War Of The Grimm Forum Chapter 4: Grimm Truth

As he and Eryn walked through the (noticeably larger) military camp in front of Beacon, Ciar had one more thing on his mind. The man knew that he was slowly losing his sanity with everything that was happening, if his little incident outside Eryn's room was any indication. It wasn't readily obvious, but he could feel it gnawing at the back of his mind, his slow descent from one of Vale's war heroes into nothing more than a fallen angel, an angel of death and bitter anger. Ciar found Jaune in his office like always, only he seemed to be in council. In front of his desk stood the familiar forms of Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, the other half of Team JNPR and yet one more famous couple to come out of Beacon.

"Ren! Nora! Haven't seen you guys in forever!" Ciar said, walking up to the two. He and Ren shook hands while Nora glomped Ciar. 

"Its good to see you, Ciar. I trust you've been well? Jaune called us back here and got us up to speed with everything. Is Ruby really infected?" Ren asked with a melancholic look on his face, depressed that one of the best huntresses ever was now corrupted and completely insane. Ciar just nodded his head sadly, Eryn almost ready to burst into tears behind him.

"Yes, somethings definitely wrong with her. Jaune, I think its Grimmdark" Ciar said, directing his last statement at the blonde man. Jaune's eyes bulged out of his head at the mention of Grimmdark.

"No, thats not possible. How would she come in contact with it? Thats next to impossible" Jaune answered, running his hand through his dishevelled hair. Ren, Nora, and Eryn simply looked on in confusion.

"Whats Grimmdark?" Ren finally asked, trying to run through everything it could possibly be.

Ciar answered for him, looking Ren in the eyes with a serious look on his face.

"Ren, Grimmdark is the most dangerous thing on the planet. It creates Grimm from humans and faunus. The ultimate terror weapon. Thats what Grimmdark is" 

"The Grimmdark Virus is a biological weapon, born and bred as the ultimate anti-hunter weapon. To be honest, no one truly knows who developed the thing although Jaune and I beleive that it was either Cinder and Roman working independently of the White Fang or even one of the kingdoms. The thing about Grimmdark is that it only affects those with auras like that belonging to hunters and huntresses. You know that Grimm are creatures without auras and by extension souls," Ciar explained, the horror in Eryn's eyes becoming much more visible as she realized what he was implying. 

"Auras are basically an extension of a person's soul. The terrifying thing about Grimmdark is that it actually eats away at a person's aura, slowly draining them of both it and their soul. While this should outright kill them, in all the cases I've seen involving hunters and huntresses, those infected transform into a humanoid Grimm. They basically lose their minds and become feral, gaining all the abilities of a Grimm while still remaining human" Everyone besides Jaune listened to Ciar in rapt horror, terrified at the prospect of such a thing being unleashed wide scale. "What we've seen with Ruby and Blake, however, is even worse. Those with especially strong auras still retain their humanity but go insane, like we saw with Ruby and Blake. Those individuals not only maintain their regular selves but also revert to a bestial form when pushed to their limits. As weapons can sometimes be an extension of a person's soul, they can also turn into Grimm versions of their normal forms. My question is, how did both Ruby and Blake both get infected with something like this? Team RWBY is one of the few that know the dangers. Unless..." Now it was Ciar's turn to become horrified. There was one other way to become infected with the virus aside from forcefully. 

"Jaune, you dont think Ruby and Blake...?" Jaune's face shared the same wild-eyed horror as Ciar. "Oh dust, no. Not those two" Eryn, Ren, and Nora looked at the two men waiting for an answer, only this time it was Jaune who gave it to them. "The only way those two could contract Grimmdark without forceful injection. Guys, those two WILLINGLY infected themselves"

"Let her go. She needs some time to process this" Jaune told him, the sadness in Ciar's eyes reflected in the blonde boy's own. Ciar sighed and simply shook his head.

"Should we show Ren and Nora everything else we have on Grimmdark?" Ciar asked Jaune, not bothering to mention Eryn. It was clear she'd had enough and he doubted she'd want to hear any more. Jaune simply nodded and motioned them over to a screen near his desk. He plugged his Scroll into one of the ports on its side and hit a few buttons, causing several documents to show up on screen.

Clearing his throat, Jaune began. "Now, I'm sure that you two are familiar with the various theories on Grimm and their nature. One of the newer ones is that Grimm operate on a hive mind of sorts, connected to some sort of 'central intelligence' if you will. While most major hunter organizations, along with several prominent scholars, have dimissed this theory due to lack of any substantial evidence, the experiences we've had with both Grimmdark and infected hunters & huntresses could very well prove it true. While we've monitored those hunters and huntresses infected with Grimmdark, we've noticed several of those in the early stages complain about hearing whispers and voices in their head. What these say exactly has largely varied from infectee to infectee, but they are present of that much we're sure. While these could be attributed to the effects of insanity explained by Ciar, we've consistently logged a single sentence that is mentioned over and over again by every single infectee"

Hitting a few more buttons, on document came to the forefront, what looked like a testimonial log. On it was highlighted three words: He Is Awake.

"Now, we don't entirely know what that sentence means, but we do believe that this side effect is an unintentional byproduct of the virus, one that has only emerged recently. I've had several historians comb through numerous ancient documents related to the Grimm, but everything came up blank except for one" This time, a photo of a rather old a delicate looking piece of parchment became visible.

"What you're looking at hear is a piece of an old text dating back from when humanity first began battle with the Grimm. Records from this period are extremely rare, so we were lucky that we even managed to locate this one. It details an encounter between an army of one of the old kingdoms and a creature known only as the Sunken King. Unoriginal I know, but back then they weren't exactly known for it. What this outlines is the engagement between this king and the army" Before Jaune could continue, Nora interrupted him. 

"Oh, oh! Did their valiant leader write it after vanquishing the king?" she said happily. Jaune's expression did not change.

"No. This was written by the only survivor, who died shortly after. We only know this because of a short addendum at the bottom. Apparently, this king wiped out half the army with a single swipe of its paw. The rest of it was destroyed by an overwhelming number of Grimm" Jaune finished, letting everything sink in.

Ren and Nora stood there dumbfounded at Jaune's words. A Grimm king? Remnant already had a bad enough time with the Grimm they had now, but with the possible advent of a Grimm king than the world could be screwed. Now it was Ciar's turn to speak.

"Jaune and I believe that one of the Sunken King's abilities is to corrupt people, even the strongest like Ruby and Blake. It plays on their fears and weaknesses, corrupting them and turning them into agents of it's will. We believe that the Grimmdark helped open up another avenue for the Sunken King to further take control, turning these corrupted individuals into a true amalgamation of Grimm and human. Not only does this give the king greater control, but it also gives it MUCH better soldiers to use once it comes back to life which, judging by these voices, is coming very soon. Corrupting humanity's strongest warriors basically shows us that we're not safe. That even the best of us can fall" The room became silent, staying like that for some time before Ciar finally spoke again. 

"Jaune, download all of what we just explained to my scroll. I'm going to go check on Eryn and give it to her, let her read up on this when she feels she can" Jaune nodded, htting one more button on his own device. This was followed by a soft ding from Ciar's scroll. Nodding in thanks, he left the room as the three present members of Team JNPR continued talking.

Finding Eryn by one of the courtyard pools, Ciar walks up to her and places a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, wanted to make sure you were doing alright. And to give you this" Ciar pulled his scroll out and gave it to Eryn.

"This details everything we talked about while you were out here. You can read it now or later, up to you" he said, giving her a warm smile. Eyn smiled back weakly, nodded, and opened up the files Jaune had downloaded.

(Hypnos, the idea of the voices in an infected's head is a brilliant idea. Expanded on it more here. Gives everything a much more ominous and foreboding vibe :P)

"Thats one hell of a round. What kind of sniper is this guy using?!" Ciar thought, desperately trying to think of an escape plan. Taking one more quick glance up, Ciar saw a flash of black and red; only one person had such a colour scheme.

"Eryn! Its Ruby and Norman!" Ciar yelled at the girl, who was hiding behind a pillar. Switching his gauntlets to their railgun form, he loaded them up and prepared to take aim.

"Go get Jaune! I'll cover you!" he told her, beginning to blast what he thought was Norman's position. He watched the girl begin to run as he laid down fire, hoping to distract him long enough for Eryn to escape. He watched her barrel through Beacon's front door, which gave him the opportunity he needed. Leaping over the wall, he charged towards the sniper's position firing all the way. He was so distracted that he barely had time to block a strike from Ruby's scythe.

"Nice to see you again~" Ruby said smiling, made more unnerving by the girl's one red eye and one silver. Ciar didn't respond, simply switching his gauntlets to short sword form and swiping at the girl. She blocked every strike with her scythe, giggling all the while and treating the fight like a game. Unfortunately for Ciar, it seemed like Ruby's Grimmdark infection further enhanced her already legendary scythe skills.

"I'm here for Blake. Its about time she comes home~" Ruby said blocking yet another slash from Dreikopfdrake.

"We know whats coming Ruby. Why? Why'd you do this to yourself?" Ciar asked desperate for answers. Ruby immediately stopped, as if to ponder the question. Ciar took this as his chance, swiping at Ruby and knocking her down. Pointing his blade at her throat, he just glared at her while she simply grinned childishly at him.

"Ciar!" Hearing his name, Ciar spun around to see Jaune, Eryn, and several other huntsmen moving toqwards him.

"Over here! I got h-" Before he could finished, Ciar felt an immense amount of pain begin radiating from his chest. Looking down, the man was met by the sight of a gleaming black and red scythe blade jutting out from his chest. He immediately felt the coppery taste of blood begin to well up in his throat as he watched the group before him stop in shock. Before anyone else could react, Ciar's body jolted roughly, causing the man to fall to his knees. He managed to briefly glance down at his right arm, only to find it a foot away from him and the space it occupied empty. The pain becoming unbearable, Ciar crumpled to the ground, close to blacking out from blood loss. Before he did, however, he heard a sweet sounding whisper in his ear combined with terrified screams.

"Why did I do this? Simple: because I wanted to be set free~" With those words fresh in his mind, Ciar blacked out for the second time in the last two days.

Jaune didn't need any sort of signal to see the massive explosive hurtling towards him and his group. He had only split seconds to think, so he decided to use his best fall back.

"Everyone get behind me!"  he yelled, bringing up his arm at the same time. Milliseconds before the round hit, a shield of pure white Aura formed around the blonde knight's arm. The explosive impacted the shield with near-unstoppable force; even with Jaune's shield, everyone under it was thrown back.

"Son of a B***H! Is everyone alright?!" Jaune shouted, dusting himself off and helping a few others up.

"Yeah, I'm good!" Ren answered, straightening out his robes and checking himself over.

"WOO! That was awesome!" Nora shouted, knocking away some rubble that had fallen on one of her fellow hunters with Magnhild.

"I'm fine, honey! How're you?!" Pyrrha asked, always more concerned for others over herself; that is one of the reasons Jaune had fallen in love with her after all.

"Yeah, I'm good Pyr! We need to fall back to Beacon. It'll be way for defensible. Ruby on her own his tough, but her sniper buddy won't help things!" Jaune said, rounding everyone up and organizing them. Before anyone could continue, however, one of Jaune's men pointed out something that no one wanted to hear.

"Sir! Grimm! We've got Grimm!" Sure enough, to everyone's horror, two packs worth of Beowolves stood behind Ruby, just waiting for the command to strike.

"Oh, we're SO screwed" That statement was rated by everyone present as the understatement of the century.

Ruby was having so much fun doing what she does best: destruction. She'd hurt Ciar bad (she'd have to congratulate Norman for that spectacular dismemberment later) and she'd just watched Jaune and company nearly be obliterated by Norman's explosives. Surprisingly, she had actually started getting bored despite watching all this destruction. So, she'd decided to call a few friends; a perk of being favoured by her Lord. "Boys? Kill~" she commanded, extending her arm and pointing a slender finger in the direction of Beacon. She revelled in the slaughter of the hunters and huntresses not protected by Jaune's little parlour trick, though she knew they'd fall in time. Pausing for a second, Ruby realized that she hadn't seen her sister anywhere, her biological sister. What was her name, Yang? It was Yang, right? Ruby couldn't remember and frankly she didn't care. Well, not yet anyway. She knew that her king had special plans for her sister and the others. They'd be instrumental in everything to come. Currently, however, Ruby had to get back her true sister, the one that happened to have all the resources and who was MUCH more fun to be with. 

"Norman, come now~. We need to collect our sibling. You can play with those toys later~" Ruby watched Norman approach her with a frown on his face. The older woman couldn't be mad at him for that, he simply didn't understand. Ruby knew that those things took time to reveal themselves. In due time, he'd truly know the glorious purpose he would soon serve.

When Jaune had woken up this morning, he'd expected just another average day (or what could be considered average in his mind anyway). What he had not expected was to be besieged by a crazed friend who happened to control a rather large amount of Grimm.

"Jaune, pretty sure its time to consider a tactical retreat!" Ren shouted in between cutting down Beowolves that never seemed to stop coming. Hunters and huntresses were known to have amazing endurance and stamina but even this was pushing it. Even the best of the best grew tired eventually.

"Yeah, pretty sure thats a good option. Everyone, fall back to Beacon!" Jaune ordered, starting the slow move back. Jaune had noticed Ruby and her little friend move in the direction of Beacon's detention area; no doubt this whole attack was to free Blake. At this point, Jaune didn't care about the girl. There'd be other oppurtunites to capture both her and the other two. Right now, his main concern was to protect his people, his friends, and his wife. Anything else would come later.

"Nora, blast them! That should give us enough clearance to get out of here!" Jaune asked the hyperactive girl, who happily obliged. The best thing about Nora was that she had no definition of overkill. Her grenades ripped through the Beowolves, giving the group enough time to fall back though, given the fact that these Grimm seemed to regenerate somehow; Jaune REALLY didn't want to think about the implications of that right now.

"Come on, lets go! Get away from the door!" Jaune knew that Beacon's door might not hold out for long, so they'd have to get as far away from it as possible.

"Pyr! Take these guys to the most defensible location we have! I love you" Jaune said to his wife, giving her a kiss before running off to find Ciar and Eryn. He had no worries about his wife's abilities nor did she have any worries about his. They were products of Beacon after all, the best of the best. Jaune had seen Eryn run into Beacon just before the explosion had hit; hell, with the force that thing had, she probably thought that they were dead

"You can't kill a Beacon that easily" Jaune thought to himself with a big grin on his face. Ozpin had had faith in him and his classmates, he'd given his position over to Jaune even. He'd be damned if he'd let Beacon fall. Finding the infirmary after what seemed like ages, the blonde man saw Velvet exit just as he rounded the corner.

"Velvet! You're alright! Is Ciar in there?" he asked, a hopeful look on his face. Velvet simply looked at him with tears in her eyes, slumping to the ground. The man entered the infirmary only to find his best friend lying on one of the beds, Eryn sitting next to him. Edging closer, Jaune finally got to see the true extent of his wounds. His right arm had been violently severed just above the elbow, what was left of his coat fused to the wound thanks to what Jaune assumed was the round's properties. The massive hole left by Ruby's scythe was even worse; to be honest Jaune was surprised his friend was still alive after an injury like that. Judging by the size and placement, it would be a miracle if the blade had missed Ciar's spin and hadn't destroyed at least one internal organ. His face had also taken greater damge than anyone had thought; the shrapnel covering most of the right side and some of the left side of his body was likely from both the bullet and the destruction of one of his gauntlets. The other one seemed intact, but Jaune doubted it. He approached the bed and watched as Eryn looked up at him with a blank look on her face. Jaune had seen a look like that one too many times.

(There you go. That should work :P)

"Here, take mine. Put it to good use" Jaune unclipped his own personal weapon from his side, Solar Flare, and handed it to the girl. He could see the severe hesitance in her eyes over taking such a weapon but, with Jaune's pleading insistence, she took it. It was a modernized version of Jaune's old Crocea Mors, which still hung in his office. He'd retired the weapon after it was broken in the same battle where he'd lost his arm, out of both necessity and the need to move on. He'd gotten it repaired, of course, and he had a feeling that he would pick it up one last time. As he watched the girl silently get up and leave, Jaune pulled out his scroll and pulled out a number he'd reserved for just such a situation.

Shutting down his scroll, Jaune took one last look at his friend, unconscious and heavily injured. He honestly had no idea whether he'd survive his injuries or not. To be honest, it'd probably be much more of a mercy if he passed.

"You two, watch over this man. Got that? I've a medic on the way" Jaune ordered the two hunters outside the infirmary, who both saluted and nodded. The blonde knight than marched off towards  his office, prepared to pick up his old friend. From there, he'd find his wife and his friends & stop the mad insanity that was once his best friend.

Ruby was loving every minute of her little adventure. The chaos, the destruction, it was all so wonderful. Not to mention Norman's little stunt with the Nevermores. Now THAT was a sight to see. Alas, she was here for something else though, she'd kill people later (not that she was too happy about having to wait).

"Ooooo Blakey~! Where are you?~" Ruby called playfully as she and Norman entered Beacon's detention wing. While she had been here several times in the past, after her awakening she had forgotten much of it. 

"RUBY! I'm over here!" yelled a sultry voice, one that could only belong to Blake. Ruby ran over to the cat faunus's cell while telling Norman to stand guard. 

"Blake~! Father told me to come and get you!" Ruby said as she hugged the older girl, a wicked smile on her face. To anyone else, it would almost seem like the three people present weren't all Grimm virus-infected psychopathic murderers. 

"Of course he did~. I missed you! Whos this handsome man?" Blake told the other girl, reciprocating the hug and raising a curious eyebrow at Norman, who simply looked at her. 

"Thats Norman! He came to help me~. Hes very helpful! Don't get any ideas" Ruby answered, pouting at Blake as the older girl continued to eye Ruby's companion. Before anyone else could continue, a bullet clanged off of Blake's cell door. The three turned to find Eryn standing there, a smoking gun in her hand and an unreadable blank expression on her face.

"Oooo, was wondering when I'd see you again~" Ruby chimed, extending her Grimm Crescent Rose. Norman levelled his own massive weapon at the girl, with Blake being the only one confused.

"Its about time I had something to play with. A kitty gets pretty bored in there~" Blake said, extending her claws and preferring to ask questions later. It didn't help matters much that both Ruby's and Blake's eyes went straight red.