Clouds encircled the luminous fractured moon in the night sky as Grimm encircled a single solitary figure wrapped in a cloak of the purest white. The cold wind of the dark mountains that she traveled through pulled at it as if shrieking at the woman to turn back in the place of her now silent sense of self preservation. However, even if she was willing to consider turning back from her dark journey, Summer knew that she'd would have to carve through more Grimm than she'd ever faced.
To most sane people of Remnant, even those she held dear, it looked like Summer Rose was looking for her death, but she had come to this dark place in order to save the life of the person she would trade the world for. She had come seek the only possible power left that could be convinced to save her daughter. And judging by the actions of the Grimm around her, as they did nothing but watch from the nearby shadows around with their hungering red eyes, made Summer certain she was getting close.
That very same moon gazed upon a pair of siblings fighting their way through the monsters that had closed in over Summer's trail of desperate destruction. One was fighting to keep her brother from killing himself and to help get Summer back. The other was almost completely caught between his desperation to catch Summer, and his own self loathing.
It was all his fault. Qrow knew what his semblance was capable of and had known deep down that he couldn't control it and yet he had fooled himself into thinking that it could be suppressed or something like that. Instead, his misfortune had shattered his team and almost destroyed the woman he loved, and if he couldn't cut through the damned endless tide of Grimm, something worse would finish the job.
As the last beowolf fell, Qrow felt something grab his arm. He whirled around, his scythe ready to rip apart the next enemy, but instead it was his sister, Raven.
"Qrow! Get a hold of yourself, this is insane. Why would Summer even have come up this way?"
Qrow shook off Raven's hand. "Her trail led this way Raven."
"And it's gone. There's no point in going deeper into this Grimm infested area."
"Then go back to where ever those people are, I'll go alone." Qrow began trudging ahead, in the general direction of where the old ruins of a lost kingdom were rumored to be.
"By all rights I should, but whatever else you are Qrow, you're still my brother."
Normally Qrow would be amazed by one of Raven's few moments of bonding, but instead he found himself thinking of the two girls that Taiyang was watching over, no doubt telling them that their mother would be back.
"If only you could give as much of a damn about the other two people who should matter as much if not more." Qrow commented bitterly.
"What?" Raven snarled. "That's none of your concern and even if it was, it's rich coming from you! Care to remind me why we're in this mess?"
"You know that's not fair!" Qrow snapped, turning back to face his sister angrily.
"Welcome to the rest of the world, so glad you could join us!" She retorted, her red eyes glaring at him like an enraged Grimm "Tell you what, Qrow, after we find Summer, dead or alive, we're done. No more favors, nothing."
Qrow turned away angrily. "Fine by me."
There was a minute of silence, broken only by the light crunch of the snow beneath their boots before Raven spoke up again. "While you're risking my life, do you mind telling me why exactly you came grovelling to me smelling like alcohol? What happened?"
Qrow hesitated for a moment before continuing. "You know what happened."
"Yes I'm aware of the "accident". What happened after that? This feels like something almost completely different. Besides there's no way that incident between you and Summer could have left you looking as half-dead as you do."
Qrow rubbed his tired eyes, finding his growing craving for booze almost difficult to stomach but at the same time needed to drown out his guilt. "...It's not as different as you might think. You know about her daughter, Ruby." Bringing up the subject of that little girl only made his throat drier but he forced himself to continue both his pace up the path and the story. "She was born too early... and she has a weak body, the doctors said Ruby wouldn't live out her first year. Summer did everything she could and went to any doctor she could for some sort of cure..."
"Something must have worked, I mean the girl is still alive and she's what, four?"
"She turned four two months ago, yes. But there wasn't any cure from medicine. I don't know, but Summer and Taiyang must have been finding miracles somehow. But half a year ago there was a close call that showed that they had started running out of those. Summer tried getting Ozpin to help and even convinced me to help her meet one of the Maidens..." A cold wind blew by as Qrow remembered the meeting between the desperate mother and the Maiden and a chill when up his spine, but it wasn't from the cold.
"I think I can guess the answer she got. But what does that have to do with..." Raven trailed off as she began to consider what options Summer would have had left.
"Yea, they couldn't do anything. It would have been bad enough if this had ended there, but Summer remembered that there's one other power in the world"
"No way, there's no way that Summer of all people would even think of trying to look for that thing after what Ozpin told us about her."
"You didn't see her after we were rejected by the Maiden... It...She...Gods, I have never been scared of Summer like I was that day. I still don't know how I managed to convince her from trying to take the Maiden's power." Qrow's throat felt as parched as the deserts that surrounded Vacuo.
Raven was silent as Qrow's words sank in, as she was aware that a Maiden's power was only transferred on death, and easily realizing what he was saying Summer had been intent on doing.
Qrow stumbled on a partially snow covered what at first looked like rock but was in-fact a skull.
"We need to pick up the pace." Raven said with a small amount of fear in her voice before she started running.
"You took the words right out of my mouth." Qrow muttered as he recovered and immediately began to run as well.
Slowly but surely the black and stormy clouds above were beginning to close in on the fractured moon as Summer ascended ruined stairs covered in a thick blanket of snow which was broken by tress and bushes with empty branches and putrid, blighted, black bark. Before her was a vast open glade of white surrounded by a dead and corrupted forest crawling with Grimm with a mountaintop reaching up like a claw and covering the far side of the glade in the darkest shadows. At the entrance of the glade was a post that had the tattered remains of a black banner with a red eye symbol on it.
As Summer took a step forward into the glade and towards the mountaintop's shadow the wind became still. In fact there was only the sound of utter and complete silence even as the white cloaked mother walked through the snow, there wasn't even a sound amidst the black and white surrounding her. The silence gave off a chill that matched cold Summer had felt hearing the dark predictions of everyone who said her daughter was doomed.
"Wellllll. I must say it has been some time since a human has made it to meeee." A female voice whispered through the silence, quiet yet almost impossibly loud in the cold stillness which caused Summer to frantically look around for the voice's own, instead seeing nothing but the red eyes of the encircling Grimm. She readied herself for a possible ambush, bracing herself to use the power of the silver-eyes.
"That will be unnecessary, my dear. I've been waiting a long time for a guest and you have proven that you are such. You will not be harmed for the time being." The voice gained in strength as Summer turned back towards the mountaintop's shadow she now saw a new light as an healthy pale violet balefire brazier ignited within the darkness, revealing steps to a dark throne. There was a barely visible figure seated upon the black throne but Summer could see a pair of blood crimson eyes, much like those of the Grimm but instead of soulless hunger there was an overwhelming strength, cruelty, malice and a will to dominate within, drawing the desperate mother closer to the shadow's embrace.
Summer knew the being she had sought was the one before her. There were many names that Summer had read from the archives in her dark search, but only the name that Ozpin had told them suited the evil before her.
"Salem." She said with a shiver.
The withered and decrepit fingers of the host that served as Salem's physical form and prison clenched the arms of her obsidian throne tightly as she heard the name that only one being, her greatest foe knew her by. "So, you must be one of Ozpin's inner circle if you know my name, young one. That leaves me at a disadvantage, for I don't know yours." This made the human guest all the more interesting for Salem, as she could not feel any malice or greed within the white cloaked woman though she did sense the desperation and fear that swirled around her.
"Summer Rose, and I need your help." She answered.
"Of course, none come before me without reason, little Rose. But tell me, Oz told you of me, which meant that he trusted you and you don't have the same sort of stench that other humans who came to me did. What would drive one such as you to me?"
Summer clenched her fists as every fiber of her being screamed at her to flee from the evil before her, but the image of Ruby's small and pale body coughing desperately for air while her gray eyes stared at her helpless mother in terror cause Summer to keep moving forward, well into the shadow and stopping a distance from the black throne. Close enough to see some of the almost mummified figure upon it, though she still could not see Salem's upper body. Summer had come too far to turn back.
"My daughter, I need you to save my daughter. Ozpin and the Maiden wouldn't or couldn't and-" She was cut off as Salem began to laugh.
"This is indeed a first! There were those that sought vengeance, stature, destruction, slaughter or simply power itself, but never have any come to me seeking me to save someone." Salem's malevolent laughter continued until Summer snapped.
"Yes! That's why I've come! Now you know what I ask! Now tell me! Can you do it?!" Summer screamed, tears streaming from her eyes as the power of the silver flared dangerously.
Had Salem not been aware of the little Rose's followers, or in her current state, she would have showed her guest how unwise her outburst was. But time was not on Salem's side this night, so she set aside her bristled pride for now.
"Of course I can. But if you would have your wish, then give me mine."
"Any-anything."
"You seek life for your daughter and I wish to be free of Ozpin's trap. All that is required for our bargain is a life for a life."
"What? I don't- Who?" Summer stammered before Salem answered.
"Give me your life, and I will ensure your daughter lives. The choice is yours, but you had best decide quickly for my Grimm have been unable to discourage the two unwelcome guests behind you."
The sounds of fighting were beginning to drift into the glade, breaking the unnatural silence that surrounded them.
Briefly Summer hesitated and looked back at where she had come, but she quickly turned back to Salem. "What must I do?"
The balefire spread away from its brazier towards Salem's left, illuminating a skeletal bleached white tree with a single crimson apple at the end one of its otherwise empty bone-like branches. "You just need to let me in, in a manner of speaking."
Qrow hacked through yet another beowolf and raced up the snow covered stairs too see Summer, the dark figure on the black throne and the bone white tree. "Summer!" He screamed and lunged forward as mass of Grimm poured out of the blighted woods around the the dead glade. Raven followed after her brother.
As for Summer, her hesitation gone, she ascended the stairs and grasped the apple. It slipped off the branch easily as the stem crumbled into nothing. It felt cold and heavy to the touch yet irresistibly alluring.
In between each Grimm he cut down Qrow was all but helpless to stop Summer as she brought the fruit to her lips, the black shadows closing in around her white cloak like the clouds closing around the rapidly shrinking light of the moon. All while a pair of horrible red eyes watched her intently. "Summer! Don't do it!"
"Thank you for everything, Qrow." Summer whispered, a single tear escaping her eye before she sealed her fate and bit into the apple.
It tasted sweet at first but the sweetness quickly turned into a foul bitterness as it made its way down her throat before turning into a pain, gnawing, growing emptiness that sucked away all the air in Summer's lung and consumed the last memories of warmth that her body possessed. Gasping for breath, Summer dropped the apple, a dark glistening ooze covering her hand from where she had been holding it. It dissolved into a foul looking black liquid as it hit the ground as she dropped to her knees in pain, not just from the loss of air but now a feeling of agony spread throughout her body as though she was being torn apart. Her aura flashed violently, casing Summer to arch back and scream despite the lack of air.
At long last, Salem forced the corpse of a body to move, pushing it up from its resting place, one horrid shambling step at a time, leaving decayed pieces behind as she proceeded down the steps towards the brave, if not foolish, sacrifice. As she drew closer, the ground beneath the snow and ice of the glade began to shake as the power trapped beneath awakened after its long forced hibernation.
With a morbid grace, Salem lifted Summer's face up so she could see the sacrifice's silver eyes filled with pain and horror. Yet the witch saw something else with those two emotions, something she had learned to respect and hate to her very core, hope.
"This will be unpleasant, my dear, but thank you for your offering." With those words, Salem's decaying prison collapsed into dust and all hell was unleashed upon the glade as the source pool beneath the surface exploded upwards, launching a cascade of snow, chunks of frozen earth and flood of the purest black into the air in a massive monochrome vortex that quickly surrounded Summer.
The doomed woman's body was wracked by painful spasms, each one causing her aura to flare in and out brightly like a dying light. More of the glistening black ooze began to surround the convulsing Summer and started to envelope her. The black seeped into her white cloak, quickly spreading and staining it completely. The flares of aura became more frantic as the ooze began to rise around Summer. She screamed once again and then her aura ripped itself from her body as the ooze covered her completely.
From the outside of the vortex, Qrow and Raven dodged and weaved between relentless attacking Grimm and the violently shifting terrain as chunks of ice and frozen earth rose into the air and fell in a chaotic cacophony all around them. All the while Qrow's eyes were fixed on every last glimpse he could catch of Summer through the dark vortex that surrounded her. It was everything all his training and survival instincts could do to keep him from freezing in utter horror when he saw Summer's aura, her very soul being ripped out of her body as it was cocooned by the black ooze. It rose up the funnel of the vortex before it was caught in a web of shadow strands that burst forth from the dark chaos.
"Damn it!" Qrow cursed and tried to get closer to the black cocoon, however almost immediately his semblance revealed how fatal the vortex would be, as an ursa unfortunately lost its footing and was swept into the dark currents and was torn apart.
Within the storm's center, the balefire spread out and up the currents of unnatural wind like a serpent of flame ascending a burning rotten tree trunk painting the scene in a nightmarish light and showing the two humans present a terrifying glimpse of Salem's power.
Summer's was now a bright but fading silhouette of the woman being consumed, and each part that was trapped by the shadow webs began to turn black as Salem began to consume her sacrifice. Summer's soul struggled and writhed to return to her body but it only made the corruption and consumption spread faster until almost the entirety of the woman's former being was a blackened shadow with the last shreds of light and good at its core.
At last the ritual reached its horrid and accursed conclusion as Salem let the webbing dissolve and allowed the last fading light of the woman's life to drop with a final painful scream .
Qrow could only watch as that hopeful life flickered and died right before a monstrous spider-like shadow with a cavernous maw leaped down upon its ashes and onto the black cocoon, dispelling the vortex with an immense explosion of dark energy and clouds, blasting both the Branwens back and stilling the destroyed glade.
Raven was the one to pull Qrow to his feet in the aftermath, and forced his scythe into his numb hands, getting him to cover her back as they braced for the next attack.
Yet none came. Instead the dark clouds rapidly faded away, revealing the destruction the had been unleashed. The glade was well and truly dead, every last tree around had been felled by the explosion and all the Grimm had been swept up in the vortex. Instead there was only one other figure amidst the newly formed watseland.
"Summer..." Qrow whispered, a last shred of insane hope just waiting to be butchered.
Her face certainly had Summer's features, but now her pale skin had become a truly deathly pallor and her hair had turned nearly as white. Her clothes, especially her iconic white cloak were now jet black. At the sound of Qrow's prayer, deep red and purple veins crept up the side of the woman's face and a black diamond-shaped marking formed at the center of her forehead. Then she opened her eyes, revealing the monster in a woman's clothing with glowing red irises amidst jet black sclerae.
"You are quite wrong, I'm afraid." Salem said with Summer's lips
Raven raised her sword at the released evil. "You don't scare me, monster. Summer could never beat me and you certainly wont. Qrow, either help me or get-" She never got a chance to finish her sentence as within the blink of an eye Raven was on her knees, the broken blade of her sword pinning her hands down to the ground. Meanwhile Qrow's own scythe was at his neck as Salem gently raised his head to look her in the eyes.
"She had so much faith in you. Surprising, considering her memories of you, Qrow." Salem smirked at the broken man before her, musing over the memories left by Summer. "Now I have a deal to honor. I'll let you two live, all I ask for in return is for you to give dear Ozpin my regards." With those final words, Salem vanished from the mountain that had been her prison, leaving the twins alone in the wasteland.
The witch quickly reached the island of Patch. It was dangerous, but in the dark of night, Salem had all the confidence that her presence would go unnoticed. She wasn't bound by any oath or magic to save the child, but the sheer ease of the request was far too tempting. Besides, from Summer's memories, Ruby had inherited the Silver eyes, thus the possibility of twisting them to her own ends was quite promising. And if not, Salem lost nothing but time, of which she had a infinite amount.
The woods fell silent as she walked up to the wooden house and opened the door. It was quite convenient that she had a key. She entered the house, her red eyes going over the quaint dwelling. She easily found the three other inhabitants of the house. Taiyang passed out on one of the beds, with Yang sleeping on his lap. As for Salem's target, she was surprised to see little Ruby's scared, confused and curious silver eyes meeting her own.
The infant was utterly confounded by the appearance of the woman that looked like mother, but instead of full of warmth and life was dark and scary. Ruby had woken from one bad dream and found herself looking at a nightmare even though she didn't know it.
A weak, scared cough nearly escaped the infant's lung, but it was silenced by Salem's finger on Ruby's lip.
"Hush, little one, hush. I'm about to make it all better." Salem pulled back her hands and ran a black claw that had once been a human nail across her palm, drawing blood and in that blood, power. She carefully put a single drop of her blood on her finger as the rest returned to its source. Slowly she brought the seed towards the little girl's mouth and with as gently as she could forced Ruby to swallow the blood drop. "There, now you'll live and grow. With those eyes of yours, young one, I have little doubt we'll meet again. Until then little Rose, you'll only see me in your nightmares." And so, Salem's visit to Ruby became a forgotten dream, and Summer's wish granted, but at the greatest of costs.
Author's bit: Alright, so just explain the context of this short story, this is my personal theory regarding Salem, and by extension, Ozpin. I don't think that Salem is a corrupted maiden or just Summer falling into a Source Pool, but rather she and Ozpin might sort of representatives of the two gods who created Remnant. Certainly, the gods bailed on the world, but I highly doubt the two of them trusted the each other enough not to screw with the whole free choice thing for humanity. As such, Salem and Oz were left behind to in a way continue their struggle, although in a much more grounded sense. I expect Salem and Oz were bound with rules so as to use what was available and not start going insane with creating stuff to beat each other into the ground. So they bounded with humans, sort of like spiritual parasites, only Ozpin was a lot more benign, using his knowledge to help his host where as Salem would consume and control her host. In short they're kinda like sentient versions of the Maiden powers, except way stronger. Anyways I imagine that at some point Ozpin got the upper hand and beat Salem, but of course being a goody two shoes, didn't finish the job and instead trapped her in the corpse of her last host, Grimm but it fits the tone. As for why, same reason that Batman never kills the Joker, the whole unstoppable force meets unmovable object thing. As for the whole Ruby being sick thing, she does look rather pale considering the climate, but honestly it's the only way I could see Summer "becoming" Salem. I am a big fan of that theory, but considering what little we know about Ruby's mother, I get the feeling it would take something massive to drive her into the darkness, and what else than her child's life to get Supermom to join the dark side. Road to hell and all that food for thought. Also, yes I am a fan of the theory of Qrow being Ruby's dad, it makes sense to me because I see more resemblance between her and Qrow than her and Taiyang, but ultimately I made it a point to be as vague as I could when writing details in that area. To each their own, we'll just have to wait for the next RWBY feels bombshell to make us question life again.
Random fanboy fanatic rambling out of the way, I hope you enjoyed the read. Let know what you think.
AC-107