Ch 10 - Kuo Kuanna
A/N: This is going to be a very different Menagerie arc than what happened in canon.
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Souls or RWBY. Dark Souls belongs to From Software and RWBY belongs to Viz Media. I only own my OCs.
(Blake)
The mechanical gangplank thunked as it made contact with the stone harbor. For the first time in years, Blake looked out at her home, the city of Kuo Kuanna on the island of Menagerie. Most of the buildings were on the smaller side, a reflection of the fact that despite the faunus having the island to themselves, their situation was still poorer than if one lived in the kingdoms. Many houses were wooden, and a few had thatch roofs. Still, the city sprawled across the small, habitable stretch of the island, palm trees and greenery spread among the buildings. A bell tower chimed 1:00pm, and Blake took a glance down the main avenue of the city, seeing her home, the Belladonna Manor, rising above the surrounding structures in the distance. Yet even as grand and wonderful as it was, it still paled in comparison to the mansions well-off humans had, nevermind something like the Schnee Manor in Atlas.
Speaking of the Schnees, Weiss looked decidedly uncomfortable, suddenly realizing just how recognizable she was and just how many faunus at the harbor stopped what they were doing when they noticed her. Murmurs began to rise in the crowd, and Blake wasn't alone in becoming nervous as more than a few of them started to sound aggressive. Fortunately, it would appear that their arrival was expected, because over a score of Menagerie Guard were moving towards the pier the boat was docked at even now, dispersing the rowdier faunus and convincing the rest to go back to what they were doing, though a large amount of eyes still tracked their group. Their uniforms consisted of black and white cloth, with metallic plates on the hips and a belt across the chest fastened with a yellow sash. Their shoulders bore pauldrons with some featuring the Menagerie Guard symbol, a yellow rhombus with two identically colored swirls and curves below it, beneath which was another, much smaller, yellow rhombus. A few wore hoods with metal plates on the forehead. Their open-toed boots were fastened together with two yellow strings, and those faunus with animal ears had holes cut in their hoods that let the ears go through.
Blake hesitantly stepped to the head of their motley group, meeting the man seemingly in charge. Blake recognized Saber Rodentia from her youth, though the scar running across his right eye and the shaven sides of his head differed from the last time she saw him. The brown hair, dark skin, and grey eyes, along with the closed-mouth scowl he always wore, had remained unchanged, however. Granted, Blake couldn't blame the man for always having a dour expression, because even among faunus he was occasionally mocked for the bucked beaver teeth he possessed. Though, he did seem to be doing well for himself, if the badge detailing the rank of Grand-Captain of the Guard was any indication.
"Miss Belladonna," Saber greeted, and Blake silently thanked whatever gods were watching that Ruby and Yang managed to not snicker at his teeth, "We were told to expect you."
"Saber," Blake replied with a slight smile on her face. "Congratulations on the promotion."
Saber gave a hum of acknowledgement, before his eyes scanned over the three individuals that weren't part of team RWBY. "I take it there's a reason you have three tagalongs?"
Blake looked back over to Patches, Neo, and Sun. "It's… complicated."
"When is it not complicated when it comes to you?" Saber joked, a ghost of a smile gracing his face, as he remembered some of the antics she had gotten up to in her childhood. Then he was back to business. "Three extra guests don't make a difference. If you'll all follow me, we'll take you to the Belladonna Manor."
"Manor?" Sun questioned.
"What part of 'daughter of the Chieftain of Menagerie' didn't you get?" Weiss chided the monkey faunus, having calmed now that people weren't openly looking like they were considering if they could stab her. Even so, Blake noted that everyone seemed on edge, way more than should be normal (even with a Schnee in the vicinity), and that there were other guard patrols openly walking the streets.
Sun gave a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. "Oh yeah…"
The group started off to the exit to the docks, and Patches openly commented, "It's been a long time since I've seen this many faunus in one place. In fact, the last time I did was the last time I was here."
"It's the one place where everyone can feel safe, no matter who or what they are," Blake explained.
"You've been here before?" Ruby piped up.
"I've been everywhere, kid," the undead bragged. "When you have the kind of time I have, you really tend to get around."
Even with the Guard forging a path for them to walk through, the going was tight, and the crowds remained thick. "It's certainly crowded," Weiss said, warily looking around for potential danger.
Blake sighed. "It certainly is."
"When you try to cram an entire species onto an island that's two third's desert, you tend to get cramped conditions," Saber spoke tersely, without turning to face the group.
"Can't you use the desert? Like in Vacuo? A little sand never stopped anyone," Sun reentered the conversation.
"It's not like the deserts in Vacuo. Menagerie has a lot of the most dangerous non-Grimm wildlife on Remnant, and there's a lot of it out in those deserts." Everyone turned to look at Yang, surprised that the blonde brawler would know that. "What? Dangerous wildlife is cool, so I read about it when I was younger."
"Yang wanted to punch them," Ruby explained. Yang glared at her, with a betrayed expression on her face, while Blake gave a small laugh and the rest of the group smiled.
Sun looked askance. "So the kingdoms gave us a terrible island, in the corner of Remnant, in order to shut us up?"
"Got it in one," Saber gruffly confirmed.
They ascended some stairs, and at the top, they left the docks, and got a better look at the city proper. Palm trees were spread among the buildings, which remained in the same conditions as the ones visible from the docks. In the far distance, the buildings ended, giving way to jungle, especially to the west, where the tropical foliage reigned supreme as far as the eye could see. Elsewhere, almost at the horizon, the jungle gave way to sand, and rocky, barren mountains, beyond which Blake knew lay some of the most inhospitable desert on Remnant. But straight ahead, though the path winded a bit before getting there, was the second tallest structure on the island (the first being the currently useless CCT relay, though even on the best of days reception to the rest of Remnant was spotty. Even after being given the island, Atlas couldn't be bothered to build a proper CCT tower for the faunus. The irony wasn't lost on Blake that if they had, communications between Atlas, Mistral, and Menagerie would still be up, though Vacuo, being on the other side of Vale, would have been left in the wind). The Belladonna Manor rose above the surrounding structures, and Blake felt a sudden wave of apprehension as she realized that this was actually happening, that she'd be going home, seeing her parents again, for the first time in five years. Even after all this time, the brown, slanted tiled roof, lighter brown walls, and white stone foundations hadn't changed a bit. Yang must have noticed her cat ears tense, because she suddenly felt her partner rest a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked, the blonde was giving her an encouraging smile. Blake gave one in return, but before she could offer a thanks and continue the last leg of the journey, something walking into her view made her freeze.
A stone's throw away, walking armed and openly across the intersection of a perpendicular street to the one they were one, was a squad of White Fang soldiers. They stopped, glancing at them, and a few grit their teeth and tightened their grips on their weapons upon seeing Weiss, but the sight of the Menagerie Guard with them convinced them to continue on their way. Blake didn't miss how the rest of her team and Sun had grabbed their weapons, while Patches and Neo had their hands on theirs, though hadn't drawn them.
"Damnit," Saber muttered. "I was hoping we could get there without seeing them, so the Chieftain could explain."
Blake swallowed. "I, I understand that Menagerie is partial to the White Fang," Blake began, "but since when have my parents allowed them to openly walk in the streets? Armed, no less?"
"Since we've been unable to do our jobs," Saber regretfully said. "There's been… a series of murders in the city over the past two months. And not isolated instances. They only strike at night, and not every night, but it's been a lot more frequent recently. And no one can find any evidence as to who's behind it." Saber grit his teeth, anger bleeding through his next words. "Sixty-three people have died since it started, and we're no closer to even finding out, nevermind stopping whoever's responsible." Blake shuddered, and the color drained from the faces of everyone present, though Patches merely hardened his expression. "It's all we can do to maintain order in the city, and keep the Grimm away. Last week, the murderer struck a family that provided humanitarian aid to faunus the White Fang took from SDC mines. The next day, Sienna Khan sent a missive to your father, asking for permission to allow the Menagerie cell of the White Fang to join the Guard in patrols and maintaining order on the island. No strings attached, no expectation of favors, for once, just a genuine offer to help. And your father accepted."
On a street a few blocks downhill, Blake saw another White Fang patrol walking down a street, and it dawned on her that her return home was going to be even further from normal than she could have imagined.
(Sun)
The atmosphere was much more somber as they continued walking. Seeing this, Sun decided to implement a master plan to cheer everyone up by changing the subject. "So, is there any way we could help stop these sick bastards? I mean, four of us have magic, and one of us has a bottomless box with enough weapons for an army in it."
"And how do you know that?" Patches questioned.
"Ruby being a weapons nut and talking about it for like ten minutes?"
"Hey!" the red reaper shouted.
"But it's true," Sun countered. Ruby just grumbled under her breath.
"Huh. So the news that came in from Vale wasn't lying," Saber remarked.
Yang raised a hand and flared her pyromancy flame, drawing a lot of looks from the crowds around them. "Just wait until we find that murderer. We'll give them an arcane asswhooping he'll never forget!"
"That would be up to the Chieftain," Saber countered, "and I doubt he's going to allow his daughter and their friends to go after the most dangerous serial killer in a century, magic and huntress training or otherwise."
Sun looked down at the mention of cool use of magic that he couldn't participate in, though only for a second. Unfortunately, someone noticed.
"Oh my Oum. Sun, are you jealous that you don't know magic?" Yang asked, a wide grin on her face.
"No!" Sun hastily defended. "Why would I be jealous that you can just defy the laws of physics at will, and toss around fireballs and stuff in fights?" Even Saber deadpanned at him. The monkey faunus visibly deflated. "Okay, I'm jealous." He deflated even further when RWBY started laughing at him, Neo silently joining and Patches just shaking his head.
Yang managed to recover from the laughter at his expense first, and after schooling her expression, turned to regard him for a few moments. "You know what, if Vyliria says I mastered pyromancy, why not?" she said to herself. "Sun, you wanna learn pyromancy?"
Sun's jaw dropped, and he stepped up to Yang, clasping his hands together. "Yeeeees."
"Alright. Wait until tomorrow, after we get settled in. There's some stuff I gotta go through with you before we get started, and I gotta remember how Vyliria taught me. This is gonna be an experience for the both of us. And Blake can help, even if she has dark pyromancy." She paused, turning towards her partner. "Uh, if you want to, that is," she said, a light flush on her cheeks.
Blake rolled her eyes. "You're the last person I'd see as qualified to teach pyromancy, so I guess I have to, even if it's just to make sure you don't burn my parent's house down."
"Oh come on!" Yang complained. "I only set Beacon on fire once! Once!"
"And my home is significantly more wooden than Beacon." Yang just glowered at her, but ended up giving a begrudging smile.
Sun just let a wide grin spread across his own face. Mission accomplished, he thought. Though he blinked as he felt a shadow flit across his vision, and looked up, seeing a crow circling overhead. He wondered if it was the same crow that had stayed on the ship during the journey from Vale, but assumed it was just a local one. After all, what were the odds of a singular crow following them specifically from another continent? And besides, he couldn't care less right now. After all, he was gonna be learning genuine magic before the week was out.
(Ruby)
They walked up the steps to the manor, and Saber stepped to the side, motioning towards the knocking handle and silently giving Blake the honors. She reached for it, before pausing just short of grabbing it, hand lowering slightly and cat ears drooping.
"Blake?" Ruby asked.
"It's… it's just been… a long time since I've seen my parents."
"Well, you came all this way, Blake. And we're all here with you!" Ruby said to cheer her up.
Blake nodded, closing her eyes, and taking a breath, before her ears flicked back up, and she raised her hand and thunked the knocker on the door. Ruby blinked, because the thunk was loud, and somehow echoed. Blake wasn't alone in stepping back, and Neo failed to hide a flinch, though Patches and Saber were unphased.
"Okay, if we're gonna be honest, that was kinda intimidating," Sun commented.
"Yeah," Ruby agreed.
Weiss silently nodded, though Yang said, "That was kinda cool though."
The creaking of wood alerted them to the door opening, and Ruby turned around to look at who was answering. From around the door peeked a light-skinned woman, whose yellow eyes (with purple eyeshadow on the upper eyelids) widened upon seeing them. It took the whole of half a second for Ruby to peg the woman as related to Blake, and given her age, she was likely her mother. Unlike Blake, her black hair was cut short, not going below her neck. Though like her teammate, she had cat ears as her faunus trait, though notably more furred and larger than Blake's. They also had golden piercings; two on the right, and one on the left. She was wearing a black hakama and sandals with white tabi socks. Over that was a black shrug, with a long right sleeve and a short left sleeve, with gold-leaf trim adorning the opening on the front. Long, black arm warmers extended to her middle fingers, the left one bearing a purple band tied around the top and a pair of gold bangles around the wrist. A black and gold sash that trailed behind her was wrapped about her waist, with a gold flower-shaped buckle at the end.
The woman raised her hands to her mouth. "Blake?"
"Hi, mom," her teammate hesitantly replied.
The woman closed the gap to Blake in three steps, wrapping her in an embrace without hesitation. "Oh my baby girl," she said, as Blake froze in surprise, before her expression softened and she returned the hug with gusto.
"Kali? Who is it?" a deep voice called from further into the building. Ruby leaned over, joined by her sister as they looked around Blake and her mom to see who it was. Said person was tall, muscular, and fair-skinned, with black hair, a thick beard and yellow eyes. Ruby couldn't see an obvious faunus trait, but considering that this was Menagerie, it could be possible he had retractable claws, a tail she just couldn't see yet, or something else unobtrusive. He wore an open dark-violet coat with white fur trim, exposing a patch of black hair on his chest. Over his beige pants was a matching sash that wrapped around his waist, secured by a large, silver metal buckle. On his left shoulder was a silver metal spaulder, attached to which was a pair of curved strips of similarly colored metal, which ran across his chest attached to the opposite front panel of the coat. His black leather boots had white toes, shaped to resemble paws with claws at the tips. Besides the hair on his chest, he was kinda hairy in general, as the parts of his arms that she could see were covered in thick black hair, that Ruby honestly wasn't sure if it was actually fur instead. His yellow eyes widened upon seeing Blake.
The man stepped forward, scooping up Kali and Blake both as he embraced them in a bear hug. "Dad," Blake wheezed. "Need to breathe."
He eased up, and Blake and her mother were able to touch the ground once more. Blake looked her parents in the eyes, before her ears slumped and she looked to the floor. Her next words came out in a rush. "I'm sorry. You were right, I should have left the White Fang with you, I should have never called you cowards, I should have listened to you about Adam, and-"
"Blake," her father -Ghira, Ruby suddenly remembered when Yang used his name when passing that letter to Blake back in Vale- cut her off. "You're home, and you're safe. That's all that matters to us." Blake herself just blinked, clearly not prepared to have been forgiven wholesale by her parents.
Seeing her teammate so off put, Ruby decided to step in to stop the awkwardness. "So Blake, are you gonna introduce us to your parents?" Said parents looked past their daughter to the additional guests, quickly scanning the faces before widening their eyes as they settled on one in particular. "Patches?" two voices said in tandem.
Ruby blinked, looking at the bald undead, back to Blake's parents, and then to Patches again. "You know each other?" She blurted out at the same time Yang, Blake, and Sun did, while Weiss and Neo raised both eyebrows in shock.
Patches was unperturbed. "What part of 'I've been everywhere' did you kids miss?"
"But, but… you never mentioned him!" Blake said to her parents.
"He's a friend to the family," Ghira began to explain. "Kali and I were born in a village in southern Mistral, and it was attacked by bandits when we were children, shortly after the Faunus Revolution had ended. Patches happened to be traveling through the area at the time."
"My whole shtick is punishing others for their greed by stealing from them," Patches continued. "So when it comes to the average bandit, who isn't a fairy-tale 'steal from the rich and give to the poor' type of person, I really don't like the bastards. Add in the fact that they were straight up executing the people there because they were faunus, killing the parents before they'd do the same to the kids... the only one of you who saw me angry was Vyliria. I'll spare you all the gory details, and just say that forty-two bandits were corpses in less than five minutes. I only regret that I didn't get there sooner."
"I… had lost my own parents moments before Patches arrived," Ghira resumed. "He ended up taking it upon himself to bring Kali and I, along with the other survivors, to Menagerie. We've kept sporadic contact since. A few tips for him here, him bringing some faunus to Menagerie there. When I still led the White Fang, he even attended a few rallies. One that happened in Atlas ended violently, and Patches ended up gunning down a man who had slipped through security and was coming up behind me. Kali had been pregnant with you at the time, Blake."
Well, Ruby thought. That's news. Judging by the look on Blake's face, it was news for her as well.
"Oh, but where are our manners!" Kali suddenly cut in. "Come inside, I'll make everyone some tea, and then we'll go over introductions."
As they followed Blake's parents into the manor, Ruby walked to Neo's side, and whispered, "Did you know about this?"
News to me, the mute signed. But now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if Patches has connections to politicians or leaders in everykingdom. He wasn't joking when he said he was ready to wage a one-man war.
"So, is he like your unofficial uncle or something?" Yang suddenly butted in, and Neo glared at her. "What?"
Or something. She signed, and Ruby translated. In her mind, she pumped a fist, finally starting to get sign language down to a fluent level. Let it be known that Ruby Rose can learn a language in a month to help her friends! she shouted in her mind. They finally came to a room with a long, low table, some kind of cross between pillows and pads taking the place of seats. Everyone took up spots cross legged, while Blake's mom excused herself to brew some tea for them all.
"So," Ghira initiated, "Blake, why don't you introduce your friends?"
Her faunus teammate managed to look abashed, and responded hastily, while gesturing to each person she named, "Dad, this is Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee, Neopolitan Torchwick (but we all call her Neo), and Sun Wukong. Everyone, this is my dad, Ghira, and my mother Kali is currently making tea."
Blake's dad nodded, though rather than offer a verbal response to the round of greetings he was now receiving, he chose to regard Ruby's partner in silence for a few seconds. "Weiss Schnee. You take after your mother's father more than your own. I may not have known Nicholas Schnee personally, but everything I heard about him pointed to him being a great man."
Weiss was surprised, but accepted the compliment. "Thank you, sir."
"Bah, none of that. Call me Ghira."
"You know, I did meet Nicholas Schnee." Everyone paused, even a Kali holding a tea kettle and cups on a tray, who had just walked into the room. Patches just raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? How many times do I need to say I've been places?" He looked over to Blake's parents, seeing them even more surprised than everyone else. "Ah right, look there's a long story, and I'll tell you later, but basically, I'm an ancient quasi-immortal animate corpse, and I've done a lot of things throughout history. To give an abridged version of things, Nick and I kept in touch pretty regularly. He was a pretty great pal, all things considered. Enough so that I let him in on the bigger picture. I missed the bastard when he passed. I actually stopped by for the funeral. And besides that, there's also an ancient immortal Grimm queen named Salem who was originally a human but got cursed with immortality by the Brother gods. She's been trying to cause the downfall of civilization on Remnant for millenia now, and I've been on the opposite side of her on and off quite a few times." At the the stares from the young adults around him at just dropping that last bit of info, he added, "What? They're the leaders of a country, and Salem orchestrating an attack on Beacon means that she's more than willing to openly attack major cities. They deserve to know."
Kali, with shaking hands, set the tea on the table. "I… I think I need to sit down," and she suited words to action. "That's… a lot to process." Ghira just stared, jaw agape.
"Yeah, and that's part of the reason why I tend to keep tight-lipped about all that." Patches took a breath. "Look, it's great to see ya both after over half a decade, I know you only asked the kids here because you wanted to ask Weiss about speaking up for faunus or something like that, and I know you're also just dealing with all the info I just dropped on you, but I need to get to business here: Sixty-three deaths, and you've found nothing? No clues at all?"
Blake's dad sighed, and her mom looked at the floor. "Well, the bodies aren't in… the best of states," Ghira eventually managed. "Though, since you've… been around, perhaps you might know something?"
"Shoot," Patches said.
"They looked… drained," Kali said. "The skin blackened, shriveled up, bones prominent, eyes sunken in, and barely any blood left, despite a lack of puncture wounds-" Patches froze, and everyone else stopped when they realized that.
"Show me a picture," he demanded, and Ruby shuddered at the thought of something actually bringing fear to the ancient undead. Ghira fished a scroll from a pocket, unlocking the device and passing it to Patches, who took half a second to look at the corpse it displayed, before his eyes widened. He flicked through a few more, and began to pale. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "You know what it is?" Sun hesitantly inquired.
Patches shut the scroll and placed it down on the table. He looked her, and every one of her friends in the eyes, even Neo. "You are not going to go after this thing." When Ruby opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off. "No. I am not going to face Vyliria down in the future and tell her you went and got your godsdamned humanity sucked out of you on my watch. That thing is beyond even graduated huntsmen. So none of you are going around alone on this island, and none of you are leaving this damned house at night. Not when there's a fucking darkwraith on Menagerie!"
()
A/N: Geez, the faunus of Menagerie aren't pleased by a Schnee showing up, even if she called out her dad for his racist bullshit on television (of which recordings eventually filtered over). Who would've guessed?
We aren't explicitly told Saber leads the Menagerie Guard, but he seems to, or at least is high ranked, so I'm just gonna make him the head honcho in this.
I did a little bit of embellishment with the terrain of Menagerie and surroundings of Kuo Kuanna, but it doesn't really change much, and only really makes it so that I can explain why there's a stretch of empty jungle where the bonfire Adam popped out of was.
All is not fine in Kuo Kuanna. Though I will say, Adam is not behind the murders, and neither is the White Fang. Though the increased presence of the terrorist organization is going to have an impact, and more will be coming from them. I have… plans, regarding Adam and Sienna.
Sun's on the way to learning pyromancy. We'll see how Yang and Blake do as teachers, though Blake is only offering assistance because of the "One master, one pupil," rule of pyromancy.
There's some divergence from canon that doesn't have to do with Dark Souls. Namely, Menagerie was already aware of the full details of the attack on Beacon, which didn't go so well when Ghira found out. Sienna's already disavowed Adam, though it's convenient that he's dead. Unfortunately for everyone who doesn't share a worldview with Taurus, he didn't stay that way. Though that also brings up how big this murder spree is that Ghira's letting them patrol the streets anyways. As to why Menagerie knows, I refuse to believe that they're so isolated from the rest of Remnant that literally no-one has given a full account of what happened. Someone (such as a faunus seeking refuge after the attack on the city) would have come from Vale and spoke about the Vale cell participating in the attack on Beacon, or would have brought a newspaper, or a recorded news broadcast, or something. Especially if it's been over a month since it happened.
Yes, Blake's dad expects her to be arriving, but doesn't know when exactly she's going to get there. Hence why he still inquires as to who's at the door, because it could be someone else (like the Albain brothers, though they're currently doing something else right now).
Oh yeah, and Patches and Ghira and Kali go waaay back. Like I've said, he's been around the block a lot. I made up some childhood backstory so I could fit Patches into this universe better. He's been active this whole time, so he's had to have an impact on the recent timeline as well, not just events a few centuries or millennia ago.
Anyways, there's the bombshell at the end. I was thinking about going further, but I like the cliffhanger that's resulted this way better. Don't worry that much however.