Warning, this is not a continuation of Withering Rose, Rising Witch, but rather another short story. I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it immensely, hell and I kinda wish I had more to add to it, but I came up with it as a stand alone short story. Instead, what I'm going to do is basically make this more like a compilation of short fanfics I've cooked up, basically just ideas and concepts in the form of short stories. Who knows, I might get some ideas to build on for a sequel for WRRW, but until then, enjoy.
AC-107
"Why is that thing still there? Isn't it dead, or something?" This wasn't the first time that Joe Dohn had been asked this question and while he was somewhat curious himself, he was kinda getting real sick of it, especially because no one knew the damn answer, and if anyone did, they weren't telling people.
"Hell if I know. It's there, so are the Grimm, that's all that matters."
"That and the dust, if your Huntsman contact was right." Answered the red haired airship driver who had asked the question.
"Robin, have I ever let you down before? Besides, it's the ruins of a damned battle academy for crying out loud. Only an army armory will have more."
"Do you really want me to answer that? But I'll give you the one point about it being Beacon." She replied.
"Oh ye of little faith. Just get us on the ground"
The small airship landed well on the outskirts of the ruins of Beacon, far enough that ideally the Grimm wouldn't notice it, going by the info Joe's contact had fed them.
The group of courageous entrepreneurs were, not counting the Huntsman contact, five in all, people both Joe and Robin had picked up with the promise of easy money, reasonable risk and no questions asked.
There was Red Coat, an ex White Fang member with a nack for weapons, so he was in charge of discouraging any small Grimm that came between them and the dust. The big guy had given a sort of bogus name, so everyone else just named him after the bright red shirt he wore.
Clarke, a more scrawny looking blonde, was a wiz at cracking electronic codes and the like, also knew how to keep himself alive in a scrap. So he was going to take care of any tech problems that came up, unlikely considering the state of Beacon but didn't hurt.
Finally there was a career burglar by the name of Jack, who prime job was to handle obstacles like good old fashioned locks and such.
"Alright, keep a low profile until we get to the hunter forward camp, right?" Jack asked.
"Yep, then we hook up with Charon, go grab the dust, get out dodge and proceed straight to profit." Joe answered as the airship's doors opened, and the five went out into the dark and quiet spring forest. There was an unnerving quiet, even for a nighttime wilderness. Flashlights attached to the weapons of four of the group swept the eerie woods cautiously as they advanced, much to Red Coat's disproval.
"Excuse us for not having night vision." Robin replied to the faunus' grunt.
"So... Think we'll see anything of what they used to train those two... freaks?" Clarke asked, breaking up the silence.
"What freaks?" Joe asked for clarity's sake, as he had a feeling that the world was filling up with people best called that.
"You know, the chick who broke that guy's leg out of no where in the tournament, Yang what's-her-face, and the one who tore that robot person apart, Pyrrha Nikos. They were both Beacon students after all."
"Good gods, are you trying to bring the Grimm down on us?! Bringing up those monsters that caused the Grimm to attack Beacon like they did, on top of mentioning the dead!" Robin hissed nervously.
"Shut it you two." Joe growled. "I'd rather we wonder how we pulled this off back in a bar in Vale, or rather Vacuo than any of the other alternatives that come to mind right now."
Despite the early attempts to jinx their luck, the makeshift expedition made it to the hunter forward camp with no trouble.
Yet that was where the good news ended. It was a lot more quiet and dark at the forward encampment than it should have been, considering the circumstances. One would think that there would be a fire, some spot-lights the sounds of people talking, something. But there was a whole lot of nothing. Also, the Huntsman didn't respond to the signal. He didn't respond to it the second time, or the third and fourth either. With growing unease and increasing desire to get out, the crew cautiously advanced into the camp to see what the hell might be going on.
The camp was deserted and it looked like it had been that way for at least a few days. There was no sign of any of the huntsmen or huntresses or where they might have gone. At first the general idea was that the Grimm had attacked and overrun the camp, but there wasn't enough damage and signs of battle to prove that and there hadn't been a sign of those monsters, yet. Instead, there were strangely twisted and contorted pieces of metal scattered around, things that had once been knives, forks, cans and even what might have been a weapon of some kind, but it was so warped that it was impossible to tell.
"Okay, this is not helping the bad feeling I've had since we set out on this trip." Clarke mumbled nervously.
"You're kinda speaking the obvious here, just a bit." Red Coat replied.
"Guys, you're not going to want to see this, but- uh... You kinda should." Robin's voice was wavering intensely. As the rest of the crew joined her, they quickly saw why.
Her light clearly lit up a ominous message carved into a ruined wall that led towards Beacon. It was only two words, two simple words.
DON'T LOOK
"Is that blood?" Jack asked, noting the way the light seemed to glisten on the words warning and a sizable splatter stain close to the end.
"I'm a lot more concerned about what we're not supposed to look at. The dragon? The school? Who the hell wrote this and why?" Joe added to the one-sided sea of questions.
Red Coat knelt down and picked something up. "Maybe this will tell us something." He tossed the object at Clarke.
"Whoa! Give a guy a warning first." He growled as he struggled to catch the badly battered scroll.
"Think you can fix it quickly, I really don't like the idea of sticking around much longer."
"Yea, give me a second." The tech replied to Jack as he fiddled with the damaged electronics. "There, looks like there are some logs on this thing, but most of the data is either gone or really messed up, wait here's something."
The scroll's screen lit up into a mess of static and a panicked woman's voice began to stream out of the device. "If anyone finds this you have to get out of here! Beacon is" ~kzzt~ "There's something hunting" ~kzzt~ "I don't know what that, that Weeping Gorgon is but" ~kzzt~ "Even the Grimm fear her." ~kzzt~
There was a pause in the static while goosebumps began to creep up everyone's spines
"She's coming... Oh gods. I can hear it." ~kzzt~ "When she finds you... Whatever you do..."
The woman's whimper was cut off by an ominous female hiss. "Dont. Look at me."
"Oh... gods..." The huntress's terrified sob was the last before what was left of the journal cut off into ominous static.
With chills going up his spine and his heart was beating loudly in chest Joe quickly came to very worthwhile idea. "Alright, new plan. Get out of here and get drunk, any questions?"
"Why are we still here?" Jack asked, his face pale.
Red Shirt was already making his way in the direction the crew had come, his hair visibly standing on end. "We should get out of here before that thing or Grimm-"
Almost as if they had been summoned by their utterance, a pack of Beowolves materialized from the quiet dark wood and attacked, catching Red Coat completely off guard. Two of the monsters began ripping into the screaming faunus while the rest of the crew panicked, firing their weapons wildly before fleeing away from the attacking Grimm, towards Beacon. Red Shirt's screams echoed for moments far too long in the terrified ears of the others before the a fatal silence consumed the doomed noise.
They finally stopped ruining when they took cover in a mostly intact building that looked like it had once been a cafeteria, though it was hard to tell from all the damage. Joe and Jack frantic scanned the area behind them and saw that the Grimm hadn't followed.
"What the hell, those things can't have lost us that easily." Jack breathed.
"Do you really want to look a gift horse in the mouth right now?" Joe responded with his heart in his throat.
"After what that huntress said, yes! But aside that, what I really want is to be out of here!"
Joe couldn't argue with that, with one eye over their shoulders Jack and Joe turned to join up with Robin and Clarke. Or rather just Robin, as Clarke was no where in sight.
"I- I thought he was with you two." Robin said between gasps when Joe asked.
"He must have gone further ahead. No screams so it might be safe?" Jack wondered out loud, the light from his weapon sweeping the inky blackness ahead of the remaining crew. Two more flimsy beams of joined the first as Jack Joe and Robin began to move forward into the dark ruin, as going back would take them into the waiting jaws of the Grimm. Their best bet was to find a way back that went around the overrun encampment.
With each step, the three humans were shivering, but not from the cold. There was a deathly quiet surrounding them, broken only by their steps and shallow breaths while they searched for an exit and any trace of Clarke.
A sudden clatter of a can caused Robin to jump and made Joe's heart stop for an instant while Jack struggled not to open up with his weapon. Immediately the three of them struggled to locate the source of the sound.
"There!" Robin hissed nervously, pointing along the beam of her flashlight to where a can was rolling along the cracked and debris covered floor. The light also caught Clarke's legs where he was leaning against the wall. "Clarke! What the hell are you playing at? Get over here, we have to stick together!"
The three got closer to their lost companion, looking for safety in numbers. However Clarke fell to the floor, considerably shorter than he had been and with a wet "plop".
"What the hell?!"
"Where's his head!?"
"What got him?!"
The startled and confused screams masked the sound of more rattling cans rolling across the floor past the headless body. Yet the panic was quieted when a new sound introduced itself.
"Shikashikashika-" A loud an unnatural rattling echoed around the survivors who were now realizing that there was no wind, nor incline to cause the rolling of the cans.
They were not alone
"Don't...Look at me."
A gentle and malevolent voice that mixed a teenage girl with a hissing reptile echoed in the dark around the shaking crew, far too late seeing that they had stepped down the throat of a nightmare. They managed horrified gasps before the thing lurking in the dark struck. The rattle of metal became a roar as a wave of cans came crashing towards the humans.
They scrambled, ducked, dodged and weaved through the onslaught, at first. But while Jack may have been nimble and most certainly was quick, he didn't survive the metal stick that ran him through, thrown with murderous accuracy. The human kabob gasped in surprise at the scrap iron spear sticking out of his chest before the thing in the dark, the Weeping Gorgon, yanked her prey out of sight.
In utter terror and blind luck, Joe and Robin managed to get out of the ruin and flee down an outdoor pathway that led in the direction of their ship. Many red eyes watched terrified humans run under the remaining failing lightposts, but not a single Grimm dared approach.
Robin and Joe found their way blocked by the wreckage of an Atlas battleship. Frantic to get back to the ship but unwilling to risk any detours, they tried to make their way over it. Robin was able to make her way up easily enough, being lithe and lightly equipped, but Joe wasn't so fortunate.
And the Weeping Gorgon had finished with Jack.
At the edge of one of the nearby flickering lightposts, Robin saw a humanoid figure reach up its arm like it was pulling on something. There was a tortured shriek of metal and Robin's gun was violently ripped from her grasp as the side of the fallen ship that Joe was climbing up fell on top of him, trapping him on the wrong side.
"Robin! Help! ME!" He screamed in utter panic, but Robin's gaze was fixed on the figure in the dark. It took a step forward, the light revealing what could have been mistaken for a human leg in bleached white greaves reaching up to the mid-thigh. Then the thing slung a round scrap iron shield at the failing light and was lost in the dark, but Robin should hear her.
"Shikashikashika-"
"ROBIN!" Joe screamed again, pleading.
She ran, leaving him to scream her name again and again, before his screams became wordless shrieks of agony and terror.
Panic gave the woman wings. And panic brought the Grimm down on her. With the Weeping Gorgon distracted and behind the battleship, the monsters couldn't resist the beautifully seasoned treat that had run into their midst.
Somehow Robin still made it to the ship, bleeding and battered, she stumbled in, viciously assaulting the button to close the hatch as she forced herself to move towards the cockpit. Already the ship shuddered as various Grimm slammed into it, ravenous for the fresh meat inside.
As fast as she was able with her left arm, as her right hung onto her body by a strand of meat and bone, Robin started up the ship.
"Come on, come on, come on!"
The engines fired up, dust began to pump. It would take a mere thirty seconds for the ship to take off.
An ursa's paw violently introduced itself to the cockpit's windshield, heavily cracking it while the beast eyed the panicked prey hungrily.
"Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeon!"
Fifteen seconds...
The hatch doors where Robin had entered groaned as they were forced open.
The ursa brought back its paw to shatter the windshield, but then... it retreated.
"Shikashikashika-"
Robin didn't care what or why, the ship was ready to fly, now she could get out and-
"Don't. Look. At. ME."
She froze solid. Her hand an inch away from the throttle. She shuddered and gasped, crying. She could feel something breathing behind her. "Oh gods..."
She looked.
The thing behind her was a humanoid Grimm, white bone covered her legs like greaves and her feet were like those of the dragon atop Beacon tower. The black of the creature's torso was broken by rib growths that merged into low v neck breastplate where a white growth of bone protruded like an arrow in the being's heart. From her back were a pair of great red wings and along her arms were various pieces of scrap metal held there by some unknowable force like some form of armor. In her claws was the spear she'd used, blood stained and looking as though it had been forced together and sharpened. The rattlesnake-like tail was connected to the creature's head, along the way, the tar black scales gave way to red hair. The most hideous thing was the monster's face, a mask that mixed the features of a human and serpent skull with razor teeth and two pairs of eyes, one pair red, hungry, angry and malevolent, the other pair vivd-Green, frightened, dispairing and weeping red tears down the mask.
"YOU LOOKED" The Weeping Gorgon shrieked, and with a wail that threatened to wake the dead, she fell upon the screaming Robin.
None can tell what was louder that black night. Robin shrieking as the monster ripped her apart, the scream of the metal as the creature's power crushed it around them or the wail of Weeping Gorgon herself.
There was finally silence once again, when the last drop of blood left Robin's shredded remains.
Author's bit.
HAPPY HOLLOWEEN!
So yea, this is my own take on the whole, Pyrrha comes back as a Grimm theory. One slight twist though, is that this creature, the Weeping Gorgon, isn't Pyrrha being reborn a Grimm but rather a Grimm born with pieces of Pyrrha. In short, it is her own existence even if at the point of her birth, she thought she was Pyrrha, allow me to explain. Before Ruby did the desus ex machina thing with the silver eyes that does things, the Grimm Dragon more than likely inhaled just a bit of the ash that was once Pyrrha, that mixed with the stuff that makes Grimm and some of the shattered fragments of Pyrrha's soul got mixed in. Most, I believe went to Ruby for whatever reason, and I blame that theory on the episode where Ruby heard Pyrrha calling for Jaune, but not important right now. The stuff that got mixed in, was enough to create a humanoid Grimm, likely the first and only one of its kind, spawing from the Dragon that's still serving as a beacon for Grimm on top of Beacon tower (eh eh! I'll show myself out.) Of course the dragon's still frozen, but I think its still pumping out Grimm all the same, and in this mess the Weeping Gorgon was born. As a human Grimm, she's unique, as she has all of Pyrrha's fighting skill and just enough pieces of her soul to use aura, and her semblance. Add in a few fragmented memories, like only remembering Jaune by his blonde hair, Cinder killing her, and what Pyrrha looked like and oh boy... Not pretty.
As for why the Grimm fear her, well, due to the fact she can use aura, but is a Grimm, that burns a lot of energy, as such, she is RAVENOUS. She can eat an alpha goliath and still be starving on a bad day. And there's the fact that she's one of them, but isn't. She's a beacon of negativity due to her fragmented personality but she feeds on them. Still figuring out the details there honestly.
Any who now the piece de resistance, the whole don't look thing. Like I said, when she was first spawned, she legitimately thought she was Pyrrha Nikos. A quick glance in a mirror and the memory of Cinder killing her shattered that idea pretty quick. And she has enough humanity to utterly loath her appearance. She does not want to be seen, but is drawn to people by both her hunger and Pyrrha's loneliness, that's why shes a "bad" ambusher. If she's close, you WILL know it, due to the rattlesnake rattle, the "Shikashikashika-" and when she tells you not to look, that's when she's right on top of you. Now then, the whole don't look thing gives you two options in the Weeping Gorgon's eyes, if you don't look, then you're good prey and get to die quickly. If you do look... you're going to die blind and screaming. She'll go for the eyes first.
As for the name, well I was heavily inspired by the good old weeping angels of Doctor Who, and figured that she's something you don't want to look at, and which Greek legend had something similar.
I hope the sheer creep and NOPE factors I felt in writing this translated well, now onto a question asked earlier.
I initially wrote WRRW as a stand alone short story, and for the most part it is, however, I do have a very, VERY good idea of a sort of follow up to it, but I need to see how the current season of RWBY plays out before I figure it out. I will say this much on the subject.
Yes, there will be a corrupted Ruby, or rather, a Obisdian Thorn.
And on that bombshell of a dickmove I will leave you. Please forgive my trick, and I hope you found it to be one hell of a treat.
AC-107