So, I said that I wasn't going to do a part 2, then months later after finishing the story, I changed my mind after reading through my own story. I don't know why or how it started, but once I got my head thinking I was able to find ways to be able to continue the original story. However, I did say in the supremely unexpected Chapter 37 of DFB part 1 that canonically it ended when Marcus Black died saving Pyrrha and Beacon, killing Cinder in the process.

It should also go without saying but it's best for you to read the original Destiny Fated Black before reading part 2. But I best say it up here anyway, just in case.

Some obvious challenges for part 2 of this story are that -SPOILERS FOR PART 1- most of the major villains of the show are already dead. Cinder's ash, Tyrian was killed, Neo is dead, Roman's dead, the first Anon is dead, and all the assassins in Vale are either dead or deserted. This means that yeah, I am probably going to be creating some OC villains. One of the major issues that I was never really able to go back and fix was the other Anon Assassins and the rest of the organizations in the other kingdoms. So in part 2 here, I will be returning to that part of the story I never really flushed out. I was at least kind to myself enough that I still have Watts and Hazel to work with, and obviously Salem as well. But we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.

One more thing, I am starting Part 2, yes, but I will not be regularly updating it as I have been with the rest of my stories. I don't want to burn myself out too much, and writing 3 fanfics while also working on my original story all at the same time will just start to make me think of writing as a chore and that's just not good for business. So, take this Pilot First chapter with a grain of salt. I want to make it clear that I probably will not be updating this story weekly for probably a long time. On the bright side, it will give me a big chance to plan this all out. So there's that, at least.

Also, Merry Christmas everyone! Good timing, eh? Consider this a Christmas gift from me to you.

Beta: CrowSkull

Destiny Fated Black II

Chapter 1

A Second Fated Beginning

Marcus Black, the unrecognized savior of Beacon Academy stalked through the woods with hands in his pockets and a catchy tune whistled with his lips. His wavy white hair flowed with the crisp cool wind, uncut and unkempt after over a year of traveling to Mistral on foot. The dark stubble on his chin and cheeks urged him to scratch the itching sensation he constantly felt each time his skin moved and shifted with his muscles. As relaxed as his posture was, however, his onyx colored eyes were tense, and looking at every bush that he came across, no tree, branch, or leaf went by without so much as a lookover. The only source of light there was the shattered moon, shining bright high in the vacuum of space in orbit of the planet Remnant. Marcus knew he wasn't alone, he never got the chance to be alone anymore. A man such as he was capable of nearly anything but getting a full day's sleep.

A red blur layered by flower petals burst out from behind him, casting wind past his neck and shoulders as a scythed blade barely grazed into his aura. Marcus leaned forward and dodged the attack, spinning on his heel and whipping out his trademark hand cannon loaded with stun rounds. Ruby Rose's silver eyes widened as she watched the bullets fire out of the barrel of his gun, and knew how it felt to get hit with it all too well, even if the bullets were purely non-lethal, getting it by one of those bullets felt like an Ursa smash through your ribcage. More rose petals flurried by, her feet never touching the ground as she willed her semblance to propel her forward. Silver eyes shined in the night as Crescent Rose sliced through the air, Marcus Black unsheathed his knife, now repaired after his death battle with Cinder Fall and newly modified to handle the strikes of much larger weapons like Crescent Rose.

Three bursts of sparks flew around the forest as Marcus blocked three consecutive strikes in a matter of a single second. Ruby twisted and landed on her heel, twirled again and threw the barrel of Crescent Rose to her backside, and fired. Further propelled by her semblance, she attacked him again. Only for her attacks to get deflected once more.

Suddenly she started feeling slower, and that was due to the black glyph of a Schnee semblance following her. Her partner was Weiss Schnee, and she knew after past training sessions with her how to deal with such things. Ruby planted her feet on the ground and fueled them with as much aura as her soul would allow and leaped into the sky. Marcus looked up at the girl, shrouded by the light of the broken moon as she drew her scythe back unburdened by the increased gravity of a black glyph, and spun through the air like a jigsaw as terminal velocity did the work to give her power in her strike.

Metal sparked against metal, this time not of the weaponry variety. But another semblance in his quite wide variety of an arsenal within his soul, Ruby noted it and recognized it. Marcus' skin shined with a silvery metal around his neck and shoulder where Ruby had struck and effectively bounced her weapon off of. She didn't know what kind of metal Marcus morphed his skin into with that particular semblance, but she knew that it was strong enough to even chip the blade of Crescent Rose. With an indignant growl, Ruby pressed down on a switch on the shaft of her scythe and spun it around, revealing a secondary barrel she had recently installed into the weapon. When it fired, a bullet nor a flurry of pellets flew out, but a concussive flashbang. For once, Marcus didn't seem to expect it, and with a feral and excited grin, Ruby flew in to capitalize on her new opening.

She realized that she was fooled the second Marcus took his hand away from his face and hardened aura flushed away. That was Anon's semblance, the one she remembered him telling her about. Constant aura regeneration enabled him to use his other semblances, and it also enabled him to heal damage much faster, such as a temporarily blinded pupil. Ruby's speed had one major weakness, and it was that once she started moving it was very difficult to come to a sudden stop or make any major turns or adjustments in her trajectory. Instead, all she could do was hope to get out of Marcus' grapple as she knew she was headed right to it. The worst-case scenario in fighting Marcus Black was being forced to fight him in hand to hand, and despite her recent training in her weakest department of fighting, she was still shit at that particular style of combat.

When Crescent Rose missed, Ruby stabbed the bladed end of her scythe into the ground and attempted an illusion twist kick which was easily blocked and deflected by the white-haired man. His black eyes shined a black light and Ruby let go of her scythe and flipped away. As she landed on one knee she looked up to see her own weapon in the hands of her opponent, and his eyes were void of that dark light. Disarmed, unfortunately. Ruby scowled as she looked at the man, she might as well admit her defeat now, but if that was the goal of fighting him she wouldn't have sought him out in the first place. With her semblance, she darted forward like a crimson bullet and through the hardest haymaker she could muster up with her small frame and lightweight.

Marcus caught her fist and made her fall on her chest, only to gag loudly as Marcus pulled back on her hood and yanked it into her throat. One arm was locked behind her back and a silver blade was pressed against her neck. She froze up as she felt her aura finally give out, indicating that the sparring match was over.

"You're dead," Marcus winked at the much younger girl as he let her go, letting her fall down to her knees and reach her hands up to her throat. "I give you credit for continuing the spar without your weapon, takes some balls. But you're still shit at fighting without it."

"H-How do you do that?" Ruby asked as she pushed herself back up to her feet, rubbing her sore neck and letting her hood fall down to her shoulders. Her black-red hair had grown out long as well, comfortably lying around her neck and in a wild style similar to that of her dear uncle Qrow. She wore the same outfit that she wore in Beacon, but it was clear that it was getting too small on her. Marcus always liked to tease her that she was finally going through puberty.

"If you're asking how I kick your ass every time we spar, I guess it's because I'm just better than you." Marcus teased. "That or the million semblances I have, some of them are bound to counter yours and your fighting style."

"It's that," Ruby remarked with a stiff chuckle. "You only just started using those other semblances over a year ago. It takes years to master just one semblance, and yet you're using three or four consistently! How do you do that?"

"Well, I am a descent of the Schnee family bloodline," Marcus explained, as if he didn't steal every semblance he was just using against her. "So I guess that means I have some sort of innate ability to learn quickly. Also, do you not know who I am? My name is Marcus fucking Black. Initials are MFB."

"Tch," Ruby stifled a laugh. She knew if she let it out he would know. He always knew. "Language," she chastised. "But you know that's not all it, is it the voices in your head?"

"You mean the fragments of souls that I have kept from all the people I've stolen semblances from?" Marcus drawled, rolling his eyes as Ruby shrugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, that."

"Well, after we killed Cinder I guess that makes me redeemed in their eyes. I know how to use their semblances because they let me figure it out on the spot. Of course, your mother came first and was a real pain in the ass to both them and me. It's probably her that managed all this."

"Pft, yeah," Ruby replied as Marcus threw her back Crescent Rose. She caught it with ease and immediately hugged it to her chest. Poor thing, always somehow ending up in his hands when they fought. As she looked back up at her traveling companion, she noted that his hair had gotten almost as long as hers was when she was still in Beacon. A little bit past her chin and even wilder than hers was, and that wasn't even considering the growing beard he liked to call stubble. "About that," she continued as she stretched her arms above her head, airing herself out even as she felt her clothes squeeze in on her body. "What is my mom's semblance? You never really told me or used it in front of me…"

"Well…" Marcus scratched his chin in thought. Ruby followed him as he started walking off in the direction they were traveling, skipping beside him as her aura slowly recharged. "Surprisingly, Summer's semblance isn't something I've been able to fully control just yet. It's more of a mental semblance of something like that, it's combat-related and yet it's not. I know it is something really useful but I haven't really figured out what it was just yet."

"Oh really?" Ruby laughed into her fingers. "Are you telling me the great and infamous assassin Marcus Black can't figure out a single semblance amongst dozens?"

"Oh please, I'd like to see you master any one of these semblances I've got stored up," Marcus snapped back, reaching out and ruffling her hair. Ruby giggled and slapped his hand away. Their dynamic was surprisingly compatible, even after everything that has happened. It felt so long ago, even if it was just over a year since the Beacon attack. Before she wanted nothing to do with the man, she hated him for what he did to Blake, hated for stealing her semblance once, and hated him for what she previously thought he had done to her mother. To her surprise, that hatred died quickly, she was never one who could hate long, but still, he had earned her respect after a great string of good deeds. No, it was wrong to call them good deeds, it was enough to make him redeemed in her eyes. She had only asked about what happened to Blake once, and understood that he did give her a chance to live, but… things happen, and instincts were something that was very difficult to control, especially at critical moments like those. She forgave him for everything, even if no one else would. Her mother loved this man like a brother, and she knew she could come to view him as another uncle. Once she looked past everything he had done in the past and paid attention to what he was doing now, she knew that there was still great potential in him to do good. It was better to make a friend out of him rather than let him remain any enemy. For if he could turn the tides completely against Cinder in just a handful of days, he could make the world a better place in a handful of years.

"Your hair is getting too long," Ruby commented, reaching up to ruffle his hair. He was still much taller than she was, but slowly she had been catching up to him. She swore to him once that she would overtake him eventually. Marcus made sure to emphasize the word eventually to her. When he was eighty and shriveling with age at that. "I can cut it for you."

"You, cutting hair?" Marcus laughed at the idea. "Sorry, but I don't see you being any kind of barber. Definitely not one who could do a good job."

"I used to cut Yang's hair before she decided that she wanted to grow it out," Ruby proudly pointed out. "And my Dad's too, and Uncle Qrow's. I was always the one they went to for a haircut when their hair got too long, and I was good at it too!"

"Pft, yeah, that's what I'd say if I had a cute daughter or niece who cut my hair too. Even if they sucked at it." Marcus said.

"Pleeeease Mister Black?" Ruby skipped in front of him, looking up at him with wide, round, silver puppy eyes.

Marcus winced at being called Mister Black. It just sounded weird to him, and not nearly as fuzzy as Ruby thought it made him feel. "Don't call me that. It's weird hearing that from that tomboy voice of yours."

"I promise I'll do a good job, and besides, you owe me!" Ruby cried.

"Owe you for what? Kicking your ass?"

"Yeah! Do you know how many bruises I am hiding under my clothes? Because it's a lot!"

"Stop letting me hit you and you won't have as many bruises."

"Marcus!"

"Ugh, fine!" Marcus exclaimed, dropping the backpack he had been wearing the entire time. "You're lucky, the only reason I'm agreeing to this is because my hair has been getting in my eyes, and you're annoying."

"Yes!" Ruby cheered as she dragged him along and beckoned him to sit on a rock. Marcus didn't know why he wasn't surprised when she saw her pull out a pair of hair cutting scissors out of her breast pocket. She was weird enough to just carry one around for no reason, it in character for her.

Or maybe that was the thing she had bought with the money that he had caved into giving her. That would explain why she was so cagey about what she bought and kept hiding it behind her back. Damn girl, she was lucky he really did feel like he owed her. Doing this on his own would have been damn lonely.

"Hm-hm ha hm." Ruby hummed a soft song as she made him point a scroll light at his own head while she held her own in her mouth. She had already started it seemed, he could feel his white locks falling down his back. He had a lot of it at the moment, however, so he knew that it would take a while for her to get completely done with it. And with a haircut needed to come with a harsh trim on the beard. He didn't know how he could grow white hair on his head and black hair on his face, but whatever the reason, he didn't like it.

They had been traveling for around fourteen months. Their destination was Mistral. With Marcus' vague knowledge on how Ozpin's reincarnation worked, he knew that it would take a lot of time for him to gain full control of his host, even if that time was trivial compared to a man like him, it gave him the time to plan and think about where he was going to go to try and meet up with someone. Ruby had suggested that they take a Bullhead or a train or even a car to get to Mistral, but he warned her that if they did he'd most likely get recognized. Especially as the man who was reported to have killed Cinder thanks to Harriet Bree being a nice little snitch, his face was plastered all over the place even more than it had been before. Unfortunately, he was still deemed a criminal by every kingdom, enough so that there was still an inactive manhunt after him. Though General Ironwood was a smart man, it would be dumb to send huntsmen after a man who specialized in killing huntsmen, even dumber to send one with an unlocked semblance. So it was a rather uneventful journey for now. Ruby backed down from the idea after he pointed out that if he was caught, they'd have to fight their way out back into the outskirts, and they could never guarantee the safety of the innocents just doing their job they'd be fighting.

He could go without any more infamy than he already has now. If he so much as given someone soft tissue damage it'd be blasted all over the news and given the world another reason to hunt him down and arrest him like the monster they claimed he was.

"You're tense," Ruby said, placing her hands on his shoulders suddenly. "What are you thinking about?" She asked.

"Ah, don't worry about it kid," Marcus said, spitting to the side and wiping at his lips. "Just keep doing what you're doing."

"Hm," Ruby knew something was wrong but thought twice about prying. "It'd be easier if we did this in the daytime, you know. Less of a chance of us getting caught."

"What happened? Can the expert hairdresser not handle herself without a little sunlight?" Marcus teased.

"You know, I am the one holding the scissors, and I can very easily give you a bald spot right now."

"Do that and I shave your whole head."

Ruby wisely didn't test him. She knew he would do it, he was just the kind of person who meant what he said.

"You know why we can't travel in the day," Marcus repeated with a sigh. "It's safer for us to travel at night, that way we run into fewer people. And before you say it again, yes, we help who we can help, but we don't have the time to go searching for people who need it. If we do that we won't get anything done."

"I know…" Ruby said with a nasal sigh. "I guess I'm just not used to this nocturnal sleep schedule you've forced on me just yet. Sparring in the dark too? You're really pushing my limits here."

"It's how I was trained to learn how to rely on my other senses," Marcus said. "Though the way they did it was a bit more brutal. Do you think what we're doing is hard? Try fighting three grown men at once at twelve years old, and you're not allowed to fall over or else they'd beat you until a bone breaks. Never happened to me, but they weren't joking."

"Well, I'm not training to become an assassin, am I?" Ruby remarked. "And that's sad, no wonder you were so bitter when we first met."

"Hah, you can say that I guess," Marcus said, feeling guilty about what she'd implied. He didn't know what it felt like to get a part of your soul ripped away along with your semblance and to have to live with it for months after that. But he had an idea after seeing what happened to his victims afterward. It wasn't pleasant, it couldn't have been.

"Almost done…" Ruby said as she continued snipping at his hair. She moved to his front and he adjusted his aim with the light to help her see. She worked on the bangs in front of his face that should have never existed in the first place. She didn't know what kind of style she was putting his hair in, but it felt as though she was slicking his hair back. The fact that she was licking her hand and running it through his hair all the way to the back of his head made him know that she was doing just that. It took about thirty minutes for her to be completely finished with all the final touches, but when she was done, she looked damn proud of herself.

"You look so much better!" She cheered as she took a picture of him with her scroll.

"I feel colder," Marcus complained, reaching up to flip his hair back over his forehead. He stopped when Ruby smacked his hand away with an insulted look on her face.

"Don't ruin my hard work, I tried really hard to give you a style that'd fit."

"Ugh, whatever," Marcus said, smirking with amusement as he brushed the loose strands of white hair off his shoulders, chest, and the back of his neck.

"Now, what do you say?" Ruby asked as Marcus picked up his bag and threw it back on his back.

Rolling his eyes, Marcus played ball. "Thank you. Does that make your heart go all fuzzy inside? I'm saying thank you for cutting my hair, you're welcome."

Ruby giggled and brushed her shoulder into his side as they walked. "Y'know, when you're not trying to kill me and the people I love, you can be pretty cool, Marcus."

Marcus sighed. Yup, Ruby may have forgiven him, but she was most definitely still a little upset with him about that. Understandable, it was better than her trying to kill him all the time like most people who had a reason to hunt him would.

"Whatever," he allowed as he stormed forward, hands in his pockets once again and this time with a new haircut to his name. Ruby skipped alongside him, sliding her arms into her own red backpack as she followed him. They kept the bare essentials on them, and slept in sleeping bags during the day, and only pitched a small tent up if it was raining and they needed the shelter. They had some food and water, but it'd only last them another three days at best, and that was if they rationed them. Marcus internally sighed, they'd have to stop by another village soon. Thankfully the villages in the outskirts were mostly ignorant to the news of the world as a whole, so Marcus could show his face and not be afraid that he'd get recognized. But there was always that inkling in his mind, the what if he was spotted. He hadn't killed anyone in a long, long time. Ever since Cinder, actually. It had to be a personal record. He figured he still wouldn't have any issue with it, especially if it was to defend himself or Ruby. But he didn't want to have Ruby see him do it, not after everything he'd done to her and what she had believed he'd become.

It would be inevitable, he knew. People would have to die soon enough, and he was the only one hardened enough to be able to handle the strain of killing. If he was going to go against Salem herself and her remaining followers, it was something that would need to be done. It was a lesson that Ruby would have to learn eventually, but seeing the almost seventeen-year-old girl as chirpy, innocent, and joyful as she was is something he'd rather keep around for now. People changed after their first kill, he knew that firsthand in his own son, Mercury, who had killed a trespasser when he was growing up. Instantly, he was no longer a child after that had happened. He saw the new look in his eyes, the way he moved and the way he thought. It was like him.

Once upon a time, Marcus Black might have been a smiley kid full of positive energy. Once.

He looked to the moon as he thought. Salem, this was a fight he didn't know he could win for once. With Cinder, things were different. He knew he could beat her, and had once before when Cinder wasn't using her maiden powers, and he knew he could beat her even when she was using them as long as he went all out with his stolen semblances. He only doubted that he could beat her when she activated that damn parasite that was in his body. Though, thanks to Ruby and her eyes that was no longer an issue. Now that he thought about it, he remembered that one time he tried to push Ruby on to learn how to use them, but he had no experience whatsoever about the silver-eyed warriors and a very vague knowledge of them, there was only so much he could do. After a small incident where he held a Beowolf on the ground and kept screaming for Ruby to use her eyes while she cried that she was trying did they decide that perhaps it was not the greatest idea to force it when neither of them knew what they were doing.

With that in mind it probably also wasn't a great idea to rely on her eyes in critical situations. Marcus knew about Salem, he even spoke to her once, but he had next to nothing about what her capabilities were. He knew that at the very least, she was strong enough to reign and bend Cinder under her wing, even when she achieved the power of the fall maiden, even if it was at half strength after he helped her defeat Amber, it was still enough to defeat him once. Which meant that Salem was a real monster. It didn't help that she looked like one as well, with all those red veins popping out of her snow-white skin and black-red eyes. At least he knew that Ozpin would help in defeating her and that he could reincarnate. It was one of the major reasons why he wanted to go find him. It may have been outdated knowledge, but he vaguely remembered Ozpin explaining that if he died in his current life, he would meet with them in a certain bar in Mistral in whatever vessel he ended up in next. And so Mistral was the destination they were working toward. They were on Anima now, so they were getting close to Mistral, and from there he'd probably go see Lionheart, the current headmaster of Haven Academy and see if he could help them find Ozpin. Of course, dear Leonardo couldn't be trusted as Marcus knew there was something up with him due to Cinder and his previous affiliation with Salem. But he could use him to get to the immortal and get rid of him afterward. Might even live if he played his cards right and listened like a good cat.

Marcus sighed to himself at that morbid way of thought. He was trying to be different and change, but he was afraid that it has been too long. Too long living the life of an assassin. He appreciated Ruby's faith in him, but it probably wasn't enough.

"Don't go thinking like that again," Summer's voice echoed in his mind. "We just spent months trying to drive the fact you aren't a monster in your head and you accepted it. Don't make my work worthless now."

Marcus closed his eyes and smirked. Of course, she was still there. He only seemed to be able to hear her when he was thinking like this. It was probably emotion-based. When he was in a good mood, he didn't hear their voices, but when he was tense, quiet, in a bad mood, or thinking about his past, there she came to tell him that he wasn't who he once was anymore. He supposed that she was right, and Ruby too. He had definitely changed, and for the good, he hoped. Killing Cinder had to mean something, he went from killing people who relatively didn't deserve it to avenging Summer's death and killing the ones who have caused harm to countless people. Improvements, right?

"You know I can feel what you're feeling, right?" Ruby asked, playfully pushing her shoulder into his side. "So stop feeling like that, it's weird and it makes me sad."

"Tch," Marcus rolled his eyes. "Not asking you to do that for me. It's not needed, we can control that, remember?"

"Yeah, well, I want to." Ruby sighed audibly. "If we're gonna be stuck together for any longer than we have now, we might as well get more comfortable with each other."

"Saying you're not comfortable with me now?" Marcus joked. "After everything I've done for you? I'm hurt, really."

"Really? You're gonna go there?" The way Ruby smirked showed that she didn't mean anything by it. It was one of the ways they worked past their troublesome past, joking about it made it a laughing stock somehow. If it worked, it worked, and neither of them complained about it.

"As much as I am flattered that you care so much for me," Marcus drawled, patting her shoulder as they continued walking. "But it's time we start picking up the pace a bit, we've spent too much time just bickering and sitting around, we've got one more resupply stop before we start on our way to the city of Mistral itself. Gonna need you focused when we get there."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it old man," Marcus felt his eyes widen slightly at that. He remembered Emerald, she used to call him that all the time. He felt indifferent when he heard that she had killed herself in prison after hearing about Cinder's death, but he was pretty fond of her. "Let's see if you can keep up this time around, you may be stronger and more skilled than me, but I will always be faster!"

"Oh yeah?" Marcus subtly conjured a path of speed glyphs in front of him. "Let's see how long you keep up that cocky attitude when I leave you in the dust. That'll be good to make up for that ass beating I gave you before, at least you'll learn something from this."

"Hah! I'd like to see you try, Marcus!"

And there we have it, the first chapter of the sequel to a story I never thought I was actually gonna do for a long time. I say a long time, but it had only been around half a year since the last part was finished. Of course, if you are reading this and you have no idea what's going on I recommend you read Part 1 of Destiny Fated Black first, that way you aren't coming into this completely blind and witnessing plots and points that had been built up over time in the previous part.

Now, just to restate, this isn't going to be updated regularly for a long while. I am just getting it out there as a little Christmas gift to you all! So, Merry Christmas and a happy new year since I am unlikely to update again for the rest of 2020. Fanfictions are being put on the backburner for now in favor of me writing my original book called Su(o)n's of Amon. it's finally being written, and I aim to get it completely finished by April 20th, 2021 when the club I work at gets back in season and I have to get back to work.

Again, he says that when suddenly making this out of nowhere during Christmas Eve, don't believe him on anything taking a backburner spot. This bastard will always surprise me when suddenly starting something. -CrowSkull.

With that, all said, welcome to Destiny Fated Black II, enjoy your stay, and let us continue the adventure of a forgotten character…