Heretic notes:
F1N4LLY! TH1S 4RC 3NDS TOD4Y!
Okay, 2 BGMs must be used, only when I say so in the specific points in the story.
They are...
Chaos Rings OMEGA OST - Not My Story
Chaos Rings 2 OST - Hallowed Beast
3NJOY TH3 4RC F1N4L3, P3OPL3!
The Director of Jammer, Merlina, was lying down on a net.
Floating around her were her tarot cards. In front of her were a few hologram screens. In her belly, a keyboard.
"Jeez. Why am I even doing this? It's not as if I'm gaining anything or if that has anything to do with my job".
The Mercenary sighed. So much trouble for what? It was not like anyone was even paying, asking or would even congratulate her for that. Or rather, barely anyone would know what she was doing.
But she still did it.
"Okay, let me see" with the cards and information she had, the director continued to work. "If I'm right, Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikkos, team RWBY, the rest of team VLNT, the princess and a random wild card are in this right now".
She proceeded her reasoning with her thinking:
'The wild card is whoever messed up with the systems to avoid anyone from discovering Arc was actually an illegal student. But this guy was so bad at covering his tracks that had Orlok not inferfered in the conference, he would be caught. He is Cardin Winchester and his involvement with all of this is... random'.
The screens were updated. She finally got what she wanted.
Half of team RWBY was at Beacon, the other half was wandering in Vale.
Jaune and Pyrrha had their signals lost, but she expected as much from her cards.
And, the members of VLNT alongside the Princess were...
"Come... on... you guys really have to make this harder and harder, right?"
RWBY: Against All Odds
Orlok was floating in a whirlwind.
The sky was dyed red while he emitted a darkness and his skin around the eyes were covered with blood-red tribal markings.
Bathory and Luna tried to handle themselves against him.
Advancing. Bathory was piercing and swinging her spears while Luna punched and kicked.
But Orlok easily evaded Bathory's attacks and blocked Luna's with his bare palms.
"Useless" stated the prince scornfully.
As the duo fought in the blood red tornado of wing and rocks, Tracy was far from it.
Lying on the ground, the unconscious girl was losing more and more blood.
Her life was on the line.
Arc 2 - Fallen Hero
"Let me pass" asked Jaune once more.
That girl stood on his way.
She dressed in black and white. Pants, a long sleeved short and fingerless gloves. Every piece of clothing was rather assymetrical in the distribution of the colors. Also, they seemed a bit large. Either for free movements or to hide something else.
"This is the last warning. Either you go back or you forfeit your life right now."
Vicious green eyes and a long black curly hair. That girl had ears - faunus ears on the top of her head. She was a coyote and Jaune felt like a prey.
"You have something to do with this, don't you?" Asked Jaune.
"Go back" she said.
"You are the guard. They put you here in case someone came over either by accident or purposefully."
The girl unsheathed a sword. It was a curved black fiendish large blade, made not to fight humans, but to cut through monsters.
"You speak too much".
Jaune smirked. His scroll had lost its signal and the behavior of that girl changed. He spoke too much - he knew too much.
He was right.
But he was alone. For some reason, Pyrrha disappeared and with the signal lost, it meant he couldn't contact her. Jaune first considered running away, but he felt that girl would kill him the moment he turned his back.
SWOOSH
CLANK!
The blade hit his shield.
Before he could think or act, she attacked aiming at his neck. He barely blocked that attack in time.
"Idiot" she said.
Jaune drew his sword and slashed at her. She evaded the slash and attacked, but this time she aimed at his very shield.
A crack spread through it.
"What the-"
And, in that small moment of surprise the girl attacked again at the same spot. The shield broke in two halves and fell out of his arm.
Only then Jaune understood everything.
That was a true battle. A fight against that girl, that unlike Tepes wanted to kill him, was one that a mistake would kill him.
And he was unprepared. He never truly recovered of his fight with Vladimir. His body was still damaged and so was his equipment. He never bothered with maintenance of his equipment while Ruby went as far to build a new weapon for upcoming battles in addition to repairing Crescent Rose.
He didn't learn with his losses.
The girl advanced again. Silently, viciously, deadly.
She took away his shield and was going to take away his life.
"As if I will let you!" Shouted Jaune.
Their blades clashed.
Her clothes fluttered.
Her fingers snapped.
Jaune's instincts screamed.
Chapter: Fall of a Hero
"Oof! That hurt a bit" muttered Mary.
Her body was slammed against the wall with cracks appearing.
However, by the side, another Mary played the strings of the guitar and the other recovered.
'This is bad' thought Pyrrha.
Still wounded from Vladimir.
[Sin] - Ruby said something about that. It was the weapon Chimaerians used made of ancient technology.
One week had passed and she didn't recover.
And now, that.
Mary Rees Metal - the girl that came to question her and avenge the prince. She didn't bother with questions and didn't listen to Pyrrha.
Pyrrha didn't know the semblance of that bear faunus, but she was a tricky opponent.
Three Marys stood against her. One used the guitar and released sonic attacks while her notes brougth support upon the others.
Another one had her guitar become a bow and shot homing arrows at her.
The other simply advanced with her guitar becoming a battle axe.
"C'mon, Nikkos! Use your semblance! Try a bit harder!"
The Mary with the battle axe teased her.
Pyrrha really wanted to, but it was useless against those girls. She understood: the guitar Mary was releasing some sort of electromagnetic wave constantly.
While [Polarity] worked with magnetism, that wave probably was giving magnetic properties to all metals present in that small radius. It wasn't a simple wave; it flickered and changed constantly. She couldn't adapt fast enough.
But she could still fight three opponents at the same time.
Luna's kick slashed the red air.
Bathory's spear pierced the bloody wind.
Faster than both of them, Orlok grabbed Luna's ankle and slammed her against Bathory as if she was a basebal bat.
Bathory's body flew over and crashed against a building.
Proceeding, Orlok pulled Luna and punched her stomach.
Her armor was intact, but her body...
Some sort of martial art... that punch devastated her from inside out, ignoring her defenses.
Orlok let her go.
Like a doll, she crashed against the asphalt.
The Knight had fallen.
Far away, a blacksmith entered the battlefield. His sword, in hand.
Ruby and Blake stopped on their tracks.
Merlina's voice came out of their scrolls:
"You heard me, girls. The original location Arc found was actually the right one!"
Blake and Ruby traded a glance.
"But Mary said he was wrong!"
"... who is this Mary you speak of?"
Jaune traded and received hits.
None of his attacks connected. A few of her attacks didn't.
Hit after hit he received.
His aura was dropping slowly as the battle was progressing and...
He saw that.
A small empty airship, with size for just one small group of people.
It ascended to the skies.
In Telka's left forearm was a small touch screen... or a control panel.
"Lodestar, target and calculate. Eliminate the human male in front of me!"
"A student from your school" said Ruby through the screen. "Mary Rees Metal".
Merlina opened her eyes wide.
"The Bloody Mary? This Mary?"
"Yes" agreed Blake. "Why?"
Merlina's jaw dropped. Now something made sense. Others didn't.
"Oh god..." she muttered. "This is bad, this is really really bad. If that person is behind this, then..."
'But they won't believe if I say she is an enemy...'
"LISTEN!" The director shouted. "What matters is that Arc's original location was the right one. Go there! NOW!"
Then she heard...
An explosion
"Girls... what just happened?"
Heretic Notes: Play the ''Not My Story''
The Omega OST, that one! Play it! ! ! ! ! !
Ruby and Blake narrowly avoided the building crash.
They could hear voices. Screams. Fights. A riot.
Blake was the first to speak:
"I think a terrorist attack may just have happened".
Merlina's expression was blank. That wasn't coincidence.
'Mary has sent them somewhere they won't return soon. If that girl really has connections to the White Fang, she knew something would happen around there!'
'But this means those two won't be of help. Damn... Chad is good. How can a person look so far ahead in the battlefield without even being able of seeing the future?'
'One thing is for sure... those girls aren't the agents that may help me. They are already accounted for in Chad's chessboard'.
Pyrrha turned the tides on the battle.
Her body was burning, but she could and would still win.
Three Marys were being cornered. They were being slowly defeated and they knew it.
Pyrrha had skill to overcome them. They knew that, no matter how much one could heal the other, it was only a matter of time before she somehow managed to beat the trio at the same time.
But Pyrrha didn't see it...
The fourth opponent hidden all along...
Pyrrha advanced. She evaded the soundwave, blocked the arrow and hit the axe, leaving all three Marys in a stalemate.
The Girl of Red Hair was ready.
A card was thrown and hit Pyrrha in the back.
"Argh!"
Blood came out from that spot and she felt the world going cold.
It wasn't enough to beat her, but the three Marys followed ans simultaneously attacked her.
An arrow pierced her ankle.
An axe slashed her shield arm.
The strings played the howling song that robbed her of her conscience.
The prodigious girl symbolized by the flames of victory was the next one to fall.
Newton felt Orlok's glare in the distance.
His sword was at hand, but it didn't matter: Orlok could easily beat him.
So, he did the unexpected, surprising even the prince.
The sword was thrown in the ground and his hands at the sky.
Newton gave up.
"What?" Orlok was confused.
The young blacksmith pointed at Tracy and Luna.
"I didn't come here to fight. I came here to treat my friends. I beg you, my prince... please, allow me."
Orlok side-gazed at him, turning over to his sister while speaking:
"Do what you want".
Newton realeased his breath.
The blacksmith, giving up his battle and prioritizing his friends wouldn't wage that fight. His friend was right: his battle was another one, an indirect one:
To help, not to spill blood.
Ruby looked at the lid to the sewers.
Merlina had disconnected. They wouldn't have anymore help from her.
But they knew where they had to go and that was the quickest way.
"You ready, Blake?"
She nodded.
"Arachne said this is how they did. A human for the light and faunus for the darkness. Now I get it" she smiled to her friend. "I will guide us there. But ready yourself, it won't smell good".
Ruby smirked at her and both entered the sewers.
Jaune's battle...
Was one bound to lose.
"Feel the judgement... of the falling stars!" Shouted that girl.
He finally understood.
He finally discovered what wasn't fitting.
It was that: where could someone that deals with machines be found.
The airship released lasers of light.
Every ray predicting a position Jaune would be in a near future.
"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Every light hitting and scorching him.
His aura dropping dramatically and, in the end, that girl dealt the last hit with her sword, his blood evaporating in the boiling ground.
Finally, he fell backwards.
The boy symbolized by the White Knight chess piece muttered one last word before fainting:
"Clockwork..."
Orlok grabbed Bathory by her neck and slammed her against the wall.
"Your insolence knows no bounds!" He shouted. "How dare you? HOW DARE YOU?!"
The ground cracked. His power couldn't be beaten.
"I will..." Bathory struggled to speak. "Not let you... win this... Vlad will be avenged... you will fall for betraying him... brother..."
Orlok opened his eyes wide.
"What?"
Merlina bit her thumb.
Such a mistake.
Such an obvious opponent.
It was all under their noses, but Mary was the proof.
Mary Rees Metal - The Bloody Mary. A member of Clockwork's best first year team, lead by the prodigious strategist Chad Es Shade.
Yes, Clockwork.
And worse of all, they had Es Shade. She knew very well how fearsome Chad was.
It was a person that could take into account most possibilities, a person capable of making plans inside of plans and deal with the unknown quickly.
The pieces Chad acquired were the students. And they were already dealt with.
Sadly enough, if she was right, Chad was already taking HER into account too in some sort of way. Which meant...
"I need a wild card. I need a random element that appeared beyond Chad and couldn't be exactly prepared to deal with".
"STOP!" Shouted Tracy.
The siblings turned around. On the ground, being treated by Newton, Tracy spoke.
"I... am sorry, Orlok".
"Tracy?" muttered Bathory.
Orlok gazed at her. Tracy continued to speak:
"You... all this time... were doing just like Bathory, right? You never intended to take things too far... you just wanted... to scare people to find Vlad faster... right?"
Bathory looked at her surprised... and Orlok...
"Yes".
"What?" Asked his sister.
"I said YES, you idiot!" He glared at her. "How could you... how could you actually think I would try to kill any of you?!" Shouted the prince at her.
"But... but... all the things you did..."
"Oh, right!" Orlok glared at Bathory. "When it is you, everyone understands. When it is me, it is because I am trying to kill everyone! Curse you!" In the middle of his anger and destruction, Bathory could feel something, sadness. "I know I did many things that make you all look at me as if I am a monster, but how could you? How. Could. You. Even for a while... believe I would do that..."
Orlok released her. Bathory fell on the ground.
Glaring at her, the prince floated.
"Curse you... Curseyoucurseyoucurseyou! I do not care anymore!"
"Orlok, wait! I-"
She tried, but it was too late. Enveloped in the darkness, Orlok disappeared.
"... I... am sorry..."
A princess was left in the ground, defeated in combat and destroyed as a person.
Heretic: Play Hallowed Beast!
Play it! Play it! Play it!
And, finally...
Telka readied her sword. Arc knew too much.
"Sister, wait!" Shouted Chad.
"No" Telka walked towards Jaune. "You aren't capable of doing this. But I am".
"That isn't necessary!"
"It is. Watch and learn, Chad. For us to win this, it won't end with just one person. Many people will die either way!"
What is a war?
Her sword pierced his chest, his heart and the ground bellow the body.
"Telka..."
The coyote faunus took away her sword from Arc's body and watched as the bleeding made a pool of blood.
But...
"What the..."
She felt something.
A dispute with everything on the line.
Darkness.
A putrid power that should not be.
The blood was starting to return to the body.
"What... is going on?!"
Chad's voice came out of her earphone:
"Don't you remember my orders to Mary? I ordered her to use one of Leaves' cards - I ordered her to curse him".
Telka opened her eyes wide.
"The Curse of the Beast!" She shouted without believing it.
The blood returned to the body.
The wound closed.
The boy, that was supposed to have died, was still alive.
A confront of the so-called heroes.
Chad continued to speak:
"Why simply eliminate a piece... when we can change its color?"
The boy irradiated an aura. It was the aura of pure darkness. A corrupted power that was scarying Telka.
But what she couldn't believe was one thing:
"You prepared yourself to me..."
"..." Chad didn't answer.
"You made this whole plan, knowing I would be the one to strike him down! You knew all along. The quickest way to make the curse take over is putting the target on the line of death".
"... yes".
The boy opened his eyes. The blue was a powerful ominous one, cyan as if it came from a night star.
And the white parts of the eyes had blackened out.
They weren't the eyes of human or faunus.
Those weren't the eyes of a monster of grimm.
They were the eyes of a beast.
Then who is the villain?
Jaune Arc had fallen.
Fallen in combat.
Fallen as a hero.
The corrupted soldier rose while emanating that curse that reeked of blood.
And then, finally... Telka realized on last thing.
Ravenna finished her assignment by Newton.
What she discovered were good news along with many questions.
In the end, such a strife has no heroes, no winners and certainly no happy ending.
Telka started to speak:
"Leafy had said... she said that you used one of her cursed cards on that night".
"..."
"This means that... you used it on him..."
"Yes".
"Which means..."
It's a tale without villains...
Ruby couldn't see right in the darkness of the sewers, but she smelled something different and heard Blake gasp.
"Blake? What happened?"
"Oh god..."
"Blake, what are you seeing?"
"Words..."
"Words?"
"Oh my god... Ruby, don't!"
But she did.
Ruby pointed her light at the wall and saw those red words.
...only victims.
Ravenna spoke with a smile:
"Our prince..."
Telka looked at Jaune with fear.
"The prince..."
A story where in the end...
Ruby looked at those words in the walls of the sewers.
Words written in dried blood:
I AM THE PRINCE
I AM ALIVE
Ravenna and Telka at the same time:
"He is still alive".
... someone will cry.
Arc 2 - Fallen Hero - End
Heretic Notes:
Mwahahahaha!
What, you didn't understand? I will spell it for ya:
Members of team CLMT are antithesis to team RWBY.
Mary Rees Metal was the Three Bears at the same time.
BUT, DON'T YOU R3M3MB3R :?
The Queen is the enemy of Snow White.
The Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
:]
But there is a tale which the enemy is rather passive. The tale of The Beauty and The Beast.
:[
The Beast wasn't the enemy, but he was cursed. In some tales, cursed by an evil fairy to become a monster.
You guys still don't get it?! H4H4H4!
C - Ch. Es S. - The Queen
L - Leaves Ellis - The Evil Fairy
M - Mary Rees Metal - The Three Bears
T - Telka Es Shade - The Big Bad Wolf
:D
L - Leaves Ellis - The Evil Fairy
D:
Y3S, TH4T
:]
Arc 2 - Fallen Hero.
There are many ways a hero can fall.
In combat
In glory
In corruption
In purpose
In arc 1, Vlad demonstrated it when he gave in to his desires to fight strong opponents.
Arc 2 wasn't made to be about only one person. Fallen Hero isn't one exclusive character, but many.
Tracy, Luna and Pyrrha were defeated (combat)
Newton didn't fight, he gave up his role, choosing to bet in the goodwill of Orlok (purpose)
Finally, both Jaune and Vlad were cursed (Corruption)
Orlok is rather different to that all, he IS before everything else a hero. However, being the hero of Chimaera makes him an enemy to anybody else.
Then there is also Ren that took the truck for Jaune.
Etcetera etcerera et al.
It was all about that text. Remember?
A war without villains, only victims.
Well, there we have it. The next arc will start with a bang!
It will also be rather small.
But now I'm curious! Yes, I am!
I am just like when I ended arc 1
What did you people think about his arc, the Fallen Hero arc?
Opinions? Questions? Cocerns?
D3N13D!
:D
Just kidding. I will answer (or try to at least)
Either way, I'm going now.
See you again soon, people!
Heretic, out!