AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, a few days early on my update schedule for this. The muse struck tonight, though, and I'm not one to refuse her. I like how this chapter flowed, with two conversations between very different people, and very similar all the same. It's a bit sad, though I did manage to work a little humor in there.

One or two more chapters and this story arc is finished. Then it's moving on to "Season 6," with Argus and Brunswick Farms. Oh yeah, the Apathy will be showing up in this story, though as usual...it will be with a twist. And since we're going to "Argus," so will Jaune Arc's family...

Aso Bay

Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan

21 June 2001

Pyrrha Nikos throttled back as she flew low over the bay. She saw the Su-27 sinking out of sight, what was left of the rear fuselage the last to disappear beneath the waves. The canopy suddenly surfaced, and Pyrrha's fingers tightened around the stick. Yet no body came to the surface next to it, and the canopy, after floating for a few seconds, went under as well. She exhaled. For you, Jaune, she thought as she pulled up and away from the bubbles that marked the grave of Cinder Fall.

The thought, to her surprise, brought her no joy.

She turned north and flew alongside Yang. In the distance, they saw the Night Raven land on the airfield north of Mount Eboshi. Raven was nearly at stall speed before she even crossed the threshold, and Pyrrha watched as the aircraft barely stopped in the overrun, the nose gear in the grass at the other end of the runway. It began to taxi onto the tiny tarmac there.

"Pyrrha, Yang," Yang radioed. "What do you think I should do?"

"Yang, Pyrrha…she can't get the objective."

"Strafe?" Pyrrha saw Yang looking back at her from the F-23's cockpit.

"If that's what you want. You have the lead."

"Pyrrha, state?" Yang asked instead.

Pyrrha glanced down at her fuel gauge. She had enough fuel to get back to Atsugi, but only just. Dogfighting and the supersonic run from Nishinoshima had used a lot. Of course, there were alternatives. "Bingo plus one. I'll get a tanker for us."

Yang smiled. Pyrrha would orbit above them. "Pyr…I don't mean to be a sore loser, but if she takes off without me giving the success code, gun her."

"Roger, understood." There was no emotion in Pyrrha's voice, only resolve. Raven would be very low on fuel, and Pyrrha Nikos would not make the same mistakes Cinder Fall had.

Yang turned west onto the downwind leg, leaving Pyrrha orbiting over Tsushima, and alone with her thoughts.

Raven watched the F-23 land. She turned back to the caretaker of the airfield—an elderly Japanese man who looked like he'd last flown in World War II. Her Japanese was not very good, but with gesticulating, a great deal of yelling, and one hand on her sword hilt, she got her message across. Luckily, the Night Raven had originally been designed by the Russians, which meant it was designed to be hand-fueled if necessary, with alternate fuel sources besides JP-5. Raven was fairly certain the aircraft would fly on grain alcohol.

Yang taxied in and found a place to park on the taxiway. The Japanese man groaned, wondering just what was going on. Yang hopped out of the cockpit to the ground, took her helmet off, and set it on the canopy frame. "Don't worry, old dude," Yang told the Japanese man, "I don't need gas. You just go on with what you're doing." He nodded, clearly not understanding a word, bowed a few times, and went to go find the fueling hose. "Hi, Raven."

"Yang. I suppose I should thank you for the assist." She pointed upwards.

"Wasn't me. That was Pyrrha. She owed that bitch payback for Beacon. Cinder killed her boyfriend. Granted, I would've fired if she hadn't." Yang stopped outside of sword-drawing range. "I think it's time we had that conversation we were talking about in California."

"Might as well." She motioned Yang to follow. The two women walked off the airfield, crossed a road, and followed the path past a shrine, before making their way up the side of the mountain. It was a densely forested one, though the path was not terribly difficult. The air was fresh, if salty and off the ocean, and a bit humid.

They were halfway up the mountain before Raven started to talk. "I warned you, Yang. I gave you every opportunity to walk away from Qrow and Ozpin's bunch. So you can believe me when I say this wasn't personal."

"Wasn't personal?" Yang laughed. "You lured my sister and me into a trap, plus every friend I have on the planet that doesn't live in North Carolina. You may not think it was personal, but Emerald and Mercury and Cinder and the fucking GRIMM sure thought it was."

"I knew you could handle it," Raven answered. "You are my daughter, after all. As for Ruby, well…she's Summer's daughter. I'm sure she's fine."

"She was when we left. But one of my best friends may be dead." They walked a bit further. The observatory was in sight. "So how did you get control of the Spring Maiden anyway?"

"Turns out there were a lot of unemployed, half-starved former NASA people in California after everything went to shit. My parents took them on, and protected them. Then, after I came back to the tribe, with everything Oz told us, we used that team to hack the satellite. I imagine the Israelis were pissed."

"They don't know you took it?"

Raven shook her head. "Pretty sure the Mossad would've already killed me if they had. Ah, here we are." There was a chainlink fence around the observatory, with a gate, protected by a simple lock. "Give me a minute." Raven reached into a pocket of her flight suit and withdrew a set of professional lockpicks. She began working on the lock. Yang saw Pyrrha still orbiting slowly overhead. After a minute or two, the lock clicked open. Raven pulled off the heavy chain and opened the gate. "Entre vous."

"After you," Yang insisted. Raven shrugged and walked through; Yang dogged the gate closed. The door to the observatory was locked, with signs in Japanese, Korean and bad English that the building was closed and condemned. Raven made short work of the locks on this as well—Yang was somehow not surprised that her mother was good at that—and they walked in. The entranceway smelled musty, and the carpet was half-rotted. They walked through it to a doorway. "You know your way around here?" Yang asked.

"Never been here before, but I bet I know where the vault entrance is." True to her word, after about five minutes of searching, Raven came to a locked door, marked with a faded sign that read in three languages AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. It had equally faded radiation stickers on it. Raven rapped her knuckles on it. It sounded very solid. "Now what would an observatory have that would be radioactive and require a heavy steel door?" She looked down and smiled. "And a keypad entry?"

"Sounds like we found the vault." Raven turned and found herself staring down the barrel of a .38 revolver. Yang was once more standing out of draw range of Raven's sword. Her grip on the pistol was steady.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Oh, now what's this? You'd shoot your own mother?"

"You're not my mother, remember? Besides," Yang added, "you wanted me to start asking questions. Well, now I am. So tell me…what happened to Amber Tardor, the last person to control the Fall Maiden?"

"Let me guess. Qrow told you."

"He and I had a talk, yeah. After I mentioned what had happened in California." Yang kept her finger off the trigger, but Raven was under little illusion that she wouldn't pull it. "You killed her, didn't you?"

"That's the question you wanted to ask?"

"The first one."

Raven shrugged. "Yes, I did. I found out about her, so I shot her down over Nevada. I knew the government would find someone else, but it would send a message to Ozpin to leave the Branwen Tribe alone. She never should've been out there, Yang. A Maiden holder should not be out hunting GRIMM. What I did—"

"Wasn't personal," Yang finished.

"Salem planned on capturing her. Given what she would've done, it was merciful."

"Merciful. Uncle Qrow told me that she survived the crash. He found her," Yang told Raven.

"I know. He rescued her before Salem's forces could arrive. I even picked a few of the GRIMM off for old times' sake. There was a red F-22 leading them." Raven's mouth quirked into a smile. "Cinder Fall, no doubt." She sighed again. "I imagine this Amber girl died in Qrow's arms."

"She was still alive when Beacon fell. According to Qrow and Pyrrha, that was a mercy. Amber was dying by inches, kept alive by machines long enough until Ozpin found a successor. You did that to her, Raven. You." Yang's lips peeled back in anger. "So which is it, 'Mom'? Are you merciful, or are you a survivor? Did you let us fly into that trap today because you knew Rubes and I could handle it, or because it meant you could get JINN?" She motioned with the pistol towards the door.

Raven did not answer for a moment. "It's not that simple," she finally spoke. "You don't know me, Yang. You don't know what I've been through, or the choices I had to make."

"You're right," Yang agreed. "I don't know you. I only know the Raven Branwen that Dad told me about. She had her issues, and she was no saint, but she fought for what she believed in, whether it was Strike Flight or her country, and he still loves her...and believes she still loves him." Yang raised an eyebrow. "Did you kill her too?"

Raven took a step forward, eyes blazing. "I'm not going to take that from you. I've stared death in the goddamn face over and over again, Yang! And every time I've spit in that face and survived, because I'm strong enough to do what others won't!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Yang shot back. "You don't know the first damn thing about strength, Raven. You turn your back on people, you run away when things get too rough, and you put others in the shit instead of yourself. And you abandoned your own child. Not because you were sacrificing me for the tribe, Raven. Because you didn't have the fucking courage to raise me. Because I was a goddamned inconvenience." Tears welled up and fell down Yang's cheeks. "So you left me and Dad there holding the bag, because you knew Summer Rose's heart was big enough to love both of us. And you ran." She bit back a sob. "You know, I told Oobleck once that the reason why I became a fighter pilot was because I wanted to have fun saving the world. But it was a lie. It was a lie I told myself, and God, if I didn't manage to believe it. Then this happened—" she held up her artificial hand "—and I realized that wasn't the reason. The reason was because I grew up thinking I wasn't good enough, and I've been trying since you left to be good enough. I had to live with that shit. I wasn't good enough for Summer, because she disappeared. And I wasn't good enough for you, because you left me and you fucking ran!"

Raven's hand went to the hilt of her sword. "Who the absolute fuck do you think you are, lecturing me!" she exploded. "Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl?"

Yang noticed that her hand was shaking: she was holding the gun in her left hand, her real one. It wasn't shaking so hard that she couldn't thumb back the hammer. "Yeah," Yang said, her voice cracking. "Yeah, I'm scared. But I'm still standing here." It was Yang who took a step forward now, and to her surprise, Raven actually took a step back. Even with a shaking hand, at this range, Yang could not miss if she was blind. "I'm not like you, Raven. I won't run…which is why you're going to let me into that vault, and then you're going to fly away. Where, I don't give a damn. But you're going to fly away from here."

"Why in the hell would I do that?" Raven scoffed.

"Because you're afraid, Raven. You're fucking terrified of Salem." Yang's voice was steady, and the shaking in her hand stopped. "And if you thought controlling the Spring Maiden put a target on your back, imagine what she'll do when she finds out you iced Cinder and you've got JINN. She'll come after you with everything she has. And you don't have a friend in the world, do you?" Yang shook her head. "I don't think the CIA girl knows you killed her nephew yet. When she finds out, she might just help Salem." Yang shrugged. "Or, you know…Salem can just come after me."

"You can't beat her," Raven warned. "A lot better than either of us has tried. God above, Summer tried, and she disappeared."

"I don't care," Yang answered. She pushed the hammer back into place, but used the pistol to motion at the door. "Open it."

"You don't want to do this, Yang."

"Nope," Yang admitted, "but I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm stubborn. I get it from my dad."

"Yes," Raven said quietly. "Yes, you do." She walked over to the door, hesitated, then pushed a random series of buttons. The door clicked open with a hiss of depressurized air, and Raven opened it. The door was two feet thick, but was so well counterbalanced that Raven was able to pull it open with one hand. The interior was dark, so dark that Raven couldn't see much more than shadows and dim shapes. She knew with certainty that it was all she would ever see of the vault. She backed away.

"Now get out of here," Yang ordered. "I'll tell Pyrrha not to blow your ass out of the sky after you take off."

Raven nodded. She was defeated, utterly so; it showed in her face. "You remember Vernal," she said, her voice still quiet. "Cinder shot her down before she jumped me. She punched out, but right when her F-5 exploded. I think she's dead; I didn't see any response from her in her 'chute. She would've landed somewhere on this part of the island. If she's dead, then please give her a proper burial. If she's alive…" Raven looked at the floor "…tell her to find somewhere besides California, and to make a real life for herself, not the one I gave her."

"I'll do that."

Raven tentatively reached out an arm, then pulled it back. Tears ran down her face. "Yang…I…" she sniffed. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Yang replied softly. "Me too."

Without a further word, Raven turned and left. Yang heard the front door open and shut. She waited a few minutes, then leaned against the wall, next to the open door of the vault. She pulled out her survival radio, and dialed in the correct frequency. "Pyrrha, Yang, how do you read?"

"Yang, Pyrrha—strength four." The voice in the little speaker was tinny and staticky, but Yang could understand her.

"I've got it," Yang said. "Your signal is Aladdin. I say again, Aladdin."

"Roger, will relay. And Raven?"

Yang could not answer for a moment. "Pyrrha, Yang…let her go."

"Roger, understood." There was a pause. "Listening, out." Yang smiled at that. Pyrrha had sensed Yang needed some time.

Slowly, she slid down the wall. She set aside the survival radio and the revolver. Then, for quite awhile, Yang cried, burying her face in her knees, soaking her flight suit with tears. She cried for all the lost years, cried for one mother that had loved her so much, and another who loved her too late. She cried for her father and Ruby. She cried for Weiss. She cried for Jaune and Amber and Ozpin and all the other dead at Beacon. And she cried for Blake.

Finally, Yang could not cry any more. With shuddering sobs, she wiped her eyes, and stood, holstering the pistol. The observatory rumbled with something taking off; Yang could recognize the pitch of the engines, and it wasn't a F-22. She held onto the survival radio, took a deep breath, and walked into the vault. As she did so, the lights came on, activated by a motion detector. Yang expected some gigantic wall of monitors, or maybe a huge vault stretching into infinity, with herself standing on a little balcony. Instead, there was a comfortable looking computer chair, a keyboard, a mouse, and a huge television screen. Next to the mouse was something that looked a little like one of the GameBoys Ruby had been so obsessed with as a kid, though a bit larger and far more advanced.

"Well," Yang said. "That's kind of underwhelming."

She jumped as suddenly the television switched on. It was dark for a moment as it warmed up, and then on the screen appeared a woman from the waist up—except she was blue, from head to toe, with pointed, elven ears, and a gold band across her forehead and a gold choker around her neck. She was also naked, with a lot more anatomical detail than Yang would've thought appropriate. "Good evening," the figure on the screen said, with a voice that was mechanical and yet feminine. "I am JINN. What may I do for you?"

Yang found herself laughing. It was an odd sort of laughter, but Yang was glad for it; it felt like something heavy was lifted off of her heart. "You're serious. You're JINN?"

JINN nodded slowly. "I am indeed. What may I do for you?"

"Wow," Yang said, grinning, "so who made you?"

"I was commissioned by Captain Oscar Ozpin, United States Navy. I was built by the Cray Computer Company in the state of Virginia, and programmed by Netscape Systems of Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as Sony of Japan."

"No, no…who made you…naked?"

JINN's projection smiled. "My appearance is reminscent of the genie in the story of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp. Captain Ozpin believed that the use of the feminine would make people more likely to listen to me, while my nudity would get people's attention." JINN paused. "If you find my nudity offensive, I have a censoring function. Would you like to engage the censoring function?"

"Nah." Yang stepped forward, shaking her head. "Man, Ozpin must have been lonely."

"He was," JINN told her. "My female form closely approximates the measurements of the woman he loved."

Yang sat in the chair and leaned back. "Oh yeah? Damn…Mrs. Pine must have been mighty fine." She snickered at her own rhyme.

"I am not familiar with a Mrs. Pine," JINN said. "My appearance is based on Natasha Kukharchuk."

Yang's eyebrows beetled together in confusion. "Who the hell is Natasha Kukharchuk?"

"Salem," JINN answered.

Misawa Air Base

Aomori Prefecture, Japan

21 June 2001

Rissa Arashikaze reached across the desk and switched off the radio. "Aladdin. Entirely appropriate, considering what's in that vault."

Leonardo Lionheart nodded. "It's good news, I suppose. What will you do with JINN?"

"Use it, as Ozpin intended. He never meant to keep that locked away forever."

"Some of what JINN knows, he very much intended to keep locked away forever," Lionheart corrected.

Rissa shrugged. "Perhaps."

Lionheart folded his hands on his desk. "So. What happens to me?"

Rissa uncrossed her legs. The pistol had not wavered the whole time the battle had gone on. "That's a good question. You did tell us the location of the White Fang's attack at Ashiya, as well as the fact that the GRIMM attack on Hokkaido was a diversion. I hated to throw Ruby and Norn Flights out there against Cinder Fall's bunch alone, but it was necessary to make them think we didn't know what their true objective was. You told us a lot about Salem's operation as well."

"I told you everything I know. Salem is very comparmentalized when it comes to information."

"Given her background, that's not surprising." Rissa looked at him, and he was mildly surprised to see remorse in her eyes. "However, you're the one who 'vetted' Cinder, Emerald Sustrai, and Mercury Black, allowing them to get into Beacon. You were also the one who gave Salem a great deal of information about our operations—the transmitter in North Dakota, for instance, and where to hijack that F-22 that Cinder used. And that Amber Tardor was operating out of Las Vegas. A lot of red in your ledger, Leo. Too much that your actions lately will not wipe it out. Not even what happened to your daughter changes that, I'm afraid. You sold out to Salem, Leo, and a lot of mutual friends are dead because of it."

Lionheart nodded. "That is true. Which means a court-martial on charges of treason, among many others. The Lionheart name will be dragged through the media. No one will remember my wife or my daughter as the brave women they were, just that the husband and father who was the biggest traitor to the Crown since Guy Fawkes."

"I'm afraid so." Rissa stood, weighed the pistol in her hands, then set it down on the desk. "There is another solution." She pushed it towards him.

He stared at the pistol. "I could shoot you, and escape."

Rissa nodded. "You could. But where would you go? If the CIA doesn't find you, Salem will. And something tells me she'll want you alive. She learned her trade at Dzerzhinsky Square. I don't think you want that anymore than public humiliation." She leaned over the desk. "And to be honest, Leo, I don't think you want to shoot me."

"You're a brave woman."

"A brave woman would have figured out a different way to handle this," Rissa replied.

"So would have a brave man." He picked up the pistol. "No court-martial?"

"You will be hailed as a hero," Rissa told him. "A Faunus with a long and distinguished service to Queen and Country. Privately, to my opposite number in MI6, a deep cover agent working for me against Salem. A loving husband and a doting father."

Lionheart smiled. "That last part, at least, is not a lie." He held the pistol in his left hand and extended his right. "Goodbye, Rissa Arashikaze. Or whatever your real name is."

She smiled back and shook his hand. "Goodbye, Leonardo Lionheart…my friend."

He gave her one last nod. Rissa turned and walked out of the office, and shut the door. She waited until she heard a single gunshot, then pulled out her phone and dialed a number.