"Yang Xiao Long wins!"

Dr. Oobleck's enthusiastic voice echoed throughout the vast space of Amity colosseum, announcing the close victory of one of the most well-known Beacon huntresses over the helpless Haven huntsman, whose arrogance and lack of knowledge of his enemy cost him the match. The crowd cheered in unison, giving its unanimous acceptance of yet another excellent fight, bound to be remembered for generations to come.

Swiftly wiping copious amounts of sweat from her forehead, Yang looked down upon her beaten opponent, briefly acknowledging him for providing a worthy challenge, often so rare among the grunts of the Grimm or her less skilled classmates.

"Better luck next time," she breathed out with a small smile, promptly turning her back and walking away from the kneeling form of her opponent.

"There's not going to be a next time, blondie".

As if on cue, the entire arena appeared to grow silent. Honed by years of training, Yang's instincts caused her to freeze in her tracks, and rapidly single out the only possible source of the comeback, and thus, the only possible threat. She looked over her shoulder to confirm her suspicion, and sure enough, here came Mercury Black, lunging forward, poised to deliver a brutal kick bound to deplete whatever was left of her aura, and perhaps take her own life with it.

Oh, so that's how it's gonna be, huh? Well, bring it, pal, I got a fist full o' shotgun just aching to make your acquaintance!

Turning around and bringing her fist over in a large arc, she prepared to intercept the leg of her attacker. Oh, how utterly glorious would it be to put this punk in his place, Yang fantasized. Not only would she be the rightful harbinger of justice, but she would be celebrated as a paragon. A role model for millions to aspire to, much in the way she once did so many years back. She was always confident in her abilities and sure of her intentions to lead a life of adventure, yet always felt she'd never shy away from fame were it to come her way. After all, heroes tended to become legend.

Mercury closed the distance rapidly, yet was not fast enough. Her fist connected, Ember Celica's usual report resonating within her ears, almost musical in nature.

However, the sound that immediately followed that of her beloved armament was one she never anticipated, and one she would hope to never hear again.

The impact was meaty, the noise it made akin to flesh being beaten, yet multiplied tenfold. Accompanying the hideous blast was another unexpected quality: liquid. It coated her hand, and felt warm as it splashed over her right arm and torso.

When she expected praise and fanfare, only leering and screaming followed the wake of her punch. She stood dumbfounded: had she not just defended herself from what had amounted to the defeated lashing out childishly against the victor? What sort of justice was there in condemning those who upheld the rules? Her train of thought slowly stabilized as she once again became conscious of the odd liquid that covered her arm and sides.

The ordeal was not yet over, as another one of her senses was overpowered, against all of her attempts to control them.

My god… That smell…

Being a huntress, accidents in combat were commonplace. While one's aura would negate the grand majority of them, there was always a small percentage that got through the vital layer of protection all beings with a soul possessed. And that smell would accompany only the worst of these, when things truly got out of hand. She painstakingly made the realization she hoped she never had to, but was nonetheless forced to in the face of overwhelming evidence.

It's… blood…

Frightened, she looked down, and allowed her eyes to feast upon the fruits of her labor. It was only now she realized, cynically, that she expected a cry of pain from the man she fought. She expected him to writhe on the floor of the arena, his pain serving as payment for his actions. As soon as that thought formed, she amended it: he would never speak, move, or feel ever again.

There, before her, lay Mercury Black, pool of deep crimson pooling around him, soaking into his gray and black attire. The entire top portion of his head had been unceremoniously obliterated, leaving only the stump of his neck.

It was truly impressive what a shotgun could do to a man's head at point-blank range.

Looking down at the huntsman's lifeless corpse, she reckoned it looked oddly… peaceful. His limbs, which had tried to kill her only a few seconds earlier, now stood motionless, splayed by his sides, bringing her a sadistic sort of relief. Once the morbid juxtaposition formed in her thoughts, she felt horrified by it. Horrified by the fact that she associated the two so effortlessly, almost as a natural impulse. Was she going insane already?

As she stood there, dumbstruck, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what she had just done, the screams from the audience only seemed to intensify. They were all-encompassing, wailing like the souls of the damned. She frantically looked among the audience, attempting to find her teammates. Surely they saw what truly happened, Yang promised herself.

Surely, they'll understand it was necessary… right?

Once she found them among the turmoil, she wished she could never lay her eyes upon them again, however heretical that notion seemed to her most basic instincts.

Ruby, her dear sister, lay slumped in her chair, clearly fainted. Weiss seemed caught between helping her partner and understanding the situation, her gaze shifting rapidly between their unconscious leader and the bloodshed before them. Blake only stared, seemingly into her very being. She stood completely still, mouth agape and amber eyes wide open, almost appearing to leave their sockets. She contemplated the scene as if she remembered something she had desperately hoped to forget.

She wanted to collapse. She wanted to sob. More than anything, she wanted to approach her team and reassure them that what she had done, however brutal, was purely in self-defense.

Hmph. As if that'll changed the fact that you just murdered this poor kid, a corner of Yang's mind spoke, in judgement to the remainder that had taken Mercury's life.

Her body refused to move. She swore she could hear footsteps behind her. Several sets of them, actually. Some of these even sounded metallic. As she pondered this, she felt a sharp impact on her lower back, and her field of vision was reduced, in the span of a few seconds, from the vastness of the tournament arena to the cold floor of the ground she once stood upon. Her limbs convulsed and contorted wildly on their own accord, spikes of pain surging throughout her entire nerves. As she slowly lost consciousness, she heard a harsh voice boom behind her.

"Yang Xiao Long, you are under arrest! Stand down!

Blake could only watch in abject horror as the scene unfolded before her. There lay Yang, her partner and perhaps her best friend, tased and surrounded by Atlas troops, with the lifeless carcass of Mercury Black, victim to the wrath of the former, collapsed beside her.

All of this was starting to seem way too familiar.

After the match had ended, Yang appeared to briefly nod at her opponent, mere seconds before turning heel and pulverizing his head without any hint of remorse. In fact, she swore she saw Yang smirk before delivering the lethal blow.

This would not have been the first person Blake lost to ruthlessness. During her tenure in the White Fang, her partner, Adam, had initially been a source of guidance, a mentor, and even even a sort of companion, to her. Slowly, however, he became more reckless, much like the ideology of the organization she once so thoroughly agreed with. He became more aggressive, more fanatical, and much less empathetic. He did so gradually, enough so to the point where Blake actually accepted his course of action as exemplary, only coming to realize that his partner had become a monster all too late. Even though Adam was still an unfeeling person at heart, she had grown to tolerate him out of necessity.

Yang, on the other hand, was the most amicable human she had ever met (which was saying much, due to how much she had been discriminated against in her past, and how much she used to despise Remnant's dominant race). She barely batted an eye upon realizing her Faunus heritage, and had worked hard to ensure her emotional well-being, especially after the incident at the docks. And now, almost as if possessed, she became a cold blooded murderer.

At least Adam had the decency to provide ample warning.

Her mind was a maelstrom of emotion, impossibly indecisive. She felt extremely worried for her blonde teammate, now being hauled by one of the robots accompanying the soldiers into a Atlas Navy dropship that had landed in the middle of the arena. Simultaneously, she also felt satisfied at the removal of a major threat to the integrity of the tournament, and by extension, to Remnant's way of life. Anger gradually welled up within her, furious at her teammate for betraying her, the rest of RWBY, and the entirety of Beacon in what amounted to unprovoked manslaughter.

She would have continued mentally berating Yang had Weiss, sitting to her left, not attempted to snap her out of her trance by repeatedly shoving a single hand into her shoulder.

"Come on, Blake, we can't just stay here. We have to move, now!" Weiss urged her on, already in front of her unconscious leader, as if preparing to lift her.

Returning to the issue at hand, Blake blinked repeatedly and shook her head violently in an attempt to clear her mind. With practiced ease, she stopped thinking as a victim, and began to return to the mindset of a true huntress.

With such a high amount of people in such a panicked state, there's no way the damned Grimm didn't take notice. Sooner or later they'll―

Almost as if willed into existence by her very thoughts, her feline ears detected the distant screech of a Nevermore, no doubt stirred by the utter chaos the colosseum had become enveloped in. She focused harder. No, it wasn't just a single one, she corrected: there were dozens of them. No, there were hundreds. The more she became attuned with the horrendous cry of the avian Grimm, the more of them seemed to appear, the entire flock headed towards Amity colosseum, packed with thousands of unarmed civilian spectators.

A/N:

Anyways, here's the first chapter of my new project. Bit of an idea I had in the weeks of mini-hiatus following Chapter 6, inspired by alternate history novels and World War Z. So, as one might expect, even more shit will hit the fan, so look forward to that. I will do my best to keep author notes at a minimum, so I'll only have important things to say here :P

So far, I'll have no fixed schedule on this: chapters will be released as they are finished and edited, and time between them will vary, so expect that. They will usually come out on Fridays or weekends, so maybe keep an eye out for that.

Aside from that, any reviews and feedback are highly appreciated, and I hope this will be at least remotely enjoyable.

Peace out till next time.