One Week before Beacon Initiation.


"Again, I request you to please allow my own team to go over the evidence as you have collected it, I'm sure with access to the proper equipment as well as the engineer's who design Atlas's robotic's we could at the very least be cleared of some of this suspicion."

"General Underwood, we have already provided you with multiple drones for your engineer's to examine, as well as provided copies of all evidence we have gathered, and we have been quite generous on allowing you time to build a case with the material we have provided but as the speaker for the Valesian Council, at this time I can honestly say we are thoroughly disappointed with all the time we feel has been wasted.

"Speaker please, these matter's take time to uncover the truth. Your copies have been helpful but I feel having actual access to the originals might allow for additional information to be gleaned. The items could be examined under Valesian supervision if necessary, I simply just want the best possible ability to clear Atlas from any perceived involvement for this incident."

"Unfortunately we cannot trust Atlas officials to not make a biased report in the instance, which I am sure you can understand. A train loaded with 'Unregistered' Atlas military security droids, all damaged or destroyed enough to be inoperable. An already serious situation on its own. Its cargo, which is missing is assumed highly dangerous, and all our investigation has led us too so far is the White Fang is responsible for the robbery, but the real question, and one that still has not been answered, is why was so much Atlesian hardware in Vale in the first place."

Ozpin who was near the rear of the sparsely populated meeting chamber sighed in frustration as once again the meeting was devolving into a circle of the same two questions being asked back and forth over and over again.

Meetings like this had been happening for weeks with already, the only difference this time was General Ironwood was physically present in this instance as a show of good faith, lacking his usual entourage of security. That meant little all things considered as James Ironwood was considered by many in the world as one of the most skilled Huntsmen to ever live, a reputation that had not diminished with his long military career.

Ozpin believed that at the very least James was ignorant to the reason why Atlas had so much hardware moving through Vale territory, he was not Atlas's single General who made every decision.

That information did little to ease his mind, as well as he knew James he couldn't say that there had not been others he trusted in the past who hadn't been swayed by his opponent. He liked to believe James character would make that impossible but Salem could be very convincing at times.

Ozpin looked around the room, wondering if any new faces had been invited now that the meeting was essentially pointless and he had nothing better to do. He was here as a simple observer, his status as Headmaster as well as being one of the first to be notified of the situation, he was not asked to participate considering his well-known affiliation with James Ironwood, the man who had been chosen to deal with this situation on behalf of Atlas.

Atlas could no longer be trusted in his opinion, even if it wasn't James who shipped the equipment to Vale someone in Atlas had, and that someone was capable enough to do so without leaving enough evidence to be found even after an unofficial investigation had been launched by James himself.

The times in his lives where he wished to use the Relic of Knowledge were few and far between ever since his question on whether or not Salem could be defeated was answered, but right now he desperately wished he could, even if the question was a simple one in the grand scheme of things. Not knowing who was currently trustworthy and who wasn't was a cause for much anxiety.

'I wonder, what exactly a situation like this would show to Jaune Arc, how would his insight read into this situation.' Ozpin had found much of his spare time was spent thinking about Jaune Arc's unique Semblance. Very few Semblances are alike enough to be considered identical aside from the hereditary Semblances and those are exceedingly rare, and not without the guaranty that they will not change with time or seemingly skip generations as well. Many Huntsmen shared similar Semblances with slight differences in how they function.

Intuition based Semblances weren't overly common things, and most who had them wouldn't classify them as such either, many would consider them more in the vein of heightened awareness, like an unnatural ability to see their surroundings, and they would definitely not be able to use it to help them in conversations like Jaune seemingly did during their short meeting where he turned down Glynda's very generous offer.

Ozpin smiled at that memory, it was so rare to see Glynda so put off that he wished he could have recorded her reaction after Jaune had left.

Jaune could be very useful if he could be brought in the fold but at the same time from the short meeting Ozpin doubted that Jaune could ever be convinced to work for him directly, his Semblance would keep him at arm's length from people he should not trust and he couldn't exactly make any argument to how he was exactly trustworthy, how many promises had he failed to keep over his lives, far too many to remember, or at least that's what he liked to believe, in all honestly he remembered every failed promise, the list was long.

Jaune would be attending Beacon and when, not if he passed initiation but when, he needed to be placed on a team that would have the best opportunity to fall into his circle of influence.

Pulling out a tablet from his bag he began to thumb through tab after tab of students that would be attending initiation, the list was excessively long and out of the two hundred odd people attending less than sixty will actually pass and be accepted, that was unfortunately just how these things worked, the academies tried their best but there were simply not enough teachers to meet the demand, and all the academies had to have some form of final screening process.

Jaune would pass, if he wanted to and currently that was the case, it would be possible for his Semblance to potentially change his mind but he had no way to control that or even know it had until he appeared absent at initiation day. So assuming he would be present he began to go through the list of students who would also be present and began to structure teams around Jaune as the leader, a Semblance like his would make him a competent leader.

Ms. Nikos will likely strive to place herself in Jaune's vicinity, the sheltered champion from Mistral had taken quite a shine to Jaune in their brief time together and with her personality, she would no doubt be easy to persuade in helping in his fight against Salem. If she then tied herself to Jaune he would be forced to choose between helping or abandon his teammate.

Ozpin checked a box on his tablet making a clear indication that the two would be placed in close proximity during the Emerald Forest trial for the best possible chance for them to team up.

Arranging partners was something he could influence on some level but as for the other two teammates, that was harder, it had long been the tradition for teams to form with pairs being coupled together with matching relics.

Searching for hours while the pointless meeting spun on alongside him Ozpin ruled out a great majority of the students attending the initiation, most having unsuitable personalities for what little he knew about Jaune and Pyrrha. It was surprising but he actually had a much better idea of what sort of teammates Pyrrha would like than Jaune.

He had inspected his file several times and it was comically sparse of information outside of the basic important details, his lack of use of Hunstman facilities in Vale has kept any knowledge that might have been gathered to be a sum total of nothing. Even his time in Ansel made for little to be inferred, if it wasn't for the fact that it was Glynda herself who unlocked his Aura, and Nicholas Arc, a trusted Huntsman was his father and vouched for the boy's whereabouts for the past several years leading up to now he would have considered Jaune to be one of Salem's agents, but no, he just assumed that Jaune had on some level unlocked his Semblance in some fashion before his Aura and didn't know exactly what it was.

The search for acceptable partners that also might be willing to work for him was an awful criteria to search for and did not land him many successes, at least not any that he could count on with confidence. There was a pair from Mistral that looked promising and already worked very well as a pair themselves. Ozpin made a notation beside both of their profiles as possible teammates and kept searching, eventually turning to a folder that had very long list of both foreign and local applicants that hadn't initially made the cut for Beacon, remember at least one individual that stood out enough but was turned down in favor of another, thinking maybe that may have been an error he made an additional note on this applicants file, to check and see if they are still interested in Beacon as they would no doubt be a perfect fit for his Ideal team.


"I have chosen the wrong career Ozpin. This is not the first time I have said that line but I think it might be the first time I really mean it."

James Ironwood sat in a comfortable chair inside Ozpin's usually sparse office, the chair he sat in and the one Ozpin sat in opposite him had been brought in from somewhere else in anticipation of this outcome. Each man held a drink of varying degree's of stiffness, Ironwoods being the stronger of the two.

"I only caught sight of you a few times during that debacle of a meeting, you didn't look overly invested in any of its proceedings."

"No, I suppose not, unlike Atlas, I have no say on the council and was present as an observer and after it devolved into, well what it devolved into, I spent my time on hopefully more promising endeavors."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that the entire meeting was a waste of time then. I understand the importance behind it but neither my side nor your councils will change until some new evidence is discovered, which is why it is so frustrating that they won't even let my people inspect the remaining robots, especially that Spider Droid."

"They are politicians, scared ones at that James, I don't personally believe any of them care for any of this any more than you but they are doing their duty to their Kingdom just as you are doing yours to Atlas. Also if you wanted to inspect the Spider Droid maybe you should have seemed less eager to examine it, it was a clear message that you at least knew nothing of what was on that Train and that the Spider Droid might not be Atlas technology at all, only made to appear that way unlike the other security robots that are clearly Atlas hardware."

James had no response to this aside from an annoyed snort, knowing that his eagerness to have his engineers inspect the droid may be the cause of some of the frustrations with the Vale council repeatedly denying him access to it.

"Let's get off this topic and talk about what we have both discovered through our personal investigations." James leaned forward and produced a scroll laying it on Ozpin's desk it began to display a list of items, the names or descriptions of many of the items being hidden for Atlas security reasons. "These are what I believe is the missing cargo of your train. Most of the hidden items and descriptions are simply weapons and ammunition that need to be kept concealed for a variety of protocols but they are simply that weapons and ammunition. The big problem is that something much more dangerous I believe was on that train as well. I have my agents back in Atlas pouring over every record we have trying to discover their whereabouts but right now we are currently missing four Paladin's."

"Jame, are these Paladins in any way related to our conversation about eventually not having to rely on Huntsmen anymore, a soon to be proven alternative?"

"Yes Ozpin, the Atlas military has as of right now potentially lost four very dangerous assets to the White Fang of all people."

There was a long drawn out silence as Ozpin absorbed this information before finally speaking.

"Well, that's troubling, to say the least."

"Please don't remind me, I'm still hoping that they somehow got sent to a storage facility and the paperwork indicating so has been mismanaged but that is a very low possibility. But enough about my problems have you had any luck discovering your mystery body or discovering who or what made it disappear?"

"So far no on either question. The best anyone who knows about the missing body can guess or assume is that by the simple description Qrow could provide was that by his appearance, clothing wise didn't match the White Fang. As for its whereabouts who knows. Grimm don't typically eat corpses since they don't attract them and there were no Grimm tracks anywhere near the body. It is most likely someone left the body there with the intent to return to recover it later and that timeframe was the unfortunate window of time where Qrow came back to report on his discovery."

"There is one other option, the body was left to be discovered, and once it was it was removed once knowledge of it existing was known."

"Yes that fact has crossed my mind multiple times James, often enough that I have employed every Huntsman I know of with Semblances that might help find some hidden clue at the location but no one was able to find any hidden scrap of evidence or even the slightest connection to the Train robbery except that they happened in close proximity on the same day."

"Hmm, that is unfortunate."

Hours passed by slowly as the two men exchanged theories both mundane and exotic on the purpose behind the theft and the likely outcome being planned with what the thieves had acquired. Eventually, long past the point of the evening when many were already deep in sleep did James Ironwood depart, the liquor doing little to affect him as he still managed to stride confidently from the room, at least after making sure his legs were up for the task of keeping him upright.

The elevator door had barely had a chance to close as Ozpin heard the familiar flap of wings and a gentle tap on one of the many windows his office sported to signal Qrow was tired of remaining hidden outside on his perch.

The transformation Qrow ran through as he hopped through the window in his avian form and a humanoid foot gently touching the floor an instant after was a masterpiece of careful practice.

"I take it we don't trust old Metal Head anymore?" Qrow asked as he poured himself the stiffest drink out of anyone who had been in the office tonight, draining the glass and pouring himself a second which he took a more gentle sip from, his lips pursing in a satisfied ahh.

"For the time being at least no, I don't think he personally has betrayed us but I feel it would be better to be more cautious going forward for the time being."

"S'fine by me, I feel I have made my opinion well known,"

"Indeed." Ozpin poured himself a stiff drink as well, one much stronger than he had been having during the entire night leading up to this point. "So are we as positive as we can be that our missing body belonged to one of Salem's best assassins?"

"We can't be positive of anything really, but yeah, it took a lot of fact-checking from old reports on crimes we thought were too precise to be anything but having something to do with Salem and it seems like the body that I lost is very likely Tyrian Callows. Which is a good thing right Oz? Someone out there took down one of Salem's best?"

"If it was you, or Glynda or even some of my other agents who did the deed then I would be ecstatic Qrow, but Tyrian, from what little we were able to learn was a dangerous opponent, his death means that someone out there who is affiliated with neither Salem or ourselves killed Tyrian to make a statement, his body was left where it would be discovered and then hidden immediately afterward. If I had to guess, it was moved to make the same statement to Salem, I can't see any other reason which means this new party is far bolder than anything I have even considered. It also means that this new party had the information of where the train would be and when the robbery was planned to take place if he could intercept Tyrian when he did."

"Jeeze, yeah I didn't consider any of that Oz." Qrow looked at his glass for a moment and considered finishing its contents but decided against it for the moment, setting the glass down gently. "I assume I wasn't asked here to simply listen in on the meeting, you have a job for me?"

"Yes, one that your not going to like. How would like to go visit your Sister?"


The day before Beacon Initiation starts.


Roman could honestly say he enjoyed the freedom he was currently experiencing. The knowledge that Cinder, as well as her flunkies, were dead was a huge relief in his mind and while he did feel slightly bad for Emerald since he liked her, seeing a lot of himself in her, just younger and less refined.

Jaune hadn't given him an answer yet on whether or not they would go through with trying to make this change permanent but he had been kind enough to inform him on how some upcoming competitions would turn out as well as a bit of investment advice. Both of which earned Neo and himself a modestly impressive bank balance, far more than he could have made with months of successful criminal work.

The information and the Lien it provided was definitely meant to keep him complacent for the foreseeable months and he knew that and was happy with it as well, kicking back and relaxing was not something he really had much of an opportunity to do in his other lives and he was appreciating every moment of this.

Neo, on the other hand, could only be content to relax for so long and her silent pestering had him still actively participating in illegal activities, though the less noticeable kinds, some simple pickpocketing to keep his skills sharp, it wasn't much but it made Neo happy and that honestly made him smile a little too whenever Neo looked pleased.

Jaune wasn't overly busy himself, Roman could commonly find him inside Junior's, never taking part in any of the dancing or drinking that happens inside the building, nor finding his way into the back rooms where some of the more adult excitement took place. He spent his time at the bar, towards a low traffic corner and spent his time slowly drinking single glasses of alcohol as he scribbled in a small journal.

In the few glances, he had seen the inside of the booklet, Jaune making no real effort to conceal it, he could not make sense of what was being written. It was a mystery and one that likely had something to do with the Relic's, which meant that on some level Jaune was preparing for the mission to acquire the four relics for himself.

Roman didn't find it surprising that tonight of all nights Jaune was once again inside Juniors though his ever-present book was absent. It was the final night before he would be attending Beacon and Jaune had asked him to meet him here at a very specific time.

"Evening time police." Roman joked as he sat down next to Jaune.

"That is not an accurate nickname Roman."

"No, but it rolls off the tongue better than Multiverse Making Man." Roman grinned as he watched Jaune roll his eyes so hard that everything but the whites vanished for a moment. "Don't worry I'll eventually think of something that fits right, or not, using these bad names is rather entertaining."

"Yeah, a real riot. But enough of that, you know why I wanted to see you tonight?"

"Yeah, little Red, right?"

"Think you can arrange your little robbery again? I would do it myself but well, it's easier if I'm less involved in this circumstance."

It was fun watching essentially an Immortal being, the subtle facial expressions, or involuntary twitches Jaune would showcase when he spoke of certain events, the best one to watch for was a subtle eyebrow twitch whenever he talked about something he needs to do, the twitch being a brief reminder of an instance going wrong on some level and leading to a wasted life, or at least that's what Roman liked to believe, and it was a funny thing to assume. "Yeah, no problem, anything else or was that it?"

"Nope, that's everything."

"No, it's not!"

"No, it really isn't."

Roman looked at Jaune for a moment before shrugging and headed over to speak to Junior to acquire a handful of henchmen for his little job for the night.

A quick exchange of some Lien and a Handshake and Roman was set for the night, turning to leave, he caught sight of a familiar figure strut confidently into the crowded club making a beeline for where Junior still stood.

Of course he knew what tonight was and he couldn't say he wasn't tempted to stick around and watch this but he figured he would be the nice guy and let the two have their privacy, or at least as much as they could in the middle of the packed club, increasing his pace slightly Roman slipped out a side door just as Yang Xiao Long was about to be stealthily approached by their mutual friend.


Another reality, another life.


The attack had been expected at some point, Jaune as much as he had allowed himself to be selfish at her request had still made sure that his family was at least prepared for this eventual outcome.

She stood separated from her husband and children by a wall of Grimm.

Jaune, her husband, stood protectively with their two daughters, even now with a serious wound to his abdomen bleeding freely, he protected them with his life.

Roma, their eldest, stood beside her father swinging her weapon, her hair a frightening crimson, sharing part of her mothers trait of becoming stronger with the more damage she took but instead of simply her eyes changing color it was her hair, right now glowing an angry red as she fought alongside her father, doing their best to reach her.

Blake, their youngest, stood behind her father and sister and fought in her own way, her face clear of all emotion as she could manage so that she could concentrate on her Semblance. In front of her father and sister, the ground shook violently, causing the Grimm the pair fought to fall and tumble uncontrollably, impaling themselves on their own dangerous appendages or the blades of any of the Huntsmen nearby.

She knew that her family would reach her, but she also knew that they didn't see what was coming next.

Behind the wall of Grimm, past even where she fought now cut off from the other Huntsmen was a monster that was both a Grimm and at the same time, not one. It led the attack, directing the Grimm as a general would when it was attacking the fights would be over in an instant, the grotesque spider/human Grimm hybrid brutally overpowering any opponent.

She couldn't let her family fight the monster, maybe if Jaune was uninjured she might have considered it but in his state, she doubted he could actually handle even fighting the Grimm in front of him without 'their' Blake's Semblance.

Once long ago she had asked Jaune to be selfish and this was the end result of the request. She felt no remorse in that knowledge though, instead, she felt happy that she was able to have something like this, and to truly understand what the price was.

Eye's flashing from Lilac to Red, a shade so dark that it put her Daughter Roma's currently angry red hair to shame, she lept toward the monstrous creature, striking powerfully, a pillar of Blue flame, igniting and catching the creature completely off guard, a hellish shriek of pain rocked her ears as the creature, burned and withered away in a greasy black smear of residue that all Grimm turn into upon their death.

A faint smile appeared on her lips as a trickle of blood escaped from the edge, a great hole in her chest remained where one of the creature's legs had pierced her the moment she had ignited the flame.


Her life began to play out before her eye's as she found herself reliving every moment, the good years that had Summer in her life and the hard years where she had to take care of her father and her sister after Summer's death.

Her time spent as Signal, the friends she made back on Patch, everything was played out in a replay of her entire life, it was relaxing to watch how her life had been when she was young, before how her first life ended and now how her second life had also come to an end.

It was the night before she would be attending Beacon, and she found herself approaching Junior's club. It might be a childish memory but she found herself looking forward to this memory of how she manhandled the entire establishment.

She had entered the club and approached Junior, the knowledge after the fact being that she had also seen Roman Torchwick at the same time had been interesting to learn.

She didn't remember that Roman had looked her direction when she entered but that had hardly been even remotely where her focus was that night, but she couldn't for that instant not focus on that fact, he had looked at her with recognition before leaving.

She hadn't even finished considering what exactly that might have meant to the grand scheme of her lives when her body stumbled.

'Wait, What?'


Yang, the here and now.


The sudden control, or loss of control of her body was jarring as she had been a simple observer to events, but now she was in control of what was happening.

Unfortunately what was happening was an unceremonious trip to the floor, an embarrassing turn of events as she had been strutting confidently through the club and would now look dumb as she was about to bounce off the floor gracelessly.

Except she didn't, her fall was halted with by a pair of well muscled arms, arm's that felt not only familiar but comfortable, twisting slightly she turned her eyes to the person who was now helping her to her feet and she couldn't help but gasp in shock.

"Jaune!"

"Hi, Yang."


Oh boy.

Alot going on here, Atlas and Vale, the relationship being strained, a move that Jaune conciously makes happen.

Though here is the first time something Jaune hadn't exactly planned for happen's, his earlier meeting with Ozpin has garnered some interest in Jaune's fake Semblance. In other lives, Ozpin doesn't learn about the fake Semblance until after Jaune is already in Beacon and has his team formed and there would be little Ozpin could do to interfere but now he has some time to plan and if interested to see how, or if he might use the Semblance favourably.

Ozpin was also displayed by his short meeting with Qrow after James departed that he is at least partially distrustful of Atlas currently as well and by simple appoximation James, even though he doesn't think James is the person to blame.

Now for those of you who have read the first half of this story and didn't skip to the new additions this chapter gives you the names and Semblances of Yang and Jaune's two children, Roma, named after Roman, and Blake named after, well Blake.

Also look Yang's back for all of you who have been asking when Yang, well Yang now!

Next Chapters sitting in Tidyfrogs pile of work already, so hopefully it will be ready to go soon enough as well.

So as always, lemme know what you think, even if it is just to tell me that I suck.