A True Nightmare (RWBY X CRAWL!READER)

01 - The Oldest of Souls

"P-please... I just want to go home..."

The spirit descended toward the pentagram ominously.

"Don't we all."

The spirit flashed with light and tore at the thin veil within the bloody rune, releasing dark forces to consume the spirit and give it twisted life.

The hero shrieked and ran forwards, blade held high as the spirit unleashed its great, monstrous new form upon him. 

Massive jaws opened wide, and in a few quick moments, the hero fell, lacking his lower half. The room shook as did many others across the tomb, and the monster constricted, snapped, and reformed into the body of a human. 

Many blades, bows, and potions covered the tattered, red, and blood stained leather armor, two steel arrows protruded permanently from his shoulder, and caustic fluid dripped from his grinning mouth. Burning blue magic radiated from his hands, cursed shields, whirling axes, magic tomes, and runes of power floated in the air about him, ancient amulets and rings glittering with power hung from a chain about his neck, and an aura of fear seemed to saturate the ground where he walked. 

"Finally," he chuckled, "I have missed this feeling."

With these words, he opened his yellowed, bloodshot eyes and strode into the dark, eagerly awaiting bloodshed.

  ===========================  

"Ms. Rose?"

Ruby looked up from her lunch, mostly cookies, to see Glynda Goodwitch standing beside her team's table.

"Yes, Ms. Goodwitch?"

"Professor Ozpin wishes to speak to you and your team as soon as possible concerning your last mission. I assume you won't dawdle?"

Ruby stood up from her seat and saluted cheerfully.

"No Ma'am!" 

As Glynda smiled and left as quickly as she came, Ruby adopted a concerned expression along with the rest of her team, worried they might be in trouble.

They quickly finished up lunch and walked toward Ozpin's office, still unsure what he might want. As they rode the elevator, they reminisced about what had happened just the week before.

After they had discovered the White Fang's secret operations in the underground city, the entire group had boarded their getaway train and fled, setting off bombs as they went to lure in the Grimm. The team and Dr. Oobleck had done their best, but there was simply not enough time to stop the train before it reached Vale. It had burst into the streets with devastating force, releasing Grimm upon the people. Though the damage was surprisingly contained, there were still many casualties that day.

Though no one thought it was their fault, the blame still had to fall on somebody. 

"Ah, Team RWBY! Come in, come in. I was just sitting down for some tea."

The cheery and calm voice of Professor Ozpin put them at ease and snapped them out of their dread. They quickly approached his desk.

"You wanted to see us, Professor? 

Ozpin took a calm sip from his cup and set it down gently.

"Yes, as Ms. Goodwitch likely told you, this is about what happened last week with the Grimm attack... And no, you're not in trouble."

They let out a sigh as they released their collectively held breath. Ozpin chuckled and continued.

"As you are aware, the White Fang set off a series of bombs and breached the train tunnels to let Grimm into the city, but we believe they may have unintentionally opened a great ancient cavern as well by mistake. Take a look for yourselves."

A holographic 3D model lit up, displaying a birds eye view of the above-ground city and the train line towards Vale. A series of dots traveled along the line, periodically leaving one behind where a train car exploded until finally the train collided with the sealed end of the tunnel. Shock waves splayed out from the impact until a red dot appeared deep in the forest.

Ozpin halted the animation and pointed to the red dot with his cane.

"This is where the cavern opened up, we would have left it alone and forgotten all about it were it not for a lone bullhead that happened to survey the area a few days later."

"What happened?" asked Yang impatiently.

Ozpin rested his chin in his hand for a moment.

"It was shot down, violently and with extreme force. All in the space of a few seconds."

Team RWBY exchanged worried looks. Blake stepped forward.

"By what? Grimm? The White Fang?"

"Worse. An unknown. All we managed to recover from the crash was the survey tapes. The crew was nowhere to be seen."

Weiss huffed after a moment of silence.

"Well, can we see them?"

Ozpin took a moment to look each of them in the eye before replying.

"I must ask that this information does not leave this room. It is confidential until we have permission from Atlas to share it publicly. It was their ship after all."

They all nodded. 

Ozpin sighed and activated a video screen, two-dimensional this time, and played the last log available. A slightly distorted voice spoke over the recording as trees went by.

"This is Atlas Survey Team 01138. Now Recording Visual Record of Geological Anomaly Detected after Incident 0794: White Fang Assault of the City of Vale."

A minute later, a gaping hole came into frame, revealing a dark crevice with seemingly no bottom. The bullhead began hovering in place to keep it in frame.

The voice soon came back.

"Alright then, hands-on account: at first glance it appears to be a massive sinkhole, if the leaning trees are any indication. Its diameter is probably... one-hundred and one-ten yards at least. There does not appear to be a visible bottom, so the depth is hard to determine without further study."

(Pause)

"Dropping Flare."

The bullhead ejected a bright yellow flare into the dark crevice, only for it to disappear soon after.

"What the-... *ahem* The flare has disappeared soon after entering the shadow of the hole, reasons unknown. We might need to set her down for a closer loo- Agh!"

The bystanders gasped as a sudden flash of blue energy streaked from the treeline and struck the bullhead.

"Hostiles! We have hostiles! Number Unknown. Origin Unknown. Scanning for life forms now."

A horizontal line descended down the screen, switching the view to combat targeting systems. The small red silhouette of a humanoid figure stood out clearly from the trees as it ran through them. 

"Hostile sighted! OPEN FIRE!"

The figure suddenly streaked forward at incredible speed, out of the way of the lead rain and glowed brighter for a moment.

"Evasive action!"

It was too little, too late as another two beams of blue light streaked out in quick succession, this time straight at the camera. It burst into static and the video cut off.

Ozpin sighed and turned back to them. 

"Once again, even if you do not accept this mission, you cannot tell anyone of this tape. The bullhead was found half-a-mile from the scene, one of its wings shorn clean off and its undercarriage mutilated by only the three impacts you saw in the tape. The windshield was shattered and the pilots gone. If you accept this mission, your goals are to find the crew if you can, and hopefully bring in this mystery assailant alive. You can talk it over with each other if you wish."

They huddled together and whispered among themselves. A few minutes later Ruby turned and faced Ozpin.

"We accept, Professor! We won't let you down!"