Across the infernal wasteland, valleys of red rock and rivers of lava broke apart the surface of Hell. The smell of rot filled the air. Three floating devils, resembling angry red blobs with teeth, hovered just above ground on a raised hill. The person among them was screaming, crying for the tearing of their jaws to stop. Blood leaked before evaporating into nothing.

High above the scene, a small point of light hung. The point stretched to a thin line. Then, opening like an eye, the line widened, opening to a swirl of red and white. A flash of movement emerged from the portal. The flash, a figure of black metal, dropped. A helmeted head faced downward, looking to the carnage below. Aiming at one of the floating balls of flesh, the figure shot a chained blade from one of its forearms. With a sickening slunk, the blade's tip tore through the creature, digging into the rock. As fingers curled into a fist, gears in the gauntlet began to whirl. The chain drew taunt, pulling the figure faster toward the surface. In a matter of seconds, an armored boot crunched into the forehead of the stuck creature. Bone gave way to the momentum, and soon the creature itself was nothing more than a pile of shattered teeth and liquefied flesh.

For a moment, Blake looked down at the damage she had caused. The gore beneath her made her want to wretch, and she had the urge to scrape off devil bits from her boot. Before she could, however, she heard the aggressive gurgling of the two creatures beside her. Her hand reached down, took the sawed-off shotgun from her belt and aimed it at one of the creatures.

Holding her breath and relaxing her shoulders, she pulled the trigger. First, a loud crack as the gun kicked up. The stabilizers in the suit buffered most of the recoil, but a sting of pain sparked up her arms. The balloon-like devil in front of her popped as the gravity-enchanted buckshot ripped through.

For a moment, the scene, combined with the pain, halted Blake. She took a breath, as if to collect herself for the next bout of violence. A moment, however, was all it took for the last devil to rush her. It flew over, the sound of its mandibles snapping open with thin teeth. The gaping maw had a kind of terrible beauty to it, she thought. It seemed as if she was facing down with some sort of deep-sea creature, some sort of twisted angler fish. So foreign, yet so familiar. Almost poetic.

She snapped back to reality as the beast chomped down onto her shotgun arm.

"Argh! No! No, no, no!"

Blake's heart slammed against her chest. At first, she could only scream, her feline instincts going into overdrive. Then, she tried to pull her arm from its mouth, only to have the creature tighten its hold.

"No, no! Let go!"

In a raw panic, she took her other arm, now armed with the retracted chained blade, and ran it into the skull of the creature. Once, twice, until she lost count. Endorphins flooded her body as she stuck the creature repeatedly, dark red blood splashing against her visor. When she finally came to her senses, she was on her knees, the creature now a stab-ridden mush. She yanked her arm from its maw, sending a few teeth scattering.

Her chomped arm was intact, although she had a line of faint puncture marks in the armor. Weiss had told her that the slayer armor's integrity depended in large part on her aura. The stronger her aura, the more of a beating the suit could take. Although aura alone was normally enough to tank most hits, something was different about these creatures. The White Fang extremists showed her that as they had tried to fend off their infernal "companions" after the devils had turned on their summoners. There wasn't much left of most of them. Luckily, Weiss and her Schnee researchers had learned from their sacrifice. Luckily, Blake hadn't lost her arm.

According to her visor's heads-up display, the integrity of her arm's armor was at 67%. Weiss was right. The suit could take a beating, although Blake wasn't interested in testing it further. Have to be faster, Blake thought. Can't let that happen again.

Standing up from the carnage, Blake looked over at the body the creatures had been munching. The person, whoever they were, had their flesh flayed off, likely from the sheer heat of the place.

Parched cries came from a blood-caked mouth, with sunken eyes looking up at her.

"…k."

Blake's eyes widened.

"What?"

"…k…"

Hot tears came to her eyes. It couldn't be, she thought. Not so soon. Not now.

"Yang? Yang!?"

She rushed over to the figure's side. The figure was hairless. Not a shred of golden yellow anywhere. Legs were gone, crunched at the knee.

"No. Please…please…no…"

Left arm off at the shoulder.

"This can't be happening. Please!"

A whisper registered in her suit's audio channels.

"K…kill…me."

Right hand was gone. The flesh was off, revealing bone. Bone, not metal. When she saw the arm, relief swept over her. Relief flavored with an immense sense of guilt. The person wasn't Yang. Not this one.

Gritting her teeth, she looked over the body again. The person before her should be dead. None should have been able to survive this sort of torture. Her final year with the White Fang, with Adam, had taught her the limits of mortal endurance. An education that been part of the reason why she left.

Pulling her arm-mounted blade to the person's neck, she sucked in air, bracing herself. But then, before pressing the blade, she spoke.

"Before…before I do this…did you happen to see a woman with blonde hair anywhere around? Anything like that?"

The person coughed. Bloody spittle plopped onto their skinless chest.

"No…no blonde hair…please."

Blake nodded before pressing the blade through the neck. A scream erupted. Waves of disgust washed over her as she felt the sensation of tendon, muscle and bone pressing against her blade. She pressed harder, but with her stomach folding in on itself, her body could barely tolerate the damage she had already done. All she got was more screaming. Thinking to saw it, she dragged the blade along the incision, only for the cries to go shrill and for her stomach to do another fold. Piercing pain shot through both sets of ears. Bile began to tinge the back of her mouth.

"I'm sorry!" She cried. For whom the apology was for, even she couldn't say.

The idea of using a buckshot for the person came to mind, then faded. If she used one here, that would mean one shot fewer for the devils. One shot fewer to save Yang.

Yang. She had to come first. She was why Blake was here. Without her, there was no sun in her sky. Without her, there was no light in her life. She had to come first. She had to come first.

Blake stopped sawing. Progress, despite all her efforts, was minimal. Standing up, she took a long look at the person, whose screeching had died down to a dull gurgle. The trachea had been crushed. Edges of the person's eyes sizzled. Tears, burning before they could even fall.

Another crying face surfaced in her mind, belonging to a person she had once left behind and now promised she would always protect. That person would want her to do the right thing, to be there for others and be the light for those in the dark.

Without another thought, Blake aimed the barrel of the sawed-off and popped the head at her feet. Then, after loading two more shells, she turned from the body and trudged off deeper into the barren world ahead. If she was going to save her love from damnation, she'd do her damndest to do it right.

Thank you for taking the time to read my fanfict. Think of this as a Chapter 0 of sorts. I'm really testing the waters for fanfict writing, and hopefully I can get another chapter up in the near future. In the meantime, any feedback you can offer would be much appreciated.