Tears welled in Yang's eyes, her vision becoming blurred as they fell dowm her cheeks. Her breath was stifled, caught somewhere between gasping and exhaling. She couldn't believe it.

He was here.

Milky white eyes stared back at her, their usual sternness replaced with a soft gaze that seemed foreign on his face. His trademark frown was there but it was less cruel and more somber than it used to be.

He smiled, and Yang threw herself around him, sobbing.

"You're alive..." She gasped, unable to give voice to the questions in ber mind, quieting them with a mental shove when they threatened to remove the peace of the moment. "I can't believe it..."

"I see your faith in me is as lackluster as ever." Brutus chuckled, earning a light slap from his sister.

Faith? She always had faith in him, he was her brother, and she was his sister. "I never stopped having faith in you."

He hummed his response, the neutrality of the sound promised more on that subject later. Brutus glanced to the others, passed out on the floor in varying poses. "I see that Ruby and her team are doing..." He waved a hand in the air as he tried to find the correct word. "Well."

Yang shook her head, burying it further in his chest. "They'll be okay, right?"

"They will." Brutus affirmed. "The effects of the crossing should subside with little consequences, save for Ruby of course, her ride was a bit more bumpy than the others."

Yang glanced back to her sister. "What happened to her anyway?"

Brutus shrugged. "She opened herself up to the psychic chaff that infests this place, and her body read the currents. The others allowed their own psychic spoor to overwhelm them."

"Why wasn't I affected?" Yang asked.

"You bulldoze your way through everything, why would this be any different?"

Yang hummed in response, finally releasing her grip as she took a step backwards.

Brutus had grown, as impossible as it seemed, where once he was a few inches taller than her, he now towered over her. His body was rippling muscle and hardened bone, and she could not shake the feel of it against her cheek through his clothes. He wore simple clothing, though hus body stretched it horribly.

"Amber brings me new clothes from time to time." He said before she could comment. "I've been growing a lot lately."

"I'll say." Yang added. "Your like seven feet tall now."

"Seven feet and nine inches, actually."

Yang snorted, shaking her head. He really was growing up wasn't he? "So, you're going to be a dad soon? Geez, Brutus, two years ago you had Bun-Bun riding your dick and now you've got a queen knocked up, you move fast."

Brutus laughed, the bass of it shaking her bones. "Yes, I suppose I do." He said, still chuckling. "After Bun-Bun, I met Amber, and she found that I had needs that she could fill, I suppose a relationship blossomed from there."

Yang shook her head, quickly glancing back as she heard the others start to stir. Weiss stood first, swaying on wobbly legs that looked unsteady enough to give out from underneath her. She blinked several times before dusting herself off. Blake and Ruby rose soon after, though the latter held her head, groaning.

"I see the lightweights are stirring from their slumber." Brutus said, returning to his throne. "I am a king with much spare time, so feel free to converse." Brutus rose a finger, and the room shifted, stone chairs forming from the floor in front of his throne. "Come, sit." He gestured.

"I..." Blake began, eyeing the newly formed chairs with fear and suspicion. "How?"

Brutus leaned back in the throne, a content sigh escaling his lips. "You'll find that I am far beyond restrictions, even comprehension." He waved his hand. "Though that may be hubris on my part."

Blake's eyes narrowed, not liking the vague answer.

Weiss picked up the slack in the conversation, sparing a nervous glance to her team. "I understand that you're a king? As in, a leader of a kingdom?"

"Yes, I built Jaccar, alongside Amber, who has ruled in my absence, albeit under my guidance." Brutus replied.

"You built an entire kingdom? How?"

"Anything can be done if the will is strong enough, I am testament to that." Brutus chuckled, only for his laughter to stop. "I am testament to alot of things." He added after a brief silence.

"The other kingdoms won't be happy that you're essentially seceding from them." Weiss continued. "How do you plan on dealing with them without conflict?"

Brutus's reply was curt and decisive. A bark of authority and malice that left chills down Weiss's spine.

"I do not."

"You mean to wage war on the kingdoms? You'll be killed! You have one city, they have an entire kingdom!"

"Quite bold of you..." Brutus began, head resting in one palm. "To assume I fear death."

"Brutus..Anyone can die, even you." Ruby said pleadingly. "We thought you were dead for the past two years, don't make that true. Please."

Brutus shot up from his seat, hands folding behind his back. "I am far beyond even the penumbra of mortality, even in death, I persist." He said, voice dropping dangerously. "Death is but a setback in time, and time is but distance to me now, I traverse it unendingly, unlike you." He took a step down from his throne, closing in on them.

"If I am killed, what does it matter? It will be a temporary victory for my enemies, and anything less than total victory is failure and cowardice. If I die, I will just go elsewhere, start again and again and again until I am successful."

"War would throw the world into chaos, you'd destroy the peace!" Blake cried out.

"Peace for Peace's sake is a farce, you of all people should understand that more than anyone." He said, fixing her with a glare that threatened to tear her apart. A painful lance of agony flashing briefly through her head. "War is inevitable, and I would have it fought on my terms and no one else's."

"The grimm would overrun humanity! We'd all be destroyed!" Yang shouted.

"Are you truly foolish enough to believe that?" Brutus growled. "If you believe that the grimm's so called mindless violence will end in the capitulation of your entire species, then you and your headmaster need to have quite the talk."

"What happens when you win, when all the kingdoms are ash and dust and you're on top of it all? You plan to rule over us like some kind of despot?" Weiss questioned angrily, her arms crossing over her bust.

"Mankind needs a ruler, it must have one that is beyond the coil of frailty, a ruler that understands the savagery it is capable of. A ruler that can be the hand that feeds, and the hand that punishes."

"Fascism, you plan to install a fascist government and rule the world, you're little more than a power-hungry evil man." Blake accused, jabbing at him angrily. "You're no different than anyone else who wants to rule the world! A cruel man who follows his cruel nature!"

Brutus sighed, taking another step down his throne, getting face to face with the faunas. "Hypocrite that you are, labelling that which you do not understand to be evil. Every fiber of my being screams for blood to be shed, to destroy everything and let it ruin."

Brutus leaned down to stare her in the face. "Perhaps in this you are correct, but I desire freedom for the very species that birthed me. I was born of the murder of two brothers, an event so ingrained in humanity's history that it has tied me to every soul, living or dead, or even in between as your beloved headmaster has caused. Already he has caused death and destruction on a scale even I cannot hope yet to match. Man is tired of Ozpin's and the Grimm's ceaseless war, and it has created me to stop it."

"You're not a god!" Blake countered.

"No, but I have looked upon the throne of humanity's gods, and they are empty. Mankind, in its myriad of forms has been abandoned, and a godless society cannot stand."

Brutus straightened, his body swelling as his power rose. "And if I must force myself to godhood to ensure the safety of those I love, so be it."

"You're mad." Weiss swore.

"No, I am determined."

A shudder ran through the room, through the very fabric of whatever passed for reality here. The very space around them flexed and twitched, undulating like muscles and flesh.

Brutus pushed them back towards the portal at the other end of the room. "You must go, the time for my return is nigh at hand. Be ready for the darkness to come, for I shall start this war in earnest." He turned his gaze to his sisters. "Yang, Ruby. I love you both, and you have made me proud, stay strong for what is to happen, and remember, that I do this to enaure your futures as well as my own people's."

(@)

The time is nigh, friends. Brutus's return is coming and like any birth, it will be bloody.

Some reasoning as to why Brutus is doing what he's doing. Hopefully I made it clear without stating it outright.

Til next time y'all.