In the Vacuoan deserts, a group of three travelled, constantly beleaguered by the inimical rays of the sun as the hindmost two hoisted a mysterious object on their shoulders. On closer inspection, one would find that the mysterious object was instead a fourth person, carried in this manner by the others of the group with a faces that indicated less than elation at the task.
The leader of the group, a skinny dog-eared lad with freckles and a docile manner that was evident even in his gait, looked backwards at the others, specifically at the blonde third member on their shoulders with eyes full of pity and guilt.
Ω
"Jaune look out!"
Shouter's ineffectual warning rung out as his teammate traced a downward trajectory akin to a meteor before being arrested a few times by the aerial Grimm they had been engaged with. Shouter remained with his bowstring pulled back, waiting for Jaune to get within range so that he could stop the beasts from attacking him and also possibly arrest his fall.
Thankfully, due to the speed of his descent, that happened soon and a barrage of arrows kept them off the blonde warrior's person although his plan to use Gravity and Wind Dust arrows to arrest his fall was unfortunately impossible because he had to keep his concentration on the Grimm who seemed more ferocious after the spilling their prey's blood.
Bang!
They saw their companion crash onto the desert floor below them with that bone-chilling sound. Cardin rushed down the structure, leaving the flying Grimm to his ranged teammates and hoping to check on and defend his teammate if necessary.
The sight that met him was horrible, the blonde was supine in the sand, his back although invisible, was clearly a mess as the sand beneath him was soaked with blood. The team leader grabbed him suddenly, laying him across his knee with his face down. He had already ascertained that there was still a pulse in whatever remained of his body.
Reaching into his boot he pulled out an opaque metal vial and uncapped it by pressing the cover downward before upending it onto his teammate's wounds, an action which produced a thick and nauseating vapour while cauterising the injuries rapidly.
The content of the bottle was a highly effective (and equally pricey) caustic agent for cauterising large wounds. Cardin knew next to nothing about first aid and so gently poured water between his lips as he waited for the other two to get down.
After a few minutes, the pair got down from the towering structure with cuts and dents visible on their armours. Cardin had already created a shade by felling a small hoodoo so that it cast as sufficient shadow over the sufferer.
After getting over the initial scare, they decided that they needed to find shelter to protect themselves from the impending dark hours.
And so, they travelled through the sandy landscape laboriously, and carried their teammate as gently as was possible through the expanse of dunes. Suddenly, Jaune's started to forcing the two to lower him onto the sand as his body jacitated violently. The trio looked on helplessly at their teammate, unable to do anything else. After cauterising the wounds and cleaning them, they couldn't do anything else but hope that it was enough.
After a few minutes, the convulsions released their grip on the blonde's form, allowing him to return to sleep with ragged although uniform breaths. The trio looked at each other, the ugly look they cast seeming like they had gone through the same experience as their teammate.
What are we going to do?
Ω
The black sea was turned inside out by a thunderstorm, the waves seemed to absorbed the beams from the fragmented lunar satellite, reflecting it back eerily in an illumination that made the pure darkness seem the more comforting option. It was here that our blonde hero was.
He had been here forever, most likely even longer.
Jaune was being tossed between the towering waves of a black sea.
He had been tired forever.
He was at the end of his rope.
His lungs were filled with the black water of this infernal ocean. He was sure that at any moment he'd be dissolved into the black towering billows. After a while, he began to wish he would.
He had started by fighting against the waves with all his power. Later, he was exhausted and simply prayed. Now, he prayed it would be quick, he prayed it would be over.
He was over. He knew it. He couldn't fight back.
That was all his promise amounted to, he could see Cardin's face mocking him. He didn't care enough to fight back.
You won, he said; he was tired, it was over for him.
As he waited for the next deluge of obsidian water to strike him down into the depths for the last time, his eyes caught sight of something in the distance. He became aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down the sides of the watery valley he was in and threw a fitful brilliancy upon his now pale and emaciated face.
It was like a fire in the midst of the sea; it's top was a blazing red that made the black hell he had recede into the background. Somehow, despite the light it cast, its appearance made the environment more frightful. The light made its way to him, and stretched out its hand to him. The top was a red more brilliant than a bed of rubies, it glared and burned him, he felt the energy come back into his body. He wanted to fight again, he wanted to win again.
Before he knew it, the waves were under his feet. He was standing on the water, his body was coated with the bright red glow the figure had cast over the sea for a second before the familiar golden glow of his own aura covered him.
The waves called to him, telling him that he would drown, promising that it would be painful, telling him not to fight back, just to lean into it.
He was shaken, but the light held on to his face, as though telling him to focus. He looked down at the enraged waves; they were like demons of the deep, but like demons in confinement, free to jeer, free to taunt, free to threaten, but not to destroy. He looked back at the light with determination; he was ready to go.
Before he could speak though, he was thrust beneath once more.
And so it continued, there sea remained tumultuous, seeming to have the single purpose of crushing the Arc family warrior. Unlike before though, he was fighting back with all his strength and there was no indication of his light going out.
In the real world, his breath became regular again, he was truly asleep.
Ω
In the hollow of a small cave, team CLAD were huddled, dehydrated and demoralized. The only bright side was that since desert temperatures dropped dramatically at night, Grimm activity was severely reduced and they would likely be able to get a good night's sleep. They looked at the since stabilized body of their teammate with a strange kind of horror; they had never regarded him much before this, but one question had precipitated on the fore of each of their minds.
How did he survive?
Cardin especially looked at him with almost a terror, less because of the physical feat and more because of the moral one. Throughout their trek, his eye had never left the blonde teammate. He waited with bated breath for his teammate's ragged one to cease, he had been expecting it any second… they boy survived though and was stable despite what they had all thought.
He didn't just survive, the Winchester heir said to himself, confused and perturbed, he fought!
Although the current danger was over, Sky and Shouter were still worried he'd relapse. Cardin knew that he had won though. Cardin could almost hear him shouting "I am a warrior! And I'll be greater than my father… that's a promise I made to myself."
Cocky bastard!
The group finally went to sleep, prepared to face another day of trials the coming day.
Ω
The scene was frozen lake. There was perhaps nothing special about it, but it was cold.
I mean, colder than usual.
It was cold in every sense of the word, unlike the frozen lakes that kids would take risks on and perfect their hockey skills during the winters, it was forbidding, like a glare from a jilted lover, it sent froze the current of the blood.
Though it was so forbidding, two boys found themselves on the ice, playing forgetfully in the ice as all children should. One of them had a head of burnt orange hair and though he was no older than 14, he had a seriousness of purpose in his face even now when he laughed gleefully with his partner, a white-haired and blue-eyed lanky lad of about the same age with hair that remained exquisitely orderly despite the nature of the play he was involved with.
Suddenly, snow began to fall. The pair looked up happily and flashed wide smiles at each other. The scene was so picturesque that it made one wish it would be immortalized in a snow globe.
Exactly that happened, the two lads were in a large snow globe suddenly, cut out from the outside world.
"No!"
The shout was a painful one. It plead with such an edge that it broke the heart of the hearer.
It didn't reach the boys though, they celebrated youth oblivious to the shrill plea that wanted to catch their ears.
A huge mace struck the side of the globe, chasing the agonizing scream by a second at most. It was Cardin's Executioner, but there was no effect. The glass of the globe rang in an almost mocking timbre in response to the blow. The Winchester heir paid little attention to it though and struck the glass again.
And again.
And again.
Suddenly, out from the bottom of the frozen lake, emerged a figure.
It wasn't a Grimm, but perhaps it would be better if it were.
A large wolf broke through the ice and stared at the boys with steely blue eyes. Its spiky coat was of such a pure white that it seemed to be part of the snow itself, that impression was shattered at the shock of red hair on its head and the jet black horns that made it assuredly seem like a devil.
Tempter-sent or tempest-tossed, it was here and it was deadly.
The boy with white hair was surprisingly the first to action and he skated towards the beast suddenly, pulling something out like a whip suddenly and swinging it at the creature.
The other one followed behind with a pair of sabres – they seemed to have fought together before.
The beast clawed at the first one savagely, sending him flying away. The villainous claw sent a shot of cold through the small body and left him paralysed.
His friend fared no better and he was soon under the paws of the great beast.
The boy looked up at the beast steadily. Perversely, it was the creature that quivered instead, as though unsure of its purpose in the path of the lads steady brown eyes.
The hesitation was only for a second, and the beast lunged at the bow.
Crack!
The sound of shattering broke throughout the world, as the young boy's life was snuffed out. It happened so quickly that the life was still in his eyes when it had left his veins. He looked like he would get up any second and go on skating as he had been.
That was just a fantasy though; he was dead, the blood, a painful bright splash against the spotless snow was the evidence of that.
The cold forbidding ice was much colder than it had been before, the blood of this innocent boy cried out. It cried out with the voice that he had kept to himself even when his end was imminent. It was injustice what had happened here, all of nature acknowledged it.
The sombre eulogy of nature was ceased by the mighty Executioner striking the murderer across the maw and sent it flying across the ice.
The crack that broke out earlier wasn't just as a result of the homicide, coinciding precisely with that moment, the snow globe fell apart as though the sound had initiated it. There was no illusion that Cardin was the cause of this phenomenon as the glass emitted the same mocking timbre as it fell apart.
He rushed after the creature to deliver a second blow, but as he cocked the mace for an explosive round, it began to dissolve and in a second it was gone.
Cardin turned around and the bodies of the two boys had disappeared. In the place of the brunette was a gravestone.
Cardin crashed onto his knees next to it, he didn't look for him. Something in him knew that he'd never find him. The cold cenotaph stood solitary, like the finishing of a perfectly cold world. In the place where that shock of red had once disturbed that cold world of white, there was a single wilted rose.
Ω
A red-haired teenager of about 15 stood in the forest, his steely blue eyes looked straight on like a soldier. A pair of important looking people handed him something with equally grave manner. The young faunus looked in his palm and saw an amber gem. The impressive faces impressed once more upon the boy that he had to take the best of care of the gem.
What followed next was Hell.
The lad turned into the green forest, walking past the lush green foliage and innocent primroses to the dead wood and deadly nightshade.
The lad stood there but he wasn't the same child that started the journey; in the centre of the dark wood and a mountain of corpses was Adam. His right hand held on to his blade, the blood of recent victims still on it. His left hand clutched the amber gem possessively.
Suddenly, he let go of the gem and it fell into a dark chasm that had materialized just as suddenly before his eyes. He leapt after it, crashing into dark waters suddenly but never letting his eyes stray from the gem as he was carried on in the current on the grey river he found himself in.
The jewel was a kind of impish character in this story, it stayed forever within his sight, but forever out of his reach. Its sharp golden colour danced a jig in the arena of his pupil, taunting him for his efforts as though it gained a perverse pleasure from punishing his pursuit. The taurine general wasn't phased by this though and kept on.
Days passed like this and when we saw our friend again, he was quite different. The generally active general's pace was stalled. If one looked closely, he could see that his entire left side had turned to stone.
The petrified general was no less determined though and he pressed on. It was a pointless endeavour though; he'd drown in the current soon.
Suddenly, a green light broke through the grey waters.
It was a green gem. It woke the general from his stone sleep.
Adam was confused, but he didn't give it too much thought. He rushed forward and to his surprise, he laid hold of it.
He looked at the exquisite emerald enquiringly, as though to ask not only how and why it had saved him, but why it had let him grab it… with hands like his.
The grey waters hadn't washed his hands, but instead they were thick with the life he had drained from hundreds. The stream that was the testimony of his crime, ran across his palms, screams, groans, pleas and every expression in between mixed in with the blood and rang in his ears.
The green gem glowed brightly and the voices were muted, they were still there but they didn't ring in his ears as they had been doing forever.
As though propelled forward by this effect, he suddenly caught sight of the amber gem. This ought to have been good news for the taurine terrorist, but he was more frustrated now.
It was moving forward rapidly, heading over the edge of an incoming waterfall. The waterfall was silent, as was the rest of the grey stream, muting everything else too. Adam wanted to rush towards his charge, but he felt an invisible force stop him – the green gem was stopping him from going over the edge.
There was scarcely any time, mere seconds, he couldn't hesitate. He did though, for the slightest second, long enough to see a quiver run through the faultless facet of the jewel before he cast it in the opposite direction and went over the edge for the amber one.
The moment he was separated from the green light, he started to petrify again. Suddenly, the waterfall gave way to a concrete floor. By the time Adam reached the floor… well, you've heard about Humpty-Dumpty.
Ω
The sun travelled eastward, almost completing its shift and dyeing the entire atmosphere a warm orange. It was by these receding beams that Adam was awoken from his sleep.
He observed with a suddenly alert gaze that he was in the sick bay.
"What happened?"
"You saved me."
The reply came from Blake who was seated next to him, her amber eyes caught the almost blood-red rays of the Sun as it descended; the fractured moon was visible already.
"There was an explosion in the mines. Your Semblance absorbed most of the blast though so everyone got out okay."
Adam gave no answer for a while, he looked up at the ceiling wistfully, fully aware that he had forgotten something. The "something" he had forgotten made itself known in the form of a tall red-haired student, she had been waiting outside.
"Pyrrha," he said with a wry smile, he wasn't sure why the ends of his lips twisted so, but they did as he looked at her. His heart crashed down to his belly, he had done something wrong.
"Blake, could you leave us alone for a bit?"
The dark-haired faunus was surprised, but she hardly let it show, stealing a cold amber glance at the russet pair before excusing herself. Pyrrha had tried to insist that it wasn't necessary, but the cat-girl had slunk away before she could say anything.
"I'm glad to see that you're okay."
The words were said after a minute of silence, a cold minute.
"What did I do?"
He asked the question helplessly, it was all he could do to keep his voice from breaking, the sun had set and the steely blue of his eyes were set against the ink of the twilight sky.
Pyrrha must have seen the effect that she was having on him and her compassionate green eyes capitulated to his plea. She sat next to him, she hugged him, she whispered.
"I'm glad to see that you're okay."
The words meant more this time, they put him at ease, he fell asleep again.
Ω
Many in Remnant do not believe in magic.
Magic is a tale they say. Their supernatural Semblances had been explained perfectly with scientific methods and classifications so they took magic to just be a primitive understanding of these phenomena that they had perfectly grasped.
I am afraid that I am not in that number, and I venture to tell you boldly that not only does magic exist but it was active this very night. It was magic that pervaded the night and magic that would connect the four main characters of our story, even if you don't believe anything else, believe that, believe it as the surest of facts.
That is as much as we discuss on that though, the chapter at present is over, but there are many questions still to be answered.
Ω