RWBY: LUCID

The battlefield seemed to breathe around them. Even with the immediate area becoming comparatively quiet, there was no true silence on the crimson moon. Somewhere in the distance, enormous creatures roared, metal screamed against stone, and explosions of runic energy blossomed across the horizon like violent flowers.

The great chasm near them, also continued to descend into impossible darkness, its edges illuminated by the faint crimson glow of the moon itself, while countless Sleepless members disappeared into its depths one after another.

Yet for the moment, Blake, Pyrrha, and Gula had been granted something increasingly rare in this place: a few minutes in which nobody was actively trying to kill them.

Gula seemed almost amused by the absurdity of it. He stood in his humanoid silhouette, the features of Jaune's face rendered entirely from shifting black Umbra, his white eyes glowing faintly against the darkness. His gaze moved between the three women before settling upon Blake, who was still waiting for the explanation that had been promised to her.

"To explain everything would take a little bit of time," Gula said, gesturing vaguely toward the environment around them, "and this is... still a battlefield."

As though fate itself had decided to punctuate his statement, a massive shape suddenly came hurtling through the air toward them. Pyrrha's Mecha form immediately reacted. The gigantic metallic machine shifted its stance and raised both arms, preparing to intercept whatever had been thrown toward them, only for the shape to resolve into a gigantic Rank 2 Nevermore.

The creature's enormous wings beat wildly as it spiraled through the air, its beak opening as it attempted to regain control, but before Mecha Pyrrha could catch it, the Nevermore's body suddenly split apart. Its flesh and runic energy divided into a dozen smaller Nevermores, each one scattering in a different direction.

Pyrrha paused, her Mecha's head tilting slightly as she realized something peculiar. None of them were attacking her. They weren't even looking at her. Every single one was rushing toward something else. Then a brilliant streak of lightning descended from the sky. It struck the first Nevermore and continued through it, then jumped to the second, then the third, then the fourth, chaining between every fragmented body in a single titanic electrical discharge.

The thunderclap arrived a heartbeat later, so loud that the ground trembled beneath them. Every Nevermore convulsed as lightning crawled through its body, scorching black flesh and erupting from its wings and beaks before the creatures began dissolving into ash. The remaining fragments, those that had somehow survived the initial strike, immediately converged back toward one another, reforming into a single Nevermore.

It was smaller than before, its body smoking and damaged, but apparently still determined to fight. It barely had time to spread its wings before something enormous struck it directly in the beak. A gigantic hammer composed of crackling lightning slammed into its skull with enough force to crush the entire front of its head.

Another thunderous explosion rolled across the battlefield as the creature was driven downward, its body disintegrating into black ash before it could recover. The figure responsible floated for a moment amid the fading electricity before slowly descending toward the crimson ground.

Orange hair became visible first, followed by a familiar face and a massive hammer crackling with residual lightning. Nora Valkyrie landed with considerably less dignity than the destruction she had just caused, bending her knees slightly before straightening and looking around. Her eyes immediately settled on the enormous metallic form standing nearby, and her face lit up.

"Pyrrha! You finally used it!" Nora exclaimed, bounding toward them with an almost childlike enthusiasm completely at odds with the battlefield surrounding her.

"I was waiting to see your kaiju killer in action!"

She gestured enthusiastically toward Mecha Pyrrha, who towered over the surroundings like some mechanical titan. Then Nora's eyes moved to Blake. Then to Gula. Then back to Gula. She squinted. She took another step closer.

"Jaune?" she asked. Gula's head tilted. "Is that you? Why are you black? Did you secretly become a Vacuoan without anyone noticing?"

Gula scratched his cheek with one shadowy finger.

"Uh, no... I'm..."

Nora waved a hand dismissively.

"Nah, I'm just messing with you. You're Gula, aren't you? Jaune's Stalker from the Shadow Realm?"

Both Pyrrha and Blake stared at Nora for a moment. Neither of them had expected her to identify Gula so quickly. Blake had needed an explanation before she had even begun to accept what she was looking at, while Pyrrha had spent several minutes trying to reconcile the creature's existence with everything she understood about Stalkers.

Nora, apparently, had simply looked at him and guessed. It was one of those moments that reminded everyone who knew Nora that there was a considerable difference between being intellectually chaotic and being unintelligent. The former described Nora rather well. The latter did not.

Gula himself seemed slightly amused by the realization.

"Correct," he said.

Nora nodded as though this confirmed something she had already known.

"Cool." She then looked down at the crater. Her expression shifted when she saw the man lying inside it.

"Is this...?"

Blake answered before she could finish.

"Adam Taurus. A member of Sleepless, and my former team member and mentor while I was at Menagerie."

Nora's eyebrows rose.

"Oh! Gotcha." She looked between Blake, Pyrrha, and Adam, then scratched the back of her head.

"Um... should I leave for a bit and let you guys speak?"

Blake glanced toward the surrounding battlefield. The area around them had changed considerably since she had first arrived. Several Rank 2 awakened were fighting together in coordinated groups, carving through the remaining Grimm while others erected temporary fortifications using their runes.

Walls, barricades, platforms, and defensive structures had appeared across the crimson terrain, turning the area into a temporary foothold. Blake had arrived with enough Rank 2s that their combined strength had created a small pocket of safety amid the chaos.

It was not permanent.

Grimm still continued to pour from the distant wilderness, and more Sleepless members were still rushing toward the chasm, but for the moment, the tide around them had been pushed back.

"Don't worry, Nora," Blake said. "You're not going to be a bother. And besides, everything looks to be clearing up anyhow."

Nora nodded. Then she looked around again.

"Where's Jaune, by the way?"

Pyrrha's gaze shifted toward the enormous chasm.

"He went ahead with Qrow and Taiyang. Chasing after Carnis, I think."

Nora's expression immediately darkened. She stomped one foot against the crimson ground. The impact created a small crater beneath her boot.

"Dammit, Jaune! He said we were all going to go down together! What a cheat. A no-good liar is what he is."

Despite everything, Pyrrha couldn't stop a small smile from appearing. Blake's lips twitched as well. There was something strangely comforting about hearing Nora complain about Jaune as though this were an ordinary day at Beacon High School and not the middle of an apocalyptic battlefield surrounding the seal of an ancient entity.

Pyrrha shook her head.

"I think Jaune heard it from his father, but supposedly our whole group should be arriving soon. Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Ren, Mocha and Oscar should all be arriving with them. We'll descend with them when they arrive."

Nora crossed her arms and huffed.

"I'm gonna give him a taste of the Nora Hammer anyhow!"

Gula glanced toward the chasm.

"I'm sure he'll be terrified."

Nora pointed at him.

"You get it."

Blake sighed, though there was the faintest hint of amusement in her expression.

"Alright, guys. As entertaining as this is, I'm still waiting for my answers here."

Nora's eyes widened slightly.

"Oh... sorry." Blake waved her off and turned her attention back toward Gula.

"You said this all ties back to Tyrian and his runes. What exactly did you mean?"

Gula's shadowy expression became more troubled. For the first time since Nora had arrived, the creature's playful demeanor diminished. His shoulders lowered slightly, and his glowing eyes shifted toward Adam, who remained in the crater, listening despite his injuries.

"Truth be told," Gula began, "much of this requires a bit of context, but I'll try to shorten it." He folded his arms.

"Tyrian, as you know, is the Sleepless leader. He was a natural awakened and used to be a part of LUCID. However, during his Rank 0 days, he created a very special rune called Vessel. A Meta Rune."

Pyrrha's expression became serious and Blake was listening carefully. Nora's attention sharpened as well.

Gula continued.

"What was special about this rune was two things. Its main ability essentially allowed the holder to possess an extra rune at each Rank. Which means that at Rank 2, a person with Vessel would effectively have six runes in their arsenal. And... the news gets a little worse. Tyrian didn't just create any normal rune to make up the amount. Each of his six runes... were meta runes."

All three women widened their eyes simultaneously.

Six runes.

Not just regular runes, but meta runes?

The number hung in the air for a moment, and even Pyrrha, who had spent considerable time studying rune theories and the different types of rune synergies, seemed genuinely disturbed by the implication.

A Rank 2 could only possess three runes. The limitations were already severe enough that most awakened spent years trying to reach mastery over the ones they possessed.

Six runes was not merely an increase in quantity. It was an entirely different foundation upon which someone could construct their power.

And now, there was a Rank 3 out there that had a Master rune built from the power of six meta runes?

Tyrian would have had to reach mastery in each and every one of those runes before becoming a rank 3. Not to mention the fact that meta rune were notoriously harder to comprehend and combine with other rune.

To this day, the only known person who had ever merged a meta rune into a master rune was the Rank 3 of Menagerie, Velik.

And he was considered the strongest Rank 3 in all of history.

But now, apparently there was a mysterious man named Tyrian who had accomplished an even more greater feat? And no one even knew about it? If Velik was a once in a lifetime genius, what did that make Tyrian?

A monster?

That simply wasn't logically possible, was it?

Gula raised one hand.

"That's not all."

His voice became quieter.

"Unfortunately, the Sleeper, or Salem, whatever you want to call her, before she was sealed away, managed to attach a very tiny piece of her consciousness onto the concept of that Vessel rune. Which meant that whoever created that rune would be possessed by her."

Blake's expression tightened. Gula continued,

"Now, as far as Jaune and I know, Tyrian and Salem are one and the same. In any case, due to the Vessel Rune being a part of Tyrian and Salem possessing his mind, he was able to create a variety of special runes.

Gula looked toward Adam.

"One of those Meta Runes that he created was called Puppeteer," Gula continued. "It essentially allows him to turn people into living puppets."

Blake's eyes slowly moved toward Adam. Adam was still lying in the crater, his breathing shallow and ragged, his broken Grimm mask scattered around him. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Yet despite his condition, there was something almost amused in his expression.

He began to laugh.

"How vexing," Adam muttered, his voice hoarse.

"Our great leader's prowess, being laid bare due to his closest confidante revealing it to his son and a damned Umbral beast of all things."

Blake ignored him. Her attention remained on Gula.

"So Adam is being controlled by this Puppeteer rune?"

Gula shook his head.

"Not controlled. Permanently changed. His mind serves only one purpose: Salem's will in Tyrian's body."

Blake stared at Adam for several seconds. Then she began pacing slowly, her thoughts visibly turning over what Gula had told her.

"So how do we fix it? Do we just need to kill Tyrian and he'll go back to normal?" Gula's head lowered.

"If only it were that easy."

He paused.

"Even if, by some miracle, Jaune or the other Rank 3s manage to kill Tyrian and stop the Sleeper from awakening, Adam will not go back to normal. The Puppeteer rune is incredibly sinister, Blake.

There is no runic energy influencing his decisions. It's Adam's own will that makes him choose to become a member of Sleepless."

Blake stopped pacing.

"What?"

"Sleepless members are under the influence of the Puppeteer rune," Gula explained, "but the very curious aspect of the rune is that it leaves no traces of its presence. It permanently alters minds and turns them away from their nature while retaining their personalities. Tyrian built Sleepless from the ground up using this principle."

The words seemed to strike Blake harder than any physical attack could have. Her gaze moved slowly back toward Adam. She remembered him before. The man who had taught her. The man who had fought beside her. The man whose death had left a hole in her life so deep that she had moved across an ocean of geography and memory just to escape the place where everything reminded her of him.

Yet Gula was telling her something worse than death.

Adam had not simply been forced into this. Somewhere inside the twisted architecture of his own mind, he had become convinced that this was what he wanted.

Blake swallowed.

"Do you think logical people would willingly enter the servitude of someone who wants to wake up a sleeping god to end all life?" Gula asked quietly.

"People aren't that dumb. Many people do things for their own benefit, but to end all life, one would have to be a terrifying psychopath for that to come to life."

Blake looked toward the distant battlefield.

"So everyone in Sleepless is under Tyrian's control?"

"No." Gula's answer came immediately.

"Not all of them. Several follow the Sleepless ideology of their own free will. Jaune's father was one of them."

Blake looked back toward him and Gula's expression already shadowed expression seemed to darken even further.

"This might contradict what I said earlier about logical people, but some people simply aren't logical. In every harvest, there are crops which are bad, and so too could be said about people. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Nobody responded. The battlefield seemed suddenly louder in the silence that followed. Somewhere beyond the fortifications, a Rank 2 Grimm roared before being cut down by a barrage of runic attacks.

Ash drifted across the crimson sky.

Nora's expression had lost its usual brightness. Pyrrha stood quietly beside Blake, her Mecha towering behind them like a silent guardian. Adam remained on the ground, listening to every word.

Gula's gaze eventually returned to him.

"It's a terrible thing, isn't it?" he said. "To know that someone can still have your face, your memories, your personality, your voice... and yet the thing making their choices has been twisted into something else entirely."

Blake's eyes lowered.

Gula continued, his tone strangely contemplative.

"It reminds me of on of the stories from Jaune's memories... of Geppetto and Pinocchio."

Nora tilted her head.

"The wooden puppet?"

"Yeah."

Gula looked down at his own shadowy hands.

"Geppetto made Pinocchio. He gave him shape and taught him how to move, how to speak, how to behave. But Pinocchio was still a puppet. He was something created by someone else, and the dream of becoming a real boy was essentially the dream of escaping the strings that defined him."

Gula's eyes lifted toward Adam.

"But imagine if Geppetto had never wanted Pinocchio to become human. Imagine if he had carved the puppet specifically so that it could walk around, speak, laugh, cry, and pretend to be free while every choice it made was secretly dictated by the hand holding the strings. Imagine that the puppet didn't even know the strings were there."

Blake's expression became increasingly grim.

"That's what Puppeteer does."

Gula nodded.

"Exactly. Except Tyrian doesn't need literal strings. That's what makes it worse. He doesn't have to stand behind someone and move their limbs. He changes the person themselves. The puppet thinks it is choosing to move."

Adam laughed again from the crater. It was a weak sound, but it carried across the small group.

"Beautiful analogy," he muttered. "But you misunderstand something."

Blake's eyes narrowed.

"What?" Adam's bloodied smile widened.

"A puppet doesn't need to know it's a puppet." His blue eyes looked toward her. "It only needs to fulfill its purpose."

Blake stared at him.

"You really believe that?"

"I don't believe anything." Adam coughed, blood spilling across his lips.

"I simply do what I'm meant to do."

Gula's eyes narrowed.

"And that's the distinction that matters, Blake. Puppeteer doesn't create obedience in the conventional sense. It creates purpose. The person remains emotionally capable of hatred, affection, fear, anger, grief. Their personality remains. Their memories remain. But the direction those things flow toward is altered."

Blake's fingers tightened around her weapon.

"Then Adam really is gone." Gula didn't answer immediately. When he finally did, his voice was softer.

"The Adam you knew may still exist somewhere inside that body. But whether he can ever return to the surface is another question."

Blake looked down at the man who had once been her mentor. The person in the crater still had Adam's face and still had his voice. Still possessed every memory that Blake remembered. But now she understood that those things were not proof of identity.

A puppet could remember every movement it had ever made. That didn't mean it had ever been the one pulling the strings. Gula glanced toward the enormous chasm again.

"And that's why Jaune sent me here. He knew you wanted closure, Blake. But he also knew you would probably be disappointed by the answers that came your way. He couldn't be here himself, and he knew there were things you needed to hear from someone who had actually seen what happened."

Blake's expression softened for only an instant at Jaune's name.

"He knew I'd want answers?"

"Of course." Gula gave a small smile.

"He knows you."

Then his expression became serious again.

"But he also knows that some answers aren't comforting. Sometimes they're worse than the questions."

The distant sound of another explosion shook the ground. The temporary fortifications trembled. Nora glanced toward the horizon, then back at the group.

"So..." she said slowly, "there are evil puppets, an evil puppet master, a sleeping god, and a giant magic moon."

Gula considered this.

"That's a surprisingly accurate summary."

Nora nodded solemnly.

"Cool. Hate it."

Pyrrha almost smiled at that, but Blake remained silent. Her eyes were still fixed on Adam. She finally crouched beside him, though she kept her weapon in hand. Adam watched her approach without moving.

"Tell me one thing," Blake said quietly. "If Puppeteer leaves the personality intact, then why does Adam remember me? Why does he react to me? Why does he seem to care about what I say?"

Gula's glowing eyes flickered.

"Because he is still Adam."

Blake looked up.

"Then that implies that there is still a chance?"

Gula hesitated.

"I don't know. But what I do know is that it's impossible to cure him by simply killing Tyrian. There's no magical connection that is keeping Adam like this. If it was as simple as that, things would be easy, and Jaune himself could solve it with his runes. But it isn't. Puppeteer isn't a chain attached to him, but a change to the structure of his mind."

Blake's expression hardened with determination.

"Then we'll find a way."

Gula smiled faintly.

"That sounds like something Jaune would say."

"Maybe I've learned something from him."

Before Gula could answer, another tremendous roar rolled across the battlefield, followed by a pulse of crimson energy that illuminated the horizon.

Everyone looked toward the distant chasm.

Something had changed around it.

The runic currents threading through the air had become more turbulent, almost as though the entire moon had begun to shudder. Gula's expression immediately lost its amusement.

"We should probably finish this conversation soon."

Blake stood.

"Why, what just happened?"

Gula looked toward the chasm.

"It seems Tyrian has finally started the unsealing process of the barrier."

Pyrrha's turned toward the same direction and Nora tightened her grip around her hammer. Adam remained in the crater, but even his expression shifted as he sensed the disturbance. Gula's shadowy eyes narrowed.

"And if Jaune is down there with Qrow and Taiyang..." He paused. "Then things are about to get considerably more complicated."

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