Episode Ember Grover: Chapter 2: The Ruin

Chapter 2 of Ember Grover's adventure.

            Ember piloted the airship around the Emerald Forest.  She hadn’t visited the area since her initiation years ago.  Even though it was a popular spot for Grimm, it had become less and less dangerous over the years given the lack of anyone truly controlling the powers of the god of Darkness that created them.  Even after Hera’s actions controlling as many Grimm as she could during the final battle, the Grimm seemed even more mindless than before.  Simply wandering around without any form of direction.  But it wasn’t the Grimm that Ember was concerned about.  After a few more moments of flying, she saw it.  The tower ruins that famously served as the battleground for her mother and her friends in Team RWBY during their initiation.  Ember set the airship down no more than a mile away from the ruins.  Despite being almost certain she was the only one there, given the events of the war not too long ago, she didn’t want to take any chances.  She continued her way through the forest and eventually came out into the clearing of one of the bridges that lead to the central columns.  As she made her way to one of the columns, she noticed something that she had never noticed in all of her years both watching students partake in the Beacon Academy initiation, but also during her own initiation years ago.  There was a strange door that opened into one of the columns.  She got closer, and saw that it almost seemed to function as a sliding door, despite being made of stone.  As she walked into the frame of the door, she ran her hand across the stone slabs.  They felt as real as any rock she threw into the creeks back home, yet they seemed to have moved like sliding glass at one of the modern markets in Vale.  She stepped inside and it became even stranger.  The inside of the column was a large space with a central hole in the middle with catwalk rings layered several stories down throughout the rest of the column.  The interior was a matte white, with a few florescent lights illuminating the room.  They weren’t powerful enough to make it as bright as day, a few were broken, but enough to provide some light.  She thought maybe these were external lights brought in by somebody else, but as she looked closer, she saw they were not external lights, but built into the walls of the space.  Ember looked around confused, did she step into an alternate dimension?  The walls looked like they belonged in an Atlas facility, not in a destroyed ruin of Vale.  As she looked down, she saw more lights illuminating the path downwards.  There weren’t any stairs that she could see, only the catwalks.  So she decided to look around the catwalk she already was on.  She ran her hand across the wall, trying to see if perhaps there was a hidden panel, or another sliding door that lead somewhere else.  After a few moments of searching, she did find another panel.  She could feel the grooves in the wall.  But she didn’t know how to open it.  So she just phased through the door.  And when she did, she found herself standing back outside on the bridge opposite the one she used to get here.  She turned back around and looked down at the catwalks below.  She didn’t see anybody on the onset, and the catwalks didn’t seem too far apart.  So she phased through the top layer of the catwalk, and then solidified herself and landed on the catwalk below her.  Her Aura dampened any damage her legs may have taken.  With each catwalk, she would take the time to regenerate her Aura by walking around, trying to find other hidden passageways.  Some levels didn’t have any, while others lead to the connecting bridges down in the clouds of the valley outside.  Ember went down about twenty levels without finding anything.  But then, as she touched down on level twenty, she noticed something.  A doorway open across from where she had landed leading not to the outside, but a different type of corridor.  And a lone Order soldier seemingly was posted by that gateway, facing away from the catwalk.  Ember was shocked that her constant loud landings on the catwalks didn’t’ alert any of the other soldiers, as it seemed the echoes would have been heard all throughout the column.  But then she noticed something.  As she approached the guard, she started hearing noise coming from the open door.  Sounds that as she grew closer seemed impossible to be inaudible to anyone within even five miles of this tower.  There seemed to be some form of soundproofing that was affecting the room.  Ember decided to use this to her advantage, and quickly snuck up and knocked out the guard at the entryway.  She then pulled him off to the side, and then quickly changed into the guard’s uniform and snuck into the room.  As she did so, she saw what the guard was watching over.  A strange hallway that was filled to the brim with different doors that seemed to lead to nowhere.  It almost looked like the catacombs of an old prison, but without any bars.  But then Ember saw something even stranger.  She noticed a handful of Order soldiers standing right next to one of these crevices with a strange device that looked like a detection rod.  The soldier than took the rod and held it out into one of the openings and suddenly strange green energy started swirling around the rod.  As it did so, there was a loud sound, almost like a reverse explosion as the energy was absorbed into the rod.  The energy then flowed through it and into a small collection container, seemingly having been harvested.

            “Only twelve percent” the soldier said looking over a reading from the device.

            “Not good enough” another soldier holding a Scroll said.  “The schematics are clear; we need more than two-thousand percent power if we are to locate Lord Tenebris.”  Ember froze as she heard that name.  She wanted to leap into action, fight back against the Order, try to figure out what was going on.  But she quickly realized she needed to make sure there were no other Order soldiers nearby.  The soundproofing in the room seemed to extend across the entire length of the chamber, but there was enough light that Ember could see that these were the only two remaining Order soldiers in the vicinity.  So she quickly sprang into action.  She charged forward, knocking down the soldier with the harvested energy, and then turned her attention to the other soldier.  This soldier quickly pulled out a small dagger and pistol, making Ember laugh a little bit at how miniscule it was.

            “What, did the Order go through budget cuts?” she said with a laugh.  The soldier ignored this and tried to land a strike on Ember.  She simply sidestepped the soldier and hit him at full power with one of her tonfas, sending him flying further down the corridor.  As she started walking towards him, she suddenly heard the sound of energy charging behind her.  She turned around to see the soldier with the energy canister pointing the rod towards her and then the energy shooting out and hitting her square in the chest.  She slid back a bit, as her Aura seemed to negate the damage, but the energy itself felt as if it still landed its attack.  Looking down, Ember saw strange green energy swirling around her chest.  She looked up at the soldier, who was starting to realize how much of a mistake he had made.  She then rushed forward, struck the soldier, and sent him flying into one of the walls that separated the several openings, destroying the machine and energy container.  The energy leaked out and seemed to flow into one of the openings, creating a strange green portal.  Ember marched towards the soldier, who was still conscious, and then lifted him up against the wall by his collar.

            “Care to explain what you were doing here?” she asked with a growl in her voice.

            “Following…. orders” the soldier managed to gasp out.  “The superior…. wanted us here.”

            “Imperia is in prison; how did you receive those orders?  And what did you mean by trying to find Lord Tenebris?  You’re trying to find him out in the wilderness?  He didn’t go back to you after he escaped?”

            “We will find…. either this version….or another….as instructed by the superior.”

            “What?”  But before Ember could follow up on that particular statement, suddenly she was struck in the side by a powerful attack.  She was sent flying across the passageway, dropping the soldier in the process.  She looked up and saw a figure wearing a black coat with a hood covering his face, and carrying a chain with a large hook on the end.

            “Memoriare” Ember said with a growl.”

            “You’re not supposed to be here yet” Memoriare said with a growl.  He then removed his hood and revealed a man who looked not that much older than Ember herself.

            “Wait,” Ember said tilting her head in confusion, “who are you?”

            “You guessed right the first time” Memoriare said with a smile.

            “That’s impossible.  According to reports you’re older than dirt.”

            “He was” a new voice cut in.  Ember looked around and didn’t see anybody.  Then, like magic, a green portal opened up and a powerful burst of energy erupted from the door and knocked Ember back into one of the other openings across the way.  As she slowly got up, a stranger wearing another black coat with the hood pulled up stepped out.

            “Who…..”

            “I just made him younger so that he could help out with what comes next” the stranger said as he continued to slowly walk towards Ember.

            “And what does come next?” Ember asked as she slowly stood up.

            “That’s the exciting part!” the stranger said throwing his hands up in the air.  “After this next year or so, for the first time in eternity, I truly don’t know!”  Ember seemed even more confused as the stranger said this, but quickly regained her bearings, prepared her weapons, and was about to charge forwards.  But as she did so, the energy still manifested in her chest began to react.  It sputtered, then burst out, surrounding Ember in a small bubble, and then in an instant, her surroundings changed.  She went from a closed off mysterious catacomb to a star-lit night sky above a grassy field.  She stumbled forward, and then caught herself.  She stood up, caught her bearings, then looked around.  The stars were more than she had ever seen before, and the grass was as green as the trees of the Emerald Forest.  She saw she was near a cliffside that had a low man-made wall to keep people from falling over the side, and a few pathways down the mountain that all seemed to lead back to a white castle with golden trim off in the distance.  This castle was different from the ones Ember was used to seeing in the ruins, this one had four different wings that were suspended in mid-air while connected to the main building but also had chains tied around them that were anchored to giant rings wrapped around other mountains.  As Ember looked around for anybody else, she suddenly felt a pain in her chest, as she felt like the world began glitching around her.  She tried to stand up, but then saw another glitching figure appear in front of her.  This figure also wore a black coat.  Both of them stood up, and simply looked at each other.

            “What did you do to me?” Ember asked as she fought through the pain to get into a battle stance.  The figure across from her said nothing, just simply stood up, held out their hands, and two blue light energy beams appeared from thin air.  The stranger seemed surprised by this particular summoning as much as Ember was.  They de-summoned the weapon, and tried again, with the exact same result.  The figure seemed even more agitated at this point, but decided to not question it, and took up a battle stance with the energy blades.  Ember felt another surge of pain through her chest, but readied herself for the battle.

Author's Note

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