AN: And we're back. It's been a long time coming now. I think I must have spent 4 months working on the next chapter of Grimm Souls, only to keep on discarding drafts because nothing fit. The second I reached the end of year 1 I had written myself into a corner I couldn't find a way out of. I considered it for a while, and I came to the conclusion that a rewrite was in order. I've realised that I'm not happy with the original story.
When I started all of this I barely knew how to write, and while I learned a lot, I still have a long way to go. All in all, though, I feel like I've finally reached a point where I can do this justice, and so with 3 lovely peeps helping me beta this, I've finally decided to take another crack at it, just in time for the 1 year anniversary.
"Again!" The voice was hard, barking out the command.
I lunged, my blade thrust forward in a clumsy stab, the weapon too heavy for me to hold steady. With a clang, another blade met it, almost tearing it from my hands. I tried to pull my sword up as I stepped back, hoping to form some semblance of a guard-
"Dead." I looked down to find the tip of a blade poking me in the chest. Dad, holding his weapon in place a moment, looked at me with barely hidden confusion. It lurked behind the steel of his eyes, rattling in his skull as he withdrew his sword and sheathed it in the same, practiced motion.
His blade gone, Dad was back to his usual self, the harsh taskmaster diving deep and leaving only the fun-loving father of eight.
I hefted my own blade, too heavy by half to properly control the movement, and clumsily shoved it into its scabbard. I wheezed out a breath, finally having managed it with a rasping of steel. Dad had said that it would grow easier to wield the weapon over time, that I would grow used to the weight and be all the stronger for it.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 0
The screen lurking in my head told me otherwise.
"Lunch!" The shout cut my train of thought short. I looked over to see Mom standing in the doorway, Rose poking her head out form behind her skirt, a half-toothed smile stretching her face.
Knowing that this would be the end of the training session, I let my shoulders sag, my eyes locked onto the ground. A large, warm hand patted me on the back.
"You'll feel better once you get some food into you," he said, "and we can do one more training when I get back," he added, seemingly finding the cause of my dejection.
"We can?"
"Of course!" The man puffed his chest out and slugged me in the shoulder, nearly sending me tumbling to the ground. "You've got to be ready for Signal, right?"
"Right!"
The promise was like a breath of fresh air. I stood straight and sprinted inside, stuffing my practice sword in the cupboard before washing my hands and joining the others at the table.
It was rowdy, as it usually was. Saffron and Sapphire were talking about something in hushed tones, leaning close so no one would overhear. Meanwhile, Jade tried her hardest to get Rose and the twins to settle down before Mom got back.
Dad waltzed in behind me, quickly walking past and snatching Rose out of her seat before she could wiggle enough to send it crashing to the ground. He twirled her through the air a moment before sitting down and firmly holding my sister in his lap, not letting her cause any more trouble.
"How was training?" Jade, now no longer responsible for the toddlers Dad was busy entertaining, asked me. Dead, the word flashed through my head. "That bad?" I'd tried not to let it show, but there was no hiding it.
"Yeah," I fiddled with my fork.
"You'll get better, you just have to keep at it."
So everyone kept telling me anyways.
"It's here!" The shout, coming from the kitchen, drew all our eyes. Mom came smashing through the door, waving her scroll about. For a moment I wondered what it could have been, but when she walked up to me, holding the scroll out for me to take, I figured it could only be one thing.
My breath caught, a some invisible force constricting my throat like so much rope in a hangman's knot. With shaky hands, I took the device from her and turned the screen towards me. It was an email, the sender, Signal's admissions office.
"Come on, what does it say?" I couldn't tell who had asked.
With a shaky hand, I opened the message.
"Dear Mr. Arc." I read out loud, forcing the words past the knot on my neck which seemed to tighten with every word.
"We… we regret to inform you that we cannot offer you admission to the class of 1013." It didn't feel real. It must have been a prank, some cruel joke one of my sisters must have sprung on me. I kept reading, almost as if desperate for it to say anything to the contrary.
"In recent years, the committee has been forced to make increasingly difficult decisions in our selection process due to the number of candidates. Each year we are forced to choose only a certain number of students from a great many more talented and driven applicants than we have room to admit.
We very much appreciate the interest you have shown in our school, and hope you will accept our best wishes in all your future endeavours.
Sincerely,
Camilla Cream
Head of Admissions"
Those final well wishes felt like ash on my tongue. Silence hung in the air like stale air, suffocating me, even as the rope seemed to tighten. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Someone said something, but I couldn't make out what.
I stood, my chair scraping over the floor as I did so. I left the room and shut the door behind me with the crack of the hangman's neck, finally giving way.
#
"Hello Jaune." Mr. Lynch stood in the doorway to his office and showed me inside. He was short and thin, his bottle lens glasses perched on his nose, hiding a sharp gaze that had always unsettled me. The man didn't fit into the school, he was too qualified. Renowned child psychologist turned student councillor. He gestured for me to sit.
"Hi," I kept my reply short, curt almost. This was the last session I would have with the man, supposedly to prepare me for life after high school.
"First things first," Mr. Lynch sank into office chair and rolled it under his desk, "congratulations on your finals, those were some impressive scores."
"Thank you." I'd need them, I knew, if I wanted any chance at all.
"Now," he shuffled some papers, "have you given my suggestions any thought?"
I suppressed a grimace at the question. I didn't meet his eyes, looking to a little statuette of a lion, sat on a shelf behind him.
"I'll take that as a no."
The words drew a flinch from me.
"Jaune," Mr. Lynch began slowly, almost cautiously, "there is more than one career path out there. You have good grades, a good head on your shoulders, and your Aura unlocked. You could do almost anything-"
"Then why can't I be a Huntsman?" I snapped, the words spilling from my mouth like water from a broken dam.
"No one can make this choice for you, Jaune, but I do hope you reconsider. Only applying to Beacon is… risky." The man leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk. "If you only apply to Beacon and you are rejected… it won't be as easy to pivot as it was for Signal." The words struck me, hard. Something broke. A bitter laugh escaped me.
"You don't think I'll get in."
"It's not that," Mr. Lynch tried to reassure me, but I could see the doubt etched in the lines of his face, "but at some point we have to face the facts-"
"The fact that I can't do it?" I asked, molten lead filling my gut. Without thought I stood, my chair clattering back. I couldn't take it. I ran for the door, ignoring Mr. Lynch's calls.
The door to Mr. Lynch's office slammed shut behind me, rattling in its frame with a violent echo, as though it was the gavel of some great and terrible judge. I barely noticed. My pulse throbbed in my ears, the rhythm so relentless, so deafening that it felt as though my skull would shatter under the strain.
The bell rang — sharp, shrill — a jarring sound that cut through my stupor for a brief, disorienting moment. In a heartbeat, the halls would flood, a sea of students surging for the exit like water from a broken dam.
My footsteps hammered the floor, a rapid striking of my soles on the cheap linoleum floor before I even thought of leaving. Cobalt lockers and classroom doors merged into one indistinct smear as I sped past, racing for the exit. I barrelled through the doors like a battering ram, spilling out into the cloying, almost suffocating summer heat. My mind whirled, confused thoughts tumbling over one another until they were all noise.
My lungs screamed for air, each desperate breath scorching my chest, but I continued to run — faster, harder — until the tree line loomed ahead.
Two massive sycamores stood apart, entwining at the tips to form a sort of gate behind which the forests of Ansel stretched and grew. That was where my legs gave out, finally bringing me to a stop. I bent double, then, breathing at my feet as I tried to still my racing heart.
A breeze carried through the arch, bringing with it the sweet scent of honeysuckle. It was a welcome relief, a balm to my frayed nerves and burning lungs, and without thinking, I followed it. Above me, birds perched like sentinels in the canopy, singing their gentle songs. The scene was so peaceful, so at odds with the turbulent feelings within me that I couldn't help but calm, my breath slowing, and the blood rushing in my ears fading.
I followed the scent to a clearing, where the underbrush was a tapestry of pink and white blossoms, their delicate petals swaying in the wind. I sank to the ground beneath one of the trees, my back resting against its weathered and peeling trunk before I took a long, steadying breath.
"What am I going to do?" I looked to the sky for answers, but found none. The meeting with Mr. Lynch had gone about as well as I'd expected. The man had spent the meeting trying to convince me to consider different career paths, just as I had spent my it trying to ignore him as best as I could. That hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped.
He had told me that with my Aura unlocked, I could become a police officer, one of the best, or a fire fighter, or any number of other jobs. I'd turned away every suggestion. Mr Lynch had sighed that quiet little sigh, the same one I'd heard from my parents whenever the topic came up. It was stupid. I knew that. I wasn't cut out to be a Huntsman, even if people didn't try to let me down gently, I was reminded often enough.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 0
The screen appeared before my eyes, or maybe it was only in my head, I could never tell. It taunted me, told me that I would never make it. It told me that in all those years of school, no amount of studying had made me smarter, and that in all those training sessions with Dad and Jade, I had never gotten any stronger. It burned, and the screen vanished with a thought, pushed into the back of my mind where it waited patiently to remind me again.
Something rustled the leaves in the underbrush behind me. At first I thought it might have been another bird or a squirrel, but then I heard it growl. It was a sound so loud and so low that it shoot the trunk I leaned against. I froze a moment before I sat up, heart hammering away as I did my best to remain silent. Slowly, I turned towards the noise, praying to whatever gods might be out there that it hadn't seen me.
It stood in the bushes, its black form pushing aside leaves and branches as it approached slowly. It was massive, standing almost as tall as I was and twice as wide, with sharp, jutting spikes of bone-white armour covering its shoulders, parts of its chest and the whole of its skull. Dark, vermillion eyes glared at me through slit holes in the bone mask that sat over its maw, burning into my own. It growled again and I felt a tingle run down my spine, some primal part of my brain telling me to run as I saw the glowing red title which floated above it.
Beowolf
Level 3
My legs carried me on instinct, long strides carrying me away from the monster. It followed. Even over the blood rush in my ears I could hear its approach, branches snapping as it barrelled through any obstacle rather than around them. It leapt, covering the distance in an instant. On instinct, I did the same, tumbling to the side as the Grimm snapped at my heels, missing me by a hair.
For a moment, it rolled over the ground, crushing a bush under its bulk as it struggled to get back to its feet. In a heartbeat I was back on my feet and sprinting away as quickly as they could carry me. The respite was only a short one, and it was only moments later that I heard the Grimm closing in again. I leapt over a fallen trunk, only to hear the Grimm's bone claws rip into the bark an instant later. The sound of wood shattering under its inhuman strength echoed between the trees. I turned my head to face the sound as I ran, only to come face to face with the Beowolf's snarling mask.
It fell onto me and I could do nothing to resist the weight that sent me crashing into a tree. The Grimm, still atop me followed me to the ground. I kicked at it, desperate to get out from under it, to escape the nightmarish creature that had now caught me. It did little to deter the Beowolf, tore at me with wild abandon, each pass of its claws sending sparks of white flying, as if it were tearing away at some wall standing between us. In a way, it was.
In the corner of my eye, I saw the blue bar which I had always thought to represent my Aura dwindle. As it emptied, my struggle grew more desperate, my limbs flailing about in some vain attempt to dislodge the Grimm's hold on me. I swung my fist into its mask to little effect, my hand simply bouncing off the mask and into something hard behind me. I grasped it awkwardly and swung with all my might, a loud crack sounding through the trees as it made contact.
Just then, my Aura ran out. That esoteric layer of protection fading with a flashing of white light. The Beowolf, snarling, bit into my arm with a savage look my world became fire. My arm burned as dark spots vied for my attention, covering more and more of my sight as rivulets of red blood painted the white mask.
I swung again and the teeth scraped bone as the Grimm's head jolted. I swung again and a fissure opened on its mask. I swung again and the fissure widened, even as the jaws snapped my bones like twigs. I swung again and I could no longer tell the difference between the red bar which signified my health and the blood that spurted in the air.
I swung again and the beast went limp, the rock I had been hitting it with still embedded in the deep crack that now ran across its mask. Bone, and teeth, and fur fell away as it turned to black dust and floated on the breeze, merging with the dark spots which swam across my vision.
Enemy Felled
487 Dust
I lay there a moment, staring at the floating words unable to comprehend what I was seeing. And then I laughed, and laughed, and laughed until the darkness took me.
#
I woke to the forest canopy, blocked out by the screen that had taunted me for what felt like forever. Out of habit, I went to dismiss it, only to freeze at its final line.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 487
Memories of the Grimm flooded back into me and my eyes darted down frantically. Instead of the torn flesh and exposed bone I had expected, I found nothing but smooth skin, covered in dark, dried blood. The smell hit me, then, a coppery tang that almost made me retch and sent lances of phantom pain down the newly healed flesh.
I stared a moment longer, clenching my fist as if to verify that it really was healed. Wounds had always healed before, but something like this? I shook my head, no use thinking about it now, I thought.
My eyes drew back to the screen, pulled from the back of my mind with a thought. Experimentally, I clicked one of the arrows and watched how the screen changed.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1 - 2
HP: 100/100 - 110/110
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10 - 11
Mind: 10
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 487 - 150
It was almost ironic that just about the only thing I hadn't been suicidal enough to try was the exact thing which would have allowed me to grow. I let out a single, bitter bark of laughter as I stood and dismissed the screen without confirming. Through the canopy, I could see the sky grow dark, if I stayed away for much longer, Mom might just send out a search party to come and find me.
I set off at a cautious, loping pace, my eyes darting from tree to bush as if I expected a Beowolf to be hiding behind each and every one of them. I knew, logically, that the forest should have been safe, that it was culled regularly so lumber could be collected without issue. I knew that the Grimm had been an anomaly, young and weak, and that it had only stumbled across me by some incredible misfortune of chance and the negative emotions I had been feeling at the time. I knew all of that, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
The sycamore gate loomed ahead, and I couldn't have been happier to pass through it and leave the forest behind. The sun was dipping below the horizon now, painting the sky a shade of burnished orange. Almost no one was out on the streets now, most people were either having dinner or were already home from work. The few that were outside shot me concerned looks, but I couldn't find it in me to care.
My thoughts were, for what must have been the first time, focused on the screen in the back of my mind. It morphed every second as I contemplated where to place the level I had gained. I only had one, so I had to spend it wisely. Would putting it in Intelligence actually make me smarter, or would that be Mind? What would a point in Strength do? Would it actually make me ten percent stronger, or was it not linear? So many questions, but as per usual, there was little in the way of answers.
Walking the stone path leading up to the house, it almost felt as though I was watching someone else come home. Some other boy covered in blood, looking so small as he hunched over, trying in vain to cover up all evidence of his brush with death. I watched him walk inside and turn onto the stairs, ignoring the calling of his name. He vanished into his room and under the covers in an instant, even as hurried footfalls followed him up.
I watched Mom step into the room. She looked haggard. Her hair was a half-braided mess and her blouse sported a bright red stain that must have come from dinner. She stood still in the doorway a moment before slowly stepping forward, almost as if trying not to startle some skittish animal.
"Jaune?" She asked, and suddenly I was back in my own body, burying myself in my blanket so that she wouldn't see the blood. "Jaune?" She repeated herself when I didn't say anything, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. "Mr. Lynch called earlier."
Dread settled in my gut like cement shoes in the bank. I didn't want to talk about it, not again. She settled on the edge of my bed, a hand hesitantly pausing between us. "I just… I just want to be a Huntsman. It's all I've ever wanted." I felt her hand settle on my cheek.
"I know baby, I know.."
We sat like that for a time, and I felt twelve again, like I'd just been rejected from Signal again. Then, Mom got up and dusted off her jeans. "I'll leave out a plate." She paused in the doorway, but I couldn't get the 'thank you' past the lump in that sat in my throat. She let out a sigh and walked out, closing the door gently behind her.
Left alone, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I wasn't cut out to be a Huntsman. Signal had been right to reject me when I'd applied all those years ago. Mr. Lynch wasn't wrong to suggest other carriers. The thought of facing another Grimm sent phantom lances of pain down my arm, the coppery smell of blood stuck in my nose. I wasn't ready.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1 - 2
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Strength: 10 - 11
Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 487 - 150
I felt Strength surge into me, my whole body tensing at the heat that filled me to bursting. The feeling subsided after a moment, leaving only tight, cool muscle behind. I wasn't strong enough.
But I would be.
Hope you all enjoyed, let me know what you guys think and have a good one!
