It was easier for Clark to run when he didn't focus on carrying a van. He could use his maximum speed. He raced through forests, empty trails, and the canyons and valleys all around Mistral.

As he ran, Clark considered what he'd heard from the Branwen tribe survivor. The trees zipped by, the ground under his feet was an indistinct rippling as his perception relaxed. He might have even blasted through a few bushes, but he didn't care. At the speeds he went at even sawdust would have become devastating shrapnel, but it was fine since he zoomed through isolated regions free of people.

This was a trap. It was obvious after the phantom had said he'd be waiting at Haven, but Clark couldn't just avoid it. He'd have to hit and run, distract the phantom for a moment before taking away the Relic.

The city approached. He was on one of the main roads leading to it. Clark laid a hand on the crystal and wordlessly pleaded with it to stay silent. His plan wouldn't work if it alerted the phantom to his approach.

He shot into the city, out in the open yet invisible to all eyes. Clark took a moment to pause and peer into Haven with X-ray vision.

The phantom was already in the vault underneath the school. With him was Raven, her head bandaged and her posture meek and obedient. In her hand was an ornate golden lamp with a blue sphere in its center. Its magical nature was obvious to Clark's eyes. He couldn't penetrate it with his vision. It wasn't a solid barrier like lead, but a shifting, indistinct material. In fact, there was magic all around that cavern. The vault door and glowing tree were similar, and so was Raven. However, the effect was weaker with her, more spread out through her body.

Clark checked the rest of the school. The only other occupant was Lionheart. Good.

In the next instant, Clark entered Haven and pulled the headmaster out. He was a traitor to Ozpin, but that didn't mean Clark was just going to let him die. He set him down a good distance outside the campus.

Now it was time to attack the phantom directly. Both he and Raven were motionless to Clark's eyes, but that wouldn't last for long. The phantom would shift up to his level of speed soon.

Clark slammed into the hidden entrance of the Vault, destroying a statue of a woman in golden chains holding up a platform.

Then, before the statue fully shattered apart, Clark zoomed down to the outside of the underground cavern containing the vault. After a moment of delay, he burst through the wall and raced up. Running on the walls of the cave in a corkscrew path.

Just as Clark had planned, the phantom had heard the destruction above and looked up. He faced the wrong direction as Clark leapt off the wall, landed on the floor of the vault, and ran forward to land an uppercut on the phantom. His double was launched up into the air, destroying the school building above where Lionheart would have been.

Clark didn't have time to celebrate his successful blow on the phantom. He turned to Raven and took the Relic from her hands. She would die if he left her in this collapsing cavern, so he instantly moved her to safety and escaped.

The phantom would recover soon, and Clark had to keep the Relic out of his hands.

\\\\\

Lionheart jerked back from the scene before him. "Wh-what?!"

He was outside of Haven, looking at the campus from a distance. He'd been inside his office after leading the Traveler and Raven to the vault. With his orders fulfilled, he'd finally had time to relax. What had happened?

An explosion rocked through the school. The main building, the building that he'd just been in, crumbled and a figure streaked straight up through the air above it.

Had the Traveler done this? Lionheart didn't understand why, but that must be him flying up at an incredible speed. The figure shrank in the night sky and Lionheart soon lost track of him.

The next moment a voice spoke from behind him. "Well well well, would you look at that?"

Lionheart rounded on it. The Traveler hovered in the air and he wasn't alone. The Seer Grimm was with him, and on its spherical surface was the image of Salem staring straight at him.

"Traveler, ma'am, I-I don't understand. Why have you brought me out here?"

"Don't play dumb, Lionheart," the alien moved forward. "You went back to Ozpin, didn't you? Betrayed us and told Clark about what we were doing here tonight. That's how he knew and why he took you out here, so you wouldn't be caught up in our little fight."

Lionheart's blood chilled when he saw Salem's frown deepen. "No! No, ma'am! I didn't tell them anything."

"Really? Then how else did Clark know to come tonight and take the Relic from me?"

"I don't know!"

The Traveler tilted his head. A sinister grin appeared on his face. "You're lying. Did you hear about what I do to liars?"

But he wasn't lying! Somehow, Ozpin must have learned about Salem's plans and sent his own alien to counter the Traveler.

Yet a glance at Salem showed that Lionheart had no chance of convincing her. She believed the Traveler, the series of events which had just taken place sounded too convenient even for the frightened headmaster.

Lionheart ran. If he'd had his weapon he might have tried to attack the Seer, but it was back in his office. There was a good chance it had been destroyed as well.

"Agghh!" Lionheart fell to the ground. Pain shot up both legs and his aura sputtered out.

Lionheart turned back to see the Traveler with his feet digging into his mangled legs. Even if he'd concentrated his aura into them they still would have been shattered.

"You know Salem, I'm really not impressed with your staff," The Traveler said. Never in a million years would Lionheart have dared to use such a casual tone with her. He never would have dared to imagine that anyone would be capable of speaking to her that way.

"Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree," Salem said. The Seer's tentacles raised up in a frightening display. "Go. Retrieve the Relic. I will handle my mistakes."

The Traveler vanished. There was some faint relief now that the pressure on Lionheart's legs was gone, but there was no way he could run.

The headmaster crawled. Tentacles wrapped around him, holding him by his legs and gripping his throat. With desperate attempts to claw away the appendages on his throat, Lionheart gasped and choked to death.

\\\\\

It was taking a strangely long amount of time for the phantom to catch up, much longer than Clark had expected, but that was fine. He needed to get as far away from other people as possible. Fighting near the city was a death sentence for its citizens, and when their punches could send each other miles away it was always better to be on the safe side.

Clark had ran north. Far enough north that Mistral's forests had given way to an icy tundra. He was far enough that he wasn't in any Kingdom's territory. While Atlas was about this far north, it was still a good distance to the west.

He came to a stop and swiveled to face the south. The phantom could come from anywhere though, so he took his crystal out and asked it to warn him of the double's approach. It didn't respond, but it hadn't done so when he'd asked it to stay silent earlier and it had still listened. Maybe this time it would too.

Clark noted that the crack in the crystal seemed to have fully healed. It looked good as new. He kept hold of it in his hand, it had a useful ability to withstand and redirect their heat vision. That could be useful.

Now Clark examined the lamp in his other hand: the Relic of Knowledge. Looking at it closely, Clark realized that while it seemed like metal at first glance, it wasn't. What it was made of he couldn't say, but he'd stared at atoms before and this wasn't anything like that. It resisted any attempt by his senses to look deeper than its shifting, murky surface.

He focused his eyes and tried to burn it. Just an edge of the flourishing metal rather than its center. When it withstood heat that would have made steel bubble and boil he really ramped up the power.

The Relic didn't even have a scratch. It hadn't glowed either from the heat.

So it could withstand their attacks. That was good to know. If he or the phantom had ended up destroying it accidentally then there would have been no point in Clark coming here.

Clark scanned his surroundings, on alert for the phantom, but he still wasn't anywhere nearby.

There was one last thing Clark wanted to check. It was magic, so how good of a weapon could it be against the phantom?

He rapped his fingers against it. Once, twice, three times. He gradually increased the strength behind his blows but felt no pain.

Finally, he gave it a serious punch. The blow rang out all around, but his fist didn't hurt and the Relic didn't have the tiniest dent even when Clark zoomed in as far as his eyes could go.

So, while this Relic was magical, it was more like Qrow's beak than Cinder's knives. Ozpin had said that whether magic could hurt him depended on its intended effects. He could walk through Cinder's wind with ease while her fire could hurt him. This Relic provided knowledge and it had magic protecting it, but none which gave it extra offensive power.

Clark weighed the pros and cons of using it as a simple blunt object until he spotted the phantom flying in. His double stared at Clark with a hard-set expression rather than his usual arrogant sneer, this would be a serious fight.

Clark prepared his eyes to fire heat vision while holding the crystal to deflect the phantom's. However, as the phantom raced in, neither of them used it.

It seemed they'd both realized that there wasn't much point to starting the fight with heat vision. Even at its strongest, their eye beams took a few seconds to burn their skin. Not much point when a single second might as well be an eternity for them, and briefer bursts would only manage to shove each other around. All it would do is delay the punching match their fight would inevitably become.

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The phantom came in head-on, a fist raised and ready to pound Clark. Instead, Clark swung the Relic at the double's head when he got within range. He ducked under it and retreated a few feet back.

As always, Clark was at a disadvantage in a fight with the phantom. The phantom had far greater mobility and speed. Even if Clark got a good hit on him, he could fly away to recover. Meanwhile, if Clark lost his footing or was staggered even for a moment the phantom could capitalize on it and hit him up into the air.

The Relic wasn't even much use as a weapon. It was the wrong shape for a club and just awkward for any other purpose. The crystal did offer him some defensive power and had driven away the phantom before, but that had broken it for a while. Even if Clark could repeat the effect, he wasn't sure if he should risk his only chance of returning home.

The phantom flew down and his foot shot forward in a kick. Clark managed to block the strike and it forced him back, but he remained standing. Two long trails were left in the snow and the underlying bedrock.

Again the phantom flew forward, so fast that Clark didn't stand a chance of outrunning him. That was fine, he wasn't going to run anyway. He dodged the second kick, and the phantom launched a punch from the side which rocketed by inches from Clark's head. The double had overextended himself, letting Clark kick him up into the sky.

Clark blasted him with heat vision as well. It gave him some time to fix his form, bringing his arms up to protect his head before the phantom recovered and flew back down.

He didn't aim for Clark. Instead, the double slammed into the ground. An enormous crater formed at a sluggish rate, a deluge of ice and rock expanding out in a widening circle. Following behind the debris was a shockwave.

If Clark had been alone he could have easily outrun the incoming destruction. Since he had to keep his eyes on the phantom, his only option was to stay and maintain his footing.

The phantom wasn't coming out from the dirty gray cloud he'd thrown up. Clark did a quick check with X-ray vision and saw his double waiting inside the mayhem.

The cloud of expanding rubble finally enveloped Clark. This was bad. Using X-ray vision and super-speed simultaneously wasn't easy. If the phantom attacked while his sight was reduced, that could be all the opening he needed.

Now! By some faint instinct, Clark flashed a few steps over to the right, just in time to see a glimpse of the phantom rocketing straight down into the spot he'd been standing in.

So the phantom hadn't overcome their limitation with X-ray vision and super-speed. Then Clark would have to use that, keep moving around as long as this cloud blocked their sight.

Again! Clark swerved aside as his double zoomed by. For a brief moment he considered trying to time for the next moment and attack, but it was safer to just dodge. When the area cleared up, he could focus on offense again.

Once more the phantom shot through the air, his fists raised in what would have been a painful blow. Clark had kept his movement random, so his double had flown a few feet in front of him in a failed prediction of his position.

"Ha!" Sound didn't mean much at these speeds, so Clark's laughter was more a visual expression than an audible one.

However, his amusement was cut short when twin beams of heat vision hit him in the chest. They knocked him to the ground, blasting him into the bedrock until he brought up the crystal. Now that it was redirecting the beam around him in a kaleidoscope of light, Clark could get to his feet again.

It was just barely in time to counter the phantom's follow-up. Clark's right hand held the crystal, so he used the left holding the Relic and swung it into the phantom's face. He'd maximized the force he could get into it. Turning his hips and torso to add their strength to his arm. It launched the phantom far into the distance.

Clark chased after him. A nearby mountainside collapsed as the phantom slammed into it. Clark ran up on the falling rubble and stomped the phantom into the ground once more before he could recover. He was forced deeper into the rock and Clark flashed away, waiting for the phantom to emerge.

After a few seconds, the newly formed pile of boulders and ice was thrown up into the air with a furious scream. "Raaagh!" The phantom flashed forward and stopped a few hundred feet away from Clark. He had a small bruise on his cheek, and like Clark his clothing was in tattered ruins.

"You think you're going to win just because you learned a few new moves?" The double asked.

"No, I'm going to win because I'm a better fighter than you. I've been training with the friends I've made in this world, learning with them. Have you?"

The phantom responded with a fiery glare. Clark waved the crystal back at him, and his anger boiled away to leave a look filled with contempt. "Playing with worms, that's what you're proud of. That's why you're still stuck on the ground, rather than up here giving me an actual fight."

Clark's fingers tightened around the crystal, yet he kept his expression calm and casual. "Even if I'm stuck on the ground as a worm, I'll beat you."

"Try it!" The phantom yelled and came down like a bolt of lightning. He swooped in and Clark just managed to avoid him.

He went back up and flew down for another pass. This time Clark tried to smack him with the crystal, but at the last second the double veered to the side and away, his eyes wide.

"What's wrong?" Clark taunted, channeling Yang to keep his opponent mad and sloppy. "Scared?"

With another scream the double shot in.

But this time it was different. His speed was blindingly quick, even to Clark's eyes. The air around him burned and erupted like a bomb. Clark's foot struck the ground with desperate strength and he felt it shatter beneath him. A similar aura of igniting air surrounded Clark and he dodged the phantom with what must have been millimeters to spare. The glow swallowed them up even when their perception would have made bullets look like they crawled forward in a thick syrup.

The result was scorched earth reaching all the way to the horizon with them at the epicenter of the blast. In the distance, rivulets of melted ice ran in streams which would soon freeze again.

They stared at each other, shocked by the destruction around them. Their surroundings had always remained intact when they used their speed, but Clark had never been that determined to evade before. And it seemed that the phantom had never tried flying at those speeds either.

What would happen if the phantom decided he'd had enough of this fight and chose to take it out on innocent people? Already the frustration on his face grew. Before, it had merely been difficult for Clark to catch him, but there was no hope of stopping him when even a simple chase would result in the annihilation of everything around them.

"Wait," Clark held up the crystal. Then, he tossed it away. He had needed to make the first move to get the phantom to at least consider conversation over more fighting. "What do you want?"

It worked, the double tilted his head. "You really want to talk me down, Clark?"

"It's either that or we keep pounding each other. Who do you think is going to end up on top after that?" Honestly, Clark didn't know. He would defend himself if he had to, and if it came to it the phantom was probably the one person who Clark was justified in killing in self-defense. Still, the phantom had never seriously tried to kill him before. Attack him, yes. Capture him, maybe. But never murder.

He wasn't after the Relic either. After all, the phantom had literally told him that he'd be at Haven tonight rather than taking the Relic quietly, and as they'd fought he hadn't even spared it a glance, except when Clark was about to hit him with it. If the phantom really wanted to take the Relic instead of fight, he probably could have done it and flown away by now.

"I could beat you if I had to." Even as the phantom said those words his tone reflected Clark's uncertainty.

"But there has to be another way to achieve your goals. An easier way. Now what are they?"

"I want to go home. Back to Earth."

"So do I, but that crystal hasn't exactly been cooperating."

The double snorted. "It'll obey you. You just don't know how to make it listen yet."

Clark paused. Was that true? "Fine, let's say I can use it to get you to Earth. What are you going to do when you get there?" It wouldn't be acceptable to save the people of Remnant if he had to sacrifice the people of Earth.

"Get some more kryptonite, power myself up. And then I'll work on getting rid of you."

"What?"

The phantom scowled. "You wasted your life on Earth. Hiding your powers, letting your secret divide you from those around you. I'm not going to make that mistake. You'll be gone, but your friends and family won't be sad. I'll be there as Clark Kent." He pointed at himself in a self-assured gesture, as if trying to provoke Clark.

He stayed calm. "Fine, I'll bring you to Earth."

The double blinked in surprise. "You will? Hah, you expect me to believe you'll just give me your life that easily?"

"Oh no, I'm not doing that. I'll bring us to Earth, but I'm not going down without a fight. And I want you to do a few things in exchange, otherwise I'll smash the crystal apart and never get us back."

The double was paying attention now. With an intrigued grin, he asked, "Oh, and what's that?"

Clark held up the lamp. "You let me give this Relic to Ruby and the others. Then promise to leave them alone. You don't care about getting this to Salem anyway, right?"

"Yep, this entire world can burn as far as I'm concerned."

It was hard not to show his contempt for such disregard of Remnant and its people, but Clark managed it. "Well if you do what I ask and not burn Remnant or anyone in it, I'll bring us to Earth. Do we have a deal?"

"Not so fast. I have a couple rules of my own. First, I'll bring you somewhere so you can focus on working the crystal and you won't leave unless I say so. Agreed?"

"Fine."

"Second, I either knock you out cold before I bring you there or no deal. I'm not going to risk you trying another trick with the crystal. I'll hand over the Relic to them."

Clark's lips pressed together. That was a lot to agree to, but what choice did he have? "Deal."

"Great!" The double clapped his hands together and a blast of air threw around the snow near him. "Hand over the Relic." Clark tossed it to him. With a lazy hand, the phantom reached out and grabbed the handle. Then he went into a stance with his fist raised. "Ready, Clark?"

He didn't even wait for Clark's response when he flashed forward in flight. With a brutal kick he launched Clark up into the sky. He groaned in pain, but any sound quickly disappeared as the ground flew away beneath him and the sun became visible, shining in the midst of the star-dusted black curtain of space.

A trick? Was the phantom going to betray him so soon?

A flash of movement in the distance made Clark gasp, or rather his mouth and lungs made the movements as there was no air to suck in. The phantom rushed away with unbelievable speed, even dwarfing what he'd shown on Remnant when the air around them had burned and ignited.

The sunlight struck the double, but his skin wasn't turning gray. It wasn't weakening him at all. In fact, just like the Branwen tribe survivor had said, the light hardly seemed to touch him at all. Combined with his incredible velocity even Clark's eyes found it difficult to pick him out.

The phantom flew in and an outstretched fist crashed into the side of Clark's head. The world around him glowed a swirl of fierce red, blue, and green. There were black spots mixed in with them, and it was loud. As if the entire universe roared at him while he tore through Remnant's atmosphere.

His body crashed into the earth, and everything went dark.

\\\\\

"We're all ready to go," Ruby said to Ozpin. It had been a while since she'd given orders as the leader of a complete team, but now that Weiss was here she'd quickly gotten a handle on it. She and her team had come outside the inn with their bags.

Ozpin, with Oscar's fourteen-year-old head, nodded. "Good, load everything into the van. How much longer before JNPR comes out?"

"Just another minute or two," Ruby said. "Ozpin, do we really need to leave so fast?"

"Clark's double necessitates such haste. With Haven and the Spring Maiden compromised we must get to Atlas as soon as possible and lock the Relic in the vault there. We need to be prepared to leave when Clark arrives with the Relic."

It was almost half an hour since Ozpin had ordered him to run to Haven. Whenever Ruby checked the time she'd get an uneasy feeling in her stomach, but she trusted that Clark would beat his evil clone. He'd beaten him before, back when her silver eyes had activated.

'There's no need to worry,' she told herself.

Just as Ruby and her team finished placing their luggage in the van, Uncle Qrow came out with JNPR behind him.

"Come on, people," her uncle said. "How long do you teenagers take to pack?"

Someone spoke up from above the van. "Whoa, what's the rush?"

Ruby spun around to face him. He stood on top of the van with a face just like Clark's, but with a smirk that was the complete opposite of his kind smile. The double looked battered, his hair was in disarray and his face was dirty. He wore a simple black jacket and blue pants, and in his hands was an ornate blue lamp with gold decoration.

"Clark?" Jaune asked.

"Good guess, but no." He floated above the van and his skin flickered to a chalky, inhuman gray before returning to normal.

"You're Clark's double," Uncle Qrow walked up in front of Ruby, shielding her. "Where's Clark? What do you want?"

"Hmm, I think I'll answer the second one first. I'm here to honor Clark's dying wish and give you this." He held up the lamp.

Ruby fell to her knees. She saw her uncle stiffen and heard her friends gasp behind her.

Clark. Dead?

After a few seconds, the double bent over, laughing like a maniac. "Oh the looks on your faces! Don't worry, Clark's not dead. That was just a joke."

Ruby sniffed and got to her feet. Yang rushed over and wrapped her up in her arms. "I-I'm fine." Ruby said and wiped at her eyes.

"You're a real piece of shit," Uncle Qrow almost spat the words at him.

"Hey now, I made a little deal with Clark to give this to you in exchange for his help with something, but I could still change my mind." He stroked his chin. "I wonder how Salem would like it if I handed her a little present."

"We apologize," Ozpin quickly said.

"There we go. See? It's not hard to be polite." In eerie silence the double floated down and hovered forward. He gave the Relic to Ozpin. "Here."

"If Clark is alive, where is he?" Jaune asked, glaring at the phantom. "You still haven't answered the question."

"It's a secret. Just know that you won't ever see him again but look on the bright side." The double faced Ozpin. "You won't ever see me again either, so whatever history there is between you and Salem? You're going to have to deal with it on your own."

He disappeared. Several of them breathed out in relief, and there was hardly a delay before Ozpin spoke up. "Everyone in the van. We need to find transportation to Atlas soon."