Seed 1.1

Deep in the Emerald forest, Raven Branwen returned from a hunt. She was dressed in black and red; thigh-high boots, a short dress, a feathered sash hanging from one hip, and a silver mask covering her face, vaguely reminiscent of a fearsome bird of prey. She had heard the cries of a flock of Nevermore that had managed to survive through isolation, and left her tribe of bandits to fend for themselves while she went out to track them down.

Six months ago, she wouldn't have bothered, certainly not for a group that small. Ever since Salem's fall though, Grimm had begun to appear in lesser and lesser numbers, with the obvious consequence being more Huntsmen out looking for other threats, instead of being tied up dealing with their infestations. That meant more Huntsmen coming after the tribe. She had been forced to take them out, as far from any civilization as possible, at least until some of the heat died down. The tribe was powerful enough to beat almost anyone who might come after them, of course, but killing one Huntsman would only bring more and more until they were-

Smoke. Coming from the encampment.

The bandit drew her sword - a six-foot collapsable ōdachi with a rainbow of interchangeable Dust blades stored in the scabbard - and slashed it through the air, forming a black, shimmering portal.

She did care about the tribe's members of course, but that wasn't the reason for her rush. Each of her people had used up their safeties, so they were on their own if they couldn't fight off whoever or whatever was attacking. She was willing to save anyone she knew from anything that threatened them - one time. They got that one chance, and after that they would have to be strong enough to survive on their own. Even with power like hers, she didn't have time to keep an eye on everyone she cared about at all times, and if someone needed her help more than once then they didn't deserve it anyway.

So, she'd help the tribe fight off their attacker, but not out of any desire to help them. If whoever was attacking could fight the whole camp at once, then they'd be a threat to her as well. She needed more information, and a subtle way to get it.

Raven spawned the exit portal on a hilltop almost a mile away from camp, and shifted into her other form as she passed through. Tar-black wings took her into the air, and her newly enhanced eyesight allowed her to scan the site from a quarter-mile mile up in the air.

As she flew, she considered her possible opponents. The most obvious culprit would be one of the Kingdoms' militaries, most likely Mistral or Atlas. Vacuo was too far away to care, and Vale still hadn't rebuilt their army to the point that they could spare enough troops to pull off an attack like this.

Alternatively, it could have been the Grimm. Despite the death of the monsters' queen, many of the older creatures still lived, and could pose a viable threat if one had happened upon their camp. There were other possibilities, but Raven was forced to stop her speculation as she finally flew over the camp.

There was no movement. Barely even any wind to blow around the debris. The lack of bodies could have implied that they'd run off, chased by someone or something, but it didn't rule out the Grimm either; they didn't leave bodies to be found.

Every tent had been knocked down, burned, or shot full of holes - except for one. Her personal tent was entirely untouched. Whoever this was, they were waiting for her in particular. It was a single person - she could tell how they had moved through the camp from the layout of the battlefield.

The number of people left that were strong enough to do this alone probably didn't exceed a dozen. Compare that list to one made up of people who had reason and ability to track her down personally…

'Ah. Well, this should be interesting.'

Raven shifted back into her human form a few feet above the ground, readied her weapon, removed her mask, and entered the tent. In the middle of the room, nonchalantly leaning up against an absurdly oversized scythe planted blade-first into the ground, was a young woman, acting entirely too at ease considering the situation. Black hair dyed with red streaks topped a petite frame, mostly hidden inside a bright red cloak.

"What are you doing here?"

Ruby Rose looked up to meet her eyes. "That should be pretty obvious."

"Enlighten me."

"Come on Raven, I know you have it, even if none of your people knew what I was talking about. Where's the Relic?"

Raven scoffed. "What makes you believe that I have one? If I did then I would have used it by now. Why would I run and hide when I could just take over my own city?"

"You're not stupid. You know what would come down on your head if you used that thing for your own gain. Honestly, I'm glad you got it when you did - if Salem had gotten her hands on it then we wouldn't be having this conversation - but I need to take it back where it belongs."

"You're still assuming I have it to begin with."

"I mean, you do. We got three of them back, but Knowledge is still missing. It was stored in Haven, which is basically right next door with your Semblance, it disappeared right before Cinder would have gotten to it, and I know you can use your portals for recon. You waited until you wouldn't be seen, used your portals to break in, grabbed it and left. Nobody else has the knowledge and ability to pull off something like that without being seen, and definitely not in a room guarded by two dozen Huntsmen."

Raven paused, then responded, "And what if I do have it? You would just lock it away again."

"So you are planning to use it."

"If I don't use it, then some other disaster will come. If we haven't learned our lessons from the first time, we'll end up having to face down something even worse than Salem. Something that will make even the best of us seem weak in comparison."

Ruby hesitated, then gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. "Right. Umm… how about you come with me, and explain yourself to someone who knows more?"

Another pause. "You think I'm crazy. That after all these years your sister's murderous mother has finally cracked." It wasn't a question. "You're clearly not going to listen to me, so I'll have to be on my way."

Ruby stood, and laid a hand on her scythe, which was still stuck in the ground. "I'm not going to let you leave without handing it over. You might be powerful, but this isn't a fight that you're going to win."

"You've gotten overconfident again. Without your team you're nothing more than another Huntress."

Ruby pulled her weapon out of the ground, lowering into a combat stance. "Well I guess we're about to see if that's true, aren't we?

Raven drew a green blade and slashed an arc over her head, creating a blast of wind that blew the tent apart, leaving the pair of them standing in a mostly-empty clearing. A moment later, and the blade was back in its place, the scabbard rotating to a new color. Both Huntresses stood, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Faster than the eye could track, Raven drew her sword, expanded the deep violet blade, and launched a wave of gravity at her target. Fortunately for Ruby, she wasn't trusting her eyes. In the split-second before the wave hit, her Aura had already reacted, warning her of the approaching threat. That gave the huntress enough time to focus that Aura, activate her Semblance, and scatter. Ruby vanished, and rose petals spread across the clearing in her place, only to begin drawing together to Raven's left. Another wave of gravity was sent in that direction, just before Raven's Aura flared in warning and she dropped through a newly-created portal to land safely away. Crescent Rose came from the opposite side, tearing through the space she had occupied fractions of a second before.

With a flick of her wrist, another portal appeared at Raven's feet, and her sword, purple blade now swapped out for yellow, struck through it. Ruby took advantage of her Aura's advance warning, scattering into a cloud of rose petals once more, until the yellow blade flashed and a storm of lightning forced her back to normal.

After a check to ensure that there was no lasting damage, Ruby transformed again, this time appearing as a swirling cloud of petals that speared toward Raven, shattering the Lightning Dust blade with the blunt end of her scythe. Ruby made use of the temporary advantage, disappearing again only to partially rematerialize in three places at once. The scythe-blade swung at Raven's legs, the spearhead on the end of the weapon's staff came for her side, and an Ice Dust-infused .50 caliber bullet aimed to freeze over the opening of her scabbard, preventing access to another blade.

Raven kept each of the three attacks from landing, launching herself over the scythe while summoning a portal that put the spearhead between herself and the bullet. A moment later, and she had retrieved a new blade, this one a dark shade of orange. A twirl of the blade created a dome made of rock, sealing her in as innumerable portals appeared across the clearing. Ruby was forced to dart back and forth across the clearing as beams of heat flew from one portal into another into another, covering the camp in a loose grid of fire.

Ruby closed in on the dome, expanding her Aura until she could feel the inside. She dematerialized, and then reappeared inside, ducking under Raven's swing. She was at a disadvantage in the tight space, especially once Raven collapsed her sword down. The two exchanged a whirl of attacks, blocks and parries, Raven slowly gaining the advantage and landing blows until Ruby was forced to run; running Gravity Dust along the blade of her scythe and slamming it into the wall, shattering a large portion of the dome.

Raven swung down, Ruby catching the attack on the barrel of her weapon before spinning around, sending the spearhead on the staff's base at Raven's head. Raven ducked under, sword moving in one direction while scabbard moved in another, driving at the reaper from two directions at once, only for both attacks to be deflected with a single upwards motion. Crescent Rose's barrel reached toward the sky as the staff and blade shoved the strikes away from its wielder. Ruby pushed upwards and ducked under her opponent's guard, catching the spearhead on Raven's Aura before finishing with her rifle barrel under Raven's chin.

Raven looked Ruby in the eyes. "You have grown stronger. Your Semblance has gotten impressive, It's been a long time since I've seen one so versatile"

Ruby ignored the comment, instead repeating her demand from earlier, "Either give me the Relic, or come with me back to Vale and help us sort all this out. We don't have to keep fighting!"

"If you think I'm going to give up that easily, then you still have a lot to learn about me."

Raven held out her sword, orange blade swapped out for one colored light grey, and used her Aura. A bright flash came from the sword, briefly disorienting Ruby as she slammed her scabbard into the right side of the scythe, jerking her head in the opposite direction causing the bullet to buzz by the left side of her head. She dropped through another portal, not reappearing until a few moments later. As she dropped into the clearing once more, her appearance seemed to have changed, her deep red Aura now flickering with cracks and bolts of black and blue.

Ruby's eyes widened in shock, and she charged Raven, scattering into a vortex of petals once more. Raven didn't react physically, but a flaming portal appeared nonetheless, jerking forward to intercept the scythe-wielder, burning through much of her remaining Aura and redirecting her into the ground several yards ahead of Raven. Ruby tried to stand, but she was interrupted by another portal, this one crackling with electricity, opening beneath her. The rest of her Aura was drained as she fell through, and it crackled into nonexistence as she landed at Raven's feet.

Raven stared down at her opponent as her Aura shifted back to normal, and spoke. "You wanted the Relic, well here it is. Before I decide what to do with you, what did you do with the rest of my people?"

Ruby groaned, pulling herself up onto one elbow. "Ugh… They ran away. I don't know where they went though." She hesitated a moment before tensing up and asking, "What are you going to do now?"

"Normally, anyone who attacked us like this would die. Lucky for you, however, you still have your safety. I admit it's a little unusual for me to be saving someone from myself, but I owed Summer a few favors so this will have to do."

Ruby relaxed for a moment, but then Raven continued, "That being said, I can't simply leave you here to come after us again. I can't trust you to stay with us, either, so I'm going to have to do something more... permanent." Her Aura lit up in blue and black once more as she drew her sword and slashed. A portal appeared, much more slowly than all the previous ones.

Ruby moved, grabbing her weapon and trying to scramble backwards, but there was little point. A downside of her Semblance was that using it with a depleted Aura would almost certainly be lethal, and Raven could simply make more portals if she got too far away. Raven's purple sword activated, and the portal glowed the same shade in response, beginning to suck debris in towards it. Raven simply stepped through before the pull was able to disturb her footing, but Ruby was left to be helplessly dragged backwards until she crossed the portal herself.

As I crossed the portal, I tried to make sense of where I was. Raven's portals had a huge range even when she wasn't using one of the Relics, so we could be pretty much anywhere right now. We were on something incredibly hard; concrete, or maybe something else like it. That meant we were somewhere inhabited. It was the middle of the day, so we hadn't gone very many timezones. Based off the sound of the wind, we were up very high, meaning either some kind of secret mountain base or a big city with skyscrapers. The muffled sound of traffic below told me that it was probably the latter. There weren't very many cities of that size in the world, even with the rapid expansion of the last few months. The cool temperature ruled out Atlas or Vacuo, so we were on the roof of a skyscraper in a city in either Vale or Mistral. That still meant we could be in any one of a dozen places, but it helped some.

I slowly pushed myself up to get a better look around. I didn't know why Raven would take me to a major city, but then she'd proven she... wasn't all there anymore when we were talking earlier. A glance over the roof's edge didn't reveal any obvious landmarks, so I looked back at Raven.

"Where... exactly, are we?" I asked, still out of breath. My Aura still hadn't begun to recharge; she must have hit me hard.

Raven stepped up onto the edge of the building, looking out at the landscape. "When someone uses a Relic, their Semblance grows exponentially more powerful. I honestly don't know where we are, but the Relic is suggesting that it's not anywhere you can get by mundane means. It's nowhere on Remnant, so you won't be coming back unless I allow you to."

Not on Remnant? What? Where else could we… No way. She was just going to leave me here? I started slowly moving backwards, in the vague direction of the portal. If I could get close enough without her seeing me...

She continued "Wherever it is, the inhabitants have technology. You'll be comfortable."

She was totally gonna leave me here. "And when will you come back for me?"

I was forced to stop crawling as she turned to face me. "I don't plan to. You challenged me, and you failed. You attacked my tribe. Either of those would earn anyone else a swift death; I'm being kind by doing this." She began walking back towards the portal.

Crap, she was leaving now! As she walked past me, I launched to my feet and ran past her, trying to get through before it closed, only for Raven to swing her scabbard around and slam it into my midsection. I keeled over, she stepped through, and the portal blinked closed before I could try again.

I stood there staring for a moment. It took until then for Raven's words to click. I was, somehow, on another world. I had no idea where I was, no way back home, and only enough supplies for a couple of weeks.

I walked over to the roof edge, and looked out over the city.

It was on the coast, like Vale, but seemed to be a lot smaller. It couldn't have been much bigger than Patch. The ocean breeze was blowing in from across the water, reminding me of Mom's grave on Patch. I was standing on one of a few very tall office buildings, facing toward the water. The building across from me had a logo printed near the top; a black crown on a red-and-yellow checkerboard background. Past that were eight or nine city blocks running right up to the edge of the water. The coastline curved sharply away from me in both directions, and floating in the middle of the bay was a huge building with a clear glowing dome covering it like an Aura.

Looking down, I could see people and cars, with smaller apartment buildings tucked between the skyscrapers. Farther inland, there were houses, spread out much further apart than I would have expected, but given that there weren't any walls around the city they must be able to afford the space.

The whole place was really different, even if there seemed to be a few similarities from up here. This was gonna be really hard.

Alright, so this is an AN. My first AN, actually, so that's exciting. This is the first thing I've ever written for something other than school, and a large portion of my reason for writing it is so I could improve my abilities for other things. I've looked through for typos, but it's very possible that I've missed some, so please let me know about any of those. On top of that, if I screw up my characterization or get anything wrong in terms of keeping to Worm canon, feel free to yell at me about that too. I'm not gonna improve without criticism, so as long as it's constructive feel free to keep it coming!

In less exciting news, I'm going to be waiting a bit before posting the next chapter. I'd like to build up a backlog before posting more, but I wanted to get this out as a sort of pilot episode to gauge interest and ensure my writing style is bearable. The next chapter will be out by this time next month at an absolute maximum, and hopefully I'll be able to start a schedule by then.