Chapter 36: Return of a Madman

2 Weeks Later

"I know you're still not acclimatized to life without her, but we need to get to class." Krystal sighed as Ruby shook her head from her position on the ground.

The last two weeks had been a nightmare for Krystal, as there were a lot of injured people to attend to, both physically and mentally. She had been helping out at the medical facilities at Beacon even before the Vytal Tournament, but this was taking it to a whole new level. These were her friends, and a lot of them had lost very close friends. And even after all the work she had put into bringing them back to normal, she knew that these scars would last a long time.

"Here, let me help you get there." She reached down and grabbed Ruby by the arm, pulling her to her feet.

"Thanks." Ruby muttered before allowing herself to be led to the classroom.

Krystal sighed again, thinking about each of the people who had been injured. First, the physical ones, who were the easiest. Sun had recovered quite quickly and had already made a full recovery. Lunas, who had suffered a minor fracture in his ribs after falling off a building chasing Vayla, had come in for treatment once and had left the school on a scouting trip. And Hailey, with her numerous bruises after being beaten by Vayla multiple times, was almost completely healed again.

"And Krystal?" Ruby said as she looked back with puffy eyes.

"Yes?" Krystal, who was temporarily interrupted from her thought, replied.

"Thanks for all of your help, I don't know if I would be coping without you."

Krystal was taken aback, because that had been the longest sentence Ruby had said in the last two weeks. Of all of the injured, the mental ones were the worst off, and Ruby was at the very bottom. Ren, Pyrrha, and Ruby had all lost lovers, BOLT had lost Omega, and Hailey had lost her whole team. Hailey and Pyrrha had been the strongest, keeping their heads held high and only breaking down in occasional therapy sessions. Team BOLT had been bad for a while, but they had quickly realized that grieving didn't help. They were even looking for a replacement. Ruby and, surprisingly, Ren were the most damaged. Krystal had to help Ruby get to every class, similar to today. It seemed like she had lost the will to do anything, quite a stark contrast from her usual cheery and bouncy self. Ren had completely vanished, and nobody knew where he was. The search for him was long called off, as it had been a full week now since the disappearance. Everyone was worried about his mental state, but nobody was worried about him getting injured while gone.

"You... you're welcome, Ruby." Krystal replied, the words a whisper in the air, again bringing herself back to the present. "I like helping people."

Of everyone, Krystal had probably changed the most. Gone was the carefree and total joking attitude, and now she had become very serious about her work. She reserved her previous side for Colton, who had fallen in love with her for it before.

The trip to class was uneventful, except for a minor encounter with a manic Yang. She was rushing around the school, trying to find a lead on Blake's whereabouts. That was someone that Krystal had missed in the "injured" area. Yang had become very moody and trigger-happy with the loss of her calming girlfriend. She spent all of her time doing just this: Searching for a way to get to Blake. She had even yelled at Sun and Lunas for killing Vayla and destroying their only source of knowledge on the subject.

"And here we are, now let's actually pay attention today, okay?" Krystal asked as she placed her hand on the door to Kipmud's classroom.

"You don't have to…" Ruby began muttering before breaking off.

"What was that?"

"...Patronize me." She finished, shoving Krystal out of the way and opening the door herself.

Krystal sighed again and followed her in, already so excited for class to be over.

Lunas stalked through the shadows, using his Semblance any time he had to break cover. His goal was to infiltrate a Vesper meeting and try to gather intel on Blake's whereabouts. He froze and activated his Semblance as a flashlight swept past his position in the tall grass. It was a tense minute before the light moved on and he was able to relax again. He continued onwards, drawing closer and closer to the secluded mansion at the end of the driveway he was moving parallel to.

"...heard they found someone on the outer perimeter." A passing guard remarked to his friend.

"Really? A spy of some sort?" The other guard replied.

"I dunno, but he was wearing a green suit-looking thing."

"Strange, but…" The guards moved out of earshot, but not before Lunas had gotten an idea of who they might have caught.

"Why are you here?" He asked himself silently as he continued forwards.

He made it to the mansion without further incident and activated his Semblance again, sliding out of cover and pressing himself against the wall as he did so. It was a few meters to a hedge and he slipped behind it. He looked around before deactivating his Semblance and sighed in relief.

"Still not caught." He thought to himself with a smile.

"...moving him into the basement. Why there, why not the prison cell? They're just a bunch of idiots. I should go give them a piece of my…" Another guard muttered to himself on the way by, giving Lunas his second useful piece of information about the spy.

Lunas paused, debating what he should do. Should he continue onwards and eavesdrop on the meeting? Or should he go rescue the spy from his prison? Lunas checked his watch and made his decision. There was still forty five minutes until the meeting was due to begin, so he had ample time to try to save the prisoner. Mind now set on a plan, Lunas began moving again. He made it to the target window and brought out a vial of corrosive dust. He poured some on the lock and waited a couple seconds for the locking mechanism to be destroyed.

"Come on, work faster." He thought to himself as he felt the seconds tick by.

"...smell that?" A guard mentioned, making Lunas tense up.

"What?" His partner inquired with a strange look on his face.

"It smells like burning."

"I don't smell anything."

"That's because you're , but you could be right. It's probably just my imagination getting to me, let's move on."

"Okay, so about…" The guards continued onwards, completely unaware of the figure in the shadows.

The lock snapped and Lunas turned to it, easing the window open.

"Alright, time to save the damsel in distress." He said as he hopped inside.

A Floor Below

"Hmm, a ripple in the universe, someone just called me a damsel." Ren thought as he broke meditation. "Wait, I am not a damsel!"

"I hope he's okay." Sun said as he laid back on his bed.

Aurora threw him a sidelong glance and sighed.

"Which one are you talking about? There are quite a lot of people who are in positions for you to ask that."

"Lunas. He's gone on that mission all alone. I shouldn't have let him do that, I should've gone."

"He did say that it would be harder with multiple people."

"I know, but…"

"No. You know how stealth works, Sun."

Sun paused for a second to collect his thoughts, letting his breath out slowly as he regained control.

"You're right, sorry."

Aurora smiled and moved closer to hug him.

"Don't be, I understand where that came from. You're just worried about him, that's all."

Sun was about to respond when Colton and Krystal burst in, coming straight from Kipmud's class.

"That, was hard." Krystal exclaimed as she plopped down face first onto her bed.

"I'm sure it was, I can't imagine doing what you do." Colton replied, sitting down next to her.

"Why can't everyone be back to normal?" She buried her face in Colton's shirt and started to cry.

"I know, I know, calm down." Colton shot a pleading glance at Aurora before turning his attention back to his girlfriend.

Aurora got the message and moved to assist, sitting down beside them. Sun watched before walking out the door, in search of someone. Aurora frowned but let him go, instead staying on the bed.

"What has this world come to?" Sun asked himself, closing the door behind him.

He strolled aimlessly through the halls, encountering next to no one even though it was only seven. He found himself in the library, walking in between the shelves. He was about to leave when a book caught his eye. He picked it up and looked at the title with a slightly confused look.

"'Thus Kindly I Scatter'. Where have I read this before?" Sun thought to himself, thinking back to all of the times he had checked out a book from the library.

He spent the next few minutes deep in thought, taking more time than it should have to come up with the answer. It finally dawned on him that this was the first book he had ever checked out. He thought back to that time, where he had had only one problem: A team to be on. That seemed like nothing compared to losing so many of his friends and having to deal with the aftermath every day. Things had been so simple back then, and he wished he could go back to that time.

"I should read it again for old times' sake." Sun said aloud gloomily, still thinking about how things had changed.

"That's the key to finding me, Sun. Come find me." A voice seemed to say.

Sun turned and there beside him was Blake, but something wasn't right. She was outlined by a black mist, and she seemed to be flickering. Sun was speechless for a second before getting his mouth to work.

"B- Blake, you're alive! How are you? Where are you? How did you get here?"

Blake seemed to smile at the slew of questions and tilted her head thoughtfully.

"Yes, I am alive. I'm fine… ish. I'm being held hostage somewhere. And this is a projection of me, I'm not really here."

"But then what is this in front of me?"

Blake opened her mouth to speak before being interrupted by a jovial male voice.

"That would be my Semblance, monkey boy. The ability to project a memory into the physical world."

"And who would you be?" Sun asked, annoyed.

"Well let me show you, we've met before."

The image shifted before him and a familiar orange haired villain looking into a mirror appeared.

"Recognize me now?"

Author's Note:
Alright, now we're back to normal. Check my profile for scheduling, but as of now it is every Sunday. This story is taking an interesting turn and I hope you guys are enjoying it. I am having quite a fun time writing these chapters and I can't wait to release some of the upcoming ones. Thank you all for reading and if you enjoyed, don't forget to follow, favorite, and review. Chas1881