"We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind." Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence.
Bold: Important note to the story
Italic: Important message to a specific character or event
"Message" Inhuman Speech
"Message" Speech
'Message' Thought's
|Boom!| Noise/sound effect
Yall may have noticed that there's already been a lot of characters having specific plots and reactions to events.
There won't be a single character from the series that will get neglected. Every single one is majorly important to the story in one way or another.
This chapter alone will likely have 5 or more different character POV's, some of them are allies to Ruby, others are opposition to her goals.
"Ruby...Ruby's a vampire now Tai." With that statement, Tai grew pale and started to hyperventilate.
"What?" He croaked out quietly.
Tai's entire body was deathly pale from those words, his skin clammy and covered in sweat, his breathing fast and erratic. He remembered some of the times he had fought against vampires, and how deadly those mere moments of fighting had been.
They moved so fast that even for a huntsman it was hard to keep up, their blows felt like he was being hit by a speeding freight train. Vampires were pure monsters who preyed on any humans they found to be their fancy, or heavens forbid, found you worthy of becoming one of them.
Ruby's new behavior had not been unnoticed by both Yang and himself. Ruby's always been slightly anti-social before due to her somewhat nerdy nature, but this kind of anti-social nature was far too similar to someone who had something very dark to hide.
That kind of thing was something Ruby would've never been good at, just like her mother, Ruby wore her heart on her sleeve, until now it seems...
"Qrow, how did you find out?" Tai asked quietly while trying to hold onto his fraying nerves and psyche.
"Oz told me something had happened to her, so I went looking for her and found her in the town past the woods." Qrow gritted out with a heavy tone from behind his hands.
"She...she found a boy slightly older than her sitting in the park...and she attacked him viciously! The poor bastard had been screaming for help before Ruby covered his mouth with her hand, and then ripped her vampiric teeth into him while draining him of his blood." Qrow shuddered and nearly felt the food still left in his stomach come back up.
Lifting his face from his hands, Qrow looked his brother in law straight in his eyes.
"Ruby enjoyed it...she enjoyed drinking his blood and bathing in the boy's fear...the Ruby we knew might be gone Tai...taken from us by who she is now." Qrow shook again before slamming his fist down upon the kitchen counter in anger and misery.
Flashes went through his mind at the days following the mission Summer went on, and the subsequent consequences of what the village had done by misreporting the threat level of their situation.
Villages had to pay fees according to the threat level of what their situation is, effectively it was a bounty system, so some villages who have harder times earning revenue trick hunters on the threat level of their request.
The one that Summer went on had been a threat level B, something she could've easily handled, but the truth in the end, was much worse. An old vampire had made its home near the town, which automatically would've made the request an S tier threat or higher.
Summer paid the price for the villages cheapness and desperation.
"FUCK! We lost Summer to a vampire, and then it turns out Ruby has become one and is enjoying what she has become!" Qrow shouted in rage while Tai choked back a sob that was building in his throat.
Old and buried pain resurfaced in Tai's mind. The pain of losing Summer and the drinking he took up soon after that did nothing to ease his pain. It wasn't until Ruby and Yang nearly died on a trip Yang made with Ruby, that he pulled himself out of his misery to protect his baby girl's.
If Ruby was a vampire, then he truly failed to protect her like he vowed to after that day Qrow saved them. He had failed himself, he had failed Ruby, he had failed Summer.
Summer hated vampires beyond any other creature. Summer saw many people die to those monsters she deemed to be worse than Grimm to her. How would she react after learning that her beloved Petal, was now one of the very things she hated so passionately?
Would she find the fact that Ruby seemed to be enjoying her new self even worse? Tai felt himself growing sick at the idea of Ruby having blood coat her face in a horrible smile.
"Do we know what kind of vampire Ruby may be? If she got turned by one of the older ones and depending upon her new lineage, she may very well become unfathomably powerful." Tai asked Qrow as tears built behind his eyes.
"No, I don't know yet, I don't even think even Ruby knows since her sire was one of those types. The ones who turn people who they find interesting and leave them to the wolves." Qrow shuddered slightly at that particular fate, as nine times out of ten, the new vampire is killed in some way or another.
Ruby was incredibly lucky to be who she was, a huntress in training and a silver eyed warrior...
'Wait...how did she even get turned as one of the silver slayers? Was it due to her powers being dormant, or is her vampiric lineage strong enough to do so? Ozpin would have killed anyone else...' Qrow contemplated his questions in his mind, turning over every fact with the analysis skills he had built in his life.
Silver slayers were nearly incorruptible by dark influences or energies, so how had one turned Ruby? The easiest thing to think of, was that Ruby's Silver Slayer powers were weaker than most others of her kind.
That didn't make sense, though. Silver Slayer powers DID vary in strength degree, but the incorruptible nature of their powers could never really change. Did her vampiric lineage come from one of the strongest vampire progenitors? Or had her sire been closer to the progenitor in generation themselves?
"Ozpin invited her to Beacon, there's no doubt he wants to have her under his thumb in a job like mine." Tai started at that idea, Qrow's work as a huntsman was one of the most dangerous lines you could go into.
"He can't! She's only fifteen and has nowhere near the skill to tackle the things you do!" Tai protested with worry building deep in his gut.
His rosebud was skilled, yet it was nowhere near enough to even think of taking on some of the more dangerous threats in Remnant. Vampires were some of the most common supernatural in the world, though they were FAR from the strongest.
According to Ozpin, there are Gods who still live on Remnant. He never said where they reside or how strong they were, just that they had to be avoided at all costs.
"No, but she's a vampire now, something even I have trouble fighting at times. Not to mention that her vampiric lineage must be incredibly strong to be able to turn a silver slayer." Qrow grimaced at that thought, before walking out of the kitchen and throwing some last words to Tai as he collapsed onto the couch.
"Make no mistake Tai, Ruby is a threat now and if she loses herself, well...you know what would happen." Qrow's voice trailed off as he fell asleep on the couch from emotional fatigue.
Unknown to Tai and him, Yang had been woken up when Qrow slammed his fist onto the counter, after she had woken up enough to be able to walk straight, she headed to the stairs and heard Qrow's last words.
'Ruby's...a threat? What do they mean? Does it have to do with what happened three days ago?" Yang thought worried and concerned that her own uncle would consider Ruby, her adorable baby sister, a threat.
Her baby sister was strong after all of the training she had done, but so far both Ruby and herself weren't at a level to threaten their dad, much less their uncle in a fight. For Ruby to have become a threat to them in such a short time, meant that something really had changed her three days ago.
It would be hard to find out what had happened, since all her father and uncle knew was that Ruby was stronger than ever before and likely did not know everything. The only one who would know, would be Ruby herself.
So far trying to speak to Ruby had been incredibly difficult with her new anti-social behavior. Every day she retreated to her room and every night she was gone until sunrise. Yang had even tried to talk to Ruby before she went to bed earlier, but Ruby's room was empty and her window open.
If Yang didn't know how Ruby had been acting, she would've joked Ruby was going out to see a mysterious boyfriend. Ruby would have to come back soon tonight since tomorrow was the day they would go to Beacon and do the initiation.
Hopefully Ruby's team once she passed could help her get better, for there was no doubt in Yang's mind that Ruby would pass...
'Wait, where is Crescent Rose? I haven't seen it with Ruby since she met us at the park that day. Did it get destroyed somehow? Or did Ruby get rid of it? What in the hell would cause Ruby to throw her self proclaimed sweetheart away?' Red flag after red flag kept popping up in Yang's mind with every revelation and question she had about Ruby.
This Ruby seemed like a dark reflection of who her baby sister was, sinister and unnatural in all the ways that made Ruby, Ruby.
'I need to find out what happened, but once Beacon starts, there is no guarantee that we'll be on the same team. I WILL find out, so I'd better take my time and be as thorough as I can be.' Yang thought while sneaking back to her room.
It was unlikely she would get back to sleep with all the questions rolling around in her head, so taking a hot shower might help her think and relax.
"What happened to you Ruby?" Yang whispered to herself while getting undressed to get into the shower.
Scene Break: Ruby
Ruby was laying upon the roof of one of the buildings in the town she was in. Her legs hanged off the edge of the roof while her hair was splayed behind her head, her mouth curved into a small frown that showed off her vampiric fangs.
Far above her sat the star filled heavens her silver eyes were staring at. Her eyes traced the many constellations that dotted the sky of Remnant; The Centaur, The Lance, Serpentis, and many more were visible from her current location.
Breathing out a gust of air from habit, Ruby raised her left hand out to the sky above her. She was finally off the high of her acts tonight, and was thinking back on what happened with doubt on whether or not she was still a good person.
The boy she attacked was definitely not in good health now after how much blood she took from him. When she covered his mouth with her hand after he started screaming from the strength of her vampiric grip, her mind had been addled by the desire to feed and not go feral.
'Am I still a good person? That boy had been screaming for help because of me. There's also the fact I left him alone in the park when he clearly needed medical attention.' Ruby's frown grew more as she thought about what she had done and how she felt about it.
Ruby had always believed herself to be a good person with how kind she used to be. Now, all she felt was a myriad of much more sinister and negative emotions that appeared to feed her vampiric nature.
If she were to be totally honest with herself, besides the doubt she felt, she didn't feel horrified or scared about what she had done. In fact, when she had drained his blood, she had never felt more alive, even if she was very much dead.
'Gods, it even felt like heaven doing it! The sheer ecstasy of it was overwhelming...' Ruby let her outstretched hand fall to the side of her head.
Her silver eyes still stared at the stars hanging over her head, Serpentis in particular seem to hiss at her. Serpentis was known for being a bad omen at times, and it certainly felt like that to Ruby as she stared at its long slithering form sneaking across the sky.
Another soft sigh tumbled past her lips as she tried to convince herself that she was a good person still, but every one of those thoughts felt empty and hollow for some reason, like there was something she couldn't quite remember about herself.
It was a frustrating feeling since it seemed so important for some reason. Ruby started swinging her hanging feet off the ledge in a rhythmic pattern to try and organize her thoughts.
'Even during that blood craving haze, I did not lie when I said that if this is my life now, or would it be unlife? Anyway, if I have to feed like that for eternity, I might as well grow to enjoy it.' The town was silent as it was very early in the morning, maybe around four AM if Ruby were to guess, which made her thinking on her dilemma much more profound to her.
"When did I even gain the morals I had?" Ruby whispered as she thought about that single question.
Ones morals are not innate as many believe them to be. Morals come from your environment and how you learn to look at life and the world around you. So where had Ruby's come from? It was as if there had been a curtain covering her eyes for so long that she couldn't see beyond it.
"You don't remember? I guess that's to be expected after what you did to yourself so many years ago." That same soft feminine voice from earlier once again murmured into Ruby's ear as she frowned.
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked the voice that chuckled gently, as if Ruby's question had pleased it greatly.
"Those beliefs and morals never were your own, there were someone else's that you loved so dearly." It took Ruby a minute to figure out the meaning behind that message.
On reflex her breath sucked in when the image of silver eyes and a bright loving smile blasted to the forefront of her mind.
'That's it. Those ideals had never been mine, they had always been mom's, which I adopted out of my grief at her death...' Ruby thought as she felt a bit of weight on her shoulders that had never been there before fade slightly.
"Now you finally understand what I've been hinting at." The voice said to Ruby's right, with the latter looking up to see a image of herself made from her own shadow.
"Before the days following mom's death, we had been a very different person. The few years we had sentience before her death had been who we truly are at our core, and not this fake self we created for ourself for oh so long. Remember." Ruby's mind ached as memories she had long hidden behind a mental wall poured out of that same wall.
Memories of how cold she had been to others, how she could make others do as she wished with a single smile, how she didn't care about anything besides what she deemed hers.
'Heh, I guess I had been quite the evil little kid before that day.' A smile grew on her lips as more of that weight on her shoulders evaporated.
Then a laugh bubbled in her chest, a laugh as she realized who she truly was, a laugh that signified her new freedom from the prison she had made for herself. That same laugh bubbled past her lips with a ghostly echoing tone to it.
Raising her hand to the sky once more, Ruby clenched her fist over the shattered moon shining down upon her. She felt cheated out of the life she should have lived, if not for her own naïve younger self.
So many years spent sacrificing more and more of herself for others who never gave anything back. So many years of shouldering the burden she had never known she had put upon herself.
"Nevermore. No more shall I give myself to others who never give back, no more will I deny myself from having what I want, no more will I deny myself from taking what I deem to be mine!" Ruby vowed to herself as that shadow copy smiled down at her.
"There it is, the truth of who we are laid bare at long last..." The clone whispered before sinking back into Ruby's shadow.
Ruby felt a chill lace up her undead body while she laid upon the roof. Letting her hand rest over her dead heart, she continued laughing as the last remnants of that burden finally burned away. Her scalp and skin burned like cinders from a small fire, but she still laughed through the discomfort.
The deep red colored hair that ended with blood covered tips started to bleed its color, the single strand of black hair spreading its tendrils through the rest of her hair. Soon her hair was the most luxurious color of onyx, the shimmer of the silver moonlight making it glow in abyssal fire.
Where her hand sat over her still heart, the skin upon her chest drained of color and leapt outwards to cover her whole body, leaving her skin a soft alabaster that looked as unnatural as what she is now. Ruby was beautiful, a being of unnatural umbral and gorgeous darkness, fully a denizen of the night for now and ever more.
Thus, the old Ruby Rose, the one before that sad day from what felt like a lifetime ago, was reborn once again.
While Fate wept at its loss.
Scene Break: ?
Leaves and twigs crunched under the heavy footsteps flying through the forest, the sound of shouting and gunfire echoing behind the cloaked figure. Blood ran down one side of their somewhat visible face, their feet flying across the ground with dust kicking up a storm behind them.
Swinging their right arm back, they popped off shots behind them with the loud chatter of a submachine gun. Some of the bullets found purchase inside the skull of one of their pursuers, the bullet detonating the persons skull in a showering curtain of ichor.
More shouts of rage followed after the poor bastards death, their comrades fury increasing and their persistence at getting to their target growing. Gunfire erupted behind the fleeing figure once again, the whistling screams of instant death piercing their ears.
Picking up the speed, the figure ran behind a large oak tree, the hail of bullets sawing through the tree with careless abandon. The figure hissed slightly when the wooden shrapnel sliced through their clothes with ease.
"Faster! I need to lose them before I reach the city!" The figure who was surely a woman due to how her voice sounded, swore under her breath before rolling underneath another storm of bullets.
Rolling quickly and springing back to her feet, the woman glanced back to see her pursuers very close behind her. Swearing loudly again, she ran even faster to enact her very quickly thought out plan.
Reaching into a pouch tied to her waist, she fished out several small pellets filled with some kind of powder and tossed them behind her. More shouts filled the air again as the pellets exploded in a cloud of thick black smoke.
Ripping out a small match from the same pouch, the woman struck it against her belt buckle and threw it behind her. Running even faster, she barely got out of range when the smoke detonated with a huge |BOOM!|, the concussive force launching her further forward.
Once again rolling to keep her momentum, she did a handstand and quickly flipped back onto her feet after launching herself forward. Two more pairs of footsteps came from behind her, the smoke parting to reveal two lean built men wearing white and black masks.
'Of course some of them would make it through that, because fuck me why not!' The women yelled in frustration in her mind.
Sprinting even faster than before, the woman grabbed a overhanging branch and launched herself forward once again. Wind whipped across her cloaked face, the edges of the hood trembling against the relentless buffering it received.
Her feet slammed on the damp ground with a blast of dirt, her rush to supposed safety in full swing once more. More sharp pops alerted her to the gunfire behind her, with the two men screaming in fear at something.
Loud canine howls unlike anything she had ever heard echoed behind her, a sense of unnatural fear enveloping her from the howls. She was now running faster than she had during the whole chase, her trained instincts screaming at her to keep going and don't even think of looking back.
One of the men let out a bloodcurdling scream that sent chilling shivers down her back, then came the sound of flesh being torn apart. It had been a scream of someone dying in some kind of horrible way, a way she never even wanted figure out from how the man had sounded. That loud lupine howl sounded once again, its ghastly call blasting over the forest with the strength of a typhoon.
Silence enveloped the forest, nothing so much as breathed besides the woman who kept running, and running, and fucking running! Nothing would stop here from getting the fuck out of that forest, away from whatever that thing that had killed her pursuers.
The sound of her heartbeat thumping hard in her ears was all she could hear, while her breath came in great pained gasps, her lungs begging her to stop and rest, but she couldn't if that thing was after her.
After several more minutes of panicked running, the women saw moonlight gleaming through a opening in the forest a bit ahead of her.
'Just a bit further!' She thought in a panic, her adrenaline pumping through her veins with molten intensity.
Moonlight flickered through the forest from the opening, her escape was close at hand!
'Ten more feet!' She screamed in her mind, then a flash of motion caught her eye from her left, her ears picking up the sound of four heavy footfalls rushing at her.
The air in her lungs was shot out when she collided with whatever had charged her, she was sent flying through the air, the wind whipping and rushing against her flailing form. Branches hit her as she crashed through them, the pain of the blow and subsequent crashing's limiting her ability to respond to the situation at hand.
Straining her body while ignoring the pain of one of her possibly broken ribs, the woman flipped and righted herself to land on a patch of soft dirt. That was when she finally got a view of her attacker.
Sickening yellow colored eyes stared at her from across the small clearing she had landed in, large jaws full of vicious teeth dribbled yellow foam, curved and jagged claws protruded from its paws. It's body was covered in a coat of thick shaggy brown fur and leaves and twigs matted its coat.
The beast was massive, its shoulders sat taller than her by about three feet while on all four's. Dense muscles flexed under it's skin when the beast moved, there was also no bone white armor on this beast meaning...
'This is not a Grimm...' The woman realized in horror, then the beast stood upright.
It now towered over her by almost two and a half meter's, its shape so very close to a Beowulf, but it looked far more natural than a Grimm could ever hope to be. It looked to be a mix of man and wolf, a legend and fairytale that wasn't supposed to exist.
Those foamy lips raised its head to the shattered moon high above, and loosed a howl that made the woman's blood freeze and fear overwhelm her senses. That howl shook the night air, blasting through the forest like a bomb had gone off.
Finishing its howl, those putrid yellow eyes settled onto her. Pushing through the fear flooding her mind, the woman steeled her will for what was to come, and the possibility that she may die this night.
Raising her weapon, she gestured for the beast to come at her. Snarling loudly, the beast charged at her with staggering speeds, she barely made time to dodge to her right to avoid being trapped in its jaws.
Dirt flew as the beast righted itself by digging its claws into the ground, which the woman took as an opportunity by peppering the beast with bullets from her weapons gun function. Running around it in a circle, she laid down heavy fire into the beasts thick hide.
Blood spurted from the wounds the beast took, though the wounds were healing fast! Faster than even aura could manage in such a short time!
'It has a healing factor!' She swore in her mind and then rolling to her left when the beast tried to snap at her with her jaws.
The sound of air popping between its jaws caused her eyes to widen.
'Fuck! That means getting close is not a good option.' Sticking to range seemed to be the best option for her, getting close meant dealing with those fangs and claws.
Keeping her weapon in one hand, she kept spraying bullets at the beast while it tried to defend its face with its arms. When it had enough of the bullets hitting it, it raked its claws across the ground and flung chunks of dirt at the woman, she jumped back to avoid getting hit, only for the beast to lunge at her.
With it's incredible speed, it was already on top of her by the time she jumped back. She twisted in the air to avoid the lashing claws that would surely bisect her in half, she landed on one hand to twist her body and delivered a sharp kick to the beasts snout.
It yelped from her shin smacking its nose, one of its more sensitive areas she had guessed based on its vaguely lupine nature. Pushing off the the ground with the hand she used to pivot her kick, she moved away and pulled out another gunpowder pellet from her pouch on her belt in her other hand along with a vile of a thick substance.
She threw the latter at the beasts feet, coating the ground in fatty oil and making the beast struggle to remain upright from the difficult terrain. Then she threw the pellet which exploded in a cloud of thick gunpowder, aiming her gun towards the oil on the ground, a single loud retort of her weapon rang out before she dove behind a nearby tree.
The oil ignited from the friction of the bullet hitting it, setting it ablaze within seconds, the beast howled when pain flared across its lower body. A spark and a small |Pop!| happening in front of the beast within the cloud of gunpowder, then a explosion shook the world when the inferno of burning oil exploded with the cloud of gunpowder.
Pained howls came from the beast as it was blown away, massive third degree burns littering its body from both the flames of the oil and the explosion. The tree the woman was behind shuddered violently from the concussive blast and violent winds that shook the area, that same wind nearly blowing her away.
Heat surged through the area, the ground charring and blackening from the detonation. Seizing her chance to make an escape while the beast was likely healing and disorientated, she burst into a run once again to the forest boundary.
She had already been close to it before, so it took only a few seconds for her to cross out into the open plains that surrounded the [City of Rain], or otherwise known as Vale. She stopped once she was halfway across the plains and the southwestern section of the city came into view.
'This is it, the place where I can start anew in a crucible of fire...' The woman gazed at the metropolis so close in the distance, then there was the waterfall Beacon Academy, her destination, sat on looming far over the city to the west.
Wind blew through the moor, the gentle touch of it lifting her black hair tied into a braided ponytail and making it sway behind her. The left side of her face was covered by a black metal eyepatch, the design etched with depictions of a panther hunting a lion, her amber yellow right eye stared at the city with a relieved look.
A set of black panther ears atop her head flicked against cold breeze, the right one had the top nicked off as if a bullet had hit it.
"A new start..." The woman whispered while wiping some of the blood off of her face from the chase.
Little did she know...that new start would be something much more sinister.
Scene Break: ? Time: ?
Panicked screams filled the air, the crackle and hissing of the roaring fire ravaging the small town quiet, yet loud. Blood painted the walls of several buildings and charred corpses laid strewn across the cobblestone pavement.
Men, women, and children ran every which way, only for death to take every single one of them within its gore covered claws. A man shrieked as he witness one of his neighbors torn apart in half from the torso, her intestines and stomach falling out of the bloodied gash scored upon her flesh.
The scent of metallic iron swam through the town with the harsher smell of ash. Cinders littered the sky, their red color clashing against the black color of the sky and smoke.
It was a slaughter and an image of hell all in one vivid picture.
Feet pattered against the cobblestone paving lining the town roads, a horde of panicking people hoping to flee the horror laying siege to their small town in the wilderness. A young boy gave a quick look back to see the terrible beast that was destroying his town, his home. Tears filled eyes filled from the terror he felt and the smoke burning within his lungs.
Alarms had rang from the town watchtower minutes earlier, but it had been far too late as the beast had burst through the town perimeter wall, right next to his house. The massive crash had startled his family before chunks of the wooden wall had flattened his house, and almost all of his family.
He had barely escaped death himself, one foot closer and he'd have been crushed with every one of his now deceased siblings. A shriek of horror had leapt past his lips as his siblings blood had leaked out from the rubble, only to be dragged away by his mother while his father ran upstairs to the room none of them had ever been allowed in.
They had run through the giant hole in their house wall as the beast clambered into the town square, his mother and himself crying as they had ran away from where his siblings grave now sat.
Jet black armored scales adorned all of it's body, cracks between the scales flickered with internal flames. Horns grew from its brow, while sharp teeth lined its mouth that dripped with spilt blood and bits of gore.
Four clawed feet shattered the ground under it as it chased the people fleeing from it, flames licked out through its from its visible throat. A long tail whipped behind it and slammed into another one of the towns residents, the poor woman was sent flying only to burst in a gush of blood upon being impaled upon a wooden beam from a collapsed house.
The boy averted his eyes as he ran as fast as he could with his mother holding his hands, trying to drown out all the terrible noises thrumming in his ears. The agony filled cries of people he had known all his life, the crackle of the fire and the booming of collapsing buildings, then the howls of the beast echoing into the night.
His mother yelled something to him, but he could not hear her over everything assailing his senses all at once. The stench of death and ash, the constant noise hammering his ears, the gruesome sights lying all around him.
'Is this hell? Did I die with everyone else and get sent to hell? This can't be real, right? RIGHT?!' He mind broke a bit further as his eyes laid upon a body to his right, the person had been trampled to death in the panic.
Shoeprints covered all of his body, his face and skull completely unrecognizable with most of his brain splattered on the street. Bile rose in the boy's throat, then his head was jerked away by his mother as he looked at him in his eyes.
"KEEP RUNNING! DON'T STOP! DON'T LOOK AT ANYTHING BESIDES WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU!" She instructed while he then trained his sight on what was in front of him.
Ash and smoke in the air made his lungs burn as he pushed himself to keep running. If he died here, then there was no way he could ever face his siblings in the afterlife, not after he was given the chance to live when they had not.
The front gate of the town was coming into view, their one chance at survival, even if it meant surviving in the Grimm infested forest beyond his home. The sense of danger intensified in his mind as vibrations traveled through the ground behind them.
With every footstep he took, they got stronger and stronger no matter how fast the boy ran. His gut was telling him that the thing that had murdered his siblings and nearly himself, was right behind him.
He glanced back with his blue eyes in fear, a dark slobbering mouth flickering with flames and gums filled with razor sharp teeth engulfed his entire vision. A hard push from his side flung him to the side, his eyes still centered on the place he had been before.
Then a burst of dark red color blossomed where he had been seconds before, a severed arm flying beside him as he skipped across the ground in an uncontrolled tumble. The breath in his lungs was driven out when his back smashed against a burning building, his vision swam as he tried to breath.
That arm landed by him as his vision cleared, only for horror to fill his mind from what he saw. A golden ring with an emerald lodged in a casing was wrapped around its ring finger, a ring he knew all too well...
It was his mothers wedding ring.
Another scream tore from his throat; A scream full of shock, terror, grief, surprise, and anger. He threw up on the scorched ground beside him, his breakfast of bacon and eggs falling out in a half digested mess.
More tears fell from his eyes than ever had before, splattering on the ground alongside the pool of vomit. He thought of his family, his father, mother, his sisters, all of which besides him and his father were now dead.
Rage blossomed within his breast, hot white fires of rage threatening to consume him whole. So intense was that rage, that his soul glowed from the power of it.
'Their all dead! EVERYONE'S DEAD WHILE I'M STILL HERE SOMEHOW! MOM HAD TO DIE TO SAVE ME! MY SISTERS ARE DEAD! AND ALL I'M DOING IS JUST SITTING HERE CRYING!" He slammed his fist against the ground, his knuckles becoming scrapped and started bleeding.
"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" He screamed with the full weight of his fury while golden light shone on his whole body, all of this had blinded him to what had been going on around him.
He whipped his head to where the beast had been as he heard it roar at something, before the ring of steel against bone reverberated through the air.
"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!" A male voice bellowed as the clash echoed again, and again, then again.
The boy looked up to see his father, the retired huntsman of his town, fighting against the beast with the heirloom legacy of his family.
A beautifully crafted sword flashed in his left hand, raking against the hard scales of the beast, and in his right hand, a shield that took every claw strike with a storm of cinders and sparks. His father had finally come!
Each blow that the beast sent shook his fathers shield arm, while the bite of Crocea Mors had failed to yet injure the beast past its scales. They both moved at a speed that was incredible, each of his father's movements refined and sharp, while the beasts strength shattered the ground where they battled.
Claws wreathed in hot fire against a sword and shield of legend, passed down through a family of warriors that spanned generations. Broken stones and ash were flung through the air from the fight, the air filled with the sounds of a battle surrounded by flames.
Even with the skill his father possessed, the boy could see that his father, as great a warrior as he was, was beginning to tire against the beast onslaught. His father had not been in active duty for nearly a decade, he was also no longer at his prime, and it showed by how his white-yellow aura had begun to flicker and his body was slick with sweat.
Another flash of steel made the beast roar in pain, as Crocea Mors had finally slipped past its scales to wound it. A spray of boiling orange ichor leaked out of the wound upon its right flank, the beast whipped its tail into his father while it stumbled around.
His heart sank when a loud cracking resounded when that tail hit his father, the older man flew through the air and slammed into the wall next to his son. Sparking lights flew off of him as his aura shattered and gush of blood dribbled from his lips.
"DAD!" The boy screamed as he rushed over to him, while his fathers eyes landed on him.
"Jaune...your still alive! Thank the gods..." His father coughed out while more scarlet blood flew out from the cough, flecks of it landed on Jaune's face.
"You need to run! Get out of here! Your the only one still alive!" Jaune shook his head, tears still falling from his eyes while a small fire burned within his blue iris's.
"I'm not leaving you! Mom, Sapphron, Jade, Scarlet, Violet, Auburn, Coral, and Azure are all gone!" Jaune yelled while hugging his fathers chest, his tears mixing with the blood staining his fathers chest.
"Your my son alright, never listening to what I tell you..." His father chuckled with a raspy tone before he coughed loudly again.
"Then again, I didn't listen to my old man that much at your age, either. I guess it's just in our blood..." Another glob of multi-colored blood gushed past his lips, while Jaune look at his mortally wounded father with tears of grief.
Even he knew that there was not much you can do to save someone if they were losing that much blood that quickly...
He felt his strength fading, he would not be able to protect Jaune in his condition. The only chance left for his son to live, was to finish the beast he had wounded off, and avenge those who had died today.
Handing Jaune Crocea Mors, he wrapped his sons fingers around the sword that had served their family through generations of conflict, and strapping the shield to his sons left arm. He dipped his index finger in the blood pooling under him, before raising the finger to Jaune's forehead and writing a symbol on it. Two crescent moons laid over each other.
"My son. Take Crocea Mors and finish the beast or you will not live past today. May our ancestors watch over and bless you, last son of the Arc's..." The last breath he had passed his lips and Jaune's father fell still forever more.
Jaune howled in grief before turning to face the beast that had finished stumbling around from the wound his father had gave it, instead it began charging at him. He gripped Crocea Mors in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the strength of his grip.
Golden aura flared up around his body, the intensity of it growing stronger as the emotions of his soul burned hotter and hotter. Raising his family sword out of instinct, Jaune's aura enveloped it in a golden hue, before he brought it down in a titanic aura slash at the beast.
Large chunks of the ground were carved away by the aura slash before it slammed into the beast and staggered it, the force of it generating a explosion that threw smoke everywhere. Jaune charged forward while using the smoke as cover, he jumped over the beast by augmenting his strength with his aura and landed upon its back.
Crocea Mors swung downward in his hand, the aura augmented blade hummed loudly in his hand, the blade scrapped against the beasts scales in storm of sparks, and a hideous scratching sound ringed before the blade was able to break through the armor with its comeback swing.
The beast bucked hard as it shrieked in pain, its heavy weight and motion of its panicking state made it difficult for Jaune to hold on. He gripped his sword to drive it in further, only for the beast's tail to swing around and whip into him from behind.
He made sure to keep his weapon in his hands, even as he was sent flying by the blow. His golden aura flashed brightly as he crashed into a statue within the town square, globs of blood flew out from his mouth from the impact.
Aura could heal you and strength you, but there was little it could do against massive amounts of kinetic energy. Jaune fell to his knees while he tried to breathe, his body stunned from the lack of air in it.
Three seconds passed before he could breathe normally again and his vision to settle, three seconds too long it seemed when the beast swatted him with one of its claws, sending him ass over head into another building.
One of his ribs felt like they had cracked from collision, but his aura started fixing it as quickly as it could while he also used his augmented strength. Blood bubbled up past his lips from his bruised organs, his stomach was likely close to rupturing with how much stomach acid was mixed with the blood.
Every breath was painful, the burning it caused generated by his cracked rib, and his body was battered beyond belief. His body screamed at him to stop, to let it rest and recover, but he knew that would be a death sentence with what he was fighting.
This beast had killed everyone in the town besides him, he was the last one of over three hundred people left.
He was the only one left who had to avenge everyone else.
'Mom, dad, my sisters, everyone I have known is all dead! I was powerless to help them, I didn't do a thing until Dad had died in front of me...' Jaune felt his aura pulse suddenly in more strength, his body filling with more energy than before.
'Bullshit.' He reached out with his left hand, grabbing the shattered rubble he laid in and standing up with heavy trouble.
Golden light pulsed around him from his aura, he had gotten his second wind by the gift of fate it seems. The beast roared at him when it saw him stand up, then Jaune released a howl of his own as a challenge.
After the challenges issued, both the child and beast rushed at each other. Dirt and rubble flew from where the beasts massive clawed feet ruptured the ground, while dust flew behind Jaune with his aura enhanced speed.
Pushing his aura into his legs increased his speed, letting him reach the beast first. He ducked under its snapping jaws and slid underneath its belly, once he slid beside the back legs, he grabbed the back right one to fling himself around it while lashing out with Crocea Mors to slice the back of its knee.
Rolling out by its right side, he watched as the beast sunk to the ground from its now injured leg. He steadied himself by digging his sword into the ground, nearly wrenching his arm out of socket doing so.
Once his momentum had stopped, he charged right back at the beast while it tried to stand. It saw him coming and it opened it's jaws with a harsh glow coming from it's throat, Jaune's eyes widened in fear as he abandoned his charge and flung himself to the side.
Not even a second later, a torrent of white hot flames torched the area he had been in, the cobblestone bubbling and bursting from the sheer heat. Jaune covered his body with his shield, trying to avoid being burned by the heat.
The middle of the street looked like a magma pit, while beast seemed to be breathing heavily from using its destructive attack. Uncovering himself from his shield, Jaune noted that this might be the best time to finish the fight.
That attack had drained the beast of energy! He rushed in at it, but kept his shield raised in case it could fire off another of those attacks. The bubbling ground under his feet burned through his shoes and into his feet's soles, yet he ignored the pain to achieve his goal.
Bellowing a battle cry, Jaune jumped off the ground and above the beast. He twisted his shield to change his center of gravity, letting him change direction in the air. He landed on the beasts neck, its hard and apparently sharp scales cutting his now uncovered feet.
He raised Crocea Mors and brought it down upon the beast's neck, successfully cutting through its scales with aura enhancement, and its sharp diamond shaped tip then punctured through the bottom of it's neck.
A giant geyser of orange boiling blood doused Jaune, splashing him all over from head to toe. The beast shrieked before collapsing to it's belly, haggard and ragged wheezes came soon after while it struggled to breath.
Jaune also sank to his knees, breathing just as hard as the beast, only to feel a strange sensation envelop him while he tensed up expecting another fight.
'Thank you...for freeing me...child.' He was startled when a deep, guttural, and terrifying voice vibrated in his ears? Or was it his head?
'I am Volath'kir, the Fire Salamander you just...fought...I am sorry, for what I did was not of my...own free will.' The fire salamander, who was apparently named Volath'kir, coughed loudly and spit out globs of its blood underneath him.
"My mind had been...taken from me...by who...I do not know. By the time I had...realized what had been happening, it had been too...late to stop it." Volath'kir wheezed as he struggled to speak, to warn the child that saved him of what he had just done and the world he just forced himself into.
'Child of man...heed what I'm going to say. You have just committed an act with far more consequences than you currently know of..." Jaune tensed up on the mention of consequences of killing Volath'kir, his blue eyes flashing with concern and uncertainty.
He felt a sense of danger and a slight shift in the world around him, as if his perception of the world had changed...that feeling and sensation unnerved him utterly.
'Beware child...for this world holds more secrets than you would ever know. Beware that which lurks beyond the Veil.' The fire salamander fell still as Jaune pulled Crocea Mors out of its body, flicking the blood off of it as his father had told him to do with any tool that got dirty.
'There's more out there than just this? Volath'kir was strong, strong enough to destroy my home, but someone had been controlling him?' Jaune looked out into the ruins of his home, staring at the destruction that had been made by Volath'kir.
'He had implied that there were worse things out there than him.' Jaune took a deep breath before he jumped off of the poor creature.
As much as he wanted to hate Volath'kir for what he had done, Volath'kir had no choice in the matter if he had his mind effectively overridden by something stronger than him. Jaune stumbled over to a house that was somewhat intact, opening up the cellar doors to walk inside, while closing them to ensure the Grimm couldn't get in.
He walked over to a nearby beam and slid down against it, exhaustion flooded every part of his body. He had one last question in his mind before his unknowingly changed eyes closed shut.
'What else is out there if Volath'kir is right?'
Scene Break: Ruby
Dawn was approaching soon, with the Beacon initiation being later today. Ruby was currently sitting on the same roof she had been since her epiphany about herself. Admiring the new changes to her undead body, her luxurious onyx black hair and alabaster colored skin.
'Damn I look nice now, like a umbral queen...' Ruby thought while rolling her left index finger through her hair.
She bared her veined vampiric teeth over her lips in a sinister smile. A feeling of wicked happiness coursing through her at that thought, the thought of her being a Queen.
It felt sublime. After so very long of mistakenly given other people so much of herself with no gain, she would become a ruler. A ruler of herself, her possessions, and other people. Soon, the world will playing to her tune, instead of her to it.
For now, her most important objective was that she had to stay under Ozpin's radar at Beacon. After she was assured that Ozpin didn't know that she had changed, that she gave into her corruption, only then would she begin moving her plans and agenda forward.
With the loss of her old morals, Ruby felt like a dense fog had lifted over her mind. All those old thoughts on helping others had clouded many parts of her mind, like how she could now think of plans more cold and calculatingly, measuring the risks with the rewards based on what she wanted.
"It's kind of funny. There are those who never realized they were trapped until they become free." Ruby mused before laughing coldly and looked up at the moon again, her hands gripped the roof ledge where her legs still swung silently while gazing at the planetary satellite.
That giant shattered moon shone silver light down on her, but the shadows around her darkened in contrast, stretching out towards Ruby with grasping claws to claim her as one of them.
The thick thorny umbra vines covered in roses swayed behind Ruby in her shadow, slowly yet sinisterly, they moved with the abyssal wind Ruby's corrupted soul generated.
|Ring! Ring! Ring!| The silence of Ruby's peaceful night had been shattered when her scroll started ringing, with an aggravated growl, Ruby picked it up to see who was calling.
Her breath sucked in sharply as a reflex when she saw it was the man who had her by the noose.
She was not ready to speak to him so suddenly, not after her changes and corruption earlier tonight. If she gave away too much while talking, her ambitions would be cut away with her unlife.
An act was needed to fool him, but how should she do it? She's never had to act and hide her intentions from somebody, much less a shrewd man like Ozpin! Inside she was panicking, only for a feeling to swell in her breast (A/N: No I don't mean her boobs, I mean her breastbone area).
It felt like water swimming near her collarbone, only the water felt vicious or pasty. It was similar to oil, just far more sinister in nature. The sensation relaxed her enough to focus, turning her attention back to the scroll.
'Okay, calm down. Act like how you've been the last few days, give him a false image to think nothings changed.' Ruby told herself before answering it while lifting up the scroll to ear, carefully thinking of what to say and what not to say.
"Hello sir, do you need something?" Ruby asked in a voice she assumed to sound somewhat pleasant, yet also annoyed at the same time.
She thought it would seem more genuine, more lifelike, even if she was already a walking cadaver. To respond with something more or less hostile would seem suspicious, as if she bounced back too quickly from her killing the teenage couple.
So the pleasantness should be forced, along with the annoyance from being bothered when she was supposedly stewing in self-hatred. Both were something she can easily act with right now, since she hated Ozpin and was annoyed at him calling so suddenly.
"Yes, I do miss Rose. A bullhead is on route to Patch to collect you. You likely already know you cannot travel during the day, so I arranged a transport to take you here to Beacon." Ozpin's cool voice resounded from Ruby's scroll, making her temper and hatred lurch at his words.
"I do know now. I had to make sure my curtains were closed completely during the day after the only time." She would never again make that mistake, for it had hurt a lot when the sunlight had scorched her leg.
It had taken far longer for it heal than normal. Twenty minutes had passed before the scar had faded completely, twenty minutes spent groaning while clutching leg in absolute misery.
"I would imagine so, a few seconds of sunlight exposure is lethal to most vampires." That had Ruby's curiosity peak instantly.
Ozpin had said "most vampires." Not all, but most. If she could find a way to walk in the daylight again, she would create as many human corpses needed to achieve it.
"Is there a certain place I need to meet the bullhead at?" Ruby questioned, hoping that it wasn't too far from where she was.
She still needed some time to notify her family, the most important one being Yang. Ruby needed Yang to stop looking into her as soon as possible.
"Beyond the town of Patch, in the forest to the north where the biggest hill in the forest is." Ozpin explained while Ruby thought of the place he meant.
It was a popular place for local hunters-in-training to train at fighting the Grimm, as most Grimm there would be smaller Beowulves and the occasional juvenile Nevermore flock.
"I'll be there after I let my family know." Ruby affirmed with Ozpin grunting on the other end, something seemed to have taken his attention away from their conversation.
"Good, if you fail to show up before dawn, it will be taken as an act of breaching our agreement and you will be hunted down and killed as a vampire threat. Do I need to remind you of the other day?" Ozpin talking about killing her and trying to hold the moral high ground fanned the flames of Ruby's hatred and rage at him.
Here he was trying to dangle a set of strings on her, and she really fucking hated it. She wouldn't ever be someone's puppet, not after gaining her freedom from her old strings.
Her left lip curled over her teeth in a terrifying snarl, her silver eyes glinting with cold and harsh steel. She took a few seconds to calm down, long enough to do it, but short enough to compel Ozpin to be under the impression she was imagining dying again.
"I-I understand sir." Adding a touch of hesitancy and fear to her tone made Ruby's ploy pull off it seems, for Ozpin's next words were spoken in a somewhat gentler tone.
"See you when you get here, miss Rose." The connection went silent while Ruby felt her temper boil over from Ozpin blatantly speaking about his blackmail over her, her own fucking life!
"I'm going to kill that son of a bitch when I get the chance!" Ruby hissed loudly before slamming her fist into the shingle roofing she sat on.
He was going to suffer, his death would not be pleasant! That Ruby promised herself. She would be a Ruler, she would not tolerate someone trying to control her. He will dance to her strings, not the other way around.
Ruby's ambitions were growing more and more, she would become a strong enough Tyrant to never be threatened or someone's puppet! Fuck anybody else! She would not let her second chance be taken away from her so easily!
She would reign over both night and day! All would be hers eventually, even if it must take centuries to accomplish! A unsettling atmosphere settled over Ruby, her shadow twisted and writhed with small tendril's extending out of her shadow into the 3d world.
Dark strength settled into Ruby, who began breathing deep and slow to calm herself down. She still had to tell her family about the unexpected change in her plans, then she needed to craft a likeable persona to present to her eventual teammates.
Competent, calculating, charismatic, and empathetic. Those were the kinds of traits most people would respond well to. If she can gently coax one or more of her teammates to be like who she was now, she would have an easier time gaining followers after they began working for her.
One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, and so on. To rule like she wanted, she needed loyal and capable followers to enact her will. That can wait, though, she needed to call Yang first and then her father.
Yang had been trying to pry anything she could out of Ruby, so if Ruby gave some half truths, Yang might be satisfied for now. They wouldn't be seeing each other that much at Beacon, not when Ruby's classes begin at sundown.
There would likely be rumors about her roaming the halls like a ghost, rumors that she could maybe use to feed every once and a while. Ruby doubted that the blood packs Beacon will give her would taste better than fresh blood.
Lifting her fist from the cracked roof tiles, Ruby dialed Yang's number on her scroll. A few seconds passed with an irritating dial tone echoing in her ears before Yang picked up.
"Hu...hmhm...hello?" Ah, that would explain the wait.
Her sister had been sleeping, judging by the exhausted voice and jumbled mess of mumbles.
"Hey Yang. I just wanted to let you know I have a bullhead I'll take to Beacon before dawn after the events of the other day." It was the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth about what had happened.
"Ruby? Wait...RUBY?! Where did you go when you left earlier?!" Yang's panicked and very concerned voice blasted into Ruby's heightened hearing like a bomb, making her wince slightly.
"I'm in Patch Town right now." Short and simple, yet it should be enough for Yang to calm down.
"Why did you leave home at night to go into town?! You would have had to fight the Grimm past home to even get there!" Or maybe not, Ruby sighed before making her voice shake a bit for added effect for her lie to Yang.
"When I was in Vale, a group of muggers tried to rob me on my way away from the dust shop. I fought them off, but one of them ended up...dead because I hit him with Crescent Rose too hard when he had no aura..." That was a totally fabricated story she made up on the spot, but since they weren't video chatting, Yang had no way to tell if Ruby was lying besides solely on her voice.
Yang's audible gasp reverberated in Ruby's ears, meaning Yang believed it at least a little bit. It would make sense from Yang's perspective, given she had first seen Ruby covered in blood that she couldn't tell was a mix of both Ruby's own and the two teens she had killed.
"So I haven't been able to sleep at night lately, not when I see his face staring at me..." For her first time orchestrating such a grand lie, Ruby thought she was doing rather good.
"Oh Ruby...I'm so sorry..." There was the pity Ruby knew that would come, not that there was any need for it.
If she had a reason to, she'd kill, kill again, and kill some more. She wouldn't go out of her way to kill somebody that doesn't deserve it, that would be pointless and a waste.
"Ozpin is sending that bullhead to come pick me up ahead of the other students, so that way I can sleep during the day while everyone else is arriving." Another half truth, she would be sleeping during the day, but not because of the reason that she had given Yang.
A reason Ruby didn't know that Yang knew had been a lie, but kept silent on it after what she heard their father and uncle Qrow talking about.
"I just wanted to let you know. I'll call Dad now to tell him, bye Yang!" Yang said her goodbyes before Ruby hung up the line.
'This will be the tricky part...' Ruby anticipated with a grimace, her father was much better than Yang at detecting lies.
Dialing her father's number had Ruby sweating bullets...well she would be sweating bullets if she could, but her body was very much dead. Her father picked up with words that made Ruby freeze in terror.
"Ruby...I know what you are now."
Annnnnnnnd that's it! I know I said that this chapter would be the initiation chapter, but I wasn't really able to do that in this one.
Two of the scenes introduced some important characters, but we still haven't seen the rest.
As of finishing this chapter, it's sitting at a little more than 10,000 words. If I added the rest of what I had planned, then it would have been over 20,000 words for a single chapter.
Who was the woman with the eyepatch? What does Jaune know about in the present? How will Yang go about trying to learn what Ruby's hiding?
How will Ruby and her father's talk go?
Keeping reading to find out!
I hope yall liked the chapter, tell me what you thought and leave a vote if you'd like!