The silence that descended upon the infirmary was palpable. Only the beeping of monitors and the distant steps of Autobots could be heard. Even those other members of the White Fang who were awake kept their mouths shut. The Autobot patients rested at the far end of the vast infirmary, where facilities suited to their scale were situated; most were wounded from the recent mission, but one, newly-thawed and boasting an ironic flame paint job, was recovering from stasis-sickness. For several long moments, Yang had to resist the urge to snap out and embrace her brother.
Her brother.
Never in all her time alive had Yang ever seen this coming. An older brother? She wanted to cry. Cry both tears of unremitting joy at being reunited with a family member that she had not even known she had and tears of unfathomable sorrow for all the lost time.
She wanted to do something though. Anything!
"You need to meet with Dad and Ruby!" she said suddenly, and that seemed to shock Adam out of whatever shock he felt. "I mean… I mean, over a scroll or something, but you have to meet them. They have to find out where you've been all these years… Actually, where
have you been all these years?"
Yang's face, she supposed, looked at least partially curious. Adam's face just looked overwhelmed. It was understandable. After all, it was what she had felt before this rollercoaster of emotions hit.
"Why do you think I need to meet with them?" he asked with a suspicious edge.
Yang cocked an eyebrow. "Are you seriously about to suggest that I helped forge an alliance between you and the Autobots, got on Cinder's kill list, spent close to a year helping you and the others in every situation imaginable, got chased out of Beacon for being affiliated with the White Fang, and went into isolation from my own family as part of a complicated plan to get you alone with a bunch of Huntsmen who would arrest you and cart you off to some prison somewhere?"
Adam was silent, but his eyes were his tell. He was embarrassed at the implication. It made Yang feel a compulsion to avert her eyes, like it was something that should not have been seen. She didn't though; she was his sister, and she couldn't look away when he bared his emotions to her.
"You got to admit, Boss, it sounds pretty out there when she lays it out like that," put in a sadly familiar voice from a bed one row down.
The redhead turned his head to the left to glare at the interloper in question. "Really, Vix? How did you even get in here? This is twice now in the last month that you've ended up in the infirmary."
In the other bed, the reindeer faunus shrugged his arms and the splints they were in. "Just that good at what I do, I guess."
That spurred some ribbing from the others, and soon, the infirmary was awash with the chatter of all those members of the White Fang who were awake. It admittedly wasn't much, but it was enough to drown out the rest of Adam and Yang's conversation. At least, she hoped it was anyway.
The blonde picked up the energon cube she had been using as a chair and brought it closer to the head of Adam's bed. "So, what happened?"
Instead of immediately replying, Adam glanced down at the cube. "Is that safe?"
"It's highly explosive. Answer the question," replied Yang without looking away.
Adam let out a gruff. "You want my life story? Really?"
"Yes, that's what I'm asking," insisted Yang, trying her best to keep her voice from rising and getting everyone's attention. "How come we didn't know about each other until a DNA test was done?"
"I don't know. Maybe our parents were just jerks?" answered Adam sarcastically, and then his expression changed as Yang felt her vision go red. "To answer your question, though, I really have no idea. Mother never talked about having any other children, and… wait a second.
You never talked about having a mother anything like my mother! When you talked about your mother, you always described her as an angel!"
Yang recoiled as if struck. "There's a reason for that!"
"Oh, this should be good," mocked Adam with a roll of his eyes that quickly turned into his head getting wobbly, clearly unused to
having two eyes.
"She was... she was the best," insisted Yang, regaining some ground. "When I was two weeks old, Raven Branwen abandoned me and my father, but luckily, another woman stepped in to be my mom: their old teammate, Summer Rose."
Adam's eyes went as wide as plates in surprise and then quickly narrowed in suspicion. "You're lying. You've got to be. There's no way you could possibly have been raised by my mother's old captain. Summer Rose was more myth than reality, a divine avatar of purity and destruction, and you expect me to believe that
you were raised by
her."
Now it was Yang's turn to gape in surprise. "What? I… what? How do you think my sister got the name 'Ruby Rose'?"
"A simple flight of fancy from city folk trying far too hard to adhere to that absurd color naming rule that the masses of sheep think is rebellious," dismissed Adam with a wave of his hand.
The blonde bristled. "Oh, and naming yourself after an animal is so much cooler? Ruby Rose is an amazing name, because it's her name, and she's the most amazing person on Remnant right now."
Adam crossed his arms smugly with a disdainful expression on his face. "Assuming, of course, she even exists."
"She does!" insisted Yang, reaching into her pocket and bringing out her scroll so that she could bring up and display a picture of her hugging her sister at her last birthday in front of a sign displaying her name in big, beautiful red letters. "See!"
The bullheaded redhead looked at the picture displayed on the scroll. "Very well, she exists. That doesn't prove she's Summer Rose's daughter."
"It's only the fact that I just found out we're related that's keeping me from punching you right now," deadpanned Yang.
"Oh, like that's ever stopped you before," pointed out Adam, which made Yang's face drop onto his bed with the scroll still held aloft. He was silent for a moment before switching topics. "You mentioned you were chased out of Beacon. You're a student there?"
"Yes," replied Yang into the bedsheet before sitting back up. "Well, at least, I was. My team found the stash in my bag, hacked the lock somehow, and then found out I was a member of the White Fang. Then your old partner broke my mask, and they chased after-"
"Wait, go back," interrupted Adam with a look of confusion. "My old partner?"
"That's what I said," answered Yang.
"She's dead, Sunfire," bluntly stated Adam. "You have to be mistaken."
"She told me she was your partner before she smashed the mask," replied Yang with a thoughtful expression. "Actually, I think she broke it
because you gave it to me. I mean, she called you an animal and went on this big rant about how evil you and the White Fang were. I'm pretty certain that she really hates your guts."
As the explanation went on, Adam's face grew more controlled, the sort of control that only came through depression. That… that information must have stung. At least it was
some reaction beyond denial, but Yang hated seeing him like that.
"Adam, was your old partner named Blake Belladonna?" asked Yang somberly.
"Yeah, I… I guess I never told you that, huh?" asked Adam.
"No, no, you didn't," confirmed Yang. "Which means we're talking about the same person. A name -- a description -- would have been useful things to know before things went sideways, just saying."
The redhead gave a chuff of dismissal and shifted inquiries. "So she's working for Beacon now?"
"No, she's studying at Beacon," corrected Yang before smiling sheepishly. "Turns out, you were right about her. Way back on the day after I first encountered…" She paused for a moment as the thought of Brock's smiling face came to mind just before it blew apart. "The Vacuans from Site Thirteen. One of my roommates dug some information about that out of me. Not the Autobots, but the SDC having slaves. She overheard, and I guess she decided to act on that."
Adam seemed to be trying to figure that all out when something suddenly changed, and he got an evil grin. "Excuse me, but did I hear that right? I was what?"
The blonde blushed in rage and embarrassment as she gave her confirmation. "You were right, Adam, and I was wrong."
He let out a deeply satisfied sigh at that. "Oh, you have no idea how good that feels to hear."
Yang glared at him in frustration. "You know, I bet it's stuff like this that made her break up with you."
Adam shot back his own glare. "She left me on an exploding train in the middle of the Grimm-infested wilderness surrounded by killer robots."
"And that was a jerk move," agreed Yang, continuing to glare. "I'm just saying that it wouldn't kill you to take a little less sadistic joy in getting one over on people."
"Ah, I see," replied Adam with a serene nod. "So when I do that, I'm a jerk, but when you do that, you're a saint."
"What? I'm not like that at all!" objected Yang, scandalized.
"I'm sure you really think that," faux-comforted Adam, and then he rapidly shifted topics again before she could get a word in. "So, wait, are you suggesting that my old partner ended up being your new roommate at Beacon?"
"That's exactly what happened," clarified the blonde, happy to be making some progress.
"How ridiculous can you get?" asked Adam sarcastically. "Who were your other roommates?"
Yang sighed in dread. "You're not going to believe me."
"No, but you're still going to answer," observed Adam.
"Yes," admitted Yang. "The first one you should know about is our sister, Ruby Rose."
"That's highly unlikely," interrupted Adam.
"She got into Beacon two years early," continued Yang, ignoring his comments.
"That's implausible."
"And was declared the leader of Team Ruby, spelled R-W-B-Y, after she organized us into a group to kill a Giant Nevermore."
"That's impossible."
"Ha! Maybe for other people, but not for Ruby. She can go beyond the impossible and do it smiling," bragged Yang smugly. "If you would only meet her, you'd see how amazing she is."
"How about we just talk about the fourth member of your little dorm?" asked Adam with a roll of his eyes. "At this point, I'm curious whether it'll be some normal person just to add plausibility, or if you'll say it's something really crazy like Winter Schnee."
"Huh?
Winter Schnee? No, it's
Weiss Schnee," corrected Yang.
There was a long pause at that.
"What?" Adam deadpanned. "I was joking. I didn't think you'd actually say it."
"Well, don't joke about her name. First thing she does when introduced to someone new is insist they not use her surname," explained Yang. "She really doesn't like that."
"So it's just some girl with an unfortunate name," sighed Adam in relief. "I thought you'd gone crazy there for a second and were actually suggesting that the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company was your roommate."
"Oh, no, she really is the heiress."
"I spoke too soon."
"But she hates that even more than her surname," Yang continued to explain. "She's the one who asked about things way back then. I think the revelation about the SDC using and supplying slaves really messed her up. Girl started washing her hands all the time, and then she went back home during the break and found out her sister knew about the slaves, and then she had this big psychotic break that messed her up for a long time. I think she even started to have psych appointments with the teachers or something. Anyway, I don't think you have anything to worry about from her."
The redhead raised his right eyebrow. "After hearing you for the last few minutes? I think I have others to worry about."
"I mean, she's gone really hard on the faunus rights stuff," elucidated Yang. "She's got a pile of books about the subject under her bed. I've talked to her before about it, and she comes down on the side of the faunus in literally every subject that came up. I even heard that she got into some big fight with an Atlesian student about the subject and tore into them over it."
"Impossible," dismissed Adam once more. "No one can be that passionate about faunus rights without being a member of the White Fang."
"I know, right?" agreed Yang with a nod. "But somehow, she makes it work… kind of. I think that at one point she was thinking about joining the Fang herself."
Adam frowned in concern and then stretched out a hand to place it on Yang's forehead.
Her eyes focused in on the appendage. "What are you doing?"
Adam shook his head and frowned. "Well, you're not hot, so this isn't a fever dream. You've just lost your mind."
"I'm not crazy," insisted Yang angrily. "They really are my teammates at Beacon."
"You have pictures to prove that too?" asked Adam with a raised eyebrow.
"Of course I do!" snipped Yang as she started scrolling through her scroll again... and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling... and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling... and scrolling…
"Problem?" asked Adam with insufferable smugness.
"I… no. No, I have a picture of them. See!" declared Yang, shoving literally the best picture she could find of her teammates in Adam's face.
It was an action shot of Ruby leaping into the air with her cape and rose petals whirling about her. In the corner of the picture, the very top of a black-haired person with a bow could be seen next to part of a white ponytail.
"You've got to be kidding me," Adam deadpanned. "
That's the best you've got?"
"I never thought it'd come up!" admitted Yang, blushing furiously. "I just didn't think to take that many pictures of them."
"Sunfire, you have
one picture of them, and it's just their hair!" pointed out Adam in bewilderment. "You seem to have pictures of this girl you claim is our sister. How many of those do you have?"
"Seventeen thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight," answered Yang without a moment of hesitation or the slightest ounce of shame.
"Seventeen
thousand?!" gasped Adam in that same tone before pointing at her. "You have a problem."
"I don't!" objected Yang, still blushing. "I just take a lot of pictures, and they add up over the years."
Adam shook his head. "Assuming you're not making that number up like you've made everything else up…"
"I'm telling the truth, you jerk!" hissed Yang, getting up. "If you don't believe me, then you can just watch the recording of our match at the Vytal Festival the other day. But no, of course that isn't going to be good enough for you, so I'm just going to have to get proof from Beacon myself."
The redhead's eyes widened, and he reached out to grab Yang's hand. "Don't. If you get within a mile of Beacon, they'll gun you down without a second thought."
Yang wanted to object, but… well, if he was right and she was wrong, then there would be about half a second for realization to sink in before she would be getting fired upon by far too many guns to mention. They couldn't take any chances, and she hadn't exactly given the impression that she
wasn't a hardened terrorist killer. She was pretty sure that Blake survived that punch, but it was certainly possible that she was in the hospital at that moment.
"Maybe," admitted Yang somberly, "but I have to do something to stop this from becoming a full blown war. We're on the precipice, Adam, and we need to get off it quick."
With that, she jerked her hand free and began to walk out of the infirmary.
I need to talk with Optimus, she thought wearily.
I can't let the Autobots be smeared because of me.
"Daaaaad, do we have to?" whined Silverstream as she looked at the seats they had for the day. The seats that were the same as the last time they were in the arena. The seats next to Molly's family.
"You're welcome to go back to the car if you don't like the seats," offered her father with the ice cold indifference of someone bereft of compassion.
"I'm good with the seats," declared Terramar, the scavenger.
Silverstream looked at the seats again and then gruffly shambled along to sit down in her seat next to that fake fangirl.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Silverstream, the wannabe," mocked Molly with a sneer before receiving a knock to her head. "Ow!"
"Be nice, Molly," admonished the bear faunus's mother before smiling at Silverstream's parents. "I'm sorry about that. It's great to see you all again."
"Likewise," agreed Silverstream's mother as they all took their seats.
Molly was still rubbing the top of her skull before smiling excitedly. "Mom! Team Apricot are the ones up next! This is going to be great!"
A certain contradictory note was struck by Silverstream. "I'm sure Team Jasmine will give them a run for their money. Medea's semblance is awesomefying, after all."
The bear faunus looked at her winged counterpart like she was insane. "Literally, how?! Penny can
fly on a hoverboard made of
swords. That's why they call her Bladerider."
"They'll think of something," muttered Silverstream pettily before she, Molly, and everyone else started looking around at the sound that had changed. "Anyone else hear theme music?"
As Penny and Aska walked out into the arena, an electric guitar riff began to boom from Amity Colosseum's sound system. In the stands above, Ciel's head rotated ominously to glare at Rufus.
"Mad Dog," she growled, "what is this?"
"Penny wanted to make an impressive entrance." Rufus shrugged and gave an innocent grin. "T suggested the song."
"And you let him," accused Ciel.
"The big guy's free to say what he wants," was his defensive reply.
"Only you could have hacked the arena's sound system to do this."
"I'm sure Magic appreciates your high estimation of her abilities," Rufus said dryly.
Ciel's eyes narrowed. "You know
exactly what I meant."
Rufus grinned. "Yeah, yeah, could
and would," he admitted. "But c'mon, Penny's got a lot of hopes and dreams riding on her. She deserves a bit of a chance to shine."
"She'll have plenty of time in the limelight, I'm sure," Ciel rebuked half-heartedly as they watched Penny drink in the applause and cheers, waving to the crowd enthusiastically as the song's vocalist screamed -- Ciel refused to call it "singing" -- about "instruments of destruction" and "tools of foul play."
She knew she wasn't fully briefed on the exact nature of Penny's partnership with Thundercracker, but it was obviously important, a sign of Atlas's ties with their secret alien partners. Still, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something... off going on, more than just whatever she wasn't cleared to know.
"Aska 'Shadow' Roku and Penny 'Bladerider' Polendina of Atlas!" Professor Port boomed across the arena.
"Versus Jason Ash and Medea Fleece of Haven!"
Penny and Aska faced their two Havenite opponents, who had coordinated their outfits to the extent that they were both wearing golden fleeces like capes, complete with ram's skull helmets. It actually looked pretty good, to the extent that Penny wondered if she and Aska should have gotten matching outfits. Maybe not to the extent of wearing something identical, but perhaps if they put more effort into harmonizing their colors, like Team RWBY did- Penny abruptly remembered that harmonizing their colors hadn't really done much to help Team RWBY harmonize as a team; she also remembered that she should probably focus on the impending fight and reverted to studying their two Havenite opponents: a boy, Jason, who was trying to grow a beard for some reason that Penny could only guess at -- beards, in her opinion, were not a good look; she had tried to imagine Sun with a beard once and it was
terrible -- clad in a black cuirass; and a girl, Medea, swathed in dark blue robes, her face concealed beneath the shadow of the ram's skull.
Nevertheless, she smiled and offered them a cheery wave. "It's a pleasure to meet you both. Let's have a fun battle."
Medea chuckled. "This is going to be fun, for some of us at least."
The terrain emerged from out of the depths of the arena: moldering ruins and smoldering volcanoes emerged into the light behind Penny and Aska, while behind Jason and Medea appeared a nasty-looking swamp and, to Penny's left, the gravity islands of black blocks rising into the sky.
"Very good," Aska murmured, so softly that only Penny heard her.
Meanwhile, their opponents also seemed satisfied with the terrain, at least to the extent that Penny could tell from their limited reactions.
"Three!" Professor Port boomed out as the first buzzer sounded.
Jason unslung his shield from across his back and brought it protectively before him. Nobody else made any move for their weapons.
"Two!"
Medea took a step backwards. Aska shuffled a step to the left.
"One!"
"Good luck, Bladerider," Aska murmured.
Penny beamed. "You too, Shadow."
"Begin!" cried Doctor Oobleck, as the final buzzer to commence the battle sounded across the arena.
Like a rose unfolding its thorns, the blades of Floating Array emerged from out of Penny's backpack, miniature trails of thrust, barely visible even to Penny's vision, emerging from the rear of the blades as they arrayed themselves around her like a halo while she herself stood, stock still, her arms spread out on either side of her.
By this point, Aska had already abandoned Penny, running for the volcanic terrain behind them.
"My word!" Professor Port said.
"It looks as though Aska Roku is abandoning her teammate."
"They do say that Atlesian teammates are never friends, only colleagues," Doctor Oobleck reminded him,
"and it appears that Miss Roku may be proving that."
Penny ignored the commentators. She was more focused on Jason and Medea, who had also started to retreat into their own half of the arena, toward the gravity islands hovering above the surface of the combat zone. Medea was in the lead, covered by Jason, who was trying to cover himself with his shield.
Penny drew in her arms, and as she brought them together, her blades folded in half and converged into a tight circle, their newly-revealed barrels glowing green as her combi-laser charged.
Medea dropped. Jason braced himself. Penny fired, unleashing a beam of green energy. Even if Jason's shield did take some of the blow-
Jason's shield projected a hard light forcefield much larger than the shield itself, covering Jason's entire body and some space around. Penny's broad beam struck the field of light, pushing against it to no avail, causing the hard light to ripple but not break, to become tinted green as it absorbed the energy of Penny's laser.
Absorbed the energy of-
Penny dove for cover as the force of her own laser was turned against her, the great green beam reflected off Jason's shield straight back to where Penny would have been standing if she had
not dove for cover. As it was, it hit the barrier around the arena so hard that the spectators flinched as it beat against the shield.
By the time Penny regained her feet, Medea and Jason had made it to the gravity islands and were high up on one of the platforms looking down on Penny, with a vertical wall floating a few feet away from them. Jason covered Medea with his shield, and the fact that the light barrier was not activated now didn't mean he couldn't bring it up again whenever he wanted to.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the arena, something strange was happening. Skeletons were starting to grow out of the bare octagon in the centre of the arena, like this was one of Ruby's stories: skeletons with swords and shields just like Jason -- a couple of them had spears -- rising out of the ground with toothy grins upon their faces and a slight blue glow surrounding them.
"And Medea Fleece activates her semblance, Dragon's Teeth," Doctor Oobleck informed the crowd.
"It certainly made an impression in the four by four round on both the audience and the contestants."
"What will Penny Polendina do in the face of this new challenge?" Professor Port mused aloud.
And it
was "Penny" and only Penny. Aska had completely disappeared, to remain hidden until she was good and ready; the attention of the sixteen skeletons was wholly fixed on Penny.
She shot one of them, a laser beam erupting from the barrel of one of her swords to blast a skeleton into smithereens. Another rose to take its place mere moments later.
The skeletons advanced: one step forward, then another. They marched towards Penny in perfect unison.
Penny shot another; it reappeared but further back than the others who -- with a wild scream rising from their dry and tongueless throats -- charged towards her with their swords held high above their heads.
Penny fired with all her lasers, beams bursting forth from her swords in a circular rotation. Some of the skeletons took the blasts upon their shields, deflecting them away; others "died" and were replaced by others reappearing further back. But they kept on running straight towards Penny, and they kept on getting closer.
Penny retreated, leaping into the air and doing a backflip to land amidst the ruins; these particular ruins appeared more ancient than the terrain that Penny had seen before, with columns freestanding and fallen that looked like something out of ancient Mistral.
The skeletons swarmed into the ruin, replenishing their numbers as fast as Penny could take them out; faster, given that they kept on getting closer to her. Which was less than ideal, as she was more proficient at using her swords as elaborately-shaped laser cannons than she was at using them as swords.
But they were getting too close to give her much choice. She could have withdrawn her blades and flown out of their grasp... but that wasn't the plan. She needed to draw attention.
One of them got close enough to swing at her with a downward slashing stroke; Penny parried with two of her own swords and thrust a third into its gut... to very little effect, as should have been obvious if she'd thought about it. She had a little more luck cutting off its head -- skull? -- but that didn't kill it, just left it wandering slightly aimlessly while Penny retreated, leaping up a low wall to stand beside a half-eroded column, snapping off a couple of shots to destroy a pair of skeletons.
Another charged at her, slashing at her legs. Penny leapt up, kicking the skeleton which, disappointingly, fell backwards completely intact and able to get up again a moment later.
The fact that these things kept getting up when you got rid of them was made even worse by the fact they were quite difficult to get rid of, in hand to hand combat at least.
Penny was forced to keep retreating, to keep her blades close to parry the incessant attacks of the incessant horde of skeletons who pressed around her, chasing her up onto the remains of a crumbling stone wall, with another wall rising behind her, as the skeletons converged on three sides, some advancing up the gentle slope that she had climbed, others trying to get at her feet from the left and right.
"It looks like Penny Polendina is pinned down," Professor Port observed.
"Are Jason and Medea about to draw first blood?"
"Nope," Penny said, as she saw a black shape, little more than an especially heavy shadow, appear above the wall that loomed over Jason and Medea's heads where they stood on the gravity platform, their attention completely fixed on Penny.
Because I've got my friend watching over me.
Aska announced her presence in the battle with an un-ninja-like roar as she descended upon the Haven pair like a thunderbolt out of the clouds. Magorox was on fire as she flew from the top of the wall, blade drawn back to strike. Medea retreated away from her, putting Jason between herself and Aska even as he tried to stay between her and Penny too.
Penny kept one eye on the gravity platforms far away and high above, devoting the rest of her attention to keeping her aura out of the red as the skeletons pressed upon her. She swept her blades in wide arcs, knocking as many of them down and out as she could, trying to use whatever breathing room they gave her to start shooting again, whittling them down so that they would rise again further away. And while she fought, she also watched Aska fight as she met Jason head on, blade to blade, her burning Magorox against his shining sword. She was like the wind, a whirling flurry of slashing strokes; he was like the mountain, letting the tempest howl against him.
But the wind could do more than howl. It would also change direction. Aska was swift, and she was slippery. She darted around Jason, moving to his left, flanking him, forcing him to turn. She got him used to that new position, hurled herself against it for a moment or two, then moved again, making him move with her, bit by bit nudging him out of his position so that he was only covering Medea against Aska herself.
Penny had a completely free shot.
She jumped into the air, her legs propelling her high above the hapless skeletons as she rose, arms spread out, blades forming around her, lasers charging.
Medea noticed her peril as Penny's rise halted, the Bladerider of Atlas seeming to hover for a moment in the air as she lined up her shot.
And then she fired.
The blast struck Medea square in the chest, hurling her backwards off the platform. The buzzer had sounded to announce her elimination from the match even before she hit the ground.
By the time Penny landed, the skeletons created by her semblance were already starting to fade away.
She was followed in short order to the ground by Aska and Jason as the former grappled with the latter until they both tumbled off the platform, Aska pummeling Jason with her fists as they fell in slow motion through the air, turning in circles, weapons gone, fighting with their fists. The fists with which Aska was very proficient.
The landing took care of the rest of his aura.
"Jason Ash has been eliminated," Professor Port announced.
"The duo of Aska 'Shadow' Roku and Penny 'Bladerider' Polendina stands victorious."
Jason groaned. "Did someone get the number of the truck that just hit me?"
"I've heard that before," Aska said, slightly amused, as she offered him a hand to help him up.
Medea rose unsteadily to her feet some little distance away from them. "Was that enough of an adventure for you, Jason?" she asked.
"It will have to be, since it seems it was our fate to lose," Jason said, as he accepted Aska's outstretched hand.
"I don't know about fate," Penny said, "but I do know it was a lot of fun."
"Whoop!" cheered Molly happily. "Way to go, Shadow! Team Apricot rules!"
"How can you say that?" asked Silverstream contentiously. "They didn't use any of their advantages for like ninety percent of the match."
"All according to plan," bragged Molly smugly. "I bet there's no one watching this as excited as I am."
"Go Team Apricot!" cheered Thundercracker in his hangar and he blew on the blowout noisemaker, a party hat sitting lopsided on his head.
Why, exactly, General Ironwood had such festive toys scaled for Cybertronians available was a question he wasn't going to look too closely at.
"They are certainly representing Atlas well," agreed the human watching with him, a man who went by the callsign Airborne. Thundercracker liked Airborne; the man seemed unperturbed by his Cybertronian nature, almost like he was literally looking
through him at times.
Thundercracker shook his head. "I was actually a little worried when Penny seemed to have forgotten her blades' flight function."
"'Forgotten'?" Airborne asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She's special," said Thundercracker defensively. "Sometimes, she forgets things."
That wasn't quite true, but when you had a massive databank of tactical options and only so much processing power available, it was easy for something to get lost in the mix.
"So who's up next?"
Megatron shook his head in disappointment. Team JAMM should have realized there was more going on than met the eye when Penny had refrained from
flying away to evade the skeletal semblance. Instead, they had assumed all was as it seemed and that they were on the verge of victory. And it had been a risky gamble on Team APRC's part for assuming their opponents would overlook that.
"Disappointing," he muttered. "Amateurish."
"Are you sure about this, Yang?" asked Optimus kindly as they and Bumblebee stood in the cave that served as the hidden entrance to the
Ark.
"I am, sir," replied Yang, almost able to keep the nervousness out of her voice.
"Don't worry, Optimus. I got her back," assured Bumblebee confidently with a thumb's up.
An involuntary chuckle escaped Yang's lips at that, and she smiled sadly. "You won't be able to stay with me when they take me away."
"Do not underestimate our young scout here, Yang," cautioned Optimus with a gesture at the little yellow bot. "He's been able to cover me under far worse circumstances."
"Maybe," allowed Bumblebee, "but if Devastator shows up this time too, I'm calling for backup."
"That is fair," concurred Optimus before turning his focus to the human in the room. "Yang, your mission is to make contact with the human authorities and convince them to meet for discussion of a ceasefire. We are not their enemies now, and have no wish to be in the future. I will stay at the rendezvous point as long as I can and wait for you there."
Yang stood straighter at that. "You got it, Optimus. I won't let you down."
With that, Yang and Bumblebee left, and Optimus Prime stood there for a time watching them.
"I know you won't, Yang Xiao Long," he said quietly to himself. "I
know you won't."
Professor Port's voice boomed out across the arena.
"That last match was spectacular, but stay tuned, because this next fight is guaranteed to be one for the ages: Nora Valkyrie and Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon against Sun 'King' Wukong and Neptune 'Iceberg' Vasilias of Haven Academy!"
Pyrrha listened as the crowd roared in anticipation, so loud that they would have drowned out Professor Port even if he had endeavoured to continue speaking. Her lips twitched as she turned to her teammate. "I guess we're up then."
Nora grinned in anticipation. "Are you ready to do this?"
Pyrrha's own slight smile became more visible. "It is a lot more fun than some of the battles we've been engaged in lately, isn't it? Almost relaxing."
"But you're still gonna go out there to win, right?"
"Of course," Pyrrha declared, in a slightly affronted voice. She had never, in her career, done anything else.
The two walked out of the dark tunnel and into the light, and the crowd's roar seemed to grow even louder as they caught sight of the combatants -- Sun and Neptune entered by the other tunnel at the same time -- growing so loud they might have made the arena all around them tremble. And yet, in spite of that, Pyrrha fancied that she could hear Jaune's voice clearly above the rest, calling to her.
I won't let you down, Jaune.
Doctor Oobleck took up the commentary as the roaring of the spectators faded somewhat.
"Of course, Miss Nikos is no stranger to these situations, having previously been a tournament champion in her native Mistral."
Pyrrha sighed.
"What?" Nora exclaimed. "Did you really expect them not to bring it up?"
"Surely everyone who cares knows already, so why bother?" Pyrrha asked rhetorically.
"Indeed," Professor Port said.
"There is plenty for fans from Mistral to cheer for on both sides of this match, with Haven on one side and Mistrali on the other."
By this point, all four of them had reached the central octagon, the two pairs facing one another across the blank white space.
"Don't expect us to go easy on you guys," Sun called across the no man's land between the combatants.
Nora chuckled. "Right back at ya!" she yelled.
The icons representing the different terrain types flashed up on four of the arena's eight sides, rotating like the images on a slot machine before settling upon urban ruins and a field of wheat for Sun and Neptune, with a geyser field and a verdant lake for Pyrrha and Nora; the latter appeared to discomfort Neptune somewhat, given the way that he backed away towards his own side of the field, although Pyrrha couldn't have said why.
She hoped it wouldn't affect his performance.
"Three!" Professor Port cried as the chimes began.
"Two! One! Begin!"
Nora opened the battle with a grenade fired from the mouth of Magnhild, leaving a pastel pink contrail through the air as it sped towards Neptune, making him dive for cover as the missile passed overhead to explode in a colourful burst amidst the ruins.
Pyrrha slung Akoúo̱ off her back, gripping it by both hands and holding it above her head. Her legs bent. "Nora! Pomegrenade!"
Nora beamed as she leapt, her jump carrying her up and onto Pyrrha's shield as the latter balanced it like a platform. Neptune was recovering from his frantic dive, and Sun was starting to move towards them, but they were too late; the moment that Nora's first shot had brought them was all the time they needed as Pyrrha threw Nora upwards into the air, the strength of Pyrrha's arms joining with that of Nora's own legs to send her flying upwards.
Neptune had his weapon in carbine configuration, and he unleashed a blizzard of shots, cobalt blue electric bolts flying through the air. Pyrrha leapt into the air, twisting and turning like a salmon in flight, her bright red sash and vibrant red hair flying about her as she contorted her body to allow the bolts of Neptune's fusillade fly past her; one shot brushed against her sash, another passed through the ringlets of her hair, but none of them really touched her, and none did her harm.
"Neptune Vasilias lays down his fire just too late to prevent his opponents from executing their strategy," Professor Port observed.
"Look at Nora Valkyrie go!"
Nora had flown so high that, for a moment, Pyrrha was worried that they might have overdone it -- they wouldn't look very smart if Nora slammed into the shield at the top of the arena -- but fortunately, she did not rise quite so high, just very high indeed as she started unloading grenades down upon their opponents far below, missiles like pink thunderbolts descending from the heavens to crater the arena surface in smokey explosions all around Sun and Neptune, splitting the boys up as they both sought cover, trying to avoid losing too much aura to Nora's bombs before the fight had even properly begun. A volley of grenades spat forth from Magnhild all at once, forming a heart shape in the air as they descended to turn the building Sun had been using for cover into rubble... moreso than it had been before.
Nora cackled with wild abandon as she fell, Magnhild shifting from grenade launcher to hammer as she descended.
In the meantime, Pyrrha had leapt to her feet, Miló in hand and Akoúo̱ held before her. As Nora dropped -- and more importantly, as the threat of friendly fire from all of those grenades rescinded -- Pyrrha began to charge. Neptune would be a perfect match-up for Nora, on grounds of her semblance, so Pyrrha headed towards Sun-
A volley of bolts from Neptune's carbine forced Pyrrha to throw herself to the ground, rolling along the arena surface as his shots passed over her head. It seemed that Neptune had no desire to be drawn into a fight with someone who drew strength from electricity.
Just as Jaune had predicted, he would prefer to face off against Pyrrha and leave Sun to take on Nora.
Which was fine by both of them.
Pyrrha shifted her focus to Neptune, rising to her feet once more, shield up and spear drawn back as she began to charge towards him. Her booted feet tapped upon the octagon as she covered the distance between them like a lioness bounding across the plain to catch the buffalo. Neptune shot at her, bolt after bolt flying from his carbine, but the slightest touch of her semblance ensured his shots went just slightly wide, whizzing past Pyrrha's head. A gigantic crash alerted her to the fact that Nora had landed and begun to engage Sun.
Neptune began to back away, still shooting, but he was retreating too slowly for the speed of Pyrrha's advance, and she was on him in a moment. His weapon began to shift, and for a moment, Pyrrha hoped that she would catch him before the transformation was complete. Alas, it was not to be, and he turned his carbine into a heavy-bladed polearm in the split second before Pyrrha was on him, just in time to fend off her first assault as she leapt up into the air and descended with a downwards thrust of Miló. He parried with the long shaft of his weapon, giving ground before her. Pyrrha pursued. Neptune swung his guandao in a long, horizontal slashing motion. Pyrrha ducked, her whole body bending backwards from the knees to let the polearm pass harmlessly above her face. Pyrrha rose, spinning on her toe, using Akoúo̱ to strike Neptune's guandao upon the head, turning its course downwards toward the ground. Pyrrha spun, red hair flying around her as she turned and thrust her spear out towards Neptune's exposed chest. He too leaned back, a look of relief crossing his face as it seemed that she had reached the limits of her thrust without contact. There was a blast as Pyrrha discharged Miló, the point leaping forwards another foot to cover the distance and slam into Neptune's chest, knocking him back as his aura dipped.
A shrill whistle from the other side of the battlefield alerted Pyrrha to the fact that Nora wasn't having so much luck against the nimbler Sun. As Pyrrha turned, she saw the young man discharge first one and then the other of his gunchucks into Nora's chest in turn, his weapons whirling in his hands.
"Nora!" Pyrrha cried, throwing Akoúo̱ toward Sun like a discus to hit him on the side of the head and knock him off balance. Pyrrha spun Miló in both hands, hitting Neptune across the temple with the butt before sweeping his legs out from under him with the blade. Once more, Pyrrha focused her attention upon Sun, opening up a little distance between Neptune and herself as she converted Miló into rifle mode, snapping off two shots at Sun that threw him off his feet.
Nora's hammer caught him before he hit the ground. For a moment, Sun seemed to hang suspended in the air, his expression torn between horror and resignation, before Nora's strike punted him clear out of the battlefield and the match.
Neptune's look was determined as he came for her, his spear-blade separating into a three-pointed trident that crackled with electricity. Pyrrha let him come, Miló shifting back from rifle into spear configuration as she wielded it two-handed. He thrust. She parried. Electricity surged up Miló as the two weapons met, but Pyrrha's gloves were insulated, and she lost little of her aura. Neptune fell back, jabbing cautiously, trying to keep her at bay with the greater reach of his longer weapon. Pyrrha pursued, Miló and Tri-Hard clashing again and again as the two of them danced, steps shuffling, bodies contorting. He was quite skillful, and if he was only just holding her off, that did not change the fact that he was holding her off.
But the margin by which he did so diminished every time.
Pyrrha beat his trident aside and lunged for him; Neptune side-stepped the blow, Tri-Hard twirling as he made to strike her with the shaft in the opening that she had left him by her overextended thrust. The opening that she had deliberately left him. Pyrrha let go of Miló with one hand and -- as the weapon shifted from spear to sword -- used a hint of polarity to guide the striking shaft of Tri-Hard into her hand where she pulled it -- and Neptune with it -- towards her so that she was inside his guard as she slashed at him with her bronze and crimson sword, tearing into his aura. Pyrrha spun, and as she turned, her sash whirling, Miló turned from sword back to spear for one final thrust that struck Neptune square in the chest and bore him backwards through the air as the buzzer sounded to announce that his aura had entered the red.
"Neptune Vasilias has been eliminated!" Professor Port announced.
"And that concludes the match as the duo of Nora Valkyrie and Pyrrha Nikos emerge victorious!"
The crowd bellowed their appreciation as Neptune picked himself up off the ground. "Well, I guess that wasn't going to end any other way," he said sanguinely.
"You both fought very well," Pyrrha said courteously.
"Thanks," Neptune said. "You two fought better."
"YEAH!" Molly cheered loudly, both hands raised in the air as she leapt from her seat. "GO PYRRHA!"
Her mother chuckled nervously. "They may not be able to hear you, honey, but I certainly can."
"That was the best fight ever!" Molly shrieked. "Did you see the way she dodged that shot in mid-air?! That was incredible! Pyrrha really is the best fighter ever!"
"That... was pretty impressive," Silverstream admitted, albeit with a slightly begrudging tone. Somehow -- why, Mom, why? -- they had found themselves sitting next to one another again. At least Silverstream was starting to appreciate the greatness of Pyrrha Nikos now, it seemed. "She is pretty talented, I suppose."
"'Pretty talented'? 'Pretty talented'?" Molly demanded. She snorted. "It's a start, at least." She sat back down. "Weiss isn't bad either."
"Not bad?" Silverstream repeated. "Just you wait. She's going to bring the house down when her turn comes; I can feel it."
"I said she wasn't bad," Molly replied, "but there's no way that she'll top that performance from Pyrrha."
"Oh, trust me," Silverstream scoffed. "When this day is through, nobody is going to be talking about Pyrrha Nikos."
"Impressive," Megatron rumbled. Pyrrha Nikos certainly performed with the mix of effectiveness and showmanship that marked a veteran of the arena. Given her background, that wasn't surprising. Mistral's fascination with gladiatorial combat were an interesting -- if warped -- reflection of the pits of Kaon.
Oh, if only it were like that on Cybertron, he mused, almost wistfully.
It would be good, one day, to return to his roots.
"Oh, I hope Sun's okay." Penny's hands flew to her mouth at her own outburst.
"The results were unfortunate, but not unexpected," observed Ciel, thankfully ignoring Penny's words.
"Should've pulled another all-nighter," grumbled Rufus, mentally kicking himself. "I almost had that laser rifle upgrade for Tri-Hard ready. If I had, they could have taken this."
"Highly unlikely," Ciel disagreed. "It may have improved their tactical options and flexibility, but their odds of defeating Pyrrha Nikos and Nora Valkyrie were extremely slim to begin with."
"On the bright side," Penny offered weakly, "this means I might get a chance to fight Pyrrha in the singles matches."
Growing up in a bandit tribe, Qrow Branwen had learned a concept of "family" that was...
atypical, to say the least. Few who knew them now would believe that -- between him and his sister --
he had been the more jaded, the more cynical when they first came to Beacon all those years ago. But coming to Beacon with her to infiltrate and learn the secrets of Huntsmen had opened his eyes. Tai and Summer had opened their arms to him and Raven in a way that would have been inconceivable in the tribe. Tai had become a brother to him, and Summer remained an inspiration. And then Ozpin had extended his trust, bringing them into his secret war.
Trust, Qrow had learned, was as addictive as the hardest drugs. And he had always had trouble fighting addiction.
At Beacon, he learned so much more than how to be a Huntsman. He'd learned how to trust, how to love, how it felt to be part of something
bigger than himself. He loved his nieces, but he hadn't been there for them, and that galled him.
He took another swig from the bottle in front of him. He wasn't drunk enough for this. Especially since he'd had to sell off the heresy his sister had spitefully stocked the private bar with and restock it with
real drinks... and would probably have to do so again once he sobered up, at the rate he was going through it.
"Uncle Qrow?"
He jerked his head up at the quiet voice and looked around, bleary-eyed.
"Ruby?" he queried as his younger niece took a seat next to him. "What're you doing here, kiddo? How did you even know about this place?"
"Dad told me where to find you."
"'Course he did," he grunted, turning back to his bottle. "So, what does Tai want?"
"I, um, nothing, actually," she said. "He, uh, Dad suggested I talk to you."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "About what?"
"About- about Raven," his niece said nervously. "Can- can you tell me about her?"
"Raven?" he echoed, blinking at her blearily. "Why do you want to know about her?"
"I- she saved me," she murmured.
"Huh." Qrow thought about the implications of that. It was... surprising, all things considered. Maybe his sister still had a heart after all. "Didn't think you'd count," he said, shaking his head.
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, peering at him curiously.
Qrow twisted in his seat to face her and waved his hand in a generally easterly direction, toward Anima. "Raven's got a rule. Everyone in the family gets one save. Me, Yang, your dad... I guess you too."
"...so she
does care!" squealed the silver-eyed girl, beaming cheerfully.
Qrow winced. Better nip that in the bud. "Kid, I think ya
might be reading too much into it. One save is her rule. Doesn't mean she cares."
"It still means she considers me family," she argued, and Qrow couldn't actually find a flaw in that argument. "Besides... you said
one save, right?"
"Yeah?" he confirmed, taking another pull from the bottle.
"So if she didn't care, why did I get three?"
Qrow spewed his drink all over Ruby's seat, narrowly missing a cloud of rose petals as he blinked in stunned surprise. "
'Three'?!" he sputtered, staring at her.
From a safe distance, Ruby nodded. "Yeah. When we were raiding Starscream's base, Starscream nearly killed me, but she portaled in and saved me. And then there was that mission with Team Apricot and Weiss's sister. We got captured, and she portaled in and broke me out. And just the other day, I was, um,
mayyybe looking for Yang? Raven portaled in and stopped me from jumping in right on top of one of the White Fang's elite. And Yang wasn't there for
any of that!"
That... Qrow tried to wrap his head around that. Raven just being
able to portal in without Yang or himself -- or, he presumed, Tai -- around already spoke volumes. He and Tai had both known Raven liked to spy on them on occasion, but to have established a strong enough emotional connection to Ruby to be able to open a portal to her?
"...okay, first, we really gotta talk about this habit you have of running into danger," he said, ignoring Ruby's scowl/pout, "and second... you might actually be onto something there."
Ruby sidled over and took a seat a safe distance away. "So, will you tell me about her?"
"Sure, kid," he relented with a sigh. "But first! A drink."
"I'm not going to drink, Uncle Qrow," she declined.
Qrow shook his head and produced the bottle of cider from the other day; Tex hadn't been interested in buying an
open bottle, after all. "Fine, kid, here. Non-alcoholic, just for you," he said, sliding it along the bar toward her.
Ruby caught the bottle and peered at it suspiciously before pouring herself a glass.
"All right," he said approvingly. "Where to start? Where to start?" he muttered to himself thoughtfully.
"What was it like?" Ruby asked. "Growing up as a bandit?"
Qrow winced. "Your dad tell you about that?" At her nod, he sighed. "Life in the tribe was... rough. You were either strong or attached yourself to someone who was. Raven was strong, and I was the runt of the pack, with a semblance that was more trouble than I was worth. She was strong, useful, and she cared enough to keep me alive. But that kind of life... it marks you. I think... I think Raven still had a little trust when we came to Beacon, not like me. But after she went back..." He trailed off.
No, that wasn't something Ruby needed to know. The past was the past. The dead were dead. That didn't matter now.
"The tribe did something while we were at Beacon," he said finally, taking another drink and then gazing at his bottle. "Broke her trust. Sent her into the bottle for a while -- I mean worse than me -- before she pulled herself together. It hardened her, killed whatever trust she had left."
He missed the sorrow on Ruby's face.
Every time I see her fight, she just seems to get better and better, Arslan thought as the screen in the locker room of Amity Colosseum replayed one of the highlights of Pyrrha's match, where she dodged a horizontal slash from Neptune by bending so far backward that only perfect balance and incredibly strong quadriceps kept her from falling on her butt.
That just means I have to get better faster! Arslan silently declared.
She looked down at Nemean Claw as she stood in the locker room. It wasn't long now before they'd enter into the second round of the tournament in front of the whole world. She should have been happy, excited even, but she wasn't. How could she be when recent revelations had turned all her accomplishments of the last year to ash?
She gripped her knife and pushed all those thoughts from her head. They were about to go up against Team ZINC, specifically Zachary Ochre and Nave "Carolina" Church if scuttlebutt was anything to go by. They weren't pushovers. They were the real deal, and Arslan and her partner for the match would need to bring their very best, or they would end up having serious issues.
"The problem," Nadir mused aloud and breaking into her thoughts as he double-checked Close Encounters's firing mechanism, "is me."
"Don't knock yourself, Nate," Arslan ordered, turning around to face him. "You're a lot better than you used to be."
He gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Of course I am. Can't afford to drag down the Golden Lion of Haven, can I? But 'better than I used to be' is hardly tournament competitive."
"So we work together," the dark-skinned team leader said with a shrug.
"I've done some research on our opponents," Nadir said. "Zachary's a tournament fighter, versatile and adaptable. He's more a technical fighter like Pyrrha."
"I know." Arslan nodded. "I've seen some of his matches. What about Diet Pyrrha?"
Nadir's lips twitched at the moniker. "A lot of unknowns. In the past semester, Carolina hasn't been shy about showing off in Combat Course. She's got power and speed to spare and
seems to have multiple semblances, but she only ever uses two on any given day, and it takes a fairly large chunk of her aura whenever she uses one. I think that's what the armor's for, to compensate for the semblance use."
"So, what's the plan, stalwart leader?"
Nadir gave her an odd look. "Excuse me?"
Arslan gave him a sidelong glance and said, "C'mon, Nate, you're the real leader of this team. I'm only in charge on the paperwork, and you know it."
"I'm not sure how comfortable I am with you saying that," he objected.
"It's true."
"Well, if you insist... hmm..." he murmured, closing his eyes and tilting his head up in an expression of concentration. "All right, I think our best bet is to focus on psychology and misdirection."
"I can do that," said Arslan confidently. "In fact, I already got a few one-liners ready to go."
"Good," he said with a nod. "Carolina's a brute fighter. Her moves are skilled but very basic and limited, so you'll have the edge in technique, versatility, and finesse. Take her out as quickly as you can while I play keep-away with Zachary. Try to goad her into wasting aura with whatever semblances she has available."
Arslan wheeled around and gave him a concerned look. "You sure about that?"
"Just don't take too long," he replied with a half-smile. "And hey, staying alive is what I'm good at. Haven't failed at it yet."
"You goof," she said, resisting the urge to punch his shoulder; he'd need all the aura he could spare.
"Will the competitors from Teams Auburn and Zinc please make your way to the arena?"
"All right," she said, rolling her neck. "Time to kick some tail."
Soon, they strode out into the center of the arena, and as predicted, it was indeed Zachary Ochre and Nave Church facing them.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Diet Pyrrha," Arslan observed, allowing an amused smile to cross her lips.
The armored redhead bristled at that. "If it's not my mom, it's
her," she growled. "Why does everyone keep comparing me to other people?"
Arslan shrugged. "Dunno. Can't say that I think you deserve it. I've fought the Invincible Girl four times in the Mistral Regionals, and trust me, you really
don't compare,
Diet Pyrrha."
She smirked at the redhead in an attempt to piss her off, and judging from the way Carolina's fists clenched, it was working.
"This match is between Arslan Altan and Nadir Shiko of Haven, and Zachary Ochre and Nave 'Carolina' Church of Shade!" announced Dr. Oobleck as the terrain randomizers began to spin.
A section of temperate forest contrasted sharply with the floating islands of gravity dust behind Zachary and Carolina, while ruined buildings and a large body of water with a shipwreck and some tiny islands emerged behind Arslan and Nadir.
"Three!" bellowed Professor Port.
Arslan frowned. That wasn't good. The water would limit Nadir's ability to-
"Two!"
She shook her head. She had to trust him.
"One! Begin!"
Arslan noted Nadir firing at Zachary with Close Encounters even as he leaped backwards, but that was all the attention she could spare before Carolina was practically on top of her. She felt the wind whistling by her ear as she leaned her head to the side to avoid Carolina's gauntleted fist.
"That the best you can do?" she asked mildly, tuning out the announcements from the two Beacon professors in favor of focusing on her opponent. "Tell you what, I'll give you two more free shots before I start hitting back."
Carolina let out a guttural growl, then lunged toward her again in a quick combo which Arslan narrowly evaded; for all of Carolina's speed and strength, the sheer
mass of her armor meant she had to deal with an awful lot of momentum, momentum that meant Arslan could read her every move. There was definitely a lot of power behind those blows, perhaps more than Arslan herself would commit, and she prided herself on her strength. Was the armor enhancing her strength? Or was it one of her semblances for the day?
She glanced at the gigantic display showing their aura meters above the arena. No, it was probably the armor.
"My turn," Arslan declared before shifting her weight forward. Each punch and kick she delivered put a dent in Carolina's aura, though more of each blow bled through than the typical Huntsman would have allowed, the beefy armor compensating.
It was kind of an interesting match-up, she reflected as she pressed Carolina back toward the gravity islands. She and Pyrrha impressed the crowds in the Mistral Regional Tournaments not just because of their consistent victories, but also because -- as far as the public was aware -- neither of them had discovered their semblances. Pitting her against Pyrrha's lookalike -- and soundalike, if one was to warp reality such that one would be able to imagine Pyrrha as a jerk -- who seemed to boast multiple semblances... it was almost a symbolic battle between skill and talent.
Arslan suspected the whole "not knowing her semblance" thing wasn't true for Pyrrha; there was a reason the latest iteration of Nemean Claw was made of a non-ferrous alloy. As for Arslan herself, she knew exactly what her semblance was... but a semblance that was blocked by aura wasn't much use in the arena, so she played it up for the crowds.
With a snarl, Carolina backed away... and vanished, her aura meter on the display above registering a noticeable dip Arslan scowled and leaped to one of the floating islands, scanning her surroundings warily. The floating blocks bobbed gently in the air, and Arslan glanced over to check on Nadir, glad to see him still in the fight... if one could consider his rather undignified flight from Zachary around the arena as "in the fight."
Her senses sharpened as she noticed one of the islands bob just a tiny bit lower for a moment, and as it dipped even lower, she turned and punched the air. Her fist cracked against Carolina's chest piece as she reappeared in mid-air and went flying back, only to disappear again.
"Nice try, Diet Pyrrha," she taunted, "but I saw that one coming a mile away."
"Stop calling me that!"
Arslan felt the ground beneath her dip lower than usual and spun, bringing her elbow back to smash into Carolina's visor, sending the armored young woman staggering back, more in surprise than pain.
"How?" demanded Carolina.
"Stick around," Arslan suggested. "Maybe you'll learn a few things."
"Maybe," the redhead acknowledged, "or
maybe you're just stalling."
Carolina hopped back away from Arslan to another island, then disappeared into a cyan blur toward...
Oh, no, Arslan thought.
Nate.
She flung Nemean Claw out at the cyan blur, the tethered blade catching hold of something and reeling herself in after it as they both closed in on her battle partner, who was still dodging and avoiding Zachary's attacks.
"Oh, no, you don't," Arslan said, finally planting her feet and hauling on the tether attached to Nemean Claw, which remain lodged in the joint of one of Carolina's shoulder pauldrons, forcing the other girl to turn to face her. "I remember your habit of taking nut shots."
"What's the matter?" Carolina taunted as she yanked Nemean Claw out of her armor and lunged the last few feet toward Nadir. "Afraid I'll break your boytoy's equipment?"
"Nadir!"
In that moment, Arslan saw her whole world break… literally. Reality seemed to collapse into a million billion shards like a pane of glass, and behind that broken picture was a network of moving lines criss-crossing over everything.
Wha-what is this? wondered Arslan.
Is this… my semblance?
The lines became clearer, sharper, so distinct that she could even start to see flaws in them.
I've never gone this far before, but… she clenched her fist as she saw a point where many of the lines converged and were most clearly weakened.
I know what to do!
She drew her arm back and put everything into her next strike.
Shatterpoint!
Like a pouncing lioness, her hand shot forward to hit the weakest point with a supersonic crack, and the world snapped back into focus.
In slow motion, she saw Carolina's body flying back from the force of the impact, and along her vaunted armor was a crack on the breastplate that quickly spiderwebbed and spread out along the width and breadth of her cuirass. Then, suddenly, the cyan armor began to break apart like dust in the wind. The Shade student's green eyes were visible and wide just before she started to pinwheel across the arena, eventually coming to rest some distance away with nothing but her tattered body stocking to show for it.
The buzzer sounded.
"Unbelievable!" declared Oobleck excitedly.
"Nave Church is out of the match thanks to the after effects of a blow from Miss Altan that struck through
her aura and shattered her armor."
Buoyed by the victory, Arslan turned to their other opponent.
"Zachary Ochre," she said. "Two on one. We
could just beat you down, but... we've never faced each other in the ring before, have we?"
"Ars, what are you doing?" asked Nadir in confusion, looking between his teammate and his opponent.
"A duel within a duel?" Zachary mused aloud. "Ha! Why not? Let us test each other's mettle!"
With that, the two tournament fighters squared off against each other. Arslan studiously ignored Nadir's facepalm.
"This match is over."
Jaune tore his eyes away from the showdown in the arena to look over at his girlfriend. "It is?" he queried.
The redhead nodded. "I've fought both of them in the arena," she elaborated. "Zachary will almost certainly get quite a few good hits in, but Arslan will likely outlast and overpower him. He might be able to take her down, but even if he does, his aura will be dangerously low, and while Nadir's not at their level, he's capable enough to take advantage of that if Arslan does fall."
"Huh." Jaune turned the analysis over in his mind and nodded slowly. He may be the leader of Team JNPR with a knack for tactics, but Pyrrha was the one who actually knew these people well enough to make that judgment. He turned his attention back to the fight.
And that is how you do it, Megatron observed with approval and satisfaction. Another veteran of the arena, Arslan Altan had proven herself capable... and willing to hide a few things up her sleeve, of course.
Hopefully, she would face her eternal rival again. It would be interesting to see if she would finally prevail against Pyrrha Nikos.
"Go, Arslan! Yeah!" cheered Silverstream, standing up and giving a full throated yell towards the arena.
So too had Molly, but that had stopped when she had noticed that her counterpart was doing the same. "What? Why are you cheering for Auburn?"
"What?" echoed Silverstream. "You said that Arslan wasn't your second favorite fighter anymore, and that means that I can cheer for her all I like. I mean, did you see that punch? She literally shattered Carolina's invincible armor
through her aura. That's
beyond awesome!
"Oh, and she did it to save her boyfriend. That's so romantic. It's why Leonotis is the best there is right now," and there Silverstream turned to Molly with a smug grin. "That's what I'm calling the two of them. 'Leo-' because of Arslan's lion theme, and '-notis' from 'dreadnaught,' because this ship ain't afraid of anything or anyone."
Molly felt her blood boiling at the winged faunus' grin. "You can't do that!
I'm the original Sound And Silence shipper! That's what it's called, not Leo-whatever you said."
"Eh, my name's better," said Silverstream as she closed her eyes and put her hands behind her head, ignoring the bear faunus's importent rage. "And just think, Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna have their match next. Those two are going to blow us all away with the power of friendship. Mark my words, it's going to be so big that no one's even going to be thinking about the third, second, or fourth year matches."
"Caro'lina?" said little Calliope, clearly not understanding what was going on but also clearly upset about the turn things had taken.
"Shh, it's okay, honey," comforted Cala as she tightened her embrace of the toddler in her lap. "She just took a nasty fall. See? Her aura's still up."
She pointed at the big scoreboard where Nave Church's aura was indeed beneath the knockout threshold, but still there.
"Is anyone else wondering how that Arslan lady was able to do the impossible?" asked Christopher worriedly.
"Stupid Ars'!" declared the toddler, making the eyes of her parents shoot open and Cala's secondary ears stand up as straight as they could.
"Calliope, no! We don't say those sort of things!" chided the babe's father, with her mother quickly backing up her husband.
When she got the message from her sister, Ruby
had to accept it. She had to save her. But that didn't mean she had to do it alone. Of course, Weiss and Blake's doubles match interfered, which meant she couldn't exactly rely on her official team. As for her
unofficial team, she didn't want to mess with Jaune and Pyrrha's training time or Ren and Nora's totally-not-a-date watching the matches. Glynda had her own duties to attend to as well, and Ruby wasn't.about to drag
Penny into this.
Fortunately, Sun was willing to come along.
"Okay, Sun, if my sister ends up going gaga for you, then I'm going to have to ask you to use the opportunity to hit her with a stunner," requested Ruby as the two of them walked along the street to the meeting point.
Sun blinked owlishly. "I thought we were going with the theory that she's into Adam now?"
Ruby rolled her silver eyes. "Blake can believe whatever she wants, but I know my sister, and I know that she still can't get over you."
The monkey faunus shook his head at that. "I still can't believe this has been going on right under my nose this whole time, and I never noticed."
"Well, to be fair, she did want it kept a secret," consoled Ruby.
"Right, right," relented Sun. "So, why isn't your dad in on this?"
Ruby scoffed. "He's too wrapped up in rules. If I brought this to him, then he'd forward the text onto NEST, and then Yang would be rotting in a prison cell for the rest of her life. But Yang's not a bad person, Sun. She's my sister. I have to at least try and bring her back before smashing her skull open with a tome."
"You mean 'throw the book at her,' right?" asked Sun worriedly.
Now it was Ruby's turn to blink. "Huh, is that how that phrase is supposed to go? Wow, I must be running on empty then."
"Yeah, well, get it together, because there she is," Sun informed her before nodding down the street.
Ruby tried her best to see where he was indicating. "Where is she?"
"There, in the alley," pointed out Sun, quite literally pointing with his finger that time.
The silver-eyed girl looked at where he was pointing and found herself looking at a scruffy-looking mechanic woman with blond hair and mirrored sunglasses. "I don't see her. Is she near the mechanic?"
Sun looked down at her. "She
is the mechanic. She's in disguise."
Ruby looked again, realizing that Sun was right. "Huh. So she is. How did you notice that but not all the times she would blush like a cooked lobster while getting you coffee? For that matter, how did you not notice that she was getting you coffee?"
Sun let out a heavy sigh before replying, "We're going to be at this all day if we don't go over there and talk to her."
The bloodcrowned girl nodded, and together, they started towards who they perceived to be Yang. They weren't wrong.
"Ruby, you came," exclaimed the blonde, confirming herself as Yang with her exuberance and voice as she stood up straight and regarded them warily. "And you brought Sun."
Ruby tried to keep her emotions under control as she walked towards her sister. "He was the only one I could find on such short notice who wouldn't have you arrested."
Yang put out her hands, palms out, to stop her. "Ruby, I'm a criminal. I
should be arrested."
"No, you're not," argued Ruby, stopping despite wanting to hug her sister. "You're just confused, hurt-"
"Proud, unrepentant," interrupted Yang, cutting her off. "The only regret I have about joining the White Fang is you finding out when you did."
Ruby could feel tears start to well up in her eyes, see her vision getting blurry. "Yang, please, you…"
"Why are you here?" broke in Sun, a righteous anger in his voice. "You don't feel any regrets about joining a cult that wants to see humans on their knees in front of faunus, good for you. But I don't want a slave, and if you think you're going to wrap Ruby up in this, you've got another thing coming."
Yang visibly bristled at that. "I… we… It's not like that, Sun! I'm here to plead for peace."
"Peace, with the White Fang?" asked Ruby incredulously. "Yang, that's not possible."
The blonde seemed to want to say something, but stopped, hesitated, and then exhaled. "Though ten thousand attempts at peace may fail, all that matters is the one that succeeds, and someone's got to start somewhere."
With that, she flipped her hands over to expose her wrists.
"Put me in cuffs and take me to Ozpin," demanded Yang.
To Ruby's shock, Sun actually brought out a pair of handcuffs, and then put them back where they came from. "No. No, we're not making you into some White Fang martyr. We're going to take you back the hard way."
He reached out and grabbed her wrist. A touch of red could be seen on her cheeks at that. Ruby sighed and grabbed her other wrist.
"Yang, I've got to know. Why did you do it? No more lies. Just tell me why," pleaded Ruby, blinking away the tears.
"For our family, Ruby," replied Yang resolutely. "Everything I've ever done has been for our family."
Ruby turned that thought over in her head, but it didn't make sense. It wasn't like any of them were faunus -- Uncle Qrow's name notwithstanding -- and the only one who seemed to have
any connection to the White Fang was...
"Is this about Raven?" Ruby asked tentatively, hoping for one answer and fearing the other.
Yang's mouth twisted into a hateful grimace, before she reined in her emotions and answered simply, "Sort of, but not really. I'll- I'll explain later."
A familiar whistling announced Councilor Sylvia's approach to the chamber.
~The itsy-bitsy spider...~ Councilor Sleet scowled and shook the childish song out of his head.
Now she's got me
doing it.
The three elected councilors of the Atlesian Provisional Council -- which had been "provisional" for the past eighty years and was likely to remain so for the next eighty -- took their seats at the council table, pointedly ignoring the two empty chairs reserved for the Headmaster of Atlas Academy and the Commanding General of the Atlesian Armed Forces. James Ironwood was currently absent, the meeting having been conveniently scheduled for when he would be busy showing the flag at the Vytal Tournament, which just meant he would submit his votes electronically at some other time, but when he
was present, which chair he took tended to shape the course of these council meetings... which was another troubling matter, in Sleet's opinion.
Atlas had been born out of the fires of the Great War, a brutal and bloody conflict which, if anything, had taught the people of Solitas that there was danger to be found when too much power was held by any one man. Ironwood might be no tinpot pretender, with
only 40% of the vote, but he had the loyalty of both the military and the Huntsmen, and Sleet was acutely aware that a civilian government only ruled so long as the military allowed them to. Only the man's refusal to play politics any more than necessary and seeming inability to lie convincingly assuaged Sleet's fears.
He only half paid attention as they went through the formal rigmarole of opening the meeting, reviewing the relevant minutes from previous council meetings, and listing the items on the agenda for today's meeting.
A memorial for the
Furchtlos. Yea. Easy proposal to support.
Councilor Sylvia's proposal for a drastic cut in military spending- Nay! What was
with that woman? Did she think Atlas could -- or
should -- rely on private security forces like the SDC's enforcers for its security? Or worse, the
Decepticons? Even though they
had reduced the military's commitments overseas significantly, that was only a temporary measure.
Proposed investigation into the SDC. Nay. There were no new allegations against the SDC that fell within Atlas's jurisdiction. There was no need for Atlas to step on Vale's toes there.
Funding to assist the people recovered from stasis in the old Mantellian facility in Sanus? Yea. It was an easy way to win some goodwill.
And Ironwood...
"You know," Sleet murmured, "I find it rather distressing that after we lose an air cruiser to a previously unknown superweapon, our own Commanding General doesn't see fit to inform us exactly who or
what it was bringing here to Atlas in the first place."
Could it be the Decepticons? He didn't think so. If it were, he would have heard from them about it. Their ability to interact with others was not as subtle as they seemed to think. The evidence they'd shown him of his... "indiscretions" would end his political career, not to mention his marriage, if it ever got out, but for something like this, that was a cost he'd gladly pay to do right by those sailors.
"Agreed, it's deeply concerning," murmured Councilor Camilla. "Whatever its precious cargo was must have been quite valuable for the perpetrator to employ such drastic measures."
"In light of this," Councilor Sylvia declared, "I propose we remove General Ironwood from his position as Commanding General. If he's so willing to play with the lives of the Atlesian military for his own inscrutable goals, then should we not take that power from him?"
"Replace General Ironwood?" Sleet echoed, finding himself in unwilling agreement with the fractious councilor. "I'm not opposed to the idea, but who on Remnant could we replace him with?"
Winter kept her breathing steady as she snuck through the halls in her somewhat humorously named Aktivschneetarn suit. It kept her warm, it hid her thermal signature, and to top it all off, it made her nearly invisible to much of the light spectrum. It was some of the best gear that a specialist in the Atlesian military and one of General Ironwood's closest confidants could get their hands on, and perhaps it was mismatched with the simple skis and poles she had used to move across the land to get as close as she did to her target.
Her target in question was a secure hospital by the name of Mayfair Mountain Military Medical Center, built into the side of one of the steep peaks that made up the mountain range that sheltered both Mantle and Atlas. It was here where these Joes were holding hostage the most valuable person in the world, even more valuable than General Ironwood, though it shamed her to even think that. That shame wouldn't stop her; nothing would. She had already written herself off as dead; there was nothing stopping her now.
That thought came back to her as she recognized two of the guards: Roadblock and Recondo. They were in on this madness too? Roadblock had made all her meals back in the Academy -- she still longed for the taste of his menu -- and Recondo had been the one who had trained her in jungle warfare.
She reached for the Gudpol pistol concealed in her cammies. It was bolt-action with an integrated suppressor, which meant that she'd be able to kill them both without raising the alarm, assuming they didn't have their auras up. But…
The gloved hand stayed on the edge of the jacket.
But she couldn't do it. Not even in the physical sense: their auras were probably up, but she was confident she could break them. It was the spiritual sense that stayed her hand. They might have been traitors, and it might have been foolhardy, but she couldn't kill the people who had raised her. And they
had raised her, done what her parents should have done and turned her from a girl into a woman.
They were her family, and you didn't kill family, not like this.
She found another way around and continued on through the facility. Eventually, though, she couldn't dance around the issue or the patrols any longer and had to make a decision. It was the final decision she could make.
In front of her stood the door that without question concealed her objective, and in front of that door stood Blowtorch and Rip Cord. There was no way around it, only forward. No other option available, but luckily, she brought her own.
She activated her semblance and deployed two spinning glyphs just behind the guards that summoned forth the blue-ish white spectres of a pair of Beringels. The ghostly Grimm reached up and grabbed hold of them, keeping them from moving with one arm while covering their faces with the other. They struggled, but they couldn't breath and, more importantly, couldn't cry out.
They'd be knocked out soon, but Winter couldn't wait any longer. She rushed ahead, sword drawn, and paused only long enough to put her ear to the door. What she heard was beyond imagining.
"...Sir, with all due respect, and there is indeed quite a bit due, I don't think you're quite seeing the big picture here," said General Flagg.
"What you're proposing is treason. I'm going to need something a little more to go on than overlapping thumbs," replied a voice that every Atlesian child learned to recognize when they were very young.
Winter forcefully opened the door and entered the room with Edelweiss at the ready.
"General Colton!"
The room beyond the door was a hospital room, a normal hospital room. General Flagg was turning towards her and pulling his sidearm out. In the bed was none other than
the General Joseph B. Colton, looking rather bemused at her appearance.
She reacted quickly, bringing her saber up against Flagg.
"Surrender, traitor," snarled Winter hatefully.
"Never, you shapeshifting, body-snatching scum!" sneered back Flagg just as hatefully.
Winter felt her train of thought completely derail at the madness of the insult. "What?"
There was a chuckle, and both sets of eyes turned to General Colton. He seemed rather amused at the whole situation. Amused, and yet still concerned.
"Told you it wasn't believable, Flagg," he said with a shake of his head. "Now who are you, Brenda?"
Winter kept her eyes locked on Flagg as she gave her reply. "Sir, Specialist Winter Schnee. I'm here to rescue you."
"A likely story," sniped Flagg. "How do we know you're the real Winter Schnee and not just an imposter?"
There was a pair of thuds behind her, and the two spectral Beringels looked into the room. Flagg and Colton both looked at them, then back to Winter. Flagg lowered his sidearm.
"I guess you really are her," admitted Flagg.
"Did you just kill the guards?" asked Colton in what almost sounded like curiosity with his head tilted so he could see out into the hall.
"Just knocked them out, sir," answered Winter, not changing her stance.
"Huh," voiced Colton before focusing back on Winter and her still-drawn saber. "This is the part where we all put down our weapons, Specialist."
She did not, in fact, put away her weapon.
"Sir, I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but General Flagg here is part of a global conspiracy that's infiltrated every part of society," began Winter. "These... 'Joes' are manipulating the military, the government, even the culture itself-"
"I know."
At that, Winter's thoughts came to a screeching halt. "You... know, sir?" she asked hesitantly.
"Who do you think set this up, Specialist?" Colton asked, his voice firm and calm. "There are more things in the heavens and Remnant than are dreamt of in your imagination. There's a shadow war going on, and I needed a shadow army to fight it."
"There's a
reason we're called Joes," the other general in the room added.
Suddenly, Winter felt very foolish, but her gaze shifted to Flagg. "And what was that about treason, General?"
Flagg hesitated.
"Go on, Larry," Colton urged, waving a hand from him to her. "Tell the lady about this whole 'bodysnatching councilor' theory of yours."
At that, it clicked, and Winter lowered Edelweiss a fraction. "You're talking about Councilor Sylvia."
Colton blinked and looked at her, then looked at Flagg, then looked back at Winter. "Are you sure you aren't already in on all this? 'Cause let me tell you, it's a great set up, but I'm still waiting for the punchline."
"A year after she took office, her voting record took a sharp turn for the..." Winter trailed off, trying to find an appropriate way to phrase it.
"I'd call it 'treasonous,'" General Flagg offered. "But 'insane' fits just as well."
"I was going to say 'villainous,' but those work too," appended Winter.
"So she's a politician, what's the big deal?" dismissed Colton. "Where's the proof? Maybe a DNA scan or something?"
Winter blinked and looked anew at Colton. "Sir, you know about those?"
Colton shrugged. "They've been getting me caught up on what's been happening while I was out. Great to see the civilian sector finally catching up to what was bleeding edge classified supertech in my day."
"G.I. Joe has had access to many technologies decades before the rest of the world," explained Flagg. "However, we had thought the notes about DNA analysis were lost. Turns out, they were just misplaced."
"Sorry," apologized Colton in a sheepish manner that did not befit his legendary status. "Things got a little dicey during the last assault on Evernight Castle. Turns out, the Wicked Witch of the West didn't like the
flammenwerfer."
"No one ever does," quipped Flagg.
"Shame too. Turns out she was smoking hot," lamented Colton before focusing more keenly on Winter. "Now you, Specialist, you I've heard a lot about. Flagg tells me you're wrapped up in this business with the... 'Decepticons'? Is that true?"
"The Provisional Council-"
"And that's another thing. It's been
how many decades and the Provisional Council is still a thing? Why is that?"
"The name change got stuck in committee," Flagg murmured.
"It's a committee of
four people!" Colton retorted, dragging his hand down his face. "Anyway, Specialist, you were saying?"
"The Council were attracted by the potential advances of an alliance with the Decepticons."
"'Advances,'" Colton repeated. "Right, yeah. I can imagine the advances. An advance on Atlas. Mantle. An advance on Crystal City. They literally call themselves 'Decepticons.' That didn't set off any red flags?"
"That was what General Ironwood said," said Winter, trying to defend the good general as best she could. "Almost precisely."
"Sounds like he's got a good head on his shoulders." Colton shook his head. "We're getting sidetracked. If Councilor Sylvia's been...
compromised, who's to say that these Decepticons don't have some sort of pod people tech?"
"Timeline doesn't exactly work out," explained Flagg. "She started proposing stuff like tearing down the Colton Walls long before the Decepticons showed up."
The older general looked at him strangely. "The
what walls?"
"The Colton Walls, sir," echoed Winter. "The walls you built around Mantle."
"The walls I
rebuilt around Mantle because King Scramblebrains decided it was a great idea to tear them down for war materiel," corrected Colton. "They had a name before that."
"'Colton Walls' does sound catchier," offered Flagg peaceably.
"No, it doesn't," snapped Colton. "What else has been named after me?"
"Well, there's Lake Colton," began Winter.
"And which lake did you have to rename to get that?" asked Colton.
"We didn't, sir. It's the name for the artificial lake we dug under Atlas to minimize the impact if it ever fell out of the sky," explained Flagg.
Colton sighed. "All I did was greenlight that project. Ah, well, at least it's remote enough no one cares about it."
Winter and Flagg glanced at each other nervously.
"What?" asked Colton, clearly dreading the answer.
"There's a fishing community of about twenty thousand people on the lake," Winter said quickly, as if she was ripping off an adhesive bandage.
Colton palmed his face again. "Right, of course, what was I thinking?"
There was another exasperated sigh, and then he looked at them both appraisingly.
"This is going to take a while, and we don't have a lot of time to do it in. So here's how it's going to go," began Colton before pointing to each of them in turn. "General Flagg, you want to convince me you're right about the councilor, go off and get some real evidence. Specialist Schnee, stay here with me and fill me in on what's been going on. I could use a different perspective on things."
"Yes, sir," the two chorused and saluted, with Winter finally putting away her saber in the process.
"
Jawohl," corrected Colton, and then he waved his hand. "Forget it. Carry on."
Flagg started to exit the room, and there was an awkward moment where he stopped at the spectral Grimm and had to let them be dispelled before he truly exited, checking on the two unconscious guards as he left.
Winter was left alone with the general, and he regarded her with a great deal of curiosity.
"So, I've been told the Schnees are big deals in your time period," he began, cheerfully. "Guess that makes you a big deal too. Who's the rest of your family though?"
"Sir, my father's name is Jacques Schnee, and he runs the Schnee Dust Company. My mother's name is Willow Schnee, and she owns the Schnee Dust Company. My younger brother is named Whitley Schnee, and he stays home with them. My younger sister is named Weiss Schnee, and she's the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, but she's also studying at Beacon Academy to become a Huntress. Our head butler's name is Klein Sieben, and while many would pass him over, I feel that would be a mistake."
"Hmm, you stood a little straighter and your voice got a little proud when you talked about your sister," observed Colton carefully. "The two of you close?"
Winter delayed in answering and then shook her head softly. "No, sir. She discovered our alliance with the Decepticons, and when I collected her, she asked if I had any prior knowledge of the Decepticons' slave factories. I... confirmed that I had suspected already, and she demanded to be sent back to Beacon at that point. During the mission that uncovered the base where your stasis pod was found, I overheard her teammate, Ruby Rose, who was involved in the operation, say that she had fallen into a depression and even refused to use her ancestral semblance. I suspect she hates me."
"Excuse me, but can you dial it back a moment?" interrupted Colton. "Did you say 'slave factories'? As in…"
Winter stood a little bit straighter. "Sir. I believe the Decepticons are using recruits from Schnee Dust Company subsidiary StaffNet to work as slave labor in the factories they use to produce a fuel called energon. A fraction of the energon they produce is then sent to the SDC to cover 'labor costs.' Based on the number of people being dragged into this, I am left to conclude that there is an extremely high mortality rate at one or more of their factories."
Colton's eye twitched. "Where are they getting this slave labor?"
"Across Remnant, sir," answered Winter.
The old general seemed to be getting very angry at that. No, he was more than angry; he was furious. Absolutely furious and filled with a righteous rage that bubbled just beneath the surface. Still, despite the fury that he clearly felt, he kept himself in control.
"Thank you, Specialist, for bringing this to my attention," he said with a cold edge that Winter felt she should be terrified of, but… wasn't. Instead, she felt like everything was finally going to be set right.
"Now then," he said, shifting topics, "what's this about Beacon? They're hosting the Vytal Festival this year, right?"
"That's right, sir," replied Winter. "I think Weiss's team would be competing today in the tournament, assuming they won the first round."
"You don't know?" asked Colton, surprised.
"No, sir."
"Well, let's find out, shall we?" asked Colton before reaching over to a remote and turning on the hologram projector mounted in the wall.
"The next match," announced Professor Port,
"is between Flynt 'Jazz' Coal and Neon 'Rainbow' Katt of Atlas against Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna of Beacon!"
Flynt liked to think he was one cool cat -- figuratively speaking, that is; the literal Katt on his team was standing beside him -- but considering who was across from them in the center of the arena, he had to admit that even he had a few buttons that could be pushed.
"Hey!" he called out. "You Weiss Schnee, right? The heiress."
During the semester, it had been hard to tell -- the blue-eyed, snowcapped girl had dressed down and looked constantly depressed -- but dressed as she was now, in all the Schnee colors, with the gigantic snowflake he'd glimpsed on her back as she spoke quietly to her teammate about something, it was pretty obvious.
"Please don't call me that," she requested politely.
Odd, he thought. "I take it you're pretty good with dust, then?"
The Schnee shrugged in disinterest and answered mildly, "I do my best."
"Yeah, my dad was good too," Flynt said. "Owned a little dust shop of his own." He nodded, scowling. "'Til your father's company ran him out of business."
Coal Dust hadn't had a particularly imaginative name, but they'd done pretty well in Mantle. They'd sourced their dust directly from a myriad of independent miners, but as the SDC began gobbling them up, with lien or liens, Coal Dust's supply chain vanished practically overnight. They'd tried to source from the SDC, but given their clientele, they were simply priced out of the market.
"Oh," the heiress seemed taken aback, then gave a half-hearted smile. "Then I think you'll appreciate what's about to happen."
What is she talking about?
Neon was probably about to begin mocking them, throwing them off their game, but she was interrupted by the speakers in the stadium.
"Now, after the last match with Team Ruby, we received a lot of complaints from people saying that it was unconscionable that we should dress up an actor to play a dead girl," began Professor Port.
"We are here to say that this is a completely unfounded rumor!"
"Indeed!" chimed in the fast talking Doctor Oobleck.
"We have not replaced Blake Belladonna with an actress, we are not trying to cover up her untimely demise, and we are most certainly not in a desperate high-stakes gamble of a charade to prevent war between Vale and Menagerie!"
"She's standing right in front of you all!" pointed out Professor Port in exasperation.
"All those filling up our feedback lines with these theories better take a good hard look at this and ask yourself, 'would we lie?'"
Neon grinned sadistically at that, and Flynt had to admit that he was feeling it too. Of course, he'd also been convinced that Blake was dead too until Aska had laid things out to him after the dance. And that's all that happened! Just in case her big daddy was able to read minds; he just wanted to make that clear.
"And with all that said, let's start the match!" declared Port bombastically.
"Indeed!" agreed Doctor Oobleck as the spinners started.
The terrain slots ended up with fire behind them, ice behind the snow princess and her companion, urban ruins to their right, and desert on their left. There was a certain poetry to the selection, for just as fire opposed ice the urban ruins were humanity's last strongholds before eventually being ground down into the dust of the sand. At least, that was what happened in other kingdoms; in Atlas, everything just froze over when people stopped living there.
"Three!" declared Port.
Flynt's mind made a switch, and suddenly they were on the battlefield. Rainbow was preparing to sprint, and Jazz was preparing to make sweet music. Just as they planned.
"Two!"
Their opponents dropped into ready stances with weapons bared and began to hold hands. They obviously had a plan, really really obviously, but then again, so did Team FNKI. Fate would decide who snatched victory in those first moments, and after that? Well, after that, it was just a matter of quick thinking and reflexes.
"One!"
They were all coiled springs.
"Begin!"
Jazz immediately began to blow his trumpet, his weapon of choice, and as that wonderful tune began to play. Rainbow jumped in front of him to ride waves of sonic force directly into their opponents. Into… and through them, as their forms dissolved into smoke as soon as his teammate hit them.
Instantly, he ceased his attack, pivoted on one foot, and blew a blast of sonic waves to deflect the Schnee heiress that had been thrown at him from an oblique angle. It was a classic move, and it probably would have worked had Jazz not already been told about that move by Shadow. Not that he would ever say that out loud, of course, he wasn't the type to kiss and tell.
Then again, even if he was the type, he wouldn't do it. Shadow's old man was
the Old Man, and he cut a very imposing stature that promised bloody vengeance for anyone that would dare hurt his little girl. Which was plenty reason enough to not tell the raven-haired maiden that Beacon's own Professor Goodwitch had also given him a very stern talking to on what was considered proper in regards to the family of staff members, since that girl did
not need a dose of "my teachers are holding me back" in addition to her pile of daddy issues.
Oh, she had issues for sure, but there was still something undeniably desirable about her. Something that drew him in, something that kept things exciting. A lot like the assault Blake was raging against him, except less deadly.
"Rainbow, switch!" called out Jazz, leaping away from a sudden, expectedly unexpected strike from Blake that would have taken his head clean off had it hit, were it not for his aura.
His faunus teammate came on in, nunchaku spinning, and tried to hit the black-haired girl with a freezing strike. Unfortunately, Blake dodged at the last possible moment and twisted through the air, aiming her pistol and firing off a trio of shots that hit the ground in front of Neon to explode into a likewise trio of rocks that tripped the skater up and sent her flying. For anyone else, the situation would have left them all too vulnerable to their opponents, but for Rainbow, it was just another day on the job as she tucked herself into a vertical roll and transformed her roller blades with a strange shifting sound to land on the frozen quarter of the field in a fancy pair of ice skates courtesy of the Mad Dog armory.
Blake seemed taken aback by that, and that was all the opening he needed to blow her away with a powerful blast from his trumpet. She disappeared like dust in the wind, though, and Jazz twisted around to hit her as she was coming down again, but she wasn't there. Instead, the Schnee was coming in on the ground with that thumbtack of hers, a fire in her blue eyes that was completely at odds with the "mostly dead" appearance she'd had all semester.
Jazz deflected a blow using his trumpet and dodged back as the Schnee pressed in from down low and the black-haired girl came in from the side. Rainbow was already on her way back, her ice skates transforming into roller skates as she did so. He let forth another tune to keep them off balance and then stopped as his teammate hit them in the flank.
One of the nunchaku came in at Blake, nearly hitting her sword. Rainbow then deftly drew a second nunchaku and almost wrapped it around the tip of the Schnee's blade, but the heiress was able to withdraw her weapon before it could catch.
"Nice bow," Rainbow complimented as she pressed the attack on the darker-clad of the pair.
"Uhh, thanks?" the Beacon ninja replied, blinking in confusion as she continued to dodge.
"Blake Belladonna, huh?" Rainbow continued as their weapons caught each other in a bind, leaning into her face as if studying it. "Not a bad likeness, I'll admit."
"Excuse me?!" the golden-eyed girl sputtered in indignation as they disengaged.
Perfect.
"Well, you can't
actually be Blake Belladonna," Rainbow elaborated innocently as she skated around the monochrome duo. "That bow proves it. Champion of faunus rights, pretending to be human? Partnering up with a Schnee? Nice try."
"Why you little-!"
With that shout, Big Miss Cosplayer leapt for Rainbow with murder in her eyes. Just as planned.
Before she got around to strangling the Atlesian with her bare hands like she clearly wanted to, though, she fired her pistol instead. Not as planned.
"And it appears that Miss Katt has used her secret technique: Mock no Jutsu," commented Professor Port.
"It's a devastating move that few can resist."
"But it is a risky one," warned Doctor Oobleck.
"It can sometimes backfire, making her opponents stronger than they were before. Therefore, it must be used with precision and tact."
"Monochrome!" Weiss called out, and Blake twisted and flung one end of her weapon at her teammate, who caught it and jumped into the air with a flash of gravity dust. Blake swung her battle partner around, then jumped up herself as the heiress landed with another flash of gravity dust, swinging Blake around like a living missile toward the other ninja.
Rainbow tried to skate out of the way, but with the ribbon, Weiss was able to adjust well enough that Blake was able to connect with her cleaver. Those two worked well together,
too well together. It was time to change that.
"I'm just saying, your cosplay is great, but you've messed up a few key details," insisted Rainbow while roller skating backwards towards the ruins.
With golden eyes raging like an acid bath, her opponent took the bait and ran after her in a classic ninja bird run. "I
am me!"
"Me-OW! No need to get upset," Rainbow protested, casually jumping up to grind down one of the broken railings of the ruin biome backwards while spinning her nunchaku around. "I know a place that sells some
great accessories, though. Maybe you can get yourself a pair of cat ears like the ones
I wear when I wanna dress up!"
It was absolutely hilarious in Rainbow's expert opinion to see Her Royal Stuffiness short circuit and nearly fall flat on her face. "What?! How… why… No, how?!
How can you be that much of a walking stereotype?!"
Because it's fun! answered Rainbow in her mind as she jumped off the rail onto the concrete.
I'm a faunus with a tail, so I get to dress up like a cat, and no one bats an eye. I'm an Atlesian, so no one judges me for buying dust in bulk. I have a rainbow tattoo on my arm, so everyone expects me to be loud. It's great. Playing to stereotypes is almost more fun than subverting them... orrr maybe I just love messing with people? Hope Father Browne isn't too peeved at me if he's watching.
What she said instead was, "You've got the method acting down, gotta give you that."
There was a twitch in her eye, and then the copycat -- Rainbow had to resist the urge to burst out laughing at that idea -- was running after her again. This time, she was firing her pistol as she ran. It forced Rainbow into cover, just as planned.
"And there is Flynt Coal's semblance, Killer Quartet!" declared Doctor Oobleck about the other fight in the arena.
"He's giving it his all, and yet still, Miss Weiss refuses to use her family semblance!"
The screaming meanie ran in after Rainbow and delivered a devastating blow that sliced her opponent in two... at least, that's how it appeared at first.
"What?!" she gasped, finding her sword lodged in a... wooden log with a wig and a tank top on it?
"Oh ho!" laughed Professor Port jovially.
"And here we see how Atlesian ninja training can even the odds."
Somehow, impossibly, she twisted around with the log still attached to her sword to block a strike from Rainbow's nunchaku, which froze the log solid.
The black-haired girl cruelly smirked. "Quit hitting yourself."
Rainbow groaned as she leapt away. "That was a Dad-tier joke, Fake Blake."
"How many times do I have to say it?!" the other ninja snarled, her smirk instantly morphing into a glower as she wrested her weapon free of its frozen prison. "I
am Blake Belladonna!"
"Ohhh, mistaken identity," Rainbow said, nodding with false sympathy. "You're just not
that Blake Belladonna. I get it now, believe me. At Atlas, there's a second-year people keep confusing me with too."
"Kick her butt, Belladonna!" raged Rainbow "Boomer" Dash from the stands, rising to her feet and shaking her fist at that... that... that copycat in the arena below.
Suddenly, the note of Jazz's destructive music changed, and Rainbow's eyes widened. "That was a rescue call. I must go; my person needs me!"
Kicking her semblance, she set out through the ruins, heading for the central octagon and leaving a rainbow trail behind her. Unfortunately, in her haste, she made a critical error. She realized it, but by the time she did, it was too late, and she had connected with the black ribbon that suddenly appeared across the gap in buildings near the edge of the biome.
"HURK!"
The multi-color themed Huntress-in-training found herself falling flat on her back, and no sooner had she hit the ground than did a kunai tied to a second ribbon wrap itself around her boot.
"Oh no," observed Rainbow a split-second before she was yanked up at incredible speeds to hang upside down from the archway.
It gave her a topsy turvy view of the barrel of the black-haired girl's pistol.
"Heh, heh, no offen-"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Jazz heard the gunshots, and they weren't that far away. Rainbow had to be close! Close, but not close enough, as evidenced by the buzzer.
"And Neon Katt is eliminated by aura depletion," reported Professor Port.
"Looks like whatever training Miss Belladonna has been getting has proven to be more than a match for the training Miss Katt received in the shadowy arts."
That was bad, that was real bad news. It was two on one now, and even though the Schnee wasn't using her semblance for some reason, she was more than making up for it with dust and swordplay. She tried to focus on the latter, but since he was so good at keeping her away, she was forced to rely on the former.
Which was precisely how large parts of the arena got turned into a multi-colored rubble heap as walls of ice and stone were erected from dust and then torn down by his sonic blasts. They'd gotten a few good hits in on each other, but that was it. Things were at a stalemate, and he needed his teammate to break it.
Instead, she had hers, and the black-suited bandit made her presence known by kicking him in the back of the head and bringing him to the ground. His grip on his trumpet loosened, just for a moment, and he found it kicked from his hand to land some distance away. He was off his feet and defenseless, but for some reason, neither of them were going in for the kill.
Suddenly, the Schnee surprised him by throwing off her coat into the lava zone to be consumed by the fires of a sudden burst of artificial magma. She wasn't attacking; she was looking up at the crowd and revealing that she had been wearing underneath a top that sported
a purple upside down flower thing that he vaguely recognized as a Menagerite symbol. He shifted his gaze and found himself looking up at Blake as she undid the bow from around her now visible and very faunus secondary ears atop her head to pocket it.
The Schnee's face had gotten a fire lit behind it, and then she spoke with a passionate voice that carried to the farthest corners of the colosseum. "My name is Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, daughter of Jacques and Willow Schnee, and this is the last time I will ever introduce myself as such! People of Remnant, the SDC has been accused in recent days of unconscionable crimes: kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder, just to name a few. I am here today to say that not only are these accusations true, but they are only the tip of the iceberg!
"As we speak, a data packet is being uploaded and sent to every e-mail address available and every website that will host it. The information contained with that packet shows that for over a year now, the SDC has been involved in an operation to enslave innocent people before shipping them off to factories where they are worked to death in horrific conditions and then thrown away like garbage! Their business -- this
energon that they have been trying to sell to you -- is quite literally made on factory floors so soaked with blood that they have been forever stained red. Merely the latest in a long list of indefensible crimes!
"I cannot --
will not! -- be a party to this! I resign my position as heiress! I disown my family and all their holdings! I denounce Jacques Schnee and the evil of the Schnee Dust Company! I renounce my name! I am Weiss Schnee no longer, and from this day forth, I vow to fight until my last dying breath to see the villains in the SDC brought to justice! To all the kingdoms of Remnant, I urge you to begin deeper investigations immediately! Before they can try to destroy the evidence or eliminate witnesses!"
The crowd was going wild. No, scratch that, they were going
insane. It was like the world was burning down, and that white-haired lady had just thrown fire dust onto that roaring flame.
Somewhere in all that, for reasons he couldn't explain, he turned his own aura off, and the match ended.
Cala Brown tried and failed to control her breathing. She was starting to hyperventilate, her hand clutched around the SDC snowflake pin on her lapel. The crowd was going mental, and she was still expected to
do her job. Not the job she'd been hired to do, not the job she'd chosen, not the job she was paid for, but the job she had gotten thrown into without the slightest bit of notice or planning, the most important job in the world.
She held little Calliope close in her lap and forced herself to stay calm as she spoke. "Honey, get the stroller, and let's get out of here."
Christopher was already way ahead of her, having already gotten the stroller out and unfolding it. Cala placed little Calliope inside and buckled her in tight. She was looking around, knowing instinctively the animosity in the air but unable to place it.
"It's okay, honey. It's okay. We're just getting going a little earlier than usual," she said to her child in her most comforting voice possible.
Little Calliope calmed down just a little bit, and they made their way out of the stands and into the halls headed for the airbus docks, Cala keeping her hand up around the pin the whole time.
They moved down the halls and to the elevator. They saw a few people, but they seemed to ignore them. They got to the elevator without incident and began the descent down. The whole journey was the longest ten minutes of Cala's life.
Heart still thudding in her four ears, Cala reached the final hall before the docks with her family. It seemed like they were home free; Cala let her hand slip. Then disaster struck.
A group of four young men, distinctly human, appeared near the entrance and began to regard them with hungry eyes.
"Oi oi oi! What's all this now?" asked the shortest. "Is that an SDC pin I see on you? Haven't you heard the news, scrump, the SDC's the baddies."
"Look at her clothes, mate! Look at her clothes! She must be one of those execu-types who's stealing our womens!"
"But she's a faunus."
"She's a race traitor, then. Let's get them!" cried the tallest.
Before anyone could react to anything, the four ruffians were bowled over by the bottom of the hoverboard known as Outta Time and its rider, Reese Chloris.
"Doc! Missus Brown! Are you three all right?" the green-haired woman asked gallantly while hovering away from the group that she had mostly encased in ice.
"Reese!" cried little Calliope happily, and for once, Cala thought her daughter's enthusiasm was understated.
"Reese, what's happening?" asked Christopher, even as the thugs frozen on the ground continued to spit all sorts of epithets and insults.
"You don't know?" replied Reese in slight confusion.
"Neither of us know," explained Cala. "We heard what she said, we got the message, but none of it makes sense. Nothing makes sense."
The group on the ground made another threat, and Reese shook her head. "Whatever's happening, I'm getting you three out of here. Come on! We are
leaving!"
They moved as fast they could to the airbus then, and as they did, with each passing step, Cala came to regret wearing her heels. She needed to run! How did those Huntresses make things look so easy?
They reached the airbus, and Reese came in with him, rushing up to the cockpit as she did so.
Cala could hear Reese trying to invoke some authority to get them to take off sooner, she could feel her husband's hands on her, but what she perceived was that her world had come crashing down around her, and her family was now in danger. The dirty laundry, its contents, and its public airing by the former heiress had ruined any chance at happiness she could see. What was she going to do?
What were any of them going to do?
"I guess you were right," Molly murmured.
Silverstream didn't reply. Instead, she looked down at the jersey she wore over her blouse. The Weiss
Schnee jersey with the snowflake emblem she'd spent so much money on. She swiftly pulled it off over her head and turned it inside out before putting it back on.
She didn't know what to make of what she'd just heard, but she did know that she would support Weiss Schn- the Huntress formerly known as Weiss Schnee, no matter what.
The murmur of the crowd was reaching a fever pitch, such that it could be heard even in the VIP box where Taiyang stood with the guards from the Menagerite detachment and a few of the Atlas professors. Seated there were Ozpin, James, and Kali. It seemed like the tension was thick enough that you could cut it with a knife.
That was until James let out a relieved sigh.
"Sir, are you okay?" inquired Flint, a note of concern clear in his voice.
"Yes, yes, I am," replied James, getting out of his chair. "Specialists, coordinate with the city's defenses; this will bring the Grimm out of the woodwork, and we need to get ahead of that. I'll put out a call for volunteers from the students too and catch up after that. This is what we trained for, so let's do it."
"Yes, sir!" chorused the Atlesians before rushing out the door.
Kali was not idle and ordered likewise of her party. "Dainty, Brad, you two stay. Everyone else, save the day."
The Menagerite delegation, save for little big-winged Dainty Dish and eagle-eyed Brad Armbruster, gave their acknowledgements and took their leave too. That left things almost cosy in there, but still a bit too crowded. Taiyang had a feeling that would change soon, though.
"Am I to presume that they only asked you for permission to put that symbol on Weiss's clothing?" inquired Ozpin thoughtfully, his eyes not leaving the arena. "This was something they had already planned and set in motion before ever contacting you."
Bart and Peter were trying to calm the audience down while the arena was shifting to the between-match maintenance configuration, but it looked like they were having mixed results.
"This isn't the first time they've done something like this, is it?" asked Kali, seeming to already know the answer.
"How do you think they got that information?" replied Ozpin, standing up himself and holding out a hand for Kali to take so that he could bring her to her feet, which she obliged him on. "Still, in the short run, this will make things much more difficult."
Kali looked like she wanted to reply, but Ironwood was quicker on the draw. "Speak for yourself, Oz. This is the best news I've had all year."
Kali's eyes darted between the assembled men, and her hand retracted from Ozpin's. "You knew about this?"
"Yes," replied Ozpin with a hint of regret in his voice. "I thought that there wasn't enough evidence to bring the SDC's crimes to court, not in a way that would stick. And General Ironwood is limited by his position, as the rest of the Atlesian council is aligned with the SDC's business partners."
Dainty actually broke from character at that, her mouth going wide behind the clear gas mask she had gotten for her allergies that covered part of her face. "Holy crackers. You guys would sound like conspiracy theorists if you weren't the ones pulling the strings."
"I feel like one," agreed James, "but I don't have to anymore. With this public declaration, I can use it as a justification to begin an investigation into the SDC's operations, and with as dirty as Jacques is, we're sure to bring his whole operation crashing down. The rest of the council won't be able to cover for him now."
"But his business partners will be," contradicted Ozpin, turning to glare at James. "If they can't work in secret, they will work in the open, and if they work in the open... James, we're talking about war."
"A war I know how to fight."
"The only winners in war are the Grimm."
"Excuse me, but am I hearing this right?" cut in Kali. "You're thinking that the SDC's business partners -- whoever they are -- are going to be waging
war over this? They're that powerful?"
"Yes," answered Ironwood bluntly. "Ma'am, I suggest you send a courier back to Menagerie ASAP. They'll need to prepare for an attack if this happens. I'll give the same warning to my forces, Ozpin can rally Vale's defences, and we'll send messages to Vacuo and Mistral alerting them to the potential danger."
Kali twisted her head and nodded at Brad. "Captain Armbruster, you're the best combat pilot we have. If Menagerie is attacked, they'll need you." She glanced pointedly at the two headmasters. "I'll make sure we have a detailed information packet for you and your WSO to bring back as soon as possible."
Brad snapped his heels together and saluted. "Can do, ma'am."
Taiyang was interrupted from listening when there was a chime on his scroll, a very specific chime, and he reached inside his pocket to take out his scroll and read a message from his daughter. When he read it, he wanted to both spank her and hug her at the same time. "Ruby and Sun just found Yang," he said aloud. "They're bringing her back to Beacon."
The whole room turned to look at him.
"I think I better check on my daughter and her friend," Kali suddenly declared, moving to the door and pausing just before she exited with Dainty and Brad in tow. "Taiyang, I know it seems like your daughter is lost in the woods, but if she's coming to her sister, she might just have found a map out of there. Give her another chance, please."
With that, they left, and not long after they did, Qrow filed in with Glynda close behind.
"Uh, just so we're clear, this time it wasn't me," said Qrow, looking out into the stadium and the people filing out of it.
"Ozpin, I'm sorry it's come to this," apologized Glynda. "I was Weiss's therapist, and I should have seen this coming."
"You're her teacher, and you should have seen it coming there," corrected Ozpin. "After all, it's not her heart that is in the wrong here; it's her head."
"In any case, we've got more immediate problems," groused James. "Snapshot and King have secured Yang Xiao Long and are on their way back as we speak."
Qrow turned, looking quite astonished. "So, that's it; they got her."
"Yes. All the king's soldiers and all the king's men couldn't do anything to find her, but let her family after her, and they find her within a day," mused Ozpin. "Though, as the case always seems to be with them, no king can claim to command them in the slightest."
"She wanted to be found," realized Glynda.
"But of course," agreed Ozpin, looking at Taiyang. "The question is... why?"
"Ruby didn't say," admitted Taiyang, "but I'll send a follow up message to see if she said anything. With any luck, we'll get a reply back before they get here. Should I tell them to meet us in your office?"
"Yes, I think that would be best," said Ozpin reasonably.
"So, how do you want to play this?" asked James.
"Good cop, bad cop seems like a good place to start," reasoned Qrow, walking back to the group and pointing at himself. "I call good cop."
"Very well," relented James. "Me and Glynda will be the bad cops then."
Glynda turned on him. "Why do I have to be a bad cop?"
"Could you really see Ozpin as anything other than a good cop?" asked James with a wave of his hand.
Glynda pursed her lips, and then nodded. "Point."
Ozpin pouted. "I can be bad cop."
"No, you can't, Oz," Qrow countered.
"What about me?" asked Taiyang.
James looked at him. "If we continue with the courtroom analogy, then you would be her advocate. She's going to want someone in her corner right now, and you're naturally predisposed to that."
Taiyang nodded. "Okay. Let's finish up here, and then meet them at the tower."
Farsight was in the stands with the rest of her team when the match ended and the crowd went wild. There were shouts and heated arguments all around them. Some of it was because of what they had heard those kids out in the arena talk about, some of it was about the e-mail that many of them had gotten, and some of it was born from kids who were just confused as to what was going on.
Bladerider -- Penny, as she liked to be called -- was twitching nervously and looking around at the others in the crowd.
She put her hand out and gently gripped the young girl's leg, steadying her greatly. "Calm yourself, Bladerider. They're not upset with us or any other Atlesians; they're upset with the SDC. Mad Dog, please refrain from gloating and I-told-you-so-ing."
The male redhead of the group lowered his finger and crossed his arms. "Well, you're no fun. Come on, Farsight. How often do I get to be right?"
"Surprisingly often, these days," admitted Shadow as she flipped through her scroll at various images that had been included in the mass e-mail. "Even so, this isn't the right time, Mad Dog. We need to get in contact with-"
Bladerider let out a shocked gasp when one of the images appeared on the screen of Shadow's scroll. With a motion even more shocking than what had transpired in the arena, Bladerider's hand shot out like a coiled snake and grabbed her leader's hand to stop her from moving to the next image.
Farsight, having been through experiences where the rapidity of thought was life-saving, was quick on the uptake and saw the source of the disturbance in the image of an absolutely revolting prison with a Decepticon face logo. It was information that was rather important to her job of spying on the Decepticons, so she packed up that little tidbit and put it in a box that she was going to take out later for her report. At that moment, though, she was most focused on making sure that Bladerider would keep calm and not do anything rash.
"Bladerider, you can and will keep calm," ordered Farsight with a voice like soothing glacial runoff.
She turned her head around, and instantly, Farsight knew what she was feeling. Even if she wasn't already able to calculate it, she still recognized those free flowing tears and those eyes of hate. Bladerider was feeling betrayed, and that was a dangerous emotion to have.
"He. Knew," ground out Bladerider through her teeth.
"We do not know that for certain," reasoned Shadow.
"It looks pretty damning as is," Mad Dog added unhelpfully.
Bladerider got up suddenly, still glowering at the world. "Then let's find out."
Before they could get out, though, all their scrolls began beeping. They opened up their devices and found that, this time, it was official. It was a message from General Ironwood himself, calling for volunteers to gather at rally points in order to deploy and intercept any Grimm drawn in by the commotion.
"Another time," ordered Shadow. "Right now, we have lives to save."
Bladerider let out a sigh. "Right, unlike some people, this is what I signed up for."
The noisemaker fell from Thundercracker's lips as he shut his optics.
Oh, no, he thought.
Of course it came to this. It always
comes to this.
He didn't know what was worse. Not knowing about any of this or not being surprised by it. It wasn't the first time they'd made friendly contact with another species and gotten a good thing going... only to lose it all in the name of "efficiency" or "expediency."
This sucked exhaust. He
liked the Atlesians. He
liked Team APRC. Back up in Atlas, he'd even occasionally flown alongside some of the regular Atlesian flight squadrons who didn't know what he was; there was one pilot in the 32nd who could
almost keep up with him.
And now, it was over. The people of Remnant would soon find out about them, and then the Atlesian military would be ordered to attack him before he could react. It'd happened before, maybe not to him, but to others.
He glanced down at where Airborne had been talking into his scroll. He considered how he might make his escape; he didn't
want to hurt the guy, but he would if he had to. The hangar probably wasn't reinforced enough to stop him, though, so that would be his vector of-
"General Ironwood's calling all available Atlesian forces to defend the city against a likely Grimm incursion," Airborne said before turning around to leave the hangar… and then pivoting around after a dozen steps. "You coming or what?"
Team DSST had decided to watch the first-year doubles from the comfort of their dorm room, if only for the sake of their cool, disinterested, not-in-the-least-bit-interested-in-any-other-team-but-their-own attitude. This meant that when the storm broke, there was a moment in which all four of them were facing the same way, staring at their scrolls, unable to tear their eyes away to look at their teammates.
The spell was broken when Lightning Dust threw her scroll across the room. It hit the far wall and bounced off with a soft thump. "Honestly, how selfish can you get?"
"Huh?" Sunburst mewled in wordless disbelief, looking to his other two teammates to support the idea -- written plain upon his face -- that Lightning Dust was not having the proper reaction.
"Don't look at me; I'm with her on this one," Sunset said. "Absolutely zero consideration for others, just what you would expect from a Schnee, no matter what she decides to call herself now."
Lightning's tail was rigid with anger. "Do you think
anybody is going to care about the second-year doubles after this? This... this is going to be all anyone can talk about until well after the Festival is over." Lightning sparked in the palm of her hand, but to such a small extent that it barely made a sound at all, its crackle practically inaudible. "Do you hear that?"
"No," said Trixie.
"No," Lightning agreed. "Because our thunder has just been
stolen." That didn't stop her making a little more noise as lightning rippled up and down her entire body with an audible snap.
"They, uh," Sunburst began, with the sound of a man who suspects he might be taking his life into his own hands. "They did expose an international kidnapping ring and corruption at the highest levels of the SDC. I mean... that's a good thing, right?"
"Don't be naive, Sunburst. Everyone already knew the SDC was corrupt up to the highest levels," Sunset lectured. She flopped backwards onto her bed. "The kidnapping thing... yeah, okay, I'll grant you that."
"They could have exposed that any time they wanted," Lightning growled. "Why did they have to do it now?"
"They probably did it so they could steal your thunder," Trixie suggested in a voice laced with enough sarcasm to stun a horse, but apparently not enough to penetrate the armor of Lightning's self-regard, judging by the way she preened.
"Really? You think that was it?"
"Oh, yes," Trixie said as a mildly incredulous expression sprouted on her face. "There's not a doubt in my mind that was the only reason."
Much like Team DSST, Team FIST chose to watch the first-year doubles matches from the comfort and security of their dorm. Given what they knew, what they were planning, they felt a tiny bit safer there. No matter how illusory that safety was, they were willing to take that bit of reassurance.
They stared at the broadcast, at the bold proclamation the heiress -- former heiress? -- of the SDC had made to the world. She'd just dragged this whole cloak and dagger shadow war screaming into the light.
"Well, crap."
"Arf!" agreed Spike, the dog in Twilight's lap just as stunned as the humans.
Nobody was in the barn to watch the match, but as it happened, Rarity and Fluttershy had just stopped by the cafe after a spa date while Pinkie was working her shift. And the TV was turned to -- what else? -- the Vytal Festival.
And so, Rarity and Fluttershy sat on the sofa and stared, slack-jawed, while a plastic tray toppled out of Pinkie's hands to hit the floor with the crash of broken crockery and the splash of spilled tea.
"Rarity," Fluttershy murmured, "what's going on?"
You're asking me? "I... I really don't know, darling," Rarity said as she watched the confusion of the crowd turn to anger. "But it seems to have made certain people rather upset."
Their scrolls all buzzed with notifications of an e-mail; none of them had time to open it before they got a call -- two calls: Rainbow Dash and Twilight were both group-calling the Rainbooms.
Fortunately, there was a function on the scrolls to take both calls at once, and in a moment, five faces were staring out of every scroll screen.
"Are you girls seeing this?" Rainbow demanded.
"Yes," Rarity said. "Did you know about this?"
"What?" Rainbow gasped, outraged.
"Of course we didn't know about this! Do you think we'd know stuff like that and keep it to ourselves?"
"Are you girls okay?" Pinkie asked anxiously. "Twilight, are you alright?"
"We're just fine, Sugarcube," Applejack said reassuringly.
"We're just about to move out in case any Grimm decide to get all rowdy off the back of this, but we'll be fine. We'll take care of each other, just like we always do. No need to worry."
"I'm fine too," Twilight said.
"And I agree. I'm not sure... there might be an ugly mood out there."
Rarity glanced out the window of the cafe. Reactions on the street ranged from the disbelieving to the enraged; already, she could see a fistfight breaking out on the other side of the road. "There's an ugly mood here, too."
Rainbow growled.
"That little… White Fang loving harridelle!"
"She's doing what she thinks is best," Twilight said reasonably.
"Even if not everyone sees it the same way."
"She's causing trouble and putting people in danger," Rainbow retorted.
"So we should just bury the truth because it's convenient?" asked Twilight harshly.
"Calm down, y'all," Applejack interrupted.
"We can have this argument some other time. Rarity, I'd be much obliged if one of y'all could check in on Apple Bloom."
"Of course," Rarity replied, as she started to get up. "And Scootaloo, too."
Rainbow nodded, relief self-evident.
"You're a pal, Rarity."
"I'll come with you," Fluttershy said, following Rarity to her feet as the call ended.
"And I-" Pinkie stopped, looking towards Mr. Cake where he stood behind the counter.
He nodded. "Go on," he said, with a glance towards the confusion reigning outside. "You girls stay safe out there."
"'Safe'?" Rarity repeated. "I'm not so sure about safety." She looked at Pinkie. "There's a lot of alarm out there... you know what that means."
Pinkie swallowed, her hands twitching uncomfortably. "The Grimm."
Rarity nodded. "Once we've checked on the girls, I'm going to see if Principal Celestia could use our help on the perimeter."
"Okay," Pinkie said, in a voice that was unusually soft and quiet. "I'll come with you."
"Me too," Fluttershy whispered.
Rarity looked at her. "Fluttershy, darling, I-"
"I'm coming too," Fluttershy repeated, in a tone that left no room to yield.
Rarity hesitated, then held out both her hands for Pinkie and Fluttershy to place in hers. "Very well then," she said. "We'll go together."
"What's happening in Vacuo right now, Spike?" Twilight "Magic" Sparkle asked her cousin over the encrypted direct connection between their two scrolls, her image and audio flickering every so often.
"According to Dad, nothing. Everything is completely normal," replied Spike Witwicky as he tried to avoid pacing in the small room he shared with the other Oktober Guardsmen in the White Fang safehouse they were using while in Vale.
"Really?!" exclaimed Twilight, her face warping in disbelief and jerking back slightly.
"Really," echoed Spike. "Turns out, this doesn't even rate as average to people back home. No one cares about the SDC or what they do, though once it gets out how many of the victims were
from Vacuo, that's sure to change."
Twilight was silent for a moment before replying.
"I guess we finally know why everything's gone wrong in Atlas. This… this is madness, Spike. I can only imagine what Weiss is going through right now, but I have to hand it to her. That girl has ovaries of wolfr- tungsten."
"No argument here, I-"
"Comrade Witwicky," interrupted Colonel Brekhov as he entered the room and took notice of him. "Ah, good. You have her. This saves time."
"What's going on, sir?" asked Spike curiously.
Brekhov walked over to him and stood within range of the scroll's camera. "Things are moving fast. We can only stay here until midday tomorrow, and then we must leave for home. If the SDC or Decepticons make a move to defile Mother Vacuo in response to the revelation of their wickedness, then we must be there, not here."
"Tomorrow, sir?" asked Twilight, and Spike could hear her voice hitching.
"Yes, will you be ready to depart at that time?" asked Brekhov, wordlessly inquiring in the same breath if they still
wanted to transfer.
His cousin looked up and around, the faces of her friends briefly visible in her glasses, and then she turned back to the screen.
"Da, Polkóvnik."
Velvet didn't know what was going on. The White Fang had called her and Lavi in for an emergency, overriding their "standing orders" to keep a low profile. People had gotten hurt in some operation against Cinder, and since Huntsmen received at least basic medical training...
They may have been awful people, but Velvet couldn't bear to stand anyone suffering and dying in front of her if she could help them, not even terrorists.
"What's going on?" she murmured, looking up from the dressing she'd just finished changing as she noticed a rumbling of discontent at the other end of the room. They were in a Great War-era air raid shelter under a pharmaceutical warehouse, which gave them good access to medical supplies, even if it was inconvenient to get to discreetly.
"Not sure," Lavi whispered back as he finished changing an IV feed.
As if in response, the burly second-in-command of the Vale White Fang shouldered his way through the crowd. "How's everyone doing?"
"Everyone's doing fine," Lavi reported. "What's all the commotion about?"
The big guy glanced back at the far end of the room. "Big hubbub at the Vytal Tournament," he grunted. "Weiss Schnee's just upset the applecart." He paused. "Or, I guess she isn't Weiss
Schnee anymore."
"Excuse me?" Velvet asked, her confusion rising.
"She's just denounced her father and her family company on live international television," he elaborated. "Confirmed their part in the kidnappings and... and a lot of other things too."
Velvet's eyes went wide, and Lavi frowned thoughtfully.
Pyrrha had worried about missing Blake and Weiss's match, but they'd assured her they'd be fine, and what she and Jaune were doing here was important. So rather than watching their match, Pyrrha was instead watching anxiously as Jaune faced off against a metal monstrosity in the Emerald Forest. The Vehicon towered over him, like all Decepticons, and it swung at him with clumsy swipes, which he danced away from, deflecting the occasional blow that came too close with his shield. In return, he slashed and stabbed at its wrists and hands and whatever other parts of its body he could reach.
Suddenly, he dashed forward, low and fast, sweeping Crocea Mors across the Vehicon's ankles, then turned and leaped into the air with an overhand strike.
With speed that belied its earlier clumsiness, the Vehicon twisted and swatted him out of the air with a spinning backfist.
"Jaune!" she cried out with concern, rushing over past the Vehicon as it collapsed like a puppet with its strings severed. She got to him just as he regained his feet and began dusting himself off. "I'm sorry!"
He looked up and gave her a broad smile as he swept her up in a hug and swung her around. "Pyrrha, that was great!"
Pyrrha couldn't help but blush as he swung her through the air in a full loop before setting her back down on the ground.
"I've never seen you move it so fast and smoothly before!" he said, still smiling. "You're improving so much!"
The new training exercises had started after the raid on Starscream's lab. The potential of Polarity against an enemy made of metal was obvious, but Pyrrha was used to using her semblance in small, subtle ways. It had been Jaune's idea to kill two metaphorical birds with one stone, cobbling the recovered remains of the Vehicons into a Decepticon-sized training dummy for her to practice her power and control on while giving him a Decepticon-scale opponent to spar against. Once she could get it moving well enough to fight effectively, the plan was to add in the other members of Team RRANNBWW, one by one, so she could practice moving multiples.
"Thank you, Jaune," she said, her cheeks still heated.
The warm glow she felt when he praised her improvements like this... she hadn't felt this way since she was a child.
Jaune was silent, looking away awkwardly.
She tilted her head worriedly. "Jaune? Is something wrong?"
He shook his head quickly and looked back at her. "N-no!" he denied. "No, there's nothing wrong, Pyr. I just... there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"Oh?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah." He shrugged. "I thought about asking you... a few times, actually. Maybe make a big deal out of it, but then I realized that would just put pressure on you, the kind of pressure you always hated."
Pyrrha smiled warmly. He was always so considerate. She had an inkling what question might garner that kind of concern, but she dared not hope.
"Before- before I ask, though," he said, "I need you to understand. I don't want an answer now. Or tonight or tomorrow, even, okay?"
"Okay?"
He grabbed her hands and looked into her eyes. "I'm serious, Pyr. This is... I want you to think about it. Take the
time to think about it. In fact, I don't want to hear an answer until after the Vytal Tournament's over, okay? Promise me."
"I promise," she said, bewildered and now worried.
He smiled and stepped back, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small box. He opened the box, and pulled out from it a necklace, a delicate silver chain with a ring looped through it. The ring itself was a simple and worn-looking gold band with a sapphire set in it, a ring with history, likely a family heirloom... the most beautiful ring she had ever seen.
"Pyrrha Nikos," he said as he fastened it around her neck, "will you marry me?"
Her breath caught in her throat. It was only her promise that kept her from squealing out her answer.
"Guys!"
At the sound of Nora's voice, the two turned in surprise as the other half of Team JNPR arrived.
"You shouldn't have missed the match!"
Megatron watched the screen with the biggest grin he'd sported in megacycles. The Vytal Festival had had his interest before, but now, it had his attention! This was invigorating! It truly was like being back in the old gladiatorial days. It had, after all, been from those pits where he'd delivered his message to the unwashed masses, sent out a rallying cry to the downtrodden, exposed the lies and crimes of the Council of Primes.
"Sir, Soundwave's calling, and he doesn't sound happy," said Demolishor worriedly from off to the side.
"Bring him up on a sidescreen," ordered Megatron, his optics still fixed on all the various feeds as the media of Remnant lost their collective minds.
In one corner of his vision, a picture of Soundwave's face appeared, and he spoke in his typical monotone.
"Lord Megatron, there has been an incident, and information critical to our operations is leaking across the data networks. What are your orders? Should I hunt down all the copies of this and destroy them?"
"Really now, Soundwave, you're going to start ripping memories out of millions of people's minds now?" asked Megatron genially.
"If ordered to, I will," replied Soundwave in classically loyal fashion.
"No, don't do that. In fact, don't delete any of the information anywhere," ordered Megatron, his mind whirling with possibilities. "Instead, contact Cinder Fall and pump her for any additional information she's neglected to tell us. We're going to put together a little information packet of our own, one that's sure to take this fire and turn it into an inferno."
Soundwave nodded obediently.
"By your command."
Megatron's optics turned back to the broadcast as Soundwave's feed cut out.
Is this your work, Prime? he wondered idly. It had, after all, been part of their playbook, back in the early days, and his old friend had always preferred a clean fight out in the open to clandestine operations.
Are you really here on this miserable little mudball? I must know.
"Demolishor, contact Starscream immediately," ordered Megatron, fully intent on extracting some explanation from that incompetent backstabbing fool.
"STARSCREAM!"
"L-Lord Megatron!" Starscream stammered, then bowed obsequiously before the hologram of the Decepticon leader. As he collected his circuits, he continued, his voice slipping into its familiar, oily subservience. "How may I serve you?"
"You can start by explaining what just happened," demanded Megatron in a tone that sent a shiver down Starscream's spine.
"Lord Megatron, I assure you that whatever has happened, I can make it right," Starscream half-promised/half-begged.
Megatron's optics narrowed dangerously.
"Do you take me for a fool, Starscream? I'm talking about what just happened during the Vytal Festival Tournament!"
"The what?" answered Starscream quickly, far too quickly.
"You're either lying to me, Starscream, or you are so blisteringly incompetent that active treason would be preferable," ground out Megatron, and then his hologram pointed at him.
"I will be arriving in the Vale theater soon, Starscream, and when I do, we are going to have a long, agonizing talk about your performance. For your sake, you had best have an explanation for how this occurred on your watch. Megatron out."
The hologram disappeared, leaving Starscream with his own thoughts. A moment passed in utter silence and stillness before he burst into motion, tapping commands into the computer to bring up search results on the Vytal Festival Tournament and then feeds from the local news media.
His optics widened at the replay of the speech. The little human, the one with white hair, was familiar. Where had he-? With a sudden shock, he had the answer. She had been one of the interlopers who had destroyed his lab under the direction of Raven Branwen.
"Raven," he growled out.
It always came back to her, didn't it? She had destroyed his on-base lab, then his secret lab, and now, she had commanded one of her flunkies to interfere with his operations even further. It just kept happening!
Well, if Raven Branwen thought fleeing to another continent would save her, she was wrong.
Jacques Schnee was in his home office, poring over the company's expense reports. Many people thought running a multibillion-lien company was an easy job, but it surely wasn't. The paperwork, personnel management, balancing expenses and investments, maneuvering through the complex regulations... none of it was easy, and it all took personal time and effort.
There was a knock on the door, and he scowled.
"Enter."
It was Klein, of course. The butler's eyes -- light brown at the moment -- flicked over to the console by the wall that hid a holographic projector, and Jacques's scowl deepened at the disapproval he knew Klein was feeling at him missing his daughter's performance in the Vytal Tournament. But what did Klein know? He wasn't up to his neck in math equations and regulations, searching for graft all day, and it wasn't like Jacques didn't already know Weiss would emerge victorious. She was a Schnee, after all.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your day off, sir," Klein said stiffly, "but there's been a... development."
"Well, what is it?"
"It... defies narration, sir," Klein stalled again. "I believe it would best if you saw for yourself."
WIth that, he brought up the holographic projector into a vertical screen and turned on the news.
Jacques's face purpled in outrage.
That ungrateful little brat! he thought furiously.
Children! You give and you give and you give, and see how they repay you! He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then reached for his scroll.
He needed to get in touch with Public Relations. No, wait. Legal first. Then he would need to find out just
what in the gods' names had happened in Vale!
Wishbone seethed as she watched the footage of the Vytal Tournament match, wishing again that she could reach through time and space to gut that white-haired traitor and feed her entrails to her highborn compatriot before killing them both.
How? How had it come to this? What had she missed? Had something happened back in Atlas?
Before her ruminations could continue, though, there was a beeping on her personal computer. Her eyes shot wide as she saw that it was a message from Jacques Schnee. She reacted quickly, hitting the button to close all the shutters to her temporary office in the SDC's Vale headquarters, dimming the lights, and then finally standing at attention as she activated the message.
The hologram of her desktop disappeared and was replaced by the stern personage of Jacques Schnee, CEO of the Schnee Dust Company, standing just above her head exactly as he did when they met in person. He wasn't happy. That was bad, but what was worse was that he was clearly disappointed in her.
"Calliope, I believe you owe me an explanation," began Jacques Schnee far too calmly.
"I sent you to Vale to solve their problems, and now, things are worse than ever before."
"Mister Schnee, I've been doing the best I can with what resources I have available," protested Wishbone solidly, meeting his gaze, but admitting her failure in the process by the simple fact that she hadn't been able to succeed with what she had been given.
"Why didn't you ask for better resources then?" inquired Jacques Schnee pointedly.
"I did, Mister Schnee," contradicted Wishbone, and then she rattled off the dates of when she had sent the messages requesting more resources.
Jacques Schnee stared at her for too long a moment and then touched an unseen control.
"Computer, run a search for messages from Calliope Ferny, callsign Wishbone. Scan all available records. When completed, display list of messages with both send and arrival dates alongside the location of where they were found."
Wishbone kept her mouth shut and her face expressionless as the virtual intelligence in Jacques Schnee's computer did its work. It did not take long, but it felt like it did. When it was done, though, her boss's face seemed to soften.
"It appears that your messages have been going into one of the disposable inboxes since shortly after you arrived in Vale," explained Jacques Schnee kindly, looking at Wishbone again with a concerned expression as her mind filled with confusion.
"Thus, they were not forwarded correctly. Tell me, did you have a plan that might have prevented today's unfortunate turn of events?"
The dog-eared faunus nodded and rattled off another series of dates. "In those messages, I proposed removing the heiress from Beacon Academy and returning her to your direct custody. All three of her roommates either have ties to the White Fang or are active members, and I felt this presented a serious liability."
Jacques Schnee nodded at that.
"Wise counsel that I would have heeded had I heard it. Though perhaps all is not lost yet. I'll read these messages now and forward what useful data is there to our PR people. Now, do you know how this could have happened?"
"The priorities on the messages had to have been changed," answered Wishbone, things falling into place in her mind. "There aren't that many people who could have done that."
Jacques Schnee's eyes narrowed.
"You know who did this?"
"I suspect," Wishbone tactfully corrected.
"Until that matter is resolved and we have a new system in place to send and receive messages between us, I am authorizing you to use my personal correspondence," Jacques Schnee granted magnanimously.
"Thank you, Mister Schnee," answered Wishbone, silently resolving that she wouldn't dare waste his time with anything that wasn't of the utmost importance.
"Now, Calliope, it seems the SDC has much bigger problems in Vale than we believed. Solve them."
Winter wished she could have missed the match.
She'd seen it all, seen how her sister… wasn't her sister anymore.
She'd tried to keep her composure, but a minute after the end of the fight, she felt tears welling up in her eyes involuntarily. Everything she had done over the last two years had been for her, for Weiss, and now, that was all gone. Not only would she never see her again, but she would never be safe either. Weiss would be hunted for the rest of her days, the assassins of her father and the Decepticons hounding her until, eventually, she made a mistake and paid for it with her life.
And it was all Winter's fault. If she had just been cleverer, more observant. If she had just acted with a modicum of the unfathomable courage that her gallant knight of a sister had just displayed, then maybe the headsman would be coming for the elder and not the younger at that time.
"Buck up, Brenda," ordered General Colton, his voice like a barrel of glacial runoff thrown upon her.
"Sir?" asked Winter, blinking away the tears.
"Fight's not over yet," declared Colton as he got up. "In fact, it's just gettin' started."
"You have a plan," realized Winter with hope so strong it made her feel foolish for ever having despaired.
"It's really more of a concept," admitted Colton. "I think you might like it though."
Yang kept her breath steady as she stood in the elevator with her head bowed and her father beside her. Honestly, if it hadn't been for the handcuffs, it might have felt like she was just a particularly disobedient student being summoned to the principal's office. That assessment was technically correct, but the stakes were so much higher that the comparison seemed absurd.
If she lost here, if she failed to secure peace, then the Decepticons would win. It might not be a traditional battlefield, but the war of words she was about to engage in was just as important as any of the battles of Polyhex or even the defense of Iacon. She was an Autobot now, and the weight of that history made her stand that much straighter.
The door to Ozpin's office hissed open, and they stepped out into the remarkably corporate-looking space. The headmaster was at his desk. On his right and in front of the desk were General James Ironwood and Professor Glynda Goodwitch. On his left and in front of the desk was her uncle, Qrow Branwen. Of course they'd called him in from whatever mission he'd been on.
"Yang Xiao Long," addressed Ozpin as she and her father stopped within ten feet of his desk. "You've led everyone on quite the merry chase, and yet here you are. Why?"
The lilac-eyed woman glanced at General Ironwood, thinking of an accusation of how they should be asking him, but threw that aside in favor of facts and peace.
"I'm here as an emissary, sir," she said. "There are things going on that you don't know about, with the White Fang, with me... and with our new allies. There's a war going on, right here in Vale, and the White Fang are
not the enemy."
"War's a pretty strong word, kiddo," pointed out Uncle Qrow. "So just what do you mean by that?"
"What else do you call a conflict that's raged across the stars for millions of years and seen whole worlds burn?"
"Yeah, I'd call that a war all right," her father agreed.
"But just because there's a war doesn't mean there are only two sides," Professor Goodwitch pointed out. "It doesn't mean that we have only one enemy."
"A two-sided war definitely makes more sense though," argued Yang. "It's a lot simpler, for one."
"Reality is rarely simple," countered General Ironwood, and Yang felt anger flare up. Why, that two-faced-! She cut herself off from that line of thought.
"Is that how you justify working with a bunch of slavers and murderers, General?" she snapped. "Does that make it easier to sign away innocent people to be worked to death?"
"Are you referring to the Decepticons or the Autobots, Miss Xiao Long?" inquired Professor Goodwitch with an indifferent tone that did nothing to quell Yang's emotions. They knew?!
"Glynda!" Yang's father snapped.
"The Autobots are not slavers or murderers," declared Yang defensively, "and if you've heard otherwise, it's a damned Decepticon lie! I've
seen what the Decepticons do! With my own eyes!"
"So have I," replied Professor Goodwitch in a voice that sounded haunted. "So has your sister." Ruby knew? "So has every member of Team Rainbow." Team Rainbow? "We've also experienced the handiwork of the Autobots firsthand, and we know very well just what kind of brutal fanatics they enlist."
Yang rocked back at that, then shook her head. "No, that's not possible. I've met all the Autobots on Remnant, worked alongside them, talked with them for hours on end. And even if I hadn't, Optimus would never allow that."
Ozpin's eyes sharpened. "
Who would never allow that?"
"Optimus," Yang repeated, a little confused. "Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. He's the one who sent me here to arrange a meeting, so that we can avoid an unnecessary war."
"A meeting," the headmaster echoed. "With... Optimus Prime, I presume?"
Yang nodded. "Yes, sir."
"...I'll arrange for a Bullhead for two," announced Ozpin, standing up with unexpected vigor from behind his desk. "Take me to him,
now."
"Oh, okay, sure. No problem," answered Yang with wide eyes.
"Hold up," the Atlesian general objected, stepping forward. "Ozpin, are you insane?! We've just found out about this guy, and you want to go meet with him and his merry band of terrorist-loving destructo-bots?"
"James, I'm sure this is all a big misunderstanding." Well,
that was a surprise turnaround from Ozpin.
"'Misunderstanding'?" sputtered Uncle Qrow. "Oz, I'm normally with you on this stuff, but for once, Jimmy's right. This is insane."
"I must agree with these two, sir," Professor Goodwitch added. "This is… madness."
"Why don't we all just settle down a bit?" Yang's father suggested diplomatically.
"Going alone into an unknown meeting with an unknown possible hostile is suicide," insisted Ironwood.
"And what would you all do instead?" Ozpin demanded, his voice filled with righteous indignation. "Send in NEST? The collective Huntsmen of four academies? The whole Atlesian Air Fleet?! No, this is something I need to do myself."
"Out of the question. You're not going anywhere," ordered General Ironwood, quite literally putting his foot down in the process.
"Ridiculous," dismissed Ozpin with a scoff. "I need to be at this meeting, and you can't stop me."
"How about this then," offered Yang's father, falling into the peacemaker role again. "You go, and we come with."
Ozpin… was clearly hiding something; that much was obvious to Yang. "I don't think that's needed."
"Too bad, we're going," declared Professor Goodwitch.
Ironwood looked at her briefly, and then stepped beside her. "Indeed."
Ozpin let out a heavy, defeated sigh. "Oh, alright, if it's just you four."
"Ruby needs to come too," Yang interjected. No
way was she keeping her little sister out of this, not anymore, not about Adam, not about... their brother.
"Ruby?" her father asked in surprise. "Why?"
"It's..." -- Yang hesitated, giving Uncle Qrow a sidelong glance -- "a family matter."
"What sort of family matter?" her drunkle pressed.
Yang turned and glared at him. He had to have known! Hadn't he?
"I dunno, Uncle Qrow," she snapped. "When were you going to tell me I have a brother?"
The scythe-wielder blinked and took an involuntary step back that told her all she needed to know. "Wha-? How'd you-? Adam's
alive?!"
Her father's head whipped around to stare at his brother-in-law. "I have a son?!"
"What the heck are they doing?" Captain Lennox wondered aloud as he peered through the binoculars from his position on Vale's southeastern defensive wall. The setting sun cast a reddish shade on the clearings below.
"What's wrong?" asked Epps. Epps was his contact with the Royal Air Lancers, embedded in his squad to call down air support when and where it was needed. It was a new role, with procedures hastily copied from a variety of sources, ranging from the Atlesian military to the Iron Grenadiers, and cobbled together into the sort of pastiched nightmare that was a typical committee-created disaster waiting to happen.
"Check it out," he said, handing the binoculars over.
Epps brought the binoculars up. "They're gathering. Fewer than I'd expect, given the outrage and panic going on right now, and... are those burn scars on some of 'em?"
"Yeah," Lennox agreed, "but why aren't they attacking? Normally, the dumb ones would be rushing the walls by now."
"Probably an elder keeping them in line," mused Epps.
"That's what I thought," Lennox said, "but do you see one out there? And what elder can keep control of
this many Grimm without a few leakers? It's like they're waiting for something."
Epps lowered the binoculars. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
The Bullhead flew toward Lookout Mountain. The contingent heading to the meeting with this "Optimus Prime" were eschewing the winding mountain road that led up to the designated meeting place. For one, it was simply faster to fly, and for another, getting an aerial view before they arrived would make it easier to spot any surprises.
Tai sat silently between his daughters, an arm wrapped around each of them, and studiously ignored his brother-in-law across from them. He wasn't sure how good his self-control was right now. Communication had never been either Branwen's strong point, but
this was far beyond anything Tai had ever imagined he would have kept from him. From them.
Sure, Qrow had thought the boy was dead, and surely, there was a story behind that. In the end, though, it didn't matter. Not to Tai.
A son, Tai thought with wonder.
A son!
Of course, Qrow was hardly the only one who had kept such a monumental secret from him, but Raven... well, for one thing, Raven wasn't there right now to set off his temper. And for another... he remembered when she was pregnant with Yang, the uncharacteristic worry she had exhibited. There were certain quiet moments in which Raven would start to speak, then clam up again, or hesitate and change the subject. Moments in which she was obviously trying to find a way to tell him something.
For years after she left, he'd thought she was trying to tell him she was leaving. Now, though? Now, he thought he had a better idea. Even after all these years, she was still finding ways to surprise him.
Soon enough, the Bullhead touched down in the middle of the mostly deserted parking lot. The only other vehicle present was a red and blue cab over truck, the kind of rugged and powerful machine used to tow trailers filled with bulk cargo within a city or out to places that had roads but no rail lines, of course with rolling fortress trailers to defend against Grimm when they ventured past the walls in battle convoys.
"We're here," announced James superfluously from the cockpit. In turn, they disembarked, though James stayed in the cockpit and kept the engine warm.
The better for a quick getaway if they needed one.
"So, where is he?" Tai asked.
"Over there," answered Ozpin quietly as he began walking purposefully to the truck, the others following behind.
Tai had never actually seen one of these "transformers" he'd been told about, so it was with a fair amount of awe that he watched the cab over truck unfold itself and rise onto a pair of legs to tower over them. There was a certain nobility to the alien robot's appearance and bearing as he knelt down in front of the group.
"Hello again, Ozma," it greeted Ozpin, with a deep, warm voice. "I wasn't expecting to see you again."
Tai heard Ozpin's breath hitch in his throat.
"I haven't heard that name in-" Ozpin cut himself off, shaking his head. "You recognize me?"
"I recognize your spark, old friend."
Tai glanced over at Ozpin. Were those tears in his eyes?
"I… I have so much to tell you," the headmaster said, his voice cracking with emotion, "so much to catch you up on."
"I am sure you do," Optimus replied, "but first, tell me, how did your quest go? Were you able to rescue the princess? Were you able to free Salem?"
Tai stood stock still at the name -- the hated, cursed name -- and it was clear he wasn't the only one to be frozen in shock. There was a long, pregnant pause as everyone stared at the two clearly ancient beings.
Qrow's voice hissed out, shattering the silence.
"
What did you just say?"
-
Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
-
And there it is. Big reveals all around. And we still have more to go before this volume's over.
The first scene to be completed in this chapter was actually Jaune and Pyrrha's little training session and proposal scene, and when I wrote it, it just... flowed. I really love the inversion of their usual interactions during training.
By the way, Nadir running around the arena away from Zachary? That was actually originally sketched out as something for Jaune to do to keep Hector occupied during Team JNPR's fight with Team VTLK, before that fight's choreography evolved away from that, largely due to the "artillery duel" element. We wanted to do more with Zachary, who @LordsFire was kind enough to loan us from Sheltered, but by that point in writing the fight scenes for this chapter, we were frankly too exhausted to keep going, and we didn't really see anything it would add to the story.
For the record, Jason and Medea and Team JAMM are borrowed from our sister 'fic, @ScipioSmith's SAPR, where they also faced off against Penny and her team, funnily enough.
Also, it's a bit of a late thing, but we realized while writing this that Neon Katt and Rainbow Dash almost certainly have... issues with each other, what with them apparently having the same semblance, but with Neon leaning very deliberately into the catgirl stereotypes, in sharp contrast to Rainbow, who doesn't let the whole faunus thing define her.
As much of a headache as it was getting this monster of a chapter written and beta-read, it's kind of fortuitous, given what's going on here and in today's update of our sister story, SAPR. Delaying it a few extra days to synchronize the release at least to the day also let us catch a scene we realized we needed to add into this chapter to properly set up something for the next chapter.
You go, Weiss! She seems to have had a disproportionate impact on this story as a whole.
-
Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
-
Besides the prevalence of fight scenes I think that part of the reason this chapter took so long to get out was the habit I got into of dipping into long meandering Seinfeldian Conversations. Which, on the plus side, made me go and look up old clips of Seinfeld. That was a good show, but I never got to see it when it was on. Then again, I was born in 1991, what do you want from me? There's only so much I can know.
I'm getting off-topic though, the point is that this took a long time to write. Another reason for that is that my job has work again, which is great. In fact, in a way it's accelerated things because it means that I have nothing to do but write on the trips to and from the job site where otherwise I would be distracted by other things. However, it also introduces large delays due to things like Cyclone working while I'm off and visa versa, which introduces huge problems with the editing side of things because we both need to be in front of a computer in order to do the vocal readthrough that's so critical to our success. Which is why this update was delayed nearly a week since we finished the chapter.
But delayed though it was, I was quite happy with the way things turned out. We've been sitting on this stuff for a long time, and it's great to finally have it all out in the open. How long? The dialogue at the end of this chapter is quite literally the oldest piece of pre-written dialogue in the fic not related to an abandoned plotline where Adam would have still turned bad and the Battle of Beacon would have gone off like normal, recorded on May 19, 2019, 7:54 PM by Cyclone in the original Episode 1 file, of all places; a week before the original chapter was posted in the Whirlwind Productions thread.
Given the amount of stuff that's changed between last May and now though it's incredible how much of the dialogue we've managed to keep, though some of it has gotten changed or deleted due to the simple fact that when it was all originally written the Ozluminati were ignorant of the Autobots and the chessboard duo were part of Yang's arrest not Sun. It's even more incredible when one considers that this fic is a year old, and it's just now getting to stuff that was planned out before the story was even posted. I honestly didn't think we'd get this far, but now that we have I can't wait to go on and write all the stuff we have planned for the next three volumes and the special project.
Speaking of Blake and Weiss, I expected people in the audience to agree with their actions, which is why I felt it important to show the negative consequences of that. Now, is that to say that I think what they did was a bad thing? Absolutely not. I think it was an extremely heroic act, and I should very much wish that if in anything close to a similar situation I should have half as much courage as what Weiss had. However, just because I think their act was heroic doesn't mean that there won't be consequences for themselves and others. It's not fair, it's not right, but that's life.
Neon "Rainbow" Katt's roller skates turning into ice skates was actually based off this picture by RainshadowArtist. In addition, of course, to just being a logical thing for her to have. Her being a ninja though? That was added in just this chapter, but I think it's fun all the same.
Once again we have to thank @ScipioSmith for writing some of the scenes in this chapter, especially the fight scenes. Kind of curious though why no-one has been able to guess which ones he wrote yet. Guess people aren't that interested?
In that respect I sympathize with Lightning Dust a bit. A lot of stuff happened in this chapter, but people are likely only to care for the last scene. One part overpowers the rest. Then again, I could be wrong and people might actually care about what Blake and Weiss did.
Personally, I had a lot of fun writing my part of the Arslan fight, mostly because I got to dip into the shonen anime tropes hard.
And Colton… well, we've danced around him too, but now he's out in the open. The original G.I. JOE has made his appearance, and it promises to be a wild ride. Of course, one revelation is only the start of a whole 'nother batch of secrets and lies, and that's something Winter is going to become very well acquainted with.
Though there's also the stuff with APRC and their T going on. Things finally seemed to be coming together, but then the truth had to come out. Will things improve, or will this be the straw that breaks the camel's back on their contradictory alliance?
There's just… so much going on. I'm not sure we'd be able to cover it all if we post 40,000 words chapters instead of just 30,000. But if you think about, that's the way things have been from the beginning. It's just that now there's a lot more moving parts.
We are going to be so glad when this tournament is over so we don't have to cram everything into one week.
Next time on
Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust: the second years go into their doubles matches, Optimus tells a story, wheels keep turning around the world, and the Atlesian military demonstrates "Esprit de Corps."
