A/N: I...Have...RETURNED!
After a long time away, I finally managed to scrape together enough cash to get a new computer. And as an added surprise, a good friend of mine managed to recover almost all my files from my burned out one and save them on a flash drive.
All my story chapters live! And with my coming back, I'm gonna start updating the fics that you all have waited too damn long for! And with so many of you out there anxious to see them continue, I refuse to keep my loyal readers waiting any longer!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
"Wait! Wait! Hold up a damn second!" Qrow bellowed, standing from the pillar he had been leaning against with empty flask in hand.
For the last hour, John had explained where he had been and what he had fought through. Although, unlike what he told Amber about, VEGA was able to provide footage that had been collected on the Praetor suit's systems.
Ozpin and his group bore witness first hand of the nightmare that had overtaken Mars. The endless slaughter the demons of Hell had wrought and the amount of bloodshed the Doom Slayer had unleashed upon them as he tore a path through them to end their invasion.
All of them were in a state of both shock and horror seeing the events first hand. Even Amber, after being told before anyone else, was unable to tear away from the images the AI was showing them of how her companion overcame overwhelming odds and creatures that could have devoured all the Grimm and would still try to slaughter humanity.
They had reached the point where John had destroyed the Argent energy conduits to buy time to keep Olivia Pierce from overloading the Argent Tower when the huntsman spoke up.
"You're telling me, that those assholes were stupid enough to harness the energy from HELL of all places, and took DEMONS and experimented on them? What the fuck were they thinking?!"
"Earth was in the middle of a severe energy crisis." said VEGA, the AI having taken temporary residence in Ozpin's desk so that he could project the video files from the Praetor suit. "The Union Aerospace Corporation was hard pressed to find solutions for the sake of all humanity. When they discovered the demonic realm, and the ability to convert their resources to clean, renewable energy, they received all the support they required from Earth's governments to ensure that they had the means to do so. "
"As for the experiments performed on the demons. Doctor Samuel Hayden saw the possible military applications given the strength of the creatures along with their intelligence. However, it proved to be the undoing of the scientists and staff when the Hell-Wave was released by Olivia Pierce."
"That much is apparent." said Winter, sending a disgusted look at the frozen image of a Revenant mid-flight and firing its shoulder mounted rocket launchers.
Ironwood scratched his chin, "I can understand the need, given the desperation for a new energy source humanity was facing and how we were able to utilize Dust ourselves. But the risks are far too great...it would be like us attempting to weaponize the Grimm."
"The thought alone is terrifying." said Glynda, adjusting her glasses and looking toward John. "Did you manage to stop them?"
The Doom Slayer was quiet a moment, "There were...a lot of bumps in the road." he looked toward the desk, "VEGA." The AI started playing again, showing how John put an end to the Argent energy manufacturing, but in the end it only delayed the inevitable as Dr. Pierce obliterated the Argent Tower and opened the Hell Portal.
Another couple hours later, the Remant natives watched as John jumped back and forth from Mars and Hell, fighting enemies that seemed to get larger and stronger with each new encounter. But never once did he faulter, his strength and courage only measured by the brutality with which he used to rip the demon horde apart.
The battles against the Cyberdemon and the Hell Guardians left Qrow, Winter and the General impressed with his level of skill. But the encounters with Samuel Hayden made Glynda wonder if the brain within the robotic suit had been damaged in some way given that the 'man' was more obsessed with his projects than the threat to those he was supposed to be helping.
Ozpin looked on in silent contemplation, taking in the events the Doom Slayer had been through in both dimensions. All of the events leading up to the moment when he shut down the Well, and the fight with the massive arachnoid creature that VEGA had dubbed, the 'Spider-Mastermind'.
The final recording was of Samuel Hayden, standing before John while he was restrained by the nearby Argent pilons;
Hayden shook his head, "I am not the villain here, Doom Slayer. I do what I do because there is no other choice."
"Re-routing tether coordinates...Complete." the facility's voice suddenly chimmed.
"Our time is up." said the doctor as he looked at John's restrained form. "I can't kill you...but I won't have you standing in our way." he snapped his arm that was holding the Crucible, the artifact's top end opening up and projecting a red energy blade covered in hellion script with a pickaxe-like tip. "Until we see each other again..."
He turned around to walk away when John lunged, grabbing the cyborg's arm and tearing it from its socket before he was yanked back through the tether.
The doctor bellowed after the Doom Slayer before the scene changed in a flash of energy and revealed the forest he appeared in when he arrived on Remnant.
"The rest is history, I guess you could say." said John as the video was paused.
James suddenly perked up, "Wait! Do you happen to have footage of when you saved Amber?"
John nodded and had VEGA fast-forward his first hour in this world until it showed the fight between the Fall Maiden and the trio that ambushed her. The fight between her and them which ended with him jumping in and saving her.
Qrow whistled, "Damn. Blew the hand off one, the legs off another and knocked the last one out cold. Though, personally I think they deserved to lose a few parts."
The AI brought up an upclose image of the three attackers and displayed them for all to see. The people in the room getting a good look at the ones that attacked Amber. "Have the data sent to me, my techs will perform the needed background checks to find out all they can about them." said the General.
"Of course, General." replied VEGA, the man's scroll pinging a moment later when the information was sent to him.
Amber had been the most silent through the small presentation, coming to grips with what she had seen and realizing that the stories he told her was barely even the cliffnote version. It was then she realized why he wouldn't let her used her semblance to see into his mind, there would have been no way to prepare her for something of this magnitude. And Oum only knew what went through his mind as he was fighting Hell's legion.
The Fall Maiden looked at the man beside her and realized that her earlier assumptions of his prowess in battle didn't quite do him justice. He was a warrior of a whole different caliber. One who faced things than no huntsman or huntress could ever face alone.
"So, now you know my story." said the Doom Slayer, crossing his arms as VEGA returned back to the Praetor suit via digital transmission. "The question now is, where to go from here?"
Ozpin looked around at his most trusted before slowly standing from his seat. "Let me ask you something first, Mr. Irons. Do you believe in legends?"
John tilted his head to the side, "What does that have to do with anything?"
"A lot, actually." replied the headmaster. "Miss. Autumn has already told you one of Remnant's biggest legends, which as you can plainly see is truth. But before I can explain why it is important, I need to know your thoughts on legends."
"Considering you just saw me unveil my own legend when I was fighting through Hell, the answer is pretty self explanitory." said John. "From my personal experiences, all myths and legends are based on some form of fact. Though it's hard to tell when they are lost overtime."
Ozpin nodded, "Very true. However, what if I was to tell you that there was once a being such as yourself that has saved our world more than once?"
The Doom Slayer's confusion increased ten-fold. "After what I went through on Mars and Hell, I'd be willing to believe in the Easter Bunny at this point." Qrow chuckled as he took another drink from another flask he pulled seemingly from nowhere.
Standing from his desk, cane in hand, the headmaster started to speak. "Long ago, when humanity was just starting to push back against the Grimm, another, much darker force made itself known to our world. Beasts from another realm entirely who existed only to cause death and chaos in their wake. No one knew where they came from, or why, but they were merciless and blood thirsty. They slaughtered human, faunus and Grimm alike, showing no discrimination in who they killed."
"When Remnant was facing its darkest hour, a warrior rose up from the abyss. Wielding power unlike anything ever seen before. He vanquished every beast, both Grimm and otherworldly, in his path with a brutality the monsters themselves had shown. Yet not a single human or faunus life had been taken by his hands. Single handedly, he drove the beasts back to their realm, vanishing with them...his intervention giving our world the chance to become the way it is today."
"Then, centuries later, war broke out on our world. A war that created so much fear and dispair that the Grimm became stronger than ever. The threat they posed was great, the war becoming a three sided conflict that looked to only bring ruin to Remnant..."
"However, much like before, the powerful warrior had appeared once again. As if drawn to the darkness that was threatening to consume our world, and like so long before, he slayed all in his path."
"While he fought, however, both sides of the war decided that they wanted him to fight for them so that they would win the conflict, but he was not swayed. Several attempted to either capture him or force him to fight for their cause, all of which ended with blood being spilled."
"Many believe that the warrior saw the evil in many of those fighting in the war, and that was when he started killing the antagonists of it. Only sparing the innocent as he crushed the darkness back with his strength. When the war finally ended, he vanished, just like before, and was never heard from again."
Ozpin looked at everyone in the room, focused solely on John who was still as stone. "This warrior had been given many names throughout our history. Some believed him to be Death in living form, others thought he was a vengeful god sent to Remnant to vanquish the evils that rose up to threaten it, be it Grimm, human or faunus. But to those that still remember his legend, they simply call him the 'Great Slayer'. A warrior whose strength and bloodlust was unmatched by even the greatest of huntsmen."
When he finished, a silence filled the room as all eyes turned to the Doom Slayer, who had a feeling where all of this was headed. But he felt the need to ask, just to be sure. "What does this have to do with me?"
The headmaster tapped a few keys on his desk, and an image appeared above it. One of a stone tablet that depicted a man in armor, wielding a massive sword with a horde of monsters surrounding him on all sides. John could recognize several of the creatures on the tablet...along with the sword in the armored man's hand.
But it was the glowing red symbol at the top of the slab of stone that brought it all into perspective. It was the same one that he bore on his helmet...
"This is the only record ever recovered of the 'Great Slayer'. It is sealed in a heavily guarded facility in Atlas." explained General Ironwood. "Many scientists and researchers for decades have tried to understand it, and to see if there was anything about it that would explain who the warrior was and where he had come from...and if there was ever a chance that he would return..."
Everyone looked to John when they heard a small hiss, seeing the Doom Slayer removing his helmet. Winter and Glynda gasped when they saw his face as he glowing-red eyes looked down at the helm as he ran his thumb over the insignia of the Night Sentinals. A mark that he had taken as his own since becoming the Doom Slayer.
"I don't remember coming here." he said, looking at Ozpin who watched him calmly. All I remember is waking up on Mars in the sarcophagus the demons sealed me in. Most of my memories only returned when I located the scripts in Hell...but there was nothing about me coming to Remnant."
He knew full well that it hadn't been 'HIM' that came to this world in the past, but whoever had been the Doom Slayer before him. Even though he had some memories that didn't belong to him running through his head, there was nothing he had come across that had him coming to Remnant.
"The footage you showed us, some of the information you gathered said that Hell was like a hub leading to alternate dimensions, yes?" asked Glynda.
"That is correct, Professor Goodwitch." chimmed VEGA. "UAC scientists believed that much like the portals that lead to and from Hell in our world, there was applications that would lead to other worlds as well. It is where Doctor Hayden was able to forge the technology for the teather system."
"And the scriptures did say that the 'Doom Slayer' had remained in Hell to fight the demon's on their home turf." added Qrow. "Chances are the bastards tried to take over Remnant like they tried to do to Mars, and the slayer followed to stop them before going back when he was done."
John ran his hand over his head, "Doesn't explain why I can't remember the times I came here..."
"Perhaps the sarcophagus is the reason." stated the AI. "It is unknown how long you were sealed when the demons captured you and separated you from the Praetor suit. Some scientists had theorized that the tomb that housed you was several millenia old."
"Several millenia?" Winter asked surprised, "You don't look a year or so older than me or Amber."
"Time flows differently in Hell." replied the Doom Slayer. "In fact, it practically stands still. I never aged."
General Ironwood shook his head, "An untold amount of time, trapped in a world surrounded by vicious creatures. I can't even fathom such a fate."
"Creatures that feared me." John said, his glowing eyes shining just a tad brighter for only a moment. "I slaughtered countless demons, their leaders, the Dark Ones, sent their strongest to end me. And even they failed. They managed to beat me by dropping a mountain on my head then sealing me away to ensure my reign as their destroyer would end. But even that lasted so long."
"My sole mission...was to obliterate the legions of Hell. To ensure that humanity wasn't wiped out by their darkness. But the UAC...they thought they could control Hell itself and the monsters that prowled within. Their stupidity, their greed, unleashed an invasion that would have been their extinction. And when they figured out their mistake, they used me to clean up their mess. Then tried to cast me aside when I became a threat to their plans."
The Doom Slayer walked over and stood before Ozpin, his form towering over the older man who looked up at him without so much as a hint of fear in his eyes. "I may not have memories of my time here in the past, but if what you have shown and told me is true, then it may not be an accident that I was sent here. But know this...I was betrayed once already, and the outcome wasn't what the bastard had been expecting. A similar situation...will not be as gentle should it happen."
The air in the office seemed to drop several degrees when John finished speaking, the only one unaffected was the headmaster who merely gave a half smile up at him. "Then it is a good thing I have no intention on betraying you."
John narrowed his eyes, unable to get a read on the man, but something about him told the Doom Slayer that he could trust him. Perhaps it was the past that couldn't be recalled, or maybe it was the aura that surrounded him when he spoke, either way he gave off better vibes that Samuel Hayden ever did.
"Alright." he said before stepping away, everyone, even Amber, let out a breath that they had been holding for too long. "Where do we go from here. I doubt this was about a history lesson."
"You would be correct." Ozpin said, "As you know, the attempt on Amber's life is cause for great alarm. Our brotherhood has been looking out for her, and the other Maidens, for many years now. To know that someone has discovered her secret and was willing to attack her directly has us rethinking previous plans."
Amber straightened when she heard this, "What are you saying?"
The headmaster looked to her, "What I am saying, Ms. Autumn, is that it is unsafe for you to be traveling outside the kingdoms. There is no way of knowing how many people are involved in the plot to apprehend you. And it would be best if you were to stay in one place for a time until the matter is resolved."
The Fall Maiden grit her teeth, "You would keep me as a prisoner?!" she demanded, her eyes beginning to glow with her power.
"No! Not a prisoner!" Glynda said with her hands raised in an attempt to calm her. "We only wish to keep you out of harm from those who have taken a darker interest in your abilities. By staying within Vale, we would be able to better protect you should another attempt be made." she explained more carefully.
John listened to their planning and knew what they were meaning, "You're talking about hiding her in plain sight."
"Precisely." said Ironwood, his hands behind the small of his back. "We know full well that Amber can defend herself. But we cannot provide support while she's moving about. And the last place our enemies would expect her to be is amongst the people here."
"You won't be confined, Amber." Ozpin said seriously, "I'd never do such a thing to you. Though your safety is always a prime concern. However, I may have a solution for both situations."
Amber relaxed her stance, "What kind of solution?" she asked, looking at John then back at the headmaster.
"This upcoming year, I had planned to have someone hired to teach aura manipulation and control, and to also hire on a second combat instructor to help Glynda with her work load." explained Ozpin. "Amber would fit the qualifications for the aura class perfectly, while John would be a priceless addition in helping teach the next generations of warriors in how to fight."
The Doom Slayer crossed his arms, helmet still grasped in one hand as he thought about the offer. It wouldn't be a bad thing, if anything he deserved a little break from the constant fighting and bloodshed he'd been through recently. Though he never taught anyone before, which would be a whole new experience in and of itself.
He remembered his encounters with the Grimm, and what they did to the town he and Amber had helped the previous day. Even if the creatures of darkness couldn't hold a candle to the demons of Hell they were still a major threat, someone needed to teach these kids how to bring them down and hard.
"It would also give me time to figure out my so called 'history' in this world and the meaning behind it." he thought.
Amber had also been thinking carefully on her choice. She didn't like the idea of being kept in one place, even if it was a whole kingdom, given that she always considered herself a free spirit. But at the same time, the chance to teach was another way for her to help people, and given that she was a Maiden, it was something she strived for.
Nodding to herself, she looked at the people gathered before her, "I'll do it."
"Excellent. John?" asked the headmaster as all eyes turned to the Doom Slayer.
"If Amber's willing to go for it, so will I." he answered, slipping his helmet back on.
Ozpin nodded, a small smile appearing on his face. "Very well. Glynda will show you to your quarters', I'll send any information and forms you will need before the start of the semester."
Professor Goodwitch led the duo to the elevator. Winter saluted to her superior before following them, the door closing leaving the headmaster and the General alone in the room.
"Why did you not tell him about the talisman?" asked Ironwood, who looked at his longtime friend skeptically. "It could have brought back his memories."
"He has endured much in such a short amount of time." the man replied, "I am letting him adjust to his surroundings before revealing what he left behind at the end of his last appearence. When his trust is rightfully earned, I will show him the artifact."
The General closed his eyes and sighed, "I'm going to keep trusting your judgement on this, Ozpin. But with what has happened, we may or may not have the time to spare. There is no telling if our enemies will strike again."
Ozpin turned and looked out the window of his office, "And if they do, we shall be ready for them."
A/N: A bit short compared to the previous ones, but that will change the next time around...I'm just glad to be back doing what I do best!
Leave your reviews and PMs where you want, and be on the look out for future updates.
Wraith002 is back! And I'm here to stay!