RWBY: Monarch Rising

Ages ago, another Kingdom ruled over the surface of Remnant, stretching across most of the known world. That kingdom's name is lost to the annals of time, but the final tales still ring even to this day, tales of how the kingdom died, but it fought the darkness even until the end.

There was a wise and powerful king who ruled that land, a man who studied the deepest arts of the soul, solving mysteries that, with his death, remain unsolved. Under his rule, the lost Kingdom advanced greatly, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity. But there was a dark tint to this tale of wonder, a twisted curse that creeped along the edges of the kingdom, striking some but not all.

This curse manifested in a twisted life after death, the victims coming back to life again and again. This might not seem like such a bad thing to those listening – living after you've been killed? Getting back up to fight those who thought they'd defeated you? To Hunters, the opportunity to come back after fighting the Grimm would be Oum-sent indeed!

Wrong. So very, very wrong. For, with every death and rebirth, those cursed to come back lost a little more of their sanity, becoming little more than monsters and beasts. Those far gone into the madness even began, in some rare cases, to lose their human shape, becoming deformed abominations. But the good king was strong, stronger than the curse, and it was widely believed that he was close to unlocking the final mysteries of the soul. And if he had, all believed that he could have cured the curse before it became a crippling problem to his Kingdom.

But alas, as we know, there is no grand Kingdom ruling over us, instead we have the Four Kingdoms. Legends speak of a war, sparked by a mysterious cause, which ended up ruining the king, and his Kingdom. Against opponents unknown, but only referred to as 'giants', the wise king's Kingdom fell apart, and the dark curse spread like a plague across the survivors.

Generations passed after the fall of the Kingdom, and a new legend was born. A Legend, embodied in the man who would become known to all who met him as 'The Future Monarch'. This man was one who was burdened with the horrible curse of Undeath, rising again even after his body was broken and shattered by his foes. The Future Monarch took up arms against the darkness that had engulfed not only the Kingdom, but the whole world, and strove to bring back the light.

But this true hero was not alone, for one man, no matter how strong, could not have faced all of the horrors that had taken root in the lost Kingdom, alone, and survived. The Future Monarch had companions with him, several who sparked legends of their own.

The Black Reaper, the first of his companions, who carried a midnight black scythe that could tear through the densest armor of their foes, seeking out the weak points in whatever defense they had and slicing through it, leaving them crippled as the others moved in for the kill.

There was the Fencer, born in another land, cursed as they all were, and here in the Lost Kingdom searching for her missing brother. With Soul-aided skill, she could land devastating blows on her target, ending many a life with one strike.

There was the Red Brawler, a noble man who had lost his family to the curse, and he came searching for answers. With fists full of fire he would torch his foes from afar as a pyromancer, and any who dared come close found that those same fiery fists could crush armor and bones with ease.

The Assassin Duo, twin warriors of the night, who used daggers, darts, and poison to weaken their targets, leaving them unable to fight in the face of the coordinated assault from the pair. Many was the monster who fell without even knowing that they were under attack.

The Berserker, a massive mountain of muscle that used twin hammers to crush everything in his path, following the Last Knight, keeping an oath to aid her in whatever way he could, demolishing everything that got in his way.

The Last Knight, come to avenge her family's honor, fallen with the death of the Kingdom, as she was the last of her line, her womb rendered barren by a childhood accident. With no chance of the line continuing, a desire for vengeance burned brighter in her than in any in her line for many years.

And the Monarch himself, a remarkably talented man. Rising from mystery, he came to the lost Kingdom carrying nothing more than a staff and simple sword on his back, a quiet, unassuming man who many of the benighted residents of that forsaken kingdom thought was just one more fool under the curse, come to die in a place away from his friends and family, until his madness overtook him as well. Instead, he took up blade and staff, wielding long forgotten soul arts to strike down his foes.

Time and time again, the Future Monarch, aided by his cohorts or alone, hunted down the darkest of the twisted souls that had once been the council in the lost Kingdom, using an unforeseen ability of those who are accursed to absorb the souls of those they fought, breaking those lost souls from the cycle of death and rebirth. This enabled the Monarch and his allies to grow far beyond human limits, some say even beyond what Hunters today can obtain! With these hard-won strengths, the Monarch and his friends continued to wage war upon the lost kingdom, destroying the monsters that populated the land, freeing minor kingdom after minor kingdom.

But the madness consumes all, and eventually the Monarch's friends began to fall to the cycle of death and rebirth themselves. The first time it happened, the Last Knight was the victim, and she became a terrible demon that nearly ruined everything the group had accomplished, as she wreaked havoc on the freed lands. It fell to the Berserker and the Monarch to strike her down, and when her devastated body lay at their feet, the Berserker forced the Monarch to slay him as well while he was still sane, as without his oath to keep him going the madness would claim him soon.

Time and time again after that, as the Monarch and his allies got closer to uncovering the secrets of the fall of the kingdom, the others lost their minds, cracking the Future Monarch's heart as he was thrown into struggle against those dearest to him. In the end, only one of the twin assassins and the Black Reaper stood with him against the true architect of the Kingdom's fall:

The Mad Queen Nashandra. A twisted, monstrous figure, one prompted by jealousy and hatred to poison her husband's mind, until her reluctantly started a war with the 'giants' as the only means of keeping his people safe. In reality, the Mad Queen was actually after the power that the wise king was close to unlocking, and she believed that if she had her old people killed – for she was a princess of the 'giant's – no one would stop her from taking that power from her husband's body, for she had planned that her husband and father would fall in battle to each other. It had not happened that way: For what no one had known until it was too late, was that the wise king himself was fallen to the dark curse, and with him trapped in the 'undeath' of the curse, the secrets he had been about to uncover were sealed away with him, until someone managed to follow his footsteps on his own.

But Nashandra was not one to put in effort herself. No, she was a thief, and to keep herself in control and at ease, she had thrown seeds of the curse out into the world beyond the lost kingdom, blighting other lands, in the belief that someone would come to the kingdom seeking the knowledge to cure it, and in that seeking, they would reveal what the wise king had taken with him into madness. It was to the Mad Queen's downfall that the Future Monarch was the one who came, for it was at this point that the most destructive ability of all was revealed.

Nashandra, having lived centuries buried in the filth and rot of the dead kingdom, had somehow cultivated the ability to induce the madness of the undeath cycle in those trapped within it. She used this abominable ability on the Future Monarch and his allies, seeking to rip the knowledge from their brains, thinking they held what she sought.

The Reaper and the Assassin fell to the attack, their minds stripped away from them in an instant. Nashandra blighted the resulting monsters from existence as she turned to the mind that still remained in front of her, the Future Monarch having somehow avoided her attack.

A terrible battle waged between the two Monarchs, one selfishly seeking power, the other now fighting for vengeance, for the sake of all those who had supported him to this point, and for all those yet unborn who might be free forever of the curse if he could cure it. The entire castle was their battlefield, the Mad Queen using dark, destructive soul arts based solely upon the corruption and the darkness that she had engendered, while the Future Monarch used a mace wreathed in pure soul energy, and wondrous feats of soul magic to counter her.

In the ruins and the rubble, the Future Monarch stood victorious over the defeated Mad Queen. But even in defeat, the Queen was treacherous – she devoted all of her remaining energy, stealing her own life away in the process, to destroy the Future Monarch's mind, hatefully consigning him to madness with her dying breath.

Her bitter hopes were ruined when the Monarch revealed something. He hadn't avoided her initial attack, the one that had robbed him of his last friends. Somehow, the future monarch was stronger than the madness, stronger than the pain of loss, betrayal, sorrow, and hatred that had plagued the accursed since the beginning of the curse. He crushed the last embers of life from the vile woman, then proceeded back into the depths of the castle ruins.

It is here that the legend… dies. It is unknown what happened to the Future Monarch after his grand act of regicide, and even that battle is recounted by a scurvy little man who'd spied on the fight, known only at the time as 'Patches'. What is known, is that he disappeared after this, but in the process of his disappearance, the Curse was prevented from infecting any more people.

Of course, these are only legends, so who knows how much is true, and how much is only fairy tales?

The woman closed the book she was reading from and smiled at the sleeping blonde boy who was curled up on the couch beside her, his head in her lap as she combed her fingers through his hair. For a few moments the two of them sat there in peace and quiet, before a deep voice made the woman look up.

"I don't know why he likes that story so much, it's such a dark one." The woman gave a soft laugh.

"Oh Acier, you know he loves it because of the fact that there's a hero saving the world." Acier laughed and nodded, then walked over the couch and scooped the boy up into his arms. "It has gotten rather late hasn't it?"

"It's about 8 p.m. now, and he starts Signal tomorrow. It's definitely time for Jaune to get to bed." Acier strode out of the room, gently carrying Jaune with him. His wife let out a soft smile watching her husband, then slowly stood up and set the book that she'd been reading from on the side-table next to the couch, and followed after Acier and her son.

Time Skip: 4 Months

"You take that back! The Monarch protected us all!" Jaune glared at the bigger boy who he had just pushed back, his lower lip trembling as he focused his anger on the boy in front of him. The larger boy snarled and shoved back, knocking Jaune to the ground.

"No way! It's the Hunters who protect us, not some fairy tale hero who isn't even real!" Jaune's blue eyes sparked and he started to stand up, grabbing onto the other boy's shirt and pulling him into a fight.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" The crowing from the kids who'd gathered around the arguing boys quickly drew a teacher, who separated the two kids by the simple expedient of picking both of them up and physically pulling them apart. In the few seconds it had taken him to get over to the boys, both had gotten black eyes, and Jaune also had a split lip, while the bigger boy had blood dribbling from his nose.

"That is enough of that you two! Cardin, I know you're upset because you're moving soon, but that is no reason to go picking fights with the other students!" Jaune stuck his tongue out at Cardin, only to bite it when the teacher swiveled his stern gaze onto the blonde boy. "And you! Jaune, it is simply not acceptable of an aspiring Hunter to go trying to get into fights because they don't believe what you do! Your parents would be ashamed if I told them about this, both of you!" Both boys looked down, ashamed as the teacher set them down on the ground and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do I have to tell them?" He prompted.

"No-no. Cardin, I… I'm sorry." The bigger boy widened his eyes at the apology, then frowned and shook his head, not quite meeting the blue eyes looking at him. A cough from their teacher made his frown grow wider before he grumped.

"I'm sorry too." The teacher nodded at that and started to walk away, resuming a watch over the entire playing field the class was on. Once the teacher was a short distance away, Cardin's face got extremely angry. "Sorry that you can't tell the difference between stories and real people!" With that last insult the larger boy ran off, leaving Jaune glaring after him, one hand curling into a tiny fist at his side. He stamped his foot and stormed through the dissipating crowd of students, grumbling under his breath. He missed the short black haired girl who stared after him, her eyes wide with wonder as he forced his way away from the rest of the children milling about.

AN:
Well. This is new. This is going to be a crossover fic of RWBY, what is a fairly light hearted animated series… and Dark Souls, which is NOT light hearted. Specifically, Dark Souls 2. To those familiar with the game, the story here is the official twisting of the universe that I'm putting the lore through to fit into RWBY better, but you don't need to know Dark Souls to understand what's going on here, things will be explained as the characters learn about them. The scene at Signal is just to show some earlier differences in Jaune because of his obsession with the story of the Future Monarch, namely one thing is that he's actually being trained, not going through without learning how to fight. I picked Cardin just… well just to give them a bit of backstory for later at Beacon. Also, Acier as the father's name. From what I know, Jaune's father isn't named in canon, so I tried to think of something that would fit the CNR. Since Jaune is French, I chose a word from that language.

Anyway! This is a plot bunny that has been burrowing away in my head for a while. It was competing with a plot thread of Nier waking up after the end of the game he is in in the RWBY universe but… wow I'm getting off topic. I'm just going to sign off for now, and I hope you all look forward to the next chapter! Which will be, of course, the Initiation.