So, another Important Message, but I doubt you will like it.

More events occurring in my life, and the limitations of my own abilities finally breaking through my hubris, have convinced me that I must put more focus into my original projects. Unfortunately, this means that I must cut down the time I spend on fanfiction. My earlier statement remains true and I fully intend to finish all my stories, but I must put forth more energies into other projects. As such, two changes will be occurring.

1. I will be shutting down my Pat re on entirely. I wish to thank all my patrons for all the support they have lent me over the years. It has been an utter joy, but I simply can't extend the extra time needed to provide you all with the rewards you have been promised. I have been freezing the billing cycle for the past few months so that you don't lose any money until I can give what you were promised, but now it looks like such a state will continue indefinitely. As such, I will be unlaunching the page on May 31st. I hope that you will all continue to enjoy my work and reach out here so we can continue to talk.

2. Fairies of the Shattered Moon will be updated bi-weekly. This is a suggestion that has been passed to me by friends and family on this matter for a while, and I can see now further way to avoid it. The story will continue and I will see it through to the end, but it will now be bi-weekly. I am sorry.

Third Faction and One to Find All will remain on their current schedules.

Beta-ed by xenosaiyan

Wendy had heard many emotions in Ruby's voice before. Joy and wonder were the most prominent, always ecstatic to behold the newest magic or weapon before her. Teasing and amusement appeared often when she talked with her teammates, pushed Weiss's buttons, or giggled at her sister's buffoonery. Complete despair had made a few appearances early on, when they hadn't known the truth of Remnant and Earthland and it had been a question if it was even possible to travel from one to the other.

But hatred? Utter loathing and contempt? She'd never conceived that such things could be found in the Silver Spirit Slayer's emotional lexicon.

"Cinder."

And in that one word, she heard all of them.

Wendy recognized Cinder Fall from their clash at Beacon, both in figure and in mystical signature. The steady hum of ethernano poured out of the Fall Maiden and enriched the atmosphere of the area, as if they'd been standing in shadows before and only notice now because the sun had come to their presence.

"Astounding," Irene noted, the High Enchanter's eyes narrowed at the black-haired woman. "To construct a mystical apparatus that actually creates ethernano. The structure is crude, there's no way for the user to control the production, but to get it to work at all… perhaps this Headmaster Ozpin does have skill as a wizard to craft such a thing."

Wendy's brow furrowed. She had gotten a firsthand experience of how strong a maiden's power was. But with the rampant spillage, she'd be able to access Dragonforce again, and with Ruby present to run interference, she would have more than enough time to cast her enchantments as well. With those powers together, she would make quick work of the foe she'd battled at Beacon.

If she was the same foe she was at Beacon. She didn't smell like it. Her aroma was still similar enough to before to identify her as the same person, but it was… tainted now. Corrupted. And she'd bet anything that the source of that corruption was curse energy.

Yet, there was another power slinking around her, one that she hadn't felt on Happy. It was muddled with the rest of her strength, but it somehow felt more familiar than the rest.

Cinder's companion felt the same. Though he lacked the maiden's blistering ethernano sun, the silver-haired boy was still alight with both magic and curse energy, the former beckoning another familiar wavelength towards Wendy.

Her gaze must have been too focused, as the boy turned his eyes to her. He flashed a cocky smirk. "Mercury Black, I don't think we've met yet."

"Nice to meet you," Wendy tersely replied. She didn't know this Mercury, but given that he was allies with Cinder, she assumed he was involved in the Fall of Beacon. That made him an enemy of Fairy Tail.

If anything though, the steel in her voice only made his smile widen, his pearly white teeth sharp and pointed like a shark. "So that's what a Dragon Slayer's backbone is like. Not bad."

"Why are you here?" Ruby demanded.

Cinder chuckled and gestured to their surroundings. "These gardens are open to the public. I simply had to enjoy their beauty."

Wendy's eyes darted around the greenery. It was beautiful and open to the public, there was even a fairly large crowd cycling through them. But despite the natural wonder of the hundreds of flowers around them, there was no way that was the reason this terrorist had come to Mistral's capital.

Ruby's hands flashed with magic, Crescent Rose appearing in her arms in its furled-up form. Cinder's eyes lit up with a brilliant orange glow, flames spawning on her palms. Wendy took a deep breath and began to conjure her Dragonforce.

Suddenly, Mercury stepped up and snatched Cinder's arm.

The black-haired woman glared at him. "Would you like me to go through you too?"

"Ol' Fire Breath said to keep a low profile," Mercury hissed back at her. "Something about controlling the narrative or something, I was asleep through most of the briefing, but I don't think he'd be very happy if you torched a garden in plain view of all these witnesses. Witnesses with scrolls, I may remind you."

Cinder growled but the glow around her eyes soon disappeared, the flames in her hands extinguished in an instant.

"Not so fast," Ruby challenged, aiming her folded sniper-scythe at the minions of Salem. "Do you really think we're just going to let you walk away from here?"

Mercury shrugged. "Well, like I said, there are a lot of witnesses here. And if you attack us, who knows how many of them might be caught in the crossfire?"

Translation: back off, or they'd go after the civilians.

"Ruby," Wendy whispered. "We can't risk it."

Her friend snarled at their foes, but her signature weapon disappeared back to her requip dimension.

"That's right, we're all friends here. That's what you Fairy Tail types like, right? Friendship?" Mercury taunted, his smirk widening. "Really though, you two should be grateful. If those little people weren't here, you'd already be on the ground."

Ruby scoffed. "We ran into Happy on the way here. We know Salem wants us alive."

"Alive," Mercury conceded. "But she did say she'd understand if violence was necessary."

"But still, alive," Cinder noted.

The tall, black-haired woman brushed Mercury aside and walked right up to Ruby, golden eyes glaring down at silver ones just as fierce. "The Maiden of the Sky I understand, she is crucial in preparing for the war to come, but you? She had me give you that book, handed you strength and magic on a platter, power that I had to claw through hell for every scrap I have. Power that she just gave you. And she wants to give you more. They both do."

"How flattering," Ruby mocked.

"It is, isn't it," Cinder sneered. "So, tell me? Why you? What makes little Ruby Rose so special?"

Ruby smirked. "Nothing. I'm just a girl from Patch, here to fight for her friends. What about you?"

Cinder pasted a strained smile over her lips. Her fist closed at her side, orange sparks dancing across her flesh. "I'm the one who just spent the night torturing poor Leonardo Lionheart."

Ruby's eyes widened, Wendy's echoing her shock. They'd taken Haven? In one night?

"It's not impossible," Irene noted with a frown. "If these two are of these Gates we've heard so much about, it would hardly be a challenge for them to overwhelm one huntsman, especially if they caught him sleeping."

Wendy frowned. Poor Headmaster Lionheart. Ozpin had suspected him of being a traitor and now the enemy had come in the night and taken him prisoner.

"We're going to get him back," she declared, glaring at Cinder and Mercury. "We won't let you hurt him, and we won't let you get the Relic of Knowledge."

Cinder chuckled. "You're welcome to try, little Dragon Slayer."

"Though, you might want to wait until tonight before you try," Mercury taunted. "I mean, if you want to save blondie too."

Wendy cocked an eyebrow. "Blondie?"

Ruby paled. "Yang?"

"Bingo," Mercury chimed. "Ol' Fire Breath's made sure to hang back after the cat tested you lot. Snatched up as soon as she came down the road. They'll be here by tonight. Of course if you feel like hitting the school before then, you're welcome to try. But then the big guy will just ship your sister off to Salem. And you don't want that, do you?"

Ruby glared at him so hard, Wendy wondered for a moment if her eyes would start glowing.

"It's a trap," she growled. "You're using the school as a trap for us."

"Pretty much, yeah," Mercury nodded, before returning his smirk even larger. "See you tonight!"

The silver-haired boy swaggered around them and strode off. Wendy, Ruby, and even Cinder stared after him for a few moments, though the Fall Maiden soon followed him.

"Well, isn't he a cheeky little boy," Irene remarked. "Let's rip out his spine."

Wendy was not doing that, even if she thought she could have. Picking a fight here, away from the others and with so many innocents around, wouldn't help them. The safest bet would be to return to the Nikos' house and discuss their next move with the rest of their friends, whether that ended up being to attack Haven prematurely or not.

But those remarks on 'Ol' Fire Breath' were an opportunity she couldn't let pass.

"Wait!" she called. Cinder and Mercury stopped and turned to face her. "What do you know about Natsu Dragneel? Where is he?"

Mercury raised an eyebrow. "Uh, who?"

Cinder did not share his confusion. A thin smile, like a knife sliding between a pair of ribs, stretched across her face.

"Natsu Dragneel," she murmured, turning back around. "If I were you, enchanter, I wouldn't mention that name around the Ophiuchus."

A gust of air erupted from under Wendy's feet. She rocketed across the garden and snatched Cinder's wrist in her grip, forcing the maiden to face her.

"Why?" she demanded. "Is it because he is the Ophiuchus?"

Cinder glared at her. "Hands off."

A crackle of turquoise energy fizzled out from her hand and flashed across Wendy's knuckles. The Sky Dragon Slayer immediately yelped, releasing her hold and falling to her knees.

"Wendy!" Ruby shouted, blurring to her friend's side.

"You're either the one with the power or you're powerless, Ms. Marvell. And I assure you, I have gained quite a bit of power since we last met," Cinder taunted. She turned and sauntered away with Mercury. "If you wish to discuss the past with Lord End, you may do so at your own peril when he arrives. Enjoy the gardens."

The demons strode off, mixing into the crowd. When they were firmly out of sight, Wendy felt her pain alleviating her, the frantic pants of her lungs slowing down.

"I'm alright," she assured Ruby. "I'm alright."

Ruby's eyes narrowed, flicking up to stare at the area Cinder had just disappeared down. "You need to remember to put your aura up when there's an enemy around. That was Kyouka's curse."

"Enhancement?" Wendy muttered. It made sense. Happy and Lily had both told the guild about the agony that the torturer of Tartaros had put them and Erza through, and her skin had just felt like the air had suddenly grown teeth. "How could she have that?"

"I don't know," Ruby confessed. She rose to her feet. "We can't lose them. We have to go after them."

"No, we can't. They're too strong for us alone," Wendy argued, staggering to a standing position. "We have to go warn the others."

"But they'll get away!" Ruby protested. "They've taken Haven and captured Headmaster Lionheart, it's the only way they could have kept us from sensing the maiden powers until now! If they really have Yang too—"

"Then she's fine. If the Ophiuchus didn't kill us at Oniyuri, he won't kill her. He wants to use her as bait for a trap," Wendy smirked. "And Fairy Tail happens to spring traps for a living."

Ruby frowned. "We can't just trust them like that. They're liars! They lie! They could already have already found out the Spring Maiden was with the Branwen Tribe, gotten the Relic, and be gone before we know it!"

"Not before we know it," Wendy raised her hand. A faint blue compass needle shimmered into existence over the back of her skin. "I didn't grab her wrist for no reason. I put a tracking enchantment on her."

"Wait, what?!" Ruby's eyes were suddenly alight with wonder again. She rushed to Wendy's side and pawed at her hand. "Cool! Since when can you do that?"

Wendy's eyes glanced over to Irene, the spectral redhead giving her a pointed stare. The Sky Dragon Slayer frowned.

And yet she said. "It's… just something I figured out. We should get back."

Ruby's eyes hardened and she nodded. "Right."

The red hooded huntress raced off. Wendy followed behind but kept just far enough back to whisper to Irene without being overheard. The both of them being Dragon Slayers had some advantages, enhanced senses included.

"They're getting suspicious," Wendy warned. "I can't keep pulling new spells out of nowhere and not be able to say where I got them from."

"And do you think telling them you got them from me would make them any less worried?" Irene pointed out. "Better to let them be confused than have them worry if I'm going to take control of you, little shrimp. They'll fight better if they aren't worried about a knife in their back that will never come."

Wendy sighed. Once more, the caution made sense. After all, while Wendy had made peace with the Queen of the Dragons, the others only had the tales of the Scarlet Despair and her brutal torture of Mira to go off of. Even if Erza returned, the Maiden of the Sky wasn't sure how the Titania would react.

Her teacher had given her a great deal of new tools to add to her arsenal. And the only thing she asked for in return was anonymity. To help her friends, it was more than a fair price.

Though, there was a possibility that she was being deceived. Irene had expressed a desire to claim a new body before, and although she claimed to be unable to influence Wendy's without her magic, the Sky Dragon Slayer only had her word that such was the case, or that her magic wouldn't return over time. For all she knew, the Scarlet Despair was just biding her time until she could strike, teaching her new spells so she wasn't killed in the meantime. Yes, that was certainly a possibility.

But it was not one that Wendy thought of as likely. So far, Irene had done nothing to warrant mistrust. Therefore, she would trust her. Even if Remnant was a darker place than the world she'd known, that didn't mean there was no light to be found. It didn't mean she should stop believing that things could get better.

She would get her friends back. And if Scarlet Nikos couldn't give her back Erza, that was fine. It just meant she'd have to see what this Ophiuchus knew about Natsu.

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"Alright, so I just need to make a rainbow?"

"Well, that's not the final step, Ms. Valkyrie. But learning to produce such a wide range with your refraction magic will lay the groundwork for more complex illusions."

"Awesome! Ren, let me paint a rainbow over your face!"

"Nora, it's light. Not pigment."

"Rainbow!"

Jaune chuckled at his teammates' antics. While he wasn't currently joining them in their training, he had an unobstructed view of them through open hall doorways, from the kitchen straight through to the living room. He could have joined them, but given ten people had eaten that day, someone needed to do the dishes. And if there was one thing for sure in the Arc household, it was that everyone, at some point or another, had to wash a mountain of dishes.

He didn't mind. It helped him focus, kept his mind from wandering to stuff he couldn't affect, like Pyrrha's mom's turmoil over the whole Erza Scarlet situation.

Oh, and kept him from freaking out over the fact that he had a girlfriend! And it was Pyrrha! And she was just as amazing and beautiful as Pyrrha was! Because she was Pyrrha!

It said something about the mind of a teenage boy that even knowing he was going into a fight he had absolutely no business getting into for all the right reasons, that was the matter primarily occupying his mind.

And speak of the angel and she will appear. Pyrrha dashed down the stairway and rushed into the kitchen. She tossed the empty ice cream carton into the trash and staggered over to the freezer, panting hard.

"Everything okay up there?" Jaune asked.

"I've never seen her like this," Pyrrha muttered. She turned on Jaune, her eyes wide and panicked. "She's eating pints, Jaune. Pints!"

"Oh no," Jaune replied. "She's overeating?"

"What? No," Pyrrha clarified. "The last time she was upset, she'd gone through a gallon by noon. Now she's not even eating a quarter of that."

Jaune raised an eyebrow. "She eats gallons of ice cream? And looks like that?"

"Aunt Rouge and I have been trying to figure it out for years. I've found it's best not to ask," Pyrrha said.

She sighed and leaned against the counter. Jaune took off the rubber gloves he wore for cleaning and walked over to her side.

"How do I help her with this, Jaune?" she asked him. "Whether she wants to try the ritual again or not, she's unbalanced. If she goes into battle like this, there's no telling what could happen. She's been taking care of me all these months and now I can't do a thing to help her."

"Sometimes that's all you can do."

"What?" Pyrrha gasped. "You can't really expect me to do nothing?"

Jaune held up his hands. "Not nothing. Not exactly. But, you remember that time right before everything went to hell at the Vytal Festival? When you threw me into the wall?"

"I am so sorry about that—"

"No, no, it's fine," he assured her. "I brought it up as an example. I had no idea what was bothering you then. But, at least for the first part it, me just being there did help you. It helped, right?"

Pyrrha slowly nodded. "It did."

Jaune smiled. "Then that's all you do. It's all you had to do for me when I was being an idiot at the beginning of the year. You can't force your mom to confront this. But you can be there for her when she does. With ice cream."

Pyrrha giggled, her frown fading away. "I'm really glad you're here, Jaune."

"Glad to be here," Jaune remarked. "I mean, we saw some pretty attractive Beowolves on the way here, but none of them had red hair—"

Pyrrha laughed and gave him a playful shove. She leaned in and gave him a peck on the check.

"Go get her," Jaune encouraged.

His partner nodded and plucked another pint of strawberry ice cream from the freezer, dashing back up the stairs.

"Quite nicely done, Mr. Arc."

Jaune frowned and turned to the entrance of the kitchen. Ozpin stepped into the room, a kindly, mischievous smile on Oscar's face. Of course, while it had lent his older self an air of mystery, on the young farm boy's face it just made him look like he'd put a whoopie cushion under someone's seat.

"You've grown into quite the team leader since we last saw each other," the headmaster complimented him. "And if your showing at the spar is any indication, a skilled wizard."

"I've picked up a few tricks," Jaune replied. "Nothing Oscar didn't do better. I had to redirect Ruby's blast, but Pyrrha's attack was way more powerful and he tanked it."

Ozpin chuckled. He withdrew the stub of his cane from his belt and extended the entire staff. The gears of the pommel crackled with sparks of emerald energy.

"Oscar is skilled, but he had help in that endeavor," the professor explained. "Specifically, this."

Jaune cocked an eyebrow. "It's a magical artifact. Like Ruby's weapons."

"Indeed. Though, I had much more time to design and create this than Ms. Rose has to any of her own creations. Three lives, over a century, were devoted to the creation of this: The Long Memory," Ozpin pronounced. "The cane that would help me stand in a world without magic. The mechanism within channels the scantest amounts of ethernano into the shield matrix Oscar used to block Grand Chariot."

"Impressive," Jaune admitted. He folded his arms across his chest. "But why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want to teach you to do the same."

Jaune's eyes widened. "Huh? I can't do that. I don't have anywhere near that kind of power."

"Do you think I did for the majority of my lives?" Ozpin queried. "The Shield of Memory is not an exhaustive spell, merely a highly complex one. In theory, anyone could cast it, if the usual setup time didn't make it impractical for usability in combat."

"That's why you need the cane. It's set to cast whenever you feed it ethernano," Jaune realized. "But then why do you think I can do it? I mean, just because I make shields doesn't mean I can do something like that."

Ozpin chuckled. He pulled up a chair from the kitchen table and sat down like Jaune was a worried student who'd come to his office for help. "Mr. Arc, may I speak with you frankly?"

"You? Enigmatic man of mystery you are? Sure, why not."

"Thank you. When you first came to Beacon, you were abysmal. On the level you should have been in your first year at combat school, not a huntsman academy."

Jaune tried to keep the frown from his face. While he wasn't Ozpin's biggest fan, he himself really deserved that one. Say what you wanted to about dreams of heroism and meaning well, he had not been ready for Beacon. Him sneaking in only endangered himself and everyone else there who would assume he knew things he didn't. It was selfish and stupid, he was so very lucky that Pyrrha had seen something more in him.

Of course, Ozpin was the one who was supposed to catch fake transcripts like his, but given he had been running a worldwide conspiracy and the Fall Maiden had just been attacked, Jaune couldn't find it in him to blame the headmaster for that slipup.

"And yet, within a semester, your skills had skyrocketed," Ozpin continued. "Not just anyone could compete in the Vytal Festival after such a short time, let alone become a wizard on top of that."

"Yeah, but I had good teachers," Jaune protested. "Without Pyrrha and Ruby, I never would have made it this far."

"And with my help, you will go further still," Ozpin smiled. "For instance, your semblance is the manipulation of aura. Have you tried using it on yourself instead of others?"

"What the heck would that do? My semblance boosts someone else's aura with mine. If I use it on myself, it's just putting where it would already be."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps it will give you a barrier stronger than any aura can currently supply, at least for a short amount of time," Ozpin proposed. "You still have untapped potential, Mr. Arc. Your shield work may lack power, but its craftsmanship is exquisite. Especially given your patron's distance. My shield can block anything short of the Ophiuchus himself. If you could create multiple of them, on command, imagine the possibilities."

It was enticing. They'd been told more times than they could count that each of the Gates was stronger than any of them. But Happy had demonstrated that tactics could also be a factor in overwhelming more powerful foes, with Scarlet only hammering the point in before the spar. If he could get a nearly invulnerable shield on command, the possibilities were endless. No matter how strong an attack was, it didn't mean anything if it couldn't hit them.

Though, there was one detail about what Ozpin had said that piqued Jaune's interest more.

"What do you mean 'my patron's distance'?" he inquired. "I know Holy Barrier magic is well… holy. But I've never talked to any god."

"I would be surprised if you had," Ozpin said. "Though, by its nature holy magic calls on the God of Light, Ankh. Even if he and his brother commanded an exodus of all deities, they can still be invoked to some extent. You would be stronger if they were here, but that does not make you weak now. I know of one devotee of a lesser god whose power is so great you'd never notice the difference."

"Huh, interesting tidbit," Jaune remarked. "I don't suppose said devotee would like to come and back us up?"

"She cannot fight beside us."

"Is it because she's Salem?"

"What?" Ozpin squawked, confounded. "No. I assure you; it will be a cold day in hell before Salem prays any god ever again."

"Then why can't this devotee help us."

"She is helping us, in her own way. She has set up interference so if Salem attempts to carry out a certain ritual, the one that she needs Lucy Heartfila so badly for, she'll have to go through her first. As for why she can't aid us in combat, she cannot leave her patron's shrine. Or else time shall take its toll on her."

Jaune sighed. He raised his hand and let his face fall into his palm. "Always with an answer, aren't you?"

Ozpin lowered his eyes. He sank back into his chair, as if trying to ease a great burden on his shoulders. "You don't trust me, do you, Mr. Arc?"

Jaune shrugged. "I don't not trust you. I believe that Salem has to be stopped. I believe that you're trying to stop her. I don't think that you've got some alternate agenda, or that you're secretly trying to take over the world or something."

"But?"

"But some things just don't line up. And when we ask you about them, you always have an answer. I know that should put me at ease, but it doesn't. It feels like you want us to solve a puzzle, but you're keeping some of the pieces for yourself. I mean, you are. Aren't you?"

Ozpin looked away. "There are many fairy tales told across Remnant. I witnessed the inspiration for most of them. And for more than a few, I was the inspiration. But of those, there is one that I feel comes the closest to the truth of who I am. 'The Man Who Runs'. Have you ever heard it?"

Jaune shook his head.

"I thought not. It's never been very popular. Except among the moodier crowd I suppose. It's about a man chased by a great darkness, one he cannot kill or fight. So he changes his face, running from town to town. And at each town he finds people, ordinary people, who can see the darkness as well. And he teaches them, trains them, turns them into weapons to fight the evil that he could not slay. And then they die, all of them. The man grieves, he cries… and then he moves on to the next town and does it all over again with a new face. Because the darkness is still there… and so is he."

Ozpin looked up, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "That is my great sin, Jaune. I turn ordinary people into weapons. My weapons. And I cannot count how many of them have died in my name."

Jaune gulped. "If that's true… then what can we do? I mean… you've been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years. You must have known people like us before. How do we stop her? What do we have that you haven't had in a million lives?"

"Fairy Tail."

Jaune and Ozpin both turned to the kitchen door. Ruby and Wendy stood in the hall, their faces set like iron.

"Get everyone together," Ruby commanded. "We've got trouble."

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"Mother?" Pyrrha called, knocking on the bedroom door. "It's me. I have more ice cream."

"Come in."

Pyrrha cracked open the door and shuffled into her mother's room. While her bedroom back home in Argus was quite extravagant, she had a closet filled with dozens of outfits she endeavored to wear at least once a year, her rented space was unsurprisingly sparse. It was a dark realm, the only light shimmering through the crimson curtains barring the only window.

Scarlet sat atop her bed, staring at the filtering sunlight. Her hand rose, her fingers grazing the side of her right eye.

"Mother?" Pyrrha queried, tiptoeing inside. "Is everything alright? Does it hurt?"

"It's not real."

"What?"

"The eye," Scarlet clarified. "It's not real. It's artificial… magic… it's not real and I never even noticed."

"Oh," Pyrrha remarked. "Is there any difference between its vision and the other one?"

"I don't know. I can't tell."

"Then what's it matter?"

"… because I like the fake better."

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. She had no idea what that was about. Had regaining the memories of Erza's pain really done this much?

It didn't matter. Even if she had no idea how to help, her mother had helped her through her pain. Like Jaune said, when she was ready to talk, Pyrrha would be there for her.

She sat down next to her on the bed and held out the pint of ice cream. Scarlet glanced at the tub and fiddled with it in her hands.

"I wonder if she likes this too," she muttered. "Erza, I mean. Our taste buds are the same, but I still wonder."

Pyrrha chuckled. "I can't imagine any memory making you not like strawberry anything, especially ice cream."

Scarlet snorted, shaking her head. "It wouldn't be me. Who knows what could happen?"

She finished twirling the ice cream carton and set the pint down on the bedside table. Unopened.

Pyrrha gulped. She reached out her hand and clasped her mother's fingers. Scarlet flinched, but she didn't pull away.

For a few moments, they sat in silence, watching dust flicker through the beams of sunlight. The tiny flecks shimmered for an instant, and then faded back to obscurity, never to be seen again.

"I'm so proud of you, Pyrrha," Scarlet whispered at last. Pyrrha raised her head, but her mother's gaze remained outward. "I admit, I was terrified when you said you wanted to go to Beacon. So far away, where your aunt and I couldn't help you if things got bad. I knew you could handle yourself in a fight, but with people… I was worried you wouldn't be able to let people in, that no one would see you for you, instead of the Invincible Girl."

"I was afraid of that too," Pyrrha confessed. "I nearly didn't at the beginning."

Scarlet finally placed her hands over Pyrrha's and clenched them tight. "But you did. You made friends who will stand by you into hell itself. And a handsome boyfriend, who can do dishes. That's a rare find, or so Rouge tells me."

Pyrrha couldn't help her blush. "Jaune is wonderful."

"I'll be expecting grandchildren after this war's over," Scarlet joked. However, a frown came over her a moment later, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She pulled Pyrrha in tight, engulfing her daughter in a crushing hug. "Tell them stories about their grandma Scarlet for me."

"What?" Pyrrha gasped. She wrenched herself out of the embrace and stared her mother straight in the face, green eyes to brown orbs. "No! You're not dying! Wendy said the chances of the ritual killing you were infinitesimally low. And even if it wasn't, she gave me her word that she wouldn't try to convince you to go through that again if you didn't want to."

"It's a ritual designed to kill me. And bring Erza Scarlet back in my place," her mother muttered, tears dripping down her cheeks as she held back a cry. "They all want her. Either because they worship the ground she walks on like Wendy or Ruby, or because she's more useful for the war to come. And I think they're right. Last night, when I… when I pulled that sword on Wendy, I felt it. The well of her magic. Its depth. I have no idea how to use it, but she is a master. She's stronger than me. Stronger than anyone in this house. And I'm the fake that needs to be brushed aside so she can live, so she can save you all."

"You're not a fake!" Pyrrha roared. Tears fell from her emerald eyes and this time she squeezed Scarlet into a hug. "You are my mother!"

"And you are my daughter!" Scarlet sobbed back, her head falling onto her shoulder. "They want me to give you up, to entrust you to a woman who went through all that horror, who was so warped that she willingly tried to kill someone she called family! I can't do that! I know that they rave about her, but I can't. I can't abandon the ability to help you, even if it's just a little. Not if the alternative is throwing you to the mercy of a woman who would strike you down for her cause. I won't die for that. I won't lose you if I don't know you'll be safe."

Pyrrha's eyes widened. The time had come. She held her mother tighter, but already her mind was processing the new information, weaving a counterstrategy just like she would do in a fight. And the solution was suspiciously similar to her own past turmoil.

"Mom," she whispered. "Do you believe in destiny?"

"What?" Scarlet stuttered. "You mean as a goal?"

"Yes," Pyrrha nodded. She pulled out of the hug, keeping her hands on her shoulders. "I told about Ozpin's offer to become the Fall Maiden. What I didn't tell you is why he insisted I take time to think about it. To extract the magic from the previous maiden, Amber, I would have to absorb her soul into mine."

Scarlet's eyes widened. She had her. Now she had to drive it home. One way or another, whether she underwent the ritual or not, she could not let this pain keep tearing her mother apart. She was not a fake. And she deserved to know that.

"I was terrified that if I did the transfer, I would die. I would die, and some new woman would go sauntering off with my face," Pyrrha continued. "I asked Jaune… what he would do, if he could achieve his destiny in an instant, but at the cost of who he was."

Scarlet paled. "What… what did he say?"

Pyrrha chuckled. "He said I wasn't making sense. Back then I wasn't, but now… now I understand. And given the chance again, even without the knowledge of Cinder coming for Beacon… I would do it. I would accept the transfer."

"What?!" Scarlet gasped. "Why? Why would you ever sacrifice yourself for power?!"

"Not sacrifice myself, sacrifice who I was," Pyrrha clarified. "And the reason is… that's what we do every day. We learn, we train, we grow, we build upon who we were to become someone better. I was afraid to lose myself and the friends I'd made… but even if I'd started acting exactly like Amber, they would never have abandoned me. And who I was would never have been any less real."

She pressed her head into her mother's chest, relishing the feeling of Scarlet's arms slowly wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth.

"You are my mother. You will always be my mother, whether you are Scarlet or anyone else. Amber was another person, but Erza… from Ruby and Wendy's stories, I believe the only difference between you two is what you remember. Whatever dark impulse allowed for Erza to raise a sword on her friend, you know it horrified her as much as you were terrified when you pointed a blade at Wendy. Because you are the same person. The same wonderful, gluttonous, maelstrom of strength you've always been."

"But… but what we remember," Scarlet muttered. "All that pain, that trauma… who could come out the other side sane?"

Pyrrha smiled. "You went through it all at once last night. There must be something inside the rest of it worth all the suffering if you still didn't collapse."

Finally, Scarlet chuckled. "More like something here."

Pyrrha pressed herself even closer at those words. For several seconds, the two women just sat there, absorbing each other's presence and warmth. For eighteen years, it had just been them, along with Rouge and grandfather, against the world, traversing the circus of the media and protecting each other from all threats.

Scarlet frowned. "Pyrrha… can you roll up your sleeve?"

The champion cocked an eyebrow. "Um, sure. Why?"

"I need to see your birthmark."

Pyrrha shrugged. She wasn't sure exactly what this was about, but she was engaging was the world again.

She removed herself from her mother's embrace and rolled up the brown sleeve of her leather jacket. There on her arm's flesh was the intricate crimson cross pattern that she'd had since birth.

Scarlet's breath hitched.

"What?" Pyrrha inquired. "What is it?"

"I… I'm not sure yet," Scarlet replied. "Something I saw in the memories. A feeling… a whisper… the color of my hair."

Pyrrha tilted her head to the side. What was that about?

Before she could ask any further questions however, the door to the room slammed open. Both Nikos women whirled around to see Ruby standing in the doorway, her face set in stone.

"Cinder's captured Haven," the silver-eyed girl declared. "We need to plan. Now."

Pyrrha's eyes widened, her heart froze in her chest. Her body went rigid, her muscles shivering in place while a dull, throbbing pain emanating out from her right heel.

"Pyrrha," Scarlet murmured softly, shaking her shoulder. Her face was a mask of concern. "Are you alright?"

"Cinder's here. She's in the city," the champion whispered. The time had come at last.

She shot to her feet and followed Ruby back downstairs. Her mother looked on worriedly for a moment, and they did the same, leaving the pint of strawberry ice cream behind to melt.

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

"This proves that Leo isn't a traitor. They've taken him prisoner!" Qrow shouted. "We have to rescue him."

"We have only Cinder's word that he is still alive, Qrow," Ozpin cautioned. "And Ms. Fall is hardly a bastion of honesty."

"Does that change anything? We know she's at Haven," Pyrrha shouted. "We need to hit her now! Before she gets away!"

"Pyrrha. Calm down," Jaune advised, putting a comforting hand on his girlfriend's shoulder. The redhead looked back at him, all fangs for a moment, but as soon as she registered his face, she sighed and sat back on the couch.

Qrow didn't understand that. Ruby and Wendy had gathered them all in the Nikos' living room to figure out what they were going to do about the fact that their enemies had taken over an academy right under their noses. But for some reason, Oz was keeping to his usual tune of caution instead of working on a rescue plan. If Leo was captured, they needed to save him pronto! They couldn't leave a man behind! He was all for looking before you leaped, but why was everyone being so goddamned restrained!?

"They won't try to get away," Carla reminded everyone. "If they hold Haven, the only thing standing between them and the Relic of Knowledge is the Spring Maiden."

"Who they cannot find," Ozpin nodded, though the white Exceed frowned back. "Because we did not tell Leonardo about our suspicions of Spring's asylum with the Branwen Tribe, they cannot even torture the location out of him."

"Torture?" Nora yelped. "They're going to torture him?"

"A headmaster of a huntsman academy. Has he gone through such a thing before?" Ren inquired.

"That doesn't mean we should make him go through it again," Wendy protested. "We need to rescue him."

"And we will," Ozpin assured them. "But securing the maiden takes priority. Besides, if both Cinder and Mercury are there and are now Gates, plus Emerald if we are to be cautious, that's three Eclipse Etherious to contend with. Even if we were to attack before the Ophiuchus and his partner arrive… I can't say I like our chances."

"That's the other problem," Ruby said. "Do you think this 'Lord End' really has Yang?"

Ozpin sighed. "There's no way to tell. If Ms. Xiao-Long is still in the wilds, there is no way to contact her with the CCT still down. We can only search for her tonight and pray for her safety.

Qrow scowled. He did not like feeling so out of the loop when his niece was in danger. Yang could take care of herself, but against the Ophiuchus? Both he and Raven knew enough from previous encounters that there really wasn't a 'fighting' with him. Just surviving.

Suddenly, a swirling red and black portal opened up in the middle of the room. The entire group hopped back, all of them drawing weapons in an instant.

Qrow's eyes narrowed. He recognized the breach on sight, he'd been seeing them all his life after all. But this one was small, maybe a bit bigger than a baseball. Raven hadn't made one that tiny since she'd learned to amplify her semblance with dust swords. And why would she make one so obviously in plain sight when she could tell that he was around people? She wasn't exactly a fan of crowds.

He got his answer immediately. A smoking black bird dove through the portal, its wings pressed to its body. As soon as it was all the way through, it twisted in midair and transformed back into his sister, her hand flailing at the portal.

Just in time for a streak of blue fire to blaze through and smash into her.

Raven's aura shattered immediately; the portal slamming shut from lack of fuel. The bandit flew through the air and crashed into the wall, crumbling to the floor amidst a mass of dust and cement.

And fire. Some of the fire had ricocheted off her aura and was spreading through the house.

Most of the party screamed and rushed about putting out the blaze, but Qrow, along with Wendy rushed for the bandit's fallen form. They knelt by her side, the Sky Dragon Slayer setting to work stabilizing the former huntress's many, many bruises and burns.

Qrow picked up his sister's head and propped her on his knees. He noted the immense flood of ethernano surging out of her, but at the moment he was far more concerned that his sister, whatever his issues with her, was currently half-dead in his lap.

"Raven, Raven! Damnit, all the times I wanted you to shut up and now you decide to be quiet," he yelled. "What happened to you?! Why were his flames—"

"Yang," Raven muttered, her eyes drooping close. "Yang… brought him… the tribe…"

She sighed and fell back unconscious.

"Don't worry," Wendy said. "She's going to be fine. This is nothing I can't handle."

Qrow gulped and nodded. But his eyes drifted towards the empty air where the portal had been. Where his fire had come through.

The real question was, could Yang, or any of them for that matter, handle what was to come.

An extra huge thank you to my patrons who have stood by me all this time: Gregg Tracton, Annaya Chan, Keith Tracton, Nora Okonus, KefkaesqueXIII, Christian Howard, SanyaBane, Matthew Blevins, David Wayman, G-Unit91, Primordial Paper, and Mark Skrzyniarz.

Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!

Go Forth and Conquer!