What Lies Within
While Aqua continued her adventures in Remnant's long past while being watched by Penny, Terra, Neo and Oscar, inside Penny's heart another group had been watching without the others with the exception of Penny being aware until very recently. Penny had taken in the hearts of Team RWBY and Jaune Arc when their beings had been split upon entering the Realm of Sleep that had held Remnant. Their minds had succumb to slumber, turning them into Dream Eaters while their hearts and bodies returned to the physical realm somewhere and thus Penny chose to keep their hearts in her own until they could be restored to their full beings.
It was quite unbelievable to be living the way they are now.
And Penny herself, being able to manifest in her own heart, stayed with them to keep them company and explain everything.
"This is just too crazy…even for me." Yang had her back turned with her arms crossed, looking across the mural glass platform and staring into the infinite darkness.
Needless to say, it was difficult for Team RWBY to be together again after everything had happened. When they learned Remnant had been destroyed by the Heartless, they had all simply for the lack of a better word, shut down. And when Yang had slipped up and revealed her deception regarding Raven as the Spring Maiden, their emotions had reached the peak of despair to the point they broke off and this was not even mentioning what they had gone through with Drasil who had taken over Penny's body, unintentionally bringing her back and making her into some kind of goddess, even though they were all happy she was alive.
Especially Jaune.
He had fallen on his knees and cried like a baby in front of her, apologizing to her over and over again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"
Penny had knelt down and hugged him. "There is nothing to forgive, Jaune. I am the one who should be apologizing for making do it. I did what I had to do to keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden's powers but I know it must have been hard for you."
The rest of Team RWBY had looked on in silent sadness for what had happened, unable to look at each other for what they had done and had become.
Yang hated herself for being such a hypocrite for keeping secrets and sure enough it backfired on her the way it had backfired on them with Ironwood just as it had with Ozpin.
Blake felt shame for letting herself become such an…animal. The despair of the loss of Remnant along with her parents and other friends and the revelation that Yang had lied to her after all they had been through…
She had simply snapped, becoming more feral than Faunus, losing herself to madness…
Just like Adam.
Weiss couldn't even look at herself, seeing the worst of her parents in her. Cold, apathetic to everything around her, not caring for anyone or anything anymore.
And Ruby…
Ruby could only look on as Penny comforted Jaune with the same smile on her face, as if dying twice meant absolutely nothing to her.
How did Penny keep her purity when Ruby…
Ruby had wanted to be a Huntress.
She wanted to save people.
She wanted to do the right thing.
And yet, she felt she had done absolutely none of those things.
She had been driven to madness by the weight of her failure, the loss of Remnant and Penny to the point she chose to exact revenge on the only person she could blame for it all.
Neo.
Ruby was starting to think that her obsession with killing Neo had mirrored Neo's own obsession to kill her in her own misguided attempt to avenge Roman. She hunted her like a savage killer, planning to cut her up into pieces and stain Crescent Rose with her blood…
All that Ruby could feel now was pure disgust for herself for what she had become.
Penny looked up, noticing the depressing emotions that Team RWBY were feeling and simply smiled. "Perhaps what I show you all next can help."
With a wave of her hand, window into the outside world was shown in front of them. They looked up and saw the armored figure known as Terra…
Jaune winced, knowing that the man shared the same name as his sister.
…Along with Neo who was simply sitting on a stump, still wearing the dark coat that had been worn by the other man who seemingly vanished.
And…
"OSCAR!" Team RWBY and Jaune all gaped to see Oscar was with them.
"Oh right." Penny recalled with a pleased smile. "I forgot that Oscar had not been present for any times you had been conscious."
"How is he here…Or there?" Ruby turned to Penny. "Did he somehow come looking for us?"
"Sadly no, Ruby. Oscar, like the rest of Remnant had been lost when the Heartless had come." Penny shook her head with a solemn look. "Oscar…He was able to survive thanks to an unforeseen fail safe Drasil not aware of."
"What do you mean?" Jaune wiped his eyes as he stood up.
"You know of the four Relics on Remnant but they are not the only Relics in existence." Penny answered, surprising the five. "Oscar survived because he is a host of Ozma and the Relic that saved him is known as the Relic of Time."
"The Relic…of time?" Weiss said slowly, trying to make sure she was hearing things right. "As in…literal time travel?"
"In a way, Weiss." Penny nodded. "The Relic of Time is one of many Relics the Brother Gods created after they left Remnant, existing in a gap between space and time. Ozma found the Relic before he became Professor Ozpin but at that time he was known Odin…A Keyblade Master."
That threw RWBY and Jaune for another loop. "What?!"
Yang shook her head. "You mean Oz had one of the key weapons like that woman Aqua?! Why didn't he use it?!"
"Because Odin left his Keyblade to keep Drasil from entering Remnant." Penny answered, silencing the rest of the group. "It was an unforeseen development that coincides with our current state and also played a role of how everything that has happened recently has led to this."
"Penny, what do you mean?" Ruby asked, trying to keep up.
"When we used the Staff of Creation to open a pocket dimension to evacuate the people of Atlas and Mantle to Vacuo it had an unforeseen effect. The walls between other worlds weakened and brought forth of force of darkness even greater than both Salem and the Grimm. They are known as the Heartless." Penny began.
"I remember…I heard this when Aqua was telling Neo about herself." Yang glanced to the side with a haunted look on her face. "So…we caused Remnant to be destroyed."
This caused Team RWBY and Jaune to fall silent, all of them remembering what they had learned, how their actions had brought forth the Heartless and caused Remnant to survive. They along with Neo had survived only because of Cinder's attempts to kill them ironically.
"Yes. We did not anticipate this because no one, not even Ozma had ever used the Staff the way we did before. When creating a portal that leads to a pocket dimension in time and space to lead to another place on the very same world, the results are unpredictable. I understand that now because I had taken Drasil's place." Penny gestured to herself. "This place, the Ever After was formed from the collective subconscious desires of every living thing on Remnant. The connect between these two worlds was always there and Ozma himself had become somewhat aware of it….For it is the very same world that he used to seal the Relics in."
This caused RWBY and Jaune to look at Penny in surprise again with Jaune speaking for everyone this time. "This place has the Relics?"
"In a way. The Relics were each placed in far of places of the Ever After, keeping them apart but the tree in the center that was the physical manifestation of Yggdrasil was also connected to the realm the spirits dwell in when no one is using their Relics." Penny answered. "Drasil had been made aware of by the Brother Gods when she sent Aqua to visit them."
To clarify, Penny conjured forth an image of Aqua standing before both of the Brother Gods in Remnant's long forgotten past for RWBY and Jaune to see. They watched in surprise as the God of Light conjured two objects, looking very similar to the Relics for Aqua to use and then were even more surprised to see Aqua defending the Gods from Salem and the army of magical users that she had gathered. RWBY remembered seeing this when Jinn showed them Ozpin's past but they never remembered seeing Aqua when this happened.
"Drasil has the ability to send anyone from Remnant to any point of time in their life. In theory she could have sent us to the present when we fell here or even to the past, such as before Salem's attack on Atlas or even before the Fall of Beacon." Penny continued.
Ruby looked at Penny with wide eyes when she heard that. "You mean we could have gone back in time and maybe prevented Beacon being destroyed?"
"Theoretically." Penny conceded. "However the problem is that we would not only simply appear back in time but we would simply merge our memories with that of our past selves."
Yang held up her mechanical arm…and in a flash of light it was flesh and blood! "GAH!"
Everyone looked at her as she jumped back, staring at her arm in shock with Ruby and Blake being the most surprised.
"Yang…" Blake gasped.
"You're arm." Ruby's hands fell over her mouth.
"Oh yes, here in my heart you are not limited by your physical bodies." Penny said as she suddenly morphed into her appearance before she was torn apart just before the Fall of Beacon. "We can take the forms of what we looked like in any point of our lives."
Yang just continued to stare at her arm, lifting it, flexing her fingers, rubbing her hand across the real skin.
It was so real.
"Now there is a drawback." Penny stated, earning their attention again. "The Brothers did not trust Drasil to not alter Remnant's history so they made sure that if anyone returned to their past, their memories would reset themselves and thus we would lose all knowledge of the future."
"So even if we went back in time we would lose everything we knew?" Jaune asked, sounding disappointed.
Not that anyone could blame him.
A chance to prevent so much…
The Fall of Beacon
Yang losing her arm
Penny being dismembered
Pyrrha being killed
That was all that affected them directly but they knew so much more could be done.
"I am unsure if these rules affect me. Drasil possessed my body and thus my life was returned and when Drasil was defeated my heart became the new core of Yggdrasil." Penny continued. "All though I am technically the new Drasil I cannot know for sure if the rules left behind by the Brothers will apply to me, especially in the wake of the Keyblade's arrival in Remnant."
Weiss looked back, watching as Aqua fought and defeated Salem before her army attacked her and she was saved by the Brother Gods. "So is she changing history somehow? Why can she travel that far back?"
"Because Aqua is not from Remnant and this allowed for Drasil to bend the rules. If a being from Remnant wishes to return they can only return to any point in their natural lives. Since Aqua is not from Remnant she could just to be part of any point of Remnant's history but once she makes the choice she is left to become a natural part of the flow of time." Penny answered. "Since she arrived in Remnant's long forgotten past she can only move forward now."
"But I don't understand how this helps us now." Blake stated. "If she's a part of Remnant's natural history now she can't stop Remnant from being destroyed because she'll be dead long before our time."
Penny smiled. "It would be unfortunate but Aqua's abilities as a Keyblade Wielder allow her to bend the natural rules."
Everyone looked at her, confused by what she meant.
"Aqua's arrival here happened the same way when we unintentionally brought the Heartless to Remnant. However she fell through the pocket dimension where the Central Location formerly was and based on the time differences, she likely fell through there before any of us even set foot in the Central Location." Penny explained. "So she arrived in the Ever After before we did. She made her way to the tree and that was where she made contact with Drasil and the other spirits. Jinn, Ambrosius, Nimue and Janus." Penny continued explaining.
"Nimue and Janus?" Yang questioned.
"Are those the spirits of the other Relics?" Weiss asked.
"Correct." Penny nodded. "Nimue is the Spirit of the Sword of Destruction and Janus is the Spirit of the Crown of Choice. Aqua made contact with all four spirits before she arrived in Remnant's past and from the God of Light she named Izanagi she was given two Relics of her own: The Horn of Passage and the Sail of the Heavens."
Penny showed them Aqua using her Relics next, arriving in Daybreak Town. "The God of Light wanted to know Aqua's origins and thus the spirit of the Horn, Heimdallr would show him Aqua's journeys outside of Remnant. What Aqua did not know at the time was that her actions along with ours caused our worlds to become more entangled…Allowing for the event of Ozma reincarnating as Keyblade Master Odin."
Next was shown the image of the elderly Keyblade Master known as Odin.
"With his soul bonded to Odin's, Ozma learned a great deal of the worlds outside of Remnant along with many new forms of magic that he could have used against Salem. The problem was the time it took to find Remnant again followed Odin's own duties and then his own encounter with Drasil." Penny dispelled the image. "Drasil had wanted to merge the Ever After with Remnant, creating a fantasy world of peace being made a reality but Odin saw it as Remnant trading Salem and the Grimm for an even greater monster."
"So what happened?" Yang asked.
"Odin defeated Drasil but could not destroy her as destroying her would have destroyed the Ever After. Instead he left his Keyblade behind and used to keep Drasil bound to the Ever After." Penny answered. "It was also that during this encounter, Odin discovered not only a way to hide the Relics from Salem but a safety measure to warn any future incarnations of the threat Drasil posed: the Relic of Time."
A golden temple was shown to RWBY and Jaune next.
"This looks a little big to be a Relic." Jaune couldn't help but say.
"The Relic of Time is much different than the other Relics. It exists in a point between time and space and even acts as a repository for other Relics." Penny stated.
"Did you just say other Relics?" Ruby quickly asked.
Penny nodded. "I did. These Relics are as powerful as the four on Remnant but if Salem ever found them…She would have likely never needed Cinder or her other cohorts as with the power of these Relics she could have conquered Remnant easily even with all four Kingdoms working together."
This caused them all to have chills running down their bodies at the thought of Salem becoming even more powerful.
"That is why Ozma used the Relic of Time to extract a moment from his time as Odin, leaving time displaced copy of himself there with all of his memories of that life left behind to ensure that if he was ever captured by Salem she would not learn of the other worlds, the Keyblade or the other Relics." Penny continued. "It is also what allowed Oscar to survive Remnant being consumed by darkness."
An image of Oscar was then shown waking up in the Chamber of Revival.
"The Relic of Time is a vast temple with endless rooms and chambers and this one is known as the Chamber of Revival. It was…programmed for the lack of a better word to retrieve Ozma's host if Remnant was invaded by the Heartless and brought to the Relic of Time to regain his memories and Keyblade to help undo Remnant's destruction."
"But Oscar reincarnated in me." Jaune pointed out. "Why did that happen?"
"I believe Drasil wanted to prevent Oscar from being revived, knowing that he would do everything he could to stop her. It's possible with Remnant being destroyed by the Heartless she tried to prevent Oscar from being revived in the Relic of Time and thus used you, Friend Jaune." Penny said with a sad look. "She made sure Oscar, being the next soul to house Ozma would reincarnate in you rather than being revived in the temple. With Oscar unable to help, Drasil needed only another Keyblade Wielder to restore Remnant for her."
Jaune looked down at the mural, clenching his fists at the thought of being manipulated…again.
"Drasil waited for Aqua to return and when she learned of a way to restore Remnant she went into the Realm of Darkness, accompanied by Neopolitan." Penny then conjured an image of Neo wearing her new black coat.
RWBY and Jaune were not exactly happy to see Neo but remained silent.
"I do not know what happened in the Realm of Darkness, exactly. Only that Aqua and Neo were only partially successful in restoring Remnant but it was left in state of suspended animation." Penny then dispelled the Neo image.
"How?" Weiss asked.
"From my understanding, not all worlds were fully restored and Remnant was one of them and since it wasn't fully revived it was cut off from the rest of the worlds. The only way to enter it then was through a world known as the Realm of Sleep, a world literally created by dreams." Penny explained. "That was what happened to you all. The Remnant you all saw was Remnant in the Realm of Sleep, created by the dreams of the people who were left in stasis. When your minds succumbed to sleep, they created an entity known as a Dream Eater."
"Dream Eater?" The group echoed in confusion.
"Dream Eaters are inhabitants of the Realm of Sleep. They represent both pleasant dreams and nightmares…" Penny smiled and then frowned. "Whatever happened in the Realm of Darkness that led to Remnant being only partially revived, I know that Salem was able to survive because of her curse."
This revelation put the group on edge.
"When Remnant was restored, Salem's own mind had succumbed to the sleep as well and when it did, her being branched off, becoming separate entities. Her mind became a Dream Eater and her Heart became a Heartless that appeared in the Ever After after Aqua and the others defeated Drasil." Penny sighed.
"I remember that!" Ruby gasped. "I remember…I remembering watching you all fighting Salem who looked even more monstrous and then…"
Penny smiled. "The power of light from you, Ruby helped us defeat Salem."
Ruby's eyes were wide as dinner plates as she stepped back. "So…we defeated Salem?"
"Somewhat." Penny answred.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Yang questioned, rubbing the back of her head. "Sounds like we really did."
"Salem's being was split apart when the link between her mind, body and heart were broken by the Realm of Sleep. Her Dream Eater was encountered by Oscar in the Realm of Sleep while her Heartless attacked us in the Ever After. However there is data to suggest that it's possible that Salem's mind, heart and body can be reunited and thus she can be restored." Penny informed.
"Great." Yang sighed as she turned away. "Just when things were looking up."
"However, until that time we are safe." Penny smiled. "Salem has perhaps come closer to defeat now than she has in a millennium. However, her Heartless brought forth danger to Remnant again with the Heartless coming back…That is why Aqua was left with the choice in front of her. To save Remnant by altering its history or allow it to be destroyed."
Everyone just stopped and looked at Penny with wide eyed looks.
"Penny…Did you-" Ruby started.
"Just say-" Weiss picked up.
"Alter-" Blake was next.
"History?!" All five visitors in Penny's heart exclaimed and their voices seemingly echoed through the realm of Penny's heart.
"Yes." Penny smiled. "It was already happening even before she and the others faced Drasil. Aqua saved humanity by pleading with the Brother Gods to spare those who were not involved in Salem's plot to overthrow them, thus preventing the first extinction of humanity. That was the first change and how she is changing the rest of history…She found a way to bind her heart with Ozma's, thus when he dies and reincarnates she will follow him throughout history."
RWBY and Jaune were, for the lack of a better word: flabbergasted.
"That's impossible!" Weiss shook her head. "No one's powers could be like that! Not even this Keyblade!"
"I am afraid you are wrong, Friend Weiss. The Keyblade is an ancient and powerful weapon, even powerful enough to make one strong enough to stand against and even defeat deities." Penny replied happily. "On her own, Aqua defeated Salem's followers on the day the first branch of humanity was supposed to end. And though she was not alone, she still faced down and helped defeat Drasil who was a powerful entity herself."
This…
Was…
Mind-boggling!
"This is crazy. I know the Keyblade is powerful…I saw it right up close enough to know that." Yang muttered, remembering her fights with Aqua and Terra. "But do you really expect us to believe that it can allow one to travel through time."
"It can but it's dangerous, Yang." Penny answered. "As the new avatar of Yggdrasil, I have all of Drasil's powers…Including her ability to survey any and all possibly timelines for Remnant. I have already begun to see the likely future influenced by Aqua and the others."
She waved a hand and showed a familiar kingdom.
"Atlas." Weiss muttered.
It was indeed the very kingdom she had been born in but it somehow looked grander than before. Then the image changed to show three Faunus in battle.
"Adam." Blake muttered as she and Yang narrowed their eyes at the sight of the extremist who had caused them so much grief. "…And Ilia and that's Sienna Kahn."
"Looks like they are attacking an SDC facility." Weiss frowned and looked at Penny. "How is this any different?"
The answer came in the shocking form of the three White Fang members getting into a fight with two men that no one aside from Penny recognized and the other was…
"Mother!" Weiss gaped at the sight of her own mother, Willow Schnee fighting Sienna Kahn.
She had never known her mother to be a fighter, having been a drunken recluse most of her life and even before that happened she never showed signs of having been trained to fight.
And yet she was fighting with such skill and grace she made Winter and herself look like amateurs.
"As you can see there is a major change, starting here." Penny stated with a pleased smile. "Willow Schnee, having not been driven into depression by entering a loveless marriage has become one of the most known Huntresses in Atlas, repelling an attack by the Blood Fang."
"Blood Fang?" Blake looked at Penny. "They're not called the White Fang?"
"They were but thankfully another change was the White Fang had split into two factions. One carries the group's original idea towards peace while the other still bears their grudge, going by the name Blood Fang." Penny answered. "This splinter faction is led by Sienna Kahn with Adam Taurus as her lieutenant."
Blake looked back, saddened to see Ilia fighting with them but this was likely back before she renounced the violence. Meanwhile Weiss was taking a close look at her mother's fighting style, watching as she easily dodged any attack and fought back with grace and agility and found something familiar about this fighting style.
Like she had seen it before.
