A/N: Ahaha it finally exists! And it's not a two-parter! Whooo
Anyway I sure hope you still remember Chapter 6 because it's relevant to today's B plot. And I don't have a whole lot more to say-yet-so I'll stop typing and let you get on with the reading thing. I hope you enjoy!

Self-Possession

Ruby woke up with a start. Her room was filled with the grey-blue gloam of dawn, much too early to get up even by her standards, but finally she processed the silhouette straightening up at her bedside.

"Qrow?" she mumbled, levering herself up on her elbows. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Remember we were checkin' out Merlot's old lab today?"

Ruby blinked, confused. Qrow leaned over and turned on her bedside lamp, and the light woke her up a little more. "…That island north of Forever Fall?"

"That's the one."

"Thought you and Yang were doing that alone. Why are you here?"

"Well, turns out the old bastard locked me outta the lab sometime before the end, so Yang came back and got Ozpin. Who also can't get in anymore."

Even half-asleep, Ruby could see where this was going. "So you figured Mom wouldn'ta been shut out and came to get me?"

"Got it in one. Yang and Oz are back at the site clearing away a much of the debris as they can. You get dressed, I'll get breakfast ready. Coffee or tea?"

Ruby groaned, kicking off the covers. "Whatever's got the most caffeine."

"Tai's weird green crap?"

"Ew." She wrinkled her nose. "Coffee."

"Can do. See you in ten."

Ruby stepped gingerly off the warp, looking around. "Well, this is…welcoming."

"Think the words you were looking for were 'a blasted hellscape'." Qrow followed her, his hands tucked in his pockets as he cast an unimpressed eye over the stark surroundings, ruddy rock and scraggly greyish undergrowth all around them.

"It's not that bad," Ruby protested, without much feeling. Far behind the warp, she could see a few stubborn tufts of grass and some gnarled trees along a cliff that dropped off into the sea, but ahead? Nothing but the skeletal shapes of collapsed, rusting scaffolds indicated anything had ever lived here. Well, they weren't exactly rusting. Iron would have been gone by now, all that time under the ocean breeze, and this stuff was oxidising an unfamiliar dull purplish-brown. "I mean, it's not like the sky's on fire or anything."

"Eesh." Qrow pulled his shoulders in as they walked, like he was spooked, or maybe just uncomfortable. "I wouldn't've ever called this place lush, the bight ain't exactly hospitable, but it didn't used to be this bad even when Merlot was still around. Wonder if there's somthin' contaminating all this. Radiation leak or a chem spill. Weren't gettin' enough rads to worry when we scanned before I went to get you, but who knows what the story is underground?"

"Underground?" Ruby was expecting something more on the scale of a high-tech castle, especially as they walked deeper and deeper into a rocky cut that was quickly graduating to canyon status. It didn't look like the kind of thing that happened naturally on an island small enough to be left off the map.

"Mad scientist, remember? 'Course he wanted a lair. Plus we were at war. Helps if the other guys can't get a camera up to the window or bomb your research facilities to oblivion. Not convenient for anyone tryin' to take care of business once the fighting stops, but." He shrugged.

"Didn't anyone clean up after the lab went—" Ruby mimicked an explosion noise.

"Sure, your mom led the crew herself, but that was thousands of years ago, and it's not like she dug up the infrastructure. Could be a line burst. Or maybe the place is just fuckin' haunted. Who knows?"

Cloooong!

They froze at the deep, thunderously loud noise that echoed through the landscape. Ruby felt a prickle of unease over her shoulders. Should I summon a weapon?

Qrow regained equilibrium quickly, shaking himself sharply and walking on. "Must be Yang and Oz clearing crap away from the entrance. Some of the pieces were pretty hefty—one of the big ol' ventilation ducts fell right across the shaft cover."

Ruby scampered to catch up with him. "Can they get it all on their own?"

"Well, they're about to have help. Come on, we're almost there."

They rounded a rocky outcropping and immediately had to duck as a broad slab of metal flew directly towards them. Qrow grabbed Ruby bodily and pulled her back around the curve.

"Oh dear. Qrow, Ruby? Is that you?" called an unfamiliar voice. Qrow stiffened briefly before squeezing his eyes shut and knocking his head back against the rock. "Are you alright?"

"Just peachy," Qrow growled under his breath. "Yeah, we're fine! You wanna stop flingin' crap around?"

"That was the last of it!"

Ruby nudged him. "Uh, Qrow? Who is that?"

"The worst of both worlds," he groaned, shoving himself forward. "Come on. We better go to her before she tries comin' to us."

"That doesn't answer my question!"

"Does that?"

'That' being a somewhat sheepish-looking Gem who stood around ten feet tall—a little shorter than Charoite and slimmer as well, with masses of untidy platinum curls pulled back from a face the green-tinged gold of old bronze, two sets of pale eyes peering down at them over the oval lenses of dark glasses. A small triangular, translucent yellow Gemstone with a faint greenish cast of its own sat high on the forehead, right at the hairline, with a second, round stone just below the right elbow.

Ruby's shocked, tired brain finally grasped what she was looking at, and her jaw dropped. She looked up at Qrow in a speechless plea for explanations. He just shook his head. "Guess they were on the same page as far as getting answers goes."

"But—they—she?" Ruby asked, flailing for something to latch onto.

"She," Qrow confirmed. "She'll answer to they/them, but not he/him. She/her is what most people guess anyway, so it works out."

And Ruby could see now why someone would assume the Fusion was female, willowy and delicate-featured with a suggestion of curves around the torso that Charoite had lacked. As Ruby tentatively approached, Qrow matched her slow pace, either sensing her hesitation or feeling some of his own. Either way, she was grateful, as it gave her time to try and look Yang and Ozpin's Fusion over without actually staring.

She wore a sleeveless bark-brown surcoat over what looked like a short, sleeveless cheongsam of dark sage green with a subtle light-catching pattern, falling to mid-thigh over brown leggings tucked into black boots that came up to just below the knee—no, brown boots. A deep brown that darkened to near-black as it went down towards the soles, a gradient that Ruby soon noticed echoed the surcoat. Subtle gold embroidery shimmered at the hem and edged along the front of the coat, framing the high collar. And now that Ruby was closer, she stifled the urge to laugh as she realised the Fusion's long hair was tied back with what looked an awful lot like Ozpin's scarf.

"You guys really have that much trouble movin' shit separately?" Qrow drawled, tilting his head to look past her towards what looked like a huge slanted garage door set half into the ground and half into the low canyon wall.

The Fusion blinked at him, then spread her arms as if to indicate the wreckage and rubble strewn about her. All four of her arms, a second set wearing vambraces emerging from beneath her coat. Her hands had been clasped behind her back. "You saw for yourself before you left. Most of this was in larger pieces." There was a clear path to the door, which was itself unobstructed, but bits of rock and metal and what Ruby would swear was a short length of wide PVC pipe were scattered over the canyon floor. "Dismantling the debris would have drawn the drudgery out dismally. This way, we can walk right in, now that Ruby's here."

Her voice was light and pleasant, holding little of the depth and resonance Charoite's possessed. Ruby still felt like it had gone right through her when she said her name, though, and went still as the Fusion turned to look at her, not sure how to act or what to say. She'd had warning when Yang and Qrow Fused. This had come out of nowhere, and somehow the idea of Yang and Ozpin Fusing felt odd where it hadn't seemed so strange with Qrow. Heck, Qrow and Ozpin wouldn't have been as weird; Ruby thought she could almost imagine how their Fusion would look. She really hoped the Fusion—gah, why hadn't she asked Qrow about her name?—wasn't offended.

But she just smiled at Ruby, and there was a moment both reassuring and off-putting where Ruby realised she could tell which set of eyes belonged to which Gem despite their identical shapes and colours, just based on how they changed with the Fusion's smile. "I'm sorry, my dear, this must be quite a shock. I'm Chrysoberyl. It's a pleasure to meet you. Well." Her eyes darted away. "Not meet, exactly; it's impossible to ingenuously insist that I'm meeting you for the first time given my many memories of most of your life, but from your side I'm certainly a stranger so I supposed I ought to—"

"Hey!" Qrow clapped his hands together sharply, cutting Chrysoberyl off with a start. "Stop. Breathe. Don't keep stringing words together just because you can. It's not a conversation if the other person never gets to talk."

She looked stricken, a deer-in-the-headlights expression that wouldn't be at home on the faces of either of her component Gems short of receiving news that the sun would shortly be exploding, and all at once Ruby couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh out loud or climb up onto a boulder to give her a comforting pat. "Right, yes, yeah, of course." Chrysoberyl cleared her throat. "It's a bad habit of mine," she said to Ruby, rather apologetically. "I…really like words."

"I don't think you could survive being Ozpin and Yang if you didn't," Ruby joked, only realising how true it was after she said it. "It's nice to meet you, too, Chrysoberyl."

Chrysoberyl smiled again, looking relieved.

"Right, we all done with the meet and greet?" Qrow gestured between them, scowling. "'Cause we need to get a move on. Ruby didn't haul her ass outta bed early for nothing."

"Oh, I don't mind!" Ruby hastened to assure them both. "Pretty sure this is gonna be the highlight of my day of creeping through a creepy abandoned laboratory."

Qrow looked down and muttered something she couldn't hear, shaking his head. "All the more reason to hurry up and get it over with."

Chrysoberyl waved her hands palms-up towards the lab door, bowing shallowly to Ruby. "After you, Ru'."

"Oh boy, how did I forget about the rhyming?" Qrow sighed, rolling his eyes as he trudged past them.

Ruby frowned, but Chrysoberyl seemed unfazed, so she followed the Pearl without a word.

"So what am I supposed to do?" she asked when she got to the door. Up close, it looked pretty battered, covered in dents and scuffs. Qrow pointed to a control panel set in the rock next to it, similarly beat-up.

"You'll input a code, 36374, and that'll tell the scanner to look for Summer's Gemstone. Easy."

Ruby stared at the keypad for a long moment, two rows of four buttons marked with symbols that were only somewhat familiar to her. Okay…is it 0 through 7 or 1 to 7 and then 0? I think the upper left button is 0, so 3 should be…

"So you gonna un-Fuse?" Qrow asked Chrysoberyl abruptly.

"Hm?" Ruby could just see her upper body turn in her peripheral vision, facing Qrow. "I hadn't planned to, no."

Hesitantly, Ruby keyed in the code, breathing a sigh of relief when the panel hummed to life after she finally pressed the button on the lower left. A brilliant beam of white light shot out, striking her Gem, reflecting and refracting dazzling rainbow fire. She started to speak, convey her success, but Qrow was talking again.

"But wasn't this just to, y'know, smash up all this junk out here faster? C'mon. How're you gonna get around inside?"

"Merlot might not have built it to a Diamond's scale, but it's still a Gem facility, Qrow." Chrysoberyl's voice had taken on a familiar measured lilt, vowels subtly rounder, syllables a little more crisp. "I assure you, there's plenty of room in there. Haven't you been inside before?"

"Well, yeah, but who knows if—?"

"You expect me to do all the heavy lifting and then leave so you can have all the fun without me?" Chrysoberyl laughed. The eerie impression that Ozpin was somehow speaking directly through her had gone. "Shame on you."

Qrow started to say something else, but the panel blipped loudly and then a loud rumbling groan of machinery filled the canyon, the door slowly rising up and rolling back just like the garage door it so resembled.

"I got it," Ruby announced belatedly.

"Well then. Shall we?" Chrysoberyl asked, leading the way into the dark maw in the canyon wall. As soon as she stepped inside, dim blue strip lighting flared to life along the walls, revealing a short, steep ridged-metal ramp that led to an artificial cavern—a hangar, if Ruby was identifying some of the larger machine parts she could see in there correctly, though she couldn't spot a single intact vehicle.

"Oooh, shiny." Ruby grinned. "Come on, Qrow, we got a mad scientist's lair to raid!"

"Raid?" Qrow was still grumbling as he followed them both in. "Can't raid an empty building, what's it gonna do, echo at us?"

Ruby sidled close to Chrysoberyl, speaking softly. "Has he been grumpy like this all day?"

Puzzled, Chrysoberyl shook her head. "No, though he did grow progressively more irritated as our attempts to access the lab failed. Understandable. Yang wasn't exactly happy about it either, and Ozpin was frustrated enough to suggest Fusion by the time Qrow left to fetch you."

Ruby watched as Qrow worked to jam a length of rebar under the door to hold it open, swearing under his breath the whole time. "This feels like more than that."

"It could be me," Chrysoberyl ventured. "Normally it takes longer to get under his skin, but normally he's not in a mood to begin. Oh! Here." Chrysoberyl took the rebar from Qrow and drove it into the ground at an angle, bracing it hard against the vertical track. "There, that's better."

"I had it," Qrow insisted.

"I could see that," Chrysoberyl replied dryly.

Qrow jammed his hands in his pockets and started walking toward the back of the hangar, shoulders rolled forward, chin tucked down.

"I think I made it worse," Chrysoberyl whispered to Ruby.

"Oh boy."

"Come on, get a move on, you two!" Qrow snapped.

Ruby cringed. "This is starting to feel like the Lamp mission all over again."

Chrysoberyl shook her head in bemusement. "Well, once I figure out what I'm doing wrong, I'll stop," she murmured. "I definitely don't want to draw out any drama."

"Maybe it's not you?"

The Fusion hummed softly in response, noncommittal as could be. As she'd predicted, she had no trouble navigating the corridors of the lab complex, dim metal-and-concrete tunnels cut a good foot or so higher than her head and wide enough to pass for a one-lane road. Soft lighting in blue and green shades dappled every surface, making it hard for Ruby to focus on anything without a lot of squinting.

I'm walking away from this with a headache.

"Why is it so dark in here?" she complained.

"Basically, the place is running on power-save mode," Chrysoberyl explained. "Not unlike Beacon at the moment. Individual rooms should be better-lit, or at least have manual lighting controls we can adjust."

"'Should'?"

"Well, technically, I've never been here before. And neither has Yang, so you might say I only half-remember it." Attempting, poorly, to hide her grin, she glanced over at Ruby, who squinted at her mistrustfully.

"Do all of Yang's Fusions have a weird obsession with puns?"

"Only the good ones. But obsession is an awfully negative word. I like appreciation better. Or affinity."

Ruby sighed, rolling her eyes but smiling a little. "And I'm gonna guess all of Ozpin's have an allergy to straight answers."

"Oh, Heliodor was a bit oblique by nature, true—quite sweet, but a quiet, pensive thing. On the other hand, you have Serpentine, who can be almost painfully straightforward—"

"Could be."

Ruby jerked her head to look at Qrow. He was looking straight ahead as he walked, not even glancing at Chrysoberyl even though he'd cut her off.

"I'm sorry?" Chrysoberyl sounded a little taken aback.

"Serpentine could be straightforward. He could also be an absolute bastard. Emphasis on 'could'." Qrow snorted. "Think someone who says she likes words so much could figure out how verb tenses work."

Hurt flashed over Chrysoberyl's face. "Qrow—"

"This should be it, right?" Qrow veered off towards a door on the left-hand side of the hall, which opened on approach. "'Least this is where Summer and I always found him. Worth a shot."

"Oh, hell," Chrysoberyl muttered as he walked in without a backward glance. "It is me."

"I don't understand. What's he mad about? Who's Serpentine? Is that—was Mom part of that Fusion?" It was the only thing Ruby could figure that explained why Qrow was set off so badly by just a casual reference to him. Though shouldn't Serpentine be a 'they', then? But Chrysoberyl was a 'she', so…?

"I…" Chrysoberyl exhaled sharply. "I feel like I should know why he's upset, but I don't. He can't be mad about Serpentine; he wasn't even here. I don't know if I'm not understanding, or if there's knowledge that didn't make it through Fusing that would explain it, or—you know what, maybe Qrow's just being an ass," she snapped, shaking her head. "Whatever. It doesn't matter."

She swept through the high doorway in a huff, leaving Ruby stunned at her sudden shift in mood. Or maybe not so sudden, if you added up everything Qrow had said and done since encountering Chrysoberyl and assumed each tiny barb had found its mark after all, despite the Fusion's seeming obliviousness at first. Qrow's last remark had clearly cut. Maybe she was just hitting the limits of her patience.

Ruby wished Weiss were here. Weiss would have ideas. And she'd be just as confused as Ruby, without the emotional stakes Chrysoberyl had in the situation.

Oh boy. Into the enclosed space with my angry family I go…

Someone had turned up the lights by the time Ruby entered the room, and she wasn't about to ask who: if the silence were any frostier, she'd need more than her hoodie to keep warm. The room was actually only a little chill, though, as might be expected of the inside of a metal box buried under layers of earth and stone. Something about it felt familiar.

She placed it a moment later: Ozpin's workroom, sterile in the cold light, laid out in metal and sleek white polymers with one large plate-glass window overlooking a vast, dark chamber in place of the two that looked out on the back yard. Powered-down devices reminiscent of the monitoring station beneath Haven crowded the surface of the long worktable on Ruby's right, a long-empty chair of the same uncomfortable design as Glynda's sitting at an angle in front of it. More machines stood silent beneath a large screen on the left wall, but these were more familiar, like squat versions of the fancy server banks you saw in crime thrillers and heist movies.

"Wait, since when do Gems use actual screens?" she asked suddenly, forgetting herself; both Chrysoberyl and Qrow looked around to where she was pointing. "I thought it was holograms or nothing!"

"Yeah, we like our tech cordless, too," Qrow said gruffly, kicking at the mess of cables crossing the floor, "but Merlot was a paranoid bastard. If a screen stops showing what it's supposed to be showing, either it's lost signal or it's broken. And you can't lose a signal through a cable."

"Like using a LAN cable instead of a wireless internet connection," Ruby guessed, nodding to herself; her Final Round 3 KDR had been crippled by lag until Velvet and the rest of the guild nagged her into switching. Which meant the household router now lived on Ruby's desk, and Yang just had to deal with it.

"Exactly."

"Bismuths are closer to blacksmiths or construction workers than engineers," Chrysoberyl said. "Craftsmen, not scientists. Merlot thrived in his new role, but the solidity and reliability of older technology appealed to him. He tended to incorporate those principles into his designs, this room included."

Ruby thought of the rounded lines of the Forever Fall drone, the whole sleek, minimalist vibe it gave off. This place…didn't really look like its owner would have built something like that, and Chrysoberyl's testimony hadn't exactly contradicted that impression. Still, it was the best lead they had, and the weird sense of relief Qrow and Ozpin clearly felt at the thought of having such a cut-and-dried solution to their puzzle really made her want this to pan out. Then all the horrible edgy tension of the summer so far could drain away and Ruby's family could go back to normal.

"Alright." Ruby clapped her hands together. "Tell me what I'm looking for."

Parts, schematics, records. That was what she was looking for. Mostly the former two, since she was once again in a position where she couldn't read the language. Qrow seemed to have the whole records thing in the bag, anyway, since most of Merlot's files were digital. He'd barely moved from his spot in front of the screen, scanning the information scrolling over its surface with a look of dissatisfaction on his face. It had to be a pretty boring job.

For her part, Chrysoberyl was at the workbench, all four of her hands busy with Gem datapads, devices, and a few sheafs of what sure looked like old paper—there wasn't a mote of dust in the entire room, which must have been hermetically sealed all this time. Her component Gems had gotten the best and only look at the intact drone, and Ozpin had certainly spent enough time poking at its remains for Chrysoberyl to have an idea how its blueprints would look or what kind of notes might have been scribbled down about it. She didn't seem to be making much progress, frowning deeply as she sifted through new material pulled from drawers and tugged out from underneath clutter.

It didn't escape Ruby's notice that their respective jobs let them keep their backs to one another. That put her between them in more ways than one, looking through the crates tucked haphazardly against the wall beneath the window. Most of it looked like raw materials and tools: loops of wire and filament, pouches of screws and bolts, a power drill that she was definitely going to ask if she could take home. She'd figure out what to use it for later. Maybe rescue some of the junk outside and put up a swingset in the back yard! Was Weiss too old for swings? Well, Yang would hang out with her, at least.

"Aargh!" Qrow growled, banging his fist against the computer's control panel. "This is useless. There's thousands of files, most of 'em labelled with either project numbers or dates, and there's no catalogue or calendar or anything to tell me what any of it is!"

"Try focusing on dates after Pink Diamond's defeat," Chrysoberyl suggested, not looking away from her own task. "Scapolite was most likely seized in the initial retreat. He could count on the chaos to cover her capture, rather than raise alarm by appropriating a prisoner."

"Just talk normally, for once," Qrow groaned.

"Did you understand what I said?" she asked patiently. Very patiently.

"Oh, great," Ruby sighed, rubbing her eyes. It's too early for this.

"Yeah, I'm not stupid, Chry, thanks for asking."

"So clearly coherence isn't a concern," Chrysoberyl said coolly, still not looking at him. "Kindly keep your criticism constructive, Qrow."

A loud, ringing clatter cut off anything Qrow might have had to say in reply. The Gems froze. Ruby jumped.

"What the heck was that!?"

"Someone else is in here," Qrow said grimly.

"Or something. An animal or even a small monster could have followed us in." Chrysoberyl set down her handfuls of material and approached the door, Yang's gauntlets appearing around her upper set of wrists. "You two stay here and sustain the search. I should be enough to handle whatever's waiting."

"No way. The way this place echoes, who knows what direction that came from? We should split up."

"I know exactly which direction it came from." Chrysoberyl gestured at the back window. "The rooms are all soundproofed. We could only have heard something through the glass. I'll turn on a light when I get down there. You can see for yourself whether I need backup."

"Oh, I'm sure you won't," Qrow sighed, turning back to the screen.

"It's unlikely," Chrysoberyl agreed, and left without another word.

"Okay," Ruby said loudly, dropping everything back into the crate in front of her. She shuffled around on her knees until she was looking over at Qrow. "Spill."

He barely glanced at her. "Should be more careful with that. Who knows what kinda crap Merlot tossed in there?"

"Unless one of those thing is some kind of—magical—" she struggled for the right word "—pissiness signal, I don't care! …Wait, you mean like bombs and stuff?"

"Bombs, Dust, acid, deadly neurotoxin…"

Ruby peered into the crate, alarmed. "No," she decided, "I think we're good. Qrow! Look at me!"

"We're supposed to be sustaining the search, remember?"

Narrowing her eyes, Ruby braced her hands on her legs and stood. "You know, Chrysoberyl has no idea why you're angry at her."

"I'm not angry at her," Qrow snapped. "I'm just not in the mood for her brand of bullshit today. It's like she's got a compulsion to be as annoying as possible."

"Oh, come on. I've seen you sit tight through Yang and Dad's pun wars. You just roll your eyes and make fun of them." Ruby crossed her arms. "So, are you gonna stick with the 'irrational hatred of alliteration' story, or are you gonna tell me what's really going on?"

"I—!" Qrow squeezed his eyes shut, letting his hands go still on the control unit. "I just don't see why they thought they had to Fuse. It wasn't necessary. But, fine, so they wanted to actually get something done before we got there, whatever, I get it. Except Chrysoberyl can't get it through her charmingly offbeat head that she's not needed anymore. Yang and Ozpin are. This is a project we needed eyes on, dammit."

"Doesn't Chrysoberyl have the same number of eyes as both of them? And hands?"

Qrow verbally flailed for a moment. "Yeah, but only one mind. She can still only do one job at a time."

"Yang hasn't gotten any better at reading Gem glyphs than she was last week. She'd just be stuck going through crates with me, and then we'd be out of things to do and waiting on you and Ozpin."

The Pearl glared at her. Ruby refused to flinch. "So Chrysoberyl didn't do anything to upset you. Or make you mad by not doing something. So unless you're mad at her for existing—"

"Look, we just don't get along, okay? She's not just Yang and Ozpin. She's Yang and Ozpin's relationship." His hands clenched into fists. "Sometimes bickering personified isn't the most fun company. She's got a long fuse, but a hell of a temper at the other end of it."

"Which is why you're provoking her?" Ruby suggested dryly. "Doesn't seem like a great plan." She didn't think Qrow was lying, exactly; she'd never seen Ozpin and Yang reach the point of an out-and-out row, but they certainly had their disagreements. But even if Ruby didn't have her entire lifetime of knowing them to fall back on, the simple fact that Chrysoberyl wasn't a sentient heap of aggression gave away that their bond was, for the most part, an amiable one. From what she understood about Fusion, Chrysoberyl would have had serious, obvioustrouble staying, well, Chrysoberyl if her component Gems were truly embittered, especially with Qrow needling her the whole time…

"Qrow?" Her voice was very small. "Were you trying to break Chrysoberyl's Fusion?"

"What?" Qrow gaped at her. "No! No, I wouldn't…I wasn't…" He looked away. "I didn't think about it like that."

"But that's it, isn't it! You're really not angry at Chrysoberyl! Yang and Ozpin Fusing is what set you off!" Ruby shook her head, bewildered, as the stricken look on Qrow's face only confirmed it. "I don't understand."

"Ruby," Qrow said sternly. "Just drop it, okay?"

"You and Yang were so happy when you realised you could still Fuse! And Ozpin was happy for you!"

"Ruby…!"

She shook her head again, harder, refusing. "No! I don't get it! Why wouldn't you want that for them?"

"Because it doesn't make sense!" Qrow shouted, slamming his fist against the control panel, denting it.

Ruby recoiled, and so did Qrow, looking down at his own hand as if shocked to see it.

"They're family," Ruby said quietly. "Doesn't that make enough sense?" She remembered her own surprise and uncertainty on seeing Chrysoberyl, how she'd thought that of all the possible Fusions her family could form she was the strangest combination. Qrow knew better, though. Qrow had recognised the Fusion's voice, known her name and her pronouns and her quirks. Qrow knew her.

Qrow huffed out a mirthless laugh. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" He wasn't looking at her. Wasn't looking at anything. He sounded distant. "You're right, I should be happy. It's good. It's a good thing. Means none of us broke too bad after all. I thought Oz…"

"You thought Oz what?"

"Nothing. Doesn't matter. I was wrong. What the hell's taking her so long, anyway?" Qrow demanded, walking right past Ruby to the darkened window.

She wouldn't get any more out of him, she could tell. If it came down to it, he'd just ignore her.

So it's about Ozpin. Fusing. Or being able to Fuse? Fusing with Yang?

Ruby frowned, studying the Pearl's profile while he pretended not to notice.

"Are you…jealous?"

She thought she might have heard a snort, but as she'd predicted, he gave no reply. So Ruby did the only thing she could, which was to join him by the window and wait. And hug him. She did that, too. He didn't relax, didn't even look down at her, but he did unfold his arms so that he could pat her gently on the back before she pulled away.

Chrysoberyl moved as quietly as she could down the corridor, stopping just briefly to peer into each door she passed in case the intruder was trying to slip away past her. A delay, yes, but a worthwhile one; she couldn't be certain the surveillance system was still online after so long without maintenance, and if there was anyone here worth noting, she'd only know it after coming face-to-face with them.

The entrance to the lab Merlot had personally used for his large-scale projects wasn't far from his office, but due to its scale, 'not far' still meant 'down a long hallway, around a corner, and down a staircase', with a half-dozen storerooms in-between—the technicians and scientists working under Merlot had been stationed in a different part of the complex, as much for safety as to satisfy Merlot's particularities about the layout of his workspace. Chrysoberyl could almost remember a Gem with a mane of iridescent silver hair and a matching trimmed beard explaining rather peevishly why no, he wouldn't consider a gantry or something to connect his office and lab.

"And if something goes awry in the lab? An explosion, a chemical leak? I lose all my work in one swoop, and where will your precious Rebellion be then!? Go stick some pins in a map or whatever it is you do all day!"

There was a distant sense of fond exasperation tied to the memory fragment, and a cynical, bleak sort of humour. Merlot had been entirely prescient, as it turned out. The only point he'd gotten wrong was in assuming he'd be alive to reap the benefits of his foresight. The thought itched and ached like a fresh scar.

She stumbled a little on the stairs, thrown off by the slight stoop she needed to clear the stairwell ceiling and by the sudden, disorienting divide cracking open in her/their thoughts as

Yang seethed, scornful of this Gem whose so-called loyalty was just self-interest hitched to the most promising cause he could find, repulsed by his lack of respect for life and liberty, furious at the thought of what Scapolite had suffered, at the memory of fearful, hunted yellow eyes

Ozpin brooded, unsurprised but disappointed in a Gem who had given so much of himself but taken so much from others, sick and afraid at the thought of being trapped and used and helpless, guilty over his selfish wish that Merlot had survived, guiltier still for his conflicted relief that he had not

"Keep it together," Chrysoberyl whispered, closing her eyes and focusing as hard as she could on herself, her own thoughts and feelings, the immutable knowledge that she Was. "Just keep it together."

She'd never been the most stable Fusion, she knew that. Far too often, instead of being a coherent gestalt of her component Gems, one or the other of them would come to the forefront, especially in circumstances like these: Ozpin knew this place and the ghosts that haunted it, and Yang didn't, putting her at a disadvantage. And then there were moments like this one, where their individual opinions and emotions were so drastically and strongly opposed that they drowned Chrysoberyl out entirely, betrayed a difference too great for the living bridge of her consciousness to span.

Maybe Qrow was right, and she should have un-Fused. But Yang and Ozpin had both been dreading going in, just a little, for different reasons, and Chrysoberyl had been intrigued. She could never pass up a chance to explore someplace new. Or new-ish, in this case, but so what if she knew the layout? There was still no telling what she could find, what secrets or gadgets or new mysteries she might uncover.

Well, she'd found a mystery, alright. The mystery of where the massive chip on Qrow's shoulder had come from. And she had a feeling that if she didn't get a move on, he'd find a way to literally chuck said metaphorical chip directly at her face.

Fortunately, she was almost there, only a few paces separating the base of the stairs from the doors to the lab. Well, probably more than a few, for most people. But Chrysoberyl had crossed the distance in no time, bending to press her ear against the seam of the doors, which were warped slightly so that there was a small gap between them at the top. They bore the clear hallmarks of fire damage—they must have served to contain the worst of the blast that had ended Merlot's life and destroyed his final projects, at the cost of their own functionality; they did not open as Chrysoberyl leaned close.

The noises she could hear through the door were discrete and repetitive—ratcheting, at first, and then the unmistakable sound of a small power tool, ending any hope Chrysoberyl had that their mysterious intruder wasn't some stripe of sapient being. Well, if it was a Gem, better to go in while they had their hands full. And if it was an organic, there wasn't much they could do against a Fusion of her size, drill or no drill.

Chrysoberyl slipped her fingers into the gap between the doors and yanked, adding the other pair of hands once there was enough room. It only took a little effort to pry the doors open, giving the intruder no warning worth mentioning before Chrysoberyl swept inside as imperiously as she could, Ozpin's muscle memory letting her flick on the lights without looking.

"Ouch!" the intruder exclaimed, throwing an arm up in front of their face. They wore a slim visor over their eyes; not a welding mask, but a device that in context Chrysoberyl would have to assume was meant to boost night vision. Troublingly, she didn't recognise the tech on sight. More troubling still, what she could see of the intruder's face was the vivid, slightly yellowish green of young clover, as were their hands. They were a Gem. Chrysoberyl shoved aside her building sense of unease.

"Well, that at least explains how you were able to work without light," Chrysoberyl said coolly, folding one set of hands behind her back and crossing her other arms over her chest. Glancing up at the office window—it was polarised to look dark from this angle, even with the lights on—she stepped forward towards the Gem, pivoting slightly so her back was visible from above in case she needed to signal. "You realise you're trespassing?—and stealing, and developing unauthorised technology," she added, nodding towards the incomplete drone which rested in front of the Gem, on a rather wobbly stool whose legs were all melted to some degree.

The lab really was a mess—enough that Chrysoberyl couldn't begin to guess what had caused the noise that tipped them off, because honestly what wasn't on the floor?—and the trespassing Gem hadn't helped. Most of the identifiable tools scattered around were in excellent condition, clearly brought in from outside rather than rescued from the ruins.

"Oh, but I am authorised!" the Gem chirped, lowering their arm—her arm, Chrysoberyl decided, on seeing her features. She could apologise later if she was wrong. The other Gem tapped the side of her visor with her free hand (the other still held something resembling a drill) and the narrow screen of tinted light arcing in front of her eyes vanished, revealing them to be a brilliant spring green. She peered curiously at Chrysoberyl. "Are you? I don't recognise your conformation. In fact, you appear to be a Fusion! Cross-type, maybe even cross-caste!"

Which should not be remarkable to a Remnan Gem. Not in the slightest.

"I have all the authorisation I need," Chrysoberyl said. "Who are you, what are you doing here, and how did you get in?" And what exactly are the specifications of that drone you're building, because it's honestly brilliant—no, not relevant.

The Gem frowned, tilting her head. Chrysoberyl still couldn't see her Gemstone, and while green Gems were relatively uncommon, there wasn't much about her to narrow down the possibilities. She didn't have the shape of a Jade, her colouring was too uniform for a Sphene, and she didn't have nearly enough of an attitude to be an Emerald. "I don't know if I should tell you. I certainly don't know who you are."

"Chrysoberyl. Fusion," she identified herself curtly.

"As suspected!" The Gem beamed. "Peridot, Facet 10, Cut 3, I, X." She sounded her designation out proudly.

Chrysoberyl's unease threatened to break out into genuine fear. "Facet Ten?"

"Oh, not Homeworld," Peridot hastened to clarify. "I could wish! No, I'm from Theta Blue. What about you?" she asked, setting down her tools. "Are you a native of this planet?"

"I am." Well, Yang is, and since I can't exist without her, I suppose it counts.

"I see. That explains it, then," she said to herself. "I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I'm working on a very important project at the moment. You could come back later, if you wanted! I wouldn't mind the company."

Chrysoberyl was thrown. Peridot identified herself like a Homeworld Gem, wore the utilitarian garb of an Authority technician, and had commandeered a Rebellion lab to build reconnaissance drones—but she was also being civil towards a cross-caste Fusion, and apparently wanted to schedule a social visit.

"I'm afraid I can't leave until I know what you're doing," she said, and the apologetic tone was only somewhat feigned—it was very hard to be rude to someone who was plainly at least trying to be polite, even if she was also breaking and entering. "You see, we have a claim to the complex. You are the one with no legal right to be here."

"Well, I'm afraid I simply can't tell you what I'm doing. I'm operating covertly." Peridot frowned. "I think this is what's known as a stalemate."

Chrysoberyl twitched one of the hands behind her back in a sharp come here gesture. "I think you're right."

"Hm. That is unfortunate."

Peridot whipped her arm back and flung the drill at Chrysoberyl—and she'd turned it on, too, so rather than try to catch or deflect it Chrysoberyl simply moved, sparing a flicker of thought to regret Ozpin's little relative-velocity trick hadn't passed on to her. Damn. Maybe she should have un-Fused. No time now, though. Yang and Ozpin would be sitting targets.

She took aim with one of Yang's gauntlets and fired, only for Peridot to snatch the stool from in front of her and hold it like a shield, knocking her drone to the ground but blocking the worst of the shot. She flung the twisted metal away and stretched out her arms, a dozen short, single-bladed swords shimmering into being around her, connected to a point behind her by wires—her Gemstone must have been on her back. The swords floated in the air, their points trained on Chrysoberyl.

The Fusion held out her hands and called on her second weapon, focusing so that before it had fully formed it had shifted and changed to include the gauntlets: she held a pair of metal bastons, electricity arcing down their lengths. She swung them swiftly as the swords streaked towards her, tossing them between her hands as needed to turn each blade aside. She pressed forward even as she fought. Peridot stood her ground, her eyes narrowed in concentration as the swords weaved and struck in increasingly complex patterns, her hands reaching out now and again to pluck at the wires.

"Since when do Peridots carry weapons?" Chrysoberyl demanded, hoping to distract her. These blades were Bismuth-made, she'd guarantee it, and Peridot clearly knew what she was doing, but she was no Huntress, and these were not Merlot's work. Where had she gotten them, and the training to use them?

"Oh, they're standard issue," Peridot said breezily, sounding far too cheerful to be in the middle of a fight. She was having to move, now, backing away from Chrysoberyl and swaying her body gently to help direct the swords. The Fusion, though still gaining ground, remained firmly on the defensive. "I'm an Era 2 Peridot. We're combat ready!"

("Imagine an army of them, enough to cover your whole planet…")

Chrysoberyl faltered, a sword cutting a stinging line over her left arm, motes of yellow light drifting away.

Era 2. The phrase pounded in her head, cold fear branding her from within, a knot in her throat like a pent-up scream was choking her—so she let it out, rage and terror alike, striking her bastons together with a sound like a thunderclap. Dropping her guard let more of the swords find their target, but a crackling ball of lightning surged from the linked tips of her weapons, shooting towards Peridot faster than she could dodge and sending her flying, her swords yanked backwards through the air with her.

Chrysoberyl didn't feel the pain, storming towards Peridot.

("Someday the Authority will come back and this world is going to burn.")

"I do not find this amusing," she seethed. "You joke about things you cannot understand, you foolish child, and I will get the truth from you however I have to!"

Peridot stared at her wide-eyed, seeming more shocked than afraid, her swords lying still on the ground around her. "Oh my," she breathed.

Distantly Chrysoberyl felt this was wrong, too much, stop, the weight and genuine intent of her threat jarring loose a deep-seated horror at herself—but she was not divided as she had been earlier, could not say if the fury and terrible determination came from one part of herself and the revulsion and restraint from another or if she had finally locked her component Gems into sync: both of them enraged, both of them appalled, and neither of them eager to make good on her vow.

"Just tell me who you are," Chrysoberyl pleaded, tears prickling at her eyes as she pointed a baston at Peridot's head. Her Gemstone would be safe. She'd be safe. Everyone would be safe.

"Peridot," she whispered. "Facet 10, Cut 3IX. All glory be to Blue Diamond."

("A war with the Diamonds isn't over until the Diamonds win, Yang!")

White noise overwhelmed her ears, and the acrid scent of ash filled her nostrils, even though she wasn't breathing. Peridot didn't move, but Chrysoberyl's eyes darted down reflexively, expecting the salute, and—

Three diamonds on Peridot's left sleeve, picked out in sharp relief against the grey, white, and green of her jumpsuit. Blue, yellow, white. No pink.

Ah, Ozpin thought, dazed. It's been revised.

That was the only warning Yang had before the dam broke, and the wave of sheer wrenching terror it had held back swept through Chrysoberyl and broke her as well, bastons vanishing, form collapsing into a shapeless pool of light as Yang tried and failed to scream through a mouth that no longer existed. Ozpin—where was Ozpin, she needed him, they had to Fuse again, there was so much of her that was still Chrysoberyl and if they couldn't keep themselves together how could they fight what was coming? How could they survive? They were broken

broken

Was she breaking? Dying? She must be, she surely was, and she had failed

can't save anyone

would always fail

Useless!

Wait—no, she wasn't useless, she was a badass! She was Yang! And Ozpin was—

It will all happen again. There will be nothing left.

—not able to come to the phone right now. Maybe she could leave a message? Oz, please, if you can hear me…

But the panicked white noise was like a wall, letting fragments of his fear and despair stab out at her but blocking her attempts to reach in. So Yang pulled away instead, brutally wrenching herself free of what remained of Chrysoberyl, gritting her teeth against the agony of her mind tearing apart from Ozpin's.

She got to her feet shakily, disoriented and sick like a concussed organic, looking around. She could only have been out of it for a few seconds tops—Qrow and Ruby weren't here yet—but in that time Peridot had really booked it. The smaller Gem was climbing a collapsed shelving unit with the aid of her swords, reaching behind herself even as she moved to deposit a small, boxy device into the broad, triangular-cut Gemstone on her back.

"Hey!" Yang shouted. Peridot looked over her shoulder, gasped, and scrambled faster, flinging herself between the blades of a broken fan and into the large vent beyond.

"Oh no you don't," Yang growled, charging after her. Her limbs trembled, and she felt like there were sparks behind her eyes; the raw ache of a chipped Gemstone radiated through her entire body even though she was wholly undamaged. She hated what it did to her when her Fusions destabilised. She didn't have time to falter now, though, hauling herself up the broken shelves.

She was about to pull herself into the vent in Peridot's wake when she saw it, just in time: a strange disc stuck to the side of the vent, a light on its side blinking rapidly.

Mine!

"Damn it!" Yang pushed herself away from the vent and let herself fall to the floor. She hadn't even landed yet when the bomb went off, shaking the room, knocking the frail shelving unit to pieces on the floor, and clogging the vent with debris.

"Yang?" Her name was more rasped than spoken.

She looked up to see that Ozpin had pulled himself together, if only in the most literal sense. He was trembling, barely standing, using the wall to support himself as he turned his head jerkily to glance between the destroyed vent and her prone body.

"I'm fine," she snarled, forcing herself upright. She kicked viciously at a random piece of junk, then punched the wall. She didn't so much as dent it, so she did it again. And again. And again—!

Ozpin, meanwhile, seemed to give up on standing quite spontaneously, his back sliding down the wall as he crumpled to the floor. As if he'd been held up by strings that had finally frayed through.

They'd already been running, but when they heard a muffled explosion Ruby snatched up Qrow's hand and burst into petals, yanking him towards the source of the noise. Probably wouldn't have been a smart move if he were human, but his hard-light body held up to the abuse. The busted double doors seemed like a smart bet, and sure enough Ruby flowed through them and re-formed. Qrow prepared to call out his scythe, but there was no one there but Yang, pummelling the wall like it had personally offended her, and Ozpin…

He couldn't process it for a moment. The proud Garnet was huddled against the wall not far from where Yang was assaulting it. He hadn't curled in on himself, the way instinct would guide an organic to do, but the haphazard way he'd collapsed was almost worse. He had a hand clasped over his throat, his head bowed, and he was shivering like he was trapped at the heart of a blizzard.

Without really meaning to, Qrow breathed out an old, old oath in his mother tongue. The sound, faint as it was, seemed to snap Yang out of it. She unclenched her fists, bracing her palms flat against the wall and leaning there.

"What happened?" Ruby asked, and Qrow wondered if she really wanted the answer. He wasn't sure he did. "Where'd the other Gem go?"

"She's gone," Yang spat, pushing herself away from the wall. She gestured up at a blasted section of wall, shaking almost as badly as Ozpin. "There was a vent. Peridot blew it up behind her."

"Peridot?" Qrow echoed softly, almost speaking to himself. "Little short for a Peridot, wasn't she?"

Yang shook her head violently, staggering across the room until she reached Ozpin. She dropped to the floor beside him, slumping weakly against his shoulder. That eased the worst of the trembling in both of them, and Ozpin finally lifted his head a little, looking up at Qrow as they approached.

"Not," he said hoarsely, "perhaps, for an Era 2 Peridot."

It took a moment to penetrate. When it did, it was accompanied by the distinct sensation of being punched in the gut. "Fuck."

"Language," Ozpin mumbled, closing his eyes and lowering his head again. He was breathing, even and slow, and it made him seem vulnerable, easily snuffed out by any of the many means that could cut off an organic's air. Qrow didn't like it.

"What's—" Something caught Ruby's eye as she picked her way over the floor. She bent down and retrieved a length of fabric—Ozpin's scarf, Qrow realised. It must have fallen when Chrysoberyl destabilised. "What's that mean, Era 2?"

"It means we have to stop her," Qrow said. "Now. Can you guys move?"

"She's from Homeworld," Yang explained, looking at Ruby. "Fresh from Homeworld. Scapolite was right. The Diamonds are coming." Her eyes were bright with tears. "I didn't really get why she was scared. Chrysoberyl did. Ruby, she was so afraid. I—I don't want—"

"Breathe," Ozpin told her, speaking in an exhausted monotone. "Focus on it. Count breaths. Repetition helps."

For once, Yang did as he said without argument, and that was honestly more worrying than anything else Qrow had seen or heard in the last few minutes. Ozpin cracked his eyes open and fixed his gaze on him. "You won't make it in time. She's halfway to the warp by now."

"I can make it there," Ruby said, determined. She didn't wait for anyone to respond, shoving Ozpin's scarf at Qrow and taking off in a whirlwind of rose petals.

"Ruby, wait!" Qrow called, but she was already gone. "Damn it," he sighed, turning for the door. He froze as someone caught his hand in theirs. Too large to be Yang. Ozpin.

"I'm sorry," the Garnet said quietly. "I didn't think about how it would look to you. To Fuse with Yang now when we couldn't before."

"How it would look?" Qrow repeated dully. "You've always had trust issues, Oz. But you used to trust me."

"I still do. As much as I've ever trusted anyone. Fear is a poison, Qrow. Hope is its antidote. I hoped…I hoped we would find something today to put my fears to rest. I had no such hope that night. And I could not bear to pass my affliction onto you. Especially when you were so…so happy to know you could Fuse with Yang again."

"So you closed yourself off from the Fusion and let me think I was the problem?" That almost stung worse than what Qrow had believed before.

"I didn't mean to close myself off. I just wanted to push the fear aside, lock it away where Serpentine couldn't feel it. Of course, then there wasn't enough of me left to Fuse with you."

Finally, Qrow let himself look at him. Ozpin's expression wasn't pleading, but neither was it the fixed, haughty look Qrow had half-expected, the one that meant he felt his actions were justified. He just looked…tired.

"I never meant for you to believe it was your fault we couldn't Fuse. I certainly didn't want to cause you to think our friendship had deteriorated so badly—that my regard for you had fallen so far that we were no longer compatible. It was never you, Qrow." He dropped his hand. "Just a fretting old fool, unable to let go of his fears."

"You didn't have to let them go. I don't need you to hide shit from me, Oz. I know how to cope."

"Doesn't mean you wanna have to," Yang said, shuddering. "Negative ten out of ten, would not recommend."

Gently, Ozpin said, "That wasn't entirely my fear."

"Yeah, I know. Guess it's the normal kind of contagious, too, our 'affliction'. You, Scapolite. Me." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Ugh. I feel old."

Ozpin managed a weak smile. "Now that might well be my fault." His gaze slid back to Qrow. "…Am I forgiven?"

Qrow stood there for a moment, saying nothing. Then he knelt down and carefully looped the scarf he held around Ozpin's neck.

"Ah, come on." He clapped a hand on the Garnet's shoulder and smirked. "Don't turn sappy on me now, Oz."

Ruby emerged into the sunlight and shot over the debris field, slipping through the cleft in the rock and retracing her steps back to the warp. Fortunately, the path didn't have a great many twists and turns, and she remembered the splits they'd taken earlier. Soon enough, the warp was in sight, and there she was: a short green Gem who could only be Peridot, already mounting the steps. Even with her speed, Ruby wouldn't reach her in time.

"Wait!" Ruby yelled, slamming back into her normal form so abruptly her own momentum nearly bowled her over. She stumbled, leaning over and panting. "Oh…oh man. Whew!"

She straightened up to find Peridot had actually listened to her. She stood at the centre of the warp pad, her hands clasped behind her, brilliant green eyes blinking at her in apparent fascination. Suddenly, Ruby wasn't sure what to say.

"Uh…hello?" she tried.

"Salutations!" Peridot exclaimed, beaming. "Thank goodness. I was beginning to think my intelligence was faulty. This is the first time anyone on this planet has ever used a greeting to initiate conversation with me! Of course, this is only the third time anyone on this planet has ever initiated conversation with me. The first was a very brusque Calcite who said she thought my uniform was in poor taste. I'm not sure when she had a chance to lick it without me noticing or why she chose to manifest gustatory cells for the purpose, but—"

"She meant it figuratively," Ruby explained, feeling a little bad for cutting her off but wanting to get to the point. "When we say something's in bad taste, we mean it's inappropriate."

"Oh! But that doesn't make any sense either. I ama servant of the Diamond Authority, so my uniform is very appropriate!"

"Right, but we're…rebels. Against the Diamonds. So an Authority uniform would be kind of offensive, if she thought you were one of us."

Peridot frowned in confusion. "No, that's quite impossible. The Rebellion of the Last Rose was destroyed down to the last Gem at the end of the Uprising. Any Gems here on Alpha Pink should be late emergers from the Prime Kindergarten."

Uprising had to mean the Gem War, and Alpha Pink must be Homeworld's name for Remnant. But why would they think… "You were told the Rebellion was completely wiped out?"

She nodded. "Oh, yes. I was personally briefed by Blue Diamond, and He was very clear on that point."

That makes no sense. "But—we won the war—the Uprising. If you thought you won, why did you leave?"

Peridot beamed. "An excellent question, and one I asked myself! The Great Diamond Authority intended that the corrupted Gems inhabiting Alpha Pink should help cull the infestation of native organics."

"So…we didn't drive Homeworld off." Or maybe Blue Diamond had lied to Peridot, maybe it was all just a story—but the sinking feeling in Ruby's gut told her this new piece of information fit a little too neatly into the puzzle to be counterfeit. "They only left because they thought they'd won. That the Rebels were all corrupted."

"Or shattered! Correct! Although now that you mention it, if Calcite hadn't been a Rebel, it would have been very odd for her to comment on my uniform based on your explanation." Peridot frowned again, curving her lips so far it looked like she was pouting. "But the Diamonds are our creators and rightful rulers. Rebelling against Them sounds like it tastes much worse than my uniform."

"Look, forget about your uniform!"

"That will be difficult. I wear it constantly, so I'm often reminded of its existence."

Ruby took a deep breath. "Okay," she told herself. It doesn't matter. However the war ended, it doesn't matter. It's over, and it needs to stay that way. "Listen—Peridot, right?"

"Peridot 3IX, at your service! Figuratively speaking. I do not actually serve you."

"Peridot, why don't you come back down here and we can talk? Please?"

"But we are talking. Can you not hear me? I can speak up!"

"No, no, I mean…" Wow, she had really underestimated the amount of information Scapolite had unconsciously assimilated over her time as the Record's processing core. Peridot was clearly having a much steeper learning curve. "I want to have a discussion with you. About why you're here and—and if there's any way we can get along? You know, not fight each other and just…be friends?"

Naïve, maybe, and overly-optimistic, but right now Ruby just wanted Peridot to stay and talk. She didn't exactly have anything to bargain with. So asking nicely was really the only thing to do.

"Friends…" Peridot said the word like she was testing it, tilting her head consideringly. The way her olive-green hair fell let Ruby notice it was slightly curly, especially at the ends. It was cute. Peridot, in general, was cute—and she was also the reason two of the strongest people Ruby knew were currently shivering in a huddle on the floor, which didn't seem fair. She could at least have put in the effort to look like a harbinger of doom.

"That's another word for 'allies', isn't it?" Peridot's expression turned contrite. "I'm sorry, but the Diamond Authority doesn't have allies. There are only those who walk in the light of Their perfection and those who serve as obstacles to be removed from Their path."

"Oh," Ruby said, a little taken aback by her matter-of-fact tone. "That's okay. I wasn't offering to join Homeworld's army anyway."

"Then I'm afraid we're going to have to be enemies for now," Peridot informed her. "Maybe we can revisit the subject after our glorious conquest of your planet! Assuming you survive, of course. I hope you do. You seem like a very pleasant person! Good luck!"

She waved cheerfully, and before Ruby had quite processed that the conversation was over she'd warped away without a trace.

Ruby walked back to the lab, rather than using her speed. She wanted a little time to think before she went back underground. Staring at her feet as they scuffed over the ground, she almost walked directly into Qrow, who was approaching at a run from the other direction.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed reflexively, taking a step back.

Qrow barely acknowledged it. "Peridot?"

"Gone." Ruby sighed. "She beat me there. I got her to stop and tried to talk to her, but…she acted like I was speaking gibberish. I couldn't get to her before she activated the warp."

"Damn it." Qrow shook his head. "It was worth a shot. You get anything outta her?"

Besides the fact she thinks we lost the war? "Uh…" Ruby wracked her brain for anything that seemed useful. "I don't think she's been here long. She spoke good Valean but I know you guys learn languages really fast, and there were some figures of speech she didn't get. Um, she mentioned talking to a Calcite at one point? Feminine. I don't think it was a real conversation, but maybe we could use that to re-trace her steps?"

Qrow frowned. "Maybe. Calcites are pretty common, though. Even with how few Gems there are on Remnant, it'd still take awhile to figure out which one Peridot talked to, and that's assuming we could even find her in the first place. Not every Gem has a stable address, or a scroll."

"Oh." Ruby started walking again; Qrow had half-turned away from her while he spoke, looking back towards the lab, and she wasn't so distracted she couldn't read that cue.

"If you're right about her not having been here long enough to pick up idiom, though, that puts her making planetfall within the last year. Someone musta seen something." He slapped her lightly on the back. "Good catch."

She smiled, but it felt awkward and fake, so she let it slip away again. "Thanks."

"…Ruby—"

"How are Yang and Ozpin?"

Ruby could see Qrow wanted to protest, but she knew he wouldn't brush aside her concern for the sake of his own. She knew how to deflect questions she wasn't ready to answer. She'd learned from the best.

"Better. Still kinda shaky, but Ozpin was more alert and Yang was a lot less mood swing-y by the time I left 'em."

"What happened to them that made them so…" All of the words Ruby could think of scared her a little, because they weren't supposed to apply to her Gem family. She wasn't supposed to have to worry about them like she did about her dad, or Weiss, or Jaune and Pyrrha.

Qrow understood what she meant. "Traumatic de-Fusion. Normally, a Fusion chooses to un-Fuse, and the Gems come apart as easy as they went together in the first place. No fuss, no muss. But sometimes there's a whole lotta fuss, and what you saw in there was the muss. That even a real word?" He shook his head. "Whatever. Fusions that break down or get broken apart rather than choosing to split up again, they have a rough go of it, and the Gems who were part of them get to deal with the fallout. Good old-fashioned psychic backlash. It's not fun."

"So…even though Yang and Ozpin are used to being separate people, because Chrysoberyl is a single person, the Fusion breaking like that hurt her and now they're feeling her pain?"

"Hers, theirs, and a bit of each other's, based on how they were glommed onto each other back there. You don't always get a clean break with an unstable Fusion, so you'll see Gems who've just gotten out of one either staying way the hell away from each other or sticking real close." He snorted, stepping into the shade of the lab's entry tunnel. "Yang's normally in camp get away, but I guess she was pretty shaken-up."

"Can you blame her?" Ruby asked quietly.

He shook his head, burying his hands in his pockets. "No."

"Is it really happening?" Her voice wavered. She swallowed. "Is there gonna be another war?"

"No," he said again, more forcefully. "We're not gonna let it get that far. We can still fix this. It's gonna be okay."

"Okay," Ruby whispered, taking a deep breath. "Okay."

They got back to find Yang lifting half of a pitted lab bench off the floor, peering under it before letting out a dissatisfied snort and dropping it again. She moved on to the next bit of debris large enough to plausibly be hiding something. For his part, Ozpin was standing in front of a cracked, sparking terminal, leaning heavily on his cane and frowning at a glitching holo-interface that showed a Gem Ruby assumed must be Merlot, based on context and the angular metallic Gemstone he had in place of his left eye. He had facial hair too, like, a lot of it, which was pretty weird for a Gem now Ruby thought about it. Although Qrow…eh, did that really count?

Snippets of the Gem language spouted from the recording as it shuddered, and from Ozpin's vexed expression, Ruby thought for once she was understanding exactly as much of it as he was.

"Any luck?" Qrow asked.

"Zilch," Yang informed him, sounding more resigned than anything. "You either?"

"Wasn't quite fast enough," Ruby admitted.

Qrow jerked his chin towards the glowing, shuddering bust of Merlot. "What's up with that?"

"Yang saw Peridot in possession of what she believes was a storage drive when she fled. I'm inclined to agree with her, though I can't imagine where she must have plugged it in down here. This is the only terminal that would even turn on, and I haven't found a single intact file so far. All the data seems to have been damaged in one way or another," Ozpin reported.

"Can you fix it?"

"Can I—" Ozpin gave him a Look over his glasses. "No, Qrow, I cannot fix it. It's not a—a stopped clock or a broken firing mechanism. Even if I did have more than a rudimentary understanding of software coding or computer science in general, I'm not sure I could."

"I didn't know," Qrow said defensively. "You're good with computers."

"If by that you mean I can use a computer…"

"Well. Yeah. Okay."

"Don't look at me," Yang called. "Same boat. Motors yes, binary no."

Well, that answered the question of where she'd sourced her information on artificial intelligence.

"I doubt she can have made much use of this, anyway," Ozpin went on. "And since the vent led directly to the surface and the doors leading to the rest of the lab were inoperable and intact, I can only assume whatever was on that drive came from elsewhere, and was brought here so that she could review it while she worked. Perhaps on a portable terminal, or that visor she was using for night vision. There's no telling what sort of technology she has at her disposal. If Era 2 Gems are so different from their older counterparts, I can only imagine what changes and advancements have been made elsewhere."

"Ain't that a scary thought," Qrow muttered.

"You said that before, Era 2," Ruby said. "What does that mean?"

"Era 1 is said to have begun when the Diamond Authority first successfully expanded their empire past their home star system," Ozpin explained. "Or upon the creation of the fourth and final Diamond, depending on whom you ask. The events were roughly concurrent. Era 2 began with Pink Diamond's defeat. No Era 2 Gems could have possibly emerged in time to participate in the war and become stranded on Remnant, and so…"

"…since Peridot is an Era 2 Gem, she had to have come to Remnant after the war ended," Ruby finished, nodding.

"Precisely."

"Speaking of the end of the war," Ruby began through a knot in her throat.

"Yes?" Ozpin prompted, cocking his head.

"We…we did win, right?"

"What're you talking about, Ruby?" Yang asked, frowning.

"According to Peridot, the Diamonds say the Rebellion was completely wiped out. Every last Gem."

"So they've got a good propaganda machine." Yang shrugged, rolling her eyes. "Put another point in the totalitarian dictatorship column."

"Is it true?" Ruby demanded, looking between Ozpin and Qrow. "Did they only leave because they thought there was no one left to fight?"

The silence was almost too long. It was Qrow who broke it. "To tell you the truth, kiddo, we were never sure."

Ruby let out a ragged breath. "But you suspected."

"It was the likeliest theory," Ozpin said, the exhaustion of earlier seeping back into his voice. "One we never dared discard. But as centuries went by and Homeworld's armies never returned…we let ourselves hope. The war was over, and we were alive, and free. We decided it was victory enough."

Yang stared at them both. "…And no one ever mentioned this to me, once, ever, in four thousand years, because…?"

"Honestly? Because it had already been almost two thousand years, and no one wanted to talk about it anymore." Qrow shrugged helplessly. "We weren't tryin' to hide it from ya. If we were, you really think we'd have told you any of the story? You knew we rode out the Corruption inside Beacon, you knew Homeworld was responsible for the Corruption…"

"So it's our fault for not filling in the blanks?" Yang demanded.

"No. But the blanks were there to be filled; we'd have to be idiots to leave all that information out there if we really wanted to make sure no one could piece together what happened. It was never meant to be a secret, Yang, I promise."

"You covered up the end of the Gem War on accident," Ruby said slowly, just to clarify.

"There are hundreds of Gems on Remnant," Ozpin pointed out. "Do you really think that many people can keep a secret on purpose?"

Which was a surprisingly compelling argument. Yang and Ruby exchanged conflicted looks.

"I can't figure out if I should be mad or not," Yang admitted.

"So this means that if Peridot gets a chance to report home that there are surviving Rebels…" Ruby let the sentence hang.

"That would probably be bad, yeah. Thankfully this whole planet is a giant communications blackout. Welp, guess I'm adding spaceships to my list of things to scour the planet for," Qrow said grimly, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Awesome. Don't suppose I can delegate some of this crap?"

"Without causing a panic?" Ozpin asked. "Huntsmen are incurable gossips, Qrow. You don't need me to tell you that."

"We are Huntsmen."

"And that is precisely how I know our order is a glorified knitting circle. You won't be entirely alone in your search, you know. I don't intend to simply sit around waiting at home."

"I'm gonna ask Tai to help," Qrow decided. "And maybe we can think about bringing Oobleck and Pete into the loop. Yang, I'm assuming you don't need to be talked into helping find your new best friend."

"Who, Peridot?"

"Cute."

"Yeah, count me in."

"I can help, too," Ruby insisted. "And I'm sure Weiss—"

"Is starting school in a few weeks," Ozpin reminded her.

"Well, that still leaves me!"

"Tell you what, you can come with us for some of our foot searches," Qrow suggested. "Be an extra set of eyes."

"You know your dad would never let you search alone," Yang pointed out when Ruby would have objected. "We kinda gotta check in with him on that."

Ruby sighed, but they were right—Tai had long since given the go-ahead for supervised Hunting work, but he wouldn't want her working solo. Neither would the Gems, of course, so this was a pretty clear case of passing the buck…but that didn't mean they didn't have a point. "Alright."

"So we done here, then?" Yang asked, looking around. "I'm officially over this whole freaking building. And this day."

"Considering we know Peridot couldn't leave the room, I don't see a whole lot of point in sticking around today," Qrow voted. "We can come back anytime to look for more info on the Record, if we wanna confirm what we already know. I know, technically we don't know if we don't have evidence," he added, spotting the pained look on Ozpin's face. "Don't be so damn pedantic. It's not like we're trying to build a court case against the guy; he's dead."

"True enough," Ozpin allowed. "And I'm certainly not about to argue that he wasn't responsible. It's the most probable explanation by far." He took one last long look at Merlot's digital ghost, his expression indecipherable, before he reached out and banished the display. "No, I don't see any reason we should linger here, either."

"Good," Ruby said, shivering.

By the time she was back in her bedroom, she found she couldn't stop shivering. It was early afternoon—once again, Ruby's world had been tipped on its ear in a matter of hours. She brushed out her hair and changed her clothes with slow, absent motions, slipping on her rose-print sundress since she was out of clean shorts again. She pulled a heavy knitted jumper over her head, not caring if it matched. Then she flopped back on her bed with her arms spread wide, staring at the exposed rafters of the slanted ceiling without really seeing anything.

Qrow swore there wasn't going to be a war. Ozpin was clearly worried—terrified—that there was, and the thought he might be right was even more worrying now Ruby was coming to grips with the fact that they'd only sort of won the first time around. Was he right, and Qrow holding onto wishful thinking? Or was Qrow right, and Ozpin just paranoid? Was there even such a thing as 'just paranoid' anymore? At least the two of them seemed to be on the same page again, even if they were currently standing at opposite ends of the optimism/pessimism spectrum. And once again, Ruby was left in the middle, unsure of which way she should turn.

She knew it was supposed to be a thing, where teenagers felt like every problem felt like the end of the world even if it wasn't. But what if this was the end of the world? Her whole world—and everyone in it—!

Her scroll rang, surprising a sharp squeaking sound out of her. She rolled over onto the floor, grabbing her discarded denim shorts and pulling out her scroll. She put her back against her bed and answered it.

"Hey, Jaune," she said, hoping her voice sounded normal.

"Ruby! Guess what! I just got the letter—they sent it a week ago but it got lost in the mail or something—Ruby, I got in! I got into Signal!"

Ruby gasped. "Jaune, that's great!"

Zwei emerged from under her bed, his back rubbing against the underside of the frame, and settled down in a fuzzy loaf beside her. She scritched his neck.

"I can't believe it. I got my essay in so late—I mean, obviously before the deadline but right up against it and I was sure it wasn't good enough—"

"I told you it was good!" Pyrrha's voice was distant and crackly, but Ruby could clearly hear the fond exasperation in it.

Optimism, she decided. Qrow was right. Qrow had to be right. And she'd do everything she could to make sure he was.

"So Ruby's on her scroll in her room, Yang's in the garage trying to deafen herself and doing who-knows-what to that bike of hers, and here's me about to take off and start the search when I realise you aren't in your workroom with a pot of chocolate and a pile of books. Or in the living room with a pot of chocolate and a smaller pile of books that won't melt your brain."

Ozpin of course recognised Qrow's voice, but he looked over his shoulder anyway. The Pearl was only just emerging from among the trees; he hadn't been standing and watching, then.

Not that I'm doing anything worth watching, Ozpin reflected. Sulking, I suppose. There isn't much to glean from that.

"I'd go for option two, personally," Qrow offered. "It's been a long damn day."

"Ruby isn't the only one who comes out here to think, you know," Ozpin said, turning back to look out on the valley below. Soon enough the trees would be in autumn colours, red maple and golden birch and a handful of dull, brown oaks.

"Or to talk?" He could hear Qrow slowly strolling up behind him, footsteps almost soft enough to miss, if Ozpin weren't so familiar with his tread.

"I try to avoid conversing with the dead, as a rule."

"Oh? Thought that'd be right up your alley. A little philosophical discourse with someone who can't interrupt you mid-argument."

Ozpin laughed softly. "On the contrary. I'm afraid if I start talking to the dead, one of these days, they'll talk back."

"What do you expect them to say?" They were side-by-side now, both pretending to take in the view rather than looking at each other.

"What do you think Lady Rose would have said, if she could have seen me today?"

"That you've got more to lose than anyone if Homeworld comes calling, and it's natural to freak out about it."

Ozpin absently reached up and touched his scarf where it lay against his throat.

"No one can be completely calm all the time, Oz. Some of us lose our tempers…"

"And some of us lose our wits," Ozpin quipped, smiling mirthlessly. "Perfect serenity is the sole province of the dead, alas. At least it's something to look forward to."

Qrow turned to look at him, at that, and Ozpin glanced over to meet his gaze. "Too far?"

"No," Qrow decided, actually taking a moment to consider the question. "It's pretty in line with your usual morbid streak. Guess I'm just a little more sensitive about it today."

"Fair enough."

"So, you think you're gonna be able to read me in anytime soon?"

Now Ozpin did turn to look fully at Qrow.

"Come on, Oz." Qrow smirked. "Give me a little credit. You've been stacking up contingency plans ever since we found that drone. Hell, you've been drafting outlines for 'em since the end of the war. Even with what's at stake, this shouldn't've spooked you so bad."

"It wouldn't have, once," Ozpin admitted after a long moment. He looked away again, readjusting his grip on the handle of his cane. "Do you remember how long it took Summer to convince me to join the Rebellion?"

"You thought we were all screwed."

"I did."

"We were. You helped turn the tide."

"We all did."

"Exactly." Qrow nudged him lightly. "All of us, working together. It was enough to fight a war. Why wouldn't it be enough to stop one?"

"'All of us' describes a much smaller number than it once did." And we barely won then, if it can really be said we won at all.

Qrow didn't have a counter to that. Ozpin knew he wouldn't, so perhaps it had been cruel of him to say it aloud. It wasn't as if Qrow didn't know the numbers for himself.

"And it's fair to say the quality of our leadership has gone downhill since then." A sardonic smile. "Lady Rose kept us safe for over five thousand years. I couldn't manage it for fifteen."

"Oz…"

Ozpin shook his head minutely. "Ah, enough. It isn't your job to indulge my self-pity or to talk me out of it." He summoned up a more benign smile, resting a hand on Qrow's shoulder and turning back to the house. "Come. We have work to do."

Behind him, unnoticed as he walked away, Qrow bowed his head. "Back to normal, then," he muttered. "Stubborn old bastard…"

Ruby: How are you not sure if you won or not? And how do you just forget to mention that?

Ozpin: Well…

Oobleck: It's over! This day shall live on in posterity for all time! I'll write a book!

Qrow: So did we win?

Summer: I guess?

Torchwick: Wait hang on a sec lemme check *shakes magic 8-ball* "Try Again Later".

Summer: …Hooray we won!

Qrow: Woo!

Ozpin: Sounds fake but ok

Torchwick: Cool I'm out, later nerds

Oobleck: on second thought no books. only repression.

Qrow: so yeah that's how

Yang: Oh my god—

A/N: Surprise it was actually also Coach Steven and there's another Fusion now! And Peridot's stand-in is at last revealed: the inimitable Penny Polendina! My precious metal child. I love her.

I spent a really long time trying to justify giving Pennydot red hair, but it just…it just didn't work. Having Penny not only filling Peridot's role but being an actual Peridot fit really, really well, since I'm trying to retain as much of SU's worldbuilding re: Gem types and castes as I plausibly can, and peridots come in a really small range of colours and all of them are green. Speaking of green, turns out Ozpin is in fact the newly-reinstated president of the Not Okay club, which we already kinda knew. Qrow's not doing so great with his insecurities either, and neither of them are masters of communication, so today's award for Best Psychological Health In A Gem goes to Yang, the winner by default!

As always, comments are deeply appreciated, as is the simple fact that this is the eleventh chapter and you're still reading! Thank you so much! See you next time!