Happy Halloween, guys! It's a very RWBY Halloween in this story, and I've decided, hey, monsters abound lately, eh? So why not update the story I have in which monsters are prominent creatures? Thus, the latest chapter of Festival of the Grimm is born! I think I got pretty creative with Weiss in this chapter, and I got to have Yang make some jokes I've been dying to hear her make! I also forgot I left this story on a cliffhanger, so I apologize for that. Anyway, without further ado, I give you the newest addition to Festival of the Grimm!

Blake awakened to cloud of black smoke rushing out of her mouth, followed by golden smoke. She felt her muscles seizing, her back arching and her lungs burning. She went into a coughing fit again, her vision blurred by tears that flowed down her face. She felt arms wrap around her waist and head, held in a secure embrace, and muffled whispers breached her ears.

"What did you do to her?!" A voice reached her with half-clarity.

"I left a piece of myself inside her," another voice said. "I have cursed her. Should she ever see the light of day again, her body will slowly and painfully disintegrate from within. But if you join me, perhaps I can lift the curse..."

"Fuck you."

"She has one week, and in that one week, you can make the choice: either join me and cure her, or she dies. Your choice, fledgling."

With that, there was the sound of sand falling, and Blake hacked again. Her vision began to clear and her strength returned somewhat, enough for her to stir a little. An arm lifted her back and a hand lifted her head. She wheezed, coughed again, and managed to open her eyes enough to see the ashen white skin of an arm. She looked up to see the face of her friend.

"Where am I," Blake slurred in a gravelly, painful voice.

"We're on the beach," the other girl said, "I need to get you out of here."

"Are you alright?"

Blake recognized Ruby's voice and she glanced toward the brunette. She was carrying Weiss in her arms, the heiress looking a little worse for wear.

"Magnus put a curse on her!" Yang reported, lifting Blake and setting her on wobbling legs. Yang now towered over her, her vampire body astoundingly titanic compared to everyone else. Blake stumbled, but she righted herself enough to stand up straight.

"Curse?"

"Blake is gonna die in a week if we don't do something soon."

Yang was sounding a little panicked and she was constantly shifting from foot to foot. She was breathing hard, like she'd just run a sixty mile marathon.

"Are you okay, Yang?"

"No! You're cursed, Weiss is injured and I'm a thirsty vampire! Of course I'm not okay!" Yang snapped angrily, then took several slow, deep breaths to try and calm herself. Small sobs broke through the huffing, and she just looked pathetic and pitiful and angry and upset. Blake put her hands on Yang's shoulders—she had to reach up at a forty-five degree angle to do so—and said, "Hey. Look at me."

Yang focused on her through the tears welling in her eyes.

"We have a week to solve this problem. I'll be fine for now, and you will be, too. We'll get Weiss a doctor, and we'll go to Vacuo and check out the college. Okay?"

Yang sniveled. "I wish I just stayed with you guys."

"Hey, it's not your fault. We'll get through this."

Yang nodded submissively, and Blake gave her a hug to comfort her. Yang's long arms wrapped around her shoulders, the fledgling forcing herself to resist the oh-so-tempting allure of the blood thrumming beneath her friend's flesh.

"How about we find that doctor now?" Ruby suggested from her spot behind Blake. Blake agreed with a nod, and Yang, as was quickly becoming the usual, followed behind like a dog would its master.

"You're back! I wouldn't suppose you'd be willing to sit through more of my stories, eh? Heheheh!"

Jerald, his eternal cheer worn on his sleeve, laughed as Ruby and Blake approached him.

"We would love to, sir, but we need help. Medical help. Our friend has been injured."

"Oh? And you believe I might help? Heheh! You're right!"

"You're a medical professional, sir?" Blake asked in Ruby's stead.

"Does this weapon look like a warrior's?" Jerald chuckled as he drew his revolver, "Nope! This is the weapon of a medic! Heheheh!"

"So you can help us?"

"I sure can! Bring her on over."

Blake had been the one to fetch Weiss this time. Ruby was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and Yang...Yang had the worst nervous breakdown of all time when they drew too close to the crowd.

Yang had screamed in agony when they drew close to the crowd, and she'd broken down into a panic attack. She'd begun to shed tears, covering her pointed ears with her hands and clenching her teeth. "Make it stop, make it stop, make it sto-o-op..." She had wailed, clearly thirsty once again. So Ruby, despite Blake's dislike of the act, allowed Yang to siphon from her. Though it didn't stop the noise, it was significantly lessened.

The crowd dissipated quickly, the celebrators having moved toward the center of the city, allowing Ruby and the others to reach Jerald quickly and painlessly.

"Hmm? Oh, dear. Is this your friend?" Jerald said, pointing to Yang.

"Yes, sir," Ruby said, "But she isn't the injured one. It's Weiss."

"Ah. Set her up here, if you would, please."

Blake nodded and placed Weiss's limp body atop the table Jerald had been using for his kebabs.

The elder set to work immediately, inspecting the girl with the eyes of an eagle and the wisdom of nearly a century reflected in his eyes.

"Oh, dear me," he said, losing his cheer suddenly, "It seems that your friend is...well..."

"What?" Yang asked with fear in her voice.

"She's...she seems to be...falling apart."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.

"Her neck is...it seems to have developed an odd gap between the base of her neck and her skull. Strangely enough, even though that in itself is odd, her neck seems to have, er, disconnected from her head."

Ruby looked at Yang and Blake grimly.

"But even more odd is the fact that she's still alive."

"Wha-How?!" Blake exclaimed.

"I don't know. Let's check. Excuse me, miss. Miss!"

Weiss grumbled, having just woken up.

"Please, sit up for me."

Weiss sighed and did as she was told, rising into a sitting position. Or, at least, her body did.

Her head remained resting on the table, where it had been before, completely isolated from her body.

"Oh my...!" Ruby's eyes went wide and she covered her mouth to keep from screaming.

"Dust." Blake swore in disbelief.

"Holy..." Yang whispered.

Weiss's eyes opened, and she seemed puzzled to find that her head was still resting on the table.

"What the...I need some sleep or something..." Her severed head muttered to itself, but when she moved to get up, her hands enacted the movements, but in midair.

"What in Dust...?" Weiss's hands searched for her head atop her neck, but found nothing. "Wh-what the...where is...where is my head? Where is my head?!"

"Calm down, Miss Schnee," Jerald said, kneeling next to her head to see her at eye level, "I am going to show you something, but you must keep from panicking or it could make the situation worse. Okay?"

"O-okay."

Jerald picked up her head and rotated it to see her decapitated body, panicking on its own, acting without thought.

Or, rather, without wired thought. Now her body was being controlled from afar...by her severed head.

"Oh, my...!" Weiss's hand lifted up to cover a mouth that wasn't there and was instead three feet away, leaving her mouth hanging slack-jawed.

"So the legends ring true, then," Jerald said matter-of-factually.

"Legends? What legends?" Weiss asked as the other three girls just stared in disbelief while Jerald set her head on the table again.

"You've never heard them? They're about your family, you know. Perhaps your father wanted to hide the truth? Protect you? I'd have done the same if my daughter was cursed."

"Cursed?!"

"Yes. I remember when I was young, back when legends and myths were merely jokes to me and my friends. It was always believed and rumored that, upon a full moon night during the Festival of Grimm, the Schnees would lose their heads."

Weiss watched in horror, her hands acting as if her head were still attached to her neck.

"Now, I had always assumed that meant they went insane or something. I suppose that you Schnees literally lose your heads, like the Dullahans of legend."

"A Dullahan?"

"A Dullahan is basically a person who is no different from any other...except that his head can detach from his neck and cannot be killed with his brain intact."

"Sir," Ruby interjected urgently, "Can she still attach her head?"

"Oh, of course! In fact, you can just pull it off and put it back on at will. Now, don't expect me to know how, I'm just a doc, but you can figure it out, I'm sure. Heheh."

Weiss's eyes glanced at her body, and her arms acted of their own accord, lifting her head up and positioning it over her neck. She lowered it gently, and, hesitantly, took her hands off of her temples. She turned her neck, and her head rotated with it. She was utterly astonished.

"How do you know these things, sir?" Blake asked curiously, changing topic from Weiss's not-so-gruesome beheading.

"When you read lots of books, you sometimes cross many outlandish and unbelievable stories. I guess that, sometimes, they're true."

The old man lowered himself back into his chair.

"I think I'm done for the night. I am going to get some rest. Have a good time here at the festival, girls, heheheh!"

"Okay. Good night, Jerald, sir."

Jerald smiled and waved as the team departed, and he headed to the tent and inflatable mattress behind his table to rest for the night.

"So, you're losing your mind?"

Yang spoke for the first time in an hour as the group was returning to the Academy to prepare for a trip to Vacuo.

Weiss glared at her and growled, then promptly panicked as her head slid off her neck. She caught it and groaned, and Yang smiled, her incisors clearly visible in her grin.

"Nice to see you're smiling now, Yang," Blake said, then turned to Weiss and said, "You need to get your head on straight, Weiss."

Yang looked happily surprised to hear Blake of all people joking about Weiss's newfound condition.

"Don't make fun of me. I will remind you, nobody knows what you are yet, but I do," Weiss threatened as she set her head back atop her neck again, "And if the ridicule falls on me, I will not hesitate to sink my ship to kill your captain."

Blake rolled her eyes and returned to Yang, who was staring out the window and fidgeting nervously.

"Are you feeling...okay?" She asked her partner and friend.

"I...I start going through withdrawals if I go for more than a few minutes without blood, and I get hungry, but I really don't want to get set on that addiction."

Yang's fingers tapped against her arms agitatedly, and she seemed distracted and focused on something else.

"I wish I never let him influence me like that."

"Hey, it really isn't your fault," Blake said, looking over at Ruby briefly, seeing how Ruby was at another window, her hand covering her bite marks, then continued. "I've read books that have vampires in them. A lot of the time, vampires have the power to enthrall others by biting them and consuming enough of their blood. Other times, vampires just appear handsome or attractive enough that people just get hypnotized by them."

Yang stopped her fidgeting and looked down at her hands. "Have you ever killed someone?"

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Of course I have. Every Huntress has to."

"I killed a girl. An innocent girl. She was just trying to help me, and I killed her because she got too close. I wish she let me die, maybe then she'd be alive now."

"You couldn't help yourself. You needed the blood, and your body acted on instinct."

"Did I? I can't help but just replay it over and over again in my head and I just keep hearing that crunch that her neck made and how satisfying it was when I just bled her dry. And how after I was done, I...I wanted more, and I wasn't quite satisfied yet. I feel it eating away at me. I have to feed or...or..."

Her hands were trembling, but whether it be from rage, sorrow or just pure lack of nourishment, it was unclear.

"Blake, can I ask something of you?"

Blake looked up at the now-towering behemoth that was her friend. "Yes. Anything."

"If I...if I ever succumb to that...that monster, please, please, you have to put a wooden stake through my heart."

"What?"

"I need you to promise me. If you can't promise me as a friend, then promise me as someone who can save hundreds of thousands of lives. But please, you must promise me that you'll kill me if it comes down to that."

"Yang..."

"Please."

Blake nodded hesitantly, giving her best possible smile she could muster.

"I promise."

"Thank you," Yang said, returning to her fidgeting, "I can't stand the thought that I might kill a defenseless woman or even a child just to have a meal. Thank you. Really. That...that means a lot to me."

"No problem," Blake said, putting a hand on Yang's shoulder, "I'll let you know if it was as a friend or a savior."

Yang didn't respond that time, just stared emptily out into the night, lost in thought. Blake pursed her lips and turned to walk away, glanced back one more time, and sauntered away, mentally asking herself whether or not she could pull the trigger if or when the time came.