Ch. 45

Abaddon and Kathleen landed on the roof of the mansion, which was now slick and wet thanks to the downpour they were currently in. In the darkness of the cloudy night sky, they slipped into the top-floor ballroom. Abaddon strode over to one of the supply closets and pulled out two large white towels. He threw one to Kathleen as he began drying himself off.

"There shouldn't be anyone here at the moment except maybe one of the three house cleaners, but I wonder if we should-"

Kathleen suddenly wrapped her arms around Abaddon's neck and enveloped him in a kiss. Not wanting to ruin her mood, Abaddon returned the embrace.

"I still can't believe your back Amaruq," Kathleen said after she finally came up for air.

Abaddon smiled. "Glad to be back darling. Although, I'd rather you still call me Abaddon."

"You don't want to use your original name?"

"New life, new name. I'm Abaddon now, but that won't change anything else. I'm still the old wolf you knew and loved. Albeit, with a new look and some other new features."

"Glad to hear. We do have a problem on our hands though."

"What other problem is there besides the…..Ohhhhh."

"Do we tell our friends now or later?"

Abaddon hummed as he thought of an answer. "I think we should tell them now. We can't drag it out as I did. So, let's just tell them tomorrow after classes end."

Kathleen sighed. "You know, I still wish you had told me earlier that you were gonna go to battle against the White Fang. And this isn't the first time. I know about Ultima Weapon."

Abaddon clicked his teeth. "It was Longinus, wasn't it? Can't keep a damn secret even when I'm dead."

"We'll talk about it later. For now, let's just go to bed. I wanna rest for now."

"Same."

The two of them finished drying off, then went downstairs into the guest room on the second floor. They entered a large furnished room with cream-colored carpet and black painted walls with the trim on the ceiling and floor being a dull gold. The Alaskan king-sized bed was the same color as the carpet. Across from the bed, left of the door, was a stand with candles on it and a flat-screen television hanging above on the wall. A sliding door closet was on the right wall and a double door on the left wall led to a small balcony. The room was lit by a small dull gold chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

The couple reverted to their mortal forms, but traits from their transformations were present. Kathleen's hair was longer now, reaching her calves. Her irises were now yellow. Her body was more physically developed and toned. Abaddon's body still retained the bulk of his transformed state. His hair reached his lower back and had grey highlights on the ends. The insides of his wolf ears were now grey, and his new scars were present. Abaddon ripped off what remained of his clothes and hopped into the bed. Kathleen was already nude as her clothes disappeared when she transformed.

She locked the door to their room. Abaddon had already fallen asleep when she grabbed her scroll and scooted under the blankets. She lay her head on his chest and opened her messages for Jurano. She told him to gather their friends and meet them two hours after classes at the mansion, then threw her scroll on the bed and fell asleep.

XXXXXXX

"So, what're we here for?" Mercury asked.

Teams MNCE, JNPR, and RWBY, along with Jurano, Velvet, Jack and Emma sat in the ballroom. Jurano had brought their friends at Kathleen's request, and there was a feast awaiting them. A circular table filled with just enough food for all of them. Jurano and Jack dug in without hesitation while the others hesitated before helping themselves.

"Maybe it's about Abaddon. He hasn't been back since yesterday," Neo told them.

"It better be a life or death situation since you interrupted me during summoning practice," Weiss huffed.

Jurano shrugged. "Don't get your panties in a bunch Ice Queen. When one of us sends out an 'Olly, Olly, Oxen Free', whether it be through voice, written word, or text, or whatever, that means it is important," Jurano said. "You're in our friend group so this applies to you too."

Everyone turned as the door to the ballroom opened and Abaddon and Kathleen entered. Kathleen had her hair down and wore a red tank top with grey sweats and sandals. Abaddon wore a form-fitting long sleeve black shirt with cream-colored jogger sweats and was barefoot. He had most of his hair pulled back into a short ponytail and wore a red hairband.

"Wassup people," said Abaddon.

"Abby, where have you been? You've been gone for over twenty-four hours," said Emma as she snacked on a plate of fruit.

"Throw me a pear and I'll tell you."

Emma grabbed a pear, threw it, and Abaddon caught it in his mouth.

"Finally, I was fucking starving." He took a big chunk out of the pear. "As for where I was: Helping Ozpin with initiation in the Emerald Forest. Shit happened."

Cinder went up to Abaddon and Kathleen and looked them over. She grabbed one of Abaddon's hands and eyed the scars. Old scars were encircling each of his fingers and his wrist. "Where did these scars come from? Plus…you two look older."

"And sexier," Jack added. "Damn Kathleen, dat body is to die for!"

Kathleen smiled and flicked him off. Jack replied with the same.

"Well, a lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours," Abaddon replied to Cinder.

"And we have something to tell you," Kathleen said.

"What is it? Is it the White Fang?" Yang asked.

"Is Bantus on the move?" Blake added.

"Any more Ghouls need smashing?" Nora asked, accidentally crushing an apple in her hands. Ren groaned as pieces of the fruit splattered on him.

"No. But I'd like to ask you: What if Abaddon and I were actually from another planet?" Kathleen asked them.

"And also, if Abaddon and Kathleen weren't our original names," Abaddon added.

There was a slight pause before almost everyone started laughing. Jurano, Emma, and Jack were confused.

"This feels like a prank dude," Mercury told them. "You two are fucking with us, right?"

"You told us it was an emergency, Kat. Don't joke with us like this," Jurano said seriously.

Kathleen and Abaddon gave each other a quick nod before transforming.

In Abaddon's place was a giant wolf with obsidian black fur and a purple forked tongue. His body was robust and had gills on the sides of his torso. He had a long face with six red pupilless eyes and a large red star-shaped crest in the middle of his head. He also had four horns: two long pointed horns coming out the back of his head, and two curved ones at the sides. His nose took the shape of moving flaps that lay at the end of his snout. His tail was long and thick with a bladed tip. Each of his paws had black retractable claws with reddish tips and his forepaws resembled human hands instead of a canine paw. There were several openings in his fur that exposed red dermal plates. These dermal plats were also poked out of his fur as curved spikes on his forearms, knees, along his back, and partially along his tail. On his back are two large wings covered in red fur, with prehensile claws.

In Kathleen's place was a tall humanoid with grey skin, four arms, and five yellow pupilless eyes set in a half-circle formation. Her body was covered in a bone white segmented exoskeleton with dark purple fur around her neck, along her arms, down her thighs, and along her spine down to the halfway point of her tail. Spikes protruded from her elbows and shoulders, and retractable talons emanated from her wrists. She had a long white tail that split into two halfway down and had pointed ends. She also had a short semitranslucent cape around her shoulders. Eight horns protruded from her head: two where her ears should be, two underneath those curved under her chin, two at the back pointed upwards, and two on top pointed upwards. She had a halo of small purple diamond-shaped objects floating above her head and two long antennae extended from the sides of her head.

Everyone stared in quiet shock.

"Maybe I shouldn't have smoked that dust blunt this morning," Jack said. "I'm tripping."

"You're not tripping Jack. These are our true forms," Abaddon told them.

Emma stood up from her seat. "How long have you kept this from us?"

Kathleen kneeled. "I've kept this secret since we've known each other. I'm older than you think. My real name is Shiva and Abaddon's real name is Amaruq."

"This is unbelievable. You two are some secretive fuckers, hiding bullshit like this," Jurano told them.

Abaddon frowned. "Is that necessary Jurano?"

"Well, you did lie to your best friends about your three-year absence," Ren pointed out.

"And now you're dropping this bomb," Yang added. "We've known you guys for a year now. We're friends. But Jurano, Emma, and Jack are your family. And you shouldn't hide things from your family."

Abaddon gazed at his friends. He knew Emma would be frustrated the most, especially with him. But what hurt him to see was how betrayed she looked. When he saw Cinder's face, she looked almost as upset as Emma. He and Kathleen looked at the others and saw expressions of worry, confusion, and contempt.

"Okay then, we'll start from the beginning, but it's too much to tell so we will give you all the important bits," Abaddon said.

"Our race," Kathleen started, "didn't have a name. We've been called many names by many different races throughout the cosmos, mainly divine beasts or primals, but the ones born first, like me and Abaddon, are the Firstborn. Abaddon was Amaruq, the first of the wolves, and I was Shiva, the Empress of Ice. There were several others like us, but not all of them still live today. Our home is called Ebarona."

"Who created you?" Ruby asked.

"We call our creators the Ancients: Alexander, Zodiark, King Moogle, Midgardsormr, and Babel. They created us, and the ones who came after. We call them and our children the Newborn. We Firstborns all split off into different domains, with some of us becoming close allies. But Amaruq and I became closer as time went on. And we became one of the first to mate as a couple."

"Do you guys have any, like, natural predators?" Jurano asked.

Abaddon answered. "Not in the way you think. The voidsent, creatures from the Abyss of creation, are our opposites. Any exposure to matter from the Abyss itself is harmful to us and other beings that aren't voidsent. We could be mutated, crippled, or even killed outright. It happens at random. Kathleen and I didn't always look like this. My fur used to be white, and I only had two horns while Kathleen used to have blue skin and hair. We were both exposed to the Abyss when the voidsent created a massive tear into our realm. I managed to adapt quickly and mutate into what I am now while Kathleen became unstable. It took her about twenty thousand years to stabilize herself. Mind, body, and soul."

"What does your diet consist of?" Ren asked.

"Self-sustenance. This means we don't need to eat or sleep, but it feels good to do so. We can eat just about anything. Some of us can grow stronger from eating certain objects, living beings, or even our kind. I'm one of those that can devour the core of other beings to grow stronger," Abaddon said.

"So, you've…. eaten one of your own?" Ruby asked.

"Both of us have, for different reasons," Kathleen said. "But that doesn't mean we like it."

"Well, that's not entirely true for me," Abaddon added.

"How did you get here, and why?" Weiss asked.

"Well," Abaddon said. "One of our allies was the disciple of Alexander, one of the Ancients, and he betrayed us and had us, our children, and friends sentenced to death. In that battle, we lost a great deal of those we knew."

"I and several others managed to create portals to other realms to escape. I escaped here with a portion of the refugees because a friend of ours named Aidoneus lived here. I carried an Aether Seed, and with it, we filled this dead world with Aether from our home to help it grow. The traits used to create all the Firstborn were in the seed and was responsible for the creation of the faunus."

Of all the things Abaddon and Kathleen revealed, this surprised everyone the most. Especially their faunus friends.

"I told you that seed would come in handy one day," Abaddon said.

"So, all the furries are your descendants in a way?" Jack asked.

"No. Every faunus on this planet is a creation of the Ancients. It was their power that created the seed," Kathleen told him. "As for regular humans, you are the creations of Aidoneus, since he wanted you to be similar to him in shape."

"So, can we transform as you guys do? And what's Aether?" Mercury asked.

"Aether is the energy that courses through all of creation and allows us to do magic. All Firstborn can perform magic, but each of us has a preference. Kathleen can manipulate ice and I can manipulate lunar energy. With our mutations, we can also manipulate energy from the Abyss to an extent. The Newborns are more flexible and can be born with multiple elemental affinities. I'm pretty sure that the Aether put in this world from the seed is what created the Dust you use and everyone's Semblances," said Abaddon.

"Wait, Dust and Semblances aren't magic," Weiss claimed.

"Who told you that?" Yang asked.

"No one, because everyone knows magic doesn't exist," the ice queen answered.

Abaddon sighed. "Then they're all damn dirty liars."

"Come on, you can't expect us to believe magic exists." Weiss looked at the others for reassurance, but they all just looked at her. "Are you guys serious?"

"Weiss, have you seen your semblance?" Nora answered. "Yours is the most majicky out of all of us. It makes sense! I was struck by lightning when I discovered my semblance!"

"But-," Weiss tried to continue, but Yang covered her mouth and nodded for Abaddon and Kathleen to continue.

"Another thing I should mention is that I was using magic every time it looked like I used my semblance," Kathleen said. "As for Abaddon, in his mortal state he did have a semblance, but it might be gone now with his original body and power returned to him."

"She's right," Abaddon added. "Can't use my semblance anymore. Don't need it since my body was already extremely tough and my ability to adapt."

"And by adapt you mean?" Pyrrha asked.

"We were each given a wish to be granted by Aidoneus' mother, the supreme goddess Mwynn. I wished for me and the wolves in my domain to be able to adapt to anything and everything that is thrown at us. We can do that if our minds and bodies can take it, but that doesn't mean we can't die. The empress here wished for all Firstborn and Newborn to be able to mate and have children with one another, because before we could only birth children with mortals that lived outside of Ebarona."

"How many kids did you have?" Jaune asked.

Abaddon and Kathleen looked at each other and both said, "Too many."

"Are any of them here?" Velvet asked.

Abaddon looked at Kathleen with hope in his eyes. "Did any of them make it with you?"

Kathleen frowned. "Only a few. Chilam, Rakshasa, Vega, Cassiopeia, and Orion. Tiamat, Titania, and many of our remaining allies also came with me. The others scattered to other worlds."

Abaddon's eyes watered. "I'm just relieved some of them survived."

"Why're you in hiding? With your power you could be helping the faunus," Blake told them. "Do you think that our problems aren't yours as well?"

"Because we aren't allowed to," Kathleen said. "This world may be our home now but there are rules we follow for those worlds that may not be ready to accept our presence in it. We don't get directly involved, lest the inhabitants of that world start depending on us, rejecting us, taking advantage of us, or trying to kill us. I understand what the faunus are going through Blake, and I have been helping when I can in mortal form, but we can't do much without drawing attention from the populace and the voidsent, who we just recently found out are making moves on this planet."

"How dangerous are the voidsent?" Velvet asked.

"You guys should be able to easily kill or prove a challenge for most of them, but the high voidsent are something else," Abaddon explained. "We fought two high-ranking ones earlier, one of them being a former Firstborn named Odin. The other one, Ferdiad, defeated me in one blow after I killed one of his minions, and later, he killed a ragtag team of grown huntsmen. The lesser voidsent are not only capable of using magic, but they are also smarter than Grimm half the time and some can talk. Meanwhile, high-ranking ones are as smart or smarter than the average person. Their goal is to fuse our reality with the Abyss so that everything will be a true paradise for their kind. Their ruler was called Erebus, but it was replaced by a powerful beast called Ragnarok. Ragnarok was responsible for the breach in our realm and our current forms."

"Are the Ghouls a type of voidsent?" Ruby asked. "They seemed to be better fighters than the average Grimm."

Abaddon shrugged. "They may be. Some show near human-level intelligence, and the infection that you were tainted with during your last encounter with them is similar to being exposed to a small amount of the Abyss."

"Alright, alright people. I think that was enough questions for today," Jack interrupted. "This is a lot of information to absorb, and my mind was already blown when Abaddon transformed into a furry. Now, let's all just go home."

"Wait-," Emma started.

Jack stood up. "Look Emma, I know you're angry, and you have a right to be, but we need a break. I'm pretty sure Nora over there already lost track of what we just heard."

"Maybe just a little bit," Nora admitted.

"She dosed off twice," Ren corrected.

"See," Jack said. "Now if you guys have anything else you want to ask them, you can do it later, in your free time. Now skedaddle you fucking crazy kids."

"Uhm, some of us are eighteen now," Jaune said proudly.

"And I'm twenty-fucking-three. Now get a move on."

And with that everyone got out of their seats and took their leave while Jack stayed behind to talk to the Firstborn.

"Thanks for that Jack," Abaddon said.

"Your welcome brother," Jack replied. "Besides, with the exposition dump you just pulled out even the readers will be confused."

"The who now?"

"I said I gotta go to the daycare to pick up my son. Smell ya later. Also, remind Mercury he owes me thirty lien for confirming you were secretly a furry."

Before Abaddon could grab him, Jack ran out of the room laughing maniacally.