A/N: I really liked Episode 9 of Volume 3. If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest going to Rooster Teeth's website and watching it. :D
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Seventeen Months ago
The sound of rain drops hitting stone repeated infinitely in Richter's ears, but he paid it no mind. His clothes were soaked for being out in this dismal weather for an extended period of time, but he did not care. The only souls left in Patch Cemetary were himself, Ruby and her sister Yang, Pearce and Trista. They were all standing a respectful distance away from him as he continued to look at the tombstone of his recently buried father, Robert Bremen. The words "Beloved Father." Were engraved on the stone tablet.
Numbly, Richter recalled what the doctors had said was the cause of death, heart failure. After battling the disease for a couple of years, he finally lost that battle. Partially due in part that they didn't have enough money to pay for medical expenses. Unbeknownst to Richter, his father had put the rest of their savings into getting him into Signal. The boy didn't find out until he visited the bank and discovered the transactions.
Richter winced as he recalled his father's hard life. A man who had lived in a village outside the kingdom of Vale all his life. He had worked tirelessly to keep his home village safe, but no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many grimm he killed, he would still lose loved ones. First it was his brother, then his mother, then his friends, as more and more grimm were felled by him, he seemed to lose more and more people he cared about.
Still, Robert Bremen persisted, drove on by his wife and son. Richter honestly didn't remember his mother much. He just knew that one day she had packed her bags and left. Apparently she had left his father for some rich man in Vale for "An easier and safer life." It was the straw that broke the camel's back for Robert.
They moved to Patch, his father a broken man. He was still a kind person to his son, but Richter always noticed the sadness that clung tightly to his dad's eyes. A man who tried to protect everyone and lost everything. That was the life he lived.
And it wasn't fair.
Richter understood why his dad had put all their money into getting him into Signal. It's what Richter had wanted the most. It was his last gift to him. From father to son. His father was always there to help him through hard times, but now he no longer had that luxury.
He was all alone, the last surviving Bremen. There was no other family to turn to, from now on he either succeeded in his dreams or he would crash and burn.
A tiny hand placed itself on his right shoulder and he mechanically looked to see Ruby looking at him. No words were exchanged as he stared into her silver eyes questioningly. She then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. Richter felt the tears begin to flow freely from his face then, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the rain. He wrapped his arms around Ruby's tiny waist, rested his chin on her right shoulder and let the grief flow out of him, holding onto his petite friend as if she was his only lifeline.
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Present Day
"I've received some 'Improvements' Since escaping from prison." Darion said in his distorted voice.
Weiss could only watch Darion's jade-green eyes helplessly as the exit door slid open and a trio of beowulves entered the room. She expected Darion to tear them to pieces, but she was surprised when he didn't make a move. She was even more surprised when the grimm didn't attempt to eat him either, instead standing on their hindlegs, looking at her silently with their red glowing eyes.
Understanding dawned within Weiss' mind, "You! You were the one controlling the grimm that attacked my father's train!"
"Yup." Darion confirmed, "Thanks to a certain party's experiments, I now have the ability to control grimm. There is one catch though."
One of the beowulves walked up to Darion, who proceeded to grab the back of the grimm's neck with his right hand and bite into the creature's jugular. Weiss could only look on in fascinated horror as Darion violently ripped a huge chunk out of the beowulf's neck then reach in with his teeth for another bite. The former leader of the Jade Dragons repeated this action a few more times until the beowulf dissolved away.
Black smoke emanated from Darion's mouth as he spoke, "The diet leaves…much to be desired. However, with each one of these bad boys that I eat, I get stronger." He grinned as he wiped his mouth with his forearm, "Imagine what I could do if I ate an entire army of grimm."
Apprehension gripped Weiss as her imagination ran away with the idea. Someone who got stronger by eating grimm, using the Sirensong to summon a large group of them. They could become strong enough to crush any resistance in Vale.
"I won't let you!" Weiss vowed, struggling against her bonds with newfound desperation.
Darion chuckled at her, "You're strong little Schnee, I'll give you that, but you can't last forever. Once we retrieve the password to the Sirensong from your brain, I'll have the key to becoming a god!"
A strange sound erupted from Weiss then, a sound that would have been the last thing she expected to do, she laughed. Maybe it was the hours of torture she had endured, maybe it was the way Darion delivered his little speech. Whatever it was, it triggered something in the heiress and she found she couldn't stop laughing.
Finally calming down, Weiss fixed him with the cruelest stare she could muster. "You? A god? Don't make me laugh." She told him. "All you are is a fake, a pretender. You're nothing more than a glorified psychopath who somehow was lucky enough to get some power to control grimm."
Weiss saw Darion frown at her, literally seeing the sanity drain from his face as it began to contort in rage, but she didn't care anymore. What could he do? Cause her more pain?
So the heiress continued, fueled by her recent torment. "And what? You think this is somehow going to give you the ability to conquer Vale?" She was surprised at how condescending her laughter sounded. "You couldn't even conquer the villages that reside outside the kingdom's walls! All you are is a crazy guy who thinks he's smarter than he actually is."
Weiss suddenly found her face twisting to the left as far as her neck restraint would allow as Darion struck her with the back of his right fist. She had barely registered he had hit her when he struck her again with his right hand. This time, the heiress' face snapped to the opposite direction, blood flying from her lips. Weiss reeled once more from a third hit and her vision and hearing became muddled, looks like she pushed him too far. Examining Darion's livid face, she couldn't help, but wonder if she was going to die here. Killed by a man throwing a psychotic tantrum.
Darion reared his right hand back for another punch when suddenly a hand gripped his right forearm from behind him. The psychopath's eyes broadened in surprise and Weiss weakly looked beyond him to see a distinct grey cloak. She willed her vision to focus, was that Ruby's friend?
"What do you think you're doing?" The shorter man asked, voice filled with quiet malice.
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"We're getting closer." Ruby said softly to her team, doing her best to be as quiet as possible. So far they had met no resistance, which Ruby didn't like, things were too quiet. It also didn't help that the sewer tunnels felt like a maze, already they had come across two cross sections, but thanks to Weiss' tracker, they were able to navigate it.
Yang glanced at her partner, "Blake, do you see anything?
Blake's eyes moved swiftly, analyzing everything around them. "Well, there's no traps hiding in the shadows that I can see." She reported, "I doubt they'll just let us walk right to Weiss' location though."
"Keep alert." Ruby said, holding Crescent Rose a little tighter. "We're in the enemy's turf now."
The team continued down the narrow tunnel that was barely wide enough for all three to walk through. Eventually the tunnel merged with a large square room about the size of a sparring ring. The ceiling was a good five meters high and the concrete floor was littered with pieces of metal and broken pipes. To Ruby, it looked like someone was tearing apart robots of some sort.
Ruby fanned out with her team as they entered the large square room. Yang watched the left, Blake, the right. A few Dust lamps on the ceiling provided some light thankfully, and Ruby used it to try and see as much as possible. She had just passed the center of the room when she heard something make a clicking sound behind her, followed by a whirring noise.
"Look out!" Yang warned them, Ruby didn't think twice, she dove ahead and slightly to her right, hearing bullets impact the wall ahead of her. Taking a quick glance back the way she had come, the red-cloaked girl spotted a circular-shaped bladed weapon rotating and firing in it's cardinal directions. Ruby knew what kind of weapon it was, a chakram, a disc-shaped weapon designed for throwing.
They had set off someone's trap.
The chakram kept firing and the three huntresses had to dodge or deflect the bullets away. Somehow, it was tracking their movements, forcing them to adjust their defenses. Growing tired of this, Ruby picked the wall nearest to her and ran up it, bullets trailing in her wake. Pushing off the wall with her feet, the petite girl performed a backflip, making her body parallel to the floor and sticking her scythe out under her. The sharp edge of the scythe whistled through the air, but just as it was about to come into contact with the chakram, the circular-shaped weapon suddenly fired to Ruby's left. The chakram used the recoil of the shot to move itself just out of her scythe's path.
Ruby landed and faced the direction the chakram had moved to, only to see it in someone's hand. She quickly noted the gun emplacements on the chakram at it's cardinal positions, at the northeast part of the weapon were grips, which the hand was holding at the moment.
"Well, well, well. It looks like we picked up some rats." A feminine voice said, stepping into the light was a woman in her late twenties. Her shoulder-length green hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing a pair of goggles over hazel eyes. She was clad in a white-tanktop with brown hiking shorts and boots. Ruby recognized her from the information Weiss had given her. Gena Celvic, the scientist responsible for the creation of the Sirensong.
Gena looked at the three young huntresses and scoffed, "You're the only ones here to rescue the Schnee? Daddy must not love her too much." She mocked, tapping a monitor on her left forearm which flashed a few times before dimming. "There we go, looks like you just lost the element of surprise."
"You're the only line of defense?" Yang asked, looking skeptical. "I could snap you with my pinky finger."
The scientist answered with a smirk and flung the chakram in her left hand at Yang. Ruby watched as her older sister easily deflected the weapon with her right fist, bouncing it off the wall to her right. Yang wore a cocky grin as she began to advance on Gena, but Ruby realized with sudden horror that her sister had no idea the chakram she deflected had changed direction and was heading straight for her back.
Ruby called her sister's name, trying to warn her of the danger while simultaneously trying to take aim with the rifle portion of her scythe. The petite girl realized she wasn't going to make it, the chakram was less than a meter from Yang's back now…
The sound of metal clanging against metal reached Ruby's ears as the chakram was suddenly deflected into the ground. Ruby looked and saw Blake pulling back the sickle-form of her weapon, Gambol Shroud. The red-cloaked girl let out a sigh of relief, her faunus teammate had come through in the clutch.
"What the?" Yang said in shock, looking behind her left side to see the chakram embedded there. The blonde huntress looked towards Blake and exchanged nods, realizing the amber-eyed girl had saved her.
Ruby aimed the rifle portion of her scythe at Gena, "Watch it, she's more dangerous than she looks." She was about to fire when she saw Blake walk in front of them.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll deal with her." The cat faunus announced.
Ruby almost argued, almost, but she knew they were running out of time. Every second standing here meant Darion's crew were that much closer to extracting the password from Weiss, they needed to hurry. With a quick nod to her sister, she took off in a sprint, running past Gena on her right, while Yang ran by the scientist on her left. She heard the sounds of Gena throwing the chakram at her back, quickly followed by the sounds of them colliding with another metallic object. Taking a quick look back, Ruby saw Blake had curved Gambol Shroud in sickle-form, inserting it into the space between the faunus' teammates and Gena. Sparks on the ribbon portion of the weapon flew out as the chakrams made contact with it, and Gena's weapons returned to their owner's hands. Ruby returned her attention forward as Yang and her continued further into the sewers.
"I am your opponent." She heard Blake say, steel in her voice.
"No, you're a future test subject." Gena replied.
Ruby heard the clash of metal a second time and then she was out of earshot. She said a silent prayer for Blake as she moved on.
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Weiss wasn't sure what to think. She had been spared further abuse by Ruby's old friend, but why? Weren't Darion and him working together?
"What am I doing?" Darion said, repeating the question that Richter had asked him, "I'm beating some sense into this bitch!"
She saw Ruby's friend contort his face into a fierce scowl, the intensity of it catching her off-guard. "Looks like you're trying to beat her to death to me." He narrowed his eyes at the back of Darion's head. "Last time I checked, we need her alive."
"There are other Schnee's out there." Darion replied with a tone of dismissal, Weiss was astonished. Did she really tick him off that bad?
"This will set us back months! Maybe years!" Richter snarled.
Darion shrugged, his unworldly eyes focused on the heiress, "We're young, we can wait." The former Jade Dragon leader took a menacing step towards Weiss and she braced herself, but then he suddenly changed direction as Richter tossed him into the wall on her left using the taller man's right forearm. Darion landed upright, pushing himself off the wall only to be stopped by the tip of Richter's sword pointed at his throat.
Darion looked at the shorter man incredulously, "Are you being serious right now Richter?"
"One more step and you'll be cosplaying as the headless horseman." Richter's eyes were calm fury. "You let her provoke you Darion. You need to calm down."
"No, what I need to do is choke the life out of her to teach her a lesson."
"She can't learn anything if she's dead."
"Well, it'll make me happy."
Again, Darion tried to take a step forward, but Richter didn't budge, still keeping his weapon trained on the taller man's throat. Weiss again tried her restraints, this could be the opportunity she had been waiting for to escape. Something suddenly caught the attention of Richter and Darion as they looked behind Weiss to the console.
"The silent alarm." Richter said to himself.
"Look Richter." Darion started, annoyance in his tone. "I don't have time for your shit right now. There's killing that needs to be done."
"I'm warning you." Richter replied, his tone was stone cold, "Not. Another. Step."
Darion laughed in response, "Come on! We both know you don't have the balls to…."
Weiss felt something wet splash onto her left cheek, followed by the scent of iron. Blinking once, she was greeted by the sight of Darion clasping his heavily bleeding throat with both hands. The terrorist leader's unworldly eyes were bulged, looking right at the man who had grievously wounded him.
Blood dripping from his blade, Richter delivered a hard kick to Darion's unprotected stomach, knocking him through the wall into an adjacent room. The short young man let out a string of curses, running a hand through his slicked-back dark hair and causing a few bangs to fall in front of his forehead, stopping just past his eyebrows. He quickly regained his composure though and ran over to Weiss. She was surprised to see him start undoing the restraint on her left wrist.
"What are you doing?" She asked him, thoroughly confused.
Richter finished undoing her left wrist restraint and began working on the one on her right, "Getting you out of here." He nodded towards the hole he had put Darion through, "More specifically, away from him."
"But you just killed him!" Weiss exclaimed, her right wrist was free now and she thought about hitting him, but even lifting her arms required some effort. She was unarmed and her aura was severely depleted, she needed some time for it to recharge before she did anything drastic.
"If only." Richter replied bitterly, working on the second-to-last restraint. "I didn't separate his head from his shoulders like I wanted to."
"But that was still a fatal wound." Weiss stated.
Richter shook his head, "Not for him it wasn't." He finished with the last restraint, walking behind her. The sounds of him rummaging through a box could be heard. Weiss raised herself from the chair and immediately had her legs give out from under her. The heiress fell to a sitting position, where she saw Richter's black boots walking up to her again.
As well as the familiar sight of Myrtenaster.
"You'll need this." Richter stated, handing her weapon to her. Weiss took it, feeling a little safer having it's familiar weight in her hands. She quickly placed it on her belt as Richter offered her his left hand. "Come on."
Weiss hesitated. Even though he was Ruby's friend and was helping her now. He was still the reason she had been put in this situation in the first place. Not to mention he could transform into some kind of nightmarish monster.
A pulse of aura to her left washed over her and Weiss was immediately hit with a wave of nausea. This aura, it felt like the underworld itself. Was that Darion's aura? She shivered involuntarily.
Richter cast a quick glance from where the aura pulse came from. "Look, I know I'm not exactly your favorite person at the moment, but if you stay here, he's going to kill you." Weiss had to admit, he had a valid point. Richter wasn't hellbent on her murder, he was the lesser of the two evils until she could reunite with her team.
She took his hand and he pulled her to his feet, turning his back to her so that she could climb on, piggy-back style. If it was any other time, she would have refused in embarrassment, but her current circumstances were too dire for her dignity at the moment. Once she was secure on Richter's back, he opened the exit door and took off to his right down a narrow concrete tunnel.
They didn't get too far before Weiss started seeing the telltale red slits of grimm eyes in the dimly-lit corridor. A group of creeps, grimm with thick forelegs and a lizard-like tail, were running directly at them, most likely under Darion's control. Weiss caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Richter unsheathe his sword. Without even slowing down, Ruby's friend cut down every grimm standing before them, every slash from his blade a killing blow. The heiress felt adrenaline flow through her body, they were in the clear!
And then an unholy roar reached her ears. A roar that sounded like a mixture between a beast and a demon. The roar of something that wanted not just her life, but her very soul. Weiss felt her blood run cold upon hearing it.
Suddenly an arm burst forward from the wall on her right, a clawed arm the color of coal and covered with scales. Weiss clung to Richter tightly as he ducked under the swipe the arm took at them. He then shifted his sword into pistol-form and shot into the hole the arm had made, earning an angry howl from whatever monstrosity owned that limb.
"What in the world was that?!" She asked Richter.
"My guess….would be Darion." He answered. Without breaking stride, he began to fire at the corridor's ceiling behind them, blocking it with the rubble.
"Can't you transform into your monster thing and fight him?" Weiss inquired.
"I can't." Came Richter's quick reply, "My aura took a big hit when I did that against you and the rest of Ruby and her friends." He spared a glance at her. "How's your aura doing?"
Weiss took a mental inventory, she was already feeling a little better, but it was a far cry from being in fighting shape. "I need a few minutes still." She told him.
The corridor gave way to a fairly large-sized rectangular room. The only exit being the tunnel across from their current position. Weiss and her unlikely companion were less than two dozen meters from the exit when an ursa major dropped down in front of them, forcing Richter to stop. Soon after, the sound of concrete shattering could be heard as a pair of holes suddenly appeared on the walls to their flanks. Beowulves and Ursai began pouring through the new openings. Weiss looked around and mentally cursed, even if she was in perfect shape, she would have had a tough time killing all of these.
The ursa major in front of them sought to crush them with it's right forepaw, but Richter leapt backwards, avoiding the blow. She saw Richter's head turning slightly every second, most likely gauging how many grimm there were and also if he could kill them all.
Letting out a frustrated grunt, Ruby's friend set Weiss down, Richter never let his eyes off the large group of grimm. "Stay back!" He ordered, switching his weapon to sword-form and holding it in a reverse-grip. The heiress didn't know if he was brave or stupid as he unfalteringly walked towards the grimm.
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Richter continued advancing on the grimm, his eyes daring them to attack. Although it was a large pack of grimm. He had seen worse back in the manor and now he was stronger. It still wouldn't be a simple fight, but at least this one he could win. The problem was, he needed to do this fast, before Darion caught up to them.
A group of two beowulf alphas and five standard beowulves rushed to meet the short ex-huntsman. One of the alphas barked out what seemed to be an order and as one, the pack of grimm all dove at Richter. He held his sword out to his right side, waiting until the grimm were nearly on top of them, then stabbed the ground.
An explosion of black flame disintegrated the beowulves. The Beowulf alphas, who were more resilient, were thrown into the air. Richter leapt through the shroud of fire and positioned himself between the two beowulf alphas. He sliced the one on his right in half with a vertical downwards slash and immediately transitioned into a vertical upward slash on his left, cutting the second alpha in half at the waist. A fraction of a second later, he shifted Dyrnwyn into pistol-form and used the recoil of a shot to get back to the ground faster, narrowly avoiding a slab of concrete the size of a car being thrown at him by an ursa.
Richter landed and immediately crouched, avoiding the horizontal swipe of a beowulf's claws to his right. He planted his right elbow into the grimm's stomach, sending it sliding back a short distance, just enough for him to fully extend his right arm and fire his gun point-blank at it's head. Two creeps leapt through it's dissolving body which he dispatched with two quick shots. Sensing danger from behind him, Richter rolled forward, barely avoiding the ursa major's claw swipe aimed at his spine.
As the short ex-huntsman came back to his feet he shifted Dyrnwyn into sword-form, propelling himself forward like a rocket. He encased his sword in black flame as he raced towards a trio of ursa. Richter stabbed one of the stocky grimm in the gut and activated his aura, lengthening his sword with a blade of dark fire and also impaling the two other ursai behind it. Exerting himself, he pulled upwards with his sword as hard as he could, splitting the three ursai in half vertically as he ripped the blade free.
The moment the blade touched the ground, Richter was struck on the left side of his face by the right forepaw of the ursa major. The large grimm had been stalking him the entire fight, waiting for him to be vulnerable and finally it had gotten it's chance. Richter slid across the ground on his right side, he had barely come to a stop when a beowulf alpha appeared in his vision, it's jaw wide open and it's claws ready to sink into his flesh. Swiftly shifting Dyrnwyn into pistol-form, Richter juggled the Beowulf in the air with a barrage of shots. He then vaulted to his feet, making sure to plant one of his boots into the chin of the beowulf alpha, sending it sailing away from him. The short ex-huntsman shifted his weapon back to sword-form and charged back into the fray.
Richter continued to be on the move, never staying in one place for long. He mainly focused on any grimm that began looking in Weiss Schnee's direction as she couldn't properly defend herself yet. The short ex-huntsman left dissolving bodies in his wake as he continued to harass the ursa major hounding him. The damn thing's armor was tough even by grimm standards and he was having a hard time finding a weak spot.
He attempted to decapitate the ursa major, but the blade merely cut a gash into its neck. The large grimm roared in pain and delivered a massive backhand to his ribs, knocking him into the wall on his left. Richter managed to keep his footing, stars dancing across his vision as he dimly saw the ursa major charging for him. He felt the wind tease the left side of his face as he narrowly sidestepped a blow to his head. Instead of caving in his skull with it's left forepaw, the ursa major had lodged it into the wall. It growled in frustration as it tried to pull it's limb out and that's when Richter noted the lack of bony armor on the back of it's head. Not wasting any time, Richter plunged his sword into the vulnerable area, slamming the large grimm's face into the wall in the process. He felt a wave of relief as the ursa major began to dissolve.
Looking around, the short ex-huntsman was surprised to only see smoking husks of dying grimm. It was over. He was just about to run back to Weiss when something large dropped in from the ceiling above. Debris flew everywhere and Richter used his left forearm to shield his face from it. Richter scanned the area in front of him, trying to decipher what had just dropped in, was it another ursa major?
He got his answer when a monstrous voice roared, "RICHTER!"
Standing in front of him, in his altered state, was Darion Shiver. The tall man had grown even taller, maybe eight or nine feet in height. Bat-like wings protruded from his shoulderblades and a pair of foot-long ivory-colored horns rested on his forehead. The eyes' sclera were pitch-black, the iris' glowing the color of jade. His military dress uniform was in tatters, only the pants and boots remained. Instead of bare skin, the psychopath was covered in ebony scales. In Darion's right hand was his weapon, which looked like an over-sized butcher's knife, there was a hole at the center of the blade's tip which housed the rifle portion.
Richter mentally cursed as he gripped Dyrnwyn tightly in both hands, this was not going to go well.
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A/N: I'm splitting this series of battles into two chapters as it was going to be longer than the very first chapter. Which reminds me, I was going to ask those who are still reading this if they want shorter, but more frequent chapters or longer, less frequent ones. I'm not sure which is more preferable.
As always, thank you for reading.
