Seek and Destroy [Hunt, Closed]

Torture. This was absolute torture.

Avery laid near lifeless atop a tree branch, gazing emptily at the blue leaves above. Months ago when she moved to Bellmuse she didn't think much of its summer. 'It can't be too bad,' she recalled her saying. But now that she was here, practically melting under the intensity of the heat, she wanted nothing more than to go back to Atlas. She didn't perspire of course, since Frosts have a natural cooling mechanism that didn't involve sweating, but she could feel the heat all the same.

The gunslinger shifted on her side for a more comfortable position. The heat was making her more lazy and unmotivated, especially when her mission simply involved killing a bunch of juvenile scorpions. She was about to close her eyes when she saw something from the corner of her vision. It descended to the ground and she had to do a double take to confirm it was indeed some sort of a robot.

"The hell?" Avery muttered before sitting up. Tying her hair into a ponytail, she proceeded to jump from the tree branch and land on the ground in front of the robot. Atlesian Knight? The girl thought with a raised eyebrow. Well whatever.

"Hey tincan, make yourself useful and cough out a soda, will you? Here's a penny," she muttered and pulled out a coin from her pocket then flicked it to the robot's head.

Avery watched as the coin bounced away from the the robot's head with a distinct metallic clang. She turned her gaze back to the mech, narrowing her eyes at its response. Well this one has an attitude. The last time a robot pissed her off, she had the manufacturing company bombed. Her eyes were quick to search for a logo on this thing. The Vanheims? Nightfrosts? Strkylers perhaps? The last one made her laugh a little because there was no way Bellmuse could afford to make something as fancy-looking as this. Maybe it really was a super advanced Atlesian Knight?

In the middle of searching, Avery's world seemed to have stopped at the mention of two letters: A.C. She picked up the penny from the ground and barely heard the rest of what the robot had to say because she was already busy stepping on the mech's feet and grabbing its arm as she tried to climb it from the front.

"YOU! AC! Give me the AC!" Avery growled wildly, making her way to its head and positioning so she was straddling its shoulders. "Where is it, you piece of junk? You're not even human so obviously its built for us," she stated impatiently, tapping the penny on the top of its metallic head as though a coin slot would magically appear there if she kept tapping. "C'mon now, be a good robot and emit some cold wind or something~ I'll try not to rip your head off if you do," she cooed.

[i]Ash blinked as the girl began to climb on her asking for the A.C. Not knowing really how to react, she just tried to get her off of her but it seemed like she was more determined than ever to get something to cool her off. "But will you stop?!!? Get off me right now!! Who said that I was a robot huh? Inform yourself first blondie as I'm as human as you are. Why would I even need an A.C. if I was a robot? Not stop moving and get down before you get a heatstroke... or burn yourself..." It wasn't really a menace like it sounded, more like a warning as her A.C. only cooled down the interior of her suit, not the exterior so the sun may have cause the exterior shell to be quite hot.

Ash couldn't do much besides trying to keep the girl off of her but she didn't have as much mobility than the blonde so she decided to ascend and leave the ground in order to maybe calm the blonde down before she would come back down. "Now will you stop treating me like a refrigerator so we can move on with our lives?"

"You're human?" Avery raised an eyebrow once again. Not even an android but a human? Is this one of those mecha cartoons she saw on tv where there's a pilot inside? "Well excuse me for mistaking a full-sized metallic object manoeuvring with jets to be a freaking robot. And what kind of pointless idea was piloting such a small suit even? You could've just made a remote control robot," she stated with a mocking scoff. Clearly this person had a dream of being a superhero without taking into account the convenience of other methods.

Avery was about to climb down when she felt the mech rise up from the ground, causing her to abandon that idea. She sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. "Yeah, you're definitely human. And a stupid one too. How can I get off if you're flying away from the ground? Idiot," she said, shaking her head.

"And since you're human inside this scrap anyway, stop being selfish and share your AC!" Avery growled again, this time trying to pull off the head from the mech's body.

Avery was starting to have a hard time figuring out how this person's brain works. "Why would I ask a robot if it's a human? Do you ask a penguin if it's a chicken?" she stated with a scoff. She only paused trying to pull the helmet off when the person disclosed they were disabled paving way for the mech suit. That made her all the more convinced this person wasn't the brightest banana in the bunch. Based from the fact that the person can still pilot, it meant they weren't fully paralysed from head down, unless they're using their brain to control the mech which would be more expensive. It only meant the person inside was paraplegic.

"You do know you could've just altered your wheelchair so it can transform into mech legs right? That'll give you the manoeuvrability and freedom you obviously lack with this suit. But more importantly, you could've not raised my hopes up of being an AC machine." Avery rolled her eyes. She didn't care if the person was disabled or a faunus or what not. Everyone was equal in her eyes; that is, they're all inferior to her and she'd treat them all the same.

As they neared the ground, Avery's eyebrow twitched as she was a called a child. Oh she'll show this idiot how much of a child she could be. She removed her shirt leaving her in the black top of her bikini (which she wore since she planned to swim later anyway), and used the shirt to cover the entirety of the mech's head to take away its vision. Placing an elbow on top and her chin on hand, she proceeded to hum pleasantly. "Oh no~ I think something got in your monitor."

Annoyance, slight anger and a bunch of other negative emotions had been permeating the air of the forest since a few moments ago. This was like a beacon and a few Grimms close enough to it started to converge on the source. In the Grimm’s food chain, it was obvious which ones were considered on top. The bigger you are, the stronger you are, so it was no surprise that a trio of Deathstalkers would be close to the top. These were pretty average in terms of size, but all the other Grimms knew to let them get this prey and kept their distance.

They soon got close to their target, trying to avoid making as much noise as possible without sacrificing anything on speed. They knew there was no way they could really be stealthy, so they didn’t put that much effort in it. As they got close, the smallest one used it’s pincer to smash a tree, the bigger one grabbing it and throwing it at the duo in front of them. Should they scatter or not, the smaller Deathstalker rushed to the metallic bipedal thing, attacking with a simple stab with its stinger. The last Deathstalker, which was sized just in between the other two, went for the fleshy bipedal instead. As it ran, it brought its right pincer on its front and went for a backhand kind of hit to the huntress’ midsection.

Just at that moment, the big deathstalker that threw the tree entered the area, looking at the situation.

Battle Stuff:

"Oh sweetheart, if I cared about what people thought of me, I would've long been dead," Avery said nonchalantly as she looked at her nails, passing off the insults that weren't even witty enough to entertain her. Grumbling a little as she was pushed off, she let her top get discarded. It was more refreshing in her bra and shorts anyway.

Avery glanced at the mech suit as it ascended once again. She was completely unaware of the scorpions' presence and she noticed the incoming tree a little too late. It crashed right into her, the trunk splitting in half as her armour did its job while the force from the impact pushed her a couple of steps back. Nothing major but it was enough to alert her of grimms' presence.

Seeing the second scorpion charge at her, Avery dashed forward and used the momentum to flip over its pincer strike and land on its back, having taken her golden pistols out of their holsters and proceeded to gun down its pincer joint. She then open-fired at its exposed legs while running along its back before hopping off as she reached the end and spun to fire on its backside. Almost immediately, Avery sped away heading to the third deathstalker now as she released bullets onto its eyes.

From her periphery Avery could see the mech hovering over the battlefield and using the hit and run tactic which made the blonde snicker. "You must be one hell of a boring person inside that suit. Please tell me your name so I can blacklist you from my parties and save everyone the awkwardness of your presence."

Battle Log:

The negative emotions were coming from the metal one and they were directed to the fleshy one. Still, for the three creatures, it was like waves of energy rolling through them and a craving to get to the source. The small Deathstalker was the one that rushed for it, only to have its prey fly up in the air. Great, it’s a metal flying thing now. And it’s shooting light that burns too! What a pain… While following the girl, turning as fast as possible whenever she moved to prevent her from getting to its side, two beams hit the bone plating on its back, forcing it to burrow in the ground and avoid the last two shots. It came out right under the snapped tree that was thrown early on and had hit the blonde girl, flicking its pincer to throw one of the two halves at high speed toward the flying prey.

During that time, the average mid-sized Grimm was in a brawl with the blonde girl. The moment she jumped on its back, it started trashing to throw her off. it was able to retract its pincer and have the bullets hit the white bone instead but no way to completely avoid the damage. Its trashing, at the very least, made its legs hard to hit and managed to avoid that at least. It was able to spin quickly as the student jumped off, bringing its armored pincers in the line of fire. Armored or not, it was hurting a lot. Following after her, it dug into the ground as it approached only to burst out from under her, left pincer snapping at her.

The bigger scorpion had seen what happened and picked up another tree. If she was going to fly, well that was the only way to reach her. With a spin of its body, it threw the relatively large tree in the air toward the general area where the flying bipedal was only to get hit in the face with a bunch of bullets. The Deathstalker released a scream as one of its eyes was hit.

Battle Stuff:

Avery was still heading over to the third scorpion when she noticed the second one burrowed underneath. With an irritated sigh, she skidded into a halt and faced it. It was able to hide from plain sight but a grimm of that size was not built for burrowing; the noise was a dead giveaway. When she felt the scorpion was directly underneath her, she jumped back in time as it emerged, the pincer missing her torso by inches.

Now to let it taste its own medicine, Avery's eyes illuminated a bright blue as her semblance activated right under the scorpion, spawning an ice pillar that hit under its front body and dispersed almost immediately. It's purpose was to send the grimm in the air and gun down its now exposed underbelly followed by a shift to her weapons so she could trigger her flamethrower. The pillar should've also flipped it over to its back.

The recoil of her flamethrower sent Avery propelling towards the third deathstalker. Click. The barrel switched to the rear and she twisted her body before triggering her weapon, using the its recoil to power up a downward punch at one of its eyes. Click. Front barrel and she released flames at the entirety of the grimm's face.

Sent away at a good distance from the recoil, Avery was about to retort to what the pilot said when she noticed the severe damage to their mech. "What happened to your suit?!" She asked in irritation. And here she thought she could play around with the grimms. She removed her guns' limiters and her eyes glow once again, creating a concentrated layer of transparent ice all over the mech as a precautionary measure.

Battle Log:

The smaller Deathstalker was happy to see the flying thing get hit by the tree, it’d have to remember to thank the big one later for that shot, even if it hit only thanks to his own throw. Teamwork exists even with Grimms! Still, it wasn’t over. Pretty soon, even though there was visible damage on the metal bipedal, she was still alive and flying straight toward its front. The Grimm knew there was a beam of burning thing coming at it so it put one of its pincer in front of its eyes, readying the other to strike. The beam hit the armored pincer, it burned but it was better than a hit in the eyes. The moment it felt the burning sensation stop, the scorpion moved its pincer back. The thing was way closer than it was expecting and apparently was aiming to go under its belly. Not if it could help it! Before she could reach it, the scorpion folded its legs under its torso in a ball to force her to go around it. This had the added benefit that the metal mosquito could only hit bone armor again for her next three shots. Still, the Deathstalker was pretty much cursing it’s lack of mobility to actually avoid the shots, they still burned. Its new position also allowed the scorpion to use its tail to smack the burning light user in the air, making sure the bone part was facing its prey. The aggressive counter didn’t allow it to avoid another singeing hit. Really, how did the universe expect slow and big creatures restricted to the ground to fight airborne mosquitos with lasers?

Meanwhile, the midsized Deathstalker got a little surprise. It didn’t expect to be stealthy, it knew there was no way she didn’t hear it coming, but there was no way it could expect that ice lifting it in the air. The bullets hit the underbelly that was now visible and the flames engulfed it pretty fast. Before it could even start dissipating, it fell back where he erupted before, slowly dissolving, in the hole. There wasn't any rain, but thunder rumbled loudly at that moment in a very dramatic way.

The bigger Deathstalker could finally see again, but it didn’t like what it was seeing. The smaller of its allies all but dead, the midsized one, dead, in a hole. The moment it saw this, a very dramatic sounding thunder was heard again. The kicker was that now, it found itself facing two opponents. Not that it had time to think, the blond girl was already on it. Its right pincer intercepted the punch, which still hurt, but it allowed for it to push her back strongly. The flames came to it but again its pincers were in front, shielding the most of the damage. As soon as the fire died, it jumped forward trying to body slam the fleshy human.

Battle Stuff:

Avery raised an eyebrow as she swore she heard the sound of thunder somewhere. Nonetheless, with the second deathstalker dead, that only left two others which both didn't look like they'd last long. She gave the mech a brief look to see if it was still in one piece, ready to jump in and be a freaking hero or something lame like that if the pilot decided to eject. And since it decided to fly up to sky, that's one less thing to worry about.

As the biggest of the grimms decided to body slam her, Avery stared at it a little in awe. She didn't know scorpions could do that. Do they even have joints to make such a move? Well it didn't matter. It'd die anyway.

With her weapons still in their second form, Avery crouched low to the ground and lowered her left fist, switching the barrel to the rear. And as the scorpion descended at her, she triggered her flamethrower at full power sending a massive uppercut right onto the grimm's exposed underbelly. The force almost dislocated her shoulder but she didn't care. She'd always wanted to do that move.

Avery even angled it so the blow would send the grimm falling down the hole. She blinked as she heard thunder again. Shaking her head, she waited in anticipation for the grimm to fall down and see if she was accurate enough.

Battle Log:

If Grimms had actual feelings, the smaller Deathstalker would be weeping right now, wondering how it went wrong in its life. It had a good run, teamed up with two other bigger friends. It liked to think it was the brain of the whole thing but really, all it wanted was people to protect it. Yeaaaaaah not really, it felt negative emotions and acted on instinct. Its opponent was out of range for whatever it could even try so even though its instinct was screaming at it to find a way to grab and open the flying tin can to see what delicacy was inside, there was nothing it could find to manage this. Looking at the ground, it started to try and burrow but the soil here was harder and it took too long, the first beam that hit it pierced right through the armor, killing it instantly, while the rest punched a bunch of holes, turning it into weirdly shaped Swiss cheese.

The bigger Deathstalker didn’t get a better outcome. Of course a beast of that size trying to body slam a human makes the move easy to follow. Jumping with those legs aren’t the easiest of things and require a lot of buildup. It could have thought of that really, but it was too late. In a way, it didn’t expect that much power from the relatively tiny blonde, but she did it. The impact alone finished it, but for some reason, it managed to hold onto consciousness long enough to realize that its current flight path would make it land where its midsized partner was: down the Hole. Rolling dramatic sounding thunder was the last thing it heard.

Battle Stuff:

3 Deathstalkers down.
110 hp = 550 lien
120 hp = 600 lien
130 hp = 650 lien
total = 1800 lien (Combat Major bonus 10% for Avy = 1980 lien)

EXP : 3*1500 = 4500

You can roll bonus wheel.

Avery narrowed her eyes as she watched the last grimm drop and accurately land inside the hole. She ignored the dramatic thunder sound as she placed both hands on her hips followed by a victory laugh. "Gosh, I hate how perfect I am sometimes."

The gunslinger glanced at the mech briefly as it landed next to her. Much to her surprise the pilot had the decency to express their gratitude, even taking her suggestion of modifying the suit to include an AC. Avy folded her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. "Don't misunderstand. I only helped you because I don't want to clean up a dead body afterwards," she said with a shrug.

At the proposal of hunting together and asking for advices though, Avery squinted and glared at the mech. "When I was in your position, I didn't have anyone babysit me. You're a capable hunter. You can learn by yourself," she responded icily. Despite the horrible tone, the underlying meaning was the best possible compliment she could give. But more importantly, Avery was scared. Seeing how fragile both the mech and pilot were, a single loose bullet from her gun was enough to critically injure the person. And she wasn't exactly the best at keeping track of her ally's positions during battle.

Avery moved around the mech to inspect the damages."Anyway, you can't fly back alone in this condition. You'll risk encountering Nevermores along the way or have your mech shut down on you. Can you get off your suit? I have my bike with me so I can drop you off at the pick-up zone and get someone to go back for your suit."

Avery dug on her pocket and was about to take out her keys to call her bike when the mech spoke again. At first the blonde didn't think much about the fact that she'd have to carry the pilot on her back to her bike; she'd already thought of that when she offered. But then Avy didn't actually know what the person inside looked like. What if it was a six foot tall guy with rippling muscles and weigh twice as much as her? With her non-existent strength, that would just be a disaster.

"You weren't kidding when you said you're a pain," she hissed. At the mention of following her on ground level, Avery shook her head. "No, that's worse. There are more grimms on the ground than above. With my bike I can just speed through everything but with your mech in that condition, good luck not having creeps jump on you."

"Know what? Whatever. Just fly like you normally do. I'll accompany you by air." Avery finally conceded. Well, she had to escort this newbie safely to the academy even if it meant having to expose herself to the heat of the scorching sun. With a grumble, her eyes glowed as an ice board materialised beneath her and within a second, took off, ascending at a steep angle into the skies before halting when she was high enough. She looked down at the mech, waiting for it to follow.

Avery immediately got tired of standing on her board and shifted to sit on it instead, letting her legs dangle as she swayed them back and forth. It was the first time she's taking the air back to the academy instead of a ship. And she was slightly grateful to the pilot. The view below was amazing. Her eyes shifted to the mech suit as the pilot asked a question that made her eyebrow raise. She couldn't believe of all things to ask, it had to be something so obvious.

"You know, it shocks me too but there's this thing called 'brain'. Try using it," she said with a sarcastic smile. Well the person needed her advice, right? So this was her telling them to figure things out themselves.

The following question about why Avery was escorting the mech made her sigh even more. "Were you even listening to what I said before? Nevermores. Griffons. Flying grimms that will easily tear your cheap suit to pieces. There's a reason normal students use an airship to get to the hunting places. As for why I'm doing this, like I said before again, I don't want to have to deal with your funeral. You're capable, but there are times you need help, just like everyone else," she explained with a roll of her eyes.

Placing both hands on the board behind her, she leaned back and enjoyed the cool breeze. "Now stop asking stupid questions and tell me about yourself instead."