Disclaimer: I do not, nor do I claim to, own RWBY or any other media that may be referenced in this fic. All rights belong to their respective owners. The only thing I lay any amount of claim to are my OCs.
"Humans didn't do this," Blake announces, standing on the steps of her burning house, with the few captured White Fang operatives kept behind her. "We did this to ourselves. Humans aren't the only ones capable of hate and violence, but we wouldn't jump at the chance to point that out. So why let Adam Taurus and those like him do it for us? By staying silent, by doing nothing, we allow others to speak for us, act in our place, and if we're not proud of the choices they make, we only have ourselves to blame. If no one stops him, this is exactly the message that Adam will bring to the world."
Silence reverberates through the crowd for a moment before the young huntress-in-training continues her impromptu speech.
"We can stop him though! You need to understand that all of this is part of a very complicated problem, and you're asking for simple answers. Answers that I don't have, that I can't give you. I don't know how to make hate go away, I wish I did, but I don't. What I do know is that violence, violence like what happened here tonight, isn't the solution. I understand that what I and my father have asked of you is a hard choice. That, asking you to leave your homes, your families, and come with us to protect Haven Academy is to ask you to put your lives on the line. That is what is at stake though. Lives. Innocent lives that don't deserve to have their kingdom attacked. It has already happened once, at Beacon. I was there, and I saw Adam and his followers wreak havoc, saw humans and faunus alike be attacked for no fault of their own. I refuse to let that happen again, so I'm going. I'm going and I will stand on my own if that is what I have to do."
She can feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes and stares down the crowd.
She jumps at the feeling of a hand coming to rest on her shoulder, and she turns to see Sylvester standing tall beside her.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I pledge myself and my sword to the defence of Haven Academy. I will stand with you Ms Belladonna," he announces to the crowd.
Behind them, she hears Illia getting to her feet. "I'll stand with you!" the chameleon faunus proclaims before ducking her head. "If you'll have me that is."
Murmuring breaks out in the crowd and Illia tries to walk towards Blake, only to be stopped by one of the guards. "You're not going anywhere," he growls out.
"No, let her come," Blake orders.
Illia walks towards her and Blake grabs her hand.
"We need every set of hands we can get," Blake says with a soft smile gracing her face.
A chorus of faunus in the crowd begin proclaiming that they will join the fight, and the two girls watch with a spark of hope renewed in their eyes.
"We better get planning then," Sun says as he steps up to the others.
"Agreed. We still need to figure out when the attack is going to be so that we can get there in time to thwart it," she sighs.
Illia's eyes go wide. "You don't know? We don't have long. A week, maybe two… I couldn't get all the information, I wasn't trusted with it, but…"
Sun and Blake exchange glances. "We need to get moving," Sun exclaims.
"How are we going to move all these people though?" Sylvester asks.
Blake takes the liberty of answering that. "Sun and I know a captain that owes us a favour."
"I didn't think I would see you here," Raven manages to say.
"Well, after you left us, I didn't think I would ever see you again. I guess we were both wrong, weren't we?" Tai spits out.
Yang just rolls her eyes. "Let's cut to the chase. We are here for two reasons and two reasons only."
"And those are?" the bandit leader asks.
Tai opens his satchel bag and pulls out a pile of papers. "One, signing these divorce papers."
"And two," continues Yang, "Sending us to Qrow via your semblance."
Raven takes a step back.
"You… want a divorce?"
"Why the shock, Raven? You left me, you left our daughter. You said it yourself, you didn't think you would see me here. After you left, I found love again, with Summer, but because I couldn't find you then to sign these damn papers, she died before we could get married. Why wouldn't I want a divorce?" the blond counters, venom dripping from every word.
"Frankly, I'd settle on us getting sent to Qrow," Yang tacks on at the end.
"Why do you want to go to him," Raven asks, trying to maintain control of the conversation.
"Because frankly, I'd rather be with him than with either of you. He's the one who raised me after all. Plus, he has my long-lost little sister with him, I'm more than eager reunite with her again," she answers blasély.
"If she's with your uncle, then she's already a lost cause. Ozpin is not the man you think he is, and you'd be a fool for trusting him. Believe me, I trusted him once too," Raven snarks.
"I don't care what you think," the younger woman states.
"Your choice is your own. All I'm suggesting is that instead of getting wrapped up in something too big for you, for any of us, that maybe you take a moment to wonder if you're already where you belong," Raven offered.
Yang snorts. "As if I'd stay here with you. You may have given birth to me, but you didn't raise me. Qrow did. So, work something out with Dad about those divorce papers, open up a portal to Qrow, and we'll be on our way."
A crash across the camp echoes through the crowd and a towering set of white armour holding a massive sword stomps on one of the tents, revealing a rather dirt-covered Weiss Schnee.
"Weiss?!"
"Yang?"
"What is that?" Yang exclaims, pointing to the suit of armour.
"Never mind that, what are you doing here with him? I thought you hated him!" Weiss asks, pointing at Tai.
"Well, that's my mom," Yang starts, pointing at Raven and ignoring Tai's affronted 'hey!', "And she can send us to Qrow and the others."
Weiss's eyes go wide. "Your mom kidnapped me?!"
Yang whirls around to face her mother. "YOU KIDNAPPED HER?!"
"ENOUGH!" Raven's right-hand woman, Vernal, yells, a bolt of lightning flying from the weapon she stole from Weiss.
"Thank you," Raven concedes before addressing the camp at large. "If you people don't keep it together, this place will be crawling with grimm. Vernal, give the girl her weapon back."
"But-"
"That wasn't a request, that was an order," the bandit leader snaps out.
Vernal ducks her head in apology before throwing the rapier to Weiss, who catches it deftly.
"You three, in my tent. Now," Raven orders. "If you're going after Qrow, then you need to know the truth."
With that, the woman goes inside her tent, and the others follow. After Vernal has served some tea and left them, Raven speaks up again.
"So, the truth… well, the truth is that truth is hard to come by. A story of victory for one, is a story of defeat for another. I'm sure your uncle has told you a lot of stories, and by now has told a lot of stories to your supposed long-lost sister," Raven muses.
"He's never given me a reason to doubt him before," Yang tells her mother.
"That doesn't mean those reasons don't exist. These days, Qrow likes to edit his past. While you and your squad may be the poster children for the hunter academies – varied motives but all wanting to make the world a better place – your uncle and I were never like that. The tribe needed a way to combat our largest threat, the huntsmen, and what better way to learn to fight them, than to send your own to learn from them?" Raven drawls, swirling the tea around in her cup. "Qrow and I were the perfect age, so off we were sent to learn how to kill huntsmen."
The two girls gasp and Tai sends a glare Raven's way.
"What? Didn't want your daughter knowing the truth, Tai?" Raven asks.
"Just get on with it," he snaps at her.
"The entrance exams were easy, anyone with real world experience would be able to pass it without any trouble. Qrow and I weren't just anyone though, we were two of the best if not the best when we arrived. Because of that, we caught Ozpin's attention. Even after STRQ was formed, I could tell he was watching us. I thought it was because he knew, but instead, it was STRQ he was interested in," she tells them.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Weiss asks.
Tai interrupts before Raven can explain.
"We got given near constant attention, extra training missions, whenever we broke the rules and got into more trouble than we should have, a blind eye was turned. Ozpin couldn't condone breaking rules or anything like that, but he gave us all the room we wanted to get stronger and stronger," he recounts.
"Do you think?" Yang trails off as she looks at Weiss.
"Mountain Glenn. Our Self-assigned, even being on a squad. Not to mention Rosa teaching us Grimm Anatomy by herself," Weiss lists off.
"Sounds like he was interested in RRAYNNBW as well. Doesn't overly surprise me. How much do you know about him though? About his past?" Raven presses on.
"He was… a prodigy, wasn't he? One of the youngest to be appointed headmaster to an academy," Weiss ventures.
Tai breathes out deeply as Raven scoffs. "That's how he planned it. The man you know as Ozpin designed those schools. He has followers inside every academy on the planet, followers loyal to him and no one else."
Yang traces the foot of her teacup. "That doesn't make sense. How… why would someone do that?"
Raven leans back with a tired look on her face. "Old man Oz has a secret, one that could spread fear across the world if it got out. He told it to our team, and once we knew, there was no going back. I needed more, more information… with every discovery I made, the world only grew more horrifying."
"What's the big secret then? What is so crazy that we don't know?" Yang asks.
"The grimm have a master, named Salem," Tai says quietly.
Raven continues his statement. "She can't be stopped, she can't be reasoned with, and she will not rest until humanity crumbles at her feet."
"And you're working with them," Weiss reminds her.
While Yang and Tai look at the Atlesian in shock, Raven just sips her tea.
"I heard you talking to them. You can't deny it," Weiss points out.
"If you hand us over to them," Tai begins ranting. Raven holds up a hand placatingly.
"I have little choice but to help them. If I don't, they have the means to destroy my tribe. Going against Salem is idiotic, foolish, and I am anything but a fool. But, that doesn't mean I want to help them. I know more than you realise. Not just what I've been told, but things I've seen with my own eyes. I know that Salem is the leader of the grimm. I know people who have come back from the dead. I know that magic is real, and I can prove it," Raven tells them.
"Can we get back on topic, Raven?" Tai presses.
"What topic?" she asks sweetly only to be answered with a growl from her husband.
It's going to be a long evening.
The scroll on the bedside table beeps.
23:00 it reads.
Qrow groans as he sits up in bed and fumbles around striping off his bed clothes and putting on something suitable for twelve hours of watch duty, midnight to midday.
At 23:10, he goes out to the terrace, a coffee in one hand and scroll in the other as he reads through the updates Rosa and Oscar have sent him while he was asleep.
Nothing. No suspicious behaviour around Haven. A quiet night.
A few minutes of uninterrupted silence before he hears the warping sound of his sister's portals behind him. He drops his coffee, the mug clattering to the ground, as he reaches for his weapon and points it at the portal.
Then, the sound of a motorbike comes through, shortly followed by a black motorbike riding through slowly with one Taiyang Xiao Long in the seat. Behind him on a yellow and black motorbike is Yang and Weiss.
Hesitantly, he puts away Harbinger, and walks towards them.
"Hey Uncle Qrow," Yang says as she kills the engine of her bike. "Long time no see?"
Launching forward, the man wraps his arms around his niece in a hug.
She burrows her face into his shoulder as she clings to him tightly. He lifts one hand to stroke her hair in long soft strokes.
"I missed you," she whispers.
"I missed you too kiddo. I'm so sorry I had to leave, I wish I could have stayed, but… Oh I missed you so much," he murmurs into her hair.
"I know. I forgive you," she murmurs back, the words reverberating through his chest.
He pulls back without warning and looks her over, one hand running over her prosthetic.
"You doing good? How did Tai do with keeping you alive? He didn't mess up too badly did he?" the red eyed man asks.
"Hey!" Tai remarks.
"He was fine," Yang admits, "and I'm getting better. I'm not 100% yet, but I'm getting there."
"You did a damn good job raising her, Qrow, you should be proud of her," Tai tells his ex-brother-in-law.
Qrow smiles at him warmly. "I am, every single day." A moment passes before a thought strikes him. "Wait, what are you guys doing here?"
"It's late. Can we get some sleep?" Weiss slurs as she tries to get off the bike.
"Right, of course. Tai turn off the engine, you'll wake up everyone except Maria with that racket, and Mercury needs his bloody sleep because he has patrol at oh-six-hundred," Qrow orders to which Tai obeys.
With that, Qrow leads them inside, directs Tai to crash on the spare bed in Qrow's room, and the two girls to the spare room.
23:45, only fifteen minutes for Qrow to get to patrol, so he scrawls a quick note for the others in the house about their new housemates, before he transforms into his bird form and flies towards the patrol meet-up spot.
"Haaaaaaa, good to see you Qrow. Your turn for patrol," Oscar yawns.
"Stay safe on your way back," Rosa tells him.
"Yep, sure Rosa," he murmurs as he goes off, eyes flashing gold for a moment as Ozpin takes control to get them back to the house.
"Have I missed anything since your last message?" Qrow asks.
"Nope. Quiet night. Not even a single drunk loitering. Had to wake Oscar up a few times he was so bored," she reports.
"Well, things have… there's been a development back at the house," Qrow admits.
"What sort of development?"
"Yang, Weiss, and your dad arrived less than an hour ago. Haven't gotten the full story out of them yet, they were pretty tired, but I figured I would let you know," he tells her.
"Why do I feel like Abuela is going to smack my father over the head for his alcoholism?" Rosa jokes.
"He was sober actually. He quit drinking a bit after Yang lost her arm. I managed to convince him," Qrow corrects. "I… also told him about you being alive."
"You what?"
"Look-"
"Qrow, that wasn't your choice to make. I wasn't ready for him to know, and you just, took that choice away from me?" she splutters, face turning red and volume raising a tad higher than he would have preferred in their current environment.
"Rosa," he tries to placate her.
"No, how could you?" she asks.
"He deserved to know, Rosa, and I did it to help convince him to stop drinking," he begins to explain.
"That just makes it worse!" she hisses out. "I'm not just something you can use as incentive for change. You using me like that, that makes him quitting drinking not him deciding to do the right thing, but him deciding that he wants to butt into my life the way he's been trying to with Yang for so long. That's just… argh!"
"Rosa…"
"What?!" she snaps at him.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Her only reply is a glare hidden by her goggles.
"I'm sorry that I didn't ask for your permission on the matter, but I was only doing what I thought was best. I realise now that I did the wrong thing, but I can't undo the past. I just thought I would tell you that he knows so you don't get a shock when you see him in the morning."
Her hands reach up to rub at her temples before she sighs.
"Fine. Thank you for telling me, but I don't quite forgive you for telling him in the first place," she tells him.
"Raven, they've returned," Vernal announces softly at the entrance of the large tent.
The older woman sighs and stashes the photo frame she was holding under her pillow.
"Very well."
Raven stands up, pulls on her helmet, and leaves her tent, walking down the steps to be level with Salem's followers.
"It's time for you to make your choice, Raven. Time is beginning to run out," Cinder rasps.
"Of course. Vernal and I will help you in your task on one condition," Raven states.
"You aren't exactly in a position to be arguing," Tyrian drawls, his stinger raising into the air.
Behind her helmet, Raven glares at him. "I want my brother dead." Her voice doesn't betray her.
"Qrow?" Watts asks.
"He's one of Ozpin's closest confidants, he'll be the first one Oz's reincarnation looks for, so getting him out of the picture benefits all of us," Raven reasons.
"I fail to see how your brother's death would benefit you," the scientist muses.
"He's shunned our tribe too many times and he's going to become more of a problem for me if he's left alive. Of course, he doesn't trust me to arrange a 'peaceful' meeting between us, rightly so. He's a fool but a smart one. He should trust Oz's other lieutenants though. So, if you order Lionheart to lure him into an ambush, we all get what we want," the bandit woman explains slowly.
Watts falters for a moment before speaking. "Let's pause, for a moment. We have one objective, the Relic of Knowledge. Qrow Branwen is an individual we would very much like dead, but he isn't the sort to go quietly or without a fight. We have the advantage here of being able to walk straight in and out, no resistance and no one the wiser. Fighting your brother throws that advantage out the window."
Raven snorts. "He's good, but he isn't that good. Against all of us? A fight between him and I may end in a stalemate, but with two maidens and a serial killer also fighting against him? It would be over in a heartbeat."
"If we leave that school a bloody mess, it will draw the attention of the authorities. The entirety of Mistral will be on high alert which would ruin the White Fang's attack on the CCT tower!" Watts rages.
Cinder rolls her one good eye. "We wait. We wait until the full moon when the Fang attacks. Leo lures Qrow to Haven the same night Adam and Hazel arrive with the Fang. Once Qrow is dead, the school is demolished along with any evidence of our involvement." She lets out a shuddering cough and Emerald steps forward pulling a bottle of water from her pockets.
"Ma'am, you have to take it easy," she green-haired woman murmurs softly.
"What's wrong, maiden? Got ashes in your throat?" Raven mocks.
"The Grimm Reaper managed to deal a great deal of damage on Cinder the night Beacon fell. While her recovery thus far has been remarkable, permanent damage was dealt to her vocal cords," Watts explains with a wave of a hand. "But Cinder, don't think I don't see what you're after. If this falls to pieces because of your petty grudge of that man keeping you from your powers, I will not be taking the blame."
"Then… what… are... you… worried… about?" Cinder manages to rasp out, holding her hand to Raven.
"So long as Salem leaves my people alone for good after this, then I'll take that deal," Raven says as she claps the maiden's hand.
"Deal," Cinder says strongly, rasp still lingering on her voice.
The two separate and Cinder clicks her fingers for Emerald to come forward.
The half-maiden whispers in her disciple's ear for a moment before The green hair woman turns to face Watts.
"She says: fly home and tinker with your machines, but be sure to tell Salem she will get what she wants… and more," Emerald dictates.
"So… how was Atlas?" Pyrrha asks the Atlesian.
Weiss sighs.
"That bad huh?" Jaune comments as he sets down the tea tray.
The remnants of squad RRAYNNBW sit together, while Maria tears a strip off of Tai outside on the terrace.
"My brother and I managed to mend some bridges, but… Father was making plans to force one of us to get married, we aren't sure which of us, but, I refused to be used like that. I ran not long after," Weiss tells them.
"He can force you to get married?" Jaune exclaims.
Weiss shakes her head. "I'm technically too old for him to arrange a marriage for, but I wouldn't put it past him to arrange one regardless. Whitley is still too young to be legally married, but it won't be long before he will be old enough."
"Why didn't you leave with him?" Pyrrha asks.
"We wouldn't have been able to make it out, and it would have made Father pour even more resources into finding us if we managed to escape. We both agreed that he was the safer of the two of us to stay behind," Weiss says.
"I feel like that's happening a lot," Pyrrha comments.
"What do you mean?" Yang asks.
"Making choices on what's safer, but none of the options are really safe. Since Beacon fell, everything's changed," the Argus native explains.
"We'll get through it, one step at a time. If there's going to be an attack on Haven, which there likely will be, it'll be before school starts back up again. After that, they lose their advantage of being able to sneak in with Lionheart's help," Rosa rationalises.
"Wait, how do you know he's going to help them and not us?" Weiss asks.
"Mercury defected from Cinder's side and gave us all the intel he could. Lionheart was the leak that got them into the Vytal Tournament," Jaune explains. "How did you know?"
"I overheard Yang's mother talking to Cinder about breaking into Haven with Lionheart's help. They weren't being very subtle about it, they woke me up in my cage," she explains.
"Your mom is working with Cinder?" Jaune asks as he turns to face the blonde.
Yang sighs. "Yeah. She made it very clear that she wasn't on anyone's side and was just doing whatever it took to keep her tribe alive. Can we get back on topic?"
Pyrrha nods and continues. "Jaune and I aren't allowed to patrol, but we've been looking into recruiting more hunters. Qrow gave us a list of ones that he trusts, and all seventeen of them are missing or dead. The same goes for pretty much every hunter that's taken a mission from the Mistral Council in the last eight months. We think Lionheart uses his Mistral Council seat to give Salem and her forces all the mission details so the hunters can be eliminated."
"That's horrible," Weiss exclaims.
"Yeah, it is." Rosa stifles a yawn. "Look, as much as I want to catch up, I've been up since 4pm yesterday. I need to get some sleep, so I'll see you all later."
With that, Rosa stumbles down a hallway and into one of the rooms and the rest continue to catch up on everything that's happened since the Fall of Beacon.
Qrow's the one who finds the body.
Dead on the floor of his office is Leonardo Lionheart, a sword wound in his chest. He pulls out his scroll and calls in the murder before sending a text to the others.
"This throws a wrench in the plan," he mutters to himself. "Who killed you, Leo? And why?"
He gets a text back from Oscar.
'Oz wants to know if Lionheart's pocket watch is still on him.'
A quick check of the body turns up negative for a pocket watch.
'No pocket watch.'
A few moments later he gets a response.
'Oz isn't telling me what the watch is for, what's going on?'
Qrow quickly types out his answer.
'The pocket watch was they pathway-key to the vault. Only one in existence for Haven. Without that, the vault can't be reached.'
Qrow curses under his breath as he realises what that means. "Who the fuck killed you Leo?"
A/N: Welcome back to the Grimm Reaper! We got the fall out from last chapter plus some rising tension as things go wrong for everyone (I don't think Raven thought her plan through at all, but that's yet to come). Just for the record, Rosa and Qrow's little argument is massive grey area and if I was in either of their situations I don't know what I would do but its all pretty shady.
Also, twenty chapters! What the actual heck? I know I've got like, another nine chapters ready or mostly ready to go, but still, this is the largest work I've done in ages and we're nowhere near done. I'm up to Atlas and I'm contemplating whether or not I should wait until volume 8 is done to write any of my post volume 7 content to see if I want to incorporate it, but on a whole, if I can wrench myself away from uni, work, and my various knittting projects, you can bet I'll be writing this story because I am invested.
Anyways, let me know your thoughts with a review (I read them all and it makes my day) or drop me a PM if you want and/or need someone to chat with. Otherwise, I'll see you next week with another chapter.
- RebeccaMagic9