Chapter Twenty
Sprouts
Ruby commanded the earth to recede into a tunnel, carving a path into the planetoid she created to nurse their garden from. The noise of the suspended quarry dropped to a faint din as they descended into the darkness, the scrape of their feet against the artificial dirt following them. A pink glyph appeared over Ruby's hand to light their path, the stone deforming into a perfect ramp without so much as a sound. Pyrrha stopped as a thought flew across her mind, making Ruby stop to give her light. "Why don't we just teleport down there?"
Ruby blinked slowly a few times and then cocked her head, staring off into the distance below their feet. The tunnel around them warped into a fantastic kaleidoscope that really aggravated her vision before receding to reveal something only slightly less mind-boggling. The cavern they stood in positively dwarfed them and far exceeded the asteroid at the center of their soulscape. Fractal designs raced along every surface in strange patterns, colliding with each other only to twist into their own copies. Rather than the fake stone Ruby created, they pulsed in an iridescent rainbow, like soap bubbles yet it wasn't any ore, metal, or stone she felt before. She brushed a hand over a ridge and it rippled in colors but all she felt was wood. A branch erupted at her touch, bringing with it a clump of red leaves reminding her of home.
"This place is alive, Ruby." She whispered, eyes wide as she carefully navigated the many spires dotting the ground. Her partner waited at the center of the cavern, her glyph dispelled in favor of the massive sphere of light illuminating them. It was about as large as she was tall, made of metal etched with artificial lines similar to a futuristic ecumenopolis, and didn't have any light source coming from it directly. Instead, the light came from behind it yet a few steps in each direction didn't change that and no matter where she went, it refused to cast any shadows on anything around them, except for their own bodies. She stretched out a hand to touch it only for Ruby to grab it instantly.
"Don't." Ruby never stopped staring at the sphere, feeling what it did to the reality she commanded in their soulscape. Pyrrha shifted from watching the phenomenon to watching Ruby, her mouth falling open when the void of Ruby's eyes didn't suck in the light around them like usual. Instead, the sphere's light created a starburst where once her pupil existed. She retracted her hand and waited for her to continue, wondering if that same happened in her eyes. "Whatever this is has the power to hold back the Nothingness, something I'm fairly confident Nyx couldn't destroy."
"Wouldn't that make it good then?" She asked and the ball pulsed and sang in agreement until Ruby growled and their entire soulscape shuddered. It fell back into its sedated state yet made no other moves. A burst of some extreme emotion coiled in her chest and she smiled widely. She flexed her hand and forced her shields to materialize, green Aura rippling powerfully. Ruby observed all of this, discarding the feeling thrumming across their shared bond.
"Categorically, yes. By our own metrics, the Nothingness that craves death and potential life and this Something that embodies consent and life have very defined lines but…" Ruby bent down and shattered a stalagmite into dust, blowing it across the room with her Semblance. She had to step back as a veritable forest grew around them, thick silver trunks weaving around strangely with crimson and verdant leaves canopied over their heads. The sphere glowed again in response until Ruby asserted control after a minute, sharing the knowledge the growth covered the entire planetoid. "...unfettered growth was the reason Salem created the Grimm in the first place. For concepts more primeval than the Greek protogenos, good and evil can't hope to encompass either of them."
"The Nothingness did save you from that Titan." She probed, attempting to affix her Semblance on the sphere and found it slipping from her grasp. It didn't have the same properties of an inert non-ferromagnetic material that completely eluded her yet it definitely had a presence within her magnetic field, much like the void they made their home in.
"My folly led to a convenient salvation that demands a tithe or risks complete entropy not only consuming me but you and the others under our care." Ruby extended her hand to the sphere, just shy of actually touching it. The light within her eyes intensified, growing to overtake most of her sclera and pupil. "What it desires beyond that is unknown and I worry I've made a mistake that will eventually doom us all, a deal with the devil as the saying goes." She dared touch it with just a finger, a hovering glyph ready to sever that digit in the event of an attack. After a few seconds of nothing, she withdrew her hand and their entire world shook as she exerted her hold. The roof above them collapsed and then molded into the walls, slowly pushing the cavern upwards until they arrived back into the open with the light of the white dwarf shining down on them. The foliage the sphere created expanded into towering branches stretching away from their small asteroid in a trifecta of silver, crimson, and verdant green.
Their soulscape shuddered massively, forcing them to stagger and draw their weapons. A deafening groan ripped through their reality, echoing through their ears and drowning their senses. Pyrrha stared wide-eyed as their binary stars burst in solar flare eruptions, battling against the incursions of darkness encroaching into their territory. When one of them slammed into her star, she crashed to her knees as the screech drummed into her psyche and washed over her body. Ruby placed a hand on her shoulder and temporarily encompassed her star with her own, severing the tether and sending her mortal shell back to the Brass Fortress.
She batted aside one of the dark tendrils with a glyph and reached into the nebula and the silver tree to reinforce their borders. The tiny gremlin Pyrrha trapped within her star banged relentlessly on her prison with a tiny hammer and she gave her access to view the unfolding chaos.
Did you just pull me from my body? Pyrrha ranted at the violation and then promptly shut up as Ruby shifted their entire soulscape to place the asteroid field between them and their stars. Ruby's brows furrowed and miniature black holes sucked all their Cyclops back to the Pit. The asteroid field spread into a thin bubble around their garden asteroid and it barely kept the outside at bay. The border shrank down in massive ripples of iridescent material and for each meter it took, the light from the central tree increased.
Not now. Ruby suppressed the light from the tree to force some level of peace between the two inimical forces. She sacrificed a few parts of her burgeoning nebula for the Nothingness and pulled another few stars from the nursery to scatter around their world as an early warning system. She finally sagged against a tree root, hearing the whimsical melody of the Tree to soothe away the entropic screech eating away at her willpower. Not even Nyx exerted this much presence, one of them only willing to consume and the other only willing to flourish and neither of them could be reasoned with.
I'm here for you Ruby. Pyrrha whispered and she slowed her hyperventilating. She'd never done that before, not when Salem's children tore into Remnant the first time, not when she plotted to rip off a massive megacorporation, and not with a death sentence hanging over her head. This Nothingness could annihilate her without effort and take Pyrrha away for the crime of sticking by her side and that was enough of a crime to warrant throwing everything against it. After she got her breathing under control, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her and bring her into a hug.
Unable to return from the Fortress, Pyrrha reached out from her haven within her soul. Ruby patted the ephemeral arms and felt her presence retreat from the soulscape, a whisper to come back and leave this world to settle from the brief yet calamitous conflict. The silver tree, now glowing with leaves to match their stars chimed heavily and the black border outside pulsed restlessly. She viciously suppressed the voice inside begging to test her mettle against them both and she released her hold on Pyrrha's star to resettle it in the sky. The asteroid field reverted with another few years of a star burnt away and then she tore a hole within her.
Her legs trembled as she stepped through into the command deck of their new home and collapsed when she lost absolute control. Here, Tartarus exuded a mimicry of gravity and pressure, the familiar heat settling on her shoulders. Pyrrha immediately dropped to her side as she acclimatized to her mortal form, muscles screaming from the tension of keeping the two forces in their soulscape at bay. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead and she returned to taking deep breaths. A light chuckle that echoed about the room from their semi-permanent resident didn't help.
"Hello, my little abominations." Nyx waved at them from her spot on a chaise while sipping a fruity drink with a little umbrella of all things. She, and she was most definitely a female this time rather than their more usual androgynous form, lounged in a body gorgeous enough to short-circuit Weiss in a one-piece galaxy swimsuit and nebula shawl. She looked…human enough with hair lacking her usual stars, wings cast aside, and irises actively not incinerating the nearest solar system. She slurped from her drink and then cast it aside into the ether, standing and stretching before plodding over to them and pressing a hand against her forehead. "I see you're learning about the struggles of squeezing into a small form."
Ruby batted the hand aside and pulled a sliver of stellar energy through her tether to stabilize her reactions. The body Neo created for her wouldn't last long without some major modifications soon, her still human biology rejecting the changes she made, just barely tolerating the conversion to the odd matter of the protective skin. She staggered and heaved onto the chaise, feeling the tether solidify with a brief appearance of the starry skin. "Yes and no. A majority of my soul is stored elsewhere. This is just a node I inhabit."
"Ahh, you've skipped right past the godhood stage then. Far harder to squeeze all of that power into a small form than just place it elsewhere. In fact…" She inspected an invisible watch on her wrist to Pyrrha's amusement and then summoned another vivid drink. A pair of shades nearly identical to Ruby's graced her nose and she waved goodbye. "I have a pesky god to deal with soon because I stored too much of my essence in his star. Well, technically it's Hemera's but technically it's also his. It's complicated."
"So why are you here then?" Pyrrha clenched her jaw, remembering vividly the impromptu air travel she subjected her to earlier at Hermes' temple.
"And where else would I be? My children are here and my Mansion is empty so I'm gonna be around far more often than not. You're less tetchy than the Olympians outside and the Titans annoy me to the point I'm tempted to move the Mansion here." Nyx crossed her arms and squinted in their direction.
"I'll have the Cyclops clear an area within the walls." Ruby brokered, ignoring the Primordia's presence. With the influx of Hellhounds now, already numbering in the thousands with more and more trickling in by the day, the walls needed expanding. Archaic but effective in preventing any threats to their burgeoning society, especially with their lack of information on any other factions.
"Good. For now, toodaloo!" Nyx's form squeezed through a singularity and left them alone. Ruby pulled a rough sketch of the forming city from the table and handed Pyrrha a charcoal pencil, marking down to set aside a plot for Nyx. With Hermes' deliveries set to arrive any day now to accelerate them away from the sword and bow, Brontes devised campuses for "edumacation" and further factory and logistical expansion.
"I'm gonna do my best to forget the embodiment of the universe just said 'toodaloo'." Pyrrha rolled up the plans and they left the Fortress. In a short time, the Cyclops managed to beat the landscape into submission, paving wide boulevards and raising dozens of tall buildings to shelter their massive forms. The steady ding of hammers on anvils resonated through the city as they chipped away at the giant stockpile in the center of everything. They received greetings from a few of them while the Hellhounds alternated between wanting to play, barking, and bowing.
Pyrrha noted to add a few hundred rubber balls to the next supply list, along with a few more entertainment items Ruby missed, and maybe have the Messenger God recruit a few willing engineers, researchers, teachers, and IT professionals to truly begin the transformation. They'd need a few more tons of precious material to compensate for both the recruitment and time away from their families to spend time in the Pit if Ruby didn't get around to subsuming them into the soulscape. She knew nothing about setting up the internet, power plants, or plumbing but with eight decades of experience administering the Hunters, she learned a very important lesson: either learn as quickly as possible or pay someone else to do it.
While she hadn't spotted the initial quarry of the asteroid in the midst of the internal strife Ruby invited with her presence, just the already extracted materials and the plans Brontes drafted to continue mining gave away its truly massive proportions.
They found the head Cyclops directing the construction of a temporary water pump to divert the Phlegethon through a series of aqueducts to feed and clean their people with a massive public bathhouse already completed to house the larger forms of the dominant species. Another larger aqueduct was planned to stretch further from the base to a higher reservoir upriver, on hold until further research went towards how Tartarus shifted. Or at least until they figured out how to extract water from the hot air.
"Lady Ruby," The Pit thrummed at the mention of her name before falling quiet once again. He paused, awaiting the primordial's judgment and then continued speaking, wiping his massive hands clean and taking a swig of Phlegethon's waters from a waterskin. "How may I serve?"
"Nyx requires a space cleared for her mansion, preferably near the Hellhound's fields inside the perimeter wall." She felt a slight slap against her head for using the Primordial's name and then a cold spike from the Pit. "With that, the perimeter wall needs an expansion as we accelerate our growth through numbers. The Hellhounds are tasked to help with menial labor when not patrolling." Brontes accepted the rough sketch Pyrrha amended and placed it on his table. With the Fortress itself serving as living quarters, most of the extra space set aside was just for the growing Hellhound numbers and he expected his Lady to add more creatures to her side the more they expanded, a smile breaking through. "Who is my liaison with the Hounds?"
"I'll find one for you right now." Ruby whistled loud enough to shake the ceiling far above and the subsequent earthquake didn't come from the stalactite. Pyrrha took a cleansing breath when a mass of shadows rumbled from the wall and entirely encompassed the wide boulevard. She supposed death by cuddles and licks wasn't the worst way to go and she closed her eyes. Her companions didn't get the same treatment, Brontes cowering on his table and Ruby staring them down wordlessly, a few of the bravest sneaking forward to get a brief pat on the snout before joining the cuddle ball.
"Alpha." Ruby barked and the mass of shadows conformed into neat rank and file, leaving Pyrrha to collapse onto the stone. She spun up to a stand and took her place next to her Commander after brushing some debris off. One of the smaller Hellhounds trotted forward and what it lacked in size it made up for waves of shadows dripping off its form and remarkably bright eyes. "Your mother is moving her Mansion into the Fortress and we're expanding the walls. You'll work with Brontes here to determine how much space you all need and the best spot for it." The Alpha nodded before bowing its head, a slight whine escaping it making Ruby scratch its head quickly. "While the construction continues, send out a dozen packs to scout the Pit and report back on every point of interest you can find. I want a map of the Pit in its current state as soon as possible and recall every single one of your siblings not already within the Pit's borders."
Tartarus shuddered violently enough to shake free massive stalactites Ruby batted aside with her Acceleration. A kinetic orbital strike missile obliterated a wandering Cyclops pack somewhere deep in the Pit.
The Alpha trembled through it all, shadows rapidly pulling from across the ground to fortify its stance. The collective pack behind it swarmed into a writhing mass, rushing into the Alpha and buffing its size until it towered over the Fortress itself. Four massive paws squeezed into the now narrow path. Its fur turned far coarser while its teeth grew to dwarf the Cyclops. They had to stare up at its crimson eyes, all of the Hellhounds within their base coalesced for protection. A howl worthy of Nyx's name tore through the landscape, answering the Pit.
Ruby cracked a grin, a dark miasma creeping across her skin until stars peppered her form. Her howl joined the Alpha's and Tartarus ramped up its reply, spurring Pyrrha to join the fortress's defense. Cracks snaked their way up to their new walls but made no egress into their territory, lava erupting against their perimeter buildings. Driving the knife further, the air pressure and gravity increased and brought several of their buildings crashing to the ground.
But throughout this panic, Ruby and the Alpha continued their howl, continuing for long minutes on end until both the sound and the trembling petered away. A deep thrum rumbled its way across the Pit and Ruby dismissed the Alpha, letting a tenuous peace settle across them until a bark of laughter shattered that. Ruby's blinding white smile pierced the crimson darkness and Pyrrha almost bowed on automatic. "Well, well, well, it seems our benevolent client won't make this easy." Ruby flexed her hand and wrist, spawning a multicolored bracelet around it, testing it out with a shockwave above her. "Every scrap we'll have to fight for and I haven't let loose in a long, long, time."
Pyrrha swallowed thickly when Ruby opened their link and she didn't know whether to recoil or embrace them.
A massive flare blasted from Sol's surface when reality wavered and folded in on itself. Out from that subspace stepped Nyx, bedecked out in tropical gear with yet another cocktail in her hand. This time it was an orange concoction stolen from somewhere in the Mediterranean with those adorable little umbrellas she enjoyed.
That promptly evaporated from the intense heat of the atmosphere, making her toss it aside and then summon another one protected in a magical koozie she stole from the Forge God's workshop. She stepped onto the plasma with her new treat in hand, every footfall causing an eruption she batted aside thoughtlessly, quelling its tantrum.
Off on Olympus, Apollo jerked his head towards the sky, sensing something different with one of his domains. Rarely did his star do anything he didn't know about or foresee in one of his trances, the Fates granting him that responsibility to help nurture humanity. Very few things could set off a reaction strong enough to get his attention, all of them were far above any Olympian within their pantheon.
Nyx's eyes burned as she scooped some of the surface plasma, dropping it into her drink for some added spice. She could already hear Hemera's rant for daring to interfere with her precious stars to combine with ones earlier from messing with another set of stars and a nebula for that matter, grimacing as Hemera should've already dropped a fusion bomb for that insult.
She fell to the surface in a seat, curling her toes through the hot matter as it attempted to singe her skin. A presence rushing at her position at light speed from Sol III to investigate her shenanigans.
Eight minutes later, Apollo reassembled from photons near the anomaly, body loose among the hostile environment and wondering what other deity dared step onto his territory and could survive long enough to garner his attention. He studied the incredibly pale woman dressed and ready for the beach waving at him. She hung her drink in space and then collapsed backward, making the world's most dangerous snow angels. She looked resplendent in her black one-piece and shawl that hid an otherworldly body and any other day he'd chat her up to bring her back to his place but today was not that day.
"Hello?" He flashed into similar beach attire, stepping around to end up near her head to address her directly.
"Hi there." She answered right back, bringing her drink closer to take a sip while it floated sideways and flipped physics a middle finger. She didn't offer any more conversation, slowly sipping her new concoction and waiting for the godling to lose his patience in the uneasy silence she invited.
He sighed heavily seeing this strange guest wasn't gonna humor him, "Can I help you?"
The woman grinned wildly right back, leaning up and spinning around violently to sit at his feet. "Yes, yes you can. I'll take an oath of silence from you and then I'll let you take me out to a bar. I think that's what you and those silly humans call it. Or maybe a club? Restaurant? Are they all the same thing?"
Apollo blinked blandly at this strange deity, face scrunching up. Practically demanding an oath from him had him ready to supernova the star but the babble stopped that short in its tracks. "Excuse me?"
She dropped a bit of the insanity and then repeated succinctly. "An oath of silence and then you can buy me a drink. I steal mine so I wonder if it tastes differently if someone else buys me one." She shrugged for good measure and then leaned back on her arms, sipping from her cocktail while never shirking her gaze.
"You're insane." Irritation escaped him completely from having anyone demand anything. "Get off my star please and leave me alone." He wanted to put this incident behind him but anyone able to easily mess with celestial objects warranted at least some measure of caution. Not enough to prostrate himself in front of but enough to not warrant ejecting her haphazardly into the vacuum of space.
"Can't do that." She shook her sleek mane of hair, scattering sparks of light that disappeared quickly enough to escape his scrutiny. She floated up to meet him face-to-face this time. "I'm giving you a chance here, godling." Nyx's lips quirked and Apollo stiffened at the term, already a shade away from flying back to Gaea. "Not even asking for an oath of loyalty or anything, just that you keep… your mouth… shut." She clamped his shut tightly between two fingers.
Apollo stared back through the sunglasses she wore, avoiding eye contact when a shiver ripped down his spine. A coronal ejection almost singed Earth without his interference and then an answering one out of his control blew off the other side. "Who are you?"
A smirk graced her features and she slid her sunglasses from her nose to reveal a nightmare: bright pinholes of iridescent light he instantly recognized as the most violent types of stars that only one of two deities could hope to contain in a physical form. "You may call me Night."
He almost, almost bolted at that, paling rapidly to match hers as the star surged into activity around them. Every astronomer and every sensor pointed at the sun today recorded increased activity with dozens of irregularities appearing suddenly from nowhere without any prediction. He gulped audibly and then leaned into a deep bow. "I'm Phoebus Apollo, milady, God of the Sun."
"And Prophecy and Medicine and yada-yada-yada." Nyx disrupted the erratic solar storm brewing from the panicking god. "I'm not really here for that. I'm just here to make sure you don't squeal to the Olympians that I'm not trapped in the Pit or something else inanely stupid." She rolled her eyes, wondering just how that rumor started. As if Tartarus wanted to keep their siblings imprisoned.
"Why milady? I owe my allegiance to Olympus."
"Here's the sitch: you keep my presence here quiet and don't tell anyone anything about me, and in return I let you go back to your life."
"I'm gonna have to decline, milady." He tried to flash out with that and ran into cool steel cutting into his flesh. Black chains wrapped around his form and drew forth gold ichor. He found a tendril of shadow sneaking from Nyx's shawl to crawl along the surface where it transformed to a shackle around him.
"You see, now we have a problem." She shook her prey for good measure. "You and your sister are the only Olympians with any domains outside that puny planet of yours so here's my deal once again: keep your mouth shut and I'll free you. Resist and I'll keep you here for an eon." She leaned in his personal space, clasping her hands to her chest. Better to deal with him than her daughter.
He searched for any weakness in the chains and then quickly stilled when she tightened her grip on him, sapping more of the energy from his form until his gold hair paled into white with his eyes dimming to mere pinpricks. "You can't keep me here forever. The Olympians will eventually notice my absence."
"Sure," She acknowledged. "Eventually the Olympians will start their search but they can't even find your missing sister as the Titans plot their rebellion… you'll be here quite a while and then there's the question as to if they even can come get you." She raised her hand sharply. "And before you get any ideas, I can maintain both orbits for Luna and Sol indefinitely." She pressed her lips together at the notion of having to split off another part of her consciousness for yet another matter and then focused.
"Why do you need my silence?" He queried.
Nyx sighed too laboriously for his tastes. "There are times I need to step foot on your planet without anyone knowing so I simply place most of my essence into the nearest star. You know, protogenoi things." She could maybe hide within Luna but that just risked cracking open the satellite and risking Ananke coming after her ass and she really could hunt her down to the ends of the universe for having to initiate a hard reset.
Again, Apollo wiggled ceaselessly only to slice against the midnight chains. His hands knotted into tight, pale fists, knuckles shining white like the skin of the Python he slew when Nyx only chuckled, her voice booming through the vacuum of space. The chains suddenly turned incredibly cold and ice crystals grew in his wounds, a groan tearing free from his throat.
"So now you see, keep my presence silent by revealing nothing and you're free to go." She glanced down at her empty glass and relinquished it to the plasma below. Her shoulders pulled low and her eyebrows gathered in after a few moments and she relented. "And I'll even throw in that date. That's a better deal than staying here."
"I'm sorry, Lady Night, but I can't." Apollo's chin dropped to his chest, a blank look over his features now. He said nothing more, meeting her gaze evenly, and took a deep breath even as the blades cut deeper. She only smiled in turn, moving to his prison to pat him on his cheek, mouth falling open when he dared take a bite at her. She clicked her tongue and ruffled his hair sweetly before leaning in.
Her form shimmered and warped into a singularity, a last laugh trapped in a permanent echo as the chains moved and the temperature plummeted. He squeezed his eyes shut when she got her final words in, "No, you're not sorry yet."