Hello there. It would appear that you stumbled across the little story project that I a currently writing. This is mainly just to see if I'm decent at writing and possibly decent at... you know... getting good reviews and making people happy. Should I do well with this first chapter, I will most likely continue to give this little story of mine to the public... If not, I'll just keep it to myself. Other than that, hope you people enjoy and have a good time reading this short little project that I'm doing. I am also currently awaiting confirmation from the artist of the cover art I would like to use, so yeah... I may or may not get cover art.
Pandemonium Fortress
Ten years. Ten fucking years. Ten years of torment, of agony. Of death. Ten years of searching for herself, her past, trying to find her way in the world. It only took her ten years to get her memories back completely, of her life before Sanctuary, of her life before the Eternal Conflict. She had a family, children… a lover. And now she could go back and see them once again.
The death blow to Malthael, the corrupted archangel of death, came from her crossbow. Diablo had been felled by her blade, Thorns. Her life for the past ten years had been filled with more horrors and abominations than she previously had ever witnessed. But she was a hunter, and it was her job. To hunt demons, regardless of form. She fought demons in her life before she had it ripped away from her and she would continue to fight them until the day she fell herself. As she sat in silence, overlooking the vast world below, the rest of her group began to talk, contemplating the results of their actions.
"So," Kharazim, the monk of the group, said "We have defeated Malthael. Should this be the end of our fight? Can we finally rest?"
"No," Xul, the necromancer of the little traveling band, said "He consumed the Black Soulstone. When he died he released the spirits of the demons that had been trapped within."
Sonya, the resident barbarian, then spoke, "And you mean by this?"
"He means the Prime Evils have been released. I can feel the spirits trembling with their return." Nazeebo, the witch doctor, explained.
"Ah," Sonya replied, "That is what you mean."
Johanna, the crusader of the group, then spoke up "While it is true that they were released, they did not return to Sanctuary. They have gone somewhere else."
"Well, if they left, where did they go? They can only go so far with a portal." Li-Ming said. Being a wizard, she knew the sort of magic required to make a portal, specifically one without Horadric sigils.
Suddenly, Tyrael, the human archangel of wisdom, came up to the group, "There are many worlds, many places. Many worlds that demons would love to control."
"So Tyrael," Johanna said, "Do you have any idea as to where we must go to fight them?"
It was then that SHE spoke up. She had been sitting in silence for the entire conversation, just looking out over the Field of Conflict, contemplating the wars they had just fought. She said, "My home."
Everyone looked at her confused and sat in silence for a minute. Kharazim was the first to speak, "Pardon?"
"My home. They are going to my home." She said.
"Valla, what do you mean?" Li-Ming asked, confused.
"What I mean is that they left behind the war on this world. They left this world to go to the one I am from. And to wage war on it." Valla said, pulling back the white hooded cape that she wore, revealing her black hair that was cut short, down to her neck at its longest. Valla was an interesting woman. She was… different… from other demon hunters. Most Demon Hunters did what they did for vengeance and justice, and hunting demons were just their way of delivering that justice for those who fell by demonic means.
But Valla didn't.
Valla… appeared out of almost nowhere. She had no family, no friends in this world and she was stricken with amnesia, remembering nothing. Valla fought for her own reasons. She always said that she fought not for vengeance, but so others didn't have to fight.
Over her travels, she became known as The Nameless Hunter. Reasonably so, seeing as she had no name that she could recall. Over the years she became close friends with Kharazim, Sonya, Johanna, Nazeebo, Xul and Li-Ming, the seven of them traveling and defeating demons and other monsters, growing in strength. Eventually, the others began calling her Valla, simply because it was easier than referring to her any other way. After a while, they found Tristram, it's lands plagued by the restless dead. It was there they met Deckard Cain and his niece Leah. Upon discovering the cause of the rising dead, a fallen star, the seven ventured out to put an end to it. They found, in the crater of the fallen star that struck Tristram Cathedral, a man who did not know his name. After recovering the man and returning to New Tristram, they set out to find that man's sword, or rather its shards, in hopes that it would rekindle his memory. One of the shards was in a temple built by ancient Nephalem, the descendants of children of Angels and Demons. In this temple, the group discovers that they too are also Nephalem. It is also in this temple that Valla begins to recover some of her own memories, bit by bit. A voice saying 'These are your first steps', and a duo of bubbly little girls. Slowly, over time, Valla got back more and more of her memories, but it wasn't till their battle with Diablo on the Silver Spire that she remembered everything. Her past, her name, her children, her husband, her friends, her family. Diablo tried used the ideas of her never seeing her family again or seeing them killed by the armies of hell, one of the two, to strike fear in her. It didn't work as expected, putting it simply. Valla got enraged and managed to kill him singlehandedly, only after a long and excruciatingly difficult battle with the superpowered Demon, before causing a blast of light that purified the High Heavens of the demonic corruption that infested it only minutes before. Then, after Malthael took The Black Soulstone (A method of entrapping the souls of Angels and Demons and a weapon of deterrence developers by humanity during the Eternal Conflict), Valla killed him in Pandemonium Fortress. Alone. By herself, Valla faced down Death made physical in form. And she won but as with the fight with Diablo, it was difficult, almost impossible. However, when she won, she released accidently released the demons the group worked so hard to trap in the Soulstone, letting them loose on the world.
"So, what should we do?" Sonya asked, "None of us know how to travel worlds."
When the group looked at her, Sonya put up her hands in defense "Ok fine. I don't know how to travel worlds."
Kharazim then rolled his eyes and said, "Neither do I. Li-Ming, would you know how to do this?"
Li-Ming nodded and said "Of course I can Kharazim. Do you think I am a novice in the magical arts?"
Johanna looked up and said, "You just said portals can't go that far in distance."
Li-Ming smiles and replied, "I said portals, not Gateways."
"And what, might I ask, is the difference?" Valla asked, curious for an explanation.
"Portals are precise but are difficult to make and limited in distance. You could travel from… let's say, Tristram to Bastion's Keep in a portal and end up precisely where you want to be, but you couldn't go much further." Li-Ming explained, "Gateways, on the other hand, can get you just about anywhere, at least in the general area you intend to go to, within a two to around a four-thousand-mile radius of your intended destination. Imagine it like throwing a dart at a really far away target."
"Interesting explanation." Johanna said, "So we create a gateway to this world, then we portal to the required location. Seems simple enough."
"That's the only problem," Li-Ming said, "I'm the only one here who can create portals and I need to personally know the place to do so. So, once we get there, we are in the dark."
Nazeebo looked at Li-Ming with a strange look and said, "We can create portals, like the town portals we use."
Before Li-Ming could respond, Xul said "Those are because of the Horadric sigils that are in the towns. We would not be able to portal to those locations without them."
"So, we must hope we get lucky with where the gateway drops us, then go from there. That is our plan?" Sonya asked.
"Yes," Valla responded, "That is the plan. I believe."
She then turned to Tyrael and asked, "Tyrael, are you going to join us?"
Tyrael turns to the group, hefting his mighty sword over his shoulder, and replied, "Of course, Nephalem. Where demons go, so must we."
"Then it is decided," Johanna said, the group turning to their comrade, "We shall go. But we will need a guide, someone to show us through this strange and unfamiliar world. Valla, could you do this for us, seeing as how you know this world?"
Valla nodded and replied, "Yes, of course. Now, Li-Ming, could you get started on that Gateway thingy?"
Li-Ming chuckled and said, "Sure!"
Merely a few minutes after she started, Li-Ming observed the fruits of her labor. A giant purple and blue swirly, a combination of the Horadric and Arcane arts. While not a perfect method of travel, it would suffice for now. She called out to the rest of her companions, "The gateway is done!"
As all the group gathered around to see the vortex that Li-Ming had constructed, Sonya asked, "So, we may depart now?"
Valla nodded and replied, "Yes… we can. But before we go, I have a request."
"And what would that be, Valla?" Xul said.
"Please, call me Summer. Summer Rose."
Fur as black as the night sky above. Masks and claws as white as the moon and snow. Splashes of red painted the white of the forest floor like a badly drawn picture. But none of that mattered to her.
Her focus was on one thing and one thing alone.
She saw a figure in the distance. She began to approach the figure to get a closer look but only saw the figure's back, which was covered by a long white hooded cloak. They were facing a beacon of Light that was so bright that it hurt her eyes to look at it for too long.
The moment she got a good look at the figure's back, the figure started moving away from her and towards the Light in a sedate pace, never once speeding up nor slowing down.
Panicked, she followed the figure in hopes of catching up to them. Yet the distance between them remained the same. She moved her legs into a light jog and then into a full-on sprint to close the distance but to no avail. It never changed, as if she ran on a treadmill.
Yet through all of that, the figure showed no sign of increasing their speed. They somehow still walked forward in a calm pace, as if they were in no hurry and with nowhere to be.
She willed her legs to move even faster to catch the cloaked figure. She ignored how her legs were burning in protest, she pushed on and on until through some unknown miracle, she finally got closer to the figure.
Before she could grab the figure by the shoulder, the figure turned their head to look behind them, at her. The top half of the mysterious figure's face was hidden by the hood so the mouth, which slowly turned to a warm smile, was all that she could see.
Tears began to well up in her eyes as the figure's mouth opened to say five words.
"Just a little longer, Ruby."
"Mom!" Ruby Rose woke, sitting up, stiff as a board, with her hand reaching out before her as if it was about to grab a hold of something, "Huh?"
The young reaper looked around her in confusion. Gone were snowy forest and the dissolving Grimm corpses. Only the dorm room of team RWBY.
She shook her head to clear the haze of sleep. Luckily, no one else in her team woke up from her outburst because Yang's snoring drowned it out. For the first time, she was glad of her older sister's bad sleeping habits.
Ruby thought she stopped having that dream years ago but apparently, she was wrong.
The young huntress-in-training climbed down from her bed as quietly as she can. She wasn't a ninja like Blake, but she could totally pull the whole sneaky act off when she wants to. Like right now, for example.
She gave herself a fist pump after successfully making her way around the room without waking anyone up. Blake didn't stir even with her more sensitive cat ears.
As she rummaged through books for what she had in mind, she thought back to the dream that she had.
It all started after learning of her mother's death. Ruby was in denial of mother's death at first and thought (or more like hoped) she would return home someday. This belief led to the dreams. Almost every night, Ruby would see her mother walking away from her. Every time, she would chase after her to bring her back home. And fail every time because no matter how fast she ran, she could never catch up to her beloved mother.
Until now. Now she got to her.
Due to her distraction, Ruby didn't notice the large white binder, one that was most likely belonging to Weiss, at her feet and painfully stubbed her toe on it for her trouble.
Mindful to not wake the others up, the adolescent leader opened her mouth in an inaudible scream of pain while bouncing on one foot and cradling the other. Her Aura may have lessened the impact but it still hurt a great deal. Her Aura finally kicked in an alleviated the ache for a much-needed recovery, as stubbing one's toe is the worst pain one can endure.
Ruby looked down to glare at the offending object, tempted to kick it but thought better of it since she would just hurt her foot again. Her glare gave way to a thoughtful expression as she stared at the binder. It could be put to better use instead.
The young and determined Rose struggled to lift the binder to her bed but she only managed to raise it up to her chest. With one last groan of exertion, she tossed the binder to her bed where its landing was muffled by her pillows.
'Wow,' she thought in disbelief at her luck. She wasn't even aiming for her pillows.
Ruby climbed back up her bed and placed the blanket over herself and the binder. Under the cover of the blanket, she turned on the flashlight function on her Scroll. With pen in hand, she began her preparations for the best day ever.
It was something to keep her mind off her strange dream about Summer Rose.
Valeish Mountains, 2216 miles from Beacon Academy, approximately twenty days travel on foot…
The snow covered the land around the village at the foot of a huge mountain. It was dark out, very dark. Hendrick, the towns huntsman, stood at his post in the watchtower, watching. Waiting. He was waiting for the Grimm to arrive, waiting, with his hands shivering, clamped on his alarm. As his eyes began to dull, to grow heavy, Hendrick checks his scroll.
'Seven minutes till guard change.' He thought as he put his scroll away.
Turning around, Hendrick saw a pair of glowing red eyes. Then two, four, twelve, thirty-four, sixty-eight. Hendrick's eyes shot open, realizing that this was a Grimm attack and a large one at that. Quickly pressing the alarm button, Hendrick turned himself to the onslaught of Grimm, of teeth and death. Pulling out his rifle/sword, Hendrick fired dust round after dust round into the oncoming tide of horrors, feeling the black beasts one at a time. Two of his fellow hunters, his wife Lila and Jade, a green-haired friend of his wife, joined him. They all fired off many rounds, killing a total of eighteen of the Grimm, most being Beowolves and a few being Ursa. Realizing that the battle would end in closer quarters, the three hunters leapt off the ramparts of the walls to go to the gates. Suddenly, the gate burst open, revealing five Deathstalkers, fifteen Ursa, and was thirty Beowolves.
"That's too many," Lila said, "There is no way we can survive this."
"Don't worry, Lila, help is on the way." Hendrick said, before muttering "I hope…"
The Grimm charged at the three hunters, as they readied their weapons to fight to the death. Just before the three were about to be overwhelmed by what seemed to be a never-ending tide, a massive wall erupted from the ground. What surprised them the most, however, was what the wall was made of.
Human bones.
"What… the… fuck?" Jade asked as she looked around to see the perpetrator. Just as she said that, three turrets, crossbows by the looks of them, sprang from the ground and began to fire at the Grimm, shredding them.
Almost as soon as the turrets went down, a flaming circle formed on the ground, and three heads burst from it, similarly flamelike, before sending tounges of flame at the Grimm, which were still trapped by the bone wall.
Just then, the bone wall broke apart, as the remaining Grimm charged the hunters, seemingly ignoring the crossbows and the three flaming dragon heads that continued to tear swaths in their ranks.
Suddenly, a woman in full white and black combat armor… appeared in front of the hunters. She wielded an ornate flail in her right hand and white shield with a black cross in the center in her left.
"Get behind me." She ordered, her voice is that of a leader of armies, firm and strong. She raised her shield to face the Grimm, only for a bright flash of light to be thrown from it, immobilizing the Grimm caught in its flash.
"SONYA, KHARAZIM, NOW!" The woman before the hunters shouted, as a different woman, wielding two massive swords, and a man, wielding nothing but gauntlets on his hands leapt up from behind them. The woman with the two swords landed first, impacting the ground and causing it to shatter around her, entrapping some unfortunate Grimm with her. Swirling around at speeds fast enough to cause a tornado, she sliced through Grimm after Grimm, her blades ignoring the bone armor that protected the beasts, the howls of pain jolting the hunters as she sliced through the Grimm like butter.
The man landed after the woman, and thrust his hand out, causing the air in front of him to rush forward like a bullet, cutting through each beast caught in its past. The man then practically blinked to one of the remaining Deathstalkers, punching it in its bone mask and shattering it, causing the beast to scream in pain. He then wound up his back leg, performing a lashing tail kick and splattering the remains of the scorpion Grimm to the wall before dashing away to another group of Grimm.
The woman in front to the hunters threw her shield out, connecting it with many of the approaching Beowolves, stunning them again. She ran forward with her flail and smashed it into one of the Beowolves heads, decapitating it in an instant, before turning to another, tripping it, and crushing its head with her boot, only to catch her shield and bash it into another, oncoming Beowolf.
Another Ursa attempted to rush the hunters while the woman wasn't present. This, however, was a fatal mistake, as another bone cage shot up around it and a GIANT FUCKING METEOR crashed down on it, obliterating the Ursa. As the battle continued to rage, a towering monster erupted from the ground and grabbed an Ursa by the face and tore its jaw off, while some… dog like things ripped through the Beowolves. Suddenly, a woman appeared, flanked by a man on her left who wore a tribal mask, who carried around a shrunken head and a knife. The man to his left had a blanched shirt and pale skin, wielding a wicked scythe with a green blade and a short, jagged knife made of a similar material. On the women in the center's right stood another woman, this one with a ponytail and long black hair. She wore a headdress with spikes, a gauntlet that looked scaly and had claws for fingers on her left hand, and what looked like a wand with a floating purple stone in the middle in her right and a floating orb in her left. The final man stood on the far right, a massive ornate sword held in one of his gauntlet-clad hands and a green cloak draped over his body. The woman in the center wore a white cloak that reached to her ankles, with two small hand-held crossbows and a quiver strapped to her back and an ornate handcrafted sword on her belt.
"Have the Grimm been dealt with?" The white cloaked woman asked, directed at the man in green.
The man responded in a deep, melodic voice "Yes, that they have. Though we must hurry if we are to stop the Great Evil's plans for this world."
The rest of the group nodded, and the man in the monk attire looked over at the three hunters, who were still shell-shocked from the strange abilities demonstrated by this group of strangers. He walked up to them and asked, "Will this town be alright to defend itself from a future attack of these demons?"
Hendrick nodded and replied "Yes, I believe we will. You know, you guys did save us… do you want a reward? Money, food, clothes?"
The group shook their heads simultaneously and the woman in white replied, "There is no need for that. It is our duty and pleasure to help."
As the group of strangers began to walk away, the woman in white said, "Actually, there is something you could get for us."
Hendrick looked confused and asked, "What's that?"
"Directions." The woman replied.
And with that, away flew a crow.
Ozpin sat in his office, sipping his coffee, a regular occurrence for the headmaster of Beacon. He looked over papers, reports, messages, the like. Honestly, he was quite bored right now, seeing as his allies were all doing other things, out finding maidens, protecting said maidens, protecting the Huntsman academies, teaching in said academies, managing a military, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. To be truthful, waiting for the presumed attack is a lot more stressful than the attack itself.
Ozpin sighed looking out the window of his office, the early morning sky a bright blue. Suddenly, a crow landed on the chair in front of him and transformed into a man. Specifically, the crow transformed into a very winded and tired Qrow.
"Qrow, I didn't expect you here so soon." Ozpin said, "Did you find a maiden already?"
Qrow did not respond right away. To be fair, he didn't know how to. What had he seen, truly? Qrow then decided to speak, saying "Oz… I don't know what I just saw…"
Ozpin gave him a curious look and said "Well, could you describe the encounter? Do you think that they were the people who attacked Amber?"
"I… No… I don't think so, at least." Qrow said, contemplating his words, "Unless the powers of a maiden include large flashes of stunning light, cracking the earth by jumping on it, spin kicking a Deathstalker to a pulp, summoning Hydra's that are made out of fire, and chucking meteors things."
Ozpin looked surprised at Qrow, seeing as to how exaggerated most of his stories were. But Qrow was deadly serious. Ozpin began to ask "Did you get to talk to…"
"Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the bone wall and the zombie dogs?" Qrow said nonchalantly.
"The what?" Ozpin replied, stunned, "Okay, maybe it would be best for you to explain this from the beginning of the incident."
Qrow pulled out his flask out and takes a swig of alcohol. This was going to be… interesting, to say the least.
Starting off, Qrow said "Ok, starting off, I was in the southeastern part of Vytal, mountain area, right? So, I'm just flying around, looking for suspicious things, when a village sends out this distress beacon, something like seventy Grimm showed up on their doorstep, in the middle of the night. So, naturally, I went to help. When I got there, I was too late, seeing as how the village already got some help from… a band of people. Don't know who they were, why they were there, but they fought the Grimm with such vigor and tenacity, it was like they were fully trained hunters."
Ozpin sat forward in his chair and asked, "Could you describe to me the appearance of these strangers?"
Qrow nodded and said "Well, the first one I saw was a woman. She looked like a goddamn knight in shining armor. She had a huge white shield with a black cross in the center and flail. She also was the one who did the stunny light thingy with her shield. The next two were this bald guy and a strong girl. The strong girl had these two massive swords and did the cracking earth thing. She also spun around and had to have cleaved several Grimm into thin strands by the time she was done with spinning. The bald guy did the kicking a Deathstalker so hard it explodes thing. If I'm not mistaken, he also set his leg on fire while doing it and palm-struck the air so hard it gutted several Grimm."
"Intriguing." Ozpin said, "Do you think that these would be their semblances?"
"No, it's too varied." Qrow said "I mean, the Schnees can do a lot with their glyphs, but those are all still glyphs. What these guys did… it wasn't semblance. It was comparable to maidens. Maybe not all four of them at once, but still, these guys could a number to any Maiden, any day. Oz, these guys are like forces of nature."
"Very well, I trust your judgment Qrow. Continue." Ozpin replied.
"So then after that, the rest of the group came. There were five more and explaining what all of them did would take way to long, so I'm just going to give you the jist of what they looked like. The first guy looked like he was wearing a tribal mask, and I think he was the one who did the zombie dog thing. The next guy was wearing this brown shirt and pants with knee guards and the spikiest boots I've ever seen, and he had this wicked green scythe and dagger. Then there was this princess looker purple robes, a spiked tiara, a gauntlet with claws, some weird floaty thingy that was purple and a huge wand thing with another purple orb thing. The next guy was huge and had this green cloak, this golden gauntlet, and this silver and gold sword. The last person, a woman, I think, had these crossbows and a quiver on her back and a sword on her side. She also wore a white cloak, like Summer did. You know… before she died."
"Interesting." Ozpin said, "Very well. I believe you deserve a break after traveling like that. Take the next few days off."
"Thanks, Oz." Qrow replied, "Guess I could use some time with my nieces."
Well then... that's a wrap for this time. Please leave your reviews and any criticism you may have. After all, this is my first Fanfic, so I suppose that I will need some practice... Well then, I do believe I talk too much. If you have any ideas for future chapters, Pm me pls. Also, this fic will include an OC team, so if that's a turn off for you... well... I dunno what to do.
I think that covers all the obligatory fanfiction writer things I have to say... in that case see you all next time. Bye!