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Return of Faith

Epilogue

He screamed without screaming.

He hurt without hurting.

He felt without feeling.

He did not know where he was, who he was, what he was. There was only the agony, the fear. The only thing he knew was that it should not be like this. It was wrong. It was painful. It was eternal and yet, it had only begun. What had he done to suffer like this? What was it that tore and burned and cut and stabbed him? Was it the Laughter? When had there been laughter? He could not remember. It was wrong.

But there was laughter now, so it had always been there. A joyfully cruel sound that was not a sound. It crawled over his skin, but he had no skin. It chilled his bones, but he had no bones. It stung his ears, but he had no ears. It touched his soul… his soul… yes. Yes, he had a soul. But what soul was it?

The Laughter cackled, wracking talons that were not talons across his tormented being.

"Such a curious little bauble…" The Laughter spoke, for the first time, despite having spoken before. "I can taste your power, little bauble. Your memories, your secrets…" The Laughter hissed and the sensation of something wet and long ran across him. It made him wail without wailing. "Now gone! Shredded away! Centuries upon centuries of sensation! Of experience! Lost to you~. And yet you continue to cling on when most would let go. It is… Delicious~."

Flashes then. Flashes of a place. A tower overlooking a vast city. There was significance to this. There had to be. Why else would it be there? There was something else. Many somethings. More places, then faces… people! People he knew? There were so many. So, so many. Why did so many of them bring sadness? Why did he long to be with them?

"Oh~ What is this," the Laughter cooed. Dread filled him. It had noticed the flashes. But how? Before he could try to even fathom it, something grabbed him and began to slide itself inside, searching. Like a serpent delving into a rodent's burrow, it slithered deep into his thoughts, his memories, his mind. He wanted so desperately to scream as the Laughter's curiosity filled him.

More memories came, older ones. Many cracked and broken. Fragmented and without context. Holding a child in his arms. Watching the sunset with the love of his fifth life. His comrades leaving him for dead in a ditch. An adoring crowd chanting his name. It threw these aside without care, discarding them to oblivion with the casual disregard of a bored child, until it found whatever it had been searching for.

"Oh~ OOOOOH~" The Laughter cried out in pure ecstasy, and he felt himself being spun around, as if a part of a dance. How did he know he was spinning, in this place that was not a place? And how did he know what it felt like?

The Laughter cut short his confused thoughts. "You are one of their pawns!" It cried out, as if understanding some grand joke. "I thought you smelled familiar! You are a slave to those who were old when the universe was young, made to carry out their will upon your backwater world. They have bound you with their power, but that power has outlived them! The last of the last! Oh, what delicious irony!" The Laughter burst into hysterical fits, and he heard more laughter, different laughter, all around him. It was not alone.

Then, focus. He could see something now. A face. A huge face set atop a body of impossible design. Sweeping horns capped in gold crowned its head, and its hair was a luscious blonde that stood sharp against its purple flesh. Black doll's eyes regarded him from a face that was both breathtakingly beautiful and utterly terrifying. Perfect ivory teeth shone in its maliciously bright smile, from which a forked tongue slid out to taste the air itself.

It was the Laughter. He knew not how he knew, but he knew. This was the Laughter's face.

Its smile widened, as if it realized his conclusion and was pleased by it. "I see why they picked you. Such a clever little thing. Well, perhaps not that clever. But you need to worry about them any longer, my little bauble." The Laughter consoled, mockingly. "Do you want to know why?" It asked, suddenly eager. Then, in a voice like a lover's whisper revealed, "Because we ate them. My siblings and I. We devoured your little godlings bit by bit, savoring their screams, their pain, their outrage… their fear~ until there was nothing left of them," the Laughter moaned in delight.

"A feast unlike any other! One I never thought to repeat, but now…" The Laughter purred, predatory and evil. "I have found you, little bauble, reeking of their power, bound to the world they sought to shape. A world you will lead me to, so that I might delight in its joys and sufferings. Ah, ah, ah, do not try to deny it. Their spell pulls at you, even now."

Spell? Pulling? Was he being pulled? Yes… yes! He felt it now. Something was pulling him… trying to pull him away from the Laughter. Back to the place he had been before he had been here. But it couldn't. The Laughter would not let it take him. But it would now.

His desire to escape, once so powerful, abruptly left him. He needed to stay now, to hold on to this pain. He knew not why, only that if he led the Laughter back to where he had come from, it would mean a fate worse than death, for himself and… others? Yes. Yes, it would spell doom for others. Many, many others. He could not allow that to happen, even if he did not know why he could not.

Again, the Laughter laughed.

"Yes! Struggle! Writhe! Fight against it! Your desperation is delicious," it moaned in approval. "Maybe you will succeed and stay here with us! If you do, I promise to savor every bite I take of your soul. I shall not even let my sisters taste you. You shall be all mine~" He felt himself being embraced with the passion of a comforting lover, completely and totally enveloping him within its… Limbs? Arms? Claws? He should have been terrified, should have raged against this, but instead, it put him at ease. He no longer felt afraid, and why should he? The Laughter meant to free him this spell after all and protect him from its hungry siblings.

"But you won't stay here, my little bauble," it cooed lovingly to him, and he relaxed even more, uncaring of the talons now digging into him as it gripped him tight. "You will return to the material plane and take a host as your masters willed. Only this time, you shan't return alone~"

The statement broke his hazed state, and terror gripped him tighter than the Laughter's claws. He made to deny, to cry out, to do something, but it was too late. With a lurch, he was pulled out of this nightmare place, out of this agony, out of this hell.

All while that horrible laughter filled his ears.

~o0o~

Oscar Pine woke with a gasp. Sweat clung to his brow and the back of his neck. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he placed a hand over it. Gulping down air, he tried to calm himself down so he could go back to sleep.

"What was that?" he asked himself quietly. Oscar had been woken by a dream, a very strange dream too. He had been working on his aunt's farm, as he did now, but it was different. The farm had more workers. The crops were bigger and had wonderful smells. His aunt and the other workers were younger and all beautiful. The farmhouse had been a palace of immense grace. And… and he had been… laughing.

It had been his laughter that had woken him, but why? He couldn't remember. Had he really been the one laughing? He didn't remember laughing, only how one of the farm girls had….

Oscar felt something under his sheets and lifted them up. He grimaced and got out of bed and began to pull the sheets off. He needed to change them anyway. He carried the dirtied sheets down to the laundry room, careful not to wake his auntie. He put them in the washer, adding soap and detergent before turning the machine on and grabbing a set of cleaner sheets. He would put them out to dry later.

He thought about the laugh again. It really hadn't been that scary, now that he thought about it. Strange for sure, but that was the case for most dreams. It was probably something else that made him wake up, like falling. He remembered having dreams where he fell down and it caused him to wake up, completely fine. He must have tripped over a rock or something in his dream and woken up. That made sense.

As he returned to his room, he passed by his aunt's door. She had taken him in after his parents' deaths when he was little. She worked him hard on the farm, but not harshly, and cared deeply for him. Even after the coming of the AngelsImperium two years ago, and all the changes it had brought to Remnant, she didn't let it change her or how she ran the farm. He didn't know where he would be without her. And she was so beautiful too…

Oscar's face flushed and he shook his head to get rid of such thoughts. It was just cus of the dream he had, he told himself as he hurried past his aunt's room and into his own. He crawled into bed with his sheets and began counting sheep to get back to sleep and distract him from… from weird thoughts.

As sleep took hold of him again, he started to dream. A new dream. He was in a castle, sitting at the head of a vast dinner table. Food of all kinds was piled high on golden platters as well-dressed dinner guests gorged themselves. The food never seemed to run out, and servants attended to Oscar's every whim, feeding him the choicest cuts of meat with silver forks. He was happy to see his aunt was here too, sitting closest to him, the king of this feast.

She was beautiful in her dress of purple and gold, and as she looked up at him – he was tall and handsome now, – she touched his arm. Her hands, calloused and rough from years of hard toil, were now smooth as silk. She smiled at him.

"I am so proud of you, Oscar," she told him.

For a moment, just a moment, Oscar thought he heard something in her words, something like… But then, he smelled them. That delicious aroma that he could never in a million years forget.

Freshly baked oatmeal cookies! As a buxom servant girl presented Oscar with his favorite childhood treat on a golden tray, the farmhand turned king forgot about… whatever it was that had concerned him and began to eat the cookies.

The wind began to blow through the dining hall as he ate the cookies, gently caressing the crystal chandeliers and making them chime. It almost sounded like laughter, Oscar thought, before another tray of oatmeal cookies was offered to him.

It was a nice laugh, he thought.

It drowned out the screaming very well.

~o0o~

Author's Note: HAHA! Didn't expect THAT for an epilogue did you!? That's right folks, after all that strife and conflict, guess what quartet of chucklefucks finally found Remnant? And look who got there first!

Some context: When Syrus killed Ozpin, his force staff destroyed most, if not all, of the souls that Ozpin and joined with and absorbed over the eons. These acted sort of like protective layers the shielded Ozpin's true soul from being obliterated, of only barely. HOWEVER, as can be seen here, he's a shell of a shell now, what memories remain to him are fragmented and his sense of self is basically gone as he has no idea who or what he was beyond some ingrained instincts and feelings. This is also the FIRST TIME his soul has been exposed to the warp after death. The reason for this is that normally, his soul would be kept in a sort of pocket dimension, separate from the warp and reality, until the curse decided he was ready to come back. The thing is, the Brothers didn't account for a weapon designed specifically to destroy entities of psychic matter, nor the psychic ripples such a death would cause in the Warp. The pocket dimension was damaged or unable to latch onto and grab Ozpin's soul before others took notice.

And about those others, yes, you read right, the brothers are dead. Eaten alive by the minions of Slaanesh. I won't go into detail right now about how they were killed, but let's just say, they fell victim to their own hubris. I felt Slaanesh out of all the chaos gods would best fit with Remnant, given the world's love of art and self-expression. And so, I can answer the other question, the Brothers were indeed Old Ones, two of the last in fact. What does that mean for the Relics and the entities inside them? Well, lets just say, they are not as benign in this universe as they were in canon, hehehehe…

But! With this, Return of Faith is officially over! I may post side stories every now and then, there was a lot of stuff I wanted to get to but just couldn't find a good way to have it fit with the flow of the story. I am thinking about doing a oneshot or possibly short spin off of Blake and Weiss after the invasion, to show how things turn out for them. But the main story is now over! It was an amazing ride; I learned a lot while writing this and I am proud of how well received it has been. Thank you all for sticking with me through all these years. I truly appreciate it.

Though I said I might do some short stories, my main focus will be on a new project I'm working on, the prologue for which I might end up posting on Spacebattles forum when its ready, though it will only be the rough draft.

Again, thank you all.

As always! Please, Fav, Follow, and Review! Thank you!

DeadRich18 Out!