Chapter 15 - The Ghosts of Home
"Knock at the door, no one's home, empty rooms and shadows flown..."
"Nex. You've been quiet for the entire trip," Weiss said, frowning. "Are you okay?"
The sea ebbed and shook, shimmery-red under the pale blue sky.
Their Atlesian airship lanced through the clouds, buoyed by the power of limitless technology.
He would have jumped out of the window, if not for the glass that would prove solid enough to stop his fall.
Instead, he turned to look at his partner.
"I'm fine," Nex said, his lids half-closed. Darkness seemed to cover half his partner. "Just... a bit tired."
Weiss pursed her lips, her fingers lacing around his. Warm under the armrest, their hands resting on his thigh. "It wasn't your fault, you know. Combatants tend to lose themselves in the heat of battle. And you had more cause than most."
More cause did not excuse his actions. Losing control was one thing, but venting his pent-up feelings on Ruby was another.
It was his burden.
Not hers.
Ruby Rose was not her mother. No matter how much she looked like a younger version of Summer Rose. The sins of the mother were not meant for the daughter to bear.
"Weiss," Nex said, glancing at her arm. "Does it still hurt?"
Weiss shook her head, her ponytail brushing his shoulder. "Not anymore. They treated me well in the infirmary. And Nex, if you're trying to distract me, it's not going to work."
Nex rolled his eyes. This woman. How very eloquent of her. And so very Weiss-like.
A few months ago, the diversionary tactic would have worked. He needed a better one.
"Seriously. I'm fine," Nex said, breathing a sigh. "I just need more sleep."
More sleep solved everything in the world.
"Then sleep. I'll wake you up when we arrive," Weiss said, smiling as she squeezed his hand. "You've earned the rest, partner."
When sleep came, so did the monsters of the night.
The boy race through the withered trees, bitter fire scorching his lungs. Twin birds flew. Crimson eyes. Following him. Haunting him. It was the ghost in his bedroom. Metaphorically, that ghost was him. A gun fired. Dead earth moved to swallow its meal, the gritty rock closing in. Relentless, even as the boy groped at the slime, his features locked into a scream. Mud slipped into his mouth, creeping through his lungs and smothering his stomach. The boy fell. Drowning in slow motion. A pale-skinned girl reached out, the storm crackling in her hands-
"Nex," Weiss said, her thumb stroking his wrist. "Wake up. We're here."
Nex groaned. No winning even in those dreams. "Thanks."
"Happy to be of service," Weiss said, grinning as she poked his forearm. "Sleepyhead."
It was approximately four minutes past seven when Nexus Shade and Weiss Schnee officially stepped on Atlesian soil.
The soil part being completely metaphorical, as they stepped on marble tiles instead.
A bustling tide surged around them.
Weiss dragged her mallet bag through the station, sticking close to the white-washed walls.
Nex matched her hurried pace, keeping his eyes peeled on their surroundings.
Strangers and passerbys filled the station, their true intent unknown. Nighttime coaxed out the dirty secrets of Atlas.
They stepped into the neon-lit streets.
Nex took a long drag of cold, smoky Atlas. There was no smell like home.
A black car screeched, stopping right before them. The vehicle bore the emblem of Atlas, flashing the white staff on its side.
Its door slid open. The driver was definitely familiar. She gestured for them to get in.
"Winter?" Weiss said, pushing her bag into the back seats. Plenty of room for six people inside. "Not that we're ungrateful, but why are you here?"
"General Ironwood wants to see Nex," Winter said, smiling as she glanced at him. "It's simply more efficient to pick the both of you up."
Nex groaned, shoving his bags into an empty seat. "Can't this wait until morning? I thought the good general knew that I was busy."
Busy with sleep, that is.
Seriously, did he really have to talk to the guy?
"What?" Weiss said, settling into the passenger seat. "Why does General Ironwood want to see him?"
Nex sank into his seat, sighing at the soft leather. Did they make this car en-masse for government officials? If they did, it was money well-spent.
"That's classified, I think," Nex said, staring at the back of the specialist's head. "Right, Winter?"
"Yes. I'm afraid it's classified, Weiss," Winter said. The doors slid shut. She drove, the car going on a leisurely pace. "But I assure you, Nex is not in trouble. In fact, I believe General Ironwood is indebted to him. The entire military is, whether they know it or not."
Right.
General Ironwood wanted the little renovations to their robots remain a secret.
Only it was no longer the case.
Cinder Fall and Roman Torchwick knew. And Cinder was even asking him to crack the military's new code. His own work. And he was planning to tear it down himself.
None of them had any idea he was the one behind all of it. None of them did, even if he was effectively screwing all of them over.
His situation was definitely absurd. Something that only happened in the books. Or in the movies.
Weiss turned her head, beaming at him. "That's great, Nex. Meeting General Ironwood is quite an honor. Don't waste this opportunity."
For fuck's sake. What opportunity?
It was better to crawl into a bush and die.
"Well, I won't," Nex said, offering her a smile. "I'll be sure to see what the good general wants."
Undoubtedly, what the good general wanted was the safety of Atlas. The very same safety Cinder Fall threatened to jeopardize in the future.
There was no way out of it, trapped as he was between a rock and a hard place.
Telling Ironwood that some woman was planning to hack the Atlesian mechs was out of the question. That idea was drowned as soon as it was born. It would bring into question how he knew about the existence of such a plan, leading into a dark rabbit hole he could not possibly escape.
For now, he had to ride the waves. Until he found an island. An opportunity to turn it all around.
His partner's lips bore a brilliant smile, its rays bouncing off the car's front mirror.
He had to turn it around the same way he always did.
Without anyone knowing.
Without risking anymore than he had to.
Without losing anything or anyone else.
He hated losing.
"Nex, I'll see you after I pass father's test," Weiss said, the doors sliding open. "Good luck with the general."
Nex shrugged. "Good luck with your father."
Weiss clambered off the car.
An estate stood in the distance, overlooking the entire upper district.
Another car stopped in front of her, bearing the Schnee snowflake. A portly, brown-haired man helped her into the fancy vehicle.
"I take it Weiss told you?" Winter said, her car swerving as she took them on another street. "About certain familial matters?"
It was insane a father could clip his own daughter's wings. But then again, all he really knew about family was from observing them in the park, or in the public school after his mother died.
Family days.
Days spent sleeping alone.
Maybe he was better off without it.
"Yep. Weiss will pass his stupid test," Nex said. "I have faith in my partner."
Winter hummed, taking a sharp left. "I'm certain you have reservations about our father. But you must understand, things are not as black and white as Weiss views the world."
Winter did not need to tell him that.
"The arranged marriage is needed for the company," Nex said. "But Weiss wants to be a huntress, not playing wife to some rich guy she doesn't even love. Why not let her do what she wants? I'm sure the SDC can manage without another connection."
Winter nodded. "True. And that is the exact question that I posed to my father as well. I was the heiress of the SDC once, trapped in a similar situation."
"He gave you a test too?" Nex said. "Sorry for saying this, but your father seems to have missed his lesson."
"Nex. The marriage is a decoy. Everything is," Winter said, a sly smile on her lips. "Father wants something else out of his children. Why give a test when he could simply force the issue?"
Admittedly, it made sense.
If the man really wanted an arranged marriage to further his company, then he could have sold Weiss to the highest bidder. Not put her through a test where the outcome was uncertain. Surely, the SDC did not become a corporate giant by hedging its bets. Not when securing a favorable outcome was more than possible.
"Then why?" Nex said. "Why go through all these hoops?"
Winter stomped on the gas, zooming through the gates of Atlas Academy. The real one, not just the combat school. "That's something you can ask him yourself. He didn't see fit to tell me."
"Why?" Nex said. "He told you about all this. Why stop there?"
Winter parked the car in front of what was probably an elevator. "I passed his test, but I didn't have what he was looking for in an heir. I was chosen by General Ironwood to become a specialist. And so, Weiss took my place as the heiress of the SDC."
If Winter did not have what the Schnee patriarch was looking for in an heir, then who did?
The question burned, but there was no point in forming a half-cocked opinion. Not yet. There were too many variables, too many circumstances that could change the big picture. The only thing that mattered was the truth. Or even their own versions of the truth.
Nex shrugged, smiling at the cute little wolf on the dashboard, bobbing its spiky blonde head. "That's the official story. What's the unofficial one?"
The car's door slid open.
Winter motioned for him to follow. She swiped some sort of card on the terminal.
The elevator hissed, blue lights lining its walls.
"The unofficial one? You are more than you seem," Winter said, stepping into the elevator. He followed. "But it's not appropriate to discuss it here. General Ironwood is waiting."
The box ascended.
Moments later, he was sitting face to face with the general himself.
Alone, Winter having been dismissed.
"Nice office you have here," Nex said, staring at the lone bookshelf in the room. It was that bare. "It's a really, uhh... a conducive work environment. No distractions from the job."
Ironwood was dressed in a sharp white suit like Winter's. The burly man placed a thermos on the black-wood desk.
"I'd like to begin by giving you my personal thanks, Mr Shade," Ironwood said. "The disaster you averted could have spelled doom for us all and the other kingdoms."
Nex nodded, smiling even if the general's stone-carved face did not move an inch. "Happy to help. Atlas is my home and I'd hate to see it destroyed."
Left unsaid was the fact that if Atlas was destroyed, then he would have slept just fine. There was still that suitcase stuffed with millions of lien. Vacuo or Vale was just one Neo-teleport away.
But the general did not need to know that.
It was contingency.
Not actuality.
"Is that so?" Ironwood said. "Then just how far would you go to protect humanity?"
Nex frowned, tapping the wood. "I don't think I'm the one meant to protect humanity. I'm just an ordinary guy."
An eyebrow quirked on Ironwood's face. Right below the shiny-looking strip.
The general's lips curled into a smile. It must have been his imagination.
"An interesting outlook to have for one so young," Ironwood said. "Most huntsman trainees would readily take on the weight of the world on their shoulders."
Nex shrugged. "The weight will crush them. Why lift when you can have something else do it for you?"
"Indeed. And that's why we built the four kingdoms," Ironwood said with a nod. "Bastions against the dangers of our world. Walls so sturdy that we don't need to fight the Grimm everyday."
Ironwood reached somewhere under the desk, pulling out a stack of papers. The general placed the stack on the wood. It smelled like something in between crisp papers and you're so fucking screwed.
"What's this?" Nex said, licking his lips. Shit. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"
Ironwood pushed the papers towards him. "These are your records, Mr Shade, along with transcripts that need filling up."
Great.
Nex leafed through the files. Pretty standard stuff. School, address and other things that any official record had to have. There were no mentions of his less than legal activities, particularly the Roman or even the Mekel kind.
Thank the gods for that.
"Top of Atlas Primary's combat curriculum, freelance mercenary at the age of nine, an orphaned faunus," Ironwood said. "Partner of Weiss Schnee in Dust Practical, winner of the Sanus Festival tournament, and son of Amariss Shade, one of the best huntresses of her generation."
Well, his mother probably was. She was definitely stronger than him.
Amariss Shade called on nature's wrath better than he ever could, even with his semblance. Probably even better than Weiss with her glyphs. But he could probably beat his mother, if they sparred with weapons alone, now that the gulf of a generation no longer divided them.
In theory, at least.
Nex shrugged. "You knew my mother?"
"Your mother was the best of us," Ironwood said, the general's blue eyes boring into his. Just a shade darker than his partner's. "Her duty took her away from you. I'm sorry."
The general said us.
First Qrow, Amariss, and now Ironwood. Not to mention Summer.
There was definitely something going on here. Something hidden in the shadows. A cloak and dagger conspiracy, even.
Qrow said there was always something more than met the eye. The only question was what. It was doubtful Ironwood wanted to spill. But the question was definitely there, filed away in his brain.
"It's fine. I know she was involved in something more," Nex said, the general's heartbeat shifting. A miniscule shift, gone after a millisecond, but it definitely happened. His semblance did not lie. "Something bigger than all of us, I mean. It's why we fight the Grimm, right?"
Ironwood pulled out some of the papers. "Indeed. Now, let's discuss why I brought you here. As of today, you are an official graduate of Atlas Primary. Which academy do you want to go to?"
Ironwood could do that?
The graduation ceremony did not happen yet, and the public school would not have given him a certificate if he slept through graduation.
"I'm already a graduate?" Nex said. "Don't I have to attend graduation for that?"
Ironwood shot him a look. "No, of course not. Combat schools have no official graduation ceremony. Rather, attendance to the Sanus Festival marks you as a graduate. As combat schools and huntsman academies reopen in a few weeks, an official graduation ceremony would take too much time. We cannot afford to slow down, not when the aptitude of humanity's guardians depends on how well their training proceeds."
"I see," Nex said. He never really paid attention to the passage of time before. The general's reasoning made sense. "Then I guess I'm going to Beacon."
Ironwood took out his pen. "May I ask why? Why not our kingdom's very own Atlas Academy?"
Once upon a time, the answer would have been simple. He wanted to attend Beacon because it was the school that Amariss went to. Just to emulate her. To follow in her footsteps and become as strong as she was. But now, there were other reasons.
Weiss wanted to go to Beacon. Jaune, as awkward as Vomit Boy was, wanted to go to Beacon. Yang wanted to go to Beacon.
Well, some friends were definitely better than the soldiers in Atlas Academy, right?
"I have reasons," Nex said. "One of them is because my best friend's going there."
Ironwood pressed the tip of his pen into the paper. "The friend you're referring to is Weiss Schnee, correct? It's a shame that Atlas Academy will miss out on so many talented trainees from this generation."
"How'd you know?" Nex said.
Ironwood signed with big, blocky letters. "Her father and I are close associates. We talk about the going-ons of Atlas quite often."
Nex nodded, looking at the paper Ironwood just signed.
It was an official notice of transfer, telling Atlas Primary that Nexus Shade would not be moving up to Atlas Academy of Atlas. He would be transferring to Beacon Academy of Vale instead.
"I'll email Ozpin and give him my personal letter of endorsement," Ironwood said. "Think of it as a token of my gratitude and that of Atlas."
Nex grinned. "Really? That's great. Thanks, general."
"It's not a problem, Mr Shade. I am a man that recognizes talent," Ironwood said. "And I hope that same talent will be used to safeguard humanity."
Fuck.
It was most certainly a shame, but he was definitely not as talented as everyone mistook him to be.
Nexus Shade was nothing but a fraud. An orphaned faunus. A criminal. An opportunistic hacker planning to breach his own code for a favor from another thief.
And if it came down to humanity or himself, humanity would find itself being tossed to the wolves.
But correcting that one, tiny fact would have entailed losing.
And nothing else surpassed his hatred for that word.
Author's Notes:
We see our protagonists' reactions to the last chapter. Nex being the essence of a secretive chaotic neutral rogue is starting to bite him in the butt - caught between everything and everyone.
Halfway, if from a thematic standpoint.