Beta-ed by xenosaiyan

Neptune may have fashioned himself an intellectual, but he had chosen the path of a huntsman. He hadn't expected his life to be easy at all times. Even the Fall of Beacon, watching Yang get her arm cleaved off by that Grimm, not knowing if his partner had survived his quest to locate Blake in the carnage… it had taken a few months, but he'd slowly come to terms with the tragedy and redoubled his training efforts along with Scarlet and Sage. When Headmaster Lionheart saw fit to finally reopen the school, they'd be ready to become the best protectors of humanity they could be. And Sun had totally survived. The trip back home was just a long one without official kingdom transportation. He'd probably show up any day now with that same lovable smile.

Unfortunately, as the blue-haired boy gazed at his television screen, his teammates seated beside him on his couch, it didn't look like his leader had beaten trouble back.

"This is the Mistral News Network coming to you live with breaking news! Tonight, months after their cowardly assault on Vale, the craven terrorists of the White Fang attacked Haven Academy. Led by wanted fox faunus brothers Corsac and Fennec Albain, known associates of the Blood-Soaked Bull Adam Taurus, the fiends burned the school's main hall to the ground and nearly killed Headmaster Leonardo Lionheart, who has since been rushed to Upper Ring General for treatment."

"That's a relief," Scarlet sighed. "Always heard the stories of how much of a badass the professor was when he was younger, but holding off an entire strike force on his own? The old man's still got it."

Sage nodded, his chiseled face as stoic as ever.

Neptune found he couldn't keep up such a cool façade, gulping down a pit of nervousness. He was thrilled to know his headmaster was alright and holding out against that many White Fang on his own was certainly impressive, but the anchorwoman seemed to be implying there were some sort of reinforcements that bailed him out.

Which made sense, the city wasn't currently in panic, but he was a little unclear on who said backup could have been? Most of the kingdom's huntsmen, the other Haven teachers included, had been sent out to quell the Grimm attacks on nearby settlements. Without them, who could have driven off the same kind of force that had masterminded the Fall of Beacon?

"As for the heroes of the night, Atlas Expeditionary Forces, permitted in the kingdom by the council to track down the White Fang's main headquarters, learned of the impending attack from their own operations and immediately moved to protect the academy. Led by First Citizen Esper Rosenflos and Eleanor Tremaine, widow of Councilman Benjamin Autumn, the Atlesian forces swept aside the terrorists, saving countless lives from the faunus extremists. While Madam Rosenflos has departed to deal with any stragglers and finish the White Fang for good, Lady Tremaine has remained in the city to begin negotiations with the Council on renewing Mistral and Atlas's significant trade relations in the wake of the end of General Ironwood's tyrannical dust embargo."

Neptune had to blink for a few seconds to collect his thoughts. "Atlas? Atlas saved us? I know there's been a lot of stuff going around about how the Knights at Beacon were hacked or General Ironwood's fault, but didn't they still break the Treaty of Vytal?"

Scarlet shrugged. "The general was already running the show anyway. At least with Rosenflos in charge we can trust they won't suddenly cause a recession for us after their bots get hacked. Besides, it's not like they got rid of their council."

"I guess," Neptune muttered, rubbing his hands over his face, before forcing a shining smile onto his face. "And hey, undeniable bright side! With Atlas backing us up, we'll be able to force the Grimm further back into the wilds. Sun'll have a clear route home!"

Sage cringed, glancing at Scarlet, who looked like he'd just watched a puppy get kicked.

"What?" Neptune said, swiveling his head between his teammates. "What?"

"Neptune, you realize there were airships that stayed behind to ferry back the injured, right?" Scarlet pointed out. "After he found the Belladonna girl, he wouldn't have had to walk home."

"Yeah, but he didn't have to stowaway on a boat to get to Vale either. You know how he is—"

"Neptune, come on," the redhead insisted with a sigh. "The only reason Sun wouldn't already be back by now would be if… if…"

"He's not dead!" Neptune snarled. "He's not… He's not…"

Without a word, Sage rose from the couch and placed a firm, comforting hand on his teammate's shoulder. Neptune took a few deep, calming breaths and then nodded gratefully at his green-haired teammate. He didn't do much, didn't say much, and during their first few weeks as a team everyone kept mistaking him for an exceptionally sculpted statue, but he was their rock when all else failed.

Sun wasn't dead. Neptune got why Scarlet was so worried, but he couldn't believe that his partner was gone. After everything they'd been through, after surviving the Fall, and getting Yang away from that terrifying Grimm, he couldn't believe that his best friend had died trying to save his crush. He couldn't…

And he didn't. Neptune had full faith in his partner. And with Rosenflos's Atlas around to restore order back to recent chaos, they could all get back to huntsmen training as soon as he got back. Haven would be open again in no time, no need to head over to Shade as they'd worried they might have had to. Everything would be alright.

"In addition, the Expeditionary Force's assault on the White Fang's headquarters prior to reinforcing Haven yielded tremendous results, including the death of High Leader and wanted terrorist Sienna Khan…"

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

"Incredible," Sienna murmured, staring at her hands as she clenched and unclenched her fingers. "This new body… I've never felt anything like it."

Hazel chuckled, leaning against the entrance to the castle infirmary, looking on amused at the legendarily grim tiger faunus grinning like a child that had just tasted ice cream for the first time. "It's good to see that you've taken to your new body so well. My semblance shielded me from the worst of the old Ascension Chamber, but I am aware of how trying the process can be, even with Watts's upgrades."

Sienna snorted. "You're not wrong about that."

She'd been warned that becoming an Eclipse Etherious would not be a walk in the park, but nothing could have prepared her for the utter hell that awaited her when she'd stepped inside the Ascension Chamber. The mystical energy seeping through her very being, rewriting her very soul, and binding her essence to her new book! It had felt as if her body was being flayed apart and stitched back together from scratch.

And in her mind, it had been even worse. That cantankerous old geezer ranted on and on about strength and power as if he was stating some new astounding fact instead of obvious truths that she'd recognized years ago. Thank goodness for the stability provided by that demure woman with the scales or her sanity might have been torn apart.

But the results? Oh, the results had been well worth it.

Sienna had been a warrior all her life, contended with the worst Grimm, thugs, and huntsmen the world had to offer. When she'd transitioned the White Fang to violent resistance, it was she who'd trained the new generation of fighters, sharpened even the likes of Adam's wonderous talent into true tenacious skill. But the power she felt now? The raw flood of magic and curse energy surging through her veins? She felt like she could take on an entire army.

Of course, power was only part of a warrior's arsenal. She still remembered Hazel's systematic dismantling of Adam's coup, and knowing what she knew now, he hadn't used nearly his full potential in that battle, keeping himself restrained in order to keep from overdoing things and causing unnecessary collateral damage. She had quite a bit of training to do before she mastered these new abilities and incorporated them into her own fighting style.

And honestly? That very thought only made her more excited.

"I thought I'd reached my peak as a fighter so long ago," she revealed. "Watching Adam surpass me, I had such pride back then, but I couldn't get rid of that tiny nugget of disappointment in myself. That all my training and experience had finally met a ceiling it couldn't go beyond. But now?"

"Now, there's an entirely new mountain to climb," Hazel grinned.

"Ha! I suppose," Sienna laughed. "Though given my cause, I can't say I've ever really been without a mountain."

"True, but now the peak is in sight. For both the mountain of your new strength, and your cause," Hazel said. "It is much easier to move forward once you've constructed a plausible path."

"Instead of wallowing around stubbornly clinging to a strategy you've seen doesn't work," Sienna sighed, the jaunty shake of her head betraying her still jovial attitude. "So, my friend or your wizard?"

Hazel's face darkened. "Your friend. The wizard… Summer asks me to forgive him. And if the Queen is willing to if he sees the error of his ways… his games have taken far more from her than me."

Sienna's lips twitched into a hint of a smile. "But you can't let go of what he cost you."

"My cousin… My sister…" Hazel murmured. "My family… gone. For nothing. He's been tossing generations away because he's too much of a coward to seize the one chance to win the war, and just because he may come to his senses now, I'm supposed to what? Just put it behind me?"

"Maybe," Sienna shrugged. "Forgiveness is a funny thing. I know there are many people who will never forgive 'Sienna Khan' for the actions of the White Fang. But I also know there are many people who will never forgive 'Ghira Belladonna' for preaching peace when the Hunters for Humanity were burning down their homes and lynching their children. It's a personal matter really, one that only you can decide how to resolve."

Hazel snorted. "And how would that be?"

Sienna smirked. The tiger faunus sauntered up to her new comrade and playfully smacked his enormous bicep. "Hell if I know, you big lug. I just said it's personal. You'll have to decide on your own if you want to forgive Professor Ozpin."

"Lovely," the Gate of the Bull groaned.

"Indeed, it's a trying process," Sienna confessed. She leaned forward until she was only inches from her friend's chiseled form, poking her fingers into his rippling pectorals. "But, if you want my advice, I think your focus should be less on whether to forgive him or not, and more on how useful that anger is to what you want to achieve."

"It's what's driven me all these years."

"But for how much longer?" she challenged him. "Adam allowed his fury to convince him that a war of extermination against the dominant species on the planet was a wise idea until he got himself killed and turned into a literal zombie. I allowed my anger for his stupidity at Beacon to blind me to the fact that he wasn't the charming rogue I'd trained anymore and had evolved into a raging madman who thought a war of extermination against the dominant species on the planet was a wise idea. There's nothing wrong with wanting justice, but when it consumes you utterly? Well then, the cost might just be more than the sin you sought to avenge in the first place."

Hazel frowned, his brow furrowing in thought. "You… may have a point."

Sienna smiled. She clapped her fellow Eclipse Etherious on the arm and strode out of the infirmary. "I do try."

She always did. Ghira's fiercest, less intelligent supporters liked to claim she was obsessed with making humanity 'pay for what they've done', but though she definitely had many more supporters of that mindset then she'd thought (she could at least thank Adam for opening her eyes to that), her ideology was not intended to be one of such wasteful slaughter. The fact was that if humanity thought they could walk all over the faunus, they would. Those who wished to exploit her people would and those who liked to think of themselves as 'good people' would do nothing to disrupt their own lives, no matter how horrified they professed themselves to be.

If the faunus had no power, either physical, economic, or political, nothing would change, no matter how many of them marched. Fortunately, thanks to Esper and Salem's efforts in the Atlesian government and the SDC, such power was within their reach. The Albains had led the last of Adam's zealots to their execution at Haven while her own followers had been integrated into the Atlesian military and bureaucracy.

The White Fang was dead, but it had served its purpose. The faunus were stronger than ever.

Not that Ghira seemed to realize that. Tyrian had reported back on his little misadventure on Menagerie before he'd been sent off to reinforce Dr. Watts in Atlas, and Sienna could only groan at her old friend's actions. The Gate of the Scorpion saved him and Kali from both Blake's out of control Take-Over form and the Albains' scheming, only requesting to take her to Sitara, and his response was to attempt to glass the Eclipse Etherious with cannon fire. Cannon fire! And he called her violent.

"Hazel."

Sienna turned down the hall, the aforementioned Gate of the Bull poking his head out of the infirmary. Both of them beheld a floating Seer Grimm, its bulbous form slowly bouncing towards the pair.

"Please come down to Neo-Hell's Core," the artificial Umbral Spirit spoke with the Dark Queen's voice sliding out like silk. "I need your assistance with young Mercury's new body."

"Of course, your grace," Hazel replied, bowing his head slightly. "I'll be there immediately."

"Thank you."

The Grimm whipped its tentacles around and glided down the hall.

Sienna cocked a grin at her friend. "Race you there."

"Are you serious—"

She tapped into the sea of magic power swelling in her origin, made truly tremendous by her ascension, and cast the instinctive spell of her Celestial Spirit side, modified with her own special flavor. She had to start trying the tricks out sooner or later.

A field of black gravity crackled over her muscles, flowing through her Cerberus Whip as she swung the chain into the ceiling. Making herself as light as she safely could, the tiger faunus leapt through the hall. In a single jump, she bounded over a dozen yards, yanking herself through air as if she was soaring across the jungles of Menagerie. Before long, she'd arrived down at Hell's Core.

Even still, she couldn't help but grit her teeth in annoyance. To accelerate herself properly, she needed to increase her weight back to its original state and then some to properly make maximize her speed, but the process required precise timing that she hadn't gotten quite down yet.

Salem glanced up at her from the depths of her laboratory, a jaunty grin on her demonic face. "Glad to see you're up and about."

"I'll need all the time I can get," Sienna remarked. "Training doesn't happen on its own."

"No, it does not," Salem concurred. "That attitude is precisely why I gave you Libra's abilities. They are potent, but that just means they require even greater care, same with that wretched man's curse. You'd think Mard Geer would have sought to give him something more complex than his magic, but I suppose that monster had more important things to bother with at the time."

Sienna raised an eyebrow. "Mard Geer? The one who made you what you are?"

"He gave me my Etherious part," Salem replied. "I was born a Celestial and the Umbral portion… a failed exercise in foolishness and cowardice."

"I see," Sienna remarked. The Queen had explained her history as well as the story of how exactly Remnant became the wasteland it was, but it always unnerved her how much venom was reserved for the demon who'd made her and the gods who'd damned her. "I take it Mard Geer's curse will not be making an appearance on the Gates?"

Salem waved the question off. "Zeref destroyed his book long ago. His curse died with it."

"But if it hadn't, would you have used it?"

The Queen frowned. "… it would have to go to someone with a will beyond any other. To maintain one's sanity during the process of integrating that madman into their being… I could never allow his influence to return to this world."

Sienna nodded, her eyes flickering past Salem manipulating the silver-haired boy within his tube and onto the dark, bulky capsule at the back of the lab. The Ascension Chamber looked deceptively out of place in the hall of eldritch Grimm incubators and floating lifeless demonic bodies, more a mechanical marvel than a mystical transformation device.

But the tiger faunus had no doubts about its wondrous abilities. All she needed to do was glance at her reflection in the nearby glass tube to see how she'd been reborn. As the rest of the world thought 'Sienna Khan' to have finally been 'put down' by the crusader of justice that was Esper Rosenflos, her physical form had needed to be altered so she could continue to act in public. Her silky black hair now had several orange streaks running through it, while her facial features had their layout slightly altered in order to change the distance between them. Her striped tattoos along her body had also been shifted from horizontal to vertical.

The changes were even more apparent given the contents of the tube she was looking into. A partly mangled copy of her old self, leftover waste from the trial attempts to create the corpse Esper presented to the Mistral Council.

Part of her wondered if she should have been sad about the loss of her old identity, but she couldn't find it within herself to mope about the matter. Her followers were aware of her plan and knew she was still alive, and she could correct Ghira and Kali of the misconception that she was dead as soon as she saw them. She'd lost little in the transformation and gained so very much.

"Oh, Sienna, before I forget, your book is complete," Salem said. "We'll have to wait until Summer gets here to ship it off to Atlas with the others, but until then I thought you'd be more comfortable keeping it on you."

Sienna nodded and strode over to the Ascension Chamber, plucking the demonic tome from its system. She might have come to consider the Queen a friend, but something as crucial as her very being? That was something that she would keep under her own protection, at least until the literally impregnable vault was available.

As she cradled it in her hands, Hazel marched into the lab. The towering Eclipse Etherious walked over to the tube containing the Gate of the Twin Fish, his eyes turning soft at the sight of the young man within. "Poor boy."

Sienna turned towards the capsule, taking a real look at the teenager, child really, floating within the thick violet liquid. His limbs were patched and skeletal, his arms larger than his legs, which were more flailing tendrils than solid limbs. His flesh was gray and patchy, his head adorned with tuffs of silver hair.

But his eyes were the worst part. They were just… dead. Pupils that should have been so full of life just blankly stared ahead, not seeing a thing. Or perhaps seeing something the rest of them had been blessed to never experience.

"He has died. Such is never a pleasant experience, especially the first time. Most are fortunate to only have to do so once," Salem remarked, her dark eyes filled with pity for the boy. "His previous body lacked legs, so we'll have to build them from scratch rather than using the blueprint from his ascension."

"But he'll be alive again, correct?" Sienna inquired. "You really can bring back the dead?"

"Indeed," Salem confirmed. "Does that disturb you, Sienna? To see such an unnatural thing in practice?"

The tiger faunus chuckled. "I've heard more than enough people claiming to be my better say that my people's 'natural' place is to be animals or slaves. As far as I'm concerned, nature can go fuck itself. If the world isn't as it should be, it falls to us to make it what it can be. If Hell's Core can give us more chances to do that, then it's extraordinary."

A warm smile blossomed across Salem's cold face. "My, my, Hazel, why did we even bother with that wretched bull in the first place, when such a perfect candidate has been here in plain sight?"

"I believe Cinder made first contact, your grace," Hazel reminded her. "Taurus was one of her agents during The Fall of Beacon."

Salem's smile vanished, the room seeming to grow darker in its absence. "Ah, yes. That."

"I hope that you don't expect me to partake in something so pointlessly bloody," Sienna warned. "The Grimm are the common enemy of humans and faunus. If another attack is in the cards—"

"It isn't," Salem assured her, her pale, veined hands clenching into fists in frustration. "That girl… I should have disciplined her after Beacon. But I was too excited about Wendy and Carla and finally being able to safely approach Team RWBY, and because of my negligence she nearly killed Erza's daughter. Because of course Ozpin just had to choose this Pyrrha Nikos to be his Fall Maiden candidate—"

"Pyrrha Nikos?" Sienna interrupted, quickly connecting the dots from what the Queen had said. "Fairy Tail's Erza is Scarlet Nikos?"

Salem cocked an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Scarlet Nikos? Five-time champion of the Mistral Regional Professional Tournaments? Undefeated over a hundred matches? Youngest ever entrant into the Armed Fighting Hall of Fame?" Sienna elaborated. After listing every accomplishment, the two Eclipse Etherious before her just looked more and more confused before the tiger faunus merely sighed. "I take it you don't get CCT pay-per-view out here?"

"Well, we probably could," Hazel informed her, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "But Watts doesn't care about it, Summer was busy with her infiltration of Atlas, it's not bloody enough for Tyrian… and I don't really find it entertaining. Too close to real life for me."

"So what do you watch in your downtime? Romantic comedies?" Sienna teased.

Hazel glanced away. "… yes."

Sienna couldn't help but crack up, pressing her palm over her lips. She couldn't help it! There was nothing wrong with a good romantic comedy, but her mind just couldn't help flashing back to Ghira tastefully bowing out of her and Kali's ladies' nights of beer, hot Mistralian food, and lots of televised combat. Substituting the Gate of the Bull into the scene just made it even more hilarious.

Salem groaned, the eldritch witch pressing her palm over her face. "Erza was on Remnant for eighteen years, and we didn't know because none of us watch professional sports."

Sienna shrugged. "Not even the most skilled leader in history can command coincidence in their favor."

"That is a lesson the universe never seems to tire of teaching me," Salem groaned, wiping her fingers down her face to reveal a simmering scowl of fury. "Yang will be arriving shortly and Summer soon after. I must prepare and I have no time to deal with Cinder's stupidity. Her death will serve as punishment enough, and I will have Summer make sure the lesson sticks. And if it does not? I will step in personally. Her petty desires will not jeopardize my reunion with my friends."

Sienna gulped, unconsciously taking a small shuffle back. Salem was affable, generous, and eager to build friendships, but one could never forget what she was. An ancient Eclipse Etherious that had studied arts that would have driven others mad, that had built a shadow syndicate capable of taking over a kingdom with ease, that even now could tear her and Hazel both apart with ease if she so chose.

Even her genuine kindness did not belay that threat. After all, someone who was always angry or malicious could always be counted on to be angry or malicious, predicted and corralled. A benevolent person? When they snapped, the heavens cowered.

Salem's dark orbs flickered over to the regeneration pod adorned with the symbol of the Gate of the Archer. The empty pod.

Sienna narrowed her eyes at that. End had reported that Cinder's mystical signature had disappeared during the Battle of Haven. If she understood the nature of the maidens correctly, that should only have been possible if she had died, just like Mercury.

So why wasn't she back yet?

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

She'd hadn't been woken by the shouting. She'd gotten hungry for a midnight snack and snuck down to the kitchen to grab some cookies from the pantry.

But on the way back to her room, she'd passed by her father's office. And at that point, she couldn't have missed the shouting if she'd tried.

"Ben, please listen to me!"

"You used me! You've been using me from the beginning!"

She pressed her eye up against the door crack and peered inside. Father was stomping towards the hag, looking more furious than Ella had ever seen him, even when she'd been throwing a tantrum about not wanting to take a family photo.

Meanwhile, the hag had tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Ella hadn't thought she was capable of crying, but the clear liquid was dribbling down her cheeks.

"It was about that at the beginning," the wretched woman pleaded. "But I didn't expect… to care… we want the same thing! To stop this madness! To stop the Hunters for Humanity and their bigot allies from starting a war!"

"By bribing them? By assassinating them?" father roared. "I may find their views despicable, but they have the right to hold and express them!"

"Even if it gets hundreds of thousands of people killed?!"

"I am not Atlas's pawn! And my home is not their dollhouse—"

Her father froze, his eyes widening as the door came into his line of sight.

Ella gulped. He had seen her. She was sure of it. She was all for seeing the hag get a tongue lashing, but this conversation felt… different. Heavier. She wasn't sure if she should leave or not, but she found herself frozen to the floor. Terrified.

Her father quickly recollected himself, nailing his glare onto the hag. "My duty is to the people of Mistral. Whether I agree with the others they elect or not, I am duty-bound to serve them, not circumvent their democracy!"

"You're acting like they're not already doing that! Gerrymandering faunus districts, intimidating away voters, this 'democracy' is a joke of a popularity contest where demagogues' hatred rules!" the hag spat, her biting fire bursting through her tears. "What is the point of serving the people's whims when they only lead to carnage and death? You can't follow a path that you know is wrong!"

"And what is the right path?! Whatever Atlas says it is!? Get out!"

"Do you want another Faunus War breaking… out…" the hag's brow furrowed, slowly turning towards the door. "You weren't talking to me just now. Who is behind—"

"Get out!" Ella's father yelled, now certainly referring to his wife. "Get out of this city, get out of this kingdom! I will expose this horrendous conspiracy to the world—"

"Don't be an idiot, Benjamin!" the hag screamed. "If you do that the entire world will be engulfed in war—"

"Then let there be war! It is the only recourse when diplomacy breaks down!"

The hag snapped back as if she'd been slapped. For a few brief seconds, Ella wondered if the iron lady that was Eleanor Tremaine would collapse into sobs.

But then that moment ended and the tears dried from her cheeks, the temperature of the room rising as her yellow eyes solidified with resolve.

"You are correct. War is the only recourse available to nations when diplomacy breaks down. Which is why I will do whatever is necessary to keep diplomacy from breaking down. No matter who I have to kill, be they man, woman… or child."

Eleanor glanced back, her hellish stare immediately zeroing in on Ella through the door crack. A giant cat made of flames manifested from thin air, its fiery fangs barred at the entrance. "I'm so sorry, Benjamin."

"Ella, run!" her father screamed, already charging towards his wife with a letter knife from his desk.

She should have listened to him. She should have run. Eleanor was a fully trained huntress, and she'd only just begged Ana to unlock her aura. There was nothing she could do, no way she could fight back. She needed to force her way through her fear. She needed to flee!

But she saw Eleanor raise a pistol towards her father. He didn't even have his aura unlocked, he'd never been a huntsman. She'd kill him! She'd take her father's life!

His life… was precious to her. It had to be protected.

And a huntress would have the strength to protect him!

"Father!"

Ella's feet moved, they moved through her fear. But she did not run away. Instead, she grabbed the doorknob and tore the entrance open, dashing towards Eleanor's looming fire cat.

Just as silver light filled her eyes.

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

She didn't know how long she'd been there. Salem had told her that the Vaults led to other dimensions, pocket domains where time flowed differently. One day in the Celestial Spirit World was three months on Remnant, while in the Umbral Spirit World it was the reverse. She had no idea what the comparison rate was in the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

Not that she could tell how many days had passed. The sun never set over the endless desert, its constant scorching heat bombarding the dunes without reprieve. Sand mixed into the rancid, dead flesh of her sides, cauterized to keep her wounds from granting her a quick death.

She couldn't die. She couldn't. She needed to be there when the vault door opened up, one of her allies smashing Raven Branwen into the entrance. Maybe it would be End, maybe it would be Teacher, but she needed to be there, to get out.

Because… because she didn't know what would happen if she died in a pocket dimension. If she was on Remnant, she knew she'd go back to Hell's Core, but if she expired in the vault…

She was afraid.

It had taken her… days? Weeks? Months? A great deal of time had gone by before she'd been able to come to that conclusion. She'd raged first, summoning firestorms where the vault gate should have been and casting down lightning to turn the sand to glass. Flames spewed from her mouth as she cursed Erza Scarlet, Raven Branwen, Pyrrha Nikos, Wendy Marvell, and Ruby Rose.

Eventually however, her well of fury ran dry and there was nothing left for her to do but fall to her knees. The Fall Maiden pulled her legs against her chest and curled into a ball, sobs racking her body as tears poured over her ruined dress.

It was pathetic. Cinder Fall was strong. She was feared. She was powerful. She shouldn't have been afraid. Not of some other world, not of Erza Scarlet, not of anyone. She was the Fall Maiden, the Gate of the Archer!

So why?! Why!?

Why was she still so WEAK?!

She'd been crushed by Erza Scarlet. She'd been crushed by Wendy Marvell. She kept getting beaten, no matter what she did.

She couldn't give up. She couldn't give in. She had to survive.

Which meant she first had to die.

It was the obvious conclusion. Raven Branwen could escape halfway across the world while End was distracted with the rest of the battle and the Relic was likely gone with her. The rest of the Gates had no reason to come to the Vault, no knowledge that she was trapped. They'd simply be confused why she'd already respawned back to the Grimmlands.

Her only chance to escape was to die. If the pocket dimension really did put her beyond the reach of Hell's Core, then she was finished. But it wasn't like anyone else was going to save her. Teacher was the only one who'd try and she had no idea The Fall Maiden was in danger. She'd have to gamble everything.

Even still, she hesitated. With her healing factor, her aura, and her Scarab, there would only be one surefire way to ensure her suicide worked. And the pain that would ensue from it…

She must have spent years in that damned desert, huddled in a ball against the dunes, paralyzed by fear. Her skin cooked crimson under the unrelenting sun, her throat hoarse from heat and lack of sustenance. How ironic that she would have died of thirst if she was still a lowly human, her problem solved with no need of courage.

But the world had demanded courage from her since she was eight years old. She had long learned to give as good as she got.

She took a deep breath, the air like sandpaper against her throat, and held out her hand. An eldritch sigil glimmered black and red over her palm, and her Scarab Grimm quickly skittered out into the open, a thin, dark thread keeping it attached to her inner body. Even still, as it remained outside, she felt the weakening of its protection, the flash of fire coursing through her insides as gold flickered through her vision.

She hunched over, her muscles cramping as she tried to stifle her grunts of pain. This was nothing compared to what she'd been through. Nothing compared to what she was about to go through.

Orange light flared over her opposite hand, a long glass dagger materializing into her grip. Cinder gulped, one final indulgence of dread as she put the image of the person she could easily reclaim her maiden powers from in her mind.

With a flick of her wrist, she sliced the beetle-like Grimm in two.

The insect's skittering death knell was followed by her own. Without the Umbral Spirit's specialized protection, the consequences of housing masses of Spirit Slayer energy in a body that was half Celestial Spirit quickly made themselves apparent. Agony erupted through Cinder's body, her muscles sheared apart as cracks of infernal light split across her skin.

And just like the night Ella Autumn died, silver light consumed her vision.

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

As Yang and Jaune were herded off the bullhead by End and Emerald, the Fire Devil Slayer couldn't help but gulp in trepidation.

When she'd just been talking about coming to the Grimmlands to help her friends, the idea had seemed so simple. But now? The blood-red sky and dark mountainous landscape would have been intimidating enough on their own, but their current position on the stone landing pad gave them an up-close view of the hellscape's main attraction.

Salem's castle was pretty much exactly what Yang had always imagined Tartoros's headquarters looking like, a towering fortress of black stone and jagged purple dust crystals, surrounded by hoards of Grimm circling the perimeter, The Queen's personal guard dogs. Or vultures, waiting for the chance to dive in and devour their prey, if End was to be believed.

No, she couldn't think like that. He was leaving something out. Salem couldn't be Sitara. It didn't make sense that she'd be trying to wipe out humanity like Uncle Qrow said.

Of course, Uncle Qrow had gotten his information from Professor Ozpin…

"Hey, you good?" Jaune inquired, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Your face was all scrunched up."

Yang sighed. "Sorry. Just… a lot on my mind."

The leader of Team JNPR glanced towards the gargantuan stronghold before them, unable to hide the retreat of color from his face. "Yeah, that seems appropriate given the circumstances. We're pretty much in the lion's den at this point."

"No need to be so glum, Mr. Arc," End assured them, merrily striding towards the castle gates. "You'll find no danger here, only friends."

Yang cocked an eyebrow, her gaze flickering over to the snarling perimeter of Grimm, each of them ancient behemoths too powerful for any regular huntsman to defeat. Hell, considering the Goliaths among them were the babies of the bunch, she doubted if entire teams could kill them.

End followed her gaze and chuckled. "Not to worry. The Queen may not control the Grimm worldwide, but she is perfectly capable of commanding them away from her immediate area. And even if she were to flounder temporarily, I can handle them."

Yang didn't doubt that. Whenever any of the monsters had tried to attack them on their flight to the castle, he'd scared them off with only a few bursts of sapphire flames. Which should have been impossible. Given what Blake had said, the Grimm didn't have fear to feel.

Though if there was anyone to invent it for, the Ophiuchus was certainly a worthy inspiration.

"Come on, now!" End grinned, striding forward. "She's been waiting an eternity to see you again, Yang."

"Right, so you say," the blonde huntress murmured.

She and Jaune walked across the landing platform, Emerald keeping behind them. They weren't being corralled exactly, but the green-haired terrorist kept her hands close to her pistols. Not that making a run for the airship was an option when Happy was still locking it down and End was right in front of them.

"Sorry about this," Jaune whispered. "We went to Haven to rescue you, and now…"

"Hey, don't sweat it, Vomit Boy," Yang nudged him, flashing a confident grin to supplement her teasing use of his old nickname. "You don't die for your friends, and you sure as hell don't make them die for you. Don't worry. I've got a plan to get us out of this mess."

"Really?" Jaune asked, ignoring Emerald's eye-roll behind them. "Because we're surrounded by Grimm and I don't think either of us knows how to pilot an airship. So unless you can fly—wait! Can you fly?"

"Heh, no luck there," Yang sniggered.

"Why not?" Jaune queried, his baby blue eyes flickering down to her twin Purple Flare arms. "I mean, if you can make them arms, couldn't you make them wings?"

"Of course, I… um…" Yang's brow furrowed as she failed to come up with an actual response.

Up ahead, End cackled as he reached the castle gates. "The boy's a mad genius, just like your sister! All power has limits Yang, but don't impose them on yourself before reality does."

Jaune flinched, a sheepish look overtaking his face, but Yang waved him off. Just because the fire demon was extolling him didn't mean he'd done anything wrong.

In fact, he raised quite a good point. The blonde Devil Slayer glanced down at her Purple Flare arms, wiggling the talons of violet flame. If her fight against Mercury proved anything to her, it was that her power was far more versatile than she'd first thought. And if she could learn to make use of that, she could become an even stronger wizard. Though, that enterprise was not without its own idiosyncrasies.

Her gaze shifted to her right stump, the image of the putrid black flesh that adorned it in her transformed state flashed through her mind's eye. How long before that little addition to her body was permanent? Sure, it might regrow her arm, but becoming a demon…

Her dad said he'd love her no matter what she became. She wanted to believe him. She knew he thought he was telling the truth. But Raven had abandoned her when she was only a baby for no good reason, tossed her aside without a second thought. If her magic really turned her into a demon, if her father really saw what that meant, would he still call her his little firecracker? Or just another—

"Yang!"

Well, not that, probably just monster—wait!

She knew that voice!

Yang's head shot up, her violet eyes widening as a black and white blur rushed out of the castle gate and slammed into her. The golden-haired huntress's vision spun as she was lifted off her feet and squashed in a bone-crushing embrace.

"Yang!" Jaune shouted, panic saturated in his shrill voice. He and Emerald had leapt back when the shadow charged out, but the blond huntsman recovered himself far quicker than the Eclipse Etherious. He had lost his weapons at Haven, his armor and clothing melted and torn to shreds. Still, he balled his fists and made to charge—

Only for End to step into his path and keep him back.

"No need for worry," the demon said. "She's just excited to see her old friend."

Old friend?

No. No, that couldn't be true. That was impossible.

But as the hug ended and Yang was set back down to the ground, she had a perfect view of the being who'd rushed her.

It was a woman. A tall, voluptuous woman in an elegant black gown. Her skin was ashen gray and covered in a dark web of putrid essence. Her eyes were shining rubies set against pitch-black whites, the utter euphoria blazing within them seemingly alien within their hellish appearance.

But it wasn't to Yang, whose memory had already painted them a brilliant sky blue.

"Sitara?" she whispered, confusion and horror seeping through her throat.

It was her. The face may have been chalk-white, but the structure was the same, the dark lines crawling down from her eyes the same that appeared when she'd accessed her Etherious side on Earthland. Her hair was no longer bright yellow like starlight, flowing like a brilliant field of gold. Now it was pale like bone, done up in an elaborate bun.

Yet her smile, the pure, innocent joy that radiated off her face at the sight of Yang, was exactly as the huntress remembered it.

"Wait, Sitara?" Jaune repeated, his eyes whipping between the Grimm woman and Yang. "As in, the Sitara that made the book?"

"I am. Though, these days I go by Salem," The elegant lady chuckled, turning towards the young huntsman. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Arc. End and Ruby both speak quite highly of you."

"Uh? Thank you?" Jaune replied, obviously unsure how to approach the insane situation that had materialized before him.

Yang was in a similar boat, her mind whirling as she tried to process the proof before her.

Sitara was Salem. Salem was Sitara. End had told her the truth. But that meant… that meant…

"You sent Cinder to Beacon," Yang numbly said. "Torchwick, the White Fang, Adam, it was all you. They worked for you."

Salem sighed, her shoulders slumping with far more exhaustion than Yang had ever imagined the overlord of the Grimm showing. "I should never have given Cinder such a free hand in that operation. The battle that cost you your arm should never have happened. I am truly sorry for what you've had to go through, my friend. Rest assured, Adam Taurus has paid the price for his treacherous schemes. And Cinder's punishment—"

"Gah!"

Yang and Jaune whirled around, catching Emerald stumbling back across the landing platform, the thief's palms clawing at her face.

But when they fell a moment later, her crimson eyes were surrounded by ethereal orange flames, a flood of ethernano suddenly surging out of her.

"No," Emerald muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. "No, it can't be."

"Took it long enough," End snorted. "For a while there I worried Cinder had screwed up even more than we'd thought. Tracking that thing down to a new random host would have been a pain."

"Indeed," Salem mused, her lips pressed thin in annoyance. "Such a risk should never have entered the equation. Though, congratulations are in order, Emerald. It seems you are our new Fall Maiden."

"New… Maiden…" Emerald stammered, fear dominating her wide eyes. "But Cinder—"

"Has lost this mantle due to her own folly," Salem declared. "This new status quo will serve as a fraction of her punishment. Considering the magnitude of her failures, she should count herself lucky that I am in an especially charitable mood."

"Okay, stop!" Yang shouted, the flame of anger erupting through her fear and confusion. She stomped across the causeway and rounded on Salem, her eyes a vivid scarlet. "The Sitara I knew didn't sponsor terrorists or wage millennia-long shadow wars with huntsmen!"

"I don't know what Ozpin has told you—"

"Don't change the subject!" Yang snarled. "It is readily apparent that Ozpin has left out more than a few important details, but as far as I know, he hasn't sent Cinder to murder an innocent woman!"

"She didn't either," End revealed. "Cinder was given the Scarab so that she could extract the Fall Maiden's power nonlethally. Amber was young enough that she would have survived the process just fine if Qrow hadn't interrupted—"

"Don't blame this on my uncle!"

"I'm not trying to. I'm trying to explain—"

"I don't want you to explain!" Yang proclaimed, rearing back to Salem and poking a flaming finger into her chest. "I want you to explain! No more lies! No more half-truths! Explain to me what the hell is going on before I check to see if your big fancy castle has a melting point!"

For a few moments after her outburst, the only sound that could be heard was the menagerie of growls and caws from the circling Grimm. No one spoke, no one moved. All eyes were focused on Salem, the Mother of Grimm's stoic gaze locked on her old friend.

The black veins over her ashen arms extended over her milky flesh, creeping across like worms tunneling through her body. Yang actually thought she heard some sort of intelligible, dark hissing emanating from the markings.

"Kil… Cul… troy the human…"

"No," Salem decreed, her voice soft yet implacable. "I will not hurt my friend."

The markings retreated, their hissing silenced.

Yang cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

Salem shot her old friend a fond smile, though it was tinged with regret. "I am so sorry for everything you've had to go through because of my weakness. Rest assured, I have never, nor will I ever, lie to you."

"That's great if you are who you say you are," Jaune spoke up. Everyone turned towards the blond huntsman, who jammed a finger towards Emerald. "She's literally a shapeshifter. How do we know that just because you apparently look like this Sitara person, you're actually her?"

Salem's smile actually grew at the boy's accusation. "Ruby always said you were smart."

The Grimm woman reached a hand within her cloak and pulled out a familiar tome adorned with an eye emblem with a star above it and the crossed hammers of Tartaros. The book that had started it all.

"That doesn't prove anything," Jaune pointed out. "We already know you ordered Cinder to put that in Team RWBY's room."

"But do you know how we acquired it on Earthland?" Salem challenged. She glanced towards Yang. "It was a thrilling escapade. Weeks of tracking it down, only for it to be bait in a Tartaros trap, with Mard Geer waiting to imprison me in a special portable Alegria. If you four hadn't freed me, I would have been turned into his lab rat."

"And if you hadn't saved us from them, we would have been turned into corpses," Yang finished, a clump of nervousness swallowed down her throat.

She'd entertained the notion that she was being deceived when Jaune had raised the idea, but the only people who knew the details of that encounter were her team and Sitara. Even if Emerald hypothetically knew about it thanks to copying Yang's memories with Gemini, she had no way of telling Salem the details of that specific event, nor reason to believe it'd be necessary prior to that very moment.

"It is you," the Fire Devil Slayer gulped. She warily pointed towards the book. "I thought you said you'd never put Tartaros's emblem on it."

Salem smirked, stowing the tome back into her robe. "The demands of maintaining the timeline. You told me that the crossed hammers were on the cover. Therefore, in order to ensure that everything played out without accidentally erasing us all from history, I had to put it there. After all, the impetus for you all to stay in Fairy Tail and learn magic rather than immediately setting out in search of a way home was the fact that you could not overcome Tartaros's power as you were when you arrived."

Yang frowned, but she couldn't find any flaw in the Queen's logic. Even putting aside the tightrope of temporal consistency, she remembered how she and her team were when they'd first arrived on Earthland. They were eager to learn magic as a curiosity, but the moment they had the slightest lead on a way home, they'd tried to bolt from the guild. Only the fact that the lead was Tartaros had led to Erza and Natsu knocking some sense into them, fueling their drive to throw themselves into their training with gusto while at the same time leading them to integrate into the guild. If Salem hadn't done what she'd done, they might have never become Fairy Tail wizards.

"Okay, that's part of the explanation," the blonde huntress conceded. "Now start spilling the rest."

"Gladly," Salem promised. "But it is a long story. I suggest we take this somewhere more comfortable."

The original Eclipse Etherious turned and glided through the castle gates, End following close behind.

Jaune came up beside Yang. "Are we really doing this?"

"Not really much choice," the fire wizard noted.

She strode forward into the depths of hell, still confounded by the knowledge that the devil called her friend.

This chapter was more fun than I thought it'd be to write. It's mostly meant to set up some larger world stuff for later while catching up with Salem's faction similarly to the faction on Patch last chapter.

Neptune's scene was mostly to catch up on how the Mistral public views the events of Haven, while also showing that there are not going to Shade in this timeline. Which is more important than one might think at first, given how their presence assists Team CFVY in the books. Also, I couldn't find any information on Sage's personality beyond 'stoic' in my research, so I just played that for all it's worth.

I was not expecting to enjoy writing Sienna so much, but the way she bounces off Hazel and Salem is just a blast. I was looking forward to both Yang's reunion with Salem and Cinder's breaking here for a while and I found this section the most fun to write. One of the nice things about actually writing out a story you think up, I suppose. You find little details and interactions you couldn't have come up with in planning.

Cinder has more trauma flashbacks and her time in the Vault is even less fun expected, stranded for quite a while in her perspective instead of the days it was in Remnant's time. Among other matters, losing the Fall Maiden powers to Emerald (Salem is not going to let her be given them back) is going to be a factor in her upcoming development.

Lastly, a member of Team RWBY finally reunites with Sitara in present day. Yang's emotions are all over the place. Of all Team RWBY, she places the most stock in personal loyalty, so she finds that conflicting with the knowledge of the woman she knew and the shadowy mastermind who she's been told is the root of all evil in the world by her mentors, with only End and Salem attempting to give her a look at the bigger picture.

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

Go Forth and Conquer!