Tide of The Grimm Moon
Chapter 1-The Moon of the Hunt
By Velvet Jay (Transformation Hub)
Based on art by LurkingCroak 

Snow crunched under the heavy boots, deep footprints marking out the red-cloaked woman’s path as she made her way through the bare forest. As black shadows moved along the perimeter, a faint breeze creaked the worn branches. The red-cloaked figure lowered her hood, the breeze catching it alongside her cloak. The woman, Ruby Rose, the energetic speedster leader of Team RWBY, curled her lips into a small smile drawing out her red compact weapon.

The weapon clicked and whirred expanded in all directions; the sizeable curved blade and head of the scythe unfolded whilst the telescoped shaft unfolded. The shadows emerged from the forest, snarling and growling violently, stalking toward the Huntress, their sworn enemy that hunted them. Ruby eyed the creatures of Grimm closely, drawing the scythe’s head behind her till it was nestling in the snow. The Grimm looked to be standard Beowulves; bony masks shielded the top portions of their muzzles, faces, and bodies clad in dark fur. The only difference she could see was the burning of the strange amber humanoid eyes.

With a slight shrug, she crouched down, preparing herself, “Their just Grimm. Let’s finish this quickly!” she thought.

As the Grimm barked and howled, they charged toward her; Ruby shot forwards, a small crack echoing out of her weapon as a bullet fired out, aiding in propelling her forwards. She ducked and weaved through the Grimm in front of her, wielding the weapon easily, swinging it around, cutting through limbs, heads and bodies alike. She skidded to a stop, turning quickly and propelling her towards the next group, dispatching them we ease, but as she came to a brief stop, she noticed more Grimm stampeding out of the forest.

Transforming her weapon into its sniper mode, Ruby shot up into the air, petals spraying the ground as she used her Semblance to give her an extra boost. Her cloak and hair fluttered in the breeze as she aimed at a Grimm; her body reeled from the recoiled as she fired off a shot, the bullet whizzing through the air impacting and exploding a Beowulf’s head. Shots continued to fire out as Ruby dashed around, jerking the bolt of her rifle to load in the next round. Petals scattered around as she used her Semblance to dodge and weave around the Grimm, taking brief moments to shoot before bursting into petals. 

After a few minutes, she skidded to a stop, releasing the clip from her rifle and swiftly reloading. Her eyes stared at the creatures; there seemed to be more than she killed. Loud snarls and growls caught her attention as two wolves latched onto her cloak with their paws and mouths. Crying out a loud, “GEEET OOOFFFFFFFF!” she swung round, transforming her weapon in the process, the scythe head cutting through the Grimm as her cloak tore. 

“Dammit!” she exclaimed, turning back toward the horde. 

The horde swarmed her whilst she twirled and dodged their attacks with her scythe, her lips curling in a broad grin as she cut through their bodies. Then, as she realised she was getting surrounded, she tried to burst away with her Semblance; a Beowulf snarled, lunging at her, knocking her out of the rose-petaled blob and into the snow. This was the opening the creature needed lunging with hungry looks in their eyes, one clawing at her weapon, knocking it away from her as another clawed her leg.

As the creatures crowded around her, Ruby crawled, trying to feel around her weapon desperately whilst kicking at the Grimm surrounding her. Red particles fizzled around her as her Aura broke, and as a set of claws tore into her thigh, an instinct flared in her mind, survival, protecting herself and others. Her silver eyes glistened before a pair of bright beams of light erupted from her eyes; the Grimm snarled and howled as their bodies dissolved into dust.

Panting, Ruby sat up, the light fading as she glanced around at the desolate surrounding. Finally, she glanced at her shaking hands, “W-What just happened? What was that?”

She stood up, slowly walking up to her weapon, eyeing the deep grooves from the claws of the creatures left in the metal.

“Guess whose buying a new cloak tomorrow,” she grumbled, looking back at tatters of her cloak scattering the snow. 

Ruby dropped to her knees; she sighed, catching her breath, “I must admit, despite having fought Grimm on multiple occasions. That was tough. I feel beat,” she muttered, tracing her fingers over the deep grooves on her silver rose emblem. She glanced over at her weapon, eyeing the teeth and claw marks along the shaft and moving her fingers toward the claw marks on her leg, hovering it over the blood-stained mesh tights. Ruby chuckled, thinking about what Weiss, her teammate, would say seeing the injury providing it was still there and not covered up by her Aura once it recharged.

She glanced at the moon; the chunks of its shattered surface lay suspended in the starry sky like the tail of a comet. Ruby raised an eye, unable to avert her gaze from the moon as some peculiar happened; a crimson red seeped across the moon and spread a blood-like hue across the land that the moonlight covered. A pinkish glow enveloped the surrounding area and its fragments as the red consumed the moon's white.

Her heart rate increased, and sweat started to form on her forehead. She tried to turn her gaze away from the moon, feeling the warmth spreading across her skin. Then a shadow spread across the moon, split into two, with one taking on the shape of a wolf standing on two legs towering over the tiny stick figure, a loud howl ringing through her ears.

Ruby yelped, finally able to snap her head away, staring down at her hands whilst pain built inside her fingers. A series of sharp cracks made her eyes welled within her eyes, leaking down her cheeks, mirroring the blood seeping out of her nailbeds. Her nails dropped off into the snow, with specks of blood pooling on the white surface. Ruby cried out, the bones of her fingers and hands cracking violently, her dark gloves steadily tightened, protesting against the changes sweeping across her hands. The seams tore whilst her hands and fingers swelled, devolving into a monstrous form even as her hands lengthened slightly. Her torn gloves fell away from her hands as she held them before her eye, wincing at the sharp stab of black hairs growing out of her palms. As she turned her hands over, she could see small chunks of white bone growing out of her knuckles with five matching pieces growing around the point her fingers and thumbs joined with her hands.

The hairs continued to grow, sprouting out of her fingers. Ruby blinked at the familiar red colour of the strands clumping into a thick coat of fur that ran down her fingers, the red becoming less prominent, fading to the black fur forming on the backs of her hands. 

“I. I need Yang. Got to get out of here,” Ruby said, promptly standing up.

Bones cracked as but planted into the snow, pain flaring around her knees gradually becoming more intense as bony spurs of pure white grew from her knees, curving as they pressed into her boots. The fabric stretched, tearing violently around the bones; she shook her head as the pain spread outwards, slithering along her legs. Snow parted around her boots as Ruby dug her feet in, stretching out her pained legs desperately trying to quell it, but it only seemed to aid it. 

Sickening violent pops sound out from in as muscles and bones thickened, ladders formed across her tights, the ladders growing into large tears. Ruby laid back against the snow, clutching her head, screaming in a high-pitched agony at her boots growing increasingly tighter. With her boots, her toenails dropped off, forced out of the way by lengthening white claws that punctured through her shoes and scraped against the steel toe plating. Her little toes receded with small cracks back into her feet whilst her remaining toes swelled, becoming stubby little digits tipping the bulking feet. The large straps around the ankle of her boots snapped as the seams exploded around her growing feet, and the needle-thin prickly itch of thickening fur sprouted out of her feet that matched her hands felt insignificant compared to the muscles expanding within her legs.

Her cries faded into a raspy snarl as the tall seam on the back of her boots tore open around her ballooning legs. The cold snow stung yet cooled her pained skin, wetting the hairs as they grew. Ruby seemed to relax, resting her hand back into the snow, not a care in the world as her legs finished tearing her boots apart with the only scraps clinging around her bony spurs on her knees and the large buckle holding a jagged piece of tight and boot to her upper right thigh. Ruby shook her head, jolting back to reality, her eyes staring up at the moon; realization seemed to sink in, “It can’t be…Werewolves….Were Grimm only existed in fairytales…It can’t…be!” 

She shrieked as two long bone-like spurs abruptly tore through the sides of her bracers as they burst through the outer portions of her forearms. The growth of these spurs was mirrored by three bony spurs growing out of the outer sides of her lower leg. Her grey sleeves tore around a third spike that grew from her elbows. Clenched fists punched into the snow as Ruby hissed at the pain in her arms, her muscles spasming as they grew tighter like her skin. Hair grew out of her gradually darkening skin; the itch of each hair sprouting and thickening felt like a minor burn on her skin. The wide straps fastening her bracers tightly to her wrists snapped around her bulged arms as small tears formed the bracers. Her white sleeves ripped violently as her arms grew beyond their clothy confines.

“Got to get..out of here,” Ruby said, staggering to her feet. Fragments of her sleeves and bracers fell into the snow in the process, though most of her braces clung to her arms, trapped by the spurs on her forearms.

Ruby gritted her teeth, trudging through the snow, leaving deep paw prints in the snow. Her eyes squinted, squeezing tears out as she bit back, grunting at the pain flaring through her gums as her canines lengthened, the tips sharpening into points, brushing against her lips, threatening to puncture them. Her ribs crunched, pain flaring beyond anything she had felt before, each snap of her ribs progressively growing within sounded and felt like a gunshot. Ruby screamed, dropping heavily to the ground, doubling over. Her skin strained, her bosom sinking into her chest as it expanded outwards. Her corset laces snapped at the black material protested against her sudden growth spurt; jagged rips formed in the red lining and down her top. 

Her breathing grew heavier as her lungs darkened, expanding like balloons. Ruby groaned at her stomach growling as it expanded; the vast space within it sparked a primal, animalistic hunger in her mind, causing her to grunt and howl like a predator, her neck lengthening and thickening twisted her feminine voice into one that suited her new form. Ruby shuddered and coughed, her fear swelling at the noises she had just made.

Ruby pushed through the pain standing on two legs, staring down at her pushed-out chest, sprouting thick hairs from her dark skin.

“I….I can’t…be becoming a monster….a creature. Have to…control…myself!” she cried, ending on a scream as a length of bone and fur erupted out of her lower back into a blossoming tail. Hints of red trailed throughout her tail fur, mirroring her human hair. 

She swayed her hips, watching as the tail moved like a fifth limb. Her hands clasped at her head as pain shot through her skull, drowning out the faint splitting of her skin as small bony spurs grew out of her shoulders and bony chunks grew around her collar bone. Ruby's ears twisted, stretching into points, and a sharp, high-pitched ringing accompanied her own whine of pain as her ears widened, sliding up her head, her hair parting around her ears.

Like the hair sprouting from her wolf ears, her human hair thickened into fur, her red highlights becoming more prominent. Her darkening facial skin tightened as her skull crunched, slowly changing. Ruby’s nostrils stretched outwards, pushing outwards with her mouth into a canine muzzle. Her teeth grew longer, sharpening into points. 

Thick white bone pushed through the skin of her forehead, and her eyes seamlessly fusing with matching bone pushing out on the top of her muzzle with two long bone fangs growing on the edge of the plating. Red markings formed on the bone plating as Ruby snarled, throwing her head back, her eyes locking with the moon glowing brightly. The pain across her body slowly disappeared, the glow from the moon soothing her as it toyed with her mind, suppressing the human. It twisted her loyalty to her friends and family, her Huntress ideals of protecting and fighting Grimm morphing into consuming and hunting humans. Her feminine voice shifted permanent into a Beowulf's fierce, hungry snarls and growls whilst darkness spread across her sclera.

Black tears leaked over her bone plating as Ruby felt the last wisps of her humanity fading as the silver of her eyes disappeared under a burning amber. The thought of the hunt lingered in Ruby’s mind as she lowered her head, sniffing curiously; she could smell fresh fear drifting through the air calling her.

As the newly formed creature of darkness, born of the moon, charged into the forest, the moon shifted back to its standard colour, hints of blue, purple and yellow appearing on the edges; the tide of the moon has only just begun.