RecReclaiming in Black
Chapter 16: Stories, Plans, and Coincidences
SPOILERS: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BLACK PALADIN! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Rose walked into the pulsating white disk and was suddenly back in her team room. She blinked several times, considering the events over the last minutes.
As she looked around, she could see the arrival of the rest of the members of her earlier disastrous meeting standing in the hallway, around the shattered door. The RWBY girls haven't moved, they all seem to be frozen.
Obsidian broke the silence by floating Qrow Raven's weapon. "When she wakes up, give her this back."
He turns and snaps his fingers which causes the door to pull back together. He turns and begins walking forward his corner of the room when Rose demanded, "Stop."
He turns, and an unnatural calm descends over his features, "Yes?"
"We are going to talk about when happened on that beach."
"Why?" Obsidian asked, sounding empty almost like he wasn't there. "I beat Raven. I didn't kill her. End of story."
"You don't see calmly kneeling for your own execution as a cause for concern?" Rose demanded, drawing a gasp from both the RWBY girls and the four adults entering the room from the hallway.
"I fought back." Obsidian defended, a nervous evasiveness falling over the blankness for a moment.
Rose turned fully to him, eye narrowing in rage, "After nearly letting her execute you!"
"What was I supposed to do!?" Obsidian demanded, yelling with an undertone of a growl.
"You were supposed to fight back! You weren't supposed to just let her kill you! You are obviously more than capable of fighting back!" Rose demanded, taking a step forward, growing more and more furious.
"Against Yang's mom? The women you just rescued from death? What was I supposed to do? Hospitalize her? Kill her? You thought she was going to be useful to your war against Cinder Fall, I assume that doesn't change if she tries to kill me. Does it?" Obsidian demanded, his form shifting slowly into a more Grimm-ish form, growing to equal Rose in height.
Ruby ran toward them, yelling, "Stop arguing!"
Both of them turn to Ruby. Rage while evident on their faces, slowly calms in the face of Ruby's innocence. Obsidian turns to Rose, "What is your biggest gripe with my actions?"
Rose paused, considering, "I don't want you to die."
Obsidian looks at Rose, and a mixture of emotions flashes across his face, confusion, admiration, and hope all form intermittently, as he turns away from everyone slightly.
Rose looks at him, and quality, especially after the last confession, asks "Why didn't you fight back?"
Obsidian looks down shame washing over his features, and waves slightly at his new form. "Why should I?"
"You haven't done anything wrong!" Ruby said and rushes over.
Obsidian looks over at her, his gaze holding her more powerfully than his power ever could, and asks, "Neither had Abyssal. Not yet." With that cryptic segway, he walked into his corner, waving his hands as the room rebuilds itself from his earlier actions.
As he goes into his corner, Ozpin, leading the rest of the teachers, walks over to Rose, and asks, "What happened?"
Rose explained what happened, from running out of the room to Raven's attacking Obsidian and therefore herself. Then she explained, what little she could, the fight between them, and how Obsidian returned them to Beacon.
Reactions were mixed across the room; Ruby looks horrified holding both Crescent Roses close; Weiss looks angry, glaring at the four on the hallway; Blake's ears flatten and she turns toward the hallway as well; Yang's eyes shift to red, however, is far more focused on the weapon in Qrow's hand. Rose justifiably looked tired; Glynda looks suspiciously at Obsidian's corner; Ozpin looks contemplatively about the room; while Tai Yang and Qrow are distractedly looking between Rose, Ruby, Yang, and each other.
Weiss demands, "This is the women you felt was so necessary to save?"
Qrow turned toward Weiss, and Obsidian interrupts, "I think we saved her because she is Yang's mom and Qrow's sister, not for the complete lack of new information she brings to the table."
Everyone turns to Obsidian and he shrugs, visibly armed after his brief trip into his corner.
Ozpin asks, almost smug, "How do you figure that Mr. Sinclair?"
"Unless this world is radically different from Rose's homeworld?" He pauses considering his terminology, "Any tactical information Raven could deliver is moot, and while her abilities are powerful but…" he waves his hands, and eight black armbands fly out of his room, and hover in front of everyone, "...neither indispensable or unique any longer."
Slowly everyone picks up the Skellington, as Obsidian walks over and taps Rose's armband, with a brief glow.
Rose waves her hand as Obsidian had on the beach, and a white portal with bright red edging appears in the center of the room, and a second portal appears a moment later across the room, before both wink out of existence almost as soon as they appeared. Obsidian comments, "You need to concentrate pretty hard for a portal to maintain form."
Ozpin looked toward the bracelet hovering before him, and asked, "Rose has informed us of a similar weapon from her past, one that allowed you to control the people wearing them."
Obsidian looked to Rose and admitted, "I will admit that I have control over these, however, they don't interconnect with your nervous system like the version Rose had notes on."
Everyone in the room looked to Rose, and she demonstrated that she can take it off as she wishes. A moment of stillness until the RWBY four girls looked toward each other and donned the gauntlet.
Yang was the first to activate the armoring feature, Rose noted that it wasn't a speed form, but the thicker coiled matter of the Strength form Yang slowly shifted her weight, and turned toward Obsidian, her voice distorted into unintelligible noise. Obsidian blinked, and responded, "Oops."
He waved his hand, and the area near her mouth thinned, and then he continued, "I don't know Yang."
Many questioning looks were exchanged as Yang continued unabated, "That could be an issue."
"Yep." Obsidian looked over, and started looking at her hands, and mumbled seemingly to himself, "How is that going to work?"
"What?" Weiss asked slowly.
Obsidian looked over, and nodded, "Right...umm...I need to think about how I am going to get Ember Celica to work with armor. Very few hunters have a gauntlet type weapon, so I don't have any notes on this."
He continues to look at the armor until he sighed, and the fists slowly grew a small hole in the back of the glove. He tilted his head back and forth for a moment, and sighed, "That the best I can do on short notice, I'll keep working. Just...don't use your shotgun rounds, they might not work."
Yang spoke again, and asked, "How can I reload?"
Obsidian froze again and sighed. The rest of the room started laughing slightly at the hopeless look on his face, as a small indent appeared on the bottom of the armor, "Open it." He looked helplessly at the rest of the room, and asked, "I don't think anyone else is going to have an issue like this, right?"
The faint humor dissipated as the other three girls activated them, and Rose noted that they had all three types represented. Speed for Ruby and Blake, and that infernal Dust type for Weiss which lead to some interesting questions from Glynda, "How does the armor produce the dust?" gesturing to the glowing segments on the armor containing Fire and Ice dust along the arms.
"Not a clue." Obsidian said, "The notes here say they can, but I couldn't say how they create dust."
The four remaining slowly armor themselves, and nothing unexpected is seen in their armors, Dust for Glynda and Ozpin, Speed for Qrow, and Strength for Tai Yang.
Ozpin felt around with his aura and Obsidian added quickly, "I wouldn't try compound dust, make a multi-elemental glyph."
His response is met with four questioning glances. From the three dust armors, and Rose.
"What?" He asks.
"That reduces the stability of the glyph." Rose says, "What do the notes say?"
"That the dust armor has no recorded ability to fabricate more than 1 type of dust at any given time." He responds looking through his scroll.
Rose looks at him, "So you think that combining them in a glyph is a better idea?"
"Than what?" Obsidian asked slowly.
"Anything else?" Weiss asks, a slight demand for a better answer ringing in the question.
He draws Balta and coats it in fire, then it slowly turns into lightning. "It's what I've always done."
The four pause, looking at the sword in his hands, Rose, as the only person with a visible face, looks horror-struck.
"You what?" Glynda demands.
Obsidian looks confused, "I sense I've done something wrong."
"You combine dust in an active glyph!" Weiss yells.
"Is that an issue?" Obsidian asks.
Weiss stops over, "You are going to blow yourself up?"
"What?" Obsidian asks.
"Anyone with any training in fundamental dust usage knows that…" Weiss stops as Obsidian puts his hand up.
"I learn this from experimenting in the woods." He explains, "Spartum wasn't exactly focused on educating people unable to pay for tutors. As either of them can tell you…" He points at Glynda and Ozpin, and says, "...I am not in the dust classes this semester because I don't meet the minimum testing requirements for the class. I'm in the introductory class next semester with Yang and Ruby." He looks to them, and asks, "Did you know you shouldn't combine dust types?"
Yang and Ruby look to each other, "Isn't that how you get complex dust, combining basic dust types into a more complex type?"
Rose looks at Ruby, and says, "I only learned how dust worked on a more particular level going into my third year to upgrade Crescent Rose."
Weiss turns on Rose beginning a rant on proper dust safety until she realized that Rose did learn, so she turned to Ruby and Yang with her angry rant. Amusing of everyone in the room.
Obsidian turned to Rose, and asked, "So, not that I did myself any favors, but what did you do to point her at me?"
Rose looks shocked, and asks, "What?"
"She was terrified and angry when she was up in Ozpin's office. Then she was really angry, then she got here and was even worse. What did you do to piss her off?"
"We told her you were here." Rose responded, slowly.
Obsidian paused, tensing, "Cinder knows about me?"
Rose looks to Ozpin and given him a look. He looks toward her. Rose cracks under the blank stare, "Ozpin, I can't even guess what you are thinking with the mask on."
Ozpin's head raises slightly, and asks, "How do I remove this armor?" As the armor retracts into the small gauntlet.
"Think about it." Obsidian says, a smirk on his face.
Ozpin looks to Rose, "I believe it is in his best interest to know about what Raven told us. I also know he will need the support of his team after this information."
Ozpin and Rose look toward team RWBYO and says, "However this conversation is best had after a good nights rest, and not after violence."
"So Raven had information that Rose couldn't provide?" Obsidian asks.
Ozpin smirks, "Or our world are different enough that Rose doesn't have all the information."
Obsidian laughs at the repetition, and sombers saying, "That option could be much worse, and more widespread that we know."
Ozin turns to leave, saying, "I think it already is."
The next day, after tempers cooled, and Raven woke up, the rapidly growing group, eleven strong now, meet in Ozpin's office. Ozpin and Rose look to Raven to repeat her information and continue.
Raven begins, "To begin with, in Rose's world, the conspiracy to destroy Vale ended with Cinder?" She looks to Rose, questioningly.
Rose says slowly, "As far as we know, yes."
Weiss sits up straight, "That would imply it doesn't here."
Raven looks to the group, settling on Yang and Ruby. "Here we know that Cinder is a pawn for a woman named Salem, the Queen of the Grimm." A hush settles over the room, as all eyes turn to Obsidian, who looks stunned.
Raven continues, "She has agents working on all four countries, to destabilize the governments, and bring Remnant to its knees. Her primary goal is to find Obsidian and bring him to her side, to create something called the Spire."
Obsidian's eyes widen and he begins to shake slightly. He looks to Rose and says something that terrifies the two of them. "The Citadel."
Rose hears him, and pales slightly, and says, "I didn't unlock that entry yet, how did…"
"You didn't hide the entry picture." Obsidian says quietly, "And it's not like I wouldn't recognize it."
Everyone in the room goes cold, Raven whispers "What."
"Since I discovered my abilities, I have had something akin to nightmares. That all depict four towers, each of them segmented helixes, forming a pyramid." Obsidian says, and a small, white module appears in his hand, outstretched toward them, with a purple light flickering in the center.
Raven backs up, her chair grinding across the floor away from him, and demands, "Destroy it!"
Obsidian laughs humorlessly. "It doesn't work this small. Not this innocently."
He crushes the pyramid and says, his voice almost lifeless, "8000 willing Aura enabled people sacrificed themselves to close and seal the doorway to...Whatever is on the other side of this gate. 8000 Aura enabled people are needed to open the gate."
Obsidian pauses, as terror grows in everyone present. Until Weiss goes from looking down stunned, to straight-backed, and her terror skyrockets, and she says aloud, "8000 willing sacrifices to close and to open to right?"
"It is a subtle distinction isn't it." Obsidian says, curling into himself, shame shining through in his voice.
The terror of the group was overwhelming, Obsidian could feel all of it directed toward him, and until Rose's shifted into grief. "That would imply upwards of six thousand when into the Citadel?"
"Given the last picture?" Obsidian asks, and Rose nods, "Almost seven thousand people."
Raven looks over, "The story of the First Darkness."
Obsidian turns to her, eyes narrowed, "It's a fairy tale."
"Mother Darkness doesn't seem to think so." Raven responds, "After all she is only the Queen of the Grimm, and is looking for the Dark Bringer. Know anyone capable of creating a Gateway to Darkness?" Raven demands, standing to tower over him.
Obsidian freezes and looks lost, nearly catatonic, and for the first time anyone but Rose in this room has ever seen, terrified. Truly paralyzed with fear.
Yang demands, "Enough. Only one person here has actually worked with Cinder Fall or Salem. You don't get to assign blame." Standing to almost equal Raven's height.
Raven steps back, responding, "I did what I had to do!"
"He hasn't done anything!" Yang defended. "He didn't up and leave behind a daughter and a husband because playing spy was easier!"
"I did that to protect Summer and to protect you!" Raven stepped forward, escalating.
"And what's the track record on that! Chasing you has nearly killed me and Ruby, and it killed Summer!"
The room grew very still after that statement. Her early statement stepped to the forefront for Tai, Qrow. Nearly in tandem, the three asked, "You said took her. You never said she died."
If the room was still before, it was frozen now. Nobody wanted to attempt to field that possibility. Hope like that could be dangerous, especially with the current audience. Eventually Raven responded, quietly like she didn't want to scare something away. "Cinder and another of Salem's henchmen kidnapped her. They left blood and torn cloak to prevent anyone attempting to look for her. I don't know what happened after that."
Qrow in typical fashion takes a long swing from his flask, and says "I think I preferred the dead theory."
Rose, Raven, Yang, Tai, and Ruby all turn, all erupting into a hot rage, and Obsidian speaks. "Would you all prefer that she had been held captive for what? A decade; more? What would they have done to her in that time span? What could they have done to her in that time span?"
They all pause, their rage giving way to grief, Obsidian twitching slightly under the emotional tidal wave, and says, "I apologize for saying this, but the years of pain they could have inflicted upon her are far worse than the thought of her going down fighting."
Raven's emotions morph into rage and grief nearly in equal measure. "And I suppose you of anyone here have an idea what kind of pain she could have suffered?"
Obsidian slouches again, shame shining through regret, "I know what Abyssal did to Blake if that's what you are attempting to insinuate."
Rose looks over to Obsidian and asks, "Not using 'I' anymore?"
Obsidian looks up at her, showcasing more confidence than he had since he learned of Abyssal Fall, and smiled, "We aren't the same person, and I intend to keep it that way."
Rose smiles, "Good."
Yang looks between them, and a small smile appears on her face. One far less sincere than theirs.
Blake looks between them and her frown deepens.
Weiss smiles at Obsidian, thankful he is out of his funk.
Ruby is just happy no one is yelling anymore.
Everyone else in the room doesn't quite know what to make of the current situation. Raven chooses to continue. "Well...um."
Rose turns, "Salem is looking for Obsidian. Do we know why? What else is she doing?"
Raven looks over, "She is actually very focused on that goal. Expanding her network of informants, and getting people into the governments of Remnant. She wants to keep people from unifying against her, but finding him is easily her biggest goal. She has one or two major players in every kingdom. Cinder transferred here about six months ago and took over Hazel's operations. Hazel is a hulking man that was moved to Mistral. In Atlas a strange man named Watts, and a deranged monster of a man named Tyrrian in Vacuo. They each have their own plans, along with any Salem given them. They don't use the towers to communicate but are capable of communicating somehow."
Rose looks over to Raven, "Do you know what their plans are?"
"I know that Hazel had a plan, but it fell apart fairly dramatically over the last year and a half." Raven explains, "Cinder's plans, from what little I could determine, are similar to the Cinder from your world. Terrify the populous with infighting and Grimm. Use her nearly nonexistent ties to the old crown of Vale to declare herself ruler. Use that power to destabilize all of Remnant. Failing that, ensure the Vale burns down to nothing."
Hearing her plan in such broad terms, even knowing it almost happened once, is startling for team RWBYO, as well as the non-time/space traveling teachers as Beacon.
Rose, however, was un-flapped at the news, and asks, "So, given that her plans now have you diseased, what are your plans for the immediate future?"
Raven pauses and finally nods, "I don't know. I hadn't expected to need a plan after dealing with Cinder."
Several dark looks came from the Xiao-Long/Branwen bunch at that admission.
Raven looks up, and defends herself, "I certainly didn't think that I could come back, I had believed that by the time my mission was over, I would be amongst the most wanted terrorists on Remnent. Up alongside any that worked closely with Salem. I wouldn't...couldn't have brought that back to you."
That didn't curb the three angry looks.
Obsidian asked Rose pointedly, "What are the odds that Cinder will have backup beyond her team?"
Rose looks speculative, "Honestly, her ties to the White Fang could do some massive damage if felt alone, but she doesn't have any more direct support than her team, and she doesn't have Tortchwick under her thrall yet."
Obsidian gave Blake a pointed look while speaking plainly to Rose, "What are the odds that Ghira stepping back into the spotlight could prevent the Fang from following Cinder's plans?"
Blake froze, very reminiscent of a deer in the headlights. Rose paused slipping deeply into her thoughts, "He isn't dead yet, is he?"
Blake looks over to Rose, demanding, "What?"
Rose looks over, "About a month into our second year, you got a message from back home. Your parents had been killed. You were pretty broken up, and we avoided the topic fairly pointedly after that. I honestly never made the connection between Ghira and your father."
Blake looked at Obsidian, "And how did you know?"
"About six-ish years ago, Ghira Belladonna and some White Fang supporters came to by Spartum. They were protesting the SDC trade that was circumventing the Vale tariffs by entering Spartum, who wasn't enforcing it, and then because we were technically inside Vale, shipping in as an internal good. Lowering SDC costs further and 'Demonstating the unsolicited corruption present in the SDC'" Obsidian finishes, a sign consolidating in his hand to symbolize the point.
Blake pauses. "Oh." With as Rose noted fondly, her signature bow twitch.
"And I assumed that there are only so many ex-White Fang, cat Faunus with the last name Belladonna, wielding darkness based semblances, but I could have been wrong." Obsidian finished. A fairly uncomfortable silence followed.
Blake asked, "How do you know about my dad's semblance."
"Mr. Steel was most insistent that we remove the protestors before the SDC shipment was due to arrive. I'm not sure who started the fight, but I would put serious money on someone from Spartum. The fighting got slightly out of hand, and your dad brought out his semblance. Nasty piece of work, but as I don't exactly need sight to see people…" He faded off.
"You don't have night vision." Blake asked.
"I can see the emotional outline of people feeling strong emotions, anger, rage, fear, etcetera, or anyone with a deployed aura. Seeing a rage-filled aura through the dark field was cake. Telling if it was someone from Spartum or the White Fang was substantially more difficult, especially for Faunus that didn't have outwardly visible traits that their aura was covering." Obsidian explained.
"That explains a lot actually." Rose muttered.
We all turn, and Blake asks, "What do you mean?"
Rose looked over, "Abyssal was nearly impossible to sneak up on. We always thought he might have enhanced his senses somehow. If he could track the expression of aura then it wasn't noise or even sight, it was the aura that we were using to conceal those signs of our presence that tipped you off."
Obsidian nodded. "That's probably true." then he turned to Raven, "So what plans fell apart here in Vale? If it fell apart before Rose showed up, then we might have heard about it?"
"He had been attempting to grow a group of domestic terrorists at the edge of Vale, Salem was keeping the bigger Grimm away from town, and he was breaking a generation or three of men and women into weapons."
Rose and the rest of team RWBYO froze. All of them were looking at Obsidian, who was looking at Raven with fear prevalent in his eyes, "Northern tip of Vale, a small stone walled town with ties to the Military of Atlas?"
Raven looked at him, "Yes. Maybe thirty miles south of sea…"
"On the east coast of Vale, settled in a small ocean accessible pocket with nearly a direct line to Atlas? Separated from Vale by a ring of mountains that extended any trip there by airship by close to two weeks, promoting the isolation."
Raven and the rest of the occupants slowly realized what Obsidian was saying. That he had grown up in a town ruled by one of Salem's generals, and advisors. If anyone in town had seen Obsidian do something to unexplainable, he would have been in Salem's clutches years ago, and no one here would have even known Obsidian was on the board.
"Oh crap." Yang said aloud, as the concept that Obsidian wasn't discovered by Salem looked more and more like chance.
"Well, it is fortunate that Obsidian was as cautious as he was." Ozpin said slowly, looking out, past the group at Vale.
The group slowly calmed from the emotional bomb that Raven's information had dropped un them.
Obsidian slowly turned to Bake and Rose, and asked, "Do you think your dad would be willing to help?"
Blake looked up, and looked shocked, "I...I don't know."
Rose looked down at Blake, concerned, and asked "What do you mean."
"I didn't...I didn't leave them on the best terms." Blake admitted slowly.
Ruby ran up and said, "But they are your parents! Of course he'll help you!"
Blake looked slightly reassured, and Obsidian tried to help, "I could try asking instead, he did say he owed me a favor."
The group once again turned to him questioningly, "I didn't kill him and his men given the opportunity. He said I demonstrated honor, and that he was in my debt. He said I seemed like an honorable man."
Most of the group once again sighed at the nonsense that Obsidian's life seemed to consist of. Blake, however, looked reassured, as she muttered, "Oh."
Obsidian asked, "What?"
"He did mention an honorable monster in Vale." Blake said, quietly. Resulting in another sigh from the group.
Obsidian looked around and asked the group, "So separate Cinder from the White Fang, using the influence of Ghira Belladonna, then take her down?"
The group nodded slowly, and Rose couldn't help but think back to one of Weiss's favorite saying as the war continued, and she was hounded continuously for easy plans, 'Simple plans are the most difficult to actually accomplish.'
AN: So, as you might have noticed, I had a big backlog of these stored about. This is the last of those, and I am excited about the direction we are heading. If anyone wants me to post the story of the First Darkness, I can post it, but I think I covered pretty much the whole story.
AN2: Hazel being Mr. Steel wasn't in the first draft of this story, but one of my editors made a joke about a vague mountain of a man with seeming invulnerability, and I had to explore the possibility. This is also the spoiler for Black Paladin, a small one, but still a spoiler.