I faded one day, I tried as much. I had taken a life in a moment of fear, and I had ceased to be somehow. In one day, the world had ended, monsters flooded the air and streets, tearing apart the place I had called home. The time had come for me to achieve my destiny, to be a hero, to save the people I loved. The person I loved, even if I couldn't remember them due to my actions.
I failed. And no matter how I saw it, it was all I could think about, it invaded my mind. I wanted, I needed to redeem myself. I had to leave my friends behind if I was to meet my destiny.
I rose, I fought, I tried everything in my power to save the land. But in the end, I died, never seeing the faces of my loving friends in my new home, or those of my family in my old one, ever again. And yet it wasn't the end. What came next, could only be described as the torture and suffering after death, a world of endless bloodshed and struggle.
I saw a world with no hope, no peace, no order except its fall, the constant cycle of death and undeath, a cycle I was powerless to resist as I succumbed to it as well. I had fought through much, I had changed so much. I had lost so much. I had done so much all in the hope of going back, in being with the people I cared about and loved, in the world that had kept me so safe. Away from the Hell that I had been kept in, away from the dead friends and the decaying ruins of what used to be a stable world once. But hope only made things more frightening…
I learned hope is not to be yearned for lightly.
Pyrrha's body was heavy, and lifeless, curled up in the grass with eyes shut tight. Slowly, they fluttered open, her skin feeling blissfully cool and refreshed from the air and dew. She stirred and shuffled on the ground before quickly springing to her feet. She was no longer in Firelink by the bonfire, she was no longer trying in vain to get a good night's sleep for a change. She breathed in cool, clean air, and saw bright, verdurous trees. She blinked and stared, still wearing her steel armor and with her weapons acquired in Lothric strapped to her, her hair shortened. And she felt something more, something eating away at her that she didn't want to think about.
Her head was heavy and swimming, though she did not know why, though it may have been beautiful. She looked up above the trees and saw...mountains. Not just any other mountains, they were familiar to her. She had seen them before, in Mistral, always in the distance. She only vaguely remembered them, but her heart began fluttering regardless, and she began spinning around, looking for...something. A path, or a way out of the tree line, and she began moving.
But she stopped and took out her weapons. Something was in the woods with her. She began to hear shuffling...and the sound of trees falling. She spun and rolled to the left, dodging a large creature that had barreled through and nearly uprooted the trees in front of her. The creature, which had the appearance of a large white and black scorpion, immediately spun around and tried to slam its tail into the ground where Pyrrha was standing. Time slowed down and she rolled toward the tail, causing it to stab the ground behind her, followed by twirling around to slash its golden stinger off.
As it reeled in pain, it tried to swipe at Pyrrha, its blind swipe blocked by her shield. Pyrrha didn't miss a beat and slashed the pincer off before stabbing straight at its "head," causing its carapace to crack and splinter from the force.
Pyrrha panted and relaxed as it began to give off a black smoke…..which then grasped Pyrrha's attention. This...was a Grimm, a Deathstalker, she remembered. It was one of the first things she had fought with her team, when she was initiated into Beacon Academy. She put her hand to her head, memories and thoughts once again flooding her mind. It all sounded so...unreal, now. But the mountains, the Deathstalker…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
She turned around to where she heard the high pitched scream, and saw a plume of black smoke arising over the treeline in the distance. With no leads, she decided to follow it.
The Nuckelavee was no more, and Ren, tearing the knife from its head, breathed a sigh of relief, years of grief and memories having been pushed behind him at last. He turned, only to be glomped by Nora, who covered him in a crushing hug of joy. Jaune smiled at this before turning to the treeline right outside of town. But as he did, he noticed something moving toward them, a small reddish glint among the trees. He craned his head and moved forward. The figure then jumped out and rolled in front of the line, having lost their balance.
The figure stood up and raised its head to Jaune's eye level, revealing a pair of soft, green eyes.
Pyrrha froze where she was just as Jaune had. "Jaune?" she had asked, not being loud enough to even be considered whispering. Jaune's mouth was open slightly, his eyes widened and piercing without any input.
The two stared at each other for several years it seemed like, not moving once. Pyrrha's hair had been roughly cut to a much shorter length than she had before, without a ponytail. Her armor was different too, having a steel cuirass with short sleeves and metal gauntlets, with full plate boots, all having several nicks and scratches. The only part of her armor that seemed to remain was her skirt, which was torn and frayed, with her belt faded. All of this was a distraction from his real thoughts. Pyrrha Nikos was alive...and right in front of him. After so long...
Before he could open his mouth, Nora and Ren had approached him and saw Pyrrha for themselves. Nora hesitated, but quickly smiled. "Pyrrha? Pyrrha!" She immediately charged forward for a hug.
Pyrrha flinched but quickly fell into the hug underneath Nora's strength. "N-Nora! Oh my god, oh it's so good to see you!" Tears rolled out of Nora's eyes and onto Pyrrha's neck as she embraced her. Ren quietly, but happily came to hug Pyrrha as well.
Ruby, who had been helping Qrow walk, was shooed away from that when Qrow saw what was happening with the rest of the team. She set down Qrow and immediately ran to the group, with tears in her eyes. "Pyrrha!"
Pyrrha looked and caught Ruby's hug as she went into her. "Ruby! Oh, you're safe! The last time I saw you…" Although Pyrrha's eyes were clamped shut, she was too happy to even cry tears of joy and continued to be smothered in the warm, caring hugs of her friends, something she had gone so long without.
From her embrace she looked up at Jaune, who was still standing still, but with a single tear in his eye and a smile that grew as the tear went down. Just then a gust of wind blasted them and Pyrrha pushed them all back and put her hand to the hilt of her broadsword, but on looking up they saw what it was. They all looked up and saw two Mistral patrol craft flying overhead, hovering over them.
Ruby immediately gathered Qrow and went on the one with Ren and Nora, while Pyrrha and Jaune were given one to themselves. They knew the pilots were saying something about not being able to patrol over Mistral due to the lethality of Grimm attacks recently, but they couldn't hear them as they were drowned out by the silence.
All the two could do was stare at each other it seemed, or look down in awkward silence. Pyrrha took the chance to look at Jaune's new armor too, with his new gauntlets and golden trim along his breastplate and shield, along with an ornate design on the lower part of….
"Jaune, is...is that my circlet?" Pyrrha finally broke the ice with one of the most inane things to notice when flying above scenic Mistral.
Jaune perked up and shuffled about before realizing what she was referring to, turning red as a tomato. "Oh, uh well I didn't- I thought- well you were…"
Pyrrha then started giggling and tried valiantly to cover it with her hand. It was the first time she was ever able to do that, she realized, a wave of happiness going through her mind as she remembered how he cheered her up by wearing a dress at the Beacon dance. Here, after all she's been through, all Jaune Arc had to do was be himself. They both smiled at each other, before Pyrrha leaned in.
They both met each other. Pyrrha's cheeks became hot and she felt her heart speed up. Jaune used his free left hand to hold Pyrrha closer. As his hand touched her back near the lumbar, however, the universe exploded. Pyrrha saw several screaming corpses rushing toward her, a woman with white hair and a steel visor blocking her eyes, and an orange, fiery circle.
Pyrrha gasped and pushed herself away from Jaune, breathing heavily. "Pyrrha? I-I'm sorry, are you alright?"
Pyrrha looked at Jaune. After what seemed like an eternity of torment, pain, and suffering through a decaying world, her only response was: "I...I'm fine, Jaune. T-thank you" she smiled, somewhat weakly.
Soon they were in sight of Mistral, its elaborate mountainside structure overseeing a lush, beautiful town. Pyrrha's eyes softened. Home. The word was….odd to her, somehow...
Ruby was given a room with Qrow, checking up on him. He had bandages across his abdomen that were soaked through with poison, and he was only now able to properly recover.
Pyrrha remained in the room JNPR was given for a time, wanting to see it for herself. It was so spacious and warm, with a painting of the old city hanging near the bed. But she was focused on the mirror. She was scratched, shaken, and somewhat unkempt from her time in that world, Lothric it was called. But it wasn't the full story. She was twiddling a ring she had on her finger, a dark and gray little ornament that no one had seen. Finally she gripped it, and gently removed it.
Instantly she saw her true form, her ashen, dessicated skin. She saw her full, yet stringy and loose hair and decaying teeth under blackened lips. Most hurtful of all were her eye sockets being almost empty, save for red, glowing pinpricks of light surrounded by a void. Her head silently lowered, and she shed tears. No matter how warm, how accepting they were, they couldn't change what had happened. They couldn't understand how she was so much different now.
Footsteps approached the room while she wasn't paying attention. She quickly slipped the ring back on, reverting to her "original" appearance just as Jaune had turned the handle. Suddenly Pyrrha's worries seemed quiet and small. Jaune, as well as Ren and Nora, both looking quite content with each other, walked over to her and sat against the bedside. Pyrrha sat next to Jaune and placed her hand on his, leaning against his shoulder. For now, at least, she felt at peace. She was with her friends, no, family again, and she hadn't felt anywhere near as happy to have them than now.
Regardless, she didn't tell them how chilly everything seemed to feel.
Author's Notes: Now, you might be wondering why there isn't another chapter for Invincible Girl up, and that would be because of school, writer's block, and good old fashioned laziness getting in the way. But I didn't want to rush and push out the next chapter half-baked, so I made this sidestory (that I'd been thinking of for some time) to sate your appetite. It is currently non-canon, but elements from it might go into Invincible Girl (ae: broad-strokes).
Updates will probably continue once V4 finally decides to start and give us some information.
For and Ao3 users, future chapters of this side story will be posted in its separate story.
The next chapter in Invincible Girl will be Band of Brothers, The Abyss Watchers. Now you know why I stalled (I mean, carefully plotted out) my time.