I asked out a girl and got rejected today. Stay safe, gentlemen. Ladies already know.
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(Weiss's PoV)
"What happened to him?" I asked. I watched Cloud get carted away on a stretcher.
"Emerald summoned an image of Salem with her semblance." Penny stated in her informative tone. "He started to seize. I think the illusion triggered him somehow. Cinder used the cover it provided to make her escape."
"Without Mercury," Yang tapped the body of the warrior with her foot.
"Cloud killed him," Penny murmured. "He drove his blade through his chest. He died almost instantly. You can see the wound."
I could. A great blade had been jabbed under Mercury's ribs and out the other side. Cloud's broadsword was stained with Mercury's blood.
"So what? Cloud can't even look at Salem without having some kind of episode?" Yang asked.
"The image was a bit intense, even to me. Afterwards he started to ramble. I think he was trying to tell me she was in his mind," Penny told us. "He couldn't get the words out, though. I think she was using the opportunity to attack him. To start another of her hacking attempts."
"I hope he's okay…" Ruby mumbled. "He didn't handle meeting his sisters very well. This probably wasn't good for him."
"I thought he was going to die," Penny informed us, devoid of nearly all emotion.
"It was that bad?" I asked.
"He was really seizing and frothing at the mouth," Penny said. "I must report to Ironwood now. Excuse me."
She stepped away and took off like a jet. She soared overhead and in the direction of the academy.
"It's bad if he can't even look at her without having epilepsy. I don't think he'll be able to fight her. At least not physically. Not unless he gets much stronger mentally," I said. "When we fight her it'll have to be without Cloud's help."
"When we fight her…" Ruby trailed off. "I don't know how we'll be able to do it without Cloud. But if he really can't look at her then he'll never be able to help us."
"Maybe he'll get stronger," Blake said. She sounded like she didn't believe it, though.
"His meds aren't working," Ruby murmured. "They're supposed to prevent this but it doesn't seem like they did anything. Maybe we should let him go back to self medicating. He was doing relatively okay before he got on these meds. At least according to him."
"I don't know… all the doctors think that's a bad idea," I returned uneasily. "But maybe some of those meds he's on are just making things worse."
"At least he got Mercury. That's another bad guy down and in Cloud's pocket," Yang said. "He's not useless."
"He would be in a fight against Salem," Blake muttered. She was right. "He can't fight in his condition."
"He might know more. We should ask him when he wakes up," Ruby murmured.
I couldn't even be mad about him getting in this fight. He had support. He let us know what was happening. It even seemed like he had grounds to say that he'd been winning based on Mercury's corpse. It just still wasn't enough. Salem had exploited a tiny advantage over him and it sounded like he'd almost died over it.
It was… unrighteously unfair. He'd done everything right. It just hadn't been enough. Salem was ruthless. Cloud often described her as a goddess. He said he felt like a dog next to her. I wondered how true that was. Salem was old, she had magic, she was on another level, even from the maidens. It sure seemed like she was unbeatable when she toppled Cloud so easily.
It was easy to drown in the hopelessness of it. Cloud was, for all his strength, vulnerable. And he was the only of his siblings on our side and they might all have magic too. It was seven against one in that department and that didn't even count the wicked witch, Salem, herself.
She had power over his mind and probably spades of other powers and she controlled the Grimm which at all times outnumbered the Cetra. It was bleak when you looked at things like that. From that perspective I could understand why Cloud felt so helpless. He was just one man and he couldn't even do enough magic to turn a needle into a feather and he was supposed to fight a goddess; one that needed little more than to be looked upon by him and he'd start to crumble.
Ruby's dreams of an extra large family seemed so distant and even more impossible. She wanted so much and Cloud would die in this fight against Salem in all likelihood. That was if he didn't turn on us again, this time for keeps like his sisters and side with his mother against the world.
He was shattered despite all his power. It seemed like he hadn't even begun to heal with Ruby's and my help. I wasn't sure we were doing anything for him. I wasn't sure he was doing more than delaying the inevitable. I wanted to be doing more. I wanted to be helping him for real. But what did that even mean and how could I accomplish that?
I could only love him as best as I was able even if it wasn't very much.
"Ruby…" I trailed. "Things don't look good for Cloud."
"I know, Weiss."
"I don't know how to get you what you want. I don't know how to save him from this."
Ruby let out a long sigh. "I… I know. But I'm not about to give up on him. Even if the odds are stacked against him. I won't give up. Tell me that you're with me."
"I am. I'm just… I'm scared for him. If he can't do this much, what can he do? It wasn't even like she looked at him. He looked at her. That's all it took to unwind him. She's… she's laying traps in his mind."
"She's worming her way into his subconscious. That's what he always says," Ruby muttered. "How do you resist something like that? It's horrible."
"It's psychic warfare. Maybe we need to come at it from a different angle."
"What do you mean?" Ruby wondered.
"I have… maybe an idea." Or the start of one. "We need to help him to not hate himself. We need to build a place in his mind that's secure. Without her influence."
"Can we do that?"
"I don't know. But we have to try, don't we. Otherwise we may as well give him up right now."
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"I had them," Cloud said from the hospital bed when he woke up. Ruby and I were beside him. I took his hand in both of mine. Rough calluses against my soft skin. I could feel his aura. Golden and tinged with blue. It was furious. "Penny and I, that is. We fucking had then and they slipped away. It was all my fault. I let her in. I gave her an opening into my thoughts."
"Is that how she got you?" Ruby asked.
"I… I was reminded of her. It made me think of her and she sort of… she penned me in. She corralled me. Once I started I couldn't stop. Once I thought of her it opened up the connection between us even wider. Like a damn bursting. I couldn't shut that faucet off. She just crawled right into me."
"Cloud, we want to help you. Weiss says she has an idea. One that could help you resist Salem."
Cloud looked up at me. Doubt and curiosity, both were well earned from his perspective.
"We want to build a place in your mind free of her influence. A sort of sanctum. A place where you can always retreat to if you need to and know that she isn't there," I told him. "Everyday we will spend time with you and we'll work on it together. It won't be time wasted even if we do fail."
"I...I could see how that could help. I just don't know where to start."
"Start with us and the time we've spent together," I said. "Start with Beacon and your time spent with Pyrrha. Just lay back and remember. Salem wasn't there then. She doesn't own that. You do."
"Pyrrha…" Cloud whispered. He shuddered a little. He got goosebumps down his arm where I held him.
"Breathe and relax," Ruby whispered. She stroked his head and lifted it up and set it in her lap. "Breathe and relax, Cloud. Salem isn't here right now. You're safe."
"Am I?" He didn't ask rhetorically. He seemed genuinely curious about whether he was free of her.
"Reach out to where she attacked you and see if you can feel her," I walked him through it like a meditation.
His breath hissed out. His blue eyes were a touch wild. "She's there. I can feel her. Mother…"
"Now come back to us. Is there a difference? Can you feel a difference?" I asked.
"I…" he breathed. He strained to relax, his eyes shut in focus. "I can feel a difference. There's a place where she is and there's a place where I am. But we're connected."
"Come back and be with us. You're safe here. We won't let you hurt anyone. You can relax," I whispered.
His eyelids fluttered at the sound of my voice.
"Can you stop me?" He wondered, purely wondering.
"Of course we can. And besides," Ruby said. "I don't believe that you would hurt us. I believe in you."
"We'll spend time with you every day and work on this. On where you can and can't feel her. We'll be with you every step of the way," I informed him patiently. My voice was as soft and melodic as I could make it without actually singing, though it came close at times. I wanted him relaxed and I patiently walked him through the exercise like I honestly knew what I was doing rather than just guessing. But it was the best I could do. It was all I could do.
I may not know what I was doing in full but he didn't really need to know that. I needed him to have this. Even if it didn't work for what we wanted it wasn't time spent in vain.
It was time spent trying to help him. That could mean everything to me and Ruby.
"I can feel her in the corner of my mind. Her tentacles are pulling at me. They want me to go to her," he whispered. "They call to me. They beckon at me."
"Now come back to us. Listen to the sound of my voice. You're safe here. We will guard you," I murmured. "We won't let you go. Not to her or to anyone. There will be no reunion."
"No reunion...What if I do something awful again?" He breathed. His eyes still slammed shut. "What if I hurt you?"
"You could never hurt us, Cloud, we know you could never do it," Ruby whispered. "Just like you could never hurt Ren and Nora." The breath whistled out of him. "That was all Salem. It was all her. Not you. Never you. It is not your fault. It's your mother messing with your head that's to blame."
Cloud's eyes flickered underneath closed lids. It looked like he might fall asleep. I took that as a good sign. I wanted him to be that relaxed. It was when he was tensed and panicked that Salem would have the most power over him, I believed.
"Surround her," I encouraged. "Be the one to box her in rather than the other way around. This is your mind. No one owns it or knows it more thoroughly than you do. This is where you reside."
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He did it again. Then a third time.
"She calls out to me… I can feel not just her, but my sisters as well. They're there. I feel them. I was always able to," he sounded a little relaxed. His voice was deep and smouldering.
"They aren't important. Build your walls. Breath deep. We have you here." I squeezed his hand tightly. I pulled his hand to my chest and hugged it like I was hugging him.
"We'll do this every day. You can talk to us about the things that you feel when we do it," Ruby stroked her hands through his hair. One over the other in a continuous wave. Down and back. Down and back. All over his scalp. "Or if you don't feel like talking we can do that too."
"I… maybe I could get used to this." He muttered. His eyes still closed. He seemed on the edge of sleep. Maybe he'd get some actual rest for once with our help.
I could only do what I could for him.
Ruby bent down and kissed his forehead.
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It was after one of our sessions with him that he transfigured the needle.
His head had been in my lap while Ruby sat straddling his wide body. He lay his head back and relaxed while we murmured our way through the exercise. Feeling out where Salem was and where he was in relation to that. His eyes moved like he was in REM sleep while I whispered in his ears.
Time spent with him was not time wasted. That was one of the perks of doing this. The three of us were just spending our time together. Even if for the most part it was time spent in relaxed silence.
He'd gotten up and shifted his attention to the needle. Shifting on his arms until he rose from the bunk. His eyes blurred and half awake and his hair in messy spikes. It gave him a handsome bedraggled look as he plopped down to focus on his next project. At first he didn't seem focused enough but his eyes fluttered closed and he began a wordless chant. His lips moved but he said nothing.
I was sure the needle was another experiment in helping Cloud with his focus in his battle against Salem. The way he said he was supposed to extend his will must also be a lesson in the sort of control we wanted him to master during our sessions with him.
He was sitting at his desk with his hand outstretched towards the needle. His eyes shut in focus as he worked. His lips moving soundlessly as he attempted the transformation. His aura flickered, relaxed and calm and jumped out over the needle. Then the needle began to wobble.
Ruby and I watched, enraptured, as the needle twisted and turned in place. Then it started to shift. It grew longer and more slender. It started to curve like a bow and though the hole in top never vanished, spikes grew from its side in a metallic curtain.
The prunes of the feather grew into place but the material never changed. It remained metallic with the spindles of hair like structures growing down from it.
When that was done Cloud slumped back in the chair and opened his eyes.
He reached out one hand and picked up the iron feather. The head of the needle had grown long and bent. The hole was still present but the shape of it as a whole had changed. He tossed it once into the air. "Well what do you know," he whispered. His will and mind had been enough to cause the needle to transform. His focus was sharp enough to transmute the shape if not the material.
"Cloud…" Ruby whispered. "You did it…"
He dropped the metallic feather and it clunked against the desk duly. Metallic cillia shone in the soft light that trickled in through the window.
"It's clunky. But it's mine," he whistled.
"You have magic," I breathed.
"What does it feel like?" Ruby asked.
"It's… it's not so different from aura. Not really. I think. Maybe that's still holding me back but it feels about the same. Not real easy to distinguish the two." He sighed.
I picked the feather up and ran my thumb along the edge of the hairs. It was sharp enough to cut oneself on. It was, well, as sharp as a needle point.
"Can the maidens do this type of thing? Or is it all fire and lightning? Like dust." I asked.
"I'm not sure. Magic is confusing," Cloud said. "But whatever it is I have it. I guess I had better let Ozpin know."
"Aren't you proud?" Ruby asked. Cloud mostly sounded bored and tired. Like the feat had exhausted him. "You did it. You changed it."
"I feel like it's less important than any other progress I might have made. But maybe a little." His voice was low and had a sexy little rasp to it with the weary tone.
He reached over and ruffled Ruby's hair and she shone up at him. He didn't dare try that kind of display of affection with me. But he did give my cheek a kiss which I deigned to allow.
"I think it's thanks to these sessions. I think that they're going to save me, if anything will," he said.
"Well with praise like that how can we stop now?" I rolled my eyes. "I suppose we'll have to keep going and see what happens."
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-WG
