OPENING AUTHORS NOTES:
Greetings all! This is by no means my first fanfiction. I've written several well-received works for other genres, but prefer to keep this one separated for... reasons.
Also note that this story features an OC main character in addition to Team Jazzberry (Jaune, Weiss, Blake, and Yang) with other canon guests.
CAUTION WARNING DANGER!
This fanfic contains serious spoilers for Coeur-Al-Aran's most epic Fanfic "Not This Time Fate" ( s/11822902/1/Not-this-time-Fate). Do you have to read that one to understand this story? Probably not, but it will most definitely spoil some major plot points, so if you plan on reading that (which I highly recommend) I would do so first.
In addition, I shamelessly stole a certain aspect of Faunus Bioscience from l OmegaInfinity's l "Linked in Life and Love". You'll know it when you see it.
And finally, this fic is a freaking unexpected feels trip. If you are inadequately geared up for said feels trip, please ensure you have your exit buddy. There will be non-explicit allusions to sexy sexy time fairly early on. There will be a *lot* of fallout from sexy sexy time. There will be soaring joy and heartbreak.
Critique is highly welcome, as this has not been Beta reviewed.
GOOD NEWS! This fanfic has been entirely drafted. All 28,000 words, to be published as I review and upload chapters (approximately every couple days). So you have my "this fic will not leave you stranded in the icy wastes of dead fics" promise.
And so we begin!
She stood in a snow-filled clearing, surrounded by evergreens, their boughs weighed down with the same blanket of cold, white mass that covered the ground. Sounds seemed muffled by the soft landscape as the cold seeped into her flesh, into her bones through the thin clothing she wore.
There was something wrong.
She could feel it. It fought through layers of cotton in her head, screaming at her.
Her stance shifted to a crouch, Gambol Shroud coming to hand in firearm mode as her ears pivoted and narrowed eyes scanned the landscape. She twisted as she scanned the area, ensuring she covered the entire panorama of the clearing.
Nothing except the trackless snow, the white-shrouded trees.
No sounds. No Grimm. No… no tracks.
Wait. No tracks?
She shook her head, ears drooping. That makes no sense. No tracks. No tracks from me.
The sense of wrongness increased. There was something here. She knew it. Something important. A threat? Something else?
A roar filled her ears, which flattened reflexively against the overpowering volume, and she spun to see… a huge Megollath, mere yards from her position, charging at full speed toward her.
Her hands came up immediately into a firing stance, sending volley after volley from her weapon into the Grimm as it bore down on her, tusks poised to fling her fragile form aside, heavy feet to crush her to the earth. But the rounds did next to nothing against such a massive and armored beast.
Even as she emptied her weapon, her mind rebelled. Impossible. This is impossible. I would have heard it. She could feel its feet pounding the frozen ground through the snow. I would have felt it coming.
She tried to activate her semblance, giving her the distraction needed to throw herself to the side, but her thoughts seemed sluggish. A weight was on her back, a weight that didn't fit.
She screamed as her vision filled with the black and white bulk of the Grimm, and she felt the crushing weight of its feet upon her, pressing down, robbing her of breath.
She awoke with a pained gasp and a cry…
In her guest quarters at the Schnee Mansion.
Dammit. This was the third night in a row. She struggled to get her breath back, and began untangling the bedding that she'd managed to twist around herself, pinning one arm to her side. Her body felt icy as the sweat-drenched night clothes were exposed to the night air.
What do these people have against keeping a house actually heated?
She finished untangling herself, and peered across the room at her yellow-haired partner, snoring softly.
"Well I'm glad somebody is getting sleep," she muttered.
Blake Belladonna twisted, swinging her legs around and putting chilled feet into a pair of slippers next to the bed before standing up with a quiet grunt. Something about the adrenaline from the nightmare kicked her bladder into high gear, demanding immediate action. That too had been repeated several nights. And that meant putting on more clothes against the chill of Atlas, and dragging her sleep-deprived ass to the bathroom.
As she took care of personal business, she scrubbed through her hair with one hand, rubbing her face with the other.
"What the hell is this?" She grumbled. She wracked her brain, trying to understand what she had seen, what she had felt. It wasn't a place she had ever been. She was sure of that. Nowhere in Menagerie, Vale, or even Mistral had landscape like that. Only Atlas did, and she had not yet had the opportunity to begin to explore the countryside here. They had arrived a week ago, at the nominal invitation of General Ironwood. But in reality the goal had been to support her friend Weiss, in what seemed a never-ending game of threat displays by her father, Jacques Schnee.
That in itself had proved exhausting. She had never seen or felt anyone engaged in such a battle of cold, calculated, familial incivility wrapped in twelve layers of deniable insults before, but she frankly didn't know how Weiss and Juane were able to bear it.
Well, that's 'mom and dad' for you, wise beyond their years, she thought with bitter humor.
She finished her business, and washing her hands, peered at her face in the mirror. Dark circles under her eyes betraying her sleep deprivation.
She sighed, and moped back to her bed, hoping that sleep would reclaim her without having to spend hours staring at the ceiling again.
She stood in a snow-filled clearing, surrounded by evergreens, their boughs weighed down with the same blanket of cold, white mass that covered the ground. Sounds seemed muffled by the soft landscape as the cold seeped into her flesh, into her bones through the thin clothing she wore.
There was something wrong.
She could feel it. It fought through layers of cotton in her head, screaming at her.
Her stance shifted to a crouch, Gambol Shroud coming to hand in firearm mode as her ears pivoted and narrowed eyes scanned the landscape. She twisted as she scanned the area, ensuring she covered the entire panorama of the clearing.
Nothing except the trackless snow, the white-shrouded trees.
No sounds. No Grimm. No… no tracks.
Wait. No tracks?
She shook her head, ears drooping. That makes no sense. No tracks. No tracks from me.
The sense of wrongness increased. There was something here. She knew it. Something important. A threat? Something else?
A roar filled her ears, which flattened reflexively against the overpowering volume, and she spun to see… a huge Megollath, mere yards from her position, charging at full speed toward her.
Her hands came up immediately into a firing stance, sending volley after volley from her weapon into the Grimm as it bore down on her, tusks poised to fling her fragile form aside, heavy feet to crush her to the earth. But the rounds did next to nothing against such a massive and armored beast.
Even as she emptied her weapon, her mind rebelled. Impossible. This is impossible. I would have heard it. She could feel its feet pounding the frozen ground through the snow. I would have felt it coming.
She tried to activate her semblance, giving her the distraction needed to throw herself to the side, but her thoughts seemed sluggish. A weight was on her back, a weight that didn't fit.
She screamed as she reached back over her shoulder, grasping the warm leather-wrapped handle. Pulling it up and around, she released Gambol Shroud and added that hand to the swing. With a feral roar, the broad blade of her weapon met the incoming massive tusk, shearing it cleanly and causing the beast to give an angry, agonizing roar of its own as it jerked its head to her left.
Warmth surging down her arms filled her with sudden energy, and she put it to good use, following through on the stroke, surging to the right and bringing the weapon around with the turn, cleaving across the huge bulk as its inertia drove it past her.
Cleaving an impossibly deep gash the entire length of the beast. Through white boney armor and black unnatural flesh alike, the blade seemed to melt its way through without slowing. She barely felt resistance as it wreaked its destruction upon the Grimm.
She spun back, prepared to finish the beast off, scanning the clearing for a second threat, gasping for breath.
To find the Grimm collapsing in a heap on the snow, it's black flesh evaporating into nothingness. Leaving no sign of its passage other than the boney armor and disturbed snow.
The clearing was empty. Empty except for her and the weapon she held at the ready.
The weapon she held…
Her eyes pulled to the right at the thing she held two-handed by the haft. It was… it was an ax. A very large, double-headed axe. The black metal haft, wrapped in black leather, still felt warm beneath her hands. The blade seemed to drink in the light around it, reflecting nothing back from its flat black surface. Except for at the very edge of the blade. The edge shone with an almost white silvery light, and it looked impossibly sharp.
Blake gasped and dropped it into the snow, where it immediately melted its way through the multiple layers of ice and packed snow, quickly sinking out of sight.
Eyes wide, Blake spotted Gambol Shroud to her left, and quickly recovered it, heart hammering in her chest. She scanned the clearing for the next threat.
And saw nothing except the trackless snow, the white-shrouded trees.
No sounds. No Grimm. No… no tracks.
No, no tracks. Just the trackless snow, and the white shrouded trees. And, miles to the East, a triple peaked-mountain. To the north, a glacial wall of jagged ice.
A roar filled her ears, which flattened reflexively against the overpowering volume, and she spun to see… a huge Megollath, mere yards from her position, charging at full speed toward her. She felt a sudden, familiar weight on her back, and her mouth set in a grim smile as she reached back for the black, leather-wrapped haft.
And she awoke with gasp, and a feeling of loss.