Well, back at it with another concept turn into a little more.
This one got a strong reaction, so I couldn't help but give this one a shot.
Wasn't much to put in from my concept, just laid a few more scenes to give context to it and set up what it is to come.
As a quick note, the main ship is Velvet/Naruto, but it could be a little more poly with how I'm laying the ground work of the story as a whole.
There is also another character I am purposely not mentioning on the tags who is a main character because it would be a spoiler.
Another thing, since the RWBY/DC crossover is canon-adjacent, Faunusification of characters connected to certain animals when they come to Remant is to be expected.
So yeah, Naruto will be a Faunus while in Remnant.
It's pretty obvious who its gonna be, but not gonna put it regardless.
Now, let's get into The End as We Know It!
The heat was sweltering. A blurry haze radiated from the sands as the cool air from the night and dawn faded into a blistering scorcher. She was lucky she managed to get a wink of sleep this morning… The temperature gauge had it only at a hundred and five…
And it was rising steadily to a usual, melting hundred-thirty. Probably reach fifty when the sun hit its peak…
Hills upon hills of dunes were all the eye could see. The winds shifted the sands, and soon, new dunes would form.
Sweat dripped steadily from her chin as she wiped her brow. With the unpredictability of storms, protection had a greater value than lighter and cooler clothing. It was so hot and dry… It had been this way for a few years now…
Ever since the Flash…
Reaching and lifting a canteen from the side pack of her modified motorcycle, she took a light drink and winced. "Water's running low… Hope that the civilization I've heard about from the caravans isn't a hoax. Wouldn't be the first time…"
With a bitter tone, she only clenched her jaw at the memories. That was a mistake she would not make again.
"But why did it have to be here of all places…" Brown eyes wavered as she glanced out into the distance; her long brown hair, along with her ravaged and weathered rabbit ears, fluttered in the wind. "To return where all this madness that led to this first began…"
Sliding a leg over her bike, the engine ignited and began to purr. She wearily smiled as her eyes glazed over before she sighed, reaching down and carefully strapping a helmet onto her hair, snuggly rolling her ears under.
Wouldn't make that mistake twice…
Lowering a pair of black goggles and lifting a similar colored mask, her eyes shimmered as she revved the throttle. "Well, even if there isn't one there…"
"Perhaps I can see what happened to my old school."
It had been so long…
This place was once heralded as the premier place to train to become a Huntsman and Huntress. And now…
Exhaling softly, gazing down toward the hustle and bustle below her beloved school, taking in what it had become. How weathered it was despite her best efforts.
The newly constructed walls built around the campus. Dug deep underground to deter them from tunneling underneath. Still happened on occasion, but they were more than prepared for such an outcome.
No longer was it students that roamed the campus. Everyone and anyone was welcome. Human, Faunus, did not matter. Whether you were from Vale, Mistral, Atlas, Vacuo, or Menagerie, it did not matter.
This place was a sanctuary for all. A sliver of a smile graced her lips. As it always had been… As it always should have been. And it was all because of…
The elevator dinged, and the doors shuttered open, followed by a loud yawn. "Morning, Glynda. Still up? You know you should be sleeping."
"Ah, thought you would still be sleeping." Glynda modestly greeted the individual from the door before scoffing. "You're one to talk. Your sleeping patterns are worse than mine."
"Mah, can't argue with you on that." The young man with broad whisker marks and short and spiky blonde locks chuckled; dark and wrinkled bags circled the skin of his eyes. "Just always have something to do… Someone to save. Caravans to escort and trade with… And that isn't even half of it… Ugh, was this what I would have had to do as Hokage?"
"There are capable hands to take care of many of those issues and allow you to rest. The Wastes are dangerous, but we are resilient." Glynda stated, frowning at the blonde fox faunus as his tail swished behind. "Then there is your scouting team…"
"You know as well as I do we don't have the hands to send people into the Wastes. Not with how dangerous the nights and sandstorms are." Naruto scratched his head, sitting at the rustic desk that once belonged to her predecessor. "And, as you mentioned to me before, my scouting team are… Not well received here by some of the survivors given their history."
Glynda frowned temporarily at the sight but shook her head. At some time, she thought she would have taken that seat, but no… He was the true leader of this new world…
Ever since he arrived after the Flash, he had taken charge in a way no one could. If only Oz were still here to see Remnant had, for the most, banded together and united.
But he was correct. They needed as many capable bodies for night watch and emergency sandstorm defense. They were at their most vulnerable at those times ever since the Grimm changed…
"They have proven themselves, but people cannot forget or forgive so easily, I'm afraid. Redemption is not so easily earned." Glynda sighed before pushing up her glasses. "At least they proved their worth in the eyes of some… Keeping her alive and returning her to us, even in her condition, restored faith in so many."
Naruto's head dipped as he grimaced. If only he had been brought here before the Flash… Perhaps he could have…
"How is… Her condition? Any improvements?" Naruto exhaled, tinkering with the gadgets on his desk to try and pull up the reports.
"Her body is physically fine." Glynda glanced outside, her expression solemnly fading, looking off longingly in the distance. "All monitoring has shown she is healthy. Even with equipment Pietro developed to monitor her brain's activity shows…"
Her words were cut off when the call function of his scroll activated, something everyone kept on so they could communicate in case of emergency. "Hey, boss… Gotta a sandstorm brewing out here near the Vale ruins. Em's radar shows its trajectory would be dangerously close to home…"
"Need us to return?" A bright and sing-song voice cut off the tone of the other. "Oh, I would like to come home to you…"
"Swear to Oum, Neo… You bitch! That hurt!"
"It's Trivia blockhead! Got it memorized yet!"
"Enough." A third voice echoed from the other end of the call. "Word is the caravan is seeking refuge in the Vale Ruins. Shall we proceed over there for their protection?"
"Roger that, Emerald," Naruto responded over the scroll, rolling his eyes at the trio's interaction. "Report back on anything of note… Don't choke either of them out, would ya? Don't wanna deal with that report."
"It's really tempting…" Emerald retorted, amused with her two traveling companions. "But as you wish… Mild brain damage acceptable?"
"As long as they're functional." Naruto's lips twitched in amusement.
"I do not want to be trapped in another hallucination! Em, if you so much…"
"Oh, can it be a good one! Perhaps with…"
"Yeah, turning that off…" Naruto cut the call and shook his head.
"I would ask how you deal with them… But I've heard the stories of your home." Glynda snorted and shook her head. "Well, now that you're awake, I think I will lie down for a few hours. If a sandstorm is heading out this way…"
"My friends back home had a lot of personality, that's for sure!" Naruto flashed a grin and waved her off, pulling up several reports on his desk. "Get some rest. I got it from here. I need ya at a hundred percent just in case I gotta dash!"
Softly returning the smile, Glynda turned to the elevator to see herself out. Boarding the elevator, watching him wave one last time, a relieved sigh escaped. He was who Remnant needed now…
His boundless optimism in the face of the devastation that they were faced with was what everyone needed to see. He was the shining star in this bleak darkness…
Just as she was before the Flash.
The howling, dusty wind painfully whipped the little skin exposed to the coarse grains pelting her. Her rough yet long brown hair lashed behind her as the high winds swept over her. Thankfully, she wore a looser helmet to tuck her long ears beneath.
These storms were brutal, and she lost her enhanced hearing the last time she was caught in one without her helmet. And this was only a mild storm compared to the others she had seen in these past six years.
Her vision was marred by the swirling vortex and walls of sand, her goggles only protecting her eyes. A fitted black mask around her mouth kept her from inhaling the dust.
Somewhat.
Hearing the engine choke, she shifted her left from the handlebar, switching a lever beside her. She let out a frustrated moan as even the switch only mildly improved the performance, but it was still sputtering. She had just rebuilt and improved on the air intake system to filter out sand… And it was still overheating?
"Come on Bumblebee… Just a little further." She muttered to her motorcycle, urging it to keep going.
Well, Bumblebee wasn't hers… She simply held onto it for her friend, just in case she ever saw her again… It wouldn't be the first time they returned when things were dire.
She hadn't seen any of her friends since the world ended.
Letting out a reminiscent sigh. She could only hope she could give her friend her bike again… It would have been the first time she and her team had returned after being thought dead.
She shook her head, keeping her focus ahead of her. She couldn't spare extra thought…Sandstorms were dangerous before the weather changed worldwide…
After the planet was cracked open in a flash of light.
Sandstorms were now common everywhere as the world's terrain was altered and the temperature rapidly increased. And now…
They hid within.
She had to pay attention to her surroundings. Grimm were dangerous… But what they turned into was far worse and more challenging to handle.
The only benefit was they could only attack at night… Or during Sandstorms.
She knew this was dangerous, but she could handle herself. She was still a Huntress. It was her job to protect the last remnants of humanity and Faunus-kind. Whether it was against the Grimm…
Or the Nyghtmares.
"You can do this, Bumblebee… Just a little longer… Rumor has it there's a settlement out here." Velvet softly urged the bike to continue once more, hearing the engine sputtering and grimace.
She had the tools and parts to repair it, but she couldn't stop here. She could hear the blood-curdling shrieks over the howling sands. They were clos…
Her head snapped to the side as a pair of talons slammed into her, attempting to snap her into their clutches.
Velvet extended her arm, pushing back against the talons so she kept out of the creature's clutches. But she still took the full force of the strike, knocked off her bike, and rolled onto the sand while Bumblebee slid and tumbled into the sands.
Using the momentum and turning herself, Velvet slid into a crouch, a sparkle of her aura crackling. She winced while simultaneously drawing two black blades connected by a ribbon. Nyghtmares' attacks were more dangerous than Grimms toward people. While it had only just been learned that Grimm could absorb Aura if it was injected into them…
Nyghtmares actively ripped it away with contact.
Velvet wrapped the ribbon around her left wrist, preparing for the inevitable. Training her sight on the giant creature flying through the sand-rushed sky, the sword in her left morphed into a pistol.
Aim for the glowing hue of its hollow, crimson eyes that protruded through the storm.
"A Nyght Raven." Velvet bitterly muttered, following the creature's movements as it circled, her eyes combing her surroundings. "Where's the rest of the murder…"
She wished her enhanced sense of hearing hadn't been damaged when the storms ravished the world. She would have been able to locate the rest otherwise… But there was no way of knowing they would have been that intense when they first ravaged their world when it began to terraform. She had dealt with the sandstorms of Vacuo, which never affected her so negatively…
"There!" Several more crimson hues glinted through the sands, one careening toward her at high velocity.
With a single shot directly forward, she leapt and flipped over the Nyghtmare as it crashed into the ground where she just stood. Its milky white head shattered from the shot, shadows dispersing from its body.
But the red eyes continued to gleam. It thrashed wildly on the ground, its wings flapping, attempting to right itself back onto its feet so it could take off. And before her eyes, the skull began to reconstitute from the shadows, leaking and returning to where it originated.
Velvet didn't hesitate as she threw the bladed gun ahead, wrapping it around its neck. With a pull, she dragged it onto its back as she pushed forward, a second version of herself appearing where she had once been to take the contact with a diving Nyght Raven. It allowed her more than enough time to cleave downwards with the thicker blade, straight through the struggling Nyghtmare, clipping the beak but more importantly…
Severing its skull from its neck.
The vivid hue of its hollow eyes faded as its body slackened and its body melted into shadowy smoke vapors.
Velvet scoffed as she continued to scan through the storm, seeing more and more crimson eyes glistening through the sands. Well, that was one down…
Twenty more to go.
With a bend of her knees, she jumped as several screamed through the sands toward her, using different elevations and angles and timing their strikes as they came down to try and catch her. They were more intelligent than Grimm ever were…
They could strategize.
Despite cutting to several of their skeletal bodies as she flipped through the air, she couldn't make a fatal cut on any. And she left herself exposed in the air, wincing as one of the towering birds snapped its claws around her waist.
Velvet coughed as her aura shimmered around her, the crushing grip damaging her aura further and allowing the Nyght Raven to drain more from her. She gnashed her teeth, her several strikes to the far more durable talons unable to cut through.
Her eyes began to burn red. A golden bracer engaged on her right as a fiery aura vividly shone around her. "Get off me!"
With a crack that sounded like a shotgun, she threw a heavy right into the Nyghmare's talon. It shattered on contact with most of its lower body, freeing her and allowing her to plummet back to the sands below.
Only she burst into a shower of rose petals, flying back toward the debilitated Nyght Raven. With a flash of silver steel, a rapier sliced through, the skull of the raven separated from the rest of its body and melted into smoke.
Her eyes darted behind her as a screech reached her ears. Yet another was almost on her. Lifting the rapier, she switched the trigger as a seal formed in the sky, the Nyghtmare colliding into. But the sigil shattered from the contact, and the creature recoiling its momentum halted.
It was just enough time for her to burst into roses again, avoiding the collision and landing into a crouch, drawing a sniper rifle from behind, the spine of the Nyght Raven's locked in her scope.
A single shot was more than enough to pierce through and behead the monstrosity.
Velvet snarled, seeing more crimson eyes glowing through the storm. Some were stalking through the sands toward her. More Nyghtmares came to investigate the commotion, and in doing so… They had surrounded her…
Her eyes shifted toward Bumblebee. Her only hope of survival was to escape. She could handle a few on her own.
If only her friends were here. Perhaps they could have taken a stand…
The light in Velvet's eyes shone as she reached back and pulled out a heavy suitcase. With a simple trigger, it morphed into a large Gatling as her face scoured through the sands. "Don't have much left… But my friends wouldn't give in so easily, so neither will I!"
With a pull of the trigger, a hail of gunfire rained. Tearing through the Nyghtmares. Several dissolved into smoke, but others fell or tumbled as limbs were severed. She just had to forge a path forward…
An enormous skeletal wolf towered and pinned her to the ground. Velvet let out a sharp cry, but she hefted the galting into the creature's spinal torso and pulled the trigger. It severed through, and she watched the Nyghtmare ooze into shadows before rolling away and drawing nunchucks from the right thigh, spinning away from several other swipes and triggering the weapon and shifting its form.
Slapping the Nyghtmares away with the bo staff, she held the weapon behind her and drew the black blade again, transforming it into a pistol.
Her aura crackled around her, and she grimaced. She didn't have very much left… Getting hit this much had taken its toll, and Semblance was a heavy drain…
But this couldn't be the end. Velvet's eyes glimmered as she panted and glared at the onrush of Nyghmares. "No… I will not fall here!"
With several more shots, she rushed forward to meet the assault. But she stiffened, and she dug her heels into the sand to stop. A familiar sound reached her ears…
It was the roar of an engine… And the strangest music blaring on what sounded like a radio.
Her eyes widened as a heavily armored jeep flew over one of the dunes, causing her to duck away as it came crashing down, spinning through several Nyghtmares.
A lone silver-haired man jumped from the passenger side, landing a heavy boot into the skull of a Nyght Raven, dropping it from the sky. He then landed and crushed its skull beneath his foot, squishing it beneath, making sure the spine was severed.
Velvet's eyes shimmered. Survivors? Wait, she recognized those two…
"Em, what the hell is wrong with the radio?! Why does it always play that tribal polka shit when riding into battle?! Didn't Neo fix that?!" Mercury snapped, his eyes scanning around before driving a heavy spinning roundhouse to knock back one of the wolf Nyghtmares.
"Names Trivia, asshole! Get that through your thick skull, would ya?!" A short woman with long, brown hair with brown and pink heterochromatic eyes shouted a retort.
She then quickly mounted the galting on the back of the heavily armored jeep, a broad grin stretched across her face while her eyes shimmered. "Now, let's get wild!"
As the hail of gunfire ensued, causing the mint-haired driver to recoil as shells litter the interior, she hopped out of the jeep, holding onto her earpiece while running toward her. "Velvet! Are you okay?"
Velvet's eyes shimmered, gazing into the crimson gaze of the dark-skinned woman assisting her back to her feet. "Emerald? You… You survived the flash?!"
"Somehow!" Emerald answered, taking in the surroundings. "You're lucky we were out here scouting for any stragglers to bring back to base! Heard there was supposed to be a caravan out this direction!"
They had a base? Velvet's eyes wavered, her heart skipping a beat. They were searching for survivors and other caravans… She wanted to know more, but…
Sheathing the bo staff back on her thigh, she drew out her rifle once more, the gun shifting into a massive scythe that caught Emerald's attention. They had to get out of here first…
"That's Ruby's…" Emerald words trailed off before she pressed the receiver on her ear. "Naruto, come in! We found a straggler out here in the Wastes! But there are too many Nyghtmares…
"Be right there…" The voice echoed over her scroll, drawing Velvet's attention.
The CTT was up and running? Wasn't it ruined in the Fall…
"Everyone get down!" Emerald shouted into her headset, grasping Velvet's wrist and pulling her toward the jeep. "He's coming!"
"I heard!" Mercury spun, spiraling through the air, delivering a kick to the back of the skull of a Nyghtmare, lopping it off with force behind it.
He then dove toward the jeep, grabbing Trivia by the collar, who was still screaming at the top of her lungs and burning rounds into the Nyght Ravens and yanking her down into the bed. "Idiot, would you listen?!"
"I wanna see him come!"
"Phrasing!"
Velvet's eyes glinted with confusion as Emerald huddled against the side of the jeep, pulling her down with her. What was about to happen? Who was this Naruto?
What was he about to…
"Ah! Velvet shut her eyes tightly as a brilliant golden flash washed over them, grasping her ears to cover them as a violent shockwave rippled from above.
It was followed by several other bursts as the jeep dug into the sound, her aura crackling as she held her position. Her body trembled, and her spine shivered. No… Not another Flash…
But the howling of the sands dispersed. And its place, the pained shrieks of the Nyghtmares echoed all around. She knew that sound…
Her eyes flickered open, a blurred tint to her vision, but she could see well enough. Rays of sun-scorched the sands. Burning the skeletal bodies of the Nyghtmares. Turning them a brilliant orange as they heated to a temperature they couldn't withstand.
And finally, in a horrific display, their bodies shrunk into themselves before vigorously exploding into scattered crystals
Covering her face as the shards scattered, she looked back toward the dunes of the Waste. She couldn't believe what it was she was seeing… She plucked one of the crystals that landed beside her.
Velvet winced as the heat seared through her gloves, but it cooled in her hand, and she gazed at it, her eyes widening.
It was Dust. …The Nyghtmares were… Composed of Dust?
"He certainly makes an entrance…" Emerald muttered, glancing up and into the sky above, squinting before cursing under her breath. "Now I have sand in places I never wanted…"
"Cover them up then!"
"Cover yours up, Trivia! No one wants to see yours!"
"Bite me!"
Ignoring the bickering, Velvet gazed up toward where Emerald had been looking before and gasped. Her eyes wavered at the sight before her. …It was something she never could have imagined before.
The sandstorm had been parted yet raged around them like a monsoon… The flash and shockwaves had created a calm within the storm…
And at the center…
Was a man bathed in a golden aura.
Well, I do hope you enjoyed this chapter.
I would love to hear back from you if ya got a moment! Your feedback keeps me motivated and the drive to continue!
Hearing what you think also improves the direction of the story as I might have missed or not have thought of something in particular!
So I hope this chapter made somebody's day and until next time,
Peace!