A/N: Hello everyone! This isn't my usual style of writing, nor my normal genre, but I've wanted to give this a shot for the longest time now, so I'm gonna take my shot now! I hope you all enjoy, and if you do, I would greatly appreciate any and all support, be it in reviews, constructive criticism, follows, favorites, or even DMing me about what you enjoyed the most!
With all that out of the way, here's...
RWBY
AZURE TEMPEST
Several years had passed since she'd last set foot in Vale, never mind Beacon. Seven years, by her count, since she and her team had their falling out, since she'd broken off from the fold and forsaken her vows as a Huntress all the way back in her late Sophomore year. To her knowledge, many of her old friends still resided in Vale, her half-sister being one of them... all people she'd rather not cross paths with again, if it could be avoided.
Nevertheless, it was ultimately just business that brought her to Vale today, and she didn't intend on staying long. A client had paid for her services here, to deal with something of a more sinister nature than Grimm, Terrorists or mere thugs. Her work wasn't widely recognized by any means, but her studies into the occult and unexplainable had set her up as one of the few qualified individuals in the world to handle such delicate matters.
And what exactly was her line of work, one might ask? Truth be told, her training as a huntress had proven useful, skills carried over and all that, and being that fighting was invariably part of her job it's not like one couldn't just hire a hunter to handle part of the jobs she did. That being said of course, they couldn't exactly be trusted to efficiently do the job, or even do the job right, without the right knowledge, so her role was as something of a specialist in this more niche field, someone who could get these kinds of jobs done quicker than any team of hunters and doing it better all the same. After all, anyone could kill those she's hired to deal with, but it took a very specific set of skills to keep these threats from coming back.
As she stepped up into a wrecked town square, she took in the sight of a handful of slain hunters and civilians, all of them in various states of dismemberment and none of them bearing faces she'd recognize. Back when she was a little girl training at Beacon, a sight like this might've made her throw up or freeze, but she'd seen this scene on repeat so many times now that it was really just ad nauseam. Now this grisly scene only served as an indicator that she was on the right track, and the morbid display was one she'd seen a million times.
Looking both ways, she trained her eyes in the direction that the carnage and destruction was most substantial, chuckling lightly as she followed the denser trail of bodies and debris down a ways before finally coming up on a part of the road that a building had collapsed over, effectively blocking off her path. As if in confirmation that she'd been on the right track, a light warping sound rang through the air behind her, and a single glance back showed the red wall of light that she already knew was impassible. Scoffing lightly, she simply leaned right, allowing a descending blade from behind to narrowly pass by her as her right hand reached to the small of her back. Spinning round on her right as she side-stepped to face her attacker with her side, she drew an engraved handgun of black and gold with a compensator, target sights, a wooden comfort grip and a pivot-style trigger, and casually aligned the gun with her assailant's head.
With a single bang, the bullet ripped through her assailant's hooded head, throwing them down to the ground before bursting apart into ash, leaving behind only the rusty blade that had failed to strike her. Leaning over as her left hand folded back to the small of her back, she allowed the following scythe to pass over her as she slid a foot back, snapping upright and flicking her arms out to either side and firing the gun already described into a new opponent on her right and a new handgun, this one of silver and gold with all the same features as the last save for combat sights in place of the target sights. The bullet from her left ripped through the head of the enemy that she'd already evaded an attack from, killing it in an instant as the bullet carried onwards, striking a red barrel a few paces away and causing an explosion that threw several more foes manifesting from thin air to the ground.
Kicking off her back foot, she flipped herself over in midair, crossing both arms over her chest and firing once more from each handgun, killing two more foes and leaving them as naught but ash in the wind. Pivoting once more as she bound through the air, she adjusted herself to slip horizontally between two massive, butcher-style blades as they swept at her, forcing her weight down as she passed and dropping onto her left knee. Snapping her arms forward, she put another bullet through these two lumbering foes kneecaps, dropping them down low enough for her to shove the barrels of her guns in their mouths as she came up out of her forward roll, pulling the trigger and reducing their heads to a cloud of black ash blasting back with the bullets.
"Ashen type incursion, eh? Well, guess it just means I'll be done before morning. Pesky for any regular hunters to deal with, harder to keep e'm from coming back, but even an amateur demon-hunter can dispel Ashen-Type Summoning Rituals." She thought lazily as she continued to do the dance of death with these demons. Demonic incursions weren't necessarily the most common thing out there, but in recent years had been steadily increasing in frequency and severity. The first incursion she'd ever dealt with was shortly before her falling-out with her team at beacon seven years ago when she was just 17, and it had given her a sort of respect for these occult matters that none of her peers really appreciated. Her research into these evil powers they said would corrupt her completely and utterly, eventually. They feared that she herself would become enamored with these demons, and eventually pose a greater threat than any small incursion from the off cultist.
Then, of course, came the second incursion, this time far more dangerous. All her research had, however, paid off despite all her peers' opposition, allowing her to effectively dispel the summoning ritual before any serious damage could be done. Yet, what should've been validating work was seen as damning, like it had supposedly stained her soul. It didn't take long for her to grow tired of being treated as a pariah, furthermore she didn't care for the lack of respect that these dark matters demanded from her peers. For another month that wound festered, before she'd made the decision to break off, leave Beacon and Vale behind and pursue her research into the Demon World. Ultimately, this line of work was mostly a solo gig, but she was never quite opposed to working alongside those who'd keep an open mind.
It was initially niche work, all things considered, but with the lack of actual dedicated Demon-Hunters in the world, she'd managed to find a steady flow of work. It took her to every part of the globe, and she'd never slowed in her pursuit of knowledge pertaining to her work, allowing her to very rapidly improve in all realms relevant to her occupation. It did, of course, come with a few benefits to the job. There were maybe 14 other demon hunters in the whole, and while all of them could handle the jobs in their regions, they almost never strayed further than the neighboring region in pursuit of work... neither were any of them particularly savvy at marketing themselves.
This worked fine with her, though, as it just meant she didn't really have much if any steep competition for work. She'd established herself in every major area, mostly through website ads, billboards and cheap TV commercials using bits of captured footage of herself getting the job done. Azure Tempest, she marketed herself as to the masses, though was more commonly referred to just as "Tempest." It wasn't her real name, no, but it worked to keep her personal life to herself. Using bluish silver hair dye and golden contact lenses, as well as completely changing up the way she dressed whenever she was on the job, she managed to effectively keep her real identity and her identity as a Demon Hunter separate, and everyone who'd be able to tell the two identities were one in the same were people she knew personally, people who didn't care enough to bother telegraphing her real identity to the world.
With one last trigger pull, this little ambush from these demons was ended, with the last demon, a humanoid form with a ghoulish appearance under a black cloak that wielded a rusty scythe, crumpling to the ground without a head and fading to ash. The barrier fell with a distorted hiss, and the peace allowed her to properly get a feel for her surroundings, get an idea of how to proceed. Not too long did it take her to find a door still intact, she recognized it as a bar and gentleman's club. The building looked to still be intact, and she knew that there were separate entrances to the bar and to the club, the latter of which she theorized opened up on the opposite side of all this rubble. A small smirk formed on her lips, as she stepped over to the door and pushed it open, stepping inside nonchalantly, with both hands stuffed into her pockets.
The bar wasn't completely abandoned, being occupied by a few well-armed individuals that busied themselves with tending to their injuries and the injuries of their friends. Of course, her unannounced entrance had put them on guard, but upon seeing her long, bluish silver hair and golden eyes, all hostility seemed to fade away in an instant, replaced instead with sighs of relief and a few elated laughs.
"Oh, it seems lady luck smiles upon us once more, friends! Tempest is here!" One announced, bringing a small jubilee to the wounded warriors around her. All things considered; she was definitely the nicest dressed individual present, especially considering they were all ragged from what had probably been a full week of endless attrition now. These lot were still young, most likely Beacon students, if she were to wager, and their clothing choice, even if tarnished, reflected that... a stark comparison to her own outfit. She herself wore mostly black, her outfit consisting firstly of a shoulderless black long sleeve shirt, the middle lined in gold, that split below the belt. The shirt's golden lining did not cover the bottom, instead running up the left side of the split and forming a sort of Y shape across her torso as it rode the seam of the fabric that made up what covered her collar, the collar section of her shirt being lined in black fur itself. Over this, she wore a black overcoat that covered to just above her elbows, with a white streak running down her shoulders and along the sides of the arms of her overcoat. The top of her hands and wrists were covered by an odd sort of gloves that extended about midway back along her wrists and only covered the back of her hands, the sides and the palm, leaving her fingers, knuckles and thumbs unprotected. A pair of simple, yet finely tailored black pants concealed her legs, bloused into her cuffed black boots that laced up the front, and her look was finished by a somewhat loosely worn dark gray belt that sat at a slight angle along her waist, just concealing the point where her shirt split at the bottom.
Her wardrobe was custom tailored, but not necessarily of her own design. A gift from a client's daughter she'd saved, a master tailor, while on the job. "An Iconic Outfit of the World's Greatest Demon Hunter!" They'd said, not that she'd necessarily be one to comment about that. She was the world's most publicly recognized Demon Hunter, but she wasn't conceited enough to believe she was the best before even comparing notes with the few others about. Nevertheless, that was three years ago, and this outfit was indeed both unique and iconic to herself and had a positive impact in the news. She still remembered when she first appeared with her new outfit, Atlas News Network was reporting on a mid-level incursion, at least by her own rankings, when she'd appeared on the scene and got to work. Her outfit, alongside the coverage of the crisis, was all the news and internet were talking about for the following week after she'd finished the job. Her outfit was almost as iconic as the powers she'd obtained through this work, and were already more iconic than her weapons, something she thought to be somewhat ironic, given they'd been with her since the beginning and had only undergone minor changes and upgrades.
First were her pistols, followed by the katana she'd crafted specifically with killing demons in mind. Both weapons were charged with demonic energy, making both options far deadlier than they'd normally be, and making them more than a viable option for killing whatever stronger demons she'd cross. Better to have a pair of light, easily maneuverable weapons specially designed to kill demons with than one big, heavy and cumbersome weapon that was just made with being a heavy-weapons platform in mind. As such, whenever her blade was drawn, it burned with black and white hellfire, and any bullets she fired were supercharged with demonic energy, causing the bullets to fly at much greater velocity, hitting faster and harder, and upon contact with any similarly demonically charged entities such as the very demons she fought, would violently detonate in a small pulse of hellfire.
She'd allowed herself to be distracted with her own thoughts as she passed through the part of the building that was the gentleman's club. It was dilapidated and trashed, but still remained intact, including the doorway. A few of the students had followed her, asking her questions she didn't have the time to answer as she approached the door that would lead back onto the street. However, as she approached, the door was shielded in a similar red barrier as what barred her path back before in the street, cluing her in to another ambush.
Turning her gaze back to the center of the room, she noted a trio of similarly ghoulish figures squatted upon the stage, their robes cream-colored as opposed to the pitch-black ones their lesser kin used, and their scythes actually looking somewhat clean, if a little sandy. As she stepped up, pushing the children who'd followed her out of the way and off to the side, the trio disappeared in a burst of sand as they sprang up from their previously squatted posture.
She scoffed at the attempt, having dealt with these sorts of demons thousands of times at least, she knew their tactics, how they operated, probably even better than they themselves did. With one swift draw as she attacked directly from the sheathe and slid her right foot back and directly somewhat behind and left of her left foot, she spun partway around with the draw, allowing her to face her now farthest right opponent with her shoulder as her blade came around in a lethal arc, bisecting all three demons before they could even swing the instant they'd appeared behind her. Both parts of each of their bodies burned with black and white flames along the cut, sliding off each other and hitting the floor with a sandy Thud!, leaving behind only a pile of sand in on the ground where they'd fallen and some loose ribbons of sandy tan fabric. A swift flourish off to each side allowed her to rest the back of her blade against her saya, drawing the weapon forward before crossing the edge and allowing her to seamlessly slide her blade back into place.
Turning back to the stage, Tempest noted the appearance of a more ranged sort of Demon, this one a lanky mess of metal limbs that could form a sort of bow and launch barrages of demonic hardlight arrows. They weren't particularly dangerous by any means, as they'd still fall into the Ashen-Type Incursion category, which ranked fairly low in her analysis of crisis levels. Ashen was in what she'd called Level 1 Severity, a relatively low-threat crisis with a high quantity of weak demons. However, brushing the thought aside, Tempest stood still, allowing them to fire their arrows at her. She stood in place until the very last second, before using her spatial manipulation ability to warp behind the leading demon and between the two that had just appeared behind it to either side. Their threat was ended with the sliding of her left foot further back and the draw of her blade, slicing the three demons in half and igniting the ends of the cuts in an instant, already clicking her blade back into place as the halves of each demon hit the floor and broke down into metallic dust.
Spatial Manipulation was not her semblance, no, Tempest never used her semblance while on the job. It was merely one of the demonic powers she'd obtained throughout her jobs, studies, research and personal ambition, one of seven in total. Certain rituals, if acted upon correctly, will remain as residual demonic energy upon being dispelled, eventually fading away into nothingness if not absorbed by someone. Normally, any soul of normal strength that tries to absorb such demonic energy will be invariably tainted by it, corrupted into a monstrous demon abomination... however, for a Soul of Steel such as her own, the soul of a silver-eyed warrior, the dark essence would be absorbed successfully, granting the user certain abilities based on the nature of the ritual. Most rituals of severities below Level 7 simply cannot manifest enough raw demonic energy to allow such, but every Ritual at Level 10 will produce such a result upon being dispelled.
That being said, she'd only ever dealt with one Level 10 Summoning Ritual, and she was both glad that that specific situation was isolated on such a distant island, and further glad by the fact that she'd nipped that problem in the bud so early, because a Level 10 Summoning Ritual was effectively a world-ending scenario if allowed to progress past budding stages. Even then, she only barely succeeded, and not without nearly getting killed herself... but it had granted her an ultimate power, bearing the name of one of the seven devils that embodied the Seven Deadly Sins, something utterly unmatched within the overworld which she primarily worked within... something she never used lightly, unlike her other powers.
After a few lightning-fast movements at speeds the students couldn't even hope to follow with the naked eye, the room seemed to be practically ablaze with black and white flames, an inferno erupting within the span of a half-second and dying to nothingness mere seconds later, leaving Tempest standing alone at the door leading out once more, observing the crimson barrier fade into nothingness before proceeding outwards. She made sure to wave the kids off first, give them the message that she wasn't to be followed. As she stepped outside and back into the street, the hurried rush of footfalls leading away from herself informed her that they'd received the message, allowing her to continue working in peace without needing to babysit.
Now, with the world opened up to her once again, she idly observed the abject destruction in the area around her, with the street caved into the sewer system below and a baleful red glow pouring out from the dark. It was evidence enough of where she needed to go, so, without hesitation, Tempest hopped down from her spot in the street above, sliding down the collapsed road leading into the sewers and hopping off at the last second, landing in viscous crimson liquid that smelled of iron. Blood, she recognized it to be, cluing her in to what this next phase of the Summoning Ritual would be.
"The large collection of blood at a level this low is indicative of an attempt to evolve the Ritual. Ashen Level 1 can evolve into many different variations but will evolve into a Brass-Type between levels 1.5 and 1.7 if blood is insufficient to evolve into Blood-Type Level 2. Vale has been a battleground for roughly a week, but this outbreak has been largely cordoned off to just this sector of the city, which was fully evacuated within the first 36 hours. Nearly three thousand perished within those first few hours, but that isn't enough to evolve the Ritual past Brass." Her thoughts were methodical, calculated, to the point. She knew what to expect and had gone to great lengths to study these incursions and document them as she worked on compiling all Demon-Related knowledge the world had to offer, all for the purpose of finishing the guidebook she'd been penning ever since she'd started in this line of work. Tedious work, but she hoped that all that research would pay off, and her guidebook published so that future generations can prepare and act appropriately, as well as to make them all regard these occult matters with the proper respect they demanded.
As she began to saunter forward, a baleful wind that reeked of death poured out in waves from within the darkness, causing violent ripples within the stream of blood she strode through yet not swaying the demon hunter in the slightest. Tempest maintained her usual poker-face, striding forward with a confident gait and keeping eyes affixed upon the darkness. The further she pushed into the darkness, the greater the force of the winds carrying the foul stench blew, forcing her overcoat to flutter behind her as she continued on, unbothered.
Finally, as if whatever was waiting for her had finally lured her into its trap, an echo-y, distorted laugh boomed all around her, halting Tempest in her tracks. It wasn't so much of an unsure halt or a waver in confidence so much as it was simply an appropriate reaction to the incoming threat. A simple glance downwards revealed a black mass growing within the reflection in the blood beneath her, the crimson liquid notably absent of her own image. At the very last second, Tempest sidestepped the reflection as another ghastly figure, this one much larger and more prominent than the others, burst forth from the blood, wildly swinging its scythe of hardened lesser demonic energy as it sailed past and over her, landing ahead of her a few paces and turning to face her with a ghostly howl. It bore a tattered black cloak and had crimson light pouring out of its eyes and mouth, its blade an almost fluid-looking thing as it looked like the blade were made of blood that shifted and swayed within its own shape, and its lower body was merely a red smoke, allowing it to float freely through the air and ignore the laws of physics, unbound by gravity.
"Level One Vanguard. One of these things can give a full team of Hunters a run for their money if they don't know what they're doing... or simply lack the proper demonic powers to deal with it." Her expression turned to a smug one as she simply raised her right hand, her eyes holding a dangerous glint as what looked to be black electricity lined in a white glow zipped across her fingers. Her eyes narrowed, and the Vanguard rushed her, scythe cocked back as it prepared to swing and rend her in two. However, just at the last moment, the Vanguard disappeared, teleporting elsewhere before it even swung. However, Tempest was not new to dealing with these foes, and simply flicked her empowered hand directly overhead, eyes not leaving the darkness ahead of her as she let loose with her power.
Within an instant, Black Lightning was unleashed overhead from her fingertips, engulfing the inferior Vanguard in a relentless stream Demonic Lightning that spread forth from its body, ravaging the area around it and racing down the open ends of the sewer system, temporarily illuminating the entire sector in white light. It only lasted about a second, ending with the Vanguard bursting apart in a cloud of glowing red dust overhead. However, in the momentary illumination, a sort of curtained off section had been revealed dead ahead of her, maybe a hundred meters away.
It was a rather cheap display, and her Black Lightning had all but disintegrated the curtains that shielded the small band of cultists that surrounded a glowing red sigil carved into a large stone slab, leaving them completely exposed in her sights. They themselves were quick to notice, but panicked when they saw they were under attack, their attention swiftly diverting towards the source and looks of abject horror spreading across their faces upon the moment of recognition. There wasn't a single cultist in the world that would fail to recognize the most globally recognized Demon Hunter, and one did not even need be a cultist for the name "Tempest" to strike dread into their heart.
"T-t-t-t-t-t-t-TEMPEST! I-IT'S TEMPEST! R-RUN!" One screamed, throwing himself off their alter and bolting down a connecting corridor, only to scream in agony as a wall of black and white Hellfire erupted just before him, giving the man not a single second to stop himself before rushing face-first through her flames. The cultist threw himself in a stream of sewage water, hoping to snuff out the flames, not realizing that the only thing that could halt the burn of hellfire was its master's desire or superior force. He only succeeded in covering himself in the waste of his fellow man as he was reduced to ash within mere seconds, his agonized screams echoing down the connecting corridors for miles.
The others scrambled about, halting on all fronts as the hellfire erupted all around them, save for the direction its master approached from. With all eyes drawn to herself, the path she walked illuminated with floating balls of hellfire every meter or so on either side, lining and shining light upon the straight line she took on her approach to the cultists. Her focus was admittedly less upon the cultists and more upon dispelling the Summoning Ritual, although she was being conscious to ensure no cultist survived. Could she kill them from this far away without any real trouble? Too easily, but where was the fun in that? Terrifying Demon-Worshipping cultists before she slaughtered them was really just like bonus-points in her eyes, and while the approaching smell of fresh urine and fecal matter did assault her nostrils in an unpleasant manner, the message it sent was just so satisfying.
"The Summoning Ritual hasn't evolved yet, so this will be a simple matter of disintegrating the big tablet it's emblazoned upon with Hellfire." She knew that simply smashing the sigil wouldn't do, as so long as it could be pieced back together, it will continue to allow Demons to summon into their world. However, most sigils below Level 5 only existed as a material manifestation, so simply disintegrating the thing it was carved upon usually worked, and outright always worked at such a low level. Raising her hand up ahead of herself as she approached the ten-meter mark, she aggressively shut her hand into a fist over the slab the sigil was emblazoned upon, engulfing it in Hellfire and making the remaining cultists scatter a few meters away from it as they could only watch as it crumbled to mere dust, gathering in the center in a pile that continued to burn and burn, until not even the dust remained. "That'll do it. Demonic Incursion dealt with, now they just need to mop up the stragglers... Now, as for these cultists..."
She spared them no sympathy or room to plead for their lives, blitzing through every one of them within a split second with her blade. Her cuts were shallow, but the Hellfire that bled from her katana engulfed them in their entirety, and as her blade clicked back into its spot within its Saya, the screams of those cultists damned to suffer a thousand years of burning within each second they faded away echoed through the dark, bloody corridors. For nearly twenty seconds they burned, bringing a sort of satisfaction upon Tempest as she turned her backs on them, leaving them to die with her back turned to them. She was their Judge, Jury, and Executioner today, and for their sins, she chose a method that accelerated the victim's thoughts, making it seem as if a thousand years would pass to their own perspective for every one second that passed for everyone else.
"For your Sins, I sentence you to an eternity ablaze. Use this time you have left to reflect upon all the evil you've done." Her statement was made with a dark tone, as she casually sauntered away from the rapidly disintegrating forms of those she'd passed judgement upon...
The moment she stepped out from the way she'd entered from; she'd heard cheering in the streets, both from adjacent sectors and from the very one where the demonic outbreak had stemmed from. She supposed it wasn't too much of a stretch to think that while she did the precision work, the rest of the fighters on the ground had pushed their offensive to retake the sector. So, knowing that she still had to meet up with the contact for her payment, Tempest eyed up the gentleman's club for a moment, before shrugging and making her way inside, her eyes set more upon the connected bar than anything else now...
Tempest's Battle Theme: Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken OST - Saiseiki
