Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust

by Cyclone

Reposted from Spacebattles. Barely a month into her time at Beacon, Yang Xiao Long made a fateful purchase. Little did she know that this would lead her into a war fought in the shadows and a life in which everything is more than meets the eye.

45. V3E4: The Ties That Bind

Volume III: Episode 4: The Ties That Bind

---

Velvet swallowed the bile she felt rising at listening to yet another White Fang recruit go on about how awful humans were. It was disgusting to her, repugnant even. It was a reminder that, although they might have softened lately, the White Fang were still terrorists.

The worst part was... she understood.

She'd never struck back or lashed out, not like the White Fang had. The insults, the bullying... it was never worth the effort, in her opinion. For all that she loved her kingdom, that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Things had gotten... better when she went to Pharos. In a combat school, you fought and bled alongside each other. But the whispers, the looks, the taunts and teasing... they were still there, just more discreet. Sometimes, they were couched in insults to one's performance instead, but the sentiments were unmistakable.

Beacon was an anomaly. Being a Huntress in training gave one some measure of protection... except, of course, from other Huntsman students, and even there, she had had to deal with the likes of Cardin, though to be fair, the first-year picked on everyone, human and faunus alike, and had stopped after a while. Privately, Velvet suspected Coco had had a few private words with him on the matter, but she'd never quite gotten up the nerve to ask... and lately, it just hadn't seemed important.

At least she had Yatsuhashi. They'd met in initiation, and it wasn't until that moment that Velvet had realized how dangerously close she'd come to the same mindset, the same views, the same assumptions that the White Fang held. Before they'd met, she'd assumed Yatsu - big, kind, loveable Yatsu - would be another racist bully, just because he was a human from Mistral. Her views on the kingdom that nominally ruled Anima had been colored so poorly.

Of course, more recently, she'd met Jaune - who seemed cut from the same cloth as Yatsu, if a bit clumsier and a fellow victim of Cardin - and Pyrrha, the nicest person she'd ever met... which was still kind of mind-boggling, given how terrifying she was in the arena. Seriously, Velvet had trouble believing that girl was for real sometimes.

With a pang of guilt, she glanced over at Lavi. Surely, he was feeling it worse? Or maybe not, and she was painting Atlas in an unfair light again? It was hard to say, but if the overheard conversations bothered him, he didn't show it.

This was the third White Fang hideout they'd visited, this time to pick up the combat uniforms the terrorist group used alongside their masks to signify their allegiance, to show that they weren't afraid of the authorities and were a force to be reckoned with, that they didn't have to hide in the populace out of fear and only chose to out of convenience. At least, that was how it worked in theory. Velvet wasn't too sure how effective it was at sending that message.

The White Fang were a lot more decentralized than she would have expected, and judging by appearances, each site was ready to be evacuated and abandoned at a moment's notice. Something scared them. Was it Cinder?

That was an interesting bit of information they'd learned. It seemed Cinder, the Havenite traitor, had been orchestrating the White Fang's operations before they went quiet, the various hijackings and dust thefts... and the White Fang had grown tired of being bullied by a human and turned on her, right around the time of the sting operation that had captured her teammates but failed to capture her.

And they'd confirmed - from overheard conversations, if nothing else - that the White Fang were, indeed, allied with Cliffjumper's "Autobots" in some fashion.

With each day, with each meeting, they were building up closer to the truth, and they would learn what sinister plot these giant alien robots were planning.

---

A camera flashed.

"Anyone else think this is weird?" Nora muttered as she blinked rapidly to clear the spots from her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, offering a friendly smile and wave to the crowd.

"Nora's used to having to try to get attention," explained Ren as he signed another autograph.

As he tried to ward off a girl who wanted him to sign her shirt - and seemed ready to take it off right then and there to let him do so, to heck with public indecency laws - without touching anything inappropriate, Jaune privately had to agree with Nora. It was one thing when they were in Amity Arena, in front of a cheering crowd, but today was the day for the third-year team matches. Team JNPR was just trying to get something to eat for lunch at one of the stands in the city, a three-sided one, with the four of them taking up the seats on the stand's "front" side, and for all their eagerness, none of the fans seemed interested in actually eating anything, and few had the nerve to actually take a seat, and even then, only briefly.

Jaune turned to his girlfriend and waved in the general direction of the disappointed girl who was now walking off with a signed napkin. "That... that doesn't strike you as strange at all, Pyr?"

"Jaune," she said patiently, "just be glad she didn't ask you to sign her underwear."

The blond boy blinked blearily. "People really do that?"

"Mmhmm," confirmed Pyrrha with a nod. She seemed distracted, and Jaune could well understand why. They couldn't talk about it in public, but they were all worried about Yang.

Still, that girl had been about ready to strip in front of him, and it didn't even seem to bother Pyrrha. He knew from past experience that Pyrrha... Pyrrha was perhaps the nicest, kindest woman he'd ever met. She'd never let on how much it hurt her when he'd foolishly pursued Weiss back in their first semester or when he'd dated Ruby. He'd hoped she'd be more open with him about things like that, now that they were dating.

His hand drifted to his pocket... but no. Not here.

"They're fans, Jaune," Pyrrha said, interrupting his ruminations. "In the end, they're just strangers who happen to know your name."

"That's a remarkable perspective," observed Ren. "Probably the healthiest way to look at it."

Jaune had to agree, and if anyone would know how to handle fans, it was Pyrrha. Still, he decided not to mention his mom's oft-repeated saying. After all, when his girlfriend was unfazed by a girl obviously coming onto him because she was, ultimately, a stranger who knew his name, the fact that his mother had drilled into him that strangers were just friends you hadn't met yet... yeah, he wasn't that dumb.

"I've just... never been that popular," he mumbled. "It's kind of... a new experience."

Nora swallowed her mouthful of food and asked, "Well, I'm sure you'd have been popular if you told people you were a prince."

"I'm not a prince, Nora," he grumbled sourly. "See, this is why I didn't tell anyone. It's not important. You're making it sound way more important than it really is."

"But-!"

"Nora," Ren chided, cutting her off.

"Hmph." Nora scowled. "Still, Jaune, didn't you say you wanted to be a hero? What did you think was going to happen if you actually got your wish?"

Pyrrha frowned as Jaune hung his head. "I just... I thought I would help people, you know?" he answered softly. "It's not like anything else matters, right?"

Pyrrha felt her heart melt at that, and she smiled, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. "And that, Jaune, is what people are beginning to recognize in you now."

He gave the most adorable blush and ducked his head shyly, and Pyrrha beamed at him proudly.

"Hey, Pyr," a loud, brash voice interrupted as its owner, Arslan, came up behind Jaune, looping her arms loosely over his shoulders and across his chest.

Pyrrha cocked a curious eyebrow. "Arslan, what are you doing?"

Her friendly rival shrugged. "My agent saw me beat up Team Cardinal and seems to think playing up some sort of romantic rivalry between us will help boost our licensing revenue," she murmured discreetly.

Without missing a beat, Pyrrha replied with the sweetest tone. "Then get a new agent."

"Pyrrha, no," Arslan half-protested, half-whined. "He's been working with me for years."

"And now his time is up," Pyrrha declared with a saccharine smile.

"Do you have to be so forceful?" complained Arslan.

"It's you or the agent, Ars," warned Pyrrha. "Choose now."

"How about I take a third option?" suggested Arslan a split second before grabbing hold of both Pyrrha and Jaune by the back and slamming them together into an embrace. At the cooing and confused squawking of the crowd, the dark-skinned platinum blonde whipped around to look at them. "What?! Of course I ship them. We all ship them. Right, guys?"

She received a chorus of agreements from her team and some in the crowd.

Nadir cracked a smile. "They are pretty cute together, aren't they?" he asked as Team ABRN claimed seats down the right-hand side of the stand, around the corner from where the furiously blushing couple sat.

Arslan was seated just around the corner from Jaune, with Nadir next to her, and Pyrrha hid a smile. Those two really were adorable at times.

"Sal-u-ta-tions!" a voice announced the arrival of another Huntsman student team as Team ABRN placed their orders.

Team JNPR didn't really know Team APRC, but they'd crossed paths a few times, mostly through their mutual friendships with Team RWBY and Team SSSN. Team APRC wasn't alone, though. Tagging along behind their coppertopped member were a couple of civilians. Pyrrha recognized them as Molly and her mother.

"Hello again, Molly!" greeted Pyrrha with a friendly wave.

"Have you guys seen Team Ruby?" Penny asked as she and her team took seats along the left-hand side of the stand, opposite Team ABRN.

Team JNPR exchanged looks, then shook their heads.

"They have some... issues they're working out," Ren answered diplomatically.

"Oh," Penny said, crestfallen. "I was hoping to see Ruby, and Miss Molly here wanted to see Yang."

"Yang?" Pyrrha asked curiously. "Why Yang?"

"She's my second favorite Huntress!" Molly chirped.

Arslan shot Pyrrha a mock-glare. "I thought you said this kid liked me second-best?"

Molly tiptoed up to see Arslan from across the stand and said, "Well, you were, until I saw Team Ruby's match yesterday. She was all like 'wham!' and 'pow!' and your match, well, those guys you were fighting were pretty sad."

"Can't argue with that," Arslan agreed with a shrug.

Team APRC, meanwhile, was studying the menu board as Team ABRN's orders arrived.

"How's the fish?" Rufus asked Reese, noting the dish she was eating.

"Eh," she said with a shrug, pausing to answer, "it's not bad. Flavor's a bit on the rich side. I prefer Lake Colton fish, personally."

"'Lake Colton fish'?" Penny echoed curiously. "So you're from Atlas too?"

Reese shook her head. "Actually, I'm from Low Town."

Pyrrha had... heard of Low Town. Some of the charities she'd supported over the years had listed Low Town as among their target beneficiaries. She was anxiously debating whether to inquire further or not when Jaune bravely raised a hand and looked at Reese.

"Excuse me, 'Low Town'?" he asked.

"Low Town," Reese repeated, "the Undercity if you're feeling pretentious, the Train Yard to those hoity-toity types who live up in Atlas proper and like to pretend it doesn't exist. The place has many names."

"Okay," Jaune pressed on, "but where is it?"

"It's where dreams go to die," Reese answered dramatically, then scoffed. "Well, if you believe certain politicians. Not everyone who works in Atlas can actually afford to live up there, after all. Here, let me show you." She pulled out her scroll and brought up a picture of Atlas.

It truly was a sight to behold, no matter how many pictures Pyrrha had seen of it, a mighty metropolis on a floating island in the sky. Hovering over a large body of water in the center of a valley that was as much a miracle of engineering as the island itself, the floating city was tethered to the surface by what looked like a network of pipes or cables looping down into the water and back up and a deceptively spindly-looking column that must have been massive, given the scale of the image, connecting it to the shore.

"See here?" Reese pointed. "After they raised Atlas, they moved it away from Mantle and dug Lake Colton under it to minimize the damage if it ever fell. Waste heat from the city is pumped down to keep the lake from freezing." She moved the image around, focusing and zooming in on the coast where the column Pyrrha had noted earlier rose from. There, a much more disorganized-looking town stood, with several train tracks extending off into the distance. "That's Low Town. The place was set up to handle shipments in and out by rail, with both cargo elevators for the freight and passenger elevators so people could commute down from Atlas."

"And people live there now?" Pyrrha asked, somewhat aghast, noting the... varying quality of the architecture, which trended toward the ramshackle. It didn't even have a wall to defend it from the Grimm; she could only speculate and hope that the valley it rested in was ringed with its own defenses.

"Yep," confirmed Reese, popping the P. "First, it started with some enterprising restaurateurs who decided to set up shop there to serve the rail workers on their lunch breaks. They stocked Lake Colton with a lot of different varieties of fish, and the catch of the day goes straight through the kitchen to the table. Word spread, expanding the fishing industry; it became a gourmet delicacy up top."

Jaune frowned. "That does not look like a booming fishing community."

"It's not," she agreed, "and that's the other half: population boom, gentrification, too many people, not enough land. There's only so much space up on that floating rock, and you'd be surprised how much of the interior's dedicated to hydroponics. So people set up in Low Town, hoping to make it big up top."

"Do they ever succeed?" Pyrrha asked.

"Well, my dad didn't do so bad, but the real Low Town success story is a man named Jacques Gelè." Reese grinned. "You might know him better as Jacques Schnee."

---

This, thought Blake as she watched Sun talking animatedly with her mother, is going far better than I expected.

At least, it seemed to be, judging from the amused tolerance in her mother's expression.

They were eating lunch at the same cafe she and Sun had eaten at after Adam broke her arm all those months ago.

"So, tell me Sun, how did you go and win my daughter's heart?" asked Blake's mother sweetly while casually directing one of the guardsmen to not shock the eager monkey faunus.

"Persistence, patience, personal space," listed off Sun at first before his expression became more somber. "Honestly, what helped a lot was Mister Xiao Long's advice. To chase after her, but not to do it too much? I think he was talking from experience with his wife, Raven Branwen."

Blake found herself blushing like she'd been sunburned. How could this get worse?

Her mother looked over at her contemplatively. "Yes. That makes a great deal of sense."

Ah, yes, that was how.

Realization seemed to cross her mother's face, and she quickly apologized, "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to imply you'd ever take me hostage."

"Mom!" Blake's ears flattened beneath her bow as she mumbled, "I haven't taken anyone hostage in years."

"That's wonderful to hear, dear." She had to give her mom credit. She didn't even miss a beat. "Tell me, Blake, how have you been doing?"

"Oh, I've been doing great," casually replied Blake with a wave of her hand. "I've got the world's greatest boyfriend by popular review, I've got a bunch of new friends, I'm involved in so many conspiracies that I can't keep track of them all, and oh yeah, I apparently missed the fact that the woman sleeping in the bunk bed above me has also been sleeping with my psycho ex for almost a year."

Sun frowned and spoke, holding up a protesting finger. "I'm sorry, what? I thought Yang had a thing for me?" He paused. "Wait, that came out wrong."

Blake blinked in surprise. "You found out about that?"

"Neptune told me," he admitted. "Several times. Aaand Mister Xiao Long confirmed it."

"I feel like I've missed something," interrupted her mother. "Yang, your human roommate who joined the White Fang and that you think-"

"I know," corrected Blake.

"-you think is in a relationship with Adam, was interested in Sun here?" summed up her mother with a gesture at the monkey faunus.

"She is human, right?" Sun asked. Again. "Or is Beacon just full of secret faunus?"

"Unless Raven Branwen has some secret bird trait befitting her name, I think we can safely rule out Yang being a faunus," reasoned Blake aloud before making a dismissive chuff. "I still can't believe I didn't notice it. The signs were all there! No one could be as fanatical about faunus rights as she was and not be a member of the White Fang." She paused, then added, "Or Weiss."

"Blake," began her mother pointedly with a gesture at herself. "I'm right here."

"Don't you think your perspective might be a little bit, um... biased, Blake?"

She scowled. Why wouldn't anyone believe her? It was so obvious!

"We seem to have gotten a little sidetracked," her mother said, breaking her train of thought. "Tell me, Sun, what are your intentions toward my daughter?"

Blake silently begged him not to say anything stupid or something that would put her on the spot, and he glanced at her, their eyes meeting only for an instant, before he refocused back on her mother. "Honestly?" he said softly. "Whatever she wants from me is all I have to give."

Looking at her mother and seeing the speculative look on her face, Blake's heart sank a little. Please, Mom, no, she thought. I'm not- I can't. Not yet.

"I see," the older Belladonna purred. "That's... quite an open-ended answer. You're a Haven student, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"With Blake attending Beacon... that kind of distance would put quite a strain on any relationship."

"Do you suppose Beacon is accepting transfers?"

Blake snapped her head around to stare at him. "Sun, no! I can't ask you to leave your team behind, your friends, your home."

He shrugged. "You're worth it, babe. Besides, I'm from Vacuo. 'Home' has never been about places for me. It's about people. And who says I'd have to leave my team behind? If I can transfer, who says they can't?"

"'If,'" Blake reminded him. "What if you can't?"

"I could just withdraw," he offered.

"No!" Blake shrieked. "You went to Haven for a reason. You are not giving that up for me!"

"Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands out placatingly, his tail lashing agitatedly behind him. "It was just an idea. I guess we'll be using the CCT a lot, then, huh?"

"I, um, uh..."

"Or you could just get married now," suggested her mother.

Before Blake could protest, Sun shook his head. "I'm not going to push her into anything, ma'am. I won't." He looked back at Blake and smiled. "We can meet up again when we graduate. She's worth the wait."

Blake was almost tempted to give into her mother's suggestion.

"Thank you, Sun," she said instead. "That... means a lot."

---

When her father sat her down and told her that neither of them could participate in the search for Yang because they were too close to the matter to be objective during a crisis situation, Ruby understood this. However, Yang was still her sister, and therefore, she was obligated to go through an insane, crazy stunt to save her. This wasn't even that crazy. All she was doing was following Tukson as, in the waning hours of the day, he drove into the industrial district and parked at a seemingly innocuous factory, a factory which happened to have an unusually large hangar next to the airpad around back.

It was a simple thing then to find a secluded alleyway that ran right up against one of the buildings. High up in the wall of the building was a window, and Ruby was sure that if she could get the window open, she could use her semblance to get inside. The problem there came in the fact that the window was not open, so she needed an alternate method of approach.

She reexamined the wall and the alleyway. There wasn't much in the way of long poles she could pilfer, and if she smashed the window open, that would cause quite the crash. That meant that she would have to find another route in. But where? Where could she get in?

Then again, what did it matter if they heard her coming? Wasn't she trying to find and capture them anyway? Maybe she should smash her way through?

No. No. No. No. No... No.

No. That was just plain crazy talk. She needn't go any further down that line of thought.

Then again… she did have her semblance still. Perhaps she could use it to get up next to the window to get a look inside? Yeeeeeees, now that was a plan.

"Scouts lead the way," that was what General Ironwood always said when he tried to justify hiding in the shadows against the Decepticons to himself.

The window happened to have a small sill. It was a ledge just wide enough for her to grab hold of it and peer into the room. So it was that with a mighty leap, she transformed into a cloud of rose petals and turned back into herself just in time to grab onto the windowsill. She was just a small contraction of muscles away from seeing into the building and discovering all the White Fang's sinister secrets.

Ruby was startled by a wrenching, tearing sound, and she watched with no small amount of awe as something - no, someone - tore a hole in reality in the alleyway beneath her.

And just as she had half-predicted, half-hoped, Raven Branwen stepped out of the portal. Concealed by that oh-so-recognizable mask, the older woman's head swept around, scanning the alleyway, then stopped when her gaze turned upwards and landed on Ruby.

"Raven," the bloodcrowned girl breathed, vibrating with excitement. "You're here." With wide eyes, she realized she had lost her grip on the sill. "Uh oh."

She fell towards the ground and was about to activate her semblance again when a strong hand reached out and grabbed hold of her. She found herself looking at the ground two inches from her face. Raven's hand was gripped firmly around her hood, and then gently, she was let down.

"Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood?" asked the masked woman quietly.

"No," admitted Ruby into the ground before getting up.

"Little Rose," Raven asked, an odd undertone to her voice. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for Yang," she answered honestly, brushing herself off. She had so many things to say, so many questions to ask, but Raven had been... standoffish before, reluctant to talk. But if she could at least keep Raven talking, maybe...

"Yang..." Raven repeated the name, a note of melancholy in her voice. "Are you not her teammate, her team leader?"

Ruby looked away. "She's- she's joined the White Fang. When we confronted her about it... she ran off."

There was long, pregnant silence before Raven spoke again, her voice almost tender. "Trust your sister, Little Rose. No matter how it seems, she hasn't betrayed you. She would never betray her family."

Ruby blinked. Raven knew? Of course she knew. She was Sunfire... wasn't she? Ruby would ask, but... it had taken some wheedling to get Raven to agree to answer even one question when she'd rescued Ruby from MECH.

"I want to thank you," she blurted out instead. "For helping with the traitor you warned us about." After all, Sunfire had turned in the evidence against Cinder, so if Raven wasn't Sunfire, she wouldn't know what Ruby was talking about. And if she was...

Raven stiffened at that. "I had my own reasons, Little Rose. I didn't do it for you, and I certainly didn't do it for Ozpin."

Things were falling into place in Ruby's head.

"Leo was making a nuisance of himself to me and mine," Raven continued, derailing Ruby's train of thought.

"Leo"? Leo...nardo? Headmaster Lionheart? Raven had killed Headmaster Lionheart? It made sense, now that she thought about it. Ozpin had been quite clear that the Grimm the COPS had found in the hidden room attached to his office meant he was in direct communication - and almost certainly collaboration - with Salem. With her semblance, Raven could easily exit a room locked from the inside, and her odachi would definitely be able to behead someone, just as had happened to him. And Ruby had just thanked her for it. She felt a pit form in her stomach. To kill in the heat of battle was one thing, but not like that...

"You... you're not Sunfire, are you?" she asked quietly.

"No," Raven answered plainly.

"But... you knew about Yang and the White Fang," Ruby reasoned aloud.

Raven barked out a laugh. "Who do you think gave her her mask?"

"Why?" Ruby asked, desperately wanting to understand. "Why did you give it to her?"

Raven shrugged. "It was a spare I had lying around. A moment of sentimentality, and perhaps... I wanted to see what she would do with it."

Ruby lowered her eyes, thinking back to the argument. "Blake broke it," she blurted out.

"I see," was Raven's response, and Ruby couldn't read any emotion in it. Raven shook her head, as if to clear it. "Like I said, Ruby, trust your sister. There's more going on here than meets the eye."

Ruby looked up and watched, frozen, as with that, Raven turned, tore open another portal, and stepped through.

She called me "Ruby"! she squeed.

There was a noise, soft like the wind, and with eyes wide with familiarity, Ruby pivoted around to face the newcomer to the alley.

She knew what to expect from months of interacting with Shadow of Team APRC(T). A ninja was there. More than that, it was a ninja that wanted to be found.

The black clad individual got up from their crouch and pulled off their hood to reveal soft blond hair, a sharp feminine face, and emerald eyes framed by prim glasses.

"Glynda?" asked Ruby, startled. "I didn't know you had ninja training."

Professor Glynda Goodwitch shook her head. "I don't, but Ann taught me a few tricks. Looks like they were enough after all."

"Oh," softly said Ruby in surprise. "Why are you here, then? I feel I should probably start asking those questions more than I have been."

"Looking after you," replied Glynda as she walked towards the girl. "I knew you would try something like this, so I snuck along. I had just finished scouting the factory when I came out to see you about to try and get in through the window."

"You heard me and Raven talking then?" asked Ruby.

"Yes," answered Glynda

"And... you just watched?" Why... why hadn't she...?

"I believed it was a family matter between the two of you," Glynda answered the unspoken question softly. "I still believe that."

Ruby didn't reply, parsing over what Glynda said. Was Raven her family? Technically, yes, but there was still the fact of what she had done, what terrible crimes she was responsible for. Could that gulf ever really be…?

"Ruby, no matter how much you want her to be your mother, I'm not sure she can be."

Glynda's words were louder than any thunderclap in Ruby's mind.

"What?!" squawked the silver-eyed girl, confused and aghast. Remembering their location, though, she hissed her next words quietly. "I don't want her to be my mother!"

The blonde gave her a hard, appraising look. "Don't you?" she asked.

"Summer Rose is my mother," argued Ruby.

"Do you even remember her?" Glynda asked gently.

Ruby opened her mouth, but whatever answer she had to offer died on her lips.

"I wonder if Yang realizes that she's done to you what Raven did to her."

"That's- that's not true," Ruby protested. "We never learned why Raven left, and Yang... Yang had every right to leave because of Blake."

"But not to leave you," the professor said, cutting to the heart of the matter. "The circumstances may be different, but can you tell me the feelings are?"

"I- I-..." Ruby screwed her eyes shut. Was that really it? Was she destined to hate Yang the way Yang hated Raven? No. She refused to believe that. She opened her eyes and looked at Glynda. "What did you find inside?"

The combat instructor hesitated at the obvious attempt to change the subject, then let it pass. "Little of interest," she said. "From conversations I overheard, I can confirm the White Fang have allied with these 'Autobots,' but Yang wasn't there. The only person of note was Adam Taurus." She gestured at the wall beneath the window she had been attempting to peek through. "When I saw him, he was right on the other side of that wall."

Ruby felt her blood run cold. Adam Taurus, the infamous leader of the Vale White Fang, Blake's ex-boyfriend, powerful, deadly, fanatical... and Ruby had almost jumped in right on top of him. Alone.

Except Raven had stopped her.

She saved me again, she thought, and I didn't even realize it.

She looked at Glynda, who nodded. "Yes. Raven did save you. Again."

"Why?" she asked weakly.

"I don't know," admitted Glynda before pulling out her scroll. "I did record the encounter though, for your use later, and for…"

It clicked in Ruby's head. "And for turning in her confession to the COPS," she finished. "Right?"

Glynda nodded.

"Good," bit out Ruby. "Let's close this case."

Family was important, but justice had to be blind. The people had to know that no matter what, the authorities would stop at nothing to find out the truth and defend them. The VPD had failed utterly in their duty, but Ruby wouldn't.

After all, this was what she signed up for.

---

Something was wrong with Councilor Sylvia.

Duke's words had stuck in Winter's mind. It was possible Duke's mother had retained her Atlesian citizenship, after all, so while she waited for her arrangements for discreet transportation to some of the more distant facilities to come through, she decided to look into the councilor.

As it was, there was nothing notable about Councilor Sylvia's record her first year, but after that first year, things had turned decidedly... odd.

As a particular example, Councilor Sylvia had proposed and pushed through a bill mandating that faunus qualify for disability benefits, even if their only injury was to their faunus feature. That was quite a laudable achievement, but Winter had looked into the process. Attached to the original bill she'd proposed was a mandatory disability discharge for anyone who qualified, almost as if she'd tried to slip it through in order to oust General Ironwood, given his extensive cybernetics. The fact that it would likely have crippled the Atlas military seemed to have been blithely ignored.

There was also the new MARS-brand Weather Dominator that handled climate control in Mantle. Councilor Sylvia had proposed slashing the budget for Mantle's infrastructure by 97%, which would have left the roads in disrepair and the heating system critically vulnerable to any sort of malfunction or equipment failure. The budget cut had been negotiated down to a mere 30%... and offset by the acquisition of the Weather Dominator to replace the less efficient heating system, and it had been so successful, Councilor Camilla had soon pushed for the acquisition of a Weather Dominator in Atlas. Had Councilor Sylvia's original proposal gone through, there would have been riots in the street and Grimm at the walls.

And speaking of Mantle's walls, there was the Mantle Expansion Program. The former capital had been getting overcrowded, and Councilor Sylvia had put forth a proposal to expand the city, knocking down the Colton Walls for building materials and space and only maintaining the surviving pre-Great War city wall for historical preservation, relying instead on advanced warning from a network of sensors to defend the city. With the money saved from the more efficient Weather Dominators, the Colton Walls had instead been expanded outward, and Mantle now boasted a more proactive defense network, thanks to the new Skystrikers providing a long-range high-speed response capability that they had lacked before the alliance with the Decepticons.

And those were just the incidents to come to her mind immediately. Put together, it almost seemed like Councilor Sylvia was less a politician trying to accumulate power and more like a saboteur trying to destroy Atlas... but then again, Winter couldn't imagine anyone capable enough to install a puppet councilor would be so transparent or incompetent in instructing her on how to achieve such ends.

This evening, Winter was across the street from the Council Hall with a laser microphone. The Council chamber itself, of course, was soundproofed, with tinted bulletproof windows to prevent eavesdropping and snipers, but that didn't extend to every room of the building. She was currently listening in on one of the less secure hallways, but she was only paying half-attention to it. After all, it was only Duke and General Flagg there, so it was unlikely-

"Yo Joe," the quiet whisper thundered through her mind as she watched in wide-eyed surprise as the two exchanged a knowing greeting.

This... this changed everything.

---

Verte was eager and anxious as she and her team gathered in the common room of the guest dorm assigned to the Haven students. She noted that the damage from the running battle during which most of Team CMSN had been apprehended had been repaired or patched over. The few remaining signs would easily be overlooked by anyone who didn't know where to look.

This morning, though, they were there for a reason, as were a few other Haven teams. It was going to be a momentous occasion for them, and not because today was when the fourth-year team matches in the Vytal Tournament would take place. No, the big event was the press conference from the Mistralian Central Organization of Police Specialists about their investigation into Headmaster Lionheart's murder.

Jaune's team was also there, silently offering moral support. She smiled. The big goof. How he lucked into such an awesome team, she'd never know, but he really seemed to have grown since coming to Beacon.

She just... wished she could say the same, but for all that she excelled at Haven, she always seemed to be screwing up somewhere. Sometimes, it was only the encouragement of her professors that kept her going. She wasn't sure what she was hoping for from this press conference. On the one hand, she wanted Lionheart's murderer brought to justice. On the other... if they'd already caught him, it meant she wouldn't get to avenge him.

Verte watched in rapt attention as the leader of the COPS, codenamed Bulletproof, spoke on the big screen... and her world fell apart.

"-with the confession of Raven Branwen to the murder of Headmaster Lionheart, we were able to piece together several other parts of the case into a cohesive whole."

No no no! she thought. It can't be true!

"-thus, we are left with no other choice but to conclude that the headmaster was a member of at least one of these organizations. The presence of the Seer and the place in which it was found confirms this beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Headmaster Lionheart, a Grimm cultist? A traitor sending ill-prepared and ill-equipped Huntsmen to be slain by a bandit tribe until they got fed up with being used? Sabotaging Mistral's security?

It just... it didn't make any sense. Verte could not reconcile the headmaster who had always shown her a quiet pride, always encouraged her to go forward and keep moving on, always had a kind word or bit of advice for her with... with that!

"-should have been you in charge, Nadir. Team Sapphire instead of Team Auburn. It makes sense. That rat was sabotaging us!"

"Shut up!" Verte blurted out, whirling around to glare teary-eyed at Arslan. "Just... shut up! Headmaster Lionheart was a good man!"

"He was a traitor!" Arslan snapped, glaring back with equally furious eyes. "He got good people killed!"

"You don't know that!" retorted Verte.

"Guys, calm down," Jaune said, trying to step between them. They ignored him.

Arslan gestured at the screen. "I trust the experts, and it all fits."

"They're working off the word of his murderer!" Verte argued. "A thief and a bandit!"

"They found a Grimm in his office!"

"He was studying it! Or is Professor Port a traitor too?!"

By now, the two of them were screaming at each other nose to nose.

"He let Crimson in!"

Verte snarled wordlessly, and just as the two of them lunged for each other, she felt strong arms wrap around her, even as she saw Jaune's girlfriend - Pyrrha freaking Nikos! - take hold of Arslan, the two interlopers pulling them apart.

And... that was it, wasn't it? Team CMSN had slipped in, perfectly legitimate records, even when they had spent so much time off campus, blowing off classes, seemingly immune to punishment...

"It can't be true," she sobbed weakly. "It can't be true."

"It'll be all right," a vaguely familiar voice murmured as the arms that encircled her turned her around into a comforting hug. It took a moment for her to place it. It was that second-year, Ditzy.

As she continued sobbing into Ditzy's shoulder, she felt a presence come up behind her moments before Jaune's arms wrapped around them both.

"It's okay, Verte," he murmured into her ear. "I'm here. It's okay."

She wished she could believe them.

Soon after, she felt the weight of more people on her, more words of comfort, from her team, from Hector, Lauren, and Alkim. Her team.

Arslan was wrong, she was sure of it. Team VTLK was her team, and she wouldn't give them up for the world. If Headmaster Lionheart were really sabotaging them, then why would he have given her such an awesome team? Why would he have encouraged her the way he had? Made her push her limits?

No, whatever else anyone said, she knew the truth. Headmaster Lionheart had believed in her. Could she do less for him?

---

Yang tried not to look too nervous as she walked through the White Fang base. It was hard, though. After all, not only was this possibly the final battle against Cinder, she would also be doing it without the mask that Adam had given her.

She hadn't realized it until she lost it, but she felt… naked without it. She felt like she didn't belong, like there was something wrong with her. Of course, given her fugitive status now, it could be argued that there was a great deal wrong with her, but the White Fang didn't need to know that.

Plus, she now needed to explain to Adam why she wasn't wearing it, and that would be an issue in and of itself.

"What happened to your mask?" asked Adam curiously, seriously.

Yang's eyes widened somewhat behind her sunglasses. "It broke." Was broken.

She didn't know how much of what happened she wanted to reveal to Adam, if anything at all. After all, she had had his partner living with her for almost a year without her knowing. She had no idea how he would react to that, but she knew it wouldn't be good.

"You mean it was broken," corrected Adam, as if reading her thoughts. At Yang's dumbfounded expression, he continued, "Lucky guess. You can tell me all about it later. For now, just come along with me."

The two walked over to the small room that served as Adam's office and went inside. It was filled with boxes that were still packed up, a sign of just how much he had been forced to move recently. It made Yang's blood boil to think about, that they should all be forced on the run while people like Jacques Schnee slept peacefully at night on their beds of corpses.

"Ah! Here we are," declared Adam cheerfully, standing over a just opened box and holding aloft a perfect copy of the mask she had just lost.

"How did you get that?!" demanded Yang cheerfully, a smile coming to her face for the first time in days.

Even as Adam handed over the mask, he reached up and tapped his own. "These things break all the time, so when I had your mask made, I made sure more than one was constructed. Just haven't had time to hand them over yet."

Yang, still smiling, gently took the offered mask and once more turned around to put it on. When she turned back around, she felt refreshed. It still fit right over her HUD glasses and was still comfortable and stylish. Well… she, at least, thought she looked good in it.

When she turned around, she also found Adam offering her what looked like a shoe box filled with extra masks, which she took and resolved to give over to Bumblebee for safe keeping.

"Come on, we should get going," pointed out Adam as the two left the makeshift office.

Yang felt a pang of guilt and suddenly wanted to tell him everything. Her name, what had happened, who her roommates were, everything. Even leaving aside how badly he could react, though, she was also afraid of what would happen if he underreacted. She didn't want to feel the guilt of a quiet betrayal.

"Sunfire," Adam's voice came into her thoughts, "whatever it is, it can wait until after the mission. Keep your head in the game."

The blonde could feel her brow shooting up. "My head? Excuse me, but look who's so focused on how others are acting that he can read their thoughts."

"What?" balked Adam. "I thought you would appreciate a partner who actually cares about your feelings and the mission."

"I've got Bumblebee for that, thank you very much, and he's plenty good with emotions," pointed out Yang snippily.

"You can't just rely on your car for everything, Sunfire," argued Adam.

A gasp escaped Yang's lips. "Why you loose-lipped, bigoted, crass little harridelle!"

"I'm taller than you!" countered Adam.

And so on and on it went as the mission continued on.

The plan was simple. Hound had put together a very comprehensive track of all the known movements of Cinder and her MECH cronies, and with that, they were able to find their likely base of operations. The Autobots would go in first to soak up the hits, and then the White Fang would fly in to pick up the pieces and flush them out of whatever holes were left.

The base in question was actually a sprawling old military base from the Great War, Fort Sentinel, meant to stop any push from the Mistralo-Mantellian alliance from entering a vital pass through the Barrier Mountains. During the Faunus Rights Revolution, it had served that purpose once again, but this time, it also doubled as a prison camp for those valiant fighters captured in their struggle to liberate faunuskind from the injustice that the councils sought to foist upon them. Now, though, it served only as a curiosity for those both interested in the distant past and able to brave the Grimm-infested wilds where it now lay, having been shut down in the budget cuts after the end of the wars.

As she stood in the Bullhead with Adam and all the other members of the White Fang they could cram in safely, Yang wondered if he was enjoying the historical irony as much as she was.

"In case anyone was wondering if there was anyone home, there is," reported Bumblebee from close to the target area over the comm set in her ear. "Those MECH guys are out in force, and it looks like they've even got some of the old defenses up and running."

"Get as much data as you can on them, Bee. I've got some special demo charges ready to break inside," chimed in Bulkhead.

"Everyone, be on your toes," ordered Optimus.

"Still behind, Optimus?" asked Ironhide jokingly.

"The captured energon needed to be delivered, and I knew that you would be able to handle things on your own," explained Optimus confidently.

"We're about to put that to the test," informed Silverbolt. "Bumblebee, designate targets for us. Aerialbots, prepare to go weapons free."

The rest of the comm chatter that Yang could hear revolved around the progress of the battle. In short, the Aerialbots bombed the place, and then a ground team led by Ironhide moved in to take out the remaining above ground targets. It was then that things went sideways, just as planned.

"Cinder's here!" called out Hound.

"Enemy fighters inbound! Keep them away from the transports!"

Yang could feel her fists clenching, and she saw Adam grabbing hold of his sword.

"Show time," whispered Yang.

Fifty-five agonizingly long seconds later, the Bullheads hit the ground, and the doors slid open. Yang rushed out with the others and was greeted by a maelstrom of death and destruction right out of one of her history books. The sky was a dark gray overcast, with not a ray of sunshine to be seen, while on the ground, toxic fires could be seen belching great plumes of black smoke into the air from the ruins of half-destroyed fortifications older than any three of them put together. In the midst of all that, flashes of light illuminated a battle between giants and a will-o'-wisp... and the giants were losing.

They all ran for cover, which just so happened to be the remnants of an old trench that had been blown apart, with a crater a hundred feet across and twenty feet deep, all of which was filled with grass by then.

"We need to help them," stated Yang, pointing at the fighting Autobots as she crouched down on the brim of the crater night next to Adam.

There were other trenches, and from those, green and gray androids under the command of human or faunus MECH troops began firing at them, and in return, the White Fang members around them began to reply in kind.

Adam looked around at the others before focusing in on Ash. "Leutnant!" he called out. "Storm those trenches and get down into the tunnels! We're going after Cinder!"

"You got it, boss!" replied Ash with a wave before revving his chainsaw. "All right, boys! Looks like android's back on the menu."

Yang ignored the groans from those around him as she got close to Adam. "'Leutnant'?"

"A slip of the tongue. I spent a lot of time in Atlas as a child," explained Adam quickly, looking for an opening.

The blonde hummed thoughtfully before giving her own reply. "Wie Schlimm war es dort?"

"In den Minen?" asked back Adam in a rough accent that never quite learned to speak in the first place. "Schlimmer als Sie sich vorstellen können."

That admission… Yang was touched. Touched in a good way because he had revealed something like that to her, touched in a terrible way because of what he had revealed to her. The mines? As a child? If the SDC was responsible for this... and this predated the Decepticons!

"Gerade wenn du glaubst man kann nicht tiefer sinken," growled Yang, her voice hot and heavy and hateful.*

Adam cocked his head strangely. "I didn't know you spoke Mantellian."

"I learned a lot of languages when I was younger. I wanted to travel the world," she cocked her own head in a likewise manner. "I'm getting pretty good at Iaconian."

The White Fang leader didn't reply to that, but instead pointed at a specific spot in the trenches up ahead. "There to there to there. Five seconds."

"Got it," replied Yang.

The seconds counted down in their heads, and then on the silent cue, they both bolted out of cover with shocking speed. They reached the first trench and didn't stop, firing as they went. If any fell, they didn't see it. The second and the third trench were similar matters, though when they passed that final mark, they found themselves at a wall, a partially destroyed wall, but a wall nonetheless, much of which remained firm and sturdy.

Of course, that was what recoil boosting was for. Adam transformed his scabbard into its shotgun mode and bounded up over the static defense with great fluidity. Even greater still was the ease with which Yang flipped over it all on the force of Ember Celica and stuck the landing on the other side.

They were in the gap between the inner and outer walls now, and they were able to perceive a mighty gate built into the structure that served as a way to access its innards with large pieces of equipment. The battle they were going to was just beyond that, but it nevertheless provided a bit of historical irony. Yang, for her part, found it laughable.

Upon hearing the noise, Adam turned to look at her in astonishment. "What's wrong?"

Yang, still laughing, pointed at the sign above the gate and read aloud. "Ils ne passeront pas. That ain't stopping us now, is it?"

Adam looked at the sign, then back at her. "Stop talking gibberish and get your head in the game, Sunfire."

Yang rolled her eyes behind her mask and followed Adam in a jump up to the next part of the fort. They both immediately ducked as Bumblebee came flying over them to crash onto the gap they had just vacated. They both turned around to visually check on him.

"Bee!" called out Yang desperately.

"I'm okay!" replied Bumblebee as he rolled over and picked himself up. "She packs a wallop, but I think we're wearing her down."

"Just stay out of our way," ordered Adam as he turned toward where the battle was.

"I can still shoot a gun," replied Bumblebee as he began to walk back towards the wall.

"Stay safe, Bee," counseled Yang before turning and running after Adam.

Cinder was on fire, literally. There was a fiery corona around her as she conjured a series of glass arrows from the molten pools that parts of the dirt-covered roof had been reduced to. Those arrows were in turn fired from a glass bow to explode against Hound and Ironhide with screaming magical hellfire.

That… that was new. Yang wasn't even sure if it was magic, having never seen it before, but she just didn't have another way of describing it. But that just didn't make any sense. Magic was the province of alien worlds and fairy tales, not the Remnant of here and now. It had to be something else.

They were running towards the demonic woman. Adam was ahead, she was behind, and that was just the way she liked it. They'd trained together extensively, and they knew just what to do against a big, powerful enemy like Cinder.

With a crack, Adam shot Wilt out from Blush. Cinder was so preoccupied with firing another set of arrows at the Autobots that she failed to notice the attack until the pommel connected with her skull. Sheer momentum threw off her aim, and she was sent spinning, her corona fading.

Adam jumped and retrieved his sword from the air, just as Cinder righted herself by firing out jets of flame from her palms and feet. It kept her still just long enough that Yang was able to aim Ember Celica more than accurately enough to hit her with a pair of rock dust rounds that exploded into a lithite crust over her body. It didn't last long, for she flexed her aura mightily and broke the encasement, but it was enough to distract her from the flurry of shots that rained down on the exposed part of her body from Blush as Adam spun through the air.

Cinder twisted again and fired off some sort of energy bolt from her hand that clipped Adam and sent him into a tumble.

"Adam!" greeted Cinder with what sounded like delirium. "I'd love to say you're just the person I was looking to kill, but that would be a lie. Where's Optimus Prime?!"

"He's got better things to do today than kill you!" declared Yang before unleashing another fusillade of shots from Ember Celica.

Cinder's bow disintegrated in her hands and reformatted itself into a pair of swords that she used to deflect many of Yang's shots while running at her. The blonde deployed her own swords and entered a guard. Blade met blade, and sparks flew as Yang deflected or absorbed every single one of Cinder's blows.

As the blows rained down, her hair started to glow, and then suddenly, it caught on fire. Cinder's eyes flashed with recognition, and then she smiled sadistically. She broke off her attack and took a big step out of range.

"Tell me, Sunfire, how's that little sister of yours doing? Still wearing a cape to class?" asked the demonic woman with a cruel grin.

Yang felt her whole body turn to ice. Cinder knew. Cinder knew her real identity, and if she knew the truth… then Yang just had one more reason to kill her quickly.

Cinder suddenly twisted again, and she brought up one of her glass swords to parry an attack from Adam. Before either could take advantage of the bind, Adam leaped back, and Cinder took the opportunity to press the attack, slashing and stabbing at Adam, who shifted to the defensive, parrying blow after blow with Wilt and Blush.

Yang lunged toward Cinder, but the witch reacted with seemingly impossible speed, turning to catch Ember Celica's blades with one sword, even as she continued to lash out at Adam with the other.

Through their masks, Yang and Adam's gazes met, and understanding passed between them.

"Eclipse!" Adam bellowed, and the two jumped away from Cinder at an angle.

Blades still extended, Yang lashed out, unleashing her semblance in what she had come to call her Solar Slash, even as Adam brought Wilt down to channel his Moonslice.

The two attacks, empowered by Cinder's own blows, converged on her, and as they did, she brought her glass blades up to shield her face, even as something seemed to flash in front of her, intercepting the mirrored blows.

When the dust cleared, Cinder still stood, swaying on her feet, her arms bleeding.

Cinder's aura was obviously broken, and out of instinct, Yang almost demanded she surrender. Instead, she stalked toward her prey.

"I'm not done yet," Cinder hissed as she backed away, letting her glass blades fall in favor of reaching into a pouch on her belt. She pulled out a syringe and stared at it. It was empty. Then another. And another. With each empty syringe, she grew more frantic.

Refocusing her attention on them, her eyes bloodshot, she grabbed something from behind her, a block of metal that had been hanging from the small of her back, and it unfolded and expanded into a rifle.

"Wait." Yang paused, startled, eyes wide. "Where did you get that?"

"From my new benefactors," Cinder taunted, bringing up the rifle and aiming it at Yang... before slewing it to the side and firing, sending a bolt of energy speeding out from the muzzle. Yang turned to look.

Adam brought up Wilt to block the shot, but whatever it was, it must have been powerful, for the blade that had parried and absorbed so much destructive power, the blade that served as a channel for his semblance... it would be wrong to say it shattered. Rather, it exploded, sending the bull faunus flying back.

"Adam!" Yang cried as she ran after him.

Another bolt of energy fired but from a different direction, and the weapon in Cinder's hands exploded.

"Well, well, well," Ironhide mused as Cinder scrambled away and the barrel of his energon battle pistol smoked. "Looks like you got yerself a nucleon charge rifle sized for a Minicon. Don't see one of those ever'day."

"Silas," Cinder murmured, "artillery, my position, now."

And with that, she dove, vanishing into a concealed opening in the dirt-covered roof of the half-buried fortification.

"Git down!" Ironhide roared as he moved to cover Adam and Yang with his body.

Yang looked down at Adam. He was still breathing, thank Primus. But his face… what had happened to his face?

"Don't you dare die on me, you bastard!" she hissed.

"How... did you... know?" he croaked out.

She blinked. "What?"

"That I'm... a bastard."

Yang resisted the urge to smack him as the world around them exploded.

---

*Original Valish (English) translation of Ciel and Aska's little talk. The Mantellian (Deutsche) was an after the fact translation once again generously provided by Legion0047.

The blonde hummed thoughtfully before giving her own reply. "How bad was it there?"

"In the mines?" asked back Adam in a rough accent that never quite learned to speak in the first place. "Worse than you can possibly imagine."

That admission… Yang was touched. Touched in a good way because he had revealed something like that to her, touched in a terrible way because of what he had revealed to her. The mines? As a child? If the SDC was responsible for this... and this predated the Decepticons!

"Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower," growled Yang, her voice hot and heavy and hateful.

---

So far, in Kali's opinion, her daughter's friends had all been very interesting and invigorating. There was, however, one that ironically stood metaphorically head and shoulders above the rest. The problem was that she practically lived in Blake's shadow, and so it had been extremely hard to separate the two long enough to get a read on her without the influences of others.

Until now.

"So, tell me Weiss, what would you like to drink?" asked Kali politely as the two sat at a small cafe table in the pavilion that had somehow found its way onto Beacon's campus.

"Whatever you want, ma'am," replied the snowcapped girl, her eyes looking down deferentially, as if she was more a servant out of her depth than the heiress to the largest fortune that anyone on Remnant had ever amassed.

"This isn't a zero sum game; you can choose whatever you want," informed Kali kindly before looking to the side at their waiter curiously. "It isn't, right?"

"No, madam," replied the human politely, his uniform trim and proper. "Your orders can be individualized to your hearts' content, as long as we have the resources on hand, and we have a great, great deal of resources on hand."

She would never reveal it, but Kali considered that a mark in the establishment's favor. After all, it wasn't too uncommon in Menagerie for a business to impose restrictions on what customers could order, how much, and in what way. All due to a lack of resources. She was happy to say, though, that with each passing year fewer and fewer businesses were like that.

They were growing. Slowly but surely, they were growing. She might never see Kuo Kuana reach the wealth and status of a place like the city of Atlas in her lifetime, but perhaps Blake or her children would.

Weiss seemed contemplative before she gave her answer. "Coffee. North Vacuan. Dark roast blend. One cream, one sugar."

She kept her face placidly cheerful, but inside, Kali was whooping and hollering for joy.

"I'll take three cups of coffee myself," she told the waiter with a million megawatt smile she let slip from its leash. "Different recipe in each one, chef's choice, one after the other, and some coffee cakes and biscuits too, please. Perhaps with a side of strawberries?"

"Very good, madams. Your orders should be ready in just a few minutes," reported the waiter before walking off.

When Kali looked back at Weiss, she found her looking at her strangely.

The black-haired woman raised an eyebrow in turn. "Do you know how hard it is to get a good cup of coffee in Menagerie?"

Weiss blinked curiously and answered the question with a question. "Isn't Menagerie the world's largest stable coffee exporter?"

"The key word is 'exporter,'" Kali pointed out. "Menagerie is not as self-sufficient as we would prefer, not yet, and our economy is still growing. Tariffs from the other kingdoms block exports of other goods we might offer, such as our spiced wine, but coffee... it is said that bureaucracy runs on coffee. Would you believe a significant percentage of Menagerie's economy is built on coffee exports to Atlas?"

Weiss nodded without hesitation, clearly thinking of something or someone specific. "I would. But do you have to export all of it? Don't you rule Menagerie? Couldn't you afford to spare some for yourself? Or maybe grow your own beans?"

Kali shook her head emphatically. "I'm not going to abuse my position just because I prefer coffee over tea. The money that comes from our coffee exports, even the tiny amount I might use for myself, is worth more to Menagerie's future than a good cup of coffee is to me. As for growing my own... I just don't have the time."

"I see."

Weiss seemed pensive, thoughtful, and Kali allowed the silence to linger while the young woman gathered her thoughts. In the intervening silence, their waiter returned with their orders and then faded into the background, unobtrusively available in that way special to the service industry.

Weiss sipped at her coffee, then set the mug down and drew herself up in her seat, as if bracing herself.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Kali cocked her head. "'Sorry'?" she asked. "Sorry for what?"

The girl looked up from her mug, eyes glistened slightly. "I'm sorry," she repeated, her voice trembling. "For the way my family has treated your people, for the injustices visited upon the faunus, upon Menagerie. I swear, I will do everything in my power to make up for the harm we've caused."

"'We'?" Kali echoed, zeroing in. "What exactly are you apologizing for?"

"My father," the Atlesian spat, "has enacted a number of exploitative business practices that disproportionately affect faunus workers. He employs loopholes in faunus rights legislation and actively lobbies against closing those loopholes, all in the name of profit. He's sending people, faunus and human alike, to slave labor death camps, and my sister is knowingly complicit in all of this."

Death camps? Since when was the SDC operating death camps? She remembered what happened with poor Adam, but this sounded like something beyond even that. Later, she would have to prod Ozpin and Ironwood for answers, but for now, she focused on the broken girl in front of her and prodded. "And you?"

"What?"

"What have you done, Weiss? You personally?"

"I..." The young lady trailed off. After a moment, she said, "I didn't do more. I should have done more."

"That's a dangerous way to think," cautioned Kali. "There is always more to be done."

"I'm the heiress," Weiss whispered, her eyes unfocused, staring at something only she could see. "I will inherit it, the company and everything that comes with it. All the sins and blood included."

Kali could hear the crushing guilt in the girl's voice, and she wanted nothing so much as to scoop her up in a hug and never let go, but that wouldn't help her, not now.

"What about your mother?"

Weiss shook her head. "Mother? She drinks the days away and lets Father do whatever he wants. She could stop him, I'm sure, but first, she'd have to sober up long enough to figure out there was something that needed to be stopped."

"And your brother?"

"Whitley..." for the first time, the blue-eyed girl used a name for a member of her family, "...he's still a boy. He's growing up so much like Father, but... but he's still a child. He can't do anything."

"And you can?"

"What?" Weiss seemed to snap out of her melancholy. "Of course I can. I'm the heiress. I'm a Huntress. I'm-"

"-still not the owner, CEO, or on the board of directors," Kali interrupted gently, "still a student, still a child, even though I know you're at the age where that's difficult to admit."

"I... I..."

"Believe me, Weiss," said Kali softly, "I know how you feel. When I first joined the White Fang all those years ago, I was confident we were going to change the world."

"How can you stand it?" Weiss whispered. "Seeing so much that needs to change and yet be so powerless to change it?"

"It's a skill that only comes with age, I'm afraid," admitted Kali. "But I've learned how to wait. Change... it takes time. Societies have momentum, just like mass does. Strike a rolling boulder too hard or at the wrong angle, and you'll break it, but nudge it gently, and you can change its course forever. So too it is with societies."

"Like with the White Fang," Weiss said suddenly. "Over seventy years, turned from a political advocacy group into a terrorist organization. From 'faunus will make a mistake if they become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns' to 'fear will keep the humans in line.'"

Kali's eyebrows rose in surprise. My, she has done her research, she thought, impressed. Few really bothered learning more than the high points of the White Fang's history. Fewer still among its victims.

"Yes," she admitted. "The White Fang has changed considerably over the years. We tried to fight that change, but..."

"But that would drive the more radical members deeper underground," Weiss finished for her. "It would cause a civil war, with faunus dying on both sides and people like my father pointing to it as proof of your barbarism, while profiting from it all the while."

"There is no war quite as uncivilized as a civil war."

"So you left," Weiss said, taking another sip, her expression deep in thought.

Kali nodded sadly. "There comes a point at which that is all you can do."

They finished their coffee and snacks in companionable silence.

---

"No, no, no, no," muttered Yang into the strip of cloth bound tightly over her mouth as she fluttered between the casualties in Silverbolt's cargo bay.

She had put the makeshift mask over her mouth in order to keep any particles from her breathing or speaking to get into the open wounds all around her. It was something she had recalled from her time in many a medical class while at Signal, and at that moment, she was putting quite literally everything she had learned in that class to the test.

After all, this was the transport that was filled with the most critically injured, those who needed urgent medical attention after having gone into the tunnels, or been near an artillery barrage, or any number of the awful things that had happened on that raid. The raid that ended when Cinder and MECH had escaped through secret tunnels and collapsed them behind them. Ratchet had offered to treat them on the Ark itself, and Optimus and Ash had both authorized it in a heartbeat.

Again, the blonde found herself drifting over to Adam's bed, and her eyes were drawn to his eye, his one eye. His right eye was all he had left, having lost his left long ago in the mines. How did she know he lost it in the mines? What could have even done it? The answer was impossible to miss, because it was stamped right onto his face.

SDC in big bold letters burned across his face, a burn caused by the branding iron that took his eye.

Every time Yang saw it, she wanted to throw up. They'd done this to him, those Grimm in human skin that worked at the Schnee Dust Company had gone and taken a little boy's eye in the most horrific way imaginable. There was a part of her that wanted to know why, but there was a much bigger part of her that didn't care. No answer could justify this, and no answer would stay her hand when she helped drag Jacques Schnee screaming to the light to face the same fate he condemned others to without a second thought.

At long last, Yang thought she finally understood Adam, she understood all of him. She wanted to take back so many of the terrible things she had said about him. She wanted to tell him that she was behind him all the way. More than that, more than anything, she just wanted him to live.

"Mother, if you can hear me, please get everyone you can together in the afterlife and save him," Yang quietly prayed as she looked away from Adam and blinked away tears. "Please. I don't know who to talk to. Please, help him, Mother."

---

"Woo, good job, Ruby," said Taiyang cheerfully as the exercise came to an end and he walked over to the pile of towels kept on the side of the mat.

The training room was a private facility - smaller too, used only by the teaching staff at Beacon - and so, both he and his daughter had the chance to talk without prying ears giving everything away. They hadn't done much of that during their sparring matches, but they had time now. And if they didn't? Well, they'd make time.

Taiyang tossed his daughter a towel to start wiping herself down, which she deftly caught in her hands, and asked her the first question that should be asked. "So, Ruby, what's on your mind?"

"Thinking about the doubles match tomorrow," she said absent-mindedly as she finished rubbing her face down. "I'd thought about putting it to a vote, but..." She shook her head. "We'll be sending Blake and Weiss in."

That... was probably wise. Obviously, Yang couldn't participate, and Ruby was hardly at the top of her game right now.

The bloodcrowned girl stared through the towel in her hands with unfocused eyes. "And... I'm thinking I might want to start going by Xiao Long in public."

"'In public,' huh?" replied Tai curiously, already guessing the whole width and breadth of the logic train that Ruby had used. "Why the sudden change of pace? Thought you always wanted to go by Rose to honor your mother."

His little girl should have shifted uncomfortably, but instead, her eyes still had that faraway look. It wasn't quite a thousand yard stare, not really. He'd seen enough of those in his time that he knew what they looked like. No, she was just lost in thought about something she was completely lost about.

"I just think that someone should be able to carry on your legacy too," she replied softly. "I mean, Yang's on the run, and Mom's… Mom's gone. I guess I'm just now coming to terms with that. No reason to be the last Rose of Summer anymore, not when it means I can't be a little dragon."

Taiyang drew closer to his progeny. "It doesn't have to be an either or thing, you know. Your legal name is still Ruby Rose Xiao Long. Just got to find a way to represent that in marketing, or something like that. But it's not about that, is it?"

"No," Ruby started, her eyes growing more focused and more confused. "I mean… I mean… why? Why me?"

Just as he had suspected, this was about Raven. Glynda had shown him the video she had taken of his bandit wife talking to Ruby the previous day. She… she looked just as beautiful as the last time he had seen her. There weren't many that could pull off the 'masked samurai hobo' look, but she was one of them.

"If I had to guess, Raven's able to use her Kindred Link with you because of Summer," explained Taiyang, answering the unasked question. When she focused specifically on him, he continued, "Raven and Summer were close, really close. I think I've seen Raven in her bird form-"

"You mean her alt-mode?" asked Ruby curiously.

"Yes, her alt-mode," answered Tai quickly before continuing. "Point is, Raven comes around to spy on us from time to time. I think she's worried about us, even if she'll never admit it. She probably got a connection to you during one of those visits, simply because you're Summer's daughter. If she could have, there's no doubt in my mind, Summer would have done the same, had the tables been turned."

"I… I don't remember her," confessed Ruby suddenly. Well, suddenly for her. Taiyang had seen it coming.

"That's... not surprising, really," he said softly. "You were so young when we lost her. " He paused to gather his thoughts, to try and figure out how to introduce Summer to her own daughter, in a sense. "Summer was a bundle of contradictions at times. Kind and selfless, a bit of a klutz at times, but also fierce and fearless, deadly in combat." He shook his head and sighed in frustration. "But you knew all that."

Ruby nodded mutely. And there was the rub. Ruby knew facts about her mother, a lot of facts, but it wasn't knowledge that was the issue.

"Dad," Ruby said softly, "Glynda... she said I wanted Raven to be my mother. And... and I think she's right. Is that- what does that say about me that I can't even remember Mom and I want a bandit queen to be my mom?"

"It says you inherited a lot from your mother."

"You mean my eyes?" Ruby asked, blinking those self-same silver eyes in confusion.

Tai shook his head. "I mean your heart," he corrected. "Your mother always believed Raven would come back, rejoin the family, help raise you and Yang, and she made sure there would always be a place for her when that day came." He sighed. "It's actually why I never actually divorced Raven. Summer wouldn't let me."

"Really?" Ruby asked, hope and wonder in her voice.

"Really." He nodded. "It wouldn't have worked, mind you-"

"Why not?"

Tai paused to put his thoughts together on how to answer that. "Summer never thought she was strong, and I think she had it in her head that she'd just... step aside when Raven came back. But the thing is, whenever push came to shove, Summer never backed down from anything. I'm not sure she knew how."

"Why would she need to step aside?" asked Ruby with an almost heartbreaking innocence. "Couldn't she have stayed with us too?"

As he flinched internally, externally, his stance was calm. "Because, Ruby, conflicts would have arisen between the two over… well, over a lot of stuff really. Raven came from a different culture, and it was clear even to me that after she left us, she'd changed for the worse, which meant that if she ever came back, the two would end up disagreeing over a lot of stuff that they never would have thought twice about before. Summer might have wanted to step aside so that wouldn't happen, but there was one difference that she would have dug her heels in hard about, even if she didn't think she ever would, and that was how to raise you and Yang."

Ruby seemed crestfallen at that. "So it's because of us that things didn't work out?"

"Ruby," addressed Taiyang, his voice cold and stern, instantly grabbing his daughter's attention. "Don't ever say or even think something like that ever again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," acknowledged Ruby, her eyes glancing down submissively for a moment before rising again.

Tai let out an exhale at the display. "Ruby, no matter what your mom or anyone else thought, you and Yang were her entire world, and she would have done anything for you two, even fight against her best friend for your sake. I think that's something Raven saw, and maybe that's why she didn't come back, that she feared coming into conflict with Summer. But Ruby, understand this, that was her fear and her mind that stayed her hand, not the mind or body of anyone else. It's not my fault, it's not Summer's fault, it's not Qrow's fault, and it most certainly is not you or Yang's fault."

"I understand," replied Ruby, and consciously, she almost certainly did, but it was rarely the conscious mind that was the issue. "But she's coming back now, even if she didn't save me at the docks, she still saved me all those other times. What's changed?"

"I don't know," admitted Tai, crossing his arms. "There's only one person who can answer that question, and she comes and goes as she pleases."

"I think… I think she's had an epiphany," thought Ruby aloud. "She must have run into one of the Decepticons and realized that this was bigger than any of us."

Taiyang smiled and shook his head. "You really are your mother's daughter. Summer always saw the best in people. In a way, I think that's what got through to Raven. She was already so cynical and suspicious when we started at Beacon."

"She was?"

"Yeah," Tai confirmed. "Believe it or not, Raven and Qrow didn't originally come to Beacon to become Huntsmen."

"They didn't?" Ruby asked, her brow furrowed in clear confusion. "But- but Beacon's a Huntsman Academy!"

"Yeah, it is," agreed Tai. "But they actually came to learn how to kill Huntsmen for their tribe. Summer... she turned them around somehow, at least for a little while. Well, I like to think I had some part in it too, but Summer... she was special."

"Yeah," Ruby murmured. "Yeah, I guess she was."

---

Blake was pacing Team RWBY's dorm room. As for why she was pacing... well, she had a lot of reasons to pick from: her mother was in town, her mother had met her boyfriend, her mother liked her boyfriend, Yang was on the run with the White Fang and it was all Blake's fault, and that was setting aside entirely the secret war with giant alien robots. At the moment, only half the team was present, with Weiss sitting at her desk and doing something on the computer.

Weiss's snarl of frustration stopped Blake's pacing as the faunus girl glanced over at her friend.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

The Atlesian girl looked up and shook her head to clear it. She gestured at the computer. "This," she said. "We can't go searching for Yang, so I figured I'd focus on something I can actually do something about."

"What have you been working on?" Blake asked curiously.

"StaffNet," was the simple answer. "Specifically, trying to prove where all those people StaffNet is recruiting for Epsilon Holdings are disappearing to, some evidence we can bring against my father, since the abduction victims' testimony isn't getting anywhere."

Blake grimaced. The SDC had been conducting an "independent investigation" into the abduction of those people who had been rescued at the same moment that bomb had destroyed the Furchtlos, and it was clear they were in maximum damage control mode. Even the VPD was looking at it as a rogue operation by Joshua Joyce, Kingdom Vice President of Schnee Dust Company Vale Division, the only person who conveniently had failed to wear a mask around the abductees.

They obviously just wanted to run out the clock on the public's attention span so the whole thing could be swept under the rug, and the worst part for Blake was knowing that they would succeed.

"What have you found?" she asked as she leaned in to examine Weiss's findings.

"A dead end, unfortunately." Weiss sighed and showed her what she'd found. "I've got hints and clues, but all of it's circumstantial, nothing that'll stand up in a court of law."

Blake pursed her lips and nodded as she considered Weiss's findings. She was right; none of this would be enough to convict in front of an honest jury, never mind pitted up against the high-priced lawyers the SDC kept on retainer. Then again... an idea began percolating in her mind.

"No," she murmured, "not in a court of law..."

Weiss perked up at that. "You have an idea," she accused.

"Maybe," Blake allowed. "But first... I need to talk to Mom."

---

Yang approached the Ark's infirmary with no small amount of trepidation, the ship's warm lighting offering no comfort.

After all, when you had a critically injured friend, it was generally not a good sign when the doctor overseeing his care sent you an urgent message with no details.

She slipped into the infirmary, giving a cursory glance over the various injured White Fang and offering encouraging smiles and waves as she made her way to Ratchet's office.

"Ah, Yang," Ratchet said, looking up, then down as the door slid open. "Thank you for coming so promptly."

"What's up, Ratchet?" she asked, forcing as much cheer into her voice as she could as she stepped in, allowing the door to slide shut behind her.

"The injured are all recovering well," the Autobot medic reported, swiveling his chair to face her. "Including Adam. However, something's come up."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he assured her. "Well, nothing new, anyway. He'd suffered significant ocular injury in the past, but I fixed that up with… well, it's a long story, but his left eye's good as new now. Left the scarring around it for the moment, at least until I consult with him; some people get attached to their scars."

Yang nodded slowly, her thoughts flashing back to the battle, to the brand that marred his face. Her hands clenched into fists at the memory. Just when she'd thought the SDC couldn't stoop any lower...

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Well, you might want to be around when he wakes up," he said. "You know, ease him back into the whole 'having binocular vision' thing, but no, that's not all. I was running some routine tests when I noticed something... interesting." He twisted around and plucked a tiny, notebook-sized folder off his desk with two fingers. "Here," he said, turning and handing the folder to her.

Yang awkwardly accepted the enormous folder in both arms and maneuvered it around, resting one corner of it on the floor as she opened it up.

She frowned as she read the first page, her eyebrows knitting together, and her eyes widened as what it said penetrated. She looked up. "Is this a joke?"

"Yes, I'm well known for my scintillating sense of humor," was the sarcastic reply.

Yang looked back at the folder. "But this…" She trailed off.

"I know," he said. "I didn't believe it myself, so I ran it again. Then I ran a mitochondrial test. Third page."

Yang struggled to turn the oversized papers to the third page, and as she read, she began to nod to herself as she pieced things together.

"That… actually explains a lot."

---

"Of course you and Weiss have my permission," Kali allowed upon hearing her daughter's request in full, then she let her concern show, "but are you sure about this? Is she sure about this? Once you do this, there won't be any turning back, not for her."

"I know." Blake nodded pensively. "The... other thing was Weiss's idea. I tried to talk her out of it, but..." She trailed off and shrugged helplessly.

"You really care about her, don't you?"

Blake shrank back defensively. "She's my friend, Mom."

"I understand that, sweetie," Kali said gently, "but that doesn't explain why you look ready to beat yourself up every time she's not looking."

Her daughter froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Mom, I..." Blake trailed off again and lapsed back into silence. She pursed her lips. "Weiss has... been through a lot," she said finally. "She's had a very... difficult childhood, worse than I would have thought possible for someone in her position. And what I- what the White Fang did just made things worse."

It didn't take much to connect the dots, not with how venomously Weiss had discussed her family before and how obviously Blake was dancing around the issue now. Kali felt the urge to storm out and sweep Weiss up into a hug. That girl needed all the hugs.

"And you feel guilty."

"Yes," Blake said with a nod, her voice raw.

"Honey, it's not your fault," Kali assured her.

"Yes, it is!" snapped Blake. "I'm not just talking about- about that!" She closed her eyes for a moment. "I... you remember what I said about when I ran off? When I got that ninja training?"

"Yes." Kali nodded.

"Weiss was looking into White Fang propaganda."

Kali nodded. That hadn't escaped her attention. "She did seem surprisingly well-read on the White Fang's history," she said diplomatically.

Blake shook her head. "It wasn't just research," she continued. "Weiss was... the things we found out about the SDC, about her family, it left her lost, adrift. I- she was going to a bad place, and I wanted to stop it, tried to get her to understand that just because the SDC was evil, that didn't make the White Fang good."

"What happened?" prodded Kali, suspecting she already knew the whole story but knowing that her daughter had to get this off her chest.

"She argued back, of course," Blake said, shaking her head. "Weiss may have been a little lost, but she has a fire in her that won't go out. I... things got a bit heated, I told her who I was."

"Did she take it poorly?" Kali asked, already knowing the answer.

"No. No, of course not," Blake said, visibly deflating, eyes downcast. She chuckled mirthlessly. "Even after I told her about you and Dad, she still thought I was human, as if it made perfect sense that a former leader of the White Fang would adopt a human child."

Now there was an idea...

"I don't know why, but it pissed me off so much," Blake continued. "She just- she didn't care. And when I took my bow off, she didn't even seem to get why it should matter whether I was human or faunus."

Now, that was curious.

"Why should it?"

"Because she's a Schnee," Blake whispered. "After all we'd been through together, after all she'd done to uncover her family's sins... in that moment, that's all that mattered to me." She looked up, tears welling in her eyes as her gaze met Kali's. "I stayed with the White Fang to fight injustice and prejudice, I left it because we'd become what we were fighting. And now, so have I."

"Oh, Blake," Kali murmured comfortingly as she pulled her daughter into a hug.

---

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Adam stirred. The antiseptic smell of a clinic or hospital greeted him. He tensed. That was concerning. That he had been injured badly enough to require this kind of medical attention was worrisome in and of itself, but the White Fang generally lacked access to such facilities. Had he been captured? Arrested? Keeping his breathing even, he shifted slightly, testing for restraints. He found none.

Was this one of the clinics the White Fang had contacts with? If so, it was still risky. While many were sympathetic to the cause, especially recently, the reward on his head would be tempting for almost anyone.

He listened.

"I know you're awake." Sunfire.

His eye - eyes? - opened, and he found himself looking at a familiar mess of blonde hair.

"Where...?" he croaked, his throat dry. Sunfire pressed a cup of water to his lips, which he drank from greedily.

"You're on the Ark," she answered, an odd tone in her voice. "The Autobot's ship. Evacuation was a bit of a mess, but we've got some pretty good medical facilities here." Adam arched a skeptical eyebrow, and Sunfire added, "Hey, one of the first things Ratchet had me bring him was medical texts. He wanted to make sure he could treat the native population."

Sunfire leaned back to give Adam room as he sat up, setting the now-empty cup aside. He reached up to his face, to the familiar scar over his left eye, his sightless left eye... sightless, that is, until now.

"Sunfire, what… what did you do to me?" he asked, both horrified and amazed beyond all measure.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not a doctor. Ratchet is, though, and he fixed you up. He fixed you all up, eye included. Left the scar, though, said some people get attached to their scars." Adam wasn't sure how he felt about that. "While he was in there, though, he found out something that explains a lot."

"Cancer?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Brain damage?" That wouldn't surprise him. He'd been vaguely aware that he didn't think the same way other people did. "Some obscure disease that will kill me in fourteen days?"

Sunfire shook her head. "No, believe it or not, it's good news."

"You're right," he deadpanned. "I don't believe it. He's a doctor."

"And a scientist," Sunfire amended. "Anyway, he found out you have some… family out there."

Adam scoffed "'Family'? My father is dead, and my mother..." He shook his head. "I've already told you all about her."

"Not everything," whispered Sunfire. "You never told me her name. Ratchet found that out. Thanks to that, I found out... I found out you also have two younger sisters."

What? he thought. That's impossible.

"I'm one of them," she continued as she undid her ponytail and pulled off her mask and glasses.

As her blond hair expanded voluminously, a pair of lilac eyes gazed into his own blue ones. She blinked and seemed to think hard about something, her hair starting to glow, and she reopened her eyes... her now red eyes.

Familiar red eyes set into a familiar face, surrounded by a huge mane of hair, and though the hair was the wrong color...

The glow died down, and those red eyes faded back to lilac and grew moist. Sunfire's voice cracked with emotion as she spoke.

"My name is Yang Xiao Long. My father is Taiyang Xiao Long, my sister is Ruby Rose, and my birth mother... was Raven Branwen. Welcome back to the family... big brother."

"...Oh."

---

Author's Note 1 (Cyclone):

So, there it is. The biggest reveal in the story... until next chapter, at least. Judging from the number of people who seemed to think we were heading in a, ah, different direction with Adam and Yang's relationship, it would appear we have achieved peak Star Wars memery.

No, Blake isn't Han. There is no Han. Not in this context, anyway.

We actually dropped a number of little hints throughout. They're the only two people Bumblebee knows, for example, who use the word "fine" the way they do. Adam finds the idea of sitting overwatch on a loved one's date to be as perfectly normal as the Xiao Long Rose family does. There's also the phrase "in like Flynn," a phrase that - in this universe, at least - was very particular to a very specific Huntress and her family; no one outside that particular family uses that phrase, and anyone outside said family who hears it questions what it means, but Adam understood its meaning. There's also "the boy" in A Stark Divide, with a bandaged head and one visible eye. We had Calliope suggesting the idea of hereditary color schemes with Ruby and Raven. Heck, we had two characters pretty much straight up declare what the relationship was, Barricade on his wall of crazy and Jaune after hearing the audio recordings. From a meta perspective, there's also where we had Ruby talking for a while about wanting a brother.

As for why we went this route? Well, we were largely inspired by the comic "Family" by ari-6 on DeviantArt. And then we realized there was a lot of interesting potential here. Adam and Raven both wear Grimm masks, and Adam's V6 character short suggests he was the one who started that trend in the White Fang. They both fight using swords with fast-draw techniques. They both favor red and black color schemes. They both have an obsession with strength and power. They both have untapped potential to actually be interesting characters with a lot of internal conflict.

And then there's Adam's emblem: a rose. With how we envision Raven in this story and especially A Stark Divide, well, how hard is it to believe her son would hear stories of Summer Rose and seek to honor her memory in some way?

In other news, Teams CFVY and RRFL are getting closer to the truth, Team JNR's learning what their P has had to put up with, Arslan's decided to cultivate "defender of love" into her reputation, Winter is getting entangled ever deeper into Atlas's web of deceit and conspiracy, and Lionheart's treachery has been publicly exposed. And then there's the thing with Ruby and Raven and whole mess with Blake, Weiss, Kali, and Sun. Hoo boy.

---

Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett):

Surprise, Adam Taurus was Raven Branwen's son all along!

This chapter takes place over the course of two days, and boy howdy did it took some finagling to get that to work. We thought it was appropriate though, since we're not looking at anyone in the third or fourth years (except Jinx, who's a fourth year at Atlas, but she hasn't shown up on screen since volume 1) and because the cast needed some time to decompress.

The scenes with Kali were a joy to write. They were very emotional and poignant. My only issue is that we didn't cover enough, but the scenes just ended too perfectly as they were.

Unlike the Ruby scenes. Those scenes did get expanded, and it's to their benefit I think. We were able to touch on a lot of what's going on with her there, especially the stuff with her and Raven. That's going to be one heck of a bomb when it blows up.

Though as bad as Ruby's got it, I'm sure she's just glad she's not Verte. Poor girl. She placed her faith in fools and now she'll smother in lament.

---

Artwork:

ScipioSmith commissioned from rainbow-zebra23 a fantastic piece of artwork for the final scene, but due to FFN's restrictions, I'm unable to link or embed it here. Look for "Familiar red eyes" on DeviantArt.