Lily's flinch just confirmed it. "If I did, we'd have had this conversation a lot earlier and I wouldn't be bothering to create a guild back home. I'm mildly confident he, at the very least, shouldn't be listening in on us here but I'm lacking far too much information."
"…Can't say I blame you." I decided after a couple moments. "And now? What if you learnt where to run to?" I didn't want to just flee to another world but I'd do it if there's no way to deal with Scion. If I could fight him, though, I would.
Lily thought it over for a bit before answering, "I'd continue what I've been doing while preparing everything so that everyone I care about can flee at a moment's notice. The two of us only take a moment to run away, anyways, so I'm not worried about us."
"Good. Then keep me updated. I'm not going to let you fight this on your own." And, if Lily planned to continue building up her guild, there's no way she'd let it go without a fight. She was possessive and got attached easily. Even if she were to manage to avoid getting attached to the guild members, she'd get attached to the guild itself.
"You're taking this better than I thought you would." Lily commented.
"I'm freaking out right now." I admitted easily, the shock making me really numb to my feelings for the time being. "I just haven't had the time to process all this yet."
"Alright then." Lily nodded to herself. "I'll let you know if I gather any useful information on Scion and, if there's a way to deal with his ritual, you'll be the first person I'll tell about it."
After a short pause, she spoke up again. "Now, moving on, I figured out how to share one of my powers with you. This one basically just makes it so that you can use any powers that you can use in one world in all the worlds and protects you from some things that should only work on natives of a world."
"What?" I kind of maybe got the gist of it but I had no idea what exactly any of that meant. It was a very nice distraction from all the previous stuff, though, so I latched onto the new topic as vigorously as I could.
"Take the Force for example. It shouldn't exist in other worlds but, right now, my existence basically tells this reality that the Force exists so the Force does, in fact, exist even if other people almost certainly can't use it due to not being Force sensitive. I should also be able to awaken the aura of people who shouldn't be able to have one as long as they have a soul since I'd be able to awaken the aura of someone with a soul here. And, by sharing that power with you, the same will apply to you." Lily explained and, somehow, that made sense.
It also let me make sense of something I'd been confused about. "So that's why the range of my Force stuff shrinks when you go to other worlds." Shame to lose my Lily-radar but I could live without it.
"Huh. I suppose that makes sense. You never mentioned it to me, though." Lily replied, definitely at least somewhat surprised. "Anyways, give me a moment. This will take me a bit." She said, taking my hand without even asking or telling me to hold mine out so she didn't have to just snatch it without warning.
Several moments of silence later, I felt…something. It was a weird something to be honest but it didn't take long for the strange feeling to fade even though I could tell that whatever that had been had stuck around.
"Alright, done!" Lily told me cheerfully. "Now, before you go off and have fun with your crush, here's some notes on another power we have in common. Just read through those when you feel like it and let me know once you're done with them so I can help you set up something useful."
I squinted at the three pages Lily had pulled out of her inventory for a moment before deciding to ignore them just as I'd ignored her comment about Ruby. "Got it. Have fun doing boring stuff."
I watched her eye twitch as she left and felt nothing but amusement about her having to have a meeting she definitely didn't want to have until I realized that I had no idea where to go from here because Lily had brought us to what seemed like a random hill.
In the end, I had to travel back home just so I could then travel back to Vale because I had no idea how to do to teleport without leaving the world yet.
Lily
"So, Lisa, give me a rundown before our guest shows up." I ordered my assistant as I sat in my office inside the still not fully finished guild headquarters. All that was still missing were the training areas since those would take another couple of days to be set up.
"As I told you over the phone, she has massive trust issues. From what I've found out, she was bullied for a long time and people covered it up to save their own asses. That's also why she hasn't joined the PRT – one of her bullies is Sophia Hess, a Ward. If she'd triggered as a B-Rank, they might have been willing to punish Hess but, as it stands, she got a slap on the wrist." Lisa explained.
I hummed in response as I thought the information over. "She didn't raise a fuss publicly, then? From what I understand, the PRT can be pressured through image concerns." It wasn't as bad as it had been in Worm because people here got to see dungeon breaks and Endbringer attacks quite often and the PRT had this tendency to point at those things happening in other countries and say 'we're protecting you from that'. Still, the less it happened in the countries that had the PRT in it, the less it affected the people in those countries and the less they'd ultimately care so there was quite a PR effort made to prevent people from finding issues with hunters as a whole.
"She ended up in the hospital after she triggered. The PRT made her and her dad sign an NDA in exchange for paying her hospital bills and some extra money on top of that. It wasn't anywhere near enough but it was enough that it should've lasted them months." Lisa said, apparently having memorized Taylor's circumstances.
"I assume something happened that caused her new money issues?" I couldn't imagine a C-Rank working as a hunter without joining a guild if she didn't need money.
Lisa nodded grimly. "Her father got the eternal slumber disease and, for some reason, it progressed unnaturally quickly. She's quickly running out of money to pay for his treatment."
'Interesting. I wonder if that's because of the parts of her mana that are fighting each other.' I couldn't imagine any other reason for a normal man to end up progressing through the stages of eternal slumber, a disease that grew worse faster the more mana one was exposed to, unless he was in contact with some other large source of mana.
Most importantly, eternal slumber treatment was like all US healthcare – vastly overpriced in comparison to literally every other first world country. When it regularly bankrupted people even in other countries because no insurance was willing to cover the costs unless, against all odds, none of the victim's family were hunters that meant that the people who suffered from it here would find themselves running out of money much too quickly.
Hunters having just about the most well-paid job meant that nobody of any importance was really willing to make a fuss about it unless they themselves were close to someone suffering from the disease. After all, even weak hunters earnt more than the average national income, it's just that they also had a massive risk of death or debilitating injuries.
"Boss, why are you even so interested in recruiting a C-Rank?" Lisa's question drew me out of my thoughts.
I smiled in response, "She has some potential and I'm curious to see if she'll reach it or not." Whatever was up with her magic, I wanted to have a front row seat in case anything interesting happened and I fully expected that, if there'd ever be a development on that front, it'd be in a Gate.
"You know you don't have to be all mysterious with me, right? I'm already bound to not tell others stuff you don't want me to share." Lisa pointed out, visibly annoyed.
"Fine." I gave in, unwilling to admit that it was just a habit at this point. "Her magic is interesting. Basically, most of her mana is actually fighting itself so, if that ever stops being the case, she'll probably become an S-Rank immediately."
"So that's why you wanted me to offer her better benefits." My assistant concluded only to narrow her eyes towards me shortly afterwards. "For fuck's sake! How is her magic being 'interesting' or whatever more important than her being a potential S-Rank?"
Amusing as her annoyance was, I did appreciate how she was willing to speak her mind. An assistant who wouldn't call me out on things would have been a lot less useful. "As the head of the Traveler's Guild, it's not. As Lilian Biron, I care a lot more about her magic than power that I don't need." And I'd always be the latter while the former was almost certainly a title that'd cease to matter at some point in my life.
"Ah, so you have an excuse in case she ever asks you about it and you get the satisfaction of figuring out what's up with her magic." Lisa deduced correctly.
"Yes. Now, how about you tell me more about those people that you're planning to recruit?" I had time to kill, after all, and I probably should know who I'd have to make binding vows with in the future to make sure they'd at least keep to the important parts of their contracts such as the NDAs. I really didn't want any confidential stuff to get outed by my own employees.
And this chapter finally shows the reason for me including Scholomance: their pocket dimensions. That's actively the only reason why I included it. As much as I love Scholomance, the only thing of value to this story in the entire setting are these pocket dimensions and me using it to show that Lily's quite happy to burn bridges as soon as she no longer needs them.
Everything else just isn't something that can only be gotten in Scholomance. Their pocket dimensions, however, allow Lily to create doorways to other worlds without much effort. Well, the mana cost isn't low but Lily has enough to make it work and I need her to have that ability for some things. I also couldn't think of any other settings that had something similar hence me using the one I actually know.
Also, I'd just like to mention that I never expected to have to research architecture styles for this story. Learning that the classic fantasy castles were apparently inspired by a relatively modern style of castle building was interesting, though. As was learning that the guy who ordered the construction of the only one of those castles (Neuschwanstein) that my shallow research told me about was considered to be insane and decided to build a stupidly large castle. Not nearly as large as the abomination I gave Lily but all I had to go off of was 'big enough to make a dragon uncomfortable' so I had to guess what that might mean and this is the result.
Taylor Hebert
Lilian Biron looked every bit as arrogant sitting in an office chair as if it were a throne as she had back when she'd decided to take on an entire Gate with just herself and her sister, her head resting on her left hand.
Not only did she seem incredibly arrogant but she was unfairly beautiful, too. It didn't matter that her long blonde hair was somewhat messy or that her buttondown blouse was ruffled – somehow everything seemed to suit her perfectly. Emma's a model but comparing my former friend to the girl sitting in front of me felt impossible, that's just how large the gap between their natural beauties was.
No matter how hard I tried to find any flaws in what I could see of her body, there was nothing.
"Amusing as it is to have you stare at me, take a seat so we can get started with discussing whatever made you request a meeting with me, Miss Hebert." Her enchanting voice drew me out of my thoughts and, more than a little embarrassed, I quickly sat down before her. "Great. Now, would you be so kind as to enlighten me why you wanted to meet with me?"
"Because I want to hear from your mouth why I'm even being recruited. I'm a C-Rank, definitely not someone strong enough to warrant being one of the first people invited to join a new guild led by two S-Ranks." Saying that it seemed suspicious was an understatement.
The PRT had made it very clear to me how important C-Ranks were in the grand scheme of things when they let Sophia off with a slap on the wrist after making me trigger and then put in a minimal effort to try and see if I'd join the Wards despite that.
"I think you have potential and so I decided to recruit you, it's as simple as that." Lilian answered casually, making me frown.
"And if I don't?" As far as I knew, I didn't have any potential to speak off.
"Then I made a bad decision and you profited off of it." If anything could've reminded me that the Birons were as rich as the articles that had already been written on the Bay's newest S-Ranks had claimed, it was those words because it meant that Lilian wouldn't care even if she wasted her money by paying me the ludicrous salary I'd been offered.
It probably wasn't much compared to the profits of even just a single A or B-Rank Gate but that was still a lot of money and seeing her treating it so casually was incredibly weird to me.
"Any other questions?" She prompted, looking mildly amused.
I thought it over for a bit before shaking my head. "The rest is just what's written in that contract your assistant gave me, right?"
"Yes. Have you decided whether or not you'll join the Travelers Guild or do you need some more time to consider it?" Her words now sounded rehearsed, bored even.
On the one hand, this offer still felt sketchy to me. On the other hand, it'd make sure that I'd be able to pay dad's medical bills for as long as the contract lasted and I had already paid a lawyer to look the contract over and explain stuff to me with some of the last money that remained of what the PRT had given us.
That I'd have to enter a magically binding agreement with Lilian to not break the terms of the contract was problematic enough that I'd made sure I'd understand every line of it and I was reasonably sure that I'd be fine but there was still an inkling of doubt in my mind.
Despite that, I gathered my determination and nodded. "I'll join the Travelers Guild."
"Great." She said with a smile as she clapped her hands together. "I believe Lisa already told you about the binding vow?" I nodded again in response. "Then this is very simple: Do you agree to uphold the terms of the contract you'll sign as specified in the contract in exchange for all the benefits offered?"
I was still wary of all this but surely it couldn't be worse than having to either continue being independent or joining any of the other guilds in Brockton Bay for less than what the Travelers Guild had offered. "I agree." The moment the words left my mouth I could feel the vow as if it had wrapped itself around my heart, ready to squeeze it until it burst the moment I broke my side of the deal.
"Perfect. Now, if there's nothing else, I do genuinely have other things I need to do. Setting up a guild is busy work." Lilian told me so I said my farewells and signed my contract with Lisa before leaving the guild building.
Lily
I wasn't lying when I told Taylor that I had things to do, they just had nothing to do with my guild. That work I left to Lisa so I could do more enjoyable things.
No, what I wanted to do was explore the ginormous castle in my Traveling Home.
Appearing before the gates to the gigantic property, I spent only a moment taking in the black metal with many stars painted onto it before some mechanism was activated to make the gates open.
"Welcome, Lady Lilian." A beautiful red-haired kitsune maid, already bowing with her eyes closed, awaited me on the other side, beautiful flower gardens to either side of the wide pathway.
I hummed in response. It was interesting that the maids had clearly been given some information about me when they'd been created. "I want a tour of the most interesting areas of the castle. I have two hours to spare." I informed the maid.
"As you wish." She bowed again, my eyes drawn to her cleavage and, out of curiosity, I didn't even bother to move my eyes away until it stopped being so visible. Despite the clear rudeness on my part, the maid seemed almost ecstatic. "Please, follow me."
Again, I didn't stop myself from staring at her butt as she walked before me, nor did I hide the fact that I'd noticed from her fairly exposed back that she probably wasn't wearing a bra in the skimpy maid outfit she was wearing.
Amusingly enough, that she was wearing that wasn't on me. I hadn't been given clothing choices for the maids or else really skimpy french maid wouldn't have been my first choice since I'd originally wanted to put this thing down somewhere near Brockton Bay and I wanted people to be able to visit without having them greeted and led around by a really beautiful woman in what really ought to just be called a fetish outfit.
I didn't care much about my reputation but I had some standards. Besides, I couldn't imagine that the outfit was at all practical during their work. A normal maid outfit almost certainly wasn't, either, but at least it didn't expose nearly as much skin and was probably not as flimsy.
"Do all of you wear this uniform?" I asked neutrally.
"Only the ones who work in the castle, Lady Lilian." The kitsune answered with a cheerful smile directed towards me after she turned around to address me. "The ones who primarily work outside have other uniforms."
At least it was a relief to know that not all of them wore something that impractical, though I had the feeling their outfits weren't as good for their jobs as part of me would've liked. I certainly wouldn't order them to change what uniforms they wore because I did like the eye candy but the practical side of me was sorely tempted.
The horny part of me was also tempted but I refused to have my maids wear even less no matter how nice the view would be.
Thankfully, I soon had something else to focus on – namely, how nice my castle was. Primarily black, dark blue and purple as well as gigantic, the starry stained glass windows added nice colours to it and, dark though it was, it didn't feel gloomy to me. It was clearly not a home made primarily to be comfortable but it wasn't too dark or anything like that. There was plenty of light and colours.
Especially in the entrance hall. The entire ceiling of that one looked like a night sky taken straight out of some eldritch horror story. The stars looked as if they were composed of countless misshapen eyes and the moon was surrounded by purple 'petals' that looked like eyes with tendrils growing out of them. There were also some parts where it looked as if space had shattered like glass, the pitch black sky around those cracks having purple 'veins'.
"It's beautiful." I commented, a genuine smile on my lips at the sight.
"That is good to hear, Lady Lilian. Do you wish to take in the sight some more or should I show you to the throne room next?" The moment she said the word 'throne' my eyes snapped towards her.
"Let's go right now!" I ordered, incredibly excited by the idea of having my own extravagant throne.
And, as we walked, I saw that the pillars looked like three dimensional galaxies, the paint making it seem as if the pillars were made out of clouds of star dust with only some glowing, solid parts.
I could've achieved the same with magic but, even though I had once enjoyed painting, I probably couldn't have done any of this quite as well as it had been done here.
No, this castle was already a masterpiece in my eyes and that just reinforced my decision not to risk it being damaged if I could help it.
My great impression of it was only reinforced once I got to the throne room. Larger than any house I'd ever seen and with grand banners depicting an eye full of stars with the same pillars as before and a delightful, pitch black throne with purple cushions at the back of the massive hall, I fell in love the moment I saw it. And that was before I noticed that the ceiling was made of the same stained glass as the windows I'd seen so far, depicting a beautiful night sky with a purple moon.
I didn't even wait for the maid before skipping ahead to sit on my delightfully comfy throne.
There was an urge to hold one of my old speeches but, one, those were mostly incoherent garbage that sounded vaguely cool if one wasn't trying to make sense of it and, two, I wanted to see more!
Whenever I'd bring Missy here, I wanted to be able to at least show her all the coolest things myself rather than relying on a maid to do it for me.
"Is there something specific that you would like to see next, Lady Lilian?" The kitsune questioned upon reaching the throne, her steps taken with a careful elegance that I found to be just perfect.
"I assume I have a personal bedroom here?" The maid nodded as I'd expected. "Then show me that one next." I probably couldn't go wrong by learning about the living arrangements here first. Frankly, an office would be more useful but that depended on whether or not the enclave entrance in my Traveling Home was enough to let me receive calls and messages here and a quick check showed that it really wasn't, meaning that I'd have to eventually use magic to change that before moving here.
Ruby
It's done! It took a lot of work but we managed to complete Aegis Sword! It was a really big buster sword with the blade being able to shift into a cannon that'd definitely look awesome being fired!
"Again, thank you so much for all the help, Ruby!" Missy told me excitedly, activating the mechanism to shift the sword into its cannon form. It was a really cool mechanism, too, even if I thought that the amount of dust the cannon would need would be a lot.
"Don't mention it. It was nice working on another custom weapon again." I replied, trying to keep smiling despite the fact that I fully expected Missy to not want to talk to me again now.
It wasn't the first time someone had come to me for help with their weapon before barely ever talking to me again and those people were my classmates at Signal so ignoring me wasn't even all that easy for them.
"What's wrong?" Missy asked, looking worried and that gave me hope that she'd not be like the others.
"Nothing!" I replied as quickly as I could. "Want to go out and test Aegis Sword?" Dad probably wouldn't like it but it wasn't as if it were the first time I'd gone to areas just outside Patch or, in this case, Vale to fight some weak Grimm.
Missy seemed excited for a couple moments before realizing something and shaking her head.
'Here comes the rejection,' A part of me couldn't help but comment even as another part said that Missy was too nice to just stop talking to me now that I was done helping her.
"I don't have any dust with me right now so I'd have to either bother my sister to bring some over or buy some so how about we go out to test Aegis Sword tomorrow? We can always get pastries or ice cream together to celebrate today." She offered.
Immediately, my smile returned in full force and I rapidly nodded. "That sounds awesome! C'mon I know a great bakery!" I told her and, not long after, we made our way towards the bakery I liked to visit whenever I was in Vale.
I was still a bit nervous that Missy might not want to talk to me anymore after testing out Aegis Sword tomorrow but I'd keep hoping that she wouldn't be like the others. At the very least she was nice enough to buy me some cookies and a slice of cheesecake.
"Alright, I'm not great at all this but you're definitely worried about something." Missy looked at me with worry in her eyes after we'd sat down to eat our food. "I don't know why you're worried but I'd be happy to listen."
I hesitated. I hesitated a lot before deciding to trust her. "I'm just afraid you'll stop hanging out with me now that Aegis Sword's done." I mumbled.
Before I could continue speaking, Missy shook her head and said, "I don't know who did that to you but they deserve to get punched in the face." In that moment, she reminded me of Yang who had done that to someone in the past for the exact same reason. "Even if I might not have time to meet up with you every day, I'll definitely keep hanging out with you. In fact, to prove it: How about we hang out the day after tomorrow? You can choose what to do and I promise, no matter what, I'm not going to stop being your friend just because I no longer need your help with making my sword."
"Thank you." I said and, noticing how blurry my vision was, I quickly wiped away my happy tears to smile at her.
"No problem. Now, why don't we talk about our favourite weapons while we eat?" Missy offered with a blush for some reason.
I ignored that in favour of talking about one really cool lance I'd seen that could turn into a sniper rifle.
So this is it for Arc 1 of Celestial Traveler. There'll be an interlude (and maybe an omake) and then it'll go straight to Arc 2. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Golden0Rule, BananaRanger69, Delma and 44 othersNovaSeleneJan 17, 2026NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Interlude 2 New View contentNovaSeleneMaking the rounds.Tuesday at 1:23 AMNewAdd bookmark#56Lisa
Setting everything up as quickly as Lilian wanted me to was impossible even with her father throwing stupid amounts of money behind the project. What I could do was hire the bare minimum required to get things started and then work on things some more afterwards.
Of course, that relied on my boss showing up to fulfill her unreasonable demand of getting everyone to agree to a binding vow before even getting a glimpse at anything remotely confidential.
It also relied on me getting enough hunters for the 'provisional raid team' Lilian planned to set up. I considered it to be insane to plan to go into Gates without a properly balanced team but my boss had absolute confidence in herself. It wasn't entirely unwarranted but all of this felt far too rushed for something which would risk several lives.
The only good thing was that the boss had caved to share this aura thing with anyone willing to be loyal to her until their death or not benefit from aura ever again should they stop working for Lilian.
…All of this would've been so much easier if I didn't have to convince literally every applicant that they were not, in fact, making a deal with the devil. Describing binding vows to people had that terrible tendency to terrify them for the very good reason that most people didn't like being forced to keep their word or suffer terrible consequences.
Even people who wouldn't break their word without such a vow would dislike that situation because the very act of demanding the binding vow told them how much Lilian trusted them.
As it stood, only a good deal of money and the fact that only the NDAs would remain active should they quit let me convince people to agree to it all and the applicants who'd refused despite my assurances would almost certainly spread the word at some point.
All this had the one upside that the people who did sign up would be completely and utterly trustworthy the moment their binding vows were formed. However, it also greatly decreased the amount of people willing to join us.
To call this 'quality over quantity' was somewhat fitting but it was only great in the long term. In the short term, this was a terrible strategy and Lilian wanted everything done as quickly as I could manage.
I wouldn't fail, not when the bare minimum included some staff to help me fulfill various duties such as recruitment or taxes as well as all of eight hunters but Lilian definitely wouldn't be getting eight A-Ranks. Not when most of those in Brockton Bay already had contracts with other guilds or the PRT and my boss had yet to let it be known that she'd grow rapidly.
That information alone could get people to flock to the Travelers Guild but it could also cause Lilian to end up being endangered due to people wanting to get rid of her so not revealing it was definitely the right move for now even if it made my job harder.
Whatever. I'd just have to figure things out within the next couple days.
Thomas Andre
It was rare for an S-Rank to show up in the United States and not join either the government or the Scavenger Guild and I made sure to be informed of every new S-Rank that could be worth recruiting, including ones from other countries so I knew about the Biron twins the very day they officially became S-Ranks.
I didn't like approaching someone for recruitment without knowing what to offer them, though. Normally, that was a simple matter. I just had to offer them more money than they had ever seen and an enhancement from Norma and I'd have another worthwhile recruit.
But the Birons already had enough money that they definitely didn't need more and their father certainly threw enough of it around to fund that guild of theirs and something was off about their abilities. Manton-limited spatial magic shouldn't have let them solo C-Rank gates so quickly. Sure, hunters generally got some physical enhancements but both of them were mage-type hunters, meaning they wouldn't get all that much compared to others of a similar rank.
"So you're sure she didn't even struggle?" I made sure to ask the D-Rank I'd paid quite a bit to get some info out of him once again.
"Not at all." He confirmed without hesitation. Either he didn't piss himself at the thought of me noticing him lying to me or he was telling the truth and I was leaning towards the latter.
And that was useful information. Not enough to get me the full picture but I'd made sure to…acquire the results of the Birons' testing by the PRT. Their physical abilities were slightly below average for mage-type S-Ranks. Generally, the physical boost a mage-type hunter got was what a warrior-type hunter would get if they're two ranks below the mage.
Healers could make up for that by generally having buffs. Those two probably couldn't and someone with what was basically B-Rank physical strength killing a large group of C-Rank monsters with a sword that wasn't anything special itself was unusual.
So, if it wasn't the sword and it wasn't their pure physical power – that was still possible but my gut told me it probably wasn't the case – then the Birons had more than they told the PRT about.
If it was like Norma's ability but self-centered, letting them enhance themselves over time, that'd make my best method of recruitment much less useful to them. If it was just buff spells they hadn't told anyone about, it'd leave the question of why they would have hidden something like that.
Of course, it could've been something else but it almost certainly wasn't an item they bought. My people would've found out about that, I was sure.
"I'll just visit them and give it a try." I decided confidently. Ultimately, I didn't need them. It'd be nice to have more S-Ranks but, frankly, I was enough. Besides, the window for recruitment was rapidly closing. If their guild got off the ground, the chances of success would be as close to zero as they could get.
Ozpin
Was it fortunate or unfortunate to have received this warning so soon before its information became necessary? Certainly, it had allowed Qrow to save Amber before her assailant managed to steal the Maiden powers but it hadn't given us enough time to set up an ambush to hopefully prevent Amber from being injured in the first place.
A single day had been enough to prevent the woman from acquiring the Maiden powers and ensuring that her description would be known by every single government but it'd have been much better if the three who had fought Amber could've been captured, especially since that glove Qrow had seen was still with them.
Without a doubt, learning about this a week before it happened would've given us much better chances but it might've also scared off the attackers if they were to have noticed anything being off.
Most importantly, however, this meant that Lilian Biron's information was likely correct. I disliked the thought that one of the other headmasters had betrayed humanity by siding with Salem but, if Lilian was right about Salem's servants seeking to steal the power of the Maidens, there's a problematically high chance of her being correct about there being a traitor, too.
…It was almost certainly Leonardo. It hurt to consider but he had undoubtedly changed recently and not for the better. If he had betrayed us to side with Salem, the guilt might've been what'd caused said changes.
Theodore, frankly, I couldn't see joining Salem unless she held his students hostage but, even then, I found it to be unlikely. With James and myself not being the traitor, that really only left Leonardo.
I spent several minutes contemplating possible motives for such a betrayal but, ultimately, I could only resign myself to trying to figure out a way to confront him. It wouldn't do to waste time on speculation when Salem was clearly working to claim the Relics soon.
Alexander Biron
Sitting in my office after paying for yet another expense incurred by Lily's guild, I sighed. I wasn't blind enough to not see that my daughters were avoiding both me and their mother. A part of me certainly hated that the relationship between me and Alice had degraded to this point but I couldn't help the way I felt.
Still, what I focused on most wasn't even the sorrow of my daughters but the simple question of when did it all go wrong?
It felt like it had been just recently that Lily still tried her hardest to emulate both myself and whatever character from a book, movie or show had impressed her while Missy switched between being a bit of a tomboy and dressing up like a fairytale princess with myself and Alice at the side, watching happily as our daughters grew.
And then, day by day, arguments snuck their way into our lives until almost every conversation ended up a screaming match that left the twins incredibly distressed until they'd rather spend as much time as possible away from home than deal with it.
The worst part? I couldn't blame them. And yet, despite my awareness of all this, each time Alice and I talked, we'd inevitably lose our tempers or 'subtly' try to outdo one another.
At some point, we had certainly loved each other. At some point, we hadn't even imagined our fights ever reaching such a level. At some point, we had been a picture perfect family.
Now? Now we were considering divorce and, should Lily and Missy use their new status to move out, we'd go through with it, too. The only reason why we hadn't so far was because we'd never reach an agreement on who'd get to have our daughters live with them or for how long each of us got them and we weren't quite stupid enough to try and force them to choose.
At least, we weren't quite that stupid yet. Alice certainly had come close during the twins' trigger event and our fights had been escalating over time so who could tell what the future would bring?
Part of me certainly hoped that Lily and Missy would develop their independent streak some more and move out because it'd ensure that we would never reach that point. How could we vie for them like that when they'd already moved beyond our grasp, after all?
Oh, missing out on some parts of my daughters' lives sounded miserable to me but not quite as miserable as they were every time we yelled at each other in front of them.
Yes, while I couldn't bring myself to tell them to leave and grow somewhere that wasn't under our roof, I hoped that they would because I couldn't bear the thought of causing them yet more pain.
Missy
Before me was a beautiful, silver-skinned woman. Her proportions wouldn't have been out of place on a supermodel and the robes she was wearing, even while stained with golden blood, were better than any dress I'd ever seen, accentuating her beauty effortlessly.
There was also an open wound in her chest and, with the light streaming in, I could see her still-beating heart through it. It didn't matter that she wasn't moving even to breathe, the heart continued to beat, to pump blood through a body that no longer needed it.
I couldn't help but wonder how this had even happened and, as if in response, I saw the woman standing before a mountain of crystalline books, some of them turning into glowing dust and vanishing as a young girl drove a knife into the woman's chest with a strange, eerie green glow surrounding the blade.
The woman hadn't seen it coming. Her surprised expression made that clear. Rapidly, surprise turned to fury and, with a snarl, she said something and there was another flash and the green glow vanished while the girl seemed to be disoriented.
Then I witnessed as blurry figures took some of the woman's golden blood and dripped a single drop of it onto one of the crystalline books which was then held by another blurry figure. A glow enveloped them and then –
I woke up with a start, that strange dream refusing to fade from my memory even as I tried to figure out just what any of that had been.
"A Force vision." I decided after taking some time to calm down. If that hadn't been some kind of fever dream, it was definitely a vision from the Force. The only problem was that I had no idea what any of that had been about except for the fact that those books and that woman were definitely important in some way.
I'll be honest, I considered sidelining Missy's and Lily's parents but decided against it because they are too important for me to ignore them entirely so here's one side of why they haven't been all that involved in the story recently, they are very aware of how much their daughters hate it when they fight. Ultimately, I disliked just making them completely and utterly terrible parents so they do still care about their children, they just also can't stand each other now and it's very clear which side wins when they're in the same room as each other.
Aside from that, welp, RWBY canon's fucked and Missy got a Force vision that reveals a bit of what happened with Eden and Fortuna in this story.
Lily
As the clock struck midnight, rather than merely feeling the Grimoire recharging, I felt something weird resonating through my soul from it.
Notice: The Grimoire can't handle generating that much power every day without burning itself out within about ten thousand years. It can, however, handle producing that much power once every three days and, to make it up to you, you'll now get mana proportional to the CP cost of everything you buy. That one isn't retroactive, though. Everything being integrated much better than the rush-job the Grimoire did until now, however, is.
…So that was almost certainly a message from the entity that had reincarnated past-me. Except, that came from the Grimoire itself. Either whatever gave me the Grimoire gave itself an access point to my soul that it almost certainly didn't need or that was a pre-recorded message and the original configuration of the Grimoire was always meant to be altered after ten days had passed.
I was leaning towards the latter and, assuming that information had been correct, that was interesting. After all, I hadn't really thought much about how the Grimoire functioned until now but learning that it had a limit was curious. It meant that the Grimoire didn't essentially have infinite power but was probably more like a generator. If I had to guess, it'd have eventually run out of the fuel required to power the generator itself. Maybe it still would but it'd only happen even later on.
And that the Grimoire would now improve my mana reserves with every purchase was similarly interesting as well as a potential clue. After all, while I had no doubt the sheer amount of energy the Grimoire required was incalculable for me at the moment, it'd make sense for something like it to run on mana or at least something that could be converted into mana, wouldn't it?
What was confusing, however, was what that notification meant by 'better integration' of my abilities. I hadn't noticed any issues before now and, until I focused, I still didn't notice anything. Then, however, I noticed a difference in things by inspecting my aura. Before, though I hadn't noticed it, there had been parts of it that would have stood out had I focused on them. Now, those parts simply felt like every other part of my aura, as if the semi-solid parts had melted and been fully integrated into the rest of it.
Knowing that the Grimoire itself was within my soul and presumably integrated my abilities into it, I could guess what that notice had meant now. That 'rush job' had still been almost impossible to notice and I certainly wouldn't have known to look for it if I hadn't been looking for any sign of a change and Man of the New World hadn't given me the ability to perfectly recall and rapidly compare my aura from moments before the change to my current aura.
The only issue remaining was what, exactly, a better integration of my abilities even did.
In the end, after thinking it over for several moments, I could only conclude that I lacked the information required to figure it out so, using the points I'd just gained, I rolled once more, already mildly bothered by the fact that I'd have to wait three entire days to do so once more.
'…Oh. I'm a magic gambling addict now.' The joke was at least amusing enough to distract me while I waited for the Grimoire to show me which power I'd potentially gain next.
Divination: Hooked on a Feeling; 100 CP, 850 CP left
The worlds of Sol and the known few beyond are almost uniformly wild, untamed hellscapes filled with the ruins of their old societies. This lends itself well to the enterprising, the adventurous, or just the plain-ol' curious, but the question remains: Where should you go? As a drop-in, all you have to go on, information-wise, is what you've brought with you, and that may not help everywhere. With this perk, regardless of where you are—be it in the deepest swamps of Old Chicago, the unforgiving depths of the Hellmouth, or the most advanced vaults of Neomuna—you've at least got a bit to go on. You're not quite sure why, but you seem to just know where the local points of interest are—like a mental compass pointing you towards interest and intrigue. What exactly this entails is anyone's guess, and by no means are you guaranteed safety, but by following this feeling, you're guaranteed to run into something worth your time. It could be a cache of useful weapons, a source of ancient lore, parts for a ship, or maybe just an ongoing battle for you to intervene in, wait to finish, or avoid like the plague.
"It's worth having, at least." I decided easily. Even if the rate at which I gained CP had been reduced to a third of what it had been before, a one hundred CP power that could potentially be immensely useful wasn't something to hesitate about.
Besides, I was curious to see if I'd be able to sense any of the integration process of my newest power through my aura now that I was aware of the fact that there was one but, from what I could tell, the process was so quick and seamless that I couldn't sense anything at all.
Well, I couldn't sense anything changing about my aura but I could certainly sense my mana increasing by ten percent or so.
"I can forgive this failure if that's part of the solution." I grinned as I spoke, thoughts already wandering towards spells that would, almost certainly, require more mana than I'd thought I'd be able to accumulate without getting lucky with the Grimoire or, ugh, training. And a lot of training, at that. Of course, those spells weren't ones I actually knew yet but they were out there and I quite enjoyed the thought of being capable of casting spells that'd normally take armies of mages to cast on my own.
My 'magnanimity' in this didn't matter, anyways. The Grimoire was part of me now and I wasn't quite stupid enough to complain that my passive growth took longer now in exchange for being better and having incredible side benefits.
Besides, seeing that the Grimoire was clearly flawed, relying solely on it when I could learn magic and acquire powers without it seemed like a terrible idea.
"I can use it but not rely on it." The conclusion was a simple one to reach. If the Grimoire was flawed even in its core processes, it was unreliable but that didn't make it any less useful, it only made me aware of the potential issue.
Lisa had asked me to visit the guild building this morning and Missy had gone back to Remnant to test her new weapon so, after breakfast, I'd made my way there and begun to discuss binding vows with people when I felt a, frankly, stupid amount of mana approaching.
Over a dozen times the quantity of my own and the mana even felt 'denser' so the quality was probably better, too. At that point, what could I call this mana if not stupidly strong?
Most importantly, however, I could guess who that mana probably belonged to and it was quite bothersome.
"Boss?" Lisa knocked on my office's door shortly after the last employee was bound to their contract. My assistant sounded quite nervous, at that. "Thomas Andre is here to see you."
"I'm aware." I called back. "Let him in." One of the Protectorate's strongest hunters showing up was less likely than the man who had a tendency to recruit every S-Rank he could reach, including foreign ones. Admittedly, the PRT would do the same but, being a branch of the government, that'd probably cause diplomatic issues.
Thomas Andre had an imposing build, standing heads and shoulders above most men and he had a casual grin on his lips as he walked around in clothes that'd have fit a tourist more so than the leader of one of the world's greatest guilds. "So you're one of the two S-Ranks I've heard so much about?"
"Unless you've heard about two other new S-Ranks, lately." I joked, ultimately uncaring of his presence aside from some mild annoyance. 'Ah, it's not quite so mild, I suppose.' I corrected myself mentally, feeling how incredibly annoyed I was by the clear difference in power between me and this muscle-bound brute.
I'd keep my annoyance locked behind bars for this conversation but it's quite bothersome to come face to face with evidence that I was far from strong enough.
"And I'm guessing you're Lilian Biron unless your sister let her hair grow a lot lately." He retorted just as seriously as I'd been.
"I am. And I suppose you're here to offer to recruit my sister and I?" I didn't bother hiding my sheer boredom at this conversation.
He didn't even hesitate before nodding, that dumb grin still on his face. "I'm offering whatever you want, too. As long as I can get it, you'll have it in exchange for becoming part of the Scavenger Guild."
"No, thank you." I answered just as easily. There was nothing in this world that he could give me that I wouldn't be able to get for myself in due time if I wanted it.
Endless resources were at my disposal if I were to just reach out to take them so what need did I have for what he could offer? With Hooked on a Feeling, there's even a chance I could actually get somewhere in Star Wars. The resources of that reality alone would likely dwarf whatever he could offer me.
"Alright then. Shame I can't get an S-Rank that grows so quickly into my guild but I suppose I can at least try to recruit your sister." My eyes widened ever so slightly when he mentioned my growth because I had been certain that that couldn't have been figured out yet and then, once I'd calmed down, they narrowed.
"My sister is currently busy. You can arrange a meeting with her through some other means if you feel like it." I hadn't expected him to bribe one of the hunters dad had hired to be there while Missy and I'd cleared the C-Rank Gate but, despite my dislike for him, I could at least admit that Thomas Andre wasn't stupid. He wasn't some kind of genius but he had experience. Figuring out that something was probably weird wouldn't have been all that hard for him with a firsthand account of our abilities.
And I'd then confirmed it through my reaction due to not expecting him to have figured it out.
"I suppose I'll have to find some way to do that." He replied nonchalantly before leaving. Either he really didn't care that much that he couldn't recruit us or he was planning something and, reluctantly, I was leaning towards the former. I hadn't sensed or seen any strong emotions in him throughout the entire conversation and it wouldn't surprise me if he thought of recruiting two more S-Ranks as unnecessary. With how many he already had and his own strength, I had no doubt he wasn't really worried about most monsters. It stung my pride to be dismissed that easily but I also didn't want to have to deal with him again until I could theoretically crush him so I swallowed down my annoyance.
Truly, I didn't like Thomas Andre. And, if he caused Missy any issues, I'd find a way to tear his limbs off. Probably not the best way to look out for my twin's mental wellbeing but a good part of the reasoning behind that solution was my desire to do it in the first place. I'd still prefer not having to figure out a way to make it happen, though.
Missy
Because we were just going to test Aegis Sword today, Ruby had just told me her address and I'd had to take a bulwark – cool vehicle but kinda slow – to Patch because I'd never been there before.
"Hi, I'm here to visit Ruby." I told the guy who opened the door of what I hoped was Ruby's house. After all of that and getting some cookies as a gift for Ruby, I didn't expect to see some weird kinda old guy squinting his eyes at me after he'd opened the door to her home instead of Ruby.
"Lilian Biron?" He asked after several moments of silence, sounding really suspicious of me.
I groaned in response. "What did my twin do to you?" Of course Lily had to mess with some guy who was probably related to my only friend in this world.
"She made some deals with someone I know and he told me about her." He answered vaguely. "And, before I ask why you're here, how old are you? Because your twin just mentioned that she's immortal and another person I know seems to think she has to be thousands of years old."
"She said what?" I froze, not quite comprehending what he'd just said for a moment. Then, once it sank in, I felt anger bubble up to the surface together with disbelief. Oh, it definitely wouldn't have been out of character for Lily to not bother telling me about that until it'd become really obvious that we're not aging but it still shocked me and, while I didn't quite believe the stranger just yet, I was inclined to belive that Lily had said that without ever mentioning our age. She barely remembered it half the time, anyways.
"She claimed you two are immortal." He confirmed.
"…As I said, I'm here to visit Ruby. My name's Missy. Please let her know I'll be a bit late because I have to ask my sister about something but I'll be there soon." I told him, trying my hardest to ignore my anger for now.
Not telling me that we were in Star Wars had been one thing. Hiding stuff that she wasn't sure she could safely share with me was fine, too.
Not mentioning that we apparently wouldn't age wasn't.
So, leaving Remnant to go straight into my twin's bedroom because having her answer the door would take too long right now, I was happy to find her sitting at her desk, reading a book as per usual. "Hey, Lily, why did some old guy in Remnant tell me that you claimed to be immortal?" I asked as casually as I could manage with how angry I was feeling.
Lily whirled around as soon as I started speaking and, while there was shock in her expression, there were no signs that she hadn't said that. "Alright, so-"
"No leaving anything out." I cut her off before she could even start. "You'll explain this, in detail, right now. I can forgive you keeping a bunch of secrets that don't matter to me but this is too much!"
My twin paled while her shoulders slumped in resignation. "I get it. We won't age. We'll probably finish growing if we haven't already but we'll never grow old. We also have some mild regeneration but the really important part is being ageless."
"Great, wasn't that hard, was it? Now, when were you going to tell me?" I knew I was hurting Lily with this but she'd also hurt me by not telling me something like this before I heard it from a stranger so I really couldn't care less right now.
"…When you noticed that we're not growing older." And her mumbled answer definitely proved that I was right to be angry.
"And why did you plan to hide it for that long?" Clearly, if I didn't ask, she wasn't going to tell me anything so I might as well push some more in case it was important.
Lily winced in response and I knew that her reasons weren't all that good. "I told myself it's because it wouldn't matter since we'd just live forever, anyways."
"Go on." I told her, knowing that there had to be more to it based off her answer.
She hesitated this time, taking a deep breath before answering, "I was afraid that you wouldn't want to live forever." Mumbled though they were, I heard her words and nothing took the wind out of my sails quite as much as my sister sounding genuinely sad and remorseful like this.
"I'm not going to leave you." And definitely not through suicide. I wasn't depressed and, even if I were, I couldn't begin to imagine how terribly Lily would take that. "I'm not all that happy to be immortal but, at the very least, I know you'll be there the entire time so it's fine."
Now that I thought about it, being immortal without someone close to me also being immortal would've probably sucked. Within a hundred years or so, I'd have been all alone. Knowing that my twin was always going to be around, even with how annoying she could be, was reassuring.
And I had no doubt she felt the same way because of how happy she looked after hearing my response. "Thank you," She told me, all but jumping off her chair to hug me, " And I'm sorry about not telling you earlier. I promise there aren't any other important secrets I'm keeping right now. Well, there's one mildly important one but it's meant to be a surprise if it works out. Everything else can wait until after you've had fun with your friend."
"That's good. And, if I go back, I won't hear anything else that you should've told me?" I decided to forgive her because, ultimately, her reasoning was stupid but I couldn't blame her for being worried. I could only blame her for not trusting me enough and that hurt but I also had no idea how to fix that. All I could do was hope that she'd stop worrying so much over what might happen.
I hadn't asked for immortality, after all, and there was always a chance I could've disliked knowing I'd outlive everyone but my twin. I did dislike it, to be honest, but knowing that Lily'd be there alongside me as well as how far into the future it was made it more bearable. If she'd trusted me to not be so bad at being immortal that I'd die or at least want to, she'd have told me earlier.
Lily quickly shook her head after letting go of me. "Nope, nothing. I actually didn't do anything bad in Remnant." She claimed even as I narrowed my eyes.
"I'll believe you for now. Just, please, stop keeping important secrets." I'd let it go this time but, really, this was only acceptable because I could understand her reasoning and every time she kept another secret made it harder for me to want to share things with her.
Lily grimaced for a moment before squaring her shoulders in determination. "I won't. No matter what, if it's important to you or to me, I'll tell you about it." She said, looking serious about it.
"Good." I replied simply, choosing to trust her yet again. Stupid though she was in this regard, she was my twin and she could be really, really sweet in other ways. She just struggled to share stuff she really should've told me about.
Lily
I felt like screaming at myself by the time Missy left to meet up with Ruby. "How stupid can I be?" I sneered at myself in the mirror, self-hatred running high.
Had I chosen to trust Missy from the start, all this could've been avoided. I could've just let her know about our shared agelessness and everything would've been fine.
Instead, I feared rejection from the one person who had been with me since birth. 'People change,' A part of me whispered before I could silence the intrusive thoughts that had led to this situation in the first place.
It was easy to trust the Missy of the present but the Missy from a thousand or even a million years from now? How could I trust someone who I couldn't even begin to imagine? I didn't have the slightest clue how the Missy of the distant future would end up thinking and putting my trust in unknowns wasn't something I was normally willing to do.
…But Missy had been hurt. I'd almost made my sister cry. I was painfully aware of just how much me keeping that secret from her had hurt her, how close she had been to crying about something I'd done out of fear of an uncertain future.
I was a coward and, usually, I wasn't ashamed of it. When something terrified me and I saw no need to deal with it, I simply avoided it. It's much like how I'd been perfectly willing to abandon the C-Rank Gate back when it'd been difficult for me to kill that cold-flame atronarch – I had no desire to put in effort to deal with something if I wasn't certain that I'd succeed. At least, not if there was anything I could lose by doing so.
I'd happily confront anything as long as failure had no consequences but, the moment there was real danger to it, I'd rather run if victory wasn't certain. I might've gained unending willpower from my Invictus perk but that didn't make me someone incapable of backing down. It just meant that I could, theoretically, power through anything as long as I cared to do so and it was possible.
Any kind of mental distraction, I could deal with but only if I was interested in doing that.
"I hate facing my fears." I grumbled to myself even as I began the process of forcing myself to ignore the parts of me that were afraid of the unconditional trust I had every intention of granting my twin from now on. The kind of trust that I knew she held in me despite me refusing to reciprocate.
Concerns that I found reasonable as well as those that were truly outlandish – I suppressed them all. With infinite willpower, those worries could no longer influence me for I didn't permit it any longer. Even the temptation to let them back in fell on deaf ears.
Invictus could, in theory, turn me into a perfectly rational being but, while I could kind of understand not letting my fears ruin my relationship with my sister, my other emotions were required for me to still be me.
"Man, I hate having to apply self-control." I complained to myself but there was a part of me that was relieved to no longer have to pay attention to several of my fears anymore.
So I feel like I must say that 'nerfing' Lily was always the plan for several reasons. One, she will need lots of mana and the changes to the Grimoire will lead to an important plot point later on. Two, if I were to keep giving her a power every day, or at least offering one, that'd lead to readers rapidly losing track of all the stuff she's gotten (might still happen) and, besides, giving her a bunch of stuff she'll never actually use isn't something I want to do. And last but certainly not least, I can't write timeskips like this without it being incredibly boring.
Generally, I want every chapter to add something and just giving Lily a new power, having her react to it and then repeating that several times for a timeskip isn't good enough.
As for the rest of the chapter, welp, character growth happened as well as Lily's first ever actual use of her now infinite willpower. It's been ten days in the story, btw (technically we're on the eleventh but ten days have passed since the start of the story with the eleventh not having ended yet and the story starting fairly late in the first day).