A/N: Hai peoples! This fic has crack, ooc, and minor crossover elements, so be aware of that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, especially not RWBY! If I had to list everything that this story is referencing, we'd be here all day.
Vale. The city of golden opportunity.
When my family came here from Vacuo's desolate lands, I had gazed upon this city's vast harbors like it was something out of a dream. Fish was the first thing I smelled, enough to feed a thousand families.
A city on a hill. That's how most people would describe the city of Vale. Here is our sanctuary, our guiding light against the hostile wilderness beyond. One need only look at Beacon to understand what I'm getting at.
When my family moved here, I thought all of our problems would melt away.
What, I was like nine, maybe ten back then?
But as you all know, this doesn't end like your ordinary fairy tale.
This cruel, forsaken world is too much of a scum-filled hellhole to make room for any of that "Happily Ever After" bullshit. There is no god in this world. Only a big man with a big ego going by the name of Sir Topham Hatt.
Something had happened. I can't remember what that was, but one day the skies over Vale became covered in a thick smog-like cloud, going on for what seemed to be no end. Crime shot through the roof that day, and soon the city was filled with more over-equipped, chain-smoking anti-heroes wearing pink ballerina dresses than anyone knew what to do with. My family was killed when a gunfight broke out between a team of fresh hunters and a gang of costumed vigilantes trying to smuggle in an illegal Blu-ray copy of Fate/stay night. It was that grim, dark, dismal day that I learned the basic laws of cause and effect no longer had any meaning in this world. Never again would the sun shine in this golden city.
Now, where does that bring us? How do you get from point A to point B when nothing in this world makes any fucking sense anymore? Everywhere I look, I see nothing but gang-banging scum, crack dealers, hookers, maggoty corpses, hipsters, prostitutes, homeless men, armed thugs, blackjack, and Charles Darwin. This city is filled to the brim with trash piled on trash piled on cigarette ash piled on dog shit piled on my mother's sweet baked apple pie. Oh, how I miss those days when we still had our innocence. And our dignity.
Who am I you ask? I'm nothing more than your average, run-of-the-mill private detective. I had a fedora once, but I lost it while out on a job. I don't even want to know what filthy hands has violated its once majestic sheen. You see this trench coat? It goes all the way low to the ground. Only cool people like myself get to wear this kind of finery, otherwise you're just a wannabe poser. You see this? This is a lollipop, not a cigarette. We gotta keep this shit safe for 4Kids. I don't smoke, because smoking is bad for your health. My old man died of lung cancer when I was fifteen. It's a sad story, but in this mad world there is no such thing as a long-lived, happy life.
My partner and I share the same office, but most of the time we take on separate cases. We don't get a lot of business these days. Not many people have the money for this kind of shit, and if they did, they'd be spending it on crack or hookers.
People say that a picture says a thousand words. Well if that's so, then I've seen a million fucking stories in this wretched hive of a city. In all my time here, I have seen every variety of scum and villainy there is to see: from petty thieves to serial killers, child photographers, loiterers, crime bosses, and sixteen-year-old intellectual rapists. Vale isn't exactly your happy-happy-sunshine-fun-land.
I have seen everything this city has to offer, and that's why I'm more than qualified to share this one story in particular. When you've seen what I've seen, you can no longer stand to give a shit about anything anymore.
Our story begins with a certain Schnee heiress. She used to be a girl who had it all, but one day, her parents found out she had an addiction to a certain substance that's all the rave these days.
Pure, undiluted, crack cocaine.
When her parents found out, they completely disowned her of all her inheritance. Soon after, Beacon revoked her hunting license, and she was forced to live out on the streets ever since.
It must be a tough life for her, to fall from what was once so high and mighty a position to being forced to eat leftover shrimp and stealing grease-laden quesadillas from sleazy Mexican burrito stands. They don't even serve real authentic Mexican food at those kinds of joints, only the kind of shit you can easily find at your local grocery store. A big shame, really.
I saw Weiss down on the streets, riding on her shiny gray moped. I heard she stole it from some kid in middle school who had just learned about the greatness that was Shrek while attending church service. I'd feel sorry for the poor kid, if I didn't find the whole thing absolutely fucking hilarious. A man's gotta find some humor in his miserable existence, otherwise insanity would get the best of him. This city does that to you.
How did I know this girl was going to be riding down the streets on that fine summer morning? A private detective's gotta know these kinds of things. It comes with the job description. You don't even want to know what I had to do to get that kind of information.
So there I was, watching the former heiress riding through town with an overfilled garbage bag on her back and her ancestral family sword strapped to her side. It was raining that day. It's always fucking raining in this fucking city. That's why I bought this umbrella five years ago. It's black, just like the rest of this shit-hole of a city.
I saw her get off at the local Bucktooth Cafe, stepping over a few dead bodies rotting on the street. Some of their ears looked like they had been shorn off by the blunted end of a razor. Now, the rats were having leftovers for dinner.
Our young heiress stepped on in. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and threw it on the welcome mat before crushing it with her foot. Who knew whether that thing would catch on fire at some later point in the future present. I didn't, and to this day I still don't know whether that poor mat, much like the one my grandma used to have, has become entranced in the everlasting dance of life's eternal flame. It is one of life's greater mysteries.
Weiss had a hard, hard look at the menu hanging over Jerry, the owner of the joint. Jerry was a good friend of mine. He had a wife and two kids. He would pick up his kids every Saturday morning and drive them off to school. Jerry was a good man.
The entire room was filled with a deathly silence so thick it could make a fully grown Goliath come running home back to its mommy. Six customers had fallen comatose from overdosing on cough syrup, with reddish drool dripping onto the clean tile. Maybe they were dead too. Who knows?
That left only two people, Nora Valkyrie and her favorite boy-toy. They were facing out to the empty city streets, munching on a stack of some delicious chocolate-chip pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries on top. I could smell those goddamn pancakes even standing outside in the cold icy rain through the rotting corpses and the pot-smoked air and the outdated sausages that plagued this street in particular. They brought tears to my eyes, tears like no man has ever shed before. It brought a smile to my face to remember just what it was like to smell some fresh fucking pancakes straight out of the microwave back from when I was still a child. Oh, those were the days.
Weiss had been looking at the menu board for five solid minutes. Most people would think that the heiress was nothing but an idiot stoned off her mind, but the sad truth was that withdrawal from her favorite white snow had started to eat away at her reaction time. That's what drugs do to you, kids, so stay away from them unless you like watching ninja turtles molest your furniture every Sunday afternoon.
Even though the heiress had desperately wanted some hard cooked meal, she couldn't order anything, because that would mean she would have to spend some hard-earned cash, which she didn't have. She spent it all on crack the night before. So instead, she followed the sweet scent hanging over the air, and came face-to-face with a certain Nora Valkyrie and her personal sex slave.
Their eyes watched each other for what seemed like an eternity, until Nora broke the silence. "Don't ya know smoking is bad for your health? I mean, I know smoking is not bad like crack is bad, but it's still bad bad because you can get lung cancer and it's a gateway to other drugs and not to mention when you…"
It only took one word too many until the heiress had had enough of Nora's fucking bullshit. "SHUT UP!"
Right at that moment, Jerry's head exploded like a water balloon had just reached its bursting point. Soon the entire cafe was filled with the splattered mess of his blood and guts and gray matter, with his fractured skull landing squarely on one of the tables in the center. Luckily, Jerry had remembered to wear his red shirt today, otherwise the blood would have stained his clothes. Rest in peace, old friend.
Once the heiress's mind had finished trying to understand the events that had unfolded before her, she returned to her conversation with the Valkyrie girl. "You dolt."
Nora gave Weiss one hard look, and clutched on tight to her glass of orange juice. "So, Weiss, watcha doing here?"
The heiress stood up straight, slowly drawing out her signature blade. "Say Nora, could I have a some of your pancakes, please?"
Nora turned her back to the starving heiress. She knew she could do some good in this bad, bad world if she simply handed her pancakes to her vagabond friend. But, sadly, the world doesn't quite work like that. To her, pancakes were a goddamn, motherfucking godsend; there was no way she was going be sharing any of her goddamn pancakes that she paid for herself with a hobo from the streets. I wouldn't either if I had the money to pay for those delicious pancakes. So she called the heiress on her motherfucking bullshit, "No way! These are my pancakes!"
The heiress twitched at the Nora's rejection. "Are you sure? Those pancakes look really, really good and I'm really, really hungry."
"Sorry, Weiss, but pancakes are pancakes!"
Right then, Weiss snapped. She took one of the plates off the nearby tables and threw it at Nora, who simply dodged a direct hit. "GODDAMMIT YOU DOLT! I WANT THOSE FUCKING PANCAKES RIGHT NOW!" Her desperate cry could be heard all over Remnant.
Weiss rushed forward. She thrust Myrtenaster at Nora, hoping to strike at her vital regions, but all she hit was her now vacant chair.
Nora flicked the heiress's forehead and went "Boop!" before dancing a few feet away with her boyfriend. "You really shouldn't be so pushy, Weiss. But… if you really want my pancakes that badly, then you're going to have to go through my Secret Asian Bodyguard first!"
It was at that very moment that I could see that boy clearly for the first time. Nora couldn't have chosen a better bodyguard if she had all the money in the world. Lie Ren was his name. As the son of Yoda and Han Solo, he had known over a hundred different Kung-Fu moves, and he had also mastered the ancient art of Chai Tea.
Weiss couldn't have asked for a more formidable opponent. It was like a match between David and Goliath all over again, except in this case Goliath refers to one of those big-ass fucking elephant things instead of the hero of Biblical legend.
"You'll never stand a chance!" said Nora as she swung her arm at our beloved vagabond. "I am the queen of this castle!" She let out a laugh so filled with calamitous intent that it would make most super-villains cream their pants. I creamed my pants as well, even though I am nothing more than your average private-eye detective. There's not a single murderous bone in my body.
Ren stepped two steps forward and drew out his twin StormFlower machine guns. They were green, but they were also black. Everything in this world is black or gray or a darker shade of gray.
The heiress did a couple of cartwheels and barrel rolls to keep herself away from the oncoming machine gun fire, completely forgetting about her semblance. Whenever Ren had to reload, she would dash and turn over one of the tables to use as cover. It wasn't much, but you've gotta make do with what you can get.
Weiss got in close, and then lunged her blade at Nora's bodyguard, screaming "PANCAKES!" over and over again like there was no tomorrow. With each word, Weiss made another thrust at Ren, but his Bruce Lee moves were too much for her to handle. Soon, after minutes of panting, sweating and moaning, she was out of breath, too exhausted to thrust her blade into Ren's firm, sweaty ass.
It was at this moment that Nora stepped back into the fight, planting her arm on her sex puppet's shoulder. "Is that all you've got, Weiss? Surely you can do better than that, I mean, these are my pancakes we are talking about here, so surely you would be willing to try harder than that because my pancakes are the best pancakes. But wouldn't that mean that once you win my pancakes they will no longer be the best? Oh well! Ren, FINISH HER!" Once Nora was finished with her monologue, Ren put his guns to the side and took off his top hat. Weiss didn't do anything during this because, for all her self-acclaimed intelligence, she's kind of a fucking idiot. That, and she was still suffering from withdrawal symptoms.
Ren held his top hat to the side, and then flung it like a professional Frisbee player. The hat arced toward Weiss while sprouting out a dozen razor blades mid-air. Weiss tumbled away, but after Ren's hat had passed by, it spun back around like a homing boomerang. Every second was spent trying to dodge the incoming projectile, even after Ren continued laying down some heavy machine gun fire. It's a shame Weiss doesn't have my insane ninja-like reflexes, otherwise this fight would've been over in a pinch.
Like all stories go, Nora believed that she had this fight in the bag. "You have no chance of beating my boyfriend's elite-pro-Starcraft 2 skills!"
Weiss grunted under her breath, reaching for one of her Cuban cigars while trying to dodge the oncoming bullets. "You think you're better than me, dolt?"
"Yeah! Well watcha gonna do about it, Weiss?"
I could see the glint of inspiration in the heiress's eyes even while standing outside in the rain. "It's quite simple actually. It's about time you got served your… just desserts!"
At that very moment, Weiss reached up in the air, and then pulled out a Calico M950 sub-machine gun out of fucking nowhere.
For the very first time in my life, I had borne witness to a fucking miracle.
"DEUS EX MACHINA, BITCH!"
Soon, Ren's whole body was riddled with bullets. Not even his pro skills with Master Yi or the ancient martial arts he had learned from watching Kung-Fu Jesus: Return of the Shrek could save him from the millions upon millions of bullets that now penetrated his soft body.
While the boy was out for the count, Weiss dashed in and shred his body to a million pieces with her sacred ancestral sword. The sword had been passed through the Schnee family line for generations, and now its fine edge had claimed its millionth victim.
How could this be possible? Those were likely the words that passed through Nora's mind at that very instant in time. But before she could utter her thoughts, Weiss had dashed in and struck Myrtenaster through her neck, before ripping it open to the side.
Once Nora's dead body had fallen to the floor, Weiss backed up, and took the scene in all its bloody glory. She was the only survivor in this ghost town of a restaurant, and she would take this opportunity to relish what seemed to be the first victory in her miserable existence. She had taken Nora's seat, and began eating away at Nora's still-fresh marshmallow pancakes. Even though she was now nothing more than a roving vagabond, Weiss still cut through those pancakes like a proper lady, much like how she had been trained when she was still a child.
"Hmm… These are... surprisingly good." They were the most delicious fucking pancakes she had every fucking tasted. Even I would cut her up just to get a nibble at their delicious doughy goodness. Of course, I wouldn't do that to a potential customer, that's just bad business.
Once finished, Weiss stepped out of the dank halls of the Bucktooth Cafe, and mounted her moped once more, now satisfied. It seemed that now that she had a full stomach, all her problems would go away on their own.
But like I said before, this story doesn't have a happy ending. Things are never that simple.
Shortly after the heiress had left the cafe, the wounds on Nora's body had begun to close back up, and any broken limbs she once had were now repaired in their entirety.
Only minutes later, the girl regained consciousness. "I shall have my revenge..."
How is this possible you ask? Well, the thing is, even though she had been thorough in making sure that the young Valkyrie was dead, Weiss had neglected one thing.
Nora was a vampire.