The days following SHDES return from Mistral were tense; something was hanging in the air but nobody quite knew what it was. SHDE FLLN and AGIS had become close and were used to hanging out in SHDE's dorm room, much to Dundra's dismay, he liked things not to be disturbed and Silver liked touching things and she always seemed to make a mess, Hanna laughed it off but he cringed all the time, but he'd never say anything about it.
But tensions came to a head about a week after the incident with Frank and Cardin. Hanna and Silver were sat in SHDE's dorm when there was a knock on the door. Hanna got up and answered it.
"Yang!"
"Hey Hanna, I just got back from a trip and I missed you, so..." Yang took her head in her hands and kissed her.
"This isn't a good time" as she pushed Yang off of her.
"Hanna, come back I'm cold" Yang looked confused and pushed past Hanna.
"Who the hell are you?" Silver and Yang said in unison.
Hanna was speechless, she hadn't meant for this to happen.
"I'm her girlfriend" Silver said
"No, I'm her girlfriend"
"Please stop fighting…" Hanna said thoroughly embarrassed.
"So which is it Hanna, me or her" Yang said angrily
"Yang, why didn't you tell me you were going on a trip, I hadn't heard from you for almost a week before I went to Mistral, I thought you'd left me for someone else"
"Hanna I…"
"Save it, Yang we were having problems anyway, so I'm sorry, I'm with Silver now" the Faunus girl looked smug and purred slightly from the bed.
Yang turned fiery and faced Silver.
"You…bitch…." Silver got to her feet slowly.
Yang activated her gauntlets and Shayne strode into the room passing Hanna and grabbing Yang's arm. He spun her into a chair and Hanna jogged over to Silver.
"Yang, that's enough, calm down" he turned to Hanna, "go get Ruby, ill calm her down"
"Okay"
"What about me? She was angry at me not Hanna"
"Yang, Hanna didn't know where you were or what you were doing, so she broke it off, you can be angry all you want but you can't be angry at her over something you caused"
"But Shayne…" Yang protested and tried to stand up
"I said calm down, now when your sister gets here, you're going to leave"
"Shayne?"
"Yes Silver"
"Let me talk to her"
Shayne stood back and Silver knelt down in front of Yang.
"Yang, I don't know what's going on with you but I know that Hanna still feels for you, she has tried moving on but she won't be able to until you get over her yourself"
Yang leaned in close to silver and whispered in her ear.
"You hurt her and I will come for you" Shayne looked at her as he had heard it as well.
Ruby and Hanna arrived and Yang left, Hanna went over to Silver.
"Are you okay? She didn't hurt you did she"
"No Hanna I'm fine" she looked at Shayne who was busying himself making coffee.
Then Dundra fell through the ceiling.
Dundra had been on the roof looking out over Vale, he was trying to work out why Shayne did this so often. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds that reached him, car horns and sounds from the dorms mostly, though there was something else, it wasn't loud but it was there. He opened his eyes and looked up.
A black shape was visible in the sky, part of it fell away and it seemed to be falling directly at him. He watched it fall all while trying to work out what it was. Then it struck him the dark shape was a Nevermore, that only meant that the dark shape falling towards him could be one of two things, it was either a feather missile or it was another Grimm. Dundra didn't have time to figure out which as it hit him square in the chest, smashing him through the roof and into SHDE's dorm.
Dundra was on the floor and there was an Ursa tearing around the room. Hanna and Sliver were trying to stop it but it was hopeless, it was confused and angry. Shayne helped Dundra up and was tackled through the wall.
Eddi and the twins walked in and saw the hole and were immediately confused.
"An Ursa fell from the sky, knocked me through the roof and tackled Shayne through the wall"
"Hang on, how did it fall from the sky?"
"From what I could tell it was riding a Nevermore" this only caused more confusion.
"Let's not get into this now, and help Shayne shall we"
They nodded and ran through the hole in the wall, the Ursa had shrugged Shayne off in the next room but it had continued through two more walls. Dundra helped Shayne up and a scream was heard from the courtyard. Eddi and Ashe looked out the window. Beowolves were swarming the grounds. Dundra Shayne and Vossler went to deal with the Ursa while the girls headed outside.
The rest of AGIS was already out there and trying to stem the flow of Beowolves coming up the cliffs. RWBY and JNPR were handling the Deathstalkers and the other students were busy either running to get their gear or were already fighting.
Shayne got the bears attention and let it charge him, Dundra and Vossler jumped onto its back, planting their swords in its hide, as it came ever closer to Shayne, he pulled out his pistol and fired a single shot, the bullet went through its eye and detonated in the beasts brain. It slid to Shayne's feet and Dundra and Vossler retrieved their weapons from it.
They exited the building to find chaos.
Students were fighting for their lives against several Grimm at once, the trio divided to help those in most desperate of need. Shayne quickly found Lina she was trying to free a girl who had an Ursa dead on top of her.
"Lina! You're okay"
"Shayne, good you're here, can you give me a hand"
Shayne hefted the bear off of the girl long enough for Lina to pull her free. She ran off into the dorms.
"Shayne, what's going on, why are the Grimm attacking Beacon?"
"I don't know but I think I know someone who might" he said catching sight of a man on a rooftop looking over the battle.
"Shayne who is that?"
"He's the guy who killed my mom, he has Grimm in him as well" Lina nodded and went to help Hanna and Silver.
Shayne climbed the stairs to the roof to face him. He arrived and he turned to face Shayne.
"Shayne, I told you I want what's mine"
"How are you not dead?"
"I'm very tough to kill" the Grimm writhed under his skin.
"Why are the Grimm attacking?"
"Because I told them to…"
"So you know what you're doing with the Grimm then"
"I've been alive a long time Shayne, I know more about the Grimm than you will ever know" Blaine appeared at Shayne's side.
"I know enough to know that controlling them will only lead to death"
Shayne felt something brush past him.
"Cross, you screwed me, you said that I could kill him and you knew full well that he was too good for me"
"Aah Kameron, I see you're still alive, Shayne's Grimm must have not taken hold yet"
"Oh its taken hold Cross" Shayne's eyes flared red and he started to smoke, his hair and skin turned black as night, "I've embraced the darkness, time for you to die"
Shayne ran at him, Blaine ran alongside as did Kameron. They collided and Shayne tackled him off the building. Kameron jumped off and landed in a roll nearby.
Lance teleported over.
"Shayne, what the fuck is…" he was cut short when he looked at Shayne.
Shayne's eyes were locked on Cross. He started forward and Cross leapt to his feet.
Shayne hurled his tomahawk at Cross and ran after it. Cross caught the small axe as Shayne tackled him and proceeded to punch him in the face repeatedly, Cross just smiled madly at him. Kameron and Lance were dealing with other Grimm.
"Ralen, I think it's time you tested that new arrow you've been working on!" Ralen nodded and climbed up a tree so he could see what was happening better.
Shayne had taken out his knife after being thrown off of Cross and was advancing on him again. Cross swung at him and he ducked and planted his knife firmly in his chest. Cross staggered back looking at the knife that now protruded from his chest, he felt it had pierced his heart and dropped to his knees.
"Call off the Grimm, now" Shayne said standing over him.
Cross didn't want to die, he had seen his death and this wasn't it, so he closed his eyes and the Grimm retreated. The students crowded around Shayne as he pulled the knife from Cross's chest.
"Now, give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now" Shayne said grabbing cross by the collar.
"I know the source of how you got your power" Shayne studied his eyes carefully.
"I'm going to let you keep breathing for now" he let him go and turned to the crowd, "I suggest you all go about clearing up the mess and tending to the wounded"
The students dispersed and Shayne beckoned Dundra over.
"Help me get him back to the dorm" Shayne and Dundra each took an arm and man-handled him back to the dorm, where Vossler and Ralen were already working on mending the walls.
They sat him in a sturdy chair and secured him there. Shayne sat opposite while Dundra went to help the others. Shayne sat looking at Cross for a long time, and Cross looked back.
"So, what is the source" Cross smiled
"For me to tell you that, I need to tell you my story…"
'I was 18, coming up on my 19th birthday and I was walking through a dense forest area in Vacuo. It was late and I should have been going home, but something was drawing me deeper into the forest. I caught sight of Grimm moving through the undergrowth and drew my axe.
I could hear voices, to this day I'm unsure on if they were in my head or actual voices, but I followed them to the place where they should have been coming from, yet I found nothing but a small stone shrine, carved into a rock face.
The voices whispered dark things to me, evil, malicious things that couldn't be true. They told me I could prevent them from happening, they told me I could make it all stop. All I had to do was kneel at the shrine and I would be more powerful than anyone else in the world.
The temptation of that kind of power is too great for any man, so I did what most would and knelt before the altar, resting my hands on the table. I closed my eyes and let the voices wash over me, my skin crawled and my hair stood on end. I snuck a look at what was happening and I saw the Grimm burrowing under my skin, I felt it moving, making its way to my face.
I screamed out in pain, but I couldn't move my hands, the flow of Grimm was keeping them there. I eventually blacked out from the pain. The next morning I woke up in a motel room, the walls were splattered with blood; I didn't know whose and I didn't want to find out, I went to the window and saw that I was covered in blood from head to toe, it was then that I saw that in the bathroom was the corpse of a young girl, 16 at most. I felt like throwing up, I left through the window and I've been on the run ever since.'
"Now I'll explain where you fit in" Dundra and Ralen had wandered over by this point and were listening as intently as Shayne.
'Four years later I found myself in Managerie, I was hiding out in a small cave in the mountains. I had found out that I lose control at night and had gotten into a routine where I only slept during the day, but I hadn't been able to sleep for the last couple of days and I knew that it would happen sooner or later. When it did, I had no idea the kind of fallout that would follow it. I woke up back where I started and I felt different than the previous day. I scouted around and overheard conversations, they all mentioned a humanoid Grimm tearing the town apart, but I usually remembered when I had caused chaos, so I sat and thought.
I realised that my left arm was normal again, not stained dark as the rest of my body. I set out to find out who had the Grimm. I stood lurking in the shadows of the square, watching, waiting, then you turned up, I saw that you had a bandaged left arm and I followed you home. My Grimm must have granted yours its full potential, I knew that I needed to get it back, no matter how much I feared the Grimm, I didn't doubt that it made me powerful and I wanted that power back.
I tried to get it back that night but the cops came and I had to leave, by the time I made it back to Managerie, you were gone, the Grimm with you.'
"So you set about finding me, using the criminal underworld as a medium"
"No, I became a criminal as a by-product of looking for you"
"So what do we do with you now?"
"You could let me go, but then I'd just keep trying to kill you"
"So, not an option" Ralen said, making sense of the situation.
"But we can't keep you here, so I'm giving you a chance, you're going to leave and if I see you again, I will kill you"
Shayne cut the bonds, Dundra and Ralen looked around nervously.
"By not killing me now you've made a mistake"
"Just go" Shayne said his hand resting on his pistol.
Cross left through the window, dropping straight into the Emerald Forest. They all sighed in relief. The girls returned and Lina immediately ran up to Shayne and hugged him tightly. Silver and Hanna walked hand in hand to Hanna's bed and reclined on it, Eddi, did what she always did and cleaned her guns.
Shayne gazed out of the window.
'I know he's coming back, I will be ready for him when he does'
The speed at which ive put these chapters up is not going to continue as im only catching up to where i had previously posted.
Drop me a PM if you have any questions. if you haven't already done so, check out GuyFromPandora's story, Remnants shield, he could use some support so leave him a review or something. anyway you guys are great and as always thanks for reading.
-TheWolfbane987