Chapter 3: A Troubled Past

Solaris was…disappointed.

Which was, in itself, an understatement.

The lecture had just ended, with a clearly enraged Weiss storming off, Ruby doubting herself, and Blake and Yang nowhere to be found. They had left pretty quickly after class, whilst Solaris had lingered behind. He had hoped to discuss a matter with the Professor, a matter of his past…

Solaris was walking around aimlessly, reflecting over the past day. He recalled all the times Ruby sniggered in class, Weiss and her indignant reaction, the fight with the Grimm, and the resultant storming off. He hated this. This, this, this was what he hated. This is why he hated teams, and hated being forced to deal with them. Too many times had he lost something to the mistakes of a single person, the one person who could not leave something be, whose anger and emotions overpowered their logic and rationale. Solaris had lost too much to that to see it all again. He felt he needed…isolation.

As he wandered onto the balcony outside class, he saw Weiss, alone, staring mindlessly into space. Solaris was about to turn around and walk back inside, rather than disturb her, when she spun around, fixed her with her cold stare, and beckoned him over.

Solaris strode to her, a faint frown on his face, his expression guarded. Weiss waited for him to reach arms-length before she asked him a very odd question.

"This morning…I heard from Blake that Yang walked into the bathroom when you were there. You claimed you didn't realise the door could lock. But you did. You did it the night before. You made sure of that. That's the first thing someone of your…background…would do"

Solaris breathed in slightly. Someone had noticed.

"Indeed it would be. Yet…I made a mistake. I was otherwise distracted. Thoughts were running through my head. Thoughts of…well, it does not matter what they were of. It only matters I no longer have them in my head as of now". He said, his tone soft, his shoulders low. Weiss was slightly taken aback. Solaris always seemed to be this rather showy rouge, who, while preferring solitude and quiet, had an unsettling eccentricity when he got worked up, something that spoke of a serious issue he may have. He also seemed to possess somewhat unnatural insight, a sort of unspoken understanding, when it came to detecting peoples moods. And here he was...feeling…sad?

Weiss gently put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch back from her touch. Weiss still had Professor Port's lecture and advise fresh in her head, and was determined to make amends with Ruby…but she also felt she needed to understand Solaris too, if they were to work together. He had been kind to her before, an act of great kindness. She would repay him in understanding.

"What…what is it that troubles you?" She asked, familiar with a dark and troubling childhood. Solaris, however, had suffered darkness his entire life. And it seemed now he was going to reveal some of that to her.

"When I was nine, living in Vacuo, in a dry, parched region, outside the city, ages from it, by some standards, we lived under the rule of a…a tyrant. This man ruled his own little kingdom, far removed from the others. He had Hunters to deter his realm of Grimm, and in return, we payed him with…everything. Anything. Food. Water. Lien. Whatever we could muster. Yet one day, a Grimm herd broke through the walls of our town. They…slaughtered everyone. All of them. My parents died that day. Cut down on the spot. I escaped with my sister, my younger sister Minerva. She was eight. We avoided the Grimm and fled to the next village, a village we had been to on every weekend. It had walls, and it had hope. Hope of survival. We found it, too, had been destroyed. Several friends from that village, Romus and Romulus, along with Ditissimo and Elena, dear childhood friends, had made it out. It seemed preposterous that children, out of all those who died, lived. We wandered deep into the dry wasteland, knowing that no home remained for us. The Tyrant who had protected us our who lives had failed us. He had nothing for us. We wandered…for months on end, and we used every trick we were taught, all of us…to survive."

Solaris looked like he was dealing with a great internal struggle, which he was. Retelling his life was hard on him, harder then he dared admit.

"We found some mountains, and deep gorges, full of trees, water…life. An Desert Oasis Valley, a saviour for us. It became our home, and there, we survived, and grew up. For years we lingered there. They were great years. In that time, we became a well established group. Rules, traditions, etc" Solaris smiled faintly at that memory, the memory of those times.

"It lasted until I was twelve. One day, some Grimm came into the valley, something they had never done before. We held them off with what we could, but they overwhelmed us. We fled. Again. Our second home lost. I'm glad that no one died that day. If not for Romus and Romulus, the twins, who were eighteen by that point, we would surely have died. They were the only trained fighters, taught by a Hunter. They had weapons. We did not. Yet they told us everything they knew. They saved us."

Solaris laughed to himself at the memory of the twins, the joyous, jovial twins who fought like demons.

"We wandered again, and found the ruins of some long dead town. It was old, ancient even, yet it was upon a hill in the mountains, sheer cliff face on all but one side, with a single path leading down into the smaller hills below. It became our fortress. There we found ancient weapons, spears, bows…knives. We trained and trained with them. We had water there, found in the wells, and food in the form of the goats and mammals that made these hills there home. It was hard. But we did it"

Solaris clenched his fist.

"Then came the bandits. This part of Vacuo was not some desolate wasteland, as the maps would have you believe. Here there was some shattered form of life, some offshoot exile realm of criminal marauders. They came and they killed Romus. His gun…his weapon…he gifted to me" He motioned to his SMG/Boomerang on his back. "He called Desert Wind" he muttered. Weiss was in shock. Everything he was telling her…off a world outside the kingdoms, tragedy, pain, death, loss…it was all so alien, yet to her…it all sounded so very, very familiar in places. Weiss only nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"We killed them. All of them, down to the last one. Aged 11 to 18 we butchered them. Violently. And we felt no regret. Romulus would have done it a thousand times over and he would not have felt the least bit of regret nor guilt for his actions"

Solaris, by now, was gripping the railings along the edge of the roof so hard his knuckles were white.

"And yet, it was as if fate wanted to spite me. In the next month, Ditissimo, who was 17, along with Romulus, tracked those bandits to their base. Elena and I stayed behind with Minerva. We waited hours and hours for them to return. And only one dead. Ditissimo had died in the fight, it seemed. Romulus was so very quiet when he came back. He handed Elena Ditisimmo's weapon, the blade called 'Sun Lash'. She made it her own, as he would've wanted"

Weiss nodded. This tale, his life, it was all a bit…overwhelming, yet she remained composed and outwardly unshaken. Solaris continued, without Weiss even needing to do so. It seemed at this point he would've kept on talking regardless.

"Two more years past, and in those years Romulus died. Grimm. Our enemy since always. We killed the ones responsible. Romulus weapon was gifted to Minerva. I was 14. Then, it just so happened that we found something. The bandits home. The ones who we had met years ago were part of a large web of exiled criminals. Those who commit crime in Vacuo can always take exile over imprisonment, after all. It seemed a lot had. This was far too large a place for us to handle on our own though. So we waited, bided our time, found Grimm, trained, went over and over all we knew. We did this for eight months. Then, suddenly, someone showed up at our home. A person of age the same as me and Elena, 15. He was tall, and proud, and well trained, armed with a sword and rifle. He said he had wandered long and far, as part of his training. He wanted to be a Hunter. He told us he had come out here, deep into the wilds, to prove it"

Solaris seemed to grow angry upon recounting this.

"I should've killed him then and there" he muttered, to Weiss shock, but, as he elaborated, she felt nothing but pity for the figure speaking to her. Pity deeper than any she could currently recall feeling.

"He took a liking to my sister. The wrong kind, I always thought. She was 14. He was 15. He was arrogant, stubborn, and shameless. He could not conceive in his mind that he could be in the wrong, that he could fail. I wish that Romulus had lived to meet him. Romulus would've set him right…or killed him. Elena and I made sure Minerva didn't ever get…intimate…so to speak, with this newcomer, who called himself Harold. Harold always seemed to disregard everything we did. He did not listen to our teams plans when we hunted, he did not take our advice when fighting Grimm, he did not take our advice when searching for more water, nor for survival in general. He thought he should lead us, that he should have our respect without earning it. Elena hated him, yet I tolerated him. However, soon came the big event. We had waited, and observed, and the bandit stronghold was vulnerable. They were out doing…something. Supply run, hunting, recon, we did not know. What we did know that if we struck now, we could destroy this place forever. We were ready." Solaris smiled grimly, his expression morbid.

"Yet…we were mistaken, for Harold, even after five months of ineffectual team coordination, had failed to get the message into that thick skull of his. We work as a team. Always. He got Minerva captured when she was doing a recon of the walls and abandoned her. He came back to us and Elena wanted to slit his throat. He hate blinded her to the fact that we needed to get my sister back. So we made a new plan, infiltrate base, save Minerva, then destroy it from within. I would get Minerva whilst Elena would sabotage their supply rooms and then detonate their ammo reserves. Harold would lock their gates open and sound an alarm. Draw Grimm in for miles away. Whilst the meagre bandit populace died fighting the Grimm, we made an elated getaway. At least, that was the plan. I was halfway through my job of reaching her when Harold through caution to the wind and attacked them. Openly. He revealed us all, and they…" Solaris seemed to hesitate before continuing. "…they…killed her. Shot through the head. Point blank. Her Aura could not withstand it…it seemed, not after the fight she gave when they took her. She had taken down four of them. Four fully grown men killed by a 14 year old girl who had never received proper training. She was good. Very good. I loved her. And they just shot her. I…I couldn't quite process it at first. I had lost someone else. Another one. I heard Harold yell out, I heard him fighting. So I carried on. I made it to Elena and then we detonated the ammo reserves after we fled. The base went up, end all that was left of Minerva with it. I didn't even get to bury her. I couldn't get her body back."

Solaris shook his head woefully, clenched his fists, his neck stiff.

"Elena immediately punched Harold to the ground, and he fought her off. He drew his weapon, so I was forced to restrain them. Elena screamed that it was his fault, if he had followed the plan, like we have done for 6 years, the she would've lived. She screamed in such anger that I knew the Grimm would come soon enough, drawn to such outrage. I knew my sorrow would also draw them in…my…suffering." Solaris shivered as he said that last word.

Weiss looked on, the silence broken only by the sound of him breathing in. She could not believe it. She refused to believe it. He saw his own sister die, after all the years he had protected her, after all they had endured, all they had lost…and she was taken from him…his last family…gone.

"Then came the worst part. Harold blamed me. ME. He claimed we should've fought harder for her, for the person he, and he alone, truly loved. He must've been crazy if he thought that was true. I knew then, the truth. He was from the kingdom of Vacuo. He was all the way from the bright light, the saviour of the land, the place where no one truly knew suffering. So, that night, I left Elena. I took Harold, and told him to show me the way to Vacuo. He had gotten here alone, so going back shouldn't be a problem. It took several weeks, but we made it. Outside the walls of Vacuo, a kilometre or so away, I enacted my revenge. I shot him in his legs and broke his arms. He could crawl to Vacuo, and know the barest fraction of the pain I felt. He should be thankful, I told him, that I didn't tie him up and live him for the Grimm to eat him alive. He whimpered something at me, and I punched him in the jaw. I don't think I broke it. But I hope I did. It was the least he deserved. It felt unjust to let him off so easily, yet…my sister loved him, for whatever reason, she saw something in him…something noble, something pure. I resent both him and myself for that day. After that…well, I returned to the old town to see if Elena was there. She had left some time ago it seemed. So I was alone. Well and truly. I wandered the wilds for two years. Alone. Until I found, one day, a Hunter who took him with me, and together we fought and hunted. Then I came here"

Weiss took all this in, the vast scope of his story, all the pain and loss and suffering. All of it was so dark, so grim, she found herself shaken and slightly afraid of the person who stood before her now. He was remorseless, and a killer, someone who held no qualms about the killing of his fellow man, someone who would enact horrible revenge to satisfy himself. Yet, here he was. On a path for redemption. Yet…how far would he go to redeem himself?

"I spent most of those years wandering in the areas outside the walls, fighting to clear the area around Vacuo from Grimm. I spent a great deal of those two years reading, and writing. I had many lairs and outposts to use, all hidden away from prying eyes. I made myself at peace, or as much as I could be. I vowed that no one should ever have to suffer as much as me, no one should ever have to know suffering at all if I could help it. So I guess becoming a hunter is part of that. I need to redeem myself. I need to become better."

Weiss breathed in. This was…a lot to take in. Almost too much. Yet he had confided all to her. He had told her everything. However, there were some niggling details that stuck with her, but Solaris had become silent for the first time in a long while. Weiss was not aware of how much time had passed, but is seemed a great deal had. She swallowed, unsure of what to say, for once, her composure, her upbringing, her vast reserves of knowledge had failed her. She was unsure how to proceed for once in her life.

"I…it's…redeeming yourself. It's a noble purpose…a…a…noble cause. Yet it doesn't sound like you're at peace with yourself. Not yet." She told him, her words soft, measured. "Does Ozpin know about this? Does anyone but me?" she asked him quietly. Solaris nodded.

"Ozpin yes, but…not the whole story. I told him some. I've told you more…the…darker side." He said, then pulled out a golden watch from inside his uniform.

"Oh…well look at that!" he laughed, back to his normal self, like a curtain pulled over a play. Solaris smiled at Weiss, her merely nodded.

"Time to return to our room. Can't be gone too long, you and I. People might start to talk" he said, winking. Weiss, shocked back into her normal self, snorted at this statement before formulating a cunning comeback.

"Yes…indeed. And you can't have Yang knowing, can you?" she grinned evilly, to which Solaris regarded her with a look of (mock) loathing.

"…Really?" he retorted slowly, his gaze fixed on her. Weiss held her head high and marched past him. "You heard me" she said as she brushed past, onwards to the dorm and her own confession to be had with Ruby.

Solaris watched her go, and felt as if a great weight had passed from his shoulders. Perhaps he would not need to go to Port to tell him about his past, perhaps Weiss had been the one to talk to. Perhaps the demons of his past were finally relenting. Solaris felt an unfamiliar sensation…hope. He had not felt that in a long time. A long…long time.

He walked back inside and dared to dream of a future, a future free from the darkness of his past, bright and full of promise. He was beginning to feel truly happy when a voice spoke, a voice inside his own head, but one that was in no way native to it. A voice that rasped in such an alien manner to his own thoughts, that wormed its way so insidiously into his mind, that he knew at once the source. It was not him that thought such things.

"You really believe yourself to be free of suffering? Or have you forgotten your title already? You've learnt every lesson we taught you, and passed all the tests…but do we need to repeat one? Say…the suffering of love lost?"

The voice died down to an echo and left a burning sensation in Solaris head. It seemed while he may free himself of his demons and his past, they would not free himself from him. And know they knew. They knew where he was. And they were coming…

For Solaris was not entirely honest earlier. While he did survive two years in the wild, he did not do so alone…nor was he doing the noble actions he made out to do, for in this time, he conspired with an evil ancient and cruel beyond understanding…one that was now coming for him once more, to finish what they started out there, in the wilds…finish together.