"Sun!? Sun!"
A sudden shock of cold shook Sun from his unconscious state. The freezing sensation began on his forehead and quickly spread down his face and neck as chilly water washed over him, and he was quick to flail awake and scoot backward. Oddly, his butt was met with resistance and he remained mostly in place, breathing hard as he tried to figure out where and when he was. His backside was pushing up against the metal boarding ramp attached to the aircraft behind him. All around was a field of snow, and Sun quickly figured out that they had temporarily landed, likely to try to shock him awake.
"Not what I had in mind, but it worked," Blake said as she kneeled down and scooped Sun into a hug. "Thank the gods you're awake…"
Sun returned the embrace and looked over Blake's shoulders to find the culprit responsible for coating his hairline and forehead with freezing water. Neopolitan stood nearby, dusting the snow off her hands with a satisfied look upon her face.
"I'm awake," Sun confirmed as his breathing slowed back to normal. Oddly enough, he couldn't feel the liquid running down his neck and chest anymore. "I'm good…"
"You're burning up," Blake observed as she pressed the back of her hand to Sun's forehead. "Some kind of fever?"
"Don't know," Sun answered honestly. "I just… went down, and I don't know why."
"Stress," Harriet suggested. Despite the whipping wind tousling her hair and her limbs being exposed to the frigid air by her outfit, she was the only member of the squad not shivering. "Happens to the best of us. You need to slow down."
"I can't…" Sun began, though he quickly realized that it was futile. "…fine. Once we get to Mistral, I'll… try to relax a bit. How far out are we?"
"You were out for around half an hour in the air," Jaune answered, his boots crunching through the snow as he approached. "We only landed because I noticed something… disturbing."
Sun cast a glance toward one of his crewmates and gave a firm nod.
"Neo, punch me out and put me back to sleep. I don't think I wanna hear it…"
Yang put out a firm hand to hold Neopolitan back as the smaller girl approached. The blonde looked like she was done with the entire situation, and none of the humor in the exchange seemed to reach her at all.
"If there's a problem, especially involving one of us, we deal with it now," Yang insisted. "No more secrets. No more pent-up feelings. No more… mistakes."
Sun didn't have the heart to argue as he turned his attention back to Jaune.
"…right. Lay it on me."
"Your aura's… gone," Jaune said hesitantly as he laid a hand on Sun's shoulder. "I mean, I don't think permanently gone, but I couldn't do anything for you since it's been down this whole time. I've been waiting for it to come back to bolster you, but even now…"
Sun took a moment to try to focus in on himself, reaching deep to call forth his Semblance. There was no sense of typical drainage, no feeling of burnout- there was just nothing in its place, as though he had never had an aura to begin with. All that was left was the sensation of something being wrong.
Very wrong.
Sun tried not to panic as Blake released him from her grip.
"I… maybe… m-maybe I got tagged by Salem somehow, and she did something… or… Corsac, you took a nasty hit, right? Was your aura affected?"
"My aura seems fine," Corsac replied from his place sitting upon the ramp of the other aircraft that had landed nearby. "Regenerating rather slowly, perhaps, but it is there. You may indeed be getting sick. There are some rare illnesses that suppress aura…"
"But so suddenly?" Blake asked. "I've never heard of anything like this."
"Me neither, but I'm still breathing," Sun pointed out. "That's what matters. We've gotta get back in the air, get to Mistral, and just… maybe I just need some tea, or soup, or… something."
"You need someone to keep an eye on you," Harriet suggested. "Closely. You're our leader out here and in Vacuo. I already have too much responsibility on my shoulders being a Maiden, I don't want that, too. Besides, you're… something special. Someone worth listening to and following."
"I'm not planning on dying anytime soon," Sun protested as he pulled himself to a standing position. Though he felt a bit shaky on his feet, he rebuked Blake's offer to stabilize him with a gentle hand. "We press on. At least my headache's gone…"
"That's good news," Jaune replied. "And you…"
The boy stopped mid-sentence to pull his scroll out of his pocket and his eyes widened as he looked at the screen.
"Oh shit! It's… I-I'm getting a call from…!"
Ren stood near the entrance to the mall, feeling miserable. The downpour that would normally have helped him sleep through the morning instead functioned to keep him awake. There was too much on his mind, too many things left unsaid, and too many worries for both his friends in the immediate area and halfway across the world to do anything like sleep. If nothing else, he was incredibly grateful that Nora had finally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The rest of the group, in fact, was asleep, showing no signs of awakening any time soon. Ren was the only one who couldn't find temporary peace.
He was also the only one awake to witness a small miracle.
Ren had taken out his scroll to check both the time and the forecast. What he found instead was signal. Far-reaching, clear, hope-giving signal. With a shaking hand, he flicked through his contacts, not quite believing it. He was tempted to go and wake Nora, and yet, between the odds of disappointment being so high and the potential for terrible news if the call went through, he decided to let her sleep. Ren pressed the button to try to connect. A series of rings emanated from the device, until suddenly, they were replaced by a familiar voice.
"Ren? Hello?"
"Jaune!" Ren said more forcefully than he'd intended. A flood of adrenaline surged through him, and he felt happily awake rather than being in his previous, almost zombie-like state. "Can you hear me? Are you alright!?"
"I… yeah, I'm alright, for the most part," Jaune answered. "But there's… there's a lot that you all need to know, and almost none of it is good. Oh, gods, I don't even know where to start…"
"Global communications are online, is that not a positive?" Ren asked, actively trying to calm himself while trying to sound encouraging.
"Yeah, but the cost… h-hold on, we need to get back in the air. Let me call you back in a second and start a video call. I don't… I don't think it's a good idea for all of us to be involved in this."
"Back in the… alright," Ren considered as he ran a hand through his hair. "I'll wait. Please, call back as soon as you can."
"Will do. See you in a minute."
Ren let out a worried sigh and full-body shiver as he stared out at the downpour in the parking lot. His gut told him that he should wake Nora, and yet, he wanted nothing more than for her to get a single night of rest before dealing with anything else. Though he felt it was somewhat selfish, Ren stepped forward beneath the awning of the mall entrance to better mask his voice in the rain whenever the call reconnected. There was smoke on the horizon line, where the sun was slowly rising. He would likely be going another day without sleep… especially if Jaune's news was as serious as it sounded.
The buzz from Ren's scroll came sooner than expected, and he held out the device immediately to allow a projection to manifest before himself. There in the air were the torsos of Jaune, Sun, and an older man he didn't recognize.
"It's so good to see both of you again," Ren said with a muted smile. "And…"
"Corsac," the faunus answered. He was still topless, with gauze wrapped around his chest and shoulder. "Former White Fang turned ally to this… whatever you would call this organization."
"A band of fools," Sun suggested. "A ragtag bunch of desperate hunters doing the best we can."
"Not far removed from what we are over here," Ren commiserated. "We're down to myself, Nora, Roman Torchwick, Sage, Velvet, Yatsuhashi, and… Mercury Black is now our prisoner. He came to us willingly, for protection."
"Emerald will be glad to hear that," Jaune said. "If we can actually contact Ilia again. Things have gotten… it's crazy out here, Ren. I… miss you guys so damned much…"
"We miss you as well," Ren agreed. "Nora hasn't been herself, lately. She's so worried about you, and about… what may have happened after… we should start there. Salem was here, Jaune. In Sanus. Ruby, Coco, Fox, Oscar, Neopolitan, Taiyang, and Raven engaged her directly, and then… we don't know."
"And then Raven brought them all here," Sun explained. "Not Salem, of course, but… Salem got here, too. We don't know how. We don't know when. But she was able to jump from Sanus to Atlas in less than a day, and we were told she was killed in Sanus. We killed her again in Mantle, multiple times, and… we're not making progress. The sheer power we're dealing with is unfathomable."
"Yes, we… realize that," Ren agreed. "It isn't good. The people here are losing hope, and it is a bit of a struggle just to keep moving forward. Is Ruby with you?"
Sun and Jaune exchanged a grim look before Jaune turned to face Ren through the hologram once again.
"…she's gone, Ren. Ruby and Oscar didn't make it. Salem jumped their ship when we began our exodus to Vacuo."
Ren was silent for a moment as his heart sank. He closed his eyes and turned his head slightly, as if to try to block out the holograms staring expectantly at him to try to render them unreal. Over and over again, a single question repeated in his mind, piercing through his own personal dread, guilt, and grief.
How do I tell Nora?
"I… understand," Ren said slowly, not yet opening his eyes. "Are you okay? Is Yang okay?"
"We're both still in shock," Jaune answered. "It happened less than two hours ago. None of us are okay right now, but… we're heading to Vacuo while another portion of our group remains in Atlas. It's all incredibly complicated, but I can walk you through who is where…"
"That might be best for Roman, actually," Ren let on. "He's become somewhat a leader to our group. It feels odd to ask, but is Neopolitan doing alright?"
"She lost some fingers," Sun answered. "I'm still not sure what happened there, but she seems to be doing alright? She's certainly got an attitude and some life to her…"
"Roman will be happy to hear that she's doing well," Ren said as he finally dared to look back to the hologram. "It seems we have a lot of work to do, and information to coordinate. You're heading to Vacuo because…?"
"The Relic," Corsac explained. "The Sword of Destruction. We need to secure it before Salem can get her hands on it, a-"
"We're getting a call from Harriet," Sun cut in. "Shit, we've gotta go. This could be important. Ren, we'll call you back in a few hours. Gather the rest of your group, and we'll sit down and coordinate information."
"Very well," Ren agreed. "Just… be careful, please."
"You too," Sun offered before the holograms faded out.
Ren let out a colossal sigh as he looked back up and toward the parking lot. There in the sheets of rain was a singular approaching figure, obscured by the droplets and walking through them unbothered. Ren reached down for his weapons the moment he saw a curved tail with a stinger atop it come into view, swaying from side to side.
Author's Note:
Sometimes, you just can't get it up.
-RD