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Greg Gibson

If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction, alright? There's a thousand of you, so a dollar a piece would really add up and help me a lot! Once I reach five hundred Supporters of any value over a dollar, I will make a concerted effort to put out a chapter of something once every three days at the very slowest.

As of now, The channel and I are struggling financially. So please, if you're able, become a Supporter. We'll be uploading art and concepts soonish on a project of my own making too, and you'll get to be a part of it~! And I'll get dinner as a side benefit~!

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I'm still new to it, so any advice or offers of assistance from my community would be appreciated and more than welcome.

Voltegeist: Come on guys, please join, I just want to be proud of something ?

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Jaune's gauntlet came up and slammed down on the piece of rubble blocking hallway, cleaving into the stone and embedding deep into it. Behind him, Gnarl practically cooed supportingly, even if the sound was more a creepy rasp that set Jaune's hairs on end. "Good, Master. Now, as I showed you, channel the Heart's mana through you and then through the gauntlet."

Jaune followed the instructions and calling for the Heart's power, feeling the familiar rush of power surging into and through him, coiling first in his stomach like hot, weighty ropes of metal before surging throughout his chest and then down his left arm, coalescing in his hand like fire. With a grunt of effort and a small glow in his eyes, he expended the energy in a small radius around his hand. The stone cracked from the force, a myriad of cracks spider webbing out from the hole he'd punched, but didn't shatter outright. Twice more he summoned the mana to him and through him, the addictive rush of warm power coursing through him and down his arm again until the myriad cracks finally spread throughout the stone's center and, with a wrench of his arm and a loud cracking sound, he tore the pieces in half.

"There." He grunted, using the gauntlet to shove the dark slate apart and stepping back while Browns swarmed it, hauling smaller pieces away while they 'coordinated' their efforts to move the massive stones. Sweating from the effort of manipulating the raw energy, but smiling from his success in doing so, he turned to Gnarl sitting on a small stone behind him, "Now what?"

"Honestly, Lord, do you not ever rest? You're the Overlord, you're allowed to bloody relax, you know." Gnarl sighed, scratching at his beard idly and grimacing, "Your amount of activity is exhausting… I miss the last Overlord, always lazing about with his women, relaxing, letting us have our fun in the villages he owned… Truly, an enjoyable service to live in."

"Didn't he… You know, get himself killed in the end?" Jaune asked, crossing his arms over a bare chest and raising an eyebrow at the Minion. After a second he added, in half apology, "No offence."

"I didn't say he was a smart Overlord, your lordship. I only said he was fun to serve, whether or not it ended up with his empty head on a pike." Gnarl drawled, shrugging at the apology without much care for the insult to the original Overlord. Or, well, the one before Jaune at the very least. "As for what we could do, well, that is quite a list. The Minions are, frankly, busy on cleanup and removing the rubble, bones, and other assorted trash from your new Tower. So whatever you wish to do, you will only have five Minions on hand and your own hands to do it."

"That's not a lot..." Jaune grumbled, grimacing at the idea. Gnarl gave him a disparaging look, and he added half-embarrassedly, "I was hoping to have you guys around to, you know, help out.

Even with his limited ability to use Mana offensively, mostly the burst he had been using to break up rubble for the last week after Gnarl taught it to him, he wasn't exactly well armed or armored. Aside from his Gauntlet and Crocea Mors he had nothing here that he knew of. It didn't exactly leave him feeling confident in his chances, especially after the blow that was Initiation and his fight against the Deathstalker.

Okay, so maybe calling 'getting backhanded off a cliff and falling to your death' a fight was a bit dishonest.

"Yes, well, Lord, you have elected not to conquer and pillage. So our ability to spawn more Minions is limited, unless you change your mind of course?" Jaune noticed the hopeful edge to his tone and shook his head, the old Minion sighing, "Worth asking anyways… As I was saying, we've no beasts to sacrificing Minion essence, or Grimm to do it either. Unless you want to go seal clubbing-"

"Excuse me?" Jaune gasped out, blinking in surprise. "Did you actually… Seal clubbing? Really? Seal clubbing?"

"Oh yes, Master, we Minions quite enjoy crushing the cute little bugs under a good, solid club." Gnarl rolled his eyes when Jaune gave him a mildly disgusted look, leaning away from the old Minion. "Minions dislike cute things quite a bit, Lord. Well, if you ignore how delightful they are to smash, and toss, and maim…" He caught Jaune's unimpressed face and sighed, "It is our nature, Majesty. Don't fault us for it, not when we deny it on your whim."

"I guess…" Jaune sighed, awkwardly turning to watch the Minions hauling away slabs of stone. "Would be kind of, you know, rude to get upset over that when you're not even doing anything."

"Yes, quite rude." Gnarl agreed, blinking when Jaune turned to give him a disbelieving look, the small creature rolling its eyes after a second. "What? I'm an evil minion, created by unknowable and unknown dark powers eons ago, to exist in perpetual servitude to Overlord's in pursuit of their evil and nefarious desires. That doesn't mean I'm okay with people being rude, Lordship."

"Yeah, who would think an evil creature would be rude" Jaune sighed, Gnarl nodding happily, as though glad to have Jaune accept the fool proof logic. Moving on, Jaune decided to let it go, the headache wasn't quite worth it. "There's a lot of holes and stuff."

"Yes, Master." Gnarl agreed, nodding and looking along the hall. Large portions of wall were missing their brickwork, either where the stonework had fallen away or just where chunks of the natural stone it had been laid against had fallen away like the one he'd had to break apart only a short while ago. "Time has ravaged our home, I am afraid, even the parts you can't reach at your size look this way. The Minions will clean away the rubble, but the work itself requires more skilled hands, and more materials for them."

"And where would we get those?" He asked, Gnarl humming in thought.

"Well, the Heart shaped the tunnels of slate when the previous Overlord planted it here. The term is kind of weak, but that's all I can say on it, so don't ask." He rushed to add when Jaune's mouth opened, a curious look on his face. "We used nearby quarriable slate, much harder stone than here, for the brickwork and the furniture and so on."

"Can we use it?" He asked, Gnarl grimacing in a way that made Jaune nervous. "I don't like that look."

"Well, Sire, slate is difficult to work with in a lot of cases. It can be very flakey, and chip away with pressure when made into a brick like we need for construction, if the stone isn't quality enough." Gnarl explained, Jaune nodding at the end when the Minion finished. "Unfortunately, the quarry we used is… Under new management, I'm afraid. Of the 'stick up our ass so far that our head doesn't quite turn right' persuasion."

"Atlas?" Jaune asked, learning by now how to understand the aged Minion. Gnarl nodded, and Jaune sighed, "Of course, this is their continent after all, so it makes sense. And we don't have anything we can give them for the stone?"

"Not for the quantity we need, aside from the reaction of the soldiers and workers when they deliver it to an abandoned looking tower full of four foot tall creatures they don't know about." Gnarl droned, Jaune grimacing and shaking his head. "They'd probably get a bit stabby, and we don't like stabby unless we're being stabby."

"Then what can we do?" Gnarl smiled and opened his mouth and Jaune added, "That isn't raiding, looting or anything like that. So just… Don't."

"Well, Lord," Gnarl sat back on the rock he was sitting on,stroking his beard idly and thinking. "I have an idea, but one which I doubt you'll like."

"I bet." He sighed, "Well, what is it?"

"Perhaps we should head to the throne room for this, Sire? As you are making a decision which guides the fate of the Tower." Gnarl shrugged and hopped up off the rock, a couple Minions nearby plucking it from the floor to tote it away. Jaune sighed, and Gnarl explained, "These are important decisions, Master. You need an important chair to sit in when you make important decisions. All the best leaders have important chairs to sit in."

"If you say so." Jaune shrugged, following the short creature through the hall, dodging the dozens of Minions working, jeering, and generally being a nuisance. They poked,propped, hurled rocks at each other, and more until they caught his gaze and got to work more animatedly and purposefully with a cheerful 'for the Overlord'. "These guys aren't exactly very good workers…"

"They'll do the job." Gnarl assured over his shoulder,plucking a small rock from the floor and chucking it at a sleeping Minion's head with a sigh. "If it bothers you, try stabbing a few. Nothing motivates a workforce like a good, solid, and preferably messy stabbing."

"I am not stabbing any of my workers, Gnarl. Please, stop asking." The small, aged Minion chuckled to himself as Jaune followed him and Jaune groaned. The two stayed in an odd silence,caught between comfortable and awkward, as they walked through the winding tunnels that always curved to the right back towards the Throne Room and Jaune started to think, "You know, I kind of wonder how everyone at Beacon is dealing with my disappearance."

"Death, actually, Sire." Gnarl corrected as they entered the Throne Room itself, Jaune flinching as he rounded the corner and giving the back of the Minion's head a shocked look. "I found your corpse at the bottom of the ravine, brought you back home, put you back together and then let the Tower do the rest. 'Build An Overlord',truly a past time I can enjoy."

"So… So everyone at Beacon thinks I'm dead?" He asked, trembling lightly as the sheer fact that he'd died ran through him all at once. Gnarl turned, standing beside the Throne with a raised brow and gave the blonde a simple nod, and Jaune shook his head as he staggered back and leaned against the wall by the door, "Gods… My family, they think I'm dead…"

"Yes, Lord." Gnarl started carefully,already seeing where this was going. "If you like, we can try and find a way to get word to them that you are not. But for now-"

"I have to go see them, Gnarl." He cut across the Minions, striding towards him and plucking Crocea Mors from the Throne beside Gnarl while the Minion sighed. "Whatever you need can wait until I get to Atlas and send word to my family that I'm not... Not lying in a canyon being chewed on by Grimm!"

"And what are you going to do, Master? Walk the two week journey to Atlas with less than a hundred practically unarmed Minions?" Gnarl asked loudly, not quite shouting but close enough to surprise Jaune. The Minion normally spoke quietly, and politely, even if he was rather snarky about everything. "It took all my power, everything I had in my evil little body, to get you here and repair your body."

"The quarry." Jaune answered, standing in front of the Throne and looking down at Gnarl. "I can go there, speak to the workers, get their help."

"How? What will you tell them?" Gnarl asked, feigning Jaune's voice, "'Oh please, miners, help! I died in Vale's Initiation a month and some ago, and was resurrected using magic, in a black tower full of gremlins going on and on about how I'm their evil Overlord!' That sound about right?"

Jaune grimaced and Gnarl took his silence as an answer, sighing and dropping his voice to a more respectful tone, "Master, if you want to get back to your family, you need money, Minions, and more power. To pursue your goals, this included, we must restore the Tower to its former, Evil, glory."

"Damn it!" Jaune swore, turning to look out at the sky through the opening beyond the pool. Turning back to the Minions, he frowned, "Then we need to get started for real. That stone, what ideas do you have to getting it?"

"Well…" Gnarl's smile was vicious, and quite uncomfortable to Jaune. "The Grimm have been massing in the area lately. And near there as well. How… convenient for us."

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Ruby ducked under the Beowolf, rolling onto her back and shoulder Crescent Rose, the rifle barking a round that threw the creature's corpse forward into the grass at the base of the tree beyond it. The force shoved her along the ground and she rolled, coming up with the scythe spinning and unfolding, the blade bisecting the second Beowolf she'd found like a hot knife through butter, its legs falling behind her and its body flying over her and tumbling across the grass and off the cliff behind her, tumbling through the air as it fell.

Taking a breath to steady herself, she ran to the edge and knelt with Crescent Rose leaning on her shoulder and her hand held above her eyes, looking for anything that she could see down there.

After a second she made a sour face and held her hands in front of her mouth, forming a cone and shouting as loud as her small body could, "Jaune! Where are you?'

Behind her, Weiss leaned against a tree to catch her breath, only a few feet from chest heaving as she fought to regain her breath while she looked around them warily. To her left, far enough she could barely see it, the very last pieces of ruins remained where they'd fought the Deathstalker and Nevermore. Where they had shown their courage, strength, and adaptability.

And where Jaune had fallen, batted aside by the Deathstalker as though he was weightless. Nora had been as well, but she'd recovered with her hammer's concussive grenade launcher, soaring high and rolling across the ground.

Jaune, however, had simply screamed and fallen to a tragic end.

An ending she herself had almost suffered, were it not for him. And her response, when he'd broken the momentum of her fall? Something Professor Oobleck had informed her could kill her regardless of Aura? She'd berated him. A regret to follow her through life, she was sure, and the biggest reason she was out here with Ruby, watching her pace along the cliff edge and look for what the Schnee knew she wouldn't find.

"Ruby-"

"Come on, Weiss, we have to head further out. He's got to be down there somewhere, he-he couldn't climb up. So, um…" She turned to the Schnee, forcing a stiff smile and gesturing with the point of her scythe further down the canyon and away from the ruins, "So he'd probably go that way, since no one found him the other way, right?"

"Ruby…" Weiss took a breath, the younger woman looking at her with wide silver eyes and a nervous smile as forced and stiff as the haft of Crescent Rose, and the Schnee tried to pick her words carefully as she could manage. "The canyon has been searched already. Thoroughly, by professional Huntsman, even some Atlesian trackers. There's… No one down there."

"Then… Then we should go out into the forest at the canyon's end, Doctor Oobleck gave me a map." Ruby swallowed, shifting Crescent Rose into rifle form and hanging it off her waist, "He has to be out there, if he isn't down there."

"Ruby… Atlas had three frigates' worth of soldiers, droids and craft scour those woods for two and a half weeks. All they found were Grimm." Weiss explained, pushing off of the tree and cautiously approaching the girl.

Not out of fear of being harmed, Ruby would never lay a hand on her outside a sparring ring, and she knew that. It was a different fear altogether, because if Ruby ran from her, no force on Remnant would let Weiss catch her. Sometimes despite herself and what she knew, Weiss envied such simple, easy to use Semblances as simply running really fast.

"B-But, Weiss, I-"

"Ruby, he's…" Dead, but Weiss knew to use careful language with Ruby after what Yang had said days prior, especially now. Instead, "Jaune is gone, Ruby. Three weeks, Beacon and the military searched, once they found out he had faked his way into Initiation. No sign of him out there anywhere, not as far as the best Atlesian technology or even the best Valean or Atlesian Hunters could find. What can we possibly find on our own?"

"I… I don't know, but we…" Ruby's mouth worked into a grimace, the young woman looking for words she didn't have. "We have to try, Weiss. He could be out there, and hurt, and-and alone! He needs help!"

"Ruby, he is gone." Weiss argued quietly, stepping forward and gently, anxiously pulling the younger woman against her for an awkward hug. The Schnee didn't know how to do this right, her arms didn't know where to sit, her feet shuffled awkwardly, and she didn't know how much to press against the other woman, "You need to accept that, or… Or we'll lose you too. You are my partner, I won't stand for you to get yourself killed. You understand me?"

"Weiss…" She whined, arms wrapping around the smaller woman and pulling her against her suddenly, crying into her shoulder and forcing out, between sniffles and stammered words and sounds without meaning, "He was my first real friend, and he… Now he's gone, and… I can't do this again. I-I just can't handle this."

Again? Weiss thought to herself, smiling sadly and rubbing a small circle into her back, "Yes you can, Ruby. You're a strong, brilliant Huntress-to-be, right?"

"Y-Yeah…" Her voice was so quiet,so weak and frail, it almost brought Weiss to tears. She'd been so insufferably excited before, but this was somehow all the worse compared to that.

"Then you can't let this break you." She said confidently and sternly, well, as much as she could manage at least. Her eyes watering, and throat aching to cry, her condition was little better than Ruby's own. "We'll get through this together, like partners should, and make the Grimm pay for taking away your friend. And for every other friend they've taken from everyone else."

"Promise?" Ruby asked quietly, "We'll do it all together, right, Weiss?"

"Yes." She answered, smiling sadly. "A Schnee always pays her debts, after all. Now come on, we have to get back before dark."

"Okay, Weiss." Ruby answered, hesitantly letting go of her and stepping past Weiss towards the forest. Weiss made to follow, and Ruby added, "Thanks, Weiss. You give good hugs, you know."

After a moment's hesitation and a look around the canyon edge for herself, Weiss followed after her.

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"I don't like this plan, Gnarl. At all." Jaune complained, kneeling in the trees overlooking the quarry about a mile down.

"Yes, yes, Sire, but you need the stones for the job." Gnarl chuckled from behind Jaune, and the Overlord rolled his eyes, "In a couple senses, actually. And luckily, getting both is down there."

Several large buildings sat at the bottom of a large, man-carved - maybe Minion carved as well according to Gnarl - pit, dark stone blending with paler rock all around it and the forests around that. The height on three sides was such that no Grimm would survive the fall, hundreds of feet down along sharp, angled rocks that ended in hard, unyielding stone at the bottom. The sun was only beginning to set, and Jaune could see the last workers cutting away at the stone, hauling loose soil and rock away, or shaping stones around the working area into smaller bricks that could be used while about a dozen defensive droids patrolled mechanically in twos.

Though the cynical part of him, the part echoing out of the Gauntlet, wondered if those patrols were a bit close to the workers - Faunus to the last - to merely be protection from the Grimm.

"But… If the Grimm are massing, we should warn them." Jaune said simply, arms crossed over his chest. Over his thin shirt he wore several overlapping layers of light, soft silver furs with thick, rubbery undersides. A wolf skin served as a cloak to keep out the cold winds, and thick wraps obscured his face and muffled his voice slightly under were clipped into the hood like a fur helmet stitched onto the cloak, "And why are they massing at all? There has to be a cause."

"These creatures, Faunus, they aren't treated all that well. Especially of late, a new head of the work crew showed up and, well…" Jaune turned where he stood to look down at the head Minion and the creature shrugged, "Three have been injured already, and the mood is quite sour. Ripe for a Grimm meal, I am told."

"They are attracted to negative emotions… How do you know all of that though?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the Minion.

"Spies." The Minion shrugged with a small and sly smirk, "The Minions can sneak around rather well, and it's rather easy to notice when someone breaks an arm or leg. Quite eventful, everyone notices that sort of thing. A whole lot of screaming, crying, sometimes some blood on the stone, it's quite the show I am told."

"Hm… Then how do we… Gods, I can't believe I am saying it it, but how do we get the Grimm here?" Jaune asked, plucking the simple hand-axe he'd been given, the handle as long as his forearm and the wood and metal as dark as his gauntlet, from the dirt. "I guess you have that part figured out?"

"The Minions are luring them here already." Gnarl assured, smiling confidently and hoping to convey that to the young Overlord, "And whittling them down as well, slaying some and luring others away so that the numbers are low enough not to inflict terribly high casualties on you or your own force of Minions."

"That better be the case…" Jaune sighed, shaking his hooded head and hefting the weighty axe, "And why couldn't I just use Crocea Mors for this?"

"That hideous white thing?" Gnarl asked, making a disgusted face, "Ugh, my Overlord, that weapon doesn't suit you or us at all. The white, symbolizing purity, and chastity, and justice, all the opposite of us Minions and your nature as Overlord."

"Uh huh." Jaune nodded, unimpressed at the flacid answer.

"And, well, it would draw some questions if you show up with a dead man's weaponry." He offered, smiling and shrugging, "Might throw a few investigation shaped wrenches in, well, all of our plans to do much of anything. Like breathing, if we Minions are decided to be destroyed. I like breathing, Master a touch more than seal clubbing. Ah, do you like your tunic, by the way?"

"You didn't." He groaned.

"The troops were bored." The Minion defended weakly.

"Gnarl…"

"I was raising morale!" Gnarl argued further, raising his arms and flailing them theatrically. "Our forces march to battle for you, and all we request is a little fun. No one got hurt."

"I think some baby seals got hurt, Gnarl." Jaune argued weakly, tossing the axe in the air and catching it absently. It was well-weighted, he noted with an approving nod, easy to catch and wield. "And I think I'm wearing them."

"I will answer that when you aren't holding an axe, Lord." Gnarl answered, the two sitting quietly for a moment before he added at a look from Jaune, "The furs look quite dashing Lordship. The silver from the seals brings out your eyes quite nicely. And, uh, your scowl as well. Quite intimidating."

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Thanatos 413 :

Gnarl would enjoy that, for sure.

Cesar Junior 233 :

Glad you think so. Hope not to disappoint.

Zenith Tempest :

As he 'died' in Initiation, those teams don't exist to him. At best, he might have thought of Ruby and Pyrrha. Both of whom he barely knew though, so his family would probably be the thing he thought about first.

Noob 6 :

I am good at one single thing and that is character building. Have faith.

Roach 10302 :

Yups. Especially when an insufferably bored Gnarl is involved. And giant scorpions. And cliffs.