Oh my god everyone what is this? I know I know it's been so long since I last updated this freaking story and i apologize for that but so much has happened to me since I last updated the story. The main thing being is that I moved, from Texas to Colorado, so I've been getting used to that and getting a new job and just trying so hard to adjust. I just want to say I appreciate all of you that continue to read this story despite the long delay in chapters. I wish I could say that they would be more frequent but there is still so much that I need to get the hang of here I will at least promise that the ext chapter won't be a year over due (it has been a year right?) Either way it won't nearly be as long I hope. Not to mention I do have another story in the works that I've been dying to do, what is it you ask? Well aren't you a bunch of curious readers is what I say. Let's just say I haven't seen any good RWBYxDragon Age fanfics around so...Anyway next item, fuck I get that this is a long chapter (which is one of the reasons it took so fucking long to post) but trust me I wanted to make sure it was good and I promise (and hope) that it s as good as I think it is. Don't worry the rest of the chapters won't be as long, the only other long one will be the very last chapter, which I have already planned so prepare for that. Anyway enough gibberjabber please enjoy to your leisure and please please my faithful readers be sure to review, I am eager to hear what you think of this chapter. It's good to be back, I've missed this. Also just one more thing, Happy Holidays everyone, hope you all enjoy this present from me to you.
Nature of the Beast
Sighing heavily Rodric snapped the book in his hands shut as he leaned forward with the book hanging loosely in his fingers, he turned his attention towards the open window watching as the trees in the distance swayed in the gentle breeze. His concentration seemed to be lacking today, as this was the seventh time he found himself staring out of his window towards the forest in the distance, and every time he did he could feel a strange sensation clawing at his chest. It hadn't been a recent occurrence rather it had been happening rather frequently for the last few days, however the sensation seemed to be happening at an increased rate as of late. Every time his mind would begin to wander he could feel his muscles flexing beneath his skin aching to be used, his breathing heavy, and the sensation nearly crippling as something threatened to rip through his chest if he didn't give himself up to the feeling. Several thoughts had crossed his mind as to what it might be, but as the days passed it seemed the question of what was answered for him, and sadly it had been one answer he had feared. While he refused to compare himself to an animal, there was no denying the animal instincts that was trying to take hold of him, he was a dragon, he wished for something only a dragon could relish in, he wished for combat. In his time there were always fights among his kind, either for mates, for power, or to simply release pent up energy or anger, however now that he was here and on his own he had no way to...let loose as it were. He resigned himself to the gym as often as he could, however training himself and fighting with those projections could only satisfy him for so long, he longed for true combat to fight with everything he had, he just couldn't do so in his current situation.
He grit his teeth as he stared out into the forest, forcing his eyes to see beyond the treeline, as his eyes focused into the darkness of the forest he let out a sharp breath. Large looming shapes began to appear in his vision as he dug his fingers into his leg, Grimm, something like that would be able to satisfy him for awhile, would it even be alright for him to enter the forest without anyone knowing? Whether it was or not he simply didn't care, if he could make his way into the forest and kill as many as he could get his hands on then perhaps his itch would finally be scratched. One of the looming shadows turned towards him almost as if it could sense it was being watched, its red eyes burned in the darkness, his breath caught in his throat as a rumbling growl began to build in his chest. He shot to his feet mouth open with a roar hanging on his tongue to challenge the vile creature, but in an instant it was silenced by a small sound from within his own room, within a moment everything faded away. His eyes lost focus on the darkness of the forest and returned to staring at the large trees swaying in the breeze, he sucked in a sharp breath as his lungs ached for the air they had been deprived of. He turned towards the sound that had pulled his attention away from the Grimm only to see that it was Ruby, mumbling softly to herself as she rolled over onto her stomach as she slept on his bed. He let out a slow breath as he tried to calm himself down, his heart was thundering against his chest as he lowered himself back into his seat, lowering his eyes to his hands he could see his scales slowly vanishing beneath his skin once again. With a shake of his head he placed the book he had been holding onto back onto the table only to see a large claw mark across the cover, he groaned softly at the sight, that's one the library won't be getting back.
Sighing heavily he tossed the book onto the table before turning back towards the sleeping form of Ruby on his bed, he still wasn't used to seeing her after spending days avoiding her. Ruby, however, she easily fell back into her normal routine around him, she would often come during her off periods to talk with him or in this case sleep. He had made it a point to remind her that their meetings had to go unnoticed by her sister, and much to his surprise she agreed without hesitation, though he probably shouldn't have been so surprised by that. Even as a small smile crept across his lips he quickly forced it away as he dropped his eyes to the floor, despite her making herself a frequent guest to his room he still wasn't sure how to deal with her presence. Yes, he enjoyed it and while he wouldn't openly admit it, he greatly missed her ramblings, but even so he felt very uneasy about allowing her to get close to him once again. His mind would constantly drift to the events of that night, something like that was never going to leave his mind and he could only fear what awaited in her future if she continued to stay by him. Even so, with all his worries he often found himself forgetting about his troubles when she was around him, her happiness was indeed infection, and it seemed she was much happier as of late, though he couldn't be sure why. He sat back in his seat and rested his head against the wall behind him as he sighed softly, there were still a number of things that worried him greatly, Ruby being the main worry. It had been weeks since he had seen her awaken in the hospital, but aside from that he did not know the state of her health, he couldn't very well ask her because he knew she wouldn't tell him the truth. Asking her team was of course out of the question as they didn't yet know they were speaking again, and Nyx...well Ruby wasn't stupid, if Nyx started to ask her about her well being Ruby would be quick to catch on, after all she was quick enough to realize why he hadn't fought back against Narissa that night.
He grit his teeth as his mood began to sour at the mere thought of his...sister, he didn't know what she was up too and that thought alone was unnerving considering she wasn't exactly afraid of mercilessly killing someone. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of what she did was she had yet to make herself know to the world by slaughtering innocents, thought he fearfully wondered how long that would last, she hadn't revealed her presence around Beacon as well, so for the moment he cared little for her...activities. His eyes wandered back to Ruby as she squirmed around on the bed, he was always so conflicted whenever he saw her, he knew he shouldn't be around her for her own safety. However, he would always remember what he told her that night after he saved her, "I'll protect you," the words slowly and quietly passed from his lips as he sighed heavily. How was he suppose to protect her when he wasn't even sure what he should be doing, he could protect her by staying and defending her, yet he could just as well protect her by leaving and drawing the threat away from her and her friends. While that of course was an option he had already promised not to leave without telling her, and if he did try to explain his reasoning to her she would argue and plead and...cry, seeing her cry once was painful enough he couldn't bare to see it again. It broke his heart to see such a cheerful child with pain filled eyes and tears of sorrow sliding down her face, even if he could bring himself to leave Beacon if he was forced to see her crying he doubted he would be able to stay away for long.
As Ruby began to mutter to herself in her sleep again he turned his head away from her and looked back out towards the window, before slowly closing his eyes. He also still wondered why she had forgiving him almost instantly, why was she always so forgiving of him in particular, he had been nothing but hurtful towards her. Forcing her to hear things he never should have told her, and abandoning her after such a terrible experience, despite that she somehow found it in her heart to forgive him when she has ever right to condemn him for his actions, much like her sister had. However, despite having more than enough reason to hate him she didn't, she had even foolishly thought that she had been at fault for his leaving, she was a kind hearted girl, albeit a bit naive. He had tried to ask her several times why she had forgiven him, but she never gave him a straight answer or she swiftly changed the subject to something else, she was so strange in that regard, she could talk for hours on end about the most convoluted things, yet when it came to something he truly wanted to know she simply refused to speak on it. He sighed softly as he opened his eyes, it was frustrating to not know why the person he had hurt the most had forgiven him, perhaps he would never know. Perhaps this was her way of getting back at him when he vanished for those few weeks, if it was he wasn't exactly sure how to feel about it, if it made her feel better about what happened however he wouldn't discourage her from doing so. Even if he believed he deserved so much worse, though he kept such thoughts to himself, if he so much as mentioned that to Ruby she would end up feeling bad and stopping whatever little game she was playing out of guilt. He frowned slightly as he realized just how much effort he was putting into being careful around her, yet she seemed to act the same way she always would around him, laughing and joking and going on about her day. He sighed heavily as he shook his head, she was simply a confusing girl, something he wasn't sure he would ever get used to, well...that wasn't exactly true, while he may say that he couldn't help but notice that he was becoming more accepting and familiar with her strange ways. As if on cue she begins to mumble to herself again, albeit a bit louder than before and softly whimpers to herself, he raised his brow curiously but she quiets almost immediately.
With a curious hum he turned his attention back towards the open window, while he may have become accustomed to...some of her strange habits this as well as her recent displays of affection were new to him. Ever since they mended whatever friendship they had in his garden she had been strangely affectionate towards him, she always felt the need to hug him whenever she saw him. He could only imagine the reason for this was her request when they had spoken in the garden, perhaps she assumed that his agreement counted for every hug she wished from him. He didn't put it past her to assume such a thing, though while he was confused about her sudden affection, he wouldn't deny that her actions were...pleasant. It was different to say the least, not a lot of humans from his time were affectionate as she was, he was sure she had to have noticed when she hugged him, noticed the way he would stiffen up at the sudden embrace before slowly relaxing and returning the gesture. It was something that was simply going to take some time to get used to, he quickly shook his head at the notion of getting used to such a display of affection, it was...nice, but not something he should be getting used to. A small whimper put a halt on his thoughts as he turned his attention back to Ruby who had began to squirm and writhe on his bed as she whimpered louder now. Concern quickly came over him as he stood and made his way over to where she slept, "Ruby?" he whispered, unsure if she was awake and didn't want to wake her if she was not.
She fell silent once again, he sighed softly as his concern slowly faded away, it must have simply been a moment of fitful unrest, it must have been as she was sleeping peacefully once again. He ran his hand through his hair as he shook his head and began to turn away from her, only to be stopped when she began to whimper once again, but the sound she made gripped at his heart with ice cold tendrils of fear. Quickly turning towards her he watched as she writhed and thrashed against the bed as she continued to whimper as if she feared for her life, he quickly moved towards the bed and tried to wake her. "Ruby, Ruby it's alright it's just a dream." Saying this did little to ease her fear or her pain as she sucked in a sharp breath and began to breathe heavily as she tossed and turned on his bed, "Ruby it's okay, just wake up." He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from thrashing around but it only seemed to upset the sleeping girl as she began to whimper in pain and struggle against him. "Ruby relax." Even as he said so she continued to struggle against him, for being such a small child it was much more of a fight than he was expecting when he tried to keep her from thrashing about. She kept pulling her arms from his grip as she struggled against him, he grit his teeth in frustration, he couldn't very well hold her down otherwise he would risk hurting her, but if he continued to allow her to writhe around she would eventually harm herself. As she began to thrash around more violently he managed to catch her arm before she could slam it against her own face, "Ruby you must-"
"No..." The word was nearly silent, so silent in fact he would have missed it if he hadn't seen her lips moving, in his surprised state he could feel her hand slip from his grip. Thankfully she didn't injure herself with her now free hand, her thrashing had thankfully subsided, however she did continue to toss and turn on the bed as she struggled with whatever dream she was having. "Please..." His brows furrowed slightly at the words she muttered, while it wasn't completely strange that she was talking in her sleep, what was strange was that during his many sleepless nights in their once shared dorm, he had never heard any of them talking in a pleading pain filled voices, while it was never his place to insert himself into their lives he would have at least asked if they were alright had he heard them muttering to themselves in the dead of night like this. Hearing the young girl speaking to herself in a voice that sounded on the edge of tears was enough to clench his heart in a tight grip as he reached out towards her in some attempt at calming her fitful sleep. He opened his mouth to speak soothing words to her but was silenced when she began to speak again, "I don't...want to..." His hand stopped short of her head as he looked down at the girl before him a small amount of surprise was clear on his face, however it quickly faded away as he withdrew his hand and leaned away from her. Of course, he thought, he gave a small scoff as he turned away from her clenching his fists tightly as the familiar feeling of self loathing began to set in once again. He had been a fool to think she would have came away from such an event without some sort of mental scarring, yes he had been able to revive her, restore he body and heal her wounds, but he couldn't erase the memory of what happened. If it was anything compared to the way his kind could remember their deaths, she no doubt relived the exact moments before her death in perfect clarity. Gritting his teeth he fought back a growl as he shot to his feet and pushed himself over towards the window, he had been a fool to think it would have simply ended at psychical injuries.
Another small murmuring sound came from the direction of the bed, he didn't even look when he heard heard the sheets rustling again, though it wasn't as violently as it had been a moment ago. A few moments of silence passed before a loud yawn sounded from behind him, "Oh man, how long was I out?" Rodric opened his mouth to respond but slowly forced it closed as he kept his gaze focused towards the Emerald Forest, thankfully Ruby hadn't seemed to notice his hesitance and seemed to have found the answer herself, "Whoa, it doesn't even feel that late." He raised his eye to the sky and took notice as if for the first time just how low the sun was now hanging in the sky, however he did remember that Ruby had come in near the afternoon for a 'small nap' as she said. He was pulled from his thoughts when Ruby gasped loudly from behind him causing him to turn towards her more so out of curiosity than concern, when he did he saw her furiously rubbing the pillow her head had been resting on. "No, no, no. I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to...I-I mean I didn't try to I-I just..."
The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a small smile as he shook his head, "You drooled on my pillow?" The red that flooded the poor girls cheeks only caused his smile to widen slightly as she began to furiously apologize to him, he could only chuckle slightly as he waved her apologies away, "It's quite alright, I hardly use it to begin with, might as well go to someone who will." Ruby looked up at him clearly embarrassed as she opened her mouth to say something but instead closed it and looked away as she muttered a thank you to him, he smiled for a moment before it quickly faded away. He watched as she pulled the pillow into her chest still trying to clean off the mess she had made on it, aside from being embarrassed her face gave no indication of what she had been suffering from a moment ago. In fact, if he hadn't witnessed it himself he would have believed that she had a perfectly peaceful rest, sadly he did witness it and it only served to remind him of why he shouldn't allow her to get to close to him. "Did you sleep well?"
"Huh?" Ruby looked up from the drool stained pillow as she pulled it to her chest in an attempt to hide the stain, even though he clearly already knew about it. "I slept fine I guess...a little too long if anything." She wasn't sure what to say as she really wasn't expecting him to as that, all the other times she would come to his dorm to sleep he never asked her that, so it was a little new to her.
Rodric tried to keep himself from frowning at her answer, she must have known exactly why he was asking, even if she had been asleep there was no way she couldn't have known she had been thrashing around like that. Unclenching his teeth he sighed softly as he leaned back against the window sill as he turned his eyes up towards the roof, "No bad dreams?"
Ruby's fingers dug into the pillow she was now crushing into her chest as her eyes widened slightly, she could feel panic beginning to take over her mind, she couldn't have had one of her episodes now. She only had her night terrors in the middle of the night, she never had them during the day, she bit her lip as it slowly dawned on her. I've never slept so much during the day before either, she did her best to keep the panic clear of her face and out of her voice as she finally managed to find her voice. "I-I don't know what you-"
"I only ask because you were moving around so much." If Ruby had any faults aside from her unhealthy obsession with sweets it was this, she was a terrible liar and everyone could see that, yet somehow she never seemed to notice this. Even when her sister and friends gave her those incredulous looks when she would spout her falsehoods she adamantly stood by what she said, no matter how ridiculous they sounded, however this wasn't the time for him to call her bluff, what he was trying to do was to get her to talk about what he heard. "So, I'll ask again, did you have any bad dreams?"
"N-Nightmares? Pfft, n-no way, I haven't had things like that since I was in Signal." She gave a strangled chuckle as she kept her eyes looking down at the pillow she clung so tightly too, she wasn't a good liar she knew that, but if she looked into his eyes she knew she would end up spilling her guts. No matter how much she liked him, she couldn't tell him about something like this, she had just gotten him back, if she were to tell him something like this it would no doubt push him away again. He's made it perfectly clear over the few days they had spoken that he still blames himself for what happened, she's tried to convince him otherwise but...damn if he isn't as stubborn as Yang. She's tried her best to keep their conversations clear of anything pertaining to that night or the injuries she had received, meaning she had to keep quiet about anything combat related. She had made the mistake of saying how she had pulled a muscle during sparring practice and...the look on his face broke her heart, and the way he had said 'I'm sorry' crushed the pieces into dust and reforged it into glass only to break it again. "I-I mean I was kind of awake for a little bit, I was just tossing and turning cause I wanted to sleep some more, guess my body wasn't having it thought." She gave a small shrug hoping that he wouldn't ask anymore about it, because she wasn't sure how much longer she could lie to him about it.
Rodric had to fight back his frown as Ruby so boldly lied to him even though he clearly knew what she was suffering from, he started to speak but stopped himself. He took a small breath before finally replying, "Good." It hadn't been close to what he wanted to say, but those things he couldn't say, not to her, yes she frustrated him when she lied to him. Yes, he was angry that she tread so carefully around him, but he couldn't ever raise his voice to her, none of this was her fault...it was never her fault.
"Stop." He was pulled from his thoughts and turned his attention back to Ruby who was staring directly at him, or at least trying to, she would fidget slightly and look away before looking back at him. "I-I know what you're thinking so just stop it alright." He watched as Ruby pulled the pillow closer to her and buried her face into it, concern and frustration flared up within Rodric as he opened his mouth to argue with her, but was quickly silenced when her heard her softly mumble, "It's not your fault." The words he wanted to say died in his throat as he slowly closed his mouth and turned his attention to the floor, and all at once all his frustration and anger seemed to fade away into nothingness. He was always at such a loss at how she had been able to do things like that, if he hadn't known that the younger girls semblance was speed he would have assumed that it was some sort of emotional manipulation. He didn't understand her intentions, why did she so badly want him to forget what happened, something like this shouldn't ever be forgotten, but she always seemed to beg for him to let it go and to forget it. He would love nothing more than to put what happened that night behind him, but he would not simply allow that to happen, he had failed to protect her and that was something he was going to have to live with for his entire life...his very long life.
A loud grumbling sound filled the room causing him to quickly look up in surprise, he looked over his shoulder and out of the window unsure if it had come from somewhere outside. However, when he did look there wasn't a soul walking outside, with a curious hum he turned back around only to see Ruby, with her cheeks bright red and her arms wrapped around her stomach. His look of confusion slowly turned into one of amusement as he leaned back against the windowsill with a small smirk on his face, "Hungry?" Her head quickly shot up to look at him, a look of surprise clearly writing on her face, as if she hadn't expected him to hear her, her shocked look only caused him to smile more. He had to resist the urge to laugh seeing as she already seemed so embarrassed from him hearing her stomach growling, instead he gave a large sigh and leaned back against the open window and stared up at the sky that was now beginning to change colors. He always found it so odd how time seemed to pass so quickly when she was around him, even though she had been asleep for most of the time he still found that time had passed with relative ease. It was something he had noticed when they had begun to speak once again, he found it frustrating at first because he noticed how she always seemed upset when she was forced to return to her dorm for the night. She always said how she wished they could spend more time together, it was only then did he realize how quickly time seemed to pass them by, when she grew frustrated so did he, it was something he found very...odd. A small beep pulled him from his thoughts as he turned back towards Ruby to see her holding her scroll in her hand quickly tapping away at it, "What are you doing?"
"Huh?" She quickly looked up before looking back down at her scroll, "Oh, this, I was just messaging Nyx to see if she wanted to go to dinner with us..." She stopped in her message before looking back up at Rodric, "...i-is it alright if I invite her?"
He shouldn't have been surprised by her question, but he still found himself unsure of how to answer her. His relationship with Nyx after having her go behind his back so both he and Ruby could speak again was a bit...rocky to say the least. He didn't hate her, no it was far from that, he honestly harbored no ill feelings toward her, but she seemed to think he did. She was always so wary around him much like how Ruby was when it came to the topic of injuries, the air of caution that came from her was suffocating, and because of it he seemed to act the same way around her. However that wasn't the only thing he had noticed, during the last few times he had met with her she had acted...rather strangely. Her mind always seemed to be somewhere else and whenever Ruby snuck up on her as she usually did to give her a hug, Nyx always seemed frightened when the young girl assailed her with affection. While things might have been awkward between them for the moment, the way she had been acting worried him, he gave a small nod, first he would ease her mind and convince her that he harbored no ill feelings towards her. Then, he would find out what was troubling her and see if there was some way he could help, "Of course, I see no problem with that."
She just managed to keep herself from sighing in relief as she turned back to her scroll and quickly typed away at the message, if she was going to go down and have dinner with him she would rather there be someone else there with them. Her nerves always got the best of her when she was alone with him, even though she was always alone with him when she came to his dorm, but she was usually asleep so that was different. At least when she was asleep she wouldn't make stupid jokes or do anything to make herself look stupid, she couldn't believe how much Rodric was overlooking. The very first time they had lunch together by themselves she made such a fool of herself, first when they just entered the dinning hall she somehow managed to trip over her own feet. When they had grabbed their lunch she managed to spill soup on herself like she had never eaten before, then when she tried to add just a little bit of pepper to it the shaker ended up opening and dumping all the pepper into her soup. Rodric ended up having to share his food with her, she felt so bad about it she just wanted to crawl into a corner and die, that's why this time she really needed Nyx to come and make sure she didn't screw up again, when her scroll beeped with her reply she quickly fumbled with it eager to see her message. However, her hopes were dashed when she saw the message, giving a heavy sigh she closed her scroll and looked back up at Rodric, "She says she can't make it, she's busy with class work."
Rodric gave a light hum as he nodded slightly, "Do you still wish to have dinner then?" He watched as Ruby began to answer only for her stomach to interrupt her by rumbling loudly, he chuckled lightly unable to hold it back this time, "I'll take that as a yes." He smirked as her face turned a deep red as he sighed softly and pushed away from the window and made his way towards the door, "It's just as well, I am feeling famished as well." He pulled the door open and turned towards her with a knowing smirk, "Perhaps this time they will have something less...messy for you."
Ruby groaned loudly and wished for nothing more than to hide in her cloak and just disappear, while he might have found it funny to tease her about what had happened she found it just absolutely devastating. She forced out a strained laugh before huffing slightly, "Right, maybe they'll have sandwiches can't mess that up." She looked up to Rodric who was still smirking at her, she felt her cheeks get warmer as she quickly looked away barely managing to mutter out, "Shut up." Despite his joking she really did hope they had something other than soup, she'd rather not make herself look anymore like an idiot around him, and she could go without the strange looks when she is forced to walk back to her dorm with clothes covered in soup. Sighing softly she figured there was no point in delaying the inevitable, she could only hope it was nothing that would make her really dirty, shaking her head she threw her leg over the edge of the bed and pushed herself up, only to cry out as she fell forward onto the floor. She groaned softly as she turned her head slightly to see her leg tangled in his sheets, she dropped her head back to the floor as she closed her eyes and prayed she would just disappear.
"Ruby are you alright?"
"...Just fine."
Having Rodric fussing over her was nice but considering what had just happened not even a few minutes she just wished he would let it go, but considering she was now sporting a large red mark on her forehead she doubted he was going to let it go at any time. Sighing softly she pushed the doors to the dining hall open and did a quick scan of the crowd, thankfully there was no sign of her team, she felt weird having to duck around her friends just to talk with Rodric. She understood why she had to, it just felt weird was all, it kind of reminded her about that story she had read in Signal about the two people that were in love but weren't allowed to see each other. She felt her heart flutter at the thought as she tried to swallow the lump that had now formed in her throat, she quickly shook her head and turned to tell Rodric that it was safe to go in, only when she turned to look at him he was much too close to her. She yelped softly and stumbled back, she could feel her face burning up as he looked at her, "Ruby are you-"
"I-I'm fine," She quickly turned away from him as she made her way over to the table covered in food, as she sighed heavily hoping the blush she had wasn't too noticeable, "just fine." Thankfully there was a much better variety of food laid out this time, and not a sign of soup in sight either, nodding to herself she grabbed a plate and proceeded to fill it with some of the grilled fish she saw, there was no way she was going to be able to get dirty from that. She added a side of fries, because who ever got dirty from eating fries, she reached for the ketchup but stopped, not this time. Instead she just added a few more pieces of fish and grabbed another plate for a piece of cake she had spotted, once she was done she turned and made her way to one of the more empty tables. As soon as she sat down she started to eat, it wasn't until a few minutes later did she hear several plates being set down next to her, she turned and was surprised to see Rodric setting down four plates nearly overflowing with food. Not only that but he also some how managed to set down three cans of soda on the table, one of which he slid over to her, she thanked him as she had forgotten to grab a drink. Even as she managed to open it she couldn't take her eyes off the amount of food he had, "Are you going to be able to eat all that?"
Rodric took a seat next to her as he looked at all the food he had gathered and nodded slightly, "I doubt I'll have any sort of problem consuming all of this." He picked up his silverware and began to cut into one of the steaks he had taken from the table, and within moments he managed to finish the steak and had begun to work on the rest of his food. While eating so much wasn't something he would normally do, he found that this seemed to be the only way to keep his baser instincts at bay, for whatever reasons his more animalistic desires seemed to fade away when his stomach was full, he could only assume it did so because he was trading one baser instinct for another. Though it seemed his true nature could not be fooled so easily, while it might have worked for a short time he had begun to notice that even as he gorged himself on the mountains of food that his baser desires would not stay silent for long. Even as he stuffed himself to the point of being sick he would still feel the urge to fight, however the fighting he wished for was not something humans would be able to survive. However that didn't stop his eye from wandering and seeking out someone who would be a decent challenge for him, trying to push these thoughts away did little to help as they would always return, only much stronger than they had been previously. If this continued, he was going to lose his mind and do something unforgivable, the idea of sneaking off to the Emerald Forest had begun to look more and more like the only solution as time went on.
"Rodric..." His fork clattered against the table as he was slightly startled from his thoughts, he hadn't even realized that he had let his mind wander like that. Shaking his head slightly he turned to see Ruby staring at him with a concerned expression, she didn't say anything but he knew exactly what she wanted to ask him. Saying nothing he returned to his food as he picked up his fork and started back where he had left off, it was then that he realized just why he needed to keep these instincts under control. Dragons losing themselves to their more feral instincts wasn't something that was uncommon in his time, the only difference between then and now, was if it had happened to him then, there would be others to stop him. However, if he were to lose himself now...he glanced in Ruby's direction out of the corner of his eye and noticed that she was still staring at him, her expression of concern deepening. Sighing softly he lowered his fork to the empty plate and turned to her.
"Ruby I'm fine, I was just...lost in thought was all." While he would have thought that would have been enough to ease her concerns, it seemed it only made them worse as she frowned slightly before looking away from him and focusing on her plate in front of him.
"I could tell..." He felt a a strange pressure fill his chest from those words, it had been a common feeling whenever her normally cheery mood took a turn, it was feeling he had grown to hate. Despite their time apart he had always been so used to her being the more excitable of her group of friends, the only one that could compare to her was Nora. However, Ruby's brand of happiness was...different, she never seemed to need a reason to feel happy she just always seemed to be, he found that to be a rather adorable of her. He shook the thoughts free from his mind, no he shouldn't be thinking things like that, not about her...not after what he had done. He could feel a frustrated growl building in his chest but he only just managed to keep it contained, just another item to add to the ever growing list of things that served to frustrate him. "Rodric!"
His head snapped up at her sudden shout and he could see her glaring, rather attempting to glare at him, her child like features were not made to show anger. He quickly pushed the thought from his mind and instead focused on Ruby, he knew why she was looking at him like that, she didn't like when he dwelled on the past, however it seemed near impossible from doing as of late. Instead of arguing as he normally would, he turned away from her with a light sigh, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." Other than the ambient noise that filled the dining hall the two were silent before Ruby let out a rather large sigh next to him.
"It's fine, I just don't like when you do that it's...it's not healthy to live in the past." She really wish Nyx had been able to come with her, as much as she did enjoy spending time alone with Rodric if Nyx were here she could have at least steered this conversation towards something a little...happier. She didn't understand how class work would have kept her from coming to dinner with them, if she was falling behind grade wise she could understand, but Nyx was doing much better than she was in class so she didn't really get it. She wished that she was better at speaking to people like Nyx was, from what she had told her, when she first met with Rodric she just walked right up to him and started talking. From the sound of it Ruby went in kind of the opposite direction, they met on...less friendly terms and the closer they got the more she just seemed to freeze up around him. Though it was understandable, at least to Nyx it was, she wished she could just at least...pretend to act normal around him, but even doing that had become really difficult to do. Not to mention how often he seemed to be spacing out, she was beginning to get worried that she was boring to him, after all they couldn't even really do anything together like train or hang out normally without her team finding them. Why does liking someone have to be so hard, she sighed softly and ran her fingers through her hair, tomorrow was Saturday maybe they could-
"Wait." She froze when he suddenly spoke up, not sure if she did something wrong of it he noticed something wrong, either way she remained frozen in the position she was in. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and could see him moving but little else aside from that from how she was sitting, it was only when she felt him grab her hand did she actually turn to look him. She watched as he looked at her hand before turning it so her palm was upward before turning it around again and letting it rest in his hand, she could feel a blush forming on her cheeks as she stared at their hands. "When did you do this?"
She blinked several times before looking up at him, though now it was nearly impossible to look him directly in the eye, "D-Do what?" It was just as impossible to keep the tremble out of her voice, there was no doubt he had heard it, but if he had he didn't say anything about it, instead he jerked his head towards their hands at her question. Swallowing the lump that had now formed in her throat, she turned to look back at their hands and could feel the blush burning hotter the longer she looked at them. While his hand might not have been that much bigger than her own, she couldn't help but feel like they were tiny compared to his own, mostly considering he was much taller than her, whenever she hugged him she barely came up to his chest. She quickly shook her head and returned her focus to their hands, when she did she noticed what had caught his attention, her nails. She had completely forgotten about it, mostly because she had Nyx paint them nearly a week ago after her and Rodric were on speaking terms again. "So I know you're not big on conversation, but I see the way you look at him, I think if we add a bit of color to you I'm sure he's bound to notice it." She bit her lip as she looked away from her hand, well she wasn't wrong, "O-Oh it was just something Nyx did for me to...er, you know girl stuff."
"Hmm." He turned his eye back towards her hand or more accurately her nails, he wondered how he never noticed them till now, they were a fairly noticeable color. The same deep red shade as her hair, something like that should have caught his attention from the first moment, most likely he had been preoccupied with battling his feral instincts to notice much of anything else. Strangely he didn't like that it had taken him so long to notice, shaking his clear of the thought he gave another light hum, "Well, it suits you."
It suits you, she wasn't sure her face could get an redder, he probably didn't even realize that he had just complimented her...on how she looked. The most he had ever complimented her on was how well she fought and even then it was still enough to make her blush, this was much more personal however and she was barely able to keep it together so she didn't faint in front of him. She tried to calm herself down, it wasn't like he had actually complimented her, if anything he said it in more of an offhand way, yeah she was just taking it out of context was all. Even as she tried to reason with herself that he didn't give her an actual compliment, it didn't stop her heart from racing, her body from shaking, or her face from practically glowing, she saw movies about how girls acted with their crushes, she didn't know it was all true. At least for her it seemed to be true, sighing softly she looked away from him and back to her food, it was untouched and would have to be cold by now, still she was going to have to eat it or end up going to bed hungry. "Ruby." She chewed on her lip before turning towards him only to see him smirking at her, and just like that she could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest once again, "It's going to be difficult to eat with only one hand don't you think?" She gave him a confused look, she noticed his eyes drift over to something, curiously she followed his gaze, only for her eyes to widen and her face catch fire. Their hands were still how he had left them, and she hadn't thought to move it, and rather than acting in a calm and rational way she quickly snatched her hand away from him and clutched it to her chest as if he would steal it from her.
She kept her eyes glued to the table and expected him to question why she was acting so strange, instead all he did was give a soft amused chuckle and returned to his own food. She dropped her hands into her lap and firmly gripped her skirt in an attempt to calm her racing heart, but more so in an attempt to keep herself from shaking. She had been holding his hand, she had been holding his hand and hadn't even realized it, if Yang had saw that she probably would have busted a gut laughing at her reaction, either that or she would have been upset that it had happened in the first place. Minutes slowly ticked by as she tried to get her emotions under control, she let out a heavy sigh as the fluttering in her stomach was soon replaced by an empty feeling that would no doubt be fixed by the food in front of her. Halfheartedly she reached up for her fork and began to pick at her now cold fish as she sighed heavily, why does liking someone have to be so hard?
Rodric frowned slightly as the two of them walked through the nearly empty and slowly darkening hallways, the sun had begun to set and as it did it stole back all the light it cast through the hallways. The electric sconces had slowly come alive one by one, casting a dim light through the hallway, illuminating the halls enough to see but not enough to mimic the sun that shone through them every day. Walking through the dimly lit halls with Ruby put him on edge, while they were in the relative safety of Beacon he couldn't help but turn his eye towards every shadow and every darkened hall they passed, he did not know what he expected to find but his ever growing need to protect the young girl that walked beside him caused him to be ever vigilant when they were alone. This time however, something felt immediately different after they had left the dining hall, there was...something in the air that was unsettling him and this caused him to stand closer to Ruby than he normally would, though it proved difficult when she continued to move away from him. Even though there was no one around he could feel a feral growl building up in his chest that he struggled to keep down, in a situation like this it would have been more of warning than a threat, a warning for whoever...or whatever was hiding within the shadows that he was not something they would wish to face.
As the two of them passed by one of the shadow ridden hallways he stopped when he heard a sound further down the darkened path, he could feel another growl growing in his chest as he turned his attention down the darkened hallway. Focusing his eyes the darkness slowly bled away to reveal two figures that stood at the far end of the hall, one was a rather tall boy and the other a girl slightly shorter than him, from what it looked like he must have been saying something funny as the girl was laughing at whatever he was saying. He turned away as he sighed heavily, if it wasn't one thing it seemed to be another with him, if he wasn't staring down the students trying to guess who would survive longest against him, then he was jumping at shadows. He blinked several times as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness once again before looking up to see Ruby standing by one of the windows looking out into the ever encroaching darkness that crept through the abandoned courtyard of the school. He turned his attention in the direction she was looking, but saw nothing, he became curious as to what it was she was staring at, and as he slowly approached her it seemed she was in deep thought. He smiled slightly at the look of concentration on her face, it made him wonder what it was that she was thinking so deeply about, but rather than ask her he simply smirked and rested his back against the cool glass. It wasn't often the two of them could simply stand idly by without worry, her friends were more than likely already back in their dorms, if anything she would probably be getting a message asking her to come back soon. He sighed softly and rested his head back against the window, though he was far from relaxed, it still felt as if something was struggling to rip through his chest, for the moment though it seemed as if it at ease. The smile fell from his lips at that, it was something he noticed but tried his best to not acknowledge, the beast inside of him always seemed to calm whenever she was around, he tried not to think of the implications of that but he couldn't deny that it was rather obvious to him. He clenched his jaw as he turned his head towards her only to see her staring up at the slowly rising shattered moon, what is she thinking so deeply about?
Okay you can do this, it's not that hard just turn around...and tell him. Ruby chewed on her lip as she focused her attention on the shattered moon that slowly rose into the sky causing the dark blanket of stars to overtake the colors that the sun had left behind. She knew hesitating would just end up making her more nervous though it didn't help when he was so close to her, not to mention she still had no idea if he even felt the same way about her. There was no way she could be straightforward about it and just ask him if he did, she wasn't brave like that, sure she could rush headlong into a fight with a giant Grimm or a giant robot, but this...this seemed a lot more scary than those two combined. It really didn't help when he would say stuff like he did in the dining hall, it suits you, just thinking about that caused her cheeks to burn. Was he saying all that because he felt the same way? Was he just being nice to her? Why couldn't he be more obvious about his feelings like her, at least that way she would have some idea if he felt the same or not, she sighed heavily as she turned her eyes back up to the shattered moon. "Rodric..." The sound startled her mostly because she didn't even realize she had said it, startled by the realization she quickly turned to look at Rodric wondering if he had heard her, only to see him staring curiously back at her. Her mouth suddenly went dry as it hung open slightly as she tried to think of what to say next, but considering she hadn't intended to speak at all she was at a loss. She quickly turned away from him staring back out into the darkness hoping the answer to her new found dilemma was somewhere out there, but as she focused on the darkness she could see through the glasses reflection that he was still staring at her. W-Well there's no backing out now, she took a deep breath to steel her nerves, she kept her eyes focused on his reflection as it seemed much easier than looking at him, "T-There's something I need to tell you..."
Rodric raised his brow curiously, more out of Ruby's stranger than normal behavior rather than her suddenly saying his name seemingly in a daze as she did so. While he had grown used to most of the strange things she did, he had to admit that she has been acting increasingly strange since the two of them began to speak again. Her constant display of affection towards him had been one of the many strange things she had begun to do, however it was something he quickly grew used to...a bit too quickly now that he thought about it. Not only that but he had also noticed that there were times where she would grow flustered, for no apparent reason it seemed, much like earlier in the dining hall when he complimented her. He shook his head as a thought entered his mind, it was utterly ridiculous to think that's why she had been acting so strange so he pushed it from his mind and returned his attention to Ruby, "By all means."
Ruby let out a slow breath as she gripped at the hem of her skirt hoping it would grant her just a tiny fraction of courage to say what she desperately wanted to say. Come on it's not that hard, "I just...wanted to say...", except it totally is. Her entire body was shaking as she struggled to say the words that danced on her lip but refused to be said, it was so frustrating because she had the perfect opportunity to tell him. The two of them were alone, away from the prying eyes and ears of her friends, from everyone for that matter, hell she even had the perfect setting to tell him. This was like straight out of a movie, standing in a dimly lit hallway with the moon shining down through the window casting an ethereal light over the both of them, someone she really liked inches from her. All she had to do was. Say. The. Words. She took another deep breath to calm herself down, though it did little to nothing to stop the small tremble going through her body, but it would have to be enough, "I...I-I really-"
"Take you're time child, there is no rush."
She shut her mouth instantly the moment he began to talk, whatever courage she had managed to build up just vanished in that instant, she forced herself to look at his reflection only to see that he was giving her a calm smile. Though it did anything but for her as her heart began to pound furiously in her chest, I was so close, but she figured this was for the best, he was right after all there was no rush, it was just the two of them meaning she would be able to take her time. That thought alone seemed to calm her down as she took another breath and relaxed her grip on her skirt as she looked back up to his reflection and spoke in a somewhat calm voice, "R-Rodric..."
He his smile widen slightly as he lightly shook his head, "Yes child?" He couldn't help but find her actions slightly amusing, while it wasn't often he was able to witness a flustered Ruby, he couldn't help but find her adorable whenever she was. As that thought crossed his mind he could feel the smile leave his face, knowing she was looking at him through the reflection in the window he moved away from her and turned his face away to stare back down the darkened hall. He pushed the thought as far from his mind as he possibly could, thoughts such as those had become a frequent occurrence since the two of them had grown closer once again, and strangely he had grown unsettled and confused whenever he found himself thinking like that. He didn't understand why he had suddenly started to have thoughts like that, yes she was adorable it was something he would happily admit, but whenever he had thoughts like that he found himself...angry.
Ruby noticed when Rodric turned away and was silently thankful that he had, having him watch her as she tried to work her nerve up to confess to him didn't really help her situation. She could only be thankful that the hallway was empty and devoid of any students, otherwise she would be rushing and fumbling over her words as she tried to hurry to confess before someone else could interrupt them. Though being alone with him really did little to calm her nerves, she wrung her hands together as her heart pounded away in her chest, she took a deep breath and shut her eyes figuring it would be better than staring at his reflection. To her surprise she actually felt...a little better with her eyes closed, she chewed on her lip before letting out a sharp breath, "T-There's something I need to tell you..."
Shaking himself from his own thoughts he let a smirk cross his lips as he glanced towards her to see that she had her eyes closed now, "I'm all ears Ruby." He eyes lingered on her for a moment before he turned away, he couldn't shake the feeling that this all seemed...familiar too him, he frowned slightly as he tried to think of why it felt that way but found that nothing came to mind. He gave a slight shrug as he rested his head back against the cool glass of the window, as he waited for her to say what she needed to say he began to feel the same feral instincts clawing at his chest. He tried his best to ward off the feeling but a distant sound pulled his attention, his eyes narrowed as he stared down one of the darkened halls, as the darkness faded from his eyes he found it empty, strange. He cast his gaze towards Ruby but found her to still be facing the window with her eyes closed, she didn't hear it, almost as if to answer his question he heard the sound again and he felt it pull at something inside of himself. Fighting back a feral growl he looked towards Ruby before slowly turning back in the direction of what he had heard, hesitantly he quietly pushed himself away from the window and started down the hall, walking almost as if in a daze.
She opened her mouth several times to say what she wanted to say but every time she started to speak the words didn't sound right in her head, she could only imagine that he was getting impatient with her. She kept her eyes shut anyway afraid that if she were to look at him she would lose whatever amount of nerve she had managed to work up. "W-Well we've been friends for awhile and..." She quickly shook her head, what am I doing confessing or giving a eulogy, she gave another sharp sigh as she shuffled her feet as she began to grow frustrated with herself. She was wasting the best change she was probably ever going to get, everything had fallen into place without her even trying to get it right, she couldn't waste this opportunity. She couldn't deal with the thought of keeping her feelings secret until she was able to find another perfect chance, if she was going to do this she was going to have to do this now. She sucked in a sharp breath and clenched her hands tightly before whirling around and opening her eyes, "Rodric I really..." She trailed off when she saw that he wasn't there, she felt tears welling up in her eyes due to frustration, she just managed to fight them back and took a calming breath. As she relaxed she took a quick look around but didn't see him, he wouldn't have left her alone like this, he had practically attached to her since they started talking, for him to just leave her here was...weird. "Rodric?" She called out, only he didn't respond, which was pretty strange itself, he wouldn't have just left her here by herself without saying anything. There was no question about it, that was something he wouldn't do under any circumstance, yet here she was, and now she suddenly wished there were other people around so she could at least ask them where he had gone. As she looked around a small glow at the end of one of the darkened hallways caught her attention, she turned towards it and squinted trying to see what it was, it was hard to tell but most likely someone was using one of the empty classrooms. I wonder, she gave a curious hum before shrugging, it seemed like a good place to start looking, not like she had anything else to go on anyway. Sighing softly she moved in the lights direction, more upset that she didn't get to confess than of him leaving her alone like that, though it made her curious as to what could have made him do that.
Rodric strained his ears for that sound that had drawn him away from Ruby, but the air had remained silent after the initial sound that had pulled him away. As the silence grew thicker the beast inside of him began to stir more frantically, desperately trying to claw its way through his chest, he grit his teeth in frustration as he searched for the sound. However as the silence only grew thicker he began to wonder if it hadn't simply been his imagination, with the way his instincts had been acting late it wouldn't have surprised him if that had been the case. But, just as he was about to give up his search he heard the distinctive sound of metal scraping against the floor, frowning slightly he moved a bit quicker towards the sound. Strangely as he moved closer in the direction of the sound he noticed that the darkness slowly began to fade away, being replaced by a dim glow albeit a bit brighter than the glow given off by the sconces. As he reached the corner of the hall where the noise had originated from he saw that the glow was actually coming from one of the rooms, the door was slightly ajar allowing for some of the light to escape its confines. The room clearly wasn't a dorm room, if it was the door wouldn't have been left open, and it wasn't a class room either as they were in a different section of the school, which begged the question of why someone would be in a place like-
"Just leave me alone please..." The voice was faint, but clear enough for Rodric to pick up the distress in the feminine voice, and once again Rodric found himself forcing down another feral growl that grew in his chest. Cautiously he approached the slightly open door before noticing a small window built into the door, he kept himself out of sight but moved slightly so that he could get a clear view of the room and the occupants inside. To his surprise the room appeared to be a mirror image of the classrooms he once attended, the only difference being that rather than tables filling the room it was an assortment of...well garbage. There were piles of boxes stacked against the wall that nearly reached the ceiling, several stacks of rather old looking chairs and a variety of old desks with metal legs scattered throughout the room. There was also tons of old equipment filling the room, strange gauges and valves that looked like they once belonged to Professor Peach and old weathered Grimm busts that no doubt once belonged to Professor Port. From his position he could also see a pile of old dust covered books stacked next to a wall containing faded and torn maps of Remnant and below that seemed to be a container filled to bursting with rolled up parchments, Oobleck no doubt. Even with an assortment of other objects that filled the room his attention quickly focused on the only two people that stood in the center of the room, one was the feminine voice he had heard before, and she was currently using one of the old desks as a barrier between her and the male that stood opposite her. "Please..."
Rodric frowned at the way she was forced to plead, the boy across from her simply smirked as he tried to move around the table to get to her, seeing her being harassed angered him, but when he finally noticed a significant detail about her it caused his blood to boil more than it already was. As the girl circled around the desk desperately trying to keep it between her and the boy he noticed a very distinctive feature on her, as she faced her back to Rodric he noticed a long thick tail protruding from the base of her spine, the dark grey color made it easy to notice. Thought that wasn't all he noticed about her, the difference in height was one thing that stood out to him but he also noticed how young she looked, not much older than Weiss or Yang if he had to judge from looks alone. While the boy on the other hand looked much older, third or fourth year if he had to guess, he grit his teeth as hundreds of thoughts ran through his mind of what could have happened here and none of them were pleasant. He was pulled from his thoughts when the girl inside the room gave a panicked yelp, his head shot up to see the boy holding tightly to the girls arm a smirk clear on his face. In one swift motion Rodric pulled the door open with enough force that it slammed against the wall pulling both occupants attention towards him, and when the boys eyes landed on him he saw as the boy quickly pulled the girl closer to hide his grip on her. Rodric raised his eyes to meet the dark brown eyes of the boy as his frown deepened, "What's going on here?"
His frown only deepened when the boy gave him a charming smile, something that no doubt melted the hearts of many women and something he used to keep himself out of trouble, sadly for him Rodric wasn't one to be easily swayed by a charming smile, at least not from this boy. He watched as the boy ran his fingers through his dark colored hair and tug the girl closer to him causing her to end up being pressed against his chest, "Oh man this is embarrassing I thought I had closed that door all the way, anyway nothing is going on I was just talking with my girlfriend is all." The boy looked down towards the young girl who now had a terrified expression on her face, "Isn't that right?" Rodric watched as the young girl bit her lip and winced slightly, this caused Rodric to grit his teeth almost painfully as he just managed to contain a feral growl from slipping past his lips. The girl glanced up towards him and he must not have done well to hide his anger as she quickly looked away from him only to yelp softly when she was jerked into the boys side, "Go on. Tell him."
Rodric met the clearly frightened eyes of the girl before speaking, "Is this true?" No matter what answer she gave him, he already knew the truth, but clearly this boy thought he was stupid enough to be dissuaded by a lie coming from her mouth rather than his. Though it seemed the young girl clearly didn't trust her voice enough to speak and opted to simply nodding before quickly averting her eyes, Rodric huffed before turning his gaze back towards the boy whose smile only seemed to grow wider causing Rodric's eyes to narrow in annoyance. "Truly?"
"Hey man lighten up she said all we were doing was talking, so how about just leaving us to it, yeah?" Rodric said nothing as he took slow steps towards the first row of unused desks and placed his hand on it, with the smallest amount of effort he nudged the desk causing the metal legs to scrape against the flood. "Oh and how about you close the door on your way out and give the two of us some...privacy, if you know what I mean." Rodric sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth as he shoved the desk as hard as he could causing it to screech across the floor before knocking into several more desks. He looked up to see the startled gaze of both the boy and girl staring back at him, even as the beast inside of him clawed at his chest for release, Rodric took another slower breath before calmly moving forward, never breaking eye contact with the boy.
"Oh, I know exactly what you mean, I know exactly what you plan on doing. You're kind has made tremendous leaps and bounds since my time and yet...humans like you rarely change." The boy scoffed and started to speak but Rodric swiftly cut him off, "Silence," he snarled. "If you truly expected me to be like the many females you have fooled with that oh so charming smile you attempted to give me, you are sorely mistaken. If you truly expected me to simply leave this girl to her fate and allow you to do...unspeakable things to her you are even more idiotic that I believed you to be." Rodric stood face to face with the young man who no longer had that smug look on his face as he glared at him, "Now, unhand the girl."
"Look pal you-"
"Unhand. The girl."
The boy sputtered for a response before attempting to return the glare that Rodric was giving him, "Look man I don't know who you think you are, but if you think I'm going to listen to some freak trying to play hero then you're wrong." The boy reached up with his free hand and placed it on Rodric's shoulder attempting to give it a threatening squeeze, "Now how about you just turn around and leave before you get hurt, alright?" Rodric slowly turned his head away from the hand that was on his shoulder and looked at the boy straight in the eye, he couldn't believe the audacious threat the boy was giving him. Clearly the boy mistook Rodric's look of bewilderment for one of fear, as the same smug smile crossed the boys face once again, Rodric slowly closed his agape mouth and reached up to grip the boys arm as he stared straight into his eyes as his own changed into their more beasital form.
Ruby walked the slightly illuminated hallway towards her destination, her arms were crossed over her chest and a frown sat on her face, she was clearly still upset over what happened. She hated that she had waited so long to tell him and ended up missing her chance, but she was also upset that Rodric would have just left when she clearly wanted to say something. She tried to look on the bright side, maybe if she was lucky she would end up getting her chance to tell him again, maybe the location would be even better for something like this. Her face began to grow warm as she began to wonder if Rodric had set this up, maybe this was all a plan of his to lead her to somewhere more secluded. She gave a small gasp as a thought made its way into her mind, maybe he planed on confessing to her and he was leading her to a more romantic location. But, that was impossible, he didn't even show that he might have feelings for her, but then again he wasn't exactly the type to show his feelings like that. Somewhere quite, just for the two of us, m-maybe he even has candles set up...she quickly shook the thought from her head as she gave a heavy sigh. "Maybe I'm just over thinking this..." She muttered sadly as she trudged through the hall.
Even though she pushed the thought from her mind she still did wonder what the weird glow from up ahead even was, and as much as she tried not to think about it there was a small nagging hope that it would be Rodric with candles. Groaning softly she shook her head and focused on the more likely option, it was probably just someone in one of the empty classrooms, though that also begged the question of what they were doing in one so late. Usually most professors allowed students to use the classrooms if they needed to catch up the material, something she personally knew now thanks to Weiss. Sure, it wasn't so late but even the professors didn't let the students use the classrooms once dinner was over, maybe someone had snuck into one and planned on – a loud crash followed by a loud scream suddenly cut off her train of thought. Without realizing it she had suddenly started running towards the sound, and consequently towards the glow at the end of the hallway, as she skid to a stop once she reached the end she quickly turned towards the glow only to find one of the classroom doors wide open. She quickly moved over to it and stood at the threshold and looked in, there were only three people in the room, one of them being a terrified looking female faunus, a boy that looked to be maybe in his third year laying in a pile of something that she assumed used to be a bookshelf and, "Rodric!"
Rodric watched as the boy struggled to stand after he tossed him headfirst into the bookshelf that had once been sitting against the wall, rolling his neck Rodric moved towards the boy as his heart pounded against his chest. "What's the matter," He taunted as he stood above the boy, "are you only threatening when it's against those who cannot protect themselves?" He crouched down so that he was now at eye level with the boy who sat in the broken boards and scattered books, "Or is it that you have grown so used to tormenting the helpless that you do not know how to handle those who can fight back?" The boy turned his eyes up towards him to glare which in turn caused Rodric to break into a wide toothy grin, "Oh strike a nerve did I?" The boy lunged forward throwing his fist towards him, Rodric simply grabbed the boys arm and pull him forward causing him to end up sprawling across the floor. With a smirk Rodric pushed himself to his feet as he turned towards the boy who was now on his back glaring up at Rodric, he couldn't help but let his smile widen as the boys blood began to drip down his face, more than likely a wound from being tossed into the bookshelf. Rodric scoffed as he looked down at him, "Aw, are you hurt?" The boy gave him a questioning look before raising his hand and running it through his hair, when he pulled it back it was covered in fresh blood, the boys eyes widened at the sight, but then he did the strangest thing. Rather than looking frightened at the sight of his own blood the boy...began to smile, a gleeful look came into his eyes as he looked up at Rodric.
The boy chuckled softly as he pushed himself away from Rodric his eyes never leaving his, "Oh man you messed up big time." He tried to keep his distance as Rodric walked closer to him, but there was only so far he could move, "Y-You think you're so tough huh, well how tough are you going to be when I get the professors involved huh?" He gave a light chuckle as he looked towards the girl that had caused all this trouble, "Y-Yeah I bet they'll love to know how I-I got attacked by a couple of White Fang supporters!" The smirk he had grew wider when Rodric stopped in his tracks, "Yeah not so tough now huh freak, what happened? Are you scared now? Well you should be, once I tell them you are your freak friend here will be out of this school faster than you can believe."
Rodric looked up towards the girl who was now trembling off to the side eyes filled with tears, she was completely terrified of what would happened if he actually allowed this boy to go through with his threat. Rodric grit his teeth as a small tremble coursed through his body, he let out a sharp breath as he felt a strange calm come over him, he turned his attention to the boy below him before moving towards him. He stood over him as he leaned over towards him, "I fear no human, and as for your petty threat..." He tilted his head slightly before throwing his arm out and gripping the boy by his neck, he lifted him up slightly as his fingers dug into his neck, "...well that will die along with you." The boy gasped and gagged for air as Rodric simply tightened his grip as he struggled against him, "Time and time again humans continue to churn out scum not meant for this world, perhaps a culling is in order, to wipe the filth clean of this world." He squeezed the boys throat as a faint snarl passed his lips, "Let's start with you..."
"Rodric!" His head shot towards the voice that called him, and there in the door he spotted Ruby who looked absolutely terrified, however Rodric turned his attention back to the boy in hand. He watched as he struggled against him, attempting to dig his fingers beneath his grip to escape, struggling for the air he was being kept from. Simply watching the boy struggle against him angered him as another snarl slipped past his lips, he could feel his grip tightening against the boys slowly collapsing throat. It would be so easy, he thought, surely no one would miss one such as him. The boys struggles were becoming weaker, he could see the life slowly fading from his eyes, all I would have to do is- "Rodric stop!" He turned towards Ruby and saw the fear clear in her eyes, he blinked several times as his eyes began to return to normal, what must I look like to her, he grit his teeth and turned back to the boy in his grip. He could feel his anger beginning to rise once again just from simply looking upon him, instead he forced it down and pulled the boy closer to him as a deep rumbling growl formed in his chest.
He leaned closer to the boy and gave his throat a firm squeeze before whispering to him, "I have you're stench now coward, if I catch so much as a whiff of it on any female or on any faunus...I will surely make you regret having been conceived." He snapped his teeth near his ear before continuing, "Do not think the professors of this school will save you, if I catch wind that you have misled them with your lies, I will find you, and you will not enjoy the things I plan to do to you. You have made a very dangerous enemy, you would do well to remember that. Now, leave." He threw the boy into the ground as began to choke and gasp for air, Rodric slowly stood as the boy jumped to his feet as quick as he could. His eyes jumped from him to the faunus that stood next to him, he slowly backed away from them before he turned and quickly ran out of the room. Thankfully Ruby had moved out of the way, he wasn't sure he would have been able to control himself had that idiot actually pushed her out of the way. His eyes slowly drifted to Ruby who was looking down the hallway the boy had ran, as the anger slowly faded from his body he could feel it being replaced with a strong bitter feeling. In his attempt to protect someone, he had nearly become his sister, it would have been so easy to simply end his life, a simply flick of his wrist and he would have easily snapped his neck, or if he had squeezed a little harder and he could have crushed his throat. It would have been so easy, he grit his teeth and shook his head attempting to push such thoughts away, but the more he tried to block them out the more they pushed back and the more the beast clawed from beneath his chest. If he did not find a way to deal with these instincts and his baser urge he feared he would end up doing something more regrettable than he did now.
"Hey..." He jerked his head up as he was pulled from his thoughts and turned towards the new voice only to see that it was the girl he had helped, "...what you did it was, um, a-a bit much. I-I mean I-I know why you did it, I-I just mean that..." She groaned before taking a slow breath and looking away from him, "W-What I'm trying to say is...thank you. I-I've been so afraid of what he would try to do to me, but now...just, thank you." She bit her lip and shuffled her feet slightly before looking at him, "Y-You don't think he would...you know, actually tell anyone do you?"
Rodric frowned slightly as he turned his attention back to the door only to see Ruby staring at him, more so with concern than with fear as she previously had, giving a soft sigh Rodric turned back towards the girl. "Not if he values his life he won't, but that isn't something you should concern yourself with child."
The girl gave him a strange look at the mention of child, she stuttered slightly before huffing and crossing her arms, "C-Child, I'm sixteen years old," she huffed indignantly.
Rodric couldn't help but smile slightly, of course she seemed offended by it, he never called anyone other than Ruby that. "Of course," he muttered, "now though you should probably return to your team, they must be worried about you." She gasped slightly before quickly nodding and giving another hurried thank you before quickly exiting the room, as he watched her tail disappear around the corner he let out a deep sigh as he turned around and moved towards the desk at the far side of the room. With more effort than it should have taken he pulled himself up and sat on top of it, he gripped the edges of the desk and closed his eyes as he took several deep breaths. He could hear soft, hesitant footsteps coming towards him, that alone pained him deeply, she should have no need to feel hesitant around him, he sighed heavily as he ran his fingers through his hair, "You do not need to be frightened child, I am...alright."
"F-Frightened? I'm not-" She froze when Rodric looked directly at her, she didn't want to admit it to him but she was way more than scared when she saw him like that. She understood why he did that but it still didn't change the fact that it scared her, to see him like that , he didn't even look like himself, when she saw that look in his eyes as she could think was – she shook the thought from her mind as she moved closer to him. "A-Alright it was a little scary, but...come on, I face Grimm and criminals all the time, I'll be fine." Rodric sighed and gave her a sad sort of smile as he lowered his gaze back to the floor, Ruby's heart ached to see him like that, biting her lip she moved to stand closer to him. "You really helped her out you know? Not a lot of people would do what you just did, heh mostly because they could get in trouble for what you just did." She stayed quiet as she watched him, there was a small smirk on his face meaning she was at least getting through to him, but even so she found herself curious as she leaned against the desk he sat on. "How come you're never scared of doing the things you do, I-I mean most people would have at least thought twice before doing what you just did..."
Rodric scoffed as he turned towards Ruby with an amused look on his face, "Well in case you have yet to realize child...I'm not like most people."
Ruby sighed as she rolled her eyes, "You know what I meant."
Rodric chuckled slightly before turning towards to look towards the door, "It's...It's what I am, I told you before, I'm suppose to protect the humans. While most of my kind would look down on the humans, I have always felt it was my duty to help and provide protection for them whenever they needed it. I would not be very good at it if I feared the consequences that my protection would bring..." He smirked and looked towards Ruby, "...after all who would be foolish enough to chastise a dragon for protecting their home by any means necessary?" She giggled at this and he found his smile widening, "My methods may seem...cruel, but with miscreants and barbarians such as that boy, violence is the only thing they understand. In their small minds they think they are at the top of the food chain, I simply need to show them that there are always bigger predators waiting to put them in their place." He turned his gaze back towards the door, while it may have been true what he was telling her, he knew in that moment he had attacked that boy for a completely different reason. His more feral urges were beginning to out weight his rational thoughts, he could not afford to lose himself here at this school, and had it not been for Ruby in that moment...he shuddered to think of what he might have actually done. "Besides," he started eager to push the thought from his mind, "I could not simply allow his treatment of that faunus to go on, Nyx has...enlightened me on some of the more delicate workings of this time. That girl wouldn't have fought back, but just because she could not didn't mean that I would not. Humans such as him have lived with the notion that they can do whatever they please to these creatures simply because they are faunus and they believe them to be beneath them. Such backwards thinking is what leads kingdoms to war and to ruin, I believe it is time for such humans to face reality. If no one else will challenge these types of humans, then I will."
Ruby could only stare at him in complete awe and amazement, she had heard plenty of people speak on a subject like this on the news plenty of times and they always said the same thing Rodric always said. The only difference was, was that she knew Rodric meant every word of it, he already proved he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty to protect the faunus, but she wondered if his way would be any better than what the faunus had done. If he used force to make people respect the faunus wouldn't he just be doing the same thing the White Fang had done, she bit her lip as she looked towards the floor. "Is that a good idea..."
Rodric turned towards her and gave her a curious look, "What do you mean?"
"I-I mean..." She chewed on her lip as she avoided looking directly at him as she tried to force herself to continue, "I mean the faunus have already done something like that before you know? Where they tried to force the humans to respect them...that's pretty much how the White Fang formed...that's why a lot of humans harass the faunus to begin with, would you really be any better than them?" She hesitated slight but finally turned to look at him only to see him staring hard at the floor, his face twisted slightly as if he was really concentrating on something, "Rodric?"
"No...no I suppose it wouldn't be any better than what the White Fang have done, but do you truly think the faunus would have resorted to such an act had they any other choice." Ruby opened her mouth to answer but found that she wasn't sure what the answer was, "Sadly child, sometimes violence is the only answer for such problems, I have seen many kingdoms rise on the backs of the poor downtrodden folk that they built their walls on top of, only to see them fall when they refused to take the abuse any longer. 'Better that we should die on our feet rather than live on our knees,' such a rallying cry was used many times when the abused rose against their abusers. They believed that they should be given the same rights and same freedom as those that ruled over them they were willing to die for that belief than to continue to live in agony." He turned to Ruby only to see her looking down at the floor, a sullen look on her face, perhaps this wasn't something he should be speaking to a child about, but perhaps it was also for the best that she understand why certain things happen. He placed his hand on her shoulder which seemed to startle her as she quickly turned to look up at him, "I have read many books in my spare time and one of them just so happened to be about the war between the human and the faunus, and I couldn't help but see the parallels between them and myself. Dragons and faunus aren't so different, we are both simply a species that wished to live our lives in peace, we did not bring harm to anyone and we kept to ourselves as best we could. The humans however sought conflict when there was none, and dragged us into a war we did not want, the only difference being was the humans started one...and, sadly we started the other. There will always be those who believe that violence is the answer and sometimes...it is difficult to argue with such a choice, if two groups cannot forge peace through understanding then perhaps they can through violence."
He sighed heavily as he removed his hand from Ruby's shoulder, "I was not around for when the war came for me, and I truly do not know what caused such violence to boil over. Perhaps if I had been there then maybe I could understand where it went wrong, but I was not...and the things I did, I did so that I could continue to live. I believe the faunus that created the White Fang did so for the same reasons, to keep their people and their families safe they did whatever needed to be done. I do not condone the violence they have committed as of late...but as I said I was not there, therefor I cannot fully understand why they did such a thing. All we have to go on is second hand accounts and stories of what truly happened, but perhaps what they did was truly for the best." That had always been what truly troubled him about the war of his time, he didn't know what caused it, his brothers and sister said that it was the humans that began to hunt them for their blood, and the humans said that his kind were the ones that had attacked first. All he knew was that he wished to survive and he did many terrible things to survive, truly he and the faunus were not so different, the only thing that separated them was time. He looked up when Ruby began to yawn, the sound was adorable and caused him to smirk slightly, giving another long sigh Rodric slid off the top of the desk and groaned softly as he stood up straight. "But, I believe that is quite enough, perhaps it would be best if we headed to bed, no?" He looked towards Ruby who blushed slightly and averted her gaze, he chuckled slightly as he reached out to muss her hair, she whined and pushed his hand away in annoyance although it only caused him to laugh again. As she looked up at him he jerked his head towards the door, eager to leave the room and their gloomy conversation behind, as she quickly walked past him he smirked and shut the door behind them.
Not long after the two of them exited the room, the air around them slowly went back to how it was before all of that had happened as did the conversation. Ruby began to speak excitedly about this and that, he didn't catch much of what she had said nonetheless he enjoyed hearing her enthusiasm. He always found it odd how quickly his mood changed around her, the events that happened not even moments ago slowly faded from his mind as Ruby did her best impression of Weiss that had gotten upset over something or other, he couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the somewhat dead on impression. As they approached her dorm the conversation slowly faded into a comfortable silence, the two of them stood outside of her dorm with Ruby shuffling her feet slightly. "S-So," She began, her voice a low whisper in hopes that Blake wouldn't be able to hear them. She could feel her heart racing from simply standing here with him like this, she chewed on her lip debating whether or not she should try to confess again. ",w-will we be able to see each other again tomorrow?"
Rodric scoffed slightly, "Of course child, if you aren't busy with something else you are always welcome to see me."
He's so nice, she rolled her eyes as she tried to keep the stutter from her voice, "You know I'm never busy, especially since it's Saturday tomorrow..." Her eyes lit up slightly, she could feel a big smile cross her face as she looked up at him, "M-Maybe tomorrow we can go into Vale again, w-we never got the chance last time with your injuries." Maybe I'll be able to confess to him after all, she couldn't keep the smile from her face as she just managed to keep from bouncing in place.
Rodric chuckled slightly, "I believe that is a wonderful idea, perhaps this time we may actually be able to take our time and enjoy ourselves." Rodric couldn't help but smile as a look of pure happiness overcame Ruby, without much warning she threw her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug. While it was something that was a common occurrence he was still surprised by the sudden display of affection, he looked down at Ruby as she seemed to squeeze him even tighter, with a small sigh he wrapped her in his own embrace. The embrace lasted longer than it normally would, strangely enough Rodric didn't seem entirely bothered by this, he only released Ruby when she slowly pulled away from him. She looked up at him a smile on her face, one that he couldn't help but mimic, "Now off to bed with you alright?" She nodded and slid her scroll across the electronic lock and quickly slipped into the near silent dorm with hardly a sound, that was until he heard a muffled thud from the other side of the closed door. Rodric sighed as he shook his head, as he turned away from her dorm he let out a heavy sigh as he looked up the darkened hall. Now that Ruby was in her own dorm his mind began to wander back to what had happened in that classroom, the beast inside that had fell silent began to stir once again as a low rumble began to grow in his chest. He turned his attention towards Nyx's dorm, there was a nagging concern that he must address before he could even think about resting for the night.
Gently as to not make too much noise, Rodric knocked on the door of Team RAVN, there was no noise on the other side and he feared that they may have already been asleep. Gritting his teeth he raised his hand to knock once again but stopped when he heard a soft click from the other side of the door, he lowered his hand when the door slowly opened and a disheveled Victoria stood on the other side, her hair was sticking up from one side as she rubbed at her eyes. She was wearing a simple muscle shirt and a pair of shorts but he noticed something missing about her attire, her ribbon wasn't tied around her head, it was strange to see her without it. For the first time since they had met he could finally see her eyes, her irises held no color but were instead a strange milky white color. Despite her not being able to use her vision she still blinked to clear her eyes, possibly from force of habit, "R-Rodric?" She let out a low yawn as she leaned against the frame of the door as she scratched her head, "Hey big guy, haven't see you in a long time, what brings you around so late?"
"I need to speak with Nyx."
"Nyx..." It took her a moment to register what he was asking her, she turned her head towards the direction of the beds as she swayed on her feet slightly, "...oh yeah, she's not here, sorry man."
"What do you mean she isn't here? Where is she?"
Victoria yawned again and tried to flatten the mess that was her hair, though she didn't see a point seeing as she was going to pass out once she got back into bed again. "Didn't she tell you?" She chuckled slightly at that, "That's a surprise seeing as she seems to tell you everything, anyway she said she was going to catch a movie down in Vale. She told us she got there late and had to catch a later one and for us not to wait up, I made a bet with Rayvn that she would come back really late if you know what I mean." She chuckled softly at that doing her best not to wake the others up, she focused her aura around Rodric and could sense nothing but worry coming off of him, oh this is too easy. "Why is something the matter?"
A movie, if he recalled what Ruby had told him earlier Nyx had told them that she was going to busy with classwork, could she have lied to them earlier. Perhaps she had actually finished her work and decided to treat herself to a movie...or perhaps he was putting to much thought into this and worrying himself over nothing. He let out a slow sigh as he shook his head, "No forget I said anything, I apologize for waking you but thank you for telling me this." She gave a curious hum before she chuckled softly, "What's so funny?"
She shook her head and gave another yawn as she stepped back from the door and started to close it, "Oh nothing, I just never figured you for the jealous type. Goodnight Rodric." She shut the door before he could even comprehend what she was saying, jealous, what would I have to be jealous about? He frowned as he shook his head before turning and heading back towards his down, she was just as bad as Yang, always making assumptions into things they had no idea about. Still she told him that Nyx was alright and would return back to Beacon soon enough, that's what he wanted to hear, but if that was the case why did he still have a strange sense of unease lingering in his chest. Something felt wrong, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was exactly, sighing heavily he pushed the door to his room open and prepared himself for what could very well be a sleepless night.
Rodric groaned softly as he turned his head away from the window trying his best to keep the sunlight from his eyes, but the damage had already been done and the accursed light had already woken him. He slowly opened his eyes as he growled in annoyance, it was just as he had imagined it to be, it had been a sleepless night with him tossing and turning throughout most of it. His mind refused to rest and that uneasy feeling he felt last night refused to leave him be, with a loud sigh he pushed himself into a sitting position on his bed. It was one of the rare occasions that he slept in his bed, and sadly he couldn't enjoy the comfort as his mind refused to let him, he allowed a low growl to slip past his lips as he dug his fingers into the bed. He pulled at the sheets until there was a distinctive sound of fabric tearing, with a frustrated growl he quickly removed himself from the bed as he sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. His heart was pounding against his chest and he was struggling to keep his breathing even, each breath was shaky as he kept himself from breathing heavily. Another reason he couldn't sleep well the previous night had been because his instincts began to overact once again, if there was anything human related he could possibly compare it to it would have to be this...withdrawal he once read about.
A series of knocks caused his head to snap around towards the door, his eyes narrowed as his body began to tremble, he had such a strong surge to rush the door and rip it from it's hinges to destroy whoever it was that dared to disturb him. He grit his teeth to keep his growls locked in his chest, but as another series of knocks echoed in the silent room he found himself moving towards the door, with each step he took the tremble in his body grew stronger as he tried to force himself to stop, and tried to fight back against his natural instincts that were beginning to take over. Having gone so long without any real combat was taking it's toll on him however, the events from last night played over in his head and he couldn't quite help but feel a thrill shoot through him when he remembered the look of fear in that boys eyes. He felt a smile slowly cross over his face as he took the doorknob in hand, he shook his head and grit his teeth as he forced the thought away and gripped the handle so tightly it slowly began to collapse inside of his grip. He placed his head against the cool wood of the door and sighed heavily as he tried to restrain himself from doing anything rash, if I had left I wouldn't be like this. He couldn't deny that thought, if he had simply left like he should have, he could be out there...somewhere fighting off Grimm, or better yet, his sister. He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his racing heart and his frayed nerves, thinking about what could have been didn't help him out right now so there was no point in dwelling on such thoughts. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath as an all to familiar scent reached his nose, despite himself he could feel a smile pass over his face. Slowly his muscles began to relax as the tremble slowly faded from his body, he opened his eyes slowly as he pushed himself away from the door.
As the last of his trembling muscles finally relaxed, he let out a shaky breath from having to reel himself in once again, denying his baser urges for much longer were sure to end badly for all in his vicinity. Just wait until tonight, he thought, he could hold back no longer and once the cover of night fell he would retreat to the forest and revel in combat once again. For now simply stay calm and make it through the day, that was much easier to say than do, as even now he could feel his more feral desires threatening to take hold again. He was pulled from his thoughts when there was another knock at the door, although this time it was much quieter and much more hesitant, poor girl must think I'm asleep. He shook his head and reached out for the door once again as a small smirk appeared on his face, he kept his head up and pulled the door open and made it very obvious to not look down. He leaned through the door and looked up and down the hallway before giving a very exaggerated shrug and began to retreat back into his dorm.
"Hey!" He acted as if he were surprised when she suddenly called out, but as he looked down his facade quickly crumbled as she glared up at him with puffed up cheeks and a small blush covering her face. He bit his lip to keep his laughter at bay.
"Apologies Ruby, I did not see you there." By the look on her face she clearly didn't believe him, instead she huffed in an irritated manner and invited herself in. Had it been anyone he may have gotten angry from their lack of humor, but seeing as it was Ruby he couldn't help but smile as he closed the door after she had entered. He gave a small sigh as he shook his head and moved away from the door towards his bed, as he passed by Ruby he rubbed her hair causing her to whine as he took a seat on the bed, "What brings you by so early child?"
Ruby groaned as she tried to flatten the hair he had just messed up, "Jerk..." she muttered, but they both knew her saying that held no bite or weight tot hem, not to mention there was a small smile growing on her lips as she said it. As she flattened her hair to the best of her abilities she fumbled with her pockets before finally pulling our a scroll, his scroll to be exact. "I brought this...well actually I ran into Ozpin and he asked me to bring this to you." She decided to save herself the embarrassment of actually telling him what happened, while she actually did run into Ozpin it didn't exactly happen like that. She noticed he had been carrying a scroll and not the one normally used by the Professors it looked like a students, when she asked about it he had informed her that he managed to locate Rodric's misplaced scroll and was on his way to return it. Of course she jumped at the excuse to see Rodric for any reason, she practically begged Ozpin to let her take it to him, she at least had the decency to be embarrassed when he agreed with a small chuckle. She gently cleared her throat when she felt her cheeks beginning to burn, "Here," she gently tossed him his scroll which he easily caught, while she was a bit curious how he managed to misplace his own scroll it at least answered her question on why he never messaged her.
Rodric looked down at the scroll in his hand as he slowly turned it, "I..." He wasn't even sure what to say, he knew for a fact he had destroyed his scroll in an attempt to push Ruby away from him, so it was curious that Ozpin had apparently been carrying it. "Thank you." It was all he could say, after all he couldn't...rather he didn't want to explain to her that his original scroll was now somewhere in Beacon's garbage in pieces, he gave a soft hum as he opened the device up. Even if Ozpin managed to replicate or find a replacement for his own scroll there was no way he could mimic the contents that the original one had. As the device powered on he flipped through the many screens finding all the basic functions and applications where they should be, curiously he opened up his contacts and expected to find it empty, to his surprise however he found the names of everyone who had added themselves to his scroll when he had been unconscious after his test that seemed so long ago now. Everyone one from both Team RWBY and JNPR were listed as well as RAVN, he shook his head in surprise and went to his messages a bit curious to see if any of those had been replaced, though he highly doubted Ozpin would be able to replicate everything his original scroll had. As his messages blinked across the small screen he felt his jaw go slack as it opened to the last message he had read before he destroyed his original scroll, "Are you mad with me..." His eyes flitted over the message several times, No, he thought, I could never be mad with you...
"Rodric?" His head shot up only to see Ruby looking at him curiously, "Are you alright?" He opened his mouth to answer before he looked back down at the open message, am I?, he wondered. He looked back up to Ruby and wondered, perhaps for the millionth time, why she had simply forgiven him, why did she accept him with open arms when her friends condemned him for his actions, or rather his inaction. She saw something in him that clearly made her stay, he only wished he could see what she did, to see through her eyes what exactly was special enough for her to risk her safety to simply be with him. She was clearly a child, the fact that he was a dragon should have clearly been the answer, but he knew that wasn't the case, it might have been a very long time since he had any interaction with humans, but that didn't leave him ignorant. Human faces and bodies may have changed from his time, but their eyes still remained the same, and their eyes still said much more than they wish they would. He noticed for awhile now how she had looked at him, it wasn't a look of simple childlike curiosity and fascination, it was a look of something more. He tried to ignore it and appear blind to her gaze in hopes that it would simply go away, but much to his frustration her gaze continued to linger on him. She is simply a child, he would tell himself, it is simply a passing fancy, oh how he wished that was all it had been, but he knew it was not the case. However as the days began to pass and as she continued to spend more and more time with him, and continued to show him affection he feared the day she would speak on what she was so obviously feeling. He feared it...because he did not know how to answer that unspoken question, the correct solution would have been to let her down gently and spare her feelings and the future heartbreak he would eventually give her, but can I do such a thing? As of late his more dangerous instincts weren't the only thing he began to have trouble suppressing, "W-What are you staring at?"
He was pulled from his thoughts only to gaze upon a now blushing Ruby as she averted her eyes and lowered her head in an attempt to hide the bright color of her cheeks. "Nothing, I'm sorry." Her gaze wasn't the only one that had begun to linger, he shook his head as he quickly pushed himself to his feet, "Have you had breakfast yet?" She looked up at him and seemed like she was about to answer, however it seemed her stomach answered for her as it let out a low rumbling growl. She quickly slapped her hands over her stomach in an attempt to silence the noise all the while her cheeks burned a light pink, he chuckled as he shook his head, "Of course not." She huffed despite the blush still on her cheeks, he rolled his eyes and moved over the door as he pulled it open before turning back towards her, "Well come on then, before the food gets cold."
He had found that keeping himself silent about Ruby's obvious affection towards him had become increasingly difficult, but what could he say to her, he didn't know how to approach a situation like this. He was flattered that she could possibly find anything worth liking about him, yet he knew her affections were misplaced, she was simply a child, whatever she could be feeling for him was simply temporary. With every passing day however, that seemed less and less likely to be the truth, and such a possibility honestly frightened him. He didn't understand how she could feel anything towards him after what had happened with his own sister, and that was when they were only friends, she didn't understand what Narissa would have done if she had found out if they were anything more. The thought filled him with a great sense of dread, and strangely enough that dread had turned into a force that pushed him closer to her, the dark thoughts that filled his mind made him all the more protective of her. Strangely enough the dark thoughts that pushed him closer to her, only seemed to be silenced when he was in her presence, it had become increasingly obvious to him that he was at peace around her. But, with that peace also brought fear, a fear that her feelings for him...might not be as one sided as he had initially thought. With his lack of experience in matters of the heart it was difficult to discern if what he was feeling were simply his protective instincts or perhaps...something more. He shook the thought from his head, he couldn't allow himself to think like that, but it hadn't been the first time the thought had crossed his mind, and he was beginning to wonder just how much longer he would be able to deny those thoughts.
He glanced towards Ruby who was happily chattering about something or other, he sadly hadn't been paying much attention, but he couldn't help but find himself smiling as she happily chatted away. Despite everything that had happened to her, and all the pain she had gone through, she still had such an innocent outlook on everything, which made her affection towards him all the more confusing. She had yet to say anything to him about it, either waiting for the right time, or too scared to say anything about it, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she finally spoke up. What will I say, he wondered, would he refuse her affection and break her heart simply for her safety? Or would he lie to her simply to keep her happy? Would it really be a lie... "So..." He was pulled from his thoughts and turned his attention back to Ruby who glanced up towards him before turning away from him, "I was wondering if you were still up to head out to Vale today, you have seemed a bit out of it this morning..."
Have I truly been that obvious about it, ignoring his thoughts he simply shook his head, "I apologize, my mind has been wandering quite a bit lately, I believe a change in scenery is just what I need. Do you have anywhere in particular you wish to go?" He gave small chuckle as she began to answer, "I mean aside from the bakery you have grown so fond of." Her response was an indignant huff as she bumped into his side with her shoulder.
"I do have other places I like to go besides that bakery, thank you very much." She tried to frown but found her lips twitching as she tried to fight back the smile, but as she began to lose the struggle she coughed into her hand before continuing. "Besides I thought we could do something else out there, I mean Vale has a nice park we can go to. I know how much you like being around stuff like that, so I thought maybe you'd like that."
"That does sound like an interesting proposal."
"There's...also the theater, I heard a new Spruce Willis movie came out recently, we can always go check that out? Suppose to be good I heard."
By now the two of them had reached the doors to the dining hall as chuckled slightly, "Ruby, so long as we are anywhere aside from here I believe I will enjoy whatever it is we do." That answer seemed to satisfy her as she gave a small nod and proceeded to open the door, much to his surprise the dining hall was filled with a lot more students that he honestly expected it to be, not to mention many of them were carrying their weapons and dressed in their combat clothes. "Um, is there something special happening today?"
She shook her head as she did her normal routine of scanning the dining hall for her team, "Nah, everybody has just been practicing a lot lately what with the Vytal Festival happening pretty soon. So everyone just wants to be in tip top shape so they aren't beaten right off the bat."
He smirked slightly as he looked towards her, "Oh, shouldn't you be practicing as well?"
Ruby looked up at him before rolling her eyes, "Pfft, trust me I don't need the practice, despite what Weiss says I think I'm more than ready for this tournament." She turned her eyes back towards the dining hall as she walked through the doors, "Besides we don't even really know how it's going to play out, so there's no sense in worrying about it right..." Her words trailed off when her eyes landed on a mass of bright blonde hair, for some reason when she saw that mass of hair she froze in place, she had every chance to turn away and leave but she froze. In doing so she lost her chance to escape, she watched as the head lifted from the table a large smile plastered on her face, only for it to slowly fade away when violet eyes locked with silver. She took a hesitant step back all the while keeping her eyes locked with her sisters, almost afraid that if she were to look away then she would pounce on her like some sort of wild animal. "M-Maybe we should have breakfast in Vale don't you think?"
"I fear it's a bit late for that Ruby..."
Despite herself she looked up at Rodric only to see him focused on something ahead of him, she followed his line of sight back to her sister whose violet eyes were now a deep crimson red. That's not good, however Yang seemed to manage to reign in her anger as the red slowly bled away from her eyes. "I believe it is best not to 'poke the bear' as it were, just try to ignore her looks and then we can leave for Vale once we eat." Ruby looked from her sister to Rodric and back to her sister before nodding slightly and turning her gaze to the ground as she made her way towards the table laden with food. All the while she could feel Yang glaring holes into her back, she had done a pretty good job at keeping their meetings a secret if the holes Yang was burning into her back weren't evident of that. She had managed to get away with meeting Rodric in secret by always seeing him when everyone else was busy, so technically she never really lied to anyone about seeing him, but she was pretty sure this was still an unpleasant surprise to Yang who still hadn't spoken to her since their little fight. With food in hand she made her way towards an empty table far from her sister, it was difficult to navigate through the crowd of people while keeping her eyes towards the ground, but she somehow managed. Once she reached one of the more empty tables she sat with her back towards Yang and sighed heavily, it was fine though, everything was fine, all she had to do was make it through breakfast and both her and Rodric would be in Vale before anything else could happen. Yeah, everything was fine.
"Well..." Rodric started as he sat across from Ruby his eyes raising up to meet Yang's, who were still glaring intensely at him. "This was bound to happen eventually, though I had wished it would have happened at a later time."
Ruby sighed heavily and nodded in agreement, she knew that they wouldn't be able to hide this forever but she wished that they could have at least done so for a little while longer. With a soft groan she pushed her plate of food away from her having lost her appetite suddenly and laid her head on the cold table, "What's she doing?"
Rodric frowned slighty seeing Ruby so distraught over their discovery, he turned his attention back towards Yang who was angrily speaking to the rest of her team. When her anger filled gaze returned to his her violet eyes were joined by ice blues and bright amber, both Blake and Weiss were staring at him, one had a look of surprise and the other a look of disgust and annoyance. When they both eventually turned around Rodric let out another sigh as he turned his attention back to Ruby, "Well it seems to me that she has informed the rest of your team about our presence and..." He looked back up to Yang only to see her frantically speaking with Weiss and Blake all the while making very exaggerated gestures. "..well it seems she's trying to get them to enact some sort of plan of action." This didn't seem to be what Ruby wanted to hear as she groaned loudly and buried her face into her hands.
"Ugh, Yang can be so...so...ridiculous sometimes. I don't see what her problem is, I'm not a kid anymore I can hang out with whoever I want. She can't keep treating me like a kid forever, so she's just going to have to get used to it."
"Well, yes I suppose I can agree with you on that. However, I can't help but also agree with Yang as strange as that might sound, she is simply doing what any sibling would do and looking out for her younger sister. You can't exactly fault her for being so protective of you...after all I am the same way am I not?"
Ruby sighed softly, "Well...yeah, I guess, but still...it's annoying."
"Trust me Ruby..." He looked up just in time to see Yang stare directly at him and gave him the hardest glare she could muster as he sighed and returned to his food, "...I believe you." The two of them tried to make light conversation despite the oppressing atmosphere that hung over them, Rodric had taken to eating his food slowly expecting Yang to approach them at any minute and doing something rash. Though with every occasional glance towards their table all he managed to see was Yang in some sort of heated argument over something with Weiss, probably on why it wasn't a good idea to start a fight with him. Though he supposed she would be entitled to her fight, after all she had demanded that he stay away from Ruby, yet here they were having breakfast together as if nothing had happened between them. Thankfully though, no such thing happened while they managed to eat their fill, however halfway through their breakfast another plate clattered down next to them, Rodric tensed up ready for the imminent confrontation.
"Hey you guys feels like it's been forever." He recognized that voice, he glanced up and felt himself smile when he saw it was Nyx, he returned his attention towards his food and relaxed a bit more as he began to eat normally. It had been some time since they last saw Nyx, and with her recent absence from their dinner invitation it was nice to have her back, although he wondered why she was wearing a scarf, it didn't feel that cold...then again it could have just been him. Their was a small groan from Nyx, no doubt she was being crushed in one of Ruby's tight embraces, given that it had been some time since they last spoke Ruby was no doubt trying to make up for it by crushing the poor girl. He smirked slightly as he shook his head and continued to eat, however a sharp gasp caused him to pause followed by the words that Ruby spoke next.
"Nyx, what happened?" He turned his attention towards Nyx to see her giving Ruby a strange look as she tried to look away, but he didn't see a cause for concern. It was only when Nyx looked at him before quickly looking away and made a strange attempt to cover her mouth did he notice it.
"What is that?"
"H-Huh, w-what are you talking about?"
Rodric frowned at her terrible attempt at deception, "You know very well what I am talking about." He took a slow breath as he narrowed his eyes to make sure she knew he was being serious, "Show me." It was more of an order than a request, and Nyx knew all she could do was show him, he had seen it and there was no point in hiding it now. With a small sigh he watched as she slowly lowered her hand and his eyes fixed on her lips, her lower lip was ever so slightly swollen on the left side with a noticeable gash that had begun to scar over. Upon seeing the mark on her lip Rodric could feel his blood beginning to boil as he grit his teeth in an attempt to keep himself calm, but he was slowly losing the fight as the beast inside of him furiously clawed at his chest in an attempt to get free. He somehow managed to restrain it, if only for a moment as he tried to his best calmly speak, although that calm facade he put up was quickly beginning to come apart. "What...is that?'
Nyx kept her eyes on the table as she nervously cleared her throat but winced as she did so as her throat was still sore, "I-It's nothing really, i-it was just a training accident was all. I wasn't paying attention and w-well payed the price you know?" She gave a weak chuckle before clearing her throat only to wince again slightly, she kept her eyes locked on the table in front of her, she had been stupid to think they wouldn't have noticed.
"Training...really, then this happened yesterday did it?" She gave a hesitant nod as he clenched his fists tightly before slowly relaxing his grip, "Well...was this before or after your trip to Vale?" Her head shot up as she looked at him in shock before trying to stutter out her answer, "Or was this after you returned from your movie, or maybe this happened after you finished your classwork and before you went to Vale, hmm?" He watched as the realization slowly dawned on Nyx as she slowly gave up the will to come up with an answer, however Ruby seemed to be confused by his strange line of questioning.
"Nyx...what's he talking about?" She looked towards Ruby as she fumbled over her words, but was quickly silenced when Rodric spoke up once again.
"Yes Nyx, please tell her what I'm talking about..." Nyx looked nervously between the two of them, from the look in her eyes she was desperately trying to think of something to say. When she looked at him once again he shook his head slowly in an attempt to dissuade her from lying anymore, she gave a heavy sigh and let her head hang down.
"I...I don't know..." Rodric clenched his fists so tightly his entire body shook as he attempted to suppress his ever growing rage, slowly ever so slowly he uncurled his fingers and let out a slow yet unsteady breath. It would have been so much easier if she had simply just told them the truth, then there would be no reason for him to interrogate her like this, and the person who did this would already be a bloody smear on the floor. He blinked several times and shook his head as his thoughts quickly returned from that dark corner they had fell into, he let out another slow breath and turned his attention back to Nyx a frown quickly finding its way to his face.
"Nyx enough with the lies, just tell us what happened."
"Nothing happened alright, i-it was just an accident that's all...please just leave it alone."
The distress that laced her voice tempted him into letting the matter fall, with how his instincts had been acting recently he feared he had just tormented Nyx for no other reason than paranoia. Yet when he noticed her fiddling around with one end of her scarf and the way her eyes would jump to his before quickly looking away, he felt a cold chill come over his body. He eyed the scarf she wore and then the wound on her lip before looking back down at the scarf around her neck, he could feel his heart sinking lower into his stomach as a terrible thought crossed his mind. "Nyx..." he started just barely able to keep the small quiver from his voice, "...please take off your scarf." The look that came over her face from his request could only be described as...absolute terror.
"N-No I'm alright, i-it's a big cold today anyway."
"Nyx...please remove your scarf." Instead of doing so she gripped the end she had been fiddling with tightly as she kept her eyes away from his as she tried to find something, anything else to look at. The longer she hesitated with his simple request the more his thoughts began to wander, thinking of terrible things that could have befallen Nyx. Each thought he pushed from his mind, hoping and praying that he was simply being paranoid with how his mind had been acting lately, but the longer she hesitated the more he feared his anger and concern were justified. "Nyx..." He said again in a slightly calmer voice, but it still held a firmness to it that told her that he was still expecting her to listen to him. She looked up towards him with a pleading look in her eyes almost on the verge of tears as she held tighter to her scarf.
"Rodric please just let it-"
"Nyx." She flinched away slightly at the tone in his voice and it hurt him to know that he had to make her fear him to simply get her to do what he asked. As much as he really didn't want to see what lie beneath the scarf he knew he needed to see it, and that he would have to punish whoever hurt her. He still silently prayed that he was simply being paranoid, but that small glimmer of hope was quickly fading away with how she was acting. "Please."
"I..." Nyx looked from Rodric to Ruby hoping that she would give her some back up in this situation, instead Ruby had a worried look in her eyes that was focused mainly on the scarf she held so tightly to. She could feel herself trembling, how had she managed to slip up so badly when she had been able to hide it for so long, she was scared about what would happen if she told them now. She glanced back up to Rodric only to see him still staring so intently at her, she quickly averted her eyes towards her uneaten food, she knew she should have stayed in bed today. She tightened her shaking hand around the end of the scarf she had been holding onto before letting out a shaky breath, "Okay..." She bit her lip as her entire body began to shake from those few words but there was no backing out now, "Okay." She moved as slowly as she could as she unwrapped the scarf from her neck, each movement causing her body to shake even harder, she bit down on her lip as she could feel tears burning at her eyes now. As she finally unwrapped it from her neck she let it hang loosely around her shoulders, even though she did as she said she still held it up against her to keep it from exposing her neck, she was on the verge of having a panic attack, she couldn't do this.
Rodric watched with bated breath as Nyx slowly unwrapped the scarf from her neck, but even as she finally unwound the cloth she still held it so close to her, refusing to let it fall. He leaned forward and reached out for one of the ends of the scarf, but the moment he took it in hand Nyx yelped softly and grabbed his hand and once again looked at him silently pleading with her eyes. "Nyx..." He looked down at her hand and could feel her trembling against him, he gave a strained sigh as he looked up at her and locked eyes with her. "Let go." He said softly, the small amount of hope she held onto that he would change his mind was crushed as her shoulders fell in defeat, with a small whimper she closed her eyes and moved her hand from his. As he held onto the scarf he could feel his own hand beginning to shake, nevertheless he pulled it away from her slowly, watching as it unfurled from her neck before slowly falling away. There was a sharp gasp as his eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock at just what she had been hiding beneath the scarf.
"Nyx what happened?!" Upon seeing the marks on her neck Ruby felt a sharp pain shot through her chest as Nyx began to silently cry in front of her, tears sliding down her face as she tried in vain to hide the mark.
"Oh gods..." It was all Rodric managed to utter as his breath was stolen from him at the sight of the marks on Nyx's neck, even as he stared at them he could hardly comprehend what he was looking at. It didn't seem real but it was right there in front of him, yet his mind refused to acknowledge what he was seeing, slowly he could feel everything fade away leaving behind only his barely restrained anger. He tried to look away but his eyes kept finding their way back to her neck, and back to the marks, a discolored bruise that enveloped most of her neck, there was a distinctive shape to the bruise and it only caused his rage to flare up even more. It was difficult to hold his gaze on that mark for long, but from his quick glimpses he noticed that it wasn't a completely solid bruise, it held a very distinctive shape, four thick purple marks on one side and a single smaller mark on the other side of her neck. A hand print, he clenched his teeth so tightly that a sharp pain shot through his mouth but he hardly noticed it as he struggled to keep hold of whatever rational thought he had left. "W-Who..." Was all he managed to say before the rest of his words were lost to a deep guttural snarl, he sucked in a sharp breath as his breathing became labored as the pounding of his heart grew more frantic. He could hardly hear anything aside from the pounding of his heart and the rushing of his blood in his ears, he gripped tightly to his head as his eyes jumped from one person to the next quickly. Some of the other students had begun to look their way, no doubt because of Nyx crying and him slowly losing control of himself. "Who?" He growled out once again.
Nyx slowly wiped her eyes as she tried to silence her cries, she hadn't cried like that in so long, and now she could feel several people looking at them. Not only that but she had nothing to hide the bruises and she could hear people muttering about them from around her, she could feel the tears burning at her eyes again but managed to fight them back. She looked towards Ruby but quickly looked away when she saw that the younger girl was near tears because of how she had been crying, but as she turned towards Rodric she saw that he was faring no better. She could see he was shaking almost uncontrollably, and he was angry, if that snarl he let out was any indication to that. She turned her eyes back towards the table as she clenched her fists and shook her head, "I-It doesn't matter I'm-"
"Who?" He snarled out once again, his patience was nearly nonexistent and as much as he cared for Nyx he did not want to hear any more of her lies. Whatever sanity remained inside of him, he manged to grab hold of it and used it to keep him focused as he took a deep breath that did next to nothing to calm him down. "Who did this?" He hissed as that bit of sanity began to rapidly fade at the mere thought of someone intentionally doing this to her.
Nyx shrank back in her seat, mostly because of the people that were staring at them had increased, but mainly because Rodric was starting to scare her. The last time she had seen him angry was when those students were harassing those faunus, but this was so much worse than that time. He didn't even sound like himself, there was something wrong with the way he was talking, it didn't feel right and it just unnerved her. She clenched tightly to her skirt as she stared down at her lap, she was scared, both of what he would do if he told her and if she refused to tell him. She wasn't sure which option was worse, she shook her head slightly, "I-I can't-"
"Enough!" She yelped and jumped when he shouted and slammed his fist hard enough into the table to make their plates bounce up and to leave a noticeable dent in the table. Rodric let out a deep feral growl as he tried to stay in control for just a moment longer, "No more l-lies Nyx, you will tell me who did this to you." He focused his attention solely on Nyx, he was quite awake of the looks he was getting from the other students but he cared little about them at this moment. The seconds slowly ticked by as he waited for Nyx to reveal the unfortunate soul who dared harm her, but as her silence grew so did his anger as it began to take hold of him once again. "Nyx..." the words came out strained as he was attempting to maintain his composure, "...tell me." Again she remained silent and her defiance only served to further infuriate him, he managed to choke back a threatening snarl that was directed towards her rather than the person who had harmed her. "Who did this, Nyx?!" Once again she furiously shook her head as Rodric tightly clenched his teeth as pain shot through his mouth, behind the rushing of blood and the pounding of his heart in his ear, he was sure he could hear several of his teeth crack under the pressure. "Nyx..." He hissed out, his eyes narrowing as she noticeably shrank under his gaze.
Ruby looked between Rodric and Nyx not sure what to do, Nyx looked scared for her life, and Ruby would be lying if she said she didn't feel the same way. She had never seen Rodric this angry before, and even though she wanted to speak up in Nyx's defense she couldn't. Every time she tried to she felt the words sticking to her tongue, the look in his eyes looked all too familiar to her. As much as she tried to tell herself that this was Rodric she couldn't keep the thought from her mind, even now she could feel herself trembling under his gaze, even though it wasn't directed towards her. She averted her eyes and looked to over to Nyx who was trembling a lot more visibly than she was, scooting closer to Nyx she slowly reached out for her hand, only for Nyx to flinch away from the small contact she made. "It's alright Nyx," she whispered softly as if the words she spoke were for her ears only, "look we just want to help Nyx. We both care about you and are just worried about you, you have to understand this is..." Her eyes traveled up to the large purple hand shaped bruise around her neck as she bit her lip, not exactly sure what to say about it, "...this is something much different from combat bruises, Rodric is just really worried about you, you know him, he won't do anything rash." She turned her attention back towards Rodric forcing herself to keep her eyes locked with his, "Right Rodric?" His answer was a rumbling growl and it didn't help to make her point, she sighed softly before turning back to Nyx, "Please just tell us...who did this to you?"
Nyx looked down to Ruby's hand that was placed gently over her own, and even through her own shudders she could feel Ruby trembling against her, she wasn't even sure what could have caused her to be like that. Was it the fact that she had been abused the way they had saw, or because this was the first time she was seeing Rodric, the person she liked, so angry. Maybe it was both, she wasn't sure, and she really couldn't be sure that Rodric wouldn't do anything, after all she had already saw how he got when people were harassing the faunus, she could only imagine what he would do now. On the other hand, maybe Ruby was right, she had only seen him like that because it had only been the two of them at the time, but now in a dining hall full of people with more than half of them staring at their table she doubted he would have done anything. The prospect still lingered in her mind, but there was little that could be done about it now, she took a shaky breath and re-positioned her hand to hold firmly onto Ruby's. She looked up briefly to see Rodric still staring intently at her causing her to quickly look away and back down to her lap and back to their hands, "C-Cardin," she whispered the words barely audible even to her over the commotion of the dining hall. "I-It was Cardin..." The sound of hands slamming roughly against the table caused her head to jump up and to see that Rodric was now on his feet, teeth bared, eyes cold and distant. She could feel her hear sink when began to slowly crane his neck around looking for the person she had just outed, when he let out a mix between a snarl and a growl she could feel a strong chill come over her body. She wanted to say something, but whatever words she wanted to say refused to come out, and by then he already began to walk away, oh no...
Cardin...Cardin, every time he thought of that name more and more of his control slowly faded away, he had heard the name several times when he used to attend classes. A pompous and arrogant child that seemed to think he ruled the school, harassing the humans and faunus alike, he had seen him several times but never looked at him twice. So close, he had been so close and I did nothing, he growled out once again as he marched in the direction he had seen him sitting, laughing with his team as if he had nothing to worry about, you will soon enough Cardin. With each step that brought him closer to his table he could feel his heart beating rapidly against his chest, the beast that clawed from beneath his skin was aching to be released, and at this point he had no reason to hold it back any longer. Every time he tried to reason with himself and to calm himself down as to not unintentionally kill this child his mind was always drawn back to the mental imagine of the bruise that marked Nyx's neck. His mind began to fill in the information he didn't know of, imagines of Cardin tightly squeezing her neck until she couldn't breathe, forcing her to beg for the air she needed. Then, his mind began to wander, what else could he have possibly done to her that she wasn't telling them, dozens of imagines and scenarios flooding his mind, each one just as sick and twisted as the next, before his mind briefly jumped to Serana in her final moments. He grit his teeth roughly again as his eyes narrowed further, focusing on the target of his hatred, no I will not let it happen again.
Somehow he had made himself unknown to the group he stood behind, he had already held his place for several seconds and none of them had even bothered to turn around to look at him. He felt the muscles in his arm twitch and he had to clench his hands tightly to keep them from moving, not yet, as much as he would enjoy attacking his unsuspecting prey, he knew that would accomplish nothing. He would much rather make himself known, so they would realize what a terrible mistake they had made, he gave himself a firm nod as he took a step closer to the group. "Cardin." The chatter that filled the table quickly faded away, and soon enough several pairs of eyes fell on him, all from various students he had seen only briefly when he once walked through the halls, each set of eyes were filled with loathing and disgust simply from his presence. However, he kept his face clear from the sneer he wished to give him, thinking they are better than me, oh how wrong they are, he could hear them muttering something about him but he paid them no mind as the focused on the one seated before him. He took his time turning around, slowly almost purposely so, throwing his legs over the bench to turn to look at the one who said his name, Rodric took a step back when Cardin finally turned to look at him, he looked him over once before giving him a disapproving look.
"What do you want?" This time Rodric couldn't keep the frown from coming over his face over those simple words, the way he spoke grated on his ears more so than whenever Weiss was having one of her moments. Arrogant, conceited, self-important, egotistical, there were so many words that he could use to describe Cardin, and given enough time he was sure he would be able to. The way Cardin simply looked at him showed that he thought Rodric was beneath him and not worth the time or effort it took to even acknowledge his existence, despite the aura of anger that was no doubt emanating from him Cardin didn't seem bothered by it. In fact he couldn't be less bothered by him, he simply leaned back against the table and looked up at him with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "If you don't have anything to say you can just leave, I don't have time to waste on-"
"Get up." He grit out through clenched teeth, he focused his eyes on Cardin but he could feel the others giving him a curious look, no doubt smirking at his odd request. Cardin however did hide the fact that he found his demand hilarious, his smirk seemed to widen as he shook his head before sighing heavily.
"I think I misheard you, what did you say?"
Rodric grit his teeth as he stepped closer towards Cardin, standing over him he glared down at Cardin as he repeated himself. "You didn't mishear me, I said get up."
Cardin scoffed, "Yeah I thought that's what you said." He didn't even seem bothered with Rodric's close proximity in fact he looked up at him with even more disdain than Rodric thought possible. "Listen freak, I don't know who you think you are, but you must be some kind of stupid to think I would listen to anything you say. You can go back from where ever you came from, cause that isn't happening." The others from his table began to laugh as if it were some joke that Cardin had spoke, Rodric's cold eyes jumped from one person to the next, their laughter quickly breaking off and ending in awkward coughs. Rodric took a slow breath as he leaned down towards Cardin speaking quietly but firmly.
"You are mistaken Cardin, it was not a request. Get. Up." Rodric slowly stood back up, his glare never leaving Cardin, and for a moment all the arrogance and bravado faded from Cardin but quickly returned with his smirk. He turned to look towards the other that sat with him before giving a heavy sigh and slowly pushing himself to his feet, Rodric took the smallest of steps back to give him just enough room to stand. Once Cardin was fully standing he looked at Rodric as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Alright I'm up, now what the hell do-" Rodric snapped his head forward as a sharp crack filled the dining hall silencing the noise that once filled it, the only thing that could be heard was the clatter of heavy armor as it fell roughly against the wooden table. Rodric shook his head as a dull throb began to spread from the center of his forehead outward, he swayed slightly nearly losing his footing but pulled his focus back towards Cardin. One of his teammates was struggling to sit him up and to stop the blood that had begun to flow from his nose, yet somehow he managed to keep that arrogant look on his face. With a sharp inhale Rodric reached out and grabbed Cardin by his armor and quickly lifted him to his feet leaving the boy stumbling forward before snapping his head forward again causing him to stumble back and collapse back on his table. Doing so however caused Rodric to stumble back slightly as he rubbed the now sore spot on his head, gritting his teeth as the pain throbbed much worse than before he reached forward once again and grabbed Cardin by his armor, but rather than pull him to his feet he pulled him straight from his spot and tossed him across the floor.
He heard several noises from behind him, as he turned he noticed that most of the table Cardin had been sitting at had stood up, however once Rodric let out a single warning growl they all hesitated before slowly returning to their seats. He kept his eye on them for a moment before turning to where he left Cardin, only to see him struggling to pull himself to his feet using one of the other tables, gritting his teeth he moved over to him and kicked him back down. "This isn't over Cardin, oh no, this is far from over. I assume you know what this is about?" He watched as Cardin turned over onto his stomach coughing roughly as the blood that flowed from his nose dripped onto the floor, he could heard some strained words though they were difficult to make out. With another growl he kicked Cardin back down once again when he tried to stand, "For your sake, you better be speaking the correct answer." Once again all he could hear was a strained muttering coming from Cardin as he coughed roughly, rolling his eyes Rodric moved over to him and roughly gripped his shoulder and flipped him onto his back. He hooked his fingers into his chest piece and lifted him slightly off the ground as he growled out, "Speak up now, I can't hear you."
Cardin lifted his head up before snapping it forward as he spit a mouthful of blood at Rodric causing him to drop him out of surprise more than anything else. Rodric growled out in disgust as he wiped away the blood that dripped down his face, he turned his attention back to Cardin who had managed to get back on feet. Even with blood dripping from his nose and a very noticeable bruise beginning to form under his eyes, he still managed to look just as arrogant as he did before. Spitting another mouthful of blood onto the floor Cardin turned his eye to Rodric as he glared holes into him, "You just made the biggest mistake of your life buddy, I hope it was worth it." Cardin chuckled at this as he popped his neck and knuckles, "I don't normally give second chances over stuff like this, but if you want to get on you're knees and beg, I might consider it."
Rodric clenched his fists tightly at the gall of the child for demanding he get on his knees and beg for forgiveness, he let out a heavy sigh as a thick trail of smoke left his mouth. "How typical for a human to assume they do not deserve the treatment they are given." He took a step towards Cardin giving a loud snarl that caused the boy to take a step back out of reflex, "I suppose you will then tell me, you don't know what I am speaking of, and you have done nothing to receive such treatment?" He took another step towards Cardin but found that this time Cardin held his ground and simply continued to glare at him, "Oh, have you found the courage to answer me correctly?" Rodric could feel a large presence behind him as well as the hushed whispers of the other students, no doubt curious about the sudden assault of one of the least liked students of the school. Even with a massive audience gathering behind him, he ignored their presence and focused on Cardin, his eyes narrowed as he watched Cardin glance past him and his smirk only seemed to grow larger. "Do you even care about what you've done?!"
"How can I care when I don't even know what this is about?" Rodric's eyes narrowed dangerously as a constant stream of smoke flowed from his mouth, each sharp and ragged breath forced another plume of black smoke to rise in the air. A low rumble filled the now silent dining hall before finally reaching it's peak as a terrifying snarl, Rodric lunged forward and slammed his fist straight into Cardin's chest, his armor took the brunt of the attack but the force was still enough to send him sprawling across the floor.
"Wrong answer." As he stalked closer to Cardin he watched as he struggled to pick himself up from his sudden attack, Rodric's breathing had calmed drastically despite feeling his entire body shaking. "I think it's time someone finally put you in your place, boy." A smirk slowly grew over Rodric's face as he stood over Cardin, as he leaned over him he pulled his arm back before bringing it down to strike Cardin in the face. Over and over again he rained blows down onto Cardin, the only sound that filled the silent dining hall was the sound of Rodric's fists colliding with Cardin and the grunts and groans of pain coming from Cardin himself. As Cardin coughed roughly Rodric grabbed his armor and lifted him up and brought him closer as he growled down at him, "Come now Cardin, surely you must be able to withstand the pain you so eagerly hand out to the unwilling." Cardin started to speak but Rodric quickly punched him in the jaw to silence him as he dropped him back to the ground, "Where is your spirit Cardin! Where is that vigor you posses when you attack those who cannot fight back, show me the strength that allows you to overpower the helpless!" Rodric stood over the bloodied body of Cardin as he watched him suck in ragged breaths all the while spitting mouthfuls of blood out lest he choke on them, with a heavy sigh Rodric shook his head and straightened himself. "Of course, who was I to think that a putrid waste of life such as yourself would be anything more than a coward, such is any human that preys on the helpless when confronted by someone who has no fear." He took several steps back away from Cardin feeling the anger slowly slipping from his body as he shook his head, "Let this be a lesson to you Cardin, those you torment may not be able to fight back, but that doesn't mean there isn't one who can't."
Rodric spit in Cardin's direction before turning to the shocked and agape mouths of those who had gathered behind him, apparently standing up to one such as Cardin was unheard of. Such a thought sickened him, to know that someone like Cardin was able to do what he pleased to the populace of the school with no repercussions whatsoever. He growled a bit louder than he had expected to causing several of the students closest to him to quickly back away from him, however before he could even take a step away from Cardin he heard a low chuckle begin from behind him. Slowly he turned to see Cardin pushing himself into a sitting position grinning at him with a bloody smile, "So what, that's it? You think your the hero now and you did something special? Do you think she feels grateful for what you did?" Rodric growled again as he turned towards Cardin though it didn't seem to halt his words, "You don't know a thing do you, oh man how stupid can you be? You think you're saving some damsel in distress, all you're doing is just helping some freak."
"You will curb your tongue if you know what is best for you," Rodric managed to growl out between clenched teeth, "if you will not, then I will remove your tongue instead." Rather than being terrified of his threat, Cardin laughed loudly.
"She has you fooled so badly it isn't even funny, what did you think you were going to get some kind of reward from her is that it? I bet you don't even know that she's been lying to you this whole time, do you?" Seeing the look of confusion come across Rodric's face caused his smile to grow even wider, he gave a dark chuckle as he eyes wandered to the crowed that had gathered around them, and he instantly sought out the bright green eyes that were now filled with fear as his grin grew wider. "She's the biggest freak of all of them, for how smart all these animals act like they are, they were all fooled. She's not who she claims to be, she's not even a-"
"Enough!" Rodric growled out, having enough of Cardin dragging this out for much longer than it needed to be, "Speak clearly and say what you need to say I have no time for whatever childish game you are playing."
Cardin gave another dark chuckle as he looked up and stared straight at Nyx, "That little freak you've been hanging around with isn't who you think she is, in fact she..." Rodric's blood began to boil as those words left Cardin's lips and hung in the now silent air of the dining hall, it had only been a brief utterance yet the words continued to echo in his mind, how could he know something like that? A strangled cry caused him to turn towards Nyx who had her hand covering her mouth as she tried to suppress the sobs that were slipping between her fingers, it was then he noticed that it wasn't only his eyes that were fixated on Nyx it was every student in the dining hall that was looking at her. Many looks of shock and disgust covered the students faces, but the only one that stood out to him was the look of pain and anguish on Nyx, with a feral growl he quickly turned back to Cardin who sat on the ground with a satisfied look on his face. In a blind rage he quickly approached Cardin, and before he could say a word Rodric delivered a swift blow to his face throwing Cardin back against the ground. Before he could stop him Rodric had his hands wrapped around his throat, he squeezed his neck tightly as a terrifying snarl tore through his chest as he forced Cardin against the ground digging his fingers into his neck. Watching the fear rise in Cardin's eyes as he forced him to the ground while all he could do was thrash and struggle against him all the while it caused his fingers to press harder into his neck amused him. Even so he snarled loudly again as he lifted Cardin up before throwing him back against the ground as he released his neck, he breathed heavily sucking in sharp breaths through clenched teeth as he shook his head.
"No...that's too easy for you..." The boys choking gasp as he weakly squirmed beneath him forced another snarl to rise, he looked down at Cardin as he clenched his fists so tightly his arms began to shake. "Disgusting," He threw a quick punch, slamming his fist into Cardin's cheek that was quickly followed by another and then another. "Nothing but a waste of flesh, a weak and cowardly cur," each word spoken by Rodric was accentuated with another blow to Cardin, each punch being fueled by his ever growing rage struck harder than the one before. "Miserable wretch, how far you fall from your false throne, reduced to the nothing you truly are," With each blow that connected against Cardin he could feel his rage slowly fading and being replaced with the same calm that had come over him the night prior. The look of fear in that boys eye, dealing out punishment to those who deserved it, Rodric could slowly feel a smile growing on his face as he began to attack Cardin faster. Each grunt and groan of pain from him only caused Rodric to press on in his attack, slowly though those noises soon faded and Cardin's weak struggle had been reduced to nothing, he didn't know whether he had fallen unconscious or he had unintentionally killed the boy, he hardly cared either way and simply continued with his assaults. The sound of his fists connecting with the bruised and bloodied flesh had slowly faded away into a dull noise in the back of his head, beneath the sound of rushing blood and his pounding heart he swore he could hear someone speaking. He pushed the thought from his mind, he new there were a multitude of students watching the events unfold, whatever he heard was probably from one of them, however he didn't care for what the had to say. With some restraint he managed to stop his attack on Cardin as he grabbed him by the hair and tossed his limp body roughly against one of the tables leaving Cardin in a slouched sitting position, breathing heavily he slowly approached Cardin as he stretched and flexed his fingers. "No longer will another suffer by your hand," his smirk grew wider as he pulled his arm back, "one less waste of life." As he threw his fist out he was suddenly blinded by a bright flash of light as his fist slammed into something much harder than the bruised flesh from before, with a loud groan he stumbled back as he furiously rubbed his eyes.
He forced his eyes open even as pain flooded through them from the blinding light that had flooded his vision, he blinked several times hurriedly trying to get his vision to recover lest one of the students take him by surprise. "Dude what's your deal?" He quickly turned in the direction of that grating voice, even though his vision was covered in a blinding white he could still imagine that look of disgust on Yang's face clearly. Though he didn't need to imagine for long as his vision had slowly began to return, there was still spots dancing across his vision but it was better than before. "I knew you were messed up but-"
He snarled and returned his attention back to Yang, "Do not give me that, everything I have done is justified." He turned his gaze towards Nyx who had stopped crying though her eyes were still red, he grit his teeth and turned his gaze back to Yang. "I recall an annoying blonde who berated me for 'doing nothing' before, why is this such a monstrous act? Is this not what you wanted me to do?"
"Yeah but this is-"
"Too far, is that what you're going to say?" As the last of the spots faded from his eyes he narrowed his gaze on Yang as his rage began to fester once again, "Are you as blind as you are dense? Have you not seen what he has done to your so called friend?! Look at her!" He jabbed his finger towards Nyx and once again brought attention to the large bruise covering her neck, "That...miserable waste of life that dares call itself a human, did that to her! He assaulted her, and you have the nerve to say that I went too far!" Rodric panted heavily as he kept his angered filled gaze locked onto Yang, she opened her mouth to argue but faltered and looked away, he scoffed as he clenched his fists. "For your information, however, there is still more to come..." That disturbing grin returned to his face as he turned back towards Cardin, who was still slouched against the table where he had left him earlier, seeing the unconscious and bloody body of Cardin reawakened the pure primal rage that had flowed through him moments before as he quickly approached him. He pulled back his arm as he let out a low rumbling growl before throwing his fist towards Cardin, however his strike was stopped by another flash of light, he blinked several times as his vision cleared up much faster than before. He slowly lowered his hand and took a step back to glare at the large white glyph that stood between him and Cardin, he grit his teeth as he watched the familiar symbol slowly rotate at it's center. Clenching his fists he slowly turned and locked eyes with the one who had created the barrier, "What is this?" he growled out as the girl slowly lowered her hand.
"I'm not just going to stand by and watch as you murder someone in cold blood, I don't-"
"You won't stand by, is that suppose to be you're idea of a joke? Where were you when someone who thought of you as their friend was being assaulted? Did you do anything to stop him, did you do anything to help her?"
"We didn't know! Otherwise we would have-"
"Do not lie to me!" He shouted, effectively silencing whatever Weiss had been about to say, "What happened to Nyx is not something that is easily over looked, only those who have ignored the signs would say they didn't know."
"Well what about you?" He let out a slow growl as he pulled his attention from Weiss and back to Yang, "She spent just as much time with you as she did with us, why didn't you notice anything huh?" Rodric grit his teeth as he focused his glare onto Yang, she was right they had spent more than enough time together for him to notice her acting strange, yet that was something that he never noticed with her. She was either able to hide it very well around him or he was just as much to blame as the others were, however that was neither here or now and he would focus on his own shortcomings later and find away to apologize to Nyx for being blind to her plight.
"That it neither here or now, what matters is that you-" He turned his attention back to Weiss startling her slightly, "-need to remove that barrier you have erected. I will not allow anything to stand between me and that worthless human." Expecting that to be the end of it Rodric turned his back on the two of them and turned his attention back towards Cardin who remained as he had left him, the only difference now was that Weiss' barrier stood between him and the target of his anger. He couldn't believe that those two would stop him from doing away with such a worthless human, he didn't understand why they would simply allow such a monstrous human to exist after he assaulted Nyx and then told everyone that she-
"No." Rodric slowly turned back towards Weiss a look of utter disbelief clear on his face, he understood that humans would normally be argumentative over some of the most idiotic things. But, to have someone defy him when it came to a matter such as this left him truly shocked, was she truly going to side with someone who so blatantly attacked someone they claimed was their friend? Was she truly going to seek to test his patience now?
"What did you just-"
"I said no." She repeated firmly, refusing to falter under his scathing gaze, "I don't care about who or what you are, I am not going to just let you kill someone because you are angry with them." Rodric's eyes widened at her blatant act of defiance, not just that but that she simply thought he was doing this because he was angry. Rodric scoffed angrily though it sounded more like a mix between a growl and a snarl as a plume of black smoke rushed from his mouth.
"Angry? What I do, I do for reasons that go beyond simple anger little girl," Weiss made an appalled sound and sputtered angrily, however he continued without giving her a chance to speak, "I am doing what no one else seems to have the spine to do, rather than sit back and watch such things transpire I am putting a stop to it, and in doing so I am being berated by some pompous little soith." He exhaled sharply as another cloud of smoke rose from his mouth, "My time here has taught me many things, one being that huntresses are suppose to protect people, and now I see that I am not speaking to a huntress. I am speaking with an arrogant, spoiled little girl that is simply playing pretend," Rodric spat his words at Weiss with as much venom as he could fill them with, and they seem to have had the desired effect as Weiss simply stared at him with a look of disbelief. "Now I will say it only once more, remove that barrier. Now." Without waiting for a response Rodric turned his back on Weiss once again and turned to face Cardin again, the silence that filled the dining hall was palpable, and as he waited for the glyph to fade away it only seemed to grow thicker.
"No." Rodric grit his teeth as Weiss seemed to be able to find her voice once again, he gave an annoyed huff as he turned his head and glared at Weiss over his shoulder.
"Very well." He faced forward and moved towards Cardin, the large spinning glyph seemed to hum louder the closer he got to it, such a fragile looking thing, he thought yet it had managed to deflect his assault so easily. He reached out and placed his hands flat against the large glyph and felt it pulse beneath his hand, while it looked flimsy it felt solid enough that it could have easily passed as a brick wall. Rodric clenched his fist and slammed it against the glyph as it pulsed and hummed loudly in protest, brick wall or no it was keeping him away from the object of his rage. He placed both hands flat against the glyph and pushed hard against it, and it began to pulse and hum loudly again as it seemed to strain against him, he gave a small hum as he turned to look at Weiss before a large smirk crossed his face. He turned back towards the glyph and pulled his arm back as he balled his fist up tightly, with a grunt of effort he threw his arm forward and slammed his fist as hard as he could manage against the glyph. Rather than the hum it had given off before the glyph let out a loud shrill kind of sound as it pulsed and seem to tremble, though that could have simply been him as the shock traveled up his arm. Despite the dull pain that radiated through his arm he pulled his arm back once again before slamming his fist against the glyph as it let out another shrill sound. Soon the once silent dining hall was once again filled with noise, his grunts of exertion nearly muffled under the shrill ringing of the white glyph straining under his assault, each strike sent a shock through his arms as the wall of glyph quivered slightly.
"What do you think you're doing?!" He ignored her words and instead focused on the glyph before him, focused on the way it seemed to shake and pulse with each strike against it. With ever sharp throbbing pain that shot up his arm he lashed out harder against the wall before him, feral growls and snarls ripped through his throat as he added more force with every punch he threw. The loud whining hum of the glyph become louder and much shriller as he continued his assault against it, "If you think you can break my glyph by sheer force then you're-" Rodric raised his arms above his head and let out a feral growl as he slammed his clenched fists into the glyph as the entire thing burst into shards giving out a loud crash almost like broken glass. He breathed heavily as he slowly turned towards Weiss, the look of pure disbelief on her face caused a large smirk to spread over his face, he turned his attention back towards Cardin who now lay unprotected before him. Sucking in a sharp breath he pulled his arm back before growling and throwing his fist towards Cardin, though before it could meet its mark his fist slammed through another glyph causing it to shatter like glass. Gritting his teeth he turned towards Weiss to see her with her arm extended and eyes wide, it seemed that causing her glyph to appear quickly didn't allow it to be as sturdy as the one before it, he turned back towards Cardin as another smirk crossed his face. He threw his fist towards Cardin once again, only for another glyph to shatter beneath his fist, a low chuckle caught in his throat as he rained down blow after blow on Cardin only for Weiss' weak glyphs to shatter beneath his fists. With each glyph that crumbled under his strength she managed to summon forth another before he could even get close enough to Cardin, as amusing as her fragile glyphs were at first they quickly became nothing more than an annoyance as each sound of shattered glass grated against his ears. With an irritated growl he smashed the glyph before him only for another to quickly be summon in it's place, he turned towards Weiss only to see her breathing heavily with her arm raised in his direction.
"Enough! I grow tired of this game you play, clearly you cannot even summon a barrier suitable enough to stop me, why do you continue to make a fool of yourself?" Despite the look of exhaustion clearly on her face, Weiss managed a scowl as she straightened her stance and lowered her arm, though the glyph could still be heard humming loudly behind him.
"We all have a problem with Cardin, believe that if you want to or not, but you don't see anyone else attacking him to the point of death do you?" Rodric scoffed as he rolled his eyes, Weiss clenched her fists and ignored the blatant disrespect and continued on, "There are ways to go about this sort of thing, and killing him won't solve anything. All you're doing is creating a bigger problem that will just cause more-"
"Oh enough with your silver tongue I grow tired of listening to your lies, clearly you don't understand how the world works, and how could I expect a child to understand such a thing. Say you manage to change the way Cardin acts, that is one person, do you truly believe that hundreds of thousands of people that act as he does can be 'fixed' with a few honeyed words that promise of a better world?" Rodric sighed heavily as he looked over his shoulder towards Cardin as his eyes narrowed, he quickly turned back towards Weiss with a quick growl, "Words do not change minds, actions are what change minds. What better action is there to take than to make an example of someone who abuses your human law to benefit himself? Someone that hides behind such easily twisted words while assaulting and tormenting those who cannot fight back will be the perfect example, once he is dealt with all the ones who think and act as he does will know that there are in fact consequences for their actions." He looked through the throng of students that surrounded him, he quickly found the ones who had been sitting with Cardin and saw the look of fear and of course anger clear on their faces, Of course, he thought. They were part of Cardin's team and more or less friends with him, it would only make sense that they would share some ideals him, his eyes narrowed more as a smirk crossed his face as he focused just past the small group he singled out. Hidden behind Cardin's...friends, were the same students he had witnessed previously harassing another faunus student, they looked utterly terrified the color all but drained from their faces, as they noticed his hard gaze they quickly disappeared into the large group. He scoffed as he turned his gaze back towards Weiss, the smirk fading from his face and his gaze hardening, "Actions are the only way to make a change and you are holding back that change, now step aside, unless you agree with these actions yourself?" He watched as a glare set in her eyes and as her jaw visibly clenched at the suggestion he made, "Oh? A sensitive topic I see, if you do not wish to step into that territory, then remove your barrier this instant!"
"No!" She shouted back defiantly as she ripped her rapier from her waist and raised it at Rodric as the dust barrel quickly spun before locking into place, "If you keep trying to hurt him I will be forced to stop you!" Despite her brave words it took everything in her to keep her hand from shaking, she didn't believe he was this dragon he so claimed to be, but after everything she had seen him do there was a gnawing doubt in her mind about what he actually was. It definitely wasn't human, that was for sure, despite that she tightened her grip on her weapon to steady her resolve. However, said resolve wavered as Rodric looked at her in amusement rather than annoyance as he usually did when they argued, she could feel a tremble start in her legs and slowly spread through her body, she took a deep breath to keep herself from shaking visibly as his smirk grew wider.
"Do you really thing you can stop me?" It was a simple question, one that only needed a simple answer and both of them knew exactly what that answer was. As Weiss' eyes quickly looked to Yang who stood off to her side he gave an amused scoff, "It matters not how many you bring to this fight, you and I both know the answer to that question. No matter how much you try to deny what I am, you know the truth, don't you Weiss?" The smirk slowly faded as his eyes turned hard once again, "However, I am not like her I do not wish to needlessly spill innocent blood, if you simply allow me to deal with my quarry there will be no need to." His gaze drifted from her to Yang, and then to Blake before turning his attention to the rest of the students that watched from a now safe distance, "This warning goes to all of you who would think to play...hero, do not interfere and no one else will need to be hurt." He finished off with a warning growl as started to turn, only for his gaze to fall upon a pair of silver eyes, he froze for a moment when he saw the look of fear mixed with...disappointment. He started to open his mouth to speak, but stopped himself as he grit his teeth and turned back towards Cardin who lay behind Weiss' glyph. As he moved towards Cardin all he could think about was the look of disappointment that filled her eyes, truly he was the monster he always called himself, and now she would finally see why. There was no way she would be able to deny the truth, the fleeting fancy she felt for him would be no more, and it was for the best. Yet, amidst the anger he felt a emptiness begin to form in his chest, if it is for the best then why...
He shook his head as he grit his teeth and quickly approached the glyph, without any hesitation he quickly struck the glyph causing it to shatter beneath his fist. He looked down at Cardin who lay before him in a bloody heap, his chest still rising and falling albeit much more slowly, he clenched his fist tightly as he turned his head to glance over his shoulder. Weiss still had her weapon raised towards him but even from where he stood he could see her weapon shaking slightly in her hands, perhaps from fear or maybe exhaustion, both were viable options. There was no move to stop him, there was no hum of another glyph to stall him, it came as a surprise to him that all of these hunters and huntresses would give up so easily, it was especially surprising that Weiss herself had seemed to have given up. Though it mattered not, if they did attempt to stop him they would only end up hurting themselves, he turned back towards Cardin as he shook his head in disgust, from the worthless excuse for a human that lay before him, and from the act he was about to perform. He grit his teeth as he raised his arm one final time, no price is too great, he growled before loudly roaring in anger as he brought his fist down upon the boy. He was swiftly silenced as a blinding light once again filled his vision, yet while he was blinded he felt pain explode across his back before slamming roughly into something as pain flooded across his chest.
He sucked in a sharp breath but was reduced to a choking mess as his lungs refused to allow all the air to enter his body, he rolled over onto his back only to hiss in pain resulting in more coughing. He gasped loudly when the air finally passed into his lungs leaving him panting and gasping for air, he was much more focused on breathing than anything else that he failed to notice he was now staring up at the ceiling of the dining hall. It was only once the hushed muttering from the students in the dining hall reached his ears did he notice his situation, he slowly rolled back over onto his stomach even as his body screamed in protest he pushed himself up to his feet nevertheless. Once he was back on his feet he noticed that the students that had crowded behind him now stood huddled together far in front of him, he stepped forward with a question on his lips that was quickly replaced with another hiss of pain as his leg buckled beneath him sending him to knee. He cursed under his breath as he forced himself back to his feet despite the tremble that ran up his leg, he clenched his teeth as he forced himself to step forward again as pain shot up his leg. "I think you're done now, don't you?" He turned his glare back towards the crowd only to see that it was now parted allowing Weiss to saunter between them, she tried to keep an air of intimidation around her, though it was hard to be intimidating with flushed cheeks and beads of sweat rolling down her face. Despite his injury Rodric forced himself to stand tall as a smirk slowly crept over his face, wiping the look of victory from Weiss' face.
"Weiss, surely you jest." He took another step forward, doing his best to keep the look of pain from his face, it proved easier to do when he watched Weiss grip tightly to her weapon. "I have suffered injuries far greater than this, do not assume that I will simply stop because of something so insignificantly minor." He halted in his approach and crossed his arms as his smirk widened, "Perhaps if you simply turn Cardin over to me, there will be no need for any of this to escalate further than it already has. It's up to you Weiss, no one else needs to get hurt over this." The struggle that she hid behind her eyes was clear to see, she was smart when she thought things out logically, there was no need to prolong this any further and from the look of defeat and her slumped shoulders she knew that just as well as he did.
"You're right..." She lowered her head and sighed heavily as she gripped her weapon tightly, "No one else is going to get hurt." Her head shot up as she quickly raised her weapon, pointing it towards Rodric as a large black glyph appeared beneath his feet, it pulsed a single time and Rodric was brought to his knees as she increased the gravity around him. "No one is going to get hurt because you're going to stay right there until Ozpin can come and deal with you." She turned towards the group behind her and nodded as one of the students quickly broke away and ran out of the dining hall, she turned her attention back to Rodric who was busy struggling to push himself to his feet despite the increase in pressure around him. "Don't waste your time, you're not going to be able to get out of that."
"That's...what you think." He grit his teeth as a deep rumbling growl slowly grew in his chest as he forced himself to move, even if it was the smallest of fractions he used it to try and push himself back to his feet. The progress was agonizingly slow, but even so he managed to pull his leg from beneath him and began to use it to push himself up. The familiar hum of the glyph filled his ears as the pressure increased once again forcing him back down onto his hands and knees as he struggled to hold even that position. He struggled to raise his head and glare at Weiss as she stood with her weapon pointed towards him, a look of victory clear on her face caused him to growl out loudly as he dug his fingers against the floor. He grit his teeth as he struggled against the immense weight against him, but pushed himself back onto his knees nevertheless as he snarled at Weiss, "Do not assume you have stopped me so easily girl, it takes much more than this to stop me." He clenched his fists as his eyes narrowed, "You know that well enough, don't you?" As Weiss' gaze faltered he smirked as he gave a low chuckle, "Tired Weiss? How much longer do you think you can keep this up? Wouldn't it just be easier to-" He was cut off when the pressure around him increased again forcing back on his hands and knees just to keep himself from collapsing completely onto the ground, he grit his teeth as his body began to ache from the mounting pressure.
"It doesn't matter how long you think you can last, all I need to do is keep you in place long enough for Ozpin to come and-"
"And what?" He snarled out, "What do you think that old man will do to me, what can he do to me?!" He gave a rough sort of huff as black smoke began to flow from his mouth once again and small embers drifted from his mouth. "I have grown tired of these games girl and of your pathetic tricks!" He inhaled sharply before breathing out a stream of fire aimed straight towards Weiss, the flames obscured her from his vision but he continued his assault until his lungs strained for air forcing him to snuff out his flames to breath. As the flames died away and the smoke faded Weiss still stood before him, her glyphs guarded her as well as the rest of the students that stood by her, he hadn't expected her to simply stand there as he attacked though he didn't expect her to strain herself to protect everyone else. His grin returned to his face as he watched her glyphs flicker several times before finally vanishing, this caused Weiss to double over panting heavily as the glyph beneath him began to flicker as well. The pressure around him lifted slightly allowing him to sit back on his knees and move his arms with less resistance than before, sensing an opportunity Rodric clenched his fist tightly before raising it and slamming it down into the black glyph below him, causing it to flicker and hum in protest. It was no different than the glyphs that had guarded Cardin, and he knew how weak those were when he put enough force behind his strike, he growled louder with each strike as he fist slammed into the glyph below him, and with each loud hum and flicker of the glyph he could feel the pressure slowly fading away.
Weiss panted heavily as she shook her head, she was exhausted and she had nearly no aura left after she had to continually summon glyphs to protect Cardin. She cringed at the words that passed through her mind, protect Cardin, she never thought she would ever have to think those words and yet it was something she had actually done. Not that Cardin didn't deserve some sort of punishment for the way he treated the faunus, Rodric's idea was far beyond anything she could ever think of, let alone actually allow to happen. She barely had enough aura now to protect everyone when he had attacked them so suddenly, now the last dregs of her aura were being used to keep her final glyph together, but the sudden pounding caused her head to shoot up towards Rodric. There he was pounding away at her glyph and with each strike it faded a bit more, and his attacks were growing less sluggish as the gravity around him began to return to normal. She groaned loudly as she pushed herself back upright as she quickly made a gesture with her fingers, causing Rodric's attack to cease in an instant as she increased the gravity as much as she could without actually hurting him. She panted heavily as her vision wavered, but as she stared at him struggling to push himself up from the ground he was now pinned to she couldn't help but feel relieved. She shook her head as her vision cleared up, she could feel ever muscle in her body aching and trembling from using so much of her aura, but watching Rodric struggle and writhe against gravity itself was worth it. She would have said she had actually managed to stop him, but as he tilted his head up towards her, she could clearly see his the scales that had become more prominent on his body, and the way his eyes focused on her sending a numbing chill through her body. Those weren't the eyes of a person, those were the eyes of a predator, of an animal, it was then she knew that her struggle was far from over.
Rodric struggled and snarled beneath the weight that was placed on him, the muscles in his body flexed and strained as he tried to force himself to move from the floor he was crushed against. To think that a single child had managed to do this to him when whole armies had fallen before him in their attempts to slay him, it was a disgrace. A feral growl tore through his throat as he dug his fingers into the ground and struggle to push himself up, he was not going to be made a fool in front of a bunch of children when the one who dared lay his hands on some one he cared about still yet lived. "Dude just give up, there's no way you can get out of that!" He tilted his head up to see deep crimson irises staring back at him, he watched as Yang clenched her fists as she watched him struggle almost as if she was daring him to try and break free of his restraints. His only response was another snarl as he pushed as hard as he could against the ground and against the pressure as he could feel his body slowly lifting off of the floor, but as it did it felt as if the pressure only grew more with every inch he put between himself and the ground. "Can't you make that stronger Weiss!"
"Not without hurting him I can't! Despite how much I know you would love to see him get hurt, I am not going to stoop down to his level just to prove a point." Despite her flimsy reasoning for not making her glyph stronger the real reason was that she couldn't, she was exhausted and she was struggling enough as it was to keep Rodric held in place as it were. If she tried to increase the force of gravity pushing down on him in the condition she was in, she ran a big risk of hurting both herself and Rodric, it was taking all the aura control she was taught in her youth to manage the last bits of her aura to keep the glyph she had trapped him in stable, but those last reserves were running out, and if they didn't find another way to subdue him they were all going to be in a lot of trouble. Yang was certainly not helping the situation by complaining, loudly at that, in her ear about not being enough to stop Rodric and how she should have been doing more to stop him. It was grating to be forced to listen to her all the while trying to concentrate on keeping Rodric in place, it didn't help that she had to watch as Rodric slowly push himself up from the floor and slowly start attacking her glyph again. She clenched her teeth as she tightened her grip on her weapon as she raised it up and concentrated, applying more pressure to Rodric as she felt her own strength waning further. It did little to deter Rodric however, he struggled to keep himself upright and continued to attack her glyph, each time his fist struck it she could feel a pounding sensation in the back of head that made it almost impossible to keep her concentration. She knew her glyph wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer against him in its weakened state, she could see it beginning to fade ever so slightly, she could see the black dust arching across the glyph in the form of black electricity, it was either going to fade or be destroyed and that meant she was going to have to come up with something else to do when he no doubt went on the offensive.
Yang clenched her teeth as her eyes jumped from Rodric who was busy wailing on Weiss' glyph, and to Weiss who was just standing there, she didn't understand why she didn't make it stronger. Sure she got that Weiss didn't want to hurt him but from the looks of it, had it been Rodric in control he wouldn't be extending the same courtesy to the rest of them if his treatment to Cardin was any proof of that. She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the students that stood behind them and could see them all watching nervously at the scene before them, none of them knew what was going to happen if Rodric managed to free himself from that glyph and frankly Yang didn't want to find out what would happen. Her eyes scanned the crowd and she managed to spot her sister trying to calm Nyx down as it looked like she was having a mild panic attack, growling in frustration she turned back to Weiss as she clenched her fists tightly. "Come on Weiss can't you just do something to stop-"
"If I could wouldn't I have done it already?!" She couldn't hold her concentration with Yang yelling at her to do something that she couldn't even do if she wanted to, added with the pounding headache from her weakening aura, it all became too much. In that brief instant of her lapse in concentration several things happened; she could feel her heart drop when she realized what happened, a silence filled the dining hall after she shouted at Yang in her frustration, and the silence was quickly broken by a roar of anger which was quickly followed by the sound of shattering glass. She gasped loudly in surprise when the energy released from her glyph quickly rushed towards her and caused her to stumble back and nearly knocked her off her feet. Not only that but she was taken by surprise when the remaining dust rushed outwards and knocked the large tables they would sit at into the air and mixed with her gravity manipulation caused them to hang in the air, drifting slowly in several directions, she bit her lip as she slowly turned her attention back to Rodric who was now standing on his feet and his hatred filled gazed was focused directly on her.
Rodric panted slightly, his breathing labored from having to struggle against the immense weight that had been placed on him by the one that now stood before him. He barely acknowledged the tables that now floated around him, and while they didn't go unnoticed he hardly cared about them when there were more important things to focus on in the moment, such as the girl who had forced him into that demeaning position. "Weiss," he snarled, "you have made the mistake of crossing a dragon, a mistake humans have learned to never make. You believed that you have witnessed my wrath in full, but now you will realize just what it is like to fully suffer the wrath of a dragon. I surely hope you are prepared to suffer the consequences for your actions..." His eyes narrowed dangerously causing her to flinch back slightly as fear crawled up her spine and chilled her to the very core, "...because there will be no mercy for you."
While retreating was something she told herself she would never do, had she been able to she would have taken a few steps back away from him just to put a bit of extra distance between the two of them. Yet, she found herself unable to respond to the threatening words he spat at her, let alone move as the fear that sent chills across her body rooted her to where she stood. She could feel a tremble work through her legs and arms, and no matter what she tried to tell herself she knew it wasn't because she was exhausted, no she could lie to the others but she could never lie to herself. The way he looked at her mixed with the way his scales had grown more across his face terrified her, he didn't even look like himself anymore, even the monsters that she faced in the forest hadn't looked at her the way he did in that moment. Her glyphs, had she been able to construct them, wouldn't have done much to stop him and with no strength left to fight him off it meant she had no way to protect herself against him. With only small dregs of aura left to keep herself standing, even that wouldn't be able to protect her once he got his hands on her.
She tightened her grip on her weapon as she grit her teeth, once again she found herself facing something she hardly understood, something that was beyond human and much more terrifying than the grimm could ever possibly be. She was outmatched, the thought alone that there was someone she couldn't face in a fight infuriated her, but her anger would do little in the situation she found herself in. She turned her head slightly to see Yang standing next to her, eyes bloody red and filled with anger yet also filled with fear, and why wouldn't they be she had seen first hand what happened to someone that crossed a dragon, they all had. She quickly turned opposite Yang and saw Blake standing by her as well, while it was never easy to tell what she was thinking her normally stoic face had a hint of fear on it. The bow that hid her ears began to twitch slightly and it made her wonder if she could hear just how frightened she-
"Look out!" Weiss quickly face forward only to see one of the large tables hurting towards her, she only managed to gasp out in fear before she was quickly knocked back onto the ground as Yang took her place and threw her arm forward and fired off one of the rounds loaded into her gauntlet. It collided with the table and exploded into a cloud of thick smoke as a shower of splinters rained down on them, Weiss sat on the ground, shaken as she tried her best to calm her racing heart. She tried to take a deep breath, but soon realized that there would be no reprieve for any of them, "Yang!" Her head shot up just as Rodric rushed forth from the smoke and charged right for Yang who he caught off guard by slamming his shoulder into her stomach before lifting her into the air, Weiss gasped in surprise as she pushed herself away from her spot just as Rodric slammed Yang down onto her back where she had just been. Weiss could only watch as Rodric rushed past them and back towards Cardin, she grit her teeth and summoned the last remains of her aura and threw her hand forward summoning one last glyph to block his path. Though it seemed he anticipated her interference as he slammed his shoulder into the glyph she had summoned and shattered it like a fragile pane of glass, she could only watch as he charged through the crowd of stunned students and right for Cardin. His bellow -no his roar of anger echoed through the dinning hall, a shudder crawled through her body as she watched Rodric raise his fist only to bring it down once again as he reached Cardin, she quickly shut her eyes to save herself from having to watch the death of a student.
However, rather than hearing the sickening sound she had heard that night once again, she heard the all to familiar sound of flesh striking against metal. She quickly looked up and almost breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that one of the students had actually stepped forward in defense of Cardin. She could recognize that cherry blonde hair anywhere, and that enormous two handed sword could only belong to Arthur of Team TACE. Though it was no surprise that he, of all people stepped forward to protect Cardin from Rodric, she had never seen him treat anyone negatively even when they deserved it. Though it surprised her when his partner, Constantine lunged forward swinging at Rodric with his pair of Kris blades forcing him to leap back and away from the sudden attack. She watched as Rodric began to inhale to use his flames but was suddenly thrown back as a bright bolt of electricity stuck him in the chest. The way the dust was used couldn't have been anyone other than Elaine, the third member of the team, her control of dust was outstanding, of course it could have been more refined compared to her own use of it of course.
Rodric grit his teeth as every muscle in his body seized and convulsed as the electricity coursed through his body, it was to be expected that some of these students would come to Cardin's defense, if only because it was right and not because they wanted to. Though he didn't expect this kind of resistance from them, even as his body continued to convulse he forced himself to stand as another growl rumbled in his chest. Lifting his head to glare at the student standing before him took more effort than it should have, with his chest heaving he let out a sinister snarl and without mincing words he broke into a run once again intending to barrel through whatever resistance stood in his way. Even with him running towards them, none of the students that stood in defiance of him flinched at his approach, instead the student turned his large two handed sword into a more defensive posture intending to make a stand against him. If that was what he wanted, then Rodric would have no problem barreling through him, with his eyes locked with the honey colored ones of the boy before him, he pushed himself harder towards him, and all at once he felt something slam into him, hard enough to stop him in his tracks and toss him back several feet. He coughed roughly as he struggled to breathe, pain shot across his entire body, it felt as if he had ran straight into a brick wall. While gasping for breath he looked up to see a large shimmering golden dome standing before him, almost as fragile looking as Weiss' glyphs but still just as solid, before he could question where it came from a voice interrupted his thoughts, "You shall come no closer Rodric."
He turned his attention away from the golden dome and towards the boy at the center of it all, and even beyond the golden light he could see a faint glow surrounding the boy, was he the one doing this he wondered, nevertheless his words caused another grow to rise in his throat. "Oh, is that so? Did you not witness what became of Weiss' glyphs, the same shall happen to your little shield." Instead of looking shaken as he should have been, the boy instead appeared to smile behind the shimmering light of his barrier, Rodric grit his teeth feeling his anger boiling deep within him. "Does that amuse you?!"
"I apologize, the situation is hardly funny, but I simply find it hard to believe that you will be able to break through my barrier. You'll find that mine is much stronger than her glyphs, with no disrespect to her of course."
"We shall see..." Rodric growled as he pushed himself to his feet, taking several breaths he inhaled sharply before exhaling his white hot flames against his pathetic barrier, he could hear several screams above the cracking fire. As he snuffed out his flames he quickly turned and grabbed one of the overturned tables, and with as much might as he could muster, hurled it towards the barrier hearing the satisfying sound of the table and the barrier shattering beneath his attacks. However, as he turned back towards the golden barrier, he was shocked to see that the barrier remained intact, and the boy at the center hardly looking impressed. "How is that-"
"Ha, if that's all you got then you might as well give up." Snarling loudly Rodric turned his eyes towards the one who mocked him, standing next to the one at the center of the barrier stood another. This one was a faunus as he had a pair of large white antlers atop his head, "Oh how scary." He laughed loudly to himself which only caused Rodric to snarl once again.
"Coward!" He shouted, "Come out and face me like the huntsman you claim to be!" This seemed to grab his attention, the laughter had ceased immediately and the look in the faunuses eyes had turned cold and hard.
"Claim to be?" He scoffed, "I don't 'claim' to be anything, I am a huntsman, and if you're the eager to die then I won't deny you the request."
"Me, die? You must be delusional if you think that I'll..." Rodric's words slowly trailed off as a strange sight began to unfold before him, from the barrier several moths fluttered forward, however these didn't look like normal moths, their wings held a light that shimmered strangely. That wasn't it, they appeared to be a deep crimson color, almost as if they were made of- His eyes widened when he finally realized what they were but it was much too late as several explosions engulfed him in flames and tossed him away from the barrier and through several tables.
"Though I didn't say I would fight fair!" Rodric quickly opened his eyes only to see a pair of blades descending on him, as quickly as he could Rodric rolled out of the way just as the blades slammed into the floor where he had been. Forcing himself to his feet Rodric was quickly put on the defense as the faunus kept close to him, swinging his blades wildly leaving almost no room for Rodric to counter. Yet, when he spun around Rodric shot his arm out and grabbed the boy's outstretched arm halting his attacks, yet as he did so the boy turned his head towards Rodric his eyes seeming to glow as a strange sensation overcame Rodric. It felt as his very strength was being drained from his body. "Getting tired?" He looked up towards the boy, only for him to twist around in his grip to face him, with a grin he jumped up and slammed both his feet into Rodric's chest, shoving him back and butting some distance between the two of them. "Whenever you two want to help would be great!" Instead of opening his mouth to speak, Rodric cried out as electricity began to course through his body once again, sending him to his knees.
As the current faded away Rodric continued to tremble as his muscles twitched, gritting his teeth he turned his head in the direction the attack had come from and narrowed his eyes angrily as he saw another student standing beside the one protected by his barrier. She was shaking her hand, did she attack me? Growling once again, he was growing increasingly infuriated, these pathetic huntsman attacked him while they hid behind their shields like the cowards they are. They treated him like he was nothing as they carried on a conversation with him merely feet away from them, he clenched his teeth tightly as he felt his muscles bulge beneath his skin, unforgivable. Slowly, he turned his head towards the faunus that stood before him, talking animatedly with Elaine, the one behind the barrier that had attacked him. "Constantine..." He snarled, and with almost no warning Rodric lunged forward from his place on the ground and tackled Constantine to the ground, he grabbed him by the hair and roughly slammed his head into the floor. He quickly stood as Constantine writhed beneath him, growling loudly his lifted his leg and brought it down only for another blast of electricity to shoot through his body. Before he had a chance to retaliate a grey blur rushed towards him and slammed into his chest with such force he felt something deep within him snap under the pressure, stumbling back he coughed roughly as he turned towards his attacker only to see another student standing before him with a smirk reaching his deep grey eyes. With a snarl he turned towards this new enemy, yet when he did the boy vanished, though it wasn't for long when he felt that same force slam into his back and send him hurting forward several feet. Ignoring the pain Rodric pushed himself to his feet and quickly turned towards the boy exhaling a stream of fire, but he was fast, Rodric followed him with his flamed but the boy managed to stay ahead of him. Snuffing out his flames the boy quickly turned towards him and ran at full speed towards him, clenching his fists Rodric inhaled once again, "Mecury!" With the sudden shout the boy dropped to his knees sliding towards him as Rodric was assailed with a barrage of gunfire, snarling he turned towards the attacker only to see a girl with mint green hair and crimson colored eyes firing on him from afar. Before Rodric could react he felt his legs forcibly kicked from beneath him, with a grunt of pain he tried to sit up only for Mercury to flip and slam both feet into his chest.
"Nice one Emerald." Rodric grit his teeth through the pain and reached up grabbing one of Mercury's legs, he turned and looked down at Rodric smirking as he yanked his leg from his grip. "Still kicking huh? Pretty good, but not good enough." Mercury raised his leg and brought it down intending to knock Rodric out, but when his leg met resistance he frowned, raising his leg he loaded a shot into his boot and brought his leg down only for Rodric to slam his fist into his leg just as the explosion went off with enough force to toss Mercury away. He grunted as his back met the floor but quickly jumped to his feet as he shot a look towards Emerald, she nodded and with a quick flip of her hands the blades hidden in her guns extended outward as she readied herself. Rodric slowly pushed himself to his feet and turned towards Emerald watching as the blades on her weapon detached revealing the chain connecting it to what she held in her hand, as he began to breathe his flames again a gunshot echoed through the dinning hall. Quickly turning towards the sound, he was surprised when a red blur flew towards him forcing him to jerk his head to the side as a dull pain raked across his face, although no blood was spilled the pain still remained.
Snarling, he turned towards where the attack had come from only for something to slam roughly into his chest causing him to stagger back, yet remain standing. The pain was beginning to dull under the constant assaults, shaking his head he turned his attention to Pyrrha as she stood before him, weapons returning to her hand, he had wanted a chance to fight with her and it seemed he finally received it. She spun the spear in her hand around as it shifted its form into a rifle, she raised the weapon at him yet did not fire on him immediately as he assumed she would, "Rodric, why are you doing this?" He gave her an incredulous look, as if he couldn't believe she would ask something like that, "I know you, we all know you and this isn't you. What's gotten into you?" His eyes narrowed as he huffed in frustration, without uttering a word he pointed in the direction of where Cardin lay unconscious, Pyrrha glanced in the direction he pointed before turning back to him, "I-I don't under-"
"After everything that...thing has done, all the pain and suffering he's caused, to have people come to his aide..."
"I-I don't disagree that Cardin needs to be punished for the wrong he's done, but there are other way to-"
"People like him need to be made an example of!" He clenched his fists tightly as his rage began to mount once again, "In my time, people were executed for doing the things he has done..."
"E-Executed?!"
"Publicly..." He turned his head towards Cardin as he grit his teeth, just seeing him induced a rage in him that he hadn't felt since...he quickly turned away and back to Pyrrha, "How else do you get cowards to learn there are consequences to their actions?" She seemed to struggle with the answer, though as she began to speak he cut her off once again, "Now will you stand aside or will you and the rest continue to interfere?" He watched as she tightened her hold on her weapon and the way she adjusted his stance, he gave an annoyed huff, "Very well." He clenched his fists and gave a sharp sigh before charging towards Pyrhha.
She rained a barrage of bullets on him though they did little to deter him, or slow him down, each shot pelted his body though none pierced his skin, and the constant barrage began to dull as he focused on his rage. He gave a loud bellowing shout as he raised his fist forcing her to raise her shield in defense. He struck her shield with as much force as he could launching her back into the throng of onlooking students. With a sigh he turned back to the other two waiting on him, but as he did a bright flash obscured his vision forcing him to shut his eyes as he stumbled back, he quickly rubbed his eyes before forcing them open, "What filthy trick do you plan on..." His words faded as he opened his eyes to the now deserted dining hall, "That's...not possible..." While he didn't doubt that the student were capable of escaping in mere seconds, he did however doubt what he was seeing, the once destroyed dining hall was now in perfect condition albeit now empty. "Tch..." He took a step forward and suddenly felt a presence behind him, something much larger than himself. Quickly spinning around he let out a strangled gasp as he stumbled back, standing before him was a large spider like creature, each of its large spear like legs were covered in that familiar bone white armor. Covering it's head was a large mask each of it's many eyes peering down at him, it opened its gaping fang filled mouth and let out ear piercing screech as it raised it's large spear like leg and brought it down on him. Gritting his teeth he raised his arms in an attempt to halt the attack from this Grimm's sudden appearance.
As he braced himself to stop the Grimm's attack, he instead felt an intense pain explode across his chest, as he looked down his eyes widened as a golden mane slowly appeared before him. He stumbled back, "How did-" Before he could finish uttering those words, Mercury flew towards him, both of his metal boots slamming into his chest as he felt something once again snap deep with in his body. His back slammed into the floor as he coughed roughly feeling warm flecks of blood landing on his face, "Dammit," He pushed himself to his feet and caught a flash of steel forcing him to jump back as Nora's hammer slammed into where he had been standing. He stumbled when he landed in an attempt to keep his balance, but it seemed that there would be no reprieve for him as an explosion engulfed him in a cloud of pink smoke, he felt his back collide with something that shattered beneath the impact. Gritting his teeth he looked up as Arthur jumped through the smoke with his blade glowing a bright blue, as he swung his giant blade shards of ice formed in the air before flying towards him. Despite his body protesting against him, Rodric pushed himself up and threw himself away from the attack as the ice destroyed what remained of the table he landed on. With a grunt of effort he looked up and saw several canisters flying towards him, he clenched his fists as a growl began in his throat before several explosions rocked his body and silenced his growl.
Nora stepped through the smoke her weapon in its grenade launcher form, with a sigh she stood next to Yang as she turned to her with a concerned look in her eyes, "Do you think he's okay?"
Yang frowned as she looked at the cloud of pink smoke billowing up from where Rodric was laying, she activated her weapons and raised her fists, "Don't count him out just yet..." Nora gave her a confused look before turning back towards the smoke and gave a soft gasp as a faint silhouette appeared in the smoke, and they were standing.
"There's no way..." She watched in shocked awe as Rodric stepped through the smoke, while he looked worse for wear he didn't seem like he was hurt in the slightest with the way he walked towards them. He narrowed his eyes as he popped his neck, "How can he still be walking like that?"
"How?" Nora's eyes looked up and locked with his, "You children still do not understand exactly who it is you are facing, I am not some ordinary human who you can simply toss around and expect to yield, I am-" His hand shot out to catch the spear that was hurled towards him, he gave a weary sigh as he peered past the few that stood before him and looked directly at Pyhrra, he spun the spear around before slamming it into the floor shattering the tile beneath his feet, "Not someone who will fall so easily." Gripping the spear he shoved it deeper into the floor cracking the tile even further as he trapped her weapon in the floor, "Let's see how well you fight without your weapon..." Without uttering a word she hurled her shield at him which he knocked away without much effort, though he was caught off guard to see her following close behind her shield landing a heavy kick to his stomach forcing him to stumble back, she quickly went on her assault attempting to get the upper hand. She seemed to have the advantage when she took out his leg forcing him to one knee as she began to vault over him, he however wasn't going to stand for it as he grabbed her leg in mid jump and slammed her back into the ground. Keeping hold of her leg he stood once again and dragged her across the ground as he spun around and tossed her into one of the broken tables, a loud cry came from behind him, turning towards it he saw one of the last people he expected to see. Jaune with his sword raised high ran towards him, anger clear in his eyes, as he brought his sword down Rodric simply reached up and held it tightly in his hand much to Jaune's surprise. Rodric looked down at the young knight as he struggled to pull his sword free of Rodric's grip, "So the cowardly knight has finally found his spine..." Rodric raised his fist as he let out a sinister growl, "Let's see if it is easily broken..." Jaune raised his shield just as Rodric's blow landed, sending him flying back several feet before crashing into the tables that managed to go unscathed so far. Another loud cry from behind him caused him to turn as Nora swung her large hammer around her body.
"Nobody does that to our leader!"
Ruby could only shake her head in disbelief, she couldn't understand what was happening, she had never seen Rodric this angry before. Well not enough to just start attacking their friends like that, she understood why he was doing it but that still didn't mean she liked seeing it. Explosions rocked the dining hall as she watched Nora ferociously attacking Rodric as her sister followed close behind her landing blows where she could and launching attacks from a distance when she fell behind, she didn't like this, watching her friends and someone she really cared about fighting like this. But, what could she honestly do, if she tried to step in ad intervene she wouldn't last a second, not against all of them. What if she got hurt by accident, she quickly shook her head when images of Rodric losing control even further sprang into her mind, no, there had to be something she could do but what?
She looked towards Nyx who stood by her, hand over her mouth and her eyes wide in horror at what she was looking at, she understood how she felt and she only hoped she didn't blame herself for what was happening. Another loud explosion rocked the dining hall, she quickly turned to see Rodric sitting up from a small crater in a ground and quickly having to leap away as both Arthur and Nora descended on him, both blade and hammer destroying the floor even more. She watched as both Blake and Emerald attempted to subdue Rodric by wrapping both his arms up with their weapons, only to have him pull them together and have them slam into each other, she winced and fought back a cry as she watched Nora slam her hammer into Rodric's back and detonate it as he was knocked away in a pink explosion.
With every blow he took she could feel the panic and fear rising in her chest as she watched him fight back with everything he had and took everything that was thrown back at him. She could tell he was exhausted, he might have been able to fight with the ferocity of a...well, dragon, but she was able to tell he was starting to tire. She watched as he stood up from the rubble and panted heavily, and as he charged back towards Nora her eyes widened in fear. As he continued to fight her she saw it, it was subtle almost impossible to notice among the chaos, but as he ran towards Nora and ducked under her wide swing she saw a small flicker of light dance across his body, it flickered several times before disappearing completely. His aura...it's...gone. The fear and panic she felt rose to levels she didn't think possible as she did everything she could to keep from screaming at every close call he had with hammer and blade and bullet, any one of those blows could be fatal even to him without any aura to protect himself.
"Arthur..." She watched as he swung his blade around narrowly missing Rodric's neck before bringing it back around in a downward arc which Rodric dodged, causing it to wedge into the ground as Rodric struck him as hard as he could, knocking him away from his weapon. "Nora..." She clenched her fists as Nora continued to pursue Rodric even as he leapt back dodging her swings and avoiding her strikes, "Stop..." Nora slammed her hammer into the ground detonating it and causing a large explosion that tossed Rodric back as bits of tile and wood rained down on him, "Please stop..." Nora jumped through the smoke and swung her hammer down only to have Rodric stop it with his bare hands, a growl reaching her ears as he managed to hold her off, pushing her weapon back as he forced himself to stand.
"Is that all you have girl?"
Nora smirked as her finger reached for the trigger on her weapon, "Not even close..."
"Nora stop!" Her cries were obscured by a deafening explosion as a cloud of pink smoke rushed towards her and the rest of the crowd, she brought her hands to her mouth to cover up the sobs she began to choke out. She could feel tears running down her face as she focused on the spot the two of them had been standing, she could only imagine what happened to Rodric. She seen what happened when he fought Narissa, the damage he took, her biggest fear was that he might have lost that arm that he was using to hold her weapon back. She tried to keep her cries silent as she waited for the minuets to tick by waiting for the smoke to clear, it felt like an eternity before she finally saw movement beyond the smoke cover, she wanted to cry out in relief when she saw his shadow beyond the smoke, and that he still had both of his arms intact. However her relief was quickly replaced with shock when he finally broke through the pink smoke cloud, "His arm..." Rodric had his arm on his head, no doubt trying to silence the ringing in his head from that loud explosion, however that arm wasn't the same after the explosion. With a growl he dropped his arm and turned back towards Nora but Ruby couldn't pull her eyes away from his arm, the skin below his elbow was ripped and torn to shreds from the explosion, it hung off his arm in disgusting pieces, dripping crimson blood on the broken tile. However, instead of muscle and bone being all that was left it was something she could hardly comprehend, the scales that would break through his skin now completely covered the upper half of his arm. The scales were large and a deep green and slowly faded away into a deep brown color almost the color of dirt covering the bottom half of his arm. His fingers now ended in sharp claws and it seemed she wasn't the only who noticed the new change to Rodric.
Slowly the once silent dining hall began to break into scattered murmurs before the whole hall was buzzing with the students muttering about Rodric's strange arm. Rodric himself however simply looked down at the strange sight and gave a light scoff before turning back to those that had chosen to fight him. Nora gave him a look of confusion and horror, yet rather than give her a chance to comprehend what was going on he rushed her once again, she froze on the spot, unsure what to do. Rodric raised his arm ready to strike her down, instead he felt pain shoot through his side followed by another explosion as he went flying through several tables before rolling to a stop near the windows, grunting in pain he spit a mouthful of blood before forcing himself to stand. Next to Nora Yang stood, panting heavily as she looked at him with eyes full of fear and disgust. "Is that all you have?!" She shook her head not even sure what she should say, let alone what she was suppose to do against someone like him. "I suggest you don't get comfortable then, this is far from..."
He stepped back as a deep crimson colored moth slowly flew towards him, followed by another and another until there was a swarm of them flying towards him, gritting his teeth he turned and looked for an escape only to find that he was surrounded by the dust moths. As he looked around he saw a women standing next to Arthur with her arm outstretched and large wings on her back made of dust, is this her doing. He began to inhale sharply only to hear a quick snap echo in the now silent hall, "Dammit." The moths began to glow brightly and he was soon engulfed in a large fiery explosion, that burned his flesh and threw him through the thick glass and into the courtyard.
As the fire and smoke slowly faded away the students slowly crowed together, making sure to keep their distance from the window, just in case. They were all unsure of what to say after everything that happened, and everything that they saw, Ruby on the other hand was on the verge of breaking down, she didn't know what she was suppose to do, she didn't know if Rodric was okay she was just at a loss of what to do. She looked around at all the destruction that was caused, she turned and saw Nyx looking at her with fear in her eyes, she wanted to comfort her but wasn't sure what to say. She turned and caught the eye of Yang who looked at her, angry and disappointed, she opened her mouth to say something but stopped when a small tremor went through the ground. Everyone began to mumble to each other and then another stronger tremor nearly sent a couple of students to the ground, there was a low groaning sound that pulled everyone's attention to the broken window.
Slowly Rodric pushed himself to his feet and stumbled slightly as he felt his strength waning, he groaned again as he managed to keep himself upright, with a heavy sigh he slowly turned towards the broken window and the students on the other side. He could feel warmth running down his face as he glared at all the students that stood before him, "I see I was mistaken..." The ground shook again much rougher than before, "...mistaken that I should hold back on all of you." The students gasped loudly as large roots slowly began to grow through the broken window, each one as thick as a tree and covered in large spear-like thorns, "I will not make that mistake again..." The weight of the roots broke the window open even further allowing Rodric to simply walk through the large hole now in the wall. Now rather than fear him the large group of students found a new found courage seeing that he was so easily handled as they all drew their weapons and thought to face him. "No more games." Despite how large the roots were they suddenly shot out from their places on the wall and shot towards the students forcing them to separate and create distance to move away from the sudden assault.
Now with a clear path to his quarry he slowly made his way towards him, completely ignoring the fighting that went on around him, even when several of the students rushed him one of the large roots swung over his head and slammed into the charging students tossing them away from him. The roots began to split off into multiple parts shooting out and swinging around knocking students away and forcing them to keep their distance from Rodric. Even those that thought to attack him from a distance failed as the roots created a barrier around Rodric keeping him safe from their assault. As he continued on he heard footsteps quickly approaching him from behind, with a sigh one of the roots shot towards him intending to fend off his attacker, "Rodric!" His eyes widened as the root stopped inches from his face and he stopped in his tracks only to feel a pair of arms embrace his waist from behind. "Why are you doing this?"
He fell silent, the only sound that could be heard was the chaos going on around him, as the students tried to fend off the plants he brought to life. He felt her arms tighten around his waist and her head press into his back, "Please just stop this, you've done enough, you don't have to keep fighting." He felt his heart breaking at her pleading words, but he knew that he hadn't succeeded in what he was trying to do. "Please..."
He closed his eyes and placed his hand over hers as he gave a light sigh, "Ruby..." It hurt him to do it, but he knew he had to do this, "I'm sorry." He grabbed her wrist and pulled her arms away from his waist as he ran directly towards Cardin, the roots doing their job keeping his path clear and free of resistance.
Ruby shut her eyes afraid of what she was going to see, "Rodric stop!" Everything went silent and she was left shaking with tears running down her face, afraid of seeing what Rodric had done, slowly she forced her eyes open and quickly wiped her eyes clean and instead of seeing the scene she thought she would see, she instead saw Rodric frozen in place, his fist inches from Cardin's unconscious face. A deep purple light surrounded his body and kept him from moving, "What the-"
"What in the world is going on in here?!" Ruby's eyes quickly turned towards the voice and almost breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Professor Goodwitch standing at the entrance of the dining hall with her weapon drawn and pointed directly at Rodric. "Young man I don't know what is going on here, but I suggest you stop at once." Rodric grit his teeth as he saw how close he was, but just because he couldn't move didn't mean he was thwarted, Rodric breathed in deeply only to feel pain explode across his back and the breath knocked from his lungs. He turned towards Glynda who was no much further from him as he let out a weak growl, "How dare you assault another student so viciously and cause such destruction to school property, young man I hope you understand just how much trouble you're-"
"Professor." She glanced over her shoulder to see Ozpin standing behind her, face stoic as ever, even in the face of such wanton destruction, "Would you please release Mr. O'Connell?"
Glynda could only gape at Ozpin and his insane request, "P-Professor you can't be serious, Rodric...he-"
"I understand exactly what Mr. O'Connell has done but I would like to speak with him first before we decide on a proper punishment for him." Glynda continued to look at him as if he had gone insane, before she was able to speak Ozpin cut her off, "Privately please." Glynda struggled, trying to come up with something to say to change the headmasters mind but she was so caught off by her request she couldn't think clearly, and with the way Ozpin looked at her she could do nothing but relent and obey him.
"Very well Professor..." She waved her weapon and lowered him to the ground but before she released Rodric she forced his arms forward with her telekinesis and used her weapon to raise some of the rubble and changed and contorted it, forming a pair of makeshift cuffs that she locked around his wrists, before releasing him from her control. Rather than attempt to resist like she expected, Rodric looked...defeated, both mentally and physically, what happened in here?
"Mr. O'Connell..." Rodric raised his head towards Ozpin who merely gave him a glance before turning back towards the dining hall door, "...follow me please." Without waiting for him, he simply strode out the door, Rodric frowned but obliged the old man and began to follow him. He could feel all eyes on him, though he hardly cared about any of them, he could feel all the scathing, dirty, hate-filled looks that the students gave to him and through all of them he could feel one pair of eyes that looked upon him with disappointment. He stopped walking and turned his head slightly to look towards Ruby who looked towards him, eyes filled with sadness, she began to speak only for him to cut her off, "I'm sorry." He doubted she understood what he said to her but he said it nonetheless, and continued to walk, past her and through the doors to the dining hall.
Ruby could only watch as Rodric walked out of the dining hall, and she feared, out of her life. She turned and looked around at all the destruction that had happened. The dining hall was completely destroyed the walls and floors were a mess, all the tables were nearly destroyed and the giant hole in one of the walls with Rodric's roots growing through. The entire dining hall was filled top to bottom with the roots he used to attack the other students, they had all stopped moving and remained where they were without Rodric to control them. Ruby could feel tears rolling down her face, and despite the noise from the other students in the dining hall the only thing that echoed in her mind were the words he uttered to her, "I'm sorry."