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Time or distance. One of those two allowed me to break the spell Salem had on me in the belly of Mistral.

I threw up once I had control over my body and collapsed in a dimly lit alley. The acid from my stomach burned my tongue and I spat up blood.

Then I laid down and I sobbed. I'm not sure how long I sat in the alley and cried but it wasn't short. Ren and Nora were dead and I had killed them. I had killed my friends. I was the last member of JNPR and I could hardly go back to my other friends. I was a plant. I felt bugs crawling across my skin and in my eyes. My ears were full of worming things. My thoughts were wild and ravenous and they devoured everything. I was a traitor. Mother could control me so she wins. In the grimy gutter tears gushed from my eyes.

My limbs were spasming and I had tremors which ran through my limbs and they weren't stopping. I lay there and charged my semblance and once activated it took a bit of the edge off of reality. Not enough. Not one half enough. Not a millimeter enough. I croaked out something between a laugh and hiccup.

How could I ever look my friends in the eye? How could I recover my own humanity?

I couldn't. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted it to end. I took the sword from the harness behind my back and held it to my wrist. I was shaking so much I couldn't focus and deactivate my own aura so I could cut myself deep enough that I might bleed away and die. I smashed through my scroll but not my rock hard skin. I tossed the blade away. It clanked across the alley and I fell back into a crouched position and returned to my blathering empty sobbing.

I could never return.

I could never go back again.

I was a traitor, I belonged brain and body to Salem. She just worked her way in and controlled me so thoroughly and completely. She squeezed me until only her will remained and not a drop of myself was in my own mind. What could I do? What hope did I have as anything resembling a weapon against the darkness. I was the darkness. I was a face it wore. My Mother, my memories… they were all wrong. They were false. I was false. Even how I got into Beacon was false.

What was I even made of? I looked down at my arms and I was made of this stuff. I couldn't get away from what I was grown from. I'd seen Salem in my dreams. She haunted me. A specter which terrorized me in my nightmares was she. An alien goddess that controlled my thoughts. How long ago had she planted the seed? When I was born? How had I been born?

I felt so absolutely and completely nothing. I looked down at the relic still chained to my waist.

I shook as I stood and withdrew the relic of knowledge. A blue and golden lamp which shone in the midday Mistral sun. It seemed to mock me in its purity. I was of the Grimm and this thing was of the light. My first instinct was to try and smash it but I reigned myself in.

A shadow jumped out at me and whipped around at it but there was nothing and I could have sworn I heard more laughter. More biting, mocking laughter. It echoed through the alley and through my mind. My Mother's laugh directed at me. It made me curl up again and want to try and kill myself again.

What else could I do? What more was I good for than to die in this gutter. I could still feel a pull in Salem's direction. I wasn't sure how I'd never felt it before. It seemed so obvious, so clear, that it flashed like a beacon to my grief-stricken ramble of thoughts. It was the only part of me that made sense.

I should go towards it. My instincts roared at me to bring the lamp to Mother. It was all I could do to fight the temptation. I slammed my head into a brick wall and screamed. I did it over and over again until, along with my tongue, a throbbing sensation came over my forehead.

Just a few more and I'd run out of aura.

Just a few more and it would all finally stop when I bashed my brains in.

I stumbled away from the wall and fell down on trembling legs.

"Obey."

Parts of my tongue were hanging on by threads of flesh and I couldn't find a comfortable position for it within my mouth.

"No." I spat out. "No!" I sounded mad and crazed to my own ears. I sounded as bad as the Scorpion or worse. "No!"

I was deranged. And I stayed that way all night long in the heart of the city. What was one more screaming delirium down here?

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I'm not sure how long it took me to put something resembling myself together but by the time I did the sun was about mid high.

I picked up my sword and sheathed it. I tried to ignore the burning desire to end my own life or to walk into Mother's arms. I tried to think. I tried to focus. For the first time in what felt like my entire life I tried to breathe in and concentrate.

I'd gotten one more name out of Mother. Merlot. Suddenly I had a mission, a goal. Find out who Merlot was or die. Those were my choices.

I strode through the underbelly of Mistral and challenged anybody to get in my way. I arrived at the Malachites' bar to its usual tunes.

I walked in boisterously. Let them kill me. Let them try and fight me if they dared. None did. I was fully aware I was out for murder and looking for an excuse for it but compared to the weight of my dead friends what more was this?

Malachite looked over at me, taking in my ruined disheveled appearance. So too did her girls by the bar. They just took me in as I stood by the doorway until my heavy boot falls brought me over to her.

I spat out a chunk of my tongue I'd been picking at in my teeth and a bit of blood. The relic still jingled by my side.

"Jaune, was it?"

"Merlot."

"Pardon?"

"I need to find someone named Merlot. I'm willing to do favors for it. I'm willing to kill for it."

"Is that all?" She tried to act in control. I saw through it. She was taken aback by me. Good.

"Yes."

"How should I contact you once I know something?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You just intend to wait here?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"Only for you."

Heels drove into my back, forcing me to the ground. I stood up to face a flash of pink and brown. I recognized the girl, or woman rather, she was just short. I recognized her from team RWBY's stories. Neapolitan. Roman's second in command.

I flipped back to my feet and grabbed Malachite's desk and hit the girl with it hard enough to shatter the wood into splinters.

"Just tell her where your little friend in red has gone and she'll be off of you," Malachite called.

"Ruby?" I looked at the girl who flipped up into the rafters. I grinned. "I can honestly say I have no idea where Ruby is."

I somehow knew, knew that Ruby was alive. I somehow doubted that she was well, however. We had a connection.

Pink and brown swapped. Fury took over her face. She leapt at me with a thin blade.

I held my arms wide and she came down at me. "Do it," I breathed in her face as she tore into my aura at the stomach. "Kill me."

Something in my tone must have made her back off. Perhaps she realized I meant it. Perhaps she realized how crazy I was. Perhaps the moment she froze I grabbed her and flying-push-jump-kicked off her with both legs. She flew out a window.

I drew Crocea Mors, sliding the T shaped shield onto my left arm. Her weapon reminded me of Weiss's. Right now one fight was as good as any other. I activated my semblance.

"Hey, outside!" Malachite ordered. I snorted. She'd have to kill me too. I was in no mood to take orders from anyone, not now, perhaps not ever. I was a stubborn creature at the moment.

The girl teleported on top of me. She slashed down at me and I blocked with my shield with a narrow turn of my wrist. I tried to smack her with the shield, to drive one of the points of the 'T' into her eyes but she flipped up off of me. She landed up in the rafters again and let out a hiss of air in my direction like a cat.

I felt unthreatened. It was a win-win for me. Either I died or she did. I was still glowing blue with my semblance. I rolled my neck until it popped and stabbed Crocea Mors down into the wood and waited.

"I told you I don't know where she is. Even if I did I'd have no intention of sharing that with you. Give it up," I spoke with my mangled tongue.

She leapt down at me in a graceful backflip that carried her forward. I swept Crocea Mors up but she just acrobatically leaned to one side bringing her blade down at me. I blocked it with my shield and she landed on the giant block. I swung her into the window, using the jagged glass against her.

She teleported away, shattering like one of the windows. I held my ground, wisps of blue light shone over me. I was fast enough to keep up with her when she moved through the world.

She teleported behind me but I'd fought Blake. That was teleportation trick number one, get behind them. I smacked her with my shield and just held onto my semblance even though I could have spent it right then and there. Instead I kept the speed and strength buffs.

She reappeared in front of me and I hit her so hard with my long sword her eyes bulged out and some spit left her lips.

She flickered away and reappeared a ways in front of me but she didn't attack. She just scowled. She put her weapon away and pantomimed sighing.

"That's right," I murmured. "You don't want any of what I am right now. And I don't have what you want anyways."

My semblance was still around. It was usually advantageous to burn it and not hold onto it. But right now… right now it felt good. The flames and wisps of light licked at my flesh like a comforting caress.

And it didn't seem to be disappearing on me like it had so often when I first unlocked it training with Ruby. It seemed arrogant to believe it would stick around forever but it had seriously been around for a minute. It wasn't going anywhere. A tide of power I could tap into at a moment.

She pointed at me. "Me," I said duly.

She made one hand pursue the other. "Chase me," I interpreted. I was good at charades, I wanted to laugh at that. Boy was I good at charades. "Because you don't believe me. You think I'll lead you to Ruby."

She nodded.

"That's fine, I won't but you can believe that," I said. I dismissed her, then. My semblance flared down and my aura turned back to gold rather than the blue hue. I released the power and began to silently charge the next one. I turned around. "Merlot. Give me whatever you have on him. Whatever you can find, and I'll kill whoever you want me to."

Malachite was standing in the corner surrounded by guards. "The target can be anyone?"

Neapolitan crept around and looked with growing interest. I nodded firmly. There was no mistake.

"Then I name Leonardo Lionheart," she said. I think she meant it to be a Herculean task. All but impossible for me to complete. Something to make me back off and reconsider.

I laughed. I laughed for a good long time. "He's dead," I informed her. "Pay up."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm super fuckin' serious. It'll be on the news if it's not already. I killed him. Set him up to die. Got him killed. Whichever. Pay up."

She let out a low growl. She wanted me out of her place and out of her life. I could tell. I was all kinds of crazy and dangerous and I was acting like it. "Bring me the file on Merlot." She snapped to her guards. "You have a seat, deary." She pointed at me. "Then you can get the fuck out of my bar."

"You know who he is, then?" I didn't have a seat.

"I've heard of him," she replied stiffly. "I don't have the details you want. He's a scientist who works with Grimm. He makes them, unmakes them, and does all kinds of experiments on them."

My stomach dropped out. A scientist who worked with Grimm. It… it might explain uncomfortably much. It might explain these bugs in my eyes. It might explain why I still heard the whisper of Mother's voice. Had it always been there or was I imagining it now?

This Merlot would explain what I was, where I'd come from. I'd make him or so help me gods I'd die trying.

Something had shaken loose inside me when Mother had reached inside and grabbed me by a set of precious threads no one should be touched at. She'd hounded me into a place in dark recesses of my mind which should be sacred and she hadn't stopped there. She'd tried to swallow me whole. I was still kicking at her, though. I wouldn't betray the spirit of my friends. Not even in death. Not even in whatever I was now which felt an awful lot like death.

I thought I was going mad. I put a finger in my ear and tried to reach inside to where I felt something crawling around. The discomfort helped me focus. It gave me purpose. It gave me hatred for Mother which overroad my instincts and my screaming heart.

"I need to find him."

"He has an old laboratory nearby. It's guarded by these modified Grimm. Nobody has bothered to fight and get close to him. He might not even be there." She received the file and handed it to me. Her guards were giving me wary looks. Like I was rabid and might lash out at any moment. "Now get out, and don't come back now."

I took it and left.

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-WG