Dried out underbrush cracked beneath the heel of Ruby's boots as she walked through the dark forest. Her flashlight did a moderately good job of casting the pervasive darkness aside, but she still felt uneasy about being out here. There was something else lurking in the shadows that her light didn't destroy, and it wasn't any Grimm. They would've attacked her by now. She wished that whatever was out there would come at her, and break the unbearable tension.

She held Crescent Rose over her shoulder, ready for action. The blade was freshly sharpened, and its scope had been calibrated as soon as she woke up. She had thought that their first extermination mission would be more exciting than this, simply patrolling around a dark forest. She was a stone's throw away from the camp, but still, she couldn't see the light of the fire or hear the sounds of her friends talking. It felt lonely out there, even with her beloved scythe. She continued walking on the thin path, her senses peaked, staying as aware as she could be to prevent being snuck up on.

She wished very dearly that Yang hadn't told them that story. She knew that it was just a story, but still, her mind was starting to shape the shadows around her into humanlike shapes.

She let out a deep breath. She was jittery, and needed to calm down. The importance of keeping a level head in all situations was something that was hammered into her at Beacon. She was excited because of the prospect of combat.

She thought that she heard something rustle behind her, and turned sharply, shining her light in the direction of the disturbance. No movement met her eyes, and she didn't see any indication that it wasn't just her imagination. She breathed a heavy sigh, and turned back to the light path that she was following. Perhaps she was a little more tired than she had thought. Her pace quickened back towards the camp. Her patrol was over anyways, and apparently she needed rest.

Another twig snapped beneath her feet, making her every hair stand up on end. Tall and narrow trees towered overhead, massive spires of wood that she could swear were watching her.

A horrible, harsh cackling sound erupted from the woods. Her body reacted automatically, raising Crescent Rose up and tracking for the source of the sound, but it seemed to be coming from every direction. Her eyes dashed from one shadow to another, trying to tell which ones were threats and which ones weren't. All of them seemed to be moving now, and she couldn't tell what was real or what was her imagination.

Her finger twitched on the trigger, just waiting for a positive target. She started to think that perhaps she was hallucinating all of this, before one of the shadows dashed towards her and struck her solidly in the center of the chest. She was knocked off her feet, and the air in her chest was driven from her lungs harder than it ever had been before. Whatever this thing was, it hit like an Ursa.

She twisted in mid-air, shunting her feet back onto solid ground before giving Crescent Rose a spin, landing its blade in the dirt, and taking aim through its scope. With a single discharge, the dark figure's head exploded, sending its corpse away from her like a ragdoll. It never hit the ground, though, as it dissolved into smoke before ever touching the forest floor again.

Ruby's eyes narrowed at the spot where it would've landed. There were no bones, no chunks, nothing. She knew that Grimm corpses degraded quickly, but she had never seen or heard of anything like that. The cackling sound was still present, echoing from every corner of the woods now, grating against her nerves like sandpaper.

Another figure, more definite than the last, emerged from the darkness, and she pointed her flashlight at it in an attempt to help her target the thing better. What she found startled her. The thing wasn't just dark, it was pitch-black. It was almost like the thing was without texture, seeming only to be a solid mass of darkness. It was charging towards her with incredible speed, limbs flailing wildly as it did so. Ruby only had a second to take in the thing's shape. It could only be described as vaguely humanoid, with a pair of extraordinarily long legs, stumpy arms, and a total lack of a neck. At the end of its stumpy little arms however, Ruby could make out distinct claws, fit to slice cleanly through flesh and bone alike.

Ruby was able to fire only a single shot at the thing before she would have to retreat, and the sudden panic of the situation, in combination with the beast's erratic movements, caused her aim to falter. The dust propelled round ripped through the beast's right shoulder easily, severing its arm at the base. The severed part was blown away from the body, soaring through the air in an arc before hitting the ground and starting to smoke.

The creature, for its part, seemed totally unaffected by the loss of its limb beyond the slight stumble brought on by the stopping power of the shot. It continued running towards her, movements even more wild now, as to keep its balance.

Ruby pulled Crescent Rose out of the ground as quickly as she could, and leaped back from the approaching threat as quickly as she could. It continued gaining ground, but now she had the advantage. She swept Crescent Rose across the space in front of her. As she did this, the thing moved into the space that she swung at, placing its legs directly in the blade's path. Even if the thing had tried to stop, it wouldn't have been able to. The sharpened blade of the scythe sliced smoothly through the flesh of the thing, and it toppled over onto the ground. The severed legs were thrown to the side, and just as before, the thing didn't stop its efforts.

Even a Grimm reacted to injuries, feeling pain. The monster in front of her, now pulling itself towards her with a single arm, didn't seem disturbed at all. As it continued to get closer, Ruby got another good look at it. It didn't seem to have any eyes, ears, or nose, but there was definitely a mouth. Hideously sharp teeth gnashed together in the dark pit that was its mouth, but no noise came from it other than the snap of fangs.

She was about to give her weapon another spin to bring the scythe into the creature for a killing blow when something slammed into her side. Her fingers instinctually tightened around her weapon, and she was flung through the air again. It was difficult to right herself this time. Before she was able to place her feet back down, the ground rushed up at her, and she hit it, skidding a good couple feet before her head collided with something solid, making her head spin and her vision darken.

Her eyes drifted closed for a brief second before her wits returned, and she spurred herself to action again. She got back up from the ground, and brought her weapon back to bear. The thing that had attacked her from behind was charging towards her, but she couldn't make out its features. For a brief moment she couldn't understand why, then she realized that her flashlight was gone. She had kept a hold of Crescent Rose, but the main source of light she'd had was gone. It must've slipped out of her hand. A stinging sensation in her arm attracted her attention for a moment, and she looked down at it, attempting to assess the damage.

It was dark, but it was not impossible to see. Moonlight was able to penetrate the foliage above, the treetops and vines, and it provided just enough illumination to see the wound. Though, the wound was just at the edge of where she could distinguish detail. If her eyes didn't lie to her, the wound was a single long gash, blood dripping off of her arm and onto the ground. It didn't seem too serious, but she knew that she had to tend to it fast. There was no doing that in the midst of combat, though. She gave the muscles a short experimental flex, feeling a sharp stab of pain.

She reminded herself that a beast was charging right for her, and her eyes flicked back up. She could barely see anything, but one thing that she could detect perfectly was a single eye moving towards her. It reflected the pale moonlight the same way a cat's eye did, hauntingly illuminating the single disk that surrounded the pit of darkness that was its pupil. The rest of its body was shrouded in shadow. She could see that it was there, and that it was moving, but no features were discernable.

The eye came within striking distance, and she knew that she had no other course of action. She swung the scythe, praying that the blade would make contact, and be lethal. In spite of the speed that she used in her strike, the eye moved faster, jerking to the side before disappearing, and reappearing on the other side of the blade. The part of Ruby's mind that still followed reason told her that the thing had probably blinked, but the more irrational part insisted that this thing could teleport, or something to that effect.

Either way, she knew that she had to get away from it. The swing had brought Crescent Rose to a position where the end of the barrel was facing away from her, and towards the thing. She didn't know if it would hit if she were to shoot, but that wouldn't matter. She could use the force of the shot to propel herself away from it, and return to a safer distance. She placed a foot on the head of the scythe at its base, just before the blade started, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Its effect was immediate, and her knee locked to keep her safely in place as she was blasted away. Also as a result of the shot, the muzzle flash briefly lit up the immediate area, the suddenness of the scene burning it into Ruby's eyes.

The thing had a somewhat bulbous head, its one cyclopean eye positioned at its center. A long neck supported this odd formation, and ended when it met with the torso. She saw that it had not two, but three arms, two high up, where they would normally be, and one longer arm that protruded from its back, reaching over the shoulders. The two "normal" arms had what looked like hands at the ends, how many fingers they had, Ruby didn't know. The third arm, however, terminated in a blade-like appendage that, in the brief light of the flash, less than half a second, moved at least four inches closer to her. Ruby was thankful to put any distance she could between her and that thing.

Her time in the air was short-lived however, and she collided with a tree that the darkness had kept from her view. Thankfully due to her position on her weapon, the impact didn't damage her, but it did shake her up significantly.

The mad cackling that had continued throughout this entire encounter seemed to pick up now, the individual laughs becoming more frequent and seemingly hysterical. It unsteadied Ruby as she listened to it, but it was too pervasive to block out.

The eye, still gleaming at her through the dark like the eye of a porcelain doll, was speeding towards her still. Ruby brought Crescent Rose to bear again, making sure that she wouldn't miss her mark this time. The eye got closer and closer, but when Ruby pulled the trigger, it disappeared altogether, the brief flash of light showing her its round head popping in a shower of brain matter and bone fragments. The thud of a body against the ground, just barely audible over the incessant cackling, made Ruby breathe a sigh of relief.

There was now only one of these hideous creatures left, and it was heavily crippled. It would just be a matter of finding the thing, then she would be able to safely return to camp. She could go now, but couldn't take the chance of letting that thing get away. She stopped moving, and knelt down to the ground. The cackling made it difficult to hear, but the beast was dragging its entire body across the ground, there was bound to be enough noise to detect it. She had just started to zero in on a location, maybe between ten and twenty feet to her right, when a devastating blow came from her left.

She heard the footsteps just before the strike landed, but there wasn't even enough time for her to stand up. The only thing that her body had time to do was to tighten its hold on Crescent Rose even further, ensuring that she wouldn't lose it. When the hit connected, Ruby felt knuckles against her cheekbone. Her head jolted to the side, and her body followed moments later. She thought for a brief moment that her neck had been broken, and that she was experiencing her final moments. She simply laid there on the ground, unable to feel anything.

Then her nerves slowly began to function again. She started to wriggle on the ground, trying to remember how it was that one might stand up. The rustling of leaves close by told her that she needed to hurry, but her brain was unable to go any faster. She had just started to shift her arms under her when another crippling blow landed in her gut.

Air was forced out of her body, and she felt her organs move to accommodate the fist now attempting to ram its way to her intestines. Consciousness started to slip away from her. Maybe she would pass out. Then she wouldn't have to feel any more pain, at least. She couldn't give up, though, she knew that. She had to keep fighting.

She pushed herself up from the ground, and started to run. It was obvious that whatever she was fighting was too much to take on her own. She had to get back to camp and seek the protection of her friends. It was all she could do now.

Before she was able to take more than three steps, another punch from the creature on the ground connected with her legs, knocking her down again. She wasn't only knocked off of her feet, however. Her ankle, planted firmly on the ground, as she had been mid-step, twisted further than her joint would allow, and broke with a loud 'snap'.

She would have screamed, if her diaphragm had been able to manage such a contraction. She went down hard, shoulder slamming into the ground hard. Tears started to flow from her eyes. She couldn't get away now. Not with as much damage as she had taken. She was doomed to die like this, beaten to death by things she couldn't even see.

Fists started to pound her, each one sending new waves of agony through her body. She'd thought that after a while the pain would have dulled, but she couldn't be more wrong. As her bones started to crack and break her nerves screamed at her to do something. She couldn't.

Eventually more hands then should've been started to hit her, and things other than fists started to beat her. Hooves bruised her, claws tore at her, and other things continued to bring her closer and closer to death.

Finally, just as her mind started to slip, overjoyed that the end to this torment would come, a voice somewhere in the darkness shouted "Ruby! Where are you?" Her sister, Yang, was out searching for her. Yang shouted again, but it was drowned out this time by the cackling. The sound seemed to come to a terrible crescendo, then Yang's voice cried even louder "Over there!"

The beating stopped, and Ruby opened her swollen eyes to reveal nothing but clouds of smoke where her vicious attackers had been. She now laid there, alone, her own blood mixing with the dirt and pooling around her. A few seconds later, a light fell on her, and another shrill cry of "Ruby!" rang out among the trees.

Ruby tried to stand up, but her muscles refused to cooperate, and her bones couldn't withstand the pressure. She only was able to make a few feeble movements, hardly noticeable. Yang's footsteps approached her quickly, and before she knew it, Yang was hovering over her, an immensely worried expression on her face. Ruby could hear Weiss and Blake nearby as well, but couldn't see them. She could still hear the cackling, too, but it seemed to be fading away now. Everything else started to fade away too, and she started to lose consciousness. It was the best thing that she could do. If she didn't, she would only suffer more.

When her eyes cracked open again, she wished that they hadn't. Everything hurt.

She was a few feet away from a crackling fire, her friends encircling her with concerned expressions on their faces. Ruby tried again to get up, but her body was still as unwilling as it had been earlier. She wouldn't have been able to get up anyways, as Yang pushed her back down gently, tears coming to her eyes. "Ruby, don't get up. Just stay there. We patched you up as best as we could, and we're going to head back home as soon as the sun comes back up. Until then, we can't really give you anything for the pain. You're just going to have to bear with it. Can you do that?"

Ruby didn't try to respond with her mouth. Her tongue was swollen, and her jaw didn't feel like it worked very well anyways. Instead, she simply nodded, and laid back against the sleeping bag that she had been laid on. It was going to be a long night, but at least she wouldn't spend it alone.

Tears came to her eyes again, as she thought of the beasts she had fought out in the darkness. If she did dream, they would be nightmares, but at least Yang, Blake, and Weiss would not be too far away.

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Author's Note:

Another fun time from yours truly. As always I hope it was enjoyed, and please, for the love of god, leave a review.

If anyone cares about what spurred the writing of this cheery adventure, it was the line "You are surrounded by incessant cackling" from the game Dwarf Fortress.

This is intended as a one-shot, but I may be open to continuing it in the future.