A big welcome to MasterPrince713, who joins this story team as a beta!
Beta-ed by xenosaiyan and MasterPrince713
Raven waved her hand and unleashed a towering wave of flames against the charging horde of Grimm. By the time the Spring Maiden's glow faded from her crimson eyes, a dozen Beowolves and Ursa had been reduced to ash, the storm clouds she'd conjured subduing the blaze before it could spread throughout the rest of the forest.
Unfortunately, in her efforts to keep the Patch woods from burning down, she also drenched both herself and Taiyang in a battering downpour.
"I'm sorry," she stammered, reigniting the maiden's light over her eyes. "I'll get rid of this in a second—"
"Forget it," Tai demanded, already marching down the dirt road further into the island. "We've lost too much time already."
Raven winced, her gaze reluctantly tracking her ex-husband, his clothes clinging to his muscular form as he trudged through the rain.
Of all her old team, Taiyang was the only one who'd never 'seen' her since she'd departed all those years ago. She'd seen him several times when she'd been watching over Yang in her bird form, but he'd never caught sight of her, never got to talk to her. Probably part of the reason being around him was so awkward now. Summer had been able to track her down, Qrow had told her exactly what he'd thought of her multiple times during her exile, but the man she'd loved had been forced to keep his feelings to himself. Her spying back at the house had confirmed the fears she'd shared with Ozpin, that her ex-husband had no intention of forgiving her. Perhaps she deserved it.
No, she definitely deserved it. What they'd learned from Jinn had confirmed it. When she'd only known about Salem's immortality, she'd killed the previous Spring Maiden to keep her from defecting to their supposed enemy, thinking the Queen wanted to wipe out humanity. Now, she knew she was working to save it. Which meant Raven had killed the girl for nothing. Hell, if she'd let her go, let her live, maybe End wouldn't have butchered Vernal and the rest of her tribe. Maybe she wouldn't have failed them like everyone else.
Ozpin had floundered in his attempts to be kind, but her attempts to be pragmatic had hardly yielded better results. She had her doubts about her old teacher's revealed plan, or rather lack thereof, but it wasn't as if it was a problem she could run from. And if she was going to fight, she needed to at least try to repair the bridges she'd burnt. The fact that doing so might allow her to reclaim some facsimile of the happiest time of her life, the glory days of Team STRQ, was a nice bonus, if not one easily achieved.
"Tai," she spoke up. "I'm sorry."
Her former teammate waved her off and kept walking away. "It's just a little rain, Raven. I don't care—"
"No, not that," she clarified, her old lover finally pausing in his tracks. "For leaving. I'm sorry for leaving. I know it probably doesn't mean much now of all times… but you deserve at least that."
For a moment, Tai stood still, doing nothing as the downpour pattered off his broad shoulders. Then, he started moving again.
"Qrow's tracks lead to the cabin," he noted. "Makes sense. That's one of his favorite places to drift to."
"Urgh… right," Raven replied, following after him. The most important thing at the moment was finding Qrow before her brother got himself killed in his despair. They could handle the half-baked mess between them later. "If he's no longer on the move, do you want to portal to him?"
Once more, Tai paused, this time turning towards her and nodding. Whatever rage he held towards her, his concern for his partner outweighed it.
Raven drew Stalwart Stem and got working on the gateway. Yet, as her sword was slowly crafting the swirling door, she couldn't help but glance at the blond.
"It wasn't your fault. I just want to make sure that you know that," she said. "I left because I lost hope after I found out—"
"That Salem was immortal?" Tai interjected. When her eyes widened, his glare only intensified. "I figured that was the bit you knew beforehand. And don't worry, I get it."
A bit of hope dared to flutter in Raven's heart. "You do?"
"Yeah. I just don't care," Tai revealed, scoffing while her expression showed her hope dying. "What the hell did you expect, Raven? We were your team. We were your family. I… I loved you. And you left us without a word, abandoned Yang without a word, so that you could spend nearly two decades slaughtering innocent people across Anima."
"I know," Raven weakly answered. "It's not something I'm proud of."
"Good."
The portal finished forming before them, the red and black doorway grown to human size. Tai didn't waste a second before marching through it.
Raven only hesitated a moment longer before she followed him out of the rain. A moment she spent wondering what things might have been like if she'd just forgotten what she'd learned from Jinn the first time.
Would her silence have bought the life of her best friend and Tai's second love?
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Summer hated this.
Years. Nearly five years since she'd last seen her partner, her best friend, and their encounter had led to her straddling Raven in some rundown SDC mining town tavern, one of her many knives at the other woman's throat as she knocked Omen away.
"No," she snarled. "No, running this time."
Infuriatingly, Raven smirked at her, wiggling her hips as she tried to shake her partner's pin.
"Come on, Summer," the red-eyed huntress taunted. "I know what Tai is capable of firsthand. You can't have missed me that much-"
"No flirty mind games either!" Summer demanded. "We need to talk. Now."
Raven's smirk vanished. She held her leader's silver glare for a moment before nodding.
Summer peeled herself off of Raven, snatching up Omen as she went. With the rest of the tavern's occupants having been frightened away by the risk of getting caught in the crossfire between a pair of huntresses, the leader of Team STRQ was able to lean against the now abandoned bar counter with impunity. She wasn't proud of scaring off innocent people, but this was not a reunion she'd let portal away.
She gestured towards the elaborate Grimm mask on the table beside Raven. "That's new."
Her partner rose to her feet. "A gift from an old acquaintance of Oz. She said she'd had a vision that I'd need it 'to hide until the day came when I was ready to fight'."
"Sounds like a friend of Oz," Summer noted. "Care to stop hiding from your family in the meantime?"
Raven snorted, gesturing about the wrecked bar. "You found me well enough."
"After years of searching!"
"Well, I told Qrow why I'm not coming back—"
"Qrow doesn't know I'm here. Neither does Tai, or Oz, or anyone," Summer revealed.
She loved Qrow with all her heart, but he was hardly the most diplomatic person in the world. And Ozpin would probably try to turn this into a mission to get Raven back into the Inner Circle, and as much as Summer would love that, it was far more important to her that she just get her partner back. That Yang and Ruby got their other mother and aunt back.
"It's just us here," she insisted. "This isn't about Oz, or Salem, or any of that. This is about our family. Your daughter, Rae. She deserves her mother."
"She has her!" Raven responded, throwing her arm towards Summer. "I've seen you with her. You're super mom! Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters! She doesn't need me. She doesn't even know I exist, and trust me, if my recent experiences have taught me anything, it's that ignorance is most assuredly bliss."
Summer's fist slammed down on the bar counter, the polished wood cracking under her blow. "Don't try to sell me this crisis of confidence shit. I know you, Raven. I remember how excited you were when you found out you were pregnant. You've never been one to run from a challenge, you'd have gone back to the tribe if you were. So why are you acting like a coward now?"
"I am not a coward!" Raven shouted. "It's not cowardice not to fight a war that can't be won!"
"Can't be… this… this really is just about Salem?" Summer queried. The white-cloaked huntress set Omen down on the counter and strode towards her partner, her expression soft and silver eyes reassuring. "Raven, you're scared that we can't win. That this war will last another generation and you'll have to watch Yang fight it. But I promise you, it won't. I can beat her—"
"There is no 'beating' Salem!" Raven yelled. "He's been lying to you, Summer! He's been lying to all of us!"
"Raven, don't be ridiculous. Why would he do that? It makes no sense," Summer argued. "He's the one who told us about Salem and magic in the first place. We've seen that it's real, that the Gates are real, and they have to be fought. How would keeping the truth from us help him win the war?"
"He doesn't plan on winning!"
"Then what? He plans on her winning? If he wanted that to happen, he'd literally just have to do nothing for the last thousand years—"
"She's immortal!" Raven roared. "Did he tell you that?!"
Summer flinched back as if she'd been slapped, her conciliatory demeanor shattered. "… what?"
Raven's rage evaporated, her body trembling as she sank back atop the table. "She's immortal. Unkillable. Lionheart and I asked the Relic of Knowledge… and I've spent the last few years trying to find a loophole. DiMaria was my last chance and she just confirmed it."
"But… immortal…" Summer murmured. "If she's immortal, how are we supposed to stop her?"
"Stop her?" Raven chuckled without mirth. "Open your eyes, Summer! We can't stop her! Ozpin's been lying to us from the start so we'll be his weapons in a war that can't be won!"
Her eyes… Ozpin… the first words Ozpin ever spoke to her.
'You have silver eyes.'
The Grimm had taken her parents before she was ten. She'd had to scrape by to keep ahead of them. She'd gone to Beacon to find a home. And she had. Raven, Qrow, Tai, they were her family. And Headmaster Ozpin was the father who'd shown her the way. To be a huntress. To be a hero.
He had faith in her. Faith that she could stop her, faith that she could save the world. But if she couldn't kill Salem, what did that faith mean— Oh. Oh, yes.
Now she understood.
Raven came forward and planted her hands on her leader's shoulders. "We have to run. We have to get away from this war before it kills us all. We need to protect Yang and Ruby, disappear somewhere neither Ozpin or Salem can come for us—"
"No," Summer resolutely stated. "We're not running. We're going to beat her."
"What?!" Raven squealed. "Summer, have you not been listening to a thing I said!? We can't kill her—"
"We don't need to kill her to stop her," Summer declared. "My eyes don't just kill Grimm. They turn them to stone. That means they can turn her to stone. She'll be powerless and then we'll have time to figure out another way to get rid of her for good."
"Ozpin has been at this for literal millennia!" Raven argued. "You're not the only Silver-Eyed Warrior in the world! If that were possible, don't you think he would have tried it by now?"
"Not just any Silver-Eyed Warrior can get past her allies," Summer pointed out. "That's why he needs us."
"You mean that's why he needs you," Raven growled, stalking away from her friend. "Summer Rose has to save the world!"
"Says the woman who ran away without a word!" Summer chastised. "I don't want to do this alone, but I will if I have to. Someone has to."
"Do this—" Raven's eyes widened. Her anger dissipated, replaced by terror, and she dashed back up to her partner. "Summer, you're not actually thinking of going after her?"
The cloaked huntress responded by smacking Omen into the other woman's hand.
"We can do it. Together," Summer insisted. "You need to know we can do it. We'll go in, I'll blast her, and you'll portal us out before the Ophiuchus even knows what's happening. Hell, maybe we'll even be able to grab statue Salem and bring her to Oz ourselves."
Raven stared at her with wide eyes, either awe or horror filling the depths of her scarlet orbs. Her gaze was locked on her partner, so full of hope and promise and light. All of which she wanted to share with her beloved teammate and have her in turn share it with Yang and Ruby.
A childish dream.
"You're a fool," Raven scoffed, tearing away her sword and stomping away. She swept her blade through the air and conjured a portal just as she snatched up her mask. "You and Oz deserve each other."
Summer clenched her hands into fists at her side, her silver orbs glaring into Raven's back. "You can't run from this, Raven! You're not this person you're trying to be!"
"Give me time," the shapeshifter sneered, slipping her Grimm mask over her face. "I'll get some practice."
"Raven!"
Summer's shout had no effect, and her partner strode through the gateway, consumed by her hopelessness.
She could not let this stand. Her partner, her best friend, practically her sister since that day their eyes had met at Beacon initiation all those years ago, was allowing fear to destroy the amazing huntress she'd grown into since she tore herself and her brother away from their bandit tribe for good. She was throwing away everything she'd ever wanted! She was throwing Yang away!
But Summer wasn't going to give up on her. She didn't give up on her when she'd learned why she and Qrow had really come to Beacon. She'd had faith that she'd make the right choice, and she did. Because Raven had hope that something better was waiting for her.
Summer had to provide her with that hope again. To save her team, to save her family. And to prove to Ozpin that his faith in her was not misplaced. She would be the huntress who killed the monster. Because if she didn't…
… if she didn't, then it would just fall to the next generation, to Ruby and Yang, to do it. And she refused to put that kind of burden on her children's shoulders.
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"You are beautiful."
Yang felt as if she'd been slapped, to hear those words in her mother's voice come out of this… thing. She refused to show weakness however, keeping her face stone-faced as the violet fire of her arms crackled on either side.
The golden-eyed facsimile of Summer Rose glanced over her stoicism, her face flickering with angelic concern and love that looked so, so genuine. It was a shotgun slug to the gut to know it was an illusion.
"You are beautiful," the phantom repeated. "All these years, I tried to watch you when I could. I mean, I couldn't in person, but I tried to have someone keep watch. Not often though, your father and uncle would have noticed most anyone I could send… After all these years, I know you must have questions…"
She stopped when she finally focused on the purple flames surrounding Yang, her face breaking out into a well of sorrow. "Your arms… they told you'd lost them, but I… oh gods… Yang… I am so, so sorry for what you've gone through—"
"This is sick," Yang growled.
The specter winced, risking a tentative step forward. "I know. What I've done is unforgivable, and I understand if you hate me. But firecracker—"
"Don't call me that!" Yang roared, her Purple Flare arms flaring up as this perversion dared to use her parents' nickname for her. "This is sick and wrong, Emerald. And I'm not playing this game."
"…Emerald?" the illusion repeated, blinking at the accusation. "You think I'm Emerald?"
"Don't toy with me, you bitch!" Yang shouted. "I spent enough time with Lucy to know how Gemini's powers work! You used Copy on me, and that means you have all my knowledge, including my memories! Add that little semblance of yours and presto-chango, you've got this little charade. Though, you should have studied a bit longer. You got the eyes wrong. Of course…"
Yang's arms split off into her multi-clawed form, half a dozen blazing violet limbs raging beside her. "If you'd actually thought about it, you wouldn't have tried this shit in the first place."
Strangely enough, the Devil Slayer's threat didn't have the effect she was hoping for. There was no calling about stories from her childhood to tug at her heartstrings, or the mirage dropping as the Gate cowered in fear.
No, the phantom of Summer Rose merely sighed, a pair of tears pricking out of her golden eyes. "You think I'm Emerald. I suppose it's only natural. What else did I leave for you to believe?"
"Shut up!" Yang spat, her flame fists rising. "Your little trick isn't working, so drop it so I pummel your face instead of my mom's!"
"It's not a trick," the illusion insisted. "It's me, Yang. It's mama."
"Aaarrgh!" Yang howled. Her fists shot out for the imposter, each claw riving to drag the green-haired bitch's true form out.
The phantom's dropped back, her hands darting into the folds of her robe and tossing out a trio of knives. In a flash of white light, each blade had spawned a new fake, just in time to be smashed by Yang's fists, returned to steel from flesh. But their swift demises provided enough time for their mistress to dart away, leaping on top of the guest chamber's nearest bed.
A thought fluttered through Yang's mind, the memory of her mother's semblance, the tricks she'd play with her blade clones to draw giggles from her and Ruby on their birthdays.
She dismissed it as quickly as it rose. It was impossible. Impossible…
"So you think faking her semblance is going to make me believe this farce?!" Yang shouted. "You can make me see whatever you want with your tricks!"
"But not feel," the phantom argued. "Emerald's semblance can't make you feel anything. And you felt each blow to my blade clones just now."
"That doesn't matter!" Yang grabbed hold of the underside of the bed and chucked it aside, the imposter leaping away to the center of the room, aided by a sudden burst of wind. "You faked that! I don't know how, but you faked—"
"This?"
Yang whirled around on the figure, only for her fury to be pierced by the sight of a maiden's glow surrounding her golden eyes. And she could feel the rush of ethernano leaking out of her.
"Big whoop," she flatly challenged, sneering. "I was there when you got the Fall Maiden's powers."
"These are the Winter Maiden's powers," the phantom pointed out. "Don't let your anger consume your mind, Yang. You're more than that. Reach out and feel the magic within the castle. Emerald is training with Salem as we speak."
Yang grit her teeth in a growl, but the moment the thought was put into her head, she couldn't stop the reflex to feel the magic around her. And she couldn't miss the fact that there were two volcanic spouts of ethernano overflowing in the castle, one of which was mixed in with the miasma she recognized as Emerald from Haven, right next to the distinctive signature of Salem. No matter what her shapeshifting or illusionary abilities, she couldn't use them so far away.
But… but that didn't… it didn't mean this woman was who she said she was.
"My mother is dead."
A tear slipped down the woman's cheek. "I did die, Yang. I died a huntress. I died a fool."
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Raven already had Omen's blade drawn, set down across the table in some nowhere bar in Mantle. Throngs of filthy patrons bustled around, miners back from their long shifts toasting with friends, some usual drunks singing off-key, and even a few activists fruitlessly yelling to gather support for protests against Council ignorance of their city's issues. All that noise, and to the former huntress, it was background at best to what her semblance was running through her.
A handy side effect of the emotional bonds that enabled her to form portals to others was a general sense of how much danger those people were in at any given moment. Back in her Beacon days, it had allowed her to save her teammates from a tight spot more than once, usually Tai or Qrow picking off more than they could chew. Summer was rarer.
Though, for the last few days, nothing could compare to the danger her semblance was screaming at her that her partner was in.
That idiot! She'd actually done it! After their last talk, when she'd told her Salem was immortal, Summer had actually gone with her idiotic plan to dive straight into the Grimmlands. And that brat was counting on her for an exit strategy, counting on Raven feeling how much danger she was in and teleporting in to save her from the inevitable reprisal from The Ophiuchus after she'd turned Salem to stone.
Well, she wouldn't. Summer would have to get used to the fact that just because she refused to get her head out of her ass and accept reality, didn't mean Raven was going to die for her war. For days, she'd felt flashes of immense danger for her friend, probably as she went on her one-woman commando mission through the Grimmlands, using her eyes and her skills to take down every ancient Grimm in her path as she made her way across the continent.
And she certainly didn't know that for sure because she'd broken down and portalled in just to make sure her leader was alright in the dead of night. And she most certainly hadn't caught the other huntress blowing away a petrified Wyvern's head with a blast from her eyes before immediately ducking back to Mantle before she was seen.
No. She had stayed strong, done the smart thing, and stayed away. The entire time.
Then, after a few days, she felt her danger sense skyrocket. More than Grimm, more than even when they'd confronted Hazel outside Argus. It could only mean one thing.
Summer had reached the castle. She'd reached her.
Raven tried to resist, she tried to tell herself to do the smart thing. The strong live, and the weak die, and everyone was weak when compared to an immortal. There was no victory in strength, and if Summer couldn't accept that then she was dead already.
Yet, she found her hand on her sword hilt even as such logic ran through her mind. And none of it stopped her from swiping the red dust blade through the air and leaping into hell for her best friend.
She came out in the throne room, mostly unchanged from her past reconnaissance missions with Qrow. Except Salem wasn't casually sitting back on her seat of dark obsidian. Instead, the Queen was standing upright, her head tilted to the side as if confused as Summer charged her. And when she spoke, her normally smooth, devilish voice was instead laced with… hope?
"Ruby?" she murmured, a smile forming over her face at the sight of the white-cloaked huntress's face.
Summer did not pause, merely leaping just before the Queen and lighting up her radiant silver eyes.
"Silver Spirit Freeze!"
Salem's eyes widened as a miniature sun of silver erupted from the huntress before her.
Raven shoved her hand over her eyes to shield them from the familiar glow. When used in this specialized manner, Summer's power wouldn't hurt any non-Grimm, but it still wasn't easy to look at. When the indomitable shine faded and she was able to see once more, Raven's crimson eyes widened.
Summer knelt on the ground, panting hard, her white blown down to reveal her ragged head. Her aura crackled around her low from whatever other trials she'd undergone that day. Yet, she smiled, for before her stood Salem.
Frozen in stone. Just like Summer had said would happen.
"I… I don't believe it," Raven muttered, wonder laced in her voice.
Summer looked back at her, a brilliant white smile blossoming over her face. "I told you, Rae. I told you that we can do it."
She had. She always had. Summer had always given her hope, even when Raven had no reason to have it. Even now, when the night was darkest, she'd proved that her light could shine through. There was no need to run from what could be fought, what could be beaten.
Despite everything, Summer was right.
A pattering of heavy footsteps sounded behind the huntresses. Summer and Raven turned to the throne room entrance, The Ophiuchus and Hazel charging across the threshold.
"Summer, get back!" Raven shouted, brandishing Omen. "I'll buy you time! Grab the statue and—"
Said statue promptly exploded, a burst of blazing golden light shattering the stone crust to reveal the pitch-black mud underneath. With an ungodly shriek, a gangly clawed arm, churning with darkness, erupted the misshapen form and impaled itself through Summer's chest, shattering what little remained of her aura in a single thrust.
"NO!" Raven screamed.
The arm flailed upward, Summer gasping as her chest was dropped down to its wrist, blood gurgling up from her mouth. Slowly, the limb solidified back to normal, hefting the cloaked woman up to its mistress's newly reformed face, a web of veins thick with dark mud covering her ashen flesh.
"No," Salem whispered, cold fury seeping through her voice. "Not. Ruby."
The black mud veins receded from her face and the Queen let out a frustrated sigh. With a scoff, she tossed Summer off her arm and flicked her onto the floor, her white hood spread out across the obsidian, slowly soaking with crimson blood.
Tears flooded down Raven's face as Summer croaked on the floor, her face broken as blood gurgled up from her lips. Her brave, stalwart leader was nowhere to be seen, fear dominating her crumbling expression and fading silver eyes.
"Ruby…Yang…" she whimpered. "Girls…"
Salem whipped back to face the woman she'd just butchered, her demonic eyes wide. "What did you say?"
Raven had no idea what had drawn the Queen's attention, but she couldn't wrench her eyes away from her partner, her dying partner, bleeding out on the floor. All her strength, all her hope, all the magic of her silver eyes, and in the end, in the face of the cold, hard reality of the world… it was nothing.
There was nothing.
She should have dashed forward, should have tried to grab her partner's corpse, should have tried to bring her body back to her family. But as The Ophiuchus and Hazel bore down on them, as Salem ran back towards Summer… she couldn't make it in time. She couldn't lift the body and still have a chance of getting away. And she had to get away. She had to run.
Raven swiped her sword through the air and spawned a portal straight to Ozpin, the swirling darkness beaconing her to safety. Even still, she couldn't keep from glancing back, from taking one last look at her best friend.
With panic in her heart, she ran through the portal. And she'd never stop.
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Raven wished they could have found Qrow anywhere but the cabin. And in any way but passed out drunk on the ground. If they'd arrived a moment later, a Beowolf would have smashed his head open. Instead, the Grimm had the same happen to it courtesy of Tai's fist.
Honestly, as drunk as he got, she had to wonder just how much bad luck Qrow's semblance really inflicted on him. It didn't seem to want him dead. It didn't want him happy, but it didn't want him dead.
Raven leaned down and hefted him to his feet, Tai coming around to the other side so they could support him over their shoulders.
"Come on, buddy. Wakey, wakey," the blond said, his eyes glancing around the barren forest and the ruins of the cabin. "This is not the place to be out of action."
"Errggg," Qrow groaned, his face groggily coming back to consciousness. His unfocused eyes glanced over them both, a broken smile slipping over his face. "Tai? Good choice in a warm body. Sis may be a bitch but she's smokin'. Might as well have some good company before we all die. Well, not good company, but a good whore will do in a pinch."
Raven tried to keep her annoyance contained, reminding herself that her brother was nowhere near in his right mind. Still, she couldn't keep her anger from her face, something that Qrow, in his stupor, somehow still spotted.
"Oh? Did I offend you, sis?" he mooned. "I'm just telling the truth. The whole truth! Nothing but the truth! More than you ever did!"
"I didn't tell you Salem was immortal because I knew you'd end up like this," Raven growled, leaving out what had become of Summer when she'd told her, trying to push the image of her bloody corpse, the memory of her Kindred Link to her leader snapping soon after she returned to Ozpin's office, out of her mind.
Qrow, unaware of that or anything else, snorted. The drunk shoved himself off his teammates and stumbled back towards the cabin ruins, reaching down and tearing his flask from his belt. He squinted at the container as he squirreled off the cap.
"How considerate," he slurred. "Considerate Raven, always looking out for her useless jinx of a little brother."
"Qrow," Tai sighed, his eyes closing as he readied himself for the coming shitstorm. "Don't."
"Why not?! It's the truth, goldilocks! Considerate Raven browbeating the elders into letting me stay in the Tribe! Considerate Raven fucking you to try to make Summer notice me! Good thing she ended up liking it!" Qrow whirled, tipping back his flask only to find no booze within. "Good old considerate Raven leaving us to die because she knew her brother was only good for being a sap. Got to cut your losses eventually I guess."
Raven flinched, uncomfortable at her brother bringing up school drama that they'd all long dealt with and the implication that her good intentions about withholding Salem's immortality were even more patronizing than she'd thought.
"To Team STRQ!" Qrow toasted with his empty flask. "The best team of suckers to ever graduate Beacon! The drunken sap! The useless fucker! The considerate bitch! And the corpse that made them all think they were worth a damn—gah!"
Tai had started moving the moment he'd mentioned Summer. By the time he'd gotten halfway through the descriptor, the blond had planted his fist in Qrow's stomach, doubling him over as the flask fell from his limp grip.
"You've had a rough day, partner," Tai whispered. "I'll get you home."
Raven gulped. Qrow had been ostracized from the moment he discovered what his semblance did. Where hers had made it so everyone had wanted to schmooze up to her in hopes of getting a portal bond, he'd had to deal with the tribe wanting to throw him out to protect the tribe. He'd had to train three times as hard to be thought of as a third as good. And even then, it was a curse on anyone he spent much time around, anyone he cared about.
Ozpin's mission allowed him to protect those same people from afar. It allowed him to be the noble huntsman saving the world, justify all he'd suffered, and everyone he'd murdered as a bandit before he'd known better, as an origin story for some superhero straight out of Summer's comics.
And discovering that he hadn't been saving anyone brought all that crumbling down.
"Don't blame him," Raven pleaded with Tai. This wasn't her brother's fault.
"I don't. You really think that little tantrum would make me turn my back on him?" the blond shot back. "Please, I said worse after Summer died, and he didn't abandon me."
"Worse?" Raven queried. "How could you say worse—"
"Do you really want to ask that?" Tai demanded with a glare. "You left without a word, and just when Summer had put things back together, she died! I was a piece of shit who didn't catch on when Yang took Ruby out to this place behind my back! Qrow found them passed out in their wagon and if he hadn't found them, who knows when the Grimm would have!"
"I'm sorry," Raven murmured. "I didn't… I didn't know."
At least that fact meant that Yang hadn't been in any real significant danger. She'd formed a Kindred Link with her daughter the moment she was born, it was how she'd known to go save her back on that train under Mt. Glenn. Strange that two lost little girls hadn't attracted any Grimm before Qrow had found them though. Maybe their slumber had stifled their negative emotions?
Tai kept his glare locked on her for a moment more before finally collapsing in a sigh. "That, combined with the ass-kicking Qrow gave me after, was my wake-up call. Yang and Ruby are what matter to me. So if you want to help protect them, great. You can crash on the couch. But anything else? Don't count on it."
Raven bit the bottom of her lips and nodded, a single tear trickling down her pale cheek. Years too late to do any good.
Taiyang lifted Qrow into his arms and marched off down the dirt path, ignoring his partner's groggy mewls.
Raven took a shaky breath and clenched her shaking hands over each other to regain control of her limbs. A small part of her, the part that had lived by survival of the fittest for over a decade, demanded that she stand up for herself and verbally tear her former love a new one.
But that part of her was soon butchered by the rest of her. Tai's rage was justified, as was the blame that Qrow held underneath all the drunken stupidity of his rant. She'd left with the best of intentions at first, but still without a word. And as her despair had mounted, she hadn't sent any back. And then Summer, the fate she'd led her to…
She'd broken Team STRQ. She'd killed thousands at the head of the Branwen Tribe. Her childish dream to have back what she'd had at Beacon was just that.
She didn't deserve forgiveness. And the only one that might have been willing to give it to her anyway was long dead.
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She was afraid. She was so afraid, so… cold.
Ruby… Yang… Tai… Raven… Qrow… she failed them. She failed them.
That knowledge permeated her fading mind, darkness swiftly claiming her after Raven had fled. Yet, she could still hear voices. Voices that were… familiar?
"Get her to the Core! Now!"
"She has a fucking hole in her chest. You can't heal that. And even pure demonic Ascension would kill her in the state she's in—"
"I don't care, End! I will not be the one who kills Ruby and Yang's mother!"
"She was meant to die, it's an integral part of the timeline. You can't save her, it's impossible!"
"Only until I make it real-… your book."
"What?!"
"Please, I need to check something in your book!"
Summer didn't understand what was being said after that. She didn't hear anything else. Nothing but silence.
Then, there was the void. She could see the void. She could hear the silence. She could smell the endless nothingness.
But she couldn't feel. There was nothing to do the feeling. No body. No her. No way to move or shift her vision. She was just there, forever. Dead.
Wait… who was she? Why was she so sad? How long had she been here?! Where was here!? Who was she?!
Why was she screaming in agony?!
"Hold on!"
A chain streaked through the void and wrapped around her arm—an arm! She had an arm! She could feel her arm, and the arm could feel the chain!
"Help me! Help her!"
"Why? There is no place for mercy in a demon's story."
"If we can't reel her soul back in, the Ascension will fail! And who knows what the feedback of that might do to your book."
"Hmmph! Take care, little spirit. I know what it is to be trapped in a Take-Over wizard."
"Then you know you know it's better than dying. So if you don't want to be punished, then help!"
"… Human. I order you to remain strong in the face of the void."
She didn't know what happened next, but it was as if a jolt of lightning ran through her. Before, it had felt like the void was peeling away at her, tearing her psyche apart bit by bit, consigning her to oblivion. But now, with those words, her form suddenly came into focus, her senses snapping to attention. Who she was snapping to attention.
She was Summer Rose. And even if she was dead, she would not die yet!
A new strength flooding through her, she gripped hold of the chain wrapped around her arm, keeping her from dissipating into the void. Slowly but surely, she climbed its length, adding her power to the strength that was already trying to reel her in. Combined, it was just enough to overcome the eldritch pull of their surroundings.
She found herself before two women, one with long dark hair and golden horns dismissively looking down on her, while the other was a pink-haired woman in a maid uniform, a pair of shackles with loose chains around her wrists. The latter knelt down next to Summer, unwinding the chain that had saved her from the void.
"Thank goodness," the maid said. "The Princess was able to give us a chance, but it wouldn't have worked if you were an instant slower."
"Or weaker," the other woman scoffed. "What a surprise for a human."
"She's Ruby and Yang's mother, Seilah," the maid growled. "Of course she'd be strong."
"Ruby and Yang?" Summer murmured. "How… how do you know them?"
The pink-haired woman smiled. "I met them. They are my friends. And don't worry. Even without you, they are going to be extraordinary."
Summer's eyes widened. "Without… me?"
"If we could move away from this disgusting sentimentality, the void won't be held off much longer. If she doesn't ascend, she'll go back to being dead and this experiment might make us join her," Seilah snipped.
"Ascend?" Summer gasped. "What does that—"
"You're dead," Seilah snarled. "If you want to be 'not dead', then ascend!"
"I don't want to be dead!" Summer screeched defensively. "But what does 'ascend' mean?"
The maid stood and took her hand, reaching out and snagging Seilah's as well. "It means we'll be with you from now on. To save the world."
"And not die."
"Not important, Seilah!"
"I contest that theory."
Summer had no idea what was happening, but she didn't have any time to ask before a shining white glow burst out from the three women's joined hands, blinding them all in the nothingness of the void.
And then… then there was more.
She wasn't holding the hands of the other two women, but those hands were her hands. Her body twisted and warped, searing hellish heat ravaging her flesh from the inside out. Her muscles tore open and two more arms – Seilah's – Virgo's – burst from her chest, shackles around her wrists and massive palms with eyes in their center. Agony crashed through her skeleton as her companion's voices filled her mind.
'Hold fast. Hold just a little longer. You won't be punished if you make it through.'
'Don't you dare die, human. My story will not end in such an unsatisfactory manner.'
They pattered on and on, booming like thunder one moment and tingling like static the next, skittering across her brain like a swarm of spiders. And all she could do was scream.
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"I'm sorry, Hazel, but I can't."
"But, your grace, you brought her back? Why can't you do the same with Gretchen?"
"Summer was only dead for a few moments. Her soul was still transitioning through the void when I was able to use the knowledge from End's book to pull her back. Since her body had gone through the Ascension, it was capable of surviving the wound that previously killed it once she was back inside. If I'd been a minute slower, a second slower, it would not have worked, and Gretchen has been dead for years."
"Natsu Dragneel was dead for years and Zeref brought him back—"
"Zeref had to create End and then make him a prisoner in his own body to make room for Natsu. Even if I knew how to do such a thing – which I don't – I will not give a person life just to rip its freedom away from it like that, not for anyone! I'm sorry, Hazel."
Summer could barely make out the voices as her eyes flickered open, spying Salem and Hazel on the standing before her, in some dark laboratory.
She was floating in some strange liquid, contained in a clear glass tube. And, there was a… feeling inside her. Skittering. Crawling. She flinched her head trying to make it stop and caught her reflection in the glass.
A reflection with golden eyes.
The huntress choked, reaching up to a tube connected to her mouth and tearing it away. The noise caught the attention of Salem and Hazel, both whipping towards her just in time for Summer to crash through the tube, glass and liquid flying everywhere as the Spirit Slayer erupted from her prison.
"She's awake!" Hazel cried. "Summer, wait! It's been—"
Summer didn't give him the chance to finish. She didn't have her knives and she didn't know what had been done to her eyes, but her instincts recognized Hazel as a strong enemy. In a mad rush, she slugged him in the stomach just like Tai had taught her. Only instead of causing him to keel over, he went flying and smashed into the lab wall, the obsidian crumbling around him.
The huntress's eyes widened, glancing down at her hands. She… she shouldn't have been able to do that. Hazel was a Gate. She'd fought him outside Argus, she knew she shouldn't have been strong enough to hit him like that.
Though now that her burst of adrenaline had expired, she found herself falling to her knees, her strength exhausted. Only for a surge of fear to crackle through her as she felt a cold hand fall atop her shoulder.
"Don't strain yourself, Mrs. Rose," Salem warned. "You've been asleep for nearly a year and your Ascension was far from orthodox as it was."
Summer smacked the Queen's hand off her and skittered away, only kept from running by the utter failure of her legs to stand. Her hand pressed into the floor, a strange magic flowing through her as if on instinct, softening the ground in preparation to dig… a hole?
How did she know that? Virgo could do that of course, but did she… how did she know that name? The pink-haired maid had never said her name.
Salem held up her hands, the Grimm woman somehow appearing placating. "I am not your enemy."
"You killed me!"
The Queen winced. "You barged into my home and tried to encase me in stone. I'm sure you would have killed me if you could have. Even still, I apologize for the unpleasantness that followed. I did not realize you were Ruby and Yang's mother."
"Ruby and Yang…" Summer gazed up at Salem in horror. "How do you know my children?"
"It's a long story," Salem said. "One that you may have trouble believing, especially given the lies that Ozpin has told you."
"Ozpin hasn't lied…"
Summer couldn't even finish the sentence. Her headmaster, the man who'd trained her, the man she'd placed all her faith in, the man who'd suggested her daughter's name, had lied to her from the start. Raven had warned her, and she hadn't listened. She'd believed that being the best huntress she could be would be enough.
But Salem was immortal. She couldn't be killed, and her recent attempts had made clear that she couldn't be stopped in other ways. Being a huntress… it wasn't enough.
Another hand clasped around Summer's shoulder. She looked up to find Hazel, her old friend who she'd struck, looking down upon her with such pity.
"He has blinded us all for too long, Summer," the hulking man declared. "He has used us as his weapons to drag out the wrong war."
"Wrong war?" Summer heaved in disbelief, shooting a brief glare at Salem. "How is stopping her from wiping out humanity the 'wrong war'?"
"Because I am not," Salem revealed. At the huntress's shocked look, the Queen sighed. "Let's move this to somewhere more comfortable, Mrs. Rose. There is much you must know."
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It was a long story.
Summer blankly stared out into the open air of the dining hall, the hands of her new body, her Eclipse Etherious body, clasped in her lap. Before her sat Salem, flanked by Hazel on one side and The Ophiuchus, End, on the other. The flying cat, Happy, stood on the table. It felt so surreal, to have these four, these beings of titanic power, gazing upon her with such concern.
Of course, everything seemed so surreal when the truth of the world ran through her head. The Gods, the Relics, Ozma and Salem's past, Fairy Tail, Team RWBY, and the Umbral Spirit King were… well… beyond anything she'd ever imagined. If she wasn't in the heart of enemy territory, she'd probably be looking for Qrow to repeat their reaction from when Ozpin had first told them about magic. It was all so outlandish and terrifying.
And yet, for some reason, the same reason perhaps that she knew Virgo's name before she'd been informed that she was now the Gate of the Maiden, Summer believed it. No, she knew it was true. She knew the hell that was waiting no matter what happened, either to risk everything against the Gods, or wait to be slaughtered by the Umbral Spirit King.
And for the first time since she'd walked into Beacon all those years ago, she had no idea what to do.
"Do you understand now?" Salem asked. "I have done horrible things, I do not deny that, but they are necessary to prevent much, much worse."
"The world must be brought together and evolved if we are to stand any chance of surviving," End added. "Even if it is a bloody evolution."
"Why… why would Oz fight this?" Summer muttered. "Why would he—"
"Because he is a coward," Hazel growled. "A coward who rejects the only plan available without providing a viable alternative of his own."
No alternative. No alternative to horror.
Summer took a deep breath and rose to her feet, turning her new golden eyes straight onto The Queen and her fellows. "I believe you. Thank you for bringing me back."
"Of course," Salem replied. "I'm only sorry it needed to be done in the first place."
"As am I," Summer said. "Ozpin… I believed in him, so much."
"I know," Salem murmured, sympathy painted across her demonic face.
"He gave me hope, made me believe that I could be a huntress. And now, I guess it's a lie. My past, my future, my dream, was all for nothing. Knowing that, knowing why you've done the brutal things you've done, I only have one thing to say to you… Bye!"
Salem cocked an eyebrow. "Huh? Wait, what—"
Summer wasted no time and spun herself in a circle, accessing Virgo's magic with every ounce of will she had. The instincts of the Golden Spirit of the Maiden flooded through her and she tore through the obsidian floor of the castle with the Diver spell.
She tunneled deeper and deeper, her magic digging down past the fortress's bottom and ripping into the crust of the dirt beneath. Once she was sufficiently buried, below the level of the sea floor, she turned horizontal and used the tunneling magic to rocket herself through the ground.
Ozpin had lied to her about so much. She understood why, but he had. She didn't know if she could still trust him. But even if she couldn't, she wasn't about to trust the woman who'd literally killed her at the first plausible explanation. Sure, she had instincts within her telling her it was true, but the Queen had been the one who performed her 'unorthodox' ascension. If there was a Scarab in her body turning her eyes gold, what else had been done to her?
And all that talk about knowing grown-up versions of Ruby and Yang, thousands of years in the past? Time travel? No. That wasn't something she was going to believe when it was just pulled out of a hat.
Of course, that didn't leave her with many… any options about who she could go to in order to figure out what was actually going on. No Ozpin, no Salem, and no Hazel drastically limited her reliable information dealers.
But that was something she could deal with later. She'd failed as a huntress. Maybe there was no way to succeed as a huntress. But that didn't matter when she'd been missing for nearly a year! Her family had thought she'd been dead for nearly a year!
Tai… Qrow…
Yang…
Ruby…
Mama was coming home.
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"Your grace… did she just…?"
"End! Go after her! Now!"
"Right! Happy!"
"Aye sir!"
Hazel tilted his head to the side, watching the Exceed sprout his wings, latch onto his partner, and zip off into the sky. "Your grace, is it really that much of a danger?"
Salem shivered, sheer terror dominating the immortal's ashen face. "If she meets Ruby or Yang or anyone who knew them well… everyone and everything… is doomed."
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"You look remarkably alive for someone who died a fool," Yang snarked, condensing her swarm of Purple Flare arms back into her usual two and folding them over her chest.
"A miracle of the Queen," the fake explained. "The wounds that killed me were not sufficient to end a Gate. By studying End's book, she was able to pull my soul back into my corpse just as it had ascended, resuscitate me like a defibrillator. With the side effect of allowing me to bypass the lethal pain of the Ascension Chamber of the time."
Yang snorted. "Give me a break. If Salem could do something like that, why wasn't Cinder a Gate at Beacon? Why not use that process for everyone?"
The false Summer stiffened, horrified. "No! Absolutely not! It was a miracle that it worked for me at all. If Salem had been a second slower, she would not have been able to retrieve my soul from the void before I went on to the afterlife. And if the Ascension process had been left incomplete, Virgo and Seilah could have been lost for good. There's no way to safely test or refine a process like that. Improving the chamber itself was the only practical option."
"And the eyes were just a side effect?"
The fake nodded. She raised her hand, a small black portal manifesting over her palm. Yang raised her fists once more, but no attack came.
Instead, a small, beetle-like Grimm skittered out of the Eclipse Etherious's body, leaping down and running along the floor, a thin, black membrane connecting to the imposter. As it got farther away, the white-cloaked woman flinched, her head spasming in pain as the color of her eyes flickered.
Flickered from gold to silver.
Yang backed away, confused and afraid of what was occurring before her. The fake fell to her knees, the beetle Grimm suddenly sucked back into her body by its membrane. She let out a gasp of relief as she panted on the floor.
"As I'm sure you know, most Slayer-type magic slowly transforms the user into whatever their power is meant to fight, what it is derived from. It inoculates them to the lethal effects their own strength could have on the new being," The Gate of the Maiden elaborated. "That is not the case with Spirit Slayers. Our magic is concentrated in our eyes. We are not transformed, but we are also not inoculated. So when one becomes an Eclipse Etherious, such power will always seek to destroy the body."
Yang swallowed, glancing down at her right stump, remembering the experience of the putrid black devil flesh first growing over it during her training. She'd accepted the idea that she might have to become a demon to fight for her friends, accepted that she might become a monster. So seeing the consequences of a worse such choice on another, forced to rely on a Grimm just to survive, was… affecting.
Even this fake.
The cloaked woman put her hand on the wall and staggered to her feet. "The Scarab's presence protects me from my eyes, keeps the power restrained in them until I choose to unleash it. It is the next generation of Spirit Slayer magic, no different from your friends Laxus, Sting, and Rogue.
Yang frowned. "Always an answer. Always a 'reasonable' excuse."
"Reasonable?" the Gate muttered. "I left you all. There may be an explanation, but there is no excuse for that."
"Stop it!" Yang demanded. "Stop… stop trying to sell me on this charade, with your fake guilt and your twisted logic!"
"I'm not trying to sell you on anything Yang, I just want to explain—"
"You are not my mother!" Yang roared.
The blonde Devil Slayer charged in, pink flames bleeding off her golden mane as her eyes blazed crimson, her Full Demon Form in full swing. The fake only had time for her eyes to widen before Yang grabbed her by the throat and smashed her into the wall.
"You are not my mother!" Yang snarled. "My mother is dead! I know because I knew her! She loved me! She would never abandon me like—like—"
Like Raven had. Twice.
Yang ground the imposter further into the wall, the crumbling obsidian biting into the bitch's back as tears flooded down both women's cheeks.
"She would have never abandoned me and Ruby," Yang growled. "She would have moved heaven and hell to get back to us."
"I did. I did," the fake sobbed. "Heaven and hell fought back."
"Liar!"
"Not now, not about this," the golden-eyed woman insisted. She reached up her hand, pressing her fingers into the black demon flesh over Yang's right stump.
"What do you think you're doing?" the Fairy Tail Wizard demanded.
"Macro can't give you an order through your aura," the Gate revealed. "But it can rescind one it's already given."
"What the hell are you talking about—"
Her fingers pressed into her flesh, and memories flooded the Golden Fairy's mind.
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Yang shivered, tears flooding down her face as the piercing red and yellow eyes shone out from the darkness of the cabin. The young girl staggered, her calves bumping back into the wagon holding Ruby as the Beowolves stalked out of the shadows.
Grimm. These were Grimm. They were so much bigger than the ones in the books and on tv. So much scarier. The blonde girl, usually so full of fire and spunk, could only tremble in terror as the Enemies of Humanity advanced on her and her beloved sister.
She was so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why did she ever think coming to this stupid cabin was a good idea?! She should have just stayed in the house with Ruby, not come looking for this Raven woman! She should have just—just—
She just wanted her mama back!
The Beowolves snarled and pounced on the young girls. Pushing aside all her fear and all her exhaustion, Yang threw herself over the slumbering Ruby, letting out a terrified scream as she desperately tried to shield her baby sister.
"Get away from them!"
Yang kept her eyes shut, knowing she'd imagined the protective voice she'd heard, knowing that she'd never hear it again the day her father and uncle had come back from Beacon Tower with their faces looking like ash. No one would save her. She could only clutch her sister tighter and hope the Grimm missed her as she slumbered, after their claws had torn through the blonde herself.
But no claws came. No pain either. The only sounds she heard were the whimpers and shrieks of the Beowolves as they failed to strike. As they… died?
"Yang?"
The blonde girl fearfully opened up her eyes, only to find herself staring at Ruby's silver eyes, her baby sister staring up at her, confounded. "What's wrong?"
Yang opened her mouth to speak only for another voice, that same voice she thought was gone forever, to answer from behind her.
"Nothing's wrong, Ruby. Everything's going to be alright."
Slowly, barely believing her own ears, Yang and Ruby rose and turned around. In front of the cabin ruins, the Grimm all laid dying, fading away into puddles of darkness. And standing in the center of it all was—
"Mommy!" Ruby cheered, immediately leaping out of the wagon and dashing across the hill to Summer.
Yang felt the same joy as her sister at the impossible sight, but it was marred by confusion. They'd been to the funeral months ago, erected the gravestone on the cliff, and Uncle Qrow had taken them aside to explain what exactly it meant that their mother hadn't come back from her mission. And however haggard and exhausted the woman before her was, golden eyes in place of silver or not, she was clearly Summer Rose. That much was obvious in the way she knelt down and engulfed Ruby in a loving hug.
How was she here? Did dad and Uncle Qrow make a mistake? Or was it because she'd finally gotten tired of faking treating Yang like her own—
"Yang!" Ruby called over from within the hug, breaking the blonde out of her stupor. "Mama's back!"
"I… I…" Yang stammered, unable to process what she should do, her violet eyes flickering around the pools of darkness fading away to nothing.
Summer frowned. The huntress lifted Ruby up into her arms and made her way over to Yang, heedless of her ravaged, probably once white, cloak. Once she arrived, she knelt back down and engulfed the young girl into her embrace as well.
"It's alright, Yang. I'm here," she whispered, like so many bedtime stories. "Mama's here. Everything's going to be okay, firecracker."
As soon as the words left her mouth, Yang's eyes welled up with tears. She threw her arms around her mother and broke down into blubbering sobs into her shoulder.
"Mama… I… I thought you were gone… and picture… and daddy, and the cabin… and Raven…!"
Summer cocked an eyebrow. "You know Raven… oh, sunny little dragon. You are my daughter and I love you both with all my heart. Never doubt that."
"What have you done?"
All at once, Summer's entire body went rigid. Yang's mother whirled around, ensuring her body was between her children and the new arrival, a weird faunus with red scales and a cat on his shoulder. Both of them were looking at the reunited family with utter horror painted on their faces.
"Kitty!" Ruby grinned.
She made to run at the cute animal, but Yang pulled her back. Something about this situation felt… dangerous.
"Yang, Ruby, stay behind me!" Summer shouted, dropping into a fighting stance. When the scaled faunus came down the cabin's hill, her eyes flashed with a golden glow. "Not a step closer! You're not touching them!"
"I'm not trying to touch them, you idiot!" the pink-haired man yelled. "I'm trying to save them! And you! And everybody!"
"What are you—?"
"Mommy?"
Ruby's mewling drew everyone's attention, Yang's eyes widening in horror at her sister. The silver-eyed girl was staring fearfully at her hands, which were dissipating into flecks of golden dust.
"Ruby!" Yang cried, only to gasp when the hands she'd tried to reach out to her baby sister disappeared into those same particles. Both girls' bodies were slowly but surely being disintegrated into nothingness.
"Make it stop!" Ruby wailed. "Mommy, please make it stop!"
Summer panickedly glanced between her daughters before whirling back on the faunus, absolutely livid. "Stop! Whatever you're doing to them, stop it right now or I swear—"
"I'm not doing anything to them!" the scaled man roared, holding up his own hand, in the process of disintegrating itself, as proof. "Look around you!"
Filled with fear, Yang did just that, frantically looking around the barren forest, her heart growing colder with each passing second. The trees, the grass, the dirt road, even the cabin, everything in sight was breaking down into those bright golden particles and floating away into the air.
Summer paled, her shoulders joining the mass dissolution. "Wha—what's happening?!"
"We told you!" the scaled man exclaimed. "Ruby and Yang will travel into the past and shape Salem's ideology!"
"What does that have to do with anything!?"
"Because the Ruby and Yang who did that, who will do that, have been shaped by a life believing their mother to be dead! If they know you're alive, then they don't become the people time needs them to be!" he explained, his eyes widening in panic as the world continued to break down. "If they don't become those people, Remnant as we know it doesn't come to be. Our timeline is being erased!"
"You weren't lying," Summer murmured, horrified. "How do we stop it?!"
"They have to forget! If they forget, then the timeline can still play out without erasing everyone!" the man shouted. "Use Macro! Order them to forget!"
"What?!" Summer gasped. "No! I can't—I won't abandon them!"
"If you don't, then there will be no 'them'! There will be no anything!"
"I won't! I can't—"
"Can't or won't! Look around! They forget and live, or you can hold them in your arms as we all die! Stop squabbling about meaningless sentimentality and do what you need to do!"
Yang cowered back, unable to clutch Ruby close as their bodies faded away. Both girls' legs broke into sparks and they collapsed to the ground. "Mommy! Help!"
Summer whirled to face them, tears flooding down her face. She fell to her knees and reached to help them, only for her hands to vanish in golden glitter.
The huntress gazed in horror at her dissipating arms, her lips stammering, as if reaching for words she knew were poison but couldn't help but speak. Until, at last, she closed her eyes.
"Ruby, Yang, my beautiful girls. Mommy loves you. She loves you more than anything in the whole world," she promised, her golden eyes opening with a sheen of tears. "I order you to forget that you saw me. Forget that I am alive. Go to sleep until help arrives and remember only that I never came back from my last mission."
"What?!" Yang exclaimed, her toddler's mind unable to process what was happening, unable to process why Ruby's silver eyes were raining tears while her mouth had been dissolved to dust. "Mommy, please, I'll be better! Please! Please don't go!"
"I love you. I love you both… so much!"
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Yang staggered back, her Purple Flare arms dissolving away as she tumbled to her knees. The Devil Slayer panted hard, her disbelieving face rising to meet the golden eyes of… of her mother.
"You came back," she whispered reverently. "You came back."
Summer glanced away, shame in her eyes as she failed to rise from her knees. "I wanted to. I wanted to more than anything in the whole world. But I had to do what I needed to do before I did what I wanted to do. I know it doesn't make things better. I'm not asking for your forgiveness. I know I don't deserve it. But I need you to know that it was never any fault of yours. You are beautiful, Yang and I am so sorry to have failed yo—"
"Mama!" Yang sobbed, lunging forward and engulfing the white-cloaked woman in a hug, squishing her tear-stained face into Summer's chest. "You're alive! You're alive!"
For so very long, she'd sought out Raven, sought out the only mother she could reach, sought to know why she wasn't enough to stay for! She'd sought to prove she was worthy of the bonds she craved, sacrificed her arms to prove it! She knew she was worthy of their friendship and she knew they would gladly return her love.
And Natsu… Natsu had taught her that she might have been able to forgive even Raven for abandoning her, that just maybe, her birth mother might have had a good reason for leaving. Just like Igneel had turned out to have.
But Raven had not been Igneel. She hadn't had a good reason. She'd just been a coward and cast Yang aside again the moment she proved inconvenient.
Well to hell with her! Yang didn't need her! She had her real mother, and Summer had had a perfectly good reason to stay away all these years.
Joy. Complete, euphoric joy flooded through the blonde wizard. All the walls she'd built over the years, all the pillars of strength she'd forced herself to keep up since she'd taken over as Ruby's maternal figure, all of them crumbled as she reveled in the sheer miracle of having her mother back.
Summer immediately responded in kind, pulling Yang tight and close as tears poured down her face.
"I'm here, firecracker. I'm here," she murmured, lovely stroking her daughter's golden mane. "But there's so much you need to know. I've done so many… horrible things. I don't deserve you—"
"I don't care," Yang bit out, clutching her even tighter. "You can tell me whatever crap you've done for Salem later. Right now… please just hold me."
Summer paused for a moment before acquiescing to her plea, embracing as she sniffled against her forehead. Whatever sins she had committed, and Yang had no doubt that there were many, she had her mother back.
This… This was what Salem was fighting for. Waiting around to die at the hands of the Umbral Spirit King would help no one. The only chance to save their family was to do whatever it took to take down the Brothers, risk everything or lose everything for sure.
It was then that Yang realized the unavoidable truth. If her mother, the greatest huntress she had ever known, had sided with her old friend's scheme, then there really was no other choice. The only path onward was forward.
Yang would sacrifice whatever it took to make sure her family got to keep walking. If her own morality had to be among the casualties, then… then so be it. She didn't like it, but it needed to be done.
As Natsu once said, becoming a villain was price well worth paying for family.
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It was sobering, looking at your own grave. Even if she knew her body obviously wasn't buried beneath the tombstone, seeing her name inscribed in stone, one of her favorite lines of poetry beneath it, Summer couldn't stop staring at the marker as the sunset fell over the horizon. It was a brutal showing of exactly what all her efforts as a huntress had amounted to in the end. A rock with a pretty inscription and a broken family.
Or in simpler terms, absolutely nothing.
After leaving Ruby and Yang unconscious in their wagon, End had sent Summer off with Happy to avoid encountering anyone else, staying himself to watch over the girls from a distance until someone arrived to take them to safety personally. Probably Qrow if what she'd been told about what her 'death' had done to Tai was accurate.
Dear gods, Tai didn't deserve this.
"Maybe I can go see Tai?" she thought out loud, drawing her Exceed chaperone's attention. "Or Qrow, or Oz? Someone who can know I'm alive and help the girls along?"
Happy cringed, nervously running his hands together as the sunlight danced over his dark fur. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Timelines are tricky. If Ruby and Yang aren't completely sure you're dead when they're in Earthland, they might not tell Salem the things she needs to hear to stop trying to kill herself. And they were sure that everyone they knew thought you were dead too. One wrong hint, and we'd be right back to where we were at the cabin."
Summer frowned dejectedly. "So I'm just supposed to leave my daughters with no help whatsoever?"
Happy padded over and gently took her hands. "You don't need to worry. I've met the people that Ruby and Yang grow up into. They'll go through a lot, but they'll be amazing. They're my friends."
The demon cat's earnest sincerity managed to prompt a faint smile from Summer's lips, though it didn't last for too long before she thought of her other loved ones. "Still, Tai, Qrow, Raven, Oz… they don't deserve to think that I'm dead."
"But if you tell them, the timeline might be erased," Happy morosely pointed out.
"Then I'll just use Macro to make them forget," Summer argued. "If everything starts turning into gold dust, I'll know time can't sustain itself with them knowing and just—"
"That won't work."
Summer whirled around to spot End emerging from the forest, a pair of water bottles and a grocery bag swinging at his side.
"Why wouldn't it work?" the huntress desperately demanded. "It worked on Ruby and Yang!"
"Ruby and Yang haven't had their auras unlocked yet. The Macro curse can implant its order deep in their psyche," End explained. "Qrow, Taiyang, Raven, even if you managed to give them an order when their auras were broken, the moment they were brought up for any reason, that order would be expunged."
Summer's face fell, the essence of Seilah within her confirming the curse's limitations. If she told any of her teammates, and it turned out that the timeline couldn't come to be if they knew she was alive, the entire world would die.
And she… she couldn't risk everyone in the world for her family's happiness.
"Here," End said, dropping the grocery bag and water bottles in her lap.
Summer sifted through the bag and pulled some pre-made lunches that were sold in convenience stores all over Remnant. "What're these for?"
End rolled his eyes. "You just spent weeks tunneling across a continent and under an ocean to get back here. Get some food in you."
Summer cocked an eyebrow, a wave of exhaustion suddenly smashing into her as she realized her throat was parched. "Huh. I haven't eaten or drank in… wow."
"There are upsides to being an Eclipse Etherious," End noted. He reached inside his cloak and brought a roasted fish, Happy joyfully leaping up to snatch it as the fire demon grinned.
Summer wasn't sure what to think of the sight. All she'd ever heard about The Ophiuchus from Oz, Qrow, and Raven had been that he was a terrifying engine of raw destruction. She'd never imagined that he'd be so… considerate.
"Ruby and Yang?" she inquired.
"Qrow's taking them home as we speak," End assured her. "Now eat."
Summer didn't need much more prompting after she'd confirmed her children were safe, devouring the lunches and downing the water bottles in the blink of an eye. With a hearty belch, she tossed the leftover containers into the grocery bag. "Ugh, sorry. And I'd get after Yang about her table manners."
End chuckled at the burp. "You really are their mother. You would have been right at home in the guildhall."
"Heh. Thank you," Summer replied, only for her eyes to drift to her gravestone. "They really will be okay, right?"
"They will. At least for a decade or so," End confirmed. "After that, the war will begin in earnest. Anything can happen."
"Including the Umbral Spirit King," Summer glumly remarked. "Salem's plan, are you absolutely sure it's the only way?"
End shrugged. "What other option is there? Follow Ozpin's plan of hiding and hope the enemy doesn't come? The Queen's plan isn't pretty or noble. It isn't something a huntress would do. But a huntress can only address the symptoms of this evil, not its cause."
Summer certainly knew that. All her life, she'd wanted to be a huntress, to do the right thing. She'd saved some people, killed some Grimm, and fought the good fight against Salem. And in the big picture, it had amounted to absolutely nothing. Even if she had defeated The Queen for good by some miracle, that would have done nothing to solve the actual problem of the Grimm and the Umbral Spirit King.
Ozpin's war was fought with the best intentions, but it was fought out of fear. And at best, it would only stave off the inevitable. She loved her mentor; was grateful for everything he had taught her… but in this?
In this, he was wrong.
But did that mean Salem was right? She'd told the truth about the time travel and the new Gate's instincts from Virgo and Seilah had been telling her that from the beginning. Summer's doubt had been well founded, but she no longer believed it was correct. Still…
"People are going to die in your plan," she stated, her golden eyes locked on her grave. "Innocent people."
End sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. Mankind has rarely known what it needs and when we force that upon them, even to save them, there will be resistance. But if we try not to get anybody killed, we'll end up getting everybody killed."
Summer wanted to reject that out of hand. She wanted to say that of course a righteous huntress could save the world without going that far.
But she knew it would be a lie. And as much as she hated it, if she wanted to protect as many people as she could, if she wanted to save the world… she knew what she needed to do.
And she would hate herself for it.
"I'll help you," She declared. "I will help you unite the world against the Gods. At least then I can keep the deaths as low as possible."
End smirked. "I have no objections to that." He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a comforting squeeze. "I know what it's like to be denied your purpose. But I have come to believe that when we are at our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change. And we are going to change this world for the better, Summer."
They would. That had to. It was clear that the world did need to change if it was going to survive.
But what it would take to bring that change about, the horror? No one could bring that about and still call themselves a huntress, a hero. They'd be a monster. She'd be a monster.
Well… Fairy Tail was supposedly a guild of monsters. And in the end, the world's survival was more important than her self-esteem.
She'd failed to truly save anyone as a huntress. If she wanted to create a world where her daughters didn't have to throw their lives away for that same useless strategy, then being a monster was her only chance. And if that meant she'd go to hell, then so be it.
For their children, she doubted any mother would do less.
STRQ angst and Summer backstory, just as promised. Happy Holidays everyone!
Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!
Go Forth and Conquer!