Price of Living Ch. 1: Reliving the Past

I am now going to start another story. I just felt like writing something new, and I had some small ideas. Stared at what I had for a minute, and whipped this together. I am amped for this one though. AU, future, and the more important details will be revealed as time goes on. So, let us begin a new journey.

Ruby tossed and turned in her sleeping bag. Her nightmares had started up again, not that this was unexpected at all. The nightmares always returned to her, and it wasn't anything that was too surprising.

In her dreams, Ruby saw Beacon. It was just a normal night at school. Ruby was running around with her friends, pestering Weiss and Blake while talking with Yang. Everything seemed normal to her.

But then it all changed. The moon above them shattered, leaving shattered pieces of rock all around where the moon had been. Somehow, the gravity around it held it all in one place. But that moon shattering signaled something, it signaled the end of things.

Next, the sun was covered by a black cloud. But this wasn't a storm black cloud, it was pure black. It didn't look natural, not at all.

Red slowly polluted the sky, leaving the place with an erie look. All of them stopped and stared at it. Ruby had read a fantasy book about this once. The book started out with the series of events that were taking place at that moment, and then ended with a big fight.

It all clicked in Ruby's mind just a little too late.

Grimm began running towards Beacon at full speed. All of the guards stationed at the front started to fight them, but soon they were overwhelmed. No one had ever seen so many Grimm at one time. Beowolves, Ursai, Boarbatusks, Death Stalkers, King Taijitus, Nevermores, and so much more. RWBY all pulled out their weapons to fight, but then they realized something. Even the teachers who stood up to fight this amount of Grimm were all being killed. Nothing was stopping them from moving forward, and Ruby knew that her team couldn't either.

She ordered the four of them to run, and they all made a beeline for the pathway that lead out of Beacon and away from the Emerald Forest {since that place was already infested with Grimm on a normal basis}. Ruby watched as Dove and Sky from CRDL were taken down, as was Velvet and her team, and so many more.

The girls would escape to only learn later on that the criminals that they had spent much of their three years at Beacon hunting, Roman Torchwick, Cinder Fall and company, had also been taken down by the Grimm. No one was safe from this attack. No one was safe from the return of the darkness.

"Ruby!" Someone finally snapped. Ruby shot awake, and saw her older sister, Yang Xiao Long standing over her. "We have to get moving," Yang said. Ruby nodded, and came to a standing position. She rolled up the sleeping bag that she had taken up, and slung it over her shoulder. Ruby then found her supplies, and gave them a similar treatment.

Ruby then looked up and saw her team doing the same. They had all escaped as a group, which had worked to their advantage when it came to fighting Grimm. Over time, features about them had changed. Ruby now wore a simple black top with red lining and long pants with the same color scheme. Her face was covered with grime and dried up blood, and her cloak had become torn from the uses of it.

Weiss had to completely ditch her prior attire as it didn't work well on the run. Luckily for her, Weiss had picked up a heavy, white, long sleeved coat with a light blue top. She also had found a white and light blue pair of pants to accompany them. Her face was also covered with grime and dried up blood, and the bottom end of her pony tail had been cut off by a Grimm a long time ago.

Blake's entire outfit had become dusty and dirty. She didn't have to ditch anything as her outfit actually held up much better then either Ruby or Weiss'. But, her hair had become spotty in certain areas from where Grimm took a good swipe at her, and her face was also covered in grime and dried up blood.

Yang was the one who had really changed the least. Her outfit remained completely fine, since it was already designed as a more casual wear sort of thing. But she was the only one who had to pick a new weapon, since they didn't have the resources to keep Ember Celica fed with Dust. So Yang had found an old mace in a town. It could fold up very easily into a small box. It was a rough adjustment for Yang, but she had to adapt to survive. Yang also had kept Ember Celica, but she only used it in emergencies. Her face and body hadn't passed over the treatment of grime and blood, which surprised no one.

All four of the girls had scratches and bruises lining their bodies. None of them had a proper shower in months, and it had been almost as long since they had gotten a chance to clean themselves up.

As far as they knew, they were the only ones to survive. They didn't know who was still alive, only who was dead. All of their scrolls had no access to anything, and the world was in ruins. Any town you went to was destroyed and filled with dead bodies. Occasionally you'd get lucky and find out that all of the Grimm had been left. If you were even luckier, there'd be a small enough amount of Grimm where you could easily kill them and get your next several meals from them.

In the year since the darkness returned, all RWBY had done was try and survive. They spoke nothing of their former friends, even though they all thought about them. They spoke nothing of their family, even though they all thought about them. Above all else, they spoke nothing of either the past or distant future, even though their nightmares were all polluted by them.

The rest of RWBY finally finished packing, and they just started to walk. They didn't know what direction they were headed, only that they had hoped that whatever laid on the end of the path was better then what was at the beginning of it.

"Weiss?" Ruby asked. "We just passed through Fevertown a few days ago. Any ideas as to where we might be headed next?"

"Lisantros should be this way," Weiss said. "It should have plenty of food, water, Dust, and empty homes. But, it's also most likely filled with Grimm."

"Lisantros was a Dust mining town, right?" Blake asked. Weiss just nodded. "We'd better be cautious then. Every Dust town we've encountered has been almost as bad as Beacon." The girls all went silent at the mention of their old school, but Yang was the first to shrug it off.

"I say we check it out," Yang said. "We're in bad need of supplies after we passed up Fevertown."

"Okay, that wasn't passing up," Weiss started. "That was recognizing that there were too many Grimm outside the town. I wasn't eager to see what was inside of it."

"Weiss is right," Ruby said. "But so is Yang. We're beginning to run low on a lot of things, ammo being the big one. I'm down to one magazine for Crescent Rose. From what I understand, that's about as good as any of us right now." The other three nodded, and pulled out their weapons.

"Lisantros it is," Blake said. "No way that anyone could have raided all of it's supplies. Plus, this is pretty far away from any forests. Those places seemed to make it out fairly well."

"Then Lisantros it is," Ruby said. She hefted Crescent Rose on her shoulder, and walked forward.

Somewhere Else: Team JNPR

Jaune cautiously took a step forward, and made sure that his shield was covering his face. He had been fortunate that his team had been out on a small mission when the darkness returned. His team had gotten the word that Beacon was overrun just in time to head off in another direction. Much like RWBY, JNPR had no idea who was still alive. Everyone was dead as far as they were concerned. It was easier to think that everyone was dead rather then hope that they were alive.

Jaune had been oddly suited for this. None of his weapons used Dust, and his sword and shield combo were very good to have in this situation. Low maintenance weapons, and high protection clothing with his armor. His face had received a fair amount of beatings, but his clothing had remained widely untouched. Some missing pieces here and there, but otherwise fine.

Pyrrha had also remained relatively fine. She was already armored, and her shield had helped protect her. The bottom piece of fabric on her was torn slightly, but she could live with it. Her body was covered with scrapes and bruises, but Pyrrha was fine with it.

Nora had somehow remained relatively fine. Her outfit was completely untouched, and apart from the stray cut or bruise, she was fine. Somehow the girl's frantic style of fighting had worked to her advantage in terms of staying fine.

Ren's clothing was thrashed. His robe had been so badly damaged, that he had been forced to grab a new one. But this robe was already torn across the back and front, with only an undershirt really concealing his body. His ponytail had been taken off by a Grimm a while back, and he had never tried to grow it back.

The four of them were also running low on ammo, but that hadn't changed for a while. They rarely fired off a round of anything, and only really did so when they absolutely had too.

Jaune finally lowered his shield, and sighed in relief.

"Nothing's here," Jaune said. The rest of his team emerged from the trees, and they looked over the town. "What is this place?"

"Fireston," Pyrrha said. "This place had a pretty small population permanently, but a big food market."

"And it looks like no one died here," Ren contributed. "All of them just up and left."

"Food," Nora groaned. "Oh, that sounds so good." Jaune nodded, and started to walk forward. Him and Pyrrha were in the front of the ground and Nora was just behind them while Ren remained off to the side slightly. It was a good formation since Grimm rarely attacked from anything but the front. If they did, Nora was strong enough to take them down with one swing and Ren was fast enough to get in enough swings to kill any Grimm.

JNPR reached the city, and Jaune leaned against a doorframe. He signaled for Pyrrha to open up the door, and the amazon complied. Jaune rushed inside, and held up his shield. He slowly tapped his sword on the ground, but heard nothing. He finally lowered his guard, and signaled for everyone to come in.

"Nora, Ren, check the downstairs," Jaune ordered. "Pyrrha and I will take the upstairs. With any luck, there'll be lots of food in the kitchen and enough beds for four upstairs. If not, we check somewhere else. Okay?" Everyone nodded, and Jaune looked up. "Home sweet home," he muttered.

End: Initial questions, comments, follows, favorites, and feedback is appreciated.