Arc 2 - Chapter 12 - A World of Fantasy
When Jaune landed, his boots crunched into snow, sunken down to the ankles. He felt the cold quickly begin to seep into his feet, and the rest of his body was soon to follow.
It was a field they'd found themselves in, and one entirely blanketed in snow. It went as far as he could see, with very little breaking the surface that weren't trees. A great expanse of forest dominated what remained of the scenery—poking out in patches, tight groups, and lone postings all over the empty field, while far off they were packed into great rows of deep wood. Despite the bristling cold and heavy snow-fells, none of the trees had been stripped of their leaves. Bountiful and green rather than naked and clawing at the air with thin branches. That was the extent of what Jaune could see. Where there weren't trees, there was snow and vice versa.
Neptune landed near him a second later, though it was a bad one, and pitched onto his face. Jaune hurried to pull him up. "You okay?"
Neptune stood up with as much dignity as could be recovered, which wasn't much with snow floured to his front. He began to pat himself down. "Bit my tongue, but not counting that." and he looked around with an eyebrow cocked. "The hell? This is Ruby's heart?"
"It is" Then Jaune realized there wasn't really a way to prove it. Was it possible for more than one person to have the same key? To have similar manifestations of the heart? Questions for Aunt Peach, I guess. If she'll even tell me. "At least, I hope it is."
Neptune stamped around for better positioning, each long step dragging snow out in big clumps. He looked ready to say something, but the wind cut him off. And boy did it. It came with a sound like a cannonball being fired right next to his ear. Terrifying enough all its own, but then there was the wind itself. It ripped Jaune and Neptune both off their feet, sending them in the air, then tumbling several feet away, as easily as flicking pebbles. It didn't stop there. When Jaune tried to stand, the intensity of it had rendered the world difficult to see, everything around him obscured by a curtain of hailing white. He heard a faint yelling, which was proof that Neptune was still near.
Jaune called for him, but he couldn't even hear himself. He tried to root his feet to the ground, but the wind was pushing him back, harder and harder like it had a personal vendetta against him. He suffered a sequence of bracing his arms against the storm, slipping and sliding on the icy ground, kneeling to keep from tumbling over, and looking around for his friend through squinted eyes while the world was seemingly whittled to nothing around him.
No idea how he found it, blind as he was, but he latched on to a tree and held tight. Practically dug his fingernails into the bark as snow and ice attacked his face with the ferocity of angered wasps. It was all he could do to stay upright, or relatively so since he was on his knees. He stayed like that for a while. Couldn't be sure how long, and the storm soon began to die down. From a mighty roar, to a shuddering growl, to a whistling whisper. The evidence -that it had even truly been there was a smattering of ripped branches and leaves all over, crick-crackling like the damage was still being done.
Jaune shivered where he sat, covered in snow and already feeling somewhat defeated. "Neptune!" he called.
"Up here!"
Jaune looked up to find him attached to the same tree he was, arms and legs both like it was his very lifeline at thirty feet height. "The hell was that?" Neptune huffed.
"Nothing exclusive to a heart world."
He rolled his eyes. "I know what it was. I mean, why here? Why is Ruby's heart just a forest and some snow?" Some snow from the branch above dropped onto his head. "A lot of freaking snow."
"How should I know?" Jaune let go of the branch cautiously, waiting for the blizzard to start again. He sighed when it didn't. "We won't get any answers staying here though. Let's get moving."
Neptune began to work himself out of his precarious perch, slowly maneuvering about the branches. Jaune didn't bother to tell him that he could just jump from that great height and be fine, being a superhuman and all. That was probably how he got up there in the first place. "I don't think that the last we'll see of that blizzard."
No, definitely not. It made him think about how he'd been in such a situation before, inside Neptune's heart. The raging storms and savage waves and crashing lightning. He would have been fighting Grimm in the midst of all that chaos if it weren't for Cinder's Overshadow. How he wished he had taken up her training now. "Nothing we can do about it. Hurry up, we need to cover some ground." Jaune began working through the snow, his boots already soaked through and his toes feeling frozen.
"Hold on!" Neptune's dangling foot reached for a foothold, but there was nothing to use. "Alright, I'll just drop down."
With some mild amusement, Jaune folded his arms and waited. He watched him struggle, easing down until he was just holding the branch with his fingers. His face was painted with unnecessary fear. "Okay, here I go."
"Break a leg."
'You're not funny, you know-ahh!"
Neptune graced the world with a girlish shriek as he dropped from safety. No doubt a fall that could have seriously wounded him in the real world. He landed flat-footed, barely even bending his knees. He had his eyes closed like he'd been sure he'd become splatter art on the ground. Opening his eyes, he looked at his feet, confused. Then palmed his forehead with a laugh. "Dude, I'm so stupid. I could've just—"
In a fitting sense of justice, a branch above him broke and dropped a pile of snow on his head, hard enough to pitch him over and onto the ground once more. With something close to a chuckle, Jaune ambled over to dig him out.
The storm did return, of course, and it was bad, but the upside was that the Grimm fared no better than they did. Jaune had seen this type of Grimm before. In an extensive bestiary that Aunt Peach had them study. Yeti. Heavy and hulking masses of bulging muscle and thick black fur, damaged white masks taking shape around their eyes and molding into devil horns atop their shaggy heads. Their eyes were beady red dots through the shadows of their masks, and their mouths were set into permanently twisted smiles, full of rows of rotten jagged teeth. One opened its mouth to a massive length and let out a deep bellow that made Jaune's bones tremble—whether it was out of fear or excitement was debatable, but that moment of self-reflection would have to come later, for the beast had zeroed in on Jaune and darted straight for him on all fours. Massive paws ripping up snow with every stride.
Jaune planted a foot down to ground himself against the wind, which were thankfully weak enough that he could see properly. He raised his shield up as the beast jumped at him, meaty arms spread as long as he was tall, massive claws fanning out, each as long as a small sword. Jaune palmed the back of his shield with his free hand. "Bulwark."
A screen of light projected from his shield and barreled right into the charging Yeti, such speed and force as to send it flipping backward in the air several times over, the beast hooting like it was surprised. Its partner was quick to continue the assault, and Jaune met that one head on. He threw his shield at it with some torque—took a lot of training but he finally got it to work like a discus. The Yeti was smart enough to bash it out of the way, but Jaune had accounted for that. He crossed his arms before him, internalized his power as the beast came upon him. "Reject!" Jaune threw his arms wide and unleashed a burst of energy out of his body, outright denying the beast's approach, and sending it tumbling through the snow. Two new abilities he'd come up with. Good for defense and stuffing approaches, but still not enough to do significant damage even to weaker Grimm.
The first Yeti was getting back up now, its face half-caved in. It looked ready to roar again, but was quickly reduced to a smoldering ruin when a chain of lightning bolts bore down on it, spraying snow and water everywhere, leaving traces of blue electricity sparking in the air.
Neptune was not far off, spinning his trident in practiced motions. This being the way his powers worked apparently. Smooth and flowing swirls and spins called upon the seas, while vicious stabbing motions willed the skies to his command. Snow decomposed and became water in less than a second, and they hissed and surged with Neptune's every movement. He denied the approach of one Yeti by piling it with a dwarfing wave, pedaling back when a second came with a lunging swipe. Neptune still was not very practiced when it came to maneuvering about a battlefield, but that would come in time. In a panic, he thrust his spear forward and thin rays of lightning materialized from the air, pelting the Yeti with the deadly accuracy of a turret gun. Another came leaping down from a ledge, but Neptune was able to stab the butt of the trident into the ground, calling down a circle of bolts around him, vaporizing his would-be killer before it could get any killing done.
Jaune turned back to his own set of opponents. Two more coming his way and fast. He summoned his shield back and charged them both, taking it both hands to bash one across the face, throwing it onto its side like a child that tripped over someone's foot. He swung at the second, but found his shield seized by its massive claws, scraping against his gauntlets. The beast pulled his shield down and roared in his face, its breath more savage than an open sewer in the hottest summer. Jaune threw his hands wide, his Reject attack pressing the beast backward, allowing him to bash it overhead, driving it face-first into the ground. Jaune then drove the sharp end into the back of the monster's neck. Not deep enough. Didn't even touch bone. It roared its pain and anger, flailing like a landed fish,
"Come on, you asshole. Die!" Jaune ripped the shield free and drove it in deeper, again and again. The damn thing seemed to be entirely muscle.
He was forced to abandon his mount when the first Yeti came back, swiping its giant claws, roaring with great fury. Jaune backpedaled, ducking and weaving, trying to maintain control of his breaths. He found an opening and parried a claw swipe, shattering the claws in the process. He leapt forward, cast Reject once more, and sent the beast crashing through a tree nearby. He'd get to him in a minute. The second Grimm was getting up now and Jaune leaped over to drive the shield point into its jaw. Not deep enough still. It bit down, looking ready to swallow the shield whole. If only he could force it deeper somehow. Wait… "Reject!"
Jaune had to smile in that rare moment of feeling clever himself. The reject had forced his shield right through the Yeti's head, shearing the top half from the bottom, and leaving its big tongue lolling mindlessly like it couldn't believe what happened. Jaune summoned the shield back, turned to the remaining Yeti and cast Bulwark. Predictably, the monster had been coming at him and was sent flying back. Perfect timing too, for Neptune had come down from the sky like a bolt of lightning and run the beast into the ground, straight through the head. Neptune looked up at Jaune with a congratulatory grin, but didn't last, for his eyes went wide with panic. "Jaune! Ramuh's Armor!"
Jaune didn't turn to see what was approaching and simply did as he commanded. That was one of the rules they'd set for themselves with this whole teamwork thing. Stronger together than apart and all that. No better time to show the fruits of their training than now. He raised his hands above his head and cast High Reflect, the stronger version of his foundational spell. The barrier came alive around him and not a second too late. Three Yeti landed on the shield, their heavy paw strikes reduced to dull beatings that left little more than ripples in the glassy surface.
For Neptune's part, he cast a chain of Levin bolts down from the clouds that struck his barrier. Not strong enough to pierce, but that even wasn't half the intention. The bolts infected and spread around his shield like an army of insects swarming a pile of sugar. The electricity didn't do much when it touched the Grimm, but that was well enough—their team attack was not yet over.
"Shatter!" Jaune punched the ground and the shield exploded in a spray of ethereal glass and lashing electricity, all fanning out around them in a huge area of effect. It left a massive out-of-place circle in the ground, snow disintegrated into curling wisps of steam, the stink of burnt black grass swimming up Jaune's nose.
Jaune looked around, his shield up, but there were no more sounds. The Yeti were either faded or well on their way.
Neptune's trident vanished and he looked a little put out. "They didn't put up much of a fight."
"They're more dangerous in big numbers," said Jaune, a little disappointed himself. "This wasn't that many. For some reason. There'll be more, eventually."
Neptune looked around. "We might end up clearing this whole forest at the rate we're going. I swear we've been going for two hours and everything still looks the same. No landmark or anything. How much time has passed in the real world?"
"A minute," said Jaune. "An hour here is a minute there. Let's just keep on. We've gotta come across something, eventually."
So that was how it went. The two young warriors persisted at the mercy of the wintry wilderness, trudging on through the thankfully thinning snows. The occasional Grimm posed little to no challenge, each encounter rarer and less in number. Eventually, they'd come across a few ambling about on their own, and putting them down almost felt like bullying. Adding the numbers, they'd be a force worth fearing, but they were so spread apart despite being a type of herd Grimm. Yeti attacks often came in numbering a minimum of twenty, and even that was on the low end according to the bestiary. It made Jaune wonder what could have them so spread around. Wouldn't they all be seeking the Alter? His only answer was the forever goings-on of the cold forest. Nothing but trees and shrubbery, ice and heavy winds, distant mountains to the East that seemed almost like bad paintings on a hazy backdrop of a horizon.
It was an hour later, while Jaune and Neptune were taking a short break, that Jaune heard something. The sound got him to his feet, and he glanced around, trying to remember the direction it had come from. "You hear that?" he asked.
Neptune got up and tried to listen. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the sound came again. The words were unintelligible, but that definitely sounded like someone was shouting, maybe screaming. Jaune beckoned Neptune to follow him and they headed deeper into the thickening woods. The snow was thinner now, making it easier to navigate quickly, but in place of that branches and switches clawed at their faces as they pushed through the forest. That sound again. Closer. Jaune picked up the pace, Neptune whispering for him to slow down.
It was only as they were about to break the treeline that Jaune stopped and ducked into a bush. A small open field was before him, surrounded on all sides by the continuing wild. Nothing of note but the snow-covered ground. Except, of course, for the girl standing alone in the middle of it all.
A girl that looked exactly like Ruby.
She was barefoot, he noticed. And even considering she wasn't, the dress she wore was no better for the temperature of this place anyway. A very long, very flowy dress, almost like a nightgown. The tail of the dress snaked about in the snow like a white carpeted road leading straight to her. The dress was strangely translucent, giving the faintest shape of her body through it. She wore a heavy red cloak around her shoulders, and it seemed to flutter in even the slightest passing wind. Huge enough to almost seem like it could expand into a great set of wings, like that of a phoenix. She cast around her, searching with haste, like she had been waiting for something but couldn't wait for much longer. It was that look of someone who knew they were somewhere they shouldn't be. Jaune made sure to duck further into the bushes when she looked their way, shushing Neptune before he could start asking questions as he crept up beside him.
"Is that the Alter?" whispered Neptune anyway.
"Has to be," said Jaune. "It looks just like her. The Alter always looks like the host, and nothing else in the heart world can take on its appearance. That's the Alter."
"Well, let's go then."
"Not yet." Jaune stopped him. "Let's see what she does."
Alter-Ruby looked a bit fearful and slightly annoyed, like she was angry something had yet to happen, then suddenly afraid that there might be a reason for it. She cupped the sides of her mouth and called out, "My love!" she called. "If you would only show yourself, that I might take your embrace? Or shall I freeze in this wintry curse you bring upon my land and people? Yours is the choice!"
Jaune's eyebrows furrowed. Her love? The hell could that mean? He glanced at Neptune with confusion and he exemplified his listlessness with a shrug.
Alter-Ruby called again but it was looking like she was giving up. Her arms fell to her sides, her hands coiled into shaking fists, lips pursed like she might cry or punch something. Or both. She turned and made ready to head off into the forest. Without thinking, Jaune stepped out of the bush and called out to her. "Hey!"
Alter-Ruby spun around, a look of hope on her face that was strangely beautiful to see. Then her smile faded and was replaced with wide-eyed horror. Jaune tried to keep her from being alarmed. "Are you—"
Alter-Ruby darted off through the trees, leaving a spray of red rose petals floating behind her.
"After her! Come on!" Jaune did not wait for Neptune this time though, and he pushed himself as hard as he could go, swiping away branches as he followed.
They chased her through the forest, breaking through and whipping around branches, her form little more than a receding red cloak that was so long that it seemed close enough for them to grab even from so far away. Yet she only got further away by the second, leaving only trails of dusty snow in the air and the aforementioned airborne rose petals floating down as though a powerful wind had blown through a meadow of dandelions. It was not long before she was gone entirely, and Jaune slowed to a stop, Neptune wheezing up from behind him a moment later.
"What now?" he asked.
Jaune wasn't sure. That was certainly the Alter, only why had it run? Granted, there was nothing saying that Alters did not run. Perhaps this was normal. He had to realize he'd only faced one Alter before and that the rules in this world were likely very different. Still, the idea of Ruby running from him made him feel sick, like he'd done something awful in her eyes. Her love. She'd been looking for someone, that was for sure. But who? And why?
"She's gotta be going somewhere. She said something about a kingdom, right?" said Neptune. "A kingdom and people. Something about a winter curse?"
Jaune nodded grimly. "But if she's running from us, it might not be safe for us where she's going. Maybe that's where the Grimm are coming from."
Neptune shrugged. "Well, we kinda came here looking for danger. Let's just get into it. If things get bad, we can always run back to the dive point."
Fair enough, but Jaune did not plan to return to the dive point until the job was done. Saving Ruby's heart would be a task in itself, but it wouldn't solve the root of the family's problems. Her heart had to be saved now and he'd be damned if he returned with it undone. So together, he and Neptune set off after the Alter. Easy enough to track with all the flower petals left behind.
"Holy shit…" Neptune whispered, echoing what Jaune was thinking in his head.
They stood now on a huge cliffside, looking into the distance at what was, undoubtedly, this kingdom Alter Ruby had mentioned. Jaune had no idea what he'd been expecting… but whatever it was, it certainly had not been an actual kingdom.
In two colors, the far-spanning city far below the cliffs was brilliant gold and sanguine red, like that of a morbid sunset before the dark night. A mighty castle stood on a stretch of land preceding the gulf of a large river, which stretched out into the distance, breaking into thinner branches amongst the city. The castle's spiraling towers glittered in the evening light, practically jewels of cold and red lording over the rest of the world, fittingly crested with crown-like spires. Large flags dotted the parapets, stitched with an elaborate symbol of a rose, flapping in the gentle wind. The bay itself circled the castle, with the only connection to the city beyond being two bridges to its north and south. The city around was duller by comparison, coveted by heavy shadows of the approaching night, and those touched with what little light could reach them were little more than slabs of white and gray. Smoke rising from chimneys floating up black, then fading to nothing wisps. Jaune could make out the distant clamor of a city in motion, of millions of people living their lives.
It would have been an understatement to say that he was completely baffled. Holy shit, indeed. "It's an actual city."
"And not empty, either. There's people everywhere, look at those wharves!" Jaune pointed at a docking bay riddled with ships of various sizes. Sailors, merchants, and travelers all galavanting about. "How is this possible?"
The heart could manifest in many ways, Jaune knew, but this seemed almost ridiculous. No doubt Ruby was the imaginative type, but to have all of this inside her heart? Why? What purpose did it serve? Instead of fragments of heavy trauma barely stitched together through nonsensical logic, there seemed to be a fully functioning, breathing, and even somewhat realistic society deep within her subconscious.
"Dude…" said Neptune. "How are we supposed to find Ruby's Alter in all of this?"
Jaune looked down at the bustling city, at the madness everywhere. He'd just noticed that there was no snow anywhere, even though not a few feet behind him the forest floor was buried in it. No evidence at all that it had passed through this place. Jaune wiped his forehead and found that a sheen of sweat had formed. Couldn't be from running since they'd walked the whole way. No, it was strangely hot here. Hot as summer.
Jaune noticed a small path leading down the cliffside. Some artificial steps no doubt built for those coming from the direction he and Neptune had come from. Implying that there might be more people outside of this kingdom. More kingdoms, in fact. Could there be a whole world outside of this massive city? A whole universe? More questions for another day. Following it with his eye, he saw that the path led to the wharf, which then stretched on toward a gate into the city. That was their entrance, he supposed. Best to take it.
He glanced at Neptune, who looked as intimidated as one could be in such a circumstance. Jaune hesitated himself for a second, but where else was there to go but forward? "We start looking," Jaune made for the steps. "And we accept the fact that we might be here longer than we thought."
Alright, first I know I'm introducing more verse rules now, and I wish I had introduced them earlier but nothing can be done about it now. I just hope I was able to integrate them naturally. Second, the dive in Ruby's arc was at most going to be two chapters at first, but I had some new ideas that work far better and as such it extends the arc a few more chapters. Though I doubt this is an issue for anyone.
Anyway, thanks for reading and see you in the next one. I can't wait to see what theories y'all cook up from this one.