Chapter 50: The Black Rider
Silver Spoon walked down the path, her spear raised, searching… Behind her, the rest of team SBRD followed, they too had their weapons raised, ready for anything… Except for Dinky.
“This is sooo exciting!” She cheered, “I can’t believe we’re going on a proper mission!”
“Just be careful,” Rumble added, the headmaster did say that this mission could be dangerous.
“Oh, I’m sure he was just being careful, it’s not like he would purposely send us off into danger…”
“I don’t know, I don’t like him, he’s too… I don’t know…”
“Hold!” Silver said, “Beowolf, right ahead…” Indeed there, a few dozen meters or so ahead, was a beowolf, sniffing down the trail. Dinky smiled, moving and planting her musket into the ground, taking aim, and firing… There was a concussive blast and a solid beam of brilliant pink light, and it struck the wolf clean on its head, the rest of the body dissolving quickly behind. A few more of the wolf-creatures came barging out of the forest, and Rumble took flight, firing down on them with his machine gun.
One leapt at Silver Spoon only to get a spear through the gut, the pony then twirled it around and stuck the other end through a beowolf trying to sneak up behind her. Button bashed a wolf hard in the head with his shield, then stuck the barrel of his shotgun into its gut, another wolf jumped at him, and quickly he turned his shotgun into a sword and slashed off the head of the offending beast. Dinky blocked a wolf’s strike with her gun’s barrel, then twirled it around, giving it a hard bash with its butt, then stabbing it through the neck with her bayonet. A few more came leaping out of the woods, and Silver Spoon pulled a lever on her spear and its blade split apart to reveal a dust crystal, and from that crystal, a beam of pale blue lashed out and froze the approaching wolves in their place, encasing them in ice and freezing the ground around where it struck.
“That’s that last of them…” Button Mash said as he pulled his sword from the chest of one last wolf.
“For now… Come on, we need to get to this village,” Silver Spoon continued.
The others followed along, heading down the road, soon they approached a bend in the road, one heading up the mountains, and another path going down into a valley… The signs said “Higanbana” and “Kuroyuri” Respectively.
Silver Spoon gestured for everyone to follow as she headed down the path into the valley and toward Kuroyuri, “Come on fillies, let’s get there quickly, we don’t want to keep the Headmaster waiting, once we’ve scouted out the village as he requested, let us head back as soon as possible.”
The four trotted down into the valley, looking around carefully as they saw the whitewashed walls of the village and the ruined figures of buildings just behind. They walked carefully through the gates, everyone on guard. Eventually, they came to the center of town, a large tree and what once must have been a tower of some kind. “Alright ponies, as Headmaster Lionheart said, let us search the village for anything of value, spend a few days scouting the area and seeing if it’s safe to resettle, and return to report our findings,” Silver Spoon announced.
Everyone nodded and marched off into the village, being careful to check every little detail, and watching to see if any monsters still inhabited the ruin. Silver Spoon, as she walked through the streets, marching over a bridge that sat over a small waterway, clutched her “lucky charm”, the strange thing that had appeared in her dream and came with her back into the real world… She felt a strange sense of calm and safety when she held that little lamp in her grasp, she mostly left it in her bag, but recently had started wearing it around her belt.
An hour or so passed, with nothing breaking the eerie silence… Then, there was a shout, the sound of a gun going off, and an unearthly howl that sent chills down the filly’s spine.
An older man walked into the inn, in this part of southern Anima, newcomers to their village were not uncommon, as many passed this way heading to Mistral from the sea. The older man had darker skin, white hair, and bright green eyes. A small pouch dangled from his belt, and he gave off a bit of an uncomfortable aura to those around him, but most just ignored this, strange kinds came and went all the time.
He went up into a corner of the building and simply watched, this was his assignment… He blended into the shadows, none would find him unless they tried, and no one here had any reason to suspect him… But he would need a new disguise if he wanted to blend in further… Strangers were always suspicious. A waitress walked past, and he made his move.
Dinky raised her spear when she heard the clip-clopping of hooves on stone, at first instinct told her it must be another pony, but no, she realized, there weren’t any ponies around here… A figure walked around the corner, it looked almost like a human riding a pony, but no, this thing was bigger and more horrid than any pony she had ever seen… It reminded her of old pictures of the shadow-king, Sombra, from her textbooks… Black fur moved around in an unfelt wind, a skull growing out of the stallion’s head, glowing with evil crimson eyes that stared into her soul, the man was merged with the horse, the top half of its body had rib bones showing, and a twisted skull-mask adorned its head decorated with a pair of large twisted horns.
A few weeks ago, Dinky would have screamed, and possibly wet herself… Now though… She drew her musket and fired at the beast, the dust-blast smacking hard into its side, but doing little, only causing a small puff of smoke to escape. The beast gave a loud howl, and galloped toward the offending huntress, arms flailing behind it. “Help!” Dinky shouted, and it wasn’t long before the figure of Rumble rose over the ruined buildings and started firing down at the dark horse-man.
The burning bullets did little to stop the thing’s advance, most just uselessly burying themselves into its flesh, some plinking off the bone where they hit. But it did catch the thing’s attention, and it threw its arms toward the offending pegasus faunus, who carefully ducked out of the way.
From an alley leapt Button Mash, who planted his shield firmly into the ground and started firing buckshot at the beast, which again, had little effect against its hardened hide. But next down that alley came Silver Spoon who flung herself at the creature, spear gleaming in the light of the setting sun. She came down hard on to the thing’s back and her spear went right through the abominable pony’s flank and out the other side. The man-figure gave a howl of pain, and gave Silver a hard buck, she was flung backwards, but kept a strong grasp on her spear, fueled with all her earth-pony strength, and doing so, as she was kicked away, she tore a chunk out of the beast’s hindquarters.
This only seemed to enrage the creature, as it turned around and charged the offending girl, but Button leapt forward and blocked the thing’s charge with his shield, the creature’s incredible weight and strength no match for that of an earth pony… With a thrust forward, Button bashed the creature away, and Rumble made his move, descending from above and blanketing the creature in a blast of fire from his machine-gun-turned-flamethrower. The beast gave a howl of pain as it got back to its hooves, and from its mouth it gave a high-pitched whine that seemed to grow with every second, piercing the ears of everyone present.
Then, its arms lashed forward and grabbed Button, flinging him up into the air and down into the ground, but as the creature lashed at the colt, it paid no attention to the filly sneaking up behind… Dinky slammed her musket’s bayonet into its side, then fired her newly loaded gun a point-blank, there was a flash of light from inside the creature as the blast tore deep into its flesh, but soon the monster turned and lashed out its arm at Dinky, picking her up and slamming her hard into the wall… She didn’t have the durability of an Earth Pony, and her aura shattered with this hit, and she screamed as she was pushed hard into the wall. Then Button charged forward and with a slash of his sword, earth-pony strength behind it, cut off the monster’s offending limb, which dropped Dinky and wiggled around like a headless snake before vaporizing.
Rumble continued to circle around, blasting it from above with a hail of incendiary bullets. This kept the creature’s attention away from Button and it attacked with its good arm at the flying colt, who again, ducked out of the way, and in a flash of speed, Silver Spoon leapt forward, a beam of ice dust launching forth from her spear and freezing the monster’s other arm solid, which fell and shattered into pieces that quickly dissolved.
The monster howled a piercing scream once again and charged at Button, who blocked its attack with his shield and gave it a blast of buckshot into the chest of the humanoid figure, tearing apart bone from point-blank and ripping holes in it. But again, this grimm, with seeming limitless fury, threw a flurry of bucks at the colt, who braced himself against the onslaught, but with each strike, his aura drained, then broke, and he was sent toppling to the ground, but before the monster could stomp down on him, Rumble flew downward and grabbed his friend, putting him safely on the roof of a building, before returning to his strafing runs and flamethrower dive-bombing. The creature, enraged, turned to the other landbound target, Silver Spoon, who braced herself…
The monster charged, if whatever twisted mind this thing held was thinking clearly, it would have realized that charging a spear was a bad idea, but overcome with rage and pain, it ran right into that gleaming silver spear… The spear penetrated the horse part’s chest, running the thing through from breast to tail-root, it gave one final howl, its head leaning in to scream right into the girl’s face, before it fell limp and started to dissolve… Silver Spoon pulled her spear from the thing, then rushed to tend to her injured comrades.
Team TASS was getting ready, everyone had double, then triple-checked their gear at Diamond Tiara’s insistence. From the room next to them, they heard Ruby’s high-pitched scream of “Zwei!” and Diamond rolled her eyes at whatever imagined antics the girls over there were getting into. Apple Bloom was calibrating the sights on her Applebuck, and wondering what kind of ammo to bring, Scootaloo was trying to figure out a way to make her pistols more dust-efficient, she didn’t want to run out of ammo again, and Sweetie was on the bed, inside her spellbook, literally. After a few more minutes, Sweetie rose out of her book as the book manifestation spell ended. Then, picking up her weapon, turned to her team and simply said, “Everyone ready?”
Everyone nodded, and Diamond muttered “Of course, I was just waiting on you to finish up in there… Blank flanks…” She huffed. Then everyone marched single-file out of the door and down the halls, arriving in the auditorium.
Ozpin was standing on the stage, next to Glynda, who spoke, “Professor Ozpin would like to share a few words before we begin…”
The professor turned to the microphone and began speaking, “Today we stand together, united-” as he began one of his speeches, the girls looked around, waiting for whatever this mission thing was going to be… Ruby and her team were excited, Jaune and his were at the very least semi-professional, standing at attention, Scootaloo was listening to the professor’s words avidly, Apple Bloom was giving the professor a bit of suspicion, as normal, Sweetie was seemingly meditating, and Diamond was standing stock still, listening to the professor’s words like she was a guard listening to her commander. As he finished up with a “but this bond cannot exist without effort. Which is why today, while the rest of the world celebrates peace, huntsmen and huntress, as first-year students, you will be tasked with shadowing a professional huntsman or huntress on a mission, some of you may be taken out of the kingdom for several days, others may work within the walls for the rest of the week, but no matter which path you choose, remember to be safe, remember your training, and remember to do your very best.” Various holographic displays appeared on the walls, once the speech was over, everyone rushed to the displays to assign themselves to various jobs.
RWBY took a “Perimeter Defense” job, SSSN took a “Criminal Bounty” job, JNPR a “Village Security” job, and Diamond spent a few dozen minutes or so looking over the jobs, trying to find one that seemed the most dangerous, one that would giver her the most credit. Finally, she settled on a “Search and Destroy” job… As she did this, Apple Bloom was keeping her eyes on Ozpin, who was keeping his eyes on team TASS and doing something on his scroll…
Lionheart was cautiously optimistic as he watched from Mistral’s CCT tower… A day had passed, and already many students were returning from their jobs, but still no sign of that strange and powerful team of students that he had so feared… They were powerful, undefeated in their sparring matches, and used abilities that, if he didn’t know better, he would almost think them the power of a maiden… They were a danger to his master’s plan…
Then, he felt a sinking feeling as he saw the four of them joyfully skip back into the school grounds, triumphant… No… No, no, no, no! They were supposed to die! They looked too happy to have fled from that monstrous grimm, they must have defeated it! How! How did they stop that thing, it had destroyed dozens of villages out that way, for years! It was the monster huntsmen went after if they wanted to die! And they-
His blood went cold… He had to report this to Salem, but… But… He failed, he was supposed to get rid of this threat to his plan! Shakily, he trotted over to that hidden room in his office, and stared mournfully at that abominable globe floating there, “M-Mistress… I-I have news to report…”
A man walked into the inn, this one wearing a large trenchcoat and wearing some kind of harness with devices on his wrist… A huntsman of some kind… He went around, asking questions until he approached a waitress… “Hello my dear,” he gave a creepy giggle, one that most would flinch at, but one this waitress seemed to simply ignore, “I am looking for someone, and I am willing to pay handsomely for information…”
The waitress smiled and equally eerie grin, “Yes, of course… Who exactly are you looking for…” The man led the woman off into a back room to discuss their deal, only one walked out. He had certainly got the information he needed.
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Large trenchcoat...devices on his wrist...Fuck. I'm drawing a blank, who the hell is that? Is it an OC?
10274928
Scorpion man....
If Silver Spoon has the Relic of Knowledge, shouldn't it be drawing like moths to a flame?
10274929
Ah. Tyrian. I don't remember him wearing a trenchcoat.
10274934
He did at the start of Volume 4, before he attacked team RWBY.
10274935
Ah. Sorry, it's been a minute since I've seen V4.
Can't wait to see who came back out.
My week starts off with a pleasant surprise. Another new chapter for my favorite RWBY fanfic.
Two chapters? In one day? Dear author, you spoil us.
10275152
Two days, but technically I uploaded the first one late at night.
nice work hope to see more later on.
Great update. Have reading, but never saw RWBY till last week. Binge watched all of it. Really enjoying the story.
Maybe Silver Spoon could kick Lionheart in the butt before they left, wouldn't be hard. That man is a coward.
10377581
I dunno, Silver's an earth pony too, and Lionheart has enough issues without a shattered coccyx...