Glynda led her students through the crimson forest of Forever Fall. They admired the wonderful scenery as they strolled deeper in, all except for one.
"Yes, students, the forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so." The professor stated before she stopped as the students followed. She held up a jar full of red sap for demonstration. "Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of…" She stopped her instructions when she noticed a student staring off into the forest. "Mr Walker?" Receiving no reaction, she tried again with a sterner and sharper tone. "Mr Walker!"
Draksis snapped back into reality with a jolt; his left hand already resting on the holster of his pistol. Glynda noticed this but she decided not to point it out. "Mr Walker, are you paying attention?"
Realising his current situation, Draksis relaxed his muscles and calmed down. "Yeah, I got it. Sorry, professor." He played it off well as they believed him. Too well for some others, though.
Glynda's resumed instructions fell deaf on Draksis' ears as his mind immediately began to wander again. He stared past the professor at a space of red grass while his memories re-played.
Eight years ago.
A storm raged as ten-year-old Draksis and his father walked through Forever Fall. The heavy rain hammered against the hoods of their respective black and red jackets.
"This where we're gonna camp?" Draksis asked as when his father suddenly stopped.
"No. This is where you're gonna camp."
Draksis sharply turned to his father with wide eyes. "W-what?! Ack!" He choked as his father grasped his throat.
"While you're staying here, you will learn pain… suffering…" The grip tightened. "You have no hope here. This is where you belong, in the darkness. This is where you will die. And when you die, you will burn in hell for killing your mother."
"It wasn't… guh… my fault."
"YES, IT IS!" He threw Draksis to a tree. "To kill you now would be mercy. You cannot die until the Grimm has ripped you apart first. PIECE! BY! PIECE!" Draksis was kicked in the gut for every word shouted before he blacked out into unconsciousness.
Present time.
Weiss looked back at the idiot who was still staring off into space while the class has split into their respective teams. 'What is that buffoon daydreaming about now?' She scoffed as she approached him.
"Walker!" She called out. The second her hand touched his shoulder, she winced as her wrist was suddenly twisted into a dangerous angle and her elbow was threatened to shatter from its joint. She momentarily caught a glimpse the hatred, rage and the killing intent in his black eyes before it quickly mellowed down.
Draksis fully returned back into the land of the living and dropped Weiss' arm. "Sorry, Schnee."
"Damn it, Walker!" She exclaimed painfully as she shook her arm into relief. "What is your problem?!" He was about to open his mouth to reply but she dismissed the opportunity. "Never mind, let's go. We are going to be left behind." She sharply twirled on her heels and brisk-walked to catch up to her teammates.
Yang felt the tension when Weiss stormed past her while Draksis had a slower and almost unfocused pace. She held her arm up and stopped Draksis in his tracks. "Um, what's going on? What happened?"
The boy in question sheepishly chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "Weiss surprised me and, uh, I… almost broke her arm… almost."
Instead of reprimanding him for harming her teammate, Yang looked concernedly at him. "Are you okay?"
Draksis immediately had a puzzled look on his face. "Shouldn't you be asking her that? I mean, I almost gave her two left arms… or one less arm altogether."
"But you didn't. You've been jumpy and unfocused since we got here. What's wrong?"
Draksis massaged his temple. "It's just…" He only finished his sentence with a groan as he threw his arms around in a wide vague gesture to the area. Yang couldn't understand what he meant, seeing as that gesture had hundreds of different possible meanings.
Before she could get another word in, Draksis was already walking to the team's designated spot.
Draksis stared blankly at the grey trunk of the tree in front of him. He remembered how he drank the red sap from the trees as a means to stay alive during the nine months he spent as a child. That's not to say that was the only food source available; of course, there was the occasional bird and rabbit or, when he got very lucky, a deer. What made it difficult was the competition between him and the Grimm. With a shake of his head, He pulled himself from his memories and drew Lyssa from over his shoulder. He slashed at the trunk with a powerful horizontal swing and watched the red sap slowly bleed out. Unsatisfied with the results, he held his sword in a reversed grip and stabbed at the gash repeatedly, until bleeding turned to gushing. Feeling a bit better, Draksis positioned the empty jar under the gash and patiently waited as the sap filled it.
"Y'know…" Ruby voiced out from behind him. "There's a reason why we have this." She giggled as she presented an extraction spout to him.
He simply looked at her as if saying 'Do I really care right now?'
"Okay, okay." Ruby took a few steps back with her arms up. "I'll leave you to stab the tree to your heart's content."
Draksis just gave her a thumbs-up and he returned to his blanked out state. Ruby backed away from him and joined her sister.
"So, did he say anything?" The blonde asked as she sealed her jar of sap.
"Nope. Not a word. He looks like he's not in the mood to talk." Ruby replied while her sister sighed. "If you're so worried about him, then why not just talk to him yourself?"
"You just said it yourself, Rubes; he's not in the talking mood." Yang stood up from her crouched position and looked at the topic of their conversation.
"Well, maybe he'll talk to you. I mean, you both are pretty close. He would probably be okay with it if you asked him." Ruby suggested.
"Yeah, you're right." Her red-cloaked sister did a small fist-pump. "Okay, I'll go talk to him."
Yang was about to walk off but Ruby wanted to add one last thing. "And maybe you can tell him that you like him?"
"What? I don't like him." Yang calmly denied.
Ruby snickered. "You can fool anyone else, Yang, but not me. I've seen the way you look at him and how you always sit next to him in during class and lunch."
"Well, yeah. We're good friends, of course." Yang argued while she twirled the tip of her hair. She's rubbing off on her younger sister too much.
"Right, right. Just go talk to him." Ruby pushed the blonde forward. Yang gave her sister an annoyed glare before approaching the soldier-themed boy.
After fading in and out of his memories, Draksis finally managed to fill two jars with the red sap. It was a bit of a mess because the tree was bleeding from fifteen different places.
"Wow." A voice from a certain blonde commented from behind. "That's one hell of a mess."
Draksis chuckled softly. "Yeah, this just… happened."
Yang snorted. "And your sword just happened to be covered in sap?"
Draksis looked at his sword which was impaled into the grass, dripping with the red sap. "Yep…"
The blonde brawler sighed and stood beside him. "Can you please tell me what's wrong? You're all quiet and broody; I don't like it."
He hesitated at first but then he decided it was okay to show her. "Okay, I'll tell you." His voice fell into a whisper. "But not here."
While both of them began to walk deeper into the crimson forest, Yang smiled as she felt warmth in her chest when Draksis gently held her hand the whole time.
Ruby smirked as she watched the two leave, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
"Now where are those two moronic dolts going?" The white-haired heiress scowled.
The young leader sighed happily. "Just going for a walk in the moonlight, I guess."
"It is still afternoon, you dunce."
"Oh, shut up."
Yang gasped out of awe as Draksis led her into a large clearing. The field looked like a warzone. Trees were toppled and branches were scattered all over the grass. The ones still standing were riddled with gashes and holes.
"Holy shit, what happened here?" The blonde exclaimed.
"I did." Draksis answered as they stood in the centre of the destruction. "This is where I trained for nine months at the age of ten."
"You were ten?!" Yang very nearly shouted out of shock. "In here for nine months?! Why?!"
"You told me that you lost your mum, right?" He asked carefully.
"Yeah, we all took it really hard."
"And your dad?"
"He took it the hardest. I basically had to take care of Ruby myself. But he got through it, eventually."
"That's good. You guys kept it together."
"Yeah. I just realised, you've never talked about your family before."
"I was getting to that. It'll explain all… this." Draksis gestured around him.
"Okay…"
Draksis sighed sombrely. "My mother died when I was born. Like your dad, he took it really hard, except he never recovered from the loss." He clenched his fist from the growing rage. "Instead, he blamed me. As a child, I grew up on the receiving end of his rage. Years of anger, hate and pain for killing his wife, until he wanted vengeance. My father marooned me here as a death sentence." Draksis took a deep breath to calm down. "I have always been good in combat, nine months of harsh training here just made me better. So when I made it back home, and when I saw him again… I… I just lost it…" He sighed as Yang wrapped her arms around him in a hug.
"I-I thought you said that your dad taught you-"
"He taught me that the world is a dark and cruel place. It's always out to get you, and you can't survive unless you fight back with extreme measures. To live in hell, you have to become hell yourself."
"But Draksis, if you really grew up that way, then you wouldn't be who you are now. No one should ever go through what you did. Most people would come out deformed, but you were strong enough to make it out okay."
"I didn't do it alone, Yang. I was already tainted by darkness but I was lucky enough to have a sister who showed me the light. She flushed the darkness out and helped me become who I am now. After the incident, I grew up with people who showed me that the world is not entirely hell…" He rested his hands on Yang's shoulders and gazed deeply into her lilac eyes. "And then I met you…"
Yang's breath hitched and her heart pounded. "D-Draksis, I-"
GRRRRRROOOAAAAAWWWWW!
Draksis threw his arms up in frustration. "For fuck's sake!"
"What was that?"
Draksis groaned with a palm against his face. "That… was an Ursa. We should probably head back and check it out." He took Yang's hand and sprinted through the forest to their teammates. "We were having a fucking moment, you oversized dipshit…" He muttered under his breath.
By the time Draksis and Yang made it to the origin of the roar, Jaune was already sheathing Crocea Mors with a decapitated Ursa at his feet while Pyrrha, Ruby and Weiss stood at the sidelines.
"So what'd we miss?" Draksis questioned, already recovered from the sprint.
"Arc killed that Ursa to save that big oaf, Winchester." Weiss blandly answered.
"On his own?"
"Pyrrha helped him using her Semblance." Ruby chimed. "She can control poles."
"I said she has control over magnetism, you dunce!" Weiss reprimanded.
"Excuse me, bitch, you don't need to shout." Draksis chided playfully before he turned to Pyrrha. "You're gonna have to let me borrow your Semblance for a second." He requested while Weiss fumed and Yang and Ruby clutched their sides from laughter.
"Um, may I ask why?" Pyrrha warily asked.
"Just trust me. It's gonna be hilarious." Draksis took Pyrrha's exposed arm and sapped a bit of her aura before she could have a say in the matter.
When Cardin got back on his feet, Draksis stretched his hand out and took control of the bully's right gauntlet. With a wave of Draksis' fingers, Cardin confusingly raised his right hand and floored himself with a punch to the face. It was safe to say that he had no idea what the fuck was going on while the others were entertained at his expense.
"Alright… that's enough… we should head back." Draksis panted from laughter and slight exhaustion from pushing himself a little with his Semblance. He took a minute to get his breathe back while the others got back to the airship. Meanwhile, Yang stood behind him with a smile on her face.
Author's note: I'm a very happy bunny at the moment. First of all, hitting 7000+ views is one hell of a milestone for me, and I have all of you to thank for that. Second, my final exams are over. FREEDOM!
On another note, please Fave, Follow and leave a review of your thoughts and opinions. Thank you all for your continued support.