Chapter 51

"What?!" Weiss was concentrating on the formation, so she could only turn her head to glare at him. Raelin for her part didn't say anything, however, her gaze became colder towards Russel.

"Alright you know what, that's enough!" I snapped. "I'm getting tired of you making things difficult for everyone!"

Weiss grunted, still trying to focus on keeping her grimm from damaging the frozen pillars too much. "Is this...ugh...is this really the best time for this?!"

"YES!" I glared at Russel. "Slacking off and trying to get other teammates to do his work for him. Trying to abandon the team when everyone is in danger! And now refusing to work together as if it was everyone for themselves. We might not GET another chance to do this if he keeps acting up!"

"You idiot!" Russel sneered. "You can act like you're in charge as much as you want, but you're not the boss of me! I don't have to listen to you!"

"YOU..." I could feel my anger rising. Right now everyone was in dire straights, fighting for their lives and this fool was worried about me bossing him around! "You know what!?" I furiously bit my lip to calm down. A dull pain starting to ache inside me, I felt a metallic taste in my mouth as my temper started to fade. "You're right. I'm not the boss of you."

"Uh...y-yeah!" he said, sounding confused and indignant. Wondering why I had suddenly stepped down.

"If you'd like to take your chances and run away from us to survive, be my guest."

"What? Really?" Russel's confusion became even more apparent, as suspicion crept into his tone.

"Aero?! What are you doing?" Weiss cried. More and more cracks started to appear in the pillars.

"But predators always go for the weaker and easier target. If you run out towards the encirclement of SEVERAL Ursa all alone, who do you think they're going to target first?"

"I...well..." Russel stammered, obviously knowing the answer.

"If you don't want to think of me as your leader, then don't. I don't need your respect. But you wanna live just like the rest of us. So USE me."

"Use...you?"

"Use us to survive. And we'll use you to survive too. When this is over, we can go back to ignoring and hating each other, okay?!"

Russel grit his teeth, looking down as a combination of fear and resolution appeared on his face. "Alright, alright!" He yelled, his trembling eyes becoming more focused. "Just...make sure we all get out of this, okay!?"

I nodded. "That's the plan."

We all got into position as Weiss stopped supporting the ice. No sooner had she stopped, when the whole thing collapsed and shattered like glass under the onslaught of the monsters.

"You better be right about this!" Russel yelled.

"Raelin, aim one of your attacks towards that last jar!"

Throwing one of her chakrams, the bladed disc hummed as it flew through the air. Smashing into the last sap filled jar, a faint sweet fragrance appeared. Immediately the grimm attacking us briefly paused, turning towards the direction of the scent, but that was enough of an opening.

Lowering my stance, I charged at the grimm in front of me, slamming my shoulder into its stomach. Ordinarily that wouldn't have much of an effect, however, attacking a distracted opponent was far more effective. The large Ursa staggered back, losing its balance, was pushed back several feet. The others followed suit, forcing back the grimm too close to them as the icy pillars around us dissipated.

Standing on its hind legs and rising up to full height, my Ursa angrily roared, swiping a large claw at me. I quickly ducked under the blow, my spear lashing out and sweeping one of the legs of the grimm. With one of its legs knocked out from under it, the creature stumbled, falling on its face. Pressing the button on my weapon, the claw shot out from the bottom of the spear, gripping onto its leg. "Weiss, now!"

The white-haired woman twirled her rapier, pointing it at me, as I tugged on the grimm on the claw to the left, like a fisherman reeling in a big catch. A white glyph appeared under the Ursa, propelling it in the same direction I was pulling it. The creature let out a roar of surprise as it was lifted off of the ground. A large ring of white glyphs appeared around our group as I swung the beast. Each one of the glyphs pushing the grimm on a circular path while I swung the creature around. "Everyone duck!"

The three others of the group immediately crouched down avoiding the chain that swung over their heads. The grimm whirled over my head, round and round in the circle of Weiss's glyphs. Picking up speed with every rotation.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Taking a big step forward and yanking on the weapon with all of my might, the Ursa soared through the air towards its companions with terrifying force. The other Ursa were unable to get out of the way in time as the grimm flung towards them at high speeds smashed into a group of four Ursa like a wrecking ball. Despite their large size, all of them were sent flying by the crash, two of them being killed from the devastating attack. The Ursa used as the wrecking ball had practically exploded under the impact and died.

"Alright! Three more down!"

With this, the pressure on us should decrease a little, though not by much. Even if we divided up 7 grimm between 4 huntsmen, that'd be less than 2 per person. Although, not everyone was at their best right now. Even if we split up to try and get more room to fight, there's no guarantee we wouldn't attract the attention of other grimm.

"Aero! Watch out!"

"Huh?"

When two of the Ursa had been sent flying, they had naturally crashed into one of the many trees and shattered them from the weight. One of the two trees falling towards me. I immediately dove to the side, but I had noticed the falling tree too late, caught up in thinking. The large tree slamming the back of my feet mid-jump. I hit the ground sooner than expected, being sent tumbling a few feet and losing my weapon.

Seeing me on the ground separated from the others, the remaining Ursa all turned their attention towards me.

"No..."

That brief lapse of focus had been extremely costly. The remaining seven grimm swarmed me seeming like a dark horde.