Beta: ShadowMeister234
Emerald pulled the trigger that sent a bullet spiraling towards her target. From waking up from her sickness, to the upside-down tower, to being blown away by the winged monster, then her fight with the faker; Emerald had been through a lot, but this situation is the product of two journeys. It wouldn't be fair to only tell one. So, let's look back and see how the Ceaseless Knight came to face down a bullet spiraling towards him.
The door with the word "LIBRARY" chiseled across it opened smoothly and without a sound. Beyond the doorframe were rows and rows of bookshelves stretching off into infinity in every direction. Each one was filled to bursting with books of every color. Jaune didn't even realize he had stepped through the doorway until he turned around and saw that the doorway was gone and so was the sanctuary. It was just more bookshelves.
He didn't quite mind. This place felt better than the cathedral ever had. It had the same kind of soothing and quiet atmosphere that any other regular library had. It was a place Jaune thought he could relax and take a nap in. It definitely would have been nice, but he had to get back to Emerald and Yang. He didn't know how long he had been out for after getting his side blown open, but if destroying the binder compass had ended the sickness, then the girls must have been getting worried about him. It was possible that the six-hour window he'd given them had already passed and they had packed up and left, or the worst could have happened, and they had decided to come down into Cryphilictal to look for him.
His heart wrenched at that idea.
He had to get back to them no matter how nice this place was. That being said, he barely understood how he got here in the first place. Getting out wasn't going to be that simple. He doubted he could count on another door appearing with the word "EXIT" chiseled across it.
The only thing he could really do was investigate the bookshelves. The books were a myriad of colors but there was no writing on any of the spines to indicate what knowledge they might contain. Picking one off the shelf at random showed nothing on the front or back cover either. A quick glance at some of the other books revealed the same thing. It seemed like a safe guess to assume every single book in this library was unlabeled.
Jaune expected to see blank pages when he opened the book, but that wasn't the case. Each page was filled to the brim with neat little scribbles. Unfortunately, he couldn't read a word of it since it was all in the Cryphilictal symbols. He picked out a few more books, but they were all that way. The only thing he could determine by comparing them was that while all the books were written in the same language, and even looked to be written by the same hand, the actual symbols and placements were unique. Likely, that meant every book held its own story which was kind of a terrifying thought.
It seemed impossible that all this information could have been collected, let alone read, no matter how many people had been involved. If every person on Remnant dedicated themselves to reading these books for the rest of their lives, they wouldn't even make a dent. What could all of this knowledge have been used for? What even was this place?
As Jaune was still contemplating the absurdness, he heard something squeak from the other side of the shelf, then the sound of books being moved, and finally the sound of footsteps.
Someone else was in here with him.
He traveled along his side of the bookshelf keeping pace with the footsteps he heard. They were soft but since they weren't any other noises in the library, they were easy to hear. Eventually, he came to a break in the bookshelves that led into the other aisle. He stopped right before the break and pressed his back against the shelf as he waited to see what went by. If it was something that looked dangerous, his sword was at the ready.
It was an unnecessary precaution. What Jaune saw was not a monster of any kind. It was a young girl pushing a full book cart. He was aware that it could have been a trick, but with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she could have been one of his sisters. He couldn't help but relax a little.
She hadn't noticed him, so he continued to observe her as she stopped in front of one of the bookshelves. She picked a book off her cart and placed it in the bookcase. It really shouldn't have fit with how tightly all the others were packed together, but whether the shelve expanded its available space or the other books shrunk, the new one slid in perfectly.
The next book apparently needed to go on one of the higher shelves. Unfortunately, the poor girl didn't quite have the reach to get it up there. The hem of her simple white dress rose above her ankles as she stood on her tiptoes and strained her arm to try and push the book one inch higher. She released a sad little whine when she still couldn't reach.
Jaune couldn't watch another second of it. "Do you need some help?" He walked up behind her.
"If you wouldn't mind," the girl said without a second of hesitation. She barely even looked at him while giving him the book like she had expected his assistance all along. He put it on the shelf, but before he could ask her anything, she was already pushing her cart down the aisle. Even when he caught up to her, he wasn't able to get a word in because she was already saying something.
"It matters not if you seek knowledge, power, or fortune. Cryphilictal is a place for fools and geniuses alike. Come one, come all. We're all mad here."
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
The girl placed another book on the shelf at a seemingly random position. "What's what?"
"What you just said. What does that mean?"
The girl tilted her head in a way that would have been very cute in any other circumstance. "What did I just say?"
Jaune was beginning to get frustrated. "'Cryphilictal is a place for fools and geniuses alike,' why did you say that?"
"Because I was answering your question."
"I didn't ask a question!" Jaune shouted.
The girl seemed even more confused than Jaune was, but then her face lit up. "Oh my, I'm so sorry. I must have our conversation mixed-up." She bowed her head before looking back at him with a tint of embarrassment on her cheeks. "Would you mind reminding me where we were?"
Jaune was starting to think she was just messing with him. "We weren't anywhere. You just started talking nonsense after I helped you with a book."
He could practically see the cogs in her brain slowly spinning as she processed this seemingly shocking information. "Does that mean we haven't introduced each other yet?"
"No, we haven't." Jaune barely managed to keep from growling.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry." She bowed her head again. "You must be so confused. My name is Alice Bedlam. I'm the librarian here." She held her hand out. "It's very nice to meet you, Jaune."
He hadn't given her his name, but he was pretty much over it at this point. If she knew it then she knew it. He shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Alice."
"Wait! You already know my name?"
It took all of his willpower to not crush her hand in his grip. "I do, now could you tell me what exactly this place is?"
"This is the library. It's where everything that will happen and everything that has already happened is recorded. I try to organize it all."
Jaune's jaw nearly dropped to the floor. "You're telling me that all these books." He gestured to the endless rows of bookcases. "Are glimpses into the future."
"Yes, they do contain information about future events."
"So, in theory, if I found the book about me, would I know everything that's going to happen to me? Does it change since I know it, or does this place know that I'll know and take that into account?" Jaune was having a bit of an existential crisis. He didn't want to believe that his entire life was already planned out for him
"No, you don't have to worry about that. The future is defined by people's decisions. There isn't any way to know what it holds."
Jaune felt like he should have been happy to hear that, but now he was only more baffled. "But you just said that these books are written about future events."
"They are."
"So, how can the future be changed if this library can tell me what's going to happen?"
Alice turned away for a moment to put another book on the shelf, but by the time she turned back, Jaune noticed she had a completely different expression. "Oh, you're here. Let me introduce myself. My name is Alice Bedlam. I'm the librarian here." She held her hand out.
The blank look on his face and the fact he didn't reach out to shake her hand must have clued her in that something was wrong. "We've already been through this haven't we?"
Jaune breathed through his nostrils. "Yes."
"Oh, I'm sorry." She bowed yet again. "Would you mind reminding me where we were?"
Jaune snapped. "The library! How can it tell the future if the future can be changed?" Alice deflated with a sad whimper, and now he felt bad. He rubbed his hand down his face and took a deep breath. "Let's forget about the library for a second. Let me ask you who you are? Why can't you remember what we were just talking about?"
Alice fiddled with her fingers. "Well, what the library is and who I am are kind of related. Did I tell you that the library is where everything that will happen and everything that has already happened is recorded?"
"Don't worry about what you have or haven't told me. Just explain it to me like you haven't told me anything else."
"Okay, I think I can handle that." She seemed much calmer now. "I guess the first thing you need to understand is that this library doesn't actually exist, at least not physically. It exists between time, or something like that, I'm not really sure myself. What's important is that my father, who you've already met…" Jaune was confident he hadn't, but he didn't want to break Alice's concentration just to correct her. "…threw me in here to become the librarian. Being the librarian is a lot more than just rearranging these endless numbers of books though. I've become a part of the library which on top of not being able to leave, means I don't experience time linearly or even nonrepetitively.
"My existence is made up of tiny little clips of memories, past, and future, being chosen at random to decide what I'm experiencing at the moment. Imagine opening a book and then reading a random sentence only to close it, and then open it again to choose another random sentence. It's horrible. I don't know what's happening "now" or what has happened or hasn't happened yet. How long have I physically been here? Have I only been in the library for a few seconds, or have centuries gone by? I don't age here, and without any way to ground myself in the outside world, I have no idea. It must be very frustrating on your part, but please accept my apology if I repeat things you've already heard or say things out of order. I can't even tell you how many times I've had this conversation."
She bowed her head, solidifying the feeling in Jaune's chest that he was the worst person in the universe. Yelling at her for not being able to keep track of a conversation would be like yelling at faunus for having too many ears. "I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn't have snapped at you."
"Did you snap at me?" Alice tilted her head letting him know that she didn't remember, or she did remember it was just that from her perspective it was something that hadn't happened recently. In her mind, potentially hundreds of years could have been between that event and this one.
Just thinking about it made him feel sick.
"How do you live like this?"
"I don't really have a choice." She sounded so sad.
"I think I would go insane if I had to live like that."
"It's possible I have, but if there's any point where I've lost my mind, it's always possible to experience an earlier point where I hadn't."
Jaune honestly didn't know if that was a good thing or not. "Is there anything I can do to help you."
Alice looked at him with those soft blue eyes for a long time. "It would be impossible for me to explain since I don't know myself. The only way to get a true answer would probably be to ask the Relic of Madness but obviously, you shouldn't do that. I'll try my best, though. You shouldn't think of the library as a means to actually know the future. It's more of a prediction that can't be wrong. I don't really know how it works myself, but it's possible that the library is recording all possible futures."
Jaune was very confused but realized she had gone back to answer his question on how the library could know the future if the future isn't predetermined.
"They might not even be futures at all. If time is infinite, then it's possible that every possible event has already happened an infinite number of times. Maybe it doesn't matter what any of us do because an unimaginable amount of time later the universe will position itself in a way that is exactly the same as it is now and will do so an infinite number of times along with every other possible existence. Maybe the library is just a record of an existence exactly like this one that took place sometime far in the past."
Jaune could feel his existential crisis creeping back in.
"Although there are some that propose that space and time are actually the same thing, space-time. If that's true, then if one is infinite the other must be as well, which means the existence of things never has to line up in the exact same place twice. Even if time is infinite and space isn't, there's no guarantee that things could line up perfectly ever again. Like how if you count from zero to infinity you never count the number "one" twice.
"Infinites are strange, though; even if our existence has a probability of repeating, that doesn't mean it will. Let's go back to the number line model and say this existence is "zero" and the next iteration of this existence is "one." Counting from zero to one is normally simple, but if I told you to count every number including decimals how would you even get past "zero?" You can't start with .01 because you wouldn't be counting .001 or .0001 and so on. There are an infinite amount of numbers between "zero" and "one" so even with infinite time it's possible we'd still never pass the first infinity to get to a repeated existence, so this might be the only chance at existence we have. If that's the case then the library would have to record the future using—"
"You can stop now!" Jaune waved his hands in front of him. "I'm not even going to pretend I understood half of what you just said, but I think I'm going to be fine with that. I've decided that I don't actually need an explanation on how this library works." Even though Jaune was a caretaker, he knew that there were some things in this world you just didn't need an answer to. Maybe that's why Cryphilictal fell in the first place. A city that felt the need to create a library that could know the future obviously wanted answers for everything.
"Let's just go back to what we were talking about."
Alice slotted another book in its place from her cart that never seemed to lose a single one. "Oh, would you mind reminding me where we were?"
"I was wondering if there was something I could do to help. No one should have to live like this."
Alice gave a watery smile. "You'll never know how happy, yet how sad it makes me every time I hear you say that. I know you really mean it, and I truly believe you'll find a way to free me because in the same way the library might work in infinites if I was really stuck in here forever, then surely I could never experience this moment as often as I do. There must be an end somewhere, but I don't know how long away that is. Are you really here right now, or is this a meeting that doesn't happen for another thousand years?"
"I am really here."
"That's what you always say because to you it's always true, but I have no way of knowing."
Jaune felt his heart breaking. It was made even worse by just how much Alice looked like one of his little sisters. "Tell me how to get you out of here and I promise I'll do it right now."
Alice shook her head. "My father forced the librarian position on me to provide information to others without them having to search the library themselves, but I don't know how to free me since the way I'm experiencing information right now is tied to the library. Obviously, that would stop the moment I escaped, so I can't have any flashes to after that point. If you want to free me, you'll have to figure it out yourself, and that, I fear, doesn't happen for a long time even from your perspective."
Jaune clenched his fists. He didn't know this girl at all, but he couldn't bear to leave her to rot here. Sadly, without even the slightest clue to how this library worked, he didn't think he'd have a choice. "I promise, that one day I will return, and I will get you out of here."
"No, you don't have to worry about that. The future is defined by people's decisions. There isn't any way to know what it holds." She had lost track of their conversation again. His promise gone to the wind, locked away in a different time.
Maybe it was for the best. He didn't know if he could take whatever hopeful response she might give. Instead, as much as it pained him, he had to move on. He had been sent to this library for a reason, and now he knew what it was. "You said you can give out information, so does that mean you can tell me how to help Ruby."
"Yes, I can tell you how to cure the girl with the eyes of death. She needs some eye drops from the Fountain of Life. Luckily while Salem got a hold of the Grimm pools after the Brothers left, Cryphilictal swallowed up the Fountain. You can find it here." Alice brought two fingers to Jaune's chest and suddenly he knew exactly where the Fountain was. He felt like he could get to it even if he was blindfolded.
"Wow, I wish I knew how to do that. Everything would be so much more convenient."
"I could teach you if you like," Alice replied, "but since I've never taught you before I think this must be the point where you need to leave to help Emerald."
Jaune paled. "Emerald's in trouble? But, I don't know how to get out of here," he panicked.
Alice pointed behind him. The same way you came in.
Sure enough, behind Jaune was the exact same door he had used to enter, but instead of "LIBRARY" written on the front it said "EXIT." Funny how he had been so sure that he couldn't count on one of those appearing. Maybe the library had given him his own glance into the future.
"I'm going to go ahead and guess you can't use this door," he said.
"No, the ice sculpture is for caretakers alone. You might not believe it, but originally Cryphilictal was built to be convenient for your kind. Even if I don't know exactly what it's like in your "now" there's no "when" that I've seen where some of that design doesn't linger. I'm sure you've been helped to your goal at least a bit."
Now that he thought about it, he guessed he had. He had made it through the maze under the cathedral and found the binder compass only because all the other doors had been locked. Then there was obviously the ice door that had led him here. "Actually, do you know what the plague under the ice sculpture in the cathedral said?" he asked Alice. "I feel like it's important."
"'It matters not if you seek knowledge, power, or fortune. Cryphilictal is a place for fools and geniuses alike. Come one, come all. We're all mad here.' It was written by my father right before he descended into the Abyss."
Well, at least he knew what those first words to him had been answering.
He grabbed the doorknob, but before he turned it open, he glanced back at the blonde-haired girl that would remain trapped in here. If only there was something he could do for her—actually maybe there was. He let go of the doorknob, muttering a quick apology to Emerald. She was a strong girl even if she was in trouble, she could hold out for a few seconds longer. This was something he had to do.
He dug into his belt pouch and pulled out the glass knife. It was still a little foggy, but it didn't look any worse than the last time he had seen it, and it worked fine when he needed to talk to Whitley about the riddle door.
He headed back over to Alice. "Here, I want you to have this."
She looked at the glass knife he was holding out. "I'm sorry but I can't accept this."
"Of course, you can. It will let you communicate with the outside world. Trust me, Whitley will love talking to you. Once he finds out what you are, you'll never be able to get him to shut up. Even if it doesn't work, you can always use it to help figure out when you are. If you ever get confused just look down and see if you have the knife, then you'll know I've already been here." Jaune knew it was kind of a desperate ploy, but he couldn't just leave without doing anything.
"Thank you, but I can't accept this because you still need it."
"How can you know that? I thought you couldn't tell when things happened. What if I've already used it for whatever I needed it for?"
"Has it saved your life?"
Jaune bit his lips. No, no it hadn't. He did need to say it. Alice noticed it written all over his face and gently pushed the knife back his way, but Jaune wouldn't accept this. He shoved the knife back into its case, and then ripped the two custom made Pumpkin Pete charms from his belt and practically forced them into Alice's hands. "Then take these."
Alice examined the objects with some puzzlement. "What are they?"
Jaune grinned. The fact she even needed to ask that meant he had changed something—done something new. "Only a one-of-a-kind collector's item for Remnant's greatest mascot, but it's also a physical manifestation of Jaune Arc's promise that one day he'll come back and rescue you, so keep it close to you until that happens."
Alice smiled, the brightest one he had seen yet, and attached the little bunnies to the side of her dress. "Thank you, but I think you really need to get going."
Jaune looked back at the exit door and noticed that it was kind of melting. There wasn't any time to think about it. He sprinted towards the ice door and grabbed the now slushy doorknob and threw himself through, but before he completely made it through he heard Alice say one last thing to him.
"Say hi to Jade for me."
Jade? Who's that?
Jaune was thrown out into the familiar Cryphilictal streets, and as expected the ice door was completely gone by the time he turned around. He picked himself off the ground, aware that he wasn't too far from the Fountain of Life, a place he had never been to before but magically still knew how to get to.
That would have to wait, though. He needed to find Emerald and he needed to find her fast. Until now, it had been a likely possibility that Alice had just been mistaken about "when" Emerald was in trouble, but the moment he stepped out of the library, he knew it wasn't a mistake. Cryphilictal had always had a bad feeling about it, but it was different now. It was heavier—suffocating even.
It felt like death.
He broke into a sprint, but while he might have known where the Fountain was, he didn't have the same ability to track down Emerald. He could run as fast as he wanted, but there was no guarantee he was getting any closer to her.
Luckily, he didn't have to worry about that for long. The exit door had guided him right where he needed to be. He rounded one of Cryphilictal's curves, and there she was. She was sitting on the side of the road with her hand on her stomach. He couldn't get a great look at it, but it was very bloody. Some other things he noticed were the small gash in her forehead, what looked like burnt skin on the side of her lips, and the redness in her eyes like she had been crying. There was also what looked like a tarp made of flesh lying in the center of the street, and finally the fact she was pointing her weapon at him.
"Emerald are you okay?" he asked her. She only glared at him with one of the most hateful looks he had ever seen. It made him nervous. "What's wrong? Why aren't you saying anything?" He took a step forward which was clearly a mistake.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Emerald screamed.
A bullet flew from her weapon. He barely dodged it, but it was far from the last. The next one hit his shoulder and bounced off his aura. The third through fifth were blocked by the shield he summoned to protect him. "Why are you shooting me?" he yelled. "I'm your friend."
"LIAR!" She sounded hysterical. "I'm not falling for it. If you want to kill me, then just do it. Stop hiding behind his face. It's not working."
Several more bullets bounced off his shield before Jaune heard the click of an empty gun trying to be fired. He lowered his shield and looked in the terrified eyes of his beloved partner. He had never seen anything like it from her before. "What happened to you?" he said barely above a whisper.
Emerald dropped the weapon she was holding and went to grab her second one with the same hand. Jaune knew he had to say something fast. "I would never hurt you. Why do you think I'm going to?"
Emerald pointed the barrel of her weapon at his head. "Because you're just another fake."
Jaune might not know what exactly happened to his partner, but he could put two and two together. "I'm not a fake. I'm the real Jaune."
"Then prove it!"
"I have my shield and my sword," he said holding up the former and manifesting the latter.
"You could have stolen them. Tell me something only he would know."
She had stopped shooting at him, so he was at least making some progress. "We first met because you stole my journal and I chased after you. Then you wouldn't return it unless I bought you an expensive dinner."
Emerald's weapon lowered just a bit before snapping back up. "You could have learned that from that thing in the tower. Tell me something mundane, something the tower wouldn't bother letting you know."
Jaune racked his brain for something. "Umm…I have seven sisters." Emerald narrowed her eyes, not happy with that fact. Jaune quickly tried to think of something else. It needed to be more specific than the number of sisters he had but it also needed to be something that Emerald would know was true for certain.
He blurted out the first thing that he could think of that fit that criteria. "When we first discovered that faunus hanging from his shop, before we knew about the spider-slug, you told me that if I solved the case, you'd wear a maid outfit as my reward."
Emerald's gun nearly slipped from her hand as her mouth widened. "You remember that!"
Jaune smirked. "What can I say; it stuck in my mind. I never did get that reward by the way."
"That's because you never really solved the case. If I recall correctly, the news is saying the killer is still on the loose."
"That's just a technicality. We know it's dead."
"If it's not reported as solved, then it's not solved. Maybe you shouldn't have burned all the evidence away."
"To think my own partner would go back on her world like that. To think that I trusted her." Jaune smiled and took a few steps towards her. "Believe I'm the real deal now?"
Emerald suddenly snapped her gun back to where it was and removed her own smile after thinking back on those fond memories. She looked at the Jaune in front of her one more time trying to decide if he really was her partner. Was he really him or had she just been caught up in another fake's game?
She wanted to believe it was him—she wanted to believe it so badly, so even if it was a lie, she decided to believe it and lowered her weapon. "I'll believe you for now, but if you do anything even the tiniest bit suspicious, I'll end you just like I did the other one." She made a show of her weapon still being firmly within her grasp, but she knew that it was just an empty threat.
Jaune moved carefully towards her. She thought about telling him to stop, distance being her only advantage against another fake, but if this really was Jaune, then she wanted him next to her. He got within striking distance to her. If he meant to harm her this was the time to reveal it. There was nothing she could do to stop him.
He didn't attack her. He kneeled by her side and looked at her with such familiar concern and worry that she didn't think even the best fake could perfectly replicate it. She felt a weight lift off her chest, so great was the relief that she thought she might start crying again.
It really was him.
On Jaune's end, things weren't so happy. He was finally close enough to see the damage to Emerald's hand, and it was worse than he ever imagined. He didn't know what else to say other than stating the obvious. "Emerald your fingers."
She responded with a dry chuckle, one filled with pain. "Yeah, I screwed up, but don't judge me too harshly. You look like you've been through the wringer too." Her eyes drifted to the scar on his side.
"Why isn't your aura healing you?" Obviously, he didn't expect her to regrow her thumb and index finger, but they were bleeding profusely, and Emerald was growing paler by the second. Even if her aura was low, it still should have halted the bleeding.
Emerald released another dry chuckle. "My aura is no longer cooperating with me." She lifted her injured hand just a little bit and he saw her aura visibly crackle around it before bursting apart and not doing anything.
"Fuck." Jaune raged as he tore the last bits of fabric that had been his shirt off his chest and wrapped it around Emerald's hand. It was quickly colored red, but before he could think of a way to deal with that problem, something that sounded like an explosion rocked the buildings around him.
"That monster is still looking for us," Emerald said ominously.
Jaune looked around, but he didn't see anything. That didn't mean Emerald was wrong, though. "We need to get you out of here."
"I don't think that's going to happen." She drew his attention to her swollen ankle.
"If you can't walk, then I'll carry you."
Emerald chuckled again as her head fell over to one side. The adrenaline that had been keeping her going until not was running low. "Jaune, just leave me behind."
"Never," Jaune stated behind gritted teeth. He was already getting in position to put her on his back. A hospital wasn't possible, but if he could get her back above ground, they would be safe, or at least safer than they were now. After that he would…well, he would think of something.
He tried putting Emerald on his back, but she stubbornly refused to wrap her arms and legs around him. "Don't be difficult. I'll princess carry you if that's what it takes. I'm not abandoning you."
"I know you wouldn't. After being chewed up and spit out by so many others, it's been nice to have someone I can truly trust, but it's not abandonment if it's my decision."
"I refuse to accept your decision."
"You have to. I know it's not what you want to hear, but right now I'm less than useless. I can't fight, can't walk, and my aura is busted. Find Yang and get out of here. She can be your partner from now on."
As horrible as he felt to admit it, he had actually completely forgotten about Yang, but that was just proof that Emerald was the only partner for him. "You have no replacement," he stated.
Emerald looked away sadly. "Then you'll have to go it alone."
Jaune gave up on trying to get her to move. Even if he did princess carry her, he wouldn't get very far if she refused to interact with him. "Fine, let's go through this with Emerald logic." He threw his hands up into the air to emphasize how stupid she was being. "You think I should leave you because you believe you're going to be a burden, so if I heal you will you drop this stupid nonsense?"
Emerald looked at him oddly like he was the one being unreasonable. "How do you plan on doing that?"
Jaune looked at the markings on his arm. He should have died back when the binder compass blew him open, but he hadn't. Something must have saved him, and the only thing he could think of were these silver lines that crawled up his arm while he had been unconscious. Whatever they were, if they could heal him from the brink of death, then surely, they could help heal Emerald.
He concentrated on them. Put his entire focus into making them react in some way. They remain static, but that didn't mean there wasn't something going on that he couldn't see. He grabbed Emerald's shoulder.
Nothing happened.
He tried laying his forearm, where the lines actually were, across her ankle.
Nothing happened.
Emerald watched it all with the look of someone watching a child try to empty the ocean with a cup. "Just stop."
"No! This will work."
It had to. It had worked before. He was just missing something. Instead of focusing on the lines themselves, he thought back to what he remembered. There had been a whitish glow surrounding his body and he remembered it had felt a lot like his aura. Was that the connection?
He pushed his aura into the silver markings but there was still no reaction. What was he missing? He thought back again. Please let me help her.
He reached deep into his soul, and finally, he was able to pull something out. It was like a shot of energy as both his hands started to glow with the familiar whitish hue. He didn't waste a single second before placing them on Emerald's arm and ankle.
The effect was instant.
For Emerald, it suddenly felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket. All the tension in her muscles eased away. The pain that had been hammering in her ankle and hand lowered into a dull throb. She could actually see the swelling in her ankle go down. She felt renewed—reborn even.
Finally, Jaune pulled his hands away. She was sad to see them go.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
Emerald brought herself up on shaky but mostly painless feet. "I feel good." She flared her aura and it finally functioned like it was supposed to.
"So, am I allowed to take you with me now?" Jaune chastised.
Emerald flushed and looked away. It had all seemed so correct just a moment ago, but now that it was all over, she could only feel embarrassed over her words. It was like she had come out of a bad dream. "When did you learn healing magic?" she asked to change the subject.
"I didn't." Jaune stared at his still shimmering hands. "I think this is my semblance."
"If it is then you hit the jackpot. Do you know how many people would kill to have a healing semblance on their side?" Emerald unwrapped her hand from Jaune's shirt and looked to her missing finger and thumb which had stopped bleeding and were scarred over. "Especially one this effective. You could make millions working at a hospital or something."
"I think there might be more to it than that." Jaune kept contemplating his hands before finally shaking his thoughts loose and letting the white glow dissipate. "We can deal with my possible semblance later. We need to find Yang and then make our way to the Fountain of Life. I found out how we can save Ruby."
"How'd you figure that out?"
"It's a very long story. I'll tell you when we find Yang."
A flash of suspicion in Emerald's eyes and that she gripped her weapon a little harder informed Jaune that he had done something wrong. "I would like to hear it now if you wouldn't mind," she said.
Quickly, Jaune summarized everything he had gone through. Emerald listened intently, seeming to try and find any contradictions, and Jaune found out why that was after she gave her own summary of her and Yang's adventure.
"So that's how you lost your fingers and why you shot at me," Jaune said sadly. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner
"Don't be. You couldn't have known."
But he did know. Alice had told him. That said, even if he had left the library immediately after the exit door appeared, he still wouldn't have made it here in time to help her. Didn't stop him from feeling bad about it though. "You said you got a mask from the fake me?"
"Yeah, I did." Emerald looked down at her feet and spotted the plain white mask she had put aside. She bent down to pick it up with her right hand but quickly realized it would be an impossible task without her thumb or index finger. It was something she knew she was going to have to get used to.
She holstered her weapon and picked up the mask with her left hand. She and Jaune examined it for a bit, but it really did just look like any ordinary mask. Absentmindedly Emerald brought the mask up to her face. Jaune snapped his hand out and grabbed her wrist before she could make it the whole way.
"What do you think you're doing?" he accused.
"What does it look like? I'm going to put it on."
"You got that thing from something that attacked you and bit off your fingers? Do you have any idea how dangerous it might be to put that on your face? What if it sticks to your face and starts controlling your mind?"
Emerald rolled her eyes. "Considering what you do on a regular basis this can hardly be considered reckless." Still, his words did make Emerald look at the mask with a little more caution. Instead of actually wearing it, she held it in front of her face so she could look out of the eye holes.
"See anything?" Jaune asked.
"Actually I do," Emerald replied. Looking at Jaune through the mask, Emerald saw a bunch of different colored strings connected to his chest and traveling outwards. Most of them were clumped together and branched off in a single direction, but there were others shooting off into different directions. She couldn't tell where they went because about two feet away from Jaune all the strings faded out. They were also all very skinny, all except two. Those outliers were very thick. There was a green one that branched out like all the rest, and a bright red, almost pink, string that was traveling right towards her. She tried stepping to the side to see where it really went, but it followed her like it was connected to her own chest. She tried grabbing it, but despite looking so real, her hand just passed through it.
"Give it to me," Jaune said after Emerald explained everything she was seeing.
He put it to his face and saw pretty much the same thing when he looked at Emerald although she seemed to have a lot fewer strings than she described him having. "It's like the binder compass all over again. I bet we can use this to find Yang which is a lot better than walking around aimlessly especially since you said there's an insanely powerful monster floating around looking for you."
"Yeah, it'd be best if we avoid that thing. Do you think that mask can tell us where it is too?"
"No, I don't think so. My guess is that the thickness of the string signifies how close whatever is on the other end is to you since the one traveling from you to me is the thickest, and there's only one other string that thick. If your monster had one, then there should be a third thick string."
"Or that string the string only connects to living things and Yang is already dead."
"Or that," Jaune sighed. "But following it is still the best chance at finding her.
She knew that, and she wasn't suggesting they not look for her, but she didn't want to follow something that might actually be leading them to the exact thing they were trying to avoid. "What do you think the colors mean?"
"No clue. Colors mean completely different things depending on what you're using them for. The colors of my etches reflect what effect I'm giving it, for the binder compass the colors seemed to be a kind of danger indicator, but I doubt either of those are what the colors of the strings are trying to indicate."
"Then I guess let's hope you're right about the second string leading to Yang. The faster we find her the faster we can get to that fountain and the faster we can get out of here."
"I couldn't agree more."
Jaune was correct and they found Yang easily enough. She was sitting next to a massive pile of rubble that was busy trying to repair itself back into whatever it had been. Yang was breathing heavily and had her fair share of bruises and cuts, but overall she didn't look too bad."
She smiled when she noticed their approach. "Glad to see we're all still in one piece." Then she caught sight of Emerald's hand. "Or mostly in one piece."
"Wow, I literally just got my fingers chewed off and you're already cracking jokes about it." Emerald had meant it as her own joke, but Yang turned away ashamed.
"I didn't mean it like that. Sorry, it just kind of came out."
"If you think you're offending me for my newfound disability, then don't be. Honesty, two fingers is probably a pretty lenient price for coming here." Emerald did her best to sound like it didn't matter, and it might have fooled Yang, but she was sure Jaune saw through it. Losing appendages wasn't something you could just write off. It was taking all of her strength to keep her hand from shaking. The only reason she was able to move forward was because of where they were. Thinking about all the ways her life would be different could come after they left this city. "What's more important is what happened to that monster?" Emerald asked Yang.
"I'm not sure. It chased after me for a bit, then dropped this pile of rocks on me." She pointed to the rubble pile. "By the time I dug my way out it was gone. I thought it just assumed it killed me, then went looking for you."
"I haven't seen it in a while either," Emerald replied.
Yang shrugged. "I don't know if that's a good or bad thing."
"I'm going to go with bad," Jaune said. Although he hadn't seen this monster, from Emerald's description, he doubted it would just mistake killing Yang. If it had left, then it must have had a reason.
"All the more reason to get out of Cryphilictal as fast as possible," Emerald said.
"Wait," Yang said, "we still need to get the curse remover for my sister. I'm pretty sure it survived the blast."
"Actually, we don't. That stuff about a curse remover was all just a lie, but Jaune knows what we really need."
Understandably, Yang looked very confused. "It's a long story," Jaune said, stepping in to save the poor girl from a series of mental gymnastics. "I'll explain on the way. Are you okay to walk?"
Yang seemed to just accept she would get an explanation and stood up with a painful grunt. "I'll be fine."
"Probably, but you could be better. Let me see if I can help." Jaune's hand glowed white and he placed it on Yang's shoulder.
Yang seemed startled by the sudden touch but quickly fell into a state of tranquil bliss. "Oh, that feels nice," she purred. "Keep this up and I might just steal you away, lover boy. Doesn't hurt that you decided to forgo a shirt. You've got some nice abs."
Emerald looked away from the sickening display until it was over. Even when it was done, Yang pouted like a little girl who wanted one more slice of cake before bed. It frustrated Emerald, and worse she knew exactly why. She and Jaune would have to have a talk about the use of his semblance.
Yang got her explanation while Jaune led them to the Fountain of Life. Yang went through many different emotions throughout the story from shock to determination when she heard about the eyedrops. "Does that mean we can save Ruby without risking her going blind?"
"Alice didn't say anything about side effects so I think it'd be fine. I don't think she would try to mislead us."
"What if she thought she already told you about the side effects," Emerald said recalling how the girl Jaune met experienced time.
Jaune looked back at her as Yang's mood took a sharp turn from excitement to nervousness. "You know, you can keep some things to yourself," he said.
"Don't blame me," Emerald defended. "It's best to think about what might go wrong because when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is."
When they arrived at the Fountain, it certainly didn't look too good to be true. It was made from the same grey stone that everything else in this city was made of, and calling it a fountain was kind of an exaggeration.
It was more like a large tub made from the same grey stone that every other structure was made from. The water inside also didn't look like it should have come from something called the Fountain of Life. It was murky and honestly looked a little dirty.
"Are you sure this is going to help Ruby?" Yang held up an empty water bottle so she could fill it.
"Alice said it would, and this is definitely the place that was implanted into my brain."
Yang looked at the water with a grimace. "It really doesn't look like it will."
"Of course not dear, when the Gods left this planet, they took most of their power with them. That slop is nothing but a dilution of what it once was. Still, I imagine it will be satisfactory for what you're planning." The trio spun around to face the new voice. The black-haired angel floated above them.
"How do you know about that!" Yang screamed even though her face was ashen when having to confront that monster once more.
The angel with the bent wing let out a soft giggle. "The flame let me know. Did you children do something to piss it off. Normally it's not so talkative, not that I'm complaining. It's much easier to catch you all in one spot than to hunt you down individually, and now all three of you are in attendance, so tell me children. Are you ready for round two?"
Meanwhile, in the city of Vale which may have been worlds away to those in Cryphilictal, a sneaky black cat traveled the moonlight streets.
Blake Belladonna was on a mission. She had to stop the White Fang. They attacked Vale. They let Grimm into the city! Why would they do that? She just couldn't understand. Even if the White Fang had turned violent, their goal was still faunus equality—or faunus superiority—she had to bitterly admit, but neither one would be served by bringing the Grimm to Vale.
Grimm attacked everyone: humans, faunus, huntsmen, civilians. There would be no sympathy for the White Fang from either side, and discrimination against faunus had spiked because of it. Just what were they thinking? What were they planning? Blake had to get to the bottom of this.
She had hoped attending a White Fang Rally would give her answers, but she hadn't been the only one. The rally was full of people demanding answers for why the White Fang was involved with the breach. The coordinator clearly didn't know what it was about either, so he just transitioned into how much more the faunus had been mistreated because of it. Many of the attendants didn't buy into it but enough still did.
Blake left early which wasn't suspicious since plenty of others did as well when they didn't get the explanation they were looking for. If she couldn't find answers here, then the information must have been hoarded higher up. Adam would know, but contacting him, even if only to pry for information, was out of the question. She needed another way into the upper ranks.
While she was thinking about what could be done, an explosion erupted behind her. She quickly turned around and saw the warehouse she had just come from engulfed in fire and smoke. Her heart skipped a beat. This was far too much to just be some ordinary accident. This was an attack. The work of a bomb—a very powerful one.
Faunus in Grimm masks were thrown onto the street. Some were already dead while others were screaming in agony. Blake ran to the first person she could get. She kneeled beside him and removed his mask to see a middle-aged man with scales running down his neck.
"I don't want to die," he cried.
"You won't," she told him, but that might have been a lie. Her simple medical training wasn't nearly enough to handle this. The man's legs were scorched and mangled in a way that they might never recover.
Already, Blake could hear sirens in the distance, and she realized she couldn't stay here. This was a White Fang rally. It would be clear the moment police step onto the scene. Blake couldn't be caught associating with them. She couldn't explain to the police or to Ozpin why she had left Beacon without any evidence of her investigation. They would probably just assume she had fled to join back up with the terrorist organization.
Slowly she stood back up. The man looked at her with a pleading expression. He didn't want her to go, but she had to. She had left Beacon and her team to stop the White Fang. She had even broken her promise to her partner. She couldn't risk getting caught now. "I'm sorry," she said before running off.
Are you really just going to leave them? Her consciousness accused her.
She shook it away and ducked into an alley as a police cruiser sped by, quickly followed by a second. She traveled deeper into the backstreets and ditched her Grimm mask into some dumpster. She had gotten far enough from the accident that she would probably be safe.
What's going to happen to those faunus that were left behind?
"They'll be okay," Blake said aloud.
No, they won't, her mind corrected. Even if they're hurt, they'll still be rounded up and arrested. Then Atlas will get involved, and you know that their track record for humane treatment of White Fang members isn't too good.
"I made the right decision. There was nothing I could have done for them."
You could have stayed by their side. You could have advocated for them. Used your power to make it clear that they're the victims in this situation and not the perpetrators.
"Shut up!" She realized how ridiculous it was to yell at yourself, but it felt so right. "This attack was retaliation for what the White Fang did to the city. The only way to stop people from getting hurt is to stop the White Fang from committing any more crimes.
Even if the White Fang disappears this very second, people are still going to get hurt. It's only a name after all. Tensions between faunus and humans are at a high, and that bombing is only going to push things higher. What are you going to do when it erupts?
"I'm doing the best I can."
So, leaving those faunus behind to save yourself is really the best you can do. Is that what you really believe?
"Shouldn't you already know what I believe, you are me!" But then it clicked. These thoughts couldn't be her own. She may have questioned herself before, but the words were practically mocking her. No way she would sound like that to herself. "Who are you?"
Oops, guess I pushed too hard.
Blake grabbed her weapon and quickly scanned her surroundings. Now that her thoughts were her own, she could think a lot better. Somehow someone had invaded her mind. Probably the safe person that had planted the bomb. It was just too much of a coincidence for the two things to be unrelated. The good news was that whoever had invaded her mind was probably close by. If she could just find them, then she could clear up the bombing quickly and the rise in tensions would at least be mitigated. The question was if this invader could read her mind as well, or if it was a simple telepathy semblance that only allowed for communication. If it was the former, then finding the culprit might be impossible.
On your left.
Quick thinking had saved Blake's life before so of course, she followed the order in her head on instinct. Obviously, that was a mistake. Two gunshots came from her right. They stuck the back of her knees and she fell onto them. Then before she could get back up something came over her head before wrapping around her neck.
Her eyes bulged as the cloth was tightened and she began to choke. At first, she tried to pull away but that only served to make the fabric tighter. Then she brought Gambol Shroud back to stab whoever was behind her. She did land the hit, but it only served to cut into the person's aura. She did it a second and then a third time. She took away more aura, but the person behind her didn't budge.
Blake was quickly loosening strength as her body begged for air. She would be dead before she was able to break the aura of the person behind her, and it was something they were definitely aware of. It's why they were so unconcerned with tanking a few hits with it.
Blake's own aura couldn't help her in the same way. Aura could protect you against a lot, but one thing it couldn't do was block pressure. An Ursa's claw might not break skin or draw blood, but the force behind it would still push a Huntress away. Huntresses could still trip, and their bones could still break if pushed hard enough at the wrong angle even if the aura surrounding it wouldn't. It was what was happening right now. Aura wouldn't help her from being strangled any more than it would help her mouth being filled with water if she was being drowned.
One mistake was all it took. Her aura was still well into the green, but her vision was cutting out and her thoughts were growing hazy. "Help…me…" she managed to get out.
Help you? It really did sound like her own thoughts, but she knew they weren't. They were too clear, too coherent. Help you like you help everyone else. You don't get it. You ran away from everyone who wanted to help you. Now it's too late. You're all alone, but don't worry. Your death will bring about more change than your sad little life ever could.
Those were the last words Blake heard before she shut her eyes for good.
Excerpt from the book
All incubuses and succubuses have a mask. It's unclear if they are "born" with it or create it sometime later. For the creatures of lust, these masks serve an important role. By looking at any sentient creature (besides other incubuses and succubuses) they can see all the connections that being has formed. Not only does this help the incubus/succubus track down their preferred prey, but it gives them the basic relationships structure of their targets which can be used to better acclimate to their ideal mate or find a mate they are already attracted to.
These connections are visualized as strings of fate. Oddly enough, for faunus and humans, these strings are always connected to the heart despite the heart having nothing to actually do with emotions or attachments. The strings of fate or also divided into different colors depending on the type of feelings the person has for the other. Normally both participants of the connection have the same colored string since they share the same feelings for each other, but this does not have to be the case. An example of this being a one-sided crush.
Some of the colors and their emotional representation are:
White: apathetic
Black: hatred
Blue: love (familial)
Green: friendship
Purple: admiration
Pink/bright red: love (sexual)
Crimson/dark red: lust
Yellow: fearful
AN: Hope everyone is doing okay with the current state of the world, for me, it's basically been the same except now I have to take online classes which honestly is easier than going to them physically.
As for this chapter, on a technical level it was by far the hardest one to write for reasons that you can probably guess, but I'm happy with how it came out, and I hope you all enjoyed it as well.