Chapter 10: Don't Fear The Reaper

Locations Unknown

Gilgamesh was in better spirits these days. With a new purpose set out before him, he no longer had time to stew in the memories of the past and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as he could. The last thing that he wanted to do was descend into another spiral of madness and insanity. He had been fortunate this time that enough resolve remained within him to push forward and do something that mattered.

Now that he had locked in that he truly intended to make Remnant into something greater than it was at present, it was time for him to make his move accordingly. As powerful as he was, he wouldn't be alone in this endeavor. He did have Lily by his side and she had been useful so far, but he would need more people soon. Even during the peak of his power as ruler of Uruk, he had many people doing work for him while he did as he pleased. After all, a nation was nothing without people to work it.

With all of that said, the King of Heroes would be lying if he said that everything was perfect or that he was happy. While he had indeed regained his drive to make some world-changing events, none of it filled him with happiness or satisfaction, but the point of all of this wasn't to make him happy or satisfied. He was moving with a purpose, driven by a goal and for any self-respecting man, purpose and a goal were often the most important factors in how to live. A man who accomplished much in life could die with pride and with no regrets.

On the top of his list of priorities was to provoke the four kingdoms into open warfare. There would be no spying on each other, no proxy wars, no plausible deniability, nothing that would allow anyone to dodge responsibility. Whether the world liked it or not, all of them would become part of a war that would eclipse the so-called Great War experience eighty years ago. This one would determine the fate of the world. Every man, woman, and child would be fighting for their very survival.

There were many outcomes to anticipate, some more welcome than others, but these didn't take into account unseen factors like miracles and the unexpected. He didn't believe for a moment that his master plan would go unhindered. In fact, he was counting on problems arising somewhere. He was planning to completely disrupt the status quo of this world to such a degree where most people would resist change and do whatever it took to restore the "peace" that they had been enjoying. People who felt threatened tended to take extreme measures in order to fight back, exactly what was needed.

Gilgamesh didn't expect much in terms of fighters actually capable of hurting him let alone killing him. Given the exponential rate of growth that Lily was displaying with her training, she wouldn't be any easier to take down either. That said, there were exceptions to every rule and sooner or later, one would come forward that could challenge him. Who they were, where they came from, what they would be able to do, he wouldn't know, but he would be ready to face them head-on.

But before worldwide war could commence, the heroic spirit continued to grow his evolved Grimm army. These beasts were in another league from their inferior predecessors. Befitting his status as a king, the black and white color was exchanged in favor of gold and red, the colors that marked him and signified himself, but their aesthetic look wasn't the only thing that had changed.

They had been given more intelligence in order to formulate complex tactics and strategies to fight off combatants. Granted, the first generation of Grimm were also able to develop intelligence, but that was over the course of decades and hundreds of eyes. These evolved would be created with the intelligence of a regular human and just like a regular human, they would be able to adapt and change just as fast.

In the interest of testing out his latest piece of work, it would be most logical to test out the effectiveness of his pets by sending them out to kill the various first-generation Grimm scattered all across the world. To expedite the process, a sort of signal had been sent out to all of the Grimm all across the world. They would be all making their way to this place where they would all be eradicated. These abominations no longer served any useful purpose and now it was time to be rid of them.

Undoubtedly, a mass migration of Grimm to one continent would have people all around this world scratching their heads in wonder, but letting these clueless mongrel stew in their own confusion was just fine. As much as Mankind wanted to destroy the Grimm, they wouldn't be foolish enough to venture into territory that may or may not be crawling with all the Grimm in the world, but nobody needed to know that.

Gilgamesh was already beginning to see the black and white waves appearing within his sightline. They were coming in massive numbers. The ones that took to the air would come the fastest followed by the ones on land and then the ones at sea would have to wait by the shoreline for their turn.

Reducing all of them to dust would have been an impossible task for almost anyone, but there was a way to do it efficiently. Thanks to his research concerning his evolved Grimm, the golden-haired man had figured out the entire makeup of all first-generation Grimm. From there, he called upon the Gate of Babylon to create a wavelength originating from his new fortress and have it pulse over a radius of ten kilometers. The Grimm would be unable to detect this wavelength nor protect themselves against it. They would simply proceed forward unaware and then be met with instant death.

The expectation was that it would take a month at the most to see the entirety of the Grimm eliminated. It would then be at least several more months before he would begin to send out his Evolved into the world to introduce the next stage of evolutionary combat. A time of prolonged unnatural quiet would build up dread and anxiety. It would be fun to watch everyone scramble to prepare for a threat that they would be grossly unprepared to contend with, but if they were willful enough, enough would survive and push back.

Next up on the list of priorities would be to see to it that the relics were in his possession and out of reach of everyone but himself. His reasoning for placing less importance on the relics tied into his most important priority. War tended to make people neglect one or two details not relevant to the war. It wouldn't be surprising if during all of this, the relics were to simply disappear from the academies due to the battles that would inevitably be occurring at their doorsteps.

Roman Torchwick had been reporting in with regular updates. Currently his subordinate embedded within Beacon Academy was getting closer to the vault containing the Relic of Choice. Once its location was confirmed, it would be taken covertly and then the school would become the first target to be utterly obliterated from the face of the planet. Destroying the most prestigious huntsman academy in all the kingdoms would send a clear message to all that could not be ignored.

Gilgamesh noticed a mirror to his left. Looking at his reflection, he noted that his features seemed different to him. It had to be his renewed sense of direction. It was doing more than affecting his mental state. He was looking better these days and even at his worst, he would be far more attractive than the most attractive man on Remnant. It wasn't a detail that particularly mattered, but he noticed it.

He took a few moments to regard himself before realizing something that had been off with this entire picture. With all that he was doing, he had become rather preoccupied and he couldn't be bothered to attend to other things not relevant to his grand plan.

Basically, he had forgotten about taking part in Lily's training.

Yet that somehow didn't stop her from doing her own training. Oddly enough, she had found her own motivation to continue with her training. Even if he barely paid any mind to her, he was aware that she continued to push her powers to the limit and beyond. The fact that she was doing this of her own volition meant that something had changed. She was no longer doing this strictly because of his orders and wishes.

That explained why it felt so much more quiet than it usually was, not that Lily was a particularly loud child to begin with. She was merely consumed by her own things.

As long as she didn't disturb him at critical times, he cared not.

Fate/Stay Night - - - RWBY

Lily had just had a brilliant idea and she had been having a lot of those recently thanks to her new life.

Her genius idea went along this line of logic. Gilgamesh was powerful and because he was powerful, he was able to do whatever he wanted, say whatever he wanted, and be whoever he wanted. Basically, his power entitled him to become himself. If she became powerful too, she would be able to have that same amount of freedom.

But once she conceptualized that idea, she then came upon a roadblock: what kind of person was she to begin with?

That wasn't a question that the little girl often asked herself because for one thing, she had been struggling just to survive for almost all of her life. Now with a stomach full of food and plenty of cool new things to do to occupy her time, her downtimes were now filled with new thoughts, things that were completely unfamiliar to her, including ponders about her identity and who she was.

In the spirit of her guardian, Lily decided she would try to figure out who she was right now. Maybe then she would be able to attain the freedom that Gilgamesh had all the time. Hopefully, that's how it would turn out, but she didn't know all that much. After all, her savior was doing his own thing and he seemed less invested in her training or anything she did for that matter, so it was up to her.

And now here she was, standing in perhaps the most dangerous place on Remnant. She knew about the Grimm coming in droves in order to meet their end. She didn't know the details, but apparently there were big plans to change the familiar black and white in favor of gold and red. Something about war and being bloody and all that. Most of it went over the child's head, but she got the gist of it. A lot of people were going to die and she didn't want to die, so she was going to get some training done in order to reduce her chances of death.

The girl with green hair and eyes stood on the safe side of the wavelength that would vaporize the Grimm upon them touching it. Once she crossed that line, her survivability depended solely on her own abilities, but her competence in fighting wasn't what had her hesitating right now. Instead, she was running through some ideas as to how she ought to approach all of this from a mental point of view.

Based on the numerous times that she had witnessed Gilgamesh in combat, he spoke and acted with a certain amount of holier-than-thou-ness, or something like that. Essentially, he thought he was better than everyone else and that was how he was all the time. That probably meant he was like that all the time, so she needed something that would distinguish herself from him, something that other people would remember her by.

That was easier said than done. Lily wasn't that knowledgeable about the world and what it had to offer. Granted, she had been given more opportunities to explore and experience Remnant, but that seemed to only make her look small in comparison to everything else. So far, she had only known the land outside of Vale and the Kingdom of Vale and this place. There was still Vacuo, Mistal, Atlas, and all the rest of the land that didn't belong to the kingdoms. That seemed like a lot of ground to cover.

Getting back to the main point, what she was going to do in order to stand apart from her big brother, she didn't know, but she needed to think of something fast, otherwise she would just stand here watching the Grimm die by the dozens and hundreds and nothing would change.

So she began brainstorming again. What did she like doing?

Well, she did like living, but then again, didn't everyone else? Scratch that one off.

What about fighting? No, that was something she did, but it wasn't necessarily a hobby or something she liked. That was a no go.

Then maybe being stealing things from people? No, that was just something she did out of a necessity for survival or to gain an advantage. Again, it wasn't something that she wanted to do. That wasn't any good.

… and now she was fresh out of ideas.

She didn't have much going for her.

What now?

Lily gripped her head in her hands and she growled out in frustration. She really didn't know what she liked doing. How in the hell was this going to work? What was she going to do now?

The roars from the Grimm momentarily broke her train of thought and through the cracks in her fingers, she saw them still trying to reach her, but still being unable to even touch her. Watching this for a few seconds with her mind working as it was, a thought came to her mind and its merit could be either good or bad.

The monsters of the world threw themselves into the heat of battle with complete abandon. Not a thought given to whether or not things would go their way. They were driven by bad emotions.

Maybe the only thing to do now was just jump into the frey and maybe a bolt of inspiration would just come to her. Yeah, that sounded like a terrible idea.

And it was all she could think to do.

With mounting frustration, she just threw herself forward with her Fall Maiden powers and turned herself into a fire bullet with enough heat to incinerate anything in her path. She must have made it a good distance before she came to a stop. The Grimm horde now sensed her soul and moved to take her down.

Narrowing her eyes, she channelled heat into the ground, transforming the ground around her into a pool of molten material that began to consume all of her enemies all around. Steam was rising all around and the area soon became engulfed in a cloud. To keep herself away from the extremely hot magma, she isolated a small area of land for herself, just enough to stand and maneuver around if she needed to, but she didn't.

Lily poured even more of her power into the area that had been transformed into lava. Now fissures of fire were erupting from the ground, instantly incinerating any Grimm that got caught in the flames. The black dust in the air was so thick that it might be enough to poison a person to death should they inhale a substantial amount.

It was all just noise to her. She continued to expand her power all around, widening the radius of her deadly powers. She began to feel a strain on her body. Her breathing was becoming staccato and she felt her muscles cramping. It was taking far more willpower that she was consciously aware of to make all of this happening.

But why was she doing this?

Yes, that's right. She went in without a plan and doing something in the hopes of achieving something else, a most vague plan of action.

Still, it seemed only logical to continue forward regardless of how none of this made any sense to her. At this point, she would die if she didn't keep up the pressure. She was far enough away from the Grimm death trap that she would need to cover a bit of ground before returning to its safety. Either she needed to keep this up until there were no more or she would need to return to safety.

No, safety meant that nothing would happen and she didn't want nothing to happen. Something had to happen.

More power, that's what she needed right now. She just needed to pour even more of her strength into her power. Keep pushing the limits - that's what Gilgamesh always stressed to her. If she couldn't overcome it by her own abilities, then she would need to surpass her abilities with sheer willpower and determination. There was always a solution to a problem and if there wasn't one, then she had to make a solution.

In her haste to figure out the burning question on her mind, Lily had forgotten that no matter how much she willed herself forward, she was a child who had yet to fully develop into adulthood. Thus, she was reaching for a peak condition that she wasn't yet able to reach. Her body was rapidly losing steam and it showed in how the power of the Fall Maiden was beginning to weaken all around herself.

Still, the girl remained firm that she could power through it. In addition to her brain overriding her body's screams, she decided to throw in some words of defiance just because she could.

"I WILL DESTROY EVERYONE!"

Before she blacked out, she then realized that she didn't really want to destroy everyone. She had just gotten amped up for no reason.

Lily had just failed figuring out who she was.

RWBY - - - Fate/Stay Night

Raven Branwen knew that she was strong. She was the Spring Maiden after all and she possessed power that only a handful of other individuals had currently. Naturally, she did her best to keep tabs on these powerful individuals. She wasn't always successful, but at any given time, she at least knew the general location of where they were. Recently, it had come to her attention that at least one of those individuals had changed hands so to speak.

According to her sources, there was a new Fall Maiden, which didn't sound promising considering that the predecessor was still young and a relative newcomer to her power. Logically, it meant that the previous owner of the power had been killed and someone else had taken her place. Whoever had done so clearly knew something about magic and most likely the true reason for the existence of the maidens.

The elder Branwen twin decided that now was the time to reinforce her numbers and shore up her offensive and defensive capabilities, both personally and throughout the entire tribe. She needed to make sure that whatever power she did have was available to her at all times because there was no telling when this mysterious newcomer would arrive at her doorstep. She would be a fool to think that it would stop here. If anything, she was expecting the new Fall Maiden to arrive here at any time.

What was more concerning than the appearance of a new maiden was the seeming lack of information regarding her background and her past. There wasn't even a name or a face to put it all on. Being kept in the dark was infuriating and she couldn't even blame it on any single person, not even herself. There was simply no information to go around, end of story, making her task all the more arduous.

Raven wanted to say that all of this was due to Salem, but that was merely a baseless accusation. While it was true that this was well within the capabilities of the Grimm Queen, something about this entire thing seemed unusual. The elephant in the room was how cleanly this new Fall Maiden had obtained the power and then up and vanished without a trace. It was almost like the rookie was just content to have power and that was it.

All of this was speculation, but it was the only thing she could do not to show any visible signs of panic or nervousness.

Naturally, all of this was kept from her tribesman, with only Vernal being kept aware of developments as they arose. Her right-hand woman was very capable in many ways, but even her skills would be put to the test in the coming days. Their enemy was vicious and mysterious, that much could be deduced and for now, that was more than enough reason to prepare for the worst outcome.

The red-eyed bandit leader let her eyes wander a bit and the two orbs fell onto the nearby map of Remnant. Numerous markings and notes had been made on it. Although she kept her activities mostly on the continent of Anima, she often travelled to the other continents and kingdoms in order to make sure that all of her information was up to date. This included relevant persons, world-changing events, and other factors that might hamper her ability to operate.

The places that she kept a close eye on were the huntsman academies. Individuals associated with the schools were generally some of the most influential people in the world in one way or another, intentional or otherwise. The reason behind that was simple: the world was so weak that it relied upon huntsmen and huntresses to keep itself together.

Also related to the academies was a very unexpected and abrupt shift in the status quo that Remnant had become accustomed to. All across the world, reports had been coming in that Grimm of all types regardless of age and species were travelling in massive hordes towards the north west. Such a massive shift in monster numbers had militaries and huntsmen mobilising in order to contain the situation, but that wasn't the surprising part.

The surprising part was that while the Grimm were engaging humans and faunus on sight, the engagements weren't prolonged nor were they all that intense. If anything, it looked like the beasts were only concerned with fighting if it impeded their pathway. This was highly irregular and many questions were being raised.

Where were the Grimm congregating?

Why were they doing so?

Why now?

These were the same questions that Raven had been asking herself. At first, it seemed likely that Salem was up to something, but for her to recall all Grimm across the world? That seemed more than a little unusual, even for the witch. Gathering all her numbers in one place didn't serve a purpose other than to prepare for a battle with a scale unseen since the Great War, which probably made some sense given that sooner or later, war was going to break out, but something about all of it didn't click together.

Raven didn't think herself paranoid, but even she couldn't help but fret about what was going to happen in the next few weeks and months. The enemy was planning something and judging on what was going on, none of it insignificant, that much was for damn sure. The only thing that could be done now was to make whatever preparations however futile. Winning wasn't necessarily the endgame; surviving might be good enough for a start. If she could just weather the storm, then she could worry more about what the future would bring and what it would mean for herself and her bandit tribe.

It took the woman a moment to realize that she had resorted to pacing while deep in thought and as a result, the tea that she had intended to drink was now most likely lukewarm at best. She sighed explosively before resigning herself to sitting down and drinking it. It wasn't nearly as good now, but she had no one to blame but herself in this case.

"Raven." That was Vernal as she casually opened the tent flap. "We've got… a situation out front."

From the sound of her voice, the situation was not alarming, but definitely unusual.

"What is it?" Raven stood up and grabbed her weapon.

"Well, I don't really know what to make of it." Vernal glanced toward the location she had referred to. "It's… better that you come take a look yourself."

Both of them wasted no time in making their way to the front entrance of the camp where at least a dozen or more others were standing with their weapons aimed and ready to fire, but one look and it was clear that confusion was written on everyone's face with a slight tint of fear.

Raven pushed through to the front and when she laid eyes upon the mystery in question, she could only momentarily halt, taken off guard for a moment.

Anyone would be able to recognize the familiar shape and size of a Beowolf. Even non-combatants would be able to recognize the most common ground species of Grimm, but something about this entire picture was off. For one thing, the colors were all wrong. Instead of a black body, it was gold and white bone plates were gone, replaced by decorative red stripes carefully arranged into unusual patterns and shapes. The general shape and size was there, but just the color scheme alone threw them all for a loop.

Even more mind-blowing was how it just sat there like a dog waiting for its owner. It didn't appear intimidated or unnerved by all the weapons pointed at it. In its mouth it held something that looked like a scroll.

"Like I said, I don't know what to make of this." Vernal turned to her leader. "What do you think we should do?"

"Hm." Raven furrowed her brow, thought for a moment, then issued an order. "Be ready!"

Taking a small breath in and then out, the leader moved toward the unknown. It laid its own eyes on her, but there was not a trace of any hostility that all Grimm were known to possess. It was almost like a dog waiting to greet its master.

"What are you?" Raven asked more for her own sake.

The Beowolf simply lowered its jaw to the ground, letting the scroll in its jaw fall to the ground with a light clank before using its nose to roll it to her. It then sat up straight and waited expectantly.

This was getting more absurd by the second, but so far nothing terrible had happened, so what was a little peak? Things couldn't get worse.

Raven kneeled down, swiped the scroll, dusted it off, and carefully unrolled it and began to read its contents.

…

…

Things just got worse.

Fate/Stay Night - - - RWBY

Gilgamesh had found Lily passed out, yet still managing to use her power. Once he had calmed her down, he took her back and put her to bed. She was no good to him half-dead and he still had use for the girl.

The rest of the day had him doing nothing in particular, just recollecting on old memories that he was trying harder and harder to piece together, especially those pertaining to his time before meeting Enkidu.

For the life of him, he wasn't having any luck with any of that, at least with regard to the memories long before his best friend came into his life. He could recall his early years of rulership over Uruk with perfect clarity. Those days had been spent eating, bedding women, gather treasures, and consolidating his power. When thinking about his time before his kingship, that's when he began to experience trouble.

Why was he finding it so hard to remember where he came from? Why couldn't he think of a childhood memory?

It was doubly strange seeing as he remembered his parents perfectly well. His mother was a Goddess named Rimat-Ninsun and his father was Lugalbanda, the King of Uruk before him. He was of royal and divine blood, thus his importance could not be stressed enough.

Gilgamesh backtracked in his line of thinking. Perhaps it was at the time that his true nature and his ultimate purpose were revealed to him in full that things began to change. Maybe him uncovering the many truths and facts about the world and the universe had affected him in such a way as to remove himself from his old self in order to embrace what he would need to become.

But that explanation didn't make much sense when put under scrutiny. His body was the perfect blend between man and god. He should not have any imperfections to speak of in the first place. To imply that his memories were incomplete or fractured was to suggest that there was something wrong with him, which he could only snort at.

Yet here he was, incomplete and unsure as to why.

The King of Heroes hunched over in his seat and sunk deeper into his contemplations. It was not as if these previously unknown memories were in any way relevant to who he was now and his goals now. Whatever sort of child he was back in the day no longer matter. The past was long gone and it had been for millenia.

All of this work he was doing must be getting to him more than he realized if he had the time to allow his mind to wander to places that he had not given much thought to in all of his life. He had been working an awful lot lately and it had been a little while since he had last indulged in carnal pleasure.

It was time to relieve some stress.

Hopefully, that might get his gears working again.

So what have I learned from writing this story? A fair amount actually.

For one thing, OC characters still suck, but since I've dug my own grave, I've got to stick to my guns and work on improving the OC aspect for whatever it might be worth. Thankfully, one of my lovely reviewers hit me with an idea that I never would have thought of myself. Start off with an exaggerated character trait/quirk and build from there.

But I hardly did that here. I more or less low-key told myself that I suck at that and that I've got a lot ahead of myself.

Raven. What did she get? I'll give you three guesses.

Thoughts? Reviews are always appreciated

Also as a fair warning, these next two months could have my entire writing schedule thrown into chaos. Long story short, there's a major choice in my life that I've got to make and what I choose could affect how much I write, if at all.

Sorry for the unfortunate notice, but I thought I ought to get it out there. Nothing's been set in stone yet, but details will come along next month or so.

Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

"Mankind is made great or little by its own will."

Friedrich Schiller