The Knights of Grimm - Act 1 - An Eye For An Eye

Chapter 1 - Haven Academy

Ruby

She had no idea what was to come in her life...the next five years...the chaos that would hit the World of Remnant...

But she was even less prepared for what would happen in merely five days.

"Jaune..." A soft female and regal voice whispers in a mysterious landscape that has formed around her, red skies stretch out across her head and a shattered lunar moon above her head. Ruby staggers back slightly with widened silver irises, examining the many dark charred trees that surround her. The air feels like it is stuffed with intense heat, as if there are fires that never cease to burn around them all. Smoke flows through the atmosphere around her, and the distant howls and screeches of Creatures of Grimm of all kinds echo everywhere. Nightmarish shrieks from a familiar monster resound nearby, the shriek of the Nuckelavee in particular. Ruby remains stood still in the middle of the ash covered charred forest that surrounds her, staring directly ahead when she hears the familiar voice once more. "Jaune..." Her voice repeats in a whispery voice, and Ruby sets her eyes on somebody stood amongst the cracked and carbonised trees. The black dust trails and crumbles from the trees, floating up into the air, but she knows who she sees.

She is a tall young woman with slender curves in her athletic body, long red hair tied back into a ponytail that hangs down her back. She wears Spartan-Like bronze and golden armour strapped around her body and appendages as she stares at her friend. She has large emerald eyes and a heart shaped face, her eyes staring directly at Ruby Rose who stands there, looking so alienated in this place. She turns and walks away from Ruby, and Pyrrha calls out her name with disbelief and desperation. "Pyrrha!" Ruby screams, her voice echoes endlessly throughout the domain that she is trapped in.

The Silver Eyed Huntress sprints after her, roses trail from her long red cape as she pursues her deceased friend who walks into the distance. Ruby does not even notice that the petals that trail from her cape have completely wilted away into dust, crumbling away as they rot away in the charred realm. Ruby keeps running and running, desperate to find her, but when she runs into the smoky cloud that Pyrrha had entered, she has completely vanished from her view. She pushes her heels into the ash suffocated soil to slow herself down, looking around fearfully to find her, wrists shaking erratically.

How? How could she have just vanished like that?

Am I going crazy?

What is this place?

The howl of the Nuckelavee's Imp erupts from the ghostly forest once more, creating a jolt of terror in her bones. She staggers from the terrifying howl, spinning round to find the unnatural monster that they managed to kill only a few hours ago. Every time the Nuckelavee roars in the distance, it sounds like it is getting closer and closer. But as she tries to search for Pyrrha and also keep her eyes open for the location of the howling Nuckelavee...a familiar voice resounds around her.

And it creates an aching pain in her heart.

"This is going to be so much fun!" A gentle female voice whispers with an enthusiastic voice that speaks with such joy.

Ruby knows that voice...

Recognises it all too well...

It is Penny's.

The voices of the damned echo and swirl around the young Huntress as she staggers around – as if she were lightheaded – still trying to locate her deceased friend. Hearing the sounds of electrical blood sparking from her severed corpse as she laid there on the ground, dead and destroyed from an accident created in the Vytal Festival Tournament. But Ruby keeps on sweeping those large round silver eyes of hers across the destroyed forest she has found herself trapped in, frantically trying to locate Pyrrha. But Penny's ghostly voice is not the only one she hears echoing around her from the dark smoke that swirls across the field.