So just a little more yammering after the last chapter, but I scanned through a couple of title cards briefly and I think I didn't ever mention my writing intentions in proper detail, so uh…my bad. Sorry about that. I hope that last chapter's title card clears up any burning questions, but I went back and briefly edited the first chapter to be clear on this.

Aside from that, I want to say I really love reading your reviews. Whether they're good or bad, I really appreciate people's opinions, and though I have to be a little more discerning about which are subjective or even so far as just insulting, separating them from the honest and necessary criticisms of my writing ability, I appreciate each and every one of you who puts your thoughts down about my work. You really don't have to, so I'm grateful that you do.

I will still be sticking with what I've been doing so far and will only really add in more kinds of original content once I feel I reach a decisive level of competency in the aspects of writing that I'm practicing. As I improve, I will try to expand the amount of things I include in this story, but first and foremost I'm trying to better myself through this avenue. I can't tell you how happy I am that people enjoy these past 92 weird little practice sessions of mine, and I sincerely hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

Chapter 92

The morning was peaceful, eerily so, what with the army of grimm lurking behind the edge of the plains just out of sight. Their growls, however, were painfully audible to everyone present, and tensions only rose by the second. A grimm flashed by a haystack, rolled so high it would provide ample cover for even a creature of that size, and the legions of Atlas soldiers raised their guns in attention. Silence fell once more, the buzzing of insects the only thing breaking said silence, but no one mistook the stillness for peace. Fingers tightening around triggers, violating several gun safety procedures, the rows of soldiers did their damnest to still their laboured breathing and trembling hands. Even as they watched, the massive whale-like grimm that had all but blended into the backs of everyone's minds as they waited slowly opened its jaws, a blood-chilling cry raging out, and from the morning mist slowly poured hundreds of grimm once more.

The great creatures raised itself up on its wings, pressing them into the ground and flattening several acres of it across, dropping itself frightfully to the ground below and spewing more of its inky black ooze across Atlesian soil. Each time it did so, more grimm materialised, and it was all too obvious that despite all their military might, this was likely going to be a losing battle. Their massive mechs lined up at the vanguard, guns pointing downrange as the grimm army approach, and with the order given, they opened fire on the veritable hoard approaching them. Still, they poured forth, and with an overwhelming feeling of dread, the Atlesian army braced for impact.

Oscar screamed in pain once more, Ozpin in the wheel this time, as Hazel continued to beat the poor boy. Suspended from the ceiling by his arms, the two souls trapped in Salem's unyielding grasp braced for impact as the hulking man's fists collided once more. Hazel glared down the ancient man trapped in the boy's body, hanging his head in exhaustion as the toll of the constant beatings rocked through their shared body.

'That stunt you pulled. She'd have killed you if you wouldn't just pop up somewhere else.' Hazel said, adjusting his gauntlets. 'Still, you can make things easier on yourself if you start telling the truth.'

'You've never wondered why she recruited you? You, specifically, to help her find the relics.' Ozpin muttered, and Hazel took a break from beating the defenceless boy for a moment.

'We share a vision.' He declared. 'She's gonna create a new world order; no kingdoms, and no Huntsmen Academies.'

Ozpin laughed weakly. 'New world order? No.' He raised his head to glare at the man. 'When Salem gets all four relics, there'll be no world left at all.'

Hazel turned away from the boy, pacing to the other end of the room, and Ozpin gritted his teeth against the pain as he raised his voice.

'Don't you get it? She's been alive longer than you can comprehend! All she craves now is release. Death.'

'Stop lying!' Hazel slammed the boy in the stomach once more, otherwise sending him flying into the opposing wall if not for his hands secured to the hook above him. 'Salem can't be killed! When she came for me, I killed her over and over again. The longest she was gone was only a few hours… before she put herself back together.' He stared down at his hands. 'When I couldn't lift my arms anymore, she showed me that, through her, I could have the vengeance I needed.'

'Oh Hazel.' Ozpin coughed, fighting against his pain. 'Don't you see? That is why she came for you. Because she could make you believe that this is what you needed.'

'This is what you deserve!'

'Yes, but Oscar?' Ozpin gritted his teeth. 'The people of Atlas; Remnant? You haven't done what you've done for justice; you've done it for yourself. Because she pushed you to think it would help you.' The boy locked eyes with the man, seeing the growing doubt in his face and his soul. 'Well? Has it?'

Back in the Schnee Manor

Jaye winced in pain as his arm twitched, placing a hand on his shoulder. Weiss laid a concerned hand on the boy, and he waved it off as he returned to what he was doing. He'd managed to boost his aura enough to mostly heal his arm, but it was stiff and slow, and unlikely to be at fighting capacity for a while longer. Of all the times he wished Jaune was around, this one took the cake.

He threaded the needle carefully through the torn flesh, hearing Nora respond in pain even in her unconsciousness, and grasped it with the tweezers on the other side. Without anyone else with medical knowledge, and no easy way to quickly teach someone to stitch a wound properly, he'd taken it upon himself to fight his pain and stitch up Nora's injuries as best he could. Nothing much he could do about the lightning-patterned burns across her body aside from dress them, but what open wounds she'd gotten in the process of her exertion he could at least close up. They'd even managed to find some newly stocked bags of Hartmann's solution in their mansion's medical ward, the stuff you used in IVs, and he'd hooked the girl up to one of them as soon as he was able to move his fingers. He directed Weiss carefully, as she draped the burn dressing across Nora's horrific damages, bandaging her loosely to avoid suffocating and aggravating the delicately healing skin.

The door opened, Blake and Ruby pushing through with a few cups of tea, kicking it shut behind them. Jaye waved away the cup, returning to his stitching that was already painfully slow thanks to his aching right arm. Ruby glanced at their teammate.

'How is she?'

'We're doing what we can, but she needs a doctor.' Weiss said, accepting a cup from Ruby. Blake sighed as she glanced out the window.

'Hopefully May can reach the others. I'm… I really hope they're okay.' She paced towards the window as the pitch-black sky outside thundered with a devilishly red lightning that was most definitely not natural. 'Salem's monster is making grimm faster than the Atlas military can kill them. The city won't stand a chance unless we stop it.'

'It's massive. Way bigger than a Leviathan.' Ruby said. 'What can we even do?'

'Penny launched Amity, and our message went out.' Weiss said, setting herself down by the fire. 'Do we just wait for someone to come? If they even come.'

'How did things get like this?' Ruby lamented, staring into her dark tea, and the door burst open as May stalked into the room.

'Fiona gave me a brief update.' She said, placing her hands on her hips. 'Kamina and the twins are fine, but your other friends haven't been heard from in a while. Unfortunately, the last thing they're worried about is a couple of kids. Come on, I've got the ship ready to head back.'

Weiss got to her feet, placing her cup down on the table beside her. 'We can't leave!'

'It's chaos at the crater!' May grimaced. 'Atlas has its army, but Mantle only has us. People are dying.'

'People are dying here too!' Weiss pointed out. 'Don't you have family in Atlas?'

May stopped for a long moment, staring at the girl. 'No. Mantle needed me, and to the Marigolds, that meant I wasn't their son anymore. And I made sure that everyone knew that I wasn't their daughter. So forget them. They've got Henry, yours have Whitley. You get what I'm saying.'

'I don't know about-.'

'Which side are you on anyway?' May burst out, making Jaye flinch and tug on the thread harder than he intended to. Nora groaned, and he turned to give the angry lady a death glare.

'We've heard that before.' Blake said, raising her gaze to May, and the two women looked like they were down to begin a fight, but Ruby stepped between them.

'There are no sides!' She cut in, staring hard at the blue-haired woman. 'We want to help everyone. We're all facing Salem together, and together is the only way we're going to get out of it.'

May relented, sighing heavily, and crossing her arms under her chest. 'So how exactly do we get out of it?'

The room fell silent again, punctuated by nothing but the foreboding rumble of thunder in the distance, and finally, now that it was peaceful enough to hear it, the low and incessant swearing of the raven-haired boy still stitching up the unconscious girl. They glanced at him, swearing as he put the forceps down and grabbing his stiff arm to his chest, groaning in pain. He glanced back at the women staring at him.

'The hell you looking at? Piss off, all of you.' He glanced across them, the girls turning away from him promptly, all except for May. 'What, you want a piece of this?'

'And what if I do?' She challenged, and Jaye rolled his eyes. He turned back to his work, picking up the forceps again.

'Too bad, I'm spoken for.' He scoffed. 'Now, if you're just gonna stand there and stare, then go make something of yourself.'

'Excuse me? I've been making plenty of myself.'

'I really don't care how many kids you've got that you have no idea about. That has no bearing on anything we're doing.'

'Screw you.' She shot back, a smile tugging on the corners of her lips. Jaye grinned at the woman, the tension finally out of the room. The girls finally relaxed, letting out breaths they hadn't realised they'd been holding, and Jaye rolled his eyes.

'Like I said, spoken for. And no fornication while I'm working.'

'And after you're done working?'

'We'll cross that bridge when we get there.' He grinned at the woman. 'Now piss off. They need you at the crater. We'll be just fine.'

'"So long as this world turns, you shall walk its face." That was the curse cast upon her.' Ozpin said, still suspended from the ceiling. 'But if Salem can divide humanity beyond repair and bring all four relics back together, she believes that maybe her curse will be broken. The gods will rule against us and destroy Remnant. Once and for all.'

'Nice story. But if Gretchen's death taught me one thing, it was never to trust you.' Hazel said, the break clearly over, and Oscar's voice rang out in their communal head.

'Please, let me.'

'But Oscar-.'

'You want them to trust us, then trust me.' Oscar said, and the timeless man relinquished control back to the young boy. Oscar raised his eyes to the hulking man before him. 'Her name is Jinn.'

'What?'

'You want her to come out of the lamp? Just say her name. She can still answer one more question.' Oscar revealed, and Hazel's eyes flared with anger.

'After all that, you're just going to give Salem the password?!' He hissed, seizing the boy in his massive hand and hoisting him above his head. Oscar groaned, staring down at the furious man.

'No. I'm giving you the password.' Oscar said, and Hazel released him slowly, lowering him back down. 'And hoping you'll find the truth for yourself.'

Aboard an Atlesian Airship

'You can't blow it up with Oscar still in there!'

'That creature causes more damage every minute. We cannot wait.'

'Please, Winter, give us a chance to try to rescue him first! We… we could be your test run!' Jaune cried desperately. The three teammates were cuffed aboard the Ace Ops' airship, awaiting Ironwood's verdict of their fate. 'You don't know what'll be waiting for you inside, right? So, we can go ahead to check it out… and look for Oscar while we're inside.'

Winter remained quiet, her back turned to the group as she contemplated their words. Marrow glanced away from the controls for a minute.

'You want to go inside that thing alone?' He asked, flabbergasted, and Yang whirled on the dog boy.

'Wouldn't you do it for Elm? Harriet? Vine?' She said, and Elm shook her head at the blonde.

'We don't let feelings get in the way of making the right call.' She said. 'Trading three lives for one is stupid!'

'No, it's not.' All eyes turned to the normally quite boy dressed in green, who had been sitting silently against the wall for the past few minutes while they'd been arguing. 'He's our friend. We will do whatever it takes to find him because we CARE about him.'

Harriet turned her chair around, getting up as if just to spite the boy.

'I really had you pegged as the most level-headed of the bunch, but I guess you're just as naïve.' She scoffed. 'Feelings don't matter. The job matters. When you lose someone on your team, you move on. Replace them. Like Marrow replaced Tortuga, and Winter replaced-.'

'NO!' Ren burst out, the blast of emotion uncharacteristic of the usually calm and stoic boy. 'No one is replaceable.'

He blinked as he reeled back, trying to blink away the petals that were forming before his eyes, until he realised that they weren't just a trick of the light. He squinted at the woman, the red petals streaming upwards around her body, shaking his head at her.

'You… don't really believe that!' He inferred slowly, glancing around the room at the others where a similar phenomenon was happening to each and every one of them he glanced at. 'You are furious about losing Clover. And you… you miss him.'

'You don't know anything about me!' Harriet burst out, and Alexius placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Yang raised an eyebrow at the woman.

'But we do. Whether you like it or not, we trained together, worked together, for a pretty long time. And I know how much it hurt you when Jaye left.' She said, earning herself a death glare from the rabbit-like woman. 'We know you care about your teammates, and you definitely do.' She locked eyes with Alexius, punctuating her words as she did so. 'I know Jaye still cares about you, no matter what you've chosen. And if he does then I do too. You can't be a team without caring about each other, no matter how much you might say otherwise.'

'That's why you lost to team RRWBY.' Ren said, the realisation seemingly hitting him all of a sudden. 'Even if Jaye was there to even the odds, it was too inconceivable that they surpassed you so quickly. You try to fight how you feel about each other, so you'll never truly work as a team!'

'Shut up!' Elm growled raising her fist at the boy. 'You don't know what you're talking about!'

'Everyone calm down!' Winter stepped between the two quickly, pushing Elm away and taking control of the situation. She glanced across the three teammates, regarding them slowly. 'Fine. We will drop you as close as we can to the monster.'

'You can't be serious!' Harriet growled. 'They're fugitives! And traitors!'

'I outrank you.' She said, locking eyes with Harriet, and the rabbit woman backed down reluctantly. Winter turned back to the group. 'If you're not out in time, we drop the payload. No matter what.'

'We understand.'

The airship descended rapidly over the battlefield, pulling to a stop at a safe area. The door opened, Marrow taking point beside the door. Ren walked up the dog boy.

'You don't like this either.' He said, and Marrow gave him a look of surprise. 'In fact, you don't want to be a part of it at all anymore.'

'I…' Marrow trailed off, turning away from Ren and busying himself with the airship controls. 'I have a job to do. And I'm going to do it.'

Jaune tossed the boy his weapons, Yang launching herself out of the airship first, and Ren snatched them out of the air. He turned to face Winter and Alexius as they walked up behind him.

'I know you don't either.' He said, locking eyes with the shield wielding woman. Alexius gave him a look that said "don't test me boy", and he ignored her. 'Neither of you do.'

End of chapter 92