Chương 30: The Edicts
It only took three days after everyone returned to Vale for general Ironwood to speedily escort one of Death's Avatars to Atlas, where Death brought the schematics he had taken pictures of with his scroll to Pietro Polendina. Death sure didn't understand the schematics, so it was good to have Dr Polendina review them.
The problem, though, came with the Green Lantern Central Power Battery. that was well beyond the good Dr Polendina's ability to comprehend. Fortunately, Death could tell him it was some kind of battery, but he had no idea what sort of energy it used or where it came from, except that it might have some connection to Creation, from what the relic of knowledge had said.
All Pietro had to figure out was whether or not Atlas would drop from the sky if these plans were used. Death's avatar was stuck there a few days before Dr. Polendina said, with reasonable certainty, that the schematics provided by the relic of knowledge appeared to be a vastly improved design for Atlas, and that not only would it be able to remain floating, it would be able to move! How much and how fast it could move would depend upon how much energy the central power battery produced, which they just couldn't calculate, as they had no idea what the energy was or where it came from. But judging from the amount of energy that the battery could hold, if they could fill it once then Pietro Polendina theorized that the city could fly in circles around Remnant, twice as fast as the fastest ship Atlas currently possessed, for at least 1000 years.
Between that, and the fact that it was a way to truly defeat Salem. Using inventory, Death's avatar collected an Atlesian Stasis Pod and the real Death, who was still at Beacon, took it out in the Vault underneath Beacon and created another avatar and sent it into the pod. It was finally time.
After double checking and triple checking to make sure that the pod was working flawlessly, Death created a gate and passed through it to Atlas, dispelling the avatar that he found on the other end with General Ironwood, causing it to just disappear.
"That will always be a little bit weird." Ironwood noted.
"Everything is ready on Beacon's side. Is Fria ready to open the vault?" Death asked the general.
"I have already explained the situation to her" Ironwood confirmed "I'll bring you to meet her and then we can head down to the vault."
Death nodded in agreement and went ahead and followed the General, glad that the man was stopped from going nutso do to the opportunity that he was providing.
"By the way, I do not blame the you from that other timeline for snapping" Death said to Ironwood as he walked through the corridor just outside of the office they had left "Though we were shown a lot, I don't think we were shown everything. I think that other you had been through a lot more then we saw, and I also think that it is also true for the others. They should have trusted you more, and you probably would have been more trusting towards them in response. Maybe if you actually talked properly, you could have reached a compromise before that version of you snapped and became determined that his way is the only way. His way was wrong, and sacrificed too much, but whatever led Qrow and the others to not trusting you in that world, the part we didn't see, well, that was the root of the problem."
Ironwood glanced towards Death and nodded "I suspect that to be true as well. I just cannot understand the way Qrow and those kids didn't trust me there. Nothing I saw suggested that he gave them any cause to distrust him. To grow that desperate, though...Remnant is fortunate to have had you come, young man. Any doubts I had at first have been thoroughly dealt with."
"Your welcome, sir. I am pretty happy to be here as well." Death confirmed and chuckled, thinking about the young women that loved him and that he loved in turn, especially Ruby and May. Because of their Silver-eye trait, Death was most worried about them, so that was why he had left Ebony and Ivory with them, Ebony with May and Ivory with Ruby, though he had hoped that they wouldn't need them,
Death did not know how Salem turned Silver-Eyed Warriors into Hounds, so he did not know whether or not his semblance would protect them from it. It probably would, but probably just was not good enough for him to feel at ease.
He had also created daggers for both Neo and Amber, as they were maidens, and made them possessed weapons, thus they could basically bypass aura. They were not as powerful as Ebony and Ivory, but it was what he could manage to pull off for them.
Death desperately wanted everyone to stay safe, but when he really considered it the ones at the greatest risk were his two lovers who were maidens and the two with the silver-eyes trait. Weiss, Blake, Yang, Velvet, and the Malachite twins should definitely live, as long as he lived. Even though he knew this logically, he still worried about them, even if he could not do much more for them right now.
Ozpin, though, had seen the fall of Beacon with the assistance of Jinn, so hopefully it would not be nearly as bad as he feared. Of course, Leonardo Lionheart had never admitted to his betrayal and had not said who came to infiltrate Beacon, and they still had not discerned the invaders identity yet.
Of course, it's possible that Salem's plan is different now, and she didn't send anyone into Beacon, but Death knew that the Battle for Beacon was still happening in some form.
On the bright side, since Salem's minions had failed to steal part of Amber's power and she was still fine, Pyrrha didn't have to deal with receiving the powers, though that did not comfort him all that much. Death knew he had to do this, though, and just trust Ozpin to deal with the situation
Activating the Sword of Edicts as soon as possible was the best option available to them, as far as the long term efforts against the grimm and Salem went.
While all of these things were going through Death's mind, General Ironwood brought Death to an elevator where an old lady in a wheelchair and four armed soldiers were waiting.
"James, this is the boy you mentioned?" Fria, the Winter Maiden asked
"Yes, he is." General Ironwood agreed "His name is Death Rose, but don't judge him by his name, he's a good kid."
"Nice to meet you ya little brat." Fria said to Death smugly "Well, maybe not so little" she joked.
General Ironwood looked at the soldiers "Wait here, the three of us will be going to take care of a matter privately.
The four soldiers saluted and then moved aside while General Ironwood brought Fria onto the elevator, and Death got on as well.
"Now, James did not say exactly what you were doing with the staff" Fria commented to Death once the elevator had started descending towards the vault "Care to enlighten an old woman?"
"Well, I came into the possession of two relics from other worlds, one definitely tied to a god named Guthix, and the other of unknown origin, a battery of some kind that is easily at the level of a relic." Death explained to Fria "I'm going to combine them to make Atlas larger and stronger, as well as to permanently cripple the creatures of Grimm."
"Relics huh? Well, this should be interesting at least, I guess." Fria decided.
At that time the elevator stopped at the bottom, and Ironwood started wheeling Fria over to the stairs just before the vault door. She would have to walk up the stairs, still, but Ironwood had her use the chair just to conserve her energy. She could still walk fine in moderation, even if she got tired pretty fast.
Death and the general flanked the winter maiden just in case she fell, so they could catch her, as they made their way to the vault door, which Fria placed her hand upon and it started opening.
Ironwood quickly went to retrieve Fria's chair and carried it back up to her before the three all approached the staff and Death carefully picked it up.
Like he had witnessed with Jinn, mist appeared and soon Ambrosius formed before them. "Oh, can I finally get my creative juices flowing?" Ambrosius asked excitedly before looking at the trio.
"Hello, Ambrosius." Death greeted him "What we have in store for you might test the limits of even your skills." he boasted.
"At least tell my it's not another floating city again" Ambrosius insisted.
"Oh, technically it is, but it's also so much more." Death insisted "We'll show you the plans of course, but first you should see the most integral pieces that you will be working with."
"Don't just say such interesting words and leave my hanging, now" the floating blue man insisted.
Death nodded and retrieved the 'Green Lantern Central Power Battery' from his storage and plopped it down on the ground.
"Oh my, what a fascinating skill you have there" Ambrosius said before examining the lantern-shaped giant battery "This is incredible. I've never seen anything like it." Ambrosius admitted "It gathers will. All life has will, and when they decide anything, a bit of this energy is released into the world. Even the Creatures of Grimm are the same" Ambrosius explained while examining the item "I've never heard of anything actually being able to collect and harness will energy, so there is an immense supply that can easily fill this battery, millions of times over."
General Ironwood seemed quite happy about that, given that he'd heard that the energy that it took to fill this lantern up could power Atlas for a thousand years, even if they did their best to waste as much of it as possible.
"That's impressive." Death agreed "And the other part of what you are building, though I will be activating this part after all else is done, will use this" Death said while making the Sword of Edicts appear "This isn't so much about you creating something, though. What you'll be creating is the location where the battery and the Sword of Edicts will be enshrined. The relic of knowledge actually helped us to devise the schematics I'll be showing you to incorporate these into."
Ambrosius started looking over the sword of edicts and frowned "I can tell it's powerful, but it's outside of my area of expertise. What does it do?"
"It was created by a powerful deity named Guthix. It's power basically locks deities weaker then himself out of the world in which it is activated, and completely negates any magic they created in that world, removing their influence from the world" Death insisted "The brother gods, though, are likely similar to Guthix in terms of strength or stronger, so you relics, who bare the power of a divine law, will be perfectly fine. The more casual uses of magic that the brother gods left behind, though, will be negated by this swords effect. The end result is Ozma's reincarnation cycle will be suspended, as will Salem's regenerative power, and the Grimm will no longer be able to produce more of their kind, meaning that once they are all killed, they will bother humanity and the faunus no more."
"Quite the effect that sword has" Ambrosius said and nodded "Alright, show me these plans."
------
Death shared the plans along with a lot of materials that his avatars had gathered in the last week, and rare metals purchased from his shop in high quantities. the plans he presented were tripling the diameter of Atlas, and increasing the area of it by eight times.
The plans selected some area's surrounding mantle to harvest earth, stone and gravity dust from, but the most important parts were provided by Death, and he was extremely thorough. By providing the needed materials, Atlas would not fall in the future if the staff of creation was used again.
After being thorough in the explanation Ambrosius started working and the literal mountain of supplies Death had brought, along with the power battery, disappeared. Eventually Ambrosius announced that it was done, and disappeared. Death returned the staff to where it had stood before and they left the vault and Fria resealed it.
After helping Fria return to rest, it was finally time to go to the new center of Atlas, there the Power Battery stood, guarded by a green hard-light barrier. It lowered for Death and General Ironwood, though, since the plan had set Death as the administrator of this place, and only he, and those with him, could approach it,
"This hole, why is it so massive?" General Ironwood asked when they stooped next to a long and very deep hole.
"It need to be large enough to fit the sword of Edicts when it grows to it's full size. It's owner was a god, after all. It's only the size you saw now do to losing it's owner and falling dormant. when I finish here, though, it will be bound to me and will no longer be dormant, hence it needed to be this size." Death explained to Ironwood "You should leave, though, sir. Once I finish here, I will likely be comatose a few months, meaning I wont be able to let anyone out. I don't think you want to be stuck in here for months."
"Understood, thanks for everything, young man." Ironwood said before leaving, and once he was outside the barriers area, the barrier reappeared.
------
POV Ironwood
James Ironwood might have had to leave, but he didn't go far. He watched from outside the Hard Light barrier as Death used his Reaper form while channeling will into the battery, and channeling the batteries power through himself and into the sword of Edicts.
Even though Death was supposed to be impervious to harm in this state, Ironwood could tell that this process appeared to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.
Even so, Death persevered, going on for hours on end. Presently, Death just held the hilt of the Sword of Edicts, and was channeling power into that, while the detached blade was hovering over the hole and gradually growing larger and larger. The whole process took more then 8 hours before the massive blade stopped growing, and General Ironwood saw the hilt in Deaths hand disappear.
A moment later, Death finally deactivated his reaper form, and spontaneously exploded in a gorey mess. Ironwood frowned, even he was not thrilled with the thought of seeing a person die like that, but he kept his cool and watched.
After a few seconds, all the gore in the area just disappeared, and he realized that the plan had worked. Death's avatar that had been left behind in Vale in a stasis pod took his place and suffered the worst of the physical backlash for him, so now he just needed to wait until he recovered from what remained of the mental backlash.
"The kid pulled it off" Ironwood said proudly, before taking off to go tell Ozpin of the plans success.
------
POV Amber Quince
She was feeling a bit hollow inside. Ozpin had called her and let her know that Death's plan had succeeded, but it still bothered her because she knew he suffered a lot to make it possible.
It felt a bit weird not having him around now. Before he had almost always kept at least one avatar near her, and she was generally just used to his presence.
Her apartment was not empty, of course. The winged woman, who was apparently an actual Angel, whom Death had introduced her too, and who had become her roommate and sparring partner, was still around, as was Ultear, who Death had asked to watch out for her, even well before his current state.
Uriel was a prideful woman, but after Death healed her and restored her lost wings, and she learned that he had no idea how to get her back to her world, or how much time had passed there even if she did go back, she grudgingly accepted her new life here.
Amber had the unfortunate task of telling Uriel how Hazel had switched sides, and that had been a chore and a half, since Uriel had really wanted to kill Hazel for ripping off her wings, even if in the end Death was still able heal them.
Amber felt like harming an angels wings seemed like some kind of taboo.
Death had warned Amber that he still believed that Beacon would be attacked during the Vytal Festival, and that meant that she would be targeted as well, since they were after the relic of choice, so all she could do was try to keep the angel from going on a Hazel-seeking homicidal rampage and train her ass off, and try to be ready for anything.
At least Ultear should he able to provide some warning, Amber believed. The enemy might be able to take precautions against her future sight at some point, but Amber did not believe it would be this soon.
Still, she decided it best to assume the worst and prepare for anything.
"Death, please come back to me soon" Amber whispered while looking out her window and towards the broken moon in the night sky.
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