Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Exterior Forest, Vale.
11:36 am.

An ear piercing gunshot rings out through a forest. Closer up, a black limb can be seen flying through the air as another bullet soars through the leg of a Beowulf. Before it can even let out a yelp, a red blur dashes past the beast, slicing it in twine with a man sized scythe. The wielder being a small girl, dressed like a gothic version of Little Red Riding Hood. She spins the massive scythe around with ease before talking to someone across a clearing in the forest.

“Hm, the Grimm seem to be putting up less of a fight than they usually do.”, exclaims the huntress.

Ruby looks over just in time to see five bright slashes of light rends a Creep to pieces. A girl in all white leaps through the remains while loading white powder into her rapier.

“Hmpf. They’re hardly ever a challenge anyways.”

Weiss pouts before sending forth a torrent of ice, which quickly engulfs dozens of Creeps and Beowulfs, turning them to icicles.

In the ice, two black reflections can be seen. Followed up by a gargantuan scorpion claw smashing through the frozen Grimm. Above the claw, a cat girl can be seen leaping through the air. A hail of gunfire erupts from her semi-automatic pistol, mildly inconveniencing the Death Stalker. The monstrosity responds by swinging forth another claw at her. As the claw collides with the girl, she suddenly disappears as the claw turns to ice.

Now above the Death Stalker, Blake can be seen leaping on glyph made from Weiss. She raises Gambol Shroud into the air before quickly plunging towards the earth. At the last moment the Death Stalker strikes at her with its tail. Blake’s sword and the Death Stalker’s tail collide in the air, sparks flying off both as the wielders attempt to overpower the other. In the end, Gambol Shroud wins out. It cleaves the tail in two as Blake further thrust the blade into the Stalker’s head, killing it.

As the Death Stalker lets out one final death screech, Blake slides off its head and wipes sweat off her forehead.

“I actually agree with Ruby, they do seem pretty weak today”.

Blake further slouches down as she attempts to catch her breath.

On the other side of the clearing, a loud grunt can be heard. A muscular blond girl bobs and weaves under the claws of a Ursa. She then slides behind the beast while wrapping both of her arms around its midsection.

“Well maybe…“

Yang struggles to speak as she squeezes the Ursa harder. She drags the Ursa back and forth as she finally wrestles all control away from the creature. Her feet plant firmly into the ground, her muscles bulge, and her face flushes as she slowly begins to spin the Ursa into the sky. At the peak of her rotation she lets go of the Ursa, causing it to be flung high into the air. Right as it’s about to hit the ground, Yang rushes the falling Ursa down, punching and shooting it dozens of times before delivering one last earth shattering punch to its skull.

“- we have gotten that good?”

Ruby scans the environment to see if there are any more Grimm around. Seems the Ursa was the last one. The huntress in training twirls her scythe, Crescent Rose, as it transforms into an easy to carry square.

“I don’t really feel any stronger than normal. We should look around and see if anything is amiss here before we go back.”

“Of course”
“Sure”
“I don’t mind”

Exterior Forest, Vale.
12:43 pm.

Around an hour after the battle, Weiss stumbles upon what she believes to be the source of the Grimms' weakness. She calls the rest of the team over to investigate. Buried within a small ravine, behind some bushes the team is slightly hiding behind, a small black crack in the earth can be seen. A thin, hazy, reddish vale conceals the ravine, making it hard to discern much else. From Ruby’s perspective the ravine seemed to be strangely devoid of life, but she wasn’t too sure.

Blake grabs onto the top of a shrub and leans to get a better look.

“… what in the world is that?”

Weiss and everybody else look over towards Blake, annoyed. How the heck would they know, they just discovered it too.

“Hey, there are no dumb questions… “

Blake touches two of her fingers together out of embarrassment.

“Okay.”

The rest of the group continues to stare for a bit, occasionally glancing at each other. Just then, a red bolt of lightning burst out of the crack. It tears into a nearby rock, making it slightly transparent, before it quickly fades away.

…

“Um, well, that doesn’t seem to relate to our mission. Let’s head back and report it to the academy.” Ruby stutters out an excuse to leave.

“Sure little sis, you're the leader after all”.

Team Rwby cautiously walks away as Blake pulls out a map to guide them. Around three hours into their march back, the same red vale within the ravine can be faintly seen across the forest floor. The huntresses haven’t noticed much yet. Subconsciously, intense dread begins to settle in. Their footsteps become heavy, while their breath is stilted and cold. The sounds of wildlife and insects are non-existent, the grass dead, and the air stale and still. Finally, after a couple of more minutes, Blake notices the vale as it glows a brighter shade of red.

“Hey, I think we’re in the mist from earlier.” Blake's voice trembles while she speaks.

The rest of the team stops dead in their tracks as the subtle dread they are feeling quickly shunts to the forefront of their mind. The girls begin to pat themselves down to make sure they aren’t slowly fading away. While Weiss thinks she feels a bit lighter than usual, Ruby and Yang don’t notice a difference.

Following a few glances back and forth between each other, the group continues on with greater caution than before.

-(Need to write a scene to connect next scene)-

The red vale grows thicker around team Rwby as they attempt to run as fast as they can. With every step their sprint slows and their eyes grow heavy.

“I-is this what the Grimm felt like earlier?” Ruby asked rather calmly for the situation at hand.

“Why are you asking!?” Yelps out Wiess.

“Well, they were still a thing when we fought them. So, it’s possible only non-organic material vanishes away within this mist.”

“Ruby… Grimm aren’t organic.” Blake interjects.

“Then why did the rock vanish?” Ruby nervously asked in a low, barely auditable, tone.

Ruby and Blake keep scurrying through the half dead underbrush until they notice they haven’t seen Yang in a while. When she looks back she notices both Yang and Weiss are gone. It didn’t make any sense to Ruby, unless they suddenly became slower there was no reason for them to be gone.

Ruby turns to face Blake, only to see her run straight into a tree.

“Ack!”

“Oh gosh, Blake, are you okay?”

Ruby croachs next to Blake and attempts to put her hands onto her arm. As they touch the downed huntress’ skin the hands go straight through with zero resistance. In fact, Ruby’s touch disrupts Blake’s arm, causing it to swirl around as mist before it vanishes into the ether.

Ruby’s eyes widen as she chokes on her words. She tries as hard as she can to scream, but only tears come out as she crawls away from Blake’s flicking body. And, with one last fade, Blake dissipates into the void.

Shaken up and disturbed, Ruby struggles to her feet as tries to backtrack back to where she last saw Weiss. It wasn’t all that far away, especially at the speed they were going.

As she travels, Ruby notices that her walk has become a blind stumble. She isn’t walking nor thinking straight as her body feels fuzzy. She trips and tumbles repeatedly before she loses the strength to continue. Her vision is filled with static, her limbs are twitching and reeling, and she hears the sounds of small Grimm circle around her head. In her final moments, she thinks she can even see them, chasing after a small, cartoonish, piece of meat as her thoughts come to an end.

All is replaced by none. There’s no light, sound, up or down, right from wrong, only nothing. It stays this way for quite a while, or possibly was never this way to begin with. Whether time remains is subjective to team Rwby at the moment. The only certainty that remains is an overwhelming presence that stares down upon them. Its eyes burn brighter than even the brightest stars. Its skin, harder than iron. Its heart beats as a living earthquake, it breathes hurricanes, its soul an eternal chain that wraps around the totality of all itself.

If any existing being were to see it they would be reduced to less than none. But, the presence brought team Rwby to absence for a reason. It looks them over, greed in its eyes, before it smiles with the most devious of grins. It waves its arm across the huntress and thrust their essences back into the all of everything.

With this act, a bright light consumes team Rwby before they awaken in a desert.

♬ Cue Terraria’s desert theme

The entirety of team Rwby jaunts up, eyes wide, as they frantically yell at each other. After a couple of minutes of incomprehensible conversations, they finally calm down enough to just sit in silence and collect their thoughts. Until Weiss breaks the silence, “Seriously, what just happened?”.

“Why are you asking like we would know? Let’s just be glad that it wasn't as bad as we thought in hindsight.” Retorts Yang. “Well, maybe it ‘was’, but it isn’t now”. Yang further clarifies what she meant.

“I think it's best if we just view that incident as a very dramatic form of teleportation. Is that alright with all of you?”

Yang, Weiss, and Blake all reluctantly agree. It would be best to get past it. They’re all alive, unhurt, and, if they know their geography, are very far away from home. They could be anywhere from half a country away to an entire continent away for all they know. Actually, speaking of which…

“Blake is this- “ Ruby’s quick burst of excitement is cut off coldly by Blake.

“No, Ruby. this isn’t Menagerie… though I wish it was now that you mention it.”

“If it was Menagerie then you would have been able to tell us where to go.” Yang adds to Blake’s thought.

“And that leaves only Mistral and Vacuo.” Interjects Weiss. “If we’re in Vacuo we’re getting robbed, there’s no avoiding that. And, if we are in Mistral, I doubt we’ll find the Schnee facility in this desert before we starve.”

Weiss observes the landscape around them. Not only does this desert not match any of the descriptions she’s heard of Mistral’s deserts, there are strange remains of very large creatures scattered throughout the waste.

“Plus, what’s with the large skeletons in this desert? Only Grimm have been recorded growing this large, but Grimm’s corpses vanish when they die.”

The rest of the team scours their surroundings, taking note of the large skeletons littering the area. From this, Blake comes to a conclusion.

“Then this has to be Vacuo. It’s the only place that wouldn’t note down creatures like this.”

“Crap. It’s a good thing we have aura then. No need to worry about the heat. Let’s go find water, and, hopefully, civilization.” Yang continues, “Remember the sun settles in the west and rises from the east, so we need to at least go that way.”

Yang points to the west.

“What? Why go that way versus any other way? We’re in the middle of a desert you dolt.”

“Vacuo is on the western side of the continent. If we walk east and miss Vacuo, we’ll end up in some mountains in the middle of nowhere. West is our best shot.”

“The capital of Vacuo is a couple of miles wide, I think. I know we need to go somewhere, but it would be better if we just admit we are walking in, for all intents and purposes, a random direction. If we don’t, then I’m going to blame you when we inevitably find nothing.”

During her fit, Weiss had closed her eyes as she continued to pout and whine. When she slyly opens an eye to Yang’s face she sees Yang mocking her by air pouting to the sky. Weiss is quickly engulfed by rage. Her face flushed red, her cheeks puff up. she shoots her arms down in front of her, and slams a foot into the sand. As she breathes in deeply to berate Yang, she suddenly calms down as fast as she got angry to begin with.

“Actually, just forget I said anything. We’re going west- “

Weiss looks up to the sun to reorient herself. She then points west with a quick snappy flick of the wrist.

“Okay, come on everyone. We’re going that way.”

Weiss proceeds to stomp off westward. Blake and Ruby look towards Yang as she glances back at them. Yang then shrugs before stampering off to follow Weiss. Quickly followed by Blake and Ruby and they trug through the sand.

Chapter Text

Hours have passed since the huntresses began to march through the desert. Even with their aura the heat is unbearable. They are sweaty, stink, tired, and most importantly, thirsty. Worst still, large vultures have been continuously attacking them throughout the desert. At first the huntresses just tried to scare them off. They shot plenty of warning shots. After that failed they reluctantly hit them without enhancing their fist with aura. Finally, Ruby shot one with Crescent Rose and the vulture somehow survived. It took a full clip just to kill one, and their pecks have been depleting the girls’ aura more than they would like to admit.

Even now another vulture flies out of the wood works to attack the team yet again. Much to their annoyance. A collective groan can be heard from the group as they quickly shred the vulture with a hellfire of bullets.

“Yang, I remember earlier that I was going to blame you if going west didn’t lead to anything?”

“No.”

“Good, because I’ve changed who I’m blaming.”

Weiss turns to the sky and begins to shout at it in a fit of stress induced insanity.

“I’m blaming you, you damn vultures. This is all your faults. I swear, if it’s the last thing I’ll do, I’ll hunt every single last one of you flying rodents into extinction. You hear me.”

Weiss stares into the sky for a couple of seconds, her hands planted on her waist. In the horizon a pack of 6 black dots slowly grows. Once they get within 100 or so feet it becomes clear that it’s a flock of vultures coming to attack the group.

Blake and Ruby swiftly look away before darting past Weiss. Weiss herself starts to throw herself onto her back. There’s no point fighting anymore, better to just let the vultures have what they want. However, after a couple of seconds of falling, Weiss realizes something. She looks up to see darkness approaching her face. It’s the ground, to be precise, the bottom of a massive ravine. Team Rwby hadn’t noticed it in their delirium, but they were walking next to a massive fissure in the ground for around a minute now.

Before Weiss can even let out a word in response, her head collides with the ground, planting her firmly into the sandstone below. Three other thuds can be heard close by, as it can be assumed the rest of the team fell in shortly after.

From the darkness of the ground Weiss can hear the confused moans from her teammates. A couple of seconds later footsteps can be heard approaching Weiss, though they stop halfway.

It wasn’t like the others’ can see much either. From Ruby and Yang’s perspective the cave was equally as dark as being buried within a solid object. The wetness of the wall made the sand mushy, dampening noise within the cave, rather than amplifying it like a normal cave wall.

Only Blake is able to see within the cave. Thankfully she still has enough awareness to help Weiss out of the ground. She scans the cave while walking towards Weiss. It looks similar to the cave bug faunus can make. So much so that she wonders if faunus did make it. Maybe this was made as shelter against the blistering heat-

Blake’s thoughts sever in twine as her eyes peer at the far corner of the room. In a nest made out of tumbleweeds, giant bugs, and human remains there lay a creature. Not just any creature, but a giant yellow VULTURE.

“NO! No, we are not doing this. Why are you even here, instead of being on some plateau somewhere? What, is it cool here? Were you thirsty? Why is there just a giant vulture in this random cave? Get out of here!”

Blake huffs and puffs as she widely waves her arms at the large bird. It stares at her for a bit, even tilting its head side to side trying to tell what it was looking at. Finally, it gives up, and begins to emit a bright blue glow which fills the cave.

“Oh hey, we can see.”

“Is that a good thing?”

As Yang asks her question she looks over to the source of the light.

“Wait, are kidding me, another vulture- “

Suddenly a stroke of lightning blasts all of team Rwby causing them to shriek out in pain. Following this, the vulture, which is actually a thunderbird, smacks team Rwby with its wing. The impact sends the girls flying across the cavern, until they fall into a pit.

Hours later, the huntresses awaken near a pool of water. All their heads are spinning as they struggle to get up. Yang sits up and leans against a nearby wall. The wall itself was very smooth and moist. Honestly, it’s a pretty good respite from all she’s had to go through this day. Weiss and Ruby both subconsciously crawl towards the water. Weiss gently pulls out some of the water with her hands, while Ruby plunges her face into the lake. Blake’s too out of it to do anything except slightly whine and groan in pain as she sways in place. She had been hit hardest by the bird, and took an especially bad tumble when she was knocked deeper into the pit.

“Ugh, Ruby, you're not a dog. Please use your hands.”

Weiss grabs onto Ruby’s hoodie and pulls her head out of the water. In response, Ruby gently pushes Weiss’ arm off and crawls over to Yang.

Weiss lets out a sigh before continuing, “At least we now have a spot to rest and think. Hmm… I think we can all agree this isn’t Vacuo.”

Yang leans forward as she thinks of a response.

“Unless Vacuo is suffering an unreported outbreak of vulture, then yeah, this isn’t Vacuo. This isn’t anywhere that we know of.”

As Yang speaks, Blake quickly slaps her cheeks and shakes off the dizziness. As her vision ceases to spin and swirl she starts to speak.

“A-are we sure we aren’t on rev-revenant. W-where else could we be?”. Blake's words come out falteringly.

“Blake, just don’t think about it right now.”, Ruby says in a worried tone.

“That applies to everyone, let’s not worry about it right now. We need to think of a way to get out of here.”

Weiss puts a hand on her hip and whips her hair.

“Oh please, don’t tell me you’re worried about that big bird. We’ll just do what we did against the Nevermore.”

Yang, annoyed, interjects, “The Nevermore couldn’t shoot lightning. That bolt hurt like hell.”

“Yeah, tell her sis.”

“Fine, we’re just starve to death in this cave then. Unless you guys have any better ideas?”

Ruby quickly crawls past Weiss as she reaches into the water. After a couple seconds of waving her hands through the pond, Ruby can be seen trying to grab something. After a short struggle, she finally grasps it, and pulls it out of the water.

“Tada, it’s a fi- “

Suddenly, a bright flash of light erupts from the fish.

On the surface everything is calm. The sand gently blows to the east, a tumbleweed pounces in the wind, and small critters skitter and scurry across the waste. A gentle shake causes a vulture to fly off a nearby tree. As it surveys the landscape below it sees the ground slowly shake more and more aggressively. The gentle sway turns into a violent torrent as a great tremors burrows through the earth. The ground starts to glow a gorgeous blue as something approaches the surface at blinding speeds. With one last great rumble, a brilliant ray of light erupts from the sands and blast forth into space. The vulture that was overhead is quickly engulfed by the light and is reduced to nothing but bones and ash.

Down below, team Rwby is left speechless at what they just witnessed. Yang, Blake, and Weiss gock and gasp at the massive, smoldering, hole in the ceiling. All the while, Ruby herself nearly goes limb from fright, letting the fish slowly slide out of her hands. Upon hitting the floor, the fish begins to flop back towards the water. Its sparking scales splosh against the ground with each flop and slap against the cave floor. With one final leap, the Sparkling Empress lunges above the pool, tilts down towards the water, and is unceremoniously grabbed out of the air by Ruby right before it hits the water.

“Guys!”

All the fear Ruby felt has been swiftly replaced by nerdious joy.

“I have the solution to all our problems!”

Ruby swings her arm high into the air, proudly showcasing her catch to all that could see.

“Eheheh, aren’t I amazing?”

Weiss and Blake continue to gock at the fish in fear. Yang herself barely racks up the courage to ask.

“The hole?”

“Huh, what? No, I’m talking about the fish. We can cook the big bird with it. We’ll have food, shelter, water, everything. It’ll be great.”

“I personally agree with Yang, let’s just go out of the hole.”

“Ugh, fine. You all sound so much like dad right now.”

While Ruby continues to grumble away to herself she raises an arm to the hole. It's unbearably hot and steamy. She can barely see ten feet into the crater before the boiling vapor fully blocks her vision. This steam swiftly becomes too much for Ruby’s hand to handle, causing her to fling her arm back. Now curious and annoyed, Ruby leans over and grabs a pebble off the floor. It’s cool dampness, a smoothing respite from the intense heat filling the cavern. She throws up the pebble slightly and catches it a few times. Finally, she reels her arm back, plants her feet into the ground, and throws the pebble into the smoldering hole as hard as she can. As soon as the pebble gets within 5 feet of the hole it promptly bursts into flames and turns to ash.

After spending a couple of seconds to truly process the scenario that just unfolded in front of her, Ruby looks over to the others to see their reactions.

“I don’t think the hole’s going to work… “

Silence falls throughout the cavern again. None of the girls know if it would be better or worse to let the fish go by this point.

Weiss breaks the silence with a sigh.

“Fine. Let’s go cook that vulture or whatever.”

“Yeah!”

Ruby looks over towards Yang and Blake with anticipation. In response Yang

while Blake facepalms lightly and shakes her head.

A few minutes later, team Rwby can be seen climbing out of the pit towards the cavern chamber containing the giant bird. If they’re lucky, it likely will be gone by the time they get there. Surely it could be out hunting or something, especially after they had awoken it so rudely.

Weiss and Yang slowly climb up the steep cave wall. It’s surprisingly very smooth, leaving little to nothing to grab for lift. Meanwhile, Ruby and Blake are already near the top of the pit. Ruby can be seen swinging her legs back and forth off the edge of a protruding rock. She is cheering words of encouragement to Yang and Weiss, much to Weiss’ annoyance. Blake on the other hand is taking the opportunity to read a book. She’s on the same rock Ruby is on, sitting slightly off to the right side.

Weiss grumbles to herself, “It would be great if either of those two would help us up.”

“Ah, cheer up. A little exercise hasn’t killed anyone. I think we both really needed this.”

Weiss scoffs as she proceeds to climb up the pit. Upon reaching the top, Weiss crawls to an open space, and sprawls out on the floor. Her heavy breath grows louder and louder, to the point that Blake is concerned the bird may hear her.

“Ssh, we need to be a bit stealthy.”

“Huh?” Yang quickly interjects. “Why do we need to be stealthy? We have a fish that breathes hot atomic death.”

Suddenly, a loud, hawk-like, screech engulfs the entire cavern system. In the distance the outline of the great bird can be seen quickly approaching.

Blake grabs Weiss and lunges both of them behind a large stalagmite. Yang puts her arms behind her head and paces around Ruby.

“Well, whenever you’re ready little sis.”

“Yeah!”

Ruby braces her feet against the sandstone floor, takes a deep breath, and aims towards the swiftly approaching shadow. When the loaning terror unleashes its final screech, Ruby slightly squeezes the fish in her hands. The same blue beam from before burst forth from the beast, flashes the cave in a blinding blue light. The room quickly rises in temperature, going from a cool negative ten to a blistering three hundred and twenty as heat floods out of the beam.

The great bird lets out one last scream of pain, then, nothing.

The heat disperses, the light vanishes, and the beam itself disappears in an instant.

When Ruby’s eyes adjust she can feel nothing but confusion as she looks through, the now dark, cavern in front of her. The bird is alive, a large, burning, gash can be seen all across its chest, but other than that, it’s unharmed. If anything, the beam likely just angered it.

♬ cue Thunderbird’s OST

Yang, Blake, and Weiss all collectively gasp out “Huh!”, while Ruby meekly stutters “W- what?”.

The great bird unleashes an ear piercing screech as a quick burst of electricity strike out from its body. Its body glows a dim aqua color before it shifts to a bright anvil. Heat, equal to that of the Sparkling Empresses’ beam, radiates off the thunderbird, steaming out Ruby and the rest of the huntresses. As they attempt to flee into the pit they had entered from, the great bird emits a large bolt of lightning. The crackle of thunder deafens the girls, as the lightning bolt sears and erupts the cavern roof. Rocks varying from as little as a pebble to as big as a mighty boulder fall from the now destroyed roof, covering the pit and preventing team Ruby’s escape. They now have no choice, they either slay the bird here and now, or roost alive from the heat.

“Weiss.” Ruby yells out Weiss’ name, as if it was a command in and of itself.

“What? Oh wait, specify what you mean next time.”

Weiss raises Myrtenaster into the air as its dust chamber swirls around. She then plunges it into the earth, creating massive columns of ice across the cavern. The heat quickly evaporates the pillars, creating a draft of cool air.

“That should keep us from passing out for a couple of minutes, but I’m practically out of ice dust. We’ll need to finish this quickly.”

Hearing this, Ruby looks back towards the rest of the huntresses.

“You know what that means then. Let’s, charge.”

Ruby swings Crescent Rose against the ground behind her before blasting the ground with it. The blow back of the shot causes her to be launched forward as she repositions the scythe. Yang does something similar with Ember Celica as Wiess and Blake run towards the giant ‘vulture’.

In response, the desert terror launches a counterattack. Dozens of its feathers become electrified before launching off the great beast at high speeds. They easily bury through the earth, demolish walls and large boulders, and fry the cave walls as they pass.

The large majority head towards Weiss. With a flick of her rapier, Weiss warps the gravity of the feathers causing them to fly off course into the cave walls. Following up from Weiss, Blake slices three of thirteen incoming feathers apart. As the other ten collide with her they suddenly explode. Blake used her semblance to lure the remaining feathers away and destroy them. Lastly, Ruby sees feathers coming at her from all sides. Using her semblance, Ruby dashes through a small opening in front of her as a blur. A bit of the electricity from them shocks her a bit as she passes, but it’s not enough to stop her from getting out of the way. The feathers crash behind her and explode in a burst of electricity.

Three of the feathers home in on Yang as she tries to take evasive maneuvers. She avoids one of them as the remaining two slam into her side, knocking her out of the sky. As she falls to the earth, the bird rams into her, sending both into a nearby wall. Cave wall after cave wall, the beast continues to ram Yang through the cave systems until they crash into ancient ruins. The roof of the building throws the bird off balance as it tumbles towards the dirt. Yang is flung up through the roof as the bird careers through the floor.

“Yang!” Ruby screams out upon seeing Yang getting rammed through a cavern wall out of sight.

Ruby, Weiss, and Blake rush through the massive gash that now connects the caves. Halfway to the ruins a weird twitching noises can be heard near the running huntresses.

An Antlion burst from the sandstone floor and comps down onto Ruby’s leg. It drags her across the ground for a bit before dragging her into the sand below.

“Ruby!?”

As Weiss and Blake process what just happened, another giant Antlion charges out of the darkness and grabs onto Weiss. Its jaws crush her waist as it drags her face across a cave wall.

Tatata

Bullets rip out from Blake’s pistol as she shoots the ant lion grabbing Weiss. It winces and twitches out of pain, but proceeds to take Weiss regardless. Along with that, the growing sound of insect wings can be heard from behind Blake. Though, she ignores it as she continues to fire away at the Antlion.

Click, click, click…

Blake reaches down for another clip of ammo. As she does so, four sickly arms wrap around Blake and lifts her into the air. She lets out a quick yelp as she searches her pouch with more desperation. After three more good pats, Blake realizes she truly is out of ammo. She had used it all on the Grimm and vultures.

Thinking fast, Blake switches Gambol Shroud back into its blade form and slashes away at the arms. It takes a good three to four swings to sever just one of the arms. All the while, the Antlion Swarmer chomps and bites the back of Blake’s head, heavily depleting her aura.

With one final cleave, Blake mangles the last arm holding onto her and frees herself from the Antlion. Blake swerves Gambol Shroud through the antlion’s neck right as she falls, decapitating the inhumanly large bug. With a sickening thud the swarmer flops onto the ground behind the young huntress as she lands gracefully. Without another word Blake runs off to help Weiss and Ruby, there’s no way she could take on the big bird on her own, especially with her aura so low.

Meanwhile, back at the ruins, Yang manages to crawl herself out of the wreckage and prop herself against a soothing, damp, cave wall.

“Crap, “ Yang lets out a quick coughing fit “that was lame. In front of my little sis too. *Cough* I really hope this doesn’t spook her too much, I’m fine, really.”

Yang tumbles slightly as she tries to hype herself up. If it wasn’t for aura she'd have been dead in an instant from the Thunder Bird’s immense strike. Saying that, it is gone now, taking most of her ribs with it. The beast’s strength is unimaginable, there is no way they could ever hope to win, especially now. The heat throughout the caverns is becoming suffocating, and they should have rested more before attempting their stupid plan. Yang clenches her fist in frustration as she crawls further along the cave wall.

As she continues to walk the darkness of the cave wall slowly begins to dissipate behind her. Slowly but surely a bright blue glow begins to radiate the ruins until a sudden flash engulfs Yang, shocking her to her knees. She barely has the strength to turn around and see the Thunderbird approaching her slowly and methodically. Upon reaching her it spreads its wings out wide, filling the cavern with a mighty gust of wind as it stares down upon her with authority. The eyes of a living natural disaster, given physical form.

Chapter Text

Deeper into the caves a blur of red flows in and out of swarms of antlions. In the chaos Ruby can be seen swinging her scythe like a mad man as antlion chargers chomp on her limbs and swamers claw at her face.
One after another, antlions fall to her blade as they shred Ruby’s aura to bits. Trying to think quickly, Ruby propels herself up to the cave ceiling and to snipe down the swarmers. That way she could at least get a breather and outrange most the antlions.

*Bang*

Ruby shoots one of the swarmers in the head, barely killing it through her gun's sheer piercing power.

*Bang, bang, bang*

Three more antlions go down as the last four begin to maul her. In defense Ruby swings Crescent Rose into the nearest lion, fatally injuring it, but not killing it instantly. The monster knocks Ruby off the roof with its last breath, throwing her back into the antlion swarm.

“Ah, crap!”

Ruby sweeps Crescent Rose around her while landing, severing the legs of all the chargers around her. She follows this up by swinging diagonally with the scythe, cutting half the head off the first one she hits and gutting another one to its right. She finishes this off by uppercutting one of the particular buried antlions out of its hole, following that up with eight slashes across its body. As its mutilated corpses flops onto the ground, Ruby twirls her scythe onto her shoulders for a second of rest.

With a heavy breath Ruby musters out, “Ah, ah, that’s 30ish down, only 40 let to g-gooooo!!!!”

A stormlion shocks Ruby, slightly paralyzing her and throwing Crescent Rose out of her hands. A Cnidrion joins in by bursting out of the ground and takes advantage of the opportunity, sweeping Ruby off her feet with its highly pressurized water blast. It follows up with a nasty tail swipe, crashing Ruby into a distant wall, stunning her.

“O-ow… w-what, what was that?”

Ruby stumbles and sways in place as the stormlion lunges to finish the job. Just before it hits, suddenly, a spike of ice bursts from the ground and cleaves its head in half, with its natural electric flashing into the ground frying both the bug and earth around it. Off in the near distance, Weiss can be seen staggering towards Ruby, her right arm limp and clearly broken.

“Y-you dolt, how did you end up like that while we were gone.”

“Weiss! What… happened to you.”

Weiss gets in front of Ruby and holds her Myrtenaster in a guarding position.

“I’m going to be fully honest. A single one of these things did this to me. If I try to fight all of these I’ll die. But hey, that’s what huntress do right.”

“Weiss, just give me a second. I was giving them the good one two before you got here, we can do this together.”

“Hmph, sure, sure.”

Weiss has no clue if Ruby is being overly optimistic on purpose or not, but it really doesn’t matter. What can they possibly do to get out of this scenario? The last of Weiss’ ice is evaporating away, they are outnumbered, tired, and nearly out of aura. Either they need to fight better than they ever had in their lives or face the inevitable. As she thinks this, an antlion charger lunges towards her face. It’s piercers closing in as jaws of death.

However, the rabid beast is interrupted as Gambol Shrouds blade is thrown into its neck from an unseen Blake. Following this up, she quickly dropkicks her blade deeper into the antlion, fully beheading it.

“Ah, Blake! You startled me, but thanks for the assist.”

As Weiss breathes a sigh of relief over her friend’s sudden appearance; Ruby finally snaps out of her daze and shakes away the stars circling her head.

“See, as I said, we got this- “

As Ruby says this she reaches into open air for a few seconds, the realization slowly setting in.

“I don’t have Crescent Rose!”

“You just noticed, you blockhead.”

Weiss pouts with her cheeks puffed out and arms hardly down to her forward sides.

“I think that blue antlion is eating it… “

“Ahhhhhhh!!!!! My baby!”

Ruby screams in panic as she sees her precious creation get bent, scratched, and shattered in the stormlion’s relentless jaws. Neither the sounds of Ruby’s scream nor her pouncing towards the beast phases it, as it simply delivers a violent shock to the huntress just as its predecessor did. Ruby falls to the ground charred.

…

“Is… is Ruby okay?”

“I’ve seen other students end up like that before, she should be fine. Remember me and her exploded when we first met.”

“Well, I’m glad all three of us are together, and the arrival of that… thing, has pacified the majority of these bugs.”

Before the girls stands a large dried up seahorse, with a bulbous body and a sharp dragon-like face.

“Speaking of which.” Weiss scoffs with an aura of confidence.

She stares down the Cnidrion and circles it with her rapier drawn. The dried up aquatic horror tries to sweep the huntress off her feet, but she lunges over its tail and delivers three quick retaliatory strikes. Trying to regain an advantage, the Cnidrion leaps back and fires a stream of pressurized water at Weiss, who eloquently deflects the blast back into the beast with a glyph. Seizing the opportunity, Weiss dashes in and pierces the creature’s neck with her blade. This breaks the tip of Myrtenaster but succeeds in causing fatal damage. In one last ditch effort, it throws out a single hail mary tail swipe. However, due to its failing strength and Weiss’ anger, she manages to parry its attack. In one farfel movement she swings Myrtenaster back around and finishes cutting open the Cnidrion’s neck, grabbing the tip of her rapier as it falls out.

“Hmm, you got a lot of pent up anger. Justifiably so.”

“I wish I could have done that to that stupid vulture instead, but I will take what I can get. Now, let’s finish the rest of these disgusting pest off and find Yang before we all burn to death in this pit.”

Weiss and Blake get their weapons ready as the last of the nearby antlions begin to work themselves into a frenzy. As an opening move to gain controllable ground, Weiss sends out a wave of fire, burning half a dozen of the antlions. At the same time she creates glyph platforms for Blake. The cat ninja uses them to parkour her way up to the antlion swarmers, with quick and clean motions she aims for the wings knowing the rest of the body is too strong for Gambol Shroud. She leaps over the first of the three she leaps over it, kicking its head to disorient it, before flipping over to cut its wings off. Blake slides under the next, slashing her blade across its underside; it doesn’t kill it, but she uses the leverage of her blade to pull herself into a flip to land on her feet. She then delivers a jaw shattering kick to the third flying bug, following up by stabbing her blade into the wound and using it to snap the creature’s neck. Finally, Blake high kicks the remaining, injured bug into another one of Weiss’ glyphs and follows up with a drop kick to spin it around. She leaps from glyph to glyph, slashing away at the antlion each time until its reduced to mushy gore.

On Weiss’ end, she can be seen bobbing and weaving in and out of the remaining antlion chargers and stormlions. Each time she gets close, a dozen slashes of light can be seen chopping antlions to pieces. In the chaos a stormlion delivers a quick shock to Wiess, who responds by burning the insect to ash. Realizing the effectiveness of flames, Wiess switches to purely using fire dust to incinerate all the bugs in her path. Finally, the girls are making progress, they can win.

“Kreeee-ah!”

The familiar screech of the Thunderbird fills the air. Where was it, that came from right next to them yet they can’t see it. In a blur, the Thunderbird suddenly flew through a wall as if it didn’t even exist. It gripped Blake in its claws, bite into her neck, and with one feld motion tore her head clean from her shoulders. Swiftly followed by fatally dive bombing Weiss into a nearby wall. The last thing she saw was a mix of yellow and brown fabric on its beak and the beast beginning it feasting on the remains of all who died.

…

???: “Wake up. Your stories aren’t at an end yet.”, a voice firmly echoes throughout the damp desert cave.

All the girls groan as they twist and turn in a groggy state. An old man in black armor stands proudly above them. Eventually Weiss quickly shoots up.

“Huh!?”

“Woah, spirited aren’t you. Be glad I found you when I did- “

“We died! I saw it clear as day. D-did you resurrect us?”

“Calm down little one, I didn’t do anything mystical. I recisitated you with water. Nothing more.”

“Blake had her head taken off!”

“What!?”

Blake jolts up and grasps away at her neck. Breathing a sigh of relief when she found nothing wrong.

“Heatstroke. It’s far more deadly than people realize.”

“How did you withstand the heat?”

Yang and Ruby have now recovered too, with Yang questioning how a man without aura could survive such an intense environment.

“With these.”

The man pulls two dark purple potions from a shactal.

“Obsidian Skin Potions, they provide the drinker with a shield against even hellfire.”

All four girls examine the potions. Ruby tries to reach out to touch one but the stranger gently swats her hand away in annoyance.

Blake ask, “Could we have some?”

“They’re mine, you’ll find some on your future journeys I promise.”

“Stop trying to gaslight us, I saw us die, what do you want!?”

Weiss has gotten worked up to the point she was sweating, hair a mess, as she points with conviction at the mysterious man.

“Ha! What I want? I’ll make it simple for you. These lands have fallen to ruin, left to decay by a false prophet. If you help me restore these lands to their former glory, I’ll help you get home.”

Ruby interjects, “You know who we are?”

“Of course, I am a storyteller. I know everything there is to know about this world. And I know you aren’t part of it.”

“Weren’t part of it, haha.”

“You are testing my patience! Either accept my help, or die forgotten in this desert. Your choice.”

…

“Give us a second to decide.”

The girls huddle together as they whisper.

Blake: “This guy is weird.”

Weiss: “Also a blatant liar!”

Yang: “Honestly I would prefer what he’s saying whether it’s a lie or not.”

Ruby: “How can he even get us out of this cave?”

Blake: “He seems to be standing near something, though I can barely see it in this darkness.”

Weiss: “Why did he bring us back just to lie.”

Yang: “Guess he’s using us, but if it gets out of this desert I’ll be happy.”

Weiss sighs, “Fair enough.”

Ruby yells out from over Weiss’ shoulder, “We’ll join you.”

The act clearly disgust the man, but he changes his expression quickly and delivers a half hearted thumbs up.

“Good, good. Come over here.”

The girls approach the storyteller, as he finally lites a torch.

“This is a pylon. A crude magical artifact that can be used to teleport to different parts of this continent. You girls can’t use it as you lack magic unlike all beings of this world. Through me, and only through me, can I take us back to my home.”

“Even your way back includes an ultimatum, could you be any less shrewd?”

“You need to be in order to survive in this world.”

“Ah… well I guess we did die so that fits- “

“You didn’t die. I know that girl is your friend but you were boiling to death. Pure delirious fantasy, nothing more.”

Before the girls can get out another word the teller activates the pylon to cut them off. Instantly transporting them all to his abode.

Chapter Text

Exterior Forest, Terraria.
1:36 pm.

♬ cue Day OST

Upon arriving at the surface all the girls, and even the teller, are blinded by the bright daylight of noon.

The storyteller yelps out, “Ah! Forgot to close my eyes.”

“You didn’t even warn us, you prick,” Weiss responded with a mixture of frustration and pain.

Through bright spots and tears the team’s eyes adjust till they can finally see the gorgeous surroundings.

Yang: “Oh thank the brothers there is more to this place than just desert.”

From their vantage point, the forest spreads in all directions. Not particularly thick with trees, but lively, swaying gently in the wind. Beyond them, flat-topped plateaus rise above the green. Some even float in the air, defying gravity, and further still, floating islands hang in the clouds. Water spills from their edges, carrying a cool breeze to the lands below. On the ground, clusters of small golden flowers bloom with the daylight, giving off a damp, clean scent—like morning dew. Squirrels and rabbits dart in and out of sight, while birds flicker through the branches, perfectly content with what the forest offers them.

Blake can’t help but be amazed. It feels like it comes straight from one of her books. “This place is so beautiful.”

“It won’t be when you turn around, the place is a wreck unfortunately.” The storyteller says with a bit of snark.

“Huh? Oh… “

Blake quickly turns around to see an old deserted town. The roofs are mostly made of stone and brick, caved in many of the rotten wooden walls that used to support them. The roofs are now only a mangled mess of moss, vines, and shattered rock. Only a select few buildings still stay standing, two actually habitable. A small well kept cabin, and a small stone fortress.

“I guess that place is yours.” Blake points towards the cabin.

The Storyteller scoffs before bragging, “No, I live in the fort. I have a throne and wine cellar because I am not a peasant like that guy!”

The shout seems to catch the attention of someone in the house as shuffling and rushed foodsteps can be heard. Soon the door to the cabin shoots open with haste as a disgruntled, but surprisingly plain looking, man rushes out. A bow lays tightly gripped in his fist.

“Who are you talking to?” The man yells out to the teller, fury in his voice and hate in his eyes.

The teller smugly replies, “Haha! You don’t know. Some guide you are.”

The unassuming stranger grit his teeth before fully reading his bow. Much to the girls’ surprise. Yang, being the most socially conscious, quickly interjects.

“Woah woah woah, you aren’t just going to shoot this guy now aren’t you.”

“That’s exactly what I am going to do! Convulsing four kids into whatever plans he has is where I draw the line.”

“Hey now, only one of us is a kid, right sis.”

Ruby groans out of embarrassment as she slides her hood over her head.

The guide scoffs, “You kids are in your early twenties at best, this place isn’t meant for you.”

Yang continues to try and calm the man down. “Well, we are under twenty sure, but we hunt beasts.”

“There are far worse than beasts in these lands, especially now… ” a somber tone quickly overtakes the stranger’s voice.

“Maybe we could help.” Ruby tries to further comfort the man.

Anger returns to the guide’s voice, along with a hint of sarcasm, “Quick! Name the kingdom next to this one, you can’t. How could you ever help with political issues, you’re not even an adult.”

“I know how.”

“You want to help, don’t listen to him.”

The guide lets loose his arrow right at the old man’s heart. As it harmlessly bounces off the thick plate armor the guide slams his door shut.

Yang looks over the old man’s arm as she questions him, “You okay with that, he just tried to kill you.”

“If he wanted to kill me he would have aimed for the head *muttering* for how little that would have done.”

The storyteller pats off the mark the arrow made on his breastplate.

“Point being, I already hate him, I don’t mind.”

With that the group grows silent. None of the girls know yet what to make of the scene that had happened before them. It’s clear this man was more untrustworthy than before, which was an accomplishment, but at the same time. The person who came out of that cabin seemed mentally unwell, it’s clear a lot of history between the land and its people has been missed by the girls. They have come at the worst of times. Maybe that was the point, why they have been brought here to begin with. Yet, none of them could say. Only one thing was known now, the girls have to start their lives in this land.

Blake cuts the silence, “Okayyy… can we just go?”

“Your funeral if you do. As much as I shouldn’t be stepping on your guides toes, I would suggest making a house. Preferably before nightfall.”

Ruby worriedly asks, “Why’s that?”

The storyteller continues to walk towards his home, “Because many predators prefer the cover of darkness.”

The girls eye each other, wanting to get more clarification. However, the teller has already entered his home and shut the door behind him. It seems he isn’t too keen on being helpful this night.

“Well, we are in luck, guess who’s built a house before.” Blake suddenly butts in with a bit of pride.

Weiss scoffs with a little chuckle at the thought, “You’ve made a house?”

“Not a lot of it, but during my time in the white fang I did chip in a bit when I could.”

“And we’ve all made our weapons, a simple house should be a breeze in comparison.” Ruby says with a surprising amount of passion.

“Sure sis, ha ha.”

With that, it was settled, the girls will be building a house. What could possibly go right.

…

Exterior Forest, Terraria.
6:20 pm.

♬ cue Night

Hours later, the house had been coming around pretty well. The old foundation of a factory made a great place to build their current shelter. At least for the time being. At least the new walls Blake put up are perfect. They were tall, sturdy, and confirmed perfectly with the foundation they rested on.
There isn’t a roof yet, but surely they won’t need one for tonight.

“I remembered more than I thought”, Blake smiles to herself before turning her attention to the rest of the team. “How are you girls doing- “

Turns out the house building has actually been a mess. Yang gathered the material for Ruby and Weiss, negating her own section of the house entirely. Weiss’ part looks nice but it’s barely done and Weiss is already panting while laying against a tree. Finally, Ruby’s section is a complete disaster. It’s clear when she transitioned from trying to make a wall to instead using her time to make weapon designs. Bad weapons at that.

Blake cries out in a fit of anger, “Ruby!?”

“Don’t, *mockingly* Ruby, me! My precious baby was crushed to pieces right in front of me! I want her back ;^;”, Ruby lamented over the loss of her weapon. It was her most treasured possession and yet she had done such a poor job at protecting it.

Blake coldly snaps back, “We need a place to stay first.”

“We’re huntresses, I’ve camped before.”

Weiss calls out, “I haven’t.” interrupting Ruby and Blake’s argument. Ruby and Blake both stare at her, Ruby more intently.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Weiss says with a haute tone.

Blake follows up, “Looks like we weren’t going to have a roof anyways, might as well rest out here. I’ll keep watch.”

“Trust me, I can’t sleep, I'll keep watch. No matter what, I need to have a weapon! I feel naked without one.” A glint of determination burns in Ruby’s eyes.

Annoyed, Blake and Weiss go off to gather materials for makeshift beds; while Yang gathers up some of her wood and begins carving it up into frames. The sun fully rests under the horizon as they finish putting piles of hay and feather onto the frames.

“Ah, finally some well deserved rest. Great night sis.”

Ruby simply hums in agreement, she’s far too focused on making a weapon for herself to mind anything else. She has found the wood in this world to be incredibly tough. It hurts her hands working with it but she is desperate for a way to replace Crescent Rose for a time. She can’t wait till she can repair her precious child. Though she has no clue what she wants to make. She has made a few spears at least, those will be handy, but outside of that all her attempts at scythe’s have been clunky. With no tools, other than sticks, rocks, and thick grass, Ruby is entirely out of her element. She’s used to having a forge and relatively futuristic tech to help melt, smooth, bend, and cut materials into exactly what she needs. A bludgeoned rock stuck into wood more comes off as a crude pick than a scythe. It swings the same but just feels off to use.

After another hour of work, a growl snaps Ruby from her work. It was so faint Ruby barely noticed it. Soon, another growl came, similar enough to the first one that Ruby can tell it is the same creature. The noise itself sounds off. Really guttular and human-like. Sounds similar to a person with water in their lunges, a real disgusting sound. Finally, another belt from the creature made Ruby realize it was approaching the wall Blake had made. Strange, you think it would go around-

♬ cue Boss 1

Ruby’s thoughts are interrupted as a figure comes barreling down from over the walls. It had leapt over the eight foot walls as if they weren’t even there! With a wail, the beast rushes towards Blake and immediately starts bashing its sickly arms onto her. A loud crunch erupts from Blake as she shoots up in pain. Her cries awaken the rest of the group as everyone stares in horror at the assailant. It’s a corpse. A walking, undead, corpse. The zombie attempts to further bludgeon Blake to death, but she swiftly lunges out of the way. As she does so, Ruby grabs one of her many readied spears and throws it into the zombie’s leg, crippling it.

“What the hell!? Seriously, what in the world, you're kidding me right.” Yang tries to process what she is seeing as she sweeps the zombie off its feet and punches its head into the hard foundation. Its skull is strangely resilient, but not impossible to break. Yang continues to pound the corpse into the dirt.

The rest of the girls don’t even have words. The dead can rise in this world and want to kill you, it’s madness. The sacrilege on display shakes the team to their core, none of them want to believe what they are seeing. But it really much is real, Yang knows it as her fist finally breaches the undead’s skull and crushes its brain.

“Ha… ha…”, Yang collapses onto the floor. “T-that, that’s real! I’m going to be sick! Should I wash my hands, am I going to die for having touched it!?”

“Ah! Sis we need to get you to the man in the cabin.” Ruby says completely frantic.

With that, Ruby burst forth with her semblance, grabbing Blake, Weiss, and Yang, as she dashed towards the guide’s home. Within seconds they arrive, with Ruby throwing the group through the door. Blake and Weiss land hardly onto the ground as Yang sprawls out on an end table in the middle of the room. The guide jolts up from his sleep.

“Woah! Hold on now, you girls are still here?”

“Of course we are still here! You didn’t help us out at all.”

“How did you get to Terraria exactly?”

“T-terraria? Look, that doesn’t matter! There are corpses outside. Corpses that walk! They are undead, what do we do!?” Ruby shouts out in pure terror as she paces between looking out the window and looking at the guide with her semblance.

…

The guide is horribly confused, is this the girls’ first time seeing a zombie? Sure they are young, but not little kids. How do they not know what a zombie is… unless.

“Gods please have me be wrong… are you girls from here. This planet I mean.”

Ruby has no clue how to answer that. Ending up on an entirely separate planet sounds like absolute madness. Though what other explanation could explain the new land, the magic, the literal walking corpses. Something had to be up, something far beyond their control.

“I… I guess so why-“

“Fuck!”, the guide quickly interjected, surprising Ruby with how serious he sounded.

♬ cue Night Ambiance

The guide looks up and shakes his arms with fury towards the heavens. “You couldn’t fix your own mistakes so you dragged these poor girls here haven’t you! Why! Come back down here and fix your problems yourself!”

The guide continued to stare for a couple of minutes. All the while, Weiss lends her aura towards Blake, allowing her to heal her broken arm. Yang went off to find something to clean her hands. She slipped by the guide into the room behind him. Thankfully it was a kitchen, with a sink. Ruby continues to stare at the guide, occasionally going back to glancing outside. Still no zombies, but she never can be too certain.

“I hate you. Really I do. What you have done to me… *sigh* I really can’t believe it.”, the guide finally looks down as he rubs the bridge of his nose out of annoyance. He punches his couch with his free hand, breaking two of its legs, before he lets his attention resume back to Ruby.

“So, what’s your name? I have to get to know you if I can help guide you. Hopefully better than the last person I taught.”

“That doesn’t give me much confidence.”, Ruby replies nervously.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t have much confidence either, but I think a young, shy, girl like you has a much better shot at doing good than he did.”

“Who’s… who’s “he” in this instance?”

“Doesn’t matter, now, you?”

Ruby sits onto the end table, kicking her feet in the air for a bit before responding.

“I’m Ruby Rose, a huntress in training. I, along with the rest of my team, slay beast together. Though, undead horrors are not included in that.” Ruby stutters out before continuing. “How do you live so calmly when the dead walk, it escapes all of us really.”

The guide reassures her, “You get used to it. I mean it, you do haha. Though I guess you don’t have a clue how you got here.”

“Specifically how, no. However, we found a strange fog that slowly enveloped us, right under our noses. We ended up in a desert afterwards, fought a big bird, then the old man brought us here.”

The guide goes a bit wide eyed as he asks, “which bird?”

“H-huh? That matters? It was yellow, I guess… it was extremely dark in the caverns.”

“You girls will have terrible days ahead of you then. That bird will roam the desert, and when it doesn’t find you, it’ll come here and demolish what’s left. That’s the Thunderbird, a local minor deity of the area. It has the power to control storms, which, believe me, means a lot.”

Ruby barely mutters out, “we angered a god!?”

“Not a particularly strong one, but still much stronger than you or me. I’ll need to teach you how to get strong enough to fight it by the time it comes. Get some rest in the room upstairs. As much as I wish that old room stayed locked, you need a bed.”

The guide gathers the girls from across the house and leads them all to the top of the stairs. There he opens the door and gestures to a big bed in the far left corner. All the girls thank him as he leaves.

“So, how did the conversation go? Learn about the… well… you know.” Yang concernedly asks her sister.

“Eh… he just said we would get used to it. I don’t think he can relate to us when it comes to… that. However, there is more important news! Remember that big vulture?”

“How could I forget”, a hint of anger cuts through Weiss’ tone of voice.

“Wellll, how do I say this? Hmm, well you see, that may have, possibly, been a god… “

Yang chuckles a bit as the rest of the girls go silent.

“Oh sorry, were you serious sis?”

“… yes… “

“Hmm.” Yang continues to contemplate her sister's words. Finally, after a minute passes, Weiss breaks the silence with a shout.

“What do you mean that dumb vulture is a god!”

“A-a minor one, haha.”

“I can’t believe this! We angered a god! How strong is it!?” Weiss paces the room, trying to keep her nerves under control.

“The man said it has control over storms.” Ruby barely manages to whisper out before Weiss again interrupts her.

“What does that mean Ruby! Huh, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, okay! Are you happy now, with me admitting I don’t know. Ask him tomorrow, because I have no more information for you.”

“Ruby, hold on. I didn’t mean it like that. Just… being told something super dangerous is after you, with no idea of how to stop it, is a heavy piece of information. You know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

…

Yang gives Ruby a hug while pulling Weiss in. “Look, we don’t have to worry. Sounds like the man downstairs has a plan to help us. If he’s gotten this far surely he’ll be able to get us out of this mess.”

“Yeah.” A hint of happiness returns to Ruby’s voice.

“How confident did he sound when he explained we need to prepare?” Blake now finding the time to ask.

“He didn’t sound unconfident.”

“Let’s hope he knows what he’s talking about then.”

As the girls head off to bed, Ruby makes note to wake up early tomorrow to explore the room. Their friend didn’t exactly hide its significance to them.

The next morning Ruby has awoken before sunrise, ready to pilfer the room of all its secrets. Unfortunately, it appears someone already beat her to it.

“Blake, what are you doing up?” Ruby whispers as loud as she can.

The room is a tattered mess, all the draws are open, curtains are messed with, the closest’s contents are spilled out, spare blankets unfolded, and scratch marks litter all the wooden furniture and walls. Blake can be seen sitting on a nearby desk; licking the nails of her right hand, reading a book with the left.

“I can ask you the same thing, you wanted to snoop about, didn’t you? Also, Ruby, cats microsleep. I’m always up early and you don’t even notice.” Blake stops cleaning herself and hops off the desk. She hands Ruby a picture frame.

“Our guy mention anything about this?”

Ruby takes hold of the frame and quickly double takes. That’s him! That’s the guy she saw in the fog, there he is with the guide. Seeing him in this context, he’s surprisingly sweet looking. A soft faced young man with silly, puffy hair that stuck out in front of their head. He and the guide look pretty happy together, drinking beers out in the fields. It all really betrays their true attention. Lastly, the sky looks strange in this picture. It’s super purple and it appears there are lines in the sky, what could that mean?

“Ruby?” Blake interrupts Ruby’s thoughts, confused by her silence.

“Sorry. I’ll tell you later, it would take a while to explain.”

With that, Ruby puts the picture frame onto the desk and hops back into bed. In an instant she’s already deep asleep, snoring loudly and having a big snot bubble come out of her nose.

“Ew” Blake mutters in disgust before looking back at the picture. What does Ruby know that she doesn’t. Guess this new guy was the owner of this town. Clearly not a good one at that, unless... Seems Ruby has an ankling as to what happened.

Blake continues to stare for a few more minutes, taking note of the strange sky and the glimpses of how the town used to look. Blake compliments herself on the good find then curls up to take another microsleep.

♬ cue Windy Day

The next day Yang and Weiss are up and at ‘em. They try to shake Ruby away but she doesn’t budge an inch.

“Hmmpf, knew that dummy won’t get up on time, as usual.” Pouts Weiss with an extra hint of haute in her tone.

“Yeah, she’s a pretty heavy sleeper haha. Surprised Blake overslept though.”

Yang goes over and gives Blake a slight nudge, only for Blake to backflip off the desk, land on all fours, and hiss. Her hand manically standing on all ends and bearing her fangs out. Yang stumbles back in shock, Blake follows with the same.

“Ah, you startled me.” Blake apologizes.

“Yeah same haha, gave me a real cat-attack… eh.”

Blake scoffs at Yang’s attempt to lighten the mood. The joke only adds to her embarrassment at the situation. She had overslept. Despite the noise, Ruby still slept soundly, she had underslept and now had no energy for the day at all.

“Hey, if you girls are wondering why Ruby’s all conked out, she was up early. Something was on her mind but… I wish I knew what it was.”

As Blake contemplates the conversation she and Ruby had earlier, Weiss ridicules Ruby. “Well if it was that important I doubt she would be sleeping so soundly now would she. That dolt.”

Knocks at the door cut the girls off as the guide comes in. Two blue potions in each of his hands.

“Ah, well this isn’t exactly why I brought these. More mandatory than a suggestion then.”

“What do those do?”, Yang asked with a mixture of concern and curiosity. A slight tinge of excitement was mixed in, but little in comparison to her apprehension.

“You know about potions?” The guide says in surprise, their world must have something similar.

“We didn’t before yesterday. The old guy said that his had protected him from the heat within the caves. We all doubted him.” Blake did her best to clear up the confusion.

The guide grit his teeth a little at the mention of the story teller, but continued, “Potions are very much real. Though whether he actually used one is anyone’s guess. I doubt he would need them from what I know of him. Tough bastard that old fart is. Point being, these potions cure exhaustion and increase the stamina of those that consume it. All four of you should be right as rain for the day ahead of you.”

The guide goes over and pours one of the potions into Ruby’s snoring mouth. As soon as the last drop hits her lips, Ruby shoots up awake, her nose bubble popping loudly. She rubs her tired eyes and with that, they are gone. It’s like the previous day hadn’t even happened.

Before anyone could ask her how she felt, Ruby exploded from the room with her semblance. A jet stream being the only evidence remaining to show she left.

Taken aback, the guide shouts “Woah where is she off to!”

“I have no clue. She’s never done that before.” Yang quickly retorts, equally as confused.

“Hmm, is this what would happen if we ever gave her any pep.”

…

Everyone in the room ponders Blake's thought. Ruby can be pretty hyperactive at times, but this much... It seems the extra energy set her semblance off.

“Maybe; she is stupid enough.”

The group hurries outside, hoping Ruby hasn’t gotten herself into any trouble. Once out, they see many trails of torn up leaves which Zig zag and criss-cross throughout the desolate town till they finally lead to Ruby. The young huntress has dozens of the local critters gel in her arms, as she mutters incoherently. The rest of the girls sigh at Ruby’s antics as the guide chuckles.

“I see she may be a bit too energetic for these potions. Probably don’t give her any more in the future.”

As the guide apologizes, Yang realizes something, “Actually I think those could still come in handy. Look at how fast they made her. I imagine Sis could do a lot with this if we get her used to it.”

“Are you sure? May not be good on her heart.” The guide ponders, but he’ll keep the suggestion in mind for when the girls get stronger.

“Hey Ruby, want to join your team for your first lesson?”

The guide yells out to Ruby, only getting a slur and mumbles in response.

“Guess not. Make sure to grab her a weapon when you can.”

“What exactly is the plan?” Blake asks, she still isn’t sure if there is one really.

“Underground there is a stone village that should have some supplies capable of beating the Thunderbird back. However, it hasn’t been looted for the very same reason you can just go there, you’ll die on the way if unprepared. Stick to the forest and gather supplies around here.”

Yang asks for clarification, “Do you have any, you know, actual places to go. Or just going to have us walk around blind.”

“I know a person with maps, but she’s off someone far and wide on the continent. I’ll call her and see if she can be here sometime soon.”

The guide ponders for a second, “There is one place I think you can handle. If you get stuff on the way, you could explore the briar. Got anything to block out toxins and acidic rain?”

“If it’s toxic air then no, why even ask?” Weiss pouts, prompting the guide to further clarify.

“I refer only to physical toxins, the water of the briar is toxic whether it be rain or on the ground.”

“Oh, then yes we actually can block that out. Did Ruby tell you about aura?”

“No she didn’t, but I have a feeling you girls are protected in some way. The wind doesn’t flow against you right, light shimmers around you, and you walk with an air of confidence like you’re always safe. I figured something was up.”

The girls look at each other confused, he sees the shimmer of their aura? Normally that is only visible when it’s near breaking. This world couldn’t be any stranger.

“That’s an… interesting way to piece together what aura is. It’s a manifestation of our souls, it creates barriers around us; but it’s not visible to anyone in our world.” Yang tries her best at giving a quick explanation. Still flabbergasted he can see it.

“How did it stand up to the zombie in the middle of the night?”

“Not well.” Blake shudders.

“Then I recommend some armor. There is a tundra near those northern mountains. Toughest wood around, it should be enough to protect you until you can get some metals and weapons.”

Weiss scoffs, “Can’t believe we need to use wood over our weapons. I really hate this place.”

“There is a lot to like once you get accommodated, there are ways to improve yourself to fit right in.”

“Sure there is. Fine, looks like we are going to the tundra, got any warmer clothes for us?”

“Doesn’t the aura protect against that?”

“How do you… no what, doesn’t matter. Yes, but warm clothes help.”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Blake and Weiss sigh as Yang gives off a little chuckle. She grabs onto the girls and gives a big smile.

“Well then. Seems it’s time for our first adventure.”