Chapter 4

Inner Struggles

Oscar sighed as Charlie arrived, shuffling in place. The boy was clearly nervous about training.

"Don't worry, we'll take it slow" Charlie assured him.

Oscar nodded and drew the long memory. As the black cane extended out of the handle, Oscar stared at it and said "I'm just going to be another one of his lives…"

Zander shook his head and replied "no, that's not quite how it works. Malcolm looked into you mind and energy, so I can explain it for you if you'd like since a certain someone is not willing to"

Oscar hadn't heard from Ozpin since Zander and his father had revealed the truth. So he was left with only his own thoughts. He looked at Charlie and nodded.

"It's not him taking over your body, while you eventually will be able to recall all his memories, and they all seem like the same person, you are still you. Your memories are separate, and they stay that way, the only difference is your thoughts are more like his once the merge is complete. You have his wisdom and drive to stop Salem, but it's only impulses. You are still free to make your own choices" Charlie finished.

Oscar thought long and hard for a while before saying "that's not….as bad as I thought it'd be…"

Charlie smiled and said "let's start slow" before drawing the Murasama and deactivating the high-frequency tech.

He held it forward and Oscar held up his cane in response.

"Alright, I'm gonna come at you slow, watch these sword positions and we'll speed up slowly" Charlie explained. This was the first step of same regiment that he had put Jaune through, and he had a feeling it would work just as well with Oscar.

Qrow was sitting at the bar, getting ready to drink when Zander sat down next to him in his human guise.

"What do you want?" Qrow demanded, just barely out of a hangover.

Zander sighed and replied "i need you to come back, Glynda needs you to run some recon"

"I don't wanna…" Qrow stammered.

Zander shook his head and replied "too bad, your gonna have to get through this and get back to work, regardless of how you feel about Oz"

Qrow gave him a look, thought it over for a solid minute and then said "if you can do more shots than me!"

The latios sighed and said "this really isn't necessary, but if it will make you come back then fine, first to throw up loses"

Qrow smiled and ordered two bottles of the strongest liquor he knew of. The two began and after ten shots, Qrow's stomach gave out.

Zander, who seemed completely unaffected, helped Qrow outside and said "you had no chance by the way, my metabolism is so much faster that I physically can't get drunk"

"Cheater.." Qrow mumbled before staggering off towards Beacon.

Yang entered her room to find Pyrrah, Weiss, and Ren waiting for her.

"We need to talk, now" Weiss stated firmly before knocking Yang into a chair with her glyphs.

The blond brawler crossed her arms and said "what do you want?"

Pyrrha stood up and put her hand on Yang's shoulder saying "we know how hard things have been, but you need to open up to us, so we can get though this together"

"Why? So we can fight Ozpin's meaningless war with Salem, waste our lives like Summer, my 2nd mother did?" Yang questioned.

Ren then spoke up with "you need to move past that, Zander made it clear things aren't hopeless, and he's been far more transparent than Ozpin has"

Yang's emotions boiled over, her hair igniting again causing everyone to jump in their seats and Pyrrha to jump back a few feet. Despite her training, a human's natural instinct to back away from fire was still present.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT! WHAT MAKES YOU SO.." Yang was cut off by her voice cracking, in a strange way that sounded like a squawk. Yang felt a sense of vertigo, and then noticed everyone's strange look at her and asked "What's so weird?" but her voice sounded off to her.

Everyone was staring at her, causing her to look down at herself and gasp. Her black pants and boots had fallen to the floor, along with her prosthetic arm and jacket. Her orange crop top was all that remained around her much smaller body. She was a small avian Pokémon that closely resembled a falcon. Red-orange plumage covered her head, wings, and most of her chest and back before tapering off into a flame pattern. Her underside and hindquarters were gray and the tips of her long, pointed wings were black. Orange spots speckled her underside. Large yellow talons extended from the shaggy feathers on her legs. She had a pointed crest atop her head and black-and-yellow mask-like markings around her eyes. She could also barely make out her black beak which was hooked with a yellow cere. She also had long black tail feathers marked with three yellow V-shapes. The tail ended in two points and had another feather sticking out of the base on each side, resembling of the fletching on the end of an arrow.

The talonflame squawked loudly in shock and began flapping around wildly, causing embers to scatter around the room. Luckily Pyrrah put them out before any serious fire could start.

"Yang, Please calm down!" Pyrrha shouted, managing to calm her down for a second. The invisible girl put on her gauntlet and said "can you jump up on this?"

Yang was still in shock, so Weiss rushed forward and picked Yang up, allowing her talons to rest on Pyrrah's metal-protected right arm.

The new talonflame could barely handle her new center of gravity, but managed to get balanced and hold on as Pyrrha carried her to Z's lab. Ren was still sitting there in stunned silence as Weiss followed after her.

As soon as they entered the lab, Z went bug-eyed and asked "where did you find this pokemon?"

"It's Yang..she changed..right in front of us!" Weiss explained, still somewhat is disbelief.

Z facepalmed and relied "just want I need..put her on the table right here"

Pyrrha did as instructed and Z pulled out a small syringe saying "Yang, can you understand me?"

The talonflame was eyeing the syringe as she nodded.

"I need to take a blood sample, so we can see how I can change you back" the zoroark explained.

Yang tensed but allowed him to take the sample. He put the blood on a scanner and said "I'm gonna run some tests"

The others left the lab only to find the Mason twins just now arriving.

"Wait a minute…let me guess, Yang?" Charlie asked as he saw the orange crop top wrapped around the talonflame.

"Flame..flame.." Yang squawked.

Kelly nodded and said "yea, I'd guess you probably got exposed to the DNA vial near your mom and it mixed with the maiden powers. The magic your mom got from Ozpin probably transferred over as well"

"Wait, you can understand her?" Pyrrha questioned.

"Pokespeak may sound like the same words, but it's just an innate ability of a pokemon to understand it, one of the perks of being a shifter." Charlie added.

Pyrrha sighed and said "don't worry Yang, we'll take care of you.."

As the redhead went to take Yang's last article of clothing off of her, which was scrunching her wings up against her, Yang nipped at her, causing her to stop,

Kelly walked up and petter her on the head before saying "come on, think of your feathers as your clothes"

With enough convincing they took off the crop top, allowing Yang to finally spread out her wings, but it was clear she didn't know how to use them. Qrow staggered into the courtyard, and upon seeing everyone, asked "what's up with that bird?"

"It's Yang, maybe you can help her through this…" Charlie began.

Qrow shook his head and walked off to his room, he'd tackle this after he slept off the rest of his hangover..

Auhtor's note- oh dear...

1. yup, Yang is a Talonflame, decided it was fitting,

2. Someone acutally bothering to explain how the merge works is something the show should do, but since they haven't given the specifics, Ill do my interpratarion.

PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW! I despratly want feedback on what you like about this story or any of my others! I had noticed several new followers but no actually feedback from them yet.

Next time- Z gives Yang some good news and bad new, while Damien begins to make his move...