Silver Rose

Chapter XIII - This Is Not A Drill

Lilly was the first to the scene. There must have been a dozen civilians cornered by a group of Grimm. Without hesitation, she dashed forward, yelling as she slashed at a Creep before projecting a wall of ice between some attacking Beowolves and the civilians.

"Is everyone all right?" Lilly asked the group, which responded with whimpers and frightened looks.

"Is anyone injured?" Leon said as he arrived, Vermillion Crescent fully deployed in scythe mode.

"We have two," a young man said. "My grandfather and a guy who was protecting his family.

"I've got you, sir," Yuan said, shouldering the other injured man and projecting his aura to boost his healing capacity.

"M-My family," the man said.

"They're right here."

"More Grimm!" Ingrid said as she and Lilly engaged the attackers.

"Yuan! Leon! Stay with the civilians!" Lilly shouted.

The two boys looked at each other with a grin. "Yes, ma'am!" they both said at the same time.

The first thing Lilly did was project lightning blasts with Myrtenaster, upon which Ingrid broke Shadow Blitz into its two bladed halves before reattaching them end to end, creating a double-ended spear. She and Lilly fought side by side, decimating the group of Grimm before standing back to back to face off with the remaining monsters.

"Lilly," Ingrid said. "We can't hold them off forever."

"Right," she said. "The people are terrified, which will attract even more Grimm."

"Yeah. What should we do?"

"I can't get a hold of the school," Yuan said, retrying his scroll. "We might be too far from the nearest tower."

"Or something's jamming our signal," Leon said. "My scroll's no good either."

Lilly pondered the situation for a moment. How could she use her team? Yuan was quick, but not as quick as Ingrid, although she was still slower than that Semblance Leon had shown her on Monday. She hadn't asked him what it was, which she probably should have done as the team's leader, but from what she remembered, it had something to do with extremely rapid speeds.

"Leon!" she yelled as she and Ingrid engaged the attacking Grimm.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Your Semblance is, uh, that rose petal thing you do, right?"

"What about it?"

"We need to get the people out of here, but it's more important for us to get backup or we might all get swarmed by the Grimm. I think you're the fastest one here. What's your Semblance, anyway?"

"I can teleport short distances."

Right. That was exactly what had happened when he saved her on Monday. He had instantly arrived at her location before slicing the attacking Grimm in half.

"How far?" she asked.

"Max of twenty-five yards."

"How frequent?"

"Uh, I never really pushed it, but as far as I know, I can do it as fast as I want, but it drains the crap out of my aura."

"Can you pace yourself?"

"I can try."

"Okay, you remember where the Huntsman outpost is, right?"

"Just south of here."