A/N: So here is the next chapter. A bit later in the day than I had planned but RL gets in the way more often than I like.

Camgodking: Yes, Salem would love to know about other worlds and how to get to them, wouldn't she. I wonder how a world hopper could prevent that from happening?

Kuriboh1233: I can neither confirm nor deny any plans centered around the return of Glorificus. That would just be spoiling things, now wouldn't it?

Monster King: Come on man, gimmie something to work with on your reviews. Though I do appreciate you taking the time to review at all. So thanks.

Chapter 14
Glimmer

Summer sat at the table in the library surrounded by her teammates. Pyrrha sat, her posture perfect, to her right at the head of the table. She was going over their textbook from their Grimm Studies class. Two seats down from her on her left, Ren had a large book open written in the flowing script common in Ancient Mistral. Between Summer and Ren, Nora had her head down on the other side of the book Ren was reading, quietly snoring as she napped. As for Summer, she had one of the many books she had gotten from Tukson in front of her as she read through it.

Like the others the shopkeeper had given her, it was a collection of fairy tales from all around Remnant. Summer's teammates had all thought it odd that she wanted so many books about old boogieman stories. What they didn't know was that fairy tales and boogiemen were more often than not real.

Closing one book and setting it aside, Summer pulled another to her and opened it. It was times like this that she wanted her Watcher back, even if she couldn't remember his name. She was sure Watcher-Man would have already found the information she was after.

Summer reached to turn the page of the new book when another book suddenly slammed down on top of it. Already open, she could see it was a book on the history of the Faunus Rights Revolution and was opened to a section about the early battles of the war. Something that she knew they had an exam on coming up. A glance up at Pyrrha showed Summer that her partner was now reading one of the books of fairytales with a small smile, pretending to ignore Summer.

"You need to study, Summer," Pyrrha said without looking up from the book of Fairy Tales. "This may be a Huntsman Academy, but you are expected to know more than how to fight."

Summer groaned and made to move the history book off of her own book. "This is more important than ancient history, Pyrrha. This involves things happening now."

"And your studies involve you in the here and now," Pyrrha said to her, placing her hand on the history book and holding it in place. "If you fail your classes you could be removed from Beacon. Then what would you do?"

Summer glared at her partner for a moment then roughly pushed the history book off of her own. Closing the book on Fairy Tales, she stood up and stacked it on top of the others she had gotten from Tukson's. Without a word, she picked up the stack of books and headed out of the library.

Ren glanced over at Pyrrha and raised an eyebrow. Pyrrha leaned back in her chair and shrugged, unsure of what to do. "She is obsessed with these children's stories," Pyrrha said as she glanced up at the ceiling.

"Perhaps we should ask why," Ren offered as he pushed his chair back, the sound waking Nora from her nap. "She still owes us an explanation."

Pyrrha stood as well and nodded, "Then it is time we asked her for it. For her sake," she said as gathered her own books.

As Pyrrha, Ren, and a still half asleep Nora headed out of Library, they couldn't help the chuckle as they watched Ruby jumping into Weiss' lap, the two crying over a game they were playing. Pyrrha hoped that soon her team would be able to enjoy something as simple as a game together. Life and death encounters with criminals and cults were becoming far too common in her opinion.

Summer had been in the dorm room for less than a few minutes when the door opened to let her teammates file in. She couldn't help the frown at seeing them. Each of them held an expression that let her know that whatever they had in their heads was not to be ignored. For a brief moment, she couldn't help a feeling of disquiet that overcame her. A voice in her head saying, 'this is my house too,' that brought with it a sorrow so great she thought it would break her.

"Why?"

The single-word question asked by Pyrrha didn't so much as cause Summer's misgivings to flee as it did disrupt and short circuit them. Why? Why what?

"Why are you insistent that you must focus on fairy tales from long ago and not on your studies of more recent history," Pyrrha went on to explain. "Ever since we were captured by that cult, you have become obsessed, Summer."

Pyrrha sat down next to Summer causing the blonde to turn where she sat to face her partner. Pyrrha reached out and took Summer's hands in her own. "Whatever is going on, we will help. We are your team. We will not turn our backs on your troubles even if you tell us to do so," Pyrrha said gently as she squeezed her partner's hands. "Now tell us what is going on so we may plan how to face it together."

Summer took a deep breath as she looked at Pyrrha's eyes. Another voice floated into her mind, it was male, young and old at the same time with a depth of wisdom and an edge of violence. 'Every Slayer has a death wish,' it said to her. It was a practical truth being told to her but also a warning. A warning to be watchful for her own wish for death trying to overtake her. To not give up on the bonds with others that kept her so routed in her humanity, in her life, in the very things that kept her fighting.

She turned her gaze up to Ren. His was a stoic one. Unflinching in his appraisal of her but without judgment. Calm, warm, embracing those around him in a way that simply let them know he was there. He would take whatever she had to say with the same reserved demeanor, accepting whatever she said.

Nora's look was something else entirely. Excitement for another adventure was there, gleaming on the surface of her very being. She would take whatever came with both hands and twist and mold it into something to be enjoyed no matter what came at them. There was something else deeper as well. Resolve to not let Summer, not let anyone, go on to face what may come alone. She was not going to allow her team to falter. She would be there every step of the way.

Letting out the breath she had taken, Summer nodded, resituating herself on her bed once more. "I told you what a Slayer is," she said to begin. "But I didn't tell you all of it."

Looking once more at her teammates, her friends, she took a leap of faith she hadn't taken in a very long time. Not since a young girl she could not remember fully told her that it wasn't just her home. "Into every generation, there is a chosen one, she alone will have the strength to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. To stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer."

As her friends looked at her with mixtures of confusion, concern, and a little bit of excitement, Summer couldn't help but shrug. "It sounds better with tweed and an English accent."

Summer had taken two hours to explain everything that she knew so far. Magic was real. She was not from Remnant but from a different world. Her home was infested with vampires, demons, and other fell creatures that wished for the destruction of humanity. Glorificus, or Glory as Summer called her, was a hell-goddess from another realm that she had faced in battle, just as she told them. That she had died at the end of that battle was not something her team took well. Trying to explain her own resurrection afterward while her memories of it were still so fogged was difficult. She didn't remember the whys or hows of it herself. She only knew it had happened.

She didn't out Ozpin to them. That he was one of the few people that still used real magic was not something that she felt was her secret to divulge. Not yet. It wasn't related to what she needed to know. What she was looking for. She had told her team that the story of the Maidens was likely true, as it had far too much in common with the Slayer line that Summer liked to see.

Then it came down to why she was pouring over the fairy tales so religiously. Why she had seemingly become obsessed with old stories that people considered myth and fable.

"Two instances could still be a coincidence," Ren had just said. "Or a sign of only one-way interaction. Your coming here and the stories of this Glorificus. We've not seen any other proof that your world and ours have interacted."

Nora nodded, "Besides, how bad could it be? You said you know you have friends and family back in your old world. You could get back to them or bring them here. Oh, I know, Ren and I could go there and smash all those vampires with Magnhild! They wouldn't know what hit them. Then we could have pancakes from another world!" Nora paused for a moment, "Your world does have pancakes, right?"

Summer laughed and nodded, "Yes, Nora, though I do remember there is supposed to be a world without shrimp."

"Oh, imagine a world without pancakes. That would be so sad! But then, Ren and I could go there and bring pancakes to the masses! We could become as rich as Weiss!" Nora shouted in excitement.

Pyrrha laughed as Ren tried to convince Nora why they could not start an inter-dimensional pancake shipping business. After a few moments of listening to their particular brand of insanity, she turned back to Summer. "Ren is not wrong, though. We only know of things coming from your world to Remnant. You said that magic while also secretive was more widely known in your world than on Remnant as well. It is possible that there simply is no way from here to there," she said, her voice heavy with concern.

"That's just it, Pyrrha, I think someone did come from Remnant to my world, and that is why I ended up here," Summer explained. "I also think it is why my memories have been tampered with."

"Okay," Pyrrha said as she put a hand to her chin. "Explain your reasoning."

"I had a dream before about my friends. I couldn't remember their names and none were spoken, but we were discussing a woman that we had found. She wasn't from Earth, Pyrrha," Summer said as she closed her eyes, trying to remember the dream as best as she could as well as the woman the dream conversation was about. "Ever

since I met Ruby, I've had this feeling, this drive to protect her. A fat lot of good that has done us, considering the antics the four of them have gotten themselves into since the school year started. But I know that I'm here to protect her and I think that is because of the woman we found."

"Do you have a name for this mystery woman? It would be easy to look her up on the CCT if so," Nora suggested now that Ren had gotten her distracted from inter-dimensional pancakes.

Summer was about to shake her head but then stopped, her eyes going wide. "When I woke up, I couldn't remember my name. The only two names I could remember were Summer and Dawn."

"And when Professor Ozpin asked you your name, you told him it was Summer," Pyrrha finished for her.

Summer nodded, "It seemed as good as Dawn for a first name, and I remembered it first, so that was what I told him my name was. Summer Dawn."

"Okay, and you believe that you are here to protect Ruby for some reason," Pyrrha said with a glance back at Ren and Nora.

Nora was already on her scroll typing away. She was instantly smiling as she held it up to them, "Got it, Summer Rose, mother of Ruby Rose. Listed as missing in action, presumed killed in action eleven years ago."

"But if she wasn't killed," Ren said as he took Nora's scroll from her, reading over what was publicly available on Summer Rose.

"And instead ended up on Earth, where we found her," Summer said, her own eyes widening.

"Proof," Pyrrha said with a nod. "My trainer back in Mistral once said that once is chance, twice is a coincidence, thrice is enemy action. This would be not only a third instance but one in the other direction."

"So we know that travel between the worlds is possible," Ren said with a nod, passing Nora's scroll to Pyrrha and Summer. "No need for fairy tale books at all. What now, though? You have your answer, what do we do with it?"

"And do we tell Ruby her mother might still be alive," Nora asked as she bit her lip. "I mean, my mom left me behind when the Grimm attacked our village, so even if she was I don't think I'd care if she were alive. But this is Ruby we're talking about."

Summer laid back on her bed and groaned, "I just wanted to know if the threat was real. If there was a danger of things from my world showing up here. Vampires may be the least powerful of the threats that could turn up but the fear, the anxiety they would cause while draining their victims."

"It would draw the Grimm like a moth to a flame," Pyrrha said with a nod. "This was more than wondering if you could get home. It was a threat analysis."

Summer nodded to her partner without getting up from her spot. "Honestly, it was all about the threat analysis."

"I'm sorry?" Pyrrha asked. "Don't you... don't you want to go home? You have friends and family there."

Summer was silent for a few minutes as she thought about the question. Did she want to go home? Did she want to leave Remnant? Leave Beacon? Leave Team SLVN? It didn't surprise her in the least when she had her answer.

"Nope."

She pushed herself up and looked between her teammates and smiled. "My memories are screwed up, yeah. I'm even starting to believe it was done on purpose to hide the fact that travel back and forth is possible. What I do remember, though, is that even though my friends were my family and that they loved me, I still wasn't happy. Something happened, maybe my resurrection, maybe something else, but something happened that shook us all down to our roots and things were never going to be the same for me again. So, no, I don't want to go back. I'm happy, here, as a Huntress-in-Training and as your leader."

Pushing herself to her feet she stretched, feeling her spine pop. She started to head to the door but paused to look at her team. "Besides, you didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?" With a laugh, she shook her head. "Okay, let's go, we've got things to do."

Pyrrha was quick to stand and join her, "You're going to tell Ozpin about this?"

Summer nodded, "He needs to know so he can keep a lookout. Back home, this sort of thing would be my call to keep quiet or not. Here, now, it's not. Not anymore. It's his responsibility to make the big decisions and so long as he's handling things, I'm not going to complain."

"Good," Pyrrha said with a nod, "You still have a history exam to study for afterward. If you took on more responsibilities, there might have been problems."

Summer groaned as she opened the door, "History, I spit at thee. Can't we go back to being prisoners of the cult?"