Chapter time!

It was difficult to comprehend just how much could the situation change in a single second if otherworldly heroes were involved.

The sheer unimaginable scope of all the abilities other heroes could have the access to meant that, while trying to predict the movements of other heroes, one couldn't simply rely on such simple things like laws of the universe or basic logic, anymore.

After all, normal logic usually forbade people from simply teleporting exactly where they needed to be, at the exact needed time, to save the day.

Yet, in spite of all that, such a ridiculous thing had just happened right before Roman's eyes, and he was not too happy about that.

A quiet shuffling noise echoed through the alley, as he discreetly took a few steps back, away from the now three, opposing him, otherworldly heroes.

He might have been confident about defeating a single enemy hero.

With his army of super-powered underlings, he maybe would have even considered facing off against two such heroes at the same time.

The moment, there were three of those heroes working together to strike him down, however. He was more than willing to admit that he probably wouldn't be able to fight them all on his own.

All of his goons might have been enhanced with some of his powers, and perfectly loyal to him as well, but they weren't a proper otherworldly hero kill squad he would need to survive this fight.

There was simply too much difference in their strength.

"Don't you dare escape from us now, villain!" The hero equipped in armour pointed at him energetically. "Today's going to be your end, and we are going to make sure of it."

He tried his best to stop himself from rolling his eyes in annoyance at the other hero, but he failed.

Of course, the very hero that arrived to help his target acted like an absolute paragon of justice. Why wouldn't they act like an absolute buffoon to anger him even more after their sudden appearance?

Apparently, fighting head on, like the proper otherworldly monsters they all were, would be too unlawful for the self-righteous armoured hero over there.

"Just come and hit me, or something." He groaned.

The most important of his superpowers, the ability to instantly reappear to previously prepared locations, was still among his power set, so he wasn't too worried about dying here, for the moment.

Losing a bunch of his men was going to be a pity to be sure, but it wasn't like he didn't have access to more.

He would just need to ensure he took his closest partner in crime, Neo, away with him, as well.

There were scarcely few things he truly didn't want to lose in his life, and that girl amounted to probably more than half of them on her own. Getting her away from this mess was unquestionable.

As he glanced a tiny bit away from the armoured hero, to look for his partner, he immediately felt one of his danger sensing powers flare up at the sudden threat.

His head immediately snapped back towards the armoured hero, making him see said hero charging at him at speeds he only ever seen speedsters manage.

"Wha-?" A hollow wheeze left his mouth as he the felt fist of the opposing hero bury itself deep into his stomach.

"Don't take your eyes away from the opponent." The armoured hero said out loud, with a coldness of an experienced soldier. "It will only result in your instant defeat in the moment of your distraction."

Had he not been just attacked, he would have probably retorted with some clever comeback that would have made the armoured hero look incredibly stupid.

Instead of doing that, however, he was forced to hurtfully swallow back some of his blood from spilling out of his mouth, as he was sent flying through the street behind him, at a speed normal humans would have died from.

He felt a flash of worry through the connection he had with Neo, as she no doubt watched him just get completely wrecked by the enemy hero.

"Ugh." He still coughed some blood out, as his stumble through the streets ended after a couple dozens meters.

It had been a long time since the last time he had been harmed so much by a single attack. He was pretty sure some of his bones had just broken, and he certainly was bleeding like hell internally.

What the hell was that armour?!

"W-What was t-that?" The red haired girl, the one he first came here to kill, asked with a shaky tone after she watched her newly arrived ally wreck him like that with no effort at all.

He almost chuckled, as he slowly got up from the ground.

It was good to know that he wasn't the only one who thought that this new hero was a bit ridiculous.

His hand slowly moved to the place he had been hit at, and he immediately winced the moment he just barely touched his skin. It looked like he would need to use one of his very few healing powers to get that fixed.

"This is the power of an advanced technology pushed to the point of absurdity, Pyrrha." The last of the opposing heroes said with a defeated tone in his voice. "I'm not sure how it stacks against all the other heroes we had yet to meet, but I wouldn't hesitate to say that at its strongest, he could easily compete with the strength that Jaune kid had at the time of his death."

A quiet curse escaped him.

The strength he saw that blond kid, and the woman who killed him, wield was one of the main reason he started to build himself a personal army out of Junior's goons. If everything that dusty guy just said was trustworthy, then he wasn't really the armoured hero's opponent, yet.

He gritted his teeth, and looked upon all of his men that were now escaping away from the battlefield with all the strength they had.

He needed to escape, as well.

The armoured hero began to walk towards him in a slow and measured manner, he could see them subtly glancing around, looking for any traps or hidden allies.

A sigh escaped him.

There was one thing he could do to buy himself enough time to escape with Neo, if his assessment of the armoured guy being a paragon of justice was correct.

It was going to make recruiting more people a bit difficult, but he wasn't going to let himself die today!

Instantly, he focused on the multiple connections he had to all the people he granted his powers onto. It barely took any effort to do so, and after the shortest of moments, he already had all the nearby minions completely under his control.

"What are you doing?" The armoured hero asked in wariness as they undoubtedly noticed something amiss around them.

All of his goons, which just a second ago were running away for their lives, suddenly stopped in place before harshly turning around, and beginning to charge at the person they had been all running away from.

The armoured hero shifted in realisation at what had just happened.

"Y-You monster."

He chuckled in response.

It was funny how someone who had just thrown him through the entire street and broke through multiple of his defensive powers was now calling him a monster to his face.

"From my perspective, you're the one who's the monster here, buddy." He said with a cough, before letting all of his controlled goons sacrifice their lives to the opposing heroes in hopes of keeping them in place them for a while.

He turned towards Neo, and started to march toward her.

While he slowly moved towards his partner in crime, and glanced from time to time at the fight next to him, he noticed the armoured hero clearly hesitating from killing his men, and doing their best to not injure them too much.

It, however, didn't stop the fight between them from being a total carnage of his men literally throwing themselves into opposing heroes' attacks, and launching all attacks they could at the three foes.

There was no doubt in his mind, none of his men would survive this fight.

As he passed by the carnage to his side, he couldn't help but murmur to himself, and his enemies, in self-assurance.

"I'm simply doing all I can to survive."

He grabbed Neo's hand, focused on his teleportation power, and, with a single thought, made them both disappear in a flash of white light.

(...)

Ebi Clover wasn't normally a man who felt truly negatively about other people.

There were situations he disagreed with others' decisions, his opinion about the unnecessary cruelty of general Ironwood was one such example, but he rarely ever hated someone as a person.

It was impossible to truly know all the reasons for someone's actions, after all.

Yet, as he batted away all the poor people who were forced to fight him, he couldn't help but feel anger at the person who made do all of that.

No, maybe anger wasn't the best word for the emotion he felt, right now.

A word like disgust would fit his current mental state much more accurately. It wasn't that he was angry at the escaped hero, he was disgusted with them, and their successful attempt at stopping them in place.

"Push them away, and I will grab both of you to quickly escape from here!" He shouted while gently pushing the surrounding enemies away from him.

The idea of involving ordinary people in a fight between heroes was already abhorrent on its own, in his opinion. The fact the people throwing themselves at them were forced to do that against their will, only made it worse.

Has the need for victory really eliminated any ideas of reducing their cruelty and destruction?

If a person, the other world dubbed a hero, was willing to send so many unrelated people to their deaths in order to achieve a victory, then it wouldn't come as a surprise to him when other people do similarly terrible things for this war.

Whether he liked it or not, the stakes of this war were ridiculously high, and his fellow Atlesian heroes had the access to the biggest military on Remnant.

It was only a matter of time, their otherworldly hero war turned into the second Great War of Remnant.

He didn't want to imagine what sort of state would the world end up in after something like that would happen.

"Don't bother with trying to defeat them non-lethally!" He heard Qrow shout as the dusty hero approached him through the crowd of enemies. "Either kill them outright, or run away instantly! They are literally incapable of staying down."

A frown appeared on his face.

Well, that certainly made his job a bit more difficult.

"What do you suppose we do, then?" He asked.

A couple of the super-powered thugs fired some unnatural projectiles at him, from afar.

He dodged it with an annoyed click of his tongue.

Despite currently being controlled like mindless puppets by the enemy hero, it still appeared that they were able to adapt to the situation and look for better methods of fighting them.

That, or Roman Torchwick was still fully aware of how this fight was proceeding, and could give the commands to his minions accordingly.

Ebi, honestly, wasn't sure which of these was worse.

"I-I think, I might have a way to stop them from attacking." The girl, they had arrived to save, said with a somewhat reserved tone. "It doesn't really work on other heroes, but it should work fine against those mind-controlled thugs."

"Do it, then!" He grunted before jumping above the crowd of enemies.

From the air, he could see the red haired girl quickly nod her head, before reaching for something on her, and pulling out a weird, subtly glowing, stone.

Whatever that girl's powers were, he surely hoped they were far more impressive than they looked, because the first impression he had gotten from them was far from awe-inspiring.

Although, now that he thought about it, the lack of power might be the reason she was so confident in taking care of all their enemies.

After all, one couldn't reasonably take care of weaker foes, without killing them, by using their most destructive powers.

"Come out and help us, Illustyl!" Thankfully, by the time he hit the ground, his curiosity about the girl's power was answered relatively quickly, as the girl had somehow summoned a giant semi transparent butterfly, with four wings on its back, and a subtle mist floating around it.

He looked at the newly arrived beast, and the girl that had commanded it, with some curiosity in his eyes.

Out of all the possible powers he had expected other heroes to wield, the ability to summon magical monsters was certainly not the first one he expected his new ally to have at their disposal.

As someone with a military background, and experience in working in teams, he could already think of a couple inventive ways it could be used to their advantage.

Morally bankrupt as the hero they had just fought was, there was a reason that guy decided to create himself a small army to do his bidding. Having multiple people working for you, opened a lot of possibilities.

"Well, it looks like it's finally settled." He heard Qrow's voice call out from his side as both of them looked at the giant butterfly slowly descending onto the army of super powered thugs.

"What do you mean?" He couldn't help but ask.

Sure, the beast might have looked beyond impressive, but he couldn't really see a way for it to swiftly take care of all their foes, without killing anyone. If anything, the sheer scale of it, made him think that it would simply crush all their opposition, instead.

Qrow chuckled at his confusion.

"Just observe."

As the butterfly neared the ground, and all the people standing on it, its mist began spreading all over the battlefield, enveloping everyone in its range.

Upon coming in contact with the mist, he didn't experience any of its effects on himself. A quick look at all the surrounding thugs, however, revealed to him that all of their adversaries were now sleepily moving about, trying to strike down things which didn't exist.

"Sedatives?" He asked.

"Something better." Qrow pointed at a couple of thugs, who began mumbling something to each other. "Not sure how it exactly works, but it has something to do with lullabying one's spirit, or whatever that means."

He raised his eyebrow in slight curiosity.

"Is this how the girl explained this butterfly's power to you?"

Qrow snorted.

"Nah, we shared practically nothing about our powers to each other." The dusty man pointed at his head. "I know this thanks to my power telling me just enough for me to look like a smart ass, and not actually giving me a way to win the war."

He hummed in response.

"That should be it." The girl said with a huff, before turning away from the battlefield, and towards them. "We should be able to safely leave them here and leave now. Our shuttle to Beacon should also be arriving soon, as well."

"Yeah, it's a good idea." He said with a nod before walking up to the red haired girl and extending his hand in a greeting. "My name's Ebi Clover, an Ex-Specialist and otherworldly hero. I hope we will work well together from now on, my new ally."

"I hope so, as well." The girl smiled as she accepted the handshake. "I'm Pyrrha."

A loud clap from behind them interrupted their introduction.

"Alright, everyone, the time for introduction is over." Qrow said as he gathered their attention. "Mister power giver knows where we are, and I wouldn't put it past him to send more of his men to get us, soon."

Both of them nodded their heads in agreement.

"I assume, we're going to Beacon?" He asked.

There wasn't much he knew about his newest allies, but he figured they had to be at least partially related to Vale's huntsmen school. It wouldn't make much sense for people like those two to cooperate, otherwise.

"Yea-" Qrow started to answer him, but something caused him to stop and widened his eyes in surprise. "Actually, let's put off returning to Beacon, for now. I've got a feeling it would result in a lot of trouble."

He raised his eyebrow.

"Why exactly would you think so?"

Qrow turned towards him with a rather grim expression on his face.

"I've just received the news that someone incredibly powerful, and more than willing to kill all three of us, have just arrived there." Qrow said. "Supposedly, you should know them personally, as well."

"General Ironwood?" He asked.

"No." Qrow shook his head.

A small frown appeared on his face, as he heard Qrow's answer. The description his new ally had given him fitted his old general perfectly, and he certainly doubted he knew another otherworldly hero who was so vicious.

Who could that person be?

"It's the person who killed him, and his closest subordinate."

He widened his eyes a little.

"Winter Schnee." He whispered.

Yeah, that explained his question rather nicely.

(...)

Ozma, or Ozpin like he preferred to be called nowadays, thought he knew himself rather well.

He enjoyed seeing the newest generations grow, teaching future huntsmen and huntresses, and occasionally work with his colleagues to preserve the peace on Remnant. On top of that, he also utterly adored his morning coffee, too.

At the same time, the things he hated, while still plentiful and important, weren't really among the things he preferred to actively remember. One couldn't find full happiness if they focused too much on the objects of their hate, after all.

These specific preferences were created from hundreds, if not already thousands, years of his immortal experience.

It had been a truly long time since he thought anything about them could change. He thought that even if something drastic, and perspective changing, would have happened to him, it wouldn't have compared to half the things he had already experienced.

Despite the arrogance such belief might have held, he still believed he was justified in having that preconception.

In the end, there was only so much the world could throw at him, before he had seen it all first-hand.

Yet, with all of that in mind, as he continued to read the reports from Vale and see all the destruction that was happening, he couldn't help but think that all his assumptions about the world, and his place in it, were being peeled away from him one by one.

The fact he was actively forced to acknowledge all those nightmarish disasters due to his position as Beacon's headmaster made it all the more terrible.

Immortal being, or not, there was only so much he could endure before getting burned out, and it certainly felt as if he was reaching his limit, lately.

A weary sigh escaped him, as he finished writing another denial letter to yet another request for support from his students.

Most people in Vale, and beyond, didn't actually know the true scope of the disaster that struck the city, and genuinely believed him and his school would be able to deal with it by sending some of the students to the city.

His, admittedly also limited, knowledge about the whole mess that struck Remnant recently, and experience he had from centuries of battling a literal Queen of Darkness, told him, it would only result in his students dying.

There were uncountable amounts of things he was willing to do for peace.

Sacrificing children in fruitless attempts at solving an issue, he wouldn't have been able to do anything about himself, was not among them.

He, like most people in the city of Vale, might have been desperate to bring back order to the capital, but he wasn't some heartless monster that would allow himself to do something like that.

With a tired move of his arms, he clumsily pushed all the papers on his desk away from him.

No, he wasn't going to agree to any of them.

The lives of the students were worth too much to lose them by attempting suicide missions during which they would fight incomprehensible monsters in human forms, that called themselves 'heroes'.

He scoffed angrily.

As long as even a single of those people was left alive, and willing to kill, he wasn't going to send any of the people under his protection to Vale.

Their death would have been meaningless, anyway.

A ping of the elevator leading to his front doors made him sigh once more, it seemed there was yet another matter that required his direct presence.

"Ozpin." Glynda called him as the doors to his office opened automatically, and she entered holding a stack of more papers. "Something important came up, and requires your immediate attention."

"What is it?" He asked with no energy in his voice.

Whatever that thing was, he doubted he would be able to do anything substantial about it.

It felt that the only thing he could do about anything was hope his ally, Qrow, and his first-year student, Miss Nikos, would be able to handle it instead. His power, while significantly more impressive than that of an ordinary huntsman, was still far too insignificant when compared to all the problems they were facing.

"James is dead." Glynda said.

He froze for a second.

"What?"

"James died." Glynda said, once again.

"How?!" He shouted in surprise.

It didn't make any sense!

Although he might not have been privy to every secret related to all the disasters that were happening, he did know that they were all related to the people who had recently disappeared for about a year, and came back with ridiculous powers.

People amongst which was his old friend, General James Ironwood.

He knew the powers those people could wield, and there was no way someone that strong would have simply died without all Remnant, let alone him, noticing something.

It was simply impossible!

"When did it happen?!" He asked frantically.

Before he could receive an answer from his trusted headmistress, he heard another voice coming out of the elevator.

"The General died on our way to Beacon, Headmaster Ozpin." A cold voice of James Ironwood's most trusted subordinate echoed through the room as the white haired woman left the elevator.

A frown appeared on his face, as he saw Winter Schnee arrive in front of him.

"He fell fighting the toughest enemy any of us had ever seen." Winter added, before stopping right in front of his desk. "There is nothing but respect for him in my heart and mind, Headmaster."

He looked at the white haired woman before him, and his eyes immediately focused on one of her arms, or more precisely on its ice-made-looking replacement that was in its place, instead.

"I see you've not escaped unscathed, either." He remarked.

There was no need for his centuries of experience for him to know that Winter was the one who killed James.

She wasn't even trying to hide it.

"That, I did not." Winter sighed.

As he looked at her, he couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious of this whole situation.

Winter had to be aware he knew, or at least suspected, that she was the one who killed his old friend. It wasn't like he was actually trying particularly hard to hide it from her, in the first place.

Why wasn't she trying to do anything about it, though?

Was she simply too arrogant because of her powers?

He sighed.

Well, if Winter wasn't going to treat him seriously, he might as well try to find out something about the whole situation befalling Remnant.

"May I ask who was the one responsible for your injuries, in that case?" He pointed at the ice hand with his head. "The last thing anyone wants is to have a person strong enough to kill a General of Atlas, and permanently injure an Atlesian Specialist."

Glynda nodded her head in agreement, at his side, clearly more worried about the dangerous person than he was.

"Of course, sir." Winter smiled. "It was a woman named Salem, the Queen of Grimm."

The very moment he heard Winter's answer, his body immediately became tense.

There were very few people who knew about Salem's existence, as he was the only one who could share that information with others, and all the people he had ever told about Salem were forbidden from revealing this to anyone else.

Such restrictions meant that if someone he didn't fully trust knew about Salem, it had to mean they were one of Salem's subordinates, therefore his enemies.

Winter Schnee, despite being his friend's closest aide, wasn't among the people he trusted fully.

"I see." He said absent-mindedly, as he reached for the hidden weapon under his desk. "It must have been a truly gruelling battle, if the person you fought was the ruler of all grimm, herself."

"You are quite right, headmaster." Winter tilted her head slightly to the side. "If it wasn't, General Ironwood wouldn't have to sacrifice himself for us to achieve victory against her."

A quiet hum left his mouth as he slowly stood up.

"Thankfully, it was all worth it in the end." Winter said, as she closed her eyes for a second to think about something.

He launched himself at the specialist, with his weapon already thrusting forward.

Should his attack hit, it would knock Winter off balance, and give him, and Glynda, a fighting chance against someone who, he assumed, was a similar monster to the ones responsible for the Vale's disaster.

Just before his attack could connect, however, an invisibly thin barrier of ice appeared right before him, stopping his charge, and trapping his weapon right within it.

"Don't worry, I'm not among Salem's people." A kind smile appeared on Winter's face. "General Ironwood and I have managed to kill her on our way here. Your problem with her is gone, now."

His eyes narrowed on Winter's face, as he looked for any hint, which would help him determine whether she was telling the truth or not.

"It's impossible." He spat while trying to pull his weapon out of the ice barrier. "You may not be aware of this, but Salem's immortal. There doesn't exist a way to kill her, trust me. I tried."

"There doesn't exist a way to kill her on Remnant, sir." Winter chuckled. "It would be far from impossible, for a person with powers foreign to our world."

With a little bit of effort, he finally managed to pull his weapon out of the ice.

"I assume that person would be you, in this case?" He took a step back, and pointed his weapon directly at Winter's face. "What would you gain from killing your ally, and practically revealing this information to me?"

"I would gain your assistance." Winter casually snapped her fingers, and the ice barrier disappeared.

An assistance which he was already giving to her enemies by helping Qrow, and Miss Nikos.

Of course, if he wanted to live, he couldn't reveal any of that to Winter, so he instead raised one of his eyebrows in a pretended confusion. Winter Schnee might have been more powerful than him, right now, but he sincerely doubted she was half as good a liar, as he was.

There was no way to rush getting experience, after all.

"Why would you need my assistance?" He asked. "If you were capable of killing Salem, then anything I can do for you, you probably would be able to do better yourself."

"If we were talking about only combat related issues, you probably would have been right." Winter nodded her head a couple times in agreement to his statement. "However, those aren't the only problems, I'm facing."

He hummed as if he was deep in thought for a moment.

"Let me guess, information?"

"Exactly." Winter smiled.

After a moment of staring at the white haired specialist, he slowly lowered his weapon before turning back towards his desk.

"What sort of information do you require?" He asked while sitting down in his desk.

The smile on Winter's face widened.

"I need to know about any, and all, recent unexplained disappearances which lasted for at least a year." Winter said. "There are nine people I need to find, and every day of them being at large is a day of risking another disaster."

With most of his emotions hidden, he stared at Winter for a few seconds.

It wasn't difficult to figure out that she was looking for other people like her, James, or Qrow. The fact she was doing that in order to kill them once she knew where they were, wasn't exactly hidden either.

"Alright, I will look for such cases for you." He sighed.

He was pretty sure, he could decline her request if he wanted to, as killing him out of nowhere was bound to reveal her location to all the other people who wanted to kill her, but it wouldn't have probably only resulted in Winter doing all of that on her own, anyway.

By doing it this way, he could monitor her rather easily himself.

In the worst case scenario, of Winter finding out about his lies, he still could ask Qrow for help with this whole mess. The dusty drunk did require his assistance as well, after all, and he did have a couple of favours he could call from him.

"Thank you, Headmaster. It is all I ask for." Winter said with a smile before heading towards the exit of his office.

Before leaving completely, however, she stopped herself and turned towards him with a somewhat bashful expression on her face.

"Actually, there's one more thing I would like to ask you." Winter said.

He raised his eyebrow in genuine confusion at another request.

"And this is?"

Winter chuckled a little.

"Could you perhaps tell me in which room does my younger sister live here?" Winter blushed a little. "I really want to visit her, as I'm already here, but I forgot to ask her about this on my way here."

He sighed in relief at the simple task.

Who knew, maybe keeping Winter in Beacon wasn't going to be as difficult of a task as he thought?

And cut!

Roman gets away from the three on one fight, and Winter's in Vale. Also, I really did enjoy writing Clover's perspective in the middle.

That's it for now.

See ya!