Chapter Thirty-One


Nope


"No," Qrow answered before Yang could give a proper one, still trying to figure out what exactly the tri-colored mercenary was after. He fielded a glare from the blonde for daring to answer for her, but he stood his ground resolutely, a strand of black wrapping around his legs and pooling at his feet.

"The scythe is mine by right of succession." She replied after looking down at Neo again, her outstretched hand holding onto her rapier in askance. "You don't get to decide whether I should make a trade here or not..."

"Ruby's weapon is a symbol to our Hunters. Hand over that scythe and she has the authority to act in her stead with the same respect deferred to her." Qrow pointed out before she could continue, hand resting on the hilt of his own hybrid weapon. She knew it was an idle threat with how little space they had in the interior of the Ruby.

"I was about to say it wasn't my decision either." He stood stumped there, blinking owlishly at her. Looking down, he shared a glance with one of his rogue shadow tentacles before looking at Weiss and Blake.

"Don't look at me," Weiss answered immediately from her seat in the cargo netting. "I can't even lift the thing let alone wield it." Blake shook her head when he looked over at her, his gaze returning to Yang.

"I helped forge it -" A crimson spark of lightning pulsed from the collapsed scythe and trailed across her spine, Yang mumbling a short apology much to Neo's amusement. " - her. Still doesn't mean I can use her in battle."

Qrow overtly leaned over to Blake and stage whispered to ask whether she'd seen the odd interaction, but she just waved him off. Weiss also didn't help satisfy his curiosity with a righteous smirk directing him elsewhere for answers.

Yang carefully placed a hand on the leather hilt of Neo's rapier, habitually flinching upon touching it and getting an impish smirk from the hellion when nothing happened. She pulled the weapon from Neo's grasp and held it up at an angle to inspect the hypnotic pattern of ripples etched into the metal of the lithe blade.

"This is… incredibly old." She gently placed the rapier to rest against the cockpit hallway, reaching behind her to pull Ruby's scythe from her backplate. A low pitch hum released the compact weapon into her hand and she visibly bit back a curse when it pulled her down.

Virulent pale Aura spiraled down her arm and chased away the subtle tremors from straining to lift the weapon. Qrow almost stepped up to help, eyes wide as he realized how tremendously heavy it must've been, but Blake held it back, gesturing to watch but not interfere.

Neo reached out to help Yang with her burden, a pulse of crimson racing up her arm and disappearing into her chest when she touched it. Yang let go, staring wide-eyed when she effortlessly lifted the weapon and inspected it. Crescent Rose hummed with unrestrained mirth, happily pulsing crimson once before falling silent.

"Treat her well," Yang whispered, reaching out to Neo's other hand and receiving the parasol sheath in return. The illusion on it broke once it was transferred, the pink lace fracturing to reveal a polished leather scabbard. She sheathed her new weapon and slung it onto her back, reactivating the magnet with a pulse of Aura. "Does it have a name?"

Neo broke from her trance to stare up at Yang long enough to tilt her head, making the taller woman chuckle.

"I guess I'll have to learn it myself." She said to the benefit of Qrow more than anyone else, her uncle looking close to apoplectic. Neo slammed a foot onto an errant black tendril that snuck along the floor of the ship, Qrow wincing at the feedback response. She waggled a finger at him tauntingly before Crescent Rose disappeared in a hail of mirror shards.

She then made to step up to Weiss but a hand on her shoulder prevented that, Yang waggling a finger in her face this time. "You made a deal for Ruby's scythe, but not her gem." Neo grimaced at being tricked but didn't do anything obviously, squinting at the leader. "It's not my gem so kissing me for it won't do anything."

She then looked at Weiss.

"I doubt she wants a kiss from you. The gem's more important." Yang spoke for her wife, gaining a mixed look from Weiss and a petulant stomp from Neo. "What? Not my fault she likes my kisses more than you."

She held up a finger and an actual lightbulb appeared over her head until Yang swatted it away. "I doubt kissing Blake will do anything either." Neo opened her mouth as if to speak but Yang shut it down immediately. "And Qrow is trying not to throttle you for murdering his lover so try not to poke him with a stick."

Her world suddenly inverted as something latched onto her foot and effortlessly held her upside-down. She looked down to her foot and trailed along the softly undulating shadow tentacle wrapped around her ankle, strung along the ceiling of the craft and down to the wall to the still present black pool of something vile at Qrow's feet.

He looked incredibly more perturbed than her at the realization his Semblance had at least a sapient intelligence and reacted to his unrestrained emotions. She hung loosely there for a hot minute, a frown plastered on her face while staring Weiss down, unable to think of anything she could offer in trade for the gem. Blake, taking the opposite from Weiss, barely glanced over at the havoc Qrow's Semblance unleashed, and Yang could only just stifle a laugh at her predicament, earning a death glare from the captive.

Yang already knew there was little she could offer to Weiss to make any trade worthwhile. Wealthy beyond measure in more than just capital, material wealth held nothing of value to her. Jewels and other trinkets similarly had no value to the Hunters, and any other her weapon she could conjure from thin air was lost to the Semblance dependent fighter.

Another light bulb appeared above her head and she gestured Yang to her so she could whisper in her ear covertly. Deciding to humor the quirky… thing… she patronizingly bent down to hear her answer. She nodded along here and there, her facial expression ranging from contemplative to agreement, and then right back around until Weiss cleared her throat loudly.

"We can see she's not actually saying anything." She deadpanned, Neo having failed to shield her mouth from prying eyes and leaving a clear line of sight. The merc smiled widely before rapidly flying through a bunch of hand signs. Though she had to read them upside-down, Weiss could make out most of them. "You want to… dance with me at the Vytal Ball?"

She repeated the offer out loud to make sure she had interpreted them correctly, looking over to Blake and getting a positive affirmation in the form of a thumbs-up. Neo flashed another few hand signs and settled into her hanging prison, smiling infuriatingly.

"What do you mean 'take it or leave it'? I still have the gem." Weiss growled out, reaching behind to her lower back to confirm it still sat safely in its pouch. "That's not how negotiating works." Instead of coming up with a return offer, Neo chose to pout at her instead, her pink eyes growing in size with teardrops welling in their corners. "No, you can't just give me the waterworks and expect me to cave. Yang got your rapier as insurance for the scythe. You can't just promise to dance with me and expect me to hand over one of Ruby's possessions."

Another flurry of hand signs and Weiss visibly relaxed, contemplating the return offer. She mulled it over in her head, trying to ignore the smoldering balls of amber attempting to melt her ball of ice, before dejectedly nodding and revealing the octahedron of a gem she'd sequestered so many weeks ago.

Technically, it was a rhombic fusil but she didn't think anyone else cared. She'd spend a few minutes procrastinating on Wikipedia to find that out.

A piercing howl erupted once she handed it over, forcing the occupants of the craft to wince and clamps their ears shut. Qrow's Semblance wrapped tighter around his legs as black smoke poured out of the gem in Neo's hands and coalesced into the nightmarish form of a Grimm until he was left gaping at the small form of a black wolf rather than a Beowolf.

The pup's glowing vermilion eyes rapidly wandered around the fuselage, growling once of the person who now held possession of its home. Any further action was quickly abated when Yang picked it up by the scruff of its neck and glared at it. The puppy whined pitifully and pawed at her face for her to release it.

Pouting apparently worked on at least one member of the team and Yang released the little Grimm into Blake's tender hold. The puppy growled one last time before succumbing to her pets and settling down, unconcerned with Qrow twitching slightly.

A convergence of mirror shards and prisms on Neo's palm revealed a golden ticket with black writing on it. She handed it over to Weiss, getting a scowl from the prim princess who quickly read it and tucked it into her pouch.

"It better be a helluva dance or I'm going to steal something from you," Neo responded with a cocky glare. "I'm still looking for the two tons of Grav Dust you stole a decade ago and I'm getting close." The mercenary scoffed, obviously not believing her. "Though I'm still trying to figure out how you managed to move it elsewhere."

"You know, this really isn't what I was expecting when you went to apprehend her," Qrow remarked, too engrossed with the odd subspecies of a Beowolf without any visible faceplate, armor, or claws. It sat comfortably, eyes closed and growling away contently. "I know I should be angry at her."

"Grimm eat negative emotions. She made the grieving process trivially quick, but it let us get work done." Qrow narrowed his eyes, no doubt quietly updating his assumptions about them during their time in isolation. They made sure to stay out of the public news and Blake made sure to check every site available after the House fiasco. Winter didn't intrude on her childhood home at all to respect her sister's choice and could give nothing to him.

Yang lightly smacked Neo on her head, understanding the many little quirks she'd happily abuse Qrow with if she'd let her and got a playful bite in return.

"Why do you even have a pet Grimm?" He cautiously extended a hand to touch the Grimm, getting a nose wiggle and sluggish opening eyes as a response. Weiss just smiled kindly at the scene. If the current Commander didn't react violently to Rei then maybe they wouldn't have to keep her secluded in their ship.

"Ruby sacrificed one of her eyes and got this girl in return," Yang answered, filling in the gaps in their history. "The other eye she sacrificed taking down a Primordial Grimm, a supermassive being marking the end of the world." She closed her eyes and leaned against the fuselage, memories of their final defense flashing through her.

The entirety of Glenn had been drafted for the terrible event, every bullhead pulled from storage and flown into the country. The only warning they got of impending doom was the shadow they cast onto the ground with their unbelievably enormous forms before spires of flame and scythes of bone claw ravaged the countryside.

Re'iyah wriggled restlessly until Blake relinquished her hold and she fell down on the cargo net seating in a clumsy lump. She wrestled with the difficult terrain until Yang took pity on her and took her into her arms, her depressing memories draining rapidly until nothing remained but an objective viewpoint.

"Of the nearing 6,000 Hunters we had after Beacon and the Second Great War, only four remained to watch Vale burn." Qrow recoiled as flames erupted around Yang, burning the ends of her hair and forcing Neo into a seat next to Weiss. "Ruby disavowed the few remaining alive and ordered them to Nikos with however many people they could evacuate."

"We left shortly afterward, Ruby only managing to kill one of the Primordial Grimm at the cost of an eye," Weiss whispered, wiping a tear from her eye. "Vacuo destroyed and Mantle in pieces after I tore apart their fleet, Councilmembers and Generals vying for power after Ironwood's death months ago. Mistral stood as the last safe haven on Remnant…"

But they had left, Qrow finished the thought. Nothing four of the best Remnant could offer as Hunters could quell the might of these Primordials. Written reports from Ruby only detailed the beasts, making it impossible to imagine them in his head. To even consider one of Remnant's High Commanders had failed to smite one down, was an idea he couldn't wrap his head around.

None of the reigning High Commanders could do so much as run from them and pray to whatever gods they believed in to keep them safe. Other than Ruby with her god-given heritage, only Kaldwin stood at or near her level, her abilities granted to her from another dimension she only listed as the 'Void'.

Her constant veil of humanity had tickled Vale's High Commander, a monster having been locked within human skin. The mask they both wore was an odd kinship they shared during the war, Kaldwin's being both physical and mental.

"Do Grimm even have genders?" The sudden out-of-context question startled her more than a horde of rampaging fanboys. Blake fielded enough of those coming after her for her 'dark and mysterious' past, everyone thinking she just needed a hug. Weiss could glomp her out of nowhere and Yang could surprise attack her ears, but hugging (in public) was out of the question.

A tap on his shoulder made him violently flinch away, a girlish shriek escaping and his Semblance withering away. He hadn't noticed his bane move from her seat, but the other girls had, snickers getting muffled poorly. When he managed to get his heart beating at slightly less than a hummingbird's, he took the offered scroll to read her message.

"I was following orders." Qrow read out loud from the scroll, confused, and looked down at the merc to get a clearer answer. He got a cheeky smile in return. Glancing around the fuselage, he got a variety of openly displayed emotions.

Blake, surprisingly, was the easiest to read. Her external characteristics made his observations infinitely easier with her choosing not to suppress them. She stood nonchalantly against the craft's wall, spinning a throwing knife around her finger. They all knew she had many more hidden both on her person and in little hidey-holes scattered around the ship.

Weiss refused to meet anyone's gaze, fidgeting with the orange scarf wrapped around like a belt. Yang knew better the guilt of failing to change her mind gnawed at her during the day and refused to leave her alone during the night. It wasn't about the actions she took, or rather didn't take, but the way she practically rolled over and let her leader die.

Yang, being the stubborn mule of the team on or around Ruby's bullheadedness, had the inane idea they were helping Ruby by following along with the thrice-damned orders. She had been the deciding vote after all.

"And you all know about the consequences of orders, don't we?" She flinched at Qrow's words. Their mission to Mt. Glenn had changed him for the better, no longer following anyone's orders blindly and questioning everything. To have Ruby's orders thrown back at her was a slap to the face. "On who's orders?"

Neo looked over to Yang, flashing through hand signs she barely constructed before flying into the next. Yang answered back in her own flurry, Weiss giving up when they sped past her reading speed and instead buried her nose into a familiar orange book.

She tapped away at her scroll again. He read out, Would you question Ozpin's orders? Yang looked between her in suspicion and then right back to the nameless pink thing he refused to acknowledge. As long as Rei remained near him, he'd remain docile enough to be reasoned.

"Of course I would." He answered back with an almost arrogant scoff. "If Ruby taught me one thing then it wasn't to blindly follow anyone." Neo frowned at the unexpected answer, wiping away the text and replacing it just as quickly, Would you ignore orders to follow your moral code?

"Depends on the orders." He answered back after a moment of introspection, frowning all the while. The pedantic conversation wasn't helping the rational anger stewing inside him, yet the ball of darkness incarnate sitting patiently by Yang refused to stop staring at him. "I already know about Salem, demon."

She smiled brightly at the term of affection, flipping off Yang behind her back for the earlier conversation. The positively rapturous smile unnerved him more than the other demon in the craft, making him instinctively grasp his sheathed weapon.

The balance was upset a few hundred years ago with the advent of Ozpin's Silvereyes, and I had to spend those hundred years hunting them all down. Qrow furrowed his brows, unable to make out any signs of aging on the woman. Yang's previous comment about her rapier had him eying it over her shoulder.

"I loved her..." He trailed off and took a step forward, towering over her and standing tall in front of the overhead lights and casting a large shadow. Re'iyah yipped threateningly as his eyes started glowing crimson, her form growing slowly until she was the size of a natural wolf. "... but you helped Ruby."

Neo's smile turned soft and impish, giving only a slight warning before she threw herself at the man and wrapped him in a tight hug. The sudden assault had him fumbling for balance and exclaiming an odd sound in shock. "Yang, help!"

Her first reaction was to take out her scroll and snap a picture for her ever-growing collection of blackmail material, though against who even she didn't know. She responded after examining her pictures, "She's a several millennia year old person with enough quirks to land her in an asylum, and I'm not sure about calling her a person."

The humanoid thing pulled Qrow towards Yang with her legs so she could pat her on her cheek. No matter how much he struggled in her leg lock he couldn't break it, the unnaturally powered Neo manipulating him to where she wanted and taking in sweet time in paying Yang back for her compliments.

"Anyone want to bet on whether Neo predates the homo aurae?" Weiss asked, entirely too bemused by the two's interactions. Her ulterior motives of seeking out information didn't escape Blake, Neo never sitting quite right in her gut despite all the little pieces of info they had on her.

She got a cheeky raspberry in reply.

Another few moments passed until Qrow decided to accept his fate and managed to sit down on one of the net seats. The pink koala clung to him and settled into his lap to get comfy, pouting cutely when she couldn't get a reaction from him other than steadfast avoidance.

She harrumphed angrily but nestled into his chest.

It took a second for Qrow to pull out a long piece of metal named after him and attempted to pry her grip apart. She eyed him curiously more so about where he managed to pull it from, giggling mutely when the crowbar creaked from the strain. "How do you deal with her?"

His salvation came in the form of a bowl of ice-cream, the demonic monkey audibly squealing in joy and abandoning her seat to settle into Blake's laps instead.

"Interesting," Blake remarked once she touched the small of Neo's back, a ripple of shards emanating upon the sudden disruption. A rush of familiar vermilion Aura raced from her and shot into Neo, the same Aura pouring out until a wave of mirror shards chased it back down.

Neo actually blushed much to Yang's chagrin, a very terrifying thought racing around in her mind until the irrational part of her came rampaging through and beat it down. A rush of bluish-white fire roared across the fuselage, Weiss and Qrow force to raise shields at the sudden inferno.

The hellion's panic was only visible by a pair of widening eyes, her escape route blocked with an appearing knife from Blake. The flames took on a life of their own as they wrapped around the compartment, a blast of Aura from Neo's shields holding them back long enough for her to shatter into her characteristic mirage.

She was gone the next moment, a snarling Yang burning through Blake's shield layers and singing her black fatigues. The reinforced fabric fought valiantly against the impossible flames, Blake pushing her assailant roughly to the floor before her skin could take damage.

She clamped down onto her thigh, a searing pain erupting from between her fingers. A metric ton of Aura slammed into the injury until it was nothing but a dull throb. The tough fabric of her pants was only charred slightly, but the temperature had boiled the skin underneath. A slight failure in Weiss' designs that'd need to be corrected.

Perhaps a tighter skin-tight shield though it would be an exercise on Aura control rather than Weiss' fault. Developing an inner suit to combat extreme but rare temperatures would be overkill.

By sheer luck, Yang hadn't activated her energy fission technique or she might've been missing more than a few layers of skin.

Wasn't like they already weren't walking overkills.

Yang's fiery halo abated once she noticed her target wasn't a spot of charred flesh in their new ship. Weiss hit her to disperse the worst of the flames licking her form after the floor glowed a warm red.

Qrow spoke first, uncurling from his seat and dropping his black shield. "The fuck was that about?" The sudden aggression had come from essentially nowhere after the good-natured transactions between them. Even the temporary loss of Crescent Rose paled to the violence.

"Where the fuck did she go?" Yang bolted up from the floor and rapidly scanned the compartment, jerking to and fro. She almost made it out of the ship until a pair of white glyphs trapped her legs and stopped her momentum, again sending her crashing down.

"She's an SS-ranked Aura user," Weiss stated dully, well aware Yang could struggle endlessly against her hold and she'd get nowhere. "She's halfway to Cassus at this point," Yang made to interrupt but Weiss just stared her down, "and we don't have a sensor to track her."

"You, ugh, you…" The juggernaut struggled with her words, not lost for them but also not able to string them together coherently. "She just used the Aura of our only sensor! You saw it, I say it, Blake saw it!"

"Your point being?" Her jaw dropped slightly, Blake popping a piece of a cookie she got from Ruby's go-bag. She had one made regardless of her status, mostly to maintain Crescent Rose, and also because of cookies. "We don't know squat about her. She could've stolen it, could've replicated it, fuck, she could be screwing with us to get a reaction because she'd do exactly that for shits and giggles."

The monkey at the helm of Yang's reactions got brutally crushed by Weiss' words, the last blue flames dying out into cooler embers.

"She still owes me a dance at the Vytal Ball, so you'll have all the time after that to string her up and ask her questions." The emphasis on that last word made her think she wouldn't get any answers, but she could raid Beacon's ice cream stash to either bribe or torture her.

"And if she doesn't show up?"

"She's not going to avoid the bloodbath waiting for her at Mt. Glenn," Weiss answered and Yang nodded with a twist to her lip.

"I'm never going to understand you S-ranks," Qrow spoke after a lull in the conversation, finally relaxing completely. "I'm perfectly content with my lowly A-rank status. None of you are sane to start with."

"Most S-ranks find a quirk or a hobby to cope with the stress of the lifestyle. Me with smut, Blake with spying, Yang with engineering, Ozpin with cocoa." Weiss rattled off the top of her head. "The only S-rank that didn't have one was Ruby, and well, she wasn't the epitome of sanity."

Qrow smartly chose not to reply to that.


The cocoa in Ozpin's mug spilled out and onto the ground, the half dozen teams milling around the landing pad freezing in place. A palatable danger stirred in the air, all the Hunters sharing terrified looks out of the corners of their eyes, finding comfort in their sheathed weapons.

The Ruby took off behind the disembarked team, a familiar head with feline ears piloting it to the hangars. The blast of air further disturbed more hot chocolate from the mug, Ozpin too engrossed and shocked to worry about his precious drink.

"What did you do?" Ozpin ground out, chasing away any air of casual citizen life still lingering around from the time before Ruby's death and sending the surrounding temperature plummeting until they could see the air they exhaled. They scattered with enough speed to make their former Commander proud, disappearing to places unknown that had Blake wondering where they could've gone on the flat plains surrounding the school.

They snapped to attention, memories from Ruby's time echoing faintly. An image of her superposed itself over the Headmaster, silver eyes hardening from their usual nonchalance into tested steel. As one they responded in deference, one hand clamped into a fist and placed over their hearts. "Sitrep."

Qrow, along with the few daring teams still dotting the landscape, were reminded Beacon wasn't just a school but an established military with almost a century of conflict molding it into one of the premier special forces of Remnant.

The respect Ozpin was owned as Headmaster and former Commander was a slap to most of them, waking them up to the simple walk of life he exuded on a day to day basis. Even the Commander fell in line next to Blake, Ozpin demanding attention with a terrifying glow of silver surrounding him.

His aura gradually receded during Yang's report, his ire focusing inward and his mug creaking in his grip, apparently constructed from metal rather than ceramic. He stood there for a good while, his eye twitching. None of the Hunters in front of him dared move a muscle, the many years of servitude to him refusing to allow them freedom.

He finally relaxed his stance, prompting them to follow his lead. Draining what remained of his mug, he played with the action of his cane, the twist of a gear releasing the blade. The sheath clattered uselessly on the ground, Ozpin more engrossed in his thin sword. "Do you know what Neo is?"

Qrow stilled at the question, reminded most people would ask who Neo was instead, though the same question could apply to him and his sister. The concept of gods walking among men chilled him, supposed beings of unimaginable creativity and power, and with the small Grimm not there to inhibit him, he couldn't fathom the idea anymore.

"That's a hypocritical question and you know it," Yang replied, making Ozpin smile sinisterly for the first time in recent memory. With a flex of his hand, a shimmering green dome glowed ominously around the landing platform before disappearing.

"How much did you tell him?" He pointed with a nod.

"I know about your little affair with your sister," Qrow answered in her stead, drawling enough to make a stuck-up noble proud. "And enough about Neo to not have murdered her immediately."

"And?" Ozpin prompted, not satisfied with the answer.

"I haven't run off yet, sir." Ozpin smiled at that, happy his Commander was on-board with his assigned duties. Yang couldn't hold back a snort, too amused by the higher ranked position remaining subservient to the lower one. Odd situations made for odd circumstances.

"And where exactly did you misplace the weapon of the Fourth, Mrs. Xiao-Long-Schnee?" They swore the air froze around them, everyone taking a brief look over to the Schnee to make sure they weren't imagining the pressure.

"I traded it!" She responded far too cheerily for anyone's liking, Ozpin looking close to stroking out.

"For what?" He ground out through his teeth, silver strands of Aura materializing around him.

She didn't answer verbally this time, her rapturous grin still plastered on. Reaching behind her, a previously hidden handle of a thin sword appearing from within her hair. She slowly withdrew a rapier with a distinctive swirling pattern etched into the metal, Ozpin choking on his tongue.

"You somehow traded the most unwieldy hunk of an artillery-scythe hybrid, to a woman smaller than Weiss, for the most expensive weapon on this planet?" His voice rose in incredulity to more he spoke, but RWBY took little note of his surprise. The deceptively small weapon didn't scream anything, the etching more like flaws.

Ozpin got a few blinks for an explanation, Weiss gesturing with a free hand to lock him down with a pair of glyphs around his ankles.

"The rapier in your hand was created before this civilization, even before I was born, I think," Ozpin explained, confirming a long-contested belief of the team. "The metal in it alone could buy Atlas and you'd still have enough to partially buy the island of Menagerie."

"The fuck is it made of? Doesn't-Existium?" Better than most people, Qrow knew the GDP of Mantle sat somewhere around ten trillion, most of it locked in industry and military spending. To even consider buying the SDC required more funds than the wealthiest could scrounge up.

Blake didn't know if he was deflecting with humor or if he had already stomached the surprise of learning he lived among immortals and gods, but Ozpin took it in stride. He hadn't, yet, attempted to brutally murder Neo, but his wayward Semblance could be another story.

"Even I don't know what it was called in her time, but the previous world knew it as Damascus steel, the predecessor to modern steel alloys." None of them looked surprised at the idea of civilizations before them, versed in the history of the planet before the Great War.

Few records managed to survive up to the point of the Great War, lost in the many tragedies struck upon the planet over the centuries since the Atomic Wars. With how reliant the old world had been on technology, the massive electromagnetic strikes across the surface had left the people bereft of their information networks.

What had remained were print libraries, but even those lacked most information, the medium dying out slowly just before the catastrophe. Their survival had been a wake-up call to the redundancy of cold-backups not reliant on electricity. The four superpowers still didn't maintain such records, not since the nuclear disarmament of the hidden world destroyers.

Even now the four major superpowers refused to really keep cold copies, only Menagerie and the four Hunter factions willing to store material away from prying eyes. For whatever reason, the different Councils relied on transient flash storage, though crystal storage wasn't too far off for permanent non-electric based etching, at least according to Yang.

Though reading it would still require electricity. A lot of critical infrastructures were based on electricity and while most of them had backup generators, they weren't permanent features, meant to last two days.

RWBY's first dimension displayed the flaw in no-redundancy systems with the failure of the international interweb by way of destruction of the CCTS towers. The young and naive Councils believed in deterrent goodwill: that one critical infrastructure couldn't be targeted because it would mean the failure of it for everyone.

Records of mutually-assured destruction hadn't survived to influence the next generation, ironically.

"How fucking old are you stupid immortals?" Qrow reached for his flask, the weight of it feeling off until he remembered he failed to refill it since the last time he drained it. Yang denied him brutally when he looked in her direction, not willing to indulge him and have him fall into past habits.

"Does your vocabulary only extend to curses?" Ozpin bantered back, still pleased his spymaster wasn't running away in shock or devolving into a drinking binge. RWBY didn't count as he was pretty sure he could throw them at the Daemon-Sultan Azathoth and they'd somehow come out of it with at least one of them alive, albeit, probably insane.

His personal bets were on Blake, but anyone of them had a realistic escape change given how he didn't exactly know how their sacrifice list was structured or how they weighed different mission parameters. Not a single team had ever published their lists, not that many ever had reason to be active during wars. It was solely the decision of the team and under no supervision.

STRQ had been the most recent team before RWBY to have the known existence of such a list, but he still didn't know who was designated first and who was the designated survivor. He could guess Blake was the designated last, but Ruby was the fastest, Yang the tankiest, and from personal experience, every one of them would give their lives to get Weiss out alive.

Only war could ever breed loyalty so solid and unbreakable.

"Weiss gets it from him." Yang chimed in helpfully, drawing Ozpin's ire again. The blonde barely flinched as his eyes glowed an intimately familiar silver before receding back to an intense brown that refused to leave her alone.

"Why isn't she here?" He queried, well aware four S-ranks could handle Neo with some difficulty with the immediately nearby landscape paying the price. No such reports of wanton destruction came back to him since Qrow alone cost them several million several years back due to a now classified incident, so they probably hadn't fought.

Or they'd gone somewhere quiet.

Though Yang and quiet didn't go together too well.

"Between preventing Qrow from murdering your friend-with-benefits and trading personal weaponry," Ozpin snorted at the implication, still carefully eyeing Qrow in case of any undue information surprising him. Perhaps he'd made the correct choice in his third successor. He just needed to ensure he actually survived this time so he could retire on a beach with scantily clad women and unlimited drinks. Mistral, perhaps, yeah, Mistral sounded nice. Yang continued, "she unintentionally used a fragment of Ruby's Aura and managed to escape."

"I assume your reaction wasn't too kind?" Yang flinched and then blushed at his question, remembering the heated moment in the ship. "I've never known Neo to ever 'accidentally' make a mistake. Everything she does amounts to an annoyingly controlled version of chaos. Are you sure she used Ruby's Aura or did it only look like her Aura?"

Four pairs of deadpanned eyes answered him, much to the surprise of the team. No one knew if the secretive spymaster, redundant adjective for the win, had any sensing abilities, but the rest of team RWBY didn't surprise him. They spent more time with the Fourth than any other person alive.

"It might come as a surprise to you but Neo and Ruby don't actually share the same exact Aura, though I forgive you if you mistook the color. A percentage of a percentage point is too small to notice if you're not a sensor." Only Qrow reacted to this, unaware the aforementioned women shared similar enough Auras to escape immediate notice.

His wordless shock prompted Yang to hand over her flask just long enough for him to down half a mouthful before she wrenched it back. She received a sharp laser glare in response, deflecting it with her passive shield and making Weiss abruptly laugh at the attempt.

"We literally share an Aura fragment with her. Hurt like a bitch to get but," Yang snapped her fingers, a vermilion rose petal appearing on her palm for a moment before it dissipated into Aura fragments. "It means no one can ever impersonate her to us."

Ozpin stood there stumped with a variety of expressions crossing his face. He wanted to say something but each word just couldn't make it out, Weiss supremely satisfied the noble Headmaster couldn't find an answer or reply. Wasn't every day he didn't know the intimate construction of a concept he helped create.

Blake thought he needed to keep better documentation notes.

"Core fragmentation and transference has only ever been theorized." Qrow summed it all up nicely, looking all of them up and down for any potential signs something was going wrong in any graft-versus-host reaction. He really wanted some chips right now to take the alcoholic edge off.

"I've lived through several apocalypses…" He trailed off as if realizing he'd said too much in this conversation. Yang grinned awkwardly when he rapidly switched to candid mischievous. "Yang, how good are you at paperwork? I hear Mistral's pretty nice this time of year."

Yang straightened her spine so quickly Weiss swore it creaked under the weight of the powerful muscles. The absolutely resolute expression gracing her face had a hand slipping into hers on instinct, getting crushed until her shields sang in return.

No doubt her bones would've been ground to dust otherwise.

"No." She whispered, Aura held taut in a slipping hold. "I have other things to do than manage the metric ton of paperwork on your desk."

Weiss answered before Ozpin could, happily chiming in for a change. "I mean, you technically don't have anything to really do other than Aura control training," She cut her off with a hand squeeze, "or you could finally put a use to your clones."

"Oh no no no no no no." Yang rattled off quickly, backpedaling until Weiss viciously yanked her back. "Just because you two have loads of paperwork in your side hustles doesn't mean I need to join in the collective suffering."

She rebelled against the very idea of getting chained down by paperwork, content to tinker with her projects.

"Well, you did fail to capture Neo after you self-declared a mission to retrieve her," Ozpin answered back, Blake tensing as the gears in his head turned almost visibly. "Some failed missions need punishment."

"You literally gave us a thumbs-up emoji when we told you." Yang glumly replied, carefully eying the many escape routes off this landing pad. The long drop to the lake below looked more appealing than dealing with this mess and Ruby's Semblance brought her to the edge of the district before Ozpin could be any wiser.

"I file everything after the recent forays your team undertook." His smart response made Yang point to the Faunus by her side, Blake indubitably skilled in breaking into physical and digital environments. A few hours allowed her to wreak havoc on anything daring to stand in her way. "Touché."

Ozpin sheathed his weapon in a stylish display of skill, his foot picking up the scabbard and essentially stabbing it. He twirled it briefly before throwing it at Yang, disappearing in a burst of silver.

The sudden movement shocked the blonde long enough for the cane to slam into her head, her defense system not registering the projectile as a threat and Weiss far too amused at the proceedings to stop it in her stead. Yang fumbled for the offending object, failing to notice the green dome dimming around them.

She eventually caught it after a hilarious few seconds of juggling the cane, an evergreen flash of energy flashing up for arm and slamming into her chest. A sharp pain seeped into the cracks of her fractured core, filling in the gaps left behind from the cataclysmic destruction wrought on it months ago.

Weiss and Blake held quiet gasps in when her eyes melted into a gleaming silver, her Aura manifesting in a visible sheen across her skin. Three of her cores revolted against the intrusion, her primary core powering up in the presence of a threat, but Ruby's core accepted the familiar Aura, recognizing it as its predecessor.

She savagely growled out Ozpin's name, collapsing to her knees with the expected pain of yet another foreign Aura attempting to situate itself somewhere in her already rapidly expanded core. After a few seconds though it all faded away into a soothing chill, all the mangled parts of her core sinking into alignment with the green Aura acting as a glue.

Oh, she hated the immortal for leaving her with his job. Dealing with Glynda alone sent both pleasurable and terrifying tingles running up and down her spine. Her skill with a riding crop reached many of the far corners of the world, igniting dominatrix fantasies aplenty.

It wasn't that she was easy, but she had a certain... image about her. None of them could pull off a similar attitude, not even during roleplay. Ruby had come close to that image due to a lack of any other contender, but she wasn't a sexual creature able to demand obedience with an electric stare.

She instead demanded obedience through a mix of fear and pressure.

It'd be a fun experience to witness how she took this curveball and unless Ruby hid another series of documents hidden somewhere in Beacon, she hadn't planned for this scenario either. The immortals played by a different set of rules, seemingly uncaring for their plans, first Neo throwing a mysterious anvil with all the subtlety of Jaune and then Ozpin directing a freight train into their path.

Salem just waited in the sidelines to throw a moon at them.

She staggered to a stand, still tightly gripping onto the deceptive cane. The intricate gear design demanded her attention but the hum within the sheathed weapon called louder still. She now possessed two incredibly odd thin blades on top of retaining technical ownership over Crescent Rose. Ember Celica sat crying on her wrists most of the time.

When had she become a glorified weapon stand?

"Please tell me Ruby planned this out?" She heavily leaned on Blake, the woman grunting under her weight but remaining her usual demure self. Without the crushingly heavy artillery-scythe on her back, Blake handled her stoically. She gratefully accepted the care, pacified by her cores unwilling acceptance of Ozpin's power up. The Aura transfer didn't involve his core and wouldn't last long, but he'd managed to escape in the confusion.

Weiss pulled a smaller palm-sized scroll from the inner layer of a leg pouch, a cold storage device she recently removed all wireless connectivity modules from. She noted the few different branching routes and clauses depending on the matter of her death and the immediate following events.

She put it away after nothing popped up, unable to find anything. Yang didn't know what to think, faith in her leader shaken. Ruby always planned everything, fielding unexpected circumstances better than Weiss devoured new ice-cream flavors.

Suddenly thrust into administering not only her team but an entire school left a throbbing void somewhere where she thought her core resided. The daunting task threatened to overtake everything, panic rising abruptly and forcing her to curl in on herself. She received a kiss to her hair for her troubles, forcing a watery smile to appear.

Responsibility suited her wrong and some traitorous thoughts pointed to Ruby planning all of this out in one of her ever convoluted schemes. Her ascension to team leader pointed to a greater plan, making her feel like a child getting chastised for not learning responsibility sooner. Ruby's passing dissuaded any questions thrown her way.

Only now did she wonder if Ouija boards worked or not just so she could summon her spirit and non-sexually strangle a few answers out.

She knew nothing about administering a school, but Glynda remained the deputy. The older blonde stayed through all the shit Ozpin did so there wasn't a particular reason for her to leave. Having a direct hotline to James had nothing to do with it, nothing at all.

The day of the week escaped her but she set off towards the main campus anyways, the few wayward teams still hanging about snapping into the Beacon salute as she passed. The cane almost broke under her grip, each and every salute or bow she received chipping further away at the void of responsibility.

She actually stopped for a moment when she realized Glynda possessed a scroll, shooting off a message to ask for her location before facepalming hard enough for Blake to wince. Being back among Beacon took away a few of the brain cells she hadn't already lost when putting the Ruby together.

It blew up far too happily for apparently no reason. She suspected Neo had something to do with it as she was responsible for several of the things happening to them, but Ruby also possessed her Aura now. Or maybe she just couldn't read schematics. No one knew.

The primary lecture hall located near the CCTS tower seated a few hundred occupants on the rare occasion school-wide lessons needing reiteration or announcements when the main atrium couldn't supply. The curious lack of seats suited the entrance exams only and served no other function save to look pretty, and host the Vytal Dance.

The amassed students fell into a deeper quiet, all background noise disappearing when she entered the room, her cane thudding against the hardwood floor. She swore mutely when a shock of bright red and blonde hair flashed across her field of vision, getting a raspy chuckle from Blake. Glynda looked about a hair shy of swallowing a lemon, her riding crop resting dangerously by her side.

The collective student body held their breaths, slowly moving to disappear behind their desks. Only Pyrrha dared to stand, ignoring the frantic pulls from the rest of her team to sit and avoid the brewing confrontation. Yang ignored the accusative gaze, continuing onward to her doom.

Glynda interjected before her. "Do I want to know what Ozpin did this time, or do you just want to tell me where you hid his body?" Clearly, Glynda had once handled a similar situation already, Yang releasing a few ticks of tension coiled deep within.

"He's probably already in Mistral drinking piña coladas," Yang replied, choking up on the cane and holding it out to her. "He technically left me in charge but I already administer Team RWBY, on top of certain parts of the SDC and Menagerie. I can't leave this idiot in charge," Qrow didn't rise to her bait, "so here you go."

She sulked when Glynda chose to push the cane back to her, a small smile gracing her lips. The student body erupted into quiet gossip, sending very obnoxious shivers running across her spine. They wouldn't let her rest after this, already set on hounding her and her team for the declassified files on them. Ozpin planned this, of this she knew beyond doubt.

Let them go out and find Neo, expect that she escapes, blame them for it and write it off as a failed mission, turn it all about to throw her under the train, and then take a vacation while conveniently avoiding the incoming clusterfuck of the Vytal Tournament.

Now if only she had a reliable way to sic Neo on his ass as retribution. Finding her within Vale alone posed a problem when she remained in her most known form, but throw in her ability to change identities and move across the planet and suddenly neither Blake or Qrow possessed the means to find her. Skilled and dangerous made for a great Hunter, but skilled, dangerous, and unknown threatened the safety of everyone.

Hypocritical, yes, but hoarding power allowed the Hunters to maintain superiority over the Council and their pet dogs. Ruby's cynical views of democracy only allowed their organization to consolidate powerful Aura users as while absolute power corrupted, it couldn't corrupt the already perfected corrupt.

Beacon ingrained a sense of personal responsibility for teammates and civilians but attempting to extend that responsibility to other teams, and Neo forbid a region of them, chased potential leaders to hide under rocks and fork over that responsibility to anyone else willing. They all enjoyed the broad interpretation of 'protect civilians in a certain area', and nothing more.

The shared cause instilled a camaraderie but only on the field. Ask them to fight together or put their lives on the line for each other and they threw themselves into ridiculous situations, but ask them file paperwork, decide actions for other team leaders, or lead inter-team exercises and they fled to the furthest corners of the continent, coming up with ridiculous reasons to avoid just that.

Weiss kept records of these excuses back in their previous dimension, but the most memorable Hunter's stayed ingrained with them if only for the reason that only he came up with blatant lies so exaggerated Ruby decided not to punish him for it. His deadly effectiveness on the field protected him from any retaliation, Ruby expecting results and viciously receiving them.

But to have Glynda of all people refusing the illustrious position of Headmaster after serving Beacon for over a decade. Better than anyone else Glynda understood the nuances of administering the academy from managing the students to completing paperwork on time. Half the time Yang chalked up the continued existence of the organization to the blonde deputy, Ozpin sinking into the background as an icon.

Not even a day since their return to Vale and she already felt the waves of panic threaten to crash down and drown her. Nothing they expected was going anywhere close to what Ruby planned out in her will. Neo wasn't supposed to essentially demand her scythe in a trade and Ozpin certainly wasn't supposed to have left the runnings of an entire legion of irresponsible Hunters with the self-preservation instincts of the extinct dodo bird to an interdimensional war veteran with a penchant to blow battlefields to pieces!

A sheen of violent fire wrapped around her arms, cascading down into the damning cane still in her tight grip. How dare they fuck with Ruby's carefully laid plans when none of them understood the hell she fought through every day to ensure Remnant never fell again, to ensure the senseless bloodshed that tore their first dimension apart never dared touch down. Glynda, Raven, Qrow, Ozpin; all of them had lived through some conflict, some more than others, some more involved.

The need for her superiors to constantly test them clung coldly. Ruby, she justified away as her way of caring for their continued progression, thrusting them into conflicts and trusting they knew how to swim. Effective but cruel. Ozpin, on the other hand, threw wrenches when he wanted to, uncaring about the devastation he caused.

The predicted slap from both of her teammates quelled the increasing rage swirling around her, causing her to smile on instinct when nothing made it through her Aura shields. They kept her in check whenever she lost control, Ruby no longer there as a bastion of passive support. Still didn't soothe the irrational ball of irritation but it certainly quelled the burden of responsibility.

Glynda's next words sealed for fate for the next couple weeks.

"Beacon Academy is yours, Headmaster Xiao-Long."


AN: A slightly shorter chapter this month as I struggle through classes. Finally taking creative writing classes to make sure my writing is as good as it can possible be. All on top of taking project-based courses, finishing my senior capstone project, and wrapping up my final semester of college. It's a grind to be sure, but I try and squeeze writing wherever and whenever I can. As always, please enjoy, and drop a me a review. Let me know what is and isn't working. Peace.