Blake wandered through the damp, dark tunnel like a ghost, stepping silent so as to not startle anything that may be dwelling down there. Her travels had taken her across the world, and in that time she had learnt that many things thought to be a mere myth, and others not even known of, existed.
Not to mention the loud echoing hurt her ears. Her increased senses from her heritage was both a blessing and a curse.
So Blake walked silently, every drop of water from the ceiling sounding like a thunderclap, her guard raised and katana drawn. She had not stopped for a good half hour know, and knew that if she continued then she could very well get lost, hence her decision to not make lefts or rights that could confuse her.
But it would seem that decision had already been made for her. The tunnel had yet to branch out into a wider system or even a smaller tunnel. It raised her suspicion that there was something unnatural about the cave, about the tunnel itself. The walls were too smooth, and at parts the ground had deep gashes, as if some sort of heavy mining equipment had been dragged through. Or some other form of machine.
Something was curling in her gut. It was…familiar. As she wandered ever deeper her hackles were raised as markings appeared on the walls, ones she had seen during her travels by herself and before with Hazel, Tyrian and Watts. Symbols she had seen more recently, emblazoned on the armour of the Inquisitor that had nearly killed Jaune and likely had killed Ruby. Her eyes widened as the possibilities of what it meant ran through her mind and it was almost a relief when the tunnel ended, widening out into a wider space, before she drove herself mad with hope and fear.
Peeking outside the end of the tunnel wearily, Blake blinked and realised it was a massive cavern. Water gushed down from a distant, unseeable waterfall, and she gripped the wall as she peered down and saw a sheer drop into an inky abyss.
Then she saw the metal chains, the gears just ahead and the lever that connected them all. Cautiously she reached for it, doubting herself for a second, before she pulled the lever.
It groaned and creaked, and she had to rest her katana against the wall in order to use both hands to tug it. Then it suddenly gave way, nearly sending her lurching backwards. She panted and waited, ears twitching as she tried to listen for a trap, like her brain screamed at her, or an elevator, like her gut said.
The chains jingled together like coins in a hefty coin purse. They began to roll back. She heard a distant clanging and jingling.
Blake sighed and picked up her katana. Whatever it was would take a while to get up there, so she might as well rest and recover from her journey their in the first place.
Then the distant walls of the inexplicably huge cavern glowed a purple hue from crystal rock that had previously blended into the inky blackness, revealing the structure below.
She had seen it in her dreams. In her visions. In her nightmares and her wildest fantasies.
It was surrounded by a thick bale of pale ice, but the ice failed to conceal the dark towers, the looming steps and the triangular, central chamber.
It was a temple. A temple to a divine being overthrown by the gods of today.
A divine being that could fulfil her wish. So long she made a necessary sacrifice.
Confronted by the very thing she had been tirelessly searching for, her legs buckled and she fell onto her knees, chest tightening and breath coming out in harsh, sharp breaths.
Could she do it? Would she?
She had done many things…but such a callous, cruel murder?
Was it even the right temple? In her visions, Jaune was alive and well, not dying from an Inquisitor's poison. Should she risk everything on the chance she might be wrong?
"Blake…"
She screamed out with terror and scrambled away from the edge, katana raised in front of her in wavering hands that shook out of the fear some monster would appear from the purple darkness and throw her to her demise.
"Come find me Blake…"
Her eyes darted around her, trying to find the figure that spoke to her. Surely she hadn't gone mad? Surely she hadn't been driven to the same insanity shared only by a psychopath like Tyrian Callows.
"You know what I am, who I am girl…" The velvety, smooth, authoritative and almost seductive voice teased. "You know what I can do…"
"S-Salem?" Blake stammered, and she felt the darkness around her shift as if it was a living entity.
"Yesss…" The voice practically purred, making Blake wince and clutch her head as a sharp pain spiked through her brain like an arrow. "I have waited millennia for this moment, for your arrival. Come to me, achieve what you have spent so long seeking. Remember the cost you must pay."
The oppressive darkness faded as the tunnel was cast in a purple glow from the distant crystals and the elevator rattled to a stop, breaking the shockingly real feeling that she had been trapped under someone, something's , irontight grip.
Blake knew the decision had already been made. For her, by her, it made no difference. Her future was set, her destiny decided.
Even then she couldn't help herself from offering silent prayers, asking for Jaune to have a painless death and good afterlife, though for the first time ever she prayed to a deity she knew to be real.
And in the distance, she could hear the soft sound of tinkling, cruel laughter.
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"A new power is rising! Atlas is embroiled in war with its own shitty weather and the treacherous Mistrali. The wife of our Lord Protector is attempting to seize power and make herself our Queen whilst Vacuo prepares to strike us. Do you accept this state of affairs, do you accept the fall of Vale?"
"No!"
"Then what shall we do to prevent the fall of our people, our homeland, to invaders who want to plunder our land, enslave our children and rape our women?"
"Rise up and fight them!"
"And who will lead us in our war? Who will give us victory? Who will restore our lost honour?"
"Arc! Arc! Arc!"
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Jaune groaned. His body felt sore, and he felt drained, exhausted. Regardless he forced his eyes to open the dizziness swimming in his mind to fade.
"Jaune!" Someone cried, and Jaune grunted as something slammed into him, arms wrapping around him like snakes made of iron as he felt the soft warmth of whoever was trying to squeeze the life out of his lungs.
"Y-Yang?" Jaune wheezed, guessing and unable to see his own nose in…wherever he was. "I c-can't breathe!"
"Sorry!" Yang exclaimed, and the grip around his chest lessened immediately. Jaune felt her slide onto his lap as her arms rested on his shoulders, making him tense as he felt the soft skin of her palms brush against the exposed skin of his aching shoulders.
"Where…Where is my armour, my clothes?" He asked quietly, feeing blood rush to his cheeks. Yang was sat on his lap, he had no recollection of prior events and he was missing the top half of his clothing.
"I had to take it off to heal you." Yang answered, and he looked up at where he thought he could hear he voice coming from. It was weird and comforting to hear, weird because her voice echoed but comforting because, well, it was her voice. "But you ended up just healing yourself. Why didn't you tell me you could do that?"
"Heal-What do you mean?" Jaune demanded, frowning in confusion and starting to feel panicked at the fact he couldn't see. Poison? Did that mean he'd been blinded or something? Healing himself? Just what was going on?!
"You glowed and your wounds began healing. It even cured whatever that poison thing the Inquisitor person gave you was." Yang answered, and he failed to detect a lie in her voice, which was unfortunate because he really had been hoping she was just teasing him and things were a lot simpler than they seemed.
"Am I blind?" Jaune asked, opting to start off with the easier questions that he had. "I can't see anything."
"I don't think you are blind. We are trapped in a cave with the strange woman, Blake."
"Blake's here?"
"You know her?"
Jaune flinched as her hands tightened, gripping his shoulders like a vice. He could practically see her frown, even though it was like he was swimming in that weird, inky…abyss he could remember dreaming of.
"Yeah. She travelled with me and Ruby. Helped us out in a fight too."
"She has wandered off. I do-did not trust her."
Jaune nodded. The feeling was understandable, considering Yang had seen very little of the good people who lived in the world so far. Hopefully he, Blake and an understanding Ruby would be able to convince her people weren't as bad as she likely thought.
"That's fine. Is the cave we're in big?"
"Not really. There is a tunnel though that she went down. It is to your right."
"I can't see anything Yang."
"Oh…right. I might be able to help with that actually."
Her hands left his shoulders, and he immeadiately felt a little colder, the chill of the cave piercing his exposed skin easily. Yang muttered something, and a light spark for a moment, hurting his eyes at the sudden brightness, before a little flame flickered into existence and Jaune gaped at the fire that flickered from her hands.
"That's…beyond awesome." Jaune blurted, and he saw Yang's face, shadowed by flickering orange but visible, smile.
"Beyond awesome?" She asked, but the glint in her eyes made it feel like she was teasing him.
"So far past awesome there isn't a word to describe it." Jaune answered, flinching at the brightness but adjusting quickly to the light. "Why are we even trapped here?"
"A storm." Yang explained, sliding off his lap and pointing into the darkness. "See the entrance?"
He leaned forward and squinted, making out the vague shape of a wall that looked uneven and a little unnatural, like whatever it was had a rash or something.
"Yeah, I see it."
"The storm blocked us in. I don't think it was a natural one. It…was too fast and too fierce to just be a storm."
"Looks like that's the case." Jaune nodded in aquiescane, before leaning back and shivering at the cold rock. "Can I have my shirt back?"
"I…may have been overzealous in removing it." Yang admitted, looking away ashamedly. "And I may have also used the rest of it for bandages you didn't need after you healed yourself."
"It's fine." Jaune said, giving her nudge with his elbow and smiling at her. "Just help me put my armour back on and we'll be even alright?"
"Alright." Yang nodded, picking up a plate of his armour in one hand like it was a loaf of bread, cheeks a faint crimson colour. "Where does this go?"
After a few minutes of guiding Yang on how to put on his armour, he was fully armoured but slightly less ready for battle than he had been earlier, his sword having been left behind as it wasn't strapped to his arm like his shield had been. He could make do, he doubted they'd get into a battle whilst they waited for the snow to melt enough to escape.
"I just want to clarify something." Jaune said once a comfortable silence had descended between them. Yang gave him a curious look that he took for encouragement. "You said I healed myself. That shouldn't be possible."
"I'm only telling you what I saw. You glowed and your wounds healed."
Jaune frowned and glared at his hands, wondering just what was wrong with him. He was…human. Right?
Except humans didn't glow and miraculously recover from grievous wounds. He slumped and sighed.
"Your fire." He asked Yang, and idea coming to mind. "It's magic right?"
"It is a part of me. It's powerful." Yang answered cautiously, as if she was unsure she was describing it correctly. Jaune would take it.
"How do you activate it? How do you use it?"
"I just do." Yang shrugged. "I have to focus, but my fire is part of me. So long I don't use a lot of energy using it, I can use it will."
"Right." Jaune said, sighing again and closing his eyes. It wasn't very helpful, but that wasn't her fault. She'd had her miracle magic power all her life. He had just unlocked his.
"Focus." He thought, the voice sounding suspiciously like an encouraging Yang. "Focus."
He straightened his back and took a deep breath. He focused, calming himself as he breathed slowly and his eyes registered nothing but a sleepy darkness. He felt like he was slipping suddenly, and all of a sudden he felt like he was floating.
'The Abyss?' He wondered for a moment, before quickly realised he would have likely been attacked already. Not to mention it felt more calmer than the Abyss, clearer.
Then he felt it.
In the middle of his internal rambling, he felt a small spark of light pulsate inside him. It was faint, but strong. All it needed was encouragement.
He reached out, feeling his shape mold in the darkness. Except instead of armour and skin and flesh his body was a white, glowing light. The pulsating light erupted into an inferno, sweeping over his skin and making all his aches and sores disappear.
He felt strong. Indomitable. Invincible.
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Yang watched Jaune glow silently, not wanting to disturb him and disrupt…whatever it was he was doing.
It was a weird sight to behold, but since he had seemingly taken over the role of light person she let the fire in her palm extinguish, casting the cave in a luminous white glow from Jaune's…whatever it was he was doing.
She would have to come up with a name for it. 'Jaune's thingy' felt underwhelming, and she knew this likely wasn't going to be a one time, well two time now, occurrence.
She silently pondered whilst Jaune…transcended?
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Weiss breathed in deeply. The connection to her power, that of the Winter Maiden, was faint and distant, but for the very first time it was visible. Ever since her dream with Jaune in the abyss she had been able to feel the connection for the first time since she had discovered it, though she still struggled to push enough to reach it, to feel that invigorating rush of knowledge, of power, of strength.
Currently she was meditating, head feeling dizzy from the potions she had brewed that were supposed to amplify her natural magic ability and help her connect with the distant, insurmountably strong magic inside her. It wasn't working, though that was probably because she wasn't doing the whole meditation thing correctly.
It wasn't her fault, but her magic had unleashed a devastation not seen before upon her own kingdom. The refugees had finally stopped flooding in as local lords rallied together and progress was made in regions previously lost entirely to the storm. However there were still thousands of people who wouldn't normally be in the area around Nördliche Burg, straining their food stores at a time where a looming food crisis grew each day the ocean remained frozen solid by ice and ships from Vale carrying wheat and barley and grain were unable to sail to Atlas.
No. She had to focus. She had to stop worrying about what she already had done and how she was going to fix that, not dwell on the fact she was a worse ruler and person than Pyrrha Nikos.
Weiss breathed in deeply. She exhaled quietly. She felt it flare, rise up to meet her. She grasped blindly, wildly, and she jolted as a rush of power surged through her, making her gasp at the feeling of pure power running through her veins.
She opened her eyes. They blazed blue fire in the reflection of her window.
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"The Lord Protector's dead. Didn't you hear? Mistrali did him in now his wife's gone mad."
"Nah. Ironwood's a tough bastard, I remember the stories my da would say about him. It'll take more than some cowards magic to finish him off."
"Fuck that man. He got hit by some magic thing. O'course the fucker's dead. Say what you want but at least Arc's Valean."
"Nah. Fuck him."
"Why what'd he do to you? Shag your wife or something."
"Nah. I just don't like blondes."
"But your wife's blonde?"
"Why do you think I don't like em?"
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Pyrrha sighed as she leaned against the wooden wagon. They were in sight of Mistral now, and despite the long, hard journey across the seemingly endless ice they had finally made it back home to Mistral, to the frigid northern shore of her Kingdom.
Richard stepped next to her, eying her homeland for the first time. She raised a brow at his disdainful look.
"Don't beat it till you try it." She teased, happy to throw back the man's catchphrase. He'd been teaching her 'bits and bobs' about the Atlesian way of life, the sayings and teachings and little quirks she normally would not have paid much mind to. Pyrrha was always a warrior before a scholar, but out on the ice you could barely walk without slipping, let alone fight.
So learn she had. It was a novel experience, being brought so low it was if she wasn't actually royalty. At least she hadn't been deposed yet.
Yet…
She frowned as her mind flickered back to her brother. The dangerous holiday of hers had come to a close. She needed to get her head back in the game and focus if she didn't want to lose anything to the 'snivelling little snot weasel' that was her brother.
Richard's snort broke her darkening train of thought.
"I have tried it." Richard replied, pointing at the snow capped mountains with a smile. "That's snow. I come from Atlas, and Atlas is snow."
Pyrrha's retort was cut off by a sudden crack. The whole column froze. In their entire journey south, not a single noise had been heard from the great ice plain that was once an ocean. No crack, no nothing. Just the howl of the wind.
Then it cracked again.
"We need to hurry." Richard said, face serious. Pyrrha believed him.
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A dark shape hovered in the clouds above Nördliche Burg, circling before landing behind the snowy peaks of the Snow Mountains that kept it protected from attack.
Cinder huffed as she landed, still a little damaged from her prior encounter with the silver-eyed runt. Of course the magician capable of covering half the world in snow would dwell in a place she would certainly not be welcomed at after an attack.
If she Infiltrated the place…
No. It was too risky. Nikos could call at anytime with his strange shadow magic, and if caught in her Infiltration form it would raise questions as to why she wasn't hunting the Arc boy in her Armoured form.
Questions that would lead to punishment. But not punishment of herself…
Cinder's mind went to her mate, half a world away and constantly under threat from the mercenaries who guarded him and their youngling. The first time she had failed to fulfil a task set by Nikos, hunting down some fool who'd angered a fool with a dragon at his beck and call, he had used his magic to show her the sight of her mate's bruised, bleeding body.
The threat of what else they would do was enough to guarantee she wouldn't step out of line again. Even the thought of those repulsive, vile beings…forcing themselves onto her mate made a fire burn in her belly and spill from her maw as she dreamt of flaying the flesh from their bones as screams of agony echoed in her ears like a soft melody…
She shook her head and dispelled her rage. She needed to focus. Wait. Watch. She would have to decide how she would progress, but progress she would. Soon enough she would have a human sorcerer far more powerful than Alexander Nikos for an ally, and together they would kill him, freeing her from bondage and saving her mate and youngling from harm.
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"It's time Hazel."
"Tyrian hasn't been able to locate the temple."
"The signs are all here! You saw them too when we killed that silver-eyed runt. Snow and ice that drown the world, a great war, unrest and famine! The time of her return is upon us and if we aren't there…"
"I know the consequence of what happens if we fail Watts. But there's no point wandering the wilderness and freezing to death in vain. Tyrian will find the temple, and failing that, we will return to the one we found in Vacuo. We will just have to bring her a sacrifice, a great gift to prove our loyalty."
"Hmm. Perhaps there is something I could arrange? We've been tailed for weeks now by a little bird belonging to the Old Man. I think they would have information our Godess will find quite…enlightening about a threat to her return and ascendance."
"Why bother asking for permission for something we both know you will just do anyway? Just don't get caught."
"Oh Hazel, your concern is appreciated but I think it will be better placed on wondering what our dearest psychopath is doing, especially when you were the one to set him loose."
Hazel sighed as the man he reluctantly called comrade left the room. At times like these, he truly did miss Blake. Say what you want about the girl but at least she got the job done without being a psychopath or a megalomaniac.
"Not like I'm much worse." Hazel muttered, before shaking his head and sitting down, head lolling back and eyes closing sleepily.
"Bastard drugged me in case I said no…" Hazel grunted, moaning with realisation. "I'll wring…his…fuckin…neck…"
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Blood. Smoke. Fire. Screams.
Sun watched it all from the distance, stood atop a green hill that overlooked the encampment of women and children. Regardless of what his father said, what the elders said, none of what he could hear or see in the distance seemed glorious.
It didn't matter though. He was Chief. Even if he was he would be expected to be leading, not arguing against, the savagery he was witnessing.
He shook his head. Nothing he could daydream about could change what had happened, and what would happen in the near future.
The invasion of Vale had begun.
A/N:
So bad news, some more bad news and some 'eh' news and some good news.
First bad news: Today was supposed to be a special 'multi-chapter in one day thing' to celebrate Ruby's birthday (Halloween). Bad news is, I recently started using Word instead of Google Docs to write this because the Document got so big it took minutes to load and I was worried that if it crashed or something I'd lose everything. Problem is, I forgot you actually had to manually save Word documents, because Google Docs does it for you. So everything I did wasn't saved so I had to pull this chapter out of my ass like I'm Houdini.
Second bad news: This fic will be going on a hiatus because I'm incredibly angry at myself for deleting all my work (which I now have to do AGAIN-I'm so fucking stupid). Also I feel like the quality of my writing has declined recently, so I'm going to take the break to practice writing and try and improve so this story is actually...not trash. So there won't be any updates for all of November as I'll be taking a month off.
'Eh' news: In the meantime I'll be working with kentuckyfriedchicken123 to write their first multi-chapter story as an editor/beta reader. It'll be good, so check it out and give them some support. They're super nervous about it and can't see (for some reason) that they aren't some sort of 'thirteen year-old writing their first fanfic' and are actually one of the better writer's on the both A03 and
Good news: Next chapter will be 05/12/22, then 15/12/22, then 20/12/22, then 21/12/22, then 22/12/22, then 23/12/22, then 24/12/22 and then 25/12/22. Basically to make up for my month long absence I'll be giving you guys eight whole chapters in one month. Sorry for making you wait, but I promise I'll be doing my best to make the wait worth it.
Thanks for your patience, and have a happy Halloween!