A Grave Parting

[Ruby Rose]

Continued from Grave's death in the Secondary Saga

Alice tore through the chilly night air, her large, leathery wings beating against gravity as her own fatigue threatened to pull her down like a riptide... no, like the Swamp of Sorrow had taken José from her. The vampire shook the thought from her head and she bared her fangs at the darkened world around her in a fruitless attempt to frighten her fears... That's stupid, she scolded herself, eliciting a whimper at both her own imbecility and the nipping wind her stocky, furry body speared through. The motion wasn't as graceful as Alice could have hoped, though; both her swarming emotions and the pain of beating her already exhausted wings frequently threw her balance off, several times dropping her more than a couple of feet through the air, but she only pushed on, fueled by willpower and willpower alone.

José... You were right there... Right within my reach... You finally remembered me... A-and then... And then... Alice struggled to force the words into her mind. This world... This cruel, unrelenting place... Ripped you from me again... A trigger, the final thought was. In the middle of the sky, far from the proverbial headstone of her husband, her muscles lost all life, releasing all force at once, and the young vampire plummeted through the night sky, crashing like a meteor towards the canopy of trees...

I will get you back, José, I swear on my grave.

NO!

Alice's body kicked back into action and her immense limbs forced the wind to Earth, sweeping the jungle floor of loose foliage and whipping it into the air, as if spun into a tornado. A new glint filled her black, beady eyes; sheer determination. A new spark had ignited within her, and fueled every muscle, bone and organ in her bat body, feeding her like coal to a furnace. She was going to make it out. She was going to get José back. She was going to find who threw them into such a cruel world in the first place.

Omni had started the entire mess. If she couldn't finish what José had started... She was at least going to provide the stepping stones for José to continued where he left off. She was going to find answers... She would explore every verse, every single nook and cranny until she could bring José back from the grave, and she would not rest until she did. That night...

Alice found her purpose within the Omniverse