Ep. 28 - Return, Not Going Without

Once I reached the surface, I trasmated to my ship and flew towards Remnant. I communicated with Weiss through the wristband: "How are things? I have a solution to this mess. Coming back now."

"The Grimm are closing in on the Capitals of the world. It's not an invasion yet just because they are slowly encircling us. Other than that everything is fine."

"Got it. Tell Ozpin or Ironwood that they don't have to worry about the Grimm for much longer. At least until they group up again."

"You're going to do something crazy right?"

"Nah, just mowing down those monsters for a bit. Hey, Weiss… would you give me a lap pillow?"

"Where does THAT come from?! But, sure, I'll give you a lap pillow."

"Hell yeah! I'll be coming to the chalet in a couple of hours. See you there."

"Sure. Good work by the way!"

I was in my cozy, cozy cockpit observing the movement of the Grimm towards Vale. There was a group headed towards the mountains. 'I think those guys want to free the Wyvern. The others are headed to the walls. I want to eliminate the wyvern once and for all, so I'll leave those guys alone. Time to get to work!'

I fired a tracking bullet at one of the Grimm heading to the Wyvern, so that I can be ready when they reach it, then I spoke to MoonRay

"Hey, MoonRay, can you by any chance access every speaker in Vale?"

"I can and, please tell me you are not going to do what I think you're going to do."

"I am not going to do what you think I am going to do."

"Haa… Here, the speakers are yours."

Anyway, I started blasting rock music throughout the city.

I immediately received a communication from the gang: "For fuck's sake! Turn it off!"

I absolutely ignored it and started up the weapons system.

I started lasering and bulleting all the Grimm I came upon. I moved gradually closer to Vale while swaying left, right, up, down, center. All sorts of maneuvers just because they were fun. I tried cutting a Nevermore with my ship's wing and boi was that fun! A lot of Nevermores were slain that day. I saw a pack of Goliaths and Megoliaths, led by an alpha. I was really pissed at their entire race, so I immediately sent a fusion missile there. Goliaths and Megoliaths were no more, as was the ground they stood on. I flew other to Vale, eliminating some Grimm that strayed closer than the pack. Probably some scouts, if they even have the concept.

Some of the people in Vale that had never seen my ship saw it and thought it was some new kind of Grimm. The Atlas ships didn't attack though, probably due to Ironwood.

I spent two hours and a half cleaning up the borders. By the time I was done, I went through a ton of music genres and made half of the population tone deaf for the rest of their lives. 'Totally worth it.'

I headed to the chalet to find an angry Ruby, followed by a fuming Yang, and a pissed Weiss. 'Oh, hey friends, didn't see you back there!'

"You idiot! How dare you disappear like that?! It's been five days! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! And what's with that message?!" asked Ruby, running up to me and hugging me. Yang came and punched me, then hugged me. Weiss just smiled and kissed my cheek. 'This is why she's best girl!'

"Well, I was kinda panicking you know? I had just discovered that I might have to take a dip into the stuff from which Grimm come out of! And that it might make me become crazy! It wasn't cool!"

"And? What did you find on your investigation?" asked Weiss.

"Nothing much. Humanity's greatest enemy is the world itself and to save us, I will have to take a dip into that stuff and plant this seed." I said, bringing out the will's seed.

Weiss and Yang at that point grabbed my arms while Ruby pushed me from behind. They brought me inside and forced me to sit on a couch, then the gang sat opposite to me.

"Explain. In detail. To all of us." said Ruby.

I sighed, then gave an abridged version with more details on the important stuff.

"So, Remnant was made by a pair of Gods. Both of them brought life to the planet, with animals and vegetation. Then, the God of Light made Humans and Faunus by giving Humanity to animals. Then the God of Darkness made Grimm, well the Grimm pools. Now, among the first humans were a certain Ozma and Salem. Ozma died, leading Salem to pray to the gods to resurrect him. She instead was cursed with immortality, couldn't take it and tried to drown herself in one of those pools, which took her humanity away and corrupted her thoughts. Ozma then was resurrected and given some kind of immortality as well. Now, in truth, the God of Darkness cursed the 'will of the world', which became the 'Land of Darkness', an entity with a will and thoughts of its own. The will of the world took control of Salem, but did not corrupt her thoughts, allowing her to see how 'she' destroyed humanity. That was its plan anyway.

At any rate, Ozma's reincarnations and Salem duked it out for millennia until little old me came along. I guess you might have an inkling, but our headmaster is the current Ozma. I have removed the offshoot of the 'will of the world' from Salem and I… forgot her in the headmaster's office. Since I was able to purify her, I got the idea that if I could purify the core in the 'Land of Darkness', that would end everything. I noticed that there were some similarities with the 'continent' on planet Resort. Turns out, the thing was alive and kicking. The continent is the embodiment of the 'will of the world' in planet Resort. I had to descend 230 floors to reach what it called the 'Land of Light'. Pretty fitting name: it was a color swap of the darkness one.

Anyway, for arriving there, it gave me the way to stop Grimm from getting created and stopping the world-wide invasion. After I battled with an endless amount of white, and I think strengthened, Grimm for an entire day, I won this seed here, the key to save humanity. So now, probably tomorrow, I have to take a dip in the same pool Salem tried to drown herself into, hope it doesn't turn me into a psycho, purify the core and fuse it with this seed. If everything goes well, the world will be at peace after tomorrow. We will just need to eliminate the remaining Grimm."

The room was silent for a lot of time. They were just staring at me trying to assimilate what they just learned.

"So, let's make a recap real quick. First, the emergence of Grimm is due to sibling rivalry." said Jaune.

"Yup."

"Ozpin is a millennia old reincarnating old dude." said Sun. 'Oh, hey there Sun, didn't see you back there!'

"You got it."

"The world has a will of its own and currently wants to annihilate humanity." said Pyrrha.

"Correct."

"You just went and defeated humanity's supposed greatest enemy on your own after your tournament match." said Blake, which earned me an intense glare from Yang and Weiss.

"Ahem! It was like a celebratory thing, you know?" They all glared at me. "Okay, I've been planning to take care of the people who infiltrated the school and Salem for a long time. The tournament was the best time I could think of to do so."

"Oh, now there were some infiltrators in school?" asked Ruby

"Yes, it was Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. Before you ask, the first two are currently six feet under while Mercury was taken in custody by Ironwood."

"Moving on, the place where we spent our vacation was actually alive and has an army of Grimm that you defeated." said Ren

"Yes. I went into that cave you and Nora found. I should thank you, otherwise I would have never made a connection between the two places."

"And now you are telling us that tomorrow you might either become Humanity's greatest enemy or bring peace to the world." said Ruby.

"Correct once again."

"Ok, I'm in." she said after thinking a bit.

"So am I!" said Yang.

"Don't think I'll allow you to go alone!" added Weiss.

In turn, everyone stated their desire to come with me on my 'errand'.

"I appreciate the feelings, but you can't. I might have a way deal with the mind rape thing, but you guys don't. You're not ready to face the amount of Grimm I'll find either. So I'll go alone. You guys are needed here to fight the Grimm if needed. Currently you are among the best active huntsmen and huntresses, but facing Grimm and facing the will of the world itself are two very different things."

"And what makes you think YOU can do it?! You said that we are among the best yet can't beat you, but that doesn't mean much, does it?! You are facing a god-like being! What makes you so different from us?!" shouted Jaune.

"Jaune. It's not a point of how strong I am, but my abilities. I can defend against the corruption, I can face an endless amount of Grimm as long as I have weapons, I don't even need to breathe, I can purify the core, and I have the seed.

The point is: I can ignore almost anything that is thrown at me and come back to life if things go horribly wrong, while you can't. And I am not risking my friends.

Even if you came, I wouldn't allow you to jump in the pools, so you would be stuck there with millions of Grimm. I could leave you on the ship, but it wouldn't change much from staying here, would it?

I am a robot with unlimited stamina, so I just need to worry about my mental state but could otherwise fight for eternity. I don't know how long it will take for the purification, so I can't just leave you guys there without a way out. Your armors can let you ignore or shrug off most damage, but even those aren't completely indestructible. If thousands or more Grimm gang up on you guys at the same time, chances are you won't survive in one piece.

That is what makes me different, Jaune.

All this time, we all lived a single story. Now I think it's time for me to put down my arch-enemy. I'll stick around to see the rest of your stories though. I have all the time in the world to spend with you guys." I said calmly.

"It hurts me as well, you know. Trying to save the world without telling you. We are students, I think we shouldn't be fighting in a war for the survival of the human race, yet I still do. Call me a hypocrite, but I want you guys to be happy, live fulfilling lives, maybe go on an adventure together.

Argh! I don't even know what I'm saying!"

Weiss hugged me, followed by Yang, Ruby, Blake, and the others. A big group hug.

"You might be the only one actually capable of saving the world, but you're not going without me!" Weiss said, followed by the others saying: "Or me!"

"Even if it means staying on the ship-" she continued then was cut off by Yang

"We're coming with you."

"You can't hog all of the fun!" said Ruby.

"Saving the world in the shadows without a single word of thanks? Sounds like one of my books." said Blake.

"You have helped me a lot since we met. Even if it's just moral support, I'm coming." said Jaune.

"Helping people is my goal in life. What better way than making sure that you stop an extinction-level Grimm invasion? Atlas can handle the Grimm." Pyrrha stated.

"I'm coming. Don't care what you say." said Ren.

"It'll be like a party! A potentially mortal party where we await salvation or extinction, but a party nonetheless!" That was Nora.

Suddenly from behind us came Qrow' voice.

"Well kid, nice speech there. Definitely ranting, but nice try. The story part needs some work, but it could end up real nice. I think I'll steal it for myself. Oh, count me in for your extinction party. Make sure to get some booze."

"My dear little brother-in-law… You want to leave me out of this party? I'm hurt you know?"

"Well Winter, I'm sure Qrow can heal you better than this 'party' but, you get an invitation as well I guess. So, you guys are coming and staying on the ship. Nothing more, and I guess you won't accept anything less. You should all sleep early tonight because if MoonRay sees that the situation with the Grimm is getting… Grim, you will all be coming back here."

"Ohmygod, you made a pun!" said Yang happily

"I tried at least. Now, I was promised a lap pillow for my hard work. Exploring an alien cave system was mentally taxing, so I have an excuse."

Everybody laughed at that, while Weiss got a little red.

After a few minutes, only Yang, Ruby, Weiss, and I remained in the living room.

"Are you sure you want to come with me? If I really end up going crazy, the people on the ship are the ones most in danger. And it will be just waiting up there, no real action…"

In response, I got hugged by the three. More like they stuck to me like rust.

"Don't think we're letting you go without us-" started Weiss.

"If you dare pull something like five days ago, I'll end you." said Yang.

"I want to be there, whether you save us, or end us." said Ruby

"Guess I can't disappoint you then. I would end myself if I hurt you three."

That day, I ended up getting a lap pillow from Weiss, a nice, long hug by Ruby, and… belly rubs by Yang. 'Did she mistake me with a dog? Though it feels nice, so I won't complain.'