Reunion

I looked around discretely as we landed, glancing at the long empty buildings. We were in what had once been a town outside the Kingdom of Vale, up until everyone inside of it disappeared never to be seen again, as towns outside the Kingdom's were wont to do. Since then, it had apparently be decommissioned into the occasional training camp and rendezvous point for the White Fang. I saw about two dozen uniformed men staring at me through their masks, standing beside smaller ships, including a small fleet of Bullheads and large, heavily modified shipping crates. With a gesture, I had Levant tighten the air around us to make sure we could talk freely, and then focused fully on my friends.

Adam spoke first, looking me carefully up and down.

"You took your time getting back," He said, as if I'd just run to the store for some milk, playing it off like it hadn't been anything major. Even so, I could see the smile on his lips and didn't believe for a second that he hadn't decided in advanced how to greet me. "Something come up?"

"Mm, yeah," I answered in kind. "You guys missed your flight, I caught the wrong one, and it was all downhill from there. JBA's Radical Vacation Adventure died young."

"The good always do," He shook his head and then looked at me quietly for a moment, smile fading into seriousness. "I'm glad you're okay. I still owe you that drink."

"Yeah, well," I shrugged like it wasn't even a thing, smile on my lips. "You know me, always flying into danger, sort of crashing my way back out—"

"I'm sorry," Blake interrupted, voice quiet. "You shouldn't have had to do this alone."

I looked at her—which was hard, with the deep bags under her eyes making it obvious that things had been hard for her. It wasn't hard to guess why, when last she'd seen me I'd been in death's clutches, stolen away by a mythological monster for a mission she'd brought me in on—thinking, most likely, that she killed me even while probably on the run from whatever attention had fallen upon her and Adam. Even if it had only been a week…

Adam had a mask to hide if he'd been affected, but it hurt to look at Blake.

I could only imagine how much more it'd hurt to look at my family.

"Why?" I asked her reasonably even if reason didn't have much to do with guilt. "None of what happened was your fault or anything we could have prepared for."

"I knew how horribly the odds were," Blake denied and I could see that her eyes were red. "I knew this mission was doomed to failure but I saw your power and I just…I just guilted you into it despite that, because I needed your power. You didn't have anything to do with it, but I—"

"Did nothing but ask," I interrupted her gently. "I could have backed out. I probably knew the risks even better then you did, even if I didn't see any of this coming. I accepted because it was the right thing to do and I don't regret that—and I certainly don't blame you for things you didn't have any control over. Hell, if there was anything at work here, it would probably have my fault because of my Luck stat, and while that may have influenced things, I don't think it was the cause of anything. And, in fairness, I was lucky enough to make it back, apparently, so I'll call it even."

I shrugged easily, maintaining the smile.

"Let's face it; there were factors involved that we didn't know about and couldn't have planned for," I continued seriously. "I don't know what happened on your guys' end—"

"A local named Torchwick interfered, working on something else," Adam put in. "I had to interfere to stop him before he ruined everything; I'll tell you about it later."

"—But a lot of that stuff would have happened one way or another," I said, nodding at Adam. "The specifics might have been different but there's no way of knowing if they'd have been better or worse if not for my luck or our actions or whatever. I've complained about it a lot, and probably always will, but there's no way of measuring what my luck did or didn't do and that applies to everything—the road not traveled and all that. We'll never know if things would have been better or worse if they'd been different. But what I do know is that if not for you, this mission never would have gotten off the ground and I never would have been able to save those people up there."

A saw her look up at the White Whale and pressed on.

"If not for what we did—and I never would have made it if not for the books and training you guys gave me—over a thousand people wouldn't be here right now, wouldn't get a chance to start new lives. Rather than how dangerous it was, I'd prefer to think that all's well that ends well. And in my eyes, this ended pretty well."

"…Yeah," She said, at once seeming to agree and sound unconvinced. I saw her nearly smile before the expression became strained and faded slightly. "Thank you for…everything. I mean it. You didn't have to…but…"

"No problem," I shrugged, smile becoming honest again and I gazed at the White Whale. "I was glad to do it. Really."

"I'm…" She began before stopping herself and starting again. "Thanks. For helping me. And them. If there's anything…"

"Well…" I mused looking back at her. "I'm level thirty now…if you're up to it and my mother doesn't murder me, I wouldn't mind making a party and killing some Grimm together. I'm a lot stronger now, so we can try our hand at some bigger targets, split the experience fifty-fifty, and gain some levels. What do you say?"

"Somehow, I'm completely unsurprised," Adam shook his head. "You've got a one track mind. Be on the lookout, Blake; you've seen what kind of insanity follows him around. I wish you luck."

"Hey, don't think you're getting off light, either," I told him, pointing at him with a mock glare. "I only have a few levels to go before I'm within ten levels of you and then we're all gonna have fun. I learnt the next of Bai Hu's techniques and let's just say I think we can make our Giant Nevermore strategy even more fun."

"Oh joy," He replied. "Oh fucking rapture."

"The ship, boys," Blake reminded, still looking exhausted and sad but somewhat less of the latter. "There's still work to do."

"One sec, wanted to give you the heads up and talk about a few things before we take care of them," I paused, looking around the small town. "You can take care of them all, right?"

"Yes. We're still waiting on several ships and it's taking a bit longer to get everything in place because of Ziz," Blake said, pausing for a moment in midsentence to close her eyes, apparently struggling to get her thoughts in order.

"Everyone's on guard so it's harder but we'll manage." Adam clarified.

"Okay," I nodded, deciding where to begin. It wasn't a hard choice, because there was something I wanted to put off. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you I woke up the Aura's of the Faunus onboard."

There was a moment of silence as they looked at me, staring.

"When you say you woke their Auras…" Adama began. "How many do you mean?"

"Uh," I said. "Over nine hundred. I told the rest I'd need to speak with you guys before finishing the job, but I'll get the rest later."

The silence returned.

"Yeah," Adam said after a minute, Blake looking like she had a headache or at least a worse one then she'd had before. "I assume this is the result of some application of bullshit but I'm still going to need an explanation for this one."

"I figured they'd be safer if I woke up their Aura, considering the world we live in and how Faunus are treated. I knew the general concept from the books I've eaten and read, so I figured I'd try it at least, give them the best odds I could," I explained. "It worked, too, but the thing cost two thousand MP each time I used it, at least initially. Thankfully, when I was at the mine I stole the local store of Dust—probably a day's worth or so. I told you the healing skill I used could restore MP, right? I used it to restore myself between castings. Did it about a thousand times or so."

"…I reiterate," He said. "Bullshit. That's…"

He paused for a moment, frowning slightly to himself as he began mouthing what seemed like numbers to himself, probably calculating the effective cost, before shaking his head in irritation.

"Has it been improving?" Blake asked and I nodded.

"Pretty quickly, too…sorta," I said. "For an Active technique, it's gone up pretty fast relative to the number of castings; as an example, most of my Active skills take between twenty-five and forty castings to reach level two and then go up quickly from there. For this, I reached the second level after ten…but it took about as many minutes and twenty thousand MP. Each level reduces the cost by about twenty MP, which would be really amazing if it wasn't such a ruthless bitch to begin with. I'm almost at level twenty now, though, which…still leaves it exhausting."

"Still, to draw out the Aura of nearly a thousand people in a day…that's amazing," She said. "If you could somehow get it low enough to cast at a reasonable rate or if you had a steady supply of Dust…no, if you could get the skill to a hundred…"

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "I know. It's cool, even just thinking about it. If I could train it enough to use it easily…it'd take an enormous number of castings or a huge amount of Dust, but…I want to. Be able to enlighten people easily. If I could do it to a thousand people in a day at this level then in a few years or however long it takes…"

I shook my head.

"I just…" I chucked slightly, not even entirely sure what I wanted to say. "Could I do it to a whole city? To everyone I met? If I could do that…"

"How are you going to train it, though?" Adam asked. "The math is kind of against you. How many more Dust crystals do you have if you used a thousand?"

"A fair few," I said. "Enough to have some on hand after this is over. You're right though, on its own it's not gonna cut it, not even if I keep improving Soulforge. I'm still working on how to handle that, even with the lower number of castings needed. I'll use it whenever I can, but it'll take a long time to level up that way. If I want to make headway any time soon, I'd need either a lot of money, a lot of Dust, or an even more absurd way of restoring my MP. For now…if I survive my triumphant return home, I'll practice it nearby."

"You'll draw a lot of attention that way," Blake warned. "People who awake others under the table always do."

"I know," I said. "Thinking about if I even want to do it that way; it'd be a good way to make money, I mean, and I'm sure Junior could hook me up, but…the type of people I'd be awakening that way would probably not be the cleanest of characters. I could do it for free, but that'd draw a lot of attention…maybe not in a bad way, though? But for now, I think I'll stick to practicing it on animals."

"Animals?" Adam complained. "Really? I mean, is Vale not weird enough without a population of super animals?"

I shrugged, still smiling.

"It's an easy way to practice subtly, if I'm careful," I said. "And I always feel bad for things in the wild who have to survive among the Grimm; that must be tough as hell. I'll try to keep it far enough from the city to avoid a horde of fire-breathing squirrels or something and I'm sure I have some animal related skills, but…"

I shrugged again.

"Yeah," I said. "Anyway, getting back to the point—I unlocked their Aura's and healed their illnesses and injuries, so they should be fine on that note. I just wanted you know so you weren't surprised later. Anyway, I'll stick around to finish up the remainder, stick around long enough to see everyone off safely, and then probably head home, I guess. Besides that…what I really wanted to ask was…did you, uh…"

"Get your message, through?" Blake asked quietly and I nodded, feeling nervous and guilty and worried. "Yes. We sent it anonymously after we were sure you'd be in the clear. They should have gotten it by now."

"Okay," I nodded. "Right, yeah. Okay. That's…that's good."

"It's good you messaged us when you did," Adam said, continuing even after Blake shot him a glare. "Before you called, we'd been discussing how to deliver the news of your death to family. We were gonna have to speak at your funeral and everything—and trust me, you wouldn't want that; it doesn't end very well when we have to write speeches."

"That is good," I said. "If you'd told them how I died, you'd have joined me shortly after."

Adam snorted.

"Still might have to go to your funeral, huh?" He asked. "Do me a favor? Just go ahead and leave me everything in your will to make up for the inconvenience."

"Do me a favor?" I returned. "Go fuck yourself off a building. I'm bringing the ship down."

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