Hallows Eve: (Part I)
Characters: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Whitley Schnee, OC (Crystal Rose-Schnee), Summer Rose, Blake Belladonna (Mentioned), Yang Xiao Long (Mentioned)
Pairings: Whiterose, Bumblebee
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings, these belong to Rooserteeth and Monty Oum, may he rest in peace.
Summary:
Weiss Schnee, Vampire of the Schnee clan allows a curiosity of her past take her on a road which reveal a secret her Father has kept from her, a secret which will force a conflict to fruition.
Vale's Heroic Burial Grounds
Weiss Schnee is powerful for her age. A young blood Vampire turned to the Schnee clan Weiss remembers nothing of her past, and her curiosity has finally gotten the better of her.
The night is black with a full moon illuminating the ground with a deep glow. It's Hallow's Eve and tonight magic is felt in the air, rustling in the falling leaves, welled in the ground like rain water. Tonight is a night of darkness meeting light, and magic burns throughout life, tonight is a night of miracles and horrors.
Darkness cloaks the pale skinned Vampire as she drops to the shadows in her white as snow combat skirt. Icy eyes peer from the black of the tree and roam the scape. She'd been told that if she wanted to know her past she must find the grave of Rose on Hallow's Eve. When naught but the movement of the tree branches and fall of leaves is caught by her gaze she decides to chance it.
Vale was under the protection of the most powerful huntress of this age, the Red Reaper. So powerful was this huntress that even a combined effort on the parts of Vampires, Werebeasts, and Ghouls hadn't been enough to destroy her, in fact for her such a fight was finally considered a challenge. Because of this Weiss had been warned to stay far from Vale so as to avoid death. Weiss however had no fear of the spectre of death, no her fear belonged to the sense of wrongness in her soul, a sense that something was off.
Like a wraith not a sound breaks the silence of the eerily quiet night as Weiss steps to the simple gravestone. Staring down at the mottled and cracked headstone Weiss' dead heart pulls in a longing she doesn't understand. Intricately and carefully carved it reads 'Summer Rose, beloved mother and wife, thus kindly I scatter'. Her hand moves of its own accord slowly approaching the headstone, but she hesitates. Something is more off than before, like her entire body is wrong. Her skin crawls and the blood in her veins feels like it's boiling, her pale skin becomes translucent revealing her inner body to any watching. Weiss' gut feels like it is twisting upon itself as she hisses and pain shoots across her. Crying out Weiss falls to her knees, her muscles weak and refusing her commands. She pants ragged uneven breaths as her body feels like it's tearing itself apart faster the closer she is to the headstone.
"What do we have here?" Questions a dead monotone voice. Hot air falls across Weiss' burning neck and Weiss struggles to get another breath in as a fire burns throughout her body faster and hotter than it had before. "You look like you've trespassed, but you couldn't have gotten to this headstone if you had. You'd have to be an ancient, but even an ancient wouldn't be like this."
A crescent shaped blade slips beneath Weiss' chin and tilts her head back up to stare at the writing. The young woman is on her hands and knees, she can't even get to the sword on her hip as she's left at the mercy of the Huntress behind her. Hoping to block out the pain which was steadily getting worse Weiss focuses on the woman behind her. Weiss would guess that the Huntress is taller than her own height and slim despite the giant blade held at her throat.
"No answer? You desecrate my mother's grave by your presence and you have nothing to say?" Says the voice, but the monotone is gone, replaced by an edge and a pull of the blade closer to Weiss' throat.
"I… I was told to come here," Weiss gasps, her voice raspy because her vocal cords are on fire.
"Told? How would a Vampire like you learn the location of my Mother's grave? Answer me quickly before I behead you."
"I wanted… I wanted to learn about my past… a vendor told me, said find the grave of Rose," she struggles out. Weiss can guess based off the deepness of the voice the woman is most likely in her thirties and even her current state can feel how much she favours her right side.
"Your past? Why would a Vampire like you be concerned by your past?" Grunts the voice, the edge deeper and more brutal and enforced by another pull of the scythe blade. "If I were you I'd be concerned with your future, what little of one you have left."
Weiss turns and her eyes catch on something that sets her body into complete pain. A tombstone directly next to the one she was before was well kept, not a single crack or moss had marred its surface. Fresh white roses rest before it. The stone's inscription reads 'Weiss Rose, loved mother and wife, burdened by a royal test may roses lead her to eternal rest.'
Weiss' eyes remain fixed on the stone rereading the name and epithet. Those icy eyes locked like a padlock each word falling away until all she can read is 'Weiss'. Something tugs at her and Weiss' eyes close, when they open she sees blood slicked and layered across blackened grass gnarled roots. Weiss squeezes her eyes shut trying to block out the image but when she opens them again she's looking into orbs of gleaming metal, with a forced smile and water beading the edges of those quivering silver pools. Then Weiss feels it, the pain of wounds in her chest and the gaze of many eyes all locking with her own.
When Weiss closes and then opens her eyes again she is face to face with the woman who'd been behind her holding a scythe blade to her throat. The woman's face is framed by hair as black as night and blood red at the tips. Her eyes are bright gunmetal wide and her mouth hangs open as she stares right into Weiss' icy orbs. Suddenly Weiss' body, in the arms of this Huntress, no longer is on fire, her strength is returning and her body feels refreshed.
Yet despite Weiss' racing heartbeat and the same rapid slams she can hear in the other woman's chest Weiss is not afraid of the Huntress holding her, instead her heart speeds by her in euphoria. Then like the blood red rose of her namesake a crimson currency of blood pours from the Red Reaper's mouth and her knees buckle, a hand stuck through her chest.
The young Vampire stares with icy eyes colder than the darkest ocean as she peers around the dying huntress to see her younger 'brother' with a wicked ear to ear grin.
"I did it! I killed the Red Reaper! I did what father couldn't, now he'll have to make me the heir and disown you!" Whitley shouts as Weiss lets loose a scream like a banshee. Pulling a gleaming blade from the Red Reaper's waist Weiss spins the chamber of it and squeezes the trigger. Fire explodes forth from the tip of the rapier and slams into Whitley. The other white haired Vampire digs his hand and claws into the ground leaving a rut in the ground from where Weiss' fireball struck him.
"You killed her! You killed my wife!" Weiss screams, yet she doesn't know why that sounds right, why it feels right. A tingle in her soul spreads the same fire through her body, but this time it empowered her, it wasn't a debilitating pain but a boon of energy far more powerful than her vampiric abilities. The wind whips Weiss' hair into a frenzy and rushes past her ears. She pulls back her arm and flicks the mechanism of the rapier before lunging forward. Even Weiss' vampiric speed is no match for Whitley's prowess with their powers. Side stepping the deadly blade Whitley slams the palm of his open hand into Weiss' side sending her off course.
Weiss' foot hits the ground, slides and cracks, before weakening and sending her towards the dirt. Her icy orbs look on Whitley as he steps closer to her and raises a a clawed hand, the moonlight gleaming off the sharp dagger-like weapons. Weiss squeezes her eyes shut and feels that power within her once more, burning and yearning to get out, with no option left she did just that.
A glow shines from beneath Whitley's feet and as Weiss relinquishes her hold on whatever was inside her it sends the boy Vampire flying. Weiss recovers quickly, standing up and holding the sword's tip level with Whitley's chest. Darting forward Weiss slashes and stabs with the rapier, trying to catch Whitley with more than a glancing flesh wound.
Whitley spins using his claws to strike Weiss' hand and send the sword flying from her grip. For her part Weiss manages to keep fighting switching to her claws she strikes out at her brother.
Weiss' white hair billows as the winds pick up scattering leaves across the fighting. A flash like lightning which strikes in the background as Whitley's claws head for Weiss' face. A clap of thunder ringing in their ears as Weiss blocks the blow with her forearm. The two Vampiric adversaries continue to trade blows, while unbeknownst to them someone is working in the background.
Crystal Rose watches in amazement with her ice speckled gunmetal irises as a pair of vampires, one of them looking a lot like her mother fights in the middle of her grandmother's graveyard. Raising her crossbow and looking through the lenses she uses her mother's teaching to know her enemy before charging in. It's a good thing too, otherwise she might not have noticed a gleaming silver blade lying on the blackening grass. Slinging the crossbow and pulling out a scythe Crystal rushes forward, failing to notice the red cape sadly flapping in the wind at her grandmother's gravestone.
Weiss swipes across Whitley's chest and a small amount of blood leaks out from his tattered business shirt. The blue and white stained a deep red as he hisses like a snake. Jumping backwards to give himself more room Whitley smiles as he slides, dirt rising in a cloud and obscuring Weiss' vision. Without a single hesitation Whitley rushes forwards the wind whistling past his ears before ending in a shattering boom when his open palms make contact with Weiss' chest.
Weiss' scream dies in her throat as the air is pushed mercilessly from her lungs and she flies backwards. Flipping head over heels Weiss hits the ground roughly twenty feet away and tumbles rolling like a child's ball. Dirt smudges the pristine clothes and rips form as Weiss slams directly into a tree, her head hits the tree and deep red blood trickles down the blackened and burned bark. Groggily Weiss' eyes struggle open her eyelids feeling like weights.
Whitley places his hand on his knee and pushes hard to get back on his feet, but his legs are still weak and he stumbles. The bark of the tree is hard and bites deeply into his hands when he hits it. Struggling to keep his balance Whitley takes heavy steps forward. Working his way to Weiss who had yet to try and get up. Whitley groans as he falls to his knees before his sister, panting heavily while supporting himself with the tree Weiss was leaning against.
"How… did you… do that?" Whitley grunts. Without thinking or saying another word though the Vampire raises his clawed hand above his head. White hair tinged with the blood of his elder sister, Whitley's sapphire eyes glint with glee. "Doesn't… matter now. Because now, now I get to inherit the Schnee legacy!"
Weiss' eyes open wide enough just in time to see the flashes of claws heading for her throat. Weiss closes her eyes, getting ready to embrace the ending of her undeath and hopefully to join her late wife. Though seconds pass and nothing happens, Weiss slowly opens a single eye, peeking out with her icy orbs. Her eyes open wide as she stares at a large scythe blade holding back Whitley's claws.
The weapon is a bright white like marble accented in a deep maroon red. It's blade is massive, roughly the same length as Weiss' legs. The haft of the weapon holds back the deadly claws only centimetres from Weiss' neck. But that is not the most interesting part about this encounter, what is interesting is the young girl holding up the huge weapon often reserved for the Grim Reaper himself. Weiss meets those diamond speckled metal eyes with her own and she remembers, she remembers everything as she stares back.
Weiss remembers the cold night she met a red blur who turned out to be her partner. Weiss remembers training with her elder sister and other Huntsman and Huntresses to fight the Vampires and Werebeasts who threatened the Kingdom of Vale. She remembered the night she first met the rest of her team, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. She remembers the bright sky and golden sun the day she told them she would be their friend. Weiss remembers a darkness and stormy sky as she intertwined her fingers with Ruby's and their soft lips met ever so briefly for her first kiss. She remembers the night she and Ruby became one soul, inseparable by any means other than the cold hand of fate. Weiss remembers taking Ruby's ring and Ruby taking hers as they exchanged vows in the eyes of the old gods. She remembers the gift of their one and only daughter Crystal, a snow white haired girl with blood red tips, who bore the gunmetal eyes of one mother with icy specks spread inside them. Weiss remembers teaching their daughter to walk, talk, swim, all of it. Weiss remembers the day she and Ruby said goodbye for the last time as she bled out in her wife's arms. Weiss remembers, and so in that instant her body tightens like a spring, the blood leaking from her head dries instantly, and her fist clench in cold icy rage, like a blizzard set to be unleashed by Mother Nature herself.
Ready to unleash this torrential snow storm Weiss forces herself to her feet and the scythe hits her. It's wielder stepping from out and still holding Whitley at bay.
"Stay where you are doppelgänger, we'll be having words," says so much like Weiss' it hurts her to hear the edge and tone. "As for you…"
Magic swells in the ground and snowflakes swirl around the girl like a mini blizzard. Then with no more time than it takes to snap one's fingers she was gone. Weiss' eyes dart in fear at such a display of power until in a white haze the girl reappears mid stroke. Whitley hears the thump of displaced air just to his left and turns in time to be met with a scythe.
The massive weapon swipes through Whitley's clothes and bites deeply into his side, its momentum punching it upward by almost a full half foot. The boy vampire cries out in agony as the blessed blade stays within his body sending fiery pain searing through his every nerve. Spasming and barely able to move Whitley reaches for the blade and clutches it firmly his hands instantly cut on the sharp edge. This only sends him into more pain wracked sobs he couldn't control.
The girl slowly lowers the shaking vampire to his feet before placing a heavy boot on his back. With deliberate precision and calculated strength she rips the heavy scythe from out of Whitley and using the momentum spins beheading him.
Weiss watches as her younger, albeit horrid murdering, brother's head hits the blackened grass and bounces like a child's ball. Then the girl stands before her and that menacing blood covered weapon seems to smile at Weiss with deadly intent, this is my daughter?
The vampiric woman leaning against the tree before her was the spitting image of her late mother. Snow hair held up by a single ponytail kept slightly off centre, eyes like ice and as cold as the dead north, skin unmarried and nearly perfect minus a crisscross of webbing scars along her neck and single barely noticeable line through her left eye. Her clothes are immaculate if you forget about the current damage from her fight.
"Why do you look like my mother, Devilspawn?" Crystal hisses, her eyes narrowing on the white washed woman's form. The Vampire attempts to stand but Crystal isn't so allowing, even her magic could be overwhelmed by a well trained vampire. Jabbing her scythe at the Devilspawn forces it to keep its seat. "Answer me, you wear the sigil of the Schnee Family but the face of my mother, such a trick won't stop me from ending you bloodsucker."
"Sweetie…" Weiss starts but stops as pain fills her leg traveling like a fire up through to her core.
"Don't. Use. Her. Pet name for me," Crystal growls like a predator ready for the kill.
"Crystal? Please, I don't know how, I don't understand what happened. But I remember dying in Ruby's arms, I remember helping her teaching you to walk," Weiss loses control and water pools at the sides of eyes slowly they leave trails down her face. "I remember everything but I also remember waking in a coffin, a dark warm place lit by nothing but moonlight through grand windows. I can't explain how I am here, why I'm here, only that I am."
Crystal stares at the vampire before those icy eyes go wide and she forces her way past. Turning and opening her mouth to shout Crystal's words die in her throat as she sees the flapping red cloak in the wind. Her entire world shrinks to nothing and in the blink of an eye she appears beside the bleeding form of her remaining parent. Her mouth hangs open while she stares at the grievous wound in her mother's chest. The Vampire is attached to her mother's arm whispering words and running a hand through her hair.
"Stop. Get away from her," Crystal whispers as she tries to move forward, but her legs are like jelly and her first step fails. She falls to her knees the grass cooling her body even through her clothes. "No… Mom, Mom don't go."
Weiss turns her red veined eyes on her daughter, tears still streaming down her face as she pulls Crystal to them. Clutching the pair of people who had given her a family Weiss doesn't have any idea what to do. By coming here, by learning her past as a Huntress turned Vampire she'd caused the death of her wife, and cost her daughter her only parent, why had she done this. Weiss' chest tightens and her breathing shallows as she continues to sob. She pulls Crystal and Ruby tighter together hoping foolishly that somehow her mere strength can keep the family from coming apart.
Weiss stops crying though as she hears whispering in her ear. Slowly turning her eyes staring out into the dark trying to find the speaker. There's nothing there though and the whispers continue until a single voice shouts in Weiss' ear.
"You can save her! Bind her soul! Save her!" The voice screams louder than the whispering of others, that's when a shadowy billowing figure clothed in a smoky white hood comes into view. "Save my daughter! Save your love! Save a mother."
Weiss turns those icy eyes, warmed to further tears as she feels the heated girl in her arms. Crystal's hands are clenched into fists around Ruby's top. The young girl's shoulders shudder and shake as her body is consumed by tears and sadness. No. Ruby grew up without a mother and with an absentee father. Crystal shall not share her mother's fate. Hissing in rage Weiss pulls the engagement and wedding rings she'd given her wife off the necklace around her throat, with another tug she gets the cloak. Spinning on the ball of her foot and rising with a purpose undeniably right she stomps over to the grave of Summer Rose.
"May your bones still hold enough of your power to do what I have planned," Weiss whispers to herself before using her claws to draw a circle and write in the old tongue around it. "By the power of Hallow's Eve, by the blood of a vampire, and the blood of a Huntress. May darkness be forced to light and may a soul be kept whole."
The script and circle begin to glow and as they do Weiss bites her wrist and lets drops of blood mix with Ruby's upon the ground. The dim light created by the circle becomes brighter slowly turning to a sun's hall of light. Weiss feels the strength ebb from her legs like she had just run for miles and miles without stopping. But the draining didn't end there, quickly her posture lost its firmness as she fought with her waning muscles to stay standing. The light continued to brighten as it did Weiss' knees shake more and more as her muscles begin to fail her.
Crystal's tears started to dry as a hand patted her head, she was confused though, because her Mother's lookalike had stepped away and Mom was bleeding out in her arms. Crystal forced her eyes open as she felt warmth and heat bleed through her clothes as strong muscles arms encompassed her in a hug.
She can see red obscuring her vision and then those arms release her. Turning she watches a hazy after image in a deep crimson cloak walking slowly towards her Mother's lookalike. One of the shadowy figure's hands lightly hits the Vampire's upper arm before stepping into the glowing circle. The reality of what is going on hits Crystal like careening carriage and she spins to see the pale skinned body of her Mom laying lifeless and not breathing on her Mother's tombstone.
Weiss stares as the grass greens once more, and the blood simply slams into the earth like nothing had happened. She holds out the cloak and rings and drops them into the circle she couldn't even look at and had to shield her eyes from its glare. All at once the glow shatters and for one glorious half second Weiss can see her wife's beautiful face. Her complexion unmarred by age, even with the ugly scars covering the right side of her face, one of her silver pools faded white and useless with its milk-like essence. Her lips, full and bright with a smile as she leans forward. Weiss can't resist and moves forward herself but only finds warm air as a flash she barely registers with her closed eyes. Weiss slowly opens her eyes in despair as she looks at the glow fading from the fabric, metal, and gems; till only the slightest hint exists besides the neatly written and glowing words on the edges of the cloak and inside the rings.
Slowly Weiss picks up the objects and slides on the engagement and wedding rings. There is an instant change, deep in her heart the hole that had existed since her second life was filled, like a puzzle piece being slotted in. Holding the cloak Weiss considers putting it on for only a quarter of a millisecond before she walks over to her daughter and drapes it over her shoulders.
That's when Ruby materialises and hugs her daughter tightly. Crystal cries out in surprise as she's tackled to the ground with Weiss standing there laughing like a little kid.
"Mom!" Crystal shouts hesitantly.
"The one and only, now thank your Mother for coming home dear," Ruby's half solid form answers. Those silver eyes speckled with ice and full of love be turn on the Vampire wearing her Mother's face, no not wearing… has.
"Mommy?" Crystal begs as fresh tears fill the bottoms of her eyes and her sniffling begins. Weiss responds in kind before rushing forward and swooping her daughter into her arms.
"I'm here baby girl, I'm so sorry I ever left."
They may not ever be a normal family again, a Vampire, a Huntress, and a corporeal spectre. Though there is a different question to ask, were the Rose and Xiao Long's ever normal in the first place?
A/N:
I will be posting a Bumblebee chapter to this soon so don't worry bees you'll get your chapter too. So you may have noticed that I try and post about once a week now with most of my work going towards my Path of the Fallen AU for Star Wars. I am not forgetting about all the works I have for RWBY and I am hoping to at some point to start posting some short So Far AUs along with whatever chapter I post. As for the PotF AU I have merely completed a lot of work on that already hence why it is being posted faster. I am going to hopefully continue some of my other stories here shortly so we will see what happens.