Transcript 1: Slow going

After a weekend of recuperation, the students were thrown back into normal classes, which took on a monotonous regularity after the recent excitement of the Atlas trip and the Winter festival and school holidays before that.

Three weeks in, and five weeks into the new semester, Gale flopped down heavily on her unfortunate bed, just as she had many times of late as the grip of repetition grew stronger and stronger.

"I'm boorrrrrred!" she called out to no-one in particular. Lina looked up from the notes on top of her desk. She picked up her pen and chewed on the end, a habit she had developed since leaving home which would have horrified her strict parents.

"You're not alone," said a cross-legged Nero from the corner opposite Gale. "Everything was new and exciting last semester, and while classes are alright… it seems pretty normal these days."

"The only thing scheduled for this semester after our Atlas trip – which was expensive for the school, mind you – is the huntsman shadowing missions, which is still four weeks away."

"Four weeks!" Gale exclaimed in disbelief, throwing her arms in the air dramatically. "I'll die before then!" She turned over and rolled her eyes back until she was convinced she looked dead, the sheer entertainment value more than justifying the silliness in the current climate.

Lina continued chewing. The pen was ruined now, but it didn't stop her. Something was ticking away in the back of her mind.

"If only it were the Vytal Festival this year, we would have so much to look forward to!"

"Yeah Jasper, but then we wouldn't have gone to Atlas, would we? And now we'd be more bored than…"

"That's it!" cried Lina triumphantly, shocking Gale out of her faux demise and drawing the attention of the two boys.

"What?"

"That's what we need! All the festival, the cultural food and the markets, the tournament and everything, what are we missing?"

Nero shifted towards her. "Well, all of it really?"

"No, idiot, the Atlas trip was supposed to replace it, and we got most of that already. But what did we miss?"

Gale's eyes lit up. "The festival ball! I can't believe we didn't miss it when we were in Atlas!"

"Well of course we couldn't have had it there, most of Beacon was still back home. And we'd have missed out on all the fun!"

"What do you mean?" asked Jasper.

"All the planning! All the setup and absolutely alllll…"

"Please tell me you're going to scale back on the romantic goo, we haven't even got an idea how to go about this yet."

"Wait, you're thinking this is a good idea, Jasper?" queried Nero, his raised eyebrows nearly touching his drooping curls. "This thing would be massive. We don't have the resources to pull something like this off by ourselves."

"The answer fell straight out of your mouth, Nero. We won't be doing this by ourselves, we'd have to get some help, and see if there's any support for such an idea in the first place."

Lina put down the remains of her destroyed pen. "I could help organise it though. My family…" a twinge swept across her face. "… is invited to more than their share of fancy events with the Lavender business reputation and Lisa's media connections. I'm sure I could help with some of the formalities."

"That's great Lina, we'll definitely need you as part of the team if it's going to go ahead."

"What do you mean? I AM part of the team already, this team, it's our dance after all."

Jasper grinned. "So, you want to see a big banner above the entrance, 'Welcome to Team JNGL's super cool dance, this is our dance by the way, we thought of it first'?"

"You're no fun, you know that? Being involved is part of the romance."

"Grandeur and romance aren't exactly the same thing, you know."

Lina huffed. "If you can't see the connection, then I'm definitely not going to the dance with you!"

Gale had crept over to Nero as the others began talking, and listened with increasing amusement as Lina got more and more animated. She covered her mouth to suppress a knowing smile.

"She didn't need to say that last part. She's already decided to ask Castor, hasn't she?"

"Definitely."

Several papers lay scattered across Professor Ozpin's desk, with both random scribbles and crossings out interspersed between descriptions of what seemed a fantastically flamboyant event.

"Well, what do you think?" he inquired.

Glynda adjusted her glasses and looked over her shoulder towards the Professor, who was leaning to his right with The Long Memory touching the floor beside him.

"I don't see any harm in allowing them use the hall for this dance of theirs, but it's your decision Ozpin, not mine."

He smiled and raised the tip of the cane to inspect it. "I may have many years of experience, and may be headmaster of this academy, but I still value your opinion, Glynda." He cleaned a few marks off the edge and retracted it, laying it next to the papers. "If you think it should go ahead, I'll let them know."

She nodded and signed the bottom of the last page as a sigh came from the corner of the room. They quickly stood and hurried over towards the sound, but Qrow was there first, walking over the half-assembled machinery scattered haphazardly around Amber's bed.

"She's alright, I think" he announced, a shade of fatigue creeping into his usual raspy tone. Whether it was the constant worry taking its toll or the weeks spent looking after her he couldn't tell. It was probably a combination of both.

"This is the third time she's done this, she did it twice while you were gone. I can't say what's going on under there for certain, but I think she sometimes hear us at least. She seemed very stressed while you were in Atlas."

He met the approaching pair with a solemn gaze. "I would… prepare yourself a little. It's not exactly an inspiring sight."

Tears flowed down Amber's face, making small wet patches on the sheet below her chin. Her face was drawn, more creased and painful than it usually looked, and she let a hint of a moan slip through her lips periodically. It was a weak lament, a pitiful cry for help that made her seem infinitely more fragile than if she had sobbed aloud.

"I can't really tell what she's thinking, if she can think at all anymore. Maybe she's reliving the attack. Or maybe what happened in the Vault, from what you told me. We just can't know."

The headmaster reciprocated Amber's sigh.

"How long until the machine is ready, Qrow?"

The ever-present hip flask lowered itself from Qrow's lips.

"Hey, I may be the one who taught my niece how to fix her bike, but this is scientific Atlas tech, it's not exactly a walk in the park. It's still got a couple of days work."

"Then we'll see whether it's able to help her" said Professor Goodwitch. "She's barely hanging on."

Qrow picked his way back towards the unfinished system, cursing his semblance as he stumbled over a stray wire.

"There's not much we can do in the meantime except watch her, you know. It'd be better to preoccupy yourselves with the business of running this joint."

Glynda looked back at the paperwork on Ozpin's desk. "If only the approval of this dance was the biggest worry we had. It would be nice to be optimistic about the what the future holds like these students."

Ozpin agreed. They had sacrificed a lot behind the scenes to keep that in place.

"I hope they never have a reason to doubt that ideal."

Transcript 2: Kitted Out

Lina was on her fourth pen of the morning, yet still hadn't written anything down. The splintered remains of the other three lay in a bin beside Coco's desk, right next to its disgruntled owner.

"If you chew any more of my pens, I'll kick you out and organise this whole thing myself."

Lina placed her utensil down on the wooden surface. "I'm trying to think! It's harder than it looks. Asking Professor Goodwitch if we could use the hall was a different thing entirely."

"Harder for you, maybe. Didn't you give her any reasons why it would be a good idea?"

"Well, yes."

"Then use them! I've come up with half the plan already and you have gone back and forth on two miserable little details for the entire morning!"

"I can't help it if I want it to be perfect! And you know I don't have the knack for style like you do, it doesn't come naturally, so it takes time."

"Even perfectionists can make decisions, Lina."

Lina stuck her bottom lip out, and she scribbled the words 'three rows' on the page in front of her.

"Fine! There we go, it's done now" she pouted.

"I'm so glad we care so much about how many drinks tables we put out. Can we get onto the decorations, already? The theme? What music and what dances we want?"

"There doesn't have to be a theme, it's a dance, not a photoshoot."

Coco gestured to her flawless attire, Gianduja blending in seamlessly with her outfit in its stylish handbag form.

"Of course we need a theme! Everything needs to fit together. Look at yourself, a fluffy, airy combat skirt with a big bludgeoning weapon, or worse a machine gun? Not to mention its ghastly purple against lime and black, of all colours?"

"Excuse me!"

"I'm just saying that both this ball and your dance outfit needs to look good, with more thought put into it than you've currently put in. You also need to coordinate your look with your partner's. Speaking of which, have you thought about who you want to go to the dance with?"

Coco instantly tried to stop the words escaping past her lips, but it was too late.

"Oh yes! I'm hoping Castor is going to ask me, and if not then I'll ask…"

We're going to be here a long time, thought Coco.

"Which do you think looks better, Jasper? The red one or this one?"

Gale stood in front of a mirror in a shapely sky-blue gown reaching nearly to her feet, patterned all over with tiny sequins.

"I don't know. I liked the look of the first one, but I think this one suits you better. I personally like red, so I'm probably biased."

Jasper scratched his spiky brown locks. "Shouldn't you be asking Lina or one of the other girls? I'm not very good at this."

Gale flashed a grin. "It's supposed to be a surprise, you know! It's more fun if teams keep their outfits secret, no matter what Coco says. Lina's out with her again this evening, doing the boring stuff, and Nero's attitude towards clothing is… relaxed at best."

"Right. So I'm the only one left."

Gale tossed her head. "Surely you've done this before? I thought you said you had an older sister?"

"Well, yes" spluttered Jasper. "But Sapphire stopped asking after a while, I wasn't much help. My parents, particularly my mother, were much better at that. They had some idea of particular tastes and styles, being jewellers. After a few years in the business, Sapphire is now probably as good as they are."

"Still, you would have picked up a few things with that nerdy mind of yours."

Jasper chuckled. "It wasn't really my thing."

"But you scratch up enough rocks from the side of the road to fill a suitcase a week!" laughed Gale curiously. "Why didn't you go into the other side of the business?"

He smiled a wry smile. "I won't deny that…"

"Two suitcases, even!"

"When you break things all the time," continued Jasper, "and especially expensive rocks, you're pretty quickly steered away from learning precise gem-cutting or even handling them. I suppose collecting still runs in my blood though."

"Really?" said Gale, looking at her hand thoughtfully as she covered it in the familiar sky-blue glow of her aura. "You've had trouble with your semblance for that long? A lot of people don't unlock theirs until combat school, not even Miss Perfectionist who's currently out planning this dance."

"I remember dropping my mother's crystal rose, or something else I wasn't allowed to touch, and I got in huge trouble for it. After that, worrying about breaking things probably unlocked my semblance at some point, but I really can't tell exactly when it happened. Clumsy old me wasn't allowed to touch much, especially jewellery-related things."

Gale threw the curtain closed and began undressing, grabbing at her usual grey hunting outfit. "Is that why you came to combat school? Because you couldn't work there?"

"Partially. But I already liked boxing and other physical activities, and I was beginning to lose those joys as well as Glassfinger permeated everything. I thought clumsy old me would get them back if I became more coordinated at Pharos, but it had the opposite effect for a while. My hammer and gauntlets were a goal, I shaped them into that ideal, hoping I could one day safely live up to it, but you saw what happened with Jewel. I only learned what was going on right near the end of combat school, and am only just getting a handle on it now."

Gale emerged from the stall, retying the arm-guard strings on her bow arm, with a look of unusual concern and ponderance.

"Jasper, I don't know what to say. You've had a lot to go through by the sounds of it, and so has Nero. Lina even, with the treatment she's sometimes faced from her name and as a Faunus." She shifted a little. "I've never experienced anything like that. Sure, there's Grimm out there at Hammerhead Point, but it was all fun and games, even my own semblance is like that."

"They say your semblance is very strongly intertwined with your personality, and the one is affected by the other. If you want to help the world and have a great time while doing it, that's reason enough to be here."

She wiped a misty eye with the back of her bow glove. "I'm glad you think that Jasper. I've wondered sometimes if I had a legitimate reason to be here, whether I need to be more serious in life. But I really don't want to be like that. I want to be me being me."

"Look at Coco. She doesn't need a sob story or moral motivation to be the top huntress-in-training in this record-breaking year. Besides, those sorts just get embarrassing after a while, I should know. Nero hasn't told us how he unlocked his semblance, and I bet there's a reason behind that. Probably not a pretty one, given its nature."

"I would never have thought of that."

Jasper raised one eyebrow. "I am a stickler for details, you know. You don't call me a nerd for nothing."

"Don't get too full of yourself," she grinned, punching him in the shoulder. "Or I'll give you a brand-new sob story to tell."

Transcript 3: Making moves.

At last, the planning was complete. The final details of the night of Lina's fantasy were falling into place, due in no small part to Coco's help. Lina did envy the other girls for getting a head start on all the courting, picking outfits and missing out on the rumours and general discussions leading up to the event, but making the romance happen sometimes came at a cost to the maker.

Lina twitched her nose. She hadn't really been needed. Coco had been so far ahead in style and ideas that Lina could barely keep up once she had finally been forced settle on seating arrangements. The only other real contribution of hers which had made the cut was the fog machine. Coco had protested at first, but Lina had argued it couldn't be a theatrical or opera theme without the fog. At least she could claim responsibility for that when Castor asked.

If Castor asked, Lina corrected herself. She had to keep reminding herself that it wasn't a total certainty that she would end up going to the dance with him. Then he would be able to ask her what she had done.

But what if he didn't?

Lina shook her head. She had to stop thinking about it. Whatever happened, she still had to get ready for this dance she had planned, or rather, helped Coco plan.

"Hey, Rosy!"

Gale appeared around the corner, a light blue dress – no, gown, observed Lina – draped over her arm. She placed it on the clothes rack in her corner of the room and let it unfold, its sapphire-blue sequins glittering in the afternoon light.

"Isn't it gorgeous, Rosy?" Gale gushed as she fawned over the item. "You've never seen the like!"

The new nickname Gale had thought up for Lina had quickly gained traction among her teammates and plenty of the other students as well. Usually, Lina was opposed to flowery references but had learned from an Atlas student that "Thumbelina Leigh", by incredible coincidence, was the name of a species of lavender. After all these years, it was worse than she had anticipated, and a shortened name was no good if it still had ties to her last name, even without the hated height implications of Thumbelina. Whether by her parents' design or not, the thought sunk her into a blue funk for the rest of the day until Gale unwittingly presented her with an alternative. In the most Gale-esque way possible, of course, by telling her to cheer up and be more rosy.

"I've missed you! Barely seen you in days. Come on, we've got to get you up and running, a lot of the girls already have their partners, and you haven't even got your dress yet!"

"Already?" breathed Lina. "It's only been two days since it was announced, and it isn't until next Saturday night!"

"You act like it's scandalous to accept the first request, Miss Melodrama. Wouldn't want to miss turning all the boys down until Castor finally asks, am I right?"

"Shut up!" mumbled Lina, hiding her embarrassed face and digging her shoulder into Gale's ribs. "You're exaggerating, I'll bet nearly nobody is together yet!"

"Yatsu and Velvet are already going" Gale countered. "He asked Velvet almost as soon as it was announced."

"Really?"

"You should have seen her melt! Her ears came down nearly to her shoulders and she went SO red! But she stammered out a meek "yes" and has been beaming ever since. I'm surprised Coco didn't mention it."

"Wow."

Gale slipped her thick Pumpkin Pete hoodie on, grey like her Huntress outfit underneath.

"Well it's no use talking about it, Rosy. Let's get going! The boys won't catch themselves, especially without a dress!"

"I doubt the boys will have dresses, Gale."

"You know what I mean. Although, even the famous Qrow Branwen wore a combat skirt one time, so who knows if it will happen again."

That incident was far from the mind of the aforementioned member of the legendary Team STRQ as he put down the spanner, eyeing the finishing touches on "Amber's machine" as he called it. His inspection complete, Qrow stood up and looked over at the hospital bed. Such effort, and such strain. It was amazing how far they were having to push themselves to save a power which had previously seemed untouchable, unkillable.

But now that power was torn apart, and a good friend lay at death's door. Had she really been that strong? It seemed a lifetime away, now that the impossible was being redefined faster than any of them could imagine. He had seen… well he wasn't sure what he had seen. Ozpin's last missions for Qrow before guarding the Winter Festival and taking care of Amber had been an investigation, but an incomplete one so far. To find out what she was doing. If she was ready. Amber's blow had sparked fears that that it was the beginning of the end, at least in Ozpin's mind.

Qrow didn't think that was the case. Yes, Salem had her lacqueys, but she had always had them, for thousands of years. Why should now be any different? He sighed. He wished Tai was around to help sometimes, but as soon as Summer had gone missing, all the passion for STRQ and being an active Huntsman had gone, and he had put his skills towards teaching instead. Which was understandable, given the relationship he had had with her. And the failed one with Raven before that.

But even Tai was more contactable than Raven. Despite the sibling relationship, Qrow barely thought of her as family anymore, and his niece, Yang, felt a thousand times closer. Tai, and even his other daughter Ruby felt nearer than Raven now, physically as well as metaphorically. Genetics had no bearing in this relationship. In Qrow's mind, Tai was as much a brother as he was an ex-brother-in-law, and he wished he saw more of him outside of Ozpin's circle.

He snapped back to reality as the elevator doors opened on his left, and Professor Goodwitch and the headmaster walked in.

"We received your message, Qrow" said Ozpin. "It's ready?"

"It's time. Let's see if this piece of junk works."

Qrow and Glynda each took a side of Amber's bed and wheeled it over next to the machine.

"The general explained to me the other day that only the left side of the machine will be switched on when Amber's inside, but that doesn't stop the whole machine needing to be assembled for that to work. Pretty stupid design if you ask me."

"The Atlas scientists are no slouches, Qrow, it's probably a failsafe, preventing anyone unauthorised from just entering the vessel themselves and hurting themselves or the other person by accident."

"I thought this was supposed to be helping Amber, not killing her. What on earth did James make this machine for, anyway?"

"For healing, as James explained" responded Ozpin. His brow darkened. "Or at least, that's what it is most of the time."

Qrow looked up. "What do you mean?"

"He said it works by transferring aura away from the person inside and keeping it at a stable lower amount, forcing their body to generate more to compensate, as can be done through careful training. But this takes the active component out of it, so it can be used even on unconscious patients like Amber. Once the drain is stopped, the body keeps producing it at the same rate as it was before, giving a higher aura ceiling, giving better protection and faster recovery"

"That sounds nasty. What sort of healing is that, draining aura away? Painful, more like."

Ozpin nodded. "Ironwood said as much, which is why it's used almost exclusively on unconscious patients, like Amber. Or in other dire circumstances."

"What did you say?" Qrow blinked suspiciously.

"This is an aura transfer machine" said Ozpin. "The general thinks it would be a good idea to transfer all her aura, and attached maiden powers, into an undamaged host."

"He's insane."

"I feel the same way."

"It would kill her!" spluttered Qrow, "And destroy the life of whoever was on the receiving end!

He left the bed, and started pacing furiously around the room.

"I know. And I can't help but wonder if this terrible function is the real emergency plan or something else entirely. He said it was for Fria, to control the next host because they can't predict her Alzheimer's. But I've dealt with similar situations with Maidens before and worse than Fria, I've told him so. It doesn't make sense."

Glynda chipped in. "James is too paranoid for his own good, and his Mettle exacerbates it. He's been making some questionable decisions of late."

"You're not wrong."

Qrow stopped his shuffling suddenly and locked eyes with the headmaster, his red eyes burning threateningly into the back of Ozpin's skull.

"Promise me you won't do that to her."

"Qrow, this is the very last thing I want to do to her."

Qrow threw his hands in the air, his raspy voice near to a roar.

"That's not a promise! That's a way to weasel your way out as a last resort!" He brought his fist down on Ozpin's desk, and stabbed aggressively at it with his fingers as he spoke. "Using this machine to its full potential is pushing the boundaries of life and death! Forcing two souls in one! That's no different to what started this whole mess!"

The three looked over at the metal and glass monstrosity, suddenly a pointed and evil form crouching in the shadows. The blue light of the control panel shone innocently, unaware of the magnitude of terrible power held in its simple screen.

Glynda looked distinctly uncomfortable at this reveal. She opened her mouth and closed it again. After several false starts, she voiced the thought on everyone's mind, which nobody wanted to utter.

"Do we really want to use this machine?"