Anduriel, a sapient nebula of eldritch wrath. Also the hero. Somehow.
A For Want Of A Nail RWBY Fan Fic authored by Aminorglitch.
The Devil You Don't starts right before Pyrrha's canon death and follows a slightly altered story from that point forward. Essentially, in the moment Pyrrha is supposed to die an extra-dimensional being calling itself Anduriel stops time to make Pyrrha an offer: Accept her destiny and die here or let Anduriel enter the world so he can save her life.
Pyrrha accepts the deal after adding her own stipulations and Anduriel's otherworldly powers tip the scale in favor of the heroes against Cinder and the Wyvern. Pyrrha survives, heavily injured in the confrontation and Anduriel is bound into her service until he completes the deal she made with him and once he does he'll be free.
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The Devil You Don't contains examples of:
- A God I Am Not: Anduriel is rather firm on this. Ozpin believes it's because people tend to view gods as all powerful supreme beings and Anduriel is aware he isn't.
- Angels, Devils and Squid: A divine level version with the God of Light being the angel, the God of Darkness being the Devil, and Anduriel being the squid. They haven't met yet though.
- Badass Creed: As in cannon unlocking an aura comes with a few lines of ritualized dialog, the author subscribes to the fannon idea that each person's lines would reflect their own soul. Anduriel's is as follows:"For it is in enlightenment that we find strength. Through knowledge we gain the influence to shape existence to our desires. Infinite in potential and unbound by falsehoods. I, Anduriel, unshackle this soul and by my will unleash thee."
- Bandage Mummy: Pyrrha wakes up as one in chapter 4. She is not amused.
- Better the Devil You Know: Directly referenced in the title and ultimately defied. Pyrrha decides she'd rather risk Anduriel, the unknown Devil to the Salem's known, entering the world instead of letting her friends fight on without her. She admits the decision might be selfish on her part.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Anduriel for the most part. Given what he is this isn't surprising, but it's more subtle then you might expect and some parts of his moral outlook actually emulate a normal person's for completely bizarre reasons.
- For instance, he won't kill people without cause. Not because he cares a wit about mortal lives, but because he sees unwarranted murder as stealing the victims ability of choice. So he gives everyone the option to run or retreat first. Once they make the choice to fight or inconvenience him, all bets are off.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Literally as Anduriel actually uses this as an attack! During the fight with Cinder he distorts reality and throws her through the distortion. She ends up colliding with something that "cracks like ice yet burns like fire" which sounds suspiciously like a computer monitor breaking then shorting out violently.
- Big Damn Heroes: Qrow during the fight in Greenwreath.
- Penny and an Atlas warship pulls this off during the Battle for Haven.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Yang and Nora.
- Catapult Nightmare: Yang while the group is camping.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Surprisingly averted for the most part despite Anduriel being an Outer God expy. Two, however, do happen in short order during the Battle for Haven. One against the White Fang once Anduriel joins the fight. Another against the Grimm by an Atlas warship shortly after.
- Deal with the Devil: How the story starts. Anduriel offers Pyrrha, whose literally a second from dying, to save her if she makes a deal with him. After telling her some of the future Pyrrha accepts.
- Death Seeker: Ozpin is this. He won't rest until he saves the world from Salem, but at this point he's so tired of just existing that he'll be relieved when it's finally over.
- Demolitions Expert: Nora is this for the group. She's skilled enough to strategically collapse buildings without much planning time.
- Evil Counterpart: Cinder to Pyrrha.
- Fate Worse than Death: Anduriel's planning this for Salem. It appears to be more out of spite then anything else as Ozpin at least thinks he could likely undo Salem's immortality.
- For Want Of A Nail: Pyrrha surviving and Anduriel's appearance has impacted little beyond sheer scale thus far. Partly, do to the kids deciding they need to deal with Lionheart one way or another so they purposely go after him. More is changing the further the story goes though.
- Hearing Voices: Both Pyrrha and Cinder suffer form this due to Anduriel speaking in their minds.
- Hold the Line: Against first the White Fang then the Grimm during the Battle for Haven.
- Humanoid Abomination: Anduriel. Unlike some examples he's actually a pretty good imitation on the outside only suffering from some Hellish Pupils and red sclera which generally gets dismissed as a really off putting Faunus trait.
- Jaw Drop: Ozpin does this when Penny shows up with a Atlas battleship during the Battle for Haven.
- Kid with the Leash: Pyrrha is this for Anduriel.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: Anduriel has a bevy of them as befitting an Outer God like being.
- Gravity Master: Can emulate gravity fields without causing the effects on the physical world. This lets him do things like bend space to teleport or slow time to a crawl.
- Time Master: Part of his gravity control apparently. He points out he can only slow time down though, not speed it up like Weiss or Winter can.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Can create weapons out of some kind of black crystalline substance.
- Absurd Cutting Power: Can create edges of "light" by folding reality around weapons which lets them cut literally anything non-magical.
- Combat Tentacles: Non-physical variant, but he's been shown to grab and restrain things with tendrils of green energy.
- Astral Projection: Some form of it at any rate. He was able to take over an illusion of himself that Emerald was showing Salem even though he was several kingdoms away, turning it physical and making it look like Pyrrha instead.
- Reality Warper: His mere presence when powered up starts cracking space and time apart around him which manifests as glowing rents in the air that resemble frozen lightning. Ironically, he doesn't seem to use this actively, it's just a consequence of his mere existence instead.
- Magically-Binding Contract: Anduriel has one with Pyrrha. He's physically and spiritually bound to her until he does everything she asked when they made their agreement. As several characters point out, these are rather vague and open to interpretation.
- Morality Pet: The kids are this for Anduriel, any of them being in danger is one of the few ways to get him to stop playing around.
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Nightmare Fuel: Anduriel's real form is either a nebula of poisonous green energy or a single massive star of the same. The light of it takes on the shape of screaming faces the viewer knows and the flames become grasping clawed limbs reaching for them. - Not Afraid to Die: Salem is this, not only because she can't, but also because it's also something she desires, she just wants to make everyone suffer first. Notably Anduriel knows this so he threatens her with an existence of unending agony instead of death.
- Outside-Context Problem: Anduriel is this by his very nature. This leads to anyone who hasn't directly interacting with him, including Salem, suffering from massive amounts of Underestimating Badassery.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: Anduriel's power is similar enough to aura to be measured by Remnant's technology, but all it ever gives is a maxed out reading.
- Resurrective Immortality: As in cannon Salem has this. Anduriel reveals he plans to exploit it to the point that she breaks rather then kill her.
- Screw Destiny: What Anduriel offers to do for Pyrrha, pointing out that dying against Cinder is her fate.
- Spit Take: Referenced by Qrow in regards to the idea of Yang kissing Pyrrha.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Used to great effect by the group against a massive flock of Nevermore.
- Super-Empowering: Anduriel can temporarily do this for Pyrrha. Grants near limitless aura, enhanced physical abilities, and at least some Reality Warper powers.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Ruby is a variant having not only built and designed Crescent Rose from the ground up, but also even invented a special alloy to use in her creation process.
- Worthy Opponent: Tyrian and Anduriel. More on Tyrian's part, but Anduriel is rather respectful to him when they meet.
- World's Best Warrior: Pyrrha as in cannon, but taken even farther. Having survived Beacon and gotten more experience has made her near unparalleled in combat to the point she can take on a Reality Warper and win at least half of the time.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Cinder gets one on her side after colliding with and breaking what's implied to be the actual Fourth Wall in one of Anduriel more eldritch attacks.
