This is it. The final chapter of this story, after nearly six years. There will be a sequel, but this particular fic ends here. If you made it all the way through, thank you. It means a lot to me that you liked it enough to read through 140k words of it. This is the longest story I've ever written, even longer than my original novel, which I'm going to be editing over the next few weeks and months. Please let me know your thoughts, good or bad, on the story. Don't be afraid to be critical. Well, that's it from me. Enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Silver, Gold, and Black
I wondered if it was weird for me to feel happy. I mean, large parts of Vale had been destroyed, both by the Grimm and by the White Fang. Many people had gotten injured, lost their homes, lost their lives. But as we flew back to Beacon with Team JNPR I couldn't help but feel happy. We were all back together, we had awesome new Grimm-killing powers, and we were doing everything we could to save as many people as possible. In short, despite everything our enemies had thrown at us, we weren't beaten.
I wasn't really sure where our new powers had come from, but Professor Ozpin would probably be able to tell us after we'd beaten Cinder and the White Fang. Hopefully he'd also be able to explain why there was a statue of him on Perditus.
I glanced at Blake, then at Yang, and finally at Weiss. Even though we'd only been apart for a few days, it felt like it was much longer. I think it might have been the longest we'd been separated ever since we became partners. I almost had to bite my tongue to keep myself from telling her about everything I'd seen and done in those few days, but I knew it wasn't the time yet.
"Okay, so I should probably tell you guys what our mission is," Jaune said, shaking me from my thoughts.
"I imagine we'll be helping to keep the civilians safe?" Weiss said.
"Well, partially," Jaune said. "See, the main docking area for the airships has been overrun by Grimm. The ships now need to land further down in the courtyard, but there isn't much room there and there are more and more airships coming in from all over the city. We need the docking area clear so that there's enough space for all the airships."
"Where are all those civilians even going to go?" Yang asked.
I hadn't really given it much thought before, but now that Yang mentioned it, I was curious too.
"There's a massive shelter underneath Beacon," Weiss said. "Didn't you know that?"
"Well, yeah, but there can't be enough room for everyone in Vale there, right?" Yang asked.
I said nothing. Honestly, I hadn't even known about the shelter at all. I just figured that, since Beacon was a Huntsman Academy, it would be a pretty safe place to go in case of a Grimm attack.
"There isn't," Blake said. "And ordinarily, there would never need to be room for everyone in Vale."
"Indeed," Pyrrha said. "Beacon's shelter is meant to be just that: a beacon. For the people, it's a beacon of hope. They know that they'll be safe behind the walls and the Huntsmen. But it's also a beacon for the Grimm. All those scared people together will emanate a lot of negativity. Any Grimm attacking the city would be drawn to the shelter, where the Huntsmen could stop them. Beacon's location on the far edge of the city would pull the Grimm away from the residential area."
She looked a bit troubled when she continued talking. "But this isn't just a Grimm attack. This is an attack by the White Fang, combined with a Grimm attack that is being directed by Cinder. The system wasn't designed to handle that kind of pressure."
"We'll stop Cinder," I said, without thinking about it for even a second. "With all of us together we'll be able to stop the Grimm, I'm sure of it, and when we've beaten them we can go after Cinder and Torchwick."
Pyrrha smiled faintly. "It's good to see you haven't lost your optimism, at least. And given what you've accomplished tonight already…I might actually believe you as well."
It was almost unnoticeable, and for all I knew I was just seeing things, but I could swear that a faint white glow appeared around Pyrrha when she said that. Real or not, the thought that, just maybe, I could transfer whatever power I had now to Pyrrha as well made me very happy. The glow around me brightened in response and I grinned.
"We've arrived at the docking site," the airship's pilot said over the intercom. "You'll have to jump out; there's no place for me to land down there."
Jaune pressed a button on the intercom on the wall. "Got it, thanks. Keep yourself safe once we're out there," he said.
I smiled. Jaune seemed so much more comfortable now than he had when I'd first met him. Of course, the same went for me. Kind of weird that the two most socially awkward people at Beacon were now leading teams to defend it.
The door of the airship opened and Jaune sighed. "I'll never get used to this," he said.
"We'll be fine, Jaune," Pyrrha said encouragingly. "Now come on, let's go."
She held out her hand, and Jaune smiled and grabbed it. "Lead the way," he said.
Together, they jumped out of the airship.
"Wow, are they…?" Yang asked.
"Jaune doesn't have a landing strategy," Ren said simply.
"But one of these days he'll just have to notice," Nora said, shaking her head. "Let's go, Ren!"
Without waiting for a reply, she jumped out of the airship after Pyrrha and Jaune. Ren gave us an awkward smile, then jumped after Nora.
"Those guys never change, do they?" Yang said fondly. She looked at me. "Well, fearless leader, what are we waiting for?"
"Right," I said, and quickly shot a glance at my friends. "Let's show those Grimm that Team RWBY is back in town!"
"You're such a dork," Weiss said, but she was smiling wider than I think I'd ever seen her do before.
I grinned at her, then threw myself backwards out of the airship. I'd reloaded Crescent Rose on board, so I wouldn't have to be careful with my ammo once I got down on the ground.
Once I'd seen all my teammates jump out of the airship, I flipped myself around to check the situation on the ground.
Team JNPR was already clearing out a nice circle, but there were still a lot of Grimm, mostly Ursai, Beowolves, and dive-bombing Desmodai, but I could also see the glowing stingers of several Deathstalkers. This was going to be fun.
I slowed myself down, shooting a Beowolf several times in the process, and landed right on top of the smoking body. The glow around my body cleared up the smoke wherever it touched it, and just like before I could see that the Grimm around me were hesitant, almost as if they were afraid.
I vaguely recalled what Henry had told me back in Mistral, when I was sick.
The Grimm fear people like you.
I was pretty sure this wasn't exactly what he meant, but he seemed to be right just the same.
I leapt forwards, swinging Crescent Rose much more easily than I should really be able to. Some part of me knew that my Aura should be running low after all the fighting and running I'd been doing, but it was like I had god mode enabled in a game. I wasn't tired at all, and all my attacks instantly killed the Grimm they connected with. I was almost beginning to pity them.
Knowing the Grimm were probably not going to attack me if I turned around for a moment, I checked to see how the others were doing. My teammates were easily visible with the white glow surrounding them, and they seemed to be having just as easy a time at killing the Grimm as I was.
Team JNPR was harder to spot, although I could still swear I saw something of a glow around Pyrrha, but they didn't seem to be in immediate danger either.
They weren't cutting down the Grimm as quickly as we were, but the monsters couldn't really get close to them either. Even Jaune was doing a good job, fighting three Beowolves at once, but staying mobile and keeping his shield up well.
I sensed the attack before I could see it, and I leapt back just in time to avoid getting caught in the pillar of fire.
Before I could turn to face my attacker, I felt that another attack was about to come, and I dove to my right to avoid it.
I hadn't ever been good at sensing attacks using my Aura, but my shiny new powers seemed to have that covered as well, and I was glad they did.
"You are annoyingly persistent," Cinder's voice said.
She was casually walking over to me between the Grimm, who ignored her entirely. She was wearing the same black clothes she'd been wearing when I fought her at the night of the dance, except this time she wasn't wearing the mask. And unlike last time, I wasn't wearing high heels. This time, I'd be able to fight her for real.
"You really have a habit of getting in my way every time, don't you?" Cinder said as she kept coming closer.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," I replied, thinking about Torchwick.
"Ah, no matter. That will all end right now," Cinder said.
She raised her right hand, in which she was holding some kind of black, metallic staff, the tip of which was almost impossible to see. It seemed somehow darker than the air around it. She pointed the staff at me, and I felt the air around me getting heavy and dense, just like it had been in Northern Star.
The Grimm, who had been fearfully staring at me instantly began to growl fiercely and coming closer, and the white glow around me dimmed a bit as I began to feel fear creeping in…but then I remembered what my friends and I had already done tonight. I remembered the Goliath. I remembered Weiss.
Immediately, the fear vanished. The white glow around my body brightened again and the air became less thick. The Grimm stopped coming forward, again looking scared.
"Is that the Guide?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the staff.
Cinder lowered the weapon and frowned. "Why doesn't it work on you?" she asked. "You're supposed to be overwhelmed by despair."
I shrugged. "I don't give up easily," I said.
Cinder slid the staff in a sheath on her back and raised her hands, glassy swords immediately forming in her hands from the Dust she'd woven into her clothing.
"I guess I'll just have to take you out the old-fashioned way, then."
She launched herself forward, blasting fire out of her feet to increase her speed, and I was only just in time to raise Crescent Rose and deflect her strike. I backflipped into the air and fired three quick shots, but Cinder easily blocked them and leapt up after me. She threw one of her swords at me, lengthening it into a thin spear as it flew towards me, and I spun Crescent Rose quickly to block the attack.
I landed on the ground and immediately recoil-boosted myself forwards to attack Cinder while she only had one sword, but she'd already summoned a second one and she crossed the blades to block my downwards swing.
Before she could counter, a wall of ice encased her from the side.
"Hands off my girlfriend!" Weiss said angrily.
I wanted to shout some thanks at her, but I could already see the red glow within the ice, and I launched myself backwards to avoid the explosion. Weiss, followed by Yang and Blake, quickly joined me.
Together, we stared down Cinder, who had now completely dropped her arrogant expression and just looked furious instead. For a moment, no one said anything. No one moved.
Then, I said, "Let's get her."
All four of us ran forwards together, and I knew there was no way we could lose this. We were united as a team, all of us were basically invincible to the Grimm, we had this. Weiss used her glyphs to speed up Yang and Blake, and we attacked Cinder from four sides at once. This would all be over soon.
Cinder made a wide gesture with her arms, summoning a floating arsenal of glass swords. It looked incredibly familiar, but I didn't immediately remember why.
Then, she began to spin the blades, using them as a shield to deflect our attacks. When she'd knocked all of us aside with the force of the spinning blades, she aimed them at us, all the while keeping them spinning, generating a ball of fire between them.
It was then I realized where I'd seen that kind of fighting style before: Penny. Penny had fought like that against the White Fang at the docks.
Why was Cinder fighting in the same way now? She wasn't a robot, like Penny, I was pretty sure of that. She was just using Dust and some kind of fire Semblance to fight in the same style, but why?
I didn't get the time to think about it, because Cinder fired her 'cannon' at us. We all dodged it, but the blast cut a deep groove into the stone pathway between us, leaving bits of glowing red rock in its wake. Magical glowing aura or not, I didn't think I'd survive if a blast like that hit me. Not even Yang would be able to take something like that.
By the looks of it, Cinder needed some charge-up time before she could use the attack, so I had to get close and prevent her from doing it again. I launched myself forwards again, trying to close the distance, but Cinder used her circle of spinning swords to send me stumbling in another direction.
"I see why that android liked to fight this way," Cinder said. She looked at me and smirked. "Too bad it wasn't enough to save her."
A shock went through my body. "What did you do to Penny?!" I asked.
I clenched my fists around Crescent Rose and heard a sort of rushing in my ears. I looked into Cinder's smirking face and wanted nothing more than to hurt her. Whatever she had done to Penny, I was going to do to her as well.
Calm down. This is not the time.
My mind seemed to clear a bit again. What was going on?
I noticed that my glowing white aura was flickering, dimming and brightening again as anger and my earlier happiness and confidence seemed to be fighting in my head.
"She wasn't quite as 'combat ready' as she thought she was," Cinder said.
"Rubes, focus!" Yang yelled as she aimed a punch at Cinder, which was effortlessly blocked.
"Yang, Penny, she…" I stammered.
I still didn't know what to do. I wanted to kill Cinder, but at the same time I didn't want to kill anyone.
"We heard. But right now we don't have time to think about it," Blake said.
"Blake is right, Ruby. We need you to focus. Team RWBY needs its leader," Weiss said.
It was Weiss's voice, more than any other, that got through to me. She was right. I'd promised myself I wouldn't break down again like I had in Northern Star. I had to keep that promise. If Penny were here, she'd surely want the same thing. The flickering in my aura stopped and the glow strengthened again.
"I won't let you get in my head," I said to Cinder.
She scoffed. "I don't need to."
I dodged backwards, and the floor exploded in the spot I had just been standing in.
Other explosions around me told me that Cinder had attacked all four of us at the same time, but I couldn't check if my friends were alright. I could already sense the next attack coming, and again I dodged out of the way.
Smoke and debris filled the air around me, and the constant sound of explosions, mixed with the roars of the Grimm caught in the crossfire, forced me to rely only on my Aura sense to detect attacks, and even though my skill had clearly been boosted by my new powers, I still wasn't very good at it.
After barely dodging two nearly simultaneous blasts, I dodged the wrong way. I instantly knew I'd made a mistake and flipped forward to twirl Crescent Rose underneath me, but the pillar of fire still caught me and launched me up and backwards.
For the first time in hours, my Aura had to absorb a hit, and it was like all the fatigue and damage I'd taken during this night and the couple of days before all hit me at once.
The white glow around my body dimmed as I skidded across the ruined stones of the docking area, but my Aura wasn't broken yet.
Grimacing, I got back to my feet, just in time to see me friends getting caught with attacks similar to the one that had hit me.
How could Cinder be so strong?! She was taking all of us on like we were nothing!
Cinder ignored my friends as they all struggled to get back up and walked over to me.
"Did you really think you had a chance against me?" she asked. "You might have discovered a way to ignore the effects of the Guide and kill some Grimm, but I am far stronger than you'll ever be. If you'd lived, then maybe you would have been able to beat me one day. Now…"
"I'm not going to die here," I cut her off.
I stood up straighter, fighting off the pain in my entire body. I was still way smaller than Cinder, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of truly looking down on me.
My white aura flared up.
Cinder's smirk vanished, and her eyes widened in anger. She raised her right hand, and all the floating swords around her aimed at me. Whatever she did, either firing her cannon or just sending the blades forward, I wouldn't be able to stop her. Even so, I just looked straight into her eyes. Silver into gold.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said, and I meant it.
Cinder clenched her fist and the blades lunged forward — but they didn't hit me. Instead, they pushed against the chest of a tall, silver-haired man.
"I would appreciate it if you stopped trying to kill my students," Professor Ozpin said.
He glanced over his shoulder at me and gave me a small smile. "Hello, Ruby. Could you step aside for a moment? I have some business to attend to," he said.
I blinked stupidly, then nodded and got out of the way as fast as I could. There were still Grimm around, but no one who was near us seemed to care. I spotted Team JNPR at the other end of the docking area still fighting the Grimm, but they were apparently afraid of my friends and me, and Professor Ozpin and Cinder didn't seem to interest them.
"So, you show yourself at last," Cinder said. She'd leapt back after her attack failed, and she was now staring down Professor Ozpin from a few meters away.
"You seem rather bent on destroying my school. It's quite natural that I'd come to put a stop to that, no?" Professor Ozpin said casually.
"Nobody can stop me now. Not while I have the Guide," Cinder said.
"That weapon has been around for far longer than you have. No one has yet used it to take over the world. You will not be the first to do it," Ozpin said.
He sighed and extended his cane, raising it up like a sword. "But I doubt that you will listen to anything I have to say, so let's stop wasting time."
He jumped forwards with surprising speed and swung his cane. Cinder blocked the strike with her swords, but despite that she was still blown backwards by the sheer force of Professor Ozpin's attack.
She looked a bit shocked by the power for a moment, but then she smirked again. "Impressive, but that won't…"
Professor Ozpin appeared behind her and struck her again, even harder than the first time, and this time she hadn't been able to fully block his strike. How fast had he just moved?! Even I hadn't been able to see it.
I kept my eyes on Professor Ozpin, who slightly narrowed his eyes as Cinder flew through the air…and then he vanished, reappearing instantly behind Cinder and hitting her again, only this time she'd been ready for it, getting her block up in time.
Again, Professor Ozpin appeared behind her, but Cinder had seen it coming and she thrust her blades forward — into thin air, as Professor Ozpin had appeared behind her again, sending her flying into one of the pillars in the courtyard, which collapsed on top of her.
A pillar of flame erupted, and Cinder flew forward towards Professor Ozpin, who casually blocked the attack with his cane and smashed Cinder into the ground hard enough to crack the stones. I saw her Aura flare up and break apart.
"I suppose that this is how it ends, Miss Fall," Professor Ozpin said.
Incredible. Professor Ozpin had just done in seconds what our entire team had failed to do, despite all our efforts. He'd beaten Cinder.
Cinder stared up at him, hatefully looking into his neutral face. Then she seemed to notice something behind him, and she smirked.
"Not quite."
Professor Ozpin glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a small airship barreling out of the sky, opening fire with its twin machine guns. It looked like an Atlesian troop transport, like the ones kept on the huge warships.
Professor Ozpin jumped aside, and the airship strafed low over the ground, just past Cinder, and then raced up into the air again. Cinder still seemed to be on the ground, but Professor Ozpin frowned and lightly tapped her with his cane, shattering the illusion like glass.
I glanced up at the small airship, which seemed to be a lot further away than it should be. Neo. So she and Torchwick were still working with Cinder. And with Neo's illusions, they'd probably get away as well.
Professor Ozpin walked over to me. "Ruby, if you and your team would be kind enough to head over to my office, I will join you there in a while. I have a few things to take care of here, first."
"But Professor, the city, the people…shouldn't we help?" I asked, looking again at Team JNPR, still fighting the Grimm.
He smiled at me. "You have helped, Ruby. More than I or anyone else could possibly have asked of you. And I suspect you will help us even more going forward. But before that, I believe I owe you and your teammates an explanation."
His smile faded slightly and he stared into the distance. "And I owe some other people that same explanation."
He looked back at me. "Don't worry, Ruby. I will make sure the grounds of Beacon are safe. Wait for me in my office, and I will tell you all everything you want to know."
It was odd to be in Professor Ozpin's office without him or anyone else there. Even odder still to think that this office had been the place our adventure begun. It felt much longer ago than it really was. I mean, it had only been about two months, but it felt like I'd been gone for years. And since Cinder had escaped with the Guide, I doubted my adventure was over yet.
The white glow that had been surrounding me ever since I'd reunited with Weiss had faded, probably because the immediate danger was over now. I felt every bone and muscle in my body, and I wanted nothing more than to collapse into my bed and sleep for a week, but that would have to wait just a little bit longer. Professor Ozpin wouldn't have told us to wait here if he didn't have something important to say, after all.
I glanced at my friends. They all looked about as tired as I felt, sitting, like I was, on the floor of the office. None of us dared to sit in Professor Ozpin's chair, and he didn't have any others.
I caught Weiss's eye and I smiled at her, and she gave me a tired smile in response. I suddenly realized that I hadn't even kissed her yet since reuniting with her. I wanted to get up to fix that, but just at that moment the elevator door opened and Professor Ozpin, Professor Goodwitch, General Ironwood, and Uncle Qrow came in.
Professor Ozpin smiled when he saw us, but the other three looked very angry. Professor Ozpin sat down in his chair, and my friends and I quickly got up off the ground and dusted ourselves off. Uncle Qrow sent me a quick smile, but then he went back to glaring at Professor Ozpin.
"Thank you all for joining me here," Professor Ozpin began.
"Spare me the pleasantries, Ozpin!" General Ironwood exploded. "You've been lying to us from the start! You told us the Guide was a person, not a weapon."
Professor Ozpin inclined his head. "And so he was, many, many years ago. But let us begin at the beginning, James. If you are truly to understand the gravity of the situation, you must know the full story. A story which, I now realize, I should have told you much earlier."
"Great, so you're going to tell us another little story. And when are we going to find out that you held back even more information, huh?" Uncle Qrow asked. "I can't believe I'm saying this, Oz, but I'm beginning to think Raven might have been right."
"What?" Yang asked, looking from Professor Ozpin to Uncle Qrow.
Uncle Qrow looked at her. "Let's wait until Oz finishes his story, alright? After that, we'll talk about your mother."
Yang nodded slowly.
"I don't intend to hold back any information this time, Qrow," Professor Ozpin said. "Though when I'm done, you might wish I had. Alas, the time for reticence has passed. I had hoped I would not have to revisit the dark years of my past, but the events in recent days have not given me much choice in the matter."
He paused and let his eyes go from the adults, who all looked angry, to my friends and me, who were looking confused. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
"For the sake of Team RWBY, I will tell my story in full, including those things with which some of you are already familiar. I know that tempers are running high, but I must ask all of you to remain quiet until I've finished my story. I will answer any questions you may have at the end. Do you all agree?"
One by one, everyone nodded.
Satisfied, Professor Ozpin began his story. "I was born on Perditus, many centuries ago."
"Centuries?!" I shouted, unable to keep myself quiet. So the statue of him on Perditus really was centuries old?
Professor Ozpin gave me look, and I coughed in embarrassment. "Right, sorry."
"Indeed, centuries ago. Millennia, even. I was born in a fairly large village, the largest village in a long distance. Like any other village, we had to deal with the Grimm, but unlike most other villages, our chief, Zoroaster, had a very powerful Semblance: he could control negative energy. He couldn't create the energy, but he could manipulate and direct it, and with his power he kept our village safe. He would direct the negative energy away from the village, either into the wilderness, or onto enemy villages, and that would keep the Grimm away from us for the most part.
"But Zoroaster was not a kind man. He was well aware of his power and he had no issue using it to rule the village with an iron fist. Anyone who disagreed with him or otherwise made him angry fell victim to his Semblance. See, the ability to direct Grimm isn't the only thing one can do with the ability to focus negative energy into a single point. If all that negativity is aimed at a person, it's easy to make them lose their will to live. He didn't have to kill his enemies; they did that themselves."
I shuddered. Was that what Cinder had been trying to do to me when she used the Guide on me? I'd thought she was just trying to get the Grimm to kill me. This…this was even worse.
"It should come as no surprise that I was not very fond of Zoroaster, but there was very little I could do to stand up against him. Even if I could fight him, his power was too important to our village. I couldn't kill him, so I turned to another option: Dust. Today it's ubiquitous, but back then it was far less known. Warriors used it to kill Grimm, yes, but it was viewed in a far more mystical light as well. Shamans used it in rituals, from fertility rituals to rituals for good fortune. And many of these shamans wrote down their experiments, even then.
"Most people in those days couldn't read or write, but I wasn't just anyone. I was related to the chieftain. Zoroaster, the man I loathed, was my uncle. It's a bit cliché, perhaps, but in this one case the family connection helped me.
"I was able to read, and I perused the scrolls of the shamans whenever I could. When we raided enemy villages, I took their scrolls as my spoils. I wasn't fully certain what I was looking for, but I knew that I'd recognize it once I saw it…and I did.
"I came across a way to create a specially purified Dust crystal, capable of trapping a person's Aura. It was meant as a way of religious execution, and at first glance it might not seem very useful. The method to purify the Dust was exceptionally time-consuming, and the crystal would be inert afterwards. But what if the process could be modified, somehow? After all, Dust is Dust. It responds to Aura. There was no reason I could think of this kind of crystal couldn't be made to respond to Aura either, with some modification to the ritual.
"My closest friend, Phadrig, was one of the shamans in our village. Over the months that followed, he helped me dissect the ritual, finding out what each part did how to modify it, and in the end, we worked it out. We created the purified Dust, a process that took us weeks of grinding, mixing, and crystallizing in various different ways. We also created a scepter out of the finest metal we had available, laced with the purified Dust we'd worked so hard on creating. At the tip, we placed the crystal itself. Now that we had our weapon, we had to seize our opportunity.
"Zoroaster always ended his evenings by praying alone in the chieftain's hut. No one was allowed to be in there while he was praying, so it was the perfect time and place. Phadrig and I had already decided that I would be the one to execute the plan. If something went wrong, I didn't want to have my friend's blood on my hands, after all."
I was getting more horrified by the second. Professor Ozpin was talking with a very neutral voice, almost as if he was simply reading a story, but he was still talking about murdering someone in cold blood. Killing someone in battle is bad enough, but sometimes it can't be helped. This…this was something else entirely. I bit my tongue to stop myself from speaking up, but I got the uncomfortable feeling that the story was going to get a whole lot darker still.
"On the night of the new moon, the darkest night and one that was religiously associated with evil deeds in those times, I snuck into the chieftain's hut while Zoroaster was praying and called him out. As I had expected, he was livid, and he immediately tried to use his Semblance on me, but I held up the scepter Phadrig and I had constructed, and his Aura began to flow into the crystal.
"I used my Semblance to blink over to him and pin him, making sure to push the Dust crystal right between his eyes, and I could feel his Aura being drawn into the Dust crystal. Now was the crucial moment; I had to funnel my own Aura into the Dust as well in order to keep the crystal from locking up completely. I had to 'massage' it with my own Aura.
"I was much stronger, physically, than Zoroaster, but keeping him pinned while trying to seal his power into the scepter was not an easy task. In the end, however, I succeeded…and I had created the very item that we have been fighting against over the past few days. I had created the weapon you now know as the Guide."
He paused for a moment and looked at all of us. No one spoke. General Ironwood, Professor Goodwitch, and Uncle Qrow looked angry, my friends and me just shocked.
"The story doesn't end there, of course," Professor Ozpin went on. "In fact, it's only just begun. I will skip over what happened in the direct aftermath of my coup d'état, save only to say that most people did not mourn the loss. Most people were content to let me rule, and since we still had Zoroaster's power, we retained our superior position.
"It was several years later when I made the biggest mistake of my life, the very mistake that has led directly to me sitting here, talking to you, now. The experiments Phadrig and I had done with purified kinds of Dust, and the comfort I'd begun to feel while wielding the scepter, made me want to broaden my horizons.
"The scepter could direct negative energy to single point, and Dust, properly prepared, could manipulate and change energy. In the proper configuration, then, could it be possible to give a person's Aura an infinite boost? Could it be possible to amplify a person's Aura to such a degree that they become…immortal?"
I felt pinpricks all over my body, and a shiver ran down my spine. I didn't like where this story was going at all.
"Phadrig was hesitant, but some persuasion on my part convinced him to help me again. We began our preparations. It took a full year, but eventually we'd built a ritual site, laced with all kinds of Dust in various stages of purification. All that was needed now was a supply of negative energy, and that was easy to come by. We simply raided all nearby villages repeatedly, frightened them, angered them, but we kept as many people alive as we could, both because I didn't want to kill if I didn't have to, and because more living people meant more fear.
"And, once again, I chose the night of a new moon to perform the experiment. I stood in the center of our ritual site, underneath the massive, Dust-laced arch we'd constructed, and I used the scepter to focus all the negative energy I could reach into one point on top of the archway."
He fell silent, his expression grim.
"I miscalculated. The scepter's power was far greater than I knew, greater than Zoroaster had possessed, certainly. Its range was far wider than I had anticipated, and I focused all of the power it had gathered into one single point. Our ritual site couldn't handle all of the power, and I was blasted with energy that had not been fully transformed.
"I survived…but I was not the same person I had been. I became violent and aggressive, sacking other villages just because I could. I began to call myself 'the Guide', forcing people to worship me like a deity, and soon all of Perditus feared me. People fought me, of course, but I was far stronger than they were.
"And even though the ritual had not gone as planned, it had still worked: I was immortal. Nothing and no one could harm me, no matter what they did. My Aura never ran out, never broke, but it went much further than that. Even if I powered down my Aura on my own, I couldn't be hurt. Nothing could cut my skin. It didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't aging anymore, either. I was completely indestructible."
He stopped talking again and looked at me. I guess my expression reminded him of something, because he smiled briefly before he continued.
"Even though I was invulnerable, Perditus itself was not. My failed experiment had inundated the surrounding area with negative energy, causing the Grimm there to get far stronger than elsewhere in the world.
"Over the next two hundred years, my 'efforts' made Perditus the uninhabitable place it remains to this day. Village after village was destroyed, either because of me or because of the increasingly more powerful Grimm.
"My overuse of the scepter eventually left all of Perditus as a wasteland too dangerous for any humans to settle in, and for all my power, nothing could satisfy me. Nothing brought me fulfillment, and it wasn't likely that anything ever would. My whole life was a haze of hatred and anger, and there would never be an end to it.
"I couldn't die, though I had attempted it several times by that point. I survived for more than a year without eating or drinking or sleeping. I submerged myself in the ocean, and though inhaling water was a very unpleasant experience, it did not kill me. My bones were unbreakable, my skin couldn't be cut. I was immune to all poisons and diseases.
"I only became angrier and angrier as time went on, and I had all but given up on ever feeling anything but hatred ever again, until one day, I was attacking a village in the north of Anima. I had heard tales of a warrior with silver eyes, who could frighten even the Grimm. I didn't believe the rumors, but I had nothing to lose. If nothing else, this warrior might amuse me for a few minutes before inevitably getting killed.
"I stormed the village, shouting my challenge to the silver-eyed warrior…and she answered. She was young, by modern standards, I expect somewhere in her twenties, but for those times, she was already getting old. But instead of fighting me, she simply said that she didn't want to fight humans. Killing humans was senseless, she said. If we wanted to have a chance against the Grimm, we had to work together.
"When I told her who I was, she just shrugged and told me she didn't care who I was. I wasn't a Grimm, so she wasn't going to kill me. I got angry. This little girl with her golden hair and silver eyes thought she had the power to kill me.
"I used the scepter on her, intending to drive her over the edge…imagine my surprise when she not only shook it off, but even began to glow bright white. I was stunned, unable to do anything but stare at her as she walked over and put her hand on my face. I've never forgotten the words she said to me that day.
"This isn't the real you. I know we've only just met, but I can tell. You don't have to carry that darkness with you forever. Just let it go. I promise it'll be okay.
"Those words…they…changed something in me. For the first time in centuries, I felt something other than anger and hate and loathing. Despite the fact that I was overwhelmingly more powerful than her, I felt vulnerable. I felt human. And with that feeling also came remorse for all the crimes I had committed in my long reign. Even though I can still remember those words so clearly, everything following it was just a blur.
"I went back to the village I ruled at the time. She came with me. I don't even really know why she did, but she did. Her presence allowed me to return, mostly, to the person I'd been before I gained my immortality, and because of her power, I didn't even need to use the scepter anymore to keep the Grimm away. The positivity and hope she exuded seemed to be a natural shield.
"But of course, she was still mortal, and eventually she died. Before she died, she made me promise that I would do anything in my power to protect humanity from the Grimm, and I have attempted to keep that promise ever since, with varying degrees of success.
"I went back to Perditus one last time to hide away the scepter, and then set out to try and change the world for the better. I taught as many people as I could how to use and manipulate Dust, taught them how to fight, taught them how best to kill the Grimm. My centuries of life, hate-filled though they had been, had given me knowledge that no other person had, and throughout my travels I learned many more things, that I then tried to pass along to others.
"I watched humanity grow, and as it did, so did the presence of the Grimm. By the time the Great War occurred, I had long realized that, at its current path, humanity would be facing extinction sooner or later.
"I initiated the creation of Huntsmen Academies, when I was the king of Vale, in a bid to slow down the rate at which the Grimm multiplied, but it was only of marginal help. I needed other people's help to bring down the strife in society, and I began to let select people in on my identity.
"I hoped that, with these key individuals by my side, we could guide humanity towards a better future, this time not through force, but through cooperation and understanding. This way, I could finally use my old 'Guide' title for a good cause, though I never openly called myself by that name anymore. I resented what it had come to mean to me. In the current day and age, the three in my office here today are my most trusted allies, though I have a few more who are currently otherwise engaged. They will be informed of the full story later."
Professor Ozpin looked at all of us.
"Of course, that still doesn't explain the involvement of Cinder Fall. Who is she, and how did she come to possess the scepter? What are her ultimate motives? How much does she truly know about the things I just told you? And, the question I presume to be at the forefront of everyone's mind: if I knew what the Guide truly was, why didn't I tell my allies?
"The answer to that is quite simple: I didn't know. Over the course of history, a few individuals heard the rumors and legends of the old immortal warrior king calling himself 'the Guide', and sought to emulate those legends. Wherever I could find these people, I put a stop to their activities. Not one of them, however, ever knew about the existence of the scepter and what it could do. Through the centuries, it remained on Perditus, hidden away from humanity by the powerful Grimm that roamed the area.
"So, when the White Fang and the human underworld began to buzz with rumors about a Guide, I was not concerned that the scepter had been discovered. I didn't consider the possibility that the scepter itself would have acquired the name of Guide, and that oversight has now cost countless lives."
He got up from his chair and walked to the window, gazing out over the school grounds and the city in the distance. I couldn't see from where I was standing, but I imagined there to still be clouds of smoke and Grimm flying through the air.
"I don't believe that Cinder was the one who took the scepter from Perditus," Professor Ozpin said, with his back still turned to us. "If she had been there herself, she would have found evidence of my involvement, much like Ruby did when she was there, if I am to believe what James shouted in my face earlier tonight. But when she faced me, she seemed to be unaware of my true identity. She would never have tried to fight me otherwise."
He paused again, and finally turned back around to look at us.
"The fact alone that she was able to orchestrate all of these events show that she is a highly intelligent and dangerous individual, but I'm afraid I still don't know to what extent. If she truly has the White Fang on Perditus, looking for information pertaining to the Guide, both the person and the weapon, then we should consider the possibility that she seeks to go down the same route I did, and acquire immortality for herself."
He smiled wryly. "Normally I would not be very concerned about this, as there are no written records of my own attempt, and even the original research I used has long been destroyed. But the centuries in which nothing happened involving the scepter seem to have blinded me to the possibility of someone actually finding it and learning how to use it.
"It's just a weapon that responds to Aura, after all, much like the weapons we still use today. The only difference is that it contains Zoroaster's Aura as well, thus enabling the wielder to use both their own Semblance and his. From the perspective of the wielder, both powers feel equally natural. It needs no explanation. Someone intelligent enough might be able to realize the implication of what that power could do, beyond what is immediately obvious."
I shifted uneasily. Cinder was looking for immortality? She already had the entire world in a panic just from having the Guide and using it. If she became immortal as well, no one would ever be able to stop her.
"Why didn't you just destroy the scepter?" Blake asked.
Professor Ozpin smiled sadly. "It's indestructible, I'm afraid. It contains Aura, and was affected by my immortality ritual just like I was. The scepter cannot be destroyed by any means that I know of, and I have tried many."
"Then why not just throw it in a volcano or something? It might not destroy the scepter, but it would also prevent anyone from finding it," Yang said.
"I considered that risk to be too great. Casting the scepter into the ocean or into a volcano would also hide it from me, and I wanted to be able to check up on it. Over the years, I began to do that less and less. The last time I visited Perditus to verify that the scepter was still there was just after the Great War."
"Eighty years," General Ironwood said angrily. "Eighty years! Ozpin, do you know how many people could have been to Perditus in all that time?"
"Yes, James, I am acutely aware of the things that can happen in eighty years," Professor Ozpin said, sounding a bit angry for the first time tonight.
"I have been alive for four-thousand-seven-hundred-and-sixty-three years. I have seen humanity grow, and falter, and grow again. I have seen cities and villages rise and fall. I have seen the best and worst that humanity have to offer. I have been the worst humanity has to offer, and I have attempted, not necessarily successfully, to be the best humanity has to offer.
"In all those years, no one has ever discovered the scepter. Even those who have been to Perditus, even those who discovered the ruins of the very village where it lay hidden, have never found the scepter itself. And yet now, it has been found. I don't know how, or why, this happened, but it is certainly something I intend to find out. It is something we must find out, before the situation gets worse."
"Hard to see how it could get worse," Uncle Qrow said. "The entire world is on edge now. Everyone is angry, everyone is afraid. We may have chased Cinder off tonight, but the White Fang are still active. She still has the Guide. Jimmy's fancy toy soldiers have been compromised so spectacularly that no one's going to trust them for a long time."
When Uncle Qrow said 'toy soldiers', I suddenly remembered what Cinder had said when my friends and I were fighting her.
"Wait, what about Penny?" I asked.
General Ironwood sighed. "She has been badly damaged, but fortunately her neural matrices are intact. We will rebuild her body. She will be fine…but the people have become even more suspicious of Atlas when Cinder revealed her as an android. After the recent attack on Vacuo, and now with tonight's events…we have lost a great deal of trust. I've already received reports of rioting within Atlas itself."
I nodded slowly, relieved despite the situation. At least Penny would be okay.
"But Professor…" Weiss began hesitantly. "What does all of this have to do with us, aside from Ruby having the same power as the person you knew a long time ago?"
"I'm afraid that was yet another mistake I made," Professor Ozpin said. "Legends about the silver-eyed warriors aren't nearly as rare as those about the Guide, but their powers themselves are not well understood. They were said to be excellent Grimm slayers, and many people equate that with being extremely powerful warriors. As a result, those who sought to claim power for themselves had a tendency to go after anyone with silver eyes, fearing that these legendary warriors would stand in their way.
"As you will no doubt have noticed, the power doesn't work like that at all, and gives almost no benefit in a fight against a human. In fact, one might even say that it can be detrimental in those cases, causing the user of the power to become overconfident.
"But the fact remains that a power like that would be invaluable in any situation where tensions run high and negativity runs rampant. I feared that the person threatening Vale and the Vytal Festival would target Ruby, even though she had never used her power before, and likely didn't even know she possessed it, and so I had to contrive a reason to get her out of the city.
"At the same time, we needed all the information we could get on what the White Fang were doing. Knowing how determined you were to go after the White Fang in the vicinity of Vale, I came up with a mission that would allow me to get Ruby away from Vale, while also increasing our chances to discover what our enemies were planning, and perhaps even foiling their preparations.
"I believed their main focus and strength to be in Vale, and expected any activities in Mistral, Atlas, and Vacuo to be of a far lesser stature than their plans for the Vytal Festival. Additionally, if our enemies were after Ruby, as I suspected they would be, they would have a hard time finding her if she was abroad, and would hopefully divert some resources to finding her. In short, I believed that the mission I sent you on would be safer than keeping you here, and I hoped your absence would buy us a little time."
He bowed his head. "I was wrong on all accounts. Cinder either had no knowledge of the silver eye legends, or she simply didn't care, and the scale of the White Fang operations in the other kingdoms was far larger than I had anticipated, which meant that I had sent a group of first-year students into grave danger without any reason."
"Well…" I said hesitantly. "I'm glad you did. If you hadn't, what would have been different? Northern Star would still have been attacked. The Vytal Festival would still have been attacked. And if we hadn't gone on this mission, Weiss and I probably wouldn't have gotten together, and I would never have been able to use whatever power I apparently have. And both Weiss and Blake finally saw their parents again, too."
I remembered that Weiss had said something just like this to Uncle Qrow on Menagerie, and I tried to find the word she'd used for it.
"I'd say that is serenity," I said.
"Serendipity," Weiss corrected with a smile. I
nodded. "Yeah, that."
I looked at Uncle Qrow, General Ironwood, Professor Goodwitch, and finally back at Professor Ozpin. "You told me once that you have made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet…but I don't think this was one of them."
"You are such a sap, Rubes," Yang said with a grin.
I grinned back at her. She wasn't wrong, but I didn't care.
"Thank you for saying that, Ruby," Professor Ozpin said softly.
"So…what happens now?" Yang asked. "Vale is in ruins, Vacuo is rioting, Atlas apparently is as well, Mistral…I don't even know, but probably bad things are happening there as well, and Blake, Weiss, and I probably have decades-long prison sentences open over in Vacuo for what we did there."
"I will take care of that," General Ironwood said. "I will reveal to the public exactly what has caused the recent Grimm attacks."
"James, that…"
"No, Ozpin. The world is scared, and since Cinder got away there are harder times ahead. They deserve to know what we are up against."
His face softened just a little bit. "But I have no intention of telling them about your involvement at this time, other than what everyone already knows."
He looked at Yang again. "Your actions were manipulated by the power of the Guide. Because of that, I feel you cannot be held accountable for what you did, and I will explain this to Tallgrass and the Vacuo Council in person."
"But we…" Blake began.
"If it transpires that you were in full control of your actions, then serving your sentence is the only thing you can do. Fortunately, that isn't the case, is it?" General Ironwood asked pointedly.
"I see where your sister gets it," Yang said to Weiss with a shake of her head.
"Thank you, General Ironwood," I said softly.
I still didn't know exactly what Weiss and the others had done in Vacuo, but at least I knew that they wouldn't go to prison for it.
The General inclined his head just a little bit. Then he said, "This war is far from over. Team RWBY, all four of you have shown exceptional bravery. I hope you will continue to set the great example you've set tonight in the upcoming battles. Now, I think you should get some well-deserved rest. Whenever our enemies make their next move, Remnant needs you to be ready."
I smiled. "Yes, sir."
"Now then, Ozpin, I have to go and prepare a statement. You should probably do the same thing. We will speak more of this tomorrow."
With that, General Ironwood turned around and walked away.
"Such a pleasant fellow," Uncle Qrow said.
"I think he just wants to help people, just like us," I said.
"James's heart is in the right place," Professor Ozpin agreed. "I don't always agree with his methods, but…maybe he's right. Maybe what the world needs right now is not secrecy, but openness. I guess only time will tell."
He looked at us. "I do agree, however, that the four of you should get some rest. If you have any other questions for me, they will have to be answered at a later moment."
I nodded. I was sure I'd have a lot more questions later, but I was really beginning to feel the fatigue of all the running and fighting I'd been doing over the past days.
I hugged Uncle Qrow, and then followed my friends back to the elevator.
"Want to share the top bed?" I whispered to Weiss as the elevator went down.
She blushed faintly, but whispered back, "Sure."
I grinned. It was great to finally be reunited with my team. With my friends. With my girlfriend. Whatever else the future had in store for us, I knew it was going to be okay.
And there we are at long last. You know you're in for a ride when the denouement take up three-quarters of the chapter, but from a narrative perspective, not telling all of this would have been weird. Lots of things are still unclear, which will all be cleared up in the sequel.
When is that coming out? I'm not too sure. The first chapter might not be that far off, really, but for now my priority will lie in editing my own novel and getting it ready for publication. Still, I might well write a chapter or two of the sequel while I'm working on my novel, just to get the ball rolling.
In any case, thank you so much for reading all the way through this. Please let me know your thoughts, and I hope to see you again in the sequel, whenever that goes up.
EDIT: The first chapter of the sequel, A World Divided, is now up.