Chapter 8: The Living Storm
The Doom Slayer emerged from the rift and stepped into the control room of his fortress before turning around to look at Earth, trying to find what he had to clean up. There was nothing wrong. No raging hellfire, no drying oceans, nothing. The Slayer took a step back and contemplated what he had gone through to get home, who he had left behind. It felt like he had left behind someone close to him, like a family member, or a close friend, and left them to die.
"I know what you are thinking, and I, once again, will be the voice of reason." Samuel Hayden told the Slayer. "The priority is repelling Hell from Urdak, not going to college!"
The Slayer tapped the DTD on his right wrist, causing a holographic display of the dimension where he is currently located, Dimension 2016. He swiped through the display, switching to different dimensions, such as Dimension 63, Dimension 117, and Dimension 4. The Slayer stopped at Dimension 4 and tapped on it, bringing up a detailed display on the dimension.
"Here we go." Samuel Hayden almost groaned, despite the fact that he was no longer human.
The Slayer brought up a list of the occupants of the world, including people such as Robyn Hill and Tyrian Callows, but he was looking for one person in particular. The Slayer located Ruby Rose on the list and tapped on the name, bringing up a video currently monitoring her. The Slayer watched the video, finding Ruby unconscious, pale and shivering. Yang, Blake, Weiss, Jaune, Nora, Ren and Pyrrha came into view before Yang knelt before her sister, checking her pulse.
"Pulse is weak, but it's there." Yang told the rest of the group.
Yang grabbed her sister and held her over her shoulder, turning back towards the rest of the group, only for her to stop dead when she heard the sound of snapping bones. A quiet giggle echoed through the tunnel, as if it was a whispering child.
"Play time." A whisper echoed through the tunnel as a Grimm entered the frame.
It was tall, thin and had bony spikes protruding from its back. Its neck snapped from side to side, and its eyes burned with malice. Yang fired Ember Celica at the Grimm three times, only for the creature to hold up its palm and cause the explosives to evaporate into a black mist. The Slayer tapped on the Grimm to identify it. What replaced the video was a profile for the creature.
It was called the Phantasm. It had the ability to create illusions to lure its victims to its abode, during the process it would strip them of their weapons. It also had the ability to affect small objects, causing them to disintegrate or fail to work, along with the ability to send its victims into a coma with its shriek. It was a Grimm with light intelligence, giving it the ability to speak, but not enough to make it uncontrollable. A message appeared on the display, reading, 'More Grimm in vicinity. Identify?'
The Slayer pressed 'identify' on the display, causing a profile for another Grimm to appear. The Cyclone was its name, and it was known for taking the form of a blackened storm that never left until all of the humans in its vicinity were dead. Samuel Hayden's voice made a robotic groan, and the Slayer knew that if he had eyes, he would be rolling them into his skull.
Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha and Ren rushed into Professor Port's classroom with the unconscious Ruby in tow. Yang set Ruby down against Port's desk and helped Nora and Pyrrha in keeping the door shut. Weiss summoned a black glyph in the door, keeping it shut. The giggle of the Phantasm echoed through the hallway behind the door as it weakly bashed against the door.
"You can run, you can hide, but I'll find you all the same!" The whisper said, its voice not muffled, as if it was in the students' heads. "I know where you sleep, I know what you dream about, and I have to say, one of you is very disturbed. I mean, boys and girls? You monster!"
Blake looked offended.
"Blake? What's wrong?" Yang asked, causing Blake to shake her head.
"Nothing." Blake lied, the others obviously didn't hear that last comment.
Yang grabbed Crescent Rose from her back and tossed it to Blake, who caught it and placed it next to Ruby. She would probably need it.
"How do we get Ruby awake?" Jaune asked.
"How would any of us know? We never studied anything like that!" Weiss snapped at Jaune.
The Phantasm appeared before Weiss and shrieked at her, causing her to let out a quick scream and fall to the floor, losing focus and causing her glyph to disappear. Weiss opened her eyes and grabbed Myrtenaster, which was barely a foot away from her, and watched as the Phantasm slightly opened the door and deconstructed itself, reconstructing in the middle of the classroom, inches away from Weiss. Its right arm turned into a black, bony blade, which it pulled into the air, ready to skewer Weiss.
"Nap time." The childlike whisper of the Phantasm said before thrusting it down at Weiss.
A violent sound echoed through the classroom, a sound that could only be described as the universe screaming in agony. The sound caused everything to stop in their tracks, leaving the Phantasm's blade arm inches away from Weiss's neck. Weiss crawled backwards quickly after she realized that she had dropped her rapier. The panels in the ceiling cracked, strained under a heavy object, before tearing open and dropping the Doom Slayer down towards the Grimm underneath the panel. He swung the chainsaw in his hands at the creature, causing it to duck out of the way before thrusting its right arm into the man's chest. It screamed in agony as its bony arm blade was crushed into dust by the Slayer's impenetrable Praetor Suit before he swung his chainsaw at the Phantasm's left arm and in a U formation, cutting off all the creature's limbs in one fatal swing. The limbless Grimm fell to the floor on its back and watched as the Slayer drove his chainsaw into its pelvic region, pulling it up through the creature's torso and through its head. The surrounding crowd flinched as this happened, knowing all well that he could do the same to them if he had a reason to. The chainsaw was turned off as the corpse of the Phantasm disintegrated, not needed by the Slayer. He glanced at the unconscious Ruby, setting his chainsaw on the ground. He walked over to Ruby and stood before her, considering the methods of reawakening her and which one was the safest. He shrugged and delivered a swift kick to Ruby's stomach.
A lot of you are probably wondering why I chose the number 4 to be RWBY's dimensional number. Well, RWBY has a sort of "rule of four". It's easier to explain if I give examples rather than explain. Four kingdoms, four Maidens, four people in a team, relics introduced in Volume 4, you get it. Anyway, thank you for your time.
FOUR LIMBS!
P.S. I have received reviews about how some people don't understand why the Doom Slayer is at Beacon, when I explained it in Chapter 3(probably not very well or not obvious enough) but either way I will explain it in more of an obvious fashion. The Doom Slayer Dimensional Transportation Device overloaded when the BFG-9000 sapped energy from the Doom Movie's UAC facility, killing the Argent battery inside, so the Slayer had to find a worthy power source in Remnant, which was a piece of electricity dust in Beacon's generator. Some may find the problem that he could have just bought some, which I will explain now.
The Slayer doesn't have any money and is too good to steal the dust.
No one in their right mind would sell someone live electricity dust. No one in Vale would even have it. It's like selling a live wire. It's just a liability.
P.S. Once More: That joke in the middle of the chapter was simply just me trying to explain Volumes 1-5 then Volume 6 onwards. I'm just gonna let that sink in.