Chapter 1

The first thought that came to Nick's mind was that he preferred an endless expanse of white instead of black. No sooner had he processed that than the pain started lancing through his limbs. His arms felt like they were on fire, while his legs had the sensation of being pierced with spikes. Worst of all, the top half of his face had an unbearable prickly sensation, and Nick fought through the pain to try and bring his hand up to scratch at his face, only to realize that it was strapped down and immobilized. Confusion turned to terror, and he resisted the urge to try and power himself free, instead electing to try and feel out his surroundings.

Almost immediately, Nick realized that he was on a bed and propped up with a few pillows. Secondly, despite the burning sensation, he felt a number of pinpricks going into his upper arm, which seemed to him like IV lines. "That's good then," he thought to himself. "Means I made it out alive—"

At that instant, he heard a door open, and a pair of heavy footfalls rapidly approached his bedside. "Who's there?" Nick called out in a weak voice, surprised at how dry and raspy his throat felt.

"Nick. it's me, Doc. I got here as quickly as I could after your vitals spiked up. What do you remember? How are you feeling? Is there any—"

"Whoa, slow down Doc," Nick cut off the voice that grew more and more animated with each sentence. "Water, please."

"Of course, of course."

After awkwardly sipping some water from a straw pressed to his mouth, Nick curtly replied to Doc's earlier questions. "Everything hurts, I'd like to run my face through a cheese grater, I can't see anything and yes, I do recall everything that happened."

"That's good," Doc began cautiously. "I've already sent word to Dr. Polendina, he'll be here in a few minutes. You should tell him the details about what happened to him personally. As for your own health, it's not a pretty picture. You suffered some pretty intensive burn injuries almost all throughout your body. Minor ones in your chest, legs and stomach, most of which was thankfully mitigated by your Aura. However, the burns in your arms are going to leave some bad scarring."

A small sigh, and Nick heard Doc shuffling his feet, as if struggling to say the rest. "As for your face, it's even worse. Below the mouth is fine, but the top half has major second-degree burns. It's a miracle your head is intact at all, really. Other than that, there's general bruising and lacerations, which is mostly healed by now. Oh, and you've lost most of your wings - almost like they were chopped off. I've cleaned those up to the best of my abilities, but I'm afraid you're not going to be able to use them again."

Nick grimaced at these words, and asked the question he dreaded above any other.

"Doc, I can't see."

"Yes, the burns in your face affected your eyes the worst. We were hopeful that if the ocular nerves were intact, we could rig something up to restore at least partial sight. Unfortunately, the damage is far too severe. I'm sorry."

Nick fell silent after hearing that pronouncement. He wanted, desperately, to cry his heart out, but he knew he would never shed another tear. An indescribable combination of rage, guilt and grief wracked his body, but before he could act on it, he heard the door opening once more.

"Dr. Polendina's here, that's my cue to leave. You've made it through the worst, Nick, stay strong." Nick felt Doc unbuckling the straps on his arms and feet, and he couldn't resist experimentally twitching the limbs.

A few moments later Nick heard a mechanical clanking get steadily louder, and then a more upbeat voice said, "Hello Nickel. I am glad that you are finally awake."

Hearing that calmed some of the turbulent feelings bubbling within Nick, and he managed to muster a quiet reply. "Hey old man. I've really screwed up now, haven't I?" A large, calloused hand gripped his own, and gave it a firm squeeze. For some time, no more words were said.

...

By the time Nick finished the debrief, he gathered enough strength to sit up on the bed. The initial pain upon awakening largely subsided, having been replaced with an urge to scratch at his hands and face, which he resisted to the utmost of his ability. After a moment, he realized that Dr. Polendina was still silently sitting by his bed, and made almost no movements since Nick finished talking.

"Old man, you still there?"

"Hmm? Yes Nickel, I was just, ah. Considering things."

"What? Shouldn't you be off alerting the others? At least get in touch with the authorities in Mistral and let them know why the huntsmen there kept going missing!"

To that, Dr. Polendina only curtly replied, "Normally I would, but a lot has happened since we managed to extract you. You have been out for the better part of six months now. We were afraid you were never going to wake up."

This information gave Nick pause. "Six months," he blurted out, "That long?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Granted, we had to keep you in an induced coma for the first couple of weeks so that Doc could do his best with your wounds, but even after that you were teetering on the edge. Despite your physical condition being manageable, your Aura was quite turbulent. It was only after Antonio had the idea of putting you in physical contact with Dusk that your Aura stabilized. But, going back to the information you just gave me, I cannot do anything except share it with the personnel currently on the base." Dr. Polendina intoned.

Hah, count on Tony to pull that one off, Nick thought with a mental chuckle, before he realized what Dr. Polendina's last sentence meant. "Only the people here right now?" Nick asked fearfully "What exactly happened?"

Realizing that the debrief was going to go both ways, Dr. Polendina grabbed the water jug from the bedside and poured himself a glass.

...

"So you're telling me Beacon's gone? And so is the CCT system? That means we're cut off from everyone." Nick summarized, with an equal measure of disbelief and panic in his voice.

"Not exactly," Dr. Polendina countered. "We have still managed to keep the ferries from here to Vacuo going. The attack on Beacon, however, means that the city of Vale is only just being slowly retaken from the Grimm, to the best of my knowledge. To make things worse, Atlas has taken on a closed borders policy, and the only word I've had from there is what General Ironwood has deemed fit to inform me about. As for long-range communications, we are basically using pre-War radio transmission systems. With some luck, we are able to reach parts of Vale, if only due to proximity.

Nick's frown deepened at these words. "So what now?" he asked.

"All you are going to do now, young man, is rest and recover. I will send Tony and the kids down soon, they would love to see you finally awake. And, before I leave," at that, Dr. Polendina loudly readjusted his chair. He grabbed an object from the bedside table and gently pushed it into Nick's hand. "I would like to see if your Semblance is still functional. Can you do a little test for me?"

Nick grasped the object, and the familiar touch of Dusk calmed his nerves. Doing his best to focus his mind and not think of his time in the void, Nick willed his Aura reserves into action. It took a few moments longer than usual, but the sudden ebb in his Aura indicated his Semblance had activated successfully.

"It is good to see that Mavros is still with you," Dr. Polendina commented. "Now, what I will ask you to do next is not something you have to do right now, but I feel it would be best if -"

"Yeah old man, I know," Nick cut him off. "I'm on it." Taking a deep breath, Nick willed himself to see through the eyes of his father, and instantly the oppressing darkness transformed into a much more comforting sight. Everything around him took on a dull shade of grey, but the first thing he focused on was the humanoid figure emitting a blinding light standing directly in front. Glancing to the left, he saw his own figure, sitting stock still on the bed and glimmering a more muted orange. Quickly looking away to avoid focusing too much on how frail and thin his own body looked, or the outlines of the numerous bandages covering him, he instead allowed himself to get acclimatized to the intensity of Dr. Polendina's bright green Aura. He then decided to focus on the background instead. With some effort, he could make out places where there were lingering traces of Aura from recent contact. The water cup, the edges of the bedside table, footprints all over the floor and the door handle all emitted a faint but noticeable glow of recent contact with Aura. Almost everything else remained unidentifiable, but he also saw distant beacons of light, which likely indicated other Aura-activated personnel in the building. After a couple of minutes, he returned his sight to his own body, and darkness engulfed him once more. Instinctively, he also let go of Dusk, and felt a touch of Aura returning to his own body.

"My Semblance is functioning optimally, although I'll need to recover my own reserves in order to sustain it for longer."

"Excellent. I will leave you to rest now, but expect some very eager guests soon." Dr. Polendina's voice finally took on a touch of humor, and then he too exited the room, leaving Nick to ponder over everything he just learned.

...

Nick had just about dozed off when he picked up a set of sharp knocks on the door to his room.

"Yeah, come in!"

As soon as he said these words, the door crashed open with a deafening bang. He just barely managed to brace himself before he felt three small figures crash into him in rapid succession, almost knocking him out of his bed in the process.

"Oww, my arms," Nick exclaimed painfully. A cacophony of voices drowned out the rest of his sentence.

"You're finally awake! I was so scared, I thought you were gonna be asleep forever!" No mistaking that high-pitched squeal for anyone but Camilla.

"What happened to you? Who hurt you like this?!" And the other excited yell, at a similar pitch but a more masculine tone, was most definitely her brother Cedar.

"Do you know how terrible it was that Tony had to take over some of your cooking shifts? Kiara was this close to feeding his last attempt to -" before the oldest and calmest of the trio, Viridian, managed to continue, Nick felt her and the other two kids being bodily lifted off him and unceremoniously tossed to the floor.

"You know Vir, I'm right here, and I resent any comments you may have about my cooking." Hearing the chipper voice immediately lifted Nick's spirit.

"Tony! I was half-expecting you to be the first one by my bedside. I'm disappointed." Nick sensed the kids getting up and braced himself to be swamped again. Thankfully, Tony seemed to have grabbed a hold of Camilla and Cedar, because he heard some indignant cries being shushed.

"You're not that important, Nick." Tony teased back. "Most of us have a base to run and can't check out into dreamland for half a year. Besides, I'm sure Pietro's filled you in by now. Things have been a tad more hectic around here, to say the least."

"Right," Nick replied. "Remnant seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket. Or is there a silver lining somewhere that the old man didn't mention."

"Remnant has always been a pretty shitty place to be in. It's just more people coming face to face with that reality" All traces of humor vanished from Tony's voice, and Nick heard him slowly approach the bedside. Suddenly, he felt Tony engulf him in a bone-crushing hug. "Whoever did this, I'm going to find them, pound their face into the dirt, break every bone in their body—"

"I'll be fine, Tony." Nick interrupted softly. "I'm not out of commission just yet. I'll be back fighting. As soon as you stop squeezing me to death, that is."

"Oh, right." Tony quickly stepped back. "It's so good to hear your voice again, I really thought for a while you wouldn't— well, just glad to have you back in the land of the living. C'mon kids, let's go, we still haven't finished training."

The three children grumbled considerably at that, but eventually all four of them quietly filed out of the room. Just as the footsteps began to fade out, Nick caught Tony muttering, "So Meredith's really gone, huh."

The door had already closed before Nick had the heart to reply.

...

A.N: I will be updating this as often as I can, but no fixed schedule yet unfortunately.