The Games We Play - Chapter 201: Flickering

Chapter 201: Flickering

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show…err read.

Flickering

Between one blink and the next, the world around me had slowed to a standstill.

That wasn’t as shocking to me as it probably should have been. Granted, I spent most of my time moving significantly faster than the world around me so this stood out more as a matter of degree than anything else; I could tell that time hadn’t stopped as such, merely had its passage altered. Still, I made a point to look around without moving, checking to make sure that Cinder and Ozpin hadn’t dropped by to pay me a visit.

They hadn’t, but I still had a guest whose presence explained what had happened.

“So,” Keter said, standing directly behind me. “You remember.”

I turned to face him, realizing in the process that I could. I could have asked him how he’d summoned himself. I could have asked him how he knew. I could have asked him a lot of things.

But I didn’t. Because now, we both knew the answers to all of those questions.

“I remember,” I replied. “Everything that’s left, at least.”

It was true. As if a gate had finally been opened, I felt the pieces fall into place. It didn’t quite come over me in a wave, didn’t quite appear to me as a flash back, but I remembered the events as if they’d happened to me, down to the very thoughts that had slipped through my mind.

Not everything had appeared, of course, but I could see that now, too. Death’s work hadn’t been subtle or clean—nothing like what I’d imagined. Instead, I could feel where my memories had frayed and it was clear when I thought back to it. In my mind, I could see everything I remembered as if I were there, but entire swaths of my surroundings had been reduced to empty, endless white, utterly erased. Conversations I remembered having could have no start or end, to say nothing of the words that were spoken.

Death hadn’t been a careful hand, sifting through memories to pick out what he felt had been extraneous—somehow, I doubted he even could get into my head that way. Instead, he’d done had been the next best thing to a lobotomy of the soul, removing all he could and leaving behind only clinging bits of thought and memory. I’d been irritated at how vague Keter had been when we talked about the past, but know that I knew how little we truly recalled, I could see why.

But, it was enough. Even if the memories were gone, some things still remained. I was Keter, after all—the Crown that was worn above the head. Even if I couldn’t remember most of my former life, some of the thoughts still made it through. And among what I did remember, there was something precious.

That is, of course, my name.

Metatron, I thought, feeling the name resound through my soul. That was one thing Death hadn’t touched. Had he been aware of its importance at the time? Or was it simply that this was something he couldn’t take away? Both were possible, but either way, it didn’t matter.

“Did you know I’d find it eventually?” I asked.

“I did and I didn’t,” Keter replied. “But you already know that.”

I bobbed my head to the side, acknowledging his words. Before now, he and I had been different. Though we were the same soul, the same person, there’d been something that set us apart; how much we remembered. It wasn’t enough to truly separate us, but if you asked if a five-year old was the same as his future self—whether that future was a decade, a year, or a day down the line—then of course the answer was no.

But now, we knew the same amount. I knew what he knew, because he was me—my soul given form. One could probably argue that there was no point in us even having a conversation or that it was no different than talking out loud to myself, but then, I always did wear a lot of masks. What was one more?

For that reason, however, I knew his words were true. He’d expected me to get to this point on my own, which was a fairly reasonable assumption. Logically speaking, if I’d progressed far enough down this particular path to manifest a Light Elemental, the odds of me taking the next step were fairly good. I knew for a fact that he didn’t know it would be quite like this, but it didn’t take a genius to realize I’d get here eventually.

I wondered what would have happened had I chosen to focus on my physical stats instead of my mental ones, but dismissed the thought. Odds were, I simply would never have gotten to this point, or else would have gotten to it far later, but truthfully, this was the most likely result, at least for someone like me. Given the power and versatility inherent to MP-related skills—or whatever they would presumably have been called had I been someone else—it only made sense I’d have gone this direction eventually. Whether that was a holdover across lives or simply the…well, logical response, I didn’t know, but this wasn’t a particularly unlikely outcome.

Which was good, because it seemed I’d pinned my hopes to this chance.

I took a deep breath and looked at myself.

“I remember,” I said again. “What now? Jericho Falls? Is that where I’ll get my answers?”

He didn’t reply. Neither of us really knew, we just had a feeling that went beyond memory.

Which could have just as easily have been a trap as anything else.

“Yes,” Keter agreed without me saying a word. “Funny, isn’t it? For all the protections on our mind, it’s not impossible he could have gotten into our head—because he wouldn’t have needed to use his powers to do so.”

I nodded slightly. I wanted to return to Jericho Falls—to whatever was now known as Jericho Falls—but there could have been lots of reasons for that. My memories of the end were scattered at best, but it could have been the place of our final battle, or the place where we’d sworn to be friends, or anything else. I wanted to go back, I knew that, but I didn’t know why. It could very easily be a trap; whatever else, it definitely seemed that was the place where both our interests laid.

And if it was, we’d still go, because it was the only lead we had. I had my name and I’d bet anything that it was the key I needed. After all, it wasn’t a name that anyone but I needed to know—because it wasn’t a name for anyone but me.

But…

“What do you think?” I asked. “I know I shouldn’t go yet—I still need to prepare more. But when do you think I’ll be ready? Do you think I’ll know?”

“There’s no way too know without checking,” He replied. “We intended to investigate, did we not? We’ve no idea what we’re up against, so we’ve no way to prepare. But we do have a trump card.”

I nodded in reply, the gesture one of quiet agreement. The skill I’d obtained from improving my Wisdom and Intelligence was different from any of the ones I’d gotten before—but it was powerful. Powerful enough that this, the way I’d finally remembered things, was just a side-effect of its use.

A side-effect?

No, I suppose that wasn’t quite true. After all, in a way, this was what it was. This was the secret it had mentioned. The ‘greatest of mysteries.’

My life. My soul. The cycle of transmigration. Everything I was, everything I’d learned, all boiled down into twenty-two stages or steps or disguises. It was who I was, in a way, and not just in this life.

And if I have that skill…it would be arrogant to assume anything yet, while so much about the target was still unknown, but I’d taken at least a step closer to my goal. As is, invading Jericho falls may not be completely impossible.

I should still wait. I should still have time to improve—enough time to at least get my physical stats to the next milestone before my training began to slow down too much. I wouldn’t always have that time and there’s no telling what could set things off, so it only made sense to make use of what I had.

But at the same time…

“Do you think we can do it?” I asked myself.

“As we are now?” I wondered in response. “Perhaps we can at least begin.”

I nodded firmly to myself.

“Right then,” I said. “Then let’s begin.”

I felt Keter vanish as I closed my eyes, but knew at the same time that he hadn’t gone anywhere—that, if anything, he was exactly where he was supposed to be. I touched the power flowing through me, feeling the pattern within it as I guided it with my will. It flowed through the world around me and my own body with equal ease, illuminating my Chakras from within. I felt them open in response, felt them strength me as their power took hold, but I let the stream rise to the very top of my head.

To my Crown, in fact.

Sahasrara opened its thousand petals and I felt my body change again—but this time, I held onto the feeling, drawing it in. As I felt time renew its normal flow, I opened my eyes and mouths and spread my wings. For a moment, I thought it would feel like the wings in my Grimm form, like they were sliding through the world as much as the air.

But it didn’t. If anything, it felt like I was pushed away the sky so I had room to spread my wings.

“Keter?” Raven asked, blinking as she looked my way.

I almost smiled at her before thinking better of it. There was no non-creepy way to smile when you had a million mouths.

“Not quite,” I replied.

I took another deep breath—which was an indescribably disconcerting experience when you had as many mouths as I now did—and focused. Technically speaking, this transformation was nothing new to me; I’d revealed the true shape of my soul the moment Sahasrara had first opened and been driven to my knees from sheer exhaustion. All I was doing now was making use of my new found growth to exert a little bit more control over the shift and keep it from exhausting me all at once.

But why not take it a step further.

Carefully, I willed the change to…reverse? Withdraw? I wasn’t sure, honestly, but I knew how to do it anyway. For some reason, however, I’d expected it to be a matter of light fading to reveal the flesh beneath.

But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, patches of skin began to form over the light, spreading across it like Conquest would over my normal form. Once I saw that, I was able to exert a bit more control over the process, focusing it so that the spread was a bit less random, until only my left arm remained luminous. I lifted both of my hands, one flesh and the other light, and marveled at them before clenching them into fists.

“Jaune?” Adam asked, lifting his head from his own status screen to glance my way. “Ah. Progress?”

“Something like that,” I answered with a shrug. I touched the tips of my fingers together and watched carefully as the light spread from one to the other, causing the skin to peel and fade away. As it did, my HP bar began to decrease, the empties parts turning white instead of black. At the same time, my MP rose at the same rate, expanding past the limits of its bar in the process and filling me with new power.

Sahasrara (Active & Passive) LV1 EXP: 4.03%

A skill obtained by those who have successfully opened the seventh chakra, Sahasrara. Also known as the crown chakra, it is the last of the seven and the most difficult to open, but doing so bestows its own with great power. Seen by some as a form of higher consciousness and others as a rebirth, the user of this skill may cause mortal flesh to give way to the divine.

The user of this skill may choose to voluntarily lower his HP, increasing his MP by a corresponding amount and transforming his body to mirror his soul.

While the users HP is so lowered, no form of healing may raise his HP above the reduced amount.

If HP is reduced to 1, the user is fully transformed. In this state, MP may be sacrificed in place of HP for the purpose of activating skills and in response to damage.

At higher levels, siddhis may manifest, corresponding to the nature of the users spiritual self.

As with the other chakras, Sahasrara assists in the cycling, cleansing, and refining of energy within the body and improves the effectiveness of meditation.

As I experimented with shedding my mortal form, I marveled at the changes. In my mind, I could see myself from the outside again, as if I was watching from a distance that was at once near and far. The sensation that had filled me since the day my Chakras opened, a feeling of lightness as if my body had no weight to it at all, seemed to grow even further as I changed. I felt profoundly light, as if I weighed no more than the sunshine, and I knew I could move myself as easily as wishing to do so.

And as it said, I could lower my HP at will. Raising it wasn’t quite as simple, but all I had to do was will it and my MP would drop by the desired amount, allowing my HP to regenerate as per usual. When I dropped it, my HP bar itself seemed to shrink, leaving me unsure if it would work with Etz Hayim if I reduced my HP just to one percent. On the other hand, if I lowered my HP until only a single hit point remained and transformed myself, I should be able to make full use of Etz Hayim’s power.

It was something I was honestly considering. Simply dropping my HP to a single point was profoundly dangerous—but perhaps more than that, it was difficult to maintain. Truthfully, there wasn’t a huge difference between one HP and one percent of my HP, at least not against opponents I was actually worried about; either way, getting hit would probably drop me to zero. The bigger issue was that there was simply a lot to juggle; my natural HP regeneration needed to be offset, skills that demanded HP need to be accounted for, and there was always the possibility of receiving damage. I could do the math easily enough, thanks to the Mathematician’s Answer…but even then, there were a lot of variables which meant I’d need to keep doing the math and also change it constantly. My various Resistances tended to improve, skill costs tended to decrease as they leveled, and possible sources of damage needed to be accounted for, even if I did my utmost to mitigate it as much as possible. When it came to just keeping my HP around one percent, there was no problem, but if it needs to be exactly one, the slightest error or change could put my HP either at two, stripping away the benefit of Etz Hayim and demanding I adjust the entire equation, or, worse, at zero. Second Chance would be there to take the hit for me, thankfully, but I could only use it once a day and having it to fall back on was what made this entire plan ‘safe.’

But reducing my HP while simultaneously increasing my MP…well, that was a bit different, especially considering the specifics of Sahasrara. From the beginning, I’d intended to use my MP as a buffer if I got hit, setting aside a portion of my total for that purpose, but there were still dangers. Some forms of damage could hurt someone even through their Aura—Venenum was a special example since it created poisons inside my body, but there were others. I’d never really tried to use an attack with Defense Penetration on a human before, simply because most of the attacks that had it were designed with survivability in mind, but I had a feeling that at least some of the damage from them would go through a person’s Aura and there were a number of attacks that had such a thing to once extent or another.

While my body was transformed, however, things were a bit different. I’d already tested with Venenum to make sure and I could soak up even that type of damage with my MP—presumably because my entire body had become…well, more of a spiritual amalgam. If it was like that, there was no real loss for lowering my HP. Especially considering what improving my MP so much meant. Because of how my MP regen worked, the amount that returned to me per second was doubled, giving me that much more power to work with. If I could do that, on top of using Etz Hayim to the fullest and accounting for the power of the Arcana…I’d need to keep an eye on the stamina depletion, but this opened up possibilities.

“Jian?” Raven asked, frowning and tilting her head in concern. “Is something wrong?”

“No?” I replied, tearing myself from my thoughts. I tilted my head at her in confusion. “Do I look like something’s wrong?”

“It’s hard to tell,” She mused. “Your face is gone again.”

“Ah,” I said, realizing the issue as I looked at her through a million eyes again. After a moment of thought, I created an illusion around my head, giving it my usual appearance—or Jian Bing’s usual appearance, at least. It wasn’t easy to make it blend, but I toggled with the apparent depth and such to make it seem as though the rest of my body was like a very, very odd suit of armor. “My apologies; I just remembered something important and got distracted. The good news is that my power has grown again. It seems we’ll be able to pick up the pace a bit more.”

“You and your fucking pace, Jaune,” Adam sighed, cracking his neck. “Some of us get tired of this shit, you know.”

I healed him, restoring his stamina back to full.

“Thanks,” He said with a grunt.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied before doing the same to Raven. It was something I’d gotten in the habit of doing while Adam and I trained together, but I actually hadn’t needed to heal him before now—the advantages of functioning as a team, I suppose. “Raven, can you find Cinder or would you like me to run over to Atlas and check?”

She was silent for a moment, eyes turning to look above me as she searched.

“She’s still onboard her ship,” She reported after a moment before pausing. “Although it seems they will be landing shortly. Should I keep an eye on them?”

I nodded, figuring it was safe. Given what I’d told Cinder, even if she could sense Raven’s portals in her default state, it was unlikely she’d do anything overt. Even so, I doubted I needed to warn Raven to be careful.

“I’ll leave it to you, then,” I said. “Do we have enough time to pick up where we left off? I’d like to stretch my wings, if possible.”

Raven seemed to consider that for a moment.

“It should be about twenty minutes until they land,” She mused before smiling at me. “I take it you have something in mind?”