Well, that was a casual 580 reviews for last chapter. I think that makes it only eclipsed by the last two chapters of Not this Time, Fate
A lot of opinions either way, some pleased, some satisfied, some not.
I've had people call the last chapter gut wrenching, uncomfortable and shocking, and that's good! I'm happy it could elicit such responses and readers probably for the most part feel the same way. Surely the whole point of getting lost in a book is to become emotionally involved in it. Even if it's making someone feel uncomfortable, I think it's good to reach for that.
To those who seem oddly shocked by what they see as a dark turn, well, I mean, the very first chapter had someone try to execute Jaune's little sister in front of him. Soon after it was revealed the group might even try to artificially inseminate the mothers to breed children for child experimentation. I can't help but feel that by chapter 26-28, it should be a little obvious this story is darker than, say, Professor Arc or Beacon Civil War. Just a little.
Cover Art: Serox
Chapter 28
General James Ironwood stared at the damages report and questioned if he wasn't too old for this shit. Stood in his private office in his flagship, the Vanguard, the large man hunkered down behind a wooden desk fixed to the floor, one hand cupping his chin and scraping over a rough beard beginning to form. The terminal on his desk blinked constantly, the number `46` beside a call button he dared not answer. His own scroll lay beside it, switched off to silence the incessant barrage of calls, texts and demands for his time or presence.
The door swished open. Clover paused in the doorway for the longest moment, only entering when James gave him a firm nod. "Sir," he said, saluting. "Headmaster Ozpin has requested permission to board the Vanguard to see to the health of his students."
"Has he demanded to see me?"
"No sir. Only his students at this time."
That wouldn't last. Ozpin would have questions for him – as he would for Ozpin. "Allow him entry. Have him escorted to the medical bays. Tell him I'll meet with him there."
"And the Council of Atlas, sir?"
"I'm too busy for them." James pushed his hands down on the desk and stood, sweeping on his coat and snatching his scroll, hesitating and finally shoving it into a drawer to be forgotten until later. "Make it clear just what kind of a situation I'm dealing with, Clover. I don't have time to play twenty questions with them while also managing this."
"Sir. Yes sir."
Brushing past the saluting Specialist, James stepped out into a wide metal corridor with mesh flooring and sweeping white steel walls formed outwards into triangular points before reaching back up to a ceiling dotted with a central line of bright white lights. The metal grill flooring clanked with every footstep, flexing under his weight as he made his way down the inner spire of the Vanguard. Atlesian Soldiers saluted as they hurried past him, none having the time to stop. Outside, Bullheads buzzed and whisked through the air, out over the city in what the media would undoubtedly call an undue show of force come the morning.
He didn't expect they would find anything by now.
An elevator took James down to the lower levels of the ship, those closest to the aircraft docks and the landing bays. The doors swished open and he moved past the engineering teams busy looking over the Knight Units. The emblazoned logo `CA` remained on their breasts and his eyes narrowed. Engineering teams were already working their way up and down them, decommissioning the machines on his explicit orders.
Another door opened and closed, bringing him into a sterilised corridor of silver metal and bright light – the walls covered in universal symbols for medicine and healing. The medical bays were kept close to the landing bays for ease of transport of the wounded on or off, or to be more readily available if troops came back injured and couldn't make the journeys to the upper quarters. James' heavy boots clanked down the corridor, past wards and rooms for recovery, through a set of doors marked for medical personnel only and toward a corridor flanked by benches, upon which sat a young woman with her head in her hands. Blake Belladonna looked up at hearing his arrival, then stood with a hopeful expression on her tearstained face. James held up a hand, silencing her before the first word could cross her lips.
"You may enter with me so long as you remain silent unless spoken to. Am I understood?"
The girl closed her mouth and nodded, sealing her lips into a thin line. Desperation creased her brow, which he could well expect given her situation. He gestured for her to come behind, approaching the doors and pushed them open.
Inside lay a large operating chamber with several beds sectioned off by pale green curtains drawn shut around them. A doctor pushed a mop across the floor and though she didn't make speak as promised, a frightened warble slipped from the girl behind him when she noticed it was blood the man was mopping away. The sound alerted the young man, who looked up with tired eyes. He saluted wearily.
"Sir."
"At ease. Is Doctor Snow available?"
"Waiting for you, sir. In her office there." He pointed and James nodded, thanking the man quietly before leaving him to his task. When he moved toward the indicated door, he noticed Belladonna wasn't following. Her eyes remained locked on the three sets of curtains drawn shut, hands shaking and chest rising and falling so quickly he thought she might hyperventilate. "Belladonna," he snapped, knowing it was unfair but also knowing she wouldn't respond to anything softer. He'd seen shock in enough people to know she needed orders right now, strict commands. "Come with me."
Stumbling, she hurried after him, relieved to have something she had to do, even if it was nothing. He held the door ahead for her open, ushering her in and then stepping in behind, closing it.
Doctor Alexandria Snow was a tall and wiry woman of some fifty years, worn and grey-haired, covered in wrinkles and unafraid of anything. She'd seen it all – from gunshot wounds to men and women torn in two, to still-living babies pulled from the wombs of the dying or the dead. Her frigid blue eyes pierced into them both, narrowing on his as if to ask what mistake he'd made this time that she would have to try and patch together.
"Doctor," he greeted, nodding his head respectfully. He pushed the huntress down into a seat with both hands on her shoulders before taking the one beside her. It flexed, hardly able to contain his weight. "What is the status of the injured?"
"Alive. For now." The woman's voice was sharp and waspish, as if every word cost her a year of her life and she wanted to preserve each. "The boy did a number on them, that's for sure, but he's no killer."
"His actions would suggest otherwise."
Doctor Snow laughed. "I wasn't talking about his mentality. I know how to kill a man a thousand times over, but I wouldn't. He would – and tried his damned best – but he's an amateur. Inexperienced. It shows."
Blake let out a ragged gasp that drew the doctor's eyes and a stern glare from him. She swallowed and looked down, hands cupped within one another in her lap. James shook his head and looked back to the doctor. "Continue."
"The injuries to the Xiao-Long girl are the most telling. A split hand cut from the palm to her fingers and a pierced elbow. Debilitating injuries." She clicked a button and the screen behind her displayed a crude silhouette of a human female, upon which was a red line on one hand and a red circle on the elbow. "In terms of cutting down her ability to fight back, they're good injuries – but only life threatening if she bleeds out. I'd say he wanted her to suffer before she died, but I'm not sure it's even that. The girl is a fist fighter. Her hands would have been between him and her at all times."
"Meaning he was attacking what he could reach," James said.
"Aye. If it were me, I'd have let her have hold of me if she wanted – then slide a knife between her armpit and ribs." Snow tapped a thin cane against the indicated point on the silhouette's breast. "Between these two ribs would put a fatal wound on her she wouldn't be walking away from. Or here." The cane touched lower down, on the thigh. "Major artery here. It's lower on the body, too, so gravity and pressure will ensure blood keeps gushing out so long as she tries to stand and fight. Point is, I'd go for these with thirty-two years medical experience. An amateur, though? It's usually the chest or the throat, both of which a boxer would be defending."
"The same is reflected with the Rose girl," she said, bringing up a new, smaller silhouette. Judging from the shape, it was the back facing them. Two red circles appeared on the image, centred on her lower back, one on either side of the spine. "Two shots – piercing through to exit the front. They're uneven, clumsy. He was either in a rush, not thinking straight or he has no idea what is or isn't a fatal shot. Likely all three from what I've heard. I don't doubt he intended to kill her. This one here came maybe half an inch from doing so." She tapped the left circle. "The other, though, might as well have been designed to leave her alive. It went through muscle and her intestines, but nothing that couldn't be patched up by even a junior doctor. Not that I think he intended either of those results."
"An amateur." James repeated her own words. "That fits with what we know. He's had limited training in the White Fang and none before. His Semblance gives him the edge, but it doesn't make him any more effective. He's a child with a gun playing at things he doesn't understand."
Training was undertaken for a reason after all. Killing someone was easy by accident, but it was even easier to leave someone alive and suffering. Atlas soldiers were trained to know what areas were fatal and what were not – which with aura, typically meant most areas weren't fatal. Jaune Arc lacked all of that and simply placed his shots where he could. He may well have believed that at such close range, shooting her anywhere would mean certain death.
That doesn't change the fact he made the decision with the full intent of killing her. He would have killed them all if he could get away with it.
"If we hadn't been so close to hand she'd have surely died," Snow continued. "The loss of blood was heavy enough that we needed immediate transfers. Luckily, we have the blood types of all personnel on record or there wouldn't have been the time to take her to a hospital in the city. Specialist Marrow proved a match and offered his own."
"The girl will live, then?"
"Survive, yes. Live? That is up to her. While the wounds didn't prove fatal being shot around her spine is still a dangerous proposition. She hasn't woken up yet and we won't know until she does, but there is a very real possibility she will not walk again. If that happens, her career as a huntress is over."
Belladonna trembled. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gripped firmly. The girl was undoubtedly blaming herself and so much more. He couldn't afford for her to run out there and make a scene.
"And Weiss Schnee?"
"The least hurt of them all, comparatively. She was removed from the battle fairly quickly. Her injuries are mostly burn-related in nature, consistent with dust burns from close contact to exploding dust. Her skin is charred and severely damaged in places – I expect she will struggle to feel much sensation in her left arm and shoulder in the future. There is further burns on her neck and up her left cheek, much of it localised to the left side of her body. Likely an instinctive turning to protect herself at the last second. The salt water she was thrown into paradoxically helped mitigate what could have been much worse. While she was initially awake, I've anaesthetised her to help deal with the pain. Her recovery will be almost entirely complete, along with Xiao-Long's, though they may still require check-ups from licensed professionals, and they will certainly be out of combat for a while."
"In fact," she added, "The unique application of Null may have bettered all their chances. Most people who are injured have had their aura drained prior, while all three of them here had it nullified. That means that once they were out of his range - Weiss Schnee as a prime example - their aura returned and began working on their injuries. It may well have saved their lives."
"Thank you, Doctor Snow. I'm afraid Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon will be coming imminently and will have further questions." He watched the woman sigh and lean back in her chair, consigning herself to a busy evening. "Is it safe for Miss Belladonna to be with her teammates?"
"So long as she doesn't touch any of the machinery, yes."
James Ironwood nodded and stood, drawing the faunus up and pulling her outside, though he held onto her before she could run to her friends. There were tears streaming down her cheeks, tears that he knew might lead to rash decisions.
"Listen to me," he said gruffly. "Bella- Blake. Listen to me!" He shook her again, knocking her bow loose and causing her feline ears to pop up. He ignored them, fixing his eyes on hers until she was cowed to silence. "You are blaming yourself for this. I can see it. Stop. You were in questioning with myself, Winter and Ozpin. You left them in their room with the expectation they would be there when you returned. You did nothing wrong."
"I brought Jaune here," she whispered.
"Chivalric Arms brought him here. They brought him here the very moment they brought his mother and one of his sisters to Vale. Whether you remained loyal to him or to your morals, he would have come here eventually. If anyone is to blame it is them, and if you must hate someone then hate me. Your team does not need a wreck of a girl selfishly blaming herself. They will need support. They will need care. They will need you. If you feel you deserve punishment, then punish yourself by seeing to their every need as they recover."
Her eyes widened. He knew she wouldn't have considered it – few did. Mistakes happened, he'd made more than enough himself, but the time you spent dwelling on those could be better spent taking care of those negatively affected by them. To do anything else was callous. To lock yourself away and heap blame was worse than callous; it was self-serving and lazy.
"People make mistakes," he told her. "But you will be making another if you don't face up to this one and do what you can for your teammates."
"I… yes…" Swallowing, she nodded. "I'll look after them. I… Even if they hate me, I'll do my best."
"Good. I doubt they will hate you for saving their lives at the end. Without you, they'd have surely died."
"They shouldn't have been there!" she snapped, grief replaced by anger. "A-And they wouldn't have attacked even if they were. Yang said they tried to back off but someone else started the fight. Someone called Penny. I saw the Atlas crews come for her, or what was left of her."
"Yes." James admitted with a long sigh. "Penny was one of ours. I will be investigating this-"
"Will you? Or will it just be like Chivalric Arms were investigated?"
"It will be a real investigation. I assure you."
He doubted that would be enough, but she pulled away and hurried over to the curtains, slipping behind them and to her team. James let her go. Defiant anger was far better than a potential suicide risk, and she was right to question why Penny defied all orders. It was a question he would be getting answers to soon enough.
His attempt to exit the medical hall was interrupted by Clover and Ozpin along with two guards who saluted and remained outside. James sighed, welcoming his friend in even if Ozpin looked less a friend in that moment and more a vengeful wraith.
"Team RWBY lives," he said quickly, diverting much of the rage. "They are badly hurt and Doctor Snow shall fill you in on any details you wish. Once they are stable and able to be moved to a facility in the city, we will allow them to be so."
"How did this happen…?" Ozpin asked in a hoarse voice. "How did it get so bad?"
"A terrible accident perpetuated by Chivalric Arms. Your team attacked the White Fang and Arc's mother was killed in action. He reacted… poorly."
"He attempted to murder a team of huntresses, you mean. I'm not sure what more leeway I can offer him, James. I know it's the last thing you want to hear right now, but he has harmed four promising students."
"His mother had just been killed by them."
"That is a tragedy and we both know it, but tragedy does not warrant more tragedy." The headmaster looked to the curtains with barely contained worry – an almost personal degree of it. "How fares Miss Rose?"
"Alive," Ironwood said with a small frown. "Along with Miss Xiao-Long and Miss Schnee."
"Can Miss Rose continue as a huntress?"
"Unknown at this time. Her injuries may prevent it. The other two could well see themselves returning to action after a period of recovery." It seemed as though Ozpin didn't hear the latter half of his statement. He closed his eyes and breathed out suddenly at the first, shaking violently.
"I see. Thank you, old friend. I would like to meet with Doctor Snow now."
"Ozpin." Ironwood stopped him at the last with a hand on his shoulder. "Remember your own words, Ozpin. Tragedy does not warrant more tragedy. What happened here is bad enough already. The last thing we need is for it to be made worse by starting a war in the streets. If Arc can be reasoned with, we can prevent so many more instances of this."
"Reasoned with, James? I believe he's proven himself incapable of that." He pulled away, storming to the doctor's office and stepping through the door once it opened. Ironwood let his hand fall, the frown already present growing deeper still.
"Is it just me," Clover asked, "Or did he seem more worried about Rose than her teammates?"
"It's not just you."
"Are we still going at this with kid gloves, sir? I'm not disagreeing with you, but he has a point. We might have been able to reason with Arc before, but I'm not sure what we can do now. He had reason to mistrust Atlas before, and reason to hate us now."
"We can't afford to treat him with anything but `kid gloves`, Specialist. What the Council fails to understand is that what we've seen here is the work of an amateur trying to save his family. How much worse do you think it gets if that motivation changes? If he decides he wants vengeance instead, or to make Atlas suffer? I'm not suggesting the peaceful approach because I'm afraid of harming him. I'm enforcing it because I'm afraid of what will happen if we push him." He looked back at the curtains with a frown. "Team RWBY may be only a prelude to the devastation he can wreak."
He didn't want to see what the young man could achieve if he was aiming for it.
/-/
Penny was a shall of her former self – quite literally. The pieces that made up her dermal layer lay scattered upon a workbench like bones in an archaeological dig puzzled together to form the roughest approximation of some ancient creature. Her body from the chest down was in one piece, but her skull was a mess of twisted metal and scrap components.
Pietro Polendina hunched over it, his wheelchair propped up on servos to give him a better angle to work. He wore a metal eyepiece that contained a telescopic adjustment stretched out to peer into her cranium. His hands tinkered, peeling apart pieces, adjusting others and gently caressing her skin as though to comfort her through a trying time.
General Ironwood cleared his throat.
"Ah. General." Pietro did not look up from his work. "I expected you would come speak with me. Poor Penny is terribly damaged as you can see. It's almost a relief to think that she lost her individuality due to the Null Semblance before the final moments happened. I don't think she felt the final blows that killed her and for that I'm thankful."
"That's not why I'm here, Pietro, and you know it. I want answers."
The old man flinched. It was a small thing, but it suggested all too much guilt for James' liking. Pietro wiped the back of one hand over his forehead, pushed up his eyepiece and used his other hand to rotate his wheelchair around to face him.
"Penny's databanks are too damaged to retrieve anything from, I'm afraid. Even if they weren't, I expect they would have been remotely wiped to remove any incriminating evidence."
"And how, Pietro, did Chivalric Arms gain access to her…?"
"That would be…" He closed his eyes and sighed. "That would be because much of her internal parts come from Chivalric Arms. Please understand-" he rushed out as Ironwood bristled. "The Penny Project was approved long before we knew anything about the threat posed by Chivalric. They were, and still are, the finest manufacturers of military hardware. They are the ones behind the Knight and Paladin units, so of course they'd be masters in the field. The Penny Project needed the best supplies available. Who else could we go to?"
"What parts did these include?"
"Most of them," Pietro admitted miserably. "Penny was built from the ground up, but the individual parts… well, Chivalric Arms is responsible for a good forty per cent of her construction. That includes the motherboards and instruments which make up her brain. I didn't know they had a means to access her, General. You cannot possibly think I would let my daughter be controlled in such a way if I knew. Penny had a mind, a soul and a life – and Chivalric took that from her. She's as much a victim here as any other."
"I understand that, Pietro, and yet I'm left with one burning question." Ironwood placed his hands down on the man's wheelchair, looming over him. "Once it was clear Chivalric Arms was a problem, and once you were made aware of this fact when we agreed to bring Penny here-" His voice rose, eyes burning furiously, "-why did you not alert me to the potential security breach?"
Pietro flinched again, sinking into his wheelchair. He'd known about it. The finest mind in Atlas couldn't have failed to see the risks once Chivalric were revealed.
"You kept it from me!" he roared. "You kept it from us all – and as a direct result of this, Arc is on the warpath and a team of young girls are in intensive surgery fighting for their lives. And for what, Pietro? For what reason?"
"I… I was afraid you would shut down the Penny Project…"
He could have thrown the wheelchair across the room, man included, in that moment. It was only an incredible degree of self-control that prevented him from doing so. It didn't stop his cybernetic hand crumpling the armchair's handle.
"The Penny Project may well have cost us any hope of stopping Arc before he turns into a confirmed killer. It may have cost that team their careers. It did cost several people their lives, including an innocent woman whose greatest crime was becoming a test subject for Chivalric Arms. I have to go and explain to Sable and Saphron Arc that their mother is dead because of a failure within my chain of command! I would have never allowed Penny down into the city had I known she was a risk!"
"We needed data-"
"Your data has cost people their lives, Pietro!" Ironwood roared.
"Penny acted in self-defence…"
"Penny initiated combat when she had no need to! That is not self-defence."
"Self-defence can be classified as actions taken to prevent a crime or in defence of others," the frightened man rattled off. He was hunched back in his wheelchair, sweat running down his face. "They were White Fang. The rules of engagement are different from them. No one would side against the Penny Project if this was taken to the Council."
James Ironwood stilled. His chest rose and fell. "You've been reading up on the law. Or someone has been briefing you. Is there something I should know, Pietro…?"
"I… I've spoken to the Atlas Council." He saw the fury in Ironwood's eyes and blurted out, "I had to. You would have closed the project. They've agreed Penny's actions were in line with Atlas' interests. T-They're securing the project. I… I'm sorry, General, but I couldn't let you close the project down. Penny doesn't deserve to die for this."
"Did Juniper Arc deserve to die for this?" Ironwood asked carefully.
"T-Technically, she aligned herself with the White Fang."
"Don't waste my time with technicalities, Pietro. Your creation – Penny Polendina – killed over twenty people tonight, one of whom was innocent of any crime. Whether or not it was under her control, you provided the weapons, you provided the means, you gave her the power to cut a Bullhead in two – and you knowingly unleashed that on Vale and its people despite being aware of the possibility that at any moment Chivalric Arms might take control. And now, after the fact, you go behind my back to cover yourself and your creation. Is that what I'm hearing?"
Pietro swallowed. "Penny is innocent."
"Penny is, on that I agree, but you are not." Ironwood stood, releasing the man with an angry push that sent his chair skating back. "You've disappointed me, Pietro. More than that, I think you'll find you've disappointed your daughter. After all, you'll have to explain to her just why she nearly got her new friends killed, and why the man she trusted most didn't bother to warn her that might happen. I wonder what she'll think of you then."
Pietro looked horrified, as well he should. Ironwood couldn't stand to look at the man he'd trusted so and instead turned his back. Even that didn't help because it left him looking down on the remains of Penny. He couldn't help but think she'd been failed as well, though that was as much by him as her father and creator.
"Not only would I have never allowed Penny down into the city, I would have deactivated her weaponry. The fact she cannot be harmed by conventional weapons should have been self-defence enough to roam Vale. Instead, she was sent down with armaments capable of destroying entire city blocks. Think for a moment on the sheer carnage that could have been caused if Chivalric Arms had her fire into the city to bring down those Bullheads. Penny would have a death count racking in the hundreds, if not thousands. For someone who refers to himself as one of the brightest minds in Atlas, you're remarkably naïve."
"Penny was created to be a huntress…"
"Huntresses cannot fire lasers capable of cutting through solid steel, nor drag down aircraft with their bare hands. At least not many of them. You've forgotten yourself, Pietro. You've let yourself become less a scientist and more some God playing at creating life, tacking on upgrade after upgrade, weapon after weapon, turning what should have been a prototype experimental AI into a walking death machine. Gods above, I was supposed to enter her in the Vytal Festival. How much damage would she have caused her opponents there?"
There was no answer. Ironwood scowled.
"You might be interested to know that the hostages taken by the White Fang before the huntresses arrived were all killed," he said, watching the man close his eyes sadly. "The White Fang tied and stored them in portacabins where they would have been safe, but the wreckage from the Bullheads Penny brought down crushed them. Those that didn't immediately die would have burned to death in slow agony. Congratulations, Pietro. You have not only created life but taken it away. There's a lesson to be learned there, though I can't help but doubt you've caught it since your first actions were to run to the Council and Chivalric Arms for protection."
"You would have done the same thing in my position," Pietro called after him weakly, stopping Ironwood at the door. "If you had a daughter, if she were yours, you would do anything to protect her. You don't have the right to end her existence."
"And yet you're content to end everyone else's to protect hers when you should know better." He let out a breath and steeled himself. "You are to remain in your quarters at all time. I may not be able to arrest you, Pietro, but while you are on the Vanguard you follow my orders. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to inform two young women that their mother won't be coming home to them ever again." He let the door whisk shut behind him with a terse, "Good day."
/-/
"No news on the huntresses from Beacon."
Roman set the steaming mug down on the table before the young man who frightened him more than he dared admit. The potato and leek soup within it swirled gently, chunks of bread bobbing up and down, only to go ignored by the man with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. A gun lay next to his right elbow, the cartridge removed and dust ammunition stacked neatly beside it.
"No news could mean anything. Hard to know if they're alive or dead." Roman sat beside him, or as close as he could manage. There was still a good six feet distance between them. "Neo is fine if you were wondering. Well, I wouldn't say fine, but healthy. Her opponent made a run for it once you were gone, took her bullet wound with her. Didn't stick around to duke it out with an injury like that."
The clock on the wall ticked on and on. Cars outside bustled by and rain pattered down on the nearby window. The slow sip Roman took of his own soup was deafening, and he winced at the small slurping sound that might set the kid off.
It didn't. The anger had burned out, it seemed.
"Kid. What you did back there…" He ran a hand through his hair, the bowler hat hanging from a hook by the door. His hair was unusually wild and messy, a consequence of just how much he'd been messing with it since he got back. "You can't… It's… Killing a kid like that – barely a child." He trailed off. "There are lines-"
"They crossed the line first," Jaune Arc whispered.
"They did," Roman agreed. "They definitely came leaping across it when they shot the Bullheads out the sky. Didn't even try and arrest the White Fang – just went in killing. It's just… no one is going to see it that way. The heroes swoop in and save the day, and if a few bad guys have to die to make that happen, well, they made their choices. That's the way it's always been. No one is going to care that they were the first ones to do it, only how you ended it."
The kid wasn't listening. His eyes were on his scroll, blank as it was. He hadn't even turned it on yet. Probably thinking how he needs to tell his sisters, Roman thought sadly. He wasn't the most sympathetic of people, but even he knew that would be a hard talk to have. One that he really didn't want to be around to overhear.
At least the murder fury was gone. Bled out like all anger did. It burned hot, ran out of fuel and turned into a summering ember or a cold as snow pile of ash. Jaune Arc looked to have gone for the latter, trapped now in thoughts Roman didn't dare delve into.
Did he regret it? Did he feel sorry for what happened? Did he feel anything at all?
The answers to those questions were too heavy for him to want anything to do with. Roman ran his hand through his hair again, fully making a mess of it, before he downed his lukewarm soup and stood, carrying the mug over to the sink. His scroll buzzed in his pocket silently. Picking it out, Roman sighed at the caller but answered it anyway, knowing it wasn't worth his life not to.
"Cinder, this really isn't the best time. You have to have seen the news."
"I've seen it. Quite the display."
She would be happy about that. If it wasn't bad enough him having to deal with Jaune and Neo, then Cinder was turning into a nutcase as well. Shit really wasn't looking up. "If you're wanting to talk with him then I'd suggest calling back tomorrow. He's not responding to anything I say and you're not going to make any friends intruding on his grief."
"His mother perished, then? That is a shame." Cinder sounded genuine there, much to his surprise. "She wasn't a disagreeable person. Mercury and Emerald will be genuinely upset at her passing, more Emerald than Mercury, but still. If it will mean anything then pass on my condolences."
"I'll do so. Was there anything else…?"
He prayed there wasn't.
"We've found Amber Arc."
Ruby crippled instead of dead. A few people guessed this would be the outcome – and looking deeper, you should be able to see why. If Ruby dies then Jaune has to contend with the crushing guilt of a death once his anger fades, and that would hold him back from being a pro-active character in hunting down Chivalric Arms. We need him ready to move as the plot relies on him to be the driving force. If he's stuck in place questioning himself and hesitating, then the whole story has to pause while he does so. That's bad for pacing.
Secondly, if Ruby dies (or all of Team RWBY as some people wanted) then who is alive to face the crushing weight of their decisions? If Ruby dies then Yang should go into a mad rage, but that's not nearly as interesting as Yang actually having to deal with her guilt as she looks after her sister. Same for Blake. Plus, this means we get to actually see what happens to Ruby as a result of her traumatic experience, including her thoughts about it.
You don't get any of that good stuff if she just off and dies.
"So, omg, Ruby only lives because the plot demands it!?"
Well. Yes. In the same way Juniper died because the plot demanded it and how Pyrrha died in the show because the plot demanded it. That's normal.
The doctor scene (and the lack of death) was also important to show some of Jaune's vulnerabilities. His Semblance is OP, but he is not when it comes to skill or capability, hence why Yang was able to kick his ass and probably would have continued to be able to if he hadn't disabled both her hands before she could react. Jaune is a regular guy with a gun.
He's dangerous, obviously, but he's no James Bond or Jason Bourne who can kill a person with a paperclip or isolate the most fatal places to shoot someone. Other than, you know, the head and heart. He was using Ruby as a human shield against Blake and just shot her in the back twice. In his mind, that should have been enough, and would have been if not for Atlas literally being on the way with an entire high-tech medical bay.
Next chapter will include our first PoV segment of Chivalric Arms.
Next Chapter: 24th August
P a treon . com (slash) Coeur
