Ren and Nora had managed to face off against Grimm most of the night without much trouble, Ren was a smart young man and had realized that if he and Nora were to separate they would paint easier targets onto themselves. He had placed them in a place where they were sure to not have too much trouble when compared to the other people, and that was why they had lasted so long without facing off against much of the dark kind known as Grimm.
He had a plan.
It was a good plan, a great plan even. He would hazard a guess as to say that they had started out well enough, they had managed to steal some supplies, ammunition, from other people that had found the extra packs of ammo... sadly for Nora, there were no rounds fitted for her weapon.
That aside, his plan had been working.
HAD been working.
Nora fucked it up, and he wasn't angry at her for wrecking his shit. She was a natural at it, if there was something that should happen, then Nora would do the opposite. She was a natural wrecker of people's shit. She was a living, breathing, disaster waiting to happen. He could normally keep her contained, but she was hungry and tired... she had picked a fight with a Grimm that had been going towards another team.
That Grimm was not alone.
The first 10 Grimm were no problem, small fries is what they were. Easy pickings, so easy that they were like horrible examples of what Grimm were able to do.
The next 20 had started to tire them out, with Ren's small stamina starting to give out as he was forced to trade off his aura for stamina. Thus, depleting his aura at an astonishing rate, weakening them quicker and quicker with each Grimm that appeared before them. They were both, at this point, all out of ammunition.
Nora carried a huge hammer, so no problem. She was still breaking necks, legs, and the occasional skull. With swings of her hammer, she was now using her shit wrecking powers to wreck the shit of the Grimm.
She was Nora, Wrecker of People's Shit.
Well, not even Nora could stand against the next 40 Grimm without assistance. The two of them were tired, exhausted, low on stamina and aura, and hungry... even though they were seconds away from collapsing, they continued to fight... they fought and fought, until only 3 Grimm remained.
They could no longer fight.
As it were, they were on their last legs. There were 2 more hours until the sun rose, meaning that they only needed to wait about 5 more hours until the test was done... but they weren't going to survive that long.
Nora had been wounded, her leg had a deep gash on her right thigh. She couldn't run away anymore, and her arms were too exhausted to even hold up her mighty weapon. Ren was on his last legs, but he was swifter on his feet. The Grimm couldn't hit him, with his body built for evasion and weapons light enough to use even when exhausted.
"Ren, I'll hold these guys off long enough for you to escape." Nora told Ren seriously as she took up a horrible martial arts stance, completely horrible. It looked like a drunken sailor trying to imitate kung fu, she was even wobbling like a drunk. She was low of blood, and her injury kept her from putting her weight on her leg.
Ren simply gave her a light smile.
"Sorry, but I won't leave you until I know what a sloth sounds like." Ren told her with a larger smile on his face, and she rubbed the tears out of her eyes and grinned.
"Hekkkrrrraaaauwww!" Nora shouted out, and the Beowolves circling around them took their chance and rushed towards them on all fours. Ren grabbed Nora, and pulled her out of the way and he himself took a blow meant for her. He was knocked to the ground, grabbing a bleeding slash mark on his bicep with Nora rolling across the ground and gasping in pain.
"I... don't think that is what a sloth sounds like." Ren spoke lightly, despite the dire situation to try and keep Nora happier.
Even on the doors of death, he still wanted to make his friend happy.
Nora stopped gasping in pain, before she reached out and booped him on the nose with the very tip of her finger.
"Boop." Nora told him, and he smiled at her. That was all she needed to say, that one word was all she needed to convey her feelings to him. The Grimm jumped towards them, and they only looked at each other as death approached them.
It was a good life, a short one, but a good one.
"Awwwwwoooo—"
The battle cry of the Beowolf was cut short, much shorter than it should have been when both Nora and Ren looked up and saw somebody standing on top of one of the Beowolves. Actually, it was two people, and the two other Grimm were sliced cleanly in half by massive scythe blades. The beowolf they were standing on top of currently was also dead, a spear seemed to be lodged through it's chest and stuck into the ground... even in death this Grimm was forced into a standing position.
"You're right Sasuke... Sloths don't sound like that." Haru said as he peeked around his sister and grinned at Ren.
"My name is Lie Ren... not Sasuke." Ren corrected Haru with a look of disbelief on his face.
Haru and Ruby jumped off of the dead Grimm, before they cracked their necks. Haru pulled the spear out of the Grimm, before he tossed it to Pyrrha, who was rushing towards the scene of the attack with the rest of the group.
"How would you know what a sloth sounds like?" Ruby asked Haru as she placed her Crescent Rose in its holder, in its collapsed form.
"Slothes don't sound like mutated birds, I know that much." Haru told her, before he looked at Nora and walked over towards her. Haru looked at the wound on her leg for a moment, before he gave Ren a grin. "Don't worry, the wound isn't that deep... it will hurt like a bitch, and you should worry about infection later, but your girlfriend is safe." Haru told Ren, and Nora raised a finger.
"Actually, we aren't together... not that he isn't handsome, but we aren't... together like that... but we are together... what?" Nora asked herself, not sure how she had explained that. She was kind of dizzy at the moment, and felt like she would pass out at any given second really.
"She will pass out soon from blood loss and exhaustion... oh wow, you two went through hell." Haru said as the rest of the group came, and Haru noticed that Jaune had a red hand print on his face. Weiss was blushing red, and Jaune seemed to be pouting.
"I noticed." Ren said in a dull tone, and with that deadpan Nora passed out. Haru caught her and lifted her up, while Ren started to stand up on his own.
"Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked in concern when she saw the wound that Ren had on his arm, but he paid his arm little attention.
"I will be... but I don't feel comfy here." Ren said as he looked around at the shit ton of Grimm corpses, quickly dissolving they may be, that were piling up around them. He held his arm down, while Pyrrha helped him out when he fell. She grabbed his arm and put it over her shoulder, helping the boy stand up straight.
"Here, you can use me to stand up for now." Pyrrha offered with a smile, being the ever helpful person that she was.
"Have you guys seen anything weird?" Yang asked Ren, and the boy nodded.
"Yes, I saw a strange bunch of flowers spitting some kind of mist... but we avoided those. I think something may have been off about them." Ren told them, and Haru nodded.
"Floramander, a Grimm that takes the form of a Salamander with dangerous flowers growing from its armor... they are a powerful drug that makes you see things, before knocking you out cold and paralyzing you." Haru told Ren what he had seen, and Ren gulped lightly. He was glad that they had avoided that area, even though Nora wanted to smell the flowers... literally.
"We have a run in with one as well." Weiss explained to Ren, while Haru shivered in disgust when Nora leaned her face against him and started to drool all down the side of his face.
"She drolls in her sleep, and she is cuddly." Ren told Haru, who deadpanned at him.
"Thanks, I didn't notice that Sasuke." Haru told Ren, who deadpanned right back at him.
"Lie Ren, nice to meet you." Ren told Haru, who was about to deadpan right back at him, before Yang palmed the back of his head with a show of tough love.
"Okay, stop deadpanning at each other like that. We have matters at hand, like not dying in a Grimm infested woods... yeah, I like THAT plan." Yang deadpanned at them, and Haru pouted at her for a second. Yang smirked at him, while Ruby looked awkward being in between them and started to shrink down as she lowered her stance.
"Hopefully—" Jaune started, before Haru kicked him in the shin. "OW!?" Jaune shouted out, and Haru glared at him.
"If you say 'Hopefully everything is clear now' I will hurt you. Rule 5: Never tempt fate when in the woods... don't say things like 'If we survive this', 'I am 2 days away from retirement', 'what could go wrong', or 'I'll go check out that noise, it was probably nothing'. People who say those things, quickly find themselves in trouble." Haru told Jaune, and everything looked at him with dumbfounded expressions.
"That sounds rather idiotic, words don't tempt fate." Blake told them, and Haru looked at her and pointed at the woods.
"Okay, I dare you... say 'If we survive this' and go into the woods." Haru told her with narrowed eyes, and Blake looked to where he was pointing for a second.
"If we survive this, let's get married." Blake deadpanned at him as she started to walk towards the woods, and before she even got 3 feet away from where she was... a tree fell. Then more trees started to fall, and everyone could hear thumping on the ground. Haru gave Blake a look, while she looked nervous.
The pounding on the ground got worse and worse, and then it happened.
A small bird landed on the ground in front of the forest.
"See, nothing happ—" Blake started, before a huge foot squashed the bird and a huge Grimm came out from behind the trees.
A Grimm larger than any other they had ever seen before, it was easily over 30 feet TALL and had a super thick black hide. It was elephant shaped, and had huge white tusks coming out of its white mask. It had red markings on its face, and it was glaring down at them with beady red eyes filled with hate for humanity.
Everyone started to look at Blake, while Haru smirked at her.
"Shut up." Blake told Haru the second he opened his mouth. He smirked at her, before he grinned wider than before.
"Told you so." Haru told her, while Ruby looked at the Grimm with an amazed look on her face.
"Awesome... let's kill it." Ruby said without losing any of the wonder in her tone, her scythe unfolding as she stared at the creature.
"Only Weiss and Pyrrha have ammo, and we are all tired, hungry, and exhausted... let's run." Haru said, and his idea was the most widely accepted one, because moments later they started to run. It seemed that was the right choice, because coming out from the large Grimm's mouth was a flock of smaller Nevermore that had been cleaning the large Grimm's teeth.
Those deadly birds were flying straight at them.
Haru groaned and held his side with his free hand as he started to run, before Yang took Nora from him and continued to run with her in his place. Haru nodded at her with a light smile, before he groaned and held his side again.
Just a few more hours... a few more hours and this damn test would be over.