[The Mythic Scribe]

Seeing that the last one of the blasted creatures seemed to be almost done with, Aurora instead focused on pulling back the knives that she hadn't retrieved yet, slowly to conserve strength, breathing heavily from the battle. Not that it was particularly tiring, simply that she was so riled up. First fight of the day, and combat-wise it was great, the teamwork at play was massively impressive. Nero hadn't shot her in the back yet either, so that was a surprise too. So she stood up, cheeks flushed and chest rising and falling heavily, next to the disintegrating corpse of one of the other Beowolves. Lucky the things didn't leave anything, blood would be terrible to have to clean off of weapons.

[MonsterManic]

Both Beowolves down, Tina stalked forward, intent on finishing it quick the way she preferred it to end: A beautiful Dust round, right in the noggin. Turning to the left, swinging her right arm forward, holding it perfectly straight, she stood
tense and poised for a second, before lightly squeezing the trigger on Sunrise, sending the bullet on a one-way trip toward it's head section. Or, seconds later, what would be left of it.

Unless someone decided to knock the Beowolf off course, this would be their first fight, complete.

[Pyro_Ferno]

Seeing that Tina wanted to finish the last Beowolf in her way, Nero took the half second to pop a shell back in Nightshade. No Alpha? Lame. The standard Beowolf is nothing Nero thought. Taking a quick look around, Aurora was collecting daggers. Why? Fifty throwing knives meant for over five meters weigh about twenty seven pounds.

Logic aside, they fought well, with Gwylan being able to easily knock a Beowolf off it's feet with a throw of a trident, whereas Nero would have to put her weight into a swing on an off balance opponent. Tina had a significant range advantage over Nero, but Nero seems to have more melee capabilities. That second point can be evened out by both Nero and Aurora, doubting the two-handed trident is a good template for a sword. Aurora's semblance could have some interesting possibilities beyond throwing an opponent or a dagger, namely throwing a big cloud of smoke the weight of Nero, but that requires testing in a safe environment, not now.

[Dusty]

"Well, that was fun. Three Grimm down and no one got mauled. All in all, that was a raging success I think. Go team!" Gwylan cheerfully exclaimed to his team as he grabbed Irvine and rested it on his right shoulder. They'd done pretty well, after all, and some morale boosting wouldn't go astray.

Didn't mean they were done though, not by a long shot. This was just the first fight they'd have to deal with today. But, if they went as well as this one, nothing would go wrong. Team ATLA would come out on top, without a shadow of a doubt. Strolling past Aurora and bumping her shoulder with his, he murmured, "Nice job leader", and proceeded to continue down the path.

[The Mythic Scribe]

Aurora smiled at Gwylan's cheery words, glad that she wouldn't be alone in cheering up the tragic psycho and the shy girl. "Yeah, good job us. Now we just need to do that like fifty more times!" She made two thumbs ups playfully to accent her words. A glance was thrown at Gwylan for his hopefully playful shoulder bump and words that she had to force herself not to try dissecting. Regretfully, now that he'd taken his place at the front of the crowd she couldn't smile back in return or something, but oh well...

If she'd been tracking their progress correctly, they were a little more than a third of the way there. "Okay Gwylan," she called, "take the left path here alright?" Back to getting through this wretched maze. Why build a maze anyway? And according to the map, it didn't even have an exit that led to the other parts of the area. Seriously, she couldn't comprehend why someone would want to do something like that.

Spoiler: ShowHide

 Just a heads up, for random Grimm that are scattered around (like Grimm that aren't guarding the bunkers, and have a difficulty rating of 7 or lower), how I roll for these kinds of missions is come up with a few myself, but you guys also can come up with and control them. The major ones, the ones important to the plot and progression of the mission though, those are the ones I'm going to focus on. Rando Grimmers are all yours for practice controlling Grimm and contributing to the air of danger.

[MonsterManic]

Taking her time to reload both revolvers after the skirmish, Tina had little to add on to the conversation, as usual. The only things prominent in her mind was being jumped on by the Beowolf (Which was an actual life-threatening experience), and the idea that she implement some degree of Gun Kata into her next fight, in order to maximise efficiency. Speaking of which, simple Beowolves like the ones they just fought really should have been dealt with via headshot, which she should have easily pulled off. Well, back to the training range...

[Pyro_Ferno]

Conflict is the biggest prospect in Nero's mind. On one hand, BUSHES! BIG, TALL BUSHES! This could practically have the word 'NAP' written to be a maze. On the other, there are Grimm practically everywhere and a job that needs to be done... Death takes precedence over nature naps. The conversation was not of importance, and the extra set of ears needed air. Taking off her prized hat, she smiled at a small cross breeze flowing through the maze walls. An up side to being around people who know about the ears is the lack of annoying sweat building up under a hat that doesn't breath, not that she doesn't love her hat.

[Dusty]

Throwing a thumbs up back at Aurora, Gwylan rested his back against the wall right before the turn and poked his head around the corner, checking if there were anymore beasties hanging around that'd try and have a crack at them. There weren't, but the ground looked like it'd been trampled. There were too many leaves and twigs knocked off the hedge maze for Gwylan to get an idea of what did this, though it was clear that it had been more than a few Beowolves anyway.

Gwylan waited for the others to catch up with him before raising his hand to stop them. "Path ahead's been disturbed, but I can't tell if it was done by survivors or Grimm. Either way, I doubt those wolves were the last of them in here". Unless it was done by both, and they were about to walk into the tail end of a massacre. Not that anyone wanted to hear those sorta thoughts.

[The Mythic Scribe]

At Gwylan's sign to stop, Aurora slowed her pace to stop close behind him, peering over his shoulder and around the corner to confirm that yes, the path ahead had been disturbed. Also to flirt a little more with the proximity, but the former thought was the important one. "Well, I don't think it was just someone having a rather frisky romp in here..." she joked lightheartedly. But really, it was probably one of the two options Gwylan gave, right? If it was anything else or had happened before the attack, some janitor would've probably already been there to clean the mess up.

"We have to move forward either way," said Aurora. "I guess we could proceed more carefully, because even if climbing would give us a better vantage point, it'd draw too much attention. I don't want to engage the Totocoatls quite yet, not while in such a cramped environment. And that's not even counting any other beasties that are hiding in this damned maze." It was then that the leader remembered a very important detail. "Wait a minute..." She angled herself so that she was facing the other two girls, while still hanging onto Gwylan. "Tina, couldn't you use your semblance to try to detect the Grimm ahead? And... Nero." Making eye contact with and raising an eyebrow at said teammate, Aurora continued, "you said you wanted to be the scout. Well, wish granted. Whether or not Tina uses her semblance, you'll go ahead of us and give a status report. Sound fair enough?" She didn't really care if her words were a bit blunt, that was what you got when you threatened someone with a knife.

[MonsterManic]

"Understood." Tina replied quietly, before closing her eyes and focusing. Pulses of her aura flowed through her foot, into the ground, spreading like ripples in a pond, brushing against anything which stood on the ground and bringing back that information to Tina's mind, creating a mental image in her mind.

The initial gathering of information made Tina stumble, leaning on some bushes for support. She'd only used her semblance sparingly before, having seen no reason to use it apart from reclaiming an lost item. That being said, the maze's bushes all instantly jammed in her mind, giving her a headache. She winced in some degree of pain, before refocusing on figuring out what was a deadly adversary and what was merely shrubbery.

Survey complete, Tina opened her eyes and turned to her leader. "There's a solitary Beowolf round the corner, around 20 feet away. Whether it's an Alpha, I can't tell. A pair of Ursa behind us, not on the path we took. And..." here she shuddered silently, "A big, big Death Stalker near the exit we're going to. It's smashed the surrounding bushes flat on it's way in, so there's a wide circular area around it. We can try and avoid it, but the Beowolf we're gonna have to fight. However..." pulling Nightfall out of it's holster, "I can deal with that problem. Unless it's armored on it's head."

[Pyro_Ferno]

"The Beowolf, I can deal with, as can the scouting, but first...." Nero turned to Aurora, the single thought being on her mind, Safe enough. With the look of genuine curiosity adorning her face, Nero asked "How good are you at throwing things like smoke?"

As preparation, Nero moved herself closer to the wall indicated to be between ATLA and a Beowolf. Death Bell is drawn, a hand on Nightshade, stealth is her tool of the trade, the sole focus of her self-training, and a teammate that can help with that is extremely useful, liked or not.

[Dusty]

"I mean, that looks a bit tame for a romp, if you ask me......." Gwylan hummed into Aurora's ear as he rested a hand on her hip so he could slip past her and Nero and give them the space for whatever little scheme Nero had in mind. The wink he shot at Aurora, though, was just for fun. She'd almost gotten frisky herself there, not that he was complaining.

Strolling over to Tina and staking Irvine into the ground to lean back on, Gwylan cocked an eyebrow down at her. "You good? Cause you looked a bit....". Oh, what was the best word to use here that wouldn't hurt Tina's feeling. The amount of times Gywlan had gotten in trouble because he'd said something that was taken wrong was quite ridiculous. Who knew tired could hurt feelings? "....shaken after that. Semblance trouble?".

His positioning had a secondary purpose, too. He'd angled himself to keep an eye out in case those two Ursas decided to take a wander in their direction. Those, Gwylan could handle easy enough. That Deathstalker, though, would be a whole other problem. But it'd be a damn fun fight all the same.

[The Mythic Scribe]

Aurora giggled at Gwylan, who did not fail to once again respond to her flirting with some of his own. This, at least, was fun. She pouted and fluttered her fingers in farewell as he pulled away, a part of her actually a bit nervous that he'd leave her to be around Nero, even if he and Tina were only a few feet away from them.

To Nero's proposition, Aurora crinkled her nose in confusion. "Probably not, I can move like, solid objects, but I don't think I can move water, liquids, that stuff. No on the gases then too. Never really tried. Well to be honest, forms of matter aren't the best categories when talking about my semblance. Wait is smoke a gas? No, right? It's just really small particles of other forms of matter? I guess I could, then." She shrugged. "To push you while using your semblance, if that is what you were talking about, then you'd have to be directly in-between me and the Beowolf. Can you go through stuff? Like the hedges? 'Cause otherwise the element of surprise that I think would be the plus to this would be lost anyway. Also you'd have to lower your aura. Hey, is that possible while using your semblance? Never tried that either." Truth be told, Aurora wouldn't be so opposed to Nero being a little guinea pig for this experiment, but logic dictated that maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea. Oh well.

"And uh..." she turned a bit to her left to look at Tina and Gwylan, the former being the one she was interested in in that moment in time. "Exit? There is no exit, there's just an entrance, which is where we were coming from. Do you mean that it's close to the entrance of the area the first bunker's in?"

[MonsterManic]

"Yeah." Tina replied shakily, looking up at Gwylan. "I wasn't expecting so many things to jam in my head all at once." She explained, speaking softly as not to alarm the nearby Grimm. "But, um, thanks for asking. It's kind of you." She added, turning away shyly despite the situation, and looking toward Aurora and Nero.

"Oh, um..." Tina took a while to try and collect her thoughts; her head was still throbbing from the feedback of her semblance. "By exit, I meant the closest we were going to get to the bunker, while still being in the maze. Just our luck too--ouch..." She visibly winced as another wave of pain hit her head, causing her to drop her gun-toting arm and slide down the bushes to assume a sitting position. That affected me more than I knew it could. That's not good...

[Pyro_Ferno]

Nero is exited internally at the prospect of self improvement, evident by her pressing against the maze wall "Whenever you wanna try it, just hit me. As long as you can hit some of it, the rest will follow. My Aura keeps my body together while I am smoke. And as long as the surface isn't a solid wall, I'll slip right through. Also, be ready for a whiff of sulfur.