KaliQuest (Project Moon/RWBY)

Emotional Turbulence 6.2

Seeing two Aura users in action against each other. It's giving you an idea of how fights on Remnant might play out. All-or-nothing clashes. Huntsmen either fight at their best or they do not fight at all. Injury is no longer a factor as long as Aura remains. You'll need to remember to keep that in mind.

One of your favorite tactics will no longer work. In the City, almost nothing could stand up to a horizontal sweep with your full power behind it. Even the strongest Fixers would be left staggered and maimed, choking on a mist of their own blood. Easy pickings from there.

Huntsmen do not bleed.

The thought does leave you curious as you turn towards Xiao. Her eyes are fixed on the unfolding fight, concerned for Miris's safety.

What kind of woman must she be, to ascend to Director of the Association of all-out war? To earn the undying loyalty of so many Liu Fixers, Miris among them? To manifest her own E.G.O with no Abnormality assistance required, something Carmen once said should be impossible?

"Xiao," you begin, meeting her red-eyed gaze, "you manifested E.G.O., back in the forest. How did that happen? What do you know about it?"

Her brow furrows, though she doesn't turn to you. "E.G.O… the source of your power. And the reason that you were made a Color Fixer. Most of what I know comes from Miris, who in turn learned it from you. The only difference in our mutual understanding: I believe it is also called 'Psychoment', according to Hana. Though information more solid than a mirage is—was difficult to obtain."

The term is unfamiliar to you, but it does seem fitting. Equipment manifested from the psyche. Psychoment. As far as wordplay goes, it's not worse than Carmen's silly name. You still prefer hers.

Xiao isn't finished.

"As for how I came to possess it, 'manifest' it… It happened in that hellish Library. After Section 1 was wiped out to a man, after Miris…"

She hesitates, closing her eyes. Grief and regret clearly war across her face. And for a moment, you think she will clam up entirely. Silence reigns, punctuated only by Qrow and Miris's quiet grunts of exertion. Steel thudding against flesh, the swishes of rain interrupted.

But eventually, her face smoothes, eyes opening with a strange, new kind of determination.

"Apologies. These memories may be painful. But they are entirely mine to bear. I should not run away from them."

Before you can so much as open your mouth, whether to reassure or… anything else, you dunno, Xiao plows ahead with her recounting, voice steady.

"You know why I entered the Library. A truly selfish desire: to retrieve Lowell's book. Many Fixers of Section 1 followed me. And all of them perished. Moths, diving into a flame burning brightly for someone else. And seeing them fall, die, and burst into books, the same way Lowell must have done not so long ago… I began having doubts. Guilt, piling up in my mind. And when Miris pulled me away, faster than I could react, it gave me time to think.

"That was the worst part."

You understand. It's no secret. Stray thoughts are the most dangerous thing when trying to manifest your E.G.O.. And Xiao, in this strange prototype stage that shouldn't even be possible…

"It was Miris that reminded me. That he, Chun, and everyone else. That I had stepped down as the Director of Section 1, and held no more power over them. And that they had chosen to assist me, for whatever reason. Faith? Hope? Charity? It didn't matter."

"Perhaps, if that voice, charming and otherworldly, had spoken to me mere moments earlier, in that despair-filled state of mind, I may have made a different decision. But I digress."

A voice…?

"No one can fault your best. Rest, Pyrrha Nikos."

"Carmen?" you whisper, too quiet for even Miris to hear.

"No, back up a moment," you say, your own voice somehow urgent yet distant. "What kind of voice? What do you mean?"

You need an answer. You need this answer. You didn't know that you did. But this… has become the single most important thing you can even think of. All-consuming.

"It must have been in my head; Miris heard nothing, despite standing right next to me. But I did not imagine it. It was unfamiliar to me, and yet I knew: this speaker was the wisest person in the world. Perhaps incorrect, but the experience in her words was unmistakable."

"I would want to be a person with a beautiful voice, like the wisest person in the world."

Carmen. It has to be Carmen. How could it be Carmen? Carmen, Carmen, Carmen…

You didn't see it personally. That porcelain pool of guilt and despair. Where her lifeblood spilled out and nobody saw until it was too late. But you see it in your nightmares, those lifeless limbs, pale hands, reaching out from within the bloody bath.

She'd never lift her head again. That bastard had taken her, to fulfill the mission she'd always preached. And, in ten years, perhaps even succeeded—But it wasn't worth it. Nothing could be worth it. Disease of the mind your ass—You'd never see her eyes, her smile. And never hear her voice. Until now. How, in all—

You wish you could have understood her better. Those fancy hypotheses and charts and graphs, units and all the science you'd simply brushed off as not your business. All that talk of wells and Cogito and—hell, you don't even know what it is, barring 'what we so desperately need to fulfill Carmen's vision'. You were there for protection.

You didn't protect jack shit. Even those that remain… you went off and died, fruitlessly. And Ayin must have gone on with the original plan. That inhumane, soulless… No. It's not his fault. He simply played his role.

You're the fucking failure. The courage to protect… you can't reach it…

"Who is Carmen?"

Xiao. Her voice. Startling.

…It could be a coincidence. Must be. Anyone could say those words. And Carmen. You know. She is dead. You should have died instead, but this is the world you live in. Well, not any longer.

You need to pull yourself together.

"An old friend of mine. You reminded me of her," you finally say, a half-truth. You're not good at those, and it shows: Xiao's eyes show suspicion. She thinks you know more. But you don't. Surely you can't. You struggle to remember what Xiao was discussing, change the topic. Heavy for small-talk, but anything is better than…

Fucking stray thoughts. You have a completely different black-haired red-eyed leader to deal with.

"What happened afterwards? Miris gave you a pep talk. Then what?" you say, turning your head back towards Qrow and Miris. A distraction.

They… are certainly still duking it out, mostly as you expected. You could tell the outcome of this fight before it began. Qrow is stronger than Miris. This was never in question.

What surprises you is how close it all is. Or, rather, isn't. Miris is a fine Fixer. But even clearly holding back, barely using the firearm built into his weapon, Qrow always holds a clear upper hand. The Liu Fixer gets some licks in, even managing to put Qrow on the back foot once or twice. But nothing ever comes of those opportunities, and his Aura continues to steadily drop, green turning yellow.

Xiao finally continues her tale. And concludes it: "There is not much more to say. Following our conversation, I found a strange power within me, coupled with some… physical alterations. I'm not one for poetry—"

That's a blatant fucking lie.

"-but I could compare it to the heat of the rising sun, followed by the light of high noon. The fire of a dragon's breath. We returned to the battlefield… and, in time, lost. That E.G.O. or Psychoment, regardless of what one calls it, was not enough."

The ex-Liu Director's eyes flick down towards the Aura monitor in front of her, then back to you.

"I have a query of my own. What do you know of the Distortion phenomenon?"

Hm. You've encountered exactly one Distortion to your knowledge. And when you'd clashed against Pyrrha, that feeling had been similar to clashing against Xiao. Fighting thoughts and emotions given form, in the form of their weaponry. There must be a link there, somewhere.

You'd asked Miris, earlier. But maybe asking straight from the source will help. This 'Distortion Phenomenon'... if it can consistently produce threats akin to the Beacon Tower specter, you ought to be prepared for it.

"Not much," you admit. "There's some link between Distortion and E.G.O., but I don't know what or how. From the one Distortion I've encountered, I get the sense that… fuck. Distortion's less pure, somehow? Tainted, maybe?"

Smoldering versus blazing. Cinders instead of dragons.

Xiao nods. "I didn't expect anything substantial. The White Nights were after your time, after all. I had still hoped you had additional insight, with your knowledge of E.G.O.. But I had surmised as much myself."

That term again. You really need to figure out what those 'White Nights' are. The source of Distortions?

A torrent of flames captures your attention for a brief moment. The sound of Miris landing a solid hit on Qrow with a flaming fist, the outline of a dragon surrounding him for a split second. The Huntsman somehow turns his momentum to his own advantage, flipping back around and resuming his offensive.

Miris's Aura is in the red. Won't be long now.

"I have fought and captured a number of Distortions, and can theorize: Distortions are created when someone fails to manifest E.G.O.. Every time I encountered one, I almost felt as if the human behind it was… lacking something. Drive, perhaps. Or maybe they had that drive, but lost it. I don't have enough evidence to say for sure."

Interesting, but ultimately unhelpful. And a slightly different interpretation than Miris's, who'd seemed to treat the two as two sides of the same coin, somehow. You still nod in thanks.

The Scroll beeps in alarm. Simultaneously, you hear Miris's Aura shatter, like the sound of breaking glass. The spar is over. You take a glance at Qrow's Aura meter, for the first time, and find that it is still healthily in the green. Less than a third depleted, if you had to estimate.

Huh.

Miris accepts his defeat with grace, and Qrow immediately retreats and relents, planting his greatsword into the ground. Xiao tucks her Scroll away into her jacket, lifting the bright red sword she was using as a cane. On closer inspection, it's not quite a Shi katana; rather, it's some kind of… elementally tempered blade. It radiates heat.

Actually. That might be just Xiao.

"I suppose it is my turn. It was a pleasure, Kali," she says.

You reply, "Yeah, thanks."

Miris takes her place as she squares off against Qrow, swinging her sword through the air experimentally. And… well. You guess you have a new conversation partner.


[ ] Conversation topics with Miris? (Pick three(?))

• [ ] Yourself
• [ ] Himself
• [ ] The laboratory
• [ ] Remnant
• [ ] Plans
• [ ] Aura
• [ ] Qrow
• [ ] White Nights
• [ ] Current events
• [ ] Write-in

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A/N: One bombshell finally dropped. That's cool, I guess. That chapter took an annoyingly long time to research and even longer to write convincingly.

I remember when I first started this quest, I figured it'd be an easy way to blow off steam. Kali's blunt and brusque, not very poetic, should be easy to push chapters out. Then I remembered that, uh, I had these annoying things called standards. And chapter commitments got higher and higher as I struggled to keep everybody in-character, including the idiom-loving Xiao, Qrow's weirdly sarcastic bluntness, etc. Thinking's the key to writing well. And while having less time to overthink has probably been good, it's also led to a number of mistakes I've only caught in post. Embarrassing.

I don't regret it, though. This is probably the third-most successful thing I've ever written, and definitely the second-longest. That's worth something.

As for the Miris vote… I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to push out a triple-length convo within my self-imposed deadline, especially on top of, like, actually narrating Xiao vs. Qrow. But I'm willing to try. So feel free to vote for up to three different things, I'll take the top two for sure, and if I've got time I'll do the third.

I'll probably struggle with that 'vote divisiveness' concept for a good while. Don't have high hopes on being able to fix that anytime soon, given the way I write stories. Considering the 'big vote' of where the story's main focus is going to be is coming up very soon… well, here's hoping.

Is it spoilers to say that it's highly unlikely that Xiao and Miris remain major characters for the foreseeable future?

Unrelated note: Mildly interesting Library of Ruina-related fun! Lepidoptera got me curious, mentioning GôDdBỹÉ's ridiculously high maxroll. So I compiled a list of the highest average rolls in Library of Ruina.