Act V - Life's Pieces
Chapter 43 - Myriad
"Where the hell are we?" This was one of many questions I had been asking myself today
Me, alongside Amber, stood back-to-back in a dark void, a strange, white light above us that looked to stretch endlessly into the darkness above. We were lost in some dark abyss without any clear direction of what was left, right, up or down, and our voices never echoed in this place, feeling almost cramped despite the endlessness of this place.
"I don't know... we should stick close together," I felt her tail flick across my legs nervously, and her wings were quivering against my back. She wasn't alone, this place rubbed me the wrong way, of course those two knew of a place like this, the question was, how long would it take before we found our way out of this abyss?
"We really shouldn't have woken up this morning." Agreed, Iota
[Sometime Earlier...]
We were wandering through a dense woodland off to the side of the mountain, passing by sharp ledges and towering trees that creaked in the wind, there we no Grimm, nor any signs of activity from the creatures of darkness. Odd, even Cognitum couldn't pick up much other than some distortion in the air.
"Where exactly are you taking us?" I broke the silence as Summer craned her head back, brushing aside her hair
"To a cavern, think of this as your final test," She kept it vague and with a hint of someone's in her voice. "Myself and Albatross both faced this trial ourselves, and it wasn't easy."
Amber folded her arms. "Seems as though this is a reoccurring spot for a Grimm?" That would make sense, but this distortion was eerie like the world turned eyes onto us. I even glanced up at the cliffs as though a pair of eyes studied our movements
"I don't like this, I feel weird." Eric whined, and I could share that sentiment
"For once I agree, this place isn't natural." Iota too
"Trust us... this isn't just some Grimm." Even Albatross was looking warily at the dirt road ahead, passing under two trees that had collapsed into a crooked archway into a small opening among the jagged terrain
Amber and I shared a similar look of confusion, then stepped through the archway ourselves. "Just one Grimm?" I murmured
In the face of basalt stood a dark fissure in the black rock, the ground underneath turned black and dusty, the grass had died on contact with the snaking streaks that seemed to seep from the mouth of the cave. And the air was silent, not a bird or snap of the woods could be heard, just us four.
"Inside," Albatross motioned with his right hand. "Is you trial, a Grimm is known as a Myriad, it'll use illusions and reflect your own fears and doubts back toward you," I wasn't feeling so confident anymore. "Don't worry, if things look bad we'll step in."
A hand pressed to my shoulder supportively, Summer smiling two both of us. "I know you two have the power to succeed, trust in yourselves and each other, I promise you'll be fine."
"Right, thank you, Summer." I nodded, Amber mimicking my motion as she ushered us toward the mouth of the fissure, the two of us looking to one another, and I activated my new Shikari armor, seeing the glow of my hood and accents illuminating the way. "I'll take point."
"I'll keep my ear to the ground," Amber replied, both of us giving each other an assuring tap of our fists before I slowly crept into the darkness, my HUD's Nightvision flickering slightly the deeper we squeezed through the narrow passage and further from the light
"Dammit, the distortion's even worse in here," I cursed, pushing myself out into a large, empty cavern, it was as though we stepped into a void, even the entrance was lost to me. Wait... how? Amber was standing behind me, so how come my eyes aren't picking up on the cave's walls? "Oh no..."
"What?" She inquired softly
"I think the Grimm's found us first."
[Present Time...]
I scoffed at the abyss. "Still nothing, not even so much as a heat source," Static and errors met my gaze. "I just keep getting interference by the energy in the air, unlike anything a Grimm could produce."
Silence filled my surroundings. "Anything on your end? Amber?" Oh no, no-no-no-no. Turning on my heel slowly, I was gutted to find that I was well and truly alone in this abyss now. "Great, it started the whole illusion thing... fantastic."
"Um, Kai?" Oh thank God you guys are still here. Eric gulped. "Just um... wondering, w-why is Ruby behind you?"
I yelped while almost drawing my bow on her face, must have been the illusion, but it was so lifelike. If I was honest, seeing her face again was both warming and hollow since I was the one to leave with only a note left for her. Some boyfriend I am.
"Hey... Ruby," She continued to stare directly into my eyes, a frown on her face
Your greatest failure. To her, to the one that trusted you, cared for you.
She just continued to gaze back at me, uttering nothing and only offering me a pained, hopeless expression. "I... I didn't mean to leave you... I just... I had to..."
To abandon her, left her confused, lost without a single person left of her original team.
I shook my head, Ruby starting to turn away, no... no, don't leave. "W-Wait, please, I... I had to, to stop this Vex,"
Of all people, you were the one she needed. You left her behind.
No, stop, don't go... "I wanted to protect you, all of you, Ruby, please don't leave me." Don't leave me again
You failed to stop the Horsemen. Failed Penny. Failed Pyrrha. Failed your friends and team. Don't you see it?
Ruby was starting to move further into the darkness, even as I tried to reach out for her to stop.
You're just being cruel to her. She doesn't want you.
I hunched over slightly from the guilt that had secretly piled up inside me. This was true, I did leave her behind for my own goal when I feared others leaving me instead. She should have left me behind a long time ago... but she never did, no matter how many times I lied and made mistakes she was always there for me.
"Even if that's the case..." I stepped through the darkness, seeing her form stop while a great tide attempted to stop me from moving. "Even if you hate me, scorn me for leaving you behind... I'm still fighting for you... for everyone!"
My hand reached her shoulder, tugging her around as she stared back, dumbfounded by my actions as I kept my concealed gaze to hers. "I will stop the Vex from taking this world. And I will find you again!"
That caused Ruby's eyes to widen, then, a gentle smile crossed her lips as the illusion broke, and I found myself in a dark corridor fixed with eerie, white lights embedded into black obelisks to my left and right. Where? How did - doesn't matter, I beat this Grimm's game.
"Oh, you're back!" Hey, Eric. "Yeah, you just kinda stopped, and FYI, Iota's over there with Amber, she's... having some issues." Eric projected his thoughts to me as I spun round to find Amber on her knees, holding both her hands to her head in pain. Iota knelt next to her, trying to shake her out of the trance
"Penny, what's going on?" I asked, looking around the darkness between what structures there are
"Scans keep failing, the energy in this place is heavily distorted by some other force, but strands of temporal energy have been detected, along with clear readings of a Grimm nearby," Excellent work, thanks. "I will continue to monitor, friend!"
"Iota. Iota!" My yelling caught his steely eyes. "Look, I know you're worried but she has to break out of this of her own accord,"
"I know that!" He snapped, wavering between me and her. "Even so, I..."
"Me and Eric can handle this, just protect her." My answer had him blink momentarily, then, his astral eyes hardened
"Right."
[No POV]
Deep within Amber's own selective illusion, she did her best to plug her ears with her wings, hiding her face under their small forms in vain to block out the voice that continued to berate her, and while dark humanoid shadows loomed over her, all shapes and sizes with no face, all wearing white, curved eyes, surrounding her like dark trees.
"Leave... me... alone!" She breathed slash growled, shaking her head to stop the whispers
You were abandoned and left for dead. No human would want a Faunus. A monster.
"I... I didn't need anyone! And my parents... they... they didn't mean to..." Her breathing started to become erratic, her chest beginning to pound with an icy sensation that closed around her heart
You are alone. Summer will abandon you. You are worthless once she's done with you.
That brought her trembling to a halt, eyes widened with terror over that thought, the sight of her mentor leaving her behind... like her parents when they passed away... leaving her with nothing. She didn't want that, she wanted to be wanted, even if it were only a single person in the whole world.
Grinding her teeth she remembered, faintly through her disheartened mind, one person that continued to pester her time-and-time again, who would sit and listen to her without a word and with no interest in leaving her out of boredom when she talked for hours.
"No... I... am not alone," Slowly, shaking at the knees, Amber bit down on her lip, fists burning with rage, determined fire swelling in her heart. "I was alone for so long, no one ever cared about me, just another blank slate... but Summer... Albatross, Sky, Eric... Iota... none of them have left me behind, they cared about me, they gave me a chance unlike the rest of Remnant." She faced her own shadows, wings, and tail standing on end with a fire in her eyes. "That alone... is worth fighting for!"
[Sky's POV]
Jogging down the hallway, I made sure to keep to a safe distance, drawing my bow once more with three arrows placed against the river. "Alright, I beat your game, show yourself, bastard." I hissed, watching the gaps between the obelisks critically. Only I wasn't the one that hissed out the corner of my eye
Reacting in tangent with my armor's new upgrade I latched my feet to an obelisk, the head of a large reptilian Grimm slithering across the floor, rising to greet me. Its scales, black, spines aligning its spine from its coiling body. The crimson tattoos hummed with venom, reaching to its face. Its scarlet eyes burning with malice towards me. The scales looked semi-translucent, and the irises were like spirals instead of a normal pupil.
"So, guessing you're the Myriad?" I murmured before its might, pouncing over the jaws, releasing the three arrows I had. Their hardlight head shattered, spraying fragments of glass across its scales
Landing on the grey walkway I rolled to avoid the jaws, flicking three knives into its scales, the tips discharging, forcing the Grimm to slither into the darkness, body turning dark to completely vanish into the shadows. Watching carefully, I drew two more arrows, firing into the darkness as two more Myriad Grimm lunged from the abyss, my arrows sailed straight through the left, and if not for Shikari's foresight ability I'd had been snake food.
"It's creating illusions of itself to get the drop on me, smart." I kept backing away from its curved chomps, my arrows piercing scale and skin gradually, but as I grew to hold an advantage, my arrows and knives suddenly phased through the mass, as another, far realistic Grimm slithered back into the darkness
"Sky, I have an idea!" All ears Penny. I say this as I ran toward an obelisk, diving up its body and backward as the jaws clamped down on the ground, my hand tossing more knives to pierce its scales with a surge of electricity, causing its scales to flicker inconsistently. "Using your knives place them in this formation, there is a sixty-five percent chance of success if certain variables apply."
Taking the smart A.I's word, I rolled under the tail, slicing the body with a knife before I threw a few into the places Penny directed me, all while ducking and diving to evade the snaps and thrashes of the Myriad's head, the tail sweeping under me as I performed an impossible handstand on a vertical wall both boots crashing into one of its fangs.
With a final blade, I jammed it between the base of an obelisk, creating a five-pointed ring that immediately came to life, the small wire of bolts snapping at the Grimm's body, forcing it to curl up and lunge with its head, only for two well-placed arrows to shatter against its skull, the glass disorientating it temporarily as I dropped a small orb, a plume of smoke covering me retreat.
"Now duck!" She and Shikari's system alerted me to hit the ground, the second I did, the large head of Myriad grazed my cloak, eyes spinning as more and more of its own body duplicated, and I had a hard time telling which was which with the trap I had set disabled
"Penny, what now!?" I panicked, drawing my bow and arrow left then right, trying to pinpoint which was the real one
"This!"
*Boom!*
Like a brilliant star a golden beam of molten fire scorched through the copies and through the mouth of the real Myriad, the Grimm shriek dying immediately as the body collapsed to the ground, toward the right, Iota's astral form held Amber up, herself panting as she extinguished the flames surrounding her body.
"Don't... mess, with my head... ever." She warned the now gathering black smog, then smiled weakly. "Sorry I took so long, my past is a raw subject."
I held up a hand. "Welcome to the club, we have meetings on Wednesdays." My mirth worked to lighten the mood as Iota nodded to Amber, vanishing as me and her met up, giving each other a small high-five. "Nice work, I think we won."
"Maybe," She raised her rifle. "But we shouldn't celebrate until we discover the meaning of this place."
"Yes, Ma'am." I gave a small salute and turned, only to jump back into her arms as we stepped back from the large set of yellow eyes staring back at us, practically the size of us with a massive, jack o' lantern grin on its onyx face
"Nice work, kiddos, you did it! Five stars! High-Fives all around! Congrats on beating my little game of 'who wants to have a look into their darkest fears?', its a fun game when it's not you who's involved!" It... He, cackled, face shrinking down to rest on... something, standing just over six feet tall
Smiling, the creature wore a black suit, with a fur lining for his cuffs and collar, a golden tie, a white shirt, and a top hat with two cards strapped into the side with velvet fabric, both an ace of hearts and spades. It also wore crimson, fingerless gloves to allow a set of sharp, white claws to pierce through.
"It's good to see you again, kiddo, Sky, Kai - whatever your name is, it seems my old buddy sent you in for an appointment, fantastic!" His smile couldn't possibly get any bigger. Stomping down he looked to sit on nothing as the darkness dissolved, and light returned the second he sat down on a large, black seat decorated with ash carvings and soft fabric
"W-Who, what... what are you?" I gaped, Amber just nodding behind me, our weapons somehow gone with a simple click of its fingers
The large chamber was tall and rounded at the top like an observatory, rows of books lined the walls entirely, containing jars and artifacts here-and-there. A large, gold chandelier swung up above holding onto some wax candles. Four paths created an intersection where we stood, leading off into large, black-iron doors. The floor between the paths were littered with riches and all sorts of random items, weapons, armor, relics, and even copies of my team's weapons!
"How did you..." Amber murmured as the large entity leaned forward, extending a clawed hand to me with a mischievous chuckle
"Allow me to reintroduce myself, kiddo," He sat back up again, hand raised high to his... emporium? "My name is Gambit, The Omniscient Nightmare."
To Be Continued...
Cliffhanger for alot of chatting next time, but some developments too. I hope you enjoyed, seeya in the next chapter!
Next Chapter: The Enemy of Hope...
Gambit returns to part with knowledge on the Vex of Remnant, and how Sky is at the center of it all.