Chapter 3.1- Side Stories 1
*The first part of the Free Hunt which is Blake, Marco and Yang's side of the story:
Yang, Blake and Marco resumed their trek after just encountering a large Ursa in the middle of their path a while ago. The three have already trekked for about thirty minutes and they've barely killed something, except for that Ursa, but who knows what will ambush them in these woods.
"That was eventful." Yang said, after they got through that Ursa.
"Well, I couldn't help it in the first place." Marco told them.
"You just had to poke it with your weapon Marco." Blake said, giggling.
"Hey, like I said, I couldn't help myself." Marco said, crossing his arms.
"So, um, where are we going again?" Yang asked, having that nagging feeling in her that's saying: "We're lost."
"I think we should be approaching the canyon." Blake said as she pointed forward.
"Ruby did say this path would lead us to the canyon." Marco told them.
"I guess you're right. We might even encounter some better Grimms there." Yang said.
They continued forward down the path. The more they walked forward, the ground started to become moister, the smell of mud started to fill their noses and the fact that the path started to become much more muddy. Yang felt disgusted walking over the mud while Blake and Marco didn't seem to bother the mud that they're stepping on.
"How are you guys not grossed out about this?" Yang asked, still disgusted about the mud.
"That's because you're wearing shorts, very short shorts." Blake told her.
"Blake does have a point, Yang. Besides, maybe you should've prepared yourself before you got here." Marco said.
They finally reach the canyon. The canyon had much more mud on it than usual and the water seemed to be more like swamp water rather than normal water. The waterfall still looked the same though, but everything else here looked more like a swamp than a forest.
"Something's not right." Blake said, readying her weapon.
"Yeah. The canyon's not supposed to be this swampy." Yang told them as she activates Ember Celica.
Marco looked around the swampy canyon. According to they're geography classes, Emerald Forest canyon had a much more forest like terrain than a swamp. It's almost as if something made this part of the forest a swamp. Marco continued to investigate their surroundings while Yang and Blake kept watch. The mud looked new and fresh. If this mud was part of this part of the forest, the mud should've been darker, but this mud is brown. Marco thought that something carried this mud over here and it was not the product of heavy rain. Marco continued to look around until he stumbled to something stunning, black foam over the muddy water. He took a closer look. This wasn't normal foam and it seemed more chunky than usual. He took a scoop of it in his hands and poked it. Suddenly, something moved inside the foam. He then looked closer and then realized something horrifying. This wasn't foam, they're eggs! But from who? Suddenly, he heard a faint croaking sound coming from the canyon and it started to grow louder. Something is approaching them and it sounds angry. He turned to Blake and Yang, who are oblivious to what's going to happen. Marco dropped the eggs and yelled at them.
"Guys! Get out of there!" Marco yelled as he ran towards the two.
"Why? What's going-" Yang said, concerned.
Before she could finish, two large figures jumped out of the canyon and landed in front of Blake and Yang. They appeared to look like frogs, but they had obvious details that made them Grimms. They have small teeth, three horns on their face mask and mud dripping from their mouths. They croaked at the three, signifying that the two are marking are marking them as intruders. Marco now gets it. These two frog Grimms brought up the mud from below the canyon and brought it up here to build their nest. These two probably needed to live in a muddy environment for them to build a nice nest for their young.
"What the hell are these things?!" Yang asked.
"They must be the new Grimm known as the Bull Leaper." Marco explained, "They're gross, nasty and have a tendency to be very protective of their nest."
"This is their nest?!" Blake asked.
"Yeah, the eggs are over there." Marco calmly said, pointing to the black foamy eggs on the small muddy pond where he found them.
"Then, what're we gonna do?" Blake asked.
"Well, we could leave them alone or we can kill them." Marco suggested as pulled out Edge Shadow.
"I propose we kill them." Yang said, cocking Ember Celica.
"I agree Yang." Blake said, pulling out Gambol Shroud.
The two frog Grimms stared at them, their red eyes full of nothing but cold and emotionless blood lust. One of them launches their tongue out on Yang, which grabs her and pulls her into it's gaping jaws.
"Guys! Help!" Yang cried before she got enclosed in the monster's mouth.
"Holy shit! Yang!" Marco cried in horror.
"How the hell are we going to explain this to Ruby?!" Blake said, slightly sobbing.
Suddenly, an explosion erupted from the Bull Leaper's mouth. Then Yang lifts up the jaws with one hand as she stepped on the Grimm's tongue. She then proceeded to launch shots on down the monster's throat.
"I'M! NOT! YOUR! DINNER!" Yang shouted as she fired at the monster.
She then hops out of the Bull Leaper's mouth while the Bull Leaper croaks in pain. The other then tries to attack her, but Blake defends her by striking it with Gambol Shroud. It then tries to attack her using it's tongue, but Marco cuts it off using Edge Shadow. With Edge Shadow's light blue Dust effect, the tip of the cut tongue starts to freeze it. The other Bull Leaper hops towards them, but Yang counters it with a powerful punch, sending the frog Grimm flying and hitting the other Bull Leaper. The three then proceed to viciously fire at the weakened Grimms. The two get up but are still being bombarded on by the fury of bullets coming out from Blake, Marco and Yang's weapons. Yang then looks over to the other side of the canyon where three Beowolves are running away from…Ruby and Stephen. Ruby's expression didn't look so well right now. It's like she's pursuing those wolves out of anger and vengeance. Yang stops firing and heads over to the other side of the canyon. There is a worried expression on Yang's face. She seemed concern over the fact that Ruby is chasing three helpless Grimms for one reason and one reason only.
"Ruby!" she yells over to her, but she didn't seem to hear it.
"Yang, what the hell are you doing?" Marco said, still focusing all of his fire at the two Bull Leapers.
Yang didn't response. She continued to yell out her sister's name until she disappeared from view. She reloads Ember Celica and puts herself into a launching position.
"What're you doing?!" Blake said, looking over from her targets.
"My sister's at it again! I have to stop her!" Yang said.
"We don't have time!" Marco told her.
"I have to! Ruby has been doing this for too long already!" she yelled over.
Suddenly, one of the Bull Leapers, who just escaped from the fury of fire from Blake and Marco, tackles her, pushing her down the cliff. Yang hangs on to a branch just before she could fall while the Bull Leaper fall to it's demise. Blake and Marco stop shooting at the Bull Leaper and go over to help Yang. The branch gave in and it snapped, sending Yang plummeting down the canyon. She could almost see her life flashing before her eyes and she was starting to see what would happen to Ruby if she died here and now. But, Blake fires Gambol Shroud downwards, the blade spinning towards Yang. But she didn't intend to hit her, instead she made the blade spin to her side, putting the ribbon Gambol Shroud was attached to Yang's grasps. Yang manages to seize the ribbon, stopping her from falling. Blake and Marco proceed to pull her up, giving out their entire strength to help their blonde friend up. Blake then reaches her hand out for her friend, which she accepts and pulls her up. Yang was breathing heavily after her close encounter with death. She looked at the slain Bull Leaper next to her and seemed as though that she hardly helped her teammates in taking down the two Grimms and instead she risked her life to save her sister from who knows what and almost died in the process from a creature she should've killed first before she placed her attention to her sister. The thought of that just made her cry. She placed her face on her knees and began to sob loudly. Marco and Blake go to their sobbing friend who was just shooting out tears from her eyes. Marco and Blake couldn't understand what drove Yang to risk her life like that for her sister. They knew she loved her sister very dearly, but she was never this protective towards her. It was time to get some answers out of her and figure this out once and for all.
"Yang, what happened back there?" Blake asked the sobbing blonde.
Yang stopped sobbing and looked up at Blake. She was worried and so was Marco, so she decided to spill the beans and tell them why she did that.
"I…I… tried to stop sis…" she told them, tears still flowing from her eyes.
"Stop her from what?" Marco asked.
"I tried to stop her from taking revenge." Yang said.
Blake and Marco exchanged curious glances at each other. What the hell did Yang mean by stopping her own sister's vengeance? They continued to comfort her as they begin to ask another question.
"What do you mean?" Blake asked.
"I meant I didn't want my sister to do those things she just did a while ago." She told them.
"But she was just chasing Beowolves. What's wrong with that?" Marco asked, curiously.
"That's just it!" Yang said, her aura heightened as her eyes started to turn crimson. She then calmed herself down and looked at Blake and Marco, who seemed almost hurt on the way she reacted.
"I'm so sorry, guys…" she said as another tear came down from her eye.
"Yang, please, we're here to help. Now, what happened to you? Why'd you suddenly ditch helping us and tried to stop Ruby?" Blake asked, her voice showed both signs of concern and seriousness.
"Okay I'll tell you guys." Yang said, sitting down at the grass as Marco and Blake did the same.
"It happened a long time ago, before we came to Beacon." Yang began to explain, reaching down her deepest thoughts in order to tell them the truth.
*(The next paragraph is a flashback told in Yang's POV, just to let you know):
It happened when I was still at my last year of combat school. I just forged Ember Celica and I had to train myself for the last combat exam before I graduate. I was just relaxing in my room in our dad's house until I heard Uncle Qrow's jet stop by our lawn. I went outside to see Uncle Qrow and Ruby step out of the jet. Ruby was sobbing as Qrow brought her over to me. Ruby then held me in an embrace as I looked over to our uncle.
"What happened?" I asked, embracing my baby sister.
"Summer's house just got attacked by Beowolves." Qrow answered.
"Mom's house? Where's mom?" I asked my concern for her rising like mercury in a thermometer.
"She stayed to fight off the Beowolves. She told me to bring Ruby over here." He told me.
"But Ruby's ready for actual Grimm combat. Why did she want her to back off?" I asked again.
"I'm sorry, Yang but I have no time to explain." Qrow told me.
And in those words he ran back to his jet and took off, leaving me with my baby sister. She fell asleep amongst her crying so I carried her over to my room, brought out the spare bed and placed her there. The next morning, I made her breakfast when she woke up. I wanted to find out what happened last night but it seemed that she didn't want to talk to me about it. I just felt depressed that I couldn't help my little sister so I just headed back to my room. Ruby told me she was going back to mom's house to check on her and see if she's alright. I wanted to come but she insisted that she'd go alone. After she left, I looked over to her bed. It was good thing she brought her things over, including her scythe. On her bed was her journal and a pen. It looked like she just used it so I opened it up to see what she wrote down. To my surprise, there were no writings on the last page, it was just drawings, drawings of my sister slicing Beowolves and leaving piles of them on the ground. Below Ruby wrote:
"I'm gonna kill every last one of them, parents and cubs alike. They all deserve to die for trying to kill my mom. Vengeance will be mine soon!"
I didn't understand at first, but now I knew. She would kill every Beowolf in Remnant just so that she could claim revenge for trying to kill mom. I just closed the journal and placed back where it was. After some time, Ruby returned from mom's house. She was crying again, but this time it was much more severe. I came to her just in the nick of time before she collapsed to the floor because of the sobbing. She pulled me in to an embrace as she cried. I embraced her back before I asked her what happened.
"Ruby, what happened? Where's mom?" I asked her.
"Mom's… missing!" she said, then she continued to cry more.
"Mom's…missing? How…" I asked, tears running down my eyes.
"When… I got back… all of the Beowolves…were…dead…but she wasn't there!" she told me.
I was in shock on what I heard. Mom missing? Piles of Beowolf corpses? I was just so worried about it and I didn't what to do. I didn't even want to tell Ruby what I saw in her journal. All I could do now was hug and comfort her.
"Ruby, don't worry. I'm here and I'll be like mom to you." I told her.
"Really, sis…?" she said, tears still running down her eyes.
"Of course. I love you, sis and I'll make sure I'll keep you safe from harm." I said as Ruby let herself go away from my grasp.
"Thank you, sis and I love you too." She told me as she hugged me again.
And from that moment on, I promised myself that I'll help Ruby get over what happened, but her thirst for revenge still built up in her. It was obvious when she turned Crescent Rose in to gun-scythe instead of the standard scythe Uncle Qrow recommended her. And, when we went out on hunts, Ruby would always kill a lot of Beowolves and sometimes, she wouldn't open up to me when she continued to think about what had happened back then.
*(End of flashback)
"And, that's it. Now you know." Yang said, wrapping up her explanation and her story. Blake and Marco became speechless at what they heard and felt saddened as well. Now they know why Ruby was like this. She was just depressed and angry that the very monsters that they were trying to annihilate from the world almost destroyed her family. And to think that Ruby's always happy-go-lucky attitude may have just been a mask to her truly sad and angry self. A tear dropped from Yang's eyes, but Marco rubbed it off with his thumb.
"C'mon. Let's go back. I'm sure the others are already waiting for us at the entrance." Marco told her.
She smiled at him and Blake and got up. They then left the swampy canyon, oblivious that the Bull Leaper they kept shooting at limped it's way to them and jumped. Marco senses it and slices the frog's head off as quickly as he can with Edge Shadow. The Grimm's lifeless body fell in front of them as Marco sheathed Edge Shadow. Yang and Blake turned to him.
"Umm, thanks." Yang said, looking at the decapitated corpse.
"You two have to learn to watch your back sometimes." Marco said
He gestured the girls to follow him as they went back to the entrance. From the skies, a huge black figure loomed over the forest. It looked over at Marco's team and then at Gavin and Weiss and then at Ruby and Stephen. It growled and then sank it's head back into the forest, his red eyes illuminating the dark woods.
End of Chapter 3.1
a/n: I decided to upload early and finish up this chapter as quickly as possible. If you people are still confused, let's just the say the three chapters are linked together and will reveal some deatiled stuff about Ruby's past. Remember, I respect rewiews, negative or positive, but no spam. See you soon, again.