Broken Chains and Unfettered Shackles
"Go son… and never look back."
The parting words of his father paced endlessly through the front of his mind, a pseudo religious mantra that urged him onwards, forced him to keep pushing through the exhaustion and tears and the pain, even as he desired nothing else than to return to the family he had left behind to rot in that horrible place. But he did not. He could have spouted any lie about the nobility of listening to his father, but the truth was as damning as it was agonizing.
You ran because you are a coward. You abandoned them because you are weak.
He tried to drown out the whispered thoughts of treachery, strained to focus on the crunch of leaves underfoot and the deafening drumming of the torrential downpour as rain and thunder crashed down around him. He forced himself to put aside any thought that was not immediately pertaining to his own survival. The bitter chill of winter cut deep into his bones, the tattered and soaking wet clothing draped across his body persistently sapping his strength and eroding his willpower.
He did not know how long he had been running, time was an incomprehensible concept as he pistoned the tired muscles in his legs and pushed deeper into the forest, coercing the tattered remnants of his exhausted stamina past what could have been considered feasible by normal means. He did not care what was possible, that was irrelevant in his mission to expand as much distance between himself and that place as he could. He did not want to go back. He would not go back.
Images of blinding white walls and sterile tile burned inside his mind like a glowing brand, voices of scientific detachment and the scratch of pen on paper scalding his ears, and in a moment his fatigue was overwhelmed by renewed energy. A wave of nausea and fear rose unbidden in a tidal force of abject terror, spurred by the phantom sensation of scalpels parsing flesh with clinical disinterest, the sting of syringes puncturing skin and the scalding heat of molten chemicals injected into his bloodstream.
Not again, never again.
No more cutting.
No more knives.
No more needles.
He kept running, his pace growing increasingly wilder and unfocused as the memories came back in striking flashes of searing light, like stabbing thunderbolts behind his dilated irises. The heart in his chest shuddered and his lungs wheezed as the panic set in.
His family… he left them behind, his father and mother, his sisters and brother, back in that place with the digging blades and relentless needles. The grueling pace he had set for so long started to slow as realization set in, followed inevitably by horror. His sisters, young enough to not remember the outside world, and a brother, born and raised in that hellish prison, he… couldn't leave them behind.
Fate intruded upon this revelation, and he felt his fragile body, gaunt from malnutrition and weakened from invasive experimentation, slam violently into something several times larger than himself, to disastrous results. Having been running at a speed similar to that of a motor vehicle moments before the collision, his upper arm and left shoulder snapped upon impact. An airless gasp of pain escaped as he was thrown bodily backwards, the lingering sensation of sodden fur and a hardened surface bruising his flesh as he trundled in a jumble of tangled limbs and broken bones.
The pain was nothing new, nothing he had not felt before, and it went largely ignored in the face of a more serious development. Cradling the unresponsive limb with his one good arm, he turned onto his back and looked up at the towering shadow that loomed above. Darkness consumed the forest around him, the thick canopy shrouding the pallid light of the shattered moon as it fought to pierce the interwoven thicket of tree branches and heavy foliage.
The shuddering of his heart slowed as a flash of lighting revealed the obstruction in his path.
Even without the brief flare of light he would have known what had stalled his flight. he could smell it; the scent of wet dog and blood soaked earth, the unmistakable odor of torn flesh and ruptured organs that he could never forget for as long as he lived. It was a fragrance inherent to their existence.
Grimm, a beowulf by its feral and hunched but undeniably bipedal stance. Bad luck, that's all it really boiled down to. What were the chances to literally run into one of the worst things that lived on Remnant? Honestly, probably higher than he would have thought. With the reckless stumble through the forest radiating a miasma of negative emotions, he supposed he should have been surprised that it only took this long to be found.
The creature of Grimm approached the place where he had fallen, the ponderous echo of its heavy footsteps shrouded by the intense patter of rainfall, but the reverberations of its movement could still be felt in the dirt beneath him.
It was larger than any of its kind that he had seen before and bristled with razor spikes and pale plates, an alpha knowing his history of ill begotten luck. It stopped a handbreadth from him and sat on its haunches, the predatory glow of its yellow eyes glowing incandescently in the inky blackness, and he could just make out the gleam of its sharpened canines as its muzzle slowly split open, the revolting odor of death superseding any other scent.
In that moment he knew he was staring into the eyes of his executioner. A creature like this was not beyond his ability to fight. There were many experiments conducted by those scientists, and he could remember his trials in the observational amphitheater with a shudder even now in this moment of despair. But this was different from then. This wasn't some sick experiment created by his captors. This was real. There were no safety measures, as few as they may have been back at the lab. He was exhausted physically and emotionally, and with a broken arm and no weapons, there was no possibility of overcoming this beast.
He knew he was going to die.
He wanted to feel fear, to be afraid of this hulking abomination, but all he felt was an infuriating disappointment. After everything his father had sacrificed, after years of carefully wrought plans and the soul aching agony of abandoning the only people he had left to love, he would not even get to live the life they wanted for him. Instead he'd end up in the belly of some damn dog-man in some stupid forest leagues away from anyone and anything.
What a fucking stupid way to go.
"Come on then you son of a bitch." He growled through clenched teeth, fist clamping tight to deliver one final righteous haymaker before he was brought down in a flash of fangs and bladed claws. "I won't go out screaming."
At the least he would not end like a coward.
A flash of movement caught his attention, faster than he could react, and a heavy paw slammed into his throat, the nails of its furred hand digging into his skin as he felt himself lift effortlessly off the ground. He sent his fist flying, but it bounced pathetically off the Grimm's armored side, and his knuckles cracked as they hit a plate of dense bone stretching across the monster's torso.
He would have muttered an insolent curse, a bitter remark at the end, but found the words hard to formulate since he could hardly breathe through his closing windpipe, what might have been a caustic tirade little more than a choking sputter of defiance as he fought for something so simple as the right to breath.
This was it. He realized with a tired comprehension, his closed fist loosening in the face of the futility of his defiance, gasping for air around the paw-like appendage of this giant beast. Pathetic in life, pathetic in death I suppose. He looked up at the moon, filaments of pale light trailing from the broken satellite, and he realized it was probably a better end then he could have asked for. At least he could die within sight of the sky, something he had not seen for years trapped in that underground nightmare.
His vision faded, his final moments spent gazing up into the night sky through the trees with a sense of peace and acceptance that was rather comforting. He didn't feel the bitter winter winds or the sopping rain, even the pain of his broken arm was gone.
It was… far more pleasant than it had any right to be.
"Director, contact with Subject Delta was lost as of 0352."
"Has it been terminated?"
"As of most recent reports its state of health is unconfirmed. But best projections predict that it would not last more than twenty standard hours in its current environment."
"Hmm… unfortunate. What is the status of the rest of its testing group?"
"Other than an increased obstinacy in regards to usual testing, they are mostly subdued after being informed of the likely fate of Subject Delta."
"Very well… nothing to be done then. Continue on as planned. Delta was our first true success, but its loss is not irrecoverable. If I remember correctly, Echo and Gamma were showing similar promise. Increase their dosage and raise the timetable on their procedures, maybe we can incite the same anomalous reaction that affected Subject Delta. Despite this setback, we are very much still on a closing timetable. We cannot fail."
"Of course, Director."
"I'll get it done."
Having blacked out on the cusp of death in the clutches of a monstrous creature, he was then suitably surprised that instead of a glorious afterlife of golden gates and angelic choirs, or the never-ending nothingness of an abyssal void, he woke up, very much alive, and very much in pain. The pain, as much as he disliked it, was something of a mixed blessing, confirming that he was in fact still amongst the living, a state of existence he vastly preferred to the other.
The rain had stopped, the silence booming in its suddenness. It'd been pouring since he climbed the fence of barbed wire and weaved through the labyrinth of trees to avoid chasing gunfire, the crashing echo of a thunderstorm hounding his steps for what felt like hours without end.
Now, it was gone… and so was that beowulf.
Sharpened eyes scanned the immediate forest around him, but even his hawkish vision could not make out any sign of the beast, any tracks it might have made were certainly washed away in the storm, and his sense of smell was flooded with the scent of fresh rainfall and wet foliage. For whatever reason the Grimm beast had departed, leaving him alive though he knew not why. Grimm existed to kill men and faunus, their genocidal desires were what gave them purpose. He could not see the logic in its decision to spare him and upheave an established order cemented in eons of historic fact. But, he supposed he shouldn't bother questioning his luck, which was quite good for once. Survival was at this moment, a more critical concern.
He sat up and felt the damp ground underneath him, a soaking mire of mud and decaying leaves, a sensation that was far more detailed then it had any right to be.
Glancing down, a frown curled his lips as he sighed in resignation.
He was also very much bereft of clothing… outstanding.
Thankfully, he would not need to wander the forest in the nude. For whatever reason his clothes were not far away, scattered in a dilapidated heap a few feet from the tree he awoke propped up against. Acting quickly, he redressed himself to the best of his ability given the deplorable state of his apparel, and once suitably decent, he allowed himself to take in the greater detail of the forest clearing he found himself in.
It was truly not that large, a few meters in a rough oval, with a pleasant enough view of the sun as it shone down upon him. Recalling his limited memory involving the survival training he had learned from his father before their town had been attacked, he knew enough to recognize that it was a little before noon, which meant he had almost a full day to see if he could live long enough to escape this forest.
He knew it was not the forever fall. The coloration of the leaves in the trees was information enough to figure that out. But that meant he could be anywhere in Vale. Considering Vacuo was a desert hellhole and Atlas was usually a winterized tundra for most of the year, he could only assume that was where he found himself. Menagerie was also a possibility, but he had a feeling that whatever secretive group had captured him and his family, would probably not be welcomed there.
Wherever he was, he should probably keep moving. The further he put himself from possible captivity, the better.
Gathering his determination, he decided to continue due north, the direct opposite of where he came from. He wouldn't go any other way, even if it would hasten his demise. Death was preferable to imprisonment. Somehow… someway, he would rescue his family, but until he had the power or the support to do that, he had more pressing concerns.
Like staying alive, that was definitely important.
He looked to the arm that hung limp at his side, at a dark purplish bruise suffused with sallow yellow undertones that flared angrily below his shoulder, and knew that the injury was far beyond his remedial medical knowledge to fix. The fracture was not really somewhere he could splint easily, and he was pretty sure he would fail even if he tried. Better to keep moving and hope to find somewhere that could help an individual of his terrible fortune.
The growling in his stomach did not do him any favors either, and was an audible sign of a growing issue. He had not eaten for serval days before he made his escape, not wanting the drugged food to retard his intelligence and numb the muscles he would need to be at their peak to affect his escape. And considering the infrequency of meals at the facility, and the relentless intensity of his desperate escape, he had probably already burned what were the last dregs of his fat reserves.
There was little energy left in him to keep his body running on such a high level of caloric depletion.
He weighed his options, a frown erupting on his face as he realized that he didn't really have any.
His father had been a hunter, not the huntsman variety with the flashy clothes and tawdry reputation, but the kind that dealt with the decidedly less dangerous fauna that roamed Remnant's forests. So he had a moderate grasp on the primitive intricacies of catching game, but he would not be lingering anywhere long enough to set traps, not when he was in dangerous Grimm infested territory, nor did he think he could bring down even a rabbit in his current and rather emaciated condition.
Sighing sadly, he patted his hungering belly consoling and made ready to endure a long journey with what little energy he had left. He found north easily using a neat trick his father taught him, and set out at an ambling wander. Most settlements could be found from the most popular of cardinal directions, or so his father claimed.
He prayed his father was not wrong as he forced his sluggish body to press forward, despite the heavy pall of exhaustion lingering in the aching muscles of his legs.
Unlike the night before, he wouldn't be setting any speed records. He was dead exhausted, and even a Grimm appearing would not get him to force his tired body to move any faster than maybe a rather pathetic stumble.
Hopefully it would not come to that.
His mind wanted to return its idle musing on what he had left behind as he walked under trees and over their bulbous surface roots, but he was smart enough to know that would not do him any good. There was nothing he could hope to achieve given his dangerous state of health and current situation. They had wanted him to leave, to escape. He was the eldest and strongest amongst his siblings, and the one with the best chance to survive after the initial attempt. Neither his mother nor father would ever think to leave the other kids behind, not that he had been any more interested at the prospect. He had wanted them all to get out, or not at all. His father had suitably knocked him around until he realized it was not his decision to make. If the man could have even one son escape, then that was a win in his eyes.
He had also considered that he could get help, but the idea was threadbare, suited for little else but a pleasant daydream. If he were to even find someone in power, how could he possibly convince them that he wasn't just some crazy ass kid doped up on experimental meds?
Then there was his heritage to consider as well.
He looked behind him, at the dark black appendage that flicked about rather apathetically from its home at the base of his spine. It was rather sad in appearance, like a half drowned cat that had been drudged from a mire and catapulted through a bramble patch at terminal velocity. And the second set of ears on his head were in no condition to boast, drooped rather pitifully since he was far too tired to keep them perked up. He was not likely to find kindness from the more dominant species on Remnant. It was simply common sense to expect that much. He was old enough to remember the prejudice, experienced it sometimes himself even as I child, the disdainful stares and dismissive snorts.
Being a faunus was not exactly all it was cracked up to be, which was saying something all things considered. Some species inherited what few perks there were to possessing animal traits, mostly felines and rabbits. For some odd reason humans seemed to have a preference for bunnies and cats, the bastards. Wolves had a somewhat less than amiable reception, as did most faunus races exhibiting attributes of large predators. It was the usual discrimination as the unenlightened clung to dated stereotypes. Wolves are killers; they aren't good for anything but fighting and dying. You can't trust a wolf; they're born with the hearts of Grimm and are fundamentally cruel and wicked.
Never let your daughter near a wolf, they're hedonistic sex fiends.
A sigh slipped past his lips as they twitched in the barest attempt at a wry smile.
Nothing he hadn't heard before.
Sure, as a wolf faunus he had speed and strength that was quite a bit above average, and a nice set of claws that could be useful in a pinch. As a child he had been the recognized king of tag and almost always won the occasional roughhousing skirmish. Of course there were the drawbacks as well, such as a very selective diet and the constant struggle to curb primal instincts that were more insistent than a human's.
He was categorically carnivorous for one, and enjoyed his meat rarer than what was perhaps socially acceptable by most standard, which is to say reasonably uncooked if he could help it. Worse than that he would never enjoy a good salad, most vegetables and fruits he consumed did not sit right with him, and could be genuinely unpleasant if he ingested enough. As most lessons, he figured that out the hard way after dinner at a friend's home back at the village he was born in. Shortly afterwards he had spent the rest of that night huddled around a toilet while his mother gently rubbed his back as he viciously rejected vegetable soup and sautéed mushrooms.
He smirked at the memories that were some of the only good ones he had to call his own. Everything else afterwards was The Facility, the place where they took his family… experimented on them for years he very nearly wished to forget.
Even the discrimination made for better memories.
He brushed his left shoulder tenderly, and growled at the stinging heat that had not reduced in its intensity.
Yeah… that was definitely broken for sure.
He would be fucked if a Grimm happened by.
Paranoia had him checking his surroundings for the prophesized creature that surely should have appeared given that he had just tested fate. Fortunately his luck seemed to be getting better, and other than a bird that ducked through the branches above him, no such monster of darkness threatened his existence.
Sighing in relief he pressed onwards, continuing down his duly ratified point of reference and hoping beyond hope that he would find a way out of this forest before circumstances made that impossible. And even though hope seemed fleeting, he still believed.
He was hungry, he was tired, and he was in pain, and yet he had not felt this kind of peace in a long time. Sure, the sentiment was nearly nonexistent, his family was still trapped and he was probably going to die out here, but considering how his life had been just a few days ago, this was at the least a marginal upgrade.
He was free, and even worse case scenario he would have the opportunity to die somewhere other than in that hellhole. And that was perhaps more than his family could ever hope for. He was reminded, with that thought, of the burden of responsibility he possessed. He could not afford to die, not that he wanted to anyways. He rather enjoyed the whole 'being alive' thing. His family needed him, needed rescue from that damned place. After he had made it out there would be no further opportunities. The people at that place were as cunning as they were cruel, and they would ensure as much. However he was going to do it, he needed to save them.
No one else would be able to.
Just as he began to think again on how to accomplish that end, he stumbled upon a stretch of trampled dirt that went off endlessly in either direction from what he could tell after a quick analysis. It looked like a road, if a little rustic, soil packed by the pacing of countless travels over the years, the kind of thoroughfare that jointed smaller settlements together out in the harsh and untamed wildlands beyond the walls of the great cities. Seeing it brought a fresh wave of optimism, and was the first sign that was he was doing something other than aimless walking.
He looked to the right, eyes following the dirt path that seemed to trail off into oblivion. As far as he could tell it just led deeper into the forest, to where only the gods knew.
To the left he could see… something, out there in the distance. It was so far away that he could make out nothing but dark shapes and blurred images. But that wasn't what really caught his attention. More than the obscured images he could see a twisting trail of silvery smoke, and that was what really interested him.
He grinned in wolfish excitement.
Smoke meant fire, fire meant people, and people… well that meant that his chances of survival just clawed out from the negative percentile. Stepping out onto the road eagerly, he hobbled quickly, the faded remnants of his stamina flaring back to life at the prospect of safety and survival. He didn't care what his reception would be as a result of his genetic inheritance. For all of mankind's arrogance, they would at least not kill him like the other monstrous denizens of the world undoubtedly would. In a contest of sheer hostility, the Grimm still had them beat.
A weak chuckle fluttered through the air as he thought on what awaited him, safety, a place to sleep, and even a hot meal if the people of the town were nice enough.
By the gods he was going to make it. After all the crazy shit he went through he was actually going to l-
Fate intervened violently, and he was blinded by an explosion to his right, shards of shattered wood cutting deeply into the exposed flesh of his face as he instinctively dropped to the road and rolled wildly. His ears were ringing from the close proximity of the detonation, and he could feel a warm wetness trickle from both pairs.
Something roared nearby and he dug his fingers into the tamped soil and crawled as quickly as he could, scurrying to clear as much distance as was possible from whatever the hell was happening. But with only one arm relatively undamaged he couldn't make much progress and he screamed as a brace of claws thudded into his back with the pop of bone and the visceral sound of tearing flesh. He could feel his ribs snap as a colossal weight was forced onto his spine, and judging from the horrible groaning gurgle from inside him, it was not long behind. The next pained gasp of air he tried to intake was wet and ragged, and he knew something important had been punctured.
That was not to be the worst of it as the rottenness of his luck resurged with sickening bleakness.
He could feel the bones in his body cracking as the paw wedged into his back lifted, and the ground flew away from him as he was tossed aside like so much unwanted garbage. The world rushed back in a frenzied blur as he crashed into a tree to the further lament of his broken body, and he gasped in shock as he fell to side of the road, lying on his side as he choked on the blood pooling in his throat.
Seconds had passed in what felt like hours during such a sudden and unexpected attack. The moments preceding what he understood as a trap, was a struggle to remain conscious, let alone coherent.
The creature that attacked him was visible in his darkening vision, a hulking ursine abomination festooned with barbed quills and armored plates. The damned thing must have been lurking by the road. Stupid as Grimm were, they at least had intelligence enough to know places that their prey frequented, like any animal would. Once more he was made destiny's whipping boy.
And as he recognized the discriminatory nature of the world something inside him snapped.
This time there was no acceptance of his impending demise, no peace at the idea of death. Instead he was filled with an all-consuming, useless rage. Really… after everything he went through, at the cusp of freedom he was again set upon by a monster? Was he just a joke to the gods? Did they think it funny to tempt him with hope and then slap it from his grasp with a godly smirk? Was he just going to die now to feed some deity's amusement, after everything he went through?
Fuck that.
A scorching surge of ferocity eroded the concept of reason, washing away the agony and pain in a torrent of overpowering anger that was so potent that he could hear nothing but the pounding of blood rushing in his ears and the deafening thunder of his heart slamming in his chest. He wasn't just mad, as ineffective as that word was in describing the rage that overcame him. He was consumed by an emotion that lingered on the precipice of madness, a sensation that far exceeded any fiery indignation.
He didn't just want to kill the Grimm.
In that moment he wanted to kill everything.
Something cut through the air, a sibilant, booming noise that overpowered even the ursa's constant snarling and ravening. The giant creature, a biological mountain of muscle and hate that had been killing the children of mankind for years, took a hesitant step backwards as it was assaulted by a barrage of sound that was easily recognized, and yet indescribably alien.
Its bestial intellect could discern the howl of a beowulf, but the animalistic scream was distorted, deepened to a pitch that was beyond the capabilities of its fellow Grimm. Yellowed eyes searched for the wolven form of the Grimm that must have been nearby and intruding upon its territory, but other than its prey it saw nothing.
It was alone with the dying human.
The ursa paused, noticing that the small fleshy creature was writhing wildly on the ground, not an unusual reaction after a swipe from its massive paw; it had felled many of the tiny beings' kind with a similar tactic. But the audible snap of bone, the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh that reminded the beast of claws digging into wet bark, was decidedly a step away from the natural.
The ursine monster observed the strange occurrence with instinctive interest in the same way it might have observed the struggling form of a deer with its spine snapped, a sort of mild, disdainful curiosity.
Only after another dysmorphic roar echoed around it, that the ursa finally realized something was wrong. A familiar, blackish miasma seeped from the torn flesh of its victim, the black, sludge-like fluid oozing thickly down pale, blood flecked skin.
The Grimm huffed uncertainly, its feral brain trying to comprehend what it was seeing through increasingly widened eyes.
And for the first time in its life it felt fear.
They were alerted, at first, by the screaming. The leader of the trio of wanders did not at first react to the sound. It was a cry of human anguish quite familiar to Cinder, usually preceding the violent and bloody end of her enemies and anyone else that dared intrude upon the path of her leading ambitions.
The woman paused on the road, cocking her head to the side as she listened to the accustomed cacophony that arose from conflict and human suffering. Cinder felt a thin, cruel smile contort upon the ruby gloss of her lips, the echo of suffering quite pleasant to her ears. But her smile diminished as reality set in, and she remembered that there was a small settlement not all that far away, little more than a highway station for travelers willing to risk the dangers of traveling the kingdom on foot.
It was where she intended for herself and her subordinates to stock up on provisions before they returned to Vale, strutting triumphantly like conquering warriors.
So it was her smile curled down into a grimace, the woman unable to find enjoyment in something that now sought to interfere with her carefully wrought plans.
Cinder hated meddling.
"Boss?" Mercury Black posed uncertainly as he looked to his superior, and the woman that held control over his continued existence on Remnant.
Flicking her crimson dress blazoned with delicate gold filigree, Cinder turned her head to the man that had questioned her, noticing the expectant expression he bore as he and his companion no doubt waited for her to instruct them on what to do.
She considered her options, circumvent the settlement and avoid whatever it was that had intruded upon her carefully wrought machinations, or investigate.
Cinder grinned as Mercury blanched at the gleam that flashed so readily in her eyes, a deadly golden glow that promised suffering unending upon the focus of her ire. She raised a hand, the trim paleness of her fingers illuminated by the crackling flames that wreathed her closing fist.
And Mercury was reminded that there really had only ever been one option.
Mercury and Emerald set their pace at a suitable distance from their leader, neither willing to approach her when she was in one of her moods. It was a suitably wise choice, they both reasoned silently as they watched the brush on either side of the road whither under the heat exuding from the menacing figure of Cinder Fall.
At that moment they dared not cast any banter back and forth.
Their partnership may have been nothing more than an agreement founded on convenience, and was more often than not filled with a caustic atmosphere of thrown insults, but neither was willing to risk the fire to insert a snide remark.
The supernatural powers of the woman that held their leashes may have been recently acquired, but that was inconsequential when you could just as soon end up as a test subject for her experiments. Thus they kept their lips sealed tight, faithfully following in Cinder's charred footsteps.
Seeing a rise diverting a short ways from the path, Cinder stepped off the dirt road and set herself on topping the hill, intending to use the crest of the grassy ridge to get an advantageous view of the small town before making her advance. It was a short climb, spent in silence as Mercury and Emerald silently placed bets on what they would find, a fifty-fifty split that it was either a band of bandits searching for loot, or the usual Grimm raid.
Mercury placed thirty lien on the bandits, Emerald raised stakes with a solid hundred on Grimm.
Cinder ignored the illicit gambling of those that were beneath her, and instead focused on the thick black smoke that belched skyward, the once silent forest around them now alive with the lurid crackle of wild flames.
Death, Cinder could smell death on the wind.
Cinder Fall stood brazenly atop the grassy hill and directed her golden gaze down upon the settlement wreathed in a rampant blaze.
Mercury cursed quietly, and threw a bag of lien at Emerald with aggressive force. The green haired girl chuckled softly, her laugher disguised within the cacophony of frantic screams erupting from the town as it burned, and caught the speeding sack of plastic chips and offered a conceited curtsy.
Cinder's face was a well-schooled mask, her eyes skimming calculatedly over the scene displayed before her.
The walls had proved useless for this unfortunate hamlet, though Cinder was curious to learn how a beowulf had been able to scale a fortified wooden barricade forty feet high before it was put down by the local militia. She was even more curious as to how a single Grimm creature could pose such a drastic threat.
The answer came to her momentarily, in a sudden crescendo of ferocity that ensured a single eyebrow was raised in keen interest as the wolf-like Grimm smashed through a wooden building and pounced upon its prey in a spray of shattered timber and broken furniture, the old man's exclamation of fear silenced mid-scream as it plunged its clawed paw into his chest and tore down, messily eviscerating his innards. Gallons of blood splashed over the monster's hide, and unlike its usual ilk, the fluid did not linger, vanishing within the ebon fur of its thick coat, the reason for the phenomenon unknown to Cinder.
A shout of rage came next from the throat of a younger man, no older than boy in his early teens, as he brandished a steel short sword and charged through the destroyed house and straight at the beast with a desire for vengeance.
Its tail put an end to him as it flung back with a startling flexibility and coiled tight around the man-child's throat. It ended the boy with a cruel contemptuousness that impressed even her, as it fiercely yanked its tail and snapped his neck.
The appendage uncoiled and the boy dropped lifelessly to the dirt with all the grace and poise of a sack of fertilizer. The beowulf howled, a sound that sent the faintest trickle of unease down Cinder's spine as it descended upon the pair of corpses, its jaws snapping open and closed in wild abandon as it ravaged the corpses, crimson viscera spattering wetly against the dirt and shards of wood scattered about the environment around the creature. And it took her a moment to realize that it was not mutilating the bodies, but consuming them.
This was enough to shatter her composure, and a frown of disbelief tore across her visage.
Grimm did not eat. They had no need, no desire for sustenance. They were organic machines in the very truest sense of the word. She knew as much, her benefactor was after all their queen.
This was not just an anomaly, but a clear impossibility.
Cinder glanced out the corner of her eye to her subordinates, noticing the sudden paleness of their features as they watched the creature dine upon the dead like a starved wolf. Admittedly it was a sight none of them were used to.
The loud crack of a gunshot cut through the air, and tore Cinder from her reflective contemplation, and she turned to see another person approach, her apparel and weaponry bearing all the bells and whistles of a huntress, tight clothes and flashy colors. The… Grimm creature snarled as a dust round impacted its cranial carapace, the low caliber munition deflecting off its thick plating, but proving nuisance enough to distract it from its feast.
The beast hissed like a snake and crouched low to the ground, armored muzzle low and its flank raised as it slammed its fists into the dirt and bellowed a feral challenge to its attacker. The sound was loud even from the hilltop as it echoed through the forest.
The huntress took a step back, startled by its mannerism and the fact that it was acting decidedly more like a wild animal than a Grimm. But the woman brushed the thought away and brandished her rifle, the weapon barking as she squeezed the trigger in rapid succession.
The flurry of rounds struck the abomination, each shot accurate and experienced, four to the torso, and three in the skull. Unlike the initial start to the battle, she was rewarded for her efforts. The beowulf grunted in pain as four holes opened in its chest, and a thick brackish fluid tinted a dark reddish hue, exuded from the exposed wounds. The shots aimed at its skull flattened against its unusually dense armor, and the lupine monster tucked its limbs to its chest and rolled to the side, avoiding the ensuing volley meant to finish it off.
Cinder was once again awed by its intelligence, the wolf-like Grimm seeming to possess a level of intellect close to that of a human.
The huntress was no less surprised, and issued a shocked expletive as she tried to keep the beowulf in her sights. But the Grimm was too quick, and even wounded proved to be fast enough to avoid a solid connection, weaving through the bullets as it flung itself at the woman, its massive paws digging deep furrows in the blood soaked dirt as it charged straight at her.
Acting quickly, the huntress leaned low and to her left, the rifle in her grip mecha-shifting into a claymore and she swung the weapon with all her might, the blade cleaving deep into the beowulf's side. A surprising volume of its lifeblood exploded from the near fatal injury, and before she could gloat at her success, the creature swatted her aside with a ponderous backhanded strike.
The huntress went flying, her sword still embedded in the Grimm's torso as she slammed into a building with enough force to shatter her bones had she been a normal person. Instead her aura soaked up the worst of the impact and she fell to the ground with little more than a bruised back.
The beowulf crooned softly as it tentatively wrapped a clawed hand around the blade stuck in-between the ribbed exoskeleton protecting its vitals, reddish black slurry seeping down the length of the weapon. With a whimper that sounded almost pitiable, the Grimm extracted the span of steel from its body and let the heavy metal drop to the floor, clutching the hemorrhaging gape in its side as it hissed and spat to itself in what seemed like a crude imitation of speech.
Undaunted by a beowulf that was proving far more challenging than even an alpha of its kind, and confident that she was close to victory, the huntress rose to her feet and readied herself to attack and finish the beast before it could do more harm.
The lupine Grimm held its bleeding injury and glared at the woman with a burning hatred that went beyond primal recognition. The monster glanced to the floor, at the gleaming steel of the sword that had cut it so deeply, and reached down, wrapping its unattended paw around the hilt of the blade.
The huntress confident grimace wilted as she stared in disbelief, her sword grasped secure in the animalistic paw of an abomination. Fear replaced her self-assurance as she realized that this creature was nothing like anything she had ever fought before.
Cinder could see the doubt on her face, as she started to believe that she could not win against whatever manner of beast this Grimm was.
She smiled.
The huntress however, was far from replicating the satisfaction Cinder felt, and she cast furtive glanced to her environment as she tried to figure out how she could either beat this monster or escape with her life.
The beowulf did not give her time to think.
A piercing howl, colored with the promise of vengeance, slammed into her ears as the beast loped on all fours, one limb raised with sword in paw as it bore down upon her in a whirlwind of rage and hunger.
The huntress jumped aside to avoid its attack as she had last time, but the beowulf had something she had forgot to calculate in her haste fueled by fear.
Its reach had just been dramatically extended.
The woman shrieked in agony, a throat tearing sound of pain as her own sword cleaved her legs from underneath her. And she fell, screaming incoherently as blood gushed from her stumps. The power of the Grimm was incredible, able to shatter the huntress weakened aura through sheer brute strength.
It did not leave her to suffer long.
The beowulf released the claymore, and the blade sunk into the bloodied soil as it approached her prostrated and helpless form. The woman eyed the beast, her eyes wild and pained as she stared up at the monster that towered above her, its fangs glistening with blood and a feral relish gleaming behind its yellowy gaze.
She made no noise as the lupine abomination clamped its paws onto her wrists and snapped its jaws around her head.
Its muscles flexed.
The huntress' arms were torn from their sockets, and her head was crushed between its maw, pinkish pulp and shards of skull leaking from between its teeth as it savored its hard earned victory. And as the remains of the huntress disappeared down its ravenous gullet in chunks of rendered flesh, the gaping wound in its side and the four circular punctures of the bullet wounds in its torso were closed, mended as its furred flesh knit back together.
And in a moment the creature exploded into action, resuming its rampant slaughter of the helpless village, any chance of hope for survival had been crushed along with the huntress' head.
Cinder had seen all she needed.
Whatever that thing was, mutant Grimm abomination, or rabid hound of hell, did not matter.
All Cinder saw was a prize above any other, and she would have it for herself no matter the cost.
AN: A random prompt that came into my head after a bout of depression regarding some crap that's happened in my rl. I'm alright now, but the idea remained, so I thought I'd hammer it out, if only to get it to stop lingering in my thoughts. I also decided to do this because I haven't seen any concept yet that utilized this idea and I find it really fascinating, and pretty much untouched, which is rare for fanfiction. Expect darker themes, ala DOOM, which you've probably already noticed. Rip and Tear and all that.
Anyways I hope you guys like this, and hopefully I can get the next chapter for Legacy out as soon as I kick mu damned muse back into shape, the lazy bastard.
Keep the faith!
Drake