(A/N) I'm back, bitches!

Life kicked my ass pretty hard for the past several months, and I didn't have internet or power for a while. Not to mention that when I got back online, I was treated to Rooster Teeth graciously blessing us with a book that contains a Roman backstory that somehow actually aligns with what I've written and a Neo backstory that absolutely 100% does not, as well as making her 26(!). So, yeah, the provided Neo backstory is not canon to this storyline.

And she's not 26.

Speaking of canon, next chapter is where things'll start diverging from canon for team RWBY, as well as the last chapter in both this arc and the greater 4-Arc Wanderer Saga. Next up, Academy Saga!

"So you're tellin' me you killed Adam Taurus? The Red Fang himself?" Eddie leans back in his chair and whistles softly, shaking his head. "Shit, miss, this'd make a better novel than article. I'm gonna have to break this bad boy up. Or maybe this'll convince the old coot to let me release a special issue to fit it all…"

"I told you, he was half dead already," I reiterate, although the motion's a bit less forceful as it was two hours ago when the interview started. In that time I've been pretty firmly taught that he'll get the story he wants, regardless of the minutiae of what I tell him. "I just… put the last nail in his coffin, alright?"

"Uh-huh, sure. Now, what about the Battle of Argus?"

"I mean, you were watching me for most of it," I shrug. "Just pest control."

"'Just pest control'-" he jerks forward and scribbles that down. "That's a good quote, I'm gonna use that. It'll prolly go well after a photo of that steam dragon thingy, dramatic irony 'n all that. Get real artsy with it. Some inspirational shit."

"So, that takes us to just about present day." I fold my hands and look to the door of the small bar Eddie's picked out. "Anything else you wanted to know?"

"Nah, facts-wise that'll about do it," he says, closing his notebook and glancing up at me. "Got a few more personal questions, though. What're your feelings on the White Fang, and now the White Hand?"

I give him a harsh look. "Is this going in the interview?"

"Nothing you ever tell me is guaranteed not to be written about. The people have a right to the truth." He's oddly intense when he tells me that, eyes meeting mine. Acting on impulse, I brush his hand-

Nailing a notice to a wall- laughing, they're all laughing, why are they laughing? The bandits'll kill all of them- the town burning, Grimm coming- a Huntsman- 'Your father did all he could-'

He takes his hand away, giving me an odd look.

"The people have a right… no, it's 'rights are a gift…' no, no," Arnaut mutters to himself. "What was the Rihfarian maxim about the rights of everyone, again?"

"Can't say I remember right now," I murmur, before turning my eyes back on Eddie. "To answer your question: I dislike the White Fang. Not because they're violent, but because of their targets. And lack of results. And I don't know much about the White Hand, but from what I've seen I don't think I'll like them much, either."

"What about your thoughts on the social issues they claimed to fight against? Do Faunus truly have equal rights in modern Remnant? And if so, then are-"

"What do you think a right is?" I interrupt.

Eddie actually looks a bit taken aback by that answer. "I guess… A right is something every person should have by defaul; it's something you gotta lose, not a privilege you have to earn."

"Privilege! That's it! Rights are…"

"Rights are privileges bestowed upon and maintained for those without power by those with it," I continue, finishing Arnaut's quotation.

Eddie eyes flare and his pencil seems to rematerialize in his hand. "If I'm not mistaken, that's a Rihfarian maxim. Said by the Crow Knight to… who was it again? Ah, doesn't matter. So am I to take it you're with him on the issue, silent?"

"I was there when he said it," Arnaut sighs."They never finish the quote."

"'The greatest threat to mankind is parents convincing their children that the world they built was an inevitable endpoint, rather than a defiance of the truly inevitable'," I recite, Alorn's craggy face vivid in my mind's eye as it was to Arnaut's when he made this memory. "No, I'm not silent. Rights are just about the best thing you could fight for, because the one rule in the universe is that you get what you can take."

"Isn't that a little… regressive?" Eddie chuckles, dispelling a little of the earnest weight settling over our conversation. "Huntsmen and Guardsmen protect me from things I could never fight."

"If you get more than what you can take, it's because someone stronger took what they could and gave some to you," I say, thinking of Roman. "And the world only works as long as the ones at the top are willing to give what they've taken to everyone down at the bottom. The White Fang was something worth respecting when it was hunting the selfish bastards at the top. It lost its purpose the second it stole Dust from civilian shops and attacked Huntsman academies. Who's that hurt the most? The rich ones with their private security and escape bunkers? Or everyone else?"

"Strong words," Eddie nods, making a few more notations. "So then I take it you're in approval of the actions of team RWBY?"

"Who?"

"The heroes of Vale," he clarifies. When my expression doesn't change, he narrows his eyesbrows. "What, you haven't heard the stories? Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long. The team of Huntresses-in-training who took down a train of White Fang terrorists, a Wyvern, an Atlesian flagship full of hacked robots, and a Leviathan!"

Most of what he said after Ruby Rose is unintelligible to me through the white noise, each heartbeat like the rifle shot that must have killed Roman ringing louder and louder in my ears. But she's not here, and it won't do to look like a psychopath in front of this person I'm trusting to tell my story to the continent.

I take a moment to calm myself and simply say, "I'm not keen on talking about this," which he mercifully respects for once.

"Okay, then… I guess that's most of it," Eddie shrugs, giving his pages of notes a once-over before turning to a fresh one. "Just one last question: If you could say one thing, anything, to all the little boys and girls out there who want to be Huntsmen and Huntresses just like you, what'd it be?"

I blink, off-balance, and glance over at Arnaut. This kind of question seems right up his alley. He notices my attention and grins."How about- 'no matter who or what you are, or where you're from, you can help the world if you give a hundred percent and try!'" I roll my eyes." All right, what about 'the world could always use more heroes?'"

I snort and finally settle on something. Turning back to Eddie, I finish the interview with one last Alorn quote. "Evil thrives when good people do nothing."

"A little somber, but I can make it work," he grunts, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, then, thanks. And feel free to stop by for another interview any time if you want the real truth to get out there. Everyone knows the Argus Chronicle is the most reliable paper on the continent."

With that, he leaves, but his chair isn't empty for more than five seconds before another person slides into it with a too-perfect grin and glittering eyes the color of the morning sky.

"Why, hello there, my comrade-in-arms," the wolf faunus from Wind Path says, offering his hand for a shake.

I ignore it and cross my arms instead. "You can fuck right off if this is another sales pitch to join the White Fang."

"No, no, no," he appeases, then pauses. "Well, yes."

I get up to leave.

"Hold on! You don't have to join! We're offering a one-time job this time, no questions asked, and you can join if you want after. And we're not the White Fang anymore. We go by Embers now."

"Oh, the name change makes all the difference. You're still the same people who thought raiding Huntsmen Academies behind a deranged teenage stalker was a good idea to help the faunus." I spit the words with only a small hint of guilt knowing what was actually going through Adam's mind as he died. Nope, off-limits.

"No. We were the Atlas branch of the White Fang, and we had nothing to do with his untidy abortion of a plan. We- Sherwood- actually refused to supply troops for it. Sienna got pissed at him about that." He leans back, expression containing all the satisfaction of a hunting dog with prey caught between its jaws as I falter in place, knowing he has my interest.

Against my better judgement, at the knowledge that this group is apparently divorced entirely from Adam's crash and burn, I sit back down and decide to let him give his pitch. "Convince me."

He smiles with too many oh-so-shatterable teeth. "Certainly. You see, you have a problem, I have the solution. I have a problem, you have the solution. Quid pro quo, no?"

"Explain."

"We can get you into Atlas."

"Bullshit."

"We can. And we will, before you even have to uphold your end of the bargain, as a show of good faith," he winks, leaning back with both hands behind his head. In defiance of his canine ears, he reminds me of a particularly spoiled cat one of our clients had. "And once you finish your job, we'll take you directly to Neo. And offer, not demand, a second job for the both of you, provided you do the first one well enough."

One lesson Roman never failed to get across was that anything that seems too good to be true,is. "You still haven't told me what the job is."

"We want you to break into an Atlas military stockpile and steal the blueprints for their superweapon." He even keeps a straight face when he says it, somehow.

I don't. "You're bullshitting me again."

"I assure you I'm not. I've never bullshitted a soul in my life before."

"Bullshit."

"Fair, that part definitely was," he admits with a conciliatory tilt of his head. "But not the first. We know you weren't a Huntress until 6 months or so ago, and all of a sudden you've got this illustrious fake record- to forge something like that would take system access on par with an Academy Headmaster's right-hand man or higher. We don't have that. You, apparently, do."

"So… what, you want me to hack into the Atlesian mainframe?" I shake my head. "I can't do that. I don't know anything about hacking."

"You know enough to falsify a mission success rate that'd make a Branwen blush," he says, then moves on before I can protest further- "But that's not really the point. What you already have is qualified enough to walk into any military base in Atlas and request access to their armory to restock your own supplies. Once you're in there, we just need you to connect your Scroll to the military data mainframe, wait around while it does all the work, and then bring it out with you."

I stop and consider. Going into the belly of the beast like this- it makes me uneasy, least of all because this wolf-boy seems to have the same inflated view of me as the rest of his continent. I'm just a little girl in shoes that are too big and only growing every day, even as I keep having to run faster and faster. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before I slip.

But with that said, wouldn't it be better to get to Neo before that happens? What's the safe path when the slow one has its own dangers?

Partly to play for time, I probe him for any information that might make the choice easier. "What about the second job you mentioned?"

"Well, for all the people sworn to the cause, there's one group- arguably the most important one to infiltrate, actually- who we can't seem to get an inside man on. The one at the center of it all. So we figured that your falsified record would be perfect to get you a head start on things when you applied for enrollment-"

"Enrollment?" I ask, stomach sinking. "No, you can't mean-"

"Atlas Academy," he grins. "It's Sherwood's greatest dream. To have a sleeper agent operating within their military and rise to the peak, to stand beside Ironwood and feed us his movements, his plans, his numbers. With that, we might even be able to win an open revolt."

"Open…" I trail off, feeling lightheaded. "With what army? And wait, we're still not done talking about- I'm not going to Atlas Academy!"

"What was that about Atlas Academy?" Nyssa, panting and out-of-breath but smiling the moment she sees me, arrives next to our table. She looks me up and down, and then the Faunus boy, who it takes her a moment to remember: "Oh, it's you, from the train station. Greetings and allow me to welcome you to Argus."

"The honor is all mine," he grins, taking the hand she offered to shake in both his and bending to kiss it.

She yanks it away before he can, looking off-put. "Ah- thank you, but no- I don't… I'm not attracted to…" she blushes, glances at me, drops her eyes to the ground, and, after taking a few sneaking glances at me to build up confidence, looks me in the eyes. "Are you going to Atlas Academy?"

"No!" I catch Arnaut's side-eye and sigh. "Okay, fine, it's a possibility."

"Really?" Nyssa's eyes go wide. "I'm up for Academy promotion this year, too! I could almost definitely get into Atlas. We could maybe even end up on the same team!"

"No." The word comes out harsher than I meant it to, and Nyssa's hopeful expression crumples. I wince. "I- it's not final, yet, so don't go… structuring your life around a school I may or may not apply to, much less get in."

"Yeah, you're right," she replies, eyes downcast all of a sudden. "I'm sorry. I was just… I thought you'd disappeared, like after that avalanche. That I might not see you again."

Oh, shit. Arnaut realizes at the same time I do, but he's the first to speak."Dreki, don't-"

I've already reached out with what I hope will be interpreted as a sympathetic hand on Nyssa's exposed shoulder, brushing on the exposed skin there-

A statuesque girl with spear and shield held in perfect form, hair long but in a warrior's ponytail, bearing the armor in the ancient Northern Mistrali image of her ancestors, but eyes and hair bleeding from green and red to a bright silver even as scales start to creep at the edges of her face and horns sprout from her head-

She notices the touch, but doesn't pull away, instead dropping her head-

An iron patriarch, unbent and unbroken, but standing on the other side of a desk that stretches for miles in either direction- a fractured mother, with cracks made from grief that expand into a chasm all around her and her young son- a titanic hero, ever strong for the people but always away at labors- an eldest sister, unharmed and yet so fragile, held together by delicate, threadbare seams-

I cut the touch short and glance away myself, feeling an intruder in a way I haven't for months when using Arnaut's Semblance. "Sorry, I-"

"No, it's fine, you-"

Then it hits me that the first thing I saw all but confirmed my worries. I asked Arnaut about what it meant when someone you touched saw a prettier version of you, and he was pretty unequivocal about it being attraction. The fact that I'm wearing her sister's armor and weapons adds a spin that I do not want to touch with a ten foot pole. "What the fuck," I murmur, too quiet for either of them.

"She's probably latched on to you as a coping mechanism to the loss of her sister," Arnaut guesses. "Add to that an initial attraction and her reaction now is somewhat understandable."

I never like it when he does this. Reduce people down to a bundle of explainable coping mechanisms and disorders. Easy to forget that he was a hero as an act to benefit his real goal of manipulate an entire kingdom. "Later," I whisper to him, squaring my shoulders and turning to Nyssa. "You want to spar?"

She lights up. "Yeah!"

"Then we can talk this out in a couple of hours, tonight," I offer to the wolf faunus- "What's your name, again?"

"Kitsuki," he grins. "Tonight, then."

I clown on her in our first three warmup hand-to-hand bouts, and get a little full of myself. Then the weapons come out.

By my seventh consecutive loss, the crowd has grown enough to overpopulate the small Huntsman training grounds in the outskirts of Argus, and enough that their collective cheering synced to my ass hitting the dirt is beginning to wear out its welcome.

Nyssa, self-conscious about the situation, offers her hand to help me up once again, which I graciously refuse, panting.

"Think… I'll take a breather…"

"Sure!" She wanders off as one of the onlookers calls for her by name, probably seeking an autograph from the sister of a legend. I'm content flat on my back there, gazing up at a sky twinkling with so many stars you can almost forget the smoke from the last few straggling fires polluting the view.

Arnaut's been quiet for a while. I turn and see him staring intently at me. "What?"

"What are you going to do about her?"

"I…" I deflate. "…don't know. She's afraid I'm going to leave her behind."

"Which, you are, to be clear. No? Unless you're keen on introducing her to Neo-"

"All right, all right. I know. Just not sure whether it's better to rip the band-aid off now, or when I leave for Atlas, or when I don't show up to the Academy, or if Ido show up to the Academy and eventually turn on her."

Arnaut looks at me through half-lidded eyes."I would hope you don't need me to answer that for you."

"Yeah, I know, but…" I saw what she's feeling about her family. How she feels about me. Every option here feels cruel. Maybe if I sell the lie for a bit longer, then later she'll be in a better place with her family and new friends, and losing me will hurt less. "Godsdamnit. For the record, this is why I avoid thinking about other peoples' feelings."

"I don't think your issue is avoiding other peoples' feelings, Dreki."

I can't look him in the eyes after that. So I sit up and look over to see Nyssa being spoken to by her older brother, Chrysos, who towers over the crowd like a statue of bronze. I don't make out much, but I don't need to when I see her expression to him, towards me, towards something- someone behind me.

I turn to see the raven-haired matriarch of yesterday's botched dinner observing me as one might a piece of dog shit they'd just stepped in. Her lips curl. "You know, I really don't much care what buggery you people get up to on Sanus. I turned the other cheek when you started awarthat cost many thousands of innocent lives. I even smiled and nodded along with it when they assigned one of you to the position of Headmaster at Haven- and, surprise surprise, the man turns out to be a cowardly traitor. But I draw the line at you shacking up with my daughter, do you understand?"

I blink up at her lazily. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Coming into our house, tormenting Ajax. Was Adelphe not enough? Was Pyrrha not enough? How many daughters of mine will you dogs have to defile before you've sated your animal lusts?"

"Woah woah woah, I haven't sated any-"

She slaps me. I'm too shocked to activate Aura, so it stings. And makes me want to do something I'll regret. So too do her next words: "You aren't on Sanus, nor Central Mistral now, you filth. You're in Northern Mistral, in Atlas-controlled territory. I'd advise you to learn your place before violence teaches what instruction will not."

"My place? You-" she slaps me again. I grit my teeth and wipe the tears that the sting draws from my eyes.

"You prey on my daughter's vulnerability after another of your ilk killed her sister, my other daughter. What is it you want? Money? Sex? Information for your terrorist friends? You'll get none of it. After today you are not to speak to her again, understood?"

"I'm sorry…" I drawl, working my jaw to get the sting out of it as I activate my Aura, "I really hadn't thought to ask permission for holding hands. I hope you can forgive me for failing to realize that at some point I stepped into a fucking time machine that sent me back fifteen centuries. Prithee, would milady mayhaps bequeath upon mine hands thine key to yon princess's chastity belt?"

She slaps me. It hits my Aura and does nothing. I take a step forward; she takes one back.

I feel an inhuman Aura activate behind me and half-turn, already recognizing it. Chrysos's baritone rumbles in my chest with every word: "I wouldn't, little Faunus. That doesn't end well for you."

A laugh barks from me. "Now I'm not even allowed to talk. Wonderful. Nyssa, I'm-"

I falter. She looks miserable, silent tears that she's fighting to hold back tracing down the edges of her face, muted sobs sending little shudders through her tensed form. She looks towards her mother and me with so much grief and loss that it punches a hole in my reserves of rage and drains them, bit by bit, until I'm left feeling nothing but hollow. Empty.

I want to know what decision ends the least poorly, but I don't. So I'll take the coward's way out by choosing the one that excuses me from responsibility for her mental state as quickly as possible. "Nyssa, you should-"

"The choice should be hers," Arnaut advises.

In my pause at his words, her mother moves; but not to me. She moves to Nyssa, and sweeps her up in a warm embrace. I expect to get an evil eye over the shoulder, but her eyes are not for me.

They are only for her daughter, for the pain she so clearly wants more than anything to assuage. It's almost sweet, in a horrible, generationally racist sort of way.

Instead, it's Chrysos's eyes that track me. He jerks his head towards the exit of the training ground, wordless. His Aura does all the talking for him, so immense it seems to crack the ground and warp the air around him, lending a dark weight to the threat of violence in his eyes- no, not a threat. A promise.

One I will meet, someday, but not right now. Right now, I leave, relieved of my responsibility to Nyssa. It's the exact outcome I wanted. So why don't I feel better?

"Wait, Dreki!" her voice stops me.

I turn to see Chrysos shake his head at me, once. I set my jaw, square my shoulders, and look past him to Nyssa, who's fumbling to disentangle herself from her mother in the same spot where she effortlessly beat me again and again in our fights. "Nyssa." She stops. "I'm going to… where we talked about earlier. It's up to you if you want to come along or not. You choose, not me, not your mother, not your father."

She nods, once, wiping a tear.

Chrysos glares. I leave.

I'm watching the sun set, sitting at the end of a pier that I killed six Kappa on just yesterday. It's too far south in the city to have seen much repair yet, so the timbers still creak ominously thanks to several of the actual support piers being missing or damaged, but if anything, a cold dunk in the ocean might do me a little good right now. If I knew how to swim.

"You there! Do you have a permit to be out here?" comes a voice from behind me.

I flinch, then turn around to see two men in Atlesian military uniforms and brace myself for the escape I may need to make shortly. "I wasn't aware I needed a permit, officers."

"Of course you do." One of them eyes my weapon. "Aren't you a Huntress? You should know standard city reclamation protocol. You could be looting shops while they're half-destroyed and there aren't police anywhere nearby."

"I think if I was gonna loot shops, I would've done it the night of, not two days later," I sneer.

"You were here the night of-" the taller one pauses. "Oh. Are you the one they're calling the Grimm Guardian?"

"Who's asking?" I challenge.

"Dreki, I wouldn't take that tone with them,"Arnaut warns.

"The Kingdom of Atlas," the Guardsman replies. "We've been instructed to ask you to come to back to the base with us."

"And if I don't feel like it?"

"Dreki…"

The Guardsman adjusts his badge officiously. "Then the warrant comes out, and we ask again, less politely."

This pisses me off. It's the same as Vale. Same as that town in Western Mistral. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do, it'll never be enough to these fuckers. And if it is, I'll enjoy all the privilege of being 'one of the good ones,' admired more for how I'mnotlike the rest of my species than for my own virtues. "Arnaut, how bad would it be if I-"

"Don't," he warns.

"But if I just-"

"No."

"Captain, did you hear about what she did in the attack?" The smaller, younger one tries, surprising me. "Are you sure we should be suspicious of her like some street Faunus?"

"Once a thief, always a thief," the captain recites. "Just look at Lionheart. He was the Headmaster of Haven, the biggest hero of them all. And what did they get for trusting him? A dagger in their backs, nearly a second destroyed CCT Tower. The base fact of the matter is, the poor beasts can't help it, it's just in their nature. The best thing we can do for them is try to keep them honest by threat of force."

The younger one nods uneasily. "If you say so."

I meet his eyes. "Because I like you, I'm gonna warn you one time. Don't try it."

"See? It's as though they're allergic to simply following the law and keeping their heads down," the captain says. For a moment, I consider just doing what he says to prove him wrong. Then I see Nyssa's mother looking at me in revulsion.

Before I know what's happening, I've got the captain by the throat.

He dangles and kicks, but the blows are like rain patter against my Aura, his scrabbling hands as futile against my arm as they'd be against stone. "Grk- Officer Tanner- stop this- by the Kingdom of Atl-"

I close my hand tighter and tighter, not even trying to suppress the smile that spreads over my face at the sight of him dangling there turning purple, until he finally goes limp.

I drop him like a sack of potatoes and look lazily over to his partner, who's quivering with his hand halfway to his gun. "This is how it always goes, you know. We mind our business. You spit on us. We fight back, and then we're in the news as the bad guys."

"W- We really did have a warrant," he protests, but his hand falls away from the pistol. Good instinct.

"Ask yourself if that warrant would've been written for a human in my shoes," I leave him over my shoulder as I stalk off down the street, kicking stray rocks half a kilometer up it to break the store windows that remain intact.

"You know, at worst they'd've just questioned you in the base," Arnaut says, quiet."Now you're in their system as a criminal."

"Shame," I comment idly, aware of the mistake I've just made but unwilling to admit it. Not now, not even to him. Not with the Nikos matriarch's vitriol still so fresh in my mind.

"I'm serious. That was bad, Dreki. It's one thing to beat up farmers and-"

"When did I ever beat up farmers?" I wheel on him. "No, seriously, name one time I attacked civilians." When he's silent, I fill in the gaps for him. "It must've been when I got spit on by that South Vale dad whose kid I just rescued- no, wait, I bit my fucking tongue. Then definitely those Vale evacuees who called me racial slurs to my face- no, wait, tongue was definitely bitten there. Hmm, could it have been the West Mistral villagers who formed an angry mob after I killed fifteen Grimm for them and paid their blacksmith a small fortune? Nope, tongue bitten."

"Just stop," Arnaut says miserably, but he doesn't get out of this just because I'm right.

"Ohh," I suddenly breathe, as if remembering something important. "No, I got it. It was when they were kidnapping a civilian for torture and rape! I see what you mean now, I definitely should've just let them do whatever to her. And to me, once they shot first at me. Wouldn't want to scratch any of those innocent farmers, after all."

"Enough!" he all but shouts, and it's enough to shut me up immediately. I can't remember Arnaut ever raising his voice to me."You're right. None of this is fair. It doesn't change the fact that it's the world you live in. Was it fair to me when you ripped my chest open after I spent my life in service to the people of Vacuo?"

"…no," I mutter, chastened.

"So it's not even as if you have a leg to stand on when it comes to being fair in your treatment of others," he continues, not smug, just sorrowful, as if he himself doesn't even want to hear what he has to say."But that's not the point. Because life doesn't have a point. Nor does it have a referee. Yes, those humans have been awful to you. And they will continue to be awful to you for years to come.

"You are going to have to swallow your pride and your anger for most of your life, Dreki, and I am sorry for that. But no amount of my being sorry, or your conviction over what's fair, or your rage, or your sorrow will change the-"

"I know," I interrupt, throat raw. "Fuck you, Arnaut, I know." I see Nyssa's mother expression. Hear her words. See the S.D.C. brand approaching Adam's face. See Armstrong's grin, Malachite's smug little smile, that Old Guard bastard back in Vale. And I reach a decision. "You're wrong, though. I can do something."

"Hmm?"

"I'm joining Embers. I'm going along with their plans. If I'm going to have to grin and bear it, it might as well be for a future where I don't have to."

Arnaut nods, slowly. Oddly wistful.

I snort. "Thought you'd be more upset."

"So did I," he sighs."But… I can't say I blame you. It was easy to forget what your people endure after living in Vacuo for decades. Especially easy given that I'm not one of you. But watching it all firsthand…" he trails off, then smiles again."And of all the kingdoms, I can't say I'd be devastated if Atlas got taken down a peg."

"You know, I was just beginning to get annoyed at how vague you chose to make the meeting time," Kitsuki grins, "But I can't stay mad at a face that pretty."

"Eat shit." I don't put any real energy or malice into the words as I slump down into my seat opposite him, long hours after night has claimed Argus. "Why do you do that, anyway?"

"Do what?"

"The… you know," I gesture towards all of him. "Just being such an unbelievable fuckboy. It can't possibly work with girls. It's never gonna happen with me. So why?"

"Well, you'd be surprised," Kitsuki grins. Then his smile fades. "But no, you're right, that's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"You'll have to figure that one out on your own," he grins, stretching his fingers out. "Now, to business."

"Yeah, sure. How do you plan on getting me to Atlas, again?"

"We'll smuggle you onboard an empty supply transport leaving from the military base."

"Empty? What're you gonna smuggle me in? And aren't those things inspected?"

There's a certain glee to him now, discussing the specifics of the plan, that wasn't there before. "Yes, they are. But what isn't inspected is the smuggled goods that they onload after leaving the base and offload before arriving at their destination on Solitas. We'll put you in one of the containers, and our men on the far end will receive you. From there, it's a short hike to the Atlesian military stockade in Schildfall, which you should be able to get into on your current credentials alone. Once you done that, and downloaded what we want onto our little present, we'll take you to Atlas proper to meet your little girlfriend."

"She's not my-" I stop myself, unwilling to rise to the bait. "Yeah, that sounds fine. Only one small problem."

"Oh?"

"I get viciously seasick and I can't swim."

"And?"

I crave the sweet release of death.

They were merciful enough to carve a small hole for me to vomit through in the side of the cramped cargo box I've been confined to for hours. By now, all I can manage is dry heaving into it. Arnaut doesn't fit inside it with me, and apparently shoving his head halfway through the side of it is uncomfortable, so I chat with his disembodied voice trailing from outside.

Not that I've been in the mood for much chatting.

Another violent swell of the ship causes a similar swelling in my stomach, and I press my face up against the side of the box to empty what already contains nothing yet again, uttering a violent string of curses against whoever invented the boat. And against whatever gods made the sea, for good measure.

Eventually, I manage to fall into an awful, in-and-out dreamless sleep that's interrupted whenever the ship bucks particularly forcefully, which seems to be every time I manage to drift off. Kitsuki gave me three days for the time frame, but in here it's impossible to tell the time, and my Scroll's been entirely deactivated to avoid anyone picking up on the signal or electrical interference.

"Arnaut?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me a story?"

"Certainly," he says."Any specifics you have in mind?"

"Just some- hrk- thing I haven't heard before," I manage.

"I see. Well, then. Given that we're headed on a due course for Schildfall, I suppose it'd be fitting if I told you the story of Helmhurst Wachter, the Aegis of Solitas." When I don't grunt out any objections, he continues:"The Wachters were the nobility of South Atlas. Their territory stretched a good distance along the length of the bottom coast of Solitas, but, unlike the Valkyrie, they abstained from raids on Anima and Sanus. They were sworn to an oath of pacifism that stretched all the way back to their Founding Myth, the tale of Osborn Wachter.

"Let's see if I remember… ah, right. Ahem. 'Even as a child, Osborn was far larger and stronger than other Solitan youngsters, but his mother taught him never to use his size to intimidate or bully. She came from a proud line of herders, and believed true courage lay in using one's power not to dominate, but to protect those in need.

"When Osborn was still a boy, ice giants devastated a neighboring tribe. That tribe had long preyed upon the herds of of Osborn's people, but his mother didn't hesitate to head out across the tundra to help the survivors, bearing furs, foodstuffs, and healing supplies. At first, Osborn didn't understand why she would aid their rivals- but after her actions saved many lives, they became lifelong allies. He finally understood what his mother meant when she said all the Rimeland's- their older name for the continent now known as Solitas- people were a family, and from that day forth, he pledged to bring that family together.

"As Osborn grew, he became a local hero, rescuing children who had slipped into icy ravines, saving travelers stranded in blizzards, and protecting families from ravaging Sabyr packs. Whenever he appeared, people knew help had arrived. He was a figure of hope, known for his liveliness and laughter, and the easy way he made friends.

"Eventually, Osborn realized what he needed was beyond the valleys and tundra where he'd been raised. Bidding his mother a tearful farewell, he set out to travel all of the Rimelands.

"Over the years, countless stories spread of Osborn's mighty feats and good deeds. While most had at least a kernel of truth to them at first, they grew increasingly far-fetched and mythic- such as the legends of how he chopped down an entire forest in a single knight using only his bare hands, or how during an volcanic eruption, he saved an isolated farmstead by picking it up and carrying it to higher ground.

"A tale later on in his life spoke of how Osborn found his immense twin shields, what would become the Heirlooms of his clan Wachter. As the story goes, they formed the enchanted double doors of an old fortress set into a mountain itself. Osborn heard cries from within, but he couldn't break the door down. Undeterred, he punched his way through the mountain's bare rock, rescuing a young boy who was trapped inside. He pulled the twin doors off their hinges, and bore them ever since as shields.

"Eventually, after a lifetime of heroism, Osborn retired back to the very place he had found the doors, bringing with him hoards of wealth and a vast family that soon became an entire town surrounding the mountainside, named Schildfall. It's said that whenever he heard stories about himself, he'd laugh uproariously- but far from refuting such stories, he would embrace them. Why let the truth get in the way of inspiring others to acts of generosity and kindness?"

I can see where Arnaut got the inspiration for his grand lie, now.

His tone gets a bit darker as he continues."The Wachter clan would come to hold an unofficial rule over the surrounding lands that later transitioned into an official one with the founding of the four kingdoms. Their dominion was over the southern wedge of Solitas, and they held it without incident for centuries, keeping to the oath of pacifism that their founder had sworn.

"Even in the Great War, when they were told unequivocally to choose a side, they remained impartial. When the Ash Knight's artillery came to burn their city to naught but dust and regrets, Helmhurst Wachter, the then-lord of Shieldfall, called everyone inside to hide within the clan's ancestral home, built into and around the ancient vault Osborn had opened all those years ago, and took up the twin shields. He slammed them in place to block off the gap they'd filled for untold ages, and as the city was reduced to a glassblower's fever dream, the residents were saved.

"Although the family Wachter stepped down peacefully when the nobility was abolished, they're still economically and democratically leading their old territory. No one outside the family's held that council seat in the entire lifetime of the council."

By the end of his story, I'm nodding off again, but this time we're in stiller waters and the sleep far more lasting.

It's only when I am standing in front of the metal double doors of the local Atlesian military supply depot that I begin to doubt myself. The local Embers presence seemed so completely sure of themselves and matter-of-fact in their briefing that it hadn't crossed my mind the absurdity of what I'd be doing up until now, when I'm staring it right in the face.

Worms burrow in my gut and alarms ring my ears as I take in the smooth gray stone walls, stretching hundreds of feet in either direction and at least thirty high, looking as simple and unmarred in their construction as if someone had simply rendered them in a computer program, rather than something built by human hands. At the top, they're patrolled by men and machines equally pristine and perfect in their rounds, and all- walls, doors, men, machines, weapons- carry the emblem of the Atlas military.

That gear-and-spear symbol is where the worms come from. It gnaws in my head, biting at the steel bars I've put up around the time I don't think about. It's a symbol every Faunus on Solitas knows as something that you don't fight, don't mess with, don't even get noticed by if you can't help it. It's the rallying object of the oppressors up in their floating city. The long arm of the Schnees and their friends.

This is for Neo. To see her again.

It defies every instinct in my body to raise my Scroll to the scanner beside the door, but raise it I do, keeping the shaking in my arm to a minimum so as to keep my Huntress-in-training license from being misread. The uniformed door guard looks eager enough for any reason to push me on my reason for being here, anyway. Wouldn't that be ironic? They finally get me, and it's because of a fuckup with a scanner, not any of the hundred things I've actually done.

A nervous giggle escapes me before I kill it- what the hel is wrong with me? I never giggle- but the scanner does eventuallybeepits acceptance of my credentials and, after a delay, the doors are waved open. They do so slowly, pulled by enormous motors, but silently, too well-oiled for any shrieking of metal.

On the inside, Atlesian soldiers run drills, outfit hovertanks and paladins and bullheads, and keep watch over the city outside the walls. I draw a fair number of eyes, and yet… less than I expected.

"Most Huntsmen and Huntresses look odder than you do," Arnaut comments, sensing the core of my hesitation."I once ran into one in Vacuo that used a weaponized scooter. Hell, last year's fighting festival had a team from Atlas itself with a girl on roller skates whose semblance was leaving behind trails of rainbows everywhere and a guy with a trumpet. Not a trumpet that transformed into a gun. Just a trumpet. Compared to that, are you really worth staring at?"

That actually works to assuage some of my worry in continuing deeper on into the base at the behest of the soldier assigned to be my guide. His uniform's a little different than the others', a metal exoskeleton running down his limbs and back and red instead of blue on the colored portions interrupting the white everywhere. Even his helmet is different, covering his nose and mouth but leaving his eyes open, almost the opposite of everyone else's.

I snort. Those bulky, eye-blocking Atlesian military helmets always did look a little bit stupid to me.

"Something funny?" My guide's got a thick eastern Solitas accent, so that his g's sound more like k's and his u's like o's, tongue catching on his r's. He's looking at me with the tired annoyance I imagine a farmer has for a misbehaving animal.

"No, sorry," I reply. "It's just… your armor is different."

He nods as he continues onward, turning back to face the path ahead. "Yes. This is standard issue Jaeger-legion power armor."

"Jaeger?" I ask, a little bewildered that he's just willingly sharing military information with a ragged-looking out-of-town faunus.

He does give me another, slightly-more-suspicious look at that, but explains. "Yes, Jaeger. Branch of military meant to deal with Huntsmen."

The unfamiliar color makes a little bit more sense now, as I'd have had no reason to encounter an anti-Huntsman specialist back when I-

Nope, nevermind.

It's easy to stamp out that train of thought when we reach the armory, a massive facility that takes up the bulk of the base. He keys in a code and, when met with a meaningful glance by the person at the counter, clarifies: "Huntress. Requires ammunition and access to current Grimm contracts and heatmaps."

The man behind the counter shrugs. "Your funeral," he sighs, and then turns to me. "Alright, then, miss, what'll it be?"

"Uh…" I swallow, then steel myself. "Thirty-millimeter rounds. Blast and Beam. What elements do you have?"

He blinks at the size, and then eyes my sword and raises his eyebrows a little in understanding. "You name it. Shortage for everyone else means surplus for us."

I mentally run down a list of Dust types before formulating my answer. "I'll take two of each type of Burn, Frost, Lightning, and Gravity," I state, and he disappears into a back room. The Jaeger from earlier is still watching me silently, arms crossed as he leans against the back wall of the room.

"You got nothing better to do than watch me?" I ask him, feeling emboldened by his seeming lack of prejudice.

"Job is not to watch you." His eyes are quiet, brooding. "It is to kill you if you prove a security risk. Is quicker and easier if you are next to me."

Well that's a conversation killer.

"That's why they give them the power armor," Arnaut comments idly."It's to give soldiers with no Aura or Semblances a fighting chance against Huntsmen and Huntresses."

That makes a certain sort of sense, I suppose, but with one small issue- with my right eye, I can see that this man definitely has an unlocked Aura, which shimmers a dull red, inactive but ready to be called upon should he need it.

"-Miss?"

"Huh?" I blink and turn back towards the counter, where the quartermaster is waiting with all my requested ammunition. I shove what will fit inside my coat's inner pockets and what will not inside my backpack, which is when I realize I have a small issue that I have not come across before thanks to not buying in bulk like this. I have nowhere to put at least half these rounds, and what's more, carrying ammunition clinking around inside my backpack seems ill-advised from the start.

"Starting to realize why I carried so few?"Arnaut asks, smug grin returning."But yes, unless you want to wear a backpack, or bandoliers- actually, you might look dashing in bandoliers, come to think of it…"

"Unless what?" I ask in a murmur, aware that the quartermaster is looking at me expectantly.

"Tell him you want your locker."

I parrot him to the quartermaster, who nods again, glum, and inputs some sort of command on the keyboard. The metal doors to his right snap open to reveal a single stainless-steel locker just as it shoots into place, clicking open with a soft hiss to reveal a stark interior.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I can't help but ask.

In response, the quartermaster and Jaeger share a look that immediately tells me I've said something very wrong. "You're a Huntress and you don't know what a locker is?"

"Tell them you're from Vacuo."

"I'm… from Vacuo?" I ask more than say, hoping it will appease them.

The quartermaster rolls his eyes. "Figures. Well, this is your ammunition and supplies stockpile that stays here until you call it with your Scroll, at which point it'll launch and fly to your location. We keep a copy of it in our files at every armory under the Atlas umbrella, so wherever you are on Solitas, if you call it we can make a replica and get it out to you within an hour or two."

"An hour or two?" I give him a blank look. "So it'll land right next to my Grimm-eaten corpse, then?"

"You're meant to call it an hour before you fight, scaley," he sneers.

Ah, there it is. With Nyssa's mother further receded into the vault of no-no memories, though, I'm able to keep my temper and just nod, turning to walk away but finishing a full circle back towards him when I remember the other reason I'm here: "And the contract list and heatmap?"

"Here you go," he says, pulling out a small cube attached via half a dozen wires to the wall and setting it down on the countertop. I recognize what it is all the way back from my days with Roman- a datadrop. One tap, and my Scroll lights up with a stream of images and charts and descriptions, before triggering the smaller sleeper program that they plugged into it with a small flash of red.

This is the moment of truth. A second series of images lights up the screen, these I don't recognize- flashes of what looks like a human body, but with diagrams of wires and circuits inside- and then the screen goes dark. I look up, worried either of the two soldiers in the room noticed, but their shared affect of boredom disabuses me of that worry almost immediately.

"Will that be all, then?"

"Yeah, I guess-"

"Great. Get out of the compound, then," he interrupts, looking annoyed with me.

Once more, I bite my tongue and leave like a trained puppy following along behind the Jaeger. A bad analogy that only adds to my rage. But I've bottled up my anger with only mild lapses for the better part of six years, and it'll take more than this douchebag to make me lose control over it.

Once out of base, it feels like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders, and I almost miss something enormously significant. Luckily, Arnaut catches it.

"That Jaeger fellow is following you,"he says, conversationally.

I nearly look back, but all the times Roman nearly bit my head off for doing exactly that after he told me exactly what Arnaut just told me keeps me from doing it. If I am being followed, the fact that I know it is one of the small advantages I have in this situation. Best to keep it to myself until I can act upon it.

Two blocks down towards the harbor, I double check. "Still there?"

"Yes. He's using the rooftops."

I nod, weighing my options. If I do something obvious like bolt or run for cover or hide, it'll raise what's probably only a passing curiosity to an active suspicion. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Embers operative in the bar I've been asked to go to after the mission won't be thrilled to hear that I have a Huntsman on my tail as I'm sitting down to speak to him.

That said, he can deal with it. I doubt the Jaeger will walk into a bar dressed in full power armor, and if he does, it'll be enough of an entrance that anyone in there can probably stop whatever illegal things they're talking about well in time.

And it reduces the time before I get to see Neo.

My worries fade with the first trace of conversation I hear upon entering the place- a complaint about the new tariffs on fishing. They've either chosen a real bar, or the one they set up is a front.

I sidle down across from the man wearing the black baseball cap like they told me to. "Atlas soldier following me, by the way. Think he called himself a Jaeger?"

My contact stiffens. "Give it a few minutes, then. How was your time in Vacuo?"

The flag to initiate non-suspicious small talk is easy enough to oblige. "Sandy. Dry. Hot. You ever been?"

We drone on for minutes, until he seems to be satisfied and gives me a small nod, tone going from a bored drone to a quiet, all-business bark at the drop of a dime: "Your Scroll." I oblige, and he taps it to a datadrop of his own in his lap, pausing for only a moment before he grins wide. "Fuckin' unreal. Six months of getting our asses handed to us by the flying laser circus, and you hand us her Achilles' heel two hours after landing on Solitas. I'm starting to see why Sherwood thinks you're so goddamn special." He rises to his feet and gestures for me to follow. "C'mon, Wick'll want to see you."

"Who?" As no answer comes, I don't really have a choice but to follow him to the bar's back room, through a trapdoor and down a ladder, where we walk what feels like two kilometers along a downward-sloping passageway of flickering lights on rough-hewn stone.

Eventually, we reach a metal door with a slat in the center, which slides open to reveal two glossy black eyes on ruddy skin, and a grating little chitter of a voice that I actually recognize. "Password?"

"Holy fucking shit. Roach?"

"Dragon?" The slat slams shut, and then the door slams open to reveal someone I know from the Central Vale Syndicate: Roach, a kid my age but half a foot shorter. If possible, his skin's gotten even more pockmarked, his deep red-brown hair even more clumped and greasy. His eyes, next to impossible to track thanks to being flat black insectoid things, nonetheless visibly widen as he inspects me in a similar fashion. "No fuckin' way."

"I thought you were in Vale picking a stupid-ass fight with Vixie!"

"I thought you were in Vacuo picking a stupid-ass fight with some famous Huntsman," he retorts, temper just as short as I remember. His focus turns to the man who led me down here: "You're tellin' me Dragon is Sherwood's fuckin' messiah candidate? Nah, no way, not a fuckin' chance."

The word messiah makes me more than a little uneasy, but that doesn't stop me from jumping back into a six-years-familiar dynamic I have with Roach that I didn't realize I missed. "What? I'm not gonna take notes on how to be inspiring from you of all people. You're about six baths away from lecturing me on anything related to appearance."

He sniffs his armpit and grins. "I don't gotta smell like sunshine and roses to connect with th' common man, do I? You got as much raw charisma as an overcooked potato. Fuck, I can't remember the last time you talked when Roman didn't literally order you to. Now you're gonna give speeches?"

I laugh out loud. "Did you just say out loud that anyone else looked like a potato without a hint of irony? With your lumpy-ass head?"

Roach's face looks like that old myth about the first men being sculpted from clay, except his sculptor was a drunk kindergartner without a shred of artistic talent. His features are asymmetrical and malformed, his hair clumped and strewn about his head carelessly, his skin greasy and pockmarked from years of mistreatment. I first ran into him running odd jobs for Moonshine in the Vale dockyards when Roman sent me there on an errand and made the mistake of commenting on his appearance. The resulting cold war of insults and occasional fistfights has extended all the way to today.

"Wasn't too lumpy for your mother last night," Roach spits back.

"Enough," a woman says from deeper in the room. I step forward and immediately flinch at the sight of her; her head looks to be more scar than skin, an awful diagonal groove carved from just under her left ear to above her right eye. It boggles my mind how she could even be alive- to get a wound like that, her head would've had to have been cut almost in half. And that's only the worst of the scars. More of them crisscross all her visible pale-green skin, separated by patches of dark green scales and the lines of age.

Her eyes, though… they burn yellow-gold with the intensity of a much younger woman, ageless and scarless despite the ruin that surrounds them. They seem to bore right through me and find what's beneath to be lacking.

When she speaks, it's in a ravaged grumble through sharpened metal prosthetic teeth, Menagerie accent thick as any I've ever heard. "Grow up, Rochester. And you, Dragon, is it? I've heard quite a bit about you from quite a few different people, and not all of it adds up proper."

I remember why I'm even here. "Where is-"

"Something has come up. Your friend is out on a mission at the moment, I'm afraid."

I start to feel the blood rushing to my head. "I want to see her."

"You will." She snorts, knowing something I don't. "Eventually."

My eye twitches. "If you're fucking lying to me, I'll…"

"What?" Wick looks me up and down, unimpressed. "You'll what?" When I don't have a reply, she sneers. "I should've known better than to let the stories get my hopes up. You wouldn't last two seconds in Atlas academy with that temper. What, are you going to start a fight and get thrown out the second some pampered little cunt calls you a name?"

"I don't care what you think of me. I care whether you can get me to the person I just crossed two continents for. If you can't do that, we have nothing more to talk about."

What I think is a tiny smile ghosts across her face, but it's hard to tell through the damage. "Well, if you're that insistent, I can send you to assist on the op. It's only a few hours away by bullhead."

"Dreki, she's probably tricking-"

"Sure. What's the job?"

At that, she smiles for real, like a crocodile having finally caught a pesky prey animal between its jaws. "Ironwood is clearing out an old abandoned Dust mine with a Petra Gigas living in it. Normally we wouldn't care, but the fact that he's committed two full teams of Huntsmen plus his Ace Ops… there's something else going on here, and Sherwood's decided to pre-opt the situation and make the mine unusable."

Mine… I shake the errant worry from my head and glance back up at her. "And Neo's there?"

"Yes, she's there. Her and her new handler."

New handler? I suddenly remember one of Neo's text messages and widen my eyes. "Cinder's working for the White Fa- Embers?"

"More like working with," Wick grunts. "When the city in the sky loses, all us vermin on the ground win."

I don't disagree with that, I guess. "So they're already there?"

"Nah. They will be before you can meet 'em, though, but the more, the merrier, right?" That nasty grin reemerges alongside a reptilian glint in her eyes. "They might need help getting out. And if not, well, no damage done, and you see your little friend a few hours earlier."

I shoot a hand forward to grab her forearm, activating Arnaut's Semblance-

A false champion, profiting from unearned reputation and respect-

She yanks her arm away just as quickly, but I got what I needed- I didn't sense any deceit in her, just resentment for me, personally, and a desire to see me either prove myself on this job or die trying. Which, fine, I'll play her game then.

"What're the coordinates?" When she obliges me, I squint at the place on my Scroll and whistle at the distance from Schildfall. "Can you get me out there on a bullhead?"

"No can do," she sighs. "You're gonna have to book it out there on foot or on a snowcat. Shame, really- wait, where are you-"

I'm already tearing out the door towards the mine.

Towards the end of my journey, and maybe the start of a new one.

Towards Neo.

(A/N) Any feedback is fantastic, especially negative or speculative. Knowing what people don't like is what best equips me to avoid it- and if there's anything that super doesn't work, it's far easier to change it now than another 200k words down the line.

Also, on that subject, I could still use a beta reader for the fic if anyone's interested.

Nyssa's inspiration is Odysseus from the Iliad/Odyssey. Her color is scarlet.

Wick is a character from the show, so I'm not going to wax eloquent on inspiration and Aura color. You can probably figure out who just off of the physical description.

Kitsuki's inspiration would be a spoiler. His color is sky blue.

Roach's inspiration is Perseus from Greek mythology. His color is blood red.