CHAPTER XLIX

Where Did the Years Go?

Yang skipped this week's general meeting. This made the fourth week in a row, a major deviation from the usual monthly schedule, but as far as she could tell, there wouldn't be any new information for her. Skipping one probably wouldn't get her in any trouble. Her scroll was blowing up. She glanced at it. All thirty-seven messages were from Ruby.

She chuckled to herself before pocketing her scroll and leaning against the banister. This balcony gave her a great view of the entire island of Vytal. With powerful enough equipment, she would probably be able to see the very tip of Vale's CCTS tower.

The sound of a shuttle came from overhead. She smirked before heading to the landing pad to greet the new arrivals. All seven youngsters of Teams LILY and APEX marveled at their surroundings.

"Aunt Yang!" Leon and Athena yelled at the same time before rushing to her and hanging off her arms at either side.

"Don't ever change, you two crazies," she said, flapping her arms and shaking them off.

"I had no idea this place existed," Xanthus said, pushing his glasses up.

Perseus glanced at Ariadne. "You don't seem to be surprised by this place," he said to her.

"Not at all," she said before removing her spectacles to clean them. Xanthus offered a cloth to her and she accepted it with a smile. "Thank you Xan-chan. Anyway, I've been here once before."

"So, you've known about the Knights of Remnant, I'm assuming," Ingrid asked.

"Yes, but minimally. It was only in the last few months that my correspondence with them has intensified." She went over to Yang, who was chatting with her niece and nephew. "Yang Xiao Long, has anything changed with your status?"

"Not at all," she said. "Everything's nominal."

"Good."

"What's she talking about?" Athena said.

"That's classified information, kiddo," Yang said with a wink.

"Oh, whatever," the twins said together, crossing their arms in front at the same time.

"They've been doing that a lot lately," Ingrid groaned.

"I could finish your sentences for you if you like," Yuan said.

"Please don't."

Echo couldn't help but chuckle. Her attention turned to a giant bird flying overhead. At first, she thought it was a Nevermore Grimm, but on second glance, it was some kind of bird of prey, though it didn't seem to be interested in humans.

"Will," Yang said, firmly shaking hands with Hillphire and his team. "How was the flight?"

"Bumpy," Ariel said. "Ugh, why couldn't we take our own shuttle here?"

"Because it doesn't fit on the landing pad," Sara said.

"I knew that!"

"Hey, Yang," Penny said to her old friend.

Yang smiled as she walked up to Penny and gave her a tight embrace. "I hear you guys have been having it rough lately."

"We got a win on our last Labyrinth run. A win we desperately needed."

"I know that feeling."

"Yaaaaaaang!" yelling came from the door.

"Oh, hey, sis," Yang said to Ruby as the younger one stomped in her direction.

"You ignored all of my text messages!"

"Well, I looked at my scroll to make sure it was only you and not someone more important."

Ruby growled.

"Maaaaaaamaaaaaaaa!" Leon yelled as he ran to her and embraced her from behind.

"Leon!" she said, holding onto his arms.

"Hey, mom," Athena said as she and her brother sandwiched their mother.

"Gosh, you two are so big!" Ruby said. "What the heck have they been feeding you?"

"The bones of our enemies."

The three shared a menacing grin.

"They frighten me," Yuan said, hiding behind Ingrid, who couldn't help but laugh.

"So," Perseus said, looking around with his hands in his pockets. "This is a castle."

"It is," Ariadne said. "Dr. Hillphire, would you like to explain?"

"Oh, right," he said, clearing his throat. "This is Castle Vytal. It serves as the headquarters and training ground for the Knights of Remnant. Those selected for the Knight Division at the Huntsman Academies get sent here, where they make their vows to be the shield of Remnant for as long as they live."

"But, why a castle?" Leon said.

"No one knows," Ariadne said. "Nineteen years ago, this structure wasn't here. And then it was."

"I went in with a few androids to scout the place," Penny began, "and when I determined there were no threats, a larger team joined me to do detailed inspections. As far as I can tell from the readings, this place must be a result of magic."

"Yes, I can feel it, too," Xanthus said. "We can't use our magic in the real world, but this place, it's as close to the Labyrinth as we can get without actually being in the Labyrinth."

"It's because of that thing in the basement," Yang said.

"Oh, hell no," Leon said. "Thing in the basement?"

"I don't like the sound of that," Athena said.

"Just hearing it said aloud gives me the chills," Ingrid said.

"Relax, you weirdos," Yang said. "If it wasn't safe, we wouldn't have moved into the place."

"It's a Nexus," Ariadne said.

"Wait," Leon began.

"You mean, as in a Nexus Nexus?" Ingrid said. "Like the thing that appeared in Kuroyuri?"

"And the thing that invaded our manor," Perseus said. "I can feel it as well. The Rune of Atonement is reacting to it."

"How is it, by the way?" Ariadne said. "Has it stirred since the team retrieved you from your Labyrinth?"

"It wakes up anytime there's something magical going on, but fully activating, no. But like we agreed on, I'll let you know if anything happens."

"Thank you, brother." She turned to the rest of the group. "As far as we can tell, the Nexus and the castle housing it manifested on Vytal at the same time. All experiments that have been conducted on it confirm everything Lilith has told us about the nature of a Nexus, including its total unpredictability. As such the chamber containing the Nexus is off-limits to anyone not possessing the highest credentials available to the Knights of Remnant."

"To stop people from turning into flesh blobs," Athena said.

"Yup," Penny said. "Plus, we don't know what the hell kind of crazy magic stuff might get unleashed into the world if we decided to mess with it."

"So, anyway," Leon began, "why did we all come here?"

"You really don't pay attention to anything, do you?" Ingrid sighed heavily.

"Well," he said as he sidled over and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Only because you're so distracting all the time, pretty kitty."

The shadow clone he had been embracing vanished in a puff of smoke and he coughed.

"You're so predictable," the real Ingrid said from beside Echo.

"We're gonna whip you guys into shape and make you the newest Knights of Remnant," Yang said, slamming her fists together. "Although I guess that's mostly useless since you're already Wraith-Knights."

"Oh!" Ruby said, darting to her children. "Will told me you two awakened to the power together!"

"Yup," Athena said. "Totally twinning."

"You shoulda seen our duo attack, too," Leon said with a grin.

"Ooooh!" Ruby squealed, running in place.

"Should you really be that excited about anything Wraith-related?" Jaune said as the rest of the older generation joined them on the landing pad.

"I mean," Nora began, "honestly, Yuan has been dealing with his power pretty okay."

"And he's had it the longest," Ren said. "Was what you said true, by the way?"

"Yes," Yuan said. "It seems that with each subsequent awakening, the whole group became stronger collectively."

"Hmm," Ariadne said. "I'd like to study that some more, but without Lilith as a guide, I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"What kind of person is Lilith anyway?" Leon said. "She's Lilly's Wraith, so, like, does that make them opposites?"

"Maybe not quite opposites. But she most definitely is a terrorist."

Athena sat through the introductions in the castle's conference room, paying close attention to every detail of the briefing. She glanced over at the rest of her team. They were also uncharacteristically attentive, particularly her brother. Professor Oscar Pine led the meeting today, joined by the leaders of the Coalition. Winter Schnee served as the unofficial Atlesian delegate while Neptune stood in for Vacuo, Hollie and Qrow for Mistral, and Blake and Sun representing their new Kingdom of Menagerie.

As it stood, Atlas and Vacuo were on the brink of war. Since Orion Jupiter took over as Shade Academy headmaster and president of Vacuo, their military buildup had been accelerating. The country was far from becoming a police state the way Atlas had, but national sentiment had been in favor of a powerful national defense regardless. A police state was irrelevant when the very culture had become single-mindedly supportive of war.

But stopping the war was not the objective of the Coalition today. In the past, disputes would be resolved by this council, but a new threat, one even greater than a global war, had made itself known.

"So, we're sure Atlas is being controlled by the Greater Daemons," Leon said aloud.

"They haven't made themselves officially known, if that's what you're asking," Winter said, "but from what we've seen from my sources on the inside, there's no other possibility. Atlas has a much greater understanding of the Labyrinth and its workings, to the point that they are capable of marching entire armies through, effectively teleporting them across the planet."

"It's true, then," Ingrid said, putting a hand to her chin. "They really did attack Menagerie."

"As far as we know," Blake began, "it's not on the books, but it doesn't need to be if it was Colonel Gottfried himself who orchestrated the attacks on Mistral and Menagerie."

"He's our prime suspect," Winter continued. "If any of Atlas's officials are involved with the Greater Daemons, it's him. They may not be able to manifest in our world for longer than a few minutes, but we know Cinder and her comrades are working with the Greater Daemons somehow. Gottfried is likely functioning in the same capacity."

"What's our role, then?" Athena asked.

"We're tasking you with retrieving Lilly, Ivory, and Demetri from Atlas. Demetri's last communication indicated that he had just located Ivory. And...we couldn't bring Lilly back ourselves."

"Huh?" Ingrid said.

"We were with her," Yang said. "And her mom."

"We didn't know what the heck to make of it at the time," Ruby added, "but we're pretty sure it wasn't Lilly with us throughout the day."

"It was Lilith," Blake said.

Teams LILY and APEX stared for a moment.

"Wait, what?" Athena said, blinking a few times.

"Yeah," Yang said. "Only Ruby had ever seen Lilith out of the three of us, so we had to confirm it with her before we could do anything. The original plan was to hang out with the two of them and then grab Lilly and bring her back to Beacon Academy. Or, well, that's what we'd tell Weiss, when we were actually gonna bring her here."

"What changed?" Echo asked.

"She decided to run off on her own," Blake said.

"And you guys didn't go after her?" Ingrid said.

"Of course we did. But she was gone by the time I got outside. As in, gone gone. There was no way she could've run so far in only thirty seconds, so it must've been her magic."

"And our LabNavs didn't show any rifts nearby," Ruby said, "so either she's gotten really powerful and can just cross over at will wherever she is, or she used a new magical power and flew all the way to Atlas."

"She wouldn't do that, though," Yang said. "She's still reckless, but not inexperienced. Our bet is that she headed to the capital through the Labyrinth to dodge the Schwarze Sonne patrols."

"But didn't you say Atlas had armies in the Labyrinth?" Xanthus said.

"Their presence in the other world is limited as far as we can tell," Winter said. "Ariadne, I'm sure this looks familiar to you."

The youngsters turned their attention to the projection screen.

"Yes," she said. "That is a Reality Anchor Rune. Is that armor it's inscribed into?"

"It is," Winter said. "They seem to have outfitted certain individuals who have an affinity for magic with these armor prototypes. They're the ones who take up extended residence in the Labyrinth."

Ariadne looked at her desk. "This makes no sense. The Labyrinth world is hostile to those of us from this side of the veil. How have they managed to advance their Thaumatech so far?"

"Because of the Greater Daemons," Oscar said. "There's no other way to explain it. You've had Lilly and Lilith to help you with your Thaumatology. Unless she has a twin we don't know about, the only other explanation is them. They, too, seem to have as much knowledge of their world as Lilith does. Perhaps more."

"What I'm getting as far as overall strategy goes is this," Athena began, "we're not even touching this whole real-world war business. We're leaving that to the belligerents. In the meantime, the entire Knights of Remnant are gonna be involved in Labyrinth work."

"Spot on," Yang said. "That was actually why we went to go visit Weiss."

"To try and get her back on the team," Ruby said with a sigh. "I do miss my best friend."

"Winter's a perfectly fine sub in the meantime," Blake said.

"She's too tall!"

Winter chuckled. "I can lose the high heels if that makes you feel any better."

Ruby grumbled.

Ingrid ran into Leon on her way to the locker rooms. His attention seemed to be elsewhere. He would already have started bugging her otherwise.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked him.

"Huh?" he said. "Oh, hey pretty kitty. Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking, that's all."

"About Lilly? Or about Ivory?"

She watched as his face noticeably reddened, unable to help but grin silently at him.

"Both, actually," he said.

His candor took her by surprise and her cat ears perked up.

"They both mean a lot to me, you know."

"I mean, I kinda knew that, but, like, it's still kinda surprising you're being so open about it."

He chuckled. "I dunno. Maybe it's cuz you were my first kiss."

She turned bright red.

"I-I didn't mean it like that, though! I swear! Cuz, like, my combat partner is your boyfriend and all that and I'm not tryin'a steal you away or anything and besides we already figured out that it wasn't gonna work because—"

She shoved a finger in his face to silence him. She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head and sighing.

"W-What I'm trying to say is...uh, I dunno, actually. I guess it's cuz we've been best friends forever and I can kinda tell you anything, to be honest."

"What about Athena? And Astor?"

"I mean, they're here, too, but I haven't run into either of them at all. And besides, you're the first to bother asking."

He was right. She was the only one who wasn't overly focused on the upcoming task. She had always been good at distancing herself from missions, even when they were at Signal together. Athena was the laser focused one out of the group. Even the carefree Leon could get mired in the details. Like right now.

"Hey, are you doing anything?" Leon asked her, snapping her out of her reminiscence.

"I was gonna take a shower," she said. "Why?"

"I'm-a take a quick one, too. Wanna meet up after?"

She shrugged. "Sure." She paused for a moment.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"Just getting suspicious of you. You haven't declared your intention to sneak a peek on me while I'm in the shower."

He coughed. "Look."

She waited. "At what?"

"Just! I'm gonna go shower, 'kay?"

She watched him storm off into the men's locker room.

"Idiot didn't even bother grabbing a towel," she said as she pulled one from the cabinet to her right. His wet footsteps grew louder and louder until he ran right into the towel she was holding out for him.

"You're the best, Ingrid!" he said, snatching it from her hand and running back in.

She couldn't help but chuckle as she headed into the women's locker room. She and the others weren't overly dirty, but the shuttle ride was several hours long and the latest news was heavy enough that she needed a shower to help freshen up.

Ingrid closed her eyes as the lukewarm water covered her whole body, washing away sweat and dust and oil. She lathered up and let it sit before washing it all away. When everything was finished, she wrapped one towel around her body and the other in her hair, stepping out and standing in front of the mirror. There were tears streaking down her cheeks.

Weird. I don't remember crying.

It was only now hitting her. It had been months since the incident in her home country, but she never really had any quiet time alone to truly process what had happened. Now that she stared at herself in the mirror, it was all starting to come down like a castle made of glass.

There was a knock at the doorway.

"Ingrid?" Leon's voice sounded. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah," she said before sniffling, which she failed to suppress. "Just got allergies, I think."

She looked to her left, where he was standing, hair still wet and dripping over his black and red jacket.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" she sighed.

"Allergies, huh?" he said, grabbing another towel from a nearby rack and drying her cheeks.

"I can do that myself."

He gave her a small smile. "I'll be outside."

She let out another heavy sigh before drying herself off and getting into a new set of clothes. She chose a different style today, opting for dark blue jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt. She headed out into the hall, where Leon was inspecting the wall hangings.

"Kind of a weird castle, huh?" he said without turning to her. "It's basically totally a real castle from the old days, but inside there's all these modern facilities like plumbing and electricity and stuff."

He turned to her. No words were exchanged for a while. Finally, Leon broke the stillness and walked to her.

"You hungry?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I could use a drink, though."

He grinned. "That sounds super grown up."

"Not that kind of drink," she said, rolling her eyes.

They went to the dining area together, grabbing some smoothies before heading out to the adjacent outdoor section. They leaned against the banister together, looking out toward the setting sun.

"Wanna talk about it?" he said.

She glanced over at him.

"You haven't said a word about it since it happened, but I know you've been thinking about home."

She looked down. "I haven't even talked to Yuan about it."

"And he's never talked to anyone about Kuroyuri. And that happened a while back."

"I fucking hate that I was powerless to stop it all," she said abruptly, to which Leon responded with undivided attention. "The things that bastard Adam did to my sisters. I don't even care so much what he did to me. But Francine, Justine, Nadine..."

Leon leaned back against the stone banister, keeping his attention on her.

"How can people be that cruel?"

"That's a good question."

She turned to him.

"Sometimes I wonder. We've been going through the Labyrinth to save people from their own hell and stuff, right? What if we could also go through the Labyrinths of the bad guys and change them from the inside out?"

"I don't feel like we're making a dent in any of the world's problems, to be completely honest."

"You're feeling that way, too, huh?"

She stared at him for a bit. "Wait, you've been thinking that, too?"

"I think we all have. But let's get back to you. I...wish I had this power back then, too. So you wouldn't have to live with that now. If I coulda gone in and gotten you out a lot sooner, if Yuan and I had been able to follow you into that world and kept Adam and those Greater Daemons' claws away from you and your family, we woulda done it in a heartbeat."

"But there's nothing we can do about the past," Yuan said as he joined them.

"Is that why you've never talked about your hometown?" Leon said to him.

He nodded. "My friends and neighbors are gone. There isn't anything I can do for the dead other than never forget them. I carry their hopes and dreams. My mother and father and I are the last of our home. We keep their names alive."

Ingrid couldn't help but smile. "I was kind of expecting this from you." She sighed. "God, you're so strong, Yuan. The total opposite of me."

"You're wrong," he said, shaking his head. "You're strong yourself. It may be a different kind of strength, but it's there."

"He's right, you know," Leon said. "Maybe that's why you awakened to that power. Why we all awakened to it. These ancient beings think we have what it takes to bear this power."

Yuan walked to her side, rubbing his shoulder against hers. She leaned against him. As always, he was the pillar she could count on. He did nearly die for her not so long ago. Someone else bumped into her shoulder and she looked to her left. Leon was leaning against her, too. She reddened a bit, but the embarrassment lowered when she saw the earnest smile on his face.

He was a pillar for her to lean against as well. Even in spite of how aggravating her childhood friend could be, he was always there for her.

"Uh," Ingrid said, her face getting hot. "You two are kinda, um, close to me."

"We're here for you, Ingrid," Yuan said, wrapping an arm around her.

"Always here for you," Leon said, also wrapping an arm around her.

"C-Could you two, like, not?" she all but yelled, panicking as they sandwiched her.

A flash jarred her out of the moment. She blinked twice before gawking at Echo, who had snapped a photo of them with her scroll.

"You will delete that!" Ingrid screamed while in pursuit, but the team's archer was too fast to catch.

Leon couldn't help but laugh and Yuan chuckled as well.

"She is so beautiful," Yuan mumbled.

"Yeah, she is," Leon said before turning to him. "You take care of her, yeah?"

He nodded. "To be honest, she has been my rock, not the other way around. The only reason I can keep marching ahead is because of her. She has a spark that I never knew before I met her."

"She feels the same way about you, you know."

"Let's head back to the armory. We need to get ready for our mission."

"Roger that, partner."