Chapter 21: Demons in Ourselves
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Thud … … … well Anton is surely going to feel that when he wakes up … if he wakes up … … … …
"Ow." Anton said as he got up. He looked around but all he could see was pitch black and outlines of red. I'm not saying there isn't anything, but what trees, tall grass, bushes, and packs of Grimm there was, was completely pitch black and outlined with red, even the bloody sky was pitch black. Wait … … … packs of Grimm?
"Well shit." Anton said as he began to run from the Grimm as fast as he could. He jumped behind a bush and watched as the Grimm horde ran by him. Panting he sat down and caught his breath.
"Well that was wizard." A British voice said next to him. Anton was just about to jump and yell in shock but was stopped when a man who was hiding next to him put a hand over his mouth. The man wore a brown top hat with a red ribbon over his head. On his torso he wore a tan leather coat over a white button up shirt, which went down to his knees and barely covered his brown cargo pants. For shoes he wore combat boots that were thick around his ankles and on his hands were brown leather gloves. "Quiet now or you'll get yourself killed." Anton nodded and took note on his clean shaven face and golden eyes. "Alright good." He said as he dropped his hand and looked out beyond the bushes.
"Who are you?" Anton asked.
"Oh who me, I'm no one just a passerby don't worry about it." The odd man said.
"Got a name?" Anton asked as he turned and looked out beyond the bushes as well. He could see the Grimm as the wandered about sniffing around.
"Not one you would like." The man said. The Grimm started moving away from them, Giving Anton and the Passerby a chance to rest.
"Fine Passerby where am I?" Anton asked.
"A place you never want to go." Passerby said. Passerby and Anton then stood up and began walking away from the Grimm.
"Your rather vague for a guy who just so happens to be stuck in Reignrock with me." Anton mentioned. Passerby then seemed to stop in place.
"So that's how you're here." Passerby said under his breath.
"Uh I didn't quite get that." Anton said as he stopped as well. Passerby turned and looked at Anton.
"Ok you want answers follow me." Passerby said and started running towards a mountain that seemed to have formed as soon as he started running. Anton had no other choice but to follow and listen as they reached the Cliffside of the mountain. Passerby stopped at the very bottom of the cliff and waited for Anton to catch up.
"What, where, how is this here?" Anton asked as he stopped in front of Passerby.
"You wanted answers boy, well here's some that'll help along the way." Passerby said as he turned and got up in Anton's face. "Right now you are trapped here." He poked Anton's forehead and continued. "And it's killing you because of your mental crisis."
"What do you mean 'mental crisis' I was dead." Anton said.
"Your mind was dead, after that crash you didn't just die, you sent yourself in a whirlpool of hell and there is no walking out of here." Passerby explained.
"How do you know about the crash?" Anton asked. There was a pause before he got an answer.
"Tell me something, what are you afraid of?" Passerby asked.
"What kind of question is that, we're here in the middle of a black and red sky with black and red trees surrounded by black and red Grimm and you ask what I'm afraid of?" Anton stated.
"Yes because it might just save your life." Passerby said. Anton just sighed and wandered a little.
"I don't know what my fears are." Anton said.
"Typical, a man who knows not what he fears, fears himself." Passerby stated. Anton looked up at him in shock, just as a cave door opened from the cliffs of the mountain. "So that's what you fear."
"What how did-"
"Never mind that right now that's your next stop, you have to go in there." Passerby said as he pointed at the cave.
"What will I find in there?" Anton asked.
"I don't know for sure but trust me boy, after today you'll have wished you never step foot in there." Passerby warned before fading away.
"Well this just gets better the weirder it gets." Anton said before walking into the cave. As he began walking through the cavern's rough surface the entrance behind him was sealed off by falling rocks. "Well I'm not going out that way." He continued his way through the cavern, having to use his Eagle Vision to see through the darkness. As he trended through he began to hear whispers, whispers that were too soft to understand but got louder as he kept walking. Eventually those whispers were screams and were clear as day.
"YOU LEFT WHEN WE NEEDED YOU!"
"YOU CUT HIS HANDS OFF!"
"DO I NEED A REASON TO KEEP YOU IN LINE!"
"KEEP HITTING HIM!"
"YOU"RE A DISGRACE!"
"WHY!"
"GET OUT OF HERE!"
"IT'S YOUR FAULT!"
"YOU'RE THE MONSTER!"
The screams from his past and recent failures kept repeating, drilling into his mind like a jackhammer on the street. Anton fell down in pain as the screams hit him, pinning him to the ground, keeping him there as if they expect him to die here … … … well they do. He yelled in agony as he tried to get up.
"ENOUGH!" A loud booming dark voice called out and the screams went back to whispers. Anton looked around as he tried to catch his breath before getting up. When he stood up the walls around the cave began to glow as a hooded cloaked figure walked up to him. It said nothing, Anton said nothing, it just pointed at him and motioned for him to follow and began to move away. Anton followed the figure through the cave and into a wide dome like room with an orb of light in the middle. "I'm sure you have no end of questions Anton." It asked.
"Uh I lost count as to how many I actually have." Anton said. The figure moved up to the orb of light. As he got closer it started to turn a dark shade of red.
"Here is where you'll be judged, prosecuted, and quite possibly die for everything you did, and who better to do it." He paused as he let down his hood, revealing his face to be Anton with his long hair and beard. "Then yourself?" He said in Anton's exact voice. Anton was in shock as he watched the black cloak drop to reveal a mire image of himself from not too long ago with the coat and all.
"What, I don't understand." Anton said.
"Of course you don't understand, it was never your job to. All you had to do was follow orders, until you ran away and knew nothing of the world around." Anton said.
"I learned since then, I grew up and learned that there is more to life then orders."
"What with your so called friends, yeah like they'll be around all the time, and what did you give up to be with them, you changed you're different, what happened to the joy of adventure?"
"You mean the joy of fighting; an Adventure is more than just trouble."
"You say that like running from what you are is a good thing." This froze our Anton. "Don't you miss it, the bar fights, the missions, the targets we took out on a daily basis. You know you do, it's in your blood to fight, to hunt, to seek what you really want. The rush we'd feel as we struck down our enemies, and fought for a higher cause." This gave him leverage.
"You say it's for a higher cause yet all I see is bloodshed, and acts without reason. Yes I miss the rush of being on the field but not like that, we don't kill anymore, we can't become like them again. If we do then how are we any different from them?" This shocked the other.
"So we did pay attention to the girl that likes us so much."
"Yes we did, and we learned so much more too, we are better than this, we can do so much more than just saying 'oh he's gotta go so here is what we are going to do' and be done with it. Being part of something greater is what I'm doing now, working with the humans to stop the White Fang."
"And what happens after that? What if the humans just enslave the Faunus and don't care about your rules or what you want to happen."
"Then I'll fight till their freedom is won, only no more killing. No more unnecessary deaths, we can win this, we just need to become something better. What do you say?" Anton reached his hand out to his younger self. Young Anton just looked at him.
"Can we do this, and protect the ones we care about?"
"I don't know for sure but I do know that we have to trust that they can take of themselves and if not, well we do what we can."
"Then it's your fault if they die along the way." The younger said as he grabbed the older's hand and started to fade.
"I know." Anton said as the light turned blue and opened another vortex.
"That's your ticket home Anton." Passerby said as he walked up from behind the vortex.
"You knew all along." Anton stated.
"Yes I did but how else were you supposed to save yourself?" Passerby said.
"Who are you Passerby, how are you in my Reignrock?" Anton asked. Passerby sighed as he walked closer to Anton.
"In Reignrock everything around you is well … you, everything you see is an aspect of you. The Black being what you are, red being what you are becoming and people are who you are." Passerby explained.
"So that makes you my attitude and sense of adventure." Anton said as he walked in front of the vortex.
"Yes, but you're wasting time you have to go through before it closes." Passerby said.
"Just one more question, what will I find when I go through, last time I went in blind sort of, but I want to know what's on the other side of this one." Anton wondered. Passerby just chuckled; he walked up to Anton and just pushed him into the vortex.
"You'll find out!" Passerby called just before the vortex closed.
MEANWHILE:
General Ironwood and Ozpin stood in front of the floating wreckage above the water of the Grimmor and watched as airships came and went pulling apart the remains when a soldier came up to them.
"Sir, Professor, we found something." The Soldier said as he tried to catch his breath. Ozpin and Ironwood looked at each other and nodded.
"Show us." Ironwood ordered. The soldier walked them down the wreckage and opened the doors to the bridge. They walked over to the captain's chair and there he was, the body of Anton Sonreef with his sword stabbed in the control panel.
"We have to report this." Ironwood said.
"No we can't." Ozpin retaliated.
"What we found his body, Ozpin people need to know, he deserves a proper funeral." Ironwood said.
"You would give a funeral to someone who isn't really dead." Ozpin said.
"What are you-" Ironwood cut himself off as he examined Anton's body. He kneeled down closer and put his ear next to his chest. … … … thump thump … … … thump thump.
"He's alive?" Ironwood asked as he got up.
"It would appear so." Ozpin said.
"So what do we do?" Ironwood asked as he walked next to Ozpin.
"We take him home, and make sure he wakes up." Ozpin suggested.