Beanie stepped off the elevator and walked to the main entrance to greet everybody returning from Mistral.
“How’d it go?” he asked as everybody made their way inside.
“A lot easier than we were expecting” Ruby said with a smile. “Pyrrha and Jaune stayed behind since it is their home and all, but honestly they could have left things to the normal Atlesian troops and androids on site. The Grimm aren’t that much of a threat. All that’s left to really do there is just keep cleaning things up and fix all the destroyed parts of the kingdom.”
“Which is good because I don’t think the Order is going to be sitting on their hands forever” Jacob said pulling out his Scroll. He scrolled through his contacts, refreshing to try and see if he had any new messages. “Last time something like this happened, we were caught flat on our faces. They were quiet for a few days after declaring war, then all of a sudden they invade Mistral and beat us to a pulp.”
“In fairness,” Ty said placing his hand on Jacob’s shoulder, “we paid them back for that in a pretty decisive manner if I do say so myself.”
“Doesn’t mean we should let up” Evan said crossing his arms. “If we let them recuperate from this, they might hit us back with something even more devastating than what happened in Mistral.”
“That’s part of the reason why Ozpin wants all of you to join him in his office” Beanie said motioning towards the elevator. “He wants to discuss strategy.”
“Sounds good to me” Yang said as she made her way towards the elevators. Everybody started filing on, but Beanie stopped Team GASH from boarding.
“Sorry, this meeting doesn’t include students.”
“Hey, we took part in the cleanup of Mistral and the attack on the Order’s base!” Aurora said with an annoyed tone.
“Just because you took part in an operation doesn’t entitle you to confidential information hon” Miles said sternly to his daughter. “Honestly, I still have my reservations about this. Even with the supervision set in place.”
“So I should have just waited for an adult to save grandma and grandpa back in Menagerie?”
“That was life or death Aurora. This is much more complex and intricate than that.”
“Miles,” Blake said with a sigh, “you can lecture our daughter later. You’re holding us up.”
“My apologies.” With that, the elevator doors closed, and left Team GASH standing there awkwardly.
“Well,” Sora said putting his hands behind his head, “what do we do now?”
“I’m going to go practice” Aurora said as she turned towards the exit. “We barely saw any Grimm in Mistral compared to the others, and I need to blow off some steam.”
“Mind if I join you?” Sora said as he quickly ran to catch up with Aurora.
“The more the merrier I say.”
“We should all train together” Gray said as he ran to catch up with everybody else. “Give us a chance to work on our team moves.”
“I’ll catch up” Hera said as she continued to stare at the closed elevator doors. As her teammates left for the training grounds, she stood there still, not sure what she should do. She reached her hand out to call for the elevator, but pulled it back before pressing the button.
“What am I doing?” Hera asked herself as she grabbed her right arm in fear. “It’s just some weird nightmares. Nothing to bother everybody else about. They have bigger things to deal with than some stupid night terrors.” She quickly turned around and ran out the door to rejoin her teammates. As she ran towards the door, she couldn’t help but feel like there was something tugging on her shoulder, beckoning her back to the elevator. But she ignored this and continued to run constantly telling herself,
“They’re just nightmares. They’re just nightmares. They’re just nightmares.”
The elevator doors opened, and everybody flooded into Ozpin’s office. He stood up with a smile once he saw everybody enter.
“I heard that things have been going well for us in the Kingdom of Mistral. That is truly wonderful. Something we needed immensely following everything that has happened these past few weeks.”
“Yes it’s good and all,” Natalie said placing her hands behind her head, “but unless we take down the Order for good, we may as well have just wasted our time trying to fix something they will break all over again if they get the chance.”
“Which is exactly why I called you all in here on such short notice.” As Ozpin said this, he pulled up four images for everybody to see. “During this brief respite, I have been going through each and every last potential piece of evidence that could clue us into what the Order may want with these Relics.”
“Well given how powerful each of them are on their own,” Christy said as she walked over to the image of the Relic of Connection, “and since they are one of the few people who actually knows that they exist, it would make sense for them to try and control them all if it meant they could rule this world with an iron fist.”
“That is indeed a leading possibility Ms. Curtiss, but there is another angle to consider.”
“Honestly Ozpin,” Brooklyn said as she rolled her eyes, “I’m getting a little tired of you just randomly remembering these vital pieces of information that are crucial to our worlds very foundation.”
“Completely understandable Ms. McPherson. However, I never thought that these elements would ever come into play given the fact that they have been so well hidden over the last few centuries. Alongside that, I have existed for millennia. My memory is filled with more information than almost all the computers of the world.”
“Not all that well hidden if they either know where to look or you leave it out in the open for them to attempt to steal in broad daylight” Blake said as she looked over the different Relics.
“Regardless,” Ozpin said starting to sound annoyed with the constant interjections, “I did manage to pull out some old tomes that were given to my father when time began. A sort of guide if you will to how the Relics work individually, and also how they can work together to create truly awesome spectacles the likes of which we may never see in our lifetime.”
“You just had these sitting around this whole time and didn’t even bother to check them regularly to make sure that you didn’t forget anything crucial or important since your father moved on?” Miles said as he flipped a few pages of the giant book.
“You must understand, this book is as old as time itself. And despite it being a gift from the gods themselves, for whatever reason, these records were kept on parchments and papers of man, the type that can corrode and end up lost to time. I have done my best to maintain the condition of all of them, but like mentioned before, a few tomes I thought would not be necessary in defending this world. There are quite a few pages missing from this particular book, and the pages that are still intact have faded lettering and words and phrases that may not apply to our modern form of communication.”
“So how is this supposed to help us again?”
“By giving us some key information about how some of the other Relics work. While the Relics of Connection and Knowledge are good on their own for basic simple uses, there are passages that reference the different ways that the Relics can come together to create different powerful combinations. For example, the Relic of Knowledge combined with the Relic of Life can give you information on all living things in the world, and even tell you about the parts of life that may be in danger of going extinct or have already gone extinct. Or there’s a passage that talks about how if you combine the Relic of Connection with the Relic of Life, you can open a doorway to any living thing anywhere in the universe. Not just on Remnant, but the entire universe.”
“So what does that have to do with the Order?” Jacob asked as he looked over the text as well.
“Like I said, a lot of sections of this book seem to be missing. And given the fact that the Order was created by myself to try and better understand our world while recording the data of the four maidens, it’s entirely possible that some of those old passages were kept by them and hidden away for their own agendas. If the Relics can do things of this nature with just Knowledge and Connection, we can only imagine what terrors might unfold if the Relic of Death is brought into the picture.” The room fell silent, Ozpin pulled up the image of the Relic of Death and a few passages. “Most of the passages only talk about the Relic of Death in a capacity to reverse death when combined with the Relic of Life, but I have no doubt that there are several more passages that reveal ways that a user can abuse that power and completely devastate all of Remnant with its power. That’s why I feel we need to ensure we take the necessary steps in order to make sure that the Order never gets their hands on the Relic of Death.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Bovia asked as she put down a section of text she was reading.
“We form an expedition to the Dark Realm and take the Relic of Death for ourselves and make sure that the Order never gets a chance to use it.” Everybody had confused looks on their faces when Ozpin said this.
“The Dark Realm?” Ty asked with a bit of surprise in his voice. “How do you know it’s there?”
“My father hid it there. When I asked the Relic of Knowledge eons ago about the Relics for the first time, it was kind enough to divulge each of their locations. I only wrote down general notes about their specific locations as to ensure that kind of information never fell into the wrong hands, at least for the Relics of Death and Life. The Relics of Knowledge and Connection were completely exposed, so I took it upon myself once I created the Academies to hide them away securely in vaults so that they could not be found. Or at least, they weren’t supposed to be. My leading theory on how the Order found the Relic of Knowledge was that they managed to sneak a mole into my group who helped create the vault. But that is times past, and we must focus on making sure the Relic of Death does not fall into their hands as the Relic of Knowledge did.”
“Real quick professor,” Ruby said as she walked up to him, “but couldn’t doing something like this give the Order exactly what they want? They might not even know that the Relic of Death is hidden in the Dark Realm. They might think that it’s hidden somewhere here in Remnant. And by bringing it back to our world, then all they have to do is take us out and we’ve delivered the key to their victory on a silver platter.”
“True, it may seem safer to leave the relic in the Dark Realm, but I fear that the Order may already know to look there. They had their hands on the Relic of Knowledge for quite some time, and I fear that even if they didn’t get all the answers they were looking for or if they lost the key to finding the Relic of Death when we destroyed their base, they may have found out enough that they may make a move to dive into the Dark Realm and retrieve the relic for themselves. That may be why they have been so quiet during these last two weeks. We may already be too late.”
“Even if we do go into the Dark Realm,” Miles said as he pulled down the image of the Relic of Death, “where would we even begin to look? We have no map of the Dark Realm, and even if we did, we would have no idea where to begin looking for the relic. We would quite literally be looking for a needle in a haystack.” The room fell silent, Ozpin realizing the issues that arose with this proposed expedition sat back down at his desk.
“Perhaps if I went along with several airships that were equipped to scan the area for the distinct energy signature of the relic…..”
“Aren’t the Grimm even more powerful and numerous in the Dark Realm than they are here?” Ty said scratching his head. “If we go in with the intention of finding something, we had better know exactly where it is before we go full tilt into this mission.”
“Look,” Ember said with a sigh, “we need to take care of the Order, and we need to deal with this relic business. But right now, we also need to focus on making sure we don’t run ourselves ragged. Between this war, taking back Mistral, and now this whole treasure hunt, we need to catch our breath. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we keep running full speed towards a wall. I say we take a day to sleep on this and come back with clearer heads in the morning.”
“Agreed” Christy said with a yawn. “Between trying to keep up with lesson plans and battle strategies, I haven’t had a decent amount of sleep in days.”
“All right” Ozpin said as he shut down his desk. “But I want us all to re-convene here tomorrow afternoon. We need to find a solution to this.” Everybody nodded their heads in agreement and headed out the doors.
“Christy, Ember, you guys got a moment?” Miles said as he made his way towards the two of them before they got on the elevator. “Natalie, Yang, you too?” Natalie and Yang made their way over to the three of them, Natalie’s head tilted in confusion.
“What’s up?” Natalie asked as they reached the other three.
“Could you meet me in the amphitheater before we meet with Ozpin tomorrow?”
“What for?” Ember asked scratching her head.
“I have some questions I want to ask about this Lord Tenebris guy. You said you fought him a few weeks ago and we never really followed up on that. I want to compare notes.
“Sounds good” Christy said cracking her back. “But first, I need to get some rest.”
“I’m with you there” Yang said as she stretched her arms. “Both the rest and the meeting. I want to go over everything regarding this guy.”
“Sounds like a plan” Miles said as he got on the elevator. “We need all the information on this guy that we can get.”
“I just hope there is something we can find instead of more questions and convoluted twists and turns” Natalie said with a chuckle.”
Hera stood up to find herself in a deep red field, the ground a powdered sand with the sky filled with constantly shifting black clouds, but always a crimson red sky.
“Not again” Hera said as she sat down. “Why is it that every time I have this dream, the less and less it seems to make sense? Last night it was a valley, the other night it wasa mountain, and now just a literal flat field!”
“…..find…..me” Hera stood up with a start at the sound of a strange new voice in the distance.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“….find….me……find…..relic….”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“…..Ozpin……brother…….final gate…..I can….”
“Show yourself!” As Hera yelled this, the wind picked up around her and caused some of the red sand to fly up in front of her. The sand started to come together to form a person standing before Hera. Hera was frightened, as a woman clad in black with skin whiter than snow and black scars across her face began to take shape.
“Find my brother Ozpin,” the figure said as it walked towards Hera. “And he can help you understand what is needed to open the final gate and find the lost relic.”
“What relic? What gate? Who are you? How do you know Professor Ozpin?”
“Talk to him. Say my name, and all will become clear to him.”
“Your name? I don’t even know your name! I want to wake up!” The dream began collapsing, the sands swirling around creating a storm. The sands created a barrier between Hera and the figure. Nothing could pass through that powerful wall. Hera started to feel herself waking up. However, as she began to leave the dream, one final word floated into her ears, that simply said:
“….Salem……”
prev chapter
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
