CHAPTER ONE - THE BIRTH OF A SPARTAN, REMNANT OF THE PAST
I ran out of Beacon Tower with Jaune by my side and but a fragment of the Fall Maiden's power within me. The entire city of Vale below us along with Beacon Academy are a mess, chaos everywhere as people are evacuating and Grimm are invading. Jaune pulls out his Scroll to call Glynda to inform her of the situation between Ozpin and Cinder.
"Okay, I think I have Glynda's number. Oh, where is it?" Jaune muses.
Hearing sounds of fighting below the tower, I look to the top where I know the fight will be taken.
"Pyrrha? What was all of that?" asks Jaune.
I was about to explain when all of a sudden, we heard and explosion behind us, and turn to see Cinder fly up the elevator shaft using her powers as the Fall Maiden like a rocket booster.
"But... Ozpin..." murmurs Jaune.
"There's no time. Go. Get to Vale and call for help." I told Jaune.
"Huh? What are you going to do?" asks Jaune.
I looked back up to Beacon Tower where I know Cinder is likely trying to speak with the Grimm Wyvern.
"No... no, Pyrrha, you can't! You saw how powerful she is! Pyrrha, I won't let you-"
I cut Jaune off with a passionate kiss, one likely as a goodbye since I had a feeling I wouldn't return. He reciprocated shortly after, but I pulled away and gave him a sad smile.
"I'm sorry." I said with that sad smile still on my face.
I used Polarity on Jaune's armor to push him into a random student's Rocket Locker, and I then shut the door.
"Hey! Wait! Stop, stop! Pyrrha, please don't do this!" yells Jaune with a note of betrayal in his voice.
It hurt immensely to do this to the love of my life, who I still wish would've realized his feelings sooner, but I knew I had to do what I was about to do. I typed in some coordinates to somewhere safe in Vale after a quick glance over the city and looked him one last time in the eyes before sending him flying away. I ran inside the tower and forced open the doors of the elevator with both my arms and Polarity and used my Semblance to force the elevator up to the top of the tower.
Upon the doors of the elevator opening, I threw Milo as hard as I could once I got a lock on Cinder, and followed it up quickly with a shield strike from Akouo once I saw her dodge. She blocked the strikes with ease. I recalled both and glared at Cinder. She shot an arc of flames at me, followed by a jet of fire, both of which I dove over, and side stepped respectively.
Cinder then conjured six fireballs behind herself which she fired at me, and I barely managed to avoid getting burned. I felt a heat rising within me, and noticed my movements getting quicker. Cinder then shot a beam of fire at me which I blocked with Akouo, using the cover to run forward and tried to slash Cinder's arm with Milo once the fire stopped. Cinder caught Milo in her hand and pulled, getting in a palm strike to my abdomen after I nearly lost my footing, which was powered up with flames, sending me flying.
I slammed into a wall and fell to all fours. I got back up to glare at her, when I saw her launch herself at me and attempted another fiery palm strike. I jumped above her and grabbed her arm by wrapping my own around it, and placing my feet on the wall, I pushed myself in a flip over Cinder. With that flip, I threw Cinder across the room.
Cinder slid for a bit before doing a handspring, after which I had made my way in a charge towards her and slammed Akouo into her torso. She stumbled, and I took the chance to hit her arm with Milo but ended up both hitting only her right hand and doing so with the blunt end of Milo. I rectified this mistake by at least hitting her other hand with the blade of my spear. I then spun and slashed her across her legs and torso.
While spinning to attack again, Cinder backflipped and kicked off me with a flame powered foot, knocking me into the air, but I was ready and righted myself before firing Milo with a Dust powered throw at Cinder. She backhanded my spear after she was about to fire six more fireballs at me, and I followed up the throw with Akouo to distract her. While she was focused on Akouo, I wrapped my arms around Cinder and tackled her, but we stayed airborne for a bit.
After some wrestling midair, we finally hit the ground, blowing a cloud of white dust everywhere. I had Cinder in a chokehold with Milo to her neck. Cinder began to heat up Milo, but for some reason it didn't feel as hot as I thought it would, although it still hurt to keep holding. I kept strong though and kept the spear there, trying to push it into her neck.
I heard a screech and noticed the Wyvern from before flying towards us. While I was distracted, the heat Cinder pumped into Milo allowed her to break off the blade, and she elbowed me in the abdomen just as the Wyvern slammed a wing into the roof. The windows all shattered, and I went flying from both Cinder's attack and the concussive blast from the Wyvern. All around me things began to fall apart in Ozpin's office, including cogs from the clockwork above, but also the transmitter for the CCTS.
I tried grab Akouo, but on my way noticed Cinder looking as if she were preparing an attack. Seeing Ozpin's desk collapsed, I threw it at Cinder with my Semblance, which knocked her to the ground, allowing me to get Akouo and roll towards Cinder. The desk went flying with a burst of fire and sent three beams of fiery death at me, which I dodged with a roll, or at least I would have if I were faster, but Akouo protected me from the burn, but sadly not the force, as I went tumbling backwards.
The ground between us was then lit aflame, and I threw Akouo at Cinder like a buzzsaw as another distraction, lifting the shattered cogs around the office, much to Cinder's surprise, and I sent Akouo into her feet to knock her off balance. I slammed a cog into her torso, pinning her to the floor, and bringing Akouo back to my arm I dumped the rest of the cogs atop her in a pile.
A powerful explosion of flame threw the cogs off her, one of which hurtled towards me, which I dumbly attempted to block, sending me crashing into the wall, and breaking my already overstrained Aura. I saw a black bow form in Cinder's hand, along with an arrow of the same color. I threw Akouo in response, which shattered the arrow after it was loosed from the bow. The arrow reformed though, and planted itself firmly through my left heel, both ends falling off, leaving just the shaft within my foot, crippling my ability to stand.
Now on the ground, I turned over to face Cinder.
"It's unfortunate you were promised power that was never really yours. But take comfort in knowing I will use it in ways you could never imagine." she spoke in her sultry voice while lifting my chin to glare into my eyes.
"Do you believe in destiny?" I asked her.
"Yes." she replied with a frown and narrowed eyes.
She formed another black bow and arrow and, with my eyes closed in resignation now that I no longer can fight, released the arrow into my chest, which hurt mind you, but not as much as I thought it might. It almost felt like I wasn't there. The arrow wound glowed, and Cinder placed her hand on my forehead, and incinerated my body. That unfamiliar warmth I felt before that may have been making me stronger faded as well and felt as if it were being pulled into Cinder.
Now, I don't know exactly how I knew this. I was dead, after all. See, the thing is, I woke up in some building with grey metal walls, with orange lighting at some parts. I look down to find I am not wearing anything, but then I realize I have a mask on my face and I am within a clear glass tank filled with a clear liquid. I panic for but a moment, before calming myself down and thinking for a moment.
Suddenly, a voice calls out to me from a floating black and white orb with a red eye in front of my tank.
"Ah! You are awake again, Reclaimer!" it spoke to me.
Seeing the coloring and instantly thinking of Grimm, I panicked and tried to get away by swimming backwards.
"Ah ah ah! Calm down, Reclaimer. I am not one of those foul creatures you likely thought of me as. My name is 1981 Grim Aura, I am the Artificial Intelligence that has been given lordship over this splendid facility, named Installation 1981, codename Remnant."
"Do you know me?" I ask in a muffled voice.
"I know about you, dearest Pyrrha Nikos, but I do not know you. Nor do you know I, but we shall change that soon enough, shall we?" Grim Aura replied.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead, Reclaimer."
"Why am I naked?"
"Ah, yes, your kind may find it, how do you call it, embarrassing to be unclothed, but your clothes were incinerated in the process of bringing you here due to that false Fall Maiden. You had severe wounds, but thanks to the Huragok that serves here, your wounds were healed, and I placed you in this tank to heal you the rest of the way."
"But the arrow pierced my heart."
"Yes, and a Huragok can sew back together any wound provided you are still alive."
"What does one look like?"
"Even I have to say they look strange, like a blue snail with no shell and six eyes directly on its head with a bulging purple grape bunch looking area where the shell would be, two cattail looking limbs underneath and two more atop the neck area, with twin blue tails underneath that trail behind for no discernable reason."
"Uh..."
"The cattail like limbs separate into hundreds upon thousands of tiny needles that can rejoin flesh that has been cut apart. The purple bulges are a sack of a healing solution and a stash of minerals that can be used to make the wound heal very rapidly."
"So, why the tank?"
"Why, to restore your Aura and stamina, of course. But also, to regulate your body temperature while your body was fully dedicated to recovery."
"This thing can restore Aura?"
"Not quite, but the state it sets your body into relaxes everything, and by extension, the soul, regenerating it at an increased pace."
"And why did you save me?"
"Why, what a silly question!" I gave him a deadpan stare. "Ahem, sorry, but I heard something funny a while back. A phrase that has become famous elsewhere in the galaxy. It goes something like 'a Spartan never dies, they just go MIA', something along those lines."
"But I'm not a Spartan, I'm a Huntress. And what's a Spartan?"
"Oh, a Spartan is what you are going to become should you accept my offer. I cannot put you back on Remnant as of right now, forgive me, something you may have noticed is the difference in your size, that is a result of the only way I could find to save you, but also a result of 'when' we are right now."
I looked down again, and now that my vision is clearer, my body is much smaller. If I were to guess my age, I am around seven years old now, though I noticed I still have a few marks from injuries during my early training.
"Why am I seven? And why do I still have my injury marks if I'm younger again?" now that I think about it, my voice does sound much higher, though it's hard to tell in this tank.
"As I said, a result of 'when' we are. You are seven years old out there as well, in Mistral, training with Milo and Akouo right now. Yes, time travel. That is why you cannot go out there right now. The machine I used I did not know had a rollback time of ten years, but you were seventeen, now you are seven. As well, your age is tied to time, but not your memories, soul or damages, which scarring classifies as."
"Okay..."
"Now, do you wish to hear my offer?"
"Sure."
"I can allow you to become a hero of Humanity. There are more planets than Remnant you know, and there are a very large group of them under one flag called the UNSC, or United Nations Space Command. For clarification, the Faunus are native to Remnant alone for the moment, and they are part of Humanity, a genus of Human, to be exact."
"Okay? Uhm... How do you know this?"
"Why that is an easy question. My kind, the Monitors, created by the Forerunners to oversee these Installations, have communication with each other, like a phone call that sends over incredible quantities of information rather than voice alone. We use that to keep each other updated on the goings-on of every Installation. Not only that, we eavesdrop on the communications of the other races, so we know who people are, which kinds are doing what, who is attacking who, and which Installations are under attack or at risk of being destroyed. Thankfully the Flood is not researched here, it means Remnant is safe from it."
"The Flood?"
"Space creatures that consume intelligence from sentient life or sentient machines. They are truly terrible."
"Will I ever run into them?"
"Oh, gods no! Never! As long as you stay away from the Installations I will tell you about, you will never have to encounter a Gravemind. That is the brain of a Flood infestation."
"What do they look like?"
If an orb could cringe in disgust, Grim Aura just did.
"Nasty giant bugs that are grey, made of biomatter and are disgusting to even be around."
"Okay then... What kind of hero did you mean? What will I be doing? What will I go through to become a hero?"
"A Spartan. A Spartan is a very strong, very robust and very brutally efficient guardian of Humanity. They were created from necessity due to the Covenant attacking Humanity, uniting them as one, and fighting back just as hard. You will become one and live your renewed childhood from there. Once you go out, I cannot retrieve you unless you are near death again. I only hope your training and Aura will give you enough of an edge out there. You will be physically Augmented by yours truly, since I am better at it, you will then be sent to a Spartan Training Facility and I will have falsified information input to the system through a nearby Monitor to avoid detection. You will progress and grow through the Spartan Program and hopefully fulfill your duties to save Humanity from their impending doom. Any more questions?"
"What will the Augmentations do?"
"Reinforced bone structure, increased height and muscle mass, increased bone and muscle density, brain growth and pathway optimization, optical enhancements, neural interface, improved hearing, faster reflexes, direct reflexes that ignore the brain, improved touch, improved smell, improved taste, magnetic north sense addition, a few other minor things as well. Those are what I will be doing, in short. You won't feel it one bit. And I should also mention that there is a setting you can change in your Augmentations that represses your ability to reproduce and feel things related to that, including the monthly occurrence."
"Are you sure its safe to do all that?"
"Perfectly so. My predecessors, the Forerunners, perfected the process, I just tweaked it for the Human body rather than the avian-like Forerunner body."
"Okay then. Uh, what will happen to my Aura?"
"It will be improved upon. I theorize Aura is tied to growth potential, so it should increase by a very large amount after this. You will need it as well, though."
"Okay. I think I'm ready for it. How long will I be out for?"
"Well, with when we are right now, that doesn't matter at all. But since you asked, about three days. You will be perfectly fine though, we can maintain your body easily during the operation. I should also add that the operation improves energy conversion efficiency in the body, which means you can get away with less in the way of food than normal Humans."
"Okay then. I'm ready."
The tank began to drain itself and I took off the mask once my head was above the level of the tank. I then stepped out of the tank after it unsealed and sank into the floor and walked over to put on a black skinsuit that Grim Aura pointed me to. I then walked over to a table that rose out of the floor and laid myself down on top of it.
"Alright, I'm just going to inject this syringe and you will be asleep very quickly."
Just then I felt a tiny prick in my neck, and my eyelids got very heavy.
"Just close your eyes and relax. You will be out like a light, no problem. You won't even be waiting, just asleep and wake up, suddenly time passed."
I closed my eyes and sleep took me very quickly. I opened them again after what felt like a few seconds and found myself aching slightly. I looked down at my own body to find it significantly larger than it just was, maybe around my old height at seventeen or a couple inches taller, though I know I'm still seven right now. I got up off the table and felt my legs unstable beneath me. Just as I was about to fall, a small hand-like arm stopped me from falling.
"Careful now, Reclaimer. Baby steps, you did just grow up very quickly. Take some time to wander the facility, get used to that new body of yours."
Grim Aura then flew away as I steadied myself. I began to take slow, small steps towards the hallway. As the minutes went by, I was walking the halls, slowly adjusting to my new body. I felt far stronger than I was ten years from now. Still strange to say it that way. I found several different rooms, mostly research rooms dedicated to the things of Remnant, like Dust, and animals that have Aura, but strangely no Grimm. I wonder why? I then felt some heat coming from a room I passed by. I decided to open the door and go in, only to see what looks like a computerized production facility.
"Ah! Reclaimer! I see you Huntsmen and Huntresses have a gravitation to the forge! Here is where I am making your armor. I am creating a standard set of gear that you would have as a participant in the Spartan Program. This is to avoid suspicion, so I am making it as equal as possible. There is one organization you should know about, called ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and you should try not to get involved with them. If you do, then try to hide Aura from them, but if they find out about it, best you come clean and explain it. I have sensed Aura being used very sparsely out in the great beyond, though never like it is here, I would assume it is due to out there, Humans have unlocked it on their own and don't know what it is."
"Really? Other people have Aura out there?"
"Yes. There have been three recorded Spartans who unlocked their Auras. They are all deceased though since they overestimated their abilities, or, as the UNSC would put it, they are currently Missing in Action, or MIA."
"Why would they lie like that?"
"It boosts public morale. Keeps the heroes immortal in the public eye."
"Oh. I guess that's okay then."
"Well, perhaps you should do some strength training and cardio to get used to your new body. I'll send a Sentinel with you to guide you there."
Just then, a panel on the wall slid away and another floating orb kind of robot flew out. It hovered in front of me for a moment before floating slowly away just in front of me. I slowly followed it through the halls to a room with machines for workouts, like what I remember Yang used in the Beacon Gym. I began my workout. The days quickly passed by.
"Reclaimer! I have finished the equipment. The helmet monitors your Aura level with a chip that I embedded into your head. Scroll technology is sadly not compatible with regular computer networks. However! If you place this other chip into a helmet, any helmet, and then remove it, a new gauge will appear on the helmet Heads Up Display and will actively measure your Aura levels."
I followed Grim Aura to the forge.
"The equipment can be customized a bit at the start of the program, so I have taken the liberty of recoloring it red and gold, just as your old outfit was."
I look at the somewhat bulky and standard looking suit of armor. He did say he had to make it as normal as possible. "Is this what all recruits wear?"
"Yes, this is. If you are thinking to yourself, you may want to wire your mouth closed. That could be bad for you in the UNSC."
"Sorry."
"It's fine, you will learn one way or another."
We then set out towards what I assumed would be the armory. When we arrived, there was a platform in the center of the room with a hole in the ceiling going, well, somewhere. There were weapons all around, too.
"Okay Reclaimer, stand in the center of the platform with your arms out flat and your legs apart on those two small angled plates."
I did as I was asked, and arms came down from the hole in the ceiling, carrying parts of the armor from the forge. The pieces were then all attached to my skinsuit and I walked around from there getting a feel for the armor. Grim Aura asked me to practice taking it off and putting it on, since all Spartans must be able to do so quickly, alone. I spent the better part of the next day doing that. After a few days though of more strength training and some gun training, I was ready.
"Alright, Reclaimer. This is the final step before you become a Spartan. There is no turning back now. I have put in the false information to trick the UNSC and ONI. It's all up to you now."
I was standing on a large glowing pad. In front of me was a holographic button that said 'Launch'.
"No pressure, right?" If an orb could deadpan, he just did. "Okay, yeah, I guess Yang's unfunniness has rubbed off on me. Wish me luck!"
"Remember this, Pyrrha dearest, it is common for the best Spartans to say this, 'Spartans make their own luck'. I truly love that phrase. Skills do play a great deal for how an engagement will turn out. Be the best you can be."
"What, just be Hyper Lethal or something?"
"Precisely! I knew you were a true Spartan at heart! Be Hyper Lethal! Go on, become a hero!"
"I'll be the hero!"
I know I was acting a bit out of character there, but I am younger right now. Please bear with me. I then pressed the button, and I felt my very being get dissolved and rebuilt at the same time. I soon found myself in a room with one bed, presumably my room at this facility, so I took off my armor, and flopped on the bed.
I had no idea just what the next fourteen years would have in store for me.
NEXT TIME:
CHAPTER TWO - RISE OF THE GRIM REAPER, A HYPER LETHAL VECTOR
"We have a proposition for you, Ms. Nikos. How would you like to lend us your services as an assassin, taking down bad people who would seek to undermine the UNSC?"
"I'll do it. I want to be a hero, so I'm going to do it and be one, sir."
AFTER EPISODE RANDOM:
"Hey, Pyrrha! I saw you die right in front of me! What happened?!" yelled Ruby.
"You were there?! Why?!" yelled Pyrrha in return.
"Jaune called us and Weiss and I ran to the tower. She made a trail of gravity glyphs up the side and I ran up just to see you get incinerated by Cinder! What happened Pyrrha?!" yelled Ruby in question again.
"I lost the fight! I don't know what happened, but I woke up a whole ten years before that happened as if it were yesterday! For all I know it really was!" yelled Pyrrha in return, again.
"Why are we yelling?!" yelled Ruby on the verge of tears.
"I don't know!" yelled Pyrrha.
Ruby then started crying for the death of her friend who is right in front of her, and Pyrrha wrapped Ruby in a warm hug, oblivious to the fact Ruby still thinks Pyrrha is dead.
The rest of the cast looked on with deadpan expressions, even the late Ozpin himself and the normally stern Glynda.
"She's right there, sis." said Yang.
"Can't you see her, you dunce?" asked Weiss.
"Open your eyes and look at who you're hugging." suggested Blake.
Ruby opened her eyes and looked up at the redhead. She then proceeded to continue bawling into the taller girl's chest, but for a different reason.