It was done…
No more would any memories pass between their minds. No more would visions plague His son.
But this was for the best.
The Primarch may have already learned too much. And the risk was too great that he might learn more.
But for now His son had other matters to attend and occupy his thoughts
Kad's stolen sword twitched in his death grip at the canvas of surprise and still brimming rage that floated through his brain…
"Yang… Move."
Her blood ran cold from his bestial tone. But the blond stood firm with her arms raised high.
Yang had to act when she saw the giant coming for Raven. She had to save who might be the last person in the world who could put an end to the mysterious past that surrounded her family. But now she had no idea what to do next.
The Demigod and the Huntress stood frozen in their poses.
"Kad…" Yang practically whispered before finding her voice, "You don't understand!"
"She tried to kill me!" He roared in response.
Yang's eyes flicked down to the new mark on his side, crisp with clotted blood and clear fluid. And in that moment of distraction he struck.
The back of his right hand cracked into Yang's cheek and she fell sprawling to the floor with a cry of shock. Kad spun the sword around his fingers then caught the beaded hilt backwards, bringing his right hand up to the end as well.
Light shimmered off the blade ready to stab down into Raven. She held up one hand as if that would make any difference to the giant. Yang rolled onto her left looking back at the murder about to unfold.
And her black haired partner rounding the bend in the hall.
Amber eyes met lilac. Passing an unspoken plea.
In a single motion Blake reached back over her shoulder for Gambol Shroud, drew the blade, folded it down and hurled it out to spin around Kad's hands. She could never hope to stop him by sheer force or weight, or even deflect his strike. But his hands paused none the less.
Only to roll his massive shoulder out right, pulling Blake straight off her feet right at him. Kad released his death grip on the sword and pulled open the ribbon loop with the growing slack. Blake stumbled and skidded towards him shredding the knees of her black stockings.
She didn't even have time to think about unwinding the ribbon as she found herself in front of the giant with his right hand now clamped down on her right shoulder. Massive fingers pressed painfully into her skin as Kad lifted her up to eye level. Blake grabbed onto his wrist trying to twist free. His iron grip wouldn't budge and she went very still when Kad snarled.
"Stay out of this Blake…"
A growing crowd was gathering around the fringes of this spectacle. Dozens of eyes all going into the same wide look upon seeing the giant and the girls around him. Yang got to her feet as quickly as she could. Raven was struggling to come to her hands and knees as the final two members of team RWBY arrived and had two very different reactions.
Weiss went nearly immobile. Unable to comprehend just what was happening. And the young leader Ruby leapt into motion. When she saw her sister and teammate seemingly under attack by one he thought was their friend.
"Leave her alone!"
A hundred separate things happened at once.
Petals flew and Ruby sped through the air closing the gap between them in a single leap with her scythe unfurling. Yang's stomach churned like she was going to be sick, and Kad moved to defend himself.
The hooked back side of Crescent Rose fell towards the hand holding Blake. Kad spun the ōdachi up and across his palm deflecting the scythe away. The weight of her weapon and the unexpected change in course knocked Ruby off balance and to the side.
Seeing her sister in danger Yang let out a berserker cry, fired her gauntlets and launched at Kad.
He dropped the Faunus in his grasp and with his left hand gripping Raven's sword tight sent a perfect left hook straight into Yang's face.
One second she was soaring ready to strike, and the next Yang fell so hard and so fast to her back she didn't even realize she'd been hit until the black spots faded from her eyes and the first numbing waves of dizziness cleared.
And she felt the fire of her semblance begin to blaze.
Ruby swung her massive weapon back, aiming at Kad's head.
Time seemed to slow.
He saw the gun barrel pointed straight at his face, watched Ruby's hands tighten around the trigger. And heard the click of the sniper rifle sending its hammer into the back of the armor piercing bullet.
Before the explosive propellant had even sparked Kad was reaching his right hand back. At the same moment the bullet began its short supersonic flight he pushed Crescent Rose left away from his head.
All the gathered students flinched at the deafening bang. Kad turned tearing Ruby's beloved scythe out of her hands and swinging the flat side of Raven's sword at his fellow team leader. But even she wasn't fast enough to dodge his strike.
The red steel smashed into her half raised guard, glanced across her head and Ruby skidded across the floor on her half torn red cloak. Blake rolled to her feet and ripped her own sword back to her hands aiming the little pistol. Loosening his grip on Crescent Rose to place his hand into a less awkward position on the scythe, Kad took a single step forward and hurled the scythe at Blake.
Shadows gathered close.
Obscuring everything behind the dark haired Faunus. Letting Kad focus in horror as the razor curved blade hooked into Blake's side and cut her in two.
Kad was certain he had just accidentally killed Blake. Yet his eyes narrowed in confusion,
There was no blood.
A millisecond later her two halves shimmered and disappeared. Relief and sudden understanding flooded through his mind as he remembered her semblance. Just before those pleasant emotions were swallowed down by shock and surprise as Yang jackknifed up, leapt high into the air and brutally smashed her metal clad fist down into Kad's jaw with another scream of rage.
This time there was blood.
Blood from Ember Ceilica's blunt edges cutting into his face. Blood from his teeth digging into the fleshy spaces of his mouth. Yang landed on the floor in a crouch, and Kad was forced back a step keeping his balance. Spitting a glob of crimson onto the grey concrete floor.
Her strength and speed still boosted by the giant's own, Yang was more than fast enough to rush under Kad's counter swing and jab at the wound on his side. Her shotguns firing as well in bright flashes of flame. Blind to the world, only intent on keeping Kad from harming Ruby or her friends.
Weiss, standing far behind this brawl watched the insanity unfold. Too stunned to do more than wait for some sense of reason to return and stop the fighting. Perhaps, she thought that if Kad subdued the others her wish might come true.
Yet she was forced to suddenly reconsider how far this may go when Kad seemingly killed Blake mere moments ago.
Weiss panicked, but instantly calmed when the Faunus rolled back up away from her shadow clone unharmed. Crescent Rose skidded at the growing crowd behind them stopping against the tips of their feet. Blake stood aiming her pistol again, but unwilling to shoot with her partner in the way now.
Yang was about to pull her arm back for another strike.
Stepping faster than any eye could track Kad slammed his right knee up into Yang's stomach. She coughed and nearly blacked out again. But the fire of her semblance kept her up, burning even hotter now. Even as her aura dropped to near nothing.
She leapt forward again arm raised back again. Her left gauntlet a hammer ready to break anything in its way.
Stopped cold in the palm of Kad's right hand.
No one even saw him move. Yet now the giant held Yang's fist tight. The blond growled and tried to pull away. But as she grunted and strained, her hand remained exactly where it was. Kept immobile by the full strength of the Primarch.
She screamed and nearly broke her own wrist attempting to twist out. Kad only tightened his grip.
Little sounds of creaking metal from Kad's fingers crushing her gauntlets did not echo very far beneath the sound of Yang's struggle. Even with all of the strength from his punch stored in her semblance she could not break free.
Her semblance fed on the power of others. She gets hit, she gets stronger.
All he had to do was overcome what power was left. Nowhere near his full strength
Yang felt weak…
Sweat dripped down her face, and her fighting stance started to fall apart with her semblance spent. And she realized the giant had her beat.
But he was nowhere near done yet. Kad let go of her fist. Then hammered another punch into her stomach lifting Yang's feet from the floor. Stepped once while she seemingly floated. Then crushed his elbow down into the back of her neck.
Light shimmered and flickered across her body and Yang cried out as her aura broke. And the rest of her breath huffed out of her lungs when she hit the hard floor. The giant's black boot jammed into her ribs and rolled her over.
Yang tried to blink the blurriness out of her eyes, which shot open wide when the crushing weight of Kad's humongous foot pressed down on her stomach.
Her bare fingers flailed uselessly against his boot, choking breaths of air in between gasps of panic.
He raised up the backwards gripped odachi.
Weiss saw the sword rise… Dangerously uncertain what he intended to do.
"Weiss!"
Ruby silver eyes streaked with the first drops of tears pleaded with her teammate. The heiress saw Blake frozen in fear and Ruby, completely useless without her weapon only had her partner in what little time was left now.
She remembered back to when her family had been kidnapped.
What the giant had done to all the White Fang.
She couldn't take this risk.
And the Heiress knew there was only one thing she could possibly do to help. Her bloodline's power. Unpracticed, unreliable, only heard about in whispers from her family and her father. Finally seen in his last moments aboard the airship yesterday.
"It has always been a Schnee strength, knowing how to use everything at our disposal so that even our fallen enemies may serve us in the future."
The hum of some other worldly power stayed Kad's hand. That and the blue glow coming out of nowhere.
Weiss stood with her right arm pointed out curling two fingers while her sword rotated in small circles down at the floor on her left and the spinning glyph beneath her feet. As her semblance flowed the pale girl began to pirouette switching where her hand and sword were pointing. She flicked the rapier high.
A glyph covered in swords like the hands of a clock was birthed with a blinding flash of light, and even Kad was forced to squint for a moment.
The white misty mystic tip of the biggest great sword anyone had ever seen pierced through the spinning center, held by an armored arm that swiftly followed the blade out till it stopped at its nonexistent shoulder with a flourish.
Now the watchers looked to the Heiress with no small amount of surprise. Many gasped and flinched back a step. Staring as she spun and mimed a slash downward with her rapier.
The giant spectral blade moved as well.
Mirroring her strike.
Kad threw himself backwards, stepping off of Yang. Feeling the wind be sucked along in the draft the sword cut through the air and almost his head taken completely off guard by the giant sword's sudden appearance. Weiss turned her wrist and the summon followed her form. Starting to cleave backhanded at Kad.
He pushed his left fist forward, holding out Raven's sword to block. The ōdachi held and Weiss threw her left arm back ready to swing down again in a devastating overhead chop. But the giant was already in motion.
Kad bent his knees and sent his right hand back. Fingers curled like he was trying to crush an invisible ball. Baring his teeth with a deep throaty growl Kad focused his semblance.
Catching the aura, the power of his soul. Not just out in a blast but down, gathering in his palm. And as the hammer blow coming from the spectral sword neared his head the Primarch roared and punched his open palm into the air
There were two flashes.
The ball of light and soul fire gathered in Kad's palm sailing out at his will.
And the near imperceptible instant later it struck Weiss's glyph dead center.
The blue glyph shattered, cracks ran along the length of the summoned sword. Radiant shards of solid light rained down across the hall.
Semblances were like muscles.
Use and practice raised one's endurance when using them. And to push oneself past their limits was a dangerous thing.
Weiss would realize later what a monstrous effort it had taken to raise this blade, let alone keep it in reality. Whether it was from this simple fact, or the energy feedback from Kad's thrown ball of aura. A jagged lance of pain worse than any migraine the heiress ever had before knifed through her mind and sent Weiss down to her pale knees. Hands back over her scarred face swallowing down a whimpering cry.
"Are we done?" The Primarch growled in between panting breaths.
For now he stood alone.
Surrounded by team RWBY, battered and beaten in a fight that need never have happened. Surrounded by the hundreds of trainees his actions had inspired. His partner paralyzed behind him. And the one who had started it all…
The dark haired girl grit her teeth and glared up at the face of death now looming over her. When they were a mere arm's length away Kad grabbed onto her right arm and raised Raven up to look him in the eyes.
He recognized that red glare finally.
Summoning up her last bit of strength and courage Raven spat in the giant's face. Kad didn't even flinch, raising up her red sword taking his time in deciding how she would die.
Yang coughed and rolled over onto her stomach, one hand on her stomach and one hand on the ground she attempted to rise,
"Kad, no! Please!" She begged,
Her sob filled plea did not go unheard. Ruby stood, transfixed by the raw pain in her big sister's voice. But quickly cowed down by the burning rage that laced Kad's reply.
"Enough!Yang, enough!" He pointed one finger out from his white knuckle grip on the sword at the blonde.
"But she's my sister!"
Chills ran through Ruby's veins. Her heart raced once again hearing what Yang just said. "What!" Ruby shouted, snapping back and forth between Raven and Yang. But Kad was no longer in any mood to listen. Bringing the sword back around against Raven's throat.
Yang finally managed to stand and took two stumbling steps forward.
But Raven raised her left hand and Yang stopped, clutching her bruised stomach. Even Kad was puzzled by this.
"Go on." Raven hissed at him. "Do it!"
"Do it!" She screamed at him again.
"What are you waiting for?" Raven hissed. "Come on!"
He tightened his fist, cracking the slender bones in Raven's wrist, she lost her voice in the sharp burning pain. Hissing through clenched white teeth Raven pointed over to the crowd.
"You did this," She said in between deep breaths, "You've killed us all already… Come on!"
His answer was laced with rage, "I fought for you, I fought for all of you."
"Bullshit… Look at them."
"Who?"
"Look at them!" Raven shouted.
Hundreds of his classmates and comrades had gathered. And Kad finally saw it.
They were not looking at him with awe and hope anymore. The young Hunters all shared the same petrified look of utter horror. Team RWBY from where they were frozen. Many, many familiar faces spread in the sea of a hundred different Huntsmen and Huntresses
And they were all looking at him.
And Raven laughed.
The sound was painful to even hear, let alone make. She sucked in air and sticky strands of spit and froth and laughed in his face. Kad nearly ran her through right then and there.
But he paused…
Out amongst the others. He knew that look. It was burned into his soul. They were afraid.
Afraid of what was going on. Afraid of more things they didn't understand.
They were afraid of him.
"And…" Raven started. "And you finally show your true… Colors."
Her laughter sounded more like choking this time. Kad let go of her wrist and she thudded onto the floor, her left side and her back. Yelping in pain.
His face was a like a storm, he turned sweeping the sword back at chest height pointing to all his Hunters.
He spoke softly, trying to sound reassuring. "We stood together. Against the Grimm, together… Why are you afraid?"
Raven hissed on the ground, "They don't know anything about you… Sneaking off, standing like a statue while," She drew in another breath, "While Beacon, burns…"
The old urge to end her life came back again, his hands started shaking with the bloody need for violence. But by some last strand of will power clinging to life deep inside Kad realized what would happen if he did.
He couldn't kill her.
Raven spoke again, "Were you calling her?"
"Shut up," He growled.
"Hoping your master would… Swoop in, and… save you."
"Shut up."
"Then who were you off, talking to." Raven challenged, "Who were you talking to?"
"I wasn't-"
"Who were you talking to?!" The Huntress screamed at him.
Scowling, furious, and red with rage Kad turned on her.
"Hell with it…" He thought.
"Kad?"
Another girl's voice, coming from where this insanity had started. Quiet yet so familiar after all these months at Beacon.
Alicia.
She stood just in front of the gaping hole behind the giant. Shadows all around her, but he was still able to distinguish her black leather jacket and red brown hair pulled back behind her head. And the scroll in her hand.
His scroll.
The shattered remnants of the little device he had crushed when attacked mere moments ago cradled in the palm of her right hand up in front of her. Like she was offering the scraps up to the giant.
"Who were you talking to?"
Whispers.
So many whispers and murmuring voices Kad couldn't keep them separate. But he knew what they were talking about. Yet could think of no words of his own to ease their troubles. They needed answers that the giant couldn't give them. All he felt was…
Lost.
Abandoned.
People were beginning to walk forward now, group by group, team by team. All coming to ask their questions. Kad looked one more time back at his partner.
She couldn't fathom the raw pain she saw there.
The giant raised the sword in his hand. The crowd stopped dead, and he grabbed onto the razor point with his left hand, flexed his arms and effortlessly snapped the blade in two.
The front row all flinched as one, and Kad flung the broken pieces to the ground, which bounced away clattering against the concrete.
And then he turned, heading for another side hallway. Lost for words and wrestling with the million tumultuous thoughts clawing in his head. No one dared follow or keep him from walking through the crowd back into the inner stadium loop.
Yang still struggled to stand up straight, feeling every twinge in her sore muscles and aching bruises. She felt as though she might collapse again at any moment.
Until the steadying presence of her little sister moved close and pushed herself up under the blonde's right arm bracing up Yang to help her take the few steps forward to Raven.
Weiss finally managed to banish some of the pain, and silently accepted a few helping hands from the crowd behind her.
Blake had barely moved an inch, still where she was with her trembling hands wrapped around her pistol. Only when the Heiress walked to her side and gently placed her right hand on Blake's left shoulder did the Faunus seem to calm down. Looking at one shaking hand she took away from Gambol Shroud before directing her attention over to the sisters.
"Why?" Yang asked looming over her twin. "Why did you do that?"
Raven gave a heavy sigh, "I did it for you Yang… I did it for both of you."
Ruby glanced over the dark Huntress with a new light,
"So," She began slowly, "Welcome to the family?"
"Hmmph," Raven huffed once. Almost amused, "Something like that…"
It had gotten very cold in the stadium. Power was gone, none of the climate control systems were working any more. Letting the chill of the night and the wind rush rampant through the halls.
Kad didn't feel it.
He only felt numb.
The giant didn't even bother to go looking for his sword. But as he wandered alone in the shadowed corridors he soon found himself at the only familiar place in the soon to be ruin. Counting the links of his chain out of habit trying to calm down and focus.
The little conference room they had used to plan their defense, empty and abandoned. Everyone who was present undoubtedly off to see what all the commotion had been about.
But the Primarch was wrong on this part.
Students and several soldiers recognized his bulky outline moving alone to this room. They approached timidly, concerned and fearful over what was going on.
Kad stood at the head of the brown oblong table in the door he had walked through. Seeing all his plans laid before him. Represented by the little things strewn across the table. Which would all amount to nothing.
All because of her.
Not Raven and her sudden attack.
Not Alicia and her damned questions Kad hoped he would never have to answer.
He knew his duty. What she had wanted him to do.
Fight, lead, shape the new world.
But he couldn't win… Now that Cinder had abandoned him.
She had abandoned him!
Fury broke through his façade. Kad flung the black steel links across the city model scattering hours of work to all four corners of the room.
Then with a deep cry of raw hurt and even a twinge of fear. Kad dug his thick fingers into the mahogany edge of the angled side, and hurled the table and all its trinkets up and through the glass window wall to his left. The sounds of shattered glass and flying splinters were all swallowed by his cry.
The few closing in suddenly backpedaled away, some tripping over their own feet in shock and the sudden desperate need to be away from the giant.
He grit his teeth and clenched his fingers back into fists at which he began to stare. Trying to come to a decision. Loyalty warring with reality.
He couldn't win.
Not now. No one would fight with him, they were all too confused, far too afraid with Ozpin slain and Beacon gone.
And Cinder wasn't coming.
The Grimm definitely were.
"Some might have called that overreacting."
Time seemed to slow.
A man's deep voice hit his ears, out from the darkness very close behind him. Kad began to turn, a Primarch's speed and reactionary movements that were programmed into his bones.
His left hand was moving at the dark outline of the stranger. Up at his broad shoulders to pin him down. His right hand dropped to the worn wooden hilt of the giant fighting knife on his waist.
The silhouette moved its arms up, but the Primarch was moving far too fast to stop. His left hand latched onto a shoulder, gripping the coarse grey fabric and the broad muscled shoulder beneath it. Kad's weight and strength forced the other man back, smashing into the untouched wall hard enough to crush an outline of his back into the plaster and dry underlying layers.
The Primarch drew his blade.
In a flash the razor cutting edge was up against this interloper's throat.
He had managed to raise His own left fast enough to catch Kad's knife arm's elbow before any serious harm befell him.
Kad leaned close, pushing Him harder into the wall. Trying to distinguish the man's features.
Black hair, an old noble face. The tired eyes that seemingly couldn't decide on what color they wanted to be when he stared.
Brown. Black.
Green to blue and back again.
Even silver at one point.
"Who the fuck are you?"
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A/N Gotta rush here,
Yeah suddenly this just seemed like a good place to stop. I was fully intent on carrying on here. But just reasons.
Hopefully the two little italics blurbs i these last two chapters were sufficiently vague to explain what I have going on. Call it a cop out retcon or whatever I don't care.
Now the time to decide wether or not I was being too much of an asshole in my last A/N.
meh, Well any way
Holy shit followers and favs got a jump. Welcome aboard this train wreck yall. Your kind words are what keep me going.
Anyway a moment of silence for my dead brain cells spent trying to write out this next bit. And all my hair that fell out while I was coming to this course of action.
The next chapter might be shorter but it will definitely be out sooner. Big shout out to Biolaj for suffering through my pestering him.
Any way gotta runaway screaming to class, Share If you care, Review as you do. Gotta go!