How many miles had they traveled?

They grew restless by the second. The aches in their bodies told them to just finish what they came here to do. No more ideals. No more heroics. No more of whatever they thought they were fighting this war for.

Their supplies were running low and no amount of rest by some rocks or trees could make up for what they wanted the most. They just wanted to go home.

It helped, even if only a little, that they were with friends. A few exchanges of smiles and glances meant more than just gestures to them. They knew that each one was a silent promise to stay together despite already wanting to turn around and go back north.

A lingering glance.

Sunny saw it from the corner of her eye and she didn’t mind it at first. She only did when she heard a sigh from the same direction. “What is it, Tiffany?” she asked, her voice now weaker and strained.

“I… it’s—It’s nothing,” went the reply. But the gaze said otherwise. Tiffany just didn’t know how noticeably so.

“I may not know you that well,” Sunny began to say even though she was in no place to assume, “but it’s not like you to be this quiet.”

As if accepting the challenge, Tiffany held her tongue. Then she diverted her gaze toward whoever was walking meters in front of them. She was far too exhausted to determine who.

“I’m guessing you got what you wanted,” Sunny continued. It was more out of having nothing else better to do than actually wanting to hold a conversation. “Friends like family, right?” she asked. She laughed inwardly at her own words because she knew that they were enough to show what little bitterness she felt toward Tiffany. Not that she ever meant to feel this way toward her former companion.

As expected, there was no immediate reply.

Tiffany thought back to when Sunny first told her about the friends she left behind and how casually Sunny said that her ideals were more important. Now that they were reunited, she hoped that Sunny would change her mind. “You can have them again too,” she told Sunny in an attempt to invoke the softer side of the girl she saw that night by the cliffside. “You can go back to the way things were before. You just have to stop this war. Or you can help us stop it. Please Sunny…”

Their eyes met but only briefly before they were alerted by a piercing cry just ahead.

+

“How the hell…”

They all stood aghast with their weapons drawn as the wide expanse of land that they had yet to cross started to fill up with creatures of Grimm at a rate that they had no time to assign a unit of measurement to.

“Where are they coming from?!” screamed Sooyoung as she brought the head of her axe down on a pool of pitch-black sludge that appeared by her feet.

“Who cares?! Just kill ‘em before they kill you!!” went Hyoyeon’s instant reply. She leapt forward when a large, curved bone emerged from the dark matter on the ground. By the time she had regained her balance to launch an attack, the creature was almost in full-view – it was a Goliath.

Her eyes widened at the sight of its size and she was reminded that she had the same reaction when she first saw one in Atlas. It didn’t go down fast then and it wasn’t going to now.

Pressed for time, she slid underneath the mammoth-like creature’s body with her arms stretched to her sides and a blade in each hand. Both blades ran across the bottom half of the mammoth’s thick front legs and gave off a dull sound. Clucking her tongue at the ineffectiveness of her attack, Hyoyeon ran to the side of the mammoth’s body while shifting her chained blades into a claw. She threw a punch and the claw extended by the chain toward one of the large spikes sticking out from the mammoth’s back where it latched on. She gave it a hard pull while kicking off of the ground and managed to propel herself high enough to dangle against the mammoth’s unarmed side. She pulled herself up by the length of her chain until she could hold on to one of the spikes to keep her balance while the mammoth galloped to try to throw her off.

“Oh …”

From atop the Goliath’s back, she saw the rest of the battlefield. The Grimm were appearing from nowhere, enveloped in darkness only to burst out in rage. She saw her friends moving forward through the growing horde, attacking whatever was in their way but not sparing a moment to finish them off. She squinted at what appeared to be their goal and it didn’t take her long to find out why everyone was in a hurry.

Just past the emerging army of Grimm was a legion of dragons in flight that covered the once-black sky with their red bat-like wings, making it look like it was about to rain blood.

These weren’t the same dragons that her friends warned her about. These looked like they had just awoken from deep underground. She could smell the dry soil in the air, carried along by their large wings. The other Grimm that kept spawning came from these creatures as well, she realized. She saw the same black sludge come off of a dragon’s body as if it was shedding its skin and not long after, another creature of Grimm emerged from the same substance. It would be futile to try to kill all of these Grimm, she told herself.

But she wanted to at least beat this one.

With a loud scream to boost her confidence, she dislodged her claw from the large spike, pulled the blades apart and headed straight for the back of the Goliath’s head. She crouched down to maintain her balance as it continued to rampage, and drove her blades into the dark, unarmed flesh over and over again as fast as her arms could go. The dull collisions eventually caused deep gashes until she could plunge her blades right into the creature. Already in too much pain, it tried to stand on its hind legs to free itself of its assailant. Hyoyeon left her blades and jumped down while focusing her aura on the chain that joined them. It followed her descent and pulled the blades through the already-punctured flesh, dragging them out through the Goliath’s throat.

Good riddance.

Pleased with her kill, she caught her blades by the chain when she landed and sprinted forward, dodging the rest of the Grimm as best as she could so she could catch up to her friend.

+

The dragons continued to swarm just above them, leaving trails of their shed skin with every flap of their wings.

“He’s just ahead!!” Seohyun yelled as she ran with a scout flying ahead. Taeyeon was by her side, ready to teleport both of them out of harm’s way should it come to that. Thankfully, it hadn’t thanks to Tiffany who was ahead of them by a few paces. She kept the dome up as they went, paralyzing the Grimm that they ran past to buy themselves more time to reach their real target.

+

“Yoong! Where’s Sunny?!”

“I lost her back there! I’m sorry, Yuri unnie!”

“Dammit!”

“Her buckler is still with me though! She probably can’t do much without it!”

+

“Krystal! Slow down!”

“No way! There are too many of ‘em coming right at us!”

A flurry of slashes.

Jessica ducked as a beowolf got thrown back in her direction after getting hit by her sister’s swallow. She tried to match her sister’s speed with her right arm stretched perpendicular to her body, ready to swing the sharp end of her kotatsu toward any Grimm that got too close.

That is if Krystal didn’t beat the out of it yet.

+

What she wouldn’t give for a lift right about now.

Sooyoung’s great axe had already collapsed into its crossbow form but its weight didn’t change. She smacked her forehead with her free palm for even thinking that this would help her move faster. Everyone else had already gone ahead and she could no longer see them as she ran.

“Maybe I should summon—”

The rest of the sentence got caught in . She was expecting Hyoyeon to scream a lecture at her about conserving aura but she realized that her partner wasn’t by her side this time. She sighed and kept running, loosing a few arrows here and there to clear her path toward the source of this mess.

+

Right after the sudden spike in the number of Grimm and the mass raid by the dragons that came in the double digits, Jongkook sent the Atlesian Knights into overdrive with orders to destroy their designated targets for as long as their circuits could hold out. He ventured out not long after to fight by their side, leaving BoA at the camp to command the refugees who also had to fight for their lives.

His right arm hurt more than usual and there was no better way to stretch it than by lifting all one hundred pounds of its metal muscle and pummeling every Grimm that dared to get in his way.

+

“So you came back.”

His speech almost sounded like static, only lower in pitch. He watched Soonkyu approach and he choked out a laugh. He pulled on the collar of his robe – just something that had developed into a mannerism ever since he used the machine. It made it hard for him to breathe at times and especially now when his heart beat at its hardest against it. He clutched the left side of his chest and felt the bulk of the machine that he embedded in his flesh and bone.

“Is something wrong?” Sunny asked.

“I should be the one asking you that, Soonkyu.” He saw her knit her brows at the mention of her real name and it amused him to no end. “You came back but what is it that you really want? This peace that we’ve worked so hard for? Or your friends?”

The answer didn’t matter to him. He just had to ask if only to make his last moments a bit more interesting than he pictured  them.

He didn’t get an answer from Soonkyu as expected, but the moment a beam of light came right at him from nowhere and he felt nothing except for his chest contracting in slight pain, he knew she had made her choice.

+

Seohyun called the scout back as quickly as she could, worried that it might have been spotted after her attempt to attack the unknown male. It looked like he was preoccupied with talking to Sunny so she thought it would be the perfect ambush. When the attack didn’t connect, she immediately knew that it was Sunny’s doing.

“That should’ve been a direct hit,” she said to herself, knowing that her aim had always been spot-on even at the greatest of distances.

“Seohyun, what happened?” Yuri had just arrived and behind her were Yoona, Jessica and Krystal.

“Sunny unnie is with him just ahead,” Seohyun answered. She quickly turned her attention to Yoona who didn’t have to say anything about feeling conflicted now that Sunny was once again involved. The pain was written all over her face.

“We’ll go on ahead then,” Yuri said, breaking Seohyun out of her thoughts. “Keep attacking Sunny. She has a weak point. Somewhere. Just keep trying!”

Seohyun nodded then watched as Yoona approached until she got a little bit too close, until their lips touched and she couldn’t breathe.

“Just a little while longer, right?” Yoona told Seohyun as she pulled away. She saw Taeyeon looking at them from the corner of her eye but she could tell that Taeyeon was going to let this one slide, probably because she understood that this one kiss could be just another out of the bunch or the last one shared.

“Right,” Seohyun answered. “Be careful.”

“For your sake, always.” Yoona pulled Seohyun into a quick hug then walked over to where Yuri was waiting, leaving Jessica with Krystal.

“Mani-pedi after this?” Jessica tried to say it as casually as she could while cupping her sister’s pale cheek.

“Definitely,” Krystal replied, forcing a smile. The slight warmth on her cheek disappeared a second later and all she could do was grip her swallow to somehow reign in the mix of emotions. She watched her sister join her teammates a few meters ahead before the three of them sprinted side by side toward the unknown beyond. It was a loud greeting that broke her out of her thoughts.

“Hey guys!!” There was a hint of exhaustion in Sooyoung’s voice but a sort of relief shone through. “Those mecha soldiers are taking care of the Grimm back there! I think I saw Team RWBY too! They can probably handle things here so let’s go kick some villain !”

“Calm down before you pull a muscle, you idiot,” Hyoyeon said, wary of how Sooyoung was swinging her axe in excitement. They met up somewhere along the way or rather, they bumped into one another while dodging the same ursa.

“Okay, let’s get to it then. I'll take Krystal with me,” Taeyeon announced. “Seohyun, you know what to do from afar. We’ll go after Sunny to look for that weak spot Yuri was blabbering about.” After she saw Seohyun nod, she turned to Tiffany. “Keep her safe while she’s sniping, okay?”

“Duh,” went Tiffany’s quick response. “Like you need to tell me that. You’re the one who needs to stay safe. Remember your promise!”

“Yeah, yeah. After this we’ll definitely talk… maybe over dinner?”

“Uh, did you just ask me out on a date?!” Tiffany didn’t mean to sound so surprised even though she really was.

It didn’t actually matter because Taeyeon had already disappeared as usual.

+

They had to skip the introductions because a pack of beowolves lunged at them before they could get too close to the man in the robe. Sunny was right behind him and seeing her actually choose this stranger over them was enough to push them straight into rage.

Yuri sent a shockwave that ran along the ground and launched the creatures into the air for Yoona and Jessica to strike with their blades while she sprinted forward with a fist aimed at the robed man’s jaw. She saw Sunny try to get in between them and she shoved her away in time, shoulder-first. The man quickly leapt to the side in response and almost fell over when his boot got caught on the hem of his robe. Making the most out of the obvious blunder, Yuri zoomed right on over with a clenched fist that she didn’t hesitate to bring down on the man’s face as intended.

A crooked smile.

“What the—” Yuri knew that she landed that punch squarely in the man’s jaw but there was no sign of trauma. She wondered whether Sunny was able to cast her protective net at the last minute but she dismissed the thought upon seeing what was before her.

‘Bob’ suddenly didn’t look like a person should.

The menacing smile was one thing but the bulging, black veins that appeared across his features was enough to make Yuri take a step back to reassess the situation. She took a quick look over her shoulder and saw that Jessica and Yoona were similarly confused.

+

When Taeyeon said that they would go after Sunny, she thought it would be easier than fighting off the rest of the Grimm that they did their damndest to avoid just to get to where they were now.

 But of course Sunny had to put another army of Grimm in their way.

“Taeyeon unnie!” Krystal called out. “We’ll take care of this!”

Taeyeon turned to Sooyoung and Hyoyeon for confirmation and when she got it, she hurled her dagger straight ahead, past the Grimm, and reappeared not too far from where Sunny appeared to be waiting. Just behind her was the robed man who was crouching on the ground and taking consecutive hits from Yuri, Jessica and Yoona.

Her attention shifted back to Sunny. Their gazes met and no words passed between them.

She saw Seohyun’s scouts revolving around Sunny but the beams that Seohyun sent through them hadn’t made so much as a scratch yet and Sunny had a smug smirk to prove it. Knowing now that finding the weak spot wouldn’t be as easy as she thought, Taeyeon sheathed her daggers and took a deep breath. This is gonna hurt in the morning… whenever that is in this place. She focused on gathering the static that she usually stored along the soles of her feet and she felt it move upward underneath her skin, a tiny prickle at first and then a gush of energy.

She saw two beams come from the scouts again and she followed through with her own attack, directing a lightning bolt from the tip of her index finger to Sunny’s abdomen.

Nothing.

The scouts didn’t have much luck either. She could sense Seohyun’s frustration all the way from here. She sidestepped for a change of angle, mimicking how Yuri, Jessica and Yoona were also trying to get through the net Sunny was maintaining over the robed man. She went for Sunny’s heel next.

Still nothing.

Goddammit.

+

“Fighting you like this is pointless and you know it, Sunny!” Yuri screamed from meters away, her chest heaving as she paused from her onslaught against a shielded Bob who just stared back at her with that stupid smile after ever ineffective strike.

“Sunny! We know your weakness already! Stop defending him!” Jessica had exhausted her list of ideas. Not even freezing the damn net worked. She expected the forming ice to go through the gaps that she couldn’t see but instead, the ice didn’t even materialize on the net’s surface. It was if she didn’t attack at all.

“Sunny unnie, please listen!” Yoona knew that Sunny was already pushing herself to the brink by projecting her aura toward the robed man while focusing on using some for herself. She wanted to end this fight but, as long as she could help it, not with Sunny as a casualty.

The reaction came from Bob instead.

“I told you!” He called out to Sunny who was still holding up her own against Taeyeon and Seohyun's scouts. He let out a loud laugh. “'Sunny,' they say. I told you they’d be wearing out that name while trying to stop you!”

“Shut up!” Sunny finally spoke but only out of impatience. “Fight back!!” She didn’t know if Bob was even capable of that. She had never seen him lift a finger against anyone and he did enlist her help because he needed her for her semblance.

Which wasn’t doing her any good right now without her buckler.

+

Fight back, she says, thought Bob. That's not such a bad idea.

+

The robe came off and they finally saw who Bob was. Or rather what he had become.

“Yuri-yah, he’s probably not human anymore.”

Yuri held Jessica‘s words close to her heart, next to the guilt that was slowly rising from memories she had long since locked away. If she really had to kill Bob, his blood wouldn’t be the first on her hands. That was why she had to believe that he was no longer human. She looked at his bare torso – the skin had broken apart in places from where black veins stretched and reached up to his face, overlapping with the bigger ones that pulsed against his sunken cheeks – and it occurred to her that maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to think of him as any other mindless Grimm.

As a huntress, I have to kill it.

But then she saw those eyes. They were glassy and lifeless but she could tell that there was still a soul hiding behind them although tormented and enraged.

“Unnie, let’s go.”

She heard Yoona’s voice and she had to let her other thoughts go. They had to end this one way or another. She nodded at her dongsaeng before charging forward, adjusting her aim as she went. Yoona and Jessica were right behind her.

She felt a chill pass her by and she knew what Jessica had in mind. Not long after the realization, she saw Bob struggle to move his feet which had already been frozen. Sunny is probably almost out of aura by now. Smirking to herself, she doubled her speed to attack where Jessica’s semblance managed to break through the net but its shielding effect had already shifted and the space near Bob’s feet was again impenetrable and ice-free.

She maintained her quickened pace, almost appearing in two places at once as she struck Bob from all directions with bullet-sized amounts of force.

Yoona appeared where Yuri didn’t, ing her naginata’s blade where Yuri hadn’t struck yet.

Jessica added to the offense from behind her two teammates as she threw thinner frozen needles at the vital areas, hoping at least one of them would be unprotected.

And when one of her needles did hit something, it landed hard, making Bob cry out in agony.

“I think you hit him right in the heart, unnie!” Yoona happily told Jessica from over her shoulder.

“GRAAAAAAAAH!!!”

“Yoona!!”

“What—”

Jessica threw herself in front of Yoona while conjuring a shield of ice to defend against Bob’s sudden attack but it didn’t materialize fast enough—

“Get away from her you bastard!”

Yuri didn’t see the first attack coming until she heard Jessica call out to Yoona and just when she thought Jessica could handle it, the fist that Bob threw wasn’t just a fist anymore. Large spikes broke through the skin over his knuckles and Jessica was practically defenseless with only half an ice wall.

“Yuri-yah!”

“It’s okay. I got it,” Yuri struggled to say as she pushed against the spikes with two rods. How the hand wraps around her wrist took on this new form was a blur. She only knew that something similar had happened once before…

She felt the bandages loosen around her hands, the heat forming on the surface of her palms.

It was that time when she accidentally used her semblance on Jessica during a practice match until Yoona came in between them and pointed out that her hand wraps had come undone. She didn’t pay much attention to it then because she wasn’t thinking straight but it made sense now. Her semblance allowed her to reroute her energy. That was what was giving the hand wraps a more solid structure.

After she was sure that Jessica had regained her composure, she leapt back and lowered the rods. She saw Bob glare at her when his now-heavy arm crashed to the floor.

He’s not human… anymore.

+

Sunny dropped to her knees in exhaustion. Taeyeon and Seohyun managed to get a few hits in but those weren’t what did her in because they stopped not too long ago to take care of another Grimm army that came to her rescue. She had no aura left to muster her semblance after she spent majority of it on trying to protect Bob. She peered over at him, barely able to lift her head, but she couldn’t see him anymore. She saw Yuri, Jessica and Yoona where she last saw them with Bob but in his place was a creature of Grimm with bone-white spikes that covered its forearms down to its knuckles, standing upright on two legs.

“Holy …”

She let herself fall into a seated position on the ground. Whether or not she was seeing things, something told her that she needed to rest up for this other half of the fight.

+

“Unnie, can you hear me?”

“Seohyun? Are you guys on your way? ‘Cause I can’t—”

“Relax, shorty! We’re here!”

Taeyeon groaned. Other than the pain in her back from using all of that lightning, seeing Sooyoung’s smug face wasn’t exactly what she found comforting. She stood back as Sooyoung swung her heavy axe at the boarbatusk that was about to launch into a spinning attack and it collapsed underneath its weight despite it plated body.

“Did you forget how to use your daggers or what?” Sooyoung mockingly asked with a laugh.

“Soo, be nice,” Hyoyeon cut in while patting Taeyeon’s shoulder. “Can’t you see that ahjumma Taeng threw out her back again?”

“Why you—”

“Oh good. Sounds like the others are already there. We’re on our way too!”

Taeyeon saw Seohyun’s scout disappear after that message. She turned her attention back to Sooyoung and Hyoyeon and then it hit her. “Hey! Where’s Krystal?!”

“Huh?” Hyoyeon frantically scanned the area. “Wasn’t she with you?” she asked Sooyoung.

“What? No way! You two were combo-ing everything in sight on the way here. She should be with you.”

Despite the worrying situation, Taeyeon let out a slight laugh. “Sica’s gonna be so pissed at you guys…”

+

Now against Bob’s Grimm counterpart, Yuri, Jessica and Yoona had less reason to hesitate when attacking, as insensitive as that may sound.

But Jessica still hadn’t gotten over what happened just moments ago.

“You reckless idiot!”

“I protected you, didn’t I?”

“I was handling it!”

“Sica, seriously. We both know that you couldn’t make that ice wall fast enough!”

“I was handling it!”

“You were so not—”

“God, unnies! Can you not argue like a married couple while we’re fighting the weird Grimm dude?!” Yoona whined while dodging Bob’s spiked hammer punches.

Up until before this ridiculous conversation started, Jessica and Yuri were attacking Bob in turns – Jessica slashed from the left and Yuri struck with both rods from the right then they alternated from the other direction.

Then they just had to talk about their feelings – as they do – and left Yoona to fend for herself.

“Unnies! Are you guys even listening to me?!” Yoona managed to back away enough to get some breathing space while Bob lumbered after her.

“I’m so sorry I said those things, Yuri-yah. I didn’t mean them,” Jessica said while throwing frozen needles at Bob from afar with only half of her attention, missing Yoona’s question completely. “Thank you for saving me like you always do.”

Yuri had just finished sending a shockwave along the ground in an attempt to stagger Bob who was still targeting Yoona. “Oh you~ I’ll save you anytime, anywhere.”

“Save me for a change!!” Yoona cried out after she barely blocked a hard kick to her side with the stem of her naginata.

“Get ready to give me a boost then!!” Yuri yelled back as she broke into a sprint and then jumped onto the base connecting the naginata’s blade to its stem. It was a good thing that Yoona caught on quick. Then again, they had been playing around with this move for a long time now.

“Up, up and away!” Yoona said with a laugh as she swung her weapon upward and sent Yuri flying.

When Yuri reached the peak of her jump and Yoona’s throw, a frozen platform appeared overhead, courtesy of Jessica, and she did a forward flip so her feet would press against it. “Here we go!!” Then she kicked off of it with double her strength and started falling from above at who knows what speed.

She gripped the two rods as tightly as she could as she neared the target, which was hacking away at one of Jessica's frozen ankle snares with what looked like curved fangs. Where did those come from? . He’s getting worse. She bent forward slightly then let out a loud grunt as she brought the two rods down as hard as she could on its head, barely keeping her body away from its fangs. It hit the ground fast and the ground below its body sank more than a few meters down. She kicked its side for good measure.

There was no response.

“Yuri-yah!” Jessica crouched down next to the newly-formed pit and held her hand out. “Get out of there before he gets up!”

Keeping a smile to herself, Yuri jumped up and grabbed a hold of Jessica’s hand. They almost fell back in if it wasn’t for Yoona who grabbed both of their collars and dragged them to safety. They collapsed on the ground in exhaustion while Yoona stood over them with a big smile on her face.

“Whew. Well, that wasn’t too bad—”

“GODDAMN BRATS—”

The voice distorted toward the end and the loud growl that took its place echoed inside the pit. Before Yoona could turn around to check what was going on, a strong gust of wind emerged next and out of the darkness came a creature larger than a dragon with similar red, leathery wings. It had a long snout like a beowolf’s and overlapping fangs protruding from its large mouth. Its tail swung heavily behind it with a crimson stinger at the end, not far from a Death Stalker’s. It hovered for a while before letting itself fall to the ground with its sharp, thick claws digging in deep to steady itself.

“Where the did that come from?!”

+

Sunny saw everything. She got up as fast as she could and ran toward her former teammates. Yuri and Jessica appeared to have been resting on the ground and were caught off guard when the creature – whatever it was – suddenly swung its tail toward Yoona, aiming to hit her with the stinger.

“YOONA!!!”

She didn’t know where this burst of energy came from. She hadn’t even replenished her aura completely yet but here she was, grabbing her buckler from Yoona’s back and activating her semblance at the same time.

“Su-Sunny unnie?!”

She wanted to reply but she was too busy focusing on how to protect her former partner while Yuri and Jessica got their act together. The stinger collided with the buckler’s face and she felt herself get pushed back an inch or two. The moment the tail swung back toward the creature in recoil, she squeezed the buckler’s handle, where a switch was hidden, and its face split in half and curved until they joined to form a barrel that attached to her forearm by the leather strap.

A stream of blue flames shot out of the barrel toward the creature, leaving a trail of smoke that she waved away with her free hand. The attack connected and the creature took time to flap its wings to ascend. The reddish wound on its abdomen stood out against its Grimm-black skin.

“Woah! Wait... Sunny unnie, did you just—”

“Guys! What’s going on?!”

Yoona was about to ask Sunny how she did what she did when Krystal arrived.

“Did you come here on your own?!” Jessica quickly reacted. “Where are the others?”

“They’re right behind me… I think.” Krystal flashed a wide smile, a bit embarrassed to admit that she rushed over here the first chance she got because she had gotten too worried about her sister. “Uh, I don’t think we have time for chit-chat ‘cause that thing’s coming right at us!!”

They all dropped to the floor on their stomachs as the creature swooped down in an attempt to knock them all over. They quickly rolled out of its reach and got to their feet, signaling to each other that they had to figure out how to attack it.

“I think it’s blind,” Krystal told the others after she noticed that it didn’t attack them again immediately after it missed.

“Is it?” Yuri recalled the dark veins on Bob’s body and how the larger ones started to cover his face. That included his eyes. “Wait. If it’s blind, we can use that to our advantage.”

“No. It has the advantage,” Sunny said. “Its other senses are heightened. It can probably hear us as we speak… Not that it can understand us anymore.”

“It’s coming back!”

Krystal quickly activated her semblance. It had been a while since she did this because she didn’t like how eerie it made her surroundings look, but the situation called for it.

A thick, white mist started to appear around them and then it drifted toward the creature not long after. They saw it swinging its tail about while it moved its head from side to side slowly, turning its snout to the sky, probably trying to sniff them out. But all it got was cold air up its large nostrils that went straight to its head. It growled in reaction to the pain and they swore they heard it garble some words in between.

"KILL... SOON—YOU..."

+

Sooyoung, Hyoyeon and Taeyeon sighed in relief when they saw that Krystal was already with their friends.

“See? She’s safe and sound!” Sooyoung said as they approached.

“Uh, not really,” Hyoyeon replied with a roll of her eyes. “Do you not see the huge- monster over there?!”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it already killed her or anything!”

“Don’t even joke about that!”

“GUYS! WHAT THE ACTUAL ?! START ATTACKING!” Taeyeon demanded.

Sooyoung and Hyoyeon felt the hairs on their arms stand on end and it wasn’t from the mist. Taeyeon ran past them with her daggers in hand and all they could do was follow without a word.

+

After the Grimm suddenly went haywire – more than they already were – it took Tiffany and Seohyun a bit longer to catch up to their friends. When they got to their destination and saw what they had to deal with, they almost wished that they stayed behind.

“Unnie, try to stun it. I’ll go for the wings.”

“Got it!”

+

Now slightly weakened within Tiffany’s dome, the creature dragged its huge body forward with its snout close to the ground, its nostrils flaring as it snorted, probably trying to clear away the mist that confused its senses.

Taeyeon and Yuri ran side by side at an accelerated speed with their weapons at the ready. While Taeyeon dragged her daggers along the side of the creature’s head, Yuri discarded her rods and focused her aura onto her palm instead.

“Taeng! I have an idea!”

“Well, that’s new.”

“Shut up! Don’t call me stupid!”

“I didn’t!”

Once Taeyeon understood what Yuri meant, she agreed with slight hesitation. Oh boy. Here we go again. She sent a bolt of lightning toward the side of the creature’s head and Yuri quickly came up from the other side and pressed her palm on the same spot. The heat from the static merged with the force that Yuri sent through her palm, causing the dragon to open its mouth to let out another pained growl. Taeyeon threw her dagger toward the space just before the first set of fangs, reappeared at the spot then plunged both daggers into the exposed tongue. Yuri tackled her a second after to knock her out of the way and she was about to scream in complaint when she saw a large swarm of insects coming out from the creature’s cavernous throat, enveloped in the same black sludge that the dragons shed earlier.

Then they heard a loud shriek.

+

“OH MY GOD! GROSS! GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!!”

“Tiff, relax! They’re just bugs!”

“YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Jessica had to roll out of the way when Tiffany suddenly brought out her whip and started hitting everything in sight out of panic. “Watch it! Jeebus!” She knew that Tiffany wouldn’t listen to reason because from the looks of it, the poor girl was -scared of insects. Instead, she took advantage of the rapid spinning movement of Tiffany’s whip and, without Tiffany knowing, coupled it with icy-cold air, creating a vacuum that the insects in and froze them in mid-air long enough for Jessica to cut through them in the hundreds.

“Oh my god, Jessi! You’re my hero!”

Jessica kept a smirk to herself and rolled her eyes when Tiffany suddenly clung to her arm. Well, I guess this is more bearable than when she drapes herself over Yuri.

+

Axes were never meant for hitting small fry, which Sooyoung was unfortunate enough to figure out at this moment.

“Ugh! This is useless! They’re just everywhere!! And I mean, everywhere!!” Sooyoung ranted as she swatted the insects away with her axe while adjusting her skirt with her free hand, trying to cover her thighs as best as she could.

“We have to kill the source!” Sunny yelled back in response while holding her buckler over her head, now back in its shield form.

“Well, duh! Got any bright ideas?!”

“As a matter of fact, I do!! Since one of us has to have one!”

“If you’re implying that I’m stupid—”

“Shut up and listen!!”

+

Krystal tried conjuring mist once more but visibility was bad enough with the insects running amok. She kept moving so she wouldn’t get caught in the middle of the swarm, swinging her swallow with every step to clear a path for herself until she found Yoona already down on one knee, struggling to increase the pressure from above to crush the insects against the ground so they couldn’t get to Seohyun who was focusing on attacking the creature they didn’t have a name for with her scouts. Naturally, she rushed to help them out and she created frozen walls around Seohyun for extra protection. She couldn’t make them as good as her sister does but it would do.

“Thanks, Krys,” Yoona said, her voice reduced to a mumble as she tried to stand up.

Krystal slashed away at the remaining pests and was about to reply when a huge chunk of the frozen wall she made came her way. She sidestepped as fast as she could but her shoulder came into contact with a sharp edge.

"Krys! You okay?" Yoona crouched next to Krystal and shielded her from the rest of the debris. "Hey, talk to me. Does it hurt?"

"Just a bit. Looks like I made a damn good ice wall if it hits this hard." Krystal tried to let out a laugh but she winced immediately after the exertion. "Anyway, let's get back to—"

"You're hurt. I can't just let you go back—"

"Yoona! Krystal!"

"Hyunnie?"

Seohyun didn't need to ask what happened after she saw Krystal clutching her shoulder. She was too busy evading their enemy that when the frozen walls around her were shattered by it tail, she didn't even think of where the pieces could have landed. And now here they were. "Krystal, I still have some aura left to heal you but it might take a while."

"There's no time—"

"No, I won't argue with you about this." Seohyun lowered herself into a kneeling position and started the process while Yoona stared, seemingly out of it. "Yoona, I know you're tired and you're worried about Krystal. But please go and help the others. I heard that Sunny unnie has a plan. Krystal and I will be fine over here as long as you keep that thing occupied."

"But Hyunnie—"

"Just a little while longer. That's what we promised. Remember?"

Yoona could only nod. She struggled to stand with her naginata in hand, fighting every ounce of worry in her mind because she had to – because Seohyun said so.

It's been a while, guys! Happy birthday to Kwon Yuri and congratulations to Jessica Jung for releasing her Wonderland teaser on the same day. We smell YulSic. :)