Woo for an update within a week!
Since we've, more or less, settled into a routine, I've been getting inspiration to write again, Isn't it wonderful when you want to do something fic related, but all the ones your reading haven't updated recently?
now got almost all of the exposition done with this chapter, and we can get onto hard politics with Atlas, which is always fun, so you can look forward to that next chapter, which, if all goes well, should be up within a similar timeframe.
As always, feel free to read and review, I own nothing but the story itself.
After both men recovering and listening to the explanation as to what happened, and why she was still 27, Summer grabbed everyone's attention by slapping the bed's mattress, and going,
"So." She looked up to Ozpin, "About what I wanted to talk about, now that everyone's here, we can begin."
"Woah, hang on, what's this about?" Qrow asked, brow furrowing as he put his hand out.
"Mrs. Rose has discovered something about Salem, and insists that Ruby, and I believe Yang, are here to hear it," Ozpin explained with a sigh,
"Yes, if they are on the same team the whole team deserves to know, But seeing as one of them is in Atlas as of the moment, I'm sure it can be relayed." She replied before Qrow could interject, "And I thought I told you to stop calling me Mrs, I'm nowhere near that old yet."
"My apologies, though I have doubts that what have you learned we haven't found out already." The headmaster pointed out.
"Really?" Summer asked sarcastically, "Because Jinn told me everything. Ozma."
That line made the colour drain form from the normally stoic man's face, and Ruby knew that he was this close to taking a step back in disbelief.
"Who is Jinn?" Yang asked, clueless to all of this, as everyone other than Summer looked at Ozpin expectantly.
"Go on," she said, "I think everyone should hear it from your mouth, and remember, I heard it a week ago from my perspective, so no chance of you glossing over anything."
It took a long while before the head of the Vale Council and youngest headmaster Remnant had ever seen spoke, and in his voice, everyone could hear the utter defeat.
"Jinn, is the spirit within the lamp of knowledge," he began, before turning to Ruby, "The folklore I made you study, Miss Rose, was because all of them have roots in the truth; The Man with two Souls, The four Maidens, The gods of Light and Darkness, all true.
I am the latest reincarnation of a long line dating back I don't know how long exactly, but I know how it began, and now your mother does too.
Long before the four kingdoms, and even the Faunus or Dust was part of this world, there were several kingdoms all over the globe, and they all worshiped the God of Light and Darkness, Light, as the elder brother, was in charge of life, and creation, while his younger, was in charge of Destruction, and decay, they had made an arrangement long ago to work in balance, even if the people favoured one over the other, they ruled equally.
It was at this time, that I entered the story, as magic was readily available, I was a skilled warrior and magician, who was known as Ozma. I heard tales of a cruel father locking up her daughter, and challenging those who would seek her hand, Seeing this as unjust, I went to save her, and succeeded where many had failed, helping her escape.
Be it fate, or chance, We grew to love each other, and travelled the world together. However, it wasn't long before I fell ill, and died. Salem, my love, refused to accept my death, and went to the gods to beg for my revival. When the God of light turned her away, saying how it would disrupt the balance he and his brother had created, she went to the God of Darkness, careful to not mention the God of Light.
Mistaking her visit as surprising loyalty, when all other feared him and the Grimm he had created, he granted her wish, reviving me, much to my discomfort. In return, the God of Light came and informed his brother of Salem's deception, and as a punishment, they made her immortal, saying that she will walk this planet's surface until she learned the true value of life and death, and killing me once again."
The others were listening intently, though Tai, Glynda and Qrow had lost a glint in their eyes.
"Being as defiant as she was, Salem took from this, that the Gods could be deceived, and if that was the case, then surely they could be beaten, and forced to comply with her. She used her immortality to convince the nearby kingdoms to ally with her, saying she had stolen it from the Gods, and that they could do the same, no longer having to see their loved ones suffer.
This prospect brought the Kingdoms together, and they assaulted the Gods, who in return of her attempt to overthrow them, killed all of them, as well as every human on the planet except for her.
They then informed her that while this world had been a nice experiment, they could not stand watch of it anymore, and abandoned it, saying that while Humanity will evolve again, this planet would be a Remnant of what it was, their departure shattered the moon, which lives as a constant reminder for me as of times past.
In the afterlife, the God of Light approached me with an offer, Giving this world one more chance, He gave 4 relics, Creation, Knowledge, Destruction and Choice, and said that if I should take up the offer, I would reincarnate every time I die, into another person's body, and that I should unite all of the humanity that is to grow, once I do, I should bring the relics together, and the Gods will return to judge, if we were not united by the time this happened, then they would destroy the world.
At first, I refused, but when I learned the fate of Salem, how she was now Immortal, I accepted.
However, between the time it took for Humanity, and now Faunuskind, to re-evolve, Salem had tried several attempts to die, including diving into the Black, waters of the God of Darkness' domain, The water of the God of Light's domain, had given her the Immortality, so surely the Grimm pools could take it away. But it failed, breeding an Immortal soul who only desired destruction.
As I was Reincarnated, I spent my time learning about the new world I was in, Faunus were Slaves, and instead of Magic, we had Dust, and it is my current belief, that Dust is the magic that was once part of Remnant, given physical form. Eventually, I heard rumours of a witch, living away from the rest of Humanity, the Grimm, seemingly under her command.
Knowing this to be Salem, I followed up on it, and eventually found her, her visage going from a fair lady, to one who suits the title 'Queen of Grimm.' But at that moment, when we first made eye contact, I forgot, what had happened, and was glad to see her again. She somehow recognized me, and brought me in, and we discussed how the world had fallen; She convinced me, that we could rule over everyone, using the Magic that we still retained, we had the ability to rule over everyone.
And so we did, for a short time, I had convinced myself, that this was the way of Uniting the people, to the point where we had a family, 4 daughters."
"The maidens," Qrow surmised,
"Yes, and no," Ozpin replied, "While they were what inspired me to make the maidens, and they could use magic themselves, they were not, the first maidens.
I eventually realized that what we were doing was wrong, and forcing the people under the rule is not what the Gods had meant. I told Salem of the task they had given me, and she dismissed it, saying we could be the new gods of Remnant, that the old ones no longer mattered.
Realizing how corrupt she had become, I tried to take our daughters and leave, but she stopped me, our fight had ruined our kingdom, killed our children, as she killed me. She then left to a place I do not know to this day, and as I reincarnated, again and again, I waisted their lives with grief, until I met the women who would become the first Maidens, and gave them the ability to use magic. And if they were to die, their powers would go onto the last young woman they thought of, if they didn't think of any who were either of the right age group, or someone not of the same gender, as they were dying, it would be random, an unfortunate side effect, but it was to ensure that the powers would live on.
It nearly took all the magic out of me, so now I can only do small spells, such as giving the Branwen twins the ability to turn into the birds of their namesakes, as at the time both expressed an interest in helping my cause.
With the Maiden's giving me purpose again, I decided to try and fight back, Learning to live with my hosts, and slowly building the connections between the now 4 kingdoms, I discovered the relic of Knowledge, and used its ability to tell you any 3 things you want, so long as it does not relate to the future, every 100 years, to discover the location of the other relics, their powers, and how do destroy Salem.
The first two answers were as helpful as you would expect, I found them, and over time helped build the 4 Huntsman academies, with Vaults underneath safeguarding them. Using the best-trained people of each generation as guards, seemed like a wise idea.
However, my third question, was not so helpful, as Jinn informed me that we cannot, destroy Salem."
He was gritting his teeth now, with tears beginning to run down his cheeks.
"Understand that I kept this from you, because I had tried with my Inner circle in the past, with most of them having run away with fear, some, even crawling to Salem to seek the possibility of survival with her."
"So you're saying that you don't have a plan to beat her?" Qrow asked, anger seeping into his voice.
"No… I'm sorry Qrow, I do not."
The Branwen was about to punch something when Ruby spoke up.
"I have a few things we could try." She said, grabbing everyone's attention as she looked upward thoughtfully.
"She can't be destroyed, but She is only Immortal so long as she doesn't learn the value of life and death, so if we can get to realize that, we win."
"How do you pl-" Glynda began, before being cut off by Ruby holding up a finger,
"But… seeing as she decided to try and murder her gods over learning this, I doubt she will anytime soon, so, you tried sending her to space?"
Thus gained a surprised look from everyone, before she explained. "We're going to be building a spaceship anyways, to get the Chief and Arbiter back to UNSC space, and it doesn't matter if she's Immortal, you go into space without a vacuum rated suit, you're done for, lungs robbed of what air they have, eyes, and whatever other liquids exposed, be it stomach or lungs, boil, your body expands approximately 2-3 times its normal size, not to mention the radiation from the Sun and other Stars. If we could tranq her after the ship's complete, we could very easily just, put her into a cryo pod, drop her off at the moon, and leave her there, problem solved."
Everyone just looked at her with a mix of admiration, disgust, fear, and confusion, as Ruby just sat there like she was explaining a simple math problem in class.
"Ok, yes it's not ideal," she said, sensing the mood, "But if we're in a pinch, it would be easy enough yes?"
"If you can manage to actually tranq her." Qrow replied, "She has magic, and gods know how many years of experience on her side."
"Well, if the Gods wiping out humanity again was the same time as that energy surge that the Monitor picked up, that would mean she's been around for about… 120,000 years, most of that time with nothing but wild animals and Grimm, and maybe about 30-40,000 years where Humanity was significant enough to be a strategical threat. All that time to perfect her 'Magic, which I'm still not sure about, I mean yeah, Semblances are an extension of the Soul, but bonafide magic, I doubt."
"I can prove it to you right here," Qrow replied, In a cocky manner,
"To quote a Writer from the 20th century, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The Spartan responded, "ONI did allow some pleasantries, what you call 'magic,' may just be tech that runs on principles you don't understand, but you know how to manipulate, just how when electricity was invented, they didn't know what it was on a fundamental level, just that it worked."
"Considering it was a gift from the Gods, and they had called it magic, I think we have it on good authority that it is, Miss Rose," Ozpin told her,
"Well the way I see it, the Gods are rather manipulative. Hell, they even said this world was an experiment, who's to say that they just called it magic so that you wouldn't look into it further; With everything explained away with 'that's just how magic works' then you wouldn't be able to improve upon it and possibly overthrow them."
"But they did try," Summer pointed out,
"Under false pretenses, and after realizing they weren't ineffable, hardy a usurping, and even then, that just proves my point, without the ability to improve on what they had given to the degree that meant they were no longer all-powerful."
"Ok, this is kinda scary," Summer said, "Seeing my daughter foil the arguments of some of the most respected people I know."
"Well, when you're trained in wetwork, enemy strategy, and interrogation you learn a thing or two."
Both parents let out a small shiver at that.
"So, magic aside, Anyone got any other ideas?" Ruby asked the group, "Considering her abilities, it would be hard to bury her permanently, so the best bet is probably Space, and maybe, when you have fully united this world, you could build another ship, and get her back in time to unite the relics once again."
"I think, that is the best option we have, Miss Rose," Ozpin finally spoke after everyone sat for a few minutes,
"The main problem then is figuring out what sort of tranq works on her long enough to put her into a cryo pod, without killing her." Qrow concluded.
"I'm sure Cortana could get a scan on her for that, though it would mean meeting her face-to-face." Ruby told them, "But, we don't need to rush, We have yet to even negotiate with Ironwood about this ship."
"Yes, of course," Ozpin said, glad to change the subject. "We should probably see about leaving for Atlas soon, the sooner we could negotiate terms, the better."
"I'll go see about rounding up the others, if Chief is like everyone says he is, he'll probably be at the firing range," Ruby said before heading off, Yang not far behind.