Rwby belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth
AN at the bottom!
Chapter 1: The Heir is Found
AN at the Bottom
The streets of Vale were quiet as a man wearing a purple suit sat on a bench in one of Vales many parks. This man appeared plain, with black hair combed back, revealing a small scar over his left brow. He waited in the quiet of the dusk as he heard the sound of heels approaching from his left, he allowed himself a glance and smirk as he saw his contact.
"Brutus." The woman, Cinder Fall, was an interesting specimen to be sure. A half maiden and servant of Salem to boot she was the ultimate pawn in the game called Remnant, that is if she survived her assignment.
"Cinder, I assume you're here to give me the little eh, 'elixir' I'm supposed to test?" The woman nodded, handing him a vial of dark stormy liquid that seemed to shake in his hand. "Nightshade? You lot finally made some, alright I'll test it, on a hunter, just to see if it works on Aura folks still." Brutus stood and walked towards the streets where Hunters in training would usually be at this time of night, and he smiled at the thought of witnessing Nightshade in action again.
Vale was a rather populous city, with many people's who lived and worked at all times of the day and night. These people would sometimes linger outside their shops or have a few open windows to let the heat from their homes and businesses out into the cool winds of the night, but ever since the crime wave had started people were terrified to have entrances for possible thieves and terrorists, so they went inside and closed their windows, ignoring those who would try to get home from late errands and hoping that they would not end up unlucky and dead.
Ruby Rose, had unfortunately been caught in the violence before and through it she had become a student at Beacon Academy and then the leader of team RWBY. She then lost her fear of being caught in the night after the skirmish she partook in at the Vale pier between her comrades and the White Fang led by Roman Torchwick. But alas Ruby Rose was set upon by a figure wearing a purple, pinstripe suit who after disarming her, forcefully injected her with a syringe full of a strange storm like liquid that boiled through her veins, eliciting screams of utter pain through the empty streets.
Unfortunately her assailant had made a critical error. He had forgotten about his former masters sporadic walks in the middle of the night, which resulted in him being surprised by the sudden feeling of being smashed, sending him soaring away from his prey and into an alleyway wall, where he managed a glimpse upon his former master who looked upon him with much disfavor before drawing out a bastard blade and advancing with startling speed, forcing Brutus, now a known traitor to flight away from the sight of his assault, leaving Ruby Rose, still being affected by his poison, but also in the care of one of the people he knew would be able to heal it.
Grimoire glared after the figure who retreated away from him, Brutus, his old follower had finally snapped, he had seen it but had not anticipated it going this badly. His eyes swept over to the unconscious girl, a huntress in training if the weapon was to be trusted, what was Brutus thinking?
He placed the girl on her back, observing the needle wound and stopping when he saw dreary silver eyes staring up at him, his brothers eyes.
"Grendel." He saw the needle and grabbed it hastily, sniffing it and recognizing the poison his brother had destroyed the recipe to before the war. He thought for only a moment before deciding to take her with him, he had spent long enough searching for Grendel's descendants and now one of them, possibly the last has fallen into his hands in what is probably the worst way possible. "Even your descendants got your shit luck Gren…" He gently picked the girl up and began to go towards one of his vassals known hideouts, with the intention of getting back to his citadel as quickly as physically possible, which was in fact about 10 minutes, during which he had been siphoning his aura into the unconscious girl, keeping her alive until they arrived at his outpost.
Barely an hour had passed before team RWBY had reported their leader's disappearance, causing an immediate return order to be sent to all of the hunters in training still in Vale, leading to the start of a quiet search lead by several hunters local to Vale itself.
This search quickly alerted a certain group of individuals who were waiting for such an event to happen to wonder what their 'friend' had done to the girl and whether or not someone could even find her.
Turning someone was sometimes difficult, due to two main reasons. Reason one was Aura, as it could push out the Vampyric blood, if there was enough aura left, though thanks to the poison, Ruby's aura was almost entirely gone. The second reason was a coin flip of sorts in how long it would take for the blood to take in the heart of the subject, if the subject was healthy this reason would be for naught, but due to circumstances with the poison again it became an issue that could make the entire process moot if it took too long.
Thankfully, the ritual and blood took quickly, giving the young Huntress the shot at survival her body needed in order to make any kind of recovery, though it still had it's cost. The costs, were mainly on the feeding process, as most Vampyres in Remnant did not feed off of blood like old fables told, instead they survived more off of aura, like a sponge sucking up water they could suck up a minor amount of aura and use that to last for several months. Ruby, unfortunately was out cold and not waking up in the foreseeable future which meant she would have to be fed a cocktail of sorts in order to gain enough essence in order to function at all.
Grimoire twisted the old steel ring on his finger, the crest catching in the light for a moment as he pondered his next move, he would obviously need the young Rose's parents to arrive in order to actually find out if any other members of the line were alive but he would also have to give Ozpin a good rending for not keeping up his end of the vow they made before the old warrior king.
Grimoire's thoughts darkened as he thought about the aftermath of the war, so many dead, many more missing, towns razed and sacked by the passing armies and no one left to record what had happened there except for that last damnable battle, the same battle that had lost him his grandnephews, he knew one had died, the eldest, but his younger brothers had survived as their names were still shining like their aura's in the old enchanted tome Thorn had made to track the family lines. But eventually those names had dimmed into blood red ink and question marks had appeared, shining and then dulling with each passing generation until now.
He had not checked that book in at least two decades, fearing what he might see and hoping beyond hope his ally would pull through, but now? Now he had to solve the riddle laid out before him and find the girl's family, hopefully before the Rose luck returned and decided to light him on fire.
Taiyang Xiao Long was having a rather pleasant morning, reading his paper, getting his mail, drinking is tea, until he read two letters, one from Ozpin at Beacon, announcing his daughter's disappearance and one from one Grimoire Samhain asking him to meet him at a coffee shop on patch to discuss business. He decided it would be better to drag Qrow with him on this one, feeling this was all too convenient for both his daughter's disappearance and this job coming up at the same time to let it slip.
He looked at the seal on the letter, made in black wax was a tome wrapped in thorns and wondered what his daughter had gotten wrapped up in.
Ozpin was panicking, Grimoire hadn't written to him in at least four years, asking after his brothers descendants as he usually did, but here he was now telling him to meet him in a cafe on patch, to talk about a decendant he had found wounded in Vale. Now Ozpin knew that Grimoire had a heart of steel and an honesty streak worse than a knight of yore, so he knew he had to spill his reasons for not telling him about his student, a student who, if killed, could set off the destruction of all four kingdoms and no one would know until the cities were burning.
He remembered his bargain with Grimoire during the aftermath of the war, he finds the descendants of Thorn Yule Rose and Grimoire will lead the remaining Vampyres in destroying Salem, which would stop the organized grimm assaults but not all of them.
And now he knew that he had lied, which meant that he would have to beg Grimoire not to destroy Vale and gods forbid this be mentioned to Taiyang, the man would have Fits over this and would probably rile up Qrow as well! In his mind that could not happen so he resolved to go to this meeting and try to smooth things over, hopefully before anyone important found out though at this point he should probably expect the worse.
Being worried for family was a natural feeling, whenever one's kin would go off on one task or another you would always have a touch of worry for them. Yang Xiao Long, had not been worried and was now panicking to the point of burning a hole in team RWBY's dorm room floor with the amount of pacing she was doing.
This was the scene that Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna walked into, promptly trying to decipher what had the blonde brawler in a bunch before beginning the conversation.
"Yang? Is everything okay?" Yang's eyes snapped to the Weiss's for a moment, holding their fire for a moment before going out.
"Ruby's missing, she went to get some more ammo for Crescent Rose and didn't come back." She paused, looking from her partner to Weiss for a moment, "I'm going to look for her in the morning, there won't be any more airships tonight." Weiss took a moment to think before looking over to Blake.
"Do you think the White Fang could have anything to do with it?" Weiss asked, sitting at her desk as she pulled out her scroll and began looking at a map of Vale.
Blake put a hand to her jaw for a moment, pondering as she took out one of her notebooks and looked through it. "The White Fang isn't all stealth anymore, they might be able to do it once or twice but not in a place like Vale."
Weiss nodded as she made a note of that. "So the reason could be local?"
Blake nodded, "It could be, It can't be Torchwick, he's been imprisoned so that's out."
They continued to brainstorm while Weiss marked a proper search pattern around the streets Ruby may have taken while trying to return to Beacon, creating a very wide area to search while also marking down spots where her partner could have gone to ground.
Meanwhile, hiding just out of sight and listening to their plans was a figure obscured by illusions, smiled as she returned to tell her master of the news. Little to her own knowledge something far stealthier was watching her as well, sniffing occasionally at the stranger that had trespassed into his home.
The mornings in Vale were rather relaxed most days, with people casually walking to work or simply strolling about on the day's errands. Today looked to be that day for most but for the three men sitting in one of the private rooms at a rather old cafe in the village of Lowhook just outside Vale on the island of Patch, it was one of the most stressful mornings they had had in ages.
"Oz, tell me, do you know where Ruby is?" Qrow was probably the worst off, having flown non stop to reach the cafe to meet with Tai and Ozpin. His hair was messier than usual, with leaves and twigs hanging from it like a ruined nest.
Taiyang looked no better with bags under his eyes and shaky hands that nearly spilt his coffee as they waited for their unknown contact.
"Gentlemen I only know what you know, that she is safe and recovering from some ordeal from last evening, what that ordeal was is up to speculation." He paused, looking at the door and to Qrow's shock seemed afraid of the occasional creaks of the Cafe. "I have had dealings with the one who wrote to us, and seeing as how I have failed in his and I's deal from after the war… I can only hope he does not enact all of the punishments." Qrow straightened, his eyes widening as though he had recalled a terrible detail.
"You mean to say he's one of them?" Ozpin nodded, causing Qrow to rub his face with his hand as he looked over to Tai, giving a look that Tai had not seen since the eve of Raven's departure, regret and sorrow.
Tai's response was cut off however as a figure seemed to materialize in the shadows by the door. "Gentlemen, good morning." Qrow and Tai gawked as Ozpin stood, holding out his hand to the man only to have it smacked aside. "Ozpin, I am very disappointed in you, as would the King and his Wizard." Ozpin flinched slightly, as though he were a boy being reprimanded by his father. "You can wait outside, I see that the girl's father has arrived and I wish to speak to him and Chief Branwen, alone." Ozpin nodded, leaving quickly and closing the door behind him as he left, leaving two bewildered huntsman and a still cloaked figure.
The figure sighed, removing his cloak and draping it over the previously unoccupied seat as he settled in, allowing the two huntsmen to observe him. He wore a simple grey jacket, with a few pockets and embroidered with vines over a simple white shirt, at his hip they saw a hand and a half longsword of little identification to them, he wore simple black slacks that ran down to a pair of boots that rested leisurely under the table, ankles crossed as he sipped from the cup he had revealed. "So-" began the man leaning back as he observed them. "Introductions first then?"
The residents of Vale awoke that morning to several pairs of Huntsmen and Huntresses picking through the alleyways by the airship docks, to the citizens this was somewhat normal as some Hunters spent the night in Vale, waiting for their friends to come for them in the morning. But unlike other times, the unknown hunter did not appear and it became apparent that something possibly awful had happened, causing the local rumor mills to stir to life as the search spread throughout the town.
In one of the seedier bars in downtown Vale, Brutus licked his wounds, trying to recover from his brief encounter with his previous master the previous evening while also enjoying the fact that the fool was probably not going to heal her, leaving her to suffer at the poisons clutches, bleeding internally and suffering from organ failure as her soul was slowly torn asunder.
His musing was interrupted as a figure sat next to him, wearing a button down shirt with rolled sleeves and sporting a pair of mutton chops it took only a second for Brutus to recognize the former spy within the White Fang, but a second was too long as he felt his mental psyche torn apart, the claws of his known but unmoving assailant tearing memories from his mind, liquidizing his mind while torturing the soul within as his former fellow Vampyre sipped from a glass of water, watching as the tall man once known as Brutus become a blubbering mess before expiring while sitting at his barstool, slumping over the counter as he did so.
"They really should have looked for a smarter spy, you simply couldn't think enough on your own, could you, Brutus?" Tukson smiled as he finished his drink and left, looking through his former friends thoughts as he walked. The boss would want to know about this, it's been too long since the lads in Chains Gate had gotten any action, besides, he now had an excuse to tear that Mercury fuckers throat out!
The search for Ruby had gone on for much of the morning and had extended into the afternoon, leading to the search becoming wider and wider spread, leaving the entire search party baffled. That is until Coco had swindled some surveillance footage from a guard, resulting in them witnessing Ruby's vanishing into thin air. Even when freezing the frame at the point of vanishing had only revealed another figure grappling her out of frame. This narrowed the search to that single street, resulting in team JNPR finding the site of the scuffle, and a rather sizable dent in one of the walls. They also found a trail of blood that vanished into thin air at the end of the alley, causing the worry of the students to become twofold as they were told shortly after by Mercury that his team had found something in the complete opposite direction of the first site, which raised quite a few eyebrows.
Jaune, being a half decent liar himself saw a hint of a lie in Mercury's statement, and proceeded to warn his team and team RWBY, though when he went to tell Coco when they were far enough away from Mercury she simply cut him off saying that it might be possible that the Haven students had had a hand in it. So to keep appearances up team RWBY and CFVY went with Mercury while team JNPR stayed to collect evidence with the assistance of a rather late team SSSN, who they caught up on the situation after it was explained that Neptune had been slow to pick up the urgency of the situation.
When they arrived they found a fairly large spattering of blood and several shell casings spread around the ground, these captured Yang's attention first, since none of them seemed to match the caliber that Crescent Rose used. By the way that Coco was looking at the shells as well she could probably tell something was off. Yang decided to not voice her findings.
Deep in the mountains of Vale, there was a cave, but not just any cave, this cave was warm and expansive, and was home to a most ancient being.
"Alright, let's try this again eh? Carry the three, take off the nineteen, no no no that just won't do! There has to be another way around this!" An short man with grey hair that blazed orange and red at the ends stomped around his lab, he was the last of his kind after all, he was entitled to a good stomping. "This one was supposed to work! Damn it!" The man slumped onto the ground, groaning as he wondered what to do as his magic plucked up a rather curious scent from his bookshelf.
"Well hello there, that's most curious." An ancient tome, 'The Rose Family Record' was glowing, it's ancient pages burning with new information.
The ancient tome had been crafted after the fall of the ancient city of Rosewood, a way to preserve the Rose brothers family tree without alerting authorities to their activities. And now printed neatly on the page discussing Grendel's line was one Ruby Rose which could mean only one thing.
"Graham! Pack the bags! We're going to Vale!"
AN: Hey guys it's been awhile eh?
So here it is, the new story, or old story rewritten. I hope you guys like it, Have an excellent day!
By the way I'm looking for a Beta
-LG