Chapter 22: Perspectives
Ash from the now dead ancient Grimm and smoke from a few small fires blotted out the sky surrounding the now broken dam, making it harder for the pilots of a military Bullhead to see.
Circling around the still decaying carcass of the Grimm, the pilots caught sight of their objective and brought the Bullhead down, landing it with a soft thump.
Nearly a dozen soldiers poured out forming a small perimeter around the area while a pair of soldiers hastily made their way towards their target who was still seemingly watching his handiwork while the ancient Grimm slowly decayed.
"Coal Calavera, we've been sent to retrieve you on order from General Ironwood himself," One of the soldiers announced. "This location is still dangerous."
The retrieval target said nothing, remaining unmoving.
"Please sir, we need to leave now," The other soldier said, before stepping around to face Coal directly. "What?! He's… unconscious?"
The soldier moved around in order to confirm that the state of their target. Using his sword as a makeshift cane, Coal Calavera stood with shut eyes and a small smile on his face, having lost consciousness on his feet.
"Call the medic and have him ready to be moved within five minutes," The soldier ordered. "He may have taken care of the big Grimm, but there might still be smaller ones in the area."
"Yes sir," The other soldier saluted, before rushing off to complete his order.
…Breathe…
Ozpin sighed as he closed the video. There was nothing new to be gained from watching it again. No hints that would be able to help him right now.
Swiping to the next one, he briefly watched an incredibly distorted and fragmented video of Coal walking through a forest moments before Raven and her bandits attacked. It was difficult to tell, but it appeared that Coal was talking to someone that didn't appear to be there.
Changing to another video, Ozpin watched as Coal prepared to leave after dealing with the ancient Grimms tentacles, only to freeze and turn to the side moments before the Grimm made its full presence known.
Coal's Semblance was capable of amplifying the speed at which his Aura regenerated and augmenting his body in both speed and power, but clearly there was more to it than that. Without a single drop of magic, Silver eyes or dust, Coal had done the impossible and killed an ancient Grimm by himself… within a handful of minutes at that.
The Bullhead jolted as it touched down. Standing up, Ozpin quickly made his way off and was immediately greeted by one of his most trustworthy allies.
"Ozpin," James Ironwood greeted. "It's good to see you, but do you really think it's wise to leave Beacon unattended during such a… chaotic time."
"Rest assured that Glynda has everything covered in my absence," Ozpin chuckled. "As vale wasn't directly affected, the people are celebrating the death of an old problem and the rise of a new legend. Speaking of which… how is he."
Officially, Coal had been moved to Atlas in order to receive better treatment. Unofficially, it was done in order to keep him safe, away from Mistral where Salem's agents were currently most active.
"He's the same as he was when he was first brought in," Ironwood sighed, leading Ozpin away from the Bullhead landing zone and into a rooftop stairwell. "His body temperature is still dangerously high and his heartbeat has yet to slow down, it's no small miracle that his body is still functioning with the stress it's currently under. My best doctors are doing everything they can to try and fix whatever's going on with his body and get his Aura to activate again."
"I see," Ozpin hummed. "Have you asked his relative? Maria Calavera?"
"I have," Ironwood nodded. "Although she wasn't sure what he had done either. Her best guess was that he simply pushed himself too far and is now suffering from severe exhaustion."
It was likely that Maria was hiding something, not that Ozpin could blame her. A Semblance with as many useful abilities as Coal's would be highly sought after, especially its anti Grimm properties.
Then there was also the likelihood of Coal having told her about his suspicions of Lionheart… It was wise for Maria to not trust the headmasters.
"We can't afford to lose him," Ironwood said, snapping Ozpin out of his thoughts. "The people have just gotten a glimmer of hope. If he dies, that goes away."
"I agree," Ozpin replied. "He has only just begun his journey as a Huntsman. It would truly be a shame to lose him just as he starts. You've said that his condition hasn't changed since he arrived?"
"It hasn't," Ironwood confirmed. "His body is healing, albeit slower than it would with Aura."
"Then the only thing we can do right now is hope that this is the worst things will get and hope that he has a speedy recovery," Ozpin finished.
"Hope isn't a luxury I can currently afford," Ironwood chuckled bitterly.
"For today it is," Ozpin replied. "Regardless of what happens now, Salem's plans have been thwarted once more, one of her minions has been slain and an ancient Grimm has been killed. The future is looking just a little bit brighter."
"A traitor was also revealed in our midst and Mistral's Huntsman population has slowly been whittled down by said traitor," Ironwood sighed.
"There is that too," Ozpin nodded. "But things aren't entirely bleak just yet."
…Breathe…
The soft rapid beat of a heart monitor sounded through the room, occasionally being interrupted by the soft sound of cards being placed on a table.
"Damnit, another unwinnable hand," Maria muttered while leaning back in her seat. "When did I get so rusty at these single player card games?"
Turning towards the only other occupant of the room, Maria sighed.
"You know, there was a time where I was really good at these games," Maria began. "Living alone, out there in that small cabin gave me a lot of time to myself. It was a peaceful, if somewhat lonely… and then you came along."
Collecting her cards, she began to slowly shuffle them.
"My quiet life suddenly became loud once more. You wanted to be a Huntsman, so I threw everything I could in order to dissuade you, but it only seemed to fuel you," Maria chuckled. "You've truly lived up to your namesake. After all, a coal is pointless if it isn't used to light a fire."
Pausing for a moment, Maria took a slow breath to recollect herself.
"And what a fire you've lit. Killing one of the ancients… From the moment we began your training, I knew that you would do great things… I just never knew how great those things would be. But, seeing the state it's left you in almost makes me wish that you hadn't."
Splitting the deck, she shuffled the cards together one last time before dealing them out into two different piles.
"You've already been through worse on the day that I met you… Half frozen and bleeding out, so I know that whatever this is that you're going through won't kill you," Maria said confidently. "But… hurry up and get better, alright. I've grown used to having someone play these card games with me, even if they're as bad at it as you are."
…Breathe…
Warm… everything felt warm. It wasn't an uncomfortable or irritating warmth either, but rather, it was the perfect temperature that a person could fall doze off to.
Feeling a nudge in my side, I rolled over with a sigh.
"Five more minutes and I'll get up."
Something began to gently poke my face. I tried to ignore it and fall back asleep only to be bothered by it several more times. Seeing as I wasn't going to get any more sleep, I opened my eyes and blinked when I caught sight of the thing that was waking me.
A bright little sprite stood in front of me, its body made of what appeared to be solid light while what amounted for its hair stood up, swaying slowly as if it were made of fire.
"Hello?" I said while sitting up slowly in an attempt to not startle the glowing being.
Looking around, I found that I was surrounded by sky on all sides. The ground even looked like it, but at the same time was oddly reflective.
There was a bright sphere, not unlike the sun, radiating warmth down on the area and several more sprites that, while lacking facial expressions, looked oddly happy to see me awake.
"Oh," I hummed, realizing where I was or more specifically where I wasn't as this place didn't exist anywhere in Remnant, only inside myself. "My spiritual core… why am I here?"
The sprite that had taken it upon itself to wake me up waved its arm excitedly. It pointed towards the others that were grouped together, standing upon each other.
The sprite rushed forward and knocked the others over. Turning around, it placed its hands together and fell over.
I watched, briefly taken aback by the strangeness of the situation, before letting out a snort of laughter. Walking over, I helped the sprites up, petting their warm heads. "You guys are pretty cute, you know that."
The sprites shifted around happily at my words.
From what I was able to understand from their little demonstration, I'd killed the ancient Grimm and ended up passing out. They didn't exactly answer my question of why I was here, but I wasn't going to tell them that. They'd tried so hard after all.
This place was relaxing, but now that I was awake, I couldn't stay. Mistral was likely still in danger and while I wouldn't have access to my Aura, I was far from useless. The thirteenth form of Sun Breathing saw to that.
"Do you guys know how to get out of h…" I began, but paused when I felt a cold breeze blow through.
My sprites stood on edge, shifting nervously while I slowly turned around to greet my new guest.
"I'm not sure if seeing you here answers more questions than it asks," I hummed, watching as the shadow that had been following me around Remnant silently stood in front of me.
Where this spiritual realm felt warm, the shadow felt cold. There was a brief feeling of wrongness before a vague sense of familiarity began to sink in. One of the sprites stood at my side and took nervously took my hand.
"Don't worry," I comforted the sprite. "It's not going to hurt you. I've known this shadow for a pretty long time and it's got a hands off approach to things."
The sprite nodded and stood more confidently while the others hid behind me.
I turned my attention back to the shadow. "So you're capable of following me, even in here," I hummed. "And right when I was asking how to leave this place… what are the odds," I said dryly.
I was almost completely sure that the shadow wasn't a hallucination and while it did share a single colour scheme like the brother gods had, I sincerely doubted that it was one. It either lacked the power or the will to directly interact with Remnant, choosing only to interact with me.
Whatever this thing actually was, it was benevolent and had helped me several times in the past.
"I don't suppose you can suddenly talk in here, right?" I asked. The shadow tilted its head to the side causing me to sigh. "Yeah, that would make things too easy. Do you have a method for me to leave this place, I've still got a lot of work to do in the physical world."
Looking down, a dark hole began to expand in front of the shadow. Peering into it, I could make out the slightest glimmer of light at the end.
"Alright," I began, turning towards the little sprite holding my hand, I kneeled down in front of it. "I'm going to be leaving for now. You look after all the others while I'm gone, alright?"
The sprite turned towards the others that looked worried before giving me a resolute nod.
"Good," I smiled, ruffling its head one last time. "You're certainly a brave one. I'm glad that I can leave the others safety to you."
Standing up, I moved to stand next to the shadow and looked downward before glancing back at it. "Well…. You haven't led me astray yet. If you're going to be staying in here after I leave, do me a favor and try not to scare the sprites."
The shadow nodded.
With that, I took a breath and stepped forward, falling down into the hole.
…Breathe…
A sterile smell assaulted my nose while the sound of something beeping rapidly on my right briefly overwhelmed my hearing. My body felt heavy.
Hearing the sound of someone breathing at my side, I turned my head and slowly opened my eyes, only to wince as the world pulsed and I ended up looking through them.
I still had access to the transparent world, it seemed.
Taking a slow deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused my senses felt for the sensation that occurred when accessing the transparent world. Several seconds passed before I opened my eyes again and was greeted to the regular world.
Looking around, I found that I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to several machines with what appeared to be an oxygen mask strapped to my face. Bringing my arm up, I found it was wrapped in bandages, much like the rest of my body.
Sighing silently to myself, I grabbed the uncomfortable mask and pulled it off my face. The amount of oxygen it had been pumping out wasn't enough to keep up with Total Concentration Constant and was limiting the speed at which my body could heal.
Taking a deep breath, my body felt invigorated as cells that were being starved for oxygen suddenly gained an influx.
"That's better," I muttered softly to myself.
Turning my attention to the rapid beeping sound, I realized I raced the cable that was connected to my chest and found that I was looking at a heart rate monitor.
Transparent World and a heart rate just above 200 beats per minute, that... I needed to go see my face in a mirror.
Ignoring the pain that slowly coursed through my body, I slowly began to sit up, doing my best to not make a sound.
"Finally awake," Maria hummed groggily, shifting in her chair.
"Yeah," I said softly. "How long was I out?"
"Ten years."
"Ten WHA…"
"I'm joking," Maria replied suddenly. "Keep your voice down, it's the middle of the night. You've been asleep for three days… today would be the fourth day."
Panic slowly left my body as I relaxed back into my bed. "Don't do that. You scared the crap out of me."
"Well at least now you know what it feels like," Maria muttered. "What were you thinking, taking on an ancient Grimm like that?!"
"Well, 'don't die' was certainly one of my main thoughts," I chuckled softly.
"Coal…"
"I'm sorry I worried you," I apologized.
"But not sorry that you did it."
"No," I shook my head. "That Grimm could have easily stumbled its way towards Wind Path and destroyed the city. Thousands of people would have lost their lives."
Crossing her arms, Maria gave me a hard stare.
"So you decided to make a martyr of yourself and kill that Grimm at the expense of your own life?"
"I… was afraid that I would lose something important if I fled," I admitted. "If I left and that Grimm ended up destroying Wind Path… If it ended up killing those two children… something inside of me would have died that day. I had the means to protect everyone so I took a gamble and fought with everything I had."
Maria sighed and uncrossed her arms. "You make it very hard to stay angry at you."
"Sorry," I apologized sheepishly. "At least everything worked out in the end. An ancient Grimm is dead and I'm still alive."
We settled into a comfortable silence with the only sound in the room being generated by the rhythmic beeping of the machines that were monitoring my health.
My current position felt almost nostalgic. It was similar to how I first met Maria after all… being injured and forced to rest while having her sitting at my side.
"Right, I was originally looking for a mirror or something reflective, but now that you're here, you can check for me," I realized.
"If you've got a problem, it would probably be for the best to have one of the doctors here examine it," Maria deadpanned.
"I just want you to look for any… marks on my face," I replied, shifting the bandages that had been wrapped around my head.
"Why would there be… you've got a tattoo!?" Maria noted, leaning forward. "And a tacky one at that. Who gets flames tattooed on the side of their head?"
Well, that answers that question. It seemed that the physical strain brought on by using fusion had forced the demon slayer mark to appear.
That was… news. I wasn't sure if it was good or bad yet. I would need to wait for my Aura to begin regenerating before I could use my Semblance to read the details of the mark.
I did, however, have a few things going for me. I was a Natural user of Sun Breathing and Aura should help mitigate any negative effects if there were any to begin with.
"Look, you don't have to worry so much. Atlas has the best technology in the world, they'll be able to get rid of that crappy tattoo in no time."
I couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Thanks Maria, but I doubt they'll be able to do much. This isn't a tattoo, it's… something else. Don't worry, I'll look into it when my Semblance reactivates."
"Fine, keep your secrets," Maria huffed, looking more amused than angry or annoyed.
…Breathe…
I laid back on the hospital bed with one hand propped behind my cushion while flicking through the different channels on the holographic display that had been provided to my room.
It had been a busy morning to say the least, I'd had a number of tests run on me, more than I cared to count. The doctors were shocked to see that I was awake and well, given my current 'condition,' not to mention the numerous medications that they had in the drip connected to my arm.
By all accounts, I should be either fast asleep or just barely awake, however, the one thing they didn't account for was how fast my body was able to burn through their medicine.
"Now back to Lisa Lavender. Lisa, you say that you've got an update on the current situation down in Mistral."
"An update," I muttered, placing the remote down onto my bed.
"Yes Cyril, I have," Lisa replied. "An anonymous source donated footage pulled from the Bullhead that retrieved Coal Calavera. I'm sending it to the studio as we speak."
I watched with a small feeling of dread as a video from a soldiers perspective played. From them searching the landscape, finding my position and more importantly, finding me unconscious while standing.
Turning off the display, I let out a deep groan while palming my head. People had already been a little crazy when they realized I'd won the Mistral tournament.
"I'm never going to have a moment of peace to myself from now on, am I?" I muttered into my hands.
"Hey, you wanted to play hero," Maria grinned. "This is what happens."
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," I called out instantly, doing my best to forget what I'd just seen on the holographic display.
"Mister Calavera," Ozpin began, entering the hospital room with Ironwood following closely behind. "I see that you're feeling better."
"I did tell you last time we spoke face to face that only life threatening wounds are severe," I hummed. "I take it that the two of you want to know what happened by that dam and how things got so out of control?"
"More or less," Ironwood nodded. "We haven't officially met. I am General James Ironwood, headmaster of Atlas Academy and General of the Atlesian Military."
"I'm Coal Calavera," I nodded my greeting. "I heard a little about you from Winter Schnee who offered me a place at Atlas Academy on your behalf after the meeting concerning the attack during the Sanctum excursion… Speaking of… What's going to happen to Lionheart now?"
"He was found dead in his office," Ozpin replied. "It seems that during all of the commotion, a Grimm managed to sneak into the Academy and strangled him to death."
So Salem no longer had any use for him after his massive mistake concerning the identity of the Spring Maiden.
"And the bandit, Vernal?" I asked.
"Also dead without having the chance to fight back," Ozpin sighed. "She was placed in an artificial coma in order to prevent her from accessing her Semblance. When we found her, her face was disfigured and the room she was locked in had been destroyed."
So Cinder had thrown a small tantrum… Not that I could blame her, she thought she was getting some form of legendary power just to have the rug pulled out from under her at the last second. Everything she'd done that day had been for nothing.
"Perhaps you can tell us your side of the story so that we may have a better picture of what happened," Ozpin suggested.
"There's not really much to tell," I shrugged. "I followed the directions on my scroll to take down a Nuckelavee, found the dam, but no Grimm. A man named Hazel introduced himself and offered me a job working for a woman named Salem, I declined, was attacked and at some point the dam was blown up."
"Salem… offered you a position?" Ironwood asked. "Was there anything else he said… Anything specific that could be useful?"
"Honestly, it was a little difficult getting answers out of the guy, he always talked around the subject, never giving a straight answer," I explained, before letting out a short chuckle. "I wonder if he ended up telling her what I told him… about how she is rude and how I need to know who I'm climbing into bed with."
Ozpin let out a choking sound while Ironwood simply paled. Maria on the other hand laughed quietly to herself.
"Let's revisit that specific subject at a later point," Ozpin hummed. "Before you went off to fight the ancient Grimm, you mentioned a most interesting point, stating that you can make your Aura toxic to Grimm."
"I can," I nodded slowly.
"Your Semblance is truly interesting," Ozpin continued. "And it seems to have multiple uses as well. Would you mind divulging its true nature"
I can't say that I wasn't expecting that question to come eventually. So far people had only guessed at what my Semblance was and I'd merely gone along with whatever they said.
"You want me to tell you what my Semblance is… in a room full of camera's after Mistral just got hacked," I deadpanned, glancing towards Ironwood. "And the entirety of Mistral at that, Argus included."
Ozpin sighed to himself. "Another conversation for a later point then."
"Sometime in the future," I nodded, briefly pausing to think. "After I know the full scope of what's going on."
"That knowledge carries a certain weight to it," Ozpin replied. "Once you know, you'll never look at the world the same way again. Are you certain this is what you want?"
I almost let out a snort of laughter at that. I'd known everything for months now. Whatever abridged story he gave me wasn't going to change anything… besides the fact that I won't have to worry so much about accidentally saying something that I shouldn't know.
"Yeah, sure. Go for it."
"Very well, then let me begin to tell you two short stories. The Girl in the Tower and the story of a woman named Salem."
And so Coal has pretty much become a massive celebrity overnight and Ozpin has finally brought him in on the secret of Salem's existence... which he already knew.
Anyways, I'm up to chapter 27 on the P word website.
P
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I go by the name of ThatKircguy. Just copy the name and paste it in the Patty Rio On search bar. It'd help me out immensely, but don't worry if that's not your style. I will be uploading weekly, so it's not going to be stuck there permanently.
Also, I post my original stuff there as well. It's nothing much, just two short stories for now, but I'll post more as I write them.
The next chapter will be posted on the 30th of September.
See you all then.