Hello Everyone! How are you doing? I hope you are all fine!
Chapter 99 is up. As always, I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks once more for following/ favoring/ simply reading the story so far! You are all awesome!
See you next week, with our 100th chapter and finale of this arc. Until then, be well and have fun!
The previous day
Rubble and ruin was what Lumia and Erik saw when their vision cleared and their senses returned to them. Dizziness and agony wracked their mind and bodies as they tried to stand up and pinpoint their location.
"We are underground, it seems" Lumia gazed at the hard, jagged rocks forming the walls and ceiling around them. "There are tiles all over the floor, so someone is using it for some purpose" Erik added.
They were both filled in burn marks and dripping blood. Wounds and bruises covered their bodies, but that wasn't enough to break their spirit- Ren and Nora needed them and they wouldn't let them down.
"Do you think they fell down here?" the brown-haired boy stared up to the makeshift well they fell through. Suddenly, a loud gurgling sound and a huge shade passed by its opening, making him avert his gaze.
"It's coming" he announced. "Let's go then" Lumia took her sword and led him forward, trying to make as much distance between them and the monster as possible. Hopefully, they still had a chance to outrun it.
They barely managed to take a step when another sound halted them. It came from far above, but filled their bodies like it was happening in front of their eyes, filling them with terror.
Unearthly screams and gasps of pain reached down from the opening. The still, deadly silence gave way to a cacophonous choir of screaming and the dying sounds of something definitely not human.
Sounds of violent combat reached the huntsmen's ears. Loud thuds and heavy crashes as if something- no, many a something, thrashed around. The entire building shook with mighty tremors as if hit by earthquakes.
More screams, even closer now, were heard. Something was dying; for this horrible, agonized howl couldn't be anything but the dying cries of something- something definitely not human.
And then, all of a sudden, the screams were cut off with a sickening and quite revealing crunch. The hideous sound of bone snapping and flesh being torn to shreds came down from the well to the shocked humans.
The worst part, however, was what came through after that. Loud and hungry panting, along with the distinct sounds of feasting and eating paved the way for one of the worst images Lumia and Erik had seen in their lives.
As the feeding continued, something started dripping down the well; a thick, viscous liquid flowed down the circular walls and dripped on the tiles, just a few meters away from their eyes.
It was black, nasty goo that smelled of death and decay. The flow was slowly accelerating, quickly turning the small drips into a dark shower of elder Grimm blood that accompanied the feast happening above.
There was no misunderstanding about the origin of this blood or the explanation that made the two huntsmen's faces turn pale in fear and terror; for reasons unknown, the Spawns were feeding on each other.
"Why?" Was the only thing Lumia managed to ask. "Doesn't matter; we have to move, Lu." On Erik's call, they both dashed away from the vile miasma that dripped down the well, delving further inside the tunnel.
They barely checked any of the doors they passed by; just enough for them to make sure their friends weren't inside any of them. Weapons at hand, they kept running further away from the unnamable massacre.
Then, all of a sudden, the tunnel shook once more. They stared at both sides of the path, ready to intercept any possible attack- or at least try to. They stood back to back, trying to ease each other's nerves.
The walls shook again but this time the shaking was accompanied by a very distinct girly scream. A faint smell of ozone filled their nostrils and made both huntsmen smile in recognition before running towards it.
Or at least that's what they would have done if not for the faint voice that stopped both of them in their tracks and made them stare at a small prison cell a few steps away- and the tormented prisoner inside it.
-o—
"AAA!" Nora slammed the monster once more, her lightning-powered smash pounding the huge body on the wall, causing the room to shake once more. She stomped the ground and raised her makeshift club.
"Are you ok, Nora?" Ren stepped up next to her. His eyes were full of concern, but he didn't drop his stance or lower his knife. "Yes. But I am really furious, Renny" she kept glaring at the pounded mass on the wall.
"Haaa… haaahaha…" a womanly laughter left the monster's deforming mouth. Its voice was exactly the melodious tune Pyrrha had, but still lacked the gentle emotion she carried; it was empty and sadistic.
Tendrils slithered in front of them, slamming on the walls around them and leaving huge cracks on the stone before being drawn back to the large body as it stood up, stretching its torso, now slowly turning into a black color with dozens of red pulsing orbs across the cracked flesh.
The endless pit that formed in its body pulsed, spreading around thick, dark miasma. "Such Primitive power… truly repulsive" the lines on its face had spread. Bone now covered its forehead, nose and eye sockets.
Ren assessed the situation. The monster had been pounded by Nora's slams three times already, without even a slight wound. It stood right in the middle, blocking their way out, effectively trapping them in here.
What's more, it had covered half the room in slithering dark tendrils and black, swirling mists. Venomous blood dripped down from the long and thick appendages, while sinister red eyes hungrily glared at them.
In other words, they were in a bad spot; they didn't even have their weapons or any dust to attack it with. He felt his anxiety rise- and then saw all eyes open wide in perfect synch with his darkening feelings.
Nora gripped her plank even fiercer and swung hard, static filling the air around her as she took a couple steps, staring the abomination right in the face. Her grin became even deeper as the tendrils swirled towards-
All of a sudden, the room started shaking violently. Nora stumbled and Ren had to hold her in order to stop her fall. The Grimm's wicked smile vanished and gave way to a furious expression as it glared above.
"What is it doing? Has it lost- AGH!" its torso suddenly bent back and forth, mimicking the movements of a marionette in the hands of a brutal, uncaring ventriloquist. "No! YOU FOOL! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING! NOOO!" it twisted in agony, screaming and thrashing around.
Ren spared no moments. He stared at his wife and then rolled to the front, avoiding the thrashing tendrils. Nora slammed a couple of them away with her plank and ran after him towards the exit.
As they passed by the monster, it turned around. "You-" but that was all it did. It didn't even manage to try and attack them, before it let out a horrifying screech- a dying cry belonging to ages long forgotten, uttered by an entity abandoned by the world itself.
Standing at the doorway, Ren and Nora let out a scream of horror. The walls and ceiling around and above were torn apart and replaced by an endless, whirling pit of black energy.
It was as if the two huntsmen stared at the center of space itself; void darkness engulfed the room, slowly devouring the light. Even air failed to escape its hungry grasp, as it voraciously turned the whole room into its feast- including the abomination that had been lurking inside it.
"Clean… er…" the last words of the impostor spawn were so shockingly human that Nora's heart skipped a beat for a second. Before they could even blink, the tendrils had vanished, leaving only its torso behind.
The hungry darkness pulsed- and opened its eyes. Hundreds of shining red orbs appeared in the void around them, gleaming like angry stars.
And after that, dripping mouths formed in the swirling dark void. A loud scream that chilled their very bones filled the room, as the darkness fell on the half-destroyed Grimm, eating it alive with the most horrendous feasting sounds Nora and Ren had ever heard in their lives.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? RUN!" the scream came from the other side of the tunnel; and was all too familiar. It belonged to a thin, bearded blonde boy that was currently being supported by Lumia and stared at them in anxiety, the gentle warmth in his eyes evident even from afar.
For a moment, Nora forgot the horror behind and smiled in teary eyes, while darkness spread around them absorbing the door. Thankfully Ren was far more alert.
He grabbed his wife's hand, making her drop the wooden plank down in surprise and ran towards their friends as the void horror burst out and started spreading across the tunnel, consuming everything in its path.
-o—
'Can you come down? Or should I come up and get you?'
'I am sorry; I tried to move on my own before I first texted you. I am in the cemetery near my house, just by the entrance. Forgot to mention, but I was in so much pain.'
Velvet put her scroll back in her coat pocket and narrowed her brown eyes at the scene before her; a torn metal door and pieces of splintered wood welcomed her at the place Jaune was supposed to meet her.
The two guards were missing, but a bloody trail led far into the woods was in their place, along with their crushed weapons and radios. As if the texts were not suspicious enough… this happens.
She put on her gloves and checked her coat's reinforcements, happy for her decision to put her work clothes and take her camera with her. She then knelt in front of the trail's start line and took out a flashlight.
As expected, she saw bloody boot prints along the trail. She raised her light and took a deep breath. Her throat was dry and she felt a chill run down her spine. She was sure it was not due to the spring night air. At least there was not enough blood to indicate the guards were slain.
The message was clear- don't get anyone involved. She was sure they had been kept alive especially for that purpose; otherwise, she would have seen a much more gruesome display.
She stood there, in the idle of the trail, staring at the wooded path that stood in front of her; a corridor to some unknown terror that had been lurking around them for long, biding its time to slaughter them.
"What are you waiting for" Coco's voice echoed in her mind "you can't leave Jaune like this, can you? Don't worry; you are going to be just fine Velv."
She stared at the old, scratched camera hanging from her neck. Its sides were charred and some parts of it were molten. She then let her fingers trail across the scar Safire Ines had left on her face.
"That was exactly what you said back then, you liar" Velvet Scarlatina took one step forward and started follow the trail, more certain than ever she was doing something incredibly stupid.
-o-
Mud and grime splashed on Velvet's boots as she trailed through the path. The longer she walked, the muddier the ground and the harder her tracking became. And that was without even taking into account her mental state and the repulsive scenery that surrounded her.
The trees were not anymore the silent guardians they usually were. Instead, their branches reached out and intertwined above her head in a blasphemous parody of monstrous arms grabbing each other.
The air itself had become stale and dry; the crisp spring breeze that had accompanied her arrival was nowhere to be felt. She was sweating, but couldn't say for sure if the cause was the weather or her rising anxiety.
And let's not forget about the dark, ambient silence. No owls, crows, bats or woodland animals could be heard- her only companions as she delved further into the cemetery were the grey, cold tombstones.
It was as if the whole place had been reformed in order to make her feel as helpless as possible. She remembered Ruby's stories about how the Eldergrimm could affect the world around them and shivered.
She wiped off the sweat from her eyebrows and kept moving. The path seemed to widen the deeper into the cemetery she went, but at the same time a sense of dread filled her throat, trying to suffocate her.
It was a harrowing experience for Velvet who would spend so much time in this place lately. Proud cypress trees and loving farewell messages engraved on cold stone turned into agents of terror and made her shiver at every shadow and every branch crossing her path.
All of a sudden, her flashlight fell on a pale white face. Shadows fell on its empty, cold eyes and images danced on its raised hands. She froze and stifled a horrified scream before she realized she was looking at the tall statue of a spear-cradling knight guarding a family grave.
At this pace, I will go mad before even meeting him she thought before she paid her respects to the silent guardian. Then she passed by it and returned to the trail, forcing her failing nerves to stay calm.
After a few minutes, or at least what she thought to be a few minutes, the brunette's light fell on a small rusty fence made of black iron bars.
She lowered her head ad narrowed her eyes. The trail was definitely passing through, meaning he wanted her to enter the still unused area; a place full of trees and totally devoid of any graves or hiding places.
He really leaves nothing to chance, is he? Velvet stared at the blood on the mud and the bars. The thicket of trees behind the fence was even denser- and even more menacing as they towered over, inviting her.
That was one of the scariest invitations the faunus had ever received in her life. Her host clearly didn't intend to let her leave this thicket and she could only imagine the horrors hidden behind the towering trees.
She turned around at looked at the road she had walked so far. Thick, heavy canopies stretched above. Mud and grit, slowly distressed by her boots, spread around, occasionally disrupted by grass and gravestones.
Flora was so thick and the air was so heavy that it blurred her vision; she could not see the entrance so she must have walked much more than she thought. She narrowed her eyes, as if looking for something.
She exhaled and turned around, mustering as much determination as possible. She stowed her flashlight on her belt and climbed over the fence as easily as she did in her training days back in Beacon.
The atmosphere became heavier the moment she landed inside the caged area. Tweaks snapped under her soles and the significantly taller grass rustled as she passed through it, towards the unwelcoming trees.
This place was significantly darker, making her happy for her faunus heritage even more. She still didn't even for a second consider to shut off her light; it comforted her to see the thick trunks and waving flora being lit by it even if she could easily notice shapes nonetheless.
Her advance was now much slower than before. She had to be extra careful now that she walked closer to her target. He could ambush her as easily as he could try and trap her- time was on his side after all.
For that reason, she slowed down considerably and tried to advance by moving from tree trunk to tree trunk. It could amount to nothing; any Grimm could easily find her right now by sensing her fear and anxiety.
But, on the other hand, she couldn't do much more. This place, this hellish landscape of nightmarish trees and rustling grass, invoked inside her a primal sense of fear, making her unable to calm down at all.
If anything, it increased her feeling of being suffocated. The air was still stale and dry, but she could now see an unnatural haze spread around. It was as if she viewed the world through clouded windows.
Her legs were heavy and her heart beat like a jackhammer. She held her breath as much as she could and tried to be as stealthy as possible. She could feel her own pulse and almost hear her own thoughts waving.
The air became thicker and the mass of trees denser. She reluctantly closed her light and squeezed her thin body through a few openings, all the time trying to stay hidden.
Time lost its essence after that. Velvet wasn't sure if it had been hours or minutes since she had jumped inside the enclosed woods. If not for the dark night, she would have lost any sort of connection to the world outside. If the darkness around was to be trusted, of course.
Nonetheless, after some time her steps brought her in a small opening in the middle of the accursed thicket. There was something large visible inside that caught her eye at once and she carefully tiptoed towards it.
Feeling her adrenaline rise once more, the bunny girl stepped out of her cover and walked out in the open. She took a few steps towards the object of her curiosity; six medium gravestones forming a circle.
The sweet stench of fresh blood filled her nostrils and she knew what she was going to find in the middle of the array even before her brown orbs took a good look at it. She knelt next to them, fighting her sadness away; she would mourn for them later- if she didn't share their fate.
The corpses were not in a bad state, save for the visible wounds in their wrists and legs- a result of being dragged around the cemetery. Fresh blood, hot, glistering and sickening, had pooled below the bodies.
Both corpses had a gaping hole in their throats, carefully carved as if by a sharp object. Gleaming lines made of blood were carefully carved on their clothes, forming a pattern that-
Velvet stood up. The lines continued away from their bodies, connected to each other and formed a series of symbols, not unlike Weiss' glyphs.
They branched out, encompassing even the tombstones. She could see them forming a second pattern that spread even further- two circular arrays made of blood, having the bloody corpses as their central point.
She gritted her teeth. Her eyes darted between the poor slain guards and the memorial signs carved on the gravestones; both covered in an unholy pattern made of defiled blood. Those people didn't deserve this!
"Getting sad and angry over people you didn't even know?" the voice cut off through the darkness, startling her despite its familiarity. It was actually this familiarity that scared her the most, to be honest.
The voice belonged to Jaune while not belonging to him. If she would try explaining this feeling, she would say that it was as if she heard Jaune's voice coming out from a mouth not designed to function like a human's- an aberrant, hoarse mockery of her dear friend's actual voice.
She searched around and found the owner skulking in the barrier just between the thicket and the opening. As she did, however her eyes opened in confusion at what she could see- and what she could not.
The figure was Jaune's, for sure. She could see enough of its outlines to be almost certain of it. But at the same time, this was all she could see.
Because her faunus vision, despite being able to notice details as clear as day in the ground, trees and grass around it, failed to notice anything more than pitch-black, pulsing darkness on 'Jaune's' body.
Nonetheless, she wouldn't allow herself to be scared. She refused to give it the satisfaction of seeing her quiver. "Those people deserved a better ending than this" she took on firm step towards the shadow.
"And those graves" she pointed to the slabs that formed the circle "are a message of love that transcends the boundary of life and death; it's not something you can nonchalantly use for your own convenience."
"Preaching to me?" the voice all of a sudden became colder. "It would seem that you have a misjudged opinion of your position, mortal. You and your friends may be levels above the common folk who swarm this land, but to think you would dare try reprimanding me, of all things."
The air became heavier and the trees rustled, as if moving towards her. "Do not misunderstand your place, just because I allowed you all to live up until now, huntress" he added, straining his words.
Time to change the subject; I have nothing to gain by angering it. "As a matter of fact, why am I still alive?" she asked. "You could have easily killed me so many times during our patrols together; why didn't you?"
"It was not the proper time yet" it flat-out replied, its anger failing to dissipate "unlike you, servants of The Elders have a high cause dictating our actions. Or at least, I do. The others are a little more on the primal side of evolution, if I can simplify it enough for you to understand."
The sheer amount of things this answer suggested was overwhelming enough for her to gasp in shock. What others? Did he mean Cherry and the Council? Or was it-
"It is exactly what you are afraid of" the voice replied. "I am impressed you managed to connect the dots, though Ruby Rose was definitely the most impressive among you- she managed to stay on high alert even while kissing me. She will make a fine sacrifice indeed" it exclaimed.
A sacrifice? Velvet clenched her fists to calm down. "Why confused? All of you are kept alive for this reason. RWBY, you…" the voice stopped for a moment "… your friends in the hospital, should they survive…"
The brunette felt her heart freeze. She didn't even have to ask what it meant by this. "What did you do to them?" she hissed, anger rising up from the depths of her very soul.
"Heh…" the first semblance of emotion colored its voice. "I just asked an old lady to clean up the place in case any of you appeared without me. It is probably devouring everything in there as we speak" it gloated.
"No…" she gasped. Not caring anymore about whether it would see her or not, Velvet flared her aura and turned on her flashlight. She wanted to see it, see its smug, uncaring face and pound it to the ground with her bare fists. But her anger vanished the moment her light revealed it.
She understood in one split second, why she couldn't properly see it. It wasn't her that was wrong; it was it. This accursed being, this mass of deep, pulsing darkness formed of black blood and empty void flesh that reflected nonexistent stars and radiated malice was the problem.
It shouldn't exist and should definitely not be shaped in the outlines of her friend's flesh. It shouldn't be in the middle of a civilian area, biding its time until it decided to dye the world in horror darkest than the pit it took its name from.
The forest shook. The woods grew darker. Silence devoured the silence that existed before. The air itself pulsed with primordial hatred. Tombs cracked. The sound of the iron fence being bent reached her from afar.
The being's faceless gaze fell on her. Such was the terror grasping her very soul that she failed to ask the most important question; what had happened to Jaune and whether he was alive or not.
But right now, there was only one thing her mind commanded her to do. Velvet grabbed her camera and glared at the nameless monstrosity that stood before her.
Survive, no matter what.