KEY
"Normal Speech"
"Sign Language"
'Thought '
- 'Scroll Message'
Chapter Beta - EnigmaProtocol
Neo's body told her to wake up now. She always listened to her body. It seemed to tell her the right things - most of the time. But she wasn't awake enough to question herself.
She did, however, question why. There had to be a reason.
Heterochromatic eyes scanned the room; were there assassins? No, anyone trying to get into the room like that would have alerted Velvet. So that's a no for assassins. One of Her... things? Again, they'd need reason to come in here, they were still Grimm. And good luck getting Grimm in here without at least someone noticing beforehand. No to it being Grimm. Her Period? No, she never got them, and so never had to worry about that problem. Was it... dear Oum, was it Goodwitch?! No one messed with Goodwitch. A panicked search of the room deemed that The Scariest Thing to Walk on Remnant was nowhere in sight.
The woman relaxed back to rest, the morning sun shining through the window - but not that she cared. She had Fox, and with that she felt at... at... where's his heartbeat?
'Fox?' The long, painful silence that followed helped drive her worries home. 'Fox?!' She leaned across, resting her head on his chest to confirm what she thought she felt before. There was no heartbeat at all.
In a desperate attempt to revive him, she rolled him over onto his back and started compressing his chest, foregoing any training she learnt over the years of being alone, in an effort to restart his heart. 'Fox, wake up. Wake up!' she mentally cried, her compressions getting much sloppier as the minutes dragged on and she became ever the more distraught. 'Please... don't do this... not now...' Every compression grew weaker and weaker as she grew more and more defeated. Tears ran unabated down her pale cheeks, her eyes trying their best to convey what cries and wails would do a much better job at than they.
The ice cream girl hunched over his body and began to noiselessly weep. 'Why?' she asked herself over and over, not understanding the cruel and twisted games the Gods played on her. She looked up, wanting to know if they had cursed her to forever be alone. But in a brief moment of realisation, Neo remembered that she wasn't alone anymore. She was currently in a room with three other people in it, all of whom she trusted and they in turn trusted her back.
Coco's dream was pleasant. It was her and Velvet, walking together without a care. The sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky, and everyone else in this dreamscape, even Yatsuhashi and Fox, were blurred out. Only Velvet could be seen with clarity. That dream was brought to an abrupt end when she was shaken awake by Neo, her eyes red from crying and the tears still currently cascading down her face. The leader spoke with a hushed voice so as to not wake their other sleeping teammates, but still with a curious and worried tone at seeing her like this.
"Neo? What's happened?" Signing proper sentences seemed pointlessly long-winded, so she settled on quick words to get the point across. And they would.
"Fox. Dead."
"What?" Coco jumped up and went straight to Fox's bedside, feeling for a pulse or breath. She couldn't find one either. "Velv! Yatsu! Up, now!" The two sleepers were up in seconds; whenever Coco took the tone she currently had they knew she meant business. "Fox isn't breathing, get some help." Velvet's hand shot to her mouth with a gasp. Yatsuhashi fell eerily quiet, looking at Neo who was still by Fox, silently sobbing once again. "Get help!" The two remained as they did, tears beginning to form in the corners of the Faunus' eyes.
"Not again..." she murmured through a trembling lip.
"NOW!"
"Coco, he's dead!" The deep bass sent shivers down the leader's spine. Yatsuhashi had rarely been angry when at Beacon, and even then it could hardly be classed as anger, merely raising his voice, but this was the first time that he had ever turned his 'anger' on a teammate. "He is dead!" The repetition seemed merely to be conforming to himself of the fact rather than to confirm to anyone else who wasn't listening.
"Yatsu, I can't lose him! Not again, I've already lost him once." With that, she fell to her knees as her crying began. Neo was crying into Fox's chest, holding his hand all the while, Velvet was crying whilst comforting Coco who was sobbing into her girlfriend's shoulder. "I am such a shit fucking team leader."
"Enough Coco, there is nothing you could have done-" the giant was interrupted by the sobbing gunner, who refused to listen to reason, standing up and thrusting her finger into his chest with every word.
"Explain, Yatsuhashi, how Fox would have considered me anything but a poor leader when in the past three months he has died not once, but twice! You cannot justify yourself with this one Yatsu. Don't even try." He wanted to push further, wanted to reassure her. That would only serve to frustrate her more, so he stopped.
"How could this happen again?" Velvet said through teary eyes and a shaky voice. Despite the boys and girls being partnered together on Initiation, Fox and Velvet were the closest to one another in the team; this was before she and Coco became an item, of course. Losing him was like losing family - it was for all of them.
Neo wasn't sure if they'd stopped talking, or when even. She just saw Fox, laying there on the bed. He was dead. The sight of him tied her stomach in knots. This must have been what it was like for her team back when she and Fox died the first time. They must have felt like this - a feeling that nothing ever was going to be the same. But whereas they lost a teammate and a partner, she had just lost her boyfriend, her lover, the one. He had to be the one, no one else would have had the connection that they did. Maybe she should just run again, go back to finding attractive people and sleeping around. Perhaps she could try something with the Arctic Fox Faunus from the café, there seemed like there was something between them, however small. But thinking like that now was insensitive. Thinking right now seemed insensitive. She wanted time to mourn the loss she'd experienced. A loss she'd never felt before.
Ba bum
The sound was missed by everyone the first time round. The mute girl placed a kiss on the boy's forehead, then went to sit with the rest of her grieving team.
Ba bum
Neo heard it this second time around, as did Coco.
Ba bum, ba bum
Yatsuhashi was next to notice.
Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum
Funnily enough, Velvet was last to hear it. The original members of CFVY stood around the bed whilst Neo sat down on the side with Fox. His heart rate climbed to steady levels, mostly pleasing everyone. He was alive, but this was the second time he's 'died', but not really. But then his heart rate passed normal levels, reaching the territories of tachycardia. His breathing, which had returned with his pulse, was short and shallow, his body tossed and turned in his sleep - he was dreaming. But it was a nightmare.
The copper haired boy threw himself up screaming, the sound frightening the shy Faunus girl with acute hearing and their team leader as well, even though they both knew it was coming. He squinted slightly at the mass of light, then recoiled in horror at a sight on his hands that he was holding up to shield his eyes. He rubbed and stared at them so long that he started welling up.
'Fox?' Neo said, taking his hand. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the hand that was holding his. He touched it, then followed it up, his jaw dropping further and further as he looked further up the arm. His eyes settled on Neo's and he took a long and heavy intake of breath.
"Neo..." he stroked her cheek and for the first time she had noticed his eyes. No longer were his pupils greyed out and his irises weren't milky anymore, the pupils were bog standard black and his iris colour was a dark copper brown. It seemed that he had noticed too. "Your eyes... they're different colours..." The two other girls looked at one another in confused glee. "They're beautiful Neo." The sunlight shone through the window and its rays illuminated Neo in a rich morning glow. She looked angelic. "You're beautiful."
She'd heard enough. She leaned in and planted the firmest kiss on the lips she could manage. A newly adjusting eye opened as they were kissing and it spotted three other people in the room.
"Hey, guys... I can see!" Team CFVYN hugged out their relief, with Fox being the filling of the giant cuddle huddle. "Velvet, your ears look adorable."
"Thanks Fox. I'm glad you like them."
There was silence in the CFVYN dorm. Any tears that fell were ones of joy and they fell silently. Neo and Fox could have talked, but they didn't.
"So... does someone want to explain?" Fox queried, adding some noise to the silence of the room, "because I don't have a clue what the hell just happened."
"I think I can explain," Neo signed, speaking the words in her head for Fox. "Last night, before I drifted off, we talked about how I wanted you to see how everyone was reacting to the dress, but you weren't fazed. After you were asleep, I thought to myself 'I wish you could see them' - those words exactly. That might have something to do with it."
"That would make sense," Velvet added, "the Parchment could grant a single wish, right? Maybe that was it. It explains why Fox can now see despite having been blind for his entire life." The team looked at Fox, who looked at them all back. He tried his best to not stare, but when his eyes were still getting used to the whole notion of seeing it was difficult. He always found himself stopping on Neo, the first face he ever saw.
"You used the wish?" The mute nodded, accepting that as the most logical explanation. "Neo, that's it then. We're free from it." She nodded again, the tears pooling up in her eyes again. "We don't have to stay together anymore, we can live our own lives." The mute didn't look pleased about that. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want to live on without you." That's better. And whilst she could have spoken to him in his head, the rest of the team deserved to get in on their little joke, so she signed her answer, then leaned in and kissed him again.
"Sap."
And she couldn't be happier about it.
Chapter Beta - EnigmaProtocol
Now I know some people may be confused as to why I set up the thing in Chapter 17 with them communicating via their telepathic link through their Scrolls only to throw this curveball in and render that useless. Well, how often have you planned something, only for something else to happen and render that plan null and void? That's just what happened here - none of them knew this was going to happen.
Speaking of which, Fox can see now. Surprise, I guess. I wanted to do something different, as most stories depict him as completely blind, so I decided to throw this in. Plus, I wanted the first thing he saw to be Neo
As always, feedback - good or bad - is most appreciated
