Burning Starfire
"Have to find something... better cards. Better build. Better deck..." Penn muttered to himself.
"As glad as I am for the attention... Penn, we need to-"
"Shush."
"Penn, you can't use card magic. I haven't been able to cross the barriers between our worlds far enough for that."
"Don't care. Need cards."
There was a long pause between the two of them. "Fine. It's funny that each of us is working on fighting the other's enemies, though."
"Well, neither of us have ever been any good at solving our own problems. Makes sense."
"So... Sunset Shimmer once again is putting you in harm's way to follow her own path."
"It makes sense they'd think I just had a nightmare. I've had plenty of them in the past, and Isis has no records. She didn't leave a single trace of her presence for us to show, either. We had an opening in our defenses, and Salem used it."
"Looks like there's no getting away, no matter how fast we run."
"I'm sick of hearing you tell me to run away and abandon people."
"I just want you to survive. I always have."
"Then understand that I'm never going to run if it means leaving them behind. Any suggestion otherwise just bogs us down." Penn muttered as he continued flipping through page after page. The meanings and effects of each card passed through his mind on an unconscious level, processed and dismissed as unusable without even needing to stop his conversation with his partner.
"Well, I guess I'm just selfish. All I've ever cared about is making sure YOU survive."
"Well, maybe it'll help if you realize that I want to protect them as much as you want to protect me."
"That's... an awful lot."
"Then you see why I obsess with keeping them safe."
"I... suppose so."
"So if you want to protect me, help ME protect THEM."
"I wish I could understand you..."
Penn paused for a moment, taking a moment to ponder how he could get through to her. "Well, you remember when I first got your cards? The other club members thought I was crazy for being so desperate for cards that have never touched the metagame."
"You traded all of your Gladiator Beasts... That archetype's been used by world champs for years! Looking back... If I hadn't been so relieved to make it out of that kid's binder, I would have thought you were crazy, too!"
"And then I spent hours and hours slaving over every card I had, just to find which ones could work with you..." Penn smiled as he traveled back in time in his mind's eye, to a younger version of himself sitting amidst piles of cards, some stacked high enough to wobble dangerously in even the lightest breeze. "You know, you've really NEVER been a team player!"
"I-I just have high standards for my allies!"
"If that were true, you wouldn't have stuck with a college dropout when he gave up on everything, would you?"
"Yet you stayed. Even when you SAID you'd given up on everything, you stayed alive and kept fighting to take back control of your life. You don't know the MEANING of the word 'quit,' no matter what you say otherwise. How could I NOT stay with you after you showed that kind of strength?"
Both of them paused there, as the worry and panic driving Penn's thoughts fell into a brief moment of calm. He still didn't know what cards he would play against Salem, but for the moment, one gambit HAD led directly where he wanted it to.
"Then you understand why, no matter how many times you try to get me to give up on them, I'm never going to let Sunset down. If I ever did, I wouldn't be that same partner you know and love, would I?"
Two halves of a soul sat in solemn silence.
"...I hate you. I hate you so much."
Penn smirked and sat back slightly in his seat. "I hate you, too! What the hell am I supposed to do when you've got some crazy unstoppable image of me like that in your head?"
"Well... You start by doing the impossible and changing MY mind, and go on from there, I guess. Fine... if it means that much to you, I'll protect them, too. But you're still always going to come first, partner."
"Even Sunset?"
"...I reserve the right to put her in her place whenever she screws us over."
A wave of overwhelming relief washed over Penn. The promise was almost meaningless in terms of power. She still had no way to cross over and make good on her promise, but...
"No matter how stupid the place is that you decide to stand your ground... I'll stand by you. You won't have to fight me on this, any more."
The sensation of the tears running down his cheeks was what finally broke the dam that had been holding back his emotions. He grabbed at the steering wheel as a pained wail ripped its way up from deep in his gut, reverberating through the interior of the car like a warring battlefield of frustration, fear, and relief. He hated the sound of himself, but he couldn't force it to stop, now. A portion in the back of his brain could only pray that Sunset and Missy wouldn't be able to hear him from outside.
They can't- they can't see me like this... Sunset can't-
By the time he felt that he could stop wailing again, he felt hollow, completely emptied out inside. His head was pounding and his throat has been screamed hoarse.
"...I'm sorry, Penn. If I'd known how much my arguing was hurting you-"
"D-Don't worry about it..." Penn shook his head as a new wave of giddiness began to set in to fill the vacuum his spent fear had left. However brief, the weight on his soul had been eased. "That was a long time coming, it wasn't just about you. Salem, Bendy, Baalchion..." He gripped his hands against his face, finding it hard to believe that he didn't have any tears left to cry now that he spoke his fears aloud. "I can't... I can't deal with it, keeping it all up here, in my head. Thinking about it all the time, even when I don't want to... When all I want to do is zone out and not think for a while, I can't. I feel like... I feel like I'm losing my mind, sometimes..."
"I promise, you're not..."
Penn giggled to himself. "Says the voice in my head..."
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Missy and Sunset both sat in silence in their tent, unable to look at one another for the moment.
The sounds of Penn's crying had finally stopped, but that didn't do much to ease their worries. They'd both rushed to leave when they heard him yelling, but Isis had told them that there wasn't any danger. It was simply an "emotional overload," as she put it.
"You don't think he was just faking doing better, do you?" Missy asked softly. "Ever since he had that nightmare about Salem..."
Sunset thought carefully, still feeling the pain in her heart from forcing herself to listen to Penn's breakdown. "We shouldn't have told him it was a nightmare."
"But it was... wasn't it? Isis said there wasn't any traces of Grimm in the car or anywhere nearby!"
"Nightmare or not, we were trying so hard to avoid the topic of Salem, he must have thought we just dismissed his fears without a second thought." Sunset pulled her knees against her chest. "Starting tomorrow, I wanna take it seriously, so he knows we're not just ignoring him."
Missy took a moment to think before nodding and pulling her blankets up around her shoulders. "Okay... What can we do, though? How do you stop an immortal witch that predates her world's version of humanity, itself?"
Sunset reached down and took hold of her saber, tossing the handle up and down to herself as she tried to think. She couldn't help but smile as she thought of all the friends they'd made over the course of their journey.
"You know, without the Rainbooms, I couldn't really think of a single friend I could call for help when all of this started. That was why Penn offering me an open hand was such a godsend! But now, I can think of so many people I can count on when we need help! Turns out, no matter what universe you're in, friendship really IS magic!"
Missy chuckled and reached into a pocket in her dress, retrieving her phone. "Guess we should start making a few calls to those new friends of ours, huh?"
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"Penn... Have you checked the clock? You should get some rest."
He sniffed up the last of his snot and wiped the tears from his face.
"C-Come on... we still need to keep watch, I can't sleep now!"
"Isis keeps watch."
"Two pairs of eyes are better than one... I can't trust that Salem's magic won't be able to slip past her sensors!" He forced a chipper tone into his voice. "It's okay! I'm part ink demon now, remember? Sleeping's for humans."
"Ugh... I'm not going to be able to convince you Salem's not just waiting for you to fall asleep, am I?" She let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Okay, well, while we're having a chat... I've been thinking about how we got out of Evernight."
"Me, too." Penn sighed. "If a BLACK HOLE couldn't kill Salem, what else is there left to try?"
"No, BEFORE that, when we swapped out who was in charge of the body. It's the closest we've gotten to me crossing over without you dying to make room for my soul. I was just thinking... maybe we can figure out how to do it again?"
"What, put me into a coma?" Penn muttered sardonically, letting the facade slip a bit.
"No, I'm talking about letting ME take a load of the weight! If we can swap out when things get tough, it makes the load lighter for you and I won't have to stress out watching bad things happen without being able to do anything!"
Penn took a moment to ponder the possibility. "Salem already knows about that angle. It wouldn't bring anything new to the table."
"It would make me feel a lot better, Penn. Can't we at least TRY? For me? Paaaartner?"
Penn narrowed his eyes, taking a moment to try his best to direct his tired glare inwards via the rearview mirror. "Seriously? You're invoking our bond over THIS?"
"Eeyup."
Penn took a glance at the clock: 4:27. They had at least four more hours before Sunset and Missy would be awake... That was time enough for a start, at least.
"Fine." He huffed and folded his arms over his chest, unable to resist seeing her smug grin in his mind's eye. "What do you want me to do?"
"Well, Salem put you into a trance when I took over before, right? If we want to do this ourselves, we're going to have to try and do that, which probably starts with meditation, or something!"
He cast a wary eye around his view of the campground again, examining it even more closely for any signs of foes lurking just out of sight.
"Salem's not just sitting in the bushes waiting for you to close your eyes, Penn."
"I literally would not put that past her..." he muttered. "Isis?"
"Yes, Penn?""Raise alert sensitivity. If anything bigger than an insect moves in this campsite, I want to know about it."
"Affirmative.""Happy now?"
"Hardly..." In spite of his dread to do so, he closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat, forcing himself to slow his breathing. "So, what now?"
"I... don't know. Just try to step out of the driver's seat, I guess?"
"I JUST closed my eyes and sat back."
"I meant metaphorically! Don't be a pedant!"
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Outside on a winter's night, as the rain begins to fall...
There's a chill in the air, and the howl of the wolf,
and the rain beats at the do-o-or...
Sunset glanced nervously in Penn's direction.
He looked like a complete mess. His hair was disheveled and there were dark rings under his eyes. He was barely keeping a grip on the steering wheel as they sped down the highway, but his eyes were constantly darting around between the rearview mirror, the sky above, and the occasional glance over his shoulder to double-check the back seats. He'd even skipped breakfast entirely, leaving the girls to fend for themselves.
The only words he had spoken had been when Isis had asked him what kind of music he wanted for the day's drive.
"Dragonforce. And crank up the volume."
Sunset literally hadn't been able to ask him what was going on after that. The car had been filled with the sounds of finger-destroying guitar solos and half-screamed vocals, all loud enough to hover just on the verge of making her ears bleed.
It had been nearly three hours since then, and Sunset couldn't tell whether or not the songs had been repeating. They'd all merged into a blur of noise along with Penn's insistence on singing along to each and every one.
Rainbow Dash would be having the time of her life right now, this kind of power metal is RIGHT up her alley!
Finally, after what FELT like an eternity, the music had fallen on a calmer, almost sorrowful-sounding song, accompanied by a gentle piano. Clearly, the band had decided to experiment, and Sunset wanted to kiss whoever had decided that they should slow down.
Dark night with a glimmering light in the distance up ahead
In the forest they dwell with a misty spell
no one heard what once was said...
"Penn? Are you okay?"
He seemed to be trying to ignore her, closing his eyes and taking in the song's calmness as best he could.
The music continued to paint its gloomy picture as Sunset decided to use the quieter moment to bring up what she'd been wanting to talk about all day.
"Hey, Missy and I talked, and we think it was a mistake to react the way we did. If you say that Salem's coming, then we believe you, and we want to help be ready for her."
Penn continued to ignore her, an act that hurt a lot more than Sunset expected it to, even if it was deserved.
"We were talking about it last night, and we think we might be able to put together a good team to fight back if we call in a few favors! Even if we can't kill her, we can bring her to a halt, right? Maybe convince her we're not worth the trouble?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset could see some concerning motion outside. The whole road was sliding away from under them, and the car was drifting slowly into the opposite lane. She could hear the engine revving higher and higher as the speedometer rose to eighty, then ninety miles per hour.
"Penn? What are you doing?" She reached out to touch his shoulder, only to watch his entire body slump to the side and settle against the window. The motion brought no change in his behavior except to punctuate the motion with a loud snore.
HE FELL ASLEEP?
"PENN! WAKE UP!" Sunset grabbed at the steering wheel, desperately pulling them back into their own lane. Thankfully, the wheel seemed to correct itself of its own accord, righting their course as they continued to barrel down the highway. A few seconds after that, their speed had settled back down to comfortably below the speed limit.
"I have assumed control of the vehicle, Sunset Shimmer. You may release your hold on the steering mechanism."Sunset sighed with relief as she fell back into the passenger's seat.
"Geez!" Missy groaned as she floated up between the two front seats. "It's a good thing there wasn't anybody coming the opposite way or we'd be pancaked!" She leaned over, taking a second to poke at Penn's face. "It's not like Penn to fall asleep behind the wheel, though! Wouldn't he normally just ask Isis to take over?"
"It is possible that lack of sleep may have affected his decision-making."Sunset frowned, remembering the crying they'd heard the previous night. "I knew he didn't sleep well, but-"
"Correction: he did not sleep at all. He chose to stay awake to personally keep watch over the camp, on the off-chance that one of Salem's attacks could bypass my sensors. Unfortunately... given my previous track record regarding stopping so-called 'magic' and other supernatural phenomena, I could not argue with his rationale."After taking a few seconds for Isis's words to sink in, Sunset reached over to the radio and turned the volume dial down. The music seemed to be wrapping up the last words of its final chorus, so she decided to let this last song finish, as a show of thanks for giving the momentary lull that let Penn finally fall asleep.
Burning starfire! Shine in the sky for the lives of great men, who stand by your side!
When the night falls, on we will ride!
For no lost souls will live on forever!
"Let's just let him sleep, for now. We can talk about everything tonight at camp."
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"Isis?"
"All checks have come up clear. There are zero signs of Grimm, no nearby dimensional gates, nor any electromagnetic fluctuations that would indicate the presence of the phenomena known as 'magic' outside of the typical readings from our own party members. The campsite is secure."Penn tapped his chin warily. "Okay... If it's not too much trouble, conduct those checks again at the top of every hour, please?"
"Affirm-""Wait!" Penn snapped his fingers before reaching into his pocket and whispering his next words into his phone. After a few seconds, Isis nodded and took to the air.
"Affirmative. Variation in instructions accepted."With that matter settled, Penn turned his attention around to the rest of the camp.
"Where's Missy?"
Sunset took the opportunity to step into the conversation. "She's still setting up the traps around the perimeter, just like you asked."
Penn's brow furrowed as he turned to leave. "It shouldn't take this long, I'm going to go check on her-"
"She's fine." Sunset grabbed his shoulder and pushed him towards the center of camp, into one of the folding chairs they'd set up around the fire pit. "Trust me, I'd know if she was in trouble. We're partners, remember?" She tapped at her head to illustrate her point. For a moment, he seemed to be trying to form an argument, but nothing came that could counter her point. Satisfied that she had managed to shut him up for the moment, Sunset seated herself on the opposite side of the campfire. "Our plan is solid, Penn. Driving yourself to a paranoid mess is what Salem wants! Just trust us to do our part, too!"
Penn fidgeted anxiously in his seat. "We know Salem is susceptible to card magic, which means that Missy is our best chance at survival, but that also makes her our biggest weak point. We can't afford to let our guard down for a second, especially with her safety!"
"But we're not JUST relying on her, right?" Sunset raised an eyebrow, hoping to draw his mind away from Missy and on to something else.
"Of course not. You never hinge your whole plan on just one card!" Penn brushed off her comment. "If card magic doesn't work, we have Isis. Her tech can at least buy us time to regroup. And since you called some of our old friends..." he took a moment to glare at her, "which, I want to say again, is putting them in danger-"
"We explained the risks and they still wanted to come help!" Sunset smiled. "Even knowing what they were going up against, they still wanted to help us!"
Penn bit at his lips for a moment, holding back some kind of angry remark. "I've been talking to them, and each team is going to have their own strategy. The more people we have on our side, the more backup plans we'll have." He leaned forward to stare into the fire. "Considering our luck, the only choice we have is to try and out-plan Finagle's Law..."
"Wait... what's Finagle's Law?" Sunset raked her brain, trying to recollect if she had ever heard the name before.
"'The perversity of the universe always tends towards a maximum...' A.K.A., 'Anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.'" Penn huffed to himself. "Only way to really outgun it is to have more backup plans than things that can go WRONG with those backup plans. The simpler the backup plan, the fewer things that can go wrong. Salem's usual strategy is to use her immortality to tank through whatever her opponents throw at her until the either stop for breath or give her an opening. That's where everything's going to go to hell for us."
Confusion set in as Sunset recognized the latter half of his explanation. "I thought that was Murphy's Law?"
"'Murphy's Law' fell prey to Murphy's Law." Penn snickered to himself. "It's ACTUALLY 'If something can be used improperly, it WILL be by some idiot.' That's what gave rise to the practice of 'idiot-proofing' machine controls. However, people misused it until it became confused with Finagle's Law."
"So... If you give someone a button to activate a giant drilling laser and it can potentially blow a hole in the Earth's crust..."
"They will. Murphy's Law."
"But if the laser's power core is unstable and has a one percent chance of blowing up..."
"It will. Finagle's Law."
"Huh." Sunset sat back in her chair. "Guess I learned something tonight!"
The two of them sat in silence for a moment until Missy emerged from the nearby trees, dusting off her hands. "We're all set! All that's left is to set up the field spell for the night!"
"Final checks have been made, and the timer for the next round of inspections has begun. Also I feel the need to remind you that your eight-o-clock appointment is due in five minutes."Penn glanced drearily around the camp at all three of them, and for a moment Sunset wondered what could be causing that expression of dread. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision and rubbed at his temples.
"Okay, Isis... Set yourself up for a video call and patch them through."
"Ooooh, who we gonna call?" Missy asked, floating towards Penn and leaning herself on his shoulder.
"Well, we left Ozpin and the RWBY girls hanging last time they called. You've all been more than generous with time for me to recover from that initial shock..." Penn sighed. "It's time for me to tell you all the story you've been wanting to hear..."
"I'm going to tell you all about the war between Baalchion and Chirac."
Sunset and Missy didn't say anything, only staring at each other with wide-eyed excitement as Isis projected the video call onto the side of the car, displaying a split screen. The top half was Professor Ozpin sitting behind his desk, while the bottom was all of Team RWBY, mostly in their pajamas and trying to all crowd into view at once.
"Good evening. Feeling better, Penn?" Professor Ozpin asked.
"Hey, guys! You okay over there? It's been a few days since we heard from you!" Ruby added.
Sunset smiled and waved to her friends. "Hey! We're doing okay, but it's been a little rough here. Salem's been pretty close on our tail, so things have been hectic!"
"We're... trying our best to out-plan her, but it's felt impossible to put together enough defenses..." Penn rubbed at his neck. "Just when we think we're safe, she shows us that we're not. But we've kept you all waiting long enough, especially with your world on the line the way it is. Have there been any major changes since the last time we talked?"
"Those monsters are spreading out further and further from their point of origin... They're taking more territory, and we're not going to be able to keep them contained or a secret from the public for much longer." Blake's cat ears wilted and pressed back against her head.
Missy raised her hand and spoke up without waiting to be called on. "Where did they show up, anyway?"
Ozpin spoke before any of Team RWBY could. "These monsters have appeared in and under the crater formerly known as Evernight Castle."
It was hard to see in the firelight, almost certainly impossible for those who weren't there in person to notice, but Sunset could see the color draining from Penn's face. His entire body seemed to tense up for a few seconds before he cleared his throat.
"Once we get there, we can make plans to close the portal once and for all. Just try to hold on a little longer."
Something about that isn't good, and he's hiding it... Sunset thought. She decided to hold her tongue about it, though. He was already clearly on the verge of snapping again, and trying to force out every drop of information from him would only make it worse. "Have you girls seen Rainbow Dash again?"
"A couple of times, but... we haven't been able to catch her." Ruby chuckled and rubbed awkwardly at the back of her head. "She's fast enough to make MY head spin, and she doesn't really tend to stop and chat once the monsters are all dead."
Sunset sighed with relief. "Just knowing she's still there is all the reassurance I could ask for."
Penn leaned forward and towards the screen, fixing his eyes on Isis's drone to look straight into the camera. "I'm ready to tell you what I know. This story goes back a very, VERY long way, however, so you're going to all want to get comfortable."
Ozpin didn't move from his chair, but all of the girls scrambled to find a proper place to sit. Eventually, they seemed to settle on Weiss's bed, with Weiss and Ruby sitting on top of the covers while Blake leaned against it from the floor. Yang had gone for Ruby's bunk just above, barely fitting into the top of the camera's view. Satisfied that everyone seemed to be comfortable, Penn picked up his own chair and settled with the fire to his back. From Sunset's point of view, he was just facing towards the camera with his back to their camp, but it was simple to see why he'd done it: with the fire behind him, his entire figure and face would be cast completely in shadow.
"This story is one of war... a war which defines the very nature of how we observe the universe. Why time seems fleeting and how, given free reign, darkness would seek to return that universe back to zero."
Beside her, Sunset could her Missy barely repressing a squeal of excitement, and she could understand why. Penn's voice seemed to have... settled. He was calm and collected, and his words were coming in an even, flowing pace that was instantly hypnotic. He spoke with confidence and, even in this short time, Sunset could feel the mantle of a storyteller falling over his shoulders, changing him.
"Gathered friends, listen now to our tale of monsters and dragons, of light and darkness, of preservation and decay... Of the great saviors dedicated to protecting the fabric of reality... from each other." He took a deep breath, and even a few seconds of silence seemed to raise the pressure in the air as tension mounted.
"In the time before man... in the time before life... in the time before time... There was darkness."
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Before there was anything, the universe existed in a state of infinite potential. All of creation, everything that ever would or could be, was all contained in a single, infinitesimal point. On every side, there was void. Pure darkness, emptiness that swept the breadth of non-existence. It was a place where everything was possible and anything COULD happen... but nothing was all that ever DID. There was no pain, no death, and nothing was ever lost. However, there was also no progress, no growth, and no change. All was perfectly preserved, and all was stagnant.
It was here, against this unchanging eternity, that the power of the light struck its first great blow.
In an explosion powerful enough to restructure the heavens, the universe that had been kept under lock and key burst forth, acting in blatant rebellion of that force of stagnation. The once-all-encompassing darkness was banished to the outer reaches of the new existence as light filled the newborn reality. For a time, there was no place for the darkness, and the light thrived. Stars were born, beacons that drove back the enemies of progress even further. Primordial seas and gleaming nebulas drew together to form countless worlds, each teeming with life in every form and color imaginable, across the entire spectrum of possibility. Free to grow, express, and explore, even what had once been a primordial force began to evolve. Intelligence began to guide instinct, and that intelligence dubbed itself Chirac. Chirac watched over and guarded life in this new light-fueled universe, as billions were born, lived, and died. Every life lived was a life well-spent in his eyes, and the new universe continued to billow outwards.
However, the darkness had not been idle. Watching from the outside, it was only a matter of time before the reckless use of everything it had once held in reserve would cause the end of all. If Chirac's progress for the sake of progress continued unchecked, there would be only a cold husk left of what had once been infinite potential. The fuel of this enlightened existence would inevitably run dry. If the darkness were to return everything to the state of perfection it once had safeguarded, it would need strategy and intelligence of its own. Thus Baalchion was born, a titan seeking to reverse the damage to this lived-in universe and return it to unblemished purity.
While Chirac was blunt and overwhelming, a being born of the pure might of the light, Baalchion was his opposite. He became crafty and employed subterfuge, seeking out the remnants of that first darkness and the hidden places that the light could not reach, so that he might gain footholds amongst the creatures living in these sunlit worlds and turn them against the light. He told them of "The Great Dying," the final cold state of the universe should things continue down this path. He promised them power to avoid the fates of all living things by joining his cause. He turned the light's own strengths against it, corrupting blazing beacons into collapse until they became all-consuming black blights. Before Chirac had even become aware of his enemy's existence, countless bastions and dark strongholds had been made across the universe, each one pulling the flow of progress backwards.
If the first blow had been the light's declaration of war, then these blights were the darkness's acceptance and their first counterattack.
With the battlefield chosen and the sides established, both sides raised their armies. Baalchion's creatures were born quickly and spread even faster, allowing him an early claim of territory that threatened to end the conflict before it began. His monsters were countless and as varied as the worlds he took for himself, often recruiting and corrupting more to the darkness as he conquered. Soon, all would be restored to its state of perfect, infinite potential.
Just when it seemed that all would return to zero, a new light cut through the haze: Radian, Chirac's shining city without shadows. It stood as a temple to the primordial light, bristling with power and light down to the very stones from which its walls had been hewn. With one motion, Chirac breathed his might into the city, bringing life into the precious gems and veins of ore across his world. Thus was born Primus and the First Flight. Dragons capable of breathing out seas of fire and tempests of crackling thunder, they cut swathes through Baalchion's forces with ease, turning the tables back into the favor of the light. Phoenixes, avatars of the stars, themselves, swept across the black voids in the cosmos, filling empty space with warmth and glowing embers to spark new life. Scouting dragons, millions in number, were scattered out to seek out Baalchion's movements and report them back to their lord.
However, for every ounce of Chirac's power, Baalchion's cunning countered him. Chirac's numbers were few, yet powerful, and Baalchion's legions were weak, but capable of sabotage at all corners of the universe at once. Eventually, the two found themselves in a deadlock that lasted eons. The ancient foes, avatars of the two primordial forces, had learned one another's strategies and thoughts as clearly and perfectly as their own, and stalemate was the only possible result. In this state, the ticking hands of the universe would continue to crawl forward, ensuring Chirac's victory, but only after a length of time approaching eternity.
So, even today, both of these gods continue their search for new allies, for something the other could not predict in order to break their stalemate. With every world they take, the scales tip more in the favor of the one who has taken it... In this stalemate, there is an unspoken promise, an oath taken by both opponents:
There will be no peace until one side has been eradicated completely.
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Penn took a long, deep breath as he leaned back in his chair. To Sunset, it seemed like the first time he had noticably stopped to breathe since he had started his tale. He looked spent, but there was a satisfied smile on his face.
Missy had settled into Sunset's lap, and Sunset had wrapped her arms around the little angel like a teddy bear. The two of them were both transfixed on the images that had been conjured up into existence by Penn's words. With only his voice, he had spun up images on a cosmic scale and completely captured their imaginations.
Team RWBY were all equally transfixed, and while he seemed not to have changed on the outside, Professor Ozpin seemed to be refusing to be the one who would break the silence. The only sound was the popping and crackling of the fire, which was now struggling to keep alive with no one feeding it. The cold of the winter night creeping in felt like it had mirrored the encroaching darkness in Penn's story, leaving them both on the verge of collapsing into a shivering pile.
Penn craned his neck to look over his shoulder at them, then back at the gathered audience that Isis had been projecting for him. Finally, he seemed to take the responsability of breaking the silence onto his own shoulders. With a grunt and a groan, he pushed himself up onto his feet and picked up his chair, moving back into a position close to the fire where his face could be seen again. "Now, I suppose I should get to how all of this applies to you, shouldn't I?"
"Wait! I-I'm confused!" Ruby interjected. "So, does that mean Chirac's the good guy and Baalchion's the bad guy?"
"Chirac's actions threaten to burn out the entire universe! He may be extreme wanting to go all the way back to before the universe existed, but Baalchion has a point..." Weiss countered.
"It sounds to me like they both suck for everyone else in the universe!" Yang rolled her eyes. "What I got out of that is that this Baalchion guy has his eyes set on making Remnant his next conquest."
Blake remained quiet for a few seconds, clearly still trying to ponder everything Penn had told them. "So... the universe as we know it now... is the result of their stalemate? Things moving forward, but not so fast that it all burns out at once?"
Penn grinned and snapped his fingers, giving a victorious point in Blake's direction.
"No good guys, no bad guys, and either side winning spells disaster. The key is in the moderation of both." He gestured around them, as if trying to indicate the entire universe. "The truth is that everything operates on an even grander scale than Chirac and Baalchion are aware of. Their deadlock is the universe's homeostasis: its default, balanced state of living."
"What happens if a world is taken by one side or the other?" Professor Ozpin asked.
"Worlds taken by Chirac are taken to Radian and terraformed to be more appealing to Chiracian dragons. Their inhabitants typically are completely indoctrinated to Chirac's greatness within a few generations, and their populations are trained and sent out as fighters to try and counter Baalchion's numbers." Penn frowned and looked into the fire. "The inhabitants age more quickly, cancers will skyrocket in frequency in any creatures without a natural resistance to that kind of damage, and finally, sterility rises until the population eventually is wiped out." He closed his eyes, clearly no longer enjoying this story. "The world itself will suffer from what amounts to the effects of time in a fraction of the normal period it would take. There will be a boost and boon as technology and science advance exponentially, but this usually isn't enough for them to outpace the biological detriments. Once the inhabitants have all either gone extinct or perished on the front lines of the war, all signs of their presence will crumble away, until eventually the world is fit to become another nesting planet for Chirac's dragons."
Sunset felt a gnawing dread in her gut as she recognized the set of symptoms: radiation exposure. There was something more, something scientific at the heart of this, but she decided not to interrupt Penn's storytelling.
He sighed and turned his gaze upwards and away from the fire, into the pitch-black night sky.
"Worlds taken by Baalchion will be reversed out of existence. First, they will slow to a stop in their revolution, then grind to a halt mid-orbit... and then they'll start to spin backwards, faster and faster until they spin themselves apart, returning back to the space dust from which they were first formed. If it was the last inhabited planet of that system, the star it was orbiting will either be snuffed out to a black dwarf or collapsed into a black hole, eradicating Chirac's claim on that area."
Ozpin finally broke his long silence. "Then, if victory for either side will result in our world coming to a horrific end, how are we to survive?"
Penn finally turned back to the screen, his face now deathly serious. "Independence. You'll have to turn away both sides on your own. Fight off Baalchion and refuse Chirac's offer of aid. The modus operandi for these two is that one will invade, and the other will appeal to the local population to ally with them willingly." He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Their version of my world, Earth, was invaded in the fourteenth century by Chiracian forces. We were lucky, in our own self-destructive way. We were smack-dab in the throes of a religious crusade. Baalchion's offers of aid were dismissed as the works of the devil, and, well, let's just say that the legends of dragon-slaying knights still persist seven hundred years later."
He leaned forward in his chair again. "Which is why you cannot accept any deal from an agent of Chirac. If Remnant is going to survive, you NEED to stand on your own. Prove you can protect yourselves from both sides of the war, and they'll back off to wait for a time when you're either more vulnerable or more gullible."
Professor Ozpin leaned forward, and Sunset could feel his gaze boring into them even through the screen. "So how does one go about closing one of these portals through which Baalchion attacks?"
Penn bit at his lip, looking for a moment as if he were drawing a blank.
"Got any nukes?"
"Fresh out, I'm afraid. The launching of such a weapon would require approval from all four kingdoms, regardles."
"Then you're smarter with your nuclear weapons than my world is..." Penn grumbled. "Barring that, I've got a plan in the works, but nothing I'm confident enough in to share. I should have something concrete by the time we arrive."
"This is all pretty heavy..." Ruby muttered. "It's gonna take a lot of work to make this turn out right!"
"Clearly Isis was right to patch us through once we knew what kind of threat this was!" Weiss added.
"It's nothing we can't handle once we've got the whole team together, though! Right, Sunset?" Yang winked, and Sunset replied with a smile and a wave.
"You got that right! Team RWBYS is gonna take care of business!"
"With that said, I have one more pressing question for the moment, Penn..." Ozpin looked at Penn over the top of his glasses. "We've been slowly reaching out to other dimensions, including browsing through the information in Isis's databanks. Why have we been unable to find any evidence of these two entities' existence aside from your first-hand knowledge, and how did you come to know this, yourself?"
For a second time, Sunset could see all of the color drain from Penn's face, and his entire expression changed to one of guilt. The expression only lasted a second before he smiled, chuckled, and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head.
"You know why I know, it's a book where I come from! I must have read it a dozen times, I know it inside and out! As for why nobody else knows?" He shrugged. "Dead worlds tell no tales, I guess?"
The lie fooled no one, but nobody seemed willing to press the point further. Ozpin sat back in his chair.
"Well, I know that my students have class in the morning, and it is getting rather late where you are as well, by the looks of things. We'll be waiting anxiously for your arrival."
"Awww, come on! We haven't even gotten to catch up!" Ruby whined.
"The professor's right. We all need rest here. Goodnight, everyone!" Weiss delcared before reaching over and pushing Ruby off of her bed.
"Whoaoaoa! OOF! WEIIIISS!"
"Later, Sleepwaker!" Yang gave a quick salute before pushing herself up onto her feet and leaping from Ruby's bed, presumably to her own, if Sunset's recollection of the room was still accurate.
"Sleep soundly!" Blake gave a short wave before slipping out of frame. With that, the view of their room switched itself off, leaving only Professor Ozpin on screen. He continued to stare directly at them for a few moments.
"While I understand that legends are prone to some artistic license, I would prefer the more clear-cut version in the future, Penn."
Penn sighed and nodded. "Fine, fine. Science next time. Better brush up on your Steven Hawking, though."
Ozpin nodded. "I'll be looking forward to it."
With that, Isis's projector switched off, indicating that the call had ended.
Sunset glanced at her friend, noticing for the first time a tremble in his hands as he clasped them in front of him.
"I guess I understand why you fainted when you heard what was going on..." Sunset sighed. "A war going all the way back to the Big Bang? Between two gods?"
Penn only nodded, continuing to stare at the fire. "Like I said, trying to get between them is like trying to stop a hurricane."
"But it HAS been done!" Missy chimed in. "Good old Earth pulled it off!"
"Penn, can you tell me WHY Chirac gives other worlds radiation-" Sunset's question was cut off when he pushed himself up to his feet and turned towards the car.
"Later, Sunny. I'm... actually REALLY tired." He tapped on his skull with the tip of his finger, and Sunset could see the skin on his hand turning an inky black, and his finger was already lengthening into a sharp claw. "Getting creative for a while like that kinda throws fuel on the fire up here for a certain demonic artist. I'm gonna get some sleep."
Sunset wanted to push the subject, but...
It wasn't worth it.
"Just make sure you ACTUALLY sleep, this time! No more keeping watch and getting your sleep on the road!"
"Yeah, yeah... it was one time..." Penn grumbled as he yanked open the driver's door. "Night, everybody!"
"Night, Penn! Thanks for the bedtime story!" Missy called.
"Good night, Penn!"
Once the two of them were left to themselves, Sunset reached around Missy and into her pocket, taking the first chance in hours to check her phone's messages. To her surprise, there were several messages, all reading the same thing:
On our way.
Sunset smiled in spite of her worry. Salem was frightening, and knowing what titans laid ahead of them certainly didn't make her feel confident in their odds, but... she had friends.
And as long as she had them, she could do anything.
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Well, that's gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
So big sis is powerful and outside the meta I might have an idea who she is but I dont want to say incase of spoilers so I am just going to call her kathy
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Agreed. I didn't need that stuck in my head but nice chapter.
I just read Glitch: A Story of the Not, which is related to the old Nobilis rpg but from the perspective of jaded Strategists. I cannot help but notice the similarities with the tale between Chirac and Baalchion.
P.E: Rainbow is already on Chirac side. Won't that be a point of conflict with Sunset?
If Salem is unable to be killed, then the best alternative would be containment. A couple of possibilities present themselves:
1. The elements of Harmony are used to either cleanse and purify Salem as they did with Nightmare Moon, or petrify as they did with Discord. Pros: the petrification would not (theoretically) inflict physical injury so Salem wouldn't pop back into existence outside of the Elements' sphere of influence and purifying her would do away with her need to find Penn, kill him and subjugate the world of Remnant.
Cons: the Elements' use hinges on Penn and Sunset finding their friends and the Elements before Salem catches up with them, the chances of which are pretty much negligible.
2. Enlisting the Doctor's help; In his 4th incarnation (Tom Baker) he was able to trap a literal Godlike alien entity known as Sutekh in an infinitely expanding Time/Space corridor, so it didn't matter how far or how fast Sutekh moved, he would never reach either end of the corridor before he died of old age ("The Pyramids of Mars". Put Salem in a similar corridor, it doesn't matter that she's immortal; she would be trapped with no way out.
Again in his 4th incarnation, the Doctor managed to trap a warship in a time loop, so it kept repeating the same few miles over and over again, never getting any closer to its target. Con; this was only possible through use of an immensely powerful artefact known as the Key of Time. Without it, the chances of such a feat are extremely low. ("The Armageddon Factor")
In his 10th Incarnation (David Tennant) the Doctor dealt with a group of malevolent aliens by trapping one in every mirror in existence and suspending another in time essentially turning him into a statue ("The Family of Blood"). Con: it is never specified exactly how he accomplished this.
3. Another thought is to, as I call it, "pull a Voldemort"; find a way to separate Salem's consciousness from her body leaving her "less than the meanest ghost", though she could again do what Voldemort did and possess the bodies of other people. Plus, I've no idea how our heroes could go about performing the separation.
I'm kind of curious to know what Penn's actual deck list is. The only cards we know are the few we've seen in the story so far, and Big Sis if any readers have figured out who she is. I think I've figured her out based on the clues given, and the fact that I've got a copy of her myself that helped me recognize her description.
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I'll be willing to give a basic deck list once her identity is out there, though it's definitely not gonna strictly stick to that list in the story since I wanna keep his tricks fresh for the audience.
Ghostbusters!
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Ok. I was just curious because I was thinking it would be fun to recreate it to try out in real life games.
Yay! New chapter!
I love the science behind the Chirac and Baalchion war, and you've fit these things together well! I'm very excited for the next chapters, and I can't wait to see more creative ideas and phenomenally written scenes!
Yay for IMMORTAL CREATIVITY!!!
Up until this chapter, I was certain that this wasn't Rainbow AND that the "non-canon" bonus chapter was just that: non-canon. But with this added context... I worry for our favorite chromatically gifted athlete.
You know thinking about it actually, this is the entire multiverse. Do you realize how many god killing immortality ending weapons exist in fiction? Whole freaking heap tons of the damn things. If there is nothing else humans are good at, one thing we excel at is thinking up how to take out larger dangerous animals, I would posit we are literally hard wired on how to figure out a way to kill something bigger and more dangerous than us. Be it putting a sharp rock on a stick to figuring out how to use a nuke against aliens this is something humans do damn near instinctively.
So I know "The perversity of the universe always tends towards a maximum" is the version of Finagle's Law popular amongst hackers. Finagle's Law is sometimes known as Finagle's corollary to Murphy's law, which states "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment." As far as I know, Murphy's Law is still "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". "If something can be used improperly, it WILL be by some idiot," sounds a bit like Hanlon's razor but not quite.
Glad the RWBY crew finally showed up again though I'm slightly frustrated they still haven't gotten to Remnant. Some "Back to Remnant" arc. I kid of course. But we did finally get the backstory of Chirac and Baalchion which we're going to need to know if they're going to face off against them.
I worry now though. If Chirac accelerates development and burns up worlds with radiation to make room for their dragons, is that going to happen to Rainbow Dash?
Why do I get the sense that Penn igniting that black hole to destroy Evernight Castle is what brought Baalchion to Remnant? 🤔
If Sunset's getting together all their friends they've met before, that means we're going to be seeing the 12th Doctor, the Agents of SHIELD, and the guys from Undertale, perhaps even Undyne with OG Penn's soul take on Salem. Possibly Zelda and Link too given they were in Hyrule when we weren't looking.
Well, whenever it comes, I'm going to love seeing the next installment of this. Keep up the good work.
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Well, going by TvTropes (a site I spend WAY too much time on), "Murphy's Law" was coined by Edward Murphy Junior while using rocket sleds to test the limits of human ability to withstand acceleration for his fellow engineers to warn them against designing their machine controls in a way that they could be used improperly. Overall, the original idea was that enough things were failing mechanically, adding the possibility of human error was just asking for trouble, and the controls ought to be designed to make human error issues impossible.
Finagle's law is the version that allows for mechanical failures, occurrences of chance, and general tendency for fate to work against someone, regardless of human input.
As for Hanlon's razor, aka "Assume ignorance before malice", that really is all about identifying intent, rather than the results of said intent.
Anyway, I'm glad you're still enjoying the story! Admittedly, this stuff with Salem is really more of a mini-arc before the Return to Remnant so that I have time to give the characters a break from the constant action. Like Misprint said, we needed to take a break for some slice-of-life.
I'll keep the content coming as often as I can!
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I see. Basically, the premise of one my favorite shows Milo Murphy's Law is inherently flawed.
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What about this Alice?
bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/alice-madness-returns-header-e1549291160826.jpg
A fight between her and Neo would be glorious.
Uh oh. Hearing about the Chirac and realizing Rainbow Dash is on their side spells trouble. Sounds like Rainbow got duped, and I'm betting her Element got twisted against her, or this could be like the Buffalo vs Appleloosans in Over a Barrel, and she is following one side blindly, (in which case I hope and pray Applejack isn't on the other side to recreate that mess)
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Or maybe we hope that Applejack IS on the other side to BALANCE it out in the end, actually? X)