The Silver Eyed Prodigy

by The Royal Protector

Being reincarnated is tiresome, especially into a world like Remnant. With the story being a good decade away there isn't really much to do... or at least that's what most people would think. I have the experience of an adult, the power of my soul, my mother's heritage and a peculiar Semblance due to my world skipping status at my back. Remnant better watch out because here I come.

15. Chapter 15

Hello there, I'm The Royal Protector and this is the fifteenth chapter of The Silver Eyed Prodigy. A couple things happened between updates, namely that we've reached 1k favorites and 100k views on the story, which is crazy for me think about. So, to celebrate reaching these milestones, I'll be doing something special soon, so stay on the lookout in the next week or so :)

Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, if I did, I wouldn't be writing this.

---

Chapter 15: Ignis et glacies

"Why hasn't it attacked us yet?" I asked warily without looking at Nicholas, instead my eyes were focused on the unmoving Titan before us. My hands gripped my knives harshly and my legs felt a bit jittery, all in anticipation at the fight that for some reason hasn't started yet.

"…It's studying us. Most Grimm just charge in recklessly because they think of us as prey, but I remember your great-grandfather telling me that they usually treated him as an equal. I believe it hasn't made any moves yet because it's wary of your kind" Nicholas explained with a light scowl adorning his face.

"That's flattering… I think" I blinked in surprise.

"Do not misunderstand, it wants nothing more than to kill you and me. It's just figuring out the best way to go about it" He warned flatly "Besides, time isn't on our side. Every second the swarm grows in numbers unless we rescue the passengers", He narrowed his eyes at the Iratus Queen looming over us. I looked at the ground in thought before nodding to myself.

"Then we'd better not waste any more time" I declared and charged forwards. Nicholas yelled something to me, but I didn't hear it as I warped myself away. I reappeared high above the Iratus Queen and let myself fall downwards to build up pressure behind my eyes. This Titan was by far, the largest Grimm I've ever seen, even larger than the Wyvern at Mountain Glenn or the Leviathan at Argus. I would have to hit it with the largest burst of light I could make to have a chance at beating this thing.

After a few seconds of freefalling I let out a small breath and reopened my eyes to look at the Grimm below me, all of its monstrous eyes were fixated on my falling form, good. I let go of the built-up pressure and the world around me disappeared in a sea of white.

…

An ear-piercing, shrill cry alerted me at first, but when I landed on black flesh instead of grey stone, I realized that something was definitely wrong. I looked around frantically to see that the eyes on the Iratus' back were shut closed and that my attack only caused the creature to recoil in pain. It trashed around under my feet like a burned animal before leaping off the mountain and high up into the sky. After a few seconds of weightlessness, we impacted the ground with enough force to demolish hectares of forest and scar the very earth itself.

I shook off my dizziness and warped myself away from the very angry Grimm. I reappeared on a large branch of a still standing tree and caressed the side of my head, for some reason the pressure didn't leave my eyes like any other time I used my powers, it was nauseating and a bit disconcerting. If that… malfunction wasn't alarming enough, the fact that Iratus Queen withstood petrification certainly was. Sure, it was still affected by my eyes, but ultimately all I managed to do was piss it off.

Well, I guess we'd have to do it the old-fashioned way.

The Iratus stopped trashing around and turned to face me, how it knew where I were was lost on me, since from my perspective I was like an ant to it, and attacked with a shriek. It lifted one of its gigantic front legs and slammed it down towards me, crushing my, and another dozen, trees to smithereens.

I jumped out of its leg and rematerialized to throw a fistful of Inferno knives at its white exoskeleton. The Dust explosives hit their mark and detonated in a bright fireball, however when the smoke faded its bone plates were only singed. No wonder, its armor seemed to be as thick as a Paladin was high, I mused with a wry expression before warping away as the gigantic appendage moved to swat at the place where I was.

I reappeared again at the base of the beast's head where the joints of its limbs were exposed for me to strike. I summoned a large violet glyph in one hand while preparing another handful of Lightning knives in the other. I moved the gravity glyph against the black flesh before me and jumped away for a moment to throw the crackling blades at the rotating glyph. The glyph attracted and sped up the knives, causing the electrocuted blades to effortlessly pierce the Grimm's flesh and disappear deep into the dark creature's limb. Not long after the sound of muffled thunder signaled the detonation of the knives, followed by the heat radiating from the melting flesh before me.

"So, you're not impervious-…" I trailed off as I saw the Grimm's skin ripple, as if something was moving around under it, then tendrils of darkness emerged around me. I preemptively jumped away to safety and the tendrils moved to surround the wounded area. They mended the injury left behind and the Grimm's skin stitched together in a matter of seconds.

I landed on the scarred and muddy ground and frowned wryly at the monstrosity before me. Things… honestly didn't look promising. This thing was nigh impervious to anything I could throw at it; its armor was too thick to pierce, it had regenerative abilities with unknown limits and most importantly it could power through a full-powered blast from my eyes-

The Iratus Queen's eyes snapped open and its pupils dilated to the point where its red irises were completely blocked out. The piercing headache from earlier returned with full force and the accompanying numbness spread over my body before I could even register what was happening. My muscles slackened and I fell to the muddy ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

No, no, not this again, I internally panicked and widened my eyes as I saw the Titan lift one of its front legs, its form blocking out the cracked moon above, and slam it down towards me.

However, before it could pulverize me like an insect, an ethereal white shield appeared in its way and deflected the otherwise lethal blow to the side. The unexpected parry left the beast open for a counter strike from Nicholas' freshly summoned cloaked knight, it raised its blade high before swinging it down diagonally.

The Iratus Queen shrieked in pain as the blade sliced through an exposed joint on its limb, the severed leg impacted the ground and sent tremors through the forest. The Grimm retaliated with its stinger crashing against the knight's circular shield, the two met with a resounding clang, but the disparity of strength between the two giants was made clear instantly. The shield shattered under the pressure of the Titan and left the half-knight defenseless against another stake-like leg from striking its chest, impaling the summon. The beast lifted its defeated foe in the air and slammed it back against the ground with a victorious roar.

While this fight of gigantic proportions took place, I was unexpectedly scooped up by a flying summon of some sorts. It felt like being the defenseless fish that was caught by a hawk, a quiet portion of my mind observed annoyedly. The summon took me away from the battle and dropped me unceremoniously on the ground around the time when I could feel control slowly returning to my body.

"That was unexpectedly foolish of you, charging in like that" I heard the unamused voice of Nicholas near me. I wiped the mud from my face and got to my feet, feeling the numbness completely fade from my body. The Schnee's summon landed beside us, a Wyvern roughly the size of the newborn I've fought, and patiently waited for further orders.

"Thank you for the save" I replied before Zwei jumped on my shoulder and whined concernedly in my ear "I was just trying to find its weakness if not end it quickly, so we can come up with a plan- "

"Leave" Nicholas cut me off with a sigh.

"What?" I asked confusedly.

"Your Semblance allows you to leave whenever you wish, correct?" At my hesitant nod he continued "Then leave. This is not a fight any person alive can hope to win" He declared with a nod to himself.

"You can't be serious" I protested incredulously, he wanted me to leave him and everyone else to die?

"Titans earned their reputation for a reason, Caryll. You just saw for yourself that not even your heritage could hurt one"

"But we injured it! We can kill it!" I gestured animatedly in the direction of the wounded beast. Nicholas chuckled humorlessly and nodded in the direction of the Titan.

"Did we?" I followed his gaze and saw the same dark tendrils from earlier merge together and rapidly regrow the Grimm's the lost limb, bone armor and all, in a matter of seconds. I stared at it for what felt like an eternity, trying to comprehend the true difficulty and scale of the fight before me.

It was leagues beyond us, wasn't it…?

"The most we can do is delay the inevitable and I'll do just that. In the meantime, you go on ahead into the nest and rescue the passengers" the old Hunter told me tiredly with a tone of finality that I barely had the will to question.

"…B-but the plan. I can't do it alone!" I protested weakly, I needed him and his glyphs for the plan I had mind.

"Have some faith in yourself, I didn't spend almost an entire week hammering some sense into your head for you to fail now" He turned back to me with a somewhat reassuring smile "Now go, I'll keep the Queen occupied for as long as I can"

I gazed at Nicholas with a myriad of conflicting emotions welling up inside me. It was clear to me that my old teacher didn't have much time left either way, but leaving him to die alone just felt… wrong. Still, he had a point, someone had to save the passengers and unless the kingdom sent us an entire air-fleet to take that Queen down… I sighed and nodded solemnly to my teacher, that responsibility fell on my shoulders. I almost warped myself away when a stray thought occurred to me.

"I know it probably won't change the outcome, but would this help?" I asked hesitantly before opening an outbound portal from my eye that deposited… a shipping container in front of us. The old Schnee looked at the metal container perplexedly before his eyes caught sight of the large snowflake symbol on its side.

…

…

The old Hunter turned to stare at me with an intensity that made me want to fidget in place.

"I- uhm, I'm sorry?" I ran a hand through my hair sheepishly. Nicholas shook his head in a seemingly disappointed manner, though I could make out a small upward curve to his lips. He then jumped onto the Wyvern's back and the summon flapped its wings in preparation for takeoff.

"I must admit that challenging a Titan is a suicidal endeavor even for myself…" He tapped his cane against the summon's back and closed his eyes. The giant knight reappeared nearby and placed the container on its back "But I'll provide it with a challenge that it won't forget anytime soon" Several white glyphs appeared before the knight, before all launched themselves at the approaching Titan like shooting stars. The glyphs hit its limbs and locked them in place, holding down the behemoth for a few precious moments until Nicholas finished making his next move. Utilizing the Dust, I gave him, he summoned six rapidly spinning fire glyphs above the knight's palm and threw them at the struggling Grimm. The glyphs hit their mark and a fireball of epic proportions engulfed the monster, causing it to shriek in pain.

At seeing this I turned to Nicholas and we shared a nod of understanding, this was probably goodbye. He took off with the Wyvern under him and the knight charged at the Grimm that was burning like a pyre. I stood there for a moment, looking after him with a concerned expression before I followed his example and warped myself and Zwei away.

---

Finding the hive was an easier task than I'd imagined prior. With the unexpected appearance of the Iratus Queen as Nicholas called it, there was no need for tracking or other complicated methods, seeing as the Grimm Titan carved a path through the landscape as it moved to intercept us from the hive. All I had to do was follow the trail of destruction to its source.

Overall it hadn't taken five minutes of warping and fast cruising to reach my destination. What greeted me was a quiet and dark village by the foot of a mountain. The clouds have mostly parted by now, allowing the moonlight to bask the village before me. There were no lights on in any of the houses and there weren't any fires raging either, the faintly illuminated houses were also in a state of disrepair, meaning that whatever happened to this mining settlement took place decades ago. The only reminder that people ever lived in this ghost town were the crumbling buildings and mining shafts I could make out at the base of the mountain.

This was what Qrow and Raven told me in their cautionary tales, this was the true face of the Grimmlands.

From where I was standing it wasn't hard to make out the hole the Titan left behind while digging itself out of the mountain, confirming that the Grimm bugs took up residence inside the old mine shafts under the mountain. I made my way silently through the deserted town, uncaring of gaining any unwanted attention, until I reached one of the entrances to the tunnels. I approached the chain fence blocking my way inside and placed my palm against it.

Softly exhaling I opened my glowing eyes and looked downwards into the depths of the earth. What I saw confirmed my prior suspicions, rippling masses of darkness spread over the entirety of the mountain like veins in a body, twisting around colorful blobs of Dust and most converging around faint glimpses of light in the pits of the tunnel system.

I deactivated my eyes and frowned; there were so many, tens of thousands if I were to guess, too many to kill conventionally. Even if I decided to set off some of the remaining deposits of Dust it would destabilize the tunnels and cause a cave in, killing too many people for my liking. There simply wasn't any option that allowed me to get rid of the Grimm without killing the passengers too.

I let go of the fence and massaged my temple. My eyes were an obvious exception to this, but their effectiveness would be severely reduced once inside, I don't even know if I'd be able to flash my eyes so many times one after the other… Not to mention that the pressure inside my eyes still hasn't receded yet, it was causing me a migraine.

The plan was nigh impossible to pull off by myself, I could very well die if I went in there.

But what other option did I have? Leave and let everyone slowly die, even more once the swarm decided to target other settlements? I don't think I could look myself in the mirror again and say that my goal was the betterment of Remnant if I turned back now.

I tightened my hold around the chains before letting go and turning to the side to see a small maintenance building. I approached it and the door fell off its hinges once I touched the handle, I paid it no mind and made my way towards some rusty machinery inside. I fished out a Lightning Dust crystal from my bag and dusted off the control box of what I assumed was the emergency backup generator. It opened with a metallic groan and I placed the glowing crystal inside.

I closed the box and moved to the manual switch, but my hand stilled as a stray thought made its way to the forefront of my mind.

Nicholas told me that some people simply can't be saved, no matter how hard we tried. He seemed like he spoke from experience, decades of it. He sounded so sure of himself.

I hated it.

Even if I managed to theoretically kill every single Grimm down there, how was I supposed to get every passenger to safety? Even if I had enough Aura to make hundreds, possibly thousands of trips with Kamui back to the train or Vale, the Queen would return before I could finish and kill everyone present. How was I supposed to accept that so many would die because of a single mistake I made?

No, I would never accept it.

My hand slammed down on the switch and the old machinery whirred to life all around me. Lights flickered alive both inside and outside, half of them burned out instantly but more than enough remained to light up my surroundings and the countless tunnels underneath.

No one would die because of me, I scowled and walked back outside to warp away the chain fence blocking the entrance. I don't care about those stupid bugs or their seemingly invincible queen, I made the decision to set out after Summer. I won't back down from anything. I was the was in it sink or swim and I would not rest until I've found a way to save everyone.

With a steely expression I charged down the faintly lit tunnel.

Dealing with the Queen was a bridge I had to cross eventually, but the first hurdle was enacting a two-man plan on my lonesome… Nicholas thought I could do it and I wouldn't let him down like that… I need to reach the highest point of the shafts. I activated my eyes and sought out the highest ground possible through the myriad of crisscrossing pathways.

I also saw that I was about to have company, judging by the swirling masses of darkness approaching me from all directions. I could already feel pin pricks of pain appearing all over my head, blacking out the edges of my sight.

I took hold of a cluster of Gravity knives and hurled them at the ceiling. I jumped upwards and used the activating Dust to run upside down. Just in time as the ground beneath me erupted on several points, spewing out Grimm bugs by the dozens. Paying them no mind and looking on ahead I could spot even more holes opening up from the ground, producing more of the soulless abominations. The pin pricks became surgical needles and I held back a wince from the pain they caused.

Deciding that enough was enough, I repeated what I did to the Lancers and used a generous amount of Inferno Dust and Kamui to set the tunnel ablaze in a scorching whirlwind. The concentration of Grimm in my way evaporated without a trace while the tunnel suffered the after effects of my attack. The half rotten support beams caught on fire while the rust peeled away from the tracks in orange, glowing layers. I returned to the tracks, well aware of the black swarm chasing after me on literally every climbable surface, and with a single command, detonated the knives stuck in the ceiling.

The resulting dust cloud and cinders from the explosion rushed past my position and caused the tunnel to crumble, burying the pursuing Grimm under several tons of rock. I rematerialized once the danger was gone and made my way deeper into the abandoned mine, I wasn't worried about the cave in, I saw plenty of other exits the passengers could use to get out of here once I was done with this part of my mission.

However, this encounter did remind me about something interesting. I refrained from using my eyes because they were acting weirdly, even if it would have made my job here a bit easier. Another Iratus tried to ambush me by lunging at me from a dark crevice behind a crumbling pillar. A quick flash of my eyes made sure that only ashes touched my clothes and I didn't bother to stop to check for other Grimm, I had more pressing matters to think about.

I could still use my powers no problem, but then why couldn't I petrify the Iratus Queen when Ruby could have? She had done it with a Leviathan, so it wasn't unreasonable to think she could replicate that feat here. And that was only on her first time trying with conscious effort while I've been doing it for years.

Could it be that the Silver Eyes had a fixed upper limit to their strength? Varying from person to person?

Could it be that Ruby had more potential with them than I did?

It was a bittersweet thought, I felt proud that she could achieve so much, but it was a bit frustrating to think that I couldn't achieve the same-

I shook my head, the Silver Eyes are just a part of my arsenal, not my win-all trump card, they are tools just like my knives and Semblance, their purpose is to serve me in my goals. I knew this beforehand, of course, but maybe I should have taken the comparison more literally.

My eyes are just tools.

Tools in the hands of a master are worth infinitely more than tools in the hands of a novice.

Ruby had to prepare to use her eyes, I can do it on the fly.

Tools can be pushed far past their limit with the risk of breaking, after which they needed to be repaired.

I turn blind if I use my Semblance too much, even faster if I use my eyes at the same time. Aura can reverse the damage without problem.

I knew that there was another, much more potent, aspect of our eyes, because Summer used those white flames, but she said that I couldn't use them yet because I wasn't strong enough. I had a feeling they could be of use against the Queen, but I didn't know if I was strong enough by this point, not to mention that I had no idea how to use them even if I was somehow strong enough… Summer left before she could teach it to me after all.

I shoved aside that bitter thought without a second of hesitation.

What I needed to do was clear to me, that didn't mean that it was anything remotely easy to accomplish. I had to reverse engineer and master those flames Summer used on my own, without any help while possibly lacking the strength to use them correctly, all in a single night at most.

Well, I've sought out challenges to overcome my entire life, why would I stop now?

The weird pressure in my eyes was a sign that something was there, close but just beyond my reach. If that was a sign of that hidden aspect, then it meant that I currently lacked the strength… But like any tool my eyes could be pushed past their limit, the only question was how? In broad terms Silver Eyes are fueled by love and desire, the light of the world manifested. How do you amplify something like that? Immaterial given power?

I turned another corner and stopped just shy of falling of an edge. It seemed like I arrived at my destination.

The Queen's chamber, or at least what was left of it, I mused and looked around the area. Before me laid a pit of enormous proportions, barely illuminated by the starry sky above. I kicked a pebble down below and a few seconds later the impact echoes reverberated through the open-air chamber, no doubt the work of the rampaging Titan outside. I could see countless other mining tunnels all around the circular cliffside, all of them ending abruptly with mangled tracks and blinking lights showing the devastation caused the Queen's departure. Following the path of destruction my gaze was inevitably drawn to the night sky where I saw a sea of stars twinkling and shining down at me-

---

"'Ryl, what are those?" Yang asked from beside me, scrunching her face to look upwards at the sky.

"They are stars, Yang" I responded easily and nudged the campfire before us with a stick. We were currently in the backyard, waiting for the adults to come back from the kitchen with the meat and veggies for our BBQ night.

I was allowed to watch over the fire in the meantime like the responsible person I was. I handled Dust and sharp, pointy objects like a pro by now, a little campfire was nothing.

"And what are they?" She asked further with the energy of an all-curious child, which she very much was. I hummed in thought and produced a knife form my bag with Wind and Gravity Dust in it.

"Hmm, think of stars like gigantic fireballs far away in the sky, like the explosions Mom and I use in our spars" While I wasn't an astronomy buff by any means, I did have a healthy interest in astrology back when I was little. I couldn't remember equations and exact physical processes if I even cared to learn any, but I could explain the general functioning of a few things.

"But they don't go away" She pointed out with a confused tilt of her head.

"You're right. That's because they are held back and kept stable. Watch" I inclined my head towards the campfire and threw the knife into it. The Gravity Dust in it activated and the orange flames instantly curved backwards to the ground, struggling to escape the pull of gravity "Gravity holds the fire together, it compresses it and makes it more focused and brighter" In sync with my explanation the flames molded into a single half-sphere around the knife that glowed hotter and hotter as all the heat was focused in a smaller volume. Yang got closer to the eye-catching science experiment and let out mesmerized oohs. I was fairly sure that she wasn't even listening to me anymore, more enraptured by the magical sight before her. I rolled my eyes before deciding to double down on the eye-catching aspect of it.

I grabbed an indignant Yang by the scruff of her neck and pulled her back besides me "Stars light up the world around them like nothing else, but when their fire gets focused and strong enough…" I activated the Wind Dust in the knife and we watched as the added fuel to the fire caused the flames to overcome gravity and soar high up in the sky and then recede back to their normal heights "…They can make the biggest booms in the world" I finished with a satisfied smirk as we watched cinders fall around us.

Huh, this teaching thing isn't that bad… maybe when I retire-

A few floating cinders landed on a nearby tree, for a precious moment it seemed like nothing was going to come of it… only for the entire branch to catch on fire like it was drenched in gasoline in the next.

This occurred on three other trees at the same time.

…

…

Well, at least no adult was around to see it, I could probably put out the fires before-

"Caryll Rose!" Oh, for crying out loud!

---

"…Light up the world like nothing else, huh" I murmured as I looked at the twinkling stars up above. Granted, my explanation at the time was heavily censored to make it more understandable, but the use of an outside force as a catalyst sounded promising. I already felt some form of pressure inside my eyes that I could manipulate, it stood to reason to assume that an outside force could interact with it and push it beyond what was currently possible for me.

So, I had a potential method, but still no candidate for an outside force.

It was something to think about later, because I could already see several swirling masses of darkness detach form other larger groups and make their way to me. I jumped down into the chasm below and deftly landed on the bottom a few moments later, after that I hastily made my way to the middle of the chamber and took out several vials of Dust from my bag.

I had to hurry with enacting the plan, the Grimm would arrive soon and I still had to draw the glyph I would have had Nicholas cast. I unscrewed the corks on a handful of Earth Dust vials and poured them on the ground in a large circular pattern. The circle ended up big enough for me to lay down in, but before I could continue with the next step, a swarm of Iratuses appeared from nearby tunnels and freshly dug holes. My headache returned full force with their appearance and irritating chittering sounds.

Instead of fighting them, I took eight Ice Dust knives in hand and threw them in the ground in a large circle. The Dust activated on impact and formed a dome of ice around me and the half-complete glyph. The swarm reached the transparent crystal walls and tried to eat their way through them, without much success thanks to the natural hardness of Aura infused Dust ice. They might as well have been nibbling at solid steel-

A small crack appeared in the wall of ice before me and I could see several dark silhouettes moving to dig themselves under the dome through the stone.

…

With panic fueled movements I took hold of a handful of Ice Dust vials and slammed them into the ground, coating the ground beneath my feet in a layer of ice. Only the ground under the glyph remained untouched.

But before all the gaps could close, a single bug managed to eat its way through and make a lunge at me. It passed through me without resistance and impacted the ice dome with a muffled cracking sound and I warped it away into Kamui without even giving it the chance to recover.

With that distraction gone I returned to look at the work before me, let out a sigh, and went to finish it as soon as I could. The dome wouldn't last forever and the Grimm could still find the opening under the half-done glyph, not to mention the ever-worsening headache I got form being this close to so many of them. I could evaporate them with my eyes, but that would only gain me a few seconds before even more Grimm arrived and took their place. I had no delusions on what would last longer between my stamina and their numbers.

With the first stage of the glyph done, I poured Ice Dust in a ring shape on top of the edges of the previous circle, this would serve as the second layer. It barely took a minute for me to finish it and I could move on to the final layer, Gravity Dust. Technically it wasn't necessary, but with my disability I had to have some way of remote controlling the complete glyph. It was the smallest of the three, so it was done the quickest.

Now came the hard part.

What I've done so far was preparing the necessary amount of Dust in an optimal manner, now I had to make and control the glyph itself.

I gathered Aura in to the palm of my hand and brought it down in the middle of the Dust circle. The ground crystals lit up in their respective colors as my Aura interacted with them. I let out a suspenseful sigh and slowly lifted may hand off the ground. The glyph followed it at a short distance, slowly spinning clockwise, and the glowing particles slowly arranged themselves into distinct patterns, that is until the spinning stopped and the disk of particles fell back to the ground uselessly.

Not to be deterred I tried again with the same results. Another attempt led to another failure, as did the next and the one after that. When the disk fell apart for the umpteenth time I let out a growl of frustration and glared daggers at the pile of uncooperative Dust in front of me.

Casting required concentration, but my mind was focused on other, almost equally important matters, not to mention the cracking sounds of the ice and the maddening chittering of the Grimm were also very distracting.

This wasn't going to work; I couldn't cast glyphs like this.

I sighed, trying to let go of my rising irritation, and thought back to Nicholas' lessons. Hoping to remember something, anything that could help me with this predicament… He said that not everyone could cast glyphs and that making them was like art, what did he mean by that? That I needed to be creative or that I needed to incorporate emotions-?

My eyes widened as a stray idea occurred to me.

"No way… just no" I shook my head at the silly idea, there was no way that the two had any connection between them, no.

A loud crack and a not-so-small chunk of ice falling out of the wall made me reconsider my standpoint remarkably past.

"It's worth a shot at least…" I muttered and went to work. I placed the palm of my hand in the middle of the circle and then lifted it upwards along with the first layer. I closed my eyes and enacted my ridiculous plan.

…Take softened butter, brown and granulated sugar into a bowl and stir them until they form into a cream…

The Dust particles stabilized and spun lazily in the air in intricate patterns, not that I noticed with my eyes closed and mind elsewhere.

…Add an egg, flour, vanilla, baking soda and a bit of salt into the mix…

I lifted my hands even higher and the upper two layers separated from the first as one, just hovering below my palm. Soon their Dust particles arranged themselves into patterns too and only one step remained before the glyph was complete.

…Scoop the mix into shape and add chocolate chips…

The Gravity Dust layer separated from the Ice ring and moved even further from the ground.

I hesitantly opened my eyes and stared dumbstruck at the three-piece glyph hovering below my raised hand.

"I can't believe that actually worked…" I muttered with a bewildered expression. My idea was that many artists go into a special mindset when they work to increase their focus, a sort of tunnel vision. I… Me and Summer may have developed something similar when baking, and baking is a culinary art, soo…

I can't believe that this kind of silliness would save the lives of hundreds…

Somehow I get the feeling that if Summer saw me now, she would give me a thumb of approval. Raven on the other hand would bury her face in her hands and deny even knowing me.

Oh well, if it worked this far, then might as well finish it like this.

"Put them in the oven and wait until they're ready for serving" I declared with a grin and slammed my outstretched hand into the ground. The separate glyphs snapped into a single one and glowed brightly. For a brief moment nothing happened, then the combined glyph sunk into the ground, slowly at first, but as it travelled deeper and deeper it picked up speed until it was burrowing through the stone and different ores faster than any Grimm or machine could hope to match. Ice crystals grew to cover the sides of the perfectly circular tunnel as the glyph carved through any obstacle in its path. My armguards glowed with a familiar hue and gravity glyphs sprung to life above my palms. Violet strings formed between them and the violet portion of the speeding glyph, allowing me to direct it as I saw fit even from a distance.

"Now for part two" I muttered and channeled Aura to my eyes. The world below me came to life as I could pinpoint every single tunnel with Grimm present in them, there were hundreds, if not more.

With a simple tug on a string, a smaller glyph separated from the main one and burrowed itself to connect with one such tunnel. The glyph breached the walls of the infested shaft and flew to impact the opposite wall, creating a prism of ice on impact. With that trial run done, I separated dozens at the same time from the main glyph and guided them in batches to other tunnels, repeating this process hundreds of times until the main glyph breached the deepest part of the mine where the passengers were kept.

I inwardly cheered at pulling off such a complicated task and got to my feet. I ignored the crumbling ice dome around me and looked straight down at the bore hole I just created. Unlike the ice around me that was transparent, the ice coating the sides of the tunnel was immaculate and almost completely reflective, perfect for what I had planned.

I may not have had the stamina to vaporize this many Grimm separately one after the other, but all of them at once?

That I could do.

I flashed my eyes and the Grimm around me in the Queen's chamber turned to ashes. The abundance of light got reflected downwards by the ice in the tunnel and bounced between the mirror-like surfaces like the light in an optical cable. This light separated into different branches upon encountering an intersection and eventually got directed to every single infested tunnel in the entire mine. Once they exited the ice mirror tunnels they hit the prism on the other end and got scattered in all directions. Masses of darkness started disappearing one after the other as the light spread until even the largest one at the bottom vanished without a trace, revealing a large mass of different colored light sources in its place.

I let out a relieved sigh and broke out into a victorious smile, it actually worked! I allowed myself to revel in the silence for a few moments, enjoying the not so small victory for what it was, and then hopped down into the ice mirror tunnel myself. It took almost a full half a minute of freefalling, but I eventually reached the bottom. I took two knives in hand and stabbed them into the walls of the tunnel in an effort to bleed off momentum, when I felt slow enough I let go and landed on the bottom floor with a dull thud. Lights were blinking in and out overhead and rusted machinery were scattered around, but the most defining feature of the place was the disturbingly organized way in which bodies were placed alongside one another in rows.

Judging by their slowly increasing Aura and the still light tinge of copper in the air; I've arrived in time. I've moved from unconscious person to person, wincing at the numerous bite marks present on each and every person, but ultimately looking for a particular person. It took me a minute, but I did eventually find the familiar purple Aura signature.

I rounded the corner of a scrap-worthy excavator and was greeted with a sight that made my heart skip a beat. There lied the small form of Blake on the cold ground, injured and bleeding from the countless bitemarks on her body. Tears gathered in my eyes and I rushed to her side, she was alive but unconscious, thank goodness. I didn't know if it was from the shock and pain or the Queen just knocked out everyone with its presence, but I was hoping she would remember as little about this night as possible.

Children shouldn't have to experience getting attacked, they shouldn't have to watch others get taken right in front of their eyes, they shouldn't have to experience getting fed on by horrific creatures while unable to do anything but watch and feel as their life was slowly sucked out of them. It was just wrong… so wrong. The fact that it happened stood against everything I strived for…

And all of it was my fault.

Tears fell down my cheeks as I propped up Blake's head against my legs. The scars this could leave on her could very well last for her entire life, both physical and mental. The bitemarks wouldn't heal completely without Aura and who knows how the trauma of almost getting killed would affect her later in life? I might have ruined her future in some way because of this.

A feeling of self-loathing washed over me even as I moved the wipe away the bloodstains on her face with the fabric of my cloak. I've only made one decision and this was the result? A decision between personal love and the desire to fulfill my dream. How could anyone see what the right choice was? One choice would have ensured the safety of hundreds, but further jeopardize the survival chances of Summer, while the other increased her chances, but ultimately led to… this.

How could I have made another choice and bear to look myself in the mirror, knowing that if Summer was really gone in the end, I didn't do everything I could to save her. How could I tell Ruby and Yang with a straight face that I did my best to prevent them from having to grow up without a mom?

I would be a bold-faced liar, a hypocrite, human trash…

I sniffled but didn't have the will to wipe away the snot or the freely flowing tears. Summer could have seen what the right choice was, I was sure of it. She may not have been the smartest person I've met, but her moral compass was unwavering even in the face of adversity. If she was by my side right now like she promised she would be, maybe I would have known… better…

The third reason.

I blinked at the sudden revelation, floored at the connection between the two dilemmas. I stared ahead with a vacant expression in the dimly lit tunnel for what felt like minutes.

"Nicholas, you senile old reindeer" I muttered finally and moved to wipe away the abundance of tears on my cheeks. Once I was done with that I softly looked down at Blake, her expression was troubled, as if she was having a nightmare.

"I know this might not be enough to right the wrongs you suffered because of my mistake…" I closed my eyes and willed my Aura to search for hers "For it is through hardship and love that we get to know ourselves. Through these we become architects of fate to shape our world and others around us. Infinite in desire and unbound by reality, I release your soul and by my hand guide you from the shadows" I chanted quietly as my silvery Aura mixed with hers and caused it to appear like violet waves rippling over her form.

"…But it is a start" I finished with a sniffle and a small smile. I couldn't be there for her as of now and help her get through this, but her wounds could be fully healed with-

Aura…

I let out a humorless chuckle at the second revelation that happened to me in only a single night. Blake's previously wry expression eased just a bit, but that was enough for me let out a relieved sigh and contently move on to the next fight of the night. I made two of my spare cloaks appear before me and took one to cover her, it was cold and damp down here. I moved my legs away and placed the other folded cloak under her head, with that done I stood up and called out for Zwei. The young corgi appeared besides me a few seconds later with an attentive bark and a lolling tongue.

"Get ready buddy, this night is far from over." I bent down to his level and held out my hand to him. My small partner bit down on it and I could feel my reserves getting back up to full. I would need every single ounce of it for what I'd planned next.

---

His knight was dwarfed by the Grimm before it, but he did his best to provide an even fight. He parried a strike from one of the Queen's legs and bashed its face with the shield on his arm. The Grimm was sent back reeling from the force and was flipped on its back. Seeing the opportunity present itself, Nicholas went in for the kill by closing the distance between him and the Queen. He then raised his sword and prepared to stab it through its exposed belly.

He noticed the trap for what it was a second too late. Before he could deliver the killing blow, his blade was intercepted by one of the legs and was deflected to the side. A moment later the Iratus' tail slithered behind him and drove its stinger through his knight's chest, ending him.

After his knight's demise, his consciousness returned to his body and he wearily observed the ruined landscape their battle created form the back of his summoned Wyvern. Great columns of smoke rose from still burning swathes of forest, miles of land was flattened under the Queen's rampage and multiple mountains were carved up. By this point he was at his Aura's and wit's end. The best he could hope was perhaps another five to ten minutes before his reserves ran dry-

He is interrupted by the Queen's shrill roar. He looked back down at it to see the eyes on its back open and glare in his direction. He felt the effect immediately, it was too fast to even attempt a counteraction, or perhaps his aging body was giving up on him finally. Regardless, he could feel his muscles slacken and his summon dissipate from under him. He fell towards the distant ground for what felt like an eternity and impacted it with a dull thud. His Aura held strong, but it still wouldn't change his fate, he landed just before the beast he had been fighting until now.

This is how his legend would end, an Old Hunter of many battles slain by an even older beast of darkness. The Queen lifted one of its front legs and dropped it on top of him with enough force to send up a screen of dust and debris around the area.

…

Or perhaps not. Nicholas looked perplexedly around his new surroundings. He was on a nearby mountain overlooking the destroyed valley and the victorious Titan. He was not alone as he saw his Apprentice standing slightly to his left, overlooking the same scene with a look of determination that surprised Nicholas. His cloak fluttered lightly in the wind present at this altitude and he had a commanding aura around him that Nicholas was sure wasn't there before.

"Looks like I arrived just in time" Caryll turned his head in his direction and smirked confidently. Nicholas shook off his shock and frowned at his student in response.

"Not that I don't appreciate your intervention, but I distinctly remember telling you to leave and rescue who you can" Returning here was an act of suicide, nothing more.

"Perhaps, but I have a point to prove" Caryll shrugged and inclined his head to the side "Besides, Zwei is ferrying the injured back to Vale as we speak" He then returned his attention ahead and glared at the titanic beast down below. Nicholas followed his gaze and a moment later pieced together Caryll's intentions. He couldn't help but feel incredulous at the notion.

"You're planning on fighting a Titan" He voiced his disbelief. Caryll didn't respond immediately and instead walked to the edge of their plateau.

"No" The young Rose denied with a shake of his head. He closed his eyes and seemed to focus on something else entirely.

"I'm planning on killing one."

He snapped his eyes open and the valley before them was lit up by a huge source of blinding white light.

---

Aura.

It was so obvious of a solution that I would have smacked myself in the head if I wasn't so short on time. The Silver Eyes acted as a mirror in the sense that they utilized the light of world around the user to counteract the darkness. It was immaterial and abstract, to contain something like it you had to use something equally as abstract, either light or darkness.

Aura was the light of the soul, and unlike the ethereal light of the Silver Eyes it behaved like a liquid or as a shroud inside the body. When used correctly it could be molded into solid barriers used to protect from harm…

Or to contain something.

I focused a large chunk of my Aura around my eyes, coating them in a sheet of silvery light, and built up pressure inside my eyes just like I would every other time I would use my eyes. Once the pressure reached a level that I could just barely contain, I released it just like I would normally, but instead of basking the valley before me in blinding light, the wave of light rebounded from the layer of Aura and returned inside where it struggled to find a way to escape.

Elated at this new development, I pushed even more Aura inside my eyes and felt the two forces struggle to overcome the other. I continued to compress the light with my Aura while simultaneously trying to focus even more light to manifest until something just snapped and I could feel the light instantly push back my Aura to the edges of my eyes. By this point the pressure was simply impossible for me to contain and I snapped my eyes open, staring straight at the Iratus Queen down below.

A white speck of light appeared on the back of the Titan, it glowed faintly for a moment before silvery white flames burst from it. The flames spread over a large area in under a second and burned with such ferocity that they soon dwarfed even the largest trees in the area. The light they produced cast shadows all over the valley and caused the black skin of the Grimm to sizzle as if it was in a frying pan. The area around the ethereal flames rapidly turned to stone, but even that crumbled to dust to be carried away by the wind. The Iratus Queen let out an unprecedented shriek of pain and trashed around the valley, crashing into mountains and foliage in a desperate effort to put out the flames.

It was truly an awe-inspiring sight, if only I was upright to see it and not face first on the ground, eating dirt. My head was swimming in pain and it was hard for me to focus on anything, despite this I knew one thing for sure.

No Ruby, you shouldn't use your eyes like laser beams, it's unhealthy and you'll just hate yourself for even thinking about it.

"That has got to be the most wasteful application of Silver Eyes I have ever witnessed" I could hear Nicholas dryly remark from beside me once my headache subsided a bit.

"Ugh, I've noticed. These things don't come with a built-in instruction manual you know, I'm figuring out things as I go" I groaned painfully and opened my eyes, only to notice something strange; I could see the world just like when I normally infused Aura into my eyes, it was probably a byproduct of the method I used, however there was something odd around the edges of my vision.

It was white and… moved around like fire?

I lifted a hand to my eyes and felt something stick to my fingers. I moved my hand away a bit and found myself speechless at the sight of those same silvery white flames dancing across my palm. It wasn't hot, it wasn't even warm, it was cold and seemingly completely harmless. They even disappeared on their own when I thought about how to make them go away. I blinked perplexedly and took out a knife to look at my reflection, what I saw only added to my shock and amazement; the same ethereal flames were present around my eyes, harmlessly dancing around them in a manner not too dissimilar to how Maidens showcased their power.

Was this it? Did I unlock the full potential of the Silver Eyes…? But even if I did, I couldn't use them properly, judging by the backlash I suffered, using them in a sight-and-cast way is a big no-no, but if that was the case, what was the correct way? There was no time to experiment around and there was no one who could teach me-

I sprung to my feet and hastily turned to look at Nicholas "Wait, you said witness. Do you remember how my great-grandfather used these flames?" The older Hunter hummed to himself and shrugged.

"Hmm, not like this, that's for sure. I remember him coating weapons in flames, but that was only in the beginning. Later on, he would only conjure weapons out of white flames, they were extremely effective against Grimm, even far surpassing a regular flash of his eyes" He explained thoughtfully. I nodded to myself and stared at my open palm, trying to imagine something simple, a sword would do for now. Using the same method, I Ignited the air above my palm, but to my dismay the fire refused to obey my command to spread in a certain way and instead dissipated just like my Aura does when it leaves my body.

"…That's beyond me at the moment" I admitted wryly, theoretically I could maybe use the same method of using Aura to contain and shape the flames using Aura projection, but my disability prevented me from even attempting that "However, coating weapons shouldn't be an issue" I confirmed with a nod, the fire coated my hand without problem, and that was without me even consciously trying to mold it.

"Worry not, it at least seems to have a great effect on the Queen regardless" Nicholas nodded in the direction of the valley, following his sight I was greeted with a scene that caused most of my confidence to evaporate. The tendrils of darkness gathered around the raging bonfire, trying to envelop and smolder it while the stone slowly turned back to black flesh and white bone. It was a close and fierce fight between the two forces, but it was obvious that the darkness would win out eventually.

"It can survive even that?" I observed disbelievingly, mouth agape. That attack had me pushing past my limits and I almost knocked myself out with it, and it was still not enough?!

"Yes, but your flames can tie down its regenerative ability long enough to take it entirely out of the equation. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this fight isn't as hopeless as I first thought it to be… How many times do you think you can use your eyes after this?" Nicholas observed thoughtfully before he turned to regard me with wide eyes. I stared at him in momentary surprise, not having expected that tone form him as he was usually more reserved and drier with his words, but determination replaced surprise as I caught on to his intentions.

"As many times as we need" I confirmed with a confident nod, I wouldn't be the limiting factor in this fight. A Kamui vortex deposited a recurve bow specifically designed to be fired by Hunters alongside a fully stocked quicker. I caught them mid-air and put the quiver on my back "Alright, let's take this thing down"

"You have a plan in mind already?" My teacher asked in slight surprise, though I could tell that he was getting used to my way of planning.

"I've been told I'm quick on the uptake. One on one didn't work, so we'll try two on one instead" I shot back with a smirk, earning an amused scoff from him. I took out an arrow form my quiver and aimed it in the direction of the recovering Queen, which was slowly coming to its senses. At this range throwing knives would be useless, arrows on the other hand…

I Ignited the notched arrow and watched as the white flames spread all over it, for some reason this Ignition wasn't nearly as draining as the previous one. It was something I had to look into later alongside other technicalities, but for now I allowed a nostalgic smile to spread over my face.

Who would have guessed learning archery was going to come in handy after all?

Huh, a good Hunter really is versatile… Thank you, Summer.

"Could you give me a boost?" I requested without looking at Nicholas. He complied without a word and several white glyphs appeared along the shaft of the arrow. I took aim at the recovered Iratus Queen, but instead of launching the arrow directly at it, I shifted my aim at the sky above us and fired. The glyphs accelerated the arrow to the point where it became only a white streak of light to the naked eye as it sailed through the clouds and joined the sea of stars hanging above us in the night sky. The old Schnee sent me a questioning look to which I simply shrugged with an easy smile.

"A bit of insurance for later" I explained and took out eight specialty knives from my bag while stowing away the bow on my back. I Ignited all of them at the same time and approached the edge of the cliff "Get ready, I'll create an opening for you" The Titan finally sighted us and rushed towards our position. I prepared to warp myself away, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.

"Then do it properly this time" Nicholas told me and casted a yellow glyph beneath our feet. It took on the form of turning gears and the arms of a clock… it was a time dilation glyph. The world around us slowed down considerably and I could even see the afterimages of the flames dancing on the blades of my knives. It was simply breathtaking, but Nicholas wasn't done. White glyphs appeared out of thin air ahead of us, dozens and then hundreds of them formed into an ever-growing curving path that led to the rampaging beast down below. I spared a quick glance at Nicholas, who nodded back at me. I grinned at him in thanks and blurred to the nearest glyph.

The moment my feet touched the white circle I was accelerated to the next one with enough force that I left behind white streaks along my path. I reached the bottom of the valley in a few moments and caught up with the end of the rapidly forming path ahead of me. I twisted around upturned trees, craters and house sized boulders until I reached the vicinity of the looming Titan. It lifted one of its front legs and brought it down along the projected path of the glyphs in an effort to crush me. The appendage fell on top my head and disrupted several glyphs, but it was not enough to stop me. I emerged from the leg's other side without a scratch and continued on with my charge until I reached its other front leg.

Once I got close enough to it, I jumped in the air from the last glyph and just before I could pass by it, threw a single burning knife at it. The knife hit true and white flames burst outwards form the impact point. It was a lot smaller fire than the one I used previously, but it was already turning a large portion of the lower leg into stone.

Besides, I was nowhere near done with my attack.

Another white glyph formed along my flight path and I hit it feet first. It launched me back in another, slightly higher trajectory around the colossal leg and let me throw another knife, causing another eruption of fire. I repeated this process six more times in the span of a scarce few seconds, the glyphs redirecting me higher and higher until I could ignite the entire front leg of the Queen.

After that display, I landed back on the muddy ground with a grunt of exertion and regarded my work. The tendrils were already fighting to contain the spread of the flames, covering burning chunks of flesh and burying the fire to put it out even faster. It was only a matter of time before the limb would be unpetrified.

Too bad I wouldn't wait for that long.

I sent a mental command to the Dust in the knives and watched as they activated in unison. Lighting Dust melted the stone and allowed the knives to sink deeper into the stone, where the Sonic Dust crystals activated and caused a mini earthquake in the burning monolith. Cracks formed a crisscrossing pattern around it and before too long, the pillar of stone fell apart in a shower of rocks and dust. I had the pleasure of watching it at a much faster pace as the backlash of time dilation finally caught up to me.

The Titan recoiled at the loss of one of its many legs and turned its attention back at me. It growled and moved to swat at me with its other frontal leg, however as it prepared to strike me down a spinning white glyph hit one of its joints and held the entire thing in place for Nicholas' knight to jump in and dismember it.

Seeing that the tendrils were already forming around the wound to regrow the lost limb, I removed my bow from my back and notched and Ignited an arrow. I momentarily warped myself in front of the exposed innards of the Grimm and launched the burning arrow at the swirling darkness. It hit true and the struggle of light and dark began once again, halting the regeneration process in its entirety for the time being.

The Iratus Queen took the loss of its two most useful weapons with around as much tact as I expected. It retreated several gigantic steps in an effort to put some distance between us, but we didn't let up and continued to pursue it without pause. Distance meant nothing to me and Nicholas was flying overhead again, after all.

This turned out to be a mistake however, the Titan was far from disarmed, in fact it just chose to utilize its most effective weapon. The eyes on its back reopened and I dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. With me disabled, the Queen could focus its attention on the knight, it raised its stinger and drove it through the knight's raised shield and body, forcing the summon to dispel in a cloud of white particles.

With Nicholas dispatched for the time being, the Titan turned its attention back to me and worked its mouth to produce a black sticky substance. I wasn't particularly worried about this however, my mind was somewhere else at the moment, thinking about more pressing matters.

What should Nicholas' and I's team attack be called?

As if on cue, a star up above shined brighter than the rest for a brief moment, then it came down from the sky like a comet. It soared through the night sky and hit the Iratus Queen dead center. The collision produced an enormous white fireball and interrupted the freezing effect on me, allowing me to warp myself away to Nicholas' Wyvern up above.

Hmm, Shooting Star seemed fitting.

"How was that for round one?" I asked Nicholas with a smirk, with the Queen being preoccupied with putting out the flames we could afford to reconvene and strategize.

"Promising so far, how are you holding up?" He replied, eyes still focused on the Titan below us.

"I'm a bit exhausted, but I'll manage. You?" I let out a tired sigh and wiped away the streaks of blood on my face. Using my eyes in this matter drained me more than I cared to admit, I felt like I was still on that same tree back when I first unlocked my eyes. Weak and uncertain if I was even doing things correctly, but I would manage one way or the other.

"…Well enough to continue" He replied after a moment of pause "We'll have to end this soon, the Queen is only growing stronger with time, we on the other hand…" He coughed dryly into his hand for emphasis.

"What do you mean?" That was new information to me, from my standpoint we just performed a double amputation on it.

"That freezing attack, it uses it more and more. I was wondering why the attack on the train stopped when it did, but while I was fighting it, I realized that as time passed it could maintain it for longer and longer periods of time, all the while the time intervals between attacks shortened" Nicholas explained with a thoughtful frown.

"But why? How?" How could it evolve so much in the span of only a single night, while fighting no less?

"Titans perceive time differently, they sleep for centuries at a time and can fight for just as long, but as a result they are slow to adapt to changes. My guess is that this one only just woke up and is in the process of regaining its past strength, but I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, if the time intervals shorten like before and the effects last longer each time…" He trailed off uncertainly, causing a foreboding feeling to appear between us.

"It could eventually freeze us indefinitely" I finished distraughtly. Titans really did deserve the top spot on the food chain, didn't they? If this one appeared in the kingdom proper it could just disable every living thing in a radius of miles while it destroyed everything in sight. "Then we don't have much time left" I concluded briskly.

"Minutes at best, half a minute until the next attack to be exact" I regarded the older Hunter with a surprised expression "What is it? I may be on death's door, but I wasn't sitting idle while you were away. Fighting nightmarish beasts my whole life taught me to be observant" He told me amusedly.

"I guess you're right about that" I chuckled and backed away to the edge of our ride "When you see the opportunity; go for the head!" I relayed my idea to my teacher and fell off the flying Grimm summon. I twisted mid-air to look at the now fully healed Titan and took out several Lightning and Inferno knives in preparation.

"25…" I muttered under my breath and warped myself on top of the Titan, right between its many closed eyes. Without hesitation, I threw a Lighting knife at the closest one and watched as it was enveloped in arcs electricity. The muscles convulsed involuntarily and exposed the undefended eyeball for me to throw an Inferno knife at it. The explosive detonated on contact and sent black goo flying in all directions.

The overgrown bug didn't like that and let out a deafening roar, that left me clutching the sides of my head. I wasn't allowed reprieve and black tendrils burst forward from the wound to mend it. Feeling movement under my feet, I jumped away before even more tendrils could appear where I stood. This time they moved to follow me, most likely to either strangle or bury me.

"20…" I wasn't about to allow that to happen turned to run in the opposite direction, throwing pairs of Lightning and Inferno knives at eyes as I passed by them. Soon I reached the edge of the maze of eyes with a wave of dark tendrils behind my heels.

Thankfully, Nicholas used the distraction I provided to summon another knight just in front of the Queen's head. The knight moved to impale its head on its sword, but a freshly regrown frontal leg took the attack instead. Momentum carried the amputated leg into the air and the knight used its shield to block a retaliatory strike form another stake-like leg, though the force behind it forced the summon to skid back a fair distance.

"15…" Not willing to let this opportunity go to waste, I unholstered my bow and warped myself after the still ascending and slowly evaporating appendage. I reappeared just a bit above it and fired several Ignited arrows at it in rapid succession. Several missed to my frustration, my vision was getting blurry from my reliance on Kamui, but enough hit to set the fading limb ablaze and turn it into solid stone. To Nicholas' credit, he figured out my intentions remarkably fast and a huge Earth Dust glyph materialized in the leg's flight path. Now with the means to completely control the impromptu stone spear, Nicholas stopped it mid-air and reoriented it to point towards the Iratus Queen. Said Titan roared challengingly in response and bared its fangs at us. We didn't wait for it to finish its intimidation tactic and launched the spear at its head.

It impacted its face with enough force to disfigure more than half of it and embed itself deep into its innards. The force behind the attack and pain sent the Queen a few steps back and left it in a stunned daze.

"10!" I noted cheerily and moved in to assist Nicholas' knight to deal a finishing blow. However, before we even got into striking distance, the eyes on its back snapped open without warning, but thanks to the damage I've done to some of them, I got a split-second delay before the freezing effect took hold.

The knight froze in place alongside Nicholas, leaving enough time for the Queen to recollect itself and move to strike down the vulnerable knight. Fortunately, that split-second was enough for me to move to my Time-Space and be completely unaffected by the attack and now I could return to the real world, right beside one of its many open eyes.

"Too slow!" I flashed my own eyes before I could be disabled and basked the surrounding area in blinding white light. My intervention ended the freezing effect and sent the Queen reeling away. I warped myself away to the ground before the tendrils could find and attack me and joined the knight's second attempt at dealing a death blow. This time though instead of helping with the setup, I decided to assist in a more direct manner.

I notched another arrow and aimed it at the injured face of the Queen. I waited until the knight summon got close enough to strike and just before it could raise its sword, I fired the blazing arrow with a confident smirk.

The Queen only had one frontal leg left to defend with and doing a two-pronged attack from different angles meant that it could only defend against one strike, not the other. The longsword would skewer it and my arrow would incinerate its head, whichever it chose to defend against didn't matter, because it would die from the other either way.

We won…

I allowed a smirk of satisfaction to form on my face as I watched the arrow sail through the air and fly by the knight's descending blade, right on a course to its open maw… only to be intercepted by a stake like leg just before it could impact. The Titan roared in defiance and dodged the sword strike by jumping backwards and shattered the knight's shield with a swing of its tail.

Confusion and desperation replaced elation in me as the Queen then used its stinger to strike its own burning leg by its connecting joint, amputating the still igniting limb and then using its tail to sweep at the destroyed forest before it, sending up debris and dust into the air to act as a smoke screen while it recovered.

I stood there, stunned by the intelligence displayed by the Grimm before us. The momentary pause allowed me to look past the adrenaline surging in my veins and experience the effects of non-stop fighting during the whole night. Even with Zwei recharging my reserves, my body was on its last legs. My Aura was at half strength and it was a struggle to even keep my eyes open at this point. My arms and legs felt like they were filled with lead and my muscles screamed at me in protest every time I tried to move them.

I couldn't go on like this…

A white Wyvern landed beside me and Nicholas jumped down next to me, but even he almost messed up his landing by almost falling over. He had to use the summon for support to stand steadily.

"We're running out of time" He rasped through labored breaths "The intervals get shorter even faster than I thought… this may be our last chance" He turned to look at the swirling dust cloud with hard eyes.

"Yeah…" I nodded distractedly; this was hopeless. It was too massive to kill in such a short time, my flames could hurt it, kill it too, maybe, but they don't spread fast enough to kill it before the regeneration kicked in and counteracted them. It was also too smart to fall for the same moves twice, and the way it fought…

It was like it wasn't even a Grimm, but something else entirely.

What could we even do against something so far out of our league?

…

"Nothing. We don't need to do anything against it" I muttered with widened eyes as an idea occurred to me, it would be risky and we only had one shot to make it work, but that's all we needed.

"Are you ready for another round?" I asked Nicholas with a growing smile on my face, internally placing even more pieces of the puzzle together.

"You have an idea?" at seeing my brisk nod, he turned to stare at the ground for a moment, shoulders sagging in exhaustion "One final round, huh? Very well, let's end this" the old man let out a tired chuckle.

"Great, we don't have much time, so please do as I say and just don't question anything" I requested and took off the quiver from my back and Ignited every single last arrow in it at once, draining me even more to the point where I almost fell over on the spot.

"What do you need me to do?" My teacher nodded without hesitation.

"Dispel every one of your summons and give me a boost, please" I said and aimed three arrows at once at the sky. The giant knight and Wyvern faded away and glyphs appeared along the shafts of the arrows, ready to repeat our earlier attack.

I let go of the string and didn't bother to watch them fly in seemingly random directions in the sky, opting to instead ready even more arrows to fire non-stop. The white streaks of light raced to the clouds above, but before they could reach them the arrows detonated in a spectacular light show. Ignited Ice and Earth Dust exploded like fireworks, showering the landscape with burning debris. Fire and Gravity Dust caused miniature silver suns to appear and burn out in seconds, basking everything with their light and finally Lightning Dust caused silver arcs of electricity to travel from cloud to cloud.

It was a breathtaking sight, and a completely useless one at first glance, but if I was right, it could earn us victory. The idea came from our team attack with Summer; Guiding Light. This was only a massively upscaled version of it.

The Iratus Queen had intelligence that put any other Grimm to shame, it was in a league of its own. But it was still a Grimm. Darkness and negativity attracts it and Light and positivity enrages it. By basking the entire battlefield in the brightest light there is, we could make the Queen abandon its senses and make it follow its primal instincts.

If it was in another league, we just simply had to drag it down to our level.

As if on cue, an all too familiar shriek reverberated through the debris cloud, a gigantic silhouette formed in it and looked around frantically, as if torn between what it should obliterate first.

"Now summon your knight! Give it everything you've got!" I commanded and Nicholas obeyed without pause. With a grunt of exertion, Nicholas drove his cane into the ground and an enormous summoning glyph appeared before us. Soon, a familiar knight crawled out of it, but this time a set of legs supported it as it moved to a ready stance before us. It was still dwarfed by the Grimm Titan and it looked to have taken a toll on my old mentor, but thankfully we didn't need to rely on its combat abilities.

All Grimm are compelled to extinguish the nearest source of light near them, with the explosions happening in the sky the next brightest source of light is Nicholas' summon.

"Dispel the sword and shield, appear as non-threatening as possible" I narrowed my eyes as we entered the riskiest part of the plan, if this went sideways we were done for. The armaments faded away to white particles and the knight moved to stand at attention like a monolith of white and blue light.

We didn't have to wait long for the shrieks and sounds of stomping to come closer. The blurry silhouette burst from the cloud and revealed itself to be the fully healed mad Titan. It caught sight of us and the defenseless knight and shifted its body in preparation to lunge at us.

I didn't get stung while I was frozen for the first time, and the passengers presumably only got stung after the Queen was forced to stop with its attack, Iratuses only fought and stung things that could resist being fed on. What's more the Queen only focused on killing us until now, with its basic instincts in control it only wanted one thing.

To feed.

The Titan launched itself at the largest source of Aura in a radius of hundreds of miles and wrapped multiple of its legs around it. The Grimm bared its massive fangs for all to see and drove them into the neck of the still summon. The Schnee summon visibly faded a few shades as Aura could be seen travelling through its body into the fangs of the Grimm.

"Don't let up! It's almost over!" I yelled encouragingly to my teacher, who was visibly struggling to pour enough Aura to keep the summon alive for a little while longer. I threw my bow and empty quiver to the side and spotted my opportunity to finish this fight. I warped myself on top of the Queen's tail that was looming over everything else and looked down at my target.

The slit on its back opened up as the procreation process began and revealed an enormous cavern inside the creature, filled with tens of thousands of newborn Iratuses struggling to find a way out of their cradle.

It's a shame their entire species would disappear again tonight.

The walls of the cavern were slimy and unarmored, unlike the exoskeleton outside. Perfect to set fire to. However, my previous attempts showed that arrows and knives wouldn't cut it, I would need something absolute.

I would have to use the method I used the first time.

So, what if it was wasteful or not how my distant relatives used it once upon a time? That just means that I would have to be the first one to make it work.

With that thought I adjusted my wobbly stance and took a deep breath. The flames around my right eye disappeared and I focused every last ounce of Aura I had left into it, all the while maintaining the field around the left one.

I gazed down at the abyss and opened an outbound Kamui portal in its direction. The vortex of space itself swirled faster and grew in size with every passing second until it reached a size I have never attempted before. It was not without cost though, I could feel something wet and warm flow down in droves on the right side of my face, I couldn't maintain this for long…

With that in mind, I focused on a single point a few meters in front of me, right in the middle of the emerging vortex, and willed a speck of light to appear there with my left eye.

The speck lingered there for a moment before it erupted into silver flames that were captured by the currents of the vortex. The portal forced them to spread around a large area until the entire vortex turned into a swirling mass of flames, headed right for the exposed back of the Queen.

The flames made contact and instantly converted the birthing cradle into sea of flames. The smaller Grimm only seemed to serve as fuel to the fire as they were instantly incinerated and the flames rapidly grew to cover the entire back of the Queen. The eyes that were previously full of hatred and intelligence now only had a look of primal desperation for survival in them. The tendrils moved to counteract the flames, but they were too powerful and spread out to contain, when a tendril tried to get close it would only get petrified alongside everything else.

I only cut off the portal when my Aura depleted and shattered around me. I swayed from side to side in exhaustion, but forced my body to stand and watch the fires consume everything with a half-smile.

It… actually worked. We've done it, I stared glassily at the air before me and the fire around my left eye cut off as well. Before I knew it, my legs gave out under me and I fell face first into the bone plating of the tail. Judging from the cracking sound and pain; I would say that I just broke my nose.

The Titan below me moved to separate from the fading knight and stumbled around in a disoriented manner, trying to find a way to put out the fire that was rapidly enveloping more and more of its body. Unfortunately these death throes launched me into the air and without any Aura I couldn't warp myself away to safety, all I could do was limply fall towards the ground and watch the beast let out a final pained shriek and collapse to the ground, finally succumbing to the flames consuming its form.

Someone was watching out for me though, because I could feel something circular collide with my back and change my trajectory while bleeding off a bit of my momentum. The thing broke however and shattered into black pieces that fell with me onwards until I hit another circle that did the same and so on until I reached the level of tree canopies.

I impacted the ground with a muffled thud and a grunt of pain, but thankfully the gravity glyphs have slowed me down enough to land without serious injuries. I painfully turned my head in the direction of Nicholas to thank him, but stopped when I saw him wobbling away to the base of an intact tree. He sat down unceremoniously at its base and stared off in the distance, chest rising and falling unsteadily.

I frowned at the sight; shouldn't his Aura keep him stable-

"Give it everything you've got…" I mumbled to myself, remaining functioning eye softening. The only thing that kept him alive so far was his Aura and he used every ounce of it to make the knight and to save me.

I looked at him for a few moments before I pushed myself to my feet with a groan of exertion. I felt light-headed, but I forced my feet to carry me in his direction. My gait was unsteady and I stumbled left and right until I accidentally overcorrected one of my missed steps and fell face first into the mud in front of Nicholas. I breathed heavily, my body demanding that I close my eyes and rest, but I was not done yet.

"You know, I could probably take you to a hospital…" I offered weakly. I turned my head to look at him with one eye. He was still looking past me with a peaceful expression, even while his chest was flaring.

"Heh, look at you, can't even muster the energy to stand up from the dirt and you're still trying to help me?" Nicholas huffed in amusement.

"That's just how I am, I guess" I chuckled softly "But I meant what I said, you don't have to die here, I could call Zwei and- "I reasoned, only for Nicholas to cut me off.

"I've made my peace long ago, Caryll" He rebuked without missing a beat "Although… can you take me to Atlas? To Mantle?" He asked with hope tinging his voice.

"Sorry, that's beyond me right now…" I looked at the ground with shame. I was so helpless I couldn't even grant a man's final wish.

"A pity… I would have liked to see the snow one more- " The sentence died in his throat and he just sat there with cane in hand, expression filled with awe. I frowned, not knowing what was going on, when something small and white entered my field of vision and landed in the mud before my face. I narrowed my eye at it and blinked in confusion when I realized what it was.

A grey piece of ash that was still burning with a white flame, giving it the look of a snowflake.

Glowing white ash began to fall all around me and when I realized that it was coming from behind me, I turned over and let out a silent gasp of amazement.

The petrified corpse of the Iratus Queen was burning in a bonfire of pure white. It was slowly crumbling into ashes, limb by limb, but there was simply so much to burn that it would take hours if not days for it to completely disappear. The produced Grimm ash flew high into the skies before it came back down like a mild snowfall, showering the remnants of the forest with ethereal snowflakes.

Looks like I could deliver on that wish after all…

I smiled and gathered all of my strength into my arms. I pushed myself up from the ground and stumbled over to the same tree Nicholas chose to sit by. I slacked against the bark and slid down beside Nicholas on the ground. We sat there for a few moments, just looking over the forest with a sense of pride and satisfaction.

"I think I figured it out, you know, the third reason" I spoke up, knowing that we didn't have much time left.

"Oh, you did? Well then, let's hear it…" Nicholas said quietly.

"You said that I was talented and show promise, that I could surpass all of you with time" My eyes drooped low "But I'm still fallible, I think of myself, I disregard logic in favor of feelings, I make mistakes… I'm still human" I nodded to myself.

"I was told that our dearest dreams may become our worst nightmares… and that our dreams of a better future often become the nightmares of others… I didn't think on these words that much at the time, because I couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want the world to be a better place, least of all myself, but now I realize that these aren't warnings against the idea itself, but against methods I use to reach it…" I yawned, trying to fight off my exhaustion for a little while longer.

"I can't do this alone… I need someone to support me, to question and guide me, otherwise I'll never achieve what I want. Team ASHE was a group of kindred spirits, together they'd done so much for Remnant, but when Gehrman was left on his own, he didn't have anyone to question or support him. He made all the wrong decisions and everyone suffered for it. Now it happened to me and I almost caused the deaths of hundreds…" I frowned distastefully.

"But?" Nicholas prompted with a tired smile.

"…But they have to share the same drive that we have. You left the SDC in the hands of your first student, trusting him to carry on in your stead, but instead he warped your dream for his own selfish desires" I continued with a distracted expression "The third reason why you took me as your student is that you realized that I was like you, that we had a similar mindset and goals. You wanted to question me, guide me and… help me" I finished quietly and turned back to my mentor.

"So, you have it all figured out, huh?" Nicholas hummed amusedly and nodded, confirming my theory "Now, I have nothing left to teach you… it is strange, I never believed that I could impart that lesson to anyone without giving the meaning away… but that just makes me all the more certain that you'll succeed where we-" He coughed violently into his fist, coating it in a few splashes of red. My eyes softened in sympathy, I knew what it was like to experience organ failure, I died in a similar manner after all-

His non-bloody hand found its way on top of my head and caressed my head affectionately. I stilled at the sudden contact, but didn't move away. I glanced at Nicholas questioningly from the corner of my eye, seeing him smiling proudly, even when all color left his face.

I hummed to myself and smiled… it didn't feel bad. Still, I had one more question to ask…

"You're putting an awful lot of faith in me… Fixing the world is a tall order, you know?" I chuckled softly. His hand slid off my head and into his lap, I tilted my head curiously at him, his chest was no longer heaving, in fact it was rising and falling slower and slower…

"Perhaps it's foolish of me to grasp at straws, but I'm dying, Caryll. Faith and hope are the only things I have left. I didn't even know anything about you when we first met and I still grasped at the slim chance that maybe you're like us. I'm only fortunate my gamble paid off for as long as it did…" His eyes drooped low and his cane fell out of his grasp.

"Right…" Trust Nicholas not to pull his punches, even now. I sighed and leaned back to look at the broken moon hanging above us. Its soft glow coupled with the falling silver ash made for a beautiful sight…

"Hey, Nicholas?"

"Hmm?"

"Maybe you don't have to blindly hope that this world will be fixed"

"What… do you mean…?"

"If that… Limbo place is real and you do meet your sister there… don't leave it just yet. When it's time I'll join you there and tell you everything"

"E-everything?"

"Of course, I will pick up where all of you left off and fulfill your dreams. After that all of you can rest peacefully no matter where you end up. How about it?"

"…T-that does sound fine… thank you-…"

…

…

I looked over to Nicholas, the light has left his eyes, but his expression was serene. A small smile tugged at my lips and I leaned my head against the tree. I closed my eyes and gave in to the overwhelming fatigue…

"Until we meet again, Nicholas"

---

Well, it's time to say goodbye to gramps and Orient-express-sama. May they rest in peace.

This chapter was the last of Continental Express Arc, there will be some scenes that'll help with transitioning, but the next chapter we'll finally get back on track with the search for Summer and reach Vacuo¸ get a new weapon, equipment upgrades and a small wardrobe change with a custom insignia. All courtesy of the black market and the beginning of the new Arc, the Red Sands of Sunny Vacuo.

One thing I planned on putting into the chapter, but didn't quite fit anywhere was the effect of the Iratus Queen on people. Its mental pressure was high enough to cause a nosebleed. Sure, that particular vein in the nose is easy to pop, but it did that at a distance of miles, while weakened. At the range where Nicholas and especially Caryll fought it, if the Queen wanted to it could cause catastrophic brain damage (A dozen hemorrhages happening in the brain at the same time) to unprotected people (e.g.; no Aura or defensive Semblance). The passengers got lucky in the sense that the swarm wanted to feed on them and only got knocked unconscious instead of getting killed.

I'm open to suggestions on what Caryll should call the flames, originally (this chapter was supposed to be done in October) I was going to continue with the star theme and call them Corona after the Sun's heliosphere, but then the whole outbreak happened and now I'm a bit iffy about it.

And no, I will not call it *the black fire utilized by a certain franchise's name*.

Caryll finally achieves Bankai. I will say this now to avoid further confusion, Caryll was strong enough to get to the next stage of the Silver Eyes even without the use of a catalyst, he just didn't know the proper method of achieving it. If I'm still going with the whole stellar theme, the best analogy for this would be "cold" and "hot" fusion. The sustained fusion of different elements under extreme conditions inside the cores of stars is called hot fusion, however sustained fusion is theoretically achievable even without these conditions in a much more controllable environment, we just don't know how to go about it yet. We call this cold fusion.

The way the flames of the Silver Eyes are intended to be used is like cold fusion; if you know the right method you can achieve it with relatively low energy input, hence Summer's comment about the requirement of petrifying at least a Giant Nevermore. What Caryll does is akin to hot fusion. He lacks the knowledge of how to properly use the flames, so he just utilizes a catalyst to multiply the power of his eyes to the level where it just doesn't matter what method is utilized, fusion/divine fire is achieved and maintained by its own power.

What this means is that Caryll just created an entirely new method and style of using the Silver Eyes, unknown to any other SEW, since they were taught the "correct" method and style by their relatives before the purging of the bloodline began.

It is potent, but it's still in its infancy. It's incredibly taxing and the backlash on Caryll is severe, but with time who knows what can come of it?

No Omake this time either, just wait for the special to come out, besides, this is longer than two normal chapters combined.

Reviews:

Blaze2121: No, he can't copy the Schnee summons. They are unique only to them.

Blitz Drachm: It was retcon that only Schnees can use glyphs. Up until the end of Volume 2 we see multiple people using glyphs (Cinder and Glynda for example). I'm normally alright with retcons, but this one seemed a bit weird and unnecessary to me, so everybody being able to use them is TSEP canon if nothing else.

SortaCore: Thank you! I haven't received a review about my formatting in a long while and I'm happy to hear feedback. I looked into the issue and fully agree with you, but it will take some time for me to go over the entire story and fix it, so it will take a while to implement the changes it will bring (especially because I lost most files regarding the story and FFnet auto-deleted the rest after a while) but I'll definitely look into it soon.

To go over your story points in order; Caryll is fully aware of canon up to Vol 6 and Ozpin's tendencies. Summer didn't tell Ozpin because it just doesn't fit her character to do so, she may be loyal, but she wouldn't sell out her own son (despite whatever Caryll may say, their relationship dynamic is like mother and son). As to working with Ozpin, remember that Caryll got transported to Remnant after Vol 6, right at the height of the "Ozpin is a manipulative asshole" wave. He trusts him to oppose Salem, but not much else. Regarding the tracking issue, who would you search for first? The mother or their child? They focused their attention on Caryll first and are behind on the search for Summer because of it by several days.

The First Hunters sub-plot may seem like filler now, but I assure you it isn't. There is an underlying theme for every Volume of RWBY; it was lies and their consequences for Volume 6 and trust for Volume 7. Similarly, this story has one as well; the truth and its many faces. We have been presented with Team ASHE's story two times by this point, each time a bit different. Ozpin told us the public version of a tragedy, but even then, we could feel something was fishy because he cautioned Caryll against looking too much into it. Then we hear the same tale form the perspective of a close friend/sibling, revealing more information about the state of the world and the personalities of Team ASHE. This makes Caryll reconsider his standpoint and he begins to question if he even has the full story in the first place, and not just a censored version. As this story progresses, he will uncover more and more about their tale and it will greatly shape his outlook on the world and the people in it as a whole.

Caryll didn't react in time to the bug, because he didn't expect it to be that fast (it's like when you prepare to kill a cockroach and it just flies at you) and Nicholas cut off his own arm because A, at that point he didn't know Caryll awakened his eyes, and B, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because he was already stung and the venom was in his bloodstream. In his condition if he didn't cut it off, his heart would have given up and gone into cardiac arrest. No matter what option he chooses, he would die regardless.

GenericUsername11: That's some dedication and it looks to have paid off today :)

Guest 1ris: Nope.

Guests/Other well-wishers: Thank you guys!

See you next time!