Grimmhold, Ch. 4: Of Man and Grimm

Chapter 04:
Of Man and Grimm

“Greave, try to salvage the drive if you can!” Sophia barked, tossing her flash drive over to him before backing out of the space between the servers. The still-shocked gray-clad man just stared at the device between his fingers as she vanished behind the tower, before turning over to the shredded metal mass that was once the main console.
“Well...I'm definitely not using that.” The wild-haired mercenary then whirled back around and sprinted towards the nearest computer screen, intent on breaking down its original programming and turning it into his personal firewall scalpel. “So, what is it that you do?” He said to himself, typing his way through its entry way menus and being met with simplistic data entry algorithms. “Data entry. Heh, this will be cake.”
While Greave tapped away on the keyboard and whispered sweet nothings to himself, Sophia was on the chase for her attacker, following his shadowy form as he rushed across the roof of servers. Lashing both of her weapons in front of her, she tore into the ceiling with a shower of bullets, coating the silhouette in a layer of loud, blinding sparks. In the small lull between shootings the horned man pulled his shotgun and fired three slugs, forcing the mercenary to tumble back behind the wall and let the tiled floor shatter under the blow. He then continued on his path, leaping from the platform once he reached the edge of the room and plunging his heel into the door-bar before him. Had its hinges not been made of steel the door would have tore from the frame and crashed into the floor, instead of smashing into the wall adjacent to it like it did. Sophia reached over and clicked the panel off to her communicator, tapping on the many digital faces of her comrades before bringing her finger to her ear.
“Everybody, converge on the center hallway, we've found the console but there's someone in with us. He just downloaded the data and is running off!”
Anarch and Mary both straightened up and began to rush towards the end of the hallway they were in, rather than backtracking like Canus and Fawkes did. Leaving a surprised Memento behind, the twins bolted back to where they came and thrashed into the main console room, splitting up between the fork and zeroing in on the shooter from both sides. Fawkes, taking the right, rushed up on the figure's flank and raised his large speared gauntlet, drilling it into first of the line of servers. The sheer force of the blow imploded the initial device, before spiraling out to his all of the others like a domino effect. Soon the hub's roof that the man was standing on was snatched out from under him, causing him to stumble and his attention to wane from his aim to his balance. It was then that Canus launched from the small space on the left, gyrating his body into a spiral and torpedoing himself into the shadowed person. With a pained grunt the horned man tumbled from the roof onto the floor, the force of the strike caused more of the severs to crush in on themselves. His back lapped up against the ground as he fell, before thrusting all of his weight back so he could touch his hands and knees to the floor. He then pushed away, pouncing upward through the exit door behind the server wall.
“CATCH THE PERP!” Fawkes yelled in a rowdy voice as he scurried down from what was once the roof of the server. The man in black rushed up to his feet and thrust his gaze up to the path before him, only to see the tall, calm Memento standing at its end. The aged mercenary proceeded to take a knee and hold his staff in a fashion similar to a rifleman, then the staff began to dislocate and grow in between his fingers. A stock, a grip, a trigger, and a sight all sprouted from the bulkier parts of his weapon, reforming itself into a sleek, black long-rifle. The black-armored man focused on his enemy through his scope, and let his first bullet fly.
The round did not ride the air for long however, as it would meet its end when a long, red blade suddenly soared through the air and cut its body in two. As fast as it had arrived, the sword flashed away and shut itself back into its sheath, leaving the faraway sniper surprised. His shock was brittle however, as it withered quickly and he fired off two more shots. These two would join their sibling in dismemberment, falling to pieces at two swipes from the crimson sword before it hid back away in its case. The horned man had crossed a good distance as he killed each of Memento's shots, only a mere two yards away before the black-clad mercenary's sense lifted him from the ground onto his feet. A click of the switch returned the rifle to its base form, and the neck slash of the sword was barred up against a solid-as-steel pole. Memento's parry caught his opponent's weapon in the space between his arm and his stave, and quickly tired to shut the opening between them in hopes of locking the blade in his favorable grasp. His enemy was quick however, a wave of red  ripping back out and through the air, hungry for a place for the old man's flesh. The two would continue to match blows as the horned man's sword was kept only inches away by the strategic, well-placed moves of his opponent. The staff was impenetrable in his defense, long enough that its reach covered all spaces but light enough that its edges could turn and rush to any angle with lightning speed. The harsh ringing of beating metal would only be broken by the sudden bellowing of Anarch, who had just rounded the corner far off into the hallway. The twins having already crossed half the distance to reach the unknown assailant, the bear-faunus cried out to them.
“Fennicks! Spread away for the launcher!” The sound of their last name clued the twins in to what their comrade was preparing to do, and proceeded to split off into the sides of the corridor leaving a massive space between them. Anarch lurched his rifle up and clamped on the secondary trigger below the first, and a large cylindrical mass at the very tip between its blades suddenly tore away from the barrel. It knifed through the air and past the twins before both fighters sensed what was coming, but the Grimm-masked man would be the first to react. He kicked the mercenary below the knee and then hurled all of his weight behind his sword to toss him back into the wall, sliding on his heel to make a break down the hallway behind him. He didn't bother to look as the explosion burst out from the grenade, missing the fiery spectacle and Memento's quick covering of himself behind his cloak. The flames rolled off of his cape but the force through him into the wall across from him, leaving him uncooked but battered against the concrete. The twins ignored their comrade as the mission had taken over their perception, whirling through the smoke and debris as they chased after the figure with haste. Mary however, rushed over to her friend as he threw the cloak and dirt off his body and glanced up at her.
“Goddamn it.” He muttered, taking her hand and pulled himself back to his feet as Anarch and Sophia both arrived.
“Shit. Sorry Memento, I didn't see you.” He said still cradling his rifle.
“Are you okay?” Sophia asked, fluttering away all of the dust from his armor as checking the small gash that had lined itself across his brow.
“I'm fine, but whoever that is has some serious training in combat. He was cutting my bullets before they even came close.” The four looked down the hall for a second before radio static played in Sophia's ear.
“Commander?” It was Ebenaught.
“Yes, Greave?” She replied.
“The server's data is all gone. They must have used some sort of deletion software that kicked in after they downloaded the research. I'm going back out to the stairs to cut 'em perp off.” Greave's fingers left his ear and curled into a fist as he clapped his wrists together, a small spark flashing out from the impact. He marched through the doorway and saw the three faunus bolting towards him, and let his arms flow and legs slide in place as he took his a focused fighting stance. The horned man's arm flew out with his shotgun in hand, firing two shots to precede him in hopes of getting the wild-haired mercenary to dodge and throw off his focus. But Greave kept strong and thrashed his hands with gauntleted wrists out, practically slapping the slugs away with a loud, bright spark at each impact. The black and red shooter saw this and reacted by taking to air and spinning, a crimson wheel of blades dancing around as his foot cocked back for the real attack.
His heel crushed into Greave's hasty guard, and but he managed to hold the blow and keep his feet straight. The man had planned to use this block to catapult backward for a return, but he did not plan for the sudden sting of electricity to bite and infest its way into his body. Still however, he sprung off of the black-haired man's arms and found himself rocketed towards the suddenly unprepared Fennick brothers. A grin managed to claw its way out from the grunting pain of the shock, and the horned man let his spinning sword fly.
The red blade would be reddened even more as it coated itself in the blood of the two fox faunus. Canus's shoulder was now open above the collarbone, the red barely able to be made out when sprayed out again his armor. His brother however, was maledict with a thick, gaping line across the length of his throat, with thinner, livelier lines shooting out into the air as he bled. The two collapsed onto the ground, one grasping his wound and the other twitching from panic. The tickles of death slowly began to creep up his body and out his throat as a scarlet halo began to pool around his head.
The horned man glanced back slightly as he landed with a stumble, still sluggish from the effect of Greave's weapons, but he pushed himself up anyway and rose his soaked blade into the air. Thrusting it into the brittle floor beneath him he then turned his shotgun on its side and let it blast, the force causing him and his sword to spin and cut a crude circle through the wood and plastic. But before his slicing could reach its origin point, another roar played out from across the hall, and Anarch charged with his blade-rifle at the ready. The horned man rose his gun up and sent a slug straight for the red mercenary, only for it to be batted out of the adjacent window by a single swing of the bear-man's weapon. He then rose up into the air with only his left hand holding weapon, now changing and twisting with mechanical rummaging as it took on its second form: a massive great sword. The room itself could barely contain the blade, ripped through the ceiling as the man in crimson armor lashed himself up for a powerful strike, one that the masked man knew would cleave through any guard he could muster. So he rose his heel up and clamped it down into the ground, just as the massive fighter let his weapon fly.
The platform broke away and plummeted towards the floor below, a small office space full of cubicles that were flashed but then lost when dust and ash flew into the air. Sudden impact threw the man off his feet and into the small path between the cubicles, a more violent collapse of the ceiling came when Anarch's sword smashed into the ground. More of the ceiling spilled out and fell down to the next floor, dragging nearly all of the mercenary's down like a sinkhole breaking through a crowded street. Canus, Anarch, the closely following Mary, and the dying Fawkes all tumbled down into the well of dust and concrete, and the second part of the chain reaction began with the breaking of the floor they had just landed on. The supports closest to the window were the ones to give way, causing the ground to slant harshly and for all of the windows attached to break away and shatter against the weak, crumbling pillars. Anarch and Mary thought fast and pierced their weapons into the floor to stop their fall, but Canus kept falling down with a hand reached to his brother, who was only few feet away from tipping over and plummeting into the street below. The living brother sharpened his body to slide faster, and he managed to grab Fawkes' wrist before the majority of his body flew off the border, dangling against the side of the building like a hook on a rope.
Behind them all the horned man burst from the mound of debris, struggling to free himself from the clutches of heavy cement and splintering wood. Soon enough he tore out and scrambled to unlock the door before him, rushing out into the light once he did. Not far back clamored Mary and Anarch, using their blades to stab and climb up the slant before the cloak of their target could disappear behind the corner of the doorway. As the pair pursued him, Greave leapt onto the platform and gazed upon all of the destruction.
“Fuck me...” He spat out. But amongst the cackling fires and sound of harsh wind beating against the tower's opening, a loud bang shot out from behind the gray mercenary. He swung around to see a plain white door, not unlike all of the others they had seen. The sight was nothing extraordinary, but the noise that had just came from it kept Greave's eyes focused on it a little longer. Just as he squinted his eyes to focus in, the door shook violent with a second pound from behind it.
“Greave?!” The shouting of him name hooked the man's gaze upward to see Memento and Sophia, peeking over the corner two floors up. “Are you okay?” The commander spoke again as Greave waved out his arm in response.
“Yeah I'm fine! Canus is down here with me and Anarch and Mary are in pursuit of the perp!”
“Where's Fawkes?” The ivory-armored woman asked, but her request was muffled in Greave's thought as his eyes slowly widened and gears in his head began to turn. If Anarch and Mary were chasing after the horned man, Canus was holding onto his dying brother, and the other two members of his team were still up on the main server floor...what was pounding behind that door?
It's third attempt to burst out snapped him back to realty, and this time cracks were spidering out from the frame with a few small holes in certain spots. But something crept out to fill in these little open bits, and Greave's heart began to surge as a number of black, bone-nailed fingers began to slither out from these openings. The gray-clad man whipped himself back and ran to grab Canus, who resisted his grasp so as to hold onto his brother.
“Canus, we have to go right now.” He warned, only to be met with a violent push away.
“I have to get Fawkes up here with us.” The young faunus yelled, desperation beginning to creep its way down into his throat and heart. The two struggled and argued as Greave knew what he had to do to save them, the constant, near-rhythmic banging of the door causing an air of panic to set in.
“Canus, we have to go! Now! He's dead! Look!” The wild-haired man tried to point towards the thick, bloody cut across his dangling comrade's throat, but Canus still ignored him, attempting to pull up all his brother's dead weight with the one hand he had free. Greave growled and gave his final words, reaching his hand out to Canus' wrist and forcing his weapon to surge out into his fingers. “You have... to let him...GO!” The spark sliced away the grip the fox faunus had on his brother, letting gravity take and plummet him down into the brown ocean of vapor below. But there was no moment of silence as the two watched their teammate fall, as the door had finally given way and was smashed open by whatever was behind it. A distraught Canus in his arms, Greave looked up to the now open square of darkness.
Wrapped in a torn piece of white clothing that once was a lab-coat came the first of a legion of twitching, hissing creatures. Its body was a rotted black like that of a burned piece of wood, sharp bright spears of white bone shooting out from all across its unnaturally gangly arms and legs. The pants, vest and other pieces of a scientist's clothing did very little to hide the dark sight beneath, but at the crown of this unnatural entity lay a twisted, veined portrait of a human face, masked by more of the white shelling. Its eyes appeared to be bleeding as a vibrant aura of red pulsated from the two holds carved into its head, and Greave's jaw lay hanging in shock as this amalgamation of man and Grimm was followed by more of its kind.
Suddenly, a black pole appeared at the side of the mercenary's vision, and he followed it to see Memento lending his staff for the two to climb up out of that pit. Greave thought first to pull his friend in orange up over his shoulder, bringing him to the platform that Memento stood upon and pushing him upward so the black-clad elder could grab him. Sophia leapt down and wrapped her arms around the boy, pulling him up alongside them and then going back for her second comrade. As Canus' foot lurched behind the corner, Greave caught a flash of what was coming his way, the room having filled up with six more of these eerie creatures. They moved slow but not because they were forced to, as their heels were hunched and their backs curled ready to pounce the moment the gray man made any sort of sudden flinch. Slowly tiptoeing across the slant with the open air lightly lashing at his back, Greave let his gaze wander slightly over to Memento and began to whisper.
“Memento...I could use a good distraction right about now.” Repeating gunfire shredded through the hissing and growls of the creatures as Sophia leapt out from the platform's cover and fired off into the monstrous crowd.
A powerful shriek ripped into the air as the bone-laden animals leapt out and up after the noise and spark of her pistol, giving the man with feathery-hair enough time to hurl himself out the door that Anarch and the others had gone through previously. Not all of the creatures fell for the noise, as four of them broke off from their pack after him only to be replaced by four more from the blackness within the door. They clamored and gnashed up after the three mercenaries with a primal hunger, snapping their teeth and thrusting their claws out for any piece of flesh they could tear. Memento's staff pounded and barred itself into the jaws and bodies of many of these things, sending a few tumbling back into the ground and others flailing out into the air only to plunge into the street below. Sophia paused her stuffing the creatures with bullets to turn over and see the still distressed Canus, trying his hardest to wrangle his breathing and keep his heart from pounding out of his chest. She quickly slunk over to him and came close to his ear.
“Canus, we need to get back and meet up with Anarch and the others. We can't stay here, I need you to focus and help us get out of here.” Canus managed to shift his trembling eyes to his commander's, her sincerity and desperation able to break through his panic for a moment and get an understanding nod from him. He rose up and immediately thrust the spearing edge of his two weapons into a diagonal line against the mound beside them, making a makeshift pair of steps for which the two could use to climb up the wall faster than normal. Sophia tapped on Memento's shoulder for the switch,  burying more of her magazine's rounds into the brains and limbs of the great wave of Grimm. The black mercenary quickly hurried up the steps, followed by the faunus boy whose agility made it simple to scale the pillar and collect his weaponry at the same time.
“Sophia, now you!” The woman turned and sprinted back towards the wall, an opening that allowed the creatures to latch onto and pounce over the edge in pursuit of their meal. Thrusting her heel up onto the concrete wall the commander whipped her hand upward for Memento to grab onto. The grip was tight and her heels continued to scrape and push off of the stone, but the monsters below were as fast as any other sort of Grimm, quick to dig their claws and grasp into one of Sophia's armored legs.  She could feel them biting and chomping into the thick ivory armor, its space pinching and tightening around her feet but still intact and unbroken. It would not stay strong for long as she could feel the bolts twisting out of their sockets and the metal crimping and bending to the maw of her attack. She frantically reached around for her holster to collect her weapon and plant a bullet into the danger's brain, but their twisting and spinning in mid-air threw off her grip and she could feel more hunters clamoring up.
“Memento!” She shouted, hoping for some sort of assistance as she suddenly felt the wind able to brush past her exposed leg. One more bite and the commander would have a chunk of flesh torn out of her, and shock would set in to weaken her grip on her older comrade's hand. But from the right side of her vision leapt out a great, orange figure, accompanied by a vicious shout and a powerful kick to the cranium of her attacker. She looked back to catch Canus crashing his foot into the monster's cranium, the flailing, clawing mob of creatures warping and pulsating around him as they fell back from the force of his landing. He then began to dig his weapons into the necks and ribs of every beast he could manage, his once vibrant orange becoming inked and plastered with the ebony blood of Grimm. The pool of black only grow as soon enough, the legion of savages began to push and overwhelm the faunus, signaled by one of them wrapping its jaws around his weapon and lashing it from his grip out through the gaping hole. One desperate spear-gauntlet kept jabbing into the crowd, but they just kept sinking in and pushing him against the concrete wall.
Sophia's legs finally kicked her up and over the edge of the cliff, but immediately she whirled back in hopes of being able to do something for her rescuer. By the time she got to look down, Canus' exposed sections of his body were covered in bloody, horseshoe-shaped gashes, his yelling overpowered by the angry, ferocious noise of his devourers. The commander's arm instinctively lashed out over the cliff, but she was stopped by Memento, who latched onto and pushed her back against the wall behind them.
“Let me go!” She belted out, trying her hardest to push and pull away from her preventer, but Memento kept a firm grip and shook her violently in hopes of getting her focus.
“Sophie!” She stopped, eyes wide and glazed with potential tears as her friend lectured her hurriedly. “It's too late, we have to go or else we're going to be next.” Her teeth gritted against his words before she finally let her head lowered, rounded out by her heavy, angry breaths. She shoved the man in black away, immediately turning and clamoring up the wall of concrete and exposed steel, all the while the elderly mercenary walked back over to the edge. His staff lurched and grew out from underneath his cloak, its limbs and pieces bending and twisting back into its rifle form. Its barrel hooked onto the edge of stone with the scope initially leaning in on the grisly ocean of feasting white heads. However, it slowly wafted downward until a bright orange, fox-eared head dyed with blood was caught in the middle of his sights. The old man held his gun there, a small beat in between the panic as he contemplated what he was about to do. Sophia's cries for him to come with her had muffled away, as did the sporadic bellowing of the mob before him. His eyes clenched, but they didn't stay on the sight.
Looking away and gulping his reluctance down, Memento blew his friend's life away. The monsters still continued to eat, but at least the pain was gone.
~
Adam's lungs were drowning in what felt like acid, hoarse breaths heaving out as he fell back against one of the walls of the corners he had just rounded. Sliding down onto the floor he gave a small glance over the edge, his hand clenching the gash that had pierced into his shoulder when the roof collapsed on top of him. Blood that squeezed out from in between his fingers darkened his jacket further, and he winced as he moved to reload his shotgun. Using his wrist he knocked the empty clip out, reaching behind and pulling out a second, full one before pressing and locking it into the bottom of his rifle. Locking it between his knees he pulled the charging handle back hard, now ready for another fight. The timing couldn't be more perfect as he began to hear the crinkling of glass under heavy feet.
From the dark corner Anarch slid into the hallway, which sword having reverted back to rifle and hugged tight within his grasp. Behind him crept Mary, her glass blades shimmering orange and silver against the light of fire and smoke. The reflecting light danced through the doorway Adam was perched against, an amateur's mistake and a dead giveaway for how far away they stood. The twitching shine began to slowly beat, its growth played the rhythm of crunching glass as the two mercenaries carefully trekked forward.
Adam kept silent, his mind firm in its concentration and his hand firm on his sword's grip. Veins slithered from beneath his mask as he poured all of his will out into his hands, all in preparation for one, powerful slice. His fingers and knuckles brimmed with red as his aura began to seep out, the shriek of glass under boots getting louder and more deliberate. His hand then let his sword slowly emerge from its holding; the blade would have been cackling if not for the horned man's deep concentration. But even through the pounding of force that pulsed within his head, Adam could suddenly notice the loud trampling of dozens of feet. The rumbling had his two pursuers twist back around on the glass, also curious as to what was making the sound. Softer, fast glass breaks played out as one of them returned to the previous doorway to investigate. A loud yell was plunged into the air.
“Mary, RUN!” The raspy but panicked voice blared out from the walls behind Adam and Anarch, piquing the horned faunus' interest enough to peek at the risk of exposing his cover. Anarch's back was to him, and beyond the doorway he could see twisting shadows and hear the stampede that lay behind the corner. But footsteps were soon overpowered by more animalistic sounds: garbed, wet-sounding roars, the licking of wild tongues and rows of teeth beating against one another.
“What the hell are those!” He heard the woman shout as the trampling drummed louder and louder, urging Adam to slowly stand up and ready himself for whatever was going to pile itself through that doorway. His movement caused the bear-faunus' ears to twitch, and he slowly turned back to gaze upon the seemingly weakened target. His toothy grin returned as he armed his rifle upward and lurched its barrel in the bull-faunus' direction, shutting one eye and curling his metal-clad finger around the trigger.
“Hold still you little prick.” The red mercenary whispered. Mary and Greave flashed into the room suddenly behind the bear-man, redirecting his attention back to them and what was emerging from behind the two. A great mob of black-skinned, bone-covered creatures lashed and whipped after the two teammates, a biting, primal tornado that filled the hall and doorway as was beginning to spill into the room that Adam stood before. Everything in that room that was living was running straight towards him: the bear-faunus, the wild-haired man, the glass-wielding woman, and the storm of hunger that raged on behind them. There would not be a better time to let his power go...so he did.
Adam's sword curled out from its sheath with a harsh, strict movement, and the moment the red of the blade popped from the darkness behind it, lightning and energy surged and pulsed out from it in a torrential fashion. As more of the weapon came into being the light and power grew in size and violence, a crescent-like shape beginning to morph in from all of the aura that was being displaced. The edge of the cutting metal finally tipped out from its holding, and the Moonslice began to blast.
The sheer force of the blast ripped out into the steel and concrete with no effort, cutting through it like a molten knife through soft flesh. The following explosion burst out into the air with everything caught in the radius being thrashed out amongst the smoke. Raining out into the thick, gray veil the Grimm flailed and swung their limbs blindly, plummeting down into the street through the thick, red wisps of aura. Like blood the waves of Adam's energy seeped out from the gaping wound it had just blew open, and the sudden displacement caused the entire building to rumble unsettlingly.
Adam let a breath finally slither out as he felt down to his knee, dropping his sword. Looking down into the destruction he had just created, the faunus found no trace of the mercenaries left, hoping they had joined those strange creatures on the trip to having a smashed, flattened body. He panted and heaved himself up from his fallen stance, weakly clawing at his sword before sliding it back into its sheath. His hand then immediately went back to cupping the wound, lost in the dark blooming stain of blood that had been flowing out from it over the course of his actions. The bull-faunus then scuttled across the hallway in search of an elevator, or stairs, or some path that would let him out of this crumbling hellhole and back to where he had came from. He disappeared behind one of the shadowy corners, unaware of the predicament that he just tossed the three mercenaries into.
Anarch's sense had all been snatched by the sudden force of the blast, desperately trying to wade through the concussive ringing and make their way back from muffling distance. Sight soon bloomed out from the blackness as the bear-man came too, rising up from a blanket of rock and dust and stroking his head with his now-torn glove. Red of a different contrast painted his finger tips, a massive gash now struck across his face from temple to jaw. It was deep and the salty debris only strengthened its sting as his sense of pain returned, but his mind managed to tear attention away for him to search for his comrades. A pocket of concrete was bouncing across from the red-armored man, before a gray-clad hand tore through the brittle stone and clamored its way back up to the surface. Greave's hair was a tone lighter, filled with dust that sprinkled out at every little head movement he made. Through the veil of rocky mist, the gray man gazed up to the destruction above him, his eye flinching as dangling pieces of rock and metal lost their grip on their places and crashed either to the floor or out into the ear.
“Greave?” Anarch said to himself, before his eyes zipped tight with a sudden worry. “Huh? Where's Mary?” Pushing himself to a stand through the debris the man's head whirled in search of his partner. There were no other beating piles of rock and no sounds to follow, until them muffled pounding on glass wormed its way into both his pairs of ears. Turning westward he finally caught sight of her, flailing and stuck like a fly with its wings torn off. Trapped inside a great maw of concrete and steel, she clawed and pushed against the massive glass panel that had fallen between her and her comrades. The glass warped up against her hits but did not give way in any sort, still held strong by its four connecting beams at the sides, also trapped within tight, heavy pillars of broken, man-made stone.
Worry and relief both melded together on Anarch's face: relief that Mary was still alive, but worried as to the condition of the limbs held hostage underneath the rubble. However, relief would not stay in his brow for long; soon it cannibalized by his vexation as several black and white shapes emerged from behind the concrete pile before the glass. Like corpses from the grave many of these creatures burst forth from the rock that quilted them, still hungry for the nearest human flesh that they could find. It just so happened to lay a few feet away from them, helpless like a trapped animal bleeding from its clenched appendage. They began to close in, and Anarch then yelled something incomprehensible, rushing towards the massive clear panel and falling to his knees before his comrade.
Greave tried to stand and pay attention to the chaos, but the force of the blast had rocked his head in all of the worst ways. His vision was a dripping cloud of multiple colors, focusing and defocusing in an uncontrollable fashion, all while his ears warded away all other sound with its constant concussive ringing. He took two steps, paused, took two more steps, and then let his knee take the weight, stumbling down towards the floor with the building tearing itself apart around him. A great weight soon chained itself to his body, pulling his head slowly down onto the hard ground, which felt soft under these conditions...soft enough to rest upon.
His eyelids fluttered open and closed, possessed by some small glimmer of conscious to keep himself awake, but soon the black wave out set in from all corners of his sight. Like some strange blackened bullseye, he gazed on as a gnashing legion of black and bone closed in on some poor soul behind the class, just as the darkness closed in on his gaze.
The last thing Greave Ebenaught saw that day was the shimmer of glass being snatched away behind a veil of red. It was an strange abstract sight to his now numbed brain, played to the muffled tune of his good friend's despair.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Ozpin had a habit of keeping his typing bound to some sort of rhythm. It didn't matter what the subject was about or how urgently he needed to get the work done, it was always kept to some sort of inner melody that played out inside of his brain. Of course, an email to an Atlas correspondent on considering the actions that should be taken for Vacuo, would definitely be considered important material that needed to be carried out quickly. But nope, the professors hand and mind kept his finger's bending to the beat, at least until another sound came to knock it away.
Rumbling and loud yelling could be heard from behind the headmaster's main door, drowned by the metal and distance that was slowly becoming shorter and shorter. As it did the loud childish yells of two girls began to make themselves more obvious, and so the professor saved his work and let his monitor flutter down into the desk, before leaning back in his hair and hooking one foot over his knee in a relaxed, expectant position. The door opened.
The sisters Ruby and Yang, followed by a fair number of staff who had tired to stop them filled the space within the doorway. While the two girls were marching with a strong sense of urgency, the people behind them were waving their hands and planning their apologies.
“Mr. Ozpin I'm sorry, we tried to keep them in the lobby?!” He heard one of them say, the others crying out words that were more or less the exact same thing. The swift flutter of his hand silenced every single voice.
“Its alright.” He lay upon the wave of slightly panicky workers. “I'll take these two students in.” The door then shut behind the two girls at the press of a button on the professor's desk, the finger that pressed it retracting to join the others in Ozpin's trademark interlocking.
“So...Ruby, Yang...to what do I owe the pleasure?” Before he could even finish his sentence, Ozpin found an open scroll thrusted right against his gaze, almost topping over his spectacles.
“Professor have you seen this?” The man brushed away a small bang of gray hair to clear his sight, focusing in on the image before him. The familiar vision gave a slight strain to his mind, but his face kept a strong, calm look, even through the rising from his chair and the grabbing of his cane. The two girls stared on as their headmaster lurched towards them, his eyes halved away by his tired-looking lids as he began to speak.
“Yes, Ms. Xiao Long. I've been made aware of the situation down in Vacuo, and of how difficult its becoming to fully salvage it once the fire's have been cleared. I understand why your team is concerned and that you often are more “involved” in outside work than the rest of our students. But this is something that you mustn't worry yourselves with, our huntsman and huntresses along with General Ironwood's forces are collaborating towards a solution to this...Grimm problem.”
“But professor...” The man's eyes jumped over to Ruby. “The video that we had gotten that shot from...it was deleted and removed from the Vale News website a few minutes after I had taken the picture...” Ozpin hated lying with a true passion, whether it be from himself or some other person. The idea of dishonesty was something he viewed as worthless and ultimately damaging, but in this case, it may have been needed. He could not have the recklessness of Team RWBY's members muddled into this kind of situation.
“We had to pull it off. If the people get wind that Vacuo is overrun with Grimm, people start to panic, mass hysteria is let loose, and everything falls to chaos. The situation is contained so there is no reason for the citizens of the other kingdoms to be worried.”
The annoying yelping of Ozpin's intercom phone broke through the calmness of the headmaster's words, and he quickly maneuvered back to his desk and pointed his finger into a bright green button on one of the consoles on his desk.
“Yes?” He spat, his voice tight and stern as he tried to avoid letting his annoyance spill out. A heavy, hurried breathing played from the other side of the call, before its owner gathered up enough sense to begin forming words.
“Ozpin, it's Ironwood.” The graying man's brow lurched upwards in inquiry.
“General? Is everything okay? Why are you breathing so-”
“It's lost Ozpin, Vacuo's lost. Their making their way across to Vale now. You have to alert the council as soon as possible!” The professor's eyes had zipped in at the panicked voice on the opposite end of the coms link. His mind began to stretch and link out in a hurry to process the words just said to him.
“Alert the council about what, James?” The sternness in his voice was as hard and cold as iron, seething with distress. It was a calm distress caused by a lack of knowledge, but still distress nonetheless.
“The Grimm are coming, out in droves, Ozpin. They've reached the borders of the city, hundreds of them. We need to lock down!”