Griza took a look at her watch, it was eleven in the morning, the lack of light had made her oversleep and she had needed a while to find her rifle's flashlight. She packed her stuff and continued descending down the cave, rifle raised, finger on the trigger.

The cave suddenly separated into two tunnels, faced with another decisive choice, Griza longly hesitated. The two sides looked identical, they were both pitch black, there was no air current that could indicate an exit, and no defining feature whatsoever.

She briefly advanced into each tunnel, but as Griza got into the one on the right, a disgusting stench assaulted her nostrils. It reminded her of an advice from her grandfather "When in doubt, always trust your nose".

"The one on the left it is then."

But as she continued, after a few minutes, the stench had returned, and stronger than before, but despite this, Griza kept moving forward.

And after a turn, she started seeing weird things, the walls were cowered in a sticky black substance, and ropes of it were barring the way.

Cautiously she approached, and with her bayonet, she poked one of the ropes, and when she pulled back her blade, the rope started bouncing. The movement was transferred to the ropes next to it, that transferred it to the ropes next to them and so on, under her eyes, the chain reaction continued for as far as she could see.

After a few moments the bouncing ceased, and she started cutting her way through the slimy matter.

The cave was increasingly oppressive, the black goo on the wall seemed to absorb light, and the only sound was the ones she made. Her breathing sounded dangerously loud, her boots were covered in the black matter.

After a while she saw a tight turn, and almost by reflex, she put in practice her training. She was almost scraping the wall, getting the dark substance all over her clothes, and when she reached the turn, Griza slowly took a look at the other side with her rifle raised. It was empty, only filled with the same black goo as everywhere else, she breathed in relief, and accidentally scraped the black mass on the wall next to her.

"Oh shit." She said taking a look at her dirtied hand, and when she lowered her hand, she got a glimpse of the wall, and immediately leaped backward, sprawling herself on the ground.

Once she got back up she took a closer look at the wall. Her hand had removed the dark substance on a part of the wall, and revealed what lied under it.

It was a skull, a human skull. Her breathing got louder, she started poking at the wall with her knife, and after only five minutes, she had found a dozen corpses, all in varying degrees of decomposition.

She had to go back, this cave was too dangerous, she turned around and attempted to follow her step backwards. But as soon as an intersection presented herself in front of her, she had to admit it, she was lost, again.

Now having lost all sense of direction and taking random turns, her chances to survive looked slimmer for each passing second.

After around half an hour of cutting ropes and despair growing in her, she felt it, a cold breeze was washing on her face, an exit was near, she could make it ! And as if to mock her in her moment of hope, her flashlight started flickering dangerously.

Her panic level was steadily increasing, she heard the echoing sound of a drop regularly hitting water, heading in the sound's direction as her light's flickering increased.

After another turn she finally found the origin of the watery sound in a small pool, over wich stooi a small opening through wich a minuscule ray of light managed to pass, through the same hole slithered a small trail of water wich dripped into the pond.

As if on cue her flashlight finally died, leaving her alone in a nearly complete darkness, a dozen feets away from the water.

Griza started slowly fumbling, through her backpack, in search of light or fire dust. After a while she managed to find a fire dust grenade, she then used her knife the dismantle the dust compartment, like she had done the night before.

She continued her work and a drop of water landed on her hand, she cut the superior part of the cylinder shaped storage, another drop landed, she pierced the inferior part and put the other under it, to be able to move while holding her lighting source.

Suddenly the ray of light stopped lighting her, judging by the shadows on the ground it had been blocked by something. But something wasn't right, the shadows were moving, and then it striked her, she wasn't under the opening, then where did the drops come from ?

Slowly she turned her hand and put it under the light, her hand was covered in the sticky black substance. Very slowly Griza looked up, and between her and the cave's ceiling, looking at her, were eight red eyes. And she ignited the dust.

As soon as light came to be, the Grimm spider jumped at her. She rolled to her right, a reflex at this point, while rolling she seized her rifle, raised it, and started firing. She instantly regretted it.

For the rifle gust had the secondary effect of illuminating the entire cave, showing her a nightmarish vison, the tunnel through wich she had arrived was entirely obstructed by an innumerable amount of giant spiders, all crawling in her direction, they runned on the walls as well as the ceiling, walking on each other in their hurry to get to her.

Immediately forgetting any idea about fighting, Griza turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction. To her greatest relief the distance between them steadily increased. To her greatest horror, the way forward ended in a dead end.

The creatures were rapidly approaching, by the time she had come up with a plan, the closest was only around fifteen feets away. In a last resort move, she picked her last grenade, and threw it at the sprawling mass of arachnids.

In an instant, the world was set on fire, Griza's skin was burning as she was thrown back, she felt her face melt and her skin being blasted away. It all ended as abruptly as it had started when her head made contact with the wall, and the world turned black.

Pain, pain was all she could feel, she could feel the pain in her eyes, but she couldn't open them, it was as if they were sealed closed.

As she stayed still, an eternity passed before her, and each hour felt like a year. Pain was her only companion and screams her only music.

And while her screams echoed into her head, she saw his face, the face of a young man, she couldn't remember his name. The pain was unbearable, her mind was sluggish, but inside this mess she recognized the sound of a young man screaming a name.

Griza, it was her name, she was Griza, she remembered now, she was Griza, and he was James. She was Griza and she couldn't die here, not while he waited for her, not while he needed her.

Griza wasn't dead, Griza couldn't die, Griza was the princess in shining armor waiting to rescue her prince. Griza couldn't die yet ! But she was alone, and she was dying, and everything hurt so much.

A voice whispered to her, louder than the pain, louder than the screams, "You aren't alone". The voice was right, she wasn't alone, Griza was here, and she wouldn't leave her.

Again she saw the face, she knew he needed her, he needed them. She had to wake up, she couldn't die, she wouldn't die ! She was getting furious, she wasn't screaming anymore, now she was yelling, yelling at this damned world, yelling at this damned game, and yelling at herself to wake up, yelling at herself not to die.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she managed to force open an eye, immediately the pain came back, she felt something warm on her face and she couldn't feel her legs.

The cave was illuminated by a multitude of small fires that had yet to die out, most of them eating the scattered content of her backpack.

She needed something to ease the pain, she needed water. Griza started crawling in the pool direction, a fact made even harder by the black goo on the way.

At one point she actually had to use her teeths to cut through it. But after a small eternity of crawling on the ground, she finally reached the pond.

Hurriedly she threw water at her burning head, then relieved her coarse throat by drowning her face in the water.

When she raised her head she finally saw the extend of the damage, Griza could see her face reflected in the bloody water.

Or more like what was left of it, the entirety of the right side was charred, and her right eye was literally melted closed. She had also lost much of her hair and had burns almost everywhere, her entire body was scarred. She couldn't feel her skin when she touched it, she could only feel pain.

But as she sat here miserably, something started moving behind her, a small thing that had survived the blast.

As it threw itself at her, Griza turned around, her eye widened and, in panic, she straightened her arms in front of her and closed her eye. She felt her hands close on something and after a moment, she opened her eyes again.

Only a few inches before her face stood eight small red eyes, belonging to a baby spider. The spider in question had her legs locked in her hands and was doing her best to eat what was left of her face.

Not really knowing what to do of the little monster squirming in her hands, for a while she just sat there unmoving, keeping the Grimm as far away from her face as possible.

After pondering and looking around for a moment, she had an idea, an idea that may or may not work out, but it was the best option she had that didn't involve dropping the spider.

Griza slowly turned around while holding the beast, and as she held the baby over the pool, she suddenly pushed it down into the water.

Still holding it, she felt the little spider wriggling under her hands, desperately trying to get back to the surface. But Griza held firm, and soon enough the squirming spider was replaced by a convulsing spider. And after a few more moments, the creature stood still, and started dissolving into the water.

After taking a few minutes to recover, Griza tried to recover what was left of her stuff, and started continuing down the cave. However it wasn't long before she noticed something important, she hadn't any light with her.

Slowly, Griza walked back to the pond, and once she was there, tried to find a way out.

She looked at every cranny of the room, inspected each rock, and even dived into the pool in search of an underwater exit.

But in the end the only way out she had found was the opening in the ceiling, the one through which the small ray of light came from. It was very narrow and she didn't knew if she could pass through, but there was only one way to know.

Two minutes later, Griza was soaked to the bones, after falling into the pond, she had underestimated how slippery the wall could be.

After another pathetic fail, she took the only dust that had survived until now, gravity dust. Griza had proposed to take some in case they had to climb the mountain, but in the end she didn't had to.

Putting the dust on her hands and boots, she rubbed them together, and tried one last time. The gravity dust allowed her hands to stick to the wall without taking into account the latter's humidity.

As she reached the opening, Griza crawled through, and after some of the most anxious minutes of her life, she reached the other side.

Once she got out and stood under the light of the sun for the first time in who knew how long, Griza took a long look around.

She found herself to be in a rocky canyon, and saw something that she definitely hadn't missed, the fog was somehow even ticker here, and hid the top of the canyon from her sight.

Having lost all sense of direction during her time in the cave, she decided to head in the direction that seemed to go down.

At this point all she had left was her rifle, knife, watch, and pistol. Still, she moved forward.

After around two hours of walking, just as the sun was setting and she intended to settle down for the night, the ground started rumbling. She looked behind her in the rumbling's direction, rifle raised, but the mist wasn't allowing her to see it's source.

While scanning the fog for any threat, she took a tentative step backwards, then another, and another. But just as she was seriously envisaging to just turn around and run, two shapes appeared in the fog.

Aiming her weapon, finger on the trigger, she was going to fire when she got a better look at the figures, they were human shaped, and they were running in her direction.

"You! Run!" One of them screamed, just in time for her to notice multiple other outlines in the mist, and those clearly weren't human.

Griza took it as a sign to start fleeing, and she quickly turned around as the two humans passed right next to her, and tried to run. Keyword being tried.

Griza's legs hadn't been spared by the grenade, and her limping severely limited her speed.

Thankfully for her one of the humans glided to an halt and rushed back to her. It was then that she finally recognized him.

"Hold on Griza, I'm coming." James yelled.

His companion also stopped, and after grumbling for a few seconds, took out the biggest flamethrower she had ever seen, and fired.

"BURN DEMONS, BURN UNDER MY RIGHTEOUS FLAMES !" If Jimmy had screamed before, this one didn't even compare, and for the second time this day, Griza was surrounded by fire.

At least this she wasn't a collateral damage, and once James reached her and gave her his shoulder for support, they half runned, half limped away from the horde.

A literal wall of fire was covering their escape, but already it was weakening, they had to hurry.

A few dozen feets away sat the end of the canyon, marked by a rocky ark, and in the distance, they could see Atlas.

However the firewall had died out, and the Grimm's were starting to gain ground.

"Laura, take her, I have an idea." James said, and the other one who's name was apparently Laura remplaced him. He continued rushing to the exit, and as he was almost out, he started ransacking through his backpack.

The Grimms were getting dangerously close, Laura threw a few ice dust grenades in an attempt to slow them down, and Griza fired a few gusts, with limited effect, as the horde seemed without end.

For each one they killed, another took his place, their number being only limited by the narrowness of the canyon as more Grimms died by being trampled under their brethren than by their preys.

As Griza arrived to the arch, James was fumbling with a small box, and after a moment that seemed way longer than it really was, he put the box on the wall and resumed his running.

All three of them were out now, and Griza watched in horror as the Grimms started to pour outside the canyon, into Atlas proper. And at this moment, for the third time that day, the world burned.

A powerful blast wave escaped from the canyon, throwing all of them on the ground. When they recovered their bearings, the turned back and watched as the arch fell down, the canyon crumbling unto itself.

"I told you those demolition bombs would come handy." James joked, as the two others numbly turned to him.

"But enough joking, we need to get you to Atlas, you're not going to hold on for long in this state." He said to Griza.

"And by the way Griza this is Laura, Laura this is Griza, the short version should do the job until we get out of this mess."

Coming back to Atlas ended up taking longer than expected, they could see it since a while, but in their relief they had forgotten how immense it actually was, and seeing it didn't meant you where close to it at all.

In the end it was around one in the morning when they reached it, the instructor waiting for them at the entrance.

"Congratulations, you brilliantly passed the field test, you are almost done, we just need you to complete one last test, don't worry it shouldn't take long."

He then signaled them to follow him inside, and after a few minutes of navigating through the maze of corridors, they arrived to what looked like a waiting room, with a few chairs next to a closed door.

James and Laura were told to wait there, while Griza had to follow the instructor through the door.

On the other side of was another corridor, with half a dozen doors facing them, she was led inside of the first door.

The room she entered looked like an interrogation room, with a table in the middle, two chairs, and a mirror on the side. The disturbing parts were that on the table rested a pistol, and on the side facing her sat someone, the person was tied up and gagged. It was also a faunus if the wolf ears were anything to go by.

Just as hear brain registered those informations, the door behind her got closed and she was left alone with the faunus.

Soon enough a voice echoed in the room.

"You are Griza Weisstein, born 17 years ago in the town of Altdorf, orphan, officer cadet since 10 days. Is this correct ?"

Looking around in search of a speaker, Griza answered.

"Yes."

"No one will know what happened in this room and you are forbidden to speak about it to absolutely anyone."

"The faunus in front of you as committed crimes against Atlas and it's people, to pass this test, you will have to execute him." The voice continued in a neutral tone.

"What !? What did he do ?"

"It is classified, but he deserves death."

"Isn't there another option ?"

"There is not."

"What will happen if I refuse to kill him ?"

"You will fail the test, and someone else will kill him."

"Does the fact that he is a faunus have anything to do with this ?"

"He is here because he committed a crime, not because of his species."

"Can I speak to him ?"

"You cannot."

"Is there anything I can do ?"

"You may execute him."

Barely containing a scream of frustration, Griza stood there, fuming and cursing. She hadn't chosen to be there, she didn't want to, she just wanted to go back to her old life.

But she had already sacrificed so much to get here, she couldn't go back, this was the only way forward.

She had killed Grimms and animals before, and if this faunus really did something justifying his dead, was he really better than them ? The world would probably be a better place without him.

She had to do it, for all those people who had put their thrust in her, for James, for Aldric, for her sergeant, for her fallen comrades.

For each passing second, Griza felt as if a noose was tightening around her neck, and after what seemed like hours, she had made up her mind.

Very slowly, Griza advanced, even slower, she seized the gun, and two sounds resonated in the room, a prayer, and a gunshot.

As Griza waited in another waiting room, she started to ask herself questions. Did this faunus really deserve this ? Was it worth it ? Would James be able to do the same choice ?

A part of her mind didn't want to know the answer to those questions, fearing what it would mean, but whatever her wish may be, one of those was answered when James entered the room.

And as she looked at him in horror, he looked at her with relief in his eyes.

James's POV

Around ten minutes after Griza had passed the door, the instructor opened it from the other side and told James to follow him.

When he passed the door he was faced with half a dozen more doors, and the instructor led him through the second one.

Once inside, the instructor closed the door, and James found himself alone, well, alone with a tied up and gagged person. Suddenly a voice started speaking.

"You are James Ironwood, born 18 years ago in the city of mantle, only son of Aldric Ironwood and Katrin Herzschmerz, officer cadet since 10 days. Is this correct ?"

"It is."

"No one will know what happened in this room and you are forbidden to speak about it to absolutely anyone."

"The man in front of you as committed crimes against Atlas and it's people, to pass this test, you will have to execute him." The voice continued in a neutral tone.

"What are the crimes you talk about ?"

"It is classified, but he deserves death."

"Was he condemned to death in a tribunal ?"

"This information is classified, but I assure you he deserves death."

"Can I speak to him ?"

"You cannot."

"Is there anything about him that isn't classified ?"

"He committed a crime and needs to die."

"What will happen if I refuse to kill him ?"

"You will fail the test, and this person will be executed by someone else."

Ironwood stood here for less than a minute before giving his verdict.

"I cannot be expected to conduct justice with so few informations, I will not kill this person without having access to his informations and being able to interrogate him."

"We cannot give you more informations nor can we allow you to interrogate him, will this be your final choice ?"

"Yes."

The voice was silent for a moment before saying:

"Congratulations Mister Ironwood, you passed this test, you will be asked to leave through the backdoor and the prisoner will not be killed."

After a small bow in the mirror direction, he did as asked, and when he got out, he found Griza mumbling to herself with her head in her hands.

Now we have a mc that hear voices, drown babies, and kill minorities, what more could you ask for. But seriously all three of those will have an impact for the rest of the story, I didn't do it just for fun.

To clarify the last test, there's isn't a "right" way to pass it, it's purpose is for Atlas to have an idea of how their recruits can be used.

Tell what you think of the horror part please.

I love to hurt my characters, and Griza will probably have a serious fire PTSD after this.

I really struggled at the start of the interrogation scene, I searched a lot but I failed to find a timeline with years for the rwby universe, the one that had those used the first episode as year 0, wich will obviously not work here. If anyone knows anything about this, I would gladly accept any help.

This was my biggest chapter yet by far, I'm really starting to sympathize with the authors who write 10k chapters.