Dominic POV
I'm still conscious after the hydrant that Deadric had been originally clung to crashed into us. It looks like Dame took the brunt of the impact a corner smacking his head, a small splash of crimson leaking out of his scalp. and one of Dead's arms is hanging limply, probably broken. He grabs the broken arm and wraps it around Damien's unconscious body. I don't see anymore debris falling, I check on Dimitri and see we weren't hit at all. But fuck it knocked us pretty far away from the others, "Dim, we have to try to swim over," he nods a determined look crossing his face. We're still picking up speed, I don't know how we should have hit terminal a while ago.
We start to awkwardly move our arms, soon finding a pattern, being twins helps sometimes I guess. We start to get closer with our three legged race style swimming "Dead talk to me big guy, how the arm?"
"What arm," he smiles back and kicks his legs trying to help close the gap, but can't get the drag needed to do much.
"Well at least you're carrying Damien for once right? What's your K.D rate again?" We're almost there, we're almost there.
"Better than yours," he responds his good arm reaching out, barley getting a grip on the belt holding me and Dim together he laughs lightly.
I sigh in relief pulling us a little closer and adding my support for Dame. "Fuck yes!" Dimitri exclaims pumping his free arm, but here was his mistake. Something none of us accounted for, what would happen if we started spinning while falling? Centrifugal force is a bitch by the way.
We tilt on an axis and a small gust catches us spinning us upside down and back again, my adrenaline spikes higher than ever before, is this a panic attack? We're quickly pulled to the limits of Deadric's arm, his broken one staring to lose its grip on our still out cold oldest brother. With Dimitri constantly muttering "I'm sorry I'm sorry, we're gonna die," I snarl, use my free hand to latch onto Dead's wrist and with all my strength I hold on, I know I'm cutting off circulation but I don't care. I'm not letting go!
"We have to let go, Or I'm losing Damien!" Tears fall out on my eyes drifting up as I realize he's right, Dame slipped a little more as I'm watching and his face is strained from using a shattered limb to hold the weight.
"Let me think of something, hold on a bit longer," I state relinquishing my grip deciding to try and snap Dimitri out of his panic to help, but before any of us have a chance at anything we all hear a snap. I should've bought a new belt.
Everything slows down as I stare at a look on Deadric's face that will be burned into my memory forever. A look of self loathing, disappointment, and anguish so powerful I still see it in the darkness of where he faded from my sight. We were flung away from each other so quickly I only saw my twin disappear from my peripheral vision. "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-." I scream as long and as loud as I can into the void that had just taken my planet, my parents, and now my brothers from me. I curse any and every god that allowed this to happen. I swear vengeance, I swear retribution, I swear on my blood I'll drag the one who caused this into this darkness and destroy them!
Lost in my anger and sadness I get pulled out of it as a new card gets thrown on the table, I exit the void at high speed into a brilliant night sky free from light pollution like when you go camping and get to see the amazing beauty of the Milky Way. The infinite colors mesmerize me for a moment before I snap back to reality. Yeah remember Dom falling thousands of feet through the air. I'm dead no matter what here so enjoy the view at least right?
I flip and actually get hopeful, I see nothing but snow for miles in every direction, believe it or not you can survive a fall into mud or snow, even water (if you know what you're doing) from a few hundred to a few thousand feet. Broken bones, yeah that's gonna suck but I'll be alive. All I can do is try to relax, most of the times its not the impact that kills you its the fall. But I'm still panicking and tense, my breathing shallow and harsh, the cold air ripping my lugs, my hearts racing but shouldn't be about to explode. I let out a sob, I haven't cried in years, but since that face appeared in the sky, I let the pain wash over me and I wish for nothing but the power to Pull us all back together.
I feel a strange warmth come over me, am I already going into hypothermia? I curl in on myself, probably the worse decision but I don't care as I let the grief and warmth grow, the ground getting closer and closer. "I want my brothers back!" I feel a small bubble appear in my chest. "I JUST NEED YOU!" My eyes snap open, I see those glowing red eyes. "YOU!" A strange purple glow starts to spread over my body as my anger gets refreshed, I ignore it for now not caring as the smile I watched destroy the sun spreads over the frozen landscape in front of my eyes. "YOU NEED TO GO AWAY!" I change my position again, rearing a punch back determination and my nature as a fighter coming back to the surface. I yell again as I throw my punch seconds before impact, I feel the change in something?
I can only describe it as air pressure, but that's not quite right, its like something inside me is pushing out, causing the snow to be blasted to either side. I'm not complaining, it's slowing me down. I yell louder and more defiantly as I let whatever this is flow out of me the purple glow extending around my arm. It's not long before I start just rolling in this weird bubble of air I had created. Letting my body completely relax, I bump to a stop drifting onto my back I take another look at the sky. I see a shattered moon, there's no way in hell that's possible. I look around the purple glow had faded, "Ummm… how do I get Down?" I ask the world and it answers as I feel the bubble pop in my chest and I drop to the snow covering my ass and back in the powder, I yelp slightly at the sudden cold but it soon vanishes and all I feel is the wetness.
I slowly stand up and look around and found something i didn't see on my trip down. Roughly about twenty, maybe thirty, miles in the distance I see an illuminated floating juggernaut of a city. I happen to know that city very well. The city above the clouds, the city of hope, Atlas! "I'm in Remnant?" I start to laugh, possibly going insane. That means my Semblance activated and saved me, I have aura now. Damien may be the resident genius but plans start forming in my head, I know where I am and have a minor control over my Semblance. I need to get to Atlas and.. My brain interrupts my own thoughts as I had tried to walk forward, my legs giving way, "Oh right, Aura activation fatigue. Fuck," the world starts spinning as I begin to lose conscious, I steady my head with a hand helping the spinning only to see something even worse. My landing had drawn the attention of the local wildlife, a massive black bear wearing a white mask with red markings lumbers over a snow drift.
A Grimm, specifically an Ursa, more than one actually. This is really bad, I can count 5 slowly reviling themselves. I hear them growling. "Get Away," I growl back at them. The lead Ursa cringes back slightly from the force I push at it, feeling the bubble in my chest reforming. It snarls and moves fore ward as a response. I take a deep breath, letting the bubble expand until it feels like its about to burst. "I didn't survive only to get taken down by you," I stand, "DOWN!" I raise and lower my hand imagining all the force of the bubble crushing the Ursa.
The creature stops moving and is fighting the invisible force, the others stop and watch hissing and growling the whole time, curious what's about to happen to its kin. The lead Ursa is slowly forced to its knees, then its stomach, I keep increasing the pressure until I hear its bones begin to break. In my tired state I cant do this fast, I hate making it suffer, but should I? Grimm are creatures of malice and spite, meant to kill and destroy, who knows how many humans this thing has killed. My doubt gone I keep applying pressure until a final sharp crack breaks through the silence of the tundra, the Ursa slowly turns into dust and I collapse back to my knees completely spent.
The others sensing this start to advance, my vision slowly turning dark, at least I took one down with me right? As I accept my death I hear the roar of an engine and look up, an airship coming my way probably a patrol or from a nearby outpost. A man in a white uniform jumps from the side of the low flying ship landing in a graceful slide in the snow, I blink and the remaining Ursa are disappearing as I see a fishing pole whipping the line back to its owner. "Well, well well," the man starts walking up to me.
"It's my lucky day," I finish for him seeing his four leaf clover badge before finally giving into the exhaustion and falling forward onto the ice of where I crushed the Grimm. In my haze I hear the others land and feel myself being carried away to the city above the clouds.
One Month Later
I dodge the kick thrown by thic rabbit mommy, flipping back and using my Semblance to cushion my landing only to get grabbed from behind by thic tree mommy. I push out from all directions to stop her from being able to crack my aura and focus my eyes on Harriet. She's wearing a roguish smile as she speeds in to pummel me, "Down!" I command excreting the bubbles force on her and she stumbles to her knees sliding from her speed right into my raised foot. "Away!" The combined force of the kick and my Semblance (which I've since named Rulers Domain because of the need to give words as commands and the limited area of 15 meters) sends her flying well out of my area of control her yellow aura flashing.
"Nice job kid," Elm says from behind, still attempting to crush my aura, and possible my spine.
"Thanks, now if you could kindly." I feel her tighten her grip attempting preemptively avoid what's coming. "Get, AWAY!" I growl out pushing as much as I can from all directions, I drop to the ground hearing Elm crash into the wall of the Atlas training facility. My head gets fuzzy from the exertion, Rulers Domain is very powerful, but extremely intense on my body and aura. Being a gravity based Semblance (extremely rare from what I'm told) it could very easily hurt my comrades or myself.
"Sorry babe, don't know my own strength sometimes!" I yell and start running for the stop button again.
"STAY!" Marrows Semblance hits me from across the arena and I slow to a standstill, my hand about a foot away from my target.
I don't need verbal commands for certain actions like increasing and decreasing the gravity of an area, so I increase my own gravitational pull by shrinking the bubble as small as I can. A panel shakes and rips off a pillar near by. Harriet's recovered and is zooming towards me with a raised fist, and I still have 10 seconds left before Marrow has to reset his Semblance. Well this is gonna hurt.
The panel impacts me before Rabbit mommy knocking me out of the Dog Faunus's line of sight, it also had the lovely side effect of dislocating the shoulder it hit. I grit my teeth against the pain, turning my momentum into a roll I smash my good hand onto the button turning all the lights back to full brightness and sounding the buzzer. I collapse my back against the button stand panting and smiling. A few seconds later I hear a slow clap and two sets of footsteps enter the arena, boots and heels.
"You're progressing very well Dominic," Ironwoods voice greets me. Harriet smiles at me offering a hand. I ignore it and stand on my own holding my shoulder, offering her disappointed face a smile.
"How's the shoulder," she teases and I shrug.
"What shoulder?" I ask whipping my arm forward and back snapping my shoulder back into its socket. Her eyes widen and I walk to Ironwood and Winter, the former reaching out a robotic hand to shake mine. I look at it apathetically and raise an eyebrow at him. The latter struggles to keep a smile off her face. "Excuse me for not being formal, it's been 31 days since you "rescued" me. And I'm still just a glorified prisoner."
"What're you talking about, you're allowed free reign over the whole facility, your room is huge, we stopped locking your door after the first week-," Marrow's chiding slows and stops as Elm puts a hand on his shoulder shaking her head.
"Am I allowed to leave?" I ask for what feels like the millionth time.
"Well um, no?" he questions looking at Ironwood.
"Then I am a prisoner, cover it in any flavor of B.S you want, incarceration is incarceration. Right Jimmy?" I smile at the leader of the military for the current strongest country on Remnant and he sighs finally retracting his hand.
"You're semblance."
"Is too powerful and must be trained, blah blah blah," I finish the speech I've been hearing over the last month. "Next match is with Willow and Clover right? How about we skip that and I make you a bet Jimmy?" I purpose walking over and grabbing a towel from the bench.
"What would this bet be Dominic?" He asks genuine curiosity lacing his voice.
"Let me fight Winter, if I win, then I get freedom to roam Atlas. If I lose, you'll name your price," I take off my sweat soaked shirt and glance at my reflection. I catch Harriet peaking at the mirror, my body before my month with the Ace Ops wasn't bad. But its amazing what 30 days of 12 hour intense training will do. I had gained at least 20 pounds of muscle mass and my six pack had decided to double.
"What are the terms and conditions of the duel?" Winter asks before Ironwood can even answer me.
I turn still shirtless and lean against the wall, causing Harriet and Elm both to look away and begin a conversation among themselves before they think more impure thoughts about a minor. I wish I could say I wasn't used to the attention, it gets tiring after a while. "Swords and semblances allowed, as much dust as you want and I get the same. No button, only Aura breaks and surrender."
"Accepted, but even if you manage to make me submit, a condition must be put in place. You'll be allowed to roam Atlas, but you will be escorted everywhere," she counters.
"By whom?" I ask waving her on.
"By me of course," she smiles a small crooked grin.
"Deal," I hold out my hand for the fist time since I arrived in Atlas and Winter Schnee reaches out and shakes it. The dumbfounded look on Ironwoods face is priceless, as well are the daggers that Harriet shoots at the back of Winters head. "Remember Winter, they don't call me DOM-inic for nothing!"
"I look forward to it," I turn and walk out of the arena before she finishes. The footsteps of my boots echoing through the halls. I reach my quarters, nodding to the guard stationed outside of it 27/7, I walk into to my room. It's plain and simple, a single window lets me look out over the floating city, it is quite large with a decent on suite bathroom. I sit on my bed and pull a pill bottle out of my nightstand.
"Hold on Dimi, I'm coming."
/
The next morning, I'm sitting in the mess hall, munching on a piece of toast, my phone… Scroll Dominic Scroll, propped up on my glass of orange juice when I feel the weight of the bench shift next to me. "Mind if I sit here?" I look over at the woman who was trying got kick my ass yesterday, see she doesn't have any food. and shrug looking back to my Scroll.
"It's rude to have your scroll out at the table," Marrow plops onto the bench across from me, his tray almost overflowing with mainly breakfast meats.
"You should eat more fruits and vegetables," I note and keep watching the CCTV news from Vale.
"He's right you know," Willow states sitting next him, his tray balanced with rice, fruits and vegetables.
"He's glued to that screen every morning, hoping something jogs that memory Dom?" Elm sits on the other side of Willow her tray surprisingly light but well balanced. She's not entirely wrong either. I'm waiting on the report from Vale about Roman's capture and subsequent escape at the beginning of the series.
"And you all are sitting here why?" I question dusting off my hands and preparing my tray to put into the collection area.
"What we can't wish our friend luck before his duel with the Ice Queen?" Clover finally joins the rest of his team.
"Friend?" I raise an eyebrow. "If that's what you wanna call kicking my ass for a month straight while I have no memory, by all means. But ill take the well wishes," I finally smile making them visibly relax. God I'm tired of playing this amnesia game. Itd shocking to me how much I've changed in a month. The pre-Remnant Dominic would let Harriet be all over him, but since landing and crushing the Ursa, my moth of forced training with the people around me all I can think about is my brothers.
I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Harriet and tune back into the conversation. "Hey if he wins I'm taking to the best place in Mantle for drinks," she exclaims.
"Like that'll happen, even IF he manages to beat the Ice Queen, she's his escort, you think she'll let him do that? And honestly Harr there's better ways of asking someone out," Marrow points a full fork at the growling rabbit Faunus before chopping it down. Did he even chew it?
I look at Clover, he smiles with a shrug, I roll my eyes at him in obvious false exasperation. He chuckles, but stops as he look behind Harriet. "Even if I was interested in a kid, Ironwood said he'll get his hunters license soon anyway. At that point he's an adult. So what does Frosty the Snow Bitch have that I don't?"
"Status," Harriet freezes as Winter's voice sounds from behind her. "Money, enough power and skill to take down the entire Ace Ops. Trust me its a burden not a blessing. How's you're morning Dominic?" Her voice goes up a few octaves as she switches her gaze to me. I shrug in response, her mask not cracking she nods, "Well I do hope you're doing okay, please do take one before the match. I noticed that you have plenty so whatever medical condition they control must not be that bad but I would hate-"
I had stopped listing and finally had stood and snatched the pill bottle from her hand, the entire mess hall had grown quite expect the gentle rattle of the trays on the table. My Semblance active and exerting light pressure down. So now their going to go into my room, what if they had just taken this and Dimitri needed it when I find him. What if he's already…
Her white eyes widen at my look which I can only guess is straight murderous. "You see…." I look down at the bottle in my hands, my final bit of privacy invaded. "I was going to go easy, but now." I lean closer, my mouth inches from her ear, to her credit she doesn't move. "I hope you're bringing a pillow for when you hit the ground face first," I whisper and walk past her getting to the door my Semblance, barley under control, warps the steel door as it bursts open in the opposite direction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The haze of sleep starts to lift, and I hear voices. God the bed I'm lying on is hard. "We can't find his bio-metrics in any system for any kingdom," I hear an older man speak.
"So a Rural, how did he get to the middle of the tundra?" Ironwoods voice I recognize, responds to the older man.
"That reading was off the charts, I was sure it was a gravity dust deposit," the old man sounds disappointed. "This is easily the strongest gravity based Semblance I've ever seen Jim."
So that's my Semblance, gravity…. Huh looks like I'm going to be able to Pull us back together, suddenly the bed gets bumped and I jolt up slightly, putting a hand out to shield the light from my eyes a splitting headache forming almost instantly. "Oh seems like you're awake. What's your name?" Ironwood asks and his face fades in from the blinding white, my eyes finally adjusting.
"Dominic… Dominic Fain," I give my real name seeing no harm in it. My brains still pretty fuzzy too.
"What's the last thing you remember?" I look over to the older man in the awesome spider leg wheel chair that reminds me of Wild Wild West. Professor Polendina, now even in my state I know I can't answer this question truthfully.
"Nevermore's," I fake a look of realization, "all I remember are Nevermore's, and fire, and falling," I shake my head acting distressed and like the memories are hurting. It's not hard to fake the splitting pain considering I'm in splitting pain.
"Do you remember where they took you from son?" he asks gently.
"I just.. I just hear screams and see fire… It's too much!" I throw myself back on the bed thrashing lightly. To them I'll be a traumatized rural that's blocking out seeing his village get massacred, something not unheard of but not common. Sorry Rin, I need some of your backstory for a bit.
"Shhhhh, its okay," a female's voice to my right says and a gentle hand is placed on my shoulder. I grab for the hand and continue my act, relaxing slowly until my breathing is almost normal, "Guy's that's enough questions, the guys been through enough." Ladies and gentlemen the Oscar goes to Dominic Fain.
I open my eyes and look at Harriet from the Ace Ops, she gives me a warm smile, "Bunny ears," I point to her duel slicked back bangs hairstyle, "Cute." Her face turns slightly red and she opens her mouth a few times and I just smile my trademark grin at her.
"Can you all leave us?" Ironwood asks/command. Harriet gives me one more look then walks out with the other Ace Ops and the professor. "Clover, you can stay," as ordered he closes the door behind his comrades and posts up soldier style. After a few seconds Ironwood pulls two things out of his pocket, my shattered phone and Dimitri's spare pills.
"Give those to me," I sit up reaching for the pills, I can't lose those. He retracts, Clover tenses, and I start to get angry.
"I don't know what this technology is, it's decades behind ours. But from the looks of it," he raises the bottle and my eyes track it. "You remember these at least."
"Just that they're very important, now please give them to me!" The end table that had bumped the bed before begins to shake slightly, as do the pills in the bottle. I want those in my hand, I can't lose those.
He holds onto them tightly, his cloths beginning to be pulled towards me, he takes a step back and I growl the bubble in my chest growing smaller and tighter. I take the step he took back as he slides foreword, "GIVE. ME. HIS. MEDICINE!" I close my hand, the bubble shrinks to what feels like the size of a molecule and as Ironwoods pulled to my I cough my own lungs feeling like their being pulled into the pinprick inside me. Blood splatters on his white coat and the shaking in the room stops.
I lay back on the bed panting my Semblance almost having killed me, he places the bottle in my hand. I hear through the haze of blackness consuming me again. "Clover, beginning tomorrow he starts training with the Ace Ops. He's going to be very useful against "Her". Call it his debt for us saving his life." Fuck, is all I think before the darkness claims me.
/
I'm snapped out of my daydream by a knock on my door. "Come in," I shove the bottle under my pillow as the sliding door opens and reviles the Ace Ops.
"She was totally in the wrong for coming into his room Clover!" Harriet continues a conversation from before they arrived as Willow walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder, I don't shake it away.
"The most I can do is say something to Ironwood, you doing okay kid?" He asks walking over to me.
"She was delivering my swords," I nod to the open briefcase I had found when I got to my room.
Marrow and Elm and Harriet were instantly hovering over it. Everything from before completely forgotten at the appearance of shiny new weapons. "What do they do?" Harriet asks, I shrug and stand grabbing the handles from the briefcase. I clip them onto the included harness that wraps around my upper body, then slide on the also included leather jacket, its heavier than I thought it would be. Finally I grab the two barrels and clip one to either side, the shorter on my left and the longer on my right.
"I don't regret my actions, even though I did leave the bottle out and I'm not aware that anyone informed her about it. But I'm tired of being stuck here. Escort or not I feel like there are things I have to do," I begin to leave the room.
Clovers hand stops me, rest on my shoulder. "Dom..." He pauses, "Go kick her ass for your self, and for us. Because like it or not you're an Ace Op." I turn and see them all smiling, Marrow throwing a double thumbs up his tail wagging.
"This isn't a duel, this is Domination!" I respond holding out my hand, Clover reaches out and takes it shaking it firmly, as I turn and leave I hear a small "ting" as he flicks his badge for me.
(A/N) Looking for beta's