Hello, readers. WaterDragonMaverick here with the next chapter of my RWBY OC fic, "Sideline: Another Story". In this chapter, I'll be starting the "Notremodo" storyline for my characters and be doing some original stuff that happens between Volume 3 and Volume 4. Last time, our heroes and their allies were on an airship heading for the town, telling stories to pass the time. With Notremodo in sight, the ship is landing and we'll be meeting up with not only a familiar face from earlier chapters, but learning of a new one that will be very important for the chapters taking place in this location. I hope you enjoy meeting him when I get to the right point. Until then, let's see what Fragment Hunter thinks about their first stop.
Ring the bells.
RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and was created by Monty Oum (R.I.P)
I only own my Original Characters featured in this story.
Fragment Hunter looked out at the village of Notremodo as their airship was making its descent. When the vehicle landed, a few townspeople made their way to the airship to see who arrived. As the members of Fragment Hunter and their allies exited their transport, a tall and portly man wearing a nice suit and sash stepped forth to speak with them. "Welcome to Notremodo, travelers. I'm Marcel, the town's mayor. What brings you here? It isn't every day that we see an airship arrive," the man greeted.
"We're just on our way to Anima and needed to stop here for a few things," Terracotta said as he spoke to the mayor. "We have somebody that was from here as well, so she needed to talk with her father."
Cereza soon stepped forward and waved at the mayor, who recognized the girl. "Ah, Miss Fujita. It's so good to see you again," Marcel told the young woman. "Father Lucifer should be at the cathedral, but he might have seen your airship landing and could be on his way."
"Well, I know the path to the church. I can go see him now," Cereza remarked before turning to her friends. "Anybody care to join me? I'm the only one who knows the way around."
"I'm sure that some of us would want to explore on our own," Sunset countered. "Besides, we can still keep in touch if that happens."
"Quite right," Cereza agreed. "Well, who wants to take a look around with me while we find my father?"
The village of Notremodo was a peaceful place despite the recent events at Vale, but the members of Fragment Hunter believed that it was because of Cereza's father that everything in town was okay. Most of the buildings in town were made with stone and wood, making them look like a modest village. Some of the locals were fishing in the river that flowed through town, waving to the members of Fragment Hunter as they passed by. As the group followed the river to the east, most of them saw that townspeople were setting up decorations and stands. "What's going on? Some sort of festival," Percival asked as he looked around.
"Every winter, Notremodo hosts a festival to bless those attending with good fortune and honor the people in their lives that died within the last year," Cereza explained. "With the Fall of Beacon, it would make sense that the festival would still continue even if not that many people would visit this year. Most of the stands would be set up by the church, so we'll see more when we stop by there."
"Sounds like it would be fun," Pinkie said as she skipped ahead of the group.
"That all depends on the monster that sleeps in the cathedral's tower," a local man said as he brushed the snow from his doorstep. The group stopped to listen to the man, but Cereza rolled her eyes at his words. "About 20 years ago, a creature took refuge in the church. A hideously misshapen beast that haunts the towers and sends people running for their lives. If you see it, you'd best do the same."
As the man entered his house again after his warning, Cereza scoffed. "I've lived here a long time and there's no monster in the church," she told the others. "Come along, we're almost there."
The other teenagers wondered about the 'monster', they soon reached the center of town and saw a large cathedral a little further away. It was easily the largest and most elaborate building in town with intricate stonework that depicted numerous characters and stories, two large bell towers, rose windows with colorful stained-glass displays, sculptures at the front and on the sides, waterspouts that had been carved into gargoyles, and a spire that reached above the towers. When the teenagers reached the church, most of them admired the beauty of the building while Cereza walked up to an old nun greeting workers that set up more stands for the festival. "Ah, Cereza. It's so good to see you again," the nun said as she saw the bespectacled girl.
"You too, Sister," Cereza replied. "Have you seen my father? I wanted to make sure he knew I was okay after everything."
"Yes, he went to talk with Pierre, but should be down soon," the elderly nun told her. "After what happened in Vale, we're glad that Lucifer was able to stop the Grimm that attacked the village when we saw what happened with that poor girl." Knowing who the nun was talking about, Azalea reached behind her back and grabbed one of Penny's swords, tightening her grip as she remembered the sight Penny being torn to pieces by the wires of her own weapons. Seeing Azalea and the sword in her hand, the nun placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know it must be painful to lose your friend, my child. But you shouldn't worry. I'm sure she was a good person and is smiling down at you from above," the nun voiced.
"Yeah. I'm sure she is. But... it still hurts to remember," Azalea agreed as she put the sword away.
"It does," the nun said. "It hurts for everyone. We may be setting up for the festival, but everyone is still upset about what happened. The Grimm in the mountains to the west are becoming restless. Other Huntsmen have gone off to handle them so that the town is safe."
"But some of them haven't made it back," Lucifer Fujita said as he walked up to everyone. Seeing his daughter, he immediately pulled her in for a tight hug as tears began to fall down his cheeks. "Cereza... I'm so glad that I didn't lose you, too."
"It's okay, Daddy. I'm here," Cereza told her father as she returned the hug. "We're passing through town in order to head for Anima. Lapis was injured in the Fall of Beacon and we're going to see a doctor in Mirabelle who can help her."
Lucifer and the nun nodded their heads in understanding before the latter spoke to the others. "I'm glad to see you helping your friends like this, my child. However, it would be risky to travel to Anima with everyone in town still upset with recent events. Perhaps you and your friends can stay long enough to partake in the festival? The town's spirits will be risen and you'll be blessed with the fortune you need for your friend," Lucifer advised as Terracotta and the others arrived to meet with Fragment Hunter.
"I say that would be a splendid idea," Ivy agreed. "It would be nice to see what everyone has to offer during that time."
"I don't see why not," Sunset voiced. "We can even help out a little while we're here." The leader of Fragment Hunter's suggestion had no objections and the teenagers soon went around town to explore and help out the locals.
After the members of Fragment Hunter split up and headed off on their own, Cereza spent some time speaking with her father, Silver, and Bianca. "And that's pretty much what happened at Beacon after you left," Cereza told her father as she finished telling him about the Fall of Beacon.
"It's a shame that Faunus with such a noble goal have been misguided by vengeance and violence," Lucifer voiced. "Humanity will not see them in a positive light if they continue this cycle of hatred."
"I know," Silver remarked as he crossed his arms. "So many people have lost their lives to them within the last few years."
Bianca saw that that Silver was grabbing onto his scarred shoulder and placed her hand on it as she looked at him. "Everything will be alright," Bianca said. "I'm sure that the White Fang will be stopped."
"Not while Adam Taurus is there," Silver said. "I've only met the guy a few times, but I know the type of Faunus he is. He's like an infection that spreads to others. The others know that because of Sable." After saying the extremist Faunus' name, Silver growled until Bianca ran her fingers through his hair and calmed him down. "Those two are some of the worst Faunus in the White Fang now. I hope they burn in Hell."
"If they truly have blood on their hands without remorse, then they will be punished in the afterlife," Lucifer assured.
"Wish they'd be dealt with now," Silver muttered.
"Patience, young Silver," Lucifer told the Wolf Faunus. "As long as you stay calm, you'll find a path toward your goal."
The three teenagers nodded as they listened to the Huntsman before speaking to him. "Has anything else been happening around here," Cereza asked.
"There have been rumors about secret meetings for a sort of cult, but I haven't found any evidence yet," the warrior priest said. "They could be harmless, but such followings can be dangerous based on who they worship and how."
"That could be an issue," Bianca voiced.
"Indeed. Especially with the festival and the Fall of Beacon," Lucifer agreed. "There's no telling what they could be like without finding a meeting place."
"We know they wouldn't use the church, so what other locations do you think they could be at, Father," Cereza inquired.
"Is it because of the monster in the towers," Silver asked.
"There's no monster," Cereza and Lucifer immediately responded. "There's no threat in the bell tower!"
"Why exactly would people believe that there's a monster in the church," Bianca asked.
"It's a long story that all started before Cereza was even born," Lucifer said. "An orphaned child appeared at the doorsteps of the cathedral and the church took them in. The town believes that since the baby was never seen again, a monster haunts the church and attacked the child. They are paranoid and don't have any proof."
"Well, people tend to believe stories more than reality if they're scared of something," Silver remarked as the four continued walking through town.
"What happened to the baby anyways," Bianca muttered to herself as her gaze turned to the twin towers of the church.
Celadon was spending her time with Azalea and the two were exiting a bakery before they reached the cathedral once more. After they some food to the workers setting up booths around the church, Azalea looked up at the cathedral while she snacked on some doughnuts. As she admired the beauty of the building, the bells in the towers began to ring and the sound echoed through the town. "I wonder who rings those bells," Azalea questioned.
"Likely somebody who isn't afraid of that monster we heard about," Celadon guessed.
"There is no monster in the church," a deacon of the church said as he finished helping set up a booth. "It's just a rumor that started 20 years ago. Everyone that takes care of the church knows there's nothing haunting the towers."
"That's you always say," a local retorted as he put away some tools. "How else do you explain the bells ringing when nobody goes up there?"
"We have somebody up there," the deacon responded.
"And when will they get attacked?"
Before the deacon and the worker argued further, Azalea and Celadon caught their attention. "Excuse us, but we were students at Beacon Academy. We can go see if there's anything up there," Azalea told the two men.
"We'd glad to be of service," Celadon added.
The deacon looked at the two before turning back at the worker. "These girls will prove that there's no monster living in the tower. They'll just find what's part of the church and that's it," the deacon stated.
Soon, Azalea and Celadon went inside the cathedral. The two girls admired the beauty of the interior for a while until they reached the stairs leading up to the bell tower. Making their way up, light was barely able to shine through and Celadon had to pull out her Scroll for a source of illumination while Azalea could still see in the dark. The wooden stairs and floor creaked as the girls walked and soon saw the enormous bells that hung from the rafters. "Wow... These are amazing. Such beauty," Celadon said as she saw the bells glistening in the sunlight that shined through into the top of the tower.
Azalea saw a rope in the corner of her eye and walked towards it carefully. Approaching it, several birds began to fly out of the tower as the floor creaked under her boots. The Cow Faunus looked at the rope as she held it in her hand, then looked up at the gargantuan bells. "Whoever the bell ringer is, they have to be really strong to get these to make any noise," Azalea remarked. As she looked away from the bells, Azalea thought she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Searching around the tower, Azalea didn't see anything and dismissed it. "It was probably just another bird." She soon walked over to Celadon, not noticing something slowly peek out from behind one of the bells.
"Take a look at this, Azalea. It's beautiful," Celadon said as she waited for the Faunus girl by a makeshift table with shards of stained glass strung up as decorations. "It looks like some sort of scale model of the town." Azalea saw that Celadon was right and saw a smaller version of the church near the end of the table. The center of the table showed a set of figurines that looked like they were made by hand with whatever spare materials could be found. Several figures that resembled members of the church were placed around the model cathedral, several stands were set up around the square below, and a number of other miniature workers were placed around them. "These aren't the best, but still nice," Celadon commented as she looked at the figurines.
Azalea soon saw a few dolls on the table and picked one of them up when she noticed one looked similar to somebody she knew. "Hey, Celadon. This one look familiar," Azalea asked with a smile as she held up a wooden doll. Celadon took a closer look at saw it resembled Cereza Fujita, complete with glasses over her red and blue eyes.
"That's adorable," Celadon said as she placed the doll down, then grabbed a new figurine that was made out of a stone. "Unlike this repulsive thing," she remarked as she held up a misshapen figure that had lumps on the face and a large back. "I don't think this one is finished this yet. Either that or it's the monster we keep hearing about."
"They keep saying monster, but don't call it a Grimm. I wonder why," Azalea questioned.
"I don't have a clue," Celadon said as she tossed the figure she held without any concern. Azalea looked at her friend with annoyance after seeing the figure clatter on the table, then placed the figure next to the wooden doll of Cereza. "But if these are all up here, somebody must live here." Soon, the girls heard some wood creaking and turned up to look at the rafters. Using her Scroll for some extra light, Celadon saw a shadowy figure hide behind one of the bells and decided to use her spear's whip form to pull herself up toward the suspicious figure. "Okay, where are you," Celadon muttered to herself as she saw nobody was near the bell.
While Celadon searched above, Azalea stayed on the floor and looked for whoever was in the room. As she walked around, she saw a suspicious shadow coming from the balcony and went to investigate. When she did, she only saw a few statues of Grimm called 'Gargoyles' along with one that looked uneven and misshapen. "I wonder if the person living up here is still making this one," Azalea said to herself about the misshapen one as she went back inside the room of the bell tower. "I didn't see anything outside, Celadon," Azalea called out.
"Alright. Maybe we should head back down," Celadon voiced as she jumped down from the rafters. As she did, she twirled her weapon around before putting it away, but unknowingly dropped something as she did. As they headed down the stairs, Celadon reached for her pocket and noticed that she didn't have her Scroll. "Shoot. Dropped my Scroll," she said to herself before turning around and heading back up to the room. Looking where she landed, she noticed her Scroll slid over to the balcony of the church. "There it is," Celadon said to herself and went to grab the item before a large hand picked it up and offered it to her. Seeing who was holding onto her Scroll, Celadon's eyes widened as she took in their appearance and let out a horrified scream.
Hearing the scream, Azalea immediately rushed back up with Gladion drawn with electricity sparking from it. "Celadon! What's wrong!?" When she saw her friend backing away from something, she gasped as she took in the appearance of it for herself. It was a man with a deformed face which had a large wart partially covering his left eye, a big nose, and buck teeth. His skin was pale, he had stone gray hair that was fell over his wart, and eyes that Azalea thought looked like a mix of green and gray. The man also had muscular arms and bat wings on his hunched back that showed he was a Faunus. Azalea saw that he was wearing a short-sleeved green tunic, a pair of brown pants with some rope acting as a belt, and a green pair of slip-on shoes. The shoulders of the tunic also had an emblem that looked like a bell with horns, but one of them was broken as part of the design. Azalea watched as the deformed Bat Faunus kept his hands in the air and away from something he kept attached to his makeshift belt while holding onto a Scroll.
"Please, I-I don't want any trouble," the ugly Faunus man told Celadon, not noticing Azalea at all. "I was just giving you back your Scroll."
"Get away from me," Celadon shouted as she backed away and grabbed at the closest thing she could grab, which happened to be an empty bottle. Throwing it at the Faunus, she intended to hurt him before his skin suddenly turned to stone and the bottle broke against his deformed face harmlessly. Azalea noticed that the stone look the Faunus had was the same as the statue she saw on the balcony.
"I'm not going to hurt you," said the man as he slowly moved to the table and placed the Scroll down on it.
"I don't believe you," Celadon exclaimed as she grabbed more bottles and threw them. As they broke against the Bat Faunus, he didn't even flinch. "I'm not listening to a circus sideshow attraction," Celadon said as she prepared to use her Semblance.
"What's going on up here? We were coming back to the church with Percy when we heard Celadon screaming," asked Bianca as she arrived with Cereza, Percival, Silver, and Lucifer.
As the group saw what was going on, Bianca gasped in fright while Silver and Percival immediately put themselves between Bianca and the Bat Faunus. However, Cereza and Lucifer sighed as they knew what was happening. "Of course. I knew this would happen. I should have told you sooner," Cereza said to herself.
"Told us what," Silver asked.
Cereza didn't give an answer as she walked up to the deformed man and spoke to him. "I take it you were trying to help," she asked as she grabbed a hooded cloak from near the table and handed it to the Bat Faunus.
"Yeah. She dropped her Scroll and I was giving it back to her," the ugly man answered as he put on the hood and started hiding his face.
"You know this... monster, Cereza," Celadon questioned as she saw the leader of Team FCSA talking with the hunchback.
"He's not a monster," Cereza stated as she turned to Celadon and the others. "This is my childhood friend, Pierre Laiton."
"H-hello," Pierre awkwardly greeted as he pulled on the hood he wore.
"He was found at the steps of the church as a baby and was taken in," Lucifer explained. "He was named after the priest that brought him in and raised by everyone here. But because of his looks, the townspeople think he's a monster. The only ones from Notremodo that look past his appearance are the church caretakers, myself included, and Cereza."
Hearing about Pierre, Azalea saw the young man hide avoid looking at everyone while he started picking up the shards of glass off of the floor. "He stays up here in the tower to help ring the bells, but we've been helping with his education and training," Cereza said.
"I can see that with how he turned to stone," Azalea remarked.
"Well, I'm not staying up here any longer," Celadon voiced as she grabbed her Scroll and headed down the stairs as quickly as she could.
Pierre turned away sadly as everyone watched Celadon leave, but Azalea's focus was still on the Bat Faunus. "Maybe we should see if she's okay," Silver asked as he looked at the others.
"Y-yeah," Azalea answered hesitantly while her focus was brought away from Pierre making sure that the floor of the room was cleaned up. As everyone went down, Azalea's gaze still lingered on Pierre sadly putting the glass on the table before searching for something else and making eye contact with her. Waving goodbye to Pierre, Azalea soon made her way down and thought that Pierre's behavior seemed familiar to her.
Just outside of Notremodo was a graveyard with an old and rusty fence surrounding it. A gravekeeper was walking around the area and soon came across one of the mausoleums. Approaching the building, he knocked on the door in a certain pattern and waited for a few seconds. Soon, the door opened and a person in a hood signaled for the attendant to enter. When the man went inside, several dozen other hooded people greeted him. "Hello, Brother. I'm glad that you could make it to our gathering," one hooded male said before giving the gravekeeper a hooded robe of his own.
Soon, everyone's attention was focused on a tan-skinned man with shoulder-length black hair stepping toward the front of the crowd with two others. Unlike the rest, the man was wearing an outfit that resembled a jester's uniform with purple face paint over his black eyes, a tattered purple cloak, dark purple leggings, black gloves, curled-toed shoes, a gold earring on his left ear, and a large-brimmed black hat. "Welcome, brothers and sisters. Our meeting is one of great importance regarding recent and upcoming events," he announced.
"And what would that be, Brother Fandango," asked a hooded woman.
Fandango only chuckled before standing on top of a coffin and started to answer the question. "You see, the Fall of Beacon was a sign for our cause. Death and destruction are inevitable in our lives and cannot be stopped by anybody. Through the end of something, a new life will rise up from the ashes. We can even go beyond what we are believed to be capable of when the time comes," Fandango stated. "We all know that this is what happened in the past with humanities origins. The God of Darkness was able to create life by bringing the Creatures of Grimm into existence. With his abilities, he was able to create a portion of humanity alongside his brother, the God of Light. However, life cannot exist without coming to an end. While the Two Brothers were able to create humanity together, the God of Darkness by himself was able to create the Grimm. He was able to prove he was just as powerful as his brother, if not more so. Humanity will only grow stronger through despair and demise. Which is why Notremodo's winter festival will be the time we spread our message for them to understand." The cult cheered as Fandango explained what would happen. "And if they don't, their world will be twisted and turn upside-down," Fandango added with a dark smirk on his face.
And with this chapter done, we're now introduced to a character I wanted to work on for a while. I haven't made that many characters based on fairy tales or stories recently, so I thought using the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" for a character or two would make perfect sense. We'll see more of Pierre later, especially with how Azalea and Celadon acted during his introduction.
With Pierre's first meeting with Fragment Hunter off to a bad start, how will the heroes handle this and help with the festival? They'll need to figure it out before those cultists start their plans. Otherwise, things will get worse for the village of Notremodo.
For when Cereza introduces Pierre, try listening to the music that plays when exploring the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" level of "Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance". The song's name is "La Cloche", I believe.
Until next time, WaterDragonMaverick signing out.