[Alexandros Skouriá]

An alarm, every two hours.

It cried out to the late afternoon breeze, but the deafening crack of gunfire cried louder. Alexandros let out a long breath, steadying himself, then narrowed his eyes to keenly look through the dense greenery of the forest for any sort of sign that his assailant had fallen. A dark blob flickered through the pinpricks of rich foliage, before suddenly bursting out in a rampage. The bonelike fragments covering its head were faintly, finely cracked on one side where the shot from Thrash had glanced, but no other part of the Grimm showed any signs of damage. Honestly, it would've been better for the both of them if the shot had just outright missed; the boarbatusk had been persistent, but overwhelmingly stupid, chasing the boy at a mild trot through a rough and uneven section of forest with only the slightest hint of desire to rend the flesh from his bones. But that was before the bullet, and it was clear that the little piggy was much more agitated having very-nearly been the victim of a total -- and amateurish -- lobotomy. Alex swung his handgun open, in half, quickly ejecting the remnants of the spent round and replacing it with the singular charge of Lightning Dust he had held on to all day. During the lead he gained on the beast, the fist-fighting gunslinger had dug through his duffel bag specifically for the high-powered option, burying it in his left pocket for easy access when the time would come to end things. Evidently, that time was coming sooner rather than later. Four in the chamber, he mentally confirmed, better make them count.

With a careful turn of the cylinder, Alex brought Thrash back to a cohesive whole with the Dust being the fourth and final round available. The boarbatusk made an effort to charge dead ahead, and Rank Eight, with all of the grace and elegance and agility he could muster, threw himself to the left in an exaggerated sidestep. The Grimm ran straight past, stomping to a halt and turning itself around to charge once more, but by this time the chase was on yet again. Alexandros darted his eyes up-down-up-down between the trees ahead and subtly disturbed path the beast had carved out, taking long and leaping strides with gun in hand. The brutish thing came snarling and squealing behind him, thundering along on its legs instead of rolling. It was, after all, a location that neither of the two would work well in; the boy simply could not find decent footing for his hand-to-hand skills to come out in a dazzling display, and the boarbatusk had no easy line of sight to curl up and run its target down like a mad wheel. Glancing over to the right as he ran away, Alex made out a slope leading to a glade -- perfect.

Well, not quite perfect. He and the Grimm would be on rather literal even ground to duke it out, but the slight hill which they would both need make their way down was immediately going to cause issues. Alex could dive forward to try and reach the perfect arena waiting at the bottom, but the foul creature -- still charging and seething behind him -- would almost certainly attack in a gravity-assisted roll.

Oh well.

Using his heavy bag as leverage, Alex planted a foot firmly to the earth beneath and completely shifted his momentum at a right-angle. As soon as he was able, he sprung off the same foot and put as much of his body behind breaking into a sprint as possible, powering for the break in the trees with nothing more than not-quite-escape on his mind. Crashing through, the boy slid down swiftly and heaved his supplies off from his shoulder as went. Being weighed down by its cumbersome bulk would have no tactical value, after all, and instead would only make the matter worse. As he had suspected, the Grimm had been close behind and saw an opportunity to rapidly close the distance on his target; Alexandros, in all of the few seconds it took to turn and arrive in the clearing, had come up with a true brilliant plan to avoid. Slamming Thrash back into his holster, the young Skouriá readied up to make his move.

The boarbatusk rolled down at an alarming speed, and Alexandros lobbed himself away in a huge dive onto his back. It hurt -- he could feel his Aura and adrenaline both kicking-in and climbing to mask the pain -- but the alternative was guaranteed to hurt more. Unable to stop, the Grimm hurtled out into the middle of their battlefield; it was much more open than previously thought from behind the trees, divided in two by a shallow and gently flowing rocky stream. With nervous, frantic haste, he scrambled to his feet and firmly pressed a fist to his lower back, just above his waist. I'll be fine, he assured himself.

"Come and get me!" he howled, taunting, not for a moment second-guessing the absurdity of challenging a pig to a fight.
It was quite a commotion he and his new little fighting friend had created. Between the piercing gunshots and one-sided declaration of challenge, anybody in the immediate area would know that... something... was about to begin. Alexandros adopted his fighting stance and bounced up and down in place with energy. Just how hard could it be to kick a demon-boar-thing to death, anyway?

Four in the chamber. I'll be fine.

--

925/925

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle pressed through the thick fronds of leafy growth which called this part of the forest home. She'd really come to appreciate why the academy used this particular location for it's trials; The landscape was remarkably varied within Haven forest. Since that morning, she had seen hilly meadows of green, copses of dense old growth surrounded by ranks upon ranks of lesser trees, a few shale infested patches where nothing but the hardiest shrubs grew, and just about everything in between. The only thing she hadn't seen was something resembling the thickets of blue grey pines which made the highlands their home, and she less sure that Haven Forest didn't have them, than she was of having simply not come across them in her travels. Even the weather seemed transitory. The nearby mountains and deep valleys must have done strange things to weather patterns, because Aegle was sure she must have seen three of the four seasons so far. It had been sunny that morning, it had been blustery and cloudy when she and Nik had parted ways. There had even been a chilly rain which, though brief, Aegle had been convinced was about to turn into snow.

Despite the infesting Grimm, Haven Forest was a truly remarkable place. She wondered if she'd be allowed back in, after the midterms were done, then supposed that would depend on whether or not she passed. Depending on how one wanted to read the rules, she might even have passed already, but Aegle hadn't been paying as close attention as she might have when the specifics of her goals were explained. For all she knew, the grimm she'd helped Nik take down didn't count because he'd done the majority of the work. She hoped that wasn't the case, for his sake as well as her own, but it wouldn't hurt to kill a few more monsters than necessary. Another creep or two ought to do it. Aegle would even have picked a fight with a beowolf, if she happened across one separated from its pack. Though honestly, Aegle meant to steer well clear of anything larger. Her recent success in the field of Grimm extermination was no cause to get ahead of herself, she was still a weaponless dandelion after all; Dealing with anything armored would prove a challenge.

She really needed to find a way around that problem, if only for so long as she was a trainee.
That thought brought Aegle to a halt. The sun dappled glen surrounding her suddenly felt unreal, the way the cliffs had seemed during the escort exercise when she hadn't yet known Colton's semblance had done to her.
'Transitory,' She thought, 'like the weather.'
Drawing a deep breath, Aegle closed her eyes and tipped her face towards the westerling sun, feeling its warmth on her face. Not for the first time, she wondered why she was there and, moreover, why. Why so much pointless effort, towards an unattainable goal? Even knowing the reasons why, she often doubted the decisions which had brought her here. At least, right or wrong, she was pretty sure it didn't matter either way. In fact, the longer she spent at Haven, the more convinced she became that right and wrong were just words.

A noise broke Aegle from her reverie. A shrill, piping squeal, not unlike the sound a poorly maintained engine might make. Opening her eyes, she looked towards the sound, searching for its source through the trees. It was not far off from the way she'd been headed.
'Another random chance?' she wondered. Then she heard the shot. The first sound could have been taken for some natural wilderness sound, the second could not. Adjusting her course, Aegle loped to investigate.

Finding the source of the sounds proved less trouble than expected. Following the gunshot, the squealing had grown considerably louder and more frequent. Crossing through the thinning trees as fast as her crooked legs could carry her, Aegle stopped at the edge of a sloping meadow of green grass, as high as her waist, just in time to watch a black and white shape roll down the steep incline. She recognized its target just as quickly. Aegle grimaced, and wondered if it was too late to pretend she'd heard nothing, and vanish back into the trees.
Just as she was considering it however, the man sized shape that the boarbatusk was after threw himself crashing to the earth, just barely out of the beast's way.
'What is he doing?' Aegle thought, fascinated and annoyed, and unable to say why. Perhaps it was simply because the last time she'd seen Alexandros was right after telling him, not insincerely, that she was pretty sure she hated him. That he should be the person she ran into, of all the people who must be in Haven Forest just then, seemed an especially cruel joke. Whatever the reason, watching the brawler stagger around the charging boarbatusk was acutely infuriating.
He's not even using his semblance. Can he really mean to punch it to death?'
Admittedly, Aegle didn't know how long it took Alexandros to bring his semblance to bear, but it looked to her like he was just bouncing in place, waiting for the grimm to attack.
'Can't he see that won't work? He should be pressing on it, not letting it charge him.'
Breaking a charge was a job for spears and pikes, not fists and feet. Letting the boarbatusk come to him was just inviting disaster.

As if it meant to prove her right, the boarbatusk let out a piercing shriek and barreled towards Alexandros, it's armored head leading the charge, an impenetrable wall of bone and blades. Alexandros' only hope now was to dive out of the way. He might sidestep the beast as it rampaged past, but that put him at great risk and an even greater disadvantage. Beside the hurtling speed of the grimm, it would be hard enough to get out of the way, let alone remain close enough to land an even part ways effective blow.
Stricken as she was, not to mention too far away to render anything even resembling aid, Aegle could only watch. Maybe Alexandros was fast enough to evade the charge, while also being nimble enough to keep his range and, if he was quick enough to, land a punch or kick as the beast passed, but that was a lot of if and maybe. A whole lot...

---

words - 1,089

[Alexandros Skouriá]

The boarbatusk charged at him, and Alexandros keenly watched -- and waited. That little stream at the heart of their arena would be the beast's undoing, but it'd be a matter of baiting it over there first. Between the Dust and his Semblance, the body of water presented opportunities for a truly massive electrical shock or cloud of searing-hot steam. It wasn't going to be straight-forward or easy, but it'd work. As the Grimm approached, he readied himself and shifted his balance ever-so-slightly to one side; the thing was huge, after all, and trying to go over it in any sort of leap or dive would be unreasonable without something to give him an edge in terms of relative height above ground. So, he readied, leaning and bracing, with no other option than to kick off in a huge sidestep at the last moment.

The Grimm was only a few seconds away, its eyes aflame with malice. As planned, the boy leapt off and evaded in a giant hop. The two moved past one another in a perpendicular fashion, Alexandros quickly finding footing and turning to face the monster which had zoomed past in its bluster. Without even a second of hesitation, the brawler drove heat out through both of his feet by way of Bloomery and took off in a run; the boarbatusk, once more stomping to a halt and turning to face its prey, was met with a giant kick across the side of its plated head where the earlier shot placed. The bony armour fractured further, snaking out across the white like a bolt of lightning through a stormy sky, and the Grimm reeled back in a daze. Seizing the opportunity presenting itself, Alexandros drew Thrash from his waist and, with steady aim, directly placed one of his three standard projectiles into a gap in the boarbatusk's protection in its side. The shot afforded the boy an opportunity to back up, fully in control -- if only for a little while -- and re-assess the situation. His Aura wouldn't recover so long as Bloomery was active, but it had only depleted a little after diving away from the pig's rolling attack. At the same, the creature would need to overcome some degree of shock before charging again, and would probably wait to roll again until it figured it had a clear chance like from atop the slope. Grimm were strange like that, he realized: almost no sense of self-preservation, and all full of anger, but they could be battered and beaten and would show the signs of exhaustion and pain from it. Grimm could be killed, and it would soon be his sole responsibility to kill them. Now's my chance, he thought.

Alexandros tightly held Thrash as he turned and set himself running in the other direction, away from his bag of supplies and the hill and the still-reeling monster. The combined 'oomph' of the kick and the bullet in such quick succession certainly wasn't the most devastating possible, but had left the thing stomping around in place and shaking-off its irritation. Then, running, looking out ahead to the rest of the clearing, he saw her.
On the other side of it all, in a patch of tall grass, Aegle Verdant stood. It was unmistakable after all, for only Carmim Clover was as diminutive and Alex was certain she'd have made her presence known with the sound of drumming. After his shocking, embarrassing display in the gym, the boy had hoped to meet her again in more favourable conditions, but it seemed fate had other plans. Onward he ran, and with a quick glance over his shoulder saw that the boarbatusk had come to its senses and was now hyping itself up for another charge. He wasn't going to outrun the damn thing, but he'd be on the other side of the stream first, and the thought of it gave him an idea.
"Grab a big branch!" Alexandros called to the girl, barking it out like an order, his tone much more firm and direct than was typical. "Something to keep it back! Throw it down here when you find something!"

Alexandros had reached the rocky stream, and the monster was not far behind him. Not slowing for a moment, and carefully cranking more and more heat out through his legs, he made his first -- and only -- step into the water. At first it was no more than a hearty splash, but within moments the wet beneath him and surrounding his ankles flashed into a rising burst of steam; Alex made an effort not to think about it at all as he continued to push himself forward, hearing the boarbatusk tailing him let out a horrified and furious squeal from the display. That had stopped it, but it wouldn't be for long.

If it had to be a war of attrition, then so be it; the boy still had three shots.

--

WC 826/1751

[Aegle Verdant]

To Aegle's profound relief, it didn't seem Alexandros was actually going to tilt with the boarbatusk, an arrangement which could only possibly have benefited the grimm, not the huntsman. Instead, he lunged aside just as it went screaming past, a last second leap too close for the beast to follow. The boarbatusk, squealing in fury, started to turn and slow, but Alexandros was quickly upon it, meeting the grimm head on before it had a chance to build up speed again. A good plan, and executed near flawlessly, ruined only by having step one involve dodging a charging boarbatusk at the very last moment.

As Alexandros slammed a kick into the monster's armored head, Aegle realized she was holding her breath, and sighed out a somewhat quavering breath. There was another deafening report as the huntsman, evading the thrashing beast, shot it in the side for good measure, not that the boarbatusk seemed especially bothered. It wasn't just its head which was armored, most of its body was coated in thick bone like plates. It was akin to an armored chariot, a beast of blurring speed and ferocity, plated head to tail.

If the shot found its mark, it was still of little concern to the rampaging grimm, which snorted and snuffled furiously as Alexandros put some distance between himself and it. It occurred to Aegle then that perhaps she should help, though she had no real clue what she might do to lean aid. She was as constrained as Alexandros when it came to attacking the grimm, and hadn't his semblance to add some much needed stopping power to her attacks. Aegle did not, and she'd have even more trouble getting out of the way than he would.

The decision was made for her, not a moment later, when Alexandros, seeing her on the berm of the hill, shouted up to her as he ran across the sun lit field.
Aegle strained to hear, but did not quite catch his words. Something about a branch?
'Seems a bit late to be goin' for a spear.' Aegle thought, but she sprang into action all the same. Scrambling back to the edge of the trees, she searched for a branch.
'What sort of branch? And how does he expect me to break one off?'
She saw her likeliest candidate, a thick limb, bare and about two strides long, protruding from an overgrown dead fall which had every appearance of having been blasted apart with fire dust. Given what Haven Forest was used for, that wasn't so unlikely as it at first appeared. Hopping down into the tangle of brush and creepers, Aegle kicked the branch at its base with all her weight behind it. The effort sent her reeling, which the branch remained firmly attached.
"Gods help me." She cursed, scrambling back up and hauling at the limb instead, trying to bend it back against the way it had originally sprouted. It was no use though. The damned thing wouldn't budge.
'If only I had an ax!' Aegle thought, as she searched for some likely alternative. There wasn't time though. Alexandros wouldn't be able to evade the boarbatusk indefinitely, and it could run much faster than he could. Cursing again, Aegle dug into her pockets and pulled out the first dust canister she got her fingers on. She'd been going for fire dust, but found herself holding a cannister of lightning dust instead. The gears turned, and a smile twitched across her face.
"This," She said, gripping the canister in her fist, "Has got to be my worst idea yet."

It didn't hurt nearly as much as she expected it to. It hurt, there was no doubt about that, but she was still standing after. The tree was not. Where her fist had struck, the wood had splintered as if from a mace blow, and deep cracks had torn their way deep into the fallen truck, fissures cut a hands breadth deep. Panting, trembling, grinning like an idiot, Aegle tossed aside the empty canister, crushed and useless, and scooped up the branch from where it had fallen. She twitched a little, jerked ungainly forward on quivering legs, and half stumbled back to the clearing. She kept on twitching as she ran, occasionally giggling at the weird, unnatural spasms in most of her body.

Aegle got back just in time to see a huge wall of steam explode up from the brook flowing through the lower part of the field, and watch the boarbatusk come to a halt before it. She couldn't see Alexandros anywhere, though the wall of steam gave her a likely place to start looking. Limping down the hill, Aegle shrugged off her pack at a run, while fumbling the long branch between her arms. She couldn't trust her hands to holding it, it was too big and heavy, and so hugged it as she ran.
"Alexandros!" She squealed, voice high pitched and breathless. The boarbatusk, upon hearing her shout, rounded about with an angry snort, eyes leaving trails of bloody red in the air as they moved. Aegle felt her guts turn to water, and the grimm lowered its head to charge.

---

words - 867

[Alexandros Skouriá]

The brawler and the beast emerged from the vanishing cloud of steam as a familiar voice called out his name. He stopped dead in his tracks from the run and swung himself around to face where the sound had come from, hastily stowing Thrash back in the holster at his hip. This whole endeavour was going to require a great degree of concentration, and Alexandros could not afford to brainlessly keep running without knowing where he had to go. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the Grimm trotting out in the same direction, and it all suddenly flashed on the walls of his mind. Alex wasn't its target -- not right now -- but Aegle certainly was, and the boarbatusk went to no great lengths to hide this motivation. Powered by the freely-flowing adrenaline surging through each and every part of him, Alex darted off again into a full sprint and noticed the monster beside him readying up for another charge. The only way this was going to end well was for the boy to act, to somehow try and stop or it regain status as a priority target, and act fast. After all, she was the one holding the rather critical piece for this operation; like hell he was going to let her quick thinking go to waste.

Alexandros threw himself forward on great big steps, and the Grimm beside him squealed and made its move. The two of them were both running toward the young Verdant for two very different reasons, and the boy didn't fancy his chances of getting to her first. In the thick of battle, and the heat of the moment his own actions had created, Alexandros settled on a single -- and reckless -- idea. With a long dive, Alex launched off both feet into the path of the monster as it rushed ahead, grabbing hold of one of its enormous namesake tusks and attempting to yank away at a leg; it rampaged on the spot and slowed down somewhat, throwing its head side to side and stomping squarely below Alex's elbow as he was ragdolled around underfoot. He cried out in pain, certain that his right arm had been broken, and tightened the singular hold he maintained. As quickly as he could shift it, his Semblance moved to concentrate around his clenched left hand, the boy still being shaken and bashed around by the boarbatusk in its deserved fit of rage. Gripping harder, he felt something give way in its stark white armour -- just a little -- before being hurled aside back out to the middle of the battlefield. He rolled and tumbled, wincing as he went.

His plan, if you could truly call it such a thing, was a success. The boarbatusk no longer showed any interest in Aegle and the large wooden pseudo-spear she was hurrying out into battle with, and its deep red eyes were focused firmly on the crumpled youth. Alex's Aura was rapidly draining away, some of it fusing bone back together in his right arm and more still being burnt up as fuel for Bloomery in his left. He shakily rose, supporting himself on one knee with his red-hot fist, and stared down the Grimm across from him. It backed up in a small circular trot, lined itself up on a direct warpath, and then curled up to charge ahead in a roll.

Ah, hell.

Alexandros grit his teeth and crossed his arms for protection, making sure to lead with the already-injured right to absorb the full brunt of the slam. The Grimm barrelled straight into him like a bowling ball, and the battered Skouriá boy scattered like a pin; he was thrown from his crouched position even further back, screaming out as all the mending work from his Aura -- as insignificant as it was -- was undone. Bloomery drifted away on the wind as he was thrown to his back and made to scrape across the dirt, tumbling and rolling over his shoulder flat onto his stomach when the ordeal was over. He was hurting, and he was hurting bad.

He looked ahead as best he could, and with a shift onto his side and a raising of a leg, Alex reached across his body with his left arm and took Thrash back out from its holster. With the one hand, he lined up a shot against the boarbatusk, slowly approaching with its head lowered, and focused down the length of the barrel to a point between its eyes; the distance wasn't all that bad, and even with just his left he was confident he could make it hit. The plating on its head was definitely the most severely damaged, and that slim chance it could splinter and explode apart into uselessness gave more than enough of the cocky hope Alexandros needed to pull the trigger. Besides, Aegle couldn't be far. The dumb little demon wouldn't stand a chance.

--

WC 827/2578

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle was just in the process of deciding, whether to throw down the stick and run or stand and face the charging boarbatusk head on, when out from the mist and steam came Alexandros. For a few strides at least, it looked as though he meant to outrun the grimm and get to her first, but those few strides were enough to see it couldn't possibly work. The boarbatusk was much the faster, and was already picking up speed, putting distance between itself and the sprinting trainee. Alexandros, seemingly realizing the same thing, did something that was perhaps as stupid as Aegle's most recent trick with the lightning dust. He threw himself onto the charging beast!

"What're you doin'?!" Aegle squeaked, but it was too late. The boarbatusk, massively, gigantically, titanically enraged by Alexandros' boldness, began thrashing about like a spinning top made of knives. It turned the air about them both into a blur of white barbs and shrill, furious squealing. Aegle could do little more than watch the carnage, as Alexandros was flung about like a sack full of bones in the boarbatusk's efforts to either gore him, or dislodge his hold upon it, or both. The frenzy of movement finally ended in a cloud of dust and Alexandros' flying body, as the boy was violently relieved from his hold around the grimm's tusk. Aegle watched it all happen, unable to do anything about it. She was still holding the stick, the purpose of which seemed wholly ancillary to the present state of events.

Some madness took hold of Aegle then, as she watched Alexandros stagger to one knee, right before the Boarbatusk wheeled and charged once again. Before she even understood what she was doing, her feet were moving under her. Smart would have been if they were moving her away from the fight, her involvement in which could only possibly result in her getting hurt along side Alexandros. Aegle was not smart however. The whole last year of her life was a testament to that fact. It seemed that whenever she really ought have been doing one thing, she went ahead and did the exact opposite; Did it without even thinking.
She wasn't thinking now. She wasn't thinking about how a boarbatusk was really not the sort of thing she could safely fight, how there was next to nothing she could do to reach the beast before it reached Alexandros. She wasn't thinking about how it would gore her if she even tried to punch it, or about how those punches weren't likely to do much against its thick armor.
'Gods, I'm thinkin' 'bout it right now, ain't I?'

She was right, there was no hope that Aegle could have outrun the boarbatusk as it charged into Alexandros. Alexandros, who was too badly hurt from trying to wrestle something made out of spikes, muscle, and rage, that he had yet even to stand up. She wanted to cry out, to tell him to get out of the way, but it would have done no good. It did no good. The boarbatusk struck the other trainee at a full tilt, whipping about its great bladed head to throw Alexandros a half doze strides or more. Aegle let out a cry, a wordless sound as shrill and piping as air escaping a balloon. The content of the cry surprised her most; Anger. Rage. A fury so painfully hot it seemed to set her veins afire. Her grip shifted around the huge bough of wood she had grabbed, fingers wrapping about it as she ran.

The boarbatusk raked and pawed the earth, digging out huge clumps of sod and turf, as it lined up for another charge. Aegle could no longer see Alexandros, the grass was too high, she was too short, and he had yet to get back up from where the grimm had tossed him, but she had seen where he'd landed and so had the pig. It shrieked and squealed and took off, lumbering again. Aegle would not be able to catch it once it got up to speed, and she pushed her tired legs and crooked hips for all they were worth, desperate to catch up. The heat, the fury, was flowing through her now, but fear for the other trainee had cooled her ire just enough that she saw how dangerous the situation had become.

It was no use. The boarbatusk was too fast and she was still too far behind. If she'd had even a little more time, she might have caught up, might have taken its attention off of Alexandros, but it was too late. All the grit and determination in the world didn't change the fact that she could not run very fast, would never be able to run very fast. Then there was a loud crack, another gunshot's report, and the boarbatusk faltered in its charge. Its barbed wedge of a head whipped back, bits of bone and black pitch flying, and it slowed somewhat in its charge. Though it did not stop, that momentary pause had been the one extra moment Aegle had required.
This next cry was sister to the first. A bigger, meaner, far angrier sister. Aegle shrieked for all she was worth and, with all her fury and wroth, brought the stick sailing down on the stunned grimm's head.

It would have been most satisfying if, upon impacting the monster's cracked skull, both bone and wood had shattered in a shower of broken bits. Just as satisfying would have been for the blow to halt the boarbatusk's charge entirely, perhaps by driving it nose first into the earth. Sadly, life was a series of disappointments, and all that happened was a reminder of why Aegle fought unarmed and without a weapon. The branch snapped down on the pig's skull, and the jarring impact of that connection promptly bounced it right out of Aegle's hands, leaving her fingers empty and trembling numb, to land somewhere in the grass not half a stride away. A pitiful effort, really, but Aegle scarcely seemed to notice. Still shrieking, an ululating cry as loud as a mountain storm, and far sharper than any knife, it tore at the air and her throat in equal measure.

In so much as a grimm could look surprised, the boarbatusk was greatly bemused. It staggered around beneath the blow, more startled than hurt, and wheeled around just in time to be caught on the side of its head by a haymaker punch in just about the same spot. The grimm trotted back half a step, fixing its little piggy eyes on Aegle, and trumpeted shrilly at her its profound displeasure.
Aegle answered by screaming in its face, and throwing herself at it again. She danced forth in a boxer's huddle, jabbing at the boarbatusk's splintered face. The grimm, overcoming its surprise for this most unexpected development, answered by lashing the air with its tusks, hopping up on its hind legs and flinging its head back to bring its lethal tusks to bear.
Aegle smashed it in the muzzle, first as it was going up, a second time as it was coming back down, once with each hand, fading in and out to avoid the monster's barbs. The attacks did nothing of course, save further enraging the monster.
"That's right!" Aegle snarled. She didn't know where this anger was coming from, but she poured it on as thick as she could, fanned the flames as hot as they would burn, knowing the grimm couldn't possibly resist. "Y'wanna kill somethin', why don'tcha try me, huh?"

The boarbatusk happily obliged, lunging and tearing, as Aegle wove around it, landing blow after blow with little effect. Even the punches that struck existing cracks did next to nothing, except maybe lend vehemence to the grimm's efforts to gut her. The flapping cloth of her hoodie tore and shredded, as those savage tusks found her just a little too slow and bit into the aura wreathed flesh beneath.

No more than a dozen heartbeats had passed since she'd clubbed the beast, and already Aegle's orange hoodie bore a handful of fresh tears, some of which were turning bloody even as the crooked girl answered with her meaningless punches. The boarbatusk, infuriated by Aegle's continued refusal to let it gore her, let out a steaming shriek, and Aegle answered it with yet another scream of her own, before bouncing its thickly armored skill with an uppercut it had not seen coming.

Her knuckles were bloody too, with a long gash through her wraps where she'd come a little too close to one of the grimm's tusks. She couldn't hurt it at all, but that didn't matter, she kept hitting it anyway, kept on furiously, savagely, brutally punching it. She hated it. She hated everything about it, everything it represented. She hated that she was scared of it, hated that it was trying to hurt Alexandros. She wanted to hurt it, to kill it, to finally do something, anything useful or meaningful. There was something so very satisfying about its increasingly frustrated squeals; She may not have been able to hurt it, but she was used to such disappointments, while it's inability to hurt her seemed to be driving the monster into a frenzy. It could smell the blood, her blood, could sense her anger, her hate, but was completely unable to put an end to the fight.

Aegle didn't realize she'd started laughing, but she had. Her screams had, at some point, transformed into great peels of shrill, tinkling laughter. She danced aside of the boarbatusk's most recent lunge, socketed it hard just behind the eye for its trouble, and guffawed at the infuriated squeal the effort earned. Its anger was completely impotent, its bluster and its fury meaningless. It had hurt her sure, even it's glancing blows were freakishly strong, but it could do nothing to pin her down. The one shattering blow it wanted, the direct connection, was unattainable, all it got was deflected or parried or outright dodged. It lashed out at her, its sickle like tusk tearing a chunk from her cargo pants, not to mention slicing the thigh beneath, but Aegle only hopped back and hooked it across the jaw. She was losing this fight, and she knew it, but it felt...
'It feels good. It feels so good. You have to pay attention to me, have to look at me. Look at me! Look at me, Monster! Look at this crippled little girl, making an utter fool out of you.'
She shrieked with hilarity as the boarbatusk threw up its head, the points of its tuck narrowly missing her chin, and smacked it twice in the muzzle, once on either side.
'This wouldn't be such a bad way to die,' Aegle thought, eyes brimming with mirthful tears, as she was driven around by a glancing blow to her shoulder, and sent staggering, only to wheel around and put a haymaker between the beast's eyes, 'At least I'd die laughing and in control.'
She was breathless with laughter, sides aching, and not just where the grimm had raked them with its tusks. She could have gone on for hours, if only her aura wasn't being sliced away, piece by piece; She wasn't fast enough to avoid all the hits, she wasn't even fast enough to avoid most of them.

How long had it been? How long had she been doing this? It felt like an age, but surely no more a couple of minutes. It was the longest two minutes of her life, with each detail, each movement, each sensation, taken in and digested. It was a minute full of light and sound, of colors and smells, of joy and pain. She must have gone crazy, she must finally have snapped, because she was having fun. She was balanced on the very edge of a knife, heart hammering in her ears, the taste of iron and salt on her tongue, with a chest full of burning coals. And yet, she was enjoying it. Even the pain.
'Better a masochist, than never been kissed.' Aegle thought with wry, delirious amusement, before barking out a shrill and piping laugh.

Who would have thought dying could be such fun...

---

Words - 2,054
Total - 4,010

[Alexandros Skouriá]

Thrash stood tall in his hand as smoke billowed from its barrel, the second of four shots driving itself hard into the skull of the boarbatusk. Alex didn't care to try and do anything more; it wouldn't be worth it, he decided, to mindlessly pump lead into it from a prone position in the dirt. The Grimm would have only become more angered and charge him down with yet more hate, which was not a prospect he cared for. Seething and suffering on the ground, Alexandros looked ahead as far as he could through the daze to try and make sense of it all. It was impossible to tell with his sight, but to his hearing it was perfectly clear. Uncontested and unnoticed, Aegle had charged in and forced the boarbatusk to shift all its evil focus away from him. He heard her screaming, and laughing, and all the exertion and movement she and the beast were making no effort to hide. Flat on his face, on the ground, Alex couldn't help but smile. I'm not done yet, he told himself, you can't keep me down.
Suddenly, with newfound yet finite energy, Alexandros released his grip on Thrash and clawed away at the earth, shifting and scrambling up onto both knees. Two knees became one, and then one knee become feet firmly planted on the ground; despite it all, he was forcing himself to get up. Nearly falling back down in defeat, Alex reached forward and took up his weapon to fight on. It had taken what felt like an eternity, but he had done it.

Alexandros stood.

Cradling his right arm, Thrash loosely held with the left, the boy found himself on his feet and wanting to fight further. What good would it be, to give up and die fighting just one foe? Once more he found himself reaching across his body, this time to stow his pistol, staring dead ahead with burning conviction at the boarbatusk -- and to Aegle, dancing around it in a flurry of blows. She had done a wonderful job smashing it upside the head with the branch, fully pulling its attention, and now it was time to repay the favour. With his body still aching as searing pain rushed into every part of him, Alexandros took a few short steps over to where the weapon of choice had fallen and raised it up in both hands. It was long and had a fair bit of heft, and came to a decidedly stab-enticing point at one end where it had been boiled and busted off from the fallen tree with high-voltage Dust. In better shape, or with more Aura to spare, he may have even brought the wooden weapon to sit just below its auto-ignition point, and let it smoke away as the battle continued, but he was in no condition to do so. Straightforward and brutish strength -- and perhaps just the slightest cunning -- was all he could bring to the table to make the detestable thing draw its final breath, so straightforward and brutish the plan would be.

Go for the underside, at any cost; go for the opening it couldn't possibly protect. Swat it off-balance to one side and run it through as it reeled, then drive it over onto its back and finish the job.

For a moment or two, the boy simply stayed put. Idly he adjusted his grip on the boar-slaying spear, watching and waiting as Aegle continued to move and throw punches and fight like hell against the thing. Timing was critical, as it almost always was, and simply charging ahead without forethought would make matters worse. Alex waited, shuffling on the spot to better explode off in a run on his near-broken legs, deftly preparing to deal the killing blow with certainly-broken arms. The adrenaline ensured he'd see it through, dulling much of the agony which pounded away below the skin.
Then, with a great wave of clarity, Alexandros saw his chance. It wasn't quite an opening, but it was the best he was going to get. The boarbatusk was growing outraged, swiping and swinging its giant spikes around and beginning to stand on its hind legs as it went. This foul thing, devoid of all emotion beyond the spectrum of hate, was growing careless, openly inviting its demise. Throughout it all, Aegle fought, ducking and weaving between glancing blows and striking repeatedly to keep it irate and solely focused on her. She's brave, the boy thought as he started to move. She's stronger than she thinks.

In a hellish sprint, Alex closed the distance between he and the Grimm. If this was really going to happen, then it was going to have to happen fast. Every second mattered, and with his broken body falling apart with every step, the seconds to act were running low. Powering ahead, Alexandros found himself trailing the wooden weapon low at his left side, leading the charge with his right side to create as much distance to work with in the forthcoming blow. Then, as he ran, a guttural and growling battle cry forced its way up from his lungs, announcing to the world his presence and intent as efficiently as that very first gunshot had done.

A rising, diagonal smash, driven left-to-right across his whole body with both arms behind it.

The strike violently connected as a streak the colour of the earth, up and under the forelegs and right into the unprotected lower side of the boarbatusk as it reared up on its hinds to scoop at Aegle. The little boxer fell back from the attack in a retreating crouch, and Alexandros' swing sailed right over her head as the Grimm was made to brace and steady itself in reflexive shock; time seemed to slow to a standstill as the boy snarled through grit teeth, slamming with all his might to knock the beast around. It surged and recoiled up through his arms as a crashing wave of anger and pain, but the boy did not lose hold. As expected -- and intended -- the hit had made no real impact against its target, instead serving wonderfully to startle it and keep it wide open. Hate was a powerful thing, after all, but the Grimm lacked the ability to focus it.
Alexandros stomped down and let the enormous swing follow through in a giant arc over his shoulder and clean over Aegle as she moved. Turning his wrist and carrying all the momentum he could, the boy brought the branch to bear in both hands once more, and this time drove it hard and deep into the underbelly of the monster. He stepped in far and close as he ran it through, pushing with his whole upper-body until he met resistance from the other side of the boarbatusk. Indeed, the two-handed thrust had stabbed in with such speed and force as to sink through the murky black internals and all the way to the bony plating on the other side, on its back. Alexandros continued to step in and press into it as far as busted legs could take him, lowering himself and finally, firmly, pressing his side into the beast for the fatal finisher to come. With another warlike scream, Alex sprang upright, pushing and heaving and toppling the Grimm onto its back. He had used almost all of his body as the acting force, and against the embedded branch for leverage, found all the strength he needed to take it off its feet. The whole time it had squealing and throwing itself around to fight back, kicking wildly with its forelegs to try and dislodge the boy, but it was all for nothing -- wasted energy, which would have been better spent trying to hold steady on its only two grounded anchors.

He held his grip with one hand as the boarbatusk fell backwards and dropped to the ground in a wild mess of violence. With the last little drop of power he could muster, Alex gave a passing push down and away from the creature, taking two long and uneven steps back to end in a wide and sturdy stance. The Grimm was still trying to fight back, stomping and kicking at nothing to try and roll itself back onto its feet and battle on, but it was all for nothing. Thrash once more whipped from the holster at his waist, and in only his right hand, Alexandros fired the remaining two shots directly into its exposed weak point. The first rang out and met its mark with little fanfare, while the second -- his last -- had a much more dramatic effect. Lightning Dust, supercharged with explosively lethal potential, leapt out from the handgun in a bright bolt; almost instantly, after the flash, small white shards of the monster's armour dislodged and scattered away as both he and the thing were knocked back slightly from the sheer force. The boarbatusk writhed and jittered and convulsed as the almost-magic electrical impulses arced below the dark surface, but soon there was no more.

No movement. No sound. No Grimm.

The battle finally over, Alexandros collapsed down onto his knees and arched backwards to look up into the sky, heaving out enormous and heavy breaths. Next to him, in a very still and very crumpled pile, the body of the boarbatusk started to break down into its primordial shadow and evaporate as a horrible black cloud of evil. The giant branch fell silently to the grass as every part of the beast drifted away into the sinister aether it came from; down on his knees, Rank Eight had a perfect view of each and every monochromatic fleck as it rose heavenward and fell in on itself on the journey. Were he not utterly destroyed with exhaustion, Alex wondered if he'd enjoy the moment slowly unfolding in the clearing, or somehow find joy in it -- but that was hardly important. The Grimm were awful, infernal, wicked things that did not deserve even a fraction of sympathy, not even in death. As the last of the darkness was carried up, the boy found himself laughing. Not overly loud, and not at anything in particular, not even sure of why; yet there he was, barely able to keep himself upright, laughing at it all. Creatures of Grimm had taken his father, but they would all have to try much harder than that to take him too.
He rocked forward, now hunching over -- still only on his knees -- and laughed some more. Without a care, Alexandros carefully held Thrash in both hands and slowly opened it up to reveal the four spent casings in the cylinder. The Dust still had a faint scent of sickly electrical smoke, but the late afternoon breeze ushered it away much the same as it had just done for the remains of the beast. After some gentle taps and shaking, the four were dislodged and the cylinder fully clear, and the casings shoved into a pocket. Alex would deal with those later, when he could properly stand on two feet again.

Alexandros let out a final giant breath, letting it morph into a sigh of utter bliss and contentment as it went. Wiping off his brow, the boy swivelled his head around on a very stiff neck to look up at Aegle, and grinned a great big grin. Shakily, he holstered his gun and shifted into a deep squat, slowly and surely rising to fully stand on trembling legs. His Aura was all but gone, and what little remained was hard at work to repair his injuries. The damage was going to take quite some time to go away -- and time wasn't on their side -- but he felt lucky. Very, very lucky. Without her intervention, the ordeal would have played out in a completely different way, and Alex knew it was a hypothetical scenario from which he'd not have lived to tell the tale. Without her intervention, the boy would have almost certainly been gored and mauled to death. Negativity was the one thing which called out to the Grimm and painted a target on the world, but the brawler was far too beaten up to let negativity well up in his brain; too much power to process that, and power better spent taking in the victory.

It was, after all, a victory. Not a good one, but it was a victory all the same. The objective of the Dandelion team was to kill five Grimm, not to kill them effortlessly; right now, as the afternoon was rolling on, a body was a body no matter how the battle played out. Brushing himself off, Alex let out a final subdued chuckle and placed a hand at his hip to stand with massively undue pride. He searched for words for a moment, looking away from Aegle and back up into the sky. There, in the clouds, he found all he needed to say.

"I owe you one."

--

WC 2176/4754

[Aegle Verdant]

She was getting tired. Aegle felt it, that weariness so familiar that it was almost a part of her. It ached up through her chest, a dull throb behind the scalding burn of her many cuts and scrapes. She staggered back, caught on the gouging point of the grimm's tusks, and barely had the strength to shove the beast off before it tried to gore her. Her feet were getting heavy, her legs felt like iron. Breathless from laughter and exertion, she still found the air to giggle at her predicament. It wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all.
'So why am I still laughing?'
There was a strange sort of irony to it all, this sense of waning strength in the face of certain death. Not unlike, she thought, being laid out on a hospital bed and watching the time tick away. Had she felt any less tired then, when weakness had confined her to her bed, when her sheets and her covers had held her down as surely as iron chains? Had she felt any less certain of the end as it loomed ever nearer, a shade upon her future? She had smiled then, as she smiled now.
'When your sad...' Her brother had said, 'Smile.'
'When your scared...' he'd told her, 'Pretend to be brave.'
She'd spent years smiling, years pretending. It'd never made her any happier, never made what was happening any less frightening. It had been a mask that might mold her as she grew, but she was done growing, and had been for most of her life. In the end, it had done what all masks did. It had hid her away. Away from her friends and her family. It had hid from them the desiccated husk that she had become. Hid it all, the pain, the frustration, the anger, the fear...

Where had that mask gone, and what had become of that withering remnant beneath? Was she not that girl still? That sad, scared, angry little girl, wondering at a world that wasn't fair? Was she still in pain?
She supposed she was, supposed she'd always be that sad girl, that angry girl, that scared girl, but, just then, she was fighting back. Not with masks and fake smiles and even faker laughter, but something else.
She was scared, how not when a monster is trying to kill you? She was angry, how not when you're fighting for your life? She was sad, sad that she wasn't stronger, sad that it had taken this long to feel happy again. But she was happy too, and for what seemed like the first time in years, because, for once, her problems had a face, and it was not her own.

Staggering, feet as iron weights at the end of leaden rods, Aegle grinned at her problem, and laughed joyously at it. A problem she could punch, and punch, and punch at. A problem which, though it would soon kill her, was smart enough to be angry at her refusal to die. A problem which she had made her own, which she had accepted in some unspoken bargain, which she had even asked for.
"I am the huntress!" She chortled at the screeching boarbatusk, "You are my prey. How's it feel, aye? T'get beat up by some..."
Jab.
"Sad..."
Hook.
"Angry..."
Cross.
"Scared..."
Jab, hook, haymaker!
"Crazy, crooked cripple?!"
From how the boarbatusk squealed, Aegle thought it must have been quite infuriating indeed. Was this what she'd wanted? Was this why she'd come to Haven? Was this what all that time, and effort, and pain had been for? Was this feeling of control, this feeling of being in control, of being in control of her life... Was it what she had been after? It hardly seemed to matter anymore; It only felt good. It felt so very good.

The grimm pawed the earth with one bladed foot, and Aegle shone it a searing smile as broad as her head. As it lunged at her, raking up with its tusks, she faded back and crouched beneath, and all the while soaked in the rush, the power, the control. Her rush, her power, her control. She would make this last as long as she could. Until the grimm had worn her down to nothing. She would ride this feeling to the end of her strength, and lay down smiling at the end.
Something flashed over her head, cracking the boarbatusk hard across it's upraised snout. The beast let out a surprised, shrill snuffle, which hitched up into an agonized shriek not a moment later, as the whole of its weight came plunging down on a wooden spike as thick as Aegle's arm.

She watched in dumb amazement as Alexandros, on the other end of the pike, drove it deeper with all his strength, even lifting the flailing grimm with the force of the thrust. The boarbatusk's squeal hitched up another octave, hideously human sounding, as it pitched onto its back with the spike forced all the way through it. It kicked and thrashed, moving back and forth, but there was no escaping the branch that had run it through. Alexandros, panting and bloody, stood over the beast then. Aegle never saw him draw his gun, it just seemed to appear in his hand. Two shots followed, the last loudest of all, and the eerily human scream was cut abruptly short. The stick, upright in the grimm's stomach, wobbled still for just a moment, then started to sag. A faint breeze was kicking up around them, a breath of cool mountain air. It brushed over Aegle's sweat and blood, rustling the tall grass which stood all around her an Alexandros, and whisked away the monster they had fought.

At last, the stick fell and, with it, Alexandros dropped to his knees in the grass. Aegle watched, stricken and silent, hands still balled into fists trembling at her sides. Then, together, they watched the last of the boarbatusk melt away, until nothing remained but a stained stick and the flattened grass where it had laid. Slowly, Aegle closed her eyes. She swayed slightly, as if to a song only she could here. There was a throbbing in her head, a roaring in her ears, and the taste of blood was on her tongue. She hurt everywhere, from the tips of her bashed fingers to the soles of her weary feet. Her hoodie was more tatter than cloth now, and red was starting to soak through the orange fabric. It was a moment before she could even make her fist unfurl, though they were clenched so tight that the effort of it was making her forearms burn.
'What just happened?' Aegle wondered, breathing despite the burning in her lungs and the pain in her chest, despite the slashes searing fire that crossed her ribs and her stomach and her sides. She tried to comprehend her own feelings in those penultimate moments, the happiness, the completeness. She tried to understand her thoughts. She'd fought a boarbatusk, a grimm she had no business fighting, with nothing but her bare hands. Had she been expecting to die? Had she wanted to? Absurdly, she thought back to her thoughts at the very beginning of that day, of how lives were so often lost in the trials which trainees were put through. Just as absurd, she thought of her family, her parents and brothers. She thought of Aaron, who'd never talked about his trial, and Vulcan, who'd left the army not long after his. If she really had died just now, what might they have thought? She heard Doc's voice, talking about those she'd leave behind, and she thought of Carmim.
'What just happened,' Aegle thought, 'I nearly died, and it was the happiest I've been in eight years.'
That was funny. Hilarious even. Pity she was all done laughing. The fight was over, after all.

The sound of movement made Aegle open her eyes. Alexandros, still on his knees, was looking at her. He smiled then, with seemingly monumental effort, got slowly back to his feet. He looked to the sky, as though he could see something up there among the clouds.
'What is he looking at?' Aegle wondered, following Alexandros' gaze. She searched the clouds for something, but did not know what and, in the end, found nothing for her. Instead, Aegle looked to the huntsman beside her, at the smile still upon his lips.
"I owe you one." He said, after a time.
Aegle blinked. Then, after a moment, she nodded her head and looked back to the sky. Together, they had beat the boarbatusk. She never could have killed it on her own and, even with her help, it had taken all of his aura for him to kill it for it. They'd saved each other; Aegle, by throwing herself into a fight she couldn't win, and Alexandros, by fighting on till the end of his strength. If she hadn't happened along though...
'I owe you one.' So much meaning packed into four simple words...

Half-stumbling over her own leaden feet, Aegle fell against Alexandros and clutched herself tightly to his side. She wasn't made for hugs, crooked as she was, and so only rested there for a moment, her head tucked in against his shoulder. She didn't want him to feel the thinness, the boniness, and how misshapen those bones were, but she was also suddenly, incredibly relieved. Aegle pulled away just as suddenly, to stand half a stride apart from the black haired brawler.
"Don't mention it." She said quietly, smiling up at him, before she turned and limped back up the hill, to where she'd dropped her pack.

---

words - 1,626
total - 5,636

[Wolfe]

XP Distribution:

Aegle: 56 x 200% (event bonus) = 112

329 + 112 = 441 XP new total

Alexandros: 47 x 200% (event bonus) = 94

42 + 94 = 136 XP new total