Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction based on multiple existing anime/manga series. The characters and settings used in this story belong to their respective owners and creators, and no copyright infringement is intended. This story is purely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to infringe upon any existing intellectual property. I do not own any of the original works that inspired this fanfiction, and I fully support the original creators and their works.
I'm also exceedingly rarely chilling in JaxWolf4's (Author of Nah, I'd Adapt and Zenin Days) Discord Server. It's a chaotic lobotomy mess. Not for the faint of heart.
Here's the link:
Disc: HrPrTeam
The sparks of black are returning
-Story Start-
It was noon of the third day, as Alex and CFVY fell into a relatively comfortable routine with their shifts.
Well, minus Velvet, who was incredibly unsatisfied with her destroyed camera weapon, hard-light dust thing.
Periodic reports came in from the rather outdated walkie-talkie from their seniors, as well as the other Professional Huntsmen surveying and clearing the valley.
Today promised to be different since a resupply was en route to Vache, and his seniors should be returning with good news, Alex hoped.
His shift was coming to an end as he stood guard in front of the lower section of the hill. He watched with mild curiosity as the automatic feeders at the top of the hill cracked open, haybales rolling downwards from the top.
Landing with a soft thud, the distant cows had already run excitedly towards the food, having already been trained to know when it was time to feed.
"Sorry to drop this on ya again, Andrite! Can you make sure you don't hurt the cows if any Grimm rush in? The girls like ya anyway!" One of the farmers' shouts echoed across the hill, as per usual, his head peeking from one of the homes on the top of the hill.
You'd have to squint really hard to notice his tiny figure peeking through the window, but to Alex, he was visible enough.
In any case, the cows were fed once a day, and, of course, it fell during the time of Alex's shift.
Not that it bothered him - he always gets a neat reward after.
And the cows were very chill with him, for some odd reason.
One of the cows passed him by, with a curious look leveled on him as the audible stampede of cattle adhered to their famished instincts.
Alex nodded at the passing, inquisitive cow.
The cow nodded back.
'Odd but nice.' Alex confirmed with a dumb nod.
He lifted his head towards the hilly town, shouting his reply, "No problem!"
A few minutes later, a pack of young beowolves arrived - the number was getting less and less every day around here.
Without issue, Alex lowered his pace and eliminated them with minimized force, beheading all five; the only aftermath was the howling wind from his single movement.
He turned around and returned to his usual position, as he noted the cows resuming their feeding without a care, as usual.
He found it kind of fascinating.
'They're used to ignoring the Grimm.' He absentmindedly commented.
A voice called out to him, a familiar one. "Must be real nice being a cow, no Grimm troubles, just mindlessly grazing and living," Fox commented with barely concealed envy.
"If the price of intelligence is to be targeted by Grimm, I believe it is a worthy trade." Yatsuhashi calmly supplied his thoughts to his teammates.
Fox snickered, slapping the tall Yatsuhashi on the back, "It ain't that deep, bro."
Alex's head turned to be graced with the sight of the tidy and combat-ready Team of CFVY.
Nodding respectfully towards the approaching Team, Alex headed in their direction, planning on heading back to the town to relax.
His leisure pace was interrupted by Fox's amused tone, "Andrite! Hope you've cleaned up enough. I still need to beat Yatsuhashi in poker." He easily divulged his intentions of lazing around on his shift.
"You lack the skill, you won't triumph."
"Of course I suck! How can I read your faces when I can't see them?!"
"You think I got a head count of how many Grimm there are out here? Up to the Grimm, mate." Alex shrugged, giving a noncommittal answer to Fox's question.
"Come on," He approached, patting Alex on the shoulder as his other teammates lagged, "Help a poor disabled guy out..." His tone was faux helpless, but he couldn't hide the confidence and raw bullshit that left his lips.
"You're getting more unfunny by the minute." Alex retorted with an unimpressed deadpan.
"Wha-?" Fox turned to his partner and leader, flashing him a pitying look, "He's right... Without any humor, I fear you are a shell of an individual, a man without character, an existence without purpos-" You could scarcely make out the tears bubbling behind Coco's sunglasses.
Coco's sorrowful expression froze, as did the expressions of her teammates.
Alex immediately understood that there was something going on in that telepathic Semblance Fox was using to communicate, not that he had any interest in it.
But Velvet's shocked expression and Yatsuhashi's seething glare had clued Alex in that there was, in fact, very colorful language involved in the mental conversation.
Coco cheered up almost immediately, as Yatsuhashi nodded to some strange command and proceeded to lift Fox in a 'friendly chokehold'. "Well! Now I'm really itching to beat up some Grimm~" She grinned.
Blinking, Alex immediately filed that strange affair into the already packed folder of 'things to forget'.
"All yours." Alex gestured at himself, each word of his exhaled with mind-boggling amounts of aura as he passed them by, heading into the maintained road uphill.
Though that exceptionally massive aura seemed to fluctuate in a peculiar, inexplicable pattern.
"Are you... bragging?" Coco snickered with slight disbelief as he passed her by.
Pausing in his steps for a moment, Alex shot her a puzzled look over his shoulder, "What?"
Fox retorted, "No, Coco, he's just breathing... in a controlled manner?" He supplied with his acute hearing capabilities, though confounded himself.
Alex waved them off with a short explanation, "I was practicing controlling my aura better." With that said and considering it to be more than an adequate explanation, he continued his stroll without issue.
As he did so, Coco's distant voice after she processed the implications of his words reverberated, annoyingly so. "Aww, look at you being all considerate! You're climbing up the ranks to becoming my favorite junior at an impressive pace-"
Fox yelled, "YOU COULD JUST DISMISS YOUR SEMBLANCE!"
That one was immediately denied in Alex's psyche as he pressed forward.
Besides, this wasn't about ceasing the Grimm-bait he was exuding or anything of that nature.
...
The road was about a leisurely ten-minute uphill walk, and as he was met with one last gate, he pushed it open. Revealing the rural town.
Alex Andrite, both the current and former one, had never left the City of Vale, except for the odd school trip to secure areas just adjacent to the main city with at least two huntsmen hugging their wee-little group of trainees as they did all the dirty work.
So, in a way, it was a pretty novel sight for him - even when he had been here for three days.
It was a mixture of Old English Village architecture in contrast to the Victorian Era architecture that permeated Vale - in a way, it reminded him of his old home.
Nonetheless, the very thing that took him out of his immersion came with the mixture of technology that littered all of Remnant, be it Vale or otherwise.
Although the technological appliances were vastly fewer than your average street in Vale, there were outliers - Automatic feeders utilizing dust and advanced engineering took care of both the feeding, the milking, and luring the cows into the town. It was almost fully automatic, needing little to no maintenance from the farmer.
In a way, he found it odd that there even were any farmers; would it not be better that they simply pipe the produce somehow to Vale?
No Grimm to deal with or anything.
[Keyword is somehow, Master. Solutions don't just magically appear from thin air, you know?]
'Don't talk to me, and don't answer my random thoughts; it irritates me.'
Sighing, his head turned towards another marvel of technology, a rather silent Dust generator powered the electricity across the town, noting the undamaged part of that building, as it lay isolated from the rest of the town's infrastructure.
It was a curious thing - Infrastructure damage by Grimm is mostly collateral. They aren't smart enough to target any vital infrastructure and only do so when it is in the way of their path towards their prey - or so he was taught.
He wondered if there were outliers to this for but a moment, before dismissing the rare stray string of thoughts as he always had.
Even so, just by looking at this rural town, one could see the creativity of mankind as they seek to both survive and thrive against the existential threat all around them.
"Nice job, we really appreciate it." A gruff, respectful tone called out to Alex, forcing the latter to turn his head to be met with the bearded farmer, who appeared a smidgen older than his actual age, holding a glass of warm milk.
"Thanks, Eric." Alex grabbed the freebie and swallowed the whole bottle with a single gulp.
Eric snorted, commenting with mirth, "Never gets old seeing it." He shook his head good-naturedly, "You eat and drink like a man ten times your size. But I guess you Huntsmen eat like three men anyway."
Wiping his face with his sleeve, Alex handed out the empty bottle he had inhaled to Eric, "If it's any consolation, I'm trying to be considerate with how much I eat here."
Scratching his beard, as he took the bottle with his other free hand, Eric supplied, "Well, no need to be considerate now. The last shipment of supplies should be flying in, just hope it'll be enough to finish the job."
"Pretty optimistic if it's being considered last," Alex commented neutrally.
"Not too sure you're updated, but the situation's handled in surrounding areas - worst comes to worst, they'll send a whole armada to secure this place if you huntsmen can't take care of it by the time the supplies go empty."
Arching an eyebrow, Alex replied, "That sounds like way too much. I'll go and take care of it myself in that case."
Coffee out of a can wasn't all too bad, but the taste of luxury had done irreversible damage to Alex's animalistic cravings.
Eric frowned, complaining loudly, "Bah, whatever works, lad, I just want this to be over with. My pals are restless to get back home, they ain't getting any pay."
Alex hummed, inquiring with a tilted head, "I thought the Kingdom was paying the salaries of the evacuated, at least until the regions are reclaimed?"
Eric bellowed a laugh, "Hah! You think money just puffs out of thin air? The Kingdom ain't no Atlas or a Schnee, at best they get just enough to not starve to death! Nowhere near their salaries."
Huffing out of his nose, Alex gave his honest two cents, "As long as they don't starve." He said as he continued his stroll back to the temporary living quarters.
"Peh, I guess." Eric breathed out with a rather discouraged tone.
As Alex's steps grew more distant, Eric yelled back. "Andrite!"
Alex paused, looking over his shoulder as his eyes gravitated towards the middle-aged man, "You mind helping out when the shipments are here? We only got one forklift lying around, so we'd appreciate it if you use that Huntsman strength of yours. You'd have no issue lifting like a few hundred pounds with ease, yeah?"
"Yeah, no problem, just knock on the door when you need me," Alex responded easily enough, turning to continue to head into the small wooden home. A sorry-patched-up thing it was, even from a distance.
Eric's voice rumbled from afar, mentioning, "If the pilot's a slouch and it gets on your shift, I'll ask Yatsuhashi, that lad's big enough!"
"Okay!" Alex yelled back, his voice a note louder than his usual deadpan.
-----------------------------
"...You're a meanie, Alex." The disappointed voice of his Leader echoed across his small, stuffed wooden cabin, her pouting expression glaring at him through his scroll.
"Sure, I am." Although perplexed by the sudden accusation, he simply agreed with her to spare the effort.
To no avail.
"No! Not-" Her facial muscles relaxed, and her expression suddenly turned horribly dull and empty, mimicking Alex's tone. "Sure, I am." She then returned to her normal, disappointed self, "You're supposed to ask, 'Why am I meanie?'"
He relented, "Why am I meanie?"
"Am I REALLY supposed to spell it out for you?!" Her cheeks puffed out and turned a little red, practically fuming through the screen.
Instead of adhering to his usual instincts of asking for the answer right away, he had racked his brain for a few seconds and mumbled out his first answer, "Is this about me not calling every day?"
"Yes! I mean, no! I mean... It's part of it!" She rapidly shook her head and pointed at the object behind Alex, forcing him to turn around to regard the half-broken coffee machine, "You don't call us for three days!"
"I've been sending texts-"
"Not good enough! And the first time you call... is to ask for my help with this thing?!"
"I've tried fixing it myself; unfortunately, Alex Andrite has little experience with dust technologies in comparison to regular electronics." He answered honestly.
Ruby huffed, arms folded in indignation, "And here I thought you missed us!"
"It's only been a few days... It'd take like a week or two before I started missing you." He retorted bluntly.
"Hmm..." Ruby's loud contemplation reverberated across the dorm room of RAWP, as if she appeared to be in her lonesome right now.
"Fine! I'll help... but you have to listen to how my day went! Leader's orders!" A slight brightness and good cheer returned to her face.
A tiny smile graced his lips, "Yeah, sure. Go on ahead."
Thus, they conversed leisurely for roughly thirty-minutes, or at least as long as Ruby presumably could.
"I appreciate your help, but don't you have class soon?" Alex asked absentmindedly as he tinkered with the old coffee machine, as per his leader's expert instructions.
Her lips pursed, a downtrodden air enveloping her all of a sudden. "That's just it... there's a... Mission briefing."
"A what now?"
"All the first-years are being briefed on the procedures of the Shadowing A Huntsman thingy on missions..." She paused, hesitant. "You should know this, have you been paying any attention in your prep school... like at all?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know about it - I just don't get why now of all times. Isn't Vale still in a state of emergency?"
"It is, but it looks like it'll be wrapped up soon, and it's just a briefing; everyone will be sent on a mission just before the Vytal Festival... EVERYONE BUT US!" She bemoaned with utter dismay, pointing a finger at both herself and Alex.
"He's even sending Jaune himself to accompany one of the Teams during the shadowing!"
He paused during his tinkering, regarding Ruby with a raised eyebrow, "Makes sense to me." Alex hadn't found fault with it. "Didn't we go through enough, and now you want more? In any case, I think he's sticking to the punishment he promised or something."
"Says you! This is just counterproductive. I'm itching to get stronger, you don't have to! If you miss it, it's no big deal, but me?!"
Alex hummed, "I would agree with you, but it seems I also have to get stronger or something." He shrugged as he turned back to his tinkering with the coffee machine, his countenance as solid as stone.
Scratching her head, "You? Have to get stronger? If Weiss heard that she'd get wrinkles." She chuckled lightly.
[A strange notion indeed. It does not fit you. What gave you such an inkling, Alexander?]
'I wonder.' He spat out casually.
He didn't quite understand why Merlin sought his betterment, especially in the strength department, but he could hazard a guess thanks to Ozpin.
'Untold forces at play.'
[That does not explain it. You are not this careful; something is influencing you... What had you seen in there?]
'Wouldn't you like to know?'
Ah, nevertheless, getting more skilled, at the very least, had its uses.
As he fiddled and ignored his tormentor, he inquired, "Speaking of which, where are Weiss and Pyrrha?"
Lifting her head to stare up at the ceiling, she hummed her answer, "Pyrrha's training, obviously. And Weiss is practicing the good old Honorary Huntsman Song for the deceased."
She turned to him, the air a smidgen more melancholic as her lips curled up to form a sad smile. "By the way... do you think you'll make it in time to the funeral? It's in three days." Her eyes were almost pleading.
"We talked about this."
"Doesn't mean you can't change your mind."
"Not up to me, mostly."
"Mostly." She repeated.
An excruciating sigh left his lips, "...I'll try."
"Thanks!" The sad smile was immediately replaced by a grateful, almost victorious smile.
A comfortable silence enveloped the two partners during their video call; the only sounds emanating were from Alex's semi-competent fiddling with the old coffee machine.
Semi-competent due to-
"Hey, you should be careful with that pipe, it's the filter-" Ruby's warning came too late, as the hissing of spraying liquid cut through the silence.
Alex's expression, and his entire top was being showered in murky water mixed with coffee in real time.
Instead of stopping it or anything, his face froze in a clear deadpan, seemingly accepting his fate, as Ruby's giggling broke into a full chortle.
His gaze lowered to the teary-eyed Ruby, still in her laughing stupor, "I'll call you back."
She giggled, "S-Sure! G-Go shower... Pfft- HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"You're becoming your sister. That pun was bad." He rose up and carefully ended the call, not to wet the scroll with his dirty, dripping finger.
-----------------------------
After that little accident, Alex finished up a shower in the makeshift temporary one the town had while repairs were underway, leaving the small cabin with a bad case of wet blonde hair.
"Alex, my man! As ready for action as always!" Another of the farmers, a friendly young man whose name Alex had absolutely forgotten, called out to him as he was wrapped in a towel, noting that he was holding onto the brilliance of Excalibur - the blade also being wet from the shower.
"Afternoon." Alex nodded respectfully.
The man agreed with a wave, "Afternoon indeed... or more like evening." He pointed at the setting sun and dimming orange horizon, "How's the water?"
Alex paused for only a moment before giving the honest truth:
"The cold water is hotter than the hot water." He mentioned as he gently lowered Excalibur on a bench and began to change into one of his spare outfits.
The friendly stranger snorted, "Sounds about right."
Without much issue, after clothing himself, he headed out of the showers and headed right back towards the little communal cabin he called home for now, pausing at a loud commotion coming from... the headquarters.
"Ah, they're back." He easily discerned the dirty and somewhat injured figures of his seniors from afar through the little window in there.
His gaze lingered for a moment, noting their good cheer, "Must've gone well."
But was he curious enough to get the details right now?
Obviously not.
"I'll hear all about it soon enough," he shrugged as he continued his march towards fixing the old coffee machine, only to pause at a revelation.
"If they've actually retaken the valley... then isn't fixing this machine pointless?" His finger tapped rhythmically on his chin as he contemplated a most dire situation.
"Yeah, I'll check up on them." And so he changed his mind, just like that.
-----------------------------
And so, just like that, Alex regretted his decision to satiate his pragmatic curiosity.
The wooden door creaked open to reveal:
The boisterous, loud, and most certainly obnoxious tone of his helmeted senior, Jade, boomed in the room.
"You eager sons of bitches! Save the celebrations when the job is done, damn it!" His hand banged against the wooden table, a specific sketch of the valley with an X marking a spot within a mine beneath his slammed palm.
"Stop being a prude!" One of the third-years remarked with biting snark.
"Kiss my ass!" He was swiftly shut down.
"No, guys, Jade's right. Just cause we found the breach doesn't mean this is over."
"Thank you! Some sense in this damn place."
"What do you mean by 'not over'? Just let Jade use his semblance to sneak in, block the breach, and that's that. Easy as pie."
"Yeah, jackass? You think I've got Aura to spare like Andrite over here?"
"Why am I getting brought up?" Alex immediately pointed an indignant thumb at himself as he stood at the door.
Jade continued his tangent, ignoring Alex's complaint, raising two fingers, "Two issues you barely qualifiying third-year cunt."
"Calm down, Jade." His pink-haired teammate tried to pacify.
He turned to her, a note calmer yet still harsh. "I am calm, Calla, I'm just trying to educate a dumbass." He then returned his gaze to the frowning third-year, "I can't sneak in with my semblance all willy-nilly before running out of aura and getting turned into some Grimm's dinner. We need to press forward as we have done thus far to allow me to sneak into the mine."
"Most importantly, the issue is bringing down the breach. Causing a collapse or blocking with something bigger. The latter is impossible unless we bring some heavy-duty equipment, so collapsing the breach within the mine should do the trick... as for future mining endeavors, it'll have to stay that way until someone invests more Lien into tightening things up. Ya got that?"
"Who cares about that kinda logistics?"
"Because you can't think even two steps ahead, I had to mention it to a fuckwad like you. If you'd even wracked a single braincell, you'd have offered or questioned the option to just block the mine itself-"
"Why shouldn't we actually go for that? Wouldn't it be easier and less risky?" Another asked.
"Yeah, that's why you're all dumbasses. If we block the deeper breach, it'll increase the distance between settlements and Grimm, that way they'd be less eager to just wall through the collapsed mine entrance, ya get me-"
Alex blinked and immediately turned on his heel and left, closing the door with an indifferent thud. He had learned what he came here for.
There was still some time, it seemed, before this would all be over.
Fixing the Coffee machine, it is.
Though he couldn't help but linger on the thought of perhaps cutting this shorter.
'Well, if they needed me for this, they'd have called for me.' His eye lowered to the old communication device in his pocket, having yet to be used during the expedition his seniors took part in.
With his hand on Excalibur's hilt, he had resolved to just keep an eye on any SOS that may come from the comms.
But by the looks of it, that won't be happening, something Alex wasn't going to complain about...
That is, until a day after his seniors went for the expedition to close the breach within one of the mines.
Alex stood with an absentminded concentration, in a strange meditative state as he had some free time during his shift, nary a Grimm had struck during this time - the area seemed to be mostly in the clear.
His concentration broke at the sudden, rapid pinging of the communication device, his amber gaze quickly shifted to his pocket as he withdrew it, raising it to his ear.
'SOS! CALLING ALL AVAILABLE HUNTSMEN! VALLEY! NORTHWEST MINE!'
The range of the device was abundantly clear, and so there was no mistaking which valley was the subject matter.
A deep exhale left Alex's nose, as his aura quaked the very ground beneath him... and he shot forward.
He may leave the entrance unguarded, but CFVY has got the memo already; he should hurry.
His steps were a stampede across the land, a hurricane in his wake, toppling trees and surrounding fauna in his path.
-----------------------------
The sun was at its peak of noon, and yet it was dark; the entire valley was shadowed by a large collection of clouds hiding the sun.
It didn't take long for Alex to reach the paved road that led towards the valley. As he ran, he managed to note a few bewildered huntsmen rushing as well, and he almost sent them flying as he ran past them.
His sprint never ceasing, and as he got closer, the more Grimm he managed to come across - they barely managed to react before he ran past them, and those in his path he bisected.
It was a short few minutes later that he seemingly found himself at the heart of the valley, heading more northwest.
He recalled what he had absentmindedly heard from his seniors and what Ozpin had briefed him. "The breach is in a mine. So it's probably connected to the mountains surrounding the valley. That's the only way so many Grimm came through." He mused as he ran with purpose.
Even so, it was a forested mess, and looping through the northwestern mountainous section would take an unnecessary amount of time, so he pivoted.
He paused in his blitz, his leg muscles tightened as his aura surged, and he leaped into the air, crushing the ground beneath him into dust and forming a large crater.
In a near instant, he found himself high-up in the sky, the wind against him as his amber eyes narrowed and scanned the presumed area the SOS mentioned.
His eyesight, one that is far greater than that of any huntsman, managed to narrow down the tiny dots in his vision, a collection of huntsmen struggling against Grimm - some of which were older, more powerful Grimm or rare species by the looks of it.
He hurried his fall into the ground, and a few seconds later, crashing back down with a thunderous explosion that resonated across the whole valley, and without pause, he sprinted towards the location of the fight.
A quest pinged in his mind, but he took no mind of it.
He won't be giving up even a single second to read it, lest he regret it.
[That would be unwise.]
The wretch's voice, similarly, fell on deaf ears.
-----------------------------
The sounds of battle, the clashing of steel and bone, guttural roars and cries of protest.
They were within hearing distance; the closer he got, the louder they became.
An almost uncontrollable coldness crossed his features, his breath hitched momentarily as his dull amber sharpened into a gaze of terrifying efficiency.
...
Within a few seconds, he had arrived.
The smell of burnt Grimm was a nauseating anomaly best described as grimy mud being burnt and made into an incense.
Before him, an artificial clearing, a road unmade, and a scarred battlefield:
Ash-filled craters, crippled Grimm on the edge of death, and the majority, but not all, of his seniors - familiar faces holding their ground as their more wounded teammates stood back and tended to their own wounds.
He processed far quicker than anyone could ever hope for, reacted far quicker than anyone could even fathom.
'No one's dead. Good.'
"Aura Burst."
He moved, nay exploded, as the air and the world screeched in protest before anyone could even react, brandishing Excalibur, appearing before the closest Grimm, an abnormally large and armored boarbatusk that stood before one of his seniors as he defended the injured behind him with all his might.
That very movement, however, sent the injured huntsmen ragdolling in the air behind Alex, a fact his gaze hadn't registered quite yet, their cries of protest drowning out due to the force of the wind.
Even the gasps of pain as they impacted trees or stones were drowned out by the fury of his storm.
Only those who were with Aura and were already bracing themselves with a tight core earlier were unscathed.
Nevertheless, with a single slice, Excalibur bisected the Grimm horizontally, as if the dense bone hadn't even been there, as if it had been slicing through air.
His cold gaze mechanically turned to the next, and then the next, and the next-
It didn't matter how old or what kind of Grimm it was; Alex didn't need to care about any of that.
He didn't need any strategy to deal with them, regardless of how formidable they were - they fell to the same two-handed single stroke of Excalibur.
It was by the second-to-last Grimm that his seniors actually managed to gasp at the sudden disappearance of Grimm and even register his presence, recognizing the source of the hazardous wind that swept some of them up.
As he was dealing with it, a loud, pained, agonized scream of a woman reverberated sharply in his ear.
His blade sliced through the young Griffon as his gaze shifted towards the direction of the cry, the very world before him twisting in his eyes.
An amalgamated mess, an ever-shifting abomination, an ever-shifting existence.
A familiar pink-haired senior lay with gritted teeth and an agonized, bloody expression, her right hand stuck within the mouth of a landshark-like Grimm, a rare and dangerous Grimm variant.
She helplessly flailed and slammed her fist into its steel-like jaws, her weapon far from her reach as she screamed.
The other seniors, now that the Grimm that had troubled them were gone, rose up despite their exhaustion and rushed toward her, despite Alex's presence.
To Alex, this thing appeared incredibly familiar; he stood before the Abomination, Excalibur swung before the Abomination could shift into a form that would trouble him, injure him, or pervert his soul.
Alex's hands were a blur, as Excalibur sliced in every possible angle, leaving little to no trace of the Abomination.
And whatever strange thing it carried within it, but a splatter of liquid flesh and blood.
Strange.
Without issue, Alex's head lowered to regard the tormented soul that had been held by the abomination.
Yet, it did not appear like a tormented soul; he'd usually ignore them. There was nothing much he could do to help them in Purgatory.
The pink-haired huntsman gritted her teeth, hissing in pain as she suddenly registered that her dominant hand that had been clamped up by the shark-like Grimm was gone, alongside the Grimm itself.
She raised her struggling gaze to regard her would-be savior and yet...
Her fearful, turned relieved gaze paused in its tracks.
A horrible chill went down her spine, and a foreboding sense of demise permeated her whole figure.
An unimaginable weight settled on her shoulders upon Alex's dangerous amber gaze, looking at her as if she were... something incomprehensible.
In his mind as he looked down at this strange thing, Alex wondered:
Was this... another abomination?
"Another trick?" A strange, damning murmur left his lips.
It was low, almost quiet, and especially due to the ruckus going all around, she had no right to hear it.
Yet to her, it was all loud and clear - and she froze up.
She began to shiver, sweat trickling down her whole body as tears began to bubble beneath her eyes.
Hicks left her lips, as the most primal emotion of fear took over her entire being.
She begged for her life, amidst the pain and fear, "P-P-PLEASE D-DON'T KILL ME!"
Already on her knees, she fell even further into the ground, dropping her head onto the hard, dirty soil to make sure not to meet his eyes.
She did not want to see his verdict; she did not.
She could not, even as the blood from her missing right arm poured onto the ground beneath her, adrenaline overtaking her figure.
The ground beneath her was soiled, and the distinct smell of a mixture of iron and ammonia invaded Alex's nose.
"Don't kill?" Alex repeated, his eyes widening, as the ever-shifting plane slowly unraveled itself to become physical, tangible, comprehensible.
"S-Shit!" He roared out in a panic as he heard rushed footsteps running towards him. He turned around as he realized once again where he was, "Anyone got a tourniquet?!"
"MOVE ANDRITE!" In an instant, he was pushed aside in his sudden stupor.
One of the still able Huntsmen pushed forward with the requested tourniquet, starting to tie it above the missing limb of the poor girl.
Alex's gaze shifted to his surroundings, to which he froze.
Everyone's judgmental looks settled on him, but that wasn't what bothered him.
The injured around him, some of them were a good distance away from where he had seen them before he arrived.
They couldn't have suddenly moved in their states... right?
"FUCK!" The ground beneath his heel trembled.
'What...have you done to me... sending me to that blasted place...'
He lost control; he was an inch away from killing his senior.
This is the second time this happened.
He thought he could control it, deal with it like usual.
This shouldn't have happened.
What... is this...
[That, earlier, was entirely you being careless. As for little Missy's hand? The price of disobedience, I'm afraid.]
'Piece of shit.' He grit his teeth and turned his head towards the mine.
"YOU'VE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE HERE, FOR FUCKS SAKE! HEAD IN THERE AND BE CAREFUL THIS TIME, JADE AND THE OTHERS ARE PATCHING THE HOLE!" One of them turned to Alex, barking out an order.
Exhaling a deep breath, he calmed down just a smidgen, yet fury still bubbled in his eyes. "Anyone... that the medic can't take care of? I can rush-" He paused, considering that if he tried to carry out the heavily injured who lacked aura at his full speed towards the nearest on-field doctor, they might just die in his hands.
"STOP CONTEMPLATING! WE'RE TAKING CARE OF IT! SO FAR NO ONE'S IN A STATE OF DYING, AT LEAST FOR AN HOUR! GO IN AND MAKE SURE THEY FINISH THE JOB!"
"Right." He nodded and ran into the mine, the sounds of combat not ceasing from within, though his speed was much more manageable this time around.
But, unlike his speed this time, the bile and contempt rising from the depths of his gut were hard to suppress.
To Be Continued!
-Author Note Start-
Hello, my lovely bruzzahs and sistahs!
I know it's been a while, so I hope I'm not too rusty. It has been like 2 months since I last wrote something, but life is life. But, I'm pretty confident I can finish this fic since, even from a pessimistic point of view, this fic is roughly 40-45% done.
Anyway, this chapter's pretty important, and while as much as I would like an arc to be purely slice of life chill, I would have usually skipped/mentioned in passing it if it didn't have something important I wanted to show.
Well, here it is!
Alex is unstable (Shocker) - at least for deployment.
Not doing too well for his PR Hero Vs Monster perception (not that public opinion matters to him)!
How will he solve the issue?
Can it be solved?
Find out in the next episodes coming within 24-48 hours!
Indeed! The sparks of black have returned!