Chapter Twelve
Goddess
She didn't know quite what to expect with her escape back into the real but following the tendril she kept anchored to her body resulted in a violent shift between her omniscience in the pocket reality to once again being blind. Her vision shells almost immediately snapped into place and, ignoring the cowering of her Cyclops in the distance, she zeroed in on the mass of aether shifting subtly in the corner. "Night," she acknowledged before checking on her partner.
What have you done? Night stepped from her darkness, coalescing into her humanoid form with scant horror marring her face.
Ruby ignored her for the time being, sending a pulse of Aura into Pyrrha and forcing her to wake up. Pyrrha came to incredibly wearily, no doubt exhausted from carrying her back to their fortress and dealing with any hostile denizens. She took a few seconds to get her bearings, staring up into an unfamiliar mass of black with bright silver eyes and flinching because of it. The presence of Night however had her summoning her metal shards and throwing them forward.
Nyx slammed into the wall with shackles around her limbs, not at all perturbed by her attack and even playing the victim, hanging limply with all the threat of a kitten. Ruby did not take Pyrrha's reaction well to the point she teleported from the bed over to the primordial and held her up at chokepoint. "What did you do to my Hunter?"
She didn't recognize her own voice, startling at the almost incomprehensible growl of Basic that escaped her throat. Dropping the primordial, she reached back into her soul star, instantly finding the divine gift trapped within and stole Re'iyah's vision temporarily. The puppy didn't mind, left to protect a newer version of Yang's ship, before her vision shifted from black to look at Tartarus for the first time.
Within the dim light granted from the crimson sky and the river, she saw what her foray into the no-space did to her. Where her body was once made of flesh and blood, it now thrummed with the void of the no-space, speckled with stars, and molded into a humanoid form. They gave off their own light much to her confusion but nowhere close to the red orbs glowing brightly from her face.
"Ruby?" Brokered Pyrrha after a moment and she did not at all enjoy the naked fear in her eyes. A healthy dose of fear did make her reign easier to impose but this unadulterated fear did nothing. It hampered her ability to work with the only other Hunter in this prison and she could not let that abide. She reached back to her soul star, pulling more of her essence into this mortal form. The pocket reality shuddered under the strain, shrinking slightly as she imposed her will onto it and ripped back some of the energy she offered for its creation.
To Pyrrha's relief, the dark miasma receded like a protective shield, revealing the scarred flesh of her Commander. She wobbled hesitantly back to her feet, Ruby again teleporting to her side to help her up. Giving her a quick glance to make sure she hadn't suffered under Night's tender ministrations, she released the hold on her eyes. Wherever the little puppy was, she was sure she needed them more than her, no doubt busy keeping the rest of her wayward team alive, wherever they were. Unless they were also in this prison, in which, she'd eventually find them anyways.
"Night, what did you do to Hunter?" She asked again to the hovering primordial, unperturbed when she simply phased through her bindings to stand in front of them.
She gave them an impish smile, the stars in her dress glowing bright, before answering. "She tried to order me around."
"I needed to make sure she didn't hurt you while unconscious," Pyrrha responded blandly, still shifting nervously under Night's gaze.
"Thank you," Ruby answered without hesitation. As much as Pyrrha chastised her for inviting conflict with the primordials, it wasn't the average Hunter that could stand against one in the first place. "Please don't attack my Hunters again, Night."
Nyx hummed in response, stepping forward to grasp Ruby's chin and inspect her. Perfectly acceptable. I know what it's like to protect what's mine. She dropped her face and poked her body in a few places, continuing to hum nonchalantly. Cascades of stars washed from her form, creating little spheres of bright light that surrounded Ruby. You… She started, frowning when she discovered something new. You're an abomination of nature.
"I've heard that before."
No, little one. She poked her chest, a dull burn briefly appearing before ebbing into a distant pain. A pleased hum tinged with a whine of a dying star resounded. I just attempted to detonate your soul but you've done something that keeps it from your body. You did something with that godling's soul after you stole it.
"It attempted to burn my soul and body after I attempted to assimilate it." She summoned back her void form, shoving more of her essence back into her star. The same black mass speckled with faint dots of light overtook her arms. "I took exception to that."
Yes, you survived despite all the rules stating you should have died in that attempt. Nyx practically purred. Congratulations. You've successfully achieved immortality and shaken this bleak prison. I will watch your existence with great amusement. She laughed nebulously, their ears straining under the weight of the cataclysmic event, and then disappeared in an event horizon.
Pyrrha sighed heavily. "You realize she tortured me for what felt like millennia, just for telling her to not attack you?" She shivered at the memory of watching the creation of this version of Remnant, clamping down on her reaction to remembering the tearing pain of her consciousness leaving and then slamming back into her with each revolution around Sol. Ruby listened intently as she told her this, offering her a hug. Pyrrha accepted this with quite a bit of surprise. "Why are you hugging me?" She finally asked after indulging in the hug for much longer than strictly necessary.
"Because you needed one?" Ruby answered confused.
"No, I mean, how did you know I needed one? Aren't you still unable to feel?"
"Empathy does not require the ability to feel. It's a learned mechanism to help me blend in with the rest of the world. Though my real death and dally into immortality has healed the fractures in my soul and should eventually return that ability, I suspect it will take some time."
Pyrrha snorted at that but not for the reason she thought. "Who the fuck uses words like "dally" and "suspect"? Just speak normally. I think you're in denial."
"I care not if I can feel emotion or not," Ruby responded and Pyrrha mocked her by repeating her exact sentence vulgarly. Ruby characteristically didn't react to her banter.
"What am I going to do with you?" Pyrrha asked after a moment, done making fun of her leader at her expense.
"Nothing. I'm perfectly fine."
"You're not fine. You collapsed after the fight and came back immortal."
"Yes, and I'm fine now." Pyrrha suppressed the urge to facepalm.
"Yeah, because Yang was perfectly fine after the war and came back as an immortal with a new form." It didn't take a genius to hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"Yang was much stronger than I was, both mentally and physically. She had you, and now I have you for myself." Her response stonewalled her and she reassessed how to deal with an answer.
"Did… did you just compliment me?"
"You're my Hunter. You will do your duty and I will do mine." Pyrrha hummed at that.
"You're still mentally screwed, aren't you?"
"I'll slowly heal. I don't need fixing."
"I never said you did."
"Then this entire argument has been pointless."
"Yes." Pyrrha beckoned her out of the room and they returned to their shoddy command center. "How did you become immortal by the way.? You don't look too different from usual other than your new black form."
"I took my soul into the no-space between dimensions, I think. The Titan's divinity did not like my body and threatened to destroy it from the inside out. I then used part of the energy from that to carve out a piece of reality for my soul and reconstruct the missing parts of this body, I think." Pyrrha lagged behind, her brain fried from these pieces of information.
"Ruby, you…" Ruby recoiled at the sound of primal anger ripping through the fortress. "The fuck? What the fuck does that mean? Oh yeah, by the way, I casually violated space-time physics, created my own pocket reality to hold my soul, and then casually returned. Yeah, lemme quickly do the same."
"You won't need to. I will eventually take your soul and keep it safe." Ruby replied without bothering to worry about the implications of that statement.
"Ruby…," Pyrrha started, chastising her. "You can't just take my soul without my permission."
"Of course not." Ruby seemed far too eager to agree. "I have to experiment with taking other souls first without using their energy to sustain my bubble reality but I will take your soul in the end. You're too valuable of an asset and as Yang's friend, I owe it to her to keep you alive and safe."
"That's not what I meant." Pyrrha droned. "You can't make those decisions for me. I'm not your possession that you get to decide what to do with on a whim." That was not the correct rebuttal as Ruby twisted mid-stride to meet her gaze. She flash-stepped in front of her with the sound of displaced air, gently grabbing her chin. Pyrrha didn't dare move, not even when her touch pushed the boundary of decency. Her breath stilled as Ruby caressed her cheek and carded her fingers into her hair, settling into a firm grip.
"You are MY Hunter." She crushed the shiver coursing through her at the emphasis Ruby placed on that word, feeling the breath of the shorter woman against her collarbone. "You are MINE and no one will ever take you from me. You are my responsibility to care and provide for and I will do so."
Okay, so maybe she did need some fixing.
"Ruby, I didn't mean to imply you couldn't care for me. I'm flattered." Pyrrha responded warmly, matching the grip Ruby had on her. She swore the younger woman practically purred at the attention. "You just can't own people. That's slavery."
"No, you're your own human being. I can't own you that way.." She replied as a matter of fact, tilting her head and rubbing her cheek into the hand nestled there. "But as a Hunter, you are MINE. I do not control what you do outside of your duty to me as a Hunter but I will protect you in any way I see fit."
"It's still nice to ask." Pyrrha shook her head, tearing a few crimson threads from her tiara. She couldn't separate her life like that. To her, she was both Pyrrha the Hunter and Pyrrha the Human. There was no divide there for her, just like she suspected there wasn't one for Ruby.
"I don't need to ask for permission to protect what's mine. My death did not change my position as High Commander. Every Hunter, dead or alive or trapped in limbo, is mine to do with as I please."
"That's an incredibly slippery slope, Commander. What if you take my free will from me? You would, after all, hold me in your grasp."
"I can not," Ruby whispered, almost scandalized Pyrrha could think that of her. Her eyes widened perceptibly, Pyrrha mentally cursing herself out for implying that. To someone so devoted to her role as Commander, High or not, daring to imply she abused her forces was an accusation that would send Blake after her, not on her orders but on the protective streak she shared with her team.
"Okay," Pyrrha whispered back, setting her nerves at ease. She could only really do one thing to placate the only other Remnant Hunter in this place. "You can have it, but you have to ask first. And for everyone else you wish to protect in the same way, you have to also ask them. Every single one."
"But—" Pyrrha shushed her.
"You may command us but we are not your property. We are not your slaves. We are human beings and unless we choose to hand over our free will to you, you cannot take it."
"Very well." Ruby acquiesced, remembering back to the time she met with Salem on the Council House. Salem did not take what she sought even if she could have so easily squashed her under her thumb. It was her consent, her choice and no one else's, that removed her heritage and brought about a ceasefire, for the short while that it existed. "Do I have your permission to take your soul? To protect and nurture it for time immemorial, and to never betray what is your choice and free will?"
Her question was much more in-depth than she expected and she fully believed her. She wasn't doing this to exert some mad power or control fantasy. Well, at least not her own. Power was an end to the means for her, not because she was a narcissist or a conventional sociopath, but because she'd been rebuilt from the ground to do her job any way possible. What she did was always for the betterment of her Hunters and her question rested on her concept of that: her sense of duty and honor.
But it also rested on her shoulders.
Shoulders that carried the weight of Remnant's protection on them.
Strong shoulders that carried a fragile ego built upon her Hunters and supported a facade of grudging perfection. A mask she presented to the Council, the public, and even her own Hunters to ensure their obedience. No one dared cross the goddess that strode across the battlefield with impunity. Everything she ever did, was for them and for them only, to keep a war from spiraling out beyond control and keep the damages of both Grimm spawns and casualties low.
James had called her Death.
Others Reaper.
Yet Yang made her into a legend, The Will of Beacon.
The bogeyman of Beacon that made decisions on Yang's behalf to keep the veneer Ozpin threw up at the start of his reign. Some even believed she survived the invasion, pulling the strings behind the scenes and using Yang as a frontman. She even came close to believing that, if it wasn't for Yang's constant mopping for the first couple years of her reign. Qrow managed to finagle his way from his job, somehow switching roles with Yang and Tai to return back to spying with Tai having to find a replacement to help lead Signal.
Not one Hunter knew who truly gave the orders at any one time. Rumors ran abound that Glynda ran them, that Taiyang did, that it was Qrow or even Raven. That Yang rose above them all or that Ruby continued on from death somehow. Or that somehow the Council or a junta of Generals controlled them. They wanted answers as to who led the Unification Project and more desperately sought answers as to who ordered the death of the Council during the invasion and who ordered the deaths of over a hundred Hunters after some regional captain within Vacuo attempted to reclaim Cassus from the Grimm.
The only answer they ever got was the decisions were the Will of Beacon.
And how thin those shoulders looked now, pleading with her to allow her to protect her, to allow her to just do her job and spare her the continued toil of her body as it suffered in Tartarus. She needed to wage war on these primordials and had to trust Pyrrha could take care of herself without having to worry about her body. Tartarus was not the relatively safe Remnant, not when the very air demanded their constant attention. So what was a mortal supposed to do other than hand her soul over after wrestling out a promise to never betray her? No doubt Ruby would supplant her will if it saved her life but it'd have to do. That was the trust every Hunter had to have in their Commander and she wouldn't dare take that from her.
"It's yours." She finally agreed and she swore Ruby's dark eyes lit up with the light of their shattered Luna. The same black star-lit mass overtook her form and she felt a dull throb begin in the base of her skull. Ruby's eyes widened in panic, clearly not expecting her new abilities to activate and she shoved them all back into her soul star.
It revolted against her control, darkening across her body until a faceless glow overtook her form and an inhuman growl echoed about the fortress. It had taken her own soul without trouble, content in the sacrifice she offered but she would not allow it to take Pyrrha's without a fight. She subsumed its grip on the ball of green fire nestled within the body next to her, her vision shells gaining color for the first time ever. Instead of shoving the soul into the singularity that used to be her mindscape alone, she forced it through the Aura tether passing through it.
The darkness groaned under her control, pulsing with a cold fervor but dared not break her grip on the soul in her care. It certainly gave off a feeling of confusion more than anger, wondering why she even bothered protecting someone else when she should've prioritized herself first. At least, that was how she interpreted the vague emotions it gave off. Not emotions exactly, not human by any long shot but she didn't have other words to describe the faint notions it gave off. It liked to take and it only knew how to take, and her introduction of a foreign entity and thought process into its no-space disturbed it.
Not in a bad way but in the way any human encountered a new trivial curiosity that made it question its morals and views.
She sensed that much from it, as primeval as it was, stuck in the no-space between dimensions that all it knew was how to take and all it learned from that. It didn't protest her initial push into its no-space, almost like it was used to others doing the same at the price of the energy she sacrificed. She probably even had an advantage, bypassing the initial energy needed to rip a hole in reality, and giving almost all it as tribute to carve out a sphere of real space. It did, however, viciously growl at the borders of her soul star, discontent it wasn't getting to feast on the offering with Ruby protecting Pyrrha's soul.
Pyrrha's form disappeared for a brief moment as Ruby maneuvered the green star to sit by her own, almost equal in size but far less scarred. It cast its own brand of light over the fragment of land she created at a whim, a haunting green stretching across to combat her bright crimson. Tearing her consciousness back into her human form, she dragged a tendril of Pyrrha's Aura through her own, tethering it back into her body. The mass of black masquerading as her Hunter dissipated when she latched on the tendril, like recognizing like.
She took a wracked breath, not entirely realizing she had stopped doing so when the pain in her skull started. With Ruby vowing to first experiment before taking her soul, she didn't expect her verbal consent to trigger the process. She couldn't even wrap a shell of Aura around her as the entire process bypassed it entirely. The cold hands of the darkness Ruby stayed wrapped in reached deeper than anything ever before, freezing her blood. Yet through it, she could feel Ruby's Aura, fighting through it to protect her.
For just a scant second, she felt the lack of reality in the no-space and it terrified her more than Nyx's birth of Remnant. It didn't hurt as much, barely encompassing her entire being with a soft, constant pressure but it utterly horrified her. It didn't compute to her, all of her senses rendered useless against the true nothingness that existed outside of what they knew as the universe.
Time refused to pass, space didn't exist, color rendered void, silence rendered mute, and touch an abstract concept.
It was a complete antithesis to what she knew as the world.
Until suddenly, Ruby pulled her into a space only she could've created, a star of crimson, scarred silver, imposing its will into the no-space around them to even create a concept of space around them. She even graciously gave her a place next to her to the point it took a second, time finally passing again, to realize the green ball, burning strong enough to match the star next to it, was her soul.
She snapped back into her body, taking in the open worry Ruby wore on her sleeves, watching as she took a deep breath. The concept of the void didn't frighten her like it did her, no, but the thought of losing her made her react far more strongly than anything she'd seen in her reign. That was the measure of the depths Ruby would cross, of the burdens she would carry, if only it meant she could protect her own.
And it humbled her, that the void didn't so much as make Ruby twitch when any lesser being would shudder under its depravity.
"Thank you," she whispered reverently. An initial inspection of her body determined she still had her dexterity, nothing lost in the transfer. However, her body felt... empty, as if something fundamental was missing. It wasn't like hunger or a debilitating injury, able to cripple her, but it was definitely noticeable. Ruby's soul star offered what warmth it could, taking on the role of nurturer, yet the cold dark lingered on the edges, prowling and waiting for a moment of weakness.
"Think nothing of it." Ruby brushed her platitudes aside, stunning Pyrrha greatly. She considered standing between the terrifying Nothingness nothing? When she could barely fathom the incredible phenomena? Ruby went about like it was just another daily occurrence, dealing with the lack of real space with the wave of a hand. "You are mine and I will not let something as trivial as death take you from me."
Pyrrha sweatdrop.
They stepped into their command center, frowning at the lack of Cyclops about. Nyx had forced them to take shelter near the river banks with her presence alone though she was almost loathe to have Ruby attempt to call them back and have them run away in terror from her. Nyx had essentially welcomed her as an immortal and while she suspected she was nowhere close to the protogenoi in power, she could handle any singular threat to their base.
"For the next few days, I want you with the Cyclops squad looking for mining locations. With your Semblance, you should be able to find larger potential spots. I will handle building the first system of roads to facilitate movement, supply, and reallocation."
Pyrrha accepted her orders without question, disappearing through the open balcony. Ruby took a more leisurely route, feeling a small tug on her soul star through the singularity in her mind in the direction her partner traveled in. It was advantageous, always knowing where she was in this bleak prison and if anything happened to her now, her consciousness would return to her pocket reality. Granted, it would take an enormous amount of energy to resurrect her while creating a body, far more than she had stored, but she'd hunt another god down if it came to it.
For now, she could slowly pull the Titan's energy back from her carved space to heal this body, relishing the feeling as it responded to her will. Years of supplements disappeared as she imposed a new rule on this form. While it still functioned like any other human body, she no longer allowed the lack of certain hormones to negatively affect her.
Causality fell victim to her will.
She could already hear Pyrrha's confused rage at her simple answer to her problems.
A chuckle escaped her.
The black-eyed mortal both terrified and confounded her.
She needed answers to what the mortal did to herself, somehow creating a phylactery for her soul without tearing it apart. Very few beings even possessed enough power to influence a soul to that degree and none of them were particularly allowed to play with their lives without bringing the fury of her children and Ananke down on them.
Placing the majority of her power within the star this planet orbited around, inadvertently creating a solar flare, she seeped through a fracture between Tartarus and the mortal plane. Small enough most wouldn't even notice it but one of many such passageways connecting the Underworld to the outside.
Casting her consciousness across the planet, the stars glowing brighter where the sun couldn't reach, she found her errant children close to where the seat of the current gods hovered. They didn't concern her, little nebulas in the chaotic mass of other gods with barely enough strength to challenge even one of her siblings combined. Still, better to have them manage the busy work of the mortal plane on this one planet than have to do it themselves. Their faith-based pantheon paled in comparison to just her stars, several trillions of those versus only a few billion humans.
Throwing together a humanoid form, she coalesced into a sable-haired beauty in the middle of a garden the mortals placed in their city. Apollo drove the Sol above her, bathing down warmth, life, and further suppressing her presence. The odd male and female gave her an appreciative look yet she ignored them. They possessed nothing of interest for her with barely enough light within them to charm her.
She marched across the park, letting Hecate's Mist shroud her to keep the pesky things away. Three of her daughters, cloaked in the visage of elderly women, sat together on a bench. One of them pulled chromatic yarn from a basket, the second measured and knit it together, and the third snipped it when it got to its end. They rather enjoyed this game they played, looking so very weak.
Yet they still missed her approach.
She took a seat next to the old pulling thread, waiting patiently as she was consumed by her work. She spawned a few star particles in her palm, letting them twinkle and shine while hidden under her illusion. It took her detonating them in a loud series of explosions to get their attention, vastly enjoying their collective shock. "Mother?!"
While they recovered from her presence, she grabbed at the other basket with the complete life strings. Each of them was inconsequential and didn't so much as create knots in Ananke's grand designs. Almost all of them affected other life strings but nothing to the level she felt shake the universe around them. A mortal recently achieved immortality. Where is her string?
She had to snap her fingers in front of their faces to get their attention again, throwing their precious work to the ground and scattering them from their neat piles. They were already cut. They only kept them or Ananke would storm through to rip them a new one, liking to keep them all organized in the haphazard mess of a castle she called home.
"We haven't felt any mortals ascend to divinity." They frowned, snatching back the threads she tossed about.
She didn't ascend to divinity. She moved her own soul out of her body elsewhere. Nyx rolled her eyes, continuing to pull life threads without care much to her children's consternation. She knew what she felt from the mortal wasn't normal. No one should've had that ability, to completely sequester their soul elsewhere while keeping their body intact. Split it, sure. Every divine being could do that, moving what made them gods to their domains or as primordials simply returning to their natural form, but to completely hide it? No, this was something different.
"That's impossible." They all chimed in unison, Nyx giving them her best "no shit" expression.
Yes, well if you didn't do it or even sense it then I need to track down Ananke. She grumbled, snagging the pair of scissors and prematurely snipping a string without care. Her daughters all protested but a quick glare silenced them. "And I don't have the patience to deal with her… eccentricities."
"And you're sure she was mortal?" One of them asked and the other two completed her sentence, irritating her.
She bled as red as any mortal. She droned, leaning back on the bench and basking in the light of the nearest star. While far too bright for her tastes, it still helped rejuvenate her lesser form. Though now I wonder, what would make Ananke interfere with your web? The three of them didn't have an answer for her, returning to their weaving while attempting to salvage the cut thread. And if even she didn't make a change… She trailed off, not needing to finish her musing as she released her human form and floated up to the cosmos.
Only Chaos knew what lay ahead now.
AN: Within Orphic cosmology, Ananke is the mother of the Moirai yet before that they were daughters of Zeus and Themis (which I don't see happening at all so Hesiod must've been smoking something). Before even that, within the Theogony of Hesiod again, they're portrayed as children of Nyx. So I don't really know what's going on within the Greek family tree other than what Riordan says and whatever I modulate because this is fanfic and I do what I want. Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! Drop me a review to let me know how I can improve please, or to just say you liked it. I live off of them.