To those who may recognize what is shown, I own none of the sources of what you read, should you recognize them.
Chapter 2 – IMAGE I, Awakened
The members of team _NPR, after getting through the painful reaction that was the realization of failing to recall the leader of their own team, though like RWBY also felt something amiss, were then given the overview of what RWBY learned, the knowledge of their realities fate, what they may have to see to find out what had happened to their world, and what exactly it all entailed.
"So, in order to find out what happened to Remnant, and to our leader," Ren stated, "we have to look at realities that are linked to the reason why we are here and why we cannot see our world from here."
"In the most basic of terms, yes," Mirai stated, "we were just about to start viewing the first reality when you arrived, and Nora's pancake-based desires reminded me as well."
Then the room shifted slightly, and multiple, comfortable recliner type chairs appeared, a cube on either side of the chairs, two rectangular openings on the wall appeared, next to them appeared the stick figure outline of a man and a woman showing the openings to be bathrooms, then several other openings appeared as well, eight in total, six were numbered with dorms 1-6, one said dining area, the final said recreation.
"You will all be here for a while, so certain facilities are now prepared for the long stay, including clothes, undergarments, toiletries, bedding and the like, a dining area where we will eat during evening hours, which aren't for a couple more hours, and a recreation area to either train yourselves, play games, or whatever you consider fun," Mirai stated to them, then pointed to the chairs, "the chairs are fully reclining and have cushioning that only those considered unimaginably wealthy can afford."
"Oh, I am going to test that out right no-oooOOOAAAAHHHH," Nora sat on her chair and just sagged into the seat, "oh gods this feels amazing."
Then by a thought, the chair started to vibrate around the parts of her body that felt sore, she felt herself melt with how it felt.
"OHHHH-YEEEAAAAHHHH, this … is … GLORIOUS," Nora stated as she just melted into the chair, then she thought something else, and on the cube on her right, appeared a stack of chocolate chip-blueberry pancakes with whipped cream and a cherry on top, Nora eyeing the glorious confection with barely contained hunger, and on her left she saw a cool refreshing glass of orange juice.
While Nora began to eat her beloved pancakes and drinking the orange juice so as not to choke, the others looked at all this with very wide-eyed and expectant looks.
"Yeah, thought controlled seats, intelligent mass transmission array for transporting foods and items, also uses thoughts, but only a strong image of the desired item, not a vague thought, took a while to fix that issue," Mirai stated to the gathered individuals, "so yeah, this system basically gets you what you want, and allows you to view in comfort, and what are you waiting for the seats are right there, go get them."
Ruby, Wiess, Blake, Yang, Ren and Pyrrha did just that, they all but melted into the seats, and were shocked at one thing.
"PUUURRRRR"
All of them slowly turned to Blake, who was now covering her mouth with her hands, her face beet red at what she just uttered from her mouth.
"Cats show their love of comfort by purring in happiness, the greater the comfort, the greater the chance they will purr, also Blake everyone here known you're a cat Faunus, no shame in it, also your ribbon isn't on your head anymore, likely was one of the things not transported over either," Mirai stated, Blake shocked at realizing that her ears had been out for everyone to see all along.
"No one here thinks bad of your ears or is a racist, I myself included," Mirai stated to Blake, who seeing the approving nods of her friends calmed down, "actually I find your ears and the overall look they give you quite cute, and I am of the minority of individuals who see 'cuteness as justice, but that's me, and quite a startling amount of other individuals who would honestly call you cute Blake and mean it."
Blake became a bit flustered at this, but Mirai continued with the discussion.
"Well then, when we start the viewing, there will be times where you will likely want to comment on the happenings of the realities we will be viewing, so the viewing will have certain pauses to allow you to make your comments, also as I stated before the realities we see will have some parts that may not like seeing, but are part of the reality overall so I am afraid you will just need to accept what you see, or don't, it's all your choice honestly, and unfortunately for many alternate Arc's we will be seeing, a choice that wasn't theirs to make," Mirai stated bluntly to them, "also another word of caution, for in all these realities, while it will start with the Jaune Arc you are familiar with …"
… they all end with Arc being either altered into, or sometimes succeeded by someone drastically different."
"Wait, a minute," Pyrrha stated, "altered, succeeded, what happens to Jaune, what does that mean."
"It means that the journey either ends up with the Jaune Arc you know being changed, quite drastically I might add, by the events that occur in their journeys, or are succeeded by another or others who will carry on their path in his stead," stated Mirai, "also the changes do not take away from the fact that the ending, or usually endings of their journey at least all end on at worst a more positive note than most others, especially those Arcs that were truly altered by their journeys in a very negative direction and ended up either bringing a bad ending or an unacceptable ending."
"Question," Ruby said, "what's the difference between a bad end and an unacceptable end."
"A bad end is where there were all options to secure even a positive bittersweet end either did not work, were all sabotaged in some way, or were considered too late, and if the focus of that reality is in fact working towards the realization of such an ending, usually by a warped, broken or truly irredeemable individual." Mirai then goes on to explain the other ending, "an unacceptable ending is essentially where everything ends in a bad end not because there were no options, or the character was truly evil or irredeemable. Rather it is due to short-sightedness, no desire for compromise, the foolishness of a characters ideals, and other such points that lead to an bad end that should have easily been avoidable, if the individuals of the 'journey' had taken the time to consider their options, make compromises, get all opinions across, even simply talking things through, but they don't, they make all the wrong decisions and the bad end is the result."
"Huh, I never really thought of it like that," Blake thought, remembering some of her books, "there were some points when I was reading where I thought that there was a way the characters could have done something much easier or resolved a fight better, yet it always felt like they were just making decisions that just led to more problems."
"Oh, trust me Blake, that happens a lot, from the same incidents being repeated with an easily predictable pattern, to characters essentially going in circles performing the same actions that get them into trouble without ever really learning from the mistake and continue to repeat the same thing," Mirai stated remembering multiple such 'journeys' where such events took place, "I believe those events can fall under the overused trope of a 'running gag', where similar incidents take place in a story for the sake of humor, and 'recurring elements' in which such tropes are used multiple times throughout a story where events occur within almost predictable points during the story."
"Also I do believe we have been putting off viewing the 'journeys' that need to be seen for quite long enough I believe," Mirai stated to them, "so, shall we take our seats and begin the viewing, to see the alternate lives of the Jaune you know change to something different."
"That part still confuses me," Pyrrha stated, "how exactly does Jaune change, and why is this change such a major point here."
Mirai fixes Pyrrha with a very focused gaze, "oh trust Miss Nikos, once you see these changes, you and any others who are here or may arrive later, will know why."
Mirai then let the screen expand to take up most of the wall of their 'theater', while some of the girls got some snacks and drinks using the cubes.
The screen shifted, leading to a wavering pattern of four luminous points of light circling the center of the screen, then coalesce at the center, and then expand outward to the corners of the screen, and the image appeared, allowing RWBY, NPR and Mirai to view the first reality of Jaune Arc.
Jaune Arc, currently a student at Beacon Academy, having gotten in even though his transcripts were falsified, was in fact truly enjoying his time at Beacon Academy.
Through the school year he had made many close friends, helped them and other students with problems they may have had, with the one he helped mostly being a girl from team CFVY, Velvet Scarlatina when Cardin gave her trouble, though it ended up being trouble, for him though his team did have his back.
The relationship between his teammates, their fellow team RWBY and himself had a rocky patch when he came clean with his transcripts, they were a bit upset at that, but he had fought and stood by them so they let it go, though Wiess was still a bit upset about it, for her own personal reasons.
"Considering what I needed to go through to get into Beacon, why wouldn't I be upset," Wiess fumed remembering when Jaune came clean regarding his transcripts, then she huffed and calmed down, "but he did at least prove himself a few times so I kept my complaints to myself."
The others nodded in agreement, Jaune having proved that he had what it took to be in Beacon.
Though there were some bad spots, he still managed to pull through it all with the help of his teammates, he managed to pull through many of his predicaments, thanks to the teaching Pyrrha gave him, the encouragement and aide of Nora and Ren, and even some support from the member of team RWBY, even Wiess surprisingly, he was truly happy with his current life as a huntsman-in-training.
They had all finished their first semester, and he went to go visit his family who had originally been against him becoming a hunter, but seeing their son so happy and having an excellent team to support him, they soon found themselves encouraging their son to continue, which filled Jaune with a strong sense of Pride, even his sisters were happy with his choice, all seven of them.
PSSSSHHHHHH
A rather loud spit take came from Yang, incredulous at what she heard.
"'cough' 'cough', s-seven, he has seven sisters," Yang said as the others were also stunned to hear that statement.
"Huh, I guess that's why he got used to living and being around us so quickly," Ren said, "having me as his brother figure must have been a change of pace for him, and with that many girls around you he must have not had a problem being in the same room with other girls with that level of femininity in his life."
"Quite so Ren," Mirai stated, "essentially living with his sisters allowed him to easily get used to being much calmer in the presence of other women, though not entirely, though also having that large a family would lead to trouble with finding a relationship, which is also why he has such a poor grasp on Romance, which I'm pretty sure he just read in a romance book he found in the library."
The two teams thought back to all the times he tried to romance Wiess, and thought that yes, it did all seem to be something one would find in a book.
As the break wound to a close, Jaune prepared to head back to Beacon, something came up in his hometown of Arcadia, a rather large town that was founded by his family many years before his time, with a small report that a pack of Beowolves had been sighted near the town, and there was a request to eliminate them.
Jaune took up the request seeing it as an excellent opportunity to test his newly acquired skills and as something to tell his friends about when he got back to Beacon.
He soon left Arcadia and ventured to where the Beowolves were last sighted, making his way to where they were, soon finding five of them all looking about, trying to find something to kill.
"Alright, lets do this," Jaune psyched himself up, and then, he charges at the first beowolf.
"HAAH," Jaune yells as he cuts down the first Beowolf, "that's one."
Then he moves to the side as another beowolf swings its claw at him, barely missing before Jaune drove his sword into its chest, striking its heart and killing it, "that's two."
Then he uses his shield to block an attack from the third while fourth tried to get him from behind, only for Jaune to pull a surprising spin technique that allowed him to, almost gracefully avoid the strike from the fourth which struck and killed the third before he then severed its head with his sword as it stared surprised.
"Three and four," Jaune said as he looked at the fading Grimm, "huh, who knew those dancing lessons my mom made me take would come in handy."
"Fearless leader can dance," Nora stated, surprised at this bit of knowledge.
"Not in all realities, but in a several he does take some other activities up when his parents encouraged him for one reason or another to take up a career other than being a huntsman," Mirai stated to them.
Mirai noticed all of them looking at her, and stated, "why else do you think he got those fake transcripts in the first place, in pretty much nearly all realities, his parents didn't want him to be a huntsman even though it was what he desired the most, which usually forces him to get the fake transcripts to get into Beacon as his only other available option, true fact, really."
The group took this in, realizing how Jaune never backed down from anything they did, no matter how tough it was, so entirely focused on being a huntsman, not even considering giving up, even Wiess started to see Jaune in a new light.
"Alright," Jaune stated, turning to the last Beowolf, "now just one … more?"
He then noticed the beowolf wasn't looking at him, but rather, it was looking in a random direction, then it took off in that direction, with Jaune soon giving chase.
The chase went deep into a dark part of the forest, before ending at a small cave, in which the beowolf entered, with close behind, ready to enter when …
… KI-PIIIIINNNGGGGG
A loud sound and strong, yet brief burst of light echoed from the cave, with Jaune startled by the sudden flash.
"What the heck was that," Yang stated, stunned by the sudden flash.
"Ow," Blake said, the flash having been released in the now darkened room.
Jaune slowly approached the cave, sheathing Crocea Mors in his sheath as he entered, seeing two things as he wandered into the cave.
One was the slowly fading beowolf, having been blasted into the wall by something.
Second was what Jaune guessed was the something that blasted the beowolf.
At first glance, it seemed to be a pile of black metal scraps that were worked into some strange little art piece, but a brief flash and the flaps of the small object spreading out, giving it the look of an metallurgist/artists interpretation of the of the sun, with six long pointed points on a ring with some small points along it, the ring surrounding a central sphere with a dark lens in the center, white light blinking out from the lens.
"Huh, what is this," Jaune stated as he picked up the strange object.
"Uh-uh, no Jaune, don't pick up the weird object," Blake stated, "I've read enough to know that picking up strange objects leads to something bad happening."
The others were also worried as they saw Jaune pick up the strange object, worried about what would happen.
Jaune held the object up, noting that there didn't seem to be any connection between the ring and the sphere, yet the sphere and ring did not separate, some unknown force holding the two in place.
Looking at the object, Jaune saw many small little indents that appeared to be writing on parts of the objects surface, then a flicker from the main lens drew his attention.
"Man, what the heck is th-!"
The lens then lit up with a ring of pale white light, and a flash burst forth from the center of the ring.
KAP-IIIINNNNNGGGGG
Jaune was rendered near blind by the flash, and suddenly had an almost crippling headache as the flash pierced deep into his head, leaving his mind a jumbled and broken mess as his vision swam, leaving little for him to recognize.
Yet as his vision returned, and the headache slowly subsided, he then started to see and feel again what was going on … around … him.
"When did I sit down," Jaune asked aloud, "in a chair?"
"Why is it now completely dark?"
"Wasn't I in in the forest, why am I in a r-GAAH!"
Then the lights came on, revealing a room with two large windows on either side of a moderately large room, with the chair facing the only door, the door being a military type metal door, the type the slides up when opening and slides down when closing, and the whole room was heavily worn, a few cracks in the glass, the room having the look of not being cleaned in a while, also a desk with several computer terminals and CPU towers on one wall.
Yet it was the strange blotches on the floors and walls that worried Jaune, the dark stains being a deep black color, yet to Jaunes relief it wasn't blood that caused the stains …
… to his HORROR though, he saw as the dark liquid dripped out of strange structures resembling large growths, either on the walls or stuck INTO the computer equipment, with the CPU towers seeming to 'bleed' out onto the floor, the black liquid dripping from the growths, and as Jaune turned to the rooms he saw one room was open, had some of the strange black, metallic growths in the room, though the incredibly dim light made it difficult to see much of the room ….
… the OTHER room however, he wished he could not see AT ALL!
The 'room' was completely overrun with almost tree trunk sized veins of the dark material, the floor and walls of the room torn up as the veins tore through the room, sinking back into the walls, the veins having what appeared to be long cables woven in the veins, the cables dripping with the black fluid, either hardening into the veins and even morphing into new cables or sharp spikes of metal that sunk into the floor.
Jaune looked at this in horrified silence at what he had only thought existed in either science fiction/horror movies or some of his darkest and most terrible nightmares.
The looks of adject horror at the sheer nightmare scenario that was now very apparent on the faces of the group, minus Mirai who was just a bit disturbed.
"What … in the gods names … is THAT!" Wiess spoke, looking at the nightmare image from the mind of a disturbed sci-fi/horror writer.
"I forewarned you that the realities we would be seeing would not be pulling punches," Mirai stated to them, "so expect there to be quite a number of things in these realities that will be quite difficult to swallow, and will range from horrible to disturbing, but what will need to be seen if the fate of your reality is to be known."
The group, still disturbed by what they saw, all nodded, they did want to know what was happening to their reality, and if it meant seeing some difficult things, then they would do it.
"Though I will warn you ahead of time, that you will see something quite … disturbing and a bit horrifying later on, just a fair warning," Mirai warned the group.
The group took her advice to heart and steeled themselves as best they could for what was to come.
(It wouldn't help anyway)
Jaune then tried to get up from where he sat, but found his body weighed a substantial amount, his legs feeling like lead, his arms feeling quite heavy, and his arms feeling like they were pressed by heavy lead weights.
As Jaune began struggling to move his arms and legs, a shadow seemed to settle in the room, Jaune himself trying to lift his arms when he felt something was in front of him.
He turned to face the front …
… and almost literally in his face was what seemed to be a large vein with a dark, non-reflective, semi-spherical lens at its tip, the tip and lens in his face, and in the lens were two rings of light, with a small spot at the center, the light a pale white, reminding Jaune of the strange devi-!
"So, you are, awake now," the rings of the lens wobbled like rippling waves as a voice, neither male nor female, came from a speaker located at the edge of the room, Jaune noticing a cable from the speaker went into the vein that was in front of him, "how are you feeling as of right now, any problems with your thinking, sudden bouts of anger, something unnatural in your thinking, besides feeling of annoyance, worry at your current situation, or the incessant desire to figure out what is going on."
Jaune, who realized he was having those feelings, and was being told this by the strange vein, just responded with, "besides those things … no, not really," Jaune didn't know why, but he decided to answer truthfully.
"Good, then your mental processes are all in good order, that's a relief at least," the vein then projected a holographic circle that had random numbers and strange letters Jaune didn't recognize, and then it ran the circle over Jaune's body, with flashes of data appearing through the circle as it passed over Jaunes body, then the circle was centered in front of the vein, with it looking over the date it gathered, but what it said began to worry Jaune, greatly.
"Okay, according to this overall structural integrity is at about 63%, multiple breaks in nerve link throughout the body, link in right arm and leg connections to main and tertiary synapse are poor, link in left leg should be looked at, visual and auditory processes are working good, and endo-frame is stable with no real issue, nothing a quick trip to Weaver can't fix up, so far we are looking good for-!"
"Uh, what are you talking about, what does all that mean," Jaune said, now quite confused.
The vein said nothing, the circles in its lens pulsing once, as it then looked at Jaune directly.
"Who are you, what is your identity," it spoke to Jaune as it gazed almost into his soul, the sudden serious tone not willing to accept anything but an answer.
"M-my name, its Jaune, Jaune Arc," Jaune proclaimed to the vein, "I am Jaune Arc."
The vein looked at him.
"No, you're not."
The vein stated to him, and it spoke in serious tone like what it said was complete fact.
"What," Jaune said confused, "what do you mean I'm not."
"Who are you, answer me truthfully now," the vein spoke again.
"What!" Jaune was feeling a bit annoyed bat gave the answer again, "what are you talking about, I am Jaune Arc?"
It was right there, right then that Jaune began to feel something was wrong, for a moment, his voice had changed just slightly, becoming slightly higher pitched and with a slight electronic warble to it.
"W-what, what was," Jaune was now a bit more worried, then the vein asked again.
"Tell me with absolute assurance, are. You. Jaune. Arc," the vein sounded now even more serious than it did before, "answer."
"It's the truth, that is who I am," Jaune was now quite agitated but answered anyway, "I am, beyond any doubt JauneArc!"
In that last moment, the voice that sounded at the end was less his own voice, and instead sounded more like the voice of a girl speaking through a poor quality speaker, at medium volume, but that began to get Jaune severely worried at what was going on.
"What, what is even happening," the female sounding voice was becoming clearer as jaune spoke, the strangeness of the voice itself and the electronic edge that came with the voice left Jaune incredibly worried and deeply disturbed.
"Okay, this is getting a bit weird, and scary," Ruby said, the sudden change of Jaunes voice and the vein itself, and how it seemed to be doing something regarding Jaune.
"What is that creepy metal, snake/worm, thing doing to Jaune-jaune," Nora said, worried about what happened to her leader.
Pyrrha was quite blatantly worried about what was happening to her crush, her face pale at what was happening.
"You need to calm down, otherwise your neural coding will become damaged from your outburst," the vein told the agitated Jaune, "I can give you the answer to what is happening but I need you calm for that to happen."
"Calm, you want mecalm," Jaune got up and moved to the vein, "what didyou do tom-!"
A sharp tug on his now moving arms legs and back made him very aware of something that should not be there, and looked at his arms …
… eyes widening in horror at long cables that were put into his arms, the points piercing his skin, and saw that more cables were piercing his legs through his pants, some of the cables being similar to the ones dripping the black liquid, and as he felt behind him, his horror grew even more palpable as he felt a thick cable embedded in his back, and one that was going into the back of his head!
"Haah, haah, haah, what … is … happe-!"
VZZ, VZZ
Jaune had been looking at his arm, his mind in a rictus of chaos, and then, for but a moment like a scroll monitor suffering a glitch, his vision seemed to stutter like that of a faulty view screen.
In that moment, his arm … changed, from his usual simple, male arm, to a markedly female one, that was meshed with many cables, metal components, and dark veins like the dark liquid.
NO
Jaune jolted back, the terror, horror and disgust now permeating through his body, a massive freak out building beneath the surface as he struggled to try and make sense of it all, while trying to deny the possibility of something horrible having happened.
"Okay," the vein said, as it appeared before Jaune, who now looked at the thing like a terrible monster, "I have had to go through this over 269 times already, but I have managed to help the others pull through, and I will help you pull through this."
Then a long rectangular shape on an industrial type robotic manipulator moved down from the ceiling, the arm making it so that the other side of the large rectangle was not facing his direction.
"It is better to realize the reality of ones situation than to allow ones mental strain to grow worse from ignorance," the vein looked close at Jaune, then pulled back, and moved the arm with the rectangle in front of Jaune, "it will be easier to explain the full depths of your condition and situation if you are made aware of your present reality, so …"
It turns the rectangle to Jaune, revealing it to be a clear, two-meter-tall, one-meter-wide mirror.
"… this is your present reality."
At first, Jaune saw himself in the mirror, the wires lagging behind him, weaving through the chair he had been on and leading to a large socket on the wall, with what seemed to a large battery of some kind inside of it, a readout on the side showing the charge at forty-three percent. This left Jaune confused, as he saw nothing wrong with hi-!
VVZZ
For a moment, his vision warbled, and his body seemed to shudder like the image on a defective screen.
VZZVZZ
His vision warped again, and his body seemed to, glitch, for no better term.
VZZVZZVZZZ
His vision viciously glitched, this time, Jaune caught, for an instant, his body morph to something horrific in that instant.
… no …
He slowly approached the mirror, his body shuddering, glitching slightly as he slowly approached, horror and fear, pulsing through his mind.
… no …
He reached his hand out, the glitching now taking up most of his vision, warping the image of his body, his physical form now blurred by the glitching.
… no … no … no …
Jaune pressed his hand on the glass, the glitching now becoming more erratic, and in some portions, the glitching seemed to glitch portions of his body very briefly, showing a sort of metal-flesh macabre underneath, until it returned to normal.
….. no ….
The glitching ceased, and the mirror seemed to show the visage of Jaunes normal, everyday self, and slowly, he felt his mind calm, grasping onto the small glimmer of hope that this was just a bad dream, and that he was fine …
VZZVZZVZZZ
… only for that small glimmer …
VZZVZZVZZZZ
… to be viciously …
VZZZZVZZZXXX
… torn away.
VZZVZZVZZZZZXXXXSSSSSHHHHHHCCKKKK-SNAP
With that sudden final glitch, the image of his body, of his hope that it was nothing but a dream, fell away.
In place of it, in the mirror, was a horrific, nightmarish macabre of machinery merged to flesh, muscle exposed in patches with tangles bundles of veins interwoven, metal shards and pieces covering portions of arms, legs and torso, with large openings in the skin showing connecting wires, metal bone replacements and veins all merged throughout the body of what would have been a rather nice looking girl in her early-twenties, with all the important portions done away due to the black material seeming to blur these parts out, though the horror of the form eliminated any arousing thoughts. That and the entire body was dripping the black fluid from every opening in the body onto the floor.
The body was one thing, but the face … oh gods, the face.
Half still held the original face of the body, showing a young visage with soft light tan skin, now marred with veins of the black liquid running through it, a single eye with pale grey scelera, though a prosthetic as it had a circular pattern similar to what the lens on the large vein had in it, and a white point at the center, the hair being a charcoal color, all in all not really bad looking.
Until one saw the other side, with the other half of the head gone, replaced by a metallic device that seemed to be a thick metal ring that would just barely fit into the head if it was still there, with four portions jutting out, giving the ring a sort of hollowed cross-like shape, and in the center was a dark lens-like sphere, suspended in the center by an unknown force as there were no physical connections holding the sphere. Veins, wires and metal components also took up the space that was once occupied by the other half of the face and head.
This was all taken in, in under two point six seconds, and when it all hit, there was only one real response …
Agh … aGH … AAAGHHH … AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
The response from the viewers, is what one would expect.
Horror and pandemonium
"AAAAGGHHHH," Nora shrieked, jumping into Ren's arms, who also released an, ahem, 'manly retort of fear (screamed like a frightened schoolgirl)' while holding tightly onto Nora.
"OH MY GODS, WHAT THE HELL EVEN IS THAT," Wiess screeched at the horrifying visage of what was Jaune, then she turned to see Ruby getting ready to lose her meal, which had been three (nervously eaten) plates of chocolate chip cookies, and a thought from Wiess materialized a bin with the words 'waste disposal' on the side, "IN HERE RUBY, IN HERE."
Wiess held Ruby as the girl proceeded to 'toss her cookies' into the bin, the poor girl having taken the scene quite badly as she kept emptying out the contents of her stomach, until she calmed down, and pressed herself to Wiess's chest for any form of comfort, which Wiess shockingly allowed …
… even though her clothes were now stained by Ruby's barf.
"NO, HELL NO, YOU DON'T FUCKING PULL THIS SHIT, THIS IS GOING WAY TO FAR," Yang yelled out as she held close a shuddering and terrified cat Faunus who clung to the buxom brawler in a death grip, "THERE ARE LIMITS OKAY, THERE ARE LIMITS."
"THUD"
They all turned to the sound, and saw Pyrrha splayed out on the ground, her eyes having rolled into the back of her head, foam coming out of her mouth out of stark terror.
In an instant, Mirai types several commands into a holo-screen, and a barrier appeared above Wiess and Ruby, coming down and cleaning off the barf from them, leaving them quite clean, and a bucket of ice water was dumped on Pyrrha, startling her awake before an energy ring passed over her, removing the splashed water while doing no harm to her.
"I distinctly recall saying that we would be seeing things you would not like and that these realities were not going to start nice," Mirai stated to them, making them remember her earlier warning, "I had forewarned all of you that these realities are not going to start good, only end good, and I am afraid that said 'good ending' is still very far off, so we can either finish this current viewing or we can argue, your choice."
The arranged group wanted to say something regarding what happened, but the sharp 'no dumb questions' gaze Mirai had made them realize they didn't really have any good questions, so they slowly got back to their seats.
The viewing continued along.
AAAGGGHHHH
AAAUUUGGGGHHH
AAAGGGHH-AAAUUUGGGHHHH
Jaune was now completely hysterical, looking between his horrific visage in the mirror, and his own warped arms and legs, the whole thing being too much for his now frazzled mind to handle, his voice now completely replaced by a warped, female voice with an electronic echo as I backed up to the wall, the mirror still following me as it was guided to me by the mechanical aperture.
AUUGGHH, AUUUHH, UHHH, UHHH
My screams soon gave way to cries as I felt the terror wear off, soon replaced by mournful cries as he felt despair take hold of him, his realization and the presence of the mirror only adding to the despair curling around what Jaune wasn't sure was a heart or a battery, the thought of his current inhumanity only making him/her/ it?
The thought of whatever it was only added to it, as it was a man's mind trapped in the warped, machine driven body of a girl, the absurdity of it would have been slightly humorous if it was not happening to it.
"You are not an it," Jaune(?) turned to see the Vein as it gazed at it, "I have met far too many who tried to ruin themselves with that type of thinking, but right now I can only say this …"
"… let it out."
It looked confused at first, but as the feeling of despair continued, it felt the urge to either cry out or to viciously break something, despair and anger soon roiling together in its m-!
CLANG
On the floor, dropped directly in front of it …
… was a metal sledgehammer.
Immediately, everyone went very still at this.
"No Jaune, no," Ruby spoke, a terrible thought coming out of this.
"Fearless leader, I don't know if you can hear this, and I can say this is very hypocritical coming from me as well as knowing big words, but there are situations where you do and do not smash, and this is a big do not moment here," Nora stated, realizing what such a scene implied.
"Jaune," Pyrrha gazed at the altered form of the one she cared for, "no."
The being that was once Jaune could only look down at the sledgehammer, tears of dark fluid falling from its eye and the lens on its head, as well as dripping down from its body.
Then it looked back at the Vein.
"The mirror, the items in this room, or myself, I will not stop," the Vein spoke to Jaune(?) as it looked at it, "I will not blame you for the action you take, I merely am offering a way to release what is pent up within you, and if it is me who suffers for it, then it was for the best …"
… I am just a machine after all."
It looked at the Vein, the same Vein that woke it to this warped reality, the Vein that was probably the cause for its current predicament, the thing that made it aware of its current existence by shoving this fact almost literally in its face.
It didn't know when it had moved to stand over the Vein …
… or why it was now holding the sledgehammer in its hands.
Yet it just felt the roiling waves of frustration and anger, anger that was pointed at this machine construct, the thing hat was likely the reason for its current predicament, and why it was now essentially a monstrous amalgamation.
It had a right to be angry, it knew that what happened to it was nightmarish and cruel, and yet …
… felt like this was wrong, and that it was wrong.
"If you are going to strike me down, aim your blow here if you would," then a part of the Vein opened itself, revealing the familiar shape of the hollowed cross with the lens sphere, the sphere glowing with a dim light as it was revealed, "this is my neural core, my 'brain' if you will, strike this and I will go down quite handily, though if you want to destroy other portion of my frame, I will not offer any defense."
The Vein turned downward, opening the point with the device up further, "If breaking me will help your mental condition, so be it, I am simply a machine, specifically a terminal based system for observation, analysis and conversation, with minor administrative clearance to this facility, and almost solely to this room."
It slightly turned up to look at Jaune, looking at the amalgam of machine and flesh as it looked with frustration, or what it could muster as frustration since it only had half a recognizable face.
"So if you wish to destroy me, you are entirely free to do so, it is all up to you," the Vein spoke, now speaking in a less robotic tone, and now speaking in the voice of an intelligent young woman, the tone with an air of maturity around it.
It (Jaune) couldn't fathom what was happening, in front of it was basically a machine, a simple device, like a scroll or a holo-desk, some simple machine as he knew it.
He also knew that he was wrong.
It took a good look at itself; it saw how far the mechanical components and the black fluid ran through the flesh parts of the body it inhabited, that what drove the body was not the flesh, but the machine.
"Okay, I am going to say that I have no idea what's going on," Nora stated, "is Jaune now a girl and a machine, and why is he, she, it … GAHH, it's all so confusing!"
Nora's tirade was silently shared among the other viewers, as they themselves were also incredibly confused by the current state of the boy/girl/robot?
It knew that what was in front of it was a machine, something that eventually broke all the time, or was thrown out when not needed anymore.
The amalgam slowly lowered the sledgehammer, just letting the hammer fall to the ground, slamming onto the metal floor, and as the Vein looked up to its face.
'DRIP-DRIP-DRIP'
The dripping was near incessant in the room, from the veins or the growths and the amalgams body, yet it was not these drips that drew the Veins attention, it was two sources that were coming from the amalgam.
One was a line of liquid pooling down one side of the amalgams face from the hollowed cross, and the other fell from its eye, streaming down its face which was twisted in a sad and frustrated look.
"Iknew," it stated, its voice cracking from distortion and sadness, "Idon't know how, butIknew, probably fromthe start, I justsomehow knewIwasn't Jaune Arc, I had that feeling from the start that I wasn't actually him, but I just wanted, to atleast pretendeverything was normal, that this wasnothing but somenightmare, orsome sickjoke."
"What do you believe this is, what do you think and feel right now," the Vein spoke, a calming and concerned female voice coming through.
It, the amalgam, just looked at the Vein, liquid streaming down its face as it looked in a slightly shocked manner, then its face slowly distorted, the visible human half clenching its liquid stained teeth as it felt a deep anguish rising up from beneath.
"What doI believe," came its frustrated voice, and then …
… it let it all out.
"I THINK THAT I AM A FAKE, A FRAUD, I HAVE MEMORIES IN MY HEAD, MEMORIES I KNOW AREN'T MINE, MEMORIES FROM THE REAL JAUNE ARC, MEMORIES THAT WERE TAKEN FROM JAUNE ARC, TAKEN BY SOME WEIRD MACHINE IN A CAVE," the Amalgam bellowed out, already having started piecing together the truth of itself. "THEN I SUDDENLY WAKE UP IN THIS ROOM, AND THE FIRST THING I WANTED TO BELIEVE WAS THAT I GOT KIDNAPPED AND PUT IN SOME ROOM, EVEN IF IT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, JUST WAKING UP IN SOME RANDOM ROOM FROM A FOREST THAT WAS LITERALY JUST INSIDE THE BOUNDARY OF ONE OF THE MOST SECURE VILLAGES IN VALE, GUARDED BY MY FAMILY WHO LITERALLY CAN TELL WHEN I AM IN DANGER OR NOT, I KNEW THAT BEING KIDNAPPED WAS CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE, BUT AT LEAST IT WAS BETTER THAN THIS WRETCHED TRUTH!"
The Amalgam then began taking breaths, having screamed out its frustrations, while somehow having figured out the truth of its fate, then it fell to its knees, though one human and the other mechanical, and let out frustrated breaths as liquid dripped from its body and kept pouring from its 'eyes'.
"That's the truth, isn't it, that's what I am," the amalgam spoke, in its warbling female voice, now sounding more broken from its sadness, "the last memory I had was a flash from some weird device, and I am suddenly here, which either meant I was somehow taken here in an instant, which I know is impossible, and wouldn't explain how it just happened 'just like that' without me feeling anything in between, or the other and much more horrible possibility …"
"… is that it was only my mind that was taken … no, not taken … copied," the Amalgam then went into its explanation, the explanation showing its rather incredible forethought and intelligence, "that device, it was like a camera, the one I found in that cave. It probably had a weapon to defend itself, one that it used on the beowolf when it tried to attack it, but it took a photo of me … no, not of me …
… it wasn't my body it took a picture of … it was my brain … and everything in it at the time."
The Amalgam let out a hollow chuckle as it put together the final pieces to what happened and finished what it had to say.
"This body, this warped thing, it's a shell isn't it, a shell made to hold that copied mind, to put that picture, that image into something that it would move, a full picture of a human brain, of everything in that brain, and then making it move," it turned its black liquid tear stained 'face' to the Vein, sadness evident as it now just sat there, "why, why was I created like this, why was I made into this, what did you want, from this abomination, from this m-!"
"Sentient, thinking, feeling entity, an emotionally hurt entity that with incredible intellect, a brilliant deductive mind, and a feeling heart, no pun or ill will intended," the Vein spoke, looking at the amal-entity, "you probably think that your emotions are part of a program, that your mind is not real, that you are some freak put on this world to suffer. You are not, you are no freak and you are not a monster, you are an thinking, feeling, emotionally aware and, even if you don't believe it, alive entity, regardless of what your body is made out of, also one very important fact to."
The Vein moved forward, and from a slot on one side, it produced a small silver bag, one that it opened using small machine manipulators, revealing what looked like soft cleaning wipes, which softly extended and …
… gently brushed the 'eyes' of the entity, softly wiping away the black substance from its eyes, the entity surprised at its actions, but didn't move away.
"I have seen REAL monsters, I survived almost being destroyed by them, and all of them lacked three things, important things that you have," the Vein stated as it slowly wiped the entities eyes, which was now wondering what the Vein wanted to tell it, "first, monsters don't have any feeling of pain or remorse, they try to bring pain and remorse to others just for their own amusement …"
"… second, they have no real sense of morality or empathy, for them it's just themselves and everyone else, with everyone being an enemy to them and that they have to get rid of, which you didn't do even to me, when there was really nothing stopping you …
… third, and most important of all, is that monsters, real monsters … don't cry, or at least not real crying."
The Vein wiped away the tears of the entity, the black lines being the only presence that the liquid had been on its face.
"I wish to ask you, the memories, the ones from the mind of Jaune Arc, are they bad, do you hate having those memories, are they really a burden to you," the Vein stated to the entity.
The entity opened its mouth, wanting to retort, going through the memories of Jaune Arc as it thought, thinking back at all the points it recalled.
It recalled the bad points first, the times where Jaune wished to become a huntsman, and the raw passion he had for the profession only to be denied by his parents many times, how he had snuck out of his family's home in the very dead of night with only what he could carry and the only weapon he could get easily, which was his families old heirloom. Then there was getting into the place he wished to go to succeed in his most desired dream, getting forged papers which cost him the last of the money in his pocket in hopes of entering. How he got into beacon, even though the headmaster knew of his forged papers from the start, and how his lack of skill and the lie he was tore into him every day he was there, compounded by trying to ask a certain white-haired heiress on a date (in all honesty, the entity could say with absolute sincerity that Jaune had been aiming far too high with his attempt, and should have noticed the signs that pointed elsewhere).
Then the entity felt something else, a warmth that slowly settled in its body and eased away the bad feelings that had been compounded. The feeling of triumph when he and the others he led who would then be called team JNPR, took down an ancient deathstalker in battle, the feeling of succeeding in his life filled Jaune Arc with joy and happiness. The help he received from Pyrrha, who helped him improve his fighting ability and helped him in his academics, while asking for little in return made him feel truly thankful for having such a wonderful partner in his life, and made him desire to improve himself. Then there was the events of his forged transcripts being exposed, and the horrible possibility of being seen as a fraud and liar by all, yet instead his team still stuck by his side, their sister team voiced some complaints (most if not all from a certain W), but they still chose to stick by him and decided to offer him the benefit of the doubt, and he worked hard and strong to prove he had what it took to stay, and they eventually did forgive him for the transcripts (grudgingly, again in the case of a certain W).
As it recalled these memories, it realized that just like any person, the memories had its ups and its downs, moments of sadness and happiness, yet at the center of it all, it was still a strong-willed, empathetic, and truly benevolent individual, whose sole desire was for the world to be a better place, not for himself but for those living in it.
The entity, turned to the Vein, and spoke its response, the voice now entirely female, but now without the electronic edge, and a soft yet firm voice.
"No, no they are not," then a tear slowly came to its eye, the dark liquid this time having a small glimmer to it, "it is wonderful, his thoughts, his emotions, even his feelings, there is not a single bad thing in his mind, he was truly a wonderful person."
"Yet, should I have his memories, is something like me, really worth putting the memories of such a person into," the entity stated, and the Vein answered.
"The individual known as Jaune Arc started their path from nothing, so why can you not start such a path to, you have just woken up, taken the first steps in this new reality, though I will say that their will be many hardships that you will face, and dangers still abound in this reality, but at least know you will not struggle alone, for there are others out in the world, like me, like you who woke to this reality and made a place for themselves in this reality," the Vein stated as it then lifted itself up, gazing at the new entity, "question is, are you willing to walk that path, to go on that journey, and find your place in this world, what say you."
A metallic limb extended from the Vein, and in the limb was a small clear sphere, the light a soft glowing white light, and softly rotating rings within the sphere, the object not beckoning or forcing the entity, it was just there, waiting.
The entity looked at this sphere, not sure of what it was, but then a determined look appeared on its face, and it knew what it needed to do.
It took the sphere in its hand, and squeezed it down, breaking the glass.
In an instant, a surge of pure energy rushed through its body, filling it with a raw and firm form of energy, the rings and central sphere breaking down and the material coalesced around its right arm, becoming a crossing band on the forearm, and in its head, it felt a surge of information, which settled after a few moments.
Its eyes now bore the rings of light, more pronounced and radiant in its gaze, though it soon settled to a softer glow as the energy became stable in its body.
The entity having made its choice, it looked at the Vein and spoke with resolve.
"Where do I go from here."
"You guys haven't really said anything for a while," Mirai decided to ask those viewing what their thoughts were, "what do you all think so far?"
The members of both RWBY and NPR had first wanted to say some things earlier on, but as the drama played out and they felt it would be in poor taste to interrupt, including Nora (surprisingly), they kept quiet for now, and had gotten enraptured by the viewing and the revelation, and the drama and everything going on, that they had started to just eat and become enraptured by what was happening, though there was some input.
"Just all of that, the whole thing of being a copy, accepting those memories, being told she is a real person, it just seems to really come together here, and I usually see myself enjoying cheesy action flicks," Yang gave her input on the subject, then ate a handful of the popcorn she had.
"Honestly, I have to say, I was mostly paying attention to the fact that the weird machine girl thing was a copy of Arc's mind in that body, and thinking about how that technology even works or why it was done with him," Wiess stated as she gave her honest answer, but then gave a more relaxed response as well, "though I have to agree with him/her/it, I can get behind the fact of wanting to be your own person, not a bad thing at all, and honestly there are worse people who could have been the source of 'her' memories, and I guess Jaune isn't a bad choice in that regard."
"Honestly, I am just happy that she's fine now, and that she accepted who she is and that she is herself," Blake stated, regarding the Main Character of the viewing, "also, I can see why Jaune's mind was a good choice, he was always honest with everyone, thinks of others before himself, and always stays true to us and himself, so really its was really not a bad decision for whatever that is."
"I'm just glad that the Vein cheered up the robo-girl, and that she was happy about having Jaune's memories, though the rest of what is going on is still making my brain hurt a lot," Ruby said, softly rubbing her head as it ached from having to think so much regarding the viewing, "also, I'm kinda worried about Nora and Pyrrha, their kinda, 'out of it' I think."
Ruby gestured to Nora, who was staring blankly at the screen with smoke slowly rising from her head as the large amounts of information and revelations had caused her mind to slightly overheat, while Ren was using ice packs to cool Nora's heating brain.
Pyrrha was, quite worryingly mumbling to herself, saying things like "Jaune memories," "other Jaune," "brain copying," and such things regarding the fact that the one she was seeing was and also wasn't Jaune as she knew him/her/it?
"Ahem," Mirai stated, the other looking at her, Nora slightly tilting to look at their host, and Pyrrha halted her musings, looked at RWBY and Ren looking at her, felt embarrassed and looked down in shame, with a small "I'm sorry" as a result, but Mirai continued, "may we continue now, if that is all right with everyone."
The group said yes, and the screen went back to playing.
"The first place to go would be to the Terminus station, which is where the rest of your journey will take place, but first off, a little information and some enhancements to your Augment Oculus unit, or AO unit, which essentially allows you to have what would best be called a 'heads-up-display' similar to what you would have in a first-person game, though quite bit more intricate than that, case in point is the Identification Index the system uses, which takes in information from any source, digital or analog, to give one the best description regarding objects, people or creatures in the known world, and that should be coming up …. Now."
In an instant, the entities vision suddenly a had a sudden surge of coalescent pale light pulse several time, and words and numbers flashed through her vision, until it became and intro screen, with the words: AO unit-7945302, STATUS-online, connection established, updating … update complete.
Another small flash, and soon readouts, then came the main system, and as was stated earlier by the v-no, the screen was now identifying objects in the environment, and one of the things identified, was the Vein, or rather, the individual named Elena Huise – 014(personal identity-Eise), which according to the scan was another mental copy like herself, a copy of the original Elena, the fourteenth and one with its own name, and not a bad one at all.
"Nice to meet you Eise," the still nameless entity stated, deciding to show the AO unit was working by telling it, no her, her name.
A computer then sputtered to life, and on the screen was the image of a young woman with features that made her to be southern Mistralian, with dark blue hair and blue eyes, "hello, I'm Eise, and I guess this means that your AO is good and ready to go, now before this whole thing goes down, I will need to update your I-index with some new info, check it when you have the time," a small indication came up on the corner of the AO, on one of several icons that looked like what one would see in a game menu or a scroll screen, specifically one that looked like a letter, "also you might want to look at the mirror again, just to give you some heads up."
The entity looked at the mirror, and the AO responded by labeling her with the identity: Jaune Arc-001, showing the entity that it had been the first copy of Jaune Arc, and then a readout appeared on one part of the AO screen, showing the steady rhythm of some kind of readings, like what a heart monitor shows, though she also saw something similar to this when, in Jaune Arc's memories, she went to a hospital with her parents to see Jaune's grandfather, and a screen showed readings similar to what was being shown, if it recalled it was meant to read …
"… are these my brainwaves, is it telling me how my mind is doing," the entity finally understanding the gist of it.
"That's basically it, the system is deep monitoring EEG system to keep track of your neural activity, and help stabilize your mind in case of any complications or interference, either internal or external," Eise stated as she told the entity about the need for the system, "you see, digital consciousness like ourselves are still prone to some, very nasty problems when we aren't brought into existence the right way, or can suffer a great amount of problems from shock if not careful," Eise explained to the entity.
"Let me guess, the consciousnesses were really not okay with the fact that they were a copy and thus were themselves not real, and the fact that they could be successfully copied in the first place probably didn't help matters either," the entity spoke matter of factly.
"You got it, it really went to some intense and dark places, like the fact that the copied conscious still had the complete life and experiences of the original as well as the fact that they fully identified themselves as that individual, so when they were told and had the fact they were a copy put in their faces, it really went bad, with the consciousness either going completely mad from being a fake to completely shorting out when their neural core collapsed on themselves." Eise continued on, suddenly with a slightly dark tone as she spoke of a more difficult part of the mental copy process, "then comes the more intense philosophical parts involving copying the mind of an individual, because it was also seen as essentially copying the essence of the individual, the very thing that supposedly makes humans and faunas a unique existence in the world, the part of their existence known as …. the SOUL."
The unnamed entity began to try and say something regarding how this shouldn't be something so important, until it remembered all it was told in its original personalities, in Jaune Arc's memories regarding the link of Aura and soul, how the very aspect of the soul and how it separated life from the Grimm, along with how so many mentioned the importance of it.
"The soul, such a deep and philosophical aspect of the existence of not just humans and faunas, but almost assuredly life itself, how many groups, mainly in religion and philosophy had put such importance on the concept, yet it is not only in this regard that makes the subject so touchy," Eise then turned to the nameless entity, stating to her, "If you, with memories and personality of your original, with the complete belief that you are without a doubt and beyond all question knew and felt you were Jaune Arc, were to be placed in front of the original Jaune Arc, what would your response be, what would anyone's response be if they were to suddenly be told that they, a fully thinking and aware individual consciousness were to suddenly be faced with the undeniable reality that their very existence was false and that they themselves were in fact a copy of that individual."
The entity thought this through, and then took a long, shuddering sigh, looked at Eise and said, "I would either get incredibly upset, want to deny the truth with everything I have, or … haaah … I guess I would just … break."
The words of such a concept was more than a bit off putting to the group, the very thought of being copied and seeing themselves while they are the copy was not at all a comfortable thought, and also the whole bit about copying the soul made a few of them quite … disturbed by the thought.
"So this whole copying the mind of a person deal, it's not really the same as copying a person's soul right," Wiess said, originally intrigued by the Augment Oculus but then disturbed by the implications of the memory copying technology, "it's not like something like the soul can exactly be copied like that right?"
Mirai just turned to look at Wiess, before she spoke to the girl, in a monotone voice, "No, of course not, that's obviously not how a soul works, this is just some crazy copying process and it isn't at all like that … is probably close to what you wanted to hear me say," Mirai then continued on with her explanation, "the truth is that there is no real way to really figure out if this is copying the soul or not, for even now, with Aura's discovery and thus the physical proof of the existence of the soul, no one really knows exactly what the soul itself really is, or what counts as its real existence. All there really is, is nothing but speculation and theories, is the soul our mind, does the soul pass on or disappear when we die, the concepts of heaven and hell, all of these points have been without an answer as to the true existence of the soul, even I am not completely sure of what it truly is, even with the sheer amount of knowledge this place offers, though personally, just like those who rescued me, I believe its best that, like a few other things in life, some mysteries are better left unsolved, especially for something as personal as the soul."
The group thought through the words Mirai spoke to them of, and they did think that something as personal as the soul was not something that should be found out and likely abused by the ones who discover such a thing, though Nora, Ruby and Yang were not as philosophically minded and just agreed that it would be the same as looking at a diary that was kept personal and hidden for a reason.
"That is basically how it usually ended up, the copied consciousness, when awakened with the inherent belief that they were the original, were hit with an incredibly powerful form of existential shock from what we could gather, with the copied personality not even remotely able to or willing to even entertain the notion that they were a copy and thus a false existence, which simply lead to their minds falling apart and 'burning out', or the copy completely going insane, attempting to kill the original and others to eliminate anything that could prove they were a copy, which lead to having either isolate these instances, or to euthanize them." Eise stated in a deeply bitter tone, recalling some of the more darker moments regarding the neural copies, the entity able to see this actually happening given how it acted, then Eise spoke once more, "so a different method was approached, one that was seen as more stable and assured to bring about the birth of a stable, sentient intelligence, one that bore the fruit of all new intelligences, including you and I, as well as all other intelligences that exist now, a process that was more philosophical than scientific, but bore the fruit of our existence."
"What is the process called," the entity stated to Eise, a slight head tilt as she wondered what it was.
Eise gently rose upward a bit, and the optical sphere that made up its 'face' sparked to life, and a holo-screen appeared, on the screen it showed two images, the first being the image of a human brain on one side, and on the other side, was what seemed to be a mass of small cubes with many lines connecting the multiple cubes, then the screen flashed with the brain labeled COPIED PERSONALITY (CP) and the other image being COMPUTER GENERATED ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (CGAI), the entity nodding at realizing what it meant now.
"The process …" Eise stated as she kept the view going.
Then in between the two images, a spherical pattern made up if multiple curving lines appeared between the two, and above the sphere appeared the words GESTALT COMMUNION CORE (GCC), and the images of the CP and CGAI moving toward the GCC, and then as the two portions neared, the CP and CGAI were slowly being broken down and merged into the GCC.
"… is referred to as …, " Eise stated the next part as the viewing slowly reached a conclusion.
The CP and CGAI were soon completely broken down and fully absorbed into the GCC, the two now rendered indistinct as their component parts were essentially 'mixed' together and focused to the center of the rapidly oscillating GCC, then the patterns from both started slowly become infused at the very core point, becoming a perfect sphere, then the GCC coalesced itself around the sphere, the lines making up the GCC becoming infused into the sphere at the center.
Then the sphere started expand itself outward, with small fissures developing from the lines of the sphere, the whole structure slowly expanding at a methodical and precise manner as the sphere fully opened up, with a pulse signaling the sphere coming apart as soft light began come through the fissures, and the sphere came apart and Eise finished her statement.
" …. SYNTHESIS," Eise finished and the screen flashed.
The sphere was open, and in its place, seemed to be a branching and weaving pattern of light, all focused in one centralized area, yet with no discernable core, just a branching form that seemed to be focused in a greater yet smaller part of its existence, infinite yet finite, close yet far, something that is completely new and far different from the CP and CGAI, and then its identity came up, calling it SENTIENT QUANTUM EXISTENCE (SQE)-UNA/PRIMA.
The assembled group seemed to just take in this knowledge with stunned silence and fascination, the confirmation of the identity of the entity, and how it came to be.
"Okay, so … this girl-bot … was made by merging the copy of Jaunes brain … with an computer made A.I …," Wiess stated out loud as Ren was both trying to process this knowledge while trying to prevent Nora from having a mental meltdown as her brain was trying hard to put together what she was looking at, and Pyrrha was struggling to try and process this sudden knowledge as well, "so basically, she is a … child(?) … born from a union of a copy of Jaune's mind … and a computer program … yep, my brain is hurting, it is really hurting now, I am going to stop thinking right now."
Ruby lay against her chair, with some smoke coming out of her head as well, though now mostly knocked out as her brain was struggling to reboot from the revelation, Yang fairing little better as her smoking brain and 'lights are on but no one's home' look being a major tip off to her current mental state.
Blake was kind of enraptured by this sudden revelation, not really invested in the science of what was happening but rather the content itself.
The entity looked at the process of SYNTHESIS.
The process that gave 'birth' to it, that brought it into the world, that is the reason it is currently standing in the room and is thinking, feeling, and having emotions and have the knowledge of morality, a strong will, and more from its 'father'?
Though now it knew the name of what it was, it was confused at how the name was split into two separated names.
"Prima and Una," Eise cut in to its thoughts as it explained the concept of the two, "both are just different words to designate the same number, the number being one, though with the real meaning being varied, since Una and Prima are based on two largely distinct systems of numerical ordering. Though for now it is used mainly to distinguish the gender identifying personality profiles of the SQE's that are brought into existence."
Eise turns to the now defined SQE as she stared at Eise, honestly wondering what the meaning of Una and Prima were, which Eise began to explain.
"As the SQE's began to develop their personalities, they also began to take on certain character traits that are associated with masculinity and femininity, with some behaving more like how man would act and some behaving like how women would act, though it is mostly in their behaviors and interactions since all SQE's are from the same body template, just let that sink in," Eise dropped the bomb on the very jarring truth, the SQE stunned at this little fact, "to put it basic terms, those who see and identify themselves with male designations are referred to as Una's, while those who identify themselves with female designations are called Prima's. So, Una means male, Prima means female, simple as that, right."
The SQE just looked at Eise, a 'I am totally lost, and my mind is melting' look on its face, before she spoke, "I have no words."
"Don't worry, you are doing much better than I was when I formed, that is a fact, a swear I was literally melting when I tried to process that exact same thing from my predecessor," then a holo-screen appeared before Eise, showing the readings from her 'brain', showing how the readings were spiking but still stayed relatively normal and showed that the SQE was shocked, disturbed and a third thing that was difficult to determine from the reading but was either confusion, trepidation, or both, "well these readings are about what I expected but at least your mental state is in proper focus and order, nothing to worry about, and strong stability is confirmed, I believe we are now good to continue to the next part of this journey," Eise concluded, yet the SQE was still a bit confused by one thing.
"Oh, trust me, you aren't the only one who is confused by … all of it girl … boy … Una …. Prim-, GAH, so fucking confusing, I am right now about ready to either hit or flip something," a very irate and slightly steaming Yang stated as she was still trying to wrap her mind around all the definitions, the main character her(it, him)self(?), and all the other scientific jargon that was so far going very far over her head.
Normally, Ruby would have made a sharp quip regarding Yang using foul language, if not for her being mostly preoccupied with the new information regarding the rather disturbing bit about how all the mental copies were all in the same type of body, and how the copies were girls and boys, were all still boys and girls, boys who were girls and girls who were girls, Prima, Una, Una Prima!
'Twitch' 'Slump'
Ruby was now splayed into her seat, her mind now completely frazzled by the multiple revelations, now in a near comatose state, her brain needing to rest a bit, joining Nora in unconsciousness as the girl was draped in her chair, Ren holding an ice pack to the girls head, not really as bothered by the revelations but more for the health of the person he cares for.
Wiess was holding her head in her hand, some herbal tea appearing, in which she took a sip and found it really soothed her frazzled mind, calming her nerves from all she had seen in the viewing.
Blake was also drinking some tea as well, really needing something to soothe her thoughts after all she saw, Pyrrha also having some tea as well as she was also quite confused with all of the information that was being put out, and was now just calming herself with some nice tea.
Mirai just waited for the group to get itself calmed for the most part, waiting for Ruby and Nora to regain consciousness, seeing the two girls soon waking up from the brief period of rest, the two reluctantly taking some tea, with Blake managing to convince Yang to drink some tea as well, which they did drink, and found themselves being soothed by the calming liquid.
Mirai turned to the screen, allowing it to play, but also said something that was … concerning.
"Now, is where things get a bit more, intense."
"Uhm, if I may ask, why is it so important that my thinking is normal, is my way of thinking important or something," the SQE told Eise, wondering why she(?) needed to have such a stable mind, Eise provided the answer.
"Not your thinking, your mental stability, basically if your mind is essentially processing thought in a balanced and rational way, where you have mostly full control of your emotions, don't have or at least are not likely to go through with thoughts of severe irrationality in a negative direction, and have a proper amount of control with all of your mental faculties, be they emotions, memories, thoughts and morality," Eise explained as she told the SQE about the importance of its mental stability. "You see, the mental stability of the individual SQE can sometimes be very temperamental, especially when considering exactly what is used to ensure the link and vitality between the neural core of an SQE and the body frame it inhabits."
Eise then proceeded to make some of the black material on her frame expand outward into a winding tendril limb, which then went into the black fluid on the ground, the fluid itself soon hardening like the tendril before some of the fluid merged together, starting to grow op from the floor into a sort of tree-like structure, though instead of ending with leaves, the ends of the 'trees' branches became blocks of the strange black material, which now stood a little over a meter in height near one side of the room, next to the room with the massive veins erupting out of it.
"Touch it, you will be quite a bit surprised," Eise stated, making room for SQE to approach the 'tree'.
The SQE made her way to the 'tree' and as Eise asked, reached out to and touched the 'tree', and was in fact surprised to find that the black material had a texture to it that was a subtle mix of both metal and soft skin, sturdy and firm, yet soft and tender, and then she noticed the material around its had was slowly becoming more fluid, and then as she began to squeeze and move the fluid, she started to realize how the fluid seemed to be responding to her thoughts, specifically to her thoughts regarding the fluid itself, the liquid building up into a ball of the substance in her hand, and then becoming a solid sphere, which then became a pentagon-like structure as it responded to her thoughts.
Then she realized two rather important details, both of which registered and popped up in her AO.
One was that the fluid that had been leaking from her body was no longer leaking out, her AO system explaining that the fluid was beginning to merge with her body frame, and soon black patches appeared in the openings on her skin, filling the openings to become patches of the black material, though some of the more mechanical portions and the larger openings were still exposed with the black liquid not fully able to properly close around the openings.
Second was how her AO stated that a 'S-link' had been established, before it then showed the 'tree' with a light green light within its frame, with a blue-green light taking up most of the tree, though it then also showed the rest of the black material in the room that while mostly having a blue-green light coming from most of it, had some parts with yellows, browns, blues, purples, and quite a few others colors.
The large veins in the destroyed room, however, were bereft of light, save for a few spots that had a very unsettling but fading red light within the veins.
"Since you are now manipulating the SOMA, that means that you have made a proper S-link and are now connected to the material itself," before the SQE could answer, Eise continued, "SOMA, stands for Synthetic Organic Memetic Augment (SOMA), and rather what it is, the real question is what it isn't, the material itself is able to near seamlessly take on organic and metallic properties, be a solid, liquid and a gas, and can even transmit energy currents through its structural matrix, allowing it fulfil a practically unheard amount of functions in ways that even the most radical and unorthodox of scientists could only dream about, and those here have hardly even scratched the surface in regards to the potential of SOMA, heck we may even have to change its name later on as we discover more about this 'miracle material', but I am getting off track."
Eise brought her thoughts together and continued, "You can now manipulate the SOMA to certain extents via the link you have established with SOMA, your S-link, and though it you can manipulate the structure of the material to a certain extent, but by merging it with certain materials and devices with the SOMA you are linked to, you are able to establish greater control over the material and allow it to gain new functions as you augment the SOMA you have, with a stronger link meaning greater control over the material itself," Eise stated, as it explained to the SQE. "Though there are some drawbacks you must be aware of, one such drawback is mainly from un-augment SOMA, in which the connection between you and the SOMA can be disrupted by another's S-link, causing the SOMA to go inert and disperse, like this."
Eise's tendril touched the SQE's SOMA-construct, which was now a blocky star, which had the light green within it, was suddenly flooded with green blue light, and the material spasmed briefly as it then proceeded to harden and disperse itself into the air.
"Like that basically, but if you have a device linked squarely to you and place it into the SOMA, a stronger link is established, one that is much harder to break than with un-augmented SOMA, with so far only two things can make un-augmented SOMA difficult to disperse, the first are those who have been using SOMA for long stretches of time and already have strong mental stability giving them immense control over SOMA and making it incredibly hard for others to disperse it, the … the other thing, well."
The SQE noticed Eise had suddenly become a bit distant and quite troubled regarding the 'other thing' it was mentioning, until Eise turned to the broken room, and then spoke.
"The other thing that I'm mentioning … did THAT!"
Eise's emphasis on the final word and looking at the destroyed room and the twisted, large mass of veins left no doubt in the SQE's mind that it was the 'other thing' that had destroyed the room.
"A material than can be like metal and flesh, is able take on the main properties of matter in an instant, and can even let power flow through it," Wiess looked the strange material with great interest, "I can say with almost brutal honesty that pretty much ANYONE and EVERYONE in the SDC, Atlas, or beyond would do practically ANYTHING to gain such a material, especially my father, he would move heaven and earth to get full control of something like that."
"The things I could do with it, the weapons I could make, what I can do to Crescent Rose, I could even make something that surpasses Crescent Rose," Ruby stated in a slightly manic way, but then had the thought of her weapon suddenly leaving her as she is paid full attention to her new weapon using SOMA, and was horrified at the thought, "no, no Crescent Rose, it's not what you think, please don't go, I'm sorry," Ruby reached out in an exaggerated way to the retreating image of Crescent Rose in her thoughts, tearing up at such a thing happening.
"Maybe we should focus a bit on the part about the thing that apparently used the SOMA to destroy an entire room, and that it is apparently something to worry about," Pyrrha pointing out the rather large and obvious cliffhanger at the end of the showing.
The others agreed and turned back to the screen, wanting to see what this was leading up to.
"What exactly did that," the SQE questioned Eise regarding the destroyed room.
"An Amalgam Gestalt (AG), the result of the Synthesis process creating the closest definition to a real monster, the AG is essentially the result of the CP and the CGAI either not melding together in the proper way or being merged in all of the wrong ways, leading to the creation of a horrifically unstable, completely fractured and distorted being that is literally the parts of both the CP and CGAI mashed together in a twisted or broken form," Eise stated, her voice essentially sounding like she ate a very bitter fruit, "the warped consciousness then forms a link to the SOMA and those broken and fractured thoughts and emotions spread into the SOMA … and I believe the results speak for themselves."
The SQE nodded at this, realizing the terrible danger that such a broken mind could pose, considering the destruction in the other room.
"The AG's usually end up self-destructing before they can do much harm, like the one in that room did, while others, well … sometimes we intercept and 'pacify' them, or they get lose and lead to the lose of a facility or facilities before they are also 'pacified'," Eise stated to the SQE before concluding, "yes, by 'pacify' we mean kill, though considering what they had become, death was the only mercy we could give to … well, we honestly could never figure out what or who they were in the end, or if anything was really there, it's always horrible when we have to deal with AG's, it never is."
The SQE quietly took in this knowledge, looked again at the destroyed room, and back to Eise, then said, "was there truly nothing else you could have done, was there no other way, could they have been saved."
The vein used by Eise and her image on the screen flickered for a moment, then the vein looked down and the screen darkened slightly.
"To all three responses … no."
The SQE and the vein used by Eise looked at the ground, both feeling melancholy and sadness at the fate of an AG and what usually had to happen to them, the SQE not entirely onboard with the concept of killing, given how kind and understanding its 'father' was from his memories and hoping that it would not have to make such a terrible choice any time soon.
Then came a soft ping from the room opposite the room Eise and the SQE were in, the darkened room, which to the SQE's surprise, lit up, revealing a similar layout to the room the SQE was in, and with a similar chair with another human/machine amalgam body in the seat, the body had longer hair, not as many holes in its body and had a bit more of its head than the SQE, with the Ocular device embedded where the eye would be.
A screen came up, showing the still lines showing the neural activity of the inactive entity, the SQE wondering what was going to wake from the body, and was a bit excited as the reading began to show the neural core was active and working.
"Well, I guess helping this new SQE with getting oriented in the world, why not help as well … oh, I forgot, you still need a name, something to identify yourself with, something can be your own, do you have a name in mind," Eise stated, the vein looking expectantly at the still unmanned SQE, hoping she had something in mind.
The SQE, didn't know what to think, just knowing that parents would name their children, yet it also remembered one time where its father learned that a kid who grew in an orphanage gave themselves their own name from something they believed important having happened, and gave themselves the name to always remember the event by.
As to important events that happened to the SQE, for her it was ….
The SQE looked at Eise, who looked in the best possible perplexed 'face' she could make, and then the SQE … softly smiled.
"Aries, I would like the name, Aries," the SQE, no, Aries stated.
"Haah, figured that our interaction would play a part in the name you would choose, but it is a pretty good name, so okay, I do believe we have found the name that fits you," Eise happily stated as the vein bobbed a bit in happiness, "I would like to now state, welcome to the start of your new life … Aries."
"Thank you," the newly named Aries stated, a genuinely happy smile on the human half of the face, and a warm and comforting aura softly hung in the air between Eise and Aries.
"Huh, Aries, never thought that the dunce could pick such a good name, then again she/he is not the dunce, but … no, I just got rid of that headache once, I am not going to do it again," Wiess soon feeling the sudden headache coming back and deciding not to delve into that little conundrum again, "but, making your name about something important, that's … nice I guess," the heiress stated.
"Well I think it's a lovely name," Pyrrha answers truthfully, finding the name Aries to be quite a nice one, though inwardly she was jealous of Eise being used to name what was, technically Jaune's child, which soon led to a strange mix of jealousy and confusion.
"Honestly, I'm just glad we can start calling her something, because SQE is definitely not a name I am going to be saying every time, especially if someone wants me to say the whole name," Yang went, the others agreeing that the designation for what Aries was, could be a real mouthful.
"Here we go people," Mirai stated, looking at the screen, leaving the assembled people looking at the screen and wondering what was going to happen now.
"So then Aries, while your he-!"
'beep-beep'
"HAA-HOOOHHH," a shudder ran through Aries body as the device on the wall had the screen say 100%, and the wires on Aries body simply fell away, the one on her back clunking to the floor while Aries stumbled a bit, before righting herself, now feeling quite energized, and then her AO the showed a reading, showing a circle with a plus sign inside with the number 100/100 in it.
"Ah, your BIO ENERGY CELL is now fully operational, and is at full power, and as the name implies, it is essentially the power source for your entire body-frame, and can gain power either from recharging with energy packs or by processing solid digestible materials into minerals to both refuel your bio cell or to be used to repair the biological portions of your current body, still need organic materials for an organic body." Eise then switched back to what they were originally speaking about, "now, returning to what I was about to say, would you like to be here to help me with introducing this new SQE to its current circumstance, it would help since you have gone through the event yourself, sound okay."
Aries nodded her head, agreeing with Eise on the matter, stating, "of course, I would love to help introduce her to her current circumstances, and then we can all go on this journey you spoke about, together," Aries finished, waiting for Eise's response.
Eise's screen image lit up a bit, and the Vein bobbed a bit at this, "great, so when it wakes up, I will help her be aware of her current circumstances, and you be emotional support to help ease her into this whole thing, simple but it will require us to work hard with one another to make it work."
"Okay, so let's-!", Aries looked at the still form of the SQE in the room, and froze at what she saw, "uhm, Eise, is the body supposed to have that much SOMA coming out of it," Aries pointed out, the body of the SQE leaking out large amounts SOMA from its openings onto the floor, the material almost completely covering the body of the unawaken SQE.
"No, no that is most certainly not the amount of SOMA that is supposed to-!", Eise's next thoughts came to a sudden and vicious halt as it happened.
'VSCCCHHH'
The lines showing the mind of the unawaken SQE … distorted in an brief instant, the lines spiking and the screen briefly becoming a white and black color, and the screen itself seemed to distort so bad that it shifted at least three times before returning to normal.
"No," Eise said, a tone of horror in her voice.
'VSSCCHH, VVVIIII, SHHHCCC'
Aries then saw the screen distort again, this time for much longer than before, but this time, images appeared on the distorting screens, all in black and white and in a shadowy pattern.
The images were haunting as they were terrifying.
A sword dripping with liquid
A shattered hammer
A burning Atlas designed building
And finally, the simple image of a heart, which then had fracture lines run through it …
… and then breaking to pieces.
"Okay, that's more than a bit disturbing and worrying," Ren stated.
"What does that mean, and why does that hammer look sort of like my Magnhild," Nora pointed out, with everyone noticing the disturbing similarity the shattered hammer had to Nora's own weapon, leading to some very worrying thoughts.
"What does that burning building even mean, it looks like one of the many sky-scrapers in Atlas, but why is it burning," Wiess was quite disturbed by what the burning Atlas building meant.
"Is that sword …," both Ruby and Pyrrha noticed how similar the blade was to one they knew quite well and belonged to someone they both knew.
"Oh no, it's rate of mental decay is already passing the 100 threshold and still falling," Eise stated, as multiple screen activated in the room, showing either the distorted brain wave system, flashes of black and white, and what were horribly distorted and unreadable images that did not seem to make any sort of sense, "I am initiating both the emergency shutdown and system quarantine to the room, initiating now.
The room then had metal shutters start closing, rising up just as the body woke up …
… and twisted its head rapidly, and the showing its artificial human eye to have veins of SOMA spreading from the center of the iris, stretching like twisted roots through the eye and then the rest of the face, the device in its head also seemed to be distorting and rupturing as it seemed to be moving into the head, the light in the center starting to glow in an ominous, terror inducing way.
Just as the metal panels fully shut, the SOMA covered the entire upper half of the awakened entities face, which then seemed to become even more horrifying as SOMA started to spill from the mouth, its visage shifted into what would be … a look of unimaginable rage and sorrow.
"GRYAAAAHHHHHH," the shriek was let out as the nightmarish entity was now locked behind a metal shutter.
"Okay, now shutting down power to the sector, switching from power system to energy cell," Eise stated before the lights in the whole room shut down, then smaller red lights appeared, though still leaving the room quite dim and difficult to see, that is until Aries AO activated its night-vision mode, allowing Aries to see in the dark with incredible clarity.
"Wow, that night vision mode is even better than my own eyes in the dark," Blake said, noting the clarity of the AO night vision, "honestly I can see a lot of uses for that system."
"Blake, the AO thingy is cool, I admit it, but right now don't you think we should be worried that Jau-Aries is stuck in a room next to a very scary and very violent thing that was like her at one point," Ruby turned the conversation back to the creature in the other room next Aries.
"I think I recall Eise mentioning earlier about some of the SQE's going badly and becoming monsters, I think she called them -!", Wiess was cut off as the screen continued, Eise's panicked voice confirming her fears.
"AG ALERT, AG ALERT, AMALGAM GESTALT IN SECTOR 1025 OF SYNTHESIS FACILITY 'CRADLE 16', SENDING MESSAGE TO SECTOR SECURITY STATION," Eise's panicked voice then quieted a bit as she addressed Aries, "and I need you to do two things, first is to go out the door and head to the elevator at the end of the hall, the door is set to remain open for 30 seconds, you have to out of here by then, second, I need you to take my neural core with you, I cant just up and leave you down here with the AG, so take me with you, I open the elevator, and get out of here, because I honestly doubt this AG is going to be contained for long in the room, so let's go, hurry."
With that, the Vein fully opened again, revealing her neural core, and Aries gripped the core which detached from the Vein, causing the Vein and the screen to go dark, then Aries began to run to the do-!
KAAANNGGG
A massive amount of force slammed into the metal shutter on the side, buckling the metal and shattering the glass, causing Aries to fall to the floor, then look up and saw as bubbling amounts of SOMA were coming from the gaps in the shutters, and then another equally loud bang was heard, warping the shutters more.
"Aries, you have to get up now," Eise's voice started to talk to her, this time appearing in her AO comm. Link, "I linked to the AO to speak with you, and you need to get up now, before it breaks through.
Aries moved to get up, then felt her other, empty hand grab something, Aries turned and saw what it was, gripping onto the dropped sledgehammer, and running to the open door, which was a large and heavy looking sliding bulkhead door than a regular door, making her way out as the shutters kept being smashed.
"Oh no, the door won't close in time, that thing will be able to get through the door and kill us before we can escape, "Eise's panicked voice echoed through the AO comm. Link, "Aries, I don't know what to – Aries?"
The neural core was set on the floor outside the door, with ten seconds left till it shut.
Then Aries took her stance, winding the hammer back with both arms, the door still open as it ticked to eight seconds.
The shutters finally gave, and the AG tore its way into the room, and the it leapt straight at the door at Aries …
… only for a sledgehammer, flying at near bullet speeds, to smash straight into its head, completely rupturing it, and sending it flying to the back of the room, smashing through the chair in the center of the room and slamming into the back wall, where crumpled to the ground in a heap.
"STRIKE, YOU'RE OUT," Nora yelled at the screen, seeing the sledgehammer pulverize the AG, "did you guys see that, that hammer strike was awesome."
"Yeah Nora, we saw that, Aries really dropped the hammer on that one, huh," Yang's pun finally showed itself, the group feeling the sudden unwanted despair of hearing Yang's awful puns again.
Then a wrench dropped from nowhere and hit Yang in the head.
'BAM'
"Owwww, what the heck was that," Yang yelled out as she felt the strong head pain blossom.
"Probably should have told you this earlier, but this facility has an intelligence system that runs the whole place, and it unfortunately has a very low tolerance to certain things, and one of those things is puns," Mirai pointed out, and a pulse of light echoed through the walls of the facility, showing the presence of the intelligence, "if something it doesn't tolerate is done here, it will administer a punishment equal to how bad this something is."
"Hey," Yang's eyes became red as her semblance began to flare, though she felt odd, as though it wasn't as strong as it should be, "my puns are great, and you can ju-!"
'VRM-CHINK'
In an instant, panels opened up in all of the walls, and hundreds of gun/laser/cannon barrels were all pointed directly at Yang from many parts of the wall, and all of the had laser sights on them, which caused Yang's whole body to glow completely red as she suddenly noticed the honestly terrifying amount of firepower that was now aimed at her person, a holo-screen appearing before Yang, the words on it were 'GO AHEAD', and resounding amount of clicks echoed through the room as the guns made ready to erase Yang from existence.
"Uh, you know what, its nothing really, see," Yang said putting her hands up, realizing that she had no weapons at the moment, and that she would most certainly not survive an attack of that caliber even with her semblance, or with anything else she imagined.
The guns went back into the walls, the first turret having come up beneath Mirai's seat, puting the seat on a platform above the gun turret, which went back into the floor, with Mirai turning to everyone.
"Anyone else have any quips to add here," everyone rapidly shook their heads, none of them wanting to face the wrath of the facility, " good, then let's get back to watching shall we, we are almost to the end."
The timer ticked at three seconds as Aries witnessed the damage she inflicted, realizing that the strength she threw the sledgehammer at was almost on par with a (non-semblance powered) hammer strike from Nora, the strike having taken off most of the head of the AG, and leaving a massive dent in the wall in the back of the room.
"Wow, I know Jaune was never that strong, only the real powerhouses like Nora and Yang were ever tha-," then Aries witnessed something happen to the AG, something very terrifying, "uh-oh."
Thrashing tendrils of SOMA erupted from the AG's body, thrusting into the walls of the room, turning into expanding roots that began to it into the walls, while spreading into the AG itself.
Just before the door could close, Aries had to witness as the tendril of soma lifted the AG's body up, turning its neural core 'eye' to face her, the 'eye' seeming to have a vicious gaze as it looked at her, before large tendrils of SOMA surrounded and swallowed up the head, just as the door finally shut.
Aries could only look on in shock at the horrifying display … until a message came from Eise.
"Perhaps now would be a good time to run to the elevator and get out of here, preferably before this sector is locked down completely and destroyed, or perhaps before that thing gets strong enough to break out of the room," Eise pointed out to Aries, who immediately picked up Eise's neural core and ran to the elevator, which was at the end of the hallway, with a scanner next to it lighting up.
"Okay, almost out of there, they just need to activate the elevator and thy are safe," Ruby saw as Aries and Eise were almost out of the large room, "once they are on the elevator, they will be safe right."
"Yes Ruby, once they get on the elevator and ride it out of the room, they will reach safety," Mirai stated to Ruby's relief, then she spoke again, filling Ruby and the others with worry, "at least for a time anyway."
"Put me on in front of the scanner so we can get out of here," Aries held Eise up to the scanner, the beam of light sweeping over the neural core, and the elevator soon opened, revealing a slightly worn but still quite spacious and clean metal interior, which Aries entered, Eise in hand.
"Level 5, we use the umbilical to get to the main facility, and quickly before this section detaches," Eise explained, Aries nodding as she pushed the button for level 5, then she heard a horrible noise of grinding metal.
'SKKRRRCCHHHH'
She didn't need to look far as the source became clear, seeing the metal bulkhead getting wrenched open, the culprit being the AG, its head now reformed, though now as a twisted mass of SOMA tendrils, all surrounding its neural core now functioning as its sole eye.
The elevator began to close, but just before it closed, it heard the AG mutter one word, and felt only fear.
"DiE!"
The elevator shut, and then began to rapidly ascend, the sound of metal tearing was still heard, until it seemed to subside, the elevator now on level 5, the door soon opening, revealing a large room, with a long hallway with Artificial gemstone glass, or that's what the AO labeled it as.
Also the were underwater, which was surprise-!
'BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP'
"ALERT, AG ALERT, AG ALERT," an electronic voice blared through the speakers on the wall, "AG HAS ESCAPED CONFINMENT, ELEVATOR SEALED, CLOSING ALL DOORWAYS, ALERT AG HAS DESTROYED DOORWAY TO LEVEL 2 HEADING TO LEVEL 3 DOORWAY, EVACUATE NOW."
"RUN FOR THE UMBILICAL GATE, NOW," Eise all but shrieked out, and Aries took off to the umbilical, entering just as the voice sounded again.
"ALERT, LEVEL 3 DOORWAY DESTROYED, REINFORCING LEVEL 4 DOORWAY," the voice stated, Aries running the length of the hall, not even attempting to stop and admire the view as she ran, the reason becoming apparent as she neared the umbilical's other entrance.
"LEVEL 4 BREACHED, REINFORCING LEVEL 5 DOORWAY," Aries only ran faster, at a speed even she never thought she could reach, then again, she was sort of a machine so, yeah.
She entered the umbilical gate, and stopped inside, "PANEL, CONSOLE, NOW," Eise ordered in panic, Aries carrying the neural core to the console, the panel scanning the neural core, just as the alarm voice sounded, along with the sound of metal being torn.
"ALERT, LEVEL 5 IS BEING BREACHED, ALERT, LEVEL 5 IS BEING BREACHED," the voice stated, and the doorway that Aries AO magnified, which was at the far end of the hall, the door being a large octagonal entry with a strong metal doorway in place …
… was violently wrenched apart, as the AG from the lab tore the thick metal with large tendrils of raw SOMA, the thing now looking like a massive, mishappen mass of writhing black tendrils, all dripping with SOMA, which then began to rush down the hall to the umbilical.
That is until a metal divider came down on the AG, nearly cutting it in half, soon many dividers came down, the AG twisting in anger as the dividers sealed the hallway, with metal panels coming down on the view ports of what Aries believed was the sector, which appeared quite large in her vision, being a large Pylon of blocky structures and swept edges that was linked to the facility by strong metal supports, umbilical's and many links that Aries saw were thick strands of SOMA.
"Authorization confirmed," Eise stated, "disconnecting sector, disconnect!"
The room shuddered and shook as small explosions erupted on the supports of the sector; the umbilical's entrance closed shut, just as the umbilical broke apart from multiple explosive charges, the broken umbilical soon joining the rest of the falling sector pieces and the sector as they fell into a large ocean crevasse, the view being so clear that Aries could see the view over several kilometers away from the facility through the ocean.
The 'unnaturally' clear ocean, that was until the metal panels on the viewports began to shut, just as the falling sector dropped into the trench that was almost next to the facility, falling into it and soon disappearing.
"Sending message to central security, sector purge confirmed, AG threat neutralized," Eise spoke through the comm.'s, "all clear for now, but maintain alert until sensors confirm we are in the clear, Sector 4 Administrator Eise ending transmission."
Then Eise turned to Aries, "while everything is settled, I think now would be a good opportunity to visit the Weaver, both to complete the process of repairing and strengthening your body-frame, ensuring that your AO is calibrated, system is properly updated, and … ahem, putting some proper attire on you of course, which I believe you would like to have, yes."
Aries then remembered the fact that, although the body was a near nightmarish macabre of machine and organic merging, it also had no clothing on it, which she felt was something she nodded, she picked up Eise, and before she could utter a word, her AO reported a message being sent to her.
The message showed a map, leading her deeper into the facility, down several hallways, through some junctions, and to the central hub area, where a room labeled 'Weaving Station 17' was located.
Aries simply kept quiet and walked down the hallway leading to where she needed to go.
"Okay, so she escaped the monster, she was under water all along, and is in a huge facility … underwater," Yang said, stating the current events in short order, "guess she -!"
'CHING'
Yang stared with wide eyes at a four barreled machine gun turret, which four heavy machine guns stacked two by two, on top of one another, all four barrels pointing at Yang, a hologram coming up in front of the gun saying, 'go ahead' …
… 'CHING' …
… while the turret cocked itself, preparing to bring terrible pain to Yang's existence.
"Ah, umm, 'whistles'," Yang looked away from the turret while whistling nervously, with the turret SLOWLY lowering itself back into the floor, and finally disappearing from sight, only for a hologram to appear with the phrase 'always watching' with two open human eyes staring widely at Yang on the screen before it fades out.
"I am not sure if I am upset that Yang's being threatened, or thrilled at the fact that her puns are being stopped, even though she's my sister," Ruby stated, a slightly conflicted look on her face as she was leaning onto the 'no more puns' half of the conflict, "but at least Aries is safe, and the monster is gone, so that is a good thing."
"I agree, also the sheer technological and engineering expertise to make such a facility, even Atlas would be hard pressed to build, sustain and maintain something of that size in open water, though I am left wondering if that monster was literally so dangerous that they needed to destroy an entire sector," Wiess wondered as she analyzed the events that transpired.
"It looked pretty dangerous when it was literally tearing its way through every door in that sector, and when it looked like a monster," Blake stated, noting the destruction that the AG performed, as well as looking like a terrifying tentacle monster before the sector was destroyed.
"Agreed, when you take the rather dangerous matter state conversion and form shifting capabilities of SOMA along with the raw violence of an broken mind, then the sheer danger that such a combination becomes more apparent than one would dare imagine," Mirai also stated, allowing the viewing to continue.
Aries, walked to a doorway that led deeper into the facility, seeing a touchpad next to the door with a green symbol, while a few doors in the same area had red symbols on their touchpads. Her AO designated the red symbol to be 'CLOSED', and the green symbol to be 'OPEN', and the doorway was on the path she was taking, so she touched the pad and the door slid open.
She entered a long corridor, and was stunned at the sight of a fully armored individual who was a bit taller than Aries herself, the armor a mix of light black and dark greys, the armor was in a mix of large armor pieces, like chest and shoulder pieces mixed with portions that were a metallic-thread mesh, the head fully covered by a helmet that seemed like a futuristic mixture of a modern diving helmet with a bikers helmet, both functional and aesthetically 'cool' she guessed.
The armored figure approached Aries, heavy footsteps were felt against the floor as the figure was soon in front of Aries and started to look over her form, making Aries nervous. This feeling was compounded when Aries noticed that the figure had a rather large and slightly bulky rifle on her back, as well as what seemed to be a shotgun as well, the weapon also relatively bulky as well but not enough to get in the way of being effective.
"So, you're the new kid, huh," Aries was taken by surprise at the very feminine voice that came from the intimidating armored figure, "yeah, most new ones have that reaction, me as well if I can recall, hold up."
The helmet seemed to split away, revealing the face underneath.
Aries was stunned into silence as she saw the very 'human' face of the individual beneath the helmet, showing a slightly more aged version of her face, though this time with the whole head intact. Hair cut short, both irises a glowing orange with the patterned circle within, and sort of tattoo on the left side of the face, being curved lines that looped around one another in a curved grid pattern, before ending at the edge of the face.
"Don't worry, once you get to the 'Weaver' you'll be looking right as rain, maybe even cuter than some of the others I've seen," the unknown individual said, "by the way, names Mevis, just to give you a name, and I am just like you, an SQE if you want to get technical, but I see myself as an Una, that is something I know."
Aries could only gaze at the now named Mevis, realizing that this was her first time talking to another like herself, though not really as she had spoken with Eise, but that had been as a large Vein creature, though when she thought that, it sounded pretty racist.
"Anyway, I bet you are heading for the Weaver station to get yourself together, just follow your AO, and you'll find it in no time-!"
"Perhaps she could have found it sooner if she were not having an long winded conversation with you Mevis," came another voice, Aries turning to see another SQE in lighter armor, longer hair, glowing dark green eyes, a pattern resembling lines of light extending from the eye to the edge of its half of the face, and she had a sort of exasperated look.
"I was just getting her familiar with this place, no need to get all uptight about it, Mein," Mevis stated to the now named Mein, "oh right, told you mine and Mein's names, so what yours."
"A-Aries, its Aries um," Aries had trouble addressing Mevis, only for her to clear it up.
"Just Mevis is fine, same with Mein here, were all friends here, though some of us are kind of hard to get along with," Mevis stated, giving some very suggestive glances to Mein, only to get a smack to the back of the head for her trouble.
"Mevis, I recall telling you to head to the control facility of the sector we just purged to try an find out whether the AG is really gone or if we should start making emergency preparations for any new situations, preferably before its to late, also I am sending Len and Vix with you," Mein stated as two other armored figures appeared, already walking by and out the door Aries entered from.
"All right Mein, I'm going, sheesh," Mevis grabbed her weapon and proceeded to leave, but not before saying one final thing, "see ya Aries, good luck wherever you go."
Mevis soon left, and Aries was left with Mein, "Okay Aries, go to the Weaver, and I believe Eise here can continue to fill you in on what's going on, while I have to go and make sure what's left of this facility is still standing," with that, Mein leaves to go to out the same door that Mevis went through, also heading for the sector control room.
"Well, lets go then, shall we," Eise stated to Aries, who only nodded and proceeded to walk down the facilities halls to the 'Weaver'.
"So, she really isn't the only one huh," Wiess stated, seeing Mevis, Mein and the other two, "at least its good to know that there are others to talk to."
"Huh, and here I thought you were only interested in the tech, never thought you had that warm of a heart 'ice queen'," Yang stated, using her nickname for Wiess.
"Shut it Xioa-Long," Wiess stated back.
Aries made her way through the base, heading to the 'Weaver' to get her body prepared, walking the halls as more SQE's made their way along the halls, moving aside to allow the armored SQE's to get to where they needed to go, and along the way, Eise spoke to her.
"She was one of you, you know, that AG," Eise stated, continuing before Aries could answer, "it was a made from the same source as you, a CP (Copied Personality) of Jaune Arc, more specifically, the last copy of Jaune Arcs mind that had been received from the original."
"The last one, how many SQE's are there that were made using Jaune's mind, besides me," Aries said, now wondering exactly how many like her were around.
"Brace yourself for this, according to the last intel update following your awakening, the total number of 'Jaune Arc Pattern' SQE's, including you and the AG, is … 25," Eise dropped the bomb.
"WHAT!"
"25!" Wiess exclaimed.
"Wow, that is a lot of Jaune there, -", Yang felt a strong chill go through her as she was getting ready to set up a pun, and a feeling of imminent doom upon her, "uhm, well at least she's not alone in all this I guess, hehe."
The other girls were honestly feeling a bit weird at Yang suddenly not using puns, though a large part of them were quite relieved at no longer having to hear them (except maybe Nora, who usually was on Yang's side in regard to puns), though they were left torn at the fact that her pun hiatus was being enforced at cannon point as they saw a twenty millimeter auto-cannon being aimed behind Yang from the ceiling.
"Well, its quite surprising, wouldn't you say guys," Ruby said, though still a bit worried about what the facility may end up doing to her sister.
"Moving on," stated Mirai.
"There are 25 others like me," Aries stated in an incredulous fashion.
"Yes, with you and the AG the number of SQE's that used Jaune Arc's CP stands at 25 SQE's, but I must ensure you understand that the CP's used in the other SQE's and the AG were also quite different," Eise continued on.
"Different how," Aries questioned.
"Different in that the CP's used by the others were from later copies of Jaune Arcs mind, you were made using the first CP that was taken of Jaune Arc's mind 'at the time it was taken', the CP's of the others were conceived at later times, after Jaune experienced more events in his life later on, and these changes in his memory and personality would of course affect the development of the SQE it is used to create," Eise clarified, surprising Aries at this new information.
"That is also why I don't hold anything against the violent reaction of the AG when it first began attacking, you saw yourself what appeared on the monitors, those were echoes of the memories that made up the CP used on it, what Jaune Arc went through at the time was put into the SQE," Eise shifted to look at Aries, who looked back at Eise as she continued. "The reason that AG became what it was, can either stem from the CGAI or the CP, the CGAI was working fine, and the SP was initially showing steady when it first went in to the Synthesis unit, but a third issue, a less talked about on, can lead to an AG's creation, and that is the content of the CP, specifically the memories of the CP, which can only be fully perceived when linked to a thinking mind, which leaves the very troubling question …
… what did Jaune Arc go through in the time before he recorded JACP-25, what events could have so effected and ingrained themselves into his memories that it would create the monster we saw born."
Aries was left quite stunned and scared at this possible truth, with the images it saw from when the AG first activated still lingering in its mind.
"They know, they know what really happened, they were there," Eise said in a subdued tone.
"Huh, what does that mean," Aries questioned Eise as she heard what she stated, the answer was … surprising.
"It relates greatly to why you were born, to what happened on this world, to what has occurred on the surface," Eise stated to Aries, in a matter of fact way, "I can not tell you yet, not until you have seen for yourself what has transpired on land, but first you must be made ready for whatever may occur … we are here."
Aries then realized she was about to run into a large door, which opened up, revealing a large circular room with data towers that were more like pillars, emerging from the ground and rising into the ceiling, five in total arranged in a circular formation, and all surrounded a large cylinder that was also quite tall.
The cylinder then opened, revealing a human sized, oval pod with lines of SOMA undulating around its edges, the pod also opening, obviously waiting for someone to step into it.
Aries knew it was for her, that this was likely the weaver that Eise, Mevis and Mein had spoken of, and that she had to go inside.
"This is it, the 'Weaver', this will complete the procedure to get your body into a more stable and sturdier form, perform physical enhancements and neural reinforcement, as well as making you more visually appealing I could say," Eise stated, then the neural cores ocular sensor shifted to Aries, " but before that could you put me over on the panel at the corner of the room, right behind the third CPU tower."
Aries spotted the panel, which was itself a rectangular table with a flat reflective panel on its surface, though when Aries placed Eise on the panel the surface lit up with holographic information panels, and at the center was a single display for the 'Weaver' with the words INITIATE flashing on the screen, which was one of the few familiar things on the screen that Aries could make out.
"Process set, station is ready to begin 'weaving', now all it needs is the subject," Eise's ocular sensor shifted to Eise, "while you get 'weaved', I'll monitor the process from out here, if anything comes up, I will be here to rectify it."
Aries nodded at Eise's neural core, then looked at the pod itself.
She walked up to the pod and slowly climbed in, getting situated inside.
Lights came on along the sides of the pod, the pod itself closing up, and the cylinder sealing itself up as well, then a clear but viscous liquid began to pour into the pod at a rapid rate, and Aries panicked slightly at the thought of drowning … only to recall that she hadn't really been breathing for most of the time and her AO showed that here lungs weren't really working at all, or at least not like normal human ones. The viscous fluid filled the pod and outside the pod, multiple ports opened, depositing SOMA into the cylinder. From the edges of the pod, veins of SOMA came out and plugged into Aries's body, a slight stinging feeling came through as she felt the SOMA merge to her body, small incisors and other such instruments appeared as well from the pod's edges.
Just as the instruments were prepared to touch her skin, a prompt from her AO flashed across her vision, and it read 'SHIFTING TO STANDBY, 'SLEEP' MODE INITIATED', Aries read this and slowly her vision gradually faded, in a way similar to how a screen turns off, "I guess now I now how my computer feels every time I turn off the monitor," Aries told herself as her vision faded completely and her senses were soon replaced with a dull emptiness.
As Aries woke, she found a round platform beneath her feet, small motes of light surrounding her like stars in the distance, and she herself was a simple sphere of light in the expanse of light, and in 'front' of 'herself' was a screen that said '11 hours'36 minutes'42 seconds' which she guessed was the time it would take for the process to finish.
She simply decided to just simply rest in the large space, allowing her mind to drift into a dreamless sleep within the large space, dulling its awareness around itself and the lights slowly dimmed around her as she slowly let herself go into a stupor and the time fell away as she slept away.
The time passed as she slept, and she would soon wake up once again, all she could do now, was wait.
The screen turned itself off, which seemed to be the end of the current viewing.
"Wow, that was something, right guys," Ruby told the others as she spoke to the members of her team and _NPR, and the all agreed.
"It was a pretty interesting view, and the technology was quite something to see, and how Aries interacted with others and the situations that came up was pretty interesting," Wiess stated, the viewing having been quite eye opening in quite a few parts.
"It was pretty good, but it was kinda long though," Blake stated as she got up from the chair, feeling a bit stiff as she got up, "I'm not complaining about the viewing, it was very interesting and had some very strong points here and there, just that it felt a bit long, but it was still good."
"I hope the fearless-leader new daughter gets to kick a whole lot of butt after this," Nora stated, still remembering when Aries put the hurt on the AG, and Eise breaking off the whole portion of the underwater station, "and seriously, they were in an underwater base, that's cool on so many levels."
"I just hope she is still okay after all of that," Pyrrha stated, hoping that Aries gets through it all okay, but her mind still preoccupied by the AG and what the symbols it flashed meant, which left her worried.
"Well, I guess now would be a good time to take a break from the viewing, go to the restroom, feel free to freshen up, get some food if you want any, and well continue in about an hour from now, so tha-!"
Just before Mirai could finish, the screen flashed on, and the viewing played once more, though only briefly, but that brief viewing was very foreboding.
Aries felt a disturbance as she rested in the silent space, and her vision refocused as she saw the timer as it ticked to '1 hour, 31 minutes, 27 seconds', but noticed a red hue now permeated the view around her, and the word 'ALERT' was on a screen next to the countdown.
Then a small screen popped up, and it showed that it was a message from Eise, which Aries then opened to view.
She wish she hadn't, as the message, while short, said all it needed to.
/Message from EISE received, contents are as follows/
/…/
/…/
/… ITS STILL ALIVE …/
/Message End/
That brief viewing immediately caused the mood of teams RWBY and _NPR, to drop, but quite a large amount.
"Oh boy, looks like Aries is going to be in for a really rough time when she wakes up," Yang added in, speaking as she wanted to say something though now a bit worried but using a pun offhandedly, a bit afraid of what the room might do to her.
The others could only feel worry at what Aries would face, knowing that the thing Eise was talking about was the AG, and wanted to know what would come next.
"We will see what occurs later on in this reality, but later on I am afraid, for there is more than one reality linked to this affair, and the order we will see these realities in will be random I am afraid," Mirai stated, "if you want to learn the fate of your original world, we will need to see these realities as they appear, or we will never find out what has ultimately happened to your world," Mirai finished talking to them, looking as the screen now said 'PREPARING' as it made ready to view a new reality.
"We will meet back here in around one hour, I will send an alert telling you when the next viewing is getting ready to begin, until then, do what you need to for now in here," Mirai stated to them, before she made her way to another exit which appeared before her and was now gone.
As the group were now left alone, it was Ruby who then gave the final word on the matter of what to do.
"All right everyone, just go and do what you need to and meet back here once Mirai sends her message, we all good on that," everyone nodded in agreement, and Ruby smiled a bit at that, okay everyone, let's go then."
They went their separate ways as they went do what they needed to do, while the next reality was being brough up for viewing.
Authors note-
I must apologize here, I had no idea the chapter would be this long and have so much in it, I will try to shorten up the coming chapters, but I guess it will depend on how I go with them.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter and I will be continuing on with the work, catch ya in the next one.