The Katissa Chronicles Part 2 (Now with 100% less Drake!) (Warning: This title may be a lie) [Openish]

The Emerald Forest - a sea of thick, green trees and plants befitting its name. The silent forest had an exquisite beauty to it, the silence and colours blending together to give the place an air of mystery, danger and legend. Not to mention the countless Grimm hiding around it.

The silence, however, was broken as Melissa skipped through the forest, spinning around a little bit ahead of Katy, singing with a decent singing voice as she did, "Grimm, Grimm, come on you Grimm! Come out and fight! Griiiiiimmmmmm where aaaaaarrrrreeeee youuuuuuu?" She repeated the same words over and over again, altering her tone slightly each time.

Katy was following a few paces behind Melissa, her rifle actually being wielded for a change -- though the stock was currently configured into it's claw form. If Melissa's singing did happen to summon any Grimm, Katy would immediately be up the nearest tree thanks to it, ready to rain death down on anything and (almost) everything.

"I feel like you aren't gonna be happy unless we do manage to provoke some beasties, huh?" she said with a small laugh.

Despite her apparently lethargic nature while in places that could be considered safe, out in the wilderness was Katy's element. She had spent an almost fatal year in a similar forest when she was much younger -- all part of the survival training her parents had decided she needed. Her head was constantly in motion; eyes scanning every new tree against the terrain to pick out the best vantage points and escape routes. She didn't really see the forest anymore. To her eyes it was more of a very detailed, ever-changing topographical map.

"I mean, it probably wouldn't be an issue.. but wouldn't this be a nicer walk if we didn't wind up all battered and bruised by the end of it?"

"What's the fun in a boring stroll through the forest? And while we're here we might as well thin down the numbers of those stupid monsters!" Melissa said enthusiastically inbetween loops of her song. She would take any chance to kill some Grimm, and enjoy it too! She had almost forgotten the reason for coming here, in fact.

"Ooh right, you should lead the way I guess!" She said, slowing down to match her companion's pace. She stopped singing as well, deciding to have a peaceful talk instead. "Sooo... Where's the first ambush spot?"

Katy stopped, furrowing her brow for a moment as she looked around the forest for the tiny little landmarks all trackers learn to notice to navigate by. After a brief moment, she made an abrupt turn to the left, carefully stalking forward toward a point she had located on her previous trip here.

"See, here," she said cheerfully, waving a hand down toward the forest floor. "The little stuff growing is all bent instead of growing straight up," she explained as she continued moving forward. "When you see stuff like that, it means there's enough foot travel happening that the stuff gets trampled, so you get an idea of where the beasties tend to roam."

After a few minutes, Katy stopped again and pointed towards a clump of trees. "Up near the top of those trees is where I stuck one of my targets. Those trees are close enough together, and thick enough that they do a good job of obscuring the view of something in them, from something looking up anywhere from a few feet out," she explained, then pointed to the right.

"Down there's a small watering hole, which is why it seems like a good ambush spot to me. It's right on a traveled path, and you can get a good view of the drinking spot from up in the trees. Plus there's a bunch of nice sitting branches, and there's one in particular I can sit on where I can hook my rifle down over another, so.. um," she said, trailing off.

"I'm talking too much. Melissa is probably already bored out of her mind! Hopefully some Grimm actually show up so I don't have to explain that good ambush points can take hours to pay off," she thought to herself.

With an embarrassed blush, Katy realized she was trying to impress the other girl. She had never been out in the wilderness with another person before, so this was sort of the first time she had ever been able to really show off. "Do you, um.. wanna climb up and have a look?"

Melissa listened into... She would be to think of a good nickname soon... She listened into her companion's long instructional speech carefully, although if one looked they would notice her eyes had taken on a sharp, hard look in the pupils as she did. Surprisingly, she stayed perfectly focused throughout the entirety as she followed where Kat (Nope) pointed.

Upon finishing, her eyes resumed their normal look, although right now it was one of admiration, "Wow! You really know a lot about this stuff! That's really impressive! The entirety of my knowledge of the wilderness is, 'Grimm bad, kill!'" She said admiringly.

"Okay! Let's check it out!" Melissa said, pulling out Soothing Mayhem, pointing the tip upwards and carefully estimating the power needed, before jumping upwards, boosting herself with her weapons thruster up into the ambush spot.

Katy took one last careful glance around the area, checking to see if there were any sneaky Grimm hiding before taking a run at the tree, running a few steps up it before pushing off into a jump, twisting, catching a sturdy branch with the claw of her rifle, then using her momentum to swing upwards above the branch -- almost balancing upside-down on her rifle on the branch, before quietly falling into a crouch on the branch itself, her rifle transforming back to it's default mode as she landed, ready to be fired.

It was a maneuver that took remarkable upper-body strength and required a certain grace that, outside of the woods, Katy seemed to lack entirely.

Crouching on her branch, Katy pointed towards where she had pointed earlier, the watering hole visible from a direct line of sight from the height of this tree. "See," she said, lowering her hood before carefully bringing her rifle up to her shoulder to scan around. "Not a bad ambush spot, right?"

Balancing the barrel of her rifle on a branch, Katy used her free hand to dig around in a pocket before pulling out some cookies and holding them out towards Melissa. "Places like this are why I'm always tucking food away. I could survive in this tree for days before I even needed to go foraging." She wasn't trying to brag. Not really. But maybe it sounded impressive?

Melissa checked out the spot, holding her Naginata and adjusting her posture as if she was about to launch herself downwards to impale some unsuspecting Grimm by the path. She nodded, seeing that the spot would be great for surprising hostiles down on the ground, and would be especially useful if she ha a ranged weapon like Kit (Nope!)

She happily accepted the cookie and devoured it in a few bites. In return she handed Kay (Nup) a few candies from her pocket, munching down on a handful herself.

"I carry around food too! Well, just candy... And I'm not sure how it keeps appearing in my pockets, really!" She said. In reality, Melissa would often unconsciously slip a few into her pocket every time she are a handful.

Katy tucked the candies away in a pocket and returned to staring intently down the slight hill. "There's a trick to this, too," she said after a brief moment. "Especially in a place this close to, y'know.. other people," she said, sort of nodding her head back in the direction of the school, "If something down there starts moving, but you aren't able to see it clearly, you never ever take a shot at it. You could miss, or hit a branch, or maybe it's a person and then you've just shot someone."

Before she could continue speaking, she pointed, then quickly started glancing around at the tree-tops. A small pack of Beowolves ambled into sight. Switching to a whisper, Katy continued her explanation. "And sometimes you can't see all of them, so you just wait until you're reasonably sure you can see as many as possible. If you're firing from a place like this they can't see you very well after you start shooting, and my rifle is loud enough that a shot echoes around and confuses them."

She continued glancing between the monsters and the trees, taking note of the wind and doing calculations in her head. "So.. wanna kill 'em, or let them be?"

((OOC: Phone... Why must you make me post short posts D:))

Before Katy had even finished asking, Melissa had already begun her attack. Having launched herself from the hiding spot, increasing her speed even further with Soothing Mayhem. The tip was pointed towards the head of the Beowolf that seemed to the leader of this particular pack, "I hope your head goes splat!" She shouted at her target.

"No, wait!" Katy half-shouted, immediately flipping down the tripod of her rifle to hang over the branch -- it seemed sturdy enough to handle the recoil from firing, and the tripod shouldn't break. She had built it herself, after all.

Eyeballing the trajectory Melissa was flying at, and the position of the Beowolf about to get knocked in the head, Katy took a small step to the right of her branch, and took aim at another one of the beasties. Grinning faintly, she quickly did one last mental calculation and squeezed the trigger and only winced slightly from the massive BOOM that exploded from her gun, firing her first bullet directly toward the open nose-hole of the Beowolf's bony head. Without even looking to see if her shot hit true, she had already pulled another bullet from inside her hoodie, pulled back the bolt to eject the spent casing, and reloaded her next shot.

---

The pack of Beowolves, six strong plus their slightly larger Alpha, reacted pretty much as anticipated. Melissa's yell drew their attention upwards, and the immense thunderclap from Katy's rifle caused them all to flinch and look around frantically. Less than a second later, Katy's first shot whizzed clean through the open nose hole of one of the small beasties, dropping it with a thud, while the Alpha would directly take Melissa's attack in sync with the other, deader Beowolf falling.

The five other, smaller Beowolves immediately lept into action, loping to converge on the only target they could spot -- Melissa.

Melissa, seeing the Beowolf Alpha's head impaled on her Naginata kicking off its head and pulling her weapon free, landing easily on the ground behind after a quick backflip through the air (Which Melissa could not deny was mostly because she wanted to do a little showing off. She sprinted back and leaped up back near Katy.

"You can take the rest! They should be pretty easy with the Alpha gone!" She said cheerfully, wiping Beowolf blood off Soothing Mayhem's blade.

Katy didn't need telling twice, and in fact had not waited for Melissa to return to safety before she continued firing. It was almost mechanical in nature, as she expertly shifted her rifle the fractions of an inch required to line up each and every kill shot.

By the time Melissa had landed in the tree, Katy had already dropped three of the remaining five, and as she loaded in yet another bullet she grinned at the last two Beowolves began to flee. Easily putting a bullet into the back of the skull of one, she reloaded yet again and stood up on her branch, shouldering the rifle and waited.. and waited.. and waited.

After the Beowolf had fled deeper into the forest Katy finally took her last shot, quite happy with the distance. One final thunderclap, and the bullet hit slightly off center, spinning the beastie and snapping its neck from the force. Katy, meanwhile, had taken the full recoil of the rifle and was promptly teetering backwards, about to fall off her perch.

"Hah, did you see that shot?" she asked, laughing even as she toppled off the branch.

Melissa, without missing a beat, dove off her position, utilizing a quick boost from her weapon to catch up mid air and pulled Katy up to her, spinning Soothing Mayhem upwards and using the thruster to slow their descent a little.

"That was an amazing shot! You're really good!" She replied, laughing as well, "That Beowolf thought it was going to escape and then BAM you nailed the sucker! Probably won't die instantly either!"

She made sure to take the full force of the impact upon landing, wincing in pain at the force, but the aura concentrated in her legs was enough to prevent any injuries.

Still laughing, Katy tossed an arm around Melissa and pulled her into a hug. "I honestly didn't think anything would show up so quickly," she said. "But at least we saw some action almost right away. Do you wanna keep going, or head back to the school?"

In the back of her head, Katy was already working on new redesigns for the next iteration of her rifle. Some sort of thruster, maybe something to redirect the recoil, or at least utilize it for something. Maybe some sort of auto-loader.

"I mean, I could stay out here forever. I like it much better than crowded places, but if you want to head back I don't mind."

"I'm fine with anything as long as I'm with you~"

"Let's keep going of course! This is fun and we only just got here! And you know a lot about forests it seems, it's really interesting!" Melissa said enthusiastically, returning the hug without thinking too deeply about it, still on an adrenaline rush.

Katy looked around, letting out a 'hmmm' in thought. "I think," she said slowly, closing her eyes as she pictured her mental map. "Another one of my targets is pretty near where I think there are some Ursa caves," she offered, opening her eyes again and pointing off into the trees.

Heading off in the direction she had indicated, Katy slotted a fresh bullet into her rifle and returned to her default forest mode -- stealthy. "We might not find any," she cautioned quietly. "Ursa are more difficult to track. They leave big paw prints, but they're smarter. If you aren't super careful with Ursa hunting you quickly find out that they're hunting you right back. And once they realize you know they're there they're right on top of you."

"Hmm... So they're smart? Okay! I have the perfect way to keep the ursa away so we can have a nice, peaceful walk!", Melissa said, before taking in a deep breath, "HEY URSA! FOOD RIGHT HERE!" She shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth in an attempt to further amplify the sound.

"See, now they'll think its a trap here, and won't come to attack us! Peaceful walk!" She said to Kate (Nope), grinning.

Katy waited for a tense moment, looking all around at the trees. When nothing happened, she breathed out a noisy breath. If there had been any more Beowolves around, that would have brought them right on top of them.

"Well," Katy said, moving forward once again, "Maybe.. maybe that'll keep them away?" Katy didn't particularly like fighting Ursa. If you couldn't get a clear shot at the front of their heads it often took several shots to bring them down, or required special ammunition which Katy didn't currently have.

"So," she said suddenly. "How come you're at Beacon? What made you wanna be a Huntress?"

Melissa stopped shouting and instead began casually skipping through the forest. A stab of pain lanced through her upon hearing the question, but she hardly even noticed it at this point, having grown accustomed to it whenever she thought back to why she was here.

"Wellllll, my parents gave up on me and dumped me here because it's the only thing I'm good at! I doubt they even want to see me again, even after I graduate!" She said, cheerfully despite how grim the words sounded, "What about you?"

Katy blinked, slightly confused from the explanation. Even when she was younger, and her brother was still around her parents had been.. overly involved, though nowhere near the extent that had been up until Katy's arrival in Beacon.

"Oh, I don't really want to be a Huntress," she said flatly. "My brother was always the one who was going to carry on the family tradition, but when he disappeared my parents decided that since I was the only other kid they had it had to be me. So here I am."

After a moment, she shrugged to herself and decided to tell a bit more of the story. "After my brother was gone, my parents decided I hadn't put nearly enough work into my studies, so before they sent me to my last school they made me survive by myself in the woods for a year. That's why I know so much about this kinda stuff."

"That's... That's horrible!" Melissa exclaimed - she always had thought that people should forge their own destinies, their own paths, their own lives, that they shouldn't be controlled by others like puppets. It was why she was so strongly against the Nerve Staple in Aoife's neck, and amazed that a parent would do something like that, "Alone for an entire year in a dangerous forest?" Melissa hugged her tightly in sympathy.

"I can't believe anyone's parents would do something like that! Forcing something you don't want on you, and then throwing you into a forest for a year? That's just... Horrible!" Melissa said, not as to find a better word to describe it.

Katy shook her head, grinning faintly. "It sounds a lot worse than it was. I mean, I always assumed my parents or someone was close enough in case anything really dangerous happened. I never saw anyone though, but you probably wouldn't see someone who was fully trained.. I'm only kind of trained and I can be invisible in the woods if I need to be."

Katy returned the hug, sighing. "I really can't understand your parents at all. For the longest time I thought all parents were like mine, but even though most aren't I can't understand it. I mean, my parents would probably love you, with how easily you killed that Beowolf."

Katy paused suddenly, replaying what she had just said over in her head. "Not that I think you're going to be meeting my parents or anything!"

"Still! How could they force their own child into doing something she doesn't want to do? And even if it was safe, leaving anyone alone in a forest for a year isn't good... My parents... They're good people! They're really good parents to my siblings, but I was always different... They tried really hard, but they just gave up on the end I guess." Melissa said, breaking off the hug.

She blushed a little, "I-I'm really not that good! You're so much better than me, I only killed one, you killed at least five!" She said.

Katy shook her head, giving her rifle a small pat. "Sure, I killed a bunch from a distance, with bullets. You got right up on top of them and still managed to kill the biggest one right away. That takes way more skill, I think. If I would have gotten out of the tree I'd probably be dead meat."

"It's.. it's tradition, I guess," she said suddenly, trying to explain her family's feelings. "Every generation of my family, going back a long while, has had Huntsmen and Huntresses galore. When my brother was still around and it seemed like he was going to be an incredible Huntsman my parents sort of let me be, but when he disappeared I think they realized that if I didn't become a Huntress then it'd be their fault that the tradition got broken."

She frowned, unsure if she was making any sort of point. "It doesn't really matter if I want to be a Huntress or not. I don't have much of a say in it. If I do poorly here, or skip classes, or stop reporting in every week, or a bunch of other stuff they'll pull me out of school and keep training me on their own. I dunno if you've ever tried to go up against real Huntsmen or Huntresses before, but it's not a fight you can win."

After a moment, she shrugged. "I figure they'll lay off a little if my brother ever comes back. So I've just gotta deal with it until then."

"But you weren't up close to them, and the fact that you weren't shows your skill as well! All I did was ambush one from up in a tree and kill it in one go! If you didn't cover me I probably wouldn't have been able to get away, and I'm not as good in a prolonged fight!" She said, trying to sound humble.

Melissa frowned, "And you don't get any say in it? That's... I can't imagine what that would be like... If my parents did that to me I'd probably have run away within the week!"

Her face suddenly took on a look of concern, "Y-You won't end up doing badly in class or anything bad right? I-I mean, it's not like I'm too concerned but Umm... I wouldn't want that tour to go to waste if you end up having to leave!" She said nervously, not hiding the fact that her concern very well.