RWBY - Bittersweet Paradise

Prep time 9

*Moments before Kurama released his rage.

???: "Remind me again why we're walking through this forest?"

???: "Raven's orders, that's all you need to know."

???: "Come on Vernal, if we're going to do this mission then we at least need to know what our main goal is here."

Vernal: "I'll tell you once we meet our objective, now shut up we need to stay quiet."

In a forest near where a small lake is in, we can see three people traveling through. One is a woman with short brown hair, icy blue eyes, and tan-colored skin. She wears a light brown vest and a torn white shirt. She also has a tattoo of a bird with flowers and... a collar on her neck? Why-who- *sigh...*

(Look, just look at the image up above for reference.)

We can see her walking alongside two other bandits, one which hasn't stopped talking and has been annoying ever since they left their camp. The other bandit has been the complete opposite and hasn't talk ever since which is completely normal for him, considering he barely talks to anyone. He's not mute, he simply doesn't like to talk much. Both of them look like... your imagination!

They left their camp a few hours ago on orders of their tribe's leader, Raven. The two male bandits decided to volunteer to try and explore some more of the forest, though they don't know what the true main goal is. Vernal, however, does know.

There have been reports of a few Grimm going down in numbers in parts of the forest, specifically near the lake. There have also been very few rare sightings of a person with a mask around the area. Raven believes that this person could be of good use to the tribe, so she asked Vernal, who I forgot to mention is basically second in command, to find out who this person is and bring them back. If the masked person refuses to go with them then... they are allowed to use whatever means is necessary to "convince" them.

Annoying bandit: "But why do we need to stay quiet? It's so boring, we haven't done anything but walk and walk and we only encountered Grimm once! And they were only a bunch of small weak beowolfs!"

Vernal: "Didn't you decided to come here on your own because you wanted to " explore" the forest?"

Annoying bandit: "Yeah, explore the forest as in kill more Grimm just like this other guy wanted, right?"

As he said this, he patted the silent thug on the back which only earned him a...

"..."

Annoying bandit: "Jeez man, at least say something."

As they kept on walking, they couldn't help but have a bad feeling. The more they kept on walking, the worse the feeling got. A small breeze of wind flew by them. The other two ignored this while Vernal became suspicious.

Vernal: Strange... there hasn't been any wind since we left and yet-

They stopped walking when they felt small but barely noticeable shockwaves.

Annoying bandit: "Uh... what was that? That definitely didn't feel normal to me. Also, is it just me or do I have a really bad feeling in my gut? Like, really bad."

Quiet bandit: " Wait, you too? I-I thought I was the only one..."

Vernal: Both of them feel it too? This is definitely not a coincidence. We need to find out what is going in the la-

Vernal was brought out of her thinking when suddenly a loud scream that sounded humane yet demonic rang out through the forest. The wind was blowing around the area they were in. The once semi-silent bandit was now looking up at something in the sky that was making him breathe heavily and sweat bullets.