Yo! Welcome back to our weekly schedule! Hope you all enjoy it once again.
Start Chapter 38
They don't actually begin making preparations to return to Evernight for a good week or so. During that time, they mostly camp out beyond the walls of Mistral, making sure that any authorities Ozpin can scrounge up – even diminished as they are thanks to Lionheart's cowardice feeding them to the wolves – miss them, and eventually give up altogether. Said authorities might wish to catch them out, but given time, they'll have no choice but to pull back into the city proper, and go back to strengthening its defenses.
Under Lionheart, Mistral had become as weak as it had ever been.
Weiss is the first of them to depart; She makes it rather clear that, while she had enjoyed seeing them, her true goal had always been to link back up with the other members of RWBY. She's managed to get in touch with them, and told them that she'll meet them in a town somewhere in Northern Vale.
As for the rest of them, they do eventually make it back to their bullhead a few days after that. They take off from the middle of a forest, and begin their trek back towards Evernight. It's been about a month since they left, and a good week and a half since they'd managed to secure the Relic of Knowledge.
Speaking of said Relic hanging off of Jaune's belt…
"So… it just doesn't do anything?" Nora sounds disappointed as she pokes the side of the lamp. "Because I'm going to be honest, that's a bit of a buzzkill."
"Salem never intended for the Relic of Knowledge to be the first that she obtained," Cinder clarifies as Ilia takes a turn at the controls, joining the rest of their number – sans Emerald, who is spending time with her soulmate in the cockpit – in the hold. "I was supposed to obtain the Relic of Choice for her, which would, apparently, have illuminated a plan for her to follow. As I failed, however, she sought Knowledge next, thinking it might be the next best thing. However, throughout the vast ages she and Ozma have warred with one another, she has apparently never once figured out the secret of this particular Relic."
Jaune frowns. "So… it really is just a lamp, then?"
"Technically, it's a lamp that draws the Grimm towards us."
"Oh. Good. So, a net negative then?"
Cinder just shrugs.
Speaking of, there's been no real word on Ozma – or Oscar, as his current incarnation is apparently named – beyond that a young boy had been involved in Leonardo Lionheart's arrest. He has, likely, kept his influence on the downlow, and yet it is obvious by the fact that they'd been pursued in the first place that he had at least some hand in trying to find the Relic, given that no one but he would know the true importance of it.
Jaune hazards a guess that Ozma knows how to use it, as well.
So, one rather useless Relic richer, they return to Evernight.
Jaune can't help but admire the violets of the sky, as always, as they descend towards the massive crystalline spires, taking a spot on one of the landing pads. Jaune's not entirely sure why, but the moment their landing gear touch down, a chill runs up his spine, and the hairs along the back of his neck stand straight up.
There's something… something up.
He turns to alert Cinder, only to see her looking at him already. He nods subtly to her, and his suspicions are confirmed as she, too, nods right back. She feels it too, then.
"Any idea what's going on?" Jaune asks.
"None." Cinder replies, pursing her lips. "And I don't much like that."
Jaune doesn't much, either.
Still, it's not like they can just step back into their bullhead and fly away because they're a bit nervous about the general atmosphere. Salem has made it rather clear before that the moment they enter into Evernight, she senses and knows they're there.
To suddenly leave would likely seem suspicious as all hell.
So, they make their way towards the door that will take them into Evernight proper. Jaune feels even more nervous when the gate opens for them, bending inwards with an audible groan from its joints.
He takes a look at the rest of their members. Ren and Nora are looking to him, as is Pyrrha. Emerald and Mercury both are more focused on Cinder, and Ilia seems to be pushing herself up against her soulmates body for comfort.
Jaune can't really blame her. Something's wrong. He can just… tell.
"What do we do?" Jaune turns to Cinder.
"The only thing we can. We go in."
He doesn't want to hear it, but that doesn't make it untrue. As things are, their only real option is to confront Salem.
Jaune just wishes he'd known what they'd done wrong. If they'd done anything wrong at all.
And yet, as they step inside, the door behind them closes abruptly, blanketing the hall in an eerie silence that has Jaune breathing just a little bit deeper. He reaches back towards the Relic on his hip and holds it against his body, securing its position.
"Where to?"
"If I know Salem, she'll be waiting for us somewhere. She always does that when she's angry." Cinder speaks out. "I'd imagine she'll be in the dining hall."
The many-windows room, then.
They make their way towards it slowly, without any real desire to ever actually arrive. By the time they do, it's been nearly ten minutes, and Jaune's throat is parched. Regardless, he steps up, and places both hands on the doors.
He pushes them open, and is confronted by Salem sitting upon her throne at the end of the table, staring right at him.
"Ah, you've finally arrived." Salem speaks, motioning for them to step inside. "Please, sit."
Jaune has a feeling that, above all other things going on right now, they probably shouldn't sit. He wants to stay as mobile as he possibly can.
He's not really certain why. It's not like they can run away from Salem. They're out in the middle of Grimm territory, surrounded on all sides by Salem's minions. Even if they could make it back to their bullhead, they wouldn't have a chance of escaping unassailed. A nevermore or some other creature would bring them down before they could get very far at all.
So Jaune alone walks over, and he takes the seat at the opposite end of the table from Salem. he clears his throat, scootches his chair so that he's flush with the table, and then asks, "What's going on?"
"Hm? So, you're able to tell that things aren't as they should be?"
"I… I had a feeling."
"I see. That's likely your magics picking up on mine own; sensing my… annoyance."
Jaune swallows, but it does nothing to help the dryness of his throat.
"And… what have we done to annoy you?"
"Why, my descendant, I would've thought you'd have known." Salem speaks.
"Summer Rose is gone."
Jaune's face blanches. He's not alone in that. He hears a few of his teammates let out quiet gasps behind him. It's… it's not at all what he'd expected to hear. For Summer Rose to be gone… that means that almost certainly Raven Branwen had had a hand in such.
And he'd thought… she'd seemed incredibly determined not to get mixed up in this.
Then again, when he'd last seen her, it had been after arming Qrow Branwen, her brother, with the knowledge that Summer had been alive as well. Is it so crazy that he might've, for instance, forced Raven to use her semblance upon Summer, and got her out himself?
…Thoughts like these aren't worth anything at the moment. The logistics of Summer's disappearance don't matter.
It's the punishment for such that Jaune's currently worried about.
"Would you mind explaining that to me, my descendant? How Summer Rose suddenly disappeared from deep within the bowels of the Grimmlands? How such a thing; almost magical in nature, could occur?"
Jaune debates telling the truth. He really does. Mostly because he's gotten the feeling before that Salem can't be lied to. But even so… he has to try.
"It… what do you mean, ma'am? We didn't–"
"Raven Branwen had nearly two decades to attempt to rescue her teammate from the bowels of Evernight." Salem interrupts him, rolling her eyes as if she'd expected better of him. "But she did not act in such a way. As to why, I never did know. But suddenly, the moment that I've revealed her partner's fate to you, and you are sent on a mission to meet up with her, she makes a move and takes her back."
Salem sounds almost demeaning as she leans forward, lacing her fingers together in front of her.
"And you mean to tell me that was a mere… coincidence, my descendant?"
"I…"
"I must say, it is not as if I did not see this coming." Salem begins again, not giving him time to respond. "Your efforts in Menagerie… well, they were not exactly what I had in mind, but you managed to pull off the general idea of what I'd wanted regardless. Still, I had my doubts even then about your loyalties. I believed that you were only as loyal to me as Cinder was, and that you might even be making strides to separate her from myself."
She has him entirely pegged, it seems, for every word she speaks is true.
"Taking you to see Summer Rose… that was a test more than anything. I knew I would be sending you to meet up with Raven Branwen in the near future, you see, and so I devised a plan to work out whether or not you were faithful. I wanted to see whether or not that information would stay between the members of Evernight… or whether or not it would spread to those outside its walls."
"And lo and behold…"
Jaune swallows on nothing, uncertain as to how he's going to get not just himself, but his teammates out of this. He'd been betting on Salem's intrigue in him as a descendant to keep him alive…
But his teammates had no such asterisks.
"So, tell me, my descendant… what would you have me do? I do not believe I can trust you with any matters related to my ultimate goal. nor do I believe I can simply allow you to stay here and continue to corrupt dear Cinder. And yet, I also believe that if I disposed of you," she says such so casually that Jaune finds himself entirely breathless for a moment. "I would make an enemy of Cinder herself, my Fall Maiden. You can see how I am at an impasse."
Jaune can see. He can also see that coming back here had been a mistake.
"What would you have me do, were you in my position?"
Jaune swallows. He has no idea what it is Salem wants to hear out of him. He has no idea what it is he should say. He has no idea what it is she's going to do.
He's caught. She has them. They have no way out. No solution to this conundrum.
And yet, Jaune has to find one, regardless. He has to think of something; anything. He'd gotten them into this mess. Cinder had told him, over and over again, not to go around spilling Salem's secrets, and he had, over and over again. Now, his teammates might pay the price for that.
He can't allow that. He simply can't.
"I would… punish me. And… only me."
Salem cocks an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"My teammates… my friends… they had nothing to do with my decisions. I acted alone in every case. I approached Raven Branwen on my own. No one else was involved. I ask… if you must punish someone, then let it be me."
Salem hums, then, and for a moment, she seems to be considering his words. Then, after another few seconds spent silent, she nods her head.
"Well, I suppose you might find that agreeable, my descendant, but I must confess, I do not believe pain towards you would have very much effect on your actions at all. You see, you're not the type to be turned away from your actions by your own pain. No… only the pain of those you care about will convince you otherwise."
Jaune swallows, his worst nightmares coming to life.
"And so… I think I have a better–"
And then a raging fireball strikes Salem dead on in the chest, sending her spiraling backwards and bursting out of the window directly behind her, sailing off into the skies beyond Evernight.
Jaune just sits there, entirely stunned for a moment.
Luckily, Cinder isn't.
"C'mon!" She shouts, grabbing him by the shoulder in a gruff tone. "We have to go, now!"
Jaune just nods, still sort of out of it, as Cinder blitzes towards the bullhead that had taken them into Evernight. The rest of the gang is following, in various states of surprise and shock, much like him. Cinder seems the only one who's actually fully cognizant at the moment, which surprises him, mostly because…
"But you… you never wanted to break away from Salem."
"I never wanted to break away from Salem because it would put you in danger," Cinder states clearly, even as she bounds forward, channeling fire into her hands, and unleashing it upon a stray Beowolf, which goes down without much fight. "But we're past that now. Salem's made her choices. Thusly so must we."
Jaune just nods, thinking inside his head how lucky he is to have Cinder.
Still, they can consider such later. Right there and then, they need to run. And that means they need to get as far away from Salem as they can within the window Cinder has bought them.
Salem had been launched out of one of Evernight's windows, sent plummeting towards the ground outside. It will, likely, take her a while to make it back here… but Jaune isn't all too confident in that prediction. Not where Salem is concerned.
As they approach a fork in the halls of Evernight that Jaune is sure had led outside before, he sees it entirely blocked off. It's as if a wall that hadn't been there prior has suddenly sprung up into place.
"She's trapped us inside." Cinder speaks, sounding awfully calm despite such.
"W-What do we do?" He is much less calm.
Cinder doesn't respond immediately, and Jaune can't help feeling that's a bad thing. Even so, she seems to be… well, doing something, so he doesn't really want to interrupt her.
And then, suddenly, Cinder grips her head, like she's in pain. Jaune rushes to her side, supporting her so that she doesn't fall, but she seems to have recovered some few seconds later.
Oddly enough, it is a pain he does not feel. Something that has always been linked between them.
"…We have to go deeper."
"What!?" He responds in shock. "Deeper? Into Evernight deeper?"
Cinder nods her head.
"Why?"
"There's just… just something below. I don't know what, but if we're not getting out the front door, then…" She looks up at him, meeting his eyes. "I think it might be our only way out."
"You think it's a way out?"
"I think it's something," Cinder responds. "Which by default makes it better than what we have here."
Jaune looks back up at the wall of brimstone that separates them from the outside. Now that he thinks about it, even if they made it outside, what would they do? Cinder would likely need to shoot Grimm out of the sky with the Maiden's power. Pyrrha, Emerald, and Nora would have to do the same. That… would be incredibly dangerous, not to mention that if they made a mistake, they'd go down in Grimm territory.
And from there… they'd be essentially back where they started.
And so, even though common sense tells Jaune that of all the directions they could be heading, down is easily the worst, he refutes his own mind, and turns back towards the rest of the group.
"Okay. We trust Cinder here."
The others don't seem as sure as he is, but regardless, they follow along with his idea. There isn't really much else to do, after all.
When they see a staircase leading down, they take it. Cinder leads them, following some odd inclination in the back of her skull.
And so, they begin their descent into the bowels of hell, hoping beyond all hope that whatever's down there can rescue them from the devil herself.
/
Cinder begins to recognize the route the strange feeling inside her head is taking her on as they continue to descend into the bowels of Remnant.
She follows it down winding halls, follows it as the stones surrounding them seemingly grow older and more rundown. Follows it to a reinforced wooden door that she's seen before.
"This is…" Jaune whispers below his breath.
"Mm." Cinder confirms. "Salem's laboratory… and the cell of Summer Rose."
They enter into it with some degree of nervousness. As much as Cinder wants to trust the feeling in her head – or, perhaps, knows that she only has said feeling to rely upon – they are, essentially, trapped within this room if Salem comes in after them.
If Salem shows up at the door, then that's it.
So, they're going to have to be quick about this.
Cinder pushes past the various experimental items; tools that one might see on an operating table. She does her best not to focus too much on what such things had probably been used for.
She moves into Summer's cell, and finds that, just as Salem had said, she is gone.
"What now?" Jaune asks her, looking to her for guidance. "What do we do now?"
And that's a bit of a problem, because Cinder has no idea.
The trail ends here. She knows that. She can feel it. Whatever it is she's been chasing, it's here, in this room. And yet, at the same time… there's nothing. Nothing evident to Cinder that she can see.
Perhaps… perhaps she needs to feel?
She places her hand against the opposite wall, around where Summer Rose had once been, and tries to reach outwards with her magic. The same sight that Salem had gifted the two of them; herself and Jaune.
Cinder's head pulses. As if her heart has suddenly transmigrated into her skull, beating, beating, beating in a rhythm. There's something here. Something here. It's… it's a feeling. One not her own. It feels similar to the same emotions she might feel through her soul link to Jaune; muted but present regardless. It is desperation and hope and courage in the face of more fear than Cinder has ever felt. None of these emotions are her own, but they belong to someone. She finds herself reaching out towards them, and then, as if she'd tried to touch a scorching hot oven, her hand pulls away as if on instinct, without her even telling it to.
She winces, and Jaune must feel the pulse of pain too, for he does the same.
"What happened?" He asks, turning to her and away from the doorway. "What was–"
Cinder tunes him out. Right now, making sure he's alive at the end of this is more important than making sure he's comfortable during it. So, she focuses back in on that feeling.
What is this, she wonders, that pulses on the edges of her skin. It feels like… like she shouldn't be able to grasp this somehow. As if what's in front of her is beyond her. As if it's an impossibility.
But right now… right now she needs to be able to make the impossible possible. Jaune's fate, the fate of her allies, they lie with her. She'd been the one to lead them all down here. She'd, potentially, been the one to doom them.
So, she has to be the one to save them.
In that moment, something that Salem had once said to her flies inside her head, as if placed there by some entity outside herself.
"I thought you said magic was something you just kind of… had." Jaune had once said, and Salem had almost scoffed.
"And do you not possess aura? A semblance?"
"That's… magic?"
"Does the name semblance not at least make you think 'semblance of what'?"
Cinder reaches out her hand again, this time, fueling the Maiden's fires into her hand. She approaches that burning… something with the magic as a sort of liaison. It will greet this strange happening for her, and, hopefully…
Something. Something will–
The door at the back of the room disintegrates into its basic components, and Salem steps in, scowling rather fiercely.
"You have led me on a rather merry chase, you all." Salem, somehow, still doesn't break composure. She is ever level-headed. "But it ends here. I will say this but once; stop where you are, and place your weapons down. This need not be violent."
Salem is toying with them. It makes sense, of course. They're at the very end of the world, surrounded on all sides by Grimm that could blot out the very skies should they seek to. They are in a hopeless scenario. And hell, it's not like they can turn on Salem herself. The woman is immortal. Even if they might dissipate her for an hour or so, Tyrian and Watts still lurk about, and the Grimm will swarm them the moment they try and take off, or run for the waters at the edges of the Grimmlands. And even then, all of that is only if they can get outside, which Cinder is pretty sure they can't.
Salem has no need to fear them. She has no need to fear they will escape, either.
…
And perhaps that is what will allow them to.
For, instead of disrupting them, instead of stopping Cinder from raising her hand once more, and feeding her magics into this… this something, she merely cocks an eyebrow.
"And just what is it that you're doing, Cinder?"
Whatever you are, Cinder prays for perhaps the first time in her life. I need you to do… anything!
Miraculously, she feels a tremendous pulling in her gut, like she's begun to fall a thousand stories.
And then the violet stones of Evernight give way to a swirling void of red…
One which consumes them all.
/
It has been an awful long time since Salem, Queen of the Grimm, arguable Queen of all of Remnant, has seen anything that surprises her.
After all, one does not live a thousand centuries without seeing much of what the world has to offer. She has seen nations last millennia. She has seen them fall in years. She has been there for the rise and fall of civilization at least ten times, and she will likely be the reason that it must rebuild itself again in due time.
But this…
She stares, mainly, at the now dissipating red and black portal, one which she recognizes the make and type of. She knows it to be the semblance of one Raven Branwen; the same woman who had spirited away Summer Rose – hopeless though that endeavor is – just a few days prior.
And yet, regardless of it being another's semblance…
Cinder had used it, too.
She had reached out towards the ambient din of magic that still lingers at that very point; in the same position that Raven had entered into her domain. She had placed her hand upon it, and willed it back into shape.
Such is a trick that had once been known to her. But not one that she had practiced in… ages. Tens of thousands, perhaps going on a hundred thousand years had passed since she had last seen such an act.
And yet, right in front of her, she had seen Cinder utilize magic. Not a facsimile, like the Maiden's power, and not some minor affect, like she had been initially teaching them; true, unadulterated magic. The ability to manifest what one imagines, and make it real. Without cost, without exchange; that which marked it as being separate from some mere semblance, that which could be conjured forth by aura.
No, this had been…
Watts filters into the room panting, looking as if he has just finished running a marathon.
"Your grace… I heard a commotion, what is it that–"
"I'm afraid little Cinder has flown the nest, once and for all." Salem says, never taking her eyes off the spot that the group had disappeared into. "She has taken her little group with her."
"I shall make to pursue them as soon as–"
"Do not bother." Salem shakes her head minutely. "I do not sense them anywhere nearby. That marks them at least at the very edges of the Grimmlands, and, in truth, I suspect they are far past there as well. I cannot detect them at all."
Watts seems stunned. "Then… your grace, where exactly is it that they are?"
"And that, my dear Watts…" Salem speaks, and despite it all, despite her descendant's rebellion, Cinder's joining of him, and the objects of her intrigue being lost to her, she cannot quite help giving a vicious little smile.
She has gained something almost infinitely more intriguing.
"Is exactly what I want to know as well."
A mystery she does not have the answer to.
/
Cinder honestly isn't even sure she's alive until she hears Jaune's voice calling out for her. Her eyes open slowly, taking in the… well, the endless nothing that's surrounding them. There's a bit of light playing about their feet, beneath them, but to her, at least, it is like they are all floating on an endless, spaceless void.
…The logistics of such evade her in that moment. She decides not to think much about it at all.
"Where… are we?" Cinder hears Emerald mutter beneath her breath, and as she stands, she cannot help but echo the notion.
They're within a seemingly endless void. Surrounded on all sides by nothing.
Or no, not quite nothing, for there is a single structure in the distance.
They approach it slowly; nervously. Their footfalls are silent, the 'walkway' beneath them ethereal and yet, somehow, present.
And at its center…
There is a woman of hulking stature. Easily eight or nine feet tall. Yet, as they get closer and closer to the woman, where Cinder had assumed her human, she now sees only inconsistencies. She is a being of metal and vine. A being of machine and life in oxymoronic harmony.
And she turns to them, her own countenance seeming almost shocked to find them there.
"You… should not be here." She says with a gentle voice, surprising for one with such an intimidating size. "And yet… it seems here you stand, regardless."
The woman of metal cracks a smile.
"Welcome to the Ever After, children of my children."
End Chapter 38
Not a lot to say. More information about just what's going on next chapter!
See you all then.
