Hello everyone! How are you? Hope you are all fine!
Without any further ado, I present you Chapter 92. As always, I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks a lot once more for following/reading/ favoring the story. You all rock!
See you next week in chapter 93. Until then, have fun and be well!
"Is anyone here?" weapon at hand, Weiss slightly opened the cell door with the help of her glyphs. Ruby stood next to her, barrel aimed at the dark opening in case anything tried to attack them.
There was no reply; only the same faint crying. The fire Weiss had lit to burn the corpses gave them enough light to get a rough view of the filth and grime filling the interior, however, as well as the small body of its resident, currently tugged inside a blanket at the far corner of the cell.
Weiss stared at Ruby. The brunette nodded, turned her back at the pale girl and locked her aim on the door "be careful" she only said. "It goes without saying" Weiss replied before she carefully stepped in the cage.
The moment the shivering person noticed her enter, they started cry out loud. The sobs and gasps filled the burning room, echoing through the bloodstained walls and floor. Weiss stowed her swords away.
"It's ok; I am not here to hurt you" she tried her sweetest voice to calm the person. "Sniff… I don't believe you… stay away from me... please!"
So, she is a girl. Weiss stopped advancing and gave her one of her most heartfelt smiles. For her to have survived in this place, next to a swarm of walking corpses stinking of blood, she must be pretty tough-spirited.
"My name is Weiss; I am a huntress and came here to help you. Could you tell me your name?" she asked calmly and sweetly. The shivering didn't stop, but the covered figure's head turned at her.
"Weiss?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse and heavy, but carried a bit of childishness in it. The huntress was reminded of the faunus orphans back at Mantle Orphanage. "As if, Weiss Schnee of team RWBY?"
Her smile grew. If the girl knew who they were, it could make it easier to calm her down. "Exactly" she took one step forward "my partner and leader, Ruby Rose, is outside the cage guarding us right now."
"Ruby…" the figure shook a little and the trembling stopped, still hidden beneath the blanket. "Ruby Rose? You- you came to save me?" a faint hope could be heard in the way her tone changed. Weiss nodded.
"We came here to save all of you; all the students who were kidnapped and the huntsmen who tried to find you. Chief Bright of Lakkard Police sent us" she replied. "So, could you tell me your name, now?"
The blanket moved and the figure from beneath revealed her head. She was a young girl, with narrow face and honey eyes. Her hair originally must have been a platinum blonde, but now were turned ashen white.
The fabric fell to her shoulders and the huntress' face darkened. There were large black circles around her eye sockets and distinct black-green tool marks on her forehead, nose, cheeks and neck.
"I am Martina Waite" she told her through a dried-up pair of lips and a heavily scarred mouth. "I-" she shivered again as Weiss slowly walked closer to her "I am a huge fan of Miss Rose and team RWBY" she added.
"Is that so?" the alabaster girl knelt in front of her and gave her a ration bar and a flask. She looked at her as she quickly stuffed her mouth and thirstily gulped down the precious water "I am glad to hear that."
"Thank- thank you" she sniffed as tears ran down her eyes. "It- it was so scary here… I thought I- I was going to die… they- the things they did to them… it was so scary… oh God… thank you so much, Ms. Schnee."
Weiss carefully squeezed the girl's shoulder and gave an encouraging, bright smile "I am glad you survived, Martina. You are a strong girl." She then reached at her backpack and pulled out a set of clothes.
"But we have to move; this place is not safe yet and may become even worse from now on" she hardened her gaze "can you walk, even if it a bit slowly?" The girl's honey eyes stared at Weiss and she shyly nodded.
A few minutes later, Weiss and Martina slowly walked out of the cell to Ruby. The student, now wearing Schnee's spare uniform, blushed and turned away shyly when Ruby smiled at her.
"I heard most of your talk" she told them "I am Ruby Rose; happy to meet you Martina!" The student turned at her and returned the smile "I- I am happy to meet you as well, Ms. Rose" she whispered.
"I take it there were no issues here" Weiss addressed her partner. Ruby nodded "dead silence, if you don't count the fire crackles; whatever the thing that shot the beam at us was, it left- or is avoiding us for now."
"Then we should move" the blonde said. Ruby turned around at the captive girl "I am sorry to ask Martina, but, is there anything you could tell us about this place? It would really help us" she politely asked her.
"I am sorry no; after Prof. Vivian attacked us" she spat the name with a mix of fear and hate "I woke up in here. The only thing I ever heard was someone telling her to move the subjects to the lab inside."
As she spoke, she pointed towards the metal door ahead of them "they dragged them inside the door and then… I don't know. I never saw any of them again… no one who left this place came back…" she shivered.
"Thank you" Ruby gave her a deeper smile to ease her panic and try to calm her fear. "Again, sorry to ask, but" Weiss stumbled for a moment "do you know if there are any other survivors, Martina?"
She closed her eyes and lowered her head "I am the only one" her reply was expected, but that didn't made it less harrowing. "One last thing; is the guy you saw talk to Crem a tall person with blue hair?" Weiss asked.
"Yes" the girl replied once more. "She seemed to be quite respectful to the man" She added. Ruby and Weiss shared a determined look before they turned to the student.
"We are going in" Ruby unfurled Crescent Rose and Weiss drew her swords again. In the low-light of the dying fire, their eyes looked like burning gems.
"Stay behind us and if anything comes up, don't hesitate to run. Is that ok with you?" Ruby asked. Martina's eyes opened wide and she nodded while trying to follow their example "yes, Ms. R-" "Ruby." "And Weiss."
"Yes, Ruby."
-o—
Yang didn't think twice. She jumped next to Cherry and took her in her arms, breaking the chains with one swift motion. Her mind was in hyper drive, the ominous presence and sickening feeling finally catching up to her as well, threatening to mess her stomach and mind.
Stumbling, taking deep breaths and struggled footsteps, Blake managed to somehow pour the liquid Fowler was working on inside a flask. Futile action, one would say, but she wanted to at least give it a try.
Dizzy and exhausted, the girls dragged their bodies to the back of the room, towards a small metal door- their only chance to escape those horrifying monsters and try regroup with the others.
The eerie laughter grew, and so did the sinister looking lights. The red gleaming hue dyed the walls of the U-turn even deeper a red color and the thudding of the bone staff became heavier with every step it made.
Yang closed her eyebrows and shook her head to try and suppress the impeding feeling of dread. She had Cherry's sleeping form in her back, like how she did when giving sleepy Ruby a piggy-back ride in Patch.
Blake clutched her chest and spat out to wash her mouth from the bile that rose from within. Now is the time for actions, not shaking in fear like a scaredy-cat she decided, while she tried to pry the door open.
The echoing thud and sepulchral gleam were growing closer and closer, when the handle and lock finally gave in. She pushed, but a series of shining morbid green lines full of powerful ancient energy formed on the door blocking her efforts of opening it.
The sound of the bone staff became heavier. "What is this?" she did not believe her eyes. "It looks like the barrier Cherry had put around Red Mansion; the one Weiss and I couldn't open" Yang groaned at her.
"Hehehe…" "Not that again… what do we do?" Blake hung from the door, her nails scratching the barrier's surface. She was at her wits' end; at a point where she wasn't sure she could deal with the Grimm that came at them - and she had a very good idea about how strong they were.
"Hehehehe…" The lights grew closer. The footsteps were now interrupted by the blood-thirsty sough and heavy inhale. The staff kept echoing in the dungeon halls. Blake punched the wall with all her might.
"Blake?" Yang held her forehead. The pain was immense but she had to somehow endure it. There was no way she could accept both of them-
Blake stared at her, blinked a couple times and "Smash the wall! There is no barrier around the door!" she screamed to suppress her own pain.
The lights and laughter grew. Yang acted before her mind could even register what her partner told her. She took a fierce step and punched the wall, creating a small hole in the old stone. And then another one.
The sound of rock being smashed and wall slowly collapse was being interrupted by Blake's heavy panting and Yang's screams of anxiety. A hole formed quickly, as soon as the red hue showered them both.
"Hehehehe…" the floating Grimm filled the room the very moment the blonde broke a part of the wall. At once, they made an opening large enough for them to crawl in. The thudding sound stopped- really close.
The suffocating feeling increased tenfold and Blake had to muster all of her mental strength in order to not collapse there. "Hehehehe…" Yang pushed the faunus inside the opening and jumped after her at once.
They quickly got up, trying to take a look, ascertain their surroundings and find a way to sidetrack the Grand Moth-
The assault on their senses was like nothing they had ever experienced. The amount of pain, horror and agony they both felt was so strong they thought their senses had become numb.
Because if they hadn't, then they had no idea how they survived such an onslaught of power. Their nerves felt like they were being fried, their flesh like being flayed to their very bones.
"Bla…ke…" There was nothing to see but void darkness. There was not one single smell, but that foul scent of death. The taste of bile filled their mouths. They might have thrown up- they couldn't be sure.
The worst one, however, was the invasion in their minds. An abysmal amount of information flowed into them, forming images of places they knew they had never seen before.
It took a second- or was it a century- for them to succumb. They were stripped of their sense of self. Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long now were nothing but receivers for the power that poured inside them.
And how malicious that power was! The pain it brought was enough for Blake to feel glad her senses had been numbed; she was sure she would have died of agony otherwise.
Images filled their minds; twisted images, of people and places they did not know, from eras they had no idea of. And, along with them, came a voice- an ancient, powerful voice full of so much hatred and malice it shook their very beings to their core.
"The world was still young"
Their conscience became one with a faithful crowd of villagers. They lived in harmony, in a small village by the lake, surrounded in tall trees.
Lavender-colored flowers grew on the surrounding plains; they could smell the euphoric aroma of the beautiful scenery; its intensity was so great, they felt like they were part of it.
"You worshipped me and I gave you the power to defend your land."
The scenery changed. Now they were part of a group that stood in front of a large, statue in the middle of the village. It was made of black stone and depicted a hooded woman with thick arms holding a tall staff.
In front of it stood the villagers wearing armors and wielding strange old-looking staffs. They resembled the Relic of Creation, albeit in a less polished, more primeval form.
"And all I ever demanded was a small token of your faith."
In front of the statue, a large pile of corpses was gathered. They knew, even if they couldn't understand why, they belonged to a bandit tribe.
So numb their senses were from the influx of images, they didn't question themselves when they knelt and ceremoniously beheaded the corpses, before faithfully offering the dripping heads to the dark statue.
"But then She trapped me. She trapped me inside my own temple in a cage made of my own blood."
They were running away from the destruction. The small figure of a woman floated mid-air, gathering an impossible amount of energy while battling a mass of the deepest, vilest darkness. Lightning bolts razed the air. One came at-
"Eons passed by until you found me again."
They were among a group of people, wearing old-looking clothes. The date was 5 years after the Great War, Blake noted. How did she know? She had no idea about it.
But that didn't matter. They had just seen something horrible- the thing that was sealed in the chamber below them was too horrible to exist. It was- she couldn't even picture it together.
"We have to seal this thing. There is no way we are allowing it to roam free" Yang heard her voice, manly, yet hers all the same, propose to seal it by building a prison of steel- a fake facility- around it.
"You refused to set me free. You covered my sacred Temple in your disgusting metal."
They were there; among the workers who sealed the disgusting thing inside the crypt and built the fake facility upon it. They locked the doors behind them and swore to never speak of the place again.
"You turned me into one of your disgusting toys. For years you leeched my power, tainting my Holy Land with your sacrilege."
Blake and Yang smiled to each other as they completed the magic circle that surrounded the facility. Behind them stood a man they had never met in their lives but knew all too well to be the Mayor of Cornfield.
"Is it ready?" his mustache-covered mouth asked the girls- no, these bodies were definitely male- as he put on his top hat.
"As Lady Salem promised, this barrier will convert its magic into enough power to fuel the entire plant for decades, no, centuries" Blake replied in a voice not her own. "It doesn't even require cables or power lines."
"You spilled blood in my Temple and didn't offer it to me- you stole my gifts and turned your back, while leeching my power like vermin."
Blake looked away in shame, her hands filled in the jewels she had just pruned away from the Grand Mother's tomb. "Salem will learn of this" Fowler said "you broke your oath to her and you will-"
Yang hit him on the back of his head with a huge shovel. The man fell down but, before he could react, the other boy- Blake- grabbed him. Full of hate, Yang raised her shovel and brought it down on his head.
A couple minutes later, they ran away from the scene and sealed the door, their outfits full of his blood and their pockets full of priceless jewelry and carved gems.
"My anger, my hatred for you- you gave it power."
Fowler's blood dripped down the sealed door and fell into a large pit. Hungry red eyes looked at it at stretched out with all their might; Yang and Blake swore they could feel the strain behind their voracious gaze.
As well as the vile satisfaction they felt when the blood finally touched their surface. Words were chanted. Vile words that both girls couldn't spell, yet could understand as if they were the ones chanting them.
A few hours later a cloth-covered, slow-moving humanoid figure with a lump on its back and thick arms and legs black like charred flesh walked out of the facility, holding a large wooden staff in its arms.
"And I gave it back to you."
Both huntresses- no, normal students. Or were they teachers? Both of them ran, gasping and panting away from the plaza. The stench of blood; the screams of dying people; the eerie howls of Grimm- all of them accompanied the girls as they ran, floating Grimm heads hovering in the skies and horrific scarecrows bursting from the-
"Yet you still kept using me; you never stopped lusting for my power."
Blake and Yang stood, inside nasty, black goo. Unlike any previous time, their numb senses gave way to a feeling of sickness. Like bile forming in their throats, boiling their insides, threatening to drown them.
They felt pain. They felt horror. Anger. Disgust. Contempt. Sorrow. Hate and fury. And then, pain again. Their heads were thick and heavy. They couldn't see anything and their eyes hurt as if carved with a fiery knife.
And yet, without being able to understand how, they both saw a thin man with long turquoise hair kneel over them. His eyes were blue but, unlike Weiss' they were filled in curiosity, lacking any of her warmth.
He turned around and talked to someone, before he took out a long, jagged knife made of dark stone. He reached out- and plunged it into their skin, cutting off large pieces of their flesh.
Agony. Hatred. Pain. ! A harrowing wailing travelled through their bodies and resonated through the room, reaching to the very core of their souls.
This man had to die! No, not only this man. Every man who had used them should die! No, not only those who used them. EVERY LIVING SOUL ON REMNANT SHOULD DIE!
DIE! The sound of a bell resonate through the air filled their ears.
DIE! The scent of lavender filled their nostrils.
DIE! BLACK OUT THE HEAVENS! SERVE ME- TO YOUR LAST BREATHS! OFFER ME YOUR HEARTS! WEISS, RUBY! WHO ARE THEY? SUN, ILIA, LUMIA, ERIK, ALBUS, ALEX! Who ARE- DEATH! "FEAST ON THEM!"
She blinked a couple times. The scent of lavender, mingled with ash and blood filled her nose. Her lilac orbs stared around- and met with a pair of scared, yellow ones. Who is that? She knew someone who looks-
They were both kneeling on a stone-cold pavement made of green-dark rock. The girl, because the yellow eyes belonged to a girl, stared back at her, slightly tilting her head in wonder.
"Are you- Ronald?" she finally said. A sudden pang of pain filled her head, making her clutch it heavily. Who the eff is Ronald? Wait, she is Katrin, isn't she? No! Katrin is dead! But, again, who is Katrin?
"B-Bella" the girl, seemingly in distress as well, replied. "No, that's not it" she had a cute, low voice like a cat. "Adam? No, I think that's not me… but who is Adam? I- I can't remember… so many people to think."
"That's…" the image of a girl in white and a silver-eyed one smiling at her in affection. "Weiss… Ruby…" she blurted out the words that came to her. "Is that you? Are you- no, you are not Weiss or Ruby… ahh…"
All of a sudden, the beautiful girl started trembling and panting- but the lilac-eyed girl was there. She hugged her tightly and started whisper, all the while hearing her whimper "Sun… I am sorry… please... don't leave me… it's my fault. Please… I love you… don't die…"
"Shhh… it's all right Blake. I got- huh?" Yang blinked again. What the eff was that? She was hugging Blake to calm her down from the episode she was having yes, but- you know what, that's what matters at the moment, so screw everything else! "It's all right- Sun is alive, kitty."
"Yang… oh my God… Yang" she hugged her back. "What was that; what were we doing? Who were we?" she whispered. "I don't know, but we are alive- somehow. Actually" she rubbed her back "why are we alive?"
"I can explain that" a familiar voice sounded from behind them making them break their hug and reach out for their weapons. And then, only then, the girls' minds broke out of the trance and saw what was going on around them- as well as where they were at the moment.
They were surrounded by a small magical circle that pulsed in a faint green light. Around them spread a massive cavern made of dark stone that looked like it was dripping wet in an unnamable liquid.
In the middle of the cavern, visible from the small stone platform they were currently standing on, were dozens of Gargoyles and floating head Grimm. They were standing still, as if observing an unholy ceremony.
As to what they observed… it was a mass of flesh, darker than the stone forming the cavern. It had a humanlike head, lacking eyes or mouth and a pair of white bull-like horns growing from its top.
A pair of arms reached out from its form, humanlike but with massive white claws on their ends. They were restrained in a crucifix position by large, ancient shackles. Its torso was impaled and suspended in a higher place by two huge iron stakes full of gleaming runes.
Its belly was covered by long white ribs protruding from its skin, thick as plate armor. Inside them, adequately protected, was a swirling mass of green-dark energy, forming unnamable horrifying shapes.
As they watched, the mass burst out, showering the rune-carved floor with a huge splatter of dark Grimm blood. Blake and Yang covered their mouths and averted their gazes as they saw a scarecrow Grimm emerge from the splatter, its body dripping in sinister, acidic liquid.
Their eyes fell upon Cherry, who was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall- her half-naked form a creepily unnatural antithesis to the monstrous event they had just witnessed.
"Behold the Grand Mother" her voice announced as if telling a bedtime story "Creator of a Thousand Horrors."