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Eclipse - Act 3 - Shadow of Destiny

Summary:

6 years after the Inhumane Necessity, the Huntsmen are no more and Salem rules Remnant. The Gods have picked their champion, brought back to this world in a last ditch attempt to stop Salem. Now Pyrrha must find who remains and turn foes to friends to right all the wrongs. Meanwhile Ruby embarks on a dangerous mission which becomes deadlier than she could imagine...

Chapter Text

Darkness… of all the things she imagined on the day of her death… darkness was the one thing she feared.

Pyrrha sat up with a start, clawing at her chest, her shoulders, all the places that steel or claw punctured her. In their place, she felt only smooth skin or cracked leather. It was only after the startled wound searching that she took in her surroundings, or lack of. Jet black encircled her infinitely. She panted, gulping a heavy breath, stomach abuzz with swarming bees. Her eyes flit from left to right.

A whisper in one ear, she yelped and whipped round to face that side. Infinite blackness. A whisper in the other. She repeated the action. Infinite blackness. Her heartbeat grew more and more... no, wait it didn't. She had no pulse, no beat in her chest.

A hand fell atop her chest, rapid breaths escaping her, yet her heart rate was null. Pyrrha, quivering violently, peeled her hand back and looked down her palm. Her body had a hazy rainbow effect encompassing. A trippy movement of her hand back and forth revealed the colour spectrum slowly lagging behind the action.

She dropped her hand to her side and fell back to land on her elbows. A splash sounded and she looked down to the temperature-less water beneath, something she didn't even realise she was laying in. It felt of nothing, not cold, not hot. It just brushed against her and made her skin wet, that's all she knew and all she could feel. Hot tears dripped off of her face, splashing into the rippling black inch deep water she found herself in.

"Truth." voices whispered all around her, Pyrrha yelping and retreating into a frail ball, hugging her knees. "Destiny." they harshly spat in hissing tones. "Infinite, and unbound."

Pyrrha gulped, rocking in the water, eyes slammed shut as she feared to open them. She knew what she wanted to say. She knew, it was on the tip of her tongue, teetering on the edge of her lips, ready to jump.

"A-Am I dead?"

Suddenly she was stood, she didn't even remember standing, didn't remember the feeling of muscles constricting and expanding within the action. She was just... standing.

Her hairs stood on end as she shuddered, then her head lifted as she saw him stood ahead of her, amongst the darkness and the water. Featureless apart from a pair of curved horns… he was short and hunched forward, glowing a dark purple, then he slowly turned, revealing his featureless face to her.

“Is this how you want you story to end?” His asked, his voice was dark, croaky and menacing.

“W-Who are you? WHERE AM I?” She shrieked with terror.

"The whispers tell me of your tale." The entity spoke, holding its hands behind its back, remaining hunched forward.

He slowly walked forward, slightly hunched, hands behind his back. His feet sloshed the rippling water, his featureless face tilting to her, the ram horns on his head becoming more prominent with each step. She cowered back a few steps as he neared.

But with each step forward he slowly shrunk down to her size.

"Dead. Killed by fire and steel." It spoke.

Pyrrha's spine chilled and her skin paled. So. She was dead. All that talk, all that spiel of not being afraid, yet here she stood, absolutely terrified.

"Who are you?" She repeated her previous question, quivering.

"I? I am Darkness. The brother to light. I helped forge the world you called home." The Brother of Darkness revealed.

"Remnant?"

"In the end."

"I... I don't want to be dead." Pyrrha spoke with a thick lump in her throat.

"Yet here you are. Laudable." The Brother of Darkness chuckled sinisterly as he circled her, examining her.

Pyrrha swiped her tears aside, hugging herself and looking small. She squeezed her eyes shut, teeth chattering through fear, when she asked.

"D-Did... is Jaune... is my..."

"Gone."

Pyrrha's eyes widened, bloodshot and welling. Then they squinted and erupted forth fresh tears, face buried in her hands as she wailed and cried uncontrollably. The purple figure simply stood before her, watching her cry.

She sobbed for hours it seemed, hugging herself as tight as she could, feeling herself grow colder and colder.

"And that is why you're here. Standing before me."

His eerie voice startled her, emerald watery eyes looking up.

"W-What?"

"Even darkness requires the light."

"W-Wait, what do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, standing up, sniffling and wiping her eyes. The Brother of Darkness tilted his featureless head.

"In this waking nightmare. Where all dreams come true..." He walked up to her, hands behind his back, hunched forward. His gravelly tones shuddered up her back as he stalked around her. "...You searched for control. A way to pull through. When you were in love, you left him in tears.." Pyrrha looked down as his hand guided her chin. In the ripples were flashing images of her life. The moment she kissed him, before shoving him into a locker, and leaving him alone, believing her dead. "...To smother your furies and banish your fears. But in darkness they came. Through never ending night, they burned your soil…”

Her glazed eyes locked on the water below, reflecting the Black smog of Grimm destroying the school. He stood behind her, leaning down with his head slightly tilted as he stared at her, over her shoulder.

"Do you still hear his screams?"

Pyrrha shut her eyes at his words, tears dripping down her cheeks. Darkness skulked around her to stand in front of the Champion, staring ahead at the darkness.

"And now, that you're home... He's so far away." Pyrrha looked up at his words, red eyes watery upon the god. He was talking of Jaune, wasn't he? Of course he was! "They've taken his soul..." He said, turning to face her.

Pyrrha - defeated - looked down, at the moving collage of her times with Jaune in the ripples. Her memories. Darkness placed a palm on his chest, gesturing to himself, his fist tightening as he looked up at the sky, and in the darkness the Shattered Moon was projected from a small light.

"...To these Gods you cannot pray."

Pyrrha looked up at him again as his eyeless gaze snapped back to her, his pace motioning towards her. "They can break you, but not your promise. Even death won't keep you apart. Through this darkness you will find him. In your sword, still beats a heart!"

His purple hand pressed to her forehead, and with a brilliant white flash behind her eyelids, she woke up with a sharp gasping gulp of air, clutching her chest and feeling the wounds beneath her fingers. Pain flooded her senses; the coppery taste of blood filled her cotton mouth.

There she lay, on the scorched rubble that killed her, the spikes of rebar that impaled her shattered and turned to dust, looking up at the daylight pouring through the hole from which she fell. She was alive. Half dead and brutally injured. But alive. For a purpose.

But…

There was vegetation everywhere, water fell into the building she was in, the Vault where Ozpin, Ironwood, Qrow and Glynda once took her, all people who were now dead. Flora had claimed the Academy, with moss and large vines wrapping around the huge pile of rubble that reached up to the roof where she plummeted after the explosion, and the bright sun bled through the opening above her.

Slowly, gingerly, she clambered to her cold feet. Every lick of her lips tasted of iron, the hot drying blood trickling down her nose to her chin. Panting, the beaten champion turned to look at the rubble that had killed her. Her blood was once there, but a lot of time had passed, to the point where it was invisible.

Forgotten.

She gasped as she grasped her clothes, they were torn, moth eaten and her armour old and rusted from time. She had to cover herself as she limped, shivering to the touch, nearly naked from the torn broken state her once beautiful clothes and armour were in. She swallowed thickly, pressing a hand over her stomach, fingers tracing the instant scar tissue.

It was real… it happened.

She died.

She felt queasy, unable to stop staring at the spot of her death. Where she would've laid lifelessly until maybe one day someone found her. She shut her eyes and winced, dropping to a knee.

She was alive, resurrected for a cause she did not understand or know of. But she was not out of the woods yet. Her body throbbed. Her heart felt out a rhythm she was so aware of every slow beat. Her vision was short sighted, anything outside a foot of her radius blurry and fuzzy. Every step was a struggle, her body was thin, she could barely even walk properly. She stared up at the tower of rubble, wide eyed.

With a steely gulp she lifted herself to her feet and slowly limped away from the rubble pile, the lone column of light shining down upon it. The silence was harrowing as she limped through the darkness of the underground vault. Then she remembered with a start.

She turned and looked over the rubble to the dark distance. She focused her eyesight as hard as she could, stumbling drunkenly on the spot. There it was.

The two pods. The arrow hole in the glass. Where Amber died. Where Cinder killed her, and where she fought Ozpin. Pyrrha gulped at the sour memories. She never even realised that those Pods were still there after all this time, even before Beacon fell. She cried out in pain as she roused herself to press on, she limped to the elevator, only finding that there was no power, and looked like it had been abandoned for years.

“H-How long has it been?” She stammered nervously.

Incoherent whispers were all she could hear. She didn't know what they were saying, who they were or why. And right now she didn't have the heart to care. it felt like a mile of limping just to reach an old broken elevator, with no way out of this subterranean vault.

“I… how do I get out of here?” She whimpered, but then that dark voice returned.

“Climb.” The Brother of Darkness growled, she turned, her eyes wide as her long let down hair flicked with her. He was stood there, his hands held together as he watched her, she limped over to him.

“W-What?” Pyrrha stammered.

“The means of your freedom are before you. Climb, to the heavens from this hell you awoke.” The Brother of Darkness commanded, she gasped as she stared at the tower of rubble caused from the explosion, it did indeed reach high enough for her to get out of there… but there was another problem.

“I… I can barely walk… how do you e-expect me to…” She gasped, speaking even hurt.

“Are you not Pyrrha Nikos, the child who amazed thousands upon thousands with her physical prowess?” The Brother of Darkness asked her curiously.

“I died… I’m no invincible girl.” She hissed.

“And yet… here you stand.” He said, Pyrrha walked away from him, and then looked back, finding his Apparition to be gone, like he was never there at all.

“O-Okay… c’mon Pyrrha… just… just climb out of here.” She stammered, and she approached the rubble and started to make the climb, grappling onto sharp rocks and rebar as she pulled her weak body up. But the rocks loosened, and she fell onto the ground with a gasp of pain, wincing in pain as she laid on the rubble. Water fell from above, onto her dry lips. She clenched her hands into fists, and immediately continued on, and climbed with everything she had.

It felt like it was hours, but eventually she reached the top, hauling herself up onto solid ground above. She rolled onto her back and gasped as the sun blinded her for a few moments, until her eyes became accustomed. She pushed her hands against her damp knees as her armour dangled from loose fabric. She grasped her breasts as she limped, looking around as her torn bleached clothes dangled around her body.

She saw trees, bushes and wildlife everywhere, but the buildings were nearly all gone, collapsed and blown apart from when Jaune set off the Bombs to try and stop Salem from taking him. The Fountain was gone, but a small river… a babbling brook and growing forest had formed in the place of the once bustling Academy of Warriors. Now it was abandoned completely, and gods now how many years had passed since.

But judging by how young the forest seemed, it could not have been more than ten years. She stumbled and slammed against a wall that was left behind, covered in moss and ivy. She coughed, wheezing with every breath taken.

“Hello? Anyone?” She softly tried to cry out, but her voice fell on deaf ears. She kept moving, finding the remnants of the Dormitory Block, so she entered it, bouncing off the door frame as she wandered inside, passing by the skeleton of the student who was on fire when it burned down. The entire building was scorched and rotting away.

She pushed off the wall and walked around the jammed door, it had been this way for a while. Burnt skeletal bodies littered the corridors, died in the fire when the Manticores attacked when they were sleeping, and old faded blood stained the walls. She limped through the massacre, stumbling over an unseen body and dropping into the smoky fog with a thud, crying out at the pain it caused her.

She rolled onto her back, wheezing and clutching her stomach. Then her eyes widened on the body. A broken skeleton ripped apart most likely from the Grimm, they probably died in so much pain in here.

Then she remembered… all the people who they lost.

For some reason, her mind lingered on Jaymes Ickford, after everything that happened he died trying to save her life. And that monster… Salem… ended him like he was nothing. Her eyes welled. Everything they did, everything they went through to help him, save him, all came down to nothing. Just a forgotten corpse in a long-forgotten mass grave. She shuffled away and stumbled to her feet, limping away as quickly as she could.

She drifted through the corridors, whispers rising in her head. She stopped to catch her breath and grit her teeth through the pain, propped on her hand against a doorway. Her emerald eyes opened and found the door ajar, slash marks down it's face. She gulped and slowly pushed it open with a creak. It took everything she had to open the door into the next room, more dorms ahead. It stopped just short of the blood-stained carpet, once white… now a dark brown from old blood, skeletons everywhere. She gasped and staggered back into the opposite dorm room door, tumbling through.

She fell onto the hard skeleton within the room, bones melted away, gagging and wailing, scrounging to her feet and shutting her eyes tight as she felt her way back into the hall.

"H-Hello?! Is anyone here?!" She screamed, hands in her red hair.

"Silence." The Brother of Darkness commanded, his voice felt like it vibrated through her mind.

She gasped at the voice, sharp tendrils scraping her mind. With a panicked whine she limped through the dormitory halls, then she stopped. She stopped, at the doorway to her Dorm. JNPR's Dorm.

She gulped thickly, tremors in her hand as it lifted to push the doorway open. The door slid across the carpet soundlessly, and her eyes fell on the scorched black curtains, once red but destroyed from the fire, blowing in the breeze as they hung from the missing back wall, rubble littering the small room. Cool air licked her skin as she stepped inside, looking at the splintered beds, heels crunching glass into the rug. The askew curtain pole hung from the remaining segment of outer wall, curtains whipping inwards, to and fro.

She looked at Ren and Nora's beds. She had no idea if they were alive or dead. Only that the last they spoke they felt betrayed.

And gave them to the Black Gallows.

Gods… no… we gave them directly to Salem… what have we done?

What have… I… done?

And Jaune?

Pyrrha gulped, memories of the slaughter rushing back, flash images of a statue, eclipsing the moon. The words "I'm sorry" from bloodied lips. An explosion. Her death. His death.

Tears dripped onto the carpet, the empty and broken Pyrrha unable to sob, she just felt drained, void of all emotion. She left their room for the last time, making her journey through the halls once more.

"He said he was gone..." Pyrrha said to nobody in particular.

"Soul taken, his battle fought and done..."

Pyrrha startled, slapping the side of her head, like swatting at a fly, trying to rid herself of the spot the voice resonated.

Her vision was blurry, a hazy mist reddened at the edges. Her limbs were heavy, aching, the dark lines of solved scars feeling like they were being peeled open by unseen fingers. Each limping step was agony, each clack of heel echoing around the silent ruins of Beacon. Grey daylight poured in through the shattered roof above, ceiling hanging down like flaps of rotting flesh on a bony carcass.

And despite the ghostly silence of this Graveyard… she heard Birdsong… life amongst all the death.

She felt like she spent days here at the ruins of Beacon, but she just felt like she could never leave this place, she had to see what happened.

As she limped her way through the deafeningly quiet food hall, through the dusty columns of light, that voice scraped it's way up her spine and throbbed in her head.

"Death is a release I have not granted you yet..."

The voice was dark and menacing, cold and empty. The Brother of Darkness who greeted her in the afterlife. It all rushed back. His agonising voice vibrated around her inner skull. Like having a migraine, his monologue made her painfully aware of the insides of her head.

"...I see in you something that my brother saw in Ozma. Such heroism, it made my blood seethe, but I understood it's necessity. Here lies why you walk these hallowed halls. Because I allowed it. Because death ultimately answers... to me."

“The hell… are you talking about?” She whimpered.

“All in due time, my child… all in due time.” The Brother of Darkness promised.

Pyrrha felt a pained whimper push passed her firmed lips, the tip of her boot catching on the bony ribs of a fellow student. She grunted and a tear rolled down her cheek, before she reached the huge double doors at the end of the cold dead hall. She pushed with a strangled cry of pain, and eventually they creaked open.

She shielded her throbbing eyes from the light of day, first feeling the cold pricks of rain peppering her itching skin.

"For every battle won, a greater battle takes it's place..."

A different, softer male voice spoke inside her head. It didn't hurt like Darkness' did. The silence around Beacon was horrific. The wind was silent, everything was silent. All she could hear were ghostly whispers behind the voice...

… they were the only company she had in this hellish grave.

"And so it goes, until we fall. And in the end, we all fall..."

Her eyes adjusted and she froze at the Grimm currently feet away, roaming around the courtyard unawares of her. It was like she was drawn right back to the Courtyard where she climbed her way out.

Then… it was like time was flickering back and forth, showing the flames that burned, she gasped as she saw it all, and the horror. Flesh tore under their teeth, fellow students and staff, gone to the Grimm. She heard their agonised screams as Grimm tore them open, gorging on their organs, smothering their black throats with their blood as they enjoyed their suffering.

They savoured their pain and dread… because they enjoyed it. She swallowed the vomit back, and slowly, timidly stepped forward. The Grimm ignored her completely, and time returned back to the present. Back in the Overgrown Beacon Academy… she realised these were memories, being granted to her by the Brother of Darkness, showing her the destruction of Beacon, and the deaths of everyone. The Grimm in the memories were feasting and killing people, but here in the Present? They ignored her. Like she wasn't there. The whispers returned behind the soft man's voice.

"...Even the God's have their time. Yet we still go on. Why?"

Pyrrha felt a horrendous pain shoot up her spine and she dropped to a knee, and the flames returned alongside the memories, right next to a feasting Ursa. It didn't even lift it's head to her cry.

"W-Why... aren't they-" she asked.

"I have blinded my beasts to your fear's scent. What would I stand to gain, from losing you to my creations? Come now."

Darkness' voice was so loud in her mind, so sharp and cold compared to the softer man's tones. She even covered her ears instinctively, as if that'd help.

"Keep moving. Leave this place."

“Why… why am I seeing all this? The fire… their deaths… why?” Pyrrha whimpered.

“Your Aura is bound to this place; it is where you fell. Even the rocks themselves hold memories; your aura is showing them to you.” Darkness answered. “The Grimm know something is wrong if you stay too long my spell will wain. The Grimm presence will try and lure you back so they can kill you like everyone else. Do not look back – keep moving.”

The once comfortable home of Beacon was now a terrifying haunted Mass Grave, and she just wanted to leave.

I don’t want to see what happened here… I don’t want to see them dying again…

Pyrrha slowly, wincing in pain, rose to her feet, moving through the ghostly, dream state Beacon. Smoke clambered in high black columns into the grey sky. She gingerly stepped forward and carried on her limping walk through hell's highway. Grimm littered the dead courtyard, smouldering ruins now just smoking rubble as rain doused the ashen land. Nevermore's circled overhead, deaf to their caws.

The smoke snapped away, and the overgrowth returned, there were Grimm here, always patrolling the land, yet even they could not see her, thanks to Darkness’ spell.

Eventually, limping by Beowulves and Ursae, she rounded to the end of the courtyard, and the obliterated statue that stared out at the school grounds. The same statue that...

Pyrrha stared emptily at the black ash that stained the cratered ground. Where Jaune had laid and detonated the school. Tears fell freely down her face, her cold and distant expression staring at the site he died. The whispers in her head picked up.

She fell to her knees, seeing the old, rusted remains of his destroyed Crocea Mors in the rubble, snapped after Salem broke it with her thumb. Pyrrha grasped the hilt, holding it close as she limped, not letting go of his weapon.

"...Be ready... to face horror... in the eye. As I have. To find your answers. Your quest. Your truth."

That softer voice spoke it's last lines, before ultimately fading away.

The softer voice… it was him… because whenever he spoke she felt like there was a warm presence over the side of her neck. She then looked ahead, seeing both their apparitions stood at the path out of Beacon Academy.

The Brother of Darkness on one side… and the Brother of Light on the other.

Light was similar to Death, featureless and humanoid in shape, however instead of Ram Horns, he had large splayed out Antlers sprouted from his head. And instead of glowing dark purple, he shone gold like the sun.

“Why are you here?” She whimpered.

“To guide you… our champion.” The Brother of Light assured.

Pyrrha sniffed, wiping her nose on her wrist, before turning to look at the crumbled path out of Beacon, and the hundreds of Grimm bumbling into the dead school grounds. Even after all these years the Grimm still patrolled the Academy, despite it being abandoned and overgrown. She simply paced down the steps and past them, like people on the street.

Stood amongst the ruins was a Praetorian Knight, constantly stood guard at the Academy for whatever reason. She looked up at the Praetorian Knight, stood with it's sword, blade tipped to the floor and handle held to it's chest. She walked round it's leg, and swore not to look back, until.

"P-Pyrrha?"

She stopped dead, the whispers all freezing and life returning to her ghostly, hazy vision. The Present Day vanished, and the fire raged around her alongside ethe smoke from dying flames after the explosion. She was fully alert and snapped her head to the voice.

It was a member of team ABRN. Nadir, Pyrrha believed his name was. His hair was dishevelled, his skin cut, and clothes torn, holding his stomach after a Grimm sliced him open. The Grimm turned sharply to his voice, The Praetorian Knight quickly raising it's sword and hissing at him in the memory.

H-How… how can he see me if this is a memory.

“Ignore him, the land is full of dark tricks and ghosts… do not believe what you see.”

Pyrrha looked on in horror as he stumbled out of the school, dragging his broken leg behind.

"I-It's you! Y-You lived!" He cried.

“He can see me! He’s real! I can help him!” She gasped, grasping the Snapped Blade of Crocea Mors tight.

"DO NOT STOP, DO NOT HELP HIM. TURN AND FLEE. IF YOU ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, IF YOU PERSIST TO SAVE HIM, THE GRIMM WILL CLAIM YOU! THEY ARE TRYING TO PULL YOU BACK AND KILL YOU ONCE AGAIN! AND I WILL NOT, CANNOT REVIVE YOU AGAIN! FORGET THE DEAD, THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO FOR THEM NOW!”

Pyrrha gripped her temples and cried, watching as the Praetorian Knight barrelled around the walls of the school, sword held aloft as Nadir cried out her name repeatedly. Delirious and stricken with grief, he was a Grimm's ideal meal.

"Fine. Save him. Die with him. Then the rest of the world will become Salem's, and all life as my brother and I intended will cease to exist, made null and void."

Pyrrha winced, and as Nadir outstretched for her, Grimm pouring out the school for him, she slowly turned and shut her eyes, collapsing into a ball and hugging her head against her knees. Nadir's eyes glazed in shock and horror, just as the Praetorian jumped overhead, rolling through the air and swinging it's sword round under itself, cutting Nadir in two. He dropped to the floor with a wet thud and his cries lasted mere seconds before the Beowulves tore him to shreds, with Pyrrha rocking mere feet away.

She screamed and cried to cover the tearing and crunching noises.

"Good girl. The choice to save everything, over one. I see I chose well, when I chose one, to save everything."

And then… the screaming, tearing and crunching vanished… replaced with gentle breeze and birdsong. She lifted her head from her bare knees, and saw the shattered bones where Nadir fell all those years ago, and the Grimm all wandered away with the same Praetorian Knight which cut him in two, continuing to patrol the Academy.

There was nothing she could do, even if she wanted to… it was just a hallucination… a memory from the school of how he died in so much pain.

She shook, and pushed herself back up to her feet, limping away.

Through the scars of the Inhumane Necessity.

Pyrrha had returned, but Remnant was a vastly different world than what she remembered.

This was a world – conquered by Salem.