Ah, almost done with school :D Soon, I'll have much more time for the most important thing in life: Fanfiction (please, kill me...)

Chapter 35: Last Stop

A ray of light falling into his tent finally awoke Mercury from his slumber. His entire body... it felt like he had been hit with a car (not at full speed, thankfully). His vision was initially very blurry, but his eyes soon regained full sight. He smiled as he saw Yang cuddling up to him from the left. Had she kept watch over him the entire night?

He tried to get up without waking her, but as soon as he moved, she let out a big yawn. "Mornin'...", she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. He took a good look at her. Her skin was pale, her hair was messy and her eye bags were huge. "Are you not feeling well, Yang?", he asked. "No, I'm fine... haven't gotten a lotta sleep these past few days, though." She tried to stand up, but almost instantly fell down on her knees again. "Who are you kidding!?" Mercury was giving her a look that was equal parts worried and angry. "It's pretty clear something's not right!" She yawned once more. "It's fine, really. And even if it wasn't, that wouldn't matter in the slightest. Not now, when we are so close to our goal..." she slumped over. This was bad! Mercury jumped up and burst out of the tent. But what he saw outside shocked him to his core...

He was surrounded by a sea of flames. Why? How was it possible not to see this chaos from inside the tent!? The tent? What tent? The tent he had just left was gone, replaced with a large, open square made of cold, shining metal. What was this madness?

Sitting on the ground, not far from him, was a woman, holding a baby in her arms. Close to her, a man lay on the floor, completely still. Mercury tried to get closer, but the flames kept him at bay. Another man, dressed in a long coat, approached the woman, pointing what seemed to be a handgun at her. "Finally", he spoke, "Finally, I can become complete..." The woman tried to cover up the baby, using her arms. "You... Monster... You really do not possess a soul, do you?" The man burst out laughing. "Do you have one? Because no matter how I look at it, you just destroyed the entire capital. How many have died, I wonder? Sixty, maybe seventy million? No, you are but a mere shell, a container housing the power I yearn for... Lessaiah..." He had to help her! For some reason, Mercury knew he had to save this woman he had never met before. But even though he wanted to kick this man's face in, even though he was ready to break through the flames, he couldn't move. His body did not respond to his brain's commands anymore. So he could do nothing but watch.

The woman gently lowered her child to the ground. "Fine... if it's my power you want, you can go piss off!" An incredibly strong aura began to surround the woman. "Let me show you a glimpse of the true despair only a human can know, you false Prophet!" A blinding light flashed and Mercury was blown away by an incredible force.

"Mercury?" Emerald put her hand on his shoulder. He was... outside the tent. "Wha... What the hell was that?", he wondered. "That's what I wanna know! You came blastin' out of there and started babbling unintelligible gibberish before spacin' out completely!" He shook his head. "I don't know... I feel kinda strange, like... like I've been gone for a long time." He looked down. "Heh. I see your leg's okay again." "Yeah." Emerald blushed. "I guess... I guess I have to thank you... Without your help, I would've collapsed in the middle of the woods there." "No problem! We're pals, after all!" "Yeah..." She smiled. "Pals..."

In the evening, a meeting was held in the Queen's tent. "Alright.", Yang started as the last of her allies arrived. "Tomorrow, we will begin with 'Operation Shining Beacon'. We already went over the basic plans last time, so I'll spare you the boring dribble and cut straight to the chase: The three people I have decided to be my escorts." The athmosphere got tense immediately. Who did she pick? Roman? Emerald? Maybe Braun? "Originally, I intended to have Neo, Pyrrha and Summer accompany me, but since two of them are, sadly, not with us anymore, I have decided that Roman and Mercury shall take their place." Mercury was confused. "Hold on a second! I'm kinda out of the loop here. Could you explain what happened to Pyrrha and Summer?" Yang stared at him. It was clear she was trying her best not to cry, and he regretted asking already. "Pyrrha fell in battle... And Summer..." "She was captured by the enemy!", Emerald finished for her. "We tried to pursue the man who took her, but we lost sight of him. We don't know where she is, or even whether she's still alive or not." Mercury clutched his chest. She was gone! She had been there for him from the very beginning, from the day his mother died, and now... that woman... was gone!? What a cruel joke...

It was late at night, the lamps of the base had already been turned down to emitt only a slight glow. It was at this late hour that Consul Julius, one of the most powerful men on Remnant, and Velvet Scarlatina, A lowly secretary, passed by each other on the hallway leading to the chamber the Guardian resided in. As they did, they both began to smile. The goal was within reach, for both of them. The only question was: Whose vision would triumph in the end?

Huff! That took longer than it should have, based on the number of words! Anyway, I want to use this section to talk about a few things:

1: How the battle at the beach ended was originally left ambiguous because I didn't have any good ideas on how to write that part, but I got a rough idea on how it went down now. However, I'll leave it up for speculation regardless.

2: I recently got a bit of criticism for Uvee's and Blake's relationship. It went too fast and, until now, didn't really go anywhere. I feel terribly sorry for the -3 Uvee fans out there, because there isn't even any room in the story anymore to flesh that out. In general, I'm really sorry about how underdeveloped most of my OCs (not counting the ones connected to the Order and Chaos cycle) turned out. With how much time I had to spend preparing for tests and with such a ridiculously huge character cast, this was bound to happen.

3: Team names:

Yang, Roman, Neo, Mercury: Team MRYN (can be twisted to sound like a marine shade of blue; really, it's a stretch, but I want to have these characters present at the climax)

Ruby, Uvee, Blake, Nora: Team RUBN (as in: RUB-i-N(Rubin), the German word for Ruby)

And no one gets Sauerkraut! Ich bin enttäuscht!