Ch 26 - The Calm Before the Storm
A/N: Ye gods, when you're in a four-man fighting Fatalis, and you're down to your last cart, but then you hit him with the Dragonator and Proof of a Hero starts playing... sweet mother of Gywn, it's like injecting a dopamine shot straight into your neck. If this is even a fraction of what they feel when they do it, I can understand why switch-axe mains love doing Zero Sum Discharge at literally every opportunity.
Here's a bit more fluff before we dive straight into Vol 3. I just wanna say in advance, I've been a bit hesitant to do a Ren perspective because I'm afraid I'll make him seem OOC. I don't think I'll have a problem doing a Nora perspective, I just haven't seemed to find a good point to do one yet. And I want to write something from Nora's POV, I just haven't found an occasion that feels good for it yet.
Review Response:
ScreamingStuka: Ok, now that I think about it, Patches being the associate makes sense, even more so the more I think about it. And I can definitely see him not only appearing here and there in Ozmas and Salems war over ages, but playing his own game that will absolutely side swipe BOTH of them.
Didn't think we'd actually get the whole MT Glenn and the Breach in ine chapter, but Gods Damn did it work. Patches brief appearance, straight to JNAPR being alerted to the breach (Vyliria's reaction reminds me of a Mass Effect meme that describes the three games. ME1: The reapers are coming. ME2: The Reapers Are Coming. ME3: What did I Fucking tell you?!), the battle itself (and Jaune with blessed weapon! kinda glad that that just gets thrown out there, rather than it being shown he was taught it previously) and the immediate after effect.
Vyliria now has aura! Wonder how thats going to change her fighting style, or how she is going to try augment it with soul magics and vice versa. And Adam, the one guy that we all mostly agree is the biggest Dick (though Ironwood and Tyrion are tied for second) has appeared. Now I want to see him do battle with Vyliria and do his usual Faunus supremacy speech and how Vyliria, a "human" knows nothing about suffering and Humanity must pay. Only for Vyliria to either A. go berserk and tear him apart whilst also engaging in a shouting match. or B. tap the darksign and show her undead appearance befoe systematically tearing him apart.
Like every chapter before, and every chapter after. loved this one and cant wait for Friday evening, and Happy Birthday from down under!
My response: Patches is a player. That's all I'll say on that front for now.
Gonna be honest, it makes me glad to see that the reception for ch 25 has been positive so far. My belief was that the readers' expectations going into the Breach would be a RWBY-centric chapter with the addition of Dark Souls spells. So I went to subvert those expectations by A: IMMEDIATELY opening up with the bombshell that is Patches, and then B: straight away segueing into a JNAPR perspective for the Breach itself. I'll admit, I didn't have Mass Effect in mind when doing Vyliria's reaction, but yeah, Jaune having Blessed weapon and having it just thrown out there without showing it actually being taught was entirely intentional, and I'm glad it had the desired effect.
As for our resident unkindled having aura, this is a Dark Souls character we're talking about. Now they have a way to take more hits before dying, on a person who was already used to incorporating being able to ignore being stabbed in the lung to their combat style. While Vyliria isn't reckless, she sees her newfound soul-shield as a way to basically be able to fuck up more before taking a trip to the nearest bonfire. Whereas she could already shrug off brutal injuries to hit her opponents, now she can tank huge hits without any loss of her capabilities due to injury. It might take a while before she starts to shift her mindset off of that.
As for Adam, I'm gonna say that I hate him, but I love the fact that I hate him. If you look at him as a character you're SUPPOSED to hate, he's a FANTASTIC character. As a person, I despise Adam, but I think he's awesome as a character in the show. As for him fighting Vyliria, while the way this book ended up panning out meant he didn't actually have a fight with her, I absolutely plan for him to have an appropriately epic 1v1 with sometime before Vyliria gets to Atlas.
Thanks for the well wishes!
Alby199800: Well OF COURSE Patches is still around, he lived for countless cycles, almost surviving the end of time(AKA The Ringed city Dlc), not surprised he is still alive, and that make me question, does that mean that Patches is THE most ancient being on Remnant right now, even older than Vyliria? Well, good to see it here, wondering how much we will have to wait for that kick in the back, just like old times.
I will wait the next chapter with bated breath.
My response: You might be waiting a while for a good old fashioned kick off a cliff. I need to find a way to put it in the story without making it feel shoehorned in solely (puns intended) for the sake of "Oh my Gwyn lol Patches just kicked someone off a cliff hahaha funny Dark Souls meme hahahahahaha!"
All I'll say for now is that Patches is currently the oldest being known to Remnant.
Skeletalrepublic: Fun chapter. I'm more curious about how long Patches has been here, for all I know he possibly saw the wrath of the brother gods and fucked right off when as soon as he saw it.
But that one guy's review about invi-frames got me thinking of a fanfic, One where someone who's just so obsessed with rolling that they wore Kirk's armor just to making their rolling more useful. Add that in with invi-frames and you have a disaster piece where characters are baffled as to why they can't hit a rolling maniac even when they slam a grand hammer against them. Before bleeding to death
My response: Patches has seen a lot of shxt. A LOT of shxt. Much of which isn't known to the majority of the contemporary populace of Remnant.
Now I'm tempted to make an Omake in the sequel where Dark Souls characters actually have iframes when they roll.
Bloodhunter101: OK, so first off happy birthday! Secondly DS main character whose name I may or may not have forgotten how to spell, has aura now so... Suck on that cinder you are even more effed than before! Soul stream is op, nothing new there, Patches, it's him yay *grits teeth* though I'm surprised he's working with Roman, you'd think that the man who's been on a crusade against greed since demon's Souls all the way until he became a flipping spider, wouldn't be compatible with a thief, but greirats story line does exist, so, yeah. Also, that reference at the end, Jelloapocalypse is indeed really funny. Anyways long story short great chapter! And thank you for two chapters in one week have, a nice day!
My response: Thanks! Don't worry about forgetting Vyliria's name, I'm TERRIBLE at remembering names IRL. Yeah, Cinder's not gonna have a good time in the future. And yes, when soul stream actually HITS, it does a lot of damage.
You forget that Patch's crusade against greed is accomplished by STEALING STUFF. So he'd be pretty chummy with fellow thieves. And while I plan to make a decent amount of references to Bloodborne, it's not canon to this universe.
Yes, Jelloapocalypse is funny AF. Glad you enjoyed the chapter! You're welcome, and have a nice day as well.
TheBigBrotherWTPD: I'm happy. Patches is, without a doubt, my favorite npc from soft has made. And he's here now. Now we wait for Ruby to spill on accident and Valyria to lose her shit.
My response: Actually, Ruby will keep her mouth shut for once. I have DIFFERENT plans for Vyliria to become aware of her erstwhile compatriot.
Outside review response: Once again, I'm just gonna remind everyone that this story is DONE. I'm just spacing out uploads. Rather poorly, since I seem to have a terrible track record of keeping to my "Weekly on Fridays and once every 100 reviews" schedule.
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Souls or RWBY. Dark Souls belongs to From Software and RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I only own my own OC.
(Ren)
Ren watched from the stands in the training hall, three days after the Breach, as it was being called, where everyone was getting their last minute training in for the Vytal Festival that was less than two weeks away. Realizing that in the timeframe she had, that it would be quite difficult to teach Ruby lightning arrow and Nora wrath of the gods, emit force, and force, while also going through the surprisingly large amount of paperwork required for a last minute-entry to the Vytal Festival Tournament (she did unlock her aura, after all, and while she may not participate, she did have to register), Vyliria had altered her previous plan. The Irithyllian, who was not wearing her headgear at the moment in a rare gesture of trust (though all the windows were shut and shuttered) had instead conscripted Pyrrha to help teach his sister team's leader the miracle that the Mistralian already possessed, while giving Nora a crash course in the "explosive miracles." Despite Nora's… personality, the fundamental nature of force was so easy to comprehend that his partner had managed to start casting it in under an hour. Then she spent the next five minutes knocking an increasingly irate Vyliria to the floor before her own hysterics caused her to drop the brown canvas talisman she was using. Ren had pulled Nora aside and admonished her, whereupon the ginger girl he'd been with all these years offered an apology to a very annoyed Irithyllian… who then used force and knocked Nora down right back. Even Ren had trouble keeping a smile off his face at that.
There was a brief minor scare two and a half hours in when Ruby managed her first lighting arrow and accidentally hit someone, but considering that Nora's semblance was absorbing electricity directly into her muscles to boost her own strength, there were worse targets for the miracle to hit. Ren began to feel some sympathy for Vyliria as she had to wait several minutes for Nora to stop laughing at the fact that emit force originated from drunken brawls in some land called Catarina, but given how well it aligned with her general nature, Nora had managed this one on the same day as force, leaving her only remaining goal to cast wrath of the gods. Vyliria had called for the training hall floor to be cleared, in order to demonstrate the effect of the miracle herself. As she spoke, she held her catalyst and raised her hands to the front of her head, a bright white light shining with an increasing luminosity.
A city hidden beneath the dragons' gaze,
Dug from below the earth and set ablaze,
A messenger sent through peril to beg for aid from the Lords,
The gods sallied forth, and a warcry for vengeance soared,
The city was already dead; they faced impossible odds,
Yet every last wyrm was laid low by the Wrath of the Gods!
As she finished, the white light became blinding, and with a boom, a visible wave of deadly force crashed out, cracking the floor beneath her. Taking a breath and holstering her chime, she repaired the damages with her staff, before giving a nod to Nora, calling forth her miracle tome from wherever she stored all her things, and opened the book to the appropriate page before passing it to the ginger bomber. Before she let go of it, she stated in no uncertain terms, "If you damage this tome, I will break your legs. And then heal them, so I can break them again."
For the first time since the school year started, Ren saw Nora look visibly nervous as she audibly gulped, and gave a hasty nod, gingerly taking the weathered tome and very carefully walking over to the stands to sit next to Ren and start going over wrath of the gods in order to memorize it. A few minutes later, approaching footsteps made Ren suddenly shift and act completely calm, as if he wasn't reading over Nora's shoulder without her knowledge. Vyliria sat down next to Ren. There was a few seconds of silence, but where most people would find it starting to get awkward, Ren enjoyed companionable silence, since it was a rarity from Nora. And he assumed Vyliria didn't care either way, because that was just her personality.
"All right," she started, "I'm just going to be blunt with it: You seem the type to have a dark and tragic past, so do you want to learn dark sorceries?"
Ren raised an eyebrow. "That's it? You're not going to further inquire into it?"
"No, that's it. You probably don't want to talk about it, so I'm not going to pry. Plus, there's only six dark sorceries that I know, so I can teach them relatively quickly. Though you have no idea how much of a pain in the arse it was to find dark bead in the endless mass of books in the Grand Archives of Lothric."
"I'll both take your word for it, and take your offer," Ren replied.
"Great!" she took out yet another weathered tome, this one bound by twine so it couldn't be casually opened and said, "So when do you want to get started?"
"I suppose now is as good a time as any?" the magenta-eyed man responded.
"Right then." Vyliria turned to a Nora who was giving her the stink-eye. Ren resisted the urge to sigh. "I'm not trying to steal your man Nora. I swear on Gwyndolin's name." Nora relaxed her stare, gave a slow nod, and then went back to her own spellbook. Ren felt… something, and he wasn't quite sure what it was. He was prevented from trying to analyze this feeling when Vyliria finished untying the twine around her tome, and spoke again. "Right, so the first thing to do is get you a catalyst."
"I'll take a normal one; I'm not picky." And Ren was honest about that.
Vyliria looked him in the eye, even as she called forth a normal sorcerer's staff in a wash of embers. "By the gods, thank you for already being the easiest student I've taught spellcraft to. Ahem, anyways, the first spell we're going to have you learn is deep soul, which fires a mass of darkened soul sediment that homes in towards their targets…"
(Patches)
The doors to the underground warehouse opened up for something besides routine upgrades to what was within for the first time in three decades. The lights flickered on. The man walked in, and turned on a state of the art terminal that had been liberated from a particularly corrupt SDC official. He sat down, cracked his fingers, and got to work.
Patches' perpetual smirk was replaced with a frown. Suffice to say, he was not pleased at recent events. Fire Bitch thought she had them all by the balls (Neo in the metaphorical sense), but there was a damned good reason he was called Unbreakable Patches. He had safehouses that literally no one else on the planet was aware about, scattered on every single continent. While having to stock them with food and drink if he was going to host others in said safehouses might be a pain, he could manage. If this Cinder bitch wanted to raze Vale for Salem, he would go along, if only to protect the first two people he genuinely cared about in a long time. But two lines were just crossed. One did not go up against Vyliria of Avalon and walk away, at all, nevermind unscathed. And she had quite blatantly demonstrated she was already willing to throw them to the Abyss by giving Roman a luxury one-way ticket to an Atlesian capital ship's brig. He couldn't act to get Neo out of this mess at the moment, because that would tip far too many people off when Cinder had her undercover at Beacon. But what he could do was start hacking police servers to erase Neo's records, start falsifying some credentials, grab his bottomless box, and start hacking some military databases to get the floor plans for a heavily armed airship. It was going to be a long night, but he was undead, so what was a few dozen hours of straight work to the likes of him? He glanced to the right, a giant metal greatshield with indentations on the top and bottom, to allow one to peer over it and move with slightly more ease, lay against the wall. Next to it sat a halberd, whose head vaguely resembled a leaf, made of steel infused with titanite, modified with gun barrels on either side of the blade and a trigger further down the shaft.
The frown on his face started to ease off, and soon his iconic smile took its place. He gave a light chuckle, even as he continued to work. "Thought they could outwit me, did they? Just because I'm not kicking them off a cliff, doesn't mean I can't ensure they end up corpses. Mark my words, Cinder Fall… you just made an enemy. And if there's one thing I'm still the best in the world at, it's pissing people off!"
(Neo)
She was bored, yet also concerned. Keeping up a disguise with Overactive Imagination at all times was barely any effort, but the ban from poking around the campus by Cinder was beyond annoying. But Roman was stuck as a prisoner of General Ironwood, and Patches had dropped off the grid entirely. Fire Bitch, to borrow Roman's nickname for the cunt, needed her for several parts of her Plan, yet still wouldn't tell her anything about what the damn plan was! She had so many things she wanted to do, but was stuck in this damned dorm. She wanted to pay back the edgy freak of nature for daring to touch her baby Hush (and then see if she could give any pointers, because she'd shown some real sociopathic tendencies in their fight, and she wanted to know more), pay back the blond bimbo for trying to melt her with fire and lava on that train, especially since she got her fair-and-square kill blocked by Raven fucking Branwen, and steal Red's cookies or something in order to get back at her for annoying Roman. Neopolitan sighed yet again, idly checking the sharpness of her blade, before sheathing it into her parasol again, as she resumed anticipating that the cafeteria would be serving ice-cream this evening. That brought a slight smile to her face for a few seconds… aaaaand she was bored again. This was going to be a long week.
(Vyliria)
Vyliria was on the roof of the dorm that night. The festival was less than a week away, but she could honestly say that she was beyond proud of how far all her friends had gotten with their various arcane capabilities. Jaune had also vastly improved in his close quarters combat, to the point where Vyliria had to actually put in effort to still kick his arse every training session. Penny had finally arrived on campus, and along with Ruby, they had gone on a tour of the place, and she'd shown off the bonfire in the Emerald Forest to the synthetic girl. She had been enraptured by the thing, feeling a warmth in her very aura, and not just the sensation of warmth afforded to her by the humanity bonded to her. Back in the present, Vyliria gazed at the shattered moon, the temporary smile brought to her face by the recent recollection wiped away as she looked back down at the small soul in her hands, colored pale blue, with the barest hint of a faint gold inside the flame. She felt a pang in her heart as she stared into it for the first time since she had awoken in the Kiln. It was such a pitiful thing, but it was all she had left of him. Her raw, heartbroken, agonized screams from that day echoed in the back of her mind, and she swallowed as she felt tears start to well in her eyes.
She heard the door open, and in a flash, his soul was stored away, out of sight and safe, the tears blinked away as she forced herself to show a more relaxed appearance to the rest of the world.
"Your team told me you'd be up here," Weiss' voice said, as the heiress walked over to her. "Can I sit with you?"
Vyliria gestured with one arm, and the blanchette joined her, two pairs of legs now dangling over the edge of the roof.
"The amount of messages I've been getting are ridiculous. From politicians, news agencies, faunus, civil rights groups… from father… Half of them seem convinced Neptune's already impregnated me, and the other half is all over the place on how they're reacting to me helping White Fang during the Breach, and my relationship with Blake. Did you know that I actually got a thank you letter from Ghira Belladonna, both for accepting his daughter as a friend, and helping my foes?"
"Does Blake know about that last one?"
"She's more embarrassed about that than anything, and I've already stood by my team and threatened over a dozen people who tried to harass her."
"Huh, I guess there are benefits to being a relative nobody without a publicly available scroll-address." Weiss glared at her. "Okay, that was insensitive to say. My apologies."
Weiss sighed, but nodded in acceptance of the apology.
"I'm not going to lie: my experience with the painful rich life is more towards the spectrum of physical and mental abuse. I don't exactly possess experience with constant stress from being famous and having the world scrutinize my every action," Vyliria spoke up after a few minutes. "I can't pretend to know what you're going through. But if you want to vent your frustrations to me, I'll be here and act as a sympathetic ear."
"Thanks Vyliria."
"Twas- sorry, it's no problem, Weiss."
"Well someone's finally starting to modernize their speech," the Schnee commented.
"Yeah, and it's been a right pain in the arse," she responded. "I'm not changing that word though, I honestly prefer saying arse to ass."
Weiss smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Whatever floats your boat." They sat quietly for another few minutes. Eventually, Weiss broke the silence, and asked, "Hey Vyliria, can you finally start teaching me the crystal sorceries? I mean, slapping crystal onto weaponised souls just sounds unfathomable-"
"Unfathomable. This is a crystal sorcery, created by the Pale Dragon, thought only to exist in legend… I am ever grateful to you. This is truly sublime. I am afraid this is a debt I cannot repay, only… I will be sure to unravel it for you. Just a moment."
A heartbeat.
"In Vinheim, I was an assassin. A sorcerer only in name, a killer for hire. What a fool I was, thinking one day I would learn real sorceries. When I became undead, I was exiled from the school. But here I am, now, exploring the depths of sorcery. All thanks to you, I might add."
Another heartbeat.
"You are no ordinary woman. All of these sorceries, and you've mastered every one. If this were the Dragon School, you'd be… well, overtly despised, and banished from the place," Orbeck finished with a chuckle, before his tone became much more melancholy. "Well I suppose it's time I packed my bags. I'd hate to see our agreement end sourly. Better left tucked away as a pleasant memory."
A third.
"Promise to stay safe. It's been nice running our own little school."
The words still echoed in her head as she stared at the yellow-skinned, hollowed corpse sitting at a chair in the Grand Archives, empty eye-sockets still gazing down upon an opened book-
"-Vyliria? Are you okay? You've spaced out…" She became aware of Weiss' concerned face looking into her own.
"I…" she swallowed. "I'm sorry. I had a flashback. 'Unfathomable' was the same word my last sorcery teacher, Orbeck of Vinheim, had said when I brought him the scroll containing the spells you want to learn." She paused for a moment, sighed, and took another breath before she continued. "Thanks to Gwyndolin, I already knew a good deal of sorcery by the time I met him, and we were initially at odds, despite my desires to be cordial. He'd been betrayed by other scholars in the past, and didn't initially trust me when I asked for help in the pursuit of spells. It was only after I showed that I was being genuine that he warmed up to me, and I eventually considered him a good friend. It was fun to run our very own little school. And it's been fun teaching you all now, too. Especially you, Weiss. You've picked up sorcery even faster than I did. You also didn't accidentally hit me with any spells. Which is something that I can only say applies to yourself, Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ren." Her tone changed from slightly humorous back to melancholic. "I just… it was a sad day when I found his corpse, laid low in his very pursuit of knowledge. It genuinely hurt to see it."
"I'm sorry about your loss," Weiss offered.
"My thanks. I suppose it was a bit of trepidation mixed in with nostalgia that kept me from offering to teach you crystal sorceries sooner. Maybe some part of me thought that once you knew everything I knew, you'd leave like Orbeck did. I know, that's ludicrous, because you'll be here with me for the next three years at the least, but still… I'll get to teaching you crystal homing soul mass tomorrow."
"Hey Vyliria?" The unkindled cocked her head at Weiss' question. "If you ever want to talk about your past, to vent, or just because, I'll be here just like you'll be for me."
Vyliria stared at her for a few moments, before finding her voice. "Weiss? You're a good person. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth." She scooched back, stood up, gave a goodbye, and headed back inside.
(Ozpin)
Ozpin was sitting in his favored chair in his office, Glynda and James joining him, as they all gazed upon the seemingly innocuous golden medallion with its stylized sun that was placed on his desk. "And Miss Avalon claimed this was a religious icon of her faith? To a 'Nameless' god of war?"
"Yes," Glynda responded, "and there's something out of the ordinary about it. No matter where it's placed, or what time of day it is, the medal is faintly warm, reminiscent of a warm, but not overtly so, summer day. I will admit that I even tried placing it in my freezer overnight, but it had no effect at all."
Ozpin picked up the object in question, holding it and observing it closely. The warmth it gave was exactly as Beacon's Deputy Headmistress had described. And in addition to that…
"This object is magic," the enigmatic man stated.
It was almost as if the temperature had dropped in the room, which was only made more noticeable by the continued warmth from the medal he still held. "We should bring Avalon in for questioning. She has to have some kind of involvement with her, or the Brothers. There's no way she isn't involved in some way," James spoke for the first time since Glynda had placed the medal on the table.
Ozpin protested before Goodwitch could. "Most certainly not. She certainly has secrets she has yet to divulge, but she's in no way associated with her. Miss Avalon's magic is nothing like either hers or mine. And if she had this kind of magic, she would have used it. Vyliria is a piece belonging to an unknown player on the chess board, if not the unknown player herself, but she is certainly not opposed to us, and will remain so unless rash action on our part makes us her enemies. I would be a fool to trust someone such as her, but I can at least trust that her intent is only ill towards those who would seek harm to the innocent. Like our own foes, for example. And I believe it was an Atlesian commander who coined the phrase…" he trailed off, looking over the rims of his spectacles, hinting for James to finish.
"...The enemy of my enemy is my friend." James may be headstrong, and prone to using the claymore when the dagger would be better suited to the task, but he was reliable, and even if it was in this small way, he merely proved that fact when he spoke. "Very well, I'll defer to your experience on the matter. I just pray that you're right."
Ozpin turned his chair around, gazing out to the skyline of Vale, sitting against the dark night sky. "So do I James. So do I."
(Cinder)
It was beyond a pain to slip out into the middle of Forever Fall without anyone at Beacon noticing. It was even more annoying to ensure that Neo stayed behind… After all, this is something that only people who were aware of the full plan should know about. She reached the proper clearing, the tree's marked with symbols found on Grimm making it obvious. Emerald and Mercury stepped back, uncomfortable, as the Seer Grimm floated its way into the clearing with a series of clicks. It's head was almost like a demonic crystal ball, teeth sticking out of the edges of the bottom of the small tubular body beneath, and a series of tentacles poking out from the middle, the ends of which had sharp bone spikes. Cinder gave a bow, and a presence was felt that wasn't there previously.
Her image did not materialize within the crystal ball, but Her voice did carry out. "Why hello, Cinder. I did say only to use this in the case of an emergency, so I hope that whatever has brought you out here is of sufficient importance."
"There's a woman at Beacon," Cinder cut straight to the point, as it was in everyone's best interest to keep Salem, the Queen of the Grimm, in a good mood. "She's not a Maiden, yet she has magic I've never seen before. She's been teaching them to other students at the Academy, and has survived injuries that should have left her a corpse multiple times over."
"Do you know anything further about her?" Salem questioned.
"She claims to hail from a hidden fifth kingdom called Irithyll-"
"Irithyll? You are completely sure she said she was from Irithyll?"
"Yes."
"I had thought they were all gone," Salem mused aloud, and Cinder didn't dare interrupt her rumination. "There were only a handful left when the moon was still whole. So few that I only knew of them from lost books sequestered in that damned tower." A handful of what when the moon was still whole? Cinder thought.
"Do not engage her, and do not draw her suspicions," Salem commanded. "I will send Tyrian, with a weapon that you will use to kill her. And you will use that weapon and only that weapon to strike the killing blow. You will not be able to defeat her otherwise."
"But-"
"Are you questioning me, Cinder?"
"No, Your Grace."
"Hmm. Tyrian will arrive during the tournament. Until then, continue as you have been. And when the time comes, make sure you kill all the people this woman has taught, too. Is there anything else of concern?"
"No, that was all," Cinder hastily responded.
"Very well…" the presence faded, and the Seer Grimm lazily drifted away. Emerald went to open her mouth, but Cinder cut her off.
"We're done here. It's time we head back to our dorms." Cinder began the walk back to Beacon at a brisk pace, not bothering to check if Mercury and Emerald were following her, because she knew they would.
Well, at least the obstacle will be removed soon enough, she thought, a sadistic smile adorning her face.
()
A/N: Credit where credit is due, while there was some revision by me, the majority of wrath of the gods came from my brother when I asked him for help on figuring out a poem for it.
Bit of a shorter chapter, but then again, the last one was a doozy, and I just wanted to tie some loose ends up before moving onto Volume Three.
Yes, now everyone in RWBY and JNPR will have spells of some sort. Now I just need to find a good point to get a POV from Nora in. Maybe during the team or doubles round?
Patches is not taking things lying down. He's been around longer than anyone else on Remnant, longer than even Vyliria, and certainly longer than Ozpin, Salem, and the Brother Gods. He's had plenty of time to make all sorts of preparations for various scenarios. This unbreakable, glorious bastard is fully prepared to wage a one-man war, and Cinder has made the mistake of pissing him off. And yes, the Splitleaf Greatsword is now also a gun. Because of course it is. As to what kind of gun… well, you'll just have to wait and see.
Neo's sitting around and basically twiddling her thumbs, but I've been wanting to write a POV for her for a while, so I took an opportunity. As for how she knows Raven... well as of the time of writing this, Volume 9 (which I assume will finally give a backstory for Best Girl) isn't out, so I came up with my own ideas for her past.
All is not fine in the horrendous land of Vyliria's mental state. Holding onto the soul of a certain god she held very near and dear to her definitely isn't a sign of severe emotional trauma. And we got another flashback, this time to Orbeck's death. But at least Weiss is finally on track to learning how to spam the almighty crystal skill- I mean, soul spear. On the other hand, Weiss is also dealing with the fallout of being famous and doing controversial things in the public eye.
Oz and co are wondering more and more about Vyliria, but so far aren't acting on it. There's bigger fish to fry at the moment than the enigmatic Irithyllian and her esoteric capabilities. Maybe after the Festival? After all, it's not like anything bad will happen between now and then...
And, well… that last POV from Cinder definitely isn't ominous at all. And that's before we consider the fact that Tyrian Callows is making an early appearance further into Volume 3. And some part of me is terrified that I didn't get Salem's character right.
Feel free to follow, favorite, or review. It makes me feel better about myself to see the numbers go up whenever I refresh the page.