It had been a few weeks since the village with the Goliaths and the bandits. Yang and Y/N had been travelling across the continent and the more villages they came across, the more Yang got irritated.
Now it wasn't that the villages themselves irritated her, because they were nice. The food, the beds to sleep on, the lien made for simple Grimm extermination jobs, all of that was to her liking. But...there was something else.
Just like the first mayor had said there were tons of viral videos that had circulated all around the continent and probably all of Remnant. What was the issue that Yang had of people liking the pure badassery that was her boyfriend? Well...it meant he had fangirls and even a few fanboys. Village after village, it was like a spell had been put over the females. As soon as someone realized he was the Titan of Beacon, they went nuts. They crowded him, asked him to sign things, one girl in particular had asked him to sign her chest... needless to say Y/N didn't know how to respond to that and Yang had to come and scare the girl off. At this point, Yang wished she had Mirajane's Begone Thot slapper from the hospital.
Y/N wouldn't admit it to the crowds, but he was embarrassed of the attention. He was confident and all, but all this fangirling had him feeling awkward. This held especially true once one particularly dedicated fangirl tried to join him in the bedroom. As soon as he heard the door and saw it wasn't Yang...he brought out Quake and pointed it at her until the local police that Yang had to call could come and escort her out.
Needless to say Yang was pissed, Y/N was creeped out, and the insecurities that Yang had about not being what [Y/N] wants came back out.
Currently, Yang and Y/N were fighting some Beowolves outside of the village where the ferry to Mistral was going to arrive later that day.
They weren't nearly as powerful as the things they'd taken on along the way here, but there were a legion of them.
Y/N was actually dancing in the Legion, slashing through with a flaming Quake around in his left hand and shooting lightning out of the finger gun he'd made from his right hand. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He was listening to music in his earphones connected to his Scroll, trying to shake the feeling that someone other than Yang was watching him.
As he looked over at Yang, he knew she wasn't happy, in fact, she was being a bit grumpy and currently taking it out on as many Beowolves as she could. Y/N let loose a wave of fire to clear his immediate area and watched Yang sadly. He knew that the fangirls were getting to her, but he suspected this ran deeper than that. What exactly was bothering her really, he had no clue, but it was making her mad on the surface and sad internally and Y/N couldn't have that.
An Alpha Beowolf jumped at Y/N's seemingly unprotected back and tried to slash him, but was foiled as Y/N sighed. Y/N was still staring at Yang, but pointed his finger gun over his shoulder and shot a concentrated beam of purple lightning at the oncoming Alpha. It disintegrated before it even came close to hitting him.
Y/N kept trying to think on what was really bothering Yang, but couldn't because the Beowolves. So he became more and more annoyed. After continuously sending out pulses of flames to kill the annoyances and deter anymore from returning, Y/N had finally had it.
"Why does no one know how to take a hint! Be it fangirls or packs of Beowolves! I DON'T LIKE BEING SPAMMED!!!"
As he yelled out in frustration, he felt some sort of memory stir in his brain. It had to do with his favorite animal. Though he had a weakness for kittens, his favorite animal was the Wolf. It hurt to remember, as if his mind was burning, like his brain was boiling within his skull.
"ARRRRGH!!!!"
Yang had looked over in surprise when he had yelled about getting spammed, but when he cried out in pain, she smashed the ground with her right fist, causing a smaller version of Y/N's wave of flame. I bought her enough time to get over to Y/N, who was now on one knee, bellowing in pain.
"Y/N! Titan! Are you ok? What's going on?!"
But it was like he couldn't hear her through the pain. He kept bellowing in pain as waves of red fire and purple lightning started emanating from him, incinerating the Beowolves, who for some reason seemed extremely keen on throwing themselves at Y/N. They were howling and baring their fangs at him like they wanted to stop him from doing whatever he was doing right now.
But they couldn't get near him, his flames and lightning were able to stop them before they could even get close. Yang wasn't concerned with them though, she was holding Y/N, who was still yelling in pain. His eyes were shining gold and starting to actually emit Golden light.
The light started to build and soon Yang couldn't stare straight at him. That didn't mean she stopped holding onto him though. She held onto him, not wanting to let him go. Then his voice rang out over the plains in which they were fighting. Well it was coming from him, but it didn't seem like he was himself as he called out.
"Odin calls you forth, sons of the great wolf Fenrir! Hati! Skoll!"
He said that and the fire and Golden light reached their peak. Then Yang can hear an explosion and the Light starts to recede. Yang blinks for a moment and then looks at Y/N as he stands. His eyes are still shining gold and he still doesn't seem to be himself, but he holds up his left fist to the sky and Yang turned to see that two meteors of fire were crashing down as if they had fallen from the heavens themselves.
When the fire burned down to embers, two wolves easily the height of Tai were standing there. They were a black wolf and a white wolf covered in red, like the spectral flames of the version of Y/N that had protected the Xiao Long house in Patch while the man himself was gone. They dwarfed the Beowolves around them, and the powerful howls that they let loose seemed to frighten the Beowolves. They started to run, but the giant wolves were not going to let even one escape. They ran around, snapping up some of the Beowolves, slashing others with their claws, and even just burning through some with the spectral flames that constantly surrounded them. One quick look, and Y/N was still standing tall, his eyes even more golden than before, but he seemed to be back to his normal self.
How could Yang tell? Well he had that smile of amazement that he usually got when he saw something awesome. With a smirk and a wink at Yang, Y/N went to fight with his new canine companions. He took out Quake and ripped through the remaining Beowolves left in the legion of them. The two wolves seemed to take cues from Y/N and they fought together as if they always had. Yang could only stand and stare in awe. Y/N had the wolves jumping off of him to give them a boost to reach the Alpha Beowolves that were either too tall to reach or we're running faster than they could.
By the time Yang had gotten over the fact that these wolves had fallen from the heavens on her boyfriend's order, the rest of the Beowolves had been dealt with. She watched as Y/N went up to the two giant wolves. He reached his hands out and as he did so, the two wolves leaned into his hands. By now Yang was pretty sure that she couldn't be surprised any more today.
She would definitely be wrong. The second that the wolves touched Y/N's hands, they seemed to vanish into a flash of flames. Yang then heard twin barks and blinked away the flash from their disappearance. In front of her was one of the cutest sights she had seen in quite a while. The two massive wolves were now a white wolf pup and a black wolf pup...and they had leaped onto Y/N and we're licking him like Zwei often did to her and Ruby when he was a puppy. They kept jumping on him and licking him on the face and hands. Once he had played with them for a few minutes with the happiest smile on his face Yang was sure she'd ever seen, he looked at her...with puppy eyes mind you...with a look that was begging her to let him keep them. Not only that, but the wolf pups seemed to have adopted the puppy dog pleading eyes as well.
Yang rolled her eyes and spoke. She couldn't believe all three of them were all giving her the same puppy eyes.
"Well if you can call them down out of nowhere, I'd say they're yours Titan. So I'm fine with you keeping them."
With that Y/N smiled. And it was as if the pups knew what she said because they both ran up to her and started licking her as well. After a few moments of giggling and the puppies licking her face, she picked them both up and handed the black one to Y/N while she held onto the white one.
"Alright Titan, let's get back to town and get these puppies some food for the long boat ride before the ferry gets here."
Y/N just nodded while petting the black one.
"Hati is the white one there and Skoll is the black one."
Yang raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know?"
Y/N looked up into the air as he tried to figure it out. After a couple moments of reflection, he shrugs and looks back at her.
"I have absolutely no idea how, but I just seem to remember it. It's quite frustrating, because I feel like I know them, but I don't."
Yang paused for a second to ponder this. She wasn't sure this was a good thing, but when Hati sensed her being troubled, he licked her hand and whimpered. The sound of it almost broke her heart. She looked down at the saddened puppy and hugged it tighter to her face.
"Aww you're cute little one. I'm just worried about your buddy Y/N. He's having memories come to him that he doesn't know the origin of. Don't worry cutie, I still like you."
With that the puppy seemed to perk up and lick her face again, causing Yang to laugh. She then followed Y/N back to their bikes to go fetch the two puppies some food.
In an undisclosed location in Mistral, Jack Lang is sweating his ass off. He has already informed Salem of the escape of the Titan of Beacon, but is able to give her evidence that it was the lab tech that Watts sent to him...while he was gone. When he told her that he might have a way to match the power the boy now had, she was intrigued enough to let him go. But she gave him a time limit. His God killer had to be ready by the attack on Haven...or he would be killed for losing a perfectly chained up God.
He was currently doing just that, working on a god-killer that could handle the superpower that he had created by merging the souls of the two old ones.
It was at this time that he was happy he had convinced Old Ironwood that, researching his little... Grimm infused soldiers was a bad idea for the Atlesian Military. Because it allowed him to make off with the source of the research, hell the line of thought that even led to it. What is the source?
That would be the contained essence of a Grimm dragon. Well that and the notes of a brilliant scientist of the Great War era who theorized that if a Grimm of sufficient age was given a human vessel, that the Grimm would be able to wreak havoc of unknown proportions. As evil as it sounds, this had started both the research of Grimm infused soldiers, Project Ares, and the research of Aura Transfer, Project Libra. The idea that both of them could be used to take a person's Aura and replace it with a Grimm's essence was called Project Reaper. Jack had successfully completed many prototypes of Project Reaper, bottling essences of Beowolves and Ursai. In fact it was those soldiers that he had used to capture Y/N and Tobias in the first place. But during his escape, Y/N had shown just how unprepared even those soldiers were for his new level of power. So, now Jack was trying to prepare the body of Tobias for the essence transfer of the Grimm Dragon.
This was a make or break moment. If this worked, Jack would be able to provide Salem with the means to assure her victory over Y/N's new powers. But...if it failed, Jack would be killed for failure, and worse than that? Watts would have the last laugh. So he was making sure that everything was prepped, using the only body of an old one that he had, and the essence of the Grimm Dragon.
Using lab techs that he actually trusted this time, Jack had prepped everything. Now was the actual moment of truth. The vessel containing the soul of the Grimm was in the pod the donor "soul" came from, and the body of Tobias Ferro was in the other. Now all he had to do was press the button for the transfer and Project Reaper would have it's final test subject. If this worked, he would have a one soldier army. So of course he double, triple and quadruple checked that everything was to his specifications.
Finally satisfied that it was ready to go, he nodded to the lab tech to start the flow of power. When it hit a suitable level, he pushed the button to start the transfer.
For the first few moments, the machine was pumping for all its might, but could not pull the Grimm essence out of the vessel. It felt like forever and Jack was sure that he was doomed, that this project was a failure.
But then it happened, the black smoke started to come out in little swirls, then in larger ones, and finally it filled both sides of the machine.
Once it was totally on the side where Tobias's body was, it was as if the smoke entity was prodding himz testing to see if there was a soul there that needed to be conquered. When it found none, the smoke almost seemed to jump for joy. Finally filtering into the body of the old one, the smoke was flowing for ten minutes at the least. Even then, Jack was still watching each step of the process with the attention he had watched the agonizing moments before it had started.
The smoke was finally done, and now Tobias's body glowed with ultraviolet light, but it looked sickly on him instead of mysterious. The body started to move from side to side and then thrash as the Grimm started to explore its new vessel. It continued like this for a bit, spreading from one limb to another, moving, shaking, and exploring each part before moving on to the next.
Once that was done, the Grimm opened the eyes that had once belonged to Tobias Ferro. The brilliant blue eye was now a dull, lackluster purple and the sclera was covered in veins of black. The eye that had been surgically removed should have been an empty hole, but what actually was there, was worse. It was like a ball of black ooze with a blood red iris. It was even more grotesque than a normal Grimm eye.
Jack looked on in glee. It worked!!! It actually worked!!! Now, he would be in Salem's good graces again.
THUMP!
He started to cackle maniacally, until he heard a thumping sound. The first one was a bit muffled and Jack stopped laughing to look around, confused.
THUMP!
On the second one, he had figured out where it was coming from.
THUMP!
On the third one, he grinned evilly and walked into the room with the perpetrator.
THUMP!
With the final one, the Grimm Dragon in human form knocked off the door of the pod, flinging it past Jack and into the wall. The steel wall was dented, but Jack did not care at all. He just kept walking towards the still disoriented being in front of him. As it looked at him with hate, he smirked back at it.
"Do you know who Salem is?"
The being's eyes seemed to spark at the mention of her name. Then, still not used to the body it was in, stumbled over the word it wanted to shout.
"M...m...mas...mast...master!"
Jack nodded.
"I serve the Queen as well. I will take you to her, but I need to know what to tell the Queen your name is. Surely a being as old as yourself has been named in ancient legends?"
The name it said sent shivers down Jack's spine. He had heard of this dragon and it's taste for enthusiastic destruction simply for the sake of destruction. But this was good, to battle God, a chaotic dragon would be just the thing.
"Faf...faf...Fafnir."
With this, Jack's maniacal giggling returned. He turned to the now motionless seer Grimm over in the corner, eyes ablaze with sadistic pleasure and mouth in an evil grin.
"Tell the Queen I am coming to her bearing a gift...a gift she will find both pleasing and familiar. Tell the Queen, I have resurrected Fafnir the Black Dragon in the body of one of the old ones. She now possesses her Grimm Reaper"
The seer Grimm wiggled it's tentacles in response and as the view zooms in on the swirling black of the seer's bulbous rounded head, Jack's maniacal giggling was the last thing heard as the view fades to black.
The view fades back into view with an entirely different kind of laughter. A familiar ship Captain is chuckling alongside a giggling Yang and laughing Y/N. Yang continues a story that she had been telling the Captain.
"And then...and then he goes up to rock outcropping, turns to me and yells: 'LEEEEROOOY JEEEENKINSSSSS!!!' before jumping off of the rock and slamming down into the horde of Grimm in front of us, cackling mischievously as he plowed through them."
Y/N shoots back at her, amusing the ship Captain even more.
"Hey, it's a perfectly good reference still. One might even call it a classic. No one messes with the classics Sunshine!"
She groans and replies.
"But that was popular ages ago...like six or seven years ago."
Y/N nods, a smile on his face.
"It was my favorite war cry as a child ok? Mom said I was 'quite the little warrior' when I yelled it. I...just thought I'd try it out again."
Yang chuckles and turns to the Captain.
"Not gonna lie, it was ridiculous, but also kind of intimidating coming from the Titan's mouth."
The Captain finally entered the conversation.
"I can see why even a child's warcry might sound like thunder coming from such a large young man."
He turns to Y/N.
"You are permitted to use that warcry on any Grimm that comes our way. And are you sure that our agreement is fair enough compensation?"
Y/N nods.
"You are already being considerate enough sir to let us bring pets on board without tickets for them and giving us our food for free. That is more than enough."
Y/N looked down to the two wolf puppies playing at his feet with a smile, but the Captain still looked doubtful. So Yang cut in and spoke to the Captain jokingly.
"You still have yet to see how much Titan here eats. You may come to regret your offer of free food for the entire journey."
The Captain shifted his gaze from Y/N playing with Hati and Skoll to Yang with a smile.
"That may be so, but I appreciate any Huntsmen, even in training who are willing to help during the boat ride. A few trips back, we ran into a Sea Fei-Long and it damaged the ship's defenses. We had most of them repaired, but we're still running a little light on weaponry and always appreciate some help. Although you should have seen the two who helped us take down that Grimm. The Monkey Faunus had been hiding most of the trip, and seemed to know the Cat Faunus girl that he fought with."
At this, both Yang and Y/N looked up with a flare of anger in their eyes. Y/N was the one to speak first, his tone dangerously close to rage.
"What was that?"
The Captain felt the change in atmosphere and silently gulped before replying.
"Yes sir, a blonde Monkey Faunus seemed to be following the black haired Cat Faunus that helped us kill the Sea Fei-long. She wasn't happy to see him and I even saw her slap him after the fight was done."
Y/N and Yang both growled, with animosity dripping from the sound. Trying to follow the examples of Y/N and Yang, Hati and Skoll started to growl too, but they were much too cute in this form to intimidate anyone much at all. The Captain didn't pay attention at all to the cute puppies, he was too busy staring at Y/N and Yang. Y/N broke the uneasy silence with a venomous question.
"Sunshine, the next time we meet him, can we make banana bread? Please?"
Yang replied with just as much venom in her voice. The Captain was getting the idea that this Monkey Faunus did something that pissed them off and it involved the Cat Faunus girl too.
"Only if we beat his ass first too Titan."
The Captain shrugged, if these two had a beef with the Monkey Faunus, it seemed to have to do with the brave Cat Faunus girl too. And if it was, it wasn't any of his business. As he turned around he found what was his business...a swarm of Nevermores coming for the ship. He gasped, the guns on the ship would never be able to handle that many, even when they were at full strength. He was about to panic when Yang grabbed his shoulder and smiled.
"Don't worry sir, he's got this."
The Captain was doubtful, but turned to watch. Y/N had walked to the bowsprit of the boat and was now covered in his red flaming Aura flickering with purple lightning. With a great clap, Y/N sent a giant bolt of lightning...into the sky? The Captain was confused for a moment until he saw a storm cloud that formed from the lightning bolt.
The Captain's jaw dropped as he saw that storm rain countless bolts of lightning on the flock of Nevermores. Most of them were killed with that, and the rest, Y/N dealt with by throwing fire at them. With the fire, the Captain finally realized who this boy was.
"He's the Titan of Beacon!"
As he said this, Y/N finished off the swarm of Nevermores and the two wolf puppies started to prance around him, causing him to kneel down and pet them. Yang just walked up next to the Captain and turned to him.
"Could you maybe keep who we are a secret? Fangirls are crazy man. Plus, that Cat Faunus Girl is our friend...and she thought he was dead. We'd rather tell her ourselves then have a stranger tell her."
The Captain, now sufficiently recovered from his shock to say something, replied.
"I guess that makes sense, you have my word. I guess I owe both of you favors then."
Yang shook her head. She just had a feeling.
"I don't know how, but the next time she comes to you, I suspect she'll ask for something big. Use our favor to make sure you heed her request."
The Captain shrugged. If it was what she wanted, it would be what she got.
"Well the arrangement of free food seems worth it now, even if he eats like a bottomless pit."
Yang just laughs, replying to him as the view fades to black.
"Oh, he definitely eats like a bottomless pit."
A/n: Ok so that ends the in-between volume chapters. The next chapter will be the beginning of Volume 5. Apologies for the wait, also, I know that Odin's wolves were Freki and Geri not Hati and Skoll, but I liked their names better and the idea of the Wolves that chase the sun and the moon more than wolves whose names mean like hungry and ravenous. So yeah...I took some liberties from Norse Mythology too, not just RWBY. Anyway, the next chapter should be out later today/tonight. See ya then!