Miracles of Ancient Wonder
~
Chapter 9.4
~~~
Ren flipped through his newest cookbook, looking for something that felt like home. Not his original home, but all of the places that he and Nora'd spent while they were traveling to Vale. the ingredients wouldn't be hard to find. The only issue was the spices; he just didn't have the right ones.
He sighed and slid over to his bookcase. Each one was sorted into a category and then alphabetically. As he moved over to cooking, he paused. The book that Blake had recommended was sitting at the end of his fiction section, bookmark sticking up from the halfway point.
It was a good book, but he couldn't bring himself to finish it. He also couldn't just get rid of it. She had been fun to talk about books with and now he couldn't help wondering if there was a reason that she gave him this one. Was it all a ploy to manipulate him or was it just a book? It was popular, thousands had read it, so there shouldn't be anything wrong with it.
He was probably overthinking it.
Ren tapped the spine of the book, then went back to his cooking section. As he picked a new one, Nora opened the door.
"Hey, Ren." She waved lightly.
He smiled. "How was it?"
Nora groaned. "It's getting better…"
She flopped onto her bed, face down in her pillow. "Doctor Seymour wants me to try meditating more. But, it's still hard. Every time I do it, I remember what it was like and…"
Ren walked over to her and squeezed her hand.
"It's helping me remember more about Ruby too, even though he still needed me to remind him, and…" Nora lifted her head up, then slammed her head into the pillow again. "And I just don't get it. Why would she do that? It's crazy."
"Maybe." Ren sat down next to her. "I've been thinking about it too. If she wanted to help the Anathema, why do it that way? She'd have done more damage by pretending to be friendly."
"Basically no one can remember her and she can beat Professor Goodwitch one on one. She could've killed anyone she wanted to and never gotten caught." Nora rolled over with her eyes closed. "I just don't get it."
"Hmm." Ren laid down next to her. They had to share a bed enough times that both could comfortably fit on a twin. He held his arms behind his head, Nora resting hers in the crook of his elbow after a moment of hesitation. "She could have run out of time."
"Mmh?"
"If Blake and Yang wanted her to cripple Beacon, then she did exactly that." He'd been rolling the idea over for a while. "They might have called her back if they were losing control."
"You don't think she's Anathema too?"
"She was too obvious. If she was, she'd have been taken care of within the first week." The staff had investigated Weiss as soon as she did something that deserved it, but Ruby had done that during initiation. If she was Anathema, like half of her team turned out to be, then she'd have been caught immediately.
"How would they do…"
"The notes," they said at the same time.
"I could barely remember her before Blake wrote one for me, and then it became easy. If she could do that, then she could've had Ruby eating out of the palm of her hand with…" Nora held her hand to get chin, so in thought. "sticky notes on all of her books!"
"I think texting is more likely."
"Well, yeah, but it's so boring. A conspiracy of sticky notes is way cooler." Nora waved a hand in front of them. "Think about it. How just reading a book because you need to do homework and then"- she punched her palm -"bam! Suddenly you need to kill the king."
Ren chuckled. "I think someone else would've noticed those by now."
"Not if she hid another command for anyone else to forget about it." Nora shivered. "I'm happy it was probably texting.""
Ren closed his eyes and smiled. As long as Nora still had her sense of humor, he could afford to worry. "That doesn't explain what Ruby is though."
"Yeah… Do you think Pyrrha might be right?"
"It makes as much sense as anything else. Weiss also-" He stopped talking when the door opened.
"Hello." Pyrrha waved. She was in her combat gear and slick with sweat.
"Heya," Nora threw herself forward, landing on the ground in front of her bed. "Sparring?"
"Yes. Weiss asked me to help her with close combat drills."
"Isn't she the second best in our class now?" Nora quirked her head to the side.
"While she may be, there's always room for improvement." Pyrrha smiled at them as she pulled a towel from her dresser.
"You've been working with her a lot lately." Ren stood up, keeping watch of Pyrrha. If Blake and Yang had left messages for Ruby, they surely would've left some for Weiss.
"Well…" Pyrrha looked away. "She's all alone now and I thought that she could use a friend."
"Has she been doing anything weird?" Nora stalked toward Pyrrha.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, saying weird things when it's just the two of you."
"She hasn't said anything out of the ordinary." Pyrrha looked like a deer caught in headlights. "Wha-why are you asking this?"
Nora looked back at Ren. He nodded.
"Well, we've been talking about how strange everything's been and you've been kinda distant ever since the Ruby-thing happened and we're worried that…" Nora drew the word out for a moment. "That whatever happened to Ruby might happen to Weiss and then to you too."
"I don't believe that's possible. I-" Pyrrha cut herself off and took a deep breath. "I cannot see any reason why either of us would behave in such a manner."
"What if it wasn't your choice?" Ren cut in. "What if it was caused by someone else?"
Pyrrha's eyes flickered to an intense glare. "I hope that you're not insinuating-"
"I meant Blake." Ren raised his hands, palms facing her.
The anger dissipated as soon as it had appeared. "Ahh… I don't see how she could do that."
"Little messages left behind to catch you by surprise," Nora whispered loudly. "Or, you know, texting since she had all of our numbers."
"I still don't believe that would happen." Pyrrha frowned and crossed her arms. "Have you given any thought to what I asked about?"
Ren nodded. Once upon a time, he and Nora had regularly went to church. "It still seems too good to be true. If the gods are looking out for us, why is the first we've ever heard of it?"
"I do not pretend to understand the decisions made, but believe that there is a plan to fix our world." Pyrrha bowed her head. "Lady Mars would not have sent a Champion to lead us if that was not the case."
"Some leading she did." Nora snidely commented. "She just made everything worse."
"I'm certain that there is a good reason for her actions, destructive though they may be." Pyrrha couldn't quite look Nora in the eyes. "Any change would produce some form of strife."
"She almost killed our teachers!"
"But she didn't!" Pyrrha clenched her fists. "I've seen the video of the fight. Ruby could have won at any point by killing, but she held herself back every step of the way. Even when she almost lost, she stuck to non-lethal blows. You both saw this as well."
Ren nodded. Ruby's skill was so far above his that she would have been able to kill every one of them if she wanted to.
"In all of my memories, she's never acted with cruelty. I don't see any reason why she would start now."
"If an Anathema-" Nora began.
"If an Anathema wished for her to harm us, then there would have been many deaths that night." Pyrrha cut her off. "If you assume that malice was involved, then none of what occurred makes any sense."
Ren couldn't find any fault to the logic, especially because neither he nor Nora had been able to explain it, but something was still bothering him. "Pyrrha, if you believe there are others like Ruby, why haven't we heard about them?"
Pyrrha hesitated, her face stuck in an awkward half smile. "Well, I would imagine that they would exhibit similar traits as Ruby. They would display the symbol of their patron, have incredible talent in thematic fields, be superhuman in many ways…"
"You're basically describing the Anathema." Nora pointed at Professor Port's 'Vile Creatures and Dark Machinations: A Huntsman's Guide to All Things Evil, fifth edition' textbook. "The symbols of the sun and the moon appear on their foreheads."
"Well…" Pyrrha couldn't meet their eyes again. "Isn't one of the major theories that they have stolen divine power?"
Ren and Nora nodded.
"Then, what would you expect for those who should have it? I would expect something similar, but… less… uncontrolled. Ruby's aura is very calm, even though it's bright, unlike the raging fire of the Anathema."
Again, Ren couldn't fault the logic, but that idea especially didn't sit well with him. "If I didn't know better. I'd say you were trying to convince us that the Anathema aren't evil."
"I-" Pyrrha hesitated again. "I'm not trying to do that, it's just…"
That was it,the reason why he was so worried. Pyrrha had always been careful, thinking a lot before she said anything, but now she was doing it even more. There was something she had to stop herself from saying.
"Anyway, my room's right over here," Jaune said loudly enough that they could hear it through the closed door. "My teammates probably aren't going to be around."
"We'll talk more later," Nora whispered to Pyrrha, who nodded as she gathered her shower bag.
"So, tell me again about this Ruby. Really nasty girl, right?" a girl said from the hall.
"What? No! She's great." Jaune raised his voice slightly. "She always helped me with my homework and really-"
"What? But she was going to kill Professor Goodwitch."
"When did tha-" Jaune yelled, then went quiet. "Oh, I remember now... I don't really know why she did that."
Nora patted Pyrrha on the shoulder as the doorknob turned.
"Anyway, this is-" Jaune flung it open, revealing a tiny blonde girl in a Beacon uniform. "My wonderful team."
He chuckled with a ridiculous grin on his face. "Uhh, guys, meet Marigold. We were just stopping by for…"
Jaune glanced to the side and picked up Ren's extra thermos.
"My water bottle... So that we can go for a run. Umm..." He looked down the hall. "Let's go grab yours next."
Jaune closed the door and left without saying anything else.
"Do you want a hug?" Nora asked Pyrrha from the side.
Pyrrha nodded, leaning into Nora.
"You should talk to him." Ren stepped up, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
"He still can't remember Ruby most of the time. I wouldn't be able to convince him of anything."
Ren sighed. That wasn't the problem he was was referring to, but until she made any move, nothing would happen. Some people were blind to what was right in front of them.
~~~
She stepped back from her luggage, carefully inspecting the almost immaculate quarters. The posting at the Atlas R&D facility had been an incredible boon to both her skills and her career, but tomorrow she would be in the field once more.
The people of Vale needed assistance in their darkest hour. With their Hunters crippled by... some effect that hadn't properly been identified, but was undoubtedly caused by Anathema, they had to ask others to deal with such threats.
Winter Schnee opened her new orders on her scroll while her ghostly Nevermore finished gathering any scraps which the vacuuming had missed. It was not the most dignified of actions for her Semblance to perform, but it was much more efficient than attempting to do so herself.
The first stop would be Beacon Academy, where she would be briefed on the current situation with the other Specialists. Their targets would be assigned and they would then exterminate them with extreme prejudice. Some had already gone to ground and Vale could not risk them lying in wait until they had the opportunity to join up with others.
While visiting the academy would be nice, there was a second reason that she wanted to go there. It would be the second time this year that she'd see her precious younger sister. Ever since the summer, they'd only been able to communicate via coded letters which had gotten increasingly worrying.
She opened the most recent message from Weiss.
Dearest Winter,
I'm writing you today to inform you that I now understand why you hold General Ironwood in such high esteem. We spoke at length about my studies and plans for the future, which he was very approving of. I will be...
Her sister had risked a great deal, but Winter was confident about her chances because of prior decisions that the military had made.
Winter had been one of the first on the scene of the Grimm attack where they discovered the 'friendly' Anathema. While she did not know what had happened to the boy, the results were far above her pay grade, she had heard that he was allowed to live for quite some time by technicians who should've known better than to gossip.
General Ironwood had enough pull to ensure Weiss' safety as long as she cooperated with him and Winter was sure that the sister she grew up with would seek good ends. If she didn't, then there was one more person who could now pull the trigger.
...very regrettable that such events had to unfold. I was happy when I was with them in a way that I don't remember being before. Both Blake and Yang had been truly kind, so much so that the horrifying revelation had an impact on not only myself, but all of my classmates as well.
It is regrettable that such talent was the result of fell powers. All that I can hope for is that their deaths be painless.
When she heard about her sister's relationships, Winter had been a bit surprised. Weiss hadn't expressed interest in anyone before, let alone two women at once. The plea to not kill her girlfriends also came through. However, that was not something that Winter could directly impact. She would defend Weiss, who had already made an incredible amount of progress reclaiming their family honor from their father's action, but others would simply be-
A loud clang came from the ceiling, followed by several smaller thumps.
Winter banished her summons and moved to the corner of the room, blade in hand. The pounded progressed until it was directly above the center of the room. After a moment of silence, the sounds of straining metal made her wince. Those hinges needed to be oiled.
A ceiling panel slid to the side and a head of bright orange popped out. From her limited point of view, Winter would guess this was a girl who had used far too much product because her hair was defying gravity by staying in place. The head looked back and forth, but never behind itself, which was where Winter was standing. The short girl flipped to the ground after looking around twice. A covert infiltrator she was not.
"Ahem." Winter cleared her throat.
The girl snapped to attention, saluting as she turned around. "Ahh!"
"Who are you?"
"Cadet Penny Polendina, ma'am."
"Hmm." Winter had worked with only one Polendina so far, one of the most eccentric researchers at the academy. He wanted to know whether her Semblance could be used to empower automatons. Fortunately for her sanity, it did not. "What exactly are you doing?"
"I- umm… Not-" She stammered, hiccuping in the middle of the statement, "-thing."
Winter loudly tapped her heel as she pulled up a listing of students. The name and face matched.
"I mean... " Penny looked down. "I was attempting to move through the building via the vents, ma'am."
"And why were you crawling through the air ducts instead of using the hallway?"
She glanced at the window, then tried to look Winter in the eye, but wound up staring at her neck. "I wanted to visit the city without my father's bodyguards escorting me."
Winter had to resist emoting. "And this was the method that you chose?"
"He is very protective of me and hired a bunch of careful bodyguards, but I'm much smaller than them so I can move through places they can't." she said without any of the flinching that Winter had learned to associate with childhoods like her own. Perhaps Penny's father was just worried, not controlling.
"He would not allow you to go out by yourself?"
"There are always people making sure that I'm safe. But, safe is boring and I don't have much time left on campus and there's an arcade that's just spectacular. It has a wonderful dancing game."
Winter arched an eyebrow. "You're leaving the academy as a Cadet?"
"Me? Oh no, I'm… Well, I was going to be participating the Vytal festival, but they've asked me to go to Vale early in order to help with…"Penny pressed her hands to her chest. "With finding my friend Ruby."
"Ruby?" Somehow, that name sounded familiar.
"She's a freshman at Beacon who... " Penny went silent for a few seconds. "She's a good person who never wanted to hurt anyone and..."
"What did she do?"
"She's the one who everyone's saying attacked Beacon last week." Penny dropped her head. "I watched the video-"
Everyone Winter knew had seen multiple copies of that video by now. The consensus among those who knew of the new Anathema classifications was that the girl in red was another one, especially given how potent she had been in a fight.
"-and it's definitely her, but she wouldn't do something like that. She told me that she wanted to stop the investigations from hurting people so much, so she had to stop them and that she was sorry it had to be that way "
"Have you heard from her recently?"
"N-No." Penny hiccuped. "I have not heard anything."
Winter never would have conceived of someone being that bad of a liar. "You just said that she was sorry about what had happened."
"So I did." Penny gave her a toothy grin that was completely unconvincing. After half a minute of holding it, she said, "She's messaged me twice in the past week through a new email account. When I was at Beacon, me and Ruby were texting all of the time about the things she was thinking and her really cool scythe and her team."
"So you-" Winter paused as she put together exactly who this person was. She had been in one of the pictures that Weiss sent during her first week at Beacon. Ruby Rose was the leader of her sister's team who was also an engineering prodigy... Which made the Anathema assumption all the more likely. "So you have been in touch with her."
"Yes, but not as much as I had been before."
"Do you know where she is?"
"No, but I'd like to see her again and there might be a chance of that happening while I'm there."
Winter held her face still so that the frown wouldn't show. This girl was in for a very rude awakening if what she suspected was true. But, that was something that every Specialist needed to go through eventually. "Very well, thank you for the information. We may be working together in Vale."
Penny blinked several times. "Ma'am?"
"I'm flying to Beacon this afternoon. Perhaps I'll see you there." Winter relaxed her posture and lifted her bag.
"May I leave?"
"Yes," She smiled. "I have not received any orders regarding a Penny Polendina or where she is supposed to be."
She knew all too well how much being locked in a gilded cage chafed on the soul. The academy was a safe place for a young girl to escape from her handlers and be free for however long she could.
