A/N: Happy May the Fourth! Sorry for the delay, my course work piled up hard along with a nice dab of writer's block, personal life, and distractions. With that out of the way, here is Chapter 47: Grimm Darkness.
Chapter 47: Grimm Darkness
Returning to the battle on Nar Shaddaa, the conflict raged between the two Sith and the Remnants of Cinder's little faction. Pyrrha dealing with Emerald, as Nora battled Mercury. Moving like a dance of death, both of the Sith wore looks of joy, one of an insane joy the other of content pleasure. Nora's blade managed to land a few scathing blows on Mercury's aura. Her strikes were quick and violent and hit like an angry Rancor. Her strikes took to the simple yet effective track, with diagonal cuts that would break any static block Mercury tried put up. Though he managed to keep her at bay with force pushes and dodges but she took any hit he laid on her and returned it with interest, as even touching her was dangerous with the amount of electricity in her body. Which caused a thought in Mercury's mind that asked, Seriously, is this bitch is a walking lightning rod? Mercury asked himself as he cursed internally. He slid back into some crates from a power strike from the shaft of Nora's light pike, the pain of said attack was amplified as even that blunt hit shocked him.
"Oh, you don't like be shocked do you? you little sloth!" Nora sneered at him, her eyes wide and bright with insanity. She was tormenting him, and he knew it. Retracting the pike to standard hilt length, the young Sith darted forth wailing away at Mercury who had his back to the crates. Sparks flying, blades clashing as the pink compressed blade dashed through the air as Mercury was being beaten back. Throwing all of his might in the force into one push he managed to send the Sith flying back into a wall, which much to his dismay avoided by bracing for the impact.
On the other side of the battle, Pyrrha had secured the unconscious Penny with a force push into a wall, then proceeded to encased her in containers to avoid her from getting hurt as Pyrrha and Nora dealt with the trash. To Pyrrha, the little red head was innocent and a friend of the Knights, specifically Ruby. Thusly she wanted to make sure she would be safe and alive to be brought back to Hiskal.
After securing Penny, the jade haired criminal from Amity was the Tomb Witch's most pressing concern. She smiled as she felt the weakened will of her opponent, despite being a force sensitive her strength was like that of an acolyte from Korriban, something Pyrrha could exploit. How to make her suffer for her crimes? Was the predominant thought on Pyrrha's mind despite being a Remnant, Emerald deserved no mercy from Pyrrha or any of the Knights of Hiskal.
Emerald was trying to avoid the blazing hot blade that came out of Pyrrha's lightsaber. Fearing for her life, she tried to use her illusion semblance but Pyrrha thwarted it as she saw right through it and she responded with a quick taunt and smile.
"How cute, you think you can toy with my mind, How about I play with yours?!" Pyrrha spoke with a sarcastic tone at first quickly shifting to one of pure menace as she locked eyes with the Jade haired woman.
It was at that second Emerald tried to attack, though her body stopped half way through her swing, her body locked up, she tried moving but instead she lowered her saber as Pyrrha's eyes ignited with a glow of red, and a smirk followed on her face as Emerald felt the loss of control of her body. "Now, my pet, do my will, kill your friend over there," Pyrrha said with a big smile as she pointed to Mercury as Emerald screamed internally as Pyrrha seemed fully able to control her. She could see her body move she could feel it, yet she was not in control. She was a puppet at the hands of the Tomb Witch.
Mercury was attempting to duel Nora again when something odd happened, Nora morphed into Emerald, he hesitated his attack as Emerald jumped away with a horrified look on her face. So, they can use illusion's as well, that's not good, Mercury thought. He turned around to see his opponent behind him, the compressed blade warping in her hand. He dashed towards her, his first strike aimed for her right leg. Her response was sluggish and her Aura seemed to be down, a sign the Sith had over-exerted herself, Mercury smiled as he thought Time to carve this bitch up! Lunging his blade down, he struck her right leg, Her scream was music to his ears as he had dreamed of getting his revenge. Flicking his blade up and around he amputated her right arm. With a quick breath, smelling the burned flesh he spun around in a flourish and ran the silver blade through a spot that he knew wouldn't kill her but it would certainly be painful.
While Emerald did Pyrrha's bidding, the Tomb Witch went to recover the artifact they were sent to retrieve. It was locked away behind a heavy metal door, nothing she couldn't handle. She had used the searing hot blade to cut a hole right in it. Forcing more energy from Aurumlamina's belt mounted power source through the blade she had increased the heat coming from the blade and increased its cutting potential. In this state, her magma orange blade had to have the fork like guard active to prevent it from exploding from the amount of heat it generated. She smiled at the wickedly unstable blade after she was through. To think I used to use a sword with a solid blade, Pyrrha thought as she chuckled at the inferior nature of her old weapon. Seeing the artifact on a pedestal with no major security features guarding it. This gave her time to examine the lost relic, to Pyrrha's expectations, the lost relic was the Holocron that was described, though it seemed locked to her. She could not open it for some reason, and this infuriated her slightly, but she figured it would be best to not waste any more time. she stowed the device in her bag and returned back to the location where the battle was taking place.
Ozpin and Taiyang had made their way to the Hutt crimelord's palace. They had found the gate wide open inside they saw so many bodies that were cut down by lightsaber strikes. The stench of decay and burned flesh was starting to take hold in the air as Ozpin looked at the damage the duo quickly found Raven had beat them there and she had to take down some of the guards as they quickly went on to high alert shortly after her arrival. Though this type of damage was not her style, this was the work of the two they were chasing. Ozpin walked carefully over the bodies, wishing what he saw was not true, while Taiyang seemed not to care about stepping on them, as he had done so. Though the smell was horrible as ever as the burned flesh mixed with the foul odor of the Hutt and his palace.
"From my understanding, there is a battle going on in the cargo warehouse," Raven explained as Ozpin and Taiyang approached. Ozpin detested the loss of life but a lesson he learned quickly, 'In this galaxy, it's kill or be killed.' Moving quickly the Trio made it to the cargo hold, as they entered they heard a distant crash in the distance of the huge hanger-like room. Smelling of various forms of contraband, they proceeded carefully through with maximum haste. As they listened the sound of Lightsaber's clashing was distant but still vigorous. Sensing and hearing trouble the trio of Remnants darted forth into the massive room.
Penny awoke in darkness surrounded by boxes on all sides, with a slight gap, for air to circulate. After performing a quick reboot cycle on all of her systems, she could tell these boxes were stacked in a way to keep her contained. She felt the pain across her body as the synthetic neurons fired, though she quickly rebooted her pain detector to get rid of the sore feeling she had across her body. She felt all of her dust conduits sparking back to life allowing her synthetic body to move again. She couldn't believe the situation though, that two heroes of Amity were Sith and were trying to kill her friends, Penny knew what they did on Amity was wrong, though they told her they were forced to comply, and when Penny found them they asked her for forgiveness which she gave them.
Remembering the fight taking place outside the container, Penny examined the containers as she performed a diagnostic on her weapon system as they were unresponsive, after a few seconds of her examining the tomb of boxes, the diagnostic report came in with a red warning in her vision telling her to seek maintenance as it was unresponsive. This annoyed the android as she figured a way out of the box prison, as she thought, This tactic would normally have worked if it was a normal Remnant that they had contained, but they don't know what I am. Penny thought as she kicked out the one container that supported no weight. What she saw as she escaped her container prison shocked her. She saw Emerald being impaled by Mercury's blade in shock. Though she saw Pyrrha and Nora standing off to the side Watching this with smiles, seeing this Penny grabbed her reserve weapons, her lightsabers.
As Mercury turned to look at his target to finish her, he heard clapping behind him, Turning around he saw both Pyrrha and Nora smiling, Pyrrha was clapping as she had both her saber and scepter on her back and belt respectively, While Nora had her light pike extended on her shoulders resting her hands over the shaft of the pike. Mercury looked down to find out Emerald was the one he attacked. She looked in abject horror and pain as the smoke came from the impaling wound on her stomach. She was barely alive from the attack as a temporary shock set in. Mercury was angry and confused as to what happened. Though he didn't want to lose Emerald so he took the med kit off his belt and began to attempt to quickly stabilize her.
"Pyrrha that was downright naughty, but still fun to watch," Nora spoke playfully with a smile as she twirled her light pike around off her shoulders, slamming the tip of the force pike end on the ground as she entered a combat stance and prepared to leap back into the fray as another voice shouted.
"Friend Emerald!" Penny shouted as she darted at Pyrrha from behind as the sound of two lightsaber's igniting rang out from behind. Pyrrha leaped back in a force assisted jump and Nora rolled out of the way of Penny's green and orange blades, the orange one looking particularly familiar almost like it was salvaged from Cinder. The look on her face showing that she witnessed what had transpired and could not move until now. "You monsters!" Penny yelled realizing that somehow Pyrrha or Nora had taken control of Emerald or Mercury and made this happen. The redhead turned around quickly shielding Mercury and Emerald, "You two! You used to be heroes to when you tried to save us all back at Amity. My friends here regretted their actions that day, and they were forced to work for Cinder, they didn't do that voluntarily!" Penny continued in a rant, a rant that got both Nora and Pyrrha laughing at her naivety.
"If you believe that, you are even dafter than expected," Pyrrha spoke calmly in her accented voice, outright dismissing what Penny was saying as she and Nora regrouped and stared down at Penny. "They were Cinder's apprentices if you think they didn't join her voluntarily, why would Cinder have trained them?" Pyrrha asked dropping her normally stoic imperial attitude, appealing to reason, something few Sith would do, as she didn't want to harm Penny but if push came to shove she would if she had to.
"Penny?" Nora asked, her voice taking a much more reasonable tone, as she asked lowering her weapon. Though she kept her thumb on the ignition switch, as she saw Mercury still behind Penny tending to Emerald behind Penny. It was at this moment Penny realized they didn't want to fight her.
"Yes," the synthetic red head replied though quickly followed through with a question of "What do you want, Nora?"
"What are heroes, Penny?" Nora asked to get the figurative hamster wheel in the brain spinning. After a second she realized that she had Penny thinking of an answer, which she gave her answer as.
"Heroes are people who do good things, the right-" Right there Nora stopped her and said.
"No, they are a matter of perspective," Nora explained as Ruby herself learned this lesson years ago, and Ruby made sure that all four of the Knight's knew what a Hero really was, though Nora quickly followed that thought up with, "Who decides good and right? Think about it Penny," Nora smiled as the redhead huffed up preparing to strike with anger but her mind realized there was truth in what was being said. Seeing Penny deflate, Pyrrha smiled at Nora for defusing the situation slightly and decided to add her own twist.
"Besides, Penny we have no quarrel with you, unless you want to make one," Pyrrha explained, "though if your friend would like to stand down we could potentially negotiate bringing you back to Hiskal, so Mercury and Emerald can face trial for their crimes on Remnant," with that Penny lowered her sabers as the blades retracted back into the hilts, as Mercury stood up making sure that Emerald was stable, though as he heard the blades retract he had to ask.
"Why aren't you fighting them, Penny?! You could have them dead right now!" Mercury inquired angered as he finished stabilizing Emerald and he stood with his saber and Emerald's in hand, "you saw what they did, they are evil!" Mercury said calmly controlling his fury as he ignited the sabers in his hand green and silver. He was furious that he turned his partner against him, and he now wanted their heads and this could be heard in his voice.
"Maybe I can secure a peaceful conclusion to the hostilities," Penny replied looking back at her partner with a very hopeful look on her face, as Mercury began to lumber over behind her. In a hair of a second, when Penny turned around again to look to see what Mercury was doing. though his motions masked by the humming of their blades, Mercury raised his blade to strike Penny down for insubordination, he wasn't going to let them turn that girl against him too. Seeing this action, the two Sith decided to act, as the look of pure terror that Penny had as the blade came down on her almost stopped their hearts, as Mercury yelled,
"If you won't fight them you can't be allowed to live!"
With only split seconds to react, Pyrrha pulled Penny towards them, slamming her to the floor with a very heavy thud, as they saw a glowing cut on her backpack and back. In retaliation, Nora slammed Mercury with force push sending him into the crate pile once more in a loud crash as crates crumpled on him.
"Penny are you alright?" Pyrrha asked rushing over to Penny who had a flabbergasted look on her face as she looked up at Pyrrha, "If you are unhurt, please stay out of our way," Pyrrha continued, Now is not the time to be cruel, these two criminals will answer to all four of the Knights of Hiskal for their crimes! Pyrrha thought, having a change of heart on just killing them outright, as that was too merciful for them as she stood up and watched Nora dart into the fight engaging Mercury who was recovering from the blast despite him being covered in various materials from the crate. He quickly Parried her first strike. Seeing this rapid engagement made Pyrrha yell "Nora make him a sloth. We'll take him and Emerald alive!" This order made Nora smile with an insane glee as she viciously attacked at Mercury's limbs.
Emerald heard the declaration from the Pyrrha, hearing this Emerald winced as she felt control coming back to her body. She watched Mercury be assaulted by Nora's blade, he blocked and parried as her movements were quick and violent. In a snap second, Pyrrha jumped into the fray. The magma orange saber crackling along like fire as she took her first swing at the silver haired rogue.
His weapon in hand as he made his stand, disregarding their demand on him, Mercury knew as he dueled the Sith it was surrender or die. The flashy pulsing of the pink blade and the searing heat of Pyrrha's saber. He felt his aura was at half strength as Nora landed a hit right on his left thigh, causing a pulse in his aura as he tanked the attack. The whirring and clashing of blades filled Emerald's ears as the Jade haired woman crawled away, a difficult and painful task with a hole in the waist, and literally missing an arm and a leg didn't make it easy either. Though she stopped her she both heard and felt the dull hum of a lightsaber. Feeling the vibrations in her spine and the close proximity of the blade to her base of the back of her neck, she stopped moving. looking at the light reflecting off the metal floor, as the duel continued behind them, she could tell the blade was a green blade specifically Penny's green saber. Rolling over slowly and carefully, Emerald saw the anger and fury on Penny's young face, almost like she was willing to take a life, but instead she stood there waiting for a reaction. Though, with one quick word from an unseen voice whose volume transcended the battle, ended the conflict in an instant.
Ozpin watched the green and silver sabers colliding with the magma and pink blades. He watched in horror as he saw and heard the whirling and clashing of their blades. Seeing his students up against the Remnants he knew lived in the palace, then he saw the one with her limbs amputated and the Atlesian Remnant girl standing over her with a lightsaber pointed down at her with a gash on her back. Watching as his two comrades and friends awaited instruction. Seeing this mortal battle taking place from Remnants crazed on power his mind just went into overdrive as he realized the horror of this galaxy, and its capabilities to turn the purest heart, into a person hell-bent on death and destruction. Clenching his cane, his palms sweating as he thumbed the ignition switch of the disguised saber, an alternative he did not want to resort to. Seeing what he saw, just made him yell something at the top of his voice. One word that carried its weight as it reverberated in the room. That word was.
"STOP!"
As the word carried its burden, blades lowered, eyes opened and all turned towards the speaker. Shaking all in the room to the core the saw the coated figure as he stood there. Ozpin for a second didn't even realize what he had yelled though when he did, he continued with, "Please, stop this. this unnecessary violence."
Mercury watched Ozpin for a split second before deciding to use this situation to his advantage seeing the gap between Emerald in himself, he realized the girl was a lost cause despite being his friend and ally but if he wanted to get out alive he had to abandon her. With their blades lowered, Mercury struck the two Sith in front of him with a cut across their stomachs and bolted running as fast as his mechanical legs would carry him. As he ran he felt pain as his aura took blaster bolts to his back on eventually breaking his aura and slamming his left leg, punching a hole right through it. Causing him to tumble face first toward the ground.
In the ruins in the dark depths of the crystal field where Grimm spawn, Salem looked through her red crystals that gave her a window into the galaxy that Remnant was not privy to knowing about. Tearing a window into the other dimension, she watched the events on Nar Shaddaa. She watched the battle unfold as the two heroes from Amity attacked her pawns, she was impressed by their brutality, their anger, their hatred, and their rage. She was impressed seeing them like this, they had morphed into fine Sith.
Though she was also thoroughly disappointed in Cinder's former apprentices, they were soft and weak, not even having honed their arts since Amity, while their attackers had become dark lords of the Sith Empire, though as she watched the battle progress she saw how Emerald was incapacitated, and Salem lamented that she did not have cinder give her a mark like she did Mercury. Then she was shocked when her arch enemy himself showed his face, with two of his followers, she wanted to laugh as she readied her test as Mercury was quickly incapacitated.
Grabbing a black dust crystal from a basin next to her along with taking a shard of her former apprentice Nihilius's mask, she smiled she thought all I need is a soul, a body, the force, a shard of your mask, and my mark to enact the curse of Grimm, then I can have my pawns start enacting my plan to bring Remnant back to where it belongs.
As she completed this line of thought she ignited the black dust crystal using her Aura creating a portal opening to Mercury's mark on his back through the portal would be in his heart, taking the shard of Nihilius's mask she inserted it into the portal as it closed and smiled, turning back to her vision crystal she watched the events unfold.
Mercury cursed looking at his captors, he smiled as he looked up, feeling like he was being watched. Though despite this, he smirked as he looked down the humming energy blade down to the Red-eye through the slot in her mask, and down the barrel of very powerful blaster pistol, he immediately recognized them from Amity.
"Oh if it isn't the old geezers from Amity!" Mercury taunted as laid there with a smile. As soon as those words left his mouth, the masked woman stomped her foot onto his right wrist breaking it with a loud snap.
"My god! Asshole, take a joke!" Mercury cried out in pain. He buckled in a snap holding his broken wrist as the normally quiet woman replied.
"Not when I know you are trying to piss me off," the woman spoke, unwavering as she kept the humming white humming blade on target as she shifted her feet to adjust on the crumpled man at her feet.
"Besides we now recognize who you are, so be glad we don't do more," The blond man spoke as he kept the blaster barrel affixed on Mercury's head. Mercury smiled as a black pulse darted out from his chest and immense pain engulfed his body. Starting at his heart and moving through his body like a black flame. He screamed as he felt his heart straining to pump his blood.
Pyrrha and Nora, recovering from the attack, thankful for their aura was able to take the strike. The two looked out at Mercury as they felt chills up their spine as shadows whipped around the room, almost absorbing the light around them, causing both the smuggler and masked force user to back off. His screams morphing as the shadows grew and morphed out. Being lifted off the ground, Mercury's body was being ripped and shredded by the dark powers. Unable to do anything but watch, the group watched as the black shadows engulfed his body. With his final scream being morphed into a demonic howl, his body erupted into a red mist of gore, and the curse was complete as the red mist formed into an inky black fog that started to fill the room. Spreading like an ink stain on paper, the fog infected the room as they watched with a morbid curiosity.
Even Pyrrha and Nora looked at this in abject horror, as the inky blackness twisted and turned in front of them, Pyrrha knew Sith alchemy could create entities but this seemed to be something else entirely as even the Spirits tied to Pyrrha's soul were horrified by the black mass that was growing in front of them. it was a seething and pulsing well of all of the darkest emotions anyone could have and this terrified the Sith who relied on such emotions as they felt absolutely outclassed by what was happening. Not even Nora wanted to face whatever that thing was, with this thought in mind, the two Sith lords to backed up with their lightsaber ignited, it had been a long time but they truly were afraid what that portal was.
Penny and Emerald heard the eruption of darkness behind them, the both turned to face the event they both bore witness to the fate of Mercury, at which point both started to move back, one by walking, the other by crawling, both absolutely horrified by the morphing blackness.
Raven and Taiyang fell back as the fog crept, its inky blackness creating a void in the cargo bay. All of them could feel the darkness being emitted, shivers in the spine, chills and a looming sense of dread being the symptoms. Though, the darkness on the planet was flowing to this site like rivers, the emotions of, anger, hatred, sorrow, and sadness, igniting the viscous fog as it roared to life in black flames. Those present could only watch in abject horror as fog developed into something sinister. Out of the demonic flames came rivers of a thick pitch black liquid, it was at this point Ozpin realized what was going on and he retracted the cane portion of cane and ignited the green lightsaber blade that existed on the top of the walking stick. Though as wolfish howl rang out from the center of the black mist, all of the Remnants knew what was happening as out stepped a Black wolf with a bony mask and armor with though it was Ozpin who yelled the word they all dreaded,
"Grimm!" as those words were uttered by Ozpin, a shock wave blasted across the planet, multiple similar wells of darkness opened across Nar Shaddaa, upper levels, and lower levels. After minutes panic filled the streets as multiple clouds of fog formed across the world as the fear and horror filled the air of the city covered smugglers moon, as the galaxy was introduced to a new threat, a threat that had never been seen by this galaxy.
The citizens of Nar Shaddaa felt fear as the dark neon-lit streets of the Smuggler's Moon had rivers of blackness flowing through them all of it flowing to the lower levels as black flames coursed through multiple points of the ecumenopolis. Screams echoing throughout skyline as creatures with bony masks emerged horrifically from those rivers. Howls and Roars filled the streets as the last effect of the attack shot through the galaxy, a chilling wave of a disturbance in the force rocked through the Galaxy from Nar Shaddaa, like a beacon of darkness it rang out to every force user in the galaxy, though it was more of a signal, searching for those gifted by their creator.
A/N: Well, that was a chapter, and PENNY DID NOT DIE! Though this event is not over, I am going to be handling this event as a multi-part gig, but we now have Grimm in the SWTOR universe, so this will be a fun time for everyone involved, also this chapter is filled to the brim with references, I decided to leave them in for laughs, so if they are too annoying let me know I can fix them, if enough people find them obnoxious. Well, I have final's next week so this will be a fun time.
Review responses:
hornofdesolation: Thank you, as usual!
ToxicGentleman: Thank you for the luck it helped, I will look into the grammar issues when I can!
Guest: Yeah that will be an interesting situation, I can't wait to write it myself.
Well, the next chapter will be back in Hiskal, with some interesting characters making contact with the two knights, then there will be a Jedi chapter then we will be back here. Also, A new lightsaber design will be coming to Deviant Art soon depends. So with all of that out of the way, Thank you all for reading, if you have any comments, critique, suggestions or corrections, feel free to leave a review or PM me if you can, anything can help the Story. Now then, please everyone be safe and may the force be with you all and thank you all for reading, reviewing, following, favoriting, and sharing RWBY: Dark Side of a Rose! Happy May the Fourth everyone!
Blitzing Raptor
EDIT: May 11th 17: Ozpin's Lightsaber is up on my Deviant Art for those that are interested. Also Appologies to all those who did not get notified that Dark Side of a Rose Was updated.
