Well, not much to say here. I'm back with something strange.
Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth, who even without the wisdom of Monty Oum continue to stride forth with the continuation of one of his finest creations (Massive apologies to fans of Dead Fantasy and Red vs. Blue)
Bálor Moonlight is my creation, and yes I still have some level of pride in that fact (Just nowhere near as much as when I started this journey half a year ago.)
Bálor Moonlight had only been at Beacon Academy only less then half a year and he had already managed to make something of a notorious reputation for himself: A school-wide annoyance for his over-the-top adoration for professional wrestling, but the fact that he had managed to turn the once-cohesive Team RWBY into four individuals who were less than amicable with one another. And while this fragmentation had slowly begun to mend following his return to Beacon following their trip to her dearly-departed mother's grave, unfortunately the Academy he had returned to since then had a much more focused vibe to it thanks to the upcoming Vytal Festival.
"Man, I hate the fact the only people probably willing to work with me are the same scum who sold me out back in Vacuo." The wolf Faunus would sigh in annoyance as Professor Port prattled on with yet another long-winded story from his youth; in the past he would've gladly allowed himself time to sleep and dream of a happy future with a certain blonde-haired brawler, but as he looked down to see the members of Team RWBY laughing and conversing amongst themselves. "It's good that they're finally getting back to their old selves." Bálor allowed himself a small smile as he leaned back in his seat, but that would quickly die out once he felt a familiar pair of lilac eyes glaring up at him. "Although it appears that I'm pretty much public enemy number one now." The silver-haired Huntsman would shudder upon coming home to a wrecked dorm room, no doubt done by his now ex-girlfriend in retaliation for his current dealings with fellow team member (and little sister) Ruby Rose. "That's fine Yang..Hunt me down if you think it'll make you feel better." He would stare down at the diagram of his final weapon idea: a broadsword with a serrated edge, with the capability to transform into a semi-automatic rifle, and also into a rather heavy chain whip. "But if that's going to be the case, then I'll make damn sure you won't get an easy kill!" The bell would signal the end of their class giving him some respite from the one-time object of his affection as he made his way down the aisle way, slowing down as he heard the nefarious chuckling of a certain knuckleheaded racist. "Not again…" The wolf would casually hop over the outstretched foot of one Cardin Winchester and look back at him with a look of boredom, before continuing his jog toward the exit.
"Bálor, wait up!" He would stop with a quiet sigh as the voice of a certain cookie-loving crimsonette raced to his side, a happy smile upon her face as she did so. "So how's progress going on the you-know-what?" Ruby would try to reach for his sketch pad, only for the taller young man to hold it high above his head and well out of her reach.
"It's almost ready, and I appreciate your help with the finer mechanics of switching forms, I honestly don't think I could've completed this project without you Little Rose." He would grin even as the girl beside him blushed slightly under his words of praise. "D'awww, c'mon it wasn't that much of difference."
Bálor would chuckle at her continued exuberance, at least until the remaining members of the team decided to show up with varying levels of indifference toward him.
"Ahh crap baskets, here we go with the awkward small talk." He would smile politely as the others stared right through him, the varying levels of hate they held toward him for previous events: Weiss had good reason to bring him down due to Ruby's continuing involvement with him, it's not like he was trying to woo her or anything. The wolf had been a complete wrestle maniac, and the goofiness of it all had managed to draw her into a weird pseudo-relationship that constantly teetered on the brink between friendship and romance. The heiress had even gone as far as to hire an assassin to have him killed, and while she had nearly succeeded in doing so it was the intervention of the very girl whose heart she craved who had helped to bring down the plan.
"Well Miss Schnee, I dare say that you look rather elegant in that uniform." He would do his best to not lose his cool even as the heir to the Schnee Dust Company snorted at his compliment.
"Still trying to play the sympathetic idiot aren't you mutt, don't you understand that there are bigger things on the horizon then your petty comings and goings?" Blake Belladonna, the usually more stoic member of the team had a particularly strong hatred towards him due to the fact that in her eyes Bálor was simply using his tragic past to gain sympathy points with the rest of the Academy.
"Yeah yeah, the Vytal Festival is coming and from what I can guess Team RWBY is the odds on favorite to sweep the whole damn thing." He would crack his knuckles in irritation as the cat Faunus hissed in annoyance at his continued indignation, despite the months that had passed since their last big clash outside the infirmary neither Faunus had gotten a chance to settle the score properly.
"C'mon guys, can't we at least end one class without you two threatening to beat the crap out of one another?" Ruby would frown as she moved to stand between the tensed up cat and wolf, on the one hand she had a responsibility as the leader of Team RWBY to keep her fellow team member out of trouble. But there was also the fact that Bálor was a good friend and ally, and Ruby often did whatever it took to look out for her friends. She did it for members of Team JNPR, she did it for Team SSSN, she even did it for her android friend Penny, but it was increasingly harder to do it for someone who was currently trying to instigate a fight.
"Of course we can't sis, he's a hothead who constantly feels the need to prove himself for some insane reason." Yang would finally speak up as her lilac eyes met his amber ones, this would cause the silver-haired Huntsman to back up a step which only caused the brawler to grin as she took a step forward. "What's the matter B, it's only me..the girl you left behind!"
Bálor hated that grin, it was a clear sign that Yang knew she still had sway over him and that despite his bullheaded bravado he would never throw a punch against her. Because deep down inside he still held strong feelings for the woman, it was the reason he had never let things with Ruby go further after they had returned from their trip despite the secrets he had divulged to the red hood. It was why he was still living in the ruins of what used to be his dorm room instead of going to Ozpin for any sort of aid, relying on his savings to buy a less-wrestling oriented wardrobe and the bare minimum in terms of furnishings.
"Geez you're so easy to spook lately." Yang would wink and ruffle his silver hair playfully before backing off. "Not sure your precious Bullet Club would approve of you backing down to little 'ol me." She would gesture to the others to head out, blissfully unaware of the thin sheen of sweat lining his forehead as they left.
"I don't care what those bastards think, all I ever wanted was for you to love me for who I was..I figured that if I kept being that cocky punk that got your attention in the first place would be enough to keep your heart, but I should've known better than that." He would mutter this to himself as he clutched his sketchbook tightly as he began the trek down to the weapons forge, memories of his time with Yang playing in his mind with each passing step. "In all honesty it was probably my fault for losing my cool so soon after I got back."
He was steamed.
The fact that she had trashed his room was one thing he could easily forgive, belongings were something that could be easily replaced as all it took was money and thanks to his careful squirreling away of funds pre-incarceration he had a nice nest egg in which to fund any and all future projects for the next four years. But it was the comment that she had left on his mirror that had really caused the wolf to lose his shit, Bálor Moonlight was a lot of things to the folks of Beacon Academy: Friend, enemy, annoyance, problem student, and general all-around pain in the ass. But he was NOT a backstabber.
"Hey, blondie!" He was seething as approached the members of Team RWBY from the dining hall, watching as their young leader was preparing to wave him over before noticing his white hot fury and frowning as her sister simply rolled her eyes. "Yeah I'm talking to you Xiao Long, you must really think it's fucking funny to just go into another person's dorm room and wreck things up like some crazy top-heavy elephant!"
Ruby would immediately facepalm knowing that insulting her sister's looks in any way was the surefire way to get the stuffing stomped out of them, and sure enough the sounds of a brawler leaping from her seat would be heard as the two former lovers approached one another before going nose to nose.
"You must really wanna get your face broken if you think I'll let you get away with that Bálor." She would shove him back a step, not surprised to see the angry Faunus fire up and clench his fists. "Remember, I'm not your girlfriend anymore so I'm not about hold back if it comes to the two of us throwing down!" What did surprise her though was the fact that he was now wearing the Academy uniform, on some small level she did find that it accentuated and brought out the blazing amber of his eyes and if circumstances were different between the two of them then she would've dropped some saucy joke about peeling him out of the uniform later that day.
But by deciding to leave with Ruby on that little trip to Summer's grave last month Bálor had cemented which sister he preferred to be around, and after having been spurned by him on several different occasions through his acts of cowardice Yang Xiao Long had had enough of his stupid little games.
"You wanna throw down Yang then don't keep me waiting baby." Bálor would snarl and raise his fists with a cheeky grin, only to see her roll her eyes once more in disgust.
"Geez, Ruby control your boyfriend before I decide to knock him on his stupid ass." Yang would begin to saunter off, pausing to look back as the young crimsonette tried her best to placate the hot-blooded Faunus with the barest hint of pity in her eyes.
"I hate you!" He would shout out even as Ruby tried her best to keep him from causing any more trouble at the moment. "I hate you for all the bullshit you put me through: Claiming that I should open up more, and that everyone here is a family!" Around him things would begin to clatter and shake violently in response to his pent up rage toward the brawler, the remaining members of Team RWBY would stand up to meet his challenge only for Yang to wave them off as she stepped forward and clocked the daylights out of Bálor with a wicked left hook.
"We ARE a family, and that means sometimes having to beat some sense into our whinier members!" The blonde-haired Huntress would look down upon her once precious wolf with a look of disgust, it was if he had not only lost his passion for fighting but also his own sanity. "I meant what I said in that we all look out for one another here, whether it's on the battlefield fighting the Grimm or in the halls of this academy dealing with assholes like Cardin."
Bálor would simply growl and slowly climb to his feet, feeling a stinging pain on his cheek as he looked at the woman who had previously went to Hell and back just to get his heart no more than a few months prior to this moment. Yang's eyes would narrow as she anticipated his anger-fueled attack and grabbed his fist without much challenge, applying pressure to it until his face began contorting in agony even though he refused to scream outright. "Stop, there's no way you could hope to even touch me in the pathetic state you're in." She would pull him closer even as her sister watched on, her silver eyes widening in anticipation of whatever damage she was preparing to deliver to him."Oh Ruby, you still don't understand the deep depths to a person's darkness. Even if he's told you his darkest secrets and left no stone unturned..there's always truth in a person's actions."
However that momentary lapse in attention was all the irate wolf needed to strike the brawler with his free hand, she could feel the full force of his weight in the blow.
And smile as her lilac eyes flashed red, her Semblance flaring to life before dragging him to his feet and bitch slapping him back to the ground. "You say you hate me, and THAT'S all the strength you can put forward against me!"
The wolf would snarl as he tried to rise to his feet once again in another attempt to get some measure of revenge for what she had done to his dorm room and more importantly his heart, only this time he could feel someone holding him down as Ruby would be doing everything she could to keep her friend from fighting any further.
"Yes, I despise you Yang Xiao Long!" He tried once again to shake himself free from the red reaper's surprisingly firm grasp on his arm, if it were anyone else he would have already flung them aside with his own Semblance. But Ruby Rose had always been nothing short of a patient little good egg with him, and he had no reason to use such violent methods against her.
"That's quite enough!" The voice of a rather stressed Glynda Goodwitch would pierce the tension permeating through the dining hall as she approached the embattled trio before her, sighing as she took note of a familiar silver-haired menace at the center of it all. "Why am I not surprised to see you here Moonlight, another one of your flashy gimmicks gone wrong again I presume?" The older Huntress would sigh as she levitated him to his feet, earning a squeak of surprise from a startled Ruby who had been holding him down from fighting up to that point. "Well, speak up now!"
Bálor would sigh and shake his head in defeat as he felt Yang's heated glare burning a metaphorical hole in the back of his head, and as much as he wanted to whirl around and pounce on the blonde that would only cause Goodwitch to flatten him to the ground before he could even twitch.
"No professor, no gimmicks this time..just itching for a fight I suppose." He would smirk even as the older woman shook her head in contempt at his latest outburst. "I think it's about time for another one of your periodic counseling sessions with professor Ozpin, and so help me Dust if you refuse!" She would point her riding crop menacingly at the young man's chin before turning on her heel and walking out of the dining hall with a sour faced Bálor following slowly behind her. He would pause to look back at the sisters with a ghost of a smirk, Ruby had a small frown building on her face as if she were seeing him being marched off to the gallows while Yang kept her own expression calm and collected despite the words of hatred he had previously lobbed her way.
Back in the present Bálor would find himself staring down at the blueprints for the weapon he and Ruby had created together and frowned deeply, he had created it specifically to go back into the field and fight the Grimm like a good little Huntsman. Sure he didn't have a team to call his own, and the closest thing he had to a true friend was a cookie-loving, weapon obsessed speedster. But at the end of the day he was alone, in a place where his very existence had become an annoyance to most and a running joke to others.
"All I ever wanted out of this little project as an Academy student was to be able to hunt the freaking Grimm and just be left to my own devices." He shook his head as he calmly folded the diagram and placed it into his pocket as he walked deep into the dark pits of the Weapons Forge. "But somewhere along the way I got lost and caught up into trying to become something that I wasn't." He took a deep breath as he kept moving forward as the events of his first months as a student, all the bizarre meetings with different students that he had gone through and the insanity that became the beginnings of his relationship with all four members of Team RWBY.
"I'm no student, no Huntsman…hell I'm not even Human!" The wolf's trek would continue as the downfall of his relationship with Yang would start to run through his mind, it wasn't so much that the gimmicks went too damn far.
It's that he didn't know when to turn off the hero worship and become a normal teenage male who had the walking epitome of a blonde bombshell as his girlfriend, fandom was all well and good but at the end of the day he had zero intention of stepping into the squared circle and wrestling a five star classic with an A.J. Styles, or engaging in some crazy knuckle bruising brawl with Jay Briscoe.
"I want to destroy the Grimm, not to save the world or establish myself as some sort of hero." Bálor would stop to reflect on the fact that such thoughts were the exact aspirations of his little Rose, and for a moment he felt himself hesitate in the icy resolve that he had been building to this point. "I want to destroy them because that's ALL I'M GOOD FOR!" He would slam his hand against the wall of the stairway angrily, wincing at the sudden surge of pain that ran through him as he did. "And when that's all said and done I'll finally be the one thing every hero needs in their story."
The light of the molten pits of the weapons forge would welcome his presence like a loved one welcoming a soldier home from the war abroad, he felt an idea bubbling in the depths of his mind and smiled quietly to himself.
Yang Xiao Long would sigh in frustration as she continued her training in the solitude of an empty amphitheatre, something she often did when her mind was troubled and she didn't feel like burdening her friends and sister with whatever issue was at hand.
"What's going on with me lately, things have finally calmed down for us now that the Vytal Festival is approaching." She would launching into a simple combination of punches and forearms, imaging Junior's henchmen once again falling at her feet with little effort. "But every time I see him, it's as if I start turning back into that stupid mushy version of myself!" The blonde brawler would shudder as she remembered the girly sashaying she did while holding a satin dress, how she cried over his comatose form even as his bond with Ruby was becoming an obstacle to her own romantic aspirations, and even the time she took to forge the gauntlets she was now using: her Howling Dragons.
"But that's all in the past, because now I have somebody who finally gets my flow and what I want to do with my life." Yang would smirk, feeling his eyes watching her movements from the shadows and felt somewhat at ease knowing that someone new was watching over her now.
"I'm not some stupid tween-romance cliché!" She would connect with a vicious spin kick to the emptiness before her, although she imagined that the wolf had felt the blow in some sort of paranormal ass-backward way. "I'll show you that I shine far brighter without you then even you thought possible!"
See, right around here is where I usually try to shill my other works, or justify what I do with the characters as some sort of long-term angle that'll be booked to something awesome later on
Truth be told: There is NO GRAND PLAN, I write from whatever emotion I'm feeling
Bored: Everyday Life
Sad: A moment in time
Suicidal: One Bad Day
Happy: yeah, no..none of that here
I'm not sure how to classify this one yet, but rest assured it'll cover the events of Volume 3 thus far.
Thermometer fans stay tuned: Next chapter will be something you might enjoy.