The boy struggled to hold back a whimper as he struggled to keep a tight grip on his bow. Raising his hand to his mouth, he made a slightly audible yelp as he felt another drop of warm blood hit his forehead. A few people around him did the same, but he hardly noticed. To him, nothing existed except for the ferocious creature that mowed them down effortlessly.

The air was heavy with a sense of dread that he had never felt before. He had never seen anything like this, and he still couldn't fully believe that his comrades were dying around him.

He could barely hold back a cry as he looked towards the watchtower at the center of the town and the thing that was responsible for the death that saturated the night. The Duke raised his sword as he tried to rally his army, calling for shields to be raised, weapons to be held at the ready, and for arrows to be shot at the silhouette that stood under the broken moonlight. The Captain on the other hand, was dead with his upper body on the ground and the rest still sitting on his horse.

The boy paled at the sight, as he was reminded of the Captain's words. While he didn't believe them at the time, he regretted not trusting in the Captain's serious expression. He struggled to remember the details of the mission debriefing. It was hard to blame himself for not taking the Captain seriously. The stout man spouted nonsense about how the man they were hunting had power equivalent to the mythical creatures of Grimm, the dragons of legend, and the heroes of old. The soldier, in his frantic state of mind, started to blame himself for not believing in him, though he knew that it wouldn't have made a difference.

The boy looked around the town despite his fear of the creature, or maybe his fear had destroyed his mind. Whatever he decided was the case, he couldn't help but look around and lament at the sight of his old home. What good was being the best archer that Patch had ever seen if he wasn't good enough to protect anything?

His sudden sense of defeat grew as he looked over at his comrades, his grip loosening as he started to view the fight as being pointless. He wanted to become the best there was, but that was impossible. He was going to die, knowing that there were monsters in the world.

Only thirty men were gathered to fight this monster.

He scoffed when he heard it and he scoffed as he remembered it. He had figured that the captain was the one to make that ridiculous decision, but when he heard that the Duke was the one who decided on that strategy, the boy seriously wondered if the Duke had brought them here as a sacrifice to the gods.

He would've simply left right away if it was any other man, but the boy held a small bit of hope that the Duke had not led them there to die. He had heard of the Duke's strategic mind and courage. He still respected the determined light in his eyes.

But this was still much too excessive. The boy wondered what madness could cause the Duke to make such a dumb decision. He wasn't sure if the entire armed forces of Patch could make the creature break a sweat. He had a creed that as long as a man had eye sockets in his armor, he could kill him, but this creature was obviously not a man.

He sighed. Nobody turned around, too busy with looking towards the watchtower to hear anything. He shook his head at his destined death. Even if he hadn't left and joined the Patch guard, he would have just been another death in his village.

He nocked an arrow on his bow and let it fly towards the watchtower. He watched unexcitedly as the arrow flew towards the silhouette on a collision course with its head. The silhouette vanished and he felt another drop of blood hit his face. He turned his head, but could only catch a glimpse of the creature as it stepped off of his neighbor's horse and disappeared.

He didn't scream. He saw it as a waste of energy. Some of his neighbors obviously didn't think the same.

Somewhere deeper in the woods, Ruby was standing in front of the large mirror in Qrow's room as she twirled around and admired the beauty of the white cloak around her neck, taking extra care to not let it touch the ground.

She suddenly heard a dull noise coming from the side of the shack. Frowning, not enjoying the fact that her first fun activity in a week had been interrupted, she went outside to investigate.

She walked backwards towards the source of the sound, protecting a majority of the cloak in her arms, just in case some dumb animal had hit the wall. She didn't want the animal to run into her next and rub off its dumb animal dirt and smell onto the pure white cloth.

As she turned the corner, she was surprised to see that an arrow was sticking out of the shack. Walking up to it curiously, she tapped it with her foot. It didn't budge. She tried tapping it again, but it refused to fall off. Looking down at her occupied hands, she decided to ignore it until she took off the cloak.

Before she walked away, she looked at it once again. It was an arrow, alright. She had seen enough of those to identify it immediately. She shook her head and internally reprimanded the villagers for playing with such dangerous tools. If she had been outside when that arrow landed, her cloak might have been ruined.

Looking over to the direction of the village, she couldn't help but shake her head. She knew it was the Spring festival, but it was still a bit to late to be yelling and screaming. Some people probably had their sleep rudely interrupted by the celebrations.

I didn't plan for this chapter to be like this but hey, that's the fun of not planning things out thoroughly. Also it allowed me to do a lot of writing without actually writing much.

Also wow, three parts in three days. Actually I wrote part one over the course of a few days, and I basically didn't have to think while I was writing this one out, but still. Technically one part per day. There's probably going to be one more part to this chapter. I hope to make it longest out of all the parts.

I'm craaaazy. Someone stop me.

Also should I change the rating to M? I don't know whether this thing would classify as a T rating. I mean there's bisected bodies but no description. I've seen video games rated T where people are cut in half, but I know writing can't hide behind it being cartoon violence. If anyone has any strong opinion on this, feel free to DM me and let me know.