Holy hell I wasn't expecting that many follows and favorites after such a long absence. Uum, thanks guys, I really don't know what to say, so instead I'll just shut up for now.
"Come on Vivi, it's time to wake up." The young wizard heard a familiar, chirpy voice pierced through his unexpected trip into darkness. Wrestling with the task of trying to think of who the voice belonged to, Vivi didn't expect a sudden weight to appear on his chest, and for the volume of said voice to increase tenfold.
"WAKE UP!"
Jolting awake, Vivi scanned his surroundings once again to see that he was still in that forest before locking eyes with the source of the voice. A light-green creature about the size of an average dog with small, blue eyes, large ears, and a ruby in the center of it's forehead was sitting square on his chest. While normally someone would have been startled by the odd creature, Vivi couldn't be happier.
"Carbuncle!" Vivi shouted with unmatched glee in his voice as he leaned up to hug the Eidolon. The young wizard wasn't stupid, he knew he was no longer on Gaia. But that did raise a question, where was he? Putting that question aside for a moment, Vivi gave the strongest hug he could manage to the familiar creature that helped his party out many times. Meanwhile, Carbuncle was trying desperately to escape because of either personal space, a need for oxygen, or both. It took a few seconds before curiosity set in for Vivi.
"What are you doing here, where are we?" He asked as he finally let go of his companion.
"I don't know exactly where we are, but I'm here because Ramuh asked my to follow you." Carbuncle replied, looking into the young wizard's eyes. "Do you remember what happened?"
Vivi stared at the Eidolon for a while before closing his eyes. The last thing he remembered was fighting Necron. He remembered the battle feeling like it went on for ages. Each casting of a spell or a swing of a weapon taking more and more out of all his friends. He remembered looking over at Zidane, an unspoken plan for a final attack being formed, one last Flare spell, then nothing. No light, no explosion, just a painless dark void that held no passage of time. Opening his eyes, Vivi shook his head 'no'.
Sighing, Carbuncle sat down. "You might want to sit down for this one, this could make your head spin."
Taking the words as an order rather than advice, Vivi sat down and looked at his light-green companion like it was getting ready to tell the best bedtime story in history.
"Alright, first things first, what DO you remember?"
"Well, I remember fighting Necron with everybody, I remember feeling fear that we would fail as the fight went on, and I remember Zidane throwing his weapon at Necron before I casted Flare," Vivi paused for a second, trying one last time to remember what happened after that before giving up, "After that, everything goes dark, next thing I know I wake up here under a tree."
"Yup, that sounds about right." Carbuncle muttered just loud enough for Vivi to hear. "Listen Vivi, I'm just going to come out and say it," Now it was Carbuncle's turn to pause briefly before continuing, "You died at the end of that fight. Ramuh was watching when it happened and intervened in panic when it happened. He went against the laws of nature and sent your life force to a completely different plain of existence."
Rather than turning hysterical with grief and denying it like Carbuncle expected, Vivi only closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"I had the feeling that was the case," Vivi said lowly with sadness lining his voice, "even before the fight started I had the suspicion that it would be my last." Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Vivi asked the first, and only question that came to mind. "Did my friends make it out alive?"
"Aside from looking a little rough after such a fight, everybody was still alive." The light-green Eidolon replied, watching as the held breath of relief escaped the young wizard. Silence stretched for a few seconds before Carbuncle noticed Vivi's shoulders shaking.
"Are you alright Vivi?"
"I'm just so happy that everyone lived." Vivi replied, his words broken up between soft sobs. Carbuncle decided to remain silent to allow Vivi to process the news. Meanwhile the mind of the young wizard was a mixed storm of emotions. On one hand he really was happy that his friends survived that final battle. But on the other hand, the thought of if his friends surviving that fight or not didn't come to Vivi until Carbuncle asked about what he remembered. It hurt him personally over not having his friends in mind immediately when he woke up here.
The same people that took him on an amazing adventure and cared for him, he forgot. A couple of minutes passed before the emotional storm passed for the young wizard. While sadness still lingered for forgetting, acceptance washed over him of his role finishing on Gaia. His friends were alive, that's all that mattered.
"Feel better now?" Carbuncle asked, finally breaking the somber silence.
"Yeah, I needed that," Vivi replied with one last sniffle, "But right now we need to figure out if any towns or villages are nearby."
"One step ahead of you, there seems to be a large cluster of life several miles to the southwest. It could be a large town or even a castle like Alexandria."
"Well then," Vivi said with renewed energy, "Let's get going."
With that the duo began walking in the direction Carbuncle pointed out. The worry and sadness over his friends pushed out of Vivi's mind in favor of finding civilization. He knew they were good, capable people, they would be able to protect Gaia, but right now he needed to focus on keeping himself and Carbuncle safe.
"You will retrieve the relic and bring it back here, any questions?" Asked a tall, well dressed man.
"Headmaster Ozpin, will you be providing parachutes to land?" Asked a blonde haired student with a hint of panic in his voice.
"No Mr. Arc, you'll be using your own landing strategy." The man now known as Ozpin replied.
The student's face morphed into horror as the person next to him was launched from the platform she was standing on into the air, only barely being able to hear, "Good luck Jaune!" before the student disappeared from eyesight.
Jaune looked back at Ozpin in horror. "You're a madma-AAAAA-!" Jaune said before being launched off the massive cliffside towards the Emerald Forest below.
The tiniest smirk pulled at Ozpin's lips. "I love it when that happens." He said to himself before taking a sip from his coffee cup.
Meanwhile, Jaune was screaming at the highest pitch he possibly manage while flailing wildly through the air. In midst of his panic, Jaune noticed the quickly approaching forest below. This only caused him to panic more as he didn't have a landing strategy, unless you counted crash landing as one.
Jaune closed his eyes and prepared for pain as he entered the canopy, hitting several branches on the way down before suddenly stopping before hitting the ground. Jaune opened his eyes and looked up to see a long, bronze colored spear had pinned him to the tree by his hoodie.
"Sorry!" A female voice shouted from a distance.
Looking around to see that nobody was nearby to help, Jaune decided to try and get himself down. Jaune reached up to grip the weapon and pulled, but the spear didn't budge. He tried shifting his weight, using the tree as leverage, and even tried to rip his hoodie to free himself. All attempts yielded the same result, he was stuck being suspended above the ground until someone got him down.
A couple minutes went by before Jaune heard someone approaching. A young woman was jogging at a brisk pace towards his direction, her fiery red hair and Spartan-like armor an easy contrast to spot in the forest.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted in joy, happy to see that his most recent friend was the one that saved him from a painful, and perhaps fatal landing.
"Jaune, are you alright?" Pyrrha asked as she immediately pulled her spear from the tree and freeing the blonde haired boy.
Jaune dropped to the ground and winced in pain as a muscle in his lower back twitched. "Yeah, although my back hurts a little."
The red headed warrior looked over Jaune to access the damage. Aside from a few minor cuts and scrapes and the aforementioned muscle, Jaune looked like he would fine, but there was one problem that Pyrrha noticed.
"Jaune, why isn't your Aura healing these cuts?" Pyrrha asked.
"What's that?" Jaune answered sincerely with a question of his own, shocking the red haired warrior even more.
"How do you not know about Aura!?" Pyrrha yelled, as if she were expecting an answer from Owm himself.
"It's...complicated." Jaune replied, finally putting an end to the exchange of questions as he looked away from his friend.
Realizing she probably wasn't going to get an actual answer, Pyrrha closed her eyes and focused her own Aura into her hand. The blonde haired boy noticed that his friend's hand was a bright orange color. Before he could ask about what she was doing, Pyrrha placed her hand onto his chest. Jaune's body began to glow a bright white as all his little cuts healed, even his back felt better.
As the glow faded, the red headed warrior opened her eyes with a look of amazement now on her face. "I've never seen such a large pool in one person before." She whispered to herself.
"Wow, I feel better then ever," Jaune exclaimed, "What did you do?"
Pyrrha snapped out of her amazement and focused on the blonde headed boy once again. "I unlocked your Aura with my own, now any minor injuries shouldn't require much, if anything to heal over."
"That's amazing, thank you!" Jaune replied, giving his friend the biggest smile he could manage, unaware of the growing red tint on Pyrrha's cheeks.
"Well now that we got that resolved, what do you say we start heading towards the ruins?" Pyrrha asked.
"Sounds good partner, lead the way." Jaune replied as he checked to make sure that he still had his equipment.
Once everything was checked, the two began walking towards the direction of the ruins as instructed. This being the first time Jaune had been in the Emerald Forest, he was surprised with how beautiful, yet similar everything looked. Each direction looked like a copy of another, with only small details being the differences. An extra rock here, a smaller bush there, without proper awareness and guidance, the average person could easily get lost here.
"So um," Jaune began, pausing to realize that he had nothing to talk about with his new partner for the next four years. "What do you think of this initiation?"
"I personally think it was a little unorthodox with how Ozpin launched us into the forest, but other then that it seems normal for these kinds of academies." Pyrrha replied without missing a beat. She knew it was commonplace for high level academies to send their new students on fetch quests at the start of the year. Now only did it give the professors a first look at each student's strengths and weaknesses, but it also allowed the students to work together in a high pressured situation.
The exchange was brief as an awkward silence settled between the two once again. Jaune, now noticing the awkwardness, decided to try and keep the conversation going. "Well are you happy to be here?"
"Actually I am. I've always wanted to help others, and I can't think of any better way than to become a Huntress." Pyrrha replied with honesty. "What about you Jaune?"
"I'm very happy to be here," Jaune beamed, his excitement almost contagious with how it radiated off him, "Although I am a bit nervous."
"I don't think there is anyone who isn't nervous about this." Pyrrha said as she stopped to turn and look her partner in the face. The words seemed to have a positive effect on the blonde headed boy as his shoulders relaxed and his smile grew. This in turn caused Pyrrha to smile back. Now that the silence turned from awkward to comfortable, the two continued in the direction of their destination. A few minutes with by witb on and off conversation before a large cave caught the attention of Jaune. With curiosity taking over, Jaune want to investigate, bringing an unsure Pyrrha along with him.
"Jaune, I don't think we should go in there," She said, already knowing what he was about to suggest. "We don't know if any Grimm are in this cave."
"Exactly," Jaune said with an almost out of character confidence in his voice, "Which is why we should make sure that it's safe for everyone, right?"
"I suppose." The warrior girl replied, still unsure of the whole thing. Having come to an agreement, the two began to descend the slope into the cave. Their vision quickly began to fade the further they went down until it was impossible to see anything.
"I don't suppose you have a light on you?" Jaune asked with a nervous laugh as he mentally questioned his decision making. As soon as he asked, Jaune was greeted with a dim, golden light in front of his face.
"Thanks Pyr!" Jaune said happily and grabbing the light in front of him. He thought nothing of the scorpion stinger shaped light before he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking over, he was met with his partner furiously shaking her head. It took Jaune a few seconds before the realization hit him, to which he only said two words.
"Oh crap."
Letting go of the light immediately, the duo ran back towards the exit as multiple heavy steps and an intimidating growl followed swiftly behind. The two students ran out and a little bit away from the cave before turning to see the stuff of nightmares. A large, black scorpion with thick, white bone plates covering most of it's body and a golden stinger busted out of the cave and stared down the duo. Realizing that this area was not the best option to try fighting this thing and that they were both outmatched, Jaune suggested the best option he could think of.
"RUN!" He shouted as both bolted in the opposite direction with the Grimm creature following in aggressive pursuit. Before they could even get past the first tree, instincts kicked in for Pyrrha as she dragged herself and Jaune to the forest floor. As soon as she did, a fireball about as big as they were roared past their prone bodies and crashing into the grimm.
The two students watched as the fireball impacted the Grimm violently, causing the giant, menacing scorpion to be launched upwards onto it's hind legs. Jaune and Pyrrha went wide eyed as only the back half of the scorpion crashed to the ground. Quickly snapping out of their shock, the two stood up and turned to thank their savior, only to be met with the last image they expected to see.
A kid about at the height of an average twelve year old, wearing a blue overcoat, a broken, brown steeple hat, and holding an ivory mace that was almost as tall as the kid stood several feet from them with a triumphant stance. To make the image just a little more strange, a green, fox-like creature walked out from behind the kid and stared directly at the two students.
"You know it's courteous to say thank you to those who help you right?" A chirpy voice said coming from the creature. Confusion grew on Jaune's and Pyrrha's faces faces to comedic levels before they both rubbed their eyes, thinking that this was some sort of hallucination. The two students looked back to see that they were, in fact, not hallucinating before Pyrrha decided to speak up.
"Um, thank you?" She said, unsure of herself believing it.
"Not a problem, I was happy to help." Came the reply in a light, soft spoken male voice.
With what seemed to be a reoccurring theme that day, an awkward silence filled the air for what felt like minutes before the kid decided to break it.
"Well I've got to get going, you two be safe," The small boy said while shouldering the mace, "Come on Carbuncle, let's go."
"Wait," Jaune shouted, finally shaking off his stupor, "where are you going?"
"I'm headed towards the nearest town, why?" The boy replied.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright, um…" Jaune paused to try and think of what to call this kid.
"My name is Vivi, and I'm sure I'll be alright, that wasn't the first one of those things I've defeated today."
Before anyone else could say or do anything, a loud, female scream could be heard in the distance. All four of them looked towards the direction that the scream came from before the two known as Carbuncle and Vivi began running in that direction as fast as possible. Jaune and Pyrrha looked at each other briefly before they too began running to help whoever was in trouble. But as they ran, only one thought settled in Pyrrha's' mind, 'That kid has already killed more Deathstalkers?'
No joke, the reason this took so long was because I tried for days to write a decent fight scene between Vivi and the Deathstalker. As I'm sure you guys are aware, it didn't really work out. Also, things like Hearthstone, Final Fantasy 12, and Darksiders 2 might have also kept me away from writing…
But that's the end of this chapter. Comments? Questions? Review and ask, I'll try to answer back as soon as I can. Thank you and have a good one everybody!