Nora spun around, facing the red tops of the trees around her. She had run ahead the moment the transport landed, eager to find the biggest tree; research the previous night had suggested that older trees would have more and sweeter sap. Her pause was enough for her partner, caught off guard by the sudden dash, to catch up.

Panting, Coco bent forward and rested her hands on her thighs. "Nora, what on Remnant is wrong with you? Goodwitch just said that there are grimm out here and we need to stick together."

Nora turned her attention away from the clouds toward her partner. "I'm going to find the best, sweetest sap in the whole forest, but I need to find the biggest tree; that isn't going to be where everyone else is."

"Must you?" grumbled Coco, standing back up.

"Yes!" said Nora with enough energy to bounce on her toes.

"And how do you plan to go about finding it?" asked Coco.

"Well . . ." began Nora, looking back at the trees encircling them. "I kinda just expected to run past a really huge one, but this forest is super big and none of the ones I've seen are hugely old." She paused, a finger brought up to scratch her hairline before thrusting it in the air. "I know! I'll get up really high, like the tippy top of a tree and surely then I'll find the big, ancient one with mystical properties."

"Mystical properties?" questioned Coco, her arms newly crossed under her chest.

"Yeah! Like in movies but the mystical powers of sugar and sweetness!"

"Sweetness, eh?" mumbled Coco, unheard by Nora who had already run toward a tree.

The first attempt failed, her fingers just shy of the first branch from her leap off the trunk. She backed up and tried again, focusing on pushing off from the trunk, and succeeded. After she pulled herself up scaling the rest of the tree was easy and she quickly disappeared from Coco's sight.

Several minutes later Coco's gaze sharpened and turned upward, triggered by the sound of breaking branches. The first few were smashing against lower ones, one broke in half, one shattered into splinters, and two each took out another limb. That wasn't all, more limbs were freshly broken from above and a sound, quiet at first, slowly out-shined them all. Twas a shout, a shout that was morphing into coherent syllables.

"JER-AN-NA-MOOOOOOoooo"

By the time Nora could see the ground her hammer was out and catching on limbs of the tree, bringing many down, as it slowed her descent. When she was a handful of branches from the bottom she raised the hammer overhead and twisted so that its shaft was caught between two thick limbs. Not wasting the momentum, or letting it pull off her arms, she flipped her feet over her head, turned her hammer so as to unhook it, and landed lightly with her feet on the ground.

"Ta-da!" announced Nora, holding her hands and weapon over her head then taking a bow toward some point beside Coco.

"Well now we know why all the trees are of this smaller variety." Coco said to an imaginary person next to her. She stepped closer to Nora, "Done?"

"Yep! I fou-" she failed to finish her sentence, interrupted by something only she had noticed and started searching for, her head swiveling side to side. Confirmed with a growl, her grip on Magnhild tightened, an action mirrored by Coco gripping the handle of her bag.

A trio of beowolves moved within view. Coco waited for the one nearest her to lunge and Nora charged the other two which were standing just a little too close together. All three were violently batted away, Coco's with her bag and Nora's with a wide swing that pushed one into the other and sent them both into a tree with a yelp.

The two students slowly moved closer as the beowolves recovered. By the time the beowolves were up and approaching, more cautiously now, the two students were back-to-back.

"This is why running off is a bad idea." said Coco.

"You scared? I can take two if all you can handle is one." Nora retorted, the smile evident in her tone.

"Ha, never, but I'll be nice and let you have two of them if you want to take a beating so badly. I'll rescue you once I'm done."

CRACK

CRASH

A tree from just beyond their line of sight broke and fell, taking parts of other trees in the process judging by the noise. Loud footsteps and a roar indicated that whatever it was was going to save them the trouble of finding it. Just as an ursa major came into view, the three beowolves lunged.

Nora swung her hammer, this time using dust to propel it, but the first beowolf ducked, leaving only the second to roll to the feet of the ursa. Coco's bag caught hers on the underside, the swing lifting it up into the air, luckily landing on the beowolf around to grab Nora's arm. Nora switched to an overhead swing, the top grimm got out of the way but the other's head was smashed into the ground, mask and skull shattered. She wasn't done, the handle of the hammer swung around, catching the final beowolf and throwing it, too, at the ursa, this one hitting it in the face.

Nora laughed at the hit. "Score! Hey, Coco, why'd I have to handle all three?"

"Because you're awesome." replied Coco, lacking the enthusiasm her partner displayed. "Can you keep all three busy for a minute?"

"Yep!" called Nora, already running toward the ursa and two remaining beowolves.

Coco hung back, spared from attack thanks to Nora's charge. Magnhild launched a grenade at the neck of the ursa, the recoil allowing Nora to start a spin toward the bewolves and with another revolution, the ursa's legs. She didn't get that far though; the three grimm disbursed when faced with the grenade, dodging it and encircling her. Nora launched herself into the air with an explosion, and at the apex of her flight she loosed another, sending her down with the equivalent force of two. She swung her hammer, spinning as she did so, and slammed into the softened spot where she had been standing. The grimm, stunned by the first shockwave, were forced back as the ground beneath them shifted.

"Hey, you're supposed to keep them grouped!" Coco called out to Nora.

"Yeah yeah, I'm getting to that." replied her partner.

A quick dash and a side swing sent the beowolf farthest from the other two grimm careening into the other. Nora launched herself closer, between the three grimm and Coco, before proceeding to cautiously twirl her hammer like a flag, stepping closer to the grimm and gradually driving them back. The ursa swiped at her, an attack she dodged with a duck and roll, which one of the beowolves attempted to exploit. In response an upward hit tossed it a couple metres into the air, enough to stall the grimm but only briefly as it soon recovered onto its feet.

"Move!" shouted Coco, the hum of her mini-gun starting to spin threatening to drown out any other words. She held the weapon, fully transformed, loaded and aimed, with a finger over the trigger ready to pull the moment the weapon was ready.

Nora lacked any hesitation; first she darted straight away from Coco just past the ursa, then changed course to the side, trajectory curving around to end behind her partner. The timing was impeccable, a product of practice; Nora was out of range of the center target the moment the rounds started firing, and as the first side pass followed her she had just enough of a head start to be past the pivot point as the spray turned for the second pass. The grimm had not quite seconds to react to the departure of their prey before they were crippled by the gunfire and ceased to exist with the subsequent pass.

The trees behind the grimm seemed to explode with the splinters. Spikes of wood impaled the ground like a hail of arrows before the two students, their aura deflecting the ones that directly threatened them. In the time it took for the air to settle enough to verify the battle was over, a deathly silence remained, hovering over the mangled and fallen trees.

The tree Nora had climbed, spared from the destruction of the fight, was streaked red, each line having origins from where a branch was now missing. The ground, perpetually carpeted in red leaves, now glistened with a similarly coloured liquid. The grimm, too, were streaked and speckled with a viscous, red residue. Past them the remains of trees demonstrated the source of the substance.

"Can we go back to the group now?" Coco appealed, coaxing her weapon to fold back into the bag.

Nora shook her head, both in response and to shake out fragments of wood. "No, no, I have to get to the biggest tree."

"Well the jars and taps are with everyone else."

"Oh." replied Nora, hooking her compacted hammer to her back. "Well, let's get jars, then go off to find the biggest tree."

"You aren't going to experiment? Test different size trees yourself? You do test your ammo and tried other types, right?" questioned Coco, testing the handle of her bag before tossing the strap over her shoulder and turning to Nora. "Right?"