Volume 1

Chapter 29

366

Part 1


January 18th, 3BFB

City of Kuchinashi, Kingdom of Mistral, World of Remnant

Cinder Fall's Residence

"Hey, have you guys seen Lee? I was hoping he'd be up for a spar."

Two heads turned at the voice, one green, the other pink and brown, both with looks of disbelief plastered across their features… Though, the owner of the first voice couldn't help but feel like there was also anger and not a little bit of exasperation mixed in. Confused, the first voice continued. "What? He's a tournament fighter now, I can't exactly act like he isn't worth sparring with?"

Gray eyes blinked in even more confusion as a coffee colored hand met its' owner's face, while white gloves massaged their owner's temples. After a moment, red eyes bore into gray with mild contempt. "You… do realize what today is, don't you?"

"...Thursday?"

The young man really didn't understand why both women were now groaning… He wasn't wrong, after all.

"No you idiot, the date. What's today's date?"

"Uh… January 18th, right?"

"Yes," the greenette acknowledged with a condescending tone. "And that date is important because…"

He had to think about it for a moment… And then another… And then several more… Before he finally had to admit: "I've got nothing."

Blood colored eyes contorted with rage and disgust, causing gray eyes to wince in anticipation of an incoming rant. "Oh for the love of-"

"1 year," The soft, nearly inaudible tone of the small girl interrupted, cutting off the tirade before it could truly begin. In a way, however, that was almost worse, considering the cold disappointment that he could feel contained within just those two syllables. "1 year since he woke up and discovered his old life is gone, and you wonder why you can't find him. Really, Mercury?"

Mercury, rolled his eyes at Neo, making sure to turn his head so that Emerald was included in the gesture. "Okay, and? It's been a year. So what? It's not like anyone died, and his life here is awesome. What's there to be upset about?"

Unsure whether Mercury was being serious, or if he was simply trying to aggravate them more, Neo simply curled her lip into a sneer and turned away, disgusted by him. Emerald, on the other hand, leveled him with the flattest stare Mercury had ever been subjected to. "All of his friends and family may still be alive, but after a year, he's probably been declared legally dead. And I don't know about you, dickwad, but I wouldn't hold out hope for even that long given what Lee says happened to him."

Unseen to Emerald, Neo directed an impressive stink eye towards her, not having taken well to the insinuation that what Lee told them had happened was anything less than the truth. Mercury, having seen the whole thing, resisted the urge to scoff; as far as he was concerned, Lee's story about an alternate reality was a crock of shit. Because, let's be honest here; while it was one hundred percent believable that Lee had been an average guy in every way that mattered prior to joining their group, there was simply no way to explain how he had just suddenly appeared in that alleyway with Cinder, apparently just dropping out of a portal directly into the path of an axe. Mercury had seen some freaky shit since being recruited by Cinder, enough to give him at least some belief in the supernatural (She just couldn't be explained any other way), but come on. Why would a guy like Lee get dragged into some sort of supernatural shit? Only way it made any sort of sense would be if he was a fantastic actor. Which, if one stopped to think about it, could actually be the case, given that he had performed outstandingly at the infiltration and reconnaissance aspects of the missions he'd been brought on thus far. Mercury was certain, and he was fairly sure that Emerald and even Cinder would agree with him: Lee was a liar, and more importantly, he was lying to them. Not to mention, the bastard was hiding something.

'Well,' Mercury corrected himself, 'Something more than just his true past.' He wasn't quite sure what it could be, but he had noticed a change in Lee, just after the Summer Rose mission. All of them had. But while Emerald had written it off as guilt, and Cinder had even welcomed the change (Mercury could see why; while Lee was still a bleeding heart compared to the rest of them, even he couldn't deny that Lee had gained that ruthless edge any good mercenary or assassin needed in order to survive), Mercury remained suspicious. Overly suspicious, the other 3 would tell him were he to voice his concerns, but Mercury felt he had good reason: the girls had been out of it, each of them wounded and distracted by the pain of having been shot, so they didn't see what happened during the final moments of The Fight. Cinder, having only been beaten up, had been out of the fight at the moment, but was not so far gone that she wasn't able to watch Lee finish it. Mercury, though? His only problem at the time had been a mutilated prosthetic, which was enough to put him out of the fight early on, but did nothing to stop him from watching the end of the fight with clear eyes… And, if he was being perfectly honest, what he saw had scared him. Lee had panicked, and was about a second away from getting wasted by Summer Rose, when Mercury had seen her freeze, and Lee's eyes had changed color. Shocking enough on it's own, but also not entirely outlandish with their group, seeing as Neo's did that all the time. However, what upgraded the phenomenon from surprising to outright alarming was the way both Lee's and Summer's Auras had manifested around themselves. But, Summer's, what little of it was left, had seemed to be feeding into Lee's, causing the cobalt blue to grow, and become tinged with flecks of silver… Only to turn back to a less threatening sky blue, just before Summer Rose managed to regain control of her body and headbutt Lee. His aura, which had been fading away from the visible spectrum, then snapped back into place, cobalt once again, and Lee's expression, just moments ago equal parts confused and terrified, had morphed into a blank, expressionless mask as he activated all of his aura reserves at once, manifesting into multiple javelins of different elements, which then speared through Summer Rose with so much force that she was launched a good 10 or 15 feet into the air and pinned to a tree. Only for that aura to then fade, and the emotion to return to Lee's face. When Mercury had described what he had seen to Cinder, she had written it off as some freak phenomenon that could supposedly occur when relatives fought each other, even if they were distant… Well, if Lee was somehow related to Summer Rose, it would have to have been extremely distantly, to the point where any sane person wouldn't even consider them related. When Mercury pointed that out, Cinder had merely shrugged and gone into a lecture on genetics which he only half understood, but had basically boiled down to being possible for some reason or other, just extremely unlikely. Mercury still didn't believe it; none of the others had seen it…

Shuddering, Mercury shook his head, not willing to go mad thinking about it, and ignored the look of confusion Emerald now painted him with, clearly the result of his having zoned out for a moment. "Whatever," he fired off, mask of bravado firmly back in place. "If you happen to see him, tell him he owes me a spar, would you? Who knows, maybe getting his ass kicked will get his mind off of it!" With that parting shot, Mercury turned on his heels and walked off, intent on finding some other way of occupying his time…

With Mercury gone, that left Emerald and Neo to continue the conversation they had been having before his arrival had interrupted them, the two half full glasses of lemonade on the table between them having long since been forgotten. "Okay," the mint haired thief began, choosing, as always, to ignore strange behavior from Mercury; it was better for her sanity, after all. "If we were in Vale, we would have an obvious list of places to look for him, but seeing as we're in Kuchinashi, where do you think he might have gone to sulk? Maybe the stadium?" The stadium in question, of course, being the one in which Lee had come in second place for the qualifiers of the MRCT. As far as Emerald was aware, Lee didn't exactly frequent too many other places outside of the compound in which they lived, so it was the only other place she could think of for Lee to have gone...

Neo might have been selectively mute, but the single raised middle finger that was suddenly thrust into Emerald's face was more than sufficient to convey just what the half pint thought of Emerald's comment. "Well excuse me for calling it how exactly how I fucking see it. Just because he has good reason to doesn't change the fact that he is sulking, and you know it."

A glare from Neo was met by a pointed, unyielding stare from Emerald. Perhaps she should have expected Neo to react so angrily when making such a snide comment about the half pint's boyfriend to her face, but things had been tense between them ever since Lee had decided to pursue a relationship with Neo, at the cost of Emerald's own… something. She could be honest enough with herself to admit that she had felt something for Lee, but not to the extent that she'd want to actually commit to a relationship. Not when he clearly preferred the sickening puppy dog affection that both he and Neo tended towards… Not that Emerald was bitter. Not at all; no, the only thing pertaining to the situation which she was, perhaps, slightly annoyed about, was that Neo couldn't wait for Emerald and Lee to actually call things off before making her move. Thus, Emerald was hardly going to pull any of her punches just to spare the little shit's feelings, seeing as her own clearly hadn't mattered…

When Emerald came out of her thoughts, it was to find a flat stare aimed at her, rather than the angry one she recalled just a moment ago. The only sign Emerald could see that the girl was probably trying to get her attention and speak directly into her head. "Neo, you know that doesn't really work on me; if you want me to actually understand you, you're gonna have to actually talk."

Bemusedly, Emerald watched the pint-sized ice cream visually struggle with the decision, and rolled her eyes with an exasperated huff (which went completely unnoticed); though emerald had long grown used to it, the fact that Neo was selectively mute, and thus chose not to ever really talk, was extremely frustrating. The only truly notable exceptions occurred when she was talking to Lee, or if it was an emergency involving one of them. Thankfully, however, Neo made up her mind before Emerald could start ranting to herself about how much that made her want to retch.

"He wouldn't be somewhere like that; he's sad because he's missing his old life. He isn't going to go looking for reminders about what's going on in this one…" Neo's voice, soft from both disuse and distress (though not nearly as tenuous as it once was), carried more than a hint of worry. It was a worry that Emerald could understand, given that she somewhat shared it.

A rational person might, perhaps, wonder whether the complicated relationship between herself and Lee might have compromised her ability to think objectively about his motivations. Emerald herself, however, would contend that it was a nonfactor. Contrary to what one might expect given her usual derision towards overly strong emotions (particularly, the positive ones such as 'love' and 'excitement'), Emerald actually understood them fairly well; it came along with being a natural empath. And being a natural empath came part and parcel with having a Semblance that requires one to delve as deeply into the human mind as Emerald's allowed her to. After all, it would be a pointless Semblance indeed if she could distort one's perception of reality, but remained unable to feel how her target was perceiving it. It was an invaluable tool which made thievery so much easier for her, but it had also led her to develop a highly developed understanding of the human/Faunas psyche, one which could very easily give a psychiatrist with a pHD a run for their money, and it was that which had initially piqued Cinder's interest in a grungy street urchin oh so long ago. Emerald was good at predicting human behavior if she knew at least a little bit of the context, so it was very easy to guess that:

"He's looking to escape for a while."

That deduction was met with a sad frown as Neo nodded in confirmation. "Yeah. And I already checked Cinder's stash; that bottle of whiskey he was thinking about swiping is still there. Either he came to his sense and realized that probably isn't the best way to get Cinder to kick things up a notch on the sparring mat," both girls snorted at that; he got far too much of a kick out of playing with fire (literally when Cinder was involved), "or he decided that he… wanted to be alone…"

Under any other circumstances, Emerald would have felt a twinge of satisfaction at the flash of hurt which Neo wasn't quite quick enough to keep from making it onto her expression. However, since she was worried too, she found herself placing a hand on the smaller girl's shoulder, a reassuring grin on her face. "Maybe at first, but he's been alone long enough now that I'm sure he'd appreciate the company if you find him. Knowing him, he's probably hanging out a bar somewhere."

Though Neo did shrug Emerald's hand off of her shoulder, Emerald counted it a success seeing as A, Neo didn't swat at her hand, and B, Neo's expression changed from a visage that Emerald knew to be wounded and betrayed to one that was optimistic and determined.

"Yeah, you're right!" The small girl cheered, clenching her fists in front of herself. "I bet I even know which one he's at! He was talking about it after we saw that movie yesterday!" From there, Neo began to wax poetic about all the things they had done on their date…

'How sickeningly sweet.' Emerald deadpanned to herself as she observed Neo animatedly recount her experience. Don't get her wrong, Emerald was glad that Neo was in a better mood, and thus more likely to be productive about finding Lee and keeping him out of trouble; she was hardly about to be a bitch and tell her to shut up. However, that didn't mean she was going to sit there and wait for Neo to stop gushing, either.

"That's great, Neo," Emerald interrupted her mid-sentence with a slightly strained smile, "but instead of talking about how good your date went, why don't you go make sure he's okay?"

Neo blinked, her own smile losing a couple of molars due to being interrupted, and then a couple more as her brain finally caught up to her mouth, finally realizing just why talking about that particular subject to this particular audience might be just the littlest bit awkward. "Right. I'll, uh, get right on that. You coming with?"

"Nah." The response was almost a little too quick, and thus, worried that Neo might take it to mean she was still angry about Lee breaking things off (she absolutely was not), she decided to explain. "I really do need to work on that chemistry homework Cinder assigned us; I really don't want to go through remedial lessons again…"

Both girls shuddered; Emerald had once been forced to write a 5 paragraph essay about the difference between ionic and covalent bonds, and just why it was so important to know the difference when it came to mixing chemicals (which might sound like overkill, until one realizes that, in the line of work their group was involved in, it was very likely they would have to build and/or defuse bombs some day). Neo, on the other hand, had been subjected to drill upon drill before she finally memorized how to calculate the volume of nonlinear objects, when using the water displacement method wasn't an option; being able to tell how many rounds were in a non-standard drum magazine, or how much Dust was left in an Aura user's canisters might be useful when sizing up a Huntsman and figuring out just what they could be capable of. Mercury had once had to rewrite an essay three times because he had not had a firm enough grasp of the villain's motivations in a classic crime novel, while Lee spent more time with his nose in a history book and on The Archive than the rest of them combined, in order to not embarrass himself by not knowing the history of the world, and to hopefully gain more relevant pop culture references than the ones he had brought with him from his own world (unfortunately, they were still working on that, and probably would be for at least another decade). Cinder would accept nothing less than an 85% average in any academic pursuits her charges made, no matter the subject, so they really had no choice but to 'GiT GuD,' as Lee would put it, in the areas that they weren't very strong in individually.

"Right, right. Good luck with that…" Neo muttered, before disappearing with a poof, undoubtedly just as eager to avoid getting asked for help as she was to go find her boyfriend.

"Ugh…" Emerald groaned as she began to trudge to her room. "Better get this over with…"


Wow. Been way too long, but I'm still going, folks! And good news, we are nearly done with Volume 1. One, maybe two more chapters, and boom, the first volume of this story is wrapped up, 5 years later. The next chapter is already about... not quite halfway done, but I've made enough progress on it and I have enough time on my hands that I expect to be updating this no later than May 13th.

On that note, please, reviews are life! Until next time!

-Denkura :)