Chapter 10: Curse of Nightmares

Moon sighed to himself as the elevator door opened, placing him inside of Professor Ozpin's terrace office yet again. Both he and Glynda were in the office, and both expectedly had frowns imprinted on their faces. However, Weiss was also present, the ice queen crossed her arms as he sat down next to her.

"So," Ozpin began, folding his arms as he gave Moon a look that he couldn't quite determine the emotion of. "Mrs. Schnee and I have been having a little...conversation, about the events of last night." Weiss nodded her head in response.

Moon shrugged his shoulders, he figured that Ozpin wasn't going to let this go, even if Weiss explained everything to him. The only problem came from how he wanted to address the situation at hand.

"Are you really going to fault me for what I did?" he asked boredly, rolling his eyes. "Because, I could easily turn this back around for negligence of students, and very irresponsible mannerisms on your part. I mean, you'd expect a 17 year old girl to have even the slightest bit of common sense to not just put a passed out girl in a taxi and not go with her."

Professor Goodwitch's face became increasingly angered as he said that. If he didn't have issues at hand to address, he'd probably make a game out of seeing how far he could go before she forced this meeting over.

Ozpin frowned at him. "I will admit, all parties are at fault here," he said calmly. "And, given that Mrs. Schnee here was returned unharmed, and is vouching the story for you. You should be thankful that there is nothing here that we can turn over to authorities. Especially with the death of the bartender of the bar apparently being ruled a suicide."

He merely tilted his head to the side, giving Ozpin a rather confused look. The gray haired man stared into his one visible eye for a moment, almost as if expecting some type of response. Which he did not give.

"Regardless, however," Ozpin continued, giving Moon another frown. "Mrs. Schnee tells me that an old...acquaintance of yours is here?"

Moon merely raised his eyebrow, but he stayed silent, if only to see how far Ozpin would take this conversation. After watching Ozpin's frown grow a little, he indicated his head towards Weiss. Who had taken out her own nail filer, probably out of boredom.

"She has been made aware that you are in fact, not from Remnant." Ozpin continued. "What she chooses to do with what you say, that is up to her. You have no one to blame but yourself for that. So, answer the question. Who is this acquaintance of yours?"

"Two, actually," Moon replied. He took out the blue orb within his backpack and murmured nonsense to it. Instantly, the orb glowed and pulled up a screen. Showing a Picture of Pokey, along with a woman with green hair and eyes, and a Pastor looking outfit. Ignoring Weiss' look of interest at the orb, and Ozpin's completely neutral expression, he continued.

"Pokey Minch, and...Lady Rhea." He said to Ozpin. "Both are convicted criminals of the Multiverse. Pokey is from my home Cluster, Rhea is from Sapphire's."

"And, how exactly did two criminals of Multiversal crimes end up here? Didn't you say that the only connection to our world came from your council?" Ozpin asked.

"That's where I need to bring up their backstories." Moon grunted. "Starting with Rhea, she is an extraterrestrial being from Sapphire's Universe, her real name is Serios just so you know. Long ago, her species of Aliens, known as Nabateans, came to Sapphire's Earth and offered aid to humanity. Nabateans have special powers within their blood, allowing them to do all sorts of tricks. Fearing for their safety, humanity had to sit by a listen as these godly beings just...had their way...with the earth." That didn't get any type of reaction from anyone.

He cleared his throat to continue. "Anyway, Rhea's Mother was a Nabatean named Sothis, who was the leader of the Nabateans. A group of Anti-Alien haters, known as the Agarthans, used a bunch of magical weapons developed by the Nabateans to essentially Nuke the Earth. Seeing the loss of human life, Sothis sacrificed ninety percent of her power to restore the Earth, sending her into a coma. The Argathans then took advantage, and convinced a Thief known as Nemesis to steal Sothis' body, which they then destroyed and turned into weapons."

"She doesn't sound all that bad-" Ozpin began.

"Rhea, enraged by the thief, then waged war against all of humanity, during which, she, along four other Nabateans, Cichol, Cethleann, Macuil, and Indech, kidnapped 10 children of the local nobles who aligned with Nemesis. These Nobles did so, because they feared what the Nabateans truly were without Sothis, and figured it was better to go down fighting, then let them purge everyone. Rhea, along with the other Nabateans, with some help from another Multiversal Criminal, Pokey's master by the way, then procreated with those 10 children they manipulated, transfering the blood of theirs into humans, creating a magical system known as Crests. Rhea would use these Crests to oppress and cause genocide throughout Fodlan for nearly a millenium. At least until I, along with Sapphire and his schoolmates, overthrew her. I placed her under Diamondization, which I had to revert so Pokey wouldn't kill Sarah."

"And...what exactly is so...godly about Rhea?" Weiss asked, as Ozpin and Glynda continued to sit there, looking at him like two robots.

"Eh, she can regenerate cells with White Magic, she can summon meteors, burn forests to the ground, seal people away in an alternate void, transform into a giant dragon...and...she can manipulate Aura and make it explode."

That apparently got the Adults' attention. "She can do...what now?"

"She said another ally of hers taught her how to do it." Moon shrugged. "I don't know if it was Pokey's Master, Giygas. Because people from my world don't have an aura." noticing the adult's disapproving stares he quickly added. "Don't worry, she can only do it twice, and when she does, she's rendered immobile for at least a day. Plus, it's way too risky here."

"Something like that would almost certainly start a Grimm invasion powerful enough to overwhelm our borders." Ozpin said to him, still very calm. "And that's just Rhea...what about Pokey...and...Giygas?"

"Giygas, is my, Sarah, and Erick's father...by technicality." Moon replied, narrowing his eyes. "Long ago, he kidnapped the three of us, and our now deceased friend, Dyson, along with the help of Seiros, Cethleann, Cichol, Macuil, Indech, his underling Pokey, and an unknown woman who calls herself my mother, they used their combined magic to transfer parts of Giygas' soul into us. These souls created the dark sides that I know Weiss has told you about."

"I didn't really have a choice!" Weiss pouted. "I had to give them some reason why you just up and kidnapped me when you normally wouldn't do that."

"Pokey, on the other hand." he continued, ignoring the Ice Queen. "The Pokey Weiss saw is from a different universe. My world had a Pokey too, but I killed him. This Pokey comes from my friend Ness' world, he's the Pokey who helped create us. Much like the Pokey from my world, he's a sadistic little shitshow, obsessed with power and evil. Like Giygas and Rhea, he's hopped between world's illegally, run Mutliversal Kidnapping sprees, manipulated a Council Member, and has single handedly brainwashed an entire island into a fascist dictatorship so he could reset a different universe for shits and giggles. His goal is to revert me, Sarah, and Erick to our dark sides, permanently. Despite how stupid he sounds, he's scarily clever."

Weiss looked genuinely confused, while Ozpin and Glynda exchanged unreadable looks. He couldn't tell if it was nervousness, surprise, or just straight up confusion.

"And, what says about Seiros' four Nabatean friends?" Ozpin asked, after a moment.

"Macuil and Idech fled from Giygas when he was presumed dead, I guess they had enough or regretted their actions. Cichol and Cethleann, better known as Seteth and Flayn, they're dead. Sapphire and I killed them."

Ozpin nodded his head, as Glynda looked at him with questioning glare.

"Now, you say that all of Rhea's powers are too risky to use out in the open." Ozpin said, giving him a questioning look. "What exactly is stopping her, and your clever friend Pokey, from not causing more harm to our world?"

"If you're asking about the White Fang, don't be worried. No amount of technology Pokey can develop and Rhea's beastly powers could ever make those terrorists a threat. Plus, neither of them won't exactly hide that they want all of them dead."

After a moment of silence, Moon tightened his glare. "That...is what you're asking about, right?" he asked. "There isn't anyone else who might gladly seize an opportunity to use Pokey, is there? You did tell me it was just the White Fang. And I know Pokey would never work with, excuse my language, fucking filth. Not unless he, a rotting zombie human, can brainwash them."

Weiss looked between the two of them, almost as if she was wondering how she was listening to this debate, at least, that's the impression he got from her icy blue eyes.

Glynda gave Ozpin a silent, but firm, disapproving look.

"How much damage can these two logically do?" Ozpin asked. "Under the way you are speaking. You make it sound like these...people can't do anything as long as you're around."

"They'll probably try and cause destruction, maybe they'll kill a few people here and there." he tilted his head to the side. "Their main focus will most likely be figuring out how they can separate Me, Sarah, and Erick to try and make the process of us turning into our dark sides easier than it already is."

Ozpin's completely neutral expression was really starting to piss him off. Did the man even care what he was being told? Or was he trying to play it off calmly because of Salem? Or did he simply think that he had brainwashed Weiss and was completely insane?

"How uh...How exactly would he go about...doing that?" Weiss asked, completely breaking the silence he had glaring at Ozpin.

"Trauma and Anger," he replied, seeing as Ozpin wasn't exactly going to ask. "Any type they can think of. Given our current status. It's not exactly the hardest thing for them to do. Pokey has already traumatized Sarah enough on his own. But he's also completely wiped all of humanity off of my own world, which is why I, along with Sarah and Erick took refuge in Ness' world. Rhea can tap into my inner hatred of…" his thoughts trailed off as the image of Nightmare flashed through his head.

"Your inner hatred of…?" Ozpin asked.

"...My existence." he ignored the complete shock from Weiss, and continued his increasing seeping anger on Ozpin and Glynda's completely neutral expression.

"These two are just ridiculous. You've told them literally everything. And they don't even look at you like you're crazy. They just sit there like stoney little puppets. They're hiding it from you…"

He wanted to scream, just let all of his coursing anger out on these two in front of him. They didn't seem to care. Sure, he and his team may be complete strangers to this world, but, as far as he was concerned Ozpin had legitimately no reason to not trust him other than the events of last night. Which, quite frankly, was even more concerning considering he literally had an alibi right there.

"Do you even remotely give a damn about anything I'm telling you?!" He hissed at Ozpin. "All you've done is sit there blank faced like a brick wall! My wife was kidnapped and raped by a psychopathic freak because one of YOUR dumbass students can't even think about how to treat friends or acquaintances with basic common courtesy! Now, we've got not one, but two fucking monsters just prancing around your own world! Yet, you still sit here, looking at me like this doesn't even affect you! I should be charging you with fucking Mutliversal Negligence since you know about it now you Crazy old fu-"

His rant was interrupted as he felt a hand on his leg. His eyesight went sideways, seeing Weiss' smaller hand on his leg, her face reminding him of Sarah's long dead previously innocent expression of worriness.

"Let's stop!" she said to him, in a much more firm tone than Sarah's usually soft nervous tone. "I don't think you want your darkside here...it might only make you look worse."

He quickly shook his head as a warm feeling entered him. However, that warm feeling was quickly washed away as his anger exploded. Who did Snow White think she was? This situation didn't even concern her. Yet, here she was, parading around him and his darkside like SHE was Sarah.

"Awww, is someone developing a wittle crush?" His dark side hissed at him.

"GET OUT!" Moon snarled. He stood up and left the room.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow as Weiss quickly looked back as the boy stepped into the elevator, quickly, he watched his student follow after the boy, once both of them had left, albeit, Moon looking much more annoyed than he was with him. He simply leaned back in his chair.

"Ozpin, with all due respect," Glynda said calmly. "I think these are the kids."

He tapped his foot against the floor as his assistant waited for a response, before simply raising his coffee mug to his lips, taking a sip, and setting it back down on the placemat.

"Don't you think we should do something about this?" Glynda asked him. "I mean, what if Ironwood finds out? What if She finds out?"

"Everything is under control, Glynda." he replied calmly. "So long as we can keep them separated. I'm certain we can write this problem off. Moon's objective here has changed to stopping what he thinks are the last two people who destroyed him. If we can figure out, and compromise their locations, we could possibly have both of them, and the children out of here, and that'll give those kids a reason to go home."

"Sir...aren't Pokey and Rhea…"

"They are," Ozpin replied. "However, she has not had contact with either. Both have their priorities set on those children. As long as she doesn't discover that the children are here as well. We will have nothing to worry about."

"He's already gone rogue once AND kidnapped a student."

"Which he did out of fear and love." Ozpin replied. "His dark side didn't even harm Weiss like it was supposed to."

Glynda looked at him suspiciously. "Are...are you afraid of what that boy says about a Multiversal Government?" she asked him. "How competent could it really be if she managed to slip through their cracks for god only knows how long?"

A sudden ringing on their scrolls altered both adults. Ozpin merely sighed as the ID for Ironwood pulled out again. "We have no reason to be afraid of them," he said calmly.

Weiss shifted uncomfortably as her teammates, along with team JNPR all looked at her with waiting expressions. Each of them were varying in eagerness to hear what Ozpin's verdict was after Glynda had come and dragged her out of their dorm room.

"So...what was their decision?" Ruby asked, her team's leader, though normally full of energy, talked much slower than normal.

She thought for a moment about how she wanted to approach this situation, the reception to her return was mixed. Though she suspected Ruby had been convinced about Moon's behavior and treatment of her. The others were a bit more...divided. Ren and Nora both shared her sentiments of him, Erick, and Sapphire overstepping out of fear. Albeit, without the knowledge of what lurked in their brains. Jaune and Pyrrha had taken a more neutral route. While Yang and Blake both wanted Team MESS out of Beacon.

"Ozpin didn't exactly give me a conclusive answer." she said calmly. "Although, I do suspect he's going to let them stay." As she expected, this answer was enough to set her own two teammates off.

"Why exactly?" Blake asked, her yellow eyes narrowing slightly. "I mean..look at the way Moon has even remotely acted with us in the area. He hardly treats his own teammates with respect. If he can erase memories, it wouldn't exactly be the furthest thing from unbelievable to say he brainwashes them into staying."

"He does care about them…" she replied, trying to hide her own evident anger. "Despite him losing it and kidnapping me, he never harmed me. Even then, he only took me because he needed someone who was knowledgeable around the city." The doubting looks from Yang and Blake, as well as Jaune and Pyrrha made her turn to Ren.

"You can back this up, right?" she asked the quiet member of Team JNPR. "Surely you could tell that he does care."

All eyes were on Ren, the black haired boy sighed as she gave him a questioning look.

"It's hard to say really," he replied to Weiss. "When I read his emotions that night, it almost felt like...there were two people there. A dark and cold feeling of anger with us, overriding a genuine feeling of distress. I suppose that alone could tell me that he does, somewhere deep down, care for Sarah as a person. However, I cannot be the judge of whether that is true."

"What about Sapphire and Erick then?" Nora questioned. "What were they feeling at that moment? If you even tried to look at them...that is."

"Erick was in a similar vein to Moon. Two thoughts, a cold and dark feeling of rage, though much smaller, that was being overridden by concern, most likely for either Sarah, how Moon was reacting, or a mixture of both. Sapphire didn't have that weird secondary thought, if anything, he was just concerned, no weird type of secondary cold rage."

All eyes turned back to her as she bit down on her lip. The secondary person feeling had to be those evil sides Moon had mentioned to Ozpin.

Even still, what was she supposed to tell them? Even if Ozpin could back her up on this explanation. How were they going to react? How would Team Mess react if all eight of them just kicked down their dorm door asking questions about this...ludicrous idea?

"I still do think Moon's interaction with us was unjustifiable."

Weiss glared at her. "Unjustifiable?" she asked, feeling that small rage build up her body. "Yang, his teammate went MISSING as a result of YOUR direct actions with the taxi driver! Sarah was Drugged, Abused, Violated, she might have even been raped because of not just you, but all of us! May I remind you that, Moon didn't even know we had done something so stupid until that very moment! And you want to call his yelling unjustifiable?!"

"He kidnapped you!" Yang snapped at her. "Don't you remember that Erick said he could erase memories! Who knows what the hell he did to you!"

"He didn't do anything to me!" Weiss yelled back. "All he did was take me away from the rest of you, and then force me to give him locations of places! We should be lucky Sarah didn't turn up dead because of this situation! God only knows what he would've done then!"

"We're concerned about you! We don't care about what happened to the-"

"STOP BEING CONCERNED ABOUT ME YOU DUNCE!" Weiss screamed at Yang. "Can't you see how they must feel?! Their teammate! Their Friend! Moon's wife! She was drugged! And all of us decided that it would be a great idea for you to send her back. Instead of you walking her back. You gave a drugged girl, who mind you should be calling us friends! To a random taxi driver and didn't even get in the cab with her to make sure she made it back to Beacon!"

"Weiss, please…" Jaune started.

"No!" she snapped at him. "What if the roles were reversed, and it was Ruby in this situation?!" She directed her glare at Yang. "What if it had been you?! Blake? Nora? Pyrrha? Penny?! ME?!"

"Judging Moon's behavior, it isn't exactly farfetch'd to believe that, if the rolls were indeed reversed, he wouldn't care." Blake shrugged. "He's hardly the sociable type."

"I'm certain he'd AT LEAST feel GUILTY!" Weiss snapped at her teammates. "Don't any of you remotely care that we very well could've traumatized Sarah for the rest of her life?!"

The room was quiet as everyone looked at her. Her icy blue eyes narrowed as she scanned between each of them. Nora, Pyrrha, and Ruby each shifted uncomfortably, before her red leader eventually broke the silence.

"Look...Weiss, Yang isn't saying she didn't do anything wrong." Ruby said. "We don't know what fully happened to Sarah...and...given the drugged state you mentioned, it's unlikely we ever will. With that being said, it's hard for...some of us...to have an opinion, when we very well know what Moon's opinion of us is."

She was about to open her mouth to protest, before Pyrrha spoke up.

"Alright, Weiss." she said calmly. "Could you at least try to talk to Team MESS yourself then? If all of us listen in, then...maybe we can better understand the situation at hand."

Weiss slumped back in her chair, groaning at the thought.

She knocked on the door to Team MESS's dorm, quickly looking back to her teammates, who were all around the corner waiting for her to go inside. She turned back to the closed door, hearing the funneled shouts between Moon and Erick.

"I don't give two shits who it is! I don't want to speak to any of these imbeciles!"

"It might do us good to at least try and explain...your behavior didn't present you in the best light to Ozpin, Glynda, Team RWBY or Team JNPR. Especially now that Weiss has seen-"

"What the fuck did you want me to do?! Look at what happened to Sarah! If I hadn't done anything. Who knows what else Pokey would've done!"

The shouts became muffled as Sapphire's voice presumably joined the arguing. Seemingly in favor of Erick.

Eventually the muffled voices settled down, and she began to hear footsteps and muffled small farts. Eventually the door opened, giving her a face to face view with Erick and Sapphire.

"WEEE!" Astro jumped into her knee, feeling his squishy body bounce off of her as she glanced down at it. "Pretty girl here!"

Erick gave Weiss a more questioning look. "Why uh...why are you here?"

Weiss shifted on her heels, trying to consider how to best approach the situation without being a dead giveaway that her team was with her to listen. Yes, she knew neither of these boys could read minds. However, that didn't mean that having Moon as a leader didn't make either of them less aware of their surroundings.

"Um...there were some things...that...He told me." she said calmly, trying to emphasis on the he to refer to Dark Moon. "And...I didn't quite understand them."

Both boys looked at one another, before Erick motioned for her to come inside.

Their dorm room was basically the same as her own team's, the only difference being that there weren't any bunk beds that her team had worked around.

She felt Astro constantly bump into her foot as she sat down at their kitchen table. Picking the Mr. Saturn up to place on the center as Sapphire and Erick sat across from her. Before she could open her mouth, Erick held up a hand to silence her, before furiously scribbling some writing down on a piece of paper, sliding it over to her.

We know that the others are most likely listening in on this...somehow. It's part of the reason why Moon didn't want you in here, power sensing, remember? Unless you've told them about Dark Moon, Sarah, and Erick. You are going to have to be careful about how you word yourself. We aren't going to answer questions about them. Do they know?

She simply shook her head. To which both boys gave a satisfied sigh of relief.

"Alright...what did you want to talk about?" Sapphire asked calmly.

"Well," Weiss paused for a moment. "My team...and...Team JNPR. They seem to have this...almost ridiculous idea...that Moon doesn't...care about any of you."

Erick shrugged his shoulders. "I could see why they drew that analysis. As I'm certain you are aware. The way he...works…makes it hard for him to make new friends."

"As I'm certain you are aware, I am not one of Moon's...original friends." Sapphire continued. Giving her a much more rigid and serious look than Erick's. "Moon and I spent five years together when he was away from Sarah and Erick. I was able to fight through his...rigid walls. Though, as I've come to suspect, this is likely because he was feeling vulnerable."

"Vulnerable?" Weiss asked.

"Moon and Sarah's PSI powers are directly tied to their emotions, the earth, and their relationship. They are affected heavily when separated. Mainly because of...you know." Weiss nodded her head in understanding.

"I am affected as well." Erick added to the statement. Although, with no psychic powers myself, it is not nearly as bad. Moon still directly cares for all of us, despite how little he shows it. I would've thought that his actions that night would've spoken for themselves."

"Well...they also seem to think that he...erased my memories, and that...what I saw wasn't what happened. I don't think I was…"

"And you weren't." Erick replied, folding his arms. "Moon can only erase memories, he can't replace them. Even then, I know we've mentioned that he can erase memories. But, as far as I can tell, he won't erase most...no matter how traumatizing and tragic they may be. The two times he's done it, it was done to preserve his identity. Unfortunately, with HIM already making you aware of his existence, and because of Sarah...there was nothing he could really do to your memory...not unless he wanted Pokey to get away."

So her memory wasn't erased because Dark Moon was already implanted in her mind from last night. So, by the time Moon had turned back to normal, enough damage had been done, and he was more concerned about Sarah. That made enough sense, she guessed.

She heard sniffles coming from over, and, apparently, she never noticed that there was a wall between the last bed. "Uh…"

"Moon is uh...having problems." Erick replied, noticing her staring. "He doesn't want anyone to disturb him...and Sarah. So he put up the Geokinesis to block them off."

"But...shouldn't he…"

"It's hard to explain...without going into detail." Erick replied. "But...as I'm certain you know...Pokey has done this to Sarah before. Albeit...never something so...disgusting."

"So...she was…"

Sapphire nodded his head silently. "It...it may be hard for you to...understand," he said calmly. "However, as much as you may think this'll traumatize Sarah...it is going to hurt Moon a lot more than it may ever hurt her."

She blinked in disbelief. Sure, maybe because Sarah was knocked out by the drug dust, maybe everything could recover properly if cards were played correctly, everything could be fine. Certainly wasn't the worst possible outcome in the world.

"Um...how exactly?" she asked.

"Well…" Erick rubbed the back of his head. "Moon blames himself for...just about everything that's ever happened to me and Sarah. His entire view of the world was destroyed long ago, and, as much as he wanted to keep Sarah at bay when he was first going to meet her. Her...adamancy...brought them together."

She frowned a little at the thought of this. Moon thought he was responsible for...this event? And more events prior? Seemed like a hard leap. Unless that of course meant that he didn't trust any of them at all, even before this event happened.

"I'm certain that you and your friends are all good people deep down." Sapphire told her, sensing her discomfort. "Unfortunately, no matter how hard anyone has ever tried. From Sarah, To Erick, To Dyson, Myself, and my...friends. He won't ever accept that anything that has ever gone wrong for his friends wasn't his fault. No matter how ludicrous the idea may sound."

"So...is there...any hope at all?" she asked. "For him to open up at all?"

Erick shrugged, before lowering his voice to a level she knew wouldn't reach her friends' ears outside the door.

"For your friends, especially Yang...it's unlikely," he whispered to her. "He might help them through some problems, give some advice, or try to...assist them. However, he's not going to forget last night. For Jaune and Ren, who had no participation, he may open up. For the rest of you though...that's a different story that I can't say."

"Well...I thought he was doing pretty good with me…" she replied to Erick, giving him a little smile. "Maybe we can...work something out."

Sapphire shrugged his shoulders. "It really depends," he said calmly.

"Also...Weiss." She looked at the genius again. "Moon can get...hurt…in certain ways. Try to be, how do I say, friendly on his terms? It is very easy for him to be taunted or triggered by almost burst advances that usually only Sarah may make because of their relationship. Given that...prior to meeting her...he was a complete mess thanks to...the issues."

Well...that certainly explained the weird outburst he had with her when she tried to get him to calm down in Ozpin's office. She supposed that this...Dark Moon thing must really complicate the way he felt. Even though his friends seemed normal it felt like he was having a...rougher time adjusting to anything slightly unfamiliar.

"I know it sounds...complicated." Erick continued. "And, we're well aware that if you want to tell your team about this, which we're going to assume you will, that we could cause our own problems. As I'm certain you can tell, we aren't exactly here at Beacon to be taught. However, that choice of what you wish to share is up to you."

That was right, the weird stupid little...Smash government thingy? She thought this idea was ridiculous, even Professor Ozpin and Glynda didn't sound like they believed a lick of what they were saying to her before Moon arrived. However, if they told her, Moon likely had evidence that he showed them privately to back that claim up.

"So...Moon and Sarah's...PSI powers...they're stronger because their emotions are enhanced by their loving dovey relationship. Yet...you don't have psychic powers, despite coming from the same place as them. Do...do either of you have lives outside of helping Moon?

"Not...in particular." Erick replied, rubbing the back of his head. "I had a girlfriend back home, but we agreed to put that behind us. Complicated matters arising from other issues."

Ah...that certainly explained quite a lot. Though if Moon and Sarah had each for those Dark Side things, at least they could help understand everything with one another. Though, having Erick try to manage his own girlfriend would logically be harder.

"I...I think I understand." she said. "And...just for the record...despite all your glaring flaws, and...the very accurate team name. I don't think you guys are all bad."

"We understand that." Sapphire replied, giving her a formal bow. "Although, I hope that you are aware that, with a former adversary of ours now here. We're likely going to be putting a lot of you in danger. We don't think Pokey will have a reason to go after you all, or anyone here. He mainly is after Moon, Sarah, and Erick."

A silence swept between the three of them, only broken by Astro repeatedly jumping up and down on the table, with his feet squishing to make the fart noises of normal.

"Well...thank you for your time…" She said to Erick and Sapphire. "I...I guess we can hope for the best. Though, I don't think Professor Ozpin is going to throw you out of Beacon."

Both boys watched as the Ice Queen stood up and walked back out of their dorm room. When they had left both of them looked over at the wall surrounding Moon and Sarah.

"How do you think she's doing?"

"Not very good."

"M-Moon...Pl-please…" Sarah whispered, trying to fight back her own tears. "E-Every-Every-Everything is f-f-fine. I...I'm here…" He hadn't spoken to anyone when he got back from Ozpin's office. Quite frankly, she was impressed he even managed to go through an entire meeting with only one outburst. When this situation happened with Nightmare...well.

She looked down at her husband. As she expected, Moon had been doing awful, she hadn't seen him cry this much since Nightmare trashed their wedding.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Moon wept furiously as she held him close to her chest. His tears and pleas rung in her ears like a sorrowful melody. She knew it didn't matter how many times she tried to assure him that he wasn't at fault.

She knew how this situation looked to any normal person. The thought of her as the victim of the incident having to be the comfort to their love interest, it was absurd! She was the one who was drugged and violated! Yet, here she was, comforting someone who was more emotionally scarred by this situation than she had been.

She didn't like to remember Nightmare, and the things he had done to her. She had only met Nightmare twice, and twice was enough. Especially after he trashed their wedding with his… she shuddered as the vivid memory of Nightmare Moon's dead silver eyes and cold touch.

The first time she met Nightmare...well it certainly wasn't as traumatizing. She recalled being tortured by the Starmen Deluxe while he watched powerlessly. The idea Giygas' army had was to try and force out Dark Moon by making Moon watch them hurt and abuse her. The only reason that idea backfired, was because Moon skipped straight to Nightmare. At least the Starmen didn't go as far as Nightmare did.

Even in that specific situation then, unleashing Nightmare was a mistake. As, after the entire Starmen army species had been massacred, Nightmare had instantly turned to attack Erick and Dyson until she had knocked him out cold with Freya. Moon's psychic connection to her had tried to get her to do it quicker. But she had been too weak from the abuse of Starmen.

"I'M SORRY!" Moon wailed, his arms tightened their hold on her. At some points, it was better for her to just rub the back of his head as he wept into her. Her dress was already getting tear puddles, so it wasn't like he was stopping any time soon.

Trying to push the memories of Nightmare, and the days that followed where...well...she shuddered at those.

Even though she knew that Pokey did likely rape her while she was unconsicous. At least she was out of it. If she had to endure the memory of watching Pokey molesting and abusing her, both her and Moon would've probably just pulled the plug

Either way, she was indeed a victim in the situation, and she knew it. However, her comfort and support came from seeing someone else so torn up about this situation. In a sense, you could argue that Moon's complete breakdown was what drove her to think less of the situation.

"Don't you feel at all worse?" Dark Sarah hissed at her. "Your fucking husband has pushed you to forget about your own feelings!"

She was upset, of course she was, Moon knew she was upset. Although, him attempting to provide comfort to her usually went like this anyway.

Her hand brushed through his hair, at least he was willing to hold her in a hug this time.

"I'm sorry Sarah...I'm sorry! I...I should...I should've just…"

"Shshsh." Sarah hushed him quiet as silent tears developed in her eyes, trying her best to maintain her calmness. "It's okay...it's not your faul-"

"IT IS!" Moon screamed at her. "If I had just cut Rhea's Diamondized body to pieces, Pokey wouldn't have had anything to gain! He wouldn't have had to kidnap you and r-r-" He struggled to say that.

"He probably would've tried at some point." She whispered to him. She felt him try to pull away from her, She bit down and concentrated on Offense Up α. She felt herself feel a bit heavier as she tightened her hold, forcing him back down. Knowing her boyfriend, if she let go of him, he'd likely take that as her not wanting to be touched while this was going on. And, given that he never truly recovered from what Nightmare did, she didn't want to take chances.

Moon squirmed in her arms as he wept to her, but, eventually, through some repeated failures, he eventually fell back down.

"Everything will be fine."

"IT WON'T! I keep finding ways to fucking tear you to pieces!"

"Moon...please...I'm fine I-"

"DAMMIT SARAH NO YOU AREN'T!" She gasped as he broke out of her bear hug. Tears flowed down his own cheeks violently as he had a cold look on his face.

"YOU'VE NEVER BEEN FINE!" he screamed at her. "Ever since I met you, all I've done is destroy you and your happiness!"

"Th-That's N-Not True." She was trying to stay calm, but her voice was slowly cracking.

"YES IT IS! I got your family killed! I've gotten you kidnapped and abused THREE TIMES! I got your dark side awakened! I got your hometown destroyed! I got humanity itself wiped from our dimension! Sarah you've been raped twice, once by ME! All because I was fucking created!"

"Moon please you know that's not tru-"

"YES IT IS!" Moon screamed at her so loud, she could hear his voice already getting hoarse, thank god for Sapphire's known Silence spell being placed around the room. "I was going to kill myself before that all happened! I should have gone through with it! Then this would've never-"

Sarah felt her eye twitch a little, not in upsetness or shock, but rather in rage. She felt her blood boil at the thought of listening to this speech for the fifth fucking time. Everytime something atrociously bad happened, it was this.

"NO!" She hissed at him. She didn't care when Moon flinched at her voice.

"Damn…where's my popcorn?" Sarah ignored her darkside's mockery. She didn't care at this point if anyone else saw or heard this.

"But Sarah I-"

Not even thinking on her own will, she lashed out at him, tackling him with enough force to break his concentration, lowering the wall around and throwing both of them onto the floor where Erick and Sapphire watched in shock.

"I'VE BEEN WITH YOU FOR FIVE FUCKING YEARS!" She screamed at him trying to use what little strength she had to not strangle him in front of them. "TEN IF YOU COUNT THE BULLSHIT LAWS OF TIME TRAVEL WHEN YOU WERE SCARED AND ALONE IN SAPPHIRE'S WORLD! DON'T YOU THINK I WOULD'VE LEFT YOU BY NOW IF I HATED YOU?!"

"S-Sar-Sarah...I-"

"I DON'T CARE!" She screamed over him. "YOU DIDN'T KNOW ANY BETTER! I WAS KNOCKED OUT! I DIDN'T SEE OR FEEL ANYTHING!"

She glared down at him, not realizing that tears fell down her own cheeks. She did, however, notice Moon's expression, for once, he actually looked afraid...she had to pause for a moment. She had never yelled directly at him, matter of fact, she had never been mad at him before. Upset in a sad way, sure, seeing him breakdown under stress was common, but she had never yelled at him angrily.

She looked up and noticed Erick, Sapphire, and Astro, who were all just as nervous as Moon was looking at her.

Moon's weak sniffling made her glance back down at him, his face was even turned away, trying his best not to look at her. She couldn't keep yelling...not at this rate.

"Moon...please...look at me." she said, her voice calmed down.

Moon didn't say anything, and he didn't move his head to face her, even though she had him pinned against the ground. She noted that his face was beat red.

"Moon...please look at me...I promise...I won't yell." She started to whimper a little, she hadn't scared him straight...had she? Moon shook his head, his eyes were still clenched shut.

She looked up at Erick and Sapphire nervously. While the blue-haired boy still looked at her nervously, Erick's finger pointed downward, then at her, in a motion for her to look back down towards herself. She glanced her eyes back down, and finally realized that, at the way she was holding him, Moon's vision, in the event he had opened his eyes, he would directly see through her dress.

She sighed in relief, knowing that she hadn't scared him by yelling. After Nightmare had...violated her for all terms. Moon had become a mess around looking at her anywhere other than her head unless she had her dress or nightgown on. She remembered his vivid, and frightening mental shut down the first time he had seen her in a two piece bathing suit when she wanted to go swimming. She shuddered at the memory of her fighting a knife out of his hand when he attempted to cut himself for remembering. Apparently that image of her had triggered Nightmare memories.

Moon didn't exactly hate when she changed something about her looks. He didn't really get a choice when her body started developing slightly as both of them grew older. Granted, she didn't develop nearly as much as girls here seemed to. Wait...where the hell was this thought even going in the first place?

She got up off of him, after a moment where Moon twitched a little he eventually stood back up. His eyes were bloodshot from all the crying and he looked ready to collapse onto her. At least he wasn't crying, but he still looked uncomfortable.

"Everything will be fine." she whispered, giving him a soft smile. "I promise."

Moon reluctantly shook his head. Even though he wasn't crying anymore. She could tell he wanted to, very badly. She also saw his fidgeting hand as he twitched uncomfortably. Shuffling his hand around as he looked at her, his bloodshot visible blue eye looked terrified, and she imagined his slashed silver eye would as well. She took a step towards him, only to watch as he backed up nervously.

"Moon…" she made her tone sweet and soft, despite that blazing fire to erupt at him again. "Come here…" She was amazed that both Erick and Sapphire had sat watching the whole time, not saying a single word. But, at least they were here.

The flash memory of her watching Moon weep on the floor in front of her went through her head. She looked down, his old blue hoodie sleeves had been rolled up, and he had a sharp knife in his hands. She felt her whole body paralyzed as he held her in that spot. She watched him take the blade and start making cuts on more parts of his arms, which were already scared badly from other self-inflicted harm before the two had met.

"STOP! MOON PLEASE!" she remembered shouting.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry…" Moon wept. "I DESERVE THIS SARAH! I...I…"

Not wanting to remember watching him cut himself anymore, she quickly shook her head, looking into Moon's one exposed eye. He shifted uncomfortably, and his face was bright pink as he struggled to hold back tears.

"I said come here." She repeated herself, making herself sound more demanding, but still maintaining a calm tone. "Moon...I want you to hug me."

He looked at her nervously, she noticed his hands were starting to go pale. She wanted to just break down and cry in front of him, just forget that Erick and Sapphire were there and cry like she had never cried before. All of the work she and him had made to repair themselves from Nightmare...just gone! Erased from existence like it never happened!

"Heh...you put in all those tears. All those broken nights. Just gone, like a thief in the night!"

Biting through the pain of Dark Sarah, she stepped up to him, grabbed his wrist and pulled him into her. Just wrapping her arms tightly around him. Even if he wasn't ready to return the hug to her, she wasn't going to go through the painful nights where she couldn't again.

Moon squirmed for a little, so she looked over to Erick and Sapphire, motioning for them to help her. Both boys nodded their heads and made a group hug around their leader with her. Despite them all feeling the squirming, Sarah decided to hum the same song she used to calm him down.

"Take a melody,

Simple as can be,

Give it some words, and

Sweet Harmony,

Raise your voices

All day long now,

And sing a melody of love

Oh love!"

"Hmm." A woman with ghast white skin and hair tied up to look like a large six-legged spider sat, hidden from the sight of those foolish humans.

She smiled down a little, watching the pleasing hug given to Moon by his friends.

"My sweet little boy." she hummed. "How could you let yourself become such a delicate mess?"

She rubbed her chin a little as she watched the four of them. She took an initial frown to the blue-haired boy of the group. Her beady black eyes narrowed at his friendly looking smile.

"I suppose there is nothing I can do about you…" she whispered. "Though, I guess I can be happy that my little children can spread their influence to someone…maybe if I could isolate him and take advantage of the natural Sapphire good heart...perhaps..."

She tapped her long fingers with bloody red fingernails against the table. "My how much you all grew...and here I was thinking I'd never see you again after Lord Giygas fell." she smiled at the memory of watching Moon, Sarah, and Erick as little babies.

"I suppose I maybe could warn Cinder about you." she smiled as she watched the four separate. Moon looked a little better. However, it didn't take a genius to tell that he was still feeling uncomfortable, especially around Sarah. "However...as long as she has that hallucination Emerald girl...I guess you four can be put down quite quickly."

She looked down at a lake of darkness. It looked like a big old black hole that one could just slip into. Several Beowolf grimm and a few large birds emerged from the pool and began trudging the way out of her obscured location, no doubt looking for more humans to bring misery to.

Salem chuckled as she looked back at the image of those four kids. "It's only a matter of time."

You know, looking back on things, there is a lot I'm glad I left out in the open for this series. I was never really in a position where I thought I could handle covering the themes I cover in this story today, despite the thoughts being on my mind for a while. With RWBY Being a now long running series with lots to pull from, there are lots of different directions I can take characters and their relationships with my own team.

Granted, I do have an idea of what I want to do between Team MESS and Team RWBY. Though, we do have one more chapter to stomach through before I get to that. I know its been a lot of text and dialogue, but after the next chapter, we can finally have some action. I just need to acknowledge a specific character who needs to be revealed at this time, a certain...general of sorts. Then, with that out of the way, I can kick overturn down the road with more to do.

Anyway, I do hope that I handle the matters I cover seriously. I know that I could be downplaying a lot for a particularly sensitive issue. But I'm portraying Moon and Sarah to their accurate representations. It's been a long time since Moon has ever really been emotionally vulnerable and weak. Back to basics with him. Because the relationship they have needs repairing.

Oh yeah, you got your first glimpse of Salem in this chapter as well. Typically, I've gone about establishing the villains in my rewrites as sadistic and insane. You can see that bleed through with Pokey, Giygas, and Rhea. However, because Salem ahs done basically nothing except sit on her Butt until volume 8. I wanted to take a more...interesting...approach with her. You've gotten a glimpse at the way she speaks about her... "Creations." probably not what you were expecting if you're familiar with how I've portrayed Giygas' inner circle. What's too come from this? Only time will tell!

As always, any thoughts you may have are greatly appreciated, especially now that I'm handling more serious subjects. Though, a simple Nice Chapter doesn't hurt either.

Okay, that's all the time I have for today, I've got to get back to Playing EarthBound on my Nintendo Switch Online Service.

See you all, next time ;)