The air in the Emerald Forest was thick and foreboding. There were none of the typical noises that such an environment would typically have- no crickets, no rustling of leaves, not even wind whistling through the trees. Everything was still save for the gentle sound of the crackling fire pit, as though the forest itself was waiting for something. The young huntress sitting atop a fallen tree by the fire knew what it meant- a predator was nearby. Her target was probably close.
She was ready… or so she thought.
Two of the bodies had been found and called in to Professor Ozpin, but the third was still missing. The man had insisted that she didn't report their whereabouts to the local authorities until all three of the missing civilians had been located. She didn't understand why- she didn't understand him- but she always, always followed orders… his orders, anyway. He was the first to recognize her talents for what they really were, and the first to appreciate her skill in combat as something above that of the average huntress. She was done being undervalued and sent on hunts below her level. Professor Ozpin had insisted that the mission she was on was incredibly dangerous, and he almost didn't want to send her at all.
She had insisted. He had apologized. She hadn't understood why. He had refused to elaborate.
The first corpse had been in pieces, seemingly mauled by an ursa- a bear-like grimm that stood larger than two adult men standing one atop another. He had been disemboweled, his intestines littering the forest floor in tangled heaps and trailing behind him as he had tried to crawl away. The man had lost an arm for his efforts at escaping… as well as his face. Nothing remained of human features- there was just a caved-in dent filled with blood and bone where anything identifying about the man's face would have been. In fact, she couldn't confirm that he was one of the missing at all. While it had clearly been some kind of creature, and most likely a grimm, that had killed him… the creature had searched him after his death.
A wallet was open next to the body, covered in mud and partially ripped open. The seam along the side was split, as though something, or someone had tried to open it without understanding how wallets worked or what they were. His lien wasn't taken, though several of the notes were torn and strewn around the area. There was no identification anywhere near the scene- no driver's license, business card, insurance, credit card- nothing at all. Only bits of splintered plastic were scattered nearby, implying that the articles had been either intentionally destroyed or crushed in a fit of disappointment. She had marked the scene with a buried crystal of gravity dust to act as a signal later and moved on, touching nothing at the scene.
Maybe it wasn't a grimm after all.
The second body was somehow even worse, despite being mostly untouched. It was that of a young woman, and again, her I.D. was totally missing. Though her features were intact, the huntress on assignment found that she wished that they weren't. The victim's face was unnaturally pale and frozen in absolute terror, as though she had seen something beyond comprehension… and her jaw was spread wide and wrenched to one side at an impossible angle. Her skin and the overall structure of the rest of her skull were untouched, and there didn't appear to have been a struggle. The only thing strange at all other than her complexion was the flecks of black goo around her lips… and the occasional, gentle twitching of her corpse.
Something was inside the body.
Another crystal had been buried, though far enough away that whatever had taken the cadaver as a host had no chance at finding new prey. She couldn't think of anything native to Sanus that behaved in such a way, at least when it came to manipulating the dead. Grimm 102 had mentioned the geist, a variety of grimm capable of controlling inanimate objects… but her professor had said nothing of possessing the formerly living. Either way, she refused to get close and alert the parasite before finding the third victim in hopes that they were still alive. There was no room for error, and upon reporting in, Professor Ozpin had insisted that the huntress withdraw from the forest entirely.
She had refused on the grounds that she might not be too late to save someone. He had told her that surviving the night with knowledge of what was really going on would be a worse fate than dying while attempting to fight what waited within the trees. She didn't believe him.
She should have.
Finally, there was the telltale sound of crunching leaves and breaking twigs. Whatever was lurking was drawing closer to her camp, likely following the light. She had grown weary of searching, and instead intended to lure the beast to her. Without a word, she reached down and grabbed the short hafts of her twin scythes before slowly rising to stand, her long black cloak rustling around her. The weapons were decorated with grey skulls on the backs of their blades, and the eyes of the decorative features were alight with lavender dust. Her weapons were custom-made, and a point of pride. She was ready for whatever was coming.
Maria Calavera had graduated top of her class at Beacon Academy, merely a year prior. She was a young huntress in the prime of her life with bronze skin and short black hair that messily framed her face and contrasted her peculiar silver eyes. Professor Ozpin had offered her a work study at the Academy with the intent of making her a professor in time, but she wasn't at all interested- she did want to work for the man, but as his private, secret mercenary. He had reluctantly obliged, sending her on mission after mission to deal with things that most would consider unsavory or too dangerous for typical Academy students- it was an arrangement that had begun even before her graduation, at the beginning of her senior year. Professor Ozpin had never seemed worried to send her out or withheld information about an assignment until that night. Maria had made it her personal goal to find out why, and she wasn't going to stop until she had her answer. The danger didn't matter- answers did.
Something about the mission was personal to Professor Ozpin. Something about it was wrong. He wanted Maria to teach and remain at the university for a reason, and he kept bringing it up to try to dissuade her from going out. It had to have something to do with whatever beast she was hunting, or else he wouldn't have tried so hard to talk her into running away from it. At the end of the day, though, Professor Ozpin had no one else he could rely on to deal with it. When Maria had suggested that he hunt it down or accompany her in doing so, he had seemed scared and almost angry. It was a first- she had seen him fight, and she had never encountered anything that would have stood up to the man and provided an actual challenge.
She had to know why.
"Show yourself," Maria ordered as she gave her weapons a quick whirl and began to turn in a slow circle, scanning the spaces between the trees. "No more games. I don't have the patience for this bullshit. I know you're there."
A humanoid figure appeared at the edge of the tree line as if on command. Its movements were unnatural, as though it was being puppeteered by something that didn't quite understand human motions rather than walking on its own. Upon entering the camp and shuffling into the light, the figure fell forward and steadied itself by planting a hand down into the dirt. Maria recognized them immediately- it was the third missing person, a shopkeeper from Vale City. He was a man in his mid-forties and slightly overweight… though his neck and face didn't appear at all rounded or typical for someone out of shape. His breathing was labored, and Maria quickly realized that he wasn't the third missing person at all.
He was the third corpse.
Maria stood her ground as she watched the body twitch much like the woman she had found earlier. His unoccupied arm twisted up and around his back, the bones breaking and contorting while the man began to vomit a familiar liquid from his distended stomach. She recognized it as what was only called 'grimm material', and it was then that she noticed his eyes were alight with the telltale yellow glow of the beasts. Slowly but surely, the man's stomach flattened as an inordinate amount of the thick, black goo left him, pooling out on the forest floor. The substance seemed to slowly creep toward Maria, and she slashed a scythe down into the dirt to draw a line as she took a step backward.
"That's far enough, if you can understand me," Maria declared, putting on a brave face. She steeled herself for something to rise out of the pool as the surface began to bubble. "Whatever the hell you are, I'm not letting you leave this forest. Are you some new form of geist? A foreign grimm?"
As if to answer, the man's eyes rolled back into his head before he slumped forward into the wretched pool. No more movement came from his body… though the surface of the grimm material began to bubble more violently. Over a period of about a minute, a large, translucent bubble of black began to form, growing vertically as it began to shrink inwards around an unfamiliar shape within it. Maria watched in silence as another figure manifested within the slimy cocoon-like structure, its alabaster skin catching the moonlight through the membrane. Eventually, the thin shell squeezed in around the creature and burst, slithering down its skin in trails of inky black.
Before Maria stood what appeared to be a human woman unlike any she had seen before, newly birthed from the twisted chrysalis. The naked figure stood amid the puddle of grimm, her skin impossibly white and marked with sprawling, protruding blood vessels of shimmering red and black that looked almost threatening in nature. The branches of the veins were long, meandering, and prominent, adding alien texture to the mysterious woman's skin in a way that didn't look at all human. They formed patterns that Maria didn't recognize, curving up along the sides of the stranger's torso and beneath her breasts in a formation that almost looked like gills. In the center of her forehead was an ovular shape that seemed to be made of the same writhing, bulging material as the tubing. The structure softly pulsed, confirming that it was more alive than a simple decoration.
Long, spindly white hair slick with grimm material clung to the woman's body, reaching down almost to the small of her back and wrapping around her arms. The sclera of her eyes were an unnatural black, and her pupils were slitted almost like a cat's, surrounded by blood red irises. She appeared entirely unashamed by her state of undress, the slithering goop slowly crawling down her skin leaving her more unclothed with every passing second. In fact, she was entirely emotionless, her gaze locked upon Maria's as the two stood staring at each other in silence. Maria couldn't think of a quip for what felt like the first time in her life. Though she didn't know who or what specifically she was looking at, she knew that the woman was what Professor Ozpin had been so afraid of.
She knew that she was looking at grimm itself made manifest in a way that defied the natural order.
"…you have the stance of a trained warrior," the visitor stated plainly, her tone almost alluring. "Too practiced and relaxed in a way that amateurs wouldn't understand. A Beacon Academy graduate, perhaps? One of Ozma's prized fighters? One that he would… miss?"
Maria had to focus as hard as she could not to tense up at the threatening words. The woman's voice cut through her very soul, and she knew immediately that for once, she was in legitimate danger.
"Who are you?" Maria asked as she tightened her grip on her weapons. "Why are you killing innocent people?"
"None of your kind are innocent," the woman replied. "But I will give you one chance at survival, all the same- tell me where it is, and you will leave this place alive."
Maria's mind and heart were racing. She had no idea what the woman was referring to… but it didn't matter. If she got what she wanted, she would become an even greater threat. That much was clear.
"…I'm not telling you a fucking thing," Maria spat.
Time almost seemed to slow. Her Semblance warned her that something was about to happen- that the writhing pool beneath the woman was about to move. Without a second thought, Maria leapt backward as the intruder's face twisted into a scowl and shimmering, multicolored wisps manifested around her fingertips.
Maria Calavera knew that she was in for the fight of her life.
Author's Note:
Next time- young Maria vs Salem.
-RD