Gamer4 in. Today's chapter may end up being a bit shorter than usual- which you, of course, will probably already know just from looking at it. We'll see. A quick response to a guest review (from guest Guest.) Yes, the name of Blake's company, Black Plateau, is a none-too-subtle nod to Black Mesa, from the Half-Life saga. It would probably take about .3 nanoseconds of looking at my stories to realize I have an almost pathological obsession with planting references and easter eggs in them- even my most serious stories tend to have a shout-out or two... or three... or four... a chapter... That said, feel free to alert me if it starts getting to the point of distracting from the actual story- that is, of course, never my intention. Alright, enough padding up here- let's dive back in.

Disclaimer: Your world needs a great defender, your world's in the way of harm. You want some romantic life, a fairy tale that's full of charm?

Chapter IX

Lie Ren Reads a Journal

Lie Ren's hands were trembling as he finally lowered his scroll for the final time that night. At long last, he moved to the window of his second-story bedroom, gazing out on the dark street running by, deeper into the town of Vale.

It had only been mid-afternoon when he had first sat down in his office, pulling up the most recent numbers tied to each of his old friends, having finally resigned himself to calling them, one by one, to fulfill their promise- to return to this town. Nevertheless, as he finally completed the last call, he could turn to his window to see the sun well below the horizon, night taking over in its place.

He had thought that calling them back would be the easy part. It seemed so simple- just dial a few numbers, remind a few old friends of their promise to return, then wait for them to do so. But there had been a heavy weight in him with every number he dialed- with every digit pressed, he could feel something closing in.

In a way, he thought, maybe he'd been hoping he never had to make those calls at all. As wonderful as it would no doubt be to see all his old friends again, there was a persistent, nagging voice in the back of his mind reminding him why he'd hoped it would never come to this. After all, even the case of Roman Torchwick had not been the first case of its ilk in the past year or so- just the first he could definitively tie to it.

Had he been fully honest with himself, he would likely have called all of them up months ago- right from the first incident in which he'd suspected its involvement. If he'd done so, there may be several people now dead that he could have saved- a thought that made him sick. Had not the entire point of their promise been to do what no one else would? To look into the eyes of darkness where all others would rather look away, and fight it, where all others would prefer to ignore it altogether?

There had been plenty of occasions over those months that he considered making the calls, but something always stayed his hand. What if his fears were unjustified? What if these incidents were being caused by someone else- something else- anything else? He couldn't call them all up, forcing such painful memories back to the surface, for anything less than the real thing- he had to know, he had to be sure.

And the body count kept rising.

At long last, the case of Roman Torchwick- the first time he'd had evidence- a testimony- irrefutable proof that things were exactly as he'd feared. There was no more time to waste with his head in the sand- it was time to get the band back together and finish the job they'd started twenty-eight years ago.

In a way, it had been easier making the calls, knowing, as he did, that his fears were justified. In another, however, it was much, much harder- with every number dialed, the dread ate away at him that... that he was playing with their lives. As the sole remaining member of their team in Vale, it was his job to watch over the town, and over the others, ready to call them back into action if need be- but that meant he'd watched as they'd all grown, finally breaking free of the shackles that this town had placed on them, and finally leading happier lives as memories of that summer drained away? Who was he to deny them that happiness?

The thought that weighed him down, kept him from making one call any sooner than half an hour after the conclusion of the one before, was rather simple- that in the best case scenario, he was drawing all his old friends away from those happy lives and back into a world of nightmare that they had fought for so long to escape.

In the worst case scenario, he was calling them back to their deaths- in a way, killing them with his own hands, his scroll and his words acting as untraceable instruments of murder.

He shook his head. There was no point dwelling- the final call had been made. Five of his six comrades had vowed to return- the sixth had not rejected him outright, but promised to dwell on her answer for a little while longer. He had cast his stone into the pond- now all that was left to do was await the ripples.

He turned away from his bedroom and walked a few feet down the hall to his study, where he quickly reached up to one of the highest shelves and pulled down a large book- though calling it a book was somewhat generous. It was more of a bound collection of papers dating back over the twenty-eight years since that fateful summer, some even older than that, telling what he considered to be the truest story of this town.

He opened up the front cover and ran a hand over his own introduction to it all:

Of all the questions I have imagined during my time in Vale, this one persists the most- is it possible for an entire town to be haunted?

Of course, stories will always persist of haunted houses, those creepy, overgrown buildings on the outskirts of town- hovels of great history that none seem to quite fully understand, trees growing around it like claws out of the ground, preparing to reclaim it. Through its windows, one can almost imagine a face watching them back out of the darkness, a beckoning hand disconnected from any body...

Objects are frequently haunted, whether in mythology or the lore surrounding them- a diamond that brings death to those who dare to possess it, or a ring that corrupts the minds of those who wear it. Mirrors seem the most prone to this treatment, as so many cultures view them as a doorway to other realms or planes of existence.

But in Vale, I sense something else– not a face peering out of a house on the street corner, or a suspicious number of deaths tied to a lantern displayed prominently in the museum... but there is a sense of haunting there, as well.

At that point, Ren's pen had stopped, when he'd been writing all those years ago, uncertain how to properly transcribe his continuing thoughts into words. Not that it mattered- he had no designs on ever publishing this book- it was hardly the kind of book that warranted publishing to begin with, though he had once jokingly given it a title, casting his mind back, imagining all his friends commenting on it, until the literary minds of Blake and Pyrrha united with the whimsical brains of Yang and Nora to dub the tome The Blue Book of Arkham.

Regardless, he had continued to fill the book, with uncovered newspaper clippings, of transcribed portions of historical works, and quite a few musings of his own, all tied to what he considered Vale's 'dark little secret.'

His interest in the thing actually predated his friendship with the others- dating back at least as far as his father's story about the destruction of Menagerie Grill and Bar, a restaurant that had apparently been quite popular some a decade or two before Ren's birth, particularly among Vale's faunus community. At the time, discrimination against faunus was just starting to come down, so an establishment like Menagerie that welcomed them without question was something special. Ren's father, Li, had not been a faunus, but had been perfectly welcome in the restaurant as well- hence his presence on the night it burned down.

The night was no secret to anybody in Vale- it had gone down in legend- but the exact details behind it had faded into obscurity. For instance, there was hardly any doubt in anyone's mind that the fire had been caused by the Black Fang, a retaliatory group to the more infamous White Fang that had been making a name for themselves at the time. The White Fang fought violence with violence, prompting the Black Fang to also fight violence with violence, and they had hardly been shy about taking credit for the destruction of Menagerie. However, the odd thing was that none of them seemed entirely certain which of them had actually begun the blaze.

It seemed feasible to some that studied the case that the Black Fang was simply lying to keep the true perpetrator from facing justice for their crimes, but that was a story Li Ren doubted. The Black Fang was, in every way, a funhouse-mirror version of the White Fang, right down to their very philosophy, though, of course, either group would be swift to deny it if confronted with this fact. Part of that philosophy was an intense sense of martyrdom- whoever it was that started the fire would have been more than eager to go down in history for their crime, even if it meant taking the hefty, likely capital punishment that would follow. None did.

The story of the fire was one Lie had been told practically as soon as he was old enough to recognize the sounds coming from his parents' mouths as speech. Initially, of course, the full thing had been watered down for his more childish sensibilities, with more details being provided with each retelling until he finally heard the full, unfiltered, unadulterated truth in his mid-teens. It had initially been a tale of heroism- Li had, at first, left out the intentions behind the fire altogether, making it sound more like a freak accident, and instead choosing to focus on a savior- a stranger dressed in green who had saved many lives that night, including Li and An, Ren's own parents. Common thought since then had been that the stranger had been the cook, or perhaps a patron just passing through. Nobody knew for sure, and he'd faded into as much legend as the person who'd started the fire in the first place.

As Ren grew older, Li had begun to peel back the layers of deception, but had still moved to protect his son from some of the world's harsher realities, attributing the burning to another mysterious individual- to an odd woman he'd seen on the outside, with multicolored hair and eyes. When Ren had eventually learned the full truth, he had initially suspected that this woman never truly existed as anything other than his father's invention, designed to guard him from the cruelty of the Black Fang. However, when he'd proposed this theory to his father, he had shaken his head.

"Of all the stories I've told you about that night, son," Li had responded, "I have never once lied to you. I've left a couple things out that An and I thought you were too young to hear, but I have never- never- told you something I knew to be wrong. There really was a stranger in green that night- he saved me, your mother, and quite a few of the faunus that night- though, of course, he couldn't save everyone. And when I told you about that young lady with the different colored eyes and hair... that's absolutely true, too.

"I have no idea who she was, son. I'd never seen her before, I've never seen her since. I don't know if she was with the Black Fang or not- she might have been a faunus herself, for all I know. But I remember her face, clear as day- staring into the flames from the outside, eyes glowing, and that little smirk... mark my words, she had something to do with it. I won't say she was the one who did it, I have no proof of that- but if she was completely innocent, then my name's Robert Winchester."

XXXX

Li's stories had inspired in his son a love of history, particularly surrounding the town they had taken residence in. As Lie Ren grew older, history became his best subject in school, and he was hardly ever to be found without a book detailing some great past event in his arms, from the faunus revolution to the War for Remnant. As he delved deeper into the personal history of the town itself, certain patterns became clear to him- one year, Menagerie burned to the ground. Another year, a hotel that had brought the town no small amount of attention was destroyed by one of its own boilers, taking over a hundred people with it, more than half of whom were children. One year, a carnival came to town, an event marked by the disappearance of over forty individuals, no trace of whom had ever been discovered since. As an odd connection, the first people to begin laying the groundwork for Vale also involved several people who had previously been affiliated with the circus, though they made up a small portion of the two hundred and fifty-five people who had initially become the first residents of Vale- all of whom vanished over the course of a single year, not a trace of them to be found except for a single message found on a table in one of the buildings- God is in Heaven, all is right with the world.

Every discovery Ren made only raised more questions, until he'd finally turned to his last resort- Professor Peter Port, teacher at Beacon High School by day, local ranting kook by night. He had approached him late one summer with a request for assistance- assistance the elderly man was only too happy to provide.

"Professor Port... is there something... wrong with Vale?"

The question had taken Port aback. "Wrong? Well, I'm certain that depends on what you think is right, doesn't it, my boy?"

They had gone on a walk around the town, eventually leading to them leaning over the Haven River from the top of Autumn Bridge. The river had, for once, found a happy medium that day, just the right height to resemble a river without people being frightened of being swept away if they fell in- in fact, from where they'd stood, Ren recalled seeing a few daring teens stripping down and taking a dip.

"For what so many consider a small town, Vale's population is quite large," Port had finally continued. "Almost the size of a city at times- in that respect, Vale seems right.

"We're not the largest player on the great stage of the world, but there are plenty of jobs, homes, and food to go around- as much as we rely on trade for certain things, we certainly produce enough on our own to be able to participate without fear. In that respect, all in Vale seems right."

"I'm not talking about population or economics," Ren recalled saying back. "I'm talking about- I'm talking about the people. So much has happened in this town- so much that we seem to just forget."

"I see," Port responded, acknowledging Ren's statement briefly before falling into several minutes of silence.

At long last, he'd asked outright, "This isn't for a school project, is it?"

"It's summer, Professor," Ren reminded him.

"Of course," Port nodded. "Nonetheless, far be it from me to turn away a young mind seeking knowledge... I suppose you are correct, my boy, at least in some respects. Of the many places I've taught, Vale seems remarkably swift to move on from tragedy. Perhaps the true power of Vale is the power to forget. Perhaps, though, not all of us. I doubt the Scarlatinas will be forgetting their little girl anytime soon."

The world seemed a little darker, as though a cloud had passed over the sun, despite there not being a cloud in the sky.

"I can give you some resources, point a few fingers towards some more information about this town," Port had finally declared. "Unfortunately, though, I have no definite answers to give you- if you find any, you may well be a greater detective than I, my boy- and no teacher could ask for anything more."

Ultimately, Ren thought, he had to be grateful to the old man- after all, at least forty percent of his book here existed because of things he'd found through Port's advice. True to what he'd said, none of it had pointed to definite answers- those were all things Ren had eventually found on his own- but his interactions with Old Man Port had proved invaluable nonetheless.

Finally, Ren snapped out of his recollections, gazing at the book on his lap. Looking nearby, he picked up a pen and continued the monologue he'd begun- he didn't even remember how long ago.

Perhaps, then, the word haunted ought to be used differently when applied to Vale. It is not ghosts that haunt this town.

Another definition of 'haunt' is a noun- a location that animals have come to recognize as a good place to gather for food. Perhaps this is the best definition to use where Vale is concerned- a vast hunting ground for an unknowable creature, intangible as it is cruel, that stalks the streets and feeds on what lies within the heart of every resident. At times, the thought has even crossed my mind that this creature is the town itself- a vast spider luring in the residents like flies, until, by the time they're caught, they don't even realize it.

He laid the pen down. He had simply written from the top of his mind- perhaps that little spiel could do with some revising.

Or perhaps not. He had much greater things to worry about, he mused, gazing back out of his window into the night, imagining, even now, that each of his friends were already on their way, by air, by sea, by train... on their way to fulfill a pact made in what now seemed like ancient times, yet that still held sway over them all.

At long last, he stood, leaving the study and returning to his bedroom, content to lay himself to sleep, dreaming of that summer, so long ago, when he had first made the friends who aided him in his search for answers- who, even now, held true to a promise made beside the riverbank, so many lifetimes ago...

XXXX

A more 'hands-off' chapter than usual- my own terminology. Not as short as I thought, though still not too overwhelmingly long. We'll see how the next chapter goes, as we finally get into the full thrust of the story, after nine chapters of preamble. Hope my pseudo-philosophical rambling didn't drive too many people away, but to let me know, please R&R, constructive criticism embraced, flames, not so much, Gamer4 out.