The Real Chapter Ten
Yes, instead of this being a proper Ch. 11 and instead of me simply going back and redoing Ch. 10, I have made Ch. 11 the redo of Ch. 10! That way this story gets an even and poetic twelve chapters in total. Yes, that's right, this is the true, final, penultimate chapter.
Next one is the last one, and then it's either more Dragon Princess, Voidwalker, or AC:T.
Haven't decided yet.
Anyway, enjoy a proper telling of the arrival of Leviathan and the short battle with Salem.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or RWBY
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The rising cloud of snow in the distance accompanied by the rumbling of the earth had Mantle in a panic. The city had been informed about Salem's pending arrival with an army of Grimm, and enough people thought that this was it to sound the alarms. Atlas also went on high alert, Ironwood deploying ships loaded with missiles and mechs.
"I would bring those back," Shin'en said, a tinge of urgency in his voice. "That's Leviathan and his own army. If you shoot at him, he will take that very personally. Especially because he brought his wife and daughters."
The general gulped and slammed his fist upon his broadcast button. "Now here this, now here this! All units are to stand down immediately! Do not fire on the snow! Those are not Grimm! Those are a-allies!"
His voice cracked a little on the word "allies."
Ironwood looked at Shin'en. "Do not tell me to relax or anything like that. I've got one of your siblings apparently occupying Atlas airspace with a fleet of invisible ships, and now I've got another one of yours barreling down on my city with an army. On top of the witch that'll be here in four hours."
"Alright," Shin'en said simply. "Keep your army at the ready and at bay. It'd be unfortunate if any of them got caught up in the incoming battle. Well, perhaps battle is too strong a word. More like…one-sided annihilation."
Ironwood wasn't particularly comforted by those words.
"Just stay out of the way and let us handle this," Shin'en said.
"Please keep your family from destroying mine."
"They will bring no harm to this city unless I allow it."
Shin'en then vanished from sight.
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Shin'en reappeared upon the wall of Mantle and calmly raised his arm.
The thundering pace of the horses slowed, the ground no longer shaking as hard.
Seconds later, and Ari was standing by his uncle's side, giggling and bouncing with excitement. "Daddy's here and mommy's here and my sister's are here with the army~!" he sang in an up and down pitch.
And seconds after that, the mighty Leviathan was slowing his iteration of Blackjack to a trot and then a walk. On his right was his wife Annabeth, looking like a Greek queen straight from the ancient times with her white combat dress and golden adornments, and to her right were their daughters, Bachel and Ceunon, distinguishable only because they were different pieces of armor on their small bodies. Other than that, they both had heterochromic eyes, right green and left silver, and curly blonde hair with black tips.
To the Leviathan's left was Teresa of the Faint Smile, his adopted sister, and to her left was Teresa's adopted daughter Claire, and to the left of Claire were the Abyssal Ones: Isley of the North, Riful of the West, and Luciela of the South. And behind them were their corresponding lieutenants, Rigaldo, Dauf, and Rafaela. And behind them was the rest of the army, dozens of Awakened Beings from generations of Claymores past, all upon simple stallions for no other reason than the coolness factor of having an army on horseback.
Awakened Beings were much faster than horses, even in their human guises.
Shin'en stepped off the wall and fell to the snow, Ari jumping down after him. No sooner did Ari's feet hit the powder than were there a couple of blurs that suddenly raced from the approaching army and smacked into him, taking him to the ground.
"Uncle Shin'en, help!" Ari cried. "They're killing me!"
"Will you shut up, drama princess!" Bachel, the oldest triplet, snapped.
"Honestly, he randomly vanishes for two weeks and the next time we see him and give him a big hug, he whines," Ceunon, the middle girl, rolled her eyes.
"My ribs are broken!" Ari protested.
"They are not!" the girls returned in tandem.
Shin'en cleared his throat. "Play nice, children."
The army came to a stop at the gates, Leviathan and Annabeth sliding off their horses.
The Leviathan was going for his "war lord" look, being a seven-foot-tall mountain of muscle, masculinity, and testosterone. He wore a leather belt adorned with golden studs, a heavy buckle of gold depicting the visage of a ferocious dragon, and attached to the belt was a blackened dragonhide leather kilt. Upon his feet were boots with toes of steel, and upon his shins were greaves of segmented dragonbone carved in such a way that numerous small spikes protruded from the segments. Bracers in the same style covered his forearms, and though his torso was left uncovered—exposing his rippling pectorals and solid wall of an abdomen—his shoulders were covered by dragonbone pauldrons, though the spikes on these were larger and thicker. Attached via golden brooches to the backsides of the pauldrons was a heavy, black cape of dragonhide leather.
He wore no helmet, allowing the entirety of his face to be seen. Sharp, chiseled jaw, handsome, fierce, authoritative expression, heterochromic eyes like his children, with a green right eye and a silver left eye. His hair was neatly cut and trimmed, longer on top than in the back, and white with black tips, like the wings of an Albatross. Around his brow was a golden, ornate crown sporting thirteen ivory spikes—dragon's teeth, in fact.
All of this dragon paraphernalia wasn't in the name of some fetish, of course, but respect. The bones and leather all came from an actual dragon the Leviathan had felled in single combat, and as a sign of respect for the beast, the Leviathan wore its visage into battle.
The Leviathan walked up to Shin'en, towering a full foot over him. "So."
"So," returned Shin'en.
The two of the clasped hands so hard there was a thunderous clap that was felt all the way up in Atlas. There was even a nearby mountain that shuddered so hard that a bit of snow was rattled free from its peak.
"Good to see you again, brother," the Leviathan smiled.
"And you as well."
"Now, where's my boy!?"
"Daddy!"
Ari managed to untangle himself from his sisters and go running into his father's huge arms.
The Leviathan swung him around with a laugh. "There's my boy! How've you been? Conquered this place yet in my name?"
"Honey!" Annabeth chided. "We've talked about this: no conquering extradimensional civilizations."
"Besides," Shin'en said. "This isn't any dimensional plane. It's mine. This is my old home, three thousand years into the future."
This gave Leviathan and Annabeth a great pause.
"I see," Leviathan eventually managed to say.
"Indeed. Please do your best to keep the continents in one piece unless I decide otherwise."
"You have my word that I will do my absolute best."
Shin'en stared at his brother with an arched brow.
"And so will everyone else under my command."
"I appreciate it."
"I sense Asteria's energy. I take it she's been here?"
"She is here." Shin'en pointed up.
Everyone looked, and their keen eyes made out the extremely faint haze in the air.
"Ah," said the Leviathan. "She arrived before me, then?"
"She did, yes. Her daughter Annabeth was also here with Ari."
And like that, a shadow fell across the Leviathan's face. His wife Annabeth came up to him and gently placed her hand on his bicep.
"I never did like this…multiverse nonsense," Leviathan scoffed. "The notion that my beautiful queen is the age-regressed adopted daughter of a different me in a different dimension disgusts me. As do the other…possibilities."
"Indeed, the dimensions can be a disturbing and disgusting place."
The Leviathan narrowed his eyes at Shin'en. "I will never forgive for that April Fool's prank where you took me to another dimension where we are the crossdressing bitch of Nico. That was also somehow impregnated with his children."
"Perseus! Not in front of the kids!" Annabeth snapped.
The Leviathan made a face. His kids were all making faces. The Awakened Beings that heard that were all making faces.
Yes, while certainly one of his most hilarious pranks—as far as Shin'en's idea for a prank went—it had certainly gone a little too far.
"Anyway, what is the situation?" Leviathan asked, changing the subject.
"We're gonna fight a witch!" Ari exclaimed.
"Oh. That's boring."
"But she has a really big army of monsters!"
"Oh? Does she now?"
"Mm-hm!"
"Are the strong?"
Ari thought about it. "If there's enough of them together."
"So no."
"Yeah, no, they aren't really strong."
The girls both went aww at the same time, and even the generals looked disappointed.
"And the witch?" Leviathan prompted, looking at Shin'en.
"Not worth your time. Regardless, she is mine."
Leviathan nodded. "I assume that once she has been dealt with, we will all return to our homes?"
"Presumably, yes. I still don't know for sure how any of you even ended up here. I did not summon you."
"A god's hand is at work, then," Annabeth said.
"Agreed, but that list is too expansive to pour over right now. Salem—the witch—will be arrive in three hours at her current pace. Get comfortable until then, and please don't cause any undo turmoil. Asteria will shoot her transport down, and you can have the wreckage."
Leviathan nodded again. "Will do. The sooner we leave, the better. This place stinks of humans."
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And so it was.
When Salem's gigantic whale Grimm came into view, bringing with it a thunderstorm, Ironwood launched into action. Orders were sent out through Atlas and Mantle for civilians to evacuate to the nearest shelter, and more orders were given to the army. Airships primed missiles and guns, and smaller craft were deployed.
All for naught, however.
Asteria's Yautja mothership seemingly materialized out of thin air as it decloaked in front of the Atlas fleet. A beam of light erupted from it nose, and the flying whale exploded in a huge eruption of fire and thunder. The storm was blasted apart, and the shockwaves caused tremendous turbulence for the fleet, though luckily no one lost control and crashed.
When the Leviathan's army moved, all cameras were trained on them, and so everyone with access to an Atlas military camera got to see something arguably more horrifying than Grimm: Awakened Beings. All the humans proved they weren't human at all as they erupted with Yoki aura, and their bodies underwent grotesque transformations into monsters of all sizes and shapes. Of course, the resulting slaughter as the Awakened Beings absolutely demolished the remaining Grimm was something of a slight guilty pleasure for many of the viewers.
The brutality, though…
Some humans actually felt bad for the Grimm.
As for Salem, nothing changed with her death. She pulled herself back together out of the black sludge, briefly engaged with Shin'en, and she died when he used his Rinne-Sharingan to teleport them to another dimension via Ame-no-Iwato, where her divine blessing of immortality didn't apply anymore.
And then Shin'en was back, and where he stood, Leviathan and Asteria were already there.
A quiet place, a simple place, that being a natural ledge on a mountain overlooking the ruins of the whale Grimm that the Awakened Beings were tearing their way through.
"Is it done, then?" Leviathan asked.
"Almost," Shin'en answered. "I promised Ruby I would revive her mother if I could."
'Can you?'
Shin'en shook his head. "Salem was using the Silver-Eyed Warriors as guinea pigs for a new species of hyper intelligent Grimm. Summer was captured, and her body destroyed in a failed experiment. There's nothing of her left."
"When did you learn this?" Leviathan asked.
"Seconds after I stepped foot back in this world."
"I see."
Asteria made a hum in the back of her throat.
Shin'en had known this whole time that Summer was gone forever, but he never said anything.
'What will you say to Ruby?'
"Half the truth. I will tell her that her mother is gone for good, and nothing else."
"And that'll be it, I take it? She'll understand but remain bitter, and then you'll leave here forever and never return?"
"Not quite. Ruby is a good young woman. I believe she has earned the right to have dinner in my home. The two of you are welcome, of course."
Leviathan's lips quirked up. "I take it we can't bring the kids?"
"Correct. There are enough rambunctious brats in my home as it is. The last thing I need is someone starting a fight and knocking down walls."
'Understandable,' Asteria thought to her brothers. 'Cain will welcome the chance to have the children to himself for a while.'
"As will Annabeth, my wife."
"And no harm will befall my world while they are here."
"Of course, friend," Leviathan said, rolling his eyes.
'Do you have so little faith in us?'
"I have faith that when we get bored, we tend to find ways to entertain ourselves, and given that we all have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, our idea of entertainment is quite macabre."
Asteria and Leviathan honestly could not argue that.
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The three of them appeared in the halls outside the barracks where Teams RWBY, JNR, Oscar, and Qrow were staying. Shin'en knocked on the door, and Ruby answered.
Her silver eyes beheld the three gods with trepidation. "Is it…over? The war? Salem?"
"Yes," Shin'en answered. "Salem has been destroyed, and the Grimm she brought with her are nearing extermination. Soon, Asteria and Leviathan's forces will go after the rest of the Grimm on the planet. If all goes well, it should take less than 24 hours for the Grimm to become extinct."
"Extinct…" Ruby breathed.
A world without Grimm…
A world still fraught with numerous problems and dangers besides.
"What about my mom?" Ruby asked.
Shin'en looked in her the eye. "Salem was capturing the Silver-Eyed Warriors to create a new species of Grimm. Summer's body was destroyed in a failed attempt. I'm sorry, Ruby. There's nothing I can do."
To her credit, Ruby only sighed with a sad nod. "I…figured it would be something like that. Thank you, though, anyway…for saving her back then, and for everything you've done since you got back. I guess this is goodbye?"
"Perhaps. That demands on if you accept my invitation."
Ruby blinked. "Huh?"
"Ruby Rose, I do hereby invite you, Yang, Blake, Weiss, Jaune, Nora, Ren, Oscar, Ozpin, and Qrow to my home for dinner. I will introduce you to my wife, you will be able to meet my many children, and you will get to learn a little bit more about me."
With that one, everyone's heads popped out from the doorframes.
Ruby was definitely excited. "Sure! Uh, do I need to dress formally, or something?"
"Definitely not your pajamas," Shin'en said. "Casual is fine. Dinner at my house is rarely a formal event in the first place."
"Oh, great! I don't really like fancy dresses, y'know?" Ruby looked at Asteria. "And we can hang out!"
'Yes, I suppose we can.'
Then Ruby looked at Leviathan. "You're big."
"And you are very small," the Lord of the Abyss returned easily.
Ruby nodded in agreement.
"Excellent," Shin'en said. "We will return in 30 minutes. I need to inform my house that we will be entertaining guests this evening."
A black hole in the fabric of space and time opened behind Shin'en, and he, Leviathan, and Asteria calmly passed through, the hole closing behind them.
After a few seconds of disbelieving silence, Yang finally broke it.
"Well, this is going to be interesting."
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And after almost a month of silence, I give you a chapter barely scraping into the range of 2800, with most of this chapter having already been covered in the previous chapter.
Better late than never, right?
Next chapter is for sure the last chapter, and will basically be the epilogue to Armageddon. The questions of who is Shin'en's wife, who are his many children, and just what has he been doing since the end of his original trilogy will all be answered next chapter.
Until then, my college graduation looms closer. May 11 of 2024 for the time travelers, and depending on what kind of job I can land in this shitty economy, my career as a fanfiction author may be ending due to not having any time left to write.
Time will tell.
In the meantime, please Fav, Follow, Review, and check out my book on the Kindle Store!