Herald of the Sea (RWBY)

Chapter 14: Red Like Blood

Chapter 14

    With a bardiche by his side, Triton slams the base of the hilt on the floor. The squad gets up and  surrounds Hazel, Triton calls Ruby’s scroll and once she answers, he says, “Stop being a brat and start speaking to me.” He hangs up and activates the blue dust crystal in the blade of his bardiche, he then flips the switch on the shaft and the blade flips up, turning into a scythe with water around it.

    Nora taps Jaune’s arm and nods at him, he smiles and takes the lead. “Triton and Qrow keep him distracted!” Qrow and Triton nod and bump fists, the two rush Hazel. “Ruby, Ren and Yang lay suppressing fire!” The three of them spread around the room, Ruby jumps up to the second floor, Ren and Yang run around the room trying to get shots on every now and then. “Nora and Weiss, you’re with me.” The three of them run away from the fighting, Jaune faces his back to the fight and raises his shield up.

    “Nora, Lightning Strike!” Nora runs further back and Weiss creates a yellow glyph on Jaune’s shield. Nora runs and jumps onto Jaune’s shield, Weiss activates the glyph and arcs of electricity run over Nora’s skin. Jaune pushes her up as Nora jumps against him, he falls back and craters into the floor, as Nora flies through the ceiling.

    The fight slowly stops as everyone comes to realization of what just happens, seeing their moment, Qrow and Triton sweeps Hazel off his feet, they follow up by stabbing into the open wound on his left arm, and stabbing into the dust in the right arm, detonating it and impaling his arm to the ground. Hazel yells out in annoyance, his aura flickering only once. Shooting down, Nora blasts through the roof and slams her hammer down. Triton and Qrow get sent out the front doors of the building, Qrow catches his weapon and throws it ahead of him. 

    Qrow lands on the shaft of his sword and catches the breath that has been knocked out of him. Triton forms a spiral of water around him and creates a slide of ice until he slows onto his feet. his scythe breaks through the thin ice and Triton catches it with his right hand, he flips the switch and rests the weapon on his shoulder.

    “That was- something fucking awesome.” Triton laughs and sits back, he taps his bardiche. He then looks around and sees that they’re surrounded by Faunus and the Mistral Police. “They’re still here?”

    Qrow hops off his sword and sheaths it on his waist, “What the hell does that girl eat, pure protein?”

    The two men straighten up and stroll back into the school building, the floor has a pool of blood with a bleeding Hazel in the hole. His arms are both mangled to oblivion, his hands flattened to paste and arms shattered and full of gashes, his chest is moving unevenly, and his legs are covered in rocks.

    Triton pulls up a orb of blood with strain and smiles to himself, “Impressive that you’re alive, though a few seconds left if you don’t help. Where is the relic.” Hazel coughs up a load of blood and groans in pain. Triton crystalizes the blood into a diamond, he draws an orb from Hazel’s arm. “One more chance. The next orb will be bigger, and I might just make you eat it.”

    “H-Help…”

    Ruby runs over but Qrow grabs her by her hood, “No. There’s nothing to do.”

    Triton pulls out more blood from Hazel, creating a red diamond the size of his palm, he puts the diamond in Hazel’s mouth and spins. He slams the ax in the skull of the dying man, he shoves his foot into the throat of the man and pries out the blade. “You’ll be buried under the people that you have betrayed, let them walk over your remains.”

    As Triton is walking out, a bullet fires past his head, Ruby shouts; “Why did you kill him!”

    “Because I’m a killer.” He walks out of the school and heads back to the house, the video already replaying in his mind.

    Back at the house, Triton is back in his pajamas and sitting in front of his computer, in his hand is the small blood diamond. He rubs the edges and smoothness, he’s alone once again, himself and the video… nothing but his memory.

    A few weeks after the event of the academy, team rwby had fully reunited. Blake Belladonna, a cat faunus that led the newly formed White Pelt to Mistral, and had failed to arrest Adam Taurus the leader of the White Fang. Though Triton never took interest in politics outside of Argus, he did learn a lot about Menagerie, after he finally left his room. He stayed in his room for a week, only having his food sent to him and leaving without being noticed.

    As Triton sits in the living room, he messes with the blood diamond in his palm, spinning it like a top on his finger. “So… What did you want to know?”

    The living room stays quiet, taking in the rough appearance of Triton. He has a beard growing out and has redyed his hair purple, his arm repainted black with blue accents. Ruby stands in front of her with her fist on her hips, attempting to seemingly scorn him,“Why would you kill Hazel! He was asking for help! You killed a living person, he breathed, we had a heart, a soul and aura!”

    Yang drags Ruby to the couch and Triton breathes deeply, “Help him what? Live the rest of his life as a criminal vegetable? I gave him a quick death from all the pain, and he simply refused to comply. Do not stand morally white, when we're morally gray. So do not speak to me as if you are better than me, because if you were better than me, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be searching for the relic.”

    “He’s correct on his choice, Hazel has killed a lot of innocent people.” Ozpin took control of Jaune, “But as much as I hate to kill him, he was still the enemy of all the people of Remnant, and had to be killed to be stopped. Both Hazel and Triton fight for similar reasons, revenge over the death of their sister’s, but only one was truly a Just cause.”

    “You’re a killer!”

“I saved you!”

    “But it’s murder!” A slap reaches across Ruby’s cheek, she looks down at the floor in shock as her cheek turns dark red.

    Triton puts a glove back on his right hand and says, “Then I’m a murderer. If we’re to win a war, we all will be! Don’t fight in a war if you’re going to stay a child forever!”

    Yang grabbed Ruby’s shoulder and used a motherly voice, “Ruby… Accept it, without him, if we didn’t end a life then more problems would arrive.”

    “How can you protect him…?”

    Ren joins in, “Ruby, he was a gladiator, he’s already killed people before for just other’s entertainment, Pyrrha’s done the same. Now he is using his skills to help the majority over the entertainment of the minority, he’s right, you need to realize that if we’re going to win, we’ll need to kill Humans and Faunus, anyone that fights for Salem is our greatest enemy.”

    “I’m not exactly straight on what’s been happening, but with what I’ve been told, the Grimm queen and her minions are too dangerous to keep alive.” Blake moves Ruby back onto the couch and sits with the girl, holding her hands over their laps. “Look at Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald; we thought they were good people, but they killed Penny, Professor Ozpin, many children and classmates.”

    “And Pyrrha and Amber…” Jaune points out depressingly.

    Triton’s right arm twitches and knocks over a cup next to him, losing focus and control. “Amber?”

    Ozpin looked down at the floor with guilt in his blue green eyes, “She was the fall maiden before Pyrrha, if it wasn’t for Qrow, the events of Beacon would’ve happened earlier. Amber- was attacked and put in a coma, having half of her soul stolen with her power… It was Pyrrha who took the burden and Amber who paid the price of keeping peace…”