[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

Argent couldn't ever remember being as torn up about his first kill as Raul was now. But there was a difference, he supposed, in how things had happened for both of them. An arrow from a distance was far less personal and far less emotionally draining than - well, he didn't know how Raul had disposed of his own target, but judging from the blood on his claws, he could hazard a guess that it hadn't been clean. The snake Faunus effortlessly matched Raul's pace, tucking the piece of cloth back into his pocket as he thought about how best to keep the other male's focus on the present and not the past.

"Accidents happen," he said at last, after a few quiet moments. Even the best laid plans could fall apart, and to pretend otherwise was idiocy. Adapting on the fly where possible, having backups for your backups - that was what was important in the field. It was why he hadn't made an issue of it when Raul had come back empty handed - drawing attention to it publicly would have only served to shame and humiliate, and that wasn't something he wanted to put on the other Faunus right now. But leaving him alone to stew in his own thoughts meant that Raul was at a much higher risk of not only getting himself injured or killed, but everyone else in the team that was depending on him as well. That was an outcome the snake Faunus refused to tolerate, which was why he was trying his best now to get through to the taller man.

"But we are what we choose to be. Nothing more. Nothing less. That is something no one and nothing can take away from you - unless you let them."

An awkward silence fell again. The chatter of Alice and Bianca talking floated back to them, a few meters apart, and Argent couldn't help but envy them. He had never been good with people, never been good with words, and it was painfully obvious to himself that he lacked the charisma that could keep a team together in the face of events such as this. Numbers were where he excelled, not people. People were messy and unpredictable and, aside from one exception, he had no one he could speak to on such matters. Shin and Jade were out there in the world, doing their best to make a difference. His mother was probably still living in Mantle, with that fool Nova, without a care for the son she'd once had, her life consumed with her new children and precious little time for anything else. They hadn't spoken in years, anyway. Haven's roster changed so much, all the time - people came and people left, and sometimes he didn't even know their names before they did.

Maybe if he had had more people to talk with, this wouldn't be so hard.

"Everyone wants to go home, Raul. But the people of this city won't have a home to return to if we don't finish our mission. And the four of us only have each other to see it done. Alice and Bianca are counting on you to watch their backs. Remember that, if nothing else."

Nothing else to say came to mind, so he fell silent for the last time, keeping an eye on the other and the rest of his attention on the two ahead. When Bianca held out a hand for them to stop, the snake Faunus would grab Raul momentarily by the arm and point with his free hand to ensure he got the message if he didn't halt of his own accord, but otherwise he would simply wait for the report, moving forward to take a peek when Bianca motioned that it was safe to do so.

"We'll take it," Argent decided aloud, with more confidence than he felt. It was an older model, and was less of a dedicated tank as opposed to an up-armored light vehicle, but it was still a threat, and one he didn't care to wait to call in backup to deal with them. Better to strike hard and fast before the operator had a chance to catch them or summon reinforcements. A roaming tank that could hit them hard was a potential spanner in their sabotage works that they didn't need at all. It meant announcing their presence to the entire force when it inevitably got a call off, so destroying it before anything could respond was paramount. Hopefully they would come to the conclusion that it was whatever semblance of a resistance was still in this town, rather than agents of Haven on an infiltration and sabotage mission, but he wouldn't count on that.

They were on the clock now.

"They'll only have so many, so taking this one out makes a difference overall. We'll need to do it as fast as possible. If we can get inside its range, then that gun is useless - but someone will need to run interference while the rest of us go in."

He was about to call on Bianca for the role, seeing as she had volunteered, but Alice piped up, and so Argent would glance to the lizard Faunus for her acknowledgement before nodding at the wolf-girl. His words were low and fast, making sure everyone understood the urgency they were in.

"Right. Once the shooting starts, we're on a timer. Just get in close and hit it with everything you've got, as fast as possible. I want the driver alive if possible, but we can carry on without him if necessary. Raul, keep an ear on your radio, and when they start calling for reinforcements, let me know. Everyone clear?"

He waited for everyone to acknowledge, knowing that there could be no mistakes this time, before nodding to Alice, and making a sharp slicing motion with his hand, directing her to initiate. Argent waited for the sound of battle to start, holding his knives steady in each hand, and then sprinted out after her.

Time seemed to slow as he took in the sight of battle. Alice, ahead of him, and the tank, turning to face them. Without hesitating, Argent charged up behind her, vaulting a burnt out wreckage of what had once been a street lamp before launching himself off of it and into the air. Twin streaks of silver left his hands and cut through the air, smashing through the thick armor of the tank's sides and leaving huge gouges in the metal where they had cut through, exposing sparking wires and relatively delicate inner workings beneath. With a snarl of concentration, the snake Faunus looped the twin projectiles around and back, tracing the flight paths each other had taken to get there - and then raised them higher. Even more damage was done as the Aura enhanced knives tore through metal plating, cutting away just enough that the bare metal skeleton of the cockpit shone through.

Landing on his feet, Argent tucked and rolled, and was up and running again in the blink of an eye, closing the distance between him and the tank. Alice had already gotten there, but he was with her without much further ado, pulling Subtle Calamity from his back and using its length to propel himself into the air above the tank, where he began slashing at the exposed inner workings from a position of relative safety.

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 1236 words ● 5704 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[*place holder*]

Always remember to smile!

❝

With a quick spin the weapon in her hand silently transformed into it gun mode as the two girls made their way along the road. While Alice was not the best shot of the group, she felt range might be best if they encounter another group. Sadly, even with her cheerful words the frown was back on the wolf face as her icy eyes hunted the path before them. She thanked Argent wordlessly in her mind as the task helped her take her mind off all her worrying. It wasn’t the time or place for reflecting her past mistake just yet. That was something best saved for after the mission.

Giving her eyes a few blinks to adjust to the darkness Alice took quick, but careful steps as her ears danced atop her head at every sound. Thankfully, it seemed the rush of the mission had left her leaving behind the normally cooled head girl. That was until her ears swung back to face her lizard teammate, before pausing long enough to look back with a death glare at the nickname. She only held it for a moment before sighing heavily with a small smile. “I did always want to make a name for myself…” She joked quietly before matching her steps with Bianca.

“…I’m fine.” She said flatly not taking her eyes off the road and windows around them. “Just… just got a bit carry away is all.” It was the truth even if she didn’t want to go any deeper. She was happy for the concern shown, however. Still, she couldn’t help biting her lower lip as she thought on the second question as they walked. “…I don’t like any of this.” She said bluntly.

“I’ve lived outside the city walls my whole life and never seen anything like this. At least not this size…” It was a sad fact people had to face when they choose to leave the safety of world walled off cities. Bandits and Grimm’s was a everyday worry for the exchange for freedom. “This was planned and prepared for, but for what reason?” They had to know they couldn’t hold the city, right? “The most bandits plan for is where they can hit and get in the fastest and where the goods are. Food, money, even people sometimes…” Her voice once again going deadpan as they reach the end of the road.

Immediately Alice froze in place as she more heard it then saw the metal beast from their little hiding spot of the alleyway. Dropping low she moved to peek at the tanks as the rest of the team regroup and began to talk among themselves. She had to agreed that if they could it would be best to just sneak around it, but… Alice frown as she watched it mounted turret slowly watch the area around it. While she guessed it wouldn’t be able to follow them if they took alleys it did look more then fast enough to use the road the chase them. If they happen to be clear enough.

“…shit.” She grumbles sliding back to the group shaking her head. “I really don’t feel like getting chased around by that thing tonight.” She said agreeing that they needed to take it out but shook her head at Bianca. “That’s a Gatling gun. It just takes one luck shot for the rest to catch you.” Alice said a slight smirk coming back as she began to stretch. “I’ll draw it fire. I’m not as fast, but it’ll more then a tank to take me out.” In truth she was not a 100% sure of that statement herself. Well, she was 95% sure at least.

With a plan set and ready Alice did what everyone knew was the best way to get a bad situation over with. She jumped. Before Bianca could fight her over this Alice leapt from the alleyway with a loud thump. An icy blue surrounding her body as she rushed the metal beast head on her semblance going to work. Letting her aura flare for a moment she smirks slightly as she saw the mounted turret jerk to a stop and turn her way. Never slowing her stride she suddenly darted to the right of the street pulling the gun along with her. Allowing her team, a clear shot right toward the tank side. Thankfully, it seemed the gunner was to fixate on the glowing wolf to worry about anything else.

That when the gun began to spin, and sound was replace with that of angry bees. While Alice could not see it, she could hear and even feel the world begin to explode behind her as the bullet chased her. Only then did she truly stop to think that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Not that she could call a time out or anything. So, gritting her teeth and just waited to hear the blessing sound of a tank blowing up or whatever the hell they pick. Just then she felt the hot string pain on her thigh. Even with her aura she felt the bullet slam into her just seconds before another then the rest. A wave of pain washed over the right side of her body as she got knocked back over some rubble coming to a sliding stop on the ground.

With heavy breathing the young wolf laid there in the dirt as she waited for the feeling to come back to her right arm and leg. While her aura had thankfully stopped the bullets it sure as hell didn’t mean that they didn’t hurt. “That’s a Gatling gun you said. It just takes one luck shot for the rest to catch you!” she said in a mocking tone as she grumbles to herself slowly pushes herself up using her gun. With a huff she was back onto the feet limping her way over to the tank grinning wickedly as she watched her pack descend upon the tank.

● 1,009/3,209 ● word count

MADE BY MIZO

[Raul Adalwulf]

Raul wondered absently what it was about what he had said that made Argent want to try and comfort him. As if an “accident” was any excuse for anything. As if accidents did not kill people just as dead as intent. He was angry, and he knew he was angry. Not at Argent. Not at anyone. Just angry. But knowing did not make it any easier to tolerate the snake and his clumsy attempts at soothing the wolf’s conscience.

Raul never chose this. If he had had his choice he’d be back in toll, lazing under the bough of a big cypress, or chasing ducks through the reeds. No. Other people had made the choices, and Raul had just listened, and now he was miles from home, fighting a battle for reasons he didn’t understand, alongside people he barely knew, against enemies about which he knew nothing at all. What kind of idiot would have chosen this? Precisely the kind of idiot that stood seven feet tall and could not pass for civilized on a good day, much less a day like today.

What Argent said next stung, but likely not for the intended purpose. It was almost exactly the line that Bianca had given back in the woods after she and Raul had defeated the slavers. Not in words, but in so far as intent. “We have to. Because if we don’t, no one else will.” Like it was a blank cheque to brutalize and in Argent’s case, torture people. Someone who would extract information from a prisoner at the threat of death was hardly the kind of person Raul felt any need to be taking advise from, and it told him something that the advise in question was almost the same that he’d already had from Bianca. How long before Alice chimed in too, spinning similar sentiments like a well-trained dog?

And besides that, what was this nonsense about anyone here needing Raul, the unbloodied rookie, of all people to watch their backs? They did not need Raul any more than they needed extra holes in their heads. Raul’s part wasn’t a part that could have been undertaken by any other rookie picked completely at random from the host of them waiting back at Haven. In fact, considering that many of them probably wouldn’t have let their target escape, deliberately no less, any other random rookie probably would have been a better choice. He wasn’t a member of this team. He’d never even spoken to Argent before. He was a warm body filling a spot and nothing more.

He didn’t reply to Argent. He didn’t dare to share any suggestion of the thoughts in his head at that moment. If the others even suspected the depths of his suspicion of his allies and the contempt of their task, they likely would have treated him no better than any of the captives. All he gave in answer was a short ambiguous growl as he fell back into formation at the back of the pack like a good dog.

The time allowed for him to stew in the poison filling his head was a mercifully brief one. The girls had seen something up ahead and responding to he motions of his comrades, the big brute sought out what cover could best accommodate his bulk. While the others debated, Raul just watched.

And he had never seen anything like it. Even in his state of borderline distraction, wherein he was mostly just following along behind the rest and not really bothering to even wonder where they were going or why, the sound of several tons of clanking metal churning up the street was enough to command all his attention. It was so loud.

It reminded Raul of a wild boar, specifically a wild boar he’d encountered near his home in Toll. Said boar had been wounded several days earlier by a hunting party, who had managed to maim but not quite disable the beast. Infection had set in shortly after, and fever and agony had driven the swine mad, and it had resorted to thrashing the surrounding swampland, uprooting trees and attacking everything it could see.

This thing, this tank, was just like that boar. It seemed to emit a constant agonized scream that shook the whole street, while the metal plated wheels that served it for feet chewed up the cobbles with each jerky drunken motion. Raul had never seen a machine of such furious malice crafted for war.

Sure, he had seen the Atlesian gunships, and the Vytal stadium, but there was no comparison to this thing. Those were sleek and elegant, and while awe-inspiring, did not radiate with the sort of menace as this wild cobbled together contraption. And all that was before Raul saw the gun on top. A year ago Raul would have had no idea what a rotary auto-cannon was, but he’d retained enough of his studies in the conventional weapon’s of war to recognize a gatling gun when he saw one. Raul, and his entire class for that matter, had seen demonstrations of such implements, and it had been one thing to watch an autocannon as it chewed through a concrete block with thousands of metal teeth travelling a fraction faster than the sound of it’s discharge. That had been fun, and kind of exciting in a way, to behold such unrestrained power. This was not fun, because that gun ahead wouldn’t be shooting at a target for their amusement, it would be aiming squarely at Raul and his allies, with the goal of turning them into a cloud of meat.

It might have been the first time that the savagery of war actually dawned on Raul. He’d never really paused to consider it before, but a weapon like that was more than capable of laying waste to not just a single opponent, but dozens, hundreds! With no more effort than it had taken for Raul to kill that man in the camp. That fact, more than the idea that he might need to face it, but the fact that someone had built this thing, on purpose, simply to do harm to others, chilled him to his very core. It also made him angry.

Raul realized with a shock that he genuinely hated this machine for so much as existing. He was transfixed by the terrible magnitude of such a device, or the grim reality of if, of the horrible disfigurement of a mind that would desire such power. Even as his allies debated strategy, and even as they made decisions that would determine who lived and who died in the near future, Raul could not tear his pale blue gaze away from the “tank”. He laid on his belly behind a stack of rubble, and studied it like it was a new and terrible creature he’d only just encountered. He made note of the squeaking it made as the springs of its suspension compressed, and of the whining of the actuators as it swivelled it’s mounted weapon back and forth, like the scanning beak of a great predatory bird. He saw the way the inertia affected it when it changed direction and beheld the lag time between when the actuators fired and actually generated enough torque to move the heavy metal components.

Someone said something, maybe to him, but Raul was not really listening. He was listening to the voice of the tank. He listened to its words, to the song of destruction that it sang. He listened to the hatred of the hands that wrought it, their ire sealed forever in the scream of its servos. He listened to its promises of ruin and death. Then, like an overfull cup finally overflowing, Raul was not listening at all. Raul was far, far away. Raul was gone.

The great wolf gave a mostly ambiguous grunt in reply as he broke away from group and moved in the through the shadows away from the tank. He already knew what he needed to do. He needed to make space. As he stalked away, he emitted a low, terrible growl, as all the hair on the back of his neck and head, and some on his back that hadn’t been there a moment prior, stood up on end.

Someone spoke. Argent’s voice, and the wolf glanced back to see Alice as she streaked away through the dim lit streets. The tank saw her almost immediately and raked the surrounding walls and road with a storm of automatic cannon fire. It was like the deafening buzzing of a giant insect, and it’s roar blotted out all the other sounds of the city, and the flash of it’s muzzle seared a white hot hole in the night, it seemed as if nothing else existed but that single terrible enemy. There was no way to tell if Alice had been hit, as she all but vanished beneath the cloud of debris thrown up around her, but she kept moving, drawing the death delivering mouth of that monster further and further wide of the rest of them. The great wolf kept moving, prowling further and further away from the fight, whilst keeping one eye on his pack.

Argent charged forward now and unleashed a storm of his own. Knives flew, faster than the speed of sound, so fast that each glowed red hot in the instant before impact, hammered the armored shell of the tank, cleaving away vast swathes of its steely carapace, in a swirling spiral of steel. Then the snake sprang out of sight.

The blue-eyed hunter wheeled around, with some hundred feet of ground made up between him and his allies. He could just keep walking. There was no need for him to get involved. What was going to happen was going to happen with or without him, and to get involved would just share the blood across all their hands. But even in the detached, near to feral, state of his mind, he could not help but pause and watch.

Bianca was moving in. Agile as a gecko on the stones, she lunged forward, and drove her spear into the gaps left gaping by Argent’s barrage. The internal components let loose a scream of shredded metal, as the speed of the tank’s motion slowed to a wounded limp. But it wasn't enough. The others had thrown everything they had at it and the tank was still moving. He could see the cannon as it swung about, belching forth a pillar of lead death, and the big brute knew that it was still shooting at Alice. What if it had hit her already? How long before it finished with her and did something to the Bianca or Argent?

Something pulled at him, something the big beast didn’t understand, a tether keeping him from just abandoning the others that he would never have noticed if he hadn’t tried. He examined that feeling briefly and knew it for what it was. His mind and his heart pulled him in separate directions, but it was never in doubt with which he would side, even when the wolf was in control.

It was something the others probably would never truly understand about him, and something he didn’t really even understand himself, but at the end of the day, all the reasons in the world couldn’t make his feelings budge. Right now, what the wolf felt was that his pack was there ahead, and he wasn’t with them, and regardless of everything else, that wasn’t right. Maybe that was what Argent had been trying to tell him, but that was the thing about feelings, no one can force you to feel something.

The pupils of his eyes dilated, until even the whites had turned black save for a thin halo of blue around the edges. The blood of his ancestors sang to him, surging in his blood, filling his limbs with their power. The world shifted, as colors seemed to grow more distinct, and sounds more tangible, and scents sharper. It was, like it always was when the beast truly took over, he’d been looking at the world through a window, and now he’d thrown the pane aside and had leapt out into that world to experience it all for the first time. He drove claws of both foot and hand, longer and sharper than they had been, into the cobbles until stone cracked. Knuckles threaded through the grips of his weapons, thicker and blunter than before, straining against the metal. Once lean muscle, covering his frame swelled into dense ropes of iron hard sinew, causing his skin, now replete with a fine pelt of gray to strain near the point where it seemed it should burst like an overstuffed pillow. His lips drew back over fangs long and sharp, and a muzzle long and wide enough to fit a man’s head.

He fell low on all fours, and then sprung forward with such force as to shatter the bricks beneath his feet. A furious howl of feral frenzy tore through the night, rising to rival even the cataclysmic roar of the tank’s cannon. Pavement and wall streaked by in a blur, as his arms and legs thundered against the cobbles, propelling him faster and faster until all he could even see was the hobbled hulk of the tank dead ahead.

The great wolf, a missile of fur and fang, exploded out of the shadowed alley like a loosed round from a cannon, as the disturbance of his mass and his speed sent the air whipping with such force as to scatter the piles of debris and cast up a pillar of dust in his wake.

The grey hunter wound up with all his might as he reached the mechanical adversary, and unleashed a crushing blow with the knuckle duster of his weapon. The whole tank lurched as if it were a ship struck by an explosive torpedo, the two tires nearest the impact lifting fully three feet off the road even as the impact propelled shards of it’s pulverized armor into it’s guts like a cloud of shredding flechette. Just as it was beginning to pitch back onto all four tires, a second shattering collision took place as the great wolf rose to his full height and let loose an uppercut with his other fist into the tank’s momentarily exposed belly. There was a sound, as if of something massive popping open, as the second hit damaged something behind the much thinner sheeting of the tank’s underside, and all at once the four tires seized up, leaving the device crippled.

But the wolf was not done. Still carrying the momentum of his charge, he threw himself against the belly of the tank, with all his weight, and with a final barging effort he toppled it entirely into the side of a nearby building. It smashed through the wall with a thunderous crash and a moment later the entire structure itself collapsed down upon the shattered remains.

There was a moment of silence as the hulking form of what had been Raul, stood over his work, peering uncertainly into the debris for signs of continued resistance. A shot rang out, as some of the bricks fell away, and he only avoided being struck in the head by flinching out of the way at the last instant. A half-buried shape crawled out of the refuse, and coughed violently as he fired wildly with his pistol. The hunter snarled and lunged forward, avoiding being struck for luck more than anything, and grasped the man’s sidearm, before wrenching it out of his grasp with the same terrible might that had just flipped a war machine. The tank operator cried out, but it was cut short as a massive hand grasped him around the face and drove his head back into the rubble, stunning him before turning and flinging him almost absently back out into the road.

2,661/8,750

[Bianca Sabbato]

I was taken aback momentarily from their decision to send Alice instead. But now Argent was looking at me, expecting an answer. Unable to hide a half-frown for the second it graced my face. I gave him a quick smile and a nod of my head as confirmation that I was willing to support his decision. -Aye, sir-

I understood on an intellectual level the reasoning for this choice. Alice was without a shadow of a doubt the hardiest of us. Able to take way more punishment than any of us thanks to her high-level semblance. And although I might be able to dodge a couple bullets, the few that managed to pierce my evasion would hurt me way more than anything they could throw at Alice.

But still, I felt a pang of guilt, an aching in my stupid heart as I prepared to let one of my companions go take the heat on themselves to buy us a chance to take down the armored vehicle. It wasn’t even for Alice herself that I was so distressed. I would have probably reacted the same if it was Argent or even the idiot of Raul doing the same for us. Indirectly, for me.

Couldn’t they like... Just don’t do that?. Simply let me take all of the risky positions. Let me be the first one in the line of fire... It... It is my duty... If one of them were to become injured because they were protecting me ... Shit, that would hurt me in my pride and purpose, it would be a wound worse than what any bullet or serrated edge could create.

Shaking my head lightly. I was left disappointed and ashamed by my own thoughts.

Fuck, Bianca. You have to stop trying to patronize them like that. They are huntsmen in training just like you are. They know the risk, they know the consequences. And they took a tactically sound decision. If anything. It is you who is being a liability with these stupid lines of thinking.

It was nothing I didn’t know already. But something I seemed very adept to forget in the more inadequate of situations. That for a group to work with any degree of cohesion and efficiency. There had to be trust between the members. If I wanted to protect them, I needed to trust in their judgment.

After expressing my agreement with the rest of the plan. I gave one long look at Alice as she jumped out in the open, before following through just a fraction of a second after her, an unspoken “I trust you with this” was left for only the wind to catch. Twin assurances for the rest of my team already boiling in my mind. Striving to be let loose. But this was not the time. First, the tank.

The signal was sent. And just an instant after Argent had struck the beast of metal and oil, I launched myself towards the machine. Passing behind Alice to approach the tank from the same side Argent’s barrage had hit him. His powerful projectiles tore through the outer plate of heavy armor. Undoubtedly a byproduct of his semblance.

Not only that, but he had also made a show of his speed and agility. Mounting the machine and slashing at it like... I would have liked to say like a snake, but it looked nothing like a snake, more like a clawed feline furiously and meticulously going at it, to be honest. Whatever. The end result was that his approach was working flawlessly.

Well, I could not allow myself to be let behind.

The gaps in the armor were large and plain to see. The very moment I had the tank inside my range I sent forwards a quartet of rock discs, similar in design to saw-blades and thrown them towards the enemy in a formation that left a deep dent into the mechanisms, roughly the shape of an “X” before the blades started dissolving into smaller particles, seeping and invading the internal parts of the vehicle, spectating for a new attack should I effectuate it.

That could come later. Now. I had a big, bold “X” to serve me as a target. I lunged towards it with Nereida aimed directly at my new objective. The blade pierced cleanly into the mechanisms. But as much as I loved my spear. It was a weapon designed to deal with living beings and not machines.

The bladed stopped embedding itself as soon as the coral formation near to the head of the weapon began sprouting. Of course. A person is never going to be so thick for it to be a problem (Unless I was fighting huntsman specialized in sumo) But the fancy design obviously stopped Nereida from piercing all the way trough.

Arching a brow. I retracted the blade. Analyzing for a second the pretty hole it had made on the insides of the tank... And promptly discarded my spear. Trowing it behind me for my tail to ensnare it as I shoved my whole fist into the mess of complicated circuitry and analog parts that was the inside of the armored vehicle.

Aura protected me from minor cuts, bruises, and burns. For enough time for me to grab a hold onto something that felt big and important. Planting my feet and my remaining arm into the sides of the tank. I grit my teeth and pulled with all of my strength. The piece finally gave up and was tore from the machine with a horrid noise and a trail of sparks as my body was sent tumbling backward into the floor from the sudden absence of resistance.

Getting on my feet, I discarded the... Thingy, I had ripped out -You can imagine it as a still pulsing mechanical heart for coolness sake, although it was probably something lame like a cooling unit or the like- and gave a step back as I saw how the last member of our merry crew. Raul Adalwulf, prepared himself to engage with the machine himself. With any luck, with the full intent and means to give the coup de grace.

And let me tell you, he did so in spades.

Punching the thing so hard it capsized. The man-wolf sent the vehicle tumbling down on its belly like a tortoise with nothing but the sheer might and expertise of his blows. Once the wall had fallen over it. It was clear that the tank wouldn’t be bothering us any longer.

The operator made a last ditched effort to attack, but the wolf was expecting this and easily avoided the bullets that ended up losing themselves in the town’s skyline. I saw the disarmed man land very near me.

It tried to get on his feet and probably make a run for it. But I made a quick move to prevent him. Just a simple hole in the ground for him to fall out... But a hole that started making itself thinner, and thinner until only his head pokes through from the ground.

-You are a potato now-

With the driver secured. I cast a glance towards the rest of the team. Argent was fine, looking quite collected after the fact. Raul maybe a little less so in account of his beastly form that darkened his features, making them hard to read. Alice was limping... But I saw no blood, so probably the aftershock of having her aura being punched by such a hail of bullets. But the wicked smile on her face assured me that she was fine. I had to respond with one from myself in kind as I nodded in her direction. No need to ask if she was fine there.

Giving a short sight. I make a couple pebbles from the ground float down into my hand... On second thought. I made a bunch more of pebbles float to me. Making sure the operator had a good line of sight of me doing so.

Sitting beside him. I patted his head roughly. A little something I had picked up sometime before. Treating him like a kid, I let him know who were the ones in control here. In case being buried to the neck didn’t make that clear already.

-Well, well, well... Gonna be short and sweet with ya. You are going to tell us everything we wanna know. Or else, I will show ya how fucking terrifying can a manipulator semblance be when the user manages to get their favored material inside your body... And that mouth of yours looks a little hungry already-

I bluffed, making the pebbles float around his head in a circle, letting him take a close look at each and every one of them as they passed before his eyes.

-Wouldn’t even need to do anything. Just put them inside and go away. So the earth returns to normal and it can pin you down while the rocks inside you slowly kill you. It is not as if you can digest them or anyone else but I can actually take them out safely... And if all else fails... We even have a snake faunus among us... And you know what they say about them. Righto kiddo?-

I looked at Argent for a second. Ready to step down and let him take care of the situation at his command. Hopefully, this idiot would comply with our demands before we actually had to do anything to him.

---

1579/6622 Words

[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

From his perch atop the tank, Argent did not see Raul approach, busy as he was in trying to cause as much damage to the parts of it he could reach. Subtle Calamity was more helpful in this regard that Ouroboros had been, with enough reach that he could slash apart sparking wire and power conduits that kept the tank running. He definitely felt the impact his lupine companion made, though, and pausing in his assault, the snake Faunus was nearly thrown off his mount when the second, much stronger blow came rushing in and sent the tank tilting dramatically to one side. Leaping up and slamming his hand into the ledge of a windowsill close by, Argent had barely a second to compose himself before a massive impact shook the building he was clinging to, and the wall started to crumble. A flicker of anxiety seared through him as he started to fall, but he forced it back and pulled his legs beneath him to cushion the fall and tuck into a roll as the wall collapsed.

Cobblestone dug into his back and arms, Subtle Calamity held in the crook of his elbows as he rolled. Rubble pelted him from the falling wall, pieces of brick and mortar raining across the road in a shower of debris. His Aura dropped by the tiniest hint, but otherwise unharmed, Argent's head quickly snapped around to see what had happened as shots ran out - and then Raul tossed the driver out onto the street with a feral snarl. The man scrambled to his feet, but was quickly subdued as Bianca parted the earth beneath him like water, sinking him neck deep before closing it back up after him. The lizard girl stalked forward to interrogate him, and after a beat and a glance around the area to satisfy that there were no longer any remaining threats in the area, Argent allowed his tense form to relax. Returning Subtle Calamity to his back, the Haven student moved at a quick jog to check up on Alice and Raul, nodding at the larger male once as he moved past him. His golden gaze glanced up and down the other, and, once satisfied that Raul was still able to move, think, and react properly, he would move on to Alice, meeting her halfway as she came to join them.

"You okay?" were the first words out of his mouth, while he gave her the same once over that he'd given Raul. It seemed like her Aura had taken the damage and hadn't dropped enough to be considered dangerous, but Aura didn't stop one from feeling pain or being winded. And given that pain was a huge problem when it came to being combat functional in every aspect, he wanted to make sure, at the very least, that the wolf girl was lucid and in the right mind before they continued on. If it looked like she was suffering a bit too much for her natural Aura healing to handle, he would offer relief from that pain, and pull out the medical kit for a painkiller or topical gel to stave off the worst of it. Otherwise, or once that was ascertained, however, he would step back and move back towards the tank, nodding to Bianca as he passed when she glanced over to ensure that she wasn't overstepping her boundaries and making the slightest of gestures with his hand for her to continue. Argent couldn't help but suppress the barest hint of a snort as her words drifted to his ears from behind, though - what did they say about snake Faunus? Nothing good, he imagined, and supposed that that was enough.

Maybe, a while back, such words might have brought back memories of Pine Crest and all the verbal abuse he'd endured at the hands of its inhabitants when his scales had started to grow in. But right now, the snake Faunus was concerned with only one thing - the wreckage of the tank that had been forcibly wrested from its controller. There was some rubble blocking access to the hatch which Raul had wrenched open, but it wasn't all that heavy, and with liberal application of his Semblance, Argent was able to kick away enough of what had once been the building's roof to be able to climb in himself. It was cramped, especially with bits of brick and stone littering the interior, but he paid the physical discomfort no mind as he explored the landscape of switches, dials, and levers about the interior with his eyes and fingers alike. He didn't know what he'd been expecting to find, but the array of red and amber lights staring back at him showed that the damage done to every system was extensive, which was enough.

And then, with a crackling of static, the discarded headset made itself known that it was still working.

"Dirk Three... received... incoming... hold position..."

It took a second or two for him to comprehend it, but once he did, Argent was hauling himself out of the ruined tank and bolting for the rest of his team.

"Wrap it up, we're leaving," he ordered as he motioned for everyone to gather on him, projecting his voice louder than it would normally be to enforce the sense of urgency on the rest of the team. The interrogation didn't look to be going well, which was a pity, but there was no time to regret that now. Not to mention that bringing the former tank operator along was out of the question, especially as they seemed to have kicked the hornet's nest.

"Leave him, Bianca. They know we're here and they're closing in. There's no more time. Cover his eyes, we can't let him tell them where we're going."

Another gesture, after a moment's pause to give the lizard girl time to do what she could - and then Argent motioned them forward, in the direction where the tank had come from, and set the pace at a brisk jog, taking point. Bringing up the map from his pocket, he briefly checked it and determined that the route they were taking would have them headed towards the outside of the city, towards the walls that surrounded them and kept them safe from Grimm invasion on a good day. It was a good thing he ducked his head slightly to stow it away, because it was at that moment that a spray of bullets whizzed past where his head had been.

"Contact!" he roared immediately, as the squad that had rounded the corner up ahead let loose with their firepower, bullets streaking across the space between them. Ducking behind the wreck of an abandoned car, the snake Faunus looked around to check that his teammates had done so as well as he reached around his back for Subtle Calamity, the weapon transforming into bow mode as he drew an arrow from his quiver. Argent peeked out of cover and drew a bead on his target, who appeared to be the leader of the lot judging by the patch on his combat armor. The silver streak of his arrow burst forth, crossing the fifteen or so meters between them, and shattered the man's Aura in a shower of green. Despite that, it only forced him back into cover for a few moments before he was up and firing again, the bullets spanging off of the wreckage Argent was taking cover behind. Not only that, three of his compatriots shifted their stances to fire on him as well, and suddenly, the storm of fire was a lot more daunting to consider rushing through.

"Everyone okay?"

The snake Faunus called out to the rest of his team, drawing another arrow. They couldn't let themselves be pinned down here, but the opposition had entrenched themselves behind cover as well, and trying to retreat would only serve themselves up as easy targets to be shot in the back. Seemed like the only option was to take them out and keep going. Fast and hard was the name of the game now - the time for stealth was over, and boy, did they seem intent on making sure that lesson hit home.

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 1369 words ● 7073 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[*place holder*]

What is life without a little pain~

❝

From the back-line Alice grin as she enjoys watching the end of the fight. It seemed with the big bad wolf put his mind to it he could be get the job done. She frowns slightly studying the flip tank and the wall that now surrounded it as there was no way it could be of much used now. Deep down she had hoped that they might could have capture it quickly giving up on the idea of driving out with one. Not that she was even sure any of them even knew how to drive one. Oh well she thought the feeling returning to her limbs as she approached the group not without the limp. Well, mostly without.

“Oh? I am fine. Don’t worry.” Said rolling her arm to loosen it back up while waving off Argent worries. It was mostly the truth as she didn’t want to bog them down for just a little amount of pain. Sure, it hurt like hell, but was just part of the job. Even with the help of her aura she already knew she was going to be black and blue along her side. Pausing only for a second before snacking up some pain killers from the snake with a grumble. Downing the painkillers with a rather big glurp of water from her canteen frowning the whole time. Honestly, she hated the stuff. Not that she enjoyed it all the much either. At least not in that weird way some people might think always.

But pain was part of what made her job easier. If you don’t want to get hurt then try harder, fight harder and smarter. As soon as you removed the pain people get stupid and make mistakes. It was that knowledge of pain that made people make the smart choices. Or she would like to tell herself before she ran straight at a fully auto Gatling gun. No, the fear never left her she knew remembering the fear clearly hitting her as the bullets began to chase her. It had just been overpowered by the rush she felt as the battle began. It was almost even fu… She quickly shook her head hard pushing the thoughts out. Nope! Not happening!

Trying her best to get the thought of fighting and pain from her head Alice decided to join Bianca as the other did their thing. Her frown even went away as she saw the shocked looked on the now “potato” face as he saw her. “Oi! Looks like someone seen a ghost.” A wide grin crossing her face as she come a stop and crouching down next to the man. “Now now let’s not have too much fun. We do need him alive to talk.” Flashing a knowing look back up to Bianca before forcing back on the potato. “Beside if it going to be anyone, I’m the one oared some pay back.” The friendly tone disappearing into a low growl befitting her wolf side. “Now be a good little tuber and talk. That way…” Rising up and softly setting a a foot above the man head. “We won’t have to find out what 210kg does to a man head…” the bluffed hiding it behind a wicked grin.

Hopefully, it a question she would never have to find out in her lifetime. After all, killing in combat was one thing, but to do it in this manner. It made her stomach flip just thinking about it. She just hoped seeing the person he just shot up now standing over him might help with the interrogation. Both sadly and thankfully it seemed they would not have time to find out either as she turned as Argent shouted. Something he rarely did which prompted Alice into action, the man long forgotten behind her. With spear in had she quickly took up the spot behind Argent as they hurried down the street as it seemed they have finally overstayed their welcome here. Not all that surprising after that little fight of theirs.

With watchful eyes Alice scan the area as they ran not wanting to accidentally stumble their way in front of another tank. Thankfully, it wasn’t a Gatling gun that meet them this time, but a firing squad. “DOWN!” She shouted after the snake informed the group, slamming herself down hard again the car for clover. Once again, she felt that rush come over her as the air lit up with the sound of bullet peppering metal. Shouldering her gun Alice tried peeking up just in time to spot the streak of silver through the night followed by a burst of green. What was they heard earlier? Each squad only had like one person with an aura, right? That just meant the odd just fell heavily into their favor.

“All good!” She shouted back ducking as a hail of bullets filled the air over her, making her ears flatten hard atop of her head. “Looks like six in total with one broken aura!” Filling the other in as she moved and getting into a crouched position on her side of the car. “They’re not rushing in meaning odds are their trying to pin us till other come.” She paused to swallow as she knew what she needed to do. “Same as last time! I’ll draw.” Stopping knowing at least someone would want to protest her crazy plan. Flashing a smile as her body began to glow a frosty blue. “No one ever expect you to rush the firing line!” Not like they had the time to even talk about it anyways. Every second that gave up meant one more second reinforcement would arrive.

With that Alice felt the rush as the world around her began to cool and frost as her own inside felt like it was on fire. Without another word she jumped from her crouch easily clearing the car she was behind. With a thunderous clash to the ground Alice rushed shouting her own battle cry drawing eyes to her. Without hesitation she ran through the hail of bullets as compare to a tank this was like an afternoon jog. Even laughing slightly as a few rounds hit her only to bounce off without much effect at all. However every other shot she could feel the sting of a few hitting her. It seemed they all wasn’t using the type of weapons, at the very least not the same ammo. A few even happen to knock her back a bit, but hardly slowed her down.

It was only when she was with in a meter that one stood up leveling a shotgun that Alice got a little worried. Lifting her arm to shield her face while leaning forward as she ran Alice only gritted her teeth as she heard the blast of the gun a split second before she felt the slugs slam against her aura. Now this time there was pain without a doubt as she almost lost her footing from the impact to her arm. It hurt. A lot! Still she ran on using the fear and anger to fuel each of her steps as her blue glowing eyes now locked onto a target.

With a leapt over the rubber Alice easily pushed her way through the middle of the firing line before landing to spin on her heels. Without much fanfare she thrust her spear forward toward the soldier with the shotgun using the increase of her weight to drive the blade deep into the man gut. She was done with playing nice. These people sure as hell didn’t seem to care if they killed them and she be damn if she wouldn’t return the flavor. To her dissatisfaction she watched as the spear tip hit what appeared to be aura. With a twist she jerks the spear back using the movement to spin sending a kick to the man side. Unfortunately, with her poor footing her kick served to little more then push the man back into the rubble. 

With an angry grunt Alice hop back while slashing out toward anyone who would try to rush her. Grinning wicked as she flicked her blade as she began to do an dangerous dance with the enemy as she waited for the others.
"Come on then! It's time you fucks fight someone with fangs!"

● 1,363/4,572 ● word count

MADE BY MIZO

[Raul Adalwulf]

The world was alive! It always had been, he just couldn't hear it. But now, now with the wolf inside him so close to the surface that it could finally draw breath, he could smell it, could hear it, could feel it. All of it. Information and impressions flooded in, like a hundred raging rivers flowing into a vast sea. It was overwhelming at the same time that it was liberating. With so much, coming so fast it was almost impossible to tell where the world ended and he began. It was like being connected to everything with every part of his body. It was euphoria, and it was agony. 

The air whispered to him in a hundred thousand dissonant voices, each baring its own singular scent. Gunpowder dancing with blood, and fire writhing in ecstasy against still waters. Smoke entwined with gasoline. Metal on stone. Churned earth and shattered mortar. A hundred lives passing through every inch, a thousand unique scents of every walk of life painting every surface like a canvas that no master could ever attempt. A private world all of his own opened up before him, a world denied to him so often now shedding its secrets freely and happily in a language only he could understand. There, a man had stopped for a cigarette. There a woman had knelt before a child that smelled so much like her. There a man had died, the smell of his blood stained with the tang of fire dust. The city told its story, it screamed it, and now that he was listening, it was deafening.

How could he have failed to notice it? It was everywhere. Everywhere he looked, every time the wind changed direction, he saw, he smelled more death, more sorrow, more violence. This wasn't a city. This was a warzone. This was a mass grave. But of course the answer was obvious. He'd been ignoring it. The truth had been there all along, and Raul had chosen not to see it. The wolf had no such luxury. It could not help but see, it could not help but to hear. It could not deny the stench of death and despair that hung over this place. 

He saw where bullets had chipped the stone faces of the buildings. He could see where bricks had been torn away, and doors smashed down, and barricades erected. He could see stains, though dark and colorless to his night vision, were unmistakably blood. And beyond those overt signs of violence he saw signs of what else had been destroyed. In that window were some drapes, baring a design of a popular childrens' cartoon, a child's room, now vacant, no sign of the former occupant. Over there, were shattered frames, and fine ceramics, thrown from the window when the building was ransacked. Right in front of him, in the rubble of the building he'd just toppled that screaming machine into, was a teddy bear, brown fur painted grey by the dust of shattered masonry, half buried under the fallen bricks.

The wolf turned to regard his allies. The snake was approaching. He smelled like concern, but his posture seemed to relax when he saw that the brute was unharmed. Could he see it? Could he smell it too? It didn't seem like it. Argent only seemed to see the big wolf, but maybe he'd already seen it, maybe he just didn't notice anymore. Maybe it was nothing new to him. For the first time the wolf actually looked at his leader, and actually tried to see him. Lean, confident, dangerous like the serpent which he shared so much with, but also cautious, uncertain, fearful for his team. Even as he stood tall, he sagged as if beneath a heavy burden. That was something else that Raul hadn't noticed. Something Raul had ignored. 

What else had he missed?

The lizard was next. Her scent was already familiar to him, cool, reptilian. She was crouched down before the bandit. The wolf had seen this trick before, how she buried her enemies up to their necks in the earth to restrain them. She was talking to him, interrogating him. He'd seen this before as well, when the snake had threatened a man with toxins in exchange for information. That had made him angry back then, but he couldn't remember exactly why. The wolf took a good long look at Bianca too, just like he had for Argent. She and the snake had much in common, both cold blooded, efficient killers, but also with the same caution, the same uncertainty. Perhaps it was something to do with the reptile in them. She didn't seem to carry the same burden as Argent, but she was obviously taking cues from him. The wolf might not exactly see the snake as his leader, but Bianca surely did. She was modelling herself after him. They were even employing the same tactics for dealing with prisoners.

Lastly.

The last and least familiar of their pack was pulling herself out of the rubble. Even the half feral mind of the wolf couldn't help but find relief in her unharmed state. She'd been under the gun for long enough to mow down a small army, and the fact that she wasn't injured was simply astonishing. It only served to further demonstrate just how far she and their little pack outmatched these raiders. She waved Argent off, as he went to check on her, but it seemed feigned. Subtle cues in her body language spoke of discomfort, even pain. She was moving more carefully, favoring the one side, the side which one realized on further reflection, had been the side facing the tank while she drew fire. So she had been hit, but she was pretending she hadn't. She was acting like it hadn't hurt. Why? Bravado? It seemed unlikely. Then why? Perhaps because if she let them know she'd been injured by that maneuver, one which in the end had proven effective, then the others would be hesitant to rely upon an effective strategy in the future. She was acting like it was nothing to spare the others and their consciences. It was hard to say exactly what that said about her, but it said something. Loyal as the wolf he and she resembled, it earned Alice the big brute's respect.

One left.

He looked at himself. At the fur that covered his arms all the way from fingertip to the base of his skull, that covered most of his chest and all of his back. That was new. That had never happened before. Nor had his hands become so heavy, and his claws so thick, and his frame so weighted down beneath muscle. He was no longer lean. His skin bulged near the point when it seemed it should burst, and even the slightest motion caused the ropes of muscle covering his bones to squirm and flex. The others hadn't noticed, but the others hadn't known him that long. He probably wouldn't have noticed himself were he not looking for it, but now that he had, it was impossible to ignore. Was this new, or had this power always been inside him and he'd never known? Then he looked at the flipped, half buried tank, and actually thought about what he'd done. He'd flipped that machine, and had barely slowed down. He was breathing heavily but no more so than he might after vigorously chasing a hare through the underbrush. Strangely, the realization of what he'd accomplished scared him. He'd known he was bigger than most, and stronger, but had never realized just how far apart the beast inside set him from the average run of humanity, but there it was, staring at him like the unblinking eyes of a viper. For a brief and shocking instant he beheld himself once more as earlier he'd witness himself in that mirror, as a hulking gigantic, monstrous beast, holding a grown man helpless in one hand. He beheld the destruction around him, and how what he'd done to the tank and it's occupant didn't look out of place at all. It frightened him. It was his own reflection, and he barely even recognized it. Even with the wolf running loose in his blood, it was such a cataclysm of epiphany that it made him want to weep. When had he turned into the kind of creature that traveled with killers and torturers? When had it become easy to kill people and effortlessly sow ruin into the world around him? Why had it happened?

Argent was leading them out again. Where to? The wolf didn't know. The wolf didn't care. There was the hint of understanding behind his eyes, but it was lost beyond the haze of sensory overload coming in from every angle and tactile sense. The snake was in charge, and for now, that was good enough. As a pack they moved down the street. The others were moving from cover to cover, displaying their senses of self preservation. Meanwhile the big faunus was keeping near the walls, but ignoring a lot of cover, preferring to have room to move over having something to hide behind. This lack of consideration had him ahead of the primary force by a few steps, but not enough so to be noteworthy or dangerous. 

The radio in his pocket vibrated, and chirped in syllables only his finely tuned ears could perceive, but he wasn't really listening to it. The furious, desperate words and bitten off instructions were just more noise to him, lost in the storm without and within his head. Behind him, the others were trying talking amidst themselves, but he didn't hear them either. What he did hear was shouting. Shouting and stomping boots,rattling gear. Coming closer. 

Curious, ears perked up high, he turned towards the sound, just as the first shot rang out. He stood there for an instant, frozen with surprise, as all his allies cried out and dashed for cover. Somehow, their assailants had failed to even basically coordinate their targets, and spent most of their shots on Argent and completely ignored the massive target standing out in the open. The only shot that came close exploded off a wall several feet to the wolf's left, and it was hard to say for certain what the gun man had actually been aiming for to shoot so wide of the mark. That shot, though it in no way posed a credible threat, was what eventually spurred the wolf into motion. Unlike his allies, who fell back to find cover, the wolf was out in the open and rather than make space between himself and the firing squad of raiders, he dashed towards the ruined side of the street into which he'd just thrown an entire tank. 

The great wolf unleashed a furious, blood curdling snarl as he slammed into the side of the building with all his weight, and punched a gaping hole in the brick wall without even breaking stride. Brick and mortar rained down upon him as he passed into the unlit interior, which smelled of stale air and dust, but he spared only the briefest moment to vigorously shake free what debris had become lodged in his fur and chance a brief glance back at his pack. Argent was out of cover, and firing with his bow, and seemingly drawing a lot of fire from the group up the road. Alice's ears were flat against her head, and she was snarling, saying something to the others that the big brute couldn't make out from his own refuge. But the great wolf didn't need to hear her to know what his little cousin would do. Having seen her dive blindly into danger once already, one look at her body language was enough to clarify her objective. He couldn't see what Bianca was up to, or even if she'd made it to safety, but he didn't pause to debate it.

Whereas the other's and their first instincts had been to seek cover, that wasn't why he'd broken down the wall to gain entry to the building. It had been a test. He'd never tried to break down a brick wall before, had never even thought to try. Like killing a man, and flipping a tank, it had been easier than he would have expected. Later he would need a lot of time to come to terms with this discovery regarding the relative fragility of the world in which he lived, but now was not that time. Now was the time for acting, not thinking.

The towering lycanthrope aimed himself at the wall that abutted the neighboring building, plotting a course that would travel parallel up the street towards the entrenched raiders. The walls might be able to stop bullets, but they couldn't stop him. With a thunderous growl, he sprang into motion and slammed against the wall, smashing both it and the wall behind down like a gray battering ram, before coming to rest in the next building. It was the lower floor of a multi person dwelling, specifically the laundromat. Flanked by washing machines, he thundered down the aisle where he made contact with his next barrier. This was a gypsum board interior wall, and put up even less resistance than the exterior wall had, and the hurtling furball plowed right through without slowing as much as a micron. Another obstacle, a door this time, shattered into a cloud of splinters as he slammed it aside with a paw large enough to palm a modestly sized television. It was some sort of office, probably belonging to the building's now absent landlord. The landlord's desk crumpled like a soda bottle under the tread of a tractor as the wolf blasted through both it, and the row of filling cabinets behind, and then the wall behind that.

Not only wasn't he slowing down, he was actually staring to pick up speed. He was moving so quickly, that he barely had time to tell what the next building was even for as he crashed out of the apartment complex and through an open window, tearing down the ponywall supporting the frame as he did so. It turned out that it was some sort of coffee shop, or perhaps a bar. Unlike the apartment, the open concept of the bar provided not even a pretense of slowing his charge, and like a steam train made of fur and fangs, he streaked across the detritus strewn floor, tearing up tiles and causing the entire foundation to shake as he went. 

Outside, one block down from the quickly approaching beast, the soldiers were starting to wonder if the huntsmen had brought some sort of heavy vehicle with them, and were giving worried glances among themselves as what sounded like an actual hurricane tore a straight path through the buildings flanking the street in their direction. Having seen what Argent had done to their leader with a single shot, none were eager to give up their position. Even as three of them opened fire on Alice, another deafening crash came from the building beside them, and too late the realization dawned that more than one of the hunters had opted to rush their position.

The great wolf smashed through another brick wall, leaving behind a hole large enough to pass a modest family car through. Just as he did so, he heard the tell-tale clattering of rifles and shotguns coming from the other side of the nearest wall, and understanding that those reports meant that someone was trying to hurt his team he let loose a titanic bellowing howl of pure bestial wrath as he curved his trajectory towards those sounds. 

The wall, up until now taken for granted as an impervious bulwark, on the right of their fortification exploded outwards, and the three raiders nearest had barely enough time to turn and fire blindly as what seemed to be all the rage of the wilderness itself erupted from the side of the building and descended upon them. It was utter chaos, and completely impossible to tell what, if any of their shots had connected, before the hellish monster was amidst their formation and tearing them apart with tooth and claw. 

The first man had a blunt, bulging nose, and smelled of strong liquor and tobacco, and he also screamed like a child as the wolf planted a paw, as wide across the palm as crude breastplate he was wearing, in the center of his chest and drove him shrieking to the ground before his cries cut off in a breathy wheeze and a loud crunch. The man, stunned by the impact, and having all the air forcefully ejected from his lungs due to having had a massive werewolf land on him fist first, went completely limp. He offered not even a token resistance as the wolf in question then, without slowing down any more for the raider or his allies than he had for the half dozen brick walls before them, hefted the stunned soldier and hurled him bodily at the next nearest target. The tossed man crashed into his ally, who was a skinny youthful figure with wiry blonde hair, with a solid and meaty thud, that ended with both soldiers crashing back against their cover and falling tangled to the floor. The man with the bulging nose made no further sounds, either dead or unconscious, while his ally screamed expletives as he grasped the twisted ruin that the blow had made of one of his knees. 

At the same moment Alice leaped into the other side of their trench and dispatched another soldier, by dealing him a greavous abdominal wound. Now with their fortifications overrun and their formation in shambles, the remaining two soldiers made to retreat. One was a slightly corpulent man, who had been taking cover beside their leader, fired a parting shot from his shotgun at the largest and nearest target, and scored a direct hit, but it didn't do him much good.

Raul didn't stop, or even slow down. He aimed himself directly at the retreating figures, and took a blast of buckshot right on the snout. Blinded momentarily by the flash and impact of the shell, he thrashed aimlessly as he collided with the fleeing formation. One paw caught the corpulent man on the wrist and tossed him right over the cover and towards the rest of the faunus hit squad. The other paw caught the commander across the back, and though not with enough force to harm him, it did throw him to the ground. The big brute kept moving, tumbling and scrambling until he hit the other side of the road and smashed right through the wall in search of cover, tripping and falling prone over the debris, before skidding into the darkness beyond.

3,150/11,900

[Bianca Sabbato]

As I received confirmation from argent. I couldn’t avoid smiling internally at how well he had taken to his leadership position. I never led before, but I had experience being a follower. And I knew it was the mark of a good chieftain to allow his or her subordinates to focus all of their mental capacity in acting, not planning. For what was he for then?.

A good leader was one you could follow blindly without a care in the world as long as you played your part well enough, and a good follower was one that carried their orders trough with not even a shadow of a doubt crossing their minds, for they knew they had been entrusted with them for a reason.

So I felt relieved knowing I had someone else judgment to rely on. I never considered myself to be the best at making decisions -quite the contrary- so he was a relaxing presence to have around, having someone to guide me made me feel much more secure both in myself and the rest of my team. So I would work hard as to not disappoint them.

Of course. Sometimes good leaders and absolute despots can be separated by a really fine line you most likely didn’t even notice you walked over until it was too late. So a little suspicion was also the mark of a good follower... But up to this point, Argent hadn’t given me any reason to doubt him. Considering this, I would carry on with peace of mind.

I continued my interrogation to the best of my abilities. But the man wasn’t speaking and there is only so much you can do without actually torturing someone for hours on end. No one breaks in the first 5 minutes as far as I could tell. So if he didn’t buy the bluffs then there was precious little we could do.

...Besides. What kind of fucking language was that? Were we speaking a different language? or was this a dialect so rustic and local that I had no hope of comprehending it? Honestly. The only thing I understood was him speaking about... Biting our heads? Boiling our heads? Whatever... Not even captain had been this difficult to understand. She was a poet in comparison with the man.

I watched Alice getting closer. And with a knowing nod from my part, I made a little room for the wolf faunus to have her turn at interrogating the man... And damn, I didn’t know she could be this cold and I kinda liked it... And by that I mean it was cool getting to know how everyone operated in the field (That was my story and I was sticking to it). Training sessions and friendly bouts were one thing, but this was the only way of truly knowing how a person would behave when pushed to the limit.

“Some dudes may be into that” I had to resist the enormous urge to comment at her display of strength. As the stupid idea came to mind too sharply and quickly to the point of threatening to ruin the whole mood of the interrogation. Turning around, I suppress a snort as my cheeks inflated and my eyes squinted shut.

Yeah. I was mature like that sometimes. But we were in a somehow peaceful segment of our mission. As long as you can count people not shooting at you with automatic weapons as the bare minimum for peace and tranquility... So no need to get all “business mode” for the time being, at least in the safe confines of my mind. There would be time for doing that later.

I did notice her favoring one leg over the other tough. As much as she may have wanted to hide it, either she wasn’t doing a good job about it or the pain was much more tortuous than what I had thought at a first glance... Better keep an eye on her. I still had the unused hard light dust. And if she planned to keep diving headfirst into battle, she may end up needing it more than me.

Raul on the other hand... I wasn’t sure. Can someone look both focused and distraught at the same time? Because something along those lines was what I was getting at looking at the imposing figure of a fully transformed Adalwulf. His whole body bulging with fur and muscle fiber, his gaze studying us all like a curious child that had found some particularly interesting insects and was entertained discovering how they worked and interacted with each other.

Of course. If that child looked like he could rip your throat by simply staring at you hard enough...Hell, give him a white mask and we can pass for a Beowulf. It was an awe-inspiring thing to witness. Actually having the time and mindset to carefully analyze the anatomy of his semblance, and how his unnatural body shape and posture made much more sense once you knew it was built to accommodate this kind of radical transformation.

My wondering saw itself interrupted by the commanding voice of Argent. Telling us in a hurried tone to pack things up and leave camp as soon as possible.

The message was clear. It was "go time". I sharpened my senses and got into fight or flight mode, no more fucking around. Time to earn my bread in another day at the damn office.

I took the quickest way possible to silence the operator. He was already neck-deep into the earth. Just a matter of making the hole 20 to 30 centimeters deeper and let nature take its course. I did it in an almost mechanical manner without sparing a last look towards him.

Good riddance and good night. I would have time to ruminate on my actions later. For now, I needed to survive to protect my comrades, and survival was probably the one and only thing at which I excelled. So after turning the potato into a carrot, I followed the group across the streets of Kerch.

And lo and behold, just in time to see a spray of bullet singing so close to Argent ears that they must have sounded like Mistral’s wind instrument orchestra during their Monday practices.

As soon as he shouted contact. I was already launching myself towards the back of a stone bench, partially obscured by an overgrown bush nearby. Peeking at the enemy, I assessed the situation, at least 5 that I could see. All shooting in our general direction with the semblance of what looked like proper military training, so these were clearly not the same chumps we had faced when entering the city...

I looked at both sides. Relieved to see all my teammates well covered and in one piece. -All’s well here!- I called as I saw Argent let loose an arrow from Subtle Calamity towards the enemy. Despite my curiosity, I stay put, knowing I wouldn’t need to see the shot to know the snake faunus had hit his mark. The telltale noises of aura shattering into a million pieces were all the confirmation I needed.

The only one not in cover was Raul. Who despite my deadly glares stood out in the open like some kind of moron. -Raul! Stupid fuck! Get cover!- I called, but my words didn’t seem to have any weight behind them, for the man ignored them until a stray bulled pinged dangerously close to his frame. I swear, once we were out of this mess I would teach the wolf how to get to fucking cover when told so even if I needed to nail the lesson into his brain with a jackhammer.

Honestly. It was a miracle they hadn’t targeted him first. Maybe a combination of his fur serving as a makeshift camouflage and the possibility of they actually believing he was a grimm and thinking they were better letting it attack us since we were closer to him... Whatever the case may have been, Raul sprang into action, tearing a hole in the wall of a nearby building and taking refuge there. A move I approved wholeheartedly, that was a fucking way to get to cover if I even saw one.

I saw him disappear after tearing down another wall. But I trusted he knew what he was doing. No possibility for me to follow him trough whatsoever, so I would need to trust in my companion and shut my trap up.

Now onto the rest of the team.

I knew Alice's reasoning was sound. And so was Argent in letting her get away with it. I knew I would have probably reached the same conclusion eventually... The difference was, I still felt that pang of hurt and the revulsion on my stomach as I realized my companions, directly or indirectly were drawing all the fire away from me... And it was this momentary moment of weakness the reason why I was not cut to be a leader because if push came to shove, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to give the order.

I saw the young huntress launch herself head-first into the fray and my heart sank again with the vision of the bullets bouncing harshly, but still harmlessly from her body. A small part of me wondered how much more punishment she could stand before her aura breaking down in a million pieces and the bullets finally biting at her flesh like as if falling in a piranha-infested river.

As soon as I could I dismissed these thoughts and feelings from my mind. If she was confident in being able to take it, then she could take it. Good luck, wolf lady. Painfully counting every tenth of a second, I waited with veiled expectations until three seconds of the shooting had passed before jumping out and into the fray.

Alice was already a little past them, currently engaging with a lonely soldier, probably a sniper. The faunus almost seemed... Happy, grinning, and taunting them as if she had just found her place in the world. The light of the moon gleaming in her eyes as they do in any predator on the hunt... Again. Damn. Where was this Alice when she fought me? She would have kicked my ass!

There would be time to admire the scenery later. For now. I was almost at the right distance to engage the enemy. And lucky me, just as I was approaching, Raul appeared, seemingly from fucking nowhere after busting through a solid wall and came crashing down unto the soldiers like a big ball of fur, sharp nails, and fury.

“Nicely done, wolf boy... And you even provided me with just the right amount of ammo...” I thought as I made the very same pieces of the stone wall Raul had destroyed come to life and crash into the enemy formation. One or two managed to avoid the volley be it be expertise or mere luck. But two of them received solid hits on their bodies and the last one almost tumbled down when a particularly large brick struck him straight in the head.

Well, seems like I had my target at the ready. Always go for the most feeble brick to make the whole castle fall.

I sent Nereida flying towards his chest. Feeling a satisfactory resistance as his aura blocked the worst of the attack. I still pushed onwards, forcing him to take a step back as the tip of the kept pushing him back on his feet.

Wisening up, the man took hold of the shaft of Nereida and began trying to redirect the weapon towards any direction that didn’t involve a direct path towards his flesh... And I let him. Barely holding the spear one-handed with enough strength to avoid being disarmed if he decided to pull.

Sliding my fingers trough the spear shaft just enough to get closer to him. I closed my free hand into a fist, took a deep breath, step hard on the floor, and let loose a straight punch towards his plexus, right where the spear had connected early.

His aura shattered almost immediately in a shower of purple particles as he was sent flying at least 2 meters back and into the ground. I closed in as the chaos reigned all around me. If this was my role to play. So be it. I would play it willingly.

I would finish the job.

---

2078/8700 Words

[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

Argent wasn't squeamish, not in the least. After what had been done at Rochdale, very few things made him flinch any more. What had happened there stuck with him in a way few other things did, and he knew that it would be with him for the rest of his life. And yet, when he caught Bianca close the earth over their captive out of the corner of his eye when he turned, he had almost paused, almost said something. Despite the fact that but minutes before the man had been an enemy combatant shooting to kill, despite the fact that said enemy combatant had been an invader and had a hand in killing thousands of people, it seemed somehow excessive, unwarranted. And after a moment, he figured out why. When executing someone, it was considered the humane thing to do to kill them as quickly as possible.

The sentence might be death, but that was no reason to drag it out. If they were to take on the responsibility of being Huntsmen and Huntresses, they needed to conduct themselves like one - not just in attitude, but also in mindset. To protect people, first and foremost, by eliminating those that threatened the people before they ever had a chance to act. A kill, when the time came to kill, should be fast. Not just to limit the amount of pain felt by the guilty, but also to prevent long, drawn out negative emotion bringing the Grimm crashing down on them.

Suffocation was not quick.

And it certainly wasn't painless.

Thoughts of Qiu'li and the poor soul he'd strung up like a piece of meat to carve up at his leisure inevitably crossed his mind, and for the briefest of moments the skin across his knuckles gleamed white as he clenched his fists. In the end, however, the snake Faunus pushed the thought back into the recesses of his mind. He'd ordered it. And he hadn't shied away from killing before, nor had he explicitly ordered her to do it in a non-lethal fashion. Bringing it up now would do nothing to help their mission, and ran every risk of causing it to fail. Any sort of emotional distress that wasn't mission critical could be addressed later, when they had time to think it over in a safe environment.

His job now was to complete the mission and get them all out safely. That was it. Nothing more, and nothing less.

That being said, getting shot at tended to have a way of driving all thoughts that weren't related to one's survival from one's brain. Sitting behind the wreck of the car and hearing the bullets spanging off of the metal did wonders to focus the mind on the present as opposed to the past, and the snake Faunus did his best to poke his head over and sneak off another arrow, but the barrage of bullets that whizzed over his head as soon as he tried made him reconsider. His greatest strength was being able to fight from outside an opponent's range, and his ability to avoid incoming fire by using the environment - surprised as they were, and trapped as he was, neither of that was particularly relevant at the moment. It all happened fast enough that he didn't have time to think up a strategy - but thankfully, it seemed that everyone else didn't need one to react in a suitable manner. It was an oversight he should probably have thought more about, and come the next group mission, it would be on his ever growing list of preparations to make before even setting off.

Alice vaulted the car she was taking cover behind and rushed the enemy positions, just as Raul slammed his way into the adjacent building and made a flanking route of his own. Maybe in another time, Argent would have ditched his own position and gone after him, shouting for his team to follow - but that wasn't necessary this time. Waiting the bare minimum of seconds necessary, the snake Faunus followed Bianca in their frontal assault, the two reptile type Faunus running in step just as Alice had started hacking away and Raul had burst through the wall near the corner and started throwing men around like sacks of flour. One came flying towards them as Bianca took the broken bricks and rubble and bent them to her will, sending them rocketing into the fallen few. Auras shattered, but just as their leader had beforehand, the men didn't fall and continued firing, albeit this time no longer focused on him and cowering behind cover, but starting to retreat, though bullets still sparked off the surface of the street around them. Those guns were starting to track, starting to come around to land on his teammates.

They never got that far.

A single arrow arced forth, so fast that there was barely time to see it, and lanced through the throat of the blonde, circling immediately around to pierce through the back of the head of the other, destroying the brain stem. In the next second, another was nocked and fired - this one moved across the space to shatter the last would be assailant's Aura in a shower of yellow sparks - and then the snake Faunus flipped over the cement block that he had been hiding behind, and planted his spear squarely through the man's eye. The commander of the fireteam went for his gun, grabbing on to it and bringing it up with his finger already on the trigger - Argent's left hand snaked down to his thigh and flicked out a knife from his holster right into the center of the man's forehead. The body dropped like a sack of bricks, and that made for all of them.

With the battle ended, Argent hastily turned to check the rest of the team. Once again, it was easy to see that Alice and Bianca were still functioning and upright, but Raul had crossed over to an area out of sight from where he was standing, and as the snake Faunus strode over to find him he was nodding to the two girls and calling out. He would motion everyone forward once they found their errant lupine, and make for the same direction that they had been going before they had been so rudely interrupted by that gaggle of terrorists.

"Good work. Take the radios, clean your weapons, keep moving. Raul? Sound off! You okay?"

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 1077 words ● 8150 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Bianca Sabbato]

The man tried to level a rifle towards me, but I managed to kick it out of his hands as soon as his finger grazed the trigger. Producing a harmless volley of stray bullets that embed themselves in a wall behind me to no further effect than damaging an already run-down city. I didn’t give him time to reach for his sidearm.

My spear pierced one lung and one kidney and retreated as fast as it had entered. Those were both deadly injures out of themselves. Of course, you could live with only one kidney, but that was if the cut was as clean as only a surgical scalpel could deliver, regular stabbing or even blunt force trauma could damage a kidney so bad it was game over for the body. But I hit the lung to make things go a little quicker, and because double-tapping was a good habit.

Calling my earth to form a shower of shrapnel around me, I was just about to continue with the other soldiers when Argent came out swinging (Metaphorically) Taking down the rest of the fire team now that all of their auras had been broken down. Striking with precision and a determination I had seldom witnessed in the past. Damn... He could be scary when he tried to be.

Shrugging off. I called the dirt back to its dormant state. Better for me, less aura drainage overall.

The snake faunus had avoided getting hit during the confrontation and if taking the machine-gun fire hadn’t been enough proof of Alice’s durability, then taking the bullets as if they were rubber bands cemented the fact. The only one that looked a little worse for wear was Raul... He still seemed more or less whole. But it was clear both wolf faunus had taken some nasty hits to buy us that opening.

Calling his attention with a small hand wave. I took out one of the dust charges from my back pocket and threw it on his general direction, even if he failed to catch it, it wasn’t a device so volatile it would blow off as soon as it hit the ground.

-For ya. You press the button and throw it in front of you, it will create a barrier to save you some damage taken... Make good use of it Raul-

Nodding solemnly at the wolf man. I shoot him a little smile once I knew the message had been understood clearly, giving him a shoulder pat as I passed by. I was about to ask Argent for what our plan was when my attention was quickly stolen by the sound of the radio coming back to life again, this time roaring a message about all personnel preparing for the arrival of a certain Harbinger... Or more specifically, his landing.

Now that was interesting... The transmission also warned about the presence of multiple threats signaled with pretty power levels straight out of one of those Mistralian cartoons... The class 2 and 3 threats were probably us, but I was wondering about that class 5 one...

My eyes instinctively drifted towards Argent for a second. I know his semblance was really powerful... But still, I had to really stretch my imagination for it to be such a difference as to warrant 2 or even 3 levels more than the rest of us. I would have believed it if it were a class 4...

So either they were overestimating him. Underestimating the rest of us (which would be great), or there was another player who had seamlessly eluded our attention until now...Interesting. But not all that useful right now... Although, if they were diverting resources to taking down this class 5 threat...

-Harbinger again, huh? Seemed to be the one sending messages earlier. Some sort of commander then? And a landfall...- I started commenting to the rest of the team when a sudden realization gave me pause.

An idea clicked into my mind. As the pieces of the puzzle quickly began to fall into place. Of course. Where could a commander be? If he weren’t already razing the city then he probably was on its base of operations, and what better base of operations than a highly mobile, armored, and far away floating fortress?

-Say, guys... A landfall means when a boat or airship is coming to shore right? So... This means that big-ass boat that was until now safely drifting across the lake waters is probably coming within spitting distance of us...-

That was probably our objective. The reason we had come here in the first place. Don’t let us be fooled, we could try to save the civilians, we could try to blast their infrastructure and deposits and call it a day... But in the end, the council had sent us here on an extermination mission, and what the big shots say, goes.

-Anyone wanna guess where their commander will probably be?-

I couldn’t manage to suppress a satisfied nod as I mentally changed the categorization of this mission from “recognizance trip” to “target elimination” We had a pretty big target before us, and a mighty dangerous to say the least But in the end, that was the work of a huntsman, to take the dangerous jobs no one else would, and even if we weren’t huntsman already, we were sadly the second-best thing Mistral had right now.

I left the unspoken question out in the air. Knowing they would catch my meaning without much need of an explanation. If they were all alright with it and Argent gave the order to proceed... Then I could see us either snatching a last-minute victory here or dying on the attempt.

But as far as I could tell, everyone seemed to agree with me on this one...So in the end. I figured out it had to be this way. I was nervous, facing such an ominous presence. But then again, behind all of my bravado and outward demeanor, deep inside I was always nervous, always scared, and hopping the operation could end as quickly as possible...

But I knew that was my selfishness speaking. That other part of myself hellbent on denying that, as much as I whined and complained aloud... I deserved each and every second of this, it was my purgatory and the only path I had left to either reach the fabled heights of happiness and freedom or sink deep into the pools of darkness below. And fuck you if you think I was gonna let myself fall from grace again after climbing so much and so desperately.

This was the best I had been in years. I would fight to protect it. And to protect the comrades around me.

Taking a deep breath and dismissing my feelings as the traitors they were, I readied Nereida, took hold of as much earth I could carry comfortably on my pockets, minded my aura, checked the status of my allies... And prepared to get to work. Worst come to worst. I was prepared to take the fall if that meant letting the others a better chance at escaping.

Filled with determination. I didn’t fail to notice my attunement with myself growing stronger, sharper. I made my aura cover my body like a veil from head to toe. In that moment of elation, I commanded the energy to surge through my being, filling every nook and cranny. My aura reserves had never been high, quite on the lower end to be honest. But I was good doing well with whatever cards I’d been handled.

So instead of giving up, I survived, evolved, and thrived. If I couldn’t make my aura bigger, then I at least make it more reactive, quicker to abide by my calling, and denser like multiple thin layers that as a whole proved hardier than a solid barrier... I could feel danger ahead, and my soul had responded accordingly.

For this is what I was. This is what I was meant to be, my rightful punishment for the misdeeds of my past. If my destiny was to be the pawn that made an opening for the king to escape or secure a victory... Then so be it.

Just hoping It didn't have to come to that

---

1377/10077 Words.

[Raul Adalwulf]

PAIN! Blinding pain! For a moment, it swallowed the world, and blotted out every report of his overwhelmed senses, separating him from his own body behind a miles thick wall of bloody red agony. He didn't understand what had happened, one moment he'd been inside the enemy's formation, the next moment there was a bright flash, and after that, just pain! Starting more or less between his eyes, though slightly closer to his left brow, it felt like someone had driven a telephone pole right through his forehead. He couldn't see anything but shimmering darkness, and couldn't hear anything but an ear splitting whine that felt like the teeth of a fine saw cutting into his head, and worst of all, he couldn't smell anything  at all. Except for blood.  The pain, like something alive, radiated out from the origin and like boiling oil it soaked through his entire body, riding the bones of his skull and spinal column, down through every nerve, until it reached the furthest extent of his fingers and toes as a dull electric tingle. He wanted to howl with the anguish of it, to just start screaming and never stop, but the white hot fury of the suffering that filled him drove all the air from his lungs in a nerveless wheeze. 

Then he'd hit something with his right paw, and something else with his left, but the blows were nerveless, a product of inertia more than intent, and though the meager obstructions gave beneath the impact, there was no real power in either strike. Then he'd hit something else, or something had hit him, something bigger and stronger than the two before, and there was a brief disorganized sense of passing through some sort of barrier and being pelted from above by heavy objects. After that it felt like he'd fallen off a cliff, as all sense of where the floor was departed completely from his concussed brain, and he pitched forward, sprawling, trying to grasp anything to arrest his fall. The next thing the he hit, or that hit him, it was absolutely impossible to tell which, did not yield, and it slammed him  hard enough to drive out what remained of the air in his lungs, and then there was a gut wrenching sensation of vertigo as his substantial momentum sent him skidding along that surface in a direction that might have been vertical or horizontal for all his utterly bewildered senses could tell. 

Something sturdy finally put a stop to his slide, and after a handful of terrible moments he finally stirred. He would have worried, had the shock of whatever had hit him not utterly scrambled all his cognitive functions, that he had suffered some grievous injury, and he was due to be blind and deaf forever with nothing but the smell of blood and the dull ring in his ears for company. He would have worried that he might be dying, but those thoughts and worries were entirely beyond the capacity of his half feral, completely stunned mind to even entertain. So he just lay there for a moment, painstakingly relearning, one nerve at a time, how to move his own body. It took three entire seconds to work out how to open his eyes, and once he had, he had to close the left one immediately because of a sudden bolt of pain that the effort sent spiking right through his entire face. 

"Mommy...?" He groaned, in a voice he didn't even remotely recognize, and not simply because it was a deeper, gruffer, far more animalistic approximation of the already half bestial tones of voice he would have recognized as his own.

He didn't know why he thought to call out for his mother. Maybe because he was hurt, and scared, and because that was the last fixture, that memory of going to his mother when he'd done himself some mischief when exploring the wilderness around their cottage, left intact after the disabling impact that had scattered all his other senses to the four winds.  But of course, there was no answer, no one to come and sooth his suffering. He knew, even with all his faculties disarranged, that his mother was far, far away, and that he alone needed to see to the ruin that had become of himself. The painful realization of that fact, and the bone deep grief it caused him, was almost equal to the physical anguish still coloring his every perception.

Weeping slightly, perhaps from the pain, perhaps not, he laboriously pushed himself to all fours and squinted through a single eye at where he was. He was inside a building. The air smelled like gunpowder and blood, and the dust of long abandonment, and of the dust of a recently demolished outer wall, and of broken bricks. There was a lurching sensation as the entire world seemed to heave around him, and a wave of dizziness crashed over his only recently recovered faculties, flattening them like a carelessly constructed sand castle being overrun by the tide. It took a long painful moment to master this wave of dizziness, and a moment more to swallow the bile that was rising out of his guts. Drool and blood from the taste of it, fell in long rivulets from a slack bestial jaw as he staggered to his feet only to drop back to all fours as a spike of pain exploded in his skull. He swallowed again, and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working until he remembered to close his mouth first. He became aware then of a low mournful growl coming from somewhere in the room with him, and a moment later realized that he was the source of that sound. 

He could hear sounds now, over the retreating whine still filling his ears like a drill bit spinning at 5000rpm, people talking, just through the hole in the wall nearby. People... Maybe they could help. Maybe they could do something about the pain. Thus he finally decided to make the journey back out into the street.

It was a long and hard journey, long enough that by the time he emerged squinting into the moonlit night, his team had mopped up the remaining resistance. Men lay in every imaginable position, some dying, others already dead, sporting a fascinatingly wide variety of injuries. One man stared blindly into the night, blood oozing out of his mouth, and head twisted around strangely on a neck that had a massive hole driven through it, significant enough that it must have transected the spinal column and the windpipe. Another man was sitting in the cleft of some rubble, his face pale and listless like a crude waxen mask, mouth gaping in a last and now eternal gasp as his blood drenched hands clutched feebly at an eviscerating gut wound that had long since stopped bleeding. Another man, a blonde one that the wolf thought he half recognized, was lying on his face in a pool os rapidly spreading blood. That one over there looked like he was peacefully sleeping, with his head on a half burned tire, if not for the mangled ruin of his left eye and the skull behind it. He crouched down near another one, lying on his side and carefully flipped him over, stopping only when the hilt of a knife sprouting from hi chest became evident.

The giant faunus wanted to weep again, but not for the pain this time. By this point enough of his recollection had returned that he didn't need to ask what had happened. Even still, when the snake approached, cold yellow eyes seeming not to even notice the slaughter surrounding them, the wolf nearly gave in to the impulse to ask who had been responsible for all this death. Not because he didn't know, but because he'd never seen death on such a scale and didn't really understand it. Then Argent spoke, and it took a very long time, like waiting for water to filter through fine sand, for the words to actually make sense.

"It..." The hulking lycanthrpe said, as he looked to his leader and revealed the extent of his own injuries.

His left eye was swollen almost entirely shut, and the brow above it was split open right back to the bone, and continuing to ooze a sheet of blood that trickled down through his fur and off the point of his newly developed muzzle. He was going to have an absolutely glorious shiner, and possibly even a scar, but it seemed that otherwise all the important bits were still where they needed to be. He tried to open his swollen eye, but only managed to expose a sliver of sclera, which was bloodshot to a uniform and complete red by the bursting of several blood vessels, before the obvious pain of the effort forced him to stop and allow the eye to fall shut once more.

"...hurts." he concluded in that voice that seemed much like an animal's roars and growls laboriously tortured until they only faintly resembled words.

As he turned his attention away from the reptile faunus and back at the signs of battle and bloodshed that seemed to cover every surface around him, it seemed strangely uncertain whether he was talking about his own injuries, or something else.

Raul looked at his teammates, and it seemed none of them had been hurt. Like Argent, none of them seemed to even realize the scope of the death their little melee had unleashed. They all seemed as comfortable, surrounded by corpses they had made with their own hands, as a bunch of ducks floating on a pond. Some were already going through the deceased, and pillaging what they could of their equipment, some of which was soaked in a thick layer of still warm blood. It turned his stomach, and the smell of blood, and of offal from those that had been killed by trauma to the abdomen, was so thick it made him feel drunk and caused the nausea and dizziness to rear back up for a second round. 

Grunting, the big creature pushed past, trying to get up wind of the reeking scene. He placed himself upon a pile of rubble more than a dozen feet distant from his allies and their grizzly duty, sitting on his haunches and gazing off into the city, aglow from some sort of fire in the distance. Bianca's voice called out to him, and no sooner had he turned to look at her, but was he forced to catch something she'd thrown. He looked down, nonplussed, at the small vial of white dust. Something tickled at the back of his mind, something like gratitude, but that gratitude had a long way to go to the front, past all the death and pain, and finally died somewhere amidst the miles long sense of complete bleak, hopeless, numbness that filled him.

When she patted his shoulder, the fur stood up, as if his body was still so keyed up for battle that even his flesh was eager to treat the passing contact as a threat, but otherwise he made no indication that he'd heard or even noticed her, and simply turned his eyes and ears back towards the horizon.

1,885/13,785

[*place holder*]

WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT A LITTLE PAIN...

❝

Heart racing. Blood pumping. Alice body felt like it was on fire as she danced around the soldiers drawing their attention just long enough. Just  for her team to arrive and they did not disappoint in the slightest. She wasn’t a curled person per say. She didn’t particular like the bloody part of fighting, but deep down known only to herself she smiled at it all. She had to admit the had enjoyed the fear and terror she saw on the men faces as the beast known as Rual had burst through the wall. Truth be told even Alice had been shocked for a moment believing a Grimm had finally shown it ugly face on the battlefield. But it seemed Rual had at last found his spine and was ready to show his fangs, both literally and figuratively.

Along with the appearance of Bianca and Argent they made quick work of the remaining soldier allowing the wolf a moment of rest. Her sweet clover body shining in the moonlight from the frost over her bearskin. With deep labor breathing Alice held herself up with her spear while she tried to calm herself trying to force the adrenaline out. With each breath she could feel the pain she had forced from her mind slowly returning to her. As her layer of frost fell away like a layer of armor, she felt the weight of the night finally begin to hit her. The rounds of bullets that had pepper her right side of her body was even now was darkening into what she knew would be bruises in the coming days. Even now she felt the stinging on her face and forearm from the shotgun slugs.

Still…

She couldn’t hide the small smile on her normally frowning face as the pain returned to her. It seemed she finally understood what her brother had meant all those years ago about pain was proof of living. So long as you felt it you knew you were still alive! And if you’re alive then you can keep pressing forward. Although she had a feeling, he didn’t mean it in a way of liking… NOPE! Not finishing that sentence. Alice suddenly thought shaking her head hard while slapping her cheeks with both hands. Bad thoughts go away! There were far more important things to deal with now and she knew weird self-discovery could wait.

With a grimmest she returned to the group joining Bianca as she checks the bodies taking the moment to really look at her team. Argent was truly skilled which she had suspected for a time, even if he was the sort that never liked to show off. Showing off just how powerful her really was along with a surprising amount of leadership. Effectively changing her view of him over the last few hours. Then again, there had to be more to him if he somehow was dating Kish of all people. Shame really. He would have been a nice catch.

Thankfully, Alice was happy now know, at least she hoped, there was no bad blood between the two with Bianca. Throwing up on someone on Tv from food poisoning isn’t really the best way to start a friendship. Messy start aside she was glad to have the lizard on her side this go around not wanting to be on to receiving end of that hell of stones. Nor her resourcefulness in a situation where Alice might have been the hammer Bianca was a scalpel of the group. Maybe if they all make it out of this in one piece, she asks for that rematch she thought watching her walk over to her third member. Her amber eyes watching maybe a second to long and a bit lower on her back side before looking away.

Rual was the one she knew the least about at the start of the night and even now still knew least about. The way he acted with most of the night she guessed he was still green, well at least thought that. After watching him tear down a wall to frank the enemy she wasn’t so sure about it. If not for the first half of the night she would have never believed the quite giant from before could tear into a group of man like he did. What she did know was what he might be feeling right now at least dealing with his semblance.

Picking up a radio she grumbles as she shook some blood from it, trying to keep it off her the best she could while also snacking up the shotgun. Giving it a quick look over before sighing as she felt the rumble of her stomach and a low grow from it. She was already feeling the aftereffect of prolong used of her semblance. She was sooooo going to pig out once they get out of here. Till then she had to do with her rations removing a small bag of jerky to munch on. After a moment of watching the other Alice almost jumped of her skin as she radio came to life in her hand.

“Guys! (munch) Stuff happening! (chew)” She called out through dried meat waving her hand. Holding up the radio she listens as the voice went on about some to do with classes and that someone from Harbinger was coming to deal with it. It seemed a big fish was about to poke it head into their little pond. Granted while she got what Bianca was hinting at about the boss she knew this was an opportunity they really couldn’t pass up. Swallowing her mouth full of food Alice quickly flash a grin at the group. “Cut the head off the snake and the rest dies. No offense.” Glancing at their snakey leader before starting to roll her right arm.

While not the brightest of the group Alice knew what this meant. Going right into the den of the beast was never clean cut and worst they had truly little info on this person or the boat even really. Still, just a small look around was all she really needed in order to know they needed to try this. Who ever thought this, whatever this is, was good idea wasn’t someone they could leave in power.

● 1,045/5,617 ● word count

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

XP Distribution:

Raul: 137 x 200% = 274

448 + 274 = 722

Bianca: 100 x 200% = 200

230 + 200 = 430

Argent: 81 x 200% = 162

0 + 162 = 162

Alice: 56 x 200% = 112

68 + 112 = 180