May 19th
Beacon Academy
City Of Vale
Vale
10:13 AM

Annetta Schnee grinned mischievously and swung her silver axe over her shoulder, shaking out her dark brown curls all the while. She then activated her semblance – fortified strength – and, with far more excitement than advisable, charged at a training dummy and smacked it down on the head with so much force that it shook the bookshelf nearby. Samara and Lysithea shared a look that implied their cousin was out of her mind, whereas Matt started cracking up laughing when Annetta playfully started swinging her axe around and cheering herself on happily. Matt then activated his own semblance and ran around his cousin in hyper-speed circles to the point where she fell on her ass and kept laughing more before throwing a small ball of fire at him that scorched the top of his hair.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, catching his hat in his hand once again. "That's no fair! You're the only one on this team that has magic!"

Annetta stuck her tongue out at him. "Too bad for you!"

"You're not going to win," Lysithea warned him, twisting her long white hair in her hands. "Give up now before you have soot or dew in your hair."

Matt rolled his eyes and pulled his beanie back on over his slightly scorched hair.

"Eh," He said with a shrug. "I don't think it's that big a deal, ya know?"

Lysithea raised an eyebrow. "You don't care about your sanity or survival?"

"I care about those things plenty," He replied, setting his hands to his hips. "I just happen to care about having fun too. Something you could learn, Lily."

She scowled. "I have fun, bitch."

He started laughing. "I am a bitch, aren't I?"

"You're really going to go around calling yourself a bitch?" Samara raised an eyebrow and reached up to adjust her glasses with a smile. "Are you trying to be reminiscent of my dad?"

"Emmett's cool," Matt said, pausing for a moment to consider the notion. "Okay, so maybe I'm acting a little bit like him but, hey, at least I'm not the only kid at Beacon."

Annetta sent him a dark look. "I think Devin Katt is the youngest but that's because he's immensely talented. It's why he and Neon both started early…and, ironically, at the same time."

"Well, either way, I'm considered small and I need to make up for that with my speed and wit," Matt winked. "Does anyone in this family believe me?"

"Hell no," Lysithea said, sending him a pointed look. "You're irresponsible at best. On our first mission in a few weeks, are you going to blow things up by mistake?"

"Accidentally on purpose," Annetta corrected with a giggle. "That's what I would say, anyways."

"That's a great saying," Matt said, taking on an increasingly sarcastic tone. "You know, we should use our semblances to write shit in the sky like: we lived, bitches, come and find us!"

"Speaking of semblances…" Lysithea started, glancing to Annetta.

"Oh, here we go," Annetta muttered, pushing herself up off the floor. "Again, too."

"Well you know I've always wondered why you don't have the same semblance as the rest of us," Lysithea reminded her, and Annetta shrugged. "We're all Schnees by blood, so…"

"Mommy never unlocked her semblance," Annetta pointed out. "And since daddy has magic that all four of us also have, maybe that affected our ability to inherit it."

Lysithea considered that. "Makes sense to me."

"I want to wreak havoc on the city," Matt declared, hopping off one of the chairs. "How about we go and find some trouble to stop?"

Samara smirked. "Are you all thinking what I am?"

"Downtown near the warehouses?" Annetta suggested.

"Or near the fringes?" Lysithea put in.

Samara grinned. "I'll go pull my car around and Team SAML is going to go show this city exactly what the Ciels and the Schnees are capable of."

May 20th
Beacon CCTS Tower
Beacon Academy
City Of Vale
Vale
9:35 PM

"Ozpin!" Elizabeth snapped as she stormed into the man's office while he looked at her evenly, completely unfazed. "I've got more than a few questions for you and I am not in the mood for you to play games with pretense -"

"Madame Morell, please calm down," Ozpin told her though she only narrowed her eyes as Tai came up beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist. "This isn't the time for -"

"Oh, so you're going to deny that you want to use my daughter as a weapon?" Elizabeth demanded while Tai gave her a squeeze. "Well?"

"I don't want to use Ruby as a weapon," Ozpin said truthfully. "I really don't, but I know that she's going to have to learn to fight against probably Salem herself -"

"Care to explain that to me?" Elizabeth said, her voice clipped even though she knew. "Ozpin -"

"Salem is the creator and master of grimm," Ozpin informed her though his tone made it clear that he would not elaborate. "Furthermore, she is likely the reason Cinder Fall -"

"Cinder Fall is nothing more or less than a psychopathic, power-hungry bitch," Elizabeth snapped, pushing back the memories. "And she will be castigated for her crimes."

"Yes, I know," Ozpin said evenly. "The people of Atlas and every other kingdom in the world, even the minor kingdoms, know so too - or have you not reiterated that fact every time someone has asked you about punishing Cinder after her re-capture?"

"That's perfectly irrelevant," Elizabeth told him as she wandered off to the side, struggling with her emotions. "And I should think that you ought to know that without asking me."

"Yes, and I think my question was rhetorical," Ozpin said, refusing to meet Tai's gaze. "Madame Morell, truly, I understand that this is more than just a political matter for you even as the chair of the Atlesian National Security Council."

"Do you?" She snapped, turning around with her heels clicking. "Because I don't think you do."

"You have explicitly been stated as describing brutal torture and abuse at the hand of Cinder Fall in more than one transcript of a court proceeding, let alone the statements you made to the Atlesian Department Of Justice." Ozpin reminded her and she sighed in irritation while Tai pulled her into him. "And not only that, but –"

"No," Elizabeth hissed, tears forming in her eyes though she knew it wasn't going to help to try to not cry.

"Eliza," Tai said, noticing her shaking in nervousness. "I don't like this situation with Ruby any more than you do."

"Which is why something needs to be done about it!" She exclaimed, tears escaping her against her will. "Ruby is my daughter just as much as she is yours and, even though she's not Violet, I can't bear the thought of anything happening to her - even if it is for some cause that could save humanity."

"Elizabeth, what's more important," Ozpin questioned her. "Your daughter or humanity?"

Glaring and crossing her arms, Elizabeth began to pace. "Technically, humanity should be but that's just not the case. What you don't seem to understand, Ozpin, and what I don't think you've ever understood, is that when humanity stands aligned to protect itself, some will get hurt and others won't."

"I do understand that -" He started.

"I will do everything in my power to protect Ruby and you have to remember that you're dealing with a young girl," Elizabeth said, cutting across him. "She's not an adult and she's not going to understand what you're asking her to do, what you're asking her to risk losing. And if you're going to debate this and apply cases, let me give my counterargument now."

Ozpin sighed and motioned for her to speak. "I'm listening."

Elizabeth sent him a dark look. "You better be."

May 24th
Location: Unknown
5:23 PM

Scoffing as she saw Cinder manipulating one of her nieces, Weiss, and her team, Salem forced her seer to show her the man she wanted to destroy. It was all his fault, all of it, and just seeing him happy made her want to snuff out the light that the older of the brother gods had worked so hard to build.

At the very least, the younger of the two could help her kill Ozpin.

She already knew that it was out of the question. Every time she had tried to force his hand, he had refused. Oh, her hatred towards Ozpin was deeply wrought and they both knew it. It was Ozpin, or Ozma, as she had known him, that was her enemy now. When he had died the first time, she had been distraught. She had been angry with him for dying, yet also willing to do whatever she deemed necessary to bring him back.

Desperation makes people do the unthinkable, after all.

So, it was not terribly long after that that she had met him. The younger of the brother gods, the one who was admittedly evil in hindsight though she knew her grief had blinded her at the time to that fact, was the one of the two who took pity on her after she had spent months at the hot springs in Solitas, freezing in the bitter cold after she got out of the spring every time, praying for them, or at the very least praying for someone, to take her hand and pull her out of the perpetual hell that she was living in. He had, and he gave her her powers though she knew that he had taken up his brother's side after he had left her and that was how they had empowered Ozma though he lost his life to her regardless. In return, as she had figured out that both brothers had decided that she needed to be defeated, the brothers forced Ozma to reincarnate into another so that he could handle her. It didn't work at first and the Queen had been exactly that beside him for so long. Then she had learned the truth and then he had tried to take their children and run. For that, she slaughtered him and, though the truth was to the contrary, blamed him for their children dying in the ashes of it as well.

It was more than just a little bit of hell to pay, especially as time had gone, but Salem now refused to give up her fight against him and she refused to let go of her desire for vengeance. It gave her something to justify what she was doing, what she had done, even if there were a tiny part of her that demanded she stop. Cinder resembled herself in many ways, and especially in that regard, and that was something that had motivated her in taking the former Schnee. Of course, that had not been without its own flaws. Roman Torchwick being one of them, although she supposed he served some usefulness. Cinder still had some ties, but the lust for power and the desire to appear strong were something that Salem had found easy to manipulate even if she had required the application of intense torture to the girl in some circumstances.

Amongst the multitude of things that she used to convince herself that Ozpin was the one in the wrong, his self-assured nature was one of them. That was followed by the fact that he failed to see any issue in misleading children into believing that their fight was only the grimm, that eventually their world would see a true peace and the fact that he put his reasons and objectives ahead of their safety. The quite literal flinging of them into the Emerald Forest as initiation at his academy was a testament to that, in her mind, followed by things such as the fact that he didn't hesitate in warning them to the possibility of death in doing so. His caring, respect, and humbleness towards people and in general, while she knew to be genuine, only angered her further because she knew it had gotten him further than her though she knew that their fight was a draw for the time being.

The group in general – especially considering how personal everything seemed to have become for all of them – was exactly what drove her mad. Salem knew full well that, now, Ozpin would do anything for his wife and would do anything to be with her and have things end in this life. Salem knew it, and she feared it. That devotion was the kind that surpassed much, and Salem was more than aware of how it changed a person. It was a new reason, but it was certainly one of the other reasons she used to justify her hatred of him was his little group. Though Leonardo was in her pocket and Rosalinde Varna was malleable, Salem knew that the group's other members would never bend to her. None of them would sell their souls to Salem while, for those to whom the fight had become personal, the others wanted revenge against them.

The Queen was confident that Emmett Schnee and Emmeline Ciel would have no qualms about killing her and Cinder in revenge for the hell Cinder had been putting their family through for the last twenty years. Qrow was in about the same line as them though for Summer Rose. Glynda Goodwitch would fight her even if it killed her while James Ironwood was just like Ciel when it came to the majority of policy decisions and his views on Salem herself. It made her angry that they were all so unbreakable and, in her rage, she shattered the mirror that she had used in training Cinder before demanding it show her the one person she hated more than anyone else.

Angering her further, nothing changed. She didn't see Ozpin. Only her own reflection stared back. Shaking as she repaired it, she more specifically commanded that it show her Ozpin and, this time it worked. The man was in his office, reading over something on his scroll, while Cristal paced, her silver heels clicking and her dark leather pants contrasting with the silver blouse she was wearing with a sapphire choker around her neck. Stopping, Cristal moved over to him and pulled him out of his chair and he set down his scroll as he took her into his arms before spinning her and suddenly pulling her into a kiss. Dismissing the images, Salem groaned and passed off the image not changing the first time as a result of it being broken, that what she had seen wasn't real. After all, she hated Ozpin and his family more than anyone else. She had no reason to hate herself above all, did she?

What the Queen didn't know was that the mirror that the older brother god had forced his brother to give her never lied.

"My...Queen…" Tyrian hissed, coming into the room. "Dr...Dr Watts would like to speak with you… supposedly now…"

Salem turned to him and glared, her eyes wide and flaring. "Tell Arthur Watts that if he's not careful I'll have his head on a plate."

Tyrian looked at her in fear for a moment before nodding. "Of...of...of course...my…my Queen…"

May 27th
Beacon Academy
City Of Vale
Vale
9:31 PM

Always a disappointment, to me, Nicholas had written, I've always been more lenient with her than I should be, but I can't help it. She's innocent, regardless of my anger towards Victoria, and she means well. Whether or not that's because she wants something – typically money – is up to debate but I am only now starting to resent her. She may not know she's gone too far, but she has. That damn coat was the last straw; the hell was she thinking, buying a fur coat on her credit card for her fourteen-year-old brother? Emmett has no need for something that flamboyant; the boy usually only wears decent pants and a flannel shirt, what could he possibly wear that with?

Cristal flipped ahead, growing sick just reading the first page she had opened to in one of her father's old notebooks. She had been hesitating to read them for years, but she was fed up with her own anxiety about it and, all things considered, she had wanted to know for long enough. So far, the entries had been as difficult to handle as she had expected. There were pages upon pages criticizing her and Willow, followed with constant, indulgent praise of Emmett. She wasn't angry with her brother for their father's affection towards him – the siblings had always been close – but she was upset by seeing just how much their father seemed to have hated her and especially Willow. It was one of the few times she had found herself grateful towards Jacques for pulling out of such a terrible circumstance, although she couldn't honestly say she liked her brother-in-law much either. She felt terrible and was trembling while she continued to slowly flip through the pages of the book. For a moment, she could feel her father beating her for exactly what he had described in the last entry she had read and it made the pain seemed new. It was only when she saw her mother's name appear again that she stopped.

My strongest anger with regard to Cristal is towards a dead woman: her mother. Oh, Victoria tined too little care of everything she did, and she had always been coy and temperamental but I loved her. Every damn day I'm grateful to her for giving me my son, but his elder sister I cannot say the same. Even if Cristal had been the first son, she would not have been mine.

Would not have been mine. Would not have been mine. Would not have been mine. Those words reverberated through her mind and made her feel dizzy from her head through her toes.

Was it possible he had been right? She never had looked quite like the rest of her siblings, and she had always favored her mother's looks with none of her father's.

The fact that her children didn't bear the Schnee semblance seemed to be the last thought she needed before she forced herself to see the end of her father's words.

If, of course, he had really been her father.

…Sleet, Jameson Sleet. That damn representative of the city of Mantle that I keep trying to persuade into my hands. I could use someone like that in my pocket, someone with sway there. He never will, though. I don't think he's even willing to set foot in this house after what he did. He has never seen his daughter, and, if I have anything to say about it, he never will. Oh, the bastard knows full well that Victoria's third daughter is also his – she even told me as much when the girl was born – but he is not getting anywhere near her. If it ever gets out, my image, my reputation will be ruined and –

"Chrissy?"

Cristal flinched when she realized she had thrown the notebook at the bedroom doorway, where her husband was now standing, looking immensely concerned.

"I'm sorry…" She finally said, breaking down despite herself, with every nerve in her body tensing even when he came over and sat down on the edge of their bed next to her and pulled her tightly into him. "I wasn't trying to…I'm not…"

"What is it?" Ozpin gently murmured, giving her a reassuring squeeze. "Chrissy, if it has anything to do with the case you're working on –"

"It's not that," She said weakly. "It's not."

He was quiet for a long time, waiting for her to speak, but then he sighed.

"Your father's gone…" He reminded her softly. "He's not going to hurt you and, even if he could, you know that I would not let him…"

"He may not be," Cristal forced out, her voice shaking. "If…if what Nicholas wrote is true. I…I think I have more than a few questions for…for Senator Sleet."

Ozpin looked at her in worry and confusion. "What are you talking about, Chrissy?"

"The only page in that notebook that's folded down, it…" Cristal bit her lip as he hesitantly stood up and picked up the notebook to find the page she had been reading again. "Oz, I had no idea, I'm…I…"

He took in a sharp breath upon finishing the page and then looked to her. After a moment, he all but ran over to her and brought her into him once more, pressing a loving kiss to her forehead.

"I'm sorry…" He eventually said, cupping her cheek. "But, Chrissy, it's not your fault. Whatever the circumstances, Nicholas never had any right to harm you the way he did and –"

"Please don't," She looked to him pleadingly and then pulled off her glasses and set them aside, rubbing her eyes. "Right now…I just need some time to think…and to figure out…to figure out how the hell I'm going to address this…moving forward."