Creepy Creeps [Solo Hunt]

Noire skipped across the forest, bare feet crunching against the lingering snow that had stuck to the ground. She hummed a made-up tune under her breath as she made her way to her designated assignment. Unlike her last hunt, this one was in the middle of the day. The sun hung high in the sky, signaling that it was noon. It's rays shone through the leaves that hovered above the young girl's head, creating a beautiful mix of shadows and colors that she very much appreciated. It put a small smile on her face. The mixture of excitement and nervousness that came with the hunt made her heart beat a little frantically in her chest. It was her first official solo hunt on behalf of Syne Academy, after all. It would be a good way to start making a name for herself and building a reputation as a strong fighter. Of course, she had never really wanted fame or anything like that. All she was really looking for was respect, she supposed.

Preemptively, the white haired faunus had already slipped a vial of wind dust into the hilt of her sword. After all, she wasn't sure when exactly she would run into the Grimm she was looking for - a single Creep, apparently. Fortunately for her, it wasn't anything overly complicated. Had it been a King Taijitu or something along those lines, she would have had to ask someone to come with her. For now, however, she could deal with this on her own. Eventually, she would find a small clearing - the location that the GPS in her scroll had led her to. She drew her weapon, foregoing stealth entirely and instead waiting to be found or noticed by the creature that she was looking for. She would remain on her guard and ready to dodge and counterattack if need be. She held her position firmly, her blade gripped between the palms of both her hands. Its weight was considerable, but she was used to it to the point where she could easily maneuver it in a fight.

OOC: Dice rolled here!

Most Creeps are like cannon fodder. They’re often small, have limited movements and not much in terms of options to hurt their enemies. The creep that… creeped out of the woods to find the female faunus huntress was something else. While they’re usually small, this one was quite big. Not as big as some of them could become, some towering over even the biggest of ursas like dinosaurs, but this one was still big enough to wonder if it might not have been easier to fight one of the bear-Grimm instead. And it looked mean. Glowing red eyes, some moss forming on his mask signaling its age and also had more bones on its body compared to the usual creep. The spikes on its spine, from head to tail, also looked pretty wicked.

All in all, cannon fodder this creep wasn’t.

Seeing the faunus girl, the Grimm stopped in its movements for a bit. There wasn’t much staring, as after a loud roar, it started to run toward the huntress with deceiving speed considering its size. It seemed to have some experience fighting hunters as it started to immediately move in a zig-zag pattern, making it hard to target with long range weapons, should the girl have one. With one last jump and another smaller roar, the Grimm tried to stomp the girl under its considerable weight, claw forwards to try an impale its target as it landed on her.

Stuff!:

Creeps were by no means pretty-looking creatures. Even by Grimm standards, they weren't in the least bit pleasant to look at. At least Nevermores and Ursae loosely resembled animals. Creeps, on the other hand, were oddly bipedal beings with somewhat scaly skin and facial features that couldn't easily be distinguished. Noire thought that their name was quite appropriate. They definitely gave her chills whenever she saw one of them. This one - the one that roared loudly and dashed into the clearing - was no different. However, that didn't deter from her determination to see her job done. It dashed towards her in a zig-zag pattern that, though slightly harder to get a lock on, was still fairly predictable. It was to be expected, from a Grimm that wasn't exactly known for its intelligence.

Left-right-left-right, Noire tracked its movements with her eyes, anticipating the right moment to counter its actions. When it jumped into the air, she saw her chance. She quickly moved out of the way, rolling underneath it so that she could stand behind it once it landed. The young faunus anticipated it landing with a loud thud. As it did, she would swing her sword down rapidly, letting the bulk of its weight and her added force land on its presumably exposed back. Afterwards, she would bring her blade upwards, dragging it from the Creep's underbelly, diagonally towards its hip. The movement between both slices melded together as if it were one single motion.

Regardless of the outcome, she would leap backwards several meters. She knew better than to stand around and wait for it to attack her. Noire's style of fighting revolved around quick, precise attacks followed by a retreat and a repeat of the pattern whenever she saw an opening. It kept her opponents on their toes and made her difficult to hit since she rarely stood still unless it fit her strategy. She was flexible that way, knowing from experience how to react in battle. Once again,

The second that it stopped, however briefly, to prepare its next attack, Noire would open a portal directly underneath it, letting her blade through to slice across its stomach in one fluid motion. Swiftly, she drew her blade back, both portals closing seamlessly. However, one opened directly behind her, mimicking her silhouette perfectly. It closed as soon as she entered it, leaving behind nothing but empty space. If the Creep was confused and looking for her, she would open a second portal to let her blade through, stabbing it through the Grimm's left leg in the process.

The young girl didn't want to abuse her ability, knowing that she could only remain in between the realm of reality and the space that her portals offered her for a limited amount of time. Ten meters away from the Creep, she would exit once again, resuming her stance.

Current Status:

Creeps aren’t known to be the brightest of creatures, quite the contrary actually. Even one as big and old as this one merely had life experience, it still acted on instinct more than anything else. Still, those instincts were sharp and honed through a lifetime of whatever kind of life a creep could have chasing after the negative emotions it could feel in other living beings. That its first attack was dodged didn’t faze the Creep at all and it knew to expect a counter attack, so it instantly side stepped while turning back around toward the girl wielding the giant cleaver. The attack from the faunus barely missed the Grimm on the down swing while the Grimm ended up too far for the upward one. There wasn’t much time for it to do anything more though since the moment it was about to attack, the girl had took some distance, preventing a counter-attack.

Not much thought other than a desire to eat the white haired woman, the Creep started approaching, movement that was cut short almost as soon as it started. There was no way a Creep that size who was focused on its prey would have even seen the portal open under it, let alone saw the attack coming from it. With a pained scream, the creep once more side stepped, looking where the attack came from and saw nothing. It was confused and started to look around for whatever had managed to hit it. It didn’t see the girl anymore, barely noticing the strange way she vanished as if being wrapped by the background.

Moving around a lot, it was probably pretty hard for the ram faunus to land a hit. Unfortunately for her she was aiming for the leg and the sword scraped a bone plate, not doing any real damage, but it did get its attention. With a small jump, it spun to face the spot where the sword had grazed its bone protection. One again she was too fast in retreating the sword back for the Creep to see it but it did see the portal close. It would now be wary of those things and immediately associated them to bad things happening. The fact the girl exited another of those portal confirmed it for the creature.

It’s target once again in sight, the Creep roared once more and charged before she disappeared again, being wary of anything appearing under it. Not willing to let her roll under the attack once more, it tried to simply tackle her, keeping an eye on any movement she did so it could match it.

Choses:

Moving constantly and using her semblance was working so far. Noire had managed to both inflict and avoid damage, though she would have preferred it if her initial attacks had connected. Well, she couldn't really do much about that now. All she could do was focus on her following actions to make sure that she did as much damage as possible. She had to be smart, she knew that much. Using the same strategy and movements over and over again would just render them useless for later. It was best to mix things up and she was about to do just that. With a happy smile on her face, she would see this fight through to the end.

As the Grimm charged at her, Noire braced herself. Once it got close enough, she jumped in the air, using the top of the creature's head to kick off and rise even higher in the air. Her body twisted, turning around to face the Creep while still above it. She used the momentum to swing her sword against it's back, aiming for the spaces between its armored plating. Even if the creature moved and she missed, it would at least serve as a distraction while the young faunus carried out her plan. She landed two meters behind the Creep. As soon as she did, she stabbed her sword into the ground, its blade sinking in about ten centimeters so that she could pull it free quickly if she had to. Now, she would finally put the vial of dust inside the weapon's hilt to good use.

The blade's edges lit up, glowing a dull green as the raw energy of the dust vial coursed within it. Immediately, a twister would form underneath the Grimm. The sheer force behind the rising current of spinning air hitting its underbelly would be enough to cause damage on its own. However, that wasn't the point of the attack. It was only meant to make the creature vulnerable, unable to maneuver its body to dodge. Standing where she was, Noire drew her blade from the ground and swung it diagonally twice, each time in the opposite angle. The result was simple: two slices of sharp wind in an 'X' shaped formation, both as long and wide as Chaos Spire - her sword. They rapidly closed the distance between Noire and the Creep, which would still be trapped in the twister, unbalanced and suspended in the air.

When the white haired girl finished her onslaught, the weapon's edges would stop glowing, signaling that the dust vial inside was no longer in use for the time being. Knowing that the twister would soon dissipate, Noire stood on guard, holding a basic stance while waiting for the Grimm to counter what she had just done.

Current Status:

Being used as a stepping stone wasn’t something the Grimm liked. As the faunus was mid-air, the Creep tried to attack her with its tail, but it only served to block the downward strike of the blade with the spikes that runs on the back of the appendage. At least it avoided more damage from the sharp giant slab of metal.

The Creep was wary of the movements made by the ram girl as she stabbed her sword in the ground. The green glow wasn’t something it liked, hunters tended to make weird stuff happen when their things glowed. The Creep was preparing itself to dodge something coming from the girl, but the attack was actually coming from all around it in the form of a twister. The wind was sharp and powerful and since the Creep was expecting an attack coming from in front of it, it was caught entirely off guard in the wind twister that started under it.

While it was big, it was still lifted off of the ground by the strong wind. The creature was like tumbling in place, rolling and twisting, sometimes touching the ground from the wind currents not being able to completely hold its full weight in certain positions, then being lifted again when it tried to move in anyway. It was screaming in a mix of pain and rage, but suddenly stopped when it saw from the corner of its eyes the giant green X rushing toward it. In panic, it started trashing around in the air but couldn’t avoid the strike entirely, still hit by one of the branches of the X, cutting in its side deeply.

Once the attack was done, the Creep fell to the ground on its side. It realised that its mobility was impaired, its right leg missing a two claws, cut down by the wind dust attack before it reached its belly. Taking a slower approach, the Grimm still got close to the huntress pretty quickly. Mid movement, it suddenly jumped, but not directly at her, instead aiming just a little to the side of her as if to try and get behind her. The Grimm was actually using its size to trap her. As it landed, its tail quickly folded toward the head in a shrinking circle around the ram faunus. The girl was now standing amids a rapidly approaching spiked tail and extremely sharp teeth inside a powerful jaw that was ready to bite her head off should she decide to escape the tail this way.

Thingy with the thingies:

When in battle, Noire was uncharacteristically focused, serious and efficient. She was seemingly dominated by a primal instinct to survive the fight and destroy her enemy. Without even realizing, her eyes captured everything around her in great detail, her body anticipated every attack and counter-attack in order to react to it and plan ahead. Her movements were graceful and fluent. They gave off the feeling that not a single twitch of her muscles were wasted. All the damage she meant to deal was precise and pinpointed, resulting in little to no collateral damage.

Her most recent attack against the abnormally large Creep was effective, though it hadn't caused the maximum damage that she had aimed for. Nevertheless, it had been enough to make the creature slower and to make it collapse on its side once the tornado of wind dissipated. It gave Noire enough time - an opening - to attack once again. Seeing as it would momentarily be disoriented and distracted, its gaze turned away from Noire, she decided to open a portal only two inches away from its newly exposed stomach. She stabbed through her end of the dimensional rift with all of her strength, aiming to tear the monster's skin in order to further debilitate it.

A few moments later, whether the attack connected or not, Noire saw the creature charge towards her, bearing forth its claws and tail in order to trap her and potentially even bite off a limb if it got its way. The easiest way to avoid the attack was to take a single but quick step back into a portal shaped to mimic the girl's silhouette. She disappeared into it, leaving the Grimm to grasp nothing but the air between its teeth and tail. Taking advantage of its charging movement once again, Noire chose to reappear below the beast, angling her blade to stab through its exposed neck. Just as quickly, her arm and upper body would once again retreat into the same portal.

The sky tore open several meters above the beast, letting Noire fall from it. She slashed through the air, her blade's edge glowing once again to generate a slicing current of wind. It was aimed at its barbed tail, with the intention of slicing it off. Whether or not it had the strength to do so and whether the Grimm's skin had been weakened enough to allow for this to happen was another matter entirely. As she fell, the angled her sword downward, wanting to use the additional strength added by her fall to pierce through the space between its plating. Hopefully, the creature would dissipate afterwards, letting Noire and her blade land on the ground as its remains scattered into the wind. However, she was ready to retreat to a safe distance in case that didn't happen. She would use her sword as leverage to vault away from the Creep and resume a defensive stance.

Current Status:

Size doesn’t mean everything; it was definitely true in this case. Creeps are fast and relatively agile creatures, not something that is enhanced by an abnormally large build. This one Grimm was fast for its size, but it still made it a much easier target to hit for the faunus girl. It didn’t help that she had some weird power that made her attacks appear from nowhere as well as allow her to literally disappear into thin air. It had understood that this power was dependant on those sort of holes that appears mid-air, but there was no way it was able to track them with such a large body, even less while being distracted, so it was with no surprise that it took the attack to its stomach without even knowing it was coming.

It literally gave up at this point. Or well, it knew it wouldn’t survive, so it stopped trying to dodge attacks and just tried it’s best to at least DAMAGE the girl. It luckily avoided the stab through the neck by actually attacking at the same time. Call it wounded beast’s instincts, but it felt the huntress reappear under it, prompting the creep to jump sideway and gain a position where it could attack. It didn’t care what came at it from this point, it was going to bite in her flesh!

It registered the wind attack, but it didn’t try to avoid it. The attack cut deeply but it didn’t sever the tail, it was too thick. Still, she was mid-air, so she would hardly be able to avoid anything. Therefore, as a dying attack, the Creep jumped and tried to bite anything on her at the same time she was dropping down from above. Still, it didn’t even try to avoid the blade coming down and it pierced right through it as it made contact with whichever part of its body it reached. At this, point, no matter where the attack hit, it was a finishing blow. The Creep started dissolving in the air without even knowing if it’s last attack was a success or not.

Stuff:

The Creep began to dissolve in front of Noire. She was panting slightly at this point. Once it finally scattered, it's body turned into dust, the white haired girl let herself smile. She removed the dust vial from the hilt of her blade. It was half used, but there was still enough left for a couple more attacks. She decide it to tuck it back into the belt around her waist, along with the others. She tucked her blade back into its holster on her back as well. They didn't really make sheathes that big. Well, maybe she could get someone at the smithy to make her one with the money she would get from the hunt.

Now that her things were back in their place, she jumped up and down in celebration. "I did it! I did it!" She chanted, clapping her hands. Her jumping was leaving oddly shaped dents in the snow. Her skipping - her preferred way of getting back to the Academy at the moment - would also look odd. Now that her job was done, she could finally go back and relax for a bit, provided that she could find her way. On the bright side, at least she wouldn't get lost in the forest thanks to her scroll and its GPS. And worst case scenario, she wouldn't mid sleeping under the stars like she usually did before she got a room of her own.

Rewarded, 800 lien and 800 exp rewarded ^^