Hazel
The sun begins to set behind the dunes of Mistral's small Desert. The sandstorm has passed, consuming most of the landscape, civilians cleaning the dust from their town as they prepare for the cold wintry nights of the desert. But the five minions of Salem remain out in the dunes, walking aimlessly, treading through thick layers of grainy sand to figure out where they should go. It is still incredibly hot, but soon it will be as cold as the Atlesian Mountains if they do not prepare a fire and get some food into their empty bellies. Mercury wipes the sweat from his eyes and Emerald exhales, whipping her green hair back so then she can see more clearly. Sweat beading from her dark complexion. "Where are we going?" She asks Hazel as he continues to walk, the Onyx Phantom is still with them but she as always refuses to speak. She keeps on walking but he eventually stops to turn to her.
"The Hyperborean Nightfall is coming soon, we need to find shelter and make a fire." Hazel reports.
"And some food..." Mercury complains, holding his stomach with his hand.
Cinder's eye focuses on something in the distance, through the mirage that sambas across the dunes. Some sort of large reptilian animal, not a Creature of Grimm, just some form of wildlife. She forms her Obsidian Bow in her hand, the arrow forming between her fingers and she aims at the creature in the distance. It looks like a reptilian cow with a lizard's head, large fat body with a set of humps across its back. She aims carefully, and she eventually releases and launches the arrow across the dunes. The arrow cuts through slivers of sand that blow in the wind from the past Sandstorm and the arrow takes an impact in the side of the creature's neck, nearly killing it humanely and instantly, its body crumbling to the floor with crimson blood leaking from its wound, laying there. It groans in pain, laying there. "There's dinner." Cinder says.
The Onyx Phantom stops and looks at them and Hazel smiles slightly when he sees how good of a shot it was. "Nice shot!" Emerald compliments with a smile, and there is a real friendly smile on Cinder's face, one that Hazel and the Onyx Phantom notice. But they have different responses. The eyes of the Onyx Phantom narrow grudgingly as she walks away from them. But Hazel still smiles, as he is not free from emotion. It is clear that there is still some element of good in him.
"We still need to find some shelter." Hazel points out and as the Onyx Phantom walks up a hill, she aims through the scope of her Sniper Rifle, spotting something in the distance. They are in luck. There is a distant structure buried into a cliff face that is nearly buried into the dunes, but is still accessible. Some sort of prehistoric structure that has been forgotten, perhaps unveiled by the Sandstorm. They have seen some dead trees sticking out of the sand, the wood is dry enough to make a fire with. She points at it to Hazel and he walks up beside her, looking at the structure. he nods his head up and down. "That'll do for the night." He says to her, walking past her as he approaches the carcass of the creature that Cinder managed to take down.
He approaches it, still alive and groaning in agony. Cinder walks with him as he approaches it, its blood has soaked into the sand. He crouches down beside the creature and he gently strokes his hand across the rough scaly skin of the creature and it whimpers. Cinder looks at its pain, and for whatever reason, she actually feels guilt for not making a better shot. "I'm sorry that this has had to happen to you." Hazel gently says as he calms the creature down, gently removing the arrow from its neck. It is still alive and in pain, though. So he reaches into his coat and he pulls the same jagged blade that he killed Sun's mother with from it. He closes his eyes and Cinder closes her eye to not look. "Sleep well amongst the Infinite and the Unbound." Hazel mumbles, pushing the metal blade onto its heart, ending its suffering, the body becoming loose and lifeless. Blood drips from the blade, pulling it from the scales and he sighs, looking upon it. Cinder can see the hate of killing in the man's eyes, he does not enjoy killing. But he must do it.
Cinder seems to be understanding what that feels like now.
Ever since the death of Amber and the Fall of Beacon...
She is becoming more like her...
And Pyrrha.
Time passes and the hunters have sought refuge inside of an ancient...Arkhoni...structure, built into one of the cliffs, nearly consumed by the sand dunes that have hidden it from most of the world. They all sit inside what looks like a grand hallway, old hieroglyphics embossed into the sandstone from their previous architects. Cinder looks up at the fractured moon, they managed to acquire some firewood out there from some dead trees found along the way. Cinder lit them with her fire abilities as Fall Maiden, giving them all heat to fight the cold air that exists out there. Hyperborean Nightfall is a term given for the icy cold nights in the Deserts of Remnant, the nights are almost as cold as the arctic landscapes of Atlas, which can kill you just as easily as it could in the hot daytime. They have dragged and cut the beast up, cooking pieces of meat and handing chunks to each other. Emerald is sat on the floor and Mercury is perched up on a rock with his legs crossed. The Onyx Phantom however remains stood at the entrance with her rifle in her hand, her orange eyes staring out at the landscape. Never leaving her post, her black robes blowing in the wind under the armour plating. Her hood staying up to hide her true face. Cinder looks up at the assassin curiously but is distracted when Hazel calls her over. "Cinder, eat something." Hazel advises, cooking a chunk of flesh for her. Cinder turns, sitting down beside Emerald. They are some of the only friends she has now.
The Onyx Phantom stands there, and she slightly turns her head, her orange eyes looking at them as they converge around the fire. She stands there, but remains still, looking around for any signs of movement, or of their game. Cinder sits down and Hazel grunts with a cough, a large chunk of meat stabbed onto a stick from the creature, cooking it enough for her to eat it. "Are you feeling alright, Cinder? Pretty grizzly back there." Hazel asks as he cooks the meat.
Cinder looks at him questionably. "I'm fine...I've taken lives before, you know." She points out. His hazel coloured eyes move over to her amber ones and he chuckles.
"You have...but you haven't been coping with it well, have you?" He questions, turning the meat over as he cooks it. Cinder doesn't respond, she just looks down at the floor, wrapping her arms round her legs and he notices that she has also not been the same since...what Salem did as punishment to her. "It wasn't right, you know? What Salem did?" Hazel points out.
"Let me guess, Fury and the other Knights should have just killed me?" Cinder scoffs.
"No, that would have just sent the soul off to another young girl. Gods forbid us if it landed on that Silver Eyed Girl, she'd be even more unstoppable." He chuckles as he continues to cook it.
"Well...nothing we can do about it now...it's a part of me." She shyly says. Hazel looks over at her and he pulls his sleeve back, revealing a deep scar across it, showing it in the light of the campfire that they are all converged around. Cinder looks at the scar.
"You see that? That was given to me...by a Swordsman. He was out on the road by himself, lost his mind, tried to fight me. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen. I even disarmed him and he kept on fighting me. It was at that moment that I realised the truth. Sometimes everything happens for a reason. Sometimes things will happen and there is nothing we can do to change it. Sometimes our entire life will exist to come down to just one moment." Hazel explains to Cinder, and she listens to every word that he says. "I killed him, he left me no choice, I didn't want to...that scar is a constant reminder...but I never let it change me. I will never take life unless if I have to."
"Or if Salem demands it?" Emerald asks. Hazel looks at her and he nods.
"That as well." He agrees with a firm nod. But when he looks at her, he notices that Emerald and Mercury are also suffering from some bad thoughts, from their heads bowed down and from hardly ever taking any bites from the meat cooked for them. The three of them have never been the same ever since Beacon, ever since the Knights for that matter. "Something on your mind, sweetheart?" He asks her with a tilt of his head, speaking with a very different and friendly attitude. Usually he is quite cold and does not speak much, but here he is being...almost fatherly, making sure that everyone is okay. Emerald's large red eyes look up, her mint green hair blowing slightly as a cold gust of wind travels into the cave like structure that they sheltered themselves in.
"I just can't quit thinking...about what happened to that poor little girl..." Emerald stammers, her mind is constantly on Ruby's safety.
"Now, now...you can't start developing feelings like that." Hazel begins, pointing the meat at her about three times, like a teacher who is pointing with a wooden pointer to a blackboard with information on it. Her eyes widen when he says that and she starts listening. They all do, and surprisingly, so does the Onyx Phantom. "It's not our place to think about things like that, the Brothers could have stopped that from happening unless if there was a point to it. If she dies then that has a purpose too...everything in life happens for a reason, no shame in feeling bad about things, but sometimes you have to just brush these things off." Hazel explains, the smell of cooked meat floating across their noses as he speaks. Emerald looks at the floor.
"But her eye..." She stammers, and he looks over at her. Mercury gently places his hand on her shoulder and he smiles at her.
"You had to do most of the repairs?" He asks her. Emerald nods.
"I felt like...I owed her that." She says.
"Why's that?" Hazel asks. Emerald sighs, her head dropping forward. Cinder turns her head and she listens to every word that Emerald says.
"The Knights put some things in perspective for me. And I realised that I have never truly understood friendship until I met that little girl, and I always started saying to myself...just go home, live your life, don't get involved in this terrible stuff. But she's resilient, more-so than me." Emerald chuckles as she sits there. "I guess - I'm just trying to say that I wish it wasn't her, she was filled with such innocence, and yeah at the time I didn't like her, but it was all before I came to..."
"Sanctuary." Mercury finishes, showing that he understands what she is feeling, taking a bite from the chewy piece of meat on the stick he holds.
"You feel guilty about what happened to her?" Hazel asks her and Mercury, and perhaps even Cinder. She is trying to avoid showing this change in personality that frightens her, but Hazel is not blind. And the Onyx Phantom is not blind either, or deaf. Emerald nods her head to him. Hazel takes his free hand, scratching his beard with his massive fingers, sliding them down his chin. "I'm gonna tell you a story about something I experienced a long time ago, around seven years ago at this point." He begins, still cooking the piece of meat for Cinder. "Salem had ordered me to meat with a contact of ours a while back and it was about the location of a Silver Eyed girl. Now I had been doing these kinds of hunts for years at this point, but low and behold I was partnered with a young Faunus boy at the time...with a scorpion tail." He tells, and they all have a similar reaction, eyes slightly widening as they realise that he is speaking about Tyrian Callows.
"Tyrian?" Mercury enjoins, leaning forward on the rock that he is perched on.
"The very same." Hazel chuckles. "He was around your age at the time, and man...he was scarier than me. Still is." He explains to them.
"How did Salem find him?" Emerald asks.
"Well, funny story." He starts off, and he turns the meat round and stands up, reaching over the dancing flames to give it to Cinder and she grabs the meat, pulling it from the skewer that he made from a tree branch. She picks it up and bites into the steak, ripping a chunk out from it. "She had heard a tip from the Seer, that there was an attack on a town. So we sent out an old member of the table who went and investigated. And on his knees amongst many dead corpses was a young boy. He killed his entire family and friends because he snapped. He has severe issues with mental breakdowns, and when he loses it he can go berserk and kill anything near him, or at least torture it. By this point he has fully lost his mind, and Salem practically raised him." Hazel explains to them all, crossing his arms. Cinder remembers when she witnessed one of Tyrian's breakdowns, and it did agitate her. Seeing how his fear of Salem lead to sorrow and then to anger and through killing something it made him insane.
"So that's why he is so loyal to her..." Mercury mumbles, understanding now.
"He has seen her as a mother, as she has managed to help him use his abilities for his own gain. But she only sees him as a tool, like she does for all of us." He admits truthfully to them. "If you hadn't figured that out by this point then you're either blind or just plain stupid." Hazel scoffs, eating some bits of the meat that he has before him. "But, anyway, we went out to the location of which we were told to find the Silver Eyed Girl, we did not know if whether or not she had already learned how to use them, so we were careful about it." Hazel narrates. "We started moving across a bridge to figure out where she is hiding and he started running forward to find her. Quite quickly, Tyrian figure out where she lived and he kicked the door down. We walked in and I saw her. She was only six years old, only a child." He explains, and there is a look of dread and grief in his hazel coloured eyes, a hint of self-hatred. "Tyrian was already lunging forward but her mother was in front of him, no sign of the father but we could presume that he was the one with the Silver Eyes instead of the mother, she had brown eyes. I looked her in the eyes and I didn't want to do it." Hazel explains, and Cinder notices that his knife is actually quite far away from him.
Emerald looks at Hazel. "Did you?" She asks. Hazel closes his eyes with shame.
"Never let such a small obstacle block your path." Hazel states, the same thing that he said to Oscar when he first met him at the train station. "I killed the mother and the girl with that knife." He says, pointing at it, without even looking at it. The three of them look at the knife and Cinder looks at him, seeing the self-hatred in him. He looks at her. "Take it from me...if you let things like that haunt you...they destroy you." Hazel says. Cinder sits there and she looks at the scar under her dress, touching it slightly with her hand. It still stings slightly from when Fury pressed his hand against it, still quite red. Hazel stands up and he walks away from them, towards the Onyx Phantom. "I'm gonna go for a walk, you should get some rest." Hazel says, leaving the four where they are. He walks off into the cold desert.
Haunted by his past.
Yang
The team return back to Weiss, Neptune and Raven, exiting the doorway that the Architect had created for them. They walk inside and Weiss gasps when she sees them, sitting upright and seeing them there. They are amazed that the Architect knew to come here. He walks in with them, the cogs and gears whirring as he moves his limbs, looking around the Tribe Area. The two of them are no longer trapped on their beds to be helped with due to their injuries, now they are back on their feet and looking around. But there is something off about them, the way that they are looking at them. Yang stretches her arms with a big smile on her face. "Hey guys! What'd we miss?" She asks them.
The silence...
The fear...
The horror on Weiss and Neptune's faces. Even on Raven's face.
Now things are starting to become serious. She lowers her hands and everyone starts to spread out as they look around the room. They are safe from the Knights, so Fear is not here. "Weiss? Neptune? What's going on?" She asks. Weiss picks up the tape that is on the table, and scrawled on the label is one thing.
SUNNY LITTLE DRAGON!
HOME MOVIE!
Yang looks at it and then at Weiss. "Show me." Yang requests as she gestures to the television where the tape can be inserted. Weiss stammers.
"Y-Yang..." She stutters.
"Show. It. To. Me." She slowly says, sounding more demanding and imperative this time. Weiss nods and she takes the tape and presses it through the insertion point. The television switches on.
"This was sent to us ten minutes ago, it was just at the front door." Neptune says with a shudder.
Yang's eyes are fixed on the screen, loud roars of static screech from the screen, black and white marks spraying across the screen for nearly ten seconds. And then the silence kicks in and it shows a poorly filmed video from someone. It is an older camera, with the battery life marker halfway full in the upper right hand corner and in the left is the red circle with the word REC flashing. The footage is not very clear either, some static here and there and some fuzziness. The camera is in a cell with carved marks scraped across the wall with blood stains wiped on it and it only says one thing on it. What happens when a Rose loses its petals? Yang is held in the cold dead silence and then the camera spins round to face the cameraman.
Tyrian.
Tyrian giggles maniacally as he looks into the camera, he has a split cut on the bridge of his nose where blood has been tricking down. From what looks like a punch straight to the nose and some claw marks on his face from where somebody has been fighting him with their bare hands. "The flower dies, that's the answer." He giggles wildly, his wide eyes staring straight into the lens. Yang's breath trembles in fear, and she takes a few steps closer to the camera, her hands shaking as she looks upon the screen. He tilts his head and he pouts his lips. "Is this thing on? Hey?" He mumbles. He reaches down and they hear a pained yelp when he grabs onto something and lifts it up into the view of the camera.
It's Ruby.
She has bruises and cuts across her face from whatever he has been doing to her, whatever horrific tortures she has endured. There are scrapes across her cheeks and even across her outfit, blood leaking from the wounds that he has made her endure. Tears are streaming from her silver eyes. "Does the red light mean that it's on?" He asks her. She doesn't look at him, crying from both pain and terror of the psychopath that holds her up like that. Like she is his plaything. Ruby can barely keep her eye open and Tyrian holds the camera high, looking up at it with a mad smirk on his face. Yang gasps in horror, walking straight up to the screen, her hands pressed against it. Blake's gasp of terror is with her as she stands behind Yang with Weiss on Yang's right shoulder, watching it again. Everyone watches in the background. Unable to help the pour girl. He looks at her. "Hey!" He barks extremely loudly, his voice echoing down the halls. "I asked you a question." He hisses. Ruby whimpers as she looks at the camera and at the red light.
"Ye-Yes..." She sniffles. Tyrian erupts into laughter, thrusting her down and into the floor with force, her body smashing into the cold hard floor. She yelps in pain, sliding into the wall. The camera spins back to his point of view and it points straight at her, beneath the message that he has carved into the wall. It's clear that he crouches down from how the camera is lowered onto the floor.
"Now..." He whispers, staring straight at the camera. "I want you to tell the whole world: what is your name?" He asks her, which means that this message is not just sent to Yang, it is going to be played everywhere eventually. Ruby is crying in fear, but she knows she has to answer otherwise it will just get worse and worse. Yang can see the bandage on the floor where he has ripped it off, and she can see the horrible sight of her little sister's torn open eye. But considering someone has been kind enough to help her survive the wound can give her some consolation that someone is on her side in this place. And it is definitely not this monster. She falters to speak.
"Ruby...Rose..." She weakly says, her voice is much weaker than it used to be, less of a squeak and more of a whisper in comparison. Something no older sister should have to see from their once enthusiastic and adorable sister.
"Is Professor Ozpin your hero?" Tyrian asks her with a playful tone in his giggly delivery.
"No..." Ruby whimpers and Qrow clenches his hand into a fist when he sees Tyrian torturing his daughter like this, making him want to kill Tyrian even more than he already did.
"No? No?" He interrogates, rushing forward and grabbing the metal rose clip on her hooded cape, pulling the hood and cape, or even ripping it from her damaged outfit, holding it up. "Then why do you choose to aid him?" He grills with a deep, commanding and almost feral voice. He then starts making childish, whooping and laughing sounds as he dances the hood and cape around before the camera, laughing maniacally. He then throws it on the floor as he seems to be dancing around on the spot. "I'm little red riding hood, yippee!" He blithely grates as he throws it. He then shows the metal rose to the camera and throws it straight onto the floor with force, managing to snap it in half. The same one that her mother gave her before her passing.
Destroyed in front of her.
And Yang.
And Qrow.
Qrow and Yang both have a rage induced twitch of the eye when they see that.
"He showed me that...people shouldn't have...to be...afraid of monsters like you..." Ruby snarls, but still tearful and terrified, her voice trembling as she speaks to the madman. The camera sharply turns back and Yang can see his tail brushing across his face, cracking and crunching as it moves, making her shudder and her face contorts as she begins to cry further. Aghast of whatever inhumane torments he will throw upon her next. Grabs her by the hair and starts shaking her head around furiously.
"Oh, and you aren't afraid at all are you? You're really brave!" He mocks, shaking tears from her eyes and Ruby is trying her best to not cry in front of him. Yang grits her teeth in rage when she sees how Tyrian hurts her little sister like this. She has never liked bullies, but this is something much further. He takes a few steps back, still filming Ruby on the floor. "My little flower, look at me." He gently says, and Ruby looks down still. The camera shakes, the constant cracking of internal movement from the camera shaking suddenly erupts when his voice gets more aggressive and loud, louder than it was before. "Look! At! Me!" Tyrian explodes, his voice nearly being broken from how loud it was. There is a deathly silence in the area and Ruby slowly looks at him with her only remaining silver eye, shaking in terror, tears soaking her once dry cheeks. The camera remains fixed on her and the silence seems to last forever, until the camera turns to face him once more, held high.
Yang growls in anger and Kassius' cybernetic hand clenches into a fist. Sun is ready to kill the guy and Nora holds Magnhild tight, her eyes furious from what she is looking at. Tyrian continues his message. "You see...this...is what comes from actions such as Ozpin's, he will sacrifice the life of an innocent little girl for his own pathetic ambition." Tyrian explains with a smirk to the camera, and Yang is nearly nose to nose with the screen right now, her hand clenched tight. "Now, I speak directly to Yang Xiao Long." Tyrian announces and Yang is staring directly into his eyes. "If you want to see your baby sister in once piece again, find Professor Ozpin and turn him in to Salem." He demands. "Oh, and every day that he is not here, her torture will get worse. Starting tonight." He says, bringing the camera close to his face. "I'm a man of my word." He promises. His smirk grows into a full screaming laugh of madness, throwing the camera on the floor and sprinting towards Ruby on the floor.
"Please! Not again!" She cries, begging him to stop as the sound of his metal blades extend.
The video ends with the paused image of him slicing the blades slowly across her cheek. Yang yells with rage, sending her fist flying through the screen, shattering it upon impact. She pants, radiating with anger, her eyes glowing hot red as she paces back and forth, pushing her fingers through her hair. The anger turns to anguish, slumping down to the floor, sobbing in the corner. Blake, Weiss and Kassius come to her aid. Qrow is too filled with anger to even move, filled with a lust to kill that Scorpion Psychopath.
The Architect stands in the corner and a sigh comes from his vocals. "I will give you some time." The Architect states. Ren looks at him and he just nods. The Architect turns, changing the location and opens a new portal. "I will return in two hours." He promises. He walks into the doorway, vanishing as it closes behind him, and he will return when they have recovered from what they have just witnessed.
Yang sits there, tears streaming from her eyes, but then her eyes turn to anger as she looks up, clenching her hands into fists.
"I will find Tyrian..." She whispers.
"And I will kill him." She growls in rage.