Shit. Fuck. Damn. Other assorted words that Alfred would swat me on the back of the head when I said them. So, I wasn't on Earth anymore. Or at the very least, this strange, self-acclaimed headmaster says I'm not. I could work with that. It at least gave me a step one, which was-
"Prove it," I said without really thinking much about it. How does a man, if I assume he's telling the truth, prove to me I'm not on a planet he's never heard of? As I said this, I could see his eyebrow raise slightly, as if to ask me the same thing. He then gestured to the large window on the opposite side of the room.
"Well, take a look outside my window. Look at the city. Perhaps you would know of a city like Vale if it existed on…Earth," He said, clearly humoring what he thought was a person who was losing it. Lacking better options, I rose out of my seat and made my way over to the window. Up until now, I had only gotten glimpses of the city. I hadn't really looked at it yet. Now I was…and hoo-boy. I had never seen a place like it.
The first word that popped into my head while attempting to sum up the place was 'unending'. Now if I was some farmer from out in the boonies, then one may have thought my verdict of the city was due to inexperience with large metropolitan areas. But I grew up in Gotham. The skyline and its rooftops were my home. I had leaped from the highest point of Wayne Tower. I'd seen all of Metropolis stretch out before me from the Batwing. No city's size or scope should have impressed me at this point. But this place was insane. With the space it covered, and the style of the buildings, it looked like it was pulled straight out of some big budget Sci-Fi movie. And most importantly, I didn't recognize it in the slightest. The area, the nearby coast, and the look and general feel of the city were all completely foreign. I knew what all major cities on Earth looked like in the present, and some even in the past. This place was completely unrecognizable.
"This…I've seen most major cities in the world, but this…" I trailed off. While I stood there like an idiot, I heard Ozpin rise and walk up to my side.
"Yes, it is like nothing else," he said with a bit of reverence in his voice. "I've explored every inch of this planet, and seen all of its wonders. Yet whenever I returned to Vale, it always took my breath away." As I glanced over at him, I caught him looking my way with a soft smile. "You know, if you do happen to be from another world, it is nice to know that the wonder of Vale holds up to different planets."
"Why are we still talking?" I asked him, confused by this entire conversation. Among other things. My question seemed to leave him confused as well.
"Why wouldn't we be? Have I done something to offend?" He responded with what appeared to be genuine sincerity.
"Because you obviously think I've lost it. Yet you're still humoring me. Are you stalling until the psych unit can get here to cart me off?" I joked, half expecting that to actually be the case. His smile returned at that comment, along with a small chuckle.
"I don't think you're crazy. You're definitely confused, but you seem too lucid. Too..well…not crazy, I suppose, to be a lunatic raving about other worlds," he explained. That explanation was ridiculous. I 'seem' not crazy?
"So you're hearing out my insane story because of, what, a gut feeling?" I said, incredulity coating my voice and likely covering my face. "That's ridiculous!" While I said all of this, that same grin never left his face. A little smile that seemed to say he knew more than you, and he was amused that you thought otherwise.
"Some of my critics, and friends, would say that I've made a career out of making high stakes decisions based on feelings and instinct. They've been correct in the face of differing logic too many times for me to discount them." Suddenly his expression turned more serious, losing the shit-eating smile. "And right now, they're telling me that you're not crazy. And that there is a lot more to you than meets the eye." My brow narrowed at his last statement. He raised one of his in response. "There's no need to be worried. I'm not interested in causing you any harm. I'm just curious."
I scoffed. "Yeah. Curious if I'm dangerous, maybe."
"Are you?"
"Very."
"As I thought," he said with a nod. "But are you a threat? To me or my students?"
"Only if you're a threat to innocent civilians," I responded, without missing a beat. He seemed intrigued by that comment.
"Oh? Civilians? A statement like that implies that you don't see yourself as such. Are you military, perhaps?" Damn. He's fishing for info, and I've been playing right into it.
"Maybe, maybe not," I responded noncommittally. It didn't faze him in the slightest.
"I see. Well, you obviously have a combat focused background," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. To be fair, it kind of was. Not that I was going to make anything easy for someone digging into my history.
"I might," I said, and left it at that. For a moment he was silent, likely waiting for me to elaborate. He quickly saw that he was out of luck on that front. His calm and amused expression finally gave way to a slightly sour look. A bit of his composure had been lost at last. It took all of my willpower not to laugh. Sadly, his eternal serenity returned moments after it left.
"Regardless of your answers, and the questions of where you are from, a few things have become clear to me," he started. I could feel a phantom lecture hall form around me as he spoke. "You're a fighter. The way you threw that knife, and the stance you were falling into as you turned to face me, is proof enough of that." As he talked, he began pacing slowly in front of his desk. "You're also being completely genuine with me. I've gotten very good at seeing through lies over the years. So unless you're a better actor than I've ever encountered, I can believe that you believe everything you've said." He stopped in front of the desk, directly across from me and the window. "So, in conclusion, you are a confused young warrior showing no symptoms of being, well, crazy. Other than strange memories of where you came from. That leaves me with only one question," he finished as his gaze sharpened.
"Do you want to attend my school?"
What?
Attend his school?
"Why…would I do that?" I managed to ask, still trying to understand how we got to this point. After I spoke, he moved back behind his desk and sat back down. He motioned for me to do the same. As I did, he spoke again.
"Why? Well, from your point of view you are trapped on a foreign planet with no contacts or resources. I am offering you full room and board in exchange for maintaining attendance at my school." That was… a very good list of reasons. What was my plan? Leave this school and do what exactly? Part of my brain told me to explore this 'Vale' and beyond it to confirm I was in a different world first, but Ozpin's offer would likely expire if I left without giving him an answer. If I said yes, I'd have immediate access to whatever resources this school could provide and a place to stay. Even if I did enter into some sort of agreement to stay here for a certain period of time, I could always leave anyway. If it was a trap, I don't think my answer would really matter at this point anyway. This was a pretty big decision to make quickly, but I didn't exactly have many other options.
"What do you get out of it? The ability to keep an eye on me in case I actually am crazy?" I asked, trying to see what angle he was working. Everyone had one, regardless of what they said.
"To be completely truthful, that is part of it. One has to cover all of their bases, as I'm sure you understand. For the most part, however, it's because I get another huntsman to fight against the Grimm. Call it…taking a chance on a potentially exceptional case." Well, trying this definitely seemed better than living on the streets again.
"Alright, Oz, I'm in."
. . .
Over the next few hours, Ozpin and I went over most of the details we'd both need to know if me attending this school was going to work. We discussed the history of Remnant (in brief), and thus the history of the Grimm and their Hunters. A majority of the planet had been turned inhospitable due to monsters from hell. Ozpin was quick to correct me when I described them like that. He assured me that they were not hellspawn, and that we had no idea where they came from. My immediate response to that was if you don't know where they came from, they were as likely to be hellspawn as anything else. He didn't care for my observation. Regardless, Huntsman and Huntressess came into being to combat Grimm. However, considering that they were monstrous hell-beasts, doing so through normal hunting means was likely to end violently on the Hunters part. That's where both Aura and Dust came into the equation.
First off, Aura was insane. Every serious fighter on the planet has a personal force field that came from their souls? That was ridiculous! Said force field also came bundled with a superpower, and everyone could unlock it? Madness! A whole planet, at least what of it that was inhabitable, full of meta warriors. Bruce would have a stroke.
The second half of this bat-shit crazy equation was Dust. I had thought Aura was the height of insanity when Ozpin told me, but it turned out he had yet to jump the shark. Dust, not the stuff that builds up on a mantle when you don't touch it for three months, is a magical substance that does anything you need it to. Once again, Ozpin vehemently disagreed with my evaluation. He insisted on it being a natural phenomena that can be mined underground and has a basis in science. Science! They're rocks that can freeze or set stuff on fire, and they can be controlled with your soul! I told Ozpin as much. While he agreed that it sounded a bit ridiculous when put that way, he still insisted that its study and research was a scientific field of study. I said we could agree to disagree.
On my side of things, I didn't want to go too much into detail, as knowing the details won't really affect Ozpin. Plus, I felt like the more detail I went into the more crazy he'd think I was. I did explain the barebones information about myself and my situation. I came from the City of Gotham, in the country of the United States of America, on the planet Earth. My occupation was technically that of a student at normal school, as opposed to the monster hunting kind, but in reality my life was more complicated. I spent most of my nights as my alter-ego, Robin, alongside my mentor, Batman. We were known as Gotham City's defenders, even though we operated outside of the law. Ozpin seemed slightly flabbergasted at my dead serious explanation of something that sounded straight out of a saturday morning cartoon. He also voiced concerns about performing my chosen occupation without Aura, questioning how I had survived as long as I had. I told him that there were people with powers on my planet too, and many of them had asked me the same thing. I told Ozpin the same as them. If you think you need special powers to fight at a high level, then you were too reliant on them. He seemed to disagree, but we moved on regardless.
Finally we got down to two worrying topics we hadn't broached yet. My mask and my lack of Aura.
"I already told you, I wear the mask to keep my identity a secret from those who would hurt me or those close to me," I explained to Ozpin, not for the first time. His expression was almost exasperated.
"Yes, I recall. However, going by your own words, you are from another world. That means that your identity as both yourself and as Robin are irrelevant in your current circumstances," he countered. Countered really well, actually. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Everything he was saying made perfect sense. I couldn't legitimately argue with any of it, but there was an instinctual part of me that refused to take the mask off. The part of me that had been drilled over and over again by Bruce about the importance of keeping my identity a secret. That not only was my life at risk, but everyone connected to me. Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Barbara, and even Commissioner Gordon. They could all be hurt, or worse, if the wrong person saw my face. I had to fight against those lessons now, though. This was a new world. Ozpin had shown me the tech that he had in his office. Their version of cellphones, scrolls, and the version of the internet that they connected to. The amount of information, tech, and data, plus everything else I had seen so far, was undeniable proof. I was somewhere where my secret ID couldn't hurt anyone by revealing it, and keeping it secret was only hurting me. I had to fight my instincts and accept my situation.
After processing everything for a minute or two in silence, I let out a ragged sigh. "Okay Ozpin, you're right," I finally said. I reached upward and slowly pulled my mask off of my face. It didn't hurt physically like a bandage, but it definitely did emotionally. Face uncovered, I spoke again. "There you go. Are you happy now?" I said, my bitterness definitely showing through. It wasn't fair to him, but I couldn't keep it bottled up. He didn't seem to take it personally.
"No, Robin. I understand that this was very hard for you. If it wasn't necessary, I wouldn't have asked it of you," he apologized.
"Jason," I corrected. "My name is Jason Todd," I forced myself to say. Thankfully I managed to keep my tone more even this time around. He seemed surprised at the admission.
"You didn't have to reveal your full name, you know. As long as you were willing to show your face, we could have used Robin as your legal name if you wanted to." I shook my head.
"I figured as much, but I don't care. Worst case scenario, my face would be enough for my enemies to find my friends and family. I might as well use my real name as well, since it wouldn't change much in the end." Plus, I might need my identity as Robin for something at some point. It would be best to keep Jason Todd and Robin separate. For now, at least. Ozpin seemed to take my partial explanation at face value and moved on to his next point.
"Very well. Moving on to my last request. I assume you already know what I am referring to?" He questioned.
"Yeah. You want to unlock my Aura, or at least try to," I answered. Ozpin nodded.
"Yes. While you may be skilled at fighting people and creatures well beyond what a normal person would be thought capable of, you simply cannot become a Huntsman without Aura. Putting aside power and survivability, you would take a hit eventually that would reveal your lack of it. Even if I let you continue without Aura, the Council of Vale would not. That's not even touching on what the publics potential response would be. It is not a secret we could keep. To travel down this path, you must possess Aura."
Welp, there it was. Arguably more important a decision than revealing my identity. As Ozpin described it, if this unlocking thing worked, it would permanently unlock my Aura from my soul. More or less, I would permanently become a Meta-Human. Or would this be classified as magic? Either way, I would possess powers forever. What would Bruce think? Why am I even wondering? No metas in my city, he would always say. Well, it doesn't matter right now. All that mattered now was moving forward in my current situation, and there was only one way to do that.
"Let's get this over with."
I began to stand up, but Ozpin motioned for me to stay seated. He stood up and moved around the desk to my right side. He then placed a hand on my shoulder, and a glowing green silhouette appeared around him. That must be his Aura. He then began reciting some sort of chant.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee."
I was unfazed when he began, not entirely expecting the ritual of another world to work on my soul. Then, only a few words into his chant, I began to feel something well up inside me. It was warm and familiar, but it felt far away. Then it welled up more and more until Ozpin finished the chant, when it exploded throughout my whole body. Looking down at myself, I could see an outline around myself similar to Ozpin's. The only difference was that mine was red. It quickly faded away as fast as it had appeared. Once it was gone, Ozpin released my shoulder and took a few steps back. His breathing was heavier.
"Where did it go? It was just there! And are you okay?" I asked all at once, rushing over to the headmaster's side. He waved me off as I approached.
"I am fine, yes. The unlocking of another's Aura tends to be taxing on the one performing the ritual. It will pass." I made a face in response. He sighed. "I will sit down for a moment, if that will make you feel better." I nodded, and he did so.
"So did it work? Because it faded pretty quickly," I asked, still standing near the desk.
"Yes. When one's Aura is unlocked it flares up initially, before fading back into the soul. Now you will be able to call it forth at will to use however you see fit, whether it's for defense or perhaps a semblance. Try focusing on what you felt when your Aura first came forth, and try calling it back to the surface." I nodded and closed my eyes, trying to focus on what I felt. Mentally grabbing a hold of it was surprisingly easy. Once it was 'in my grasp' so to speak, I pulled it outwards. Suddenly I was covered head to toe once again in my glowing red Aura. I could feel its strength wrapped around me, and a slight draining feeling in my gut with every second that passed. The confusion must have shown on my face, as Ozpin spoke up.
"Most try to use their Aura more subtly. Activating it specifically when necessary, only keeping it constantly active when there are no other options. The more you use your Aura more your levels of it deplete. It returns to you with rest," he explained. As soon as I opened my mouth to respond, Ozpin spoke preemptively again. "And no, depleting your aura does not kill you. It will simply wear you out." I shut my mouth pretty quickly. Seeing I was done with questions for the moment, Ozpin leaned back in his chair and glanced at the window opposite us. I guess that also meant he was checking the time?
"Well, it would seem it is getting rather late, or even later I suppose. We can discuss more at a later date. Let me show you where you will be staying for the moment," he said, getting up and walking over to the elevator. I followed him in and we traveled back down to the lower floors. Once we exited the elevator, I followed Ozpin down a long hallway. After passing many rooms, we stopped at one in particular.
"This will be your room until the term begins and you are moved to a different one." He explained, gesturing at the door in front of us. Waving his scroll over the door, the lock clicked open. "You will be provided a scroll tomorrow that will be keyed to your room, but I will take care of letting you in tonight. We can also discuss how to proceed from here on out in the morning," he stated. That sounded good to me. I nodded and stepped inside, turning back to face him. "Try to get some rest, Mr. Todd," he said, grabbing the door. "I am sorry that your life has become uprooted like this. I hope Beacon can be a place you can come to call home as well."
Once Ozpin had shut the door and left, I looked around the room. It was a standard looking dorm room, equipped to house four people if the number of bunk beds was anything to go by. I would normally sweep the place for bugs, considering I was sleeping in an unknown environment, but it wouldn't matter much now. There wasn't much more he could gain from listening in on me at this point. Lacking any clothes to sleep in, and also lacking the energy to do anything else, I fell into the nearest bed and passed out instantly.