A/N: Hello everybody, my name's Eragon and welcome to the first Chapter of RWBY Horror Nights. So, I was going to do a poll for this but it didn't work. So, where I'm going with this series is every October I shall release a chapter of RWBYHN, where characters from RWBY encounter various monsters from urban legend and stuff. Sorry this one is late though, considering that I'm fairly busy.
So, like always, I own nothing here. RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum (RIP). Sit back and enjoy this first chapter of my new anthology horror series.
The Bogeyman of Vacuo
Character(s) involved: Team RWBY
Monster(s) involved: Kuchisake-Onna (Slit mouthed woman, slit mouthed stalker)
Summary: As Team RWBY are called in on a mission to Vacuo to investigate a series of children turning up dead, Blake notices that something about the way the children died seems familiar to her. As more bodies of children begin to pile up and a mysterious woman in a surgical mask stalks the team of huntresses-in-training through the streets of Vacuo, Blake soon begins to realise that the bogeyman that stalked her as a child is more than just the myth she believed it was…
On the way to Vacuo
"Remind me again why we're headed to Vacuo on a school day?" Blake heard Weiss complain again as the Bullhead passed over the border between Vale and Vacuo.
"Because Professor Ozpin sent us on this important mission, that's why," Ruby replied, the diminutive girl seen clinging onto her sister out of the corner of Blake's eye in an attempt to not fall over in the Bullhead.
Blake thought back to that morning, when their team leader first dragged them out of bed while claiming that Ozpin was having them head to Vacuo on a bounty mission of sorts, a mission which the young red-head still had yet to explain.
"So, what is the mission exactly?" Yang asked, having noticed the gears grinding in her partner's brain in an attempt to figure out what the mission was.
"Oh, almost forgot," Ruby exclaimed in surprise, and then cleared her throat and replied, "apparently there's some sort of serial killer hiding out in the streets of Vacuo, nobody knows who it is, all that they know is that this person goes after children after dark."
Blake's cat ears perked up as soon as Ruby said the word 'children', and inquired, "You're saying that we're looking for a child killer?"
As the Bullhead reached the main landing pad in Vacuo and began to land, Ruby nodded and said, "Yeah, in fact someone was just found dead last night, a student from the combat school here in Vacuo."
The Bullhead landed, and as they stepped out Ruby pulled out a map and said, "We're going to start at the city morgue, it's this way according to the map."
The team followed Ruby through the streets of Vacuo towards the morgue, and while they walked Blake thought to herself, I think Vacuo had a similar situation years ago back when I lived here; I don't think they caught the culprit though. A chill suddenly went down Blake's spine as she began to get the feeling that she was being watched. Blake glanced over her shoulder, only for her eyes to widen as she saw a mysterious figure staring at her from across the street. While the figure looked like an ordinary Vacuanese woman in a dark brown trench coat, the one thing that stood out to Blake was the surgical mask concealing most of the woman's face.
A car raced by, and before Blake could blink the masked woman was gone, having vanished into thin air. Blake looked around frantically, only relaxing when her partner came to get her attention.
"You okay, Blake?" Yang asked, confused as to her partner's strange behaviour, "You were acting a little weird just now."
"I'm fine, nothing to worry about," Blake muttered in reply as they walked towards the front doors of the city morgue, but in her head her mind was racing in panic.
I swear I've seen her before when I was younger, she pondered to herself as she walked into the morgue, wait, who am I kidding? I was just a little girl those years ago, that story isn't real, just like before I was imagining things. She continued to follow her team into the morgue, aware of the chills still being sent down her spine.
Vacuo City Morgue
A few minutes later
Ruby was reading the morticians report as Blake and Yang walked into the bare room that was the centre of the morgue. She could tell as they walked in that something was bugging Blake when she glanced up, but decided to not worry about it just yet, bringing her eyes back to the report she was reading.
"Okay, so the kid's body is in drawer number 5, right next to Weiss," Ruby spoke up after thoroughly reading through the report given to her by the mortician, who had walked off to grab some supplies they would need.
"Right, on it," Weiss stated, opening up the door Ruby pointed out and pulling out the drawer, "So, what's the deal with the victim?"
"Girl's name was Abigail Obsidian, 13, a student that went to Stantford here in Vacuo," Ruby replied as she read the report aloud, "she went missing two days ago, and was found dead last night."
Lying down on the drawer was the body of a child in a black and green outfit, which besides two things made it look like she was only sleeping.
Said two things being a two inch wide puncture wound directly in the heart, and a horrendous smile carved onto the victim's mouth.
"According to the report," Ruby began to explain, "she was killed by a stab wound to her heart, severing right into her upper left chamber, from where she bled out. Apparently the Glasgow smile she now has was done post-mortem, meaning that she was dead before the killer carved up her face."
Ruby looked up to see Yang and Weiss nodding in agreement to the report, but out of the corner of her eye Ruby could see Blake staring at the victim. Looking directly at her friend, she saw Blake eyeing the smile carved onto the victim's face, while her own was pale enough for her to be sick.
"Blake, are you alright?" Ruby decide to ask, the Cat Faunus flinching when Ruby went to touch her arm.
The Faunus shook her head and stuttered, "No, it can't be...it can't be her, it couldn't be."
"What do you mean, Blake, why are you looking worried all of a sudden?" Weiss inquired, concerned for her friend.
Blake looked at her teammates staring at her in concern, before she sighed and said, "I'm sorry, it's just that, this entire mission has had me worried ever since we got here. I might have told you that I grew up in Vacuo when I was younger, when my family was in the White Fang, did I?"
When her friends nodded in reply, the Cat Faunus continued, "When I was in Vacuo last, there were rumors spreading around; rumors of a child killer stalking the streets at night that had been around since before the Great War. Nobody knows her actual name, only her description, that of a woman in a brown or black trench coat and wearing a surgical mask over her face."
"Why would she wear a mask?" Yang asked with a hint of concern and recognition in her voice.
"Nobody knows for certain why the Bogeyman of Vacuo wears a surgical mask," the mortician said, having just come back with the supplies, "there's only rumors as to why."
"Wait, you know who Blake's talking about?" Weiss inquired the mortician.
"Well, the Bogeyman of Vacuo is a big urban legend out here," the mortician replied, her voice solemn and quiet, "and she goes by many names, the two most common being the one I just said and the other being Kuchisake-Onna."
"Wait," Yang interrogated, she and Ruby recognising that name from the stories they heard, "you mean to say that this 'Bogeyman of Vacuo' is the slit mouthed stalker that supposedly haunted Shade Academy twelve years ago?"
"The very same," the mortician solemnly replied.
"But that can't be real, can it?" Weiss asked, starting to become afraid, "I mean, it's just an urban legend, right?"
"Oh, believe me, ma'am," the mortician said, "sometimes, as the old folk here say, legends are true."
Little did anyone in the room notice a shadowy figure standing in the corner, slowly walking towards the mortician.
"I certainly hope that we don't run into someone that inspired an urban legend around them," Ruby spoke up, nervous towards the suddenly dark tone the mission had taken, "I'm sure that they probably inspired one for a re-"
"Look out!" Blake shouted in warning, but by the time she did the figure had already pulled out a pair of scissors and attacked.
They could only stare in horror as the large pair of scissors plunged into the mortician's aorta, causing the woman to fall to the ground, dead in her own blood.
The figure glared at the huntresses-in-training as she cleaned the blood off the scissors using the side of her brown trench coat, her eyes visible behind a blue surgical mask.
She said nothing at first, only stared, and after the silence began to become unnerving did she ask a simple question, "Am I pretty?"
The cocking of weapons and the sound of blades being unsheathed were her only answer as Team RWBY armed themselves, with Blake stuttering, "No, y-you can't be real, that was j-just a nightmare!"
No answer came as the killer slowly leaned her head side to side, curiously watching their actions, before she finally spoke again, "Is that all you think of me as, child? Nothing more than a nightmare? I'm more than that, little kitten, I've always been real."
"Nobody uses that name except for my mother," Blake growled, Gambol Shroud pointed at the killer's head, "especially not you, you monster!"
"Oh, I'm no monster," Kuchisake-Onna replied with a sinister tone as, with a sudden movement, she tore off the surgical mask and continued, "and you never answered my question: Am I pretty?"
What was hidden behind the mask was as horrendous as what she did to her victims. Apparently, somewhere along the while somebody had carved her mouth ear to ear in a horrific grin. Ruby let out a nervous shriek as she saw the monster's visage, terrified to see the rumors about the killer true.
"You see, I was only able to kill the child on the drawer there because she had no aura," the killer ghost stated as she lifted up the scissors, "and while I can't do the same to any of you, I can certainly give you something to make you think twice about messing with the dead!"
Without warning Yang charge towards the ghost, Ember Celica armed and prepared to fire.
The ghost effortlessly lifted up the scissors to block the shot as Yang fired at the killer. As Yang landed, before she could even blink the killer had teleported behind her and struck at her arm with the scissors. Yang cried out as the scissor blades pierced through her aura and into her arm, but ceased screaming as the ghost knocked her unconscious with an elbow to the gut.
"Yang!" Ruby cried out in shock as the ghost whipped around to face the others.
"Worry not for your friend," Kuchisake-Onna replied as she wiped the blood off of the scissors, "it was only a minor wound she received, she will be fine."
"Well, if that pair of scissors are able to pierce through Yang's aura, and therefore any of ours," Weiss inquired cautiously, "why haven't you killed us already?"
"Why would I kill you?" the ghost interjected with her own question, "I've already passed the number of children I'm willing to kill every once in awhile; besides, you're all no longer children, so it isn't really fulfilling, and I usually leave some witnesses anyways to tell the tale."
"But why children, why people who are innocent?" Blake finally managed to inquire, and then cleared her throat and asked, "And if you do kill children, why didn't you - why didn't you kill me?"
"Blake, what are you saying?" Weiss began to ask, but the Cat Faunus didn't hear her question, and continued to reveal the truth to all present.
"You had a chance to kill me," Blake ranted in frustration, "you stalked me for a week through these exact streets nine years ago, you finally cornered me in that alleyway, but when you could've finished me off you hesitated and vanished. I was only eight years old, I thought that you were nothing more than a dream, but now that it's become clear that you've been real the entire time, I just want to know, why didn't you kill me that night?"
The ghost didn't say anything at first, but then sighed and said, "I didn't kill you that night, child, because you remind me too much of myself."
There a moment of confused silence before Blake asked, "Wait, what?"
"You look exactly how I did before I died," the ghost explained, "in fact, I believe I was the same age as you are now."
"I think I know about the story," Ruby interrupted, "you were the 19 year old wife of a noble samurai that was murdered after you cheated on him."
"Not quite," Kuchisake-Onna interjected, "noble he might've been once, but in truth I was married off to a retired, drunken soldier, not the man I was expecting him to be like. Even before I died he would always come home drunk, and sometimes I even had to go to the village pub to drag him home. It was one of those times where I met that farmer, one of the first Faunus to have immigrated to Vacuo.
"Eventually as our affair progressed I ended up with the Faunus' child and gave birth nine months later," she continued, "and when he found out the child wasn't his my husband was furious. We got into a fight, where he ended up killing me by slashing my mouth open with his katana."
"That doesn't entirely explain why you stalk and kill children," Weiss stated after a moment of thought.
"Because my husband started listening to children ratting me out on my affair, that's why," Kuchisake-Onna growled behind her hideous scars.
"And now," the ghost said as she pulled her surgical mask back on, "I shall disappear for some time, and you should take your friend to a medic; oh, and tell the one who sent you here to leave this case alone, otherwise the next huntsmen and huntresses that come looking for me won't be as lucky."
With that, the killer ghost turned around and vanished, and the members of Team RWBY never saw her again.
A/N: So that was The Bogeyman of Vacuo, the first anthology story within RWBYHN. Now, to be honest, Kuchisake-Onna is a pretty messed up urban legend from Japan, and is probably the scariest legend I've ever come across.
Like I said earlier, the next chapter of RWBY: HHN will come out next October, and I'm sure you guys might anticipate that if this is popular.
So, my project list for the end of the year will be featuring the release of Prophecy and a story called Eye of the Beholder, which will be a RWBY crossover with my favourite fantasy TV series, Once Upon a Time. I'm looking forward to typing that, because it features my favourite character from OUAT, Rumplestiltskin!
Also, just to make things interesting, I'll also leave you guys a clue for Prophecy here in this chapter: the main theme of this story will be secrets, and how to not judge someone by the first meeting. The first and second clue are in Eclipse and Team MJJK, so go find them.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading. Leave a review on who you want to see encountering which RWBY characters next year, and don't forget to follow/favourite this story if you liked it. Look out for more Prophecy clues and be prepared for Eye of the Beholder coming soon. Thanks again guys, Happy Halloween, and, like always, God Speed!
