Shards Of Reminisce

We cross levels one and two fast.

Nothing's changed since my last visit; the same Centinels that die just as easily as before, the same tunnels, the same metallic smell in the air. Pyrrha ends the baby Deathstalker on level two before it can even fully emerge from the dirt, her spear finding the gap between its eyes with surgical precision. The thing dissolves into smoke before it even hits the ground.

"Nice throw." Yang says approvingly, watching the smoke dissipate.

"Thank you." Pyrrha replies, recalling her weapon with a flick of her wrist.

Now we're standing at the end of level two, everyone gathered around the two holes; one leading back to the surface and the other dropping further underground into complete darkness. The beam of my mask's light cannot reach the bottom this time.

'That's new.'

"This is as far as I've been," I say, crossing my arms and peering down into it. "I stopped here last time. Decided not to push my luck alone."

Oobleck immediately leans forward over the edge, peering into the darkness with his glasses practically hovering over the rim, his pith helmet somehow staying perfectly balanced on his head.

Yang leans forward beside him, her lilac eyes trying to pierce the dark. Jeanne leans over on my other side, her armored hand gripping my arm for balance as she peers down as well.

"You made a prudent decision stopping here alone, Mr. Rak'han." Doctor Oobleck says without looking up. "Knowing the limits of your capabilities is not a weakness but wisdom! Wisdom that has kept more Huntsmen alive than raw strength ever has. History is littered with exceptionally talented individuals who perished simply because they failed to recognize when to stop and reassess." He finally straightens up, adjusting his pith helmet with a sharp tap. "However! That is precisely why we are here as a group; to safely extend those limits through combined effort! Safety in numbers as the old adage goes, and in this case the old *adage is entirely correct!"

He snaps his notebook shut with a sharp crack that echoes down the hole.

"I'll go first."

And before anyone can respond he simply steps off the edge and drops into the darkness below.

"...Did he just-" Jeanne starts.

"Yep," Yang cuts her off. "My turn." She steps off without hesitation, her grin never fading as she drops.

Pyrrha goes next, shield already raised as she falls. Jeanne takes a breath beside me, squeezes my arm once and jumps. Blake drops silently after her without a word, disappearing into the dark.

I'm the last one down.

The drop is longer this time, and the darkness is complete, swallowing everything, until my mask's light catches the ground rushing up at the last second. I tuck and roll to mitigate the impact, coming up in a crouch.

The familiar grinding of stone above signals the entrance sealing shut.

I straighten up and look around, sweeping the beam of my mask's light across the new environment. This tunnel is bigger than the last ones, with enough headroom that I can't quite make out the ceiling. The air is noticeably cooler down here, cold enough to make my breath visible in the beam of light, and the metallic smell is stronger, mixed with something odd but faintly sweet that makes my nose twitch under my mask.

I don't like that smell. Not one bit.

"Everyone good?" I ask, finding the group with my light as they've spread out slightly ahead of me.

Everyone nods or voices their confirmation. Even Blake gives a low "fine" without making eye contact with me.

"Then we move," Oobleck declares, already stepping forward with his thermos-staff held ready. "Everyone stay in formation and stay alert. We don't know what's down here, and after hearing about Mr. Rak'han's cactus creature I would prefer absolutely no unpleasant surprises of any kind. Eyes up, weapons ready, call out anything unusual immediately. Is that understood?"

"Understood," Pyrrha confirms, falling into step immediately with her shield raised.

"Got it, Doc," Yang says, cracking her knuckles.

"Doctor," he corrects automatically, not breaking stride.

"Right. Doctor," Yang repeats without missing a beat.

We move in formation through the tunnel, the man and I up front, Pyrrha close behind us, Jeanne and Blake in the middle, Yang covering the rear with those gauntlets of hers ready to ignite. The only sounds are our footsteps, the occasional drip of water somewhere distant, and that faint, almost imperceptible hum that I couldn't identify before.

Stronger now.

My ears keep swiveling toward it involuntarily.

Soon enough, the tunnel diverges into a three-way split, each direction identical in width and equally uninviting.

The doctor stops, holding up a fist to signal a halt. He examines each tunnel carefully, moving between them. He crouches to examine the ground; then the walls, then pulls out some small instrument from his coat pocket that I don't recognize, holding it up and moving it slowly between the three openings.

Everyone waits in complete silence.

"Hmmmm…" The hyperactive man hums. He stands up and looks at the right tunnel for a long moment, tapping his pen against his chin slowly. Then he looks at the left. Then back to the right.

"Doctor?" Pyrrha prompts quietly.

"Right," he decides, moving forward into the right tunnel without further explanation.

We follow without question because honestly none of us seem to have a better idea.

The right tunnel winds downward at a consistent slope. After maybe ten minutes of walking, the walls beginning to smooth out slightly; the tunnel opens up into a large chamber.

Bigger than the previous ones. Much bigger. The ceiling is high enough that my mask's light barely reaches it, and the floor is a wide expanse of flat packed earth.

But I know what this means.

"Get ready," I announce. "Something's going to come out of the ground."

Everyone responds accordingly, weapons coming up instantly.

'Class Change: Gladiator'

Sword and shield materialize in my hands.

The silence stretches for long seconds.

Then the chamber entrance collapses behind us with a thunderous crash that sends dust billowing across the floor, sealing us in completely.

That's the cue.

And the surrounding ground erupts.

Centinels boil up from beneath the dirt floor in a chittering, pale mass, their bodies catching the light of my mask in flashes of white. But before anyone can fully react to them, violent movement erupts from the left. Small humanoid grimms… Gnawers, swarming out from a crack in the wall in a writhing tide, their claws clicking and scraping against each other. From the right, a hole cracks open in the floor and Myrmidons crawl out.

And from behind us, from where the entrance collapsed, a portion of the wall gives way with a shriek that bounces off every surface.

Two baby Deathstalkers. Their pincers spread wide, stingers arcing high over their armored backs, eight pairs of red eyes blazing in the darkness.

Well. That's not great.

"Oh, now this is interesting!" Yang's eyes flash red instantly, that vicious grin spreading across her face. "NOW we're talking!"

"This is the part where we stop observing and start fighting!" Oobleck declares, his thermos-staff transforming and he slams it into the ground. A wave of fire roars outward in a wide arc, washing over the Myrmidon group advancing from the right and stopping their charge cold, the Grimm dissolving before they can close the distance.

However, I'm already moving toward the Deathstalkers. Biggest threat. Deal with it first.

A silver flash streaks past me on my left and soon discovers it is Pyrrha spear slamming into the lead Deathstalker's eye cluster. The thing shrieks once, violently, and dissolves into smoke before it even finishes falling.

One down.

I engage the second one, ducking under its swipe and driving my shield hard into its face with every bit of strength I have. The impact rocks it backward, all that mass and momentum reversing, exposing the softer under-plating beneath its jaw. My sword finds the gap on the backswing, driving in deep.

The monster shrieks and I wrench the blade free, planting my boot on its face and shoving it back.

And soon enough it dissolves.

I turn back to the main fight.

Yang is in the middle of the Centinel swarm, each punch sending one or two Grimm tumbling into others. Jeanne is holding the line against a group of Gnawers that got too close, her form better than I've seen it; her swings a lot better. Blake moves through the chaos finding the easiest path, her ribbon blade cutting clean arcs through Grimm that get too close to Jeanne's blind side. The professor sweeps his flame staff in wide arcs, catching groups of grimm and reducing them to cinders.

Pyrrha wades into the remaining Myrmidons, her shield and spear turned sword working in tandem, cutting wide sweeping arcs that clear space around her.

And before I can even join the broader fight, it ends. Faster than I expected given the numbers they threw at us.

The last grimm dissolves into smoke, and silence drops over the chamber.

"Is everyone alright?" The older man is already moving through the group, checking each member before they can even answer. "Any injuries? Aura levels? Report immediately!"

"Good here," Yang says, rotating her shoulder."Could've gone another round honestly."

"Fine, thank you," Pyrrha confirms with a small nod.

"I'm okay!" Jeanne says, slightly breathless but steady on her feet. "That was... intense. But I'm okay."

Blake just nods once.

"Good here," I confirm, lowering my shield.

"Excellent! Excellent teamwork all around, truly exceptional for a mixed group!" Doctor Oobleck pulls out his notebook immediately, scribbling at a furious pace. "Now… and this is critically important from both a historical and ecological standpoint; what we just encountered should not exist in this place! Centinels are subterranean yes, but not native to Forever Fall! Gnawers are endemic to the swamplands of Mistral! And Myrmidons are native to Menagerie, I've studied their territorial patterns and they never migrate this far!" He underlines something in his notebook three times. "The presence of such geographically diverse Grimm species in a single underground location defies every documented Grimm territorial behavior and migration that has been recorded in the last four hundred years! This is unprecedented, ladies and gentlemen! Completely unprecedented! Which means either something down here is actively drawing them together across thousands of kilometers, or—"

"Doc," Yang cuts in, trying to be polite. "Maybe save the lecture for the report? We still have a dungeon to finish."

The man snaps his notebook shut with considerable restraint. "Quite right, Miss Xiao Long. Priorities first." He tucks the notebook away. "The academic crisis can wait until we're not in an enclosed space with unknown threats."

"It's Doctor Oobleck," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

"Right. Sorry, Doctor."

The far wall of the chamber groans. Then a section of the wall slides sideways with a grinding of stone on stone, revealing the continuation of a tunnel.

Level not complete then. Still more to go.

I stare at the opening for a moment. Good thing I didn't try pushing further alone last time. Fighting that many Grimm in an enclosed space would have been dangerous, even with my stats.

'Yeah. Good call, past me.'

Our team walks toward the opening with little discussion.

The new tunnel ahead looks different. The walls are smoother than anything we've seen above, the rough packed earth giving way to somethin… man-made? The tunnel is wider too, wide enough for three people to walk abreast comfortably. And that hum I noticed earlier is stronger now, a low vibration that resonates in my chest and makes my ears twitch with every step.

We walk for maybe ten minutes in formation before the tunnel ends.

Abruptly.

A hole in the floor, wider than anything above, like it can enter a car inside. Everyone gathers at the edge and looks down. And the darkness below isn't complete.

There's a glow.

Faint. Very faint. But unmistakably there, rising up from somewhere far below. Too faint to be torchlight though.

But I think that the light shouldn't be natural.

Doctor Oobleck and I exchange a look over the heads of the others.

He jumps first, dropping into the glow below without hesitation.

One by one, everyone follows.

I land last.

The impact is harder this time and I roll with it, coming up in a crouch.

I straighten up.

And I just stand there.

"...Oh," I breathe.

It's the only word that comes out.

"Ma'iq." Jeanne's voice comes from beside me, barely above a whisper. "What... what is this place?"

I don't have an answer.

Because it's not a tunnel.

It's not a cave.

It's not any kind of geological formation.

It's a city.

Or what was a city, once.

Stretching out in every direction from where we stand there are structures of dark stone rising from a cavern floor so vast that the walls vanish completely into darkness beyond the reach of our lights and the ambient glow combined. The architecture is unlike anything I've ever seen in Vale or Vacuo or Menagerie. Unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere. Tall buildings of smooth, deep blue-black stone that catch the bioluminescent light.

The structures are enormous. Not just tall but massive in every dimension. Wide facades with great arching doorways. Towers that rise until they vanish into the cavern's upper darkness, connected by bridges of the same dark stone that somehow still stand despite everything.

The glow comes from everywhere and nowhere specific. Bioluminescent growth covers surfaces in drifting patches of pale blue and soft violet, concentrated especially along what might once have been channels or gutters running alongside the streets. The light pulses occasionally, with a rhythm similar to breathing.

There are plazas down there. Steps leading up to great broken doors that stand slightly open.

I stand there looking at it, and something happens that I can't explain.

Something in my chest stirs.

'I've seen this before.'

No. That's not right. I haven't seen this. I've never been here. I've never been anywhere remotely like here.

And yet….

Gone before I can grab it. Gone before I can even be certain it was there at all.

I'm left standing on the platform with my sword still in hand and my chest doing something I can't account for.

I look at those streets. Those doorways. Those towers vanishing into the dark above.

I don't know this place.

I don't know this place.

So what's this dread forming inside me?

I swallow hard.

"By the gods…" Doctor Oobleck breathes.

His voice is stripped completely bare of its usual energy, all that relentless momentum gone in an instant, like someone pulled the cord on a machine. He takes one slow step forward to the edge of the platform, then stops, one hand coming up to grip the front of his greatcoat.

For the first time since we met him, Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck; the man who hasn't stopped moving or talking at full speed since the moment we left Beacon; is completely, utterly silent.

He just stares. Mouth open. Notebook hanging completely forgotten at his side, pen loosely held in fingers.

We all do the same.

Just the six of us standing on that platform in the cold bioluminescent light, looking out over something that shouldn't exist.

The hum is everywhere down here. Rising through the stone beneath our boots. Filling the silence with something that isn't quite sound.

No Grimm. No movement. No sound except that hum and the faint, distant drip of water somewhere deep in the dark below the empty streets.

Just the city.

Waiting in the dark for something that isn't coming back.

I grip my sword a little tighter and say nothing.

Because I don't have words for what I'm feeling.

And even if I did, I'm not sure they would be mine.

---

After a while I find myself seated on top of a large chunk of debris, legs hanging over the edge, staring out at the rest of the ruined city below.

We've only seen the first level of it. The platform we stand on overlooks what appears to be just the uppermost district of something that continues down in layers, deeper and deeper, each level visible through gaps in the stone where floors have partially collapsed. How far down it actually goes, I can't tell.

The others are resting nearby. Doctor Oobleck has barely stopped moving after he recovered from his initial shock, his notebook filling at a frantic pace as he examines every surface within reach, muttering to himself in rapid, excited bursts. Pyrrha and Yang are talking quietly at the edge of the platform. Blake sits apart from everyone, knees drawn up. Jeanne is close by, watching me.

And I'm just... staring.

Something about this place is wrong. Or right. Or both, somehow at the same time, in a way I can't understand.

It feels like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite say. Like waking up from a dream you can almost remember but the details dissolve faster than you can grab them. None of it should feel like anything. I've never been here. I've never seen anything remotely like this.

And yet.

I press my palms flat against the stone beneath me, feeling the hum vibrating steadily through it and up through my bones, and something in my chest aches with a feeling I don't have a name for. Not pain exactly. Not sadness exactly. Something older than either of those.

Just something…

Then I see something.

A figure, far below on the streets of the ruined city. Tall. Dressed in black robes that flow and catch no light at all, moving slowly between the ruins.

The figure stops.

And turns around causing me to freeze for a moment.

I lean forward without thinking.

And then I blink.

Gone. Nothing there. Just the ruins, my head must be playing tricks with me…

I stare at the spot for a long moment, my ears flat, my tail completely still.

"Ma'iq? Are you alright?"

I turn my head. Jeanne is standing at the base of the pile, looking up at me with concern pulling at her brow.

I blink and shake my head, trying to clear whatever that was. "Yeah. I'm okay. Just... surprised. This place is just… weird."

Her expression shifts to something I can't quite read. Instead of responding, she climbs up to sit beside me; the armor clinking softly with each movement, and settles in close enough that our arms press together.

"Ma'iq."

"Hm?"

"You're crying."

What?

"Wha-" My hands move before I've consciously decided to move them, reaching up to my face. My fingers find my cheeks and come away wet. Fresh tears, warm against the cold air that fills this underground space. "What-why am I…"

'Why am I crying? What is happening to me?'

The thought barely finishes forming before Jeanne acts. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me against her, one hand finding the back of my head and the other pressing firmly against my back, and she holds on.

And something in me just breaks.

My hands are shaking when they find her, gripping the back of her armor hard enough that the metal digs into my palms. I bury my face in the curve of her neck and the tears come faster than I can stop them. My whole body shakes with it and heaving sobs wrenched up from somewhere deep that I didn't know existed.

Somewhere….

'Why?'

'Why am I crying? What is wrong with me? I don't do this. I don't…'

But I can't stop.

Jeanne just holds me. Doesn't speak, doesn't ask questions. One hand moves in slow, steady circles on my back, the other cradling the back of my head.

"It's okay," she murmurs in a soothing tone. "It's okay. Let it out."

I am vaguely aware, distantly, that we're not alone on this platform. That Yang and Pyrrha and Blake and the doctor are all somewhere nearby.

I find I cannot bring myself to care.

I don't know how long it will last. Long enough that my throat aches and my eyes burn and I've soaked her shoulder.

Eventually I pull back.

I wipe my face roughly with the back of my hand, avoiding her eyes. "Sorry. I... sorry for that." My voice comes out hoarse, rougher than usual. "I really don't know what's wrong with me."

Jeanne shakes her head slowly and offers a small, gentle smile. Her hand stays on my shoulder. "Don't be sorry. That's why I'm here, isn't it?"

I look at her for a long moment.

Then nod.

"Do you want to tell me?" she asks. "You don't have to. I won't push. But I'm here if you do."

The instinct to say no rises immediately. To deflect, to shrug it off, to say I'm fine and change the subject. I've been doing that my whole life, and it's never failed me, even if I broke down with Neo.

But this is Jeanne. She was with me before; she comforted me. She CARES.

So I nod.

"I don't know how to explain it," I start, looking back out at the ruins below. My hands rest on my knees. "I don't know why, but this place feels..." I gesture at the city spread out before and below us, searching for words that aren't quite there. "Familiar. Which makes absolutely no sense because I've never been here."

My hands curl into fists on my knees. "But I do. Or I feel like I do. And it's making me..." I stop, press my lips together. "Sad. Extremely sad. Like I'm looking at something I lost a long time ago and I didn't even know it was gone until right now. And I can't explain it because it makes no sense. None of it makes any sense."

Jeanne is quiet for a moment. She looks out at the city herself. Then she turns back to me.

"Maybe you're more empathetic than you think…" she starts, like she's working it out as she speaks. "Like... you see something that was important to someone, something that was loved and then lost, and some part of you just... connects to that loss. Even without knowing the details." She pauses, tilting her head slightly. "Or maybe it's like a memory. Not your memory exactly, but something adjacent to one. Something experienced so long ago that it's been completely forgotten, but being here brings some… echo of it back. Not the memory itself. Just the feeling of it."

I blink at her, my ears flickering.

She rubs the back of her neck, her expression shifting toward uncertainty. "I don't know. I really don't. I'm probably not being very helpful." She looks at me sideways, the faintest self-deprecating smile at the corner of her mouth. "I hope just being here is enough."

I stare at her for a moment longer.

A short laugh escapes me. I lean forward and press my lips to hers.

When I pull back, I shake my head slowly. "You really are something else, Jeanne. I don't know what I'd have done without you."

Her face goes immediately red, that deep flush that starts at her cheeks and spreads all the way to her ears. She looks away, scratching her cheek with one finger. "T-Thanks. I, ummm. Glad I could help. Sort of. Even if I didn't really do anything useful."

"You were here." I say simply.

She doesn't seem to know what to do with that. So she just stays quiet, turning back to look out at the city with me, our shoulders pressing together before I wrap an arm around her shoulder and pull her in.

We sat like that for a while, and it's easier now. Still heavy, still strange, still utterly inexplicable. But easier.

My ears twitch when footsteps approach from behind.

"Ma'iq, Jeanne." Pyrrha's calls us. "Doctor Oobleck is asking for you. He says he's found something that requires everyone's attention."

We share a look. I wipe my face one more time and push myself up off the debris.

We find Oobleck at a section of wall on the far side of the platform. Where everything else is carved with those angular geometric patterns that I can't quite look at directly without my eyes wanting to slide away, this portion of the wall is covered in something else entirely. Denser. Smaller. Lines and symbols arranged in careful rows that make my head ache faintly if I stare too long.

"We're all here, Doctor," Pyrrha says, stepping up. "What did you find?"

The man turns around. His expression is one I haven't seen from him yet; stripped of its usual gleeful energy, replaced with something closer to reverence.

"Language…" he answers.

I furrow my brow.

"A written language," he continues, "of extraordinary complexity and density that does not match any known linguistic system in Remnant's entire documented historical record." He turns back to the wall briefly before turning to face us again. "I have cross-referenced against every written system I can access from memory; Ancient Mistralian, Pre-Unification Valish scripts, the early Atlesian technical notation systems, the symbolic traditions of the Faunus tribes across all four kingdoms, proto-Vacuan trade markers and nothing matches. Nothing." He removes his glasses and cleans them. "This language predates every writing system we have ever catalogued. Which means whoever built this city was not simply old; they were ancient in a way that forces us to completely reconsider our assumptions about the length of human civilization on Remnant and I cannot begin to stres-"

"Doctor," Yang interrupts.

He stops. "Yes. The point." He puts his glasses back on. "The point is that we cannot read it. And if we cannot read it, we cannot know what this place was, who built it, or why it was abandoned. Which is, to put it mildly, an enormous problem from-"

He stops again because Jeanne isn't listening anymore.

She's already walked away.

Quietly, without ceremony, her head tilted slightly and her eyes fixed on the wall. Moving toward it with the slow, steady certainty of someone following a sound no one else can hear.

"Jeanne?" Pyrrha asks, concern sharpening her voice immediately.

My woman doesn't answer. She reaches the wall and raises her hand, her fingertips finding the carved lines. She traces them slowly and her eyes move across the symbols in a way that doesn't look like confusion, no… She is reading.

The hum in the stone seems to shift slightly. Deepen.

And then she speaks.

"We offer ourselves willingly to the star that calls.We pour what we are into the vessel of... let the light of Zodiark receive us..."

The word hits me and knocks the air off my lungs.

Zodiark.

The hum in my chest detonates.

I don't feel my knees give out.

I don't feel anything at all.

Everything goes white.

Then dark.

Then nothing.

---

*adage: Is a short, memorable saying that expresses a widely accepted general truth or observation about life

---