Yo!
Another chapter this week, since I wanted to actually ask everyone a question this time around! That'll be at the end of the chapter, so for now, let's get on with things!
Start Chapter 57
The desperation of their situation is obvious in how it takes until around thirty minutes later, after the nearly twenty or so people that make up their number now – Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Taiyang, Raven, Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, Ren, Ozma, Summer, Watts, Emerald, Ilia, Cinder, and Mercury – have all crammed into a single bullhead, before someone has the time to actually ask him what the fuck just happened.
Honestly, Jaune really wishes he had a better answer for that.
"What do you mean you don't know!?" Yang screams at him, her eyes still rimmed-red from crying. "I mean, let me be like perfectly clear, I could practically kiss you right now, but how could you not know how you managed to save mom's life!?"
"I just… I'm sorry, I really don't have a clue," Jaune admits, grabbing at his head, which has been pulsing ever since he'd finished healing Summer as best as he could. "I… whatever I did, it was beyond me. I don't know how I managed that, but–"
"You said 'we' multiple times." Blake remembers, leaning forward in her chair. "You received help from someone."
"I did, I just…"
"So then who was it!?" Yang is almost manic as she leans forward, and just about grabs him by the collar. "Jaune, what happene–"
"Enough, Yang." Taiyang, the woman's father, places a hand on her shoulder and eases her back into her seat. "Interrogating the man who saved your mother's life is no way to show our gratitude. And we are grateful, aren't we?"
"I…" Yang takes a breath, and the red that had bled into her irises fades away, letting them return to their natural violet hue. "Dad's right. Sorry, Jaune, I just–"
"You're fine." Jaune cuts her off, shaking his head. "Honestly, I think if I was in your shoes I'd be reacting just about the same way. I wish I knew more than I did, but it's like whenever I try to remember back on those moments, I can't recall anything at all. Not to mention my head is pounding, and my entire body hurts."
"That's not uncommon for those who go through periods of hysterical strength." Pyrrha, of all people, joins in on their conversation, nodding to each of them as she sits down off to Jaune's right, with Tai, Yang, and Blake to Jaune's left. "I'd imagine you exhausted your body beyond what it was capable of, and now you're feeling the effects. Even if the way you exerted yourself was magical in nature, I think your brain probably still has a lot to do with using such things."
"That or my soul," Jaune mutters, which has Pyrrha chuckling.
"It could be that as well. Still, for the time being, I think you should take a back seat in future proceedings, at least until you've fully recovered."
He nods his head, and finds himself wishing that Cinder had been here in the back. Unfortunately, she's at the front piloting the bullhead, given that Ilia had been uncomfortable flying at the speeds they'd been planning on going into what was potentially a hostile air fleet. Cinder, in contrast, had shown not a lick of fear.
It's just like her, Jaune thinks, even if in this particular case he wished someone else had taken the controls.
Still, it at least gives him a chance to speak to someone else that he needs to hear from. He stands from his spot in the back of the bullhead, gives a quick "I'll be right back" to those he'd been speaking to, and makes his way over towards Raven, who's looking down at the bullhead floor with her hands massaging her temples.
"Hey, Raven." he says quietly, trying not to disturb her too terribly if her head is killing her like his own is. "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit," She slurs, before shaking her head and giving a nauseated groan. "Uh… if you want a serious answer, then… empty, maybe? Kind of hard to explain."
"I did rip out a piece of you. Magical or no, I imagine that would leave you feeling a bit empty."
"Yeah." Raven mutters. "Whatever the Spring Maiden like… was, I don't think it was supposed to be removed without obeying its own laws. It was supposed to pass on after death. And yet… I'm alive. I think some part of me recognizes that as wrong."
"You're not–"
"I'm not dying, no." Raven calms him, and he breathes out in relief. "But I don't think my head has ever hurt this bad, and I've had migraines before. My chest, my aura, everything…" She shakes her head, groaning out as a wave of pain seems to hit her. "Like I said, I'd have given anything for Summer to live, and… and you kept her alive, even at the cost of whatever this is. That's perfectly worthwhile to me."
Jaune nods his head. "Probably doesn't mean you're thrilled, though."
Raven snorts, "No. No, it doesn't."
Their ride runs into some turbulence for a moment there, which draws Jaune's attention to the center of the craft, where Summer Rose is laying in the center of a stretcher. Keeping her as still as she can is Ruby, who has yet to look up or do much of anything since getting on the bullhead.
Raven must sense Jaune's desire to be there for his friend, for she simply nods to him, and says, "Go talk to her. I'm fine."
He doubts that Raven's being entirely truthful with him, but then, he can always question such things more later. He moves from out of his seat and kneels down next to Rubes, who startles a little as he places a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey," He murmurs, and she smiles up at him. "How are you doing?"
"I'm… okay." Ruby says, and though it sounds like a bit of a stretch, Jaune gathers that she's not actively crumbling, which is about as well as he can realistically hope for. "I just… everything happened so fast. It hasn't even been an hour, and yet… I thought mom was going to live, then I thought she was going to die, now I've got my hopes up again, and we're headed off towards a Kingdom that hates us on the off chance that they'll decide not to hate us, and… I just… what am I supposed to be feeling right now, Jaune? Because I have no idea."
Jaune smiles as best he can. "I'm afraid I don't think I have any answers for you, either."
Ruby chuckles. "I didn't really expect any. I'm happy you tried, I guess?"
"…How is she?"
"As far as I can tell, nothing's changed. It's just as you said. She's been… frozen." Ruby speaks, before her brow furrows somewhat, and she corrects, "Well, not frozen, as in ice, but frozen in time. Her body just… isn't doing anything. Her heart's not beating, her blood's not pumping, and she's not breathing. But… she's warm to the touch, and I can feel her aura. She's still alive. Just… in some sort of stasis."
Jaune nods his head, "That's… yeah. I don't quite know what to make of that."
"Even though you're the reason she's like this?"
"Even then. I'm afraid I've little idea just what it is I did in the first place."
Ruby gives a quiet sigh. "Well… either way, thank you. You've given mom a much bigger chance than she had when she was first freed, certainly. I just… I wish she was fine, and not…"
"Up in the air?"
Ruby hums in acknowledgement. "I guess… at least she's not dead? Shouldn't I be happy about that?"
"In this state, she's not quite alive either."
"No, she's not." Ruby says sorrowfully. "And I… I can't stop wondering what will happen if she doesn't wake up."
Jaune squeezes down on Ruby's shoulder, and brings her into a hug. She deepens it a moment after getting over her shock, and speaks into his shoulder, "Thank you, Jaune."
"No problem, Rubes."
Time passes agonizingly slowly over the course of the next few hours. Summer shows no signs of… well, she shows no signs of changing, which means they've still got more time. On the other hand, Jaune has the feeling they have less time than they'd really like to, and if that's the case…
Well, he'd certainly like to make it to Atlas as quickly as humanly possible.
So really, he has no one to blame but himself when the door to the cockpit shoots open, and Cinder calls out, "Hail from Atlas!"
Ozma and Jaune both rush into the cockpit, and Jaune's pretty sure a few of the others are going to be close behind.
Cinder presses down on the hail button, and immediately, a holographic image is projected into the cockpit of their bullhead. The man standing before them is, unfortunately, exactly who Jaune hadn't wanted to see.
He's who he expected to see, though.
"Fall. Ozma." James Ironwood, clad again in Mettle's cloak, looks to Jaune last. "Arc."
"There's no time for this, James," Ozma cuts in, pushing Jaune aside and into the co-pilot seat to his right. "I need you to load a team of your best surgeons into your personal battleship, get a medical room ready for us, and fly out towards the Grimmlands to meet us. I'll send you our coordinates so you can track us as you approach! If all goes well, I'd like to be able to land aboard your flagship within the next few hours; we have an injured person aboard who needs medical attention, and badly."
Ironwood's face is completely neutral throughout Ozma's request, and the man gives away nothing as he raises his head ever so slightly, as if to look down upon them, and says, "And why should I do that."
Ozma's hands shake as he places them down on the console in front of them. He takes a deep, steadying breath, but it's clear the man is fraying, barely hanging together.
"Because Summer Rose is on this bullhead, and she is dying. She has a chance if she makes it to a team of surgeons skilled enough to piece her back together, but such a configuration does not exist so close to the Grimmlands. It would be a day's travel to fly to Atlas, and I fear Summer doesn't have that long. If you intercepted out bullhead, however, as you yourself made your way towards us, you could cut that time in half. You could help us save her life."
"And why should I do that? Why should I allow that? Ozma you must understand that I have no reason to place my faith in you, not after what you did last time. In fact, what's to stop me from taking you out of the sky the moment you enter into my cannon's range?"
"Nothing." Ozma speaks. "Nothing is stopping you. I have no ploy, no trick; nothing. I am asking you as your friend. Nay, I am begging you. Please, fly your battleship out towards us and allow us to dock. Summer Rose is here, and she is on death's door."
Ironwood's expression does not falter. It does not shift. Jaune watches as Ozma's hand on the console gradually curls inwards, until it has balled into a fist. His knuckles are gradually growing whiter and whiter as Ironwood stays completely silent, before finally, he says, "I refuse."
And something about that…
Something about that makes Ozma snap.
The man lifts his fist from the console, and, with more speed and ferocity than Jaune had known he could possibly possess within Oscar's body, slams his fist down on the console with force enough to damage several of the components.
"Gods fucking damnit, James!" Ozma screams; screams, his hazel eyes alight with a fury that Jaune has never seen. It is the raw lividity in the man's voice that stuns the lot of them – mettle-controlled Ironwood included – into silence.
"Can you not see that I am not here to try and trick you!? That I am here to save a life!? Can you not see that I am here because Summer Rose, a young woman I have regretted allowing to sail off to her death for damn near two decades now has the slightest, smallest chance of survival, one that hinges entirely on you!? Do you truly think I would stoop so low as to use a dying woman to deceive you!? Break free from Mettle's influence, smack yourself across the face, and get your sorry ass over here NOW, and perhaps there will exist an even slighter chance that I'll find it in myself to not unleash a thousand lifetimes of wrath upon you for half the garbage you've pulled in the last week alone!"
It is the kind of rampaging tirade that Jaune had heard scant few times in his life. The raging words of someone at the end of their rope, no longer willing to put up with anymore bullshit.
Jaune admits that he leans away from Ozma, fully knowing the man's rage is directed elsewhere.
Because seeing Ozma, of all people, reduced to such a state…
Well, it's humbling, a bit.
That and terrifying.
Ironwood's expression shifts, so very slightly, as if his real face is trapped underneath a clay mold of his skin, struggling to break free. Finally, some five or so seconds later, the man lets loose a gasp, as if awakening from out of a trance.
He looks up into the camera, and his expression grows somewhat guilty.
"Ozma, I…" His voice falters, and he looks away, seemingly entirely ashamed. "I… I will assemble a crew, and meet you over the Solitas Sea as soon as I am able. Send your coordinates."
Ozma lets loose the single most tired sigh that Jaune has ever heard from him, and that is a rather impressive statement.
"Thank you, James."
"Ozma… I'm…"
Ozma presses down on the end communications button a moment later.
Jaune and Cinder just both kind of… quietly sit in the cockpit as Ozma takes several measured breaths in an attempt to steady himself.
"I am sorry you had to see me like that." Ozma eventually presses out through clenched teeth. "I admit that James has been… aggravating me, lately."
"Uhm… yeah." Jaune speaks, trying his best to stay entirely neutral in this entire affair. "I can uh… see… that?"
Ozma actually chuckles, which Jaune thinks is a good sign.
"James' personal battleship is one of the fastest vehicles in the world. In theory, he should be able to connect with us within the next few hours. We can load Summer Rose into a surgery room, and hopefully… hopefully, that will fully stabilize her."
Jaune recognizes that the man is changing the subject, but given he has absolutely zero desire to stay on the current subject, he does not even remotely fight this.
"Yeah…"
"Let's hope so."
/
The hours pass by in silence.
That's not to say that nothing happens; they get information from Ironwood about just where and when he estimates they'll be landing upon his battleship, and coordinates to fly towards. Jaune also takes the opportunity he's been given by being taken to the cockpit by Ironwood to just… stay there with Cinder, and continue their one-time conversation about flying.
Cinder introduces him to a few of the more complicated, hyper-specific knobs within the aircraft. There's a button that jettisons the windshield, an emergency-eject button, and even a button that, apparently, dispenses snacks.
Jaune presses that particular button, and is disappointed when it opens a compartment containing a Military MRE.
It makes sense, of course, but that doesn't make it less soul crushing.
Eventually, however, they spot Ironwood's battleship on the horizon. Cinder begins calling in asking for landing instructions, and is far too busy to introduce Jaune to anymore fancy buttons. Luckily, Jaune is also intelligent enough to know that he shouldn't touch anything at all unless he knows very explicitly that it is not an eject button for the co-pilot's chair.
He has not been shown that button, however, so he decides to press nothing.
Finally, some eight or nine hours after their initial departure from Evernight, they land in Ironwood's hanger, and immediately, a team of medics opens the door to their bullhead.
"The patient?" One of the women, seemingly a doctor of some kind, asks, and everyone just sort of gestures towards Summer.
The woman nods, before gesturing for a few of her fellows to load Summer onto their own mobile stretcher, which they immediately wheel further into the battleship, away from their crews' eyes.
Taiyang and his daughters, alongside Raven, waste no time in following along behind them.
Jaune calls out a quick, "Do you think we should notify Qrow?"
Raven swears, before nodding her head. "I told him initially that Summer was in limbo, but I'll let him know we made it to Ironwood's ship."
Jaune nods before the four disappear down a hall at the back of the hanger, presumably towards whatever surgical chamber they're to be conducting whatever necessary operation – or operations – within.
And it is then, finally, that General James Ironwood shows himself. He steps out into the hangar, his face wracked with many different, seemingly conflicting emotions. Standing beside him is…
A woman that Jaune has never seen in his entire life.
She has a certain vibe to her, what with her much less militaristic outfit and earthen color tones, that tells him she's about the furthest thing from the Atlas Military as could be. And yet, somehow, she's walking alongside General Ironwood, smiling over at their group with none of the same animosity the man himself still seems to carry for a good majority of them.
"Ozma," James finally speaks as he steps up to their group, solely addressing their resident immortal for the moment, "I…"
"We can speak on such things later, James." Ozma releases with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. "What matters for the moment is that you did the right thing when it mattered, and for now, I am willing to allow that to stand in for some grand talk between the two of us. Rest assured we will be having said discussion, but it can wait."
Ironwood simply nods his head. "Yes. That sounds… optimal."
"And who is this?" Ozma asks the question that Jaune would've asked had James Ironwood not usually reacted to Jaune's existence with robotically enhanced punches.
"Ah, of course, I forgot that you might not be familiar." Ironwood turns somewhat to the side, giving the new woman the proverbial floor. "This is Robyn Hill. She became a sort of de-facto representative of Mantle during the time that Atlas had abandoned them. I brought her here for a multitude of reasons, for one as a show of good will to the people of Mantle, who I have been neglecting for too long. And for her uniquely powerful semblance."
"And just what might this semblance be?" Ozma asks.
Robyn Hill steps forward with her hip cocked, a sideways smile, and her hand out, ready for a handshake.
"Take my hand, and lie to me."
It's about the weirdest opening line Jaune has ever heard, but Ozma must have seen enough shit that such doesn't really even phase him. He does as he is asked, meeting Hill's hand with his own. Aura seems to course across their conjoined limbs, and though Ozma raises an eyebrow at this, he does not hesitate to say, "My name is Qrow Branwen."
Instantly, that aura turns a rather pale shade of red.
"So, well, that was an obvious lie, but as you may be able to tell, my Semblance is lie detection." Robyn Hill states, and Jaune feels his eyebrows migrating northward on his head. "Quite the powerful thing to have in such a scenario."
Ozma, despite what Jaune might have thought himself if someone he was trying to make amends with had brought a lie detector to their first real attempt at a correspondence in quite a while, seems thrilled.
"Excellent. A brilliant idea, James."
"I… Yes…" James clears his throat. "I figured this might eliminate the need for you to fool around with the Rules of the Relic of Knowledge as you did the last time. This way, Robyn Hill can confirm everything you say. Or, well, she can confirm whether or not you believe what you say is true. I suppose you could still be incorrect."
Jaune is almost impressed at how James Ironwood simply refuses to allow things to be easy for himself in this conversation.
"Alright. Then what would you like to ask first?"
Ironwood nods his head, braces himself, and then asks, "Do you trust Salem?"
Ozma parts his lips, makes to speak, and then hesitates a moment. Finally, after three or four seconds, he states, "I do not know."
For just a moment, Jaune thinks that Ozma has lied on the very first question. It seems in rather poor form. Of course, in the next, Robyn Hill's aura turns green, and she nods back towards Ironwood, whose eyebrows furrow.
"What does that mean, my friend?"
"It means that whether or not I have been fed a thousand centuries worth of evidence to believe that Salem is irredeemable, entirely untrustworthy, and an enemy of humanity through and through… I cannot entirely separate that from the wish that she might redeem herself. That in the end, she might make the right choice. Trust, I'm afraid, is something I've never doled out particularly well. So, despite knowing that it is entirely unearned… I do not know if I trust – or more accurately distrust – Salem."
Ironwood sighs, then, although Jaune can't help but feel like the man really doesn't have the right.
Then again, he's probably just bitter that he's going to need to spend a few sleepless nights hammering dents back out of Crocea Mors.
Again.
…Hey, wait, maybe he can get Cinder to heat it up, and just bend it back into shape? Or… wait, does that mess up the metals in the–
"Then a question from me," Ozma begins, and Robyn switches so that it is Ironwood's hand she has taken. "Do you truly feel regretful about what you have done these past few months?"
Ironwood doesn't hesitate at all, "I do."
Robyn's hand glows green, and Ozma seems satisfied.
"Okay. What happened to Summer Rose, and how is she alive?"
Ozma tells the very, very lengthy story, and Robyn's hand glows green.
"How is Penny Polendina?"
"Well. I was… admittedly quite furious with her, but Winter acted as a mediator between us, and forced me to confront Penny as myself, instead of as Mettle."
Green.
"Will you relinquish the Relic of Creation back to us after you have finished with its use?"
"I am not certain that the Relic of Creation would survive in certain circumstances that we may need to use it for, but if it does, then yes."
Green.
"What is–"
"Ah, well, this is quite the interesting place, isn't it?"
And then, everything just sort of… stops.
Jaune's not really sure why, at least for a moment. to his eyes, things had been active, and then not. It's as he turns around, however, that he gets to see just who it is the other are all observing.
Oh.
Yeah.
That would uh… that would do it.
Because Salem herself is getting out of their bullhead, dusting off her jet-black dress, and looking out at the world around her.
Which feels like a rather big deal.
End Chapter 57
Salem from the top rope!
In all seriousness, time for that question I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter!
So, for everyone who reads this story, it's no real secret that Cinderella is going to be ending soon. Probably within the next eight or so chapters. I'd like to ask all of you if there is any scene that you think needs to be included in Cinderella before the fic ends. For example (this will obviously be included) if you think that Cinder and Jaune need to have a final scene together at the end, then you could write that in. Again, no need to write in that one, since that will be there. But anything else - perhaps you think Raven and Taiyang need to have a chat? - you could ask for.
This isn't to say I'm 100% going to write in every suggestion, but if you think there's something that must come up, and I agree, then I'll write it into the next few chapters!
Alright, that's all from me! I'm going to be taking the next week off from writing, so I'll be posting the next chapter of this fic on Saturday (aka no Thursday chapter this week, as I've been doing the past two weeks). I'll see you all then!
