Chapter 4: The Zeres That Cried Beowolf

There was once a boy that kept saying there were wolves out there, but no one believed him.

One day a real wolf showed itself, so the boy blew it up.

He told everyone. Still, no one believed him.

-Zeres' Rendition of 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'

I woke up fairly early. I blinked a few times, listening for the telltale sounds of boots on metal to tell me we were still on the ship, but my nose still hurting from the punch Pops had given me before we all fell asleep last night told me that we were indeed on the crazy planet that Pops wanted to save.

Suicidal if you ask me. I mean, have you seen some of the equipment the IMC packs? Stuff like huge railguns that run the length of a fucking carrier, automatically piloted suicide bomber ships, and not to mention the horrible food they serve you in prison!

This planet's morning sun streamed in from the curtain-less window, reminding me of my time on Rama, and the horrible attacks that happened there. But there is not enough time in the day for me to lament over the fallen, I have to stay ahead of everyone else.

Except maybe Freshman, but only in a footrace! That girl is damn fast! I can't help it!

With a groan and a cough, I rose from the bed I had scrambled into the previous night. The covers were a complete mess, but considering that I hadn't slept in a real bed in months, you can forgive me for some bad bed manners.

A quick glance around the room gave me the scope of the day.

Pops was at the desk in the corner of the room, writing something. Damn slow-feet bastards on the ship, always making us fill out actual paperwork, then having to fax it to them. Seriously, no one uses fax anymore! It is even more outdated than the damn IMC.

Widow was fast asleep in the bed across from me. Her head was no doubt filled with dreams of her precious Kraber and what she imagined Pops' body looked like under his armor. How the two mix in any way is way… I don't really like to think about it. Course, Pops' only a few years on me, but it's still fun to annoy him with the name.

Couldn't find Jack, which means he's using the bathroom or doing his weird tai-chi stuff, as usual. The guy is nice enough, but I can never shake the feeling that he's thinking lewd thoughts of the rest of the team. It must be the way he looks at two people at the same time… really intently.

Olivia was also asleep in her bed, curled up in some kind of huge red blanket. Don't remember her having that last night. Weird. I've gotta admit though, the way her body is when at natural rest is goddamn beautiful. Like, priceless painting kind of beautiful.

Graves was missing, same as Jack. Though in her case, I'm assuming that she went to track down the DSC. Hilarious, watching her deal with that damn thing.

I swung my legs over to the side of the bed, the frame creaking way too loud. Pops looked up from his paperwork and turned his head around. I was just getting off the bed when he addressed me.

"Good morning, Melrin."

"Mornin' Pops." I stretched my arms, letting out a small groan as my muscles popped into position for the day. Sleeping on natural gravity can be a bit uncomfortable when you're used to the floating and artificial shit on spaceships.

"I see your nose is better." He said, gesturing to my face.

"Yeah, a shot or two of stim should take off the remainder of the damage. Very tough fist you got, Pops."

Pops always grimaced when I mentioned my casual use of stim. Not like it's addictive, probably. I've been using stim since my first day as a pilot, and the cocktail is always fresh. No dirty needles for me, no sir! Well, no needles needed, considering I use an internal drip to deliver my stim.

Most pilots who apply stim either take it as a tiny pill when using it as medicine, but are more likely to take it via a small needle in an arm patch while in the field. Only the most hardcore stim users get a drip installed. Crazy expensive and crazy dangerous for anyone without a heavy tolerance to the stuff. Considering it's effectively liquid adrenaline and with some powerful nanobots mixed in, I'd say being on it constantly is a recipe for death or, at the very least, some serious chafing in the old adrenaline gland.

I can always handle my stim though.

"So, what's the plan for today, Pops?" I asked, popping my first hit of stim, speeding up my reflexes and knitting any broken body parts. A sharp breath entered my throat, my eyes blinking as my mind was fully awakened. A quick shake of the head and a breath out got rid of the tension building in my relaxed muscles.

"No major plans, but we do need to get some more recon of this city."

"Think it's worth heading to that Ozpin guy's tailor for some new clothes?"

"Most likely. I'd like to not alarm anyone with our uniforms, in case they've heard of the IMC."

"Smart. When can we go?"

"Once I finish the report for the guys on the ship. And when everyone is awake. I'd rather not get separated. Again."

"Also smart."

I did a bit more stretching while Pops returned to his paperwork. The stim crash, if you can call it that, hit me like a feather a few seconds into my stretches. The stim crash is a small event at the end of a stim hit, causing nausea, projectile vomiting, violent diarrhea, and that's if you are lucky. And a grunt. Pilot immune systems are crazy. What keeps a grunt up for days straight gives a pilot some boost for only a few seconds.

"Hey, Pops, you ok if I check out this place? You know, do a bit of scouting and what-not?"

Pops thought for a second. I could tell his face was considering the possibilities from the way it swayed left and right. Like he was weighing the pros and cons of sending me out into the unknown territory, potential targets in every shadow. It was well worth thinking about, considering how I almost blew his head off when we first met. And again when we were in the field for our first mission.

He sighed, reluctantly turning back to me. "Alright, but you don't call Boomer and you leave your satchel charges here."

"I don't call Boomer unless it's an emergency, right?"

"Not even then." He probably wants me to call for backup first.

"If I'm being shot at?"

"You most likely deserved it." Ah, a joke. I can dig this.

"If that guy in the Titan shows up?"

"Have fun with the rodeo." Great, he's serious.

"Um, alright…" I tossed the bag with my satchel charges onto the bed I was originally sleeping in. Pops gave me another look. I rolled my eyes, but stripped off the Titanfall beacon I keep on my shoulder. Another look. I sighed, tossing my pack of infinite satchel charge and amped Spitfire burn cards onto the rest of my equipment. And now an eyebrow! GAH. I placed my Sidewinder carefully on the rest of the explosive materials. Confident that he had stripped me of all of my explosive devices, Pops nodded and waved me out the door. I got out before he could take my precious Spitfire from me.

Of course, getting out of the room was just phase one of my brilliant plan. Phase two was even more cunning and devious.

Phase two did not include remembering that I have no idea how to get around this damn school.

'This place is so confusing!' I fumed to myself. 'You'd think they'd put out some damn maps, but nooooooo! They had to make this forsaken place without any self-help kiosks or anything! This is worse than that time at the IMC's headquarters with the Spectres, except this time I can't call for Boomer!'

I stormed down the ridiculously long hallway, so engrossed in my angry thoughts I almost didn't notice the pair of people I ran into. Check that, I did not notice them. We all fell flat on our asses.

I grumbled at the carelessness of the people that ran into me. But my grumbling was cut off by a sudden lifting of my arms and a loud voice in my ear.

"Hey are you ok?!" The source of the noise and the touching of my arms was a red-head; a natural one, not like that Ruby chick. I could feel, from the grip on my arms, that she wasn't letting go any time soon.

"Nora, let go of him." Her partner, a guy with longish black hair that contained a small stripe of pink, addressed her with a stoic and calm tone.

"Ah, but Ren," Nora wasn't going to let go, in fact her arms tightened around mine, "he looks just like a sloth!"

Here I am, on an uncharted world, a veritable badass, with a two-story mech of destruction at my beck and call, and a girl three-fourths my size managed to hold me down against my will. How embarrassing.

My eyes shot pleading looks to the guy. I could feel my circulation giving out in my arm. He gave me a sympathetic look right back.

Before my arms could die on me I felt the pressure relieve, the girl jumping up next to her friend.

"So who're you, stranger?" The girl addressed me directly, her voice full of energy.

"Names Zeres and I'm a pilot. A badass pilot. Don't forget it." Gotta be forceful or people will walk all over you.

"What is a pilot?" The boy asked the question this time.

"Only the most badass people in this arm and the next!"

"Arms? But you have both of yours?" The girl was very confused at my statement, no doubt because of his foreign colloquialisms. Or maybe it was the accent.

"I think he is referring to the place he is from, Nora."

"OHHHH. That makes sense." She cocked her head back to me. "Where are you from?"

"Uh…"

"Uh. That's a weird name for a place! What do you guys do in Uh?"

"Um…"

"Really?! Me too!"

I've dealt with some weird stuff in my life, like that space kraken, but this Nora chick is just beyond confusing. Bewildering, that's the word I'm looking for. Or maybe…

Nora's hand waving in front of me took me from my thoughts real quick.

'Hey, Zeres, I bet these guys know where some targets are. How could you possibly know that? Nora's got a grenade launcher on her back. What.' A quick look at the hyperactive girl confirmed my mind's suspicions. 'Nice catch, brain. No problem.'

"Hey, uh, Nora right?" The girl nodded in confirmation. "You wouldn't happen to know where some things one could, uh, shoot at would be?"

My answers were a huge smile from Nora and a terrified look from Ren. Before I could react, Nora had grabbed my arms and was dragging me through the hallways. I threw back a desperate look to Ren, but all I got was his head shaking and him following us.

Recon was not going quite as I planned.

I was released from my capture when we reached a set of cliffs at the edge of the campus.

"Geez, she's strong!" I exclaimed to no one in particular.

"Here we are!" Nora threw her arms up to showcase the desolate looking cliffs before us.

"Where, exactly, is 'here'?"

"The Emerald Forest, duh!"

"Ah, yes, the Emerald Forest; how could I forget?" I quipped sarcastically.

I noticed a row of metal plates built into the cliff-side. I decided to investigate them while Nora spouted off some nonsense about pancakes. Damn, that girl just can't shut up, can she?

I was looking up close at the shape and design of the plates when a sudden shaking startled me. I fell onto one of the plates in surprise. As quickly as the shaking began, it stopped. Steadily I got back up.

And then the ground was above me.

And then below me.

And back above me.

And I was falling through the air into the dark and potentially dangerous forest. Wonderful.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" I screamed as I flopped onto the hard forest floor. The sound of smashing metal plates rang through the air around me. "The hell was that!? It was bullshit, that's what that was!"

I groaned, slowly standing onto my feet. I felt my bones and muscles for any possible damage, but couldn't see any major damage. To be safe,I popped another hit of stim, letting the sweet embrace of pure adrenaline flow through my blood.

"Eh, no time like the future." I said, depressing the internal drip activator switch.

My eyes closed and my head rolled backwards as the stim took hold of my body. A sharp intake of air entered my nose as my eyes began to roll back into my head, until my entire body snapped to attention. A smile that could only be described as slasher was painted across my face, my eyes wide and bloodshot, my breathing sharp and fast. All normal on the Zeres front.

The increased reflexive time I have when under stim is something to see. Normally, I would never have seen the wolf people in time, but stim is one hell of a… thing. Slowly, to me at least, my hands removed the Spitfire from my back and leveled it with the ugly black wolf-creature in front of me.

A depression of the trigger and the target was gone, only for three more to take its place. More bullets flew through the air, my perception locked out of normal operation. My mind was only focused on the kill. And the kill after that. And the kill after that. Nothing but killing on my mind.

They say that overexposure to stim can cause extreme focus on a single target but at the cost of all rational thought in regards to the user's own well-being. This is widely considered the biggest downside of an internal stim drip. I suppose that would explain how I was completely surrounded in what seemed like only a few seconds later.

The creatures around me, some kind of wolf/human things, growled at the half-awake killing machine that was my body. I growled right back, but my throat was loose from all of the screaming I seemed to have been doing. Looking down, I saw a large number of dead wolf-things, the bodies turning to black smoke right before me. Slowly my mind pieced together what appeared to have happened.

'You blacked out.' my mind told me, which would explain the stim high that I didn't seem to be on at the moment.

I brought up the Spitfire and tried to shoot it at the remaining creatures, but the trigger just clicked. Thinking it was just a fluke, I tried again. Another click. Great. A quick check of my munitions belt revealed I had indeed used all of my excess ammunition in the fight while I was blacked out. A double check of my belt confirmed that I had none of my explosives on hand, with the exception of the Dust pouch I had managed to snag from that old man yesterday.

"No time like the present, I suppose."

I dumped the red powdery substance over my body, making sure not to get it in my face. A fine coating of somewhat explosive powders usually keeps my enemies very, very far away from me. I popped one last hit of stim, forgoing the constant drip in favor of some control over my actions as I prepared to run away.

The world slowed down around me as the stim took hold on my system, but something was wrong. I dropped to my hands and knees, my eyes trying to jump out of my head, my breathing ragged and labored. I could see a dark red glow enveloping me as the wolf-things ran toward my prone body. My eyes rolled back into my head and my mind blacked out once more. I only had one thought as my being drifted into the black nothingness of sleep:

FUCK THIS SHIT

Ren stood near the edge of the cliff, while his partner was on her hands and knees, one hand up to her head, looking for any sign of Zeres. Nora turned back to Ren with a slightly upset look on her face, conveying her failure of her observation. Ren sighed.

"It's ok Nora, I'm sure he's fine."

"But what if he's dead? Then we will never make sloth sounds together!" Nora pouted to her partner, her attempt failing due to his stoically confused face.

"I'm not sure what that even means, Nora." Ren looked with sympathy to the red-head. "He will be fine. We should probably head back. Pyrrha and Jaune should be done with their training by now."

Nora groaned and got off the ground to follow Ren back to the campus. Ren sighed and turned to leave the cliffs, but a small white glint in the forest caught his eye, causing him to turn back to the cliffs with a quizzical look on his face. Nora saw the look on Ren's face and turned to look at what Ren saw in the distance. A second glint flashed passed both of their eyes, this time it was a dark red, laced with orange and blue.

And a third glint turned into something neither could have expected.

A massive explosion ripped the forest apart, the flames from it spreading every which way, and everything within half a mile of the impact point burned to a toasty crisp. The burning foliage and wildlife, not to mention Grimm, could be smelled even at the top of the cliff. Ren's stoic face broke and his jaw dropped at the sight. A small mushroom shaped cloud rose from whatever the focal point of the explosion was. Nora looked back at Ren with an upset look, almost begging to go find Zeres.

Ren looked at the devastation, then at Nora, then back to the devastation, and finally broke his silence.

"Let's go find him."

Nora smiled at Ren's allowance of her skills, readying Magnhild in its hammer form to launch herself toward the epicenter. She prepared herself, and then put her hand out for Ren to hold onto.

"Let's go find him!" Nora excitedly repeated Ren's statement.

Ren sighed, but willingly grabbed his partner's hand to launch them into the fray.

A/N If you didn't like the first person pov I used for this chapter, please tell me so in a review. I love reading reviews. You guys who write reviews are great.

Thanks to JackThePegasus for being my Beta reader! He's awesome and you should go read his awesome fic as well. It's called Attack on Pacific Titan Grimm Fall and it features Titans and pilots and hunters and huntresses and other awesome stuff. Go check it out! [Gosh rune you're too kind] Is that sarcasm?

Review, Follow, Fave, Potato. See you later!

Editor's Note: Nice chapter, I cleared up one or two spelling mistakes (and I mean literally just one or two) and while I thought some of the sentences were a bit odd I got my head around them in the end. It works well and it has a proper structure, so I think you'll be fine to upload it whenever you feel like. First person POV was fine.

I'm also certain that Zeres is some kind of stim addict. Like, that permanent stim burn card is not to be taken lightly.