"He killed them all..." I looked at all the blood splatters... yet not a single body.
"Blake! Oh god your... what happened?" A massive man with black hair asked.
"Adam... he has to be stopped." She stood up.
"Wait... where is Corinthia?" Bakugo asked as he stood up. I spotted the girl hidden by a pillar, a large cut in her armor, but she was alive. "Corinthia, Oh that's a relief." He ran over to check on her.
"That monster has to be stopped." The man said as a woman and blonde monkey faunas caught up with them, the remaining White Fang and faunas had stopped fighting.
Chapter 68: Reaper Unleashed
I ran through the streets saving people from burning buildings, Bakugo's attacks from the ship was taking reckless to another meaning. I heaved a burning beam out of a door way and the family rushed past me. "Thank you huntsman." The man said as he held his crying daughter in his arms.
"There's a relieve station a few streets north of here." I said as my engines fired up.
"Can I get your names please?" The wife asked.
"I'm Ingenium." I burst down the street to the next destroyed house. 'Is this what it means to be a hero brother?'
The villains were pushed back around the statue. "Leo, open the passage, now." Cinder ordered.
"Y-yes." He said as he activated something on the statue, and it started to sink into the ground. Raven, Cinder and Vernal stepped onto the lowering platform.
"Keep them busy." Raven said as she disappeared from our sight.
"GET BACK HERE!" Ruby yelled as she shot over to them in a storm of red an purple petals. But she was tackled by our mother. The two rolled in a intangible mess of petals. I ran over but was cut off by a wall of blue flames. I looked at Dabi his had wreathed in those blue flames.
"So concerned about your sister, how heroic." He said, but I couldn't tell if he was mocking me.
"Get out of my way." I growled at him.
"No." He turned his hand to me and...
Nothing.
I launched myself at him and planted my new arm into his gut, he doubled over as I brought up my knee into his nose, blood spayed as I felt it break from the blow. I grabbed him and blasted him in the face. He stumbled back a few steps before a man with black hair leaped over me and trapped him using his scarf. "Nice going kid." He said.
I nodded before I turned to Ruby and mom, but dad was faster. He tackled mom to the ground, and held her down as black lightning filled the air around him. "HOW MANY DID HE USE!" Mom grabbed his wrist and tightened her grip, his aura flaring around it, and then I heard sickening snap and crunch as she broke his wrist.
Ruby Grabbed her head and looked down at her, silver light filling the room... and she screamed in pain.
As the light dimmed Ruby was writhing on the ground clutching at her face. I ran to my sister and held her. "Ruby, RUBY!" I yelled.
"It BURNS!" Part of her face around her eyes had been turned to stone, a purple glow like smoldering embers burned around the edges.
"Tai, just kill me..." Mom forced out, I looked at her, her remaining eye flashing between red and silver.
"No, stay with me, remember our honeymoon, what did you say to me that night?" He asked as the black lightning intensified.
"No matter what happens, you'll never hurt me, you'll give your soul to save me if you had to." She said, her voice becoming more human.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee. You used those words to unlock my aura back when we met in the Emerald forest during that stupid initiation. You had found me stuck in that tree." He cried.
"Stuck upside down with your pants around your ankles while Beowulf tried to eat you dumb blond head." Her silver eye started to glow. "I remember it all to well." Her body began to glow as well as the light became blinding that I had to look away.
When it died down I looked back and she was human again, her breathing long and deep. "I would have preferred you not say that in front of the girls." He helped her up.
"It feels like... RUBY!" She looked at my sister who was still clutching at her face.
Ruby pulled her hands away from her face, "I knew it would work." She blinked a few times as the rest of the stone burned away. I helped her to her feet as a boy in red and black ran up to her.
"I heard you scream and..." He huffed, his entire chest was covered in bandages.
"Kiri, I'll be fine." She huffed but her cheeks turned a little red. I looked between the two.
Why did I want to punch him? Like... he was on our side, but... something about him.
"Oh how cute, your boyfriend is so concerned about you." mom teased.
"Boyfriend?" Dad asked as he popped his wrist back into place.
The two went bright red. "Stop, I was only teasing." She smiled.
"You weren't wrong." They said at the same time.
Ruby was dating someone.
In the year she had been missing she had found mom, become a grimm... maiden... thing, and gotten a boyfriend.
I now knew why I wanted to punch 'Kiri'.
Our moment was cut off when... Adam, was blasted through the wooden doors of the academy, he ripped his blade from his ruined sheath, with a sound akin to the screech of a nevermore. His chest smoked as he landed in a crouch.
He was here. And I was frozen in fear.
I helped Corinthia to her feet, she had been at the very edge of the attack, as such as it dis was cut through her armor. "Demon... slice." She struggled with the words.
"Yeah... Demon slice." I put her arm over my shoulder, 'How could someone just... do that...' I looked down at her, she had been lucky to survive it. Something told me that luck wasn't going to last forever.
I looked at Menzro helping the survivors, he was more human then that thing I had just blasted.
"Your... mighty." She said. "A hero."
"I don't need the praise." I grumbled. But she wasn't the worst thing in the world.
I stood up, my eyes clearing from... what I did. We had to go after Cinder and Raven. "Yang, we have to stop them." I looked at my sister and smiled. "Golden Rose?"
"I hate Golden Rose." She grabbed my shoulder as I pointed Crescent Rose behind me and swapped to gravity rounds. "I'm painting your horns pink for this."
"Don't you dare." I smiled at her as I pulled the trigger. I poured as much power into the dust round as I could and we blasted forward.
As we passed the villains they couldn't stop us, except for one person, Mr. Compress reached out at his own risk. And I saw Yangs new arm start to flash blue, but it disconnected from her as I rotated my scythe to shoot us down the shaft.
"SLOW DOWN!" Yang said as the air ripped past us. I used the power of the Maiden to slow us down with a cushion of air. "You are..."
"A monster." I finished for her.
"I wasn't going to say that." She said.
"Yang... I can feel people's negative emotions, that includes thoughts that have negative emotions connected to them." I looked at the wall.
"Ruby, your only a monster if you chose to be one." Yang said as I fought back tears.
"It's been getting worse... I feel overwhelmed by all of these emotions, and... a need to... dominate washes over me, if Weiss hadn't caught me as I was losing control... I don't think I could have been stopped." I kept my eyes away from Yang. "And since I've come back to Remnant, I've had Salem talking to me in my dreams. Trying to recruit me."
She put her arm around me. "Ruby, your my sister, I'm angry at All for One for doing this to you. Wait... come back?"
"Yeah Yang... I have to tell you something. Dad... isn't from Remnant, he's from a world called earth, they don't have Grimm, Dust, Semblances, Hunters, Rater they have Superheroes, Villains and powers called quirks. That is where I ended up. I was surprised to see mom there." I explained Everything, Pyrrha, The power of Destruction Maiden. I looked at her arm and touched the connection for her replacement, and my hand glowed with power as a black crystal grew from it, purple and gold energy swirling inside of it, she slowly moved her new hand.
"I will have Corinthia check my work on that, but we can't go into a fight an arm down." I said as I saw the bottom of the shaft come up to us. "What ever happens down there... I had no choice."
"Ruby... what do you mean?" I looked at Yang as she asked that.
"I'm killing Cinder for everything she did." I released the magic winds dropping us to the ground. There was a natural stone bridge with a tree that had glowing path etched into it and a tree with orange leaves in the center. On the far end was Raven, Cinder and the bandit was seemingly dead. They stood in front of a massive door that wasn't dissimilar to gate ways I had seen in japan. I took a single step forward, purple flames flaring from me.
"Truce?" Cinder asked Raven as she looked at me.
"I'm not here for her." Yang put her hand on my shoulder.
"Ruby, think about this." She begged, "You do this... You can never come back from it."
"Yang, I'm sorry, but I watched her kill Pyrrha, I made a oath... to kill her." I took another step forward.
"You want to be a hero. Is killing me really the way to do so?" Cinder mocked me. "Tell me Rose, what did you chose for your superhero name? Little Red Riding Hood?"
"I am the Reaper Hero; Red Huntress. And I have one question for you." I dissipated into petals filling the cave. "Are you afraid of the dark?" I began to emit a black mist that darkened the room. "Death's embrace." I floated from petal to petal as I snuck up on Cinder. She lashed out with flames but it was in front of her where she attacked. I struck with Crescent Rose then, Sending her sprawling on the stone, the mist vanishing in the breeze. Her aura was glowing from the force of the strike. She flung a bolt of fire at me which hit my armored shoulder and dissipated. "I waited over a year, to watch you squirm." I said just loud enough for her to hear. "A year to take from you what you stole from so many." She stood to her feet. "To see your you blood drip from my scythe. And now I have you. I have the whore who took it all away, and yet thanks to you I have gained so much. I have stayed up so many nights... my head filled with those flames."
"What are getting at?" She snarled as she washed over me with red gold flames. "Your just girl."
"I'm just a girl? Is that what you think of me?" I chuckled. "I wield power not unlike yours's but it was born of the Fall Maiden's power. One single spark Is what separates us." I looked at her. I ground my teeth in a twisted grin, "I wonder... are we really that different? After all..." I pointed at her sleeve and it burned away from her clothes, revealing a grimm arm. "We both gave up our natural humanity for power."
"What are you...!" She held her throat as I pulled the air from her lungs. She fell to her knees struggling for air.
"I wasn't done." I let her breath again. "But you ruined my train of thought." I felt the fear roll off of her, it feed some sort of twisted hunger in me.
A hunger to kill, a hunger to dominate.
A hunger to kill this pitiful thing. In the most painful way I could, make it pay for what it has done to my friends and family.
"Ruby! Stop this isn't you!" I looked back at my sister. "Your scaring me."
"I don't want to stop." I looked back to Cinder and kicked her, a wave of destructive energy shattering her aura.
I heard a low whistle, I looked over to Raven she had opened the gate. "Feel free to take the relic, I'm not having that monster coming after me," She helped up her Bandit member, who was somehow still alive. They vanished in a red and black portal. I turned back to Cinder who had stood back up.
I slowly brought up my scythe. "I would be lying if I said wasn't enjoying this." I swung but it wouldn't move.
"RUBY! SNAP OUT OF IT!" Yang pushed me back, I tripped and fell, finally fully breaking out of the trance I was in. "Listen to your self, you sound like a villain! Is that what you want to be?"
I looked down at Ruby, tears in her eyes... "Yang? Whats... wrong with me?" She was more then just shaken up, it sounded like something was broken in her. I was struck from behind, I turned to Cinder, her eyes burning with power.
"You drove her to this. You drove my sister to this." My hair started to rise with flames as I gripped my sister's weapon. "If you have to die, it will be by my hands." I lunged at her firing a round from the scythe breaking her twin swords in one strike. She stumbled bas as she launched lightning at me. "You did this to Ruby!" I leaped over the attack and fired one more round, driving the tip of Crescent Rose down trough her arm and deep into her chest.
"I'll... take control..." She snarled.
"I'd like to see you try." I fired one more round, tearing her chest wide open. A orange glow floated from her to me. I felt a rush of power fill my lungs. I looked at my sister, she had curled into ball. Terrified of herself. I quickly picked up the relic clipping it onto my belt. I helped Ruby to her feet as she cried into my shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She said over and over. I pulled her hood low to hide her face. We slowly rose to the main hall above us, I wasn't letting Ruby out of my sight ever again, and now I had the power to do so.
I feel like that is a good place to end chapter for now. I hope I got you all to feel something.