Blake was running across the rooftops of Vale when she noticed a familiar mop of blonde hair stumble back into Beacon. She stared wide eyed knowing the danger he was in and quickly followed behind, cloaked in the shadows. She was taken aback as he avoided the grimm and made his way into the teacher's lounge.
"Where is it?" He threw objects around clearly drunk, Blake could smell him from the entrance.
"Jaune?" she whispered, looking around for grimm before entering the lounge. "We really shouldn't be here." She locked the door behind her, "The campus isn't exactly safe. Are you drunk?"
"The liquor store wasn't too high on the security team's priority list." he slurred before throwing the empty bottle and resuming his search, "Magic is real!"
"Keep your voice down!" she hissed trying to lower his shouting, "What do you mean 'magic is real'?"
"Magic, like real magic, is real. Ozpin knew it, he used it on Pyrrha, it's what got her killed."
"Jaune…"
"You didn't see what I saw, Blake." He stared into her eyes with an unbridled rage she'd never seen in him before, "You didn't hear her scream."
Blake gulped instinctively taking a step back from him, "Jaune, what are you looking for?"
"Something to bring her back." Jaune nodded and resumed his search, "If magic killed her than it can bring her back."
"Why are you looking in here?"
"I highly doubt that Ozpin would hide anything this important in the library and his office is a smoldering mess, so, this is all that's left."
"Valid point." Blake wasn't sure if she believed him - magic, really? - but he looked so lost and he was clearly drunk, so leaving him on his own would be a recipe for disaster. She'd failed a lot of people and didn't much like the idea of failing one more, so she shrugged her shoulders and started searching with him. At the very least she could prove there was nothing here and help him get out in one piece.
Jaune let out a roar and kicked the table only for it to stay in place and him knocked to the ground. Blake tilted her head and examined the table's base.
"It's bolted to the floor…" she noted.
"Yeah, and?" Jaune caressed his sore knee.
Blake didn't answer as she started examining the floor under them. She made her way to the wall where the faint scrapes of metal lay.
"The floor moves." Blake shot to her feet, "Come on, look for a button or something." She ordered as she started scrambling around.
Invigorated by this new information, Jaune instantly sobered up and started tearing the teacher's lounge apart. When no obvious button was found he started flipping all the light switches. Turning the lights on and off, the garbage disposal, then the floor clicked. Both he and Blake stood back as the floor narrowly opened revealing a staircase, wide enough for one person.
The two gulped as they descended into the stony catacombs.
"What is this place?" Jaune looked around at the ruins.
"If I were to guess?" Blake looked around, "Beacon repurposed an older building for its construction, and this is the remains of that. These walls are probably thousands of years old."
"The chamber Ozpin took me and Pyrrha…was modern and high tech, this place? This place reminds me of the ruins from initiation."
"I can see that." There was a section off the main corridor they were in with something Blake was very familiar with. "Books."
Jaune turned around and joined her as she was already tearing into the new reading material. His attention span however drew him to various jars of random herbs and other things he couldn't identify.
"I think I found something." Blake was holding a worn piece of parchment with faded ink scrawled all over it.
"The Rune of Bys-Wer?" Jaune looked at what little he could make out from the faded text, "What's it do?"
"If I'm reading this correctly, the wording is kind of faded, it's a blood sigil. Blood leads to blood. It's a portal that'll open and summon the blood of the one who cast it. Jaune, this borders on preposterous. Do you have any idea how many 'spell books' are in every bookstore?"
"Blake, I know how everything must sound, but I swear to you that magic is real. I saw it with my own two eyes! We have to try, besides, if it doesn't work, we only wasted a few hours…"
He's not going to give up on this, I'll entertain him for now, maybe seeing this fail will get him to calm down… Blake sighed and reluctantly nodded, "Well, then how are we going to get Pyrrha's blood?"
Jaune thought it over, "The nurse's office, the medical staff are required to have every student's blood on hand in case they are seriously injured during an exercise!" Jaune took off without a second thought leaving Blake alone in the catacombs.
"Well…" she spoke to herself, "What else do I need? Pyrrha's blood…an angel feather? Tears of a dragon?! A PINCH OF THE SANDS OF TIME?! What the hell…"
Blake looked around the dust blanketed shelves and saw bottles of ingredients labeled just what she needed. She took a deep breath, this was a hard pill to swallow, but she did for Jaune. The angel feather looked like any ordinary feather, but there was something she couldn't put a finger on emanating from it. The tears were no different, three drops floated inside the bottle and remained in place even as she shook. She found an hourglass where the sands flowed upwards at what looked like one grain at a time.
"I've got a bad feeling about this…"
Jaune ran through the halls of Beacon cutting down any grimm that came before him. A raging inferno fueling his every step he marched toward the nurse's office. He'd unfortunately memorized the various routes needed to get there thanks to Cardin.
With the attack on the city main power had collapsed and the backup generator had kicked in. It only powered the more essential parts of the school and luckily for him the nurse's office was one of them. He punched in his team's code and out popped four pints of blood for each member of his team. He grabbed a nearby cooler and threw Pyrrha's blood inside.
"I've got it!" he cheered making his way back to Blake, "How'd it go down here?"
"Good news is that all the ingredients for this are all a bit crazy but I think I've found them among the bottles Ozpin labelled." Blake's voice held a note of caution. She clearly didn't believe any of this, let alone that magic existed at all. Maybe she was just humouring him or trying to let him wear out his options. That was fine. He knew this was real. He knew magic existed.
After this, Blake would too. Hopefully. If this worked...
"Any other bad news?"
"We need the power of our soul to cast the spell."
"Like our aura?"
"I honestly don't know; all I can make out is that we need to tap the power of our souls in order for this to work."
"So, we've got one shot at this, and it'll drain my soul."
"Yours?"
"It's my fault she's gone…if I hadn't been so weak, I could've protected her, or even dragged her away from here. Also, Pyrrha said I had a lot of aura, so, maybe it won't kill me. Fingers crossed…"
"Jaune maybe this is a bad idea, Pyrrha died protecting you, she'd never forgive you if you died to bring her back. What if Pyrrha does come back and finds out that you died to bring her back, do you honestly think she'll be happy?"
"If I hadn't had been so weak, she never would've gotten killed in the first place."
"Jaune…"
"Blake I'm doing this." He declared, "Are you going to help me or not?"
Blake mixed the ingredients in a bowl before pouring it into the carvings in the levitating one. The bowl was inside a square with the corners as pedestals for the caster's hands. Jaune put his hands on two and Blake did the same.
"What are-?"
"Maybe if both of us do it you won't die, and you can tell Pyrrha yourself what happened."
He smiled and nodded as the blood began to glow orange. An orange glyph spawned on the floor below them. A ring of runes surrounded them as a cloud of purple fog began to engulf them.
"I-Is this normal?" Blake asked as the golden ring began to multiply.
"I saw something like this happen to Cinder when she stole the magic from Ozpin." Jaune nodded, "I think this is right."
They stared in awe as the rings began circling them like electrons on an atom.
The foundations of Beacon began to shake, and the world seemed to break away. Before long the two of them were floating in the cosmos with only the bowl to tether themselves to each other. There was a familiar scream as the catacombs began to reshape around them. They fell to the floor and saw Glynda Goodwitch compressing their spell in what looked like a glass orb.
"Professor Goodwitch?" Jaune rubbed his eyes.
"What are you two doing?!" Glynda asked seething with rage, "Do you two have any idea what you were doing?! This spell travels the dark borders between known and unknown reality! That spell was completely out of control. If I hadn't shut it down something catastrophic could have happened."
"You mean more catastrophic than an entire kingdom falling?" Jaune crossed his arms with a glare.
"Mind your tone with me, young man." Glynda scolded.
"Shove off." Jaune rose to his feet, "It's your fault she's dead. You and your secret society bullshit! You agreed with Pyrrha that forcing someone else's soul into her was wrong and you did nothing. You stood by and let it happen!"
Jaune leapt for the orb but was quickly deflected by Glynda. Normally Blake wouldn't attack a teacher, but she just saw real magic! Magic that her teachers were hiding from the world, if this spell really could bring Pyrrha back and undo this tragedy, it was worth a shot.
Blake went for the orb next and used her shadow clones to evade Glynda's counters. She knocked the orb off the table, and it rolled over to Jaune. Glynda quickly used her semblance to levitate the orb, but Jaune unfolded his shield and swatted it out of the air with enough force to shatter it upon impact. The burning blinding light made them scream as it consumed the room.
"RAH!" Jaune woke up gasping for air. His onesie was soaked through from sweat, not to mention his sheets, and blanket. "Jaune?" he heard her voice and felt her hand on his shoulder, "Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah, rough dream is all." The words escaped him without realizing. His breath hitched as he stared into those emerald halos. It had worked! She was back!
"A-Are you sure?" she asked as he continued to stare into her eyes, huh, her inner irises had a some blue in there. He stared into those perfect irises as they shrank and grew and shifted with each of her beautiful expressions. Every emotion he'd ever felt toward her swelled and hemorrhaged inside his chest. It felt like a lifetime since he'd seen their glow. She was so, so, so beautiful…
"Jaune…you're crying, why?"
He looked at Ren giving him a raised eyebrow and Nora still asleep. "I-I…I dreamt you died…" he confessed, "I-It was so real…"
Pyrrha paused on hearing his words, and a flash of several different emotions played over her face. Surprise, concern, even a little awkward smile like she wasn't sure what to think of someone she'd only known for a few days dreaming of her. Seeing his distress, however, she settled herself down on the bed and said, "It was just a dream. "I'm still here."
Before he knew it, he'd reached out and began stroking her cheek. Blood rushed to her face so fast she lost feeling in her hands. "S-See?" she lightly touched his wrist ready to wrench him away if need be.
"I do…" his voice was barely above a whisper as he finally smiled.
"Jaune…you kind of stink…"
He looked down and realized he was still stewing in his sweaty clothes, "I guess I'll get ready now."
Pyrrha got up and handed him a bag with their dorm room embroidered into the cloth. He threw his sheets inside and threw it into the bathroom for his onesie.
As he grabbed a pair of towels and a change of clothes, he noticed that Pyrrha was still unpacking. Had he really gone back THAT far? He remembered so little from that time, Ren and Nora were drifters, they carried little, with the prospect of a dorm room as a permanent home having been a dream shared between them. He was a farm boy who brought what he could stuff into his backpack. Pyrrha having the most luggage now seemed reasonable.
"The Martial Master of Mistral, Volume Nine?" Ren read aloud as he helped Pyrrha unpack by sorting through a box that seemed to contain nothing but movies. "You realize that The Martial Master Series relies heavily on hearsay and stereotypes for the martial arts they use, right?" he asked as he found volumes one through eight in the box.
"I know." Pyrrha flashed Jaune another smile as she picked through her clothes looking for her uniform.
He couldn't hear exactly what they were talking about, but he could still hear their voices through the walls of their bathroom. He washed his face and sat on the toilet while the water for the shower warmed up. He breathed in the steam as memories began to rush back into his mind. He tried to remember where exactly he was in the timeline, if they were still unpacking, they had to be close to the early days of Beacon.
It honestly felt like a lifetime ago since their first days at Beacon. It was a school day when he saw Ren already dressed up. He would have to follow the crowd and try to figure out more later. He took a quick shower and took his time to dry off. He stared at himself in the mirror and noticed his body was slightly more muscular than he remembered. Did his future body come back with him? Awesome!
You are all the woman I need
And baby you know it~
"Finally!" he heard Nora yell as the room was filled with bouncy, energetic jazz. It hit Jaune like a truck where he was now, it was the first time he ever saw Nora sad. She was trying to get Ren to dance with her and when he didn't, she tried the others, but they didn't know each other well enough to do anything like that.
He cracked the door to the bathroom to see Nora shake and shimmy in place to the music. Wiggling her hips, her eyes closed, elbows hugging close to her ribs as her hands balled into fists. She hummed along to the cheery music and the sensual singer's voice, kicking her feet out as the music became livelier. She wasn't an expert dancer by any means, but that didn't stop her.
"Ren!" Nora wiggled close to her boyfriend with a smile that threatened to tear her face in two. "Dance!" she held her hands out wiggling her butt as she did.
"You know I'm not a big jazz fan." Ren looked uncomfortable as Nora pouted. "It's annoying…this is just senseless wiggling…"
"But senseless wiggling is that I'm good at though!" She stomped her feet huffily before turning to Pyrrha with pleading puppy eyes, "Pyrrrhhhaaa, dance with me, pleeease!"
"N-No offense Nora." Pyrrha timidly played with the hem of her jacket, "I'm not that much of a dancer. I think I'll sit this one out."
There it was, the frown, she started to make her way to the radio when he took a deep breath and kicked the door open surprising everyone. His left hand's fingertips where pressed to his forehead, the other were pointing at her in a dramatic fashion.
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
Long as you love me
It's alright
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
You got the power
To turn on the liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
Ren winced as his voice cracked trying to match the singer's, but Jaune paid him no mind as he took Nora by the hand and started dancing with her. She squealed as her hand was taken and the chorus repeated. Pyrrha stared in silent awe as Jaune spun Nora around letting her go so they could stand across from each other. Nora broke down into laughter as they continued to openly groove in their dorm room.
Ren's eyes widened as his girlfriend showed little care or worry dancing with someone who, at the moment, was still practically a complete stranger. There was zero hesitation as they took each other in their arms and spun around. Legs kicking, arms swinging, smiles wide and happy. Ren stared blankly, unaware that his hands were digging into his knees harder and harder as Nora flashed him a toothy smile. The song faded out and their dance concluded. The smile on her face made it all worth it. He did however notice the subtle twitch under Ren's eye. He internally chuckled, he never pegged him as the jealous type. He grabbed his uniform and started getting ready.
"What's the plan for today team?" he asked.
"Professor Goodwitch has the flu so combat class is canceled for today." Ren informed pulling up the school's website. "I think they might extend History and Grimm Studies to fill the slot."
"Are you always so pessimistic?" Jaune chuckled tying his tie.
"It's the logical thing to do." Ren shrugged.
"Well, I think we're going to have an early day." Jaune nodded fixing his uniform, "I was also thinking maybe we go into town and do some team bonding? Maybe get to know each other more since we're going to spend the next four years with each other?"
"That sounds grand!" Pyrrha wholeheartedly agreed.
"Do we haaaaave to?" Nora flopped back into bed even in her uniform.
"What if we visited The International House of Pancakes?" Jaune shrugged looking away with a knowing smile.
"Say what now?" Nora's head shot up from her pillow.
"Four different kinds of syrup, but I mean if we're not going into town…"
"I'M IN!" Nora shot to attention with speeds that put cheetahs to shame. She jumped on Jaune breaking down the door, "TAKE ME TO THE PANCAKES!"
"How did you know?" Ren started to ask but was quickly drowned out by a shriek coming from the room across from them.
"IT'S EIGHT FIFTY-FIVE YOU DUNCE!"
"T-T-TO CLASS!"
Team RWBY rushed out of their room and Jaune checked his scroll. "We're gonna be late!" Jaune and Nora took off after Team RWBY.
"Are you okay, Lie?" Pyrrha asked.
"Hm?" Ren looked at her, "Yeah, just thinking about something. Oh, and please, call me Ren."
"Okay." Pyrrha nodded as they ran to catch up with everyone else.
The two teams made it to class with one minute to spare. Just as they were walking in, Blake grabbed Jaune's arm and yanked him aside.
"Jaune…" she hissed, "Is…is this real?"
"I think it is!" Jaune practically cheered, "I thought I was going to bring her back…but this? This is so much better, a chance to prevent it all before it even happens!"
"What about Professor Goodwitch?" Blake watched his gleefulness fade, "She was caught up in the blast too."
"I think she'd be one of the first people to join us in preventing it all from happening don't you think? To prevent a kingdom's destruction?"
"Jaune are you really doing this for the kingdom?"
Jaune frowned and the bell for class rang. He walked right in and sat with his team before she could grab him again.
"I want them all." Nora drooled over her menu.
"Nora." Ren sternly declared, "Also order some real food besides just sugar."
Nora pouted and flipped over to the food selection, "Oh. The Deluxe Three Cheese and Bacon Omelette. With some New Vale Cheesecake Pancakes."
"I know what I'm getting." Jaune's stomach rumbled when he heard that. "Though I think I'm going with the Strawberry and Cream Crepes."
"Crepes?!" Nora faux gasped, "How dare you insult the House of Pancakes with crepes!" she sneered and spat the word like venom.
"You know they're the same thing, right?" Ren pointed out.
"Blasphemy!"
"I think I'll have the same omelet." Pyrrha closed her menu. "But with Lemon Ricotta Blueberry Pancakes."
"I saw those, but I thought they'd be too sweet." Jaune commented.
"Oh? You mean not because they weren't crepes?" Pyrrha raised an eyebrow with a smirk.
"Et tu brute?" Jaune dragged the collar of his hoodie over his face.
"Besides it has lemon and blueberries."
"A weakness of yours?" Jaune asked fixing his hoodie.
"My two favorite sweets are anything that contain lemons or blueberries. Both? I have no chance." Pyrrha shook her head.
Jaune laughed and looked over at Ren, "So, what are you getting Ren?"
His eyes were fixated on the menu, but he trained his peripheral vision extensively and he was watching Jaune the entire time, "You don't know?" He asked looking for a reaction, but when he didn't get one, he closed the menu. "Chocolate Chip, I'll have Nora's omelet. I just have this feeling that she won't eat it anyway."
There was a helicopter hovering over Vale covering the Vytal Festival. Team JNPR had gotten lost and separated in the concrete jungle, but they were able to meet back up in a parking garage. They took an elevator to the top to look over Vale's Skyline.
"Imagine this at night." Nora swooned leaning on the wall. "All the pretty colors."
They took a deep breath to take in the sights when the sounds of screaming filled the air. They immediately called their lockers, suited up, and went down to see what the commotion was.
"Why's everyone running?" Jaune asked.
"What's going on?" Nora tried to ask one of the people running away.
Something clicked in Jaune's head as he jumped on a car and stared at the parking garage that they were just in. One of the floors collapsed and flooded the area with dust. There were black and red tendrils thrashing about throwing cars as if they were feathers.
"How did a grimm get into the city?" Pyrrha asked readying her shield.
This was wrong.
He knew they'd never been out like this the first time, but he was sure he'd have heard about a Grimm attack in the city. There hadn't been one until the Breach, and that ought to be months away.
What was going on? There was no reason for Cinder to start early - no reason for the White Fang either. While his team readied themselves, Jaune shook his head, struggling with an unknown worry creeping through him. This wasn't right. This was all wrong. A black three clawed tendril shot out and latched itself onto a nearby wall. It slowly started to pull something out of the debris, and what it did made JNPR's jaws drop.
It was Pyrrha, only not, her entire left arm was covered in black goo, and it seemed to spread only stopping at about half of her upper body. There were two white spiked tendrils sprouting up from her shoulder, but they looked to be more aesthetic than anything. There was a third one that wrapped around her upper arm like armour, there was a third smaller tendril hanging out of her elbow, and her hand ended in three claws.
Her once glorious scarlet ponytail was now a greasy, unkempt, slag of its former glory. The left half of her face seemed as if it had melted away exposing her muscle and bits of her skull. The red essence of the grimm clouded her eyes and floated out of her exposed mouth. Protruding from her spine were long red tendrils with white spiked tips.
"Jaune." She glared as the tentacles dug into the concrete and her body hovered in the air. "How could you do this to me?"
"Ren…are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Nora gaped like a fish at the sight of her grimmified friend.
"Are you seeing a Grimm/Pyrrha Hybrid?" Ren asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Then yes."
Pyrrha couldn't bring herself to move, every fibre of her being was screaming at her to do something, anything, but her body was frozen in place.
The Grimm Pyrrha looked at the regular one then pointed back at Jaune, "You think turning your bot into me will change my opinion of you?! You think it'll change what you've done?!"
Jaune shook his head. Why was this thing that looked so much like Pyrrha talking to him like she knew him? What was it in the first place? He looked left again, just to reassure himself that the real Pyrrha was there, then back to the monster. "I… I don't… Who, what, are you?"
"You want to play games?" The seer tentacles wrapped around two cars and lifted them into the air.
"Guys." Ren backed up.
She hurled the cars at them; they were able to dodge them at the last minute, but the Grimm Pyrrha continued to follow. She looked in a department store window and saw the TV's playing out what was going on. She looked up and saw the news helicopter tracking her movements. She extended her grimm arm and yanked it out of the air. She flipped it upside down and brought the blades spinning down on them when they vanished.
"What the?" Pyrrha started laughing, "Oh Ren, that semblance of yours is a real pain now."
She brought the blades down but didn't see any blood or bone fragments. She tossed the now useless weapon aside and started searching. She lashed out at anything that made a sound around her but so far nothing. Ren gasped and wheezed as his aura broke and his semblance ended.
"There!" Grimm Pyrrha charged at them when a purple glyph transported them all to the catacombs.
The Grimm Pyrrha slammed against an invisible wall inside a stone cell, purple glyphs marking the pillars of the cell. NPR looked around at where they were, Jaune however dreaded what was about to happen next. They stuck together and looked around hoping for something good.
"Purple glyph." Pyrrha noticed, "Professor-AHH!"
A swarm of bats collided against a mystical barrier before taking shape into another Pyrrha. She was more formally dressed however in a charcoal grey suit, a full-length red frock overcoat cape combination, white gloves, a red wide-floppy-brim fedora, and heavy tinted orange wire frame glasses. But her most endearing trait or haunting trait was her blood red irises.
"Oh my," she spoke with a haunting melancholy that somehow enticed and repulsed, "Gives 'scare-yourself-silly' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?"
Jaune screamed and nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand touched his shoulder. Team JNPR all whirled around to see Glynda Goodwitch bloodied and beaten near to death.
"Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Arc." Glynda sighed as she channelled her aura into a huge chunk of flesh missing from her side. "I warned you this would happen, I warned you back in the present, future, whatever but you didn't care to hear it! Well, hear it now!"
"Professor Goodwitch?" Jaune sighed a breath of relief, "Professor what's going on?"
"That little spell you and Miss. Belladonna cooked up to bring back Miss. Nikos, actually started pulling in EVERY Pyrrha Nikos from every universe into this one. Do you see know what you've done?!" she grabbed his collar and shook the boy, "Do you have the tiniest iota of what you have caused?! No, of course you don't! You had no idea of the powers you were playing with, and you did it anyway!"
"Bring back?" Pyrrha asked.
"Spell?" Ren raised an eyebrow.
"The Multiverse is real?!" Nora squealed.
"Do you want to tell them or should I?"
Jaune looked at the floor and slowly shuffled to his team, "I'm not the Jaune Arc you know, not really…I'm Jaune Arc, from almost a year into the future."
"WHAT?!" they shrieked.
"During the Vytal Festival, Beacon is attacked, and Pyrrha…dies…I could've stopped her from going up there, but I was too weak. Blake and I found a spell that was supposed to bring you back, but it sent us here."
"You lied to me this morning?" Pyrrha asked, "When you said you were having a bad dream."
"Can you go back a second." Ren raised his hand, "Magic, like real magic, is real? The wording of that sentence was weird, I know."
Jaune's knuckles popped as he made a fist, "Ozpin has this secret society."
"Okay Mr…" Glynda tried to stop him.
"TheHeadmastersknowaboutrealmagicandthat'sreallywhatgotPyrrhakilled!" Jaune scrambled to get it all out while trying to dodge Glynda.
"What do you mean that's really what got me killed?" Pyrrha finally managed to speak.
"Miss. Nikos please try to understand…"
"Ozpin, Goodwitch, Ironwood, Ruby's Uncle, and the other headmasters have formed a secret society to protect the world and the Four Maidens." The Red Pyrrha explained, "Sorry Jaune, but you don't know the whole story and I don't want her leaving out anything else."
"Is that how you became…what are you exactly?" Nora asked.
"I'm a vampire." The Red Pyrrha flashed her fangs, "No, Ozpin had nothing to do with my situation. We actually fought alongside each other when he was still The King of Vale."
"King of…how old are you? I? How old am are you I?" Pyrrha's eyes started spinning.
"Five Hundred Eighty-Two." The Red Pyrrha explained.
"Why did you try and kill Professor Goodwitch?" Nora asked.
"What did you mean by anything else?" Ren asked.
"Oh? She's not told you, either? Well, this Glynda Goodwitch has some tricks up her sleeve." The Red Pyrrha explained, "I believe she dabbles in the mystic arts more than she lets on. As for trying to kill her…"
"When I awoke and saw the date, I detected an otherworldly presence." Glynda explained, "I followed it to a cave where I found her. When contacting an other-dimensional-being, assuming hostility is the general rule."
"How'd that work out for you?" The Red Pyrrha winked licking her lips. "I've never tasted a witch's blood before, well, a good witch's blood anyway."
"Wait…are you telling me that you've…" Glynda was cut off when a mini purple glyph on her wrist started flashing, "Not again." Snapping her fingers, turned the mini glyph into a full-blown map of Vale where a dot was blinking rapidly at the docks. "I don't know how many of these…visitors…we've got on our hands, but it appears that one just appeared at the docks. I'm going to go deal with it, you stay here. It's probably for the best that you stay here and not engage with them because, frankly, the multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little." Glynda snapped her fingers and with a purple glyph she disappeared.
"Well," The Red Pyrrha smiled, "If anything you've got yourself a keeper, me."
"What are you talking about?" the original Pyrrha tilted her head.
"I mean it's not every day that you find a man willing to rip apart the fabric of reality for you." The Red Pyrrha chuckled dryly.
Sun and Blake fought back-to-back as more White Fang grunts were deployed to their location. Sun knocked out one more when a white thigh-high-boot collided with his face. She backflipped off his face and landed next to Roman.
"Thank you, Neo." She helped him to his feet, "You are not the brightest banana in the bunch are ya kid?" Roman signalled the White Fang to attack.
There was a primal roar that stopped them dead in their tracks.
They all turned to see Pyrrha running at full speed toward them.
One White Fang grunt started shooting at her, she didn't even try to dodge, the bullets ripped through her body, but she kept coming. Three claws extended from between her knuckles, and with one slash she nearly cut the shooter's head off. Panicked, another opened fire, a second set of claws came out of her opposite hand; she cut off his hand holding the gun before slicing through the flesh of his neck. One unloaded his entire magazine into her chest, but she brushed them off like the bullets were grapes and cut through head. She drove her fist into the chest of another with enough force to send him flying into a shipping container. She cut down two more before outright jumping into one impaling him on her claws. She yanked out the blades and let out another primal roar as her body started to push the bullets out of her and her skin began to regenerate.
"That's new…" Roman flicked his cane with both annoyance and surprise, clearly taken aback by her performance while Sun threw up. "I haven't seen anything like that since my last trip to Vacuo. Wait, I know you, you're the Cereal Girl, right?"
"It's been about thirty-five years since anyone's called me that." She huffed as fresh blood dripped from her claws.
"So, what do they call you then?" Roman asked as he grabbed Neo with a trembling hand.
"Texas…" another voice ripped through the air, "SMASH!" a second Pyrrha flew in and punched the raging one through several containers.
This one was wearing a skin-tight blue bodysuit decorated with a red spear and shield symbol, designed with a white diamond at its centre, with white lines connected to it that trace from her chest to her back shoulders; the lines trimmed with the aforementioned red symbol.
"Do not fear citizens!" She proclaimed, "I am here!"
"What in the ever loving fuck am I watching right now?" Roman gasped. "You know what? Fuck this noise. Neo, if you will." He shot at the ground, and they blew apart into pieces of glass.
A secondary explosion rocked the air as a shipping container spit out a flaming silver skeleton.
"Dude! You fucking killed her!" Sun shrieked readying his staff.
The Superhero Pyrrha simply held up her hand, "Wait."
A circulatory system began to form inside and around the skeleton. Organs began to grow next, a muscular system quickly formed to hold everything in place. She started to scream as her vocal cords formed and her skin and hair grew last.
Sun stared with his jaw on the ground and nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned his head. The Superhero Pyrrha had somehow shrunk, she looked more like a skeleton than a person. Her costume sagged around her like a cloak, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, even her ponytail lost its vibrancy.
"What is going on here?" Glynda asked stepping out of her glyph and seeing the aftermath of recent events. "Miss. Nikos, and Miss. Nikos?"
"Yeah, it's me Professor." The Shrunken Superhero waved.
"This is real then?" The Regenerated Pyrrha retracted her claws.
"Ah, finally, you decide to speak." Superhero Pyrrha crossed her arms.
"Blake!" RWY came running to the docks. Yang immediately went into big-sister-mode and hid Ruby's eyes at the sight of the naked Pyrrha on her knees. She yanked off her cloak and tossed it to Weiss, who with bloody cheeks wrapped up Pyrrha.
"I need you all to come with me, now." Glynda ordered as she summoned a full-sized glyph to transport them all back to the catacombs.
Jaune had been having a wonderful day, he never imagined that it would've taken such a drastic turn. Pyrrha and Ren retreated to the part of the catacombs with the books and ingredients, while Jaune and Nora were left with the other Pyrrhas.
"Hey." Nora gingerly approached Jaune, "I was wondering, do you mind if I ask you something?"
"What's up?" Jaune looked up from his downtrodden position.
"I was just wondering if me and Ren…do we make it?"
"Yeah." Jaune nodded, "You two make it."
"Are we still together?"
Jaune tilted his head at the statement, "Why wouldn't you be?"
Nora sighed taking a seat next to him, "I'm not stupid Jaune, I know that I put people off. I know that he does things just to make me happy, but I've always felt that maybe he does them just to shut me up. Losing our home again, everyone has a breaking point Jaune, I guess I just wanted to know if I pushed Ren to his."
"Honestly, the last time I saw you two, you were helping the civilians deal with everything. I don't think you two had the time to worry about anything else." Jaune looked over at them, "I didn't mean for this to happen, I just wanted to bring her back…"
Nora got up and brushed the dust off her skirt, "Let me talk to her, okay?"
Jaune nodded as she walked over to her teammates, Ren was looking over the scrolls and parchments while Pyrrha was looking at the jars of ingredients, several of which may or may not have been alive.
"Pyrrha." Nora approached, "Can you talk to Jaune? He's in a bit of a funk, he thinks he screwed up."
"He did." Ren turned to face his girlfriend, "Nora, he broke the Multiverse."
"I understand, but it was an accident."
"Nora, this isn't eating someone else's leftovers in the fridge. This is the very fabric of reality. He DID screw up."
"I understand that, but he's already been through enough, shutting him out won't help any."
"We're trying to find a way to fix…"
"You mean clean up his mess?" Nora crossed her arms with a glare that sent a shiver down Pyrrha's spine, "Dress it up however you like, you were about to say clean up his mess and some other bullshit about consequences, right?"
"Yes." He answered callously.
"Lie." Nora stepped up and turned him around, and with her strength it was an easy feat, "You look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't do the same if it were me. If I was taken from you and you had the means to bring me back. You tell me right now that you wouldn't hesitate."
"Nora…"
"No. You tell me right now that if you had a sliver of hope to bring me back that you wouldn't hesitate. That if you had just a spec of light in shining darkness, you wouldn't embrace it with everything you had?!"
The last part echoed through the catacombs and all eyes fell on him. He was nothing short of speechless as he looked at Jaune, Glynda, Team RWBY, and all the Pyrrhas stare at him.
"Okay…" he finally answered but it came out more 'o-ay' as his calm voice cracked.
Glynda put a hand on Jaune's shoulder, "Given the training that we put you through, somehow I always forget you're still just children. Believe when I say, I know how powerful hope can be…and also how devastating it can result in. Don't worry Mr. Ar…Jaune…we'll get through this, okay?"
When he looked into her smile it reminded him of his mother. He couldn't hold it in any longer. He shot out with both arms and embraced her, sobbing uncontrollably into her chest. She rubbed the back of his head gently as she formed a purple glyph in her hand. Lightly tapping the back of his head made him go limp. She laid his body down as a ping went off on all their scrolls.
"Will Team JNPR please report to the headmaster's office immediately. I repeat, all members of Team JNPR report to the headmaster's office. Please also bring Pyrrha Nikos to the office. If anyone should see Pyrrha Nikos, please escort her to the headmaster's office and come in person yourself. Thank you."
"Well shit." Glynda put away her scroll as the announcement ended. "It would seem that Ozpin's found out."
She snapped her fingers and black glyphs wrapped around the Pyrrhas' wrists. They started spinning wildly until they popped and on their wrists were bright silver shackles with black gems embedded within.
The Vampire Pyrrha lifted her wrist and sniffed the gems, "The Burning Black Sands of Stygr. You've really embraced your 'Good Witch of the North' persona."
"Gods I hate that joke…" Glynda snapped her fingers once again and the shackles were connected by a single chain link.
"Ow." Vampire watched the magical wall holding her inside her cell vanish, "I'm sorry, would you prefer "Mistress of the Mystic Arts'?"
"Um…Professor?" the original Pyrrha raised her shackled hands.
Glynda used another glyph to transport them directly into Ozpin's office where another Pyrrha, this one wearing a long brown leather coat lined with fur, was already waiting with her arms around Coco and Velvet. The cast tilted their heads upon seeing both Coco and Velvet wearing nothing but an oversized uniform shirt barely buttoned and covering their naughty bits.
"Hey guys!" Velvet quickly waved before wrapping her arm back around Pyrrha's waist.
"This is getting out of hand." Glynda pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You have no idea." This Pyrrha wore a long black coat, vest, and held a katana almost as long as her.