Chapter 13
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Halo Reach. All rights go to Rooster Teeth(RWBY) and 343i / Bungie(Halo Reach)
Kris clenched the cane in her hand ever tighter as the elevator ascended, a part of her mind still rational. Somehow. Amber - Kris still didn't understand how it worked - stayed silent. Vengeance burned hotter every second she spent in the elevator. After, what felt like hours, the elevator doors opened, allowing the furious spartan out into the Cross Continent Transmit tower's main floor. All the screens lay dormant, cracked or destroyed. The spartan exited thetower, hunting around for her friends. Grimm charged towards Kris, her eye now engulfed in flames beneath her helmet again.
Her hands encased themselves in fire, delivering a punch to the face of a Grimm. It fell, dead and dissolving, flames licking its corpse. Another approached, met head on by the spartan, who rammed Ozpin's cane through its neck, killing it. Withdrawing it, the cane was clean, and still undamaged. She looked around, no Grimm approaching. Good. She sprinted towards the landing docks. Her rage further increased as she drew closer. Her friends lay around, beaten and defeated. Ren clutched his sides, the blades on his guns broken. Nora also clutched her side, looking as bad as Ren. Blake lay weeping, clutching Yang's remaining arm.
Yang, herself was unconscious, her right arm missing above the elbow. Weiss was hardly standing on her feet, Sun Wukong looked fine - but looks are deceiving, especially in war. A fact the spartan knew too damn well.
"I'll find them…" Ruby vowed.
"If you're looking for Pyrrha and Jaune - leave it to me." Kris but in, Ozpin's cane hanging in an iron grip in her hand.
"Kris! You're alive… why is your hand glowing?" Ruby asked.
"Don't worry about it. What's more important, right now, is making sure that the tower doesn't fall." Kris bit out, still unwilling to believe the chance that it could.
"I refuse to lose anyone else today. I'm going back, and I'm saving as many people as I can. I won't force you to follow." With that, Kris took off, placing Ozpin's cane on her hip in collapsed form, drawing her twin swords. She slaughtered any and all Grimm that approached her without so much as blinking. The corner of her HUD lit, indicating Mercury had activated the tracker she past him earlier. The man was fighting to the evacuation zone.
"See you in Vale, Merc." Kris promised.
Chaos engulfed Beacon Tower, as windows exploded above Kris. The spartan started scaling the concrete wall, mag boots being her hidden trump card, providing grip and control - even at full sprint, while working on concrete. Something they were never designed for. She could hear the clashes of metal as Kris threw herself into the tower. She continued up the empty elevator shaft to the top floor - Ozpin's office. The top of the tower exploded sending rubble in all directions. Several pieces rained down around Kris, but none made contact.
"Pyrrha you better be alive…" Kris panicked, poking over the top. Milo sat just out of Kris' reach. She shifted, her gloved fingers sliding over the sharp edge. Pyrrha lay against the wall, her aura now gone from the multiple attacks Cinder hit her with. Kris moved to her feat, intercepting a blast with her shields. They held, dropping ten percent - 25 in her old armor.
"Back off!" Kris growled hotly, throwing a sword like a spear. It hit Cinder, immediately shattering. She tried again - same result. Milo rest on Kris' back, the spartan unwilling to use it, less the same thing happen a third time. Pyrrha crawled to her feet and Kris let her helmet fade away into her tacpad.
"Kris…" Pyrrha tried. Kris held up a hand, interrupting Pyrrha as the spartan fired her now summoned DMR at Cinder. The nearly-Fall Maiden fell down, momentarily dazed. Kris removed her helmet pressed her lips softly against Pyrrha's, interrupting anything she was going to say. Kris drew back, blushing slightly.
"Whenever you need me, I'm there." Kris repeated the line from the dance, many days ago. The two separated, only for Kris to be blindsided from a fireball Cinder threw. Kris was flung back over the edge, left dangling by her combat knife embedded in the stone/ metal wall of Beacon tower. Pyrrha rushed to the ledge, grabbing her dangling teammate. She struggled, pulling the half ton spartan back to the edge. Confident she was safe, Pyrrha returned her attention to Cinder, but there was not she could do weaponless. Cinder's eyes glowed, a cold chuckle emanated from her closed lips. Kris' rifle was to Pyrrha's left, where the elevators once were, dangerously close to falling.
Kris gave her crush a thumbs up when she glanced back, Pyrrha's decision made for her. As she moved, Cinder launched a fireball, hitting the tower in front of the spartan. The tower shook from the attack, the rifle nearly slipping from Pyrrha's grasp. Cinder approached the edge with a devious smirk, looking down to the ground below, right through the camouflaged spartan. Cinder took a deep breath in surprise. Three cracks and Cinder lurched forward, before regaining her balance.
"How many times do I need to do this." She sighed, facing Pyrrha, an angry fire burning in her eyes. Pyrrha returned the look, clenching the rifle in her hands tighter.
They traded blow after blow again as they had previously, but without aura, Pyrrha was left without a weapon quickly, and at the mercy of a person who almost surely has none in her heart. Cinder materialized her bow, an arrow at the ready. She pulled the string back and released the arrow...
...only for it to be stopped, well short of it's target. A shimmer, and Kris appeared, her face one of pure, unchained rage. A beat of massive wings, and a roar reminded them of the Dragon Grimm's presence. Paying it no mind, the spartan clenched her fist tighter, snapping the arrow in her armored fist, throwing the remains at Cinder. With a scoff, the arrow disintegrated with a wave of her hand,soon followed by a heavy shoulder check from Kris. The Grimm dragon roared once again, its talons grabbing Kris before she could react, shaking her around the sky.
"Let me go, you fat fucking bird!" Kris yelled, yanking an arm free. Grabbing her knife from her its sheath on her shoulder, she raked it down the beast's thick leg. With a screech of pain, it released her over the tower. She slammed into the tower, shaking it to its foundation several hundred feet below. She struggled to stand, her aura nearly depleted. Crawling to her feet, a bow twanged, air whistled as an arrow it struck its target.
"No..." Kris begged quietly, her heart plummeted. Pyrrha grasped at the arrow in her chest as Cinder walked towards her slowly. "No!" Kris screamed. Her body moved on it's own, her fist making contact with Cinder's head, knocking the maiden out and sending her into a pile of rubble. Kris turned to Pyrrha's side, pulling the girl's head into her lap as tears stained her cheeks. Pyrrha's own eyes had tears dribbling out, a smile on her lips, weakly clenching Kris' hand in her own.
"Pyrrha..." Her voice cracked, her body disobeying her wishes as it trembled in fear and sadness.
"I...I-" Whatever she was about to say died on her tongue as Pyrrha placed her hand on Kris' cheek.
"I-I know." Pyrrha's smile widened slightly, her strength leaving slowly. "I love you too." She whispered, her eyes slipping shut. Her hand fell from Kris' cheek, her smile etched to her features.
"Pyrrha...? Pyrrha, please." Kris shook as she cried, holding the redhead's body closer to her scorched armor. In her hands, Pyrrha's body turned to bright fragments, fluttering away into the cloudy, death filled night sky.
A final insult.
A roar from the dragon as it gazed hatefully, and hungrily at the numb spartan. Her loved one's headdress sat in her hand, feeling like it weighed a thousand tons, her gaze didn't wavered from her armored hands, sparingly aware of the dragon's head descending towards her. Her instincts screamed at her to move. Her body took over, throwing her away from danger, and over the edge of the CCT. A blinding flash consumed her vision as her body connected with the ground. Anything and everything around her disintegrated, a crater signifying her place of landing. A roar from above and a flash of light once again, blinded her momentarily.
Grimm surrounding her landing zone were evaporated by the heat and force of her impact as Beacon Tower fell down behind her. She grabbed Pyrrha's headdress as she stood, before wasting no time in creating a path of fire and destruction, as she darted from Grimm to Grimm - Milo engulfed by the flames the spartan produced, making the blade a fiery whirlwind of death and destruction. A conduit for her anger and sadness.
She targeted an Ursa Major, charging it at full speed. She slashed one of it's leg, before doing it again, immobilizing the beast. It roared at her weakly. She grinned ferally, dragging the hot blade tip across the bone plates of the Ursa, leaving a deep, burning mark. It howled in pain as the blade made contact with its body beneath the armor. With an heart wrenching scream, Kris drove Milo through the bone plate again, like a hot knife through butter.
The blade continued through the Ursa's head, through it's lower jaw and into the pavement below. She pulled the blade out of the dissolving corpse, unaware that she was being watched by Qrow, even as the tower fell around them, crippling the entire world.
Finally, she settled, her emotions momentarily calmed down, as flames remained behind her, A black haze covered the flames, darkening the small area, lit only by the fires of destruction, reflecting off the fallen Beacon Tower. She turned her head left, finally spotting Qrow. With a heavy sigh, and a final glare at the tower, she moved towards the Huntsman.
"Qrow." Kris called quietly, before handing the man Ozpin's cane. "Tell them, Ozpin's gone. He isn't coming back." The girl's voice cracked as tears pricked her eyes. "Tell them, not to hunt for me." She pulled out Pyrrha's head dress, handing it to Qrow. "Make sure, that Jaune gets this. Please, Qrow."
"I…" Qrow sighed, "...I will. Find us when the time is right. We need our Maiden now. Now more than ever." Qrow pulled the girl into a hug. She let herself cry softly on his shoulder for a few minutes, grief and sorrow washing over the broken spartan. Kris eventually separated herself, summoning her bike.
"Find Ruby. She was at the tower too… Tell her, Qrow, that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything and letting her down."
Qrow nodded slightly, watching as Kris took of towards Vale. Tears still descended Kris' face as she approached the evacuation center rapidly. Her helmet materialized back on her head. She pulled up behind Mercury, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Kris? wh-" Kris interrupted him, handing him a helmet.
"Get on. We're disappearing." Merc nodded putting the helmet on, hopping on behind her.
"Hey! Wait! Stop! You're not allowed to leave!" An Atlas soldier cut them off, standing in front of the motorcycle. Kris growled, igniting her left hand and holding it in front of her face, before ramming it into the soldier's helmet, knocking him out with a noticeable dent left behind.
"I don't care. We're leaving regardless. Fool." Kris snarled uncaringly.
She revved the bike's engine, before the two shot into the night - escaping from the downfall of Beacon and everyone's prying eyes.
Days past since the defeat at Beacon. Mercury and Kris managed to get aboard a transport for Mistral. The transport crashed before reaching its intended destination, however. Nevermore attack . The two settled to making their way on foot, Mercury leading them as Kris fiddled with her tacpad.
"Kris… what… happened?" Merc asked cautiously.
"Cinder happened. She killed Ozpin and killed Pyrrha. She died in my arms." The spartan remembered painfully, her voice falling quiet. "That bitch will die. This, I swear."
Merc laid a hand on the taller girl's shoulder as Kris finished tinkering. The duo continued on through the forest. They stumbled across Shion Village, and were offered shelter by an elderly lady.
~~~~~Months Later~~~~~
The next few months, the duo would stay in Shion, learning more about the other - looking after each other as a family should.
"Hey, Merc. How's this look? Dust infused clothing. I've wanted to see if I could do it. ever since Ironwood brought it up..." Kris trailed off, showing him a drawing. To blend in, the duo wished to change their look - with a few bonuses and gimmicks. Mercury nodded, in appreciation of the design.
"It fits. How about this…" Mercury suggested, pointing out different things. The older lady - who identified herself as Claire - poked her head in, smiling at the two, before leaving for the day. They spent days like this: debating and changing their new looks, updating their weapons and creating new ones - with minimal interruptions, surprisingly. Kris opted for a singular sword this time, in favor of quick, more powerful strikes and a bigger blade.
"Qrow?" Merc pipped up, peaking over Kris' shoulder.
"Hmm?" She asked, confused. Mercury nodded to the weapon design.
"Oh, yea. Just no Scythe or shotgun attachments. Too under powered." Kris joked with the sliver of a smile.
"Finally!" Mercury cheered. "You smiled!"
Kris rolled her eyes and looked out the window
A roar outside the city alerted the duo. They nodded, suiting up and bolting from their place of residence. Several Grimm approached Shion, all of them focused on the destruction of the village.
The two friends - siblings, they call themselves - nodded, charging the pack of Grimm. Kris dispatched a Beowulf with a slash of Emile's Kukri, before firebombing another. Mercury shot another's head off, before slashing the throat of a second with a hidden knife.
"These… Grimm… are…suicidal!" Kris managed to get out between attacks.
"Yea… they are!" Mercury agreed, eliminating another. The pack that the duo faced was now gone. Another roar echoed and a Taijitu snaked its way in from the tree line.
"I dibs the killing blow." Kris' eyes grew dark, as her hand glowed slightly. "I want to burn it." She finished with a childlike grin, a spring in her step. Mercury laughed at her, and engaged the white portion as the black head tried to eliminate Kris, who dodged effortlessly time and time again.
Gunshots and roars echoed on the other side as Mercury took on the white portion of the Taijitu. Signs of a dissolving Grimm appeared behind a couple minutes later, and Kris finally attacked. She threw a ball of fire, destroying an eye of the Grimm. Mercury flew in from behind, and blinded the Taijitu in the other eye. It roared in pain, as Kris snuck around the writhing Taijitu, hopping on its neck. She pushed her hands beneath a pair of scales, and engulfed her hands in flames, roasting the screaming Taijitu from the outside, in. After a few moments of concentration, Kris let up with a heavy sigh, slipping from down from the dissolving Taijitu. She wobbled on her feat, exhausted from using her powers continuously for minutes on end. Mercury caught her before she could fall over.
"Whoa-oh-oh. Easy there, miss maiden." He muttered jokingly, supporting her. Kris glared at him weakly, but the tired smile on her lips betrayed her. A few villagers made their way out as Mercury made the slow trek back, Kris struggling to keep awake.
"She your sister?" A man asked. Mercury hesitated for a moment.
"Yes. She's… just exhausted from the fight. She's trained… but hasn't fought like that before." Mercury lied, as Kris finally succumbed to unconsciousness.
The man nodded, Mercury's hesitation to reply unnoticed. The man helped Mercury carry Kristia back to their temporary residence. Mercury placed Kris on her bed, before looking over the designs piled on their shared desk. Mercury pulled paper and a pencil out from the desk, setting to work on his own weapons. Kris lay unconscious in her bed. In her mind, she held conversation with Amber.
'So the best way for me to get better is just… to use them more?' She asked.
'Mhmm!' Amber 'nodded'. Kris laughed.
'Thanks Amber. Sorry for ignoring you this long.' Kris apologized.
'It's okay. I'm used to it.' Amber replied. Kris scowled.
'It ain't okay.' Kris denied. Amber nodded.
'Now go. These next few months… you'll probably need all the training you can get.' Amber suggested.
Kris woke with a groan, grabbing Merc's attention.
"Afternoon, sleeping beauty." The silver haired teen teased.
"Shut up, Merc…" Kris groaned, sitting up, head against the wall with a soft thump. "Whatcha up to?"
"Redesigning my boots." He held up one of them. "I want to have versatility. Not just shooting and kicking all the time"
"Need help?" She asked. Merc nodded, bringing the drawings over. She studied them for a moment. "That will work, actually. But you'll only be able to use one type of dust at a time in each boot. And your blades wont fit either. It would mean sacrificing what little ammo you carry in those."
Mercury shrugged in acceptance and returned to the desk as a knock on the room's door echoed, before Charlie poked her head in.
"Someone's here to see you two." She told them, letting the person into the room.
"Qrow?!" Mercury asked, surprised. "How'd you find us here?"
"Simple really. I'm a huntsman. It's my job to find things and people." He took a drink from his flask.
"I told you not to look for me. Why are you here?" Kris asked, unhappy. The huntsman sighed, sitting on the edge of Mercury's bed, facing their Fall Maiden.
"Beacon is in shambles, the CCT is down - contact around the world is down. Ruby is now a target, as are you."
"We know." The two teens said simultaneously.
"Well… Ruby's forgiven you - she told you to come home. She doesn't blame you." Kris sighed, running a tired hand over her face.
"I can't come home. Not yet. Not until I understand these powers a bit more. If Ruby somehow manages to get over here to Anima…" Kris told him.
"Well… then, you know our enemy's trail leads to Haven?" Qrow asked with a sly smile. Kris looked at Mercury, before the duo nodded.
"They're not hiding that trail. They know we're on to it. They have to." Mercury spoke up, tinkering with his boots.
"It's why we're not staying in the forest, or public eye. As long as I'm alive, or Cinder's alive… there is no proper Fall Maiden. I want to know what they are looking for though. Lionheart is apart of the group, after all." Kris grabbed something from the table next to the bed. She ran her finger over the carefully carved slots, applying a bit of heat to soften them. She stretched both of them a little wider, carefully.
"What's the mask for?" Qrow wondered, watching as she carefully modified the mask.
"My new outfit. I can't keep wearing what I'm wearing." Kris sighed. She turned her attention back to Qrow. "Anything new for Ruby, or… Yang?" Kris asked, hesitantly.
"Well…" Qrow sighed. "I'm certain she's planning on making her way to Mistral - and Haven academy. She's going to be a target the entire time. Yang is… depressed. She sits in her bed most of the day. I'm starting to think it's affecting Ruby."
Kris sighed, as she carved a couple lines along the length of the mask. "I… figured…"
"Yeah… with Ozpin gone… I'm going to have to pick up where he left off. Beacon is out of the question. With that dragon Grimm frozen… the creatures of darkness seem even more drawn to the school. She has them searching for something. A relic."
"A relic? Why a relic?" Kris asked distractedly.
"Because if she gets them all… she can erase mankind from existence. That, is her goal."
"Huh…. I've faced worse odds in the past. This'll be a cakewalk compared to that." Kris nodded behind her, gesturing to the past.
"I don't doubt it." Qrow agreed.
Kris set the carving tool down, studying the newly carved lines in the fire colored metal. She cleaned the fresh shavings onto the floor, the shield and spear reflected in the dim lighting of the room. Tears brimmed Kris' eyes as she stared at the emblem in silence. Qrow sighed, giving the girl a pat on the shoulder, pulling the mask from her weak grasp.
"Kris… you can't wellow in your misery forever. I've seen what it does to people. Remnant needs it's maiden." Qrow spoke quietly, placing the mask on the table, starring the girl in the eye..
She wiped her eyes. "I know… we're leaving in a month or two. Send us a message when Ruby gets here, will you?" Kris requested quietly.
"Yea, I will. Planning on shadowing her?"
"... Something like that…" Kris said onimously. Mercury laughed lightly, finishing his boot's modifications. "I still need to train my powers more. Despite how much I want to see everyone again - I need to gain a better understand over them first."
Qrow nodded, standing, before pulling out a folded letter. "From Ruby."
Kris nodded, taking the folded letter, placing it on the bed side table. Qrow left quietly, shutting the door behind him. Silence enveloped the two teens for a few minutes, before Mercury broke the silence.
"So… what exactly is the plan? We going to wait here for Ruby to get to Anima?"
"Yes. We're going to keep preparing, and training until she does. Hopefully Qrow remembers to tell us when she's here."
"And when she eventually does arrive, what then?" He questioned. Kris smiled slightly.
"We shadow them, and help them where required, without giving ourselves away. Unless absolutely necessary." Kris answered, coloring her mask red, the corner emblem outlined with fire gold, matching her outfit.
"The final piece, for me, will be done in a few weeks." She told him. Mercury released a 'hmph'.
"It won't be boring, that much is certain." Mercury commented.
Kris shared a grin with Merc, as the two set to preparations again.
The moment the duo waited for came later than they expected - Qrow explaining that they've been here for a few days. The peace and quiet the two enjoyed in Shion was going to be cut short - by a person Kris met almost a year ago. This time, Kris had help with her - her voluntary guardian. Mercury Black proved to be a useful ally, and an even better friend. The man was skilled, easy going, but a person she would trust with her life. He taught her things she never knew, and she to him. But the person she met over half a year ago had her own help - and in greater numbers.
"Hey, Kris?" Merc asked.
"Yea?" She replied, looking up from her book.
"That final piece of yours ready yet?"
"Hmm…." Kris checked quickly. "Nearly. Another hour or so." Merc grinned, returning to his own book. Kris shook her head, returning to her own book. Grimm roared in the distance - far enough from the village that response wasn't required. The two sat quietly for hours, reading. Clouds rolled in rapidly on Shion village, strange - considering how little wind there actually was today. Kris perked up, ears twitching, her senses on alert. Something, or someone was approaching - fast. Kris slammed her book closed and stored it quickly, startling Mercury.
"Kris? What the hell?"
"Something, or someone, is coming. Fast." She responded. Mercury looked at her, eyes deadly serious.
"Certain?"
Kris nodded, her ears barely noticeable below her black hair, looking out the window at the rapidly darkening sky. Mercury put the book back on the shelf, readying his weapons. He exited the room, Kris followed a moment later, her black hair no longer black, and trimmed to neck length. Her mask sat in her left hand, her new sword on her back, its handle poking over her right shoulder. She nodded and the two left the house, hurrying to the other end of the village, their belonging stored safely within the spartan's tacpad.
They reached the entrance, a sound approaching from the trees, dust being kicked up behind the approaching threat. Several other huntsmen joined them moments later, as the group closed in.
"Who are they? Bandits?" One asked.
"Why would Bandits attack a village the size of Shion?" Another shot back.
"Stupidity?" Mercury quipped.
"Probably." Several others agreed.
It was a large group - larger than the number of huntsmen the village had. Even with Kristia and Mercury, they were still outnumbered 4 to 1. The group drew closer by the second. A familiar figure caught Kris' attention. The white bone mask, distinctive to one person only on Remnant. Kris growled to herself at the sight of it.
"What…?" Merc asked in a whisper.
"It's her. The woman I encountered on the train before the breach." She replied as quietly, placing her mask on her face. "That mask belongs to one person, and one person only. Qrow's sister." Kris turned her attention back to the leader.
"Raven Branwen."