Thanks, Gry24 for the suggestions! I'll definitely make good use of them! And thank you again to Lord Maximus for the help with this chapter.
At the end of this chapter, I'm going to on a bit of an Ironwood rant, which will contain spoilers for V8, so be aware.
Chapter 82
Oscar Pine entered his aunt's barn, a pitchfork slung over his shoulder. He had finally finished up his work for the day, and was putting the tool away, when he stopped to look at the mirror above the sink on the wall next to him. For some reason, he felt compelled to look closer…
…Almost as if something was calling him.
"…Hello?" he asked, before realizing what he was doing. He shook in disbelief at his own idiocy and stepped away from the sink.
"Hello!" a voice suddenly shouted from inside his head! Oscar yelped and fell backwards. "I'm Professor Ozpin!" Oscar looked up at the mirror in the fear.
"Oscar?" his aunt called from outside. "You be careful with those tools!"
Aqua watched in concern as Yang helped Marrow load Aqua's stuff onto the airship. Her oldest daughter had tried to hide it, but Aqua knew she was having a lot of trouble adjusting, and coping with what had happened to her.
Yang often forgot that Aqua slept in the living room now, and could hear her being woken up by her nightmares. It broke her heart to have to leave her like this, but Yang had a point the other day.
If she stayed crippled for her sake, neither Yang nor Ruby would forgive themselves. And Aqua had a pretty good idea why Yang kept her struggles a secret from her. She felt that Aqua's problems were more important than hers.
In a way, it was exactly the same way Aqua had been with her. She had come to realize during her last discussion with her oldest daughter that, ironically, they were both prioritizing the other's well-being, preventing either of them from getting help.
Yang avoided talking about her problems to avoid worrying Aqua, and Aqua had almost refused to get her legs back because she didn't want Yang to be alone. She sighed deeply, before feeling a large hand rest on her shoulder.
"She'll be okay," Barret said. "We'll take care of her."
"Yeah…" Aqua said nervously. She had come to accept that her leaving might have been for the best, but that didn't mean she had to like it. She looked up at the large man. "I have something else to ask of you."
"Yeah?"
"There's someone you should meet." Aqua pulled out her scroll and dialed a number. After a few seconds, a familiar blond-haired man answered the call.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Tai, I need your help with something."
"Come on, guys!" Ruby said, holding on to the map, making sure that it was the right way around this time. "If we pick up the pace, we can hit the next town before sunset!"
"Assuming it's still there," Jaune muttered, prompting the rest of the group to give him a sympathetic look. Well, except for Cloud. He just looked annoyed.
"Of course it'll be there," Ruby said, trying to reassure her friend. "This one's supposed to be pretty big!" she squinted her eyes, trying her best to pronounce the old Mistralian name. "Hee-gan…bayn-a."
"Higanbana," Ren corrected her. "It's a well-protected village with a popular inn."
"Less work for us," Cloud said. "I could use some time off my feet for once."
"And no camping in the rain!" Nora said enthusiastically.
"See?" Ruby said. "Everything's going to be fine!"
"You know, we've had a lot of ups and downs," Jaune said. "But things could be a lot worse. I really thought we'd see more Grimm. So far it's just been Heartless and those weird white things."
As he said this, several portals appeared before them, depositing Heartless. Jaune sighed, drawing his sword.
"Me and my big mouth."
Qrow sat at a table in the tavern at Higanbana, watching the kids check into the inn through the window. In particular, he kept his eyes on that mysterious blond man with the big sword.
Qrow may have established that this "Cloud" character didn't work for Salem, but that didn't mean he could be trusted, no matter how much Ruby seemed to. He took a sip of the fruit punch he kept in his flask and took a bite of the burger he had ordered, when a brown-haired waitress placed a small glass with some kind of liquor in it on his table. He looked up at her.
"I didn't or—"
"From the woman upstairs," the waitress said. "Red eyes. Said you wouldn't mind bottom shelf."
Red eyes?
No fucking way.
"But I went ahead and gave you top," the waitress said with a wink. "Lucky you." Qrow gave the woman a small smile, trying his best not to give away that anything was wrong.
"I'm flattered, but, uh…" Qrow said, pointing to his wedding ring. "I'm spoken for." The young woman pouted, clearly disappointed, and walked away. Truly, women everywhere were worse off now that he was a married man.
He placed some lien cards on the table, making sure to give the poor girl a decent tip.
Getting back to the important matters, he stood up from his chair and looked up towards the upper levels. He could see, seated at a table, was a woman in red with long black hair. She looked down at him expectantly.
He raised his right hand, extended his middle finger, turned around, and walked out of the tavern.
Frankly, he couldn't give two shits what Raven wanted.
Bitch didn't even know he quit drinking.
"Everything's ready to go," Marrow said. "Are you all set?"
"I should be," Aqua answered, her wheelchair resting on the end of the ramp to the airship. Yang, Barret, and Marlene were standing nearby, Zwei held in the little girl's arms.
"I'll give you some time," the Specialist said, stepping into the airship. Aqua looked at her daughter with a sad smile on her face.
"Well," Aqua said, awkwardly. "This is it."
"I guess so," Yang said. "I know it's not what you wanted, but it's the right thing to do."
"…I know," Aqua said. She held her arms out, just like she used to when the girls were little. Back then, they would run excitedly into her waiting embrace. Now, her oldest daughter could only bend down to wrap her only remaining arm around her mother. "I love you," she said, her voice practically a whisper.
"I love you, too," Yang said before standing tall again. "Look on the bright side: When we see each other again, you'll be on your feet."
"I guess so," Aqua said. Provided the procedure worked. With a bark, Zwei jumped out of Marlene's arms to land in the Keyblade Master's lap, and started licking her face. The others chuckled at the scene. "Ack! Okay, okay, Zwei! I'm gonna miss you, too!" After a few seconds, Zwei stopped licking her face, allowing Marlene to take him back.
"Good luck, Miss Aqua!" the little girl said happily.
"Thanks, sweetie," Aqua said, smiling at the girl before looking up at Barret. "You make sure to take good care of Yang while I'm gone."
"Like she's my own," Barret said, nodding resolutely at her.
"I'll see you in Mistral, so you'd better get better fast," Yang said.
"Will do," Aqua said, turning her chair around to wheel it up the ramp. The ramp closed behind her, and she saw Marrow sitting down on a bench along the side of the cabin.
"You have a pretty great family," he commented.
"The best," she responded, looking out the window to wave down at them.
If everything went according to plan, then Barret was about to take Yang out for dinner with Marlene and a certain someone…
"Phew, that was pretty good," Yang said, patting her stomach in satisfaction. After Mom had left, Barret had elected to take her and Marlene out to a barbeque place, and they had gotten a table outside. She liked to think she had been to all the nice restaurants on Patch, but she had somehow missed this one. "Thanks, big guy."
"Hey, I promised Aqua I'd take care of you," Barret said. "I don't do anything half-way."
"Go big or go home, huh?" Yang asked, leaning forward on the table and resting her head on her hand. "I can respect that." The large man chuckled at that.
"I'm going to get some desert for Marlene," he said. "You want anything?"
"No, I can't eat another bite," she responded. "Go ahead."
"We'll be right back," he said, standing up and lifting Marlene into the air. He turned around to look at her before he left. "Oh, and uh, please keep an open mind."
"Huh?" she asked, but the duo had already walked away. That was weird. What did she have to keep an open mind about?
She got her answer when someone sat down in the seat Barret had just vacated.
"Uh, hi," Tai said awkwardly.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Yang asked. "Did Barret put you up to this? How does he even know your number?"
"Aqua asked me to come and talk to you," he said. "She asked Barret to set this meeting up."
"Why?" she asked. "Why would she do that?!"
"She doesn't want you to have to deal with this stuff alone."
"Well, I'm not alone," Yang said. "I have Barret and Marlene. They've been more of a help than you ever were."
"Yang, please, I'm trying," he said, pleadingly. "I just want to help you. I know this must be hard—"
"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!" Yang roared, standing up abruptly. Her chair fell backwards, her hair lit up, and her eyes turned red. "You were never there! When Summer died, all you cared about was yourself! You just drank yourself to oblivion. When I went out with Ruby to look for my birth mother, who saved us? Mom! Not you! When my birth mother kidnapped Ruby, who rescued her? Mom! You decided that being a parent was too fucking hard for you, so you just foisted us on Mom and kept drinking! I don't need your help, and I never will! So stop pretending that you suddenly care about me just because Mom isn't here! You think you can steal her thunder and act like a dad for the first time in your god damn life, but I see right through you! Just go home!"
"Yang, I…"
"Shut up!" she snapped. "You're ten years too late to apologize!"
"Perhaps I can be a bit of help in this father-daughter dilemma," a new voice said, prompting the two of them to look up. They watched as a man in a hooded black coat slowly approached. All the bystanders in between them stopped their business and quickly moved out of the way, sensing bad vibes from him.
"It's you!" Yang shouted, pointing at the man.
"You know him?" Tai asked.
"He pulled us into a dream and nearly killed us," Yang said, glaring at the man, the newcomer now the focus of her anger instead of her father. "All so he could test Mom and Ruby. Only his test nearly got Ruby killed."
"What?" Tai asked, standing up and glaring at the man with as much intensity as Yang.
"I seem to recall saying, little dragon, that if Terra really wanted your sister dead she wouldn't have lasted more than a few seconds," the man said with a chuckle. "Though you don't have to worry about Ruby. I'm not here for her today. I'm here for you."
"Like hell you are!" Barret shouted, firing at the man, only for the bullets to be deflected off of a magical barrier like the ones Mom used. "Get Marlene out of here! I'll hold him off!" Yang sprung into action, running behind Barret to scoop up Marlene, kick over a table and duck behind it as the large man kept firing at him. Much to her annoyance, Tai had followed her.
"Get out of here," she said to him through grit teeth.
"No, not while you're in danger," he responded. Not wanting to argue further, since this absolutely wasn't the time for that, Yang poked her head over the table to see what was going on. Barret's gun had been firing non-stop, the barrels starting to turn red from the heat. However, the hooded man's barrier was too strong to break through.
"Stopga," the man said calmly. The next thing Yang saw, Barret's Aura shattered and the large man fell to the ground, clutching a wound on his shoulder.
"Barret!" Yang said in concern, but Tai grabbed her shoulder and stopped her from going to help him.
"Yang, take Marlene and hide," he said. "I'll take him."
"What? But—" Yang started to say, but Tai ran out to confront the man. The man turned around, watching as Tai faced him.
"You want Yang, you have to go through me," Tai stated. "I made a lot of mistakes in her life, but I'm going to start making it up to her."
"You have a father's heart, I'll give you that," the man replied, folding his arms behind his back. "I see where your eldest gets her convictions. Do you believe your heart burns bright enough to rekindle hers?"
"Burns?" Tai asked with a smirk. "Buddy, you have no idea who you're messing with."
"Don't I?" a different voice asked from under the man's hood. A woman's voice. One that froze both Yang and Tai in their tracks.
They hadn't heard that voice in years. The man pulled his hood down, only for his jacket to turn into a long, white, flowing cloak. Underneath it was a black corset with a short black skirt, grey tights, and black combat boots. Her black hair turned red at the tips, and was pulled back into a high ponytail. That along with her brilliant silver eyes reminded Yang of what Ruby was probably going to look like in a few years.
"M-Mom?" Yang asked at seeing the woman standing before her.
Summer Rose.
"H-how?" Tai asked.
"I know exactly the kind of man you are, Taiyang Xiao Long," Summer said. "You were the man who loved me more than life itself. So I have a pretty good idea of how brightly your heart burns. Or at least I thought you loved me."
"W-what do you mean?' Tai asked. "Of course I loved you!"
"Oh really?" she asked. "Then why did you neglect my daughter? She was all you had left of me. You'd think you'd want to take care of her, but no. Instead you sat around feeling sorry for yourself and drinking all day, leaving her sister to try and take care of her. And when you finally realized how much you were hurting your own children, you just decided that they were someone else's responsibility. You were too scared to get out of the drunken haze you trapped yourself in." Tai couldn't respond, only looking down in shame as tears rolled down his face.
Yang knew it was exactly the same thing she had just said to him, but even she could tell that it hurt the man a lot worse when Summer of all people was the one saying it.
"Pathetic," a deeper, but still feminine voice said. Before their eyes, Summer's appearance changed, her hair becoming blacker and longer, her eyes becoming red, and her face warping to one that looked very similar to Yang's own.
Despite having never met her, Yang knew this was the woman who had given birth to her.
Tai's first love, Raven.
"This is exactly why I left you," Raven said, looking at Tai with nothing but contempt and scorn. His look of shame had morphed into one of pure rage at the sight of her. "I knew you were a weak, pathetic excuse of a man. And your reaction to Summer's death just proved me right. And it looks like you passed that same weakness down to our daughter. I should have left you sooner."
"Shut up!" he shouted, charging at his ex-wife. She just smirked, easily ducking under the punch he threw at her and punching him in the stomach.
"Weak," she said. "You sat around too long. Got rusty. Killing you will be the easiest thing in the world!" She kicked him hard, making him stumble back, and she drew her long sword, slashing at him. He was able to use the leather gauntlet on his arm to block the swing, which was the only reason why he didn't lose his own arm. Raven quickly stepped inside his guard, punching him in the face and slashing at his chest several times.
With a roundhouse kick to the side of the head, she sent Tai to the ground. Her appearance morphed again, this time returning the black-cloaked figure Yang was very quickly growing to despise.
"Honestly," the man said. "How is she ever going to get better with you in the way?" He raised his hand, and a large ball of electricity started crackling in his palm. Yang's eyes widened.
He was…
Was he going to kill her father?!
She stopped thinking, and just reacted.
"Get away from my dad!"
The man stepped aside as a chair was thrown at him. He watched as Yang slowly emerged from hiding, keeping Marlene behind her as she stepped out.
"Yang…" her dad grunted as he managed to sit up.
"You want me?" she asked, stepping closer to him. "Here I am."
"And finally, the Dragon Empress herself graces me with her presence," the hooded man said with a chuckle, raising his arm. A larger barrier surrounded the two of them.
"Yang, no!" her father shouted, getting up and trying to punch his way through the barrier.
"It's good to see the father has regained his fighting spirit," the man said as he slowly paced around with Yang keeping a close eye on him. "Now let's see if you can regain yours.
With that the man snapped his fingers, and Yang felt a weight suddenly appear on her arms.
Wait, arms?
With wide eyes, she looked down, and saw that the left gauntlet for Ember Celica had appeared on her left wrist…
And the robot arm had been attached to her right.
"What the—" Yang gaped. "How did you—"
"I'm capable of many things my dear," the man said with a chuckle, spreading his arms out. "Now, since you said you'd roast me during our last encounter, here is your chance. Face me. Show me you still have your fighting spirit."
Yang flexed her new arm, trying to quickly get a feel for the metal.
"You did this… Just to fight me?"
"Yang Xiao Long, daughter of one of the strongest men in Remnant, birth daughter of a bandit queen soaked in blood and death, and adopted daughter of a Keyblade Master who dances in water and forges unbreakable bonds," the man said in a grandiose tone. "Sister to a dear little red rose, the one who will bring back the light. Do you not want to stand with them? Well, we'll find out here and now. Face me and show me your fangs, little dragon."
"Fine… I've wanted a chance to fight you anyway!" she shouted, launching herself at him. He ducked under the onslaught of punches she sent his way, eventually warping behind her to tap her on the back, sending her stumbling forward. She angrily spun around, only to see the smug face of her ex-boyfriend looking at her.
"What's the matter babe?" he asked tauntingly. "Having a slow day?"
Yang's eyes widened… and then she let out a loud roar.
She threw a wide haymaker at his face, which the man flipped away from, using Mercury's boots to fire at her. She blocked the shots with her arm, thanking the new arm for being able to take hits more easily, firing her own shots at the man. "Mercury" jumped forward, dodging her shots and trying to deliver an axe kick, which Yang blocked. She grabbed hold of his leg, trying to throw him to the ground, but he caught himself with his hands and rolled to recover. He fired a round directly into Yang's face, disorienting her and allowing him to backflip away.
When she was able to see again, she could see "Mercury" seemingly breakdancing, constantly firing gusts of air from his boots as he did so, until they were completely covering the area around them.
Oh, crap. Yang put her arms up, bracing herself as the air bursts all converged on her at once.
She felt a familiar rush as the attacks all connected, fueling her Semblance.
It was like a high she had been denying herself. It was time to stop denying it.
She screamed, her hair bursting into flames and her eyes turning red. She charged at "Mercury", the fire and rage in her heart pouring into a punch that would shatter a boulder. The form of her ex-boyfriend slammed into the barrier's opposite wall, kicking up a load of dust as he landed.
"How's that for a burning heart, asshole?!" she shouted. "Is that the best you've got?! I haven't even broken a sweat yet!" A bone-chilling chuckle answered her taunts.
When the dust cleared, he was standing there, red-bladed katana raised to point at her.
She felt the power leave her body, her human arm trembling at the sight of the man who took the other one.
Only this time, he wasn't just a nightmare. She took a terrified step back.
"You may not be tired," Adam said. "But you're definitely afraid." With that grin that she saw every time she closed her eyes, he charged at her, preparing to slice her in two.
"YANG!" her father shouted from behind the barrier. She closed her eyes, unable to keep looking at his face.
…
"Well, I suppose it's too much to ask for you to be able to face him quite yet," the more laid-back voice said. Yang opened her eyes, seeing the man's hooded form standing over her instead. "But still, well done." With that, the barrier shattered. Yang fell to her knees, the shock and sheer panic from only moments ago taking its toll on her.
"Yang!" her father shouted again, trying to run towards them, but the man raised his hand and everything except the two of them froze in time. The man knelt down in front of her and she stared at the shadows that hid his face.
"You carry a great strength in you, little dragon, but it's clouded by your reluctance to trust others, especially the ones you believe to have run away and abandoned you, even as you refuse to understand why. If you expect others to be honest with you then you must return that honesty with humility, wisdom, and patience. You lost one mother to selfishness, another to forces outside of your control, and you would do anything to keep the one who chose to stay. Whenever you feel a bond disappear, you feel lost, abandoned, betrayed. You must find something else that matters to you more than your life, something to treasure and protect with every fiber of your being and then you will have the strength to rise above the pain they have all inflicted on you."
Yang could only stare as the man produced a charm with a lion's head depicted on it, and connected it to the chain that held her Wayfinder.
"This may come in handy later," he said. The time spell broke as the man stood up and turned to walk away as her father and Barret gathered around Yang, watching in stunned silence.
"Oh, and remember. May your heart be your guiding key," the man said as he vanished. Her dad turned around to look at her.
"Yang, are you—"
She interrupted him by wrapping her arms around him.
It took him a second, but her returned her embrace. There was no desperation to his movements, just a father trying to help his daughter.
Maybe she could forgive him after all.
AN: By the way, someone in my reviews for either the last chapter or the onw before that decided to write an eight-part thesis paper about Ozpin. I've already asked you to not so this, so I went ahead and deleted them. Please stop doing that. All it does it create a wall of text and bury the reviews that are actually relevant to the story.
SPOILERS FOR VOLUME 8!
So, I've seen a few people, not in the reviews or anything, just people in general when they discuss RWBY, basically say that they thought Ironwood made the right call at the end of Volume 7 to abandon Mantle, and that Team RWBY were being naive for thinking they can save everyone. Those people seem to forget that the only reason the situation was that dire to begin with was because Ironwood was neglecting Mantle. Think about it this way. Atlas was already a powder keg by the time Tyrian and Watts showed up, and it was entirely his fault. Compare that to Vale, where Cinder had to instigate the civil unrest herself. All Tyrian and Watts had to do was light a match. Honestly, Team RWBY actually helped him keep his position of power, since Weiss discovered Jacques's plot with Watts. Otherwise, the council likely would have stripped him of his rank. And he thanked her by trying to have her arrested for disagreeing with him. Basically, the whole point of Ironwood's character is that the events leading up to his death were entirely his own fault.
It just astounds me how many people forget that.
As always, thank you very much for reading, and I'll see you all next time!