Evergreen's jade animals filled the sky like it was a jungle. Each construct was at least the size of a house, all carved in the likeness of animals and trees that seemed to breathe with their own borrowed life. A stag with crystalline antlers leapt through the air as if bounding across invisible ground. A tiger crashed forward on paws that never touched anything solid. Birds of faceted green swooped in intricate paths, spiraling and weaving until the sky resembled a carved palace suspended over the battlefield below.
And all of them were hunting the displacement user, Bob.
The man twisted through the air with anxious calm that contrasted sharply with the reality around him. Space warped near his fingertips and the very air around him buckled and folded as shards of displaced reality fanned outward in elegant but lethal formations. They spun into shapes that resembled spears, sabers, glaives, or needle thin darts that cut through jade flesh and wood as if sculpted for the sole purpose of erasing Evergreen's work.
Qrow watched as each crow clone of his tried to get close, only to be grazed by a stray displacement blade. The moment the buzzing pressure edged toward a killing strike, he dismissed the clone before the cut could land. Unlike earlier, Qrow was now, more careful about the lives of his clones. He refused to take another backlash from losing one. The memory alone was more than enough.
He hovered well above the fray, legs planted on the broad head of a crow clone that hovered its vast wings to keep him aloft. His real body was not morphed, but his sword was drawn, wrapped with his Rank 2 will. The steel hummed quietly as it worked to counter the distortions spilling from Bob's synchronized runes.
Bob had now revealed two of his runes. Displacement was the only rune he had reached mastery in, however, he also had a shaping rune of some sort which synchronized with it and gave form to the distortions. The combination of the two runes allowed Bob to sever small parts of space and repurpose them into spatial weapons. They had curious properties that could allow them to appear from nowhere, vanish into folds of warped nothingness, and reappeared in impossible angles.
What was concerning, however, was that Bob was fighting as if cost didn't exist. His aura expenditure should have been enormous, yet the man showed no signs of slowing. It was not just suspicious. It went against every rule Qrow had ever learned.
Raven had reached the same conclusion, though her expression remained unreadable behind the shadowed raven mask that covered her face. Her real form remained human sized, but the cloak of shadow she wore trailed behind like a living storm. From her shoulders unfurled a pair of massive spectral shadow arms tipped with swords and a second pair that reached outward from beneath her ribs. Her outline shifted in the dim light, always in motion and always suggesting a figure larger and more terrible than she physically appeared.
Her presence alone cut the air.
Evergreen, by contrast, remained silent and steady despite the shimmering exhaustion that Qrow could sense creeping along the edges of the man's posture. Dream erosion clung to him like frost. Even though Evergreen kept his posture straight and his expression calm, Qrow could see that the man's strength had already dropped by around ten percent. The jade constructs flickered slightly with each new creation, the effort wearing at him little by little.
Bob snapped back into view ten meters above them, emerging from a spatial fracture that folded shut behind him. The sky trembled. Green birds shattered below, raining fragments of jade.
No one moved next.
The sudden stillness was almost surreal.
Qrow stood on the head of his crow clone while Raven stood on another. Evergreen hovered between them, levitating gently on a platform of jade leaves that fanned outward like a blooming flower.
Opposite them, Bob floated alone, suspended by nothing, the distorted air beneath him rippling like water. A faint grim countenance curved his mouth, though his eyes held a cold clarity that sent warning bells through Qrow's instincts.
The four hung there in the sky, silent, suspended in a brief ceasefire none had agreed upon but all respected. The battle had reached a point where one wrong move could tilt the balance in ways none of them wanted to test blindly.
Evergreen was the first to take a slow breath. The jade animals behind him massed into a loose formation, sprawling across the air like a living mural. Raven's shadow arms curled behind her like wings, shadow sword in their grasp bleeding un-light into the air. Qrow's sword gleamed faintly as he shifted his stance on the crow clone's head, keeping his balance while preparing for whatever might come next.
Bob tilted his head, studying them with the curiosity of a scientist examining a new specimen. The distortions around his body pulsed, and for a moment Qrow felt reality bend enough that he nearly stumbled despite standing firmly.
Something had changed. All three of them sensed it.
Bob's gaze slipped briefly to Evergreen, then to Raven, then to Qrow. The distortions around him sharpened, as if bracing for another flurry of spatial weapons.
Bob finally spoke.
His voice carried easily through the sky despite the wind and the faint tremor of distant explosions. It was calm, but there was something cold beneath it, a pressure that scraped across the air like an approaching storm.
"Are you three really going to continue this stupid farce?"
The question was delivered with no flourish, shout or accusation sharpened for effect. It was simply spoken. Yet the weight behind it pressed against all three of them who faced him.
Resolve burned beneath his words yet rage flickered just as fiercely.
His eyes blazed with both.
Bob looked at Evergreen first. Then Qrow. Then Raven. His gaze was steady, unblinking, and carried a depth of pain that none of them had truly acknowledged until now.
"Tell me," he said quietly, "why has LUCID fallen so low that kidnapping children and experimenting on them has become a strategy worth defending?"
Both Qrow and Raven flinched.
Evergreen did not move. He stood still in the air, jade animals behind him drifting like silent witnesses. His eyes remained half lidded and his expression unchanged, but Qrow could read the tension in the man's shoulders.
Bob continued.
"Give me back my daughter." His voice cracked, but only for an instant. "Return her to me and all of this ends. I will pull back the Dragon Gang and I will even let your people leave the dream realm. This fight between us will die here. All you have to do is give her back."
The silence that followed hit harder than any spatial blade.
Qrow's grip tightened on the hilt of his greatsword until his knuckles paled. He was many things. A killer. A manipulator. A survivor who had learned to do monstrous things to protect what mattered. But even he could admit the truth that twisted deep in his chest.
Evergreen had perhaps... gone a little too far.
Qrow understood the reasoning, however. He understood the logic. Anyone in Evergreen's position would have seen the same threat. If Dragon Gang obtained that child's rune, the balance of power would collapse instantly. LUCID had no choice but to act.
That had been the argument, the justification and the strategy. It was all for the greater good.
Yet hearing Bob's voice break over the words "my daughter" shattered whatever detachment Qrow had tried to maintain. The words, greater good sickened him.
Because Evergreen had still kidnapped the man's daughter.
And then experimented on her.
In a sense, he had been justified. If he had not acted, Dragon Gang would become unstoppable.
See, the girl did not possess a normal rune.
She possessed a meta rune. A very special meta rune that was called Perpetuity.
A that was only theorized to exist. It was so difficult to create that most researchers spent their entire lives trying to replicate even a fraction of its complexity. Yet Bob's daughter had not only created it, she had reached comprehension in a month and mastery in four. Mastery. With a Meta Rune. At Rank 1.
Qrow had never heard of such a thing.
No one had.
She was a prodigy among prodigies, and even that felt like understating the truth. She was an anomaly and even a miracle. A monster in the sense that only geniuses of the highest order were ever labeled monsters.
Meta Runes were notoriously difficult to understand, let alone create or master. To shape one alone, required a mind aligned perfectly with the nature of the rune. To comprehend it, one usually required insight so profound it often took decades. To master it, required a level of intuition and connection to it that bordered on madness. Meta Runes were conceptual after all. How could one say they understood a concept in its entirety?
Yet she achieved all of it in months.
And not only that.
Perpetuity's nature was as dangerous as it was miraculous. Its core ability made things eternal.
Evergreen had discovered this while investigating reports of young awakened displaying unusual growth patterns. When he realized what the rune could do, he had moved instantly and without hesitation. He had stolen the girl from her home using a forceful containment method and locked her in the LUCID stronghold in reality. After Bob found out that his daughter had been kidnapped, he went on a warpath and somehow was able to displace the entire population of anyone with a connection to the dream realm, directly into it. Qrow didn't fully understand how the man was able to achieve this, but it was very likely due to the power of his daughter's rune.
Bob was quite an intelligent man. The LUCID base in reality had greater defenses than that in the dream realm. One of the main reasons was due to the presence of a Rank 3. If Ozpin had shown up while Bob had attacked the base in reality, he would have instantly lost. But Rank 3's were somewhat restrained from moving within the dream realm, lest they invite Rank 3 grimm to come to their location.
Because of how Bob displaced everyone who had a connection to dream, his daughter's physical body that was imprisoned in reality had also been transported to the dream Realm. This meant that all Bob had to do was to get to her and displace himself and Dragon Gang back to reality, and he would have won.
Qrow remembered the discussion clearly. Evergreen had not even concealed the reasoning.
Imbued runes could only be used once. Perpetuity stripped that limit away. If used correctly, a single Rank One awakened could permanently have dozens of runes. If a Rank Two possessed a mastery level rune, they could potentially have four or even five of those Runes at once.
A single soldier could become an army.
A single elite awakened could become a walking catastrophe.
If Dragon Gang acquired this power, they could topple any faction and build an empire that no resistance could challenge.
Evergreen had made his choice.
But the ethical line had still been crossed.
Bob now stood before them, trembling with a fury that was barely contained behind clenched teeth and a voice that refused to break again.
Evergreen finally exhaled. It was slow and heavy, a sound carved out of fatigue and resignation. He did not apologize. He did not attempt justification. He only shook his head quietly.
The simple gesture extinguished any lingering hope.
Qrow and Raven turned back to Bob.
The rage in Bob's eyes had softened. Something far more dangerous replaced it.
Desperation.
"If that is your answer," Bob said, "then you leave me no choice."
He reached to his side.
His fingers gently pulled at the air, and reality parted like fabric. A hairline crack opened, spilling black light into the sky. The darkness hissed as it widened, stretching like a wound in space.
Something stirred within.
A massive figure stepped out from the tear. The air vibrated around him. He was tall enough to loom over all of them, at least two and a half meters in height. A tattered red cloak hung from his shoulders like dried blood. A Grimm mask covered his face, carved into a bestial grin that showed nothing of the man beneath.
The moment the figure emerged, Qrow and Raven froze.
Their killing intent surged out instantly, thick enough to make the sky feel heavier.
Qrow recognized him. So did Raven.
This was the man they had fought months ago in the outskirts of Dream Vale. The one leading a rogue faction of sleepless awakened. The one that was responsible for the Amalgamation incidents.
The leader of that group of sleepless.
And he had just stepped into the sky at Bob's side.
The tension shattering between the four awakened was instant and absolute. There would be no more negotiation. No retreat. No room for restraint.
Yet Bob had one final statement to deliver.
"Since you refuse to reason," he said, his tone no longer trembling, "I will not stop until I've slaughtered every single one of your men. And I'm going to start with you, Evergreen. Consider this my declaration of war."
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AN: No post yesterday because I had exams. But now you guys get to read two chapters! Fun!
Advanced chapters are available on patreon.