Midnight.
Rain? Heavy.
Team RWWBBY's location? A rainforest.
Their shelter? Minimal, only a tent made from wooden poles and washed animal pelts.
Their campfire? A roaring inferno.
Their food? The meat from jungle animals who had tried to kill them.
They had spent three days in this hellish jungle, and they had spent so long searching and travelling that they were sure this room went on forever.
Everyone was cold, wet, and miserable. Everyone was drained, tired, and suffering.
Ruby and Blaze had fallen asleep in each other's arms with Yang serving as their pillow, her pillowy mounds of dreams helping them rest. But concern was clear on her face, because she couldn't rest. And neither could her teammates.
The cat, Blake, was at her side, though turned away from everyone to stare suspiciously at their newest teammate, Blueberry Rose. That girl simply sat in the corner of their tent and stared at nothing, as though waiting for the tent's walls to tell her something funny. The cow, Milky Way, having provided much of their food today, was the only other sleeping girl among them, passed out with a dreamy bliss on her face that only served to tick Yang off. And then there was Weiss, who stared miserably into their campfire, with an oddly far-away look on her face.
And now, as Yang wondered how she'd ever get out of this, she startedd to feel their teacher's Semblance do anything good for them. Yang felt her muscles clench and tighten, felt her biceps grow buffer and her thighs grow finer, and she noticed similar benefits happening to the two family members in her arms. While Yang's muscles grew outwards for more mass and intimidation, and Blaze's muscles did the same, Ruby's muscles seemed determined to retain the physique of a dancer.
She glanced over at her teammates, to see how their bodies had changed. Blake and Weiss followed Ruby's path of the dancer, and she wondered if it was a Faunus thing. After all, Faunus carried more strength in their bodies than humans, especially the women. While a thin Faunus boy could beat a buff adult man in an arm-wrestling match without aura, both could gain aura and still fall short of beating a faunus girl. As for Milky, she seemed thicker and stockier and more motherly than ever before. And that muscled back... It was enough to make those who sculpted old Atlesian statues renounce their faith and worship the god of chicks with muscles. Yang supposed the sheer wideness of Milky made sense, considering what weights she carried around every day. Blueberry, on the other hand... It wasn't that she had barely changed. It was that she had not changed at all. She'd gotten faster than she was three days ago, but it was as if her very existence was permanently tied to the image of Ruby held by her creator on the day she was born.
Yang's mind started to wander. And she wondered... Would Blueberry age? Would Blueberry grow taller, or grow old? Could she reproduce? If she had kids, would they look like more Ruby Roses? Or would they start off looking like babies, and then grow into Rubies? Would her kids grow old?
Was Blueberry even real? Did she even exist?
Why...
Yang stared at the ceiling, tears forming in her eyes.
Why did her mother leave her?
Why did her father always favour Ruby over her, when she was so obviously the daughter of Summer Rose and Qrow? Why did her father favour Blaze over her, when she trained so much harder than anyone she knew and all he did was tinker with weapons?
Did the blood in her veins, the blood of her father, mean nothing to him?
He taught her to fight. He taught her to stand on her own two feet. But why was he so much more willing to hug Ruby or Blaze than his own flesh and blood? Once, he'd looked so proud of her ability to punch trees into splinters and punch wild horses into the ground. So why did he lose interest once she started punching men twice and even thrice her size into the ground? When she started dressing revealingly and heading to bars and returning home drunk, why did he stop caring? Why didn't he beg her to stop?
She resented her dad so much, and craved his love...
And yet, she couldn't bring herself to bring any of that resentment anywhere near her two beloved siblings.
She'd never gotten a chance to reveal this to anyone...
But more than anything, Yang wanted to be told she was doing okay, and that everything she'd done mattered.
Yang looked down at her siblings. Ruby, so pure and so kind, if a little simple...
And Blaze. After all this time, she wasn't sure what to make of his personality. It was as if he put on so many different masks around so many people, that all he knew were the masks. He loved to make the people he loved happy. But he never seemed to know what to do with himself when he was alone, besides tinkering with machines.
Even now, he wore the remnants of something unfinished and currently worthless on his right arm. He'd kept it in his pocket until now, but this morning he'd taken it out and given it its first test-run... only for his device to break and explode violently. Thank god for Milky's ability to re-attach lost arms. The device on his arm was somewhat like a big and solid gold watch, shiny and reflective, though with a raised centerpiece that could compress itself on command. And rather than telling the time, it held seven circles for shotgun-sized Dust bullets. When fully compressed, each of those bullets were like dangerous bombs, yet his watch held no way to eject or launch these crushed and ruined bullets.
Yang thought of the horror she felt when her little brother almost lost his arm today.
She wished she could shield her family from all the horrors of this world...
And she wished her family hadn't been forced to get so big. Weiss's icy exterior were melting slowly and Blake's labyrinthine walls were starting to come down, but she had no idea what to think of Milky Way or their team's newest member.
Blueberry Rose... She was so eager, so joyous, so childish, yet surprisingly witty at times. At the rest of the time, she seemed denser than Ruby at her worst. It was as if someone cloned Ruby, kept her love of weaponry and fighting, kept her knowledge of breathing, and dropped what little she knew of social situations and tact. The girl was an absolute airhead for everything except weapons, Milky's fine dining, and breathing. The more she talked to this little girl, the more she felt like she was talking to some cartoonish mockery of her little sister and the woman she was slowly growing into.
Yang didn't notice when she'd fell asleep, she only noticed the fact that she woke up the next morning with tired eyes and a sore body.
Day seven of life in an artificial jungle.
Blake thought this mundane existence as a jungle-dwelling apex predator would be the same for the rest of her life. Wake up, kill some wild animals that attacked her first, continue living, sleep. Wake up, kill some wild animals that attacked her first, continue living, sleep. Wake up, spend hours slaying wave after wave of artificial Grimm Beowulves that came from nowhere and focused all their energy on trying to kill Ruby of all people, continue living, sleep.
But on the tenth day, things changed.
An artificial construct designed by some monster and built by the system, a glowing little blue dot with little dragonfly wings, joined their party.
And she never stopped telling them trivia about the world.
At the same time, the world got harder to live in every day.
Traps started to appear where there should not have been traps.
Enemies became more numerous, relentless, and aggressive.
It was as if someone flipped a switch on the machine they were stuch inside, and that's probably what happened.
But one day...
The digital hell they were trapped inside started to send digital representations of White Fang assassins after the team.
Swarms of them. Legions of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. Some were unimportant distractions to mow down, some were powerful and mighty warriors, and some had incredibly devastating Semblances that challenged everything they knew about reality by rewriting the very rules of existence around them.
Blake came to trust her friends.
Slowly, at first.
But just as killing became easier for her friends, feeling and caring became easier for her.
She even became comfortable with asking for Milky's special milk.
That cow certainly had plenty to spare, even with the occasional need for healing.
And tonight, on their fourth month in this forest hell...
They encountered their greatest challenge yet...
One man who changed everything.
A flash of red light heralded his arrival as he stepped through a red portal that closed up behind him.
He was a handsome adult in his late twenties or early thirties, and his skin was a dark tanned colour. His eyebrows were black and segmented, dotted lines just like morse code. An open-chested brown jacket bared his muscular chest, though he thankfully wore black pants and brown cowboy boots. "Hellooooooo, darlings!" He sang as he pranced towards them.
Once he'd gotten close enough, Yang slugged him in the face on sight.
No friends existed in this jungle unless they were part of Team RWWBBY. If you weren't Ruby rose, Weiss schnee/valentine, milky Way, Blake belladonna, Blaze rose, or Yang xiao long, you were going to die.
Her strike broke this monster's jaw... And somehow, it shattered Ruby's jaw completely.
"RUBY!" The tortured screech from Yang's broken throat stunned even the man, and Yang cradled her younger sister in horror while blood dripped from the mouth of the sinner and poured from the mouth of the victim. Too tearful for rage, she cradled her wounded sister and cried as Milky shoved her finger into Ruby's mouth and tried helping her to swallow the healing milk she generated.
"What did you do?!" Blaze demanded as he grabbed the man's throat, choking hard and savouring the sound of his fearful throat, only for the sound of Weiss's choked gasps to meet his ears in a sickening harmony. Blaze looked back and saw Weiss lift off the ground, throat crushed visibly by the thick fingers of an invisible man.
Blaze released the man, and Weiss was released as well. A sickeningly smirk smug formed on the man's face.
Blaze resumed choking the man, and Weiss resumed getting choked.
"My name," The man said, and Blaze resumed choking the man, just to see if Weiss would be choked some more. She was, and Milky Way started getting choked in the same way.
Blaze released the man. "What's going on here?"
Yang ignited harder than she'd ever ignited before, releasing a sound like cannonfire. "I'LL KILL YOU!" She roared, as her blood-red eyes started to bleed and the flames on her hair snaked down to her fists.
"No, wait!" Blaze insisted, standing in her way. "His Semblance, I think it reflects damage somehow!"
"Then I'll just have to kill him faster than any of us can die!" Yang snapped.
"What if he takes one of us with him?" Blaze asked. "What if he kills Ruby?"
That broke through her rage, and brought her to her knees. "No..." She whispered. "Not Ruby!"
"Let me finish, you idiot!" The man screamed, punching Blaze in the face hard enough to send him flying into a tree. Ruby screamed in pain and clutched at her right hand, just as the man started shaking the slightly-sore knuckles of his right hand. "What's the point of having a Semblance if you aren't going to explain exactly how it works to your helpless, adorable little victims? My name is Steel. Steel Offgrey. And if you're wondering if I'm a part of this simulation... No. I'm sure your old teacher would never unleash me on you. And I'm sure she's not coming to save you... Because if she was watching you and she recognized me, she'd die if it meant sending everyone in the world after me. She was my first victim, after all..."
"What did you do to our teacher?!" Weiss demanded.
"You mean, what did I do to myself?" He laughed, "While my Semblance worked its magic and allowed her to feel my touch from another room? Everything a man can do to himself when alone... There's your answer."
"Why are you here?" Milky asked.
"I'm just here because I love hurting kids! And I was sent to kill you, all of you, by the one she defeated."
Steel Offgrey pointed at Ruby.
"Torchwick sent you?" She gasped.
"That dust-thief we beat up had a name?" Blaze wondered.
"He and I, and some other unlucky souls... We work for the biggest and baddest criminal gang in this country."
"Why isn't Pandora saving us?" Blake asked.
"She trapped you fools in this Zone's jungle for a few months. By burning a lot of time dust, this place can slow time down for everyone within it. A year passes inside, and a few hours pass outside. Useful for training, but very, very exploitable. I could kill you slowly for weeks, and it wouldn't show up on any monitors outside unless I made sure to drag it out for months! It's the perfect place to kill some kids, and make sure this stupid academy thinks they simply failed in their training! As long as nobody looks too closely at the bodies, that is... As long as no animals or AI-controlled enemies get to your bodies first!"
"Why do you know so much about this place?" Blake asked.
"I used to be a student at beacon... Before Pandora got me expelled for having some special fun with her and Glynda!"
"I'm just a lowly assassin, but we're working for some dangerous clients. Our name? Black Moon. We will conquer everything and rise above this world! And speaking of rising..."
He started to dance around the girls. "My heartbeat rises, when I look at you cuties! I was sent to kill you all, but nothing's stopping me from having some fun with you first. Some of my teammates call me a weakling, and none of them were willing to be my partner... But they're fools. It's only the weak who know their true strength! Everyone's weak, deep down, and they just haven't learned that yet. But I'll teach you. I'll teach you better than your little teacher Pandora ever could! I don't have a lot of Aura. But I do have..."
He turned to a tree in the rainforest and kicked it, hurting his leg. He winced in pain, and Blueberry Rose screamed in agony as her right leg bloodily exploded out, waterfalls of blood leaking from where shards of shattered blood pierced skin.
"One unstoppable Semblance!" Steel Offgrey gloated with the most disturbing grin you'll ever see on his face. "I call it Lover's Pain. It forms a bond between me and anyone who catches my fancy, bonding us eternally! And once that bond has formed, it doesn't cost any Aura to maintain! I could keep these bonds up forever, no matter how far away you run and no matter how hard you try to escape me. Nothing escapes my love!"
"Anyone who catches your fancy..." Blaze repeated, as the man walked over to Weiss. "So I'm immune?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Steel smirked, and he grinned at the boy before bending down and licking the side of Blaze's horrified face, and then he gently bit his own tongue.
Blaze screamed as the tip of his tongue was severed and blood sprayed out like an out-of-control firehose.
Steel leaned in and intentionally got some of Blaze's blood in his own left eye, causing Blaze to scream even harder as blood gushed from his left eye.
"Such a cute little thing! Oh, your pain feels good... I could just gobble you up whole and bite into your flesh and eat your fucking liver! Oh, the disgust your friends will feel, the pain they'll endure, all for me!" Steel grinned, getting his weapon out of his pants, a short and squat boot-knife with a shotgun's pump along the grip. He cocked the shotgun's pump, forming a sticky white substance on his weapon's tip. Steel pointed his dagger at Weiss and squeezed its handle, and blasted two hot sticky globs of gum at the girl's feet, sticking her to the ground. She struggled and tried to lift her feet up, but the fast-drying elastic gum had her feet stuck fast to the ground. She tried to freeze it with her sword, but he engulfed her weapon in a stream of white goo from his own weapon, drenching the useless blade in hot sticky white gum.
"So good... Weiss, your fear and disgust and desperation feels SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD!" Steel Offgrey screamed as he shimmied over to Weiss and grabbed her face, making her look right at how good her fear made him feel. His jaw went slack, his eyes rolled into the back of his skull, and he collapsed on top of her and she struggled to stay standing under his weight.
"Get away from me!" Weiss slapped him, only for that impact to send her face to the dirt harder than any of her father's slaps before.
And once she was helpless on the ground, he mounted her and pinned her, feeling her fluffy white ears and savouring the pained look on her face before stroking those ears gently. He sighed disgustingly, right in her face, eyes rolling back as the amplified feelings sent shivers down his spine. Touching the ears of a Faunus was meant to make them happy, but this disgusting monster stole her happy feelings and turned them into disgust. "My Semblance brings us close together, closer than family members, closer than lovers and even wedded couples! We share everything, even feelings, only you feel them more in body and soul. My body is your body..."
Weiss elbowed him in the gut and tried to run away, only for the agonizing pain now burning in her gut to bring her to her knees and make her vomit helplessly on the ground. He brought his foot down on the side of Weiss's face, and bit down gently on his own right hand, his Semblance crushing and mangling her right hand before her very eyes, and as she screamed in horror at her hands, Steel picked her up and kissed her cheek. "And your bodies are mine, darlings."
Horror filled Yang's body, horror and fear.
How could any of them defeat a foe they couldn't punch, or stab, or kill?
How could they defeat this monster without killing themselves, or worse, a friend?