(A/N) I know I said this one would come out on the usual time, but after thinking for a bit, I figured that given the nature of this chapter, posting it before Halloween would be best. I honestly did not plan for this to be a Halloween chapter, though. As for what happens in this update…

Just… don't kill me.

Act 2

Chapter 5

Death. Team RWBY had never known the meaning of the word until their failed mission in Mountain Glenn had started a grimm invasion in the heart of Beacon. This level of destruction and chaos was worthy of the history books about the Great War, but seeing buildings collapse and people die was never the worst part. It was seeing a little boy cry over his lost home, a homeless man risking his life to save his dog only to lose both in the process, or an older brother standing his ground against insurmountable odds to protect his recently orphaned younger siblings. It was the discarded shoes of a toddler covered in blood. It was the toddler crying over the corpses of his parents. It was the indiscriminate way the enemy razed libraries, orphanages, hospitals and retirement homes, leaving no one alone, no matter how insignificant.

After years of hunting, it officially sunk in what Ruby was fighting against. She was the definition of a combat addict and would often go out into the woods outside of Patch hunting grimm to hone her skills, or just to entertain herself and Yang would often follow her for the same reason. Blake grew up outside the kingdoms and learned at an early age how to defend herself out of necessity, but she had only fought for herself or those closest to her, and Weiss had grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth, living with the threat of grimm attacks as some kind of nonexistent dream until she enrolled at Beacon. Even after months at the Academy, none of them knew the truly harrowing threat that always loomed over them. They all knew that grimm were designed without any kind of soul, and killed everything in their path except other grimm, but they didn't realize just what that meant when they saw people who couldn't defend themselves suffer at their claws and fangs. Beyond that mindless entity, however, was something much worse.

Humans. Faunus. Groups organized around central ideals and promoting them through the use of force and violence. It wasn't grimm that should have scared huntsmen, no matter their numbers. The real danger to society were the sentient races, intelligent enough to understand the difference of right and wrong, and justify their most evil actions through whatever lies they had to tell themselves that would let them sleep at night, just like some were doing now as they took advantage of the chaos to riot and loot everything they could find.

Right now, all Weiss could focus on was the man in the demon mask kidnapping her friends.

"Guys, stop! You need to think about this!" She called after them, using every one of her glyphs to try to catch up to their sonic speed. They weren't listening to her. For all she knew, this man's hypnotic ability had completely blocked out any and all distractions so Ruby and Grey might not even know she was there. They certainly weren't waiting for each other. If either of them lagged behind or tripped, the other would charge ahead without caring about their partner's safety, and they didn't even realize that this man was leading them away from the main battle. Not caring about even each other let Weiss know just how deep the control over their minds went.

Weiss had noticed something even worse. He wasn't just running from them, he was leading them somewhere. Weiss knew she couldn't leave Grey and Ruby to fend for themselves against him because it hadn't yet sunk in that he was nothing more than a bluff that they were falling for.

He finally stopped in an alleyway, free of any other people. It was one of the bigger kinds of alleys that had multiple side paths leading to the main street, all intersecting into one big square that would have been great for underground street fights or other illegal activities requiring a lot of space. He landed on his knees, Ruby and Grey stopping ten feet away from him with their weapons ready, their eyes blind with animalistic fury. Weiss watched with that sinking feeling in her stomach growing worse as this man slowly rose to his feet, the fanged smile on his mask sending shivers up her spine. Looking closer, Weiss gasped. He didn't have any eyes. In place of the orbs was nothing more than spaces where she could see right into his skull. He took the tricorne off his head and threw it to the ground.

"Glad you decided to join me," he said, Weiss wincing at the guttural ululation of his voice.

"Did they even have a choice?" Weiss demanded, sauntering forward between her comrades with her rapier ready in her hand and leveling it at his chest. Grey and Ruby looked at her dazedly.

"Weiss?" the younger girl asked dreamily. "What are you doing here?" She turned on them sharply, mistakenly turning her back on her enemy.

"And what are you doing following him away from the battle? Are you trying to get everyone killed? They need us there!" Weiss spat at them. One glance over her shoulder and a violent smirk rose on her cheek when she saw the man's eyebrows arch in surprise at her intervention. He wasn't expecting her. And if she wasn't supposed to be there, that meant that maybe she could… She turned back to Grey and Ruby and slapped both of them as hard as she could, the smack from the impact cracking all around the urban arena. They both stumbled back and grabbed their cheeks.

"Ow! What was that for?!" Grey hissed, glaring at the woman, but when he saw the man standing just behind her, he thrust his hand out and blocked the strike the assassin was bringing down with his semblance, "Oh, so that's why."

Weiss turned in fear just as Grey powered up his defense, threw a strong right haymaker towards his opponent shooting out a shield, and blasted the warrior backwards into the concrete. That particular kinetic strike was powerful enough that it had knocked Pyrrha off her feet twice before, but this man took it easily and only slid back a few feet. Grey smiled. Both of the girls knew that smile, and neither of them liked it. He put his hands back up and began bouncing on the balls of his feet, true to his martial artist nature, that excited smirk just behind his guard.

"This is going to be fun…" he said to himself, and Weiss still couldn't shake off the feeling that he was wrong. She had never seen anyone take that hit from him and stay standing, or at least not be stunned, and that one strike aside, he wasn't the best fighter. This enemy huntsman was out of his league. The three of them needed to get out of their and get back to the main battle before something happened that they couldn't avoid. Ruby glanced over at her long time partner and nodded at her, sending a silent message that she agreed with her plan, but just before they were able to grab him, he was already charging. Ruby squeaked.

"OK! Guess we're doing this!" She whined quietly and flanked the hunter while Grey jabbed and blocked against that glowing saber. Ruby slid past them and swiped Crescent rose around their legs which Grey jumped over at the same time their enemy phased backward through it in a fine red mist. Grey was fast enough to shoot a shield at his opponent before he reformed, but the hunter was faster and blocked it expertly after he reformed. Weiss was already on the move and used the wall next to her to sprint on the hunter's other side and freeze his legs in place. Ruby followed up with an overhead strike which he guarded against easily, almost tiredly. Grey used a platform to launch himself down to him and slammed his hand against Crescent Rose to increase the weight, sending the hunter to his knees, and when he and Ruby separated, all three of them charged the hunter from different angles, but he was having none of it. He stood back up just as Weiss reached him and even though he was cemented in place, he was able to meet her blade blow for blow. She backed up for Grey to grab his arms from behind and Ruby to slice at his throat, but it wasn't enough to break his composure, and flipping Grey over his back, Ruby halted her strike, twisted around while shifting her scythe's form, and shooting the hunter in the chest.

Was this all they had? The hunter jolted his body, dodging the bullets easily, and just before Grey and Weiss could join back in, he sighed, and swiped his saber through the air like a baseball bat. It sent a shockwave that sent Weiss, Grey, and Ruby flying into the walls behind them.

"Dammit, what is this guy?" Grey cursed.

"You're an idiot!" Weiss responded eloquently before getting back on her feet. That insult wouldn't say much to most people, but Grey understood her bitter communication style well enough to know what she meant. They couldn't beat this guy.

Ruby was the first to get to her feet and charged back into the fight, followed by Weiss who took turns trading blows, enchanted with dust and surrounded by rose petals, but they couldn't land a single strike. He was playing with them. His sword was moving like this fight was a dance, his offhand resting lightly at his back. Fortunately, Grey was back up and put a wall behind him which the hunter ran into during his ballet, giving Weiss time to land a successful strike, but even with a puncture wound through his stomach, he was still on the move. Dropping his saber, he grabbed Weiss's wrist and threw her into Ruby, both hitting the wall, then just as Grey ran at him with a blade coming out from under his left wrist to stab into the man's throat, he did nothing more than hold out his palm, stopping Grey in his tracks. Ruby and Weiss looked on as Grey was pulled to his knees by an unseen force. His mouth opened and closed as if he was unable to breath, and his hands went to his throat to add to the image of asphyxiation. The hunter's shoulders bounced once as if he were scoffing at the man kneeling before him, then violently grabbed his throat and slammed him harshly against the wall opposite of the girls.

"Is that all?" he growled lowly, "I was expecting so much more from you. Your energy is unique. It's not something I've ever seen before on your kind, and I was hoping that killing you would be… what's the word you mortals use? Exciting? You disappoint me, child. Now, die!"

The hunter reached up and wrapped his other hand around Grey's throat, cutting off the rest of his airflow. Grey wasn't weak, being on par with Yang's level of physical strength on a good day, but no matter how hard he tried to fight against this guy's grip, the man wasn't letting up. He lifted Grey off the ground. With the loss of his legs, all of his leverage was removed, making Grey's hopes of ripping the hunter's arms away impossible, so his last hope was to take the amateur's way out and grab at his face. He clawed and punched but it didn't work. He even took his blades and guns and began firing every weapon he had in his gauntlets into the man's body, and even that looked like it was making the hunter's grip tighter. He looked over at Ruby and Weiss desperately for help. They were looking at him in fear, desiring to help him even more than he wanted to breath again, but they just stood there, frozen with a vacant expression in their eyes. The hunter had to have hypnotized them like he had done to him and Ruby earlier. He could have done that at any time probably, but only chose now to do so. Suddenly, the hunter screamed and the girls lurched forward, fully conscious now as if whatever was holding them back had let go. Grey was dropped to the ground. As he gasped for air and blinked a few times to get the black spots out of his vision, he looked up at the hunter who was spitting expletives and shaking his smoking hands fervently.

"What in the world was that?!" he yelled, turning back to Grey with his eyebrows knitted in a scowl, "You have silver eyes. You have silver eyes and yet I still can't kill you! Just what are you exactly? Tsk. It doesn't matter! Not at all! That girl over there is still vulnerable." Grey's eyes took on a small shade of red at his last words, and he jumped for his enemy.

"Don't you touch-!" he didn't get very far. He reached his hand out to grab the man's collar and throw him on the ground in an attempt to get the upper hand, but the hunter was faster. His punch was faster and hard enough to shock Grey enough to stop him. He followed it up with a dozen more rapid fire punches, getting Grey to completely drop his guard and blinding him with the blunt trauma until he dropped to his knees one more time. The last hit was a kick to his head, knocking him to the ground, all too fast for Weiss and Ruby to react in time.

The rest of the fight went by in a blur. Grey's vision faded in and out as consciousness repeatedly slipped from him, seeing the girls try to hold their own against this enemy and failing miserably. Grey saw them go at him from the sides only to each get slapped away. He blacked out again and when he came to, he saw Weiss being held up in the air by her throat with the hunter's telekinesis while Ruby struggled to stand up and keep fighting, the former getting thrown into a dumpster to the side. One more time, and he saw the hunter slashing at a disarmed Ruby like she were nothing more than a training dummy, Crescent Rose lying shattered on the ground beside her. Grey had just enough mental clarity to see the trouble she was in and try to stand up, but he couldn't he even get off of his knees. He saw Weiss jump out of her prison so maybe she would be able to help, but the hunter didn't even turn her way when he kicked her in the stomach. Grey tried crawling over to Ruby. He needed to help. He needed to stop this monster. She was on her knees now and still out of reach.

Shluk!

"Wha… What?" Grey stammered. Weiss had gotten back up and was about to run in to help, but she stopped herself. She couldn't move even if she tried. The scene she was looking at had jolted Grey back to life. He could see the blood spilling from the cleaved wound in Ruby's neck, the red coming from her throat and a defiant fear glimmering in her eyes.

The hunter moved away as Grey and Weiss ran over to their team leader, Grey pulling her head into his lap as her limp body fell to the ground, not caring about her blood drenched his clothes. She was gasping, gurgling, looking into his eyes. Weiss knelt next to both of them, tears threatening to spill from her own eyes as Ruby looked at her friends with the only one thing prevalent on her face. It was a silent message. A call for help, if nothing else. She couldn't speak with her severed shoulder beginning to fall from her body, but as the life began to drain from her silver eyes, the last thing Grey and Weiss saw on her face was unambiguously clear.

I don't want to die.

"Ruby. Ruby wake up. Please come back to me!" Grey whimpered through choking sobs, "You can't do this! You promised me you would take me to Patch one day, remember? You said I could meet your mom, Summer. Ruby? Ruby, please… Don't do this to me…"

Weiss's voice died in her throat. Her hands had jumped up to her face to cover the streams of tears falling down her cheeks, and she refused to make the shaking of her shoulders verbalized into sounds of grief. She couldn't. She just couldn't show how much this hurt. She couldn't believe that Ruby had been killed by this… this beast. The girl was too stubborn to fall in battle. How could she die so easily? How could Weiss live with herself knowing that she let her die, that she could have pulled both of them away from the fight if she had just tried a bit harder?

"My work here is done," echoed the hunter's voice in her mind as he began to walk away. His back was turned to the pair of survivors. He didn't see them as any kind of threat, and judging by the way he sheathed his sword at his hip, he wasn't going to treat them as one either. Weiss, however, wasn't about to let him leave.

"You think I'm done with you…?" she asked quietly. It was just loud enough for the hunter to hear her and turn around, not really caring what was about to come next. He looked at her with an annoyed furrow to his brow. Weiss glanced once at Grey still grieving over Ruby's corpse and stood up with a deadly resolve that she would make things right, and in her combat sleeves, she pulled out a single canister of violet dust and held up Myrtenaster to ready it. This was her last resort. This is how she would make things right between her and Ruby.

(...)

"General Ironwood," called the disciplined woman as she stepped up to her commander. Her normally pristine, stark white uniform was covered in ash from the numerous grimm she slaughtered with her cutlass, a dozen nevermore that shared the shade of her aura flying around her body.

"Schnee," Ironwood greeted her, "Report."

"The main threat has been taken care of," Winter listed off, "The remaining grimm are retreating and the wounded are being taken care of as we speak. We are establishing a body count of both Atlas tech and Vale citizens, and are taking role of the huntsmen of Beacon."

Ironwood nodded to her somberly then turned back to leading his other troops. His direct lieutenant knew her role, and he knew she could handle it efficiently, flawlessly, and without fail. Leaving him, Winter sent her summons to the dilapidated streets and buildings to gather up any kind of materials she could use to treat the wounded and delivered them to the field hospitals set up for the soldiers that successfully staved off the grimm. It was largest attack on a city in decades. Hiding her exhaustion from the thought, she praised any warrior she could see for their efforts. After a few minutes, a beep hit her scroll. The body count was high at 23, but could be worse. There were still over a hundred Vale citizens missing, but even as she read that number, it was dropping rapidly as her men worked to recover them, the number of deaths rising only twice. The real issue for her was more personal. When she read the list of all the huntsmen who had checked in at the rendezvous points, she harrowingly noticed a spot that should not have been empty.

"Ruby! Ruby, where are you?!" she heard a woman's voice call out from one of the infirmaries. She was a tall and busty blonde with the most gorgeous hair Winter had ever laid eyes on, just the type Winter had been told never to associate with by her father, but her duty to the people made her snooty upbringing take a backseat.

"You there!" Winter said, walking over to her with purpose, "You aren't looking for Ruby Rose, are you? Leader of Team RWBY?" The woman looked at Winter defensively.

"Who are you?" she asked venomously.

"Yang, be nice. She's with the Atlas military," said another girl behind the blonde. This one was tall and slender, and dressed like a goth whom Winter wouldn't have even bothered to notice under normal circumstances. Winter bit back her retort to Yang and spoke politely, clenching her fists.

"My name is Winter Schnee," she greeted, and smiled lightly when they saw the recognition dawn in their eyes. Mentally, she was thankful she read Weiss's letters dozens of times out of nostalgia for her baby sister. "I'm looking for Weiss. Have either of you seen her by any chance?"

"No," Yang said, shaking her head, "I can't find Ruby either."

"Grey's missing too," the goth girl spoke up. Wasn't Grey that boy Weiss had a strong affection for? Winter saved that question for later and pulled out her scroll.

"I have temporary access to the security system, like street cameras, here in Vale. Just give me a few minutes. Maybe we'll get lucky and won't have to send out an entire search party this early in Vale's recovery," she explained, typing a few buttons. Yang's eyes went wide at the thought of her sister needing to be found by a group, thinking the worst immediately since that was how they found Summer, but fortunately, Blake was there to put her hand on Yang's shoulder and comfort her. However, when Winter put on the same expression, no amount of comfort could help. "Weiss, don't you dare! You boob!"

Winter didn't waste any time or energy sprinting to the spot where the cameras spotted her. Weiss wouldn't dare be that stupid.

(...)

Weiss was definitely that stupid. The minute she put that canister into Myrtenaster and turned the weapon's tip towards herself, the hunter cackled loudly. She couldn't be serious could she? Apparently, she was if the sound of steel entering flesh and the agonized yelp that followed were anything to go by. Grey looked up in fear. He had thought that sound was the hunter killing another one of his comrades, but he what he saw was much, much worse.

"Weiss… You didn't," he whimpered.

"I'm sorry, Grey," she said sadly, "I had no choice."

Grey's best friend, the only one still alive, turned her head back to her enemy, her friend's murderer, as her normally icy blue eyes grew darker, her irises and pupils fading away for every inch to turn as violet as the dust she injected within herself. Her feet lifted off the ground as her entire body floated in the air. Grey felt the gravity around the area weakening because of her aura, but was strangely just as unaffected as the hunter by this effect, hardly even losing his balance when he stood. Through his pain, he smiled when the hunter twitched, recognizing Weiss as a real threat. This murderer was going to regret taking Ruby from them. She thrust her hands out to her sides. A boom roared through the alley and the dumpsters, trash cans, and every bit of debris their fight had created lifted into the air.

The hunter cut the first dumpster that was thrown at him like it was wet toilet paper. He wasn't as lucky when he cut the second one only to receive shattered bits of glass into every inch of his body, followed up by a steel trash can throwing itself over his head. Weiss took another two cans and began pounding them against the one covering the hunter repeatedly, concussing him deftly. With a roar, the hunter blasted his prison to bits. His mask had fallen off to reveal a shark's mouth that went all around to his ears, which Weiss only got a quick glimpse of before she slammed one half of the previously bisected dumpsters onto his head. Then another. Then the next two. Then alternating all four of them, hovering around him in a circle to see her barrage from all angle. The hunter was on his back, but managed to use that red energy of his to turn the steel to ash, taking each half of the dumpsters out of the equation, but one look around the perimeter and Weiss wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Behind you, murderer," Weiss hissed, her voice layered over multiple times by the dust flowing through her system. The hunter started to turn around to slash at her throat, but Myrtenaster was already impaled through his stomach, and she even followed that up by charging her aura along the blade to hit him with multiple missiles of gravity just as sharp as her sword. The hunter still wasn't defeated, but now he was mad. He turned his middle section to mist and pivoted to finish his strike, but with the dust powering her up, she moved behind him in the blink of an eye, blocking Grey with her body. She blocked multiple strikes from the hunter by holding her hand out and pushing his weapon aside. She wasn't even touching him. All she did was create an antigravity around her body that would do the work for her, making beating this enemy that had demolished all three of them a second ago look like child's play. He continued to slash at her, but she slashed her own blade up and disarmed him. She stalked toward him as he summoned his saber back into his hands, ready to attack her again, but she disarmed him again, making him stumble. She did this until they were out of the alley and into the nearest street.

Suddenly, she flicked her wrist and an invisible force knocked the hunter off his feet, but instead of flying backwards, the second his feet left the ground, Weiss used her gravity to trap him in an airborne stasis. She blinked towards him and hit him with a flurry of slashes and stabs so fast that Grey couldn't follow them.

She kicked the hunter into the air, but instead of putting him into another stasis to follow things up, her face contorted with effort as she ripped the very earth apart and began throwing boulders at her opponent. Every rock shattered to bits when they hit him. When each compound of gravel divided into pebbles, she belted him with every bit of earth that was in the air like machine gun fire, and even after that, she hadn't finished. With the effort she put into her next strike, the gravity dust lifted her into the air again as she summoned as much power as possible, ripping the walls, sidewalks, and even more of the street apart from the earth and slammed them together to create a prison around her enemy. Then, she slammed it into the ground. The crash made the very earth shake, and Grey knew in the back of his mind that everyone in the entire city must have felt that. Grey was on his, running towards Weiss as her final attack ended her power up, making her fall out of the air.

She was… exhausted. Her limbs felt like they were ripping themselves off of her body, and the fatigue coursing through her muscles made it too difficult to move. Even if she had the stamina, she couldn't stand if she wanted to. The poison was too much for her, and she knew that after using that much power at once wouldn't make her last much longer. At least she got her revenge. At least she made things right.

Most of her nerve endings had been severed by the time the dust reached her nervous system, but she could still feel herself falling into Grey's arms. Barely able to open her eyes, she smiled up at him weakly.

"Weiss! Weiss you idiot! You complete moron! You dolt! You- you..." she barely heard his voice.

"Grey?" Weiss asked, her eyes turning back to their normal shade but because of how the dust worked, they had grown milky and dull, turning her blind.

"I'm here, Snow Angel. I've got you," he told her in a blind panic, the quivering in his voice unable to be masked, "Why would you do something so stupid?!"

"I… I had to make it right," Weiss's voice was barely audible as she explained, "I couldn't… I couldn't let Ruby… die without-" she coughed up a powdery, lavender liquid that spilled over her mouth, "without getting revenge. Yeah… I hated her. She was so annoying, and… and such a child… but, she... she grew on me. I got attached. She didn't really give me a choice. She was my best friend, and I… I couldn't let her die in cold blood."

"Weiss…" Grey's whimper was back, tears once more pooling in his eyelids, "But you… you'll…" he couldn't say the words. He couldn't face this reality again when it had just happened only moments ago. Not with her.

"I know…" Weiss only had enough energy to do one more thing, and if she was going to die, she wasn't going to die without being honest with the man she loved. There were better ways to tell someone how you feel than killing yourself to avenge someone you didn't even like, but since now was her only chance, she didn't really have any other options. Using the last bit of her fading life force, she reached up, grabbed Grey's neck, and pulled him down for one last goodbye. She kissed him. Her lips were as weak as her smile, and the kiss didn't last long, but just one second of barely making contact was all she could do before her head fell limply against her shoulder.

"That girl," a voice came from where the meteor Weiss had created crashed into the ground, "That girl was something else, you know? She was the first one to push me back and keep me running like that. Didn't land a single hit. She had to kill herself to do it, but she was entertaining. That was some real fun."

Grey didn't know what to think. He couldn't think. After all that work, after all of the death he had caused, the hunter still wasn't dead. Not only was this villain, this butcher still alive, he was still able to stand and speak and mock the two people who had saved Grey's life. To say Grey was angry was inaccurate, and "depressed" would be an understatement. No, he couldn't feel anything. After watching what just happened, Grey wasn't angry, sad, nor homicidal. He was simply empty. He wiped his eyes. Gently, with as much care as he would treat an injured animal, he pulled Weiss from his lap, carried her away for a few feet, and set her down next to Ruby's still warm body. It was almost funny when he thought about it. After all of the drama they had put each other through all year and all of the battles they fought side by side, they had to die to finally become friends? It was hilarious, really. Hilarious.

Breathing tensely, fuming, trying to contain his rage that fueled the black hole where his heart used to be, Grey stepped over to the hunter. The hunter was already walking away. The girls were dead, Grey broken beyond repair, so why should the hunter stay? There was no threat. He couldn't kill Grey anyway, so what would be the point?

"How… How dare you!" Grey's fists were balling at his sides. The debris from Weiss's assault deteriorated into thin air from the way his aura blazed, and the hunter found the heat to be insufferable. He turned with an infuriated scoff, only for his nonexistent eyes to go wide. His aura had become visible. And it was red? The only energy the hunter knew of that came in that color, radiated with that kind of heat, and ripped nearby objects out of existence wasn't something a human should be able to possess. Not even someone with silver eyes.

"They were my friends!" Grey shouted, his shoulders tensing. When he said the last word, the earth beneath him cracked, splitting the ground he stood on.

"They were my family!" he shouted and this time the cracks turned to a crater.

"I…" the aura weakened for a second, his arms lowering, but then returned and doubled its previous strength when he released his words, "I loved them!" The last scream shattered the very foundations of the buildings around him, showing a level of power that normal sentient creatures, even master huntsmen, would never be capable of. The hunter watched as the buildings around Grey fell off of their support structures, caving in and falling around the boy, crushing him. Each one of them fell right on top of his head. There was no way anyone could have survived that, but given what the hunter had just witnessed from that snowy girl, he wasn't putting anything to chance, and watched intently as the dust from the collapse settled. Once the visibility had been restored, the hunter grinned devilishly at the boy's survival. This beast of a man was walking out of the rubble like nothing had even happened. The debris psychokinetically pushed itself out of his way like Grey was a god they worshipped. Unfortunately, for the hunter, this wasn't Grey anymore.

"I'll kill you." That was the voice of Black Steele.

The hunter twitched at that voice. It was deeper, more resonant, a complete bass whereas before he was a tenor, and his eyes were a blazing crimson and slit pupiled, surrounded by black. He was outright demonic now. He seemed more like a grimm than a human. Actually, after watching his two best friends get killed, the women he "loved" or whatever, he probably was a grimm at this point, or something similar. Wait, why was the hunter flying?

He didn't even see Black move when he was punched, but somehow the kid had landed it, and the contact had the hunter's face melting off, dripping onto his coat. Suddenly, he was getting hit from all sides by something invisible, and just at a glimpse, he saw Black pointing at him, flicking his finger in all directions, making him realize that his semblance had had a major power boost, just like his physical abilities. Black was using his shields as 360 degree machine gun fire. The hunter had been holding back during this entire fight, even against that princess, but now it didn't seem like he had that luxury.

He teleported over to where Black was standing, just within his guard and slashed at his chest, launching him down the street, but Black recovered instantly within the trench he had formed. He was back on his feet and charged the hunter who met him just as fiercely, but Black was the first one to make his move, feinting with his right, blocking the slash to his head with the armor of Animus, then coming back up with an uppercut to the hunter's gut. The hunter gasped out of his eldritch jaw, spitting up a neon ebony blood. The hit itself wasn't that strong, but it was followed by a series of shields into his solar plexus that was enough to crack his ribs and make him stumble backwards, gripping his abdomen, a fist sized hole tearing his shirt open. Black followed up with a left towards the hunter's face, shooting his shield cannon one more time, but this time, the hunter intercepted each strike with his saber, shooting his energy through the blade so the aura within the kinetic missiles would disperse, negating the semblance. Black arched his eyebrow. Aura doesn't just automatically disappear like that. He jumped back, smirking. An idea was forming in his head.

"Be honest with me, Murderer," Black declared regally, placing his hands in his pockets and stepping around his enemy, "What are you, really? My weaker counterpart may be too blinded by his manhood to realize it, but I'm not so foolish to miss the little game you're playing. You're not a human, nor are you a faunus. The energy surrounding you is nothing less than unique, and being able to destroy aura? Absolutely incredible. That energy of yours… the thing that allows you to break through my barriers… Did you know I've seen it before? You'd think a spy would know better than to leave a trail behind on the school's roof, especially when an energy that's as delicious as yours is difficult to forget. Although, what I can't figure out, is how you've managed to break every law of biology in Remnant's history. You're not real, are you Murderer? You're just a synthetic creation, aren't you?" The hunter flinched. How could he possibly have figured that much out? Sure, he's quite clearly a zombie, but there's no way he could have realized that he was a frankenstein. Black halted his pacing and turned back to the hunter, putting his hands up. "I trust you'll tell me who created you… After I've ripped you to shreds…"

Black closed the distance with a rocket propelled dash from his boots, then used the same rockets to flip forward and send an axe kick to the hunter's skull, but had to redirect his body to avoid getting his foot cut off by the sword raised to block it. He twisted away, torqued his hips and used his rockets one more time to send his other foot in a roundhouse kick to his enemy's jaw. The opponent smashed through the wall of the nearest building, but Black had to move immediately as the hunter jumped at him from the building on the opposite side of the street. Even without a real human appearance, Black could see the fury in those empty sockets.

He wouldn't give up the high ground. He raised his left hand towards his opponent and latches began opening up in the armor across its entire length, and just as the hunter hit the ground where Black had been a second ago, dozens of missiles fired out of Animus, exploding against the hunter's body. Smoke billowed down the street, but Black wasn't an idiot. Blinded by anger, perhaps, but he hadn't forgotten about the mist, and had already raised the serrated sword on the side of Albatross to block the enemy's weapon coming at his face. Grey wasn't a swordsman and Black wasn't much better, but he was able to hold his own. Using a kinetic barrier to block anything his sword couldn't but failing to get under the hunter's guard, it didn't take long before the hunter realized he wasn't going to succeed in his assault and teleported behind his enemy. Black didn't even flinch. His shield blocked the slash that was coming to his neck, but instead of turning and attacking, he slyly looked over his shoulder, that caustic smirk still on his face. Why? How? What was with this monster that he could look so calm during a fight this intense?

"Give up. Allow me to make this quick." Black growled. The hunter's face twitched.

"You think I'll just accept that?" he growled, a circle of power glowing under his feet, wings of a gargoyle sprouting from his back and horns of the same creature appearing in his forehead, "I am more powerful than the maidens could ever hope to be! I have slain a hundred bearers of the silver eyes! Do you think the right hand of the one who created them would bow to a seventeen year old upstart like you?!"

Black didn't have time to react when the circle of power shifted, shooting a number of projectiles towards him, bouncing off everything they touched until they hit him, grazing his skin. He jumped out of the way, flipping, bending and twisting to avoid getting hit because even though Black still had plenty of aura left, and his semblance was based entirely on defense, these tendrils could pierce right through it, and it only took seconds for him to be covered in cuts and scratches. Blood was covering most of his body. The hunter twitched once more, however, when he caught that smirk still on his face.

"So, you still had a trick up your sleeve!" Black shouted to him over the sound of tearing flesh, "So do I."

Black hit the ground after jumping over one of the weapons and put his hand up next to his head as if he were about to slap a fly away from his face. The hunter grinned again, ready to end this. There was nothing on Remnant that could block one of his Astral Blades, so he knew the fight was over right then and there, that Black was giving up. He wasn't moving. Black stayed in his place as he waited for his doom.

However, Black didn't move because he didn't have to. Raising up his hand, he flicked his wrist just as one of the tendrils was about to hit him, and unlike the centuries of battle before this one single duel, the hunter's blades had been broken for the first time. The hunter roared and sent every single one of them after his target. Black began moving around this time but more slowly, never once leaving the ground and only bobbing his head around should a blade get too close, waving his hands around to continue his last stand. He shadowboxed, throwing punches in the air, but it was too late when hunter saw what was happening. Coming from Blacks' hands were orbs of aura, boiling and shaking violently as they flew through the air, and the hunter figured out the secret.

"You see, normally, the energy you're using to negate my aura would easily break through Grey's aura. Even my presence in his body wouldn't change that," Black explained, placing his hands in his pockets and stalking towards the hunter again as the fear prevented him from continuing his attack, storming over swiftly, "But a simple fusion was all we needed. By combining my aura with his, we turned his defensive semblance into a weapon capable of overpowering even your own. You see, if you haven't noticed, my energy is similar to yours. You and I shouldn't be able to exist, and that's why I destroy everything around me just by being conscious, but for some reason, you can control it. Not only that, you've turned it into a weapon. Showing me that skill was your biggest mistake since it gave me the idea to do the same. By casing my energy in Grey's barriers, we've created bombs that can break through your blades with ease. First, his shield is sacrificed in order to halt your blades' momentum, then my aura uses those cracks to cancel them out. It's really that simple."

The hunter didn't move. He couldn't. For the first time in over a thousand years, he had been beaten, and it been at the hands of none other than some mutant version of the silver eyes. As his head left his body, he only had one thought. Things might actually change now…

Black sighed and began loosening up his shoulders. It was over. He had won the fight which admittedly hadn't been that easy, but it was fun now that he thought about it. Now was time to take a prize. Which limb would he sever?

Clap… clap… clap… Black turned his head to face the noise. Really? A newcomer this late in the show? Black just wanted to sit back and enjoy the ecstasy that came with murdering a murderer, but did he really have to kill someone else before he could relax? It wasn't like he could persist in Grey's body for very long. He was basically poisoning him at the moment, burning him and tearing him apart all at once just like the dust had done to Weiss earlier. Scowling, he watched a man with ashen skin, his long orange hair dancing like fire, black veins cracking across his arms and even blacker eyes examining the scene step forward.

"I can't say I expected that," the man said, his voice scraping against Black's mind like a knife, making even him grimace, "Of all things, you were what killed him. I can't say I'm not impressed." Black's smile fell, his eyes sizing up this new opponent casually.

"And you are?" he asked.

"Friend, enemy, god of this universe. Whichever you prefer," he said apathetically, "In the future, who I am to you will be more important, but for now, just consider me an interested party. I will be watching you very closely from now on. You see, my hunter was created to kill people of your kind, the Bearers of the Eyes of Onyx, but you seem to be different than your predecessors. You kill with reckless abandon. Friend and foe hold no difference to you. Yet, somehow, you hold the silver eyes, making you a walking contradiction. You've interested me. You, my Dear Black Steele, are quite the enigma. The Eyes, the Maidens, and now you… Things are getting out of hand. I look forward to seeing what role you play in our game."

With that, the man before him, this potential enemy had turned away. Black could see that the dark sky falling around them wasn't the hour of twilight, instead the darkness was hugging this "god" like a shroud, or an aura, his very presence affecting the world around them, signifying his power. He was right, though. Black didn't care who he killed. As long as there was someone close by who could die, Black wanted their blood on his hands, and charged the man as he opened a portal to take him away. Black extended his bloodied sword, ready to take one more life, but he felt sluggish. When the puny god was within arm's reach, he glanced over his shoulders, his eyes squinting at Black until a blinding light enveloped the child's body, shrouding him in an endless void of white.

(...)

Grey shot straight up in his seat on the ground, unaware when he had fallen asleep. Pyrrha was sitting over him. Her face had been stained with tears, and Grey felt the ruffling of his shirt and strain in his neck like she had been shaking him to try to wake him up, and when she went to speak, her voice died immediately so he knew she had been yelling for him. Jaune was next to her, his arm wrapped around her grimly, his own eyes filled with sadness. Grey realized he was still in the city right where he fought the hunter, and he could hear dozens of his classmates standing around him, observing the scene with no small sense of wonder. Grey couldn't care less. He stood up to walk over to a crowd that had formed in the center of the alley's square, their backs turned to him, and when they saw him, Nora and Ren tried to stand in his path worriedly. He didn't say anything. He pushed past them with a look of raw panic and determination that reminded them of nothing good.

He careened his way through the crowd, unintentionally knocking over a few innocent people. He needed to make sure. He needed to know if what happened was real or if this was all some kind of sick nightmare.

"There's nothing we can do," he heard someone say.

Pain. The people in the crowd had been blocking the energy, but once he made it to the front, he could feel Yang and Blake's heart's break. Not that he would have needed the ability to sense emotions to do so, watching Yang hold the corpse of her sister to her chest, screaming, crying, sobbing, and rocking back and forth in the weakest effort to comfort herself. Blake was curled on all fours, her face in the ground. Grey could hear her repeating "no, no, no" to herself over and over again as if that would help while the paramedics who tried to help begun to leave them be. The girls… Weiss and Ruby… Dead? This was wrong. This had to have been a dream.

This couldn't be real.

This couldn't be real.

This couldn't be real.

(A/N) So! Um… Don't kill me? Please?

Post your theories in the reviews, start a flame war over good writing, or just PM about how much you want to throw me in the grimm spawning pits in Volume 4. Have a good month, Beautiful Hunters! I'm going to go hide in a bunker.

On a different note: VOLUME 5 IS SO GOOD.