The Bloody Rose

IV: The blood of Glenn

Jacob Elksorne hated the surface patrols in Mt. Glenn, everyone in the base did, they considered it a punishment these days. He had joined the White Fang a few weeks ago, to fight for equality! It hadn't taken him long though to discover that equality was a secondary goal these days for the Valean pack of the White Fang. 'Barely any Grimm out tonight, can't say I blame them though, this place has gotten kinda...off over the past few days' he mentally wondered as he kept an eye out for any possible intruders.

But there was nothing, oh sure. He had heard the gunfire of small arms and howls earlier, but he figured it was just one of the patrols dealing with a small pack of Grimm. The remaining bandit clans of Vale considered the ruins cursed by the dead, they never even came within 5 miles of the walls for fear that they would bring doom upon their entire clan. The thought of bandits dying from a curse made Jacob resist the temptation to laugh at the mental image. "Bandits, so brothers-damned gullible." He muttered through a low chuckle.

Without warning, a low rumbling growl came from his right, and he turned slowly. His rifle raising achingly slow towards the alley where the noise had come from, he fought a mental battle against his own instincts to run, and the instinct to fight. He mentally began going through what made that noise, but it was nearly impossible to tell. It sounded mechanical, but also...alive. And then he saw the eyes, they glowed a bloody red. Not the reddish orange of the Grimm's eyes.

With growing shock and fear, Jacob watched the glow spread from the eyes, revealing rows of pure metal teeth from the mouth, and as the light moved through the metal body, Jacob saw men and women in patchwork armour and a assortment of weapons. From pistol's to weird chain weapons, but before he could even begin to scream, the woman atop the metallic creature simply pointed at him, and with unmatched speed and ferocity. Jacob Elksorne was dead without a scream on his lips, only the sound of ripping flesh to mark his death.

Hours later, in the early sun and leaden sky, a Bullhead transport, emblazoned with the sigil of Beacon Academy landed in a courtyard in the ruined city and disgorged its contents, from the transport came Beacons teacher of history, Dr. Bart Oobleck, and Beacons teacher of Grimm studies, Professor Peter Port, and behind the two came seven young students, the three remaining members of team RWBY and the entirety of team JNPR. The council of Vale was convinced that there was a White Fang presence in the ruined city and had sent them to investigate.

Since the disappearance of team RWBY's leader though, the trio had been in a state of shock for weeks now, but the thought of finding a lead from the White Fang had managed to break part of their old selves out of their collective misery and the others hid smiles as they saw their friends return, even if only partially.

"Remember, whilst the council believes that there is a White Fang presence here in the region, it is first and foremost territory of the Grimm." Dr Oobleck stated as everyone watched their Bullhead lift off and make the return trip to Beacon, where it would wait for the signal to recover the teams. As the Bullhead left them, save for the distant rumbling of the engines, the nine began moving in a staggered and dispersed formation down the street. Eyes peeled for anything, or anyone.

The first one to notice something was the resident Faunus of team RWBY, Blake Belladonna. "Guys, do you smell that?" "Smell what, Blake?" Yang asked, slightly concerned about what her partner and friend was smelling. "Blood, a lot of blood." Was all she could say with mute horror as the metallic smell attacked her nose.

Following Blake and her nose, it didn't take them long to find the body, a White Fang grunt laying face up with his chest ripped open in some gruesome, Macabre attempt at art, with a look of pure pain and fear permanently carved onto his masked face. "By the brothers..." Peter exclaimed in muted horror, as behind him, the students quickly ran away to vomit. With clinical curiosity, he knelt down next to the body and began to examine it. "Weapon is fully loaded and ready to fire...looks like something bit into him before trampling his body... and then there's the footprints." He muttered to himself before standing up and turning to his students and colleague.

"Whatever did this, it wasn't any Grimm I've seen before, and there were people with it, this is something new." Peter relayed his discovery to them as calmly as he could, before he saw something that concerned him more than a simple body, it was a door. At first he believed that the door had been forced open by the Grimm when the city fell, but then he noticed the tracks, blood stained and moving with caution, and...anticipation? "And it might still be here."

As he finished his thought did the first echo of gunfire reach their ears. The sound was a mess of chaos, they heard the Pap-Pap! of small calibre weapons, the deep thump! of shotguns, the Rat-A-Tat! of submachine guns, and the deep, thunderous Boom! of large calibre weapons. It sounded as though the Great War had started all over again. But then they heard a sound that made them all stop in their tracks. A loud Crack-Bang! like lightning striking the ground, it was a sound they had all heard before. Crescent Rose! They had never been able to find it, but they all knew the sound it made when it was fired.

The remnants of team RWBY seemed to have a mental conversation between themselves before Dr. Oobleck said the words that they were hoping for. More serious than they had ever heard him, steel underlying his voice. "Get ready, we are going down there." As they entered the doorway, they came face to face with dead White Fang, they had been shot, stabbed, gnawed on, and were missing limbs, usually their heads, or a single arm. It was a barbaric nightmare.

It wasn't difficult to find the fight, they simply followed the dead bodies like a macabre breadcrumb trail. They simply kept going, until without warning, they entered the caverns beneath Mountain Glenn, and in front of them, was a battle unlike anything they had ever seen before!

Ruby was having the time of her life, she had long ago dismounted her Juggernaut and was leading her men from the front, her aura absorbing the most of the White Fang's fire, well. The shots that didn't miss at least, her battle plan was relatively simple, she led her mortal men into the centre of the Fangs defence line, whilst her Juggernaut led the flesh hounds in a flanking manoeuvre on her left, whilst the Bloodletters did the same on her right.

The battle was messy, and her warriors left their senses and began to butcher the Fang wholesale, and it seemed to her that the mere presence of Khorne's Demons was having a effect on them, some of the Fang were ripping their masks off and beating their comrades to death with their weapons or masks. It was pure chaos, and Ruby smiled as she raised her scythe and bellowed out for all to hear. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

With a mixture of pride and happiness, Ruby heard the war cry picked up by her war band, and even some of the White Fang who were effected by the demon's presence the most, their souls now belonged to Khorne, and they would follow her now! With a blood thirsty smile, she cleaved a Fang grunt, a wolf Faunus by the looks of him, in half. His top half fell backwards as his bottom half fell forwards. The roar of Crescent Rose's new chain blade was like music to her ears. Just like the sound of her new bullets.

She saw the attack coming and barely dodged it before a chainsaw nearly took a gouge out of her aura, and maybe more. It seemed that the leader, was challenging her personally. He raised his chainsaw in a two handed grip and looked at her through his mask. "You will die here you human whore!" He bellowed at her in rage, as he prepared to lunge at her.

Ruby simply gave him a 'are you serious?' look as he started to rant about their just cause and how the brothers had declared their cause to be righteous. As he continued his rant, Ruby simply pointed Crescent Rose at his crotch and blew it away with a single shot, along with both of his legs, and he screamed in pain before Ruby quickly decapitated him and took his severed head in her arms as she quickly grabbed a spool of wire before quickly attaching it to her belt.

All around Ruby, the fighting was dying down as the White Fang was gunned down by the now, reinforced war band. And as though sensing someone watching her, Ruby looked up and saw her friend's and teachers looking down at her with shock and horror at the carnage around her. Ruby simply holstered Crescent Rose and waved at Yang with her bright smile and yelled at her sister in her old, cheerful voice. "Hiya Yang!"

A.N. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I will see you all next time, and keep an eye out for some humour in a Omake, coming soon.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!