Raven ducked another swipe from another Beowulf as she made the same maneuver she had the last forty times, and lodged the blade firmly into the beowolf's eye. It yelped for a moment before it slumped over, dead.
Raven huffed as she caught her breath. Perhaps it hadn't been her brightest idea ever to walk into the emerald forest with such a rampaging mind, but in her defense, she doubted she would have calmed as much as she had without the help of those beowolves. Their massacre lifted the frustration from her mind a tad.
It was a good workout for her, yet she could admit—
—-It might have been useful to have had some backup.
An image of her team appeared in her mind, but she banished it after a moment. She didn't want to think about them— what they had begun to represent in her mind. She focused her attention back on her surroundings, intent on taking down more Grimm to distract her.
Nothing dared approach her. She couldn't hear any footsteps nor could she see any movement in the foliage around her. Perhaps she had wiped out most of the local Grimm in her section of the forest, or they simply were wise enough to not try their luck. Part of her felt a rush of accomplishment and reassurance that it was because she was strong, yet the rest of her felt frustration.
She needed a distraction, not self-assurance. Perhaps she could find some more Grimm to slaughter from above? She made her way to one of the trees and climbed up swiftly, intent on spotting more Grimm.
Just as she crested the top of the tree line, she spotted a bright flash come from around a mile away, towards the direction she knew Vale to be. Was there another person out in the forest with her?
She supposed it was possible, even thought the forest was considered part of the school, once you went far enough, it was all the same wilderness. Another Huntsman or even a team could be out practicing.
The curiosity got the best of her— she wanted to see how other teams Hunted. Ozpin's words echoed in her head, but she shook them off. The less she thought about him the better. She didn't want any distractions from her Hunt.
She bounded through the trees, ignoring the minor distractions of Grimm and the forest around her. She saw several more flashes, each larger than the last as she drew closer. She had misjudged the distance originally; yet with her speed, it was still a trivial amount of time before she appeared near the source of the flashes. She ignored how shaky her legs felt and her quickened breath; it would pass.
She walked through a small grove of trees, but stopped in her tracks at the sight of the decapitated Alpha beowulf in front of her.
The Alpha was massive; easily twice her height and maybe triple her weight. She walked around it slowly, and paused near its head. It must have been killed only a few moments before, because it had only barely begun to dissolve when she approached.
Jaune Arc stood, the bodies of slain beowolves around him as he stared down a Death stalker. Raven kept silent and backed towards the tree line. Her mind whirled as she tried to comprehend what was happening in front of her.
What the hell was Jaune Arc doing out in the wilderness by himself?
She watched as he paced around the Deathstalker, eyeing it with the experience that he shouldn't have. He used his cane to parry a strike from one of the beast's claws as he whirled around the stinger that came crashing down on top of him.
He knew how to kill it, she realized as his face turned and he saw the grin on it— he was enjoying it. The hunt. She watched, transfixed as the man cracked his neck before his cane whirled and he tapped the ground.
Ice formed in an instant, covering the ground in a thin layer that caused the Deathstalker to skid and then crash into a rough outcropping that stopped it dead. She watched it as it tried to move from its position, but the ice beneath it prevented it from standing upright.
She was expecting Jaune to pounce forward, but he remained in the same position he had been before. It seemed he was contemplating something, but the blank expression on his face told her nothing, but the obvious.
Raven shuddered. The ice had made it cold.
Jaune finally decided that it was time to do something other than look at it, because he pulled…something out of his jacket. She couldn't see exactly what it was, but it glowed softly around them, a bright orange color. She would take a guess and say it was some sort of fire dust— mostly because when he pulled it out, the ice underneath him starting melting.
Which should have been impossible. Inert dust didn't do that unless the caster willed it with their Aura, but there wasn't anyone around except the two of them so he wasn't trying to intimidate anyone. How powerful was that dust in his hands?
He tapped his cane on the ground softly again, and a small compartment opened on the top of his cane. Raven watched as he inserted the three..spherical dust cartridges, if she could call them that, into his cane.
He shuddered and winced. Then, fire exploded around him and it made Raven jump. It seemed to coalesce around his cane, but it didn't seem to harm him. It almost looked like it was giving him a warm embrace, but Raven's eyes were playing tricks on her.
Jaune had a look of concentration on his face as he grunted and lifted his cane with noticeable effort. All the while, the fires around him began to swirl into some sort of vortex. Raven began to back up slowly, suddenly unsure if she could handle whatever was about to happen.
She was wise to have done so, because the tree she had been standing on, caught on fire as Jaune's voice echoed across the forest.
"Flame Emperor."
The world went white and Raven gasped as she was thrown backwards by the blast. She hit a tree and staggered for a moment, her aura flashing as she struggled to regain her balance. She sucked in a deep breath, but coughed as she tasted ash. Her eyes were slightly blurry as she looked forwards at the bright light that emanated from the clearing.
She approached slowly, clambering over dead tree branches and spots of fire that dotted the thing that used to be a forest and was now a clearing twice as large as it had been before. What she saw in it, she would never ever forget.
Jaune Arc stood at the center of the blast, entirely unharmed. His clothing, his hair, even the grass right below his feet was unharmed. A few feet in front of him, what was once the Deathstalker remained nothing but half a carapace that was composed of melted slag and bone. It smolded a slight orange color, the fire yet to be put out and Jaune didn't seem to be in a hurry to do so.
Raven focused her attention towards the man and took a step backward. Her eyes never left the figure of Jaune, caressing his cane with tears in his eyes and a mad grin on his face.
Raven turn and ran. She couldn't fight that. She never wanted to even think about it. She didn't give a shit if he heard her or not, all she wanted to do was run. She had never been so wrong before in her life.
Jaune Arc wasn't weak. Jaune Arc was perhaps the strongest huntsmen walking Remnant. Jaune Arc was a monster.
More than that, the way he had fought; uncaring and with a confidence few possessed in the face of an Elder Grimm; the way he leveled the forest around him in an explosion that would have killed anyone close to him. Underneath the smiling, caring mask of a bumbling buffoon, laid the real Jaune Arc —
—a madman. A man devoid of sanity that destroyed Grimm with a visceral pleasure she had never seen in another.
She kept running, far past where she had first seen the blast— it wasn't safe, he could probably cross that distance in an instant— and kept sprinting as if her life depended on it. She knew that it did. He wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he saw her as a threat.
She wanted to curse at her past self; for antagonizing such a powerful, but more importantly, insane man that was steadily growing closer with their leader and by extension, the rest of their team. Who knew what sick and twisted plans for them laid in his head; perhaps he didn't even know himself.
Before she knew it, she was at the cliff face near Beacon. She was panting, she hadn't stopped for a second since she started running, and took deep breaths. It seemed that Jaune either hadn't noticed her or more likely, he had decided she wasn't worth the effort.
Part of her wanted to scream at the thought, but a larger, more sane, part of her was thankful. That meant that she was safe from his wrath. For the moment.
She took a final deep breath, before she started to scale the cliff. She needed to get back to Beacon and start training immediately. She pause her climbing at the thought. No, she…
…Jaune Arc's mad grin came to her mind and she shuddered. She wouldn't be able to do anything to that man. No matter how hard she trained she knew that, deep in her soul. She thought back to Ozpin's words, about relying on others.
Team STRQ was strong, but they were no match.
Yet.
She began her climb with renewed vigor. She needed to get back to her team, repair the damage and then get to work. They needed to train. Train like their lives depended on it. Beacon was safe— even though Jaune Arc was based in Vale, Ozpin had influence over the school and Arc, as powerful as he was, wouldn't dare upset Ozpin by killing them in the school itself. It seemed they were acquainted to some extent and therefore, wouldn't risk upsetting him.
She hoped.
She scrambled over the top of the cliff and jogged back to campus, ignoring how late it was and how she was breaking curfew. None of those mattered at the moment. All she was focusing on in the moment was surviving the next few years.
Because, if she left and Jaune chose to hunt her down, then she was dead. Full stop. She wouldn't be able to run from those flames, and she had feeling that he hadn't shown a fraction of his true power.
Those kinds of Huntsmen never did.
So, in order to survive, she needed to stick with her team, train as hard as they could and become the best team in Beacon so that Jaune Arc couldn't touch them without incurring an absolute shitstorm from Ozpin and the rest of the city. Which meant they needed to be the strongest team to ever come out of Beacon, so they might have a chance if he went for them anyways. Gods knew how that man thought. The insane were frustratingly unpredictable like that.
She let out a deep breath.
She had her work cut out for her.
She approached the dorms and let out a deep breath before barging through the door, startling her team as they were sitting around doing pedestrian shit. She looked at Qrow at his desk, no doubt failing to comprehend some basic math or whatever. Taiyang was dicking around on his scroll and had gone bug-eyed at her entrance. Too soft. And Summer…
Summer had the most shocked expression of them all, but she tempered it quickly even if she could still see how angry she was underneath. Good, she could use that.
"Raven, where the hell—" Summer tried to start but Raven held out a hand.
"Look, I'm only going to say this once." She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed.
Shen opened them. "I want to stay on this team. I'm willing to do what it takes to to do that, but for tonight there's only one thing I want and it's a condition that is unassailable; we need to train. Train as hard as we can, as fast as we can, so we can become the undisputed strongest not just in Vale, but in all of Remnant. Got it?" She finished.
Summer still looked gobsmacked, but now slightly concerned. "…I can agree to that, but that still doesn't answer my question. Where the hell have you been?" Summer demanded and Raven sighed before she waved the question off.
"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you all agree to my conditions." She looked around and made eye contact to the two males. "All of you."
Qrow sighed. "Rae, you look like hell rolled over. You have burn marks, twigs and dirt all over your uniform. Did you decide to go on a camping trip or something?" He asked with a grin and Raven frowned.
"This is serious Qrow, so grow up for once and act like the adult you are." She spat and ignored the anger she saw in his eyes. She waited for him to answer as the anger died out and he slumped in his chair.
"Fine, fine. I got your back, Rae. We'll train to hell and back." He said with a tired grin.
She nodded and then looked to Taiyang, who was watching her like one would watch a corned animal. She narrowed her eyes and he gulped suddenly. She raised an eyebrow and he shook his head.
"Look, Rae, that's fine, like Summer and Qrow said, I can agree to that, but I'm really concerned where—"
She didn't let him finish. "Good. Then we're done here. Meet me at training room nine and we can get started." Raven said before she turned around and walked out the door, ignoring their cries of protest as she left.
She walked down the hallway, a fire in her step she realized hadn't been there before. Before, she thought she was strong and was intent to coast on that feeling, since not a single student had been able to challenge her before.
But, that was before Him.
Now, she knew where they stood— at the second to the bottom of the totem pole of the world. They were weak. Raven clenched her fists and sprinted down the hallway.
She refused to be weak any longer. She would do what it takes to survive.
Anything.
—
Summer looked to the rest of her teammates as they had just witnessed Raven storm in, demand things they were already planning on doing, and then storm off without a single explanation for her change of mind or her state of being.
All-in-all, it could be summed up with a single phrase.
"What the fuck just happened?"
Hey everyone. I didn't mean for this to come out so late, but that's life I guess. I'll talk about why in a second, but for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that the schedule I made will most likely not happen anymore. I will do my best, but I need to stop making promises about deadlines since I can't seem to ever keep them.
TW: Depression, Apathy
I have been struggling with Depression for quite some time at this point, even if I only realized it recently. I had seasonal depression over the winter break, which I have had before, but I usually bounce out of it in February. That didn't happen this year. I have been struggling with figuring out what I need to be doing with my life and how I want to make that happen. My options are limited and along with several other financial struggles this year, I lost all my motivation to write, edit, and post this story, or any story.
Apathy has been a constant companion for me, but it hit hard this year for whatever reason alongside my depression. I am rebounding now, but my work is getting more stressful this season and usually, when that happens, my depression worsens. I'm looking for therapists in my area who take my insurance, but that is a slog at the moment. (Sidenote: I hate the American Healthcare system with a burning passion.)
Thank you to everyone who reads and reacts to this story. You are truly my main motivation to keep this thing going.
I'll do my best to post soon. Take care, everyone!
