Chapter 12: Meadows of Heaven

True Remnant: Beacon

Garnet

The students had been calmed down, and life returned to normal in the last few hours at Beacon. Garnet patiently waited in her office, sipping gingerly at her coffee mug with one hand while the other was getting a head start typing away on her computer, Gamma's hard drive was plugged in with source code plastered all over her monitor as she tried to figure out how best to account for the errors that the mechanical girl had experienced. Though she was worried about Penny, Rose, and Weiss, she worked diligently to occupy her mind. The gentle tapping at her office door broke her away from her near meditative state of focus. "Come in," she answered. The door opened, and in stepped Rose and Penny, each of them helping an exhausted and somewhat injured Weiss walk. "Oh my god!" Garnet shouted as she leapt up from her seat. "Are you okay?"

Weiss raised a hand, gesturing for the head mistress to remain seated. "Give me a chair," she said to other two women. A moment later, the two of them pulled up a leather arm chair and sat the heiress into it, letting her sink comfortably into it. "Coffee."

Garnet nodded, quickly calling her assistant in the next room to bring Weiss the drink. "What happened?"

"I killed him," Weiss answered sorely. A light chuckle escaped her lips. "I've killed them all." She shook her head, as if trying to wrap her mind around what she had done after so long. "I...I don't know what to do now."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked.

"Killing us has been her only goal ever since she gave up on being saved," Ouroboros whispered as he slithered out from Weiss' shirt. He licked the air in front of her face, studying her expression. "You have a life now, Witch. A real life."

"He's right," Penny said with a smile. "And you stole Crim's spark. You are no longer capable of contracting or suffering from any disease or poison. Not only do you have a life, but one without your hereditary cancer."

Weiss looked up to meet the robotic girl's gaze. "An eternal life?" she asked, fear seeping into her voice. Penny's smile faded.

"Y-yes. You are ageless. Forever seventeen." She knelt before Weiss and placed her hands upon the heiress'. "But, that's not bad. Not all bad, at least. There are others. Thousands of others. They can teach you about the universe. You can hone your true magic and fight to protect innocent lives from great calamities, such as the Longest Night. No one will ever have to face a nightmare such as that ever again."

"You are ageless, Witch," Ouroboros prodded. "But not deathless. I can feel it within you. You can be killed."

Weiss smiled again, letting a laugh escape her lips. "Then, Ouroboros, I suppose I'll keep my promise to you."

The snake tilted his head. "Promise?"

"When the two of us first fought Nidhogg together, I promised you that when the time came I would let you kill me. You can have revenge for me enslaving your spirit." She smiled at the snake with a sad, pleading smile. The micro Master Unit stared at her with unblinking serpentine eyes for what felt like an eternity. Penny shifted her weight nervously, Garnet and Rose seemed to be holding their breath, and Weiss just kept smiling.

"No."

"N-no?"

"Once I would have gladly bitten you for what you did, Witch. Once I would have gladly exacted my revenge. The taste of your life fading as my fangs sank deeper and deeper into your flesh was oh so tempting. Once. But not now."

Weiss shook her head as her smile faded. "No. No, please. Please do this for me, Ouroboros."

"Besides," the snake continued as he turned his head towards the other three occupants in the room. "You have family to visit. You have much that needs doing. If you want death, then so be it. But not now, Witch." His tongue flicked, licking at the heiress' cheek in a sort of mock kiss. "You've waited this long. What's a little longer?"

Weiss looked around the room. She saw the looks of fear and concern on all of their faces. The door slowly creaked open as Garnet's assistant quietly entered and set down Weiss' coffee before leaving just as silently. "F-family?" she asked after a moment before a weak smile returned. "So. Tell me about Nox, Garnet."

Garnet smiled a wide, energetic smile that made her look almost exactly like Rupy. "He's a bit uptight, if you ask me. Then again, so is his dad, Stein."

"Stein is still alive?"

"Oh, yeah. He's close to fifty years old now, maybe older and he's been running the Schnee Dust Company for quite some time."

Weiss laughed. "I remember when he was just a little boy. I died before his tenth birthday."

"I'm sure he still remembers you, Weiss," Penny said with a smile.

"So, Nox is all grown up too, is he? And you said he's married and has a child of his own?"

Garnet nodded happily. "Yup! He's married to Kuroi! Her maiden name was Wukong, and she used to be the leader of my team when we went to Beacon together. Team KING. Nox and Kuroi named their little boy Blake after, well, Blake Belladonna. I guess that makes him Blake Wukong the Second?"

"I met her earlier this year," Penny stated. Little Blake is five now."

"My first great-great-grandchild," Weiss whispered before a sense of Panic set in. "What of my son? I...I'm sure he's dead by now, but how...how did he..."

"It wasn't cancer," Penny said reassuringly. "By the time he got to the age where you and your father were diagnosed he got a check up. They found the early signs of it and promptly got rid of it. Cancer treatment has come a long way in the last forty years. He lived a full life. He...he died peacefully in his sleep." She put a hand on the heiress' shoulder. "Your family is healthy, Weiss. And they always will be."

The tears began to flow now, but she gently laughed as well. "Good," she whispered. "That's good to know. They...they won't have to live their last days in pain like I did." She shook her head, wiping away the tears. "Still, to think that my family and Blake's family would become one. I never would have imagined it."

"I'll take you to see them, Weiss," Penny said with a smile.

Hundred of thousands of years worth of pain seemed to melt from her being at the thought. "I would like that. I would like that very much." She looked into Penny's eyes, her expression growing serious. "But first, you need to teach me something."

Penny nodded. "Anything."

"Teach me the Causality spell. There's one last thing that I must do."

Song: Meadows of Heaven - Nightwish

Author's Notes

The final chapter. The near end of this long drawn out story. I'm so excited to finally be here. If the Epilogue isn't released tonight as well, then it will be in a few days, maybe a week at the longest. With this upcoming Epilogue, I'll finally put a rest to this long, convoluted mess of a story.

On one hand, I'm sorry that I've pulled you, my readers, into this weird fucked up mess of a story as it spilled out of my head these last 3 years. But on the other hand, for those of you who have stuck through it to the very end, I'd like to thank you!

But this isn't the time for goodbyes to the Shifting Remnant. Not yet. That's for the Epilogue. So, as always...

Till Next Time!