"Trackers? Great," sighs Shamrock. "I think we should patrol at night - Grimm rarely appear during the day."
"It's also interesting, that Nevermore walked. Why didn't it fly? Is it possible it was injured or tired?"
"maybe it was a guy with stilts?" Carmine guesses with a shrug. "Night patrols is a good idea."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Peach notes down everything you say, and passes a copy of Azure's pictures along to Professor Port. Between the four of you, you work out a system for trading off the shifts, helping out the night guard. The next few days you spend getting adjusted and settled in. Peach's teaching style is characteristically manic, but she's able to get you through the bulk of the lessons from the other teachers in record time.
Esper can't identify much else about the tracks herself. However Peach eventually distills down a much longer message from Professor Port. "He says those tracks aren't like the Nevermores he's seen. Neither are they like Griffons..." She spends several long seconds flicking through her scroll once again. "He says the tracks look like Beowolf tracks, but there are obvious signs of wings. " Frowning, she adds, "A new phenotype?"
On your fourth night on the farm, a little past midnight, Esper is on watch with Mr. Goldberg in the security room. He's not the greatest of company, and seems more unnerved by her encyclopedic knowledge on Atlas designs than Sable was charmed. At the moment, he's dozing off in a chair, leaving you to watch the screens more or less by yourself. You notice a few workers coming in from the field--odd, given the late hour. You also notice that they aren't being tracked on the big screen by their uniform the way everyone is supposed to be.
= 15 = 2 Raises!
"...Who? What? Where?" Azure says as she hears the loud noise, having only been lightly asleep. "HEY EVERYBODY, wake up! That sounded like it came from the center of the factory!"
She gets out of bed, and tries to decide whether she should get dressed, or armored up, or just throw on a bathrobe over her light sleeping clothes.
Carmine doesn't wake unless physically shaken awake.
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Esper looked back immediately and almost rolls out of her chair in a fluid motion, "Mister Goldberg there are unmarked people entering the facility, i'll contact my team and head out to investigate that noise be ready to call in any security and make sure that thing is recording!"
She bolted to the door swinging her gear onto her shoulder as she went, it had been resting heavily into the control panel next to her all night, she pulled up her scroll and relayed information to her team.
"We've got unmarked workers coming in from the field and a noise like metal on metal in the main factory room, I'm going to check out the noise, someone should come help me and the others go investigate the workers without suit trackers. Carmine, think that's a good plan? I'll try to stay out of sight for now but i'm not really the quietest person."
She rushed, as quietly as she could manage, into the main room and pulled her shield keeping it close in case something dangerous was around the next corner.
Shamrock jumps up in his bed. "Wha?.. An attack? Damn!"
He hastily puts on his clothes - not the factory-provided overalls - and grabs Twilight Whisper.
He notices that Carmine still sleeps, so Shamrock shoves him and yanks the blanket. "Carmine, WAKE UP!"
"Gyah! I'm up!"
Flopping out of bed, Carmine scrambles to pick up his glasses and put them on before throwing on pants and shoes. He takes Gravitas and responds to Esper.
"Yes. Good idea. Shamrock and I will go to the workers, you and Azure check the noise."
Upon hearing that Esper wanted help, Azure decided that she would go, and so quickly threw on her regular clothes over her pajamas. When she hears that Carmine agrees with her decision, she merely nods and grabs Reaper, and runs towards the middle of the factory.
Peach takes some rousing, but she also comes awake as Shamrock and Azure yell. "Well, damnation," she says quietly before grabbing her bag and baton. "I'll follow the boys," she says through the scroll, letting Esper hear her. "Ms. Fiore, be careful." As you grab your gear, you can hear her relaying all the information so far in a message back to Beacon.
"Aw, s#~+," says Goldberg quietly, whipping out his scroll but not following Esper. His hand is also resting on one of the Atlesian pistols on his belt. As she leaves, she hears him quietly saying, "Sable? Yeah. We have a problem."
The grinding noise came from the spot Carmine identified before as being a blank space in the map. A door is grinding out from the wall, seamlessly, but caught and stuck on something in front of it. There's a faint, inky blackness wafting away, like a piece of a dead Grimm. A man in a white mask stumbles out, coughing, and takes a knee. He pulls his mask off for a second--the markings on it look like raccoon eyes. He turns towards Esper, and gasps, "Aw, s*@+."
Carmine, Shamrock and Peach close in on the workers, who are closer to the entering bay of the factory. Before you can round the corner, you hear a voice say, "We've got problems--Masks, masks, the Beacon kids know we're here, damn it all." As you round the corner, four people dressed in the worker's clothes slip on masks, hiding their faces. You can see two of them have tails, and another one has a set of antlers above the mask. You'd be willing to bet the last one is also a Faunus. There's a faint growl from somewhere in the shadows, and then, "You can turn around and come back the way you came, or you can get dead, kids."
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Esper made it clear that she was moving towards this person in a mask, "Sir what are you doing out of uniform this late at night." She smirked, "You should show me your badge before I get all security on your backside."
Her strides were powerful showing that she was not afraid of a fight if one occurred.
"You are trespassing." Shamrock activates the melee form of Twilight Whisper and points the weapon at the masked workers. "Stand down and surrender!"
"You know we're not going to do either of those." Carmine replies, raising Gravitas into a fighting stance. "You have the one chance to give up."
Azure forgoes putting on her armor, realizing that Esper is all on her own, and runs for the factory floor.
The man kneeling next to the door looks to Esper. "I don't think you understand," he says, spreading his hands. The door behind him grinds, shutting, but unable to completely seal seamlessly the way it was before. "Everyone needs to get going right now. When that door opens back up, and it will open up, you're going to have a hell of a lot more to worry about than some political activists in cute masks." The frame of the door is continuing to let loose smoke, like it's full of dead Grimm. The bottom of his face is still exposed, and you can see him nervously licking his lips, counting Esper's steps on the approach. As Azure's footsteps close in on him, he panics, starting, and drawing a small set of knives from inside his sleeves.
The four in the masks get set to square off with you, and Peach turns, drawing her baton and something else from inside her coat. You hear a series of long, drawn-out metallic clanks as another Faunus steps from the shadows in one of the hallways behind you. He's a big guy, his bare arms surging with thick, corded muscle and unpleasant veins, but his feet pad softly on the floor. His hands are clutching a long handle, from which a scythe is still piece-by-piece unfolding. "Kids like you shouldn't be playing around with the adults," he says, his voice a scratchy, growling mess. His mask has the markings of gills at the edge, and his mouth opens to reveal an unsettling-looking double row of sharp, triangle teeth.
"Engage the other four," Peach says quietly. "Don't get near this one."
Combat Card Draw:
Ace of Clubs: Carmine
Jack of Diamonds: Azure
Ten of Spades: Peach (Ate nine of diamonds through Level-Headed)
Ten of Hearts: Shark Guy (Ate four of hearts via Level-Headed)
Ten of Diamonds: White Fang Mooks
Ten of Clubs: Raccoon Guy
Seven of Hearts: Esper
Four of Diamonds: Shamrock
Carmine watches the four start to move forward to fight and tosses Gravitas into the air over his head. It shifts and changes into it's Red Queen Form, coming into an orbit around his head. He snags the targeting baton out of the air and points it at the four.
"I've got your back." Carmine says to Shamrock.
Azure activates her semblance :
And with her second action (due to the Quickness, no MAP), she shoots at the stranger with both barrels (-2 due to recoil) :
= 5, a hit
= 5, a hit
Doing
and
= 24
damage.
Ten of Spades: Peach readies two syringes between her fingers and throws them down. Faintly, you can see a tripwire between them, and she slaps a dust cartridge into her baton, making it spark with electricity.
Ten of Hearts: The shark gnashes his teeth, his eyes sliding over Peach's tripwire and her baton. He brandishes his scythe and then suddenly, slips into the floor. It parts like water, and you can see the blade of his scythe sticking up like a shark's fin as he begins to circle the wary Peach.
Ten of Diamonds: The mooks draw a uniform set of rifles--standard Atlesian military issue, and they lift into low ready and firing position. One pulls a cord, letting the fixed bayonet slide forward and the stock split into a handle, making a short spear.
Ten of Clubs:
The first barrel glances off as the raccoon twists to rise, but it only serves to set him up for the second shot, which rams into him...
Leaving him barely conscious and groaning. He spits onto the ground, dropping his knives and putting his hand up. "Come on!" He says, clearly in anguish. "You're not a hunter, you're a, a trainee!" He looks again at the still smoking door as it gives an audible creak. "Please, we all need to go."
Shamrock jumps into the fray, slashing the mooks with his weapon.
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Esper watched as the man dropped his knives, keeping her gear up and at the ready but looking towards the door. "You need to tell me what's going on right now. We'll deal with whatever's behind door number one, and judge if it's too much for us. But you need to get away from your weapons, so that we can have security deal with you."
She continued to stride towards him looking back to give a thumbs up to Azure before placing a hand to her ear. "Professor, Azure has made the man in here surrender, but he's talking like there's something worse, lots of smoke is pouring from the hidden door we found in the schematics. Kinda like there's dusted grimm behind it but i've never seen anything like this, what should we do?"
Before a response could be given she planted her shield and gave her glaive a flick causing it to fold down into the long rifle mode, dropping to one knee and placing it on the top curve of her shield she took aim at the door. "All i'm saying man is that I suggest you get over here and tie yourself up before we're forced to take you down another peg."
Shamrock hits one of the thugs hard with the melee form of Twilight Whisper, but he blocks it with his rifle, sliding back across the floor. The rest square up, and the one with the weapon in melee mode steps forward to try and hold Shamrock's attention in close range combat.
The raccoon looks up at Esper. "There's a very large, very powerful Grimm behind that door. A mutant. We need to run!" He half stands then squats back down, looking back and forth between the Azure and Esper. "Security isn't going to deal with me. If Goldberg knows what's good for him, he's already run, and Sable will be running with him."
Combat Card Draw Round 2:
Black Joker: Peach Peach Black joker (Ate Three of Diamonds via Level-Headed)
Ace of Diamonds: Shark (ate five of spades via Level-Headed)
King of Diamonds: Azure
Queen of Clubs: Shamrock
Nine of Clubs: Esper
Eight of Diamonds: Carmine
Four of Clubs: White Fang Mooks
On the Ace of Diamonds: The Shark surfaces, his blade spinning over head as he flies from the floor at an angle. Unfortunately for him, Peach is ready, and flicks her baton, which extends to the length of a whip...
Her whip arcs across the shark's neck, and in his momentary flinch, Peach flicks her wrist out, wrapping arouund his leg, putting her free hand on his throat, and throwing him onto her tripwire. The dust in the syringes connecting it arcs as the shock dust in one electrifies the wire, priming the explosive dust in the other. Stepping back from the explosion, she takes a half step as the scythe goes whisking past her face, trimming one side of her bangs just slightly short.
"Stay back, stay back!" She waves to Carmine and Shamrock as she and the shark circle each other, throwing a rapid series of short attacks and parries. The scythe can't seem to land on her, but every time she strikes her whip across him, it doesn't seem to do any lasting damage...
Shamrock slashes the guy in front of him with his glaive one more time. His lunge is a bit deeper than necessary, but it gives him more power.
Azure looks at Esper and says "He's scared enough I'm inclined to believe him. If it's as large and powerful as he says, perhaps we should leave now?"
Carmine looks at the two ranged weapons users and grins. "Let's see if you're even worth fighting trainees." he says. He then opens fire on the one on the left, hedging them together where shamrock can do the most damage.
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Esper looked back to Azure, "Alright i've got a plan.. You get him out of here, if it's big usually means it's destructive, get to the others i'll distract it and lead it outside where we can take care of it properly." She was really just saying her plan instead of asking if Azure was okay with it because it sounded like they didn't really have time to formulate one. "Make sure to tell the others!"
She dropped her guard and shield stepping into the center of it and grabbing the strap that she used to carry it, twisting her foot on the plate it expanded outwards ready to go. She kept aiming at the door, trusting Azure to take care of the Raccoon faunus. Whatever was behind there needed to have it's attention grabbed quick.
Azure hesitates to leave Esper on her own, but there's no time for debate. Azure picks up the racoon creature and runs for the nearest outside exit, at double speed (Quickness).
Over her comms she practically yells "We *may* have a large, powerful Grimm on our hands in here! Esper's going to do her best to draw it outside, meet us at the [north] exit of the factory as soon as possible!"
The smoking door finally slides open, then shifts to one side. You can see a mask like a Beowulf, but as it rises, you realize it's far taller, and the paws that land are joined by many more. This thing is a mess of limbs, all tangled and disjointed into the wrong directions. It snarls, it's mask bleeding black smoke, and paws the ground in front of the door, drawing deep scratches.
As Azure sprints for the warehouse loading door, she comes into contact with the boys and the mooks, and can faintly see Peach and the Shark dueling in the adjacent hallway. Carmine lands an excellent shot, followed by Shamrock's deep extended thrust, knocking two of the White Fang thugs off balance. The third follows up, however, with a sharp, upward strike of the bayonet to Shamrock...
Combat Card Draw Round 2:
King of Spades: Carmine
King of Hearts: Shamrock
Queen of Spades: Azure (Ate Four of Diamonds via quickness w/ raise)
Queen of Diamonds: Mooks
Jack of Spades: Shark (Ate Three of Hearts via Level-Headed)
Jack of Clubs: Esper
Three of Diamonds: Mutant Grimm
Three of Spades: Peach (Ate Two of Clubs via Level-Headed)
Luckily, Shamrock jumps away from the strike and immediately counter attacks with his own lunge.
Azure lets go of the raccoon, looks him in the eye and says "Stick around and do nothing, or I'll shoot you again..."
Azure shoots at one of the mooks with both barrels (-2 due to recoil) :
And shoots again, with both barrels (-2 due to recoil, no MAP due to Quickness) :
Ah well, two swings and a miss...
Carmine continues to pour on the assault on the off-balance white-fang, hoping to take one down quickly.