Open Flame: Absolution


Nora knew the difference between this time and other times. Things no one would really have noticed, because they didn't happen. They certainly would have noticed had these things happened, but they never did, so no one was the wiser. So far, everything had progressed quite well in her favor. This seemed like the simplest, easiest thing in the world now she knew what was needed.

In a way, it all hinged on Roman Torchwick. If he was working with the enemy, things would go bad, for them and for him. If he never worked with the White Fang, things would be worse. They would just find someone else, and they'd make everything terrible forever.

Of course, a lot of other strange things could happen. Sometimes, the White Fang never even showed up in the first place. Nora wasn't sure how, but she guessed it was somehow Summer's doing. Summer Rose was a wild card in the whole equation. She could be the brightest light one time, and the most terrifying monster in the next. It was all a matter of conditioning. Summer, as it turned out, was particularly susceptible to losing her memory. It was as simple as knocking her unconscious, and for some reason she would wake up with no memories. This could easily bring about a nightmare loop if she was found by someone with nefarious schemes.

This time around, Summer had managed to stay lucid for several loops in a row. Enough, in fact, to have worked out what she needed to do in order to prevent the fall of Vale. Naturally, Nora was investing in this effort. It would have helped to have known that Summer was on her side a bit sooner, but there were a few key points that forced her to accept the gifts she had been given by fortune.

First, Summer had clued Roman Torchwick into the whole deal. Things that needed to happen had been set in motion as a result. Roman was working with the White Fang, but he had no intention of seeing their plans through. Summer had seen to it that RWBY steered clear of him as much as possible other than when it was necessary. Ruby fighting Roman on her own was important, because it was what got Ruby into Beacon in the first place. The fight at the docks was important, because it brought Sun and Penny into RWBY's inner circle of friends. The highway battle was important, otherwise RWBY would never meet Neo.

Mountain Glen was the one they needed to avoid. And they had, to Nora's relief. Retroactive relief, at least. Knowing that Roman was not their enemy this time around, she was glad he was not in some Atlas prison cell being interrogated by General Ironwood. Otherwise Adam would be in charge of directing the White Fang. That would only bring a lot of pain to a lot of people.

Now there were four people Nora had to see survive. Not at the expense of anyone else… well, anyone good, but at all other costs. First up was Penny. In order to save her, they had to prevent her from fighting Pyrrha. It was a death sentence for the robotic girl, through no fault of Pyrrha's.

Roman usually died shortly after that, killed by Grimm on one of Atlas' cruisers while fighting Ruby. She was pretty confident they had dodged that one already. He wasn't going to be fighting Ruby. He wasn't on the cruiser at all. And most of all, they weren't going to let the White Fang's plan get to the stage where the Grimm were attracted to the city in the first place.

Then there was Pyrrha. At some point, she was going to end up fighting someone else one on one on top of the school. This battle hardly ever ended well for Pyrrha, usually not for either of them. Indeed, if they failed, the number of redheads around was about to drop alarmingly. Nora wasn't going to let that happen. Also, saving Ozpin was a good idea probably. Yeah.

Yang slapped Nora's shoulder. "Hey Nora! What you thinking about?"

"Pancakes!" Nora answered without thinking. She had been deep in thought, and this bumbling blonde bimbo had interrupted her. Her instinctive response fell out like a soda can out of a vending machine when it's kicked.

"Is that so?" Yang nodded thoughtfully. "Well, have I got something to tell everyone. It's quite a big deal. You want the inside scoop?"

Nora wasn't so sure she cared. She already knew Yang was in the finals, that she was going to fight Mercury, and that she'd end the battle by lashing out at him after the match was called. She would then claim he had attacked her, despite thousands of people across the globe seeing differently. Nora wasn't one hundred percent sure what to think about all that, but Mercury probably deserved it anyway. It was a little odd, though, that Yang always fought Mercury in the first round of the finals, any time they actually made it to the Vytal Festival before something terrible happened at least, and it was always the result. Normally, the only events that happened that commonly were the most important ones. This was an anomaly in a way.

Yang continued like Nora hadn't retreated back into deep thought. "Yeah, it's pretty cool. Ah, you don't wanna hear it." She waved her hand dismissively, then immediately stopped and watched Nora intently, waiting for her to ask.

"…Did you make a ten meter pancake?"

"No, but file that one away for later. We'll celebrate Beacon taking the tournament with that." She shook her head. "No, actually, I just assisted General Ironwood's forces in the arrest of one super criminal mastermind Roman Torchwick. And guess what?"

This was bad. Very bad. Nora forced a smile, feeling a cold sweat coming on. "What?"

"We got his accomplice, Neo, as well. Turns out she was disguised on one of the teams competing in the tournament. The rest of the team is being investigated to see if they knew about it. You'll never guess whose team it was."

It couldn't be. "Was it…" The mother of all chills ran up her spine. It was practically impossible that Yang hadn't noticed how much cold sweat was coming off of Nora now. "Was it Mercury and Emerald?" Please not be them.

"Exactly! And that other girl, the emo one! They are in so much trouble right now, and they had to pull out of the tournament! I mean, I feel bad about it if it turns out they didn't know anything about Torchwick, but it also means that the judges are selecting a team that was eliminated in the last round who will get to join the finalists. Everyone thinks they're going to pick FNKI, so that's cool, although I don't really want to have to fight Neon again. I already beat that chick, you know?"

Time was up. "That's great, Yang. I have to go talk to my team really quickly." She turned away from the excited Yang and zipped off at full speed.

Finding her team, Nora rushed up to them as a full on blur of color. Pyrrha held her skirt down, Ren put up a hand to keep his hair out of his eyes, and Jaune nearly jumped out of his skin. The three of them looked around for a moment before it registered on any of them that Nora's arrival was the cause of the sudden windstorm.

"Oh, hi Nora." Jaune smiled. "We were just about to wish Pyrrha good luck in the finals."

"She can't!"

All three of them looked startled. "What?" Jaune and Ren were incredulous.

Pyrrha motioned for a time out. "Hold up. Nora, what do you mean I can't? What's going on?"

Nora was practically gasping for breath. "Just send me out instead. I can win this just as easily as Pyrrha can. I know I can do it."

"Not in that condition." Ren shook his head. "We all agreed that Pyrrha should do it. You were there with the rest of us."

Jaune nodded. "Yeah, besides, we already handed in our decision. I don't think they'll let us change our pick."

"Then we have to withdraw!"

"Nora, we can't withdraw! Are you crazy?" Jaune looked to Pyrrha for help.

Pyrrha sighed. "Why don't you want me to fight in the finals, Nora?" She lowered her voice. "Is it… about that?"

Nora took in a deep breath. "Because someone's rigging the match ups."

She wasn't entirely sure about that, but it just hit her and she realized that had to be why Yang was always fighting Mercury. She knew that someone hacked into the systems to take over all the screens and speakers in the city, so couldn't they have hacked into the random match up selection program? That meant they wanted Mercury to fight Yang. Was him getting hurt at the end a part of their plan too somehow?

"Nora, that's impossible. It's one of the most sophisticated and robust systems in the world." Ren was doubting her. "Who could have the resources necessary for that kind of thing?"

"What? No." Nora shook her head. "How would I know that? All I know is… you see… it's like this, uh…" There was nothing left for it. She had to tell them. "Penny is a robot."

There was a moment, that moment of dawning realization, when they all were hit with the full understanding of what that meant. And then what it really meant. Easily, it meant that if someone could make a synthetic person with a real soul, then cracking a simple computer system was nothing. More than that, they all knew what she was getting at.

Pyrrha looked mortified. "So then… my semblance would… it could kill her. And I'd never even know what happened."

Nora blinked in surprise. Pyrrha must have been thinking about the possibility of simply disabling Penny beyond repair. She couldn't even think about the horrific way that it would have really gone down. Nora didn't want to think about it either.

Jaune stared off into the distance. "That… explains so much."

Pyrrha reached out and snapped her fingers in front of Jaune's face. "Jaune! We have to withdraw!"

"Well, obviously. We can't risk hurting Penny." He took a deep breath. "Aw man. I was hoping for that trophy. Oh well. We can always cheer on RWBY. Let's go, we need to tell the judges." He ran off without waiting for them.

Ren chased after their leader. "Right, no time to lose."

Pyrrha held back, turning back to Nora. "It's because of this time loop, isn't it?"

Nora nodded. "Just about every time. You end up fighting Penny in the finals, and she dies. Not this time. Not on my watch."

"What about the other times?" Seeing Nora's confusion, Pyrrha explained. "You said that happens most times. What about when it doesn't happen?"

"Oh. Well, there's a few different routes. Sometimes the bad guys don't show up until a lot later. Sometimes they don't show up at all. Sometimes everyone's already dead so we never get here."

Pyrrha grimaced. "Oh… well, at least we can prevent it this time."

"Yeah. I hope it's enough to save everyone."


Summer stood over the unconscious bodies of the guards. Roman and Neo stood in front of her, looking around at the interior of the cruiser's bridge. This was not part of the plan. Well, not Summer's plan, and not Roman's plan. As far as Neo was concerned, this is where they were supposed to be. Except it was supposed to be her freeing Roman, not this other woman freeing both of them. She grumbled silently about this strange woman cutting in on her time with Roman.

Summer wasn't happy about it, but at the very least she knew that Yang had messed up their enemy's plan as well when she messed up Summer's own plan. She leaned against the control console in front of her. "It's not perfect, and we probably still have some work ahead of us, but I think we can save them all."

"Yes, well, unfortunately, that's not really the plan."

Summer felt Roman's cane strike the back of her head, and everything went black.


You both work so hard to escape this prison. You think the world will be perfect if you can just save these people. That's admirable. But I'm not content with that. I'm not done in here yet.

Next: Family Tree