The first Grimm to attack was another Boarbatusk, slightly smaller than the one that had attacked the temple. It spun directly towards the temple, but was easily taken out by Schatten, who tackled it and cut its neck into neat sections with his claws.
The head had barely hit the ground when a massive Ursa lumbered towards the group. Lunare faced it and pulled out a long rectangular from his trench coat. He depressed a trigger and it folded out to a staff with blades protruding from the sides near the ends. Spinning it in his hand, he ducked under the first swing of the Ursa's massive paw and slashed into the Grimm's side, while at the same time unfolding a pistol grip, unleashing a hail of gunfire into the Ursa. The Grimm roared and backed away, but Lunare, holding the staff underneath his arm, let loose another hail of gunfire, before breaking the staff apart at the middle and dropping a belt of ammunition down the hollow tube inside. By then, the Ursa had regained its courage and was lumbering towards Lunare once more. Lunare pushed his glasses up and, rammed one of the business ends through the jaw of the Ursa. Somehow still alive, the bear tried to continue forward, but Lunare planted the other blade into the earth as support, and fired the fresh belt into the skull of the Ursa, finally ending it.
As Lunare pulled his staff out of the twitching corpse of the Ursa, the rest of the horde attacked, forcing other students to fight in groups, or as individuals to combat the threat. Tiberius, who until that point had been hanging behind the rest, sighed and fixed his dress tie while pulling a massive white chakram from his back. As a King Taijitu launched itself at him, he split the chakram into two width-wise and threw both of them at the black head. They severed the head in one fluid motion and spun off into the forest. Tiberius reached out a hand and the chakrams swerved back to their owner, but not before cutting down the other head along with a few smaller Grimm in the way.
Realizing a direct approach wouldn't work, several Grimm broke off from the fighting and began circling around the ruins, looking for a way in. Lunare noticed this and, pushing up his glasses, called out "Ryler! Keep them from circling around!"
"You got it!" Ryler called back. He unslung what appeared to be a grenade launcher with a knife fused onto the rear from his back and fired shells towards the Grimm. The landed midst the Grimm and exploded, spewing out a green noxious smoke that caused the Grimm to rear back and paw at in an attempt to get rid of it. Having incapacitated them for a moment, Ryler reached into his jacket and withdrew a seed pouch. He scuffed a quick hole in the ground with his shoe and buried the pouch and covered it up. He pressed down hard with both hands and vines sprung from the ground. They raced towards the clouds of green gas and began growing at an insane rate. Within mere moments, the Grimm had been cut off by a shifting wall of vines.
Tiberius sniffed the air and dry heaved at the smell. "Dear Lord, what did you put in those things?"
"Fertilizer!" Ryler exclaimed proudly. "It's my own special blend. I made it for quickly growing plants from seeds."
"Ryler was explaining their function to me as we ran here." Lunare explained. "If what he says is true, those Grimm will find it rather hard to get through."
As if to mock this bold claim, the vines began to immediately wither and die. Beyond their dying husks, the eyes of even more Grimm stared out at them with a hungry glow.
"Or the vines could react negatively to the fertilizer, causing their systems to shut down," Lunare retracted.
"No, it's even worse," Ryler said, tears streaking down his face. "The seeds expired on my watch!" he cried out in anguish.
Schatten rolled his eyes and stood guard over the distraught gardener, baring his teeth and growling at any Grimm that dared to come near.
Daniel tried to get out of the ruins to fight, but was restrained by Nick. "Nothin' you can do in your state that they can't do." Nick said calmly. "Best to let us do the fightin' now."
Daniel shrugged the restraining hand from his shoulder and pulled out his pistol. He stepped over the ruined wall and walked directly past Dakota, who was crouched. "Don't think I'm going to be part of your group" he muttered as he walked past. As he neared the Grimm line, he steadily increased his pace until he was at a full sprint towards the largest looking Ursa of the bunch. Once again, the creature did not attack him. A reason for this behavior was forming in Daniel's mind, but he pushed it aside. Right now, he needed his full concentration on the situation at hand.
He clambered to the top of the Ursa and balanced himself as the surprised creature tried to shake him off. He steadied his hand and began taking potshots at the other Grimm. They sparked off bony white armor or caused minor wounds for the most part, but got the other Grimm's attention. They began turning from the human prey and began advancing on the massive Ursa. Seeing them advance, Daniel slid off the Ursa and scrambled to the side as they began fighting the Ursa. In doing so, they landed hits on each other as well. In mere moments, the vast majority of the Grimm were fighting each other.
Lewis whooped and raced out of the ruins and wrapped Daniel in a bear hug. "Dude! I like, totally knew you were going to do that!"
"Impressive," Lunare commented, pushing his glasses up. "Using the Grimm's natural urges to assert their dominance of a certain territory to create a brawl of unprecedented scale was, innovative."
"Yeah, that's great. Can you please get Lewis to let go now?" Daniel asked, his ribs noticeably groaning under Lewis' surprisingly strong embrace."
As Lunare tried to pry Lewis off of Daniel, Schatten called over to them. "That's all very said and good, but we're not out of the creek yet" he said, pointing towards the Grimm.
Daniel followed his finger to see that he was right. While many of the Grimm were either dead or fighting to the death, at least half a dozen remained. And all of them were massive, giving Daniel a clue as to their age, and there for their cunning.
Dakota sighed and unslung his chain from his arm. He reached into the pouch set on his belt and Daniel could hear the faint sounds of vials clinking together. There was a breaking sound, and Dakota groaned and bent over, falling to one knee. Sensing a weakness, the Grimm howled and charged towards the crouching figure. At the last moment, Dakota unsteadily got to his feet and lashed out with the chain. As it sailed through the air, it glowed red hot and left a fiery trail through the air. In one clean sweep, he bisected a Beowulf lengthwise and spun it around to cut the tail of a Death Stalker off. The tail fell and lodged the stinger into the Death Stalker's head, killing it instantly.
As the Death Stalker collapsed to the ground, a pair of Nevermore dive bombed him throwing feather-spear as they fell. He reached into the pouch and broke something else. His knees buckled, but he managed to stay upright this time and spin the chain around. Icy air blasted from the chains and froze the feathers solid whereupon contact with the ground or chain, they shattered into thousands of tiny crystals. The Nevermores themselves struggled to remain stable as frost coated their wings. They spun off course and crashed next to Dakota, who dispatched them both with his pipe. The remaining two Beowulves charged but were stopped by Ryler and his grenades. This time, the grenades released a light pink gas that caused the Grimm to stumble and sway. Ryler threw down more seeds which grew up in a massive wave with Ryler on the top. As the vines withered and died, Ryler fell towards the Beowulves, the knife end of his grenade launcher pointed towards them. They didn't stand a chance.
Rewinding his chain, Dakota turned and made his way towards the temple, limping slightly as he went. Not wanting him Dakota to beat him there, Daniel past him and reached it first. Inside, several pedestals stood while a handful had toppled when the Boarbatusk had crashed through. Scattered on the pedestals and on the ground were gold and silver weapons. Daniel spied a gold dagger lying in the rubble and moved the stone blocks out of the way so he could get to it. Grabbing it, he sidestepped out of the way as Lewis scrambled in and excitedly pulled a matching silver dagger off of a pedestal. Daniel watched as the rest of the groups filed in and took weapons off of the pedestals, or scrounged around in the rubble for any that may've been buried. Eventually, the only ones left in the temple were Daniel and Dakota.
"Looks like you lose gangster," Daniel called over his shoulder as he walked past him. "Enjoy coming back next year."
"Do you really think that this stupid plan of yours is going to work?" Dakota asked. "Like it or not, Professor Ozpin will see us as partners and group us together."
"Or I can just go at it solo," Daniel replied. "It's not like I haven't done that before."
"And all it did for you was get you knocked out," Dakota argued. "And I'm really starting to get annoyed that you keep bringing up that I was in a gang. I'm telling you I've left that behind me, and I'd appreciate it if you did so as well."
Daniel stepped over a rubble pile and sidestepped a Boarbatusk's decomposing corpse. "Doubtful." He called out over his shoulder. He strode across the ruins and back into the woods, pausing only to note with some curiosity that despite no one besides him getting injured, here and there he could find droplets of bright red blood in the grass.
The trek back to the cliff where the Professors waited was a jovial one with brief pauses in the cheer when an occasional Grimm would decide to attack. Students walked for the most part with their pairs but occasionally split off to chat with someone from another group. They walked through the forest for about an hour before finally arriving at a clearing where Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch were waiting in front of a set of stairs that zig-zagged up the cliff face.
Professor Ozpin gave each pair a brief nod as they passed him and began climbing up the stairs. Eventually, the only people left were Daniel, Dakota, Lewis, and Nick.
"Daniel Grigio," Ozpin began, "In all my time as headmaster at Beacon, I have never seen someone so vehemently opposed to joining a team with fellow students."
"It's not that I don't want to be in a team sir," Daniel said. "It's that I don't want to be with him." He gestured behind him in the general direction of Dakota.
"And why exactly is that?" Ozpin asked.
"Well for starters-"
"Sir, he and I had a disagreement about a week before coming to Beacon." Dakota answered, cutting Daniel off. "He got into a situation that I felt he was handling incorrectly and so I was forced to take measures against him."
"You hit me on the head, and the thugs you were with stole my stuff!" Daniel shot back angrily.
"Indeed," Ozpin said, sipping from his mug. "Well, I regret to inform you that you will not be allowed out of the forest until your team has recovered a relic."
"But I have recovered a relic. It's right here!" Daniel protested, showing the golden dagger he had retrieved.
"You have retrieved a relic, but your team has not." Ozpin replied, a firmness creeping into his voice. "As Huntsman and Huntresses, we must be able and willing to work together at any time with anyone. One Huntsman might be able to destroy a hundred Grimm, but a hundred Grimm can destroy a Huntsman." He turned and started walking up the stairs before turning back and looking at Lewis and Nick. "Could I trust you two to keep them safe?" He called out.
Lewis sprung to attention and saluted Ozpin. "We will totally protect them from all harm sir." Nick merely nodded and touched two fingers to the brim of his hat before sitting down on a nearby boulder and pulling out his revolver to clean it.
Professor Goodwitch looked at the four. "It would be prudent for you to make a team before nighttime" she said. "The Grimm become more active at night."
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