[ I ]
"There it is, over there! And it's running away!" Weiss pointed at the retreating puma, the fleeing animal limping on its broken leg, yelping with every step it took. There was a large wound in its side that bled profusely, staining its thick, brown coat of fur red with blood. The coppery scent of fresh blood reached Weiss' nostrils and she felt a deep hunger take over her.
She would've lept and bit the animal, if she didn't find its blood tainted.
"It's not going anywhere." Emerald Sustrai, the woman Weiss was sent there with, replied sternly, brow furrowed, red eyes focused. She had her pistol loaded and aimed at the retreating beast, her index finger hovering over the trigger. "Nowhere but the underworld." The gun fired. Pale, green light burst from the barrel of the firearm, blasting a new hole into the side of the creature. Its blood splattered onto the earth and trees, a shocked expression on its feline features as it fell to the ground with a thud. "Still alive, huh?" Emerald mused, a smirk on her face and a dark, mischievous glint in her deep red eyes. "How about you do the honors, Lady Schnee?" She asked, turning to face Weiss, whose hand gripped the hilt of the rapier hanging from her waist.
"Why don't you finish the job, Emerald?" Weiss asked, tilting her head a bit.
"Because I know how you share your father's love for impaling your enemies." The dark-skinned woman stepped aside and gestured invitingly at the bleeding puma on the ground.
"Thank you, Emerald." The heiress replied, a wide smile on her excited face, her eagerness evident in her gait. "I have been itching to sink my blade into flesh for quite some time now."
Weiss approached the creature on the ground. The beast's breathing was heavy and pained, its chest rising and falling irregularly. It lay on a puddle of its own blood, the lifeblood trickling from the wounds it has sustained from Weiss' blade and Emerald's gun. Its hazel eyes looked sunken, and its light fur now dyed with a deep shade of red.
Looking down on the creature, she almost felt sorry for the it. Almost.
"Well, you lost." Weiss pointed her rapier at the animal and held her head high, her gaze low. "What will you do now, Therianthrope?"
The creature snarled, baring its prominent fangs stained red with blood, and changed form. The coat of matted, bloodstained fur that covered its body shrank until it was completely gone, save for the hairs on its arms and legs. Dull, broken claws which were once sharp and lustrous retracted back into its paws, its digits elongating, giving them the appearance of the hands and feet of a human. In the blink of an eye, the puma that lay on the ground took on a new appearance, one that looked more humanoid in form. But, in reality, it was far from being human.
"More of us are coming." The Therianthrope growled and coughed, blood spurting from his mouth and onto the ground, nearly hitting Weiss' lustrous, black, leather boots. "This place is ours."
Weiss found her encounter amusing. The panther that gave her and her associate trouble earlier was now nothing but a helpless victim lying in its own blood. He no longer had his claws or his fangs, and his flesh was dyed red. She just couldn't seem to call him threatening anymore.
"You lost this war before you started, fool." Weiss brought her rapier down onto the Therianthrope, piercing his heart. Blood spurted out violently, bringing a wide grin to Weiss' face. She pushed it deeper, and the Therianthrope's face contorted into all sorts of hideous expressions, until finally, he went slack.
"Satisfied, Weiss?" Emerald approached and placed her hand on the heiress' shoulder.
"Very. Though it would be best to dispose of the body first." Weiss answered and the revolver on the hilt of her unique rapier rotated until the the length of the blade glowed red. With a flick, fire spewed from the point of her weapon, setting the corpse ablaze. The fire made their shadows dance upon the earth, the sounds of crackling fire and the odor of badly-cooked food filling the air. She scrunched her nose in disgust.
"What now?" Emerald asked, turning to look at the heiress, who kept her eyes on the flame, the fire being reflected in her light blue eyes, making her look like she was planning something diabolical. "Hey, Weiss..."
"We ought to leave." Weiss answered, turning on her heel, walking away from the flame with a quick yet regulated pace, her gait graceful and dignified, like all Schnees. "They tend to travel in groups. That fire's a beacon that will lure his friends here. More of them are coming and we'll be outnumbered soon."
"So, we're leaving." Emerald said.
"We don't have anything to do here anymore anyway." Weiss replied. "Unless you want to fight a pack of Therianthropes."
"Leaving. Leaving sounds good."
"We're walking home."
"What?"
"The gate sorcerer's had a rough week. Let him have a break for a while."
"Fine." Emerald answered with a bit of a pout on her face. "But if my legs get tired, you're carrying me."
"I believe you meant the opposite." Weiss laughed.
Ruby stopped in her tracks all of a sudden when her sensitive nose detected a strange odor.
"Something wrong?" Velvet asked, brown eyes turning to Ruby.
"Nothing." Ruby replied, rearing her head back and raising her nose into the sky. "I can just smell something."
"Something?"
Ruby sniffed around, her sensitive sense of smell picking up on the peculiarly familiar scent of smoke. She turned her head side to side, trying to single out the source of the smell. There was a fire nearby, and by the smell the smoke carried, she can easily say that someone was holding meat over an open flame.
She would've found the smell appetizing if it didn't smell completely horrid.
"Do you smell that?" Velvet asked, her nose twitching as she looked around. Apparently, she's already caught on to the scent as well. "It smells like..."
"Burnt meat?" Ruby finshed Velvet's sentence, her face heating up and turning red ever so slightly. She turned away from her friend to hide her reddening face. She knew that charred odor too well. It smelled like meat left to roast over a flame for an hour too long, just like that time when she was still a little girl and tried out cooking. She failed to keep watch over the meat and ended up searing it, wasting a perfectly good venison. She learned a valuable lesson that day: stick to raw food. Even worse was, the whole of the tribe knew about her childhood culinary catastrophe, and some even made some sort of annoying inside joke from it. "Yeah. And it's coming from over there." She continued, pointing a finger towards to source of the strong odor.
"What could it be? A campfire? Campers?"
"I don't think so."
"How would you know?"
"I can't pick up the scent of humans."
"Alright." Velvet replied, lightly touching Ruby's nose. "I trust your sense of smell."
Ruby scrunched her nose in distaste. The odor was just too unsatisfactory for her now. "I'm going to go over there and check." Ruby said, turning towards the source of the odor, "This place might just go up in flames if someone doesn't get that fire checked."
"I'll stay here and watch your back." Velvet replied and drummed her fingers on the small, wooden box she always kept hanging from her waist.
Ruby nodded in acknowledgment and slowly made her way to the source of the smoke. She made sure that she was extremely careful in heading there as the ground was littered by dried leaves and dead twigs. One wrong move and they snap, alerting whoever or whatever waited at the place where the fire must be at. She relied on years of stealth training and primal instinct, sneaking like she was stalking a deer. Her feet were light, her movement quick, yet she managed to avoid making a single sound.
By the time she got there, Velvet appeared to be a small, dark, shapeless blob in the distance. Ruby thought she saw Velvet wave at her. Her eyesight wasn't as good as her smell, and there were times she got envious of hawks. This was one of those times. She gave a small wave back and an OK sign just for good measure.
The seared odor was definitely stronger now - so strong that it made Ruby's eyes water. But amidst the smoke was another scent masked by the stronger odor of charred flesh: blood. It was faint, but it was definitely there, the metallic tang of blood.
She got on her guard. There might be something horrible lurking on the other side of the bush she hid behind if there was the scent of fresh blood was present. It could have been a predator carrying out the will of Mother Nature, or it could have been a more dangerous entity altogether.
Especially since Ruby can't pick up the scent of any predator she knew.
She turned away from the smoke and gulped in a lungful of fresh air, holding it in because her heightened sense of smell couldn't handle the foul, seared odor. "One... Two..." She counted silently, her hand preparing to move the bush aside so she can pounce on whatever stood on the other side. "Three."
She leaped through the wall of leaves, claws extend, fangs bared, ready for a fight.
There wasn't even anything to fight.
The area was completely empty save for tall, ominous trees with owls perched on the branches and rocks. But there were more peculiar things among the earth: burnt grass, blood splattered onto the trunks of the trees and watering the soil. In the middle of what appeared to be where a fight took place was a pile of ashes, a skeleton lying in the middle of the mound.
It appeared to be fresh, too.
"That's not good..." Ruby muttered to herself in horror, her hands flying to her mouth. "Velvet!"
Rapid footfall sounded from the distance, getting closer with each passing second. Ruby turned her head towards the direction of the sound, just in time for her to see Velvet skillfully jump from behind the bushes, do a somersault mid-air, and land gracefully beside Ruby like a professional.
"What?" Velvet asked and Ruby pointed at the ground in reply. The brunette's eyes followed where Ruby's finger was pointing, and a horrified expression spread across her face when she saw what Ruby wanted her to see. "What...?" She knelt beside the pile of ashes and sifted through the cinders, her expression getting darker and more grim with each passing second she kept her eyes on the remains. "This is definitely one of us. Who, I can't tell." She picked up the skull and dusted it off with her hand, sneezing when she caught a whiff of the ashes. "I think someone might recognize this."
"Hold that thought." Ruby cut in and Velvet assumed her defensive stance: her hand on the box, her knees bent and ready to leap away at a moment's notice. "Do you hear that?"
The long, brown rabbit ears on top of Velvet's head twitched. "Yes. It's coming from over there." She pointed to where the faint sound was coming from. Velvet's brow furrowed, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed as she bent forward and took a few steps towards the sound, her ears twitching and bending like an ant's antennae feeling around the environment. "It sounds like conversation."
"You can hear them talking?" Ruby asked, still astounded by Velvet's excellent hearing. "What are they saying?"
"I can't make out any words from this distance." Velvet replied and screwed her eyes shut. "It's like they're talking from underwater."
"I'll go check." Ruby suggested and prepared to sprint towards the faint noise. "They might be the guys who did this. If they are, I'm fighting them."
"Ruby, wait." Velvet put her hand on Ruby's shoulder and pulled her back before she can even run. "What if those guys are Undead?"
"I'll fight them!" Ruby answered enthusiastically, her teeth taking on a more pointed form.
"And what if they outnumber you?"
"I'll still fight them!" Ruby, getting impatient, ran off before Velvet could even put her next sentence into words, leaving the brunette hanging.
"Ruby!" Ruby heard Velvet call at the top of her lungs. It was the last thing she heard from the brunette before she bounded through a thicker part of the undergrowth. She ran through the scrub on all fours, skillfully avoiding getting hit by the low-hanging branches and shrubs, though she did get whacked by a bush or two as she made followed the two pairs of fresh tracks on the ground. Whoever she was tracking was getting closer and closer.
The scent of whoever left the tracks became known to her.
Definitely not human.
"Undead." She snarled distastefully, her nose twitching. She finally identified that familiar stench. They were close, too. She took cover within the undergrowth, relying on the thick foliage to conceal her while she watched two young girls make their way past her location. They appeared to be human, but Ruby knew better.
The taller one of the two them had dark skin and dark red eyes, a couple of pistols contained within holsters strapped to the back of her waist. The two long locks descending from her head of mint green hair bounced behind her as she walked in a calm pace. She blended almost seamlessly with the dark background, and she would have if it weren't for the white and olive colors comprising her outfit.
Shorter than the first, the second girl had light blue eyes and pale white skin that matched her pure white hair pulled back in an off-center ponytail held by a silver tiara that gleamed in the moonlight. She was dressed in an outfit that was nearly entirely white, making her stand out against the dark, gloomy background of the forest at night.
Ruby cannot make out more features the girls had as she was too distant from them and that her eyes weren't exactly as sharp as a bird's - another reason she sometimes get envious of the feathered animals.
She just knew that it wouldn't be wise to engage the two girls in combat at that moment.
Ruby just watched them walk away and literally vanish into the shadows.
A/N: I know this idea may be a bit cliche, but hey. It never gets old.
Alright, another multi-chapter fanfic from me. Fair warning, there might be times in the future in which the writing may seem a bit off, but please bear with me as I tend to suffer with longer fanfics. Especially since I keep changing my mind about lots of things or just plain forget some details. Despite this, however, I will try my best to make the next chapters well so you could just enjoy the ride.
