Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY. I only own my OCs
Prologue
? POV
Cold.
This is what my body feels like before I open my eyes, but I see nothing. Everywhere around me is nothing but pitch black. I also feel my body being dragged under, my ears are clogged, and most of all I can't breathe. When I start moving I can hear swishes of water synchronizing with my movements. Without thinking, I desperately try to pull myself up but no matter what I do, I'm still sinking. Almost losing my breath I resign to my fate. With my head down, I can see that there are these strips of shadows clinging onto my torso. The more I go under, more of these strips seem to wrap around my body. The touch is gentle and comforting but I find it disturbing, like I didn't belong with it, like I belong somewhere else. Then I hear a voice, calling out to me from above. I look up and saw a small light, twinkling. The voice is telling me to reach out to it, to escape this darkness around me.
"Is this really what you want?" The voice says,
"Just because you are in the shadows means you cannot be part of the light?"
"Do not deny your heart."
"I can feel it."
"The desire to reach and escape from this fate."
I try reach out to the light but my lungs are failing me. Then my eyes betray me.
My eyes open once again; with my head down, I see the ground. The sand illuminates orange and is coated with a thick red liquid. On top of it is a corpse; his eyes and mouth wide open with blood pouring out. A great sword pins down on the corpse with my hand on its handle. The blade has a metallic black color; half of it is stained with blood. The blood is dry and it stuck on the blade, I can smell it's horrible stench on it, for some reason it invigorates me. The other half remains polished; I can see the reflection of the fires the blade was made out of. Only the fires came from a nearby settlement in ruins. There are other settlements as well, similar to the first one. I can hear screams of agony, wrath, and sorrow up ahead.
"IT'S THE GRIMM KNIGHT!"
"HE'S HERE!"
"THE LEGENDS ARE TRUE!"
"RUN!"
Humans and Faunus are running, scattering themselves towards three exits of the burning village. Most of them escaping towards the exit in front of me, some leaving the village using the exit on the right, and I see very few of them trying the exit on the left as a swarm of black creatures enters the village, destroying everything in their path. There are a variety of them to be exact. On some parts of their body are bones sticking out of them like spikes or rocks. They all have a skull masking their bright red eyes and fitting the figure of their head. I begin to move south, leaving the village burning to ashes with the great sword in hand. As I walk through a forest south of the blazing settlements, I stop to raise my sword in front of me and look at my reflection. I can't see my face because it is covered with a black knight's helm. The opening that my eyes can see through is very thin and it glows blood red. Now that I mention it, my whole body is covered in black armor and it spews black flames, but they don't feel hot. It feels rather cold. The armor is thin making it very light for me to move swiftly but at the same time not very durable against strong attacks. I don't worry about it though; the shadowy flames make up for it as they act like a barrier. I begin to move again towards the direction of a black oval. It spews the same black flames my armor has and appears to be pulsing as if it's telling to me to go through.
BANG
Before I can make contact with the dark oval, I hear a shot ringing out and a tiny burning metal on the grass. If it weren't for the shadows, my armor would have a small dent. I look back to see four humans. Half of them are men, and the other half are women. One of the men steps forward with a cane on his hand. He appears to be middle aged and has a mop of silver hair. He is wearing dark spectacles on his eyes and a dark green cowl with a cross-shaped pin on it on his neck. He also wears a black suit over his buttoned vest and a green shirt, along with black trouser shoes and long dark green pants.
"The Grimm Knight." He calls me, he looks to his companions and commands them, "Restrain him."
The other man and one of the women dash forward with swords in hand. The man has graying, black spiky hair, dull red eyes, and stubble of hair on his chin. He wears a red tattered cloak with a grey dress shirt that has a long tail, along with black dress pants, and black dress shoes. His sword is a single-edged great sword that has markings along the middle of the blade. The blade itself has a small space in between metals. On the hilt of his sword is a mechanism that helps the man collapse his weapon. The woman has wild, raven black hair and red eyes. She wears a shallow cut black and red dress with five necklaces that consists of beads. She also wears a girdle belt and a pair of matching red gauntlets. She wields a long, single-edged red katana. Her metal scabbard contains a rotary chamber filled with various types of dust. They both swing at me simultaneously. I block them with my large great sword and swing with all my strength creating a wave of gale against them, causing the man and woman to slide back. They are unimpressed and the man with the cane does not flinch. I growl at them and I clench my left armored fist. The man dash forward to me yet again and slashes against me multiple times, each one after the other always aims for an opening as I block his attacks effortlessly; each time we counter each other, our blows pulls us apart until our feet pushes us back into a lock, using my head, I literally bash it forward against his forehead making him clutch his head in pain. He retaliates by activating the mechanism on his sword, changing it into a form of a gun. He shoots but I pay him no mind and let the shadow absorb the bullets and spit it out the next second. I pay attention to the man with a cane and the woman who has yet to make a move. The final woman has light blonde hair tied up in a bun and wears glasses not shaded like the man beside her. She wears a white, long sleeved, pleated top that has a wide keyhole neckline and gauntlet cuffs that flare in pleats on her wrists. She also wears a black high-waisted pencil skirt and black brown stockings. From what I can see she doesn't have a weapon but she holds a riding crop with her right hand. I notice that one of them is missing. Then I can feel something creeping behind me. The raven-haired woman ambushes me from behind; using the opening from the man I bashed my head to while he was distracting me. She stabs me on my right shoulder and dislocates it. I can't move nor feel my arm anymore. It hurts that I let out a scream, a cry for help.
"We must end this quickly!" the man with the cane says, "The Grimm will be here at any moment." The other three nods at his statement. The woman who stabbed me is still attached with her sword on my shoulder. I reach behind my back to grab her and yank her out but she pulls out her sword and backs away before I can do so. I shout out a war cry at them. Even though I can't use my right arm doesn't mean I'm useless with my left. I hold my great sword on my left hand, then harshly throwing it at the man with the cane and the blonde-haired woman, creating another gale of wind. I dash closely behind my sword as it cuts through the air; I prepare to do a left cross against the both of them. Before my sword and myself can touch them from mere millimeters away, a force stops us from getting any closer. My body and sword begins to glow purple and we are sent back to a tree behind me, with my sword impaling me onto it. I cannot make a loud noise this time because as I breathe, little by little, gravity pulls me to the ground, threatening to split me apart. To prevent myself from moving too much, I grit my teeth and clench my fists together. While I endure my suffering, the feeling of anger rises within me. I can tell they can sense my wrath upon them when the blonde woman inflicts a thousand more wounds onto me. There are these speckles of purple splintering me. These speckles turn out to be small pieces of wood from the trees affected by the gales of wind I caused. The speckles are in the command of the blonde-haired woman. By waving her riding crop around, these speckles move under her will.
'Does she really think this can stop me?'
'No.'
'I won't let this be the end of me!'
'Mother… is waiting for me!'
By yanking my arm from the tree and pulling out my sword and the rest of my body, massive amounts of my blood bleed down to the grass, only they aren't red, they are pitch black like the one from my dream. That doesn't matter right now because what matters is what causes me to bleed. I run towards the group, tackling the man and woman with swords and swinging them across to the left using my great sword. The blonde woman steps forward in front of the man with the cane in an attempt protect him using her power to move objects, using that power against me. But I resist it, no matter how much she wants to make a great distance between the man and myself; I stay in place, struggling with all my might just to crush her and her companion. The woman begins to show signs of weakness from using her power too much. She calls out to the man she's protecting,
"Professor Ozpin I can't hold him for much longer! Whatever it is you must do, you must do it immediately!"
The man then takes a few steps toward me, raising his hand and places it on my chest. His hand begins to glow green and I can feel my body tearing apart. He slowly pulls his hand back, and a shadowy figure is being pulled apart from me.
"GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
"GRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"
I hear myself screaming and one other but it doesn't come from the group of two men and two women. I can only assume that it comes from the shadowy figure in front of me.
The pain stops.
The light the man has placed upon me, and the shadows in front of me are no longer visible. Only a figure remains from the shadows that disappeared.
"What have you done?!" the figure exclaims as I lay on the grass flinching at its sharpness then welcoming it. There isn't much I can do at this point. I can't move my body; only feel my blood pouring out of it. I look to the side and see that this time my blood is red, just like the corpse I left in the village, and I am no longer wearing a pitch-black armor but a white tattered shirt and black shorts. The figure runs to my direction, he raises his hand to reach me, but the man and woman I swung aside earlier block his path.
"Tch." The figure doubles back and runs inside the dark oval, disappearing with it. When they sense no trouble is nearby, they lower their weapons and gather around me with looks of worry dawning on their faces.
"He's not healing Oz." the man with grayish black hair starts, "What do we do?" The blonde-haired woman kneels down beside me and places her hand on my cheek.
"It appears he has no aura even after you extracted his Grimm half Professor Ozpin." She says, "It could be because his soul is weakened."
"I still don't understand why you did that. He's obviously one of the Creatures of Grimm. Why spare him?" The raven-haired woman asks harshly, she crosses her arms and leans back to a tree behind her.
"Because Raven, as far as I know about the Creatures of Grimm, I've never seen one that appears to be human. I thought that maybe, just maybe, that he truly is human on the inside. So I tried to save him."
The blonde woman then checks my vitals, placing her index and middle finger on my neck.
"His heart rate is too low… He's dying." She softens her looks.
The group is then alerted as they hear howling nearby.
"We have to go or we'll be surrounded." Raven says looking at Ozpin awaiting his next command.
"Qrow bring him. We can't leave him here."
"What?! You want to bring him? He's only going to slow us down!"
"We cannot have Salem retrieve him. The Creatures of Grimm were able to cause this much damage on Remnant under his command." He then looks to Qrow and says to him, "Try to prevent him from bleeding too much Qrow."
"Oh great, my clothes will be a bloody mess again." He remarks,
"That's all you're worried about?" The blonde woman looks at him sternly,
"Hey don't get me wrong Glynda, I'm worried about the kid as well. He looks like he's around my niece's age. I can't have a kid murdered by our hand in my conscience." Qrow wraps my torso tightly using his tattered red cloak and carried me piggyback style. He looks to Raven and smirks at her, "I trust you have my back sis?"
"You wish. Good luck having to defend yourself with your hands full."
"Hey!"
My consciousness begins to fade in the middle of their conversation. I lean forward on Qrow's back, clinging to a feeling I never felt before: warmth.
I'm back in the same dream from last time, same setting, and the same feeling, This time, I will reach it before I lose air. I push away the strings of shadows and swim as hard as I can, my surroundings getting brighter, becoming a light blue. The light that was twinkling is now shining and looks refracted.
Almost there.
Finally, my hand reached the surface.
It's no longer cold. It's as if my hand is melting into its warmth.
And then… I hear the same voice again,
"I have answered your call."
"You, who desires nothing more than to dispel the darkness inside you,"
"I am thou, and thou art I."
"I, who have been called once again to become Remnant's beacon of hope,"
"I, for as long as you live, will always be there to protect and guide you."
Third POV
Ozpin, Qrow, Raven, and Glynda are resting on a safe clearing in the forest. All four of them look up to the sky to see that dawn has risen.
"Will you look at that!" Qrow exclaims, "We've been hunting the kid for the whole night. When we get back, I'm gonna take a long nap."
"How is he?" Glynda asks, Qrow unwraps his cloak from the boy's torso and saw that his condition has gotten worse.
"He's still not healing."
The four of them are staring gloomily at the lifeless boy. His eyes are open but are slowly drooping down. Glynda checks for his vitals once again,
"He's gone… I'm very sorry Professor."
"It appears… I've made a mistake once again." Ozpin says as he grips his cane tightly. Raven is standing on a spot a little away from them, her eyes showing remorse.
"Dammit…" Qrow said frustratingly as he brings his right knuckles down to the ground. Glynda places her fingers on the boy's eyelids and gently set them down. The sunlight shines across the trees filling light in the forest, especially the boy, the boy's features becoming vibrant, displaying his youth. All four of them look back at the boy once again not seeing a pitiful being but a young boy who appears to be sleeping peacefully.
Until…
He begins to glow blue, the glow turning into a bright light blinding them.
"What the?!"
"What's happening?!"
They shield their eyes until the blue light dies down. The next thing they see when they open their eyes is a ghostly figure of a knight, glowing in the same blue color that enveloped the boy. The knight stands above the boy with his sword pointed down and both hands on the hilt of his sword.
This knight is a knight Ozpin knew all too well.
"King Arthur."
