The whole next day was spent hanging out with Sun and Neptune, much to Jaune's puzzlement. It was good, he supposed, that Blake and Weiss seemed to have worked things out, and that the guy didn't have any hard feelings. All that said...
"Hey, check this out!" Sun hopped up onto the pointed roof of one stall and balanced on one foot windmilling his arms.
Neptune sighed. "Dude, you're going to f—and there he goes." There was a muffled thump, and moments later Sun emerged with twigs in his hair and a broad grin on his face. It was unnerving how well he would have fit in on team BRYN.
His partner Neptune seemed less... energetic, and he had a familiar air of mixed frustration and bemusement Jaune was used to associating with Dove or Ren. Blake had talked to him yesterday, which meant that he wasn't flat out glaring at Weiss anymore. The two were still studiously avoiding making direct eye contact, though, so Jaune figured it was best not to push them. It occurred to him that some people might have been stressed out or put off by the latent tension threatening to break out in argument. It would have taken a latent threat of murder for Jaune to break a sweat—if the early days of his team had been good for anything, it was that.
"Seriously though," Sun said, jogging backwards for a few paces so that he could look at them face-to-face. "You never explained the whole story about the eye."
Weiss rolled her eyes. Both of them—she wore the patch most of the time, but apparently it got uncomfortable. Sun had oohed and ahhed when he saw it uncovered the first time, proudly proclaiming it 'badass.' Jaune was pretty sure he'd found a grey hair behind his ear this morning.
"Uh, not that you have to!" Sun said hurriedly. "If, y'know, it's a painful memory or whatever." Neptune put a hand to his face.
"It's a long story. Involving the White Fang."
"I told you!" Sun pointed at Neptune. "I told you Beacon was crazy!"
"I believed you. I believed you even more when I heard about the airship thing—"
Jaune choked. "Who told you about that?!"
"The professor guy," Sun said, blinking innocently. "The one with the giant mustache. You'd think he'd be mad someone blew a hole in his classroom."
"He's weird." Cardin shrugged as if that explained everything—which, in the case of Port, it probably did.
"Right." Sun paused. "Are you sure I can't meet—"
"You can," Weiss interrupted, "As soon as—"
"Nothing explosive or flammable, and somewhere you don't have to deal with it," Sun finished, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, I'm not that bad."
"It's not just you we're worried about," Blake pointed out.
"Wait." Neptune's eyes narrowed. "If you aren't dealing with whatever horrible thing happens, who is?"
There was an awkward silence, wherein Jaune was pretty sure that all of them thought Dove and then stayed quiet because it would have been mean to actually say it. Plus there was this unspoken feeling that whoever named him out loud might have to do something stupid like offer to help him. But, well... Yang would give him a hand. Probably. Once she was done egging Nora on.
Cardin started to laugh. "You volunteering?"
"No!" Neptune waved his hands in front of him. "Nope, no, definitely not, let's not get crazy—"
"I'm telling you, it's rigged!"
All of them turned around to find a girl standing a few feet away with her hands on her hips. Jaune's eyes nearly watered from the riot of color, though he did notice that there was a pink tail behind her. Sun froze halfway through grabbing Neptune's shoulder. She'd shouted loud enough that almost everyone around them was looking at her.
A boy was standing in front of her, tall and dark-skinned and dressed well enough that it made Jaune a little self-conscious. The sight of the two of them together jogged his memory—they were the unlucky pair that had been pitted against Pyrrha and Ruby in the doubles.
"It was bull, sure, but I don't know if—"
The girl scoffed. "Come on. First four complete jerks, then Pyrrha freaking Nikos? Two first year faunus up against team Mouthbreather? I'm not dumb, I can tell when I'm getting screwed!"
"I know it's suspicious..."
The two of them walked off after that, with neither seeming to have noticed that they'd drawn the attention of almost everyone around them. Jaune looked back at his teammates, expecting to see similar confused expressions of his own. Instead, he found himself watching Blake and Weiss with growing dread. They were doing that thing they sometimes did, communicating without even speaking through significant widening of the eyes and little jerks of the head.
"If you guys disappear in the middle of the night again," Jaune threatened, "I'm giving up and becoming a farmer."
Both of them winced. "We weren't going to," Weiss said, a little defensively. "It's just a lot to explain..."
Cardin snorted. "Sure."
"We thought the same thing," Blake said, "about the matches being set up. But I don't think it's just so that faunus teams will lose—it seems like someone is trying to make the divide worse."
"Holy crap!" Sun's eyes went huge. "Like with me almost getting cut up?"
"Yes."
"So someone from Atlas that can give specialists orders?" Neptune suggested.
Weiss shook her head. "Winter wouldn't deliberately start conflict during the Vytal Festival of all times."
Neptune made a face as if he doubted that. "Maybe they didn't say that was what they were doing. They could've just told her to attack him."
"She wouldn't attack someone for no good reason, either."
"It's what soldiers are supposed to do," Neptune said peevishly.
Weiss shot him an irritated look, which made him cringe back a little—the dead eye was eerie enough when she wasn't glaring at you. "Let me put it this way. If Jaune told me to go and attack that Flynt guy without explaining why, I'd tell him to jump in a lake. Winter and I were raised in the same house, and neither of us appreciate being ordered around blindly."
Jaune wasn't so sure about that—it was sort of what soldiers were supposed to do, and anyway he got the impression Winter was loyal to the General. But, well... Weiss knew her better than he did, so maybe she was right?
"General Ironwood didn't have any motive," Blake interjected before Weiss and Neptune could start arguing in earnest. "That just made him look bad. It's not only human and faunus tension that's being ratcheted up, a lot of people are starting to get angry with Atlas, too."
"So... who would want to make people angry with both faunus and Atals?" Jaune asked.
"I don't know, but we have a lead from the research we were doing before that we never got a chance to follow up on."
Weiss inhaled sharply. "Mountain Glenn."
"What?" Sun looked around. "Seriously, what? I feel like I just walked into a theater halfway through a James Frond movie."
"Well..." Blake shifted uncomfortably.
"Why do I have a bad feeling about what you're about to say?" Jaune rubbed at his forehead, as if that could soothe the incoming stress away.
"We may have done some investigating during those teambuilding missions."
He dropped his hand, and then very deliberately looked at the jagged line on Weiss' leg. "So..."
"Ooh!" Sun perked up. "I know this one! Chainsaw, right?"
"Chainsaw?!" Jaune shouted, loudly enough that several other people turned to stare.
"Um..." Weiss cringed a little. "Well, there was a base at a defunct logging company..." Cardin started laughing. Jaune glared at him.
"What does that have to do with Mountain Glenn?" Neptune asked.
"We found a tunnel with train tracks running through it," Blake explained. "When we looked on a map, the only subway line that goes that far leads to Mountain Glenn."
"But there's absolutely nothing there worth blowing up," Weiss finished. "So we have no idea what they're doing."
"Blowing up?" Jaune frowned. "I mean, they might not be blowing anything—oh god, there's more isn't there?"
Blake's ears pulled back, sheepish. "They... may have had bombs." Cardin doubled over, muffling near-hysterical snorts of laughter into one fist. Sun just stared from Blake, to Weiss, then back, awe written all over his face.
"Okay." Jaune took a few deep breaths. "Okay. You guys know it's a genuine miracle neither of you died, right?" Blake looked appropriately guilty, but Weiss just seemed irritated.
"Yes, yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "But are you going to help us investigate or not?"
"Yes!" Sun hissed, pumping a fist. "We are so in!" He paused, realizing they were all staring at him. "What? We're eliminated anyway, we might as well do something cool."
Neptune hung his head. "I hate you sometimes."
To be perfectly honest, BRYN didn't exactly jump on the whole 'help prove Winter innocent' thing. It could totally have been done faster, and Russel was fully aware of this, and his whole team knew, too. But, well... yesterday, they'd knocked on RSPR's door and been told by Ren that they were having a movie night. The look on his face said that it was much more important than it sounded, and he even gently refused Nora's offer to join them, saying that they could hang out some more tomorrow morning.
That had never happened. In the end they had retreated to their own room, all feeling an odd sense of foreboding. Something was wrong—and if it was important enough for Ren to put off an evening with Nora, it was definitely important enough that they shouldn't bother Sky about Winter's request.
So they had waited, and at breakfast that morning their entire sister team had seemed so preoccupied that they'd put off asking a little bit longer. Then, finally, sometime after lunch they found Ren and Sky alone at the fairgrounds, both sipping at freshly squeezed juice from a nearby cart. Nora jumped on her friend's back, and he smiled.
"Sorry about last night. Team emergency."
Yang nodded. "Yeah, we figured. Can we ask, uh..."
"I don't actually know," Ren admitted.
"Is Ruby okay?"
"Yes."
"She's in the room playing video games," Sky added. "Pyrrha went to tell Ozpin about our theory. Hopefully he takes it seriously, and if not at least Goodwitch can't complain when we go off to investigate ourselves."
"Speaking of which." Dove coughed a little awkwardly. "Would you be able to share that with Winter as well?"
"Oh." Sky looked apprehensive. "Well, uh... yeah, she probably deserves to know. I should talk to Alabaster, too."
"I'll come with you," Ren suggested. Sky gave him a grateful nod.
"And maybe our teams can do a movie night together later?" Nora shifted awkwardly. "Um. I mean, not that it's not cool to have team things or anything, I just..."
"Wanted to make sure we were okay?" Ren smiled, though neither he nor his partner commented on the movie night idea.
"Yeah." Nora gave him another hug. "You look kinda worried."
"I'm sure it will be fine," he said. Russel got the impression he was talking to himself more than them.
They ran into a bit of a snag when they tried to find Winter—namely, they had no idea how to contact her or where she might be. Their best current guess was that she might be hanging around the fairgrounds, since that was where most of the students were, which might include her sister. Russel found that searching for someone in a maze of food carts and game stands took way longer than doing the same thing in, say, a forest. They kept getting distracted—justifiably, in his opinion—by people juggling flaming knives and stalls selling what they claimed was the 'hottest jerky in Vacuo.' Yang, despite all of them—including Nora!—telling her not to, bought several strips of that. It was glowing an unsettlingly vivid shade of red, and nothing she did could convince Sky, Russel, or Dove to try some. Nora practically keeled over when she took her up on it, though Ren seemed to like it and even asked for another piece.
Then they veered down one row of stalls and ran into Velvet and her teammate. Russel craned his head back, blinking in open awe. He'd never been towered over by that much before. Despite his size, the guy—Yatsuhashi, if he remembered right—wasn't too intimidating, mostly because he had an easygoing smile.
"Well done earlier," Yang said, grinning.
"Thank you." Velvet looked a little uncomfortable at the praise.
"I guess we'll be seeing one of you in the singles," Russel rubbed his hands together. They had debated who to advance the night before, and eventually settled on Yang—both she and Nora were powerhouses, but her semblance was more likely to come up in a fight.
Velvet blushed. "That would be me."
"I'm glad," Dove said. Then he cleared his throat. "That is, I know you weren't sure about competing past the team rounds."
She made a face. "I'm still not sure it's a good idea. People have been..." she trailed off. "Well."
"Fuck 'em," Russel suggested. Yang kicked him in the shin. "Okay, ouch. I'm not wearing a kick me sign." He turned to Sky. "You'd tell me if I was, right?"
"It's not quite that simple," Velvet said, her ears drooping a little. "We've had bad luck with the matchups, and people are getting... well, I'm worried someone in the audience might start a riot."
"We have to run out of racists eventually, right?" Yang looked around, like she was begging the world to please just not suck that badly.
Velvet smiled a little. "Alabaster has been making some progress with that."
Russel broke out cackling. "Gods yes! I want a recording of that fight so badly, did you see the look on the blond dude's face when he got knocked out?"
"Speaking of Alabaster," Dove interjected, ignoring Russel completely. "I don't suppose you happen to know where Weiss' sister is?"
Yatsuhashi frowned. "She asked us where their team was a few hours ago, but we didn't really want to talk with her any longer than we had to."
"Oh." Sky shifted his weight from foot to foot. He didn't say anything else, though—just stared guiltily at his shoes. Russel had noticed him doing that once before, too, after looking at the crowd like he'd seen someone he knew. Weird.
"So, she's in the fairgrounds?" Nora said, gesturing around. Velvet nodded. "Thanks!"
"I'll be seeing you later!" Yang called out, tipping her a wink. Once they were back into the crowd, she started bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I watched their fight, and man it is going to be the best kind of painful trying to beat her. I wonder what her semblance is..." She was grinning like she'd just won the lottery.
"Your definition of fun continues to baffle and dismay me," Dove told her.
Russel glanced to his left and realized that some naïve fool had left a small pyramid of barrels behind their cart. He darted over and clambered up to the roof of the stall, standing up and breathing in the high-altitude air—ignoring, for obvious reasons, the fact that he'd been hundreds of feet higher just that morning. Then he put a hand up to shade his eyes—it was overcast and had been all day—and began scanning the crowds.
"What are you doing?" Dove asked, resigned. He didn't even bother trying to stop Nora and Yang from following him.
"Ooh!" Nora hopped up onto Yang's shoulders and pointed. "I spy with my little eye..."
About forty or fifty feet away, Russel spotted the flash of white within the crowd. After a moment, the person lifted their head and he realized that yes, that was Winter, and she had noticed the pointing. He gave her a cheeky wave, and she started walking towards them. Maybe angrily, maybe just purposefully. He chose to interpret it optimistically.
"We found her," Yang proclaimed, ignoring the barrels completely and leaping off the stall. Nora did the same, though she very deliberately landed on Ren. He stumbled a little, but seemed to have braced himself in anticipation and didn't fall over. Russel climbed down like a normal person, and the six of them waited for a few awkward moments before Winter caught up with them.
"Well?" she said, looking at Sky and Ren.
"Uh." Sky rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe we can go somewhere else first?"
She scowled, but didn't put up too much of a fight when they wandered out past the edges of the fairgrounds and into the gardens. Finally, they all stopped in a clump and Sky looked nervously around.
"What?" Winter demanded. "No one followed us."
"Uh..." Sky shifted, looking embarrassed. "Well, there might be someone invisible...?"
"Explain. Now."
"I've been seeing things—okay, no, that makes it worse—what I mean is, I think there's an illusionist."
"So I've been told." Winter's expression was intensely skeptical.
"See, I only see this guy when I'm someplace crowded. It's as if he's just wandering around the festival, but he can't be."
"Because...?"
"Well, he's... uh. Not around anymore." Sky spaced out for a moment, then shook his head and continued. "It's not just that, either. My team and I fought Torchwick a couple of times, and we realized that we kept thinking he was moving around, aiming somewhere else, and then getting hit with attacks we thought we'd dodged."
"I saw it," Ren agreed. "Pyrrha was protecting Ruby, and she started moving out of the way as if she saw him circling—and that's exactly what she did see."
Winter pursed her lips. "That's hardly convincing."
"Well..." Sky spread his hands helplessly. "Part of the evidence is us thinking it's weird for you to randomly attack someone Weiss is friends with, so... it might not be super helpful convincing people that you wouldn't randomly attack someone Weiss is friends with. Sorry."
She sighed. "I suppose it's somewhat helpful knowing that not everyone believes me a dangerous madwoman out to hurt faunus." There was a bite to the words that made Russel think that she hadn't managed to talk to Weiss yet—or if she had, it hadn't gone well.
Dove was probably thinking the same thing, because he cleared his throat and said, "We're planning on talking to Albaster about this, too, but my team heard about it second-hand and Raspberry were busy yesterday, so..."
Winter looked away from them for a moment, studying the trees overhead. "Thank you."
"Hey, uh..." Sky stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking awkward. "Sorry. About all the crazy crap that's going on. I guess it seems like you're in the middle of it when you didn't even do anything."
She glared at him suspiciously. "I appreciate your concern," she snapped, "but I'm perfectly fine." No one commented about the absence of the saber she normally wore at her hip.
Pyrrha wandered alone through the halls of Beacon, moving slowly, pausing to look at paintings and pieces of architecture and views through high-arched windows as if she'd never seen them before. Despite the fact that she was going to deliver urgent news to the headmaster, she moved like someone on their way to a dentist appointment—dragging out every second, desperate to linger just a little longer with every step.
She was distracted, too—so distracted that she still hadn't seen Ruby following her. Tailing someone was harder than movies made it look. She had to keep far back, since no one was hanging around inside Beacon on a beautiful autumn day while the Festival was still going. It was just her and Pyrrha in the halls, and she could usually hear her partner's footsteps and guess which turns she was taking based on that. Whenever she dared, she snuck peeks around corners to make sure that she hadn't lost her.
It helped that she knew where Pyrrha was going. She wasn't taking the direct route to the Headmaster's office, though. Actually, Ruby was pretty sure they'd done at least one full circuit of Beacon by now.
Finally, Pyrrha turned and headed out across the courtyard, towards the CCT. It said a lot about the popularity of the festival that, even here, there were only a few people scattered around, and most of those were watching the fights on their scrolls. She wandered off after her partner, not bothering to keep back or be stealthy—it would only make other people stare at her, and it wasn't like she could actually hide in a wide open space like this. Pyrrha didn't look back—instead she just walked up to the tower and slipped inside. Ruby paused at the doors, peering anxiously inside. Then she, too, entered.
As she crossed the threshold, she looked around for Pyrrha. It only took a second to spot her—just across the lobby, standing off to one side, her thumb on the button for the top floor of the tower. There was no way she could hide in a tiny elevator. Ruby would have to wait until it went all the way up, then back down, and then ride after her. The tower was huge. She couldn't have explained why, but the idea of waiting that long was unthinkable.
"Pyrrha!" she called out, before her partner could disappear into the elevator. She froze, one foot on each side of the sliding door, and turned. Her mouth fell open. Then she bit her lip and retreated. The doors began to close.
Ruby was inside in a flash, petals shedding everywhere. The elevator began to move.
"Um... sorry," she said. "I'm kind of just now realizing that getting into an elevator when someone sees you usually means you can't talk to them."
Pyrrha stared at her.
"It's just that you seem really scared and I don't get why, because it's Ozpin not Goodwitch and we didn't even do anything crazy this time."
Little green numbers were ticking upwards—they were on fifteen, now, and Ozpin's office was the thirtieth floor. On another mad impulse, Ruby jabbed the button for floor sixteen, and they slowed to a stop.
"Sorry!" she blurted again. "I just... please tell me what's wrong? Because you've never acted like this before and... um..."
"I can't."
"Oh."
Pyrrha hugged her arms around her stomach. "I want to, I do, but I promised that I wouldn't say anything to anyone." Ruby frowned. There was a little ding, and the doors opened. She didn't get off.
"Well..." Ruby fidgeted. "Is this that thing you're supposed to do, that you don't want to?"
Pyrrha nodded.
Ruby noticed that the green numbers had ticked up to twenty. She glanced at Pyrrha, then the numbers—twenty-one!—and before her brain really had time to process anything she was mashing a hand on the control panel, lighting up another six floors between them and Ozpin.
"Sorry." Then, because Pyrrha looked like she might be about to cry, "Yang won't get in elevators with me anymore."
Her partner let out a strangled little laugh, then put a hand to her face. "It's alright. More time to process things is..." she trailed off. "Well. I think now that I've decided, it's just a matter of not losing my nerve."
"It's that bad?" A tight nod.
Ruby tugged at her cloak, welcoming the familiar weight on her shoulders. "Um... if you don't want to do it, you don't have to."
"I don't have to," Pyrrha said miserably, "but someone does, and it's... I'd rather it was me."
"Oh."
The green numbers ticked up to twenty-seven, the last of the extra floors Ruby had added, and she had to physically restrain herself from pushing the two remaining buttons. Finally they slowed to a stop again, and she felt the familiar swooping in her stomach, this time accompanied with a generous helping of dread.
Then the doors slid open, and she was staring wide-eyed at Professor Goodwitch. "Um... hi!" she said, not really knowing what else to do.
"You..." Goodwitch had to work her jaw for a moment, too outraged to speak. "You told—"
"It's not her fault!" Ruby said quickly. "I just kind of followed her into the elevator and she tell me anything secret but I kept pushing buttons because Yang says I have a serious problem and that if there was a big red end-the-world button I would just—"
"Ah."
She stopped mid-ramble as the familiar voice of the Headmaster cut through her thoughts. He stepped out from behind Goodwitch. If Ruby had thought his expression might reassure her, she had been wrong—he didn't look angry or disappointed, but there was a bone-deep weariness to him that was, if anything, even more unsettling.
"Miss Nikos. Miss Rose." He didn't sound surprised to see her. "I suppose... the both of you may as well come in."
Ruby shared a wide-eyed look with Pyrrha, and they both entered the office. She looked around, finding that the distant ticking of the gears was making her anxious. Then she froze, catching sight of a very familiar figure.
"Uncle Qrow?!" she burst out. "What are you doing here?"
He looked up, both eyebrows raised. Then he scowled. "Oz, what the hell—"
"I'm afraid she invited herself as a plus one," Ozpin said, smiling apologetically. Uncle Qrow relaxed at that, though he was still grimacing. "I wonder... perhaps the both of you had something to tell me?" He gave Pyrrha a searching look.
"No." She swallowed. "Just me, sir."
"Then you've decided?"
"Yes."
"We were just discussing the matter, as it happens," Ozpin said, gesturing to Goodwitch and Qrow. "There have been some worrying developments during the festival."
"Someone is trying to pit humans and faunus against one another," Pyrrha said. "And we think there's an illusionist that tricked Winter."
Ozpin's eyebrows shot up, and Uncle Qrow choked on a sip from his flask. "Jeez," he spluttered, his gruff voice a little muffled by coughing. "Where do you kids keep getting this stuff?"
"Um." Ruby shifted uneasily. "Well, Sky thinks someone is showing him that boy from Woodacre, and before that we were seeing things when we fought Torchwick, and it really made a lot more sense when he explained it I swear!"
"We will look into it," Goodwitch promised. She glanced towards Ozpin. "Now, Miss Rose, if you could return to your dorm—"
"She can stay."
Goodwitch turned to stare at the Headmaster. "Ozpin..."
He smiled sadly, still with that same weary expression that made him look older than he was, older than anyone was, older even than the kingdom they were standing in. "I'll have to explain some of this to her eventually, and it seems only fair to give Miss Nikos someone to confide in."
Pyrrha's eyes went wide. "You mean..."
He gestured to the elevator. "I'll talk as we go."
"Oz." Qrow stepped in between them and the doors. "Hang on, this isn't what we decided."
"I know." Ozpin sighed. "It's dangerous, to be sure, but there are other factors—"
"Other factors my ass!"
Ruby flinched, more out of shock than anything else. Not because her uncle swore—he'd taught her pretty much every bad word she knew, or he'd taught Yang who then taught her—but because he'd done it at the Headmaster. Ozpin didn't even blink.
"I know, and I do apologize, but we don't have time. She's acting now. We need to be ready."
"You need to promote a pawn into a queen," Qrow shot back.
"Um..." Ruby exchanged a frightened look with Pyrrha.
She had the sense that there was another conversation happening way over her head, a feeling she hadn't had since she was small and her dad and her uncle had been talking about hunting and injuries and what Uncle Qrow had been doing all night. She found herself turning to Goodwitch, who took one look at her expression and said, "If you're going to explain, you ought to start now."
Ozpin hummed distractedly, then moved to the elevator panel. He withdrew a keycard from his pocket and selected B4. Ruby reached out and grabbed one of Pyrrha's sleeves, partly because she was getting a little anxious—nothing good ever happened in a basement in the movies—and partly because her partner was starting to shake.
They stepped inside, all five of them, and descended. "What about James?" Goodwitch asked, as the little green numbers ticked down.
"We'll fill him in afterwards. So long as we can't be sure how much time we have left, we should act quickly."
"Um..." Ruby said hesitantly. "You said you were going to explain...?"
"Tell me, Miss Rose," Ozpin began. "What is your favorite—"
"No time for that, Oz." Uncle Qrow smirked. "I'll give you the cliff notes, kid—in the story, a powerful wizard gives four young women the power of the seasons. They're real, it's magic, and your friend here is next in line."
Ruby blinked at him a few times. Then she turned automatically to Goodwitch, waiting for her to laugh or scoff or tell them to stop acting insane. She looked back steadily, showing no reaction. "Oh. Oh...kay."
"That's not all you told me," Pyrrha said quietly.
"Ah. Yes." Ozpin pushed his spectacles up, just as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened, and every thought and question was blown right out of Ruby's mind by the room that was revealed—the high arched ceilings, thick shadows, and eerie green lights that reflected off a floor polished to a mirror shine. And, at the end, two... tanks? Cases? Then she got a better look, and her heart sank.
"Wait, wait..." Ruby backed up instinctively towards the elevator. "Who's that?" There was a person in one of the containers, though they were too far away to make out much other than their general shape.
"Amber," Ozpin replied. "The previous Fall Maiden."
Ruby really didn't want to get any closer, but Pyrrha was following the adults and she couldn't just stay behind. She approached cautiously, flinching when she realized the two cases were connected by a series of cables. There were dials and glowing lights everywhere, and the smell of antiseptic hung thick in the air, reminding her of the days spent visiting ABSW in the hospital. A slow and steady beeping grated against her hearing, along with artificial breathing. Life support.
"What happened to her?" There were scars across her face, ones that looked like burn marks.
"She was attacked," Ozpin said. "Killed, for most intents and purposes. And part of her power was stolen."
"They want to..." Pyrrha stopped. Rallied. "They want to give me her aura, and the powers along with it."
Ruby clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from retching. She thought of Jaune's semblance, tried to convince herself that it was the same thing—but it wasn't, it wasn't.
"If you would?" Ozpin said, gesturing to the other case.
"What?" Ruby looked around frantically. "But you can't just..."
Pyrrha was already moving, gripping the edges of the machine as the lid slid upward. "I don't have to," she murmured, as if to herself, "but someone does."
Qrow nodded. "Otherwise whoever did this—" he pointed to Amber, "—will take the other half, and that's not gonna end too well for anyone."
"Well, if you need someone to hold onto it so badly then why doesn't one of you do it?" Ruby demanded, indignant.
"The power can only reside inside a young woman," Goodwitch explained, her voice even and steady. "Miss Nikos is already older than most who inherit it, and with the method so... untested, we need conditions to be as similar to a natural transfer as possible."
"Then I could do it!" Ruby swallowed hard. "I mean..." She groped for words. It seemed monstrously unfair that it was Pyrrha who had to do this, when she'd only just started—though what it was that she'd only just started, she couldn't put into words.
Uncle Qrow put his hands on her shoulders. "It's okay, kid. We're going to do everything we can to make this as safe as possible."
The glass case slid shut, and Ruby suppressed a shiver. That thing definitely wasn't safe. She peered through the lid at Pyrrha, locked eyes with her. She nodded—and Ruby backed away, stunned, not knowing what she was supposed to do if her partner wanted to go through with it. Or... wanted was the wrong word.
"Are you ready?" Ozpin asked, as he fiddled with some of the buttons and dials.
"Yes."
He took a deep breath, one that lifted his shoulders and then eased back out of him like a wave. "I truly am sorry it must come to this." He pressed another button. Lights flashed, and a horrible low, grating hum began, so deep that Ruby felt it in her bones rather than her ears. She couldn't look away—there was light flashing across Amber's skin, now, a dusky orange-brown, peeling away from her in tiny bright motes. They were borne upwards into a steel pipe that began to glow. The light crept forward, closer and closer to the chamber where Pyrrha lay waiting, wide-eyed, her hands curled into fists. Then those little orange motes began to pour over her, and she screamed.
Ruby tried to bolt for the case and smash it open, but her Uncle pulled her into a hug and wouldn't let go. "I'm sorry, kiddo," he murmured. "We don't know what'll happen if we stop halfway through."
She squirmed away from him, turning in desperation to look at Goodwitch. Her face was taut with worry and disgust, but she wouldn't make eye contact. Then, finally, she turned to Ozpin. He stared back, still with that strangely ancient expression, and slowly shook his head.
Ruby approached the case again. Goodwitch moved to stop her, but she darted around and placed one palm flat on the glass. She didn't move to open it—she would have, but she felt sure that Pyrrha would have asked her not to. I don't have to, but someone does.
Maybe her partner noticed the hand there, and maybe she didn't. It hurt more to be standing this close, seeing the wrinkles etched between her eyebrows and the way the corners of her mouth were pulling down. Ruby preferred that—if she was just going to stand here, then it should hurt. She didn't look at Amber, and tried very hard to convince herself that, since she had been in a coma with no chance of waking up, she must not be able to feel it.
Then, finally, the last rusty orange flecks disappeared, merging seamlessly into Pyrrha's skin. She went still, a faint sheen of sweat standing out on her brow, and the bone-rattling hum slowed and quieted and petered away into nothing. The silence was deafening.
Ozpin fiddled with the controls and the glass lid slid up. Pyrrha blinked a few times, blearily. Ruby studied her eyes, trying to tell if they had changed color at all. As far as she could tell they were the same brilliant green as always.
"Are—" she choked on the words. "Are you..." Not okay. "Can you hear me?"
"Y-yes." Pyrrha sat up, shivering, her fingers twitching.
"Miss Rose," Ozpin said. "Perhaps you should be careful of—"
Ruby wrapped both arms around Pyrrha's shoulders. She couldn't feel anything different—no faster pulse or warmer body temperature or anything like that. It was terrifying, not being able to tell if her partner was okay or not, but she ignored that and she ignored Ozpin, and she ignored pretty much everything except hugging Pyrrha as tightly as she could or making sure that she wasn't crushing her by accident.
"So." Uncle Qrow cleared his throat. "Do you, uh... feel anything?"
"I'm not sure," Pyrrha said. "I think... I'm hungry."
Ozpin chuckled at that. "Well. That's encouraging."
Ruby wasn't so sure. She could feel Pyrrha's heartbeat, and was pretty sure that it wasn't supposed to be going that fast. Which, well... probably part of that was just leftover from the... the transfer.
"We should go find Ren and Sky," she suggested, gently helping Pyrrha up and out of the case. Really she just wanted to get out of this room, back into the familiar hallways of Beacon. Ozpin nodded. He looked more relaxed, now, like this had gone off without a hitch, and she couldn't help resenting him for it.
The second elevator ride was almost as tense as the first. Goodwitch wouldn't or couldn't meet their eyes, and Ruby wasn't sure how she was supposed to react to Uncle Qrow. Pyrrha wasn't saying a word—she was just staring off at nothing, like she'd been doing a lot the past few days. At least now she knew why.
It was a relief to get out of the CCT. They passed a few of the same people—the whole thing had probably only taken about twenty minutes, which was staggering. Pyrrha kept shivering. Unsure of what to do, Ruby reached out to fiddle with her cloak. Wait, that's it! She unpinned it, then swept it off her shoulders and onto her partner's. Pyrrha stiffened in surprise, her hand going up to grip the hood.
"You don't have to—"
"I know."
Pyrrha frowned. "It's cold."
The sun was out, and despite the gentle breeze it was, if anything, a little warmer than when they'd first entered the tower. Ruby furrowed her brow. "Um... well, we can go back to the dorm and get some blankets."
They did just that, hurrying through the deserted hallways. Pyrrha kept glancing over her shoulder, which made Ruby start doing the same thing, and she started feeling anxious and exposed. Part of that might have been that she almost never went outside without her cloak, but she didn't really mind that—not when she could see her partner drawing it tighter around herself.
Finally they arrived at the dorm, and Ruby unlocked it with her scroll. The second she opened the door, she almost ran over Sky. He turned, grinning, said, "Hey, I thought you were supposed to be..."
He trailed off. The color drained out of his face, his eyes went huge and rolled up, like he was on the edge of fainting. Then he stumbled back, caught himself on one of the bedposts, and tripped to the ground with a heavy thump. Ruby saw Ren stand up from where he'd been sitting in the corner, alarmed.
"Whoa," Ruby said, stepping inside to give him a hand up. "Are you okay? I thought you were only seeing stuff when it was crowded."
He scuttled backwards on his hands and feet, until his back hit the wall. When she turned around, she realized that he was staring directly at Pyrrha, and it clicked. His semblance.
"What are you?"
"Sky," Ren said, with forced calm. "It's just Pyrrha."
He shook his head rapidly. Ruby could see him hyperventilating, his chest rising and falling in a rapid, fluttery sort of way. Ren knelt down next to him and put a hand on his back. His breathing slowed, and his wild staring eyes seemed to focus on them properly for the first time.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
Ruby swallowed. She'd promised not to say anything, but she'd had no idea it was going to be this difficult—or that Sky would know something was wrong right away. She opened her mouth to tell him that they couldn't say, but Pyrrha touched her shoulder and she stopped.
"We'll tell you," she said firmly. Ruby did a double-take, but she didn't argue. Didn't want to argue. "But... could we just have something hot to drink, first?"
Sky nodded a few times. He still looked like he'd just seen a ghost, but he was a little less shaky. "I'll get hot chocolate." Then he escaped through the door and disappeared.
Pyrrha went and sat down on her bed, pulling the edges of the cloak closer around her. Ruby sat on one side, resting her head on her shoulder. Ren, after a moment's hesitation, took the spot to her other side and laid an arm across both of their shoulders. His semblance washed over her, and Ruby realized suddenly that she was exhausted.
A few minutes later, Sky returned with a tray, on top of which were four steaming mugs of hot chocolate. He grinned. "Marshmallows and whipped cream," he said, handing one to Ruby. Then, "Dark chocolate," this one for Ren, and "Milk chocolate with a bit of vanilla extract." He flinched when Pyrrha's fingers brushed against his, but then he smiled apologetically and took a spot next to Ren.
"So," he said, his voice wavering. "What... what just happened? It feels like you're possessed or something."
Pyrrha took a deep breath, and began to talk.
