DISCLAIR: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishnt at threads/rwby-the-gar-the-gas-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.
Lighting
Taking a deep breath, I snapped my fingers and my friends ca to my side, arraying themselves around as they had before. In my mind I saw the summoning circles I'd used to call each of them for the first ti, the pentagrams they'd appeared inside.
Only this ti, it was they who made a circle around .
Ereb, Levant, Suryasta, Vulturnus, and Xihai each appeared at one of the imaginary star's point and Crocea Mors flowed into my gauntleted hands. Feeling his desire without having to exchange so much as a word, I canceled my Armored Shell and the gauntlets imdiately began to lt, spilling down my arms in rivers and drops that splattered on the ground and began to flow away from . In monts, he'd made a ring of steel around , the outer edges at my other Elental's toes, before at last going solid and still.
I took a slow breath and felt their presence within as I did. I looked at them all without moving a muscle, reaching out to them with my thoughts, and for the first ti in a long ti wondered.
Do you guys know what you're doing? Because I don't.
They looked back at without a word and smiled reassuringly, the emotion brushing against my mind even when the expressions were slow to co to their faces.
We are with you always.
The response didn't co from any one of them nor even from them all, but simple ford within my mind as a fact. Even so, it felt like the truth and I knew, knew, that I trusted them.
Exhaling slowly, I nodded once.
"Okay," I said aloud. "Let's do this, then."
At once, my Elentals began to shift and change. Ereb and Xihai, the ones who'd made their bodied out of physical water and earth, were the most obvious, with drops of water and flakes of dirt falling from their forms until their features were worn smooth and all that remained were blank figures of water and earth. The others shifted more subtly, as their edges dulled and the lines blurred, Levant's eternal smile getting wore away by the wind as Suryasta's eyes were consud by flas. Vulturnus simply began to flicker more wildly, the appearance of humanity fading with each motion until he was faceless and blank, while Crocea Mors shifted subtly, my face changing in the reflection of the steel ring until it was purely my own.
And then, when all that was left were blank Elental figures, they knelt as one and put their hands on the circle, as I had down when first I'd summoned them. Murmurs brushed against my thoughts, words in a language I didn't know, and then their bodies began to crumble, fading into dust and sparks and currents of air and water that drifted slowly around the outside of the circle before flowing towards its center.
Towards .
I remained still as they touched my skin once, each contact bringing with it a shock of Aura. Water and earth fell the ground, filling the inside of the circle in a solid sheet of mud even as sparks rose into a luminous cloud above my head, casting my shadow every which way. The wind kept the cloud aloft, filling the space in-between as it did, and for a mont nothing seed to happen.
Then my many shadows flickered once and then flowed, moving despite the stable light above. They all gathered in front of my, layering themselves into an unnaturally dark image even though there was light that should have broken the darkness. And then, slowly, my shadow began to move, head at the ring of Crocea Mors as it spun clockwise around , moving though I was still until it was back where I started.
Not going to lie, it was kind of unnerving, but after several seconds passed and nothing else happened, I started to wonder what the hell was going on.
Which, naturally, when the pain began. It struck unexpectedly, a tearing sensation, as if sothing was removing my feetor sothing below my feet that I'd sohow never noticedand when I tried to move, to escape whatever was causing it, I found my feet stuck firmly to the ground, immobilized against my will.
And then my shadow ca free, flowing away from and exiting the circle to begin another turn around it, this ti moving counterclockwise. I remained still and unmoving, senses focused on the unnaturally mobile shadow as it completed its course around and returned to its starting position. I analyzed it, Observed it, and focused on it intently, but all of my senses told that it was just a normal shadow, nothing more than an absence of light.
Except, you know, it pretty obviously fucking wasn't. I didn't have a lot of knowledge when it ca to shadow manipulation beyond what I'd picked up from watching IndigoI'd done so experintation to see if I was capable of anything similar and my efforts to summon a darkness or shadow elental had failed utterly. I hadn't been particularly surprised by that, since, logically speaking, darkness wasn't really an elent.
After all, I'd thought, darkness was nothing but the absence of light.
As soon as I had that thought, my shadow began to writhe, losing shape and then rising as if stretched from withinfrom below, as impossible as that was. I realized that I'd regained the use of my legs only when I fell to them, hands tearing up fistfuls of the building's roof as the pain rose and I felt as though I was being torn apart from within. Instead, however, my shadow was, ripping and splitting at nonexistent seems as light began to shine out of it, rising into a luminance even I struggle to see through as it flooded across the whole of the spectrum and yet left untouched.
And then it was gone and in its place stood a figure. At the foot of my shadow, now whole once more, stood a figure that wasn't and, even more oddly, seed to be completely composed of light. Sothing made of light shouldn't have been able to cast a shadow, my mind pointed out, but really, after that whole display, that seed like a pretty stupid thing to get hung up on so I put it aside and looked over the figure that couldn't have been anything but a Light Elental, making sure I noticed everything important.
As I'd already observed, it was a figure composed of pure light, featureless through its own radiance. I was reminded strongly of Bianca for a mont, of how she looked in the fullness of her power, but there was another detail that caught my attention. From its back spread pairs of massive wings, so vast and others small, but all glowing with the sa light as its body, almost as if soone had cut the space around the figure to ribbons and it was light that had co pouring out through the cracks. For a mont so of them covered its body, especially its face, but they quickly shifted aside to reveal it in it's entirety as a humanoid figure.
Then, it opened its eyes.
It's many, many eyes.
The first two were on its face, where a human's would be, and the first thing that struck was that they were the exact color of my ownblue, at least around the irises, though that was where the similarities stopped. The sclera, if you could call them that on a Light Elental, glowed an even brighter white then the rest of his body, as if what I was looking at was rely what had managed to escape through its skin, but there was an even greater light within. It didn't have pupils, either, or at least not human onesinstead of black dots, there were points of even brighter light at the center of the eyes, and they left points of light on my skin like laser pointers as the Elental looked at .
And then slits began to appear across its body, seemingly at random. I'd have called them countless, but I happened to be pretty good at countingeven so, I struggled to keep up when they began to appear by the hundreds of thousands. The majority of them were small, with many just a few dozen microters long, but others were asurable in milliters and so were as large or larger than a humans. As the slits widened, about half of them revealed eyes, fully ford regardless of size and each the color of my own. The other half were dark and empty, opening to reveal absolutely nothing, not even light. Sotis an eye would blink closed and a hole would shut in response, only to reveal an eye when it opened again and leave emptiness in its wake. They'd switched place in an instant, but the number of eyes and gaps remained constant, though the size of the pieces switched didn't seem to matter.
But there were so many. I counted a million of each after a few monts of crunching numbersexactly a million of each. And one by one, every single eye on the front side of its body turned to focus on , considering for a long mont. Then, a slit on its face in the exact position of a person's mouth moved. It revealed no teeth nor a tongue nor anything at all within it and yet it spoke.
"Until our soul ets its end, we shall be forever one," It murmured in a voice that was like absolutely nothing I'd ever fucking heard, as if finishing the ritual.
Hell, maybe that was exactly what it was doing.
For a long mont, all I could do was stare. I opened my mouth as if to say sothing but ended up simply closing it again, thinking better off it as I took a mont to get my thoughts together. I didn't really think of myself as the type to worry about stage frightif nothing else, I'd managed to put on a show to save my life a fair number of tis nowbut with a million eyes on , even I was given pause.
And yet, it was more than that. Looking the Elental over as it spread its thirty-six wings, it wasn't hard to pick up the similarities to the image I'd seen beneath the Red Rider's Templeand, though I'd only heard it described, to what Bianca had claid to see when she looked at . Sure, the differences were obvious, but that's the danger of second hand information; after a mont of thought I decided I'd have to be a fool to dismiss the resemblance out of hand. In all likelihood, it was safe to assu that the figure in front of was the figure my sister had seen, if smaller then she had described.
Which antwhat? It was obvious by this point that the Elent of Light was special and didn't refer just too mundane illumination. Lux Aeterna was sothing special, even if I didn't fully understand why, and my Light Elental was obviously special, too. I'd needed to rge all of my Elentals to create it and the summoning process had beenodd to say the least, so there was obviously sothing going one here, but what? Was it so sort of reflection of my soul? I'd heard Aura described as the light of the soul enough that it sohow wouldn't surprise , but still, I had no idea what was happening anymore.
I paused for a mont before nearly rolling my eyes at myself. Yes, I didn't know what was going onbut I could always just ask. I generally made a point to keep from seeming ignorant even ifespecially ifI was, but that was mostly because I had so many enemies. I could trust my elentals completely and though they didn't always give clear answers, often because they didn't usually understand human issues, they never lied to . And, however strange this whole thing seed, this was my Light Elental.
First things first, though. Most of the ti when I rged my Elentals, the results wasa bit hard to describe. When Xihai and Levant rged and beca an Ice Elental, for example, I wouldn't say the two of them inhabited the sa body because they didn't. In the end, there was only one mind in control, a new one created along with their body. And yet, at the sa ti, it was still them. That didn't really make sensehow could it be them and not be them at the sa ti?but it was still true. Whether I rged two or three or however many Elentals into one, it was the sa.
Except, apparently, with light. I could sense my Elentals the sa as always, but they felt dormant. Like the minds our contract had given to the, well, Elental forces of the world now slept and all that remained were the massive and slow consciousness that flowed through the world. I could still feel Ereb and Levant, but not as the smiling figures I could speak to or touch; I felt them as the glacial movents of plate tectonics and as clashing currents of moving air. They were there, still, and in a sense they were alive, but not like I knew them. It was a bit odd, honestly, as used to their presence in my thoughts as I was.
Instead, I felt a new mind, like and unlike the others. My elentals had gone into its creation and their power had given it form, but they weren't what was staring out at through a million eyes. I honestly wasn't sure what was.
As such, it was only proper that I introduce myself.
"Hello," I said. "My na is Jaune Arc. Are the others okay?"
It stared at and everything else, which was fairly easy when you could spare an eye for everything in the vicinityfor a mont before replying.
"Yes," He replied, and I decided he was a guy simply because he was probably a reflection of . His voice was weird as hell for all that it was calm, because it wasn't an individual voiceit was a chorus of a million voices, male, female, animalistic, robotic, and everything else you could think of, so nurous that it should have drowned out what he was trying to say, but didn't only because every single voice spoke in perfect unison. It was pretty cool, but also creepy as hell. "Do not worry."
I pondered that for a mont, considering him.
"You say that, but I find it hard not to worry about my friends," I mused aloud. "Even when they rge, I can usually feel them, but now I can only feel you."
"You are right and you are wrong," He answered, enunciating the words carefully so they weren't swallowed by the alien sounds of his voice. "They exist in , for they exist only in ."
"Oh?" I asked. "I can't say I understand."
"I know," He answered calmly. "You apply concepts that are inapplicable, for you do not understand the nature of this power."
"My Elentals, you an?" I wonder, frowning slightly as I reviewed what I knew. I could tell he wasn't trying to insult and the truth was that I honestly didn't know a whole lot about how Elentals worked. No one did, as far as I knew; that knowledge, if it had ever been known at all, had been lost a long, long ti ago. "You're right. All I know is that we made a contract"
I paused.
"Yes," The Light Elental murmured. "A contract with earth, fire, water, air, lighting, and tal. They bound themselves to you and you tied yourself to themthe nature of the contract is that it binds both ways."
"It allows to summon them," I whispered. "I gain allies and friends and can draw upon their power. But what do they get?"
"You already know," He stated, the voice a bit softer as tones shifted in and out of it.
"Bodies and minds," I said. "Minds that can experience things on a human scaleor close enoughand bodies that can exist and operate on that scale. And they can do it because of the terms of the contract. Our souls will be forever one."
This ti, the Light Elental said nothing, standing impassively. I took that to an it felt there was nothing to argue.
"Is that how they rge?" I wondered aloud. "They're the elents given form, but they're also pieces of the sa puzzleof ."
"Of ," My reflection repeated. Or maybe corrected. I wasn't sure.
"Then you're what happens when all the pieces co back together?" I asked. "Because you're what was broken apart in the first place. You're , aren't you? My soul given form."
He was silent again. Maybe he just didn't feel the need to tell himself he was rightor maybe if I wasn't right, he just wouldn't know. But it made sense; I'd wondered before why earth or wind or fire gave a shit aboutanything, really. Why did they allow themselves to be summoned and do what I asked? But if I gave them parts of myself, then perhaps it made sense that they would help . And certainly, I hadn't encountered any other Elentals, at least not in the form of minds I could sit down and converse with, because the earth itself didn't have a mind like humans did. There was sothing there, but not the type of thing that caused earthquakes when it was upset or that beca upset at all. You didn't hear about won made of air coming down from the sky to blow people away, eitherbecause it took a person, soone with an Affinity that would allow them to make the connection, to breath sothing human into the wind or sea.
It made sense. I hadn't had any way to confirm anything before, but the pieces fit.
"Okay then," I said. "Do you have a na, then? The others did."
"Crocea Mors, the na of your ancestral blade," He replied, looking at still. "Levant and Vulturnus, the winds that blows towards the west. Xihai, the western sea. Suryasta, the sun that sets in the west during Ereb, the evening. The elents have no nas but the ones you gave them after you started your journey as the White Tiger of the West. Just as I have no na but the one you have given ."
I stiffened slightly at that, blinking twice.
"Ididn't know that was what those words ant," I replied, voice sounding subdued even to my own ears. I'd never given it much thought beyond recognizing the languages of the nasthe words ca from ancient Vytal and Mistral, I knew, but hadn't wondered if they ant anything more than that. Hearing them now though, the connections were fairly blatant.
But I didn't speak those languages. How would I have known their aning, even subconsciously? Hell, how did I know that was what they ant? I'd have to check later today, but
"If that's true," I began slowly, shaking myself once to regain focus. "And the nas of all my Elentals were ones I've given, then what have I nad you? If you're the reflection of my soul, what are you called?"
"You know that as well," He stated before tilting his head. "Or perhaps you don't."
"My na," I stated, becoming annoyed. "If you're , I'd give you my na. Right?"
"That's right," He whispered, eyes blinking open and shut in different places. "Tell my na."
"I already told you," I said. "My na's Jaune Arc."
He looked at for a mont, disappointnt shining in all one million of his eyes.
"That," He said gravely. "Is not my na."
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