Real Nightmares [Single]

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Blood filled his mouth. He spat it onto the recently dead Griffon Grimm, but he could still taste it. He must have had a split lip or torn gums or something. His whole jaw was numb, either close to being dislocated or already so. The dead-now-fading Grimm had hit him pretty hard in its death throws. He rubbed it until a hand touched his back.

He turned to see her. Cute as a button, curly blonde hair, the deepest ocean-blue eyes he had ever seen, and carring an ungodly huge grenade launcher. She also wore body armor of metal plates and an assault rifle slung over her back. "Hey, you alright?" She asked.

Those eyes of hers... When he looked at them he saw home. A place to belong, his refuge and his comfort. And the future, of seeing those eyes throughout his days and be passed on to his children one day. Home is one of those words that carries far more meaning than one syllable has any right to. Like Love, War, Hate, and Peace. But Home was the one he liked best, and best described her.

"I'll be fine." Copperfield said, then grimaced. He grit his teeth and pushed the pain back. "I'm fine. We have to keep going." The night was blacker than midnight, the shattered moon of Remnant a deep blood red. He wasn't sure if this was just some effect the terrible monsterous Grimm he was hunting had on the area or if it was some coincidental astronomical event.

She studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Right. Time to end this." She said. Copperfield nodded back. And they both strapped on their gas masks.

"Remember," Copperfield began repeating something he had said many times before, "This disease is airborn. The Wind Dust in these-"

"Gives about twenty minutes of air, then I have to reload the canister with the ones on my belt without breathing. I remember perfectly." She said as she loaded a fresh canister in the front of the leather mask. Then she reloaded her grenade launcher with malicious intent and checked on the assault rifle on her back. Copperfield smiled. "That's my girl." He gave her a hug from the side, and she glared up at him.

"I'd hit you, but you need all the Aura you can get." She said before hugging him back. They both looked forward.

A massive tangle of thorns and vines the size of a city office building loomed ahead. Only a few feet forward the plain dirt would turn soft and ashy, continually churned by the claws of the Grimm that used to protect this area. It would be saturated with this strange Grimm-made disease, each step sending up spores and deadly air. Normal people without the protective gear Copperfield had made would die within minutes of breathing that stuff in, and become a source for it to spread. And what they were looking for was in the center of it all. All the Grimm outside that they had dealt with were simply attracted to the area, or were bodyguards of some sort to this thing. They weren't even the main force. And they had almost been too much for them to handle. Copperfield had come with more than just her, he had brought a large number of folk, numbering somewhere in the two hundreds, who were willing to fight to end the terrible illness. And they had fought. Copperfield counted only six in total left, scattered around and putting on their own gas masks and checking on weapons, bandaging wounds. Not many of them had the protective power of their Aura like Copperfield had to keep them from injury. And even with it, Copperfield had bled to get to this point. And she didn't have an Aura either. She had proven herself capable so far but...

"If..." Copperfield began speaking, voice a little hoarse. He couldn't have stopped her from helping him if he had wanted to. Well, maybe he could have used his Semblance to lock her up in ice but she wouldn't have forgiven him if he had. "If one of us..." His voice locked up and he fought to get it back. She was a grown woman and could make her own choices. Still, he was more up for this kind of work, had higher limits than she did. "If we don't make it out of this, I want you to know that I-"

"I think tonight," She interuppted him as if he hadn't spoken. "that I'm going to make you scream on that dumpy little bed of yours and wake the neighbors. Maybe break the bed while doing it. That way you have an excuse to buy a bigger one for us."

"...Right. Yeah. Or maybe you'll be the one screaming." Copperfield said back, getting his voice under control. He saw her eyes sparkle under the glass of her mask.

"We'll have to see, White." She said, calling him by his first name. She was the only one who did that. She turned and faced the lair again. Copperfield followed her gaze and began walking forward. She followed him.

The Grimm inside the dark interior of their spiny lair screamed a battle cry and began tearing their way out to meet the invaders as they stepped on their territory. Creepy, fast-moving things with withered limbs, and about five too many of them to boot, came scuttling out. They were about the size of horses but wider and stout, like enormous crabs with a taught human-like face hanging on a gaunt too-thin neck. And roughly thirteen in all.

Everyone, six total humans fighting for humanity, opened fire. Copperfield pointed his staff forward and began using his Will and Semblance. Hot lead poured into the leading one, bullets cracking the hideous bone plating the Grimm wore and Copperfield poured a torrent of fire into its exposed flesh, a column of white-hot flame the thickness of his arm boiling its flesh. It screamed and charged before a grenade shot into its face, the explosion throwing it onto its back. Its legs squirmed like an insect, and Copperfield dimly noted that they resembled human hands and feet, clawing at the air and dirt to lift its massive body upright. Copperfield brought his Semblance crashing down on its center like a hammer from the heavens, invisible force cracking it and crushing it's insides. The black blood of the Grimm splattered everywhere as it ruptured from the inside and stopped squirming.

And while this all was happening the other twelve of these terrible Grimm without names tore two people apart, their grotesque limbs grabbing hold of the men's arms and legs and simply pulling them off. They died hard, fighting and shooting and screaming. Copperfield grit his teeth and with a roaring challenge and a sweeping movement from his staff, shaped his Semblance into the shape of a snowplow's blades, meant to scoop and throw a group of them back from the three remaining fighters he had. They instead dug their limbs into the ground and simply held, only moving back a few feet. Some of their bones broke with the effort but once Copperfield's Semblance left them they started snapping back into place. These things were strong. He turned and called upon the Ice Dust in his pockets, freezing another's legs and the majority of it's body to solid ice. One of the fighters had a warhammer and began breaking it to pieces.

He watched as she ran in a wide arc, firing grenade after grenade at one of these Grimm, distracting it from a fighter who had been knocked down and was trying to retreat and get back to his feet. The Grimm swivled on her, blocking the grenades by sacrificing some of its limbs. It rushed her with the blinding speed of a spider suddenly having a destination. She leaped into the air and swapped to her assault rifle, firing into it before she landed on the creature's back, yelling as she aimed for the bloody stump of one of the limbs she had blown off just before. The thing writhed and screamed, but she held on and emptied her magazine into it's body. One of it's hands was able to grab her neck and haul her up, but she produced a short bladed sword and severed the arm before it could break her neck. She landed and swiped at its head as it turned to look at her, but it pulled back. Not in time for her speed, though. The tip of the blade slashed through its empty eyesockets before stabbing the blade down into the hole she had torn open with her rifle. The creature cried out, mad with pain and blinded by her slash, and charged in a random direction. She rode the thing into another of it's kind, it's limbs madly pulling and beating the other to a pulp in a blind rage. Then she drew her sword and severed its head. She was absolutely covered in Grimm blood, and Copperfield could only smile as he watched her work.

One of these creatures leapt about twenty feet into the air and came down at Copperfield, but it made the mistake of getting into the air. Supernaturally strong creatures were formidable because they could use that strength to brace themselves against the ground, throw more of their body weight around in more devestating effects than simple humans could. They could run faster, hit harder, keep their ground easier. But once they were in the air, they became just Mass times Acceleration. He sent a surge of power to slam into its face, spinning it midair. He then created a large spike of ice in the air, and with another surge of power sent it rocketing downward. His aim and timing had been good, and the ice speared through the creatures head and into the ground, mere feet infront of Copperfield. He watched as another leaped at one of his fighters, and Copperfield called Gravity to his command, yanking the thing out of the air to come crashing to the Earth. It screamed bloody murder as its limbs broke under the sheer intense weight of them with the increased gravity well, a pitch almost too high for human hearing and loud enough to keep ringing in everyone's ears long after the Faunus it had leaped for began pumping round after round of her shotgun into it's head and body.

One took the opportunity to rush Copperfield from the side, only warned by her as she shouted a warning. He raised his Hardlight Shield with his Semblance just in time, its body and limbs slamming into it and driving Copperfield several meters back, his boots creating long trenches in the dirt. Once slowed down he called forth Earth Dust and drove jagged earthen teeth into the Grimm's body, piercing it from underneath and hooking in like harpoons. He released his shield and called forth Fire, this time a beam no thicker than a sewing needle. A whole Fire Dust Crystal from his pocket disintigrated as he concentrated all of that energy and heat into a single line that tore through the creature and exploded a furrow into the dirt behind it. It couldn't scream as it died.

"Who's next?!" He challenged through his mask, looking to the rest of the Grimm. They answered with their terrible screams, and Copperfield and the remainder of his fighters answered with violence and bloodshed. He was happiest that she was still by his side, fighting all the same.

They had lost another, the man with the warhammer, as the Grimm simply batted his hammer back at him. The large hammer flew back so hard at the blow that it had crushed it's weilder's head, the hammer spinning off wildly to land somewhere. Then a kid no older than sixteen got his legs broken by one of the creature's blows. He ended up finishing it off, but his mask had fallen off and his face had pressed into the disease-saturated dirt. He fought until he ran out of ammo, gritting through the pain before succumbing to the illness and falling limp. The Faunus girl with the shotgun...

The last of these crab-things had grabbed her, but instead of killing her it raised her up like a shield. She was able to load a shell into her weapon and pointed it at the thing's head, but another one of its limbs, a distorted foot, knocked the weapon aside just as she pulled the trigger. Copperfield raised his Hardlight shield to protect himself, feeling the rounds ricochete. Red splattered onto Copperfield's visor. She stood a few feet away from him. Then she wavered. And fell.

Her bodyarmor had been pierced, a large hole right... right in her left breast. Right in her heart.

Copperfield held her hand, vision blurred. "No, no no no, nonononono, hang on, I-" He scrambled for something to do, some way to stop the bleeding, instincts running to his knowledge of first aid and medical treatment... Her hand reached up and touched his mask, getting more blood on it. And then it fell to the ground. Her body had the tension of someone operating the muscles, and then... it didn't. It wasn't her anymore. Just a corpse. Just an empty house.

He looked up, vision hazy and spotted with blood, but clear enough to see the Faunus and her now-broken neck be tossed aside.

Copperfield was defeated. He had lost. Everyone was dead around him. And there were so many horrors going forward. And he was alone. No backup, no calvary. He was the backup, he had been the calvary. And he had failed all those that had come with him. And he had failed her. Her heart... they had hurt her heart.

The last of the Grimm creatures slowly stalked towards him, but Copperfield's eyes cleared and he saw past the lumbering form. To the den of thorns and vines and death. To the single pair of gleaming red eyes of a Grimm, staring out at him. The one responsible for all of this, just watching him struggle.

Tears streaked down his face and his body was racked with sobbing convultions. He looked up at the last of these Grimm creatures. It grabbed hold of his face and shoulders and pulled. Copperfield screamed.




Copperfield screamed. It was the sound of his own voice that woke him up, and he shot sitting up, still screaming until he worked out how to stop. He panted, covered in sweat. He looked around himself. He was at Beacon, in his staff apartment. The feeling of hot wet blood on his face was still there, and he reached up to feel tears covering his cheeks. He wiped his face off on his bedsheets before falling back down, taking a shuddering deep breath. He turned to look at the clock. It read, "8:32 am". He had a class today, and it had started thirty-two minutes ago.

So with another deep breath that turned into a single sob, Copperfield got up and began to get dressed. He'd have to find a way to bribe his students to not rat on him for being so late. Late because a nightmare kept him asleep. This was one of the reasons he hardly slept any more. Good thing coffee worked well for him. And as he checked the pot, of course it was empty. He must have forgotten to fill it up before going to bed. Wonderful.

Another day.