Raven Branwen

It should have been a simple affair. Just move the Spring Maiden to Haven. She'd be back home in a month. Of course, it was turning out to be anything but.

The ambush had been well set; without Raven watching there would have been no chance of the Maiden's survival. Between the recently developed hard-light Dust cage, ordinance powerful enough to liquify a Goliath, and that damned scorpion, it was a miracle that she wasn't a puddle of gore.

The hard light discs formed around the Maiden in the middle of her travel to Haven. No warning. No sign of an event. There was seemingly nothing in place to activate such a trap. She screamed. Then a boom shook the tree Raven had perched in, replacing her hearing with a thick layer of tinnitus. Miraculously, the Maiden was in a single piece, albeit seemingly knocked out.

Raven rushed to the defense. Through her portal, she encountered the perpetrators: two men, one with a mustache, and one with a scorpion stinger. They hadn't spotted her, and were quickly dragging the unconscious girl down the forest path. Hidden in the trees, she could barely make out the smoking barrel of a massive cannon. She couldn't wait for the perfect opening, and simply used the best opportunity she could.

From the sky, Raven descended onto the Faunus. As she slashed, her blade was caught by a hard-light shield so thin, she hadn't seen it till it flared from the attack. It could have been mistaken for Aura, but Raven had enough combat expertise to recognize when something was amiss. The tail lashed at her. Luckily, it missed, and she detonated her fire dust blade on the shield.

Unfortunately, the shield merely flickered instead of shattering. Ripping a purple blade from her sheath, she blocked the stinger without an inch to spare. Instincts were kicking in, and she had to force back her tunnel vision. Assess everything besides the asshole right in front of her. The man behind her still held onto the Maiden, and shakily pointed his pistol at Raven. She flung the sword at him, knowing it would detonate on impact and leave him far from the objective.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the man's hands grow blue. That may be importa-

The wild fist struck her face, and a blade razed her cheek. To avoid hitting the ground, she opened a portal beneath her to Qrow and closed it as soon as she was through. When she went through, she found her brother asleep on a park bench.

Quick preparations. Blue glow, similar to the shield, on the man's hand. Perhaps they generated the hard-light Dust shields. Faster than a blink, a new portal opened connecting her and the Maiden. She leapt through, bearing a blade of lightning Dust. Fiery eyes focused on the glowing blue jewelry. With a slash, she cleaved through them and shocked their owner. As Raven began to collect the Maiden, the scorpion pounced. She tried to focus another portal, but a haymaker to the jaw broke any semblance of thought. Disengaging her blade's lock, she hurled her sword at the man.

A small flash filled the forest path when a rabid animal caught the blade by his teeth. Now armed with a very long dust blade, the… thing chased her. He swiped the blade at Raven by thrashing his head back and forth. Of all the fucked up things she'd seen, this took the cake, ate it, and shit it out. How do I fight that?

It was hard enough fighting this asshat when he only had five limbs.

Raven didn't have much time to reminisce as she threw together a hasty plan of action: find his striking angles, watch his footing, and attempt to detonate the blade held by his teeth. Her current earth dust blade would provide decent cover for her for now, as it always had, but couldn't make use of the pirated sword.

Following through with the plan, she discovered a few important details. One, he was seemingly a contortionist with the strength of a heavyweight tournament fighter. No angle could be manipulated for free strikes, despite her constant efforts. Two, his footing had no pattern. While this was good in that it gave her the opportunity to control the flow of the fight, it also made it impossible to read his response. Three, she ran out of fire dust blades about three minutes ago, and was wondering why she didn't restock. Lastly, and this was added hastily, both his partner and the objective were gaining consciousness. That could be dangerous.

Diverting her attention to the man with too many rings, she planted another knee in his face. This time, Raven felt the very satisfying feeling of a nose collapsing inward. He dropped something upon being knocked out: a specialty revolver. Snatching it up, she checked its rounds: fire dust. Perfect.

One good shot was all it would take and this would be over. So, she aimed. The trigger was double action, and the hammer slammed into the primer. Sure enough, her aim struck true.

Everything went wrong when the blade didn't immediately explode.

The animal, catching on to what happened before Raven, hurled the blade away from him. By sheer luck, or perhaps it was intentional, it planted itself into the chest of the Maiden. The electricity woke the girl with a jolt, and she screamed. The animal laughed hysterically. Within three seconds, a second shockwave shook the nearby trees, and Raven stopped hearing the world around her as her dust blade reacted.

Raven did what she did best, swung her sword at something that pissed her off. Her beheading strike was barely blocked by a tail, causing the maniac's stance to widen so it could hold up against the crushing force. This left a certain area well exposed. Every guy on Anima felt a sudden pang with how hard Raven slammed her foot into this monster's crotch. Monster, because he didn't flinch. He caught her foot with his thighs and attempted to sting her. She placed a portal between herself and the tail, stopping it entirely by sending the deadly end to an open space by Qrow. With that out of the way, she struck at the thing again with her sword. It struck true, and her blade absorbed a good chunk of his Aura. It began to crumble.

Taking the opportunity, Raven kicked his ankles out from beneath him and closed the portal down tight on the tail. As he collapsed, she pounced. Over and over and over... slashes to the gut diminished much of the Faunus's remaining Aura supply. She wanted blood.

Suddenly, the Faunus's earlier advantage had disappeared. Squirming, twisting, struggling his way out from beneath her hold, he ripped his tail out of the portal, grabbed his partner, and ran, spouting vulgarities and oaths of revenge. As much as Raven wanted to chase after him and shut him up, there was a more pressing matter at hand.

What she saw horrified her. The Maiden was still alive. Barely, but the heart was beating. She could just see it, right near the lung-

Raven's stomach emptied itself on the forest floor.

"I can see… the moon…" the Maiden said. The swordswoman pulled herself into her feet and limped over to the prone girl. Her eyes dilated to an inhuman degree; the green rapidly giving way to the pitch black emptiness. Raven picked her head off the ground, supporting her in the final moments.

"I'm here for you"

The girl in Raven's arms was fresh out of Beacon- not even 21. Raven had an elective with her in senior year. Now, well… times change. The struggle for existence is just that, a struggle. It is strange to see it so profoundly unfair as a random girl, by chance, inherits the single largest target on Remnant. Simply by being born and existing, she has gained a Goddess's enmity. Raven would ensure these last few moments had as little pain in them as possible, in no small part because she was a large cause of it.

She heard a sound behind her, whipping her adrenal glands into a second wind. She turned, but it was only a deer. Not an insane scorpion, not a technological mastermind with ridiculous weapons, just a deer. A living, breathing deer, uninjured and aged enough to not worry about predation. Truly, there was freedom in strength. But as she turned to the Maiden, she saw the demands of strength. A responsibility that came with power. Sometimes it offered more than people could handle.

The last wisps of life faded as the Spring Maiden's chest fell for the last time. Her cheeks, long devoid of color, began to sink. The proteins in the eyes began to denature, slowly clouding the lenses.

"Fuck!"

There was nothing that could be done. Raven shut the girl's eyes and gave her the Final Rights.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul and in my memory preserve thee"

A soft light filled the area. Raven felt tingles rushing up her arm. Like water, it flowed over her and through her. Her eyes began to burn, filling with tears to stop the pain. Her neurons began rapid firing as every nerve was overloaded, and every inch of skin itched. It stopped as suddenly as it began. When she opened her eyes again, they were flaming - surrounded by a gentle blue glow.

Raven looked to the shattered moon. It smiled back.

'Thank you'

A.N. So it seems this fic has finally moved off my Google drive and into the fuss, huh? Regardless of how long it was mentioned on my profile for, it's starting to come out, and I will try to have the next few chapters that are written out to y'all each come out about every other week. That should give me enough time to fix and edit anything and everything that could potentially be wrong with each chapter.Sadly, that means this chapter is thrown to the wolves. Hope I did well.The first act will be awfully short, and while I will go to lengths (get it?) to make it longer, it is still just a preliminary act to set up the situation that is going to drive the rest of the plot. Which will also be relatively short. I expect the total word count to be around 80-90k when all's said and done.Comments of any type are appreciated, and give me the endorphins I need oh so desperately.