A/N: Gosh dang it to heck hospital rounds are stressful. Barely made it out alive myself. Hope you guys are having a better start to your year.
Thank you for the support to this story. It really means a lot.
I do not own RWBY or AdventureQuest Worlds
Even though both carried huge weapons, they were no less fast. The young man wielding the greatsword ripped his weapon out of the ground, making the stone platform they were on shake slightly, and Ella jumped high in the air to dodge the attack. She brought her Murakumo down, and the reanimated guard barely had the time to bring the greatsword up to cover his face. Despite being weakened, Ella's strength was still superhuman, and the feet of the undead greatsword wielder slowly planted itself into the platform of the pyramid.
The undead guard spun his greatsword, swatting the huntress away. Ella caught herself in the air and righted her body to reorient, but the undead already caught up with an upward slash targeting her falling form. Ella hastily parried with her own claymore, and she was launched a few meters back, digging her heels to the stone platform to slow herself to a stop.
Ella shook her shoulders, feeling the impact of the greatsword against her own made her limbs sore. She grinned in anticipation of a worthy battle though, even if her undead opponent did not show the same feelings. The greatsword wielding guard looked at her blankly with his empty red glowing stare.
]|[
Gustina really hasn't lost her strength at all-! Victorika grit her teeth trying to parry a veritable rain of spear strikes launched at her at furious speeds by the long-haired brunette draped in the shadowy smoke of the serpent. She snuck a glance at her allies. They seem to be doing well enough for themselves, worried as she was on how they would fare against the best of the best of her old kingdom. Young Alphonse was still as strong as ever, wielding his greatsword with quiet fury like the days of old when they went monster hunting. Carmina was still as graceful as she always was; a whirling dervish with her curved blade, matched by the near reckless aggression of her partner Antonino, who tried to corner the mysterious stranger that accompanied her descendant. The stranger, Johnny, seemed to be flying through their attacks with ease, though.
Her distraction watching her old comrades was not lost on Gustina, who unleashed a stab that would have crushed her throat, had she not quickly teleported at the last moment. The spear crushed the ground where Victorika had been, sending stone flying everywhere. The silver-eyed gravetender appeared above Gustina, striking with her sword in her left hand. The spear wielding undead quickly drew up her spear to catch the straight sword, but Victorika already anticipated this, and Gustina's defense left her open. She brought the other sword down from above the spear. Unfortunately for her, Gustina also anticipated what she would do, and without moving from her position, kicked the gravetender to the chin from below. Panicking from the sudden counter, Victorika quickly blinked away.
Also anticipating where she would reappear, Victorika opened her eyes to a spear heading to her head, and she brought both her swords up and deflected it upwards. In one fluid motion, she brought both her blades to Gustina's now open midsection, seeking to pierce through her chest. Gustina brought up her leg, letting it be skewered instead, and kicked off the ground, the straight swords tearing chunks of shadowy flesh from the limb.
Victorika looked on with horror as the limb slowly reformed itself, the shadows knitting the torn flesh together. Gustina hadn't even flinched in their exchange, and simply leveled the spear in front of her again and crouched low, ready for another clash. The gravetender grit her teeth. Her old comrade was much tougher than in life.
]|[
Johnny may be cruising through dodging the attacks of his opponents, but he wasn't getting much attacks in either. Normally, he was the one doing the parrying, but the deadly teamwork of the curved sword and mace wielders put him in a state of being unable to find a moment of attack. The moment he tried to counter the numerous slashes of the curved sword, the mace user would barrel in, trying to crush him. If he moved in to punish the reckless charge of the larger man, the curved sword wielder would jump from behind their partner and harass him again with their flurry.
He would've enjoyed this little dance of theirs, as well. Spars in the Legion Arena normally ended with beheading the undead warriors that hung around the arena, as the warriors that trained there were used to their own undeath, and the casual accidental killings of each other's comrades were very common. With a master like Dage, getting raised back to fight again was nothing. All this means he could never get a good spar as most of the others were always gunning for the throat.
Unfortunately this time, he was actually in a hurry, distracted as he was with reminiscing of home, so he couldn't enjoy this fight properly. As he did so, Johnny casually weaved through the curved sword storming to strike at his vitals, and he smashed the flat of his blade to the undead's wrist, disarming them. As they scrambled to pick it up, Johnny ran and jumped on their helmeted head, and jumped up, flipping himself backwards to dodge the charging mace wielder trying to tackle him away from their partner. He angled himself to land to the back of the mace wielder, and slashed down with the momentum of his fall, bisecting the large man shoulder to waist.
The torso of the undead began to fall to the side, but tendrils of shadow from the still standing cut off torso pulled on the upper half of the body, and began to slowly weave itself together, sort of like putting two pieces of clay into one piece. The mace wielder look at Johnny from behind his shoulder, and growled.
"Oh." Johnny, wide-eyed, said in mild shock. "Oh that makes this difficult." It was all he had the chance to say before the mace the man was holding began to glow an ominous red and burst into flames. Wisps of fire began to shoot at him, forcing the adventurer to dodge frantically out of the way.
]|[
The serpent watched the shadows fight the intruders back, but it had not intended to stay out of the fight completely. Feeling the shadows given to it by its master, it swept through the city once again, picking up bones and the remains of the once inhabitants of the old kingdom. Nobles and the slaves they had sealed themselves into the tombs with them, the knights honor-bound to guard the elite, simple citizens lucky enough to be granted a lavish resting place by their old royals.
Unlike before, the serpent acknowledged that the three were of a much larger threat than previously thought. The one that had tried chasing it even after all these years fought harder now that she had allies that fought with her. Mere skeletons wouldn't stop them, and they were proving even a great match against the elite defenders of the pyramid's inner sanctum.
Shadows re-knit the flesh of the fallen. The black smoke replaced the flesh of those left a dusty skeleton after all these years. It wrapped around the bones, clung to the ribcages, and coalesced into a beating mass in place of what was supposed to be the hearts of those that it puppeted. Their eyes glowed the same red that shone on the eyes of the elite guards.
The newly animated shadow undead tried to remember what they were in life; the memories of the old remains fueling them to move. The serpent roared, and they heard. They turned to the pyramid, and echoed the furious cry of the one that called them to move.
Destroyers of their kingdom. Those that had looked at their golden fields and muttered in the shadows with jealousy. The eyes in the night that looked upon their prosperity with envy. Barbarians, parasites, lowlives-!
Who was it that had led the Grimm into the lands in the first place, after they had lost the protection of their king and queen? They had marched into the kingdom, razed it to the ground, and freed the faunus, letting the abominations roam across their sacred fields. They were beasts consumed by their own envy. The cries of the innocents they had mercilessly culled called the tide of darkness into their kingdom, and what then? Not even their raiders were left after the Grimm were done with them.
They had sealed themselves under the necropolis, driven underground by the disaster. They sat in silence as the roars of the Grimm echoed from above, and the cries of their destroyers was heard all throughout the caves they had sealed themselves in. It never stopped, even as they had slowly fell one by one from their own hunger or injuries. Only their blanked faced guards remained in their slow march to their own deaths. As they breathed their last, they cursed their raiders, the world, even their own king and queen that had abandoned them.
It was this same rage that they had remembered as they marched to the call of the serpent. Unlike before where the skeletons shuffled and growled with distant fury they didn't understand, they now moved with determination. Perhaps they felt righteous in destroying those that would dare to even defile the remnants of their kingdom. Whatever the reasons remained within those hollow shells that walked the streets of the necropolis of Darkvalley Depths, the Revenants moved with one simple directive: kill the intruders.
]|[
The great roar of rage hadn't escaped Johnny of course, even as he battled the two. After it, his opponents seemed to move with even more bloodlust. Where there was once the graceful flowing motions of the curved sword, now was replaced with the reckless slashes that almost leaved the guard out of balance with every attack. The charge of the mace wielder that worked in concert with his more refined partner was now left with nothing but a rage-filled beast that destroyed anything in its path. This made it easier for Johnny to get hits in however, even as the wounds he inflicted re-knit themselves almost immediately.
Victorika certainly noticed the difference in her old comrades' movements. Gustina's stabs turned more savage. It retained the same movements, but there were more desperation in the woman's movements. She overextended. The silver-eyed gravetender capitalized, dodging under the spear strike, and she drove her twin swords deep into the stomach of the undead spear wielder. Knowing that Gustina would regenerate from the attack, she ripped one of the swords up the shadowy torso, cutting her old friend's neck. The long haired woman stared at Victorika with glowing red eyes, and placed a hand on the sword that dug within her false flesh, and actually pulled, letting it dig deeper into her flesh. She dropped her spear, and grabbed Victorika's throat, clenching it with undead strength.
It might've snapped any lesser person's neck, but Victorika was already dead. The silver-eyed woman disappeared from Gustina's grasp and reappeared behind her. She grabbed the edge of her swords sticking out of Gustina's flesh and pulled, completely eviscerating the undead, leaving the long haired woman in pieces.
Or it would have, if the shadows didn't immediately pull itself together. Victorika knew this would happen, and she unleashed the light within her, blasting Gustina's remains away with a yell.
Nearby, Alphonse, Carmina, and Antonino noticed the explosion of light from Victorika. Alphonse himself would have come to help the spear wielder with Victorika, but…
"Your fight is with me, boy!" Ella laughed, smashing her claymore against the hastily raised greatsword. Ella seemed not to lose steam, even with a major difference in strength, and did not show any signs of fatigue. In fact, the huntress lost herself in the fight, enjoying the exchange. She took advantage of the fact that this would be the only fair fight she would have gotten, because Johnny wasn't interested in fighting.
Frustrated with her previous opponent, she took out her frustrations on the greatsword wielding undead, whaling on him with brutal swipes of the claymore. Aura still recovering, Ella had not used her semblance yet, but her strength was back, and that was all she needed. The fight was skill versus skill. Each parried and countered each exchange, and the fight seemed even.
It did not remain that way. The greatsword wielding undead, affected by the fury of the serpent, slammed his greatsword into the ground with suck force it had dug a small fissure into the stone platform. Ella dodged the reckless attack with ease, simply jumping back to avoid the attack entirely. The undead pulled on the greatsword back, but it was seemingly stuck on the ground. Ella smirked and charged, bringing the Murakumo up. The guard freed the greatsword, but he was too late. Ella sliced through the guard's arms, forcing the weapon out of his arms. He staggered back, and Ella pulled the claymore back, and stabbed the guard through the chest.
He squirmed, impaled on the claymore. "Yield, sir. You are beaten." Ella said with a smile. She was breathing heavy, and her arms feel like rocks, but she was satisfied. Her opponent did not feel the same way and struggled, growling furiously at her. Ella raised the claymore higher, looking at her opponent curiously.
She look at the arms she had cut off. It was being pulled back into the body of her opponent, trying to regenerate. She clicked her tongue. Seems it wasn't going to be that easy, but she didn't want to use her powers either. Her ancestor seemed comfortable in using it a lot though, but if it had a chance of robbing her of a good fight, then she just resolved to not use it at all.
She flicked the claymore, flinging the undead back into the chamber they were guarding in the first place. "I'm going on ahead!" She called back to her allies, dashing after her opponent into the dark inner sanctum of the pyramid.
Johnny groaned again. "There she goes again—Ack!" His whining was cut short by the curved sword careening to his neck, which he barely avoided. Bolts of fire rained from above, and Johnny cut them all from the air. "This is getting annoying." The adventurer grunted. He can hear the determined march from the city, and the legions of red eyes slowly massing to the pyramid. A few more minutes of this, they'd be drowning in undead. Time to stop dilly-dallying and end this.
Taking a book out of Victorika's bag of tricks, Johnny himself blasted their enemies with Blinding Light, burning the undead guards with sacred light. All of them screamed in pain, and the serpent felt the pain through its connection to the shadows controlling the undead. "Throw them in!" He shouted to the gravetender, who nodded, running to help him with his two opponents and ignoring the currently in-pieces-but-regenerating Gustina.
Johnny narrowly ducked under the wild flailing of the curved sword, and slammed his shoulder to his opponent. He began to run, and began carrying his opponent bodily to the inner sanctum.
Victorika sheathed both her swords, and with her running start, launched a drop kick straight into Antonino's chest, who grunted and stepped back from the force. With strength born from being undead, Victorika kicked the larger man again and again, sending him back stumbling into the inner sanctum.
]|[
The undead, who was once named Gustina, stared at the ceiling of the cave. There was nothing on her mind, or at least at, that was what supposed to be. The hatred she had felt, and the constant echoing of the roar of the serpent bounced around in her mind. The shadow, forcefully making the body remember the skills she had during life, fed back into her mind. She remembered. There wasn't any soul to recover, but the memories of this body still lingered. The anger that this vessel experienced that the shadow was trying to use wasn't the serpent's, but hers and hers alone. Its will may have magnified what Gustina had felt, but that was the only thing it did. Slowly, through the dredges of her mind, Gustina took back control.
She remembered this cavern. She remembered this specific vista. Her eyes wandered to the great dome on the center of the ceiling. Her eyes lingered on it, trying to find something hidden on the picture she was seeing. Her mind was blurry, the thoughts and memories in her head confused by the fog that was her death and sudden revival.
She remembered the faces of her comrades, now thrown back into their posts by their intruders. And she clearly, clearly, remembered the face of her silver-eyed friend, viciously eviscerating her, while her new allies tore into her old friends. Why? Why had little Victorika turned on them? Why was she aiding the barbarians that was robbing their kingdom? Why was she helping them disturb their highnesses' remains?
The light from within her traitorous comrade burned her shadowy flesh, and as it pulled itself together, Gustina made the pain hers. Each stinging sensation made her feel alive. She felt. Through it, she collected herself from the fog of her own memories.
The world shook, and the dome from above them all groaned as it slowly turned. The undead guard, General Gustina, clenched her teeth and gripped her spear. She stood, turning her blazing red eyes on the inner sanctum. She heard the march of her people behind her, and each step she took made her feel like who she was from her before.
From above all of them, the dome turned, and light crept across the edges of the cave.
]|[
Johnny slammed the flat of his katana across the helmeted head of his opponent, disorientating them. They were still writhing around in pain from Johnny's attack, and the adventurer took advantage of it and looked around the room they were in.
The top of the pyramid was connected to a massive edge of rock where the serpent was coiled around. Within that reversed cliff was the old passage to the surface. It was gated from within the inner chamber of the pyramid, with a massive stone door. This chamber also held the entrances to the graves of the most important members of the kingdom, but it was hidden from the sights of those that normally just used the chamber as a passageway to the necropolis.
Victorika came in just after Johnny, slamming her heel under Antonino's chin. "How do we get out of here?" Johnny asked. The gravetender nodded and ran to the center of the room, where there were two pillars. She quickly yanked out two items stuck on the pedestals, and the massive stone door on the far end of the room began to shake.
Ella was still fighting the greatsword wielder, Alphonse. Victorika noted the frown her descendant had fighting her old comrade. She pitied the state the young man was driven to: shadowy flesh ragged, face contorted in a rictus of pain, swings off mark and sloppy. The reckless, enraged state the serpent put him in had made the fight worse for him. Ella, an accomplished warrior, took full advantage. "Enough!" Ella shouted, and sidestepped the slam of the greatsword the undead had. She swung her claymore and smashed it down the poor undead guard's shoulders. The greatsword wielder grunted in pain, and was forced on his knees. "This fight is no longer fun." Ella declared, eyes blazing silvery white.
Point blank, Ella executed her opponent with her powers, blasting away the shadows from the remains of Alphonse. Victorika raised both eyebrows in surprise. Her descendant held much more light within her, and was certainly much more powerful, so why had she not had done that from the start?
What remained was the skeleton of the young man frozen in stone, empty eyes glaring up at the huntress. Ella snorted and turned away from her opponent.
Only Johnny was left to deal with the last two. Johnny held a hand out to the squirming curved sword wielder's head and the downed Antonino. If brute force won't work, how about sacred cleansing light?
Muttering a prayer, the blessed light turned the two to ashes, Exorcising their remains and removing the malicious influence of the shadows. The smoke drifted out from their bodies, and faded away to ash.
"Right." Johnny said while brushing of the ash out of his sleeves. He looked up at the door, seeing it slowly open. "Only that spear user left." Victorika's eyes widened, realizing who was left. Johnny felt the hairs on the back of his head stand up, and forced himself to duck.
Gustina! Victorika thought, dropping the two items she took from the stone pedestals and unsheathed both her swords. The spear wielder looked absolutely murderous, and the empty rage in the eyes of her former comrade was replaced by determined, righteous fury. She kicked the surprised Johnny, who was sent stumbling away and prepared to skewer him when he scrambled to stand up. The gravetender was just in time to parry the weapon away.
Now on his feet, Johnny shot blasts of light at the undead, while Victorika exchanged blows with her. Gustina opened her mouth, a low growl rumbling from her throat. The undead stared at the silver-eyed gravetender with pure contempt.
"You little traitor…!" Gustina hissed with a rough, raspy voice. "Assisting barbarians?!" She turned her eyes to the petrified skeletal remains of Alphonse, greatsword left on the ground beside it. Ella stared back at the now conscious spear wielder and her ancestor, who was looking more and more horrified with every word from Gustina. "You've killed out friends!"
"Well, you know, technically, all of you are already dead?" Johnny said unhelpfully. Ella glared at the man, who was looking more concernedly at the entryway of the chamber. This concern was not unfounded. The adventurer could hear the march of the legions of the dead slowly grow closer as they climbed the stairs of the pyramid. He really could not care less for whatever grudge lingered that the shadow was using to manipulate the spear wielder. Unfortunately for him, Gustina showed exactly how little she thought of Johnny's comment.
Smashing a fist across Victorika's face, Gustina kicked the gravetender away, and deflected the blasts of light from Johnny with her spear. Charging fast at the adventurer, she stabbed away at him, forcing Johnny to fight melee. Johnny snuck in Light Blasts in between attacks, but even then…
"How are you shrugging this off?!" Johnny yelled. Gustina's body of shadows weren't being smited by the holy light of the Celestials. Now, she was swallowing the light. So steeped in darkness, that not even the sacred radiance of a Lightcaster cannot pierce it. Even the serpent took damage from it, so why can't she?!
Gustina wasn't simply being controlled by the shadows now; her own consciousness now ruled her own actions. Undead she may be, but she was not under the spell by any other master than herself, and it made her dangerous. Even the shadows responded to her emotions. Where it was once simply puppet strings, now it was a mantle that protected. An all swallowing dark that was a contrast to the light.
Much like the darkness of the god of this world, who had threatened to swallow the light of his older brother.
Johnny gritted his teeth. He glanced at the slowly still opening stone doors. He only had to deal with this undead until they had the chance to escape-!
Snarling, Gustina had already realized that they were trying to escape to the surface. Maybe she could not stop them from escaping by herself, but she still had backups. She only had to make them busy until they got here!
]|[
The serpent heaved and wriggled, setting itself straight. IT had felt the deep rumbling of the stone mechanisms of the city. It knows that the pesky intruders were trying to escape him. Mirroring Gustina, it snarled in fury. It felt the anger of the general, and it responded.
It looked to the army of the dead that slowly climbed. It wouldn't simply be enough to stop them from escaping.
Then what if they didn't have a route to escape in the first place?
Roaring as it steeled itself, the serpent smashed its head to the rock face that jutted to the underground caverns. It tore through the rock, destroying the path to the surface. Again and again, it rammed the stones that covered the great passage, burying it all in rock, and letting it all fall down to the cave.
Finally exposing the back side of the chamber of the pyramid, it peered inside, looking at the spooked Ella, who stared at the great beast in mounting terror.
"Oh fuck." The huntress muttered inelegantly under her breath. The serpent answered with a roar that deafened them all within the room. Despite herself, Ella brought her claymore up to fight, and a smile tugged at the edge of her lips.
Victorika grimaced, it was getting worse by the second. Johnny exhoed her thoughts. "Oh great." He said, trying to put down the undead general trying to take his head. "What could possibly-!" He ducked under one of the stabs and slashed upwards, hitting Gustina in the arms to force her to back away from him. "—go wrong now?!" He finished.
A lot it seemed, as the entrance to the chamber were filled with groans and snarls of the shadowy undead. Gustina skidded across the floor and stopped just in front of her now reanimated people, using her spear to stand up straight, glaring at Johnny and Victorika.
The gravetender looked at Johnny, who had his hand on his mouth. "Darn it." He sighed. He and Victorika crouched to their stances, preparing for a long fight ahead of them. "Me and my big mouth." The adventurer chided himself before charging straight into the hordes of the dead.
A/N: That was terrible. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Sorry about that. Writing this chapter felt like a slog. I'll try to do better next time.