Story is canon to My Bones Can Scream, but reading it beforehand is definitely not required, it is just as confusing as this one :) .
However, for those interested in learning more about the nature of the Abyss and the macrocosmos this story takes place, it's definitely worth checking out.
Fragile and glistening tears streamed down his pale face as he walked in solitude along a serpentined street, the daunting buildings casting lengthy and encroaching shadows that threatened to engulf him at any moment.
A chill hung in the air like a heavy blanket as the sun retired behind the snowy mountains, altering the once azure canvas as it underwent its descent, its last rebel rays coalescing into a halo of light that crowned the hills in a golden tiara. At last, as the final embers crumble into the light, the vibrant hues painting the cosmos above gradually faded alongside it into the deep indigo of the night, the fiery oranges and deep reds of the Sun substituted by the unfractured pale moon rising to replace its counterpart, the snowflakes falling from the heavens shining like platinum orbs beneath its light.
His every footfall resonated with a crunch of freshly fallen snow, marking the definitive onset of a brutal winter that had displaced the last vestiges of warmth left clinging to his town, the satisfying sound being deaf to his unnaturally flushed ears.
Pulling the swallow jacket around his relatively muscular body, he snuggled closer into the garment as the cold bit into his back and left shallow spots of brustling scarlet that seemed to mutate beneath the moonlight.
Blinded by tears, he struggled to perceive anything beyond the watery haze, his despair and hatred being the only tether to reality as the world surrounding him dissolved into a chaotic sea of static. While a persistent ache pulsed through his leg, it resembled more a weariness of muscles than any acute pain, the storm brewing in his core swallowing his senses and mirroring the one raging outside.
Jaune Arc was used to pain to failure; after all, only a few weeks after reaching the esteemed age of thirteen, it became quite clear that joining any combat school was something completely out of his reach.
He had been granted a first-row seat, perfectly positioned to witness his friend, or more specifically the children of his parent's friends, lose all interest in him, their indifference thriving as he failed to exhibit time and time again even a glimmer of the potential all the other members of his family had showcased.
For how could he achieve anything, to become the Huntersmen and hero he had always held a blinding desire to be when lacking the most crucial part of it
Aura
The tool shaped and weaponized from the very souls of humanity's ancestors, forged by the will and sacrifice of men to drive away the dark, something he wholeheartedly lacked.
After his parents' many attempts to unlock his aura, and so many more visits to the hospital, all that he received was a stark medical document, flatly confirming that he was entirely devoid of any aura despite the impossibility of it.
The first in the fractured history of Remnant so congrats Jaune! You are no better than the beasts real heroes hunt.
With this wonderful revelation, his goal had all crumbled over the years as it became apparent that besides being a good but not phenomenal sword fighter and having somewhat of a sharp mind, he was as useless as a log when it came to anything that wasn't an auraless criminal.
Adding insult to injury, all of his sisters, even those who chose never to train a moment in their life and would never choose the Hunter career path, were miles ahead of him. After all, aura is a hell of a drug and only physical training could never reach its highs in a million years.
Wiping the ice that had formed on his brow and had mingled with the tear cascading down his cheek, he carefully listened for any sound that would alert him of his pursuer's presence before slipping into a small alley between the buildings, silently cursing himself for coming here in the first place.
His entire reason for being here was that some of his 'friends' had decided to take the matter of his lack of aura into their own hands and brought him to a local Industrial hub that had been overrun by Grimm a few decades ago, their reasoning hinging on the belief that the peril such an excursion would stir within him would force his latent aura to spring to life.
Was this driven by genuine love and devotion for their friend? Nope, nothing more than a calculated business maneuver, a ploy that would cultivate the appearance of kind friends helping the black sheep of the Arc clan.
So with their "help", they easily reach the outskirts of the dilapidated remnants of the abandoned town in less than twenty minutes—everyone say it again: Aura is a hell of a drug, where he was forced to piggyback onto demons in the shapes of thirteen eyes-old as they tore across the landscape at nearly two hundred miles per hour, managing to vomit his guts only twice until they reach their destination.
Patrolling around for a bit, it didn't take long before they encountered their first Grimm, an Ursa Minor the size of a small bus, which was deemed too dangerous of a target by his caretakers—whose similar age did plentiful damage to his pride, and was promptly dispatched by one strike of thei-
Jaune abruptly halted in his tracks, his train of thought entirely derailed as the massive form of a Beowolf collided with the wall of the deserted building before him, sending a trail of crumbling bricks in the air that cut him across the cheek. With a violent wrench of its massive frame, the beast tore itself from the building's confines, the sudden motion splintering beams and columns, leaving a gaping hole behind that destabilized the entire structure, causing it to groan and tremble ominously but for now continuing to hold its weight.
The seemingly lifeless skull of the beast slowly veered around toward the boy, the movement making the gruesome stain of blood smeared across its face even more apparent, shining vividly under the blinding moonlight peeking through the small gap between the dilapidated buildings. A crimson streak dripping down his visage like a stark reminder of the fate that had befallen his fellow humans tore to pieces so fast they didn't even realize that their killer was dozens of times weaker than them if they had just been more careful and held their aura permanently active.
A privilege he doesn't possess.
For a moment, it almost seemed to allow the thirteen-year-old to observe it, the sudden odor of rotting iron strung Jaune's nostrils and made the hair on his arms stand up as the static in his belly grew further in intensity.
Before he could stammer out a response, the Beowolf was already on him, maw barely dodged as he threw himself to the wall but his tactic easily fooled, after all, Grimm are rarely such simple and mindless creatures. Without even altering its trajectory, its claw lashed out toward his chest, smashing against it like a loose cannonball that propelled him backward at blinding speed, the sudden disgorge of air from his lung making it impossible to swallow the mixture of bile and blood clogging his esophagus.
The sickening sound of bone splintering into uneven shards filled the air as he slammed into the wall, instantly obliterating his lower spine on impact and severing the connection between brain and limbs, legs unable to do anything but collapse helplessly to the unforgiven ground.
He is given no respite as the beast's vice-like grip closes around his arm, almost theatrically raising the boy in the air even as his radius and ulna bend beyond their normal capabilities, forced to endure the weight of his entire body all on their own. Terror paralyzed him as he keenly sensed how fucked he was, a nauseating emotion, the kind that should never burden a child, surging through his bloodstream.
The boy's heart hammered in his chest at the sound akin to a primitive bestial glee bubbling in the Beowolf throat, its maw parting like rusted gates while black bile drooled from it.
Jaune's vision flashes with searing light, impeding his senses as everything burns around him, animalistic panic clouding his mind like a deep mist. Surprisingly, not at the idea of dying for once, but a strange one, born of the sensation of incomprehensible wrongness brewing in his stomach that actually managed to shift his attention from the darkness monster.
He had been so preoccupied by not becoming dinner, that he hadn't realize the churning of his insides until it was too late.
Something was inside him.
Something akin to a wave of static flooding through his digestive tract and feasting on blood and organs alike, splitting apart his bones before fusing itself on the crystal marrow nestled within them, staining against his human nature through their unhallowed union.
Fear was the seed, the hatred that had built up over his pathetic life was the conductor, and the perilous onslaught was the catalyst.
Without warning, his body swells grotesquely, inflating like a balloon stretched too thin, jagged, spiked edges jutting from its surface, a spiral of shrieking annihilation blooming from the hole where his soul should have been, spreading its presence through oily tendrils that infected all they touched.
It was a crystallized mass of cruelty and corrosion, a tale of corruption to the highest degree, nothing less than ruin given form through the power that degenerates matter and mocks the very concept of light and flame.
Like a rupturing tumor, every shadow infesting the cosmos is frozen at sharp, unnatural angles by the very loathing infused into his molecules, the churning miasma of serpentine static bleeding from his silhouette like a churning obelix of despair.
The boy screams, his false nature at last crumbles, and the world is forced to oblige
Jaune eyes snapped wide open, body jerking upright as a cry clawed its way up his vocal cords only to be halted mid-breath as his hand clamped ruthlessly over his quivering lips with enough force to send a tremor of agony radiating through his lower jaw. His breathing, once an erratic rhythm, now came in shallow pants as his heart tried to rip its way out of his ribcage and scatter across the floor on spindly limbs.
Stumbling back, he frantically blinked in confusion as the city and the beast were replaced with a hollow valley, the terrain beneath him nothing more than a sheet of glass no different than a mirror.
The air is cold and dry, the lavender sky far above infested by blistering cracks like scars through which shadows spill like uncoordinated tendrils, only to be swallowed by the surface of a distant iron star several times larger than his solar system, eternally frozen in its final moment.
He is allowed to blindly observe the foreign surroundings before his moment of ignorance toward the dark below is abruptly dissipated.
Everything vibrates all around him as the denizens of the Abyss become keenly aware of his presence in the realm beyond the comforting cover of Creation.
Shades long like cities and tall as the night take form in the distance, crawling, flying, and remaining stationary all at the same time, for what are concepts like reason and fundamental biology rather than a mere suggestion to be relegated to comedy.
For an undying moment, he watches his blood flow be constricted by an unseen hand, before reversing through his arteries until they form clots in patterns of splintering runes that jutted from the inside like inconceivable barbs.
Ignorant to the pain, his gaze drifts across all that is and should never be, darting in all direction across the prismatic shard sprawling endlessly around him where thousands of battles commence with every second, shambling abominations, concepts, and beasts beyond form could be seen dying and living in a replicating cycle of unbirth, their powers a kaleidoscope of logical afflictions whose mere idea would turn Remnant into polluted wastelands feasted on by putrid wyrms of entropy.
Raising above even those, somewhere in the distance that would take a single step or a million light years to reach, an unliving with arms of interminable darkness and body convened from chitin intermixed with oxidized plumb held together by rotten crystal threads is killing the literal concepts of innovation. Yet even in death, the concept declares its right to exist, citing the reality of dust armament, Dyson Spheres, superradiant scattering weapons, and all that came in between them, and the creation of fire that could end the unliving.
Only to be countered by the unliving with the frozen memory of the concept's untimely demise and the broken embers of the flame of revolution held by its appendage, rejecting the reality the concept attempted to subvert, swallowing it and growing fat with power.
His retina burns under the hideous truth of the cosmos meant to be unseen to the eyes of man, only by the liquid that dripped onto his chin does he realize they aren't literally scorching in their socket, just bleeding.
Deep in his guts, he understands he was already dead, a shambling corpse who had yet to be buried, mind and identity scrambled into an unhallow mess in servitude to beings who would see his world burn.
And yet he lives, and yet he falls, leaving no place for panic to even formulate between the fracturing confines of his mind as the pristine surface of the terrain burst like a spoiled egg, propelling shards the size of the Four Kingdoms chaotically across the expanse like shrapnel.
In the hazy fringes of his consciousness, he hears the chittering of decayed cadavers resonate to a higher frequency as his gaze follows what broke through the surface, sounding like shrill cries of zealous hatred, carrying in its tune the resentment and contempt of an extinct race of pale whales, the last thing his eyes registered was the silhouette of the rising formless abomination barreling toward the iron star, before he completely slips through the cracks.
Jaune can't even scream as he tumbles aimlessly, quickly finding himself in a completely different location, high in a starless sky that showed no proof of the prismatic terrain that should have been above, plummeting even upward toward a pit that was an unshaken dream and a fractured cosmos all at the same time, forms that mocked geometry rising beneath cracks at circular angles, stuffed with life that does not abide by the rules of men and unliving abominations dwelling in forgotten timelines.
His consciousness is momentarily stolen from his possession, scattered between forlorn fractions of time that span eons unending, mind immolated by endless wars of daemons, pantheons of serpentine iron giants and beasts deprived of flesh and heat alike.
They slip past him like grains of sand through one's finger, until at last, only a singular battlefield remains, one that he knows is a dream no more.
At the end of said dream, two singular beings stand after eternity had run its course, a fluctuating and mutating quantum-state serpent of iron and static with enormous wings of frozen time battling a shard of famine that has become the pit itself, the aftershocks of their blows birthing galaxies of alien laws and principles that will raise interminable tributes in their names until only one remain.
His eyes had been dwarfed long ago along his anatomy, the idea of vision only perpetuated by crystal madness unseating his human nature, remain glued to the impossibility that is but a gram of the entire Abyss, unable to behold their true form and catching only the outline of their shadow that is hate and entropy and-
And. He. Blinks.
And awakens into the real once more
As the vehicle comes to a stop, the head of the Arc's steps out of the large vehicle, his undergarment, black armor and large coat completely nullifying the cold touch of the winter, only his face having to bear its influence.
Closing the rusted door with a firm push only to freeze-no pun intended, in place as his eyes landed on his second youngest girl, Lavender and Saphron waiting before the giant gate of the Arc Main Estate.
It was a surprise to see the oldest of his children around ever since she started dating her new girlfriend Terra, Gods bless her soul for falling for an Arc, but what was even more surprising was their lack of shock at his unannounced appearance.
'Cute surprise' He couldn't help but inwardly sneer at the probably laughing individual that foiled his plans.
Not even getting to mutter a single word, Lavender had already left her sister side, crashing into his leg with enough force that would force a normal man to his knees, her blue eyes gleaming like molten sapphire as she stared at him with a childish joy he would burn the world to protect, their color contrasting the cascading mane of long, golden hair that flowed like a shimmering waterfall onto her shoulders.
"Welcome back Dad, mom called an hour ago." Saphron exclaimed, a wrinkle of amusement forming on her forehead as what might have been basic and even weird sentences was instantly understood by Cloud.
What a petty mistress he wed, to destroy his surprise only for stealing one of her kills, by accident that is.
"Understood...I always told you kids that your mother is an evil woman, charms so potent it stole my heart without even saying thank you." Smirking at her youngest pouting, he couldn't contain the chuckle that slipped past his lips as he ruffled her mane, in a quick motion picking the rascal up.
The snow crunched under his boots as he moved to embrace Saphron, Lavender squeaky squabbling at being compressed between their bodies furthering both of the adults' grins to further degrees.
"Now then, where are t-"
Only to be rudely interrupted as reality decided to weep.
For a moment outside of time, an eerie stasis took root onto their reality, one that is a warning that he has yet to comprehend until was too late,a barrier keeping the true nature of the cosmos at bay . Molecules movements are suspended mid-vibration, the atoms chaotic orbits fixed by an unyielding hand that had rewritten their identity, and electrons gentle droning around their nuclei grinded to a halt, forced to hover silently in place, infinity yet at the same time nothing standing between them. The air could no longer drift, hung like a log with sharp, unnatural angles, a frozen, unfeeling entity that could rupture those breathing it from within with a single twitch.
Then the stasis is broken by the power rising from the bloated corpse of his son, allowing the world to return to its natural.
Initiating as a simple scream that spreads like wildfire—and if listened closely could have been comparable to that of a child whose body is split from within, the call of the madness bellow wickedly blooms into a chorus of howling screams trapped beneath splintering crystals that spreads like mist through the air, filling every listener with the notion of the end of all they knew. It is a grating noise that speaks of eternity and its limitation, a sound that echoes of endless tributes and slaughter beyond imagination done by abhorrent gods and unborn ones in servitude to a frenzied forest whose roots were the genesis of the Abyss.
The manic cry tore through Cloud's head like sharpened screws, grating against his eardrums with enough intensity to leave him deaf to all but the sound, making him cup his ear with one of his hand, the other one trembling as if stricken with fever, the violent shivers running through his fingers as he instinctively pulled Lavender to his chest.
Biting his tongue until it drew blood so he didn't dare succumb to his subconscious , he managed to spare a glance to Saphron, anger, and resentment flashing through his core like a storm at his inability to catch her unconscious body that slump to the icy floor.
It froze him solid, the scratching tune worse than any wound inflicted by the beasts of Grimm, worse than dying over and over could ever be, for a tiny iota of his being whispered to him that death would be a better fate than continuing listening.
And then he makes the worst mistake of his entire life
and
looks
—
One by one distant flickered and perished in succession, each brilliant and swirling orb of magnificence flashing their last light, their incoherent form almost judging him, holding him accountable for their race extinction.
Then, across that moribund sky, one gaping maw grew among those dying lights, breaching into the mortal coil like a calamity sustained through the extinction of the constellations.
In the blink of a human eye, the sky vanishes, breaking like porcelain beneath what must never be, shards of broken space like chunks of a mutilated beast crashing down and creating untold massacres, their figurative mass reducing Kingdoms to rubble and life to dust.
SAVE. US. FATHER
It does not speak, yet the nightmarish exclamation is louder than the roars of a Leviathan and sharper than the edge of his axe could ever be, every rational notion making it clear at that moment that he is dead along with everything he ever loved.
Then, just like it came, it ceases, the paradox crumbling alongside it. And with it, silence, like the most precious gift from the gods, befalls the world.
The end Clould had just witnessed and his death averted as the world reverted to a superficial semblance of normality.
His heartbeat echoed behind his temples, heart pulsating in unison with the aura orbiting around it. In the background, he could sense pandemonium unraveling like an morbid gift across their town as the ringing in his ear subsided, yet the idea that they were still here, alive, almost made him collapse.
He should be dead, him along with his world, consumed by something that would crystalize their nightmares until it becomes nothing more than an asunder. And yet, instead of the gaping hole left by It, stood the sky in its twilight hour, blends of soft lavender and pale light slipping across its circumcise, as if the heavens themselves were blushing in response to winter's cold embrace.
For a second, a tiny insignificant moment, he fantasized about it being a simple hallucination caused by his age, no matter how outlandish and delusional it might be.
But that would be nothing more than a beautiful fantasy.
Its words, its only statement, had been carved, gruesomely etched into his muscles and bones, a simple command of the abomination that had shattered the cosmos only with its future intent.
Like the crash of thunder and the clamorous rumble of an earthquake, his aura explodes in white lighting, the ground beneath him cracking ever so slightly as he knelt, gingerly scooping the young woman—who until his dying breath will always be his timid little princess, into his arms, heart swelling with a quite thanks to the heavens as he saw both were unharmed, though still unconscious. With utmost care, he carried them into the safety of their home in a single stride, before hastily blasting off into the sky like a bolt of lighting.
If his blood and bones hadn't been urging him on, mind allowing itself to fsll into the temptation of an sweet disillusion, maybe Cloud would have gathered his entire family and departed for the capital, or much better for Beacon, Brother Gods know if there are any more secure places than the den of the wizard.
But every iota of his being confirmed that it was neither.
Reaching past edge of the town, it took him a single stride before his eyes fell onto what was once the bustling outpost and heart of their town's industry that now lay abandoned, falling to Grimm long before he and Aurora moved into the town.
With more force than maybe needed, he crashed into the ground right around where the main road simply disappeared, his reinforced boots tearing into the concrete and stopping him from plummeting into the hole.
Cloud's breath ceased in its tracks, clogging his airpipe for a second before forcing its way downward, hiding between his ribs, anxious and heavy.
A shiver travels down his spine the longer he looks at the devastation that appeared to have been perfectly cut down to the millimeter, a crater or, more accurately, a newly formed valley stretching out, landscape marred by a miles-long gouge, the ruin greeting him like an old friend.
The factory that provided for their town, and abandoned buildings where many had lived long ago had been reduced to less than dust, trees, and lifeforms that might thrive between the narrow streets extinguished, leaving only an oddly circular shape crater in their place. Not even the clouds, pregnant with the weight of the brutal winter, hover above the location, the ruined land untouched by the white blanket that covered the Kingdom.
Nothing remains but a hollow expanse.
Nothing remains but his son.
Descending into the grating, it took a minute for him to reach the bottom, and although he could have jumped to the center, something cancerous to his way of living, or living in general preventing him, the shadows shifting around blindly and not reacting all that welcoming to abrupt movements.
Now, let it be known that the last time the mighty Cloud Arc had been afraid of shadows had been at the respectable age of twelve, but he got a feling regular shadows usually don't mold into complex structures that are just as sharp as Aura infused blades, nor do they whisper ancient tales of wars eternal wrought by the Monarch of the dark below.
With a bit of effort, he weaved through the shifting strands, arriving at what could only be ground zero.
Rising in the center of the newly formed valley stood an obelisk constructed from an interplay between strands and cords of darkness that write like serpents in everlasting torment.
The obelisk mimics the movement of fluid, its ever-shifting shape pushing against the very regulation of geometry, remodeling them to its bidding. At one moment, it may loom tall and imposing, piercing the sky and beyond it, and in the next, it appears to collapse upon itself, its proportions distorting into grotesque dimensions.
The shadows composing the discoidal structure are not merely the absence of light but a tangible, suffocating presence, its design being nothing more than an ever-evolving nightmare, a mockery of the natural world.
Jutting from within the nightmarish tangle of threads were pulsating crystals constituted from an intangible ichor, each one casting visions of futures filled with untold debauchery, where the flesh and bones of men are arranged in runes to awake slumbering abominations, the oceans turned purple by an abysmal blaze that blurs the line between Creation and the Abyss.
But thankfully, benefiting Cloud's mental health, he sees none of it, barely catching any glimpse of the madness, the structure's true existence obfuscated to his senses, ears deaf to the shadows whispers, and mouth unable to commune with the rotting shards.
Then, the orchestra of madness melts away with a last tune that is a symphony of decomposing flesh and crystals locked in a dissonant note, leaving only his son's body behind.
He was already beside him before his frail body could smash against the ground, plunging to his knees as he caught Jaune mid-falling. Placing his palm against his chest, the tension clinging to his muscles dissipates as he feels his son's soft heartbeat, his chest falling and rising rhythmically, a great dissonant to the heart of the older man.
Rising to his feet, he pulls the heavy coat from his body, the left sleeves tearing from the force, before wrapping his son in the comfy attire, smiling to himself despite what a shitshow of the day it had been so far, not turning around even as he sensed the White Dragon troops by their aura quickly approaching, naively unaware that if they had just a minute ago, they would have been slaughter by a sea of shadows and madness.
Before his gaze, something stirred, a single eye opening to greet him. It takes everything in his might not to flinch, smile stained on his face that he didn't allow to even dare of turning into a frown.
''Look who is finanly up, got a nice nap young man? I wouldn't personally recommend sleeping at rhe bottom of crater but what do old people like us know.''
It was an kaleidoscope of flickers, from flushed crimson, to azure, than to lustrous gold, and hundreds of other vivid colors shining for a moment before being replaced by others, his deep blue iris now nothing more than a memory, an inferior one at that when compare to what took its rightful place.
It was…beutifull, sweet and even cruelly alluring.
A mutation to his boy body, one that he could only hope would be the last.
A hope he knew was just a delusion ready to be shaken.
Can you hear it?
Those lulled to the madness bellow all that is know, can you hear its crystals tolls ring in unison?
To the undying wizard protecting his shattered world, to the undying queen chained to her immortal throne, all who had peered beyond the veil, and the Heralds awaiting his return
Know that the Shepherd walks the sane world of men once more.
Notes:
So here it is at last! After so long, I finally found time to focus on this project, and what a project it is.
It's going to be a long journey, but despite the major changes to Remnant, the history of RWBY won't be altered to an ungodly degree where it just becomes an original story with an RWBY label slapped on it, foucsing more onto building on the fondation on it.
Another important detail is that I promise you, despite the eldritch horror, the true terror of the
Grimm creatures and their nature will be a crucial part of the story, that's all I will say.
Anyway, looking forward to see your comments, they mean a lot and are always appreciated.
See you hopefully soon