Vol2: Ch 4: Scared
Maya rolled over and pulled the covers closer to her. Drowsily noting the fact that she was in her bed. She hadn't expected to get any sleep that night, she needed air, so she had made her way to the roof…
Ah…
The events of that last night filtered back into her mind. She hadn't expected Alden to show up, but she was grateful all the same. She hadn't been in the best of places yesterday. The memory of seeing Tukson lying there in the pool of blood… She didn't know how to feel, she was beyond furious, vengeful. But at the same time terrified that someone was capable of such cruelty.
Realising that her thoughts mean she wasn't going to be able to get to sleep she groaned and sat up against the headboard, eyes still closed. They only had one lesson today, but that was in the afternoon. Wait, no Aegan and Nite had another one this morning. So probably she and Alden will head to the ring to practice for the entries into the Vytal. It would also serve to see if she could get at what was worrying him last night.
Her eyes finally opened. Her covers had crumpled by her feet, her tail had curled round in her sleep and was resting between her legs, she flicked It up to get a closer look. She didn't remember getting all those knots out…
She felt her cheeks warm. She couldn't believe she actually let him touch her tail. To her it was like being jabbed in the sides when people pulled it. A lot of people found out the hard way her reaction. The easy way to avoid it was to just not allow anyone but her parents near it.
Well, that plan flew out the window.
She looked around the room. The harsh glare of her alarm clock said 6:54 AM, 6 minutes before it would go off. The sun was starting to break through the small gap in the curtains covering their window, casting a small ray of light against the door. Everyone was asleep still, with occasional turning over and muttering against a pillow…
Thump, thump, thump.
Her eyes snapped over to Alden, he was lifting his entire body and dropping back again.
"Alden could you please stop that?" She mumbled tiredly, knowing that he would stop if he realised he was being irritating. But he kept going.
"Alden…" she groaned again. Still, he carried on.
With a growl she swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood up, before marching over to where he lay.
She stopped in her tracks…
His eyes were wide open, but unfocused and hazy, pupils unnaturally wide. Her Faunus hearing could even hear his heart, beating way to vigorously and rapidly.
"Alden?" she asked, trying to gently shake him awake to no avail. Her tail began to nervously twitch.
She looked over her shoulder, "guys, get up!" she commanded.
Aegan and Nite mumbled as they were awoken.
"wha…" Aegan began, looking at the alarm clock, "it hasn't even gone off why di…" He trailed off as he looked at Maya, and Alden beneath her. They shot up, and crowded around her, looking down at their twitching teammate.
"What's going on?" Nite asked.
"I don't know." Maya said.
Nite summoned a small ball of her semblance: a swirling mess of brown and black.
"I think he may be having a panic attack." She diagnosed, holding some fingers against his pulse point in his neck, "his heart is beating too fast, erratic breathing," she looked down at her palm, "healthy portions terror." She nodded in agreement with herself.
"how do you know?" Aegan asked. Nite just looked at him. "oh yeah, of course." Nite has had plenty of her own over the last year.
"Can we stop it?" Maya asked.
Nite shook her head, "I don't think so. We'll have to let him ride it out."
Thunk.
Alden slammed back down, but this time, remained deathly still. All his muscles were taught, his limbs rigid. Maya could still hear his heart racing. Nite reached over and tilted his chin upwards to allow air to pass through more easily. He gasped, then his breathing steadied.
After a minute Maya could hear his heart slowing down, the black in Nite's hand slowly turned to brown. She clenched her fist and it dissipated.
"He'll be fine." She declared. "I wonder what it was all about though?"
The alarm clock suddenly blared its morning greetings, Aegan quickly stopped it.
Alden had mostly returned to normal. Except he was deathly still, the only motion was the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
"Go on," Maya said eventually, "You need to get to class."
"But…" Nite protested.
"I've got him, don't worry. Go, don't get in trouble with Oobleck."
Nite scowled but relented. "Fine…"
"Come find us afterwards, if anything worsens, I'll call you. Promise."
They rushed to get ready and soon Maya was by herself. She walked over to the window and looked down over the courtyard at the mess of student ambling about. She headed into the bathroom and splashed water on her face to help wake herself up. She opened her wardrobe and pulled out her clothes before quickly getting changed. She grabbed her sword and strapped it to her hip.
She sat at the foot of Alden's bed, nudging his legs away to make herself room. She pulled out her scroll and looked up her timetable. She was right, they only had Professor Goodwitch's lesson today, but that was this afternoon.
She sent a small "hello" message back home to her parents and asked them how they were doing and spent the rest of the time absentmindedly looking through different things on her scroll.
Suddenly Alden's body jerked again, and his eyes sprang open. He was panting and his eyes had a wild look about them. They locked onto her and he stared at her for a minute before he started to calm down. Maya didn't say anything and allowed it to run his course, he wouldn't hear anything she could say anyway.
Soon he seemed to calm down enough to start paying attention.
"You gave us quite the fright." She said, "Nite said you were having a panic attack." Alden pondered for a minute.
"Yeah, wouldn't be surprised." He said, his voice was laced with grogginess from a restless night. He swung his legs round off the bed and stared at the floor, fazing out.
Maya tapped him on the shoulder, "Come one, get up. We'll head to the ring; it'll help you snap out of this."
Catching onto instruction Alden managed to stand up and slowly drift towards the bathroom. Several minutes later the door opened again. He looked a but more awake, but still slightly out of it.
"Sorry about that." He said, "bad dream."
Maya looked at him concerned but didn't say anything.
They sat at an empty table, amongst the last to get breakfast. Alden was strangely quiet, he was picking at his food, clearly not hungry. Maya kept glancing at him from over her food. It wasn't long before he caught her staring.
"What?" He asked.
"You look like a kicked puppy." She replied flatly. Alden did crack a smile at that one.
"Sorry," he said, "I've just got a lot on my mind right now." Maya could tell he didn't really want to talk about it all. But he definitely wouldn't talk surrounded by so many people, they couldn't tell if any would listen in. Maya nodded in understanding but resolved not to give up on the subject until he spilled.
As Maya was nearly finished with her meal, she saw that Alden had taken an actual bite of his food. His body suddenly decided that it was indeed hungry and began to wolf it down. Maya clasped a hand over her mouth to stop the laugh escaping.
This time Alden didn't even pay attention and was finished before her. He licked his lips in satisfaction. He then looked at her.
"Come on," he said, "eat up."
Maya couldn't hold in her laugh anymore and her head dropped with a bang onto the table. Alden rolled his eyes but smiled as he watched her shoulders twitch. She raised her head and wiped the tear from her eye. She quickly finished up and they stood up to deposit their dirty dishes at the end of the hall.
"Come on." She said walking towards the side exit, looking back over her shoulder to make sure he was following her. They crossed over the courtyard and into one of the entrances in the outer wing. Following a few corridors inwards to be faced with the large double doors of the ring. Maya put both her hands against one of the doors and shoved, grunting as she felt the heavily reinforced doors budge and then swing open.
She flicked a switch as they entered and the large spotlights flashed on, illuminating the central ring of which the room was named after. Maya quickly looked around the room, to make sure no one else was in the room. They were alone. Good.
They entered the ring and headed for the centre.
"So why are we here? I didn't think tha- whoa!" He cut short as Maya's Glaive swung at him from the corner of his vision. He bent backwards as the blade sailed over his face. As Maya twisted and swung the blade clockwise to be able to thrust again, he quickly backed up to gain some distance.
Tempest rattled as the chamber spun and the yellow chambers locked in. The blades sprang out and then sparked as electricity arced down them. Alden raised an eyebrow at her. "So it's going to be lack that is it?"
The moment Maya saw the flash of purple she smiled, waited a second and then thrust backwards, using the rear spear edge of the handle. She grinned again when she heard a yelp from behind her. Alden was staring at the blade resting against his chest.
Maya's pulled her weapon away and flicked her tail up, so it tickled against his nose. "Someone's distracted." She said before flicking the handle of her glaive round and yanked, pulling Alden off his feet and he collapsed on his back with a groan. She could only laugh at his discomfort. She heard a rattle and then a bang. Maya turned to see that Alden hat literally fired himself off the ground and performed a graceful backflip, firing two fireballs at her.
She jumped back and they exploded where she once stood, she jammed the handle against the floor to help her slow down, when she came to a stop she twisted her wrist so the handle rested diagonally across her back and the blade ignited, giving the dragonhead guard a much more intimidating look. Alden too stopped and they circled each other waiting from the other to make the first move.
Alden levelled his gauntlets and fire his grapple, the beam wrapping around the centre of Maya's handle. He pulled and Maya stumbled, and Alden swung his other arm down. Predicating the attack Maya continued to deliberately fall forwards and rolled, dragging Alden in the opposite direction forcing him to lose balance. Her glaive shortened into its sword form causing the Grapple to lose it's grip and span as she jumped, slashing down across his back.
Alden's Aura flashed brightly, the direct hit chewing through it causing it to nearly deplete. He swore over his carelessness.
"good hit." He said after he desperately made some distance.
The tip of Maya's sword grazed across the ground as her left foot curled and rested along the back of her other leg.
"What's bothering you? You're clearly distracted." She asked. Alden wasn't fighting with any of his usual gracefulness, being very clunky and obviously careless.
Alden hesitated, "It's… it's… Oh I don't know. I'm gonna sound crazy."
Maya looked pointedly at him. "Do you seriously think after all that's happened recently, I'm going to think you're crazy?"
"good point."
Maya waited patiently as he thought of what to say.
"When I was coming back from dinner, just before I entered the dorm building, I saw someone looking at me, they had these- these…" He stuttered and went pale; Maya noticed the slightly erratic movement of his chest.
"Alden?" She asked approaching him, immediately concerned. He looked like he had seen a ghost.
"I… I…" He swayed like he was dizzy.
Maya grunted as she caught his arm to slow his fall, he splayed on his back, blinking rapidly at the spotlights on the ceiling. Maya pushed herself back on her knees to get a better looked to see if anything physical was wrong. A small flicker by his face caught her attention, something about his eyes, like she had seen them change, they were still their emerald green, but she could have sworn there was something different about them before and they had just returned to normal.
She grabbed on to his arm again and hauled him back on to his feet and slug his arm around her shoulders, swaying as she rebalanced them.
"Come on then, let's get you to the medical wing." They slowly lumbered out of the ring.
"Wha- wat are we goeng…" Alden manage to slur. Before slumping against her, his eyes drooping. "I… I really domt fell wel."
"I know, hang in there." She said as she tried to pick up the pace but stumbled slightly. Thankfully everyone in the busy corridors parted to either side to let her through. Suddenly the weight of Alden was significantly slackened. Maya diverted her gaze from were she was going to see the easily recognisable ears of Velvet, who had taken Alden's other arm.
"Is he alright?... wait no of course he isn't… What happened?" She asked in concern.
"I don't know, we were just sparring in the ring and he just… collapsed."
"Do you know if this is to do with what happened at forever fall?"
Apart from those who were present and a few members of staff the events that transpired during the trip to forever fall was a closely kept secret, Maya hadn't even told velvet, who was one of her best friends.
"I don't know… maybe?" She said as they stumbled forward. "Though I almost wish we were back at forever fall, Yang can carry Alden by herself."
They rounded a corner and were faced with the medical wing. Maya used her foot to nudge the door open enough to be able to use her shoulder to get them through it.
"Well, well, well, what has he got himself into this time?" Came a chirpy voice approaching them. Maya looked to see Doctor Crawford, the same doctor that had attended to Alden before. She helped them unload Alden onto a nearby bed. She quickly grabbed some rubber gloves and slipped them on, before proceeding to connect various monitoring equipment to him.
"Hmmm…. Heartbeats normal," She put her arm over his mouth, "Breathing's OK." She grabbed a syringe on the table next to the bed and quickly jabbed it into his arm, pulling out a pale red liquid.
"Aha!" She said victoriously, turning to show them. The liquid should have been a rich red colour, not pale. "Very low blood pressure, mixed with some deficiencies of the blood itself." She capped the syringe and placed it in the bag.
"I'll get this analysed just to make sure, but I'm ninety percent certain this was just brought on by a huge amount of stress, which he has clearly been exposed to and in great quantities." She looked down at the bag again. "I'll get this sorted, it should only take a few minutes so fell free to stay here if you would like." Maya nodded.
"Right see you in a few." Crawford said as she left through a door in the back.
Maya huffed and sat in a chair next to Alden, she rubbed her eyes and let out a yawn.
"Busy day?" Velvet asked with light-hearted sarcasm. Maya tried to smile but she thought it probably looked like a grimace.
"Don't get me started." Maya huffed, suddenly remembering her promise she pulled out her scroll and began to text Nite to tell them what happened so they could get here.
"I… I… saw what happened yesterday on the news, I… I'm sorry about Tukson, he was really nice, it must be hard for you." Velvet stuttered.
Maya stalled, her fingers stopped dancing over the screen of her scroll, and she took a shuddering breath as she was still battered by grief of losing her surrogate father, she squeezed her eyes to fight back the rouge tear.
She was suddenly engulfed in a soft hug; she rested her head against Velvet's shoulder and steadying her breath. She was grateful for her friend's uncanny ability to make anyone feel better just by her presence alone and unshakeable optimism. She thought back to how this was similar to when they first met…
Maya was walking through the grounds of Pharos academy, situated towards the outer city, it was the closest to her home, it was that or signal, unless she wanted to study in a different kingdom. It was during the lunch break and the sun was beating down on everyone. She was making her way to her spot in the shade, keeping an eye out for anyone looking at her for an extended period of time, she didn't really want any trouble today.
As strange as it may seem, Maya didn't have many friends at his point in her life, in fact she didn't have any. There weren't many Faunus in the academy, and all the humans either bullied Faunus or would be bullied by those who bullied Faunus if they tried to help. Since Maya couldn't hide her species in anyway, as she had a bright orange tail sticking out her lower back, she had to take on the discrimination head on. She was fine with that, she was mostly a lone wolf anyway, well not really a wolf but…
She walked past the edge of one of the wings of the academy, her spot not to far away, when she heard in a quiet voice:
"Ow! That hurts!"
Maya turned to see a group of boys had cornered a Faunus girl into the corner, of them had grabbed her and was pulling her ears. Maya's blood boiled, she never did get why humans had such a hatred for her kind, she hadn't yet to meet a nice one, let alone one with a backbone to stand up against what was clearly wrong.
She spied a large, sharp rock on the ground and weighed it in her hand. Perfect. She turned to face the group and squinted one eye as she took aim, Drakontas was in her locker on the other side of the compound, if she missed… well, she wouldn't miss.
"Hey! Heads up!" She called. The group turned to look at her, but the lead one which had grabbed the girl had looked up.
Bullseye
She grinned and sent her projectile sailing, smashing straight into his face. His aura took all the impact, but he still felt it. He shouted in pain and glared at her. For the first time she got a good look at his face.
Ahh him…
Cardin Winchester was hands down the biggest Bully in the entire academy, despite being in the youngest year. Not many dared to even mention his name when he was nearby, such was his reign of terror. Yet Maya had just smacked him square I the face with a large rock.
He growled, let go of the girl and stormed towards her. Once he got closer, he took a swing at her, Maya grabbed his wrist, but made no attempt to stop it, he was way to strong. Instead she followed it through, slowing it down just enough to duck under it before pulling through, completely off balancing him. She rammed her knee up into his stomach, winding him before twisting his arm and wrapping her ankle around his pulling him off his feet, trapping Cardin to the floor with his arm at a very painful angle.
As the others surged towards her, she pulled gently on Cardin's arm, causing him to shout out in pain.
"One more step and I'm snapping his arm." She growled in a challenge, knowing they wouldn't do anything to endanger their ringleader. She locked eyes with the girl they were harassing and using her eyes told her to sneak off around the other side of the building before they remembered her. Nodding the girl silently slipped away. She turned her attention back to the group.
"Now, you all leave that way," She said gesturing with her head in the opposite direction. And I'll let him go, anything else…" She pulled on his arm again, causing Cardin to shout to prove her conviction. Slowly they backed off and when she was happy with their distance, she pulled Cardin back to his feet, with his arm pinned behind his back. She moved her head closer to his ear.
"If you ever go for her or me again, I can do far, far worse. Have I made myself clear?" She growled in his eye, pulling again to make him wince. He nodded.
"good." She said and then shoved him away towards his friends watching to make sure he didn't return.
She suddenly noticed a presence by her side, she turned to see the girl who was being bullied. She must have come back after seeing the others being extradited away. Maya had seen her around before, but like Maya she seemed to keep to herself to avoid attention. She was slightly taller than her and had long brown hair running down her back, and two large rabbit ears sticking from the top of her head.
"You alright now?" Maya asked. She was answered by being crushed in a hug by the girl.
"Thank you." She said sincerely. As Maya returned the gesture.
"Anytime." Maya said. She then perked up as she had an idea. "Do you want to sit with me? My spot's in the shade." The girl beamed at her. "I would really like that."
"I'm Maya by the way." She said as they pulled apart and offered her hand in greeting.
"Velvet. It's very nice to meet you Maya." She said as she shook her hand. Together they walked off to the end of the compound…
Maya pulled away from her friend, annoyed at herself when she saw the slightly damp patch on Velvet's shoulder.
"Sorry." She apologised, wiping her eyes with her arm. Velvet looked at her with stern eyes.
"Don't you dare apologise!" She said. Jokingly slapping her wrist, "You know I'm always here for you."
"I know." Maya said smiling, her softer side always coming out in Velvet's presence.
After a few seconds Velvet piped up again: "You were texting your friends."
"Oh gods, I was, wasn't I?" Maya said picking up her scroll and finishing her text. Before sending it to Nite…
"As you can see by traversing through the canyon General Haftworth managed to conceal his force's numbers whilst limiting Atlesian army's ability to deploy their much superior force against them, resulting in an unlikely victory for the Valian military even though the statistical probability was seventy to one…" Professor Oobleck ambled on in his usual fast pace, most of the students in the room had already given up trying to keep pace with the professor.
Nite was desperately scribbling down notes, occasionally distracted by Aegan shuffling about in boredom. When suddenly he felt her scroll vibrate in her pocket. Technically she wasn't supposed to check it during class. But she felt compelled to. She had felt off all day, and her semblance was far more sensitive than normal, she was tired already just under the bombardment of emotional information she was receiving from the people in the room, so much so she had tried to focus it solely on Aegan who was expelling a sense of boredom, but it was still calmer than anyone else, which made it a bit easier to deal with, but she already had a raging headache.
She slowly wormed her scroll out of her pocket and opened it beneath the desk.
Maya: Alden collapsed in ring, got him to medical wing, drop by ASAP.
She felt the worry starting to eat up at her, Alden had never been in good shape recently. She pushed her stuff to make it easier to get them in her bag and accessed Beacon's student system and brought up a symbol of Beacon's (and by extension Vale's) symbol on a yellow background and held it up so Professor port could see it. He paused just for a second and nodded to her. Aegan looking up because Oobleck had actually stopped for a second, saw the symbol Nite had showed and immediately started shoving his stuff in his bag and together they slipped out of the classroom. And they took off at a sprint.
Due to Beacon being a combat orientated educational institute it had devised a series of signals students could use to get students out of class whilst causing as little disruption as possible to the rest of the class. A yellow background meant a team medical emergency. So as soon as he saw Nite holding up her scroll he knew Something had happened to Alden…
Roughly three minutes later Maya saw the doors to the medical wing burst open revealing Nite and Aegan, she was surprised she expected them to be another half an hour when their lesson finished but was happy they left early.
"Is he going to be alright?" Aegan asked. Maya nodded.
"Crawford things it was just stress induced low blood pressure."
Just then the back door opened, and Doctor Crawford came back in.
"Good news everyone, I was right. Which means he'll be fine in no time." She said whilst brandishing a new syringe.
"This is Tetraexhanol, it should thicken his blood up and boost the nutrient level to make up for his recent deficiencies."
Crawford quickly inserted the syringe into his arm and injected the medicine. "It's fast acting, so his body should feel confident enough to wake up in a few minutes."
She sighed as she took the syringe out, "Didn't I tell him to take it easy for a few weeks?"
"He did," Maya said, "It's just there were some…" She quickly tried to think on her feet, "Family issues back home, and he was trying to deal with them."
"Ahh, that would explain it." Crawford said as she rubbed the puncture with a piece of cotton wool and left the rest for his aura to clean up. She checked over her work, and then turned back to the others.
"There we go, he should be up soon, if he doesn't wake up within the next five minutes come grab me OK?"
They nodded. Doctor Crawford smiled again before leaving through the back.
After a few seconds of silence, Velvet decided to fill it.
"So, have you guys had the exam to enter the Vytal tournament yet?"
Maya shook her head, "Not yet, I think it's later this week."
"Have you had yours?" Aegan asked. Velvet nodded.
Maya looked jokingly offended at her, "You didn't tell me!"
"It was yesterday, sorry I didn't see you till just now."
"How was it?" Nite asked, "What do you do?"
"Sometimes, you'll go to a pre-organised exam, I know some teams get picked just by someone watching them in the side-lines during combat class."
"Wait," Aegan began, "does that mean we may have already been assessed?"
"It's possible, though I would say it's unlikely."
A flash caught their eyes as Alden's Aura kick started and he shot up, his eyes snapping into focus as he looked around the room.
"I could have sworn I was in the ring a second ago…" he said scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.
"You were." Maya said.
"but that means…" He rubbed his scalp "Oh my gods… again?"
"Yep," Maya said standing over him and offering him her hand, which he accepted and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
"Woah! Dizzy…"he said as he tried to regain his balance.
"We are so not going to get into Vytal at this rate…" Nite said looking at him.
"Hey! I resent that!" Alden said, "Look, I'm fine see?" He said finally standing straight.
"Take a step forward." Maya instructed.
Alden hesitantly stuck his foot forward and immediately collapsed to the ground. But as he quick as he was down, he had shot back to his feet, wobbling slightly on his soles.
"I'm good." He was met with his team laughing hysterically at him.
"You guys suck." He said with a smile on his face before slowly taking another step, happy this time as he kept his footing. He slowly took another step and was soon out of the medical wing.
"So," Aegan said, "Where we off to?"
"Library?" Maya suggested, "I've still got some revision I want to get done before Peach's test."
"I'm good with that." Nite said.
"You wanna' join us Velvet?" Maya asked.
Velvet paused for a second, "Sure? Why not? Professor Peach has a test lined up for me too."
They took a left around the corridor and headed up a big flight of stairs, before performing a U-turn and came down that corridor for a bit before pushing open the large oak double doors and entering the library. It was one of the biggest opened spaces in Beacon, (apart from outside of course.) filled to the brim with bookcase after bookcase, table after table.
The wondered down a few isles, trying to find a private spot, when they finally found one near the other side of the library, they all took a seat and brought activated the holographic projector in the centre of the table. Maya wondered off to grab some textbooks as Nite Brought various projections of the types of dust crystals to help in their revision.
Maya soon returned and slammed a massive pile of books down on the table.
"That is… far too many educational materials for my brain to digest today." Aegan said staring at the large paper tower.
"Yep, probably. But at least you can pick and choose." Maya said as she took the top one and opened it up to the section on dust before laying it at the centre of the table.
It was just as they quietened down that they heard a familiar voice from the isle next to theirs.
"Trap card."
Then the sound of collapsing metal.
"Your armies have been destroyed!" They could hear Yang saying smugly.
Then the sound of someone mock sobbing.
"Oh, I hate this game of emotions we play!"
Then a sound of someone rapidly shuffling off their seat.
"Stay strong Weiss! We can make it through this together!" Ruby wailed in a similar tone of voice.
"Shut up! Don't touch me!"
"What are they doing?" Maya asked, looking over her shoulder at the bookcase behind her.
"Remnant…" Alden said with a small smile on his face, "Oh, how many times have I tried to beat her at that game and how many times I've come out woefully disappointed."
Shutting out the commotion from the next isle, they quickly got absorbed into their work, discussing how exactly fire dust is able to combust much more strongly than its size would normally limit. Or how the molecular properties of lightning dust allowed it to conduct so easily.
After an hour, they started to tire out and Alden put his book down.
"I'm going to take a break for a bit." He was met several noises of confirmation from his friends. He pushed his chair back and stood, before stretching to the feeling back into his legs and back.
He wandered around to the other side of the bookcase to see most of team RWBY sprawled over the table, their notes covering most of its surface. Yang saw him approach and looked up.
"Hi Alden" she said wearily. Ruby waved over her shoulder, Weiss looked up and smiled in greeting.
"Having fun?" Alden asked.
"Lots." Ruby said sarcastically.
"Ah, it's not that bad." Alden said riffling her hair, "Look, your nearly at the end of the chapter." She hummed in confirmation.
Yang slid her chair back. "Hey Alden? Do you mind if we have a chat?" She asked, knocking her head off to the side to suggest away from the others.
"Yeah, sure." Alden said and he waited for Yang to get up and walk around the table.
They walked to the other side of the library, ducking behind a large bookshelf by the window and sat on its ledge so they would have somewhere private.
"What's on your mind?" Alden asked as they settled down.
Yang sighed as she looked at him. "I just wanted to make sure you're OK. I mean we haven't had one of these talks since the trip to forever fall and that's a concern in and of itself. But since then… you've been looking exhausted every day, and your still acting odd."
"What do you mean?" Alden asked.
"This!" Yang said gesturing to him, "That's what I mean! You've been acting like there's nothing wrong, but you've been twitchy. Every time I've seen you since the trip you've looked behind your shoulder at least twice!" She sighed again, "Even when we were back at Patch for the semester… that was weird… I mean… You've got those people… and they seem to be hunting you! And I know there's more than that. Ozpin isn't helping you, you've been jumping at the slightest loud noise… What's going on Alden?" She pleaded.
Alden sighed and looked down, trying to figure a way to divert the conversation, to move it onto something else, like he had been doing mostly with his teammates. But then he looked back up. Yang was still staring at him; she wouldn't take anything less than the truth here.
"I…" Alden began, looking out the window. "I'm scared Yang…" he whispered, "That girl at forever fall said they would be back and I believe her, then there were those tracker Grimm's, and You could see for yourself how scared that Furla girl was of them." He took a shaky breath, "And I can't help but keep thinking, what if they go for my team? What if they go for mum and dad? What if they go for Mary?"
Yang nodded in understanding.
"There's more." Alden continued looking back at Yang, "I've been seeing this girl about, only twice now, but she looks like a ghost, and I've got this unshakeable feeling that she has something to do with this whole thing." He said gesturing with his hands. "And I've been getting these… visions, during my sleep and I'm not me, me. But they all feel like they are me, but that can't be right. They all seem to carry a message, but I can never figure out what they're supposed to be about."
Yang put her hand on his shoulder. "Have you told your team about this?" She asked.
"Some, but not all of it."
"Why not?" She said frowning.
Alden smiled. "Yang, I've known you long enough now to know that even if I was a dribbling, insane mess, you would still be my friend. I just don't know what would happen if I turned around to them and said: "Hey! I'm hallucinating and seeing ghosts whilst having nightmares of slaughtering a bunch of innocent people! Will you be my friend?"
Yang laughed softly, "They have thrown themselves into the fray time and time again for you Alden, I think they would appreciate if they knew what was going through your mind. You need to learn to trust your team."
"I do trust them." Alden said instantly, Yang raised an eyebrow.
"I just don't want to lose them… not over something that may just be going through my head."
Yang smiled "You know… I've talked to Maya about the events of Forever Fall and Patch, she takes them very seriously."
"Maybe," Alden said "But I doubt she really worries about all this as much as I do…"
"She does." Yang replied,
"I don't see her having nightmares about it."
Yang sighed and fished her scroll from their pocket, "I think they'll kill me if they knew I took a photo and showed you this but…" She tapped at the screen and handed it to Alden. Once he got a good look at it, he gasped:
The picture was mostly dominated by Maya, but he could make out Nite's and Aegan's clipped forms on the edge of the picture. It was taken from behind them, and they were too distracted to know Yang was there. They were sitting on a table in the library poring over various books, but the one Maya was looking at caught his eye: it's title was printed at the top of the page: Myths, reconstructions, ideas and theories behind the stories of our most treasured fairy tales. Below that written in a large bold print: The Black Siblings.
His eyes wondered on, Maya was writing on a piece of paper next to the book, it was a spider diagram, the central title labelled The Black Siblings. Around it was four arms linking off, each with different names and question marks: Eryel? Said one, Mansell? Was another, Furla? Said the third and finally, the one that really caught his attention: Alden? Each of them was connected with various sayings either Alden had told them or maybe from the books?
Alden's and Mansell's were connected with a line reading: "Alden said Mansell had said they would reunited? Known each other before? Family relation? Or something we don't know yet? Fought with light or fire"
Eryel's had a few lines of her own: "Seemed to be the one in charge. At least was able to persuade Mansell to retreat. used Ice."
Linking both Mansell and Eryel: "how do their weapons work, no structure for dust to cling to, Semblance?"
Furla's bubble wasn't connected to anyone: "Seemed nice at least, didn't try to kill us, claimed to have been running for at least a year. Had a physical weapon, Semblance similar to Ruby? Specifically mentioned the word Rebelling. According to Alden managed to accurately predict nightmares, said they were indoctrinating."
Alden's bubble was fairly cluttered: "Ozpin said something about friends or family having a positive effect, Corrupting? Also mentioned about can die but coming back Several Lifetimes? (was highlighted in different colours and underlined at least four times) Then there was a line stretching upwards with different check, each with a question mark by it.
In the corner was the word "OZPIN" surrounded by it's own lines: "doesn't trust Alden, or us by extension, though would prefer to keep him here, even against strong opposition form a general of the world's greatest military power." Though underlined next to it was the saying: "Keep your enemies closer?"
"W… what?" Alden stuttered, "They… They've been trying to figure this out!?"
Yang nodded, "Told you, that you need to trust them more." She reached over and swiped left to reveal a video recording and tapped the play button.
"Multiple lifetimes… really?" Aegan could be heard saying, Alden recognised this as the same scene as in the picture. Just from further away, Yang obviously didn't want to be noticed.
"It does kind of make sense…" Nite said
"If we could just find one of these…" Maya said tapping of the question marks on the dashed lines. "Then it could confirm the theory, and if that is confirmed it would explain how they were talking about reuniting, because it would mean that they have actually met before, just not in… this lifetime. Which is… really weird."
"But it would explain a lot." Aegan said.
"But even then... what does all of this mean?" Nite asked.
"That our fellow team member is quite the mystery… Though I just wish he would talk to us more about it…" Maya said.
"I don't blame him," Nite said "Every time something links to this, I can feel it off him, he's terrified, both of that, but you've seen how he acts sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks that we'll think he's crazy… I would be the same in his position."
"So are you saying we just need to confront him about it? Show him we want to help?" Aegan asked.
"Gods no!" Nite replied, "You know how he acts when something accidentally comes up, directly confronting him when he's not prepared would be like taking someone with a phobia of scorpions to meet your pet Deathstalker!" The video ended there.
"You see?" Yang asked, "You've got… one of the nicest most amazing teams out there to jump headfirst into this mess for you. Just please… talk to them."
Alden sighed and nodded, his head whirling with this barrage of new information, "Yeah… Yeah, I will."
Yang smiled "Great!" And then pulled him into a hug. When she pulled back, she punched him hard in the arm. Alden yelped and grabbed the rapidly forming bruise.
"What was that for!?"
"That. Was for doubting Maya, I've talked to Velvet about her, that girl got bullied so much during combat school for being a Faunus that you should feel honoured that you are amongst the two humans she would do this for."
Alden immediately knew the other one Yang was talking about was Nite, and he did feel honoured. He had completely underestimated their faith in him, believing it to be next to nothing in the great grand scheme of things… only to find it next to infinite. He would have to pay them back for their trust… in full.
"Thanks Yang." Alden said, She smiled.
"Any time," She looked at her scroll, "We need to get back, Goodwitch's class starts soon." They stood up and exited their private spot before heading back to the assembling clump of their friends, Ruby was happily chatting to Nite about something and Maya was showing Weiss some of her notes. They stood up and started packing stuff into their bags when they saw Yang and Alden approaching.
"Everything alright?" Maya asked.
"Yeah." Alden said, smiling his first proper smile in over a week, "We need to have a chat later."
"Oh?" She queried, "What about?"
"Later." Was all Alden said as he swung his rucksack onto his back, and they all headed for the door.
Hi everyone! Happy new year! Hope you all enjoyed the Christmas period, and to wrap it all off (or to start it up) we've had a happy chapter! (mostly) If you enjoyed this calmer chapter, or the story in general please consider writing me a PM or review about your thoughts and ideas, I'd love to hear from you!.
Join us next time, for a confrontation/ clash with team CRDL and Dannis returns and the hunt begins for Tukson's killers, so I hope you'll return for Vol 2. Ch 5: The Hunt begins!
Until then!
Etherway