"Well--" Weiss tilted her head after a pause. "--I think the problem with you two is you envy each other. Mercury envies Royal's ability to be open to being with people and express himself and his willingness to take that kind of chance that many people wouldn't... And, Royal, you envy Mercury's having someone who cared about him like that already, and if you'd had that kind of love, you think you'd have never let it go."
Pause while both guys had to think...and slowly realize that Weiss was pretty on point.
"So you're both frustrated, and you're taking it out on the other for having the opportunities you think you don't have," Weiss summarized. "I know other people who've done the same... I think I have too, actually. But envying people doesn't help us. If you see something in them you like, try to imitate it, don't envy it. Envy is just an excuse not to grow yourself. You might be able to help each other if you'd just quit tearing each other down."
She pushed them closer together with glyphs and then came up to put a hand on their shoulders, like she was their parent.
"Mercury," she said seriously, "you may not until why Royal feels like he needs to take this kind of chance, if he had a sign that it would be reciprocated, but it's not your job to judge his path, and I think you really know that. Hasn't this gone on long enough? Tearing down others doesn't make you a better person by comparison--it brings everyone down to the same level of bad. Just...can we agree on that?"
"Do I have to?" Mercury grumbled.
"No," Weiss said. "That's why it would mean so much if you did."
She looked at Royal. "And Mr. Zapato--Royal, I should say (you're our brother now after all)--I'm sure you see that this is stupid, and that it's not as easy for him to do this as it would be for you, because that's his story. I don't think us dissing him over it is going to make it easier. Just the opposite. Can we let it go?"
"This just makes it more embarrassing, Miss Schnee," Royal said uncomfortably. "I get what you're saying, and you're right, but spelling it out makes me feel like a child."
Weiss hit him in the back of the head and Mercury also.
"Then stop acting like a child!" she said, sounding exactly like her sister. "Honestly!"
She turned away from them. "Why, you two--" but her voice was cut off by a loud growl.
Three huge Ursas came lumbering out of the trees where somehow they'd blended in with the shadows.
They had been drawn to the arguing itself. Though it was now past, they'd already locked on the three of them and were hungry for battle.
* * *
The Ursas were all sniffing the air hungrily.
"Oh no," Weiss groaned. "Why are they here?"
"So? We have 3 out of 5 right here, problem solved," Mercury said.
"They're here because we were fighting," Royal said. "This reflects poorly on us."
"Save it for your report, Zapato. Isn't there some saying about turning every weakness into a strength?"
"It should be easy to kill them," Weiss said. "But technically, we still have to find two more, and if the others found more already, we could still be behind, so we'd better hurry."
"Hang on, are we sure these aren't the special kind?" Royal put a hand on her shoulder. "Attacking them blindly could backfire if they are. Seems to me they always activate their mutation once your guard is down."
"We can't just stand here. I'll just vaporize them," Mercury said.
They ducked while he focused, and his eyes flashed.
"There, problem solved," he said.
"That was too easy," Weiss complained. "Five Grimm isn't much of a change when they come running to us."
"They'll run away now. We'd better hurry and find two ore," Mercury said. "I bet there's more where they came from." He pointed the same direction.
The Ursas had come out from the part of the forest that led towards the forest that had more normal trees, where the old ruins were.
That was a few miles off at least, but Grimm liked to haunt the area, as they did when manmade objects were left near human civilizations.
"I can get us there faster." Weiss summoned a flying creature easily large enough for them all. "No one said we couldn't use this."
"Yeah, no more walking." Mercury got on board.
"Uh...are these things safe?" Royal said.
"You're a pilot," Weiss said oddly. "Why wouldn't it be safe to fly?"
"Because I'm the one flying usually, and I'm inside, with seat belts," Royal said.
"Oh, come on, chicken," Mercury said. "If we fall, just activate your Semblance and have a landing strategy."
Royal rolled his eyes but got on.
Weiss got in the front. "Not too close," she warned. "I'm married, but you'll want to hang on."
"Maybe you should summon some handles on this," Mercury said.
They flew over the trees.
The other team saw them.
"That's no fair!" Emerald cried.
"That was the Silver Eyes," Meridian said. "They found Grimm."
"Then we follow them," Emerald said.
"We'll never beat them there," Cinder said. "And Mercury can easily kill more Grimm. Our only chance was finding them first. We've lost already."
"With that attitude, we really have lost," Meridian said. "We can at least go down fighting. The real point of this is team building. We can do that just as well losing as winning. Not everything is about literal success, Cindy."
"Don't call me that," Cinder bristled.
"We can at least try to keep up, I guess," Emerald said. "I think the rules of this were kind of weird."
She started to run faster.
"I guess we'll at least get some cardio in," Meridian joked as he ran too.
Cinder sighed in annoyance.
But they were able to almost catch up with the others, as Weiss was flying slow in order to look for the Grimm carefully.
"So far nothing." Royal actually had binoculars. "Maybe they went towards those ruins over there. Those aren't in Forever Fall Forest, though."
"I think we can leave, if we have to," Weiss said. "By the way, don't mention that Cinder came with us when we go back. I just remembered that she's not allowed in Vale."
"Didn't your sister know that?" Royal asked.
"She might have forgotten, since Cinder's been going with us all over the place, but also we're not supposed to be around citizens, so who'd think about it if we didn't tell them?" Weiss shrugged.
"There, the Forever Fall trees end by those rocks," Mercury said. "I bet they'll be lurking in around there, though I bet it's sucked dry already."
"Don't say that," Royal said.
"Did I offend you?"
"Guys," Weiss said.
"Sorry," Royal said.
"That was just regular banter," Mercury said. "Chill out, Weiss--that should be easy for you."
"I can throw you off this summoning," Weiss said.
"Smart move, lose your Grimm slayer."
"Well--what was that?" Weiss had thought she'd heard a whoosh.
Then something hit the bottom of her summoning, and, as it was already waning in Aura from being up this long, it shattered immediately.
"What the--" Royal cried as they all fell out of the air.
"AHHHH!" Mercury tried to get into position to blast himself into a less straight drop.
Weiss threw out some more glyphs as she fell, and they all hit them and bounced down a few more to the ground, hitting some tree branches on the way.
"Owww..." Weiss whimpered. A root was sticking into her back.
Royal's Aura was up, and he sat up and it faded. "Well, that wasn't fun. What did that? A bird?"
"A bird wouldn't have just flown into the summoned thingy." Mercury peeled himself of the grass. "Someone did that. It must have been the others. That was low."
"Guys?" Emerald came into view right then, knives out, but she looked confounded. "Did you just fall out of the sky?"
"Yeah, thanks a lot," Mercury said. "You guys take training way too seriously."
"What do you mean?" Emerald asked. "You don't think we'd shoot that? Even if it was kind of unfair to use it."
"Nothing unfair about using our abilities," Royal said. "But what did shoot us if not you?"
"I was going to ask you what happened." Emerald frowned. "I can't believe you'd think I'd do that."
"Not you, really," Mercury said. "One of your two archer friends."
"Emerald!" Cinder finally caught up to her. "What are you doing? Don't waste time talking, get ahead."
"Cinder, did you just shoot our ride?" Mercury accused.
"What?" Cinder seemed genuinely puzzled. "Why would I have done that?"
"Uh, because we were winning. I bet you haven't even got one Grimm yet."
"No, you scared them away with your eyes flashing. I think you should have left off on that for this exercise." Cinder was annoyed again, not surprisingly.
"I don't think this is talking things around the way Winter meant," Weiss said. "You guys aren't taking this seriously. We're wasting time. Who cares if they shoot us down or not?"
"Wait, are saying you think we're lying?" Emerald asked.
"No, I'm not saying that," Weiss said. "I just don't know what else could have hit us that hard. If you were aiming at something else and hit us by accident, that's fine. I just want to be sure there's no one else out here."
"We wouldn't hit you by accident." Meridian came into view. "Game or not, we're not going to play like that. I'm affronted that you think I would, Snow Tiger."
"Can you not with the pet names?" Cinder said.
"That's a fine name. What's eating you?" Meridian shrugged.
"Do you think Glynda could have knocked it down just because you guys shouldn't have been using it?" Emerald wondered. "She was pretty mean. Maybe you shouldn't be using things like that. We're supposed to be navigating the woods, not flying. You're defeating the whole point."
"If we have an advantage. Why not use it?" Mercury said.
"There's a time to play your card more carefully..." Royal said.
"Oh, so you're on their side now?" Mercury said.
"I believe we're still all working on the same case even if we're competing," Royal said. "Let's not be unreasonable."
"If it wasn't them, who shot us then?" Mercury was getting more agitated. "If it was Goodwitch, why not just say it was off limits?"
"Keep talking," Cinder said. "You won't have to look for the Grimm anymore."
Mercury frowned but went quiet for a moment.
"Okay, let's just calm down." Emerald held up her hands. "Weiss, maybe you should just send another thing up there and see if anything happens."
Weiss nodded and did so.
It flew around a bit, and nothing happened right off.
"Okay..." Royal said. "Either that was an accident, or someone is watching us and knows it's a bluff... I'd say it was our trainers messing with us, but this seems a little subtle for them."
They all got real quiet. The tension was palpable.
Suddenly there was a loud screech that made them all flinch.
A Nevermore, such as no one had seen for quite a while this close to Vale's city, came flying out from between some taller cliffs and right towards Weiss' summoning.
It reached it and tore it to pieces in one slash.
"Merc," Weiss said in a low voice, "maybe get the one."
"I'll have four then," Mercury said.
"I don't even care, just get it!" Weiss snapped.
"All right, all right, but I need a clear shot." Mercury jumped into a tree and began to get higher.
"Watch it, they can shoot feathers," Weiss called.
"Thanks, Weiss," Mercury said dryly.
"Be quieter," Cinder said. "They also can hear you."
It was too late for that, or perhaps it could just sense them. The Nevermore turned their way and began to shoot feathers.
"Get under cover!" Royal cried, as they all rushed to stand close to the trees.
The branches blocked most of the feathers, fortunately, but one broke through just a few feet from Emerald's face and she gasped.
Meridian was narrowly missed by one.
"I don't think that's going to wait for Mercury to hit it," he said. "Better distract it. Love, can you let me have a steed?"
Weiss stuck her sword out and summoned a running Grimm. "Are you sure about this?"
"If I draw its attention, Mercury can just fry it while it's staying more steady." Meridian nodded.
Weiss used a speed glyph also, and the beast took off like a shot.
"I thought there were only small Grimm left around here," Royal remarked, looking up through the trees. "Why is that so close?"
Cinder didn't know the answer to that, but suddenly she made a strangled scream.
One of the huge bi-colored serpents, such as also hadn't been seen in ages in this forest, was slithering towards them out of the trees.
It could barely navigate them itself, but it fixed this by suddenly using one head to grab a tree and yank it up and toss it away, clearing a much larger space.
Then it repeated this.
"It's making it easier for itself? Smart Grimm." Royal was staring in stupefied horror.
Cinder held up her bow.
The two-headed snake locked right onto her, and its tongue flicked out.
Little known fact to anyone, but Cinder actually hated snakes. Rather unexpected for someone with her edgy persona, but there'd been snakes in the field near where she'd lived in Mistral, and the one plus of Atlas had been that it was too cold for reptiles, as they had a habit of sneaking up on people.
And a giant snake was worse.
"We don't have those in Atlas." Royal didn't think his bullets were going to kill that thing. "Are they venomous?"
"Yes," Emerald said, "but if they bit you, you'd be dead before you ever felt the venom."
"Then how do you know they're poisonous?" Royal asked.
"Does it matter?" Emerald put a hand to her head. "I can hide us... This counts as one for both of our teams, all right?"
"Can we just not count this one?" Royal said. "If we start sharing, there's no point. Also, not sure this was the Lieutenant's plan. Maybe we should let them know more Grimm are showing up."
The two-headed snake grew tired of them not moving, and both its heads shot out different ways. The white one came towards Cinder, and the black one toward Emerald and Royal.
Weiss was trying to keep her glyph going while Meridian shot arrows at the Nevermore that was starting to turn its attention toward him.
"Mercury, hurry," she panted. "I'm getting low..." She leaned on her sword.
"I'm hurrying!" Mercury's eyes flashed.
The Nevermore turned at the light and made sure it shot more feathers before it...turned to stone.
That was unfortunate, because some of the feathers became stone and dropped like...well, rocks.
Meridian yelped as one came towards the beast he was on, but he sprang off and rolled, and the feather crushed the summoning, and only the edge of the quill hit him, but he fell down.
"Meridian!" Weiss screamed and rushed toward him, forgetting the others for the moment.
Cinder blocked the snake's fang with her glass as it snapped at her.
"It's big, but it's not that well outfitted," Royal noted. "Just the teeth are really the problem and the sheer size. If you took out its head, it'd be nothing."
Emerald ducked. "Why is it even still attacking? I thought I hid Cinder and us from it."
"Maybe it can still smell us," Royal said.
"But even then usually it confuses them more..." Emerald tried to focus. Maybe if she made it think they were running off another way.
The snake looked away suddenly and tried to chase the illusion... Good...
Wait.
One of its heads was, but the other wasn't...
It whirled back towards Emerald, away from Cinder, nearly hitting her with its neck, and lunged at Emerald.
Royal jumped and pushed her out of the way, and the snake nearly took his leg off. It just missed and then snapped again.
Royal kicked it in the jaw frantically.
"Cinder!" Emerald yelped, as she was in no position to fire with Royal nearly on top of her.
Cinder shot an arrow at the monster's eye, but it turned just in the last second, and the arrow hit right above it instead and didn't pierce its scales.
"I retract what I said. This thing is tougher than I thought," Royal muttered.
"It's like it has two minds," Emerald said. "Though it's a Grimm, the two heads... I can only fool one set of eyes. I mean, I can do more now if I have to, but to keep them both thinking the same thing, they'd have to look the same direction. It's not as simple."
"Just get up." Royal sprang to his feet and pulled her up. "Run. Maybe if you get some distance you can fool both of those heads, but while it can see you, you can't focus."
The black head was curling back towards Cinder, mad about the arrow.
The white head, now that Emerald had broken focus, realized it was not chasing anyone and turned back around.
"I'll get it, just run." Mercury was coming down the tree.
The snake suddenly looked up, and then...Emerald and Royal could have sworn it got a greedy look in its eye, like it was smarter than it should have been.
With a speed much faster than Mercury could have climbed, unless he jumped the rest of the way, the serpent used its white head's fangs to grab the tree trunk below where he was climbing.
"Hey!" Mercury tried to leap to the next tree, but the snake wrenched the tree out of the ground so hard you could hear all the roots snapping at once, and the branches caught Mercury as he was in mid air and knocked him many yards away into another tree where he nearly was KO-ed. He fell to the ground.
"Mercury!" Emerald paled.
"Emerald, don't get distracted!" Royal warned as the creature turned towards them again. It then tried to drop the tree on them.
A glass bubble encased them.
Cinder had run closer, and she strained to hold it up.
The bi-snake, not much discouraged by this, began to ram the tree on the glass like a battering ram.
"This thing is possessed," Royal cried. "No Grimm normally would think to do that. It must be mutated. It just looks the same."
"Is that important now?" Cinder strained. "Someone do something! Emerald!"
"I'm trying." Emerald was finding it hard to focus.
She tried to cloud both the snake heads at the same time.
It slowed a little, perhaps confused.
"I have an idea," Royal said suddenly, eyes narrowing. "Cinder, can you change the shape of this glass?"
"Within...reason..." Cinder was starting to perspire.
"Emerald, just block its view of what she does. Let it hit it," Royal said.
"Uh...okay," Emerald said.
"All right, Cinder, change it, slowly, into a long spike," Royal said. "Sharp. Maybe its own force will penetrate its armor."
The snake was certainly not deterred from hitting the shield itself. It rammed it again.
Cinder started to shake.
But she gritted her teeth, and part of her bubble began to grow forward like a unicorn horn, sharpening into a thin edge.
If she could have dropped the bubble, it would have been far easier, but the snake would not have given her a chance to strike if she did this, and doing it slow was much more taxing.
Her head felt a little light.
"I don't think I can..." she said faintly, as the spike was still not quite long enough to reach the monster.
Emerald strained. "I can't hold two minds for that long either..."
"I'm sorry, but you have to." Royal put a hand on Cinder's shoulder to steady her. "I'll hold you up. Just put all your effort into the spike. Just a few more seconds."
Somehow Cinder felt a rush of some kind of energy, whether it was adrenaline or...something else.
Swallowing, she managed to push just a little harder on the spike.
It grew out another two yards.
The snake had just pulled back for one more ram.
It rammed into right into the spike as it hit the tree on them, and then it looked almost astonished at the spike going through its neck.
The glass bubble fell at once, and Cinder nearly passed out on the spot.
Royal caught her.
The other snake head was still alive though. It whirled around towards them...then there was a white flash and it burst into black smoke.
Emerald looked back. Mercury was pushing himself up, but he look greyer than usual.
He only managed to fry the Grimm before he groaned and fell back over.
"Does that still only count as one?" Royal asked Emerald weakly.
Emerald didn't laugh. She ran to Mercury at once.
Royal helped Cinder sit down. "Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
Cinder rubbed her head, which was now pounding from the strain.
"Yes, I'm fine... How did you do that?"
"What?" Royal asked.
"The...power, it was like I felt more of it when you..." Cinder trailed off and felt uncomfortable.
"When I touched you?" Royal said it more bluntly. "It did feel a little different, but I didn't think it was because of any power."
Cinder missed the implication in that statement because she was too busy being confused. "Perhaps it's a gift, showing itself for the first time."
"That would be cool..." Royal admitted.
Black ash from the Grimm was falling through the air, but it would disappear soon, Cinder thought...
It occurred to her that it should have already.
A speck of it fell onto her arm suddenly, and she stared at it. It seemed like a piece of the snake's scales... It wasn't moving.
She hesitantly touched it, and it didn't dissipate.
"Ahh!" she hissed and swatted it off her skin.
"What?" Royal jumped.
"The Grimm traces, don't you see? They aren't all disappearing," Cinder said. She pointed. "Some are littering the ground."
"So they are..." Royal saw. "But they disappear eventually, don't they?"
Cinder picked up a glass shard and poked one of the other flakes of Grimm with it. Nothing disappeared.
"We need to call Winter at once," she said, looking wan. "I think I have something."
* * *
Winter and Raven already had seen that something bad had gone down and had alerted Raven to bring everyone home once they got to them.
Meridian was okay. The feather had just knocked the wind out of him, and he was up and ready by the time the two older ladies had gotten there.
Mercury seemed to have a slight concussion, since he'd not activated his Aura fast enough when hitting the tree, but no broken bones. He was still vaguely conscious when Emerald went up to him but not very lucid.
"You pushed yourself using your eyes when your head was already hit." Emerald shook her head, looking down at him. "I stopped Ruby from doing that once by hitting her in the head. You moron, you should have known better."
"The Grimm." Mercury was confused and tried to sit up, thinking the Grimm was still there.
"It's gone." Emerald pushed him back down. "Hold still. Take it easy till they come get us."
"What did we miss?" Weiss asked as she and Meridian came back to them.
"You left us!" Emerald said.
"I had to help Mer!" Weiss exclaimed. "I was coming back... You killed the other thing?"
"Not completely. Look at that stuff." Royal pointed at the black specks.
Weiss frowned at them, then she looked back toward the Nevermore. It was stone, so...no way to know if it had left anything else.
"Gross..." she shuddered.
When Winter and Glynda caught up, they began to apologize for not coming faster, but then they told them what was going on.
Glynda inspected the specks.
"Sometimes Grimm take longer to dissolve," she said. "But once they do, I didn't think they left anything. It rises into the air and fades away."
Winter stared at it. "These Grimm are not the same now...but what could be causing this?"
She rubbed her chin. "Remember the origin of the Grimm we saw in the gods' vision?"
"Yes," said everyone but Royal--and Mercury, who was still loopy.
"They were made from beasts," Winter said. "That was how they took physical shape, and then that was replicated. The ones that are becoming phantoms seem to be losing that physical binding aspect... Could it be that if you kill them before they have fully lost it, it leaves this? Are we severing their spirit from its form?"
"How is that possible?" Emerald asked.
"Well, it was dark magic that formed them to begin with," Winter said. "I wonder if destroying them leaves a trace of that dark magic behind when it's done this way. The remnants of the bestial form itself. If it can be made, it can be unmade, logically. The god of darkness' magic is fading from this world more and more as we remove the Grimm, but the darkness itself is not gone."
"So you're saying that this is part of the Grimm left behind because of magic?" Royal asid. "Or the remnants of magic?"
"There was a theory about the Grimm," Winter said. "That's the reason the ponds made endless amounts was that the darkness of the Grimm did not disappear when they were killed, that it went into the air and came down and formed new Grimm...but then we did see a cloud of Grimm liquid while we were going through the land of the Grimm, as if the ponds could evaporate...which is disgusting, but...perhaps there was truth in that. The god of darkness was not an infinite being, like our God. He must have recycled his hold over those creatures to keep producing more. That said, if we are finally stamping them out, there may be traces of the material he used left. I would hate to think that means we can't destroy them entirely."
Glynda raised her hand and used her Semblance to swirl the pieces all up and form them into a whirlwind.
Then she slowly formed them into the shape of a Grimm, currently, and let it go.
The ashes fell, but they were still visible as particles.
"It would seem that physical power of the creature is entirely gone," she said distastefully. "And I do not wish to wield it. But some of its poisoned matter remains in this world. Maybe it can be destroyed."
"Yes, perhaps with more effort," Winter said. She pulled out some fire dust. "Hold it in place, will you, Miss Goodwitch?"
Glynda nodded.
Winter threw the fire dust onto the specks. "Burn," she said, Aura blazing up with power. "Be gone, foul creature."
The fire blazed up...and the flakes melted away slowly till there were none left.
The very air seemed to lighten.
They all let out a sigh of relief.
"Then we can get rid of it," Emerald said.
"Through fire--as with all evil, it seems," Winter mused. "I suppose that fits. It takes more than one try. How concerning."
"It took more than one try for some time in the book," Emerald said. "Maybe that's it...they're stronger."
"It takes more for more of them than just this one," Cinder said, rubbing her head. "So...we all understand the meaning of this, right?"
"I'm afraid so," Winter said, darkly.
"What?" Emerald asked.
"We think this may answer our question of how those idiotic bandits must have found a way to harness the power of Grimm," Winter said. "Did Royal and Cinder not say that Neo reported they threw some kind of dust on her when they infected her? What if this was what they actually did...or some slightly more refined form of it. Something they'd learned to tamper with, some kind of dark power they must have stumbled upon, but if some Grimm are leaving that when killed...but not all Grimm. I have not noticed this being a problem before."
"Not all of them, yeah," Emerald said. "But we don't check every time we kill one. We're in too big of a hurry... So you think they found a way to use that stuff to make some kind of magic powder?"
"Probably," Cinder said. "Just like Salem used to use the goo. They are really the same thing, in different forms."
"I would guess that the dust is likely weaker than the liquid form," Winter said. "It's born of a dying Grimm. There's no way it has as much power, and, left alone, I wonder if it would even hurt someone. But whatever they're doing to it, they must be infusing it with some kind of energy again that makes it able to form new Grimm. I prefer to know as little about how they do that as possible, but we can guess this much from the evidence itself. And this tells us one thing to look for if we find them. We must destroy any and all traces of dust like this if we kill the Grimm."
"Dust," Weiss mused. "Winter remember that the magical humans became dust? Which was kind of gross to think about, but...what if it's not actually the humans that became the dust? Just like the god of darkness gave Grimm his power, both gods gave their magic. When the humans were killed by the gods, they separated the magic from them, didn't they? And the magic formed dust. What if the Grimm are doing the same thing? They weren't destroyed before by the gods removing themselves, but they were the second time, so, just like the humans, they are forming their own kind of remnants..."
"That enable you to wield the power of Grimm the way the dust lets you wield the power of the god of creation," Winter said, astonished. "Weiss, you're brilliant!"
Weiss reddened at this rare, overt praise from her sister. "I just used the logic..."
"So wait, both gods left physical remnants of themselves?" Royal said. "Is that why we call this world Remnant?"
"That and it's a shell of what it was before they touched it," Winter said. "We should think of changing the name back since we're changing that...but perhaps that's for the future generation to think about. We have enough goals that seem impossible without adding changing the entire concept of how we see this world."
"Maybe all fallen worlds are really a remnant of former glory anyway," Emerald said. "The name still fits, it's just depressing. I'd prefer a more hopeful one. Maybe something like Harbinger, something that is a sign of things to come, but it's not the thing yet."
"That very poetic," Weiss said. "I would like that...but it's probably not something the people would go for."
"Does this mean our actions have created this problem?" Glynda asked, pushing her glasses in a horrified way.
"No, Glynda," Winter said firmly. "We must not see it that way. We can't allow them to blame-shift like that. The gods' actions did this. Our undoing it has just led to the natural results of those actions, but, just like we're going to run out of dust eventually (as Shine and Wally already predicted for us and we can see is already happening, as we've found less and less with time_, then these traces of Grimm will eventually be gone also. Just right now, both are still potent. But fortunately, just like the dust was much weaker than magic, I think this must be much weaker than the Grimm ponds, as we said... It's only that people are using it that consciously."
There was a pause while this sunk in.