Why hello again one and all to RWBY: FORCES, and I would just like to thank all those who still follow this work even if it feels abandoned at this point. I promise to try to never do such a thing to you people again, ever. I will try to regularize updates at every Saturday, SEA time. If not, it'll be updated earlier every Friday, or later every Monday. I love all of you my small group of following readers to ever abandon you. So I hope after this chapter you still stick around for more.

And remember:

"Normal Voice" 'Thoughts'

"Skull Knight" "Idea of Hope"

"Demon Voice" 'Demon Thoughts'

"RWBY" is a property of "Rooster Teeth, while "Berserk" is a property of Kentaro Miura.
I own nothing but the plot of this story

And finally for…

RWBY

~FORCES~

Chapter 1

Awakening

Within a lush, green forest, far into the outskirts of Vale, everything is as peaceful as usual, even for the Creatures of Darkness. Lush lands filled to the brim with greenery and life, one could almost say it's a bit too peaceful. And you'd be right, what with a silently singed patch of land with the strangest sight any living being would see. There stood the Skull Knight, in all his skeletal glory. Of course he'd be the only one awake at the moment, he didn't have any flesh and bone to horribly rejuvenate for himself.

Unlike his once again "ward".

On the ground is Guts, unconscious from the absolutely harrowing experience, portions his flesh still reforming on his body, slightly twitching and grunting in pain every now and then. As he is the only one awake between the two, the spectre looks around him, hopefully finding shelter for the unconscious Struggler, fortunately he senses a cluster of living souls a few ways off to the east, hopefully it is a settlement. He also noticed saddled behind him is just an old cloak, an old cloak that looks all too familiar on the swordsman before him. Quite possibly the only gift the "Good One", as he calls the Idea of Hope, has for the Struggler. Then he heard the stirring of his companion, looking completely restored.

"Ugh… Whr'th'hll'm I?" Guts says as he gets up.

"The New World, Struggler." the Skull Knight replies.

The swordsman steadied himself, looking around in the same forest getting his bearings of the immediate area. Trees, lots of trees is all he sees.

'So I'm stuck out here in a new world, in the middle of a forest, possibly in a huge thicket of the Creature's dwellings, with absolutely nothing on.', Guts sighs as he laments his absolute disadvantage.

"Zero odds for my side again, huh." Guts says resigned.

"It is within the nature of your very existence, the Struggler, to fight uphill all your life." replied the voided soul.

"I never said I had a problem with it..."

"Though I would not say that all the stakes are against you..." he continues "You are still branded, Struggler." which prompted him to feel for his neck, where the damned mark is, only to feel a scar.

'Huh, that's weird.' he thought. Not that it still takes away the rather obvious disadvantage.

"And this monster magnet is supposed to help me how?"

"It will, Struggler. You will learn in time, like you always have." was the spectre's reply

"Again with the barely helpful cryptics..."

"I will at least help you this much. There is a settlement, I hope, far to the east. A good place to begin your mission, Struggler." The knight said as he gestured towards the general direction of the gathering of living souls.

"I have almost forgotten, the only other protection you have, your old cloak." He then tossed to Guts his old tattered cloak, the one thing that remained with him since his time with The Band of The Hawk.

"Huh, thanks I guess. At least I'm not walking into a village completely naked." he says as he puts the cloak over himself, also putting on the hood with it.

"Farewell for now Struggler. We will-"

"'Meet again when it is destined.' I've heard you say that enough times in my last life to memorize it." he interrupted, copying even his voice, surprising even Skull Knight. If he still has a head underneath his armor, he would have been smirking honestly.

"And don't speak to me about fate or destiny ever again. You remember what happened to my last destiny, right?" the swordsman continues, reminding the spectre of the moment he proved why it is his very nature to oppose destiny.

"Then I need not remind you of that again." he simply says as he rides of, fading quickly out of existence.

And so he walks off to supposed safety as the bonehead suggested. As he treks through the forest, he takes time to look around the area. A large green forest, filled with peaceful wildlife. He had to pause for a few running deer and spotted a bunch of squirrels on a low hanging branch. It was peaceful, too damn peaceful.

Reminds him of Alfheim.

How could he forget one of the most significant 'victories' he has over what Griffith has done to his life. It was the time he finally got his body and soul healed from all the abuse he got ever since Qlippoth. It was that day he learned that apparently, when a really tough and strong as hell body is beaten and broken to ridiculous degrees but is given enough and proper recuperation, it heals back stronger than it ever was, especially the bones. Since that day he really took to heart the importance of rest, his number two priority after his trip there ever since was find a safe haven to recuperate from wounds, now his near suicidal charges now had a more reasonable reward to it. But there's a deeper reason why he remembers...

Then he was distracted from his thoughts by a familiar sting on his neck, so much for memory lane then. He reached for his brand, but was surprised that it was still a scar rather than an open wound, that might mean a change in the 'mechanics' of his brand. Still stings like a bitch, though. And surprisingly it didn't take him too long to figure out what Skull Knight said.

He searched around while still moving forward, the ache getting worse, he could swear the brand was opening up again. Then he finally saw the source standing in his way, two bear-like creatures, two werewolf like creatures, and a really big ass werewolf. These must be the 'Dark Creatures' that spawned after the fall of the demons.

He could charge in, it's always been his best strategy. But then again he's almost naked with absolutely no weapon or armor. Resigning to a strategy he's not so fond of, he backs up and tries to sneak past them. Though he isn't the type to go for stealth, that one assassination he did for his bastard of an ex-commander and years of being a predator to a good percentage of demonkind proved he wasn't incapable of it, one might even say he's an apex predator if it weren't for his brand. He could have proved himself capable again, had he not stepped on a stray branch hidden in the grass and leaves, snapping it, and attracting the creatures' attentions before he could even afford to turn his back.

*Grrrrrr*

Going back to his thoughts before his brand acted up, hopefully he is at his absolute peak condition...

The creatures were instantly charging fast at him. He narrowly avoided a swipe from the 'werewolf', before sidestepping just in time to dodge the oncoming bear's shoulder charge. He's going to need to think fast against these things, like he always does anyways. He needs to stay on the defensive for now, just dodging to the best of of his surprising agility until he can figure out as much as he can about these creatures fighting habits.

Thanks to all his dodging and planning he noticed some very useful things. One: these things are WAY slower than his usual demons, the damn things can barely even scratch his cloak, or maybe it was just him; two: they've got some interesting looking spikes on them; and three: the large 'werewolf' isn't attacking, in fact it looks like its waiting, thinking, this one was obviously smarter than the rest of its pack. After longer inspection of those spikes and claws, he could see the spikes on the back of those bear-things look like some good shivs, those claws on the wolves though, perfect swords, especially the ones on the bigger one with the reinforced bone things on it, just his forte. He's gonna need a way to literally and painfully pry those claws out of their cold dead fingers first though, so the bone shivs come first priority.

One of the bear-things swiped for his chest, he dodged backwards, only to unexpectedly back-up to a tree behind him. Then he looked back at his opponents, seeing a werewolf trying to gut him open, top to bottom. Thankfully he was able to sidestep the attack in time to at least reduce the damage to small cuts down his right arm.

Now it was his turn to retaliate as hard and fast as he possibly can in his state. He charged for the most isolated bear-thing to give him breathing space for his understandably suicidal strategy, but it never failed him before in his short but eventful life, and as his usual, it definitely won't fail him now against these dumb beasts.

He bobbed, weaved and dodged the swipes and strikes of the rest of the pitch-black creatures, nothing to slow him down on his course for the menacing, but about-to-be pitiful, bear-monster. And when he finally was close enough, the creature poised to strike, but Guts is always prepared as hell for such a thing. He went under the, to his usual perception, slow and predictable swipe from the boney black bear and got behind the creature and jumped on its back. Using the spikes and fur as footholds for his feet and grips, not for his hand, but his teeth, he steadied himself and with his only hand he gripped onto the largest spike on its back, and started to try and snap it off.

The creature was at first merely irritated by the huge but unbelievably fast meal cloaked in black clinging to his back trying to do something it could barely feel on one of its spikes, but that thought changed immediately when it started to feel said bone-spike painfully and slowly cracking off its back. It tried to shake Guts off by sweeping at its own back, but its huge arms can't possibly reach him. Then it showed some form of intelligence by backing up and smashing Guts to a nearby tree, and it hit, Guts hit the tree hard and had some extra serving of pain by the weight of the bear-creature sandwiching him to the tree. But the swordsman being who he is, he might as well have felt nothing from that impact as he continued to wrench it from the monster's back.

Finally, gorily, and painfully, he broke broke the spike off its back, the nerves and other entrails inside the bone hanging off from both openings of the bones. The monster bear roared in pain and agony of such a primitive and brutal detachment of the bone, but it was nothing compared to the primitive pain of being stabbed to death from all unprotected points of its neck, back, and chest.

The beast, was roaring even louder, if it could, it would have been screaming as his prey turned bloody, unrelenting predator was stabbing him all over where the swordsman can reach on his perch until he finally shoved the spike deep in its eye, deep enough to pierce its brain, then pulled the spike out with the eye still on it. The beast stopped dead in its tracks before slowly limping all its limbs until it finally fell forward.

Then off its back, Guts stood, covered in the blood of his first kill in this new life, his improvised weapon of choice just as bloody with the dead creatures eye impaled on it with the cloak over his body making him look like a bloody Grim Reaper. He looked rather menacing to the creatures, stunning them with the ferocity of his kill, only for a second. These creatures were powered by negativity, and they only wanted to kill their prey more, he could see it in their eyes.

No choice but to straight up kill them then. No problem.

He made the first move, he charged forward, faster than before, he may as well be a black gust of wind, death and pain charging towards his next target. He went for the other bear monster and ducked a swipe from it, then disabled it with a stab at each of its kneecaps, followed by a brutal stab to the neck, then dragging the spike down its body, messily disemboweling the creature, then using his bone spike to break another spike from the dying bear-thing and holding the newly acquired spike by his teeth. He then charged immediately to the werewolves, leaving the bear-thing to bleed to death. The werewolves were honestly faster this time compared to when they first assaulted him, swiping at him before he can get in range forcing him back into the defensive. They were definitely pretty fast, but not fast enough, or strong enough. When the next attack came from both assailants, as luck would have it, their hands were almost perfectly aligned back to back and coming down at the same speed, the perfect setup to stab the first spike to both hands, followed by gripping spike number two off his teeth to stab one wolf in its skull.

Then in another show of ferocity, he almost cleanly cut the large middle finger of the remaining werewolf with a big, painful CHOMP, and proceeded to behead the writhing, roaring wolf with its own claw-sword.

Now all that's left is the bigger, badder wolf. He comes face to face with the creature, they lock eyes, obviously this wolf has a plan of attack despite its instinctual nature. Time to see if its plan will work.

They both charge at the same time, this big wolf moving a hell of a lot faster than the rest of his merry men, they swiped and dodged and slashed at each other like two wild beasts, neither getting the upper hand. A slash coming to the wolfs right only to meet the stronger claws of the beast in a lock, their strength rather even until the swordsman really begins to push, hearing the sound of cracking bones, expecting it to be the werewolf's claws. Then he remembered that the beast's claws were sharper and tougher than his short and flimsy by comparison claw-sword, something he realized too late to save his weapon being cleaved into pieces, but early enough to jump a few ways back from the follow-through swipe.

Fortunately again, as the Black Swordsman's usual dumb luck provides, he steps back to the corpse of the two werewolves, the bone shiv on the first one's skull still intact, he goes for the weapon and pulls it out of its skull, only to turn around to the leader wolf mere feet away from him from a leap, its jaws wide open to bite his head off. Too close to dodge, weapon hand poised too high to gut it mid-air, and the angle impossible for a stab above the head, lest he wants to have his remaining arm chomped clean off.

Doesn't matter as he very quickly realized his only option is not only his, well, only option, but because compared to his previous methods of defense…

This one is much more satisfying.

Adjusting the bone-spike to a straight forehand grip, he lets his arm fly straight.

Straight into its mouth, and all the way down its throat.

The beast couldn't snap its jaw shut to chop its prey's arm off as it was gagging from the horrible forced entry, not to mention the defenselessness off it being suspended in mid-air by being held by an arm shoved deep in its throat. Then from its suspended position, the werewolf's body was forcefully brought to the ground. Then from within the beast, he twists his arm downwards and makes his grip on the bone spike perpendicular, pushing the spike out of the beast's chest. And with what's left of his left arm, he pushes the werewolf off his arm while pulling his right arm out, making an absolute mess of a disembowelment.

He lets go off the ruined corpse, breaths heavy from the thrill of the kill, he looks around and admires his work. Two bears, two werewolves, and a big ass smarter werewolf, all down in short work with nothing but his wits and brute strength to thank for.

He would have been extremely proud of himself if not for one immediately glaring reason...

"Where the hell did Bone-head say the village was again?"

And as if the world thought that wasn't funny enough, his Brand started to ache. And ache. And then just outright hurt. By the time he touched his Brand again, it's wide open again, bleeding, like it was fresh off the Eclipse again.

Then he heard something behind him. Something huge. Something fast. And something with a lot of legs. His initial thought was an utterly gigantic and fast bug, a thought of which he wasn't that scared of, he's fended off much worse with practically the same equipment provided to him right now. But when he turned around to face his next kill, he was a bit hesitant of his confidence for once

It was a horde of those creatures, and it was a freakishly huge one. He could see, what, forty, sixty? Its got a bunch of those bears, bigger bears, the two kinds of werewolves he faced, some new monster boars tagged along with even bigger boars. He may have fought a horde just as bad if not worse, but at least he had a bunch of extra swords he could use then and he only survived because Skull Knight bailed him out. For all his power, skill and confidence, he's not too sure he'll be walking out of this alive, but damn hell will he try.

Then he heard a familiar, loud exploding noise from behind him, like a far away cannon.

His first instinct was to dodge out of the general area he was in, he refuses to die by some cannonball. He waited for a while for that distinct sound of the metal ball coming down, only to hear nothing but more of those sounds and, as he finally noticed, those beasts going down one by one after each bang. Finally he looked at the source of all those, uh, rapid cannon(?) sounds, and found a small band of people.

They held weapons both new and familiar to the swordsman. There were the classic swords, spears, axes and bows, but they also held some long cylindrical weapons, and upon observation, it seems these weapons were the rapid cannons he heard, and the cylinders their barrrels. "Guns" they were called if he remembers

The swarm was being toppled over rather quickly without the humans (at least he hopes they are) getting into melee, they had no need to reload , the bullets shot faster than the normal human eye could see (thankfully Guts isn't so normal, at all) and they kill quickly, too quickly for his tastes, again not that he's really complaining. By the time the swarm, now reduced to a pack of easy pickings, the projectile weapons, transformed? Now that's most definitely new to him.

Before he can be left to his own thoughts, the group was already done with the horde and they were already approaching him while surveying the area. The one man ahead of the others seemed to be their leader. When they reached the area of the small carnage field Guts made, they did a double take.

"What a mezz..." said the rather hulking, muscular leader with a leather "coat" and a crop top and weirdly decorated green pants. His weapon a big, double barreled gun with two blades underneath as long as the length of both barrels. It appears he also has quite an accent.

Then came his other buddy, following close behind, and looking a bit less buff but shirtless save for some straps and bandoliers across his torso, this time with longer, slightly curled hair, the same pants but in brown, hefting a big, multi-barreled, thing, with a big mechanical thing for a main body along with a more mechanical looking bow and arrow combo holstered on his back.

"Yeh, I dun recall uz bein' able to cuz zis much d'mage." it appears he has an even worse accent, too.

"Hey, there's someone there." was heard from behind them, from a less buff, but still well built friend of their's also with a crew cut. Unlike the rest of his buddies, he's actually got a shirt on, except it's sleeveless, showing off the definition on his arms and some plain blue, weirdly textured pants. His weapon, or weapons this time, were two smaller guns with small knives from under the barrel.

The last one just came in, he was just as tall and buff as their leader, but he's also not shirtless, wearing some sort of vest with pockets and padding all over, baggy black pants and gaurds for the joints on his limbs. He held a large gun with a mechanism shaped like a drum.

"You bett'r watch out guyz, he's got a shiv on 'im."

'Okay, seriously, even this guy? What is with these guys and accents? Don't tell me this is the new dialect I have to permanently deal with…'

Upon mention of the weapon on his hand, they started to approach Guts with slightly more caution. They also started to take notice of the rest of his appearance.

Head covered by a hood, but thanks to the morning sun shedding some useful light, they could see enough of his face: one eye closed for some reason and some nasty scars here and there. From what they could make out from the portion of his right leg and right arm visible under the coat, he may be naked under that cloak.

But what really caught their eyes was the blood. Doesn't matter who's it was and where it came from, but he is drenched in the stuff.

Then what happened next surprised all parties. All the blood on Guts's person started to quickly evaporate, Guts was absolutely caught off-guard. Then they all noticed his makeshift weapon almost instantly going from solid to crumbling ash in his hand. That's when the Huntsmen finally noticed the mutilated Grimm also decaying at the same rate.

And then it finally hit the Huntsmen team. All the carnage they just saw was not their doing, even if they wanted to do this much to these damn beasts. It was by the one man in front of them who they assume is naked, with no other weapon but as spike off an Ursa's back from whichever of the poor bastards died first, and if the lack of major bloodstains after they dissolved and the near mint condition, save for the ends of his cloak is any indication, did it without taking even a scratch.

This guy's impressive, and oh do they like impressive in their home village.

The leather coated leader let his weapon transform into its simpler broadsword form, then setting it back on his back holster, he stretched out his hand in a greeting gesture.

"Come wid me, we both want to live now, do we?"

FORCES

Chapter 1:
The New World

End

So yeah, great news! AN ACTUAL FRIGGIN' UPDATE AT LAST!

So I had to tweak the last parts of this chapter so as to properly fit the appearance of my OC team I originally reserved for when Guts finally arrives at Beacon. But then after reviewing their bios, they actually ended up better as graduates who decide to instead bodyguard their little out-of-kingdom village as their job along with its surrounding resource area, making the perfect to actually go on and meet Guts this early instead.

But to anyone who still wants to submit any OC team at all, you are all very perfectly welcome to still do so. I mean, we've got this village and a good 50 percent of the Beacon student body to fill up, friggin' submit at your heart's content! You got a friend who has a team in mind? Tell him about this too!

Anyone's welcome to submit, and I mean ANYONE!

And again, just PM it to me, And with me being a sucker for cool OC's, everyone has an 80% chance of having their team featured prominently here.

Any and all accepted teams

will NOT be forgotten in the long run.

As always, please R&R, constructive criticisms, positive or negative, are always welcome.

Thanks

~CE~

P.S.: Can my helpful and willing readers guess who the four introduced Huntsmen are almost blatantly based off of?