Herald of the Sea (RWBY)

Chapter 4: Shion, the ashed village

Chapter 4

The sun blasted down onto the team as they travelled, their lost minds had strayed them from their original path. The team follows Ruby as she tries to read a map.

Ruby: "So the next town is... Uh, yeah, mhm... I don't know how to read a map."

Jaune: "The next town is Shion, my family visited the place a lot."

Triton: "Never been, I've only been to Mistral and Higanbana."

Ruby, playfully mocking: "Don't you have like, four? Sisters?"

Jaune: "Uh, seven."

Nora: "You know that actually 'plains a lot"

Jaune pauses and thinks hard: "Wait, what do you mean?"

Ruby: "Sooo, what did you do there?"

Jaune: "All sorts of stuff!" He grabs half of the map, "Over here is a hiking trail, and over here was where we used to camp. I got my own tent because I was special!... also so my sisters would stop braiding my hair..."

Ruby: "Didn't like the look?"

Jaune: "Yeah, they kept putting in pigtails, but I personally think I'm more of a warrior's wolf tail kind of guy."

Ruby: "That's just a ponytail."

Jaune: "I stand by what I said."

Triton: "I support it."

Nora: "Uh, guys!?"

Nora took notice of the smoke past the village walls, darkening the sky around it. Just walking into there looks like lung cancer. Triton zones the team out as he looks up to the sky, plumes of smoke coming from further down the road. As he unsheathes his sword and unfolds it to his trident, the team also slows down and then starts to run into the village. The buildings are dirtied with dirt and ash, this was no Grimm attack, the Grimm do not start fires.

As the team runs off, Triton looks around the village, few bodies are around, and the Grimm do not eat corpses. Bandits did this, then the Grimm continued the assault, but there should be some form of remains from the people that were here. The stone road has a fifteen feet hole, ash buried inside and spiderwebs of cracks spread around. Lightning, without a storm or bad weather, it was not natural.

He messages on his scroll that he's splitting from the group and that they'll meet at the mountain path, that he'll be going to the village up North, they should continue East. He places his shield on the ground and hops on as the dust activates, moving him straight.

The travel to the next village wasn't special, there were more Grimm than while he travelled with the team, which went far from unnoticed. On his way to the village, he noticed an odd print in the dirt that headed away from the horde, and into the mountains, he marked the spot on his scroll and continued on.

When he had arrived at the next village, the people there were as calm and happy to an unheard of level. He looked around and not anyone was seemingly in any mood, so he went to a bar. Sitting at the bar, he acts like he can't keep his mouth shut, talking on and on about how tragic the sight of the burnt neighboring village was, and that they should be worried about the bandits... but no one cared. One man just laughed and mocked him, calling him a coward and a fool, showing that he knows more than what's to see.

Triton pays for the check and leaves, shoulder tapping the man that mocks him, and spilling the man's drink. The man yells at Triton and throws his glass at the warrior, shattering it on the silver shield. The corner's of the shield round out until it is perfectly round, and Triton slides it down onto his arm.

Triton: "You gonna apologize for that?"

Man: "Oh, so the coward got his feeling's hurt!?"

The bar bellows out in laughter, and a crackling. The laughter dies down as they look for the crackling, as the barista goes to make another man drink, the bottle shakes uncontrollably in her hand, the vibrations tingling her skin. When she looks up to the other drinks, all the bottles are shaking. Mimicking laughter in their chorus.

Triton: "So, do you know what happened to the neighbors?"

Man, noticing the bottles: "We... what the hell is going on?... They died of Grimm, obviously."

Triton sighs and snaps his fingers, on cue all full bottles and cups shatter and splash onto those at the bar, the alcohol looks to freeze on contact.

Triton: "Shame that you watered them down so much, but it's good for me." He throws his shield into the bar and slides the mostly frozen man to it with a shove kick. "Now, from the top. What happened?"

This might be the only chapter I really question as one, so I'll make it the last.