Chapter 10 – Pain

Two Atlesian Knights stood guard outside Team RWBY's dorm room, one on each side.

General Ironwood had come to see Yang about the controversy with her and Mercury. 'I'm sorry.' he said regretfully. 'But you've left us with no choice.'

'But he attacked me!' Yang persisted, refusing to say that she had attacked without rationale.

'Video footage and millions of viewers say otherwise.' the General said, pacing up and down the room to avoid making too much eye contact in this awkward situation that he did not want to be in.

'But Yang would never do that!' Weiss insisted.

'Yeah!' Ruby agreed, standing up.

Yang put her head in her palms. How could she get through to the General that she genuinely saw Mercury attack her?

Ironwood sighed. He would do almost anything to not be there, having to say what needed to be said. 'You all seem like good students, and the staff here at Beacon are fully aware that you would never lash out the way you did. Under normal circumstances.' The girls stared at Ironwood with woebegone eyes. 'But I believe and hope this to be nothing more than the result of stress and adrenaline. When you're out on the battlefield, your judgement can become clouded in an instant. Sometimes you see things that simply aren't there. Even after the fight has passed.'

'But I wasn't-' Yang began to argue back.

'That's ENOUGH!' Ironwood shouted frustrated.

Silence filled the room as everyone recovered from the General's sudden raised voice. He continued after a few seconds. He chose his words carefully. 'The sad truth is… whether it was an accident, or an assault… it doesn't matter. The world saw you attack an innocent student. They've already drawn their own conclusions. And it's my job to inform you that… you've disqualified.' He said, looking at Yang with crestfallen eyes. She looked back with a rope wound tightly over her soul. It felt unjust. To Yang, it was unjust.
But General Ironwood could only look at the circumstances and take an unbiased, objective approach. He said no more and walked out the door.

'You guys believe me… right?' Yang asked.

'Duh!' said Ruby.

'You're hot-headed, but not ruthless.' Weiss replied.

Yang noticed that her partner had not said anything at all whilst Ironwood had been in the room. She turned her head to look at her. '…Blake?'

Blake hesitated before saying anything. Weiss and Ruby exchanged horrified expressions at the thought that Blake would not be on Yang's side. 'I want to believe you.' she said without looking at Yang.

'Huh?' Ruby said, boggled.

'What's that supposed to mean?' said Weiss angrily at Blake.

Yang's eyes began to water. How could her own teammate, and her own partner nonetheless, not trust Yang's word? 'Blake?' she said forlornly, hey eyes overflowing in rheum.

Blake felt uncomfortable at saying that, but those were her honest thoughts. Her eyes had not lied. She was in the overwhelming majority of the people who had witness Yang punch Mercury.

'How can you say something like that?' said Weiss, offended on Yang's behalf. 'Yang would never lie to us!'

Blake exhaled and lowered her head to look at her wrists that rested on her knees. 'I had someone very dear to me change. It wasn't in an instant, it was gradual… Little choices that began to pile up.' Her stomach churned as she reminisced over the man who had once been her closest ally, friend and even romantic interest. 'He told me not to worry. At first they were accidents… then it was self-defence. Before long, even I began to think he was right. This is all just… very… familiar.' she said, unsure of how to elaborate properly on how she felt.

Yang's tears trickled down her cheeks like rain on a window.

'But you're not him.' Blake added quickly. 'And you've never done anything like this before. So… I want to trust you. I will trust you. But first, I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me he attacked you. I need you to promise me that you regret having to do what you did.'

Yang sniffed and wiped her eyes before saying earnestly: 'I saw him attack me. So I attacked back.'

A ghost of a smile appeared on Blake's face. 'Okay. Thank you.' she replied.

'I think I'm gonna rest up.' said Yang.

The three other members of Team RWBY stood up. 'We'll get out of your hair.' said Blake understandingly.

Ruby closed the door gently. She, Weiss and Blake stood outside in the corridor.

'This is a mess.' said the downcast Weiss.

The door to Team JNPR's room opened. Jaune stood in the doorway. 'She doing okay?' he asked. Nora, Ren and Pyrrha stared outside in sympathy of Yang and Team RWBY's disqualification.

'She's doing the best she can.' said Blake with a slight shaking of her head.

'I heard Mercury and his team rushed back to Haven to be with his family. So, until they land, no one can really question him about what happened.' Ruby mentioned.

'If there's anything we can do, please don't hesitate to ask.' said Ren sincerely.
'Alright then… if that's the case… Pyrrha?'

Pyrrha sat down on her bed. 'Hmm?' she said, looked over to Ruby.

'You be sure to win one for Beacon, okay?' said Ruby with a more merry shift in tone.

'It's what Yang would want.' said Weiss.

Pyrrha thought back to the Fall Maiden. She wasn't sure what Ozpin had wanted her for when he, Ironwood, Goodwitch and Qrow had taken her down to the vault, but the seriousness that the headmaster had shown and the learning of the Maidens' existence was flowing through her mind like a river without a dam. Refocusing her attention to Ruby, she said: 'I'll do my best.'

'I'll be sure to watch tonight in case you're picked!' Ruby replied avidly.

'Sorry, but I think I've had enough fighting for one year.' said Blake.

'Ditto.' Weiss nodded. 'Coffee?'

'Tea.'

Ruby, Weiss and Blake walked down to corridor to the cafeteria. Jaune closed the door.


A pernicious shadow once roamed the landscape of Runeterra. Its exact origins were not known, nor did it have a specific date attributed to its coming into existence, but scholars and historians have done vague research into the shadow and its essence. No thorough examination can take place of an itinerant thing, but its existence fascinated the minds of those who are open-minded to the possibility of supernatural creatures and activity.

But what is the shadow that people speak of, and how can one even know that they have seen something so evasive, let alone make a valid claim that you have seen it? There are other rumoured demons across Runeterra that had made a notorious name for themselves. How can one be sure that everyone was not referring to the same one?

Well the shadow in question was associated with a few iconic features and consistent details that were reoccurring on almost every case involving it. It seemed to be sentient and had its own intelligence. Despite being described as a silhouette, the shadow was tangible and could interact physically with the world around it.

As is in the nature of a predator, it fed off of its victims to extract nutrients for itself, in order to survive, otherwise it would die. This being was no real exception to the rules of nature, but this hunter did not seek out carbohydrates, vitamins and proteins – no, no, no. Instead, it seemed to prey on people's miseries: fuelling itself literally through the anguish of others.

The majority of people who had claimed to see the shadow had actually not seen it, but rather they had seen the aftermath of its coming and going: the person who had been on the receiving end of its lashings.

Almost every case that was reported said that the shadow had targeted a male human – although there were exceptions. Their bodies had been impaled with lethal spikes all over until their corpses were unidentifiable, had there not been a person who had known for sure who the victims were.

However in the most recent of times, the shadow was delineated as a voluptuous woman, albeit with purple skin and professed tentacles out of its back. The most common theory stated that the demon used her body and irresistible sexual appeal to lure in its prey. Only the foolish though would want to interchange with this femme fatale.

Because the demon shadow was described – or more specifically, personified – in such a way, it was granted humanistic reference. The 'Widowmaker' was the denonym given to the demon, but the woman had been granted the name of 'Evelynn'.


The Demon Shade of Evelynn prowled across the outskirts of Demacia in the west, nearing the Conqueror's Seas. She had been in search of new flavours for her to feast on: new types of amenable gulls who could not resist her charms. By heading so far outwards from Western Valoran, she was making a gamble far bigger than the ones typically taken in the scourged port city of Bilgewater in the Blue Flame Isles archipelago. In fact, she had been rather content with the people she had found in the east: wealthy families with everything to lose in Piltover; homeless and sick people in Zaun, oppressed people in colonised regions of the Noxian Empire and even the stragglers of Mount Targon who were outcasts certain faiths or beliefs.

Demacia however seemed almost like the complete opposite of a buffet to Evelynn. All the people Demacia were happy and unified. Isolating a target in a well-guarded city made of magic-nullifying petricite would be possible, but highly unlikely and not worth the energy she would need to expend to receive the prize.
Many people in the conservative city of Demacia knew the values of hardship and working to achieve dreams and to be able to eat the sweet fruits of their labours. In turn, they also knew that they ultimately did not want to be in a position where the only fruit you could have was rotten, unripe vegetables. They had room for grief, but were determined not to relinquish euphoria.

It was no good for Evelynn, yet she had come so far with minimal nourishment from farmers along her journey across the continent.
She had used the tactic of destroying their crops in the night, so that they would wake up in the morning, distraught at the site of their ruined income. With them on their knees, sobbing into their hands, Evelynn approached each farmer with a seductive swagger. In their woes, Evelynn would pry open their weaknesses to grant them a fleeting moment of licentious pleasure before disembowelling them to pieces. The proceedings of posing as a vivacious woman didn't matter to Evelynn. Like a working citizen, this was purely for getting what she wanted. If she could have gotten away without seducing every man she encountered, she would have chosen so. But even so, the pay cheque of every scream invigorated Evelynn with a surge of energy and a craving for more. The price to pay was absolutely worth it. Admittedly for her, she got a mild amount of pleasure at seeing men being so stupefied, only for that momentary lust to be vanquished in an instant.


Evelynn thought back to a farmer she had had the pleasure of tormenting most recently in Terbisia. Out of all her stops, that one had been her favourite: the pleasure had been the juiciest. She decided to lure the man out in the middle of the night instead of during the day. The lands in Terbisia were fertile but prone to beasts and poros coming from Southern Freljord to eat well grown crops. The man was poor, with a wife and two children. He could not afford countermeasures to deter animals eating from the vegetable patches.

It was dark outside. The demon approached the perimeter of the farm, protected sparsely by as rickety fence, and slipped into the shadows. The farmer's land was exposed and out in the open, but the absence of a sun meant that only the most attentive eye would have noticed Evelynn. It was too easy. She crept up the family cottage, which was on the other side of the farm and peered inside the lowest window.

She saw a small kitchen with a wooden round table, a sink, a stove and a few cupboards. 'Nothing in here…' Evelynn went around to the other side of the cottage. At the back was a sign attached the wall. It said: "No Trespassing!" The demon's curiosity piqued. Whoever lived here was clearly very protective of something.
There was another low window on this side of the cottage. Evelynn smiled with poison on her tongue. A double-bed was right up against the wall. What was presumably the farmer and his wife, were sleeping mere centimetres away from Evelynn. Against the left and right sides of the room were two single-beds with a boy and a girl in one each.
This was a family worth Evelynn's time.

The important question though was how she should go about this situation. She needed to lure someone out of the cottage and then inveigle that person to follow her into the nearby woods where, where she would then proceed to inflict unspeakable torture onto the poor victim.

Evelynn looked at the sign on the wall again. Most owners of land naturally did not want intruders on their property. She deduced that it was because the farmer had healthy crops, like many others, that he presumably wanted to sell to locals or even Demacians. This was the farmer's weakness. Evelynn would use this to her advantage.
She began to scour the vegetable patches, quietly digging up as many of them as she could, tearing the lettuce apart; snapping the carrots in half; squashing the tomatoes and even taking a few bites out of them.
Evelynn didn't like the taste of any food. It provided no benefits to her, and she had never tried anything that she had actually found palatable.

The demon continued to spoil the crops until there were only a few left. 'That'll do.' Evelynn said to herself. 'Let's go and agonise these meat saps'.
Her second step was to wake up the family. She went to the bedroom window, took a deep breath and knocked on the window hard. The man and the woman stirred but didn't wake up. Evelynn tried again and this time she got results.

It was time for the feast to begin.


John Maker heard a noise. It sounded like the noise of a something thumping against the window. His deep sleep was cut short and he opened his eyes. Being conscientious not to wake up with wife, he got up and peered out the window. There was nothing there.

Woof, woof woof! The sound of a dog disrupted the golden silence. Growling with vexation, the farmer put on a pair of slippers and a dressing gown and crossed the small living room, which then led straight into the kitchen. He opened the kitchen door, lit a wooden torch and grabbed a pitchfork that was hanging on the wall before stepping outside. Holding the torch high, he was instantly slapped in the face with the sight of his vegetable patches. John felt horrified. It was like something out of a nightmare: all his hard work that had been growing for four months, making sure that they were as organic as possible, was torn to pieces. He dropped the torch onto the stone floor and used his pitchfork to keep himself from falling over out of misery.

Woof, woof, woof! The dog barked once again. John turned to face the direction the mocking sound was coming from. Without thinking, he ran towards the source of the noise. He didn't think about the fact that he had left his torch behind and could not see where he was going; all he cared about was getting revenge on the mongrel that had sabotaged his farm.

He entered the orchard and continued to run past the orange and apple trees. The dog was leading his further and further away from his house. It didn't occur to John that a dog was most likely going to be much faster than he could even run, yet he did not give up and still perused the elusive mutt.

The enraged farmer thought he could see the dog scampering away in the distance. He picked up the pace and ran at it with gritted teeth. It was going to pay. He was going to make a meal of vengeance out of it.
Something caught John's ankle and he tripped over. It was a root of a tree. He groaned and tried to pick himself off the floor. The impact had hurt and he realised how out of breath he was from chasing the dog. As he became more aware of his surroundings, his anger was exchanged for fright. This area of the woods was much thicker than the edges. Nearer the centre, the branches and leaves above were so thick that no moonlight was allowed through. He could barely see his hands in front of his face.

John was shaking all over. He edged backwards, completely unsure of where to go. A tree was right behind him and he jumped as he made contact with it.
The farmer was vulnerable, lost in the woods and unable to run and in too much of a panic to think to cry out for help. Even then, what if something heard him yell and capitalised on his helplessness?
With no other idea, John curled up against a nearby tree and put his head in his knees. He whimpered and hoped that his wife had noticed that he was out of bed.
Then a giggle sounded nearby. John clenched himself even more tightly. Whatever it was, he feared that it was out to get him. It giggled again, closer this time. 'Aww, are you lost?' it said. It was a woman.

The farmer looked up gingerly to see a stunning lady standing in front of her. Her beauty was indescribable. His fear was now mixed in with allurement. She was almost entirely naked, with only some very skimpy underwear that scarcely concealed her private parts. John was staring at her without even realising it. His heart was pounding faster than it had ever done in his life: so hard in fact that he was having troubling breathing. 'Wh- who are you?' he asked.

'I'm here to help you, love.' she answered with a wink. 'Stand up and let me have a good look at you.'

John's legs were like jelly, but he had enough lust and determination to do so. The woman examined his body all over. She stroked his arms and legs, ran her fingers through his hair, kissed him on the cheek and even briefly put her hand around his groin.

He was mesmerised and his heart was melting like ice on a hot summer day, but forced himself to remember that he had a wife.

'How about we go somewhere more romantic? Just you and me.' she said with seductive cajoling.

'Are- are you sure?' John stuttered.

'Playing hard to get? No need to be shy. I'm sure.' she replied.

'I already… I… a-already have a partner. I shouldn't.'

'Oh, your fear is so hot. It makes me tingle.'

'P-please, lady, I can't.'

'It's okay honey, I'm open to all types, even ones who are already taken.' She went up to him and kissed him directly on the lips. 'Let your guard down. No one will know.'

The woman indicated with her finger that he was to follow her. She walked in a direction that John was not able to discern. He had no memory of where he had come from.
As they walked, he noticed her bottom as she strutted and focused his attention onto it. After fifteen seconds, they were in a more open space. There were less branches above them and moonlight was allowed in. John could see the woman in more detail. Her eyes were a devilish yellow colour, she had purple skin and a visible aura around her. Most unsettling of all though were two separate lashers on her back that only came into view in the shining of the moon.

'Now let's have some fun!' said the woman with a luscious voice. She walked up to John, grabbed him by the jaw and eased him to the floor on his back. His mind was beseeching at him to run away, but his body was giving in to the temptation of the woman. She perched herself on top of the farmer's stomach and let loose a smile that was both lovely and disconcerting simultaneously. John looked at her and saw that beneath her pink lips she had fangs.

The alarm bells went off. John began to struggle, but the woman put her right hand tightly around his mouth. She was starting to look less and less like a human. He could feel her nails digging into his cheeks. They were too sharp to be regular nails though: they were claws. 'Shh…' she whispered, supressing the hapless man 'I'm a biter.'


Evelynn was in the perfect position. She couldn't submerge one final giggle before she began the thrashing.
In an instant, the man's life was flipped upside down into hell. Four spikes materialised out of nowhere, stabbing their way through each of his limbs: one through both of his wrists and ankles. His screams filled the night air. 'AHHHHH!' Evelynn inhaled his every shriek.

'Ohh, yes… cry for me honey!' she said lasciviously.

How deceptive the prurience of one's exterior can be.

John writhed in Agony's Embrace but his efforts were useless. The spikes he had been impaled with prevented him from moving his arms and legs. Every jerk hurt even more, but every spike made him jerk. Another spike appeared and shot its way through his left arm. Every yell and cry drained him of energy. Blood was gushing out of the holes made by the spikes in his skin. More and more smaller spikes rose from the ground and pierced the epidermis on his back. His shrieks were now higher pitched and emitted even more anguish and unheard pleas for mercy.

'Harder? Okay!' said Evelynn. Another spike erupted from the dirt, punctured his right lung and cracked his right ribs. 'Awww, you thought you were getting lucky!' she said mockingly and she ripped off his dressing gown and pyjama top with her claws. 'I hope you like it rough.' she whispered.

John saw Evelynn raise her hands before clawing her way through the skin of his chest. 'Stop! STOP!' he pleaded.

'Shut up and scream for me!' Evelynn hissed. 'The more I cut away, the closer we'll get the heart!' She scratched like a vicious cat, scraping off every single piece of skin the claws could find and then used her teeth to bite away chunks of flesh.

Every single move she made was precise, ensuring that the man was in as much pain and his stem cells could physically sense. 'Just a thousand more screams to go.' she said.
The demon raised her left hand and clawed her way through John's right arm, ripping off a perfect strip of skin. John screamed and screamed. It's crazy how an ordinary man with a punctured lung could cry for so long, but Evelynn was no ordinary demon.
She wrapped the strip of skin around John's neck and began to pull tight. 'Save your breath love.' Evelynn said maliciously. 'Don't want to run out of screams too soon, do we?'

John was choking on his own spoiled blood, his life slowly ebbing away, but Evelynn had not had enough. With the most disturbing grin any human had ever seen, she did the cruellest thing a person could do to a man. Two extremely sharp and long spikes shot out of the ground. Both found one of the man's testicles and they were torn from his scrotum as they were caught on the points.

If the strip of skin from his right arm hadn't been around his throat, his scream would have pierced the eardrums of a deaf man from Ionia. The pain was rushing through his body at a rapid speed, as though his diminishing blood had been replaced with physical trauma itself.
Evelynn cackled with pleasure. She picked up the testicles with her hands and held them right in front of his face. 'No. More. Babies!' she said and stuffed one of them into his mouth before chewing on the other and spitting it onto his face.

For another ten minutes Evelynn had her fun, taking her time to savour every last cry. John's body was punctured all over and his life was now held together only by a single strand of water-soluble thread. 'I'll suck every last drop of joy from your heart!' said Evelynn. She had tried her best to prolong her time spent with the farmer, but even she had not mastered the techniques of infinitely preserving the victim of the soul that she so admired of the Chain Warden.

For the last act, Evelynn ripped off John's eyelids and gouged his eyes. The last thing he ever saw was the look of unbridled cruelty and duplicitous pleasure.

It had been one of the demon's most memorable nights of her life. It would only have been made better if she had had the chance to inflict the same misery onto the man's family, but they arrived as Evelynn stood up after finally killing John. His wife had a shotgun and Evelynn knew that she couldn't combat firearms directly, so she slipped away into the shadow, using that one man's life she had vaporised to keep herself going.


Evelynn finally reached the coast and looked out to sea. She wasn't sure, but believed that there was nothing out there. All her energy had been wasted to come to Demacia.
She lay on the ground in frustration. 'Ugh, a woman's left unsatisfied.' she said to herself. 'What am I to do?'

Suddenly, a garrison of Demacian troops came marching towards the coastline. They had swords and weapons in hand with heavy armour. The man at the front was wearing a crown. Evelynn presumed that this was the current King of Demacia: Jarvan III. A younger man with regal-like clothes stood next to him – possibly Prince Jarvan IV. These two were interesting targets in their own right, but two other figures stood out to Evelynn as well. One was an enormous man with massive pauldrons, a humongous sword and a blue cape. Right next to his side was a young girl. She looked like she was no older than twenty one years old and had a pretty face with bright blonde hair.
Evelynn immediate became curious and crawled along the ground towards the gathering. She hid behind a large rock.

The King was speaking to everyone. 'I think that's everything you will need. Garen, the ship and the wind should naturally guide you westwards.'

'Are you sure about this, your Majesty?' the giant man asked.

'I am. The journey may not be easy. It may be perilous for that matter, but I have faith in my army and my people that you will have a safe journey across the seas and make the discovery of a lifetime! For Demacia!'

'For Demacia!' said all the soldiers in unison.

The young Prince Jarvan commanded the men to head down to the jetty to board a rather large naval ship that would have fit nicely into Bilgewater.

Garen hugged the young girl and was about to leave before he was stopped by the King. Evelynn moved in closer to listen.

'Garen, I acknowledge that this mission is open to many questions. It's improbable anything of avail will be found in the new land, but if Galio is randomly coming to life when there is no magic anywhere near here, something big must've happened across the seas for him to suddenly be awake so frequently. If you're ever in need of help, we'll send him to you. I can send backup units if need be as well. My son and Shyvana will be more than willing to lend you a hand.'

'Thank you, your Majesty.' said Garen. The two of them shook hands before saluting each other. Garen departed for the ship, leaving the King, Prince and girl behind.

Evelynn watched as the crew began to untie all the knots from the jetty but then turned her head to look at the three who were left behind. In theory, she could have had so much fun with the royal family, but knew that she would be trapped inside Demacian walls if she followed them back.
It was a risk she'd have to take. Evelynn had never swam before, but that didn't stop her from moulding herself into a sea creature.
Before the ship moved away from the dock, she jumped into the water and turned herself into a small shark. The water was surprisingly cool and she quickly acclimatised to the sudden change in environment.

There were so many big and stupid men aboard this ship and she could easily hide herself over the edge or in a barrel of some sorts – she would just have to wait until night time, but that wasn't a problem. Even if she was found, bumbling brutes cannot catch a shadow on board a rocking boat.