Work Text:
Grimmenagerie
Hazel walked into the throne room of Salem's Castle, and saw Emerald and Mercury staring in wide-eyed terror at Salem creating the flying Beringel Grimm.
"There's an old saying," he uttered as he approached the thief and the butcher. "If you want something done right, do it yourself."
Seeing that his wisdom didn't abate Emerald's fear or Mercury's disgust at Salem's grisly work, Hazel then decided to lighten the mood.
"Of course," he continued with some verve in his voice, "Salem wasn't always as adept at making new Grimm."
Mercury and Emerald turned to him in disbelief. "How do you mean?," the latter replied.
"Well, not long after Tyrian and I joined up, Salem had a problem with a Silver-Eyed Warrior. I forget her name. Anyway, rather than risk either of our lives trying to kill her, Salem instead decided to make an unusually powerful Grimm to take her down. It ... didn't quite go to plan."
Sixteen years earlier, Hazel and Tyrian watched as the new Grimm took shape. A quartet of spindly, thin legs supported a camel-sized body dotted with bone spurs - looking somewhat unsteady as it wobbled along. But perhaps the weirdest part of this monster was its abnormally long neck and disproportionately-small camel-esque head.
"A Giraffe Grimm?" Hazel asked.
"Correct," Salem replied. "Tyrian told me of these native Vacuan creatures, speaking highly of their ability to fight with their necks to establish dominance. I felt such an unusual Grimm would confuse this mirror-eyed nuisance enough to let it kill her."
No sooner had Salem said that when a catastrophe unfolded. One of the Giraffe Grimm's legs had gotten stuck in a Grimm pool, causing it to flail it's remaining legs and fall down. Somehow, the monster managed to impale itself through the neck with its own leg.
After a brief silence, Salem sighed.
"Back to the drawing board."
A week later, Salem had her next big scheme mapped out. Having learned a lesson about going for a lumbering giant, Salem had decided to make another creature - a dozen of them, to be precise - and gave them ridiculously sharp claws and teeth. There was, however, one other problem as Hazel noted.
"They're too small."
"They have larger numbers."
"Dust will make quick work of them."
"Not if they ambush their mark."
Hazel groaned. "Can you at least test them against Tyrian? He's outside now, and he's armed."
Salem nodded. "Very well. If they last longer than a minute against him, then I've got it made."
Salem concentrated as her mind reached out to the Meerkat Grimm. They heard her commands, and skulked behind the bushes, lying in wait for the crazed Faunus to make his way past.
Four minutes later, Tyrian arrived at the ambush point, and the Meerkat Grimm all jumped up ... and did nothing. They just stood and stared awkwardly at Tyrian, doing nothing as he turned in surprise and shot them all down.
Salem's jaw struck the floor, and Hazel facepalmed at the sorry display.
A fortnight later, Salem had made her third animal, this time aping a creature that hailed from Menagerie. One that could burrow underground, had strength that belied its appearance, and also had sharp teeth and claws. By all means, Salem had a perfect ambushing creature.
So it beggared belief as to why, over the last day, Salem had variously seen it sleep, move about it's burrow at a snail's pace, and sleep again with nothing else achieved. If Grimm were emblematic of negativity, Salem bitterly reasoned, this one would represent the sin of sloth.
Little did Salem know that she'd achieved a masterstroke.
"The Wombat Grimm won out?" Mercury asked incredulously.
Hazel looked upwards nervously. "Well, not before Salem had the bright idea of hiding a nest of them within a tree at the edge of her territory, then leaving a trail towards it for the huntress to follow. They dropped straight onto the huntress one night and she never knew what hit her."
A/N: Yes, Summer Rose got killed by drop bears. Deal with it.
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