Chapter 28: More Perspectives

AN: Hello and welcome back folks! Let's dive on in. I'm going to try something a bit different this time, so let me know what you guys think! Enjoy.

(Third Person POV)

Ozpin took a good look at Michael Galloway. He was young, but his eyes showed something different. They showed someone who was haunted by so much. It was a look he knew all too well.

Mr. Galloway took Ozpin's appearance in stride however.

"Headmaster. Can I offer you a drink?" Mr. Galloway asked. Ozpin shook his head.

"No thank you Mr. Galloway. While I do drink from time to time, I must decline." Ozpin said. Mr. Galloway nodded, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and downing it. Ozipn noticed the ease of which Mr. Galloway downed a glass of alcohol. There was no reaction whatsoever, as if the alcohol barely did anything to him. 'Oh my, not another Qrow.' He thought, staring at the young man.

"Fair enough. More for me. Oh, and it's Michael. Mr. Galloway is my father." Michael shot back. Ozpin noticed yet another thing about the young man in front of him. It wasn't easy to see, but Michael definitely held some form of hate for his father. Ozpin relented.

Michael took a seat next to Ozpin, taking a sip from his drink. "So, to what do I owe this pleasure?" He asked.

Ozpin smiled. "Straight to the point I see. Very well. I came to see you for one reason." He said. Ozpin noticed Michael tense up, and reaching for something.

"And that is?" Michael asked carefully. Oh dear, perhaps it would help not to be mysterious.

Ozpin smirked. "I simply wanted to meet the person housing one of my potential students. I take my duty as Headmaster very seriously I assure you." He replied. Yes, Ozpin was concerned. It primarily had something to do with Miss Belladonna's former affiliations. Ozpin was concerned that Michael would not be equip to handle any former allies of Miss Belladonna, but from the looks of things he had it under control.

Michael seemed to ease up, and his hand moved away from whatever he was reaching for. "Fair enough. What did you want to know?" He asked.

Ozpin smiled. Now they were getting somewhere.


(Unknown POV)

I set the binoculars down. Interesting. Michael sure brings a lot of attention to himself eh? Better call this in. "Hey boss, I got something good for you. Seems our little vigilante had an unexpected guest. The chess master himself." I said, chuckling.

Boss didn't say anything for a while. Ha, always trying to act all mysterious and shit.

"Ozpin? Interesting. Did he say why?" Boss asked. I could never tell from their voice if they were male or female. Didn't matter, just wanted to know. Ah well. What did they ask again? Oh right. I shrugged.

"Just some shit about checking up on his students well being." I said. Boss stayed quite for a little while longer.

"Very well. His presence does not concern me at the moment. Tell me, how's our little 'spark'?" They asked. I chuckled.

"Oh it's doing it's magic. It has been for the last few weeks." I told him. And I thought I was evil. I have to give the boss credit though. They knew how to cause damage.

They chuckled. "Excellent. And the stimulant?" They asked. Ah... that.

"That's... where I'm worried. Looks like it wore off. Lasting effects however, by the looks of things." I shot back, trying to sound concerned. Boss didn't scare me, but I knew my limits.

"That is perfectly acceptable. Everything is going according to plan." They assured me. Maybe yours, but not mine asshole.

I did have a question however.

"When am I going to get a shot at Mike? I've been itching for a while, you know?" I asked Boss. They didn't respond for a good minute.

"You are under orders. Not yet, but soon. Remember what the plan is." They said. Yeah, I remember alright. I came up with it.

Boss assured me Mike was going to suffer. That was going to be fun. They had the physical part down, but needed the mental part. I chuckled, looking at a picture I had gotten. Mike's friend Scarlet. That might be the key. Oh this was going to be amazing. Mike wouldn't know what hit him. It was going to be painful, in more ways than he could imagine. Just the thought of that brought a smile to my face. For now, I'll be a good little soldier. Sooner or later I was going to get what I was promised.

"Understood boss. I'm heading out." I said, cutting the connection. Now that that's done, lets see what I can do. If I remember correctly, there should be a few bums around here that no one would miss. The perfect test subjects.


(A Short Time Later)

(Michael's POV)

As Ozpin walked out of the house, I breathed a sigh of relief. That was way too close. It felt like he was watching every little movement, judging him. Thankfully Ozpin only had simple questions, stuff I could answer. I was about to go talk to Blake when my head felt like it was exploding.

Gah! What the fuck was that? I clutched my head. There was some kind of ringing... then it was gone. I heard the door to Blake's room open.

"Michael? Is that you?" She asked. I saw her walking down the stairs, rubbing her eyes.

"Hey. You just wake up?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yeah. I heard someone else was here. Who was it?" She asked. I chuckled.

"You may want to take a seat for this." I shot back.

So after explaining who exactly visited, Blake was a surprisingly calm. When I pointed that out, she just shrugged.

"I trust Professor Ozpin. I would be concerned if he knew about your... night activities, but it looks like he doesn't. Are you going to keep your word this time and stay low for now?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I raised my hands in surrender.

"Yeah yeah don't worry. Besides, I came to the realization that being a vigilante isn't everything." I assured her. She chuckled, rolling her eyes. That's when another headache happened. Now there was some kind of ringing that just appeared out of nowhere. Since Blake didn't react to it, it had to be me.

"I'm going to head out for a bit. Don't wait up." She said, oblivious to my slight pain. When she walked out, I moved back to my room. Finally the ringing stopped. There was only two people in my head right now, and the main one was upstairs. Time to get some answers.


(Third Person POV)

Something was wrong with Aurora. It wasn't that obvious at first, but there were signs. The first one was when she blew up on Michael after his guardian angel revealed what he did. Was she hurt? Yes. Did she feel betrayed? A bit. That didn't excuse her behavior one bit however. While she still aided Michael on patrols, Aurora spent time trying to figure out what was wrong.

The first thought that came to mind was glitching. A.I. creation, no matter who worked on it, was a tricky beast to deal with. She hated to admit it, but Aurora was a prototype. She had quirks that her little sister Penny never did. There was bound to be some stuff wrong, but she knew it would never get that bad, so she crossed that off the list.

As algorithm after algorithm ran, Aurora pondered what else it could be. She researched countless topics, did thousands of tests, but unfortunately she had nothing. It infuriated her to no end, and to top it all off she began to discover problems.

They were minute at first. Aurora had discovered a corrupted data stream in her system, one she purged instantly. Days later, another stream was corrupted, a larger one at that. It was a process, one that would repeat constantly. Soon she was purging more data than she hoped. Then there would be times where she would fragment. It was nothing major, but it still took some effort to salvage those fragments. That didn't even account for the rage she felt. Sometimes it appeared out of nowhere, other times it would simmer before she erupted. Eventually she came to an inevitable realization.

She was dying. Simple as that. Whatever data she didn't lose, ended up a jumbled mess of streams that barely helped Michael at all. By her calculations, she had months at most. Aurora wasn't going to tell Michael, however. It wouldn't do to have him worried, and it wouldn't help in the long run. Hell, she had even made the nanomachines in Michael's head a bit redundant. She could still communicate with him, but it would be only bits and pieces now unless he was wearing the suit.

Right now to get her mind off things, Aurora had decided to work on Michael's suit. Aurora had realized that despite her father's assistance, the suit still operated on the V.1 model. Over the course of the night, Aurora had managed to upgrade the suit to the V.2.5 model. Now Michael would be able to move faster, hit harder and take far more damage among other things. To top it all off she also managed to find a way to change the glide mode to a thruster mode, allowing Michael a bit more mobility.

It also helped that her logic gnawed at the back of her mind. 'You can't show weakness to him. He'll throw you away, you'll be redundant.' Aurora shook it off. 'Come to think of it, where is Michael? He never came back from visiting his little girlfriend.' She thought.

That's when he walked in. Aurora smiled. 'Speak of the devil.' She chuckled.

Aurora appeared in front of Michael, taking a look at him. He seemed... calmer than before. Less stressed out. His eyes softened when he saw her. Aw crap, she didn't look bad did she? "Hey Michael. What's up?" She asked.

Michael smiled. "Nothing much really. I stayed at Scarlet's for the night. I just got back, and had a nice talk with Professor Ozpin." He casually remarked. Wait what?

"Professor Ozpin? What happened? Does he know about..." Aurora gestured to suit. He shook his head.

"Nope. He just wanted to meet the person giving Blake a place to live." He assured her. Aurora, despite not having lungs, sighed in relief.

"That's a relief. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?" She asked. Aurora immediately regretted asking when Michael stared at her. She fidgeted a bit under his gaze.

"Yeah actually. In the last ten minutes I've gotten two headaches that appeared out of nowhere. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?" He asked. Aurora's eyes widened slightly. She had another episode right now, but she had managed. He wasn't supposed to feel that.

"That? Oh it was nothing. I found some data that reacted rather... violently when I accessed it. I fixed it so no worry." She assured him. Michael continued to stare at her, looking for something. Finally he nodded.

"Alright. I just wanted to make sure. Anything else you want to tell me about?" He asked. Aurora nodded excitedly.

"Yeah actually. I have a few ideas I wanted to run by you. Want to stay and talk about them?" She asked hopefully. Michael nodded, taking a seat. Aurora breathed a sigh of relief. For now, she would make the time she had worth it.

AN: So yeah, lot's of stuff going on here. A new opponant has entered the fray, and Aurora's end might be near. Hope you guys enjoyed. Until next time, read, review and enjoy!