Author's Note: Yeah this is a relatively dark story, hence the title. Lots of death and misery, don't say I didn't warn you
Roman Torchwick sat on the patio of his penthouse suite, smoking a cigar and looking out over the city. It was an utter hellscape, the smoke that previously bellowed from the fires had more or less died out. There were still a few plumes stubbornly that continued to pump massive black clouds high up into the hazy orange midmorning sky. Melodic Cudgel rested in his lap, and not for the first time since Roman had awakened he considered lining up the gun to his brains and ending it once and for all. He sighed dejectedly, and stood up, perhaps tomorrow, but the day would not be today. Today he would do some reading have some lunch, and maybe take a swim in his pool. With his decision reaffirmed for the day once more, Roman stepped back inside and prepared for his day.
It had only been a month since Vale fell to the disease. It had been two weeks since he'd been forced to put Neo, his only true family he had left, down. the infection had spread through her whole body changing her skin a sickly yellow and turning her veins a putrid black. Roman loved her more than anyone and he refused to see her suffer. That day would have been his final one as well, had she not extracted a promise from him he wouldn't do just that. Where she was now she wouldn't be suffering any more, and he hoped she was watching him from up above after what she'd been through she deserved the peace. Just thinking about it made his grip on his cane tighten, but no he'd made his decision for today, he would stick to his promise for one more day. The water had cut off two or three days ago, and Roman only had a few bottles of clean water left. He combed his hair, put on his best clothes, and with a final check in the mirror, he was all set and ready for his day of work.
Roman went back out, turned on the generator he'd had installed up here in case of power outages and sat in the same chair and began to read from a book he pulled from his personal library. meanwhile in the background some classical opera began to play. He was already on his second run through the library and already he was feeling fatigue and wished he'd bought more paperback books when he'd gotten the chance. He was shaken from his reading by the thunderous crash as a heavily damaged Bullhead smashed into an adjacent bounced and the wreckage bounced into his pool. He casually put his bookmark on his place, stood up, placed his book in his chair grabbed his cane and made his way over to the wreckage.
Hovering high above, stood Atlas's fleet. it's ships pulled double duty as both automated guardians and floating graveyards. The ships' crews had proven just as susceptible to the disease as the people on the ground had been. The disease's vector of infection was unknown, but the pack of government officials and atlesian higher-ups certainly seemed not to be having problems with the disease as they turned tail and ran. Roman had managed to get a radio up and running, but he'd turned it off after a while. It seemed as if Vale had been entirely abandoned by those outside it's walls. A city of close to four million people, left alone to die. The last broadcast he'd listened to was the announcement of the location that the new capital was to be founded, as well as where the new Hunter's school would be built. Guess that meant Beacon had been hit too.
As a final means of quarantine the ships had been remotely designated to prevent anyone from leaving the city. Ironwood and his pet Schnee had left their lackeys to die while they'd spirited away Vale's council, seemingly content to abandon the common citizenry to die in the streets. It turned his stomach, honor wasn't really something he had ever really bought into. There was your word, though. He always kept his word, and as far as he was concerned those people, all those people in their high positions that abandoned the city to die, had chosen to break their word. Roman remembered now why he had always found politicians so enraging, They so flagrantly discarded one of the only tenets Roman held dear and they always did it with those fake sanguine smiles of theirs. Shaking his head he realized he was standing right in front of the Bullhead's cockpit.
The Bullhead's front was a burnt shattered wreck, it seemed that the automated defenses that shot it down had managed to strike the cockpit and thoroughly destroy the outer shell of the craft as well, there was nothing much that he could really see that he could scavenge from the exterior. The minigun seemed relatively intact, however. Intrigued as to it's true condition, Roman went back inside and came out with a small red toolbox. He then set about cracking open the nose of the aircraft. It took about twenty minutes, but he finally managed to pry the armor plates apart and retrieve the minigun and it's ammunition. it would take some jury-rigging but Roman didn't doubt this would prove to be a powerful weapon should he decide to convert it to his own purposes. With his new prize stored in away in his kitchen, Roman turned his attention to the main portion of the craft and decided to check its interior.
Roman hooked the door to the bullhead with his cane and popped it open. He stepped back as a moment later a body flopped out. They were barely recognizable with the extent of their burns but that mass of short yellow hair, tail and rock solid abs that weren't charred black was enough for Roman to recall a certain fight on the docks. It was probably less than two months ago, it felt like decades. As he strolled through the airship's interior, he found burned corpses of what he presumed were other hunters and huntresses. He found several containers of MRE's huddled to the back of the ship. He also found several emergency jugs of water stowed in numerous nooks around the ship, it seemed that they'd been planning to leave using Bullheads, so why had they fled towards the Airships, and not away from it where they would have been safe.
He was probably set for at least a year assuming he paced himself properly, this had been stocked for the whole group of Hunters to probably last at least a couple weeks. As he was carrying another jug of water out with a box of freeze dried salisbury steak, he nearly dropped them when what he had assumed to be another corpse suddenly moaned in pain. He looked over at them, and coming to a decision he believed he would probably regret later put down the jug and box. Roman gingerly tried to extract the still living huntress from her seat. carefully he carried her to his chair and set her down. He removed the clothes from around the burns and did what he could to ease the pain.
Roman was no doctor, however. If she was going to live, it would rely almost solely on her aura's ability to heal her injuries. All Roman had was a bit of burn cream, which he liberally applied and managed to cover the burns on her face and arms and was working on her shoulders before he ran out. It was sunset by the time Roman saw any noticeable improvement and a week before she woke up. Roman fed her himself and helped her drink the water as she phased in and out of consciousness throughout the week. He hadn't recognized her up to that point as almost the entire left side of her face was charred black. But when his emerald eye had met her sole remaining silver one, he recognized her immediately. As they stared at one another Roman couldn't help but begin to laugh.
"Of all the people in Remnant, it just had to be you didn't it Red?" she didn't respond vocally at first, her sole remaining eye simply widened in terror. After a moment she managed to choke out a single word.
"Torchwick."
"Yeah, it just had to be my penthouse you all had to go and crash on." Ruby attempted to move only to have Roman press his hand on her less burned shoulder. "Don't move, your aura's working overtime to save you, don't throw it away by tearing what few muscles you still have on your left side." To his surprise she complied with his request and went still. It would be two weeks before Ruby's aura healed enough of her burns for her to begin functioning without his direct assistance. However with the burns relatively healed, Ruby became a great deal more talkative. It was also during this time that Ruby explained Beacon's plight and eventual fall to him, as they had nothing else to do for the weeks it took for her to heal. Oddly, during this time he'd never once considered ending it all.
"Really, Atlas had its ships bombard your little school?"
"They said we were infected with the disease, then they just started shooting. We got to the Bullheads and then we just ran." with that Ruby began to sob uncontrollably.
"Hey Red, hey. It's gonna be okay. I made it out of scraps like that plenty of times. I'm sure your friends all-"
"No! No it won't ever be okay! Weiss, Weiss tried to stop them and they just shot her right in front of us, one second she's there the next she's-" Ruby broke down into incoherent sobs at this point and Roman quietly pulling her into a hug. She cried into his shirt, soaking it with various fluids, not that Roman particularly cared at that instant. Right now she wasn't some enemy from the past. Right now she was just Ruby Rose, a poor girl in a situation way over her little innocent head, with only his sorry hide for company. That night she fell asleep in his arms utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. He ended up sleeping on the couch with her clinging with a death grip on him, as if afraid in the morning he'd be gone and have just been a fever dream and she was in fact alone in this desolate world.
Roman discovered another problem as her burns became merely impairing rathern life threatening. Her leg was broken, and it was broken quite badly. He fashioned a splint and crutch for her, but it still required his assistance for her to move any significant distance, like moving across the room for example. After what Roman guessed was about a month since he'd found her, his power began to flicker, meaning he'd have to make a scavenging run soon.
"Red I'm going to be back in a little bit, so please don't strain yourself. I'll be back before dark."
"Where're you going?" Ruby said looking up from the book he'd given her.
"We're running low on Dust, I'm off to get us some." With that Roman departed. He walked casually down the stairs to the ground floor and made his way through the streets of a dead city, hunting for it's metal guardians. You see most of the dust had already been used up in the riots, but Roman knew of one reliable source of dust still available. With That he took aimat a patrol of atlesian knights, their mechanical precision did little to aid them when they walked into the perfect ambush point. Aura enhancing his strength and speed well beyond human limits, he flung himself at the four knights and managed to shred them before they managed to get a single shot off. Ripping out their dust cores and taking their ammo as well, Roman began hunting through the nearby houses as he moved towards the next ambush point. He would repeat this three more times before swapping to searching through houses, occasionally finding something of value, sometimes finding nothing. He was making his way back to the apartment, when the particular rubble of what was once a building caught his eye. As he examined the ruin more closely, Roman felt his excitement grow. While the structure didn't even begin to look stable, the rewards might well be worth it though. With that thought in mind he headed straight for the dilapidated structure.
Something was very very wrong. Ruby knew it after Roman hadn't returned and it had gotten so dark, steeling herself she took out the crutch Roman had made for her and began to make her way to the door to go and search for him. She was reaching for the door, only for it to open and a surprised Roman carrying a rather large crate with him to enter.
"Well, sorry I'm a little late Red." Roman set the crate down and closed the door behind him. To his surprise Ruby gripped him tightly when he'd gotten within arm's reach and beat on his chest to a confused response from Roman.
"I was so worried about you! What took you so long?"
"I was on my way back, when I saw what was once upon a time a pretty good bakery. I knew it was a longshot but I had to see if they had anything left in there that was still good. Now we can indulge in the wonderous fruits of my labor." With that Roman held out a small box of chocolate chip cookies for her to take. The milk had already gone bad and been discarded, so they drank from a pair of water bottles and lounged on the couch. With the dust Roman had scavenged they managed to keep the power running and, after unplugging a few non-essential electronics powered up a TV and DVD player and watched a couple of bad horror movies Roman had lying around. For just a few hours they forgot the world outside, it was just them, a couple of warm MRE's, and some chocolates Roman had been saving for dessert. As the night wore on, it began to grow cold as fall was approaching and the penthouse had never had good insulation. Roman retrieved a blanket and the two former adversaries huddled together for warmth.
By the end of the week Ruby was fully walking on her own, She also forced him to promise her that he wouldn't go on anymore scavenging runs without her, he tried to tell her she could still be too injured and they'd need him to go get supplies but she was having none of it. Over the following week she began using her semblance once again and set about repairing Crescent Rose, which had been damaged in the crash and Roman had lacked the skill to repair it for her. They needed some parts Roman didn't have in his Penthouse, but there was a hardware store a few blocks away. Roman was a man of his word, and so when he had a full parts list he lifted her up on his back and carried her to the parts shop. She had protested, but he refused to let her walk down the several flights of stairs to get to ground level. From there he'd set her down and led her to the hardware store. Not even realizing the implication, he'd held her hand the entire trip so that she wouldn't get lost.
The door was jammed, but the storefront window was smashed wide open. Roman climbed in through the shattered display, careful not to cut himself or Ruby on the jagged shards of broken glass. The interior was dark, the light from the window barely illuminated it. At the far end of the room in the middle of some crumpled was a rather gruesome sight. It was the remains of a wolf faunus, the body long since abandoned to rot. What was most unsettling was the myriad of tools protruding from the body. Roman simply looked away, put on a rebreather and set about gathering the materials they needed. Ruby, however couldn't take her eyes off the dead body remaining rooted on the spot.
"Red, would you mind-, Red? Hey Red, you still with me over here?" he received no response she simply remained motionless standing in the store her mind unfocused. Suddenly it wasn't a random faunus in front of her, it was Blake's body. Ruby wanted to scream, to cry to do something and make the sight in front of her disappear. Ruby's breath became labored and she began to hyperventilate. Ruby vaguely felt someone grab her and spin her around. Now she was locking eyes with a Green eyed man, the same one who'd nursed her back to health, the man she'd fought several times before, the man who now when she saw his eyes looking at her it made her heart skip a beat. Ruby gradually realized he was shaking her and saying something, and his words began to come into focus. "-Red please, look at me, what's wrong?" Slowly the trance-like state she had been in broke and tears threatened to flow forth once again. No, she had cried enough, she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life sobbing every time they stumbled across a dead body. As she steeled herself she became aware of a pair of arms wrapped around her. Slowly Ruby wrapped her arms around Roman in return and slowly her panic attack began to subside and her breathing returned to normal.
For a while, they just stood there, two utterly broken individuals, both of whom would no doubt collapse on their own, clinging desperately to each other to try and forestall completely falling apart. After a few minutes that felt like hours, the two separated and gathered the rest of the materials they needed to repair Crescent Rose. As they were about to leave, Ruby spoke.
"We shouldn't leave him like that." Roman looked at her, then nodded. He put down his sack of materials and grabbed a nearby shovel. Roman lead her to a small park behind the store. He dug a hole where what he felt was an appropriate spot, on a small hill underneath an ash tree, overlooking the rest of the park. After finishing with the hole he returned to the hardware store and extracted the myriad of tools from the body. Roman found some burlap and wrapped the body up in it. Taking a plank with him to serve as a grave marker, he returned and buried the body to the best he could. They were silent while he filled the hole back up with dirt, neither really knew what to say. The grave marker was blank, as neither knew his name. They stood in silence while the cold fall winds blew around them.
After he returned the shovel, they gathered their spoils and made their way back to their home. halfway back the icy rain began to fall, chilling them both to the bone. When they returned to the room, they were both tired, Ruby set the materials next to Crescent Rose. After they'd taken some baths, since the shower no longer functioned but they had enough water later in the jugs to wash up. Clad in comfortable night clothes the two slumped on the couch together once again. Slowly, the two looked at one another. Perhaps what they saw in each other's eyes was love, neither could really be sure. But there was something behind those eyes, some spark of affection and in the other's eyes. Within the confines of this dead city, that was more than enough.
It was on their next dust scavenging run that Roman discovered something that would propel them to embark on their own quest and finally receive some answers for what was done to their city. It was this run where the pair had encountered a woman who seemingly appeared to be in a near feral state, attacking anything that she could. She had ambushed the two of them in an alley and had neatly overpowered him, he was barely keeping her blade from cutting his throat open when Ruby spoke.
"Pyrrha, what're you doing, stop!" and with that, Ruby managed to overcome her shock and rushed forward and seized her former friend's arm, wrenching it away from Roman's neck and tossing Pyrrha to the ground.
Pyrrha turned, her eyes vacant and unfocused. Despite her best efforts she was weak from hunger, overexertion and thirst, driven only by a mechanical manipulation and Pyrrha struggled to stand. The moment her routine was disrupted, her strength seemed to evaporate almost immediately. She gave a small struggle but seemed to call it quits and soon passed out and crumpled to the ground.
"Roman come on, we need to help her." Roman looked at her incredulously, but after seeing her single pleading eye he agreed and led the way back to the apartment, where this time Roman carried Pyrrha, followed by Ruby, up the stairs. He set Pyrrha down on the couch and looked her over to see if, rather it was better to say where, she was injured. She had minor scrapes and burns all over her, but Pyrrha seemed for the most part to be in good health, regarding what he could see at least. While Roman was checking her head for any sort of obvious trauma, he felt a rather peculiar bump, it seemed to almost wiggle when he felt it. The bump was surrounded by hair matted with blood. Roman took some scissors and cut the blood stained hair off, and once that was removed he saw something completely alien to him. It looked almost like a slug, but it was metallic and had six pincers hooked into her skull.
"Red, You should take a look at this.." Ruby made her way over to his side and looked at the strange thing clinging to her friend's head.
"Roman, what am I looking at?"
"I haven't the slightest Red, But I'm almost certain it's not supposed to be there. Listen carefully, I need you to go to my room and get a leather belt for me. I need you to put it in her mouth so she doesn't bite her own tongue off." She mutely complied. "Okay, good. Now I want you to hold her hand and hold her down, I'm going to try and remove this thing from her skull. Warn me if she starts loosening her grip." Roman said gathering a bottle of alcohol to sterilize his tools, which consisted of a straight razor, some tweezers and a pair of pliers. He set some bandages and a pan on a table next to the couch. Roman put on a disposable dust mask and after washing his gloves, he set to work.
Roman began by using the pliers to remove the pincers holding it in place. The pincers were burrowed deeply in her skull, with each pincer removed a small trickle of blood flowed out from the hole. He broke the pincers so they wouldn't reattach themselves, and then slowly reached around the main body and carefully began pulling on it. It was slow to move, but gradually Roman managed to begin extracting the foreign organism from Pyrrha's head. It felt like hours and Pyrrha began thrashing quite violently as he got closer to fully removing it. Finally, he pried it from her head and was shocked to see what was on the other end of it. It seemed to be a series of thin silver wires, connecting Pyrrha's brain to the slug. All the wires seemed to be hooked up to a single 'mouth'. Cautiously he cut the wires using the straight razor, and each time a wire was severed, Pyrrha would jolt slightly. With the final wire, Roman took the head of the creature over to the hard edge of the table and smashed it a couple of times and after the slug spasmed several times Roman was satisfied the hellish thing was well and truly dead. He then took the tweezers and set about cleaning the wound.
There were several wooden slivers, coupled with several small rocks and a few metal splinters. Roman found all of it lodged in the area surrounding the wound and none in the wound itself. After removing the debris he began removing the silver wires and placed all of it in the pan. He counted while he pulled the wires and Roman was reasonably sure he had gotten all of the wires out of her head. Roman then bandaged her head to the best of his, quite limited admittedly, abilities to make sure the wound wouldn't become infected.
"We need actual medical supplies, I'm out of good alcohol to disinfect anything and I don't even have a single serious painkiller, unless two shots of cheap drugstore whiskey count. There's one hospital that wasn't burned down that may still have what we need. It's a decent clip away, so we'll most likely have to head out and return in the morning, with the night's approaching and we won't be able to make it back in the dark. You up for spending the night in a creepy hospital for the night?" After a moment of uncertainty, a new determination shown in her eyes as she nodded. Together the two packed food and water and set out for the hospital and would arrive at it's front door just as dusk began to set. Back at the penthouse, the 'destroyed' slug began broadcasting a signal to its command requesting instructions on how to proceed following the damage it had received. Receiving no response, It decided for itself the correct parameters and dispatched several squads Atlesian knight to extract it and it's host to undergo corrective measures.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, a pair of golden eyes watched the two redheads from the shadows, silently looking for the perfect place to make her move. Her sword clutched tightly in her hand, her ears pinned back, she refused to allow her latest set of sick twisted delusions to bring any more harm to her friends, not this time.
A comment would be most appreciated. Thank you all for reading and have a nice night. Expect the next chapter in a month or so. Until next time.