Weiss snorted herself awake with a start, blinking through her bleary eyes as she pawed around for a blanket that was not there. Then, she felt it. The discomfort of a cold, drab stone floor. The strong gusts of the wind, and the smell of the sea, a salty tang that coated the air, it was strong enough that she could taste it upon her tongue, the taste clinging like a cancer to her already dried out throat.
As her vision finally returned to a level of focus that she could now make out the surrounding environment, she could make out it was dawn, the overcast, cloudy sky tainted by an unfamiliar pink hue.
Casting her vision towards the innards of the cave, desperate to assure herself that her team and her new ally were all still present within the cave, she found a sight that was expected in some ways, yet unexpected in others.
On the right side of the cave, sat Yang and Blake, huddled together, subtle twitches and shivers from Blake brought Yang ever closer into the embrace of their other half. It was strange, in the sense that this relationship was new. Really new. And yet, they didn't seem to act like it.
How long had they been like this? How long had they harboured these feelings for one another, and never came clean with anyone about it?
Sure, they were out in the open now, they had been since a few days before the fall of Atlas, back when they still thought Ironwood was capable of reason. But how long had they hidden this? Was this a hidden tryst kept concealed from everyone, even their own team? Had it started when they reunited in Mistral? When Yang had acquired the Relic? When they put down that bull runt en-route to Atlas?
Or was it before that?
Before the fall, even?
Perhaps, even earlier?
Weiss shook her head vigorously, hoping to distract herself from that line of thought. All it did was push her mind to another important topic she'd seemingly incorrectly analysed.
Ironwood, the Good General, she'd called him once.
Weiss was wrong about him, as loathful as she was to admit it. He'd broken under the pressure, shattered into a billion pieces as his resolve to win faded away, knowing that victory was impossible. That Salem could not be killed by any conventional means he could muster.
She couldn't blame him for trying to keep as many bodies alive as possible, even if it was morally reprehensible to abandon so many to their fate, and then prevent his own from helping those abandoned.
Weiss didn't think Ironwood was invincible, never. Nobody was, not even Ozpin as she'd seen firsthand, the closest thing to an agent of the Brother Gods still around today, dead in an instant from someone they'd personally fought off multiple times before.
Perhaps it was just the depiction that Winter had put into her head that had sullied her vision of him. Perhaps, hearing nothing but positive things about a stranger from someone close to you will tint your glasses rather strongly. Or perhaps Ironwood was far more charming than the Atlesian royalty and business elite seemed to think. Who knew? Who cared? He was dead, almost all of Atlas had died with him.
Vacuo was all that remained. That, and Menagerie, she supposed. Weiss wasn't sure if that counted or not.
Weiss shook her head with even more vigour, seeking to distract herself again.
Her eyes fell on Ruby.
Poor Ruby. Something had been slightly off with her since they got to The Ever After, and Weiss couldn't tell what it was. She assumed that it was the stress of Atlas, of being betrayed by yet another trusted leader. For how many bodies lined the streets of Mantle before Atlas came tumbling down out of low orbit and provided an orbital barrage on what little remained of Mantle.
Weiss could see the sheer weight on her shoulders, with how quiet she was.
Weiss would help her, she would do anything to help her, if need be.
She trusted Ruby, and she knew in her heart she'd gladly die for her, just as Ruby would for her. For a lot of their time in Atlas, it was just them and Jaune. Ren, Nora and Oscar had split off to do… whatever it was they were doing, while Yang and Nora went off to cavort with the happy huntresses and piss off Ironwood even more than he already was.
Yet another reason she didn't entirely blame Ironwood.
She was sleeping still, just as Yang and Blake were. Her left hand was loosely wrapped around that little talking rat she'd decided was magically her friend now. For what it was worth, the little rodent seemed to have taken a liking to her regardless. It was snuggled into her hand, so it seemed both parties were content with the arrangement. Her right hand was clasped around a series of brown necklaces, all of varying lengths, wrapped around her neck loosely. That was a strange sight, Ruby typically wasn't one for jewellery at the best of times, getting her into anything fit for a ball or any sort of Atlesian event required herculean effort unlike anything else.
It was an absolute oddity to see, even stranger was the fact that it seemed to suit her appearance, far more than Weiss thought it should. She seemed to have foggy, vague memories of these necklaces, although she had no idea where that came from, perhaps Ruby had bought them in Atlas and Weiss had simply forgotten? But these, clearly, weren't Atlesian made, brown jewellery is tell-tale Mistralian, Atlesians all wore white, especially for pearls.
Pearl necklaces, and chain ones too. All brown. She had to have picked these up in Mistral, which was over a year ago now, so either she'd been wearing these the whole time and somehow nobody had noticed, or she had kept these hidden somewhere secure, so secure that nobody had ever seen so much as an inkling of them.
Weiss worried slightly more.
Weiss, finally, looked towards the back of the cave. And there, with his back smooshed against the back of the cave wall, one hand on his blade and the other applying a lot of pressure on his right hip, was Old Iron.
Weiss knew, deep within her being, that the old man watching over them throughout the night within that shallow cave, had held that watch without so much as a wink of sleep.
He didn't seem any more tired than he did yesterday from where Weiss was laying, however she was too far away to make out any details of what little of his face she could see, so fat little help that was for her.
What did spell of tiredness was that his slump had gotten worse, his posture had slipped as his back had presumably hunched further and further forwards overnight, and yet his eyes were still wide open, darting around the cave repeatedly, focusing on everything and nothing all at the same time.
And yet still, his grip on that accursed excuse of a blade remained as strong as steel.
Old Iron didn't look like he was ready to bounce to life and strike on any foe that happened to wander into this cave, but she was more than aware that he could do all of that and likely more if given the opportunity, even from the awkward position he was clumped into.
His eyes finally stopped darting around the cave, as his eyes came to stare at Weiss' own eyes.
Suddenly, yet slowly, he rose, purposefully placing his hand on the wall behind him to use as support, as his knees shook with each inch of height he gained.
The creaking of his joints, the grinding of his ramshackle armour as different pieces all collided with each other, the sound of a chain-like rattling in the wind came with each movement he made.
Did he have chainmail under there?
Slowly, but surely, Old Iron lazily sauntered towards the still lying Weiss, who looked up to him with a blank expression.
"We need to keep moving soon, we don't have long before they catch our scent." His voice rasped out with all the grit of sandpaper, just the same as he had the day before.
Weiss, immediately and quite rightly alarmed at the prospect of something hunting them down, jolted to her feet in a panic, reaching for her rapier and thanking the stars it still remained in its rightful place, on her hoster next to Jaune's shield.
Weiss, rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes, attempted to communicate.
"Wh… Ah. What's smelling us?"
Needless to say, Weiss failed to communicate.
Old Iron snorted.
"Try that again." He choked out. Presumably, hiding his laughter at Weiss' expense.
Weiss cleared her throat, and tried once more.
"What's following us?" Weiss delivered with as much false bravado as she could muster, knowing that if something did end up finding them, they weren't exactly at full capability at the moment, with Yang down an arm, Blake down half a weapon, and Ruby entirely without her beloved Crescent Rose, It was only Old Iron and Weiss left to hold back the tide, should the worst happen.
"Jabberwalkers, They're attracted to the scent of otherworlders."
Weiss was thoroughly discomforted to hear this, naturally. That term, otherworlders…
Weiss had to be sure.
"Otherworlders? As in not of this place, which means…"
"All of us. Yes."
Weiss was now, certifiably, starting to freak the ever-loving fuck out.
Weiss knew that she had to keep herself as calm as possible while her team was still sleeping, she had to keep her cool. It was all she could do.
And so Weiss did what she did best, she pondered.
"Jabberwalkers… Are they large horned creatures, with long limbs, black scaled skin? Do they also happen to twitch a lot?"
Old Irons eyes twitched repeatedly, as the green in his eyes seemed to pulse slightly brighter for just a second or two.
"That's them." Jaune replied, his vision oddly shaky as his vision darted around again.
Jaune rapidly reached his heavy arms out and placed them upon her shoulders, two massive mitts for hands that dwarfed her small body, almost giving the sensation of claustrophobia from the sheer scale of his hands compared to her.
"Don't let them get you, they will erase you from existence, it's a fate worse than death." The desperation, the manic worry that poured from his voice like an open wound, came through clear as day,
He continued his desperate warnings and pleas.
"Please… I don't know what awaits you… On the other side."
She noticed an odd shine come over his eyes… Were those tears?
Suddenly, her discomfort and Old Iron's panic attack was interrupted by Yang very loudly snorting herself awake like a dog, which subsequently woke Blake, who panicked and jumped a good few feet in the air, and subsequently landed with a very loud thump on Yang's stomach.
"You alright Blake?" Ruby asked, now apparently also awake because of this odd stunt they'd pulled.
Great, everyone was awake.
Now they could all die together.
Weiss watched as Old Iron raised his hand just above his head, curled it into a fist, and thumped it down upon his rusted and dented breastplate, which got the attention of the rest of the group whom had already become distracted and preoccupied with each other.
Old Iron made a nasty hacking noise with his throat, presumably as he attempted to clear it of whatever awful malignants clung to his larynx.
"We need to move, Jabberwalkers will be on our tail soon, we will head inland, towards the north… There is a section of the forest that the Jabberwalkers refuse to follow us into, we can take shelter there for longer." Old Iron said, before breaking down into a minor coughing fit, hunching over and placing his hands on his knees, brutally quaking with each loud choke his raspy, dried throat spewed out.
Weiss quickly darted forward to pat on his back, hoping to help in some manner, with Ruby joining her moments after.
When the coughing finally stopped, Old Iron stood to his full, towering height again, well over a head and half over Weiss and Ruby. He turned his head towards Weiss, and gave a short, stiff nod. He then turned to Ruby, and delivered another nod, although this one had a strange… almost hesitation beforehand.
Something was up between the two of them, but Weiss knew the situation was possibly too dire to discuss, given these "Jabberwalkers" were apparently attracted to our scent and entirely capable of removing us from existence.
And then, Yang spoke up.
"So… what are jabberwalkers?"
Old Iron seemed to be visibly annoyed at the prospect of explaining the concept again, as simple of a task it would be to most, his throat clearly wasn't up to it.
And so, Weiss spoke up before he could respond.
"He told me already, I'll explain it on the way."
Old Iron grunted, idly pawing at his hip again as he looked away from Weiss.
"...Thank you." Old Iron ground out, with even more grit than usual.
Weiss attempted, and failed to hide the small smirk that broke through her visage of confidence.
—-
Weiss had been walking alongside the others for, as far as she could guess from her intuition, an hour or so now, tucked right within the centre of the pack of 5, with Ruby in the rear, Yang and Blake in the centre alongside me, and Old Iron guiding us in the direction of some random patch of forest that the Jabberwalkers apparently weren't capable of entering, which was just as much reason to not go there as it was to go there. After all, what could scare off the soul-rending might of these jabberwalkers? Surely they could just consume or destroy the soul of whatever it was that spooked them? Unless the source of their fear lacked a soul entirely.
Weiss diverted from that worrying thought, and instead focused on another thought.
A thought had been nagging at her the whole time, and yet she still had yet to broach the topic to Old Iron, the only person present who had a chance of answering her query.
Why was nobody hungry? Sure, perhaps raw adrenaline had kept them awake and alert without noticing how much the lack of calories was impacting them, however nobody had complained of thirst either, and Old Iron wasn't carrying any water either.
As asinine of a thought as it is, did we not need sustenance to survive here? Was this place so alien that it did not require us to even eat or drink to continue living? How would that even work? What could cause that?
Weiss had to know.
Weiss hurried her step for a few seconds, quickly catching up to the limping old warrior as he breathed a tad heavier than was likely normal, especially considering the speed he could move at when in combat.
Weiss slowed to match his pace, taking up position on his left, giving a wider gap between them than she usually would for a person as those red fabric bands fluttered behind him in the heavy breeze that was rapidly ruining everyone's hair, much to their chagrin.
His helm turned towards her slightly, and he appeared to nod slightly, as if to grant her permission to speak.
And so, Weiss spoke.
"I have an important question to ask, about this place."
"Speak." Old Iron heaved out with either a heavy exhale or a sigh.
"Nobody has complained of thirst or hunger, and you carry none on your person… Do we not need sustenance to survive here?
Old Iron hesitated for a couple seconds.
"Yes… and no, at the same time." Old Iron muttered under his breath, barely audible under the strong gusts of wind that seemed to funnel through all of the trees surrounding us and barrage us from all possible angles, as if a premeditated attack.
The response from Old Iron was vague, uninformative, and quite frankly rude to Weiss.
"Extrapolate… Please" Weiss stated with a tinge of annoying lacing her tone.
Old Iron seemed to stand straighter after hearing these words, just barely raising out of his slouched walk.
"You will only need to drink and eat when this place decides it… Not before that, nor after. I don't know how it works, only that it does work this way."
While Weiss trusted his explanation, as he hadn't been incorrect in any of his statements before, at least to any degree Weiss could see with her eyes or decipher with her judgement, this answer infuriated her.
It made sense, given the other statements Old Iron had made to her that seemed to be true so far.
But still, it was as infuriating as it was useful.
Weiss took a moment to groan out her frustrations, pushing her hands across her head as she did so, before returning to her normal stature and turned her gaze back to OId Iron.
"I have another question… This place we're going, why do the Jabberwalkers fear it?"
Old Iron shook his head slightly, coughing again as he continued his usual laboured breathing. "It's a creature of some sort, it appears human enough, but make no mistake… It is a beast."
Weiss felt panic begin to, once again, coarse through her being like a fast-acting venom. Something that looked akin to a person, a living, breathing, fleshy person with a conscience, but lacked the properties that made one. Something that was incapable of being reasoned with, seemed to be far less frightening to Weiss' mind when compared to something that resembled a person you could reason with, that you could have a conversation with.
Instead, it may well just use your useless words as fuel for their surprise attack, your hesitation granting it a free opportunity to kill.
Old Iron leaned in just a hair closer to her, close enough that his breathing seemed to be all she could hear beyond his words.
"It wields a sword and shield, although not a common one… It may allow us passage through, it may not… No way of knowing."
Old Iron let out an odd snorting noise, as if they'd just heard a terrible joke of some kind, wringing his neck in a circle softly as he did so with a quiet series of clanks following his head around the neckline.
"The blade is not the true weapon… Keep an eye on that shield, we had trouble with it last time."
Weiss felt at least some whisper of comfort as his experience with the creature, perhaps with him on their side, they'd make it through this nightmare.
…Wait.
Weiss realises something, an anomaly in his last sentence.
"We?"
Old Iron seemed to slow his pace as he seemingly zoned out, unresponsive and silent, not even breathing. Eventually, his pace slowed to a stop.
The whole group had to stop with him, after all they didn't have a snowball's chance in Vacuo of navigating this forest, and with Jabberwalkers supposedly on their tail, they couldn't let this keep going for much longer.
Weiss approached him, and went to place a hand on his shoulder, hoping that a shake and some words would break him out of this spell, however something stopped her.
A sound she heard, coming from his armour.
From him, hopefully.
Faint whispering emanated from his faceplate, a single masculine voice, so quiet that Weiss could not decipher a single word of what he spoke.
Weiss placed her hand on his shoulder, and the whispering stopped, like something out of an Oum-damned horror movie.
Old Iron looked at her in silence for a few extremely long, dragging seconds.
And then, finally, he nodded at her, and continued walking.
The rest of the group felt even more compelled to follow than before, considering they were now smack-dab in the middle of a forest so thick they couldn't make out any surrounding landmarks beyond the now purple sky, dim as if in dusk or dawn.
She noticed something else, too.
The environment was slowly changing, the ground was slowly getting covered with a dark brown, almost dead bramble, almost like the stems of dead roses. A thin, hazy fog had started to roll in, just thick enough to notice but not enough to obscure their surroundings, it was as if it had just… popped in like in one of those cheap video games Ruby played with her Uncle Qrow.
Weiss could physically feel an almost dead atmosphere creep in, as the ambiance of the woods that surrounded them moments prior, little bird-like creatures and other small critters chirping away, the winds gusting betwixt the trees all around them in a cacophony of misdirection, the sound of unkempt and will grass below their feet being crushed into the ground, all gone in an instant.
Now, all that remained was the heavy squelch of soaked mud below a thin layer of bramble below their feet.
They had only just gotten to this muck and already almost all of their outfits were caked in mud, at least from the knees and down. The mud seemed to spray with an almost comical level of feedback with each step they took, spraying all over the place, drenching them in the mud, dirtying them.
Weiss already felt sweaty and gross before all of this… Now, she was livid.
But she kept her mouth shut, begrudgingly.
She knew that according to Jaune there was something that prowled these woods, that may or not be out to get them, and she would not embarrass herself by getting the attention of said something through her ceaseless complaining.
Even Yang and Blake had finally shut up.
Weiss heard a branch break, louder than the much more common smaller cracks of the bramble coating the ground below. Her head whipped towards the source of the sound.
Old Iron, ahead of her, had fallen to one knee, grasping at his left ankle, jostling at the plate, as if grabbing for something.
Weiss followed up behind him and veered to his left side, and bent over to assist him however she could. She noticed that the muck was already getting into the small gap in his leg armour where the shin guard and the knee guard met, she mindlessly poked them out with her finger, before realising just how gross her current actions were and mentally slapping herself for it.
She noted as well, that those red ribbons that seemed to float through the air around him, were completely unmarred by the copious amounts of the mud that now caked the owners armour.
While Weiss and her team had mere ruined outfits that would require a good wash, or possibly even just abandoning all-together, Old Iron's armour was positively caked in the stuff, badly so. Enough that the majority of the white, and the rust, were covered in an obscuring layer of wet brown dirt.
It made the old man look even more like a dead man walking than his prior look did, and that wasn't the kind of mental image someone would benefit from in a high-stress environment such as this.
Weiss noticed that Old Iron was still hyper focused on his left ankle, still prodding at it and shaking it.
She looked down towards the offending ankle.
A small dagger, a 6-inch blade from her guessing, was tightly strapped to the outside of his ankle in a leather-ish sheath via two small brown belts… also made out of that strange leathery material from the looks of it.
Old Iron was desperately trying to coordinate his slightly shaking hands to unbuckle those harnesses and free the blade with its sheath, his his heavily worn cloth gloves seemed to be having trouble catching the buckles, it made sense given the amount of small slits and holes in them, enough that she could see the deathly pale skin below for the first time.
It was an uncomfortable paleness, almost bioluminescent under the already dim overcast sunlight that cascaded over them.
Weiss swiftly placed a finger on each of the buckles, and pushed down. They both popped free with little fanfare, freeing the dagger.
Weiss went to catch it before it fell into the mud below, but before she could even react Old Iron had regained his inane speed and finesse for just long enough to snatch it before it touched the soil below, before rapidly pushing himself back onto his two feet, and reaching for his right arm.
He had two very similar belts attached to his right wrist guard, most likely meant to serve the same purpose as the ones that had kept this dagger on his ankle.
He had the same issue as he did with the ankle belts, his shaky fingers could not coerce the buckles to give way.
Weiss let out a loud ahem, and held her hand out with an open palm.
"Give it here."
Old Iron stopped what he was doing, and clutched the dagger gently against his breast plate, in a manner similar to a child refusing to give up their favourite toy while being scolded.
Weiss didn't appreciate the visual.
Still, Weiss knew she had to help him, he'd get nowhere with the blade otherwise.
"Let me help you put it on, I promise I won't do anything to it… I can tell it means something to you, I won't pry." Weiss tried, silently pleading within her own mind that she wasn't making a misstep with her team's literal only guide through these woods ripped straight out of a cheap horror movie.
Old Iron stilled, and for a few seconds there was an incredibly eerie silence.
Weiss noticed that Ruby, Blake and Yang had all just silently agreed to stand still behind them and just… watch. They hadn't said a word, nor moved a muscle since Old Iron had fallen to one knee.
There wasn't anything wrong with them, they weren't frozen in time or paralysed or anything like that, they were still blinking and moving around slightly… they just seemed to be letting this play out.
Odd.
After a few more seconds of complete, dead silence… Old Iron caved.
He placed the dagger into the palm of her hand, as gently as he could.
Weiss gently pulled the blade free from its sheath, holding it out in plain view in front of her face, with the side of the blade reflecting her own eyes back at her.
A small, basic double-sided blade that gleamed in the light. An inscription was carved into the centre of the blade, running from the hilt till the tip of the blade. It stated something strange, something that seemed to repeat in her mind over and over again the longer she stared at it.
"Volition" it read.
She noted, the blade had an odd shine to it, brighter than any steel she had seen before. The blade was also slightly lighter than she expected it to be…
Was this blade made of silver? But how, and why? Silver was a terrible metal to make a blade from, at least from what little she understood of smithing. She'd been told when she was getting Myrtenaster commissioned in her early teens that the silver she'd wanted it made in wouldn't work, it was too soft, it warped too easily, a steel sword could cut right through it, yadda yadda. She'd been told the same of gold, and copper to a certain extent as well.
So perhaps the blade was just silver plated? But even then, beyond appearance, why? What purpose did it fulfil? This dagger was, frankly, much too basic to be some sort of artisanal piece, it was clearly a utilitarian weapon, one of millions like it made for battle.
She buried the thoughts away for another time, a safer time. When they weren't in this blasted forest, being chased down by Jabberwalkers or god-knows what…
Weiss, satisfied that the blade was not damaged, placed it back into the plain leather sheath, and attached it to Old Iron's wrist guard. Weiss took great care to move as slowly and smoothly as possible. After all, she didn't want to accidentally annoy the 7 foot tall armoured man who was more than capable of tearing her apart, much like he did with that oversized fur ball that nearly killed Weiss just a day or so prior.
He gave her a curt nod, and continued walking at his prior pace, his breathing sounded a little less forced than before, which Weiss found odd, surely that dagger wasn't that heavy for him?
Ruby then waddled up to Weiss, showing extreme difficulty dredging through the muck and bramble despite having the most appropriate footwear out of all of their team, with her steel toes boots now so heavily marred and likely stained with dirt that they were now a a patchy, wet brown all the way up to her knees.
Ruby didn't actually seem to have anything to say despite walking up to her while maintaining eye contact, which was very strange to Weiss, as usually Ruby would try everyone up by this point.
Weiss decided to finally break the silence.
"Lovely weather, isn't it?"
Weiss then heard the sharp crackle of thunder as the overcast sky suddenly began to barrel down enough rain to fill several Atlesian swimming pools.
Weiss cursed this world.
—-
Old Iron dragged his heavy legs through the horrid terrain, beset by muck and rain. He could feel the muck clinging to his armour, the veritable cascade of rain that barrelled down upon him with countless little impacts that it was almost deafening within his armour, nevermind that his hearing had aged like milk.
But no matter how much weight the gods placed upon his aching shoulders, no matter what burdens and curses or hexes they cast upon him, Old Iron would keep moving. He had to.
The gods would continue to spit in his face for the rest of time, just as they had for countless years before. Such are the machinations of the gods that spurned him so, likely the very same gods that had manufactured this entire scenario, the very same one that had brought him to this wretched soil he stood upon now.
Destiny would continue to be thrust upon him, a fate that he did not want nor wish upon anyone, and yet it was one that was seemingly latched to his very soul like a leech.
He hated that this blighted fate was attached to him, cursed to lose everything he cherished in a fireball of regret and guilt. Perhaps he could have accepted that terrible fate, sever his ties with everyone around him and be done with his life, all it would take was once good swing of a knife and it'd all be over. Old Iron unfortunately had to find out the hard way that it didn't matter what relationships he cut off, those people still looked out for him, or at least tried to do so… And that was more than enough for the gods to deign them worthy. Worthy of getting dragged crashing down to the earth with an apoplectic landing.
Everyone that ever got close to him had been hurt countless times more than they needed to, and most of them inevitably died… not once was it a peaceful one.
Every single person that ever found themselves inextricably attached to him would wind up dying in agony, far too young and with so much potential within them, now spilled onto the soil alongside their blood.
But not him.
Why?
Did the gods find it amusing? Was this some sort of experiment to see how much trauma one man can take before he breaks? Did they not realise there was nothing left to break anymore? He'd been this way for so long now, without memories, without connections, without purpose.
Idly dragging his old, frail yet ageless body around like some sort of meat puppet with what little vestiges of his soul still remained within him, with seemingly no true location to find.
For there was no ancient treasure or trinket to find. No grandiose final battle that would cement his name as a hero for generations to come. There was no room for growth of character and experience.
Old fools like him didn't get to experience such pleasantries as growth. Incompetent fools like him simply didn't have the mind to adapt, to overcome. He, and others like him, were doomed to stagnate and die as the world changed around them.
He was an old tool, akin to what you would find in a rusty toolbox, jammed into a dampened corner of a leaking shed.
Rusted.
Brittle.
Failing.
Not suitable for the role.
For this was not some adventure story, this was not some grand task that bards across the globe would sing and dance about for hundreds of years. This was not a fairy tale.
This was a crusade.
A crusade to attain penance.
And just like any other crusade, there would be fountains-worth of blood spilled, there would be destruction, death, loss. Cities would burn, families would be separated and destroyed. Hell, perhaps entire kingdoms upon Remnant would be reduced to nothing but dust and bad memories.
Anything, everything, whatever was required of him, to do what must be done.
He knew all of this well, he'd clung to this hatred, this raw malice that consumed him because it kept him attached to what he once was.
And while Old Iron had many doubts, of whether his body could take the journey and withstand the blows that were inevitably coming towards him, of whether his mind could take another loss among the thousands he had already experienced, or if his mind would degrade even further, and lose what little memory, what little reason for living he had left…
He knew what had to be done…
For he, for the first time in centuries, could remember…
He made a promise.
—-
His left hand clenched tightly tightly on the hilt of what remained of his blade, prepared to let loose whatever was required to survive. In his other, his shunt was gripped tightly akin to a piece of fruit or some other item unfit for combat, much like this shunt under normal circumstances.
Regardless, he would make do.
Paranoia was setting in, even he could recognise that much.
Weiss followed close behind, her right hand gently clung to the hilt of her rapier, a weapon Old Iron could not remember the name of for love nor money. Weiss had either sensed that something was afoot, or she saw his readiness and took it as a sign of danger. The one in red, little Ruby if he heard right, lacked a weapon, but still clearly remained alert, her back in a slight hunch and her knees bent slightly. Despite being unarmed she was still ready to move in or out of danger as required.
At least she was trying.
The same could not be said for the two vagrants tailing behind them.
While they were both partially disarmed, from what Old Iron could tell both would be quite sufficient in their roles, or at least as distractions so that he alongside the others could make tactical strikes.
Blake should have been up front, her hearing likely would alert them of the creatures presence before the rest of them would notice.
Yang was defending the rear, as she should be, given her questionability in combat with a missing arm.
And yet, for some reason that Old Iron could not comprehend, Blake had stationed herself on the backline with Yang.
It was not a sound strategy, but he could work around it.
Perhaps she was not as confident in her ability to fight with half a weapon… or perhaps she was just seeking comfort in the touch and company of another.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that nicety.
While he found the presence of Weiss, and to some extent Ruby rather comforting, it wasn't the same as the touch of a lover. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember if he'd felt that on Remnant much either.
A faint memory flashed before his eyes, an indescribably small shard of his past passed through his very soul, leaving its mark.
Her, of burgundy and bronze.
Just a few moments before her death.
That… that was the last time he'd felt what they had.
Old Iron clenched down on the shunt in his right hand even harder, with such force he could hear it quaking and groaning in his grip as the metal lump in his grasp desperately tried to maintain its form.
Old Iron was thrust from his train of thought when he saw a set of feet about 10 metres in front of him, a pair of plain, black boots and grey cloth trousers.
Old Iron stopped dead in his tracks.
He saw a glint of gold, as the beings sword came into view.
Old Iron let out a dry chuckle as he cast his blade forward slightly, and pointed it towards the ground.
The fool's guard, a stance he had learned, but could not remember the origins of..
He raised his head, and looked the creature straight in the eye.
Seven eyes stared back at him.
"Puriel."
—-
Weiss felt like she was one more bad surprise away from total heart failure.
She'd been tailing Old Iron alongside her team and then all of a sudden some sort of mutant had appeared in front of Old Iron, seemingly out of nowhere.
At first she thought it was just some guy that they'd happened to run into, but after looking closer she noticed several things that were terribly wrong with him… it.
The face was just all sorts of wrong, with a series of eyes that were scattered across the forehead of the creature, there may have been far more eyes under the white locks that seemed oddly well-maintained, kept short and tight to the skull, maybe an inch long at most. The creatures jaw had some sort of large divot in it, as if a whole chunk of the right side of his jaw was missing.
His body was covered by a set of ratty grey clothes, with no markings of details or anything, just pure cloth. While his skin was mostly covered, there was a large slash across the chest of the shirt, which revealed even more oddities beneath the veil. A large slash wound cascaded below the damage, likely from whatever had created the slash in its shirt.
The wound did not bleed, but there was no signs of healing either, it was as if the being in front of her was a corpse, that somehow managed the willpower to move itself once again.
The wound was gnarly, to say the least. A wide gouge that had torn through the creatures torso, exposing broken ribs and viscera that was tinted a light purple, as if the wound was old.
The creature had limbs that looked… strange. They seemed to be just slightly too long to be considered normal, with arms that loosely hung all the way down to their knees, which also seemed to be slightly too far down their normally long legs.
It was a strange build, a look that set off several different alarm bells in her mind.
In the hands of the creature were a sword and shield, which gleamed a brilliant gold.
The entirety of the shield and sword were gleaming in the rain, the shield looked to be a relatively basic small circular shield, one that reminded her of the shield Pyrrha used before… The blade, however, was a different story entirely.
The blade was less a blade, and more weave of individual golden fibres which interlocked and wrapped around and within each other, eventually forming together into one mass at the tip of the blade.
The blade was designed almost nonsensically, but the look of the creature wielding it gave her second thoughts about it, perhaps there was more applicability to this blade than she could see?
The creature then suddenly broke into a full sprint towards them. Or more specifically, Old Iron.
It bounded towards them almost silently, certainly not something she could hear in the rain. And yet, she could hear Old Iron move perfectly loud and clear as his armour shifted alongside his smallest of movements.
Rather worryingly, Old Iron had yet to move or react at all in response to the creature charging towards him, and that worry only got worse as the creature raised its blade overheard and immediately swung it downwards with all the finesse of a club.
Old Iron reacted only when the blade was a mere hair away from his face.
Old Iron, with speed akin to lightning, swung his sword upward and clashed with the blade of his foe, their blades ground along one anothers until the hilts of their swords met. Old Iron took this opportunity to thrust out his right arm, with his shunt in hand, striking upon the wrist of the foe, digging deep into the lifeless flesh of the creature's sword arm. The creature let out an inhuman groan, a high pitched wail that reminded her of the wyvern grimm she had seen only once before, at the Battle of Beacon.
The creature backed away rapidly, only a few steps back unfortunately, pawing at its dominant arm as the blade fell to the ground with a wet plop as mud began to seep into the weave of golden fibres at the centre of the blade. As it pawed at the mauled wrist, Weiss noticed that it was falling out of his wrist in small strips, it was almost like pulled pork.
It was disgusting, but some sick part of her mind was missing Atlesian pulled pork, with the red brandy sauce she could only get in a dingy little restaurant in an incredibly poor region of Mantle, deep within the seemingly endless maze of alleyways and dead ends that made up Mantle's central district.
Weiss was brought back from her brief daydream by the creature letting out another squeal, before attempting to charge at Old Iron once again.
This time, Old Iron moved, and he moved fast.
Old Iron darted forward, thrusting his blade forward with his left arm, keeping his right raised and pressed up against the side of his head in a makeshift guard stance.
The blade did not strike true, as the creature deflected the blow with the shield in its remaining hand, then it violently swung its head down towards Old Irons head.
Weiss finally moved.
Myrtenaster was drawn with as little elegance as she could achieve, pointed directly towards the head of the creature. A glyph was drawn beneath her feet, and she shot herself forward with as much force as her semblance could muster.
Before Weiss could connect the tip of her rapier with the temple of the beast, Weiss noticed several things all at once.
A scream had emanated from behind her, where Yang and Blake resided at the rear of the pack,, and shouting followed shortly after. Had they been ambushed? Was there another one of these creatures? Had the Jabberwalkers caught up to them? Or was it something worse?
She noticed something else, right in front of her.
Old Iron had let go of his blade, and opted to instead swing a left hook at the face of the seven-eyed being.
His fist struck true across the creatures face with an incredibly loud crack as the head violently veered off to the side, now facing in her direction.
The head now hung limply, it seemed like the creature had lost control of its own neck, and one of the many eyes on the rightmost side of its face had practically exploded open in the clash…
How much force could Old Iron let out?
Finally, Weiss felt Myrtenaster make contact with the face of the vile beast that now stared at her with a blank, dead expression.
She felt incredibly little resistance on her blade as she pierced through bone and brain matter with ease, as expected of the highest quality Atlesian steel.
The creature, somehow still alive and cognizant of its surroundings, thrust its shield violently towards her face.
Weiss was begrudgingly forced to duck down, letting go of her beloved weapon in the process as she fell to one knee and leaned her torso as far back as she could, just to make sure she was clear of it.
Weiss got front-row tickets of a surprise attack, courtesy of Ruby.
Ruby glided through the air, carrying in her hands a golden blade, that same blade the creature had dropped into the muck mere moments ago. Still covered in muck and grit, the blade still had a sharp edge, sharp enough for at least one good hit on the beast.
Ruby drove the blade into the creatures neck with an overextended thrust, going so far as to lean out on one foot, sticking out her other leg akin to a ballerina. Ruby then darted past the creature on its left side, rotating the tip of the blade through the tender meat of its neck,she followed around the creature all the way around to the back of the creature with a flashy twirl, before finally yanking the blade free with a surprising amount of grace, freeing the creatures head from its body.
Weiss had no bloody idea where Ruby had learned to do any of that, but she was incredibly thankful for it. Questioning it could come later.
The body of the vile beast immediately flopped down to the ground in a heap, presumably now dead. The head was caught by Old Iron before it could come into contact with the ground, the same head that just so happened to have myrtenaster stuck within it.
Old Iron rapidly slid the head off the rapier, and handed the blade to Weiss, who grasped it with a nod.
All three of their heads turned back towards Yang and Blake when they heard a familiar croak, one that was most certainly inhuman.
Yang, pinned to the ground, desperately swinging her remaining arm at the face of a mildly annoyed Jabberwalker.
Before Weiss or Ruby could even react properly to the dire situation, Old Iron had already moved.
With a quiet whistle, Old Iron's dagger, Volition, mounted upon his wrist, was released into his left hand and thrown with incredible precision.
The dagger struck the neck of the Jabberwalker, causing it to freeze in place for a brief moment…
Before turning black as pitch, and slowly disintegrating into small white flakes, seemingly unaffected by the cascading rain that poured down from above.
Volition struck a rock within the mud with a violent clatter, somehow free of even a single mark of mud on it, unlike the blade Ruby had commandeered.
Yang finally stopped panicking, her chest still heaving with every inhale and exhale, adrenaline still flooded her body and mind. What could have been rainfall or tears cascaded down her vision as she violently sobbed, unmoving on the ground. Yang's head was tilted upwards, facing in a direction ahead of her.
While Ruby and Old Iron moved towards Yang, presumably to get her back on her feet and/or gather Volition, Weiss looked towards the direction Yang was looking.
There, she saw Blake, also cowering in the mud a few metres away, completely unaware of anything around her as she violently shook?
What the hell had happened?
Had Blake been attacked? But if that happened, then why had the Jabberwalker went for Yang instead? Had something else entirely attacked her? Was she having a panic attack?
Weiss did not know, but she knew she had to know, and soon. They could not afford to begin slipping now, not in a situation as fucked up as this.
Before Weiss could think on it further, Weiss heard Old Iron bellow over the rainfall for the first time.
"Weiss! Pick her up, we have to go now!"
Weiss heard that same croaking she heard a moment earlier.
More Jabberwalkers.
Despite the dozens of questions running through her head, she knew now was not the time.
Old Iron had Yang on his back, piggyback style, as he began a sprint down the path they had been taking before that seven eyed creature had interrupted them. Ruby tailed closely behind, with that golden sword still in her hand.
Weiss was barely able to get Blake out of her self-made cocoon and onto her back, but she managed it just in time.
She had only just begun running when she heard the croaking get closer.
There were dozens of them, at least.
Weiss was suddenly quite annoyed at herself for putting off cardio training when she was younger, as her lungs heaved.
Oum above, Blake was heavy.
To Be Continued…