Alright then, now this next chapter will be sort of a short foray into trying out horror for this story and it'll help set up a couple things for later on down the road, mainly for the Jaundice/Forever Fall part of the story. Not to mention that it introduces another BlazBlue character into the story. So, anyway...

EDIT: Whoops. I forgot to credit the Beta Readers. My bad. Thanks and shout out to GamerJay, SwapAUAnon, and Gladsome Praetorian for Beta reading this chapter.

BlazBlue is owned by Arc System Works and RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth. Please support the official release.

Chapter 16: Monster

"Yes mom, I heard you. Look, I'll be home real soon, alright?" said a girl talking on her scroll, "My shift just ended, so I'll see you in 20 minutes. Kay? Love you bye."

She rapidly said the end of her sentence to end the call before her mother could start rambling.

The girl in question was of average stature, roughly 17 years of age, with light brown hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a green t-shirt with blue overalls and an apron that said 'Goliath Grill' which she was currently removing and hanging up. On her shirt was a name tag that said 'Susan Browning'".

"Hey boss!" She yelled out, "My shift just ended! I'm heading home now, 'kay?"

"Sure thing. Just make sure you punch your time card out. Got it Sesame?"

The girl grunted and muttered, "It's Susie. Swear, you'd think he'd remember it."

Nevertheless, she did as instructed and punched in her time card before she left. She crossed the parking lot to the bike rack and unhooked her emerald green bicycle and proceeded to ride down the street.

It was getting dark out, the broken moon hung overhead as the sun faded in the distance. Still, Susie did enjoy the nice, quiet night. Barely any cars in the street, so she could drive closer to the middle of the road, mom's 'It's too dangerous' rhetoric be damned.

Much as Susie loved her mom, she could such a worrywart at times. The most dangerous thing out there was miles away and in the forests. What kind of Grimm did she have to worry about in a city?

Just as Susie rounded a corner, she rode over a sewer grate and felt a bump as the wheels of her bike went from dry asphalt, to cold metal, then right back to asphalt.

Suddenly, a loud, metallic 'THUNK' noise came up right behind her. Susie stopped and turned around, only to see nothing but the sewer grate as it spun and rolled back into place.

Strange, I know I didn't hit it hard enough to make it move like that, She thought.

She decided not to worry about that and just went back to riding in the direction of home.

Susie turned right and this time moved to the sidewalk to avoid an oncoming car as the headlights made its presence known on the road. As she road, she swore she could see what looked like a black shadow on the building next to her for a brief second, but she put it out of her mind. It was dark out, so she was probably just seeing things that weren't there.

"SHING!"

"WHAAAAHHH!"

Suddenly, Susie found herself flying into the air and before she knew it, she landed painfully on the concrete below. She shut her eyes tight and clutched her knee, which felt in the most pain. As she opened them, she saw that the pant leg of her overalls had been torn and that she was bleeding profusely at her leg.

She managed to focus away from the pain enough to get a look at her bike, which was not only totaled, but also had its front tire slashed through. It looked like a sharp blade had cut clean through it vertically.

Now Susie was getting scared. Something like that shouldn't be possible.

Unless someone was following her and caused her to crash.

Thoroughly freaked out, she got up and proceeded to limp her way home as fast as she could. She was in such a rush that she didn't even bother waiting for the light to change as she crossed the street. If there was really something after her, it wouldn't wait.

Turning briefly, she looked for what or who it was that could have attacked her. As she frantically looked around, she saw a shadow move on the rooftop of one of the buildings.

It looked like the same shadow she saw earlier.

"Not seeing things. Definitely not seeing things!" Susie loudly said as she started forcing herself to run, biting down the pain as her wound screamed at her to stop.

Just gotta get home. Just gotta get home.

She repeated that in her head. If she could get back to her house, she would be safe.

Seeing that she wouldn't be able to make it back the normal way, she saw a familiar alley and rolled into it, hoping to take a shortcut to get away faster. As she ran down it, she looked back and couldn't tell where the shadow was, the darkness of the alley making it impossible to see.

She looked forward and saw street lights. The light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel in reach, Susie pushed herself forward despite the pain in her leg as she rushed out of the alley and back into the streets.

The pain was beginning to overwhelm her and she was losing her breath. Seeing an opportunity to catch her breath, she stopped underneath a familiar street light that she used to pass every day growing up. She panted to catch her breath as she looked around her, not seeing that dark shadow anymore. Susan sighed in relief. It was just one more block, and she'd be home and safe.

Suddenly, her reverie was snapped when the street light above her went out and she heard a cackling sound coming from straight above her as the light of the broken moon cast a shadow that covered her whole body. Slowly and fearfully, she looked up, and was filled with horror at the sight.

The shadow that had chased her wasn't some ordinary stalker. It was a hideous blob of amorphous shadow that oozed and shifted in place as it looked down on her. That horrendous cackle shook her to her soul.

It was a monster!

Before she could make a break for it, she found herself ensnared in a large, boney claw that came right out of the shadow. She was lifted up as the blob stood tall. Suddenly, a white, crude mask with three holes in it appeared, as if this was the face of the beast. There was no expression on the mask, yet the cackle spoke volumes.

Then the shadow spoke, and these were the last words she ever heard:

"Feast..."

As she was consumed into the shadow, all she could do was scream.

It screeched at an unlistenable octave as it finished feeding on her, dropping what was left of her body like a worthless stone.

Her Aura was weak. Her soul was unsatisfying.

It starved. It needed a true meal.

"Not...enough...not...ENOUGH!"

It crawled, clinging to shadows. It was not strong. It needed to feast. It needed to get its strength back.

"Need...food...where...is...Aura..."

It clung to the walls of a building and climbed. It needed more. Find vantage point. Find food. It was simple.

At the top, it looked around for food. It smelled Aura in people. Many who slept, but they had little. It then noticed the spire in the distance.

"Beacon...Academy..."

Home to warriors who trained their Auras. Many bodies with souls. Strong, powerful souls. Powerful souls meant powerful Auras. Many meals for it to feast on. Enough food to satisfy its hunger.

But they were strong. It was weak.

It returned to smelling for the souls in buildings nearby. It would strengthen itself on morsels first.

Then, it would truly feast.

Alright, so this one's actually very short for this story being honest, being shorter than even the other short chapters given that it's less than 2k words. It's really more of a set up chapter for later. Hope everyone enjoyed this story's introduction to Arakune and my first attempt at trying to write horror. Probably not all that good and overall pretty cliché if I'm being honest with myself, but I wanted to at least make the attempt to do so.

Now, as for why Arakune isn't speaking in the broken tongue where letters are missing from his words? Well, I tried that but when I wanted to have it erase more than one letter consecutively, it made it out like there was only one letter separating the words in terms of spacing. I found this frustrating to put up with, so I decided to cut out the middle man go the route of the later games and have his dialogue be more like how it was in Chronophantasma. Sorry in advance for that.

In any case, next chapter is where we'll be heading back to Beacon and continuing things as previously.

Now, this next question if more for the viewers on this site specifically since I already asked this to my Spacebattles viewers, but how do you guys feel about the pacing of this story? I feel like I should be getting back with the canon story soon enough (I'm thinking around with Chapter 20), but I want to know how you guys feel about the story's pace so far. Let me know in the reviews.