Hey there y'all, Layman here!
So I did NoNaWriMo again this year, like usual; didn't make 50,000, but I did manage to actually finish the story I started. (Well, I actually started one story and then started a different one...shut up!) Point being that over the course of the next year or so, y'all are getting a new RWBY fic! Yay!
So, as a little bit of a Christmas surprise, I'm posting the first chapter in time for Christmas day! (And Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and Festivus, and whatever else you happen to celebrate this time of year.) Hope youz guys like and will be totally hooked by the end.
Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Roster Teeth and was created by Monty Oum. The "Fenris" Grimm isn't a canonical monster, and shouldn't be confused the the Grimm of the same name on the RWBY Fanon Wiki. (That is a thing that exists.) For the purposes if the fic, it's just a Grimm the size of your average Gray Wolf with black fur and red eyes (Save for one exception that you'll read about shortly).
So, without further adieu, I present to you the first chapter of "Stages".
Dedicated to Monty Oum, creator of RWBY, 1981-2015. May his Fantasy never die.
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"Seriously," Weiss said as she speared another Fenris that leaped at her. Team RWBY had taken a mission to eradicate a nest of Grimm that had somehow sprung up near the outskirts of Vale, in return for extra credit for their third year. They'd gotten separated during the melee, though she and Yang had managed to locate each other again, "where the hell do these things keep coming from?"
"Beats me!" the blond brawler said, happily punching Grimm after Grimm, firing off rounds from Ember Celica occasionally, "Alls I know is that I'm getting the workout of a lifetime!"
"Well bully for you!" Weiss clicked Myrtenaster to the light blue Dust, causing a wave of ice to engulf a Fenris in mid leap. "Any sign of Ruby or Blake yet?"
"Nothing yet!" Yang was currently punching a Fenris into the air repeatedly, her gauntlets clanging with every hit. "Trust me, you'll know when they're nearby."
Another Fenris charged at her, forcing Weiss back into the fight. She clicked to the violet Dust, slashing at the beast. It landed in two halves, both dissolving into the ground a moment later.
We're not making any progress this way, the heiress thought, Hmm, I wonder…
"We need to find out where all these Fenris' are coming from and plug it up somehow," she reasoned, "I for one would like this to end as soon as possible."
"So what you're saying is," Yang said with a cheeky grin, punting a Fenris into a tree, "that we need to destroy the spawn point to keep enemies from spawning?" She wriggled her eyebrows coyly.
Weiss fought to keep her eye from twitching.
Just then Blake crashed through the trees, dragging a Grimm behind her with Gambol Shroud. (The katana was stuck in one of the Fenris's legs.) She then ground to a stop, letting the Grimm fly past her, before giving Gambol's ribbon a sharp tug. This caused the sword to slice the leg apart, as well as Gambol's built in pistol to fire at the creature's head. Blake then caught the sword and resheathed it just as the remains of the Grimm fell to the ground.
"Told ya," Yang stated matter-of-factly.
"Have either of you seen Ruby?" the Faunus girl asked, turning to face her other teammates, "We got separated when a huge swarm of Fenris' attacked us; I just finished off the last one that followed me."
"We haven't seen her either," Yang said, firing Ember Celica behind her without looking. A moment later the offending Grimm dissolved, "We were too busy getting hounded by these things."
She paused to let her terrible pun sink in.
"Ah?" she prompted, "Geddit, 'hounded'?"
She was met with two blank stares and one noticeable [very] eye twitch.
"One of these days, guys," she sighed, shaking her head sorrowfully, "one of these days…."
"GUYS!" Ruby's high pitched voice called from further in the forest, "Someone stop this crazy thing!"
"That dunce…." Weiss let out a long suffering sigh as she and the other older members of Team RWBY raced off to help their leader. They found her a moment later (in one of the many ruined structures that dotted the landscape of Vale) on top of a massive Fenris, hanging onto its neck for dear life.
"Guys, I think I need a little help!" Ruby yelled from on top the Über-Fenris, the beast itself thrashing about as best it could to try and dislodge its cling on passenger.
"I don't think I want to know how she got like that," Weiss remarked glibly.
"Who cares, so long as we can hit it!" Yang dashed up the enormous Grimm, accompanying each blow she landed on it with a word, "Stop! Trying! To! Hurt! My! Sister! You! Stupid! Optional! Raid! Boss!"
"We might as well," said Blake before dashing after her partner. Weiss shook her head again, wondering how her own partner could still be so clumsy even after all this time. (Then again, they all still retained some of the quirks they had when they'd first met.) She formed a series of glyphs that led to the giant monster, switching to the yellow Dust in Myrtenaster before following her fellow Huntresses.
"When will you ever learn?" Weiss scolded as she landed on the Fenris's head next to Ruby. She grabbed the petite girl and leaped back to the ground just as Yang and Blake attacked that very spot.
"I'm sorry," the young leader apologized, bopping her forefingers together, "I lost Crescent Rose back in the ruins, and then one thing kinda lead to another..."
"...Never mind that, just be glad you're still in one piece." Seeing her leader's grin, she nodded her head towards the ruins, "Where'd you lose your scythe?"
"It got lodged in the tower up there," she said, pointing at the singular stone tower that dominated the area. Sure enough, Weiss could see Ruby's iconic combination over-sized scythe/sniper rifle stuck near the top of the tower, the moonlight glinting off the blade, "...cause, you know, things happened."
Before they could attempt a rescue of Ruby's "baby" they heard Yang cry out "Since when the hell could this thing do that!" Both girls looked over at the blond brawler and saw her and Blake now fighting a horde of the normal sized Fenris', in addition to dodging the much larger one.
"Oh yeah, and the Alpha Fenris can spawn normal ones," the crimsonette remembered, snapping her fingers, "forgot to mention that."
It took all of Weiss's willpower not to give herself the mother of all headsmacks.
Instead she resigned to flicking Ruby in the forehead.
"Ow!"
"Just go get Crescent Rose," the heiress sighed, her way of saying the matter was dropped, no love lost. She created a path of glyphs to the tower, Ruby zipping off to retrieve her prized possession.
Meanwhile, Yang and Blake were still trying to deal with the two pronged attack against their persons.
"Normally I'm all for having more things to hit," Yang said, blasting away at any Fenris that came too close, "but this is starting to border on ridiculous; it's like our lives are a videogame or something!"
"Unfortunately, we can't just restart the mission of we mess up!" the Faunus retorted without missing a beat, managing block the giant Wolf's teeth from biting her in half with Gambol Shroud's shroud [sheath]. She leaped back before it could strike again, receiving a mouthful of dirt for its troubles. "There's gotta be something we can do to kill it!"
"Nothing I can think of," Yang said as she dodged out of the way of a pair of Fenris that leaped at her at the same time, "not unless Ruby got Crescent Rose back."
"Yang! I got Crescent Rose back!" Ruby shouted as she and Weiss raced back to the fight.
"I have an idea, my good Faunus!" the gauntlet wearing girl said cheerfully, waving the other girls over so she could quickly outline her plan. "Blake, you're gonna agro old 'big bad' there, keep his attention off the rest of us."
"On it," she said, creating a shadow clone to help aid her in the distraction.
"Weiss, you're on support duty; throw whatever debuffs you can on that thing, and keep one of your air steps over its neck at all times."
"Right," she said, though it took her a second to interpret Yang videogame lingo.
"And Rubes?"
"Yes?" she chipped eagerly.
"Take my hand." Yang held her hand out for Ruby to take (blind firing at another Fenris), winking conspiratorially.
The young prodigy easily deduced her sister's plan and took hold of the offered hand, stating "Let's do this!".
Yang then flung Ruby with all her might, straight at the glyph Weiss made. At some point Weiss had managed to freeze the massive Grimm's paws in ice, effectively trapping it in place. Ruby fired Crescent Rose as she propelled herself off the glyph, morphing the weapon back into scythe as she did. She put herself into a controlled spin and landed gracefully a second later, the Alpha Fenris's head crashing to the ground after her.
The rest of its body then fell over, already starting to dissolve into the ground.
"Woohoo!" Yang cheered, finishing off a few Grimm that has spawned at the last second, "The was perfect!"
"I must admit," Weiss said, storing Myrtenaster in her belt, "I'm pleasantly surprised your plan worked."
"Go team," Blake cheered quietly.
"How'd you know that would work?" Ruby asked.
"Because normal sized Fenris have a blind spot right in the back of their heads," she explained, "so I figured the bigger the Grimm, the bigger the blind spot. That, and over 600 hours of experience in Remnant: Online."
"Most impressive," Blake nodded approvingly.
"I say this calls for a round of milk and cookies when we get back to Beacon," the young leader said, "my treat!"
"Again?" whined Weiss.
"We've kinda been having that a lot," Yang said, more diplomatically, "and no offense, but I'm starting to put on weight that isn't muscle mass."
"I think we'd all appreciate a little variety in our traditional Victory Feast," Blake added.
After that a short round of good natured ribbing ensued, and soon a consensus was reached as to what each of the girls wanted to eat.
"So I'm having cookies," Ruby said, "also known as the best food in all the world! Weiss is having Ice Cream, vanilla flavored, Yang wants the super spicy tortilla chips and energy drinks, and Blake will-"
She never managed to say what Blake wanted. While the girls were basking in the glow of their victory, they'd completely forgotten about the head of the Grimm they'd just slain. Unlike the body, it had been dissolving at a slower rate. Before it dissolved completely, one last Fenris spawned from it, only this one was different; this one was glowing with a red Aura, and it had enough intelligence to remember who had "killed" it.
It was the one in red who carried the Goliath tusk.
It crept up behind the red girl, and when the time was right it pounced on her, tearing her neck open with its jaws.
Yang was the first one to react when it happened.
"I WILL FUCKING END YOU!" she screamed, flames erupting from her body as her Semblance flared up. The Grimm knew this was trouble, and with his work done he sprinted into the forest, away from the scary one on fire. She rushed after it, screaming unintelligibly.
Weiss just stood petrified, unable to give a reaction one way or the other. Her brain couldn't process what may just happened; a leftover Fenris did not just sneak up on Ruby Rose and tear her throat out, it was utterly impossible. There was also no way it could have happened without at least one of them noticing it before or attacked. No chance whatsoever.
There was just no way this happened, went Weiss's mind in an effort to deny what was blindingly obvious. There was no way...
There was no way...
No way...
No way...
No...
No, this was real.
This was happening.
This happened.
"Weiss!"
Blake's shout jolted Weiss back into reality, but only just barely.
"Don't just stand there, Weiss, do something!" The Faunus girl was kneeling next their leader, pressing her hands against Ruby's neck.
"I...I don't-" Weiss stammered, feeling utterly helpless for the first time in her life.
"Give me your jacket!" Blake snapped, sticking her hand out expectantly.
"Yeah, OK..." Weiss moved on autopilot, removing her cost and handing it to Blake in a mechanical fashion. Blake pressed the garment against the wound, though the chances of it actually doing any good at this point were almost nonexistent.
"W-Weiss...!" Ruby croaked weakly, coughing up blood as she did. "I hafta..."
"Don't speak," Blake cautioned, "wait until we get you to a-"
"I'm right here," Weiss said, kneeling to her fallen leader's level. Ruby's plea had finally brought her back to her full senses, and whatever she felt was so important to say, Weiss would hear her out; she owed her that much at least after living with her for three years, "what is it?"
"I wanted- *cough cough!* ...wanted you to know..." She tried to speak, only to end up coughing more blood. (Some blood splashed of the heiress's face, starkly vivid against her naturally pale skin.)
"Blake's right, you need to save your strength. We'll get you to a hospital, and you'll get proper treatment by the best doctors money can buy!"
"I'm glad we became friends," the young leader strained, determined to say her piece, "Really. It was...the best thing about coming to Beacon..." She smiled, the genuine sincerity managing to shine through the blood on her mouth.
And in the moment, the indomitable light in Ruby Rose's faded away into nothingness.
"No," Blake sobbed, finally unable to hold her tears back. She abandoned the coat, moving to do compressions, "No no no no no!"
"Blake," Weiss tried to get the cat girl's attention, but she was too wrapped up in her [futile] efforts. "Blake," she tried again, her voice hard and emotionless.
This produced better results; Blake looked up, the tears in her eyes causing her makeup to run.
"It's useless," she continued, unsure whether she meant herself, Blake, the situation, or all three at once, "Ruby's dead."
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Well, that happened.
...see ya in 2015!