Natalie, Miles, Christy, Ty, Blake and Team BEAT were slowly trudging along continuing to make headway towards where the flare had been fired. The damage and fatigue from the battle was starting to set in for everybody.
“I swear,” Ty said as he rotated his arm for the millionth time, “one of those stupid soldiers made me dislocate my shoulder.” Christy exhaled in annoyance as he said this.
“Ty, for the millionth time, let your own aura heal you up! I’m running on fumes as it is!”
“Why don’t we use your abilities to help regenerate our own aura’s Bovia?” Ember said sliding up next to her. “You’ve done it in the past, it’s fixed us all up right quick.”
“That was when we were surrounded by water Ember” Bovia said as she pulled out her water containers. “When it comes to me regenerating aura for other people, I have to use not just a substantial portion of my own aura, but I have to constantly absorb water in order to make sure I don’t shrivel up and die. And I have barely left of my reserves to even partially heal one of us.”
“Regardless,” Miles said as he moved a boulder out of the way with his Semblance, “Aura can regenerate overtime. We shouldn’t worry about our problems right now. Instead we should…..” Before Miles could finish, Aurora appeared as if out of nowhere, stopping right in front of them.
“Aurora?” Blake said with surprise. “What are you….”
“No time!” Aurora said as she quickly moved over and grabbed Christy’s wrist. “Professor! I need you to hold on!”
“What?” Before Christy or anybody else could process what was going on, Aurora had already run off, dragging Christy with her. Seconds later, she re-appeared, grabbed Bovia, and disappeared again.
“What just happened?” Arri said as she tried to fan the dust that Aurora kicked up out of her face.
“If my daughter just ran up to us like the world was about to end,” Blake said as she started running towards where Aurora ran off to, “it’s a safe bet that something terrible has happened.” Everybody picked up the pace and ran to reach where everybody else was. They reached the edge of the crater, and were shocked when they saw the scene that lay before them. Jacob was lying in the middle of the crater, surrounded by magical signs and symbols, with Christy pouring aura into Jacob’s body while Bovia tried to keep Christy’s aura levels up with her water’s regenerative powers. Everybody quickly ran down the side of the crater and joined everybody else.
“Mom! Gray!” Ember yelled as she ran up to them. “What happened?”
“Mr. Strohl was harmed by the Relic of Death.”
“What?!” Miles yelled as he and Blake ran over to Aurora. “How did this happen?!”
“And not to sound like I’m being cynical or anything,” Ty said as he joined the rest of his old team by Jacob’s body, “but given how you described this thing to us, how the heck is he not dead?!”
“My best guess,” Salem said speaking through Hera’s body, “is that the blade was used in a slow, precise way, more like slowly cutting a fruit. Perhaps the relic responds not only to striking an opponent, but how it strikes the opponent.”
“We can debate how and why the gods created a relic with so many different rules later!” Ozpin yelled as he grabbed his cane. Everything is ready! We only have moments once I stop casting this spell on his body.”
“What can we do to help?” Arri asked as she walked over to where Bovia was trying to help keep Christy’s aura levels up.
“Get inside the circle!” Ozpin yelled motioning towards everybody. “I am going to send us all back to the light dimension, and attempt to continue Jacob’s treatment there. But we must be quick! I don’t know if Ms. Curtiss’ aura can keep Jacob alive long enough for me to resume, even with Ms. Brown’s regenerative abilities helping.”
“Let me cast the spell Ozpin” Salem said placing her hand on his shoulder. “I can send you all back safely.”
“Excuse me,” Ruby said stepping towards the two of them, “but wouldn’t that mean that you would be leaving this body in this dimension as well? If you could have casted a spell that allowed you specifically to return to this world, you would have done it eons ago.”
“Well for your information….” Salem was about to go off, but then Hera cut her off yelling,
“We don’t have time for this! We need to get back home now”
“Hera is right” Ozpin said, now sweating a great deal. “The magic won’t hold forever in this state, and we need more than just myself and Ms. Curtiss here. Please, everybody get in the circle.” Everybody quickly did so, and held their breath, as Ozpin pulled back his magical powers from Jacob, and channeled it into his cane. He took one quick look at Hera, and simply said the words,
“Teach her sister.” With that, Ozpin struck the ground with his cane, and in a flash, the space changed from the dark realm to Ozpin’s office. Ozpin almost collapsed, but quickly recovered and diverted all of his energy into Jacob.
“Is he….?” Ozpin asked with a weak voice.
“It drained a lot of aura out of me,” Christy said coughing a little bit, “but he’s still with us.”
“I’m out of water though” Bovia said. “I’m running off my body’s natural water supply. I can’t keep this up for long.”
“Somebody call Beanie!” Brooklyn yelled. Ember quickly pulled out her Scroll, while Terra smashed open a window that had a direct view of the falls off in the distance.
“Beanie!” Ember yelled into her Scroll. “No time to explain! I need you to come up to Ozpin’s office via a water spout! Come up to the west side of the tower! Don’t argue! Just do it! We’ll explain when you get here!” Ember hung up, and everybody anxiously held their breath.
“Someone….call Mr. Arc…..as well!” Ozpin gasped out. Sora grabbed his scroll and stepped out of the room to give his father a call. Meanwhile, Beanie and the water spout finally arrived. He landed in the office, and realized what he was seeing.
“What happened to Jacob?” he asked trying to keep himself from going into shock.
“We’ll explain in a minute!” Arri said grabbing Beanie’s shoulder. “Right now, you need to get as much water as you can directed at Bovia! Make sure she can keep regenerating Professor Curtiss’ aura without killing herself!”
“On it!” With that said, Beanie took the water he used to get up to the office and directed it at Bovia. “This isn’t a lot of water professor,” Beanie said as he looked over the edge to see how much water he had to spare. “And it won’t be easy for me to get more all the way up here.”
“Get some medical equipment,” Ozpin said as he continued to weave magical spells, “and prepare to carve out a large slab of the floor for transportation. Mr. Watson, your Semblance will be needed to transport us all to the river to ensure that we can keep Mr. Strohl here alive for as long as possible. Are you up for the task?”
“I’ll push myself to the limit if I have to” Miles said cracking his knuckles. As soon as all the equipment was prepped and ready, everybody who needed to be there stood in a designated area where a circle was drawn on the floor. As soon as that was done, Aurora ran several laps around the circle, cutting into the floor with her swords. As soon as the floor had been cut deep enough, Miles lifted up the glass and moved one of the gears from the floor beneath them up to their level. They then moved Jacob and everybody who was important at the moment onto the gear. Miles then slowly but surely adjusted the pull of the gear so that it gently pulled them towards the river that flowed near Beacon itself. While Miles’ abilities had improved over the years, this level of concentration was still difficult for him to pull off, and he started to cough up a little bit of blood. Fortunately, he managed to get the gear safely placed next to the river, and Beanie was able to access even more water to help Bovia continue to regenerate Christy’s aura, which she was pouring every last drop she had within herself to try and keep Jacob from fading away. Miles staggered a little bit and fell to the ground. Everybody who wasn’t on the gear ran over from Beacon tower as fast as they could, Aurora being the first to arrive and helping her father get back on her feet.
“You holding up okay dad?” Aurora asked as she wiped some of the blood off of Miles’ face.
“Honestly,” Miles said with a cough, “at this point I’d take holding all of Amity Arena by myself again.”
“I think we’d all prefer it if we could just go back to when we fought the bad guys and that was that” Evan said as he joined the group. “How did the Order manage to get such an advantage on us to begin with?”
“I’d love to talk logistics and things of that nature,” Ozpin said as he continued to pour even more magic into keeping Jacob alive, “but we have far more pressing matters right now. Mr. Nikos, when do you suppose your father will be arriving?”
“I just heard from my mom” Sora said as he walked over. “They’re both on their way here right now.”
“There is no need for your mother to be here” Ozpin said as he started to cough a little bit. “She needs to be in Mistral helping make sure that the Order….”
“Jacob is still family” Sora said firmly. “And we need to be here.”
“Okay,” Ty said as he sat down on the ground. “We just got our butts handed to us, the Order has got Jacob hanging by a thread, and we are stuck without a plan because some of our best strategists are either dying or trying to keep them from dying. What do we do?”
“Professor,” Ruby said stepping forward, “is there anything we can do to help Jacob?”
“In this moment right now child? No. However, I am willing to bet that the Relic of Life can be a key to saving Jacob from his current affliction. However, even if I were available to help, I have no information about where to find the Relic. But, if you all come together, I am sure you could solve the riddle. You have my permission to use my personal library to try and find any information that may prove useful.” Everybody kind of stood around, still shell-shocked by what they had gone through, before Natalie got up and walked into the center of the magic circle where Jacob was clearly still in a great deal of pain. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and said,
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you go there just yet.” After that, she started walking towards Beacon tower. Everybody else walked over to Jacob, and gave him their best and their promises of saving him from this fate. As they left for the library, Jacob smiled, with a few tears in his eyes, and said,
“I’m…..not…..done yet."
The pools of Grimm ooze bubbled and spat as the Order soldiers passed through them in their hazard suits. The place where they had entered was remote enough that they were able to land their air fleet without being noticed by any of the four kingdoms. As the team emerged and removed their suits, Tenebris was noticeably upset as he removed his suit.
“You constantly complained about how I did not have the strength to do what was needed” he yelled while marching towards Lord Imperia. “I had the one that was never meant to exist in my clutches, ready to kill him as you had constantly chastised me about! And you decide to pull me out of a situation that could have given us a major advantage in this war?!”
“First off,” Imperia said as she continued to remove her own suit, “it was Lord Sangui I believe who was constantly against you and your efforts. And second, we still need Ozpin for the final phase of the plan.”
“I wasn’t going to kill Ozpin! I was going to kill the betrayers! Everyone who turned against me! And you decided that it was time to retreat?”
“We had claimed our prizes. We were victorious. I believe that there can still be a greater role for them all to play in this coming war if they are all still alive. Besides, killing them would have just angered them to the point of swearing vengeance upon you and stopping at nothing until you laid dead before them. And we don’t need that kind of attention. Not when we are so close to achieving our goals.”
“Speaking of which, what is the purpose of bringing this back?” Lord Tenebris motioned to the pod containing the body of Lord Mortem being escorted to the main airship. “What purpose does this serve with the overall goal?”
“There are many moving pieces and parts of this magic that we do not fully understand just yet my friend” Lord imperia said placing her hand on Tenebris’ shoulder. “I need you to trust me, like you have ever since I guided you to your true destiny.” Lord Tenebris remained silent, and just boarded the airship without saying another word. Lord Sangui walked over to Lord Imperia, his arms folded and concern across his face.
“If he is truly on our side my lord, why not tell him the whole truth about our goals?”
“Lord Tenebris still sees Lord Mortem as the primary piece of the Order that took Aequo away from him. If we reveal our true agenda to him, I fear that may cause him to turn against us and destroy everything we have worked so hard to build.”
“If he is such a liability, why keep him around?”
“The truth behind his identity is a key weapon we can exploit when the time is right. That is also why I do not wish for any of his family or friends to die until we are ready to begin the final phase. The moment that the truth is revealed to them, so long as we play that card at the right time, they will crumble and fall. That is when we shall make our move and attack.”
“As you wish my lord. And what of the Relic of Life?”
“Continue to study the riddle we received from the Relic of Knowledge, but also take some of the data we managed to collect from the scans of the Dark Realm. I believe within that lies a clue to our next objective.”
“As you wish my lord.”
Team GASH made it back to their dorm rooms, each of them not really taking the time to properly put their weapons away.
“I’m going to sleep for years” Aurora said as she collapsed onto her bed.
“You might need a cannon in order to wake me up” Sora said as he floated up to his top bunk.
“I think I might just fall asleep and not even bother to wake up” Gray said as he covered his whole body with sheets. Hera didn’t say a word as she just simply collapsed onto her bed and fell right asleep. Within that moment, she was dreaming already, standing there in the Dark Realm, and Salem was standing there, her arms behind her back.
“Well,” Salem said with a sigh, “today could have gone better.”
“I don’t think today could have gone any worse” Hera said tossing her arms up in the air. “We got beat real bad! Jacob is on the brink of death, and now we have to deal with fighting the Order and saving him!”
“Indeed. Which is why we need to begin training right away.”
“Training? Where? How?”
“In here. This mindscape, while made of dreams, can still be used to teach your mind how to properly use the power that you have lying within you. My power to be exact.”
“So you want to teach me how to use your own powers in the real world? That seems a bit sketchy.”
“Have I not yet truly earned your trust after everything I’ve done for you?”
“You quite literally showed up in one of my dreams the other night, convinced the headmaster of my school to take us all on a perilous journey into another dimension, sort of hijacked my body for the duration, one of my oldest family friends is on the brink of death, and now you want me to learn how to use your powers in the real world that you couldn’t interact with before.”
“I assure you child, my intentions are to help you. I cannot control or hijack you as you said in this world. All I can do is help guide you to better protect your family. I know I can’t make up for all of my mistakes, both old and new, but I can still make sure that my power is used for the greater good, which is better than when I had that kind of power.”
“I’m still skeptical about you.” Hera said as she gestured her eyes being on Salem. Salem chuckled a little bit.
“I expect nothing less.” With that, Salem waved her hands and the space they were in turned into a large arena. Salem smiled and snapped her fingers saying,
“Let’s get started.”
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