HNTD

Chapter 41: Drake

Chapter 41: Drake

“How many are left?” Night questioned as he glanced back at Hunter. The leader of HNTD pulled out Death’s Silhouette from the small bobcat-like Grimm’s skull as he answered, “They’re all dead”. Diana watched as the Grimm’s bodies started to fade away into thin air, like Grimm always did once they were killed. “These creatures are called “Feral Seekers”. They won’t pose that much of a problem” Diana explained. As far as to how Diana knew what these Grimm were, especially since Mount Harz Dread, their native land, was so far away from anywhere Diana could have possibly been in her whole life. Although Team HNTD was curious, they did not want to go talking to Diana to find out how she knows all of this.

“I ought to slaughter you like I did these little bastards!” Diana scuffed as she passed by Hunter. Hunter’s orange eyes glared at Diana as he took hostile step towards her. Dust quickly stepped in front of Hunter and pushed him back, “Now is not the time!” Dust shouted. Hunter paused and calmed himself down as he scanned the surrounding area. “Good god... it all looks the same, even at this height” Thalia exclaimed for the top of a large tree. She had been observing the surrounding area using her sniper rifle, but other than the gigantic Stone Mountain, this was a nothing more than a snow covered wasteland.

“I wonder if something awaits us within that Mountain” Ramona questioned out loud, although she was primarily talking to Alice, who was twitching next to her. “Don’t be stupid” Night replied, “If there was something in the mountain either the Military would’ve found it, or Beacon would have”. Ramona turned her head away from Night and brushed her hair in his direction, as a way to taunt him. Thalia dropped down from the large tree and then stood next to Night,

“I haven’t been able to see any of the other teams, or too many Grimm for that matter. However near the north side of the cave there is a large population of what looks like Beowolves and possibly Ursa” Thalia explained as she placed her sniper rifle over her shoulder. “By all means, have fun checkin’ that out! However my team and I will head east” Diana exclaimed with a hint of frustration in her voice, “Frankly my tracking is far superior to your simplistic observations-“

Diana stopped herself from speaking as a quiet hiss slithered into the air. She looked over at Hunter and noticed his finger placed gently over the trigger that set of the flamethrowers. Diana paused and waited for Hunter to lower his weapons before saying, “Message me on my Scroll when you’re ready to re-group”. Diana, Ramona and Alice began to head east, that is until Alice turned around and noticed that the final member of DARC was not moving with them. “Celeste, come here!” Alice ordered. The black haired woman blinked at the force of Alice’s firm order and took cover behind Night. The blacksmith glared at the other three girls as he stood his ground,

“She’ll be coming with us” Night confirmed. Diana clenched her fists and stormed off towards the east side of Mount Harz Dread. Ramona shortly followed and Alice followed the two after staring at Celeste in disbelief. “T-thank you, Night” Celeste whispered as she took two steps back away from him. “Come on, let’s go” Dust suggested, as Hunter was already far ahead of all of them. Night and Dust soon caught up with Hunter, while Thalia and Celeste stayed in the back of the group. Thalia would glance over at Celeste every ten to thirty seconds to see what she was doing, but all the shy girl did was look down at her boots and walk forward. Despite how important this mission was, it was not enough to rid Thalia of her jealousy.

“General Ironwood, sir! You may want to look at this” A soldier shouted towards the General across the room. Ironwood walked towards the soldier as he sat at his desk, observing the surveillance cams. Years ago Ironwood had programmed Drones that would hover over various locations to keep an eye on any possible hostiles. The room which had soldiers and various workers watch the cams was large and in a circular shape. Once Ironwood approached the soldier’s desk, the man pulled up a screen shot of an image taken from Mount Harz Dread.

“As you know sir, Beacon as sent their first year students here for a mission... however” the soldier explained. He then zoomed into the image and outlined the thing he wanted Ironwood to see, “We’ve picked up these three heat signatures from unknown people. The disturbing thing is the fourth heat signature, which from what we can tell is a cold blooded-person of some kind” Ironwood paused and scanned the image carefully,

“And what about these black shapes here?” Ironwood asked as he pointed at the roughly five to six larger figures on screen. “That’s the worst part sir, these are scans of Grimm!” The soldier exclaimed. Suddenly the situation at hand made sense to the General. “How was it that these four targets could be with Grimm without being attacked?!” he thought. “Send out the combat drones and a few of our mechs. I want to find these four and bring them back here for interrogation! If need be, fight them; but I want at least the cold-blooded one alive” Ironwood ordered. Once Ironwood left to order the rest of the base to release the drones, the soldier went back to the video cam. Suddenly the cold-blooded figure, along with the five to six Grimm began to move at rapid speeds towards the North of the mountain.

Hunter crouched down behind a large tree as he scanned the area. There was about twenty Beowolves and seventeen Ursa. He looked up at Night, who was perched in a tree. The two nodded at each other and then Hunter charged towards the Grimm. As Hunter charged at the Grimm, Night sent a fury of chains at the Grimm was chains wrapped around a few of their necks. Without warning a lizard-tailed Faunus busted out from the trees, two tonfas in hand and slashed the necks of the captured Grimm and then landed into an Ursa. The Faunus stabbed into the large Bear and then stood up, glaring at Hunter as he came to a halt. Thalia prepared her sniper rifle as Dust also rushed in to fight the mysterious new foe, but the two were then immediately attack by a pack of Feral Seekers. However these Feral Seekers had bright green eyes rather than orange.

The corpses of the dead Grimm suddenly rose from the snow covered ground as their eyes changed to green, the same colour as the lizard Faunus’ eyes. Celeste grabbed her two Desert Eagles and helped Dust and Thalia kill the Feral Seekers. “Well well well..” The lizard-like Faunus uttered as his Grimm attacked the five students, “It appears we aren’t alone”. One of Hunter’s clones suddenly rushed at the man and slashed at him viciously. Each slash was blocked by an equally brutal slash from the man’s tonfas. The two staff-like blades then moved back and became two flamethrower barrels as they set the clone on fire. Without notice, another Hunter clone appeared out of the shadow and grabbed the man by the neck. Hunter grinned as he watched his new “Shadow Clones” do their job correctly. The man burnt the shadow clone alive and then used the same flames to launch himself away into the air.

Hunter looked up and quickly lost the location of the mysterious lizard-tailed Faunus. “What was that?!” Dust yelled in confusion. Thalia lowered her rifle and approached the dead Grimm bodies. Suddenly the bodies disappeared like they usually did, but instead there was a hint of green dust along with the black dust. “We’re not alone” Thalia explained as she analyzed the bodies before they disappeared.

They weren’t alone, but little did they know; more was on its way.