Warning: This is a Chapter I rate M, for descriptions of rather graphic violence. I may up the rating on the story, depending on your feedback.
Life was good.
His was a pale, almost exhausted face, seemingly permanent bags under his eyes. Relatively youthful, his life and skills credited to a very violent past. From a life spent spilling an almost endless amount of blood to one where the most violent one would get would be a raised voice. Still however, he had succumbed to the bloodthirst in his previous life, and was silenced almost mercifully.
He had woken up, fists flailing, to a concerned town's population who gathered around this individual who was found collapsed by a mailbox in the dead of night. And he had been taken in, made one of their own.
He was a server at a small coffee store. Mundane, unexciting work. It was such a drastic shift from his old life that he had seen it with an unprecedented amount of enthusiasm and almost endless bemusement. He always had a very charming smile as he served, which attracted quite a few women. Only he would know it was because of how amused he was at his new life.
His equipment was in a box in his closet in his condo. He was now wearing an unadorned white shirt and jeans. He had promptly and immediately bought five identical sets of these articles of clothing; he had never been picky when it comes to what to wear.
His lady was a young, pretty thing. Golden curls bounced down her back in a lovely cascade. Demure in attitude, yet not some mere damsel. Light blue eyes the color of a lake shining in the sun. Many a painter would give an arm and a leg to have the opportunity to paint one like her.
She had been interested in what she called "old school gallantry". The nerve; that was merely what he had grown up with!
And now she was gone.
He had received a notification on his Scroll; "Come to the docks unarmed. We demand ransom." A picture followed, of his lady with a knife at her throat. He wasn't even sure how they got his number, nor why they had selected him as a target. At this point, he frankly didn't care.
Masked bastards, who held his lady at knifepoint. His hands clenched into white knuckled fists.
Fine.
He would not go as this happy civilian.
If they wished to spill blood, then they would face one of the most violent and skilled killers to ever walk the night.
With a calm he did not truly feel, he pulled the box out from its place in the closet, opened it, and retrieved the first piece of his old equipment.
An intricately decorated, but almost featureless helm, curved outward like a beak.
. . . . .
Upon his perch atop a hill, he saw everything upon this pier.
Three… no, four of these masked men, this "White Fang" were patrolling the docks.
And on the pier, his lady sat, arms tied, a gag around her.
They hid well. They had made a sort of fortified area using ocean containers. It was a small yet growing port town, so the containers did not surprise him.
But it would not help them.
He dropped from his perch upon silent feet.
The first fell to a surprise attack.
Literature and stories would say that an edge to the throat would kill all but the most resilient of men.
That was a lie.
To truly accomplish this, one would have to cut so deeply it would appear to be an aborted decapitation. It was messy, unclean, and grisly.
He did it without a second thought.
Very early on in his time here, had had discovered a most nasty secret.
His steel seemed to ignore the protective Aura the townspeople had. It was why he had not worn it when others wore some kind of weapon to defend themselves. He sealed it in its sheath and locked it away. It was unnecessary and he did not want to risk losing himself to the red song it sung, yet again.
His blade had snaked from its sheath, the rasp of steel being drawn from brass the only warning the man would ever get, and as he stiffened and turned, he stepped forward and swung the blade forth, the steel almost shrieking with delight.
It was, as mentioned, a grisly and messy death.
The light faded from the two eyes peeking from the mask, and a fine spray of thick blood splattered itself across an unwelcoming, uncaring steel helm, and a dusty, ink black cloak. He had tried to shout for his companions, but his brain was already losing consciousness from the lack of blood. The rapidly cooling corpse slumped against the wall of the container, a pulse of arterial blood painting the steel a morose red.
The second had half his face blown apart by the two chambered pistol. The air cracked and roared, and the man spun away, clutching the ruins of half his face before collapsing and being still.
And now, he paused upon the piers as two shouts of alarm rang across still water, concealed in the shadows as flashlights flicked on.
He raised his blade, caked in blood.
Only a single one moved toward him.
Amateur.
He stepped forward right as the masked man turned the corner, the man pausing in surprise and instinctual fear.
. . . . .
Stella was not sure what to think.
She had been kidnapped when she had taken a brief shortcut through an alley; she hadn't thought much of it. This wasn't a particularly dangerous neighborhood so she felt relatively comfortable going through a well-worn shortcut.
Yet the White Fang was here. Well, not really.
They weren't "real" members of the White Fang, but they were potential recruits. Posers would be a good word. Wannabes. Their attitude was derived from the news and their own perception of how a Fang member would act, and their perception was affected in the same way. Pack aggression, but divide them and put them against someone who knew how to fight...
Internally she sort of scoffed at this cliché setting, almost laughing; it was like a TV show. Soon there'd be a superhero, policeman, or maybe even a trainee Huntsman to come save her.
Yet reality was not written by producers, nor was this on a comfortable, well-lit set. The docks were freezing at this time and her breath fanned out in mists before she had been gagged to prevent screaming for help and risking the attention of this relatively small port town.
At the same time, the snap of a gun was very distinctive, and the would be White Fang member that had a pistol was standing right by her, leering at her like she was some piece of meat. He was shaking now in his boots, the pistol aimed at the container while he sent his friend over to investigate. Neither of them really wanted to check it out. These two were soft, scared children. They had sent out the street member out to serve as the front line of defense. That one probably had grown up with a rough life, if the scars on his arms and face were any indication.
He shakily went out, walking away from the security of his friend, turned the corner, and vanished.
Seconds went by. Seconds turned into minutes.
"R-Rusty? Report!" he called, voice quavering.
No response. He turned to her then, trying to sound commanding but failing.
"S-s-keep behaving."
He walked outwards, towards the dark corner. "This isn't funny Rusty-"
A flask flew from the darkness and smashed against his face. He shrieked, having pulled up his mask to better look at her.
As the limbs of the wannabe fell slack like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he rushed forward.
An almost bird-like mask, ornately decorated and splattered in blood.
A dusty, twin tailed coat, feathered like a crow's wings.
Steel armor, winking in the silver moonlight.
And a curved sword, clenched in a two-handed warrior's grip, blood practically congealed on its edge, making it seem thicker at the tip than it actually was.
. . . . .
He had to make this fast. The ancient rites of Cainhurst that swirled in rippled engravings were never pleasant to bear.
He swung from the upper right, cleaving downward.
This was a blow he used to cut the flesh of beasts, to cut through armor and armored clothes like it was paper.
Against this "White Fang", unarmored save for street clothes? He recognized the red jacket as being one sold in a street corner store. It wasn't made out of anything particularly unique or special.
It practically bisected this, this child. He felt a vague twinge of sympathy and self-disgust, for dipping once more into his blood-soaked past. Yet this was necessary. This would be the first and hopefully last time he would need to draw the Chikage in this lifetime.
The man fell into two halves, steaming offal hitting the ground with an almost unreal sound. The Chikage flicked up, almost contemptuously, and ended the corpse's twitches. Another flick downward as his left hand fell away from the hilt to grasp his repeating pistol and the blood sprayed off it, leaving a pristine blade. He sheathed it, where the hilt became covered by a feathered wing.
And then there was nothing. He strode over to his lady with purposeful strides and swiftly undid the knot tying her wrists. She rubbed them, and he noticed with a surge of anger that her hands had turned an ugly looking whitish-blue, from lack of blood and perhaps the evening chill.
"I am sorry," he said abruptly before anything else.
"Wait, that voice, you're-" she said, her voice turning fearful.
"You were expecting a hero, yet you got me instead, naught but a nameless bloody crow…" He tugged off his helm and dropped it, the metal making a loud clang as it hit the steel dock. The pale, haunted face of her boyfriend grimaced and frowned.
A/N: *heartbeat* No, I'm not dead. College has been kicking my ass severely. Along with that, personal dissatisfaction, with both my writing and the show itself is preventing me from further progressing in the story. RWBY is, by nature and premise, a rather cheerful story for the first two volumes, a "fairy tale" if you would, while Bloodborne channels Lovecraftian horror. I am having some difficulty meshing the two genres in a way that satisfies myself and still retains both the horror of Bloodborne, yet the humor of RWBY.
Some people have been wondering how a Hunter will fare against a Huntsman; this doesn't quite answer that question but I hope this does answer the change in attitude a Hunter has with a Huntsman.
Brutal. Efficient. Merciless. All are apt words used to describe the Hunt.
The star of this omake is none other than the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst. The flask he threw was Numbing Mist. Supposed to numb life essence, but I interpreted that here as basically a highly potent nerve agent. No, I can't translate everything perfectly from game mechanics.
It is not canon. The WoH Crow woke up somewhere in Atlas some three hundred years before the story began, and plied his trade yet again in the first wave of Huntsmen.
Something I failed to mention last chapter, regarding Nero's knowledge of the weapons: the blueprints and knowledge extend only to Hunter weapons; the blueprints of weapons such as the Tonitrus (Church weapon) and Evelen (original by Cainhurst donut steel) are unknown to him. He reverse engineered the Reiterpallasch using the Rifle Spear's mechanics as a base; hence why he needed to test it. Essentially, his Evelyn is a one-of-a-kind weapon that will likely never be seen in Remnant again.
I revealed some mechanics behind how Nero would fight; weapons from the Dream are not blocked by Aura.
The reason?
As it stands anyone in RWBY has a fair chance of beating any normal Hunter by virtue of being: magically invulnerable to all but the most lethal of blows, insanely fast (yes the fights are choreographed but in-universe they aren't and that's my point; contrast with Bloodborne's slow, almost clumsy swings) as well as being ridiculously strong (Ruby, a little fifteen year old, dragging a gigantic ass Nevermore up the side of a cliff), and depending on the Semblance, outright magical powers. It's basically the issue of translating game mechanics and abilities into a real-world(?) environment, since the Dream doesn't necessarily follow the laws of reality.
So, here's how I'm treating the two universes: Bloodborne has more efficient killers, but RWBY has the better fighters. In a tournament style brawl, RWBY would take the win pretty much nine times out of ten, with that loss being through sheer inexperience or some outlying factor. In a straight up fight to the death? Well... that depends on who's fighting, but as Crow demonstrated they don't hesitate to inflict killing blows.
In effect, RWBY's fighters are glass cannons; really damn fast and strong but if Nero or a Hunter gets a single good hit on them, they're done for. Meanwhile Bloodborne's Hunters are mighty glaciers; slow, mostly immobile, full of holes but again, one hit and it's curtains. Natural resilience to pain also allows them to endure much more powerful blows than one might expect; it'd take a blow with the intent to kill, which many Huntsman and Huntresses as shown in RWBY so far lack, to put down a Hunter. A veteran might be able to go against a Hunter, but a rookie Hunter and a rookie Huntsman would be severely one sided.
Weapons that are inherently impossible or "magical" I guess like the Chikage (magically blood soaked steel when transformed) and the Holy Moonlight Blade are forever lost.
However I am always open to feedback; just be gentle, ples. Unless I did something truly atrocious, blast that at me as loud as you can. I despise flaws in my stories.