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.
Longshots
The airship was all but silent as it rose into the skies of Mistralboth as a result of the cutting edge technology that had gone into its design and because of the somber atmosphere within. My family was gathered in this airship, ostensibly for the sake of coming with to Vale and cheering one; whether that would actually happen depended on a number of factors. If things proved too dangerous, I'd shuffle them off to relative safety using Raven's portals, hopefully making it a bit harder for my enemies to find them by leading them in the wrong direction here and now. Furthermore, what happened in the coming hours could well change all of my plans, easily to the extent of causing to blow off the tournant entirely. Sure, it was a tradition and part of our culture and sothing important to lots of people, but I was trying to deal with the apocalypse here; if it turned out the end of the world was scheduled for the first day of the tournant, I made no promises.
And, of course, there was the elephant in the roomI wouldn't need anyone to cheer on if I was brutally murdered in the next few hours. Grandmother and I had shared the rough details of what I was doing, leaving out bits like the Riders and Malkuth and the general truth of things simply because that knowledge was a bitch to live with even if you were able to identify the infected. I didn't really want to burden them with the knowledge that the enemy I was no facing had already succeeded at killing once or that he'd destroyed the world and trapped it in a seemingly endless cycle of suffering and destruction, either. Or the fact that
Well, the point was that there was a lot of horrible shit that we couldn't do anything about. Frankly, if my soul hadn't hotwired my brain and I actually had so need for such a thing, I probably would have had a hard ti sleeping at night. I couldn't bear to leave my family behind without at least telling them I was going into life-threating danger, but ntioning the stakes seed more cruel than anything else. If I failed here, this wasn't sothing I wanted them to try to carry on for or get more deeply involved in. I couldn't imagine there being many kind fates awaiting them down that particular road.
So instead, I did my best to play it off as just another horrific and dangerous mission, the types Hunters went on all the tiand, naturally, often didn't return from. As a result, they were treating the matter with a kind of grave respect, taking it seriously even if they didn't know what awaited .
"Jaune," My mother whispered, looking at as Mistral slowly moved further and further away. "Are you sure about this? If it's as dangerous as you say"
"It can't be helped," I answered calmly, making sure to stay relaxed even if it was growing difficult even for . This would be a big day, after allit might even go down in the history books at so point. Here's hoping it was as sothing positive. "Ozpin thinks it's important, as does Grandmother. Soone needs to check the place out."
"But does it need to be you?" She asked, fingers twitching in odd, jerky movents. It was a nervous habit she'd picked up lately; even though the ti she'd been without most of her limbs was by now far dwarfed by the ti she'd spent with their replacents, it was almost as if she was reminding herself that they were still there.
Or perhaps she was just reminding herself of why she'd needed them in the first place.
I tried to make my smile reassuring as I turned to face her.
"Why wouldn't it be ?" I returned. "You know what I can do and so does Ozpin. Odds are, I have the best chance of success, no matter what turns out to be waiting for there."
"That's what worries ," She whispered. "He wouldn't send you on a normal mission."
"Good thing I'm not a normal Hunter then," I replied. "I'll manage, Mom. I promise."
"I'll hold you to that, Jaune," Violet said, seeming more relaxed on the surface. "You better stay safe, you hear? I've been looking forward to seeing you in the tournant, you know; according to Olivia, you've been making a ss of Haven and I want to see what you can do on a public stage."
"I'd hate to disappoint," I replied, nodding at her once to show I understood the words she'd left unspoken.
"Personally, I'd prefer it if you kept things a bit neater, Jaune," Olivia interjected. As a teacher, she probably should have been back at Haven, but she was apparently going along with as a chaperone for the students who'd decided to co in early. Or sothing like that, at leastI didn't pay much attention to the official explanation. In reality, she was going along because Grandmother said so and nobody argued.
"That doesn't seem like it's ever going to be possible," I told her truthfully. "Quite frankly, my life is a ss. If things start breaking down around , just bla it on who I am as a person."
"Not even bothering with excuses anymore?" She wondered, sighing to herself.
"More just not bothering to lie," I corrected. "Might as well just embrace it. The reason everything went to hell around is because: Of who I am as a person, the choices I made in life, or because of sothing I did in a past lifechoose one."
Olivia released a rather unladylike snort, rolling her eyes.
"Indigo," I said after another beat of silence, glancing towards my last sister where she sat wrapped in shadowseven though she was right under a light. She did that where she was worried about sothing. "Don't worry about too muchI'm not much for death scenes, either."
"Right," She said after a mont before glancing down the length of the ship where Adam was trying to pretend he didn't exist. I suspected family matters made him uncomfortable. "Keep an eye on him for ."
Adam glanced up at her and shrugged a shoulder.
"He's my best friend," He said by way of explanation. Indigo considered that for a mont and then nodded in acceptance.
My lips twitched upwards at those words before I rose from my seat. We were far enough from Vale now that unless Cinder's perceptions were significantly superior to my own, she'd have difficult looking in on usand even then, I liked to think I'd have noticed sothing. Still, it didn't hurt to be cautious and so I'd waited until I thought it was safe.
"Sorry, but it looks like this is our stop," I said to my family. "But we'll be back before you know it."
"Okay," My mother replied. "Iwe'll be waiting. Good hunting."
Looking at her one last ti, I rembered the talk I had with my dad before the White Whale incidentbefore everything started, not that I really thought about it. That ti, I'd prepared for a mission without telling her what I was up to, because I was afraid of what it might cost her to try and help . Now, I was doing the sa thing for the sa reason, though the situation differed.
Buteven though everything had gotten so crazy, there were still things that I hadn't forgotten. The people who had my back, the ho I had to co back to, and the things I had to stay alive to dowhat those things were had changed a few tis, but I hadn't forgotten them. I would never forget.
So I smiled at her, without hiding or faking anything, and nodded.
"Thanks," I said. "I'll be off first, then. Adam, you take the next one, okay?"
My friend nodded once and stood up, even as a swirling red portal opened up in the middle of the airship, causing several pairs of eyes to widen in shock and recognitionand then I stepped through and was gone.
The portal opened up high in the sky, far enough up that the air was frigid and thin. I could see the clouds far below and the land further still, the world of Remnant stretching out amazingly in every direction. Mountains and forests, rivers and lakesfrom this far up, everything looked small.
And far below , I saw Jericho Falls for the first ti. Like most of the places packed with the Grimm, it was deceptively pleasant lookingthe place had been nad, at least in part, for the majestic waterfall at the edge of the area, with hundreds of thousands liters of liters spilling over the edge every second. The surrounding area was verdant and green, filled with flora and fauna, but at the center of it all was a massive set of ruins. Even worn away by the assault of the Grimm and sheer, rciless ti, it was easy to see that Jericho Falls had once played host to sothing amazing simply from what remained. As ruins went, it was surprisingly intact, tooor, at least, certain parts of it were, with entire sets of buildings still remaining. At a glance, one could see where people had once lived their lives, ages ago.
But now, this place was ho only to the Grimverything from ancient dark figures to tiny, newborn monsters filled this place, waiting in the streets and the buildings and within the depths of the very ground itself, an army of monstrous servants awaiting their master's command. And near the center of it all, in an unspeakable worn palatial estate, waited the king of this land.
The Devourer of the Tree of Life
LV ?
Gilgash
The knowledge that he was actually heredidn't affect in the slightest. Honestly, I just felt a bit vindicated by the knowledge that the world really was out to get , but even that was mutednow wasn't the ti to care about that. Not when I had more important things to worry about than what was really just another thing that was going to try and kill .
Even as gravity began to pull downwards, I scanned the ruins as thoroughly as I possibly could, looking for signs of anything important or unusual. I didn't find any mysterious glowing orbs, strangely luminous sigils, magic crystals, or anything that looked like it might have co out of a science fiction novelon the surface, the ruins appeared to be just normal ruins.
Needless to say, I didn't stop at the surface. I looked it over again under a dozen different lenses, peering into the different ends of the spectrum to gather details. I saw the remnants of markings and paint, the leftover of things now long gone, traces in the wreckage and the rubble that gave a rough idea of how this place had once looked. It wasn't anything on the level of the ruins Raven and I had visited when we'd been searching for clues as to Sumr's fate, because that site had only been about a decade old while this one had been a ruin for millenniabut it gave a better idea of what this place might have looked like, at one point, and I applied logic to figure out where important stuff would likely be housed, coordinating my search.
Even then, a solid second of searching turned up nothing and I changed tracks quickly. This high up in the air, it was difficult to reach out to the earth below, but I called to Ereb and had him expand into the ground, searching deeper the further I feel. His search turned up results almost imdiately, but not the ones I was looking forwhile it would be an exaggeration to call it intact, there were plenty of signs that an advanced civilization had once called this place their ho, if you knew where to look. There were things like pipes and powerlines that, though they didn't look much like the ones I was familiar with, seed based on the sa principles. I used his results to cross-reference my search, making sure I didn't overlook anything, but I still didn't find anything that looked like a power source for the barrier.
And there was a barrier there, of that I was certain. I could see it in a way that was new to but then, I'd never seen Naraka from the outside before. There was anot quite a shimr but more of an iridescence to the world when I looked at it all, peering into the truth of things. At the sa ti, I could feel sothing sowhere between an itch and a pressure between my shoulder blades, which was sothing I was familiar with; Trespasser was alerting to a barrier in my vicinity. A mont later, a window even popped up, asking if I'd like to enter.
I clicked no for the mont and continued to stare hard at the approaching ruins, looking one last ti, just to make sure.
And then I nodded to myself once, as sure as I could be. If there was any secret power source or sothing on this side holding the barrier in place, I couldn't see it. As I'd hoped, it seed sohow self-perpetuating, aning it was all but divorced from this dinsion so long as no one specifically tried to break through it. And an archeological and historical wonder this place may be, but there were more important things at stake nowand hell, it was my history anyway, bad ending and all. As such, I took a brief mont to morize every detail I could and then
Well.
Then I destroyed Jericho Falls.
It happened quickly, set off by nothing more than a minute twist of my Aura, and then a flash of blinding white light descended from the heavens.
It was the Brahmastra.
Three Brahmastras, to be precise. It wasn't sothing I'd be capable of on my own, not even after a week to train itwhile the Brahmastra leveled quickly relative to its usage, it was still sothing that I could only use once a day and I hadn't had that much ti to play with it.
But just because I could only use it once a day didn't an I couldn't store it. I couldn't put it into my Inventory, alasattempting to put the created spear into my handy pocket dinsion had simply resulted in a window telling it would be a bad ideabut there was another way.
This was the result of Patientia and, sowhat ironically, a great deal of patience. At first, the nature of the skill had not changed in the slightest as it leveled up, but after reaching level twenty-five, one this changedI was able to store another skill within my Aura. The sa thing had occurred again at level fifty and, after a significant amount of effort in the hopes of grinding it to the next benchmark before the possibly-literal deadline hit, recently occurred again at seventy-five for a total of four 'slots.'
How I'd spent them had been a matter of great deliberation for over the course of this weekI'd gained a fair number of new options in that ti period and there were a number of tactics I could potentially exploit. In the end, however, I'd boiled it down to two main options. The first was, of course, my healing skills; at the end of the day, stuff that could keep , or potentially soone I cared about, alive in an ergency was hard to beat. While I could easily heal myself or others in the midst of combat, so effectiveness would probably need to be sacrificed for the sake of expedience. If I had the ti and power to spare to fully charge a healing skill, wellthen I probably didn't really need one.
It was the type of thing I needed when I was about to dieif sothing broke past all my defenses, emptied the wells of my MP, and then ground down to my last hit point and forced to rely on Second Chance. If I could heal myself at a leisurely pace, it wasn't really an ergency, and so I'd long since promised myself to always keep at least one 'full restore' on .
Yes, I fully intended to be one of those assholesone of those video ga enemies who make you grind them down to a single hit point and then promptly heal back to full health and make you do it all over again. I hated those guys when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure everyone hates those guys. But here's the thing; the best thing in the world is when soone really, really, really wants you to dieand you just don't.
On the other hand, there was also sothing to be said for really, really, really wanting soone to die and then making it happen. The Brahmastra was by far the hardest skill I had to use, simply because it's charge ti was atrocious and it could only be forged once a day. In a pinch, it was possible I could use just about any other skill, so long as I was willing to burn enough Dust crystals to make it happen, but in a fight, I'd only get one shot with the Brahmastra and if it wasn't an opening move, I'd never get it off at all. Being able to store several of them got around both the charge ti problem and the limit on it's use, however, and it was a truly devastating weapon.
It had been a tough call. Extra heals would have served to give more of a life line, but dropping a Brahmastra on an enemy's head was its own reward. In the end, I'd made my choice for one simple reason; I'd only get one Second Chance. The usefulness of two full heals dropped sowhat with the knowledge that if sothing big hit , odds were I wouldn't survive to use the second one. I could still use it to heal my wounds and restore MP, of course, but those weren't necessarily worth a slot. Saving my life was one thing, but in the end, killing things before they could hurt was better than just healing from the wounds they inflictedbecause they wouldn't be hurting much when they'd been reduced to ash. As such, I spared a slot for a single full heal and, instead of using it just to practice and grind, stored the last three days' worth of Brahmastra's in my Inventory.
And I hurled all three of them into the heart of the ruins. This was, I had decided, the best ti to use themright at the very start. No one knew we were here, no one was particularly on guard, and there were a lot of Grimm that needed to die. I didn't truly believe that I'd get them all, but anyone I killed now couldn't interfere later. Adam, Autumn, Gou, and Raven would be putting their lives on the line to hold off any survivors while I clashed with Gilgash; the best thing I could do to help them was to do my best to limit the number of survivors. This was my best chance to take them out and it wasn't as if I could risk using the Brahmastra while my friends and family were on the battlefield. It was now or never, really.
Needless to say, the results wereimpressive. As the three spears descended towards the unsuspecting ruin, they pulsed with an inner light and the process I'd set in place with their creation reached its inevitable conclusion. At the last mont, I saw so of the Grimm look upwards, but it was too late to notice now.
There was a blinding flash. A sudden rush. An annihilating, consuming heat, seemingly carried along by a force like the hand of Godand I was still far, far in the air. There was sound accompanying it, too, but I could hardly hear it; there was a brief, massive roar and then silence. For a mont, my ears burst, my eyes went blind, and the light of the Brahmastras plunged my world into darkness.
A part of wondered if this had ever happened before. I wasn't the first person to ever wield the Brahmastra and looking into what legends remained, there were tails of the weapons clashingbut had three ever been hurl towards the sa target? I didn't know.
But what I did know was the result of such a thing. As the mont passed and my sight and hearing returned, I saw what I'd done.
I'd blown Jericho Falls off the map. And I ant that as literally as I couldsoone was going to have to actually redraw the map of this area at so point.
"Hello," I said belatedly.
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