RWBY Through Worlds

171: Conquerors

"Ah, I can't believe you made me do that!" Neptune squeaked.

"Mate, you were great. King of the seas!" Meridian said. "Pow." He mimed the trident thrust. "Someone should have taken pictures of that moment. Hey, if you kicked this fear, you'd be unstoppable."

"I never want to do that again." Neptune was over the hype now that the Semblance had worn off.

Cinder looked around.

"I seem to have hazy memories of what just happened," she said.

"Good." Winter looked at her angrily. "If I thought you remembered it, I'd end you right now."

"What?" Cinder said. "Hey!"

"Okay," Shine said loudly. "Ladies, please. Cinder was under the influence of the Grimm."

"How could you tell?" Jaune said. "It was just like her the rest of the time."

"Jaune, please," Shine said, "go tend to the people who were injured."

Jaune sighed and went up to Weiss and Blake.

"I'm fine, really," Weiss to Winter. "It wasn't that bad. I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't really have attacked me that hard even in a trance."

"I'm not so sure of that." Ren had gone farther down the shore, since he couldn't do anything else helpful.

He was walking back holding a helmet. [Yes, it's a Mulan reference.]

Nora was with him. She had a flag.

"We found this stuff," she said, looking kind of horrified. "All this armor and weapons, lying farther down the bank in this cave. It was mostly underwater... The pile was sticking out of the water."

That took a moment to sink in.

"That many people?" Yang said finally, looking wan.

Rem shook his head. "Some of the armor looked like it had marks from other weapons on it. There're signs of skirmishes in the trees too...like the people were fighting each other before the Grimm ate them."

"And took their stuff," Nora said, "like it hoarded it."

She showed them the banner.

It looked like the symbol of one of Vacuo's troops.

"Come to think of it, there've been stories of people who traveled to this coastline and never came back, looking for new territory," Theo said, "and that there were strange Grimm here--but they're old stories. That was back in the day when most of this place was uncharted. 'Here there be dragons' and all that. Guess there was some truth to it."

"There usually is," Qrow said. "Usually it's Grimm."

"I guess in this world that superstitious warning to keep people from exploring is more like a reality," Shine said. [The old use of 'here there be dragons', for those who don't know.]

"Shine, how did you know what would work?" Pyrrha asked, putting her sword away.

"The Hydra is a myth in my world, like most of your monsters are," Shine said. "But what is myth and what is fact, just from another reality, is often a hard thing to discern. You would know more of them face to face than anyone where I live would. But they do love stories about them."

"Love it, huh?" Mercury said. "They're not scared?"

"People aren't scared of things they think are not real, Mercury," Shine said somberly. "Only of things they fear secretly are."

Mercury had no comeback for that.

"Can we leave here?" Nora asked. "It seems kind of sad."

"What did I miss?" Wally suddenly was there, scaring the crap of some of them.