Almost did not manage to get this one out when I did. Imagine just how terrible it would have been if it had been released tomorrow instead of today!
Chaos is the Prize Chapter 11
The world was burning in its infernal gaze. When Ruby looked at it, it felt like she was about to be consumed in the thirsting storm of malevolent fire, and she could not turn away from it. If she tried to close her eyes, it still burned just as bright through her eyelids. If she tried to turn away, she found she could not escape it, for its presence was everywhere and its focus was on her. She wanted it to go away, but there was nothing she could do to escape or banish it. It was fire, destruction and oblivion. It burned her, and she would have screamed in agony if she had been able to.
And then it was gone. A complete darkness was all that surrounded her, like a guarding curtain that protected from the fiery light of doom from scorching her. It was wonderful in its soothing coolness, that was the greatest thing in the world after the heat.
The darkness was however starting to reveal what it hid from her, like her eyes got used to it after the light was taken away. She saw the usual ghostly stone floor and walls, as the familiar place emerged from the darkness. As always, it was not the location she had exactly been, but once again some different corner.
And Nox was there. He was sitting on a perfect rectangular building block only an arm's length away on Ruby's left, staring passively into the darkness of the corners. He seemed calm, like there was nothing for him to do and as so he just chose to sit there doing nothing.
"Did you see it?" Ruby asked.
Nox looked at her from the corner of his eyes. "What?"
Ruby was silent for a moment, trying to find the words to describe what she had just witnessed. "I saw..." she started cautiously. "I saw an eye. An eye that would devour everything I know and care about if given the chance," she managed to say.
Nox nodded, not looking at her. It seemed tonight's state for him was calmness.
"Did you not see it?" Ruby asked. "What did you see?"
Nox was silent for a long time before he pulled a deep breath. "I saw the Eye. The Eye that will devour me unless I feed it with everything else before it takes me," he said without emotion on his pale face. "Fuck the Eye."
Ruby did not know what to say, as she did not understand, so she remained quiet. Her attention was in a following instance captured by a noise from behind her, that resembled a sound of battle. She spun on her heels, and was greeted by a strange sight. There were six figures maybe ten meters from her. Five of them were in a wide circle around a much bigger form, that Ruby immediately recognized as a Beowolf. And the smaller shapes circling around it were… kids. There were five kids, slowly going around the Beowolf that was watching them with a predatory attention, but there was also little uncertainty in its red glaring eyes.
Ruby focused to observe the children and made an interesting discovery. One of them had an unremarkable brown hair, but four of them all had a extremely pale skin and dark hair. The four of them looked so much alike, that Ruby was pretty sure they were siblings. And they looked somewhat familiar. They looked like Nox. She was not close enough to see their eyes in the darkness, but she was suddenly sure all of them had the same obsidian eyes as the boy sitting next to Ruby.
They were really young, Ruby estimated ten or eleven at most. All of the boys held in their hands what looked like crude weapons, that were a far cry from proper huntsman weaponry. Some sharp edged pieces of gleaming metal, which hardly deserved to be even called swords or daggers. All of the unimpressive looking weapons were directed solely at the lone creature of Grimm in the middle of the circle, and both the Grimm and the children seemed to be waiting for a moment to strike.
"What is this?" Ruby asked bewildered.
"The first kill," Nox said solemnly.
The youth with brown hair looked like he was about to lose it and just charge the Beowolf. The other four were cautiously closing the distance, little by little, creeping towards their prey.
"They look just like you. Do you know who they are?," Ruby asked. The five of them and the Grimm seemed like they could not sense her and Nox, totally oblivious that somebody was watching them from a mere ten meters away.
Taking a better pose, Nox looked at the small humans that were enclosing the soulless predator. "Yes," he said simply.
Ruby glanced at him. "Well, who are they?"
Nox raised a hand and pointed with his index finger at the white skinned boy on the right with a bit longer hair than the others. "Otieno…" Nox spoke a name. He moved his hand to point at the second kid, nearest to him and Ruby. "Rajnish..." He focussed on the third. "Shyama..." he lowered his hand to rest against his knee.
"What about the fourth one?" Ruby asked as she nodded at the pale kid Nox had jumped over.
"That is me," Nox responded.
Nox rubbed his temple with a hint of frustration as he sat down to the breakfast table across from Azuhrius. He should have been as rested as it was possible for him since he had slept once again through the weekend, so Azuhrius did not understand what was going on.
"Is there something wrong," Azuhrius asked from Nox as the pale boy started to consume a large pile of bacon on his plate.
Nox glanced at him. "Red like roses fills my dreams…" he muttered before stuffing his mouth with more food.
"What?", Azuhrius asked for clarification.
"Nothing," Nox waved the matter aside.
Azuhrius looked at him for a moment longer before returning his attention to the group sitting on his left side consisting of members from three other teams. Orchid and Sangur were not present, and Azuhrius hopped that his two missing teammates were not somewhere beating each other's heads in.
"So, has any of your teams thought about the tournament?" Yang inquired with a brisk tone as she spooned a big spoonful of pudding into her mouth. The fiery blond girl really, really seemed to like the that particular brand of pudding, as there were couple of empty containers in front of her already, that she had brought to the dining hall. She was sitting furthest away from Azuhrius, and was the only member of Team RWBY sitting at the table at the moment. Blake had also been here just a minute ago, but she had dissolved away like a shadow.
"That is still pretty far ahead," Teale commented across from Azuhrius, next to Nox. "There will be plenty of time to consider everything about it."
"Consider? As if you actually are going to miss participation in it," Yang said as her spoon worked between her and her doomed pudding.
"Well, I think there is some pretty heavy competition," Oliver said from between Teale and Yang. "Pyrrha, you have experience with tournaments. How high level do you think it will be?"
The red haired girl turned from Jaune who was sitting between her and Azuhrius. "Well, it is the Vytal festival. I don't believe you can really do better than that. Most of the current students of all the Huntsman Academies from all over the Remnant are taking part, so it should be quite a challenge to even get past the first rounds of combat."
"Your team should be fine. I take you are seriously competing for the victory," Yang said cheerily. "Too bad Team Ruby is going to steal the victory right under your noses.
"Oh yeah," Jaune surprisingly responded to Yang's playful provocation. "We took down a giant scorpion the second day of the school, I think we have a decent chance."
"Big scorpions are not dangerous," Oliver said smugly. "They are not poisonous. It is the little ones that need to be watched out for."
As Jaune, Oliver and Yang continued to squabble, Teale turned to Azuhrius. "So, what about your team?"
Of course Azuhrius had thought about it, and he had found no reason for his team to participate. There was no perceivable benefit in participation for him and his plans, so it would have been waste of time and effort. He also seriously questioned some of his teammates' ability to have a tournament style duels so that they would stop early enough for their opponent not to meet their untimely demise. No names who, but if he would have given names, they would have started with S and O.
"I don't think my team is going to participate," Azuhrius said with a neutral tone. He did not see a reason not to tell Teale, but he certainly was not going to tell her the real reasons.
Teale's eyes widened in surprise. "What? You are not? How come? Surely you are qualified, and it is not like winning is the most important thing, just the participation should be a great experience."
Azuhrius shrugged lightly. "I personally would like to pass, as I don't find that sort of competition agreeable." It was kinda true, he did not like fair fighting and duels. "Not when I am the one in the arena. And I think my team has really much work to be done in the teamwork department." Nox glanced at Azuhrius as he said that, not with any sort of malice, but with a genuine agreement. Azuhrius decided to guide the attention away from him and his team. "So I take you and the Team TACO is in for it?"
Teale smiled with a mix of excitement and uneasiness. "Well, it is the Vytal festival, it is not like that kind of thing can just be missed out on. I, and my team as far we have talked about it, think it will be really enjoyable event for us if we take part in the tournament. It will also be great way to test and hone our skills, to see how much we have learned, you know."
"Yeah, I can understand. I wish you luck."
At that moment something happened that Azuhrius would not have thought would happen before come the apocalypse: Nox's scroll let out a sound indicating the arrival of a message. The incident was unique in the history of mankind.
Nox looked almost as surprised as Azuhrius at the sudden and unexpected phenomenon, but he dig up his scroll from his pocket and, with a moment of struggle with the ultra complicated device, opened it. The black eyes moved for a short while as they read the content of whatever was in the message. Then the Progeny of the VIIIth rose from his seat with a sudden grin on his lips, without even bothering to take the tray on which his half eaten food was.
"What's going on?" Azuhrius asked, somewhat worried about what would demand such an unthinkable thing as messaging Nox through his scroll.
"Sangur and Orchid are hitting their own heads into a wall to see who falls down first," Nox explained with rare excitement as he marched away. "I am going to watch!"
Some of the others let out a worried laugh and Teale had an awkward smile on her face as Azuhrius let out a massive sigh and cast his head down. Sometimes he wondered how he was able to deal with what he did. "The things I would have done to have someone like you on my team…" he murmured shortly to Teale, whose cheeks reddened just a bit, before he took both his and Nox's trays and headed after his pale teammate.
Blake walked out from the building into the yard of the academy, seeking a good reading spot, but the book she was holding was already open and the pages under her gaze. She looked up only so much that she knew where she was going and did not bump into anyone on the way. Her shoes stopped making hard noises as she stepped from the pavement and continued to walk on the healthy green grass.
The book she was holding was engrossing, but so were most of the books she picked up for reading, what would have been the point otherwise. It told a tale about a war ship that crashed on an unfamiliar shore, long after the ending of the war it had been fighting in. The story followed how the crew and the soldiers on board met up with local people and how their coexistence and eventual fusing happened.
She really liked the description of the two groups coming together and how they even after many trials managed to coexist peacefully. How they realized they were not so different after all. The development of the character was masterfully done, and she was was sure she would take a look at the other works of the author.
Blake knew just the perfect place for her to sit down and really immerse herself in the last chapters of the book. There was a large tree in a somewhat unfrequented corner of the yard that she really liked. Sitting under its shadow, laying against its stable trunk, listening the wind to gush the leaves above and a good book at her hands. What more could she want?
The tree was now directly ahead of Blake as he quickly glanced up from his book for the heading. She walked forward, finally reaching the large shadow the thick tree was casting on the otherwise sunbathing grass area.
Just as Blake was about to sit down and be swallowed by the awesome piece of literature in her hands, she realized to her surprise there was already someone sitting in the cool shade against the tree. She had been so captured by her book that she had not noticed the boy under the tree, despite him being directly ahead of her with nothing to obscure vision.
She lowered her book and looked down at Orchid of Team ASON who was taking it easy against the wood, his eyes closed and a strangely serene expression on his face of perfect skin. His longish white hair falling down the right side of his head was swaying slightly as the wind caressed it gently. He also had a rather big bandage on his forehead for some reason.
Before Blake could do anything, his eyes opened, the pink and misty irises looking right up to her despite his otherwise slack features. Blake did not really like the look in those vivid yet shrouded eyes. She had noticed it on those rare times when her and Orchid's eyes had met during school time, and if she had to describe it, she would have said the look on his eyes always seemed like he had never seen a girl before. She had never spoken to him before, and so far this was the closest encounter she had had with him. She was not exactly sure what kind of person he was.
"Hello… " He said with a light and calm tone, closing his eyes for a while before opening them again.
"Hey," Blake said, answering to the greeting, for what else was there to do.
"Would you like a drink?" Orchid said without chance in his voice.
It was at that moment that Blake noticed a coppery goblet on Orchid's left hand that was on the ground level next to him. She could see into the rather fancy looking cup, and it was half filled with deep red liquid. The vibrant color and the luscious smell of the liquid strongly brought the forest of Forever Fall into her mind. And it seemed like the smell grew stronger as she looked at it.
"What is it?" Blake asked, wondering what was in the gleaming container.
"Something exquisite. Something wonderful. Why don't you take a sip?" Orchid said, raising the goblet and offering it upwards to her from where he was sitting. The scent of the cup's content was growing even more intense, making Blake wonder how she had not smelled it way before.
"I don't think we are allowed to drink any sort of liquor on the school grounds. Or at all, since we are under age," she replayed, eyeing the scarlet liquid, somehow the idea of refusing losing weight.
"Oh, don't worry, there is not a single drop of alcohol in this drink," Orchid replayed with a serene and light smile. "I promise you, it will be the best thing you have ever tasted, I guarantee it…"
Blake found her hand reaching out to take the cup, slightly surprising herself. Best thing you have ever tasted? That is a big claim. But her interest had been wakened, and idea of not even giving it a shot just did not feel right. Her fingers touched the coppery cup, sliding slowly along it's length. What would be the problem with just testing it? The deep aroma flowing from the drink was now getting so intense, that she actually had to take deeper breaths. The smell was so strong and vibrant, full of promises that the main deal would be even better.
Blake's finger started to curl around the goblet Orchid was generously offering her. There was a rather weird and sharp tint into his eyes suddenly, but Blake did not pay it much mind. She was just about the clasp the cup firmly enough for her to lift it. Just a sip.
Suddenly, the metallic container holding the strange red drink was grabbed from her hands, and taken away from her reach. She turned to look who had taken it, a sudden spike of anger in her mind for some reason. She watched as the blue haired boy next to her, who she had not sensed approaching, reached out with his hand that was holding the goblet and poured the crimson liquid to the ground.
The drink shimmered in the air as the small red stream and droplets were in the air for just a shortest of instances, before they disappeared, pulled by the gravity and drained by the thirsty ground. Blake could just stare at the spot on the ground that had devoured the liquid, and only raised her gaze as the one who had thrown away the drink spoke.
"Sorry about that," Azuhrius said as he flailed the cup, sending one last gleaming red tear to fly away. "Orchid, I need to discuss some matters with you, could you come with me?"
"Sure," Orchid said, seemingly completely unfazed by the fate of his drink. He stood up, took the now empty goblet and started walking after Azuhrius who was leading them away from the tree and Blake.
Suddenly Blake was alone. What was I just doing. She turned her head as he wondered. Oh yeah, the book. She raised the book, sat down on the now vacant spot that had been cleared of Orchid's, and returned to read her amazing book.
"Hey Yang," Ruby called out to her sister.
Yang looked up from the magazine she had been reading, the spoon she used to eat her delicious pudding sticking from her mouth. She had really become attached (more like addicted) to that particular brand of pudding, Ruby though. There were several empty containers lying in a circle around Yang, and there were many more scattered around their dorm room. Seriously, there were absurd amount of them, and they were everywhere. Just yesterday, Ruby had even found one from her secret cookie box, and had of course immediately proceeded to relocate her treasures into more secure location. Her dear sister would soon have a long talk with Weiss about the appropriate condition of one's residence, and for once Ruby actually thought someone deserved to suffer the wrath of the Ice Queen.
"Come on, Team JNPR is treating us pancakes!" Ruby exclaimed from the doorway, flanked by the said team and the rest of RWBY, minus Weiss who was somewhere plotting her spying mission to Vale because of the contestants arriving for the tournament.
"Coming." Yang did not need to be told twice, and she jumped on her feet, the spoon still in her mouth. It looked like she would take it with her, as she marched to the door with the utensil still with her.
They exited the room, locked the door behind them and gathered on the opposite side of the hallway, in front of Team JNPR's room.
"What is going on? Normally you guys don't have problem finishing your delicious pancakes", Yang said as she gave a nod to Ren, the undeniable master chef of the first year class. Ruby wondered if she could somehow convince him that cookies are superior to pretty much anything in every way and he should totally make some in the future and share them around. Maybe she could give him advice and he would let him taste test his bakings.
"Well, it just happens that someone~" Pyrrha glanced at Nora. "Convinced Ren to make five times the normal portion and now we have so much surplus that we don't know what to do with all of it."
"Yeah, at first we tried to take care of it with the power of appetite and Nora, but it was just too much," Jaune said as he searched for the key to their room from his pockets. "Nora is actually just back from the infirmary because of stomach pains."
¾ of Team RWBY looked at Nora, baffled by the possibility of such an incident.
"We had a lot of syrup." Ren said with a monotone voice.
"A Lot," Jaune said as he finally opened the door. As the way to Team JNPR's room was opened, an unexpected sight greeted both the teams standing in the doorway, now frozen on their feet.
There was a figure standing with his metallic raptor legs on top of the table by the opened window, with a package of pancakes wrapped in plastic on his hand, and a much bigger loot sack on over his shoulder. The black eyes turned to look at the people who had suddenly emerged from the door, the same cold eyes Ruby had seen in her dreams lately.
Without a word from anybody, Nox threw the last pack of pancakes into his massive bag, turned lightning fast on his heels and jumped out of the open window into the dimming evening.
There was a perfectly frozen moment as all of the members of the two teams processed what they had just seen, with only the chilly wind whining from the window.
Then: "HE TOOK OUR PANCAKES!" Nora let out a cry of misery and anger.
"GET HIM!" Yang yelled.
Ruby could only watch as the ginger and blond haired girls rumbled to the window with a speed of sound and jumped headfirst after the pancake thief, with a warcry bellowing from their lips.
I think this is a chapter stepping furthest away from canon. No way Nora would have stomach pains from eating too many pancakes.
Please leave review, if you feel it in your heart, and have a nice day.
