LXVII - Lichen

Very informative and important-ish authors note at the end if you want to read it. Kinda lengthy tho.

~~~(LXVII)~~~

Oxon was shuffled into a barren room by a pair of robot soldiers. Three days after his imprisonment in that luminous cell, it seemed like their interrogation was finished. For what, he had one guess.

Time for the trial, I bet.

Though it wasn't quite what he expected. After being ushered inside, he could see a basic bed that thankfully looked big enough for him, a desk and a chair, and what looked like a bathroom in a separate room. Oxon blinked a few times as he looked around. It wasn't a cell… but it wasn't a room that students would use either, too barren compared to what was at Beacon.

What was going on?

"Welcome to your new home." Oxon flinched at the sudden loud voice behind him. Turning around, he saw a sizable chest; looking up, he saw one of the people that arrested him. The woman with the big weapon.

"Huh?"

She laughed at his confused expression and walked into the room. "I can understand that. I don't quite understand the specifics myself, nor do I particularly care, but it seems you've avoided a cell. The general has seen fit to allow you to work off your crimes by serving the kingdom."

"I'm… able to help?"

"Yup!" She gave him a grin and a strong pat on the back. It was worse than Nora's. "My name is Elm, I'll be one of the people occasionally monitoring you. So you don't become a terrorist again."

This… this was something he hadn't planned for. The original plan was to hide his identity until they couleet with the general and work something out, whatever that might have been, but that failed within hours of arriving. When he was arrested, he had little hope of getting away a second time. No Taurus to break him out and he doubted Teams RWBY and JNPR would have managed that.

Well, I'm not one to look a gift bull in the mouth. I'm going to need to make the best of this. Show Ironwood that I'm changed.

"Thank you." The woman, Elm, looked surprised at his honest thanks. "I promise that I won't waste this opportunity. I'll do whatever it takes."

Her surprise morphed into a grin. "Good to hear, I guess we can take those off now." The woman reached forward and deactivated the handcuffs, letting Oxon massage his sore joints. It felt good, so very good after being in them for three days.

She then pulled out a familiar pair of fingerless gauntlets. Except for a odd addition. A purple ring wrapped around each of them right at the wrist. There was obviously something about it, but the dull color confused him.

"When outside of this room, you will be accompanied by a minimum of two people and are required to wear these." She motioned for him to do so, and he followed her instructions willingly. Once on his hands, he felt a mechanism wrap around his wrists. It was cd and smooth, some sort of metal restraint. It wasn't tight enough to impact his movement to a noticeable degree, but a quick test showed that he couldn't slide them off. He made to pull harder but for it cutting into his aura. They were stuck in him.

"And this is?" He wished he'd paid more attention to Weiss' dust lectures now. The name of the dust was on the tip of his mind, but he couldn't remember which it was. He'd forgotten about hardlight dust's existence until he saw the barrier at Argus.

"I'm no tech nerd, so magnetic shackles is the best way to describe it. If you're bad, the handler in charge of you will activate them and force your wrists together." She pulled out her scroll. "Want to try it out?"

Flexing his fingers, Oxon shook his head.

"Eh, boring. I'll have you know, I tried them out myself, couldn't pull them apart a millimeter with all I had, so don't bother thinking you can get out."

"You did?"

"Marrow dared me. I'll get him back later for making me look foolish." Gesturing to the items, she explained a bit more of his restrictions. "If you're alone in the room, you're free to take them off, sensors in the room will know when that is and send a signal to them to slacken the in gauntlet restraints. If someone comes here, you will be required to put them on, it will alert us if you don't."

The name meant nothing to him so he just nodded. While the issue with his half gauntlets were annoying, things weren't awful, so he chose to be cautiously optimistic about the situation. Her words from earlier especially stuck out to him. He'd been allowed a bit of freedom by the kingdom. He looked up from his hands and back to the older huntress.

"Soooo… You said I would be able to leave? When can I do that?"

"Whenever the general has a mission for you or if another specialist or huntsman decides to bring you on one of their missions. The general has a few tasks for you to complete for him and I'm sure the little tykes will come by eventually to get you." It took him a few seconds to put that together. The woman must have been referring to Ruby and the others. "They made a big stink about everything earlier and general Ironwood has accepted a few of their conditions for their help, might want to give em a big "thank you" next time you see them."

Oxon smiled at the image of Ruby yelling at the half robot man. It was an amusing image. "I'll be sure to."

The woman nodded to the mechanical robots who then left the room and she walked over to the door and flashed her scroll to unlock it. "Good luck Adhmad, don't make us regret this decision." With that, she was gone, and Oxon vowed to do whatever he could.

~~~(LXVII)~~~

"I would ask that you not inform Mr. Adhmad about these plans."

Ruby didn't like the look the general had on his face when they first entered the room. It had been a slight frown that had not gone away upon seeing them. It seemed like he had to actively work to change his expression. She wasn't sure why, he'd been pleased with them just a few days ago. Even with her, Oscar, and Jaune demanding he let Oxon out.

Even with the odd look, he'd given them official huntsmen licenses to allow them to take up missions from the kingdom. They'd finally become what they trained to be. It was a dream come true!

And then he told them about the Amity Project.

"But why? If everyone else already knows what we're doing, then whats one more person?"

"It would be one thing if he were a legitimate student. Or even a helpful person you picked up such as the Grimm Reaper. The issue we have is his past." He pulled out his scroll and sent a image to the central screen. It was of Oxon and a few paragraphs detailing his history.

"From a mix of our information specialists and questioning of Adhmad, we have put together a profile for him." Ruby moved closer to see what was in there. At the top was an image of him in chains. A mugshot. Below that was his name and a number.

"Weak Mind: Inmate 3927 has shown repeated cases of failure to act on his own and instead follows orders of those he believes stronger than him. Hei Xiong, Roman Torchwick, Adam Taurus, and Cinder Fall are examples of people he has worked under. While the inmate believes himself forced into these positions, it is clear he is unable to put up resistance to coercion. Perhaps this cam be useful for Atlas."

"Self-destructive Combat: Inmate 3927 has shown in multiple instances that he, while says he does not look to die, has taken blows that has put his aura low or given him a severe injury*. It is believed that 3927's combat skill is moderately above average, his longevity on the battlefield is not and tends to expend aura at a higher than average rate. Perhaps this is why he wears such durable armor."

*See Breach Incident.

"Seeks Redemption: Inmate 3927 has repeatedly vocalized his desire to fix his mistakes. Escaping from Tower Prison in Vale might run counter to such claims, yet 3927 states that he can do more by being active in the field. This is a commitment we can exploi-"

Ruby has to stop herself there. This- this was wrong. Wrong in ways she had never imagined. There was more as well, they created a statistical sheet of his strength, speed, and hypothesized intelligence. Both for in and out of combat. There were more brief paragraphs about his personality, past, and more. Reading what had to be private information made her feel like a creep.

The general seemed pleased though. His reaction made sense, she knew, he had to know about Oxon so that they would be able to get him to join them on missions. So this made him feel secure, though it has worrying implications.

Does he have the same type of file on us? That thought sat poorly, yet she knew she'd never know. Even if he did, she wouldn't be able to do anything about it either. Better to live in ignorance.

"While I agreed to your petitions, I still need some promise of secrecy. While I am of the mind not to trust that he isn't a double agent, he has shown repeat cases of folding under pressure and questioning. If his old allies, who know him and his faults, find him…" the man shook his head. "I don't believe he would be able to not reveal our plans. I know you may trust he is on our side. He might even be, but I cannot afford the risk. I will not argue this."

He made sense. She didn't like it, but he did. She didn't mean that Ox would betray them, not again. It was just that they couldn't provide proof to the general. Perhaps in time he'd see…

Next to her, Yang let out a low whistle. "This is heavy stuff."

She agreed with her sister. A lot of this information seemed to be taken from before or directly after the Fall, perhaps before he escaped prison, so it was now outdated. Ruby was sad to know that it had all once been true, but she knew his personality had been much different since Haven, since he knew his brother was still alive. She noticed an improved state of being in him, he was more hopeful for the future now. After a while of getting used to things, Oxon was in a better mental state now and he was getting back to how he used to be. With many sections of information outdated, the conclusions drawn by the general were fairly incorrect, not that any of the group seemed ready to fix it.

They also did not have a section on his time in Menagerie but for a brief list of events. No talk on the "adoption" or his relationship with the Belladonnas. It seemed like the report was not as accurate as the general was led to believe.

"As I hear Dr. Polendina has already told you, Adhmad will be allowed a minimal amount of freedom to work off his sentence. For now, he will be in the service of Atlas and its people. He will not be a registered huntsman like you all have been, as such he will receive no wages in accordance with Atlas Law. You may, if you decide to take him on a mission, have the freedom to explore the kingdom. Though he must be accompanied by at least two other persons in those cases." With that, he removed the file from the screen and turned to look at each member of the group. "I trust that is acceptable?"

Ruby looked to her friends, each of them nodded, though some were a bit hesitant. "Yes, sir." It wasn't perfect, but it was much better than the situation before. At least there was hope.

"Tomorrow will be a critically important mission, securing the site for the Amity launch. This is a dangerous mission due to it being located in a now defunct dust mine. Your new upgrades should be finished today, so I recommend getting used to their new capabilities."

"And Oxon?"

His eyes looked over to Blake who had spoken up. Like the others she had been put off by the information shown, but not as much as the others. He must have told her a few things back in Menagerie.

"He is free to leave his chambers so long as two others are watching him." He tapped a few things into his scroll before everyone present received a notification on theirs. "This is a copy of the code for his room and his restraints. It will automatically log every time his room is accessed as well as for each use of his restraints. With this, I will trust you to manage him in a proper manner."

"So he's kind of like a library book?" Yang nudged her partner playfully. "Seems a bit more intense than checking out regular books, yeah?"

"Yeah! Books can't fight Grimm!" The redhead thought for a moment before getting a big grin.

"Nora, please don't use books as a weapon…"

"Boooooo…" The girl pouted at her partner. She, like the others, feared just what the girl had in mind.

"If that is all the questions you have, then you are free to use the rest of the day as you see fit." The general walked to the door and paused in the doorway. He had a small smile on his face. "Please feel free to treat the academy like you would Beacon."

"Well, today sure was a day."

"Couldn't agree more with VB. This whole last half hour was kinda crazy."

Yang was looking at her scroll and the new app downloaded onto it and Ruby did too. It was simple, they just waved it by a panel next to his door to open it and a large button in the center of the screen would activate the gravity dust in his gauntlets. Ruby knew she'd never use it, she doubted the others would either.

"So, I guess we should get our stuff? I definitely want to test out the new features." Jaune looked excited. Ruby mirrored that. She'd wanted to hook him up with dust functions on their trip to Haven, but they didn't have the funds to get it done or the gear for her to do it herself. She couldn't wait to see how it worked.

"I shall go get Oxon, would someone like to join me?" She turned her head and saw Weiss already standing at the door, looking at them expectantly.

"I'll go!" With a burst of rose petals, she appeared by her partner's side with a smile. "We gotta fill him in on what's happened so far!"

Weiss gave Ruby a relieved smile of her own and waved at the others. "Myrtenaster did not need augmentation, being built here, so I'll grab it after we retrieve our errant bull. Text us the training room to use and we shall meet you there soon."

"Have fun~! Don't mess around with the handcuffs too much!"

"Don't insinuate such things!"

Ruby laughed as her flushed partner dragged her off to where Oxon was staying.

~~~(LXVII)~~~

"Weiss, slow down!" Her partner was keeping up with her easily, so why complain? She has a speed semblance after all. A light tug on her sleeve got her to pause in the hallway.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? You're running through the halls as if there's a fire burning down a strawberry farm." Weiss huffed at the odd comparison and continued down the hall. Though at a more acceptable pace.

"I'm just concerned about him. After seeing the way he was taken, I have been worried for his health." That and the fact that her sister had been sent to question him. She never believed the propaganda many of the White Fang said about treatment by Atlas personnel, but there was a tiny seed of doubt in her mind. Hopefully Oxon would prove them wrong.

"Blake filled me in on a few things when I asked her, and while I know she was hiding information, the basic picture I got was not a bright one. After I- after we arrested him at Beacon and he was out in prison, she said his treatment was like that of an animal. I both want to and don't want to know what that entailed, but it is clear that Oxon had been shaken by it. Perhaps he still is." She turned her head to look Ruby in the eyes as they walked. "I want to see if this made things worse, and help if possible."

"Well we know a lot of what Ironwood thinks is wrong." The psychiatric report. It had been shocking to see, but Weiss knew most of the assumptions made were wrong. "The only thing that's even close is his combat style. He likes to use aura to enhance his hits to one-shot Grimm, so he goes through a lot."

"And his nature to take unnecessary blows."

"Yes, that I a particularly worrisome flaw…" She'd thought that after The Breach, that he would take more care to conserve his aura and take less risks, though that seemed like a foolish wish. He'd taken that heavy hit against Adam, which likely is what caused him to lose a significant amount of it. He still relied too much on his armor to protect him when dry. "One that I will see to fixing."

"You will?"

"Yes." Her eyes narrowed slightly at the thought of him even thinking of refusing. "That nature of his has been left unchecked for too long, I won't have him leaping in front of every blow that comes towards us. Of course if someone's aura is broken and his is still healthy, then that would be fine… But he doesn't think we can protect ourselves!"

Frustration from the retelling of the Taurus fight was coming back and her pace quickened slightly. "We are trained to fight, we even trained for this for much longer than he has! I refuse to let him keep his assumptions that we need to be protected like some aura-less civilians. He needs to improve his own skills and aura control, no more using it recklessly!" She let out a huff as she finished her mini rant and the two walked in silence for a moment while Weiss stewed in her anger. He didn't want to see them hurt, she knew that, but she didn't want to see him injured either!

"You still care about him." And like that, her anger fizzled out, replaced with something else.

"..."

"It's alright." Ruby gave her a gentle smile that helped Weiss relax slightly. "I care too, maybe not in the same way, but I've been trying to get things back to the way they used to be. He does tend to be a bit reckless with his own self, but hopefully now that we're actually going to be in one spot for hopefully a good long time, we can work on that. There's time aplenty to work on it while we also improve ourselves. Maybe you guys could even make up a bit more?"

"We've made a bit of progress…" Weiss knew she wanted to fix things more as well. Their talk on the train had been a good first step. In her own mind, she'd been switching back and forth between wanting to talk with him and wanting to keep her distance. Some days she and he were able to talk about anything or nothing, on other days, they wouldn't share a single sentence. It was awkward, it was annoying, and Oxon seemed content with letting her initiate their interactions.

Just like at Beacon…

This time it was different. Back then, she'd been the one to hope he'd talk to her, now, she got the feeling that he was hoping for that now. It was clear he wanted to fix things and was willing to let herake the first move when she was ready. How the roles had reversed… She didn't know whether to laugh about that or cry in frustration.

"I think it's work trying for." Ruby let out a sigh, but it did not sound like one of frustration. "Blake and Oscar are pretty close with him, Yang and Nora have started to joke around with him which is nice, Ren and Jaune are still a bit cautious, but that's how they are. I've been talking with him a bit while giving him a bit of space, we never exactly were best pals before."

"And I've…" She had no idea where she wanted to go with that. In the end she didn't try to finish her attempt.

"You've probably had it the worst out of most of us."

"..."

"You don't need to say anything, but I know the last year has not been great for you. I'm your partner, I notice these things." There was a serious look on her face, yet Weiss noticed a small sparkle in her eye. "Jaune went through a lot as well, I don't mean to talk down his own suffering, but I don't want to belittle yours either. You mean a lot to me, to all of us, so seeing you happy is important."

"I've been happy ever since running away from my father." She had, it had been a liberating experience. "Putting our team back together has been the best thing for me in a long time."

"But not as happy as you were before."

"Ruby…"

"I'm not saying you have to be as you were back in school, but it's painful seeing you act as if it's fine as well. I'll admit, I haven't ever thought about anyone in a way other than friends, so I can't really give the best advice…" They were close to the room now, it wasn't in the student dorms, but in a sublevel below the academy itself. Time was running out to think of what to say or do.

"I'm just saying, maybe try and repair the bridge?"

"I want to, Ruby, I really do."

The last minute of the walk was in silence, thankfully yet annoying at the ae time, they finally arrived. It was a rather dull hallway, but then again, it wasn't intended for use by students or staff. They had the access code to unlock it with a swipe, and Weiss held out her scroll, ready to do so.

"Let's see how he is."

"I think we should knock first, just in case." To warn him and and announce that it was not a member of the military. Weiss knocked her knuckles on the metal door a few times before stepping back and telling him they were here.

After a yell that he was ready, she unlocked and opened the door.

He was sitting on his bed, smile on his face. And it seemed like said face had changed. "Hey, Weiss, Ruby." He gave a light wave that her partner returned, but she was focused on what was above his neck.

On his cheek and his temple were a pair of thin scars. The evidence of his battle with Adam Taurus. She'd tried to help them in the flight over, to prevent the permanent reminder. She had failed.

She knew that he never saw hers as anything bad, and likely would think as much of his own. Still, it was more evidence of just how wrong the general, and even her sister, were about him. He wouldn't get hurt so badly if he truly was a coward.

She idly noted that he was speaking to her and Ruby. Ruby must have been speaking to him since he's turned to face the girl, but Weiss was not focused on that. She knew she should be the last person to talk about scars, hers being a big part of her life and becoming a huntress, but she felt bad that he had received one so visible.

I hope he doesn't hate it like I had. It took me months to get over mine.

Shaking her head, she turned back into the conversation.

"-not the worst, in comparison to that hell hole in Vale, these last three days have been a cake walk. Plus, I was told that I could do something to make up for Beacon, I'll gladly take that opportunity."

"Do you know anything about what you will be doing?"

"Eh, I assume low priority and low risk missions that are going to gauge how trustworthy I am." He shrugged his shoulders. "It's what Blake and I came up with for my plan here. Getting arrested first wasn't the plan for sure, we hoped to talk to the general before I could get locked up."

"And we messed that up by trying to avoid him…"

He looked over to her at that with a gentle smile and scratched behind his ear. "It's no issue, sure it was a bit intense here, but it's over now. Besides," Oxon patted her on the head. "I know you guys had good reasons to be wary, even if I didn't completely agree."

"I see you're wearing your gauntlets, Dr. Polendina told us about them."

"Oh, these?" He raised his left hand up and inspected them. Mostly the new dull purple band wrapped around it. "Yeah, Miss Ederne told me I need to wear them when outside or if anyone visits me, it's awkward, but I'll get over it."

"Perhaps we can work on getting you some accomplishments soon. Maybe then they will be less strict?" Her partner had a good idea, like with other offenders, good behavior shortened sentences all the time.

"Here's hoping." The two shared a smile, his more subdued as normal while Ruby's was bound to rip her cheeks.

"Speaking of freedom, we are going to do some training if you would like to join us? Atlas has improved our gear and we want to get used to the new upgrades." He gave her a look and then to the weapon on her hip. She crossed her arms and gave him a stern look. "That and fix a few bad habits."

"You changed Myrtenaster?" Leave it to him to ignore her not so subtle hint.

With a huff and roll of her eyes she shook her head. "Of course not, one cannot improve upon perfection after all."

"Of course." He snorted. "How could I have thought otherwise? Though…"

"Though?"

"How about armor? I know you like speed and all…" He sent a pointed look to a whistling Ruby. "But after everyone on team RWBY save for its namesake getting stabbed or de-limbed, you must have put a bit more thought into them. Right?"

Neither girl was able to look him in the eye after he asked that. This made him confused and curious. That curiosity would not be satisfied until they met with the others and changed into their new combat gear.

"Belts…" Oxon looked over the group with a lost expression, like he was staring at something miles away. "Why are there so many belts!?"

~~~(LXVII)~~~

This isn't the important bit, but today is a sad day. My old ass plastic fly reel that I bought for $80 bucks has started to cause me bad issues. When fishing the other day, it somehow got my line caught in it and sliced clean through it. That was a $119 replacement… In order to prevent that from happening again, I need to get a whole new reel.

One that will last.

Those are not cheap though… My poor wallet, why did I get obsessed with such an expensive hobby? I need a sugar daddy something fierce…

TL;DR at bottom

To those who feel like I should be buffing Ox now; think of how and why that would happen? He is literally a convicted terrorist and now in the kingdom that was hit the most other than Vale. It's not like Ironwood would say: "Yeah he's a criminal with a sketchy past and helped make Atlas look like a fool or full of war criminals, but I'm totally going to shell out Atlas tech to increase his combat effectiveness!"

No way in hell.

Sure Oxon will have a few things he'll need to deal with due to his decision to stick with everyone, but it's not going to be permanent or as bad as people feared. I won't spoil how, but things will get better for him in this arc, I guarantee it. We saw the prelude to that in Weiss' POV.

Maybe if I had it so he turned on Cinder earlier he would have had a better time, but it's too late now, gotta stick with what I wrote. It's an interesting idea, I'll admit, thinking about how the Battle of Beacon would have gone. He probably could have captured Mercury with help from Ruby in the hallway scene. Probably not quite fast enough to save the robo-bae though.

Also, to the person who was tired of his constant suffering, I'm taking what I see as logical steps after each of the events in Vale. He's been through a lot of trauma, some of which feeds into and creates more issues (I'm also not that confident in my fluff writing skills and am trying to improve in that area and I'm slowly getting better at it, I think).

While the Menagerie/ Mistral arc was about him getting his confidence back and officially turning over a new leaf, this section will be for him to prove himself and his convictions. Spoiler but not really(?), the three paragraphs this chapter and the events of the last chapter were the last bit I have planned for me bullying him.

I have a few fun things mapped out for the frozen kingdom. Neat missions incoming, I've got a few fun ideas to plan out :D

And yeah, Blake totally got off scott free in the show. Idk why RT didn't at least bring it up in vol 7, but who can say. My head cannon is that Adam was the big visible face that everyone focused on while Blake was more stealth and in the shadows. It makes sense due to her skillset as a speed type while Adam was full dps and the image/ hero of the White Fang.

So too did Yang. Sure it was a criminal syndicate, but the club was a front for them, likely all legal too. Junior was well within his rights to sue or press charges on her. I mean, sexual assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and destruction of property are three of the big crimes she committed. That's why I had her visit the club during school break to plug that plot hole. That and it was a fun idea.

Also, Jaune forged his transcripts.

Team RWBY committed vigilantism and acting without a license a few times and we never saw them actually punished. Especially after the Paladin incident. Lots of Reckless Endangerment and other heavy violations. In the real world, they'd have been expelled and likely arrested.

It's shocking that NORA is one of the few main cast members that didn't break the law prior to The Fall. I mean seriously… It's NORA!

TL;DR - Lots of valid criticism. Things for him have been rough for a reason, but that's come to its end now (seriously). "Touch the Sky" is a song I've used for heavy inspiration for this arc. The bullying is over, he's gonna get stronger from here on out, and his foot in mouth will continue to make him an awkward fool.

Drop a review if you are so inclined, they are always welcome! :)