#schnee glyphs come from the god of darkness

[anthurak]

You know, your theory about glyphs being from the god of darkness has me thinking

What if the reason Weiss doesn't have a semblance in JL x RWBY 2 is because, if the glyphs aren't an actual semblance, she hasn't actually unlocked an ability yet?

Ooooh, that's a GOOD one! I hadn't even thought of that.

And yeah, that could totally track. I've been theorizing for a while that Weiss, Winter, Willow and all their ancestors HAVE their own semblances, but never unlocked them because they've simply been assuming that their glyphs are their semblance.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

RWBY Theory: The God Of Darkness Did Not Create The Grimm...But Corrupted Them...

[Note: some RWBY Spoilers, Watch All Episodes Of Volume 9 before reading this, because it has some spoilers about the brothers of light and darkness. also don’t reblog without permission.]   

not everyone has to agree with this, but this also ties into another theory I have about Weiss Schnee’s Family’s Hereditary Semblance, it might be possible that the Glyph Semblance can only be use by the maternal side of the family...

or in other words, it can only be used by mothers and daughters of the family.

since both Weiss, Winter and Willow Schnee ca use the Glyphs,

and Willow’s Father Nicholas’s bio has his Semblance say that is is “possibly”

Glyph, but it might be possible that Nicholas cannot use Glyphs, but he can pass it onto his daughters, same goes for Whitley, they will have the power in them, but it cannot be used by them, but if a man who comes from the bloodline of the Schnee Family, were to marry and their wife has their child, and that child becomes a daughter, that said daughter can use the glyphs, but if it were to be a son, they can’t use the glyphs but in the distant future when they become adult, they can pass it onto their daughter who can use the glyphs.

I believe that Weiss Schnee, might be a descendant of a Goddess Of Remnant,

who is the true creator of the Grimm, when the two brothers came to Remnant, they took over it from the Goddess of Remnant....and they possibly had dethrone her, which wouldn’t be the first time a goddess was wrongly dethroned....the difference is that it was humans who did it during warlike Indo-European Days from 2000 to 3000 BCE.

I had found that out in the book by Nicholas Pearson, that is called

“Stones Of The Goddess: Crystals For The Divine Feminine.”

the info in the book, says that the warlike Indo-Europeans had roamed throughout Europe and even bringing their sky gods and warrior gods with them.

(I will go back to talking about the RWBY Theory, after I say what I need to say that has to do with the whole off-topic stuff...but if you wish to skip some of the off-topic stuff, please make sure to look for the words that are in bold, like this one...) 

it also points out that the Indo-Europeans had conquered more new lands as well as their religious beliefs and symbols spreading far and wide.

and because of how things went down, it went to the whole worship of just the divine masculine god.

well excuse me if this Earth Angel had “woke up” but not like the way that some humans have kept saying “woke”, seriously, if some humans in this world keep using it in that toxic way, it is going to be annoying...

oh yeah, and besides those jerks who are clearly toxic-religious, being on the list I made that says “Those I Wish I Could Punch In The Groin”

(even though I know I can’t, but it is like I wish I could...)

I also added technically family to that list, maybe because of their toxic-masculine stupidity (though there can be toxic-feminine stupidity as well.)

anyway on May 17, 2023...

I had added Cain & Abel to that list, because I still believe they both were in the wrong, but I still think Cain should get a hug and therapy, because he went into a really REALLY bad spiritual as well as possibly emotional depression.

and yeah, even if some might not agree with me on this, and they don’t have to.

but Abel is partly at fault for Cain’s depression becoming far worse.

which I believe Abel might be the embodiment of ego, and it’s one thing to use animals that are livestock for food and clothes, but also be thankful for it.

but with how Abel had been sacrificing the, were they sheep...?

well that doesn’t seem right, also if he tried that with any fluffy baby of mine, and if I got really REALLY mad, then perhaps his would need a good old punch to the groin, but it’s like wishing thinking I could do that...

also I had realized that if Cain and Seth are both my ancestors, and they are brothers.....wouldn’t that mean they are technically my Ancestor-Dunkles...?

like being a mix of Dads and Uncles, but like in ancestor form....

anyway I’m going to hurry up and say who else I put on the list, besides those two, who should either get the punch to the groin or have both their ears grabbed, or like taking two pieces of sandwiches and put it on each side of their faces and ask them “what are you...?” because that might be a good option.

anyway even if some might not agree, I also added King David to the list...

doesn’t matter if he still was a good king or not, or that he is my ancestor, the reason why he is on that list is because he didn’t punish his sicko of a son for hurting Tamar...

Amnon The Sicko Son In Question, is also on that list...

Amnon’s cousin and friend who is named Jonadab, is also added to the list.

if I decide to put other toxic-males and masculine angels on to the list, I might need more paper and even a stapler.

cause I did mention I had put “Antichrist” and the Three Angels that hurt Lilith: Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangel on to that list...

as well as Mammon The Embodiment of Greed, and he freaking knows why he is on that list....

there are some names I cannot say, but the ones who I can’t really say the names of that are on the list, are all men....and one of them had crossed a very dangerous line more than the other three.

don’t know if I should put Archangel Samael on that list or not, and if some things could be true that involve him, then maybe....but I might not add him.

maybe I could add Toxic-Satanists to the list, oh boy, I would LOVE to do that...

cause it can be a bit of, past life personal....though with any Toxic-Religious person, that end up crossing lines they shouldn’t....

there are some Priests (besides Toxic-Satanists) and Nuns that do bring shame to the good type of priests and nuns, who should get punched in the groins.

so I could add Toxic-Priests and Toxic-Nuns to that list....

oh, I just remembered that I was told that I was born in a Catholic Hospital, and apparently it had a few Nuns in it....I didn’t know about that until, I think it was this year that I found out.

well, so long as the Nuns aren’t the Toxic-Type Of Nuns, they are safe from my list, that has to do with my wishing I could punch those who deserve it, in the groin....even if I never done that before, and it’s more of a “wish I could” type of list....

my family isn’t Catholic, but I was surprised to find out that I was born in a Catholic Hospital, I didn’t even know that it was a Catholic Hospital until I was told it was and that it had a few Nuns walking around in it.

my family is Christian, but some of our ancestors came from different religions.

but I rather go by Neo-Spiritual, and don’t really identify as Christian anymore, even if I can still believe in God and Jesus, but my new found belief also believes in the Goddess as well, and well, then there is the whole finding some unpleasant info that has to do with Jesus, which the info about him that doesn’t seem okay to me, is one of the reasons why I want to grab him by the ear...

well both him and the Antichrist by the ears....it makes me question some parts of the masculine energies, even if some might not fully understand why I feel that way.

anyway back to the topic about the Rwby Theory....

my theory is that after thinking about the semblance of the Schnee Family,

as well as them being able to summon the Grimm they defeated and making them a allies, but what if it is more to it than that...?

what if the Schnee Power, ends up healing and purifying the Grimm to what they were originally before the brothers came to Remnant.

the God Of Light & God of Darkness, didn’t originally come from Remnant.       

which means that they weren’t the original owners of The Land Of Darkness or the Domain Of Light, and both might of belong to the Goddesses of Remnant.

the pool to which the Grimm are born from, was corrupted by the God Of Darkness Brother, and when he does this, he ended up corrupting the once kind and gentle creatures that were once the Grimm...

in theory, originally the job of the Grimm were to help heal those who go through a very bad depression, and they had other jobs that has to do with helping and co-existences with humanity.

two sisters of remnant, lived in perfect harmony with their creations, and it could be possible they had a much younger sister, who was the youngest goddess, which there being three goddesses of remnant, can be counterpart of three figures, The Crone, The Mother and The Maiden.

the powers of the Maidens, might of originally came from the youngest goddess.

the Domain of Light, was home to the Eldest Sister, while what was the land of darkness, had belong to the second oldest sister, who was kind and empathic, who showed great love for her creations that would later become Grimm.

the humans on remnant, were likely co-creations of the sisters.

the Eldest Sister, Created The Men, The Younger Oldest Sister (who is like the middle child...) had created The Women...as well as fairies and other magical creatures.

the youngest and baby sister of those two, created the flora and fauna.

the youngest sister, also created Faunus...

this is a theory, and it’s okay not everyone agrees with it.

the Schnee Bloodline, are possibly descendants of the Goddess who had originally created the Grimm, before they were taken and corrupted by one of the brothers who are Afteran and came from Ever-After.

this would possibly mean that Weiss and her sister, as well as their mother, would technically be Demigoddesses but they are still humans.

but they got their semblance from their Goddess Ancestress, who likely went into hiding with her sisters, when the Afteran Brothers took over...

while in hiding, the sisters met and fell in love with their own significant other.

the man who’s last name was Schnee, was the last of his family line and would of thought he would be the end of his line, until he he met a woman with beautiful white hair and blue eyes, who he could of describe as “being as beautiful as the moon itself, and was like a goddess that came from the moonlight itself.”

like how Weiss treated Jaune, the middle sister of the three goddess, did not return the feelings of the foolish young man at first, and yeah she could of thought of him as foolish....but he would always come to see her at her small cottage in the woods, and try to win her heart, by either flowers or serenade.

but as time went on, he was slowly winning over the goddess’s heart, yes she was still disguised as a human woman, but she still had some of her power, which had to do with summoning and creating Glyphs.

but one day, one of her creations that were now the God Of Darkness’s and were corrupted, came to where she was in hiding and tried to attack her.

but before she could use her magic to purify and heal the Grimm and make it come back to her side....

she was saved by the man who had been trying to win her heart, he used his magic of flame spell and channeling it in his sword, and hit the Grimm with one hit, and when it seem like it was down...

he turn to her and ask if she was alright, and even held out a hand to her.

the man also had blonde hair much like Jaune, but instead of having blue eyes, he had silver eyes....

but as she was about to take his hand, she notice the Grimm getting up once more and was about to attack him from behind.

she yelled out “watch out!” and she used what would be her descendants semblance, and summoned a non-corrupted version of her creations and had it attack the other....

when the man asked about it, she told him to be silence and just help her fight the corrupted version....when they both defeated the Grimm, it of course ended up on her side once more...

she then had to tell the man who had fell in love with her, who she was and what the Grimm were before the two brothers came to Remnant.

that she and her sisters, both her older and younger sister, tried to fight the two and keep their sacred places, but they were too powerful....

because the younger sister didn’t really have a sacred place of her own yet, and was still very young, she switch from staying with one older sister to the other.

during the time when the brothers came and took over, it was her turn to let their youngest sister stay with her.....she had no other choice but to flee with her child of a sister when the god of darkness came and corrupted her once beautiful home and her creations as well as the pool they were born from.

they had went to their eldest sister for sanctuary, but they had both find out that her home was taken over by the god of light....

the eldest sister, was wounded and had been kicked out of her home, and two of the older sisters did try to fight back, but forbade the youngest sister to try to fight the two brothers....but try as the sisters might, they couldn’t beat the brothers, as they were far stronger than them, so they had to go into hiding.

the three sisters had to take on the form of humans, two being women and the other being a young girl.

the youngest sister, would live with the eldest sister until she comes of age when she can live on her own....and the middle sister decided to live by herself, but welcomes her older and younger sister to come and visit her.

after telling her story to the Schnee Man, and even showed her true form to him, and looking down at him in her true form, she asked him if he could truly feel the same way for her, knowing what she is and that she and her sisters had to go in hiding because of two gods that came from the Ever-After and took over their homes and creations...

and to her surprise, the man who let’s call Sir Schnee, had did something that took the goddess back in surprise...

he got on one knee and held out a white rose to her....

saying that it didn’t matter if she was a goddess or a normal human woman, he loves her for her, and no one, not even the god of light or god of darkness, or even her sisters, or any other human can keep them apart.

they then got married by the next full moon, and had their first son, who had shown that he could do fire magic like his father, but didn’t seem to have any of the magic that his mother had, but when they had a daughter, it was shown that the daughter could summon the non-corrupted Grimm and even use Glyphs.

when the goddess had grandchildren and even watched over them for many years, even in the passing of her husband “Sir Schnee”, she had notice that it is only the daughters that can use the Glyph, but while the sons couldn’t use the Glpyhs, they do still have the power inside of them and it can be passed to their own daughters.

and this is the power that Weiss, her sister and their mother had inherited.

so yeah, it is possible that Weiss’s family are descendants of a Goddess, who is the middle sister and younger sister of the eldest goddess, but also being the older sister of the youngest goddess.

I also want to say, that those who had made those stupid assumption about Ruby Rose when things got really bad for her in Volume 9...

but she did get better and healed at some point....

but if some of those who called her a homophobic and even made jokes about it.

even bothered to read her relationships in her bio, they would know that she wasn’t being homophobic, and also my theory is that she might of fell in love with Penny, like at first she had only loved her as a friend and started to fall in love with her over time, and losing her again had really hit her...

one of the reasons Ruby had lash out at Blake, was because of Blake trying to stay positive in their situation (in RWBY Volume 9) and help Jaune with his problems and not noticing Ruby’s own problems.

Ruby also lashed out at Yang, for seemingly prioritizing sorting her own feelings for Blake, and not noticing how Ruby was feeling.

yeah, if Ruby wasn’t in a very bad place right then, she would of been truly happy for her sister and Blake, and maybe a part of her was happy for them, but it didn’t help that her not so great feelings were making it hard for her to be truly happy for them, so it came out as aggressive when she was finally letting all her bad feelings she was holding in before, out and possibly in the wrong way.

the RWBY Volume 9 is still good, and heroes don’t need to be perfect.

and it’s good that Weiss, Blake, Yang and Jaune, finally saw how much pain was in....which reminds me of Steven Universe, I mean Steven’s emotional problems didn’t start in Steven Universe Future, he only went through a breaking point where he couldn’t take it anymore, and yeah he ended up corrupting himself, and at least his human and gem family & friends, had solved it the right way, instead of turning a filly like Cozy Glow to a stone statue, along with other two bad guys, who probably have more to their backstory than the typical bad guy origin.

it’s possible that the crystal heart had been a part of Chrysalis before she came a changeling, like she was a pony once, before she was brought back as a type of changeling.....and former Princess of the Crystal Empire, might be the reason Chrysalis’s original self had lost her heart.

Thorax’s pony disguise that he used in the episode he first appeared in, might be who he was in a past life, when he and the other changelings use to be Crystal Pegasus & Crystal Unicorns...

even if Thorax’s disguise form was a Crystal Earth Pony, it could turn out that some of the Crystal Earth Ponies were part of the Crystal Pegasus and Crystal Unicorns that lost the fight with a lot of Crystal Earth Ponies, that took the side of Princess Amore’s side, as it was only Crystal Earth Ponies that took Princess Amore’s side, while only a half of the Crystal Earth Ponies with the Crystal Pegasus and Crystal Unicorns had took the side of the younger sister of Princess Amore....

when the younger sister as well as the crystal pegasus, unicorns and half of the crystal earth ponies that sided with the younger sister, had died...

they had died in the same place as a type of fairy ponies had rested in peace...

and when they were brought back, they became a amalgamation, being a mix of the crystal ponies and the fairy ponies that died there....and making the changelings.

well that is my theory about it anyway....

well back to the RWBY theory, and to say that I hope some of those who made that rude assumption about Ruby, know better now, at least some knew Ruby isn’t like that and knew the truth as to why Ruby acted the way she did and that she did get better and healed.

also because this also mentions my list thing again, that is called “Those I Wish I Could Punch In The Groin”....

I’m having the tags also have mature audience only, not for kids, as well as the tag for groin punch....                                                                               

and I also added the my thoughts and my feelings tags as well.

anyway, I believe that the God Of Darkness in RWBY, didn’t create the Grimm, he only corrupted them and made them different from their original purpose.

and the one who was the true creator of the Grimm, was Weiss’s Goddess Ancestress, who had married into the Schnee Family, Sir Schnee who at that time, was the last of his line until he met and fell in love with one of the Goddess Sisters and ended up having children with the said Goddess, and making a new bloodline of the schnee family.

 not everyone has to agree about this RWBY theory, but it could be possible that the reason why the Schnee Family Semblance has so far can only be used by the daughters and mothers of the family, with it still being a part of the sons and fathers that come from the Schnee Family’s bloodline, but the men in the family can’t use the semblance but can past it to their daughters who can use it...

it might have to do with the current bloodline of the Schnee Family, coming from the last remaining Sir Schnee and a Goddess, and the power of the goddess’s power can only be used in it’s fullest by the women, and this would possibly include those who are women at heart...like if a Schnee were to have a “son” who could use the glyph semblance, it could turn out the semblance that lets them use it, is because they recognize them as a girl and a daughter of the Schnee Family, so calling her a “son” or a “boy” would be incorrect.

so while some who are actually men and boys of the Schnee Family, can’t use the semblance but it can be pass to their daughters....

there can be cases when those who are actually girls but had been born originally biologically male, their glyph semblance can recognize this and see the girl or woman inside their hearts and souls.

this would also mean that some members of the Schnee Family, would end up being a Transwoman, and this might not make sense to some, but it is to explain how some members of the bloodline can use the semblance, while others cannot, even those who are born biologically female or male, but the semblance can read their hearts and souls and see their true selves.

so in other words, if there is someone in the Schnee Family who was born biologically female, but had the heart and soul of a man, and even use the pronouns he/him, the power of the semblance can only be used by the daughters and mothers, but the male member of the schnee family.

I want people to try to understand the meaning of the theory, and not misinterpreted it....

a Transwoman of the Schnee Family, would be able to use the Glyph Semblance, but a Transman of the Schnee Family cannot.

but the power of the Glyph Semblance would still be a part of them, and they can still pass it to their sons and daughters, but it will only be the daughters that can use it, while the sons can pass it to their own children in the future.

this might not make sense, but it’s like I believe the Glyph Semblance can only be used by the Feminine part of the bloodline, those who have a Feminine Mind and Hearts, as well as the identity of a woman or girl.

I don’t want this to be misinterpreted, and I hope some actually read this without misinterpreting it, I don’t like it when that can happen and sometimes it can be not as understandable or a easy working out as most misunderstandings.

but hopefully some can understand why the theory, about how it is only women, girls, mothers and daughters, who can use the Glyph Semblance...

and how the Glyph Semblance can read a person’s heart, soul and possibly mind of those who were born in a male body, but that they might truly be a female on the inside and this let’s them use the full power of the Glyph Semblance.

so yeah, I believe that Weiss, Winter, Willow, Whitley and Nicholas are descendants of a Goddess and who was the original creator of the Grimm before they were corrupted and changed by the God Of Darkness.

not everyone has to agree about this theory, and I hope no one misunderstands when I try to explain the theory that has to do with that only the women and girls in the family can fully use the power of the semblance, while they can still pass it down to their own children much like the sons in the family, but the sons and fathers that comes from that same bloodline, are not able to fully use it and can only pass it’s power on to their own children and only their daughters can fully use the Glyphs and the Summoning Powers that comes with it.

that might not make sense to some, but it’s okay if doesn’t fully make sense.

but even if some might not agree that the theory could possibly be true, not everyone has to agree with the theory, but I’m going to view it as Fan Headcanon, that Weiss, Winter, Willow, Whitley and Nicholas are descendants of a Goddess who went into hiding and met and fell in love with a Sir Schnee who was the last of his bloodline until he met a Goddess who he married and had sons and daughters with and remaking the Schnee Bloodline into what it is now.

this is a RWBY Theory, and it is a Fan Theory that is more of a Fan Headcanon.....but it be freaky if this turn out to be true, to which I would be happy and both freaked out that those who work on the show prove it to be true and canon.                                                                                           

[masterweaverx]

Come follow me on this journey, where we connect random dots...

First, Lightbro and Darkbro are two known gods. Two, in a show where four is an important number. Many people have speculated there are actually four gods that influenced Remnant, with such evidence as there being four spheres when Salem initially shows off her magic in the Lost Fable, the God of Animals being a thing in Fairy Tales of Remnant...

Now, team RWBY already has a known connection to two of these gods. Ruby herself has the Silver Eyes, which have been connected to Lightbro in-universe. And of course Blake is a Faunus, which connects her to the God of Animals. Do the other two have connections? Mmmmmmmmmmmwell...

Stepping into speculative territory, I have long held the belief that the Schnee Family Semblance does not make sense as a semblance. There is just too much that isn’t semblance-y about it, especially when you stack it up next to actual magic users. Cinder used some sort of shieldy glyph thing in the first episode fight, Glynda used glyphs as well, and--oh hey--Salem summons Grimm through friggin’ glyphs. So, if we go off the assumption that Glyphs are magic, and that the Schnee Family Semblance is therefore magic, that means Weiss has a gift from Darkbro--i.e. mister “My own gift turned against me.”

Makes sense, right? Light magic for Ruby, Dark magic for Weiss, Animal magic for Blake... Ah, but then there’s Yang. And that leads to the inevitable question, does Yang have any connections? Any at all? Well she’s got a dragon theme, sure, and that’s interesting... but that’s the wrong part of her name to look at.

See, the God of Animals appears in two stories in the Fairy Tales of Remnant book: the Shallow Sea and the Judgement of the Faunus. Two out of twelve. Now there are six stories in the book which touch on things we already knew about--Warrior in the Woods, Indiscisive King, Infinite Man, Two Brothers, Story of the Seasons, and Girl in the Tower. And two of the remaining stories are introductions to some small things that flesh out Remnant as it is, that being the Hunter’s Children and the Grimm Child.

That’s ten. What about the last two, the Man who Stared at the Sun and the Gift of the Moon? Well here’s an interesting factoid: The Sun is a character in both. This is a trait shared with the God of Animals. Which is something I missed myself, until I went back and reread after hearing about the animated series. And the Sun has the same characterization in both stories--prideful, arrogant, easily persuaded by mortals to accomplish a challenge, which winds up hurting the Sun and the mortals involved (although the mortals prosper after all’s said and done).

In many, many real world cultures, the sun is a god of some sort, and RWBY is known to remix myths a lot. And Yang Xiao Long has been called a Sunny little dragon. Sun magic, hmm? Sun magic... like the magic to help others grow, the magic to burn enemies with brightness... Yang even went through something like the Gift of the Moon story.

I don’t know what this means, mind, I’m just connecting dots. But... in that preview with the island... there were two suns...

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain: Chapter 308: Empty Vessel

Jaune shambled down the streets of Vale, still completely unsure of where he was... or what was happening. There wasn't anything he could do without knowing where he was. His head shifted about, here and there... and the entire city seemed empty... ruined... desolate. Jaune stopped as a knife was thrown in front of him. He looked up to see team CRDL.

"What do we have here?!" Russel tauntingly shouted to him, and Cardin pushed him aside.

"What happened to you?!" Sky asked.

"Oh, you know..." Jaune voiced, "broke my antlers, Pyrrha went to pick a fight with one of The Maidens." Jaune looked above them, "There's a dragon circling around." Jaune shambled towards them, and sighed, pausing "And I have absolutely no idea... where am I?.." he said raising his hand.

"How do you not know where you are?" Dove asked.

"Do you want to know how?" Cardin asked, "because, get this, he spent his time at Beacon training." The rest of his team dropped to silence.

"Russel?" Cardin asked, turning towards him, "Get him to the safe zone."

"Do you expect me to?.." Russel asked.

"Yes." Cardin said to his face. "Then get back here. We'll finish our sweep."

"Haven't we already killed them all?" Sky cockily asked.

"How many Grimm does it take to kill someone?" Cardin asked, looking between his team, none of which would give him an answer. The answer was too obvious.

* * *

"Oh, good god!" Jaune shouted as he looked at Blake, Yang, Ren, and Nora. He then turned to Russel. Russel gave him a angry glare. "Thank you." Jaune stated.

"Uh... yeah..." Russel replied, and turned away.

Jaune tried to run towards them, but nearly tumbled. A medic caught him. "I'm... I'm..."

"He... just has trouble balancing..." Ren voiced, as he limped towards Jaune, Nora trying to force herself to her feet. Jaune waved his hand towards them.

"You guys... stay right there..." Jaune voiced, and the two stopped, uncertain of what to do. The medic helped him over to his team, who eagerly caught him and helped him to sit down.

"Are you... alright?" Ren asked him.

"Let's not focus on me." Jaune stated, "I need a situation report."

"Could you... help me to narrow it down a bit?.." Ren asked.

"Blake's barely moving," Nora stated, "but not saying much... which is kind of usual for Blake... except it's not..."

"She's wounded deeply..." Ren voiced.

"Medic think she's fine." Nora stated.

"I said she was fine, physically." the medic stated.

"And Yang?.." Jaune asked.

"She kind of... got her... okay... I mean..." Nora voiced.

"Clarity is precious at the moment." Ren stated, "Yang..." he said to Jaune, and looked him in his eyes, "had her arm cut off..."

Jaune struggled to his feet. Ren and Nora vacillating between wanting to help him and stop him.

"Will he be... alright?.." the medic asked.

"Oh, he loses his antlers all the time." Nora stated, as Jaune shambled to Blake and Yang as they laid on the ground.

"The best thing we can do for him is nourishment." Ren stated. "That said, the troubles of his friends wears deeply upon him."

"I wish I had time to help you all..." the medic voiced. "He might say he's fine, but there's still a chance he'll go into shock. I'll get him food and a blanket. You two just make sure your friend doesn't go anywhere."

"Leader..." Nora voiced.

"He's our leader." Ren stated. "If he wants to go back into combat, we - will - go him."

"Huntsmen..." the medic silently voiced.

"The safe zone exists because we are who we are." Ren stated.

"Exceepptt..." Nora voiced, "We're not... Huntsmen... YE-E-ET."

"I meant more as a concept than a qualification..." Ren voiced, as Jaune reached Blake. He hunched her to gently shake her.

"Blake?" Jaune quietly asked, and at first she didn't move. "Blake." he said once again, and she slowly turned to look him in the eyes, and he sighed. Their silent conversation spoke volumes... volumes that deeply disturbed him. He could not convince her otherwise and just sighed. He leaned down to kiss her on the head and momentarily held her hand. He then turned to Yang and slowly shambled towards her. "Yang." he said, and she heard him, but didn't try to move towards him. Instead it seemed like she tried to crawl away. He grabbed her by the shoulder to prevent her from escaping.

"You can't..." she voiced.

"I can't?" Jaune asked, "What?"

"See me..." Yang voiced.

"Now's not the time for that kind of shit." Jaune voiced. He pulled her on the shoulder, turning her towards him. "You are still one of the most amazing women I have ever known." Yang reached her left hand to where her right had been removed. Jaune grabbed her left hand in his right. He snaked his arm around to grab her by the upper arm, and she did the same to him.

"I'm... broken..." Yang mumbled.

"And I'm not?" Jaune asked.

"I... don't... just mean..." Yang tried to say.

"Neither do I." Jaune replied. Yang leaned up to slump into his chest.

"I hate to say this..." he whispered, "but say goodbye to Blake." Panic appeared on Yang's face, "We WILL see her again." he voiced.

"Hey!" the medic shouted, "You can't!.." he said, and Blake turned black. Her true self now far away. Yang cried into Jaune's chest plate.

"What do we do, Leader?" Nora asked, and Jaune slowly looked at her. "What can we do?! There's no way we can get there in time, and even if we did... what could we do?.." Ren and Nora nervously looked at each other. At this moment a bright light filled the dark sky, banishing any remaining Grimm. "What the hell was that?!" Jaune asked, and looked between a confused Ren and Nora. He then looked to the ground Blake had been lying upon.

* * *

Qrow landed, putting an unconcious Ruby next to her sister.

"What the hell was that?" Jaune asked.

"Didn't anyone tell you that my nieces are special?" Qrow asked, and turned to walk away.

"You're just going to walk away?!"

Qrow turned back to look at him, "I've never been good at this stuff, but they seem to think the world of you. Tell Tai I'm doing exactly what he thinks I am."

"Who's Tai?!" Jaune yelled at him, but Qrow just walked away.

"Now you know," the medic stated, "what it feels like to treat Huntsmen..."

"Do you know who Tai is?" Jaune asked.

"D..." Yang voiced, and Jaune turned to look at her. She just rolled over to look away.

Jaune turned back to Qrow, "Old man?!" he shouted, and Qrow turned to give him a wicked smile. "That's Ruby, but where's Weiss?!"

"If I thought she was in trouble, would I really have left her there?!" Qrow shouted in reply, and turned to walk away. "I might not like Schnees..." he muttered to himself, "but doesn't mean I would..."

The medic tried to sneak up on Jaune with a blanket. Ren was sure to not give this away, but Nora couldn't help but looking eagerly. Jaune followed her gaze and looked over his shoulder, just in time to dodge the medic.

"If you don't calm down," the medic said to him, "you might fall down."

"Falling down is the least of my worries." Jaune said, and looked to Nora. "Nora, Scroll!" Nora quickly threw her scroll at him and he caught it. He opened it up and scrolled down until he found Weiss' name.

* * *

Weiss opened the scroll and found Nora calling. She opened it up, "Nora?" she asked.

"Where are you?!" Jaune bellowed through the scroll.

"Jaune?!" Weiss countered, "How are?.."

"Don't worry about me right now!" he quickly cut her off. "Where are you?! HOW are you?!"

"I am quite alright." Weiss replied, "Where are you?"

"The safe zone." Jaune stated, "I'm with Ruby, Yang, and... and... my... my team..." he voiced. Despite his assurances, he really did not seem to be fine. But if she asked him directly, she would likely get another direct rebuke. If she used her glyphs, she could likely get to the safe zone in a few minutes... "I will be there shortly." Weiss said into her scroll, and swears she heard Jaune crying on the other side.

* * *

Weiss used her glyphs to zip along the ground, stopping when her sister's gaudy airship landed in front of her. She stood up with proper posture as she picked up her scroll.

"Weiss?" Jaune said through the scroll.

"I'm afraid..." Weiss voiced, "our reunion... will be... a bit delayed..."

"Are you alright?!" Jaune asked.

"I am... quite alright..." she tepidly said to him.

"You don't sound alright." Jaune replied.

"It seems... my sister... has come... to retrieve me..." Weiss voiced.

"She's not taking you back to that racist bastard, is she?!" Jaune asked. Winter's face went from cold to downright sour. In reply Weiss simply breathed sharply, trying to control her feelings, trying to stop the dark blue flush from covering her from head to toe.

"Weiss!" Winter sharply stated, "You need to control your..."

"NO - YOU - DON'T!" Jaune shouted through his scroll. "You are the most beautiful, elegant, amazing woman I know! I don't care what that bastard says to you, you are wonderful the way you are! What... what's your sister's name?"

"Winter." Weiss simply stated, and Winter looked ever more shocked at this.

"Hold the scroll towards her." Jaune stated, and Weiss defiantly held the scroll towards her sister. "Are you the same as her?!" he asked.

"We are sisters!" Winter firmly replied.

"Weiss, you know what I'm asking, don't you?" Jaune asked.

"Indeed." Weiss replied.

"Classified!" Winter shouted.

"Bullshit!" Jaune shouted through the scroll. "There is NOTHING wrong with the way you are, and if your racist piece of shit of a father can't see this, it's his own loss. Just don't let it drag you down!"

Winter stood silently for a moment, not wanting to justify what he said with a reply. Instead she addressed Weiss directly. "Are you done - speaking to your classmate - Sister?" Winter asked.

"Jaune, I..." Weiss tried to say, but had so much she wanted to say she couldn't decide between them.

"Don't stay locked up there forever." Jaune said through the scroll, and Weiss gasped, grasping her heart with her free hand. "Even if it's not for me... forget about me... what about Ruby?!"

"Your friend will be quite alright." Winter stated.

"Friend?!" an offended Weiss asked, "She is my leader! You know what I've learned here?! Skill isn't everything." Winter let out an incredibly offended scoff. "I guess that's not a lesson you ever learned, is it?!" Weiss shouted.

Winter in turn looked offended, her skin... her minute feathers... turned a dark blue hue.

"At least now..." Jaune mumbled through the scroll, "I know there's no one as amazing as Weiss... Wait, we're still connected... Uhhhhhh?.."

"I appreciate... your concern..." Weiss replied, "and everything you have done for me... It was... touching..."

"Just don't forget how amazing you are..." Jaune said through the scroll. Weiss had a full light blue flush. She wanted to say something more, anything more, but could not, and simply closed her scroll.

"It's good to see you are being reasonable, sister." Winter stated.

"We both know you wouldn't stop..." Weiss said to her. "You ran away from home... into Ironwood's arms as soon as you could... We all know Father wouldn't stop... and what it would do to my friends if I tried to resist."

"And what do you propose, Sister?" Winter asked her.

"I don't know, maybe that I be allowed to live my own life?" Weiss asked her, as she properly walked up to her sister. Winter's dark blue blush grew even darker, and she dejectedly looked down.

"We both know that neither of us had that option..." Winter voiced.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Do you guys remember my RWBY Musing #71? Remember a time I shared a theory about Oscar basically becoming RWBY’s version of the Golden Cap and gaining the power to control the Winged Beringels created by Salem?

Whelp…it’s back! I’ve had this nagging idea swimming in my head for the longest while and last night, I finally got around to squiggling a little concept rough sketch of it. As I said, I’ve talked about Oscar turning Salem’s winged Beringels against her before. Now I’ve taken that idea a step further in the sense of, what if…Oscar doesn’t just relinquish control of the Winged Beringels from Salem but changes them entirely.

Imagine if…Oscar somehow purifies these Beringel Grimm, transforming them from creatures of darkness to creatures of light. For the sake of this headcanon of mine, I dub these creatures of light as the ‘Creatures of Luxx’. It’s a play on the word Lux which is Latin for ‘light’. The idea I have is that Oscar creatures the Luxx through purifying the Grimm.

We know that the God of Darkness used his powers to first create the Grimm. I find it fascinating that there is creation in darkness since the Darkness used his creations to destroy his brothers. Just as how there is destruction in light since the Silver Eyed Warriors, who are believed to possess the eyes of the God of Light, use their light to preserve life by destroying the Grimm who are creations of darkness. I just find that bit fascinating.

Anyways; since Oscar has a bit of God of Light’s power within him, what if… it was possible for him to…I dunno, make his own creations through the use of light magic? And his first test of this is by creating the Luxx from the Grimm?

Up until this point, the Grimm have mostly been treated as fodder. Their entire purpose is to destroy since that’s been in their programming from birth. But what if there is a semblance of humanity to the Grimm somehow. Somehow I’m imagining a How to Train Your Dragon moment with Oscar and one of the Winged Beringels he managed to turn to his side.

I really would love to see Oscar take control of the Winged Beringels from Salem since it’ll be such a nice call back to the Wizard of Oz. In that story, the Winged Monkeys were actually cursed creatures controlled by an artifact known as the Golden Cap. The Winged Monkeys were bound to serve whoever possessed the Cap for a period of three times.  At some point, the Wicked Witch of the West gets a hold of the Cap and used the Monkeys to take over Oz.

At some point Dorothy Gale also uses the Cap, calling upon the monkeys’ aid during her remaining adventures in Oz. Till finally the Cap is handed to Glinda the Good Witch who used to cap to free the monkeys of their curse.

I think it would be great if the CRWBY Writers take advantage of this idea from the Oz story for Oscar. In the Wizard of Oz, the Golden Cap is described as studded with real sparkling diamonds and precious blood red rubies that ran entirely around the caps 24 karat solid gold brim. The Cap is made of gold hence the name. Who in Ruby alludes to this more than Oscar? You can’t get more golden than Oscar Pine. His first name literally alludes to gold. The Golden Cap was a magical artifact. Oscar is a reincarnation of an ancient being who possessed magical powers that Oscar has yet to tap into. This is a chance for the Writers to use this to push Oscar’s character.

We’ve seen Salem use her magic to create the Grimm. So if she can do that, then what’s stopping Oscar from using his magic to change the Grimm. To use his light to cleanse the Grimm of their darkness and turn them from beasts of destruction to creatures of preservation.

Yes I know this Pinehead headcanon is a mighty big stretch however…c’mon that could be so freaking cool if turned canon. At least it’s cool to me.

Canon or not, for now this squiggle meister will stick to using the Luxx in my own RWBY art and projects. I’m sharing this concept sketch since the Creatures of Luxx will be featured in my Bouquet of Roses. To further play off my theory, the Luxx Beringel is an early concept for Oscar’s steed and animal companion. A Luxx named Al, short for Alpha (and a call back to Fullmetal Alchemist) who is the King of the Winged Beringel Luxx who serve the Golden Rose.

The idea I have with this is that in the Bouquet universe, Oscar isn’t just our handsome prince of the Golden Yellow Rose but also a powerful magi and the Luxx are his creations. For all my ole school Sakura Cardcaptors fans, remember how Clow Reed was this super powerful wizard who created the Clow Cards?

Well picture Oscar being like that where the Luxx are his pets born from his power. I’d like to think of the Luxx as a less gruesome and grotesque-looking versions of their Grimm counterparts. For this rough sketch, I mainly just wanted to test the palette for the Luxx. I based it off the God of Light’s colour scheme from the Lost Fable considering that the Luxx are made of light born through the same magic that was bestowed to Ozma (and essentially Oscar) by said brother God.

Now that I’m satisfied with the colours, I’d actually love to design the Luxx. I want them to be the same as their Grimm opposites yet still possess something about their appearance that sets them apart. The Luxx are meant to be the Yang to the Grimm just as how the God of Light contrasts his brother so perfectly; even in their dragon forms.

When I think of the Luxx, I picture them being exactly like my squiggle sketch in colour---mystical creatures made of pure light that gleams gold. While the Grimm have red eyes and red markings, for the Luxx I wanted them to have green eyes with a hint of gold at the centre and green markings; a trait they share in common with their master and creator---Oscar Pine (whose eyes are hazel) to further push the notion that they are an extension of Oscar and his magic. I initially thought it would’ve been cool to have to Luxx have black masks to contrast the Grimm but I scrapped that idea in favour of the shared white masks. Who knows? I might bring it back in the refined version, perhaps.

Another reason why I wish for the Luxx to differ from the Grimm is because I don't want them to be confused for Summons. With the Schnees, the Grimm Summons are basically the same Grimm just recoloured white with blue makings to match the Schnees. I really don’t wish for anyone to denounce this idea of mine by saying that Oscar doesn’t need to have such a power when Weiss can do that. At least I can make the argument that Oscar having such a power ties into the fairy-tale he was inspired by. I never quite understood the need to give Weiss summoning abilities when she’s already pretty powerful with her Glyphs already. Heck I think that was even one of the complaints with her character by the FNDM but…here we are.

Unlike Weiss who can only summon a Grimm after she’s killed it, the idea I have for this is that Oscar creates the Luxx himself. The Grimm are more monstrous in appearance to match their destructive nature. I wish for the Luxx to contrast this. With the Luxx, the idea is for them is to look like purified versions of the Grimm we've come to know---whimsical and majestic in nature.

How that's gonna looks. Whelp, that’s for me to play around with and decide for myself since it’s my idea. But at least for now, this is a good starting building block. The only way I can elaborate on this idea further is do designs for Luxx versions of certain Grimm. I can safely say that there will be at least three Grimm turned Luxx featured for the Bouquet of Roses; starting with the Winged Beringel.

Come to think of it, this idea is starting to give me flashbacks to Sakura’s arc where she had to be powerful enough magically to turn the original Clow Cards created by Clow Reed into Sakura Cards. Imagine Oscar needing to become stronger magically as a means of successfully taking control of the Grimm from Salem, turning them into his Luxx. That could be a cool plot point for him.

Buuut like I said, I mainly plan on using this concept for my Bouquet of Roses and any other RWBY-related fan-project I might consider doing down the line. But it’s definitely an idea I wouldn’t mind seeing canon due to its strong reference to the Wizard of Oz.

Princess Ozma was a powerful magician. She was even stronger than the Wizard of Oz as its true ruler. Since the Wizard was Ozpin’s inspiration and Ozma is Oscar’s, how can I not expect great and powerful things from this young freckled farm boy? I’ve even thought of another cool way this Luxx idea of mine could be used in the canon series.

Besides the Winged Beringels, remember the Grimm Dragon? We know that back in V3, when the Grimm Dragon appeared it brought fought hordes of Grimm in its wake. This Grimm literally oozes other Grimm and since then I have yet to see another Grimm with such an ability to spawn more Grimm. That being said, with this theory of mine, it’s given me an idea. We know that as of V3, the Grimm Dragon is still pretty much alive. We know that Ruby’s Silver Eyes didn’t kill the Grimm Dragon; only petrified it.

If Oscar is indeed destined to become the RWBY equivalent of the Golden Cap and will somehow awaken the power to transform the Creatures of Grimm into the Creatures of Luxx, then picture this Pineheads. Imagine if…Oscar turns the Grimm Dragon into a Luxx Dragon; capable of creating more Luxx for Oscar to command. Therefore Oscar will gain a full army of Luxx through taming the former Grimm Dragon as opposed to allowing Ruby to finish it off with her power. Oscar Pine can straight up Daenerys Targaryen this bitch and become the Lord of the Luxx.

My fellow Pineheads, picture our boy going from a simple farm boy to a little prince and then finally to a King of Light leading his full grown army of Luxx against the hordes of Grimm while riding on the back of a mighty Luxx Dragon.

That sounds so freaking cool and it’ll depicts another cool way Oscar can be made into the great and powerful character he is destined to become! But, as much as I’d love to see this done in the canon, the possibility of this coming to fruition in main series RWBY might not be so high. At least in the sense that I don’t want to have too many expectations for Oscar’s character from the CRWBY Writers in the event of disappointment.

For all we know, the CRWBY Writers are more likely to have Weiss finish off the Grimm Dragon and turn her into the Daenerys Targaryen of RWBY with the Grimm Dragon becoming another one for her to Summon. She even has the hair for it so I can see that being more canonical than Oscar the King of the Luxx.

I’d still love to hold onto this idea for safe keeping though just like my other Pinehead headcanon that Oscar is reincarnation of Ozma’s original form in modern Remnant making him the one true Ozma. Like that one, I love this idea too much to let it go to waste. Hence why it’ll be featured in my squiggly fan-projects. Anyways, I’ve talked enough about this. Just wanted to share this for the Bouquet.

Look forward to seeing a refined version of the Al the Winged Beringel Luxx and Oscar’s other Luxx for Bouquet of Roses Part II. Coming soon-ish!

Bouquet of Roses:

Sketches: - Rough Squiggle Sketch of the Bouquet - Rough Squiggle Sketch of Prince Oscar - Rough Squiggle Sketch of Prince Whitley and Princess Penny (Broken Machines)

The Roses:

- Ianthe Regem: The Lavender Rose - Rosalind Fox: The Orange Rose - Rosaline Hood: The Pink Rose - Ruby Rose: The Silver-White Rose - Oscar Pine: The Golden-Yellow Rose - Rosaline Fox: The Red Rose

- Bouquet of Roses Part I

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[jadekitty777]

Successive Failure

I’m a little later then I said I would be on this one. I intended to release this one in-between the hiatus, but one of the final scenes was giving me some trouble, but I still hope it was worth the wait! Ever since this volume decided to bring Qrow’s addiction as a more prominent plot point, I wanted to try my hand at a proper introspective piece for him, and this is what resulted.

Rating: K+

Word Count: 6k

Ao3 Link:  Successive Failure

Warnings: Lots of cursing and alcoholism

Summary: No matter how many times Qrow has tried, he has never able to put the bottle down for good. You’d think that’d be his greatest failure in life. You’d be wrong. [A What-If scenario of Volume 6, Chapter 9 – What if Team RWBY found Qrow in a different way]

~

“Give me the strongest you got.” Qrow ordered the moment he sat down.

The bartender’s curvy mustache waggled as he gave him a sharp look over. “You ain’t from around here, are ya bud?”

Annoyance tinged through him. He knew some bartenders were always out looking for the next strange person to talk with; but Qrow certainly wasn’t interested in spilling his life story. “You’re a regular ol’ Sherlock. Can I just get my drink?”

The other was not amused with his attitude, not that many ever were. In answer, he reached under the bar and placed a bottle on the desk. It was pretty unassuming, just a shade of dark-green, with a label on it that read ‘King Taijitu Venom’ on it. The two-headed Grimm hissed at him from underneath the title.  “Argus’ breweries are some of the finest in the world. To the point some of the bottles need special permission to be exported. But this one right here?” He tapped the bottlecap. “Is so potent it’s been illegalized for transport. Only people in Argus can purchase it, and only by the shot.”

As he scanned the words, he quickly discovered why. 67.8 APV. He’d never had anything stronger than 35 before, and it had knocked him on his ass by the end of the night.

He had to admit, it got his interest piqued. “Is it that good?”

“Let’s just say one shot has put even the biggest of guys under the table in the hour. You? I’d give twenty minutes.”

He slid a lien card across the bar, smirking confidently. “That a challenge?”

~

Qrow has had many terrible ideas over the course of his 40-year lifespan. Sneaking from one bar to another to take two shots of pure poison in a bottle somehow only ranked in the top five.

Still, as he wandered around the streets of – where was he again? Didn’t matter. As he wandered the streets, trying to find his way back to the house, he had to wonder why he didn’t try this sooner. He felt great! The liquor had burned like whiskey but tasted as fine as a martini. Worth every bit of the 200 lien it cost him.

“W-Whoa!” Qrow stumbled as the ground underneath him upheaved, grasping onto a light pole to keep himself upright. A bubbling in his chest turned into laughter and he swung himself around it, doing a decent rendition of ‘Singing in the Rain’ in one of those wishy-washy musicals Tai liked to watch. He let go of it, kicking up some snow bunched along the curb of the sidewalk, before tapping and twisting across the road, going on about sunshine in his heart and other such nonsense.

As he twirled once more on his heels, he noticed two bright lights coming towards him. Ah, right, the spotlight! Time for the big finish! He held up his arms, grinning widely, as the lights sped towards him.

“QROW!” The voice – a fan no doubt – was echoed with a great big noise that must have been the baseline reaching the crescendo.

He took a deep breath, ready to belt out the chorus for his audience – when something slammed into his body with enough force to jar his bones and rattle his brain around in his skull. It made the whole world spin.

“What were you doing?!” The voice, his fan, shrieked from above.

He blinked away spots, confused on how he’d suddenly ended up back on the sidewalk. He craned his neck, trying to focus on the tiny lady atop him. As her face came into view, his heart leapt. “Flowerbud?”

“Ruby!” Another, more boisterous, woman yelled, before she came into view. Huh, when had Raven dyed her hair? “Is he alright?!”

Okay. Not Raven. She wouldn’t care about his wellbeing for a millisecond.

“What kind of idiot stands in the middle of traffic like that!” This third lady was much shriller as she came to stand beside not-Raven. Unfortunately, even in his wildest woes of drunkenness, he couldn’t forget the face of a Schnee.

Which had an even more unfortunate side effect of pulling him out of his stupor enough that he realized it was not Summer but his niece hovering above him. It was also her fist that hit him hard enough on the chest that some of the air rushed from his lungs, making his voice squeak ironically when he gasped out, “Pipsqueak?”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Uh,” It took a moment to calculate, “Just two shots.”

“You’re lying!” Something seemed off about Ruby’s voice, but he couldn’t place why. Maybe he was still hearing Summer’s ghost in its tone.

Another hit jolted him from that train of thought. He swiped out for her hands – and was she using her semblance to keep them away from him because he was having an awfully hard time catching them. “Will you cut that out? Everything’s fine.”

“Fine? …Fine?!” He flinched a bit, her voice too loud. “Nothing’s fine! Oscar’s missing, everyone’s upset and you almost got hit by a truck! You, you-!” Lost for words, she just gave a yell of rage, before she was up and storming down the sidewalk, her cloak billowing behind her like a windstorm. After a moment, she gave another cry, kicking a Styrofoam coffee cup so it skittered across the concrete.

He knew something was really wrong though when she fell to her knees, pulling her hood up over her bowed head, wailing loudly.

“Ruby!” Yang hurried over to her.

Above him still, the Schnee and – wait, where’d the fourth come from? – shared a look, before the former nodded her head towards the sisters. “Go on. I’ll get him home.”

“Are you sure?” Blake looked between her and him warily. Not that he cared about that. Not one bit.

“Don’t worry. I’ve… done it before.”

He did however care about his niece who sounded really, really bad. “Kiddo?” He called to her, struggling to get to his feet. By the time he’d managed it though, dainty fingers were wrapping around his bicep, tugging him away from the sidewalk and away from his niece. “Hey, leggo!” His assailant didn’t answer nor concede. He tried to pull away, only to stumble even more when black glyphs appeared under his feet, magnetizing his boots and forcing him to stay on the path. “Ice princess, ya hear me? I said let go! I have to check on Ruby!”

“You’ve done enough.” She wouldn’t even look at him.

He was glad she didn’t because he knew that tone. Had heard it all his life, sewing itself into his head like a song that he couldn’t find the rest of. A tune that just wouldn’t quit replaying those few beats, no matter how many times he tried to distract himself from it.

It was the tone that said: I’m disappointed in you.

~

When Qrow was 30, he had hit rock bottom.

It had been a slow weathering. At first it was simply the pressure of the underground mission, the secrets so few knew looming along his back like a phantom. Then, Raven left, carving a hole in his team and family that not even Summer and her boundless optimism knew how to correct. She didn’t get long to try before her life was stolen next and with it, she might as well have taken Tai’s as he lost himself to grief so endless, no amount of effort could pull him out of the pit he’d fallen into. Qrow, left alone for the first time, felt like he’d lost all semblance of control. Aimless, guideless, he turned to the only thing that could bring him joy anymore, as false as it was.

He was no stranger to drinking. In the tribe, it was common place for twelve-year-olds to be declared men, and with it, were allowed to sip on the neck of a bottle. At Beacon, he made a lot of his connections through rave parties and throwaway dances, always with a cup in hand and praised for his ability to find ‘the good stuff’. Maturity and fitting in, that’s what drinking meant for him.

Until it didn’t anymore. For as much as he scoffed at his sister for it, he knew – whether physically present or not – he was just as good at running away.

As the years progressed, he became more of a master at that than anything else. By the time he’d truly woken up, Tai had gotten a new job as a teacher, Yang was seven, and Ruby was five. And apparently Qrow, drunk, stupid Qrow, was their babysitter.

But that was kind of the thing about black out drinking. He made promises he hardly remembered and had entire weeks months of his memory just splotched out like a gothic painter got a little too eager when they put the paintbrush to his brain.

So when he finally woke up to a puppy he hadn’t even known Tai had adopted yapping incessantly at him and found the house disturbingly empty, nothing but the grooved tracks of the girls’ play wagon disappearing into the forest left behind, he knew he had fucked up. Cursed himself as he rushed out after them, taking to the sky as he prayed to whatever Gods he didn’t believe in at the time that they would just let him be lucky.

Just this once, please, just this one time and he’ll never drink again.

They answered and he got to bring both the girls home that day.

He repaid Them by trying to convince a seven-year-old to keep a secret she shouldn’t have to hold.

Tai found out anyways, because Ruby was too wide-eyed over just how cool she thought her uncle was to understand why she wouldn’t tell her daddy about his brave rescue.

Qrow remembered that day with more clarity than he would have liked, down to the very way Tai manhandled him out of the house and tossed him into the dirt.

“I’m done.” Tai had seethed. He was beyond livid, red in the face and every inch of him shaking as he contained the need to pummel him six feet under. “You either get your fucking act together or you get the fuck out of my house.”

Though he’d later be grateful, the Qrow that day was nothing but indignant as he rose against him, “The fuck? I save your kids and you kick me out?”

“You were supposed to be watching them!” Tai shrilled back. “I’ve tried my best to be patient and understanding and all you do is spit that back in my face! And you know what? I’m tired! I’m tired of giving you extra money every week. I’m tired of calls at 2 A.M to come pick you up from the bar. I’m tired of having to explain to the girls why their uncle is never around, even when he is.”

“At least drinking’s a better excuse then the damn pity party you’re still throwing.” Even as he said it, he knew he had crossed a line, and deserved every bit of the black eye he received for it.

“You know what? Fuck off.” Tai snarled down at him, before turning back for the house. Turning back from him. “You want to go kill yourself, then be my fucking guest!”

“Y-Yeah well-!” Qrow scrambled for a response, digging as dirty as he could go, “I’m sure you’ll be happy to be rid of me! Better off without your bad luck charm hanging around, right?!”

For a moment, it made his brother-in-law pause but when he looked back at him, there was no sympathy, only disappointment. “Wow. Playing the manipulative card? I thought you were better than that.”

And then, to add salt onto the newly cut wound, the door was slammed in his face and Qrow found himself homeless.

He’d like to say he’d immediately cleaned up his act and came back into the house with his tail-feathers tucked between his legs, but that’d be a lie, so he didn’t. In fact, he never told anyone how he spent the next few months, scavenging about and doing less than savory missions for quick cash to feed his addiction.

His second awakening came when he found himself locked in a prison in Vale after trying to steal a six-pack from the grocery store. Nothing was more pathetic than being given his one phone call and realizing he had absolutely no one to dial.

So he called Ozpin, explaining without explaining that he found himself in a bit of trouble and needed some cash. He had expected to be hung up on. He had hoped to be wired the money. What he got was his former headmaster coming down to the station in person to bail him out. And boy, was that ride back to Beacon ever awkward and uncomfortable, Qrow silently wishing he could sink into the leather seats until he disappeared for good.

Oz didn’t ask any questions until they were closed up in his office, making Qrow feel like he was seventeen and about to be scolded for breaking the holographic projectors in the computer lab. Again.

“So, care to tell me what that was all about?” Ozpin asked, pouring him some hot chocolate.

“Don’t suppose I can just say no and accept a week’s detention like the good ol’ days, huh?” Qrow accepted the cup, even if he likely wouldn’t drink it.

He chuckled in return. “I’m afraid not. Being a graduate means I can no longer dole out corporal punishment.” He pushed off from the desk he lent against, saying as he rounded it, “However, I’m still an excellent listener, if you want to talk about anything.”

He stared hard at his reflection in the muddy surface. “Who says I got anything to say?”

The other sat down, humming, “Well, I suppose if you don’t we can merely spend the time catching up. It has been quite awhile since I’ve last seen you.” Qrow slunk down a little more in his seat, pretending he didn’t know why that was. Oz went about pouring his own cup, adding as he did, “It’s a little ironic you showed up, actually. Taiyang called a few days ago, asking if I’d seen you.” Brown eyes peered at him over shaded spectacles. “He’s worried.”

That finally got him to snort, crossing his heels on the edge of the desk. “Yeah. Sure he is.”

There was a sigh, Oz dropping all pretenses that he didn’t already know what was going on. “Qrow, I understand why you might feel that Tai’s actions were out of spite, but-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a burden.” He slumped further, setting the full cup on the floor. “Got it.”

His old headmaster gave him a reproachful look, before sternly saying, “No. You are not the burden, Qrow. Your drinking is. You need to separate yourself from the vice if you hope to beat this.”

Beat it? He could hardly live without it. “Drinking IS part of who I am.”

“Do you truly define yourself in your head as a drunkard?”

“Well… what would YOU define me as?” He challenged right back.

“A huntsman.”

It was so simple.

And yet so wrong.

“Ha, haha!” Qrow smacked his own forehead, craning his neck over the back of his chair as he laughed towards the ceiling. “You got to be kidding me! Oz, I haven’t done an honest mission in years.”

“Then do one.”

“Okay, it was funny the first time, not so much the second time.” He spat.

“I’m being serious.” Oz turned slightly, bringing up a display to the left of him, scrolling through a listing. “How about Grimm control in the western sector? Or escorting the trade lines in Argus?”

“H-Hey.” Panic suddenly clogged his throat, Qrow sitting up straight. “Oz, wait. I’m out of practice.”

Hardly deterred, the man hit a few keys to pull up a new list. “Well, there are certainly plenty of easy rank missions to be done as well. How does transporting rations to stationaries sound?”

“Bad. They all sound bad.” He snapped. When that didn’t even earn him a cursory glance, he smacked the top of the desk. “Oz!”

There was a horrible screech as one of the cogs underneath the glass surface suddenly popped out of place, the rest of the gears coming to an awful, ear-piercing stop. They both looked down at it, Qrow giving a low groan before thumping his forehead on the cold, glass surface.

After a moment, he heard a sigh. “It’s easily fixed Qrow. Other things, I’m afraid, are not. Especially the longer you allow them to remain unrepaired.”

When he turned his head to peer up at him, he didn’t know what to make of the look Ozpin was giving him. It was full of compassion and, worse yet, understanding in a way that made his stomach flip sickeningly. “Look, Oz,” He said as he sat up, “I get what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it, I guess. But, it’s not…” that bad. The rest of the sentence faltered in his throat. He hadn’t slept in a bed or had a decent meal in weeks.

He tried again. “I can-” Stop? If he had the means to get it, he’d be downing a shot in a heartbeat.

“I don’t-” Need help? He was just in jail, for maiden’s sake!

And as he tried to find a way, any way, to justify himself, to argue for a desire on the worst of days even he hated, he realized he’d run out of excuses.

If he didn’t do something now, then what? How much further could he lose control of his life, until he couldn’t come back from it?

For the first time in a long time, Qrow remembered what it was like to be afraid of himself.

The strength he found to finally speak was tenuous at best, coming out as nothing but a whisper, “I’ve really fucked up, haven’t I?”

Oz’s smile was kind. “We all do things in life we regret. But, it’s not in those errors that we should crucify ourselves. Rather, it’s in those choices we make after those errors that we should judge ourselves.”

And so, Qrow made one.

For the following months, he stuck around Beacon and spent his days in a waking hell as he forced himself through a rough detox. Daily shakes, cold sweats, physical, aching pain that wouldn’t quit no matter how many painkillers he swallowed down. On the worst of them, the ones where the need became so strong he knew he was going to fail himself, he would have Ozpin lock him in the vault, knowing it was the only place his wings couldn’t get him out of.

When he returned to Patch, it was on orientation for Signal’s new school year. He never really felt cut out to be a teacher, but being a headmaster himself, Ozpin was able to secure himself the opportunity, encouraging him to take some time to recover and retrain himself while also helping the future generation do the same. In a few years, Oz told him, he’d want to see him return to the field as a Huntsman once more.

It was the first time in a long time that Qrow felt eager for something that didn’t come in a bottle. After being lost for so long, finally he was able to remember what he had wanted in life. To be a legend, unforgettable and revered.

But, first, there were a few people he needed to make things up to.

Ruby and Yang were simple. Young as they were, they couldn’t grasp the full impact of what had happened that resulted in his sudden disappearance, just the sorrow left behind and the joy of his return. However, blindsided as he was, Taiyang wasn’t so easily swayed, making it clear he’d have to earn his trust back. So used to breaking things in life, Qrow wasn’t even entirely sure how to fix that, but for once, he wanted to. This was the only family he had left, and by Gods, he was going to make sure he kept them. So, he stuck around and proved to Tai, to the girls, and even to himself that he really could be a functional adult and he didn’t need a crutch in life to get by. What had weathered away was rebuilt even slower, but little by little he was invited to spend more time at the house, doing everything from sharing dinners to marathoning series together. Eventually, he started to call it home again.

It wasn’t until Tai gave him permission to train Ruby that he truly felt forgiven though. He’d never taken anything so serious in his life as he did showing his niece how to be the extraordinary huntress he could already tell she would be.

Despite all his efforts though, he never stopped drinking, not really. He couldn’t manage to fully abolish the itch that would bite at his skin whenever the temptation would get to be too much. The most he accomplished was making sure his addition wasn’t the thing running the show anymore. But it was something. Something he could take a measure of pride in and hold onto.

His life was his again and he was going to make the most of it.

At 40, Qrow found himself waking up in a hospital and was hit once more with the realization he had fucked up.

~

Three problems made themselves immediately clear the moment he opened his eyes:

The headache beating across his skull was so terrible, taking a jackhammer to it would have been kinder.

The incessant beeping coming from somewhere in the general vicinity just needed to shut the hell up.

The soft whimpers of someone crying was simultaneously the least bothersome and the most terrible.

The last measure was magnified tenfold when he finally turned to see who it was.

“Ruby?” His tongue felt heavy and slurred, even though he knew he was anything but drunk right now.

She jerked, a startled gasp escaping her. She hurriedly wiped at her face. “Uncle, you’re awake!”

He glanced around the room, at the high-tech gizmos settled against the walls and the IV line going down into his wrist, and a sinking feeling started to settle in his gut as he pieced together where he was. “Why am I here? What happened?”

“When we got back, you were on the floor and you wouldn’t wake up. We thought you hit your head.” Ruby swallowed some, her lip trembling. “We weren’t even sure you were breathing and even when Jaune tried to heal you, you just started to-” Her voice caught and she looked away.

Something in him felt like it was breaking, seeing her cry like this. “Rubes, hey.” He tried to reach out for her, but she dodged his attempt, hurrying for the door.  

“I got to go tell the nurse your awake. He needs to check, things. I’ll be back in a second.” She couldn’t manage to even look at him as she slipped out the door.

It was more than a second, or even a few minutes, and Qrow didn’t have to wonder why. The image of Ruby, strong, surefire, almost unshakeable Ruby, probably holed up in a bathroom somewhere to compose herself because of him left a bad taste in his mouth and a guilt so heavy he was sure it’d crush him. (Gods, he wanted a drink.) The least he could do was try and look a bit more presentable by the time she got back and not like… not like he was dying. He struggled to sit up, but just a few inches sent a ripple of pain through his stomach and he swallowed down the instant nausea before he could throw up over himself. He laid still as much as possible, waiting out the agony until it passed.

Alright, bad idea.

He looked around, trying to think. Some beds came with remote-y things, right? It was Atlas tech but Argus was a close enough neighbor, maybe they’d imported.

He had just spotted a possible candidate to his plight, tucked away in the corner of a side table, when the door opened and in walked his niece and a young man in earth-toned scrubs. A gray and white banded tail curled around him as he approached the bedside.

“Mr. Branwen, it’s good to see you up. I’m Nurse Arma.” Qrow tried not to snort over how on the nose that name was. Unperturbed, the nurse continued, “Let’s sit you up, okay?”

Sure enough, the remote he had been eyeing was the right one, and the gears underneath it whirled, slowly lifted him into a sitting position. Qrow had to shut his eyes against another roil of pain – not just in his gut but all over, like he’d been zapped by a thousand volts of lightning dust.

A hand fell to his arm, pinching lightly. “Looks like you’re mostly hydrated again. How are you feeling?”

He glanced quickly to his niece, hidden in the far corner of the room and still refusing to look at him. “Well, ain’t the worst I’ve ever felt, if you can believe that.”

Arma chuckled, writing some things down on the chart he carried as he looked over one of the nearby machines. “Glad to see the alcohol poisoning didn’t destroy your sense of humor.”

“Wait, what?” The fact hit him like a train wreck. He’d been bad before, but he’d never… “That’s what happened to me?”

The smiles were gone, the other turning away from the IV bag to focus on him. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

Last night? A quick glance at the window told him that the sky was a soft, pale shade. He had grown so accustomed to reading it during his years when a clock and a calendar weren’t exactly common finds in a woodland camp, that he knew it was early morning. “I left one bar to go to another and then, I think there were some lights? That’s it.”

That was apparently not what the nurse wanted to hear as he frowned down at him, before glancing across the room. “Ruby, would you like me to tell him, or would you prefer to?”

She withdrew a little further in her corner, murmuring back, “You can. I can’t say it.”

“Alright.” Arma set his clipboard down on the side table, turning his full attention back to his patient. There was nothing about that piteous look that Qrow liked. “The story I was told is your nieces and her friends were out looking for one of your teammates that had gone missing.” Missing? Who had-? “During their search, one of them spotted you running into the street, right in front of a truck. Your niece here used her semblance to get you out of the way, but you were so intoxicated you couldn’t answer why you’d done it. You don’t remember that?”

Qrow could barely breathe. “I… N-No.” Had he been trying to…?

Oh gods, and Ruby and Yang had both witnessed it.

The armadillo Faunus only nodded and continued, like he wasn’t shaking up Qrow’s entire psyche. “One of them brought you back to the house, before going back out to continue her search, hoping you’d be able to just rest it off. But in the meantime, your blood alcohol concentration continued to rise, until it reached dangerous levels. That was when your teammate that was supposedly missing returned to the house, and he found you lying on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive. He called the rest of your team to notify them of the emergency, and they all rushed back home. One of your other teammates tried to use his semblance to heal you. He didn’t think that it wouldn’t work for a non-physical wound.”

He braced himself as he braved asking, “So, what happened?”

“If I had to guess? His semblance probably jumped your BAC into the highest peak possible.” The man held out his hands like a consolation even as he delivered the blow, “You had a seizure. Two, in fact. One there, and one shortly after you were admitted to ER. During the first one, you bit through your tongue enough that we had to stitch it.” Well, that explained why talking hurt. “The one here was much more severe. You would have asphyxiated on your own vomit had you not have had anyone to clear your airways. After that, the doctor ordered a catheter to clear some of the fluid in your bladder and an IV for the dehydration. We’ve been monitoring your progress overnight. Thankfully, no other complications came up; but, as you can imagine, it was a pretty scary experience. For everyone involved.”

Qrow couldn’t look up anymore, and instead stared down at his trembling hands, feeling the shame and humiliation tangling its way through him. “Yeah…”

He heard a sigh, Arma picking back up the clipboard. “You’re very lucky, Mr. Branwen. Had they been even an hour later, you probably wouldn’t be here anymore.” He stepped towards the doorway, saying as he went. “The doctor will come check on you in a bit and release you once she’s confirmed you’re well enough.”

With him gone, the following silence was almost suffocating. It felt like it took everything it had in him to speak up. “So uh, hey kiddo, what say we order some hospital food and complain about how awful it is?”

No answer.

“Or, maybe a game? I’m sure my Scroll’s somewhere.”

He saw her jaw twitch but her eyes remained stubbornly focused on the window.

His hands curled into the sheets. “Ruby. Say something. Please.”

“You want me to say something?” She said, turning, a storm in her gaze. “Okay. I’ll say something.” She stomped towards him, stopping at the end of his bed and yelled, “Do you know how mad I am at you?!”

“I-”

“No! Shut up!” She cut her hands through the air, her voice rising another octave, enough to make him flinch. “Do you have any idea what it was like, coming back to you just lying on the floor like that? I’ve never been so terrified as I was sitting out in that waiting room, wondering if you were even gonna make it!” She hitched over another breath, tears flowing anew. “What was I gonna do if you died, huh?! What was I gonna tell dad? That his best friend was just too STUPID to control himself? And Yang’s so upset with you, she won’t even come in here!” She lifted her arms up to the ceiling as if to curse the heavens, “I don’t even know I feel! I’m hurt and sad and, and- I just want to shove Crescent Rose through your head!”

As quickly as it was there, the bluster blew out of her, and as her arms fell and her body slumped, Ruby looked almost small again, in a way that made Qrow remember the innocent, little girl who so looked up to him for so many years. Looked at him like her idol and hero and who would go around school telling anyone who would listen about how her uncle was just the best and she was going to be just like him. Who would bounce at the end of his bed, bright-eyed and begging him to tell her another story about his missions or who would don her blanket like a cape and go running down the halls, fighting off imaginary foes.

And in her visage now, he could see that vision of him shattering around her. It pained him, to realize he’d caused it. He never meant to fail her too.

Ruby sniffled, saying to the tiles, “I know what Professor Ozpin did hurt you, Uncle, and it’s been real hard for you. But you were wrong about something.” She looked up, catching his gaze and holding it in a way she couldn’t before. “You said no one wanted you, but that’s not true. I will always want you to be a part of my life.” The words struck him in the chest, and he couldn’t breathe again. “If dad and Yang were here, they’d say the same. I know you think you’re unimportant and unneeded, and I think you focus so hard on that you can’t always see it, but you are family. And us losing you will break it more than you think it will.”

Qrow twisted the sheets in his hands. “Ruby, I-” His voice faltered. Fuck.

“I just…” She lowered her head. “I don’t know what else to do, uncle. What am I doing wrong?”

His eyes widened.

“If I could just figure out how to-”

“Stop.” Though his voice had been firm he barely felt steady, everything around him ready to upheave. He watched the way his knuckles turned white, the way his arms trembled. The way a single droplet fell from his chin, splotching a wet spot into the sheets. “Look. I know you want me to say I’ll just quit and everything will just be fine. But, I’ve been trying for years. I… don’t know how. To stop.” He chuckled bitterly, hitching over a sob. He couldn’t remember the last time things hurt this bad. “It’s like my semblance. I don’t want it, but I can’t get rid of it, either.” In the corner of his eye, he could see the blur of red growing closer. “But none of this is your fault, kiddo. All this? Being here today? It’s on me and me only. You, Yang, Tai?” He finally looked up at her. “You guys aren’t the reason I fail. You’re the reason I try at all.”

This time, when she hugged him, he didn’t try to pull away like he had at the farm. Instead, he sighed and sunk into it, enjoying the rare warmth and comfort it brought, even if he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“Uncle Qrow?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Qrow blinked his eyes open, staring at the silver rose-patterned emblem pinned to Ruby’s coat, seeing his reflection in it. He smiled weakly back at it. “Yeah kiddo, love ya too.”

~

Qrow stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting the last button to his dress shirt. “Gotta say, my normal clothes are definitely more comfortable than that scratchy gown y’all threw me in.”

“I’ll lodge a complaint with the fashion department, just for you.” Arma quipped, placing a tray on the side table, nodding to it. “Your personal artifacts.”

“Thanks.” He still felt sore and his tongue was a definite mess – he’d decided to take a look at it the moment he had access to a mirror – but after a small meal and enough water to fill a lake, his nausea and his headache had both tempered. Enough for the doc to clear him for release.

“Take care, Mr. Branwen.” Arma headed for the exit but as he reached the threshold, he paused, looking back. “And… for your sake, I hope I don’t see you back here.”

“Yeah, me nether kid.”

Once he’d left, Qrow crossed over to the table, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He pocked his scroll. Slowly slipped back on his bracelets. Then his rings. And, finally, his necklace. All the while avoiding the largest item there until it was all that was left.  

He sighed, reaching out and picking up the flask, hearing the slosh as he did. It triggered the itch, the one that left his skin tingling, his mouth watering.

If drinking two glasses of the strongest alcohol in the world was only in the top five worst things he’d ever done, he was pretty sure him undoing the cap of his flask was vying for the number one slot.

“You’re such an idiot.” He whispered as he lifted it.

~

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, following the signs down the hall to the lobby. It wasn’t hard to spot Ruby, between her standout clothing and her high-pitched voice shouting his name as she waved him over.

“Gee, glad the whole cavalry didn’t come running.” Qrow jibed.

She shoved him for it. “They’re outside. The staff doesn’t like a lot of us, uh, ‘weapons-toting kids’ hanging around.”

“Well, at least we’re already here when firecracker decides to deck me right back through the front door.”

“Uncle…” She reprimanded as she turned for the exit.

He followed after her. “Bet you five lien she does it.”

“That’s awful!” A beat, then Ruby smirked. “How about a box of chocolate-chip cookies instead?”

“Deal.” He chuckled, throwing an arm across her shoulders as they walked through the doorway.

~

Back in room 104, it wouldn’t be discovered until the orderly finished cleaning up the room.

Left upturned in the sink just outside of the bathroom was single item.

A metal flask, the last droplet of alcohol having drained out of it some time ago.

[arse-blathanna]

The Bones of a God - 44/50

Chapter 44: Headshot

[Ao3] [FFN] [Fic Tag]

Fic Summary: Once upon a time, monsters roamed the entire world, so plentiful that they needed countless numbers to fight them off. 13 years ago, that changed. Grimm died off suddenly and stopped proliferating. Now the few Creatures of Grimm that are left are too large and powerful to be taken down in "the old ways."

That doesn't make them any less of a threat.

The real problem comes when people decide it's for the best that they start picking sides in a war starting anew.

Word Count: 4,775

Chapter Summary: RWBY, JNPR, Oobleck, and others face off against the giant grimm.

Author's Notes:  IRL stuff happened and I haven't been able to get an update in for a while. Sorry for the wait, I know it was a long one. I'm hoping to have this fic finished posting by the end of 2018.Thank you all for reading!

One of the first and most quickly understood things about their current predicament was that should things go wrong, there would be no chance for any of them to run

With the behemoth of a monster coming, and with the length of its legs, the relative distance between them and the monster wasn't all that much. How much time they had before it was on top of them, Ruby couldn’t guess. The eight man team had all but scattered to the trees, many of them hoping to try and find a good place to sit and wait, while Oobleck stood by the spawning pool, steady and resolute.

[Read it on Ao3] [Read it on FFN]

In Ruby’s case, she sat up in one of the tallest trees that she'd been able to. She wasn't the only one there, because Weiss had decided to perch just below where she had. Ruby had the higher ground, which was better because she could snipe with Crescent Rose, but having Weiss close was a comfort of sorts in itself.

For several minutes, she and Weiss had decided to trade strategies in the hopes of finding the perfect way to combat the grimm. Ruby wished that they could have gotten those ideas to the others quickly, but it didn’t feel like they had the time to do so.

No matter what, the grimm was coming. Leaving their posts was dangerous.

It was getting closer and closer. Ruby could hear the grimm crashing through the trees, stomp after stomp, after heavy stomp.

As it approached, there were the sounds of gunshots and shouting getting closer and closer which came along with the sounds of the grimm’s footfalls. They were the sounds of hunters, barking orders at each other and trying to coordinate whatever attacks they could in the hopes of slowing the beast down before it could do too much damage.

There were three hunters that Ruby could see, leaving streaks of color behind them as they moved and struck. Their voices were mostly familiar.

The first two voices Ruby recognized as being her father and Qrow's. Her heart beat harder and harder and harder as they got closer because her family was out there, and they were in trouble.

The third voice was a woman's, too volatile and vicious. Wholly unfamiliar.

"Students!" Oobleck shouted, lowering himself down into position to move. "When it begins to breach the clearing, open fire!"

The grimm's face was right there, hundreds of feet in the air and staring them down. Ruby looked up at it with her eyes wide open.

In truth, Ruby had never realized just how terrifying that specific grimm was since she’d been viewing it almost exclusively from a distance. Its fur was black and hung off of its frame like tattered carpet, shaggy and dark, swaying and hanging like seaweed. The eyes, bright red with burning gold pupils, bone-white teeth raising from its mouth and its snout protruding in a permanent snarl.

Ruby swallowed hard and braced herself among the treetops that she had decided to make herself at home in. She had Crescent Rose, and she had Weiss, and their friends were still there, preparing the same way that the two of them were.

Ruby could trust Weiss, but she couldn’t trust that she could only rely on Weiss in such a large battle.

"Weiss-" Ruby whispered to her partner. "Set up a glyph. I have an idea."

Weiss looked up at her, looking just as exhausted and unsure as Ruby felt. She nodded and held out her sword, still keeping herself well grounded up in the treetops. "Where do you want it?"

"In front of my rifle." Ruby said, blinking up at Weiss. "If you can get it so that when I fire the Dust will-"

"Got it." Weiss replied, her brow furrowing down into a deathly serious expression. It took only a single swing of her sword. Sure enough the glyph appeared there in front of Ruby's gun, spinning slowly in soft white auric light. Ruby swallowed and put her finger on the trigger. All that she needed was for the attack to work. If it worked, then she had absolutely no idea what was going to come next, but it would have been something.

What came next would  probably depend largely upon what their teammates did. Ruby was sure that she wasn't going to be the only one getting ready to fight immediately. In fact, when she looked over to the tree where Nora was sitting and Ren was at the ground, hand pressed to both the tree and to the ground, she saw that Nora was already prepared to fire herself.

"Are you ready?" Weiss asked, sounding just as afraid.

"Yeah." Ruby whispered back, jolting slightly at the sound of a spray of bullets that went off. "I think so."

"It's here." Oobleck shouted into the clearing behind him. "Students, you may need to hit it with everything you've got."

"Right!" Ruby shouted back before pulling the trigger and watching as a bullet went through the glyph and turned into a bolt of bright icy white and blue.

Ruby watched as her and Weiss' combined work flew through the air and struck the giant grimm's right leg. It bloomed into a formation of ice that twisted into something that almost looked like a flower. The monster let out a roar, and Ruby did what she could to stay still and prepare to do more.

"Hold it!" Ruby called down to Weiss, who just nodded, still primed for something else. She fired three more shots, all of which flew out and created more blooms of ice onto the beast's leg. At the very least it was going to be able to slow it down, not that Ruby thought that it was going to last all that long. Dust created effects didn’t always last as long as the real thing did.

A barrage of grenades with pink streams of smoke came out of the trees from where Nora was, falling into the shape of a giant heart that hit the beast in the chest. It roared and staggered back for a moment, and Ruby felt her heart beating harder and harder in her chest.

For the first time, the realization of just how dangerous this was going to end up being. If they made the beast fall in the wrong direction, then it was too likely that someone was going to get hurt- if it went really wrong, then it would fall in the direction of Vale itself.

"Nora!" Jaune shouted, leaping down from a tree and landing on the ground below it before sprinting to Ren's side. He reached out and placed a hand on Ren's shoulder and looked up into the tree. "Get ready to do that again!"

"Got it!" Nora shouted back, clearly already in the process of reloading.

Oobleck held his head up high like he was looking out for someone. Out in the distance, Ruby saw a flash of gold, small and strong. It struck into the beast before launching back out, and she could see a streak of red- Qrow's cape flying through the air and trying to strike into the monster's shoulder.

There was a streak of red that Ruby couldn't identify that disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.

"What do we do?" Ruby shouted down to Oobleck, since she wasn't sure that what they were doing was working that well.

"It is hard to say." Oobleck said, swinging his weapon to send a torrent of fire towards the grimm. Weiss reacted, holding her head up high and her eyes widening.

She looked back over her shoulder at Ruby. "Can you keep doing what you're doing?"

"Not without you!" Ruby cried, gripping on tight to Crescent Rose. Weiss sighed and nodded for Ruby to come down with her before leaping down and sprinting towards Oobleck. Ruby activated her semblance and flew after.

Out of the trees came Blake and Yang as well, but the two of them didn't seem to be too sure about what they could actually do.

"I have an idea." Weiss said, her voice and her expression both deadly serious. "You have a flamethrower."

"I do." Oobleck replied, raising an eyebrow. "It would do to tell everyone else what your idea is though, Miss Schnee."

Weiss held her sword out and turned the revolving chamber until there was a cartridge of light green Dust selected. "I have Wind Dust." Weiss said, seriously. "If you can fire through my glyph-"

"What about the rest of us?" Yang asked, already nervous but not quite angry just yet. "Because I can't do anything without getting close.”

"You would not be the only one with that problem, Miss Xiao Long." Doctor Oobleck said almost too calmly, like that would be able to fix all of their problems. "You may not be well suited for such high-flying feats as are happening. However, it may be beneficial to wait."

"Wait." Yang repeated, and Ruby felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. It only took a moment before Yang was looking over at Weiss directly, clearly interested in seeing what she could do. "Do you think that you could try and launch me in?"

Weiss blinked, like she wasn’t sure that she actually had all that much to offer to the battle. Almost like she had a limited arsenal of Dust and only so many chances to use each type before she ran out. Or perhaps she was worried about how volatile Dust could be. Either way, Ruby didn’t know what was going on in her partner’s head.

"I have an idea." Ruby said, smirking. "What if we-" She turned to look back at the grimm that looming there far too close to them. "What if we do the fire first and then try to launch the rest of us in?"

Blake shrugged, and she looked down at her weapon. All at once, Ruby watched her expression change and her eyes widen in understanding. "If you can get me in there, I think that I might be able to cling on."

"You're sure?" Yang asked, locking her eyes with Blake's now. "That sounds pretty risky."

"It gets us in there, doesn't it?"

Ruby hesitated and looked over at Weiss, hopeful that Weiss would say something to her that would actually be useful to the team. There was a moment worth of hesitation before Weiss spoke up, giving what she can.

"You guys don't realize-" She started, sounding unsure of herself. "I can't use my semblance as much as you might think. I can try and get the rest of you in, but-"

"But if you do then we might not have as much to work with later?" Yang asked, her brow furrowing. "What do you think your limit would be?"

Weiss took a deep breath, looking back down at Myrtenaster. "I can maintain a few more glyphs to fire through, and maybe a few launching pads. But beyond that I'm not so sure. I want to be able to catch you if I need to."

"We'll figure it out." Ruby said, forcing on a smile and standing up tall. "I think that we should do your plan first though."

Weiss nodded before looking back to Oobleck. The professor fell into a combat stance, his weapon at his side and prepared to be used. "I would recommend that you prepare for what is to come, MIss Schnee."

"Right." Weiss said, keeping her voice steady. The glyph appeared, turning slowly and she looked back over at Oobleck. "I'm ready."

"Miss Rose-" Oobleck said. "I think that it may be beneficial for you to join into this as well."

"Got it." Ruby slipped into the space beside Weiss and let Crescent Rose rest there, blade resting against the ground so that she can use it to maintain balance. She waited quietly for a sign that it was time to move, and when Oobleck sent the first ball of flames through the glyph, which launched forward much faster than Ruby had been expecting.

Maybe if she was smart about this-

When Oobleck acted again, Ruby fired, and she watched as the bullet met with flame before launching forward much faster than anything else that had been able to. Weiss stood there, solid and strong.

"Blake!" Yang shouted off to the side. "C'mon, let's go!"

The two of them began to sprint at the grimm, making sure to put some space between them and the many projectiles that were heading towards the Grimm for their own sakes.

Ruby made sure to take care to not end up shooting her teammates, and looked over at Weiss. "We should join them."

"Are you sure?" Weiss asked, sounding more than just a little bit unsure of that plan. "Because that sounds like it could seriously backfire on us."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as JNPR fell into formation, moving as a team with Pyrrha and Ren taking the lead. That was what they needed to do, and that was something that Ruby definitely believed. "They're going to need us."

"But what about-"

"You two should go and fight alongside your teammates." Oobleck said, with eerie calm. "I would not blame you."

Weiss nodded and looked over at Ruby, and that was all that they needed before they were up there at the front of the charge, not far behind Yang and Blake. Even with them running towards the fight, Ruby could hear Blake and Yang shouting strategies to each other, both looking for possibilities for what they were meant to do.

They caught up.

"Yang!" Ruby called to her sister, who just let their eyes lock. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Sure am!" Yang answered, sounding too confident and too ready. Not far off in the distance was one of the feet of the grimm. All that they had to do was get there, and then after that-

Ruby was sure that they might be able to at least manage to get something done. That didn't seem like it would have been too ambitious.

Before they could get any closer, a blur of gold crashed down in front of them, its owner landing on his feet with gritted teeth and looking a little bit banged up. He stood up tall and looked back at the rest of them over his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?"

"We're here to fight, dad." Yang responded, her eyes sparking up in bright red for a moment. "And we can't really do that unless you let us."

He seemed to hesitate a moment, looking back to the beast. Ruby had to wonder just how long he'd been facing off against the grimm himself, and she had to wonder even more whether or not she wanted to know the answer to that question. But Ruby watched him take in a deep breath.

"Alright." He muttered. "But you four better try and keep safe."

"That's the plan." Ruby smiled up at her father, hopeful that she would see some sign that he was relaxing, but instead saw nothing. He stood there more stony faced than she had ever seen him. Taiyang shook his head and braced himself against the ground, readying for a mighty leap.

"You four have to promise me one thing-" Taiyang grumbled, his head tilted down in something close to anger. "If someone tells you to get out of the way, you are going to do it. No ifs or buts about it, got it?"

"Got it." Yang muttered, and Ruby watched her take a step forward and drop into a fighting stance, similar to their fathers, hands held up in front of her and ready for a fistfight, square and low to the ground.

"That's all I can hope for." Tai muttered before throwing himself into the air, and Yang launched herself not far after him, using Ember Celica to propel herself forward, faster, and faster.

"Blake-" Ruby looked over at her teammate, an idea already going through her head. "Do you think that you could get all three of us up there?"

Blake blinked and her brow furrowed, deep in concentration. "You two will have to help me."

Weiss smiled softly. "I think we can do that."

Ruby looked down at the ground under her feet. She thought that she could do something to be useful, at the very least she could believe in her semblance. It would probably require for her to put a lot of energy into one burst of speed, but she could manage it.

Sure enough, a glyph appeared underneath the two of them, and Weiss stood back away from it.

“Weiss?” Ruby asked, looking back at her teammate.

Weiss took a breath. “I don’t know how much use I can be up close like this.”

“You should come with us anyways.” Blake suggested, changing the form on her weapon. She weighed it in her hands before locking eyes with Weiss. “But there might be a better way to do this.”

“Like?”

Ruby’s eyes widened when she got the idea.

“Do you guys think we can pull off a slingshot?’

“A slingshot?” Weiss responded, her brow furrowing. “You can’t be serious.”

“It could work!”

"It would be easier with a fourth person here." Blake stated with a sigh, testing the strength of her ribbon. "But I think Ruby might be onto something."

"And us?"

"We can figure it out."

Ruby looked between the two of them and watched as Weiss relented. She flicked her fingers, and the glyph moved so that it was lying vertically as opposed to horizontally.

Blake passed the ribbon off to her, and Ruby wrapped it around her waist, but not all the way. Blake took a breath and walked forward, as far as she could manage while putting the space between the two of them.

Weiss thought and Ruby saw a second glyph appear on the ribbon, tugging it away from her while still being behind her back. It was pulled taut, and with that, Ruby knew that it was going to be time. Blake and Weiss were going to be able to get involved for themselves, but for the moment, this was going to be about her.

In one motion, Ruby swang her weapon behind her. She could use the recoil to help push her along, that was all that needed to happen. "I'm ready."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Weiss answered, and Ruby felt herself get pulled back against the glyph, further and further back as the ribbon pulled tighter and tighter. When she saw Blake beginning to slide against the ground just slightly, that was when she was going to be able to do this.

"I am."

"Alright." Weiss breathed.

"Now!"

The glyph released, and Ruby realized for the first time just how much she had thrown herself into in that one motion. She hadn't thought about just how strong Weiss' Dust manipulation could actually be, and so when she was up in the air, Ruby threw herself into her semblance and felt the whirl of rose petals beginning to fly and cyclone around her as she moved towards the grimm.

In the air, Ruby flew higher, higher, higher.

She could feel her heart pounding hard in her chest, and the sound of her own blood was rushing in her ears.

For just a moment, Ruby could have sworn that she'd locked eyes with the grimm, and she had thought that she had seen something that was not truly there. Something terrifying and unimaginable.

It was a feeling that didn’t last. Just as soon as it had been there it was gone, but it left Ruby with a strange throbbing feeling behind her eyes that she didn’t know she was going to be able to ignore that easily. Not when she was meant to be in combat. She fired Crescent Rose twice to change her direction and flew towards the grimm’s shoulder.

When Ruby landed there, she wasn’t surprised at all to find that it felt unsteady, as large and wide as the space was. She ended up stabbing the sharpened tip of Crescent Rose into it so that she could at least hold onto herself there. It was something that could at least stop her from falling.

Whatever her teammates were doing down below, Ruby didn’t know.

At the very least, she had a vantage point that she could use. It was a little bit higher up than she had realized, but it wasn’t as though Ruby couldn’t deal with it. Getting down was going to be a problem soon, but not for now.

A bird flew by followed quickly by a second one, both flying off in different directions.

Ruby watched for a second before thinking that she needed to come up with some sort of plan now that she was so high up in the air. She could try to hit it with bullets, since that was about the only thing she could really risk without running the possibility that she would fall and-

If she fell, Ruby couldn't be sure that her aura would be able to hold up through all of it.

As carefully as Ruby possibly could, she lowered herself down until she had three points of contact with the grimm's shoulder. The fur underneath her was a little bit looser than Ruby had thought, and slick almost like algae had formed there. Like the grimm had been wandering for eternities.

Even though Ruby knew that wasn't the case, it still seemed as such.

"Ruby!" Her uncle's voice broke through the buzzing in her head. "What do you think you're-"

"Fighting!" Ruby replied, angling herself and Crescent Rose. She aimed at the grimm's eye, wide and red and angry as it was. She didn't know that this was something that she would actually be able to pull off, but-

Ruby pulled the trigger, and felt the entire grimm's body lurch below her. She didn't know what that had come from, but on the other side, she could see Qrow resting on the Grimm's left shoulder. He was trying to catch his breath, but at least seemed to have the same idea as she did about what they were doing.

"That isn't going to do anything!" Qrow shouted to her, maintaining his balance with a bit more ease before shooting a torrent of shotgun shells at the Grimm's face. "All you're doing is annoying it!"

"Then what can I do?" Ruby shouted back. Qrow shook his head before launching himself up into the air so that he landed on the Grimm's head. He grabbed onto its fur with one hand before flinging himself over so that he was next to Ruby.

Qrow was a lot more beaten up than Ruby had thought.

"You need to keep a cool head." Qrow instructed through gritted teeth. "You get too risky up here, you hurt everyone else down there."

From where they were, everyone else and everything else looked like nothing more than slight blurs of color. They were too small, and too fragile. Ruby felt her eyes go wide at the realization because somehow she hadn't thought about that so much once she'd gotten up there. "I understand."

"You're better off down there with them." Qrow grunted, looking up to the skies again, his eyes tracking something. "But since you're already up here we might as well use it."

"So we should-"

"Try and land a hit in the eye, and work your way down. I know you can use recoil to move, so do that."

Ruby nodded and allowed herself to lift up Crescent Rose so that she could actually move. If she was going to have to move, then it was better that she didn't say grounded like she was. "You're sure this will work?"

"Sure am, kid."

Ruby dug her heels into the loose fur of the grimm and launched herself upwards, letting her semblance carry her higher and faster than she would have gone otherwise. Ruby aimed herself at the grimm's face, holding Crescent Rose behind her and pulling the trigger that would be enough to start the transformation sequence between the regular scythe and a war scythe.

With the blade straightened, Ruby knew that the weapon was going to be much more unwieldy, but it would be better for stabbing.

Ruby brought herself in dangerously close to the monster's face and aimed at the grimm, giving herself one final push to launch into it's right eye, stabbing into it.

Around her weapon, it began to smoke and the grimm let out a loud roar that was close to deafening.

She didn't have time. The grimm's mouth was wide and open, and the danger was clear. Ruby fired a gunshot and let the recoil carry her, changing the weapon back into a normal scythe was she fell down, down down, towards the ground.

As Ruby got closer and closer to the ground, she began to use Crescent Rose to control her decent before using her semblance to get her down to the ground in a flurry of red petals.

Where she landed, Ruby couldn’t catch sight of her teammates. Blake, Weiss, and Yang had to be somewhere-

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sounds of the various members of team JNPR shouting. Ruby looked to the grimm and sprinted to them because if she didn’t know where her teammates were, going out rogue to try and find them would probably only cause trouble.

Ruby skidded to a stop beside Jaune.

“Ruby!” He shouted, sounding a little bit panicked. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah.” She stood a little bit shakily, wishing that she knew where everyone else was for the moment. “Where are my teammates?”

“They’re on the other side.” Jaune explained, blinking. “Going after the legs.”

“Got it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby caught the sight of Pyrrha and Nora setting up for something big. Ren was with them, placing his hands on the two of them. Whatever he was saying, he was managing to keep his voice down.

“C’mon.” Jaune smiled at her and nodded towards his teammates. “We could probably use you.”

Ruby nodded and trotted after Jaune until she met with the others.

Pyrrha looked over at her and smiled. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Ruby confirmed, feeling rather awkward. “What are you doing?”

“Setting up for a big hit.” Nora explained, grinning too wide.

“You should get involved.” Pyrrha said, looking over at Nora. “I think that between the two of you-”

“Got it!” Ruby fell into place beside Nora and smiled when Ren gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder the same way that he had everyone else. She felt the calm that rushed over her, and looked up at the grimm. There was still smoke rushing out of its eye, from the damage that she had done.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't going to be enough.

"You two should work together." Jaune said, looking from Nora to Ruby. "If you can get you two there, then you'll get the big hit on the leg, and Pyrrha will reel you back in."

Pyrrha nodded, her eyes widening for a second as she threw her shield up into the air, trying to knock away a bit of rubble that had been going their way. When it came back she positioned herself at their front, with Jaune coming up on her side to do the same.

"You two need to hold onto your weapons tight." Pyrrha said, her voice eerily calm. "When you're back, we'll make more plans, but for now this is the best idea we have."

"What about everyone else?" Ruby asked, remembering what her uncle had just told her. "Because-"

"It shouldn't be enough to make it go down." Nora said. "I mean, I'm not charged up all the way, and you seem like you've done a lot too."

"Nora is right." Pyrrha said calmly. "But for now we all need to keep our heads together, and we need to be ready to do this."

"Got it."

Ruby dug her heels into the ground, and she and Nora wrapped their arms around each other. She just needed to get them moving. Nora seemed ready to help, if the way that she was angling Magnhild was any indication. With one strong push, Ruby launched the two of them into the air and held onto Nora as hard as she could.

They just needed to get to the kneecap. That was all that they needed.

[freegrain]

Fated : Hunted Ch4

{Freezerburn- Yang x Weiss}

The two Demon-Hunters, Weiss Schnee and Yang Xiao Long, are the greatest of their time. But when they're hired to hunt down a duo names 'Ladybug' their skills are put to the test.

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Part Two of the Fated Series.

Read on AO3 or FF.net.

_______________________________________

Yang could feel Weiss' arms around her as they drove out of town. The wind whistled past them, her motorbike helmet protecting her from its chill. The road was pretty quiet, only a few odd cars drifting by. The sun was out and shining, though it wasn't warm.

They were heading out to the woods that surrounded the Torchwick estate. After reports that the culprits had fled into them, they both reasoned that there would be the easiest place to catch a trail.

From the reports of their friend Pyrrha in the police force, Blake Belladonna had never been back to her family home. And since the demon didn't have any human property this meant that the duo had to be hiding out somewhere in nature.

How far from estate they'd fled Yang wasn't sure. Airborne demons were a lot harder to track than those without wings but the surrounding trees with high arching branches gave them a little bit of hope. Scents captured on the leaves from the brush of a wing or low flyer would lead them to their prey.

Yang pulled up at the side of the road, barely down the way from the entrance to the Torchwick estate. The place was even quieter than it had been yesterday, hardly a person in sight.

Usually the place, being a centre of business for certain people, hummed with life and car passing through almost every hour. But now the skeleton force manned the walls and no people entered through the gates.

It was gloomy and dull, a stage of mourning for the estate.

Yang slipped off the bike and removed her helmet. The air was light, breezy to the point of chilly. Which would be useful for scent tracking if they managed to find a trail. Keyword was if.

Weiss jumped off behind her, exhaling gently. Her partner smoothed out her skirts and glanced upwards, scanning the sky around them. There weren't much clouds and the sun gleamed down at them. It was truly a fine day to go hunting.

Yang pulled her gauntlets from the saddlebags, sliding her hands into her favourite weapons. They'd been modelled just for her and fit skin tight but comfortably. She clenched a fist and grinned.

"You ready to move, Snowflake?"

Weiss clipped her sword to her belt. Weiss was a fencing master. She'd once fought in the national championships and come out having won it but completely bored. Yang had never met anyone that seemed close to her skill. Besides fencing, Weiss was also physically adept with a few martial arts under her belt.

Yang herself was highly trained in several martial arts, ranging from uses in street fighting to fighting a dozen armed opponents at a time. So she wasn't a slack herself. She could keep up with Weiss no bother.

Weiss slid her 'glyph glove' on. An unofficial Schnee product that allowed her to create these glyphs to aid her in battle. Her partner nodded. "Let's move."

The two entered the forest, a silence settling over them. They were looking for tracks, a trail, something that would give them a clue where they'd find their prey.

But if the demon had wings, trails on land would be few and far between. Still they searched.

The woods were quiet around here, only a few animals or birds hopping around. Which was quite useful for them because they could listen for any unnatural noises. After a few minutes the two split off, heading for different areas. While Weiss stayed on the ground, Yang started to climb the trees. Up and up she climbed until she could no more.

From here she could see the extent of the whole forest and how far it stretched from end to end. The distant mountains marked the end and the many miles between could be hiding them anywhere.

She exhaled. This was going to be a long day.

She jumped from tree to tree, circling around the edge of the mansion. Something. She took a deep breath. Years of hunting had trained her nose to recognise scents that were out of the ordinary. Once found, the upgrades to her weapon would let her track it to their prey. But no matter where she ran, all she got was the damp scent of leaves and nature.

An hour passed and then a second before Yang's eyes spotted something. She almost missed it as she turned to jump into another tree.

Heading north towards the mountain was a dark shape. A winged creature. From this distance she could make out any details except that they were flying and at a high speed as well. She frowned. Were those… rose petals falling behind them? Red against the dark colour of the wings, falling like a light rain down into the woods.

There they were. Ladybug. Black and red.

Yang curled her hand into a fist. What were the odds. To set off on a hunt only to have them fall straight into your lap? These two, despite their apparent talent at fighting, were not good at hiding.

"Weiss! Weiss!"

It took a few seconds but her partner joined her on her branch. She opened her mouth to ask what was the matter but then saw where her eyes were angled. Weiss closed her mouth.

"It's them…." she breathed. "Ladybug…."

Already the excited gleam Weiss got in her eyes was burning. Yang could understand. The thrill, the burn, the tsunami of emotion you got from the chase, it was life changing.

Yang flexed her arm, feeling her blood starting to thrum. "Up and at 'em," she grinned.

Weiss drew her sword and leapt up so her feet were balanced on Yang's forearm. Yang planted her foot down, lowering her arm to get ready to throw.

This was their technique for catching the ones that run. Demons were naturally faster and trying to reach them on foot was near impossible. So Yang, using the power focused in her gauntlets, would hurl Weiss ahead to intercept them while she ran to catch up.

It worked every time they used it.

"Be careful Snowflake?" Yang warned.

Weiss gave her a smile. "Naturally."

And Yang flung her into the air, a high arching throw. She should have started running there but she paused, waiting to see what would happen.

Her aim was nearly perfect as always, Weiss heading straight for them. Midair her partner spun, a glyph shimmering at her feet. Weiss leapt and slashed. The demon's screech was audible from where Yang stood and she knew she had to move. Weiss and the demon fell from the sky into the forest and Yang started to run.

~•~•~•~

Suddenly there was a hot pain right across her shoulder and Ruby screamed. Blake was screaming something too but she couldn't hear it. Feet thudded against her lower back before pushing off again. Ruby plummeted through the tree, wings curling around Blake in an attempt to protect. Down and down, crack after crack. Branches snapped against her body like whips. Until they hit the ground.

Ruby hit the ground in a roll, her shoulder screeching with pain from the impact. They rolled until they hit a tree and Ruby let out a shuddering gasp. Blake had wriggled out of her grasp and was hovering over her, hands touching her face frantically. Her mouth was moving but she could barely hear it. Fuck. Fuck.

A person landed gracefully behind her.

Blake spun around productively, ears flattening against her head. Ruby's chest rose and fell and she crawled onto her front. Her wings rustled on her back, pain flaring up from that tiny movement. Whoever had struck her had struck in her a way that would make it utter hell to fly before healing. They'd grounded her.

"Ladybug, I assume," the girl said, her sword pointing towards the ground. She had long white hair and wore all white, save the slight red around her collar.

Her long thin sword dripped with Ruby's blood.

"Must say," the girl drawled, taking a step forward. This earned her a hiss from Blake. "You both are quite disappointing. Killers of Roman Torchwick? I expected better."

"Weiss Schnee," Blake snarled, raising her weapon.

The girl didn't even react. "Yes. And you are Blake Belladonna. Care to introduce me to your friend? She has such pretty wings."

Ruby stood, placing a hand on Blake's shoulder. She could stand, she could fight. She just couldn't fly properly. She ran her tongue across her teeth, showing off the sharp ends. "Ruby Rose. Her fated."

Weiss took another step forward. "Oh yes, that would make sense. You demons and your fates. Wow. I'm almost impressed."

Ruby reached out a hand and summoned Crescent Rose. With her weapon in her hand she felt safer. Stronger. Weiss raised an eyebrow, giving her an approving nod.

"You good with that? Let's find out!"

Suddenly Weiss was coming at them, her sword slashing in an x. Ruby grabbed Blake and jumped out of the way, only managing to parry the next strike. A foot looped behind her and a slash cut her thigh. Ruby spun away.

By God that girl was fast, another strike slashing before she'd even landed. But Ruby's whole thing was speed. She gritted her teeth.

Ruby lunged in, scythe arching through the air in a rapid spin. Weiss blocked and jumped back, feet landing on the tree behind her. She powered off towards her and Ruby side stepped.

Weiss was back again, lunging in towards her chest. Ruby parried and fired off a round at her. She missed of course, the white haired girl spinning.

Suddenly something black shot by Weiss and the girl hissed. Blake followed her weapon. She kicked Weiss across the face and spun around again. Weiss had already scrambled away, putting distance between the two. She was bleeding from a gash on her shoulder. But she smiled coldly at them.

Ruby was debating trying to fly away at this point. It would hurt like hell but if she used her power to its full potential, they could run. Weiss was human. No matter what she tried she'd never be able to catch them.

Ruby spun Crescent Rose and Blake joined her side. They exchanged glances.

"Hey, did I miss much?" a cheery voice broke through the woods behind Weiss.

A tall, blonde woman appeared behind them, cracking her knuckles. Purple eyes gleamed at them with frightening amusement.

"Babe you're bleeding," she frowned.

Weiss shrugged her off. "It's nothing." Her icy gaze focused on the two of them.

"Yang. Yang Xiao Long," Blake hissed. "The final part of Freezerburn."

So these two were the famed Freezerburn. Maybe she could see why they were legendary. They'd only slain Torchwick yesterday and here they were, ready to bring them in for justice. Mad. It was mad.

Yang exhaled, her hands smoking. Those were her weapons Ruby realised. Her fists, enhanced and ready. She could only imagine how much it would hurt for her to get a hit from them.

"Time to get cracking."

Yang and Weiss both lunged at the same time. Ruby barely had to time to dodge Yang's first punch before another caught her at the side. The pure force of it sent her sprawling into a tree.

Blake let out a screech as Weiss darted for her. Ruby felt a slight throb in her chest, Blake's pain. Shit.

Ruby's vision was suddenly blocked by mane of hair and then fiery fists. Ruby was kept on her toes to keep Yang off her. The fight was vicious but very few injuries were actually caused.

Ruby swung and slashed, going to the next of her ability to take her down. But Yang matched her blow for blow, block for block. She seemed to predict her movements, shifting her attacks right in her oath each time. Ruby had barely any time to block, nevermind much counters.

But for some reason every time she hit Yang, the girl came back faster and stronger. Of course they traded the few scratches and broken skin but nothing major was done.

But the first blow, the one across Ruby's shoulder, was starting to ache and ache. If they were going to escape they'd need to do it soon. Blood was dripping down her shoulder, leaving a trail where she jumped.

"Must say," Yang panted, barely dodging Crescent Rose for the sixth time. "You're pretty good. Maybe inhumanly good."

Ruby's attention was elsewhere. Yang and Weiss had somehow managed to place themselves between her and Blake. This wasn't good. They couldn't stay here with them. They were too strong and quick.

Ruby leapt backwards, firing at Yang. The blonde paused in her advance, deflecting the bullets away. Blake. She needed to get to Blake. Her fated's eyes darted towards her and for the second they connected, a message passed between them.

Blake nodded. Ruby twisted her body and spread her wings. Pain flared across her body but she jumped away. Feet pressed against the tree and powered over Yang's head.

Weiss turned towards her, blue eyes narrowed and sword ready but Blake kicked her arm out of the way. Ruby landed next to her, Crescent Rose vanishing.

"Don't you dare!" Weiss snarled.

Blake grabbed hold of Ruby's arms, chest rising and falling. "Go."

Ruby leapt into the air, the strain on her wings only increasing. Up they went over the trees until they were hovering in open air.

To fly Ruby was going to need to use her semblance. She rarely used it at all because of the strain it put on her body. But if she didn't do it right now they'd both die. She exhaled, feeling it deep in her chest.

"Yang!" Weiss screeched.

Her partner was at her side in a flash. Ruby could feel her power growing in the pit of her stomach. Only a few seconds. Just a few more. Blake clung tighter to her. Ruby felt her power reach its strength and she spun in the air, aiming for the mountains. And she tore towards the mountains at record speed.

But the very second before she took off she felt a hand close around each of her ankles.

Ruby's strength started to vanish as she crested the mountain, speed decreasing dramatically. Blake's hands ran up to her face.

"Ruby, Ruby, slow down," her fated begged. "You're losing too much blood. Ruby! Ruby please!"

But she couldn't slow down. Those two, Freezerburn, were clinging to her. Even now they'd hadn't let go. If she slowed down they'd only be able to attack. She couldn't give them that chance.

She flew over the mountain and over the forest behind it. These trees were different, taller, pinier. How far could she go? Her legs were kicking, trying to shake Freezerburn from her legs. But their grips were like iron, not letting go.

But then the pain in her wing seized up and Ruby let out a scream. It was too much for her, trying to carry four people while injured. She just didn't have the strength.

And so she felt from the sky, vision darkening. She could briefly hear Blake screaming her name and then Freezerburn yelling some unholy words.

"Ruby! Ruby! Ruby!"

Ruby blacked out just before they all hit the ground.

______________________________________________

Read Ch2/Ch3/Ch4/Ch5/Ch6

[ruffsficstuffplace]

And The AWRD Goes To... (Part 4)

“I’m not sure if I believe the stories about the gods once coming down here from the sky like some kind of divine airport, but you better believe that Grimm chased us out of the Celestial Hills a long time ago, and we haven’t been able to reclaim it since,” Nick said as their ship soared through the air, clouds fogging up the view from the windows, the tops of the canopies and the peaks of trees zipping past just below the hull.

“Save for some ruins and a couple of unrecovered airship crashes, there’s no civilization out here—just trees, rocks, wild animals for miles on end, Grimm infesting the spaces in between. So you might be asking yourself: what the hell are we doing here for initiation?

“The answer?” Nick held up his cybernetic arm, a two-sided projection appeared before the students. “Relics. Pots, stone tablets, clay dolls, wood carvings, old scrolls, the paper and silk kind, you name it—all of them from just before the Great War and the ban on art, some of them we planted from the reserves of the Haven vault, but many more of them are still out there after all these years, waiting to be recovered and make some historian or art collector’s day.

“Your job today is to find and recover them, then take them to any of these extraction points—if it’s something small and durable like a clay pot, take it; if it’s a giant ass statue that hasn’t been tagged already, send us the coords; if it seems really fragile and really valuable like an old scroll, don’t stuff it in your backpack and send us the coords, please.

“Though it’s only IDEAL that you bring us back the artifacts exactly how you found them, we REALLY don’t want to have to put our historians to the painstaking work of reconstructing ancient scraps to see if it’s worth something and you haven’t just decided to pick up some trash and call it a day.

“Three pieces of advice for ya before I send you off, kiddos:

“One, team up and work together. Soon as you find someone else, don’t even stop to ask if they’re someone famous, or if you were from the same gang as you, or whatever other excuses you might make not to help someone. The only time us professional huntsmen and huntresses are coming for you is a couple of hours after dark, and that’s only to rescue you, recover your remains, or try to figure out what the hell happened to you out here.

“You’ve only got yourself and others to rely on in this forest, and trust me: to the Grimm, we’re ALL meals that just happen to fight back.

“Two, don’t get greedy. I’m sure a lot of you are thinking you can get an extra piece, sell of it off in the black market, maybe even skip the whole four years of training if you find something that seems particularly valuable. And I’m here to tell you: just don’t. Soon as you find something that seems worth taking back, take it back; more than the artifacts, we want to know if you’re capable of surviving out there on your own, complete a mission unsupervised.

“On a related note: a LOT of the price of black market relics is because of all the expeditions they have to send when the first couple of tries inevitably get eaten, killed, or robbed along the way.

“And Three: if you’re getting swarmed by Grimm, or you find out you aren’t as ready to be out in the wilds by yourself, retreat, and help everyone else that’s having second thoughts leave with you. An alive huntsman or huntress is much more valuable to the world than whatever any of those relics have in historical or monetary value, as money doesn’t mean shit when you’re fighting for your life against the Grimm.

“I’m sorry to say there won’t be a do-over until next year, but hey, look on the bright side: at least you’ll see tomorrow, when the guidance office helps you figure out what to do till then.” Nick shut off the projections. “We’re almost about to reach the drop-off point, any questions?”

A blonde boy who’d been looking nervous and antsy the whole flight raised his hand.

“What’s your name, kid?” Nick asked as he pointed at him.

“Jaune Arc, Professor Schnee.”

“Well what’s bugging you, Arc?”

“Where are we going to land, sir...?”

Nick laughed. “Oh, it’s not really a question of where we’re going to land so much as where you’re going to land.”

“… What do you mean about that, sir…?” Jaune asked.

Nick looked at his robotic wrist. “Eh, it’ll be better if you just wait and find out.”

“But we’re still really high up in the air… where are we going to disembark?” Jaune asked.

“You didn’t read up on the initiation, did you...?” Weiss asked.

“Why...? What’s gonna happen?” Jaune asked.

A few students faces started to fall in terror and realization, others like Sucy’s and a fiery redheaded girl started to brighten in sadistic amusement.

“Just let him find out, Weiss,” Nick said. “Any other questions?”

“But Professor Schnee--” Jaune said, trying to fight his seatbelts and stand up.

Nick cast him a mild glare that shut him up. “Like I was saying: questions, anyone?”

Sucy raised her hand. “If there’s a massive, suspicious movement of Grimm to this location, will you be sending staff in to investigate?”

“No, not unless those Grimm happen to be headed straight towards Mistral, Haven, or any of the nearby settlements,” Nick replied. “Best you all learn how to run for your lives when the situation is impossible to contain, and when a mission is best abandoned in favour of living to see another one.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask...?”

“Just curious,” Sucy said calmly.

Nick eyed her suspiciously, before he turned to the rest. “Any other questions?” When Jaune seemed to be the only one still raising his hand, Nick pointed at him. “Arc?”

“Sir, can I ask how exactly we’re supposed to get down?”

“Like I said, Arc: you’ll find out, in oh--” Nick looked at his prosthetic hand’s watch”--thirty seconds, give or take.”

“Can’t you just give me a hint, sir?” Jaune asked, rapidly growing frantic.

“No. The field is full of surprises, Jaune, you’d best get used to not knowing what’s coming next, and being able to adapt to it.”

“Even just a small clue, sir?”

A mechanical humming sound began to fill the cabin, coming from down below.

“You just got one,” Nick said as he walked up to the back of the pilot’s cabin, calmly strapped himself to the wall and grabbed a bolted-down handle nearby.

Ruby quietly squealed in excitement. “Ah, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes...”

“What’s coming?!” Jaune said as the sound of whistling, rushing air began to fill the cabin, a new cold draft came from below.

Nick sighed. “You know what, Arc? I’ll make an exception, and offer you all some advice: don’t scream, that’s like a dinner bell for the Grimm; and if you fall straight down, brace your head and land on your ass—speaking from personal experience, your aura, the branches, and the leaves down below are usually enough to break your fall.

“You’re shit out of luck if you hit a rock or drop into a ravine, though.”

Jaune was frantic now, raising his voice over the ever growing metallic groaning and the rushing wind. “Why would I be--?!”

His words stopped as he finally saw the bottom hatch split open in the middle, the canopy, the clouds, and the hills down below. A klaxon started to blare, orange flashing lights cutting across the cabin. “GET YOUR ASSES IN GEAR!” Nick yelled.

Those that had been resting their weapons in their laps or on the floor quickly picked them up and held them tight, if they weren’t already priming them for action.

“YOU CAN’T JUST SERIOUSLY--!” Jaune started to shout, before his seatbelts automatically undid themselves, the back of his seat pushed him forward, out of his chair, and down the hatch. Everyone still inside couldn’t help but watch and listen as crashed into the side of a hill, and started rolling down the side of it, screaming the whole time.

Nick looked back up at his students. “SOMEONE DO ME A FAVOUR AND CHECK UP ON HIM!”

Sucy went next. “I GOT HIM!” she said as she flew out, looking like a specter with the bottom of her coat and her long hair flapping above her and completely obscuring her legs.

Nick paused for a moment. “SOMEONE ELSE DO ME A FAVOUR AND CHECK UP ON HIM, TOO!”

“I GOT HIM!” a fiery, redheaded girl with rifle-sword cried as she went next, beating the piston in backseat by jumping out herself.

“WELP, THAT’S SETTLED, I GUESS! GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN, KIDDOS!” Nick cried as the deployments started getting faster and faster, till they were being blasted out one-after-the-other.

Weiss watched as Akko disappeared just as she was turning to her and asking who might be next, Yang fly out howling and hooting, Ruby screaming with glee until she hit some unfortunate bird that happened to be flying past, all the other students getting launched out of the ship until she happened to be the last one.

She turned to Nick. In the brief moment before everything was a blur, wind screaming past her, internal organs slowly falling upwards from gravity, she caught him smile at her and give her a thumbs up with his free hand.

And then, she was on her own.

Landing was the easy part. Glyphs with ice, temporary platforms just stable enough to hang in the air and support her weight as she jumped off, plotted and controlled her trajectory while slowing herself down at the same time. “It’s always what happens when you hit the ground that makes or break your initiation—mostly your bones, if you’re not careful,” Nick had said.

“Gotta find Akko,” Weiss thought as her feet hit the ground, a few rapid, graceful steps before she came to a stop. She groaned, and shook her head. “No, gotta find anyone who’s landed near you—Akko could be ANYWHERE in these hills, you’re wasting time trying to find her specifically…”

She frowned. “… Though it would be nice, if she were around.”

Weiss froze as she heard the telltale sound of a particularly powerful shotgun blast, the death cry of a Grimm cut short, no doubt from losing its head. She unsheathed Myrtenaster, rushed to the source of the sound, casting glances at her surroundings from time to time, her eyes otherwise locked forward as she rushed to the aid of--

--Someone who definitely wasn’t Akko.

She was short, possibly even shorter than Weiss was which was really saying something. The backpack she wore was nearly as large as her, and larger still were the blasts from the cannon in her hands—Weiss didn’t know exactly what exactly was the technology behind the miniature storms of shrapnel that violently disintegrated the Grimm it hit, but she was damn sure she wasn’t going to get anywhere near until she started relaoding.

Beowolves circled around her, trying to pounce from every direction, finding themselves suddenly limbless or horribly mangled before they landed, the trees and the bushes behind them getting ripped up and cut down, searing hot edges where they were split. Weiss jumped behind a thick tree, flinched as she heard it get impaled with several shards, sweat when one of them went flying past where she just was.

The girl with the gun reloaded—it was either a prototype or its designers didn’t put a premium on subtlety or elegance, as it janked and clanked like a box of gears and screws getting tossed about, hissed and whistled as exhaust ports released so much excess heat.

Weiss peered around, the beowolves shirking back from the wall of blazing hot steam around the other girl; she didn’t even spare them a glance as her hands and an extra pair of robotic claws reloaded her cannon, shoving in a box into a vent-like receiver and locked it into place, sure that she was perfectly safe until she could start firing again…

… But Weiss could see a beowulf rapidly climbing up a tree and into the branches, preparing to leap and strike her down.

“Above you!” Weiss cried, already summoning a glyph underneath her.

She quickly attracted the other beowolves’ attention, and worse still, the girl in the center didn’t even seem to acknowledge her warning, the beowulf pounced at her from behind, sailing past the steam cloud… and straight into a second pair of robotic arms emerging from the girl’s backpack, both wielding pistols, wasting no time pumping the beowulf full of bullets.

It flailed through the air defenseless, the sudden shift in weight dumping it right into the steam; it wailed as it was burned, before the cannon was shoved into its face, and it all but disappeared.

Weiss and the other Beowolves flinched and jumped; she dispelled the glyph below her before it could send her sailing into the air, the Beowolves growled, before they fled back into the forest.

“Hmph.” The girl looked rather disappointed, her expression turning to curiosity as she saw Weiss and lowered her weapon.

“Ah...” Weiss lowered her sword. She chuckled awkwardly. “Well, there, uh… there went my plan to rescue in you in a totally badass fashion!”

The girl grunted again, disassembled her gun on the spot, returning many of the components into her backpack except for a box-like device that sat on the top, and a custom clip loaded with dust. She started to walk away, Weiss rushed over to her. “Wait!” she cried. She stopped and looked at her with a mix of annoyance and indifference, Weiss awkwardly came to a stop before her.

“Do you want to team up?” Weiss asked. “I’m Weiss, and I think I can definitely help you fend off the Grimm here, whether those beowolves come back or something else attacks us!”

No response, she continued to look at her.

“My sword’s full of dust, you see?” Weiss said, holding up the revolver and showing off the different colours. “I can use my semblance to make glyphs that give them all sorts of cool effects, and--”

The girl reached for some sort of charm around her neck, started fiddling with it.

“I can cause explosions just like that cannon of yours!” Weiss said. “Maybe even help amplify them by putting up a volatile red dust glyph, have your shots ignite that and--”

“My name is Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger,” said a robotic voice, coming from the “box” on top of her backpack. “I work alone.”

Weiss blinked. “Huh. Okay… would you want to consider working together?” she asked, smiling. “We might become teammates, you know!”

Constanze pressed a button on one side of her charm. “No.” She pressed another one. “I work alone.”

Weiss kept her smile on. “You know, ‘Lone Wolf’ attitudes are one of the worst things for any sort of huntsman or huntress to have! Believing you can handle anything and everything on your own is how missions fail, and people get killed!

“You remember the advice my grandpa gave us earlier, right?”

“Yes. I work alone.” Constanze scowled. “Go away.”

Weiss gave up on smiling, her mouth curling into a deep frown. “Well how about I don’t go away, and I stick with you, give us both some safety in numbers?!”

Constanze was unaffected. “Go away.”

“No! And as a matter of fact, forget I even asked that rhetorical question—I’m sticking with you, we are looking for relics together, and however much is possible with that device of yours, we are going to have a conversation and get to know each other better!”

Constanze stared at her for a few moments, before she fiddled with her charm. “You are really stubborn, you know that?”

“I’ve been told I got it from both my maternal grandparents, yes...” Weiss grumbled.

A few moments of pressing. “Do you really think forcing your help on me is going to make me want to become your friend?”

“You’d be surprised at how well that works in practice,” Weiss said coolly. “It’s simply vital that, alongside unflagging determination, one attempts to find common ground with the person you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with.”

Constanze rolled her eyes, and started walking away.

Weiss followed after her. “We can start with simple topics, like why we’re here in Haven! I’m here to become a huntress, try and bring honour back to my family name after my father decided to exploit it for all its worth! You?”

“Work. Field testing. Resources.”

“Oh! So that cannon earlier was your design and your invention?”

“Yes.”

“It’s pretty impressive, the way you blasted those beowolves away! Hell, I even found myself taking cover, you were that intimidating. When’d you build it?”

“Back in Atlas.”

“Oh! So you’re from Atlas! Me too! Well, I guess it’s hard to say that seeing as I’ve been here in Mistral for several years, but those years I did spend had quite the impact… I’m rambling, sorry. Why did you choose to move here, than join the Atlas Academy?”

“Parts,” Constanze replies. “Everything Atlas has, goes through Mistral first, and cheaper.”

“Yeah, but that’s usually because--” Weiss blinked. “Oh. You frequent the black markets on the lower rungs, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. That’s... oh… sorry, it’s just… I’ve had some really bad experiences with the criminal element here in Mistral...”

“I’m not sorry. Parts are parts.”

Weiss felt a hot fire ignite inside of her, before she quickly tamped it down. “Okay. That’s okay. We’ve got ideological differences, for sure! But, I can look past them, work together with you, deal with them once we’re back at Haven, not out here in the Celestial Hills!”

“You are REALLY dedicated to seeing this through, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes I am,” Weiss replied. “You could say us Schnees and the people we attract share that virtue.”

Constanze snorted, before she turned around, and kept on walking.

Weiss sucked in a deep breath, before she went after her once more. “So what do you usually build? Should be a lot easier now that you’ve got an allowance for dust, equipment, and...” she stopped as she noticed Constanze slowing down to a stop before a break in some bushes.

Weiss brushed back some branches, her eyes widening as she saw Sucy holding a mysterious bag that simply reeked of something ominous and dark, Akko holding Shooting Star’s shotgun barrel right at her, her finger on the trigger.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/160448959124/glitteringeva-everytime-someone-on-tumblr

Well, this is going to be interesting.

-I fail to see how adding structure would be “bashing the writers.” and frankly I’m shocked you think these ideas are so worse off.

For reference and context, this is what they said:

Everytime someone on Tumblr writes a post about how they would have fixed RWBY volume 4 or 3 or whatever I just think “Holy shit, thank god we didn’t get that, it’s way worse”.

I mean maybe some of the ideas are better than what the writers decided to do, but I didn’t stumble upon any of these in any of those posts yet.

I really hate how everyone is bashing on the writers and then claiming they could have made up a better plot in five minutes when clearly… no. You can’t.

See the problem here: The OP never mentioned a specific point of criticism so where does this talk about structure come from? Unless, he believes that everything that the rwde tag says is correct which is the only way this makes sense and in that case, I need only point out Sturgen’s Law (AKA 90% of stuff is shit) to disprove him.

As fort the structure argument itself, I have never seen anyone argue about the story structure except that more needs to be done and in that case, it ruins the purpose of Volume 4 being a breather season dedicated to character and the world, not the plot. So it actually would damage the show, especially since RWBy has a very limited amount of time.

-The ideas of those who state that season ½ should have been more focused on character establishment, and interaction then moving on to chracter growth and development. Instead of season one being mostly jaune arc , If could be shortened to 2-3 episodes and focus on more of our cast.

Again, this is out of context and shouldn’t be here on the very basis alone that they are talking about Volumes 3 and 4, not 1 and 2. And even then, there was a lot of character interaction (Ruby and Yang, Ruby and Weiss, Weiss and Blake, Yang and Blake, Ruby and Jaune, Jaune and Pyrrha, Ren and Nora and Ruby and Penny in Volume 1 with Yang and Blake, Team RWBY and Team JNPR overall interactions and Penny and Ruby in Volume 20 and if you couldn’t tell what these characters are despite the show being very direct about showing us then you may need some glasses. (Joke)

Especially since the only arguments I’ve heard around character interaction is basically waste time on more interactions between Ren, Nora and pyrrha considering how little time we get every Volume as well as the fact that Volume 4 had it’s own conflict for Ren and Nora which just causes everything to pile up.

-Nora’s outline popping out episode one.

Not a writing complaint and you people think that a head writer has the time to seek out a minimal complaint around a different department while writing for another show and mentoring someone on writing yet another show. Still not valid anyway,

-A better establishment on dust and semblance.

The suggestions I’ve heard around Sembelnce and Dust is to ask menial and worthless details that normally people let go. Especially since you yourself recommended they use Stands from JoJo when I can ask questions like “How do Stands exist out of spiritual energy? How do they manifest? Why do they manifest? How does an abstract concept like mental or spiritual energy interact with the real world? Why do non Stand users ave no ability to see Stands? ect.” and I know they’ll never be answered because they are nitpicks and unimportant, evident about how you yourself never question this.

-Rather than having a scene were they talk about faunus vaguely mention the war, say racism is bad (obviously) and tell us faunus can see in the dark, maybe the faunus WOR should go in that episode? That way it seems more like a lesson.

You yourself have advocated fro WOR to be scrapped altogether so where would that go again? Also, by getting that out of the way in Volume 1, they can go ahead and go intoi more details in Volume 4. If they didn’t then that video would be bogged down by this stuff. Plus they were in a classroom so that makes sense: they are getting a lesson as well.

-Weiss’s escape could have been much smoother if she just made glyphs and walked out the window.

Semblances cost Aura to use and thus using it like that would leave her with very little to use should she get caught, which is easy considering the fact that her father is filthy rich and has ordered his employees to not let her go. Or would you remove that limit on Semblances and thus make them OP and have the character have no reason to lose?

-Also weiss still need to apologize for her racism, and we need a better establishment of her summoning as she just kinda learns to off screen which is not how you tell a story.

Except for the fact that she was learning how to summon by WInter in Volume 3 and could have just be training to make a complete summon, sort of like how Goku would train to use a full power Kamehameha?

And she does so indirectly by agreeing to bury the hatchet with Blake. And just as well, Blake treated Weiss like she was a mindless schnee as well so shouldn’t Blake apologixe as well? And at that point, it doesn’t do much.

-Making the white fang pure antagonist was a bad idea especiallu since their the minority fighting for racial equality so many irl minorities can relate and when you make them the badguys you alienate that side of the fandom.

Except that a few minorities in the fandom have said that the White Fang aren’t offensive and it has been noted that their radicalism is a very good representation of an oppressed group going too far (like BlackLivesMatter). Also, that promotes the idea that all minority fighting groups are automatically and universally right even though that would isolate the people who have been attacked by people who have been oppressed themselves by these groups and promotes a Black and White morality.

-Ruby/penny/pyhrra’s friendships were never built up on, heck ruby and pyrrha barely spoke so losing them so soon not only makes it seem odd for ruby’s character but the audience whom have/nor weren’t given a real connection to her.

You take that out of context, ignoring the fact that she saw her sister be arrested, Penny die, Roman die, Yang maimed and THEN Pyrrha die. You act as though this doesn’t compound on a person and if you do, well stay away from depressed people.

-The grimm breach: team cfvy/jnrp come and help easily destroy grimm then glynda seals up the hole.  Cinder calls this a collasal failure that doesn’t add up with the past scene.

Persuvasive speech: Cinder was sowing distrust and discord, using manipulative launguage to sway people’s hearts. Obviously seeing as she lied several other times as well. 

Look rwby’s flawed and there are some genuinly great strucutual fixes to the show, throwing a hissy fit over it isn’t gonna clear the stains from thsi diamond, if you don’t agree with it fine but let’s not pretend not a single post here is worse that what I listed.

Fun Fact: Re:RWBY is still going on and is still an o0bjective failure in comparison to RWBY Volume 1. The one time someone tries to do better and they make 70% of amateur writing mistakes, more than RWBY itself did. And most of your points here either don’t apply to what the OP is saying, ignores certain aspects of the show or outright lies to be there. So yes, most RWDE posts are this way.

-I don’t have to be a master chef to tell you food shouldn’t be burnt.

And an amatuer shouldn’t act like they’re netter than the master chef as they scortch water while the master chief makes award winning meals, complains about the dish in ways that are objectively wrong and ignores all criticism themselves.

All I see here is you trying to silence someone for the apparent crime of not thinking rwde isn’t 100% right.

[anthurak]

So one very interesting detail that comes up when we consider that Weiss’s Glyphs actually originate from the God of Darkness in the same way that Ruby’s Silver Eyes originate from the God of Light;

If the Schnee Glyph semblance really is the ‘Dark’ counterpart to the Silver Eyes, that means it’s not actually a semblance! The Schnees have just been THINKING that it’s a semblance all this time.

And when we consider that Ruby happens to have her own semblance in addition to her Silver Eyes, then that means that Weiss must have her own untapped semblance that she’s never known about. Indeed, ALL of the Schnees, Weiss, Winter, Willow and Whitley, probably have each their own semblances that they’ve just never realized because they’ve always been under the mistaken belief that their glyphs were their semblance.

Like you know how people have been noting the symbolism behind the Schnee Glyphs as a semblance and how Weiss and Winter struggle with forming their own identity separate from their family lineage?

Well, what better payoff to that arc than a revelation that their Glyphs aren’t actually their true semblance and they can actually develop their own semblances/identities separate from their family expectations!

[zerrat]

spring thaw 2/?

Continuing the canon divergence au. Eventual whiterose but still a ways to go.

content warning for: depictions of injury and hospitalisation. big content warning for Weiss’ shitty home life and issues therein.

master post

When Weiss awakens, everything hurts. There’s a bone-deep ache, in her head and in her chest, and it only grows sharper as she struggles to sit up in bed. The world tilts on a violent axis, dark and lopsided, the brutal sway of it enough to send her stomach into clenches of nausea. Defiant, she chokes it back, but the room only spins more, hurts her more, and her breath comes in ragged–unseemly–gasps.

Propriety, a sick and twisted part of her mind tells her in a voice both her father’s and her own, but she has neither the strength to deny nor obey.

She’s in hospital, but for the life of her she can’t recall why. A hole gapes in her memory, black and terrifying and senseless when she considers it. Far worse is worse was the grim certainty he’d appear as a shadow at her door, demanding answers she doesn’t have.

She can’t quite set aside that fear.

There’s an oxygen tube at her nose, part of its length taped to her cheek. Desperate for distraction, she tugs at it, her hands weak and trembling in a way she loathes, peeling it away with perhaps too much force. The world is still lopsided, missing half the light it should, and Weiss allows her fingertips to brush along her numbed face, across her swollen nose and over to her other cheek.

The bulk the bandages she feels are lopsided too, in just the same way as the dark hospital room, bound about the whole left side of her face. She probes at it, the flesh beneath it still feeling alien and numb and wrong, and in that moment she forgets the way she hurts all over, the way the monitors at her bedside beep in growing warning.

Her fingers dig into those bandages, and even weak and drugged up on anaesthetic, she feels a spark of pain around the socket and gods it shoots even deeper. Bile rises in her throat, bitter and sick, but she has to know. She has to know.

The beeping grows louder, and she tears at the clamps and tubes and tape they’ve attached to her, desperate to be clear of it all.

“Miss Schnee!” she hears, and cold panic grips her chest like iron. Blind to the source, she flings out a hand, an uneven and fractured glyph forming over the door but enough to stay the intrusion. It’s by force of will alone that she makes the few steps to the sink at the side of the room.

Her head spins, her aura sparks in protest. She barely props herself up over the sink, only pausing to empty her stomach’s thin contents into it, before she looks into the tiny mirror. She scarcely recognises herself beneath the bandages, bruises blooming purple and angry down her throat and chin and chest.

The sight of them jolts her memory. A haunted armour, a test she’s failed. She remembers blood, sticky on her teeth, throwing up Myrtenaster in a desperate and final block as her defensive glyph had shattered.

In her feverish memory, Myrtenaster breaks when her aura fails her, shards of it striking her chin, cheek and–

She ignores the sound of pounding on the ward door, Miss Schnee, don’t, just as she ignores the way her entire body trembles on the brink of exhaustion, the nausea clamped about her stomach and throat. Her fingers pull at the metal catch holding the gauze in place, letting the roll of it pool in the sink.

No matter how the world reels, she can’t seem to look away from the eye pad taped over her left socket, stitching and disinfectant stark even among deep bruises and swelling. Her stomach very nearly rebels on her again as she pulls the pad away.

Even without the bandages, Weiss still doesn’t recognise the mess in the mirror–an eyelid held together only by sutures, and she doesn’t need to be able to open her eye to know the damage goes far further. The glyph against the door flickers and dies, and finally, she sobs.

Imperfect, she remembers, and her strength abruptly flees her.

[anthurak]

Darkness Under the Snow

I’ve mentioned a few times now in theory posts that I think the Schnee Glyph semblance is in fact the ‘Dark’ counterpart to the Silver Eyes. A power that comes from the God of Darkness just as the Silver Eyes seem to have come from the God of Light. So I thought I’d finally do a proper write-up outlining this theory in full.

To begin, from as early as the Beacon Arc it’s been clear that the Schnee Glyphs are quite different from other Semblances. For one, the Schnee semblance is far more versatile than others. Whereas other semblances seem to comprise of one a single ‘power’, the Schnee Glyphs have a wide variety of applications; from creating shields, floating platforms or rapid pathways to transmitting Dust effects to outright summoning fallen Grimm to serve the user. In Volume 3, Winter also highlights that the Schnee Glyphs are purely hereditary, with Weiss, Winter and Willow all possessing this same exact power. A trait that apparently no other semblance shares.

By this point, it’s pretty clear that the Schnee semblance is very different from other semblances.

Now where things get interesting is when we consider that the aspects which make the Schnee Glyphs unlike other semblances are also qualities we’ve seen in old-world magic and other powers from the Gods. We see the same wide versatility in both Glyphs and magic, right down to some clear visual similarities in the use of ‘magic circles’ and general elemental powers. We’ve also seen that unlike semblances, magic is hereditary and can be passed from parent to child, as we saw with Salem’s and Oz’s daughters. Not to mention with the Silver Eyed Warriors as well. In short, it seems that the Schnee Glyphs have quite a bit more in common with magic than with semblances.

And in Jinn’s vision, we see the God of Darkness specifically refer to magic as ‘My gift’ to humanity, making a distinction that magic wasn’t something that came broadly from both brothers, but from him specifically.

Finally, there is what I think is the clearest bit of evidence linking the Schnees to the God of Darkness: The fact that they can summon his creations, the Grimm. More specifically, it seems like Grimm are the only thing that the Glyph semblance can summon. We’ve yet to see Weiss, Winter or Willow summon anything other than Grimm (do note that Weiss’s Armor Gigas is technically a Grimm, specifically the Grimm that was controlling the armor that she fought in the White trailer).

And I think it is the Grimm summoning in particular that raises some especially interesting implications. Because obviously there are other sources of magic in the world. Oz, the Maidens and Salem all use magic that likewise originated from the God of Darkness, just like the Schnee Semblance in this theory.

Yet despite this, none of these other wielders of magic have been seen actually summoning Grimm like the Schnees do, not even Salem. While Salem can control and manipulate Grimm with ease, we’ve never seen her actually create Grimm all on her own without the use of existing material such as the pools of darkness in Evernight. Even the previous age of humanity seems to have been incapable of such a feat.

Other than the Schnees, the only other being we’ve seen actually summon Grimm has been the God of Darkness HIMSELF.

Finally, I think the Schnee Glyphs turning out to be power from the God of Darkness makes a lot of sense narratively. After all, we’ve already seen power from the God of Light passed down into mortal possession in the form of Ruby’s Silver Eyes. It only makes sense that we’d see a counterpart to the Silver Eyes that originates from the God of Darkness.

And what more fitting wielder of that counterpart than Ruby’s long-time partner?

[anthurak]

If you don't mind me telling you, I actually have a theory that's very similar to your theory about the glyphs coming from the god of darkness, but instead I think they come from Salem. My evidence is that the Schnee's and Salem are the only characters (not counting the older ones like Fria) that have both naturally white hair and glyphs that can summon Grimm (something Glynda's glyphs notably lack) and there's also the fact that family plays such a big role in Weiss's story. With all that together, I believe that the Schnees are somehow descendants of Salem (either by one of her and Ozma's kids surviving or another kid we don't know about yet). As for what that will mean for the Schnees or Salem I don't know but I think it's a cool theory.

Nice catch with noticing the shared hair color. I think you definitely might be on to something, particularly with how Salem's hair only turned white after she dove into the pool of darkness and was exposed to the 'essence' of darkness. And there's some very interesting 'visual irony' in the idea of people carrying the essence of the God of Darkness having white hair.

That all being said, I still think there are some issues with the Schnees being descended from Salem. Namely the fact that Salem has never shown the ability to flat out summon Grimm outright like the Schnees or the GoD can. The closest we've seen was her using glyphs to seemingly conjure grimm-arms during her fight with Yang, JOR, Emerald and Hazel, but even that seems to be more that she was simply pulling the grimm-material out of Monstra. It's the same issue I have with the idea of the Silver Eyes coming from Oz when Oz himself has never been shown to have that power himself.

Still, I do think you're onto something with the hair-color detail. I'm really liking the idea of that sort of white-hair being a physical indicator that one is carrying power from the God of Darkness, in a similar way that the Silver Eyes could be a visual indicator of a connection to the God of Light.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure all of the SEWs we've seen so far have had dark hair of one shade or another...