Hello !
Here comes the last chapter on Menagerie, the last chapter before the characters have to go back into the world and face their problems, wish them luck, they'll need it!
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A falcon was circling in the sky above the mountain, hidden by the blinding light of the sun, when suddenly it began to dive in a picket and transformed back into a young blonde teenager just a dozen feet above the ground. Rook jumped to the side to avoid the tantō blade, and retaliated with a swing of her shield towards Yang's right shoulder, but the latter blocked her without even looking at her by lifting a pillar of earth by the sheer power of her thoughts. More sharp pillars appeared one after another, forcing Rook to back away from getting impaled, as the teen launched a fireball with a trajectory so curved it hit the assassin square in the back.
Qrow watched it all sitting in the shade sipping a bottle of rum with a smirk. There was no exaggeration in saying that Yang was one of the strongest people in Remnant, and her 'mentor' was learning it the hard way, between sword swings, the difficulty of hitting a small flying target, the fireballs, and the ground itself turning against her, he felt a little sorry for her. He was almost tempted to tell Yang to hold back a bit to give her a chance, but she wouldn't listen to him and that would only annoy Rook. Yang was Raven's daughter after all, no way she wouldn't give her best during a fight.
She looked so much like her. It was already obvious when she was only a ten-year-old child, but now she was fourteen, the more she grew, the more she took on her figure, her posture, her facial features, her attitude. Sometimes it was like having Raven by his side again.
Oceane sat next to him with her Scroll in her hand.
"Hey, how is it going?" she asked without even looking up from the screen.
Qrow glanced at the fight that had been taking place for several minutes now. Rook shot an arrow at Yang, who caught it in midair and threw it over her shoulder before darting forward with her red eyes and fist and hair on fire, and a big sadistic smile on her face as her mentor looked like she wanted to run away.
"The kid's having fun." he answered with a shrug.
"Good." Oceane said before putting away her Scroll in her pocket, "Now that she has unlocked a new element, the rest should follow. We'll finally be able to leave this island."
Qrow's good mood slowly faded, and he took a few sips of rum.
"Not really excited to leave?" asked Oceane.
"No, not really." he admitted, "It's nice here, the sun, the beach nearby, a place to live far away enough that my Semblance doesn't get in the way of anyone, and at least here I really feel like what I do actually helps people. Maybe it's selfish, but it feels good when someone thanks you for saving them after you risk your life killing a monster three times your size. With Oz, it's just 'the right thing to do'. And he's right, I know, but…"
Somehow, Rook managed to punch Yang right in the nose, and a victorious smile appeared on her face, just before she was thrown into the air by another pillar that hit her in the stomach.
"I see what you mean, it annoys me a bit sometimes too." Oceane replied, "But I'm still going to stay in the group. I have nothing better to do, and while Oz can be a little sketchy at times, the fight against Salem is real."
Qrow lowered his head and cleared the lump of guilt stuck in his throat with another sip of rum. He knew he had made the right decision by stepping down, as much for Yang's sake as his own, but he couldn't help but feel bad for letting his allies, his friends, fight against such a great threat while he stayed behind.
Oceane seemed to understand what he was thinking, and gave him a reassuring pat on the back.
"Don't make that face. Falcon's a Maiden. By protecting her, you are already helping us a lot."
Yang exchanged a few punches with Rook, before hitting her in the head with a return kick.
"You know, I have a nephew Falcon's age, he lives in Argus with my sister and is training to be a Huntsman." Oceane continued in a slightly darker tone, "Today they are there all year round, but when Neptune was young, he used to spend the summer in their vacation house in a small village in the south of Mistral with his older brother and their father. Until Raven's tribe decided to visit them and kills them both."
Qrow almost spat out his drink and turned his head towards his colleague so fast he felt like he was going to break his neck.
"Raven did what?!"
Oceane didn't answer immediately and continued to watch Yang kick Rook's butt with a distant look on her face.
Qrow lowered his head and didn't even dare drink to take the shock away. He knew what Raven had done, he knew she could simply steal goods from a convoy that was at the wrong place at the wrong time, just as she could set an entire village on fire before cruelly leaving it in the hands of the Grimm. Obviously he didn't approve of any of her activities, but he never tried to stop her either. He let her live her life by simply telling himself that if one day she had problems with the police he would not help her. It had never occurred to him that someone he knew might have been hit…
"And…" he finally managed to articulate, "You still decided to help? You lied to Ozpin, traveled halfway around the world, and spent months training the daughter of the person who killed your family members?"
Oceane took a deep breath and placed her left hand on her scarred arm.
"Yup." she replied, "Don't get me wrong, when I found out I was furious, but over time I figured Raven would have attacked this village whether my nephews were there or not, it's not like she targeted me personally. That doesn't mean she did nothing wrong, but hey, we all overlooked what she was doing for years, the Branwen Tribe was doing quite a bit of damage across Anima and Raven was a top level Huntress, Leo could have sent Huntsmen to fix the problem, Ironwood could have sent his soldiers, Ozpin could have sent any of us, or we could have taken the initiative ourselves. But nobody did anything, we all let her do whatever she wanted. It would be hypocritical to be angry at her actions when for a decade we all pretended we didn't mind."
Rook nearly got hit by a pillar, but this time she saw it coming and used it as a step to try to attack Yang from above.
"Besides, you can blame the actions of the whole tribe on Raven because she was their leader, but Falcon must have been barely eight or nine when my nephew and his father were killed, it would be unfair to blame her for that. To me, she's just a child of the same age as Neptune who has experienced her own traumas."
Qrow took a few sips without a word. At eight or nine years old it was entirely possible that Yang had participated in the raid, although he was willing to bet that she didn't remember any of the people she had killed at the time, except maybe when it was under unusual conditions.
A long scream made them both raise their heads, and Rook crashed face down at their feet.
"Everything going alright for you?" Oceane asked, suppressing a laugh.
"I preferred when it was limited to fireballs…" Rook muttered.
"If you're tired you can just quit you know." Qrow told her, but the assassin shook her head.
"I can't, I promised her we would train all afternoon."
Just then, the cable that connected the handle and the blade of the tanto wrapped around her ankle and pulled her back into the fight like a horror movie victim.
Qrow took a few more sips to hide his laughter. Yang looked more like she was playing with a ball than training. But she was having fun and that was the main thing. As long as she was smiling, he didn't have to doubt his decision.
Robyn effortlessly dodged the little girl's kick as she desperately tried to hit her, and grabbed her arm to tip her back and pin her to the ground, being careful not to hurt her.
"You have to work on your balance, when you hit high all your weight is on one foot, one wrong move and you find yourself on the floor. Faced with an opponent taller than you, it is better to aim for the legs. Got it?"
The little girl nodded happily, her dog tail wagging behind her as she returned to sit against the wall with the other children. They seemed to like combat classes even though she was just skimming over the basics, they were all beginners so this was just what they needed. It was very different from training with Falcon, who was already objectively much stronger than her, these children didn't know how to fight beyond wrestling with their friends in the playground.
A little boy with a crocodile tail raised his hand.
"Miss Hill, when fighting against a human, are we allowed to use our tail if we know how to hit hard with it?"
"Of course, if you have an advantage over your opponent it would be dumb not to use it." she explained, "Some fights have limitations, for example in the Vytal Tournament you can only use the weapons you declared when registering, or in the combat schools you sometimes have fights without weapon, without Semblance, or even in the dark, in order to teach you how to handle yourself in any situation, but none of that applies when you're up against a Grimm or a runaway criminal, you have to use all the resources and dirty tricks at your disposal."
The little boy smiled and nodded smugly. He was eight years old and was a little behind his classmates because his crocodile tail was heavy and hindered his movements, but if he learned to use it to attack, he would have a punching strength far superior to his peers.
Robyn glanced at the clock and saw that it was already four pm.
"Alright kids, that's it for today, you can go ahead, and keep stretching every day, flexibility is important in combat and it takes care."
"Yes Miss Hill!" the children answered in chorus, getting up to get their bags at the back of the classroom which served as their improvised dojo.
The last time so many people had called her that was at her graduation from Atlas Academy… what, six years ago? And that was as a student, now she was a teacher, even if only temporarily. It made her feel old…
Robyn walk out too and stretched out her arms, and found the children in the school yard telling their parents what they had learned, some kicking and punching in the air to illustrate.
When Ghira asked her if she could organize combat classes for children as an extracurricular activity, she almost refused saying that she was not a good teacher, she taught Falcon, yes, but it was completely different. But Ghira's wife had insisted, telling her to think about the children on the island who didn't often get to see humans, and having one as a combat teacher would help them see that it was possible for their species to trust and encourage each other. What was she supposed to say to that?
But in the end, she hadn't regretted it.
One of the parents split away from the group, a man with webbed hands accompanied by a small boy with wolf ears.
"Hi, can I help you?" she asked. If the children were fascinated by her humanness, a good part of the parents were rather suspicious, sometimes even scared and did not dare approach her, so when they came to see her she made sure to look friendly.
"Yes I have a question, my son really wants to be a Huntsman, which doesn't make me very happy but it's his life, so I just wanted to know, in your opinion, which Academy he should turn to." the father asked with an embarrassed look, while his son was bouncing next to him waiting for the answer. This little guy was one of the most motivated kids in the class and he had a lot of talent, if he remained so serious in his training he would go far.
"First of, forget Atlas, they only take people who are already citizens there and the extra places go to people from Mantle." she started, not mentioning that it was the most racist Kingdom of all, but from the eagerness with which the man nodded, he knew it too, "Then for the other Academies, Haven also favors people from their continent, although in their case it's mainly to give a chance to people who come from small villages. Beacon and Shade don't care where their students come from, one because they believe that anyone who wishes to become a protector of the world deserves a chance and the other because three-quarters of their Kingdom is nomadic."
"Beacon and Shade then." the father repeated, nodding his head, while his son looked at her with stars in his eyes. He was motivated, he had a lot of potential…
Robyn hesitated, then moved closer, lowering her voice, "Between us, I would rather advise Shade, on the one hand they are the most welcoming, teachers and students, and more importantly… From what I heard, the director of Beacon shows a lot of favoritism for his strongest students, he's personally not the kind of person I'd trust."
The man frowned at her, then nodded, "Okay, thanks for the advice. Have a nice day."
And he left without another word, while his son waved her goodbye, which Robyn waved back.
After making sure that all the children waiting for their parents had been picked up, she set off for the mountain. She had climbed it up and down so many times now that she knew the location of every rock by heart, and Falcon had used her new powers to make the path more stable, but that didn't make it any less tiring to climb. The two bird brains were really lucky, by the sky the trip was a straight line and only took a few minutes, for her and Oceane, it took several hours, or at least that was how it felt.
Despite everything, Robyn started the climb without complaining. She just took it as part of the training.
As she walked, she thought. Apparently they had a good influence here, even with small actions like combat classes for kids or killing a Grimm here and there. And at the same time she had been doing so much for Mantle for years and yet nothing had changed, she took over fifteen assassination contracts a year but barely allowed a few families to keep their house. She could help a little more if she didn't give Falcon half her pay, but she had to pay her for her work, and even a few more families wouldn't solve all of Mantle's problems. But what else could she do? She was at the point where all she knew how to do was kill for money, whether it was Grimm or people.
Robyn stopped in the middle of the path and sighed.
"You know kid, it's very rude to stalk people all the way to their home." she said quite loudly before turning around, and after a moment of hesitation, a gray figure came out from behind a rock, and changed color to find her hair and skin brown.
Robyn had seen this girl before in town, she must have been the same age as Falcon, and it wasn't the first time she had tried to sneak up to their camp, Oceane had already spotted her a few times and sent her home, yet she kept coming back.
"It's not your home." the girl replied, frowning.
"No, but right now it's where we sleep, eat and train. What's your name girl?"
The girl took on the most intimidating face she could before answering, "Ilia. And I just wanted to know what you were doing so far up the mountain. It's quite suspicious."
Robyn sighed and shrugged, "We just didn't want to cause any trouble while training, my little sister has a quite chaotic Semblance."
Ilia didn't seemed convinced, and she seemed ready to continue investigating, when the Huntress cut her off. If she continued to let her ask the questions, she risked becoming more suspicious, she had to divert her attention on something else.
"You don't believe me, do you? Is it because you don't know me or because I'm human? Or both?"
"Both." the girl replied immediately without even blinking.
Robyn chuckled, "That has the merit of being honest. Well that's not all, but you should go down now, it's dangerous around here."
"What do you care if I get hurt? It's not your problem." Ilia said crossing her arms.
"Uh… Yes it is? I'm a huntress, I'm supposed to protect people." Robyn explained with a reassuring smile, "All people. Without distinction."
Ilia seemed surprised by her answer, she must not have imagined that a human would be willing to protect Faunus. Here it was not an uncommon way of thinking, it was like telling the people of Mantle that someone from Atlas wanted to help them, it wasn't impossible, sure, but who would believe it?
Suddenly, the young Faunus turned and walked away without a word, leaving Robyn alone in the middle of the path. Maybe she hit a nerve? She just hoped the kid wouldn't hurt herself on the way down.
When she couldn't hear her anymore, Robyn started walking back to camp, clenching her fists. She hated lying.
Protecting people was indeed the primary goal of any good Huntsman, no matter which Kingdom they were from, but that was far from what she was doing. On the contrary, she was hurting people, killing people, lots of people. She had lost count. For a long time she had held on by telling herself that it was for the sake of Mantle, she withdrew completely the time to fulfill her contracts and only displayed a fake smile the rest of the time, it was her way of protecting her sanity, a wall between her and the atrocities she was committing. But since she had taken Falcon under her wing, this technique no longer worked. Her firecracker needed someone to show her emotions, to be genuinely worried about her, to be an example on how to open up to others. And in the end, Falcon had followed this example, she had learned to smile again, she was talking about her past, she was interested in the world around her…
Robyn didn't regret letting her guard down for her, but she was dreading returning to the field, and taking the full brunt of her actions.
When she finally arrived at the camp, she saw Falcon sitting against the cliff playing at moving pebbles to make a snowman, while Oceane spread ointment on her arm near the tents.
"Let me guess, you were her sparring partner of the day?" Robyn asked, approaching her.
"You can say punching bag, I wont get offended." Oceane answered.
Robyn laughed and looked at Falcon, who had just sprouted a table and chair for her empty-eyed, cracked-faced doll while she combed its hair. The old trace of dried blood on the red lace dress didn't show as much after all these years, and looked more like some stain left over from time. Sometimes Robyn wondered if Falcon could see it now that she was in a much better mental state, but she didn't want to risk unnecessarily stressing her out by bringing up the subject.
"She's improved a lot since we've been here." she said, smiling tenderly as she watched her fourteen-year-old apprentice play with dolls like a child.
"Yes, now that she's learned to handle the earth the rest should appear little by little." Oceane replied, "The exercises are of the same kind as what she did with fire, control, power, then both at the same time. Can you handle this?"
"Of course." Robyn said with a shrug, "Why? Are you done lending a hand?"
Oceane shook her head as she finished putting away the ointment, "We fulfilled all the objectives we had by coming here and even more. It's time for us all to go home, Oz is starting to find my absence suspicious and Qrow is being harassed by his old partner, you know, the one Falcon threw off the train."
Robyn's smile fell immediately. She knew they wouldn't stay here forever, of course, but she really wasn't in a rush to leave, or more accurately, to go home. She could already hear May yelling at her for ditching them for well over two months with no real explanation, Lil' Miss lecturing her for not giving any news, and the incessant notifications of contracts coming in asking her to take more lives…
But she had no choice, she had a duty to do everything in her power for Mantle, even if it disgusted her, as long as she had no other solution she would continue to work as an assassin, while doing her best to care for Falcon and keep her safe from the two super-powered immortal entities that were secretly controlling the world. And she had to do this on her own, a single basic human person, without any magical powers, without even a combat-useful Semblance, who had only known about all this for a few months.
"You're right, we shouldn't hang around longer than we need." she said simply with a fake smile, not letting an ounce of doubt show in her voice. She hated lying, and she hated how good she was at it even more.
The sun was shining that morning, the sea was calm, the perfect day to start a long boat trip.
It was the day of the departure of the four humans who had come to spend a few weeks on Menagerie and had voluntarily rendered service to the city, by killing the surrounding Grimm or by giving combat classes to the children. Speaking of children, many of them had gathered at the port to say goodbye to their temporary teacher, some had even made her drawings or small trinkets made of shells.
Ilia looked at them from a distance, rolling her eyes. She was probably going to throw them away as soon as she got the chance.
In the end, she hadn't managed to find out why these humans were really here, there was no way they were here just to train, not by being so secretive about the training in question, and even so, not even a dangerous Semblance would force them to hide halfway around the world. How was she the only one to realize that?! How could Ghira be so naive?!
The four humans got on the boat, and Ilia noticed the one-armed blonde girl that she sometimes saw around town, the one who apparently had a 'chaotic Semblance'. She seemed to be the same age as Blake and her, yet she had a whole escort to help her become stronger. Was she a secret Atlas experiment or something?
While everyone was busy at the port, Ilia quietly headed for the mountains. Whatever happened up there, they must have left their mark on their camp, and now there was no one to stop her from going to investigate. And when she was done here, she would finally join Blake and Adam. She should have left with her best friend weeks ago, but neither of them wanted to leave a group of humans unguarded on the island, so Ilia had volunteered to stay watch and report anything she could learn about them to the White Fang, if Ghira didn't do his job to protect the Faunus who lived here, then she would have to do it herself.
Protect. It reminded her of what the blonde Huntress had told her the other day. That Huntsmen protected everyone without distinction. Where were the Huntsmen when a mine collapsed on her parents? Ah right, they were throwing her out of school because she had knocked out some teeth of the bunch of spoiled entitled bitches she used to be part of.
It was stupid. Faunus Huntsmen might protect their kind, but generally speaking, Huntsmen only helped those they liked, the rich people who would pay them well, or the poor poor villages who would see them like heroes. Nobody had the motivation to try to protect the whole world, it was impossible for just one man, that was why the White Fang was so big, the more adherents they had the more chance they had of changing the world and make it a better place for Faunus.
Yang leaned on the railing of the boat, watching the island of Menagerie shrink into the horizon. The seagulls had come to say goodbye, but now they had gone home too. She was going to miss Menagerie, the skewers, the view of the ocean, the evenings spent chatting around a nice campfire. It was like being in the tribe, and she missed it already…
She didn't want to leave, she felt safe here, where Ozpin wouldn't even think of looking for her. But the three adults had their own lives when they weren't taking care of her, if they had decided it was time for them to go back, she couldn't protest, she didn't want to be selfish. She couldn't show she was scared, she had to be strong. For them.
Oceane appeared next to her and also leaned on the railing.
"So, how did you find this little trip to the end of the world?" she asked her happily, her hair blowing in the wind unrestrained by the aviator goggles she wore when they first met. She had given them to her to help hide her identity as well as the flames coming out of her eyes when she used her powers, much like her mother's mask that was currently at the bottom of her bag.
"I had a good time." the teenager replied.
"Good to know. And the training?"
"That was cool. Especially the fire tornado, that was awesome."
Oceane laughs into her hand, "No arguing on that, now you just have to do the same thing with the other elements once you can use them."
"I've only managed to move the earth so far." Yang remarked.
"The rest will follow soon, don't worry." reassured Oceane, "The main limit of a Maiden is her imagination, most of them only imitate what they could do with Dust but their powers go much further than that."
"I know, mother used to make snowstorms disappear when I was little."
"Impressive."
A slightly awkward silence settled. With Rook and Qrow the silence didn't bother her, but she wasn't as close to Oceane, and having her right next to her without saying a word made her a little uncomfortable.
"Did you want something else?" Yang asked hoping to get her to leave.
"Yes."
"Shit." Yang muttered, but Oceane seemed to have heard her since she let out a small laugh.
"Actually, I wanted to tell you about Cherry, you know, the former Spring Maiden." The Huntress explained more seriously.
This time she got Yang's full attention. She had never known Cherry, but she knew that she had been a friend of her mother as well as Oceane's teammate.
"What about her?"
"Well, from what I understand, your mother hasn't told you much about her, has she?" Oceane asked, and Yang shook her head, "I just thought you'd be interested, someone who also ran away from Ozpin and was close enough to your mother to have her in her last thoughts, you don't see that everyday."
She was right, everyone close to her mother she had heard of had stuck with Ozpin, even Qrow had only recently seen through his lies.
"How was she?" Yang asked.
"She was, as your mother would say, weak. Seriously, Cherry might have been powerful, but she really sucked at fighting, she had never touched a weapon in her life before attending Haven and couldn't even throw a punch, and she had zero motivation to improve, once she literally hid in a closet all day to skip training." Oceane explained.
Yang blinked in disbelief. Wasn't Cherry supposed to be a Maiden? Literally one of the most powerful people in the world? "What was she doing in a Huntsmen Academy if she didn't want to fight?"
"That's the question we all asked. At first she said it was because she wanted to do something with her life, then we found out about the Maidens and she said it was her duty. But in reality, she just had no choice. She was a Maiden, she had to learn to use her powers, if only for her own safety." Oceane sighed and lowered her head sadly. "She wanted to be a florist. Her family had a small neighborhood shop in Argus that she dreamed of taking over one day, becoming a Huntress had never been in her plans, she had never even watched the Vytal Tournament because she cared so little. Looking back, I think that's why she got along with Raven. None of them wanted to be there, they just had to." she said softly, "And when your mom left the group because she was sick of Ozpin, she must have given Cherry the courage to finally grow a spine and do the same."
She paused for a moment, then looked behind her, the deck was almost empty except for a family watching the waves a little further on, and Rook chatting with Qrow, or arguing with him, it was hard to tell from here.
"Your mentor is absolutely right, you know, our little group is a cult, whether we like it or not, it isolates us from the rest of the world and hammers into our heads that it is our duty to dedicate our life to the fight, and all those who walked out of it faced a wave of rejection and guilt tripping. And even then, completely detach yourself from it is almost impossible." She explained in a serious tone, then turned to Yang to look her straight in the eye, "I'll be honest, even with your best efforts, I don't think you can escape Ozpin all your life, time is on his side, one day or another he will find you."
Yang clenched her fist on the railing. She didn't want to meet Ozpin, if he found out about her, all of her mother's sacrifices and Qrow and Rook's efforts would have been for nothing. It was to prevent that outcome that she had come to train here, right? To learn to control her powers, to stop making monumental mistakes during missions, to not be a burden for the people who cared for her again. To become strong enough that they no longer had to make sacrifices to protect her. What good was it if she ended up getting caught anyway?!
Small tears of frustration formed in the corners of her eyes, when Oceane's hand rested on her shoulder, "Hey calm down, I'm not threatening you. I know this terrifies you, but remember that unlike us, you know what you're getting yourself into, and you have people on the outside ready to get you out at any time." she said quietly, nodding towards the other half of their group, who were indeed arguing judging by Rook's ongoing attempt to throw Qrow overboard, "So stop being so paranoid and enjoy your life and freedom, you're fourteen, get some more tattoos, spend your money on fast food and video games, and remember to call your uncle to tell him about it, it'll make his day."
And with these words she left, leaving Yang alone with her thoughts watching the waves hit the hull of the boat.
Soon she would be back in the field, in the Kingdoms, with the police on her tail, where every word about her, every picture of her face, every rumor of her powers could reach Ozpin in a matter of days. The slightest misstep and she would lose every bit of freedom she had, while Qrow and Rook would find themselves with all the rulers of the world on their back for hiding the Spring Maiden, Qrow would lose the freedom he had just gained again and Rook would be probably arrested and Mantle would have no more support, all by her fault.
Yang reached out for the waves and a few tiny drops reached her fingertips.
It would be irresponsible and selfish of her to walk around with her face uncovered having fun when one misstep would have catastrophic consequences for her and everyone she loved… Yet they kept encouraging her to do just about everything she wanted, even when it was childish, pointless, or downright dangerous in their situation. And each time they looked happy for her, they had the same smile as her mother when she brought her something back from a raid and saw her reaction, her smile she hadn't seen in such a long time she was afraid she had forgotten it.
She didn't want to tempt fate, but she liked being able to live without having to worry about the consequences, she didn't like being a burden for those around her because of her paranoia, and she hated living in fear, constantly looking over her shoulder in search of one of Ozpin's pawns who would have found her, a girl among millions on the continent.
Yang closed her eyes and calmed her breathing. The boat rocked gently to the rhythm of the sea and the wind, without worrying about the rest of the world. It was so peaceful. She could feel the waves crashing against the hull of the ship, and the next ones about to arrive. Out of curiosity, and perhaps instinct, just before the next wave reached the hull, Yang imagined it veering off course, heading for the ship, but rather than disappearing against the hull, it went up alongside of it like an inverted waterfall and-…
"Ah!" she screamed when a jet of cold, salty water exploded in her face, knocking her backwards.
Yang blinked several times, lying on the deck, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Did she just… throw a wave at her own face? How did she…?
A big smile slowly appeared on her face. Yup. She had no reason to be afraid, she was strong, she had powers, and they were growing more and more everyday, nothing in this world could stop her.
And it's done! The Menagerie arc is done!
We learned only a little about Cherry from Oceane because I don't think the full story should come from her, I have someone much better suited for the role instead but you'll have to wait a bit.
Yang is learning more magic, little by little. It's always easier when you're not in a state of constant anger and fear. Now that she's starting to open up to the world, so do her powers, she lets her feelings out and is able to reach the elements that used to be out of her reach due to the barriers she had put around herself... Feels more magic than just "pew pew! lightning bolt!" right?
We get a call back to Yang's first murder, of Neptune's family, and Oceane kinda knows about it. She's the cool-headed one of the group so I used her to point out how Ozpin's group dealt with Raven being a bandit: by doing nothing at all. Seriously, Qrow knew exactly where her camp was all that time, he says several times that she's dangerous, that he completely disapproves of what she does and her way of thinking, he sees very clearly the damages she makes by attacking innocent villages, and he… does nothing. And neither does anyone in the group. For over a decade. At that point they're just as guilty for the villages she destroyed.
We are also entering a very important part of Robyn's character development that I'm very excited to write because I know exactly how it will end…
As for Ilia, she seems to not do a lot in the end, but I don't do things like that for no reason so keep an eye out for her…
Next time, the characters will be back to their messy lives and do some damage control for the months they disappeared. I wonder what consequences it will have?