Grimhold
An Alternate Universe RWBY Story
By Memphiston
Prologue
Mankind's greatest ambition will always end up being its greatest curse: the fact that we as a species, need to know, label, and understand every single bit of information that surrounds us. The number of questions we tend to ask ourselves is near-infinite, with innumerable situations, combinations, and occurrences that could yield billions upon billions of different results. Innovation and discovery, while a versatile tool for humanity's survival and evolution, will inevitably open some doors that should always stay closed, locked, and ignored. But of course, our species always view the reward as greater than the risk; at least, that's the excuse we use when tampering with things that shouldn't ever feel the prodding of our minds and fingertips. But these people will poke, twist, and tickle the things that life made separate for a reason, and what ends up being bred from this intermixture would stretch, slither and consume everything built and born by this culture. The beguiling mask of innovation will only immolate the world, and its denizens will be left screaming and sinking in a pool of fire and blades.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Chapter 01:
A Grim Reminder
"I think Professor Port's stories are literally starting to pick my brain apart." Yang groaned, her hands clasped against the sides of her head in annoyance. The blonde was seated at the edge of the bench with the rest of her team. In their usual cafeteria spot right across from Team JNPR, the four had just started to ramble about how their professor's consistent exaggeration would bore into their skulls. "I mean, he does know that Grimm dissolve after being killed, right? Why the heck did he bring that Nevermore skull into class?"
"Pssh, you're telling me. Grim Studies..." Ruby scoffed, seated across from her sister with Weiss and Blake between them. "How are we supposed to study Grimm if everything we look at is taxidermy?" Yang left out a small chuckle at her sister joke, the humor lightening up the beat of her headache somewhat.
"I like stories." Ruby and Yang's eyes suddenly shifted to across the table, both centered on those of Nora Valkyrie, who had been listening in on the whole conversation. Jaune and Pyrrha were reading something on her scroll of to the left, and Ren was just nipping away at a ham and cheese sandwich he had just ordered. After a moment, the two sisters retracted back to their own little circle.
"Anyway..." Yang continued.
"The professor's just trying to get the respect and admiration of his students." Blake chimed in, letting her eyes flutter up from the book she was reading. "Though...considering that he's been telling theses stories for nearly the whole year, it's starting to seem...excessive."
"Port may be a bit of a bombastic storyteller..." Weiss said, causing Yang's head to perk up.
"A bit?" she let slip, earning her one of those prissy pursed-lipped looks Weiss Schnee had nearly branded, before returning to her comment.
"But at least he cares about the students and the problems they face, be it in or outside of school. I don't think there's any other professor I could talk to about something personal." Yang gave a slight smirk at the comment.
"You've been going to Professor Port for therapy?" The blonde joked, sprouting a laugh from her sister and a small smile from Blake. The Weiss look returned with a vengeance.
"You know what I mean, Yang!" Ruby grinned as her teammates began to have their little spat, but her attention was suddenly pulled away from the argument, all the way across the hall towards the massive television hanging from the wall. Usually it was used to list any schedules or particular events going on on the Beacon campus, but this time it had been depicting a news story that had been simmering in the media for quite some time. Ruby watched as footage of humans and faunus alike wearing white breathing masks played, the people running around a city clouded in smoke and ash. It then snapped from that scene to a helicopter view of the chaos below, with the newscaster Lisa Lavender perched at the left side. As she was yelling her news into a microphone over the propeller's mechanical roar, Ruby's eyes hovered down to the bold white words spread at the bottom of the screen.
'Chaos in Vacuo over Wildfires Continue, Dozens Missing and/or Dead'
Ruby mouth wilted at the sight of this, and she quickly turned back to her friends for some questions as well as answers.
"Guys?" Weiss and Yang were still arguing at this point, but Ruby's plea paused their bickering as they turned to face her. A melancholy look rose upon the girl's face. "I'm a little scared for Vacuo at this point..." She turned back to the broadcast, her gaze followed by those of her friends. "The fires have been going on for almost three weeks now...where are they coming from?" Blake ticked her head to the side in thought.
"Vacuo's climate's always been very hot; natural wild fires have always been a concern in that region. Still...I wonder why it's particularly bad recently." Yang nodded at the faunus' comment.
"I heard they've been rounding up people from the cities closest to the fires and evacuating them: some to the outer towns, others to the rest of the kingdoms. It's kinda scary when you think about it." Ruby's look then slowly hovered to that of her cat friend's.
"Has Sun said anything about this? I know he used to live there..." Blake just shrugged, accompanied by her bow giving a slight twitch.
"Not recently. I'm going to see him later for coffee before Oobleck's class though." Yang's grin slithered back between her cheeks.
"You know, I still have to get used to the fact that you two are dating now." She said through her smile. Blake's face flushed in a near-instant.
"We aren't...dating." The cat-girl muttered, harshly shutting her book to reiterate her irritation. Yang let her hands fly up in a shrug.
"Dating, good friends, whatever you wanna call it. Everyone has their labels." The blonde continued to tease, further reddening the cheeks of the already heated faunus. While that conversation went on, Ruby turned back to the television screen. Lisa Lavender's usually clean, professional luck had taken on a grungy appearance, a scarf draped over her neck and smoke blasting through and around the helicopter onto her dress. Inside the copter's opening Ruby could see the town square, blackened by ash and abandoned by its people. However, for a flashing moment of stability on the camera, the girl thought she caught sight of a small, dark shape at the very center of the square. It appeared humanoid in stature, but very thin and contorted in a strange fashion that didn't seem natural.
Whatever it was, it just stood there as the newscaster's words sputtered on, until it suddenly started to run down the square, disappearing behind the news chopper's floor. Curiosity riddled Ruby's mind before her attention sank back into the voice of Miss Lavender.
"We'll have more information on this catastrophe as it plays out. I pray that these infernos stop soon and that the citizens of Vacuo will be able to return to their homes and lives in peace. This is Lisa Lavender of the Vale News Networ-" A loud clank is hard off-screen and Lisa's eyes rush downward to the helicopter's other opening, followed by the camera. "What the hell is that?!"
A bone-white, skeletal claw has buried itself into the edge of the chopper, its arm a clashing, sharp black working to pull something up on the vehicle. A twin hand lashes into the floor and only a sliver of what could only be construed as a head could be seen. The whining of static then cut into the screen before being replaced again by the usual programming of the VNN. The new anchor in place, Cyril Ian, was a little phased by what had just been shown on the station. But in true newscaster fashion, he kept his shock buried behind a calm smile and went on with the news of the day.
Ruby was stunned. Her brain practically shook with a bustling curiosity, and she turned only to see the rest of her team arguing about the exact definition of dating. Her eyes rolled at them before the girl quickly hopped out of her seat, taking her leftover pudding cup with her. As she began to step away, Yang was the first to notice.
"Ruby, where are you going?" The girl's eyes quickly shifted back to her sister with bit of a nervous twinge.
"Oh uh, sorry guys. I just realized I have to return something to the library before Oobleck's class starts. I'll meet you guys there okay?" Before any of them could answer, pedals riddled the floor where Ruby has just stood. Yang's brows curled with a bit of suspicion, but were unraveled once Blake started to move as well.
"I should probably be going too. Sun's probably on his way to the Cafe. I'll try to ask him about what's happening in Vacuo, but I won't push it." The cat-girl was soon up and out the door, leaving Yang and Weiss with the rest of Team JNPR, who had pretty much ignored the conversation save for Nora. Yang sat up and let her eyes bounce around the table.
"So...anyone wanna play RCG?"
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"How can you have let this fall out into the public, Stilton!" A deep, angry voice poured out into the darkness of the room. A metallic hand garbed in a dress glove then smashed into the control panel of a communications link, from which the only source of light was coming. From the device sputtered a nervous, timid voice twinged with the common radio whine.
"Sir, it was an accident! One of our workers just, they mishandled the formula and-" Another beat into the panel came.
"Mis-HANDLED!?" The man shouted once more, the room almost shaking from the sheer loudness of his words. "I pay you to research this project as effectively as you can. I pay you DOUBLE to make sure that research never poses a threat to the people, and I pay you TRIPLE to make sure that research never escapes the laboratory under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! Vacuo is tearing itself inside out from this, what happened!? How did it manage to spread-" The sound of a self-sliding door opening filled the room from behind the individual.
"Mr. Ironwood? General? Hello?" The doors split away, revealing a man dressed in professional garb: a black suit and pants with a green turtle neck and spectacles resting on his nose. The feathery ends of silvery hair bounced as he stepped out into the room, one hand behind his back, the other firmly grasped on the head of a cane. The General's eyes narrowed back to the communicator, to which he leaned down and spoke in a calm, softer voice.
"Stilton, I'm going to have to call you back. Professor Ozpin's just arrived." Only the sound of the headmaster's footsteps were heard for a few moments, before a response finally came.
"Understood, sir." One click and Mr. Stilton was gone, to which the General quickly returned his attention to his colleague.
"I'm sorry about that, Professor. Just a bit of grunt work I needed to attend too." Ozpin's eyes remained stoic and unmoving, setting a serious mood in for the already frazzled General. He then began to pace to the left, his cane tapping beside him as he walked.
"James...I must apologize myself for this sudden intrusion, but I have a bit of urgent news for you. Have you watched today's run of the VNN?" Ironwood's head lurched to the side; his other "distractions" had kept him from even thinking about glancing at a newspaper, let alone the newscast. He simply shook his head.
"Sadly no, I haven't. Why? Was there something that peaked your interest?" As the General spoke, Ozpin moved to one of the black desks beside the comms link, taping its face before a line of bright white split a rectangle within the table. The shape then rose up and flipped to reveal a computer screen, its keyboard a collection of smaller square shapes in the same white vein as the prompter. Ozpin turned and placed his cane against the desk before leaning over to begin typing. As he worked an even larger screen soon phased in from the darkness, holographic in nature and hovering at the top of the farthest wall. The General glanced at Ozpin, then at the screen as the typing grew louder and louder. With one last hard tap on the keyboard, the blackness split in the very middle and stretched upward, the image of Lisa Lavender in the helicopter consuming the entire screen.
"I trust you know about the strange wildfires that have been occurring all around Vacuo, correct?" Ironwood simply nodded, the professor scrolling the interface's cursor down towards the play button. "This catastrophe has nearly stretched out to consume half the kingdom James, but there is something else that I feel you should be made aware of." Clicking on the play-bar of the video, Ozpin moved it out to right before the program switched over to Cyril Ian's segment. Carefully inching the bit backwards, Ozpin stopped it right at the last frame before the static. James narrowed his eyes in an attempt to see what the professor was talking about; all the while the headmaster had grabbed his cane and made his way past the desk closer to the screen. He then raised his hand with the cane inside it, pointing directly to the gnashing figure at the foot of the helicopter. "There." James turned over beside his colleague and squinted in his view, before his eyes widened out in a horrifying realization.
"Grimm..." The words knocked Ozpin's cane back to the ground.
"Yes...I don't know how or when but they've entered the city, maybe one of their weaker walls crumbled from the heat." Ozpin then ceased pacing and turned face to face with his friend, earnest eyes meeting the General's arguable...colder looking ones. "Whatever it may be that happened James, we need to get our Huntsman and Huntresses out there as soon as possible. If we don't, Vacuo will be lost. Losing one of the four kingdoms would be catastrophic for the rest of the syst-" Ironwood's hand suddenly rose, halting the headmaster's words.
"Ozpin..." He sighed. "Are you sure that we should send all those Huntsman and Huntresses based on one picture of a Grimm?" Ozpin's eyes thinned in confusion; the great, boisterous James Ironwood telling him to keep the troops back? The General quickly reiterated as Ozpin's concern wormed through. "What I mean is, I will send out a few troops to scout the area, assess the number of Grimm and see if they can find the opening. There's no sense in spending all our resources on a simple hunch." Ozpin paused, unsettled by the words and demeanor of the General. It was as if there was some sudden switch of personalities, with Ozpin the ready-to-go fighter and Ironwood the calm, calculating strategist. Only this was the first time that his friend had ever taken the threat of Grimm invasion so...lightly. With great reluctance, Ozpin spoke.
"...Do you have a team that is suited enough to explore that unstable of a region?" The General immediately grew more open when given a sense that Ozpin had fallen for his suggestion.
"Definitely, the military has a specific team created to deal with...particularly sensitive situations. I have no doubt they'll be able to figure out what's going on in Vacuo, in terms of the leakage of Grimm. As for the wildfires...I think it may just be a bad season." The narrowness of the Professor's eyes remained unflinching from behind his spectacles. But of course, James was one of his best friends, and a high military man as well. An individual with the title of General is given it for a reason. His hands unlatched from the head of his cane and the professor began back towards the door.
"Alright then, James. I'll let my staff and the council know you're sending your forces to Vacuo. Make sure you keep me posted on their findings." Now inside the hallway beyond the door, Ozpin turned around. "I'm hoping this is just an unfortunate natural incident...and not the work of our 'queen and her pawns'." The General nodded.
"Of course, Ozpin." The door then shut before the headmaster, and he breathed a heavy, groaning sigh.
"Unpleasant talk with Ironwood?" A voice sprung from behind the man. He turned only to find his vice headmistress Glynda Goodwitch strolling up to him with her crop twiddling between her fingers. Ozpin merely sighed.
"More suspicious than anything..." The woman glanced over at the door, her thin eyebrows contorting into a distrustful shape. Ironwood never had her sympathies or liking beyond his effectiveness as a war-leader, so of course this sudden change in Ozpin's view of him was quick to snatch her attention. "I had showed him today's newscast and our finding of that Grimm in the feed, and suggested that we send out a group of Huntsman and Huntresses to take care of the problem. But he was...a little too quick to shut that idea down." Glynda turned to face her colleague, her brow now raised up out of further concern.
"...He does realize that our people are the best at handling issues dealing with Grimm, right?" Ozpin simply shrugged.
"He suggested that we let him send his own team in: a 'personal selection' if you will." The scoff and groan could not leave the headmistress's mouth fast enough.
"That foolish, inconsiderate jarhead! I shouldn't be surprised that he wants to pull this on his own." The witch's golden-tipped heels dug into the floor as she began marching towards the door, bent on giving the General quite the earful. "The man's never given any credibility to the Hunters of Val-" Ozpin's hand suddenly lashed itself around her wrist, pulling her back slowly.
"Glynda...do you really think storming into that room and shouting obscenities at the General will change his mind?" The woman's eyes held up while her mind searched for an excuse, eventually falling to the ground once nothing could be noted. A sigh then breezed out from her, to which Ozpin then loosened his grasp. "I think this is about more than James just showing off the efficacy of his military. Maybe there's something he's looking for in Vacuo, or something that he's hiding." Glynda glanced up to her peer.
"Is there something you propose we do, Professor?" A small grin slid from the corner of the headmaster's mouth.
"James said his team was specifically created to deal with...sensitive situations. I believe our Hunters are trained to the do the same, and I also believe this is a particularly sensitive situation." Glynda's eyes narrowed.
"You want us to have someone shadow Ironwood's men?" The headmaster nodded.
"Question is...who should it be?"
While all this bickering had gone one outside the comms door, Ironwood was back on call with his employee, adopting a much calmer, relaxed tone.
"Stilton?"
"Yes, General?"
"I think I may have just found my window to clean up this little mess. Establish a line with the Atlas Military Headquarters, I need the HORSEMEN armed ready as soon as possible."
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
A line of rose pedals lay scattered across the rocky path of the school, following behind Ruby as she scampered down towards the Beacon Academy library. Causing a few students to stumble and move out of the way, the girl bulleted on until she finally arrived at the cobblestone steps of the building. Slowing down to a swift jog Ruby rushed up and through the door, the loud bashing sound earning her the looks of several students within the library. She ignored them however, and immediately turned to her left so as to clamor up the half-circle staircase into the media room. Peaking above the banister of the stairs, she was relieved to see it empty save for one boy at the very corner, a hyena faunus. The media room was a simple room filled with lines of desks, each with their own chair and a larger version of the students' scrolls. Only in this case, they were black and featured a green gem clasp instead of a yellow one.
Quickly and quietly scurrying to the farthest desk at the opposite corner, Ruby grasped the scroll and thumbed the power button. Upon activate she quickly swiped through the various holographic panels featured in the menu, until she found the one for the net browser. Tapping it opened up a blank page with a keyboard sliding right underneath, to which Ruby began to type in the address for the Vale News Network website. Soon the page bloomed with ads, articles and news video links, the one Ruby was looking for luckily being at the very top, under "new developments". She clicked on the video and it began to play, but patience was never something in Ruby's repertoire. The play-bit leapt across its line until a flash of static hit the screen, prompting a slight backtrack until Ruby found her scene. Lisa Lavender's mouth lay agape in her startled expression, eyes wide and spearing down to the helicopter floor. There Ruby's eyes came upon the bony nails of the claw once again, but no head or second hand accompanying it. Quickly she began to tap the right arrow key to flip through each frame of the video, and surely enough the head and twin crept up from behind the chopper's edge. Once it dug itself into the panel, Ruby ceased her pressing and let her gaze seep into the image.
This Grimm was nothing like anything she had seen before, its arms very slender and rooted with long, fiendish fingers thrashing into the metal before it. They were definitely too thin to be the arms of any Beowolf or Ursa she had ever seen, nor could either of those two jump high enough to reach the chopper. It also couldn't be a Creep due to the fact that it had arms in the first place. Suddenly an idea sparked in Ruby's head, and her cursor quickly grabbed the play-bit again and pulled the video backwards, to the time when the figure was still on the ground. Once she saw him standing right in front of the flames, she tiptoed forward with her arrow key once more.
As it ran from the shadowing light of the flames, its form became much more apparent, and Ruby's stomach began to twist with a boiling, deep-seated dread. It was a human body that was clamoring towards the chopper, but between tears and rips in the person's t-shirt and jeans, Ruby stared upon that all too common ebony skin, lined with hard, sharp, bony protrusions at the joints and edges of their limbs. Her silvery eyes wandered upward to grip the face in its view, only to be met with a skeletal casing around the head coated in leathery black hair, with two petrifying glowing red eyes eating through the screen, twisting at Ruby's heart and mind.
This was a human Grimm...
