Alissa Schnee eyed everyone at the small table sharply. There was a moment of discomfort and tension between them that only heightened when she removed her Nagant M1895 Revolver from within her coat.
"If we start this, then there's no going back," She reminded them. "This game is potentially lethal, you know."
"Well, none of us are drinking so I should think we're all aware," Roman rolled his eyes and flicked away some of the ash from his cigar. "Besides, it's not as if you and I haven't played Vacuoian Roulette before. Wasn't it a classic party game in our house growing up?"
Neo turned to him in surprise and crossed her arms in disbelief.
"I'm not kidding, Neo," Roman informed her, then turning back to his sister. "Didn't we have a drunk uncle that came into town, kissed our mother, got completely wasted, tried to steal dad's custom Ferrari, was almost arrested for trying to break into the house next door and give the children there whisky, and then got himself killed by shooting himself in a game like this with our parents?"
The pale woman scowled with her sole remaining eye. "Dad shot him, actually, and I'm shocked you remember it."
"I was thirteen," He snapped. "How could I not -"
"I can't believe I even agreed to play this," Qrow muttered. "Are we going to get it over with or not?"
Tai kicked him under the table.
"Since you're so eager," Alice smirked at him and pushed the revolver ever so slightly in his direction. "Why don't you go first?"
Qrow forced himself not to flinch and took a swig from his flask before slamming it down on the table.
"Have it your way," He told her with the same smirk. "Schnee."
Alice's eye narrowed while he reached for the revolver and spun it. There was an uncomfortable anticipation as it spun in place in the center of the table and Qrow swore under his breath when it stopped and he realized the pistol was pointed at him.
"Damn…" He all but ripped it off the table, spun the chamber, and pointed the gun at his head. He squeezed his eyes shut when he pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
"And you say you have bad luck," Roman scoffed while Neo resisted the urge to snicker. "Right, sure."
"That's…" Tai shook his head. "Thank God you're okay, are we sure -"
"You're next," Qrow sent him a dark look and Tai sighed heavily. "I mean that, Tai."
His hands shook but he spun the revolver nonetheless. This time it landed on Alice.
"Hmm," Tai mused, resisting the urge to smirk. "Looks like you have to play your own game."
Alice pushed aside some of the unwelcome memories of her childhood that caused her to feel sick when she took her gun in her hands. She pressed one hand to her head and closed her eyes to subtly protect herself with her power as the summer maiden. It was a game of recklessness, she knew, but she had been shot enough times before and had survived. She was not going to die because of a freak accident in a game of roulette. Certainly not in front of Qrow and Tai of all people, let alone her brother. With her weapon feeling like a lead weight in her hands, she pressed it against the protected part of her head and spun the chamber. She knew the odds of shooting herself and, regardless, she could only hope that she didn't have to reveal her protection. Another heavy moment paused and, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Roman boredly extinguish his cigar while Qrow reached for his flask and Neo and Tai kept exchanging irritated looks. Sickened, Alice pulled the trigger.
"Owww!" She shrieked, catching the bullet in her hand. There was no blood, not even a dent or a hint of a bruise. Her aura was shimmering but, in that moment, they all realized that she was primarily protected by the same thing that was making her eyes spark. "Fucking -"
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Qrow sent her a disdainful look. "You waste your powers on a game and still won't -"
"Clever," Roman smacked his hand against his sister's. "Never knew you had it in you."
She managed a smile but everyone knew she didn't mean it. Neo stood up and embraced her excitedly whereas Tai picked up the revolver and examined it before setting it back down on the table. He put the bullet back in and, thankfully, by the time they had made it all the way around the table, no one had been shot to death.
"Remember my last, Oz…" The female voice said through his scroll, laughing darkly. "Otherwise, I might send you and your pretty little Relic directly to the Queen...and I don't think any of us want that at all."
The line clicked dead and both Caitlin and Cristal stared at him in concern.
"Give me your scroll," Cate told him. "It's not hard to trace people through their numbers. I can probably figure out who that was in a few minutes."
"I have a pretty solid guess," Ozpin said, sharing a knowing look with Cristal. "Rosalinde Varna, one of the higher-up leaders in the Vacuoian Council. She has an immense sway over their prime minister and, to be perfectly honest…"
"We all know she wants the position for herself," Cristal shook her head and, suddenly, looked rather cold. "She has for years. The woman is ruthless although I highly doubt that she could access the Relic even knowing where it is. She's not the summer maiden, after all."
Cate glanced to her sister and pulled down one of the magnifying lenses she had attached to her glasses.
"It's partially encrypted," She finally said. "So that is a distinct possibility. Varna would have to be stupid not to encrypt her number."
"It sounded like her," Cristal hesitantly adjusted her own glasses out of her anxious habit. "I wouldn't be too surprised, especially since she has been threatening to sell information to Salem since she left the group ten years ago."
Cate snorted. "If she hasn't already been selling information to her for years, then I'll be damned."
"We have no proof," Ozpin reminded her.
"Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law," Cristal added. "Something you might want to remember."
Cate scowled. "I know that full well, it's just that sometimes I think we step over our own procedures."
"Sometimes?" Cristal sighed heavily, fidgeting with her wedding ring. "We do it more often than we care to admit, and far more often than we should."
"Well, that narrows down the list of things we should have thought twice about," She muttered. "That list was long enough to begin with."
Ozpin hesitated. "Yes," He eventually agreed. "Although I can't say I'm not concerned that Varna's threatening to do something...unthinkable."
"Unthinkable?" Cristal exclaimed incredulously. "That's putting it mildly! If she were to somehow give the relic of destruction to Salem, we would all be -"
"Chrissy," Cate sent her sister a pointed look. "Varna can't access the relic. The only person that can is Al, and I seriously doubt the number of people that know that. She even thought she had lost the powers, although I can't blame her for being upset given what her mother did to her for it to happen in the first place that she gained them…"
Ozpin flinched and tightened his hand around Cristal's.
"I would be willing to bet it was an empty threat," She went on. "Salem with the relic of destruction? Please, not even Varna would be stupid or desperate enough to give it to her."
"That is probably a fair assessment," Ozpin finally said, pausing for a moment upon hearing footsteps above them. "The kids might be listening, we should probably -"
"I agree," Cristal shared a worried look with her sister. "Just keep in mind that Varna's a sorceress, so -"
"I know," Cate said, crossing her arms. "But even someone like her has their limits, especially since she got her powers through that damn book her mother gave her years ago."
"Ooo, what book?" Courtney all but tumbled down the stairs with her siblings giggling behind her. "Hi aunt Cate!"
She smiled weakly and waved. "Hi, kiddo."
"Mommy, can we watch a movie?" Lana begged with an adorable smile. "Please?"
Cristal chuckled but nodded. "Of course baby."
Ozpin wrapped an arm gently around her and kissed her softly. "See? We're going to be just fine…"
Salem tapped her long fingernails against her chin with a smile starting to creep onto her face. It seemed as if things could sway into her hands. For that, she was more than a tad pleased. She hadn't focused much on Ozpin and his groups in several days, but she couldn't help her own curiosity. At the end of the day, she didn't feel that she had to do much. She had her allies, she had her powers, and, of course, she had the grimm. What she lacked, for the moment, were the maidens but she intended to remedy that situation quickly. She didn't know whom any of them were and then it dawned on her. They couldn't hide that knowledge from her forever, after all. She could have her people manipulate into anything; international terrorists, homicidal hotel managers, or even just guns for hire. She had more than enough terrifying people on her hands.
"Darling," Salem murmured to her seer, delicately stroking the glass orb of its lens. "Do me a favor and show me Alice Schnee. That girl has always seemed off to me."
The scene shifted almost immediately.
"...Here," Roman Torchwick said, pushing a tape across the table to his sister. "...A VCR cassette for little Al who somehow survived shooting herself in the head duringa game of Vacuoian roulette."
Qrow Branwen shuddered at the thought. "...Nobody ever watch that. I'm pretty sure that Alice is a tiny blonde version of Samara from The Ring."
Salem snorted at the remark. From what she had learned of the woman, that was not a far off comparison. The Torchwicks were known for their deeply wrought family issues.
"...Oh, she's not that bad," Taiyang Xiao Long interjected. "...Although her magic gave her an edge in the roulette."
"...Just be glad no one died," Alice Schnee snapped, her eyes flaring dangerously. "...One of us could have shot another rather than -"
"...You're one to talk!" Qrow glowered at her. "...You refuse to accept that you're a -"
"...Hush, you!" Alice gestured angrily to her brother and a girl with multicolored hair. "...They aren't involved in any of this because -"
"...You're the one who drinks so much you puke, that you destroy my car, that -" Qrow yelled.
"...Says a man who's always drunk -" She retorted.
"...Let's stop before this gets worse -" Tai intervened.
It was to no avail.
"...No, she needs to hear this!" Qrow stood up and jutted an accusing finger towards Alice. "...Her and her false sense of security -"
"...Is that what you think?" She hissed.
"...It is," Qrow unflinchingly replied. "...And you don't give a damn about anyone but -"
"...That's enough She screamed, standing up with her powers activating seemingly against her will. Her eyes held the tell-tale sparks. "...You deserved what you got! You and your -"
Salem dismissed her seer and paused in consideration. Her thoughts were swirling around her head at a breakneck pace and it seemed to all return to one thing. Ozpin had access to the summer maiden. White hot anger began to boil in her veins and all she wanted was to destroy everything in sight. As soon as the seer left the room, she slammed the doors shut. Then, she lifted up one of the chairs near her and slammed it against the wall with such force that it broke into pieces and left a dent in the wall. Her anger still threatening to overtake her, Salem continued to thrash everything in sight against the walls until they finally shattered.
She may not have been the girl in the tower for millenia, now, but she was still a Queen to her mind, in her delusions. All she could see was her hatred. She hated Ozpin, she hated all of the people who would fight her, and she hated her own children for siding with him, even though they had died so young millenia ago. A moment of seeming peace passed and then, finally, she let out a terrifying shriek that shattered the mirrors, shattered the glass of the windows, and seemed to have an effect on everything her in her seemingly lifeless domain. She briefly considered trying to summon the brother of darkness but chose not to bother.
After all, the last time she had tried, things had not gone as she had planned.
"I'd rather not get into the...can we call it an argument?" Spencer glanced to his wife, who nodded. "I'd rather not get into the argument 'Rissa and I had with my father last night."
"Let me guess," Emmeline said dryly. "It was about him deciding to run for president?"
"In part," Spencer said shortly. "And, after we got Percival down again, he was more than a bit...well, let's just say he's very concerned about his image in relation to the rest of us."
Emmett immediately looked at his hands, and was only marginally comforted by his wife taking his hands in hers and squeezing them reassuringly.
"Damn him," Emmeline finally said, a twinge of anger rising in her. "He's just as bad as Ronnie, it seems, half the time."
"I disagree," James said, and she sighed. "Edward's not viciously power-hungry; he's just paranoid."
"That would be our father," Emmeline shared a slightly crestfallen look with her brother. "Dear ol' dad."
"At the very least, he's against PENNY being entered in the Vytal Festival," Karissa reminded her. "I still can't believe that android is being put in, nevermind that she's going to be changed from her typical appearance. Smoky black hair and grey eyes aren't going to change anything, it's just going to -"
"We've been through this before," Emmeline hesitated, feeling she had been sharper than she'd meant to be. "I don't disagree, but there's nothing we can do and the Lord knows we've tried."
"It's still troubling," James remarked. "At the end of the day, we're still not sure what she's capable of and Pierto told me something...troubling, to say the least about the project."
They all turned to him in surprise and he sighed heavily, rubbing his neck.
"He claimed that Elizabeth asked him to do something highly unethical," James went on.
"That narrows it down," Karissa said darkly. "It seems she keeps treading a bit deeper every day. To tell you the truth, I'm worried about her."
"You'll be more worried knowing this," James warned her. "According to Pierto, she asked him to kill Angelica so he'd be in control of the project because she believes him to be far more ethical."
A heavy silence held over them and they were all uncomfortable with that possibility.
"You have got to be kidding me," Emmett looked to his wife in horror. "That can't be true, Eliza's not like that -"
"It isn't like her, I agree," James said quickly. "But I don't know. I'm going to look into this personally."
"Me too," Karissa and Emmeline said at the same time, much to the surprise of both of them.
"Well, that's awful," Spencer ran a hand through his shaggy dark hair. "God, I really hope that's not the case."
"I know," James said dejectedly. "But I hope it's not true."
"I can't believe that," Karissa reached for her scroll, swearing under her breath. "Honestly, that's nothing like -"
"Nothing like her," Emmeline finished, and she nodded shortly. "But it does sound like something Ronnie would suggest."
"You really think he would stoop that low?" Spencer glanced to her in shock. "I know Ronnie can be hardline but I don't think that he's that vile."
"I don't want to believe that," Emmeline said. "I'm saying it sounds like something he could suggest."
Karissa looked distinctly disgusted. "He and I are going to have words, and -"
"Mommy, my head hurts…" Luna pouted and stumbled into the room, her small hands pressed against her head with Natalie following behind her.
Karissa came over to her daughter and gently lifted her up into her arms. She then sent Natalie a pointed look, and the girl knew she had been caught eavesdropping.
"Just give me a minute," Karissa rubbed her daughter's back reassuringly and carried her into the kitchen. "I need to measure out your medicine."
Spencer glanced between his friends and family and then came over to his wife and daughter.
"Alright, take this," Karissa handed Luna the small cup with the liquid in it.
Luna did so but almost spit it out and then looked like she was going to cry.
"It's going to be okay, Lunes," Spencer loosely hugged her but he shared a worried look with Karissa. "I promise."
"I still stand by my assessment that you're a smart girl," Annabella Sassler shook her head and did not look at Glynda, instead eyeing the fire she had going to warm her personal study. "And I think I've come to a solution that will be beneficial to both of us."
Glynda crossed her arms, her hand tightening around her crop.
"What might that be?" She finally said tersely. "Madame President?"
A nervous silence fell over them and, after a moment, Glynda finally snapped.
"That girl - whose parents you wish to frame - is something along the lines of eight years old!" Glynda exclaimed in abject horror. "With all due respect, how can you be alright with this? How do you sleep at night?"
Sassler turned to her with her eyes narrowed in conviction.
"Ten," She corrected, lips pursed. "But no matter. Listen to me, Glynda," Sassler spoke as calmly as she could though her voice was seething in anger. "They have killed thousands of people through the White Fang -"
"There is no proof of that!" Glynda crossed her arms. "There is no proof of how many people have died because of the White Fang and to accuse them of all of the tragedy, to accuse them of all of them separatist extremism -"
"True," Sassler agreed. "I freely admit that it's wrong, but you and I both know that it makes the most sense to pin this on only a few people. It's more satisfying, and, with all of the people who have been damaged by them and their failure to control those terrorists…"
Glynda sighed. "This isn't right."
"I'm not thrilled about it myself," Sassler informed her. "But it must be done."
"What do you expect me to do?" Glynda found herself struggling to keep her tone even. "I'm not a ranking state department official any more than I'm qualified to do high-clearance work for the CIA. I am a huntress and professor, not one of the executive officials on the Council."
"Which makes you more...shall we say...unassuming," Sassler clicked her tongue and then smiled. "I think you and I both know what I need from you."
"I know full well," Glynda replied. "How I am to do so and whether or not it is the only option, however, remain to be seen."
Sassler blinked, stunned for a moment, but then smirked.
"I've left the details to the chair of the security council," Sassler finally informed her. "I called you here again merely as a test."
"I do not much like the sound of that," Glynda spoke deliberately and Sassler paused once more in consideration. "Although I can't say I'm surprised you told Eliza. How you dragged her into this, however -"
"Madame Morell completely agrees with my stance," Sassler said, however unconvinced of her own words and conviction. "At the end of the day, what other choices do we have?"
Glynda narrowed her eyes sharply behind her glasses.
"Diplomacy," She eventually replied. "This…"
"Madame Morell actually coined an interesting term for this," Sassler said, nonchalantly sitting down on one of the plush chairs regardless of how sickened she felt by herself and the choice she had made. "She called it...aggressive negotiations."
"Negotiations…" Glynda tensed and rubbed her neck worriedly. "Isn't all of this about your own vanity? About your obsession with your legacy?"
Sassler snorted. "Oh, Glynda, you really do know more than I thought. How well would you say you've come to understand me in just the last few days?"
Glynda took in a deep breath that did little to calm her nerves.
"I would say that I've come to know you better than I care to," Glynda chewed at the inside of her cheek dejectedly. "I thought you were different than other politicians...but you're not. You are just as selfish, and just as paranoid."
Sassler said nothing but could not deny how uncomfortably correct the woman was.