The Grimm Lands

"That'll be the last battle for today, class dismissed." I say.

Everyone quickly gets out and goes to their next classes, as I'm about to leave my scroll vibrates. I check it and it's a text from Ozpin.

'Kratos, I need you to come to my office, there's something I need you to investigate.' He says.

'Alright, I'm going there now' I reply before closing my scroll and head towards the elevators.

As I exit it I can see Ozpin drinking from his never ending mug with his usual neutral face, and Glynda is beside him but she has a worried look on her face.

"What's got you so worried Glynda?" I ask while getting out of the elevator.

"That is what I would like to talk about, would you kindly take a seat?" Ozpin says.

"Alright, now what is it that's worrying Glynda so much?" I ask while sitting down and Glynda takes a seat beside me and holds my hand tight.

"Right, so I was going through my day as usual but then I get an alert from one of the many sensors I have in place. And these do not get triggered often as they only do when something that could potentially cause chaos appears. So I open up one of the camera that are set up there and this is what I saw." He says before tapping on his desk and a hologram appears.

In it I all I can see is grey a desolate wasteland with uneven terrain and black pools of goop. Then suddenly grimm start to emerge from those pools and run away to who knows where.

"What is that place? And why are the grimm appearing out of those black pool things?" I ask.

"That, Kratos, is one of the few areas called the grimm lands. It's one of the places where the grimm come from. But the strange thing about this one is that it only appeared a few hours ago today in the morning and it's already expanded by this much.

One of these areas have not appeared since many many lifetimes ago, and it seems odd that one just appears with no apparent reason as to why. But thankfully my sensors picked up an unfamiliar energy signature in the center of the area inside one of the pools which look especially thick." He says.

"Oh I see where this is going, are you going to send me over there so I can find what the source is an potentially destroy it?" I ask.

"Correct, but I'm afraid that you'll have to go alone. The other teachers are preparing for their own missions and even if they could come I'm not that confident that they'll be much help." He says.

"Hmm I see, this could become a serious problem if it's not dealt with now. I'll do it." I say.

"Thank you, you will be leaving in 20 minutes. The pilot will be waiting for you at the helipad" He says.

"Please be careful." Glynda says.

I pull her into a hug and she holds onto me tightly.

"Don't worry Glynda I'll be fine, I promise." I say reassuringly as I rub her back slowly.

"You better keep your promise." She says as she slowly lets go with a tear running down her perfect face.

I smile and wipe the tear off and give her a kiss. We enjoy it and after we separate her lovely smile has returned to her face.

"There's the smile I know and love. I'll get going now, see you Glynda." I say before entering the elevator.

I exit the elevator and go to the helipad while passing some teachers and students. I arrive there and the pilot is already waiting for me. He sees me and opens up the sides of the bullhead I get in and onto one of the seats. I wait but he's not closing the doors.

"Hey why aren't we going?" I ask the pilot.

"Sorry, but there's a team that's supposed to be here already. It looks like they're late- oh wait never mind I see them coming here now." The pilot says.

And just like he said not long after a team does enter the bullhead, and that team is team RWBY along with Oobleck.

"Wait we have two professors accompanying us?" Ruby asks.

"No Ruby, I'm just riding this bullhead because it's going in the same direction for my mission." I say as everyone takes a seat and we take off.

"What's your mission?" Yang asks curious.

"Something for me to know and something for you to not find out." I say.

"Fine then, keep your secrets." She says before she and her team start talking amongst themselves.

I sigh, their talking is annoying me and I don't know how long it will take to arrive at their destination. So I lean my head back and close my eyes waiting to sleep, and I can probably have a talk with Salem and see if she has anything to do with this situation.

The sound of the team's chattering slowly fades away until all that's left is me and the familiar dark void.

"Well this is an unusually early time for you to sleep." Salem says appearing in front of me.

"That's because I'm going on a solo mission but I get put with one of the first year teams and their talking annoyed me so I just decided to sleep through the trip, and also so I can talk to you." I say.

"Oh, well that's a first. You slept because you wanted to talk to me. This is either a bad or good reason, but I'm guessing it's going to be bad." She says.

"It's a bad reason." I say.

"What is it?" She asks.

"It's about the new grimm lands you made." I say as I materialize us sofas to sit on.

"Wait what? I didn't make that new one, I can make one but it needs a lot of mana. Mana that I lost long ago creating the grimm lands for where I live currently." She says surprised.

"And you're not lying to me right now?" I ask.

"What reason do I have to lie to you?" She asks back.

"You're just expecting me to believe that it just came out of nowhere for no reason?" I ask.

"I know all the points lead to me being the one who made it but you have to trust me, I didn't make it. And I couldn't make it even if I wanted to." She says.

".. Fine then." I say.

"Thank you." She says.

"Now that that's out of the way, how are things going on your side?" I ask.

"Mm nothing much, just the usual scheming and attacking settlements here and there. And while we're on the topic of things happening, are you the reason why one of my lackey's subordinates is mentally broken?" She asks.

"Yep, sorry not sorry. She was trying to cast an illusion on me and she didn't give off a good aura so I pulled her consciousness in and played some horrific sights. And after 2 or so days she broke." I say.

"I see, well that's the worst mistake of her life. But anyways, how about you? Anything interesting happened?" She asks.

"Nah not really, just teaching here and there watching food fights. Relationship with my girlfriend getting better by the day." I say.

"Well that's nice to hear." She says.

(Timeskip)

I wake up to see that I'm the only one left in the bullhead other than the pilot.

"Hey, how much longer until we arrive?" I ask.

"Not much, just 5 more minutes I'd say." He says.

And soon I arrive at the area, the bullhead lands a safe distance away from it and opens its doors. I exit and the bullhead doors close and it takes off.

'Ker come out' I say.

And he does exactly that.

'Kill any grimm in my vicinity so I can get to my destination with little interruptions.' I say.

'Alright, that'll be easy. The strongest grimm I can sense is an alpha deathstalker' He says before running away weaving through the trees breaking the line of sight quickly.

I quickly start to run to the grimm lands' direction and with no encounters due to Ker I make it there without much trouble. I take a look at the area and it's just like Ozpin's hologram. I take a few steps in and immediately feel the ground shake.

I quickly roll forward dodging the giant worm coming out from where I just stood. I quickly super-heat my blades and throw them at it. I manage to melt through its armor and hook onto it. I quickly run and use my momentum and strength to pull it out of the ground and slam it into a boulder.

My blades are still attached so I spin it and throw it up in the air. Then Ker comes running behind the trees and jumps before biting through the things neck killing it, and the smoke gets absorbed into Ker's body.

'I can already feel you're much stronger.' I say.

'That's because there were so many grimm around that I could kill.' He says.

'Well lets continue deeper in a find the source of all of this.' I say before we start exploring deeper into the grimm lands.

(Small timeskip)

After some exploring and a lot of killing grimm that would give experienced hunters a rough time, I now am able to feel a certain power, that feels somewhat familiar to me. So me and Ker are heading to that source of power but then a grimm comes out from one of the more large pools of goop.

What came out of it was a giant snake like creature several times the size of Ker and is slightly smaller than the basilisk I once fought. It has a weird head, it's almost like it has two. Theres one big head and attached in front of that head is another smaller head with a long and sharp spike coming out of its front and has its mouth always open.

Its tail has a crescent shape to it which is made out of its armor and also looks sharp on its insides. It also has armor running across its body with giant spikes protruding out of it. This looks like a grimm that's never been seen before because I haven't seen it in the bestiary that was provided to me in my scroll.

It roars and I can see that the bigger head behind the smaller one opens dividing the smaller head. It then rushes us, we quickly split up. As it passes by us it uses its tail to try and hit my but I manage to stop it after being pushed back by it a couple of steps. I then pull on it and spin it before throwing it against a group of rocks which it completely smashes through.

Then Ker bites down on its neck and I super-heat my blades again and cut off one the spikes from its body causing it more pain. I hook my blades into it and spin them around before slamming them into the creature's head. Since the spike is so big it comes out of the other end of its head. But after all of that it's still alive although barely.

'You can do the finisher on this one.' I say.

Ker nods and breaks the long spike on the creature's face and sends it into its mouth and out to the back of its head which finally kills it. The creature then turns into smoke but this time it's a lot thicker and I can't see through it as easily like I usually do.

'That was a good one, it gave me a huge power boost.' Ker says.

'Yeah I can feel that strength boost it gave you. Now lets go, we're near the source.' I say.

We walk some more and after some more less notable grimm we are at the power source of all of this. A giant black pool of goop and I can feel that whatever is making this grimm lands appear is in the center and at the very bottom of that thing.

'Be careful Kratos, going in those pools is going to be a death wish.' Ker says.

'Alright, then lets see how it is. It can't be that bad.' I say before dipping my hand into it.

Immediately I feel like its being bitten on and burned and sting and all other sorts of pain all at the same time everywhere on it. And when I take my hand out I still feel it wherever the goop is still sticking on so I shake it off. And i felt it eating on my aura like there's no tomorrow.

'I'll be fine, I have plenty of aura and I've dealt with worse things.' I say.

So I back up and take a running start before jumping right into the middle of the pool. As I enter I felt the same pain all throughout my body but I tank through it and continue to swim down.

The deeper I go the more intense the pain feels until it gets to the point that it would kill any normal hunter. I finally reach the bottom of the pool with the pain being at max intensity. I grab the handles of the things embedded into the ground and pull it out before using all my strength and jumping out of there.

As I breach the surface I quickly throw one of my blades at Ker and he catches it before pulling me away from the pool. I shake off all of the remaining goop and I feel that I still have a decent amount of aura left so I could've stayed down there for a little longer.

I finally take a look at what I just grabbed at the bottom of the pool and am shocked to see that it's...