AN: Hey everybody. Sorry it's been so long. I had two end of Quarter projects that I had to focus on and then finals in the past month. I have been working on this in my spare time, but I was really able to buckle down during nights over spring break. I'm glad to be releasing another chapter, especially since the next chapter is going to be a big one!

Anyways, responses.

To Gamelover41592: If... If is good.

To cturner971/Chretner: I'm glad you loved last chapter so much. It was one of my favorites, too, and will pay off when Merc and Em meet the villain. That's a meeting that won't end well for them.

Anyways, enjoy! I'll try to come out with a new chapter faster next time.

Chapter 15: That's Not Love

Jaune pumped his fists furiously as he, Kirito, and Mercury ran through the Dark Forest level of Aincrad, a haunted and terrifying location in which Griselda's guild had decided to 'bury' her. For some reason. It seemed a little out of the way for a grave site you might want to visit one day, but Jaune supposed that was their bad choice to make. Kirito, meanwhile, had latched onto the poor decision with a vengeance. He hadn't stopped complaining for what was starting to feel like hours to the two warriors with him. "Like seriously, who decided that having the grave in a place more like a movie cemetery than a real cemetery would be a good idea?" Kirito muttered, voice a low growl. "I bet they were thinking 'Oh, this aesthetic is so cool, let's just do it here! What? Monsters? Who cares! It's like a movie!'"

"Oh my God..." Mercury hissed, trying incredibly hard to push down his desire to go after the swordsman again. With his fists clenched tight while they pumped, Jaune could even tell he was holding back a murder. "Do you just love hearing the sound of your own voice?"

"It's my gift to the world," Kirito retorted with a shrug.

Jaune sighed but kept his mouth shut. Better to focus on reaching their destination and making sure that Yolko and Caynz didn't go to all the trouble of faking their deaths for it to end up actually happening. Talking – Jaune had to be honest with himself, he meant arguing – wasn't going to help with that. It seemed, however, that Mercury did not have the same beliefs as the Keyblade Wielder. "Well it wasn't on my registry."

"Too bad," Kirito remarked. Mirth entered his voice as he began laughing at his own joke, ever so lightly. "No refunds or exchanges. Only store credit."

"Can we just concentrate on running?" Jaune growled over his shoulder at the two.

"If he would be quiet!" Mercury hissed, murder in his voice.

Simultaneously from Kirito: "What? Can't walk and talk at the same time?"

Jaune's eye twitched. "Why don't we play the quiet game? Show us how superior you are to us in every way, huh?" he asked dryly, not even bothering to hope that this would work.

Kirito smirked and shook his finger in front of him as he ran. "Oh, I don't need to prove self-evident truths, Dumber," he rebuked.

Jaune groaned. "Of course not..." The blonde Keyblade wielder felt his shoulders sag. "Because why would I ever get a break?"

Mercury smirked, unable to hold back a joke at Jaune's expense. "Looks like I win, Buddy."

"I hate you both," Jaune muttered quietly.

"Do you?" Kirito asked.

"... Mostly you."

"Hey!"

"... Now, as Jesus once said... 'Schmitches... get stitches...'"

The three warriors visibly cringed as they heard that quiet statement. "Ugh, I don't think any religion would use a book that had that written in it," Kirito said to himself.

"What? Man, that's not even a real word, much less – Ugh, never mind. Can we just kill these losers and -"

Jaune rocketed forward upon hearing that, summoning the Keyblade to his hand and coating it in a brilliant wall of Light that exploded from its surface and surrounded Schmidt, who was laying frozen on the ground. A large meat cleaver slammed into the Reflect wall and brilliant Light exploded at the point of contact, causing the offending player to shriek in pain and fly backwards, tumbling to the ground and clutching at his wrist. The weapon lay broken beside him for a moment before, finally, disappearing into a cloud of blue shards. "W-what?" the man's partners shrieked.

The three assassins of 'Laughing Coffin' were dressed in a ragged uniform of grays and black. Cloaks hid their faces underneath dark shadows that let little other than a pair of glowing red eyes escape one's face. Johnny Black, the title above his head said. Another, the one on the ground, had a much more normal name: Jeffery. The third was DeezNutz69. Jaune was growing immensely tired of this world.

"Oh, and who the hell is this?" DeezNutz69 – Jaune wasn't going to do this. DN. – DN asked.

"That's Deputy Dumber, this is Deputy Buznik, and I'm Detective Kirito, Aincrad PD. I'm on the hunt for a murderer, and these three are the only witnesses," Kirito responded, sliding next to Jaune and unsheathing his blade to hold it in a defensive position. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to take them in."

"Deputies?" Mercury asked.

"Ixnay on the guingaray in front of the urderermays!" Kirito hissed under his breath so just Jaune and Mercury could hear. The swordsman was not even moving his mouth so that the assassins would not think he was saying anything. "God, I should just call you Dumbest!"

"Oh, you think you're the world's greatest detective? No, wait... that's Batman! And you'll never be Batman, will you?" Mercury snapped, referencing a comic he'd read on another world once. It was a boring world. No monsters.

"Fuck you!" Kirito snapped, turning and ignoring the assassins to shout at Mercury.

"Uh... w-what's going on with you guys?"

Mercury glared at the three. "Stay out of this you wannabes!"

"... Oh my God, every time..." Jaune whispered hoarsely.

"Wannabes!? We received this holy mission from the Lord himself!" Jeffery shouted angrily. He raised his hand and another weapon appeared in it, a more cruel and stylized cleaver. "How dare you disrespect us?"

"Like this." Kirito stuck his tongue out at them, and Jaune was just relieved that he and Mercury had decided to turn their snark on the same target for once. "And seriously? 'Jesus tells me to kill?' Do any of you have a single original bone in your bodies? Contract killing is already a beat we can all get dance to, so you don't need to add in the insanity of a merciful figure telling you personally to kill!"

"I – AGH!" the leader charged Kirito.

"Okay, this is a thing we're doing," DN noted, disappointed.

"It's not," Jaune noted, getting between Kirito and Jeff, ice coating the Keyblade before he let it out and froze the assassin in his tracks. Kirito lashed out with his sword, the tip stopping centimeters from Johnny Black's throat and stopping his rushing attack in its tracks. DN just looked over at Mercury, who was standing with the perfect, trained grace of a real assassin... and just dropped his weapon.

"Smart," Mercury said simply.

DN nodded and shrugged. "Yeah, I think so."

"Now, we don't like killing people," Jaune said, though he paused to look over at Mercury.

The silver haired speedster returned his questioning stare for a moment. "What? What!?"

Jaune didn't say anything back to him, but returned his gaze to DN. "But, we'll do it if you attack us."

"He's right. So... I say you drop Jim Jones off at a prison and become real contract killers! Get your names out there, make some money. I mean you're Laughing Coffin! Cash in on that name recognition! Oh! And be in contact with me – I've got some ideas," Kirito said, clicking his tongue and shooting a finger gun at the two still conscious assassins. Jaune frowned, but decided to trust Kirito. So far he'd displayed a desire to prevent murders, so maybe there was a plan here. "Make us all rich, huh?"

DN and Johnny Black traded a glance. "Can I please kill Schmidt? I promised to make him into a meat toboggan," Johnny asked, his creepy voice hopeful.

"Mmm... No," Jaune said simply, hefting his weapon up onto his shoulder. "Now, I'd toss him into a jail and – my advice – rethink being killers. It's a path towards a Darkness you don't want."

Johnny and DN traded another glance. "Well – we'll just get out of your hair, I guess. Um.. those guys are yours, I guess," DN said quickly, grabbing hold of one of Jeff's arms, Johnny grabbing the other, and they dragged him away. "Bye... I guess..."

"Aw... I was hoping for a fight," Mercury muttered sadly.

Kirito grunted in surprise. "Cool, wait till I tell Tiff we have slaves."

"No!" Jaune commanded, horror in his voice.

"Now, Dumber, I am horrified you would think so little of me... I'm joking," Kirito supplied innocently.

"Not even then!" Jaune reprimanded again.

"Um... not to sound ungrateful guys but... what are you even doing here?" Yolko piped in when it appeared that Kirito was about to say something else Jaune would find offensive. "You thought we were dead!"

"Well, you couldn't fool Emerald," Mercury said, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. "When it comes to... 'sleight of hand' she's a bit of an expert. She didn't think you guys were really dead from the get go."

"Sadly, I didn't figure it out first," Kirito admitted, voice depressed. He rolled his eyes before sheathing his sword and placing his hands on his hips. "But it really wasn't all that difficult, either. I did some poking around before coming here and I found out all about this nifty little glitch in that level's code that swaps out the teleport animation for the death one. The trick? It only works if the game thinks you're in free fall. Say... if you're hanging from a clock tower or falling out a window?"

"But... that wouldn't have mattered if it had been a ghost!" Yolko contested hotly.

"Oh, that? I'm not stupid!" Kirito snapped. Jaune and Mercury traded a glance.

"Yeah, that'd do it," Caynz muttered dryly.

"Shut up, Caynz," Yolko snapped. She pouted. "I thought it was clever."

"And you must have been faking your deaths for a reason. We knew it must have been because you assumed that Schmidt had killed Griselda, given what you said about the 'ghost.' Which, having met him... how would you assume that?" Jaune asked, completely surprised. "I've met more stable terr – er... I've met people with psychotic breaks more stable than he is."

"... Hey," Mercury said defensively after a second.

"Not you," Jaune clarified. Half joking: "Actually..."

"Which meant," Kirito cut in, annoyed at not being the one in charge of the conversation anymore. "That you must have thought that Schmidt had killed Griselda!"

"Yes!" Caynz snapped. He turned on the lancer. "Why?"

"Yeah, Schmidt! Why? Why would you kill Griselda!?" Yolko echoed, voice distraught.

"Huh? Oh, no. No, he didn't do it," Mercury said with a laugh.

"B-wha?" Yolko wondered aloud.

"How!? He's the only one who had any motive!" the 'dead' man snapped.

Kirito smirked. "Tell me. Do you think he would trust anyone else with the job?"

Caynz grimaced. "Well, no, but -"

"Then you must believe he was strong enough to fight her? Or perhaps smart enough to catch her unawares?"

There was a pregnant silence that seemed to last forever as the incredibly cruel statement about Schmidt finally hit home. "Oh my God..." Caynz muttered in disbelief. "Schmidt can't be the killer."

"Oh, come on!" Schmidt cried out at being called a weak idiot.

"But then why did you apologize to us?"

"People threatened to kill me for giving RWBY&R a 7/10. At, uh -at this point? It's better to just assume the position..." Caynz muttered, nervously chuckling.

Caynz sighed, arms around Yolko still. "Well this is nice and all, but I'm left with one important question... Who the hell are you people!?"

"Oh, Caynz! I had to entangle them in our web of lies!" Yolko cried out.

"... WHY!?"

"It was... to... huh?"

Caynz sighed. "Well... if Schmidt isn't the killer... who is?"

The fists of every young warrior clenched as one as rage filled them. "The only person it could be," Jaune spat.

"An actual monster," Mercury continued, venom in his words.

"Isn't that right... Grimlock!?" Kirito shouted, turning dramatically and gesturing at the fog. Yolko gasped in surprise as... nothing came out. "Ugh... I said... 'Isn't that right... GRIMLOCK!?'"

"Um... Gasp?" Yolko let out.

"I SAID -"

"God, stop! You scream louder than my little sister!" Yang shouted from the fog as she, Asuna, and Emerald all walked up, another figure between them with their weapons pointed directly at him.

"If you respond, she'll keep doing it," Jaune warned, his own experience speaking.

Kirito, however, could not resist. "I will kill you!" he screamed.

"And now it's more high pitched, too," Yang said with a hearty laugh.

"He warned you, Idiot," Mercury pointed out, crossing his arms and leaning against the tree.

Caustic and angry, Kirito remarked, "With friends like these..."

Caynz, already looking at Yolko out of the corner of his eye, asked Asuna, Emerald, and Yang, "And who the hell are you?"

"I, um... accidentally entangled them, too?" Yolko responded. She seemed to be growing steadily more unsure of her prior decisions.

"Jesus! How big is this web, Yolko? We're catching school buses in this thing!"

"Hey, don't get angry at her," Asuna interjected. "If she hadn't forgotten to take us off her friends list, we'd never have found and saved you guys."

All color left Caynz face. "Y-you forgot to delete... your friends list?" he asked, calmly. "We planned this for months and you forgot to DELETE YOUR FRIENDS LIST!?"

"It was hard. All the menus -"

"A child could figure the menus out!" Caynz roared in insult.

At Kirito's snickering, Asuna glared right at him. "Shutty..."

"Anyways, it was Grimlock who killed his wife," Jaune cut in in an effort to get things back on track.

"Grimlock? But he was helping us with this whole thing!" Caynz protested as the figure, complete with stupid hat, came into view.

"Any mediocre killer knows to pin a murder on someone else," Mercury scoffed.

"And their marriage is what tipped me off first. Did you know that there's a little used but incredibly useful facet to the marriage component of the game?" Kirito inquired. His smirk grew. "Spouses share inventory space. Grimlock could have killed Griselda and pocketed the item at any time, isn't that right?!" He whirled on the meek individual and pointed directly at the man's face.

"Are you mad!?... I did not kill my wife for something as... trivial as money..." Grimlock began, disgusted by the mere idea of what had been suggested..

Jaune walked over to stand by Yang. "This is gonna be bad," he muttered. She sighed in disappointment and silently nodded.

"No... my story is far more tragic."

Yang's grimaced. This was going to be so much worse than either she or Jaune had thought. "Oh, no..."

"We were so in love. In all our time together we never had a single fight!" the madman explained, his high pitched voice streaking through the empty forest. His voice grew gravelly – well, gravelly for him – and enraged as he continued on. "But then, one night, everything changed..." His voice took on a falsetto as he began to quote his wife. "'I'm sorry, Honey, I don't have time to make dinner. I have to go meet Yolko and the girls to strategize for the raid. But there's still some leftovers in the fridge! Don't worry, I'll make it up to you tomorrow. Love you!'" Grimlock shuddered with disgust. "And just like that, I realized the woman I had loved was gone! I was devastated! How could she betray me like this!? Clearly, if I was to preserve her memory, to hold onto the angel she once was, something drastic... had to be done."

Grimlock lowered his head. "So you see, Children, I didn't kill Griselda... I killed the thing that took her place."

Everyone was stunned to silence. Yang shut her eyes, feeling almost physical pain. So. Much. Worse... she groaned inwardly. She cast a glance over to Jaune, whose hands were shaking with fury. "You..." Jaune began, utter disdain dripping from his voice. The Keyblade appeared in his hand, Dark and Light mingling on its edge. Yang stepped over and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. She already wanted to beat Grimlock herself, so she didn't expect much of a change. The Dark and Light shrank, at least.

She was surprised when it turned out that someone else was the person she needed to keep an eye on. Mercury, as it turned out, was more on edge about this exchange than Jaune was. His black boot lanced out, weapon inactive, and slammed into the madman's sternum. "You think this is a goddamn joke!? That we're supposed to laugh at this insanity!?" He stood over the madman, range glowing out of his eyes. "You killed her for love, huh? To save her from what she'd become? That's not how it works. Love is giving up everything for someone else. Not taking. Watching them outgrow you." He stepped towards the terrified Grimlock and pressed his boot to the man's throat. The weapon shifted and its barrels were aimed at Grimlock's neck, ready to tear the life from him. "It's been a while since I had fun killing a human being. I'm excited."

"Merc," Emerald cautioned, walking up. He turned an eye towards her. "I'm all for killing him, but..." She gestured at Yang, Jaune, Kirito, and Asuna.

"We don't mind," Kirito and Asuna stated simply.

Yang glanced at Jaune, willing to let him make this choice. He could feel all this, after all. He understood that... soul searing kind of connection in a way that Yang didn't. She couldn't tell if she was jealous she'd never felt that or thankful she'd never lost it. "I don't understand why you would do it," Jaune said simply.

Grimlock took this as a question. "You'll know when you're in love, kid."

That, if Jaune actually asked a question, would have been the wrong answer. The Keyblade slammed into the dirt beside his head, quivering in the dirt where Jaune had thrown it. "I knew love. Real, honest love. I lost that love. Which is why I don't understand how you could throw it away like that. How you could throw away something a person can get once, if they're lucky. And the only answer I can come up with is that... you don't have a Heart anymore."

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but Dumber is right. You wasted something that most people don't get. That most people spend their entire lives looking for! And for what? Cause she wouldn't get in the kitchen and make you a sandwich!? That sounds..." Kirito scoffed and shook his head in disgust. "Even I know that's sick."

"I want to kill you for thinking what you thought," Mercury growled. Darkness flared on his heels. "Because I would never do it. I'm pretty much the baseline for human decency. Hell, I'm below it. But even I'd never do what you did." He took his foot off Grimlock's chest. "So you're sick in the head. You need help, because anyone worse than me has to be nuts. Anyone taking a look at your fashion sense could tell that."

"W-what?" Grimlock asked, as if these were the first words to actually get through to him.

"Oh, come on? That's a cheap hit! Too easy!" Kirito shouted, disgusted that Mercury would insult anyone like that.

"You could do better?" Mercury growled, irritated.

Kirito glared at him for a few moments before throwing his hands up in defeat. He turned towards the murderer and half heartedly shouted, "Grimlock, get up. And this time you're not going to fold just because you look like John Lennon joined the Mafia!"

Grimlock doubled over in tears.

"Case rested," Kirito said with a gesture, waving his hand around before bowing.

"Merc," Emerald said, pulling him away. "What was that about? You never get worked up like that."

"Oh, you know," Mercury said, casting a glance over at Jaune, who was still glaring with disgust at Grimlock. He turned his gaze back to Emerald and smiled. "I didn't like what he was saying. It was wrong."

"And you know that how?" Emerald asked mockingly.

Merc shrugged. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

Emerald stopped and glared at Mercury. Half joking, she growled out, "I'm going to kill you if you don't tell me." She began to draw her weapons.

"No really – I mean. No, it's..." He looked over and saw Jaune staring back. The blonde's head gestured at the green haired girl before he turned and reached down to grab Grimlock. Merc shut his eyes and sighed. "Em, look, I just – I can't tell you yet. I know I should, but I can't."

Emerald glared him down, red eyes filled with confusion about what could possibly be so bad that Mercury would not want her to know about it. "Whatever, Merc." She waved him off. "You'll just tell me later."

"Guys!" Their heads turned to the side, cutting off their conversation, and saw a swirling Darkness surrounding Grimlock, an army of Heartless tearing him to shreds as he began to scream for mercy, to be rescued by those he had disgusted the most. Jaune, Yang, and the others had been forced back by the force of the wind now and were guarding themselves against whatever might come next.

"What the hell!?" Schmidt screamed, scrabbling backwards until he and his former guildmates were holding one another tight. A bright, white light flashed in front of them before turning a dull pink that continued to emanate from the ground, forming a cage that surrounded their rescuers and Grimlock. "Where did those things come from!?"

"Heartless!" Kirito shouted, voice straining against the wind.

"Really?!" Yang shouted back. "And here I thought it was fairies!"

"Fairies? In a VRMMO? Ugh, just kill me now!" Asuna snapped.

Jaune glared at the swirling darkness as it began to slowly dissipate, leaving behind a single, giant silhouette. "Oh, that's not good," he muttered before the creature took a heavy step forward, and the cloud of Shadows disappeared completely.

The monster was about ten feet tall, and fit in perfectly with the haunted forest that grew darker around them. It had long, branching sprouts coming out of a head with a face looking like a jaggedly drawn Jack O'Lantern. Long, thin ropes hung from the branches, thirteen of them, each holding a body with the Heartless symbol on its chest that dangled there and tossed about with the monster's sudden movements. The creature had a tree trunk for a body, the symbol of the Heartless carved expertly into its chest. A dozen long, thin roots coiled together to form the creature's legs, and a few vines dangled from the branches as well, tiny hands forming the ends of each. Slowly, the heads of each body hanging from the branches turned towards Jaune, Kirito, and Mercury first. Jaune knew that those gazes gave every one of them the same thought of a single word – Iscariot. The hands of the bodies shot up, summoning silvery energy blasts that arced towards the warriors, one from each body.

Kirito and Mercury were quick to dodge, even using their speed to jump out of the way they made it with just fractions of a second before the blasts could reach them. Jaune had speed because of the Keyblade, but he knew what he was good at. He was a tank, a man with an incredibly powerful Aura that could take any hit and, with a little luck, let him send it right back. He raised the Keyblade in front of his body, letting the four energy blasts flying his way catch on its similarly colored body. The Keyblade naturally summoned a thin Reflect wall that sent the energy flying back. The Heartless shook and the many bodies arced in wild and unpredictable ways that caused them to easily dodge the rebounded attacks.

Yang took that moment of movement to start her own attack, by leaping over Jaune and charging flames across her fists. "You should make like a tree... and leaf!" she shouted, launching the flames down at the creature. The explosion crashed against its body, but it quickly disappeared and the monster appeared as if it had taken minimal damage. In fact, there was a small lattice of vines where the attack had collided, the arms of the creature sewn together in the form of a shield.

"Really? That joke!?" Kirito shouted as he sprinted around, Asuna doing the same from the other side to form a pincer. "There is always a time and place for Back to the Future, and this is not it! You didn't even get the quote right!"

"Back to the what?" Yang asked, completely confused by the name.

Kirito's response was tears as he began his attack, black saber glinting as it reflected what little moonlight there was streaming down from the sky. Its edge sliced through one of the ropes, causing the body to fall uselessly to the ground. Asuna's blade pierced another rope, dropping the body next to its counterpart. The two warriors were in the air, now, and could not dodge the lightning fast blows of the vine claws slamming into them, unmaking the shield faster than Jaune could have expected and sending the two tumbling across the ground, thin red marks across their shoulders.

Emerald whirled around from behind, summoning up some image in front of the Heartless that it lashed out at to only hit empty air. Her blades, dressed in flames, were soon buried in the Heartless' back and it shrieked, thrashing wildly and managing to throw her away. Trailing behind her, however, was a pair of long chains connected to her guns. Mercury leaped into the air and grabbed onto her, landing in a run around the creature. "Swooning to be in my arms, Em?" the man asked with a grin.

"Can you run anything other than your mouth?" she asked back with a smirk that said she had found it more entertaining than annoying.

Jaune and Yang were busy drawing the monster's attention away from the two runners, using light attacks to force it to lock onto them even as the chains coiled around its legs. Jaune jumped softly over one of the bodies, slashing a silver beam away as he did. He saw another preparing to take down Yang and shouted out a warning. Her fist collided with the beam as she swung around to it, and the energy flew back to cut another hangman down. "This is going better than I'd worried," Kirito said as he ran up and readied his weapon for another attack, causing the blade to glow a vibrant blue before he jumped forward.

He was knocked out of his attack path by an ashen corpse slamming into his body. Jaune was frozen in surprise that the corpse had stood up, to the point he didn't even register another one sneaking up behind him and bringing its gaping maw down to bite down into his shoulder. Jaune roared in pain and tried to pull it off his back, though it seemed it was really stuck there. It wasn't until Yang ran up and crushed its head with one hand that he was able to tear the body, smoking with Darkness, off and into the forest where it disappeared. "Okay, so the bodies come to life when cut down. Great," Jaune said, rubbing his shoulder for a second. He looked over at Yang. "Thanks."

Yang smirked and shrugged. "Couldn't leave you hanging."

"I think I'm spending too much time around you. That hurt less than the bite did," Jaune said.

Yang smirked. "Oh, you're getting a sense of humor now?"

Jaune laughed at that. "Not a good one, if that's the case."

"Dumb and Dumber! Stop flirting," Kirito snapped angrily, "and help us fight!"

Jaune and Yang traded a glance. "Flirting?" Jaune asked, his voice forced even to keep it from cracking. He wasn't sure if this was funny. Or even a joke.

"You think this is flirting?" Yang wondered aloud. She laughed. "If I was flirting, it'd be a lot more direct."

Jaune chuckled nervously.. "Uh... Right," He muttered before returning to the fight. Jaune slashed his Keyblade at the nearest Corpse, Keyblade catching on a large hammer made of wood that the creature suddenly pulled out from the ground. He summoned a spray of Frost magic to his weapon before he jumped back a half step, causing the spell to explode and freeze the Heartless in place. He turned on his heel and, with a powerful two handed blow, shattered it. A glowing Heart spiraled towards the sky blinking out against the stars.

That was awkward, Jaune thought to himself before diving through the icy remains to avoid a volley of silver blasts that slammed into the ground where he'd been standing. He rolled to his feet. Flirting? Him? He – well, that was – It's – He mentally sighed. Pyrrha had told him to find someone, but was he ready? He mentally slapped himself for forgetting the real question: Was he really flirting!? When another monster lunged at him and he barely noticed it, he decided to ponder such things later.

Yang watched him struggle with the thoughts for a few moments, laughing to herself as he floundered with the idea of Yang. She knew that, even if she ever did develop feelings for him, he was too wrapped up in Pyrrha to notice, even still. He wouldn't notice anyone for a while longer. She rushed past him and blocked a blow from the vines that was slashing at him before he could notice. "Hey, stop acting like a you've seen a ghost and fight, Jaune," she commanded her partner.

He nodded, shaking himself out of his thoughts, and charged the tree. "Got a plan?" Mercury asked as he moved to Jaune's side, the two of them dodging silver blasts together. Mercury still had Emerald in his arms, the chains tightening around the Heartless' legs even tighter.

"Um... I'm working on it," he said. He glanced at the Heartless and studied it for a few seconds. "Okay, start of the plan. We'll cut down the corpses and destroy them. That'll take out one of its weapons. You guys trip it and we'll figure things out from there."

"On it," Emerald said, and Mercury sprinted off with her.

"Kirito, we're on cut down duty!" Jaune shouted, readying his Keyblade over his shoulder before jumping at one side of the tree to cut down the remaining corpses.

"Punch time!" Yang shouted in excitement, slamming her fists together. Her hair exploded into flames before she jumped forward to attack the monsters falling from the tree. One, two, three all disappeared in flashes of flame before she twisted between attacking vines. On the other side, Kirito spun around to cut down four more that Asuna skewered. "Only three more now!"

The corpses dropped at that explanation, landing on their feet underneath the people who had tried to cut them down. Silver lights shot up at Jaune and Kirito, sending them crashing into the dangling branches. The vines coiled around them and held them tight so they could not escape. "Hey!" Jaune snapped as he struggled against the tightening vines.

"We've got this!" Mercury shouted as the chains coiled for the last time around the Iscariot's legs. He put Emerald down and gestured at her with a bow. "We're waiting on you."

Emerald rolled her eyes and pulled on the chains, snapping the monster's legs together and pulling its feet out from beneath it. The monster crashed face first into the ground with a roar, though it refused to release Jaune or Kirito. Still, some of the branches did crush a Corpse, so there was that at least. Emerald whipped her chains and a burst of yellow Lightning channeled down the length and intot he legs of the Heartless, as well as into Jaune and Kirito's helpless bodies.

"OW! Idiots, are you trying to kill us!?" Kirito snapped angrily.

"Yes!" Mercury shouted from the fog.

"And me?" Jaune inquired.

"No!" Emerald exclaimed.

"Just get out of there," Asuna growled in exasperation as she cut the vines off of Kirito. Yang ran up and gripped the vines holding Jaune before tearing them to shreds with her robotic hand. She nodded at Jaune, then turned and punched straight through the head of a Corpse trying to sneak up behind her. She jumped over and crossed her arms in front of her, deflecting the powerful silver beam that would have hit the woman helping Kirito to his feet.

Jaune pushed himself up, and raised his Keyblade above his head. "All at once! Now!" He jumped at the Heartless, coating his blade with a Gravity spell. It exploded around the Heartless, forcing it to remain on the ground and halting its progress to stand up. Next came Yang, landing atop it with both feet coated in ice that froze the Heartless to the ground. From there, it was simple work for the six warriors to tear it apart blow by blow. Branches shattered from the struggling, frozen form and disappeared into Darkness. Vines cracked and melted into shadow. The trunk split in two, a long, streaking, diagonal break that came about when Mercury, in an incredibly powerful hammer kick, slammed both heels into the monster's midsection after Yang had landed an overhead, two handed punch in the same location.

The ice hissed, steam escaping through the fracture as the pressure built up was too great. Physical shadows leaked from the ice, until, eventually, the wall exploded and shards of frost flew around the battlefield, forming a bright white snowfall that caught the little light in the area to form beautiful crystal stars among the warriors. Ice drifted slowly down around them, Jaune and the others looking around in wonder. "Beautiful," Asuna muttered quietly.

"Guys -" Yolko began. Their heads turned to her, at which point she slowly raised her finger to point between them, where Grimlock's Heartless would have been.

The six spun around, and froze. Standing in the ice, staring up at the sky with tears drifting down her cheeks, was the image of a woman. She was dressed in green armor, and had brown hair done in a short ponytail. It was held out of her eyes by a tiny clip. "Thank you, for setting me -"

She was cut off when Kirito's sword slammed into her chest. He and Asuna began to scream in terror, as did Yolko, Caynz, and Schmidt. All five sprinted off into the forest, their screeching following them.

"Um... Bye!" Jaune shouted to them. He didn't get a response.

"Huh. They took that well," Mercury said dryly.

"Yeah." Jaune looked at the woman, who was staring after the screams with an annoyed glare. "Griselda?"

She looked over, clearly still annoyed and expecting to be annoyed more. "You're not going to scream too?"

"Are you kidding? We've seen ghosts before," Yang said as she crossed her arms. "My sister's mom was a weird one, but if that didn't scare me away..." She shrugged nonchalantly.

Griselda blinked once in surprise. "You've seen other ghosts?"

"A few people we miss," Jaune muttered sadly, clenching his fist at his side. He buried the Keyblade in the ground and leaned his weight against it as red hair filled his vision.

Mercury looked over at Emerald for a moment, then down at his own hands. "We've had a few near misses where we almost saw the other side ourselves," he muttered coolly. He shut his fists and stuffed them in his pockets. He looked up and grinned. "Makes for an exciting life, though."

Emerald nodded. "Yeah, it does," she said with a concerned smile. He was acting weird, still. He was never this... deep, thoughtful, or meaningful when he spoke. She saw Jaune giving Mercury a weird look and decided to file this away for later. It seemed there was some sort of destiny that kept drawing the blondes and them to the same place, so she could confront him about this after giving Merc a chance to speak.

"Well... I'll tell them you say hi, if you tell those idiots I said thank you," Griselda offered with a smile.

"Those idiots?" Jaune asked, looking over at where Kirito and Asuna had run off with Griselda's former guildmates. "I'm sad to say that we will definitely see them again, so sure."

"Summer Rose and Pyrrha Nikos," Yang said. She looked over at Em and Merc. "Anybody else?"

Emerald bit her lip. Emerald may have loved her like an older sister, but she had to admit that Griselda definitely wasn't going where Cinder was, so... "Nobody I remember,"

"Ha! Nah, my dad's in the other place," Mercury said with a quick gesture at the other ground.

"Well, goodbye, then. I'll say hello if I can," Griselda said, giving a soft smile before she let go... and disappeared. The snow falling around them disappeared completely, melting away and leaving the offworlders alone.

They stood in silence for a little while, staring at the place the woman had been standing. "So... I guess that's everything," Jaune muttered. He stood up straight and the Keyblade disappeared from the ground. His eyes remained fixed on where Griselda had been for another moment, before going down to where Grimlock's Heartless had died. A flash of Dark anger crossed his features as he thought about the man, his insanity and evil. "He got what he deserved."

Yang looked over. "Does anyone deserve to become a Heartless?" she asked simply. "Maybe he deserved to die, but..." She looked at the ground, too. "No. I don't think so."

"Agree to disagree." That one was Emerald. "I've done a lot wrong, but I'd never do this. I'd kill if someone I loved..."

Mercury looked over, not saying anything. Shadowy scythes and death. She couldn't take it. Not yet. She needed time and space from the event. He'd talk with Blue. He'd figure this out.

"You're sounding like me," Jaune said, a grim joke that made no one laugh. He looked down. "You guys have been a lot of help lately. So thank you."

"No problem," Mercury muttered.

Yang reached into her pocket and pulled out her Scroll. "You guys still carry one of these?" she asked.

Em glanced over and pulled hers out, flashing the screen at the blonde. "Good." She swiped her screen and some information appeared on Emerald's screen. "Call us if you need any help. Our ship can pick up any call!"

Emerald and Mercury flinched in surprise. "Wh-what?" Mercury asked.

"Hey, our friends need some way to talk with us," Jaune explained with a grin. He held out his hand to Mercury. "Right, Buddy?"

S M H S

OJ still couldn't believe he'd done it. He'd finally found a way into the Realm of Darkness, which meant he was one step closer to finally getting back to Pyrrha! And now that he knew he needed his fellow Arc's help to get there, he might as well already have that golden Kingdom Key in his hand! And with a Keyblade that strong, there's no way he wouldn't get everything else on the list, lickety split. He was ready to go home – to his real home, where Pyrrha waited for him even today.

He stared again at the book resting on his table, thinking back on everything he'd learned from it. The Door to Truth was not unlike the Door to Darkness, n many ways. Both required a trade, purest Light for purest Darkness. The book called it 'The Law of Equivalent Exchange,' but OJ knew that the important part of every rule was the exclusion. Keyblades were one of those exclusions, unlocking gates that wanted to stay shut. It had taken a few days of figuring out, but now he was sure he knew how to change the strategy for opening the Gate of Truth into one that would shift him into the Realm of Darkness. And, once he had the Kingdom Key D, right back into the Realm of Light. Easy.

He pulled out his Scroll and checked the time. What time was it right now on Aincrad? With how long it had been since they'd seen each other last, he was pretty sure that Jaune would be wrapping up right about now with whatever was going on there. In which case – OJ pushed himself up to his feet and pulled a Pumpkin Pete bar out of his pocket. With his free hand, he summoned up a Corridor of Darkness that linked up to Aincrad, where Jaune was if his Heart was right. He took a bite of the bar and walked through, letting it drift shut behind him.

It took a short time for him to travel through the hallway comprised of Darkness. He was connecting two worlds that were moving through time at different speeds, after all. When he had first started, this had been hell on his motion sickness. Purples and blacks swirling around him like a sky moving past at an incredible rate. He hadn't puked since before he had a Keyblade, but he'd come close the very first time. Now that he'd had the time to acclimate to this walled off portion of the Realm of Darkness, he had no problems. When he used Jaune's Keyblade to open those walls so he could get into the Realm of Darkness, he expected it would be a rough trip. He'd been preparing himself mentally for it for days.

Speaking of that coming, tumultuous journey, OJ saw the portal explode open in front of him. He took another bite of his bar and bounded forward into... a dark forest. "Wow, and here I was hoping for a change of scenery from Vale's forests," he muttered from a mouth filled with food. He looked around for his counterpart and Yang, quickly catching sight of the blonde hair contrasting with the black forest. "Jaune! Yang!" He raised his free hand and waved at them. "Guys! Hey!"

"OJ!" Jaune shouted excitedly as he turned and saw his counterpart. He rushed forward and high fived his counterpart. "What are you doing here?"

"I figured it out. How to get to the realm of Darkness," he responded. He brought his bar up for the final bite before burning the wrapper away with magical, black flames. "I stole some books from some bad guys all around the World, and I've got it. I just need your help."

"Of course," Yang said, no hesitation in her voice as she walked up as well. She took a breath. "How can we help?"

OJ smiled at her, gratitude flooding his features. "You just need to come with me! I'll explain on the way!" He turned and opened a portal of Darkness. He cast a glance at the others, a breathless grin on his face. "Ready?"

"Through that thing?" Yang asked, grimacing. "Aren't those dangerous?"

"Only if you don't wear one of those jackets or..." Jaune slapped the button on his left pauldron and disappeared in a momentary flash of Light. He reappeared as it died, now clad entirely in golden and white armor. Black leather formed from magic covered his body, itself covered by the metal of gold and white crafted out of his Keyblade itself. His bracers flared out at the elbows to form sharp edges he could use as weapons themselves. His shoulder armor was tight to his body, though with a slightly boxy edge to it. His chest armor was tighter than what he usually wore and faded from gold to white as it went down. His legs were covered in segmented, knight like armor of a white silver that led into golden and black boots of armor. His head was covered by a black, Heart shaped visor connected to his armor with a pair of long, golden ears sticking up at the back.

"Hey, Pumpkin Pete!" OJ shouted, jumping up and down like a little kid as he pointed at the armor. "That's so cool! Do you think I could get some of that stuff?"

"That's what I thought, too! Pumpkin Pete!" Jaune shouted, sounding just as much like a five year old as his counterpart. "And I know Sora and Professor Ozpin would make you some if you ask them yourself!"

"Awesome, I can't wai -"

"How does this help me," Yang clarified. She gestured at her own outfit and then at Jaune and OJ. "Clearly I don't have the same resources available to me – you know, armor made out of a Keyblade or magic Dark clothes."

"Right! Right. Here you go!" OJ held up his Keyblade and focused on it for a moment until it exploded and reshaped itself into an empty, gyroscopic glass sphere with a handle on the inside. "I mean, we'll have to push you, but this works."

"This feels like a joke," Yang muttered.

"Nope," OJ said plainly before tapping the sphere. A door popped open on the side. "You get to roll in to our destination in style!"

Yang glared at him before she burst out laughing. "Ha! Hahaha! Roll in! I love it!" She walked forward and clapped OJ's shoulder with her robotic fist. "Ah, okay. Only cause of the joke."

"That's why I made it!" OJ explained, scratching the back of his head and grinning hseepishly. "Just thought of the worst pun I could make!"

"You're tempting me to not do it," she said, halfway through the door already.

"Whoopsdidn'thearthat!" Jaune shouted hurriedly before slamming the door shut and causing her to fall in. Yang yelped before falling face first into the floor of the sphere. "Uh... Sorry, Yang!"

The blonde pushed ehrself around so she was on her back. "I'm going to kill you," she said plainly, eyes red.

Jaune and OJ palled before Jaune said, "I'm well aware..." He gestured at the doorway. "Erm... After you!"

OJ bowed slightly. "Of course, Sir." Then he motioned with his hand and the ball began to move away. He looked over at Yang. "And don't worry about getting back here. I'll open a portal for the two of you as soon as everything is ready and you can head back here for your ship lickety split!"

"Fast," Yang muttered. She pushed herself up to her feet and looked over at Jaune. "You coming, Bunny Boy?"

"I thought you were the -"

"No!" Yang snapped, the red eyes burning brighter and her hair turning to fire. "I'm going to kill you for real if you bring that up to anyone else!"

Jaune's eyes widened in terror behind his mask. "I, uh... Yes, Ma'am." He bounded after the ball and his black coated counter. "I won't do it again..."

OJ reached inside his coat. "Hey, look! Another Black Coat!" he said, waving it at Yang.

"Oh, I knew you were evil," Yang jokingly snarled.

As they passed through the gate, far above in the Gummi ship a phone was ringing. If Yang had entered a moment later, perhaps her Scroll would have picked it up. Instead, it just rang and rang and rang. Until the call ended on its own.

S M H S

Ozpin tapped his foot in time with the ringing of the Scroll held next to his ear, though with every second he was getting more and more off time. He was worried. Nervous. Terrified. "Mister Arc, Miss Xiao Long please pick up... Please..."

He listened to the third to last ring and a single thought went through his mind: they are simply in battle. On the second to last ring it was wondering if they were injured and needed help. On the last he felt it in his Heart... They were already with OJ. He slammed the scroll down before the final ring came to an end. "I need to find Sora," he whispered to himself, surging to his feet. He slapped his chair out of the way and left his Scroll plugged in to the communications center as he sprinted off into the school. Sora... Sora... Where did the young man spend most of his time at this school!? Ozpin cursed under his breath at everything around him, be it the school for being new or himself for not knowing this by now. Sora... he would spend his time in the training center, perhaps? Ozpin sprinted through the hallways, growing ever more manic with every step. The universe itself hinged on him finding Sora now. He turned a corner and threw the doors open to find the training room empty, save for the inactive robots that would be used for training. "Dammit... Qrow isn't here, he would have no one to train with!"

Ozpin spun on his heel and sprinted towards his next destination. The mess hall. God knew that the boy had a... disgusting appetite. He whirled around to another intersection, fists clenched so tight that they were cramping. He didn't even bother throwing the doors open, instead just slamming into them and pushing through like a madman. "Sora!" No. Nothing. Just an unwashed mountain of plates on a table covered with food. Messy eater indeed. Ozpin roared in rage and turned, slamming his knuckles into the wall. "Damn!" He took a breath to recompose himself. He needed to be calm, to be sure. Anything less would make him lose focus, and even when his task was looking for Sora that was never a good move. He took off his glasses and ran a hand through his hair before placing them back on his nose. Time to begin again.

He ran for the only other place he could think the boy was – the Hall of Histories. The boy had accepted his friends were long gone, but he had spent much time on remembering them on his own. The other places were better guesses for mid-day, but they had not panned out. This was it. Sora would be there. Ozpin reached the door and pulled it open. "Sora -"

"... and they're all – Oz!" Sora turned as the door opened. He was sitting on the ground, cross legged, with his body facing a carving of seven warriors each with their own distinct Keyblade. One was himself, and the others his old friends. Ozpin let his eyes travel for a moment until he caught sight of himself standing with his six first students, a woman with a dark and terrifying shadow beside him. He looked away from Salem as quickly as he had looked towards her. "What's up?"

"Sora, I fear something terrible is about to happen," the ancient warrior stated. The cold, aching fear in the man's voice caught Sora's attention and he shivered. "I have been trying to contact Mister Arc and Miss Xiao Long for some time, but I have yet to reach them."

"Why do you need to talk with them, Oz?" Sora wondered.

Ozpin sighed. "The Other Jaune. His plan to move on to the next timeline will work, but it will not end well," the old man explained, his forehead creasing until it was one long wrinkle above his emerald glasses. "His plan will end with the annihilation of everything, Sora, and I need to warn Mister Arc and Miss Xiao Long before they help him."

"Maybe he doesn't know!" Sora said hopefully. He took a step forward and held his fists in front of him. "Maybe – No, he will stop when we tell him. He's like Jaune, after all. That means he's good."

"I would like to believe that as well, Sora," Ozpin said quietly.

Sora was quiet for a moment. "You want me to go track them down and stop whatever it is that they're doing here, huh?" he asked as he crossed his arms and gazed at the ground. He looked up and nodded solemnly, determined to fix this. "Well, I guess that I better start looking for them then."

Ozpin sighed in relief. "Yes, of course." He sighed. "And I thought we were going to teach..."

"Well, it's a new world. Just gotta wait, Oz," Sora said, placing his hands behind his head and grinning. "It's not ending any time soon, after all."

Ozpin smiled softly and nodded, letting the young man run past him. Sora jumped in the air as he ran away, turning to wave before he landed and began to backpedal. "See ya after I've cleared this all up, Oz!" And with that he turned around again, running off to save the universe.

"Always bringing hope, Sora," Ozpin chuckled to himself, surprised by how at ease he was. All because of the boy. "If you and Miss Rose can teach someone how to do the same, I think the Keyblade has made its best choices yet."