Wind rushed by as Summer flew through the air, relishing in the feeling of freedom. It helped to distract her mind from spiraling into thoughts and 'what if' scenarios.

It would hardly take her even five minutes to fly to Beacon at her current rate and still her stomach was doing loops as worries went through her mind. How long has it been since she was teleported away? Were her daughters doing ok? Were they going to beacon? Is Ozpin still around?

She scoffed at that last errant thought. Of course Ozpin was still around. But was he still headmaster?

What if Ty had found someone else after she was teleported and moved on? She clamped down on that thought furiously, unwilling to contemplate that scenario.

Still, all these thoughts kept wearing away at her confidence, threatening to drag her under, but like any good huntress, she shut down her fear and kept going. She would find her daughters first, and if things had changed... well... she'd deal with that as it came to her.

A slight buzzing sensation started creeping into her mind the closer she got to beacon, but she pushed it aside. If Ozpin still was the headmaster, what would she say to him? She was still more than a little pissed about the last... mission...

Dammit, she nearly forgot! The reason she was injured in the first place before her arrival on Rubicon! Ozpin had sent her on one of those secretive scouting missions of his he usually gave to Qrow without telling her why she was there or what she was supposed to look out for. She wasn't stealthy like her teammate and ended up falling into an ambush where two men- a crazy scorpion Faunus and a muscled man that injected himself with dust attacked her.

When she proved a tough fight they somehow commanded a horde of Grimm to wear her down while they watched, and when she was forced to use her silver eyes they attacked again, leaving her nearly dead in the snow. If it hadn't been for the miraculous timing of the Institute's teleportation experiment she would have been a goner!

She had a bone to pick with Ozpin about his shadow games, and he better not involve her daughters in something like that or he would soon learn what it felt like to get a piledriver up the ass.

She was nearing the academy now and could practically see the light on in the tallest tower. A bit of optic zoom and she could catch a head of white hair as well, Likely Ozpin still up finishing paperwork.

Summer was conflicted on what to do about Ozpin considering she still had a bit of anger on her side and she had (rather unhealthily) spent the last few years solving things with a gratuitous amount of violence.

So she did something crazy.

}x{

Ozpin was just closing up his nightly load of paperwork when he received a notification on his scroll of something the defense systems had picked up.

"Unidentified flying craft?" He read aloud, confused. He wasn't given much time to think, however as a sudden force shook the entire tower, sending him stumbling.

As he got back up, a giant shadow out his window made him turn to find himself face to face with a giant mecha perched like King Kong on the side of his tower.

He tried to ready himself to fight but a robotic hand smashed through his window and grabbed him, locking him tight between it's metal digits. He struggled to try and free himself as the arm retracted out the window, preparing to call upon his magic when a short figure walked over the arm and slapped him in the face.

"That's for sending me on a suicide mission!"

Ozpin froze, his stomach dropping out from under him. That voice... Summer?

He stared at the figure in front of him as they stood atop the metal arm holding him hostage. Whoever it was was now chewing him out in a verbal dressing down that would probably make Glynda proud, but the only thing he could focus on were her looks.

She looked just like Summer, except for the scars and the dark grey military fatigues. The thing that held his attention though were her eyes. Where they were once silver they now glowed red. Just like... her... Just... like... Sale-

SMACK!

"Quit staring at me!"

Ozpin shook himself as he started to get ahold once again. The baleful glare and the black lines faded from his mind as he was able to properly take in the woman before him. Her stance was fidgety and uncomfortable, and she was glancing to the side from time to time like she didn't know what to do. A blush of embarrassment was on her cheeks as she frustratedly bit her lip. Her eyes glowed a different shade of bright red than his long lost lover, more molten than anything, and they had a silver ring around them.

"...Summer?" He asked, finding himself dry in the mouth. Was it really her? What had happened? Where had she been all this time?

"Yes, Oz. It's me." She huffed. She started to say something then stopped, pacing slightly on the metal arm before opening her mouth again. "How... how long have I been gone?" She asked in a smaller voice.

It was her unsure look, the way her body kind of shrunk in on itself that truly broke her away from his thoughts of his former queen. He shifted a bit in the metal hand still holding him before answering.

"It's been a little over ten years since we last saw you... what happened?" She froze at his answer and started to shake.

"Ten years...?" She muttered to herself, turning to look out over beacon and the city of Vale beyond it. Her eyes seemed to gloss over and she sank down to sit on the metal beneath her. "Ten years... I never got to see my girls grow up..." Tears started to collect at her eyes, and any remaining doubts washed away from Ozpin. No trick of Salem's would ever get broken up over family like this.

"They made it in to Beacon, you know." He called out. She turned to look at him, hope in her eyes. "Yang got in this year, and after an impressive showing by young miss Rose she managed to join her sister. They're both in their first year."

Pride shone in her eyes despite the tears threatening to fall, and a smile wormed its way onto her face. "That's my girls..."

Ozpin shifted again in the metal hand before grunting. "Could you...?" He asked, trying to indicate his predicament. Realization flashed in her eyes.

"Oh, of course, sorry." She seemed to concentrate on something before the hand opened on its own, and he was left standing on the open palm. He breathed a sigh of relief before trying to straighten out his clothes.

"As happy as I am to find you alive and kicking, Mrs. Rose, what exactly happened on that mission? We couldn't find any trace of you when you failed to report back in! Where have you been all this time?" He looked back at the state of his office and all the scattered paperwork. "And why did you feel the need to hold me hostage with a giant mech of all things?"

Summer had the grace to blush in embarrassment before muttering something that sounded like an apology. "You sent me in that mission, Oz, what do you mean you didn't know what it was about?" She asked instead.

He sighed. "I sent you on that mission because I didn't know what was going on. All I knew was there were reports of Grimm packs behaving strangely, I figured you'd go in, kill the Grimm, and report back if you found anything unusual! It was only after the fact that once I dug in I found those reports to be fake. I need to know, Summer, what happened on that mission? And what happened to you afterwards. Where were you? And what happened to you and your eyes?"

Summer deflated at his answer and looked back at his office. "You might want to sit down, this will take a while to explain, and even now there are some bits of my memory still missing." She looked around at all the wreckage before wincing. "I'm surprised Glynda hasn't come up and made a fuss yet, she's still working for you, right?"

Ozpin nodded as he took a wide step over the edge of the hand and back into his office, righting the chair at his desk before sitting down, motioning for Summer to take the one opposite of his. "Yes, but fortunately all of our students are out on their internship trips with a huntsman, which has grown to include members of the staff in recent years. Glynda is overseeing a certain troublesome group while I believe Doctor Oobleck is chaperoning your daughters on their trip. They wound up on the same team with two others, and Miss Rose is turning out to be quite the team leader if I say so myself." He said with a grin. Summer's smile grew as she heard that, and she finally sat down on the chair opposite of her old headmaster.

"Do you.. have any pictures?" She asked. Ozpin picked up his scroll from the floor nearby and navigated to his gallery, picking a picture of team RWBY posing for the yearbook. He gently handed it over to Summer who took it gingerly. A bright smile tinged with sadness flitted across her face as she took in the first image of her daughters she had seen in 10 years. "They've grown so much..."

He let her be for a few minutes as she drank in their visage before gently prying the scroll back. "They'll be back in a day or two once their trip is over. It'll be quite the surprise for them to come back to, won't it?"

Summer visibly warred with herself as she contemplated that thought. She started kneading her hands out of nervousness before turning to him. "I don't know Oz, I've... the last few years haven't..." She deflated. "What if I'm not the same as they remember? What if they don't even recognize me? What if-"

"They will remember you, Mrs. Rose, they cherish you dearly. Taiyang, well... I won't lie, it was difficult for Ty after you disappeared but they all miss you terribly. I can't think of a greater gift for them than learning that they still have you." Oz soothed. Summer let out a breath, her heart clenching at what Ty must've gone through after she was pulled away.

"It's just that... I've changed Oz. I wish I hadn't but for a while when I was gone I was in a real bad place... I've had to do a lot of things I never thought I'd have to before and I'm afraid that I'm not the same as I used to be. And my daughters! They've had ten years to grow up without me, what if I'm not who they remember and we don't get along?"

Ozpin sighed. "Well, I can't help you if I don't know what happened, I've got time, why don't you tell me what happened while you were gone?"

Summer slumped back in her chair. "Ohum, where do I even begin?"

"The start is usually the best place, I've heard."

She chuckled mirthlessly. "Yes, but the question is which start." She thought for a few seconds. "I suppose none of it would make sense if I didn't at least begin with how the mission went wrong. It all started when these two men showed up and ambushed me..."

And so Summer began her tale of a job gone wrong, of being left for dead only for a miracle to happen, and the ensuing hell that followed.

Ozpin sat in silent contemplation as Summer spun her tale. An unbelievable, horrific, yet intriguing and fantastical tale. Giant mechs called Armored Cores, War over a fuel source that would determine the fate of an entire planet, possibly even the human species.

And wasn't that a surprise.

Another humanity, one without aura, unburdened by the Grimm and unbeholden to the Brother Gods, and one that cracked the secrets of science and ascended to the stars themselves. It was fantastical. Unbelievable. And yet there was a three story tall mech still hanging onto his office to prove it.

Fuel sources that didn't require Dust to function, weapons more destructive than any on Remnant. People literally preserved in flakes of an element after a catastrophe that nearly burned a world to ash.

Summer pointed out a few scars to match her tales, shrapnel here, a close call there, and some of the surgical marks from the augmentation procedure she underwent involuntarily. He was horrified to learn she had been at deaths door for a very long time, stripped of her memories and chained to life support that only barely kept her on this side of the mortal coil.

He learned of her time as C4-621, nothing but a mercenary with a number, and of her time as Raven, though she was loathe to even speak it. She told him how she began remembering things, putting pieces of the puzzle together before it all clicked, and her disgust at what she had become.

She painted the scene of the buildup and final battle, where lives and blood were spent with abandon as she fought for a better future for everyone. Of an AI that assimilated every mercenary that died, and yet still had a plan to help advance humanity higher.

She described those last moments staring at the results of her work before everything faded and she found herself here, returned home once more. Ozpin sat in quiet contemplation for several minutes as Summer helped herself to a water bottle, thinking on everything she had to say.

He leaned back with a sigh and stared at the broken moon out of his broken window.

As much fighting as she had done, she had more than proven herself worthy. But was it right to dump the truth of this world on her so soon? After just getting back?

No, but she deserved the truth. Still, he should at least ask to be sure.

"You've... been through a lot, it seems." He sighed. "I hate to add more to your plate just as you finally resolved that mess, but there are secrets in this world as well. Secrets that have been very well kept over a... very long time." He met her gaze. "Would you like to learn the truth about Remnant?"

Summer blew out from the side of her mouth, slumping in her chair. "Of course there is more. I always knew you were playing some kind of Shadow war with Qrow as a henchman of yours. Go ahead, lay it on me. I'll probably get involved anyways."

Ozpin nodded, briefly looking at the clock. Seems like it would be another sleepless night then. At least the coffee maker in his office was intact. A few hours and it wouldn't matter, though, as it was very early morning already.

"Tell me, did you have a favorite fairy tale when you were growing up?"

A/N: Another one knocked out. I'm in a surprisingly productive mood so I managed to sit down and crank this out today.

Biggest concern for me is writing out the meeting between Summer and her family. Still kind of struggled with Ozpin but it was a bit easier as she wasn't as close to him, he's more like a respected teacher than proper family. I don't know how I'm going to play the meeting between Tai and Summer though. Guess I'll just wing it. Family affairs can be messy anyways.

As always, leave some suggestions and follow, fav, comment, all that jazz. Cya!