a flare. “GODS DAMN IT TO OBLIVION!” She yelled in frustration. She noticed it before as well. Whatever it was she summoned was far from what she intended. Letting go of the malformed weapon causing it to dissolve she tried again. It took a couple more tries before the blade appeared straight. “Well then, If I could have an extra?” She asked with puppy eyes. “As for you two, feel free to take potshots but I don’t want you to draw too much attention The two of us can take a hit or two from that, but given what it did to the town, I don’t want to be scraping your minced guts from a wall.” She said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
”I could do without the stupid look in your eyes. But, this will definitely be interesting. Normally, my Semblance has only been used on physical objects. Not phantasmal objects such as a sword made from shadow. But, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. You just want one?” Esther quietly approached Diamond and looked at the shadow sword before grabbing the handle and staring at it.
Three small specks of light like stars appeared in her eyes. As she uttered her incantation, the three stars connected to form triangles that entrapped her pupils.
”Non mi snvdare senza ragione, non m’impvgnare senza valore…”” As she finished, little wisps of greenish blue flames emanated from the shadow sword before ‘giving birth’ to a ghostly copy of itself. ”Do not unsheathe me without reason. Do not wield me without valor.” Letting go of Diamond’s formed shadow sword, she seemed a little pleased with herself. She wasn’t quite sure it was going to work as she never had to copy something that wasn’t on the physical plane. Even still, she decided to warn the girl. ”The sword will be able to read your intentions and act accordingly. My Semblance is rather easy to learn to take advantage of. What you do need to know is that if you reform or lose control of your own shadow blade, the copy will go with it.”
“Oooooo!” Emerald looked at the copy of the shadow sword with awe. “Make a copy of one of my shotguns! No two!”
Esther turned and glared at Emerald, but her expression softened when she remembered that the comment was probably due to the medication doing its work. She half wanted to dismiss the copied sword she made and bar them temporarily from using her abilities. Instead, she just decided to shut down the faunus.
”No.”
Tony patted Emerald again. ”Don’t worry about it. You’ll get yours.”
“Awwwww…” Emerald’s ears drooped sadly as her body leaned into Tony before she regained her balance. “Oh! The floor is moving…that’s weird…”
“I only have the two arms.” Diamond commented about the desired number of swords, “Unless you want me to carry one in my teeth. I think a rose fits that role much better.” She grinned. She wasn’t sure whether the chant was part of Esther’s casting, but she had to admit her semblance was impressive. Maybe she should get angrier herself if that’s the proper character to use the infinite multiplication bug in the game of life.
Having a look at the blade Esther summoned, she compared it to the original. Making a grab for the hovering eerie weapon, it felt slightly different in her hand. However what Esther said held true: Much like the original it felt like it reacted to her thought. It was an interesting bonus that this one she was actually able to drop. An idea took form in her head and a smirk blinked on her face. Before her options were to either sneak around or to charge head on - now she could perhaps do both. Where were you all my life? We could have ruled the underworld, you and I! Diamond thought as she nodded at the group to move out. Esther quietly sighed, ”You can control any copies I create telepat-” Tony suddenly grabbed Emerald’s head and forced it down lower, ”GET DOWN!”
BZZZZT!
At that moment Esther again spear-tackled Diamond so that the two of them hit the ground just as the combined yo-yo like weapon of the creature smashed through the front door and was tossed about. The head of the weapon angrily screeched and grinded as sparks flew off, chewing through whatever the head could make contact with and shredding it to pieces. The creature had located them, they had lingered for too long and it was able to track their whereabouts.
Emerging from the debris, Esther stood and squared off with the creature. Immediately raising her rifle and unloading a magazine at it. Over the din of her gunfire, she barked commands at Tony and Emerald.
”TONY! GET EMERALD OUT OF HERE AND FIND COVER!” Tony burst from his pile of fragments of wood and torn fabrics with Emerald safe underneath him. ”AYE!” Looking face to face with Emerald, he posed her a question. ”CAN YOU MOVE ON YOUR OWN OR DO I HAVE TO PICK YOU UP?”
The creature reeled back from Esther peppering it with bullets. Many of them hit but didn’t seem to penetrate whatever armor or protective measures it had so none of them were kill shots. Angered, the creature pulled back on the chain connected to its weapon to recall it.
Turning over her shoulder the moment she saw it pull back, Esther hit the ground as the sawblade head flew over her and returned to its owner. Esther stood right after and eyed the front door that was now hanging by its hinges. Grabbing it and ripping it from the door frame, she then spartan kicked it to send it flying at the creature which took it by surprise. Buying Esther a second or two.
Inserting her fingers into three slots on the side of her rifle, she twisted the insert with a click and charged her conventional rounds with Dust.
Ignis.
Shouldering her rifle, Esther then continued to bombard the creature with explosive fire-element Dust rounds. Igniting the feathery hide of the creature and causing it to thrash about in a frenzy as it became a fireball.
Dropping the now empty magazine from her rifle and going for a reload, Esther shouted at Diamond but didn’t take her eyes off of the burning creature. ”Whatever you’re planning on doing, do it now!” Insert magazine, send the bolt home. Weapon on ‘Semi’.
Emerald was in a state of shock, so much was happening around her and she couldn’t process it all in her current frame of mind. She eventually realised she was staring into Tony’s face, her eyes fixated on him. “W-What?”
That reaction was more than enough for Tony. ”Alright! You’re coming with me!” Wrapping his arm around the girl’s waist, Tony scooped her up and high-tailed it out of there. Going out of a side door, Tony first planned to get the two of them far enough away to put a safe amount of space between the enemy and their allies. Judging that they were good enough where they were, he stopped. His breathing sounded scratchy and fuzzy thanks to the electronics of his helmet. Setting the Faunus girl down safely, he pressed his back up against a wall and peered around the corner and let the the HUD of his helmet zoom in and amplify what he was seeing to witness Esther literally lighting the enemy up.
Turning away to look at Emerald, he worried the girl wasn’t processing everything very well.
”Hey, little lady. You okay? Look and listen. You and I are going to be covering for our buddies. Position yourself so that if you see a break in the action where our mates aren’t attacking, we make up for that and do our thing. Put the pressure on and move fast so that it doesn’t have time to think or react. We’re responsible for buying time so they can do what they need to do. Okay? Try not to hit them either. You don’t want a stray shot to graze Esther. She...She won’t like that very much. Nor will you, later.”
Roughly patting her shoulder, he hoped to shake her out of her stupor and speed up her sobering process.
The buzzing sound told Diamond that the time was up. Time to put her plan into action. From before she knew that it was hard to get into melee range of that thing, so she came up with a rather ludicrous idea - wrap the sword into the chain of the monster’s weapon and let it pull her close. Unfortunately, someone else had a different idea.
“God damn it woman I know how hard it is to resist touching me but you’ve gotta stop!” She growled, jumping back up. There went that plan, time to improvise. Perhaps she could still cover that distance quick enough now that the monster was busying itself with the bullets raining down on it. OK, time to see how this works… the thug thought, bracing her aura and willing the spectral weapon up and forward to launch herself over the no man’s land, the other weapon ready to cleave something in half to avenge the hat.
As soon as Diamond even formed the thought, the phantom copy sword moved at her will. Positioning itself exactly where she needed it and hovered in place until another command was given. As Diamond took her time to position herself and come up with a plan on the fly, Esther continued to lay down the law with her suppressive/covering fires. So much so that the air surrounding the barrel of her rifle distorted from the heat waves. The barrel even started to glow red-hot.
In a rare form, Esther smirked and shot back a smart remark. ”Don’t act like you don’t like it, little girl!” Whoops. Was there actually any truth to what she had said, or was that merely her crude time in service that had permanently affected her language? The creature had enough, it couldn’t stand under Esther’s withering gunfire for much longer and decided to return to the offensive. Ignoring the burning flames and tanking a couple of Esther’s shots, the creature separated its combined sawblade into two and flung one each at Esther and Diamond in curved arcs so that if one missed, the other would be heading from the opposite direction.
Esther easily stepped out of the path of the first sawblade half and dodged the second. But, more importantly for the creature, it broke Esther’s focus and forced her to stop firing. Her attention now turned to Diamond, who had two of the sawblade halves heading straight for her from two opposite directions.
”Diamond! Get down!”
“Put the pressure on? Okay!” Emerald chirped, grabbing one of her weapons and quickly knocking over a nearby table and mounting her shotgun on the top of it, aiming the dangerous end towards the Yo-Yo guy as she hid safely behind the table. Now she just had to wait for the right moment.
Mmmmmm now’s good. Esther and Diamond were well away from her line of sight, so she fired a round at the creature’s center, making a loud boom. Then she fired two more in succession, the house shaking as she did.
The wind howling around her ears blown away Diamond’s response ‘Neither the time, nor the place’ as she hurled herself towards the black thing. It appeared it was done waiting though. She could barely hear the warning, but turned just enough to see what was happening.
“I’M DONE HIDING!” She growled, dropping low to the roof. Few seconds, I just need a few seconds! she thought, putting her weapons up against where the sawblades were coming from, channeling aura and spells in them. It was close, but she managed just in time, sending a cutting kinetic blast in the direction of each of the offending projectiles. Not waiting for anything, she willed her legs to carry her towards the enemy, her mind busy trying to figure out how she would tackle it once she got there. It seemed to have something like an aura, making this a bit more difficult.
Slam! Emerald’s shots hit with good effect.
In the barrage, it had forgotten it was in a 1vs4 situation and Emerald’s first shot stunned it. The creature stumbled and had zero time to recover as two more shots hit higher one after the other. The very last shot smashing into its face and knocking it back a few feet. To make matters worse for it, Diamond’s attacks caused the sawblades to bury deep into two adjacent buildings to its rear. In combination with Emerald’s and Diamond’s attacks, the whole effect lead to the creature being dragged back. Its back impacting with a hard wall and temporarily placed the creature in an unconscious state.
As it laid there in a slump, it's invisible protective force eventually fanned away Esther’s flames to reveal its true form. Having its feathery hide/cloak removed, what lay underneath was disturbingly familiar and human. It wore a black full body suit that hid any and all exposed skin, draped in archaic armor that was parts chainmail and plate. The metal plate armor that protected what could be considered its most vital body parts and joints was particularly ornate. Engravings etched every surface of the plates with stylized runes and symbols that couldn’t be compared to any written or spoken language in Remnant, to the point of where they almost seemed alien in nature.
Head bowed low as its arms were lazily lifted and raised by the chains of its embedded sawblades, the creature appeared to be some sort of dark knight of an unnamed abyssal hellscape. Its claws were just part of the design of its gauntlets, same going for its boots that made it look as though it had talons. Most notably, the face of its skull and antler mask/helmet was heavily damaged by Emerald. A large visible crack threatened to split it straight in half.
Esther kept her rifle trained on it, doing an administrative reload just to be sure in case it suddenly reacted. Breathing hard, she carefully strided towards it, focusing on steadying her nerves as she got closer. Wary of Diamond still charging towards it to perhaps finish it off, but uncomfortable with her doing so. It felt as though Diamond swapped roles with her and decided to be the decoy/bait. Something didn’t feel right about the situation, but Esther couldn’t pin what it was that bothered her.
Tony clapped Emerald’s shoulder and laughed. ”Good show, little lady! Shit, where’d you learn to shoot like that with shotguns?” Peeking out from the cover he was behind, he made sure to keep his tone hushed. ”Even still, let Vanessa and Diamond assess things. Stay in cover until we have to move, okay?”
Emerald smiled at the praise, she whispered back. “I’ve been practicing since I was seven, living in an unknown village in the middle of a vast forest had it’s advantages, no one out there to complain about a little girl playing with guns ya know?” She started to giggle, but she quickly covered her mouth. It was rather easy for her to forget the danger they were in with her current state of mind.
As Diamond saw the thing get incapacitated, she slowed down her approach, gears spinning in her head. Despite her anger, or maybe because of it, she decided that disposing of it wouldn’t be the best course of action. Better to see what it knew first. And who knew, maybe someone would want to see what the hell it was made of.
As she got closer though, her anger flared up all over again. The thing was in fact very human looking. Just their rotten luck. Pointing an arm at it, her eyes shone blue. A short moment later, the glimmer of ice appeared all over its armor and continued to grow, engulfing it in a freezing prison. “Now, mister. You’re going to tell the heretic all she wants to know, before she decides that what she wants to know most is what kills you faster, hypothermia or that armor contracting form the cold and squeezing the life out of you.” She hissed, searching for the eyes on her captive. With a flick of her wrist, she sent a telekinetic slap to break the mask.
The ‘creature’s’ mask snapped and cracked, falling apart to reveal its face. The pieces of the mask crumbled and shattered like ceramic, splintering into little fragments on the ground. It came to no surprise to Tony and Esther, as they already knew what lay beyond her mask. Pale white skin with silver hair to match. Veins dark purple and visible through her almost translucent skin. As if she was a porcelain doll that had been faintly painted on. Eyelids slowly fluttering open, what should’ve been white sclera were black, her irises a bright crimson red giving her a demonic look. Finally waking, she blinked a few times before looking down to see that she had been imprisoned in solid ice by the young Huntress and gave her a smug look. On her throat was a small orange glowing device, a voice modulator that concealed her true voice to make herself seem more like a monster. Closer to a creature of Grimm than anything else.
Her hair hung short, barely extending past her jawline and was slightly curly. In any other situation, she could’ve been considered a rare and dark beauty. But, as with the rest of her, it did not seem natural. More so along the lines of an inhuman glamour, otherworldly.
An old fear was confirmed at the sight of her face in both Esther and Tony. Though they didn’t know it, in unison they quietly cursed.
”Shit.”
In memory, a younger Esther stood over the corpse of someone just like her student’s current enemy. She had asked the same question that was quite possibly on Emerald’s and Diamond’s mind. ”What...what are they?” And in response, someone had told her all she really needed to know. ”They were once Huntsmen, just like you and I.”
Returning to reality, Esther realized she had slightly lowered the muzzle of her rifle and brought it back up. She then projected her voice so that Diamond could clearly hear her.
”Don’t you dare get too close, Diamond. I know what you’re thinking and it’s not going to work. She won’t give you any information. She won’t talk. Just do your job as a Huntress and end it. Finish her.”
If Diamond wouldn’t, Esther would. She and Tony both knew how dangerous her and her kind were, but she couldn’t do Diamond’s job for her. She was just there for support, for backup. In any case, Esther’s trigger finger just barely touched at her rifle’s trigger. A light amount of pressure on its face, ready to hollow out the ‘creature’s’ skull in the blink of an eye.
Beasts were most dangerous when cornered, after all.
