Stories by Bryon Nightshade

'Educator' is a difficult profession. The students are hard enough, but the parents are the worst. Professor Ozpin, though, is ready to share with Glynda one of the subtler joys of the job.

To escape her father's overbearing control, Weiss stole her family's ancestral BattleMech and blasted her way to freedom, eventually joining the Rose's Rowdies mercenary group and finding a new home with them. Now Jacques has tracked her down, and Weiss might not be able to keep her hard-earned liberty with a quick trigger alone. (No prior BT or RWBY knowledge required.)

Caroline Cordovin is a young soldier with big dreams and a small heart. As she serves another round of punishment detail at a customs station, her world is turned upside down by the arrival of the self-styled Grimm Reaper, Maria Calavera. Maria, just by existing, will turn Cordovin's career upside-down- for better, and for worse.

Short, sentimental Nuts and Dolts. Age gets to us all differently. Those differences are especially profound for people as different as Penny and Ruby. And yet, in their twilight anniversary, they find they treasure the differences as much as the similarities.

("War Machines" interstitial piece.) Ruby's years in the cocoon of the Atlas military have left some words- maybe a lot of words- lacking in meaning for her. "Family", for example. Luckily, Yang is here to show Ruby just what "family" means to her.

General Ironwood discovers, to his astonishment, that civilian clothes, a mild demeanor, and thick eyeglasses can render him completely unrecognizable. For a man who's already one of the world's most powerful, what temptations might this new ability unlock? Is this just a novelty... or an invitation to indulge in the most non-Ironwood activities ever?

Ruby-Penny swapped-at-birth Nuts and Dolts AU. Ruby is raised within the confines of the Atlas Military as Ironwood's anti-grimm pocket nuke. Penny, alone and adrift upon waking up memory-less on Beacon's campus, gravitates towards its student body. Remnant isn't ready for Atlas Ruby and Beacon Penny, but here they come.

Darkness always was the more generous of the brothers.

The God of Darkness understood that Knowledge was dangerous. It was a tool that could serve any end, empower any purpose, amplify any other power. He never expected that Knowing itself could be a hazard. But that's what experiments are for...

As the Brother Gods test their growing powers, Darkness tries his hand at creating something that will do his destroying for him. Something sinister- alien- brutal. If only Light understood anything at all...

After another set of sibling scuffles between Light and Darkness, the Blacksmith gives the two juvenile dragons some very mild and well-intentioned discipline. ...look, she meant well, okay?

Pyrrha is a four-time champion. A ferocious competitor. Someone who imposes her will. Now, thanks to some ill-considered trash talk by Team RWBY, Pyrrha is ready to extend her dominance to a new realm: video games.

Alt-future fic. Atlas has been bombing the same spot in the Kingdom every two hours for twenty years solid. Even Huntsman trainees have to wonder what it's all about... until a field trip takes them to see for themselves. Or: what might have been if V7 had turned out better.

V7 alternate ending. Sometimes, all a man needs is a rest. Or: the time Ironwood accidentally used neutral jing, and it was super effective.

On Remnant, "a warrior's sword is her soul" is literal truth. Anything to do with weapons is profoundly intimate. Teenagers are not known for handling intimacy with any grace. Imagine Glynda's dismay, then, when Ozpin demands she repeat the "partners swap weapons" lesson for the teams visiting for Vytal. Poor Glynda.

Ruby Rose, leader of Rose's Rowdies, is an unusual mercenary: she has high ethical standards; a tendency to go hungry for upholding said high standards; and the scariest forty tons of Battlemech on any battlefield she joins. Unfortunately for her, these qualities draw the attention of people in high places. Battletech crossover, with our heroines piloting big stompy robots.

"Hi. My name is Summer Rose, and I don't have a semblance." It was the first thing she said to the newly-formed Team STRQ. It was also the first lie.

Jacques Schnee died early; Willow ran the SDC into the ground before her own death. The SDC is no more, its name synonymous with incompetence and graft. If you think Weiss and Winter are okay leaving things there, you don't know Schnee. Surrounded by hostile competitors, they'll start from rock bottom to build something new and better. This is Schnee Dust Reborn.

Post V9. Ruby learned a lot in the Ever After- including a secret Qrow Branwen would have taken to his grave. But maybe, just once, birb dad gets to be happy about something.

Post-V9. As everyone celebrates the return of the fallen, Ruby pulls Oscar aside for a chat- one important enough that she needs Oz to mind his manners while she has it.

A "Two Minutes' Silence" side-story. As the time-traveling RWBY-J visit Argus, a certain statue from Jaune's memories is conspicuously absent. Meanwhile, no matter how many times Saffron snickers things about "meeting the parents", Jaune and Pyrrha are very insistent it's just not like that! And would someone please stop Nora from reverse-adopting Pyrrha's mom?

A "Two Minutes Silence" side-story, providing another look at what RWBY-J were up to after falling from the Central Location and returning to Beacon. Weiss blurs the line between "education" and "blunt force trauma", while Ruby and Jaune team up for a confrontation they expected with a flavor they really didn't.

Obi-Wan never imagined his post-war exile would be interrupted by Assajj Ventress. It's entertaining, to be sure- she's always been one of the few who could match his wits- but what could she be after? Two things: one obvious, the other unexpected... and impossible.

Prequel. The disciplinarian at Ren and Nora's combat school sees them all too often. That doesn't mean he understands them- or what they mean to each other.

Why, exactly, was Glynda Goodwitch out on the town the night Ruby fought Torchwick? Team RWBY doesn't know for sure, but they're more than willing to guess. The wilder the guesses, the better.

Ciel Soleil failed her mission to mind Penny, and both died at the Fall of Beacon. The Fall of Beacon hasn't happened. Stuck in a day full of horrors that won't let her stay dead, Ciel slowly determines there's only one way she can break free: Team RWBY must win the Battle of Beacon. Maybe, by helping them, Ciel can save Penny- and herself.

It wasn't until JNR settled into their routine in Atlas that they got a chance to breathe. To think about what had grown amongst them, and that was still growing. When they got that chance, though, the next step seemed clear, and Nora never used only half her heart.

The chase ends at the shores of the grimm pools. (A very dark work of pure despair. Do not read.)

When a Huntress' soul is her sword, everything to do with weapons takes on an added degree of intimacy. When the Beacon syllabus brings a lesson requiring partners to swap weapons, it's a sure thing that these hormonal teenagers will deal with the assignment in a collected, mature, professional manner... in Glynda's dreams, maybe.

Picking up where RWBY Chibi left off, Vale's worst superhero and the most reluctant nemesis ever have been warily circling each other for weeks now. So have Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos. Surely this is a coincidence. (Spoiler: It's not a coincidence.)

An Atlas military analyst working for General Ironwood discovers, to his horror, that the worst case scenario isn't the General reading his work, nor the General refusing to read it. The worst case is the General reading only the parts he wants to see.

During the V3-V4 timeskip, the members of Team RNJR try to keep each other safe and sane on the road to Mistral. An anthology fic, featuring feels, humor, Renora backstory, villages variously helpful/hurtful/on fire, and lots (and lots) of walking.

As often as Ruby goes around helping people, Weiss wonders if she even realizes when she's helped. Weiss didn't love her scar. Meeting Ruby changed things.

On the road to Mistral, Team RNJR's rations run low. This drives Nora to make a sacrifice Ren can scarcely comprehend.

A Mistrali huntress plucks a couple of street rats out of the gutter. On a whim, she decides to interview them, and sees something unexpected: potential. Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren will get a chance to be something more than vermin.

As Team RWBY camps in the field late in their first semester, it comes out that Weiss doesn't know from constellations. Ruby cannot let this opportunity pass. So why is it that Blake and Yang are the ones out of sorts? Everyone has stories of one kind or another...

The new instructor at Signal Combat School is a problem. Not his credentials, which are impeccable, or his resume, which is pristine. No, the problem is that he's Qrow Branwen with his wagon trains of baggage. But Signal needs someone to fill the slot, and anyone who can survive Qrow as an instructor can weather whatever the grimm throw at them, right? ...It was a nice thought.

(Humorous one-shot.) Don't you hate when you're having a nice bull session and someone makes it all too real? Some of pre-Beacon Nora's peers ask her opinion on a matter of survival. They won't make that mistake again.

Featuring Vol1-2 Weiss and Blake. It was no coincidence that Weiss had a pistol magazine with Dust in Gambol Shroud's caliber, any more than it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to trust Blake to defeat Torchwick. That kind of trust takes time and effort to build, though, and it was a rocky road getting there...

A short Vol8 what-if fic. Penny wouldn't wish the burden of being a Maiden on anyone, let alone the people she cares about. But someone is willing to take up that mantle... to do something only she can do.

(Tipsy one-shot.) Everyone knows about the creatures of grimm- the soulless devourers that stalk humanity. Very few people know of their more... intellectual side.

(AU, trope subversion.) Weiss expected some culture clash when she went to Beacon. She knew that less-civilized kingdoms wouldn't share Atlas' perfectly reasonable positions on matters like, say, soulmates. But that was no excuse for Ruby to be making *that* face at her.

Ruby's love of team-building activities sparks an ongoing sports competition with Team JNPR. There will be thrills and spills as the teams bring to bear their auras, semblances, and very loose understandings of the rules. Featuring basketball, football, and… chess? Okay, who let Jaune pick a sport?

My entry in the soon-to-be-obsolete "Oz talks to Oscar" sub-genre. As Oscar takes a breather beneath Atlas, he has some questions about how Oz came to be this person- and what kind of person he may yet become.

Short fluff-fic, in which a monk and a priestess... agree to disagree, mostly.

The only thing harder than doing the impossible is figuring out what comes next. (Rogue One alternate ending.)

They said the years of peace had left her soft. They said that being a mother had dulled her edge. They said a lot of things they really shouldn't have said. Because all those words led the thieves to make a fatal mistake: they messed with Hinata's children.

Set shortly before the latest Ninja War began. It was such a plain-seeming study to contain such dire news. It was fascinatingly forboding. As frightening as the words were, the hokage couldn't shake the feel of truth they contained...

He'd heard the rumors, of course- that Harry Potter was drunk with power, or had become senile, or had gone mad. But none of it prepared the aspiring Auror for his encounter with the Head of the Auror's Office.

Set right before Naruto's return to Konoha with Jiraiya, this story follows Team Asuma on what should be a routine mission but, of course, is not. Shikamaru sighs. A lot.

As his domain crumbles around him, Illidan finds a moment to pause and reflect. Mood piece.

After yet another Happosai raid, Ranma turns to Soun Tendo for advice on how to deal with the pest. Soun teaches Ranma a technique he invented. It can't be that simple, right?

Mood piece. Jaken wonders why Rin is there; Rin has no doubts. Sesshomaru tries not to think about her, and fails. It comes to a head over a gift from his father and a child's request.