AN: Welcome to Dead Girl Walking, a canon divergence fic! Before you read, I'd like to throw some warnings out there. Please be wary of this fic for the following content: descriptions of violence and injury, major character death, angst, and what I'd like to call "creative OOC," by which I mean that some characterizations have been very slightly altered or expanded on in order to tell the story. More may be added to this list; due to the nature of the story, I will place warnings like this in front of the relevant chapters, as well as a brief summary at the end.
Please enjoy!
Pyrrha's eyes were desperate, and as sharp as Glynda was, she could trace the smell of sweat down to the student's palms. Her eyes flickered down, confirming that fact, as her nose noted that there was no dark smell of dirt, nor the iron of blood and weaponry. This was not from combat, but from nerves. "Professor Goodwitch," she said slowly, and one had to concentrate to hear the slight quiver in her voice, "They're blaming all of you."
"What?" she asked, more as an invitation for Pyrrha to elaborate than for a confirmation of what she already knew.
"They're blaming the actions of Yang Xiao Long on you, and on Professors Ozpin and Ironwood. I've not heard Professor Qrow mentioned yet, but I can't see it being long." Salty tears formed at the edges of expressive green eyes. "I have to ask a question."
"Yes?"
"If you are keeping the secret of these maidens from the world… if they are not to know that there are people who can help us… what else are you keeping?"
Glynda tried a reassuring smile. "Nothing from you. You're free to ask whatever you'd like. I will answer with complete honesty."
Pyrrha's wet eyes stared daggers into the professor. "You four don't seem to get along. You all have separate agendas, whatever you say."
"That is correct."
"If all four of you wish different things from me, then how will I know who to defer to?" She was a natural soldier, noted Glynda. That may not be a good thing. "I can't live up to the expectations of four different agendas. I have yet to accept your mantle, and I already know that I can barely live up to one." Discreetly, the girl wiped her tears onto her glove and manipulated her mouth into a firm set. "I'm afraid that I can't accept your offer. I thank you for entrusting me with this information, and I wish you luck in further endeavors to locate a Fall Maiden. May I have permission to leave?"
"Yes, of course. If you're sure."
"I am," said Pyrrha.
"May I do anything to change your mind? Or," she amended, realizing she wanted the student to realize that she was cared for as a person, not just a potential Maiden, "anything to ease your mind of the troubles we've caused you, no mind changing necessary?"
Pyrrha thought. "If you want to make amends… please look into Yang's case more," she said. "I've heard she'll no longer be detained after tomorrow night, but I know she isn't out of trouble. Can you promise me you'll investigate further?"
Glynda nodded. "I make no promises on if it will matter… but… yes. I will look into it personally."
"Thank you, Professor Goodwitch." Pyrrha hesitated. "This does not change my mind but… it makes me feel better. If there is another way I can help you, let me know."
"Of course. Have a good day, Miss Nikos."
Pyrrha walked out, her head a little higher, and her troubles gone. For Glynda, however, the troubles were only beginning.
They needed the Atlesian ship for an urgent Grimm hunting mission on very short notice, so Yang had been transferred to a nearly-defunct ancient prison on the edge of Vale City. It was a holdover from a couple centuries ago, and had been scheduled for closing and demolition for nearly a quarter of that time. Historical preservation groups and the Vale government seemed constantly at war over whether it should be preserved or wiped clean off the board. As Glynda's sensitive nose caught a whiff of mold, she decided that whatever happened, keeping prisoners inside was needlessly cruel. It definitely made her consider Ironwood's motivations. No high school girl should be kept here… this was a show of power. An example.
She made her way to Yang's cell. The girl sat on a stone bench. Glynda hadn't seen her since the competition, having gotten all her information about Yang's story secondhand from Ironwood or Ozpin. She expected Yang to be defiant and strong, knowing her personality. Instead, a broken girl sat in front of her. The ground underneath her hanging head was wet, but a spotty sort of wet. Tears. Lots of them.
"Miss Xiao Long?"
Yang looked up, and her eyes were not the angry aura red she boasted in her application, but rather a more normal, more tragic shade of the same color. "Hi, Professor Goodwitch," she said, and she sounded just as much ashamed at being caught crying as upset over the events that had unfolded.
"May I come in?"
"I'd open the door for you, but I kind of misplaced my key."
Glynda cracked a smile. Yang's humor fell short of usual, but she was trying, and that was something. "I brought my own." She dug through the pocket of her jacket to find the small card that Ozpin had given her, sifting through various lien cards and her designer monogramed scroll. After a couple minutes, she gave up. "Or perhaps I left it at home. Do you mind if we chat?"
"Sure, why not? After all, you wouldn't be the first person since I got locked in here." She began to count of on her fingers. "Or the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth…"
"Pyrrha Nikos specifically asked me to check up on you. She believes you're innocent."
Yang ceased counting. "Really?"
"And as I trust her, I'm inclined to believe it myself. Give me something I can work with, Miss Xiao Long. Give me a way to present your case. A lead."
With a frown, Yang kicked at the ground of her cell. "I've told you all everything, though. I was attacked! Or at least… I thought I was until I saw the video. Why did I see something different than everyone else? Am I going crazy?"
Crazy… or there was another reason she saw something. "I might have a lead, there," Glynda admitted. "I'll visit tomorrow and let you know if it went anywhere."
Why did nobody have personal knowledge of Mercury Black's team?
The registrations were in order, the health checks perfect, and every person that Glynda spoke to could vouch for the entire team being pleasant, caring, and easy to work with. However, none had specifically dealt with records. They had only met the group via scroll communication, or in passing. Not a single person had any memory of any vital checks required for the festival.
"Perhaps," suggested the umpteenth person Glynda talked to when she brought up this inconsistency, "they had all their checks done at Haven before coming here?"
It was a possibility, but the fact that no one could or would point her to a possible contact at Haven made her antsy.
As the long day of research drew to a close, Glynda's stomach was groaning in protest and her eyes hurt from the strain of reading records over and over, trying to find a lead. The papers floated around her, held up by her semblance, and when she finally released them, they did not float to the ground, but rather crashed, the remnants of aura giving them extra oomph.
Glynda stood, cracked her neck, and decided to go see Yang early. It wasn't uncommon for an upset detainee to be too despairing to remember every detail. If the student thought Glynda might know something, perhaps then she might think clearly enough to remember something more.
As soon as Glynda approached the old prison, her senses kicked into high gear. She saw that the entrance was closed, heard no sound but for the rustling of the wind… there were no patrolling guards outside. The smell of iron drifted into her nostrils. The smell was too strong… even a prison this old did not use that material as much as the smell called for. Blood?
She didn't waste time using the intercom on the entrance. No one was manning it. Instead, she closed her eyes and ran through what she knew. Something dangerous was happening. Yang was in there, Yang who may have been the only witness to something horrible. Yang, whose cell was on an outer wall, not a corner but close to one, just a little down on the right. Glynda had seen the sun rising from the barred window, so the cell faced eastward, or close to it.
With that, she knew exactly where to run to, exactly where to aim her power at. She pulled at the wall, and bricks flew around her, opening a neat hole right into Yang's cell.
The smell of wetness, salt, and pennies overwhelmed her. Glynda was plugging her sensitive nose before her mind even registered the body in front of her.
She inhaled sharply but did not scream, even though she wanted to. Her heart pounded as she took in the sticky, dyed-red hair that had been blonde and sunny only hours before. It was thick enough and long enough to cover the worst of the gruesome sight. It didn't cover the pool of blood on the ground, or the limbs piled neatly in a corner, but…
Glynda tried to keep her emotions in check. She had seen worse. She really had. She had seen worse than her student's corpse dismembered and bloody on a cold cell floor.
She just couldn't remember when.
Glynda bit her lip to keep another scream in, so hard it bled and rolled down her chin, and she swallowed back the food that was threatening to come up. With one deep inhale (in which more of the smell of blood flooded her nostrils evilly), she managed to look to the ceiling and ignore the situation she was in. As soon as she managed to be somewhat steady, she heard the voices.
"…not what I would say was the most popular decision, General," said a female voice she didn't recognize.
With the identification, knowing that James was the speaker of the next few words was easy. "There are Grimm flooding the cities due to negativity. While it would be easy to let her go, as procedure calls for, her sacrifice will abate the upset she's caused. Of course, it's not the most popular… she was what, seventeen? Still, her death will save all of this kingdom, and perhaps all of Remnant."
Glynda pulled her scroll out of her pocket and quickly tried to access the voice recorder app.
"Sir, an execution was hardly legal, let alone one that brutal," said the first voice as she fumbled with the small device.
"You're correct, but I stand by my beliefs. It was needed. The brutality as well. If there is a true enemy, this is just another heinous crime they will eventually stand judgement for."
There was a pause. "Why would they kill her, though, sir?"
"There isn't a better option, Schnee, and the deed has been done. If you can think of something more accurate, I'd gladly hear it. If not, I'll thank you to remember your instructions… and your place."
Glynda pressed record, but the conversation seemed to have stopped. All she heard now were footsteps. Footsteps that got louder, louder, louder…
Her eyes widened as she realized where they were headed, and she shoved her scroll haphazardly back into her pocket and started out the hole, prepared to run as soon as she got to a safe place where the ground wasn't slick and wet. As soon as she was on the grassy grounds of the prison, she realized that Ironwood and his lacky were not yet there, and began to close up the hole she'd made in the wall. Better not to leave any evidence.
The bricks filled in from top to bottom, and they did not repair nearly as fast as Glynda might have liked. The very last ones sealed seconds after she saw two pairs of Atlesian-uniformed feet. "What's this?" she heard Ironwood say before the bricks cut him off. "Whose scroll is…?"
Automatically, Glynda's hand reached for her scroll.
It wasn't there.
Glynda thanked the original Maidens for her ability to think under pressure, and then promptly thanked the Maidens for the idea she ended up going with, an idea that brought her underneath Beacon Academy to the vault where Amber was kept.
She placed one delicate pale hand on the glass beneath which the previous Fall Maiden lay still. "Forgive me," she said aloud, though she wasn't sure to whom she was speaking exactly. Ironwood, if she understood right, did not deserve her forgiveness. She was coming as close to saving Amber as she could. Ozpin? How much did he know? How much did he approve of?
The machine that Ironwood had designed usually required two people to use, one experienced in Atlesian military technology enough to understand the coded instructions. Glynda, however, was a wild card, one that both they and she had believed to be firmly on the same side. She was observant enough to remember the little pieces of instruction on how to use the aura transfer device that they'd let slip around her, and the telekinesis she was born with allowed her to flip the switch even while she was in her transfer pod.
"This is to keep the world safe," she told herself aloud.
A man who would sacrifice a child for a country was perhaps practical, maybe perhaps right, but he wasn't good. A man who would not take responsibility for it? Even worse. Glynda's gut was telling her that since she knew his secret, she was a target, and so in that case, she needed to get the immense power of the Fall Maiden out of his grasp. If he turned out to be good, he would understand.
Glynda pulled the switch with her semblance.
Within thirty seconds, it was done, leaving the woman with just one thought. That's it?
There was no flash of power, just a glow and a hum of a machine doing its work. Glynda could feel something new inside of her, but even more, she could feel the burning expectation that this wasn't it, there had to be more, there must be more, and she must go and get it. She felt a hunger. She didn't like it.
She let herself out of the pod, turned off the machine by hand, and pressed a hand to Amber's glass once again. "Thank you for your service," she said. A flash of an idea ran through her head… turn off the life support, put the older woman out of her misery… but she didn't want Ironwood to have anything more to use against her than he already did.
She was riding the elevator up to the ground floor when a voice came on over the PA system, clear and calm. "Professor Goodwitch, please report to Professor Ozpin's office immediately." There was a pause, and then the voice… Ironwood's voice… continued. "Your scroll has been found." Perhaps it was innocent, the edge only imagined, but Glynda's huntress ears picked out a threat.
As students watched her disobedience, she exited the elevator at the ground floor as planned and took off towards the exit of the school in a power walk.
Behind her, the wind blew, as if her new powers could chase away her sins, her plans, and most of all, her fear.
Summary: While gathering information on Yang's mysterious behavior at the Vytal Festival, Glynda discovers the corpse of the girl in question, as well as the murderer... James Ironwood, who claimed he acted towards the greater good. In order to save herself and the people she is sworn to protect, she steals the remnants of Amber's powers and starts to flee from Beacon Academy.
AN: Whoa! This is possibly the most intense thing I've ever written, and definitely unlike anything else. That said, there's some simple reasons I could write such a thing, and I would like to give credit where credit is due. First of all, the title and base inspiration for the story came from Heathers the Musical. While this is DEFINITELY not a RWBY Heathers AU, many plot points are vaguely directed by the hours I've spent listening to the music. If you haven't already, give it a listen!
Also in my thoughts are the writers of the PHENOMENAL RWBY AU Offal Hunt, lionsenpai and KIBITZER. While I had the idea for DGW before reading it, I didn't really plan to write it. Their fantastic portrayals of Glynda and Cinder inspired me to show the world my own (the one of my own that DOESN'T involve pop stars and ice cream stores, anyway).
Thanks for reading! Tell me what you think in the reviews if you have time, and I hope you enjoyed it a lot!