"Jaune!" Ruby was on him the moment he stepped through the door, wrapping her arms around him in a bear hug. Weiss rolled her eyes. "It's so good to see you! Tell us everything!"
It took him a while to even get started as Nora entered behind him, announcing her arrival in a grandiose fashion and receiving a fistbump and a hug from Yang. Ren waited patiently behind for the doorway to clear, only for Nora to drag him into the hug so enthusiastically that she knocked over Jaune and Ruby next to her. For a while the reunion was pure chaos, as Nora had to hug every member of Team RWBY individually and drag Ren along for the ride too. "That really isn't necessary," Blake said when it was her turn, but was embraced all the same. Jaune and Weiss shared only a friendly nod. She was glad for that. She liked him much more since he'd stopped pining for her, but she still appreciated a little distance.
Then talk turned to food, and Nora declared that seeing as it was getting on in the evening and they had more important matters to worry about than cooking that she'd pay for them to order in dinner. "The whole Irithyll debacle actually paid pretty well, considering we weren't even supposed to be there."
"Ironwood paid you?" Jaune asked.
"Uh, yeah. He gave Ren and me your pay too seeing as you were kicking up a stink."
"We figured we'd transfer it to you once we were away from Atlas in case you somehow turned it around and got annoyed at General Ironwood for it," Ren said.
"Why would I get annoyed at Ironwood for paying me?"
"I dunno, Jauney. By the time we left if Ironwood so much as breathed you wanted to yell at him for it. Seemed less trouble doing it this way."
"You yelled at Ironwood?" Blake asked.
"Uh, yeah. Maybe once or twice." Now that he was actually thinking about it he seemed to be second-guessing that decision.
"Didn't think you'd have it in you."
So, finally, they began to recount their journey, from Vengarl's disappearance to Doctor Polendina's murder to the legion's escalating attacks in Irithyll and Winter's injury. Weiss asked again for more specifics on her sister's wellbeing, but they could only shrug. "Hard to tell."
"Well, she did kill a bunch of people," Nora said.
"She did?"
"Legion-types, mind, so not exactly good people, but the way Hawkwood told it she just demolished them. No hesitation at all. No offence, Weiss, but I wouldn't want to meet your sister in a dark alley."
Weiss didn't take offence to that—dark alleys weren't a good place to meet anybody, really—but for all she was sure Winter had acted out of necessity, it still concerned her.
She tuned out for a while as Nora regaled them with a story about wrestling with a several-story-tall Grimm and winning. It was probably exaggerated, but Ruby and Yang seemed very impressed.
They stumbled through an explanation of Watts' attack on the Painted World, which they didn't seem to understand the specifics of. Weiss didn't either. Magical elemental powers seemed reasonable enough, but magical pocket dimensions contained within paintings were confusing. Jaune talked about the state in which they'd found Vengarl. "I think my semblance saved him. Maybe. I don't know."
"Your semblance?" Ruby asked.
"I haven't done it since," he admitted. "I'm not sure how it works. I'm not even sure how I did it then. It just felt natural."
"We'll work on it, then," Ruby said. "Pyrrha would be proud of you."
Jaune smiled, looked away, and said no more.
Then the tale came to an end. Ren reiterated the plans that'd been made before leaving Atlas: Winter and Gil's mission, Solaire's disappearance, and Vengarl's journey to Brume.
By that point Nora had lost interest. "Can I meet the ghosty?" she asked.
"Ghost isn't quite the right word," Weiss said.
"It's that thing with your semblance, right? Like with the Paladin on the night Beacon fell? That was weird. Still cool though."
"You've been hanging out with the ghosties that long?" Yang asked.
"I wouldn't call it 'hanging out'," Weiss muttered. "But yes. I'd rather not summon them right now, though."
"Why not?"
"They're more of an emergency contact than a dinner guest."
"Damn. Is that how you talk about us too?" Yang asked, grinning.
"Some of you."
"Ouch."
"What happened last time?" Nora asked.
Weiss pursed her lips.
"We were attacked on the road and it went badly," Ruby said. "The ghosties—Lothric and Lorian—bailed us out."
Weiss knew that wasn't the whole truth of it. Ruby knew too. They all knew that it'd been different in Oniyuri. She could remember wielding Lorian's sword with strength that wasn't entirely her own, and she knew Ruby had seen it. And the last time—the actual last time—had been to discuss the debt Weiss owed the twin princes, namely to be repaid by killing Ozpin.
It would be complicated to explain, sure, but Jaune, Nora, and Ren understood most of it already. The stuff about immortality, at least. Weiss wasn't sure why Ruby left it out. But she trusted her judgement.
She resisted the urge to roll her shoulder. Even though it'd healed it still felt a bit stiff sometimes.
"Attacked?" Jaune asked. "By who? Grimm? Bandits?"
"You know Raime, don't you? Went by 'Fume Knight' a few times?" Ruby asked.
"Oh yeah. Vengarl talked about him a few times. He says he's killed a maiden," Jaune said.
Nobody spoke. Weiss mused, not for the first time, that she was lucky to get out alive. She imagined the same thought was on Ruby, Yang, and Blake's minds.
"By that I mean the magic kind of maiden, not just random—"
"Yeah. We get it, Jaune."
There was a knock at the door.
"Probably the food," Nora said, jumping to her feet. But when she opened the door, there only a boy, maybe in his early teens yet somehow bald, and Qrow leaning heavily on him for support.
"Look who I found!" Qrow slurred.
Nora frowned. "He doesn't look like food."
"He's better."
"Doubtful."
Qrow grinned and shook the boy's shoulders. "Tell them."
/-/
Picking locks, it turned out, was really rather difficult. And given that Oscar only had the two bobby pins—and didn't want to break either—he was being extra careful. Perhaps if he took a risk he'd get lucky, but it was more likely that they'd break off in the lock and he'd be stuck here forever.
And getting lucky wasn't enough. He didn't just have to be able to open his own cell, but Sun's and Neptune's as well, and he have to be able to do all three in the two-hour intervals between the guards coming to check on them.
"How long until the guards come?" Oscar called.
"Five to ten minutes."
How Neptune could tell the time, Oscar didn't know. But he'd been right so far. Five minutes wasn't nearly enough, and he was tired; he'd been trying for hours. He scowled and pocketed the pins, hiding them from view.
He liked their chances of escape if he could get the doors open. That they weren't constantly being watched indicated that Mytha was suffering from a lack of manpower, as Ozpin had pointed out.
So far he'd worked out how he needed the bobby pins to be bent. Or he thought he had, anyway. One to turn the lock and the other to push the pins. As far as he could tell they'd do just fine. He was pretty sure he'd managed to move the first two pins into place a few times, but he didn't know if the click he'd heard was actually indicative of any success or if that was just a myth made up by movies and it meant nothing at all.
They heard the guards coming. Usually it was only one. Sometimes it was Gull. Sometimes it was a different man whose name they didn't know who always carried a full-moon sickle at his hip.
This time, it was both.
"Face the wall. Hands behind your back." said Gull, brandishing the key. Three sets of hand shackles hung from his belt. "Mytha's got a visitor wants to see you."
"Why can't he come down here himself?" Sun asked.
"None of your concern."
"Well, what'll you do if we don't face the wall?" he continued.
"Starve you."
Gull opened the cells one at a time to shackle them. It was the first time Oscar and Neptune had seen each other; it turned out he was a handsome young man with odd blue hair.
Soon they were being led through a winding maze of corridors. At the end of the first was a guard chamber, and on the wall hung two weapons that Ozpin pointed out as belonging to Sun and Neptune. Many of the side tunnels were unlit and seemed to descend ever lower, but the path they followed was usually on a slight upwards incline. At first their journey was lit only by torchlight, but as they drew closer to their destination dust fixtures started to appear in the ceiling. They saw maybe half a dozen other people, all of them armed.
Most of them must be in the city proper trying to cash in on the bounty, Ozpin said.
Or there just aren't that many of them, Oscar mused.
Wind Path is a hellpit. There are more guns for hire here than in any other city in Remnant, even in the capitals. But most of them prefer a big score over guard duty, and there's only so much the ringleaders can do about it.
They were brought to an antechamber. There was another corridor leading further upwards, and ahead of them was simple wooden door. They could hear voices beyond. One was Mytha's. They didn't know the other.
"Those two first," Gull said, pointing to Sun and Neptune.
"Boss said she wanted the kid first," said the man with the sickle.
"I brought him in. I'll decide what happens to him."
Oscar didn't like the sound of that.
"It's on your head."
"Fine by me," Gull said.
The other man continued on with Sun and Neptune. Oscar caught a glimpse of gleaming yellow eyes before the door shut.
"You'd better not mess this up," Gull said, scowling.
"I don't see how it's my fault you got the wrong kid," Oscar said.
"I heard you. Wouldn't have grabbed you if I hadn't. You're either barking mad or there's someone in your head. Someone worth fifty-thousand lien."
I'm of the opinion that you can't put a price on a life, but I'd like to think I'm worth more than that, Ozpin mused.
Oscar frowned. "Let me go and I'll give you eighty thousand," he bluffed.
Gull laughed. "Where would some 'farmboy' find ninety thousand lien?"
"I said eighty."
"It's called haggling."
"And I don't know where to find it. But Ozpin does."
"Ozpin?"
"The voice."
You shouldn't have given him my name. Even if he doesn't know why there's a bounty out for us, this Tyrian person will. Maybe Mytha will too.
Exactly, Oscar responded. They'll confirm his suspicions, and he'll let us out.
It's too reckless. The minute they find out they captured me, we'll be their highest priority. Even if Gull gives us a head start, we'll be worse off than we would be otherwise.
'Otherwise' being locked in a cell?
Ozpin fell silent, but Oscar could feel the gears turning in the back of his mind.
Before Gull could ask any more questions, a woman approached from the corridor leading upwards, limping heavily and leaning against the wall for support. There were puncture wounds on her legs and arms, another in her chest, and a long cut on her cheek.
"What happened?" Gull asked, rushing forwards to support her. "Where are the others?"
Bobby pins. While he's distracted.
What?
New plan, Ozpin said.
Oscar managed to just fit his hand into his pocket from behind and fish the bobby pins out. The lock on his shackles had looked more complex than the ones on the handcuffs he'd seen carried by guards in the town near the farm, but less so than the one on his cell door.
It'd be difficult, seeing as his hands were linked behind him rather than in front, but he might actually be able to get it open. He just had to focus.
The woman rasped something out that Oscar couldn't hear. Gull grabbed a water flask from his belt and held it to her lips.
Oscar felt the first pin click into place.
"Dead," the woman said, her voice still hoarse but louder than before.
"Dead?" Gull asked. "It was just some civilian!"
"Guarded. Torchwick's pet."
The chain linking Oscar's wrists was heavy and jangled a little as he moved, but he still heard the click. It'd only be a matter of time before Gull realised he was up to something.
"I'll have him questioned. Did you at least get what you were looking for?"
"Gone, north maybe. Only students. Not worth it."
The metal encasing Oscar's left wrist clicked open. He brought his hands around in front of him and started on the other wrist.
No time. Knock him out. If you hit him hard enough he'll drop like a rock, Ozpin said.
How hard is hard enough? Oscar wondered.
As hard as you can.
Oscar approached as quietly as he could. His pulse was pounding so loudly in his ears that he thought Gull would hear it, let alone the sound of the chain that he couldn't entirely mute. But Gull was preoccupied wrapping the woman's wounds to notice.
She saw him coming.
"Gull!" she rasped in warning.
Oscar swung with his right arm with all his strength. The left shackle swung on the other end of the chain; it flew towards the back of Gull's head and collided with a sickening crunch. Blood splattered onto Oscar's clothes and began to pool on the floor. A meagre wave of Gull's aura tried to close the wound as he slumped onto the ground before sparking and sputtering out.
The woman tried to rise and call for help. Oscar swung again. She had time to prepare her aura but it was low and shattered on the first blow. She ducked clumsily under Oscar's next strike. The third was poorly aimed and crushed her windpipe instead of her face.
She staggered away, struggling to breathe. This time, Oscar managed to hit the side of her head. She fell and did not move.
Oscar drew in a deep breath, then let it out. The adrenaline was still pumping through him.
...are they dead?
Maybe. If Gull isn't, he will be soon unless he receives medical attention. The other one will probably survive, provided she doesn't do anything too strenuous until she recovers from her concussion.
That was a small relief. Oscar didn't mean to kill either of them. He couldn't even bring himself to look at Gull.
Then again, she could be bleeding internally.
Oscar almost threw up.
Are you okay, Oscar?
He shook his head.
It's us or them. I know it's hard. But that's better than it being easy. Do you want me to take over?
"No," Oscar said out loud. "I'll be okay." He averted his eyes and crouched down to feel for Gull's keys.
Leave the keys.
"Why?"
When they realise you've escaped they'll want to get Sun and Neptune back in their cells as soon as possible so they can focus on finding you. But they won't risk it if they know you have the key, and then there's no telling where they'll end up. We have to move before Mytha and Tyrian come out.
"Where?" Oscar asked, but he already knew the answer.
The injured woman had come from up the tunnel, and she'd been in the city proper. That was the way out.
But Sun and Neptune would be led back the way they'd come, back to the cells. An ambush in the guard room, where their weapons were, was his best bet to free them.
Good choice. We won't be able to get out of Wind Path on our own.
"Also, they're our friends," Oscar muttered, setting off back down the tunnels.
That too.
/-/
"So… you're really Ozpin?" Ruby asked.
"Well, I mean, no. I'm Osborne. But he's in my head, I guess." He raised his spoon to his lips. The food had arrived not long after he had, and Nora had been nice enough to offer him some. There was plenty, after all.
Lovely girl, and not half as dull as she pretended to be. Patches liked her.
"Can he 'take over' or something?" Weiss asked.
"He's… tired. Probably from dying. He says it takes a lot out of you. I mean, makes sense, right?"
None of them could dispute it. None of them had been around the last time Oz had reincarnated. Not even Qrow, and he was nodding off at the end of the table anyway.
"But he can hear you," Patches added. "So, you know, if there's something you want to say, you can do that. Apparently he and I'll be the same person eventually anyway." He added a nervous laugh to sell the act.
"Well, it's not me. I just figured Lothric would want to talk to him."
"Lothric?" Patches made it his business to know things, but it was news that the girl could summon him. How curious.
"I'm sure Ozpin knows him."
The irony wasn't lost on Patches that Lothric would want him dead too, not just Oz. The noble cripple and his fool of a twin brother would recognise Patches immediately. That would be very bad.
"He does," Patches confirmed.
He had Ozpin's cane now and the pearl set in its handle, so all he had to do was bluff. Act like he really was just a confused little boy with a voice in his head, but—so sorry—Ozpin's still tired from dying so he can't come out. Or, if they pushed him, he supposed he could pretend to be possessed for a brief while. He could copy the old wizard's mannerisms well enough, even if he wasn't totally familiar with how to act around these specific people.
"Is he really tired? Or is he just too ashamed to come out?" Jaune asked.
Patches regarded the Arc boy coolly. He'd lied his way into Beacon, same as Cinder dearest had lied her way into Haven. Patches had seen the falsified transcripts.
It seemed he'd gotten bolder with time. Perhaps beyond the reach of his abilities. Perhaps not.
"I'm sure Osborne is still adjusting to all this," Ren said. "Right? It must be overwhelming. If you want to yell at Ozpin too, it can wait a little."
"Well, I guess you could yell at me if you're really that mad at him, but I don't do well being yelled at and that's just something people have to understand about me," Patches said.
It was a classic move. Offer a compromise, but make Jaune feel like he'd be the villain if he took him up on it. He was just an innocent, insecure little boy, feeling very overwhelmed by this entire situation. Wouldn't it be mean to yell at him?
Jaune backed down. "Sorry," he muttered. "Can I ask something, though? No shouting or anything."
"Alright."
"Why did Ozpin choose Pyrrha? Why did it have to be her?"
Shit.
Patches didn't know the answer to that one.
He could make a few different guesses, but if he wasn't close then Qrow would pick up on the discrepancies. And even as he sobered up, the old bird was definitely listening.
"She was surrounded by people Ozpin knew would protect her," Patches said, hedging his bets. If he was going to make it up, he might as well sweet-talk them at the same time. "But he underestimated her own desire to protect them in turn."
All he had to do was treat the dead girl with suitable reverence. It was almost too easy. Jaune was already losing himself in his memories of her.
Patches, content, returned his attention to the food.
"Oz also thought Beacon would be safer," Qrow added. "A first-year was ideal because they would've been there longer than older students. He considered you for a while, Yang."
"Me?"
"We decided against it because you were always looking for trouble. Pyrrha was famous, sure, but she kept her head down as much as she could."
"I wasn't looking for trouble. Trouble found me."
"Right. You all just happened to be in the same place as Roman Torchwick and his giant mech."
"That was Blake's idea."
Blake swatted at Yang's arm.
"If you have any more questions I'll answer them as best as I can," Patches said. "But Ozpin isn't always talking with me. Most of the time he's… quiet. Resting. Recovering, I guess. So I don't know everything."
"Why are you bald?" Nora asked.
Patches sighed.
Every time. No matter what name he went by, he was sure he'd be asked that by somebody eventually.
He just had to maintain the disguise until Raime arrived.
/-/
The baby did not seem dangerous, maliciously or otherwise.
It was a faunus, at least at first glance, with a dusting of silvery-blue scales on its cheeks and around its beady red eyes. Given the company in which she'd found it, Winter believed it entirely possible that the scales were unnatural and had been grafted to its skin.
But whatever else the baby might have been, it was definitely upset. It wouldn't stop crying, and Winter had no idea how to deal with it.
She was old enough to remember her own siblings' infant years and she had a vague memory of her mother singing to Whitley to calm him down once, but for the life of her she couldn't recall anything to sing. Trying to hush it was completely ineffectual. Awkwardly holding the baby and patting its back didn't help either, and neither did rocking it.
The thought occurred to her that it might have soiled itself. She hadn't expected to have to change diapers in the magical pocket-dimension prison, but she swallowed her pride and checked.
It hadn't. But at least now she had a somewhat clearer idea what pronouns to use.
Maybe he was hungry? There wasn't much she could do about that; she hadn't exactly brought a bottle of baby formula with her. According to Vengarl the Ringed City halted 'the effects of the passage of time on the body'. By that he'd meant ageing, but he believed it extended to hunger and fatigue as well. Winter thought that was stupid—they had to get energy from somewhere, after all—so she'd brought some dry rations, but the baby didn't look old enough for solid food.
Out of ideas, Winter tore two scraps of cloth from her sleeve and stuffed them in her ears. It didn't drown out the sound entirely, but it muted it enough to allow her to concentrate on other things.
"Alright," she muttered, and her voice seemed louder in her skull. "Where are we?"
The baby's response was to continue crying.
She scowled and picked him back up.
The room they'd entered was packed wall-to-wall with shelves, and on those shelves were great books, their pages old and musty and dry, spilling out from their leather covers. The room was poorly-lit by dust fixtures in the ceilings, their light blocked by the bookcases.
Winter looked behind her. The door was still there. Where it led she didn't know. Maybe back to the cavern and the shadow that had once been Sulyvahn. Maybe not. Clearly the Ringed City didn't follow the same rules of space, and maybe not of time either.
It still didn't seem wise to turn back.
There wasn't a clear path through the bookcases. In places the tomes had fallen from their places, blocking the road like rockfall. One had fallen open at her feet and the page was covered in the same two sentences, repeated over and over again:
I speak as I must and cannot be silenced. Fear not the dark and let the feast begin.
Winter knelt down and flipped through the book curiously. Every page contained the same words, though sometimes they were scrawled, other times printed neatly, and once even written as though with a calligrapher's nib. The baby's crying grew louder and she grimaced. Surely his throat was sore by now.
She was about to continue onward when the words on the page began to shift, the letters fading away and rewriting themselves.
I cannot be silenced.
Winter glanced around. The bookcases loomed around her; there was nothing else in sight.
"You're not the one doing this, are you?" she asked the baby. Silence didn't seem to be in his interests, after all.
The baby continued to wail.
Or perhaps he was crying because he was scared. Because there was something—someone—else speaking to them, and it terrified him.
Winter removed her makeshift earplugs and instead put them in the baby's ears.
It didn't take long for him to quieten, though his breathing was heavy and his eyes were wide and terrified. And once he'd fallen silent she could hear a whisper on the air, and the words on the page rewrote themselves to match it:
"I speak as I must and cannot be silenced. Your kind was forsaken by the Abyss. Mine never felt its touch. Yet you and I are alike in our mortality. Fear not the dark, my friend, and let the feast begin."
Winter wasn't sure where the voice was coming from, but she followed it as best she could, picking her way between the bookshelves.
"One was a silent oracle, alone in a cold keep. Only the Abyss granted closure, if not reunion with her beloved. Fear not the dark, my friend, and let the feast begin."
The voice was growing louder though at the same time it somehow remained a whisper. There was no anger or threat in its tone.
"One was a kinslayer, and was embraced—enveloped—by the Abyss. Twas a comfort that neither birdsong nor snakebite could provide before. Fear not the dark, my friend, and let the feast begin."
She squeezed through the gap between two shelves and came into a clear area among the books. There was another door set in the wall before her, but it was blocked by a disembodied head laying on the floor. Its skin was pale, wrinkled, and sagging, and black eyes were set deep in its skull. Lank hair fell like a hood behind it.
The face smiled at her.
"Nor you. Fear not the dark, my friend, and let the feast begin," it said.
Winter hid the baby's eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Who are you to come to my home and demand answers of me when I have already provided so many?" the face asked. "One who meets the Abyss with curiosity, the mortal reach of a half-metal tyrant. Welcome, my friend. Fear not the dark, and let the feast begin."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Do you have to say that every time?"
"I choose to. There is power in every choice we make, in every ritual in which we partake. Fear not the dark, and let the feast begin."
So he wanted to speak in riddles. Perhaps one of them could be of use. "How do I reach Vendrick's crypt?" she asked.
"Vendrick? I care not for the power of names; I do not know this person. Fear not the dark—"
"The last king of Mistral," Winter said. She'd heard all about the power of names before from Lapp back in Vale. Titles would be more useful.
"The wisest fool I have ever seen: one who lived in fear of the dark, of the monster whispering in his ear, yet loved her all the same." The face grinned. "Give me Ocelotte, and I will help you find him."
"Ocelotte?"
"He now sleeps in the crook of your arm."
Winter glanced down. The baby—Ocelotte, she supposed—had fallen asleep.
"I thought you didn't care for names."
"I care for the power of choice, and a name chosen for oneself has great value."
She frowned. "What do you want with him?"
"Fear not the dark, my friend," he said, then licked his lips. "And let the feast begin."
Idly Winter wondered whether that meant he wanted to eat Ocelotte. It was a disgusting thought, but it didn't seem possible given that he didn't have a digestive system. Then again, he didn't have lungs or a diaphragm either and he was talking just fine.
Whatever he wanted, he didn't want to say, so she doubted it was anything good.
"Perhaps we'll find Vendrick on our own," she said.
A book fell from the shelf next to her, and landed on an open page.
There were no words this time. Only a drawing of Weiss. And the Fume Knight, his sword cleaving through Weiss' shoulder, splitting flesh and bone and muscle.
Winter grimaced. "You can't scare me with this. The Fume Knight is dead."
"But Raime is very much alive. I know only what I have seen. I speak as I must and—"
"Weiss is fine," she snapped. "I'd… I'd know. If she were dead, I'd know."
"Perhaps. There is more yet to come. I can stop it, if you give me Ocelotte. I can save them."
The page turned. She saw Whitley, skin purple, eyes bulging, froth dribbling from his mouth as he stared blankly at the barbed tail piercing his chest.
Another page. It showed her Artorias sinking down, down, down, blood from the severed stump of his ear leaving a red trail in the water.
"Stop," Winter hissed. Her hand clenched into a fist.
The page turned again. General Ironwood, a bullet hole in his forehead. The edges of the parchment were yellowing and rotting before her eyes.
"Fear not the dark, my friend," said the face, as the page began to turn again, "and let the feast—"
Winter lashed out with her free arm, summoning a small nevermore from a short-lived glyph. It lunged, wings outstretched and talons reaching for the white face—
The white face ate it. Its jaw dislocated, opening its mouth wide like a snake to catch it, then bit down. The nevermore disappeared within the gaping maw and was swallowed in a single gulp.
"Hm. Peppermint," said the face, then stood. A ghostly body appeared beneath it, pale blue like one of Winter's own summons. It had human-like legs and arms, though they were long and spindly and malnourished, but its torso was more akin to a locust, its abdomen bloated and tough like a shell.
The locust lunged.
Winter darted to the side, twisting to protect Ocelotte. There was only a small space in which to manoeuvre, but the locust's hand missed her by an inch, sharp claws swiping the air where she'd been. She swept her arm out again to call a glyph. A beowolf would have been too big for the space; she summoned a flock of nevermores to distract him while she ran for the door. It was locked with a door bolt, and she didn't have time to lift it before the locust was on her again, claws reaching for Ocelotte.
They struggled for a long moment, then Winter's elbow collided with his chin and he staggered away; Winter backed off, putting a little space between them again. Gods, she wished she had a weapon. She was a competent hand-to-hand fighter, but not when she was hindered by Ocelotte. He'd been woken up by all the moving around but didn't seem to realise the danger he was in. The stupid baby was giggling.
Winter weighed her options. She could return the way she'd come through the bookshelves and try and escape back through the first door. That didn't seem great. If even one of the shelves fell it could start a chain reaction and collapse them all. There was a good chance she'd be crushed.
But maybe toppling the bookcases wasn't such a terrible idea at all. She wouldn't have time to get the door open unless she incapacitated the locust in some way. She wasn't sure he could even be killed given that she'd found him as a disembodied head, but trapping him under the weight of the books ought to hold him long enough.
When next the locust rushed towards her she bent all her will into a glyph, catching him mid-air as he lunged. Without an implement to focus her semblance the effort left her feeling drained, but she had enough left in her to give him a kick, reversing the grip of the glyph as she did so; it sent him crashing straight through the bookcase opposite her and into the next one, sending them toppling, one after the other like dominoes.
Tiredly, Winter lifted the door bolt, struggling with only one hand. She had to get under it and push with her shoulder, but soon enough it fell to the side and the door swung open, revealing the landing of a sunlit staircase heading up to a tower. She rushed through.
When she turned to close the door behind her, it had disappeared. There was only an empty archway and stairs leading down towards the back of a cathedral, and beyond that the main city.
She took a moment to breathe.
Provoking the locust had been her first mistake, and not using enough force to immediately secure victory had been her second. She'd overreacted, and it'd almost cost her. Weiss would be okay. She had her team with her, and surely Raime was dead. General Ironwood was surrounded by some of the finest huntsmen in the world. And there was no reason for Whitley to be in any serious danger: even if the Fang targeted him it wouldn't be to kill him. They'd want him alive for leverage.
Artorias was another matter. He hadn't been in a good state when she'd last seen him and even before that he'd always been reckless. Part of her wished he was here now. In the distance she could see the path where she'd left Gilderoy behind, though she couldn't tell if he was still there. Artorias wouldn't have left Ocelotte for dead. In fact, he probably would have jumped at the opportunity to spring a trap, and he would already—somehow—be fast friends with the dumbass baby.
And she would have known he was okay.
But she'd have to accept not knowing. And if that locust—or anything else—tried to prey on her fears again she'd have to stay in control. She had a job to do, and she couldn't afford to make mistakes like that again.
She sighed, steeled herself, then glanced down to Ocelotte. "You wouldn't happen to know how to find Vendrick, would you?"
Ocelotte gurgled happily and pointed in the vague direction of the stairs up to the tower. Or maybe he was pointing to her nose.
It only occurred to me this chapter that Team JNR hasn't ever come face to face with Raime. He hasn't shared a scene with Vengarl either yet (aside from a flashback), but that one's on purpose.
This was (or should have been, anyway) Patches' first POV scene. Patches pretending to be 'Osborne' was too fun to not do from his perspective. And it provides a little insight into why he's doing it, if not the specifics of his end-goal.
A sneak preview at the opening sentence for next chapter: "Gull has been found dead in Miami."
I chose Gull's name because it reminded me of the word 'gluttony', and for some reason when I was writing that chapter I thought the Covetous Demon was called Gluttonous Demon.
Oh well.
Basically Oscar's a murderer now tho lol. Poor kid.
I'm enjoying the Winter/Ocelotte dynamic far more than I enjoyed the Winter/Gilderoy one. It's easier to establish a bond because she feels a moral obligation to help Ocelotte but not Gilderoy. As far as she's concerned, Gilderoy should be able to help himself. Ocelotte can't.
Next chapter we'll start seeing Team RWBY + JNR + Qrow + 'Osborne' pursuing the Cinder lead (and a few personal projects), we'll check in with Gil's side of the Ringed City romp, and Oscar's gonna murder some more people, maybe.
