Surprise! Bet you'd thought you'd seen the last of me. Yes, I am still working on this story. I've just been struggling with writer's block lately, and I had to do a lot of thinking in order to make this particular chapter work. But, on the bright side, with all my brainstorming I now have a much better idea of where I want this story to go. That's right, we're in it for the long haul! Because I definitely needed another AU to work on. Anyway, enjoy! Content warning for canonical major character death that occurs in a flashback.
The trees around them suddenly still, seemingly free of the wind whipping through their branches. The air itself seems to have frozen in place. Time itself seems to have stopped. For a brief moment, Ruby feels a spike of panic, wondering if something has gone horribly wrong.
What was that? What happened? What has she done?
But before she can allow herself to freak out properly, she's distracted once more by the lamp, which has started spewing blue spoke. A beautiful woman with blue skin emerges, stretching dramatically before finally opening her eyes to gaze at them curiously. She has a kind face and sharp, piercing dark eyes and she seems very, very, very wise. And old. It's not that she looks old, not really, but there's just something about her that seems ancient, timeless, as if she's been around for a very long time.
"Who are you?" Ruby asks, her voice full of awe. The words tumble out of her mouth before she can think about them, and she glances up at the woman's face with a nervous swallow.
She doesn't seem angry, though. The woman chuckles softly, smiling at Ruby. "Right, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Jinn. I am the spirit of the lamp." She pauses for a moment, as if waiting for a response, but they all remain quiet, shocked into silence. Her gaze falls on Oscar. "It's good to see you again, Ozpin. It's been a long time."
Shaking her head, she turns to face the rest of them once more. "I suppose that you called on me for knowledge, then. You're in luck. Right now, I can still answer two more questions this millennium."
"Wait, you still have questions left?" Yang interjects sharply, rounding on Ozpin. "Then how come you told us that they were all used up?"
Ozpin takes a step back, his face going pale. "Well—you see, I was—"
Weiss cuts off his stuttering excuses. "Never mind that. We can worry about it later. Ask her a question, Ruby, before he can figure out how to stop us from getting answers."
"M—me?" Ruby squeaks, taken aback by being put on the spot like that.
Blake nods at her. "Yes." When Qrow opens his mouth to object, she shoots him a glare, silencing him instantly.
Yang places a hand on her shoulder. "Of course. Ruby, somehow you always seem to know the right thing to do. I trust you. We all do. So, we'll follow your lead on this one."
None of that really eases the pressure or anxiety that she's feeling, but her friends' and sister's trust in her does help her feel more confident. Even if a large part of her worries that that trust is misplaced.
Taking a deep breath, she glances up at Jinn once more. The strange woman has been waiting patiently as they bickered among themselves. She swallows hard, willing her nerves to subside a bit, and closes her eyes, thinking hard about everything that's happened in the past day, about everything Qrow told her. What would be the best thing to ask? What do they need to know?
And then, all of a sudden, it comes to her. She knows what she needs to ask.
"What do we need to know to defeat Salem?"
Jinn smiles broadly. Around her, colors shift and swirl, the landscape changing from the snowy forest that they've been stranded in, to a land she doesn't recognize. "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young woman named Salem."
"But not all of my answers were to his liking," Jinn announced gravely. In the background, a man in a suit, a past incarnation of Ozpin, collapsed to his knees in despair.
"How do I kill Salem?" he had asked desperately.
"You can't," Jinn replied solemnly.
"But," the Jinn of the present interjected. "All hope is not lost. There are ways to fight back against Salem and her army of Grimm, if one is simply clever and resourceful enough." The scenery around them begins to change again. "Not just with weapons and semblances, but with a power passed down through certain families of Remnant for generations."
The mist surrounding them solidifies once more, revealing that they are now standing at the top of a tall tower that overlooks all of Beacon Academy. Beacon Tower. Ruby knows the campus of her dream school like the back of her hand.
But in the vision that Jinn is showing them, the school looks nothing like the last time Ruby toured it. Below them, fires burn, and the screams of students and the roars of Grimm ring out in the darkness of the night. Beacon is under attack, and Ruby has to resist the urge to unsheathe Crescent Rose and jump in to help with the fight, to protect the school and its people. But there's nothing she can do.
And that's not even the worst of it.
On the tower with them are two young women. One of them, Ruby has never seen before. She has short, dark hair and amber eyes. Her lips are curled up in a cruel smirk as she stands over the other woman.
Ruby immediately recognizes the girl kneeling in front of her, the one with long red hair and bright green eyes. It's Pyrrha Nikos, the champion of the Mistrali tournament circuits. Ruby has admired her for years, eagerly watching her fights and mimicking some of her strategies. She's a legend, practically unbeatable in the arena.
But all her fighting skill doesn't seem to help her now. As she watches in horror, Pyrrha is shot through the heart with an arrow by the cruel woman, whose smirk seems to widen as the injured girl gasps in pain. Ruby gasps as well, clapping a hand to her mouth. This is brutal. She can hear her friends exclaim in shock behind her, but she doesn't turn to look, gaze hopelessly locked on the tragedy unfolding in front of her.
"Pyrrha," Weiss murmurs, sounding close to tears.
"Such a pity that you were promised a power that was never truly yours," her killer says, casually, as if they were just having a friendly chat. "But I can assure you that I will make use of it in ways that you could never dream of." She places a hand on Pyrrha's shoulder, and in a flash of light, the girl's body crumbles to ash.
Tears prick at Ruby's eyes. There's a scream lodged in her throat that refuses to come out.
Why is Jinn showing them this?
Then, suddenly, Ruby watches in disbelief as she—or another version of her, anyway—appears in her usual cloud of rose petals. She can see the grief and horror in her other self's face as she inevitably realizes that she's too late to help. There's nothing she can do.
And then, suddenly, the other Ruby's eyes begin to glow pure white. The light expands rapidly until it envelops the entire tower, and Ruby squints against its blinding intensity. When it finally fades, both Ruby and Pyrrha's attacker are lying on the ground, motionless. The screams and roars from below have faded into silence.
And the giant Grimm that had been circling the tower is frozen, encased in stone.
Ruby blinks in shock. What the—
Before she can ask any questions, however, the scenery around them dissolves into fog again, blurring and swirling until finally settling to form a desolate landscape containing many deep pits with flimsy-looking rope bridges strung across. As they watch in confusion, a young woman with long, dark hair tied back in a braid and wearing a mask designed to look like a skull. Through the eyeholes in the mask, Ruby can just make out bright silver eyes gleaming in the dim light.
Just like hers.
Behind her, the older woman—Maria, her name is Maria—gasps quietly. "The Grimm Reaper?" Qrow exclaims.
Suddenly, a Nevermore lunges at the woman with a shriek. Ruby feels a sharp pang of worry, but before the creature can lay a single claw on the woman, she glances at it. Her eyes glow a brilliant white, just like Ruby's did before, illuminating the desolate valley. With one last screech, the Nevermore dissolves into nothingness.
Between one blink and the next, they're once more standing in the snowy clearing, their surroundings still frozen in time. "I hope that you will use this knowledge I have gifted you wisely," Jinn says, before vanishing once more in a puff of blue smoke.
Around them, the snow begins to swirl fiercely again, wind whipping viciously through the trees as they stare at each other in silent disbelief.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you liked it.
Should be a bit easier to work on this story now that I have a better idea of where it's going.
Just a reminder that I do take requests for fics, so if there's an idea that you'd like to see me write, feel free to message me and if I like it, I might end up writing something for it. Also, if you like one of my ideas and want to write your own fic for it, feel free! I'm not possessive with my ideas, and most of my writing is self-indulgent anyway, so all that I ask is that you let me know so I can read it.