Well here is the second chapter. Not too bad of a wait. Got the shit kicked out of me last week by schoolwork. Hope you guys enjoy!
All he could smell was the rain. The weirdly sweet, musty smell of the precipitation blocked out the rest of his senses.
The rain was still hammering down onto his back, yet now it was slightly softer. He could hear the rustling of leaves and swaying of trees around him.
He cracked his eyes open. Where the hell was he?
The ground was a dozen feet away. He was bent over a tree branch, dangling above the forest floor. He could only make the forest out by the flashes of light cast by the storm above.
Stars flew across his vision. He knew he was standing still, but the whole world seemed to be spinning.
How had he gotten here? Why was he in a tree?
He hung for what seemed an eternity, the rain beating down on his back and running down his arms and legs in rivers. He didn't feel cold, but his body shook at regular intervals. The stars slowly started to fade from his vision and he grew a little more conscious of his situation.
The branch he was hanging on creaked for a second, sagging under his weight a little more.
Crack!
The branch broke, splinters flying into the air. The sickening feeling of falling greeted him for a split second as he tumbled to the forest floor, barely managing to land on his feet.
He dropped to his knees, the splitting pain in his head causing a burst of nausea to twist his stomach. The world was spinning incredibly fast.
He emptied his stomach onto the roots of the tree before rolling onto his back, struggling to maintain consciousness. Laying on his back made the spinning more bearable, but he was still far too dizzy to think.
Thunder rumbled through the air. A flash of light illuminated the forest. His coat, amazingly, was lying in a puddle just within arm's reach. He pulled the soaking wet and slightly singed bit of clothing over him in an attempt to ward off some of the water.
The sheets of rain continued to fall, drowning out all of his thoughts. He slowly succumbed to the cold exhaustion that had crept over him in the chilling rain.
The world fell into darkness
Team RWBY was disappointed to say the least. Today was going to be a free day. Saturday's meant no classes, almost no jobs, and freedom. They were supposed to be relaxing with team JNPR for the rest of the day.
Ozpin, however had found it necessary to investigate some crash out in the Emerald Forest. The average airship crew wasn't equipped to deal with the sheer amount of grimm that lived out there.
Ruby walked slowly through the forest, the rest of the team in tow. They were all dressed in cloaks similar to Ruby's, but different in color.
Yang was randomly punching the air, twirling about and dodging as she walked.
Weiss had finally had enough.
"Would you stop that? All you are doing is wasting your energy. We don't know what could be out there! Focus!"
Yang blinked and stopped fighter her invisible opponent.
"Calm down Ice Queen. I'm just having a little bit of fun. Gotta keep my streak going." She said with a snicker, throwing a few more punches at her invisible opponent.
Weiss sighed and shook her head, stomping off ahead of the group.
Ruby flipped Crescent Rose over in her hands. She hadn't opened the weapon yet. The rain would ruin the fresh coat of polish she had just put on the blade. She wanted it to look beautiful for when she took out the Ursa Major that was undoubtedly behind Ozpin's concern.
Blake walked quietly behind the group, thumbing the sheath of Gambol Shroud impatiently. She had really wanted to take a nap today. The week had been busy and she had not been keeping up on her sleep.
"Weiss, you don't have to walk that far ahead!" Ruby called out with a whine.
"I'm going to! I don't want to have to stand next to that dunce! She's just a distraction!"
Yang's jaw dropped in false offense.
"You take that back Princess!"
"No! Not until you show some maturity!"
Yang snorted and stuck her tongue out at Weiss's back. Weiss turned and glanced at her, her jaw falling open.
"Are you kidding? Really?"
Yang squinted her eyes and shot a withering glare at the heiress. She simply shook her head and stomped further ahead of the group.
Ruby groaned while Yang laughed.
"Weiss, come on. You shouldn't have a problem with this! It really isn't that big of a deal! Please come back!"
The heiress continued to walk ahead of the group for a few more moments.
Finally, Weiss glanced over her shoulder and muttered under her breath before slowing down and letting the group reform. She cast a withering glare at Yang, who simply repeated her previous glare.
The duo stared each other down while Blake and Ruby slowly inched away.
The stares slowly intensified as they grew closer and closer together.
Finally, their foreheads banged into each other.
They both let out growls, butting their heads again.
"Okay! Okay! That is enough of that." Ruby cried as she tried to pull Yang away from Weiss.
"Blake! Help me out here!"
Blake grunted as she tried to pull Weiss away from Yang. The brawler and the fencer were clawing wildly at the air as their teammates held them apart.
"Yang! Calm down!" Blake cried out.
"Never! She said I was immature!"
Ruby grunted as Yang bucked again, swinging her arms wildly. Weiss was practically spitting with rage as she swung at Yang as well.
"Yang! If you don't calm down, I'm hiding to the key's to your bike!"
Yang froze.
"You wouldn't!"
Ruby squinted back at her.
"You know I would."
Yang was dead quiet for a moment.
"Fine."
Ruby released her older sister, who quickly jumped to her feet. Weiss was released a moment later.
The two stared at each other a moment before starting to walk again.
Ruby glanced over at Blake.
"What was that all about? They are never like this..."
Blake shrugged and let out a long yawn before stretching her back.
"We all had a bad week. They may have just had a worse week then we did."
Ruby sighed to herself and pulled her hood over her eyes.
The rain was cold.
Blake didn't look too happy herself.
The group continued to hike through the forest.
It was strangely quiet. By this point Ruby had expected to encounter at least one Grimm. They had not seen a single sign of one yet. It was quite odd.
After another hour with no sign of any trouble, Ruby finally burst.
"Where are all of the Grimm? How have we not seen one yet?"
Weiss spun around and glared at Ruby.
"Quiet down, will you? Do you really want to put us all in danger? We are lucky we haven't needed to fight yet!" She spat out quietly.
Ruby shrunk back in fear.
"Sorry... It's just odd."
Yang stepped forward.
"This is really weird. I think we all expected to have to fight off at least a couple of Grimm. We even heard one. Something about this is off..."
"It's almost like they are waiting for us. I mean, do Grimm form ambushes? Could be walking into some sort of horde?" Blake said.
"There has never really been a case of Grimm lying in wait in a coordinated ambush. Sadly, the most likely reason for the lack of Grimm is the fact that they are probably out hunting someone other than us." Weiss said quietly.
The whole group was quiet for a moment.
"Let's pick up the pace a little." Yang mumbled, suddenly not feeling to bright.
Ruby nodded solemnly under her hood.
The group started to walk a bit faster.
The man slowly opened his eyes. The forest was strangely silent. The roar of the thunderstorm had died away into a gentle rain that dripped and fell through the canopy of the forest, casting a mist through the entire area.
No longer did the roar of thunder and flash of lightening ring out.
Only the small clearing he had fallen into was visible. Shadows hid the rest of the forest from view. He felt vulnerable. There were no street lights to ward off the shadows. He couldn't see out of the clearing, but whatever was out there could see in.
The man grunted and moved one of his arms, lurching slightly in his sitting position. No matter how he strained, he did not have the energy to get up, let alone walk.
After a few more moments of struggling, the man gave up with a sigh, slumping back into the tree.
His head was pounding and the exertion of trying to get up had started the world spinning again. Stars fluttered on the edges of his vision. If he couldn't get up, then he was immobile. Immobility was death.
A shadow blurred across the corner of his vision.
His head shot up, finding only the green of leaves.
His fingers tingled. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins again.
He pulled himself up the tree, leaning heavily on the rough bark. The darkness clutched at the edges of his vision, but he fought off the dizziness.
He couldn't stay on the forest floor. He was outside of the city walls. The whole world wanted him dead out here. That much he knew.
He had to find some sort of high ground or maybe a hiding place down low. He needed someplace sheltered to stay until he could regain his bearings and figure out where the hell he was.
He never liked the forest. Everything was strange outside of the walls. Organic shadows. Trees. Animals. Things that he couldn't predict.
The city was easy to manage, or at least he thought it was. Buildings and people were easier to understand the trees and animals.
A low growl rang out from the underbrush.
His gaze flicked to the source of the noise.
Nothing.
He pulled his coat over his shoulders and backed into the tree.
If he was simply in a building he could have put his back to a corner. Out in the forest there were no easy ways to watch your own back like that.
The growl rang out again, this time much lower. The sound sparked a deep, primal fear that rose up from his gut.
There were red eyes in the bush. Quickly, a second pair of eyes appeared. Two more blinked into existence. Suddenly, dozens of pairs of red eyes all around him.
Blake sniffed the air cautiously, her mouth open a crack.
Yang watched with mild interest as the raven haired girl turned about for a few moments, her jaw hanging open ever so slightly.
"What are you doing?" Yang finally asked.
Blake spun back to her.
"Oh... I smell... Fuel." She said quickly, walking off in a seemingly random direction. She quickly disappeared into the trees.
"Blake! Wait!" Ruby called out to her.
The young girl quickly ran into the trees.
Yang and Weiss glanced at each other before following the other two girls into the trees.
They sprinted through the underbrush, branches and leaves beating off of their faces. The calm mist that dripped down from the canopy above made the forest seem far more dark and sinister than all the other times they had visited it.
The group ran for a few more moments.
Finally, Blake burst into a small clearing. Ruby promptly slammed into her from behind, causing her to stumble forward with a cry of surprise.
"Hehe.. Sorry Blake.."
Blake merely shook her head and looked into the center of the clearing.
"It looks like we found the wreckage. This looks like the multicopter that crashed." Blake said grimly, quickly surveying the whole scene.
A twisted, blackened, and heavily scratched lump of metal sat in the center of the smoking clearing. It was almost unidentifiable as a hovercraft. The wreck was far smaller than the airships that shipped students into beacon. It was even a little smaller than the hovercraft that Torchwick had used to escape Ruby after he had robbed the dust shop she had been in.
Weiss and Yang burst into the clearing, panting heavily. They took a moment to catch their breath before looking up.
"Oh, so is this..." Weiss started, but Yang cut her off.
"So you found the crash site. Good job Blake. It's smaller than I expected."
Weiss glared at Yang before walking towards the wreck.
The group watched as she surveyed the crash. She looked at it for a few moments before speaking.
"It is very small for a multicopter. Far too small to be used for cargo operations. My father's company uses cargo multicopters for shipping every once and a while. They are faster than the average cargo airship." Weiss spoke as she ran her fingers along the battered hull of the copter.
"They cost a good bit more too. Your average taxi service or delivery service can't afford these sort of things. People pay top dollar for deliveries with these things..." She continued.
Ruby slowly walked around to the front of the ship, surveying the damage. One of the engine struts had been torn completely off. The massive scratch marks all over the hull of the craft indicated Grimm were the most likely culprit.
"It almost seems as though it was brought down by Grimm. The scratch marks match a Nevermore's talons. There are other scratch marks on this side as well though. Possibly from a Beowolf." Ruby said as she slowly walked around. She ran her fingers over the deep gouges in the metal.
She reached the front of the ship and let out a short gasp.
Yang glanced at her.
"What's up?"
Ruby scratched the back of her head.
"Well I think we know what happened to the crew..."
Yang quickly walked around to the front of the craft. She let out a grunt.
"Looks a little messy. Definitely not something a person walks away from..."
Both Weiss and Blake quickly walked around to the front of the craft as well, surveying the massive blood stains running down the nose of the ship. All of the blood seemed to have come from the shattered cockpit window. The few bits of glass that still clung to the frame were dotted with chunks of human flesh.
Weiss stuck her tongue out in disgust and turned away.
Yang walked a little closer and peered into the craft. She took a few steps back.
"Well that answers what happened to the crew. Looks like no one walked away from this one..." Yang whispered.
Ruby quickly peered in next to her, spotting the two scorched bodies in the blackened interior.
A glint caught Ruby's eye. She quickly darted around to the rear of the craft and climbed under the battered tail, revealing the fact that the rear ramp had been torn off in the crash.
"Ruby! What are you doing? There might be poisonous stuff in there!" Weiss cried out as she watched her team leader climb into the burned out husk.
"I saw something!"
The rest of the team waited patiently outside as a series of screeches and clanks echoed out of the hull of the craft.
With a cry of triumph, Ruby appeared out of the rear of the craft, her entire face stained with soot.
"Got 'em! Look at these beauties!" She cried out as she brandished two glimmer, dark metal fighting picks.
Yang's eyes lit up.
"Nice one Ruby! Maybe we actually got something out of this trip!" Yang cheered lightly.
Ruby glanced at Weiss, who's jaw was hung open in disgust and horror.
"Did you just... rob a grave?" She asked incredulously.
Ruby quickly hid the two weapons behind her back and smiled weakly.
"No..."
Weiss let out a short cry and spun to walk away.
"Ugh! I can't believe you people! My own team leader walking around raiding peoples graves and looting bodies! How did I get stuck with you animals? Let's get out of here. The transport crashed. The crew is dead. Ozpin just has to send someone out here to clean up this mess. Our work is done!" Weiss yelled as she stomped off into the trees again.
"Ice Queen." Yang mumbled under her breath.
"Weiss! Get back here!" Blake yelled into the forest. Yang and Ruby both spun, surprised by her sudden outburst.
The white haired heiress suddenly appeared in the clearing again, a look of shock on her face.
"What do you want?"
Blake pointed at the ground around the craft.
"Do you see any tracks?"
Weiss looked at the ground around the crashed copter.
"No..."
"We, or at least I, assumed that there almost no Grimm on the way here because they were occupied with something else, probably eating the crew of this ship. The crew we found burned to death and there are no Grimm tracks around here. They never even came to investigate the crash site."
Weiss stared at Blake blankly.
"So?"
Blake sighed.
"So the Grimm are occupied by something else. Something they deemed more important than a hovercraft they just brought down. Someone might have survived this. They could still be alive!"
Weiss sighed and shook her head.
"Look, Blake... I know this whole thing seems really tragic and horrifying, but no one survived this. There are no tracks coming from the wreck that would indicate a survivor either. The ship burned on its way down. That's how Ozpin spotted it. He said the thing was like some magnificent fireball falling out of the sky. Unless this survivor was immune to fire, I don't think they survived."
Blake shook her head.
"They could have jumped. They had the trees to break their fall. I've seen hovercraft like that before. They can hold far more than two people. Anyway, how else would you explain the lack of Grimm?"
Weiss stared at her for a moment before letting out a long sigh.
"Fine! Fine! I guess our job here isn't done. Let's all hope you can guide us to the survivor with that magical nose of yours! I hope you like walking through the forest for the rest of the day! Dunce!"
With that the heiress disappeared back into the trees.
With a sigh of her own, Ruby sheathed the two picks onto her belt before disappearing into the thick trees.
Yang started off towards the trees before glancing back at Blake.
"Are you coming?"
Blake nodded.
"Someone should pay some respects. Especially after what Ruby did."
Yang frowned and nodded.
"Sorry 'bout that. You know she can be really naive. I should probably talk to her about this sort of thing though..."
Blake nodded as Yang disappeared into the trees as well.
As soon as the brawler was gone, Blake rushed into the back of the craft and crouched down next to one of the bodies. The clothing the man had worn had been singed, but obviously had some fire resistant qualities.
She brushed some of the soot off the sleeve of the dead bodies coat before frowning grimly.
She quickly cut a small square off the bit of clothing and pocketed it before climbing out of the wreck.
She rushed off into the forest after her friends, not even looking back.
Well that is the end of chapter 2. I am trying to work each characters mannerisms as well as I can. It's kinda fun because they are all so quirky and stuff, but really hard to do for me. Things will probably improve in terms of character.
I'm trying to make Blake more catlike. I like the stuff RWBY did with her, like her love of tuna and stuff as well as how she reacts to dogs, but there are some cute things they could add. Cats open their mouths when they smell in order to taste the air, so i had to work that in with Blake. Also, cats sleep over half their life away, so why doesn't Blake sleep more?
But anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter. Write a review and tell me what you think!