Hello there, I'm The Royal Protector and you're reading the first chapter of Honor For All, an attempt of mine at crossover between RWBY and the world of Dishonored. The idea came to me when I picked up RWBY last weekend (and promptly finished it in two days' time) and I just couldn't not see the potential between the two franchises.
I have a general idea where I want to take this fic and don't intend to abandon it anytime soon *cough-cough*
*A message to the readers of Mirror Images: that fic is officially abandoned but don't worry, I've been working a rework for quite some time and I hope to start it this summer*
Other than that this fic's Dishonored part is AU, the RWBY part is mainly canon with some differences down the road.
*EDIT: I had to go back and change the POV of the first chapter because I was a complete idiot and wrote it in first person instead of third person, but don't worry this isn't a false update, chapter 3 is up as well.*
So leave a review, follow and favorite if you feel like it, it really helps if I know someone reads these.
Enjoy:)
Disclaimer: RWBY and Dishonored are not my property, the only thing I own are my OCs.
Chapter 1: Prologue
"Hyyahh!"
Ruby Rose leapt out the broken window of the store in which she was browsing through just a minute ago, she felt bad about the property damage done by her dropkicking a very rude thug to the other side of Vale but she had more pressing concerns at that moment. First of which were her would be robber's friends leaning into view to see what the commotion was about. She could see various expressions ranging from disbelief and shock to plain malcontent on their faces. She normally hated being the center of attention but now she reveled in it. In front of her were honest to Dust bad guys! They were here to rob one of her favorite shops and she was the only one who could stop them! She had the chance to do something good like the heroes her sister Yang told her about during bedtime stories.
'Alright Ruby, don't mess this up' She thought excitedly 'Just like uncle Qrow said, never fight if you don't have to, intimidation works just as fine' she reminded herself and straightened up. She brought out Crescent Rose, the most awesome and bestest weapon to ever slice Grimm if she were to be believed and activated the expansion mechanism. The sniper-scythe expanded into its full glory and she rested it on her shoulder, she added a confident smile to complete the awe inspiring look and struck the pavement in front of her with the bladed end of her weapon, beckoning them to either give up or attack.
"Okaaay" An orange haired man spoke up slowly, probably their leader in her opinion, he was the only one not armed currently.
"Get her" With a motion of his head he commanded the remaining thugs half-heartedly. They obliged and ran out to meet her head on.
'Oh, this is so exciting!' She thought with glee 'I can't wait until I get to tell Yang- huh?' She huffed and turned when she and her opponents heard the howling of the wind pick up just a couple of dozen meters away from them.
It centered around a front window of a nearby store and after a few seconds the wind grew in intensity until a black blur shot out of the glass with alarming speed. The blur flew across the empty street until it hit a parked car, hard.
"Ouch" She winced when she realized that the blur was actually a person and he or she completely wrecked the side of the car, setting off the alarm and shattering its windows. She almost burst into rose petals before the person gave an angry grunt of pain and clambered slowly to his feet using the ruined car as leverage. She considered running up to him and helping him but her attackers dispelled that notion when they shook themselves out of their stupor and jumped at her.
'Just hold on mister, I'll get there as soon as I can' Ruby thought determinedly, eager to help someone in need.
Corvin wheezed.
'Damn, she hit hard. I knew close quarters was Violet's specialty but I didn't expect that'
'No matter, as long as I'm breathing she's not going to win, she can't' He thought bitterly and lifted himself up from the ground, using what he guessed was the car he crashed into just seconds ago.
Corvin was in a horrible shape he had to admit, his body was hurting all over from slashes and bruises and he was pretty sure that the only things that held him up were the goodwill of the Void and the adrenaline flowing through his veins.
The man summoned his sword to him and leaned heavily on it. He brought his hand up to his face and cleaned off the blood from his eyes, it was getting harder and harder to stand even with his makeshift cane. He forced himself to look up and focus on the scene in front of him, then his eyes widened.
"Shit, shit *cough*" The man panicked and almost doubled over as he emptied his lungs of blood but he forced himself to limp forward.
He hated fighting in the Void. That place defied logic and every set of laws physics had. It was completely unpredictable, unnatural and felt all around off according to every person Corvin knew. The place was magical, beautiful even, but people could easily lose their sanity in it if they spent too much time there, which alone didn't mean anything in a place that transcends even the concept of time itself.
Another thing he hated about the Void was fighting in it, every Marked One or anyone with a basic understanding of the powers the Void held gained a massive power boost while there but the drawbacks negated the benefits in most cases. No time and space to manipulate, no flora or fauna to make use of.
And of course the complete randomness of the place didn't help one bit.
A few minutes ago Corvin and Violet were fighting in the Council Chambers over the body of their late mentor and not another minute later they ended up in the Mirror Room.
By the Outsider he hated that place. It was basically the archive of all known and yet unknown worlds to the Order. The spacious room contained several mirrors of varying sizes, all gateways to a completely separate world connected to the Void.
He questioned how could someone tell if a world was connected to the Void when he joined up with the Order and he was given a simple answer; if it has something akin to 'magic' or something similarly unexplainable by that world's physics then it is part of an untold number of others all under the milky shroud of the Void.
As to his current predicament and him trying to frantically get back to the reflective surface he emerged from Corvin was completely justified in his hurry as he caught sight of his sister gazing though the distorted glass.
Corvin let out a grunt of exertion and brought up his bloodied left hand and pointed it at ahead of him. Ethereal energy began to seep out of his hand as he focused at a point on the other side.
With a thought he let go of the energy and found himself searing through the air faster than the human eye could see.
"Ah!" He exclaimed in pain when he impacted the ground just before the glass. He was more tired than he thought, he was unable to maintain his speed and course so he crashed, again.
Corvin clutched his throbbing head and forced himself to stand up once more. It took a couple of seconds but when he managed to he was faced with the form of his kind sister. A furious scowl appeared on Corvin's face and he activated the sword again, this time with killing intent.
Corvin concentrated on the other side like last time but with a different technique. A millisecond later his arm turned into that of a wraith's, long like a boa and black like coal. He was about to pull himself into the room when the arm was cut off in the middle by his partner.
It didn't hurt him per se but it further drained his power reserves, Corvin quickly retracted what remained of it and collapsed onto his knees, panting and sweating heavily.
"Give it up Corvin, I won, it's over" Violet called to him in a commanding tone. Corvin just snorted.
"So what? You expect me to roll over and die?" He bit back sarcastically to which she narrowed her eyes.
"No, I expect you to accept my offer of forgiveness and stand by my side like before" She looked him in the eye directly with a gaze that brought back memories. Corvin got engrossed in them for a moment before he shook his head.
"Don't insult us both Vi, you know exactly of how I feel about your idea of the Order's future" He spat some blood to the side "What you're doing is insane and I will never support it" He declared with venom in his voice. She looked completative for a bit then her expression turned into a sad frown.
"If that's the case then by the powers granted to me by the Grandmaster's office I hereby declare you an exile of the Void, Your rank and other titles will be stripped from you and if we ever hear about you again I will not hesitate to give the kill order to every member" She recited and brought up her own hand, tendrils of darkness shot out from her mark and grabbed the edges of the glass.
"No! Wait-" Corvin mustered what strength he had and tried to stand up as he saw the tendrils constrict around the edges and slowly but surely cracking the mirror on both ends. Unfortunately he wasn't fast enough and received a bullet to the torso in response. The force behind it knocked him to the ground and left him in shock. He focused his eyes and applied pressure to the wound with his hands.
"You've brought this on yourself" She shook her head and holstered her pistol, after a moment of silence her expression hardened and she balled her marked hand into a fist.
The mirrors gave in and exploded into thousands of small shards, leaving Corvin alone on some street in an uncharted world.
His eyes once again widened, but not because of surprise or fear, no, this time it was dread. He was lost in a world no one had ever been to with no help coming because they all thought he was an enemy of the state, a traitor to the cause, a murderer.
And if that wasn't enough then him bleeding out surely didn't help either. Shock was slowly setting in, Corvin couldn't feel his fingertips, so that was an indicator of how much blood he had lost already, if that didn't stop he would lose control of his hands shortly, leaving him literally powerless as most techniques required some gestures with the hands. And then the paralysis would follow and last but not least, death.
Sunshine and roses, all in all.
"No, no, no, no" Corvin chanted, getting to his knees. 'It wouldn't end like this! It can't! There was light somewhere in this dark tunnel and I would find it' The bullet in his chest wiggled with every move he made and caused it to burrow further into him. That hurt, a lot. He whimpered and grunted as he applied more pressure to the hole. It didn't seem to work as blood still flowed nigh unhindered and got soaked up by his black clothing or fell freely to the pavement below.
He disregarded it with a pained expression and unsteadily got to his feet.
'Right, if I remember correctly the connection between worlds remains even after the original gate's destruction. The function of the gate just transfers to another reflective surface…'
'Sometimes in the vicinity of the original' Corvin allowed himself a bloodied smirk as he pictured a lightbulb above his head. 'Looks like I'm in some sort of city… I better get a vantage point where I could spot Void related anomalies easier' He mused and shakily brought up his bloodied left arm.
'Blink' Corvin mentally commanded and travelled the distance between the roof and the street in less than a second, once up he was greeted with the light breeze of the wind. He allowed himself a small smile at the cool feeling before opening his eyes again.
"Huh?" He startled 'How the hell didn't I notice a battle going on a rooftop above me? With a hovering VTOL no less?!' His legs chose this moment to shake weakly, reminding him that his blood reserves were in the red and his bodily functions shouldn't be trusted to maintain themselves without effort on his part.
He shook his head and palmed his face, it wasn't his fight by any means. He wasn't here to fight someone else's battle, especially not in his current state. And it seemed the blonde and the fiery shadow woman stalemated each other rather well, so it was a fair fight in his book.
He sighed and tiredly turned around. Ignoring the sounds of battle just behind him he closed his eyes and focused on his clenched fist. After a moment Corvin opened his eyes and saw the world differently, gone was the blackness of the night as it was replaced by the greyness of the world, countless white blurs dotted his vision, souls of thousands of citizens, no doubt but he wasn't looking for them.
'Bingo' Corvin grinned victoriously as he caught notice of a black whirlpool just a couple of streets away. While white was the color for living things and grey for the inanimate objects black was the color for 'magic'. He said magic but it's more complicated than that, black represented anything Void related; active or passive uses of its powers, users of said power and many more anomalous phenomena.
Corvin settled into a jump/sprint stance and was just about to 'blink' away towards his salvation when a thunderous explosion made him stumble and almost fall down. He caught himself just in time but the sound of various alarms going off at once made his eyes twitch with dreadful anticipation.
He looked up and was presented with the visage of glass, shattered glass, littering the streets.
Corvin was livid, rage started to boil within him and he wasn't sure if he could stop it, even if he wanted to. Still, Corvin made a quick check and confirmed that no black spot was present in viewing distance, indicating that every window in the neighborhood shattered and that the gateway transferred to another location entirely.
He grit his teeth and balled his soaked fists with barely contained anger. Corvin could feel the turmoil in the palm of his hand as the Mark reacted to his emotions, it itself bursting with dark tendrils. He slowly turned around with a murderous expression on his face and regarded the situation briefly.
He saw the blonde and a scythe wielding girl jumping away from an explosion from under their feet and land a couple of feet away. Turning away from them Corvin regarded the woman in the chopper, she looked at him with narrowed eyes as if she was challenging Corvin to intervene.
"Oh, it would be my pleasure" Corvin broke into a feral grin and obliged happily. He was in a sorry state, but he was by no means a pushover, in fact he was one of the more trained Marked Ones in existence, courtesy of having a Grandmaster as a tutor and mentor.
He lifted his hand and his Mark flared in obedience. A tendril of darkness shot out of it and impacted the airship, it burrowed deep into it with the intent of spreading and expanding, essentially looking for the fuel tanks and 'accidentally' combusting them.
The plan looked good on paper but the woman shot multiple pellets of burning glass into the appendage and set it on fire. Corvin let go of the burning arm and watched as it was quickly consumed by flames. He huffed in annoyment and looked directly into her eyes. She had the audacity to smirk and let flames appear in her eyes.
Corvin took a double take and quickly confirmed his suspicions and showed that if she expected a quick fight she would be sorely disappointed. His eyes were normally the color of the Void itself. Grey, white and black clouds swirled around his iris while the white of his eyes was spiderwebbed with red and black veins. That itself was really noticeable and odd to a normal person but when he concentrated on them while using his powers they glowed brightly. The grey became a brilliant silver, the white became the color of a full moon while the black took on the shade of pure coal.
She was different from the rest, even compared to the other two people on the roof, her white soul molded with the black of the Void. Corvin could make out that one other person had a black smoke cloud wrapped to her soul but the blinding white of her soul almost made it invisible. The other woman beside her didn't have any darkness in her but the light given off from her soul nearly blinded Corvin. However he wasn't worried about them at the moment, his attention was focused on the woman in the air.
She was dangerous.
Corvin narrowed his twitching eyes and waved a hand, challenging her to make a move.
To her merit she was only surprised for only a moment at the sight of his appearance before her eyes took on an edge and went on the offensive.
She summoned several burning glass shards, now the size of swords and hurled them at Corvin with the speed of a high powered bullet. Corvin didn't move from his spot and acknowledged the sound of metal on metal with a small smile.
The blade in his hand clanged as he parried every sword that came his way. A few shattered after impact, leaving behind fiery embers slowly dissipating in the air while most others remained solid and impacted the ground around Corvin with a shlick.
To the outsider's eye it seemed that he moved at lighting speed parrying projectiles that came one after the other at machine gun speeds but a quick glance at his clenched fist would tell anyone knowledgeable that he wasn't playing fair.
Indeed to him the world lost its color and everything slowed almost to a crawl around him. Every Marked One had a certain 'affinity' towards something. Some people were excellent at space manipulation or spirit control, mind-reading, summoning and the like while others struggled in these fields. Of course, if anyone spent enough time learning and training something they would almost be just as good as someone with any affinity towards that subject. Case in point, Corvin's affinities were Time Dilation and soul control and he was proficient in both but if he were to go up against a member of the High Council he would admit without hesitation that he would lose, badly.
Corvin couldn't stop time entirely, it required immense concentration and years of training and even then only a few people managed to achieve that feat.
And they had all died a long time ago.
This charade went on for a short while before his opponent seemingly had enough and decided that the shotgun option was more fruitful. She summoned dozens of projectiles around herself and sent them away at the same time with a mad expression.
Corvin frowned and as he had to drop the time dilation field and jumped away. He did so just in time and was about to retaliate when he felt something pierce his lower leg. Corvin collapsed onto a knee and glanced at his leg.
She managed to pick up a glass sword while he was preoccupied and hurled it at him.
"Fuck" Corvin muttered as realization dawned on him.
All around him swords were picked up by an invisible force and darted to him. He was effectively immobilized by that sword in his leg and so he was forced to block with his own to keep the others away.
"Ah!" He was managing to parry for a while but it seemed the blood loss and exhaustion finally got to him and he slipped. A blade went through his defenses and buried itself into his midsection next to the bullet he got earlier.
It didn't end there, it was a landslide from there. It didn't even take a second for the next to come, and the next, and the one after that. By the end Corvin looked like a pin cushion full of glass and he wasn't sure how he was still alive at all, There was white around the edge of his vision and he couldn't feel most of his body by this point.. A painful glance upwards told him the answer; the woman was grinning ear to ear with a sadistic look in her eyes that told him everything.
She was toying with him.
Corvin sent her a weak, bloodied smile that promised misery and pain.
'Time for Plan Z'
Corvin's eyes flashed as he focused on his left hand, thankfully it was responding to his commands and moved around. He smiled in anticipation and turned his attention back to the woman on the airship, it was turning to leave and the side door was about to close.
'Running so soon?' Corvin mentally taunted her and gathered every ounce of strength he possessed. He let go and several dark tendrils shot forward from his open palm and impacted the sides of the ship. They latched onto it and effectively anchored it in place, a few strands went for the door and pried it open with otherworldy strength. The woman stood there completely stunned, unable to move.
'Bingo'
Corvin focused on another technique he had learned just recently, it was a highly controversial and experimental technique among his peers but he couldn't deny its effectiveness.
Another tendril shot out of Corvin's hand but this one was different, it wasn't physical, it looked like an ethereal dark shroud darting towards its victim. It was highly efficient even with a moving target, this one's hesitation just made it easier to track and hit. It met no resistance as it latched onto her body and secured itself. Once it was done with that the technique went to do its work.
'Soul steal' was a powerful technique.
Some say it should be illegal, some don't.
But even they say it should come as a last resort.
And if this wasn't a situation that called for it than Corvin didn't know what situation warranted it.
Her wits returned to her once she realized she had been caught and begun to struggle and try to pry it off of herself. It made no difference as Corvin felt the ethereal tendril supply him with her 'life force'. Like a pulsating vein it fed him and he grew stronger, his wounds began to rapidly heal, the swords began to disintegrate when some form of darkness enveloped them or pushed them out of his body. It was working, he could feel it, it didn't take ten seconds and all the swords were taken care of, another five and Corvin's wounds began to close.
Corvin stood up with a satisfied smile plastered on his face. He now felt even better when he came here, A bit of contemplation later he discerned that he had returned to his full potential and was about to end her suffering when he noticed something in the corner of his vision.
The woman was desperate by this point, screaming her lungs out her arms lit up and she made some blind motions with them.
"Ah!" Corvin let out a scream of pain as an intact sword impaled his hand.
His Marked hand.
The blind, desperate attack pierced the tattoo like mark and caused it to violently shake. Blinding light shone from his hand and the tendrils begin to falter and die. He was still getting energy but he could feel that it was doing something to his body. Corvin's eyes widened in fear as he watched his hands change before his very eyes…
They were aging… backwards.
That wasn't all, Corvin's mark was behaving weirdly, it changed the intensity of the life drain back and forth and what was worse the dark tendrils returned, only this time they slithered up Corvin's arm and burrowed into it, right down to the bone and went along from there.
He fell to his knees, paralyzed by the excruciating pain, his eyes dilated and he almost bit his tongue. He focused all of his willpower to keep his eyes open and sent a command to stop before both of them died of the sheer trauma. Only it wasn't working, his Mark was going haywire and didn't accept any input from him.
Corvin forced himself to blink as his body aged backwards slowly. he glanced at the sword stuck in his hand an idea came to his mind. Corvin brought his shaking arm around and grasped the offending piece of glass. With a gigantic effort he slowly pulled the sword out and threw it as far away as he could, it impacted the street down below and shattered with a sharp sound.
The light suddenly cut off and the smoke like tendril dissipated. The Mark's activity screeched to a halt and so did the tendrils, although they got all over Corvin's left arm and shoulder. What was unusual was that they didn't disappear, they were just there pulsating… and causing large amounts of pain.
He disregarded the pain for now and looked up to find that the airship was now speeding away and that the original pair that was fighting that woman was now looking at him with an angry frown and… awe? Nevertheless, Corvin didn't need the publicity right now so he concentrated on a rooftop across the street and gave the mental command to 'Blink'.
Corvin stopped and began hyperventilating due to the enormous amounts of pain suddenly coursing through the entirety of his left arm. He doubled over and began convulsing as he could feel the beginning of a pain induced seizure setting in. The pair rushed up to Corvin and asked if he was okay, they got no response from his fading consciousness and the last thing he saw before blacking out was the redheaded girl dialing someone on her phone? And the blonde regarding him with worry and suspicion.
And that was that, I don't know when I will be able to continue this but I'll try to do it as soon as I have the time. Until then, take care.