The Recidivist Ch.54
Dedicated to Monty Oum (1981-2015)
NOTICE: I know the series is not finished yet. So if some events from an episode changes the characters or experiences, think of this story that its in a different universe. Like after the characters of RWBY have nothing to do.
RWBY along with its characters that you might obviously know DOESN'T belong to me. The series belongs to Rooster Teeth productions and the creator, Monty Oum. The plot in this Fanfiction and some characters you'll know who are OCs are from me.
Be sure to watch RWBY on Roosterteeth's site, Youtube, or Cruchyroll!
NOTE: Errors may be seen because of autocorrect.
Chapter 54: Trust.
Trust is vital for a peaceful world.
-(Forever Fall)-
(Ruby's POV)
Me and Wyvern continued to follow Somnus deeper into the Forever Fall forest as Fort Knots was no longer visible behind us. I was still unsure where we were heading. All I could do was just follow Wyvern and Somnus deeper into the forest until we were in the southern part of the Forever Fall forest. We were in the center of a clearing where no trees were inside the circle. Although we were exposed in the opening, it was a good strategy to not be inside the sea of red trees to deal with Grimm in limited spaces. However, we're open targets to Nevermores. All I did was hope that Lady Luck would not send in that crazy bird down for us to fight.
As the three of us sat down in the center of the clearing, Wyvern began to call Jaune's scroll as he and him talked for a bit before ordering him to come over to the southern part of Forever Fall into an opening of trees. He also reminded Jaune to bring his team along with Blake and Weiss.
For Somnus, he was having a conversation with someone on his phone. He didn't really look happy to the person he was on the line with. Rather, he had more of an annoyed expression when talking to the person. I wasn't able to hear him because of how far he was from where Wyvern and I sat. He hung up and headed back go me and Wyvern.
"Who did you call?" Was the first thing I asked.
"Someone I trust on helping me out on my missions with that woman I help out in the White Fang. However, she easily gets on my nerves sometimes." He sighed.
"She?" Wyvern folded his arms.
"You'll be meeting her soon when she gets here. Don't worry. She won't bite." Somnus told the both of us. "Unless it involves me…" He mumbled.
"It better not be a trick." Wyvern rolled his eyes.
"Wyvern." I patted his shoulder.
"Believe me. It's not. So just stay calm, will yah?" Somnus sighed.
Wyvern…reluctantly, accepted his word and sat down next to me as the three of us just waited for the others to arrive, and this mysterious woman Somnus called over. I still had my Crescent Rose loaded just in case we encounter Grimm, or if something else goes wrong to the mysterious woman I kept thinking about.
A loud howl was heard from the east, which alerted all of us as Wyvern went in a sort of combat stance while looking at the east from where we're at. Wyvern gave a piercing glare at the trees and held both the handles of his two Dragon Tails swords.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Grimm. Approaching us from the east." Wyvern said before taking out his two scimitars.
"That's where Jaune and the others will be arriving from." I said while looking east.
"Well, is it time to kill more monsters then?" Somnus asked while holding the handle of his sword.
"No. You stay here. Since you're an important asset to us, we can't risk you getting killed." Wyvern said while looking back at Ruby and Somnus. "Ruby, you stay here and watch over him. And Somnus, if you hurt her one single time, I'll break your fingers."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't you have a job to do?" He rolled his eyes as Wyvern ran to where the Grimm was located.
I looked at him and sighed. "I've been meaning to ask, what is your deal with Wyvern? You attacked him without mercy and didn't even bother to settle things peacefully."
Somnus sighed and laid on the grass. "I usually don't talk about my past too much, but I guess now's the time to tell you in order to gain more trust." He sighed again. "I envy him for having such a better life than me. Having parents to love and take care of him, having the love and support from his friends and most others, and such. For me, I was raised without knowing who my real parents were, and adopted by a psychopath who thinks he can change Remnant forever. The best happen to him, but all the bad happens to me."
"You know, Wyvern isn't actually happy with his life, even as a Prince." I told him.
"I find that hard to believe." He shook his head.
"He isn't happy. Wyvern has always been mentally hurt from the loss of his friends because of Ammit, and pressured by having a responsibility to be the next one to run the Drahen Empire when he grow much older. It's not always fun and happy to be in a much higher position. He's just like you, and me."
Silence.
"I see…" Somnus looked away. "Yeah. Losing the one you love is the worse thing to go through."
"That is why I don't want you, nor Wyvern to keep attacking each other like this." I patted his shoulder. "I know you still might not like Wyvern, but he's a good friend to me. The reason why I'm saying that Wyvern is not to attack you is because you're willing to help us more about uncovering more about Ammit. So, I decided to adopt you as a friend…if you keep this up." I gave a smile.
Somnus smiled back and blushed. "Aww. It looks like I made a new friend today."
"Look, Somnus. If you try to hurt Wyvern again, I don't think I will forgive you the next time you try to apologize. He's…a very good friend to me. An irreplaceable one at that." I told him with my feelings being one hundred percent honest.
"I understand. Don't worry. I promise I won't hurt a good friend of yours." He gave a warming smile to me.
"Thank you." I smiled back. "So, what's it like in the building full of…White Fang specialized killers?"
"If you were in my shoes, it would be about the same as being in the academies. Everyone that can fight and kill, except make the morals of the hunters and huntresses backwards. It can get…pretty dark in there. Literally too." Somnus deadpanned.
"Not my kind of place." I gulped.
"Good. A girl like you shouldn't belong there. You'll never know if they want to kill you too." Somnus chuckled.
"Like how you tried to kill Wyvern?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Suuure…?" He laughed. "Still, I appreciate you for trusting me even after attacking Wyvern like that. You're a special girl to have that ability to forgive me like that." Somnus chuckled.
I blushed and chuckled back. "Yeah, I sure do." My shoulders shrugged. "So, now can you tell me who was this 'friend' you mentioned earlier when we left Fort Knots?"
Somnus sighed. "She's not really considered a…well, friend. Just-"
*ZAP!*
"YOW!" Somnus yelped as he felt a shock from his back.
I turned to see who it was, revealing Ivy in her armored suit, similar to Isaac's. Her head protection gear was off as she looked down at Somnus with a playful smile.
"Tag. You're it." Ivy giggled.
"I swear to god, Ivy. If you keep doing that, I'll zap you myself." Somnus sighed.
She pouted and put her hands on her hips. "You can't hurt girls, you know that, right?"
"Unless they're trying to kill me, then I can."
"But she wasn't trying to kill you." I heard Wyvern said as he appeared behind Ivy along with Jaune and his team.
"Whatever!" He huffed.
"Wait a minute," I stopped their conversation and looked at Ivy and Somnus, "you both know each other?"
"Indeed." Ivy gave Somnus a crushing hug. "We're best friends~!"
"We are NOT…" He said in a voice that lacked air while patting her back as a sign to let him go. After Ivy released him, he panted for a few seconds and noticed Jaune and the others coming. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to introduce myself before they start asking questions."
"No need. I already told them EVERYTHING about you." Ivy told him, making him have an unhappy expression.
"Well, at least I don't have to waste my breath." Somnus shrugged.
"Are you okay, Ruby?" Yang asked while hugging me tightly.
"I-I'm fine." I answered breathlessly.
Yang let go of me and looked back at Wyvern. "What about you?"
"I'll be fine. I was still capable of taking down some Grimm with you guys, like what you saw earlier. So, basically, I'm all green." Wyvern smiled.
"Good. I'm glad you're still okay." Yang smiled back at him.
"Are you two going to make out, or are we going to talk about who the heck is this guy?" Weiss asked while pointing at Somnus.
"Make out anyone you recognize, Blake?" Pyrrha asked.
"No. Plus, I wasn't in the Venomous Group during my time in the White Fang." Blake shook her head.
"Well, there goes another potential path of helping us." Pyrrha sighed.
"Now, as for you…" Yang glared at Somnus. "I never thought the son of that psychopathic old man can be on Ammit's side."
"I'm not the enemy, blondie. If you want to beat me up, do it after until we're finished." Somnus sighed.
"Yang, please." I tried to calm her down a bit.
"Please what? For all we know, he can sell us out soon?"
"Don't worry." Ivy giggled and ruffled Somnus' hair. "I trust the little kiddo as much as your sister does."
"You trust this guy?!" Yang asked in disbelief.
"Ruby!" Weiss folded her arms. "Do you even know how dangerous it will be to have a guy that was from the other side of where we stand?"
"Weiss is right." Blake nodded. "What if he…turns his back on us?"
"He knows about Ammit, and maybe he can tell us more about what's going to be his next move." I tried to give a logical reasoning to my older sister, but she was still being overprotective as usual.
"How can you trust a boy that is the adoptive son of the old man that I fought with?!" Yang asked while still glaring at Somnus.
"Is there any way that he can show his trust to us?" Pyrrha asked while looking at Somnus, cautiously.
Nora stepped closer to him and scanned her eyes, up and down at Somnus. "Hmm…. Something seems fishy about you. I don't really like it."
"Don't tell me. I'm a zhulong? Oh! Who would've known." He said sarcastically. "School should've taught you how to pay attention so you can listen to Ivy clearly."
"Geez. Have you always been this rude to your parents?"
"I never knew my real parents. I was adopted, don't you remember what Ivy filled you in with?"
"You were adopted?" Nora asked, revealing she wasn't clearly listening to Ivy's explanation a while ago.
"Yes. And I have a much more screwed up life than I had before." He sighed.
"At least you were adopted, unlike me." Nora pouted.
"Oh, yeah? Pfft. I wouldn't care less about your life, so whatever."
*SLAP!*
"Ow!" Somnus covered his cheek.
"Jerk!" Nora shouted with her face clearly showing a hurt expression.
"That was pretty rude, Somnus." I told him.
"Sorry, sorry. I'm just feeling a little frustrated by everyone being so hostile on me…again." He sighed.
Ren looked at Nora as she was looking down at the ground, depressed by getting her feeling hurt like that. He patted her shoulder as Nora immediately hugged Ren tightly, but didn't cry on his shoulder. Just her body trembling from the rudeness of the boy I have to trust.
"Watch what you say next time." Ren glared.
"Just tell us what's going on instead of hurting Nora and the rest of us even more." Wyvern said, trying to progress everything.
"Alright." Somnus nodded and sighed. "Ivy may know about what's going on, but I was thinking you all should know too."
Ivy cleared her throat before explaining the situation going on in Vale right now. General Ironwood's Forces becoming more cautious around the city, Winter being stationed in Vale instead of heading back to Atlas, and the Drahen Empire increasing its support of assisting the intervention of the White Fang's terrorist plots. It was basically everything Professor Ozpin told her about during the meeting. She also added the fact that hunters and huntresses will now be directly attacking the White Fang as well as searching for Ammit.
Somnus then began to explain the situation happening inside the White Fang. It was revealed that they were preparing to have a complete open war against all the kingdoms at the same time. However, they are close just by reaching halfway until completion, ready to commence all out attacks against the kingdoms and overthrow the leaders. As much as that shocked me and the others, Ivy then finished up Somnus' explanation with an unexpected twist.
"If you all think the White Fang's luck and chances of fulfilling this is easily increasing, you're all wrong, fortunately. Ammit is also killing other White Fang agents behind his leader's back. This is maybe being done to weaken the White Fang even more so he can…I don't know. Lord knows what he's trying to do." Ivy shrugged her shoulders.
"What Ivy said. There's no doubt he's killing other agents out there. I saw a few, and even have a list of the few he has killed." Somnus showed his phone to reveal a list of White Fang agents killed by Ammit.
Blake's eyes widened when she saw a name she recognized. "Adam…?"
"Don't even get me started on how he died." Somnus shuttered. "I didn't see it, but I heard about how it went down."
"The man that told Somnus about his death is another person who will be willing to help us out on decreasing the progress rate of the White Fang." Ivy added.
"And who is this other man we should be hoping on to slowing down the White Fang's progress?" Weiss asked.
"His name is Aleksei. The only guy I know who completely hates the White Fang more than your father." She answered Weiss with a serious tone about explaining how much Aleksei hates the faunus extremist group.
"More than my father?" She asked with her face showing a lot of surprise.
"Wow. I guess that guy is going to be more scarier than your dad when we talk about the White Fang." Jaune gulped nervously, thinking about how it would go of they met.
"Leave the White Fang to the military to handle most of the situation. But most of our best hunters out there are trying to find any signs of Ammit." Ivy said.
"Is there anything else you know about Ammit?" Weiss asked Somnus. "I'm afraid that's it for now. But be thankful I gave you guys something to think about. Why is Ammit killing other White Fang agents behind his leader's back?"
"He's definitely not trying to support the White Fang." Blake said.
"But why?" Jaune asked.
"He's a psycho. What do we expect?" Nora shrugged.
"Some psychos have their reasons. Maybe he actually does have a reason for killing those agents." Ren said as he walked around the grass, thinking.
"If it's all just for fun, that's just even more screwed up." Weiss shuttered.
Ivy's phone suddenly rang as she immediately picked it up upon seeing it was from Gerard. She listened in to his call as she froze in place while looking at the north direction of the forest. Her face was terrified as she aimlessly walked forward from where she was facing and finally gave a simple reply to Gerard, saying "Okay". She hung up on her scroll and readied her armor for combat.
"What's the matter?" I asked worryingly.
"Two terrorist plots just recently happened again." Ivy said as she put her scroll away. "A supply train was destroyed, and a civilian airship crashed because of an explosive onboard while it was airborne."
"You can't be serious!" Jaune stepped back in shock as everyone had the same expression he showed.
"I wish I was." Ivy clenched her fists frustratingly.
"All those people…" Blake shook.
"All gone…" Pyrrha stood still.
"Ammit…" Wyvern growled, but sighed. "We couldn't save them in any way."
"Listen, I'm not able to handle going to the two sites by myself at the same time. I'm going to need some of you to come with me and look for possible survivors." Ivy said as she looked at every one of us.
"I'll come with you. Just lead me to any of the sites and I'll do what I can to help." Jaune said while stepping forward.
"It can be dangerous. So I'll be sure to come with." Pyrrha stepped next to Jaune as Nora and Ren did the same.
"Danger is my middle name." Nora smirked.
"Plot Twist: It's actually not." Ren shook his head.
Since Jaune was coming along with Ivy, I decided to join in as well.
"I'll help out. Any possible survivors may need our help too." I said.
"Yeah. No one gets left behind!" Yang shouted enthusiastically.
"I'll go too." Somnus stepped forward, but was stopped by Wyvern grabbing his shoulder.
"No. Let the hunters and huntresses handle this. I got to keep my eyes on you or else who know what will happen." Wyvern said while suspiciously staring at him.
"Hmph. Fine."
I was feeling a little uneasy about this plan. Leaving Wyvern and Somnus alone together seemed like a bad plan, which I wanted to object. So I asked again, making sure if they were both okay with it.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Don't worry, Ruby. We'll be okay." Somnus said and looked at Wyvern with a serious expression. "I got to have a word with him anyway. Alone."
(Wyvern's POV)
Ivy led Ruby and the others up to the north, leaving me and Somnus alone with each other. All we did was just stay silent while looking away from each other in the center of the clearing of trees. It was already awkward, as I expected. None of us didn't say anything for the past ten minutes as all we heard was the birds chirping and the wing brushing the red leaves of Forever Fall.
I huffed loudly and looked back at Somnus to break the silence. Little did I know, we both turned around to look at each other at the same time.
"Listen," We both said.
"Fine. You go first." Somnus deadpanned.
"What is your deal? I did nothing wrong for you to attack me like that back at Fort Knots." I demanded a reason for what made him use violence against me.
He sighed and shook his head. "I envy you for having such a comfortable place in the Drahen Empire. So I decided to see if a low-life like me is able to take down a Prince. You think you're so special and more powerful than everyone else in the empire and your friends, don't you?"
"What? Look, I wouldn't consider myself like that. I may be a Prince, but I am not to judge and make fun of others just because of how weaker they are. I'm not the most powerful, but I do know my strengths and weaknesses, and use that as an advantage to fight against my opponent."
"Hmph. Okay, sure." He rolled his eyes.
"Do you really think being a Prince is that easy? Same goes to how much I've been through?" I asked him.
"…well, I know a little bit more now, thanks to Ruby." He told me. "How the hell can Ammit easily take down strong humans, faunus, and zhulongs?"
"You should know that too, don't you think?"
"I may know Ammit's position and what he's been doing behind his boss' back. But he's been rather secretive about what are his motives and his reasons. Heck, not even his boss knows." He told me.
"What do you think he's trying to do?" I asked for Somnus' prediction.
"Meh. I don't know. He might be doing this for fun, which makes me sick to my stomach."
"At least I'm not like him."
He laughed and shook his head. "I would hate you even more if you were."
I noticed he laughed a little, and decided to at least have a conversation to ease down his hostility against me. "I'm curious, what was it like before getting adopted by…Ahriman…?"
"When I was very young, I didn't know much about my parents because…well, they were gone. I was just your typical homeless kid living on the streets, then an orphanage. How I knew about you is when they put you on television with your parents. All the kids just kept praising and worship you as I just watched. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. But who wouldn't be?" Somnus sighed by explaining a little from his past.
"I actually didn't know I was a Prince when I was three. Just thought I was part of a upper-middle class family."
"Seriously? Not even the crowns your parents wore didn't give you the hint?" He chuckled.
"Hey, I was three. My young mind wasn't too…you know." I chuckled back.
"True. It was kind of like me when I didn't know I was a zhulong back then."
"Are you sure you don't know what kind you are?"
He shrugged his shoulder. "I wish I knew. If I did, I would use all that power just to protect my friends. Honestly, it's pretty much what you do." He said. "You care about your friends so much, that you would put yourself in harms way and take in the pain and work. I can respect that."
"Well, thanks. I appreciate."
"No problem. I can understand your reason. You know, about Ammit's involvement of ruining your life." He shook his head.
"Never thought you would actually respect me like this, to be honest."
"Well, we are on the same side, and Ruby can handle me. So…I guess all we got left is to open up more."
"About Ruby and my friends…"
"What is it?"
"Listen, I know deep down inside of you, you still don't seem to like me. But you need to understand how much I care about my friends. If I lose Ruby or anyone of my friends, I…" I sighed and shuttered from the thought, "…I don't know how I would feel or what would happen to me. You may have lost your parents, but you're looking at a zhulong who lost many friends to the point where I just…felt like I didn't want to continue on with life. Ammit was slowly destroying my life to the point where I just wanted to die staying alone. That's until Ruby decided to step up and change that. I deeply care about her and the others because they're the reason why I feeling happy again."
Somnus chuckled. "Wow. I never thought the Prince would suffer this much. Look, I'm sorry I had to attack you like that."
"Don't apologize. I don't mean to sound cocky, but I knew I could defend myself against you. Just be glad none of us joined the dead at Fort Knots." Wyvern smiled.
"Alright, alright. Maybe w-"
Our conversation was interrupted when a loud howl was heard far deeper into the forest, followed by a loud gunshot. Somnus then suddenly stood up and stared at the direction where the shot was fired.
"Crap…" Somnus gulped nervously.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"We got to go. Now!" He said as he ran deeper into the opposite side of the forest.
I followed him, but was still confused to what he was talking about.
(Information in RWBY: The Recidivist Universe)
Although Zhulongs are still existing in Remnant, only a small number of people believe they exist. Little did they know, the Zhulong Order, who controls the Drahen Empire, is actually a group of zhulongs trying to restore hope and faith to humanity and the faunus by uniting all by their empire to fight against the Grimm.
(So uh…April Fools…? Meh. I got nothing clever to think of a trick for April Fools day. I was kind of in a rush while making some parts of this chapter, due to schoolwork, family time, and such. Anyway, thanks for reading. Stay tuned for Ch.55.)
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