By hour three, Josh's patience began to slip.
"How far away are we?"
Raspberry gave him the worst of answers.
"The other side of the city."
"How much longer until they arrive?" Shrinking in on himself, he grit his teeth, shaking off the response. "Sorry. I'm not trying to be pushy-"
"They should have been here an hour ago." Raspberry stepped up beside him, peering out the window, and looking to scrutinize everything under a gaunt gaze. "But that's only accounting for a clear, unobtrusive route. Chances are, they might have taken a few detours."
"Which added up?" Josh said, only for her to give a headshake.
"Even so, that would only add fifteen minutes at best. We spent maybe an hour in the basement." Josh cast a quick eye back to the hole, glancing up at Yang who sat on the couch behind it, equally as impatient as he. "Meaning they've had more than enough time to get here. That they're not is... concerning."
Josh pushed off, ready to go check up and see if Yang was holding out alright. She'd beat them a decent sized hole to escape, but he saw the way she flinched midway through. Whatever injury she sustained had been remedied by her aura, but he couldn't help but notice that aura didn't entirely erase the pain.
"How's it feeling?" he asked, earning a huffed, but otherwise casual glance as she continued playing with her gauntlet doing... whatever it was she was doing.
"I've had worse." As if to prove her point, she flexed her free wrist before slipping the gauntlet back on. "Shard of metal just got jammed into the chamber."
That explained why she swapped arms two shots in.
"I'm assuming you got that fixed up."
"Yep. No biggie on my end." Right after, she fell back hard on the couch, humming loudly before her body went limp. "Any idea how much longer we're waiting?"
"Not a clue."
"That blows."
"Yeah." Rubbing the back of his neck, he stretched himself to get out some of the laziness in his muscles. "Raspberry thinks they should have been here hours ago; it has her worried."
"She's not the only one." Yang leaned forward, resting her head in her hands; unbothered by the gun so close to her face. Instead, a wry look fell over her, both thoughtful and skeptical. "Just when we found him, he up and disappears. Does he always do that?"
"Not really; at least in my experience." Josh plopped down beside her. "But since we came here, it's all I ever seem to hear."
"You don't sound all that worried."
"I'm good at pretending I'm cool." Her head lifted; eyes stout with curiosity. He grinned, knowing exactly what she must have been thinking at that moment. "Surprised?"
"A little." She settled into a straighter posture; not quite tense, but far from lazy. In a way, she looked more akin to an office worker with the way her eyes focused. However, she remained friendly in her appearance, as opposed to sporting the calloused irons worn by professionals. "You just... don't seem bothered by the wait."
"Patience is a virtue." He chuckled, but had a feeling she could hear the falseness seeping through. "One I had to learn the moment Jay vanished for the first time. It sucked, knowing there was nothing I could do to help."
"I feel you there, brother." She fell into him, and while he refused to voice it, the tiny display of comfort startled him. "It's like everyday something new is waiting to kick ya in the teeth."
"Yeah, and I like my teeth." Her slight, musical laughter reminded him that he still had it; humor really could lighten the mood sometimes, despite the darkness that surrounded them.
Soon enough, another hour passed, and then Yang broke the silence again.
"What's up with you and Jay, if you don't mind me asking." Leaning away, Yang granted him the space to sit back. "You're like this... almost happy-go-lucky guy, and Jay's a total drab; no offense."
"None taken." Even here in Remnant, Jay just couldn't escape the old habits. When given a fresh start, most people would usually try to become a better version of themselves, but Jay... Knowing him, he probably didn't believe that to be possible. "And yeah, he is a little sour most of the time. It's a habit I've tried to help him kick a few times before, but he has a different way of seeing things."
"Does his way actually help him? or is he just too stuck with himself."
"Sounds like you have experience with this yourself." Josh would have bit his lip, he hadn't meant for that to come out, but Yang expelled a heavy sigh, sinking deeper into the cushions.
"You don't know the half of it. I've seen it, and I've felt it. My uncle likes to say, "old habits die hard," but they never really die; we just get good at avoiding them when they pop into view." Kicking up one leg over the other, Yang stretched her arms out on the back of the couch, letting her neck nuzzle into it as she stared up at the ceiling. "But then again, that's only for the ones you can see; plenty of others are far better at hiding."
"Too many." Especially when you didn't believe them to be bad, or didn't know if they were really the source of your problems. "Jay doesn't like it when things seem meaningless." Yang's hum told him he caught her attention. It probably wasn't fair, but Josh really didn't see his friend fixing this habit any time soon. "He's much more of a "reason for everything" kind of person."
"Sometimes, there is no reason."
"No," Josh said, admitting they were on the same page, "but Jay... He'll never say it, but I've been with him long enough to know that he's not exactly fond of people prodding into his life."
Yang snorted, shaking it off quickly.
"Maybe if he stopped getting into trouble, I'd believe it."
"I think that's the point though."
"What do you mean?"
How to put it... Jay really couldn't make this easy, could he? Then again, Josh sat in the bleachers of thought that he'd never been meant to pick up on it. Unfortunately, the pattern remained consistent, even here.
"I'm not exactly great at metaphors and stuff, but I guess the best way to say it is that Jay doesn't like people really knowing what he's like."
"That... I don't even know what to make of that."
"I don't blame you." Josh sighed. Once again, he flubbed the delivery. Slapping both hands on his thighs, he stood. "I'm just gonna... keep watching the window."
"Okay."
Two steps ahead and everything froze. That dizziness, the tears across his vision, and the desire consumed him for five horrifying seconds. Light drowned his vision, but by the time it devoured the world, he bounded into the air. Landing hard in place, his heart froze.
"Okay."
He whipped right around just in time to spot Yang lock up, and the first tear he saw wrapped right across her face, stretching the world into strips before the urge took over again. He jumped, once more, only to be haunted anew.
"Okay."
No! No no NO!
Josh never got the chance to speak this time; Yang's face had already split along the jaw, pulled apart by the bleeding flood of white. He jumped early this time.
"Okay."
Even earlier.
"Okay."
One more time.
"Okay."
Just once more.
"Okay."
Please.
"Okay."
Make.
"Okay."
It.
"Okay."
Stop.
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"STOP IT! JUST SHUT UP!"
Several seconds of raw silence hummed, with only his rabid heartbeat as company. Through shut eyes, he noted the minute shuffling of clothes and clunks of boots against the boards below their feet. No light peeked into the blackness of his clenched eyes, and carefully, he chose to open them.
Yang refused to move, staring wide-eyed at him, fidgeting in place. Her rough, sturdy breaths implied questionable control, and when he realized that the series of time leaps had stopped, he turned towards the hallway to their right. Moving, he started with a steady stride, but soon fell into a sprint. He didn't bother opening the door, bursting through the old wood and partially ripping it from its hinges, only to pick up speed down the street.
He heard the others following him. He didn't care. Every repeat, every utterance of "okay" had been another death under Jay's belt. This should have carried on indefinitely, but it didn't. This was wrong. He wasn't there to save Jay, no one was, so why had the repeats ceased?
"Josh?!"
Before he knew it, a stream of firearms were aimed right at him, and in his rabid state he stared them down. They held no power over him; death, in this instance, meant nothing to him. Melanie walked right on up, flinching when she saw his face, before speaking again.
"The dust happened to you?"
He did his best to keep a level voice.
"Has anyone seen Jay? Anywhere at all?"
"No," she said curtly, face unwavering. "We came back when we got word of other news." Her eyes ran him up and down him, and her nostrils flared. "Did you faceplant in a puddle or something?"
"Josh!"
Yang's voice, followed by two pairs of footsteps and several panting breaths called him from behind. He didn't bother turning, instead looking over at Miltia.
"Has anyone heard anything?"
"No, not at all." Miltia approached him with open hands, reaching for his arm. "What's gotten into you?"
He wanted to swear, to scream his frustrations aloud, but that would be taking things out on everyone else. It wasn't their fault. They didn't know. They couldn't know. Heck, if he told them, he doubted they'd believe him.
"I've got a bad feeling." And so he lied, at least for now, and allowed Miltia to run a check on him. "A really bad feeling that Jay's in some serious trouble." Until something came along to prove that anything was possible, he'd keep quiet. "Like he's in extreme danger." In a world of magic, where people used the powers of their souls to save the day, why would things like this be so unbelievably? "And there's nothing I can do about it."
Because Jay told him they don't believe in magic, and that semblances and soul energy were entirely separate from magic.
"Relax son." Junior handed Josh what he hoped was a glass of water. It was, thankfully, and before he knew it he'd returned the empty glass, feeling an icy drip fall from his chin.
"T-thanks." The best he could muster: a tiny, shaky thanks.
"Tell us from the top. What happened to you and blondie over there?" His eyes narrowed a smidge. "And who's our new guest?"
"We need somewhere private." Despite his hysteria - he knew his actions so far looked crazy - Raspberry's warning pounded in his ears, reverberating with the knowledge that any one of the nameless goons watching them could be one of the bastards responsible for the trades. "We found her when making our escape. Don't know her name, but she can probably tell us that later."
A little white lie; hopefully enough to throw off the ones who might have recognised her. Junior passed through a glare, settling more on exasperation as he shook his head and muttered something about timing.
"Alright. Just you, me, the girls, and our guest."
Josh nodded, not exactly happy about having to work through the day's events, but calm enough to recognise he needed to chill, otherwise he might not make it to tomorrow. All he could do was hope Jay would somehow manage on his own, because without anyone knowing where he was, nothing could yet be done.
Stay strong. I'll find you, somehow. I promise!
.
.
Roman ran through a series of clicks, watching as Jay's body slumped and dropped to the sidewalk, being splashed by mud from a speeding van hauling ass down the road.
When getting off of desk duty, Roman expected Cinder would reassign him to the caverns. That passed by perfectly; no faults there. What didn't make much sense was the sight of Jay ripping himself out of Mercury Black's arms to run and jitter at the edge of the sidewalk. Heck, with the speedster rushing past, you'd swear he'd been prepared to jump right into it.
But no; suicide apparently wasn't on the table tonight.
"Well, that was something." Roman gave the kid a nudge, casting a look back at the flabbergasted duo. "Well? Are you going to just stand there, or are you gonna come pick him up?"
Honestly, Emerald wore her shock in the form of a mild 'huh?' expression, with a lopsided frown and half lidded eyes. Contrasting this, Mercury lifted a single eyebrow as his mouth stretched into a flat line. Considering the kid had been doing most of the work already, Mercury jogged right on over and threw Jay over his shoulder.
"That was weird," he said in passing, and Roman agreed a hundred and one percent with him; what a strange spurt of energy their little oddity showed off. So much so that Roman had to ask.
"Is he always like that? Or just around you two?"
"Don't know." Mercury shrugged, leading the way across the road and into another alleyway. The fastest route to Mountain Glenn was straight, and with the cops and news crews out exploring the blockades - cooing like children in a candy store, really - it meant they could, quite literally, peruse the streets with little fanfare. The smoke back at the raid, honestly, provided a fitting backdrop to things; like a lit fuse leading to the big boom just waiting to pop off.
Anything to get out of his stupid 'desk jockey' outfit; although, it did provide decent cover for his identity - if you ignored his gloriously vibrant hair.
"What do you mean?" But despite everything, Mercury hadn't exactly given a clear answer.
"He means," Emerald caught up with them again, "we've never really interacted with him before. This is as new to us as it is to you."
"A blind trio." Roman rolled his eyes, humming a mock happy tune. "Your mistress sure knows how to pick 'em. Remind me again why she didn't come along?"
"She has other business to attend to." While she didn't know it, Emerald had uttered the perfect 'kiss-ass' excuse; seriously, Roman couldn't count how many times wise guys begging for approval from their masters said that exact same sentence. It became a real life cliché.
"And so she threw the grunt work on the grunts. Lovely."
"Meh." Mercury readjusted his grip on Jay before leaping up a closed dumpster to a window ledge, kicking off a brick wall next, and coming to balance atop the edge of the rooftop to their immediate right. Emerald and him joined the unofficial carrier up top fast enough to keep pace, to which the kid said the smartest thing Roman had heard all night - from Cinder's goons anyway. "She pays, so I work."
Kid knew how to grind, and knew not to take it personally; had he not been a wacko's bitch, Roman might have offered him a job. Sadly, they didn't live in that timeline. And in the meantime, he could almost hear Emerald fuming. Life sure had a funny way of offering him both the best and worst it had for sale; Roman almost counted himself lucky, until he remembered he'd been dragged into this mess without much of a choice.
Then again, he chose to continue living, but he'd been doing that before Cinder began shoving her devious fingers down his throat.
.
.
"Is your solution to this problem you've made up going to continue being death, or are you merely testing the limits of my power? If so, you'll find my reach infinite."
Shut up, Jay wanted to say, but his mouth refused to move. It didn't matter how many times he felt the pain of dying, he wouldn't waver... But he had, and that frightened him to the core. He'd tried so hard to jump in front of that van, but the pain compounded so much that he forgot how to breathe, and by the time he registered anything else, he was already awake in the void. In the back of his mind, he toyed against his will with a twisted idea: the horrid concern that death would be nothing but reliving one's last moments forever - an unending cycle of pain, the likes of which made his own life look like heaven.
This had to be its manipulation. Death was natural, and something natural wouldn't facilitate pointless agony.
"Why can't you pick someone else? Why does it have to be me?"
"You are perfect."
"Liar!" Perfect in nothing, maybe, but not at all in any way useful for the monster's schemes. False fingers lifted his chin, but Jay yanked himself away, not wanting to look upon the horror wearing Ruby's skin.
"What do I gain from lying to you?"
"A stupid idiot who'll do whatever you say." That would be the ultimate goal for a real deity. The Brothers were bad enough, and if this atrocity was anything like them, then he had every right not to trust it. "You have any one of Remnant's hunters, so what reason is there in using me?"
It didn't make sense, but then again, no matter what form of fiction you read, gods rarely did - if this even counted as one.
"Remnant is incapable of change on its own. My influence would be wasted on any one of its people. I've seen into your mind the day I claimed you as my champion. I know you both inside and out. There is not a secret you carry that I don't already know. Through all of this, I hence know my decision is perfect. Like it or not, you carry the power and potential to succeed where all others have failed."
"Why can't you just let me die." It all came down to that: the 'why?' "If you need someone from outside of Remnant, there are eight billion other humans in my world. One of them is bound to be the same as me, minus the attachment you know I have to Remnant."
It didn't say anything at first, but quickly enough, Jay felt his body tethered upright on its own. The image of Ruby that wasn't her paced towards him as a human would, her expression flat and emotionless.
"Because it would be a waste of time."
"I'll keep denying you."
"No." Jay fell hard on his knees, but didn't bother wincing from the pain. "One of you will succeed."
He looked up to meet the monster's eyes again, and something clenched around his chest. His captor carried on as if unbothered by everything.
"Even if I must go through a thousand different Jays, one of you is bound to succeed." It leaned in close. "I saved you in particular because I wanted to give you a chance: a chance to do something besides throwing yourself into death like the past several have. A chance to live. A chance to mean something."
"A thousand different... me?"
It grinned; a true, full-fledged grin.
"You'll get your wish soon enough. But please, try to die with purpose like the first few, and I'll continue warning your successors of lethal blows... If, of course, they choose to heed my warning instead of fighting it like the past several iterations."
Author's note
…
Okay, so this is where we begin kicking a few things off.
Josh gets to leap through time a few times, and Cinder's pair - and Roman - are on their way to Glenn. On top of that, Jay's in for a rough time coming up.
Until next time.