章 49: The Two Powers
Young Salem thought about her second life, about her daddy and moms, and her many aunties and uncles, about granny Summer, grampa Tai, and all of her siblings whom she loved with her whole being.
She did not know everything that had happened in this world, but she understood that it was bad and that likely some of the people that she loved so much had been hurt, and even killed, in this world.
Maybe they were not exactly the same people, but it still made her feel sad, and made her more and more determined to kill her darker half, not just to free herself from her curse anymore, but also to help protect those that were left of her loved ones here.
Thinking this she burst forth out of the ground and flew into the air a bit, disintegrating Grimm that came too close to her while using magic to pinpoint her evil parts location. She had found it, but became distracted by something else and landed on a roof to handle that quickly.
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When Winter emerged from the portal into Vacuo, she found them all caught in a sandstorm with the Grimm attacking, and Penny and others fighting them off. As people looked towards Winter, Salem's body double appeared beside her "Jeez, I was not expecting this." Young Salem's body double shot magic into the air and the sandstorm immediately disappeared, followed by hundreds of magical projectiles beginning to form and targeting Grimm in a barrage of death and destruction.
Penny and Winter were killing many Grimm as well, but Salem had them beat by a large margin. After about a minute and a half, there were no Grimm left in their surroundings.
Young Salem then landed next to Ruby "Unlike papa, I cannot control more then one body at a time yet. Please protect this body, Mama Ruby. It is my lifeline, just in case I can't beat my dark half, so that I will stay alive."
Before Ruby could answer, Young Salem returned her focus to her body in Atlas, and allowed her body double to fall into the waiting arms of her Mama Ruby.
------
Young Salem regained her senses in her body in Atlas and sensed again for her evil parts location and found her much closer now. Little Salem took to the air and flew in that direction and landed near her other self around a minute later.
Young Salem saw the look of Rage on her evil counterparts face and giggled "I am not sure what you are thinking, but I am sure that whatever it is, you are completely wrong."
"What is Ozpin scheming?" the Grimm Queen sneered.
"That old uncle has no idea that I exist." Young Salem answered with a spirited tone "You see, Salem, I am your good half. I have met the conditions to be free from the curse of the gods, but unfortunately it clings to me still, because you still exist. To be free once and for all, I have to kill you, and considering what happened to Mama Amber and who knows who else, I have plenty of motive to kill you beyond just freedom from the curse."
"Stupid child. I cannot be killed by you or by anyone else." the Grimm Queen snarled.
"We will see about that, wont we?" Salem asked confidently. Little Salem's confidence was not misplaced. She knew that if she could out-maneuver her evil side and gain an advantage, that she had the magic to deal with her once and for all, and even if her barbaric half overpowered her and could not be killed yet, she still had her body double and could still escape easily, so to her it was not about if she would be able to defeat her other half, but about when.
Young Salem retrieved her lightsaber from her belt and the silver blade soon came alive in her hand. 'By all means, keep on underestimating me until you are destroyed once and for all, and I am free.' she thought internally.
------
Presently Death, Pyrrha and Qui Gon found themselves in some old catacombs on the planet Exegol. It appeared that these catacombs, which Darth Sidious was currently dwelling in, were protected against Force Teleportation, so the duo came in on foot.
Yes, he could have probably entered with space magic, but his intuition told him that while it was possible, it would not go unnoticed, and Darth Sidious might flee if someone 'powerful enough' to circumvent the anti-teleportation affect appeared.
Yes, he could follow Darth Sidious anywhere in the universe that he might try to hide, but it would be troublesome to have to keep chasing his useless ass. So Death deemed it as appropriate to make an approach using stealth.
They occasionally met cultists wearing all black who apparently served or maybe even worshipped Darth Sidious, but Death killed them before they could call out a warning and stashed their bodies in his inventory to avoid a mess.
Like this, Death had guided them through the labyrinth of catacombs, bringing them to this point, where they reached a large double door, which he shoved open with Force telekinesis, violently ripping it off it's ancient hinges.
"Pyrrha, Qui Gon, take care of the add-ons. I'll deal with Palpatine" Death instructed as he entered first and then changed towards the group of 30 cultists before leaping over them with a force-enhanced jump and activating his lightsaber-scythe, with it's cyan colored blade.
Palpatine was certainly surprised by the sudden intrusion, along with the fact that the Jedi having apparently already realized he was alive, but it did not stop him from activating his red-bladed lightsaber to defend himself.
The next thing he wondered was how this Jedi had identified him so fast when he was dressed similarly to the cultists, but he grew confident that as long as Yoda and Mace Windu were not here, then he could triumph.
While Sheev Palpatine could not recognize every Jedi on sight, he believed that he could recognize all of the Jedi's that could possible be dangerous to him, so how could he not feel arrogant.
Death's Lightsaber Scythe was incredibly heavy, and Sidious was knocked back several steps with each swing that he blocked, but he believed that this 'no-name' Jedi couldn't possibly match his own stamina for a prolonged fight, even if he had just stuck with lightsaber combat. Sidious, though, had more then a lightsaber at his disposal, and decided to go all out and after getting a little distance unleashed force lightning at Death.
Death did not bother to dodge, and came in swinging his lightsaber scythe. Death was hit dead center in his chest by a lot of lightning, but thanks to taking such a hit he got a good swing in and cut off Palpatine's left arm at the elbow.
Palpating howled in pain "Madman!" he called out accusingly, then noticed a more troubling detail. Death was not hurt at all by his force lightning! How could force lightning work against Death, who was wearing a ring of Universal Elemental Immunity? His ring granted him immunity to fire, acid, cold, sonic and lightning effects and damage!
Palpatine didn't know that, and did not understand why Death was fine, but he finally realized that this man was a threat, whoever he was.
------
Salem had been fighting the Grimm Queen for around 2 hours, and while the Grimm Queen was not experienced in true combat the way that little Salem was, she still instinctively understood that the lightsaber in little Salem's hand was dangerous, and used magic to defend herself with brute force instead of finesse and skill.
The Grimm Queen had arrogantly believed that due to the difference in strength between them, that she would easily kill who she considered to be a little brat, but her expectations had been shattered with the fight lasting this long.
While both little Salem and the Grimm Queen had scored innumerable hits on each other in the last two hours, they had both healed too fast from each of the hits, with their being no decisive blows between them.
While the fight to date had been each of them hurling magic at each other and little Salem swinging her lightsaber, that did not mean that Salem was out of plans. In fact, she had learned from her daddy to play the long game. His semblance let little Salem regenerate her magic as fast as she was able to use it, but the Grim Queen had no such advantage. As the fight lingered on and on, the Grimm Queen would be negatively impacted while Little Salem remained perfectly fine.
In such a situation, the Grimm Queen was growing more and more pissed off.
"Just die you stupid brat!" the Grimm Queen demanded with outrage while deciding to go the nuclear option and prepared to explode all her remaining magic at once.
'Now!' Young Salem thought and used dimension shifting magic on herself and the Grimm Queen and entered the new ranch 'dimension' that was created within what her father called his 'inventory', which was simultaneously in no dimension at all as well as in any dimension that one with access to his inventory is currently inside.
This meant that she was able to enter without breaking her connection to her body double in Vacuo, and as expected, the sudden and massive increase in gravity caused the Grimm Queen to plummet to the ground and interrupted her magic, temporarily preventing it from happening.
Little Salem seized the opportunity and used her lightsaber to rapidly slice the Grimm Queen into many tiny pieces. Realizing that she had to act fast, Salem started using soul magic like her daddy taught her, and captured the Grimm Queen's unconscious soul and rapidly absorbed it into herself.
The Grimm Queen instinctively tried to struggle against having her soul wholly absorbed, but due to the extended battle having exhausted her, and due to young Salem's much superior magical finesse, it was not a battle that the Grimm Queen could win.
After nearly another hour, the Grimm Queen's soul was no more, having become a part of young Salem, though her body had still long since regenerated. Little Salem placed the now soulless body into her inventory and then traded places with her body double, and found herself in a bed with Ruby seated next to her.
"You woke up! Are you alright?!" Ruby asked as Little Salem sat up.
"I'm fine, Mama Ruby. The bad version of me is gone for good now." Little Salem insisted proudly, then looked at the unknown boy who was also in the room. It took Little Salem a few seconds to understand the situation "Oh, so in this world Uncle Ozpin died too?"
"Can you tell me where you came from?" the boy asked her with curiosity.
"I have nothing to hide." Little Salem insisted "Apparently when papa was young, he was guided by a foreign deity to Remnant, which he decided to enter and try to save from the bad me after seeing Mama Ruby from outside Remnant, visiting an unknown grave and then fighting a bunch of Beowolves. Papa ses a scythe, so he was impressed by mama ruby's looks and her skill. Unbeknownst to us, though, the brother gods set up a contingency where if a foreign power like that god that guided papa to Remnant interfered on Remnant, then the world would be copied without that unwanted influence and would go on. This meant that when papa appeared as a 'foreign' force, a version of the world was recreated without papa's intervention, and that is this world, which I will call Remnant Prime. Papa taught me many magics, including dimensional transfer, and he told me how to break the curse of the brother gods, but it did not work."
"Does the reason it did not work have something to do with why you are here?" Oscar/Ozpin asked.
Salem nodded "I meditated on it, seeking an answer for years, and eventually I sensed a connection to my evil self here on Remnant Prime, and I came here to deal with it. Basically, she was incapable of breaking the curse and since I had a connection to her, as long as she existed I couldn't break the curse."
"May I ask how you defeated her?" Oscar asked.
"I exhausted her then absorbed her soul into mine when she could not resist, destroying her memories and ego in the process, and leaving her Grimm parts in her soulless body." Little Salem insisted "Papa also taught me soul magic, though I am not anywhere near as good at it as he is, so this was the only method I had available to beat her. I'll get papa to make sure she can never escape again when I get home. He cannot come here since if he does it will just create an alternate Remnant, since he is originally foreign from Remnant. I'm not though, so here I am."
"Your father sounds incredible" Oscar sighed "It sounds as though our Remnant really could have benefitted from his presence"
"Papa is the best" Salem said happily "I'm sorry that we did not know about the brother gods' countermeasures at all, and I came by myself the moment I discovered it. I fear that this world may have lost many of my precious people like Mama Amber.
"So how many mothers do ya have kiddo?" Yang asked as she entered the room with Weiss and Blake.
"Yaaang, you don't need to ask that" Weiss said with surprise.
"In addition to Mama Ruby, Mama Yang, Mama Weiss, and Mama Blake, daddy also married Mama Amber Quince, who is our Remnant's Fall Maiden, Mama Neo, who is our Remnant's Spring, Mama May Zedong, our Summer maiden, Mama Penny, our Winter, Mama Neon Katt, Mama Ciel Soliel, Mama Melanie Malachite, Mama Miltia Malachite, Mama Velvet Scarlatina, Mama Pyrrha Nikos, Mama Gwen Darcy, Mama Octavia Ember, Mama Reese Chloris, Mama Ultear Milkovich and Mama Ilia Amitola" Salem admitted to the group, causing Ruby, Weiss and Oscar to blush, at first, while he was still listing the names, while Blake seemed amused, and Yang heartily laughed. They grew somber and even Yang was silenced, though, when they heard Pyrrha's name.
"While I don't know the status of all of those people, I do know some" Oscar admitted sadly "When Beacon was attacked, Miss Quince, Miss Nikos and Miss Zedong were killed. Last I heard, of the names I know, they were all alive."
"I get that your father is amazing, but how does he manage to keep 19 wives satisfied?" Yang asked.
"Papa is the best papa." Salem insisted "He spends lots of time with me and all my siblings."
"Wait, you have siblings?" Yang was shocked.
"For us, the battle of Beacon, when my evil half invaded Vale, happened 12 years and change ago" Salem insisted "Just to list the children of the team RWBY of my Remnant, Yuki Schnee is Mama Weiss's daughter. Ebon Rose is Mama Blake's son, and mama Ruby really wanted a son, so she had three daughters, Scarlet, Celest and hope Rose, before finally getting her wish and having the twin boys, Sylvain and Rowan Rose."
"Your Mama Ruby had five children?" Blake asked with shock, then looked at Ruby.
"I didn't have any children?" Yang asked her.
Salem shook her head "Not yet at least, but you always spoil Ruby's daughters and sons. Granny Summer and Grampa Tai spoil them as well, though they are a bit more subtle about their favoritism then you are, Mama Yang."
"M...Mom is still alive in your world?" Ruby looked like she was about to start crying.
"I'm sorry. I did not mean to make you sad" Salem said, feeling guilty while hugging Ruby. She also felt sad to hear that granny Summer was dead here "I need to return to papa now, and I will return soon to help you make this Remnant better. Papa already killed nearly all the grimm on our Remnant, so what is one more?"
"It's not that easy, I fear" Oscar noted "You said that your father can'tt come here."
"But papa's knowledge can. We can have your relic of creation make Naquadah caps for the Grimm pools so that they stop putting out an endless number of Grimm like we did on our Remnant." Salem countered to Oscar "Papa has records of every grimm pool found in our Remnant, and since they are closely related, they should be in the same place here. You wont have the protection of the Sword of Edicts like our Remnant does, but it will make things a lot better here. I'll have papa prepare the information for you all." after saying this, she dimensionally transferred herself back to the Pokémon Ranch dimension, to a corner of it where an unconscious Neopolitan was laying down.
Salem snapped her fingers and let Neo begin to wake up and sit up "Don't try to escape the barrier. The gravity outside of it is too much for you to bear" she warned.
'Who are you?' Neo used her semblance to hold up a sign with that written on it.
"My name is Salem. You know my evil half already." she dumped the lifeless body of her evil half on the ground next to her "As you can see, I finished her off, Mama Neo."
'Why do you call me that?' was the next sign Neo held up, while staring at the Grimm Queen's body.
"I came from a parallel universe." Salem answered "In that universe, Auntie Fury met you in Vacuo, when you'd been kidnapped by three men and one of them was planning to rape you and then sell you to a brothel. I'm guessing that in your Remnant, Auntie Fury wasn't there to rescue you, but it's also possible you were never in that situation in the first place. I'm guessing that even if there are differences between the Neo of our world and you, that you still had a much more difficult childhood. What you don't know, though, is that my evil half, in my world at least, arranged it all, A man named Tyrian Callows, under my evil parts orders, instructed those three men to capture you and put you in the brothel in Vacuo, to make you easier to manipulate in the future, because they determined your semblance had value as a future pawn. Auntie Fury foiled their plans for you and killed Tyrian Callows. As for why you became Mama Neo, when you met Papa in my Remnant, Papa healed you and gave you the ability to speak, so you fell in love with papa. Can you tell me why you were trying to kill Mama Ruby? In my Remnant, you are close friends with her, and consider each other sisters."
Salem stepped inside the barrier "I'll heal your vocal cords like Papa taught me, so that we can talk properly."
Neo's eyes enlarged when she heard those words, but did not stop Salem as she used her fathers semblance and her healing magic together to not only heal Neo's brain and vocal cords, but also to strengthen them. At the time her papa met Neo, he had not mastered such magic, and had only been able to heal her vocal cords, and Neo had to strengthen them over time after that, but that was not necessary with her magic in the mix.
"Did it work?" Neo asked, and was shocked when she actually heard the words coming out of her mouth.
Salem and Neo had a long conversation after Neo had finished crying in happiness, where Neo told her about Roman Torchwick rescuing her from her own horrible situation and becoming her first and only friend, who was more like a father to her then her real father ever was She had truly been happy with the life that they had together, and was filled with hatred after she lost her one pillar of strength. Salem additionally told her that her evil half likely arranged her to meet Torchwick from the shadows, to make her loyal to the thief, and thus make her easier to manipulate through him in the future.
She made a mental note to ask Mama Neo how she ended up in Vacuo later.
Salem did not say that Roman Torchwick knew he was being manipulated, but she did reveal that Roman Torchwick's father, Aiden Torchwick, at least in her version of Remnant, had been a follower of Salem, so he was certainly on Salem's radar from the beginning, and had been left alone until she needed to use him. In other words, her meeting Torchwick and getting her first bonf with him. while certainly sincere from Torchwicks perspective, was likely all part of the Grimm Queen's grand scheme, even if Torchwick had been completely unaware of the likely subtle manipulation that brought them together.
By the end of the conversation, Salem had convinced Neo that the people responsible for her Roman Torchwick's death were Cinder Fall and the Grimm Queen, both of whom were now dead.
Salem was just contemplating bringing this Neo to El Dorado to meet the Neo from her Remnant, along with her sister Iris, who was Neo's daughter. but her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a blue egg nearby her in a portable incubator.
"Oh, the egg Papa found is about to hatch!" Salem jogged over and sat next to the egg and opened the incubator to watch as it hatched excitedly.
Neo became curious as well, since the egg had started glowing with a light blue light
------
Pyrrha and Qui Gon had already finished dealing with the cultists and Pyrrha had Qui Gon stay back from the fight between Death and Sheev Palpatine. The two had been at it for a solid hour, with Palpatine surprisingly holding out well, though still unable to his Death either.
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Quest Complete : Defeat Salem of Remnant Prime
Reward : Legendary Summoning Token (Star Wars), Charmander Egg, Analyze Skill, 2 Levels, 1 Billion Shop Points
Charmander Egg has been placed in your storage.
Would you like to use the Legendary Summoning Token (Star Wars) and select a figure from the Star Wars Universe to resurrect at his/her prime?
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Seeing the notification that he had just received made Death grin "Well, enough goofing around, don't you think Senator Palpatine?" he chuckled "I'll end this by resurrecting the greatest Jedi Grandmaster to have ever lived! Satele Shan!"
As he called out that, he selected her using the Legendary Summoning Token.
Palpatine, of course, did not like the sound of that, and became more frantic about trying to kill Death as fast as possible, because while he did not know whether or not she was the greatest grandmaster to have ever lived, he knew that in her time, Satele Shan was certainly the most powerful.
Palpatine believed that Death was bluffing, at first, but had wanted to take no chances, hence his increased aggression and determination, but his skepticism was proven wrong when a brown haired woman appeared not far away, holding a double-bladed lightsaber, which she activated to reveal a pair of bronze colored lightsabers that had a distinctive Orange glow radiating from them.
Death recognized that her lightsaber had the unique Kyber Crystal called 'Heart of the Guardian', which similar to his own Kyber Crystal, which was called 'Mantle of the Force', had once belonged to Revan. Maybe her possessing that should not have been so surprising, as she was a descendent of Revan and his wife, Bastila Shan.
Thanks to Death's system, Satele Shan was provided with a basic understanding of the situation, and realized that Darth Sidious was a Dark Lord of the Sith, and thus joined in the fight against Sidious.
"Curse you, Jedi!" Sidious said angrily barely managing to deflect attacks from Death and Satele now, and no longer able to go on the offensive at all due to how suppressed he was by the attacks of the two of them.
Qui Gon stared at the scene, shocked by the sudden appearance of another woman, and if he believed Death's words, then the sudden resurrection of one of the most legendary Jedi to have ever lived, and who was even grandmaster of the whole Jedi Order!
Qui Gon had seen images of Satele Shan, so he certainly could see similarities between Satele Shan and the woman Death had identified as Satele Shan, but the Satele Shan he had seen images of and the one before him now were not the same. This Satele Shan physically looked to be in her late teens, with a slightly youthful appearance that she grew out of before she actually became grandmaster of the Jedi Order. The skill she displayed, though, was absolutely at a level he considered to be appropriate for a grandmaster, and the battle that had been at a pretty much even playing field was very obviously now stacked against Palpatine.
Death could have killed Palpatine very easily right from the start, but if he went all out he would not have been able to combine it with soul disintegration magic to make certain Palpatine had no chance to escape again, which would have meant him chasing Palpatine again and potentially having to start the battle all over again. Him needing to be ready to cast magic as well was the only reason Death could only fight at Palpatine's level and was unable to suppress him prior to Satele Shan's appearance.
Now, though, Death let Satele Shan take the lead and land the long anticipated killing blow against Palpatine, while Death immediately captured Palpatine's soul and forced it to appear, then started disintegrating it.
Palpatine wailed in agony, but was unable to escape from the horseman of Death, and soon nothing was left of him.
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Quest Complete : Permanently defeat Darth Sidious
Reward : Matter Manipulation Skill, 2 levels, 1 Billion Shop Points
Would you like to fuse Matter Manipulation, Woodshaping, Metal Transmutation, and Foodie into Arc of Embodiment Skill Tree?
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After returning to the Republic Space Ship with Pyrrha, Qui Gon, and Satele, Death learned of the disappearance of Salem, and he decided to teleport to her location, which ended up being in his Pokémon Ranch. Neo was even there with her. He approached behind Neo and saw the pair looking at his unknown egg that was about to hatch, and he gently pinched Neo's butt and turned her to face him and kissed her passionately "Hello darling." he said with a flirtatious tone.
"Papa, the egg is hatching!" Salem explained to him, completely unaffected by the fact that his hands were groping Neo all over.
Suddenly, Death noticed something weird. This Neo did not appear to be the Spring Maiden. "Wait, where are your maiden powers?" he asked, before finally recalling the notification he'd gotten related to 'Remnant Prime.'
"Errr...You are not my Neo, are you?" Death suddenly asked Neo, who still looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Neo shook her head after a couple moments.
"Err, sorry about that. It seems like Salem has quite a story to tell me." Death answered while releasing this Neo from his arms.
The glowing of the egg faded, and in place of the egg was a tiny creature with light blue fur and adorable blue eyes. It was just about the most adorable creature Death had ever seen. He recognized what the Pokémon was immediately, but decided to test his analyze ability anyway.
As he analyzed it, the tiny Pokémon giggled and flew directly into Death's chest and seemed very affectionate.
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Name : ???
Species Mew (Shiny-Variant)
Height : 6 inches
Weight : 1.8 pounds
Type : Psychic
Ability : Synchronize, Telepathy, Imposter
Personality : Modest
Gender : Male
Egg Group : Ditto
Moves : Transform (Innate), Teleport (Innate), Metronome (Innate), Miracle Eye (Innate), Pound
Potential : Gold
Level : 1
HP : C-
ATK : D+
DEF : C-
Sp. ATK : C
Sp. DEF : C-
SPD : C-
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