A/N: So! This work is not my headcanon, nor is it part of my current story line- this is the brain child of an amazing and talented artist (and friend) on Tumblr who I have heard rumors may or may not be joining this community.(Please go check her and the post out here ( post/158446710771/ellelehman-zzskyninjazz-asks-what-if-when) she's an awesome person, with great talent!) She gave me specific approval to do this, and I'm really excited to be sharing it here!
This comes in at the battle ending on Vol. 4 Ep.7.
Without further ado:
Clang!
The sound echoed through the empty space, off of empty buildings, across decaying rooftops, and climbing up dilapidated walls.
At that sound, the huntsman closed his eyes, nodding once. A small sigh escaped the young woman before him, followed by an unnerving chuckle from her attacker. Taking a breath to try to calm his pounding heart, he slowly opened his eyes to look at his daughter before him. Seeing her before him, alive and unhurt, a corner of his lip pulled up. Fear had been on the same current behind his wings and ridden in on his heels. For a moment, he allowed himself the peace of mind of knowing that his semblance hadn't joined in, and let out a short sigh.
Opening his eyes, he looked down at Ruby.
"Hey."
The calmness of his response belied his pounding heart. Her small smile was enough to instill in his bones the confidence he needed to protect her. With a spin, Ruby's attacker removed the pressure from off of Qrow Branwen's sword. Turning, he twisted his broadsword overhead, and slashed it towards the ground and to the side.
A chuckle laced through the Faunus' next words.
"As I live and breathe!" He gestured widely, flourishing his words with his motions. Dropping his voice and his head, he eyed the man, and spoke as if telling a secret. "Qrow Branwen."
The older man reshuffled his grip, a sense of foreboding nipping at his heels.
A laugh from the stranger. "A true huntsman has entered the fray!"
Casting a glance and raising an eyebrow, he asked an unspoken question to Ruby. She had just regained her footing.
To his dismay, she shrugged. "I don't know!" She spoke just over a whisper. "This guy's weird."
In her eyes, he could see her concern over his lack of knowledge of her attacker. The huntsman had faced greater foes- this wiry Faunus held little threat. His gaze returned to the long haired man, and he squared his shoulders as his opponent took a half step towards him.
"Look pal, I don't know who you are, but you need to leave my niece alone."
Another unnerving chuckle from the stranger and he started. "Why, friend, my name is Tyrian. And..." he seemed to pause, as if perplexed by something, his head cocked to the side. "I'm sorry. Did you say niece? That cannot be! I must have misheard, friend."
Dread sunk his heart, and an irrational fear whispered in the back of his brain. Steeling his gaze and forcibly silencing his fears, he kept his face blank.
"Now, now, Mr. Branwen-" The Faunus pressed his seeming advantage, egged on by his opponent's silence. "We all know that the tiny Silver Eye behind you," he gestured bonelessly towards the young woman behind Qrow, "is needed by my Queen."
His words took on a sense of reverence while he spoke of his 'Queen'.
From behind him, he heard Ruby's voice querying. "Who?"
It was from his lips instantly, and his eyes narrowed. "Salem."
With this epiphany, the huntsman's fear returned with a vengeance. An unknown attacker, who hinted at information none left living should have been aware of, was now connected and sent by the world's most dangerous foe. When Tyrian spoke again, it took all of his self-control not to respond.
"Just like Summer Rose." He purred her name like a lover, and Qrow's breath came fast and hot. Tyrian continued on.
"Tell me, Qrow, do you believe you'll succeed in protecting her this time?" Another laugh peppered his speech.
"Your Petal?" His words cut through the huntsman's carefully controlled expressions, and his eyes grew wide and his face fell. The Faunus gained Qrow's characteristic lopsided smirk and sneered out the next few words.
"Unlike how you protected…Oh, what was it?" He exaggerated turning aside, his hand scratching his chin.
"Oh!" He raised a finger, and a predatory smile grew across his face. "Your 'Short-stack'?"
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Ruby's words, but they were distant and muted.
"Uncle Qrow? Who is he talking about?" A frantic note played at the edge of her words.
"H- How- " Alone, dying alone. She wasn't supposed to die alone. She was NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ALONE. The older man forced out the words. "How did you — ?"
Teeth bared in his unhinged grin, Tyrian turned his head to the side, gesturing freely, as if the matter was a trivial and obvious one.
"Why, our 'Black Rose' told me! Oh!" He dropped his hand and feigned sorrow, "And how she missed you, huntsman. Truly, she does!" He held out placating hands out, palms up to the shell-shocked man, as if trying to reason with an unruly child.
Sputtering, the huntsman's next words came out in bursts. "B- Black—? What- Wh-" He swallowed down his fear, and forced out his last few words, and it came out fast and harsh.
"What are you talking about?!"
Tyrian stopped all motion, like stone. With a twitch, the Faunus reanimated, his mouth splitting wide in a cackling howl. Flinging his body forward, his braided hair flicking after him, he rolled with inhuman laughter.
"What a pitiful face!" He broke his words up with more of the laughter. Swinging his hair back behind himself again, he supported himself with his hands on his knees.
Qrow's blade point drifted, embedding itself into a cobblestone, stumbling a half-step back from the encounter, even as the weight of Tyrian's words pressed in on his chest. Reveling in the older man's horror, the gleeful minion crowed.
"You- You thought-" another howl, and he interlaced his words with his chortles. "You really did let her die, didn't you?"
Rage began to well in the huntsman's chest, and it's first inklings started to spill forth.
"Stop." It was a quiet word, but certainly heard.
But not heeded.
"Do you want to see her again?" The Faunus' eyes were wide, even as his pupils shrunk.
A twitch began in the older man's neck, and the word came out harsher.
"Stop!"
A grin grew on the enemy's face, wild and cruel.
"To hold her again?"
The huntsman's jaw clenched and released, his eyes wide and wild to match the Faunus.
"STOP!"
A sudden shift in the younger man, and his voice turned insidious.
"Join us." Tyrian's grin lifted crookedly, "Hand her over," with a flick he leveled a finger at the young woman still behind Qrow. "And you can see your Su—"
The threat of his daughter, and the sound of his wife's name on the lips of this creature, opened the wounds of so many years prior and the fury, the anguish, the hopelessness, poured from the huntsman.
His garnet eye flared like stoked coals, even as the words roared from him.
"Don't fuck with me!"
Attempting to maintain his tentative grip on the interchange, Tyrian tried again.
"Well," he shrugged like a disappointed father, "I did try to reach a compromi—"
Qrow's sword hilt tightened in his grip, and it righted itself into a fighting stance, angling itself to the Faunus.
"I'm going to rip your throat out!"
Twisting his wrists, Tyrian's blades reengaged, and he drew himself down, his tail raised above.
"It would seem that we've spoken enough, don't you think," he paused for impact, raising a brow, "Stilts?"
The roar that escaped the huntsman's lips brought tears to Ruby's eyes, even as confused as she was by the interchange. The pure emotion behind his actions stumbled her, and for the first time she could remember, she cowered from her uncle.
Even as his cry escaped his lips, his blade was in action, swinging in motion as he bolted forward at the Faunus. A dull sound rang across his steel as it made contact with Tyrian's upraised tail. Both men recoiled from the strike, but the huntsman gave no pause, his eyes intent on the other man. Already moving forward, he pressed, a swing at the man's legs, which he easily bounded over. However, his unfamiliarity with his opponent's weapon was a weakness, and even as the strike was in motion, the blade continued while it angled at the hilt. Two shotgun barrels tracked the other man, and as Qrow followed through, a blast made contact with the core of Faunus.
Fire catching his clothes, as he rolled, his white coat fell away in ash, and depleted a portion of his aura. As he moved to spot the now missing huntsman, something nagged in his brain. Maybe, just maybe, he had pushed the man too far.
The sound of metal gliding through the air drew his attention up, as a blur of steel, gray and red spun rapidly from above towards him. Raising his dual bladed gauntlets, the steel met, but the concussion of the strike sunk the ground near them.
As Qrow's feet touched the ground, both men locked the other. Despite the danger Tyrian could sense himself in, his maliciousness ran deeper, and he spoke in a quiet whisper.
"She fought it at first, you know?"
The huntsman's eyes flicked from the blade and drilled straight into his. Glowing, Tyrian could feel the hatred pouring from them.
"It wasn't an easy sight to see. Not for the squeamish." A giddy chuckle bubbled out. The older man growled.
His strength was failing under the huntsman, but this was too rich.
"It wasn't until she finally realized that you weren't coming to save her that she broke."
The growl grew with the intensity of his weight against the blade. It was time to mix things up. A twist of the wrist, and his rapid shot rang out, directed to the young woman who watched in horror as her uncle threw himself recklessly at an enemy. As she moved to deflect the shots thrown her way, Qrow broke from their engagement, and brought himself into the line of fire, rapidly moving his blade to ricochet the projectiles.
Steadily, step by step, he encroached on the Faunus, his blade twisting before him. Almost to Tyrian, the huntsman shifted the angle of his swing, driving it down on to the head of the man. Slipping to the side, the blade slid through empty space. His tail shot out, wrapping itself around his opponent's wrist. With a pull, the blade slipped from his grip, and embedded itself into a wall across from him.
Fueled by rage, Qrow kept his motion, even as the minion laughed giddily. Fist met face, and again, as the Faunus recoiled. With a solid kick to the abdomen, Tyrian found his back pressing against a cold stone wall. An arm at his neck, the Faunus was off the ground, even as the huntsman removed his blade from the wall.
The Branwen's eyes were narrowed, but the red heat coming from them was unmistakable. Drawing his legs up, Tyrian planted both feet into his opponent's chest. With a hard kick, Qrow was stumbled, and Tyrian fell through the wall.
A snarl and a growl, and the man gave chase into the dusty enclosure. This darkened space was Tyrian's playground, and the huntsman was clearly out of his element.
On a crossbeam, Tyrian crouched, waiting. As the man passed underneath, he used his tail as a fulcrum and planted both feet into his back. Even though stumbled, he regained his footing immediately, and swung at the Faunus.
The younger man was on his feet and moving, looking to round on the huntsman, when he heard the sound. Unprepared, and having never gone up against a scythe wielder, Tyrian was surprised when he felt the blade catch behind his knees, flinging him through another wall and back out into the courtyard. Using his blades gauntlet's he righted himself, but kept low, prepared for the battle.
Head down, eyes focused, scythe tight in hand, from the house emerged Qrow Branwen. A step out and away from the building, and the ceiling trusses gave way under the trauma of the men's fight. One last time, Tyrian tried his hand.
"She is waiting for you, huntsman." His voice sounded like poison in Qrow's ears.
Memories of secretive rendezvous' at Beacon, silly arguments over ridiculous things, her playful laugh as she buzzed around him... they all came unbidden to his mind.
He gritted his teeth, and forcibly pushed the memories back to where they had resided in his brain.
"Just let me take the girl," it was a whisper, a singsong voice, as he continued, "and the three of you- well! You'll be a family again."
Petal. My Ruby...You're home! Don't you need to sleep?... Dah!... Hey Short-Stack.. Hmm, Legs...
Blinking back the voices and tears, he forced himself to the present. There was no temptation to his words- he'd be damned if Ruby fell into Salem's hands.
A growl escaped his lips. The Faunus' face blanched. Fumbling, he reached in his pocket and withdrew a metal item.
Glistening in the defuses light, it had the appearance of oil; black, slick and liquid. The huntsman's eyes were drawn to it, and upon closer inspection, noticed that its form was solid- and very familiar.
"Before the time passes us by, our Black Rose wanted you to have this-" he turned it to the light, "as a token of her undying affection."
Despite its foreign color, it's shape was unmistakable. Summer's broach. The one she wore around her neck everyday since the moment he met her. It's flaming rose blackened, his heart reasoned that it might not be hers. That, perchance, this was all just a trick. He wouldn't be certain until it was in his hands, and he could examine it.
With a flip of Tyrian's thumb, the emblem careened through the air, end over end towards Qrow. Effortlessly, he snatched it with he free hand, but chose to stash it as he moved towards the Faunus.
Both hands on the handle of his scythe, he swung at his opponent's ankles. The yellow-eyed man hopped up and over the swing. Continuing his spin, the huntsman raised his angle, bringing it down at the base of his opponent's neck. Both bladed gauntlets met his swing, but he didn't press on, and instead reversed his momentum, bringing his bladed hilt guards round, looking to embed them into the man's kidneys.
Panicked, Tyrian swung one arm to intercept, turning his back to his opponent, his aura flickering. With his following foot, Qrow stepped down into the tip of the Faunus' tail, locking it in place, as he once more reoriented his scythe. Using the momentum of a blast from his shotgun, his scythe sliced cleanly through, lopping it off mere inches from his back.
A howl escaped the Faunus, and he spun away, hacking and spitting. The sight of the tail, and the younger man's horror deflated Qrow's fury, and he chose not to give pursuit.
Tyrian roared, "You piece of shit - You'll never see her again!"
The huntsman's shoulders sunk, and his eyes grew tired. Blandly, he replied.
"Go."
Snarling and whimpering, the Faunus male made an uncanny sight to see. Finally, he turned and scampered away, mumbling to himself.
Once the younger man was gone from sight, Qrow brought back out the broach from his pocket. Studying it, he ran a tentative thumb along its edges.
On the furthest flame, the edge caught his skin and broke it thinly like a razor. It's tip was sheared off, leaving the edge ragged and sharp.
His heart sunk, and he felt himself gasping for air, as if a hand were around his throat. He remembered the strike that tore off the edge of the broach- it was the second day at Beacon. Before he realized it, he had sunk to his knees, his scythe falling limply to his side.
"Uncle Qrow?" A tentative voice came from behind him. A soft small hand rested on his shoulder, and he reached out to hold Ruby's hand.
"What was that? What was he talking about?"
Where do I even start?