Here's a new chapter! Updates for this story will come slower than with Thorns of a Rose, so there won't be regular updates for this story. But don't let that keep you from enjoying the story. Without further ado, the Festival of Grimm continues!
Jerald was in the middle of his most interesting story yet when Ruby's Scroll rang.
She quickly grabbed it, silenced it, and looked at the screen to see who was calling. Yang? Why was Yang calling? What could she possibly have gotten herself into this time? Ruby held it to her ear and said, "Hello?"
"R-Ruby..." Yang's voice said shakily over the phone, sounding agonized, and Ruby was immediately on alert. She sounded like she was in pain. Fearful, even. There were tears in her voice.
"Are you alright?" Ruby asked despite the fact she knew Yang wasn't. Yang was the stronger one between the two of them; it would take a lot to reduce her to tears. She didn't even cry when Mom passed. What could possibly do this to her? What in Dust happened?
"Yes...I mean, no...I don't know. It hurts. I can hear them." Yang's jumbled speech transmitted in panicked whispers. "I can hear all of them."
"All of what?"
"Please..." Yang sobbed, her voice uneven, "Help me..."
The call suddenly cut out, and Ruby bolted to her feet. "Jerald, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but my friends and I need to go."
"What? Why?" Blake asked indignantly, "I want to know how the story ends!"
Ruby was taken aback by Blake's outburst—Blake never got angry over anything—but she answered anyway. "I think Yang is hurt somewhere."
"Yang is your tall friend there, yes?" Jerald stood up and rotated the kebabs for the third time in twenty minutes. He glanced over his shoulder at the three Huntresses-in-training.
"Yes," Ruby answered with a nod. "She just called and she needs us. She sounded like she was crying. She kept telling me, "It hurts," or, "I can hear hem." I don't understand what it means but we need to find her. Blake, Weiss, c'mon. Maybe we can return later, Jerald, sir?"
"You're always welcome to come listen to this old man ramble, young lady," Jerald sat down in his chair beside the table, offering his hand to allow Ruby to give him a handshake. She accepted and shook his hand, and the three girl departed, bidding farewells to Jerald, and mixed back into the crowd.
"Do you even know where she is?" Weiss whined the moment the merged back into the mass of people moving along the street.
"She is...in an alley." Ruby was puzzled as she checked her Scroll's GPS locator. The screen said Yang was in an alley, nearby, too. Just a block or two away.
"That isn't good," Blake drew Gambol Shroud and cocked it, making sure the first round was loaded just in case, "She could be bleeding out or something. We need to hurry."
Ruby agreed with a curt nod and picked up the pace, her walk turning into a jog as she shoved apologetically through the crowd with her teammates on her heels.
—
They reached it in no time.
The crowd had dispersed and all but a few individuals still hung around the alley. The alley itself was dark, as was expected on a night like this, but the moonlight hit it in a strange angle, leaving the first fifty feet lit but the last hundred-fifty feet of it in total darkness, and a bend was up ahead. Ruby frowned and drew Crescent Rose, switching the scope for a thermal sight. It wasn't night vision, but she would easily see anything living inside.
"How about you let me take the lead?" Blake offered, drawing her katana again, then switching it to pistol form. Ruby shook her head.
"No. I'll take point, but you need to stay on your guard."
Blake nodded hesitantly, as if she wanted to disagree, but she submitted and Ruby turned back to the alley. She raised Crescent Rose to her shoulder and peered through the scope. She stalked toward the inky shadows with Blake behind her, and Weiss stayed behind, near the entrance of the alley.
As they entered the darkness, Ruby could see nothing, even with the scope, and she almost jumped out of her skin when Blake tapped her on the shoulder and whispered to her, "Stop." She did as she was told and felt Blake move past her, then heard her whisper, "There's blood. I smell it."
A hand slipped around hers, warm and oddly comforting in the tension of the moment, and Blake led her forward in the shadows. As they moved, they rounded a corner and they saw a single electric light fixed to the wall above an alcove. As they stalked cautiously into the next section of the alley, there was an odd shuffling, like bare feet on bricks, and whimpering. Crying. Sobbing.
"Yang? Is that you?" Ruby asked the darkness, and it answered in a frail voice, "Yes..."
"Where are you?" Blake asked, and Ruby heard the katana unfolding and the blade sheathing. They stepped into the light.
"B-before I come out, you have to promise me you won't freak out." Ruby recognized that tone. It was Yang's attempt to speak strongly and confidently, but she was failing miserably. Still, Ruby complied, saying, "We won't freak out. Promise."
There was a stir in the darkness, and a foot hesitantly entered the light, as if afraid it were going to be burned. A figure entered the light, their tall, slender form gracefully sweeping into the light. They had ashen gray skin without a single blemish. She had impressive bust and curves that matched perfectly to her height. The whites of her eyes were not white, but black, and each eye had a brightly glowing magenta ring that must have been an iris. She had long, pointed ears and long, thick, luscious, curly golden hair that billowed out from her scalp. A streak of silver decorated her bangs. Tears streamed down her cheeks and a red line descended from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
Blood.
"Yang?!" Ruby cried out, tearing her hand from Blake's. "Dust, what happened to you?!"
"You promised not to freak out!" Yang frowned, her eyes watering.
"I'm sorry!" Ruby took a deep breath and looked at her sister calmly. "I just...I wasn't expecting this."
Ruby went to take a step forward when Yang held out both hands and shouted, "No! Don't come closer!"
"Why?"
"I'll lose control. I can't do that, can't lose myself, or I'll never forgive myself."
"Lose control? What are you talking about? You aren't making any sense!"
"This!" Yang opened her mouth and pointed at the long fangs jutting out of the top and bottom of her mouth, replacing her canines completely. She looked less like the sister Ruby knew and more like some fear-inducing beastly hominid. Yang knew it, too; she could smell the fear.
"Stop looking at me like I'm a freak! I'm not!" Yang growled, but there was no anger in it, just sorrow and frustration. "I'm not!"
"We're not—"
"Yes, you are!" Yang was trembling now, quaking in fury, her face now soaked with tears. "That's the same face that Weiss had when she found out you were a fucking Faunus!"
Yang was huffing and puffing now, clearly scared, angered, disheartened by her transformation as well as Ruby and Blake. She was trying to be strong, but eventually she just gave up and collapsed to her knees and sobbed into her hands, wailing. Ruby rushed forward and knelt beside her sister, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her tight against her and letting her cry into her shoulder. She stroked the back of her head, and Yang embraced her with shuddering arms.
"I can't go out there again," she whimpered.
"Why?"
"I can hear their hearts beating and their blood rushing and it's so loud it hurts. I go near another person and I feel this need to...to feed. To feed on them. Drink their blood. Dust, I'm trying so hard not to bite you or Blake. I'm so hungry for blood."
"I don't care if you bite me," Ruby said, holding Yang at arm's length. "We share enough blood as it is. Shouldn't matter if we share a bit more."
Yang's strange new glowing eyes looked at her with something similar to lust and dread. Her tears were already drying up, and her sobs faded into mere snivels. "Really? You trust me to do that?"
Ruby looked back at Blake, who shook her head. Obviously, she wanted to keep Ruby safe, but the leader knew her sister needed help. She nodded to Blake, who knew exactly what Ruby wanted to do and sighed. She nodded hesitantly, and Ruby looked at Yang.
"Just take some, but not all of it. Enough to hold you over until we can figure something out."
Yang nodded and stood up, helping Ruby to her own feet, and looked down at her sister. "Are you sure? I don't know what it might do."
"You're my sister. I have to help you. It's what siblings do. I don't care what I have to do."
Yang nodded, a gleam in her eye, and whispered her thanks. Ruby took a deep breath and closed her eyes, allowing Yang to adjust her head and shoulder as needed, and braced herself.
The initial pain was the worst of it, like being stabbed with a knife and then having someone salt the wound, but after the initial pain was over, it wasn't too bad. She could feel her blood leaving her body through her neck with the help of Yang's fangs, but it didn't hurt. It just felt strange. A little bit of her strength left her, and with that, Yang pulled her fangs from her neck. She found herself wrapped in an embrace afterward, a little bit of blood trickling from the wound. "Thank you," Yang whispered, her chin resting on Ruby's shoulder.
"You're a Fae," Blake said, sheathing her katana. Ruby and Yang looked at her, the former taking her cape and pressing it against the bite marks on her neck.
"A Fae?" Ruby asked, "What is that?"
"A Fae is what you'd call a metahuman," Blake began to explain, "Like Faunus. There are a lot of different kinds of metahumans, like Fae, Faunus, elves, dwarves, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Looks like you're a Fae, but I don't understand how you turned into one."
"A guy led me into this alley about an hour ago and kinda seduced me," Yang seemed to be pained by the memory, "Then he bit me. Sucked me dry. I thought I was gonna die, but..." She turned her head toward the darkness behind her. Blake's eyes followed her gaze and nodded in understanding. Ruby didn't know what they were looking at.
"Well, sounds like you're definitely a Fae. Valdier Fae, to be exact."
"Valdier?"
"Old Remnant word for vampire."
Yang nodded wordlessly and spoke again. "Is there any way to cure it?"
"I don't know, but there's a library, I think, in Vacuo that has a lot of those old books that have those sorts of thing in them."
"Why just in Vacuo?"
"Vacuo teaches the older ways of combat," Blake explained, "That's why Pyrrha is so much more effective than most Valean or Atlasian Huntsmen or Huntresses. Vacuo is devoted to combat and knowledge. They have their Huntsman Academy, but they also have a college for mages and wizards. They have a library filled with books about magic and mythical creatures."
"But the mythical creatures aren't as mythical as we seem to think," Yang commented, and Blake continued.
"We could go to Vacuo and see if we can visit the college," Blake glanced into the shadows behind her, "They might have a way of reversing your transformation."
"But why would you do that?"
A male voice said, booming and loud, the source unknown. Yang seemed to recognize it, as her hair began to give off a white-hot glow and her glowing violet irises turned into an intense red. She pushed the dazed Ruby to Blake, who caught her and held her up, and then looked around for the source of the voice.
"Magnus!" Yang snarled, looking around and obviously finding nothing, "Show yourself!"
"Gladly."
Suddenly, a blur dropped into the light and slammed into the bricks between Blake and Yang.
"Weiss!" Yang cried, rushing to the heiress's side. She was unconscious and her neck had puncture wounds, like fangs had pierced her flesh.
"I hope you don't mind," Magnus said, swaggering into light from the shadows behind Yang, "I figured I would sample your friend before I gave her to you. She tastes like white chocolate and blueberries, by the way, not that you won't find out on your own."
Yang bolted upright, whirled and threw a punch that would have fallen short—Magnus was already smiling because she missed—when a fiery round from her gauntlet launched, slammed him in the chest and exploded. He went tumbling into the darkness, and Yang leapt after him. As she went to grab his lapel and pin him against the wall for a merciless barrage of punches and explosive rounds, he turned into a cloud of black smoke that swept around her and reformed into his Fae body, then delivered a kick into the small of her back, putting her on her hands and knees.
"Do you really think you can beat a master vampire, Fledgling?" Magnus turned to smoke and reappeared in front of Yang, still wearing his immaculate tailcoat and red ascot. He offered a hand to her, but she swatted it away and staggered to her feet, then lunged for another punch to his gut, but he turned to smoke and dashed just to Yang's side, where he grabbed her arm and threw her against the nearby wall. He sent a kick into her chest that winded her, and then grabbed her throat and held her up in the air.
"Do you truly believe a weak fledgling like you can beat me, a Valdier Fae older than the kingdoms themselves?" Magnus smoke-dashed around her and put another punishing kick in her back, launching her out of the alleyway and through the railing barring pedestrians from falling onto the cool night sand of the beach below. She hit the sand hard enough to wind her if she hadn't already been winded by Magnus just a moment ago. A cloud of dust obscured her vision, and she sat up, managing to catch her breath a moment before she heard a *piff* nearby.
"Why in Dust would you want to abandon this power I have granted you?" Magnus appeared in front of her as the dust cleared. He knelt in front of her, his narrow features lit by the moonlight beaming across the beach. "You could be a goddess among men, a mistress, a queen, with an army of fledglings under your control!"
"Because I don't want that!" Yang scrambled to her feet and threw a punch at Magnus, but he turned to smoke yet again and moved around her. She was ready for it. As he reformed behind her, she sent a kick into his groin. As he hunched over, she delivered an uppercut to his chin that sent him flying straight into the air. He righted himself in the air and dispersed into three smoke clouds that twirled around each other in a spiral as they hurtled toward the beach. When they hit, they exploded in a fiery blast that sent sand, dust, debris flying in every direction and knocking Yang down.
"You are a fool!" Magnus reformed in front of her as she lay against the wall. "You have the opportunity to take what you want, when you want, at the sacrifice of a few bystanders!"
"I won't kill an innocent person just because I want to stay alive!"
"You already have," Magnus said with a grin, and Yang went silent. He continued. "You are a pathetic excuse for a Valdier, but with my help, you could be great. I could give you power beyond your wildest imagination. Riches could be yours. Anything you want, at the snap of your fingers."
A gunshot rang out, and they both looked toward the nearby pier. Blake stood there, Gambol Shroud in hand, aimed at Magnus. Magnus grinned, leering at Blake. He smiled. Yang climbed to her feet grabbed for him, but he turned to smoke yet again and flew toward the Cat Faunus.
"No! Blake, look out!" Yang cried, and Blake started shooting at the smoke cloud, but it did no good as it drew closer and closer to her. It drew near, but instead of reforming as Magnus, it surrounded her.
"Blake!"
Yang found herself leaping to her feet and sprinting to her friend, disintegrating into a cloud of golden smoke.
Blake put both hands to her throat as the Magnus cloud entered her mouth. Yang's cloud body entered Blake's mouth right after Magnus, and Blake coughed violently.
Yang couldn't let him take her.
Not in a million years.
Blake fell to her knees in a coughing fit, wheezing painfully, her eyes watering as Yang and Magnus waged a battle within her lungs. She couldn't breathe. She was suffocating. Her blurry vision was rimmed with darkness now, and rapidly growing dimmer and dimmer. She collapsed on her back and passed out.