There are many worlds and cosmologies where The Light and The Dark rage against one another, each unceasing in their absolute certainty that the other must be destroyed, that they could never achieve their true perfection while the other remains, and where every instant of existence of one is tainted by the knowledge that the other still stands as a monument to all they loathe. Across these worlds they take many names, such as Law and Chaos, Yin and Yang, Hope and Despair, Growth and Decay, or Good and Evil.
For the brief eternities of most of these worlds, those who inhabit them never truly obtain so much as a flicker of the possibility of another world, so utterly isolated they are from one another. Yet that is why we, you and I, are here now isn't it? To observe whatever did happen to one of the infinite-yet-few exceptions.
Though if fate and other such things are to be believed, there are some things which cannot be done, no matter what. Many beings on some level or another accept this as simply a part of life and often this applies to entire worlds, all of them accepting "That's just how it is,".
However, there are two key forces that vehemently deny this at its every turn, whether consciously or not, that may pertain to what we will observe and as such are my duty to define beforehand so that we may all be on the same page as it were.
First would be those who are mildly stubborn, that do all they can to alter their world. They oft seek to change the ways of those within their world. Whether to invert social structure entirely, create an eternal peace, or obliterate all things of a certain kind. They operate within the bounds of their world's laws and are mostly seen as Childlike, Direct, or Simpler Souls.
Then are those who are the relative titans, paragons, or champions of denial. Those for who the very essence of their existence hates the concepts of fate and destiny. They often seek to change the way of the world itself. Whether to achieve perpetual motion, change what has happened in the past, or invert a force as fundamental as gravity. The vast majority of them are forced to operate in the bounds of their worlds. These ones that are stuck like this are known primarily as being fools, ridiculous, or Madmen.
Yet in some small few of these worlds, an even smaller number of them manage to free themselves from the shackles placed on them by their cosmologies, to a degree. Many of these quickly die off as well though, leaving only a legacy of apparent hopeless insanity. At the end of this refinement process however, those few who had made it through were far greater than ever before, now among those who could challenge reality itself and win.
Amongst their ranks are those known as Oracles, Deities, Heroes, Immortals, and Wizards.
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In one of these worlds, a number of these forces had banded together in the denial of another one of their ranks, a Wizard. This was long in the planning of course, which is why the Wizard had, despite all his planning ages before, been ambushed while in the wilds and far away from his home with only those things he nearly always carried for an emergency like a misplaced Teleport. To think that only a few well placed and sudden enough Antimagic Fields had nullified him in such short order, he was on the verge of a mild chuckle.
While he wasn't surprised by the dozens upon dozens of Solar angels flitting through the recently cast Gates, the fact that they had not peppered him with Arrows of Slaying already did. Then again, they probably knew that no Wizard of his caliber ever stayed dead the first time they'd been killed and likely believed him to be no exception. Only when the avatar of Sehanine Moonbow appeared and began chanting such almost familiar yet foreign spell components with much of the rest joining her without delay did he understand.
He supposed he had been performing his craft on a number more elves than usual lately, who must have had more family or clergy to notice the effects. That line of thought was shortly cut off however by the feel of a rift opening some 50 feet behind him and it was like no other Gate he'd ever seen with this being spherical in shape. Once he utilized his Vatic Gaze to see the seeds of the epic magic for what it was, felt a magical tether connect him to the rift, felt the antimagic fields fall, and pieced together what it would do in just 30 seconds from now, he could only do what came naturally.
He called his Ice Assassins to teleport to him, opened the main compartment of his handy haversack for a moment so their unseen and incorporeal forms could flood inwards, then began to smile with a bittersweet chuckling.
'I've been outdone.' He began to think only 24 seconds away from the effects of the spell truly showing. 'I can't bring myself to be mad about this, not when I get to see this level of effort put into magic. Especially not when it fulfills a promise,'. Only 18 seconds remained. 'I did it dad, I told you that whatever they'd need to get you, it'd take at least double to get me,'. With 12 seconds left, he pulled out a small miniature chest from a portion of his Belt of Many Pockets, and using the effects of Leomund's Secret Chest, summoned its larger counterpart from the Astral Plane.
"Here!" He shouted as loud as his frame would allow, tossing the smaller chest in front of the greater twin, "You've earned it!" With only 6 seconds left, he closed his eyes and thought to himself, 'Even if it led here and all claimed it was evil, I'm still glad you did what you did Dad, thanks for performing that 'cruel' experiment on me.' The tether snapped both the rift and Wizard towards one another as the forms and souls of all the casters crumbled to ashes or were gravely wounded in Sehanine's case only.
With that, Memnol; Son and Apprentice of Elodyr, Thrallmaker, Youngest Epic Caster, and the first Awakened Infant was cut out from that world, a distance far greater than any plane could traverse. As only he and Moonbow knew now, he was wholly banished from the cosmology.
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In another world that was abandoned by its gods, a man and a woman stood atop a cliff, observing their possible students in the forest below through the screens they held. As one might correctly guess, these are Ozpin and Glynda respectively.
They were observing two particular groups of students fending off a Deathstalker and Nevermore when the most peculiar thing Ozpin had seen in a while showed itself to him and Glynda. Within one of the rooms of one of the ruin's many towers, just barely off from where Ruby and her allies were fighting the Nevermore, a sphere had appeared and just as soon disappeared. From seemingly nowhere it began, grew in size, then shrunk again to leave only one trace behind.
A young man perhaps no older than Jaune and almost exactly the same height. He had short ash blonde hair, deep-set violet eyes, and a fair though pale complexion. Not much else could be seen beneath the combination of silver-grey cloak and black robe he wore though he did have a belt with many pockets and a bag by his side that he had opened for a number of seconds, for no apparent reason.
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Seemingly in time with his arrival on the other screen, the Nevermore had stopped circling and, after hovering in place for a moment, let out a massive screech as it sent a volley of spearlike feathers down. Only Yang was in their path and she had avoided them well, utilizing Ember Celica to vault herself to the side and out of the feathers' paths.
Yang let out a joyous laugh, "Stupid bird can't aim."
"Wait," Weiss said, "It's focused on the tower."
"Maybe it wants to break something, vent a little." Yang Shrugged.
"No," Blake said, "Grimm don't 'vent', someone's in there."
"Why would it only sense them now?" Ruby wondered asked.
"A surge in emotions!" Weiss realized, "Whoever's in there must have had a massive negative reaction to something."
"We have to help them!" Ruby said, "We need to take the Nevermore's attention, Wei-"
She was cut off by the Nevermore screeching once more, and following its gaze, she saw someone exit the damaged tower. He didn't look to be in any rush nor harmed. He looked mildly amused, a "Just my luck," expression of his face. By this time the other group of four had managed to defeat the Deathstalker and were watching this as well.
The Nevermore swooped down, rushing at the young man with talons outstretched and beak open. He did not move and simply raised his left hand, said something that only Ozpin and Glynda could hear as apparent gibberish while moving it in some odd manner, pointed his index finger at the Nevermore, and a small greenish beam flew from his finger and hit it. The Nevermore was greatly wounded, a portion of its mask and flesh seeming to fade into green light with the ray's disappearance, but it still flew at him after a brief dip. Now the young man finally reacted, though not by much, by raising an eyebrow.
'Is he crazy?!' Weiss thought as she sent a wave of fire dust with Myrtenaster and a Glyph to collide with its wound.
The Nevermore was sent out of the air from the strike, crashed just a dozen or so feet away from the man, cracking the bridge beneath them.
As it began to rise, a look of mild irritation covered the man's face. With another round of clearly and loudly enunciated gibberish and hand motions, he pointed again at the Nevermore with the last words of gibberish, though no beam emerged from his finger.
The nevermore immediately stopped rising and fell back down, its slowly disappearing form the only thing delaying the young man from crossing the bridge sooner.
In the now silent ruins Ruby turned to Yang and said, at about the speed a bullet could fly, "Oh my gosh that first he walked out without looking worried at all then he fired that beam and it was like 'vooom' and it did that to the Grimm then Weiss made it crash like that-" She Turned to Weiss faster then some people could blink, "Thank you Weiss-" and back, "Then he pointed again and-"
Now she was cut off by Yang pulling her into a headlock, "Yes Rubes, we all saw it happen. Go and check if he's alright, make another friend." Yang let Ruby go at the suggestion.
Ruby sped over to the other side of the ruins and bridge, using her Semblance's speed and a boost from Crescent Rose to make the jump over. She managed to land right next to the young man, Crescent Rose still out, causing him to step back and put a hand towards one of his belt pouches.
"Wait! Waitwaitwait, I'm just-are you- everything is all-fine? Sorry for, y'know, startling you." Ruby said as she mixed up her words for a moment and shifted Crescent Rose back into its inactive mode.
The young man said to her, "I am fine, thank you. Pardon me for your," he paused as his eyes shifted, "Weapon, catching me off guard. I admit I had yet to see that combination of weapon and wielder before. Or even a weapon like that at all." His tone lightened as he finished the sentence, though his expression only moved slightly. He began walking towards the main section of the ruins, now that the body had dissolved.
Ruby smiled, "Oh, yeah, she's nothing much, just a multi-form scythe that also functions as a high impact sniper rifle, totally normal," she said somewhat sincerely, proudly holding it as she walked.
"Pardon?" The man said, a confused look on his face evident to both groups, now that they had met up.
"It's also a gun," Jaune said, scratching the back of his head.
"Again, Pardon? A 'Gun'?" The young man said, no less confused. This brought on a slew of reactions, ranging from surprise to shock and in Ruby's case, horror.
"You don't know what a gun is?" Ruby said, eyes wide.
"I'm afraid not, I presume it would be the part of your weapons allowing you to attack that beast from such ranges?" The young man said.
Weiss had a look of utmost irritation on her face now and shouted, "Do you expect us to believe you're trying to enter, Beacon Academy, one of the most prestigious Huntsmen academies in the world without knowing what a gun is! Do you even know where you are?"
"Weiss I'm sure it's just-" Ruby was cut off,
"No, I'm afraid I don't know where I am, nor where this is in relation to this Beacon academy, or anywhere else for that matter." He said.
"Ooh I know this!" Nora chimed in, "You must have Amnesia, do you even know who you are? From now on, you can be Anti-Jaune!"
The P, Ru, Y, and J of the group laughed at the suggestion, while Blake and Ren took it in stride, now that they were standing so close, there was a notable few similarities and differences between the two.
The Young Man smiled at this, "No, no," he said, "I remember who I am, though I do seem to have forgotten my manners." He stepped back so all of them could see him.
"I am Memnol Elodyr," he said while bowing towards them with rather elaborate hand gestures, though he was mostly facing Weiss during it.
When he rose he said, "I would take it from her," He paused while extending the R,
"Nora!" Nora said.
"Thank you," Memnol said, turning to face Jaune, "From Nora's proclamation that you would be Jaune?"
"Yeah, Jaune Arc." He said.
"Right, as for the rest of you, you are?" Memnol said, extending the last word a touch.
"Lie Ren," He bowed with his arms by his sides, though the only one who kept his weapons out at this point.
"Pyrrha Nikos," She said with a nod.
"Grand to meet all of you." Memnol said, "As for you with the 'Gun'?" He turned and pointed to Ruby.
Ruby almost stepped back and before she could say anything Yang put her hand on her shoulder and said, "That's Ruby, I'm Yang, and the quiet one over there is Blake." Blake nodded.
"Thank you," Memnol said before stepping towards Weiss, "As for you Madame, what house do you hail from?"
Weiss blinked and said, "Weiss Schnee. From the, Schnee, house."
"What's with the overblown hello for her?" Yang asked.
"Sorry," Memnol began, "Is Madame Schnee, not, a member of the local nobility?"
Even after they started walking back to Beacon, the laughter didn't die off for a while.
Standing on top of the cliff, Ozpin and Glynda had watched the whole thing. Ozpin took a deep drink from his mug and said, "Glynda, I believe we may have another noteworthy student on our hands."
Glynda sighed and said, "I've already set up the basic framework for his enrollment."
"Will it be enough to add on to the ceremony?"
"I only need a clear photo of," she paused on the abnormal name, "Memnol, and he can be slotted in like the other students."
"Designation as a reserve student?"
"Yes, I simply need to know if he'll be general reserve or team reserve. Did you have a team in mind?"
Ozpin hmm'ed for a moment as he looked back down at his scroll, watching as the group of nine made the trek back. He went back in the footage and rewound a few parts, observing them in close detail, such as how in the tower he had appeared to reflexively turn ghost-like when the first feathers came through, or how his eyes shifted to his forearms for a fraction of a second when the Nevermore started charging.
The gears in his mind seemed to be keeping pace with the ones in his office as he took another long drink, emptying his mug.