Chapter I
Dream
A powerful enough dream…will always be enough to light the darkness
KHXRWBY
Ruby twiddled her thumbs quietly.
Currently the brown-haired scythe wielder was staring out the window of a train that she and her teammates were riding. She looked at the rest of her team.
Her sister Yang was lying back on the seat with her arms supporting her head; she had long curly blonde hair and wore mostly brown clothing that included a vest with puffy sleeve caps, a half skirt with white trimmings, she had on an orange scarf, black shorts and brown knee-high boots.
Just next to her was Blake, quiet and stoic, whom was reading a book. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt, a black vest with coattails, white shorts, and black and purple stockings with symbols on the sides. Finally she had a black bow in her back length black hair and black cuffed shoes.
Lastly there was Weiss whom was sitting next to Ruby and filing her nails. Weiss had white hair done up in a ponytail, she wore a mostly white formal dress with long white sleeves. Finally she had on white knee-length boots.
"Ugh, this train is taking forever!" Yang whined throwing her arms in the air, then letting them flop back down.
"Well what do you expect?" Blake said quietly. "The town we're headed toward is a bit far from Vale. And that's where we were sent for our mission."
"Which was?"
This time Ruby spoke. "To eliminate the Heartless that were appearing in that area remember? They've been appearing all over recently."
Weiss scoffed. "Heartless, creatures of such base. Just like the Grimm."
"They are base, that's for sure." Ruby smiled. "Does anyone even remember when they started appearing?"
"We've been dealing with so many of them that I forgot." Yang admitted as she sat upright. "Professor Ozpin even said that the Heartless have killed off some of the Grimm."
"Really? Wow, I don't know whether to label that a good thing or bad."
"Let's just be glad they haven't teamed up on us." Blake mentioned.
"Yeah…"
The train ride was quiet again, Yang had lain back down and Ruby was back to her thoughts. Actually something had been troubling her. She'd been having strange dreams ever since the Heartless appeared in Vale. Dreams she could not accurately explain. In them she'd see Heartless, thousands of them, and then she'd see mysterious figures in black coats. Then she'd see seven girls all standing together, a light radiating from their chests and a glowing shape of what she assumed was a Keyhole. Her dreams weren't always the same, so it was hard to recall them.
But there was one thing she had no trouble remembering about the dreams, one thing that always appeared and she saw very clearly.
That thing, or rather person, was a boy.
He would be wearing mostly black clothing and had spiky brown hair that flowed in the wind. She remembered a wide, confident smile that was always on his face. He carried a strange sword like weapon in the shape of a key and he battled the Heartless, the men in black coats and rescued the seven girls of light.
But then…he'd change…
An evil force that twisted and warped would grab the boy with its evil tendrils, he'd struggle and yell but it would be futile. The tendrils would completely cover him and then disappear, revealing Sora with completely black skin and hair, dark energy would radiate off his shoulders. But most potently…
She remembered the evil glowing yellow eyes he'd have.
"Ruby?"
Ruby snapped out of her trance to see Yang looking at her, Blake had also looked up from her book at her. "You okay?"
Ruby put on a fake smile. "Yeah sure, I'm fine."
The blonde haired gauntlet user got up and walked over to sit next to her little sister. "Is it that dream again?"
Ruby should have known she couldn't fool her sister, they'd grown up together after all, of course she would know if she was bothered by something. The red hooded girl nodded, staring at the train floor.
"Yeah…I can't stop thinking about it…" Ruby admit.
"Maybe you should talk to a teacher about it." Blake offered some advice.
"She was dreaming about a boy." Weiss pointed out. "Its hormones Ruby. That's all."
Ruby blushed madly. "The dreams aren't just about the boy!"
"That's what they seem to be about most of the time."
Ruby just huffed and crossed her arms, still embarrassed by Weiss's comment.
Yang just chuckled. "Calm down Ruby. Have you ever met this guy before?"
"No. That's the weird thing. I've never seen a boy like him before in my life." Ruby said. "So why would I be having dreams about him? And sometimes I'd see the Heartless in hordes, destroying everything and strange guys in black coats. And then Sora again, but this time he had the form of a heartless…with evil yellow eyes…"
Yang noticed Ruby's voice begin to drift off, and she even began to struggle with her words. Ruby continued. "It…scares me…so much."
Yang and Blake looked at the poor girl, feeling terrible for her. Even Weiss, despite her haughty attitude, felt pity for the girl.
Ruby smiled and rubbed her eyes, clearing away any tears that were beginning to form. "Well I won't worry about it now. We have a job to do. Besides it might just be because I've watched too many scary movies."
Her friends chuckled at her, Yang slinging her arm over her shoulder. "Yeah. Let's go get those Heartless and report back to Beacon as quick as we can!"
"Attention." the four girls heard the train conductor say over the intercom. "We will be arriving to the next destination shortly."
Briel.
A small town a bit far from Vale that had large forestry surrounding it. Though it was not the most large and eventful of places, it had its own form of courtesy and geniality. According to Ozpin, the Heartless that were supposedly attacking this town were spawning from somewhere in the forest. If that was the case, that would have to be where they investigated first.
And that's where the young warriors were now.
"This feels almost like the initiation test." Yang spoke looking around at the trees.
"Only now where hunting Heartless, not Grimm." Weiss pointed out.
"Haha yeah." Ruby chuckled.
Blake stopped suddenly, causing the others to stop as she was the one walking ahead of them.
"Blake what's wrong?"
Blake's cat ears, though hidden by her bow, twitched. The stoic girl was silent as she listened carefully…
Rustling…in the trees…above them.
Instantly the Faunus pulled out Gambol Shroud, holding the sheath and sword in preparation. "It seems like we're the ones being hunted instead."
Without warning Heartless leaped out of the trees, Powerwilds and Bouncywilds to be exact, the intent to tear out the hearts of the girls they had followed. Ruby whipped out Crescent Rose and witched it to scythe form instantly, followed by Yang, whose wristlets full opened up into the Ember Celica and finally Weiss who pulled out Myrtnaster and entered a battle stance.
Blake was the first to attack. Leaping into the air she performed a spinning slash that took out two Powerwilds in a flash. She was covered by Yang who leapt up after and punched a Bouncywild hard enough to send it into a tree, the two girls landed back to back just as more of the Heartless appeared around them.
Weiss skated around on the grass, spinning and slashing at various Heartless and taking them out with precision and grace. A Large Body was about to slam its fist down on her but Weiss was ready. She switched her Myrtnaster to its red aura chamber and struck up at the beast's fist, repelling the attack. She then struck back hard in its back after flipping behind it.
Ruby blocked an incoming strike from a Shadow, then another. Whipping her scythe around she cleaved it in half then proceeded to tear through more that approached her. She jumped over a Powerwild's claw attack and struck her scythe in the ground, then using her scythe as a pivot she swung around and then doubled kicked the creature in the face, sending it crashing into another Powerwild, destroying them both.
"How you guys holding up?" Ruby asked her team, dodging another attack.
Yang appeared out of nowhere and smashed her fist down on a Bouncywild with a powerful burst from her gauntlet. "Can't complain." Yang smiled cheerily before leaping and socking a Large Body in its face, sending it through a tree.
Blake had her Gambol Shroud in its chain scythe form, whipping it around and striking in all directions. She had no time to block and attack by a Bouncywild but she was able to substitute the attack using her shadow ability. She back-flipped several times before landing near Ruby and Yang.
"Their pretty pesky, but manageable." The black-haired girl said as she retracted her weapon back into sword form.
Weiss performed a continuous spinning slash attack coated by ice dust that obliterated all the Heartless surrounding her, she then used her Air Step to push herself backward and landed gracefully next to her teammates.
"I don't think this is the time to be conversing!" She said irritably.
The girls stood with their backs to each other as more Heartless spawned, much more than before, more Powerwilds, Large Bodies, Neoshadows and Wyverns. "Oh…crap…" Yang said with a smirk as she readied herself.
Ruby reared her scythe back, pulling out one of her Cross Clips. She didn't want to have to use it but if this battle prolonged, then they'd be defeated eventually. "We're gonna need to end this battle quickly guys." Ruby said with determination.
What Ruby didn't know was that the battle was soon to be over. But not in the way she thought.
The Heartless retreated.
Team RWBY was visibly shocked, a few seconds passing by as they tried to make sense of what happened.
Weiss was the first to say something. "W-what the heck just—
"No time Weiss, let's follow them! Remember we have to get rid of all of them!" Ruby commanded. The three other girls followed their leader's role and chased after the retreating Heartless. The creatures may be mindless, but they were quite fast. So fast in fact that even Ruby had trouble keeping up.
"Faster everyone! They're getting away!" yelled Blake. The girls began leaping in the trees, jumping from branch to branch to keep up. It helped somewhat, they were gaining on them but unlike Heartless they did not have infinite amounts of stamina.
They soon landed just outside of a house, a mansion to be specific. The Heartless were gone, having instantly disappeared somehow. The mansion they stood in front of was old, rusty and abandoned. Though still looking sturdy, it had a lot of old and worn down parts, some holes in certain places and vegetation all over. Sunlight peaked through the gaps in the trees and some illuminated the house as well.
And even though it was daytime, it may as well have been night…
That was the ominous feeling the house gave off.
"Hmm. What's with the whole haunted house deal?" yang questioned, retracting her gauntlets into wristlets form.
"I dunno." Ruby said more to herself than anyone else. The red cloaked girl got a strange feeling from looking at the large structure. What was the feeling? Was it fear? Suspicion? The girl didn't know, but she did feel a presence inside it…
An evil presence.
And that feeling only heightened when she thought she saw bright yellow eyes looking at her through a broken window.
"Let's check it out!" Yang suddenly yelled, running ahead. Luckily she was stopped by Blake who grabbed her by her scarf.
"Wait Yang, let's talk about this first. What reason do we have to go inside there?"
Yang looked at her like she was dumb. "Isn't it obvious? That place obviously looks suspicious; it's a rickety old house for Grimm sake!"
"I admit it does look suspicious." Weiss spoke as she sheathed her rapier. "But we can't just enter based on that. It could be someone's personal property. Besides our priority is the Heartless that, in case you forgot, got away."
"But they we're in this direction!" Yang disagreed. "Where else could they have gone?"
"I agree with Yang." Ruby said as she turned to her friends. "I've got a weird feeling from looking at that house and I'm pretty sure I saw some Heartless up in the window. Let's just check it out."
Weiss crossed her arms with annoyance while Blake simply shrugged. Yang, glad her wish was fulfilled made a mad dash for the entrance of the house, followed by the rest. Pushing open the big door that was only slightly ajar, the girls entered, noting that the inside was not much better looking than the outside. They must have been in the main hallway because it was a wide open space with a staircase on the left. There were a couple of doors strewn throughout the ground floor as well, signifying many other different rooms. There was torn furniture, destroyed items and various other things scattered on the floor, making the room look like it had been wrecked by a tornado.
"Okay. Any ideas?" Ruby turned to her team.
Blake looked around before speaking. "I think we should split up into twos and search the house. Yang and I can search upstairs while you and Weiss search down here. Sound good?"
"Works for me." Yang shrugged.
"Why do I always get stuck with Ruby?" Weiss groaned.
"Oh don't pretend you don't love me!" Ruby said, smacking Weiss's back.
The girls split into their groups and began their search, Blake and Yang were now walking down the long hallway of the upstairs, on guard as they did. The eventually reached an empty room that looked like a small library, walking inside they saw that the place was trashed as well. Blake began inspecting the place thoroughly, taking note of all the tiniest details.
Yang looked under a table that sat in the center of the room, seeing nothing she stood back up. She noticed that on the table there were some light scratch marks about the size of a fingernail. She merely shrugged it off though; it was probably just from a random Heartless or something.
Blake was looking at the books on the shelves; they were all coated in dust, signifying that no one had touched them in years. She picked up one book from the shelf, dusting it off just as Yang came up to her.
"What's that?"
Blake opened the book to a random page, looking through its contents. It seemed to be a book full of various designs and operations for certain experiments, it was a kind of algorithm that she hadn't seen before. Blake was extremely intelligent, there wasn't too much that she didn't know, but this book…she understood none of it.
"Look Blake I know you love reading but frankly none of that looks discernible. Shouldn't we continue looking around?" Yang suggested.
"Go on Yang, keep looking. I'll catch up." Blake responded quickly.
One of Yang's eyebrows rose, but she quickly shrugged and went back to looking around the room. Blake kept perusing through the book, still not catching any important information. Irked she turned to the beginning pages to see the title. What she saw surprised her.
Heartless Construction Procedures
"Heartless Construction?" Blake said with shock. "What does that mean…?"
"Blake!"
Blake turned around instantly in reaction the Yang's call, it didn't sound life threatening urgent but it sounded urgent nonetheless. Yang was kneeling on the floor looking at something. Blake walked over to her, "What is it?"
Then she saw it. It was dry, but it was a substance that was unmistakable.
Blood.
Not too much of it gladly but that wasn't the issue, the blood hadn't been dry for very long. Maybe about three to four days. Something had happened here recently…
Something bad.
"We better get back to Ruby and Weiss." Blake spoke seriously.
"Yeah."
Ruby and Weiss were in a kitchen, it was a rather large kitchen, though old and worn out. Dishes were piled up in many places, some with old food on them and some broken. Utensils lied unused on the floor, chairs were knocked over onto their sides and the like, the kitchen was a wreck. Just like the rest of the house.
Weiss grimaced at the rotting and molding food sitting around. "Ugh disgusting. I don't know who owns this place but they're going to need a heck of a renovation done around here."
The girls shrieked when a large cricket jumped from out of nowhere, and she herself jumped…
Right into the arms of Ruby. The scythe wielding warrior girl chuckled at Weiss as she put her down. "Chill out Weiss it's just a bug."
Weiss scoffed and patted down her skirt. "Yeah just a bug, until it mutates and eats us all alive. Filthy vermin."
"Aww…" The cricket whimpered sadly as it scurried away crying, leaving behind a tiny book and hat.
"Aw you hurt its feelings!" Ruby said with a sad look.
Weiss however was shocked. "Wha…? Did that cricket just…" the girl shook her head viciously. "Of course not! What am I thinking?"
"Come on Weiss we searched all the rooms on this side, let's go to that ballroom." Ruby said with a smile. The girls exited the kitchen and were just about to walk past the stairs when Blake and Yang jumped down to meet them.
"Oh hey guys!" Ruby said. "Find anything?"
"More than we'd hoped…" Blake answered.
CRASH!
The girls were nearly thrown off their feet when a large crashing sound shook the house.
"What was that!?" Weiss shrieked.
THOOM! Another sound of impact came. Blake and Yang's eyes widened as they beheld what was only a few meters away from Ruby and Weiss. Ruby and Weiss noticed their look at turned to see for themselves. Standing there, was a Heartless. But not just any kind of Heartless. It was a werewolf-like like monster with spiky long hair similar to a mane and large, red razor-sharp claws on his hands and hind legs. It also had broken chains on its hands and large sharp teeth.
It was a Dark Thorn heartless.
It roared intensely; shaking the rafters above them and even the rest of the house.
"Um Ruby? What should we do?" Yang questioned.
"I think now would be a good time to…RUN!"
As soon as she said that the girls sped off, followed closely by the Dark Thorn, its heavy grunts echoing. Even with the various rubble in the way that the warriors had to maneuver past; it was nothing to the large muscular beast, it simply charged straight through them.
"It's getting closer!" Weiss shrieked again. Yang switched her wristlets to combat form. She stopped right on a dime and leapt at the monster, she slugged it right in the face, releasing a burst of her fiery aura in its face.
"Great! Nice hit Yang!" Ruby cheered.
Yang grinned, but her smirk changed to a look of pure shock and horror. She had punched the monster right in the face, a punch that sent full-grown Ursa through trees. But the Dark Thorn had taken the punch without even flinching.
"What?" The girl managed to gasp just before the monster punched the girl extremely hard and was sent flying, crashing through a door that led to another room. Ruby, Weiss and Blake ran after the girl, concerned for their teammate's safety, the Dark Thorn close behind. The room they entered was the ballroom, it was decently sized, not to small and not too large. It had carpeted flooring and had an elegant chandelier strung at the top. Though there were still some random objects about the room, it was probably the cleanest area of the whole mansion.
Ruby slid over to Yang's side, shaking her sister. "Yang! Yang are you okay?"
The blonde slowly lifted herself up and rubbed her head. "Gee…that thing hits hard." A trickle of blood ran down her forehead. Luckily she didn't seem any more injured.
"That was a dumb thing to do!" Ruby scolded.
"Heh now you tell me." Yang snickered.
"I'd hate to interrupt!" Weiss yelled out to catch the two girls' attention back to the large monster that she and Blake were struggling with. "But we kind of have a situation here!"
The Dark Thorn smashed the ground where Weiss stood and the girl barely dodged it, Blake jumped and struck at the monster's neck but missed as the creäture swung around quickly and whacked the Faunus with its other hand. Blake had managed to block with her katana just in time but she still took a strong hit and was send backward. She rebounded in midair and landed next to Yang and Ruby, Weiss had landed next to her right after.
Team RWBY looked at each other, nodding in silent agreement, then looked back at the heartless. The Beast roared loudly once again, seemingly ready to destroy its prey. But Ruby and her friends would not let that happen very easily.
Ruby stepped forward, pulling out her Crescent Rose and spinning it around expertly. "Let's go."
Ah alrighty the first chapter is officially done! It's kinda hard portraying the Ruby characters sometimes I admit. So if you have any suggestions on stuff I could do to improve my story it would be much appreciated.
By the way much thanks to Kuroyami Fukaikuro, your review really helped me. So I'm going to be sure to proofread my chapters thoroughly from now on! I wish I didn't have to re-upload this chapter since it was out of order but hey we all make mistakes. I'm still quite new at this so any advice that any of you may have for me will be greatly appreciated.
Later!
-ImSoAwesome
